Sourabh’s blog

The blog is nearing the one year milestone. So has my laptop. It was exactly one year before I had got my laptop after being frustrated from the power fluctuations. I think it was one of my better decisions to use the laptop as a full fledged PC. I dont have any plans to work on a desktop system ever again.

Now that the laptop is one year old, it also means the end of the warranty period. It is surely not a good feeling to own a thing whose repairs can get quite costly if things go wrong. Luckily enough I have not faced any problems so far and managed to avoid any visits to the service center. And I only hope I never have to do that.

Over the year, blogging has been fun. Mostly it has been about the boring things going on in life, sharing things which I found cool and some not so cool, and ranting about things when they go wrong badly. That just sums it up and I wonder where would the blog lead to in the coming year.

While Microsoft has other plans to add more stickers on laptops sold by manufacturers - the addition of the ‘Vista Ready’ label reported by a theinquirer news story some weeks back. Now I have finally got rid of all the stickers on the laptop. It was kinda nice to have the laptop specs and see the bright and shining AMD logo for the first few months. But lately it had all got messy, a part of the Acer sticker had come out. So it made more sense to do away with them.

There is a nice feeling now to see the hand not resting on some stickers while typing.

Before

After

Had this on mind from a long time now, better late than never.

Do not mistake it for some small office networking. Believe it or not it is the networking done in my house to access net from every corner in the home. With more than 3-4 systems simultaneously using the poor old Tata Indicom 64k connection via the router and the hub. Myself, My bro, Office systems all happily extract the last bit from the connection. And when pages start crawling, there is not a better sight in the world than to see those led’s on the hub blinking rapidly.

But still browsing is fun and I continue to be with the same connection.

Whats more amusing is that no one realizes what an assault the poor connection faces. Dad only knows one thing that adding a new lan wire to another room will make the net accesible there if need be. Mom wouldnt miss a chance to carry on with her online share trading viewing TV. People who use it in the Office groundfloor, feel they are using Broadband so they can carry on.

Funny isnt it?

For a long time, I had been thinking of using the default Kubrick theme to get a minimalist feel to the blog. What could have been better than the default Kubrick theme? The default colors combinations of the Kubrick theme were not too appealing for me. So I decided to tweak the colors here and there with my pathetic programming and photoshopping skills. Though the final result after an hour’s of hardwork is not something which I had in mind while making it. But as things turned out, its atleast a dark theme which I had my eye on. I know the colors are pretty messed up at a couple of places and its not that easy on the eyes either.

I would just like to stick with the messed up theme for a while just because its my first try. Please bear with it if you happened to land here!

Check out the new ‘Free Reliance Handset’ Scheme on purchase of Acer laptops. Reminds me of the deals of free mouse-pads with 150 Rs Shipping expenses seen on baazee/ebay.

That would even make the fool realize there is nothing free. Inshort the scheme is for those interested in paying Rs.3600 to get an LG handset, Activation with the cheapest scheme and some free Rconnect usage for 3 months. What could be more funny than paying additional amount to get a datacable to use free hours on Rconnect. I wonder why Acer India wants to further spoil their name with such misleading offers with practically no good for potential buyers.

Check out the pdf file yourself for more info.

http://www.acer.co.in/Ad_Website.pdf

Dell is refusing to give a refund to a customer who believes she was wrongly sold a server.

Kate was asked by her boss to contact Dell to buy two new desktop computers and “something to link them”. Dell sold her two PCs and a PowerEdge server, ironically with only one network card.

Kate realised her mistake because she spoke to a more technically-literate friend (Register reader Chris Morton) who told her she needed a cable to link two computers, not a server. Chris asked Dell to refund Kate because the server was effectively mis-sold. Her company has only two employees.

But Dell refused to give her a refund because the order was made through its business channel.

Late last week Kate got this email from an “EMEA customer relations executive”: “We have followed up internally by checking our records, and have discussed this matter with the sales person concerned.

“It is our understanding that the sales conversation was clear, and full and included a discussion about providing a solution that would allow for system growth in future. The solution proposed therefore seems to have been a reasonable one, and the purchase seemed to be an informed one, so we see no reason to cancel the order.

“We regret that your experience seems not to have been positive, and we respect your right to pursue this matter further.

Our position remains as stated above.”

Source: Y!News

Am I the only one to find it funny than being sorry for the woman. A server to connect 2 systems? Nice scope for expansion. No wonder Dell doesnt sell basic switches.

Luxurious mobile phones, precious notebooks, what’s next? White Lake, a U.K.-based maker of memory products has the answer: deluxe USB memory sticks with gold casing and encrusted with brilliants that cost up to $3500 per unit. The company says that such products will open a new market for the firm.

“This product will open new markets for us. We have sold huge amounts of personalized USB stick with logos over the past year. Our customers used them as a give-away. Some of them asked us for a more exclusive product line. This stick meets their demand, so we expect to sell quite a few of them,” said White Lake owner Rob van Berkom in a statement.

A report over ExtremeTech web-site claims that White Lake announced that it would unveil exclusive USB memory sticks on March 9th, at CeBIT trade show in Hannover, Germany. The sticks will be available in 128MB, 256MB, 512MB and 1024MB flavours.

The USB sticks were designed and hand made by Dutch jeweler Erwin de Vroome. There will be two types of the luxurious USB sticks available: made of gold and with diamonds for the price of $3500 (€2950) and fabricated with 18 carat gold, but without diamonds for $2800 (€2400). The products may be improved further with engravings.

Source: Xbitlabs

Insane is the only word which comes to my mind. But then again there would be people buying just about anything. $2800 pricetag for a gold plated usb stick!

If you were wondering whats the correlation, Shahrukh Khan is the new brand ambassador for Compaq. I just wonder how much can the Shahrukh Khan’s publicity help in driving people to buy a IT product like laptop whose main targets are Corporates and soho. What everyone wants is better prices and good support. Lets see how Compaq sells in King Khan’s name.

Ever seen so many graphic cards together? Not me for sure! These pics of 38 graphic cards are from an eBay Australia auction. So if someone is interested you can strike a deal here. Hurry up if you are serious, not much time remaining. Got this link while checking out the Techenclave forums.

Couldnt think of a more appropriate word than Insane for the title. Insane for the simple fact of taking a pic of so many cards together where most people crave for one.

I am running so short of space in my notebook hard disk that my flash-drive based 1 gig mp3 player has more free space than the total combined free space on my hard disc. Looks like I need an upgrade to a DVD writer or probably a bigger/external hdd.

All the future upgrades on hold till the warranty on laptop expires in April.