The Exasperated Man

CAR Buying - Semiconductor shortage is coming down. Wait for 6 months for car prices to come down

2022-06-20T15:19:00.001+05:30

The above graph shows a decline in semiconductor prices, at-least the trend of decline based on search terms.

If you are planning on getting a car, you know the wait times are horrible for now.

Also, you do not get good respect at dealerships because everybody is overbooked. You are just another customer.

So, wait for sometime if you can and I think you will be able to get a car with a better price and specification, albeit being treated like a king at the dealerships.

The above view is only a projection on past data. Come to conclusions at your own analysis.

POCO X4 PRO Review - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

2022-06-20T15:11:00.002+05:30

POCO X4 pro is a wonderful device. It is an overall good mid ranger phone with decent specs.

I would definitely recommend going for the 128 GB variant as I think in 2022, it is very essential and basic.

What is good about POCO X4 PRO :

SGS certified Display. The Display is the most viewed portion of a device. Period. And POCO X4 pro does a good job of providing this eye care certification which helps with your eyes as you do long hours, gaming, watching and working. This is the BEST pro of this device.

120 Hz Amoled Display - You've got to experience 120 Hz. It is very fluid and smooth and you will never want to go back to 60 Hz. It is apparently very easy on the eyes and the mind.

Processor : Do not be fooled by the Snapdragon SD 695 processor it has. It performs astoundingly well for the price.

5G : 5G isn't available in India yet, but it is good to have 5G for now. Future Proofs your device.

What is average about POCO X4 pro:

Cameras. They aren't that bad for the price. But they can get better,

What is BAD about POCO X4 PRO:

Screen Stuttering: Stuttering issues are all over the device. It is quite unpredictable.

HOTSTAR does not work: Videos played through HOTSTAR Stutters a lot. Basically unwatchable. Videos playing inside some websites also stutter. No problems in YOU-tube though.

Android Mobile Phones In India Under 10000 - Updated 25-04-2016

2016-04-27T17:24:00.000+05:30

Lenovo Vibe K4 Note

I know that this phone is a little costlier than 10k but it is well worth the extra price. The phone has a 5.5 inch display, 1080p display and has a finger print sensor with 3 GB Ram.

5.5 Inch

1080p display

3 GB Ram

4G Dual sim

Expandable Memory

16 GB Internal.

13/5MP camera

Honor Holly2 Plus

This phone is interesting. It has great build quality and is slightly lower in price.

5.0 Inch

720pdisplay

2 GB Ram

4G Dual sim

Expandable Memory

16 GB Internal.

13/5MP camera

XOLO Black 1X 3GB RAM/32 GB ROM

Though this phone is a little aged, it still stands a good phone with a good build quality with decent specifications and attractive looks.

5.0 Inch

1080pdisplay

3 GB Ram

4G Dual sim

Expandable Memory (hybrid SIM- No dedicated SD slot)

32 GB Internal.

13/5MP camera

Other Contenders which are slightly lower prices that you may try are:

Mi Redmi 2 Prime 4G

InFocus M680 16GB 4G

Coolpad note 3

Let us look at the differences in specifications between

Lenovo K4 note VS Huawei Honor Holly 2 Plus VS Xolo Black 1x.

	LENOVO K4 NOTE	HUAWEI HONOR HOLLY 2 PLUS	XOLO BLACK 1X
WEIGHT- LIGHTER THE BETTER	158 g	160 g	-
NO OF SIMS	Dual SIM	Dual SIM	Dual SIM
DISPLAY SIZE	5.5 inch	5.0 inch	5.0 inch
DISPLAY RESOLUTION	1080 x 1920 pixels (~401 ppi pixel density)	720 x 1280 pixels (~296 ppi pixel density)	1080 x 1920 pixels (~441 ppi pixel density)
SCREEN PROTECTION	Corning Gorilla Glass 3		Asahi Dragontrail Glass
PROCESSOR	Octa-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A53	Quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A53	Octa-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A53
SD CARD SLOT	microSD, up to 128 GB (dedicated slot)	microSD, up to 128 GB (dedicated slot)	microSD, up to 128 GB (uses SIM 2 slot) - BEWARE THIS IS A HYBRID SIM PHONE
INTERNAL	16 GB, 3 GB RAM - A7010 a48	16 GB, 2 GB RAM	32 GB, 3 GB RAM
PRIMARY	13 MP	13 MP	13 MP
SECONDARY	5 MP	5 MP	5 MP
BATTERY	Non-removable Li-Po 3300 mAh battery	Non-removable Li-Po 4000 mAh battery	Non-removable Li-Po 2400 mAh battery

Learn Simple Javascript - Addition of two numbers for Beginners

2016-03-12T15:32:00.001+05:30

So you decide to read Javascript. That's a good thing. Javascript is a very useful web technology and you will be glad you read this post.
After you read this post you gotta improvise and learn commands as you go along. This is not a classroom. This post will definitely get you started though.

Tools you'll need :

Notepad ++ - Free.
Any Browser - Chrome, Firefox - Also Free.

Lets Get started.I assume you have installed the two tools mentioned above.
Open Notepad ++ and paste the following simple HTML into it.

<html>
 <head>
  
 </head>
<body>
Addition of   
<input type="text" id="text1" value="1" /> 
and
<input type="text" id="text2" value="2" /> 
is
<input type="text" id="result" value="3"/>
 </body>
</html>

Save the document as whateveryouwant.HTML. Now go to Run > Launch in Yourbrowser.
You get good and simple text boxes. Now lets write code to add them as you type. You can also use a button to execute the code, but that's kinda lame compared to adding as you type.
Either ways, if you know to do the harder one, you'll know the easier.

Lets introduce the Javascript code that will do the addition now. It is self explanatory read it twice and you'll get it. Now your html also has events oninput, onclick, onchange etc. I have Highlighted it in pink for you below. Now replace the above code with the below in Notepad ++. Save and run it. Voila! Your browser should now add as you type.

 <head>
  
 </head>
<body>
Addition of   
<input type="text" id="text1" value="1" oninput="add();"/> 
and
<input type="text" id="text2" value="2" oninput="add();"/> 
is
<input type="text" id="result" value="3"/>

<script type="text/javascript">
function add() { 
var addition, no1, no2;
addition = 0;
no1 = parseInt(document.getElementById("text1").value);
no2 = parseInt(document.getElementById("text2").value);
addition = no1 + no2 ;
document.getElementById('result').value = addition;
 }
  </script>

 </body>
</html>

Now we used event listeners on the HTML (remember oninput?).
It is always best practice to segregate the HTML and Javascript totally. So lets rewrite the above code so that the HTML is in simplicity and the processing of the oninput event takes at the Javascript end. So here is the modified code. Replace the above with the below. It is simple as well.

