Tech Guru G : Feel the technology

Temporary Post Used For Theme Detection (7011038c-33b7-48a5-9a1c-810fd9e7eb28 - 3bfe001a-32de-4114-a6b4-4005b770f6d7)

2012-08-01T05:27:00.001-07:00

This is a temporary post that was not deleted. Please delete this manually. (411fc023-4438-4773-8258-c079bff76a97 - 3bfe001a-32de-4114-a6b4-4005b770f6d7)

Micromax Funbook Tablet Review

2012-06-12T05:31:00.001-07:00

Technorati Tags: micromax funbook review,android tablet review,cheap tablet

Overview :

“One of the cheapest tablet launched by an Indian company Micromax Funbook . Its run on Android 4.0 ( Ice cream Sandwich Os ) . The tablet is available in two different colours – Slate Grey and Midnight black. Its comes with some useful loaded features.”

Features Of Micromax Funbook :

1.2GHz processor
512MB RAM
7 inch capacitive touch screen with 800*480 pixel resolution and 16:9 contrast ratio
Dual Mail 400 - 2D/3D graphics processor for multimedia processing
Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich OS)
WiFi
3G connection through dongle
Free bundled Tata Photon EVDO card
Expandable Storage Capacity upto 32 GB
0.3 MP Primary Camera

Specification :

Dimensions: 122 x 192 x 10 mm
Weight: 360 g
Processor: 1.2 GHz Cortex-A8
Operating System: Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
Sensors: Accelerometer, Gravity Sensor
GPU: Dual Mali-400MP
Internal Storage: 4 GB
Expandable Storage Capacity: 32 GB
Memory Card Slot type: micro SD
Display Features: Multi-touch Screen
Primary Camera: 0.3 megapixels
Display Type: 7 inch Capacitive Touchscreen with 800 x 480 pixels
Document Support: Document Viewer , Document Editor
Other Business features: Live TV
Battery Type: 2800 mAh
Internet Browsing Time:5 hrs
Video Playback: Yes , HD Playback
Video Formats Supported: MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI, WMV, 3GP, MOV, MKV, RM, RMVB
Audio Formats Supported: MP3, WMA, FLAC, WAV
HDMI: Yes
Other Connectivity Features: 3G Dongle Support Via USB
USB: Yes, USB 2.0

Advantage & Disadvantage

Pros of Funbook	Cons of Funbook
Latest Android Os	Average Viewing angles
Free tata photo plus	Less Stand by time – 3 Hours
Speedy Processor	Low screen resolution
High performing GPU
High Pixel density

Cost : In Indian market : Rs. 6390 only

Antivirus

2012-06-01T14:25:00.001-07:00

Categories

1- Freeware antivirus

2- Paid antivirus

3- Most downloaded

4- Antivirus Review

AVG Free edition

2012-06-01T13:41:00.001-07:00

Size	140 MB
OS	Windows xp/vista/7/windows 64 bit os
Version	12.0 (2012 edition)
Licence	ad-supported (free)
Rating	very good (4.1/5)

Download Now

Microsoft security essentials

2012-06-01T13:30:00.001-07:00

Description

Size	9.8 MB
OS	Windows XP/Vista/7
Version	4.0.1526
Licence	Free
Rating	Very Good (4.3/5)

Download Now

Access Jump Lists with the Left Mouse Button

2012-05-29T13:56:00.002-07:00

Jump Lists are a new feature in Windows 7 that shows recently used files for a particular application or related tasks to an application. Jumplists can be accessed by right clicking an application icon in Windows 7 taskbar.
Although it can be accessed by left clicking an application icon and while holding the mouse click dragging the icon upwards. i.e. Right click and drag the application icon upwards to access jumplists in Windows 7 using Left Mouse button.

In above screenshot, case 1 shows when Jumplist invoked through right click and application icon is not dragged much upwards while case 2 shows solid Jumplist when application icon is dragged upwards completely

Karbonn A7 Review

2012-05-28T14:04:00.002-07:00

Technorati Tags: karbonn a7,mobile phone,review,technology

Overview:

Karbonn Smart A7 is a one more budget android Dual sim phone from Karbonn. Karbonn Mobiles earlier launched Karbonn Smart A9 which was a Dual sim Android smartphone with 1Ghz processor. Karbonn A7 has 8.9cm capacitive multi touch display with HVGA 320*480 pixel screen resolution.It has 800Mhz processor and 512MB of RAM. Karbonn A7 is powered by 1420 mAh battery which promises to provide standby time upto 100 hours and talk time upto 4 hours. Karbonn A7 price in India is rs. 7,490.

