cover_jan 06.

ai 12/28/2005 11:00:28 AM

Budget Processors Tested Gadgets for Girls

at the heart of technology www.chip-india.com

January 2006 Volume 3 Issue 2 Rs 100

Y How technology will seamlessly

CM
integrate into every aspect of our lifestyle
MY

CY

CMY

Record TV shows
WORKSHOP
Next-GenPhones 52
A dozen of the most sought after smart phones tested
Use your PC to save your
114 favorite episodes
FEATURE
Notebook or Desktop 64
Confused? Find out which of the two suits your needs better
Boom time
The visual effects wave is
upon us. All aboard?
Return of the King! 76
84 The making of Peter Jackson’s King Kong
Also available in Bangladesh
Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, U A E Slim and Svelte: ASUS W5G00AE
LG.indd 1 12/27/2005 1:14:02 PM

In most cases today,
the inadequacy of
infrastructure and
standardization
tarnishes the efficacy
of content delivery
services
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
EDITORIAL 7
Riding the Waves
F
or those of you who were schooling before the Nineties, you’ll know what I
mean when I say that I used to wait for evening time. That was the time I used
to bolt out of the house and spend the evening hours kicking around a football
or scratching my elbows while in the throes of a game of ‘chor-police’. Today, the more
I look at school and college kids, the more I reminisce about those bygone years—and
the scary part is I can’t even be classified as old! The pace of social evolution has
indeed increased.
Today’s youth are talking Playstations, Xboxes and the newest FPS and RPG games.
The lingo has changed. Today, we are in the midst of not one, but several technology
waves. Take the epidemic adoption of cellular and Internet connectivity—at the rate at
which it’s moving, we’ve seen some very interesting application mutations where these
technologies intersect. We have instances where service providers are hawking e-mail
on mobile devices, Internet telephony is offered on traditional Internet access lines,
value added services like music downloads and online gaming are being offered by ISPs
for mobile devices… the list goes on. Blink and you miss a new service announcement.
Ironically, this is both good and bad.
Deep down, every consumer only yearns for his needs/aspirations to be fulfilled by
a particular product or service. For that to happen, usability needs to be out-of-the-box
and price affordable. Here’s where the potential speed breakers lie. For users to be able
to maximize the use of a technology, the very technology should be transparent to
them. An apparent dichotomy in terms, this is the very reason why every other mass-
accepted product or service (like television, electricity and increasingly computers and
cell phones) are such inherent part of our lives today. People want to use products in the
course of normal life, not live to learn products.
However, in today’s scenario of rapid converging technology waves, learning any one
technology is becoming difficult. Broadband, cellular technology, online gaming, music
downloads, portable computing—all of these have varying threads of commonality
among them. Accompanied by an immense torrent of offers and announcements being
piggy-backed onto existing services and products from companies, it’s all too easy to be
swung by the promise of a new-found ‘killer app’. In most cases today, the inadequacy
of infrastructure and standardization tarnishes the efficacy of content delivery services.
And there’s no sign of this trend abating.
We stand at the head of an expectedly exciting year ahead of us. Several great
technologies will be upon us, several will recede. With communication, processing,
networking and electronic entertainment forming the very waft and weave of our lives
today, it’s prudent to be mindful of the technologies we face this year, to refrain from
taking them at face value and to ignore the hype that blinds us into adopting that which
will not eventually be useful in our lives.
Here’s wishing you all a prosperous, fun and fulfilling 2006!
| Marco Angelo D’Souza
marco.dsouza@chip-india.com
Contents
JANUARY 2006
32 How broad is
Broadband?
NEWSWIRE
22 Free does IT?
Free PCs for developing markets—a
marketing gimmick or a smart move?
Will Asiatotal’s unique concept
take off?
32 How broad is Broadband?
Find out what you can expect from
broadband as service providers gear
up with their stock of services
COVER STORY
34 Our Lives Ahead
How technology is going to affect
every aspect of our lives at home, on
the road and everywhere around
HARDWARE
42 Top Gear
An ultra portable notebook, a ‘nano’
player and lots more—for all you
gadget-hungry people
52 Smart. Sexy. Stylish.
A dozen of the most sought after
phones in the country tested. Check
out which one’s the winner
64 Portable Dilemma
Can’t make up your mind between
a notebook and a desktop PC? This
feature will help you decide
66 Processing on a Shoe String
The budget processors have been
put to test. Let’s find out if they put
their money where their mouth is
APPLICATIONS
70 Software Center
Make that move to protect your PC
with the latest security applications
reviewed here—and lots more…
76 The King is back!
Peter Jackson is back—this time with
a remake of the 1933 classic, King
Kong. We go behind the scenes to tell
you how the magic was created
84 Real vs Reel
“What we see is not often what it is”
– visual effects in Indian films has
only reinforced this fact. Technology
and a maturing film industry are
creating career opportunities like
never before
34
76 The King is back!
52 Smart. Sexy.
Stylish.
87 Building Independence
The disabled in India are slowly being
enabled with the help of technology
solutions that aim at making their
lives simpler and happier
90 Search Specialists
Find out more about how the
popular web search tools are
performing to find and present
information from your hard disk
92 It’s aLIVE!
Microsoft is providing a slew of
online services with Live.com. A
glance at their latest Beta offering…
94 Mandriva Linux
Find out more about Mandriva
Linux 2006 that was launched a few
months back
HANDS ON
100 Working Remotely
Facing a problem with your PC?
Invite anyone you trust over the
network to solve it for you with
the help of Windows XP’s Remote
Assistance feature
104 The Art of Composition
Master the method of composition
to make the photos you click appear
life-like
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
 87 Building Independence

108 Personalize Your Dates !

70 Software Center

UNWIND | Products Tested

108 Personalize your Dates!
Learn how to make your personalized
photo calendar with your favorite
memories of the year gone by
112 Add Zing to your Drive
We give you a few tips on how to
service your optical drive to keep it
functioning
114 The Living Room PC
The computer has shifted place now
from the bedroom to the living room.
It functions as a home theater, a
personal video recorder...learn here
how to transform your PC into a PVR
118 Indulge in WAP!
Exciting projects for your WAP phone
123 Made a Backup Yet?
How XP’s Backup Utility helps you to
back up personal files, system files,
etc. More here...
134 Chip and the Chick
Women-friendly gadgets...
136 Call of Duty 2
From great graphics to amazing
smoke effects, CoD 2 is the most
immmersive WWII shooter yet
137 Need for Speed Most Wanted
Revving engines, squealing tyres, hot
babes—that’s Most Wanted for you!
138 Harry Potter and the Goblet
of Fire
Is the latest game in the Harry Potter
series worth all the hype? Find out...
139 Black and White 2
God playing can be overwhelmingly
addictive
Hardware 42
Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000, Microsoft
Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000
ExBoot EXB-0121, Asus W5G00AE,
Typhoon Maxima Series 2.1, Sahara DT-
7523-360-Q1, Lenovo ThinkCentre E50,
Nvidia GeForce 6800GS, Logitech G15,
Seagate ST3500641AS, Gigabyte 3D1,
Canon S80, Apple iPod Nano, Buffalo
DriveStation
Smart phones 52
Nokia 9300, O2 XDAIIi, O2 XphoneII,
BenQ P30, Motorola A780, palmOne
Treo650, I-mate JASJAR
Multimedia phones
Nokia 6680, Nokia N90, Nokia N71,
Samsung SGH-D-600, Sony W800i

Regulars
Town Square 16
Letters 18
Technology Landscape 69
Dr. CHIP 96
Tips and Tricks 126
Lenovo ThinkCentre E50
Game Reviews 136
(Desktop PC) …43
84 Last Word 148

JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

Disk Contents
JANUARY 2006 | VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 2

Security: ZoneAlarm Free 6.1, Norton Antivirus Virus Definitions, McAfee

Antivirus Virus Definitions, eScan Internet Security Suite
Developer: Alice 2.0, VOINS System: System Mechanic 6 Pro, NVIDIA Forceware
Drivers 81.95, ATI Catalyst Drivers 5.11, SwissKnife Linux: My SQL Standard
5.0.16, KOffice 1.4.2, Skype Mobile: Microsft ActiveSync 4.0, FastForward,
Symbian Multimedia: Winamp 5.12, Real Alternative 1.44, K-Lite Mega Codec
Pack 1.4.5, QuickTime Alternative 1.64 Utilities: DirectX 9.0c, LogInventory,
Magic NetTrace, Virtual CD 7.0, WinRAR 3.51, YPOPs! Internet: Pegasus Mail
4.21, Download Accelerator Plus 7.5, LimeWire, Mozilla Firefox 1.5,
MSN Messenger 7.5 Red Hot: muvee autoProducer 5

Game Demos: Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire, Civilization IV, ToCA Race
Driver 3 Game Addons: Age of Empire 3 1.01 Patch, Quake 4 1.0.4 Patch
Game Trailers: Need for Speed Most Wanted Black Edition Trailer,Hitman
Blood Money Trailer Movie Trailers: GOAL The Dream Begins, Pink Panther,
Yours,Mine and Ours

$)*1%7%
Game Demos: Earth 2160, Law and Order Criminal Intention, Ski Racing 2006
Quake 4, 80 Days Game Addons: Rome Total War Realism 6.2
Game Trailers: Ski Racing 2006 Trailer Movie Trailers: Bandidas, Take the
Lead, The Benchwarmers, Annapolis, Pirates of Carribean:Dead Man's Chest
Syriana Linux: Mandriva Linux 2006 Service Pack Collection: Win XP SP3
Preview Pack #2
 Quick Quote
CHIP combines
the fun of IT with
functionality,
making it a great
boarding point for
getting on the info
superhighway
Nandkumar Saravade,
Indian Police Service Officer
www.chip-india.com
JANUARY 2006 | VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 2
GENERAL MANAGER - PUBLISHING Chennai
Krishna Tewari O K Gurumurthy
Phone: (044) 28295050-54 Fax: (044) 28295060
EDITOR gurumurthy@infomediaindia.com
Marco Angelo D’Souza
Hyderabad
ASSOCIATE FEATURES EDITOR Vasudevan Iyer
Carol D’Costa
Phone: (040)55622211 Fax: (040) 23393488
SENIOR COPY EDITOR Kolkata
Sharmistha Dey A. K. Roy
Phone: (033) 2468637, 2468638 Fax: (033) 2462964
WRITERS
Ashutosh Desai
Jamshed Avari, Pradosh Mitra
New Delhi
Pranav Saran
pranav.saran@infomediaindia.com
TEST CENTER
Soham Raninga (D) (011) 55303287
Anand Tuliani, Gaurav Seth 401-409, Prakashdeep Building,
MULTIMEDIA COORDINATOR
7 Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi – 110 001.
Phone: (011)55303278,79,80,82 Fax: (011)23327884
Anup Pillai
CIRCULATION
National Circulation Manager
DESIGN
Medha Modak Kumar Mohanani
Vishwanath Vanjire, Pramod Jadhav, Dinesh Desai
(kumar.mohanani@infomediaindia.com)
Rushikesh Masurkar, Manoj Tandel, CHIP INTERNATIONAL
Umesh Dahiwalkar Editorial Management International
Ludwig Blaha, Poccistrabe 11,80336 Munchen
PHOTO EDITOR
Shirish Karale Editorial Consultant International
Wolfgang Su, Poccistrabe 11,80336 Munchen
MULTIMEDIA & WEB
Hemant Charya CHIP is also published in the following countries
China
SPECIAL PROJECTS Czech Republic
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Germany
Brian Pereira
Greece
ASSISTANT EDITOR Hungary
Harikrishnan Menon Indonesia
Italy
WRITERS Malaysia
Nikhil Rastogi, Gagan Gupta, Arunabh Arora Netherlands
Poland
HEAD MARKETING Romania
Ganesh Lakshmanan
Russia
EDITORIAL OFFICE Singapore
Intelligent Computing Chip, Thailand
Infomedia India Ltd. Turkey
`A’ Wing, Ruby House, 2nd Floor, J.K. Sawant Marg, Ukraine
Dadar(W). Mumbai - 400 028. INDIA Infomedia India Ltd. does not take the responsibility for
Phone: (91 22) 24232323, Fax: (91 22) 2430 2707 returning unsolicited material sent without due postal stamps
E-mail: comment@chip-india.com for return postage. No part of this magazine can be reproduced
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
BUSINESS OFFICES Infomedia India Ltd. reserves the right to use the information
Mumbai (Head Office) published herein in any manner whatsoever.
Martin Wilson,
Copyright 2004 INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
mwilson@infomediaindia.com
For all international subscription enquiries, contact the
Sagar Salunkhe subscription department, Intelligent Computing CHIP
Infomedia India Ltd. (subscription@chip-india.com).
`A’ Wing, Ruby House, 2nd Floor, J.K. Sawant Marg,
Dadar(W). Mumbai - 400 028. INDIA Intelligent Computing CHIP is printed by A. S. Vadiwala and
Phone: (91 22) 24232323, Fax: (91 22) 24302707 published by K. V. Rao on behalf of Infomedia India Ltd. and
printed at Infomedia India Ltd, Plot No.3, Sector 7, Off Sion-
E-mail: tbwbom@chip-india.com
Panvel Road, Nerul, Navi Mumbai – 400 706 and published
at Infomedia India Ltd., `A’ Wing, Ruby House, 2nd Floor, J.K.
Bangalore Sawant Marg, Dadar(W). Mumbai - 400 028. INDIA
Mohammed Asif
mohammed.asif@infomediaindia.com is an internationally protected trademark owned by
Vogel Burda Communication GmbH
12th Floor, ‘C’ Wing, Mittal Tower No.6,
M.G.Road, Bangalore – 560 001. Cover Design: Pramod Jadhav
Phone: (080)559 7282,83,84 Fax: (080)559 7285
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
16 TOWN SQUARE
THIS MONTH ON chip-india.com
Town Square
I
t’s the new year and our resolution for this year
is to further improve the quality of IC CHIP and
provide our readers with top notch content in
the magazine and the cover disks.
We would like to begin the year with sincere
thanks to all the readers who are part of the CHIP
family and we hope that as we embark on a new
beginning you will continue to support us as you
have all this while.
With the number of registered users on our site
swelling to over 18,000, it will act as a catalyst
inspiring us to work in one direction—to further
improve our site.
As usual, our Tips and Tricks section has been
buzzing with activity. This month some really neat
tips as well as tricks have been posted by several
users. The most noticeable trick was given by
sauron. He explains how we can view
thumbnails of .DAT files. The procedure is as
follows: -
Type REGEDIT at the run prompt
Expand HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT -> .DAT in the
registry editor.
right click on .DAT and create a NEW KEY and
name it as ‘ShellEx’
right click on ‘ShellEx’ and create a NEW KEY
expand .MPG and copy the KEY value under
‘ShellEx’
Paste it for the key (under ShellEx) just created
for .DAT
move to .MPG and click on the value under
‘ShellEx’
In the right pane double click on the DEFAULT
under Name
Copy the value next to VALUE DATA and paste
for the .DAT one
Close the Registry Editor
Our user ‘neo_natasha’ gave us information
about the software called ‘Festoon’ that allows
you to add video and share it on Skype and Google
Talk. You just have to connect your camera,
download the free festoon plug-in and then you
can see each other and also invite your buddies for
a video call even if they don’t have a camera. So
you can have fun while chatting and talking with
your near and dear ones.
Another small tip was given by user ‘j667’. This
was with regards to performing a search while
using Mozilla browser. If you want to perform
a search using Google, you don’t need to go to
their home site. Just type google and your topic in
the address bar and the results will be displayed,
similar to when you perform a search on
google.com. Keep the tips and tricks coming in. We
would love to see more of them.
Also, on the forums we found lots of complaints
regarding the issue reaching late to the subscribers.
Last month, the box pack of the magazine created
problems for the courier guys during packaging
and as a result there was a delay in the delivery of
issues. Rest assured that next month the issue will
reach you on time.
On the web site there have been several
complaints posted by some of our users about
more games being put on the DVD as opposed
to software. Well, this month we have tried to
minimize the game content on the DVD and we
have included more software.
We are also planning to include more Linux
distributions on the DVD. Mandriva Linux 2006,
included on this month’s DVD, is the first in this
process. Do check out the review of the same
in this issue. We are of course always open to
suggestions that will improve the quality of our
Cover CDs and DVD. We will certainly keep them in
mind while collating the content for the CDs and
DVD in the upcoming issues.
Hope you have a rocking starting to the year
2006. We also hope you will continue to send your
feedback to us as has been the norm in the past.
Your feedback—good or bad—only encourages us.
So keep writing in to us and here’s wishing you all a
very happy new year. ■
| Anup Pillai
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
18 LETTERS
Letters
Dear CHIP,
I am a regular reader of your magazine. I am doing
a course in hardware and networking. And I find
several topics, which are part of my classroom
training, very find difficult to understand. However,
when I read articles in CHIP, especially the visual
infographic on laser printer operation, the Windows
XP boot sequence and the workshop on building
a portable hard disk, I find it really simple to
understand. Thank you so much for such articles.
Suyog Pramod Sawant
Dear Sujog,
Thanks for writing in to us as we appreciate
your feedback on our visual infographic-based
articles and workshops. Yes, these are our favorite
articles as well! If you have any ideas on what
you’d like to see in our magazine, do feel free to
write in to us—we’d be happy to hear you out!
Team CHIP
Dear Marco,
I was very impressed with your editorial, ‘Chasing
Perfection’. Your outlook is completely different
from that published in some other magazines that
are no more than shiny catalogues of cell phones,
TVs, etc. It is such magazines that give advice on
buying an AMD 64 processor paired up with a
completely incompatible motherboard.
This month, to my dismay, I became disillusioned
with CHIP as well. I bought the November
issue because it contained a demo
of the game Heroes of the Pacific.
Unfortunately, when I tried to load
the game, I got an error message
saying there was something
wrong with the Nullsoft Install
System. I downloaded this
from the Internet, but it is not
something that I can use. Another
game gave a similar error
message for the same
installer. Please check the
functioning of the DVD
and if necessary, please
correct the recurring error. I would
be grateful if you could
send me a replacement that has
been tested.
Umesh Dahiwalkar
Cdr Arthur J D’Cruz (Retd)
Dear Arthur,
The reason I wrote that article was because I was
inspired to, owing to certain situations that I
experienced during the previous month. It is indeed
sad that there is such rampant inefficiency and
non-professionalism in the various sectors of life
that touch us each day. I do believe that it is passion
that makes people want to do better and excel
in the work they do. The trick, I suppose, is to find
ways to instill (or inspire) that passion in ourselves
and in the folks around us. It is only then that we
could become a nation that churns out consistently
high-caliber services and products and create a
society that encourages a high quality of life.
With regards to your non-functioning application
installation, we would be glad to replace it if
you could send it back to us after checking it on
other computers to see that it is in fact faulty.
Cheers,
Marco
Dear CHIP,
I am a 71-year-old civil engineer and I’m a regular
reader of CHIP. I also occasionaly engage in
assembling of computers for my grandchildren and
friends. And I’m really thankful to CHIP for giving
me a good background knowledge. Your product
reviews also, I must mention, are very credible.
The reason why I’m writing this letter is, about
a year ago, I assembled a Socket A-based AMD
system with a Krypton Motherboard (CG18G-400)
and a Pinnacle PCTV card for my son. It worked
very well and captured TV programmes nicely.
Based on CHIP’s motherboard comparison test
results, I decided to assemble another one for my
grandchildren using an AMD Socket 754 board,
a Krypton K8M800 (tested by CHIP, March 2005)
but using the same Pinnacle TV tuner card of the
previous computer. With the TV tuner, the K8M800
failed to boot. When I sent it back to the board’s
distributor Priya Limited at Chennai, they used my
purchase receipt and replaced it immediately.
What was most impressive during this episode
was the extraordinary customer care treatment
I received from the distributor, dealer and even
the dispatch department. I would fail in my duty
if I don’t bring to light this level of efficiency to an
esteemed magazine such as yours.
Following this episode, I had to undergo a bypass
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
20 LETTERS
Letters
surgery (I’ve been a heart patient for some years
now). Today, I’m happy to report that I, along with
both the computers, are healthy!
May Lord Sri Lakshmi Venkateswara bless you all
and may your magazine prosper.
With kind regards and respect to you all.
Er T S Nagarajan
Dear Mr Nagarajan,
It is letters such as yours that warm us and reaffirm
our resolve to create a good magazine each month.
And it is not very often that customers actually
reply to a good deed that has been done by a
company—it is the lapses in customer service that
are most often reported. In conjunction with the
observations in my November editorial, it is this
kind of service that is so important in a booming
marketplace such as ours. Our buoyant economy
should be used as an opportunity to raise the
standard of operation and serve customers with
that much more zeal and vigor! Of course, your
bringing this to light would definitely spur on the
companies involved. Recognition is, after all, one
of the biggest motivators. Thanks for writing in!
We wish you (and both of your
computers) the best of health!
Team CHIP
Dear CHIP,
I am a regular subscriber of your magazine and
I’m need some advice from you on a very
important issue.
I am a freelance web designer. And I have been
handling a domain of a client of mine since the last
two years. This domain is very important to my
client. Unfortunately, I forgot to renew the domain
name which expired on September 10, 2005.
When I did remember, it was already too late.
And by the month of October, the domain had
been shifted to ‘Redemption Period’ by OnlineNIC.
I contacted my sub-registrar and was told that the
domain would remain in this state for about 45
days after which it would be free. I waited and kept
checking the domain every day. A few days later, the
status of the domain changed to ‘Pending Delete’.
That was November 23.
When I checked it again on the morning of
November 24, I was shocked to find the domain
registered by some registrar in the United States.
The registrar is the web site http://www.
privatedomains.biz. After searching through their
whois on their site, I found that this company was
just a proxy for eNOM Inc. in the US.
I mailed them twice about transferring the
domain in my client’s name as it rightfully belongs
to him but I’m yet to receive any response from
the said company. I would imagine this is a case of
domain squatting.
Can you tell me if there is anything I can do?
I don’t know whether we have any cyber laws
preventing unauthorized registrations of domains
belonging to someone else in our country. I would
be very thankful for a solution on getting my
domain back.
Warm regards,
Rishi Khanna
Dear Rishi,
In order to affect the resolution of cybersquatting
complaints, the Internet Corporation of Assigned
Names and Numbers [ICANN - www.icann.org]
has instituted the Uniform Domain Name Dispute
Resolution Policy [UDRP] for the resolution of
domain name disputes. Any complaint filed under
this online arbitration policy (which incidentally
is the only successful online arbitration system
in the world) is decided within two months. This
procedure is comparatively faster than other
procedures for dispute resolution. It would be
appropriate to use this system as it covers a wide
range of domain name disputes. I do hope this
is responsive. I would be happy to provide more
information or answer any further questions that
you might have. Please do feel free to call or write.
All the best!
Warm regards
Rodney D Ryder
(Rodney is a lawyer specializing in cyber law and
writes columns on cyber law policy in our magazine.)
Corrigendum
In the review of the game The Age of Empires III that
appeared on page 166 and 167 in our December
2005 issue, the publisher was wrongly mentioned as
EA Games. The publisher of The Age of Empires III is,
in fact, Microsoft Game Studios.
We regret the inconvenience that might have
been caused due to this error.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
22
Free does iT?
Hong Kong based Asiatotal raised very few eyebrows when it announced the
concept of free PCs for developing markets. Is it another run-of-the-mill business
scheme or a genuine effort? We scratch the surface to reveal more
O
nce in a while, the concept of free PC
emerges. Replete with the usual spout
of ‘changing the world’ or empowering
the poor to embrace technology, there have been
numerous attempts in the past that various
well-meaning organizations have undertaken
to come out with a low cost model for the
world’s less fortunate ones. Failed projects in
the past included the likes of the $99 Netpliance
computer, the Simputer which went down
without a trace, AMD’s $199 Personal Internet
Communicator, Palm’s $100 Z22, the $99 Sinclair,
amongst other unknown ones. In the fray is
also the recent announcement of the $100
‘One Laptop Per Child’ program by Negroponte,
developed by the stables of MIT.
The new and interesting entrant this time
around is a free PC to be given out by a Hong
Kong-based technology company known as
Newswire
Pramod Jadhav
Pramod Jadhav
Asiatotal.Net with its tagline—‘Bridging the
Digital Divide’. According to Asiatotal, it’s the
stripped-down version of a desktop known as
‘iT’—and will be given away free to deserving
candidates.
A snazzy looking computing device, iT is
equipped with a 7-inch LCD monitor and a 400
MHz processor running Windows CE and is
aimed especially at traders and businessmen in
the developing markets.
The iT freeware comprises a portable,
language-adapted package, which includes
keyboard, mouse, speakers, amongst other
add-ons. Other features include a smart card
reader, voice and text messaging via Windows
Messenger, virus immunity, etc and ready to
connect to a wide range of USB peripherals. The
hardware has been planned, built and technically
managed by Taiwan-based technology
manufacturer Biostar, which would also be
manufacturing the units in bulk quantities,
according to country requirements. The company
is engaged to produce three million units a
month, and is currently in the process of bringing
out a batch of two lakh units for Brazil. The
units will also have integrated key components
furnished by other Taiwanese partner companies
such as VIA and GBM.
At first glance, the keyboard looks fairly
standard, except for half-a-dozen particularly
prominent keys that are equipped to handle
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | NOVEMBER 2005

