Techwit January 2012

Credits

Editor : Abhijoy Sarkar Graphics and Cover Page : Siddharth Aditya Saurav DTP Typeset and Layout : Saurav Modak Writers : David Kai Singson, Vaibhav Kaushal, Gaurav Prabhu, Dhavan Vaidya, George Solon Guest Writer : Falgun Rathod Valuable Suggestions by : Sathyajit Bhat Sponsors : Cyber Octet, Spartanz Gaming Clan War 2.0

Send us your articles, feedback, complaints etc to contact.techwit@gmail.com. Visit us at www.techwitmagazine.com. Like us at www.facebook.com/techwitmagazine. For advertising, contact Abhijoy Sarkar at (+91) 9593712026

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This Month in Techwit

Discover The Senses

Regulars

Accelerometer Sensors ­ 7 Gyro Sensors ­ 9 Image Sensors ­ 10 Proximity Sensors ­ 12 Touchscreen Sensors ­ 13

Credits ­ 2 Editorial ­ 4 PC Buying Guide ­ 17 Dear Readers ­ 45

Web Zone

Cyber Stalking ­ 20 Facebook vs Web Mail ­ 22

Graphics Zone

Four trucks to enhance your Canon DSLR Shooting Experience ­ 24 5 New Year Resolutions for Photographers ­ 26

Mobile Zone

HTC Incredible S Review ­ 28 Samsung Metro c3200 Review ­ 32

Linux and Programming

Turn Your Vacation Photos to DVD Slideshow in 15 Minutes ­ 35 Web Programming in C ­ Why and Why not? ­ 39 The Problem of Traditional Databases in Modern Environment ­ 41

Sponsors

Spartanz Gaming Clan War 2.0 ­ 16 Learn Ethical Hacking and Cyber Security by Experts ­ 23

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Gaming Zone

Persona 3 Portable Review ­ 43

Editorial

You and your large group of friends are having your regular dose of get together at a public place and there starts a discussion on current political status of the country . The criticism of the government takes place and everyone is voicing their opinion.

Suddenly some government official comes and interrupts you and warns you against holding such discussions against the government. Apparently the censorship department has put monitoring system in public places and were keeping eye on everyone.

This may be an hypothetical situation in the real world, but in the virtual world, the Internet, this very thing is done by administration of some of the countries.

China

is the most prominent among them all, they have strict protocol and doesn't allow direct international connection but all connections are routed through government funded telecommunication departments.

The infrastructure used for China's Internet repression is considered to be most advanced. The size of Internet police in china is rumoured to be around thirty thousand and the government authorities not only block sites but also monitors individual actions.

There was a huge outcry from the 'netizens' of India when the Telecom ministry declared monitoring of content on social media sites, and it appeared that India is trying to follow the footsteps of China. If you have read the above paragraph carefully, you should notice that it’s not actually a 'China' move, only if the social media content is brought under scanner.

India is the largest democracy in the world, and it gives the freedom of speech and expression as a part of human rights to all its citizens, but there are strings attached. This is coming into view eventually. The freedom is restricted for reasons of "sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, preserving decency, preserving morality, in relation to contempt of court, defamation, or incitement to an offence". But it seems on this pretext, the Telecom ministry of India headed by Mr. Kapil Sibal wants to curb the protests and criticism that has risen due to poor functioning of the centre, numerous scams and corruption charges against government ministers. If that is the case, may be Kapil Sibal's words to censor the social media in India clearly shows lack of understanding of the working of Internet and social media site in it. If pre­screening user uploaded content on social media is the demand of the Govt. then it’s an impractical one. You cannot expect your facebook status or tweet 'I am having breakfast' to be online when you are having lunch. Social media sites too can't implement such mechanism and change the working of their sites totally.

What Mr. Sibal stated was that he wants removal of content that are abusive in nature, inflammatory discussions that can harm communal integrity of India and defamation of ministers. If by defamation, he means the humorous subjects that trend on the Internet ridiculing the actions of the ministers, then they should try to control their sentiments and take them with a pinch of salt like they take their caricatures in the newspapers. Also he just managed to mention matters of child pornography and national security issues. Out of these he stressed on inflammatory discussions more, but his previous actions stressed more on removing content which contain criticism of the government. Indeed they fear the response received from the netizens for the anti­corruption movement by Anna Hazare and also not­so­old case

of downfall of the dictatorship in Egypt where the Internet played a major role. This is more clear with the disclosure made by Google which shows Google was asked to remove around 358 items by the Government of India, out of which 255 items were said to criticize the government as per a Google transparency report. The Government had asked Google to remove 236 items from Orkut and 19 items from YouTube for the same reason, it added. Other reasons include defamation (39 requests), privacy and security (20 requests), impersonation (14 requests), hate speech (8 requests), pornography (3 requests) and national security (1 request). Google admitted that 51 per cent of the total requests were partially or fully complied with.

Now, the Internet doesn't work the way the Telecom ministry is asking it to. Monitoring each and every content uploaded on the Internet is not a child's play and it is evident from Google's report that social media sites will too not take action, where their site's code of conduct is not violated (or caricatures of ministers are posted, they wont even recognise them).

Internet is a total public place. It’s a complete democratic entity, the Netizens are rulers of themselves.

They are self monitoring. People view content over the net mostly by their choice. Abusive contents are always reported over the social media and moderators take care of them. There is peer to peer monitoring in Wikipedia. If you upload something wrong over there, somebody else will some and correct it.

The Kingdom of Netizens cannot be penetrated by any Govt. body, they will always fight back and find their away out.

If the Telecom ministry is trying to reduce anti­govt. content on the Net, then this is not the most effective way, because every content on social media can't be monitored, so the social media sites have to be totally banned in order to do that, so India has to be like China (imagine,no facebook, twitter etc.), but India can't be China as has been already discussed, so ultimately the attempt to censor social media will not be of much success.

Instead of all this India should focus on more important matter likes inflation, rural development, corruption and the Telecom ministry can use their resources to provide better broadband infrastructure and try out the 'report abuse' feature of social sites if they can't digest some content.

- Abhijoy Sarkar

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Sense足sational

The fast development in the consumer electronics industry has changed how our lifeless device used to be. They are no more the devices without feelings. By feelings I don't mean emotional feeling, we are yet very far from the technology of Rajnikanths' ROBOT. What I want to tell is that the devices now can understand you and the environment around it in different manner. They can sense it more more like living entities, in fact they can sense things which are difficult for even living beings to sense.

Now your 'smart' devices can follow your voice commands, sense when you touch them and how you touch them. They can even detect your presence nearby and in which position you hold them. They can see you and recognise you. But all these are possible due to the numerous electronic sensors associated with the devices.

Electronic sensors are circuitry which can detect different physical quantities around them. Its like the sense organs of the devices. The prime objective of electronic sensors is to measure the physical quantities in the environment or detect change in them, and then turn the detected analog measurement into electric signals or digital signals.

There are different types of methods used to manufacture the different sensors depending on the implementation of the sensors. We will, in the pages to come discuss primarily about MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems), because this is the technology which is currently driving the electronic components industry and has helped in miniaturisation of the electronic devices.

With the advancement in in Artificial Intelligence technology and extensive implementation of electronic sensors, we are going towards a future where devices will almost become living systems and make our life easier.

In the following pages we will try to demystify certain new sensors which have recently revolutionized the consumer electronics industry with their heavy implementation.

- Abhijoy Sarkar mail.abhijoy.sarkar@gmail.com

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Accelerometer Sensors

What devices do you think of when you hear about accelerometer sensors? Yup your smartphone and digital camera, which toggles between landscape to portrait orientation accordingly or changes the song with a shake 足 that's all?

Accelerometers have been is use since quite a some time, and have vast applications. Read through principle and working of accelerometer to understand their applications.

Principle and Working

An accelerometer is used for measuring acceleration, detecting and measuring vibrations, with or without the influence of gravity. So basically any change in motion is detected by an accelerometer. Practically accelerometer are highly biased by the gravity of the earth.

Conceptually, an accelerometer behaves as a damped mass on a spring. When the accelerometer experiences an acceleration, the mass is displaced. The displacement is then measured to give the acceleration.

There are different types of technologies used in making accelerometers, piezoelectric, piezoresistive and capacitive are commonly used to convert the mechanical motion into an electrical signal.

Piezoelectric Accelerometers

Depending upon the kind of work, the accelerometers vary in the way they are prepared and how they work. Piezoelectricity is the electricity produced by certain crystalline substance when it experiences mechanical pressure. In piezoelectric accelerometers the acceleration is calculated based upon the charges derived from the microscopic crystalline structures when they are accelerated due to motion. Acceleration is converted to voltage output. Piezoresistive accelerometers are preferred in high shock applications.