Features:

Dual sim(GSM+GSM)
Runs on Android Gingerbread OS
3.5 inch multi touch capacitive touch screen
Expandable memory through microSD card is 32GB
1420 mAh battery with talk time upto 4 hours
2G,3G and WiFi Connectivity
5MP rear camera and VGA front facing camera

Advantages and Disadvantages :

Pros of Karbonn A7:

Dual sim
Large multi touch capacitive screen
Decent screen resolution for the price
Good Camera

Cons of Karbonn A7:

Mediocre processor

Specifications:

Operating Frequency:Dual-band GSM 900/ 1800 MHz
OS: Android Gingerbread
Display: 3.5 inch(8.9 cm) Multi touch capacitive touch screen
Screen resolution:HVGA,320*480 pixels
Internal Memory:512 MB
Expandable memory slot:Yes.MicroSD upto 32 GB
Battery: Li-ion 1420 mAh
Talk time: Upto 4 Hours
Standby time:Upto 100 Hours
Camera:5 MP with Dual LED Flashlight
Front camera: Yes. VGA
WAP browser:Yes
3G: Yes. HSDPA 7.2mbps
WiFi:Yes
Image Format: jpeg jpg bmp gif png
Audio Format:MP3 MIDI WAV AMR AAC AAC+Video FormatH.263 H.264 AVI 3GP MP4
Bluetooth:Yes
USBP:Yes
Built-in data/fax Modem:Yes

Kaarbonn A9 Review

2012-05-28T13:44:00.002-07:00

Karbonn A9 is a Android Gingerbread OS running Dual sim Smartphone. It has 3.8 inch WVGA Capacitive Multi Touch display screen with screen resolution of 854*480 pixels. Karbonn A9 comes with 1GHz processor and 512MB RAM. This Karbonn Android smartphone has 5MP snapper with autofocus and LED flash.
Karbonn A9 is available in Ivory White color. The dimensions of the phone are 120 * 60.5 * 11.3 mm. As for as connectivity options, it has 3G, WiFi with hotspot functionality, Bluetooth, microUSB 2.0, FM Radio. This Karbonn smartphone A9 is powered by 1600 mAh battery rated to deliver upto 4 hours of talk time and upto 200 hours of standby time. This Karbonn Android smartphone will have tough competition from Samsung Galaxy Y Duos.
Features of Karbonn A9 Android Smartphone:

Android v2.3 (Gingerbread) OS
5 MP HD Primary Camera
Secondary Camera Support
Dual SIM (GSM + GSM)
3.8-inch Capacitive Touchscreen
1 GHz Processor
2G,3G and WiFi Connectivity
Expandable Storage Capacity of 32 GB
1600 mAh battery with standby time upto 200 hours

Karbonn A9 Specification:

Operating Frequency:GSM - 900, 1800
OS:Android v2.3 (Gingerbread)
Processor:1 GHz
RAM:512 MB
Dimensions:120 * 60.5 * 11.3 mm
Display:3.8 inch Capacitive Multi Touch
Screen Resolution:WVGA,480*800 pixels
Primary Camera:Yes, 5 Megapixel
Secondary Camera:Yes
Video Recording:Yes
Other Camera Features:Auto Focus, Flash Light, Panoramic Shots
Battery:1600 mAh
Talk time:Upto 4 Hours
Standby time:Upto 200 Hours
Internal Memory:1GB
External memory:Upto 32GB through microSD
3G: Yes, 7.2 Mbps HSDPA
Wifi: Yes, 802.11 b/g/n
WAP: Yes
USB connectivity: Yes
Tethering: USB, Wi-fi Hotspot
GPS Support: Yes, A-GPS with Google Maps
Bluetooth: Yes
Audio Jack:3.5 mm
Image Format:jpeg jpg bmp gif png
Audio Format:MP3 MIDI WAV AMR AAC AAC+
Video Format:H.263 H.264 AVI 3GP MP4

Advantage & Disadvantage:

Pros of Karbonn A9

Large screen size
Decent processor
Good camera
Dual SIM(GSM+GSM)
Front camera

Cons of Karbonn A9:

No ICS and there is no news of feature update to ICS

Price : 8999 rupees

Basic Keyboard Shortcut for MS Office 2007

2012-05-28T13:22:00.002-07:00

Finding and using keyboard shortcuts:

For keyboard shortcuts in which you press two or more keys simultaneously, the keys to press are
separated by a plus sign (+) in Microsoft Office Word 2007 Help. For keyboard shortcuts in which you
press one key immediately followed by another key, the keys to press are separated by a comma (,).