more than what meets the eye and this
slightly controversial accessory mainly
differentiates iT from other desktops.
In order to make the system just
about virus-proof, the software has been
incorporated in a chip that eliminates
the use of hard drives thus staving off
virus attacks. It has 64 MB of memory
to save some small files and is equipped
with a USB connector to allow users to
place external drives. The seven-inch (18
cm diagonal) screen comes with built-in
speakers for ease of use in music and
movies, and a built-in modem.
Judy Chen, President and CEO of
Asiatotal.Net expounds the reason behind
the free PC philosophy. According to Chen,
only 10 percent of the world’s population
is connected to the Internet and 70 percent
of the world’s Internet users live in the
24 richest countries which only accounts
for 16 percent of the world’s population.
Although the idea descends as selfless
and not-for-profit on the face of it, it’s
obvious that the proponents of the ‘free
PC’ philosophy would not be able to justify
the manufacturing and distribution costs,
especially as it plans to dole out the PC
without a charge. In an official note, the
company states that the PC is based on a
self-financing business model, hence the
PCs will be distributed via a sponsorship
model: the computer includes 10 dedicated
hotkeys linked to its sponsors. Only eligible
individuals and small businesses will
gain access to iT in areas of education,
medical, financial and entertainment while
participating companies will benefit from a
direct and profitable channel to maximize
business opportunities in the world’s
fastest growing economies.
NOVEMBER 2005 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
The free PCs will be paid for by sponsors
who will own hotkeys on the PCs. The
hotkeys take users directly to the sponsors’
web sites, from where they are able to make
payments for goods and services using a
smart-card reader. The completely modified
version of the desktop appears futuristic
and is touted for those who are first time
users and for those who would like to use
the Net for business purposes. It comes
with a card swipe similar to the ones used
in merchant establishments, albeit a much
smaller footprint.
A closer peek at the device and the
organization reveals that the thought
behind portioning out free PCs is to enable
traders and small-time businessmen to
interact and deal with the global market
and help them spread the business
without having to travel long distances. An
engrossing conception, iT seems to have
the potency to reach out to developing
markets especially empowering SMBs to
address the global market.
However, it remains to be seen whether
Asiatotal will be able to pull through and
spread the message of its philosophy as
it awaits sponsors. Whether advertisers
would be willing to stick around long
enough to turn this into a mass-market
product is another question. Incidentally,
the project took six rigorous years and
with the help of a great deal of planning,
design and several key partners, the
concept came to fruition. It’s based on
a simple business model to supply cost
competitive computers free of charge for
universal Internet access by sharing profits
with partner companies in designated
markets. The first 200,000 units were
dispatched to Brazil some time back. In
NEWSWIRE 23
the subsequent months, iT is slated to
do the rounds in communities in Latin
America, China, India, Russia, Continental
and Eastern Europe, South Africa, Mexico,
the Philippines and the Middle East.
Chen has claimed that Asiatotal.net will
target quality partners in the consumer
business, retail, financial services, and
entertainment, healthcare, technology,
media and telecommunications sectors.
In China, for example, the company is
considering rolling out the program
initially in Beijing and Shanghai, and later
in rural areas if Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) are in a position to provide service
in these locations, she said. ISPs may find
some benefit in offering their service free
as well, she said. In a recent trip to India,
Asiatotal brought `iT’ to Bangalore for its
India launch and has invited corporate
organizations and potential sponsors for iT.
A number of technology companies,
including HP and Intel are researching and
churning out products and services to
help emerging economies in developing
countries. Intel had made a recent
announcement about its Community
PC, a computer specially designed for
rural applications, especially for Indian
communities, while Wyse Technology, a
vendor of thin client computing in San Jose,
California, is screening a platform for the
delivery of services to rural areas around
its thin client technology. However, unlike
Asiatotal, Wyse and some other players
have put in their commitment in setting up
Internet centers in rural areas, expecting
revenue to eventually kick in from Internet-
based services, based on the country’s rural
population. ■
| Carol D’ Costa
24 NEWSWIRE
iPod keyboard
I f not for the love of anything iPod, at
least for the rising emergence of USB
gadgets, finally someone saw the need to
come out with a keyboard, with a dedicated
USB 2.0 dock. Matias recently unveiled a
new computer keyboard that features a
dedicated USB 2.0 dock for the iPod shuffle
(or other iPods using a USB cable).
The USB 2.0 keyboard lets users plug
high-speed USB devices via a convenient
port on the keyboard. Two USB 1.1 ports
are included for devices such as mouse and
joystick and the keyboard comes in two
versions—a white, Mac-only version and a
black version that works with both Macs
and PCs. They both sell for $39.95, or $49.95
with a mouse.
Speed up!
W e haven’t been able to resist
gawking at this absolutely frivolous
piece of gadget ever since we laid our eyes
on it. And as all gadget freaks we thought
this was pretty neat and out of the box
even though it’s pretty pointless.
This Street Racer optical (800DPI) mouse
is lightweight, and with real headlights it’s
also got tail lights too. Interestingly, the
headlights are always on, and the tail-lights
go on every time you move it. It comes with
USB cable and is available in five colors and
it does not require any batteries.
Japan counters the Google threat
M ove aside Yahoo, MSN, etc. We
now have a brand new contender
to take on the behemoth that is Google.
The Japanese government seems to
have been peeved at Google’s world
dominance and is apparently goading its
techie sleuths to launch a spanking new
search engine to take on the current world
champion. Slighted by Google’s universal
popularity, Japan believes that it has better
competitive power to give Google a run for
its search and money.
In this bid, the government has joined
hands with 20 Japanese electronics
companies and universities to be partners
for the project. They include well-known
companies such as Matsushita Electric,
Hitachi, Fujitsu, Tokyo University and the
Tokyo Institute of Technology, NEC as well
New flaw worms through iTunes
A new QuickTime and iTunes flaw
discovered by Tom Ferris, an
independent security researcher, claims
that the glitch can be misused by spiteful
users to cause a Denial of Service (DoS)
attack.
There are no confirmed reports by
anyone else on the issue, as the uncovering
made by Ferris, in early December, was
conspicuous in Apple QuickTime Player
7.0.3 and iTunes 6.0.1.3. Other versions
may also be affected. The dangerous
role of this defect is that if and when the
flaw is exploited, it would cause memory
corruption and induce a program crash. The
vulnerability is caused due to an error in
handling malformed ‘.mov’ files.
No one knows how potentially huge this
issue is at the moment, since reports and
studies have yet to come in based on Ferris’
discovery, as the execution of arbitrary
as Nippon Telegraph, the telecom group,
NHK, and public broadcaster, with the
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
(METI).
So great is the threat perceived by
Google that the government has actually
succeeded in persuading two vicious
opponents, Sony and Matsushita to come
together on a common platform to oust
the US giant. More importantly, Japan
seems to be warily eyeing the high profits
from online ad revenues raked in by Yahoo
and Google, and hence the aggressive
endeavor.
Pitched at an outgo of about 500
million pounds, with an initial investment
of 60 million pounds, this project would
roughly take about three to four years to be
completed.
code has yet to be confirmed; also, it has
yet to be determined if this flaw affects
other versions of QuickTime and/or iTunes.
At this time, the flaw is being diagnosed
as “moderately critical” and as having an
“unknown impact”.
If you are a user, it is advisable—unless
more data can be unearthed—that you
don’t open media files from sources you
don’t trust. This will serve to prevent
any potential abuse of this flaw until an
exact analysis of its extent can be made
and Apple issues a security update. Most
importantly, it may lead to your computer
being hacked!
Media player glitches are not a new
phenomenon. A new trend suggests that
criminal coders are moving their focus of
attacks from OS such as Windows to media
players and other applications. Recently,
eEye Digital Security had issued an alert on
flaws in RealNetworks’ RealPlayer.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
26 NEWSWIRE
IM hit by Santa worm
I n the world of Internet, Santa is not
good. So before you get excited to click
on an e-card attachment showing Santa,
sent to you by your friend via instant
messenger, hold on! The attachment
might cause your system to crash.
IM.GiftCom.All is the worm traveling
from one IM to other (that includes AOL,
Microsoft and Yahoo) and messing up
with your system performance. You
might be duped to believe that you have
received an attachment from one of your
friends or known contacts. But once you
click on the attachment, you get to see
only Santa Claus’ image while the worm
installs itself into your system. After the
installation gets over, the worm uses your
contact list and sends them a similar fake
message. Just as you believed it to be
from an authentic source, your contacts
might do so too and not think twice
before downloading the attachment.
The worm functions with the help of a
malicious program set known as rootkit
enabling it to circumvent the security of
your computer and give complete access
to the attacker. IMLogic and Sophos
(two leading anti-virus companies) have
already warned officially about the
presence of the virus. However, Graham
Cluley, senior technology consultant at
Sophos, assured that these worms are
less successful than the ones, which
usually flow via e-mail.
Unlike email, an assured place for
the worms to move through because
they can approach and sit in your inbox
unnoticed even if you are not logged in,
this worm can approach your computer
only when you are logged into an instant
messenger. However, the threat looms
large as most of the IM users are not
aware of the fact that the transmission of
virus/worms, etc is possible
through IM.
It has been observed that since
corporate organizations bar the usage of
IM within the office environment, there is
less possibility for worms such as this to
attack the office network, whereas home
users who log into instant messengers
as and when they desire might be the
victims targeted more often.
Malware mayhem may multiply in mobiles
2 006 is predicted to be an arduous year
for mobile users as McAfee cautions
users of security threats in mobile devices.
A whole new range of virus attacks
is assumed to hit smartphones and
converged hybrid devices in the months to
come. This is a gloomy forecast since more
and more people are turning to Internet
connected handhelds and PDAs.
If malware in mobiles does become
widespread, it’s sure to wreak more
havoc than the current PC virus attacks.
Interestingly, it has been noted that
mobile phone malware has grown 10
times faster as compared to PC malware,
simply because more and more people are
drawn towards smartphones. Moreover
negligible mobile security could cause
even more confusion and according to
McAfee, consumers do not perceive mobile
dangers as high risk, leaving their devices
deliberately unguarded.
According to McAfee, a mobile threat
targeting several OS could corrupt up
to 200 million connected smartphones
simultaneously. Instead of having to
A girl’s best friend
R ubies and diamonds have started
shifting place—from jewelry box
to laptop. If you wish to keep your hold,
then grab the new E-Go Diamond laptop.
Let’s check the list of what it has: Solid
palladium white gold plates, thousands
of diamonds and a ruby. The brilliantly cut
diamonds are placed on the gold plates with
surgical precision and the ruby is a part of
the Tulip logo. Though the specifications
are decent, gamers and geeks please look
away; this piece is not for you. The system
runs on an AMD Turion 64 processor, with
an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 graphic chipset
featuring 1 GB of DDR RAM. The SATA hard
disk can store 100 GB and the system has
a 12.1-inch widescreen which supports a
max resolution of 1280x800. The spec list
continues with a DVD-RW drive, touch pad,
built-in web cam and a microphone. Even
the list of connectivity features is highly
loaded with Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth
1.2, an ExpressCard slot, four USB 2.0
slots and the 10/100Base-T Ethernet port.
write viruses and worms for each model
of mobile phone, hackers can easily write
malware for the Symbian OS or Windows
Mobile, which makes matters very easy for
them. And because of the kind of personal
data stored in smartphones, especially
passwords to credit cards, contacts, etc,
it’s a prime target for viruses and worms.
This is compounded by the fact that mobile
phones are harder to back up compared
to PCs.
McAfee has painted a very gory picture
with further predictions of PC security
threats including phishing, increase
in Commercial Potentially Unwanted
Programs (PUPs) and identity theft,
which will “continue to cause concern”
throughout the coming year. Attacks may
become more targeted, using spyware
programs and password stealers, there
will also be an increase in the number of
web sites set up to steal passwords and
log-in details. Phishers will continue to
take advantage of people’s nature to help
others in need, as they did after Hurricane
Katrina in the US Gulf Coast region.
Additionally, VGA and S-Video port are
available along with a SD/MMC/MS/MS
Duo card reader. Shaped like a handbag, this
laptop was jointly designed by Beer Master
Jewellery Designer and Marcel van Galen
Design Laurent.
E-Go Diamond is primarily focused
towards a very specific market audience—
the ultra affluent woman with huge
spending capacities.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
28 NEWSWIRE
LG’s big baby
J ust how big can a monitor be? LG
Electronics has crossed all limits
with their new 55-inch (measured
diagonally) multifunctional monitor.
This widescreen LCD chunk named
M5500C, has a native pixel resolution
of 1920x1080 pixels; therefore it can
project true 1080p resolution—that is
scanning 1080 vertical lines in non-
interlaced mode.
LG’s big baby supports both DVI and
VGA connecters (the former is used for
connecting with digital video output, the
latter is used for connecting with PCs),
and can be used for watching movies,
delivering presentations and even as a
normal PC monitor.
It also carries the HDCP (High-
Bandwidth Digital Content Protection)
feature which is a transmission
encryption technology that primarily
operates in the transmission channel of
video source (the DVD disk), transmitter
(DVD players) and the display units
(monitor or television) to retain the
integrity of the content. HDCP is not
designed to prevent the copying or
recording of digital content.
M5500C has a high contrast ratio of
500:1. The monitor is not just big, it
has a viewing angle of 176 degrees and
depth of 16.7 million colors. It also has
connectors for S-Video (where all the
transmission signals are passed through
two cables), composite video (where
all the video signals are passed through
three cables), resulting in higher quality.
Desktop in your palm... and as a mobile!
A wait the cPC to be launched shortly
this month as DualCor Technologies
introduces its zippy new version of a
Windows Mobile 5.0 phone with a fully
equipped Windows XP desktop PC as a
handheld. Sounds unbelievable but it’s true!
There have long been fantastic claims
and desires to bring out such a device,
and although in the past Sony and OQO
introduced their own versions, it had
restricted sales due to short battery life
and confined functioning.
This time around, DualCor has taken
equipped its cPC with a battery long
enough to run applications for eight
hours or more. The cPC jams two devices
into one package; the computer part of
the equation consists of Windows XP
Tablet operating system, a 1.5 GHz C7-M
processor from Via Technologies and 1 GB
of DDR 2 memory. The cell phone aspect
of the device has Windows
Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC
phone edition, a PXA
communications
processor from Intel,
128 MB of DRAM and
1 GB of flash memory. The
Input is effected using a stylus
and touch screen. The screen resolution
is 800x480 pixels; it’s big enough for
viewing large documents and graphics
applications. Together, the computer and
Microsoft’s IE7 promises better security
M icrosoft’s upcoming IE7 is likely to
have better Internet security settings
to protect your computer from malicious
coding, which thus far was a favorite target
with their existing version.
The changes will primarily take place
in the manner IE classifies web sites. The
current version classifies all web sites
in four basic categories (Internet, Local
intranet, Trusted and Restricted) and
allows the user to set security rules for the
browser to interact with these groups
of web sites.
Microsoft engineers have found out that
malicious codes generally flow in through
less restricted web sites and are trying to
prevent that by developing a new set of
cell phone components share a 40 GB hard
drive. Additionally, there are all the ports
and slots you could ever want, including
three USB 2.0 ports, a mini-VGA port,
stereo and telephone headset ports, and a
CF Type II slot.
The cPC also comes with a few additional
features that add shine to its sparkle factor.
The screen is made from special glass,
manufactured by LG, which provides a
brightness level of 200 NITS, which the
company claims is brighter than most other
smart phone screens. The company figured
how to include Tablet PC functionality
without incorporating a digitizer, which is
an additional chip. Users can also use the
cPC like a traditional computer, plug it into
an outlet and LCD screen and it will feel
no different than using a regular desktop.
The most impressive aspect of this product
is that it lets you run your Windows XP
applications and acts as a smart phone
while simultaneously solving the bulky,
cumbersome and power-hungry
issues generally associated
with these products.
Like they say, good
things in life are either
free or unaffordable. So
with $1500 tagged to the
cPC, it may be quite a while till
we manage to get our hands on this piece
of goodness.
security settings. Microsoft’s first priority
was to keep a PC out of intranet
settings if not a part of any corporate
managed network.
This indicates that intranet web sites
will be treated as Internet web sites and
internet security settings will get applied
on them. However, if the PC is part of a
network then IE will automatically apply
intranet zone settings.
Network administrators will probably
be able to set group policies to ensure the
browser functions as desired.
Microsoft, however, did not spell out
exactly what kind of changes and flexibility
one can expect from IE7. Watch this space
for more on this.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
30 NEWSWIRE
Grey is not that grey
A ll those lonely, incomprehensible,
gnawing moments of ageing are
being shown the exit door. Now you
have gadgets promising to transform the
experience of ageing. The Center for Ageing
Services Technologies (CAST) has a bagful
of devices, starting from the types that
can monitor your BP to robot support that
can communicate with a remotely
located doctor.
Intel has already plunged in by creating
gadgets which assist Alzheimer patients
to answer phone calls by providing
them information like names, look, brief
description of the caller and even with
pointers on the issues last discussed. “The
focus in creating such gadgets should lie
on four basic points—disease prevention,
early detection, caregiver support and
maintaining independence”, says Eric
Dishman, CEO of CAST.
Already in the research pipeline are
floors which have sensors to check that
gait, and sound an alarm if you fail to
retain your balance. And in case your brain
gets fogged with names and timing of
medicines, you get a medicine cabinet that
can be programmed to keep track of
what medicine it holds and when it
should be taken.
The built-in camera scans the face of the
person and a programmed voice reminds
you that it’s time to take a capsule. Even
if you pick up a wrong file, the voice helps
you in correcting the mistake.
If you are a tech-savvy senior citizen
and know how to plug a USB mouse into a
computer which has broadband Internet
connection, then you can get online
support from Motiva—a service channel
developed by Philips Medical offering
personal reminders suggesting healthy
activities and also the scope for online
consultancy with a nurse from
your home.
Does going through all these make you
feel lonely? Drop the thought. You can have
a companion who will take care of you at
hard times like when you need a support
to stand or to walk. It’s even capable of
communicating with a distantly stationed
doctor and assists you with all sorts of
medical help you will possibly require.
Encrypt SMS with XMS
I f you are insecure about the privacy of
messages you send and receive, then
this will be interesting to you. You need
not worry about the open-to-all inbox. Just
set a security shield around it so that it
remains accessible only to you.
Kuala Lumpur-based TM Net’s Xecure
Messaging Service (XMS)—read Secure
Messaging Service—encrypts all your
messages so far read by any body and
everybody. XMS is easy to use and is
compatible with your desktop or laptop. All
you need to do is download the application
to your PC, transfer it to your mobile,
install the application, get it registered,
set a password, set a secured channel with
your contacts, and message the way you
generally do. XMS will encrypt the message
you send and store the similar version in
your message inbox if you receive message
from your pre-defined channel. You only
need to remember the password because
Power bag
N ow you needn’t worry at all if you
forget to carry the charger for your
mobile or PDA. Your bag could do it for you.
And before you begin to wonder how a bag
can charge your phone, here is the story.
As your bag is solar powered and
capable of converting solar energy to
electrical energy, it takes care of recharging
the battery of small USB devices like cell
phones, PDAs, voice recorders and
even small cameras.
Designed by Joe
Hynek, a doctoral
student in mechanical
engineering at Iowa
State University, the
bag does not look
that is something you will need every
time to decrypt the secured message.
To communicate with XMS, both the
identities involved in the communication
need to have the application installed in
their device. This application also assists
in wiping out the entire database from a
phone. Just in case your phone gets lost
or stolen you can completely delete all
messages by sending an SMS using your
secret code. TM Net has set a minimal
monthly subscription for their services.
The service will prove to be useful to call
consumers; no user would wish to share
their sensitive information. XMS will enable
this security solution which they were
looking for. Be it credit card information,
or be it your personal love letters, XMS’s
holistic approach covers them all.
So the next time you send a message
you wouldn’t want anybody to read, don’t
worry. XMS is there to protect your privacy.
like any alien device. It’s just like a regular
rectangular purse with plastic handles, the
only difference is the presence of a layer
of laminated solar panels separated with
white lines. The sunlight received by these
panels are converted to electrical energy
and the connected devices within the bag
utilize that to get their battery recharged.
Joe wishes to commercialize this
product and wants to
keep a price within
easy grasp.
This research is
however not something
new; we have already
seen solar powered
backpacks in the past.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
 Special
Subscription
Offer
Yes! I would like to subscribe to CHIP for
3 years subscription (36 issues) 3 years (36 issues)
Pay Rs 3600 & get a 256MB MP3 Pay Rs. 3600 & get a MP3 Player

Player worth Rs 2400 FREE worth Rs. 2400 FREE OR

Pay Rs. 2160 (40% discount on Rs. 3600)

2 years (24 issues)

Pay Rs. 2400 & get Rs. 1300 worth
UMAX 128 MB USB Pen Drive FREE OR
Pay Rs. 1680 (30% discount on Rs. 2400)
2 years subscription (24 issues) 1 year (12 issues)
Pay Rs. 2400 & get an UMAX 128 MB Pay Rs. 1200 and get Tech-Com 25 in 1
worth Rs. 1300 USB Pen Drive FREE Card Reader worth Rs. 799 FREE OR
Pay Rs. 960 (20% discount on Rs. 1200 )
A perfect tool for Name: Mr/Mrs
PC or Mac users Designation: Organisation:
Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Mailing Address:

City: State: PIN

1 year subscription (12 issues) Tel: (O)

Fax:
(R)
(E-mail)
(M)

Pay Rs 1,200 and get Please find enclosed Cheque/DD No. drawn on (Name of bank)
Tech-Com 25 in 1 dated
Card Reader worth for Rs favouring TBW Publishing & Media Pvt. Ltd.,
Rs 799 FREE payable at Mumbai. (Add Rs. 30 for outstation cheque)
Or charge my Credit Card VISA MasterCard Amex

Card No.:
Date of Birth: Card Expiry Date:
Discount Offer
Date: Signature
Tenure You pay (Rs.) Discount Student Professional Self-employed Other
40% discount on Fill this coupon and mail it with your Cheque/DD to: CHIP, Subscription Department, TBW
3 Years 2160/-
Rs 3600/- Publishing & Media Pvt Ltd, C/o Infomedia India Limited, ‘A’ Wing, 2nd Floor, Ruby House, J. K.
Sawant Marg, Dadar(W). Mumbai - 400 028. INDIA You can also fax your Credit Card orders to
30% discount on (022) 2430 2707 or e-mail us at subscription@chip-india.com. Please allow one month
2 Years 1680/- for your subscription to commence and 4-6 weeks for delivery of the gift. Cancellation of
Rs 2400/-
subscription will not be entertained.This offer is valid only in India.
20% discount on International subscription charges - US$ 84 or Rs. 3750 (12 Issues)
1 Years 960/-
Rs 1200/- The subscriber hereby authorizes TBW Publishing & Media Pvt Ltd, to use the information
contained herein for maintaining their database as well as for any other purpose that TBWPML
may deem fit. The signatory hereby authorizes TBWPML to print the information in all or any of
the future issues at TBWPML as may deem fit.

At the heart of technology

For further details contact
INFOMEDIA INDIA LIMITED : Subscription Dept, Ruby Corporate Park,
Ruby Mills Compound, J.K.Sawant Marg, Dadar (W), Mumbai - 400028 Tel: 022-24232803/4/5
Fax: 022-2430 2707 Email: subscriptions@infomediaindia.com, subscription@chip-india.com
Website: www.chip-india.com, www.eshop.infomediaindia.com

How broad is Broadband?
The broadband scenario in India has changed a lot in the past five years. Let’s take a
look at where we are at the moment
G
one are the days of sitting
before the PC and waiting for
the Internet connection to
jumpstart. Today, we no longer rush to
cyber cafés advertising high-speed Internet
connections to log on. Broadband changed
the connectivity experience altogether.
Few years back, we probably never
expected the connectivity scene to see
such a rapid change. Having a connection
of 256 kbps or 512 kbps at our homes was
unthinkable. But not so today!
Though broadband touched base in
India around 2000-01, it was controlled by
a few service providers who were mainly
catering to either the corporates or the
Internet cafés. The general mass was still
untouched by broadband for reasons
either relating to cost or simply
unavailibility of bandwidth in the hands of
the service providers.
But gradually with prices falling and the
availability of more bandwidth, the want
and therefore demand for broadband
connection at home increased. And
although better connectivity at homes and
office is available thanks to broadband,
there’s a long way to go from where we are
now. With broadband connection being
offered through cable networks today, the
dynamics has suddenly changed. After all,
cable operators have the unique advantage
of having a reach of over millions of homes
through their cable TV networks.
Major players
Since 2000-01 much has changed in the
domain of service providers—mergers,
buy-outs, shut downs, change in functions,
etc. At present, players ruling in this sphere
are Bharti-Airtel, Hathway, IOL network,
Sify, Zeenext, Tata Indicom-VSNL. And
when providing services to customers, all
of them have their own set of strengths
and weaknesses. While some provide great
speed, others offer cost-effective packages.
While at one end we are being offered
scalable cable networks, at the other end
more and more people are being touched
by broadband.
Undoubtedly, the prime attribute is
speed. Service providers out there are using
Vishwanath Vanjire
varied technology to generate never before
like speed. Airtel & Hathway have chosen
Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) to give the
user the flexibility of using the Internet
connection along with telephony. Though
both the Internet and phone will be using
the same line, the usage of one will not
affect the other. This is a highly user-friendly
option since the user will not have to log out
to make a phone call or vice-versa. Plus, it
reduces cable clutter.
Sify and Zeenext, on the other hand,
offer cable networking, allowing for much
higher speed for data transfer. Unlike in the
case of DSL, the cable network facility does
not share the connection with any other
device; therefore the broadband signal faces
no obstruction thereby resulting in better
experience for the user.
IOL network, another player, is offering
broadband connection through optical
cables. IOL’s network is completely
dependent on optical fibers, making them
highly scalable and capable of offering
bandwidth four times higher than what is
being offered by them now.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Now what about the rural base being
touched by broadband? The question is
of what use will broadband be if all the
speed, technology, infrastructure are not
exploited by those outside only a select few
cities. With Internet slowly moving to the
remotest of villages, thanks to the efforts
of the government as well as the initiatives
taken by NGOs etc, we will perhaps witness
a broadband penetration much deeper than
what we expected a few years back. Of
course, it’s a bit too early to talk about it.
Unfortunately, service providers still
don’t have too wide a reach. IOL Network,
for example, is only concentrated in one
corner of a city like Mumbai. Providers
like Hathway are slightly better off—they
have made their presence felt at least in a
number of cities namely Delhi, Bangalore,
Chennai, Nasik, Pune, Mumbai and Baroda.
But again, that’s not good enough. Pan India
coverage is being more or less catered to
by Bharti-Airtel. Even though they are not
present in all the cities of the country, they
are covering all the major metros and have
even moved to towns like Itarasi, Sehore,
Satna and a few more remote townships.
Coming to reach and the variety of
services being offered by providers, we
must mention what’s being offered by Tata
Indicom-VSNL. They have their presence
in most Indian towns and cities with their
bouquet of value added services. The
service list comprises Online Encyclopedia
Britannica—access to the complete
database of Encyclopedia Britannica
including their video and audio content,
entrance test preparation facility for
examinations like CAT, SAT, GRE.
What you pay
VSNL’s entire tariff structure is based on
three types—volume-based plan based on
the volume of downloads, time-based
plan based on the duration of connection,
and unlimited plan, which allows unlimited
data transfer and long hours of connectivity.
Service providers need to design the
cost structure in the most acceptable
manner possible. The key words here are
comprehensibility and affordability. The
cost should commensurate the mix of
technology, speed and download allowance.
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
At present, the most easily comprehensible
cost structure is being offered by Sify. The
combo of 256 kbps connection speed, 1
GB download allowance and one-month
validity period will cost the user Rs 550 per
month. To encourage heavy usage during
nights and weekends, Sify offers have
another set of cost structure, which allows
the user to download 150 MB of data per
night. For night usage, users even pay Rs 5
less per month than what they would pay
for use during the day.
As
The Indian user is
beginning to access
the Internet using
wireless connectivity
technologies
opposed to Sify, Bharti-Airtel has a very
simple cost framework. For example,
one of the packages that Bharti offers
costs Rs 1,400 per month, comprising a
bandwidth availability of upto 256 kbps and
a download allowance of 1.5 GB per month.
The package also offers an additional
download limit of 1.2 MB and 2 email
accounts of 5 MB capacity each. Along with
these, the package offers one static IP to the
user, using which they can have their own
web site and need not buy additional web
hosting space from any other company. So
far, so good. But all the confusion starts the
moment they club their voice plans along
with the existing set of charges. Moreover,
Bharti does not even specify the rupee
amount of the charge. And that is not all!
Since Bharti-Airtel uses DSL technology,
which requires a digital modem, their tariff
charges also include an additional cost
of modem rent amounting to Rs 99 for a
modem and Rs 199 for a router.
The list continues. For additional IP,
you pay an extra Rs 2,000 per IP and for
additional email accounts, you spend an
added Rs 200 per account. With so many
extra charges, users will have to figure out
for themselves what they need and what
they don’t. Each and every service, whether
NEWSWIRE 33
it’s broadband or dialup, must be aided
with customer support. Whether it’s billing
issues, information about the services,
getting tech support, the customer must
have a way to reach the service provider as
quickly as possible. In many of the existing
service providers, customer support leaves
plenty to be desired.
Bandwidth unwired
Increasingly, the Indian user is beginning
to access the Internet using wireless
connectivity technologies. Once the
mainstay of voice communications, today’s
cellular services have opened a significant
channel for broadband access services by
way of current-day EDGE services and the
upcoming 802.16a WiMAX standard (that
can incidentally offer high-bandwidth
services over a range of up to 30 miles).
Both of these communication technologies
facilitate theoretical browsing speeds of up
to 384 Kbps for the former, up to 75 Mbps
for the latter. With standard GSM and
CDMA 1x RTT services already deployed
throughout the country, using the same
services for Internet connectivity is the
most natural way for folks (especially in
rural areas) to have access to the Internet.
Unfortunately, these wireless services
are still fledgling and are therefore a tad
expensive when compared to their wired
counterparts. The EDGE service from Hutch
(which is a data-enabled evolution of their
GSM service), costs Rs 499 per month with
a download cap of 100 MB and 50 paise per
10 KB of subsequent data usage. While this
isn’t really cheap, it certainly is convenient,
making it a very option for business users.
This is especially useful when tied into a
mobile device like a PDA or a laptop. To
make it that much more convenient for
laptop users, service providers even offer
EDGE access cards that eliminate the
need for connecting through your phone
while on the move. While cellular services
are pervasive, WiMAX is in the process
of getting a foothold here in India. But if
companies like Intel have their way, we
should be seeing these utopian broadband
and all-pervasive services well within the
course of this year. ■
| Pradosh Mitra
 34
Coverstory

Pramod Jadhav, Dinesh Desai, Manoj Tandel
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
P
icture this—you wake up in the
morning to the sound of your
favorite MP3 music being piped
through wireless speakers in your bedroom.
Your entire song collection is stored on
a computer that happily serves out all
your media files (audio and video) to any
of the several media devices scattered
all over your house—your portable MP3
player, your home theater system and even
outside to speakers on the garden porch.
As you swing out of bed, you mosey over
to the kitchen and whip up a breakfast,
done to perfection by your ‘intelligent’
microwave that has been silently recording
your preferences since you bought it a few
months ago. If you think this sequence
sounds like the opening scene of the next
Will Smith sci-fi action flick, think again!
Though we might not be
conscientiously aware, technology
envelopes us to a far deeper extent than
we can even imagine. From the tiniest chip
on your wristwatch to the ‘fuzzy logic’
in your washing machine to your car’s
‘16-bit processor’ that manages its driving
characteristics, intelligent electronics are
so prevalent that it’s almost transparent
in our lives. And if that’s not enough,
this is going to be in a larger way so.
Convergence has been trumpeted for the
better part of the last five years but up
until now, it’s been more a catch-phrase
than anything else. With cellular services
intersecting with broadband, broadband
fueling online gaming, gaming driving
hardware development, the circles are
more intersected than ever. Through it
all, we are seeing new waves of devices
where the stress is not so much of
XXXX | COVERSTORY 35
sheer processing power than it is on
‘intelligence’. From MP3 players to cars
to even vacuum machines, many of
these devices are moving more toward
autonomous functioning where the
mundane (or high risk) tasks are taken
care of, leaving the human user to look at
higher-level actions in using the device.
Another interesting trend is the aspect
of communication—more importantly,
inter-device communication such as USB
enabled gadgets exchanging data with
computers and other devices. In today’s
wireless world, technologies like Bluetooth
are already enabling seamless data
transfer between gadgets like cell phones,
laptops, PDAs, etc. Looking forward,
wireless technologies like Ultra Wide Band
(UWB) promise to fulfill the dreams of
true broadband data transfer between
virtually any type of device in the home
or office—prototypes of UWB-enabled
televisions, fridges and media players
have already been showcased. Once these
standards are ratified, be prepared for a
wave of intelligent devices that have the
capability of talking to one another—a very
potent combination indeed.
With the start of the new year, we
decided to crystal-ball gaze a bit and paint
a picture on how technology is going to
play a part in our daily lives in the year
2006. Yes, from this very year, we have
every reason to believe that many things
that were considered ‘fringe technology’
have already taken shape in commercially
available products. Be it at home, in your
car or outdoor, let’s take a peek into our
lives in 2006 and going forward from
there on.
36 COVERSTORY | XXXX
7 10
At Home
W ith appliances getting more
intelligent and with embedded
processors finding their way into every
gadget you encounter, we are already
beginning to witness a revolution in
the capabilities of these devices. From
televisions to washing machines (10) to
even lighting systems, phrases like “Fuzzy
Logic” that are now marketing buzzwords
are actually advanced technologies
that have found their way into today’s
consumer products.
Especially in the home, we expect to
see huge advances not only in the types
of gadgets seen, but even in aspects
like information storage, exchange and
access within the home environment.
Take the home we have depicted here,
for example. There’s technology present
everywhere, even though much of it
might not be immediately apparent.
Take entertainment—everything from
televisions (1) to home entertainment
consoles to DVD players to home
computers (2) are going to be able to
talk to one another. That’s right, besides
performing the function they are created
for, technologies such as Ultra Wide Band
(UWB) are going to see the light of day this
year and will enable fast and wireless data
transfer among these devices. (9)
Storage is another capability we’ve
seen on some of the most unassuming of
devices this year—who’d have thought of
things like cellular phones having gigabytes
of storage on them? This year, phones like
the Nokia N91 have 4 GB (yes, you read
right!) of storage! Take this concept to other
devices as we will see storage capabilities
everywhere—televisions this year will have
integrated storage in the form of hard
disks. Coupled with processing (encoding/
decoding) capabilities, they will be able to
store television shows, schedule recordings
of your favorite shows and record your best
programs even while you’re away at work.
Sounds familiar? Yes, you might have used
this kind of functionality on your TV tuner-
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

11
10
equipped home computer. The point is
that from now on, you’ll see this integrated
directly in your TV. Televisions themselves
will have HD (High Definition) capabilities
as is found in most regions in the West and
Europe. This will deliver video resolutions
that would make today’s DVD appear like a
VCD. And using UWB, (11) there’s nothing
to stop you from accessing content stored
on your television, pulling it wirelessly over
to your PC, editing it and creating a DVD.
Gaming consoles have already made huge
inroads into our markets—we know of at
least one person who owns a Playstation (3)
or an Xbox. You’ll be hearing a lot more from
these during this year. Touted as ‘media
and entertainment hubs’ in the home,
their processing, storage and networking
capabilities will let you access their content
with equal ease with which you’d fire up one
of the newest racing simulations.
When it comes to appliances, the
world is already seeing ultra cool devices
like robotized cleaning machines (the
Roomba, for example) (4) which is capable
of autonomously scanning a room and
setting itself up to clean it—all unattended.
This is fact, not fiction. The use of sensors
and embedded processors will enable even
lighting (5) and home security systems
(6) to control themselves depending
upon external factors—come sundown,
9
your porch lights (7) will automatically
switch themselves on; if your armed
home security system finds unauthorized
activity in the house, it will automatically
notify the nearest police station while
sending you a message on your cell phone.
Taking about protection of human life,
wearable sensors (8) and processors will
be able to detect anomalies in older folks
with medical conditions and will be able
to automatically request help and even
preempt critical situations. Much like how
airbags in cars are now de facto standard,
these technologies may sound over the top,
butthey are closer to reality that you
could imagine.
 38 COVERSTORY | XXXX
3
7
In your car
T is is one place where you’ll see a
hotbed of really funky technologies.
With traffic in urban areas causing most
people to spend the better part of their
waking hours either in their car or public
transport, terms like comfort, safety and
entertainment are taking on entirely new
meanings in the world of transport. You’ve
probably heard of many of the systems used
in cars today, including GPS navigation,(1)
on-board processors that control driving
characteristics, sensor technologies that
enable the car to deploy life-saving airbags
(2)within hundredths of a second from
collision impact. Cars are already being
built to enable them to report errors in their
4
functioning wirelessly to the manufacturing
units, from where diagnostic and spares
delivery mechanisms can be initiated even
before a car reaches its destination on an
interstate route. (3) There are systems
today that enable a manufacturer to
unlock a car remotely if you’ve left your
keys in the cabin by mistake (4)! With
wireless technologies like Wi-Fi and UWB,
the songs on your portable MP3 player
could be accessed as easily as the ones on
the car’s built-in storage system (5). With
present DVD-based navigation systems,
updating the system requires the media to
be changed—newer systems will have the
capability of being updated over the air with
new route information and live geographic
and climatic updates.
Many of today’s cars can almost drive
themselves—the Mercedes S600 is teeming
with sensors and processors that enable it
to remain at a pre-defined distance (6) to
a car in front of it. It even applies brakes or
accelerates to counter any changes to its
programmed information. Talking about
sensors and embedded chips, there are cars
today with advanced engine management
systems (7) enabling emerging fuel
technologies using hydrogen and hybrid
engines that boast ultra-low pollution levels
and awesome fuel economy, all without
sacrificing on performance!
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

