Category: Tech

  • Website migrated to WordPress

    After running this website on Drupal 7 for over a decade, I’ve now migrated it to WordPress. This change was prompted by the official end-of-life for Drupal 7 in January of this year.

    I considered upgrading to Drupal 10, but ultimately chose WordPress for several reasons:

    • Popularity and Ecosystem: WordPress is the most widely used CMS globally, with an extensive ecosystem of plugins and themes. This makes it much easier to configure and customize the site exactly how I want it—without reinventing the wheel.

    • Simpler Maintenance: My hosting server runs on Debian, which provides native WordPress packages. This makes ongoing updates, especially security patches, smoother and less labour-intensive.

    • Upgrade Path: Major version upgrades in Drupal often involve significant database schema changes, making transitions between versions more complex. WordPress upgrades tend to be far less disruptive.

    • Platform Evolution: WordPress has matured from a simple blogging tool into a full-fledged CMS. Meanwhile, Drupal has increasingly become a framework aimed at building complex, enterprise-level applications. While it’s still capable of powering simpler sites, WordPress aligns better with the straightforward needs of this blog.

    Because of all these factors, moving to WordPress felt like the right choice. The new site is still a bit minimal in appearance, but I’ve successfully carried over all the key functionality from the old Drupal version. I’d also like to make a special mention of FG Drupal to WordPress plugin (premium version) which has considerably reduced my effort involved with this migration.

    I appreciate your patience during this transition. If you notice anything that seems broken or missing, feel free to reach out. I’m excited about the flexibility WordPress offers and look forward to using it to share more content with you in the days ahead.

  • Work environment upgrades

    After many months of contemplation, I have finally gone ahead and purchased a standing desk and a chair. Deciding on either of these is not easy as you are spoilt for choice. However, after some evaluation, I finally decided to go for a dual motor electric height adjustable desk frame from MojoDesk and a chair made by Aster.

    MojoDesk

    Standing desks do not come cheap and the ones from branded companies (such as Featherlite and Godrej) cost around 45-50K. I initially considered them but found none of them was satisfying all my criteria. I looked at some standing desks in Alibaba as well but didn’t feel confident ordering it from overseas. That is when I came across MojoDesk. Although MojoDesk has been in this business recently, they have already sold about 700 standing desks. Furthermore, their desks come with a 3-year warranty, which further increased my confidence with them. The dual motor electric height adjustable desk frame has three main features that I was looking for – 1. memory positions 2. minimum height adjustable to almost 2 feet and 3. width and height of the table top could be of my selected dimension. And under a discount pricing, I was able to get it for only 30 K. Although only the frame was being supplied, I was told that the table top would cost me additional 5 K (it actually cost me only 3.5K everything inclusive), implying that the total cost would be well under 35K, which was very reasonable. Taking into account all these factors, I went ahead and ordered a MojoDesk.

    I received the MojoDesk standing desk frame within the estimated delivery time and it came in proper packaging. The instructions to fix it were straight-forward and there was no hassle in getting it set up. I immediately followed up with a few carpenters in my locality and got the table top made as well. It is recommended to have the table top made of plywood rather than particle board. Also, while the MojoDesk website recommends the board thickness to be 25mm, for plywood, 19mm should probably suffice unless you are planning to place a lot of heavy stuff on the table.

    I have been using MojoDesk for a few weeks now and I am simply in love with it. The low height that it can be adjusted to (almost 2 feet) is very useful as your legs are not left dangling in the air when you are sitting and working. Also, the memory positions make it convenient to set it once and keep using it. And finally, the lack of a top gives you the flexibility to have one made of your own preferred dimension. MojoDesk definitely felt like one awesome purchase. Here are some photos of the standing desk.

    MojoDesk standingMojoDesk sitting

    MojoDesk memory positions

    Aster chair

    The other piece of equipment that I invested in recently was a chair. I visited a few showrooms and really liked the Featherlite Optima chair which was costing around 25K. However, my experience with chairs has been that unless you sit and work on them for a few days, you might not really be able to figure out if they are comfortable. Because of this, I was reluctant to buy a very expensive chair. While shopping around, I came across another brand Aster, which exclusively makes chairs. I visited their showroom and found their products to be of decent quality. One of their models, Icon High Back, was very similar to Featherlite Optima model. The finish and the quality obviously were not as good as Featherlite Optima but at less than half the price, it seemed like a pretty good deal. I have been using this chair for a couple of weeks as well and so far have no major complaints.