Piezoresistive Accelerometers

Piezoresistivity is the resistance that is generated by crystalline substance when it experiences mechanical pressure. The strain experienced by a piezoresistive material causes a position change of its internal atoms, resulting in the change of its electrical resistance. It is similar to piezoelectric accelerometer but in this case change in potential difference is not created by the crystal itself but rather change in charges are caused by change in resistance.

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Capacitive Accelerometers

Typically use a silicon micro足machined sensing element. The Metal beam or micromachined feature produces capacitance, the acceleration produced displaces the metal beam which cause change in capacitance. The change in capacitance is measured to detect the change in acceleration.

Their performance is superior in the low frequency range and they can achieve high stability and linearity.

Now lets get back to the applications of accelerometers.

accelerometers are not only used in digital photography for orientation sensing, camcorders use accelerometers for image stabilization. Still cameras use accelerometers for anti足blur capturing. The camera holds off snapping the CCD "shutter" when the camera is moving. When the camera is still ,if only for a millisecond, as could be the case for vibration, the CCD is "snapped".

Many laptops feature an accelerometer which is used to detect drops. If a drop is detected, the heads of the hard disk are parked to avoid data loss and possible head or disk damage by the ensuing shock.

MEMS accelerometers is in airbag deployment systems for modern automobiles.

Accelerometers are also used for machinery health monitoring of rotating equipment such as pumps, fans, rollers,compressors and cooling towers. Accelerometer vibration data allows the user to monitor machines and detect these faults before the rotating equipment fails. Similarly measuring and recording how a building structure responds to these inputs is critical for assessing the safety and viability of a structure.

- Abhijoy Sarkar mail.abhijoy.sarkar@gmail.com

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Gyro Sensors

There must be many of you who play the games on your smartphones and tablet where you control it by just tilting the device and it accurately understands your hand movements. Then there’s motion sensing game controllers. In recent years vibration gyro sensors have found their way into camera­shake detection systems for compact video and still cameras, motion sensing for video games, and vehicle electronic stability control (anti­skid) systems, among other things. You must have wondered about the technology behind it, so now we reveal the secret.

Have you heard of something called gyroscope? If not, then its basically a device used to measure the angle of rotation or tilting.

It measures and retains the orientation of a body using the principle of conservation of angular momentum.

There are different types of gyroscopes and gyrosensors. But we would point our attention to only MEMS gyrosensors which are used in many intelligent electronic devices today.

The MEMS gyrosensors which are vibrating gyroscope made from MEMS technology. The underlying physical principle is that a vibrating object tends to continue vibrating in the same plane as its support rotates..

There must be many of you who play the games on your smartphones and tablet where you control it by just tilting the device and it accurately understands your hand movements. Then there’s motion sensing game controllers. In recent years vibration gyro sensors have found their way into camera­shake detection systems for compact video and still cameras, motion sensing for video games, and vehicle electronic stability control (anti­skid) systems, among other things. You must have wondered about the technology behind it, so now we reveal the secret.

Now lets try and understand how in reality these sensors work. As you can see in the picture, a vibrating gyroscope has drive arms and sensing arm, the driving arm are made to vibrate in a certain direction. The gyroscope is supported by a stator. Now when the gyro is rotated, the Coriolis force acts on the drive arms, producing vertical vibration.

Wondering what's Coriolis force? Let me enlighten you. To keep things simple i will just let you know that Coriolis force is the force which opposes a rotational motion. Due to which in this case, vertical vibrations are produced. When there is vertical vibrations produced in the drive arm, the stationary part bends which creates sensing motion in the sensing arms. The motion of a pair of sensing arm produces a potential difference from which angular velocity is sensed by other circuitry present in the chip, the angular velocity is converted to an electrical signal and the information is passed on the master device in which the sensor is being used.

- Abhijoy Sarkar mail.abhijoy.sarkar@gmail.com

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Image Sensors

There's no prize for guessing the application of image sensors. But working of image sensors is a bit complex one, and there are lot of myth revolving digital imaging technologies.

Digital images are formed from tiny dots of colour. The dots, usually many millions per image, are so small and close together they blend into the smooth continuous tones we're so familiar with.

World's first Digital Camera Developed at Eastman Kodak

Basic principle of working of a camera is that, light is allowed to enter through the optics of the equipment when the shutter is released, the light is made to fall on a photo sensitive material which then stores the information of the photograph that is to be obtained.

Now the difference between the old film camera technology and today's digital photography is that, earlier the photo sensitive material that we are talking here used to be a chemically photosensitive film and today we use electronically photosensitive image sensors. The primary work of the image sensor is to convert the information of the light received by it into electronic form, or digital form.

There are mainly two different types of image sensors used in digital photography equipments currently: CCD(charge­coupled devices) and CMOS(complementary metal oxide semiconductor) Initially, charge­coupled devices (CCDs) were the only image sensors used in digital cameras. However, there is now a well­ established alternative, the CMOS image sensor. Both CCD and CMOS image sensors capture light using a grid of small photosites on their surfaces. You must have heard the term pixel and megapixel(I megapixel = 1million pixels). A pixel refers to the tinniest element that makes a digital photograph. To be true a pixel is not a physical quantity but rather the elementary information which when combined together with other pixels create a complete photograph. A single photosite on image sensor captures information of a single pixel, i.e it captures information regarding the intensity light falling on it inform of charges.

A CCD sensor

CMOS image sensor

CCD image sensors: A charge­coupled device (CCD) gets its name from the way the charges on its pixels are read after an exposure. The charges on the first row are transferred to a place on the sensor called the read out register, where they converted to digital information. Once a row has been read, its charges in the readout register row are deleted, the next row enters, and all of the rows above march down one row.

With each row "coupled" to the row above in this way.

CMOS image sensors: A complementary metal oxide semiconductor gets its name from the process that is used to manufacture it. The biggest problem with CCDs is that they are created in foundries using specialized and expensive processes that can only be used to make other CCDs. Meanwhile, larger foundries use a different process called Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) to make millions of chips for computer processors and memory. By this process tiny circuits and devices are etched onto silicon chips. CMOS is by far the most common and highest yielding chip­making process

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in the world. Using this same process and the same equipment to manufacturer CMOS image sensors cuts costs dramatically because the fixed costs of the plant are spread over a much larger number of devices. As a result of these economies of scale, the cost of fabricating a CMOS wafer is significantly less than the cost of fabricating a similar wafer using the specialized CCD process. Costs are lowered even farther because CMOS image sensors can have processing circuits created on the same chip. CMOS image sensors are also referred to as active pixel sensors, each pixel itself has a circuitry to covert the pixel information captured by each photosite into digital. Therefore separate analog to digital converters are not required to process the image. With CCDs, the processing circuits must be on separate chips.

Despite their differences, both types of sensors are capable of giving very good results and both types are used by major camera companies. Canon and Nikon both use CMOS sensors in their high足end digital SLRs as do many other camera companies.

Dual Canon Digic 5+ image processors

Raw image

Processed image after demosaicing

Now get ready to be surprised! All the above process discussed, happens just to capture light intensity, i.e. a black and white image. Because the photosites on the image sensors are clour blind. So how do modern camera's capture colour photographs?

For this problem Mr. Bryce E. Bayer and his filter pattern came for rescue.

Most cameras use Bayer filter pattern and interpolation to get information about the colours of light falling on the image sensors. This pattern alternates a row of red and green filters with a row of blue and green filters.

The pixels are not evenly divided, there are as many green pixels as there are blue and red combined. This is because the human eye is not equally sensitive to all three colours. It's necessary to include more information from the green pixels in order to create an image that the eye will perceive as a "true colour.

The raw output from a sensor with a Bayer filter is a mosaic of red, green and blue pixels of different intensity. Digital cameras use specialized demosaicing algorithms to convert this mosaic into an equally sized mosaic of true colors. The key is that each colored pixel can be used more than once.

The true color of a single pixel can be determined by averaging the values from the closest surrounding pixels. This is done by an image processor present in the camera.

Some single足sensor cameras use alternatives to the Bayer filter pattern, for example, embeds red, green and blue photodetectors in silicon. Some of the more advanced cameras subtract values using the typesetting colors cyan, yellow, green and magenta instead of blending red, green and blue. There is even a method that uses two sensors.

- Abhijoy Sarkar mail.abhijoy.sarkar@gmail.com Bayer filter over an image sensor

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Proximity Sensors

In simple terms, proximity sensors detect when an object gets within a certain distance from the sensor or at certain proximity to a sensor. You can see a proximity sensor, it is the sensor which sends a signal to switch off the touch screen when you put the phone to your ear when on a call, thereby saving unwanted touch screen inputs. It detects the presence of nearby objects called target without any physical contact.

