Friday, August 26, 2011

Costa Rhu. Nice View from Suntec City Tower-2

Great view. Shows why Singapore is called 'Garden City'. But sadly this is one among quite few and you'd be privileged to live there by shelling few millions for a 120 Sq.M apartment which is 99 years lease hold.

Taken with an iPhone4, slightly raining outside..

iPhone - Personal Hot Spot Missing

Recently I've got few messages and comments on the Personal Hot spot thingy on iPhone4. Most of them are complaining how the hot spot went missing after the recent iOS upgrade (4.3.3) and calls to SingTel or Starhub are always telling them to reset the device.

First of all, we in Singapore are much "pampered" crowd. Places like US, Europe & AU the option to have "tethering" is a privilage and you'll be paying exorbitant prices (e.g. USD 45 for 4GB/Month). I know some of my friends are not very happy to see SingTel "limited" data bundle which stands at 30GB per month / SGD 15.

Coming to the point, the personal hot spot works on something called "tethering".
There are two different situations where the PHS end up missing.

1.First time usage (just go to settings and enable it)

2. When you change some of the carrier settings or network settings or APN settings
Solution is simple and simply reset the network settings.

Now let me explain why you need to reset. This is a standard defined in 3GPP and whenever the phone communicates to the network, they both try to agree on this option. So when you change the carrier settings/APN settings, the phone tries to get the information from operator network. However this is not really 'authorized' but we'll still do and when the phone tries to get the details from operator network, it ends up disabling the hot spot.

A reset will change the APN back to "e-ideas" with all default settings and Hot spot is back :)

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Aarakshan - Good concept, improvement needed on screenplay/execution.

Managed to catch Aarakshan. I wouldn't say this is a perfect film, but Mr.Jha managed to deliver a decent picture. Amitabh, no need to comment on his acting skills. Saif is great and Deepika is OK.

The problem of yogyata vs aarakshan or Merit vs Reservation is such that it affects both parties. Personally I am against to it as long as its based on your religion or caste. I fully support if it's for physically challenged or ex-servicemen. Based on financial status is good too but as long as it's based on caste, religion we are not going to overcome the problem.

The movie is banned in Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh & Punjab for reasons known to the leaders there. But if you are living in rest of India or overseas I'd recommend spending couple of hours..

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJBR0LLX0d0 

Monday, August 8, 2011

Working in office is bad for your brain..

Source: Today

LONDON - Working in an office is bad for your brain, according to a study that found that the hustle and bustle of modern offices can reduce productivity by 15 per cent and lead to a 32 per cent drop in the worker's well-being.

LoL.. +1 for Officespace. Seriously I was a victim for the so called 'open office/concept plan'. People are people and we can't really remove the noise and other distractions from the open place. I'm not recommending that we all should be confined to small rooms with sound proof doors but what I prefer strongly is 'telecommute' or work from home. My current company strongly pushes for it so its a win-win for me and I can manage my time much better.

Hope the traditional companies try to be more flexible :)

Sunday, August 7, 2011

CWG or Commonwealth Games data network cost - USD 130 million.

Source: TOI

How much a data network that can deliver video & data for a regional sporting event? Apparently, Indian officials paid 130 million for a data network.

* MTNL (government telecom player)  placed the bid at $130 million or Rs. 570.12 crores.
* Bharti Airtel (largest private player) offered for ~ $2.1million or Rs.10 crores.

But the officials awarded the contract to MTNL and MTNL sub contracted to HCL Infosystems at Rs.380.04 crore. So MTNL simply pocketed a neat ~200 crores just by bidding for the contract. I guess 99% went to the pockets of officials and ministers there.

HCL Infosystems used Cisco equipment and CBI wants to probe Cisco Systems in the future. I don't think this is by any way affects Cisco, as Cisco only works with Partners (which in this case HCL) and typically try to be 'risk free'.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Fiber to home. Best part is not download but "Upload"

I've changed to Fiber services recently. To be honest, I am one of the lucky person to have Fiber to my home last year but the high prices stopped me from even thinking about fiber. Also the trusted DSL was working pretty fine except problems with Video calls during peak hours and occasional issues with uploading disconnects.

I tend to do a lot of video calls but recently I stopped due to the bad experience. If you happen to see Cisco Tele presence, then you know what I mean by 'quality'. Ofcourse I am not a great fan of their service UMI but I love the T.P.

Coming back to the point, recently I opted for a 'cheap' fiber plan at 29/mo and they promised me 50Mbps DL/UL. I subscribed because it's cheap and hoping that atleast I can get 2Mbps DL/UL during peak hours which is fine to meet my needs. To my surprise the speeds are much better and I can do pretty decent video calls with US, Japan, India & UK. It's cool.

You can see the curve and agree at times the speed dropped below 5Mbps but most of the time its consistent and hovers above 20Mbps with occasional spikes of 60/70Mbps. Great job M1. Thanks for this new experience and you've got a new loyal customer ;)


Google SMS, Singapore not supported yet..

Source: Google/Gmail SMS

Wondering why Singapore/India not added to the list. I see philippines in the list and infact I've tried it during last week when I was there for a biz trip. Seems pretty good and saved few $ on roaming charges. When I need to contact the local parties, just send a sms from gmail :)

Wish to see it in Singapore. Though the internet SMS from SingTel (here), StarHub (here), & M1 (here) I prefer Gmail as I don't have to worry about which operator the number belongs to. Oh yeah, the above links works only if the destination number is their own. i.e. you can login to singtel website and send to SingTel mobile subscriber but not to starhub or m1.

5-Pack Premium Reusable LCD Screen Protector with Lint Cleaning Cloth for Apple iPhone 3G 8GB 16GB [Accessory Export Packaging]

Google SMS, Singapore not supported yet..

Source: Google/Gmail SMS

Wondering why Singapore/India not added to the list. I see philippines in the list and infact I've tried it during last week when I was there for a biz trip. Seems pretty good and saved few $ on roaming charges. When I need to contact the local parties, just send a sms from gmail :)

Wish to see it in Singapore. Though the internet SMS from SingTel (here), StarHub (here), & M1 (here) I prefer Gmail as I don't have to worry about which operator the number belongs to. Oh yeah, the above links works only if the destination number is their own. i.e. you can login to singtel website and send to SingTel mobile subscriber but not to starhub or m1.