40 COVERSTORY | XXXX
Everywhere around
W ith strides in communication
technology effectively severing
your bonds to the office, it’s not hard to
imagine that you can check your e-mail on
the way to work on your cell phone (1).
With technologies like EDGE, Bluetooth
and Wi-Fi giving consumers a taste of
the freedom associated with accessing
your data anytime, anyplace, there will be
huge strides here. When outdoor, mobile
devices like laptop (2) and cell phone
will be your lifelines to your official data
and entertainment services. One of the
facilitators of this is, once again, embedded
processors that have integrated several
6
mobile functionalities (communication
standards, storage, processing and
entertainment) onto a single, low-cost
chip that powers affordable cell phones
(3). While we’re experiencing this in
a preliminary way these days, leaps in
cellular bandwidth will allow services
like mobile television, videoconferencing
and several location-based services. With
gigabytes of storage, robust audio/video
processing capabilities and integrated
wireless capabilities, we’ll be able to share
information across devices very easily (4).
Wireless technologies like RFID are going
to enable huge strides in everything from
inventory management to access control.
Ultra-tiny GPS units will enable them to be
incorporated into things like shirt buttons
or dog collars! (5) On the communication
front, we’ll see the advent of interesting
parallel standards like WiMAX and 3G
services (6). Both capable of providing
huge bandwidths to wireless users, they
will open the doors to exciting Internet-
based multimedia services for enabling
‘anywhere-entertainment’(7).
These technologies are all set to invade
our lives. So let’s just sit back, go with the
flow and enjoy the ride. ■
| Marco D’Souza
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
42
Vishwanath Vanjire
I
t’s the first issue of the year and the
product lineup for the standalone tests
speaks a lot of what we can expect in
2006. We have had an interesting mix of
products which serve the geeks as well as
the masses. Starting with the 6800GS from
Nvidia, it’s a perfect example of a product
that is brought back in the market with
improved specifications and a tweaked
engine. The fact that PC gaming is gaining
ground is evident by the release of highly
customized products for the gaming
community. We reviewed the Logitech
G-15—a keyboard made specifically for
the gamers with deep pockets. Brands
Hardware
| The Ratings Explained
The products in the individual and
comparison tests share exactly the same
test procedures.
Each product in Top Gear is rated on
a scale of 5 for different key parameters:
Performance, Build Quality, Features,
Ergonomics and Warranty. These vary
according to the characteristics of the
hardware. For instance, ergonomics (ease
of use) is not important in a graphics card
and therefore, it will not be evaluated
for this.
A product’s Overall Rating is calculated
by assigning weightages to each evaluation
Top Gear
which we don’t really associate with
technology have also made their foray in
the field—the Sahara Media Center PC
being a fine example of such a brand. The
latest iteration of the Microsoft Natural
keyboard highlights the importance given
to ergonomics and comfort, something
that can never be ignored for input
devices. The ultra-compact notebook W5
from Asus surprised us with the features
and performance that it delivers in such a
small package. All of these and a lot
more have been covered this month—a
nice way we thought we could say hello
to 2006!
parameter—the more important a parameter,
the higher is the weightage allotted to it.
In addition, there is a Value for Money
rating, which is calculated from the
performance and the features of the product,
in relation to the price. High performance
and lots of features at a low price translates
into a better Value for Money rating. This
rating is calculated using current prices.
Note: The prices mentioned here do
not include taxes. Hence, they will vary
according to the taxes applicable in
the city or state where you buy the product
from.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Budget PC
L enovo’s ThinkCentre E series is aimed
at corporate users who need a simple
solution to their computing needs. The
ThinkCentre E50 is the desktop that is
supposed to fit the bill (pun intended).
The E50 is available in two flavors—one
runs on an Intel 915 chipset while this one
uses a SiS-661FX chipset. It consists of an
all-black PC cabinet accompanied with
Lenovo’s standard keyboard and mouse.
The cabinet houses a Micro-ATX form
factor motherboard (manufactured by
Gigabyte) powered by a 218 Watt power
supply. This SiS-661FX chipset board runs
an Intel Pentium 4 3.06 GHz processor (non
Hyper Threading) with a 256 MB DDR-400
memory module. The processor is cooled by
a huge aluminum heatsink and an 80 mm
fan. The processor fan is assisted by a 120
mm rear panel fan very close to it, allowing
the Prescott to function at respectable
temperatures. The IDE and power cables are
neatly arranged within the cabinet. The 80
GB Western Digital drive and the CD-ROM
use the same IDE cable that should ideally
have been on separate channels. An 8x
AGP slot on the board allows for a user to
upgrade his graphics system, depending on
his needs.
There are four USB ports on the rear
panel and two on the front. You can have
two more USB ports from the headers
on the board too. Though six ports are
more than enough in an office. SATA ports
and a compatible hard drive could have
been provided instead. The SiS chipset
board offers integrated audio too—good
enough for the corporate guy. The cabinet
can support upto four hard drives, two
optical drives and two floppy drives. A
7200 rpm, 80 GB hard disk space is enough
storage but a 48X CD-ROM drive is not
useful at all. At least, a DVD-ROM (or a
combo drive for those who need to take
regular backups) could have been provided
instead of the plane jane CD-ROM drive.
The 3 GHz processor does not support
hyper threading and the memory that
is being used works in single channel
memory mode. Usually, 256 MB of RAM
is enough in a small office but if usage is
going to be excessive like heavy database
access or the use of multiple applications
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
TESTED | HARDWARE 43
then 512 MB would have given enough
head room. There are two memory banks
available which can support upto 2 GB
Desktop PC
Lenovo ThinkCentre E50
Specifications: Intel Pentium 4 3.06 GHz processor,
RAM. However, the memory runs in single
256 MB DDR-400 RAM, 80 GB 7200rpm HDD, 52X
channel mode—this is a SiS chipset CD-ROM, SiS-661FX chipset, standard keyboard,
and the ThinkCentre is meant to be a optical mouse
budget desktop.
Price Rs 34,500
The desktop is the bare minimum for Contact Lenovo (India) Pvt Ltd
a user who needs to work on presentations, Phone 1600-4254240
access a database and use the Internet. E-mail directlenovo@in.lenovo.com
website www.lenovo.com/in
This computer is very suitable for audio
RATINGS
encoding too. (However heavy audio/video
Build Quality
encoding will put a strain on the system.)
Performance
The availablility of an AGP slot allows the
Features
user to upgrade whenever the need arises.
Warranty
Since a 56k modem is not integrated you
Overall Rating
will need to invest in a PCI card to do the Value for money
job. The cabinet build quality is solid, made
of sturdy aluminum and a matt finish front
bezel. The front panel has two USB ports
and audio connectors for convenience. The
cabinet does not have a reset button—just
a power button which when pressed once
shuts the system down completely. The
side cabinets are easily removable—though
this sort of experimentation is not
expected of a corporate user—Lenovo has
paid a lot of attention to the overall build
and aesthetics of the case and peripherals A large heatsink and two fans are provided
(keyboard and mouse). This is what sets it for pulling hot air away from the Socket 775
apart from other branded computers. The processor. Cables are neatly arranged for
keyboard and the mouse is the standard better air circulation
Lenovo design.
The ThinkCentre E50 is a budget PC
and a one-stop solution for an office
that needs to invest in computers
to handle accounting applications,
database access, basic image editing
and network connectivity.
The main drawback to this
configuration is the presence of a
CD-ROM drive. If that is upgraded to
a DVD-ROM or a combo drive then it
is worth it.
For: The build quality is excellent.
Performance is quite enough for an
office PC.
Against: The hard drive and the CD-ROM
should be placed on
separate IDE channels
and a DVD-ROM as an
optical drive would
have been better.
44 HARDWARE | TESTED
Little monster
Laptop
Asus W5000 W eighing only 1.6 kg, the Asus W5000
is feature-rich and packs in blazing
performance and excellent build quality.
Specifications: Processor: Intel Pentium M 750
It’s one of the best ultra-portable notebook
1.86GHz, Chipset: Intel 915GM, Bus speed: 533 MHz,
RAM: 512 MB DDR2, Screen: 12.1-inch WXGA color we’ve come across.
shine LCD, Native resolution: 1280x800 (16:10), 80
GB hard disk, 2X DVD writer, 802.11 B/G, 10/100 Features: Raw power and low battery
LAN, 56K modem, 1.3MP camera, card reader,
consumption—that’s what the Intel’s
wireless mouse, 3 USB ports, PCMCIA slot, S-video
and VGA out Sonoma platform is all about, making it the
best solution for mobile computing. The
Price Rs 1,04,999
W5G00AE utilizes the Sonoma platform
Contact Asustek Computer Inc
Phone 022-40058908 with the ultra-low voltage Intel Pentium
E-mail info_india@asus.com.tw M750 (Dothan) processor clocked at 1.86
website www.asus.com.tw GHz on the Intel 915GM chipset. Fitted
RATINGS with 512 MB of 533 MHz DDR2 memory
Build Quality
and a massive 80 GB hard disk, you won’t
Ergonomics
hunger for extra speed or storage space.
Performance
And if you’re still worried about running
Features
out of disk space, a 2x DVD R/W drive is
Warranty
also present. The 4-in-one card reader
Overall Rating
(MMC, SD, MS and MS Pro) makes it easy
Value for money
to transfer data and images from mobiles,
PDAs and digital cameras. There are three
USB 2.0 ports present allowing you to use
multiple devices simultaneously. Apart
from support for 10/100 Ethernet and
dial up access, the W5G00AE also allows
A swiveling web cam is built into the LCD wireless freedom with support for 802.11
screen frame
b/g WiFi network.
Among the features, the first thing
that left us stunned is the shiny 12.1-inch
widescreen LCD screen. With a native
resolution of 1280x800, it offers a crisp
Side placement of ports makes the W5000 and sharp display. Though the screen is
very convenient to use small, watching widescreen movies is fun.
To add excitement, you can even use multi-
channel speakers. It’s got SPDIF output!
What sets this notebook aside from its
counterparts is the 1.3 MP swivel camera
fitted at the top of the screen. Before you
underestimate the camera’s performance,
it can capture crisp images at a resolution
of 1280x1024. Flip it 180 degrees and you
can even capture images and videos from
behind the screen. Using the bundled utility
called Asus LifeFrame, you can capture
images using effects like sepia, emboss,
outline, etc. It also supports auto-capture
using motion detection! For a quick shoot
hotkeys are present on the
screen frame for clicking
and zooming.
The W5G00AE
comes with a Logitech RF optical scroll
mouse. Interestingly, the RF receiver is built
into the notebook. Support for Bluetooth,
IEEE 1394, VGA and S-Video outputs rounds
off the features. Finally, you have two
options to lug the notebook—a carry bag
and a notebook case.
Build quality and ergonomics: The build
quality of the notebook is top notch right
from the chassis to finer elements like the
drive tray, hinge and keyboard. The only
compromise made to keep the notebook
thin is a flimsy screen frame. It does lend
a sleek look but be prepared for a wobbly
display on a bumpy ride.
Coming to ergonomics, using the
notebook is comfortable even though it’s
small. Asus has paid attention to each
and every detail to make user experience
pleasurable. For easy access, all ports
and jacks are placed at the sides. The
rear panel sports only a USB port and
S-Video out. While most ultra-portable
laptops feature a crammed keyboard,
the one present here has a good layout
with normal size keys. With the touchpad
centralized with the spacebar, it can be
easily accessed while your fingers are
positioned on the keyboard.
Performance: For its size, the Asus
W5G00AE has a stellar performance. In
SiSoft Sandra the 4,200 rpm hard drive
reported an acceptable score of 20 MB/s.
The optical drive also reported a fairly
decent speed of 1,754 KB/s. With a six-cell
4,800 mAh battery pack offering a good
3.5 hours life, it’s enough for a short flight
or a long drive! A respectable score of 3,192
in PC Mark 2004 clearly indicates that the
W5G00AE is a killer.
If you are frequently on the move and
serious about buying an ultra portable
laptop with a budget a little higher than a
lakh, the Asus W5G00AE is the best you can
get. It’s good enough even to be a desktop
replacement!
For: Light; large hard disk; crisp widescreen
display; wireless mouse; web cam, good
ergonomics; SPDIF.
Against: Flimsy screen frame; camera can’t
be tilted.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Oozing style
A pple has, once again, reaffirmed its
prowess in product design. Sporting
an unbelievably skinny form factor, their
newest MP3 player is a mere 6.8 mm thin
and fits snugly in the palm of your
hand. Characteristic of the iPod
legacy, it’s seamless and the shell
comprises the white plastic front
and reflective metallic back. Skim
your thumb around the circular
click wheel and you can scroll
through song lists, menu settings
and volume control, and click the
centre button to select.
Reflecting the iTunes song
management interface, the device
is meant to be paired with iTunes.
In addition to playing back all formats of
MP3, AAC, AIFF and WAV files, the 1.5 color
screen also lets you view images. With a
relatively small screen, we didn’t really find
this too exciting, but the picture quality
was surprisingly sharp. The 4 GB variant we
tested holds up to about 1,000 songs and
Mega CCD
C ontinuing with the “S” series, the 8
MP S80 from Canon sports the same
sleek stylish body with excellent build
quality. Equipped with 3.6x wide angle
optical zoom and the popular DIGIC II
processor, the cam uses 9-point auto focus
system with focus-assist illuminator. It
offers 21 shooting modes. Another very
impressive feature is
the ability to capture
XGA quality video clips
at 15 FPS. Along with
the presets, the camera
also offers manual
controls for white
balance and exposure
compensation. The default package
includes a 32 MB SD card and memory is
expandable upto 1 GB. Sporting the USB
2.0 standard, the S80 takes very little
time to transfer the pictures to the PC.
PictBridge support allows direct printing
without a PC. The 2.5-inch LCD screen
is surrounded by controls. The overall
build quality is excellent. The menus let
you navigate easily. The position of the
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
TESTED | HARDWARE 45
MP3 player
the USB 2.0 interface resulted in very fast
file transfers—we filled it with songs in a
little under 12 minutes. The audio quality
Apple iPod Nano
Specifications: Dimensions (cm, WxHxD): 4 x 8.9
of the player and bundled headphones is x 0.68, Weight: 42.5 gms, Capacity: 4 GB flash,
very good and the battery life is 1.5-inch color screen, Audio out: stereo minijack,
decent—we extracted about 10 Interface: USB 2.0, Audio formats: AAC (16 to 320
Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store),
hours of normal use. And since
MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2,
it uses flash memory, there is no 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF, Image formats:
question of the audio skipping. JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PSD (Mac only) and PNG
However, there are a few
Price Rs 18,200
peeves. Firstly, it scratches very Contact Apple Computer International Pvt Ltd
easily—the gloss surface of the Phone 1600 425 4683
test unit visibly marred. While E-mail indiainfo@asia.apple.com
it doesn’t affect the screen RATINGS
Build Quality
readability in any way, the
Ergonomics
scratches are evident when it’s
Performance
off. It requires a carry case or
Features
protective covering. Also features like voice
Warranty
recording and FM radio are missing.
Overall Rating
For: With brilliant style and functionality
Value for money
oozing out of its miniscule frame, this MP3
player redefines cool.
Against: No FM or voice recording,
susceptible to scratches; very expensive.
jog dial for switching between various
modes is slightly altered and the change
compliments the compact nature of the
Digital Camera
Canon S80
Specifications: 8 megapixel CCD sensor, 3.6x
camera, while lending a distinct look as
optical zoom, 2.5” LCD, XGA movie mode, SD card
well. Powered by a high capacity NB-2LH compatible
lithium battery, the S80 packs in a charger.
Price Rs 33,995
The camera performed really well for
Contact Shobha
its size—image quality was good with Phone 1600-3453366
accurate color saturation. E-mail www.canon.co.in
Images are sharp and the RATINGS
noise is under control, Build Quality
the noise factor creeps at Ergonomics
ISO 200 and above. The Performance
low-light performance Features
is again one of the best Warranty
in the category. With a Overall Rating
mammoth 8 MP resolution Value for money
and impressive image quality, the S80 is
an excellent option for users looking to
take large prints. You can easily get A4 size
prints with the S80 at the highest picture
quality mode.
For: Superb image quality, 8MP CCD, XGA
movie mode, compact foot print.
Against: Noise at ISO200, expensive, body
gets smudged easily.
46 HARDWARE | TESTED
Quarter terabyte tiffin
External Storage Device
Buffalo DriveStation T he Buffalo DriveStation is a storage
device based upon the USB 2.0
interface; it houses a factory-formatted
Specifications: Capacity: 250 GB, Storage: 250 GB 250 GB hard disk in a metallic casing.
7,200 rpm hard disk, Interface: USB 2.0, Power
Sporting a hassle-free installation with
consumption: 17 Watts (avg), Weight: 1.4 Kg,
Dimensions (W x H x D), cm: 5.3 x 17.3 x 16.4 plug-and-play Windows detection,
it was a snap to set up—after
Price Rs 10,800
Contact Nexgen Networks
plugging it into the PC, it was
Phone 011-30888825 automatically detected and
E-mail buffalo@nexgennetworks.co.in the Windows drivers was
RATINGS installed. The drive’s metallic
Build Quality shell acts as a heat-sink,
Ergonomics eliminating the need for a
Performance cooling fan and enabling very
Features quite operation. LEDs on the
Warranty front panel indicate power
Overall Rating and device access.
Value for money The rear panel consists of the power
connector, a power switch, a USB port and
a power mode switch that enables the
device to be started up along with the PC.
It uses an external power supply but we
felt the absence of a non-standard power
plug. The bundled application CD contains
Mega storage
Hard Disk
Seagate ST3500641AS T he latest from the Seagate stable is a
500 GB drive which supports SATA-II
standard which theoretically translates
Specifications: 500 GB storage, 7200 rpm, 16 MB
to a bandwidth of 3 GB/sec, by taking
buffer, SATA-II ready, NCQ support
advantage of Native Command Queuing.
Price Rs 20,000 NCQ is an intelligent way of speeding up
Contact eSys Distribution Ltd
data read/write speeds minimizing the
Phone 011 - 51811694
E-mail naresh@esysmail.com mechanical process while boosting the
Website www.seagate.com performance. The 500 GB drive comes
RATINGS with 16 MB of buffer and is the
Build Quality highest capacity 3.5-inch
Performance HDD from Seagate.
Features The drive uses
Warranty four platters with
Overall Rating a density of 125 GB
Value for money
per platter, one of the
highest in the segment. Higher
density allows better performance and
also helps the manufacturer to reduce the
number of platters per hard drive. Going
by specifications, the ST3500641AS is
an impressive HDD supporting a host of
features and provides mammoth storage
as well. The drive performed well, giving
a drive index of 54MB/sec and sequential
read/write speeds of 60MB/sec in SiSoft
a program that steps the user through
setting up the device, a rudimentary
backup application that lets you schedule
data backups to the DriveStation by
pointing it to various folders on
your PC, and a power saving
utility for the device.
In our tests, we clocked
some pretty impressive data
transfer speeds—we transferred
an assortment of 755 MB of
video files to the external drive
in 51 seconds, putting the write
speed at a little over 14 MB/sec.
The read speed was clocked at an
impressive 27 MB/sec. This excellent
performance could be attributed to the
7,200 rpm Western Digital hard disk that it
houses, along with a good implementation
of the USB 2.0 interface.
For: Effortless setup; very good transfer
speeds; fanless construction.
Against: Uninspired software bundle; non-
standard power plug.
Sandra file system benchmarks. Low-level
performance with HDTach was very similar
with average read speeds of 52.3MB/sec.
Finally, we benchmarked the drive using
our real-time file transfer tests. The drive
took about 8 seconds to read/write 405
MB of assorted data which essentially
translated to about 51 MB/sec. As far as
CPU utilization goes, the drive
recorded a rather high
CPU utilization of 11
percent in low level
tests. Access times in
SiSoft Sandra 2005 file
system tests were fairly tight
at 7 ms. The drive is super silent.
The ST 3500641AS has a good feature
set backed by decent performance. But
it’s a little disappointing to see that the
performances of the next generation hard
drives are marginally better than the older
hard drives.
For: Consistent performance across all
benchmarks; SATA-II and NCQ support.
Against: Not ground breaking; slightly
higher CPU consumption; heats up a bit.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
 TESTED | HARDWARE 47

Old wine in a new bottle?

T he 6800GS is a mainstream video card
from Nvidia, placed just above the
6600GT and the 6800 vanilla which has
been ruling the midrange segment in the
local market for quite a while.
The 6800GS is based on the 6800 series
from Nvidia. The 6800GS is
built on the NV42 core
and comes with 12
Graphics Card
healthy overclock of 525 MHz on core and
a whopping 1.3 GHz on memory, a cool
100 MHz more on core and 300 MHz on
Nvidia GeForce 6800GS
Specifications: GEFORCE 6800GS chipset, 256MB
memory. After our burn-in tests we arrived
GDDR3 RAM, PCI Express, DVI port, D-SUB port,
at 500/1300 MHz as the stable overclock Video-out.
for the card. The 3DMark05 score jumped
Price Rs 14,000
to 5918 points while 3DMark 03 recorded
Contact Prasad Phadke
a score of 13113 points. F.E.A.R. ran well at Phone 9860555660
maxed settings@ 1024x768 giving an E-mail pphadke@nvidia.com

pixel pipes and 5 average of 35 fps, Doom 3 at high Website www.nvidia.com

vertex engines as settings 4xAA@1024x768 RATINGS

opposed to the 16-pixel
pipes and 6 vertex engines in
6800GT. While the pipes are cut
down, the core is bumped to 425 MHz
as compared to 350 MHz in the 6800GT.
No changes in the memory configuration;
the 6800GS comes with 256 MB of 256-bit
GDDR3 RAM clocked at 1000 MHz. At
stock speeds, the card scored 5504 point
in 3DMark 2005 and 12677 points in
3DMark 2003 at default settings. We
pushed the clocks to find out how well the
card can overclock. The 6800GS gave us a
Build Quality
gave a whopping
Performance
70 fps. We never
Features
encountered any
Warranty
lock-ups or corruption,
Overall Rating
which means that the card
Value for money
will run fine @500/1300 MHz
clock speeds. What we reviewed is a
reference sample, so the overclock mileage
might vary depending on various models
and brands offering the card.
For: 6800GT level performance; sweet
overclocker; good cooling.
Against: Expensive; availability.

Gaming specialist
L ogitech’s G-15 is unique in a lot of
ways—other than the normal keys, it
offers special gaming macros which can
be programmed for specific games—just
hit a single key to activate a gaming macro
and the keyboard becomes a specialist
simply enable all the keys by returning
back to normal mode. The keyboard also
offers additional USB ports, allowing
Keyboard
Logitech G15
you to attach a USB mouse or any other Specifications: back-lit keys, 18 programmable keys
for gaming macros, LCD, palm rest
USB 1.1 devices. If all this isn’t impressive
enough, you have a cool back-lit LCD that Price Rs 4,995

at the game! This saves a lot of time and gives basic information on your Contact Logitech Electronic India Pvt Ltd
Phone 022-26571160
effort to map keys for various game system resources,
E-mail response@logitech.com
genres. The software provided supports media Website www.logitech.com
with the keyboard syncs with the tag reading
RATINGS
games, allowing you further and also some
Build Quality
customization. The keys additional gaming Ergonomics
are backlit, thus you functionality. A jog dial for Performance
can certainly have volume control, further adds Features
the lights off while to the “cool” factor. Zeroing on to Warranty
fragging and not worry the performance, the G-15 is truly a Overall Rating
about detonating yourself by gaming keyboard with a generous and well
pressing a wrong key. spaced out design. The palm rest is not as
The keyboard also offers some quick effective, and can be improved upon. At
tweaks. A single switch will disable all its price, cordless functionality would have
the unwanted keys which don’t come been better. Overall, an impressive product
into play while gaming but an accidental that’s a god-send for gamers, rich gamers
press can mean disaster. You can disable I may add.
the function keys and sleep keys but For: gaming macros, cool LCD and jog dial,
switching the keyboard to “gaming” mode back-lit keys, looks.
by a switch. Once done with the gaming, Against: Expensive, large foot print.

JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
48 HARDWARE | TESTED

Extra comfort
Keyboard
Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 I f you are one of the few loyal users that
love split keyboard, check out the new
Natural Keyboard by Microsoft now called
Placement of keys in an arc reduces key
reach by bringing the keys closer to the
center of the hand. So you don’t have to
Specifications: Split keyboard, 105 keys, USB,
Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. For stretch your fingers to reach the keys. A
5 favorite keys, E-mail and internet hotkeys,
multimedia keys, lockable F keys, integrated palm
the first time in 10 years Microsoft has cushioned wrist wrest encourages better
rest revamped the design of its split keyboard. arm and wrist alignment.
This sleek keyboard is expertly crafted Other features include a zoom
Price Rs 3,651
Contact Microsoft Entertainment &
to improve wrist posture and finger stress. slider placed at the center
Devices Division To allow the wrists to approach of the keyboard
Phone 1600-111100 the keyboard in a natural for zooming into
E-mail i-ruchga@microsoft.com
position, the split has documents and
RATINGS a 12-degree angle pictures. Shortcuts
Build Quality and the gable has include e-mail and Internet
Ergonomics a 14-degree angle. hotkeys, multimedia keys and
Performance The moment you programmable favorite keys. Back
Features
position your fingers on and forward keys for easing web and
Warranty
the home row (ASDF…), you folder navigation are placed at the center
Overall Rating
can feel the comfort thanks to of the base. Additional ‘= ( ) and backspace’
Value for money
the natural wrist position of the keyboard. keys are placed above the numeric keypad
For a more natural wrist position, an to ease calculations especially while using
optional separate removable seven-degree formulae in spreadsheets.
reverse slope attachment is also provided. For: Extremely comfortable; excellent
Typing on the keyboard is sheer ergonomics; good layout; shortcut keys.
pleasure provided you know touch-typing. Against: Not suitable for non-touch typists.

Store and restore

External Storage Device
ExBoot EXB-0121 W hen it comes to external storage,
there is nothing as convenient as a
2.5-inch hard disk. The ExBoot backup and
which you can only back up the changes
made since the last backup was done.
The only time you realize the importance
Specifications: 2.5-inch hard disk, 40 GB, USB 2.0,
instant recovery is a robust 2.5-inch hard of backup is when you face disaster. What
one-touch backup button
disk case fitted with a 40 GB hard drive. if your PC gets wiped out by a pesky virus?
Price Rs 5,126 It offers mammoth capacity to carry your What will you do if your hard disk crashes?
Contact Xserve India Pvt Ltd
important files, movies, music, etc. But With ExBoot you can restore your entire
Phone 080-5113 1001
E-mail info@xserves.com what makes the ExBoot special is drive by booting from the bundled rescue
Website www.xserves.com its capability to back up an disk and restoring the backed up content
RATINGS entire drive on your and get back on track in minutes
Build Quality hard disk at the without worrying as though
Performance touch of a button. nothing happened at all.
Features To use the With high-speed USB
Warranty hard disk you need 2.0 interface and
Overall Rating to connect it to a USB 25 MB/s transfer
Value for money
port using the bundled Y-cable. speed, you won’t
In most PCs a single USB port is have to wait for more than
enough to power the drive. But if it still half an hour while backing up or
hungers for more power, you can use the restoring. Use the restore option in case
second USB head. The one-touch backup you accidentally delete important files. One
feature isn’t available until you install the problem, you can’t back up a drive holding
bundled software, Axiomsoft ExBoot. Once more than 40 GB of data.
installed, backup/restore is just a touch of For: Excellent build quality; one-touch
a button away. The very first backup has to backup button; separate USB power cord.
be a complete backup of a drive. Later, you Against: You can’t back up a drive with
can opt for an incremental backup using more capacity than 40 GB.

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

 TESTED | HARDWARE 49

Sweet sound
M usic, games and movies aren’t
much fun without thuds, booms
and thumps delivered by the subwoofer.
To enjoy good sound you need at least a
good 2.1-channel stereo speaker system.
The Typhoon Maxima Series 2.1 is
one such speaker which does its
job well.
Typhoon has managed to
keep the size of the speakers
will need to tweak the bass using the knob
behind the subwoofer to get a good balance.
The only problem with the subwoofer is the
Speakers
Typhoon Maxima Series 2.1
Specifications: Subwoofer: 12W, satellites: 8.5W,
poor design of the bass port. When the bass
frequency response: 50Hz-20KHz, SNR: 65dB,
kicks at high volume, a whizzing noise from volume control pod, signal output: RCA socket
the bass port can be heard. However,
Price Rs 1,100
you won’t realize unless you have
Contact Aditya Infotech Ltd
good ears! Satellites sound good Phone 011-26223810
for their size, but since the cones E-mail tstyphoon@adityagroup.com
are made of paper the mids and Website www.adityagroup.com

small by using 2.5-inch drivers in highs are not very crisp. RATINGS
satellites and a 5-inch driver in Overall, the Build Quality
the subwoofer. To set up speakers deliver Ergonomics
the system, you have to good sound without Performance
direct the sound source to distorting at a Features
the subwoofer using the volume little less Warranty

inline control pod and then
connect the satellites to the RCA sockets
provided behind the subwoofer. Simple!
With 8.5W satellites and a 12W
subwoofer, the speakers deliver a total of
29 W RMS—enough to rock your table! The
subwoofer with a down-firing design and a
front bass port throws good bass. But you
than the peak volume. If you are Overall Rating
Value for money
looking out for a budget 2.1-channel
stereo speaker system, you can buy
this. Remember, these are good only for
personal hearing.
For: Good sound balance, control pod.
Against: Poor bass port design, ineffective
shoepads.

PC TV
A part from gaming, imaging, surfing the
Net and using office suites, Windows
Media Center PCs today let you watch your
favorite TV shows and listen to your favorite
radio stations. In case, you missed your
favorite sport, you can schedule
the PC to record it for you
MS-7131 motherboard sporting an Intel
915G chipset; 256 MB DDR-400 memory
is enough for basic use. Also, the 80 GB
SATA hard disk will satisfy most basic users
allowing them to store their data and a
couple of songs and movies. For people
who love capturing their favorite TV
PC
Sahara DT-7523-360-Q1
Specifications: Intel 915G Chipset, Intel Pentium
4 3.00 GHz, 256MB DDR-400, 80 GB SATA HDD,
DVD Combo drive, 56K PCI modem, 1.44 FDD,
multimedia keyboard, speakers, 5-button optical
mouse, Hauppauge WinTV TV tuner card, Windows

to see it offline. You can also shows, a DVD combo drive is also XP Media Center Edition

record FM radio broadcasts. present to relieve you from running Price Rs 36,999
The Sahara DT7523-360-Q1 out of disk space. Contact Sahara Computers and
Electronics Ltd
is a fully loaded Windows It’s the Hauppage WinTV
Phone 012-5397777
Media Center PC replete tuner card which extends E-mail info@saharacomputers.co.in
with a 17-inch monitor, a the functionality of the PC Website www.saharacomputers.co.in
5-button optical mouse, by adding support for TV RATINGS
speakers and a multimedia and FM. Using the bundled Build Quality
keyboard. To begin using IR receiver and Ergonomics
it, you simply have remote control, Performance
to open the package, you don’t need Features
connect the various to be sitting at Warranty
components and power the PC while watching Overall Rating
it on. You don’t need to install or configure TV or listening to radio. Value for money
any software since everything is preloaded. For its price, the Sahara DT7523-360-Q1
The DT7523-360-Q1 is targeted towards is a rocker! It’s not meant for hardcore
those who want a basic Windows Media gamers or power users.
Center PC. The PC is powered by Intel For: Complete entertainment package.
Pentium 4 3.00 GHz processor on the MSI Against: Not meant for power users.

JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

50 HARDWARE | TESTED

High precision
Mouse
Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000 M icrosoft has launched its first wired
laser mouse—the Laser Mouse 6000.
Instead of a bright red glowing LED found
Specifications: 2000 dpi laser tracking, 4 buttons,
in optical mice, this mouse offers invisible
scroll wheel, 180 cm cord
and fast tracking through a laser beam.
Price Rs 2,866 With 2000 dpi laser tracking (standard
Contact Microsoft Entertainment &
optical mice offer around 800 dpi) it’s
Devices Division
Phone 1600-111100 targeted toward FPS gamers; it helps you
E-mail i-ruchga@microsoft.com to be quick and frag your opponents before
RATINGS they blow you into pieces!
Build Quality This mouse flies! It’s light
Performance and is very fast to track
Features across the entire
Warranty screen at normal
Overall Rating settings. Move the
Value for money mouse an inch and
the pointer will travel from
one end of the screen to the other. If you
are migrating from a laser mouse to this
one, you will have to play around with the
pointer speed adjustment to suit your style.
However, the LM6000 also offers on-the-
fly sensitivity adjustment which means
faster movement in the game with lesser
movement of the hand. To change weapons
with ease, the scroll wheel has detents
which allow easy switching of weapons.
Also with a thin cable the mouse allows
swifter movement across the desk without
being tied down to the weight of the cable.
All this means greater accuracy, more
enjoyable game play and most importantly
more kills and greater frustration for
opponents!
With side buttons
which work as ‘back’
and ‘forward’, it’s easy to
surf the Net and navigate folders.
With Microsoft Intellipoint driver
installed, it’s possible to remap the side
buttons to perform useful functions.
The main problem with this mouse is
that the grip isn’t too satisfying. Maybe
people with bigger hands will like it. Also the
tiny side buttons are placed a little further
than they should have actually been.
For: Light; good sensitivity; excellent
bundled software; good build quality.

Double barrel graphics

Graphics Card
Gigabyte 3D1 3 D1 from Gigabyte is a dual GPU
card that uses the SLI technology to
combine the power of two GPUs placed on
Specifications: Dual NVIDIA 6600GT chipset, 256MB
a single 16x PCIe card. It works very similar
of 128-bit GDDR3 memory, Dual DVI ports, TV-Out,
PCI Express, Shader Model 3.0 support.
to two cards paired under SLI but the
difference is that in case of 3D1, a single
Price Rs 24,990
card houses two separate GPUs which have
Contact Gigabyte Technology (India) Ltd
Phone 022-26526696 their own individual 128 MB of GDDR3
E-mail sales@gigabyte.in RAM each making the total
Website www.gigabyte.in available memory to
RATINGS 256 MB GDDR3.
Build Quality 3DI employs two
Performance GEFORCE 6600GT
Features GPUS with the same
Warranty reference specifications in
Overall Rating terms of vertex and shader units.
Value for money Each of the 6600GT core runs at 500
MHz while the cumulative 256 MB memory
is clocked at 590 MHz (1180 effective).
The card requires added power for the
dual GPUs and a minimum of 400W PSU
is required to power the card. The box
specifies that the card will only run on a
gigabyte nForce SLI-based motherboard.
We decided to check this out by pairing the
card with an Asus nForce SLI board and the
card worked fine! Also, we didn’t use any
special drivers that came with the CD; the
latest forceware 81.85 worked like a charm,
detecting and configuring the card in SLI
mode. Once the dual GPU card was ready,
we got rolling with the benchmarks. The
3D1 scored a handsome 14556 points at
3DMark 2003 and 6307 at 3DMark 2005.
These scores are very identical to two
6600GT SLI cards running in SLI mode.
As far as the synthetic
benchmarks go, 3D1
achieves the expected
performance without
a hitch. Moving on to
real-world performance, the
card clocked an average of 57 fps
at “high” settings in fear without AA. Doom
3 registered a frame count of 70.6 at “high”
settings with 1024x768 and 4x AA. The only
glitch is the price—it’s 10K above the cost of
two 6600GTs.
For: Dual 6600GT on a single card; good
performance; quick and hassle free
installation.
Against: Very expensive.