Now lets get to know, how this sensor actually works. There are different types of proximity sensors such as inductive proximity sensor, capacitive proximity sensor, ultrasonic proximity sensor, photoelectric proximity sensor. Depending on the type of technology used proximity sensor emits an electromagnetic or electrostatic field, or a beam of electromagnetic radiation (infrared, for instance), and looks for changes in the field or return signal when target comes closer to the face of sensor.

Infrared Sensors are used in many cases due to its versatility and cost effectiveness. The inductive capacitors can detect only metal targets.

The most common uses of proximity sensors now­a­days are mobile Phones and other hand held devices, Hand Dryers (that’s how it starts automatically when you put your hand under it), Robots (to navigate and detect nearby objects), Alarm systems, Simple touch switches etc. They have lot of applications.

- Abhijoy Sarkar mail.abhijoy.sarkar@gmail.com

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Touchscreen Sensors

The most common term used now­a­days in hand­held devices world is the touchscreen. Device manufacturers are trying to implement touchscreens in as many devices as possible, as they make usability better. Let’s define it in Wikipedia terms “A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand”. In many cases, machines, home appliances and electronic devices have to be controlled by human beings. It is part of everyone’s daily life and we are familiar with switches, push buttons, keyboards, knobs and slider controls. Since quite some time, a new species of control elements invaded our life. It started in consumer products like mobile phones and MP3 players but has moved into all kind of devices now.

So how does this magical sensor work?

Touchscreens are made using several technologies, some of the technologies used are: Resistive, Surface acoustic wave, Capacitive, Infrared, Optical imaging, Dispersive signal technology, Acoustic pulse recognition. But out of these, the most common are Resistive and Capacitive touch Screens

Resistive Touchscreens

The resistive touchscreen consists of a flexible top layer made of Polyethylene (PET) and a rigid bottom layer made of glass. Both the layers are coated with a conducting compound called Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) and then spaced with spacers. While the monitor is operational, an electric current flows between the two layers. When a touch is made, the flexible screen presses down and touches the bottom layer. A change in electrical current is hence detected and the coordinates of the point of touch is calculated by the controller and parsed into readable signals for the operating system to react accordingly.

Capacitive Touchscreens

First some basic Physics. Let’s remember the principle of capacitors from our High School Classes. The simplest form of a capacitor consists of two metal plates, separated by an insulator. The capacitance formula and stuff can be avoided to keep things simple and not feel like we are learning our science lessons. But according to the principle, the larger the area of the plates, the larger is the capacitance. The smaller the distance between the two plates, the higher is the capacitance. The insulating material determines the dielectric constant.

The electrode of a touch sensor represents one plate of such a capacitor. The corresponding 2nd plate is represented by another conductive object, like a human finger for example. This capacitor, i.e. the sensor electrode, is connected to a measurement circuit. The capacitance of the sensor pad is measured periodically. If a conductive object approaches or touches the electrode the measured capacitance will increase. This change is detected by the measurement circuit and converted into a trigger signal.

Usually the sensing pads are made of a thin layer of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) which is deposited on a glass or transparent foil. ITO is conductive and optically transparent at the same time.

There are mainly two types of construction techniques used for capacitive touch screens:

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Mutual capacitance

Self­capacitance Self­capacitance sensors can have the same X­Y grid as mutual capacitance sensors, but the columns and rows operate independently.

It uses one layer of individual electrodes connected with capacitance­sensing circuitry.

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In mutual capacitive sensors, by etching the conductive layer. An X­Y grid is formed either by etching a single layer to form a grid pattern of electrodes, or by etching two separate, perpendicular layers of conductive material with parallel lines or tracks to form the grid

Steps involved in processing a touch signal:

• Signals travel from the touch screen to the processor as electrical impulses.

• The processor uses software to analyse the data and determine the features of each touch. This includes size, shape and location of the affected area on the screen. If necessary, the processor arranges touches with similar features into groups. If you move your finger, the processor calculates the difference between the starting point and ending point of your touch.

• The processor uses its gesture­interpretation software to determine which gesture you made. It combines your physical movement with information about which application you were using and what the application was doing when you touched the screen.

• The processor relays your instructions to the program in use. If necessary, it also sends commands to the screen and other hardware. If the raw data doesn't match any applicable gestures or commands, the processor disregards it as an extraneous touch.

All these steps happen in a nanosecond ­­ you see changes in the screen based on your input, almost instantly.

We already know touchscreens are used in mobile phones, Media players, GPS navigators, Digital Cameras, Tablet computers, All­in­one PCs. There is no limit to which touch screens can be implemented, devices using them are increasing continuously. They are also used in industrial switch systems as there’s no wear and tear in touchscreens switches due to lack of moving parts.

- Abhijoy Sarkar mail.abhijoy.sarkar@gmail.com

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Spartanz Gaming Clan War 2.0

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PC Buying Guide

Due to Thailand floods, rates of storage drives have increased. I asked around for the rates and as expected, the rates differ from store to store. Below is a short list of the common prices of SATA hard disk drives in the market: • Seagate 7200.12/WD Blue 250GB Rs. 3500 • Seagate 7200.12/WD Blue 500GB Rs. 4400 • Seagate 7200.12/WD Blue 1TB Rs. 5500

Basic PC Set­Up #1

• CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 250 Rs. 2750 • Motherboard: Gigabyte GA MA78LMT­S2 Rs. 2400 • RAM: Corsair Value RAM 2GB DDR3 1333MHz Rs. 800 • Monitor: DELL IN1709 Rs. 4000 • GPU: Onboard IGP • Chassis: iBall Entizer Rs. 1150 • PSU: FSP Saga II 350W Rs. 1500 • Optical Drive: Sony MultiWrite Rs. 950 • Keyboard: Logitech MK200 Combo Rs. 650 • Mouse: included in combo.

Total= Rs. 10600* Accessories­ Speakers: Logitech R5 Rs. 400 Headphone: Logitech ClearChat Premium PC Headset Rs. 650

Basic PC Set­Up #2

• CPU: AMD Athlon II X3 440 Rs. 3200 • Motherboard: ­Gigabyte GA­880GM­UD2H Rs. 4100 • RAM: Corsair Value RAM 2GB DDR3 1333MHz Rs. 800 • Monitor: DELL IN1930 Rs. 5200 • GPU: Sapphire HD5670 DDR3 Rs. 3700 • Chassis: CoolerMaster Elite 310 Rs. 1500 • PSU: FSP 400W Rs. 1800 • Optical Drive: Sony/LG MultiWrite Rs. 950 • Keyboard: Logitech MK200 Combo Rs. 650 • Mouse: (included in combo) Total: Rs. 21900* Other Options­ • Chassis #2: NZXT Gamma Rs. 2200 • PSU: Gigabyte Superb 460W Rs. 2100 Accessories­ • Speakers: Altec Lansing VS2621 Rs. 1800 • UPS: APC 600VA Rs. 1900

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Entry­Level Gaming PC Set­Up for 35000

• CPU: Intel Core i3 2100 Rs. 6400 • Motherboard: Gigabyte GA­H61M­D2­B3 Rs. 3500 • RAM: Corsair Value RAM 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Rs. 1400 • Monitor: DELL IN2030M Rs. 5600 • GPU: Sapphire HD6790 Rs. 8300 • Chassis: NZXT Gamma Rs. 2200 • PSU: FSP Blue Storm Pro 500 Rs. 3150 • Optical Drive: Sony/LG MultiWrite Rs. 950 • Keyboard: Logitech MK200 Combo Rs. 650 • Mouse: (included in combo) • CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper TX3 Rs. 1250 • Total: Rs. 33400* Other options­ • CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955BE Rs. 5800 • Motherboard: Gigabyte GA­880GM­USB3L Rs. 4400 • Monitor: BenQ G2220HD Rs. 7200 • Chassis­ CoolerMaster Elite 431 (USB3.0) Rs. 2800

Mid­Level Gaming PC Set­Up for 55000

• CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K Rs. 12800 • Motherboard: MSI H67MA­E35 Rs. 4800 • RAM: Corsair Value RAM 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Rs. 1400 • Monitor: BenQ G2220HD Rs. 7100 • GPU: Sapphire HD6850 Rs. 9500 • Chassis: CoolerMaster Storm Enforcer Rs. 5800 • PSU: Seasonic S12II 520W Rs. 3500 • Optical Drive: Sony/LG MultiWrite Rs. 950 • CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster V6 GT CPU Cooler Rs. 3700 Total: Rs. 55550*

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Gaming PC Set­Up for 75000

• CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K Rs. 12800 • Motherboard: Gigabyte GA­P67A­UD3R B3 Rs. 9700 • RAM: 2x GSkill F3­12800CL8T 4GB `3200 x2 Rs. 5500 • Monitor: DELL UltraSharp U2312HM Rs. 16500 • GPU: MSI R6950 Twin Frozer II/OC Edition Rs. 16300 • Chassis: CoolerMaster Storm Enforcer Rs. 5700 • PSU: Corsair TX750 V2 Rs. 6500 • Optical Drive: Sony/LG MultiWrite Rs. 900 • CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster V6 GT CPU Cooler Rs. 3700 • Total: Rs.Rs. 77650* Other options:­ • CPU: Intel Core i7 2600K Rs. 18000 • RAM: 2x Corsair Vengeance 4GB­DDR3­1600MHz Rs. 5000 • GPU: Zotac GTX560ti AMP Rs. 15500 • GPU: Zotac GTX570 Rs. 20300 Intel has launched the latest Ivy bridge processors. So you can also get one of them and an X79 motherboard as per your requirement. Also, AMD will be releasing its latest 7­series graphic cards in the coming few months so you can also wait for them.

