"Gadget.in" Review

I recently wanted to buy a charger for my Olympus camera C-770UZ. I was lazy to go to the market and search for it. I looked for this at few camera distributors and none of them had it. So i searched in the web. What i wanted was a Li-10B battery charger and i found the same in the site Gadget.In. I booked for the charger online after consulting their help desk. Help desk was very cooperative in helping me with all the payment gateway issue.

After three days flat i got the delivery (though they have committed only 5 days) but when i opened it i was in for a surprise. The charger was not original Olympus and was a poor cousin of the same. It was not professional packaging but i thought may be they ad packed it for some extra covering, but it was the actual cover. But i never had hoped to get an OEM product. I then went through the website again and found that they have small note at the end of the product display mentioning that it is not made by Olympus!! also they have mentioned that the image is not the actual image. so be careful when you to buy online as i now paid for my laziness. Does it work? It has a max rating of 600mAh but it took me full 4 hours to charge (rather than theoritical 2 hrs as my battery rating is 1050mAh). Also with my earlier Olympus charger i used to charge in 1-1.5 hrs. So turned out to be a costly mistake!!

Banking ombudsman in India

Recently i had a problem with my cheque. I had put the date on the cheque carelessly as 2008 instead of 2009!! (My mistake..) and when it was given by my client without checking the date i got a fine of around 1% the cheque amount by ICICI. This even though i have enough balance in my account. So is this mistake so deadly to be fined without informing me?

Giving a cheque which can be honored is illegal and is ethical. But giving a cheque which could be honored but with a wrong date does not require to be penalized as i think it is unethical. I filed a compliant to ICICI as i was not aware of this clause which is think is completely unreasonable. They call me for each and everything from credit card to personal loans, and i think it is quite reasonable for them to call me and ask if it is a mistake or not? I got a response from ICICI telling that "cheque out of date" carries this fine and they cannot reimburse it. Hence i filed a case with Banking Ombudsman. I have only heard of institution through the paper and did not know how it work. I got the mail id from their website and filed a complaint as it just means a mail for me (And kudos to Internet without which i would not have bothered with this!!). But in less than a month or so i got a call from ICICI branch Manager telling that the fine is reimbursed based on my compliant to ombudsman. But he insisted that it is depicted properly in the banking charges.

I also got a letter from ICICI on my compliant informing me that the money has been refunded and an attachment of all the charges. This is an exhaustive list and i request all ICICI customers to keep it handy. Then specifically about my charge it comes under a heading "Cheque return due to non-financial reasons" as 50 + Service tax. Now what are the "non-financial reasons" by which one can get a cheque returned? This is not covered. I hope banking ombudsman will come out with some guidlines to bring in more transperancy in all aspect of banking.

Hope this experience of mine would allow each of you to use the institution of Ombudsman so that we make a far better banking system where everything is transparent. Let us learn from the mistakes of US banking system where lack of transparency has got them into a situation where institutions of experience panning 100 years turned moribund. We should ensure such mistakes never gets repeated in India.

Impressed by my experience one of my friend tried this with his insurance premium payment problem and he also got the problem solved in 2 weeks which he through direct phone calls was not able to solve in more than 2 months. So thankyou ombudsman and thanks to all the politicians who framed this law!!

Renewing expired Gas connection

Recently, i had a shock i was running low on my LPG and then when i placed an order for a new cylinder they told my connection has expired!! If we do not order any new gas cylinder for 6 months it seems the gove gas agency in my case Indane Gas will expire. Now you to do a whole set of procedure as mentioned below:

• Write a letter giving reasons on why you did not buy any new cylinder in last 6 months
• A copy of your original gas connection document
• Carry regulator and tube

With all the item mentioned above you are supposed to go to your agency physically and then they renew your connection. After that you can place your new gas connection.

Excel Macro

Below is a macro i have written for excel which goes through multiple sheets one after another and searches for keywords in a specified column and then generate a master sheet with those rows.