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Smart.
Sexy.
Stylish.
We bring for you some of the most
sought after phones available in the
market today. Not only do they entertain,
they also pack in a lot of performance

Vishwanath Vanjire Shirish Karale


xxx
xxx
S
earching for the perfect phone is
not an easy task, especially when
you have a huge range of phones
catering to a wide audience across multiple
price ranges. Indians have taken a liking
to cell phones like no other; we are choosy
about features, brands and the looks more
than our western counterparts. Out here,
the cell phone is more than just a phone,
it’s a status symbol that speaks about the
person. With so much of importance given
to cell phones, the manufacturers have
come to the party with a lot of variety and
aggressive pricing. To put it in a nutshell, a
cell phone tops the shopping lists of most
Indians, whether they are first time buyers,
upgrade buyers or simply gadget freaks.
Cell phones can be bracketed into
three categories—the basic ones, the
smart phones and the multimedia phones.
While the basic phones performs the bare
minimum task of calling and messaging,
the smart phones offer a lot more features.
Our comparison tests deal with the smart
phones and the multimedia phones. No,
we did not jump the gun on the PDAs.
Smart phones by being more versatile
and user friendly are literally eating into
the PDA market—PDAs are a passé today.
Smart phones are basically a combination
of a cell phone and a PDA, allowing you to
digitize your organizer and offering you
wireless freedom for most of the office
applications that can be used on the cell
phone. Multimedia phones are the latest
craze—these phones offer imaging, music
HARD DISK COMPARISON | HARDWARE 53
playback and video playback as well as
recording, along with mobile games.
Basically, these phones offer a lot of fun
and entertainment while providing the
basic features. Today, these multi-faceted
phones are popular with not just the youth
but also the corporate class. These phones
let them catch up with their music and
capture those moments on the camera
without their having to deal with too many
gadgets or to be too tech-savvy for that
matter.
For the comparisons we selected the
cream of the crop that offer the latest
and the best in technology and features.
Looking at the pace at which the industry
is zipping, it was logical to test the best of
the lot available today because a couple of
months down the line, phones with new
technologies will replace these current ones.
We were surprised to discover the
potential and functionality that these
smart phones have integrated while
keeping a check on the flab. Internet and
wireless connectivity are almost a given
with the latest breed of smart phones,
allowing you to stay connected all the
time, be it the office campus or the goa
beach! With a steep jump in the screen
resolution and quality, it makes a lot more
sense now to watch videos or images on
smart phones; they might not be high
definition but they surely are brilliant
pocketable devices. The multimedia
phones—well, they are a special lot! Giving
a tough time to dedicated MP3 players,
54 HARDWARE | SMART PHONES COMPARISON
these phones sell more as music players
rather than as communication devices. A
512 MB MP3 player with a large 265K color
display, video player/recorder, 2 MP digital
camera, wireless connectivity and a lot
more—that’s what your next phone might
carry. Are you game?
Test Process
We classified the phones into two
categories—smart phones and multimedia
phones having at least a 1.3 megapixel
camera or a dedicated music player. The
entire test process was based on five
parameters—features, build quality,
ergonomics, performance and warranty,
and support. Let’s have a look at each of
these sections to know how we arrived at
the scores.
Features: More the features, higher the
productivity! This section carried the
highest weightage. Here we made note
of specifications such as the type and
speed of the phone’s processor, amount of
memory and the operating system. We also
noted the type of memory cards supported
by the phones.
The display of the phones was evaluated
on the basis of the size of the screen,
resolution and color depth. Next up, we
looked at the features such as connectivity
(Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, IR, USB, docking cradle)
and standards supported (GSM, CDMA,
EDGE, WAP, GPRS). Points were awarded
based on the number of standards and
connectivity supported.
To assess the camera, we noted its
specifications such as resolution, flash,
optical focus, modes, effects and self-timer.
Warranty &
Support 15%
Features
25%
Performance
15%
Build quality
Ergonomics 25%
20%
Weightage distribution for evaluation
parameters
More of these features, better the camera
and higher the scores.
Finally, we looked at features like
speakerphone, voice recording, antenna
and battery type and package contents.
Phones which came with bundled goodies
such as interface cable, carry case and
memory card stepped a little further.
For multimedia phones, we further
looked at support for playlist management,
equalizer, bitrates supported, and play
modes.
Build quality: To survive everyday wear
and tear, a phone needs to be sturdy and
have a robust build quality. To check this,
we evaluated aspects such as the quality
of construction of the shell, sturdiness
of movable parts like hinges and button
response. Sturdier the phone, higher the
score.
Ergonomics: Phones, especially smart
phones, must be convenient to use. The
presence of a QWERTY keyboard in smart
phones was rewarded an extra point.
Button size and spacing also play an
important role when it comes to operation.
If a device offered handy features such as
hotkeys, jog dial or a directional button,
it was given extra points. Ease of menu
navigation and readability of the screen in
sunlight and darkness were also taken into
consideration. Finally, it makes sense to
have support for hot swappable memory
with a card slot outside. Devices with
support for hot swapping of memory card
scored higher than the ones which had a
slot within the battery compartment.
Performance: We assessed the
performance of the devices on the basis of
processor power, battery life, audio/video
clarity. We also looked at standby and talk
time. To judge the performance of camera
we assessed the quality of image captured
based on color reproduction and sharpness
after transferring them to the PC. To
judge the quality of audio in multimedia
phones, we assigned scores based on
playback quality and sound quality of
the bundled earphones. Finally, looks too
matter! Based on their aesthetics, phones
were subjectively rated from being decent
looking to downright sexy!
Warranty and Support: It’s important that
a phone comes with good warranty and
support, especially if you have emptied
your wallet to buy the top notch model.
Keeping this in mind, we logged the
warranty period, the number of service
centers present in India and the number
of cities in which they are based. All this
eventually affected the overall scores.
Value for money: We rounded off the
comparison test with the value for money
index. This is a price-performance ratio.
Looking at this ratio, you will know how
good the phone is in terms of features
and performance in contrast to its
price. Highest VFM doesn’t mean best
performance, but it lets you quickly discern
how good the product is in terms of price.
And now for the winners! In each
category, we awarded the best performer.
We awarded the best value device only in
the smart phones category.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
 SMART PHONES COMPARISON | HARDWARE 55
RFOR T VA L RFOR
PE M ES PE M

U
B
T

T
AN

AN
E
BES

BES
I-mate JASJAR O2 XphoneII Sony Ericsson W800i

CE

CE
01 | 2006
E 01 |
E E 01 |

T
T
2006 2006
ST R ST R ST R
-CEN TE -CEN TE -CENTE

Specifications: 65K color display, WiFi connectivity, Specifications: 65K color display, Mini SD slot, 0.3 Specifications: 256K color display, 512 MB memory
1.3 megapixel camera, 1,620 mAH Li-Poly battery megapixel camera, 1,050 mAH Li-ion battery stick, 2.0 megapixel camera with optical focus

Price Rs 64,990 Price Rs 18,888 Price Rs 24,995

Contact 4G Mobiles Retailing Pvt Ltd Contact Creative e-Biz Contact Sony Ericsson India
Phone 011-51081012 Phone 9892939268 Phone 0124-2560808
E-mail fourthestate@touchtelindia.net E-mail cr_mumbai@yahoo.com E-mail dhiraj.soni@sonyericsson.com

RATINGS RATINGS RATINGS

Features Features Features
Perfomance Perfomance Perfomance
Ergonomics Ergonomics Ergonomics
Build quality Build quality Build quality
Warranty Warranty Warranty
Overall Rating Overall Rating Overall Rating
Value for money Value for money Value for money

Comprehensive in every respect, the The XphoneII is one sweet device with It’s got style, features, performance and
JASJAR from I-mate is one of the most a lot of power and performance neatly quality. The W800i zips ahead of the
powerful mobile devices today. Blessed packed under its belly. With its looks, competition, be it in imaging or the music
with Wi-Fi connectivity, this smartphone weight and dimensions, the XphoneII can feature. Lack of EDGE support might be
looks more like a mini tablet PC. The large easily pass as an ordinary color screen a minus point for smart phones, but as
screen and a brilliant QWERTY keyboard phone. This naïve looking phone houses a multimedia phone, the W800i hardly
make the JASJAR an excellent device for a 200 MHz processor and runs on the feels the pinch. On the flip side, the
office applications. Microsoft Windows mobile platform. sound quality, music management and
With a mammoth 520 MHz processor, The upgradeable memory along with storage capacity is the best of the lot.
the smart phone makes the Windows Bluetooth support lets you load numerous Being a Walkman phone, Sony obviously
Mobile OS dance to its tunes. The large applications based on the Windows emphasized on the music functionality, but
screen and multimedia capabilities lend Mobile operating system, letting you do the W800i also surprised us with best-of-
the excitement to the smart phone. The a lot more with the phone. Not missing the-class imaging features, with excellent
device can handle all the media formats, out on the fun part, it plays MP3, MPEG4 image quality and rich color reproduction.
whether it is audio or video, almost and WMA format, ensuring that there is Even the Nokia N91, which boasts the Carl
matching the multimedia phones except never a dull moment. If at all, there is any Zeiss lens, lagged behind the W800i in
for the quality of the screen. The screen, feature that is dearly missed in the device, pure image sharpness and white balance
though large, feels a touch dull with just it has to be support for EDGE. GPRS can be tests. The biggest advantage of the W800i
65K colors. painfully slow for web browsing, especially over the other multimedia phones is its
The build quality and ergonomics of the in the case of smart phones with a screen performance to size ratio. Most of the
JASJAR also deserve mention, especially for resolution 176x144 pixels. times, users are forced to compensate on
a large device which generally is marred With so much to offer, the O2 XphoneII is the size and weight factors when asking
with creaking battery compartments and not very demanding on your wallet. Priced for features and performance, but with the
non-responsive keypads. under the 20K mark, it’s the cheapest and W800i, you can literally have your cake and
The 1620 mAH lithium polymer battery is the most feature-rich smart phone that eat it too!
operational for eight hours. money can buy. For: Best-of-the-class music phone in the
For: Wi-Fi capable; large screen; excellent For: Compact and stylish; good build market; excellent imaging phone; 512 MB
keyboard; smooth finish and sturdy build quality, good feature set and performance memory and high quality head phones
quality; Herculean battery life. for price. bundled; very compact.
Against: Only 65K color, mighty expensive, Against: Lacks EDGE support, tiny screen. Against: Only one color available; screen
should have had EDGE support. size for a smart phone. could be a tad bigger.

JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

 RFOR
PE M

AN
| SMART PHONES COMPARISON

BES
56 HARDWARE

CE
E 01 |

T
2006
ST R
-CENTE

| Personal Take SpecScan

1 2
Name (Smartphones) I-mate JASJAR Nokia 9300
Contact 4G Mobiles Retailing Pvt Ltd Nokia India
Phone 011-51081012 0124-5199000
Soham Raninga E-mail fourthestate@touchtelindia.net jaybakshi@nokia.com
soham.raninga@chip-india.com Price* Rs 64,990 Rs 31,529
The Sony W800i is my favorite Overall
Features (out of 25) 18.93 12.52
of the lot. While providing the
Build quality (out of 25) 23.21 16.07
best MP3 player and digital Ergonomics (out of 20) 16.71 16.29
camera functionality of all the Performance (out of 15) 11.73 9.61
cell phones, it also keeps the Warranty and support (out of 15) 6.03 15.00
Overall (out of 100) Total: 76.62 Total: 69.49
size and weight in check. Unlike
Value for money (out of 5)
some of the other multimedia Features
phones, this one excels in the Dimensions (WxHxD) (mm) 81 x 127 x 25 51 x 132 x 21
basics of ergonomics, build Weight (gms) 285 167

quality, interface and speed. The Processor (Name, speed) Intel Bulverde / 520 MHz ARM9 / 150 MHz
package is also one of the best Memory (Onboard, bundled) 64 MB / 128 MB 80 MB / 128 MB
Operating system Windows Mobile 5 Symbian 7
with a 512 MB memory card, and
Display
good quality earbuds bundled Type (No of colors) Color (65K) Color (65K)
with the phone. I am not a big Resolution (X x Y) 640x480 200x640
fan of camera phones and hence Diagonal size (mm) 90 103
Standards (CDMA, GSM, GPRS, EDGE) ✕ |✓| ✓| ✕ ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✓
image quality isn’t a worry for
Input type (Stylus, keyboard, keypad) ✓ | ✓| ✕ ✕ | ✓ | ✓
me but looking at the results, the Connectivity (Infrared, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi) ✓ | ✓| ✓ ✓ | ✓ | ✕
W800i is a perfect candidate for Memory expansion (MSD, MMC, TF, Mini SD, SD)+ ✕ | ✓| ✕ | ✕ | ✓ ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕
a make-shift digital camera and it Audio playback (WAV, MP3, WMA, ATRAC) ✓ | ✓| ✓ | ✕ ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕
Video playback (Real, MPEG4, AVI) ✓ | ✓| ✓ ✓ | ✓ | ✓
got me clicking!
Integrated camera (Sensor, flash, optical focus) 1.3-megapixel | ✓ | ✕ ✕ | ✕ | ✕
FM radio, Voice recording ✕ | ✓ ✕ | ✓
Battery (Type, rating) Lithium Polymer / 1,620 mAH Lithium Ion / 970 mAH
Build quality
Body Construction Excellent Very good
Sturdiness of moveable parts (Flap) Excellent Very good
Anand Tuliani Sturdiness of battery retention clamp Good Good
anand.tuliani@chip-india.com Button Tactile response / button quality Excellent / Excellent Very good / Very good
Whoa! So many sexy devices and Ergonomics
QWERTY keyboard ✓ ✓
just one choice! Since I own a Button size/spacing Excellent / Very good Excellent / Very good
digital camera and a MP3 player, Shortcut keys, one-handed operation ✓ | ✕ ✕ | ✓
I don’t care much for multimedia Hot swappable memory ✓ ✕
phones. Smart phones rock! I’m Ease of Navigation Excellent Very good
Performance
so used to tapping screens that J-Bench 958 1,647
I’ve started tapping on my plain Speaker clarity Excellent Good
vanilla cell phone. Recording (image, video) Good/Good Good/Good
Standby time (hours) | Talk time (hours) 260 / 8 200 / 4
Out of the seven mighty
Warranty & Support
devices, I’m hooked on to the Period of warranty (years) 1 1
palmOne Treo650. It has got Number of authorised service centres 1 400
everything what I prefer in Number of cities where service centres are present 1 190
a smartphone—decent set * Prices are indicative and are subject to change, taxes extra
+Memory Stick Duo, MMC, TransFlash, MiniSD, SD
of applications, excellent
build quality, EDGE support,
camera, QWERTY keyboard,
hot swappable memory, great
looks and compact design.
It also comes with a meaty 1,900
mAh battery.

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

 T VA L
ES

U
B
| HARDWARE

E
SMART PHONES COMPARISON 57
01 | 2006
E

T
ST
-CENT ER

3 4 5 6 7
O2 XDAIIi BenQ P30 O2 XphoneII palmOne Treo 650 Motorola A780
Creative e-Biz BenQ Creative e-Biz Cenzer India Limited Everest International
9892939268 022-25705231 9892939268 022-39452289 022-55704646
cr_mumbai@yahoo.com ishbawa@benq.com cr_mumbai@yahoo.com Boon-Liang.Lim@palm.com chaudhary@roltanet.com
Rs 45,888 Rs 19,500 Rs 18,888 Rs 29,999 Rs 22,415

16.26 9.77 10.20 13.81 12.57

20.00 19.29 20.00 16.79 15.36
16.29 13.00 15.71 15.29 13.29
10.49 9.01 10.22 9.98 10.76
6.17 12.40 6.17 6.03 6.31
Total:69.20 Total:63.47 Total: 62.31 Total: 61.90 Total: 58.28

70 x 130 x 19 52 x 118 x 17 44 x 107 x 18 59 x 113 x 23 53 x 106 x 24

190 150 102 178 130
Intel Xscale PXA272 / 520 Intel Xscale PXA 270 / 312
ARM9 1510 / 144 MHz TI OMAP 730 / 200 MHz Intel Xscale 271 / 312 MHz
MHz MHz
96 MB / NA 16 MB / NA 32 MB / 64 MB 23 MB / NA 48 MB / 128 MB
Windows Mobile 2003 SE Symbian 7 Windows Mobile 2003SE Palm OS 5.4.7 Linux

Color (65K) Color (256K) Color (65K) Color (65K) Color (65K)
240x320 208x320 172x220 320x320 240x320
90 70 55 65 63
✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓
✓ | ✕ | ✕ ✓ | ✕ | ✓ ✕ | ✕ | ✓ ✓ | ✓ | ✓ ✓ | ✕ | ✓
✓ | ✓ | ✓ ✓ | ✓ | ✕ ✓ | ✓ | ✕ ✓ | ✓ | ✕ ✕ | ✓ | ✕
✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕
✕ | ✓ | ✓ ✕ | ✓ | ✓ ✕ | ✓ | ✓ ✓ | ✓ | ✓ ✕ | ✓ | ✓
1.3-megapixel | ✕ | ✕ 0.3-megapixel | ✕ | ✕ 0.3-megapixel | ✕ | ✕ 0.3-megapixel | ✕ | ✕ 1.3-megapixel | ✕ | ✕
✕ | ✓ ✕ | ✓ ✕ | ✓ ✓ | ✓ ✕ | ✓
Lithium Polymer / 1,200 mAH Lithium Ion / 1,050 mAH Lithium Ion / 1,050 mAH Lithium Ion / 1,900 mAH Lithium Ion / 780 mAH

Excellent Excellent Very good Excellent Very good

Good Very good Very good Good Very good
Very good Excellent Excellent Good Very good
Very good / Excellent Very good / Excellent Good / Excellent Very good / Excellent Good / Good

✕ ✕ ✕ ✓ ✕
Very good / Excellent Average / Average Good / Good Good / Good Good / Good
✓ | ✓ ✓ | ✓ ✓ | ✓ ✓ | ✓ ✓ | ✓
✓ ✓ ✕ ✓ ✓
Excellent Very good Very good Very good Very good

2,361 2,293 5,341 1,000 7,585

Very good Good Good Good Very good
Very good / Good Average / Average Good /Average Good/Average Good/Good
150 / 3.5 120 / 5 140/ 4.5 300 / 6 110 / 3

1 1 1 1 1
5 190 5 1 21
5 180 5 1 3

JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

 RFOR

| SMART PHONES COMPARISON PE M

58 HARDWARE

AN
BES

CE
E 01 |

T
2006
ST R
-CENTE

SpecScan
8 9 10
Name (Multimedia Phones) Nokia N90 Sony Ericsson W800i Nokia 6680
Contact Nokia India Sony Ericsson India Nokia India
Phone 0124-5199000 0124-2560808 0124-5199000
E-mail jaybakshi@nokia.com dhiraj.soni@sonyericsson.com jaybakshi@nokia.com
Price* Rs 34,949 Rs 24,995 Rs 28,539
Overall
Features (out of 25) 14.54 15.90 13.68
Build quality (out of 25) 21.79 21.07 18.93
Ergonomics (out of 20) 16.71 15.86 15.00
Performance (out of 15) 10.68 11.88 9.38
Warranty and support (out of 15) 15.00 10.06 5
15.00
Overall (out of 100) Total: 78.72 Total: 74.77 Total: 71.99
Value for money (out of 5)
Features
Dimensions (WxHxD) (mm) 51 x 112 x 24 46 x 100 x 20 55 x 109 x 21
Weight (gms) 173 99 133
Processor (Name, speed) ARM9 / 220 MHz ARM9 / 200 MHz ARM9 / 233 MHz
Memory (Onboard, bundled) 13 MB / 64 MB 38 MB / 512 MB 10 MB / 64 MB
Operating system Symbian 7 Symbian UIQ Symbian 8
Display
Type (No of colors) Color (256K) Color (256K) Color (256K)
Resolution (X x Y) 352x416 176x220 176x208
Diagonal size (mm) 55 50 58
Standards (CDMA, GSM, GPRS, EDGE) ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓
Connectivity (Infrared, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi) ✕ | ✓ | ✕ ✓ | ✓ | ✕ ✕ | ✓ | ✕
Memory expansion (MSD, MMC, TF, Mini SD, SD)+ ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕
Audio playback (WAV, MP3, WMA, ATRAC) ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕
Video playback (Real, MPEG4, AVI) ✓ | ✓ | ✓ ✕ | ✓ | ✓ ✓ | ✓ | ✓
Integrated camera (Sensor, flash, optical focus) 2-megapixel | ✓ | ✓ 2-megapixel | ✓ | ✓ 1.3-megapixel | ✓ | ✕
FM radio, Voice recording ✕ | ✓ ✓ | ✓ ✕ | ✓
Battery (Type, rating) Lithium Ion / 760 mAH Lithium Polymer/ 900 mAH Lithium Ion/ 900 mAH
Build quality
Body Construction Very good Excellent Excellent
Sturdiness of moveable parts (Flap) Excellent Excellent Good
Sturdiness of battery retention clamp Excellent Good Excellent
Button Tactile response / button quality Very good Excellent Very good
Ergonomics
QWERTY keyboard ✕ ✕ ✕
Button size/spacing Excellent / Excellent Very good / Very good Good / Good
Shortcut keys, one-handed operation ✓ | ✓ ✓ | ✓ ✓ | ✓
Hot swappable memory ✓ ✓ ✓
Ease of Navigation Very good Very good Good
Performance
J-Bench 1,829 3,979 5,276
Clarity (Speaker, music) Excellent/Very good Very good/Very good Very good/Good
Music (Quality, management) Very good / Very good Excellent/ Very good Good/Good
Recording (image, video) Excellent / Very good Excellent / Good Very good/Good
Standby time (hours) / Talk time (hours) 290 / 3 400/9 240 / 6
Warranty & Support
Period of warranty (years) 1 1 1
Number of authorised service centres 400 150 400
Number of cities where service centres are present 190 100 190
* Prices are indicative and are subject to change, taxes extra
+Memory Stick Duo, MMC, TransFlash, MiniSD, SD

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

 SMART PHONES COMPARISON | HARDWARE 59

| Terminator
EDGE: EDGE which stands for Enhanced Data rates for GSM
Evolution is an enhancement to 2G or 2.5G or what we know
11 12 as the GPRS network. It is designed to deliver data at rates
Samsung SGH-D600 Sony Ericsson K700i
Samsung India Electronics Pvt Ltd Sony Ericsson India up to 384 Kbps and enable the delivery of multimedia and
011-51511234 0124-2560808 other broadband applications to mobile phone and computer
vikas.tagra@samsung.com dhiraj.soni@sonyericsson.com users. It therefore allows delivery of advanced mobile
Rs 23,999 Rs 9,000
services such as the downloading of video and music clips,
13.57 12.60 full multimedia messaging, high-speed Internet access
21.07 16.79 and e-mail on the move. EDGE is a superset to GPRS and
13.00 15.57 can function on any network with GPRS deployed on it.
8.23 9.01
10.81 10.06 Hence it does not require hardware changes to be made in
Total: 66.69 Total: 64.02 GSM core networks. However, the base station requires
modifications.

46 x 96 x 22 46 x 79 x 19
103 93 3G: 3G is short for third-generation mobile telephone
ARM9 / 104 MHz ARM9 / 104 MHz technology. The first generation of wireless (1G) was analog
76 MB / 64 MB 41 MB / NA cellular. The second generation (2G) is digital cellular,
RTK-E Symbian UIQ
featuring integrated voice and data communications. 3G
Color (256K) Color (65K) networks provide dramatically improved data transfer rates,
240x320 176x220 enabling new wireless applications such as streaming media
50 48 and video telephony.
✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕
✕ | ✓ | ✕ ✓ | ✓ | ✕
✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ Bluetooth: Bluetooth is a short-range radio technology
✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ that allows the wireless networking of devices. It works a
✕ | ✓ | ✓ ✕ | ✓ | ✓ bit like infrared, except that the devices don’t have to be in
2-megapixel | ✓ | ✕ 0.3-megapixel | ✓ | ✕
line of sight of one another. It uses the unlicenced 2.4 GHz
✕ | ✓ ✓ | ✓
Lithium Ion / 950 mAH Lithium Polymer/700 mAH frequency band, similar to 802.11b wireless networking, but
at lower power, and with slower data carrying capacity up
Excellent Very good to 721 kilobits per second. Bluetooth comes in two classes:
Excellent Very good
Excellent Good
Class I which has a range of up to 100 meters with a power
Very good Very good of up to 100mW, and Class II, which has a range of up to 10
meters, using a power of 1mW. Of course, you need a Class I
✕ ✕ unit at both ends to get the increased range.
Very good / Very good Very good/Good
✓ | ✓ ✓ | ✓
✓ ✕ T9: T9, which stands for ‘Text on 9 keys’, enables users
Very good Very good to easily enter text into small devices with limited size
keyboards, like mobile phones. It replaces the traditional
1,000 2,575
Very good/Good Very good/Good ‘multi-tap’ method of entering text providing the ability to
Good/Good Good/Average enter text using only one keystroke per letter. It works by
Good/Good Good/Good referencing a dictionary of commonly used words. As the
300/7 360/ 7
user presses the number buttons, an algorithm searches the
1 1 dictionary for a list of possible words that match the keypress
175 150 combination, and offers up the most probable choice.
120 100

JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

60 HARDWARE | SMART PHONES COMPARISON
| Smart phone buying guide
Smart phones are like mini PCs combining
features of a cell phone and most of
the features of a PDA such as office
applications, web browsing, e-mail, media
player and file viewer, making them ideal
solutions for businessmen and people
who are on the move. But mind you, they
cost as much as you would pay for both a
cell phone and a PDA! So make sure you
carry a heavy wallet before you set out
to buy a smart phone. To find out which
smart phone is best suited for you,
take a look at the following
application areas:
Office: If you are strictly looking at web
and e-mail access and want to work with
documents, spreadsheets, presentations
and other document formats, ignore high-
end multimedia features like a powerful
camera, video playback, etc. Instead, look
out for features such as compatibility with
MS Office, synchronization and other office
applications. If you are used to MS Office,
opt for a device based on Windows Mobile.
| Multimedia phone buying guide
Users looking for a multimedia phone need
to be sure about the exact application and
the nature of usage that they have in mind.
Multimedia phones allow the users to play
various media files on the phones, be it
MP3 or video files. They also let you capture
images using the built-in digital camera.
Music: If you want a music phone, you
will of course prefer one that gives you
expandable memory. And since it plays
music, it better have good sound quality.
We strongly recommend you to personally
experience the sound quality and be the
Models: O2 XDA IIi, palmOne Treo 650,
I-mate JASJAR, Nokia 9300
Multimedia: Apart from standard
applications, if you want to want to enjoy
music and watch videos, Windows Mobile-
based devices are better suited for the
job. Pay attention to audio/video formats
supported, screen resolution, integrated
camera and video capturing.
If you like capturing images and videos,
look out for a phone having at least a 1.3
megapixel camera. A 3.5 mm jack in a phone
would be a treat for music lovers.
Models: O2 XDA IIi, I-mate JASJAR
best judge. Music management is another
feature that cannot be ignored for a phone
that doubles up as an MP3 player. Playlist
synchronization and ID3 tag support help a
lot to keep your music collection organized.
Last, but not the least, the quality of
headphones matter a lot. Make sure the
headphones are responsive and do full
justice to the music player.
Models: Sony Ericsson W550i, Nokia N70
Imaging: If you plan to view the clicked
images on the cellphone itself, you can
settle for any 1 MP or above camera
cell phone which has a nice 256 K color
screen. In case you want to view the
pictures on the computer screen or
take prints, a minimum 2 MP camera
phone is recommended. Also look for
various options with regards to exposure
compensation and white balance settings;
these allow you to get better shots as per
the light conditions. A camera phone with
proper optical focus and better quality
compression will give sharper images.
Models: Nokia N91, SonyErisson W800i
Communications and connectivity: If you
wish to surf the Internet or check your
mails while you are on the move, look out
for features like web-browser, e-mail client,
chat client, etc. With many GSM service
providers supporting EDGE over their
network, you can enjoy high-speed Internet
on smart phones having EDGE support.
To take advantage of Wi-Fi hotspots
remember to check for Wi-Fi support. For
ease while typing e-mails, messages or
web addresses, the presence of a QWERTY
keyboard would be a big advantage.
Models: O2 XDAIIi, I-mate JASJAR, Nokia
9300, palmOne Treo 650
Gaming: Compulsive gamers will demand
a phone that allows them to game while
they are on the move. Currently, the choice
is limited to the Nokia N-Gage QD, which is
specifically meant for gaming. For options
one should look for cell phones that support
3D games on the Java platform. Not all
phones have the oomph to run 3D games
and hence you might want to try some
games out. Bluetooth support or memory
card slot is important, this will allow you to
quickly transfer the downloaded Java games
from the PC to the phone.
Models: Nokia N-Gage QD,
Sony Ericsson K750i
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

| Phone Accessories
Two identical phones need not look the
same. Phone accessories not only add
functionalities but also enhance the
looks. You will be amazed at the variety of
accessories that your phone supports and
how these bells and whistles transform
your phone into a style statement. Enough
said, take a look at these and accessorize
your cell phone now!
1) Bluetooth Dongle: A Bluetooth dongle
lets you connect your phone to the
computer wirelessly. Installation is simple!
You just need to connect it to the PC’s USB
port and install the necessary drivers if
Windows XP doesn’t detect and install the
drivers automatically. The supported data
transfer speeds are upto 1 Mbps depending
upon the class of the Bluetooth device. File
transfer over Bluetooth is suitable for small
files. But if you wish to transfer large files
like a video clip or music, it would be wiser
to use a card reader for quick transfers.
Price range: Rs 400 - Rs 1,000
Brands: Belkin, Techcom
2) IR Dongle : The IR dongle is
comparatively primitive in terms of
technology. The Infrared or IR medium
is recommended for phones that do not
support Bluetooth. These devices are
more restrictive in terms of the range and
data transfer rates. On the other hand, IR
is a tad simpler to set up and configure
as compared to Bluetooth. Your handset
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
SMART PHONES COMPARISON
should be in line of sight of the IR dongle
for synchronizing with the PC.
Price range: Rs 250 - Rs 500
Brands: Bafo, Techcom
3) Bluetooth Headset: If you are presently
using a corded handsfree device, you may
want to upgrade to a Bluetooth headset to
get rid of wire clutter. If your workplace is
a long drive or if you are frequently on the
move, there’s nothing as ideal as a wireless
headset which allows you to receive calls
at the touch of a button. However, before
wearing it, you simply have to charge it and
pair it up with your phone. Since Bluetooth
headsets are powered by a lithium-ion
battery, they aren’t too heavy on the ear.
Apart from letting you enjoy wireless
freedom, Bluetooth headsets are also high-
tech fashion accessories which demand a
second look!
Price range: Rs 2,500 - 5,000
Brands: Jabra, Logitech, Samsung
4) Memory Cards: Memory cards allow the
user to expand the storage capability of
| HARDWARE 61
the phone. Not all phones support memory
expandability and the type of memory card
used by phones to extend storage capacity
also differs. The latest phones make use
of the miniature memory cards which are
almost half the size of the regular memory
cards. Before buying a memory card, you
need to be aware of the type of memory
card the phone accepts and also the
maximum capacity supported by the phone.
The maximum storage capacity for the
memory cards can go upto 4 GB as well!
Price range: Rs 500 - Rs 3,500
Brands: NCP, Microsim, Sandisk, Pretec
5) Memory Card Reader: Connecting your
phone to the PC regularly for transferring
data from the phone can be cumbersome.
To avoid the hassle of data cables and also
to obtain fast transfer speeds, memory
cards readers are highly recommended.
These card readers also save the wear and
tear that the phone goes through every
time you wish to connect it to the PC. There
is an abundance of 5-in-1 memory card
readers in the market that support all the
memory card formats. With a wide range
62 HARDWARE | SMART PHONES COMPARISON
of memory cards used in various devices
these card readers can always come in
handy for other digital devices. These card
readers are fairly compact allowing you to
carry them to office or a friend’s place for
data transfers to other devices via memory
cards. For the price they command, it’s a
wise investment.
Price range: Rs 250 - Rs 500
Brands: Techcom, Transcend
| Applications to make your phone smarter
Smart phones and multimedia phones
come loaded with dozens of applications
spanning across all categories right from
office suites to multimedia. Whether
you want to read a document, prepare a
schedule, click a snap or nod your head
to your favorite track, it’s all there in your
palm! Smart eh? But what if I say that
the phone isn’t smart enough? Surprised?
Apart from regular applications which
are featured in most phones, there are
hundreds of other applications which
can make your phone smarter, thereby
increasing productivity.
If you think smart phones are only
meant for serious people, you are wrong!
There’s a plethora of cool apps and games
which can keep you hooked on to the
phone for hours until the battery runs dry!
Here are some cool apps and games
which can make your smart phone or
multimedia phone one of the smartest!
IR Remote: How about converting your
6) Screen Films: High resolution color
screens do look very attractive but a small
scratch can ruin all the charm.
Protecting the screen using scratch guards
was almost unheard of some time back. But
with the large-screen phones becoming a
rage, the demand for screen protectors was
evident. Screen films offer inexpensive
and a simple way of protecting the
screen while not sacrificing on the
readability.
Price range: Rs 150 - Rs 600
phone into an IR remote control? If your
phone has support for IR, using appropriate
software it can be used to as a remote
control to control TVs, video players and
amplifiers just like a universal IR remote
control.
Symbian: Psiloc Infrared Remote Control
Palm: Novii Remote Deluxe
Windows Mobile: Novii Remote
Document Reader: If reading is one of your
hobbies, you wouldn’t want to miss out
on a document reader. With one loaded
on your phone, you can read e-books
while you are on the move. A variety of
document readers are available for all
mobile platforms which are capable of
reading PDF and Word documents and
other formats.
Symbian:Symbianware ebook,
Documents To Go
Palm: Adobe Reader for Palm OS,
Palm Reader
Windows Mobile: Adobe Reader for Pocket PC
Imaging: A camera is a common feature
in most multimedia and smart phones.
7) Phone Covers: A cell phone cover or shell
is an important accessory. They protect
the phone from serious damage, especially
during accidental drops. The dust and dirt
entering the cell phones through keypads
and speakerphone can also influence the
functioning of the instrument. Dust covers
add a layer of protection and also lend some
peace of mind. There’s a wide variety of cell
phone covers and shells for all the popular
cell phone models.
Price range: Rs 100 - Rs 400
Phones having a 1.3 MP or a 2 MP camera
have features like shooting modes and
effects. With such features built in, you can
take the camera a level further and shoot
panoramic pictures. And for phone camera
freaks, image management utilities will not
stop you from clicking hundreds of pics!
Symbian: PanoMan - Automatic Panorama
Stitcher, Photo Blaster
Palm: MobiSystems Photo Album,
Windows Mobile: Vectorsoft Draw 3, GV
Mobile PocketBrush
Birthday Reminder: It’s difficult though
not impossible to remember birthdays
and anniversaries of all your friends and
family members. With a simple utility like a
birthday reminder, you won’t forget to wish
your close ones on their birthday. If you’re
too lazy to type a birthday wish, some
applications can even send messages to
contacts on their birthday autoamatically!
Symbian: SmartBirthday for UIQ,
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

PowerDates for Nokia 9300, AquaCalendar
Palm: Birthday Plus
Windows Mobile: Birthdays+ for Today,
VBirthday Gold, DateMate, Birth2Day
Media players and converters: Who
doesn’t like listening to music or watching
videos on that small screen? With a music
and video player most phones can play
MP3s and short video clips. But have you
ever thought you could play an entire movie
on the phone? Using video converters, it’s
possible to squeeze an entire movie in the
Xvid format on the phone! Then all you
need is an appropriate media player. And if
your phone doesn’t have support for MP3s,
there are players which can convert your
phone into a mini jukebox!
Symbian: SmartMovie, Mobile Media Maker
Palm: SmartMovie, Kinoma Media Player,
Pocket DVD Wizard
Windows Mobile: PocketTV Enterprise
Edition, SmartMovie
Privacy: When you have personal data
like contacts, documents, messages and
picture which you wouldn’t like to share
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
SMART PHONES COMPARISON | HARDWARE 63
with anyone, it feels uneasy when a friend
or a family member goes through your
phone. And if it’s someone inquisitive,
you’re doomed! Most phones lack an
application to protect your personal data.
With applications which can encrypt or
password protect your inbox or folders, you
won’t feel uneasy the next time someone
plays around with your phone.
Symbian: My Safe+, Handy Safe Pro for
Nokia 9300
Palm: TealLock Plus, Handy Password,
Account Safe
Windows Mobile: eWallet, MyAccounts,
Password Manager
Games: Arcade, simulation, racing, FPS,
strategy, board, mind… I’m not talking
about games for the PC but mobile would love keeping a separate memory
gaming! By now I’m sure most of you must card full of games! If you aren’t yet into
be fed up of preloaded games on your mobile gaming, try out a few games. You’ll
phones!! How about playing Scrabble while surely get addicted very soon!
you’re traveling or solving a SuDoku puzzle Symbian:SkyForce, Super Miner Brothers,
while you’re having tea? Have you ever Prince of Persia, Need for Speed
tried playing an FPS like Doom or a racing Palm: Billiard Master, Astraware SuDoku
game like Need for Speed? With hundreds Windows Mobile: Myst for Pocket PC,
of games available for phones, gamers Scrabble, SuDoku Rules Extreme ■
64 HARDWARE | FEATURE
Portable Dilemma
With notebooks becoming so very affordable, is it time to ditch the humble
desktop PC?
W Q
hat should you buy? A
notebook or a desktop PC?
With the steep fall in the price
of notebooks and an overflow of brands
and models available in the market today,
people are very keen to join the ‘notebook’
bandwagon. And therefore, questions
on the 35-40K notebook abound. Often
I’m asked whether a notebook is a better
choice over a traditional desktop PC. Most
of the users having such queries are buying
a PC for the first time and are willing
to spend some extra dough in order to
buy a notebook instead of a desktop PC.
Clearly, their applications are more suited
to desktop computers and therefore a
budget notebook though seemingly very
attractive might not be the best choice.
We tend to forget that the notebook is still
primarily a device that offers portability
over performance and hence it’s not an
absolute substitute for a desktop PC. To
simplify this statement, let’s go through a
set of 10 most common questions asked by
users willing to take the plunge but aren’t
sure whether it’s a safe one or not.
Q I want a performance PC with
no cut corners. Will a notebook
suffice my needs or should I settle for a
desktop?
A Most notebooks are built with
‘portability’ as the key factor with
performance, features and other factors
following it. If you’re looking for extreme
performance, a desktop PC is always a
better choice. It gives you a lot of headroom
in terms of features as well as performance.
Another important element is the pricing.
The performance notebooks are very
expensive with prices ranging between Rs
1-2 lakhs. If portability is not needed, given
a budget of about 35-40K, you can buy a
desktop PC, which is not only power-packed
but also future proof when compared to a
notebook that costs the same.
Notebooks offer portability, a can be pushed from 256 MB to 512 MB.
feature that’s tempting me to But if you are looking for a computer with
dump the desktop PC. What should I do? 250 GB storage space and 2 GB of RAM, a
A If portability is what you’re looking
for, a notebook is an obvious choice.
Having said that, you need to be aware
desktop computer is a better option. As
mentioned, the upgrades for notebooks are
limited and they cost a bomb. The service
of how portable the notebook is in terms charges and other costs involved with
of weight, battery life and ruggedness. notebook upgrades can easily touch the
Most of the budget or even the mid-range 10K mark and above.
notebooks are rather heavy, weighing
somewhat between 2-4 kgs. Add to this
the weight of a carry case, power adaptor
and other accessories and suddenly the
Q I’m a working professional and
I enjoy gaming. Will I be able to
game on my notebook, just like I do on
notebook is not all that portable. Another the desktop PC?
important factor for notebooks is the
battery life which also affects portability.
If you get a battery life of 60-90 minutes,
A Notebooks barely let you mix
work with games. I strongly
recommend a desktop PC for a
the notebook will transfer into dead fulfilling gaming experience. Gaming
weight in almost no time and you will be notebooks are
frantically looking for a power connection
to charge it. So if portability is your
mantra, make sure you choose a
fairy light notebook (1.5-2 kgs)
with a decent battery life. Last,
but not the least, the build quality
and ruggedness of the unit is
extremely important if you plan to
carry it around.
Q I have selected a notebook that fits
my budget. It’s got all the features
that I am looking for but I might want
to upgrade the HDD and RAM in the
near future. Is that possible and what
are the costs involved? mighty expensive and there isn’t much
A Notebooks offer very limited
upgradeability when compared to
desktop computers. As far as the core
of a choice available in India. Given a
budget, you can buy a far better gaming
machine than a gaming notebook for
system goes, you can upgrade RAM as well the same amount of money.
as the HDD but there are some restrictions
attached to them. The upgrade path is not
as easy as the desktop PC, manufacturers
offer upgrades for a high premium and you
Q The new and affordable
notebooks available look very
attractive. Can they be used as a
can’t go all out with the upgrades as well; family PC or are they more suited for
you might be able to upgrade the existing personal use?
40 GB HDD to a max of 80 GB and the RAM
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