Note: Components such as keyboard, mice etc. have been ignored from 35k range set­up as users have different opinions and views on them (gaming peripherals). Nevertheless we’ll do the needful if it arises.

Let us know. Hard disk drives were not given in the list as the rates have shot up due to the recent floods in Thailand. Sources claim that the prices may not decrease soon and instead might rise if the situation in the production facilities doesn’t improve. Moreover due to the recent event of the Indian Rupee not doing well in the economy, prices of hardware components have increased as well. We hope that things improve in the coming months. *The prices quoted are street prices from New Delhi as of the day this guide is made. Prices are without tax. Price may differ. Also we don’t recommend unbranded/low/cheap products. We do not endorse any brand/store etc, we recommended the products purely based on their price/performance bar. For any error in this guide and suggestions please mail us.

- David Kai Singson

kaisingson@gmail.com

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Cyber Stalking

Cyber Stalking is now a days most emerging crime on Internet which possess a serious threat to all people who uses Internet in their daily life specially I want to involved Teenagers and Young Generations age between 15 to 30. As normally from the last year survey and Traffic reports suggest that Facebook and many social networking websites is viewed more time than any educational website or even Facebook is used more than Google. Cyber Stalking may refer to the false internet accusations, harassing them,fake Love or even cheat or post something online threats creates the vulgar impressions on any other person,Online Harassment is found normally against woman for making their personal information publically available on internet,uploading the personal images through which a woman/girl comes under depression/tension mentally.I would also like to talk about the partners like girlfriend/boyfriend,wife/husband uses to spy on each other through their activities of Facebook and even hack each other Email account to gather all information the most important thing is Corporate Cyber Stalking last year crores of loss occured in India due to Internet Espionage/Cyber Stalking.Even from last few months back when i was consulting some Intelligence Agencies of India i come know some of CyberTerrorist/jihadis were gathering information about Indian seniors Officers i was shocked to find that they have got a good medium to spy Yeah Its being very tough job to send any person over boundaries of Country os this is High Tech Way to send their spies where Boundaries has No Limit called Cyber Space it possess a serious Threat to National Security as well and thats the major outbreak of emerging Cyber Crimes.Cyber Stalking is a word later can be also be expressed as Cyber Bullying means when the Internet, cell phones or other devices are used to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person. the person committing cyber stalking is called as Cyber Stalker. Sending a threatening emails,sexual demands or disclosing something personal about anyone.I would more likely to concentrate and aware young people about this as they found this to be a very Fun and do it for curiosity.

Categories of Cyber stalkers 1) Obesessed lovers.

2) Delusional people who often believe that a stranger is or can fall in love with them‌as in the case of fans stalking celebrities.

3) Vengeful cyber stalkers are those who have a grudge against his victim due to some minor or imagined reason.

4) Racist stalkers who target particular communities 5) Egoistic aggressors who want to show­off to their friends.

According to the Laws its being illegal and stated in IT (Information Technology Act 2008) under Section 72(Breach of Confidentiality and Privacy). There are some lots of cases yet to be registred but due to lack of knowledge of cyber crime and Cyber Laws people do not registers FIR or another reason may be they don't want to lose their image or reputation in the society.

The US Justice Department and other sources, Carll said 850,000 American adults, mostly women, are targets of cyberstalking each year, 40 per cent of women have experienced dating violence delivered electronically, including harassing text messages and disturbing information about them posted on social media sites.20 per cent of online stalkers use social networking to keep tabs on their victims. 34 per cent of female college students and 14 per cent of male students have broken into a romantic partner's email.Cyber Stalking causes many harmful effects like suicide,defamation,threatened earning,Lost Revenue,Emotional Damage.famous Hollywood film Odd Girl Out is a film based on Bullying.

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I would like to suggest to do the following 1) No to sharing personal information online 2) No to filling out profiles on websites 3) Don't reply to people whom you don't know until and unless you don't have any prior info about him 4) No to flirting or arguing online 5) No to sharing your passwords 8. No to replying to cyberstalkers 9) Yes to saving all communications on your computer 10) And yes to reporting cyberstalking to your nearby police station !

The cases are much like that teenagers used to spy on their friends and girlfriend suspect her boyfriend and boyfriend suspect his girlfriend for having other affairs, even they gather each other relevant useful information e.g. likes/dislikes,address,phone number etc .

See Its hard to find that you are being stalked but yes Its possible to avoid such type of stalking like don't provide your personal information anywhere on any website not on Social Networking website never post your personal pics on any website otherwise they can be morphed because normally girls that have uploaded there pics on any website their rivals or person can morph it upload it with disgusting comments and info so it will be very embarrassing moment and even it can be the reason for getting mentally sick,Just give some parental controls on your children s aware them about this kind of subjects even don't spread your email id anywhere.it can also be harmful.

Once a student of a architecture university email id hacked through a simple password guessing this is through the information that u have posted and given on any social networking.someone hacked the girl email account and mailed/circulated the personal pics to every classmates finally the mail was traced down and was caught and arrested it was the again the same obsessed of love. specially for parents i would like to suggest keep a track on them what they do,which websites they visit check the history of internet its available in the settings of browser or just (CTRL+H). aware about this kind of subjects through magazines,news and newschannels.

Be care full while Surfing on Internet :).

- Falgun Rathod

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Director of Ethical Hacking & Cyber Security Institute based in India Cyber Crime Consultant to various crime branches Professional Ethical Hacker Security Researcher

Is Facebook ready to kill web­mail, as we know it?

Facebook. Oh Wow, facebook. What a place it is! You have got all your friends over there. Hell yes! That is one damn good place to hang on over the Internet. You have the chat. You can send attachments, share pictures, videos and play a little poker. You have everything. The Internet world ends on Facebook for those who do not seek information, but company on the Internet. It's a place for the outspoken to keep speaking whether or not people like it; for everyone can decide what they want to read. The best part is: the one who is speaking (well, one types but is that not speaking?) does not need care about who all are listening. Its a place for loners to get some new friends, to connect to people in their real life who they never had a talk with, not by an accident. Facebook is such a place. Oh! I wanna be there always. It kills time but we like it.

It kills productivity, but we like it. It sometimes kills your whole interest and yet, we like it. We all like it.

Web­mail. Dead? Well yes, maybe

Ask yourself: "What happened to Google Mail?" Yes I am talking about GMail. You have friends there right? You have GTalk on your Android phones and you can easily see people craving for a Facebook dedicated chat software (Yeah, Chrome and Firefox do not always work too well). You registered on Facebook an year ago? Or two years ago? Or is it since time began? Whatever be the span for which you are on the behemoth of the Internet, the God of social networking, here is a question for you: "When was the last time you actually sent an email to your friend since you joined Facebook?"

Email was a revolution and Hotmail made it a re­re­volution by making it available on the web and GMail got the thing as a 'crazy revolution'. Email is one sure way that people communicated until Facebook come along. Now everyone (well, that includes me as well) would first open up Facebook to check for new messages from their friends, to chat with them before they actually sign in on to Google Talk or GMail.

Yahoo messenger is almost dead. The 'chatrooms' are filled with bots all around. I bet while I was talking all this, Yahoo messenger rarely popped up in your mind. What happened to all of them? Facebook swallowed it all at approx 30 registrations per second since last 5 years!

As for the email, it is rare that Email seems to be a means of communication for the people on Internet.

Moreover, the email inbox can be filled with spam for you do not decide who can send you can email. Its just like a delivery boy coming up on your door and telling: "Hello Sir, I am here to deliver you a mail.

Well, its a parcel and a large one but we have to deliver it" and with a concerning smile, he points his finger towards a truck overloaded with junk ready to dump it all in front of your gate. Yes, its your parcel.

