How to restore deleted msgs on iPhone:
Is Sushma Swaraj guilty of anything?
Government Notice
Funny forward that was mailed to me:
Government Notice
Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown in the economy, the Government has decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 50 years of age and above on early, mandatory retirement, thus creating jobs and reducing unemployment.
This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).
Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to the government to be considered for the SHAFT program (Special Help After Forced Termination).
Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the SCREW program (System Covering Retired-Early Workers).
A person may be RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as the government deems appropriate.
Persons who have been RAPED could get AIDS (Additional Income for Dependents & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel Early Severance).
Obviously persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not be SHAFTED or SCREWED any further by the government.
Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on will receive as much SHIT (Special High Intensity Training) as possible. The government has always prided themselves on the amount of SHIT they give our citizens.
Should you feel that you do not receive enough SHIT, please bring this to the attention of your local Member of Parliament who has been trained to give you all the SHIT you can handle.
Sincerely,
The Committee for Economic Value of Individual Lives (E.V.I.L.)
Recommended Twitter handles
I know there are millions of twitter handles and I may have missed out on lot of great ones! However, based on my personal experience, here are a few good recommendations
|
Category |
Handle |
Remarks |
|
Fun |
@FakeJourno |
The name says it all |
|
Fun |
@FirstWorldPains |
“Spreading awareness towards our devastating pains…” |
|
Fun |
@OMGFacts |
Some amazing facts that most of us didn’t know about |
|
Fun |
@Laugh_Riot |
Really funny handle |
|
Fun |
@stinsonsays |
Parody account of Barney Stinson from HIMYM |
|
Informative / Media Expose /Jouros, etc. |
@KanchanGupta |
One of the few sensible journos that I have come across on twitter |
|
Informative / Media Expose /Jouros, etc. |
@ManojKureel |
Great Cartoonist! |
|
Informative / Media Expose /Jouros, etc. |
@mediacrooks |
Get the true picture of Indian media – crooks and liars in the Indian media stand exposed by him |
|
Informative / Media Expose /Jouros, etc. |
@PagalikaG |
Spoof account of the Sagarika Ghose |
|
Informative / Media Expose /Jouros, etc. |
@SachinKalbag |
One of the few sensible journos that I have come across on twitter |
|
Legal |
@Spread_Law |
For legal awareness |
|
Legal |
@LegallyIndia |
Twitter handle of http://www.legallyindia.com |
@mediacrooks is a superb handle and I highly suggest that you should follow him. He is really good at exposing our media “divas” and journos who have forgotten journalism and are just brokers / agents of the Government! #RadiaTapes
If you have any further recommendations, do contribute.
Stamp duty on Development Agreement (area sharing) (Maharashtra)
In case of a development agreement between a developer and the owner of the land wherein certain area is to be handed over to the owner, stamp duty will be payable on the cost of construction of the premises of the owner.
iPhone 5 or Samsung S3
Whether to go for iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S3
Many mobile users have the same question as to which of the above phone is better… Having used both the phones, I feel iPhone 5 is a better phone as compared to S3.
Advantages of iPhone 5 over Samsung Galaxy S3:
- Network reception;
- Battery life;
- Display;
- Ability to use the phone with one hand;
- iTunes is much better than Kies;
- Better body;
- iOS6 (excluding the map part)
- Airplay (since I already have an AppleTV, this is an advantage for me. For those who don’t use AppleTV, this point can be ignored)
Advantages of Samsung Galaxy S3 over iPhone 5:
- Expandable memory;
- Motion;
- Ability to use the phone as a USB drive and copy paste music, videos, etc;
- Less expensive;
- Maps
Call drops and horrible battery life were the major concerns due to which I switched over to iPhone 5 from Samsung Galaxy S3. After testing both the phones at same location, Galaxy dropped the call several times whereas iPhone didn’t drop a single call! Plus the voice clarity was much better.
Regarding battery life, with same apps being open, similar usage of the phone, S3 was struggling at 1% while iphone still had a 27% battery life remaining. I don’t know how apple has achieved this inspite of having a lesser capacity battery.
After having used both the phones, I am pretty sure that most of the people will come to a similar conclusion. Having said that, before you buy any of the phone, try using it for a bit to get the feel. iPhone 4 or iPhone 4s users will surely prefer iOS over Android.
You can check a detailed comparison over here. I however, have a different view of lot of things mentioned there.
Other reads:
Last thing – Don’t go only by specs of the phones since Apple with lesser powerful hardware performs way better than competition with better hardware.
Reliance Broadnet services in Pune – Pathetic
If you are wondering whether to opt for Reliance broadband services in Pune, please reconsider your decision… for after getting the broadband connection from Reliance, you would wish you are better off without any internet!!! So save all that hard-earned money and opt for some other service – even if it is a YOU broadband or Tikona or internet access by your cable operator.