 <head>
  
 </head>
<body>
Addition of   
<input type="text" id="text1" value="1" /> 
and
<input type="text" id="text2" value="2" /> 
is
<input type="text" id="result" value="3"/>

<script type="text/javascript">

var v = function() { 
var addition, no1, no2;
result = 0;
no1 = parseInt(document.getElementById("text1").value);
no2 = parseInt(document.getElementById("text2").value);
addition = no1 + no2;
document.getElementById('result').value = addition
 }
 
 document.getElementById('text1').oninput = v;
 document.getElementById('text2').oninput = v;  
  </script>
 </body>
</html>

See how the HTML portion defining the textbox is now removed off of the events and the events are now on the Javascript. This is very useful if you are running a website on wordpress and do not want to enable Javascript to the authors but process events nevertheless. A central Javascript code will do or you can use a plugin like script n style to insert a page or post specific Javascript.

I hope this lesson has kickstarted the path to your Javascript Learning.
There is this book which I liked a lot, It is called JavaScript: The Good Parts and you can buy it here. Check it out. It will be really useful to proceed learning further.

Adios People! Happy Learning.

Seeds

2016-02-01T16:43:00.000+05:30

Yes. Seeds. They are important.

Day 1:

Imagine Ted. It’s a big beautiful day and he starts sowing apple seeds. He waters. He sets everything straight for the seeds to grow.
He sleeps Happy.

Day 2:

He gets up excited to see how his seeds are doing. It’s another fine day and the seeds are still asleep. Dormant. He waters.

Couple years later, he has an apple tree; Giving out fruits and shade. He has thousands of apples now. He can eat all he wants.

Let’s rewind. On the second day, how many apples did he get?

Zero?

I’d say he had 3. He just had to collect it later.

The same happens with anything in life. Just like a fixed deposit in a bank compounds, so does your life. The sooner you start the better you get, soon. A day in the present may not mean much in value, and in the future when you collect, you would know exactly what that days’ worth.

Let me inject a strong logical dosage here contrasting to the apple example.

Suppose, you put up a fixed deposit for 1 lakh which gives you 10% return per annum for a period of 1 year. All values are approximated.

On the next day how much your fixed deposit would have grown? Let’s do some approximate math.

(10/365/100*100000)/365 = 0.075061 Rs.

You’ll now have 100000.075061 in your account on the second day. You can now cash out the deposit and get just the 0.07 Rs in interest. Hell you’ll get lower than that because banks charge a penalty on the interest if withdrawn earlier.

Let’s assume you didn’t get greedy and waited a whole year.

On the 366^th day your account would have grown by 10/100*100000 = 10000 Rs.

Or 10000/365 = 27 Rs/ Day.

Equating it back to the second day, you would have generated 27 Rs (as against 0.075 Rs), if you had held on to the duty of keeping the money in the deposit.

I hope you get it. If not, get a good night’s sleep. You’ll get it… Eventually.

How to be Happy - A genuine guide to living lighthearted

2015-07-20T18:35:00.003+05:30

Merriam Websters dictionary defines lighthearted as below:

a) Having or showing a cheerful and happy nature
b) Not serious
c) Free from care, anxiety, or seriousness: happy-go-lucky
d) Cheerfully optimistic and hopeful: easy-going

I see this in action when I watch movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Just Go with it etc. These are amazing movies BTW, check them out. The Characters are surreal, perfect and well-crafted into light-heartedness. They appear cool and effortless, not disillusioned by life’s daily chores and trauma. They feel so good to be around, and appear blissful all the time.

I always wonder what it is to have the mind-set of these people. The following, I observed is what light-heartedness is NOT about:

1. “All time Positivity” – You cannot force yourself to be positive at times when you are anxious. There is an ever going trend in the internet that positivity and confidence will get you out of anywhere. But like every other energy, positivity and confidence are not available all the time. Just like you feel tired after heavy work, you lose out on positivity at times. Forcing it out ain’t gonna help and it will make you look bogus and incongruent. Above all, it will not benefit your psyche. So, when you have to be low, forgive yourself and take it easy.

2. Black and white thinking – For serious people, the world is either totally good to them or not at all good to them. Black and white thinking will make you serious about life. You need to understand that life is made of shades of grey and whatever bad things that happen is just very temporary. Black and white thinking will make you as heavy hearted as a sinking submarine.

It’s OK if you fail. It’s OK to succeed. Everything shall pass.

3. You have to be strictly a character all the time– Self-discipline is good. But you have to be able to laugh at yourself when you fail here and there and deviate from your inner self by mistake. Especially when the consequences aren’t that…. Gruesome.

95% of what we keep feeling sad, disgusted, afraid or angry about (think of similar characters from the movie, “Inside Out”) are not going to impact our lives in anyway. Don’t’ sweat the small stuff. (Read the book that goes by the same name)

4. Victim mentality – The one single thought that makes people think they are on cages and makes them put efforts to break out of a prison they are actually not, hurting others and themselves in the process. Google “Victim thinking” and read every article you can about it. And don’t forget to get rid of it later.

5. The inner beauty Dilemma – I’ve been planning to write a new article all together about the topic of inner beauty. But to surmise it with simplicity, here is a quote.

Rachel Dawes to Bruce Wayne: “Deep down you may still be that same great kid you used to be. But it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you.”

Inner beauty is as good as shit, as long as it is not expressed outside.

Batman realises this very early in his career as a, well, ….. BATMAN, and replies the following to Rachel when questioned about his identity at a later time. (BWT you need to have to watched the movie to understand this effectively)

Batman to Rachel: It's not who I am underneath, but what I do …that defines me.

Rachel Dawes: Bruce? Not to mention, amazed and shocked. Bruce is sexy in her eyes now.

I could have easily blown up this article into a hundred pages, but I am not because I have decided to let you “THINK LIGHTHEARTED”

Adios fellas.

How to save more Money by reducing your electricity bills – The all in one guide for all that you need to know about electricity consumption without too much technical details

2015-07-19T13:07:00.002+05:30

Did you know that you can save more money by reducing the consumption of electricity in your home? You don’t have to become a miser and switch off everything. Some equipment are better than the others in how efficiently they consume energy into work. Using the better variant will help you save money and reduce the huge energy demand we are placing on Mother Earth.

I have a sheet attached below, which will help you calculate the savings by replacing the old with the efficient.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-NDvsXqKYP7d0JZX2JNQk1jSFU/view?usp=sharing

Let’s look at the common sources of consumption and its better alternative.