    Aster Chair, Icon High Back Model

    A chair and a desk are few of the things on which you spend a lot of time in a day. I definitely think that any investment in these two is worth it and I help my article will encourage you to invest in having a more ergonomic work environment.

  • Stanley 23 Piece Ratcheting Bit Driver Set Review

    A few months back, I bought a Stanley 23 Piece Ratcheting Bit Driver Set and there is just one thing I got to say about this – AWESOME!!!

    I was initially not sure whether to go for the 23 Piece Ratcheting Bit Driver Set or 10 Piece Multi-Bit Ratceting Screwdriver. However, I finally decided to go with the former as it had more number of bits and also came with a storage box. However, the biggest surprise that I got was that this set had a magnetic bit holder, which somehow transferred its magnetism to the bits :). The ratcheting property of the screwdriver is also good and it has an option to lock the ratcheting movement as well. I highly recommend the Stanley 23 Piece Ratcheting Bit Driver Set to anyone who uses a screwdriver regularly.

    Stanley also has an array of screwdriver sets to offer. Two other interesting screwdrivers sets offered by Stanley are the 6-Piece Precision Screwdriver Set and the Stubby Ratcheting MultiBit Screwdriver. While the former is useful for removing screws as that in a laptop, the latter is useful in cases of packed spaces. Apart from screwdrivers, Stanley offers a lot of other interesting and useful tools.

    I am currently aware of the below two dealers of Stanley products in Hyderabad, India.

    1. A. AHMEDALLY & CO. (PVT.) LTD. – 27710017 / 27713434
    2. DARBAR TRADING CORPORATION – 40025380 / 27712349

    Both the dealers and located in Ranigung, Secunderabad and generally offer about 15% discount on Stanley products.

  • HyderabadLaptops.com Review

    HyderabadLaptops or HyderabadLaptops.com seems to be a division or an alias of AISS (Academy for Integrated Systems & Solutions) and deals with computer hardware. I got to know of this company while googling for laptop repair services. Generally, when writing a review of a product or a service, I tend to give an advice to my readers whether to use the product/service or not. However, in this case, I will just mention my experience with them, state my personal opinions, and leave it to the better judgement of the readers whether they want to avail their service or not. In case you do not have the time to read the entire review, just scroll over to the last article to read my personal opinion about them.

    The problem with my laptop began when the display was all garbled. I initially contacted Global Technologies in Secunderabad. They fixed the problem for Rs.900 but two weeks later, the same problem surfaced. This is when I considered getting my laptop repaired with HyderabadLaptops. Their office at Nagarjuna Cirlce consists of a big room where their junior executive (Mr. Omkar) and the receptionist sit. There is a smaller cabin where a more senior executive (Mr. Rajesh) sits. Attached to both theses rooms is an even smaller space, which supposedly is their lab where I think a couple of technicians work.

    After I handed over my laptop to them, they got back to me informing me that their was a problem with a BGA chipset and that I had two options, either to repair the current chipset, which would cost me Rs.1800 and comes with a 2 week warranty or to replace it with a new chipset, that would cost me Rs.4500 and comes with a 1 month warranty. I decided to have the chipset replaced as they told me that the same problem could again come up if I repaired the existing chipset. As per what they told me, the procedure of fixing the new chipset involved placing an order for the chipset from Bangalore IBM, which would take a couple of days to come through the courier, and then fixing the chipset, which would take a couple of hours. I told them that I would like to see the chipset when it arrived. But they were completely against it. As a matter of fact, they even asked me to take back my laptop. But after a lot of insisting, they agreed to show me the chipset when it arrived.

    Three days later, they informed me that the chipset had arrived. I went and had a look at it. They had already removed it from the courier and showed me a small chipset. I was expecting the chipset to be in a properly sealed box as they claimed that it was new but it was only in a small plastic box covered with plastic case. It might be possible that as this is not a consumer sold part, there is no solid packaging for it. They asked me to come back in a couple of hours after they fixed it. When I went back after a couple of hours, they said that fixing the chipset was taking time and told me that it would be mostly done by next day.