I feel pity for myself since I cannot opt for any other service provider since Reliance seems to have some “tie up” with my society and no other service provider is allowed here… yes inspite of being in “lungs” of the city, I can’t have an internet connection of my choice – not even the omnipresent BSNL, not to mention Tata Wired broadband or Airtel.
Here are few good things and bad things about a Reliance broadband connection:
1. Frequent disconnections:
If you want to work on a document in real time or download a huge file (without a download manager or torrent) or update your computer or play online games…. well, don’t even think of doing that with a Reliance Broadband service. I loose my internet connection every few minutes and if I am really lucky, it will work for a few hours with sometimes pages refusing to load.
I have checked my connection with my Netgear modem, reliance ZTE modem, but everything fails.
So best way to utilize your reliance broadband connection is to use torrents or download managers since they can save you the hassle of downloading the same file many times. But don’t rely too much on torrents for Reliance is prone to blocking torrents every now and then… remember to randomize your ports, if that helps at all.
2. Customer care:
If you thought your mobile / landline is not being used too much, try connecting to reliance customer care. With their waiting time, you would even consider BSNL as a blessing. I have used Tata Wimax service in the past in Mumbai and I believe they have the best customer support. I really doubt the efficiency and skills of Reliance broadband customer care.
3. Billing:
Atleast this is one thing that Reliance gets it right. Since I am on an unlimited plan, I receive the bill as promised to me.
4. Speed:
Once you are lucky enough to get connected, Reliance speed is something as promised. I don’t want to criticize them here for they promised me 1Mbps in day and 1.5Mbps in night and I DO get that speed. However, that is “if” you can connect and your connection is stable.
So make wise decision and stay away from Reliance.
Outlook.com – superb
The first email account for most of us
hotmail.com has been revamped big time and the new avtaar is now outlook.com. it feels actually much better and cleaner than Gmail.
With skydrive, ability to create online docs, Microsoft seems keen on taking on google by offering all that gmail offers and more.
Facebook, wordpress, twitter connectivity enhances the user experience. I have started using it and will update this post with my experiences.
Macbook pro 13.3″ review (late 2011)
After using the Macbook Pro 13.3” (MBP) for over a month now, I would like to share some of my experiences with MBP and the Lion OS. Do let me know if you would like me to add some more points as well.
I have also commented on the software that I use on the MBP.
Specifications:
• Display: 13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display;
• Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory;
• HDD: 500GB HDD;
• Network: Wi-Fi (based on IEEE 802.11n specification); Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR; 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit) Ethernet
• Optical Drive: 8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• Ports: One Thunderbolt port, one FireWire 800 port, two USB 2.0 ports, SDXC card slot;
• Processor: 2.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with 3MB shared L3 cache;
• Ram: 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 memory;
• Sound: Stereo speakers with subwoofer, omnidirectional microphone, combined headphone / line in;
• Video: FaceTime HD camera; Thunderbolt port with support for DVI, VGA, dual-link DVI and HDMI (requires adapters);
Usage: I mainly use my MBP for office work, emails, web-browsing, syncing my iPhone and watching movies. The MBP was never meant for hardcore gaming for me and since I have a desktop with decent configuration, I have never tried playing hardcore games on the MBP.
Pros:
1. Battery life: Battery life is around 6-7 hours while working on word documents, checking emails and doing other non processor intensive work. I use the laptop to play online games like mafia wars where the battery life comes down to say about 4 hours (my vaio couldn’t cross even 1.5 hours with online gaming);
2. Build quality: The aluminium unibody is great though it is sharp at some places. The glowing apple logo looks great though I wish I had the option to turn if off to save battery, if required.
3. CD Drive: The slot drive works perfectly well and have not faced any issues till date. It reads well from scratched DVDs which normally tends to hang my Windows 7 PC.
4. Crashes: Haven’t got my MBP to crash in about a month’s time though the apps like App store, iChat, Facetime make me restart it at times.
5. Display quality: The display is neat and great and I have no complaints about it. The screen looks good even in a bright room. The brightness control buttons are provided on the keypad. The display is good in a bright room as well.
6. iCloud: I backup my iPhone on iCloud and I had my contact details on my MBP in no time once I logged in my iCloud account;
7. Inbuilt camera: The quality is decent for skype / gtalk sessions. The quality suffers big time in dark rooms;
8. Keypad: The backlit keyboard is superb. The buttons to dim / brighten the backlight are very useful. It will take a little time to get used to the “command”, “option”, “fn” keys.
