Arun Blog

Archive for August, 2008

IPhone in India

Ever since Airtel announced the launch of the Apple iPhone 3G, the market has been abuzz with speculation about pricing. Even though we reported earlier that Airtel was planning to price the handset at an aggressive Rs.12,000, we talked to a source in Delhi who told us that Airtel will price the iPhone 3G anywhere between Rs 20,000 and Rs 25,000.

Another source close to a major network carrier has told us that there is no way it would make sense for either Airtel or Vodafone to price the iPhone 3G at Rs 12,000. “Given the duty component and other taxes, it won’t be viable for any service provider to price it at Rs 12,000. Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 should be more like it,” he said.
Moving on to the pricing at parallel markets, our source at Heera Panna, Mumbai, is offering the iPhone 3G for Rs. 55,000. He also claims to have sold 12 pieces till date. Another seller in Irla, Mumbai, has the 16GB iPhone 3G for Rs 32,000.

First ODI series win for India in Lanka

India prized out a hard-fought 46-run victory in the fourth one-day match against Sri Lanka to take an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five match series and register their first ever series win over the hosts in a bilateral series played out in the Island nation.
 
Set to score 259 runs for a series leveling victory, the hosts could manage only 212 runs as the Indian bowlers kept taking wickets at regular intervals. Though the Lankans were theoretically never out of the game, loss of wickets at regular intervals hampered their run-chase.
 
The Indian bowlers began well as Munaf Patel remove opener Malinda Warnapura and Kumara Sangakkara in quick succession though Sanath Jayasuriya kept the momentum going with a quick fire half century. However, with Jayasuriya’s dismissal, things turned in India’s favour conclusively.
 
Though the top and middle order did not fire for the hosts, batsmen lower down showed much better pluck than their Indian counterparts with the last five players adding 70-plus runs between them. Thushara has been quite a revelation for the Lankans as he once again thwarted the Indian bowlers with great courage.
 
India has won two series in Sri Lanka since they played each other for the first time in the Island nation way back in 1985. However, both these wins came in multi-team competitions. India won in 1994 and 1998, the other teams being Pakistan and Australia and New Zealand respectively. India and Sri Lanka shared the Champions Trophy in the 2002-03 season.

Mortgages

Buying a home is exciting, but can also be stressful with so many decisions to make regarding which types of loans to have and which lender to obtain it from. Should you deal directly with a lender or have a broker? What’s the point compensation for having a broker? How much of a loan payment can you afford? How much should the loan amount and loan term be? Is the interest rate fixed or adjustable? The questions keep rolling in, but you can ease your mind now that you are here.
There are so many different types of loans out there to accommodate the many different situations home buyers and home owners need. From first time home buyers to current homeowners, we provide all sorts of loan financing such as mortgages, refinancing, and home equity loans. Be sure to research, shop, and compare all loan types to find which one best suits you. There are some factors that you will need to pay attention to in order to get some money from your home. The amount you can possible borrow all depend on your age, the current interest rate, and the appraised value that has been set to your home. The more valuable your home is, the older you are, the lowest interest, are all factors that mean you can borrow more. You need to take the time and see how your current factors will affect you.
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Sushil kumar wins bronze in wrestling

BEIJING: Freestyle wrestler Sushil Kumar gave India its second medal in the on going Olympics when he defeated the Kazak opponent.

Earlier, Sushil Kumar lost to Ukrainian Andriy Stadnik on points after being pegged down 3-8 on technical points.

While the luck of the draw gave Sushil a bye in the first round, giving him a start straightaway in the quarterfinals, Standnik had to beat 2007 world no. 5 American Doug Schwab in the round of 16 to move further.

In the quarters, Stadnik, a former World Cup winner and 2006 World Championship bronze medallist, out-played the Indian. As Stadnik, quarterfinalist at the 2007 World Championships, moved into the final, all those who lost to him came through to the Repechage, which will decide the two bronze medallists.

