All posts by Utkarsh

Solution designer with Firstsource solutions. A post grad in Networks and IT Infrastructure. Technology enthusiast, blogger, webdesigner, Network security aspirant and in love with electronics and gadgets. This blog is an attempt to share what I find interesting... almost anything @Mtaram on twitter and Google+

After facing so many controversies since the launch of Windows 7, now Microsoft is looking into a problem that is causing some Windows 7 users to get a warning that there is a problem with their battery.

According to the company sources, there isn’t any problem in the battery. It comes into the notice that the warning that is reflecting on the PC screen, uses the computer’s basic input output system (BIOS) to try to determine whether a battery needs replacement. For some reason, the signals are getting crossed and some users are getting the message even when they should not, reports CNET.

Talking to CNET, Microsoft Official said, “We are working with our partners to determine the root cause and will update the forum with information and guidance as it becomes available.”

The company hasn’t given any specific timetable to fix it, but requested users to have faith and keep using Windows7.

General

Facebook – from color to Country

February 3, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

New Facebook game, just like the one based on colour.

Single = England
In love = Germany
Unrequited love = France
With couple = Spain
Single but Happy =Italy
Spring from one flower to another = Norway
Special friends = Sweden
In the mood for sex = Andorra
Sexually Satisfied = Russia
Not so sexually satisfied: Portugal
My boyfriend is Stupid: Austria
Remembering old love/lovers: Croatia
Married = Switzerland

Thanks to Boa Hancock

General

Happy Republic Day

January 25, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

[youtube id=”gstRrEmTcBc”]

Reviews

Airtel’s customer service – the bitter truth

January 25, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

I have been a loyal customer of Airtel untill recently when they started to call me regarding one number which I had never applied for nor am aware of. They say that the bill of tha number which is in excess of 3k is pending and I would have to pay it. They crossed their limits when they barred my real number because of that previous number which I have been telling them since more than six months that It doesnt belong to me. The customer care executives are hell bent on the fact that It was my number and there is no way that any one else could have got that number other than me. This had happened with me once more while I was working in Delhi. That time they forced me to pay the bill of some unknown number just like this. But this time I am not going to pay some one elses bill even if I have to now move away from Airtel. The customer care executives are totally unaware of what to do. Nodal oficers dont reply and if you pay a bill at their centre in cash they take more than 3 days to update the same and charge you for the late fee in next months bill. Airtel is bringinf shame to itself and its customer service level is deteriorating day by day.

Technology

My E63 caught cold

January 21, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

I came to my home in Lucknow for a week. The time being the most cold time of the year. I had recently bought me an E63 so it also travels with me. Yesterday when I was out in the morning with my dad with my phone in hand I tried to do some chatting as I always do [dad was talking to someone on his phone]. I noticed some lag in the response of my phone and also the keypresses failed to register and required to be pressed harder. Then I opened some more application and then it just froze… I took out the battery. Plugged it again and restarted… again the same issues… Till then dad was done with his call so I kept the E63 in pocket. When I took it out gain after an hour or so from my jacket it was not that cold and I could feel the warmth on the phone… I decided to have a shot again and this time all was ok … no freezing of screens and no faltering keypresses… I gues it was the morning chill 🙂 Will keep you warm, my E63 till I’m home. Love you.

iLike, Internet

One avatar throughout the globe – Gravatar

January 20, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

Gravatar! What is it?

Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site?

Some Sample Gravatars

Visit Gravatar site to create one for you. Its easy.

And where ever you post anything with you email there you gravatar would be displayed.

How it works?

A commenter creates an image suitable for a gravatar and uploads it to his account on gravatar.com. The gravatar is rated using pretty much the same ratings as the movie industry: G, PG, R, and X. These ratings are used by bloggers to set limits on the kinds of gravatars that appear on their sites — a gravatar with a G rating will appear everywhere while a gravatar with an X rating may not appear on many blogs at all.

