NEFT Transaction Fee from 01-Apr-2009

Have you used NEFT online? While RBI has waived the processing charges till March 31, 2009. With a view to rationalize the service charges levied by banks for offering various electronic products, a broad framework has been mandated as under: –

a) Inward transactions – Free, no charge to be levied
b) Outward transactions –
Upto Rs. 1 lakh - not exceeding Rs.5 per transaction.
Rs. 1 lakh and above – not exceeding Rs. 25 per transaction.

National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system is a nation wide funds transfer system in India, to facilitate transfer of funds from any bank branch to any other bank branch.

Source: NEFT FAQ Page on RBI Website

Welcome 2009

Wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2009 :-)

What an Idea!

Hi I am Abhishek Bachchan. Your current service provider "Spice Telecom" will soon become "IDEA".

This message is being played when we call Spice Customer Care. IDEA is taking over Spice Telecom. This may be a good news to existing Spice Customers. As per customer support, there will be no changes in Plan Rates for existing customers. IDEA network will provide more stable connection for all its customers. This deal has been in news since Jun 2008.

Did you know, we have a 'Right to not vote'?

AS PER the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1969 Act, in Section 49-O that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked, and convey to the presiding election officer that he/she doesn’t want to vote for anyone! Yes, such a feature is available, but obviously these seemingly notorious leaders have never disclosed it. It is called "49-O".

49-O: The voter (or elector) deciding not to vote:

If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark.

If you think none of the candidates at the ward / constituency are able enough to lead the community, you can always opt not to vote, but if you will use this right of yours you may start a new things in our electoral process, which will further strengthen our democracy.

It is useful in the following way:

In a ward or constituency, if a candidate wins, say by ’x’ votes, and that particular ward has received "49-O" votes more than x, then that polling will be cancelled and will have to be re-polled.

Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-polling, since people have already expressed their decision on them. This would bring fear into parties and hence look for genuine candidates for their parties for election. This would change the way of our whole political system. It is seemingly surprising why the election commission has not revealed such a feature to the public.

Please spread the word about this and make our fellow countrymen aware of this right. No political party (or conventional media) would campaign for it. It’s yours and my duty. So, let’s go ahead from today!

Mouse turns 40 years

The well-known computer mouse will complete its 40 years of journey on this 9th of Dec-2008. The first known publication of the term "mouse" as a pointing device is in Bill English's 1965 publication "Computer-Aided Display Control".

On December 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962. The public presentation was a session in the of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about 1,000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface.

Since the age of Windows operating system (and also Mac OS), the mouse has become part of computer. The technology era is further making developments with Touch Screen technologies, which may turn the mouse into a history!

Picture on top: The first computer mouse, held by inventor Douglas Engelbart, showing the wheels that make contact with the working surface.

Picture on bottom: Current computer mouse (my brand continues to be Logitech!)

Links:

- BBC News - Logitech says its factory in Suzhou, in western China, has produced the firm's billionth computer mouse.

- The First Mouse Demo.

Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device

While trying to safely remove USB Mass Storage Device, I am getting following error message in Vista Ultimate:

Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device
Windows can't stop your 'Generic volume' device because it is in use. Close any programs or windows that might be using the device, and then try again later.

Screenshot of same error:



I closed all Open programs, but the error still exists! How do I identify which process is using the USB drive?

Hope I get a solution soon. Keep watching this space....

If you are aware of this problem and solution, then please leave a comment for me here.

BSNHell hit me again!

Yes!!! my BSNL Broadband and Phone was not functioning for 9 days. This became a big project for me.

5 days - followup on phone - None of the BSNL team was able to answer my phone.

2 days - Physical followup - Visit BSNL Office and sit on the head of the concern person. Even reach out the Area Manager to escalate the problem

2 days - Actual time to find the problem and provide me the fix.

There was a problem in cable from the Pole to my House, which was fixed today. Hats off to the BSNHell Customer Support. Hoping to get a Rebate of 9 days in my next bill.

Meanwhile, during the BSNHell period, I tried something new. My spice mobile phone provided me Internet Access through GPRS for Rs.24/day. More experiences on my GPRS internet access in my next post...

Wishing all of you a Belated Happy Diwali 2008 :-)

GTalk - Unable to Send Files

Recently, while trying to Send Files using GTalk, I received the following Error Message: "You cannot send files because User Name is using chat in Gmail or is using another chat program".

Below screenshot is after fixing the Send Files problem with Sanal Kumar. You can make out the same using the disabled color Send Files button in the fore-ground window.