A Notebooks are primarily built for
personal usage but that does not
mean that they cannot replace a family
desktop PC. If you can live with the
limitations of the desktop in terms of the
view angles of the LCD screen, the cramped
keyboard and the touchpad which is not
as comfortable as the mouse, a notebook
can be used as a family PC. You will have
to add a full fledged USB keyboard and an
optical USB mouse which will make it more
comfortable for the entire family to use the
notebook PC.
Q I need maximum wireless
connectivity for network access
and wirefree synchronization of my cell
phone and PDA with the computer. Will
a notebook be a better choice for me?
A If connectivity is what you are
looking for, a notebook is a much
better solution than a desktop PC. Built
for wireless connectivity, most of the
latest notebooks offer Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
and infrared connectivity as part of the
default package. Rarely will you find
a desktop computer offering all these
features by default; adding all the wireless
connectivity to a desktop computer is a
tad messy with Bluetooth dongles and
PCI cards. Notebooks are much friendlier
for wireless connectivity, hence they are
highly recommended over the desktop PC,
specifically in this case.
Q I plan to use my computer only
at home. But I need one which is
rugged and hassle free to use. Are the
budget notebooks available in
the market today good enough for
rough usage?
A In case of rough usage, notebooks
cannot match desktop computers.
Even the toughest of the
notebooks (which cost a
bomb!) might succumb
to a fall or a bump. If you
don’t need portability and are
simply looking for a rugged computer,
we suggest a desktop computer.
Also, the real tough notebooks like the
Lenovo T-series and the Panasonic
ToughBooks are mighty
expensive and don’t
warrant that kind of
money if you don’t
require portability.
Now as far as the budget
notebooks available
today are concerned,
they are heavy but
not necessarily sturdy,
and the build quality of
the frame is generally a
suspect with most budget
notebooks. Therefore, in case you
decide on a budget notebook, make sure
you don’t ignore the
build quality.
Q I am a media junkie and can’t live
without my music and movies. I
download a lot of music and movies and
FEATURE | HARDWARE 65
create my own compilations of the two.
I would also like to watch TV on my PC
and record TV shows. Will a notebook
let me do all of this?
A Notebooks can play all types of media
and also store them, but they are
not the best for a media center. Burning a
lot of movies, downloading content and
multitasking require a powerful machine
which can take all the heat. Notebooks
have restrictions in terms of battery life
and heat dissipation and hence unlike
desktop computers they cannot be left
on overnight regularly for downloads or
audio/video encoding. For such media
intensive applications, desktop computers
make a lot more sense.
Q I’m looking for a low maintenance
PC. Are notebooks easy to
troubleshoot? Can I fix them myself
in case there is an issue? I am keen on
modding and would also like to try out
overclocking.
A The beauty of desktop computers lies
in the fact that they allow you to play
around with them in terms of assembling
them, modding them and fixing them in
case they go kaput. Notebooks are a lot
more complex and restrictive in terms of
performance and design. They can’t be
overclocked or modded unlike the
desktop machines. Fixing your notebook is
also a daunting task and it’s better left to
the manufacturers. The costs involved in
repairing them are very high compared to
the desktop computers.
Q I am a housewife and my interaction
with the computer is limited to
surfing the Internet, chatting with
friends and relatives and watching some
movies and music. Will a budget laptop
be a better choice over the desktop?
A For basic and non-intensive
applications like Internet surfing,
movie watching and working with office
applications, a notebook is a perfect
match. A budget notebook should allow
you to do all of it while lending portability,
so that you can carry the notebook around
the house and to that occasional kitty
party as well! ■
| Soham Raninga
 Processing on
a shoe string
While the saga of the fastest processors continues,
we get up close and personal with their budget
counterparts

T
he race for the fastest and most efficient
processors and chipsets for computers is a for a while and are the true representatives of
never ending one. While the chip giants—
AMD and Intel roll out a lot of meaty processors
for the desktop platform, we seem to completely
ignore the parallel release of budget desktop
processors which are targeted at the mass market
and value buyers. Even the budget processors
have come a long way—being more potent and
advanced than ever, these processors pack quite
a punch for the price they command. We got our
hands on two of the best budget processors in the
market and we put them to the test just to find
out what these budget processors are capable
of. In case you are on a shoe string budget, you
certainly will want to know the capabilities of
these budget platforms and get a lowdown on
whether they deliver the goods for you.
Instead of going for the bare minimum in terms motherboard which is a great balance of price and
of technology and performance, we went for one
of the best budget platforms in the local market,
The Celeron-D 326 comes with 256 KB of The Sempron operates at a mere 1.6 GHz
L2 cache and 64-bit support and has half the amount of L2 cache
the reason being that these will stay in the market
the entry-level segment. From the Intel camp we
chose the Intel Celeron-D 326 processor based
on the LGA 775 architecture. The processor is
clocked at 2.53 GHz and comes with 256 KB of
L2 cache. We chose the AMD Sempron 2600+
processor based on the socket 754 architecture.
The Sempron comes with 128 KB of L2 cache and
operates at 1.6 GHz. Both the processors support
64-bit extensions and hence sport the 64-bit
computing logo. As I mentioned earlier, we are
looking at the best of the budget platforms and
hence we are using motherboards that do full
justice to the processors. For the AMD-Sempron
platform we chose the newer Nforce-4 4x chipset
for the socket 754 Sempron 2600+. We paired the
Intel Celeron-D 326 with the Intel D915GAV based
performance. We used 512 MB (256x2) of DDR400
value RAM which in our opinion should be the
bare minimum for a budget computer.
We used the Nvidia Geforce 6200 turbo
cache instead of the onboard video. By
using an external video card, we wanted to
avoid the onboard GPUs since they would
affect the CPU performance by sharing the
resources and thus would not let us guage
the peak performance of the processors.
If you were to go to a vendor, be it
the local assembler or a branded seller,
he is sure to paint a very bleak picture of
these budget processors. In reality, these
processors are pretty capable for most of
the office and home applications. If you
are a gamer or a power user, you certainly
won’t settle for these processors but
others need to be aware of these unsung
heroes who deserve a lot of credit for the
performance they pack. These processors

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

 FEATURE | HARDWARE 67

Si-soft Sandra 2005 CPU scores Si-soft Sandra 2005 CPU | Celeron-D 326 CPU score breakup
Multimedia scores
6762 15048
Dhrystone
ALU MIPS Integer it/s
6833 14191

3306
Whetstone 16493 Floating-
3106 FPU MFLOPS point it/s
16781
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
0 5000 10000 15000 20000
Sempron 2600+ Sempron 2600+
Celeron D326 Celeron D326

Audio encoding Overall CPU score PC Mark

320kbps)
kbps

56 3049
seconds
@ 320
(MP3@

3244
62 | Sempron 2600+ CPU score breakup
MP3

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500

Sempron 2600+ Sempron 2600+

Celeron D326 Celeron D326

Video encoding 3D Mark 2003

(232 MB vob file to XVID)

374 2014 GeForce 6200 TC

score (points)

seconds
388 2063 GeForce 6200 TC

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Sempron 2600+ Sempron 2600+
Celeron D326 Celeron D326

Doom 3 Quake 3
640x480 @ low (FPS)
low quality@640x480

both the chips were well within control

no shadows (FPS)

182 GeForce 6200 TC

53 GeForce 6200 TC
throughout all the tests and the default
178 GeForce 6200 TC coolers provided with the package are
47 GeForce 6200 TC
excellent. Ideally, if you’re trying to squeeze
0 50 100 150 200
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 in a computer under the 20K mark, these
Sempron 2600+ Sempron 2600+
processors will let you do that while giving
Celeron D326 Celeron D326
you an absolute bang for the buck. ■
| Soham Raninga
are priced roughly in the range of Rs 3,200 benchmarks might slightly favor the
to Rs 3,400, which is nearly half of their Celeron-D 326 while the real world and
mainstream equivalents, the Pentium-4 gaming benchmarks tilt the balance
2.8 GHz and the AMD Athlon 64 3000+ towards the Sempron 2600+. Given
which sell for around Rs 6,500. As far as the performance, both the chips offer
office applications, movies and Internet excellent value for money and
applications are concerned, a budget the 2-3 percent performance
processor will fit the bill perfectly. gap does not warrant for any
single winner amongst the two.
Not bad at all! Students or geeks might find the
As far as choosing between the two Sempron more interesting simply
processors is concerned, as you can see because it’s clocked at a mere 1.6
from the results, both of them are almost GHz and does house some potential
identical in performance. The synthetic for overclocking. The thermals for

JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

68 HARDWARE | PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY
The fusion within
O
nce upon a time the computer and
consumer electronics industries held their
own. A computer (and its peripherals)
were designed to handle data processing.
Back then ‘data’ meant text that represented
information in digitized form. The graphics and
other pyrotechnics, which simplified or glamorized
computing, came later. Today, the HPs, Microsofts,
Dells, and Intels of the industry want to get into
your TV and video system, your music system,
your camera, and other gadgets that vie for
your attention. Let’s try to understand how this
happened.
Pry open the clamshell casing of an Apple iPod
(if you dare). You’ll see something familiar—flash
memory, hard disk, color LCD screen, processor.
Beneath the simplicity of the control panel and
interface, lies the sophisticated digital hardware.
This is an example of the fusion of computer
technology and consumer electronics.
To understand how this fusion happened,
we’ll take a trip back in time to the year 1990.
There were computers with 20 MB hard disks and
barely 1 MB of main memory. LCD screens? Those
were found in digital wristwatches. So we had to
contend with bulky CRT monitors with green or
amber monochrome displays. Now try putting this
kind of technology into say, an MP3 player—you’d
end up with something that would have to be as
large as an open reel tape recorder.
Of course, back in 1990, they did have
microchips in electronics devices, but their
functionality was quite limited. The more
sophisticated the device, the more chips it
had—resulting in a bulky form factor. Memory
chips, processors and hard disks at that time
weren’t ready for portable devices.
Over time there were significant advances
in chip manufacturing. Manufacturers moved
to “smaller micron processes,” an advance in
chip manufacturing technology. Effectively, this
shrank the size of the transistors, the fundamental
component on every chip. Which meant you
could double the amount of transistors within
the same space on a chip. They call it Very Large
Scale Integration (VLSI). VLSI technology allowed
for integration of discreet chips, and that meant
fewer discreet chips in devices. So motherboards
and adapter cards (now called PCI cards) shrank
in size—and computing hardware headed for
mobility. That led to technology advances in other
areas too—like storage, displays, and processors.
That’s how desktop PCs evolved into laptops and
later notebook computers.
Although computer hardware became portable,
it wasn’t ready for consumer electronics devices
yet. For long these were two separate industries
with separate standards. Naturally, there were
some standardization and integration issues to
be sorted out. There was another reason for this
| Brian Pereira
delay—the need for killer apps. brian.pereira@chip-india.com
What makes a PC appealing? It’s the software
applications you install on it. The same was
happening with digital devices. We needed
applications that would really make them useful.
One such killer app is MP3 audio.
We now have
MP3 was invented at the Fraunhofer Institute in
Germany, and Shawn Fanning created Napster to hard disk video
exchange all those MP3 encoded songs on the Net. recorders, gaming
Then people wanted to take their favorite MP3
songs with them on the road—and felt the need consoles with
for a portable device. The Diamond Multimedia Rio optical drives—fine
MP3 player was the answer. About the same time
other cool digital devices emerged.
examples of the
We now have portable MP3 jukeboxes with hard fusion of consumer
disks; printers that connect wirelessly with digital
cameras; thin LCD monitors that also function as
electronics
TV sets; mobile phones with e-mail and browsing and computer
features; hard disk video recorders, gaming
hardware
consoles with optical drives and other convergence
products—fine examples of the fusion of consumer
electronics and computer hardware.
So the next time you go to an “IT exhibition”,
don’t be surprised to see less computers and more
electronics devices (read gadgets). Yes the PCs,
printers, web cams and other peripherals will all
be there—camouflaged in shiny casings with all
the trappings of high-tech electronic devices that
caught our attention in the past two decades.
Coming soon to a shop near you: portable
media players, camcorders with built in DVD
burning, cell phones with word processing and
spreadsheets.
The fusion continues…. ■
The writer has been covering personal technology
issues for the past twelve years
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Print smart
A guide to buying the right type of printer
Inkjet
Brands: Canon, Epson, HP, Lexmark
Price: Rs 3,000 – Rs 15,000
W ith a tight budget in hand, the best
option to go for would be an inkjet
printer. Even the cheapest inkjet printer
gives an output of 12 pages per minute at
a resolution of 600 dpi. They may be the
cheapest around, but low price doesn’t
necessarily mean it’s economic. With hardly
around 150 prints per cartridge, the price
you end up paying is between Rs 7 to Rs
10 per print. Replace the cartridges thrice
and you end up paying the price of a new
printer! Buy an inkjet printer only if you
need color printouts.
If you are into imaging, you’ll be
impressed by the quality of prints from high-
end inkjet printers. They use 4 color or 9
color cartridges for photorealistic printouts
having a resolution up to 4800 dpi.
For photographers, with inkjet printers
having a card reader and PictBridge support,
pictures can be printed directly from the
digital camera or memory cards.
Be careful with inkjet printouts, a drop
of water can smudge the contents!
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
TECHNOLOGY LANDSCAPE
Laser
Brands: Canon, HP, Samsung, Xerox
Price: Rs 9,000 – Rs 25,000
I f you don’t care much for color prints and
you are comfortable with grayscale ones,
a laser printer is the way to go. Laser printers
are economic. A regular toner cartridge
gives an economy for one buck per page
and after you refill it, the economy drops to
80 paise per page. Way better than inkjet
printers! For the price of an inkjet printer
and two sets of cartridges you get a basic
laser printer.
With a speed of 14 pages per minute
at a resolution of 600 dpi, you don’t have
to wait long for prints to roll out. Printers
with speed up to 19 ppm and a resolution
of 1200 dpi are also available but they cost
as much as a new PC!
The best thing about laser printouts is
sharp and precise print quality. Additionally,
you can even print on transparencies and
glossy surfaces. Also, unlike an ink cartridge,
the toner cartridge doesn’t dry up or clog if
unused for a long time.
Finally, after fitting a new cartridge,
forget about it until you complete
2,000 prints!
| HARDWARE 69
Vishwanath Vanjire
Multi-function
Brands: Brother, Canon, Epson, HP
Price: Rs 5,000 – Rs 30,000
A ll-in-one! That’s what multi-function
devices are all about. With a single
machine you can print, scan, copy and fax!
It’s both space and money saver. You don’t
have to spend extra bucks on a scanner,
and since it’s built into the printer, it also
saves space. But what you end up spending
for the prints fired from MFDs is the same
as that of inkjet printers. But then you also
have the advantage of not only scanning
but also copying similar to photocopying.
Most MFDs have speed a little higher
than inkjet printers. On an average, MFDs
can roll out 18 pages per minute. A budget
MFD has a resolution of 600 dpi. But
high-end MFDs have a higher resolution.
Also, like high-end inkjet printers, there
are MFDs which use 4 color inks for better
color reproduction and sharpness. Some
even have a card reader and PictBridge
support for direct printing from digital
cameras. For SOHOs, there are MFDs which
have an integrated fax machine. Truly an
all rounder!
| Anand Tuliani
70
Software Center
A
nother new year is here and we
decided the best way to start this
section would be with previews of
the latest security software to keep your PC
safe and secure for the rest of the year.
The first one is Norton SystemWorks
Premier 2006, with enough features to keep
your PC safe round the clock. The McAfee
Internet Suite 2006 has more advanced
features than what the previous versions
Applications
offered, a noticeable one being the
plug-in for Internet Explorer to block access
to known ‘phishing’ sites. The new
features will protect your PC from spam,
ad ware, Trojans, etc.
Having started with security
applications, we haven’t forgotten the cool
ones. One such is the muvee autoProducer
5 that lets you make movies in a jiffy. All
| The Ratings Explained
The parameters used for evaluating
software are assigned a graphical rating
out of a scale of 5. These parameters include
performance, features and ease of use. The
overall rating shown in the reviews is based
on all these factors.
In addition, there is a value for money rating
for each application. This rating is obtained
Pramod Jadhav
budding movie makers will find this an
interesting tool. Also, check out the new
version of Winamp that has fixed most of
the bugs of the previous versions. We have
also reviewed Virtual CD 7.0 that allows you
to have 23 virtual drives.
Another application that we found
interesting is Nero 7 Premium, labelled as
the complete multimedia software that
you can ever find. You can play audio and
video files and at the same time use this
application to burn CDs or DVDs.
Did we miss out the Elicitus Content
Publisher? Well, it’s a feature-rich content
authoring tool, the best part being even if
you don’t have any scripting knowledge,
you will be at ease while using this.
A wide array, it is. Read on to find out
which of these suit your needs best.
by stacking the features and the utility of the
application against its price.
In the case of freeware and shareware
tools that are available for download from
the Internet, we replace the price with the
download size (and therefore the time taken
to download the application) for arriving at
the value for money rating.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

PC savior
T oday, when your PC is under continuous
threat from viruses, spyware, trojans,
you are constantly in search of good
software that will provide you various
options that will help make your system
more secure as well as ensure that it is
always protected. Norton SystemWorks
2006 Premier is one such tool that ensures
that the security of your system is never
compromised.
When you run the CD you are presented
with a menu from where you can choose
whether you want to install Norton
SystemWorks Premier or launch the
various utilities from the CD. The utilities
that you can run directly from the CD are
Norton Cleanup, Norton Disk Doctor and
WinDoctor and Wipe Info. If you don’t have
much space on your hard disk dive and
you need to free up some space then you
can select Norton Cleanup. This will scan
your cached files and temporary files and
remove the unwanted files. As a result, you
will be able to free up some space on your
hard disk. Selecting Norton Disk Doctor will
allow you to diagnose and repair your disk
problems. Just select which disks you want
to be diagnosed and if you want the errors
to be fixed automatically then you can do so
by just enabling this option. The diagnosing
process will scan your partition table
along with the file structures and if any
errors exist it will be promptly displayed.
Another utility that you can run from the
CD is Norton WinDoctor. This utility will
automatically perform all the tests; it even
allows you to choose which tests you want
to run. Once you proceed with the tests
WinDoctor will then check for any problems
with Windows and at the end show you
as to where the problems exist. It even
While installing, you can select either
preselected options or custom installation
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
TESTED | APPLICATIONS 71
allows you to repair these problems. The
last utility here is Wipe info that allows
System Security
Norton SystemWorks 2006 Premier
Specifications: Windows XP/2000, 300 MHz or higher
you to permanently remove files from your
processor, 256 MB of RAM, 170 MB of available hard
hard drive. Other than the utilities you can disk space
also install CheckIt and performance test
Price Rs 3,999
directly without actually installing Norton
Contact Ingram Micro India
SystemWorks. Phone 09324604427
When you start the installation for E-mail shreekant.c@ingrammicro.co.in
Norton Systemworks, a pre-install check up RATINGS
will run which includes a Norton GoBack Ease of use
Preinstall Scan along with an anti-virus Features
Quick Scan. Once this is done you will have Performance
to select the installation type, whether Overall Rating
you want to install with preselected Value for money
options or custom installation where you
can manually select the application that
you wish to install. It is better to deselect
Norton GoBack because if you select this
then it will give you a lot of problems when
Windows restarts after the installation.
The installation does take quite a lot of
your system resources and it is advisable
that you don’t have any other applications
running while SystemWorks installs.
Once you are through with the
From here you can install the utilities (as
installation the rest of the procedure is
seen above) directly from the CD
similar to the earlier versions of Norton
Systemworks. This includes activating your
product, running LiveUpdate, etc. From the
‘Extra Features’ option you can run System
Optimizer, which allows you to optimize the
settings for Windows XP. You can also lock
your settings with a password so that no
one else can change your settings.
Overall, Norton SystemWorks 2006
Premier has all the features that will protect
your PC round the clock. The drawbacks
are that this application uses a lot of your
system resources as a result of which the
system slows down. When we tested this
software on a 1.6 GHz AMD Athlon XP
1800+ with 480 MB of RAM, it utilized, on
an average, 75 percent of CPU resources
and approximately 57 MB of system
memory. Also installing Norton GoBack
can give you problems while restarting, as
occasionally Windows fails to load.
For: Provides complete security options; can
run most of the utilities from the CD itself.
Against: Reduces the speed of your system,
installing Norton GoBack could result in
Windows not loading properly; expensive.
72 APPLICATIONS | TESTED
Surf without worrying
System Security
McAfee Internet Suite 2006 W ith more advanced features
as compared to the earlier
versions, McAfee Internet Suite 2006
Specifications: 300 MHz or higher processor,
will certainly allay your fears regarding
Windows All, 128 MB of RAM, CD-ROM Drive, 100
MB of available hard disk space, Internet Explorer online transactions. This application is
5.5 or higher. a comprehensive, multi-layered security
solution that protects your most
Price Rs 2,500
Contact Kartik Shahani important digital files and personal
Phone 56935278 information from the latest security
E-mail Kartik_Shahani@McAfee.com threats. It also blocks unwanted or
Website www.mcafee.com
persistent pop-up ads, manages cookies
RATINGS
and filters unwanted and offensive
Ease of use
Internet and e-mail content.
Features
If you have any other anti-virus
Performance
software installed on your PC then you will
Overall Rating
Value for money
have to manually uninstall them before the
installation can proceed. The application
will install McAfee Virus Scan, Personal
Firewall, Privacy Service, and Spam Killer.
The installation does take time so you will
have to be patient till the installation gets
over. After the installation is done, you
can create privacy service administrator
password. After you register the software,
it will update itself with the latest virus
definitions.
The interface of the main menu
is quite user friendly and retains the
The main interface that informs you about appearance of the previous version. From
the various protection levels for your PC ‘My Security Center’ you come to know
about the potential security risk for your
PC. This is done very neatly with colored
bar charts displaying the current level of
your computer’s protection which is easily
understood. Red means bad and
Green means good. The virus scan
allows you to scan your computer
for viruses, find out about viruses,
check whether it’s protecting your
PC or not, also get a view of where
the latest viruses are infecting
computers worldwide. It also
includes a huge virus data base.
With the help of Personal Firewall
Plus you can view the list of Internet
applications allowed or blocked by
the firewall, modify your settings,
test your firewall, and also trace the
origin of a suspected attack. You
can also adjust security levels with
a simple slider and extra features
like traffic monitor, which breaks
down your bandwidth usage. In the
privacy service, you can create profiles
for different users of your PC. It also has
pop-up and ad blocking. McAfee Shredder
deletes files completely from your hard
disk leaving no trace behind. Spam killer
will add all your e-mail accounts to its
protected list and as a result provides
effective respite from spam mails.
This application has lots of features
like automatic spy ware detection which
identifies, blocks and removes potential
spyware or other programs that could pose
as a threat to your privacy or even slow it
down. It automatically detects when you
are in full screen mode and suppresses
pop-up messages. It can identify and block
potential ‘phishing’ web sites and scams.
It can also automatically clean infections
when a virus or a Trojan is detected. It
has got advanced spam filtering features.
Additionally, it also allows you to have
immediate integration with your existing
e-mail accounts and also allows spam to
be managed directly within Outlook and
Outlook Express.
Overall, McAfee Internet Suite is a very
good security tool for both the home as
well as the office users. The virus scanner
is very good and meets the standards
expected from McAfee. Additional
features like Firewall and Spam Killer do
add to the overall utility of the product.
The Internet Explorer plug-in to block
access to known phishing sites is also
noteworthy. You also get free live support
via Internet chat round the clock.
On the downside, however, it does use a
lot of system resources and as a result your
PC becomes a bit slower. Just to give you an
idea, this software utilized on an average 70
percent of CPU resources and approximately
55 MB of system memory when installed
on a 1.6 GHz AMD Athlon XP 1800+ with
480 MB of RAM. The virus scans do take
longer than those of Norton Internet
Security 2006.
For: Plug-in to block access to known
phishing sites, wide array of features that
ensure your system stays protected.
Against: Longer virus scans, makes the
system slower, plug-in to block access to
known phising sites is only for Internet
Explorer.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Create your own potboiler
A t some point of time everyone
amongst us has had the inclination
to make a movie with the pictures and
videos that we have, only to drop the idea
because of the lack of good software.
But with muvee autoProducer 5, you can
turn your dream of becoming a movie
maker into reality. muvee autoProducer
5 lets you experience the fastest and the
easiest way to transform your videos and
pictures into professional quality movies
instantly. It allows you to create complete
home movies from raw video clips.
The interface is quite elegant and
all the options are present right on the
interface itself. You are given the option
to add videos or pictures as well as music
from which you can create your own
movies. From the images that you have
queued to make movies, you can select
an area of interest within the image
with the help of magicSpot. Then in your
final movie those areas will be focused.
Making a movie is quite simple, you
just have to select the video files and
pictures from your hard disk, add your
favorite music, choose a style from the
various style options available and click
on ‘make muvee’. If in this movie there is
something that you are not satisfied with
and you would like to change that then
you will be able to edit it very easily. You
are also allowed to add multiple music
tracks to your movie. If a particular frame
grabs your attention then you can take a
snap of it by using the snapshot option.
You can also change the settings for
your movie. If you find that the duration
of your final movie is too short then you
can provide the user defined duration and
also allow videos and music to repeat.
Selecting the Video tab will provide
you options wherein you can shuffle
shots as well as interleave pictures. The
audio tab gives you options wherein it
automatically crossfades music tracks to
remove the silence in between them and
also adjusts the audio playback volume
of different tracks to the same level.
By using the ‘tweak muvee’ option you
can select a particular segment of the
movie and auto replace it with something
similar or something different. You can
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
TESTED | APPLICATIONS 73
also do it manually. It basically allows you
to make some quick final touch-ups to
your movie.
Movie Maker
muvee autoProducer 5
Specifications: 1 GHz Pentium III processor or
The styles provided in muvee equivalent, 256 MB of RAM, 16 MB of Video RAM,
autoProducer are templates for producing Microsoft DirectX 9.0
your movies. They basically determine
Price $99.95 (Approx Rs 5,000)
how fast your movie is, and the effects Website www.muvee.com
and transitions. If you do not know which
RATINGS
style to choose then just select any one
Ease of use
style and you will be able to see a short
Features
sample of the style. If you think that
Performance
the styles provided here are not of your Overall Rating
interest then you can go to the Value for money
web site and get new styles that suit your
needs.
Another feature is magicMoments that
allows you to quickly pre-select the most
important shots of your video with a
thumbs-up button to ensure that they are
included in the final production. Once you
have used magicMoments to pre-select
shots in your video, all future productions
you make will use this information. You
can also add your own title and credits to
The easy-to-use interface provides you
your movies.
with all the options required to make a
This application will be very useful for movie
all those who wanted to create their own
movies quickly and without much effort. Find it on CHIP CD
It even allows you to burn your saved
movies on to a DVD and then share it
with your friends and relatives. It’s simple
to use with a very easy-to-use interface.
However, it’s quite resource hungry. So
before you start using this application do
check the system requirements.
For: Easy to use, good features, allows you
to create movies and then share them.
Against: Resource hungry.
magicSpot allows you to select a particular With ‘teak muvee’ you can make the final
area of your image touch-ups to your movie
74 APPLICATIONS | TESTED

New and better

Multimedia
Winamp 5.12 T his new version of Winamp has lots
of new features as well as significant
improvements when compared to the
Specifications: Windows All
earlier versions. Some of the noticeable
Price Free additions include a new decoder, built-in
Website www.winamp.com cross fader, an advanced Media Library.
RATINGS During the installation
Ease of use you are asked to select the
Features optional components that
Performance you will would like to install
Overall Rating as well as the media to be
associated with Winamp.
Find it on CHIP CD By default all are selected.
In the Preferences option,
you can enable Hotkeys to
play your audio and video
files with ease. The CD
ripping feature here will
allow you to select the encoding format of
your choice. Some of the encoding formats
available are accPlus Encoder v1.1; MP4
ACC v1.0. You can even choose whether
you want the Classic skin or the Modern
skin for Winamp.
The new features in this version of
Winamp include Windows Media Video
support and also support for HE-AAC MP4/
M4A files. It allows you to alter the sound
through a built-in equalizer. It has also got
lots of minor plug-in improvements, a vast
improvement from the earlier
versions.
Overall, Winamp 5.12
has good new features.
Most significantly, most of
the bugs that existed in the
previous version have been
fixed. The drawbacks are that
you still can’t rip and burn
your CDs at the maximum
speed your CD burner can
offer. Also, you can’t rip your
CDs to MP3s. For these tasks, you will have
to purchase Winamp Pro.
For: The bugs of previous versions have
been fixed; additional new features.
Against: For some of the features you will
have to purchase Winamp PRO.

Create virtual drives

System Utility
Virtual CD 7.0
V irtual CD 7.0 is a software that lets
you create up to 23 additional virtual
CD/DVD drives. As a result, no more will you
What is even more interesting is that it
allows you to create unlimited number
of virtual CDs. It also has better data
Specifications: Windows All
be bothered about scratched or lost disks. compression. You can also organize your
Price $39.95 (Approx Rs 2,000) After you finish the installation and virtual CDs in folders. Another feature is
Website www.virtualcd-online.com run the program you are presented with that it allows editing of current virtual
RATINGS an array of tasks. CDs with the virtual
Ease of use These tasks allow you CD editor. Your virtual
Features to create a virtual CDs are password
Performance CD, burn a virtual protected and hence
Overall Rating CD/DVD, delete the they are protected from
Value for money data from a rewritable unauthorized access.
disk, etc. All these Virtual CD 7.0
Find it on CHIP CD tasks are present on enables you to perform
the interface itself. all the tasks with
And if you are stuck relative ease. Its simple
anywhere in between then you can interface is particularly helpful to the
always refer to the help menu. From the novice user.
Settings option you can check out the The only downside is that you will need
supported ISO images and if any format is to purchase it to continue using it.
missing then you can add it yourself. You For: Easy to use; simple interface; allows
can also change the default path where you to create 23 virtual drives; allows
the virtual CDs are stored. network access to your CD archive; you
Multiple CD applications can be can also organize your Virtual CDs into
accessed simultaneously. It allows you to folders, better data compression.
have network access to your CD archive. Against: None.