You can't deny it and the delivery boy is just doing his job. Well, that is how spam works for you. We have good anti­spam techniques with us but how good are they? I mean I still receive 'newsletters' I never signed up for. Duh! That's frustrating to be honest. I can't go on the 'mark­as­spam' all day long!

Speaking of newsletters ­ I get all the news on my Facebook wall from the trusted sources. PC World, Washington post, Times of India, Digit and anything and everything I care about. I can control who can show up what on my wall. I can 'dislike' a page (well, they call it 'unlike', but...you know), stop an application from accessing my data and literally shout back at them ­ "Hey you! It's MY wall, you dumb@$$."

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If I want to declare to my friends that I am going to be somewhere near Himalayas and ask them if they have got a vacation as well, its hardly a matter of three clicks and a few keystrokes. The world is so simple on Facebook. You can have groups 足 Open, Closed and Secret. You can have friend groups (and its hell easy to categorize) and I can send messages to many, at once. I can like people, (almost) talk to celebrities (well, they don't notice anyone anyway) and what not. Time is not far away, a day will dawn when facebook will have designed a way out for allowing developers to send you messages in your Facebook message inbox using apps and making sure that it remains under control. Perhaps newsletter will die as well. You want to know what your favorite band is planning next week? Visit their facebook page. Or you want to know what the local tea stall has new in store for you? Facebook pages again!

Email is dead? No. Not yet.

While for regular users, it might be a reality that email (or for that matter webmail) is no longer a means of communication, the enterprise environment is not going to move on to facebook. A business owner would never trust a third part for storing their sensitive data and talks. They like it secret and that is the way it should be. So while the webmail might die, email is here to stay, at least for the business users.

Gmail for your domain might still be a necessity or you might want to have your own server for that purpose. Moreover, while you can open email (specially enterprise email) using email clients on desktop, facebook is a website and can be blocked using firewalls. It depends on the 'browser' for the larger and better part of its functionality.

Looking at the picture and the way we use Internet for communication purposes, it is obvious that as more of the netizens move to Facebook, it will slowly overtake and dominate webmail. While email is here to stay, and for long, and for sure, the future of web mail surely is blurry, out of focus and seems to be fading away. Where do you live? Facebook? Or an Email inbox?

- Vaibhav Kaushal

www.thetrozone.com

Learn Ethical Hacking and Cyber Security

by Experts

2 and 6 Months Courses available with Job assistance We also Provide Online Lectures Cyber Octet Pvt Ltd FB Page https://www.facebook.com/cyberoctet 23

Four Tricks to enhance your Canon DSLR Shooting Experience

DSLR cameras offer a flexible shooting experience for a photographer. Photographers can not only attach a host of lenses & accessories to enhance their shooting experience but even customize the camera further from the menus to ensure a rapid shooting experience. Here are some tricks by which you can get most out of your Canon DSLR. These tricks/techniques apply to most of the Canon DSLR cameras but certain might not be available/applicable to some Canon DSLR cameras. Some of the tricks discussed here might even apply to camera of other brands.

1) How to know which AF Focus Point is Active?

A) It is crucial to know which AF focus point is active when you’re using AF on your Canon DSLR. Inside the viewfinder, all focus points are turned off by default to ensure you an obstruction free shooting. To know, which AF point is active & on which part the camera will attain focus, simply press ‘+’ button on back of your camera. It’s the one which you use to zoom into photo in playback mode. Now the active AF point will get highlighted in the viewfinder in red.

2) How can one make Manual Focusing Easier?

A) Under certain situations, you’ll have to resort to Manual Focusing. Here if your lens does not have a distance scale or you’ve weak eyesight, chances are you will often have shots missing focus. Not to mention, manual focusing on wide apertures is a not a piece of cake for any photographer. Here you can take the help of your cameras AF mind. The camera can indeed perform AF operations even when you set your lens on manual focusing but just that it will not be able to engage the AF motors in the lens to focus the lens since its set on manual focus. In order to acquire precise focus when focusing manually, do the following. Press ‘+’ button so that the target AF point is selected. Change it or keep it on the area of your image you want your focus to be. Now press the shutter button halfway & slowly turn the focusing ring on your lens. Once you acquire focus on the AF point, the camera will show focus confirmation dot in viewfinder & even beep if you’ve not disabled the beeper. Now simply, press the shutter all the way & you’ve a properly focused image.

3) How to give a specific colour tint to the photograph in­camera?/How to correct a colour cast of photograph in­camera?

A) With RAW shooting available hardly anyone bothers about getting correct colours within the camera.

Still as with most things, I insist on getting them correct(close to) just within the camera. This not only saves me time in post­processing but also further does not degrade the quality of the image especially if you shoot JPEG’s. There is an option known as “WB Shift/BKT” under the shooting menu of your Canon DSLR. It stands for White Balance Shift/Bracketing. Once you’ve set your white balance to your preferred option, enter the WB Shift/BKT option from the menu. You’ll see a complex visual. Relax, just observe the color lines across the four sides of the graph. Now if you’ve learnt about colour theory of photography, then you’ll know combining which two colours will give you what colours. Adding which colour will balance out another colour tint. If you’re unfamiliar with this, simply set the WB Shift to any random point on the graph & shoot one picture. Now you’ll get a fair idea. Read up more online & practice. Soon you’ll know how to use this nifty feature of your camera to get near accurate colours right within your camera itself. As your knowledge grows, learn about bracketing the white balance too.

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4) How to check Depth of Field(DOF) before shooting?

A) Getting the correct amount of depth of field is crucial in the making of a successful photograph.

Generally DSLR offer much more control over DOF than its Point & Shoot counterparts. When one peers through the viewfinder to compose a scene, the camera opens up the aperture to the maximum available for your lens so that you can get a brighter view of the image. Even if you stop down your lens, the lens remains wide open but stops down to your set aperture only when you depress the shutter. This happens really quick. Often than not, one needs to find if the DOF is adequate or one needs to further stop down to get more DOF. Here one can press the “DOF Preview” button to check the DOF. The DOF Preview is a small button generally find at the bottom of your lens mount. It can be either to the left or right of the mount depending on your camera. It is generally not titled or marked. While looking through the viewfinder, pressing the DOF Preview button stops down the lens to your set aperture & you can check the DOF. This even works when the camera is in live­view mode. This makes it easy to check DOF in the frame even before shooting.

Hope you find these tricks/techniques useful while shooting with your Canon DSLR.

- Gaurav Prabhu shuttertux.wordpress.com

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5 New Year Resolutions for Photographers

2011 is all set for a grand end & we'll soon be in the New Year ­ 2012. At this point of time, everybody makes resolutions for the new year as of self improvement, achieving a certain goal & even spending more time with your family. While I completely believe in making new year resolutions & following them, being a photographer you should definitely make them. If you want to take your photography a notch above & improve as a photographer, you should make(& follow off­ course)resolutions. I list some, which I find will definitely improve your photography skills in the coming year.

1) Undertake a 365 Project

'365 Project' is one where a person takes a photo each day throughout the entire year. The significance of 365 Project is that it makes the person shoot everyday. It accepts no excuses & requires a great deal of dedication to complete. It indirectly helps one to get creative as you won't find time everyday to get to a scenic location or wait for the sunset. 365 Project requires one to make photo each day under any circumstance, come what may! Even if you're bedridden & down on health. Alternately a 182 Project is also another short option. But that too requires one to shoot everyday for half an year. Choose wisely & follow the project. Post it online, so you can get feedback on it.

2) Challenge Yourself

You must be having a two­three bodies, dozens of lenses, couple of flashguns, remote triggers, snoots, soft­boxes etc at your disposal. Once in a while, say for a week, take all the gear out of your camera bag & replace it with just bare essentials. Just take a low­end body, a kit lens(or 50mm in case you're adventurous) when you go on a photo walk. Work around to get the shot with window light instead with your flashguns. You can further limit yourself to shooting only jpeg's with no post processing later on computer, shooting only on a small card(128MB or so), not using drive mode & even going full blown manual with manual focus. Repeat this exercise as ofte you can. At the end of the day, you'll learn a lot about photography & learn to make better pictures with any equipment one throws at you. (P.S – I wish to shoot on a complete manual 35mm film camera in 2012 to challenge myself. Anybody willing to scrap their old film camera? Don't, I'll take it).

3) Mentor Someone

They say, knowledge grows when shared. I can't seem to believe more. Get into a touch with photographers willing to share & giveback what you know. Collaborate on team projects. Go out on casual shoots. Pick up someone who is eager to get into photography & mentor him/her. Give him/her tips, give your honest feedback when asked for. Just be kind in your approach & look to be a role model for the budding photographer. On teaching & mentoring someone, you not only get to learn new things from your student but also your knowledge expands. You need to get perfect with your knowledge as you don't want to get stumped by the queries. Its okay getting stumped on a few occasions & this will be those great moments where you will feel better having learnt something new. Not everyone knows everything, but definitely everyone knows something. Learn to Give & Take in the coming year.

