Its been a while I blogged, and the reason was that I was very occupied with my work I will write about what was so important in a separate post, but in the meelee, I would want to describe my laptop purchase experience – nothing short of hell.

Brand choices

I had been to my favourite store Staples, and to Croma Electronics Megastore in Star Bazaar – both in Koramangala for scouting around for a laptop. I had a few choices:

Acer Aspire One:

This was a cheap notebook variety newly launched in India on that day with the famed Intel Atom processor (the latest in the market for low cost laptops) and this one sported 1G RAM, with windows XP, 80GIG HDD with NO optical drive. There was inbuilt wireless though. At a price of about 23,000 this was a steal and I would have directly purchased it that day. Barring for one annoying feature – they rather puny keyboard, bigger than ASUS EEEPC but smaller than regular laptop. Me having big hands this laptop was of no use for me straightaway when I tested typing on it at the Croma Store.

Acer 4920:

Looked pretty jazzy, I love the milky white keyboard with that odd spacebar, way too many buttons, and too many certifications and technical jargon. In the end it would have some variant of Pentium Dual Core or Core 2 Duo from Intel, or an AMD Athlon or Turion 32 or 64-bit processor, with 1 or 2GB RAM, and either Linux or Windows Vista. Though it was the usual weight any laptop would be, I felt it was too bulky. My budget was limited to about 30-32,000 and nothing more than that. Since I also had an original XP license with me, all I wanted is a linux laptop or a DOS laptop but with all other features.

My search went on for other brands.

HP and Sony Vaio were out of range for me, Apple was my dream, but it could wait, and Lenovo was looking like shit especially the lower end models. They were looking like bricks compared to other laptops around. This only left me with Compaq Presario and Dell.

Dell Inspiron 1520

I loved the feature set this laptop had to offer, with 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Vista Home Basic, Wireless, and all other usual stuff such as optical DVD dual layer writer, etc. But for the price it was too expensive – 39,500. After a discount on VAT of 4%, it would still cost me 37,500 bucks which was steep. And Dell’s low end Vostro laptops with Linux or DOS were too bulky and were bricks of the same feather like Lenovo. I had heard from everyone in Bengaluru (thanks to rumour mills) that HP had an edge over service these days compared to Dell. So I ditched the otherwise no compromise Inspiron for either a HP or a Compaq laptop.

HP/Compaq Presario

Ok, so the “Computer has become personal again“, I thought. Time to go to HP for some stuff. At Staples, Koramangala, just after my Croma visit, I checked out the CQ50-106AU DOS based laptop from Compaq and the looks impressed me a lot. I am not for jazzy stuff on my laptop, but I prefer the usual features to be good for extreme use. This means I expected my mouse/keyboard to be unmistakably usable to a large extent with no jazzy quick keys here and there. Having said that this laptop caught my attention for its clean build.

The same or similar versions with Pentium Dual Core and Vista with 2GB RAM was about 35,000 and with Core 2 Duo processor was about 37,000, more or less as costly as Dell which I had seen earlier. As I said, it was in my focus that I must be able to use the existing Windows XP license that I had, along with the laptop and at the same time spend as less as possible from my pocket. The salesman told me that the AMD Athlon would be suitable for multiprocessing and would handle many open applications as gracefully as an Intel machine.

He also told me that they may not be so great for gaming. My use was limited, blogging, occasional mails/chats and browsing. Period. This compaq machine came with an NVIDIA GE Force 8200 graphics processor and a relevant chipset. So this was a bonus at that price since I could game if I needed to. What really attracted me was the price, features and the ultra clean look of the laptop full with glossy screen, widescreen and extremely neatly laid out keyboard and black contours.

So after getting necessary permissions from my home minister (wife), I blew up 32,000 on my credit card and became a (proud?) owner of a CQ50-106AU. The laptop became personal again. In fact it got so personal, that I got personal with it and felt like shooting myself for the mistakes I made while buying this laptop. Read Part II of this article to know how I managed to get this laptop to a working state and the problems I faced in between while attempting this.

