Small things that make the difference...

Common iPhone Problems.

2008-05-10T17:53:00.004+05:30

Okay, So I bought an iPhone recently and I have already started experiencing small small problems with this amazing piece of gadget. In this article I will describe the problems I have encountered while using the iPhone and the possible solutions to them.
So here is the first one.
1. Lost all the sounds including ringtones, clicks etc.:
What happened was my iPhone was running under low battery in the night and forget to charge it before sleeping. It was dead in the morning.
So the first thing I decided to do after reaching my office was to charge the phone. I
connected the iPhone to my macbook and started my days work. After an hour or so I wanted to make a call. So picked up my iPhone and to my surprise found that it was hung at the startup screen. So I tried to do a soft reset but couldn't do that. Now I was scared. I thought I will open it up and take the battery out for some. But I didn't know
how to open it. Now I was afraid of loosing all my data on the phone. So finally I thought I will restore my iPhone firmware using iTunes keeping aside the fear of loosing the data. So I pressed the home button and the power button simultaneously
the way we do to put is into recovery mode. I but released both the buttons as soon as
the iPhone went off. (If the iPhone goes off and you keep pressing the power button then it will put it into recovery mode.) So now I managed to power the iPhone down.
With a lot of courage I powered it back again and to my happiness it came back up again. Now was the time to make a call. I went to call a friend of mine. Oops it couldn't here the ring. I thought he might not be reachable. After a few time he pinged
me on yahoo messenger saying that you called me and didn't utter a word on the phone. I said okay let me call you again. Same thing again. Then I asked him to call me. I could see his incoming call on the screen but could hear any ringtone. I went on the play some songs. Oh God!! I could not play song. By this time I had realized that my iPhone had went dumb :(. I saw all the setting and found everything fine. I thought I might have installed some malicious app which could have done this. So I uninstalled all the apps which I had recently installed. But it didn't help. I couldn't understand what went wrong. I asked others about the problem. Many people suggested upgrading to 1.1.4 using iTunes. I was about the do this then I thought off trying one last thing. There is an option to reset settings under Settings>General>Reset. So I click on the reset all setting. After this the iPhone did a soft reboot on itself. And voila the sounds came back again. :) Yeah Baby. Only thing
I lost with this was that all the menus on my home screen got rearranged. Everything else including all my data was intact.

How to buy a desktop PC

2008-02-10T08:56:00.000+05:30

I did a good 2 months of research
before buying my first computer.
2 months was too much because I
didn't have access to internet at
that time. But I will tell you
what to look for when go out to
buy a computer.
Okay first I will list all
the components which will make a
computer. This is for those who are
new to this time consuming toy ;).
So here they are :
1. Mother Board/ Main Board. (Required)
2. Chipset. (Required)
3. CPU (Central processing unit) (Required)
4. RAM (Random Access Memory also
called main memory) (Required)
5. Graphics card. (Required)
6. Hard Disk. (Required)
7. Audio Card. (optional)
8. Network Card/s. (Optional)
9. Monitor. (Required)
10. Keyboard. (Required)
11. Mouse.(REquired)
12. External Disk Reader (CD/DVD ROM). (Optional)
13 Speakers. (Optional)

The parts which are listed as required
are necessary for a computer to work properly
and you will do fine even without the optional
components. While buying a computer you should
invest on the required parts while the optional
components can be bought later. Even amongst the
required components you have to invest on most
important components. Some of the components
can not to upgraded later or upgrading them
would mean buying a new computer. These parts
are the motherboard, the chipset, the CPU. So
when buying a computer you should spend more
on these components. The next paragraph will
explain how to select individual component from
the above list.
While looking for a motherboard you
should look what are the various on-board features.
For example most mother boards come with a an
on-board graphics card, an on board audio and
an on board network adapter. If you are going
to connect your computer to a network then always
go for a motherboard with an on-board network card.
Other things to look for on a motherboard are
number of PCI/PCIX/PCIE/AGP slots. These are the
slots which will help you upgrade some of your
computer components like graphics card, audio
card, network adapter just in case you want to.
Like wise you should see if the motherboard
supports SATA or PATA. This will determine what
kind of hard drive you should by. Also look for
the number of USB ports. One more important thing
is the number of RAM slots on the board. This is
necessary if you want to increase the amount of
memory in the future.
The CPU, this is one of the components
which would determine how good run computer will
be when you run heavy applications. The processing
power of a CPU is measured in GHz. Buy a CPU with
a large GHz value if you can afford. Next factor
is the L2 cache. This factor determines how much
data can the CPU store locally so that it doesn't
have to access the main memory every time. The
larger the better. If you have enough money go for
a dual core one. That way you will have two CPUs
to work for you. Also look for a 64 bit CPU.
The RAM( main memory). Again you should
by a fast and large amount of memory. Buy less
number of sticks of larger amount if possible.
This is help you free up some slots for future
upgrade.
Graphics card. It usually comes on
board. But if you want a better one then you
can buy another one also. Buy a graphics card
that has a large amount of memory on it so that
you don't have to share it from the main memory.
The hard disk. If you want to store
a large amount of data like songs, videos and
movies etc then go for a big one like 160 GB.
If your mother board supports SATA option then
always buy a SATA hard drive. SATA is faster
then ide drives. With SATA also buy one with
higher speeds (greater number of RPMs). Usually
7200 rpms is good. It all depends upon how much
money you can spend.
As of monitor, go for an LCD one preferrably
large one if you can.
Keyboard and mouse, go for usb or wireless
one. One factor with wireless is that they
operate on battery and will eat up a large amount
of those. If you can afford go for wireless ones.
CD/DVD ROM. Always buy a writer if you
can. That way you can burn cds/dvds to free up
some space on you hard drive. Buy one with a larger
burning speed.
Rest of the components are optional. You
can buy them later easily.

