Sourabh’s blog

My dad is just too good. He doesn’t need much of a reason to get any service or gadget (which he likes). So all of them come without a confirmation from anybody. Be it for World Space Satellite Radio, Home Theatre Systems or Dish TV. Just a day long bandh from Cable Operators in Mumbai was good enough for him to order Dish TV. Not that I do not like it but sometimes it gets annoying when he lands up with a not-so-good thing.

But well – considering we never payed our cable operators for the connection since eternity, dish tv could very well be worth it. Especially at times when cable network is down. I am eager to check out the quality of video and sound on it.

Say what ever you want about Microsoft for their OS called Windows and other products like their mail service. I curse them for it too more often that not. Microsoft must have enjoyed a lot of criticism for these products over ages. They come up with new updates and security flaw patches every second Tuesday of each month, but during all this while they have always had one of their products remarkably different. It has always been the best and served the purpose it is intended for. Tough to get any obvious, has to be Microsoft Office. My earliest memories of an office suite go a little less than a decade ago – using MS Office 97 on Windows 98.

Back to present, Microsoft Office 2007 – currently beta. I tried out the Beta release provided exclusively by Digit this month in their August DVD. Installation was completed even before I realized that the Setup was running. Just a couple of mouse clicks and the office suite was ready out of the box. Good work! The new looks of Office is really sexy and has given a lot of importance to ergonomics. The feel and layout is completed revamped. A whole set of features have been minutely fine-tuned and glorified for aesthetic and efficient productivity.

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There is no fun in being alive till the wee hours of the morning and having no one in your messenger list to interact with. Luckily, I never had any difficulties to have friends to resort to and have a nice chat. Last night was a similar one. Anuj had dragged his deadline to get back to work in Gurgaon by another day. For those who are not aware, he is a big philsopher – his blog proves it! What we talked turned out to be real valuable stuff – typical philosophic material! Enough of the backdrop, have a look at it yourself. From what is life and how to live it talks, to what engineering is all about.

It has been three days since I have been having a good fortune of enjoying a broadband internet connection. There has been literally no full fledged downloading.

I am just happy to get back to the internet full-time on a 24×7 connection and just surf! You-tube, Stumble Upon, websites, forums, blogs – you name it. There have been times in these three days that I have actually forgotten where I am and what I am doing – but what the heck! This is some serious fun.

Moreover, I have helped more people in these days than I ever have in the last few years. I dont have a clue how I am doing this. Right now, I am prepping up a project for a friend! I would have never even completed my own things in time before.

I have clicked atleast over 50 google/yahoo and other ads on webpages that I have liked in the past few days. I guess I am just passing some goodwill, may be not. But that doesnt change the fact – I am on a roll! lol… literally

Asus India had organized a laptop service camp for all brands of laptop in Mumbai for 2 days. I wanted to get some things sorted out in my laptop, so I decided to check out the Asus Service. I finally got some company at the last minute to make a trip all the way to Andheri on a lazy Sunday morning.

The Service Center was a well-furnished place with nice aesthetics, appealing environment and a polite staff. It was completely in contrast to that of Acer’s. The Receptionist was kind enough to ask me for some beverages, after I filled up the guest book. As luck may have it, not many people had turned up for the service. I had my ticket to a session with the engineer within no time. It didn’t take me long to explain him the issues with my laptop. Next up, I was handed over a small feedback form to be filled up while the issues were rectified.

The lobby had a sleek 19” widescreen LCD display powered by an ASUS Small Form Factor PC, which looked quite cool on the counter. When I made my way in there, I caught the last 15 minutes of the movie ‘The Day After Tomorrow’. Just when I was done with the feedback form, I was informed that my laptop had been taken care of. I was shocked to see everything done in less than 30 minutes:
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When you buy things that you do not really need, you need to have an ingenious brain. I was crazy enough in the first place to get a Notebook Cooler for my laptop. After being cool using it and making my laptop receive that extra cooling which it really did not need, I soon realized it was undiluted non-sense. I couldn’t just trash it and had it on my desk – just lying in there for days.