    I called them up the next day but they said that it would take one more day. This is when I became suspicious that something was wrong. Another day had passed, and I again called them. They then told me that the chipset which they had ordered and had shown me was not compatible with my laptop. They have placed an order for another chipset and that would take another 3-4 days. However, surprisingly, they called me up the next day itself and said that the chipset had arrived and they had fixed it. They had by now taken a total of 7 days to resolve the issue.

    I went back to them to collect my laptop. I initially opened the laptop to see where the chipset was fixed. Mr. Rajesh was slightly surprised to see this and told me that he was being very considerate by letting me open my own laptop and that no other repair center would agree to it. It actually surprised me that he was reluctant to have me examine my own laptop.

    The laptop booted properly and the display was fine but I noticed that the hdd cover was missing. I insisted that al though I had removed my hard disk before giving it to them, the hdd cover was in-place. But they just denied it and said that it was impossible for them to misplace it. I refused to clear the bill unless they provided the hdd cover. Finally, Mr. Rajesh asked me to go home and check for the hdd cover and promised that they would get a new one if I did not find it. So I cleared the bill and brought back my laptop.

    After getting my laptop back, I began to notice a strange problem for the first time. The laptop at times shut down suddenly and wouldn’t start again until I re-plugged the charger. This especially occurred when I ran an application, and that also at a point when the application gave a warning about the display. As I have been using this application for a very long time, I suspected that the problem could be because of the new BGA chipset that they had inserted and so took it back to them.

    It was this time that I really became unhappy with their services. For the first three days, they didn’t even check the status of my laptop. On the fourth day, they informed that they could not find any problem with my laptop. Just as I started to their service center to reproduce the problem, they again called me and informed me that my laptop was restarting randomly and they would get back to me with the status. After another three days, they informed me that they had placed an order for a replacement BGA chipset. Another three days passed by, and when I call them demanding about the status, they tell me that there is no problem with the BGA chipset as they have tested it with an alternate one, and it was actually over-heating of the North Bridge. They had by now taken a total of 10 days since I gave them the laptop the second time.

    Meanwhile, I called up Mr. Omkar to find out the status of the hdd cover as it had been almost two weeks. He told me that they had already placed an order for it but has been delayed by the courier. A few days later when I enquired about this with Mr. Rajesh, he told me that the price of the hdd cover was very high wherever he enquired and that he was still trying to find a dealer where he could get it for a reasonable price. This conflicting status updates of Mr. Omkar and Mr. Rajesh made it almost certain to me that they did not intend to get a replacement hdd cover for me as they had promised.

    I went back to collect my laptop. Just to ensure that the problem that they were talking of and the one that I was talking about were the same, I asked them for the hdd that they had used for testing. As they did not have the hdd, I just went on to boot my laptop with my hard disk. For some reason, Mr. Rajesh took offence to this and he began to tell me that I am not supposed to test my laptop in front of them. It really surprised me that now he was even having an issue with me booting up my laptop. I told him that I would go back and use my laptop, and if the restarting problem occurred frequently, would consider getting the North Bridge replaced, which he told me would cost Rs.1800.

    I came back and started using the laptop. And this was when I realized something which made me lose trust in their services completely. My Wi-Fi no longer worked. No matter what I did, it just wouldn’t work and the Linux wi-fi manger told me that it was disabled in the hardware. I even re-checked the wiring of the wifi device and still it didn’t work. I did consider taking back my laptop to them but then decided against it for three reasons – i. Getting the problem fixed would mean leaving the laptop again with them for a few days, with which I had become very uncomfortable by now ii. Even if the Wi-Fi problem was fixed, it wouldn’t serve much purpose as I was now anyway using my laptop as a desktop and it became clear that with the rebooting problem, my laptop was only of temporary use till I purchased a new laptop and iii. The first time I gave my laptop for repair, a new problem of sudden restarting surfaced. The second time I gave it, my Wi-Fi stopped working. I was scared that the next time I give it, a even more grave problem might crop up which might render the laptop completely useless.

