AskDba Non-Oracle Blog

Recently I travelled to my hometown , so took a flight from Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) to Delhi. As I had reached quite early , I thought of making use of BIAL WiFi. To access it, you need to connect to Wifi network named something like “Passenger Free Wifi”. After that you can write any site name in Internet Explorer (say www.google.com). This will take you to BIAL Wifi login screen. It will ask you to send SMS “WIFI BIAL” to 56677. You will get a message informing about password which you need to enter in this page. 

I got this message after approximately 20 mins , so you can send sms well in advance. This connection is available for 1 hour and timer would start once you login.

Beijing 2008 Olympics has finally come to an end. Just like the opening ceremony, closing ceremony has amazed people with China’s growth and many have termed it as the Finest Olympic Ceremonies hosted till date.

Beijing 2008 Closing ceremony Fireworks

Michael Phelps (USA) and Usain Bolt (Jamaica) have been the two outstanding performers for Beijing Olympics 2008. As far as total medal tally is concerned USA secured 110 medals against China’s 100. But with 51 Gold Medals China secured First Rank in Beijing Olympics 2008.

Beijing 2008 Final Medals Tally

India got 3 Medals (1 Gold and 2 Bronze medals) which by now is our best performance till date. Hats off to Abhinav Bindra (Gold,Shooting),Sushil Kumar (Bronze,Wrestling) and Vijender Singh (Bronze,Boxing) for wining these medals.I hope that now Government of India gives more importance to Sports (other than Cricket) and provide Funds so that our Sportsperson have proper facilities for training.

Airtel Customers will be very happy with the Data plan announced for iPhone Internet usage. Both Airtel and Vodafone had launched the iPhone in India for Rs 31K(8Gb model) and there was nothing to differentiate amongst them. But now after the Data plan’s are out for both the Network Providers, Airtel scores over Vodafone.

Airtel is giving 500Mb Free usage for all PrePaid and Postpaid Customers for next 12 months. Charges after free usage are Re. 0.30 / 50 KB.

Airtel iPhone Data plan

You can find the details on Airtel website by clicking the image.

Vodafone has separate plans for Postpaid and Prepaid Customers. Prepaid Customers do not get any free Data Usage and after paying a monthly fee of Rs 100, they will be charged 25p for 50 Kb. Postpaid customers have different plans .Karnataka subscribers can check it here .

After pioneering Lead India Campaign, Times Of India (TOI) has started TEACH INDIA campaign which is aimed at imparting education to underprivileged children who are willing to learn.

‘WE’VE JUST IDENTIFIED THE PERFECT SOLUTION TO ILLITERACY. - YOU’

This initiative was started in Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkatta , and has now reached Bangalore.

How Teach India works??

Times of India has partnered with NGO’s and interested people need to Join on Teach India website. After this you will be mapped to a NGO based on your area preference and time commitment. You will go through a basic orientation program and can then start the teaching sessions. Aamir khan has been chosen to endorse the campaign and features in one of the advertisement. May be below pics might motivate you to join this Wonderful initiative

There are also video ads which can be downloaded from here. Many Corporates,NGO’s and Schools have joined this campaign. UN Volunteers is also one of the partners of this initiative.

So Come on India..Lets Do it and remove Illiteracy from our Country..

Today morning I got a message from Vodafone announcing the release date and pricing details for Apple iPhone. I had enrolled for the communication as I was eagerly awaiting its release in India. But when I saw the prices, I was very much disappointed. 8 Gb model is priced at Rs 31000 ($720 approx) and 16 Gb model will cost Rs 36,100 ($840 approx)

Most of the people were expecting it to be priced around Rs 15k-20K but Rs 31k is way too much. If you search internet , you will find lot of articles which tell that iPhone lacks many of the basic CellPhone functionalities like forwarding sms , has only 2 MP camera,FM Radio. Anyways I have decided against buying iPhone. I think buying a decent Nokia Phone and iPod Touch will be a wise decision rather than investing in iPhone. Note that we still have not received details about data plans which Vodafone and Airtel will be releasing for accessing internet and other data services. But be assured that this will not be less. Both companies are expecting to sell 100,000 phones in next 1 year (by pre-registration) but after the price release, I do not see this happening (unless they cut prices drastically)

You can read more about it in below mentioned links

http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=331955

http://www.vodafone.in/iphone/Pages/iPhone_details.aspx?cid=kar

Look’s like that iPhone is finally coming to India. According to newspaper reports, iPhone is slated to release on Aug 22, 2008. Airtel has made this announcement which can be found on their website. Vodafone website does not mention anything about the release dates. But if Vodafone delays the launch, then definitely they will miss the trick. I enquired about the expected price from one of the mobile phone shop and the salesperson informed that 8 Gb model will cost around Rs 15,000. Though all these are speculations.Lets wait and watch!!