Meanwhile, a blogger (like me) sets up his/her blog to enable it for gravatars. Then, when a commenter submits a comment, the blog’s gravatar plugin (automatic since WordPress 2.5) takes the commenter’s e-mail address (submitted in the comment form) and attempts to find a match at gravatar.com. If it finds a match, it displays the corresponding image. (The e-mail address is not used anywhere in the underlying page code.) If there’s no image on file, the blog software either displays nothing or displays a default image chosen by the blogger.

How the URL is constructed?

Step 1, The URL base: A gravatar is a dynamic image resource that is requested from our server. The request URL is presented here, broken into its segments. The URL always begins with

http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/

Step 2, The email hash: The next part of the URL is the hexadecimal MD5 hash of the requested user’s lowercased email address with all whitespace trimmed, for example the fictitious “iHaveAn@email.com” would have a hash of “3b3be63a4c2a439b013787725dfce802” This may be followed by .jpg (useful for some places on the internet which require that image URLs have filename extensions)

http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/3b3be63a4c2a439b013787725dfce802

http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/3b3be63a4c2a439b013787725dfce802.jpg

Everything from here on… is optional and can be found here

News

Symbiosis Pune – more than 150 students hospitalized due to food poisoning

January 20, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

UPDATE: Management has still not taken any strict action agains the mess contractor and instead they have blamed the hawkers that sell tea and other eateries outside the campus on the college road. The food that we get on the road is far better than the mess food and the management blaming them is a direct indication of them being on the side of the contractor. I apeal to all the suffered students and other to help us get them changed if not penalized. It has been a severe crime playing with the lives of more than a hundred students of which some are still hospitalized. Many who have been discharged are still not in condition to attend the classes.

Some students have been discharged from the hospitals and few more have been admitted later in the day on 19th. Management says that all students are fine and recovering. The reality is better witnessed in the campus in the form of the fear of mess food in students’ eyes. People have stopped eating in mess.

Yesterday [18 Jan] more than 150 students of Symbiosis Infotech Campus, Pune had to be admitted to at least four different hospitals due to food poisoning. Several students complained of health issues and vommiting after the dinner and were rushed to hospitals.

On the other hand the management says that not many students ate at the college mess. I doubt that because that is not possible on a weekday that too a tuesday. And by saying so the management itself says that the food they provide is so bad that students prefer to eat outside despite the mess fee being compulsory for all students.

There have been several complains for the food quality but all fell on deaf ears. At times they dont even follow the pre decided menu. People even have found roaches and glass shards in food. The mess contract is handled by Tammana group of hotels. Leave the mess food the service they offer at their restraunt a few meters from campus is also not worth mentioning. They are too bad at service but still they have the contract we dont understand why.

Here is the story in different colours as covered by media…

NDTV PtiNews India Today Haryana News Sify and more

I am a student of Symbiosis Centre for IT which is in same campus with SIIB and SCMHRD and we have common infrastucture including the mess which some news has mentioned as “canteen”.

Looking forward to proper action being taken on this.

Friends

Amazing love letter

January 19, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

My dear frnd “Gajju” this letter is so awesome that I am taking the liberty to post it without asking for permission (as if I need to :P). Its totally awesome. Remote 5.

Technology

Femtocell

January 18, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

A femtocell is a small cellular base station designed for use in residential or small business environments. It connects to the service provider’s network via broadband (such as DSL or cable) and typically supports 2 to 5 mobile phones in a residential setting. A femtocell allows service providers to extend service coverage inside of your home – especially where access would otherwise be limited or unavailable – without the need for expensive cellular towers. It also decreases backhaul costs since it routes your mobile phone traffic through the IP network.
A femtocell is sometimes referred to as a “home base station”, “access point base station”, “3G access point”, “small cellular base station” and “personal 2G-3G base station”.

The Benefits of Femtocells

Due to the substantial benefits, femtocell technology is causing quite a “buzz” in the industry. ABI Research has forecasted that by 2011 there will be 102 million users of femtocell products on 32 million access points worldwide.