Air conditioners / Fridges:

Air conditioners have Star ratings which tell you how much less energy they consume for the same amount of work. But beyond star ratings, we have……

Taa daaaa……

Inverter Air conditioners and Fridges: Energy Savings: Up to 60%

Inverter technology is the way to go for these devices. Contrary to what many people think, inverter ACs are not running on inverter batteries. They have a system which s not in the scope of explanation in this article. But one thing is true: They consume much lower energy than the Normal AC. The inverter ACs save you an average of up to 50 - 60% when compared to traditional Air conditioners. Though wattage of the two Air conditioners will be similar, the way they run and expend energy is different. The more you use, the more the savings.

It is like two bikes of the similar capacity, one (normal ac) running in first gear all the time (using more energy) and another (Inverter tech AC) switching gears as the speed increases (using the least energy).

Lighting:

Bypass CFL totally and get the LED bulbs.

They last longer.

They save better.

They give you advantages like dimming, better light control and easy automation.

SAVINGS CALCULATOR (by replacing the non-efficient consumer)
DESC	Equipment	Wattage	Running Hours/day	UNITS PER DAY	UNITS per year
OLD	Zero Watts incandescent Bulb	12	24	0.288	103.68
NEW	0.5 W LED	0.5	24	0.012	4.32

In the above scenario, over a year the money saved over a bulb which runs 24 x 7 is around (103.68-4.32) x Rs 5 (assumed cost per unit) = 497 Rs.

The LED bulbs especially from reputed companies usually last much longer in double digit years.

There you go, AC and lighting are the biggest consumers in our homes, handling them will put more money in your wallet and more resources for the future generations. You may not get rich, but the next time you won’t be worrying much when you have to turn on the Air conditioner.

The Manly way to generate more Intelligence and brain power

2015-02-24T12:48:00.000+05:30

Everybody wants to be intelligent, but no one wants to develop it. Intelligence is made and it is not something you are born with.

For some people, the ability to be social and recognize social situations and act accordingly is Intelligence.

Intelligence is knowing how to get wealthy for a person who wants to dwell in luxury.

Intelligence is knowing how to get those six packs through diligent exercising.

Brain power is very subjective and you have to have your own definition of that. And you may have more than one definition across different areas of expertise.

One of the most generic form of brain power is called Presence of Mind.

And like any other brain power, it can be cultivated.

And here is how it can be done.......

1. Have more experiences

You cannot sit in a room and think your way through life. You have to experience Life to live it with a heightened sense of being alive and hence with good brain power.

2. Get as many perspectives as you can

The more perspectives you get, the more your thinking capabilities.

3. Never have an Ego that you are above all no matter how intelligent you are

I think this is the first step anyone should have to cultivate your so called, "Brain power". The more empty you think you are, the more you will be filled.

4. Stop thinking of trying to cultivating brain power all the time.

This quote from the movie Knockaround Guys says it all.

"500 fights, that's the number I figured when I was a kid. 500 street fights and you could consider yourself a legitimate tough guy. You need them for experience. To develop leather skin. So I got started. Of course along the way you stop thinking about being tough and all that. It stops being the point. You get past the silliness of it all. But then, after, you realize that's what you are."

It stops being the point. And on one fine day you finally realize that you have so much Intelligence and brain power.

SHORT BUT SWEET – WHY WE NEED TO SHUT UP AND SPEAK MORE

2014-12-25T11:25:00.000+05:30

When Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables was being published in Paris during 1862, he was out on a vacation. Curious to know how the sales of his book, he sent a brief telegram to his publisher.

Quote

Unquote

And the publisher responded equally brief, indicating that the sales is good.

Quote

Unquote

The entire lot printed for Paris had sold out.

Ah, that reminds me of the movie Predator. The way by which these guys communicate while on mission has sunk deeply into my brain. I thought, maybe that’s how guys behave when they have a strong affinity towards accomplishing a goal. They do shit and talk very less. They communicate what is important and they make sure that the other person understands what is said.

The absence of clarity in communication has wreaked havoc in our society resulting in countless fights amongst couples, disorganized organisations and an alarming increase in the rise of unnecessary guidance counsellors and an extreme lack of communicating with self, leading to all kinds of mental chaos.

Well, I do not want to sound like an unwanted guidance counsellor, but It is in my mind to write about this some time. I am glad I finally got through it.

It is not the intention of this article to make people talk less, but rather the opposite.
The world would be a much better place if people communicate and make sure that the other person understands, than letting words fleet in air, uselessly.

The Consciousness test – To live a life worth living

2014-04-27T16:44:00.000+05:30

From time to time, I give myself a consciousness test to see if I am truly alive or numbed by events that day. The consciousness test involves asking myself a trivial question whose answer I have to obtain in order to prove conscious living. Sometimes I have the answer, sometimes I do not.

Example questions are thus.

How many stairs where there in my house leading to the terrace?

Recite the poem, IF by Rudyard Kipling.

Remember an exact dialogue of a character from a movie of my choice. Etc.

The consciousness test pulls me back from wandering thoughts into reality. However there were times when I have failed miserably in it.

Every time, I fail in the consciousness test, it figured to me that the day was too hasty to be good. I hate living that way. It may seem as if I am moving forward, but there is not concrete qualifier for my improvement.

So I am lying on my bed yesterday night and the idea hit me. Another test.

Task :

Note down all the sounds at this instance and recite them tomorrow morning on my blog. I have to remember them without losing any.

Here we go.

Sounds of the night

The ticking clock

The muffled sound of vehicles on the street.

The air conditioner

Well, that was obvious. Going deeper.

My head brushing against against the pillow.

The refrigerator compressor starting in the next room.

Heart beat.

Bed sheets against the bed and my hands.

Me breathing.

Going deeper.

Sound of me thinking this.

Sound of me thinking about writing this in a paper. The pen against the paper.

Sound of silence.

That's all I can remember right now.

Do It Yourself - Professional looking Reflector for Budget Photographers using Aluminium Foil

2014-03-30T15:26:00.000+05:30

Now that you have found my site, the end reflector will be something like the image below. I used it up for quite some time and it still holds up. The beauty is that you can make it in any size you want. You can fold it and put it in your bag.

Professional Looking Al foil Photographic reflector

Lets discuss the basic requirements for making a reflector.

1. You know what reflectors are.

2. You want to make one for your hobby / professional adventures.

3. Aluminium Foil (one side hard reflection, the other side soft reflection type)

4. Insulation Tape. (Not duct tape!)

5. Scissors.

6. Measuring tape/scale.

7. News paper. (in required quantity) . Newspaper is used to give a shape to the reflector, so you can use any other material you want. I use newspaper because it is flexible and makes the Reflector foldable and portable.