Sub CopySearchedResult()

'Authored by Jishnu A under GPL!! :)

Dim sh1 As Worksheet
Dim sh As Worksheet
Dim rng As Range, rng2 As Range
Dim dest As Range, cell As Range
Dim SearchColNum As Integer
Dim SearchString1 As String
Dim SearchString2 As String
Dim OutputFile As String

OutputFile = "Master"

'Before creating master sheet checks if it exist and delete any older version
If SheetExists(OutputFile) = True Then
Sheets(OutputFile).Select
ActiveWindow.SelectedSheets.Delete
Application.StatusBar = "The " & OutputFile & "already exists and is Deleted"
End If

Set sh1 = Worksheets.Add
sh1.Name = OutputFile
Application.StatusBar = "New" & OutputFile & "is Created"

' This is the variable where one needs to mention the column number for search
' For example Column B should have SearchColNum = 2

SearchColNum = 6

'This are the search strings which has to be looked for in the above column number
' These search strings are "Or" ed in the macro below
' Which can be changed as "And" or other expressions

SearchString1 = "keyword1"
SearchString2 = "keyword2"

' Mention the worksheets which needs to be searched with names "Sheet1", "Sheet2" etc
' and the last digit should be mentioned as the last value of i in the expression below

For i = 1 To 8
Set sh = Worksheets("Sheet" & i)
Set rng = sh.Range(sh.Cells(2, SearchColNum), sh.Cells(Rows.Count, SearchColNum).End(xlUp))
Set rng2 = Nothing
For Each cell In rng
If InStr(cell.Value, SearchString1) > 0 Or InStr(cell.Value, SearchString2) > 0 Then
If rng2 Is Nothing Then
Set rng2 = cell
Else
Set rng2 = Union(rng2, cell)
End If
End If
Next
If Not rng2 Is Nothing Then
Set dest = sh1.Range("A" & sh1.Cells(Rows.Count, SearchColNum).End(xlUp).Row + 1)
rng2.EntireRow.Copy dest
End If
Next
Application.StatusBar = "Finished with the process.."

End Sub

' It checks if a particular sheet exist

Function SheetExists(SName As String, Optional ByVal WB As Workbook) As Boolean

On Error Resume Next

If WB Is Nothing Then Set WB = ThisWorkbook

SheetExists = CBool(Len(Sheets(SName).Name))

End Function

Cool add-ons from Windows

This site provides some cool add-ons to firefox. There is a ClearType Tuner which allows all applications to be moved to a font which you can feel and apply to all the applications including firefox. Using this you can have firefox font look same as IE7 or whatever browser font you like. This will give a uniform view of fonts across all applications. Another is a ALT+TAB replacement which again is better in case you belong to the category of people like me who keeps lots of application opened. I have not tried others, but will comment on it once i have installed those.

Buying Household consumer durable items

Recently went through a barrage of consumer durable purchases after a long study in internet and discussion with friends. Setting up a house in Bangalore after marriage can be a long drawn process. And few of my friends were asking me about it. so thought that i will instead write a blog on it .

Washing Machine
Things which are needed

• Top loaded: This helps if u do not want to unnecessarily bent and it has very few maintenance problem. On the other hand front loaded is better for cloths but has leaking problem after 3-4 years.
  
• Fully automatic: It helps a lot in the time involved with washing. Just drop the clothes and need not bother till it intimates you of finishing the washing.
• Steel tub: This is more durable and can even pour hot water.
• 6+L is more than enough.
  

Refrigerator
Things which needs to be taken care

• Double door for non-vegetarians
• Go for one with an integrated but automatic de-frost.
  
• More than 200L as you will always run out of space in fridge.

Television
Things to take care

• May be one can go for 29" as the difference is very minimal w.r.t 21"
• Go for korean brand as it gives value for money.

Microwave
Can be avoided unless you plan to cook once a week and heat it for the next one week!!
If buying

• Support for convection and grill in addition to microwave can be useful for all the non-veggies
• But then ensure you make cake and grilled chicken regularly!!
• LG could be a good choice. They have good support which respond in less than 24 hrs.
  

Grinder
Buy an Ultra more than 2L grinder. This comes with a 5 year warranty. No need to buy the extra accessories. Good and quality product.