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4) Improve on Mistakes, Try something New!

You may have made many mistakes in 2011 in photography. Get down with your photos & break them up to know what you need to improve on. Are your photos coming out blurry? Learn to stabilize your camera properly. Does your exposure tends to be off at most times? Learn to balance it. There are many things to learn from your mistakes. Do not get bogged down by mistakes & have fun with them. Also you can become a better photographer by trying out techniques you haven't tried out before. Try out HDR, Shoot Panoramas, Shoot Star Trails etc. You should know better what you haven't done till now. Just go out & shoot it in 2012.

5) Read & Write!

Finally, read up about photography on the internet. Check out photography magazines, books etc at your local bookstore. Try to implement the things you learnt into your shooting workflow & see whether you can improve in any area. Also as you read & practice, do consider writing it down & sharing it with the world. Solely for the purpose, I mentioned in #3. You're not only educating yourself but millions of people around the globe.

Following as much of these five tips in 2012 will make you a better photographer than what you're now for sure.

- Gaurav Prabhu shuttertux.wordpress.com

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HTC Incredible S Review

Abstract

Incredible S is a little beast with usual Android factory specs with familiar designs. Yet, get on with it and you'll feel the power and “Incredibility” of the handset. It's a little beast that pushes your imaginations to a new level and actually defining the spectrum of Android. The giant camera, the large SLCD screen, and sturdy design and professional looks with awesome specs makes this beast truly Incredible with the 1450mHz battery juice kept inside.

Specifications

• 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 • 3G Network HSDPA 900 / 2100 or HSDPA 900 / 1700 / 2100 • 4 inch S­LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colours, 480 x 800 pixels, 4.0 inches (~233 ppi pixel density) • Corning Gorilla Glass • With rotating capacitive buttons • 3.5mm audio jack • microSD, up to 32GB • Internal Memory: 1.1 GB ROM, 768 MB RAM • Wi­Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi­Fi hotspot • Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP, EDR, microUSB v2.0 • Main camera: 8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, autofocus, dual­LED flash, Geo­tagging, touch­focus, image stabilization • Front Camera: 1.3 MP • Video: 720p@30fps • OS: Android OS, v2.2 (Froyo), upgradable to v2.3 • Chipset: Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon • CPU: 1 GHz Scorpion • GPU: Adreno 205 • Sensors: Accelerometer, proximity, compass • Messaging SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM • GPS Yes, with A­GPS support

Hardware

The phone was known as hTC’s button less flagship that’s because while lying idle, there are no visible features. The phone has got only two physical buttons on it – a volume bar and the conventional hTC power button. The volume bar has got a very nice clicky feel with it being placed on the left side, and the power button is located on the top side of the phone. The left also contains a microUSB port. The right side is totally blank. The front of the phone has a large 4 inch screen with no visible buttons, a mesh covered earpiece which also houses notification LED. The back of the phone is really well engineered. I am saying “engineered” very consciously. The back cover gives a very sturdy grip with a rubbery

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finish. It looks like it can take scratches like “sandwiches”! It also has an 8 MP camera alongside with dual LED flash and a single speaker compartment. The back is thinner at its edges and thicker in the middle.

This really helps to hold the phone. This engineering reduces the effects of large size and bulkiness of the phone. And, the brand name looks professional on it.

Internals

Now let’s dive a little deeper into the phone. The phone contains 1450 mAh battery which powers the singing trio of Snapdragon, Adreno 205 and 1GB RAM. In spite of lacking a second core, which is becoming popular these days, the device out rides many of the phones out there.

The GPU has the credentials to churn out HD. It plays the HD movies like charm. This leads to think of HDMI out port. Incredible S definitely lacks it. Even after having the potential of HDTV, hTC has missed the part.

hTC provides us with SRS Surround sound to add to HD capabilities. This function works best with headphones. It really adds tons to the music as well as video experience.

However, the speaker lacks the bass. But, with headphones on, just rock your brain!

Display

A 4 inch display with SLCD has provided with an edge to those with imperfect AMOLED displays. The screen has very good brightness, vivid colours and most important – very large viewing angles. The viewing angles are at least so large that two person can view the movie placing the handset in one's hand.

The pixel density of 800x480 is awesome at displaying HD videos. It feels nice and calm to the eyes while providing the contrast to the pictures. One thing that I noticed was the fight against sunlight. It really falls short at this point. There aren't many displays that actually stand apart from this realty though. Along with this, it reflects the flash/light too much.

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Battery

This is the huge part for any Android phone. People have talked enough on this topic. And yet again, I'm going to part some light keeping INCS in mind. I'm using HSDPA network all the time, and WiFi, if available. On HSDPA, the battery doesn't last long. It lasts almost on average 8 hours. On WiFi, it lasts a pretty good time around 12­13 hours. Strange but true.The above stats are checked when everything was performing at their best ­ auto sync on, high brightness, videos, music, half hour of video and internet browsing. So, these stats are very good with a capacity of 1450MHz. If left idle, it lasts for 3 days and 2 nights. Generally, we don’t use phones at night, this makes it sit idle for around 8 hours straight. If those above mentioned features are turned off, the battery lasts for 2 days. It is noted that the screen takes up a large part of the battery juice. On an average, I've noticed 70% is taken up every time. I must say, one need to keep a spare piece of battery, when on a business tour when charging is not available for 2 days.

Camera

As stated above, the piece has a giant 8MP lens with 720p video recording capabilities.

The camera works just fine. Other lenses such as of N8 from Nokia are far better than this one. The lens works perfectly in day light. It catches up good light, nice brightness and good saturation. However, in night time or in evening when low light is available, the lens falls short. It shows a lot of grain with red­ green dots.

Having said this, let's come to the details of the capabilities. The most “making happy” thing with the camera is “tap­to­focus”. This feature is very useful and handy and most importantly – working – tool.

The focus is fast and accurate. This especially helps when taking shots of landscape and having to focus on an object desired. Along with this, other capabilities like face detection and smile detection are working fine.

All­in­all, the camera is nice enough for casual photographers.

ROMs

This particular part involves serious modding with the stock BIOS and software from hTC. This is the most interesting part where I found this handset “rocking”. The handset is really easy “that even your granny can do this” to unlock.

There are a lot of guides available on internet to complete the procedure.

I've personally tried a lot of custom ROMs. Say, almost around 8 ROMs have been installed on my handset. This handset tells me “I'm the flashing machine of your dreams!”.

These ROMs affect the performance and usability greatly.

They all have different attributes, pros and cons. One might have to try every of the ROM personally to find out which suites best.

I'll give my personal and honest view on which ROM I liked most.

There is a huge list of all the available ROMs for this very model on XDA forum. I started from the top of this list and went down sequentially. I installed the ROMs with sense 3.0

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and 3.5 both. I must say that handset shows no lag in displaying the graphics of sense 3.5. However, the ROMs showed varying performance in every case.

The most liked ROM, personally, is Android Revolution HD 2.1.2. The ROM is nicely managed. And guess what, it is OVERCLOCKED! Yes, my CPU is running at 1.15GHz which is only 150MHz more than the stock one, but, people, and even I have managed to get the settings at 1.3GHz. The ROM provides with full GPU rendering for every visible element on the screen. This ultimately means high­end visuals including videos and images.

However, keep in mind that the likes and dislikes in ROMs strictly depends upon personal interests.

Beware when unlocking and rooting your device. This process might brick your device and render it totally unusable. And, if you manage to root your device (which is pretty easy), you'll definitely void your warranty.

Wrap­up

The Android OS is largely known to push the boundaries of current market specifications of the smart phones. The handset holds this pattern and gives Android justice. The handset satisfies the tech enthusiasts and day­to­day users equally. The handset has got nice and sleek looks with hard­core hardware inside. This handset was launched long ago and still provides everything need to tech enthusiasts like us. I'm personally very happy with the handset, thanking hTC and Google for the device!

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- Dhavan Vaidya www.facebook.com/dhavan.vaidya

Samsung Metro C3200 Review

I got the Samsung C3200 for my dad who was in need of a new phone. The budget was under Rs.4000.

There were many options available including phones from low brands with cartload of features including 2.4” touch screen, dual speakers etc. But I didn’t want to take the risk of getting a poor quality phone. Going through all the catalogues at last there were two phones worth buying in the budget­ a Nokia C2 and Samsung C3200. Nokia X2, which comes with a lot of features of which the highest point seems to be the 5MP camera, was also there but this phone was over my budget hence it was ignored. The Samsung Metro C3200 was priced higher than the Nokia C2 but I bought it after comparing the features of the two phones. There may have been other phones which are in the 4k range but in the store where I went there were not much entry­level phones.