Materials required for Making DIY Aluminium foil Reflector

Step 1:

Decide on the size of the reflector. You have to select the Al foil size and the newspaper size accordingly.

Step 2:

First Make sure that your foil has a soft reflection side. For consistent and uniform effects we are going to use the soft side as it gives a soft reflection on the subject.

Hard reflection side of Aluminium Foil

Soft reflection side of Aluminium Foil

Step 3:

From here on. It's simple.

Just take the Newspaper which acts as the back bone of the reflector and fold it to the size you want the reflector to be. Keep the width to a minimum (10 sheet thick newspaper should do fine after folding)

Step 4:

Now cut the Al foil leaving tolerances around the size of the newspaper you just made.

Step 5:

Using the Insulation tape, stick the edges of the aluminium foil so that it acts like a bag with one end open through which you can load the newspaper.

I prefer insulation tape to duct tape because they are less sticky and can be removed and pasted back if you made any mistake. Also they give a very solid look.

Step 6:

Load the newspaper inside and seal the entrance.

Then you shall be left with something like this:

Happy photographing!

A simple guide to selecting rechargeable Ni-MH batteries and chargers and ways of using them to get optimum results

2014-03-23T13:45:00.001+05:30

Rechargeable batteries are a very important commodity when you use heave drain devices like Cameras, huge toys,flashes etc.

Disclaimer : You take responsibility for whatever way you charge your batteries. This is just a piece of information, not a fact. Use your common sense. Your safety is the most important. Have a look at the caution information at the end.

The most popular AA or AAA size batteries are the NI-MH batteries. (Nickel - Metal hydride). They have good cycling times and recharge overnight.

What capacity of rechargeable batteries should I use?
Battery capacities are denoted in mAh (milli Amp hours). The higher the capacity, the higher it will last before needing another recharge which means more usage time. The higher the capacity, the better.
Standard capacities to choose from, are anywhere from 1800 to 2800 mAh to have a pretty charge cycle.

How long can these batteries be charged and discharged?
Ni-MH batteries have a limited charge-discharge cycle (so does every other battery). It will be written on the battery wrapper somewhere.

What are the best applications for rechargeable batteries?
As stated earlier, they are best used for high drain devices. Low drain devices like TV remotes and alarm clocks are not fit for rechargeable batteries, because these batteries discharge themselves with less usage needing you to recharge again.

How long should these batteries be charged for the first time? / What type of charger should I use?
There are all kinds of chargers available to detect full charge and stop the battery from overcharging.
If your charger does not have such detecting ability, it is safe to charge the battery for the following duration:

Please note that this is only an example! Please refer to your charger manual for charging with it.

Duration of charge = (1.3 x Capacity of the battery/charge current of the battery) - 1 hour.
(I calculated the capacity and reduced the hours by 1 to prevent overcharge and overheating.)

For example, if you have a 2000 mAh battery and your charger's charge current is 200 mA.

Then, Duration of charge = (1.3 x 2000/200) - 1 = 13 -1 = 12 hours. Well, that's a rough estimate.

How long to charge them after the first charge (subsequent charges) ?
It depends upon your usage levels.

For example, camera flashes do not drain the battery completely. You will notice that the battery performs good in a torch after being notified from the camera flash as low battery after some usage.

In that case, since that battery is not drained to the fullest, you can recharge it with the following approximate duration.

Duration of subsequent recharge (not fully drained) = Duration of first recharge (from previous formula) - 2 to 3 hours.

For example for the above 2000 mAh battery , duration of subsequent recharge = 12 -3 = 9 hours.

However, if you feel that the batter is drained to its core, either because it is left unused or the product has consumed the battery fully, please feel free to recharge it, the way you recharged it the first time.

Duration of subsequent recharge (fully drained) = Duration of first recharge (from previous formula).

I guess that helps.
The above said are only guide lines, your common sense over rides anything; always remember that.

Care / caution while charging/using/travelling....

Do not keep the batteries completely closed in a sealed compartment during charging. In case of over charging, the batteries have tiny vents in the +ve side which release gases.

Do not over heat batteries above 35 Deg.C which may cause reduction in life.

Do not connect the positive and negative sides of the battery even by accident (by putting them in pockets). They tend to explode.

Do not overcharge your battery. The formula listed above is only a sample. It is better to have a small charge current charger as it gives more time to the battery to vent it out instead of bursting.

Do not drop these batteries. If you see visible damage in them, make sure you discard them.

Digitek DFL 002/003 – Speedlight Flash Gun review and How to use a Manual Speedlight

2014-03-22T17:07:00.000+05:30

This review is for the actual Digitek 002 model; however this may also apply easily to the 003 model as they have the same specifications.

Advertised specifications:

Guide Number: 38 m (100 ISO)

You can easily increase the guide number if you need to by increasing the ISO. For, example, my D3100 gives good performance up to ISO 400, after which there appears consistent noise.

If the parameters of the exposure triangle are increase by one stop, the guide number increases by multiples of 1.414 (square root of 2); with the exception of shutter speed.

E.g., If ISO is increased from 100 to 200, the guide number increases to 38 x 1.414 = 54.

So how do you use guide Number?

Guide Number = FOD x Distance from the Subject.

FOD = Guide Number / Distance from the subject.

Example, if your GN is 38 and distance from the subject is 4 metres, the f number for proper exposure should be 38/4 = 9.5.

If distance is 10 metres, then, FOD = 38/10 = 3.8.

You’ll have to open up your aperture when the subject is far to get the proper exposure.

Of course, these aperture values are assuming that you are in low light, and ambient light isn’t contributing much.

If you can’t go below f/4 in your lens, you can compensate for the guide number by increasing the ISO by one stop from ISO 100 to 200.

You get the idea. That’s how you use this manual Speedlight.

This speedlight does not have High-speed Sync. So if you take photos with shutter speeds faster than sync speed, you'll end up with a picture like this.

Using flash with camera set more that its sync speed 1/200

Does that mean you cant free motion faster than sync speed? (1/200)

Definitely you can!

Just set the shutter speed to the sync speed and you'll get amazing results by using flash to freeze motion.

The way this works is like this : - Small flash power equals shorter exposures.

This picture was taken at a sync speed of 1/200th of a second, but the flash was triggered for approx. 1/10000th of a second by lowering the flash output to 1/8 power. You will have to switch off lights for this to work effectively. The only light should be from the flash.

Droplets from the Shower @ Sync Speed using flash to freeze motion

Recap --

The Digitek DFL 002 flash at full power should last for 1/200th of a second. The least powerful flash lasts for 1/20000th of a second. These are as per specifications on the manual that came with the Speedlight.

Therefore you can use the flash to freeze motion even though your maximum sync speed is 1/200.