Google search revealed similar problems being reported, but without any results. Some of the links, directed to the Official Google Help which mentioned that "Voice calls and file transfers are only available between users signed in to the Google Talk client."

In my case, what surpised is that I was not able to sent files to my friend Sanal, whereas he was able to send the files to me without any problem. He hinted me that he was using the chat earlier from Gmail browser and later he switched on GTalk client. This hinted us to try relogging into GTalk. Sanal closed GMail chat and also GTalk client and relogged-in to GTalk client. We tried the Send Files, but there was no success. We even suspected that this might be some issue with Firewall, but there was no such information on Google Help website.

Now, the only last option was for me to close GTalk and restart. Surprising, this helped resolving the problem! Isn't it really strange that even though I didn't use Gmail chat, but my initial chat session with Sanal was created using his GMail chat. Hence, I had to restart my GTalk client once again!!! Hope someone from GTalk team would see this post and write some justification comments.

Big Bazaar Store Locations

The other day I was trying to search for Location of Big Bazaar Stores in India, but could not find straight forward website which had official list of all stores. After sometime, I realized that I forgot to see the Store Locator link on the Pantaloon Website.

If you are looking for the store address, please visit http://www.pantaloon.com/ and click on the "Find a Store" link on the top right hand side of the website. Here, you can choose the store as "Big Bazaar" and then select the City you are looking for. Hope this helps internet users to locate the store easily.

The direct URL of Store Locator is : http://www.pantaloon.com/storelocator-all.asp

Wishin you all a Happy Shopping! :-)

AirTel DTH Website

Here's the link to AirTel DTH website for now. You can check the Packages here. This website is still under beta and you may expect some errors on it. This site may open officially on 09-Oct-2008. To simplify, AirTel may link it with http://www.airteldth.in/. Lets wait for the surprise!

Update on 11-Oct-2008: Here's the official website - http://airtel.in/digitaltv

Microsoft Product Lifecycle

When is the support for Visual Basic 6.0 ending? Till when Windows XP Service Pack 2 will be supported by Microsoft? When is Internet Explorer 6.0 era ending? Do you have such questions on any Microsoft Product. Then, the below URL is the answer for all your questions.

Microsoft Product Lifecycle Search

You can search for any Microsoft Product support end date here. A very usefull link when arriving at the Product Versions for your customer. Just bookmark this for future reference.

Google Chrome caught as a Trojan Horse

Today while navigating through my Windows Explorer folders, I navigated the folder containing the ChromeSetup.exe file. Suddenly my aVast anti-virus program detected it as a Trojan ( "Win32.Midgare" ). I immediately captured its screenshot and posting it here for future reference.




Although it has not created any harm to my PC, but still I am curious to know why aVast detected it as a Trojan! Have anyone found similar problem?

Bharti Airtel DTH services from 09-Oct-2008

Bharti Airtel has announced the launch of Airtel digital TV, its Direct To Home (DTH) Satellite TV service. The service will be available to customers through 21,000 retail points including Airtel Relationship Centres in 62 cities across the country starting October 9, 2008. At present there are five DTH players in the Indian market. The 5 existing players are Zee Dish TV, Tata Sky, DD Direct, Sun Direct DTH and Reliance Big TV.

The launch of Airtel digital TV is the culmination of our three screens strategy, which is to be present across mobile phone, computer and TV screens. Airtel digital TV uses the latest MPEG4 standard with DVB S2 technology, which translates into exceptional picture clarity and consistent high quality audio for the customer. This latest technology also enables delivery of more complex interactive content and is High Definition ready. Also, Airtel digital TV uses 20% larger dish antenna that offers better performance during rain.

Besides the latest technology., Airtel digital TV brings many firsts to the DTH segment in India:
1) Universal remote for both Set Top box and TV that offers enhanced viewer convenience
2) Highest Set Top Box memory enabling more interactive applications
3) Exclusive content such as World space radio
4) Interactive applications such as iMatinee (Book cinema tickets), iTravel (Browsw and book travel packages), iShop (Shop on TV for your favourite brands), iCity (Get your city's information) and Widgets (Update yourself on latest stock news). 8 screen iNews, 2/4 screen iSports
5) Amazing games with high quality graphics, refreshed every six weeks
6) Audio gain control for uniform audio levels across all channels
7) Simple and intuitive search
8) On screen account meter
9) Last viewed channel in case of power disruption/switch off
10) Low battery indicator on the screen.
The customer care is available in 8 different languages and a team of 800 professionally trained service engineers.

