Ankur Gupta Online

I am back again with another review, this time of Western Digital 250GB Passport External Hard Disk.

I had been thinking about buying an external hard disk from a long time due to lack of space on my HP DV6516TX laptop as it has only 160GB Hard Disk and my 2 mbps MTNL Triband broadband is quick to download loads of data in a single day.After researching a lot about external hard disks I zeroed in on this one mainly because of two reasons:

• It is a 2.5″ Hard drive and hence does not need external power
• It is one of the very few 2.5″ drives that come in 250GB capacity

Portability was one of the prime factors for choosing this drive and it lives up to that reputation and more as it weighs only 104 gms which is exceptionally light and can be carried around easily in pocket as it dimensions are also small.I bought the Glossy Black color to complement my laptop Some of the downsides include the outer surface is prone to oily fingerprints very easily thus making it hard to keep it shiny and also it develops scratches pretty easily.

The bundled package didn’t have anything much to say with just a USB cable being supplied along with the drive. it didnot even include a manual A soft copy of the manual is although available on the hard disk itself. The company didnot even care to give its customers a carry bag which is an absolute necessity for a portable product. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 2% [?]

The latest beta version of the popular chat client Yahoo Messenger was released yesterday and I installed it right away only to be hugely dissappointed

I had expected this release to pack in some more features along with a new interface which would be more refreshing and soothing. My second wish was fulfilled but only partialy as Yahoo did revamp the interface completely but to make it even worse than some of its ancient versions.The colour combination was terrible and the themes provided changed only the title bar and the color theme rather than whole look of the messenger window.

This version doesn’t add any new features I could find except for a new feature called “Forward offline PMs” which was not available in previous versions but nothing pretty significant.Also when this version is installed it resets many of your settings to default but thankfully I had my archive intact.One good thing that this version does is quicker sign-in, hence reducing the time to sign-in by a appreciable margin.

Hence not much has changed in this version except the interface which is to say the least intolerable and it forced me to uninstall this version right away and shift back to version 8.1.0.421 which seemed pretty refreshing! I would say save you time and resources and forget about this version and hope that Yahoo releases a much much better final version of 9.0.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I had been contemplating writing in this topic for quite some time now,so finally having found time and some facts I’m equipped to comment on it.

iPhone was launched in US on 29th June with much fanfare and hype with fans queing up outside Apple Stores to get their hands on first pieces of this “dream gadget”.But was it really a dream gadget for them?Well probably yes as they didn’t care about the price nor the features that it sported.They only cared about the Multi-touch and the first ever Apple Phone.

Now coming onto the topic..I personally think that iPhone didnot live up to its hype completely.Soon after launch people realized the restrictions that had been put in the firmware.This restrictions ranged from firmware issues to hardware issues including no removable battery/memory,no 3rd Party Application support and so on.These issues along with the steep price led to the hype dying down quickly but still iPhone was a hot selling phone.

Locking of the iPhone with a single carrier contributed a major role in the hype dying down quickly.iPhone within days of its launch had been hacked and many restrictions started disappearing in the air quickly.Recently a free iPhone unlocker has been released on the web making it usable with any carrier around the world.

Reports on the net about hidden features and much better hardware than previously thought also surfaced.According to reports iPhone can manage Flash, Java and MMS. Even more interesting, the platform also has the GPS, FM tuner and 3G capabilities already built-in. But what is the good news here? All those features can be activated by a simple firmware update! If this is really true then I think that iPhone is worth it.

With Apple slashing the prices by 200$ it does seem a lot more attractive but then you wont get the warranty here in India.It has been speculated than iPhone will be launched in India within a fortnight but it seems to good to be true as it wont be easy for Apple to sign an exclusive deal for it with the Indian carriers within such a short span of time.

So is it worth a buy? According to me I would wait till the next firmware update to see what Apple has in store and also the pricing that Apple choses for India which will certainly be higher than the US. If launched at a price of below Rs. 20,000 then it does make a good buy else Nokia N95 is still the king which is certainly much better on features than iPhone.

Your bouquets and  brickbats are all welcome

Popularity: 2% [?]

A lot of you spend almost all of your time browsing social networking sites on the internet and “scrapping” your friends.

Social networking sites like Orkut and Myspace have become hugely popular in the last couple of years and constitute a major part of internet traffic.New social networking sites are being launched every day but to become popular is another ballgame all together..

A social networking site named Sceneparty.com which is waiting to be launched; caught my attention as it takes social networking a step further by providing users more options like forum posting,blog posting and other features which are quite attractive.

It offers a new experience to the users with a refreshing interface.It also allows to create music community to share your experience and not the forget that you also stand a chance to Win a Sony Playstation 3 by participating in various contests that run on the site.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Now a days inventions are quiet common. The plasma technology was invented with thin screen. You can enjoy the benefit of thin screen which can be mounted anywhere at home like a small painting. Believe it, a 40 inches plasma screen weighs just 150 pounds. This plasma screen has been consisted of numerous cells. These cells are made of separate glass compartments in which neon-xenon gas has filled. When the power passes through these cells, the rays strike on RGB phosphors and forms images on the screen.Why should you prefer Plasma technology?

1. Comfortability in viewing

Plasma screen performs well even in poor lightings. If there is any light at the back your plasma TV, you will not get the glare on the screen. There is no need of turn off all the lights to view the pictures clearly as you do like ordinary projection screens.

2. Viewing Angle

The unique advantage of this TV is the comfortable viewing angle of the screen. That is you can view your TV anywhere from your living room. Most of the plasma screens have been launched with the viewing angle up to 160 degree.

3. Picture Quality

The plasma screen has the stuff to offer high quality images on the screen. It can display images with bright colours. It does not have scan lines which annoys the viewers while watching interesting programs on the TV.

4. Multi-functionality

Plasma screen has the potential to display HDTV, standard TV signals and home video. It has the ability to accept video formats. The average life span of the plasma displays has measured as 30000 hours.

Popularity: 1% [?]