To do this, just set your shutter to 1/200th of a second or less than your sync speed. Sync speed is the safest way to go.

-- End Recap

Coming back to the review.

The Digitek DFL 002 Speedlight has eight stop reductions in its flash capacity.

The build quality is good for the price and the Digitek DFL 002 flash gun rotates for 0 to 90 degrees in the vertical and 0 - 270 in the horizontal, which is good for bounce flash and also to incline the optical sensor towards light if you are in slave mode.

Speaking OF MODES:

There are three modes in the Speedlight:

M: Manual flash. The flash triggers when you release the Shutter. The flash is mounted on the hot shoe of the camera for this to work.

S1: Flash triggers if it senses another flash, probably from another flash or from the built in Pop up flash. Orient the flash using the stand which comes with the speedlight on the subject according to your lighting needs and you are good to go, thereby controlling the optical slaves witht the popup flash.

S2: Pre-flash cancel. Use this mode when you are using the Pop up flash in TTL or another Speedlight which has TTL and you want to use this manual speedlight as an Optical slave. This mode makes the speedlight ignore the first small TTL flash.

It is to be noted that DFL 002/003 does not have TTL and only can be used on manual flash output conrol.

I guess that is it. It is a fairly good Speedlight and works best if you know how to use it. I feel that the batteries drain a little too quickly if you use it consistently at full flash strength, but that's expected.

Just get a good high capacity 2500+ mAh battery so that you have a good cycling time.

There is a red LED indicator which switches on when the flash is ready to be triggered. The recycle time under good battery conditions is approx. 3 seconds for full flash strength.

This flash does not have strobe/multi-flash capabilities.

The red LED blinks if there isn’t enough battery power to trigger the flash.

What else should I say?

I think I've said enough. Feel free to let me know if you are in doubt of any kind.

So, let me show some pictures taking using the flash. For demonstration, let’s bring in stunt girl and Happy family.

Flash direct in face.

Flash at face of stunt girl - I exaggerated the shot on purpose to show how bad this could be.

Bounce Flash from side.

Happy family - Side light from flash bounced off wall

Flash pointed at the background

Happy family - flash on the wall making picture float in air

Grapes reflecting Flash because of the ice frosting on their surface.

Grapes reflecting Flash because of the ice frosting on their surface:

Did you notice the grape on the top that didn't reflect any light? That's because I washed the frost off after taking it from the fridge. If you have noticed this, power to you!

I guess that's it. If you have a comment or a question, leave a comment.

Happy flashing!

Philosophy Bites - The Meaning of Life and the art of soul Balancing

2013-12-10T20:28:00.002+05:30

Everything that can possibly be said is said already. It is our duty to think through and pick our belief systems. The following are the inferences of the meaning and purpose of life, which I deciphered from sayings which already existed.

Hedonism - Quoted from Wikipedia

Hedonism is a school of thought that argues that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure (pleasure minus pain).

Ethical hedonism is the idea that all people have the right to do everything in their power to achieve the greatest amount of pleasure possible to them. It is also the idea that every person's pleasure should far surpass their amount of pain. Ethical hedonism is said to have been started by a student of Socrates, Aristippus of Cyrene. He held the idea that pleasure is the highest good.

Victor Frankl

Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her own life.

Epicurianism - Quoted from Wikipedia

He argued that when eating, one should not eat too richly, for it could lead to dissatisfaction later, such as the grim realization that one could not afford such delicacies in the future. Likewise, sex could lead to increased lust and dissatisfaction with the sexual partner.

The Meaning of Life - Verdict

Drawing from what all these philosophers tell us, the Meaning of life is in fact finding what gives you meaning in life. (Taking frankyl's philosophy)
That Meaning of life can be anything based on personal values of the individual. It can be pleasure. It can be power (Thus merging in Hedonism). It can be anything, based on what the individual values the most.
But in order to maintain the meaning/happiness there has to be balance in activities which give you meaning (Merging in Epicurian values). Indulging too much in something will make it less and less pleasurable. This threshold varies from person to person. Maintaining things within this threshold is called the art of soul Balancing. Exceeding the threshold will cause displeasure and hatred.

It's funny how the best parts of different things can be combined to form a personal bias of opinions. Everything is laid out there for us to figure out.

Hey, just my opinion.

Best Specialized Linux Distributions tailored for Artists/Painters/Photographers/Musicians/writers/troubleshooting and for the creative mind!

2013-12-09T20:51:00.001+05:30

I need to keep this blog post short and give you a short glimpse of a variety of Linux distributions available to tailor much specific and generic requirements.

These are also wonderful Linux distributions for offline use, which are capable of doing a variety of tasks at hand. I am gonna leave out main stream Operating systems like Debian, Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, Opensuse etc., for this listing.

AVLinux - DVD - I found this Debian based distribution to be much balanced in fields from Music to graphics and Photography. It even has wine built in along with the entire Libreoffice Suite. A very good start for a well rounded installation containing almost all the software required for the creative mind.

Pros : Extremely fast to load from the Live DVD
Cons: It is a bit outdated. (eg. It has GIMP 2.6 instead of the latest 2.8)

ArtistX - DVD - This Beautiful Linux distribution based on UBUNTU, is really very beautifully designed and has enormous amount of software ready to run off the live DVD. This is the best DVD to download if you want a Linux distribution which has all the software you want, for offline usage. It has Wine up and running in the Live DVD and also has the Calligra Suite instead of Libreoffice. ArtistX uses Cairo-dock for its application interface.

Pros: Has all the software you could dream of.
Cons: I am unable to use SUDO command in the Live DVD. (It is allowing only the guest session to boot up). May be my mistake. If anyone can enlighten me, kindly do so.

Knoppix - CD and DVD - This is built for speed, and has a very linear spread of applications for the generic user. The DVD version is very robust packing software for around 9 GB. It also has wine pre-installed and ready to run. Boots off of old computers very easily.

Openartist - DVD - Another humongous Linux distribution with creative software for complete offline use. Also has wine.

Ubuntu Studio - DVD - It has a good collection of creative software, but the absence of Libreoffice suite kind of turned me off. Writers are artists too.

Ultimate Boot CD - CD - A good collection of tools for trouble shooting.

Puppy Linux - CD - A very small yet powerful operating system. There is a windows installer which installs Puppy Linux in windows and helps you boot into Puppy by adding a boot menu, without disturbing windows in any way, shape or form.

If you've read my blog before, you'll note that all articles are stubs and that I'll keep on updating them. If you feel like I've missed out any of your favourite specialized distributions, let me know ;)

Philosophy Bites - The art of talking less – The advantages of talking as little as possible

2013-12-09T20:28:00.001+05:30

The silent mysterious type heroes in the movies, always talk less, and when they talked, everybody listened. This post is a fork of what it would be like to talk less.