Above Source: Economics Times

Currently, the market is dominated by Essel Group's Dish TV DTH service (about 4 million subscribers) followed by Tata Sky (2.7 million subscribers), Sun Direct (1 million subscribers) and Big TV ( half million subscribers). State-owned Prasar Bharati's DTH service DD Direct Plus is the only free-to-air service, where consumers do not pay any monthly subscription fees. According to sources, DD Direct Plus has a subscriber base of about 3-4 million subscribers, mostly in the remote corners of the country not connected by terrestrial or cable television.

Initially, the company had introduced three different packages for the North and Southern markets. For the Northern market, the package starts from Rs 2,499 and for the South, the package would start from Rs 1,499. Depending on the language and genre of channels, the monthly tariffs would range from Rs 125 to Rs 424, the company said.

I have been using Tata Sky since 1 year and so far happy with its Quality. I have seen Reliance Big TV at my neighbour's house, but its quality is not that superior as Tata Sky. Lets wait and watch AirTel's DTH. At the time of writing this Blog, I just saw its Advertisement in Television - which has major bollywood stars (Saif, Kareena, Madhavan, Vidhya Balan, A R Rehman, Deepika Padukone, etc...)

The Customer Care (1-800-102-8080) is refusing to give any additional information untill 09-Oct-2008. Checkout the TV Commercial on YouTube.

DVD HD Blueray resolutions and connectors

Found these tables on Internet and found it useful for everyone.

TV Resolutions:



Video Connectors:

BMTC Volvo - Rs.1 Ride in Bangalore.

"Luxury ride on Volvo Bus for Rs.1 only", is the newest BMTC offer to Bangalore commuters for 4 days (11-Sep-2008 to 14-Sep-2008). Usually, the fare for a travel between Koramangala Water Tank to Electronics City is Rs.30. It costs BMTC Rs 52 per km to operate Volvo. Minimum ticket is Rs 10 (Refer - BMTC Volvo - Route Details and Fare Chart). On Thursday(11-Sep), 154 Volvos, with a seating capacity of 43 each, plied. BMTC’s chief traffic manager Dastagir Sharief said on the first day, 72,000 tickets were sold. The second day yielded sales of 97,000 tickets. The numbers are expected to be higher on Saturday(13-Sep) and Sunday(14-Sep).

BMTC’s offer of selling Volvo tickets at Rs. 1 (Rupee One only) for the next three days in a bid to encourage more passengers to take to the public transport system was a super hit with the people. BMTC hopes to lure more people into travelling by bus to ease traffic and tempt passengers with a luxury travel experience. But most said once the rates became normal, they will not be able to afford it and would be back to their two-wheelers.

This four-day initiative of the government has clearly created an opportunity for common man to take up public transport. I believe that this will help a great deal in improving traffic conditions of the city.

The Auto-rickshaw customers are reduced and it has This initiative has created problem to the income of Auto-rickshaw drivers, who are more customers.

The BMTC has no plans of extending the offer, which has pinched the organization by over Rs 5 lakh per day. Please note that this offer is not applicable on BMTC Volvo towards Bengaluru International Airport.

Thanks to the BMTC Volvo team to provide such promotional offer, which is one of its first kind in Bangalore.

Source of News/Pictures: Times of India

Ganesha Festival 2008 - Greetings

Wishing all the readers of my blog - A Happy Gowri Ganesha Festival. Ganesha Chaturthi or Ganesha Festival is a day on which Lord Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvati, is believed to bestow his presence on earth for all his devotees. It is also known as Vinayaka Chaturthi or Vinayaka Chavithi in Sanskrit, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu, Chavath in Konkani and as Chathaa in Nepal Bhasa. It is celebrated as it is the birthday of Lord Ganesha. (Wiki)

This year, the festival came on 03-Sep-2008 and it was a holiday for us in Bangalore.

Google releases its new browser - Chrome

The Innovative Company never stops innovations. Google's newest innovation is its new product, which is none other than - Chrome. Chrome is a browser, ready to enter the war of existing war of Internet Explorer and FireFox browsers.

I installed Chrome at home and tried it to browse some sites. So far not found any major innovation in it. However, found few issues - which will may make users go crazy. I will soon be adding the screenshots.


1. Installation Experience:
The setup file is 475KB, but its not the complete executable. Once you run this, it will download the remaining files and install Chrome on your PC. On my 256kbps broadband, it took around 5 minutes to complete the installation. The installation didn't ask the Location of application. I could not find it in C:\Program Files directory. From the shortcut icon, I could locate its correct path under c:\Document and Settings of the logged-in user. Here's the screen shot:

What was more surprising that after couple of site visit, this folder size grew to 61MB.