Mixie
Buy sumeet mixie if you get it as it still seems to have much fan followers. I got a Philip "super silent" mixie which is decent. It though have the problem of tumbling down as the center of gravity is not properly designed. Another problem seems to be the smallest jar cover is not so tight and in case grinding involves lot of water you can find a spray around your house!!

Buying Cot
Buy 5" x 6.5" cot at a minimum. Buy from shivajinagar as this can be 1500 cheaper than the one from the shop near you. Same goes with the sofa as there is a considerable cost difference between the local vendor and the shivajinagar vendors.

Transferring BSNL landline and Internet connection

One other ordeal i went through recently was to transfer my landline and dataone connection to a new address. It took almost a month to get that done. So as with other blogs in this section let me reduce the work for others!!




The following is the procedure for doing it

• Apply in a plain paper for transfer mentioning your phone number and the present and the shifting address. Also mention that you need to transfer the broadand also in case you have one. No shortcuts here and one needs to find the nearest customer center (your local excahnge also would not do) to apply.
• Once you applied to track the request you need to contact the local exchange at the shifted place. Also note that your earlier number may change to a new number.
  
• You need to be there between 10AM-5PM on working day or Saturday and then request the local linesman to come on that time and day. This believe me is an ordeal which one would not like to go through multiple times in life.
• After the landline is transfered then another 3-4 working days is needed before your broadband also gets shifted.
  
• Here you just need to switch on and see if your DSL is working. No change in login/password happens.

Hope all those looking for phone transfer get it done faster than me.

Buying a mobile

I have seen many people buying mobile so carelessly. I saw a family spending close to Rs 16K on a new HTC mobile with just few words from the seller. He had come for iPhone and the retailer convinced him in less than 5 minutes that HTC is better. Let me put down things you should look in mobile if you are buying in 16K-30K range.

1. WiFi capability : This is mandatory. Now most places support WiFi and would be handy for all data related applications like browsing, chatting, SkypeCalls. Dont even buy a mobile which does not support WiFi

2. Bluetooth: This is mandatory if you have to sync your outlook calender w.r.t. the mobile calender. This would handy in case of transfer of data from one mobile to another or to a computer.

3. 3G support: 3G is going to be there in India very soon. if you are goign to use it or not. it is better to invest on it. In India 3G spectrum has not been decided. Ensure yor mobile support as many band as it could. Most likely in India it would be in 1800 (GSM) spectrum and may be TDD mode.

4. GPS: Good add-on in a city like bangalore where a road gets blocked with no notice and you are asked to take a diversion. If you are lost get out of the vehicle and search. This needs support of GPRS or 3G.

5. J2ME: Mandatory software feature which allows you to install Fring (allows you to chat in skype, gtalk, yahoo and MSN). there is a whole suite of application based on J2ME for oft used google applications.

6. Good calender with synchronisation capability.

7. Decent camera: 3.1 MP is the best you need for the standard photograph size.

8. Usability: Important but at what cost/feature tradeoff is a user choice.

9. Misc: Audio player (MP3, WMV), Video player (MP4), FM radio (At least i think it is useless with the cumbersome headset connection to be used)

Hope who ever spend such high sum in mobile at least spend it for features which may be useful for him in future.

Carrot at 80!!

This is something unbelievable. A kg of carrot in Bangalore now costs Rs 80/-. I used to buy it for Rs 20/- around 6 months back. Our inflation is falling but price of vegetable has quadrupled. Is there a "Vegetable bubble" building up in Bangalore like the housing bubble!!

I thought let me start tracking the price. Let me put down the list of prices of vegetable and some behind the mind intuitions and myths one have on where to buy vegetable? (The prices mentioned below are for the month of Oct 2008 and are for a Kg)

Big Onion - Rs 28/-
Carrot - Rs 37/- (Smart), Rs 80/- (Small time vendor one week later)
Yam - Rs 14/-
Beans - Rs 35/-
Tomato - Rs 28/-
lady's Finger - Rs 23/-
Potato - Rs 10-12/-
Cauliflower - Rs 15/-
Beetroot - Rs 20/-

I found the small shop owner consistently costly than organized retailers like spencers and Smart. I found the road side vegetable hawkers slightly costlier than small shop vegetable owners. At least i had always believed that supply chain efficiency etc is a myth and the road side vendors are always cheaper. Sometimes some intuitions are completely wrong which i accept with humility coming from some background of mathematics where much more intuitions turn wrong!!

April 2009: A fast forward and now carrot is at Rs 10/-, Cabbage at Rs 10/-, Beans at Rs 25/-. How can you avoid such huge variances?

Eureka Forbes Vacuum Cleaner

I was gifted a Vacuum cleaner from Devi International Jayanagar. The model was trendy xeon (steel). They gave a large set of accessories. I found that two of the accessories mentioned are missing. Multi-purpose brush and upholstry cleaner. When i mentioned to Devi International they asked me to come with the entire accessory set to see what is missing. I did the same and they then searched for these item in another accessory set. We found that it is missing in that also. Then i called up Eureka Forbes agent in Bangalore through Devi International. They told they will deliver it. After multiple effort i got one piece now, the multipurpose brush. So whoever is planning to buy this check these two items. if it is missing dont buy it as the multi-purpose brush is at least very much needed.

Changing default folder in google desktop

One can change the default location is google desktop by following this procedure. but the catch is after that there is no further indexing. Only old indexed information is available trough GD search. Hope google fixes it up?

The world of chutney

Chutney or chamandhi which is the side dish for Idli, Dosa etc brings a taste difference to the otherwise daily routine of Idli or Dosa. I thought let me collate the various forms of chutney prepared at home. All the names used down are coll names we use at home.

"Pachha" Chutney or thenga chutney
- Grated coconut, 2-3 green chilli and salt to taste grinded together

Orange chutney
- Grated coconut, 2-3 red chilli, small onion and salt to taste grinded together

Ulli chamndhi
- Small onion, 2-3 green chilli and salt to taste grinded together

Malakku chamandhi
- Small onion, 2-3 red chilli and salt to taste grinded together

Brown chamandhi
- Fry Small onion, 2-3 red chilli in small amount of oil. Add salt to taste and grind together

Thakkali chamandhi
- Fry tomoto and 2-3 red chilli in small amount of oil. Add salt to taste and grind together.

Thakkali ulli chamandhi
- Grind tomoto, onion, red chilli and salt to taste. Then boil it till it become red.

chukuppu Thenga chutney
- Grind coconut with fried red chilli (in small amount of oil) and salt to taste.

Thakkali coconut chutney
- Grind coconut with fried tomato and red chilli. After that boil it for some time on medium fire.

Olympus C 770 UZ

When i bought this i never knew that it is going to last just one year. It looked as though the camera was designed to last just one year, as the problems crept one month after the warranty period. The two problems were:

• I cannot switch off the camera!! It is always in playback mode on switching off. I need to take out the battery to prevent draining off
  
• Zoom does not work. We hear the motor moving but no change in Zoom.

Then i went to Deen Dayal repair center in CMH road Double road junction in Indiranagar Bangalore. They are supposed to be the best camera repair center in Bangalore. After one month i got back the camera and they told me that the entire switch circuit had to be replaced. It costed me Rs 3100/- ($78).

So not even a "Made in Japan" tag and a reputed company like Olympus can maintain quality. So any dump camera would do.

Now i have another problem with this model the charger does not seem to work. I need to see where i can buy it in Bangalore. I saw the price of a new one at Rs12k+.

Filing income tax return online

Following is the procedure to file the IT returns online in India and for FREE. The only advantage of filing online for those who do not have a digital signature (One can buy digital signature which costs around Rs 5000/- per year, a very costly proposition for individuals like us.) is that you get 30 days breather to file the final form even if you are filing on the last day and can avoid the queue completely.

1. Fill the form as mentioned in the Income tax website.
2. Download the excel sheet fill in the details from your form 16. You may need to register for the first time.
   
3. In case you do not know the assessing officer in Bangalore, check here
   
4. Validate the sheet and generate the xml file.
   
5. Upload it to the website.
   
6. You can print the ITR-V form (a duplicate which will be sealed and returned to you) and mail it by postal address to Income Tax Department – CPC, Post Bag No - 1, Electronic City Post Office, Bangalore - 560100, Karnataka, ” BY ORDINARY POST ONLY within 30 days.