Out of nowhere, a thought clicked to have its outlet blow air on the AC adaptor of the laptop. Honestly speaking, the adaptor was the only component of the laptop that really used to heat up and I mean REALLY like bread straight out of the oven. The original Acer adaptor had blown up once in the past, I was extra careful with it. I had cut down my continuous laptop runtimes for the same. Hell, I even used to give the adaptor a 10 min rest by utilizing the last bit of the laptop batteries and then switching on the main supply.

Surprisingly, using the Notebook Cooler for cooling the Adaptor worked out well. Now even after 8-10 hours of continuous usage, it doesn’t turn too hot to raise any fears for me. So, the whole thing turned out to be actually working pretty well. Nice.

How does an AC Adapter Cooler sound? Yes, I think the same – Stupid. Well, who knows someone might have it patented too! I hope no ones listening

PS: Makes me wonderm what is right – adapter or adaptor?. I guess both must be right- have seen both of them being used. Too sleepy to do any google on this!

I had been working for a while with LaptopLogic in my spare time. A couple of months have passed since I first started, and I must admit it has been an interesting experience. I was completely unaware what online publishing was all about and how professional things could go.

One of my first works with them involved etching out a TV tuner guide for the laptops. I have always tweaked and fiddled with TV tuners from the day I got my first PC for my own use some years back. I couldn’t have thought of a better topic for my first guide at LaptopLogic. Pinnacle India was kind enough to provide the Pinnacle PCTV100e for the review and the guide in general. But as things turned out, due to some reasons the guide could only be published last night. You can have a look at it here.

However, it is not my first guide/review, but I really like how it really shaped up well, with inputs from Thai and Dan from the team. There is this immense satisfaction after going through with the different sections on the guide, which made me scribble this down

I am just running out of things to do in my spare time. Only a few things to cheer about is the fact that Lost and Prison Break would soon be on air again. It is something that I am looking forward to. I find these shows pretty interesting.

I am more anxious about Prison Break rather than Lost. I think it has more to do with the fact that Prison Break would resume in it’s Season two in a little over three weeks time. Lost Season 3 is yet a long way away – more than 2 long months. I just cant wait for them to resume back.

This time around I would be saved from the burden of downloading these shows myself. Within the last few months, I have given the Lost and Prison Break chaska to a few of my friends. I have literally watched the entire seasons again in the last few weeks. Well, almost. I hope they stick to their words, and I dont have to download the new episodes. I can channelize my bandwidth to something else.

Finally, Lost Season 2 would be aired from August on Star Movies. Its really sad to see that the second season is broadcasted so late in India. Not to mention, even the entire season one has enjoyed a complete re-run on Star World. Better late than never. All those who havent checked out Lost’s second season, here is your chance. Season 2 has a lot more in store and personally I found it more interesting than the first installment. The finale of the same is just awesome. Unarguably, the best 90 minutes of the show so far. Dont miss it.

There is no confirmation for the Season 2 dates from Indya.com and the promos only suggested an August start.

The Season 3 will begin in less than three months time, starting from 4th of October. Lost Season 3 is gonna bid adieu to the reruns. The whole season would be aired in two parts – an initial six episodes combo with a second run of seventeen consecutive episodes beginning in February 2007. Eagerly looking forward to it. Cant wait!

Finally gathered all my courage to go in for a BIOS update for my laptop. Stupid Acer’s default BIOS didnt have any options for allocating more than 64MB for video memory. This issue shouldnt have been there in the first place, because they marketed their laptop saying max 128MB of shared video memory.

The BIOS files were extinct on all the Acer websites worldwide. The one which had the BIOS, didnt have any mention whether it supports the different variants of the series. But almost after 2 months when I got hold of the BIOS, curiosity got the best of me and i was itching to flash the bios. Without fearing the consequences, went ahead with the BIOS upgrade and it went smoothly. No issues whatsoever.

Looking at the bright side, I can now try out Windows Vista Beta 2 minus the Aero on my laptop. Well, something is always better than nothing. I had been eyeing on the same for a long time, but now its time to actually do it.

While I hit the Publish button for this post, I am making a 15GB room for the next Windows edition install and persuading a friend to download the Beta 2 iso.