Advantages of talking less:

It prevents you from leaking information which may be used to harm you in the future.

It gives you a mysterious aura, since others have very little information of what you are doing, why you are doing what you are doing, and how you are effectively able to do it.

Talking less quiets your mind, giving you peace and more space in your head to think. And also helps prevent garbage in your thoughts.

Talking less keeps you grounded and help you stay in that Alpha Brain Wave state.

When you speak, you’ll have had a lot to think and hence helps with your speech. You’ll have emotional control over what you say and do.

You’ll only say what is important and hence your words will be valued more.

Talking less will make you act more and hence people will be looking at actions instead of words. You’ll notice that people who are busy and have to think a lot tend to talk less and less.

Remember! Brevity is the soul of wit.

Reversal:
There are some negative side effects if you talk less in the wrong way.

First thing. You’ll have to talk when you have to talk; stand up for shit, else you’ll be thought as a sissy/wimp/coward.

Talking less should not stand in the way of you expressing yourself to people you want to express things to, good or bad.

Remember, you may have to act more to compensate for the lack of talk. The naïve quote, “Actions speak louder than words”, is not so naïve after all.

But overall, you’ll be respected more, honored more, and most importantly you’ll be loved and adored more.

Warnings:

I am not talking about talking less for the sake of talking less. Talking less will create much more space in your head that you’ll freak out initially if you are not channeling that energy somewhere. If showing off by talking less is your fantasy you might have to think about it.

Everybody has a different personality, and the level of talking less should be tailor made to your personality. Think!

Go easy On your EYES while using your PC and Laptop! Redshift - An alternative to Flux on Linux

2013-11-17T19:02:00.002+05:30

Redshift is a small command line interface utility that helps in lowering the colour temperature of your monitor.

Wait. Wait. Do not be worried about the command line utility, it's fairly simple. Piece of cake.

You can install it in Ubuntu by typing the command in the terminal.
sudo apt-get install redshift.

Or use synaptic to search and install it.

Once installation completes, you gotta give the application your location coordinates for it to alter the colour temperatures (aka dim down the monitor).

Just Google for the approximate coordinates for your location.

Then enter the following in the terminal.

redshift -l [lat]:[long]

e.g, the coordinates of India are 21.0000° N, 78.0000° E.

so accordingly the command would be : redshift -l 21:78

Make sure you pick the location of your correct time zone, else there might be a delay in which the colour temperatures change.

Make sure that this command is put in start up, so that the process is automated henceforth, and you can forget about your eye straining again.

Happy computing.

(Solved) BCM4312 – Fix Broadcom wireless connectivity problem in Linux Mint – Kernel Panic after connecting to Wireless

2013-11-14T22:30:00.000+05:30

I took this solution from the following link : http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=145120

Credits go to the original Author.

This is for BCM4312 chipset only (as stated in the original post). To be very specific, this is for BCM4312 LPPHY chipset.

I am re writing the same because it was very difficult for me to search and obtain this answer when I had the same problem, and this is the only solution that helped. Hope, posting it in a detailed manner helps!

A lot of suggestions were to open the driver Manager (Linux Mint 15) and select the Broadcom device for usage. (But this only resulted in Kernel panic as soon as I connected to Wi-Fi and started using it. May be this is because my chipset was BCM4312 in the Dell Inspiron. )

DO NOT DO THIS IF YOUR CHIPSET IS BCM4312! (You can identify what chipset your wireless is, using the hardware information software which came with Linux Mint KDE.)

I did a fresh upgrade and did the following as suggested in the link above (You may not need to do the fresh upgrade for this to work. I was formatting my hard disk so I didn’t mind installing it again. ):

Note: You need to be connected to the internet through Ethernet or USB tethering for the commands to download packages and install them.

sudo apt-get remove --purge bcmwl-kernel-source

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-lpphy-installer

Restart the computer and Voila! The wireless is working. Thanks to the author!

I almost felt like moving to another linux distro because of wireless problems in Linux Mint. Thanks to this trick, I can stay.

How I fell in Love with Linux – A tale of genuine curiosity and discovery

2013-10-19T20:59:00.001+05:30

Linux is an Operating System for your computer. If you are not a deadbeat in technology, you must have heard about it somehow.

Let's face it, the first thing that comes to peoples mind when they think Linux is its terminal (to which many are still scared of). Most colleges usually have at least one semester to teach the students basic shell commands in Linux or Unix; mine did. I was a bit allergic to Linux at first, but soon realized what I've been missing so far.

Flashback : Sometime in 2007 – 2008.

It all started one day when with CHIP Magazine which I got from my university and found a DVD in it containing various software. What was printed in the upper half of the DVD caught my attention.

In a green coloured layout was written, “Linux Mint”. I did not know at that time that operating systems are distributed for free in DVDs.

Since then I had the curiosity to try Linux Mint once, but brushed aside the thought since I did not know anything about how to get it to run in my desktop computer.

Curiosità.

In the book titled, “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”, Michael J. Gelb (Author), writes about Curiosità being the first step in awakening your inner genius.

There is also a WikiHow article (http://www.wikihow.com/Think-Like-Leonardo-Da-Vinci), which describes the same.

So I get on to the INTERNET and learn all about Live CDs, BIOS setup, First Boot device etc.

Baby Steps.

I set my first boot device to CD-ROM and inserted the Bootable DVD which started Linux Mint right before my eyes.

From freedom came elegance. (That's what it said at startup)

As Linux Mint started, I was startled at the welcome sounds that came in from my speakers. I clearly did not expect this. I thought it required driver installations like Windows did.

The Ethernet cable worked out of the box and I was connected to the INTERNET.

It was Linux Mint Cassandra.

Mint names their operating systems alphabetically like Google names Android (Alpha, Beta, Cupcake, Donut, Froyo, Ginger bread, Honey Comb, Ice cream Sandwich,Jellybean, Kitkat and so on...)

I browsed around the applications and couldn't believe that they packed all kinds of software in it. Movie players, browsers, office applications; the operating system was ready to use after five minutes of me seeing it for the first time.

I had the insatiable urge to click the install button in the desktop and own this Operating system. I clicked anyway and it took me through some formatting options which I had no clue about.

I cancelled the operation and shutdown after some browsing.

Again, Baby steps.

I had this Idea of installing Linux Mint at the back of my mind all the time from that incident. I didn't have the guts to go ahead with it. I was afraid of the uncertainties involved in the process.

I soon got a laptop and on it was running Windows 7. Due to some virus problems, I was forced to reformat my laptop, and thus opened the window of opportunity to try Linux.