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006


Very innovative
I f you want to experience digital media
in a completely new and innovative way
then Nero 7 Premium is the software to
get. Nero 7 Premium allows you to manage
your media files, edit videos as well as
compress files to take them
wherever you go.
Before you can install
this product you will have
to uninstall all previous
versions of Nero on your
system. After installation,
you can perform many
digital media projects.
You can create your own
DVDs, edit videos, design
CD labels, etc. You can also create a back up
of your entire system on CDs/DVDs. It even
allows you to create slideshows from your
photos and videos, and also add transitions
to your music.
Some of the applications included in
this version are ‘Nero Home’, ‘Nero Scout’,
‘Nero Burning ROM 7’, ‘Nero Express 7’,
Create courses in a jiffy
E licitus is a desktop authoring tool for
trainers, educators and subject matter
experts. You require no programming or
scripting knowledge to create courses with
this software.
It provides you with a wide range of
question types like multiple choice, true
or false, etc and different
styles for navigation. It
also allows you to use
visually appealing layouts
to create designs. With
the help of a single click
you can publish what you
want on the web site, CD-
ROM, or slide shows.
Other features of this software are that
you can make one-time changes at the
master level which are then automatically
reflected in the related content. This
software has lots of templates and if you
want, you can create your own templates
also. These templates contain pre-built
course navigation and display but they can
be customized by you.
It also supports courses in many
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
TESTED | APPLICATIONS 75
‘Nero Wave Editor 3’, ‘Nero Cover Designer
2’, etc. All these applications add to the
features of this software. For example,
Multimedia
Nero 7 Premium
Specifications: 1.6 GHz Pentium 4 processor or
With Nero Home, you can quickly access
equivalent, 128 MB RAM, 600 MB of hard disk space
all your digital media files from your home;
whereas Nero Wave Editor 3 enables Price $70 (Approx Rs 3,220)
Website www.nero.com/eng/
surround sound editing.
Nero_7_Premium.html
We have got to say
RATINGS
that you must take home
Ease of use
Nero 7 Premium—it’s
Features
good for both the
Performance
novice as well as for the
Overall Rating
advanced user wanting to
Value for money
explore creative interests.
Its only drawback is that
in order to continue using
this product you will have to purchase
the retail version of the same else your
wonderful experience will end in 30 days.
For: Feature-rich software; easy to use; you
can use it as a media player and as CD/DVD
burning software.
Against: System requirements on the
higher side.
languages and you can pick it up in a
matter of few hours. It also allows you to
create assessments or exercises. You can
Content Authoring
Elicitus Content Publisher
Specifications: Pentium III Processor or higher,
also customize the score pages. Creating
256 MB of RAM, 100 MB of free hard disk space,
hyperlinks to other pages in the course Windows 2000/XP, IE 5.5 or above.
happens in a jiffy.
Price Rs 1,27, 000
For added interactivity, it allows you to
Contact Harbinger Knowledge Products
use customized buttons. Phone 020-25284201
It also has a wide range E-mail info@elicitus.com
of supported file formats. RATINGS
Another feature that Ease of use
deserves mention is that it Features
contains a course outline Performance
generator that creates a Overall Rating
hierarchical content view. Value for money
Overall, this application
is a very good authoring tool. And what’s
worth talking about is that even though
you have no scripting knowledge you will
be at ease using this. There’s one glitch
though; it’s a bit over priced for what it
offers.
For: Lots of features; built-in, user-friendly
templates; easy to use.
Against: Expensive; you need to have .NET
Framework 1.1 pre-installed.
70
Software Center
A
nother new year is here and we
decided the best way to start this
section would be with previews of
the latest security software to keep your PC
safe and secure for the rest of the year.
The first one is Norton SystemWorks
Premier 2006, with enough features to keep
your PC safe round the clock. The McAfee
Internet Suite 2006 has more advanced
features than what the previous versions
Applications
offered, a noticeable one being the
plug-in for Internet Explorer to block access
to known ‘phishing’ sites. The new
features will protect your PC from spam,
ad ware, Trojans, etc.
Having started with security
applications, we haven’t forgotten the cool
ones. One such is the muvee autoProducer
5 that lets you make movies in a jiffy. All
| The Ratings Explained
The parameters used for evaluating
software are assigned a graphical rating
out of a scale of 5. These parameters include
performance, features and ease of use. The
overall rating shown in the reviews is based
on all these factors.
In addition, there is a value for money rating
for each application. This rating is obtained
Pramod Jadhav
budding movie makers will find this an
interesting tool. Also, check out the new
version of Winamp that has fixed most of
the bugs of the previous versions. We have
also reviewed Virtual CD 7.0 that allows you
to have 23 virtual drives.
Another application that we found
interesting is Nero 7 Premium, labelled as
the complete multimedia software that
you can ever find. You can play audio and
video files and at the same time use this
application to burn CDs or DVDs.
Did we miss out the Elicitus Content
Publisher? Well, it’s a feature-rich content
authoring tool, the best part being even if
you don’t have any scripting knowledge,
you will be at ease while using this.
A wide array, it is. Read on to find out
which of these suit your needs best.
by stacking the features and the utility of the
application against its price.
In the case of freeware and shareware
tools that are available for download from
the Internet, we replace the price with the
download size (and therefore the time taken
to download the application) for arriving at
the value for money rating.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

PC savior
T oday, when your PC is under continuous
threat from viruses, spyware, trojans,
you are constantly in search of good
software that will provide you various
options that will help make your system
more secure as well as ensure that it is
always protected. Norton SystemWorks
2006 Premier is one such tool that ensures
that the security of your system is never
compromised.
When you run the CD you are presented
with a menu from where you can choose
whether you want to install Norton
SystemWorks Premier or launch the
various utilities from the CD. The utilities
that you can run directly from the CD are
Norton Cleanup, Norton Disk Doctor and
WinDoctor and Wipe Info. If you don’t have
much space on your hard disk dive and
you need to free up some space then you
can select Norton Cleanup. This will scan
your cached files and temporary files and
remove the unwanted files. As a result, you
will be able to free up some space on your
hard disk. Selecting Norton Disk Doctor will
allow you to diagnose and repair your disk
problems. Just select which disks you want
to be diagnosed and if you want the errors
to be fixed automatically then you can do so
by just enabling this option. The diagnosing
process will scan your partition table
along with the file structures and if any
errors exist it will be promptly displayed.
Another utility that you can run from the
CD is Norton WinDoctor. This utility will
automatically perform all the tests; it even
allows you to choose which tests you want
to run. Once you proceed with the tests
WinDoctor will then check for any problems
with Windows and at the end show you
as to where the problems exist. It even
While installing, you can select either
preselected options or custom installation
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
TESTED | APPLICATIONS 71
allows you to repair these problems. The
last utility here is Wipe info that allows
System Security
Norton SystemWorks 2006 Premier
Specifications: Windows XP/2000, 300 MHz or higher
you to permanently remove files from your
processor, 256 MB of RAM, 170 MB of available hard
hard drive. Other than the utilities you can disk space
also install CheckIt and performance test
Price Rs 3,999
directly without actually installing Norton
Contact Ingram Micro India
SystemWorks. Phone 09324604427
When you start the installation for E-mail shreekant.c@ingrammicro.co.in
Norton Systemworks, a pre-install check up RATINGS
will run which includes a Norton GoBack Ease of use
Preinstall Scan along with an anti-virus Features
Quick Scan. Once this is done you will have Performance
to select the installation type, whether Overall Rating
you want to install with preselected Value for money
options or custom installation where you
can manually select the application that
you wish to install. It is better to deselect
Norton GoBack because if you select this
then it will give you a lot of problems when
Windows restarts after the installation.
The installation does take quite a lot of
your system resources and it is advisable
that you don’t have any other applications
running while SystemWorks installs.
Once you are through with the
From here you can install the utilities (as
installation the rest of the procedure is
seen above) directly from the CD
similar to the earlier versions of Norton
Systemworks. This includes activating your
product, running LiveUpdate, etc. From the
‘Extra Features’ option you can run System
Optimizer, which allows you to optimize the
settings for Windows XP. You can also lock
your settings with a password so that no
one else can change your settings.
Overall, Norton SystemWorks 2006
Premier has all the features that will protect
your PC round the clock. The drawbacks
are that this application uses a lot of your
system resources as a result of which the
system slows down. When we tested this
software on a 1.6 GHz AMD Athlon XP
1800+ with 480 MB of RAM, it utilized, on
an average, 75 percent of CPU resources
and approximately 57 MB of system
memory. Also installing Norton GoBack
can give you problems while restarting, as
occasionally Windows fails to load.
For: Provides complete security options; can
run most of the utilities from the CD itself.
Against: Reduces the speed of your system,
installing Norton GoBack could result in
Windows not loading properly; expensive.
72 APPLICATIONS | TESTED
Surf without worrying
System Security
McAfee Internet Suite 2006 W ith more advanced features
as compared to the earlier
versions, McAfee Internet Suite 2006
Specifications: 300 MHz or higher processor,
will certainly allay your fears regarding
Windows All, 128 MB of RAM, CD-ROM Drive, 100
MB of available hard disk space, Internet Explorer online transactions. This application is
5.5 or higher. a comprehensive, multi-layered security
solution that protects your most
Price Rs 2,500
Contact Kartik Shahani important digital files and personal
Phone 56935278 information from the latest security
E-mail Kartik_Shahani@McAfee.com threats. It also blocks unwanted or
Website www.mcafee.com
persistent pop-up ads, manages cookies
RATINGS
and filters unwanted and offensive
Ease of use
Internet and e-mail content.
Features
If you have any other anti-virus
Performance
software installed on your PC then you will
Overall Rating
Value for money
have to manually uninstall them before the
installation can proceed. The application
will install McAfee Virus Scan, Personal
Firewall, Privacy Service, and Spam Killer.
The installation does take time so you will
have to be patient till the installation gets
over. After the installation is done, you
can create privacy service administrator
password. After you register the software,
it will update itself with the latest virus
definitions.
The interface of the main menu
is quite user friendly and retains the
The main interface that informs you about appearance of the previous version. From
the various protection levels for your PC ‘My Security Center’ you come to know
about the potential security risk for your
PC. This is done very neatly with colored
bar charts displaying the current level of
your computer’s protection which is easily
understood. Red means bad and
Green means good. The virus scan
allows you to scan your computer
for viruses, find out about viruses,
check whether it’s protecting your
PC or not, also get a view of where
the latest viruses are infecting
computers worldwide. It also
includes a huge virus data base.
With the help of Personal Firewall
Plus you can view the list of Internet
applications allowed or blocked by
the firewall, modify your settings,
test your firewall, and also trace the
origin of a suspected attack. You
can also adjust security levels with
a simple slider and extra features
like traffic monitor, which breaks
down your bandwidth usage. In the
privacy service, you can create profiles
for different users of your PC. It also has
pop-up and ad blocking. McAfee Shredder
deletes files completely from your hard
disk leaving no trace behind. Spam killer
will add all your e-mail accounts to its
protected list and as a result provides
effective respite from spam mails.
This application has lots of features
like automatic spy ware detection which
identifies, blocks and removes potential
spyware or other programs that could pose
as a threat to your privacy or even slow it
down. It automatically detects when you
are in full screen mode and suppresses
pop-up messages. It can identify and block
potential ‘phishing’ web sites and scams.
It can also automatically clean infections
when a virus or a Trojan is detected. It
has got advanced spam filtering features.
Additionally, it also allows you to have
immediate integration with your existing
e-mail accounts and also allows spam to
be managed directly within Outlook and
Outlook Express.
Overall, McAfee Internet Suite is a very
good security tool for both the home as
well as the office users. The virus scanner
is very good and meets the standards
expected from McAfee. Additional
features like Firewall and Spam Killer do
add to the overall utility of the product.
The Internet Explorer plug-in to block
access to known phishing sites is also
noteworthy. You also get free live support
via Internet chat round the clock.
On the downside, however, it does use a
lot of system resources and as a result your
PC becomes a bit slower. Just to give you an
idea, this software utilized on an average 70
percent of CPU resources and approximately
55 MB of system memory when installed
on a 1.6 GHz AMD Athlon XP 1800+ with
480 MB of RAM. The virus scans do take
longer than those of Norton Internet
Security 2006.
For: Plug-in to block access to known
phishing sites, wide array of features that
ensure your system stays protected.
Against: Longer virus scans, makes the
system slower, plug-in to block access to
known phising sites is only for Internet
Explorer.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Create your own potboiler
A t some point of time everyone
amongst us has had the inclination
to make a movie with the pictures and
videos that we have, only to drop the idea
because of the lack of good software.
But with muvee autoProducer 5, you can
turn your dream of becoming a movie
maker into reality. muvee autoProducer
5 lets you experience the fastest and the
easiest way to transform your videos and
pictures into professional quality movies
instantly. It allows you to create complete
home movies from raw video clips.
The interface is quite elegant and
all the options are present right on the
interface itself. You are given the option
to add videos or pictures as well as music
from which you can create your own
movies. From the images that you have
queued to make movies, you can select
an area of interest within the image
with the help of magicSpot. Then in your
final movie those areas will be focused.
Making a movie is quite simple, you
just have to select the video files and
pictures from your hard disk, add your
favorite music, choose a style from the
various style options available and click
on ‘make muvee’. If in this movie there is
something that you are not satisfied with
and you would like to change that then
you will be able to edit it very easily. You
are also allowed to add multiple music
tracks to your movie. If a particular frame
grabs your attention then you can take a
snap of it by using the snapshot option.
You can also change the settings for
your movie. If you find that the duration
of your final movie is too short then you
can provide the user defined duration and
also allow videos and music to repeat.
Selecting the Video tab will provide
you options wherein you can shuffle
shots as well as interleave pictures. The
audio tab gives you options wherein it
automatically crossfades music tracks to
remove the silence in between them and
also adjusts the audio playback volume
of different tracks to the same level.
By using the ‘tweak muvee’ option you
can select a particular segment of the
movie and auto replace it with something
similar or something different. You can
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
TESTED | APPLICATIONS 73
also do it manually. It basically allows you
to make some quick final touch-ups to
your movie.
Movie Maker
muvee autoProducer 5
Specifications: 1 GHz Pentium III processor or
The styles provided in muvee equivalent, 256 MB of RAM, 16 MB of Video RAM,
autoProducer are templates for producing Microsoft DirectX 9.0
your movies. They basically determine
Price $99.95 (Approx Rs 5,000)
how fast your movie is, and the effects Website www.muvee.com
and transitions. If you do not know which
RATINGS
style to choose then just select any one
Ease of use
style and you will be able to see a short
Features
sample of the style. If you think that
Performance
the styles provided here are not of your Overall Rating
interest then you can go to the Value for money
web site and get new styles that suit your
needs.
Another feature is magicMoments that
allows you to quickly pre-select the most
important shots of your video with a
thumbs-up button to ensure that they are
included in the final production. Once you
have used magicMoments to pre-select
shots in your video, all future productions
you make will use this information. You
can also add your own title and credits to
The easy-to-use interface provides you
your movies.
with all the options required to make a
This application will be very useful for movie
all those who wanted to create their own
movies quickly and without much effort. Find it on CHIP CD
It even allows you to burn your saved
movies on to a DVD and then share it
with your friends and relatives. It’s simple
to use with a very easy-to-use interface.
However, it’s quite resource hungry. So
before you start using this application do
check the system requirements.
For: Easy to use, good features, allows you
to create movies and then share them.
Against: Resource hungry.
magicSpot allows you to select a particular With ‘teak muvee’ you can make the final
area of your image touch-ups to your movie
74 APPLICATIONS | TESTED

New and better

Multimedia
Winamp 5.12 T his new version of Winamp has lots
of new features as well as significant
improvements when compared to the
Specifications: Windows All
earlier versions. Some of the noticeable
Price Free additions include a new decoder, built-in
Website www.winamp.com cross fader, an advanced Media Library.
RATINGS During the installation
Ease of use you are asked to select the
Features optional components that
Performance you will would like to install
Overall Rating as well as the media to be
associated with Winamp.
Find it on CHIP CD By default all are selected.
In the Preferences option,
you can enable Hotkeys to
play your audio and video
files with ease. The CD
ripping feature here will
allow you to select the encoding format of
your choice. Some of the encoding formats
available are accPlus Encoder v1.1; MP4
ACC v1.0. You can even choose whether
you want the Classic skin or the Modern
skin for Winamp.
The new features in this version of
Winamp include Windows Media Video
support and also support for HE-AAC MP4/
M4A files. It allows you to alter the sound
through a built-in equalizer. It has also got
lots of minor plug-in improvements, a vast
improvement from the earlier
versions.
Overall, Winamp 5.12
has good new features.
Most significantly, most of
the bugs that existed in the
previous version have been
fixed. The drawbacks are that
you still can’t rip and burn
your CDs at the maximum
speed your CD burner can
offer. Also, you can’t rip your
CDs to MP3s. For these tasks, you will have
to purchase Winamp Pro.
For: The bugs of previous versions have
been fixed; additional new features.
Against: For some of the features you will
have to purchase Winamp PRO.

Create virtual drives

System Utility
Virtual CD 7.0
V irtual CD 7.0 is a software that lets
you create up to 23 additional virtual
CD/DVD drives. As a result, no more will you
What is even more interesting is that it
allows you to create unlimited number
of virtual CDs. It also has better data
Specifications: Windows All
be bothered about scratched or lost disks. compression. You can also organize your
Price $39.95 (Approx Rs 2,000) After you finish the installation and virtual CDs in folders. Another feature is
Website www.virtualcd-online.com run the program you are presented with that it allows editing of current virtual
RATINGS an array of tasks. CDs with the virtual
Ease of use These tasks allow you CD editor. Your virtual
Features to create a virtual CDs are password
Performance CD, burn a virtual protected and hence
Overall Rating CD/DVD, delete the they are protected from
Value for money data from a rewritable unauthorized access.
disk, etc. All these Virtual CD 7.0
Find it on CHIP CD tasks are present on enables you to perform
the interface itself. all the tasks with
And if you are stuck relative ease. Its simple
anywhere in between then you can interface is particularly helpful to the
always refer to the help menu. From the novice user.
Settings option you can check out the The only downside is that you will need
supported ISO images and if any format is to purchase it to continue using it.
missing then you can add it yourself. You For: Easy to use; simple interface; allows
can also change the default path where you to create 23 virtual drives; allows
the virtual CDs are stored. network access to your CD archive; you
Multiple CD applications can be can also organize your Virtual CDs into
accessed simultaneously. It allows you to folders, better data compression.
have network access to your CD archive. Against: None.

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006


Very innovative
I f you want to experience digital media
in a completely new and innovative way
then Nero 7 Premium is the software to
get. Nero 7 Premium allows you to manage
your media files, edit videos as well as
compress files to take them
wherever you go.
Before you can install
this product you will have
to uninstall all previous
versions of Nero on your
system. After installation,
you can perform many
digital media projects.
You can create your own
DVDs, edit videos, design
CD labels, etc. You can also create a back up
of your entire system on CDs/DVDs. It even
allows you to create slideshows from your
photos and videos, and also add transitions
to your music.
Some of the applications included in
this version are ‘Nero Home’, ‘Nero Scout’,
‘Nero Burning ROM 7’, ‘Nero Express 7’,
Create courses in a jiffy
E licitus is a desktop authoring tool for
trainers, educators and subject matter
experts. You require no programming or
scripting knowledge to create courses with
this software.
It provides you with a wide range of
question types like multiple choice, true
or false, etc and different
styles for navigation. It
also allows you to use
visually appealing layouts
to create designs. With
the help of a single click
you can publish what you
want on the web site, CD-
ROM, or slide shows.
Other features of this software are that
you can make one-time changes at the
master level which are then automatically
reflected in the related content. This
software has lots of templates and if you
want, you can create your own templates
also. These templates contain pre-built
course navigation and display but they can
be customized by you.
It also supports courses in many
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
TESTED | APPLICATIONS 75
‘Nero Wave Editor 3’, ‘Nero Cover Designer
2’, etc. All these applications add to the
features of this software. For example,
Multimedia
Nero 7 Premium
Specifications: 1.6 GHz Pentium 4 processor or
With Nero Home, you can quickly access
equivalent, 128 MB RAM, 600 MB of hard disk space
all your digital media files from your home;
whereas Nero Wave Editor 3 enables Price $70 (Approx Rs 3,220)
Website www.nero.com/eng/
surround sound editing.
Nero_7_Premium.html
We have got to say
RATINGS
that you must take home
Ease of use
Nero 7 Premium—it’s
Features
good for both the
Performance
novice as well as for the
Overall Rating
advanced user wanting to
Value for money
explore creative interests.
Its only drawback is that
in order to continue using
this product you will have to purchase
the retail version of the same else your
wonderful experience will end in 30 days.
For: Feature-rich software; easy to use; you
can use it as a media player and as CD/DVD
burning software.
Against: System requirements on the
higher side.
languages and you can pick it up in a
matter of few hours. It also allows you to
create assessments or exercises. You can
Content Authoring
Elicitus Content Publisher
Specifications: Pentium III Processor or higher,
also customize the score pages. Creating
256 MB of RAM, 100 MB of free hard disk space,
hyperlinks to other pages in the course Windows 2000/XP, IE 5.5 or above.
happens in a jiffy.
Price Rs 1,27, 000
For added interactivity, it allows you to
Contact Harbinger Knowledge Products
use customized buttons. Phone 020-25284201
It also has a wide range E-mail info@elicitus.com
of supported file formats. RATINGS
Another feature that Ease of use
deserves mention is that it Features
contains a course outline Performance
generator that creates a Overall Rating
hierarchical content view. Value for money
Overall, this application
is a very good authoring tool. And what’s
worth talking about is that even though
you have no scripting knowledge you will
be at ease using this. There’s one glitch
though; it’s a bit over priced for what it
offers.
For: Lots of features; built-in, user-friendly
templates; easy to use.
Against: Expensive; you need to have .NET
Framework 1.1 pre-installed.
Created by Weta Digital, King Kong is a visual treat of awe
and striking images, thanks to digital effects, doubles,
animation, motion capture, etc. It doesn’t disappoint one bit

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

 FEATURE | APPLICATIONS 77

T
he heady three-hour ‘Kong’ extravaganza replete
with brilliant effects blended with out-of-the-world
yet eerily life-like sets were created by the visual
effects facility Weta Digital and accomplished applying
Autodesk’s Discreet Lustre system to digitally color grade
the entire film. Skull Island in itself was a marvelous
creation with its larger-than-life surface of the island,
contorted and misshapen flora, decayed vegetation
studded with skulls and bones, menacing deep chasms
spanned by rotting tree trunks, and all this crawling with
hostile primitive life forms.
For better handling of the visual effects the movie
was broken down in three main parts—the scenes in New
York, in Skull Island and finally scenes during the voyage.
The deployment of the three-piecemeal approach worked
perfectly as it helped teams to concentrate on each given
patch of work at a time.
Old photographs and images depicting New York
during the Thirties were studied to re-create that era
in terms of lighting and the look and flavor of the city.
Similarly, frames and blueprints of the original Empire
State building as well as close-ups were studied to
generate a digitally rendered 3D Empire State Building and
the surrounding New York cityscape.
For the movie, Weta Digital increased its team from
around 420 people to over 500 and created an in-house
Digital Intermediate department based on Discreet
Lustre’s system. The biggest challenge faced by the team
was the creation of five million hair or fur on the ape’s
body. Fur engines from Maya, Shave and Haircut were
available, but they were just not enough to create a
life-like appearance, hence Weta also created its own fur
simulation software and new fur shaders that yielded,
slicked and animated Kong when he moved, dealt impacts
with other objects, and stirred his hair while giving it a
natural feel as it caught grime and muck.
Although it’s widely known that Andy Serkis played
the role and expressed emotions and created life for the
gorilla, much work had to be done to bring forth life and
movement to the graphic anthropoid. Serkis was motion
captured and his facial expressions were interpreted
before mapping the data onto the 3D model, while digital
doubles were created in Maya and blended with the team
efforts to make Kong seem believable.
Weta also employed the use of Los Angeles-based
effects from Massive Software namely its AI-driven
3D animation system for more than 600 visual effects
shots on King Kong, especially the scenes involving the
living, breathing backdrop of activity on Manhattan and
Skull Island. Crowd scenes were conjured with the help
of Massive 2.0; the software was also used seamlessly
in a number of sequences in tight choreography with
live-action footage, actors and props. The team that
used Massive elements animated 600 shots, which had

JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

78 APPLICATIONS | FEATURE
Kong in itself is a masterpiece, with five
million hair and a wide range of emotions
Behind Naomi Watts is a digital rendition
of the Manhattan skyline as in 1930
anywhere from 20 to thousands of digital
characters in each.
For the scenes set in New York, Weta
Digital produced a bustling metropolis
using Massive to generate cars, buses,
trains, pedestrians and circa-1930s’ traffic
patterns. For the fantastical Skull Island,
Massive was applied when the VFX studio
needed to animate birds, insects and
human in large numbers.
In the New York scenes, characters
with the help of Massive ranged from
boats, cars, buses and trains and the
humans sitting in them to people on the
streets reacting, falling down and running.
Skull Island was an entirely invented
geographic region, accomplished mainly
using miniatures and lush digital work. A
variety of creatures from flying insects to
six-legged bugs were produced in Massive
alongside bats, various birds and crowds
of native peoples. Especially fascinating
was creating from scratch Skull Island
with a varied assortment of raptors, flying
reptiles, hostile monkeys, flesh eating
creepy crawlies and giant spiders.
Intriguing sequences included ‘Ann’s
sacrifice’, ‘Kong’s capture’ that demanded
the right kind of lighting and smoky effects
and this was achieved with Discreet Lustre.
Senior visual effects supervisor at Weta,
Joe Letteri has won numerous accolades,
especially Academy Awards for visual
effects for I Robot, The Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King, The Lord of the
Rings: The Two Towers, amongst others. He
used Discreet Lustre as part of the entire
visual effects color grading process while
making King Kong—color grading at the
front end, before the computer-generated
elements were added, and at the very end
to grade the final images. As the elements
came in, Lustre helped to work out the look
for complex environments.
Producing the right color and lighting
were key aspects of King Kong. The
filmmakers knew they had control and
flexibility in the digital grading post-
production phase, which gave them more
freedom while shooting. For example,
when shooting took place at various times
of the day, the lighting could later be
corrected with Discreet Lustre to match
the preferred lighting and time of the day.
With five Discreet Lustre systems installed
at Weta Digital, in New Zealand, digital
colorists were able to explore numerous
options for the film’s look.
“Color Bibles” were created in the Lustre
system. These Bibles contained two or
three digitally color graded shots from
each of the film’s scenes, establishing color
references for the final color grade. The
end result was a stunning, stylized film in
which color greatly enhanced the viewer’s
experience as establishing the right look
and feel is an essential part of the story. ■
| Carol D’Costa
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

E-LEGALITIES
Top ten items that you must have on your legal checklist
T
he rapid development of the
web offers many opportunities
to those brave enough to seize
them. Nevertheless, dangers galore. It’s
important therefore for those entering the
world of e-commerce to bear ten key legal
principles in mind. A look at them here:
1. Mark your territory: Trading on the
Internet means you’re dealing with
customers worldwide. Always state
that the contracts are under the Indian
jurisdiction. Could you deliver to someone
in some distant corner of the globe? Are
you selling products on which certain
jurisdictions impose strict regulations?
Sometimes a “territory statement” reduces
the risk of unwittingly contracting with a
customer abroad, whose local laws may
give him additional rights and against
who it might be difficult to enforce any
judgement if things go wrong.
2. Have the final say: If you allow
customers to place orders online, make
sure you have the final say on whether
a binding contract is made. This is done
by making it clear that the web site is an
invitation to buy, not an offer to sell. In
law, the former means a contract is formed
when you accept the order, while the latter
means it is formed as soon as an order is
placed—so you will be bound to fulfil it.
Make it clear that no binding contract exists
until you send an e-mail to accept the order,
confirming the goods and the price.
3. On your own terms: Ensure your
standard terms and conditions are clearly
displayed on your web site. Do so preferably
by including links to them on each page
with the “I agree” button at the end before
the customers can place an order. Check
that your terms deal with key matters such
as payment and the extent of your delivery
guarantees.
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
| Rodney D Ryder
rodney@preconcept.com
4. Is it secure?: Provide secure payment
mechanisms such as encryption and secure
arrangements with credit card companies.
5. The customer’s always right: Contracts
with customers who are not buying for
business purposes will be governed by
consumer protection legislation. You cannot
exclude some warranties relating to the
nature of the goods in consumer contracts,
and limits on your liability will only work if
they are “reasonable”. Your site must set out
information on key issues such as delivery
charges, order progress and policies on
returns and redress, bearing in mind that
any unfair terms may be ineffective in a
contract with a consumer.
6. Privacy policy: A privacy policy clearly
signposted must comply with applicable
data protection legislation (as per the
Information Technology Act 2000). For
example, a database of customers’ names
and addresses must be processed in
accordance with certain “Data Protection
Principles”, such as collecting and processing
data fairly and lawfully, keeping it up to
date, keeping it secure and not transferring
it abroad without relevant safeguards.
7. Domain names: Decide on a preferred
domain name, check on its availability
and register as soon as possible. The
international domain registries recognize
COLUMN | APPLICATIONS 79
that national trademark rights have a
priority, and you will not be able to use a
domain if a similar trademark is registered.
Similarly, if someone is using a domain
similar to your trademark, you can prevent
him or her from doing so.
8. Protecting your brand: Someone
else may have registered your brand as a
trademark in a different country. Although
your registration will be effective in India,
putting the trademark on the site may
infringe that second trademark registration.
This can be taken care of by making it
clear on the site that you’re only targeting
the Indian market. If you plan to trade
internationally, clear the trademark for
usage in each of your target countries and,
where needed register. Reproducing third
party trademarks on your site involves a
significant risk of trademark infringement,
so obtain the third party’s permission first.
9. Copyright: You will automatically own
various copyrights for your site. Unless sites
state that you can use their material freely,
you can’t infringe upon their rights. Hotlinks
too may infringe third party copyright, so
it’s best to obtain consent for the proposed
use. All links should be checked regularly to
ensure they still work and that the content
of the linked site is still appropriate.
10. Chatting online: Many companies
offer online chat rooms and blogs, allowing
you to post comments on their servers.
The courts have recently decided that the
owner of a server is responsible for the
content on his web site. You could therefore
find yourself liable to a third party for
defamation because of comments made via
an online chat facility. ■
Rodney D Ryder heads Preconcept (www.
preconcept.com), a service law firm with
cutting edge specialization in Intellectual
Property, Media and Technology Law
rodney@preconcept.com
80 APPLICATIONS | INFOGRAPHIC

Voice Calls for a Song

I PC-to-PC Connection
f you’ve never heard of Voice over IP (VoIP), you’re missing out on a cool
technology. Especially if you have family and friends outside your home
town, this is a technology that enables you to make phone calls to their
land lines or computers at little or no cost. Yes, depending upon the VoIP
method you opt for, costs could range from a fraction of what your phone
provider is charging you all the way to being totally free! And you needn’t
invest in too much new hardware—if you have a broadband connection
and a computer at home, all you’d need is to supplement it with a headset,
a microphone, some software and you’re ready to start making phone calls
at deliciously low rates!
VoIP uses a different approach to voice transmission as compared to
traditional telephone lines. With the former, your telephone instrument
is connected to other telephones through a network of copper lines, local
exchanges, international exchanges, satellites etc. Through it all, the mode
of transmission of voice is via electrical signals. This network is not to be 1 PC User
confused with the Internet—it is a completely different network altogether.
In the case of VoIP, the network used is not your telephone network, PC-to-Phone Connection
but the Internet itself. The voice information transmitted is first converted
into a series of digital ‘packets’ that are eventually transmitted through the
Internet in much the same way as information is transmitted while you are
surfing through Internet web sites. With this approach, since you already
have your Internet connection at home, you are not paying anything extra
for using voice capability. VoIP therefore ‘piggy-backs’ voice on your existing
Internet line. Obviously, the faster your Internet connection, the higher will
be the voice quality.
There are three scenarios that VoIP can be used in, depending upon the
device used at the source and destination.

1 PC to PC: In this method, all you need at both ends of the phone
calls is a computer with appropriate VoIP software installed (Skype, MSN PC User
Messenger and Yahoo Messenger are software that offer voice capabilities). 2
Using this method, since the call initates and ends on computers connected
to the Internet, there are no additional costs—you are only paying what you
are for your Internet connection and nothing more.
Phone-to-Phone Connection
2 PC to Phone: If you are using a PC and need to make a call to a remote
land line, the situation gets a bit more complicated. Since your voice call
needs to be routed from the Internet to conventional telephone networks, Adapter
end-users are charged for the fees involved. Therefore, this method is
slightly costlier than the first.

3 Phone to phone: Since telephone instruments are used at both ends

of the call, the service has to be tied in very closely to your Internet service
provider. These days, this method is still fledgling as there aren’t many
service providing inherent voice capabilities with their Internet packages.
| Marco D’Souza Phone User
3
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
 INFOGRAPHIC | APPLICATIONS 81

Set yourself free from costly phone bills—using a voice communication technology
called Voice over IP (VoIP), you can make and receive voice calls using your existing
broadband connection. Let’s take a peek at what makes this exciting technology so
useful and accessible to consumers

Internet PC User Free of Cost

PSTN
Internet Phone User Costs a little

PSTN
Internet Costs more
Service Provider
Pramod Jadhav

JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

Pramod Jadhav
Real vs Reel
What we see is not often what it is. What you see on reel as
against what is shot in reality is possible because of visual
effects. And what with the industry maturing now, the
opportunity to explore career options in this arena is immense
R
emember Russel Crowe in The Beautiful
Mind looking out of his window and
scribbling figures all over it? You must have
also noticed a change in the timeline soon after.
Subtle, yet admittedly assertive, visual effects
made that scene possible. Cut to eerie Gollum
staring you in the face, and emitting his hisses in
Lord of the Rings III. The above mentioned are two
of the many such scenes and sequences where
visual effects have played a key role in enhancing
the subject of the film or suggesting a transition
in period or in simply entertaining.
Now that was a bit about Hollywood. But
Bollywood isn’t lagging behind. Though, earlier
on, touching up films digitally was almost
unthinkable, today it’s a different story. With the
adoption of technology, Indian film producers
today have more control over the budget, and the
final look and feel. The post-production process
here in India has evolved with global trends and
the infrastructure and equipment used are at par
with what’s available abroad. Digital Intermediate
for full-length feature films is a comparatively
new process and Indian films are making full
use of this technology. DI has added a range of
film styling options as well visualizing options,
unimaginable in the analog domain. The most
recent films to have used DI are Black, The Rising,
Chocolate and the just released Vaah! Life
Ho Toh Aisi.
Imagine if Black wouldn’t have that dreamy
look, largely made possible by DI, combined
with Autodesk’s Discreet Lustre and Smoke
(two applications that enable these effects),
all the old world charm of the movie dating to
a past era would have been lost. While Lustre
makes it possible to design new looks and color
grade, Smoke manages with finesse all the
finishing tasks. Applications like Smoke, Lustre,
Fire, Flame, Combustion, etc have added more
creative capabilities to the cinematographer and
simplified many complicated tasks.
The market’s changing undoubtedly, and the
rising demand for visual effects in advertising,
feature films, and slowly television is throwing
up a lot of opportunities for the young and the
talented. There’s no dearth of talent around;
what’s lacking is awareness and visibility. But
now since the industry is showing prospects of
growing rapidly, visual effects artists have a lot
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
to look forward to. It’s a world market
everyone’s looking at now. Bollywood
films are not being made keeping only
the Indian audience in mind but the
global audience at large. So even if our
industry has not grown out of the tried
and tested formula for filmmaking with
the same old storylines, the approach has
definitely changed. Scenes are futuristically
conceived and shot and then processed.
Coupled with that, there’s a new breed of
filmmakers doing away with run-of-the-
mill stuff and experimenting with new
subjects. Hence, the scope to explore in
the special effects arena is huge. What’s
worth mentioning here is the just emerged
although not yet arrived animation
industry in India. Our homegrown
animation wonder, Hanuman, is the first
of its kind animation film with an epical
subject backing it; its success is a clear
indication of the fact that the future holds
good for the industry and for the people
working for it.
VFX demystified
Post-production experts we spoke to, while
talking about the artist’s dependence on
applications, helped us delve deep into the
world of effects by giving real examples.
Merzin Tavaria, Visual Effects Supervisor
and Creative Director at Prime Focus,
says it was three years back when a film
(Qayamat) was DI processed in India for
the first time. Other than DI, Qayamat
included pure CG work such as designing
environment props like aircraft, all of
which was done on 3D with the help of
Autodesk’s 3ds Max software. Only 20
percent of the film included visual effects.
So it’s definitely been a long way since
then. One of the very recent films, No
Entry (Prime Focus) used special effects to
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
overcome issues of production as well
as artist safety. One sequence in the film
required the three lead actors to hang
from a cliff side with a rocky beach below.
Shooting a scene like this would endanger
the lives of the artists. So the sequence was
shot in a location with the actors hanging,
suspended with cables at a height of only
a few feet. Plates of rocks and the sea
were shot separately. A new background
was created using these plates complete
with rocks at a distance of a few hundred
meters, and a totally new shoreline
to enhance the effect of the waves
crashing on the rocks below. Discreet
Smoke enabled the smart compositing
behind the scene which was convincingly
dangerous. Discreet Smoke is an all-in-one
integrated creative editing and finishing
system, offering HD to 2K scalability and
unmatched speed. The system provides
compositors the flexibility to edit media
at any resolution, aspect ratio and frame
rate in a single timeline, to mix them in
compositions and then to master in any
desirable output format.
Even a movie like Mujhse Shaadi Karogi
(can you think of special effects in a “girl-
meet-boy” kind of a film?) included special
effects. The scene depicting six Akshay
Kumars fighting a single Salman Khan,
says Merzin, was shot using Milo Motion
Control Rig. In very simple terms, tis is like
a computerized crane which enables you
to repeat certain camera moves a number
of times. It can also perform complicated
tasks like scaling down a move for shooting
miniatures. In this particular scene, each
Akshay was shot as a separate layer on a
green screen and all of them were later
composited using Smoke. Remember the
Matrix? It’s interesting to know that in the
past when double-role sequences were shot,
the camera had to be locked in one place
when doing the various layer shots. But Milo
gives the director of photography a lot of
freedom to plan shots the way he wants to.
One of the most popular ads on
television, the Toyota Innova, which shows
several Aamir Khans inside the car, in the
getups of the roles he has played in the
past was shot in a similar fashion. And
might as you think, Aamir wasn’t sitting
in the car against the backdrop of the
beautiful locales as shown in the ad. He
was simply doing his job in the studio with
a flat green background. Roads and the
amazing landscape were shot separately
and then visual effects artists displayed
their acumen by joining them together and
then compositing beautifully on Smoke.
The visual appeal in the ad showing
Jackie Chan flying on a bike was possible
after color correction was done through
telecine on a Spirit 4K system, and further
http://www.postmaster.co.in
Flexible
Add-on modules to provide
single point protection from viruses, spam,
malicious and objectionable content and
for a regulated Web-access environment.
Truly Next Generation
For a free trial call QuantumLink Communications Pvt. Ltd.
Mumbai - 26820004. Bangalore - 51152792.
New Delhi - 26691152 / 927. Pune - 9373307992
Or write to - sales.ho@postmaster.co.in
86 APPLICATIONS | FEATURE
enhanced by Smoke.
The latest in the list of digitally enhanced
films from Prime Focus’ bag is Sanjay Gupta’s
Vaah! Life Ho To Aisi. The entire film has been
shot on high definition. Life Ho to Aisi is one of
the heaviest projects handled by PF so far. About
65-70 minutes in the film constitute VFX.
The promos of the film showing Sanjay Dutt
flying through the clouds is currently on air. And
if you’re wondering if those are real clouds, think
again! The clouds were created in 3D Maya, after
which the lead characters were composited on
them with the help of Smoke. The illusory look
created for Shahid Kapoor, who plays the ghost in
the film, was particularly challenging because of
the sheer number of shots, over 650 or so. Frame
cutting of mattes for the characters, with the
‘glow’ effect along with a moving texture and
smoke particles enabled by Adobe After Effects
and Particle Illusion, added the eerie look to the
scenes. As each shot had a different lighting
pattern, maintaining it for all the shots was a
difficult task.
Rajiv Raghunathan, Sr Line Producer at EFX,
avows the importance of high-performance
systems like Arri Laser film recorder, 4K Spirit
and 4K Oxberry scanners, indispensable to most
post-production houses, and which EFX constantly
depends on for all DI projects. A couple of the most
recently concluded Indian and foreign projects
completed at EFX Studios include Taj Mahal, Blood
Sucker (English), Anniyan (Tamil), Ghajini (Tamil),
The Shooting Gallery (English), Athadu (Telugu).
Other projects nearing completion include Forest, I
Not Stupid Too and Shot of Love.
As the amount of VFX work in films is
increasing by the day, it’s important that artists’
time is saved—hence the need for applications
that can work faster. Prime Focus is the post-
production house, claims Autodesk, that has the
highest number of Autodesk systems.
Future projects with heavy DI and VFX work
include Harry Baweja’s Love Story 2050—a
completely futuristic project. Prime Focus is
excited with the amount of work they would
have to put in a project of this magnitude. Also
expected from Pixion’s bag is a Ram Gopal Verma
film that is supposed to include a completely
“digital environment” song. Pixion refused to talk
much of it but what it would effectively include
is a lot of compositing shots.
At the Pixion studios, resolution independent
software like Smoke 6.7 and Flame 9 at the
Pixion editing suite allow a far superior level
| Visit
Prime Focus
http://primefocus.co.in/v2/home.html
Tel: (022) 56925000
Pixion
http://www.pixion.tv/
Tel: (022) 55076607
EFX
http://efxmagic.com/
Tel: (022) 28259622/3/4/5
of compositing and detailing. The final output
we see on screen is basically the execution of
complicated effects on latest versions of Flame,
Smoke, Shake (with a wide range of specialized
plugins), combined with the distinct advantage
of working on high-resolution. Spirit 4K Datacine
enables scanning the image up to 4K resolution
(which means you upscale the image size to
play with detail), even for an SD output, after
which again it’s downscaled to 2K. Also, now
with real time transfer of rushes from telecine
to the centralized digital storage, the process of
transferring data from film to tape is eliminated.
So it’s more work in less time.
India has opened up as an offshore market for
foreign projects. A lot of post-production work
is done here for foreign films. The reason is of
course quality at lower costs. And the trend is
bound to pick up, considering the pace at which
the industry is moving. Working in this direction
are companies like Autodesk in collaboration
with Zee Institude of Media Arts, imparting
specialized training in the usage of applications
for compositing.
Athough the future is full of opportunities,
VFX specialists point out an acute lack of
technicians in the industry. And what with this
industry growing, the dearth of programmers will
be felt very soon. “If we want to call the shots,
we better have our own programmers creating
software for our projects, failing which we will be
known as just another BPO, doing only second-
level work thrown at us by the West, says Rajeev
Joseph, VFX supervisor at Pixion Studios.
Solutions enable film production from the
stage when ideas are germinated to the final
color graded frame. But these solutions are after
all only tools in the hands of the creative minds.
It’s up to the artists to use them the way they
want to. After all, it’s the human mind that is the
key to making optimum use of these tools and
their capabilities. ■
| Sharmistha Dey
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Building independence
Technology for the physically disabled is slowly beginning to be taken seriously in
India with the development of more and more specialized applications and hardware
B
eing physically challenged doesn’t
necessarily mean not being able
to achieve what is seemingly
impossible. Over the years we have been
witness to unimaginable feats achieved
by the physically challenged. So feeling at
home with technology is just another step
in this process. After all, if everyone else
around us can become tech savvy, there’s
no reason why the disabled should be left
behind. The first attempt towards making
this possible here in India has been taken
by the Council for Indian School Certificate
Examination (CISE).
This year, the Council has taken the
decision to enable physically challenged
students to develop technical skills by
encouraging the use of computers using
special teaching and learning aids.
Therefore, students who are challenged
with vision impairment, dyslexia (learning
disability) and dysgraphia (writing
disability) will now be able to interact with
a fair amount of technology—a sector
that might have thus far been alien to
them. Although there are several decisions
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
that need to be taken along this road, this
initiative is expected to open a window of
opportunities for future developments.
One of the many NGOs in this field
is Educare, which has been active in
spreading awareness relating to children
suffering from dyslexia. In their first
workshop in the year 1999, conducted
on dyslexic students, it was illustrated
that such children can lead a normal life
if only their learning problems can be
solved. Richard Wanderman, an education
technology consultant from New Preston,
and a dyslexic himself, conducted the
workshop and pointed out the fact that
digital writing tools can help in overcoming
the hurdles experienced due to dyslexia.
The digital writing tool is similar to a
normal keyboard, with an additional
display unit to reproduce text clearly,
concisely and in a bigger font size for
the user. This can be easily attached to a
computer and can be used seamlessly with
Windows and Linux applications.
Habitat Learning Center (HLC),
another NGO working in this sphere, has
Dinesh Desai
emphasized the usage of text-to-speech
software, which is highly user specific and
which also provides a fairly high level of
independence to the user. The technology
behind software like this (known as
Assistive or Adaptive Technology) has the
potential to enhance a child’s ability to
communicate, learn, move around and
play. HLC also highlighted how devices like
roller balls, mouth sticks, head sticks and
joysticks have the ability to break barriers
for all those challenged with hand mobility.
The mouth stick, aptly named, is a device
that the user can clutch at with the help of
his teeth and tap at the other end of the
stick to type on the keyboard.
The Systems Development Laboratory
(SDL) of the Science and Engineering
Department of IIT Madras, also developed
a particular software for the purpose of
teaching the use of computers to those
who don’t speak English. The same was
extended with features to make it suitable
for the visually handicapped. The software
can read out text which are created and
edited in it, in several Indian languages
88 APPLICATIONS | FEATURE
A text-to-speech reader software to assist
the visually handicapped to listen to what
they have typed
including Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali,
Oriya, Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam
and of course English. It can also read
electronic books. Interestingly, as it can
read instructional designs, school or college
text books are converted into e-books by
using this software (developed by IIMT)
thus enabling the visually handicapped
to study them easily. Apart from this, the
software has been built in a way that it
can deliver printouts in Bharati Braille
(the adaptation of the six-dot system for
Indian languages). Above all, the software
also has a talking web browser to assist
the user in browsing web sites. What it
basically does is culls out only textual
information (filtering out all visuals with
the help of ‘Betsie’—a technology used for
this purpose). The software has a unique
feature of generating phonetically correct
audio feedback, claims Kalyana Krishnan, a
professor at IITM.
Another NGO working in this domain
is Asha. It started its crusade for enabling
physically challenged children to lead
normal lives during the year 1991. Asha
http://www.postmaster.co.in
Scalable
Engineered to handle the demands
of hundreds of users, simultaneously.
And at remarkably low TCO.
Truly Next Generation
For a free trial call QuantumLink Communications Pvt. Ltd.
Mumbai - 26820004. Bangalore - 51152792.
New Delhi - 26691152 / 927. Pune - 9373307992
Or write to - sales.ho@postmaster.co.in
started out by formulating a discussion
forum of a student research group.
Today, it works as a support system for
specialized schools for children suffering
from disabilities like cerebral palsy, visual
impairment, hearing impairment, slow
learning capabilities and the likes.
In one of their projects for blind
children, Asha rendered its support in the
form of Braille Production Unit, capable of
transforming textbook characters to Braille
characters. This unit consists of a scanner,
a computer, a translation software and a
Braille printer.
Asha’s goal was to increase the
conversion ratio of characters translated
into Braille. Traditionally, when it was
done by Braille typewriters, the conversion
ratio was a mere two to three text-book
characters per second to Braille characters.
However, things changed rapidly with the
use of technology—it is now possible to
convert 50 text-book characters per second
into Braille characters.
Although ample projects have been
floated to integrate technology seamlessly
into the daily lives of the challenged, many
have not been implemented so far. In fact,
the pilot project spearheaded by Habitat
Learning Center died a premature death
primarily due to lack of funds. Whatever
significant little has been achieved in this
sphere has been mainly for the visually
impaired. Nothing noticeable has been
done to develop specific technology for
those who suffer from learning or writing
disabilities.
CISE’s new regulation allowing the
physically challenged to use computers at
board examinations is indeed innovative.
“The council has been concerned about
the difficulties faced by the differently
abled since a long time”, stated Ms Rita
Wilson, secretary to the board. “It was
1993 when, for the first time, a public
announcement was made stating that
candidates suffering from dyslexia would
be given special consideration in the ICSE
and ISC examinations,” she added. At
present, the council permits extra hours, a
reader and a writer to be physically present
wherever required for such students. This
would naturally alienate the candidate in
an examination room.
A Braille printer that helps the visually
handicapped to read
After spending careful time and effort
to find out the core ability areas of the
handicapped, the council arrived at the
conclusion that such children are more
comfortable with computers and the
decision has been taken to allow PCs to
be used in examinations. These are not
specially designed computers but regular
PCs running on Pentium 3 processors. The
software asking questions to the visually
impaired during examinations will be
developed not only for Windows but also
for the Linux platform. This software,
confirms Ms Wilson, will be highly user
friendly.
Since this is the first step taken in
the direction, the council has decided to
continue with their tradition of providing
a reader or writer in case a student finds
it uncomfortable to use the PC. The board
has also taken up the responsibility to
provide structured guidance to schools in
terms of grooming students, since writing
an examination paper with the help of a
PC would need reasonable amount of
practice.
Looking to the future, the National
Institute of Mental Health and Neuro
Sciences (NIHAMS) has already defined
their vision to explore solutions for the
mentally challenged children. Research is
being done on fringe sciences such as stem
cell research and gene chip applications.
The correlation between a processor and
the human brain is being closely studied
and research is in progress to create
applications that could one day enable
embedded processors to supplement the
non-functioning parts of the human brain.
With technology headed in this direction,
the day where the challenged become
champions is probably close than we can
imagine. ■
| Pradosh Mitra
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
90 APPLICATIONS | FEATURE
Search specialists
A look at the popular desktop-search tools and how they stack up
L
ocating information on the Internet is no
longer a big deal. Yahoo and Google solved
that. That’s why you longer search for info, you
just Google it. But there’s a plethora of information
lying on our desktops that is insanely difficult to
make sense of. Remember how frustrated you
got when you were looking for that excel sheet
with the expense calculation? ‘Find’ files and
folders in Windows does not help. So creating
search functionality for desktop use is required.
Most tools specializing in desktop search started
off as search engines for the Net and are still
rough around the edges but the battle has only
just begun. Desktop search is about three things:
locating data, locating it fast and presenting it in
the most intuitive and user-friendly way possible.
For the first two, we need to index (see box) by
mining data from all information available on our
PCs—browser histories, emails, documents, media
files and even chat archives. For the third, we are
still in the learn-and-develop mode. Searching
is only half of it. The information needs to be
displayed in a way that makes sense and retrieval
easy. Here’s a look at six of the best desktop search
utilities available for Windows. If you are a Mac
user, check out ‘Spotlight’ shipped with Mac OS X
Tiger. And yes, five of them are free.
Yahoo Desktop Search
Yahoo took the easy way out by licensing tested,
industry-grade search technology from X1 (www.
x1.com) and giving it away for free. X1 retails for
approximately US $75. Called Yahoo Desktop Search
(YDS), this avatar of X1 has most of the features as
The Natural Language Query feature lets The interface is colorful, has large and
you ask any question you want bold icons and is extremely intuitive
the original. It uses an award winning on-the-fly
indexing technology that supports a whopping 300+
file types. Check out the entire list at http://desktop.
yahoo.com/filetypes. The interface features two
toolbars and two panes below them. Toolbar
one lets you select content type such as e-mail,
attachments, contacts, etc. Toolbar two lets you type
in the query and/or refine your search. Simplistic
and no-frills—that’s the YDS interface. YDS also
ships with a Deskbar for quick searches where you
just type in a query in the text-box. Strangely, the
default type is email though you can change that
in the menu. Index file size is quite small—50 MB
compared to Google Desktop’s 240 MB (on my rig).
YDS’ main drawback is that it doesn’t categorize
results by context and relevancy which can be a pain
at times. Also, the main X1 features not present in
YDS are support for Eudora and Mozilla email clients,
the ability to index offline PST files in Outlook, and
support for indexing remote drives on a LAN.
Price: Free
Homepage: http://desktop.yahoo.com
MSN Desktop Suite
If Google is doing it, Microsoft can’t be far behind.
MSN Desktop Search (MDS) is a part of the MSN
Desktop Suite which runs on XP. It uses XP’s
indexing service. Go to Start > Search > Files or
Folders > Change preferences > Indexing service.
Using IFilters that allow indexing multiple file
formats, Microsoft attains amazing customization
abilities. MDS by default supports email, contacts,
HTML files, MS Office documents, Windows media
files, images, favorites and shortcuts. The only thing
Two words to describe Google desktop:
simplicty and smart technology
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

missing is web history. The easiest way to
use MDS is the Deskbar. Type in the query
and the most relevant results pop up in
a translucent box just above the bar. It
searches everything by default and groups
them up by type. Press enter and you reach
the results window that looks just like IE.
Price: Free
Homepage:http://desktop.msn.com
Ask Jeeves Desktop Search
Remember Ask Jeeves? They were the first
search engine letting you ask a question
in the form of a statement. Called ‘natural
language query’, the result even returned
other related questions. Their own
tool—Ask Jeeves Desktop Search (AJDS)—
developed in-house, is not ready yet. Unlike
the others, AJDS does not have a deskbar. It
sports the familiar toolbar and a two-pane
interface. Current indexing supports MS
Office documents, Outlook email, images,
music, video and favorites. There’s neither
PDF support, nor web history. AJDS is
about to release great support for Firefox,
Thunderbird and OpenOffice documents,
which would help them score over most of
the competition simply due to the size of
the user community.
Price: Free
Homepage: http://sp.ask.com/docs/
desktop/index.html
Google Desktop
Do you know when you install Google
Desktop (GDS), it actually installs and runs
a web-server also with a indexing service
in the background. So the familiar Google
homepage that you see when you invoke
GDS from the system tray is actually hosted
View file contents without the original
application in which the file was created
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
| Indexing
Indexing is the process of building a
database. Indexing creates a table of
contents for your disk. The index database
consists of:
Location: File and folder names.
Meta Data: Like titles, authors, date of
creation, comments, etc.
Type: Contents of files and related files.
The first task of the search tool after
installation is to index the entire storage
medium (in most cases the user’s hard
drive). Once that’s done, search is
conducted on the index thus saving the
time taken to run thorugh the entire disk.
by your desktop. Like its web brother, GDS
is lightning fast. Current index support
includes email (Outlook, Outlook Express,
Thunderbird and Netscape), AIM sessions,
web history (IE, Firefox and Netscape), plain
text, MS Office documents, PDFs, music,
etc.. Plus, a wide range of plug-ins (http://
desktop.google.com/plugins.html) let you
add more types like OpenOffice documents
to the list. Deskbar is included. Like Google
web, GDS also maintains a cache apart from
the index. So you actually have access to
document revisions as well.
Price: Free
Homepage: http://desktop.google.com
Copernic Desktop Search
Copernic Desktop Search (CDS) is awesome
due to two reasons. One, the beautiful
interface . And two, it doesn’t proceed
before you provide it a file type to search
from the eight choices (emails, files, music,
videos, pictures, contacts, favorites and web
history). It returns more focused results. You
Type in the query in the Deskbar and the
results pop up in a translucent box
FEATURE | APPLICATIONS 91
can define the files to be assigned with each
of the eight categories. Use the deskbar for
query or the main interface which can be
invoked from the system tray. Advanced
index settings let you know when and what
to index, what not to index, throw out the
current and make a new one. This is surely
the winner.
Price: Free
Homepage: http://www.copernic.com/
ISYS:Desktop
The only commercial tool here, ISYS:Desktop
(ISD) is a power-packed enterprise desktop
search application. Features include natural
language, time limited searches, on-the-
fly categorization and results clustering,
excellent linguistic support, result filtering
and a knowledge warehouse. We can’t look
at all of them but ISYS:desktop 7 supports
more than 30 foreign languages and 140
file formats, including Microsoft Office
documents, Internet Cache (IE, Firefox,
Netscape), PDF, Outlook PST, Flash (SWF),
CHM, ASCII, ZIP, email, attachments, HTML,
XML, IFilters and more. You can view file
contents without the original application
in which the file was created; search in
various ways. Interesting features include
the ‘Word Wheel’ which are searches
made with keywords that “sounds like” or
“starts with”. You can attach hyperlinks,
text notes or graphical annotations to your
indexed documents without modifying the
original documents. No wonder it’s not free.
Download a 14-day trial or buy a license
from their web site.
Price: Starts at US $1,000.
Homepage:www.isys-search.com ■
| Raunak Roy
Yahoo Desktop’s indexing technology
supports more than 300 file types
 It’s aLIVE!
Microsoft has been busy this year—going Live. They
have harnessed the Internet to make their services more
accessible to those who are always on the move
H
ow often have you felt like a fish out of
water every time you work out of office
on an alien machine in some hotel’s
‘Business Center’? How about the times you
realize you are working on a machine which does
not even have a text editor like Microsoft Word
installed? You wish you owned a notebook, right?
Well, if you have access to the Internet very soon
you might not need the notebook. You will just
need to go Live!
Microsoft has launched quite a few new
products this year and have plans to launch
more next year. They hope their new services
will increase the ease of use of their products
—irrespective of a user’s location—assuring
security at the same time. Something similar to
having a ‘roaming profile’ in a Windows network,
Microsoft has come up with a roaming profile
that is available to a user online. Widening the
boundaries of your workspace—that’s what
they seem to be trying to achieve with their
latest offering Windows Live. Before Windows
Live came about, Microsoft had created a site
called Start.com. Now, many view Microsoft’s
Start.com to be an act of leveling up to Google’s
personalized page—Google IG. There are features
that are extremely similar like a drag-and-drop
interface and displaying RSS news feeds. This
isn’t too new a feature since My Yahoo has been
providing more or less the same functions for
ages now, but without web technologies which
Live.com: News feeds, personal links and Drag ‘n’ Drop: Customize the layout of
mail—all one page your page on Live.com
are used to provide such services. Microsoft
and Google use AJAX (Asynchronous
JavaScript and XML), used to create interactive
web applications.
Microsoft has concentrated on providing
more than what is being offered already with
its Live project, making it more personalized,
smarter, more accessible, more secure and
more fun to work with. In addition to a
personalized web page (which, if you have
been using the Internet regularly for a year
or two, isn’t something that’s radically new)
there are products that allow you to stay in
touch with your colleagues constantly and also
have your Office applications tag along with
you all over the place. Microsoft’s Live.com
is in its Beta stage as of now and is still going
through iterations, trying to improve on existing
features and include support for third-party web
browsers. Some of their services are available for
trial use (some services require you to sign up
and some require you to download content). As
always, there are two clear categories in which
these services are being offered—desktop and
enterprise. Live.com web site’s facilities are free
and primarily meant for desktop users while
the Live Communications Server 2005 caters
to the needs of an enterprise that requires its
employees to stay connected to one another as
often as possible.
It is quite obvious from all of this that these
Edit Favorites: Store and edit your
Favorites online on Live Beta
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

services are not ‘box packs’ you can buy
and work on. These are web solutions that
require you to have an Internet connection.
Let’s take a tour of all the services the
Redmond brigade has in store for an end
user and a corporate junkie who can’t do
without his notebook or his handheld.
Windows Live Lounge
Live.com
Live.com, as mentioned earlier, came about
after Start.com—a web site that can be
personalized to your needs—be it news
feeds, favorites sites, weather forecasts,
mail—all on the same page that can be
arranged in multiple ways. Basically, it
is like a one-stop page you would visit,
which contains content and sites of your
choice. All this is possible with the help of
‘components’ that will eventually make
up Windows Live. All of the features in
Windows Live are not active while the rest
are in Beta. They are, however, up for trial
for anyone who owns a Hotmail account
(certain components might require an
add-in to be downloaded too). All you need
to do is sign in and follow the instructions
if an installation is required. What regular
MSN Mail users will find useful is the fact
that you can view your inbox side by side
with your news feeds, favorites, etc. on
the same page. It intends to allow users
to create their mail accounts and make it
appear like working on Outlook.
Windows Live Search for Mobile Devices
Search has been a hot topic ever since
the big ‘G’ got all the glory with its web
and desktop tools. Microsoft was not
to be left behind in this category either.
Live Local: Microsoft’s answer to Google
Earth, powered by Virtual Earth
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
The Live Search for mobile devices allows
you to run a search from a web-enabled
handheld. The service is in Beta and as of
now works on phones that are WAP 2.0 and
HTML capable. Just type in http://mobile.
msn.com/ search on your phone and use
Microsoft’s Live Search to get your answers.
Windows Local
This might not be of any interest to
everyone because it’s Local referring to
America only. But it’s still interesting to
know that Microsoft has launched Live
Local (using Virtual Earth), a map service for
directions—save them, mark them or just
enjoy looking at the “Bird’s Eye” images.
Windows Live Mail,
Messenger and Favorites
Right now, as mentioned earlier, Hotmail
users can check out Live Mail by just
signing into the Live.com web site. Beta
users can use Live Mail to create e-mail
accounts and access them from anywhere
around the world. The interface is meant to
look like Microsoft’s popular e-mail clients
with features like ‘live spell check’ (checks
spelling as you type a mail). Live Messenger
is a web messenger for all those who work
on machines that don’t have the latest
MSN installed and don’t want to waste
bandwidth updating it. This is going to be
one popular service!
Live Favorites is quite simple and can
be tried out. http://favorites.live.com/ is
where you can add all your bookmarks and
even import what you have already saved
on your computer. It has a very simple
interface but is functional only in IE 6.0
—support for Firefox and Opera 9 has been
Communicator 2005: Yahoo, MSN and AOL
can be used to keep employees connected
FEATURE | APPLICATIONS 93
given but it’s not seen throughout the Live
services.
Windows Live Safety Center and
OneCare Live
If everything is going to be on the Internet
then it has to be secure. Live Safety Center
is a free virus scanning utility that tries
to keep your computer free of viruses.
A ‘scanner’ needs to be downloaded
(these downloads are basically ActiveX
components). One Care Live is a PC health
service that runs on your PC constantly
making sure that it’s up to date and
prepared to defend against any virus or
spyware intrusions.
Live Communications Server 2005 and
Office Communicator 2005
Live Communications Server 2005 is meant
for the corporate guys who need to stay
connected to one another irrespective of
the place they work out of. This is done
with the help of LCS 2005 that enables
employees to share and work over a
network or over the Internet in real time
with the help of Live Meeting and Live
Messenger (providing security without the
need for virtual private networks). This
is a powerful product, which integrates
with an older Messenger version (5.1)
and includes enhanced support for spam
over IM (SPIM). The Office Communicator
2005 is a client-side add-in that extends
functionality to the Messenger interface
allowing employees to make voice and
video calls over the Internet to telephones.
Office and XBox Live
When Office Live will be available all you will
need is a license (there are different types
depending on your requirements) and an
Internet connection. After that you can work
from any machine on documents or projects
and easily share them with colleagues.
Gamers have not been ignored—XBox Live
includes real-time communication (voice/
video messaging) with your gaming brethren
and downloads. This is niche in India as XBox
is still not available here but most of the Live
services like Mail and Messenger (which will
offer telephony services similar to Skype)
seem to be worth the wait. ■
| Ashutosh Desai
 A spanking new version of Mandriva is included in the
CHIP DVD. Read on to find out why it’s worth the install
L
inux users might be aware that Mandriva,
until February this year, was known as
Mandrake Linux. MandrakeSoft merged
with a Brazil-based Linux vendor known as
Conectiva SA to form ‘Mandriva’. It allowed them
to create a better distribution for users by using
the best of both companies. In July, Mandriva
went on to acquire yet another company,
Lycoris—a desktop linux distribution maker
based in the US. Mandriva has followed up its
mergers with its new distribution a few months
ago—Mandriva Linux 2006. This distribution
comes in various versions; each one is a result
of their merger with Conectiva (Mandriva
PowerPack) and Lycoris (Mandriva Discovery/Lx).
We have included the free version of Mandriva
Linux 2006 on the CHIP DVD this month and
hence the review is based on the very same
version. This version does not include proprietary
applications like Real Player, Flash, etc. So you
will have to take the effort to download and
install these applications when the need arises.
Installation
The CHIP DVD contains three CD ISO images
of Mandriva Linux 2006. Mandriva supports
Pentium, AMD (including Celeron and Sempron)
processors, requires at least 128 MB RAM (more
is better) and 4 GB of hard disk space for a full
install. The distribution provided on the DVD is
meant for system based on the Intel architectre.
Since CD images have been provided, you can
The menu structure almost touched the Accessing a network share from
far side of the 19-inch monitor! Konqueror - KDE’s file explorer
work without a DVD drive but the installation
will be slower. Installing the distribution will
require at least an hour of your time if you are
new to this sort of thing. If you going to install
Mandriva on a hard drive containing Windows
you should defrag your partitions before the
installation. Initially, I used a machine that has
a SiS-based Gigabyte board with 256 MB RAM,
a 80 GB hard disk, a DVD drive and a 19-inch
Samsung monitor. A number of questions are
asked prior to the creation of partitions, which
are useful and allow you to create partitions
manually, automate the process or resize them
for the installation. The only hitch is the way
you have to allot space for each partition (root,
usr, swap, etc) – it measures the size in terms
of “cylinders”. It could have just been shown
as percentages or in Megabytes/Gigabytes.
That is a constant grouch of mine with any
distribution. You can also create a partition in
FAT32; this is useful when you want to dump
common files for multiple operating systems.
Package installation is divided into Workstation,
Server and Graphic Environments. There is
not much to choose from but make sure you
select the package related to the Samba client
if your computer is part of a network. KDE 3.4
is the default desktop environment that will
be installed – GNOME 3.10 (the latest version
is 3.12) is another one of the options available.
I went with the KDE interface, chose all the
Workstation packages and stuck to the Server
Configure the Software Media Manager
for downloads
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Various audio/video formats played right
out of the box
package defaults. After the packages are
installed onto the newly created partitions,
the boot loader screen is displayed. If you
have a Windows operating system, make
sure you choose to install the boot loader
on the Master Boot Record (MBR). The
options could have been accompanied
with a few explanatory lines like in the
Red Hat installation. Once the boot
loader is installed, new users are created
and a root password is set. Mandriva
presented a list of all the hardware that it
detected. You can even configure each of
these components further, if required. I
configured the network interface and the
proxy easily. You can only get to set the FTP
and HTTP proxies. There is no option to add
a SOCKS proxy. I continued to work on the
Graphics card settings and tweaked around
with the resolutions and refresh rates. All
the components were detected correctly.
Even the audio was detected and could be
configured to drive 5-channel audio (the
integrated audio on the board supported
surround sound). Once I was content
with the rest of the configurations, the
installation proceeded to finish, rebooted
and I finally reached the KDE desktop.
Post Installation
Some of the new features included in this
distribution are the Kat desktop search
tool and an interactive firewall. Kat is a
useful indexed search tool, which needs
to be configured to index specific folders.
By default, the Home folder is indexed
by the tool. In the beginning there isn’t
much to search for in the Home folder.The
interactive firewall is helpful when you
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
Mandriva’s new indexing tool - Kat
Catalog Browser
need pop-up alerts to inform you about
anything that tries to access your machine
or port. I found the KDE menu in Mandriva
to be quite convoluted. Going through
four menus to reach a particular app is not
fun. The Mandriva Linux Control Center is
where you can configure your computer’s
hardware as well as install packages with
the Software Media Manager. I was not
able to use Mandriva’s Update feature
until I configured the proxy in the Software
Media Manager—extra effort. In the
office suite, an OpenOffice Writer 1.1.5
is provided while the latest one available
is 2.0. At least, a 2.0 Beta should have
been included since the older versions
of OpenOffice are not worth using at all.
Internet browsing is handled by Mozilla
Firefox 1.0.6 while KMail is the mail
client on KDE.
I was not able to access network
shares out of the box. I struggled with
the network configurations in the Control
Center and with the Samba client tools.
Nothing worked until I logged in as root
and edited one of the Samba config files.
Even though I could access network shares,
it would not show any machines on the
network in Konqueror (the file browser). I
had to manually type the machine name in
the location bar. (I never had to do all this
in SuSE or Fedora). Mandriva has decent
support for external storage like thumb
drives and digital cameras too. It even
mounts the Windows partitions by default.
The best thing about this distribution
is that it played different audio/video
formats without the need to install any
additional libraries. AmaroK 1.3.1 played
FEATURE | APPLICATIONS 95
Changing Samba settings did not help in
accessing network shares
MP3 as well as WMA formats without any
problems. Kaffiene 0.7 accepted MOV, DivX
and WMV files without a fuss. This is what
a desktop user looks for—something that
works right out of the box.
Mandriva Linux seems to be perfect for
a desktop user in spite of the ‘extended’
menu structure. it has some exhaustive
configuration settings for a user to fiddle
with. The update manager needs a little
getting used to when you need to install
additional software. Like the download
managers in other distributions the Media
Manager (YAST, Yum, Synaptic) configured
to access different sites/mirrors for
downloads. Mandriva Linux 2006 did not
hog resources and worked comfortably
on the basic machine I used. It makes for a
good multimedia solution because it can
play so many formats and nothing beats
a bit of entertainment while working your
way around a Linux distribution. ■
| Ashutosh Desai
http://www.postmaster.co.in
Reliable
Tried and trusted components and
architecture based on the ongoing dialogue
with over 4000-installations
Truly Next Generation
For a free trial call QuantumLink Communications Pvt. Ltd.
Mumbai - 26820004. Bangalore - 51152792.
New Delhi - 26691152 / 927. Pune - 9373307992
Or write to - sales.ho@postmaster.co.in
96

Dr. CHIP Windows Power Options

Q> I use Windows XP
and my cabinet has the
Power button and the
Reset button. If I press
the Power button once,
Windows XP shuts down!
My cabinet is placed in
such a way that my knee
keeps bumping into
this button, shutting
my computer down all
the time. I do not want
to change the cabinet’s
position due to space
restrictions. Is there
Din
esh
anything I can do?
Des
ai Do you think this is
happening because some
wires have become loose?
-Sam
No, you have not knocked anything
loose. If you had, Windows would not have
shut down properly and on restart it would
have started running a disk check. The
problem you’re facing is due to Windows’
default power management configuration.
Windows shuts down whenever the
power button is pressed on the PC cabinet
or the keyboard (if it has those extra
Hands on
you can easily disable this in Windows XP.
Click on Start | Control Panel and click on
Power Maintenance and then on Power
Options (if you are in Category View). If in
Classic View, go straight to Power Options.
Click on the ‘Advanced’ tab under ‘Power
Options Properties’ and under the ‘Power
Buttons’ section, set the options to either
“Do Nothing” or “Ask me what to do”.
This will prevent system shutdowns in
case of any accidental hits to the power
switch on the cabinet. If there are any
multimedia keys to disable, you can do it
via the keyboard’s software (if installed) or
from the same place in the Power Options
Properties dialog box. The ‘Reset’ button
on the cabinet next to the power button
cannot be reconfigured, and will restart the
PC without any warning if pressed. It can
be disabled from inside the cabinet, but it’s
not recommended.

keys for power down, hibernate, etc).