UPDATE!!

Vodafone has announced the prices for the iPhone in India. 8 Gb model is priced at Rs 31000 and 16 Gb model will cost Rs 36,100. It will be available from Aug 22, 2008

Recently Vodafone and Airtel have both announced that they will be bringing the Apple iPhone 3G to India. They have also launched the pre-booking for customers where the customers can book the phones. For Airtel , you need to click here and for Vodafone here.

iPhone is a product from Apple which seves as a Cell Phone, iPod and Camera (2.0 Mega Pixel)

Till now it is still not clear about the iPhone 3G pricing in India.It is priced at $199 i.e RS 8000 in US but according to analysts , it would be 20K+or more. In any case if it even touches 12-16 K , it would make a serious dent in sales of Sony Erricson and Nokia phones.

iPhone 3G is based on the 3G technology which gives fast access to the Internet and email over cellular networks around the world. It also allows you to surf the web, download email, get directions, and watch video — even while you’re on a call. It is not clear whether Airtel and Vodafone will provide 3G facility.

Vodafone has till now announced to provide following facilities

1)8 Gb and 16 GB models

iPhone 3G comes in two models with space of 8Gb and 16 Gb.

2) Assisted GPS

GPS (Global Positioning System) helps you to find your location, get directions, and see traffic — all from your phone. As of now few Nokia model provides these facilities in India.

3)New Applications

iPhone3G includes many applications like Youtube, Calendar, Scientific Calculator, Safari Browser.

4) Microsoft exchange

This feature will provide the users to check emails through the phone. We have to see if it can compete with Blackberry.

Along with this , Apple also introduced Mobile Me for your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. It allows you to keep everything up to date.

One of the key application which I feel will be missed by most of the people is a Radio!! This does not have a FM Radio Facility in it.

This post was originally written on my Oracle Blog but then I thought of having a separate blog for all Non - Oracle Stuff. So this is how this blog originated ;).Basically I wish to have a laptop for just playing around with Oracle and to learn new technologies. This need/wish (not sure what to say!!) has been generated because of lack of test machine for me to try out things. Anyways I have been researching a bit about the various laptops available in market.

My friend had bought a Dell XPS1330 few months back. The machine is quite sleek and weighs less then 2 Kg. But this comes in 13.3 inches screen size which I thought was bit less for me. I also looked at the Dell Inspiron series and they looked ok to me. All this thing was done over internet so I planned to go to Staples (located on Outer ring Road, Bangalore).

There were quite a number of Laptops which were available in the Store so I decided on following configuration as a minimum standard

1)Intel Processor with 1.7 Ghz +

2)2 Gb RAM

3)160 Gb HDD

4)Battery life

5)Processor Type - Core 2 Duo

6)Bluetooth/wireless

This was quite a small list and I added few items (in bold) after having look at features. I would say that in the end it made me realize that after spending 4 years in IT, I ought to have known more things

I had a look at quite a number of brands and made following observations

1)Compaq Presario

Compaq laptops looked to be the cheapest one available in the store with starting price of 34 K. They came with AMD Turion processor and Core Duo Processor.

Pros

Low Price

Cons

Basic configuration, not stylish.

Model Shortisted - C773Tu (1.8 Ghz Core 2 Duo T5550 2 Gb RAM, 160 GB HDD ) Price Rs 38,000.00

I would say that this was among the two brands which were least appealing.

3)ACER

This was the other one which didn’t appeal to me.

4)HP

HP gave a lot of options to me. There were quite a lot of models which I shortlisted in the category.

Model Shortisted - DV604TU (1.73 Ghz Dual Core Processor T2370, 15.4 inches, 2Gb RAM, 250 GB HDD) Price Rs 43,000

DV2762TX (1.8 Ghz Dual 2 Core,14.1 inches, 2GB RAM,160 GB HDD) Price Rs 50,000

5)Sony Vaio

Wow!! This was the first words which I said looking at the machines available for display. I would say these were the best looking machine with best configuration but high price. Also Sony claimed to have 4.5 hrs of battery life which is more then HP (2.5 hrs)

Model Shotlisted - VGN -CR35G/36G (2.1 Ghz Dual 2 Core T8100, 2Gb RAM, 200GB HDD) - Price Rs 55,000

Hmm..Now not sure which one to buy. I know it has to be either Dell or Sony Vaio , but both seems to be bit expensive. Dell takes 2 weeks to deliver and also does not have a local service center. As per information available from one of the salesman, Dell laptops are sent to Malaysia for repair and take much time to get repaired (Need to Confirm this).

But I would say that this also allowed me to know more about computer hardware stuff and the latest technology in the market. Say for instance there is a Laptop from Sony (Vaio TZ) which weighs 1 Kg and uses a Flash memory instead of conventional hard disk to store data. Price is mind boggling Rs 1,39,000 only..