In the Repechage first round, Sushil meets Schwab and their winner will meet Belarussian Albert Batyrov. Sushil will need to win a third bout after that to get himself a bronze.

Schwab was fifth at the last World Championships, where Sushil was seventh.

Coming through to the final from the other half of the category is Turkish wrestler Ramazan Shahin, who won the gold medal in the 2007 World Championships, besides claiming the first place in the 2008 European meet.

Zero Watt Monitors From Fujitsu

Here’s something for the eco-conscious hardware enthusiast to cheer about! Fujitsu has just introduced a range of LCD monitors that shuts off power entirely to the monitor when it’s not in use. Normally, monitors in standby mode still draw little amounts of power - ranging between 1 to 6 watts. The latest range of Sceneview premium ECO monitors simply powers off the display when you’re not using it. The new models have this feature enabled by default.
 
The technology aims to cut down on ever-increasing electricity bills and according to a company calculation, businesses can save up to 168,000 pounds per year just by switching to these monitors. It works on a simple, patent-pending technology that power off the display when you log off. Power is returned with the help of an electric pulse that is sent to the monitor once the PC is active again.
 
The range includes the 20-inch P20W-5 ECO and the 22-inch P22W-5 ECO - both of which are premium segment models that are packed with nearly every feature you’ll ever need. The features include a 5ms response time, up to 1680×1050 resolution, HDMI, automatic brightness control and a maximum brightness of 300cd/m2.
 
Larger 24 and 26-inch models will follow these two models in September.

Bolt puts spark in race

The giant Jamaican started his victory celebrations a full 30m from the line, raising his arms aloft to acclaim a victory which was as awe-inspiring for its ease as much its speed. And the showboating was entirely warranted as he gave his rivals the perfect view of the heels of his golden shoes in perhaps the most one-sided final in history.

Imperious Bolt cantered across the line in 9.69 seconds - 0.2secs ahead of Richard Thompson in second, a massive margin in 100m terms - to seal his status as the fastest man on the planet.And all this from a 21-year-old who considers the 100m his secondary event.”I always say the 200m is my favourite race, that’s not going to change,” he said.

Such talk makes ominous listening for anyone with aspirations of challenging Bolt’s supremacy over the coming seasons.Coming into the Games this event was billed as a three-way tussle also involving compatriot Asafa Powell and America’s Tyson Gay.

Instead it turned into a stroll for a man who is a real novice at the distance - and who only made up his mind to race in China three months earlier.Bolt broke the world record for the first time back in May in only his fifth race at the distance, clocking 9.72secs at the Grand Prix in New York to lower the previous mark held by Powell.

“I am now the fastest man in the world, so I have to run the 100m. You just tell yourself that you have to do it.” the Trelawny-born sprinter said after that race.”I was pretty confident, I wasn’t looking for a world record but it was there for the taking so I just went out there and ran my best race.”His best though appears to know no limits.

Bolt burst on to the scene as at 15-year-old when he won gold over 200m at the World Junior Championships in Kingston.

And the precocious youngster proved he could cut it with the big boys as well when he ran a 200m personal best of 19.75 last year before going on to pick up two silver medals at the World Championships in Osaka, one in the 200m and one as part of the Jamaican 4×100m relay team.

Despite his impressive times, Bolt was not seen as a contender over the 100m in Beijing until barely three months ago, with Asafa Powell and American world champion Tyson Gay expected to fight it out for gold.

This school of thought was quickly changed in May when Bolt ran the second fastest 100m in history, 9.76secs, and proved it was no fluke by following it up with his world record run.

It was Olympic medals rather than world records that Bolt always had this eye on though.

“I don’t think there’s a comparison between an Olympic gold and a world record, someone could take the record from me tomorrow. You’ve got to be the Olympic champion or world champion to really count,” he said.

And boy does Bolt really count.