(will be continued in part II – all HELLs deserve two part posts! 🙂 )

Technorati : , 106AU, 1525, 16x, 32-bit, 4920, 64-bit, 8200, 8x, Acer, CQ50, VAT, amd, aspire, asus, athlon, bangalore, bargains, bengaluru, blog, compaq, computer, core 2 duo, credit card, croma, deals, dell, dos, dual layer, dvd writer, eeepc, fujitsu, geforce, hdd, hp, hp pavilion, icici, india, inspiron, intel, koramangala, laptop, lenevo, nVIDIA, notebook, offers, one, pentium dual core, personal, presario, ram, service, shopping, sony vaio, staples, star bazaar, subnotebook, tata, toshiba, turion, vista, warranty, windows, xp

I had a unique reason to go the Lalbagh 4th annual flower show this time. The last time I had been there I had the opportunity perhaps for one last time to test my Olympus digital still camera (4.0MP) – C770 UZ with images of flowers there. This time the reason was even better – a 10.2MP Canon Rebel Xti DSLR (EOS 400D) with a Tamron 18-250mm lens giving the equivalent of 14x optical zoom.

There was yet another reason too – the elaborate Hampi styled theme at the flower show that caught everyone’s awe. The camera did its job well, though macro shots would have come better with the Tamron Macro Lens. But since that would have set me back by another 450$, I decided to stay put with the current lens and took some interesting snaps.

I liked many things in this flower show. Good floral arrangements not only in the glass house but two other separate enclosures outside including the hampi theme stuff. I also liked the fact that many medicinal plants and herbs, many vegetables, coconuts, etc were also showcased, there was a stall with an agriculture theme in it and finally the brilliantly styled hampi theme chariot, ganesha, ugra narasimha statues and miniature carvings of the chariot, and famous kannada poets such as kuvempu, da.ra.bendre, pu.thi.na, masti venkatesh iyengar, gandhi, and marigowda (in whose name this flower show bore significance this time) – all in watermelons and pumpkins, brilliantly crafted one after the other.

I also liked the cacti garden (which we were not allowed into for some reasons) which was a unique concept and had multi variety cacti which were unique and nice to see. The show also hosted atleast 50 stalls of various towns and cultures of karnataka which were selling products specific to those areas. Commendable by all standards.What I did not like though is the fact that there had to be bomb checking squads who were only half doing their work, and the fact that many people missed the hampi theme area simply because there was no signage that led them to it. Shame on you lalbagh for not organizing this properly. However thanks to newspapers, people could actually check it out without fail.

Finally before I end this post, I leave you with valuable pictures of the 4th Annual Lalbagh flower show. CLICK HERE TO SEE MY ENTIRE ALBUM NOW!

Technorati : 14x zoom, 18-250mm, 4th annual, MTR, agriculture, bangalore, bengaluru, blog, c770UZ, cacti garden, canon, chariot, da ra bendre, digital still camera, display, dslr, eos 400d, flower show, flowers, fruits, gandhi, ganesha, green, hampi, herbs, independence day, kuvempu, lalbagh, lens, lightings, macro, marigowda, masti venkatesha iyengar, medicinal, olympus, pink, plants, pu thi na, pumpkins, rebel xti, red, roses, stalls, tamron, ugra narasimha, vegetables, water melon carvings

A review of the Swift Diesel Vdi Diesel car can be already found on this blog. But that review is more apt for 5000km of driving. In about one year, I have now finished a little more than 15000km and feel its appropriate to continue writing an extended usage review of this beautiful and substantially powerful car.

I can go on about the parts of the car, its good points, drawbacks etc just like the previous review, but would rather prefer to write some crisp points about this car having used it for one year and many thousand kilometers by now. This review could be pretty descriptive as you read on. Before I start off talking on the car, let me tell you that I have a knee-cap related problem which is getting worse day by day. This only means that I would love cars that have easy drive capability or even those that are automatic in nature of gear system. Having said this, a few points now about my Swift Diesel Vdi and its 15000km journey!

Torque and Inertial forces

If the car is in lower gears and you let go of the clutch there is a sudden gush of torque, which pushes the car forward. I like this reaction since it does not necessiate the usage of the accelerator often as we do in petrol cars to push the car forward. Having said this, my knee feels at ease due to this feature, and every time I change the gear, I simply let go of the clutch at the right time to make the car go forward by itself. This can also prove to be a nuisance to people who can’t handle it and hence a word of caution for people exeperiencing it. Drive with care. To best use this torque, I also have changed my office time to non peak hours (thanks to understanding management) whereby the roads are pretty empty and make me get the full potential out of my car. This force also comes into being when you reduce speed at busy intersections momentarily and enables you to pick up to cruising speed again – all without changing your gear. So in essence momentary braking does not necessiate a gear change as such. So lesser the gear changes, lesser the fuel consumption, and lesser the strain on your hands and legs. Now do you know what 16000kms of pure pleasure means? 🙂