Microsoft Office basics

To do this Press

Switch to the next window. ALT+TAB

Switch to the previous window. ALT+SHIFT+TAB

Close the active window. CTRL+W or CTRL+F4

Restore the size of the active window ALT+F5
after you maximize it.

Move to a task pane from another pane in the program
window (clockwise direction). F6
You may need to press F6 more than once.

Move to a task pane from another pane in the program SHIFT+F6
window
(counterclockwise direction).

When more than one window is open, switch to the next CTRL+F6
window.

Switch to the previous window. CTRL+SHIFT+F6

Maximize or restore a selected window. CTRL+F10

Copy a picture of the screen to the Clipboard. PRINT SCREEN

Copy a picture of the selected window to the Clipboard. ALT+PRINT SCREEN

Basic Computer Structure and Knowledge

2012-05-28T11:07:00.002-07:00

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Basic Computer Structure
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Logical Structure of a computer includes:

BIOS (The Basic Input Output System)
CPU (The Processor)
Memory / RAM (Temporary Storage)
Hard Disk (Permanent Storage)
Input / Output Device
Communication Channel (Eg. USB)
Bus (High Speed Internal Communication)
Other Add-on Device…

Example of a Computer Structure:

BIOS:

Basic Input Output System
Store all the parameter before the OS Load(Example are Hard Disk Size, MemorySpeed, Turn on or turn off the build in device such as Sound Card, USB, printer etc)
Usually stored in Flash Memory

One of the BIOS Screen Dump:

Identify the Component - CPU:

Central Processing Unit
It is the core of a computer.
Responsible for all the calculation and part of the video.
Usually in the Speed of GHz
1G around 1,000 MHz
1M = 1Million Instruction / second
Some Expensive CPU have more build in memory (Cache Memory)

How to Choose a CPU ?

Mainly AMD / Intel Dominate the Market.
In the current market you have several categories of microprocessors to choose for your desktop computers: Xeon, Pentium IV, Celeron, Dual Core, Quad Core, Athlon, and AMDX64 etc.
Price vs. Performance: There is typically no good correlation between these two factors, especially at the top speeds. Average users should not purchase the top-speed on the market. The price difference is not worthy of the performance difference.
Based on your budget, find a suitable CPU.

Memory / RAM :

RAM – Random Access Memory:

Act as a temporary Storage.
EDO > SDRAM > DDR > DDR2
All data stored in memory are volatile. (Need electricity to keep the data)
Memory Size is around 256M / 512M / 1G / 2G per memory module
Basic Configuration is around 512M RAM

Hard Disk (ATA / SATA / SCSI) :

Used to stored data permanently.
Different Type of Hard Disk Size (3.5”, 2.5”, 1.8”, Micro Drive)
Different Interface : ATA / SATA / SCSI (Speed : ATA < SATA < SCSI)
Different Speed (Mechanical) (4,200rpm / 5,400rpm / 7,200rpm / 10,000 rpm )
Different Build in Memory Size (2M / 8M / 16M etc)
Different Capacity (80G to 500G or even 1T)
Small Size Hard Disk are more popular as they are portable size.

Main Board / Mother Board (MB):

Provide a platform to connecting all the devices. (Keyboard / Mouse / Power / CPU / Memory / Hard Disk Floppy Disk / Display Card etc)
Many Main Board has already build in Sound Card / Network Card or even display card.

I/O Device & Interface:

ATA / SATA /SCSI (For Hard Disk)
Parallel Port or LPT Port (For Printer)
COM Port (For Modem)
RJ45 Socket (For Network)
PS/2 (For Keyboard / Mouse)
D-Sub / DVI (For Monitor)
USB (All compatible device)

Power Supply:

Power Supply Convert the A.C. Voltage to Lower D.C.Voltage which is suitable for Computer.
Power Supply can be classified by their loading (Watt).
Different type of socket for different device.