9. Looks: There may be many who don’t like the looks of MBP but I definitely love the looks of MBP. The battery indicator on the left side of the MBP indicates the battery status when in sleep mode (You need to press the round button to know the battery status) – another useful utility.
10. MS Office: The MS Office interface on the Mac is much better than the Windows version.
11. Networking: Networking is as easy as pressing Command + K key and entering the name of the computer you want to connect to. I have been connecting to my Windows 7 HP where all my data / movies / music are stored and have not faced any issue so far. I haven’t tried sharing my MBP files with my Windows PC. So once I try that, I will update the post.
12. Non apple softwares: Most of the softwares that I use have a mac version.. so its easy to migrate – Firefox, Thunderbird, Chrome, Skype, Opera, MS Office to name a few.
13. Sleep: I was shocked to know that there is nothing like hibernation mode in MBP. However, closing the lid puts your MBP to sleep mode. Keeping the MBP in sleep mode overnight will result in around 5% battery loss. Opening the lid immediately brings up the login screen and saves a lot of time compared to booting up the MBP.
14. Speakers: The output is adequate for its size and the music and movies sound good.
15. Speed: The applications start quickly and are responsive. uTorrent sometimes take a little longer than expected to shut down.
16. Spotlight: I absolutely love the way spotlight works and is a very useful tool that Lion OS provides.
17. Trackpad: It is simply superb and awesome and have made my wireless mouse redundant. The swipes, the scrolls are too good and responsive. The go forward and go back swipes works well on the browsers.
Cons:
1. Apple mail: Having used Outlook, Thunderbird and Windows Live mail extensively, nothing beats the Thunderbird. I would rate apple mail below TB and Outlook. Windows live is too buggy for me… so would rate apple mail over it.
2. App Store: Believe it or not, the Apple App Store does not function as well as it does on an iPhone or an iPad. I am just stopping short of calling it useless since most of the times (around 95%) it does not load or does not display the apps… the screen is blank. This is not a one off incident and many users have reported to have this issue. I prefer downloading directly from websites rather than using the App Store.
3. CD/DVD burning: Looks like I am too used to Nero and the inbuilt cd/dvd burning application of Lion OS is no match for Nero. If compared to Windows 7, I would rate Windows 7 higher.
4. iChat: Well Apple got it wrong here.. atleast for Gtalk. it doesn’t work the way it should and you will be logged out of your gmail unannounced and once logged out, logging in is not as easy as a click. To log back in, you need to start the activity manager and kill the “imagent” process and only then you will be able to login. Further, to let unaware members know, iChat does not support iMessage.
5. Facetime: Again don’t compare the iPhone facetime with MBP facetime. Logging in is a pain and you might have to restart to get it right. I heard it is the issue between iChat and Facetime trying to use common resources.
6. iPhoto: iPhoto is a great application though I would prefer picasa for its interface, features and usability. The only aspect which I like about iPhoto is the slideshow option.
7. Lid: The lid seems to be a delicate thing on the otherwise sturdy MBP. It feels a little loose and little nudge moves it more than expected. Again I have seen most of the MBP having loose lids.
8. USB / Pen drives: I think Lion OS wasn’t really tested with pen drives since there are times when lion OS behaves weirdly and you cannot copy – paste stuff on your pen drive. This is extremely annoying since a restart will also not guarantee that it will work. It totally depends on the Lion OS as to whether copy paste on your pen drive will work or not. This also appears to be a known issue with Lion OS. However, while using my portable USB HDD, I have not come across above problem. (no my pen drive is not infected by any virus 
)
Neutral:
1. Boot time: Boot time is decent compared to my Windows 7 Home Premium laptop. It takes around 15-20 secs to boot up.
2. Garage Band: My friends swear by the garage band but since I don’t really know to play musical instruments, I have never tried it.
3. Shutdown: Here I would rate my desktop with Windows 7 Home Premium over MBP since my desktop turns off faster (about 6-7 secs) than the MBP (about 12-15 secs).
4. Screen size: Well this one was a personal choice for me since I wanted to have a compact laptop though it was a pain for me to shift from my 15.5” Sony Vaio Full HD laptop to a 13.3” display.
5. Unused features: Card reader, FireWire 800 port, Thunderbolt.
Last but most important is the “pricing”. I have still not figured out whether the 83.5k spend by me (70k for MBP + 13.5k for protection plan) on MBP is justified or not or whether a “more than decent gaming laptop” with a bigger screen size would have been a better deal. I am staying away from this and let the users decide for themselves.
Recommended accessories:
1. The silicon cover for the keypad;
2. Apple protection plan;
3. Shell cover for the MBP (I haven’t bought this yet but looks like I will have to buy it soon. The price ranges from 1.5k to around 3.8k)
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Akshay Gandhi's Blog 