Expert Tips on Powerpoint

1. Use the Slide Master in PowerPoint 2007
The Slide Master is the first slide in a set of slides, which stores the information about themes and layouts that you want to use through the presentation. Any changes you make to the Slide Master are applied to each slide in the presentation, including those that you might add later. Therefore, you should add design elements and elements like company logos to the Slide Master.
To create or customize a Slide Master, open a blank presentation, go to View tab > Presentation Views group, and click Slide Master. To add a header or footer to each slide, go to the Insert tab > Text group and click Header and Footer. In the dialog box that appears, go the Slide tab, select the checkboxes against Header or Footer or both and type text required. Click Apply to All. To add more placeholders to the slide layout, go to the Slide Master tab > Master Layout group, and click Insert Placeholder. Click the type of placeholder you’d like. Click a location on the slide layout and drag the placeholder. You can also apply a theme here. Click the Microsoft Office button and click Save As. Type a name for the file and click the Save as type list to choose PowerPoint Template. Click Save. On the Slide Master tab, in the Close group, click Close Master View.
2. Customize a PowerPoint 2007 theme
You can change the colors, fonts, and effects of a theme, and then save it as a .thmx file for later use in presentations. All these are found under Design tab > Themes group.
To change the colors, click Colors in this group. Click Create New Theme Colors, and under Theme Colors, click the color that you want to use. In the Name box, type a name for this color and click Save.
To change the font, click Theme Fonts and then Create New Theme Fonts. Click the fonts that you want to use in the Heading Font and Body Font boxes. Type a new name for these fonts in the Name box and click Save.
To change effects, click Theme Effects and then the effect that you want to use.
To save these changes, click More in the Themes group. Click Save Current Theme and type a name for this theme in the File name box. Click Save.
 3. Use a picture as a watermark in PowerPoint 2007
You may like to use your company’s logo or other pictures as a watermark in presentations. To add a watermark to all the slides in a new presentation, go to the View tab and the Presentations Views group. Click Slide Master. To add a watermark to some slides, click each slide and add it one at a time.
Go to the Insert tab > Illustrations group and click Picture. Locate the picture you want to use on your hard drive, removable disk or drive, or network, and click Insert. Right-click the picture and click Size and Position to adjust these for the picture. Select the picture and go to Picture Tools > Format tab > Adjust group and click Recolor. Under Light Variations, click the color fade of your choice. Then, click Brightness and click the brightness percentage. Go to the Format tab again. Click the Arrange group and click Send to Back.

Back up your computer

There are many reasons why you should back up your computer—possibilities of hard disk corruption or crash due to malicious programs or technical faults, accidents such as fires or thefts, and so on. However, for most users, a ‘backup’ is either inessential or too technical. It needn’t be either of these; here are guidelines you could follow to make backing up a routine task.

What to back up
You should back up data that cannot be replaced easily, balancing this with the need to keep backup sizes within reasonable control. If you have hundreds of gigabytes of music, it may not be possible to back up all of it within reasonable costs.
You could decide to back up your work-related files, Internet downloads that you’ve paid for, photographs, music that you’ve purchased from the Internet, any financial records, your Outlook Address Book and so on.
Once you decide what you would like to backup, you can estimate the amount of storage space you would need for this. The estimate should also include the possibility of data growth in future. The amount of storage space you need will help you decide where you would create your backups.

Where to back up
A backup should ideally be created on a separate hard disk or at least a separate hard-disk partition. You could also take backups on Zip drives, CDs or DVDs, or even USB pen drives. Remember that taking backups is a regular task, so you need adequate space for them. If you decide to backup to removable media like CDs or DVDs, remember to buy RW disks, so that you can update your backups by erasing the older ones and burning the new ones.
Another way of taking backups is to do it online. Here, you connect to a website, such as Xdrive, which gives you a backup utility that creates your backup, compresses it, encrypts it, and then transfers it to a third-party location. You can connect to this location to view or update your backups, when your system information or data changes. Online backups have the advantage that your data is stored in two separate locations—your PC and a remote location.
CD-RWs and DVD-RWs are relatively inexpensive. Moreover, a CD-RW can store up to 700 MB of data, while a DVD-RW can store a few GB. However, you need to check that your PC comes with the appropriate drive for the media you want to use. Otherwise, you’ll need to invest in the drive as well. Most USB drives can hold up to 2 GB of data and are not too expensive, but due to their small size, are easy to misplace. Zip drives and disks are relatively expensive, but usually come with backup software that helps in taking backups.