Femtocell Benefits to End Users

Reduced “in home” call charges
Improved indoor coverage
Continued use of current handset
Reduced battery drain
One consolidated bill
Multiple users/lines
Landline support

Femtocell Benefits to Mobile Operators

Improves coverage
Reduces backhaul traffic
Provides capacity enhancements
Reduces churn
Enables triple play
Addresses the VoIP threat
Stimulates 3G usage
Captures termination fees
Allows for multiple users/lines
Addresses the fixed mobile convergence market with a highly attractive and efficient solution

Femtocells: Why Now?

Indoor coverage has been an industry problem for year and vendors have unsuccessfully tried to develop relevant technology solutions for the home. Most services to date involved micro or pico base stations and did not really have the price points to support residential users. Alternative approaches tried most recently involve dual mode devices based on Wi-Fi. While technically compelling, these solutions depend on adoption of new (and expensive) handsets.

A number of factors are coming together to enable femtocell based solutions:
• The high adoption of broadband connections allows the service providers to leverage the IP backhaul to reduce the backhaul costs for additional usage.
• Advances in embedded technologies make it possible to offer a home base station at an acceptable price point approaching $100 over time
• Users are now accustomed to the idea of having a home gateway – thanks to prevalent products like TiVo, Vonage, Slingbox, Wi-Fi AP, as well as DSL/cable modems.
• As 3G adoption increases, indoor coverage becomes a challenge even in otherwise good 2G coverage regions such as Europe and Asia.
• Operators who have trialed cell-site based home zone type services have seen the potential to leverage home zones for improved customer retention.
• New low power GSM spectrum has enabled new players to participate in mobile offerings based on licensed band femtocells.

Femtocell Architectures

There are two broad femtocell architecture approaches within a mobile service provider’s network.

1. All-IP (SIP/IMS): The SIP/IMS based approach integrates the femtocell through a SIP or IMS based network. This approach leverages a SIP based VoIP network for cost-effective delivery, while interworking with a cellular core to extend legacy circuit switched services. In this approach, the CPE converts cellular signals to SIP and interfaces to a SIP-MSC inter-working function (IWF) which connects to the SIP (or IMS) network as well as the circuit switched network.

2. Radio Access Network (IP RAN): The IP RAN based approach effectively considers a femtocell an extension into the operator RAN network and ties the femtocell into the circuit switch core at the edge of the network. This typically involves transporting “Iub” messages over IP into a Radio Network Controller (RNC) or a modified RNC/concentrator. (The Iub is the interface used by an RNC to control multiple Node B’s in a UMTS network.)

There are three different variants of this approach being pursued by different vendors, however all three of these variants require either the introduction of or major modification to network elements at the RNC layer of the mobile core network:

Modified RNC: This approach uses existing or modified RNCs to connect to the circuit switched core network. The CPE connects to the RNC via Iub over IP.
Concentrator: This is similar to modified RAN in that it connects to the CS core, but it does it through a new ‘concentrator’ device that interfaces with the CPE. The interface is again based on Iub over IP.
UMA: This approach incorporates a UMA client into the CPE and connects to the core network via a UMA UNC.

News

Information Technology Entrepreneurship and Leadership Forum (ITELF)

January 16, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

There are unleashed talents waiting to sprout, tired rainmakers who are striving for an opportunity to start their own ventures and there are some truly enlighten souls who believe they have something more to offer in this world.

If you aspire to own your competitive advantage, challenge the conventional thinking and be a part of revolution and want to be a trailblazer in the Information Technology and Management field, look no further than Information Technology Entrepreneurship and Leadership Forum (iT ELF) at SCIT. We provide an opportunity to discover and nurture the entrepreneurial spirits.

SCIT is known for creating global IT professionals who are trained to be leaders and unleash their entrepreneurial spirit. iT ELF is an endeavor of SCIT that works as a catalyst for nurturing entrepreneurial talents; it is also a resource centre creating awareness relating to entrepreneurship and leadership in education and also providing direction relating to entrepreneurship development and management.

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