    Summarizing, here are the various problems that have cropped up in my laptop after I started using HyderabadLaptop.com services over a period of three and a half weeks:

    1. HDD cover misplaced – There is a remote possibility that I gave them the laptop without the hdd cover in the first place. However, their promise that they would get it replaced and later faltering on it, is totally unacceptable.
    2. System reboots randomly – They claim that this is being caused by North Bridge and has nothing to do with the newly inserted chipset. However, it surprises me that this should have started from exactly the time when I collected my laptop from them.
    3. Plastic around the network and modem connectors broken – I could not conclusively tell when this problem came up as I only noticed it after I took back my laptop from them the second time. It is quite possible that this could have been broken before itself and I might not have noticed it.
    4. Wi-Fi not working – I was completely upset with their service and so I did not even consider taking this back to them for the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph.

    So, finally, what is my opinion about HyderabadLaptops.com? They do chipset replacements which I don’t think many other service centres do. Their pricing strategy seemed al right. But their unwillingness to be completely transparent, the cropping up of multiple problems since I gave my laptop to them and the delay in fixing/identifying the problem, make the quality of their services sceptical and something which I will be reluctant to avail of in the near future.

  • USB Flash Drive With Write Protect Switch

    The first USB flash drive that I had owned, RiDATA 1 GB flash drive, had a hardware USB write protect switch. This was really cool as whenever I had to take a printout at some Internet cafe, I’d lock it and then only attach it to any computer. This way I was confident that even if the Internet Cafe’s computer was infected with some virus, it would by no means affect the flash drive (which I’d later be using on my computer). However, of late, manufactures seem to have stopped putting this hardware write protect switch on USB flash drives. Only a few of the flash drives now come with this option. The list of drives that have a write protect switch are being maintained at: http://www.fencepost.net/2010/03/usb-flash-drives-with-hardware-write-protection/ .

    I recently purchased Kanguru FlashBlu 2 8GB as this particular model had good reviews and also seemed to be reasonably priced. I had originally intended to buy the 16GB model but its price did not seem to be justified for a write protect switch. As soon as I get the flash drive, I plan to setup multiple LiveCDs for any time troubleshooting and installation :).

  • Creating Audio CD Image

    We all have heard of the ISO image format which is a very popular way of backing up data CDs & DVDs. A very easy way of creating an ISO image in linux is by using the dd or dcfldd command. Similarly, in Windows, applications such as Nero have an option to save a CD as an ISO image file. However, when it comes to audio CDs it is not possible to backup them as ISO image file as they have multiple tracks. Here are two ways to create an image of audio cd for archival purposes.

    1. Exact Audio Copy (EAC)
      Exact Audio Copy is a Windows CD Ripping application which has gained a lot of popularity for its almost perfect ripping mechanism of even scratched and damaged media. EAC can also be used to create an image of the audio CD for archival purposes. The image can either be uncompressed WAV file or a compressed file. Apart from this image file, a CUE sheet file is also created which stores information about the tracks. The best part is that EAC is free for personal use albeit not free software.
    2. cdrdao

      cdrdao is free software for authoring and ripping of CD-ROMs. The following command I believe will help in creating an almost exact copy of the audio CD.

      # cdrdao read-cd -v 2 --device /dev/cdrom1 --datafile audiocd.bin --read-raw audiocd.toc
      

      This is the same command used by Brasero when making a copy of an Audio CD.

    3. I have also come across a command “readom” which has a “–clone” argument that is used by k3b in its “Clone Copy” option for audio CDs. However, I’ve read in a lot of forums that this does not backup the audio CD in a reliable way. That is when the image is burnt back to another CD, it may not be playable by all audio CD players. However, I think this command may be useful to backup data CDs with sector errors.

  • Tekkeon TekCharge Mobile Power and Battery Charger Review

    TekCharge MP1550 is an awesome mobile charger. I had purchased it from Amazon and got it shipped with one of my friends. Few things which I think are really cool about this charger are:

    1. Charger supports 7 different connectors. Furthermore there is a USB port, which means that theoretically any portable device that could be charged via USB could be charged using this charger.
    2. Charger uses AA batteries as its power source. This means that you can use alkaline or rechargeable AA batteries for charging your mobile.
    3. Includes voltage regulator so it won’t harm your device or its battery
    4. Finally, this can also act as a battery charger to charge upto two pairs of rechargeable AA batteries. You can use the retractable input/output cable with the mini-USB adapter for charging the batteries.