Turbo Boost at approximately 1800 – 1900 RPM

When the car reaches 1800-1900 RPM in any gear, there is a turbo boost produced by the engine. There is no other car on the lower side of 6 lacs where I have felt my heart pound in anxiety when this boost occurs. This is the most defining point in the car and its this boost that enables you to take off from the mundane traffic. Be aware though that the EPS (Electronic power steering) is extremely sensitive and during the instance of such a boost, never let your steering go out of control, the results could mean the end of your car. Also, never ever drive on a curve at the speeds this boost offers, else be sure that your head is going to reel and you may lose control of this car. The trick behind using this turbo boost is to effectively manouvre your car around the traffic. All said, this turbo boost provides me a feeling of an airplane about to take off.

Power

I have seen four cars until the swift and I should tend to state that I now finally have a sufficiently powered hatch on my hands. I have had cars of 800cc and 1200cc and have also driven cars of 1100cc. I must say that 1300cc for a diesel engine added with 190Nm of torque makes this hatch a great combination. Add the turbo boost mentioned above and the combination becomes explosive. The only thing left to do is to add Pete’s tuning kit to this car to get your true value for money. It raises the torque and power bar by roughly 30% to give you torque in the range of 240Nm and a power of about 90Bhp. More details on this tuning kit can be found here. For details on using this kit with Swift Vdi, click here.With this upgrade I will have a dynamite hatch on my hands 🙂 Some people might say that the Getz Diesel is a much better car than Swift D, but I somehow want to strongly believe that the Swift D’s turbo boost makes it an efficient city transport compared to the more linear Getz diesel and the now launched Fiat Palio MJD.

Space

This was a concern for me when I bought the car and if there is something that I hate about hatches, and particularly so the Swift, its the space constraint. When I pay money for a car, that too six lakhs and more, I don’t want to hear flimsy excuses about space or comfort. Unfortunately the boot space in Swift is marginally good not exceptional as it should have been to make this a complete car. So if you are thinking of stacking gas cylinders or even huge suitcases for flight journeys in this car, forget it. If you are however smart enough to “adjust” to your car (rather than the other way round), then you would pack up all your stuff in small carry bags, and load the boot in which case your sum total of the luggage will still make it to your destination. Havind said this much about boot space, if I were to throw another volley at you saying the passenger cabin at the rear is cramped, how would you feel? To each his own you might say and to some extent I agree too. Swift D is a four people car honestly, though I did manage 700 odd highway kilometers with three adults at the back. My mother bore the brunt of sitting in a cramped car thoughout. In any car, except might I say the Logan, the third person at the rear is always in uninvited guest. And the Swift is no execption. At the rate at which Indian population grows the automobile companies need to sell entire buses for less than five lakhs! 🙂

Personally for me, I dont care much about rear space since I hardly use the rear of the car. But as time goes by, with kids around, I would need to seriously think about the entire cabin space than just the driver side seat. And at that time, I will objectively decide what to do with my car. But that day seems a bit far away at the moment. The only sore moment I had was when I bought a cycle and wanted to stuff it into my Swift D to take it home. It did present some problems, but then hey, no one tries to put a cycle into a car or a motorcycle into an auto and things like that and expect your car would accomodate all that 🙂 If you want to know how to stuff a cycle into the Swift, look at this !!

This should be titled 2008, a space odyssey!!

Tyres and Punctures

In my earlier review, I had posted a few pictures of my new alloys and tyres; Lenso and Michelins. When I decided to go for these at a cost of Rs.37,500 for a set of five each (alloys and tyres), the friendly neighbourhood tyreman Ashwin (of Sai Iyengar and Sons) adivsed me to choose these. Only for my fourth car did I decide to go for good alloys and tubeless tyres. In my earlier cars, the tubed tyres often had problems. Not punctures precisely but something close – loss of air without reasons and this tended to severe wobbling. This was the worst thing for me to tolerate and it gives a sick feeling driving the car when something of this nature happens. So without thinking twice I shelled out 37 grand for my own sense of having a good feeling driving my car. I would like to reiterate here that this is perhaps the best thing I ever did in my life. After 16500 kms of drives, my tyres still feels as good as new even now. The tread is intact and they have not gone bald yet. The alloys took beatings while misjudging the pavement twice, but they managed to gracefully take the impact without cracking up. Full marks to Lenso from Taiwan.

