A glass of steaming milky syrupy tea is best served cut. One by two or two by three, it embodies the spirit of sharing and camaraderie (and more significantly a resource crunch). Come, have a sip.
Bored of being limited within the confines of my workplace or home (though I have Wi-Fi) and the uninspiring internet on my mobile phone, I wanted to break free. Therefore, after some thought (many people had advised me against the idea), I got myself a mobile internet connection - Idea NetSetter.
Idea had entered the data card market recently and has some lucrative tariff on offer. Since my mobile telephone connection is also from Idea, I preferred to stick to the same provider (other reasons are explained lower in the post).
What it promises:
EDGE/GPRS/GSM Air interface
Quad band operation (850/900/1800/1900 Mhz)
Wireless data speed up to 236.8 kbps
GPRS/EDGE Multislot class 12
SMS support
Microsoft (WHQL) certified drivers
Compatible with notebooks and PCs
Zero CD installation
International roaming
2 year warranty
What it costs:
Rs 2490 for the USB stick.
For a detailed pre-paid and post-paid plans in your area click here.
I chose the Rs 849/month unlimited post-paid plan. Rs 500/month for the first three months an introductory offer.
How it is: The hardware cost might put off some budget users - Rs 2490 seems a little too high, even though most service providers charge similar (if not more) rates.
The promised speed (236.8 kbps) seems to be greater than the competition (Tata Indicom Plug 2 Surf - 153.6 kbps, Reliance NetConnect - 153.6 kbps). The actual speed is actually much much lower - as with all Indian ISPs, mobile or fixed line.
I've been using it since last evening and the maximum download speed I got was around 35 kbps with the average hovering around 20-25 kbps. Decent. It is almost like my existing internet connection.
Online broadband speed tests put the download rate at about 119 kbps and 25 kbps for upload.
But it is slower in places with weaker signal strength (like my office desk). It would be a good idea to check beforehand the Idea network strength at the places you are most likely to use it.
The installation is smooth, just plug in the USB stick and just follow the instructions to install the requisite software. The USB stick has 10 MB of space in it.
You might need to reset your browser settings to 'No proxy', in case you have a different setting for your existing internet connection.
Watching internet videos and dowloading large files may seem to be a pain for people used to real high-speed internet (still a distant dream for me). In case you want better, you might like Reliance Netconnect Broadband+ that promises 3.1 mbps speed (but the costs involved is higher too).
Since Idea NetSetter also supports SMS (send and receive) you can easily copy paste or type text messages and send them to your family and friends from the comfort of a computer. There is also easy drag and drop import of contacts in a csv file.
The USB modem turned out to be a little larger than what I had expected, almost the size of the early pen drives - around 8 cms in length. The model that I got (EG162G) is manufactured by Huawei.
The application interface is simple and provides the necessary info (speed, upload/download stats and text messaging), but could've had some little features for a better user experience. The close button - that so many of us are so prone to clicking - shouldn't necessarily close the application. The user should have an option to make the application minimise to the system tray even if he hits close.
Voice call facility would have been a good added advantage. Also a lanyard anchor, though trivial, has its many advantages (just in case I didn't have pockets).
Here in Delhi the pre-paid unlimited plan costs Rs 100 lesser than the comparative post-paid plan. The Idea executives I talked to could provide no satisfactory reasoning for that. Nevertheless, I opted for the post-paid to save me from the bother of getting a recharge done on a specified date, failing which I'd be left internetless (post-paid connections have a 15-day grace period).
To me getting the Idea NetSetter USB modem was worth it given that I pay Rs 800 a month for my not-so-reliable WiMAX internet connection. And my analysis of the competition gives Idea the advantage (even though I didn't get the promised call from any Idea customer service executive when I first expressed my interest for the product through their website. They might be losing some potential customers there).
I sincerely hope (and so would you) that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is able to strictly enforce its guidelines to internet service providers to ensure availability of the minimum required bandwidth in their networks.
Many readers would be aware of this, but evidently many others aren't. Therefore this post.
If you use your netbook/ultra-portable laptop only for surfing the internet and/or other less resource intensive functions and don't multi-task then you could give this a miss.