Case:

Case is used to place the main board and the power supply.
Most case have external USB connection.

KM Player

2012-05-28T05:29:00.001-07:00

KM Player 3.2.0.0

3.2Version
FreeLicense
FreePrice
Windows 7 / Vista / XPOperating Systems
26 MB

KMPlayer is a lightweight audio and video player for Windows that supports a wide range of different file formats, including AVI, ASF, WMV, AVS, FLV, MKV, and many more.

How to create your own e-book

2012-05-28T00:45:00.003-07:00

Books are a necessity for students and for working professionals. There’s no way of avoiding the PDF format. Paper might be the best medium but the ease of eBooks makes it worth the switch. A lot of us are busy and need our huge collection of books with us while travelling. eBooks make it possible. There are plenty of eBook readers and we’ve seen plenty more at CES this year. But what if you wanted your text books, journals, etc in the eBook format? There’s only

one way – make your own !

All you need really is a scanner and if you don’t, a camera will do just fine. The software required for the process is all available for free. Theoretical books are best converted to PDFs. With diagrams and pictures, things become very complicated for free OCR software and it can get cumbersome. The only simple solution you have is Adobe Acrobat Professional. It would be simple to use just images as PDFs but then each eBook would cross a couple of hundred megabytes each. We’ll use free OCR software to convert these images into text. FreeOCR (www.freeocr.net) is one of the simplest and cheapest alternatives to expensive packages such as Adobe Acrobat Professional. Download and install the program while you’re connected to the internet. The installer downloads some packages during the installation process.

Step 1 : From paper to the screen

FreeOCR allows pages to be scanned directly into it. Place the book spread on the flatbed scanner and close the scanner top. Set the scan settings to black and white if possible. Make sure there is no dirt or complicated patterns on the screen. In the FreeOCR window, clear the sample text by clicking on the Clear Text Window button at the center of the window. Then, click on Scan. FreeOCR might ask you to select your scanner if you have many devices connected to the PC.

Converting of images and scanned pages into
simple text in FreeOCR

If you don’t have a scanner, a decent camera will do. Click photos of the pages straight down and with as little page-folding as possible. Click all the photos in a sequence and you remember the first photo of the sequence.

Step 2 : Images to text

Once you have all the pages scanned and properly named on your drive, it’s time to start converting them to text. But first, you need to select the region you want to convert to text.

PDFCreator creates PDFs out of pretty much everything you normally print

You wouldn’t want the page numbers, the page titles to come in between the text. There is a selection tool in the left toolbar. Click it and choose the area of the page you want converted to text.

Once that’s done, click the OCR button. The text should convert to plain text in the window on the right. OCR software aren’t good at detecting line breaks, so we need to get rid of them so the text flows well as a paragraph. Click on the Text menu and click Remove Line Breaks. This saves you the effort of manually removing every line break in the scanned text. FreeOCR will remove all of the line breaks. Browse through the text to find any spelling mistakes and hyphens or other special characters. Follow the same steps for all the pages you need to scan.

Step 3 : Text to eBooks

Once the text is finalised, it’s time to copy it to a word processor to fine tune and format the text. Click on the Word icon and a new word document will be opened with the text in it. If you are using any other word processor or page layout utility, you can simply copy and paste the text to it. PDF has become a standard for eBooks because of the way it looks. Fonts look smoother and you can resize without degrading the quality. The file size is also small which makes it portable. We’ll use a free PDF creator called PDFCreator (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/) to convert our plain text files into PDFs. Once installed, use the word processor or layout software to print the pages/book. PDFCreator makes a virtual printer that outputs PDF files to the disk. Select this PDFCreator printer. You’ll be prompted to enter details for the PDF being created. You can also change the compression settings for to reduce file size.

And that’s it. You have your eBook PDF ready. You can carry it everywhere you go – your netbook or your mobile – and since ebook readers are rapidly gaining popularity, even on your eBook reader.