I downloaded the latest version at the time and installed it.

That's me writing this article in Libre office, a free opensource Office Suite. Chromium browser (Opensource version of Google Chrome) on the left, Dolphin (file manager) on the right. The desktop environment is KDE(http://www.kde.org/).

It was difficult at start but as I learnt to mingle with Linux, it was everything i dreamt of. It was fast. Professional. Had software for almost everything I needed.

I had to struggle initially but eventually grew out of the uncertainty and never went back.

And finally I ended where I started.

The Terminal.

PS: If you get the hang of it, the terminal is the best way to do things in a blink of an eye instead of using GUI front ends.

References:

http://www.kde.org/

http://www.linuxmint.com/ (their current version is Mint 15 Olivia at the time of writing)

www.wikihow.com/Think-Like-Leonardo-Da-Vinci

All in one Guide to destroy Annoyances in Android – USSD Notifications, Status bar notifications, Annoying events and much more.

2013-10-06T16:27:00.000+05:30

This post is specific for Jelly bean. If your android version is lower, the things here may not work.

USSD notifications:

If you are annoyed by USSD notifications that appear every time you call, or use the INTERNET, use the android application “Quiet Balance”.

It automatically stores your last 25 USSD messages, and you can view them later.

Notification Bar Notifications:

If you do not want applications to show notifications, go to the Application Info and check the text box which says “Show Notifications”.

Avoid Advertisements using Adfree (Requires Root):

Use Adfree to prevent advertisements from loading in your apps.

Temporary App freeze (without root):

You can Force Stop an application in the Application Info. The Application will not notify you until you manually launch it next time. (Some apps do start, but this always buys you time).

Greenify (requires root):

Some applications always keep running in the Background. If you don't want them running in the background, you can use Greenify. It automatically stops the applications once the application is not used by the user.

Please note that, if you Greenify an app, it will not show you notifications. For Example, if you Greenify Facebook, you will not receive notifications until you manually open Facebook.

If you Greenify Whatsapp, you will not receive notifications until you manually open Whatsapp. That means that if you gotta check something you have to open the app yourself.

So Greenify applications with care. Think.

Automatically reduce volume when Headset is plugged in:

This is one of my biggest annoyances. When I am watching a video through the headsets, if a notification comes in, it screams at the top of its voice into me headset.

You can simply put the phone in Vibrate mode before plugging in the Headset, or make sure that it is automatically done using Tasker.

Stay tuned for more updates.

FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out while running in The Hedonic Treadmill – Part 2 – The social Life

2013-10-04T12:11:00.000+05:30

This is a continuation of my post titled – The Hedonic Treadmill. Please read the other blog post. There was so much I wanted to say in The Hedonic Treadmill, but then I thought I shall put it in a different post to give things more clarity.

The fear of missing out is in all of us. In fact FOMO is good. Without FOMO we would never evolve. We would never learn new things. But like I already stated in my previous blog post, balance is essential. If things could happen progressively governing the balancing rule, everything would happen good in life.

Quiet: The power of introverts in a world That can't stop talking by Susan Cain, was the book which gave me huge insights about introverts and the power of just sitting in silence without talking too much. When I took this book in my hands, I was skeptical that this book is going to speak on and on about how introverts are the greatest people, in a biased context. I soon found out that the writing is absolutely humanitarian. Anyone can read this book. Apart from being a very interesting read, it also concentrates on a deep social problem which we face these days. The increase in the need to be social. Being social is good, but the problem begins when we start comparing people based on their social behavior. The book has stories of children whose mothers found their kid's silent nature as a disease and sought treatment. How obvious can it be?

Balanced Social activity and FOMO helps us. They keep us in company, gives us new things to talk about, new things to do about.

Excessive FOMO combined with the need for increased social activity becomes a problem. Some people are built this way, and they thrive this way. It comes naturally for them, but for the others, keep reading.

One Art of manliness post titled,“5 Types of Friends Every Man Needs”, speaks of five kinds of friends we need to have a balanced life. The article is impressive and states that a man must have the following five friends.

The Mentor.
The Wingman/Bachelor.
The Handyman
The Fitness Bluff
The Work pal.

Be sure to read the beautiful descriptions of the above five types of friends in the post. You can find the article here : http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/09/26/the-5-types-of-friends-every-man-needs/

What came to my mind as soon as I completed this post was what kind of person can I classify myself? Am I a mentor? A Handyman?

We all come to belong under different spectrum in different times, but a well balanced man would strive to be good at being such a friend as the above five types and also have such friends contribute things to his life. I think that is in a nutshell how a well balanced social life can bring good things to us. That concluded this blog post.

PS :

http://zenpencils.com/comic/129-marc-maron-the-social-media-generation/

Related reads for this article:‎

http://zenhabits.net/balance/

http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/fomo-and-you/article5185856.ece

http://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World-Talking/dp/0307352153

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/09/26/the-5-types-of-friends-every-man-needs/

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The Hedonic Treadmill – Where running is the same as standing – How to not get stagnated in life and beaten in our own game - How to be happy and how to move on

2013-10-01T17:58:00.002+05:30

That's a huge title.

Wikipedia defines the Hedonic treadmill as such.

“...as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness.”

Now that the topic looks promising, let me tell you a little story.

Five years ago, I had really terrible INTERNET. It was slow, with limited bandwidth. I had to carefully choose the websites I visited to about exceeding my bandwidth. I really wanted a high speed INTERNET.

Then I got into a better plan which gave me an increase in speed. But then Bandwidth was always a problem.

Then I got into a plan which not only increased speed but also gave me unlimited bandwidth within a limited period within a day. But then I had to queue all the videos I wanted to see until this particular period when I got unlimited bandwidth and that was kind of irritating.

The I got into an Unlimited plan. But there was a little compromise on speed. Now I was unlimited bandwidth with the best speed possible. And the wants go on.

It is very important to note that, every time I moved up the ladder, I thought, this is enough. I wont need to better this anymore. Only to find myself wanting more and more until there was nothing more to take.

Kind of feels like the first scene from Fight Club with the IKEA nesting Instinct.

Life starts with balance. Life in this planet is designed for air with a specific composition. You need the exact amount of Nitrogen and Oxygen in the Air for efficient living. Too much oxygen or too little oxygen is harmful for life in the planet.

A lot of things need balance. You need two legs of the same size to walk. Blah Blah. Balance is undeniably essential. Shifting of balance requires force to maintain the balance in the place. That force which we might have to give if we shift from our balance point, causes unnecessary (negative) stress in our life.

Positive stress always helps us come up in life. Negative does the opposite.