As for the tyres, they have just been great with the occasional low-air situations, but these were times when they genuinely needed a refill. After 16,000 kms I had one puncture finally and believe me or not, I thought its a normal low-air situation and drove around with that puncture for one week. Casually when I went to check the tyre up with Sai Iyengars, he pointed out two big huge nails sitting comfortably all plunged into the tyre. The Michelins withstood that and more and they performed gracefully even under real tight situations like these. Paid hundred bucks to set the puncture right and now back to using the car as usual. You can see for yourself the nails that went into the tyre.

I also find that if it has rained a lot outside and there is mud/slush on the roads, then the michelins behave a bit draggily and the car isn’t at its peak of performance health. This I believe happens with any other car on the same road, so I am reserving my opinion on this until I get some clarity.

Visibility and Seating comfort

I was thinking that only the former was a real weak point with the Swift D, but to some extent even the seating comfort is not good at all. In this segment, Tata’s have always been at the forefront to provide lumbar support and thigh support in all their cars. Unfortunately in Swift D or for that matter even in P, the thigh support is very bad and it shows after one hour when the thighs start aching even though the pedal pressing is at a minimum. This is really bad for long journeys. When I drove to chennai, I had to rest my feet every one hour and take a walk for one minute atleast. Remember I have started off this review stating my medical condition! Now for the visibility part – its zilch! Zero! This is the worst car with respect to visibility. If a small child were to be standing next to my car you can be rest assured that I cannot notice it when I am in the car. That’s a scary thought is it not? Well so much is the visibility in this car that an hour or so in this car makes you feel claustrophobic to the core. I have had stuffy spells and dizzy spells with the turbo boost in this car.

Beyond all that I must say that after 16000kms, I have not banged my car anywhere for whatever reason. No one dead because of me either. And no major scratches either.

Of Fogging & Defogging

Yet another crib about this car. In rainy season, when it pours outside, the car fogs easily. It also accumulates a certain soapy layer on the windshiled when the wipers are used. Unfortunately Maruti thinks that giving a rear defogger for six lakhs worth of car is a luxury. Shame on this automobile company. Their very reason for existence can be questioned. Its difficult for me to live with this problem, and if my readers can suggest whether I can include a defogger separetely. I welcome opinions on this.

On safety

Well, I had one accident with this car. An Indica going left to me and parallel to me, suddenly maniacally turned his power steering and in turn his car onto my car directly on the left side doors. Audaciously he did not even stop to admit his mistake. It was a private vehicle, not a cab. Now on this I got royally enraged at him, used my turbo boost, went ahead of him in no time, cut him short behind me and made him stop. Argued with the driver to make him see sense, but he disagrees anything was wrong with what he did. Get the phone numbers of the owner (another IT guy) and speak to him at length on the road, until he agrees its his driver’s fault. We exchange addresses, and some notes about the problem on hand and then I decide not to lodge a complaint. With this my service costs included for replacing one door, and painting another fully with ozone blue colour was Rs.30000/-. But since insurance covered it, I had to pay about 1500 bucks only. At the cost of no claim bonus denied for the next insurance renewal.

There is a bar on the side doors that goes obliqually from bottom to top, and this bar was dented with the accident. Hence there was no other way other than to replace one of the doors. But I must admit my service center Green Cars in Koramangala, did an extremely good job on the car and left me thoroughly satisfied.

I always wear seat belts for the past 4-5 years now and I feel its a shame that Maruti thinks giving airbags on the diesel model is a luxury for certain people. I thought always that Maruti was a leader in such things. So much for leadership. They need to take an example out of the Chevy Spark, which provides airbags for a car that small and its safety is the best aspect of this car. If you want to know how safe Spark is, read this, I am sure your perception on the car will change forever.

I am not sure how much of impact the Swift will take, but one must remember that seat belts alone won’t help in a car, the airbags compliment safety in a much more refined and defined sense.

Finally

I like this car a lot, its easy to drive in the city, gives me about 16kmpl mileage, the tyres make me feel more secure and overall its value for money. If you do have one lakh more, go for the swift Dzire and I feel you wont be disappointed ! But for hotness in hatches, this is it …. ! Until my next review, Adieu.

Technorati : , 15000km, Diesel, MGA, Maruti, Suzuki, Swift, Vdi, accident, airbags, alloys, bangalore, bengaluru, bhp, blog, boost, chevrolet, defogger, defogging, engine, fiat palio, fogging, forces, hatch, hatchback, indica, inertial, insurance, lenso, michelin, mjd, multijet, pete, power, puncture, review, rpm, safety, sai iyengar and sons, space, spark, taiwan, tata, torque, tread, tubeless, tuning kit, turbo

[coolplayer width=”480″ height=”70″ autoplay=”0″ loop=”0″ charset=”utf-8″ download=”0″ mediatype=””]
Ulfat Sultan – Garriage and Marriage
[/coolplayer]

Technorati : Banglaore, Bengaluru, Blog, Hogennakkal, Kadha Parayumbol, Kuselan, Mammooty, Meena, Movie, Nayanthara, PVR, Prakash Kumar, Rajinikanth, Shankar Mahadevan, Tamil, Vadivelu, forum

With the BIAL being situated very far away for most people, traveling to nearby cities increasingly is using train as the mode of transport. Compared to yesteryears, these days Railways has done some serious upgradation to the type of services that are provided on the trains. I found out about this when I had a chance to travel to Chennai city by the First AC coach.

Erstwhile the only real perceiveable difference, other than the fact that there was AC, was that the seats seemed to have a leather covering in First AC which was not present in Second AC. From outside, the compartments look pretty much the same:

Inside too, one could not tell the difference between these two classes of travel

(Second AC) (First AC)

But after sometime, Railways upgraded the FIRST AC to be more cushiony and more decent in looks, the cabin itself looking more airy as well. The roof moulds were also done up from the inside and more neater upholstery was put into place which gave that well shaven look.

But my journey this time, was extremely comfortable due to better seating arrangements on the coach. The seats themselves were much wider than before, enabling most of us to sleep very comfortably. Not only that for people with kids, like me, one could easily put another small kid next to us on these coaches, which we could not easily do in other classes of travel. The cabin itself was done up with the rather old and dated “Incredible India” slogan with a lone tiger peeping out of the poster. Contrast this with the actual situation in Sariska National Park and Sunderbans, where the tiger numbers are dwindling day by day and you would know how incredible India really is.

Back to the topic, the general look and feel of the First AC had vastly improved by now.

Curtains were looking rather dull in colour, but solved the purpose more than necessary. Also there were wardrobes in two passenger coupes (now that sounds like a hotel room). Also there was a large mirror with its own lighting, 12V sockets for using laptops and other tech gizmos of today. All switches were of very good quality and there was nifty little luggage racks all over the place to stash away your luggage. The berth itself was extra large, with two rounds of bedding/bedsheets with one high quality rug to keep you warm in the AC if required. There were also reading lamps towards the headrest which was a good feature. Yeah, they were always there, but this time they worked!

There was also a netted pouch to keep important things like the mobile, purse etc away while sleeping tight. Also the bottle holders were present at necessary places to stack bottles of water for use at night.

The only technical advancement I really found (other than the 12v power socket) was a panel that indicated which of the four toilets were occupied or full. This is a very good feature in my opinion, and one would not want to waste time waiting at the toilet unnecessarily. The toilets themselves had tissue paper rolls and plenty of water (I am kind of ashamed to say that in other classes of travel the paper rolls arent there!, but that is the irony of this country).

Also there is a morning wake up call in once train reaches the destination in case you have overslept in the comfort 🙂 This is again a welcome feature. Perhaps a newspaper and some snacks would complete the story well. The Railways is contemplating providing either wired or Wifi net access and I should think to believe that its perhaps already there in some trains by now. This in my opinion is a giant step ahead for our country. The simple reason is that due to sheer necessity, this feature is NOT available in other countries, which is pathetic. The economies of scale permit India to implement such a thing with ease.

Finally the total ticket value was around Rs.700 (about 16$) which is much lesser than any airfare and the time wasted going to the airport is more than covered by this train journey. Kudos to the railways for constant improvements and I wish them good luck to improve facilities at a much faster rate from now and not take 50 more years to bring in advancements. One grouse though that I had was that I had to carry umpteen bags from platform 4 to platform 1 in Bangalore city station, via an overbridge without any trolley or escalators. Thanks to Porter – Raj (the illegal reign of porters) we always end up paying 150 to 200 bucks to the porter for something that we might ourselves do when we are in the pink of our health. Shame on you Railways for not upgrading platforms and station facilities. The only commendable part is that I did notice an Airtel Buggy (an electric vehicle provided by a local mobile operator) to ferry around handicapped people. And since the definition of handicapped does not include people who have small kids, this lot of people cant use the buggy even on paying a nominal charge. Common Airtel you cant be so mean!

The next time you travel by train, dont forget to check out the First AC, you would have a pleasant sleep I promise!

Technorati : 12v socket, Indian railways, airtel, bangalore, bengaluru, blog, bottle holder, buggy, chennai, coach, compartment, cushions, electric vehicles, escalators, first ac, hotel, incredible, india, look and feel, mail, newspaper, platforms, porters, pouch, room, sariska, snacks, tiger, tissue rolls, toilet status, toilets, wardrobe, water

I have been predominantly using three different types of remote desktop sharing programs, to either send files, or to help people with their pc problems or for just video/voice chat with some remote desktop usage (like shared whiteboards etc). I would like to point out those software here for reference so that others may benefit from it.

NetMeeting from Microsoft

This software by far has been the most common one I ve used until date for voice/video and remote desktop tech support. While I do like this software, I find that the remote option is extremely lethargic, slow and sometimes quite unintiutive. For more details you can visit here

CrossLoop

CrossLoop is the name of a startup software company who are also into enabling remote desktop sharing and collaborating. Their software however is NOT a video/voice chat application. Their application is quite simple with either an ACCESS option or a SHARE option. While the former grants you right to access other’s machines, the latter grants you rights to enable others to access your machine. However it is to be noted that this application uses codes of some sort (typically a 12 digit unique code for that session), which has to be pre shared via other means to the second user to enable collaboration. I find this pretty unintiutive by nature. Take a look for yourself:

Once the codes are accepted both sides, then the software behaves pretty much like netmeeting itself. I must say here that it is slow however and has some fixed IP issues.

These days the routers that are used at home, have fixed local IP addresses. This means your IP address for the router is 192.168.1.1 and your PC/Laptop, etc could have addresses like 192.168.1.2/ 192.168.1.3, etc and so on and so forth. What this means is that there is a network created within the home, which is totally local. This also means all the devices on this network need a gateway address to access the internet outside. This is nothing but the address of your router (192.168.1.1). Your actual IP address could be something different such as 122.167.240.215. When a friend residing elsewhere tries to connect to your computer using the address 192.168.1.2, etc the connection is NOT established for obvious reasons that this address is local to you and cannot be reached from outside. So then if we try the address 122.167.240.215 to connect to (which is the real address of your system) even then remote desktop sharing software fail. In earlier days, we only had a USB modem which was assigned the actual IP address and hence people could remotely connect to you. But with routers the game is more difficult. So how then do we do remote desktop management ?

This is where services such as LogMeIn surface to help you out.

LogMeIn

LogMeIn is a browser based program that links two computers anywhere in the world. How you use it is very simple. Just go to their website (www.LogMeIn.com) sign up for a user id, and then get into your account details. Here you can see a list of computers known to you. To add your friend’s computer, simply click on Add computer and you can add any computer you wish with logmein support. Also you can search for other people’s computer provided they have logmein installed. Click on the image below to see more:

Once you add a computer, and can see that computer on your list, connecting to it is very simple. Just click on it, enter a computer access code that you already know, choose connect and Viola!! You can see your friend’s desktop right within your browser and you also get to control it! I tried this website (under trial version) to urgently solve some critical connectivity issues on my aunt’s PC (thanks to the great aunt who let me experiment with her pc! ) and I could successfully access her PC with least effort and at the same time could solve installtion issues on her PC which was 350 miles away. It was a reassuring experience for my aunt no doubt. I did find the browser interface slow for refreshing, but I believe thats the bane of remote desktop management applications. There is too much of graphics to load each time a mouse movement even is made!

Here is the final proof of the pudding: (click for a bigger image)

To conclude, remote desktop sharing applications have come of age since the older NetMeeting, but nevertheless they have their own new age pros and cons that one has to be fully aware of. Its on a matter of time that these applications are hacked into by the new age crooks!

Help a friend, solve their problems using a tool such as LogMeIn. Teaching hands on will never be the same experience again.