Technical Quiz - 1

2012-05-27T17:15:00.002-07:00

Questions & Answers

Q. What is PAN, ISM Band?

Ans : ISM band: Industrial, Scientific and Medical band

The ISM radio bands were originally reserved internationally for the use of RF energy for industrial, scientific and medical purposes other than communications. Examples of applications in these bands include radio-frequency process heating, microwave ovens, and medical diathermy machines. The powerful emissions of these devices can create electromagnetic interference and disrupt radio communication using the same frequency, so these devices were limited to certain bands of frequencies

Radio Frequency Spectrum & Industrial Scientific Medical (ISM)

LF HF UHF Microwave

125 Hz-140KHz 13.56 MHz 860 MHz-960 MHz 2.45 GHz -5.8. GHz

865 MHz-869 MHz ( India)

In general, communications equipment operating in these bands must accept any interference generated by ISM equipment.

PAN : Personal Area Network

A network for interconnecting devices centered around an individual person's workspace - in which the connections are wireless. Typically, a wireless personal area network uses some technology that permits communication within about 10 meters - in other words, a very short range. One such technology is Bluetooth, using which we can connect our mobile phone, our wireless headphone, laptop.

A WPAN could serve a more specialized purpose such as allowing the surgeon and other team members to communicate during an operation.

A key concept in WPAN technology is known as "plugging in". In the ideal scenario, when any two WPAN-equipped devices come into close proximity (within several meters of each other) or within a few kilometers of a central server, they can communicate as if connected by a cable. Another important feature is the ability of each device to lock out other devices selectively, preventing needless interference or unauthorized access to information.

The technology for WPANs is in its infancy and is undergoing rapid development. Proposed operating frequencies are around 2.4 GHz in digital modes. The ISM bands are widely used for Radio-frequency identification (RFID) applications, including those used by biometric passports and contactless smart cards.

Q. What is Sticky Bit ?

Ans : A bit in the page table which is set to 1 when a shared program is in use to prevent its pages being replaced as long as at least one user is executing the shared program.

Q. Why pointer concept is not in java?

Ans : A) 1. Pointers are a notorious source of bugs. Eliminating them simplifies the language and eliminates many potential bugs. Pointers and pointer arithmetic could be used to sidestep Java's run-time checks and security mechanisms. Removing pointers allows Java to provide the security guarantees that it does.
2. Java is a platform independent language and also it is a one type of internet based language.
3. All the object creation act like pointers only. Only thing is java has the facility of garbage collector, so no need to deallocate memory.

b. What is the Output of following program?

class A

{ public static void main(String[] s)

{ System.out.println(s[1] + s[2] + s[3]); }

}

Parameters passed : java A 12345

Options

(i) 1 (ii) 12 (iii)1234 (iv) ArrayIndexOutOfBoundException (v) Compilation Error

Ans: ArrayIndexOutOfBoundException

Q. What is a satellite Assembly?

i. A Peripheral Assembly Designed to Monitor Permissions requests from an application.

ii. Any DLL file used by an EXE file.

iii. An assembly containing localized resources for another assembly.

iv. An assembly designed to alter the appearance or an application.

Ans : iii) An assembly containing localized resources for another assembly.

ANDROID

2012-05-27T07:12:00.002-07:00

Its Anatomy and Features:

Google Android created a storm in the mobile operating system arena even before any mobile manufacturer started shipping mobile phones based on Android. The first question that creeps into our thought is what is android all about and how is it different from the rest?

Well, it goes like this,

Android is the first truly open source comprehensive platform for mobile phones, in simple words is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, user interface and key applications. Though the key players of mobile operating systems like Symbian, Microsoft windows CE, Apple are already established in this field, Google has tried to make its presence felt by giving many firsts with Android to developers.

In all, the Android is a complete set of software that is needed to run mobile phone without having any proprietary impediment from the manufacturer. Android will provide an open mobile software platform that enables creation of applications that would run and give same user experience on any Android based phone. This hasn’t been the case till now because developers had to refer to the manufacturer’s phones specifications before developing the mobile applications for it. So with Android, if the developer has an idea of app for mobiles he won’t have to go into mobile phone’s specifications but rather develop the app and have it deployed on Android-based handset irrespective of its manufacturer.

How the applications are developed for Android?

The Android SDK provides the tools and APIs necessary to begin developing applications on the Android platform using the Java programming language.

Android Features

Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components
Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices
Integrated browser based on the open source WebKit engine
Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional)
SQLite for structured data storage
Media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF)
GSM Telephony (hardware dependent)
Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi (hardware dependent)
Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent)
Rich development environment including a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE