amtrag

I saw 2 qualities of body panel for 2865 at one mobile acessories shop. Cheaper one was for Rs150 and another "original" for Rs.400. There was noticable difference in quality between the two.

Dear commonman, Axis bank is offering zero balance with yearly charge of Rs.500. So even if your actual AQB is more than Rs 10K, you still end up paying Rs.500 compulsarily. On the other hand, ICICI does not charge you anything, but you have to maintain AQB of Rs.10K. But still your money is always available to you, even if you have to maintain zero balance for a few days, and and you can average it out with a deposit of say Rs.20K for equal no. of days. For salaried people, it should not be a problem, maybe for students (or anybody not having a regular cash flow), it might be a hassle to maintain. And otherwise also, ICICI used to have an AQB of Rs.5000 long long back. Taking into account the inflation, value of Rs 5000 8-10 years ago should not be less than Rs.10000 today.

6130 does not have a ruim slot, how will you convert to RUIM?

Right raccoon. Do they think that terrorists will change their profession because of this and stop indulging in anti-social activities? There are a thousand ways to get a fake ID and its only the innocent customers who suffer.

Dish TV is now giving STB free but charging Rs.4K for 1 yr subscription...intially (1-2 yrs ago) it was charging Rs.4K for STB and giving 1 yr subscription free...I mean is'nt it one and the same thing? I think we should look at the cost of ownership (i.e. any one-time upfront charges + monthly recurring charges) for a duration of 1 yr and then compare TS, DTV, Big, Airtel etc etc. That would be a fair comparion. And my advise would be: Let the players start IPTV also (MTNL has started, Reliance is launching very soon)... it might be better than DTH technology-wise. So wait and watch for a few months. I myself have been using tata sky for more than 8-9 months...never faced a minute's outage except for few mins during heavy downpours (here's where IPTV/ cable wins). Picture & sound quality are also good...although sound is in mono and Not stereo.

chdk is a modified firmware for canon Powershot series digicams. It provides lots of extra features not available otherwise...for example a realtime battery level meter (with option to display either in % or actual battery voltage in millivolts). The amazing thing is that you don't have to actually update your camera's original firmaware, it loads from the memory card every time the cam is powered on. If you don't want it, simply delete it from the card. And the files are appx 250kb, so does not load the card in any way. Download chdk here

Anything above 5-6 MP does not add any value to picture quality (unless you want to print A3 size blow-ups). In fact it increases noise due to cramming of more pixels into same area of 1/2.5". Instead, go for useful features like IS coupled with higher optical zoom. I would also advise to go for Canon 570IS. I have been using A710IS and the IS really makes a lot of difference (read Improvement).

A word of precaution: Always ensure that the swipe takes place in front of your eyes...never let the guy take the card away. Card no, CVV no, Name & expiry date are all that the person at the counter needs to write down on a piece of paper (forget hi-tech skimming etc) and later use it for any internet transaction...sounds scary but it is true!

New development: Now optical zoom is available in Video mode for Canon Powershot digicams. I am now able to zoom (6X optical) while shooting a video with my A710IS. It is possible due to a tweaked version of the firmware available at CHDK for Canon Powershot Digicams. Apart from that, many newly available features are on screen clock (with sec display), battery voltage readout in mV, memory card status (free space in % or in MB) etc etc.

Are all the numbers & statistics quoted above actually correct? If yes, then it surely is an amazing coincidence. Or somebody just made it up?

Hi all, New Moto Ming A1800 Dual Sim model announced. Look-wise same as Original Ming. Supports one CDM & one GSM SIM. here's the link to news article: Moto Ming A1800 Dual SIM

Sorry to have missed HRA since am myself living in own house so not incurring any HRA. For Medical expenses, simply ask for receipts whenever you buy any medicines, doctor's fees and expenses on medical tests. And submit the same as and when asked by your employer. For LTA also, travel anywhere by rail or air and submit actual tickets after the travel. Taxi bills are allowed only if there is no train or flight connection available. Also, most probably, you would be reqd to take certain min no. of leaves for claiming LTA. But do ask relevant people responsible for taxes in your company about the exact procedures for availing these tax savings.