    I would highly recommend this charger especially for people using smartphones as smartphones’ batteries tend to drain out pretty quickly.

  • My First Smartphone – Motorola Fire XT530

    At last, I get my first smartphone – Motorola Fire XT530 which is based on Android. And this was a gift from a very close buddy of mine – Srikanth. He wanted to gift me something for my marriage, and I put it off till my second anniversary as I wanted his gift to be something very memorable. And this has proved to be a really wonderful gift.

    I was inclined to buying an Android based smartphone ever since I’ve heard about Android. I looked at a lot of budget (Rs.8000 – Rs.14000) Android phones such as Dell XCD35, Samsung Galaxy Ace, HTC Wildfire, HTC Wildfire S and LG Optimus One. There was some shortcoming in all the models such as low battery life, small screen size (<=3.2 inch) or bad camera. I almost decided to go for Samsung Galaxy Ace when I came across Motorola Fire XT530. The Motorola Fire XT530 had everything I needed - decent battery (1540mAh), 3.5 inch capacitative touchscreen, 5 MP camera with LED flash and Android OS v2.3.4. This model has been recently launched in September. I have been using this phone for more than a month now and I am just loving it. At times, the response is slow, but it is quite acceptable. The only real drawback I feel in this phone is its limited internal memory of 157 MB. This pretty much limits the number of applications that we can install in phone memory. While most of the applications can be moved to SD card, unfortunately some of them cannot. Using Link2SD, it is possible to use the external storage device for extending internal memory.

    Below are some of the Android apps which I have installed from the market on my mobile and find to be pretty useful. You may want to glance through them as some of them may be useful to you as well.