Unboxing & External Impression

jack port is on the above.

he Samsung Metro C3200 comes in a colorful package. The contents and accessories include the C3200 handset, leather pouch, charger, owner’s manual, Samsung warranty card, 3.5mm audio jack earphone and a 2GB micro SD card with adapter.

Looking at the phone the C3200 is a candy­bar with a mixture of black and orange colors, the black color covering almost the whole body and the orange doing the sides. On the left side, there are volume controls and the micro SD slot while on the right we have the micro­USB port for connecting to PC. The earphone

For an entry­level segment the phone has a surprisingly stylish looks with very comfortable keypad and music keys embedded on the D­pad and navigation keys. The keypad of the C3200 is one of the most comfortable keypad I’ve come across. Width­wise the phone is not purely rectangular in shape, the body around the screen area is thicker while it is thinner around the keypad somewhat giving it a slanting look when view from the side.

Features

The Samsung C3200 can be considered as a multimedia phone as it has almost all the features a multimedia phone has­ camera, video recording, music player, GPRS and Bluetooth beside many others.

The phone is equipped with a 2MP camera but has no flash, not even a single LED flash thus taking photos in poor lighted condition is what you wouldn’t want to do much. Outdoor shooting is nothing extra­ordinary, it’s on par with other entry­level phones with 2MP camera. But on a side note I feel that the 2MP camera of my over­4­years old buddy Sony Ericsson K750i to be superior and can shoot better and clearer photos than the Samsung C3200. This is where I’d like Samsung to improve, even if it means offering better features for an entry­level phone. The C3200 can capture photos up to 1600x1200 pixels, has 4x digital zoom and can shoot in a wide variety of modes­ Single, Burst and Night mode although the performance of the camera is just average. The camera can also shoot videos in 15FPS (frames

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per second). The music player supports most of the popular file formats viz. mp3, mp4, wma, eAAC+ and MIDP2.0. The earphone which comes with the C3200 is really good in both build and performance quality. And frankly I never expected to see such a good quality earphone to be included in an basic phone. The 3.5mm audio jack earphone is about 1.2m long and the rubberized finished over the PVC (polyvinyl chloride is a material which is mostly used or electrical insulation) is quite strong and thick too. This will give better durability to it. The speaker quality of the Samsung C3200 may not be the best and the volume is a bit low too but with the earphone we can see noticeable difference and the experience is improved. Samsung claims the 3D sound technology with “Sound Active” incorporated in the C3200 to be exceptional but frankly it was below what I had expected. Other features include FM Radio, FM recording and video player and Samsung has given some preinstalled apps such as email, IM, Social networking site Facebook and Orkut, lost mobile tracker and has support for Java games. For connectivity option you have GPRS, EDGE and Bluetooth v2.1.

Bluetooth v2.1 is the elder brother of the v2.0 and is backward compatible. But I haven’t been able to test the actual speed of this v2.1 as I don’t have any phone with v2.1. My guess is, you might experienced the real speed of the v2.1 if you connect with another phone having the same version of Bluetooth i.e., v2.1. I used “might” here because the speed at which a file/s is/are transferred from phone­to­phone through Bluetooth vary with the device. Just because you send a file from your phone, by Bluetooth, to another phone of the same model/brand doesn’t necessarily mean you will get a fast speed. It’ll be incorrect to say that you get a slow speed when sending files through Bluetooth to another phone just because the other phone is from a different brand or such. In short, the Bluetooth transfer speed differs from phone to phone and user experience might differ. Other miscellaneous are a phonebook having capacity of 1000 contacts and a maximum inbox message capacity of 500. To all those who has a habit of texting 24*7, be prepared to delete some of those “sweet messages” to make way for newer ones. Internal memory of the C3200 is 45MB only but fortunately Samsung has given a 2GB micro SD card with the phone. The leather pouch is a nice addition but it doesn’t fit the phone that comfortably and the pouch is a tad short in length.

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Battery Life

The Samsung Monte 3200 uses a 100mAh Li­ion battery and Samsung claims that it gives a maximum 8 hours in talk time and 350 hours in standby. I got 3 hours and 200 hours in talk time and standby respectively. While listening to music in the highest speaker volume the battery lasted around 3hours. A mixture of browsing using GPRS, gaming and listening to music gave me about 2.2 hours.

Conclusion

Summary

The Samsung C3200 has a neat pack of features and accessories and decent battery life but looking at the price I feel that its about 200 bucks high. 3k should be an ideal price for this phone. But nevertheless it didn’t disappointed me much except for a few minor glitches. This phone is recommended for people who needs a phone with all the common features at low price. Even the looks of the Samsung 3200 can give other phones a run for their money. Users will be glad about the keypad comfortability.

• Build Quality : 7.5/10 • Features : 8/10 • Performance : 7/10 • Value For Money : 7.5/10 • Overall : 7.5/10

- David Kai Singson twitter : super_s0nic 34

Turn Your Vacation Photos to DVD Slideshow With Music in 15 Minutes

In this quick tutorial I will show you how to turn your vacation pics to a full featured DVD slideshow with music and transitions in just 15 minutes. For this you will need the following: 1. Imagination http://sourceforge.net/projects/imagination/ 2. DVD Styler or any other DVD authoring tool.

3. Brasero, K3B or any other DVD burning tool.

Install the above software from the sources or from the repos. Open Imagination. You will come to a screen like this.

Go to Slideshow – New and set the video options.

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Next its time to import you pictures for the slideshow. Go to Slideshow menu and click on import pictures. Select the files (hold down the control key for multiple select). Once done, click on open.

If you would like your slideshow to have some background music to play in the background, you can import them too in similar way.

Now its time to apply transitions to the slides. You can do that one by one or go to Slide menu and click on select all. In the transition type option in the video box, hit on 'random' and Imagination will apply a random transition by itself to each of the slides.

You may set the duration of each slide altogether in similar way. Once you are done, click on Slideshow menu – Export and it will export it to a video format you specified before.

Open DVD Styler now, if you are starting it for the first time it will ask you to choose your language. A 'New Project' dialog box will pop up where you may leave the things to default.

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In the next screen, you will be prompted to select the background for DVD menu and the name that will appear when you insert the disk in a DVD Player. Type a name, select a background and proceed next.

Open your file browser and drag and drop the .VOB file you have created using imagination in the panel below.

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You may delete the other titles from the DVD menu. Once done, click on File Menu > burn DVD. You may burn a blank DVD right from here or create an .iso image and burn it from Brasero.

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- Saurav Modak www.linuxb.in

Web Programming in C ­ Why and Why not?

C is a fantastic language. Although some people think that the only thing which one cannot do with C is to create a dynamic web page. While it is true that you cannot use C programs as scripts natively, you can use C as a web programming language very much, and very easily. All you have to do is to find the right directory for the cgi programs, and put your compiled programs there. Of course, you can use the apache config files to alter the default directory for the same and it is not very difficult. However, a bigger question lurks ­ how good is C as a web programming language? Certainly if it were just too good, PHP would not have been the most used one. On the other hand, if it was to be bad, facebook would not have been using it to serve web pages to a large extent or would not have written the HipHop project. We explore the pros and cons of C as a web programming language.

Pros

Beginning with the sweeter part, C is a brilliant language for the simple reason that it can create really high performance programs. Anything written in C (or C++) is going to be a lot faster than those written in any other language. The only exception is the assembly code, but then it is not of much use anyway in the day to day development (unless you are a real performance freak). So, to count as a first benefit, C provides you with the possibility of creating really high performance programs. According to facebook's engineering team, they could handle double the traffic when using C++ on the back­end when compared to PHP. As a second advantage, C has more launguage familiarity. Most computer science courses begin with C and most programmers had C as their first programming language. With C/C++ at hand, one is familiar with the possibilities that come with C or C++. No need to go for strange ways of dealing with classes in PHP. Web programs written in C are much the same as anything else you would create in C, for example a console program. CGI takes care of outputting your printf statements to the resulting web page.

Almost every major OSS project has a API or a driver for hooking you up with C. So, you do not need to search for PHP plug­ins. In addition to this, all PHP plug­ins are written in C, so you are more likely to get benefited from that.

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Cons

On the bitter side, C programs need to be compiled. So for any changes you want to make to the code, you have to recompile the program and then test it. Ctrl+S is not just enough. You cannot run C programs as scripts, the way you can do with PHP. In addition to this, PHP is not a strongly typed language but C is. Which means that you cannot handle data you can do in PHP 足 easily. Taking care of the data type is something you must take care.