How to back up
There are many ways of taking backups. Windows XP and Vista come with backup utilities. In Windows XP, this is available under Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools. In Windows Vista, go to Start > Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Back up your computer.
If you don’t have the backup utility in Windows, you can install it from the CD. Apart from the Windows utilities, you can also use any of the numerous free backup utilities that are available online. Only remember to download these from trusted sites, such as download.com.
Backup utilities take you through the process of backing up—choosing what to back up, where to back up, creating the backup, usually with compression so that more data can be stored. You can also create a backup schedule with the utility.
If the data you want to backup is not too large in size, you can create manual backups. Go to the folder that you want to backup, copy it and paste it to the location or disc where you want to create the backup.
You can also create an image of your hard disk by using utilities meant for this, so that your system can be restored to its current state in case of a crash. Several free utilities are available for this as well.
You’ll need to backup regularly, especially those parts of your essential data that change frequently. You can do this manually if the data isn’t too large or use the backup utility all over again

Paes, Bhupathi knocked out of Olympics

Roger Federer kept his Olympic medal hopes alive with a doubles win over India’s Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes on Friday.

The singles top seed, shocked in the individual competition late on Thursday, teamed up with world number 10 Stanislas Wawrinka for a 6-2, 6-4 quarter-final win.
 
Venus and Serena Williams, who also crashed out of the singles, beat Japan’s Ayumi Morita and Ai Sugiyama 7-5, 6-2 in the women’s doubles second round. Both matches started late on Thursday but were called off because of rain.
 
“It was sweet revenge because I lost to them with Yves Allegro four years ago in Athens,” Federer said.
 
“We expected them to be tougher, but in a best-out-of-three-set doubles match anything can happen.”
 
The Swiss pair face a difficult semi-final against top-seeded American twins Bob and Mike Bryan late on Friday.
 
“The next match will be tough for us,” Wawrinka said. “I think we need to be focused and play like we did today.”
 
France’s Arnaut Clement and Michael Llodra play Simon Aspelin and Thomas Johansson of Sweden in the other men’s semi.
 
Twelve-time Grand Slam champion Federer has never won an Olympic medal but finished fourth in the 2000 singles.
 
Bhupathi had earlier hit out at the policy of allowing players to use their individual ranking to calculate the Olympic doubles seedings, saying singles specialists did not “deserve” such consideration.
 
“It’s the first time I’ve seen this happen. I don’t know what the agenda with the ITF (International Tennis Federation) is but I think it’s pretty unfortunate that they’re doing that,” he has said.
 
Bhupathi and Paes teamed up for the Olympics despite a bitter personal feud. They won three Grand Slam doubles titles in 1999 before parting a year later.

Paes, Bhupathi enter quarter-finals

Their impeccable on-court camaraderie betrayed no signs of a stormy past as Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi today inched closer to their first joint Olympic medal by reaching the quarterfinals of the men’s doubles event here.

The seventh seeded Indians played compact tennis to defeat Marcelo Melo and Andre Sa of Brazil 6-4, 6-2 in just over an hour.
 
In the quarterfinals, they will take on the winners of the second round match that pits fourth seeded Swiss pair of Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka against the mercurial Russian duo of Dmitry Tursunov and Mikhail Youzhny.
 
Paes and Bhupathi were in perfect sync and they combined well to negate the Brazilians. Breaking Sa early in the third game put them ahead and the duo subsequently did not relax their grip over the proceedings as they sealed the first set without much ado.
 
At a time when games tend to go with the serve, squandering break points is a luxury that a pair can hardly afford and Paes and Bhupathi put themselves right in the driver’s seat by breaking Melo in the first game of the second set.
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