    • 3G Watchdog – 3G Watchdog data counter monitors your Mobile Internet (4G/3G/Edge/GPRS) data usage
    • Adobe Reader – PDF Reader
    • Advanced Task Killer – ATK is often used to kill app and clean memory
    • Android Agenda Widget – Extremely customizable calendar widget of various sizes. It can also integrate with Astrid. Especially useful because of a bug in older android calendar versions in which all day events are not shown on that particular day in the upcoming events widget.
    • Alarm Clock Xtreme Free – Advanced features such as limit on the number of times you can snooze the alarm and solving math problems to dismiss the alarm ensure that you get up from bed no matter what
    • AndFTP – AndFTP is a FTP, FTPS, SCP, SFTP client which provides download, upload, synchronization and share features with resume support
    • Android India – Find Android apps for India in one great looking and powerful app
    • Android Terminal Emulator – Access your Android’s built-in Linux command line shell
    • AVG Antivirus – Antivirus for scanning download applications
    • App 2 SD Free – An extremely useful app which shows a list of applications that can be moved from phone memory to SD card so that phone memory can be freed
    • Astrid Tasks – Another awesome app for managing tasks and setting automated reminders. The Tasks widget further is very useful for displaying an overview of the pending tasks.
    • BookMyShow – App for booking movie tickets
    • Caldav-Sync – App for adding a remote caldav calendar which integrates with the native calendar
    • Cardav-Sync beta – CardDAV-Sync is a CardDAV client for Android to synchronize contacts
    • Clean Master – Clean Master is an all-in-one cleaner app on android for cleaning app cache , unused files, residual files, search history and uninstalling apps
    • ColorNote – Color Note is a simple notepad app. It gives you a quick and simple notepad editing experience when you write notes, memo, email, message, shopping list and to do list.
    • Comic Reader – You can read ~400 of the most famous comics including Dilbert, Xkcd, Abstruse Goose, Geek and Poke, Calvin and Hobbes, PhD Comics, Pickles, Garfield, Spiked Math and many more!
    • Comics – The largest digital comic library with over 20,000 comics available including over 600 for free. Publishers include Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Image, IDW, Archie & many more!
    • ConnectBot – SSH client
    • Contact Editor Pro – Useful for editing entries added via Carddav
    • Contact Owner – Display your contact information when the device is locked, allowing the finder to contact you
    • Contacts+ – Contacts+ is your everyday contacts & dialer app, powered with text messaging, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and much more – all in one place.
    • ConvertPad – Unit Converter – ConvertPad Plus is a powerful and fully featured Unit converter, Currency converter and Calculator
    • Dictionary – Dictionary.com dictionary
    • DiskInfo – DiskInfo lists all partitions and all mount points on you device showing disk usage and very detailed partition information.
    • Documents To Go – View native Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files & attachments with Documents To Go Main App
    • Dolphin Browser HD – High-featured browser
    • ES File Explorer File Manager – ES File Explorer is a free, full-featured file and application manager.
    • Easy Battery Saver – Easy Battery Saver is a powerful yet easy to use power manager app specifically designed to extend battery life and optimize using habit.
    • Firefox Browser for Android – Firefox for Android is the free mobile web browser that puts the power of the open web in your hands.
    • Folder Organizer – Group items according to labels and create fully customizable folders and widgets
    • FolderSync – FolderSync is a application that enables simple sync to cloud based storage to and from local folders on the device memory card
    • Fackebook – Fackebook Android Client
    • Google Authenticator – Google Authenticator generates 2-step verification codes on your phone.
    • HDFC Bank MobileBanking – HDFC Bank MobileBanking gives you access to your account on your Android phone
    • ICICI Mobile Banking – iMobile – iMobile is ICICI Bank’s official mobile banking application
    • ICICI Bank i-safe – “i-Safe” mobile application allows you to generate OTP/URN on your mobile device instantly rather than receiving it through SMS
    • IMDb Movies & TV – IMDb mobile
    • K-9 Mail – Excellent IMAP client
    • KeePass2Android – Keepass2Android is an open source password manager application for Android. It reads and writes .kdbx-files, the database format used by the popular KeePass 2.x Password Safe
    • Kingsoft Office – Kingsoft Office is the only mobile Office with full-features FREE. Support for running on Android 2.1 and above system.
    • LinkedIn – LinkedIn Android Client
    • Magzter – Magzter caters to a global audience with a wide range of magazines, from entertainment to news.
    • MobileVOIP Cheap Calls – The MobileVOIP dialer lets you make cheap calls to national or international destinations.
    • MX Player – The best way to enjoy your movies.
    • my airtel – Introducing the my airtel app – your world of airtel on the go. Download the my airtel app to manage your airtel mobile, broadband & digital tv connections at work ,home or anywhere in between!
    • nexGTv Mobile TV – Mobile TV application with best of the Indian channels, Replay TV & Video on demand content.
    • Notification Toggle – Notification Toggle creates notifications in the Android status bar to let you quickly switch WiFi, Bluetooth, Silent mode, Screen rotation and Flight mode on and off or to adjust the screen brigthness (and many more…)
    • OpenDocument Reader – OpenDocument Reader, formerly known as OpenOffice Document Reader, allows you to read your ODF documents wherever you are.
    • OpenVPN Connect – OpenVPN Connect is the official full-featured Android VPN client
    • Opera Mini – Unlike ordinary web browsers, Opera Mini fetches all content through a proxy server that compresses and reformats web pages into a format more suitable for small screens.
    • Perfect World Clock – Perfect World Clock is the perfect tool for the frequent traveler or when working with people in different time zones.
    • Pulse – RSS/Feed reader
    • QuickPic – Advanced Image Viewer
    • Sipdroid – SIP client. Another popular SIP client is CSipSimple.
    • Skype – Skype client
    • SMS Scheduler – SMS Scheduler is a simple tool for automatic sms messages sending with chosen frequency.
    • Speedtest.net – Use Speedtest.net for easy, one-tap connection testing in under 30 seconds—accurate anywhere thanks to our global network.
    • SSHDroid – SSH Server
    • State Bank Freedom – Official State Bank Mobile Banking Application
    • TED – TED’s official Android app presents talks from some of the world’s most fascinating people
    • Tiny Flashlight + LED – Flashlight app for your device! Incredibly simple and yet very useful flashlight application. Will use your device’s camera LED / flash / screen as a torch.
    • TV Guide India – TV Guide India brings you schedules of over 150 TV channels that are aired in India.
    • Voice Recorder – This application is a handy voice recorder.
    • Watchdog Task Manager – Stop killing your apps randomly. Start monitoring them with Watchdog.
    • WHAT’S-ON-INDIA : TV Guide App – India’s Official TV Guide App, covers 500+ Indian TV Channels!
    • Widgetsoid – Very useful widget to display upto 10 customized toggles / shortcuts. Another similar free app is Power Toggles.
    • Wiki Encyclopedia – Wiki Encyclopedia gives you access to Wikipedia online encyclopedia, formatted for your Android mobile phone. Wikipedia Offline functionality allows you to save articles to your phone for later reading.
    • Xabber – Jabber/XMPP client