C code can be real tough to maintain as there is significantly more code that you will end of writing. The dynamism of PHP is not at your hands. With each new feature, you will end up adding a lot more code than you would have with C.

When to use C?

While PHP is great, it is slower than C. However, PHP is not 'dead slow'. We would recommend that you use C only to handle the parts of your application which need really higher performance compared to other parts. However, if you have more than one people working on different parts of the application, using C in parts will certainly disallow all of them to collaborate easily. In the next part, we will start exploring the code and how you can use C to create web pages.

- Vaibhav Kaushal

www.thetrozone.com

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The Problem of Traditional Databases in Modern Environment & NoSQL

Being DBA is one tough job. To design a database is a stressful job as well, and one with a larger degree of difficulties. A large part of the set of difficulties is supplied by the requirement to strike the correct balance between normalization of a database and the speed requirements. Someone who knows the internals of the databases, about the internal on­disk table structures, the locking

mechanism and so on is going to be a lot wiser in making the tough decisions, precisely knowing what would happen when in a particular scenario.

Database normalization keeps the whole scene organized but at the same time demands you to keep track of more tables, more updates, more inserts and under a high volume traffic, that is going to burn down the processors with a lot of work than what would have been without heavy normalization. But again, it keeps the things organized, less data, more control. However, the problem arises when you start scaling up. Any and all databases are bound to grow in size and it does not matter which database you use. For one thing, you will go on inserting more and more data. In time, there may be deletions but unless you are working on a closed system where not too much of history is required, the size is bound to grow. We need statistics, patterns of usage of all sorts and all that is to be stored, consuming more disk space in time.

Growth of Data ­ Uncontrolled

A minor mistake in design and you can easily end up in a situation where you need to add more tables which will have to handle data in the not­so­optimized data model. To handle situations as such, you need to create more tables and data model which can handle the data based on the not­so­optimized model.

Even in case you have designed the model very, very carefully, the data is bound to grow. At some point, not too far in the future, you will encounter the situation where the resources of a single server will no more be enough.

Streaming replication, failover backups and multiple servers serving the same data model are going to be a need. The problems are bound to grow as you continue adding more (and no one can help it). Scaling, as we know it will be problematic with the data growth.

Handling more than one servers ­ front end and back end

Taking web applications for the sake of a simpler and well­known example, as one starts receiving page hits at a rate which cannot be handled by a single web server, you will need to separate the database server and the web server. That is the first step one takes in moving into a multiple server scene. As the load increases, caching technologies have to be deployed. File based caching being the simplest to implement on the application level is the sweet spot. With demand and time, the sweetness disappears and you will start thinking about memory based caches for faster page serving. Saving controls and frequently accessed database rows in memory with the help of memory based caching techniques (memcached is perhaps the best example of it) would be the second step. But there is a limit to which this can help. Taking the almighty Facebook (well, it is surely the biggest store of personal data in the world) as an example, serving anything close to 400,000 requests per seconds on that massive data set is not possible with a single server, by any means. Although Facebook is an exception for most of us, load balancing and distribution is not.

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You need to split up the load and distribute it across multiple servers; and when that happens, obviously a single data back­end server cannot do good. You need to distribute the load onto many database servers as well. Scaling traditional RDBMS databases in such a case will usually require you to do the network partitioning over the tables. You will split the data based on attributes (such as 'all comments on all the posts of a month are to be on server C1 and for the next month on C2 and so on). Horizontal scaling or sharding kicks in at this point and things go all messy with a lot of overhead on the administration

Management

Managing data at large scales is going to get more complex with the need to create more backup servers.

You know, the 'just­in­case' scenario. So better be on a little safer side. But periodic backups are not very friendly either, although the first 'essential' part of it all. Next comes streaming replication wherein an extra set of servers constantly receive updates from the primary set as and when new data comes in.

So an this point of time, there are following that you need to manage: 1. A set of web servers (or application servers) 2. Primary set of database servers 3. A set of periodic backup servers 4. A set of secondary servers of streaming replication for hot standby ­ so when the primary set goes down for some reasons, you can run the 'SELECT's on the secondary set (although you would not be running INSERTs, DELETEs or UPDATEs on them).

Visualize all that with the networks to which they are connected and you have a fair idea of the mess it can be and the amount of labor that you need to keep that structure running! Scaling is a big problem for traditional RDBMS style databases as they tend to slow down in multitude as new nodes are added to the network.

NoSQL in the Picture

NOSQL (it stands for "Not Only SQL") is a new technology slowly dawning in on us with its promises of ease of management of servers in terms of scaling, streaming backups, load balancing and failovers. It does not restrict your design into 'columns' in 'tables', eliminating a large part of the requirement to normalize the data and a few databases on the NoSQL style make sure that you get all the good what you are used to in the SQL world (notably MongoDB). A few would restrict deletion of data as a normal operation (well, one does not delete much from the database anyway) so that you have a lot less to worry about (Apache Cassandra as an example) and some would allow you to handle billions of rows with millions of columns with an ease you can hardly imagine if you never had the air of non­RDBMS world in your lungs (Apache HBase is an example best suited here).

They can scale to 1000 servers easily and beyond. While some allow you to read and write data from only one point permitting you to be carefree with your application layer (MongoDB, again, as an example), another would allow you to throw any piece of data from any of those numerous servers and read anything from anywhere while taking care of which data resides where at the back (HBase, I shout). All this transforms into less strain managing everything, at all levels. While some want you to work a bit harder on one aspect of your application, other would require you to be a little more careful on the data side. No matter what they do and how they do it, all of them are here to change the world for you, and for good. Being someone who works with RDBMS, I would say it is insanely great to be free from the restrictions of 'columns', if you know what I mean.

- Vaibhav Kaushal

www.thetrozone.com 42

Persona 3 Portable Review Persona 3 Portable is one of the best RPG games available there for the PSP. If you are one of those lazy people who are just waiting to see the ratings well I suggest you just stop reading and go buy it.

The reason why I love RPG games is because it makes me feel connected to the character and that’s exactly what Persona 3 does and that too in a very deep level. From hanging out with friends, going for coffee and ramen to dating girls; Persona 3 has it all.

Persona 3 Portable is more like an expansion of the counterpart in PS 2. There are some changes in the game out of which the major one is the inclusion of an option to play as a female lead character which in turn means that you will get to interact with different other characters during the game­play . One thing I noticed (annoying thing) is that the borders and the background colour of the speech box change to pink when you choose to play as the female protagonist. A very major change is that the now the player can control the actions of the team mates instead of letting the AI control them. No more 3D exploration outside the dungeon which is actually a good thing as it saves you the pain of just going here and there ,now you have to use the analog stick and move the cursor around the screen to choose different things (outside Tarturus ).

Those of who are new to series please read on, I just mentioned the changes/difference between the PS2 and PSP ones. Now what’s Persona 3 all about? The story takes you through a year of school life and monster hunting. You are a transfer student who just joined Gekkoukan High School and you live with a few school mates in a dorm. Once you are told about your power to summon Persona and will join “Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad” which has your dorm occupants as its members .SEES fights the” shadows “(monster or ugly weird funny creatures) during “Dark Hour” during which people change into coffins and your school becomes a gigantic tower which will be addressed as Tartarus.

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One thing that impressed me very much is level of detail the developers have put in the game .Everyone of your choices have its consequences (well almost everything). You need to interact with people in school and increase your Social Link with them which in turn lets you create more powerful Persona. Also there are attributes like Academics, Charm and Courage. The player will be asked questions in the class (so you better pay attention), need to impress the girls/guys and

be a brave character (or you can just go eat some ramen or work part time); all these will affect your attributes. Another amusing part of the game is the design of the Shadows (the bad dudes) it’s a bit absurd and funny, like this creature called “Killing Hand”.

Dungeon exploring might get a bit boring and repetitive but there are options which just lets you go to the next floor very fast by just asking your team members to find the door . Tartarus has like more than 200 floors (yes you are supposed to clear all of them)and then there are side quests too .But it doesn’t feel that slow or dragged because of the large number of Persona’s you can fuse and create (Around170 personas) .Then there are the wide range of accessories some which are just for the sake of personal satisfaction like a platinum watch which does nothing at all.Last but not the least you have to walk your dog , pray to God(offer money) ,go for coffee ,karaoke etc during the game play .

To sum it up this one game you SHOULD buy for your PSP no matter what .I will give it whatever the maximum score I can give.

Score 8.5/10 Pros­ • High level of detail and Social Links • Great replay value • Nice customization • Easy ,User Friendly interface • Amazing story • Funny Cons­ • Exploration might get a bit boring • Not many cut scenes

- George Solon dark69slayer.wordpress.com

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Dear Readers

If you thought being in Techwit is just other boring work, here is something to prove you wrong.

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