Technorati : Bangalore, Bengaluru, blog, browser, crossloop, desktop, desktop sharing, family, friends, graphics, help, internet problems, linux, log me in, logmein, microsoft, netmeeting, pc problems, pc tech support, remote, remote desktop, sharing, support, technical support, technology, windows

India has progressed a long way in harnessing the internet for all purchase related processes, be it a flight ticket, or home appliance or of late even hotel bookings. Hotel bookings were mostly restricted to filling up the required details online, and waiting endlessly for someone to either call you or mail you regarding your booking. This could be an agent or well, the hotel management itself in some cases where the hotel was well known.

There were many anomalies in this kind of scheme. One for instance is that I sent an email via the form on the internet only to receive no reply after – well about – 5 years now!! Another instance is that I got a response from the hotel after about a month, which was of no use practically for me since I had exhausted the travel date for my trip. Atleast this was bearable to some extent but there was one more case where I began receiving spam for the query I sent which made it a bit intolerable.

From those days, hotel booking has steadily progressed to be associated with branded websites who advertise services like hotel bookings, airline bookings, taxi bookings, etc on all media both print and television and even on the net on partner sites. There are a few sites that I would like to highlight for their services (of which I have already used some of them and found it extremely satisfactory)

www.Ezeego1.com

Ezeego1 is a website that is fairly simple to use (but I don’t think it is web 2.0 enabled as yet – which means more of page refreses than normally required) and gives me all the data I need to see neatly arranged on one single page. I can see the hotels, the photos of hotels, prices with and without taxes and even sort by popularity or price, etc. The site even provides me with a price slider which I can slide to knock off hotels out of my budget range.

This is a unique thing which I liked a lot. Try it out yourself! The photos of each hotel pop up in another window but what I did not like is that in the current age of digital cameras of 7MP and more, I still get to see photos which are dumb and thumbnail sized not giving me the true picture of what I can expect when I land at the hotel. Shame on such photography! The rest is rather straightforward – add hotel to cart, confirm cart, pay and off you go on your holiday equipped with an online confirmation!

Ezeego also has a chat option along with toll free telephone and email customer care.

www.travelguru.com

Travelguru is somewhat similar to Ezeego, but with some changes. First they are web 2.0 enabled which means I don’t divert away from the hotel booking search results page even if I want to say see some photos of a particular hotel or its rates or features. Everything refreshes then and there only in that part of the page. I am impressed! It’s just awesome to use web 2.0 technology! Travelguru also allows me to pay at the hotel which is an internet first that I have personally noted.

Travelguru has toll free telephone and email customer care.

www.cleartrip.com

Cleartrip is yet another hotel booking service of a different kind. Firstly all results are displayed much like in other sites, with prices of rooms with and without taxes neatly explained. What I also liked about this listing is that next to the hotel name, is a thumbnail photograph of the hotel, with relevant icons showing its available facilities (such as swimming pool, gym, etc). Upon clicking the thumbnail, there is an in browser page pop, using web 2.0 again, which shows some real good quality photos which presents more or less an actual picture of the hotel that is to be booked by you. With these photos, I am more or less confident of what I can expect at the actual hotel. You wont be probably disappointed.

The rest is the same, add to cart, present your details and make a payment. Cleartrip has among other things a toll free phone and email customer care.

www.hotelscombined.com

HotelsCombined is a multipartner hotel booking network which caters both national and international too. Their objective is simple; they search for a hotel in your city using their multipartner tie up to find the best deals for you. Since this is based on querying multiple hotel booking partners, you may most likely be diverted to the relevant website while you book a hotel offered by them. In that case you must remember to contact only the partner site in case of issues/queries and not Hotelscombined itself. I don’t really know if I would prefer something like this, since it sounds a bit complex for me to reach many other people.

The photos of the hotels themselves are picked from partner sites, so you may not expect the best photos that show you what you get at the hotel really. Sometimes I ve even found that the photos are just thumbnails only. The room cost does not include taxes and the taxes are shown as either at actuals, or zero or sometimes as ‘unknown’!! The partner website though has all room price details, etc with their own contact numbers to ensure you can do the booking of your choice easily from anywhere even outside of India.

It’s to be noted that Hotelscombined does not offer a direct toll free number to contact them for reasons beyond my understanding. While the local sites would go well with domestic customers, HotelsCombined would do a good job if you are looking at a hotel in another country/city from your current location and would provide more than enough details on such listings.

Technorati : airlines, booking, cleartrip, deals, ezeego1, holidays, hotel, hotelscombined, india, online, travelguru, yatra