2. Look & Feel
The browser is having very simple(compact) look, without any toolbars. The tabs are located on the top and its functions are similar to IE7/Firefox. Screen shot:


3. File Downloads
Tried to download a driver file from MSI website. The file download status is shown at bottom left side of browser. There is a arrow icon to open the menu, which I found it dangerous.



As soon as you click the menu, your mouse will be on the "Cancel" option of the menu.



There are more likely chances that you may unknowingly click the Cancel button. I was the victim of this, which made me start the download from beginning.

More reviews will be added later... Also, I plan to deploy IE8 Beta and check its new features too...

Google has hosted a comic book explaining Google Chrome.

Links - Official Google Chrome news

CBI's move against corruption

Central Bureau of Investigation, the country’s premier investigation agency, has started a nation-wide campaign to involve the people in its fight against corruption. The campaign is multi-folded. The agency is sending SMS messages inviting complaints and information from people about babus, who demand bribes or have huge assets. People can send information about them through letters, faxes, e-mails, SMS and phone calls. Besides they can post information on the CBI website or meet the officials in person. The scale of the campaign is huge. In Karnataka, the CBI has tied up with the BSNL and sent SMS to all its 18.5 lakh mobile subscribes in a single stroke.

The SMS:
“Please inform CBI-Bangalore about officials of government of India/PSUs demanding bribe or being in possession of huge assets at 080-2333 2726 or 94480 44355.’’

What an informant can do ?
Log on to www.cbi.nic.in and go to ‘contact us’ page Send an e-mail to the ID spacblr@cbi.gov.in, with the words ‘complaint-information’ in the subject line Send a fax to 080-23331026 Write to The SP, Anti-Corruption, CBI, Bellary Road, Ganganagar, Bangalore-32. You can also meet Komar at his office at the same address.

Source: Times of India, Front Page 03-Sep-2008

Not exercising - Whats your excuse?

Are you prone to putting off exercise? BT tells you how to get started without those unnecessary delays that hamper progress

Your friends have hit the gym but there's something that's stopping you? If you are busy justifying your excuse by saying — everyone has reasons why they can't start, then there must be enough reason why you need to overcome your excuses and hit the treadmill instead. Understand that it's never too late! Here are some easy tips to overcome those exercise excuses:

NOT ENOUGH TIME:

Start with breaking your exercise regime into smaller segments. At home, just multitask. You can try and do crunches while watching television. If you have a long day at work then try to adjust your schedule — get up half an hour earlier to walk. Make it a non-negotiable routine and stick to it. Tell your friends not to plan any gettogethers during that hour.

SLOW AND STEADY:

Everyone gets excited about a workout, especially at the beginning. But remember to take it slow and steady. Start with a comfortable amount of activity and add a little more each day.

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY:

Don't exercise to the point of exhaustion; you should always be able to carry on a conversation. If a body part aches, make sure you tell your instructor the next day itself. Keep going though. If you've got minor aches, take it easier the next day but don't stop altogether. Gentle movement helps sore muscles recover.

IT's NOT WORKING:

If your month-long regime has not shown any positive results, then perhaps you haven't found the right kind of exercise yet. Focus on adding more lifestyle exercise to your day.

RECORD IT:

Use your diary to record your thoughts and feelings around exercise—they can help you find a way around your exercise demons. So, what's stopping you? Get going.

Source: Times of India (Bangalore Times Supplement) 19-Jul-2008

Gmail Labs - Latest Experience by Google

Google is inviting Gmail users to participate in the testing of new features for the free messaging service. The idea behind Labs is that any engineer can go to lunch, come up with a cool idea, code it up, and ship it as a Labs feature. To tens of millions of users. No design reviews, no product analysis, and to be honest, not that much testing. Some of the Labs features will occasionally break. The 13 features include: Quick Links, Signature tweaks, Superstars, Pictures in Gchat, Hide unread count, Custom keyboard shortcuts, Mouse gestures, Random signatures, Custom date format, Muzzle, Snake game, Email addict and Fixed-width fonts. Gmail Labs was created out of the desire to get more features to users faster. Google did something similar last October when it launched Google Enterprise Labs to hasten the availability of search innovations for Google's business customers. Labs is now out to all English users (US and UK), and administrators using Google Apps can choose to enable Labs by checking the "Turn on new features" box in Domain Settings.
Links:
About Gmail Labs
Gmail Official Blog