Hi chandannasta, There are several ways to save tax. 1. First is by way of making "eligible" investments like NSC, LIC policies, Tax Saving Mutual Funds, Bank FD's of 5yr lock-in period, PPF (Public Provident Fund), VPF (Voluntary PF which means voluntarily increasing your PF deduction from salary) and maybe many more. The limit for these type of investments is 1 lac total in an year. 2. Another method is to show expenses which are allowed like Fuel & Maint (max 1.5 lacs per year provided you have car in your own name), Medical expenses (Rs.15K per year), LTA which is upto 2X basic salary being allowed twice in 4 years. All these "expense-type" tax savings are allowed only on showing actual bills. Hope this is more than enough for you for now. Actually its a good time to buy some Tax Saving Mutual funds (having compulsary lock-in of 3yrs). Altleast plan well from next year onwards i.e April onwards.

Saw the same ad in today's newspaper. But memory is only 2GB, this much would be eaten up by the OS itself. When its a substitute for HDD, it should have been more atleast 8 or 16GB. Prices of flash memory have drastically come down.

Yes, it has happened to me also, but the money is always credited back to my account in case of such failures. Just at 8:00 am is the worst time to book tickets because the counter windows just open at all terminals across the country and they simultaneouly login and start bookings at 8:00 am. And this heavily overloads the servers. But in any case, it's much better than standing for 1-2 hrs in queue, even if the transaction fails, you can retry, sitting in the comfort of your own home (or office).

Yes dear friends, Manish has a very specific requirement that lower cut-off freq <=5Hz. So there's no point in suggesting Bose or anything else without looking into it's specs. I found this from Denon; freq resp: 5Hz-45KHz Price $350 Denon Headphones AH-D2000 You might have to search for their availability in India.

Manish, Why are you so specific about 5Hz? Even 8 Hz response would be equally good...since audible range starts from 20Hz, hence anything below that should be fine.

Confused or not confused cant say...but BSNL has recently got license for launching All India CDMA services.

Get a pair of Sennheiser headphones, they have lots of models to choose from. Don't know where would you get, but should'nt be much of a problem in Mumbai or Delhi. For example this model USHD650 costs $599 in the US Sennheiser USHD650

You are right kshah. ICICI Direct does not open in opera. And yes, it is sometimes down.

Agree with you kshah. Also, since you have mentioned beta vs VHS format war, Panasonic was able to win with VHS becoz intstead of charging royalty on per piece basis, they sold the technology on outright basis and cheaply to many manufacturers around the globe. And VHS very quickly gained popularity (even though it's a known fact that beta was much better in quality). And it became like windows..you have to use it whether you love it or hate it, becoz you don't want to be left out incompatible.

Toshiba is not going to reimburse or replace it with a Blue Ray player

Yes, Blue Ray is the winner! We can use Blue Ray discs for data storage, but I seriously feel that it would take another 3-4 years for Blue Ray to become the dominant format for movie releases. By saying dominant, I mean A. Players should become much more affordable from present $300-400 B. Blue Ray discs should become much cheaper just like Moser Baer has started selling DVDs for Rs.35 C. Enough content should be released in this new format so as to make it financially viable D. Since it has much higher definition than normal TV (invcl DVDs), HD Plasmas/ LCDs should also become affordable for the mass market to adopt, because running a Blue Ray with normal TV does not make any difference due to inherently low definition of a TV Hence, I would prefer to wait and watch rather than jumping on to the Blue Ray bandwagon at this junture. Of course, there is no harm if your PC or Laptop is Blue ray compatible.

Check whether you have switched off the filename extension display from your "Explorer's" properties. Uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types" in the folder options (in windows explorer) and then try again.

A small correction: In canon's IS series models (incl S5IS), Image Stabiliser is built in the lens. So the lens actually moves to compensate for movements