There are also tax return preparers (TRPs) who prepare the form for around Rs 150/-, submit it to the ITO and get you an acknowledgement. For those who are in south of Bangalore that would be a easier and cheaper option.

Online flight check in

If you are traveling by Indian (Air India) and if you want to save time at the airport, do a iCheck-in. For this you have to do the following:

• Fill in the origin, PNR No (Indian ref No) and Last Name at iCheck-in site
• This does not work in Firefox 2.0/3.0, so use Internet Explorer.
• Follow the process and you can select the seat and finally it will provide you a boarding card sheet which could be printed out.
• In case you do not have a printer you are dead as it does not allow you to save.
• So ensure that your printer is working fine before you start on this process.
• In case you end up with no print, you can still take your ticket to the airport boarding pass counter and request them to print the ticket.
• At the airport you can directly walk to the security area and get the boarding pass stamped. You need to get security stamp at BOTH the customer as well as agent copy.
• In case you have a check-in baggage this is of not much use as you still have to go the booking counter.

There is a similar procedure for kingfisher in their website.

So cut down your wait at airport especially now in Bangalore where it takes 1.5-2hrs to reach the airport.

Making Tea

Over the years i have tried simplifying the process of tea making and seeing which suits the best. I am speaking of Indian black tea and that suits "my" taste. Few of the "findings":

1. Boil water and add black tea leaves (One scooped teaspoon per glass) and boil for one minute. I prefer Kannan Devan Tea leaves compared to Red labels and other brands. Teabags are really bad.
   
2. Filter out the tea concentrate and add hot milk. Do NOT use milk powder as it tastes bad.
   
3. Hot milk should NOT be boiled in milk cooker as it tastes bad. It should be boiled till it is about to guzzle out of your vessel.
   
4. Add sugar to taste.
5. Properly mix the milk and tea concentrate by pouring from one vessel to another (Not mixing with spoon) multiple number of times. Ensure that it does not get cold.
   

I never knew that any small change in this process affect the taste so much. Let me know your on experience with tea making.

Transferring gas connection

In case you have a connection in you home town (A) you can transfer it to any other place (B). For this you have to do the following:

1. Close the connection in the original place and ask them to mention to the place you want it to be transferred (i.e. "B"). For example, in case you want to transfer to any gas agency in Bangalore, you have to get the transfer certificate issued with the caption as "transferred to Bangalore".
2. You would have to return the the original valve at "A". Also you need to carry the initial deposit information bill.
3. Bring that letter and submit at "B". The person on whose name the cylinder is there has to come in person. You should also carry a proof of residence in this person's name. Rent agreement or BSNL Telephone bill would do.

Petrol pump review

Beware of crooks in Bangalore petrol pump. In case you are filling the petrol ensure that you look in the meter right through the procedure when your tank is filled up. What they do is the following:

In case you ask to fill for Rs 500/-, they stop filling after 100 telling that they did not hear you properly and without resetting the meter fill to another Rs 400/- which effectively means they have only filled for Rs 400/- now they will tell you that you have been filled with full 500 rupees of petrol. I have experienced this two times and always in smaller pumps. so which pump is good and bad. I will add to the list as and when i fill up from different pumps:

Good
------------

1. City service station, JP Nagar 2nd Phase on outer ring road

Bad
------------

1. Indian oil pump at the outer ring road and Mysore road junction.
2. IBP pump near the silk board toward the BTM layout side somewhat opposite to silk board.

Please add the pumps you know into the list and let us drive them out of business and keep only the good ones.

imint HPCL vouchers

When you want to redeem your imint points, please understand that the voucher is not redeemed at all HPCL pumps where you see i-mint symbol. The symbol it seems only denote that you can accumulate points but not redeem it. So now i got a imint HPCL petrol voucher and i just cannot fill the petrol. So before redeeming your points for petrol check if the nearby pump do provide you petrol for this voucher.

Low volume audio

If your audio quality is low and you can barely hear the audio there is a fix.

1. Download and install VLC player, if you do not have one.
2. Play the audio and increase the volume using CTRL + Up Arrow.
3. This can take the volume all the way to 400%.

Enjoy the feeblest of audios.