What is igoogle

2008-02-09T03:26:00.000+05:30

This post it basically about
igoogle. It is here because many people
look at my google.com home page and they
are surprised to see how come this
guys google.com is different from the
normal google.com come. And my usual
and sincere answer is because I am
different from you. And they think that
I am making a sarcastic comment. In
whatever way you take it but what I
said is true. igoogle is gives you
option to personalize your page. So I
feel since everybody is a different
person he should have a different igoogle
page.
So here is how to get your
personalized page using igoogle. Goto
google.com. Search for igoogle on the
page. It is usually on the upper right
corner of the page. Click on the link
and you will be asked to sign in. Sign-in
using your existing google account. You
will find yourself at your personalized
home page. Now you can say that you
are also different from others ;).
Now next thing is how to be more
different from others that is how to add
more stuff to your personalized home page.
Search for "add stuff" on your igoogle
page. Go to the link. You will see a long
list of gadgets you can add. You can even
search for gadgets. For example if you
are looking for a dictionary like tool
just search for "dictionary" in the search
box. You will get a list a of various
dictionary like tools - like dictionary.com,
google translate etc. Just search for video
if you want to have tools that will play
some videos from google videos youtube etc
on you home page. You have list of hottest,
latest and most used gadgets. You also have
the option of browsing the contents by categories.
Various categories are like news, sports, games
etc.
Apart from this if you are into looks
and feels kind of stuff igoogle provides you
with various themes which you can add to your
page. You can arrange your gadgets using the
tabs options provided.

If you are more than just a user that
is if you are a developer kind of guy then
you also have to option of creating your
own google gadget.
So that is it. Dont wait. Go get
yourself a personalized google home page now.

iPhone for newbies

2008-02-06T11:25:00.001+05:30

Looking at the release date of iPhone this post is
quite outdated. But I still beleive there are people
(at lease in countries like India) who don't know what
an iPhone is.Okay here is what you need to know if you
are new to iPhone. This includes what an iPhone is
actually. Is it usefull for you or not. If it is not
then how to make it usefull for you.
So, what exactly is iPhone? As the name suggests
iPhone is a phone. It has been designed by Apple inc.
What is so special about iPhone. According to Apple
iPhone is not simply a phone. In addition it has a wide
screen iPod and you can also use it to surf the internet.
You can take pictures with it. You can store your pictures,
videos and songs. You can watch you favorite videos from
internet. You can check your mails. Apart from all these
things you can install various useful applications, games
etc.
Next thing is that. It is not useful for at least
people in countries like India. Apple has a deal with
AT&T (the cellular services provider) that if you want to
use iPhone then you have to stick wiht AT&T for 2 years
you cannot use any other service providers. The phone
comes locked for other sims. You have to get it activated
from AT&T.

Which Linux distribution to use.

2007-12-28T03:05:00.000+05:30

I have been a Red Hat fan from the beginning. Red Hat 7 was the first distribution I used in the college and I am a kind of faithful to things which
I use for the first time and which satisfied my needs. Its like first impression
is the last impression. So I used Red Hat 7 , 8 , 9, Fedora Core 1, 2 , 3, 4, 5
and 6. And finally I have shifted to Ubuntu. So I have used Ubuntu 6, 7.10.
Frankly speaking there is not much of a difference between the distri-
butions. The only problem I found with RedHat was that every time you
have a new device to work with you will have to download and compile the
drivers yourself which may or may not work depending upon your luck.
With Ubuntu life if simple. You will get whatever you want only thing it
needs is an internet connection and it will search for and download things
by itself. I have seen people using Debian. I found it more like Ubuntu. Suse!!
Please don't talk about it. I just hate the name. I haven't used it but still I
hate the name for some reason. Centos is more like RedHat Enterprise Linux.
It is a good alternative if you are a RedHat fan. Not used any other Linux.
Have heard that OpenSuse is also very good choice.
So my final word is that if you have a good internet connection go for
latest Ubuntu Gusty Gibbon. Its amazing and you would definitly like it in
every sense , its looks, feels, ease of use etc. If you are new to Linux than
go for Ubuntu. For more info go to distrowatch.com

The Beginning...

2007-12-14T23:11:00.000+05:30

Just to introduce myself...
I am not the one who is writing this blog or may be I am writing it on
behalf of someone else. Someone who as helped me reach here.
What is this blog about...
This blog is mainly about computers. I will write about small things
about computers (hardware, software and any other thing related to

computers). You will find these small things really useful and helpful for

you as a user of computer.

I learnt these things by my own use of computer, by seeing others using
the computer or by searching on Internet. This may be a simple task like
installing Linux operating system in various ways and may be as complex
as writing a kernel level module. And yes, this is not a
Linux blog (though most of the stuff it contains will be based on Linux)
this is a computers blog. So I will talk about Linux and windows both and
hardware off course. So this is the beginning of a new school :)... Excuse
my poor English its not my mother tongue.