But if you, like me, try to extract the maximum of of the little thing (bachche ki jaan nahin le raha hoon), you might have experienced that the little machine often acts sluggish (expecially if you are using one with Windows XP or worse Vista) while running multiple applications simultaneously.
Not to worry, this 6-step (depending on your view settings) process might make things a little smoother. This is for netbookers who prefer performance over appearance.
Instructions for Windows XP only (don't have access to a Vista machine. All friends and colleagues have gone back to XP. But it should be similar)
If you are on Category view 1. Click on the Start menu button 2. Click on Control Panel 3. Click on the Performance and Maintainence link 4. Click on the Adjust visual effects link (under Pick a task) 5. Choose the Adjust for best performance radio button 6. Press OK
If you are on the Classic View 1. Click on the Start menu button 2. Click on the Control Panel on the menu 3. Click/double click on System 4. Click on the Advanced tab 5. Click on the Setting button under Performance 6. Choose the Adjust for best performance radio button 7. Press OK
What Windows does is that it compromises on the resources utilised to give you the looks and you back to what many of us refer to as the Windows 98 appearance, and therefore delivers a better performance with more juice left for the applications to swim in.
I have done it even for my relatively more powerful desktops (both at home and at work). And life with Windows is a little better.
I'm yet to watch the movie. Intend to do that over the weekend. There are too many things happening out here, for me to sit back and watch a film in leisure.
The concept is appealing, and the bits that I viewed, while converting it, displayed some decent work in animation. Simple can be a lot of fun.
Since in a welcome move the creator of the film Nina Paley has shared it under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License, I'm putting it up here and in different formats to suit different needs.
About the film: Sita is a Hindu goddess, the leading lady of India's epic the Ramayan and a dutiful wife who follows her husband Rama on a 14 year exile to a forest, only to be kidnapped by an evil king from Sri Lanka. Despite remaining faithful to her husband, Sita is put through many tests.
Nina (the filmmaker Nina Paley herself) is an artist who finds parallels in Sita's life when her husband - in India on a work project - decides to break up their marriage and dump her via email.
Three hilarious Indonesian shadow puppets with Indian accents - linking the popularity of the Ramayan from India all the way to the Far East - narrate both the ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the epic.
In her first feature length film, Paley juxtaposes multiple narrative and visual styles to create a highly entertaining yet moving vision of the Ramayan. Musical numbers choreographed to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw feature a cast of hundreds: flying monkeys, evil monsters, gods, goddesses, warriors, sages, and winged eyeballs.
A tale of truth, justice and a woman's cry for equal treatment. Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as "The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told."
About the filmmaker:
Nina Paley (b. May 3, 1968, Champaign, Illinois, USA) is a longtime veteran of syndicated comic strips, creating Fluff (Universal Press Syndicate), The Hots (King Features), and her own alternative weekly Nina's Adventures. In 1998 she began making independent animated festival films, including the controversial yet popular environmental short, The Stork. In 2002 Nina followed her then-husband to Trivandrum, India, where she read her first Ramayan.
This inspired her first feature, Sita Sings the Blues, which she animated and produced single-handedly over the course of five years on a home computer.
Nina teaches at Parsons School of Design in Manhattan and is a 2006 Guggenheim Fellow.
Yeh Bullet meri jaan Manzilon ka nishaan Zindagi ek safar Chalna shaam-o-sahar Iski raftar ki Baat hain aur hi Lambi raahon pe Ye kya gazab ki chale Raaste taye kare Faasle taye kare Ye Bullet... Enfield Bullet Ghazab ki sawari.
This song is embedded into my mind right from childhood. The music has a distinct qawwali feel complete with the harmonium (though the instrument isn't desi and was actually banned by All India Radio for being inappropriate for Indian classicial music), tabla, claps and all.
If you ride a Bullet or are just a Bullet aficionado (like me), I suggest you set it as your ringtone. Here's the stuff
Bored of being limited within the confines of my workplace or home (though I have Wi-Fi) and the uninspiring internet on my mobile phone, I wanted to break free. Therefore, after some thought (many people had advised me against the idea), I got myself a mobile internet connection - Idea NetSetter.
Many readers would be aware of this, but evidently many others aren't. Therefore this post.