    Rooted phones are likely to find these applications very useful.

    • Link2SD – The external SD card can be used for storing applications thereby freeing your internal memory. See the Useful Links section below to know how this is a much better option compared to “Move to SD Card” feature that is native to android.
    • Titanium Backup – The most popular backup solution for rooted phones
    • OpenVPN Settings (along with OpenVPN installer, BusyBox Free and Tun.ko installer) – Useful if you need to connect to an OpenVPN server

    Useful Links:

    • http://theexasperatedman.blogspot.in/2012/06/motorola-fire-xt-xt530-xt531-all-in-one.html
    • http://www.link2sd.info/faq (especially see difference between “Move To SD Card (Native to Android)” and “Create (Symbolic) Link”)
    • http://me-and-my-motorola-fire-xt.blogspot.in/2012/04/how-to-factory-reset-your-motorola-fire.html
    • http://adq.livejournal.com/90889.html
  • Replacement Laptop Keys

    It may sometime happen that a key of our laptop breaks, or no longer works properly. Often the solution suggested for this is to have the entire laptop keyboard replaced. But this is not economical considering that laptop keyboards are pretty costly.

    I recently faced this issue when my wife’s Thinkpad Tab key was not working properly. I googled and came to know out that there are online companies who provide replacement keys for laptops. I chose to go with LaptopKey.com. I was able to easily locate the type of key that I wanted with the help of their Search feature and sample images that they provided. They had the option of shipping to India, and it took about 3 weeks for the key to be delivered. The package was intact. I replaced the faulty key with the help of their video tutorial, and now the Tab key works great.

    There are other such companies which provide replacement for laptop keys, and I think these are a good option when you have a couple of faulty keys.

  • Nokia Symbian S60 SIP Clients

    Here is a list of some of SIP clients for Nokia S60. Kindly note that these are generic SIP clients and not bound to any SIP provider as such.

    • Tivi – Tivi is perhaps my favourite softphone. It is available as a free download and I believe the authors intend to keep it this way. Moreover Tivi is perhaps the only softphone which can directly call an IP address without registering with a SIP provider (though I couldn’t hear the opposite person when I tried this feature).
    • Fring – The main disadvantage of Fring is that it routes all SIP calls through its own proxy server. So there is latency for calls made using SIP.
    • Adore Softphone – To use Adore Softphone, you will first have to register your device’s IMEI number. Then you can proceed to download it. Ascent Telecom’s Endura Mobile Dialer and REVE Systems’ Itel Mobile Dialer Express are similar to this but they are not available for free for end-users.
    • Talkonaut – I did not try this but I think this works based on callback.
    • s60voip – An open-source software, this is yet another SIP client to be explored. The major hurdle in using it is that you will have to sign this application by visiting https://www.symbiansigned.com in order to use it.

    There are other mVoIP clients such as Truphone, O-FONE, etc. which all use the SIP protocol but they do not allow configuring other SIP providers and are bound to their services. There is a possibility though that these products may in the future enable to configure other SIP providers.

    Lastly if you are likely to use mobile VoIP extensively, you may consider buying a Nokia handset which comes with a built-in VoIP client. (See References below).

    References:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_VoIP#Software_clients
    http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/VoIP_support_in_Nokia_devices#Support_in_Series_40_devices
    http://symbiancorner.blogspot.com/2007/08/symbian-voip-sip-applications.html