Let's take something which everyone knows as a common example. Habit.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book, “The tipping point” uses thresholds to explain “the tipping point”. The point when something tips thus making a difference or a change.

When you continuously do something for 21 days, it becomes a habit. 21 days is the threshold for the tipping point. It can be anything; to stop smoking, start jogging, maintaining diet, exercising etc. But this threshold can be different for different individuals. For some the tipping point may be in a week to get a habit anchored, for some may be a month. Th idea of living is to identify these tipping points within yourself and engineer life accordingly, instead of falling prey to statistics. Like in the iphone ad, rules of physics are only general guidelines.

The idea of 21 days habit can be a positive and a negative threshold. If you do something which hurts yourself, it is negative threshold and you should know the tipping point and stop doing it before you reach that point.

If you do something which helps you, it is a positive threshold scenario and you should thus know the tipping point and keep doing whatever it is until you reach that tipping point.

Know thyself. That is not a bad idea, after all.

What's interesting is, when we face negative threshold and realize it, Gratitude for life really kicks in. You sit in your home wondering what advanced smartphone you can buy next and then suddenly, when the news channels announce that a flood is going to strike your house, you begin to think of what you already have and how to protect them.

That is why I've always noticed that people who have faced heart aches, hard ships and come out of their problems successfully are more mature, content, strong and stable in their lives. We all gravitate towards such personalities. The advantage is, after reading this blog post, you now know that you don't need a hard ship to teach you what you already know. But undoubtedly life is the best teacher I've ever seen. It'll be always that way.

The final element of happy living is to identify your thresholds of pain and pleasure and choose consciously a life. A life in which the treadmill stops and you move.

Why Bookmarks are not to be used in books - The staggering science between the dumbest of things we do

2013-09-10T21:30:00.000+05:30

There are two ways of reading a book.

One is to read it whenever you get time. Fiction or Non fictional Stories are mostly read like this.

Number two, is when we select a topic to read and finish it off in that particular sitting. This is like splitting the book into readable sized articles and completing the articles in one sitting.

Technical/Philosophical/Informative books can only be read in this way. You cannot read half the article one day and the rest on the next day. Come on! Of course you can, but there wouldn’t be proper information flow and you won’t be able to have a bird’s eye view of the information contained in the book.

We've all used them.

Bookmarks.

They can be a piece of paper or a thread of cloth that comes with the book, or the silly paper bookmarks that are inside the books when you buy them.

*Now, by bookmarks I mean, the bookmarks in a physical book; nothing digital. *

Now imagine yourself in a new country. You would find it awfully difficult to navigate to a place without GPS or instructions. But once you’ve gotten familiar with things in the country, it is easier for you to navigate without the GPS. Maybe you’ll take shortcuts, which the GPS can never guide you with. That makes you slowly to stop using GPS and use the information in your head to travel instead.

So, what changed within you that you stopped using GPS?

You have obtained knowledge, a bird’s eye view of the setting of the place, which guides you effortlessly, much better than any GPS can.

Bookmarks are like these GPS trackers which help us to locate a page in a book, to continue reading the book in the future from the place you left it off.

But bookmarks also prevent us from fully experiencing and getting a bird’s eye view of the book. Over a period you are going to be familiar with the book even with the bookmarks, but no one is going to read the book that long, to let longevity turn to familiarity.

Ahem. Ahem. Crickets.

Bookmarks are OK with novels, but bookmarks are extremely counterproductive when used to read an informative book. Absence of bookmarks will make sure that you know what chapters are there in the book, the exact concept you read before closing the book, and will also remind you with exactly what you are going to read the next time you open the book.

Hey, that’s my style. I might be wrong; or this tip might enlighten you for good. Do what you gotta do man.

Fx File Explorer – The best Android File Manager Yet – Browse like Windows and Linux

2013-09-10T21:25:00.000+05:30

I never thought I would be writing a review for an application in android. But this one was so beautiful and elegant, that I felt compelled to write one.

I have always craved for a file manager in Android that lets me treat my mobile device, not so mobile.

The mobile methodology of file browsing through trees or lists was not effective in managing files effectively. I found it cumbersome to use and tried my best to avoid file browsing in the phone.

Why can’t Android have a traditional file manager like Windows Explorer, or like Linux file managers (Thunar, Nautilus, Nemo etc.), which would make file browsing a lot easier on a mobile device?

And thus came FX file explorer, on a search in Google Play.

Boy was I happy.

Traditional window management, zoom in and zoom out of icons to make them bigger or smaller, built in text editor, bookmarks at the top, search bar for instant file search, script runner and root file browser, were all the things that made this application so intuitive and useful.

They even have made the root access plug-in free, and there are no ads. The file manager is free with root browsing capabilities. Apparently, you’ll have to buy the network plug-ins to use network services in the file manager (at the time of this post, network management plug-in costs 169.14 INR).

Hey, thought I’d let all the android users know. Enjoy!

Google Play Link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nextapp.fx&hl=en

The jamesbondian lifestyle

2013-08-31T22:02:00.000+05:30

It's been a while, since I've been active in here. Today, I am all in for a quick question.

What comes to your mind when you think of James bond?

Wait. Don't answer. Just imagine him. The way he moves, the mannerisms, the vocabulary, the body language.

Now answer my question.

What comes to your mind?

Cuddly women.
Costly cars.
Champagne.
Rolex.
Tuxedo
Martini
Luxury
Lifestyle.

James bond is one of the perfect identity for a role model considering a lifestyle choice.

But what exactly is his lifestyle?

Driving 10 second cars?

Sleeping with as much women as possible?

Amongst the seriously distracting by-products of his lifestyle, it is very hard to determine the core of his lifestyle choices.

But I find that he has two specific lifestyle philosophies which get him the jamesbondian life.

Choice #1

He is sophisticated.

The scene on casino royale, where he orders up a very specific method of preparation for his drink, shows this attitude. It is so contagious, that the other guys decide to try his drink as well.

But sophistication is not the actual choice I am talking about.

It is about direction. About know what one wants in life.

James knows what he wants. And he knows what he doesn't want.

Choice #2

James gets shit done.

He knows what he wants and goes after it.

He doesn't wait for things to fall in his hand. He doesn't wait until he is familiar with a woman to approach her.

He gets shit done. Period.

I am typing this article in my android in Xplore's text editor. Not much of a serious word processor, but gets shit done.

That's jamesbondian. I know I am cool. You get my point.

All the accessories, cars and women are by-products of his lifestyle.

When we chase these byproducts, instead of the lifestyle, we get into a state called the life style obsession. Oooooh. That was off guard.

Well, I told you it would be a quickie.

PS: Daniel Craig is the best James ever!!!!