This can be extremely annoying but it’s Disable the shutdown behavior by
meant to simplify the switch off process. changing the setting from Windows’
Power Options
Nevertheless since you find it bothersome,

| How to Read the Code Cannot View Google Earth images

All code lines and commands are
written in the following manner:
netsh•int•ip•reset•tcpreset.txt
where the • symbol denotes a space.
Hence, the above code line should be
typed as
netsh<space>int<space>ip<space
>reset<space>tcpreset<dot>txt
Q> I am experiencing a weird problem. I
cannot see the earth when I try to view it in
Google Earth. At times if something shows
up, it looks like a white ball. While on my
friend’s computer the image appears fine.
Why is that?
-Kiran
Kiran, you have not mentioned the

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006


graphics card you use. Such problems are
usually caused because of the graphics
card’s inability to render the Google Earth
image. To view Google Earth, you need
a 3D card. A lot of onboard (integrated)
video cards are not true 3D cards – they
are just 3D accelerators with the most
basic of 3D capability. You must check
your motherboard manual for details of
the problems you are experiencing with
your onboard graphics card. You might
also require new drivers for your graphics
card. Visit the manufacturer’s website to
look for driver updates and update your
graphics card driver to see if this solves the
problem. Avoid installing beta drivers that
manufacturers might offer. Only download
and install the most recent stable version.
Most 3D graphics cards have chipsets
from manufacturers such as Nvidia, ATi
and Intel. If it is a notebook you have, visit
the notebook manufacturer’s web site
(HP, Acer, Sony, etc) to get the most recent
driver. For some graphics cards, it’s also
necessary to install DirectX 8.1 or higher
from Microsoft. Even though OpenGL
is used for 3D rendering, some OpenGL
drivers ‘wrap’ DirectX internally. Microsoft
currently has DX9.0c, though DX8.1 and
beyond will work. If after trying these
options out, your problem still persists, try
to set DirectX as your default renderer. To
do so, follow these steps:
Click on Start | Programs, hover over
your version of Google Earth and select
“Set Google Earth rendering to DirectX”.
Restart Google Earth. Google Earth requires
a minimum screen size of 1024x768
pixels. It also requires “True Color (32-bit)”
resolution and a graphics card is required
for filled polygons; otherwise, they will be
rendered as outlines only.
Insert Video in PowerPoint
Q> I have created a small video clip. Now I
would like this video to play in PowerPoint.
How can I insert a video clip into this
application?
-Amir
You have not mentioned the
PowerPoint version you use. Assuming that
you use the 2002 version or newer, follow
these steps to insert a WMV file into a
PowerPoint file.
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
Use Control Toolbox in PowerPoint
versions older than 2002 to insert a
video file
Right click on a slide and select “Slide
Layout”. Choose any slide layout that has
the option to “Click icon to add content”.
Now, click on the camcorder image in the
lower right of the icon block. If you place
your mouse pointer over the camcorder
images, it will display “Insert Media Clip”.
After clicking on the image, select the
WMV file you want to insert.
If you are using a version older than
PowerPoint 2002, follow these steps,
Click on View | Toolbars and then on
Control Toolbox. Click on the icon to the
far right called “More Controls”, hover the
mouse pointer over it to know the name
of the icon. In the drop-down list that
opens, select “Windows Media Player”. A
cross will appear on your slide. Use your
mouse to create a box – this is the size of
your movie’s window. After your Windows
Media Player appears, right click on it
and choose “Properties”. Double click on
“Custom” and under the ‘General’ tab,
insert the name of the video clip you want
to insert into the slide. Choose “Browse” to
navigate to where your video resides and
click on “OK”.
Windows Update Error
Q> Whenever I try to run Windows Update
on my computer, I get the following error
“0x8007007E”. How do I get rid of this
problem? I use Internet Explorer to run
Windows Update.
-Santosh
You can try the following steps to
solve the problem. It involves registering
DLL files once again. Click on Start | Run and
type the following command in the ‘Open’
box. Click on OK after you have entered the
command.
regsvr32 Inseng.dll
DR. CHIP | HANDS ON 97
You should receive a ‘RegSvr32’
confirmation when the particular function
(DllRegisterServer in this case) has
succeeded. Click on “OK”. Now you will
have to register the following DLL files in
the same way. Register each one of these
files: regsvr32, Oleaut32.dll, Ole32.dll,
Urlmon.dll, Mssip32.dll
Once you are done registering these
files, open Internet Explorer and try to
access the site to update Windows. If you
still get the same error, you will need to
remove the Windows Update Setup Files
folder. Browse to the following folder in the
drive where Windows has been installed,
“C:\Windows Update Setup Files”. Delete
this folder and restart. If this also does not
help, install the latest version of Internet
Explorer
Recreate ASR Floppy
Q> I had made a backup of my system
using the Windows Backup Utility. I used
the Automated System Recovery method
in which an ASR floppy is also created. I
have some corrupt/missing files in my “C”
drive and want to use the backup I created
to restore my system but I have lost the
ASR floppy I created. Can I recreate the
floppy and restore? Otherwise I will have to
reinstall and lose all my data on C drive. -
-Chetan
Yes, you can still use the backup you
created to restore your system. Luckily,
there is a way in which you can recreate
the ASR floppy. Keep a formatted floppy
ready with you and start the Backup
Utility from Start | Programs | Accessories
98 HANDS ON | DR. CHIP
Use the backup set to copy two files and
recreate the ASR floppy you misplaced
| System Tools | Backup. When the Backup
and Restore Wizard is displayed, click Next.
Click ‘Restore Files and Settings’ and click
Next. In the “What to Restore” dialog box,
select the ASR backup you had created. If it
was done on an external device, make sure
you have connected it to the PC. Expand
the ASR Backup set you had created by
double clicking on it and click on the plus
sign next to the second instance of the
drive letter that contains the system files
(it is usually ‘C:’ if you have installed the
operating system in this drive). Now click
on the plus sign next to the ‘Windows_
folder/Repair’ folder to expand it.
Check the boxes for the ‘Asr.sif’ and
‘Asrpnp.sif’ files from this repair folder.
Click on Next.
In the ‘Completing Backup or Restore
Wizard’ screen, click on the ‘Advanced’
button. In the ‘Where to Restore’ screen
set the ‘Restore Files to:’ dialog box to
“Single Folder” (this is very important
otherwise the files will dumped on to the
floppy within the existing folder structure.
The files need to be saved on the floppy
without any folders). Set the ‘Folder Name’
CHIP-INDIA KNOW HOW | (www.chip-india.com/knowhow)
Stop Error - 0x0000007E I scanned my system with
When I clicked “Connect” on NetOne
Internet connection, the system asked for
a restart and I got a blue screen error. It
said, “System restarted to avoid error.”
The “Technical Information” said, “STOP:
0x0000007E (0x0000005….)
viaaudios.sys - Address FA6BC3F base
at TA6B0000, Datestamp 4029C2F1
Physical memory dump complete”
It also asked me to check disk space,
a driver update (which I cannot download
because of the error), changing the video
adapter and turning off caching and
shadowing in the BIOS.
What should I do as this problem occurs
constantly. I am using Windows Media
Player as of now. My System configuration
is AMD Athlon, Windows 2000/XP, Jetway
V2MDMP motherboard, 80 GB 7200 HDD,
256 MB DDR and an ACE V.92 internal
modem.
dialog box to your floppy drive - “A:\”.
(or the letter that is used to define your
floppy drive). Click Next. Additional options
presented in this wizard are optional,
continue through the wizard and finally
the files are copied to the location you
specified. Check the floppy contents to
ensure the two files have been copied into
“A:” without any folder structure. You have
just recreated your ASR floppy. Now you
can restore your system.
Firefox Profile Error
Q> I’ve started having problems with
Firefox. I keep getting an error - “profile is
already in use”. So I have to choose another
profile and continue. As a result, my
bookmarks do not show up. What do I do?
-Dev
When Firefox is in use, it locks the
active profile to keep other programs from
altering the contents or cause conflicts.
This lock is normally transparent to the
user. That is why you can’t access your
bookmarks either, as they are closely
associated with profiles. This is how you
can unlock a profile. Check for any open
Firefox windows. Go through your list of
different
utilities and found no viruses, spyware, etc.
Please help.
- georgecs123
Solution:
It seems there is a problem with the
VIA Audio Driver (if you look at the file
mentioned in the error - it points to
viaaudios.sys). You should go to the
manufacturer’s web site and download the
latest display, soundcard and VIA 4-in-1
drivers. First, uninstall the older 4-in-1
drivers before you install the new ones.
Now, install the drivers you downloaded.
You could also download any other
updates (if available) and install them
too. Check whether the problem persists.
You can download the latest drivers and
updates for your motherboard from here,
http://www.jetway.com.tw/evisn/
download/driver/index-1.htm
- Prachanda
running processes by opening the Task
Manager—press [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Del] to
see if the application is running in the
background. If it is, ending it should unlock
the profile.
If the application was shut down
abnormally, try deleting a file named
“parent.lock” in your profile folder. A
Netscape 7 or another Mozilla-based
program such as Thunderbird may be using
the profile. Try shutting these programs.
You should also create separate profiles for
each application. If you use both Mozilla
Suite and Netscape 7, sharing the same
profile might result in corruption of data.
iPod not detected
Q> I own a computer running Windows XP.
I also own an Apple iPod. Of late, Windows
refuses to recognize my iPod anymore. I
even restarted the computer thinking it
will work but it did not. It is not detected
on my father’s notebook either! But it
is recognized immediately on another
computer. So it does not seem to be a
problem with the player or its cable. How
do I make it detect my player again?
-Rajeev
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

There are a few things you can try
to resolve this issue. They are very basic
and apply to external storage devices in
general. First, try a different USB port on
your PC. There must be at least 2 ports
available on your computer. Try them all.
Some USB ports might have problems with
recognition. Check to see the latest version
of iTunes on the Internet (www.apple.
com/itunes/download) and iPod software
(www.apple.com/ipod/download).
Uninstall iTunes and install the new
version. As far as Windows XP is concerned,
ensure that you have at least Service Pack
1 installed, which solves certain USB 2.0
compatibility problems. If all this does
not work then try resetting your iPod. The
method used to reset an iPod depends on
whether it is a click wheel or scroll wheel
type. If it is the former then slide the Hold
switch to on and then off. Press and hold
‘Menu’ and ‘Select’ until the Apple logo
appears, in approximately 6-10 seconds.
For the scroll type, slide the Hold switch on
and then off. Press and hold the ‘Play/
Pause’ and ‘Menu’ buttons until the Apple
logo appears.
If this fails to solve the problem then
you will have to ‘restore’ the iPod to factory
settings. Restoring the iPod should be
the final option. Please refer to your iPod
manual on how to restore the player – this
method will reinstall the firmware and
clear all the songs off the storage.
The notebook might not be recognizing
the player because it must have turned off
power to the USB bus to conserve power.
Turn USB bus power back on by right
clicking on the “My Computer” icon and
select Properties. Click on the ‘Hardware’
Power Management in notebooks might
turn off the power to the USB Bus. Disable
this option from the Device Manager
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
tab and click on the Device Manager
button. Scroll down the list of devices to
“Universal Serial Bus controllers” and click
on the “+” sign to expand the category.
Double click one of the indented ‘USB Root
Hub’ entries. Since it’s almost impossible
to know which USB hub is root, select
each one and follow these steps, double
click on each Root Hub and click on the
Power Management tab. Uncheck “Allow
the computer to turn off this device to
save power”. Click on “OK” and restart the
notebook.
PCI.sys error
Q> I get this error message every time I
switch my computer on – “PCI.sys missing
or corrupt”. It also says that the computer
was not shut down properly and offers
different startup options. Choosing Safe
Mode does not help and gives me the error
I mentioned above. Will I have to reinstall
Windows completely?
-Mangesh
The file might have been
accidentally deleted; some hardware must
have been added as a result of which the
error might have occurred. You can try to
replace the corrupted file with one from
your XP CD. If you had installed hardware
then remove it, restart and enter in Safe
Mode to check if you still get the error. If
you do not get an error anymore then it is a
driver issue. Get the latest drivers to install
the new hardware. If the error persists
then you will need to replace the file. You
will need to boot from the XP CD and enter
the Recovery Console. After the hardware
check and initialization, you will reach
the “Press [Enter] to set up Windows XP”
screen. The second option is to repair the
installation to enter the Recovery Console.
Press [R] to enter the console. If you have
set an Administrator password you will be
prompted to enter it. If you have not and
you are still asked for one, press [Enter].
Now, you will be at the command prompt.
Enter the following command and press
[Enter].
MAP
Make a note of the CD drive letter that
contains the XP CD. Type the following
command to expand the file to be replaced.
Expand <X:>\i386\pci.sy_ c:\Winnt\
DR. CHIP | HANDS ON 99
Need a hand with your PC travails?
Log on to www.chip-india.com/
knowhow and post your query. Voila!
You’re on your way to a glitch-free
future.
Info | For Accurate Diagnosis…
1. Mention system specifications.
2. Mention new hardware or software
installed recently.
3. Note the error message, including the
action or event that triggers the error.
For instance, the error message comes
up only during startup or shutdown, or
when starting a particular application
and so on.
4. Mention any changes you’ve made
just before you started getting the
error. For instance, have you deleted
some files recently or uninstalled
some application?
System32\drivers /y
Press [Enter]. “X” is the CD drive letter.
If you get a message saying a file has
been expanded then type “exit” as your
next command, press [Enter] and the
computer will restart. Remove the CD and
check to see if this solves the problem.
If you get an error “access denied” after
the “expand” command, then type the
following prior to that,
Set AllowAllPaths=true
This will give access to all files on the
hard drive. If all these steps do not solve
the problem then you will have to reinstall
the operating system. ■

Working Remotely
Using the Remote Assistance feature of Windows XP, you can invite anyone you trust
over the network to solve your PC travails by accessing it
U
nless you are stuck while doing
some important work on the PC,
you don’t realize how lucky you are
when your PC, rather Windows I must say,
is working smoothly without any hiccups!
But the moment you are stuck and unable
to solve the problem even after spending a
good deal of time, you get really frustrated.
You then call your friends or the technician
to get help over the phone. Finally, when
they say that the problem is impossible to
solve unless they come and see the PC, you
begin biting your nails or playing with your
hair wondering what to do next.
So if and when you happen to be
the victim of a similar situation, don’t
panic! The ‘Remote Assistance’ feature
in Windows XP can come to your rescue.
Using this feature, you can invite someone
you trust, for example a friend over the
network or the Internet, to access your
computer to provide assistance. Since it
allows the helper to see your screen and
communicate through a chat box, he or she
can walk you through the problem. And if
Vishwanath Vanjire
the task is too difficult for you to perform,
he can take control over your PC and solve
the problem himself, provided you give him
permission.
If your technician is busy elsewhere and
there’s no one around to come and help
you, Remote Assistance is the best way
to seek help. Getting help is not the only
function of Remote Assistance. If you’re
an expert at Windows XP, you can also be
a helper and offer assistance remotely to
someone who needs help.
Remote Assistance is one of the
methods of working remotely on a PC.
Here, the main objective is providing
assistance to solve problems on the remote
PC. Windows XP has another feature called
Remote Desktop which allows you to
have access to a Windows session that is
running on your computer, when you are
working at another computer. Imagine how
convenient it would be if you could connect
to your work computer from home, and
have access to all your files, applications
and network resources. If you’re a student
you could use the Remote Desktop to
connect to your home computer from
college. You can also use it at home if
you want to access the Windows session
running on a PC in a room from a laptop or
a PC in some other room.
Once connected to the host, using
Remote Assistance or Remote Desktop is
a child’s play. But you need to follow quite
a few steps to establish a connection with
the host.
The workshop in the following pages
will step you right from enabling and
configuring the remote services to finally
establishing a remote connection with the
host PC for both Remote Assistance and
Remote Desktop.
Before you start off, you need to do the
following:
1. Make sure your anti-virus definitions
and engine are up to date.
2. Make it a point to disable Remote
Assistance and Remote Desktop after
you are done with the remote session.
3. Use passwords wherever applicable.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Requesting remote assistance
STEP 1. Before you start, go to System
properties in Control Panel and then click
the ‘Remote’ tab. Here, enable the option
to ‘Allow Remote Assistance invitations
to be sent from this computer’. Also click
the ‘Advanced’ tab and enable the option
“Allow this computer to be controlled
remotely”. This is primarily applicable to
those who seek remote assistance.
STEP 4. Enter your name in the field
provided so that the receiver knows who
has requested assistance. Also to lessen
the chance that someone gains fraudulent
access to your PC, you can specify a
password and a timeframe for accepting
the invitation. Save this invitation as a file
and send it to the helper via e-mail or file
transfer.
STEP 7. When the connection is
established, the Remote Assistance
window opens. It’s like a chat window
using which you can chat with the receiver
and describe the problem you are facing.
He or she can see your entire screen and
watch what you are doing.
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
STEP 2. The Remote Assistance feature
allows you to ask as well as offer
assistance. You can request assistance
through Windows Messenger, e-mail or via
a file sent as a request. Sending a remote
assistance as a file is the most convenient
method as it can be used on the network
as well as the Internet.
STEP 5. You can also request assistance
from any of the contacts who are online
on your Windows Messenger contact
list. You should ensure that the person
assisting you is trustworthy and is willing
to help you. To request assistance, start a
chat conversation with the person. Click
on “Actions” and select the option “Ask for
remote assistance”.
STEP 8. If the receiver can’t help you
through chatting, he can take control of
your PC so that he can attempt to solve the
problem by himself. Your helper has to click
on the ‘Take Control’ button. He won’t gain
control over your PC unless you grant him
the permission.
WORKSHOP | HANDS ON 101
STEP 3. To request assistance, first run the
‘remote assistance’ application from ‘start
menu | programs’. This will bring up the
Help and Support Center window which
will guide you through the process. Select
the option ‘Invite someone to help you’ and
on the next screen, select the third option
which says ‘Save the invitation as a file’.
STEP 6. As soon as the receiver double
clicks the file sent as a request or
accepts the invitation sent via Windows
Messenger, he will get a message asking
whether he wants to connect to your PC.
When he accepts your invitation, you will
get a dialog box stating that the user has
accepted your invitation.
STEP 9. If the helper is your friend and you
find him playing around with your PC after
granting him permission to take control
of the PC, you can stop him by clicking on
the ‘Stop control’ button in the Remote
Assistance window. It is advisable to do so
when you are away from your PC.
102 HANDS ON | WORKSHOP
Offering Remote Assistance
STEP 1. After your problem has been
solved, disable control and end the
Remote Assistance session by clicking the
‘Disconnect’ button. The helper can also
end the session by releasing control and
disconnecting from your PC after your
problem is solved.
STEP 4. Go to ‘Computer configuration
| Administrative templates | System |
Remote assistance’. In the Details pane,
double click “Offer Remote Assistance” and
enable it. You can set a list of ‘helpers’ who
you can ask for remote assistance.
Remote Desktop Connection
STEP 1. Before launching a remote
desktop connection, you need to do set up
the host computer to allow you to connect
from another PC. Go to System properties
in Control Panel and then click the ‘Remote’
tab. Here, enable the option to ‘Allow users
to connect remotely to this computer’.
STEP 2. Apart from chatting, you can
also start a voice conversation or send a
file to the helper. But do so only if you are
on a network or a fast Internet connection
because it will consume a lot of bandwidth
and there will be a serious lag making it
difficult for him or her.
STEP 5. Now, click on “Start” and go to
“Help and support”. Under the “Pick a
Task” section, click on “Use tools to view
your computer information and diagnose
problems”. In the Tools section, click on the
option “Offer Remote Assistance”.
STEP 2. Unless you specify remote users,
no one will be granted access. Click the
‘Select remote users’ button, click ‘add’
button and click ‘advanced’ button. In the
‘Select users’ dialog box, keep the ‘Ctrl’
key pressed and select the users who you
would like to allow remote access.
STEP 3. Now that you know how to
request remote assistance, the next step
is to learn how to offer it. However, before
offering remote assistance to someone,
you have to ensure that the feature is
enabled. Go to “Start | Run” and in the
dialog box, type ‘gpedit.msc’. This will open
up the Group Policy window:
STEP 6. You will now be asked for the IP
address or the name of the PC to connect
to. Once entered, click on “Connect” to
communicate with the other PC. When the
user accepts the remote assistance request,
the session is launched.
STEP 3. If your PC goes to standby mode,
you will be unable to access it. Hence it
is recommended to disable the PC from
automatically entering the standby mode.
It’s recommended to set the ‘Power
scheme’ as ‘Always on’ from ‘Power
options’ under ‘Control panel’.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Remote desktop connection
STEP 4. Unlike ‘Remote Assistance’
where a user has to accept the request
and grant permission, Remote Desktop
connection allows the user to directly
connect to the host PC. But this is possible
only if all the users are logged out from the
host PC. Log off all the users so that remote
users can connect.
STEP 7. Depending on the connection
speed, you can choose to enable or
disable certain options which aren’t
really necessary over a remote desktop
connection. If your Internet connection is
slow, you can disable options like desktop
background and menu and window
animation.
STEP 10. When you connect to the remote
PC after enabling the option to connect the
local drives on it, you will be able to see the
local drives listed on the remote PC. Use
this option only if you want to transfer files
between the remote and local PCs.
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
STEP 5. To establish a connection with
the host PC from a remote PC, go to ‘Start
| Programs | Accessories | Communication
| Remote desktop connection’. In the
‘Remote desktop connection’ dialog box,
click the ‘options’ button. Type the IP
address of the host PC and a user name
which has been allowed access.
STEP 8. Click the connect button and
you will be connected to the remote PC. In
a few seconds you will see the remote PC’s
desktop and you can begin working on it.
Unlike Remote Assistance, you cannot see
what’s happening on the remote PC—it
will just show the log-in screen. But you’re
connected to it in the background.
STEP 11. After having finished working
on the remote PC, make sure you click on
‘Start | Disconnect’ to disconnect from the
remote PC. When you don’t require remote
desktop connection, disable the option
‘Allow users to connect remotely to this
computer’ from the ‘Remote’ tab in the
system properties dialog box under
control panel.
WORKSHOP | HANDS ON 103
STEP 6. Under the ‘Local resources’ tab,
it’s possible to use resources like sound and
printers from the host PC on the remote
PC. Check the relevant options before
connecting to the remote PC. But you need
a fast Internet connection or a LAN to do so.
STEP 9. It is possible to copy files to and
from the remote PC. But to do so, you have
to enable the option to connect the local
drives to the host PC in the ‘Local resources’
tab in the remote desktop connection
dialog box before connecting. Mapping
your local drives to the remote PC can be a
bit risky.
Warning: Remote desktop connection is
a very useful tool. But it’s like a double-
edge sword. It can be a treat to hackers
and crackers who like peeking into other
people’s computers, steal information
or cause harm to the remote computer.
Hence, take strict measures to ensure tight
security on the host computer.
It is highly recommended that you
maintain strong firewall policies, keep the
anti-virus updated, protect user accounts
with alphanumeric passwords and
always keep multiple backups of critical
information to be on the safe side—in
this case ‘Prevent! There may be just
no cure!’ ■
| Anand Tuliani
104 HANDS ON | WORKSHOP
The art of composition
Digital cameras have undoubtedly made clicking photographs very easy.
But if you want to make your pictures look like real works of art, you need
to master the art of composition
G
ood photography is more than just shooting with
just a fancy camera. The vision and the capability
to take a good shot is the photographer’s. Being
intuitive, creative and having an understanding of the
techniques is what really makes a photographer take more
than just regular snapshots.
The secret to a good if not great photograph lies in
composition. It’s the same for artists and painters, who
believe that a great work of art is what it is becuase of
the way it’s composed. You can’t just keep clicking with
your camera and expect award-winning quality photos to
magically appear. Like everyone else, you have to learn the
rules of composition.
Rule of Thirds
The most basic rule of composition is rule of thirds.
Beginner artists, for instance, are taught from early on
to hold up a cardboard frame to an image they want to
sketch to frame the picture. Then they visualize that the
subject visible through the frame is divided into a grid
made up of nine equally sized squares. This technique is
called the rule of thirds and the same technique is used by
the photographer as well; only he uses the viewfinder to
“frame” the subject.
Rule of Thirds: Isolating your subject and carefully placing it off-
center results in a picture with a lot of impact
Now you may ask the question as to why we need to
divide an image instead of just taking the shot. Well, the
fact is, most of us are inclined to take a picture using the
auto focus function, which focuses on the centre of the
image. As a result, we end up getting the subject at the
center which results in somewhat “wooden” looking and
often, boring photographs.
Let’s take the example of holiday pictures. When
shooting, let’s say your family, you tend to place your
subjects at the center, when you could get a more
interesting picture by focusing slightly off-center or
a little higher.
The rule of thirds helps you broaden your vision beyond
the center of the viewfinder by splitting the image into
thirds, both horizontally and across. Let’s say you want to
take a picture of a bird or a group of birds. Looking through
the viewfinder, you’ll find your eye automatically drawn
to the object in the center, in this case the grey pigeon.
However, you can see that the picture lacks impact and the
“wow” factor.
One reason is that the pigeon at the center is too far
away. Also, you’ll notice that there are too many other
pigeons around that are distracting. To counter these you
need to know framing and cropping, which we explore
Too many pigeons, as you can see in the above picture, are taking
attention away from the pigeon at the center
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

A good macro lens enables tighter framing
later in this article.
In the second photo, we’ve isolated one pigeon as the
subject. If you’ve noticed, the pigeon is not directly at the
center of the image, it’s been shifted to the higher left and
with the additional space and contrast of colors against
its white coloring, gets your attention more than the first
photograph of pigeons.
Tip: Practise the rule of thirds by placing your subject
at one of the intersections of the invisible grid you use
to compose the shot. Try taking your subject in various
different focus points to see which ones best capture what
you’re trying to show.
The background is quite messy, enough to draw attention away
from the main subject
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
To frame a shot better, zoom closer to capture the atmosphere,
shape and texture
Framing
As with the pigeon, you need to properly frame a subject
for a visually arresting photograph. Most often, we make
this mistake when taking holiday snapshots, we tend to
cram everything possible into the picture. The result is
that it draws attention away from the people, who are the
real subject of the photograph.
How do you resolve this? Well for starters, move a
little closer to the subject. Your aim should be to fill the
frame with as much as possible of the subject. If you’re
taking a family portrait shot, you’ll be able to capture
the expressions and personalities of your subjects much
better than if you were standing a mile away and had
trees sticking out of the back of their heads! When taking
portraits, cut out as much of the background as possible
to bring attention to the person or persons you are
digitally capturing.
Draw focus to your subject by either finding a less cluttered
background or change your position to get a better angle
106 HANDS ON | WORKSHOP
A picture of a plate of jellies being arranged by a woman, shot
from the top
But what if you want to shoot something more
challenging, such as a bunch of leaves. Here you will have
to decide which part of the bunch you want to capture.
The first picture has been shot in portrait size and a little
further away. The second picture has been shot with the
bunch of leaves at the center (rule of thirds) and we’ve
zoomed closer to capture the colors as well as water on
the leaves (framing). It’s obvious which picture shows the
leaves to appear more fresh.
Cropping
So now you’ve learned about the rule of thirds as well as
framing. That’s a great start, but to ensure focus on your
subjects, look a little harder—look into the corners of your
camera viewfinder and the areas surrounding the subject.
Are there things that shouldn’t be there?
There are a couple of ways to eliminate clutter. Let’s
Both these images were taken from the same angle. The addition of a
motorcyclist in the second picture enhances the curves of the road; it
also gives you a sense of being there
Changing your position makes the picture appear more life-like.
Here the focus is on the woman’s knuckles to emphasize on her
meticulousness
take the example of the flower (previous page). While the
red color stands out, it’s lost against the blur of the leaves
in the background as well as the stems and other leaves
attached to the plant. Now you can solve this by moving
around until you find a background that will contrast
better with the flower. The other alternative is shooting
the picture from another angle, which will make the photo
even more interesting. Don’t just stand in front of the
subject: stand above, beside or under it for more arresting
photos. Take it in portrait or landscape modes until you
find the best angle to capture the mood of the shot.
Perspective
Now that you’ve tried shooting from different angles, try
out different perspectives as well. This comes in handy
when you’re taking shots of buildings, architecture as
well as landscapes. For instance, if you’re taking landscape
shots, such as of the beach or a stretch of green you
can use the rule of thirds to improve your shot. If it’s
a sunny day and the sky is full of interesting shaped
clouds, you may want to fill up two thirds of the picture
with the sky and the rest with the scenery. Conversely,
you’d want to play down the sky if the landscape itself
appears more interesting.
You can add impact by including an object in the
picture to capture your own experience of being right
there, shown in the pictures here.
Remember, good composition takes time, skill and
patience. And in order to achieve perfection, a good
amount of practice is required as also observing the
work of professional photographers. Magazines on
photography abound, where photographers account
their personal experiences, while giving you the right
perspective on this art. ■
Sharmila Ganapathy
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
108 HANDS ON | WORKSHOP
Personalize your Dates!
There’s no gift like a personalized gift! What better way to bring in the
new year than by gifting a personalized photo calendar with your favorite
memories of the year gone by? Join us as we show you how…
A
nother year put to bed and another
coming up. It’s time to look out
for a 2006 calendar. Like most
folks, not all of us are fortunate enough
to have access to this year’s edition of the
calendar from National Geographic or
Sports Illustrated. So how about chucking
those staid old bank calendars and instead
creating one with your favorite pictures
from the last year. Or how about one
with those touched-up photos from your
parent’s wedding album? Sounds like fun?
Sure it is!
First of all, let it be known that it’s
not as overwhelming as you might think
it is. With the prices of Multifunction
devices dropping through the floor, you
probably have one in your house or have
access to one at office or a friend’s place.
Besides that, all you need is a little bit of
creativity, some good photo-paper and a
little bit of time on your hands. When it
comes to software, there are plenty out
there on the Internet that you can try
out. However, for this workshop, we’ve
decided to make do with what we already
have—after all, you might as well spend
the money on other more practical things
like more paper for additional calendars
when your friends and family start asking
you for them! We are using good ol’
Microsoft Excel for this workshop and will
show you how you can use it to make a
calendar that’s as slick and high-quality
as any other out there. All you need is a
couple of Excel formatting skills and 12
of your all-time favorite images to put on
your calendar. So join us as we step you
through the process of creating your very
own personalized desktop calendar—your
folks will love it!
Designing the calendar
1. First up, you will need to download
a special file called a template before
creating any calendars in Excel. This
template will give you the base file
containing the months, dates and days
in all their appropriate places. You could
even opt to enter these manually, but this
would (as you’d agree) be terribly tedious.
Click on File | New and instead of starting
with a new workbook, select a new
template from ‘Templates on Microsoft.
com’. This will open the Office Update
web page. Click on any of the zones on
the map and you’ll be taken to the main
Office Online web page. From here, you’ll
see a variety of updates for your office
installation. Since we are interested in
templates for 2006 calendars, click on
‘Templates’ from the bar on the left, or
select it from the ‘Spotlight’ section if
you can see it in the middle of the page.
Browse through the various calendar
pages and download one you like. Here,
we’ve chosen one where each month is on
a separate worksheet. After downloading,
open this file and save the template file
to a location on our disk. Now, select File|
New and navigate to your saved template.
Open the file and save it as an Excel file.
There, you can now begin working on this
file and tweak it to your needs.
2. Tweaking the layout: I didn’t like
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
 the initial layout of this template so I decided to tweak it
a bit. In this example, I re-formatted the ‘month’ heading
to the Trebuchet MS font, size 34 and italicized it. The
days looked better as ‘Verdana’, size 12, bold. The dates
were a little trickier to change as they were saved each in
their own little text box. Using the ‘Select objects’ tool
(that looks like an arrow on the drawing toolbar), draw
a binding box around all the dates to select them. Then
right click on any one date and select ‘Font’. I changed
this to the ‘Comic Sans MS’ font, size 16, bold. There, that
looked much better—the larger dates would make the
calendar friendlier to older people!
HEAD OVER TO THE OFFICE UPDATE SITE TO
DOWNLOAD AN EXCEL CALENDAR TEMPLATE
FEEL FREE TO MODIFY YOUR CALENDAR‛S
FONTS IF YOU‛RE NOT SATISFIED WITH
WHAT‛S IN YOUR TEMPLATE
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
3. Time to add the photos. First, select 12 of your
favorite digital or scanned photos—your family, your
daughter, son, dog, cat… there are plenty to choose from!
Choose Insert | Picture and select ‘From file’. Depending
on the size of your image, you could scale it up or down.
For quality, choose a larger image (over 1024 x 768 at
300 dpi). Scale it by right-clicking on the image, selecting
‘Format picture’ and click on the ‘Size’ tab. Under the
‘Scale’ section, enter a lower value in the Height or Width
box while ensuring the ‘Lock aspect ratio’ is selected. Do
this until your image is about the same height as your
calendar. While scaling your images, remember to keep
EACH MONTH IN YOUR CALENDAR TEMPLATE
SHOULD LOOK SOMETHING LIKE THIS. THIS
IS A GREAT PLACE TO START YOUR PROJECT
PLAY AROUND WIH THE IMAGE AND TABLE
SIZE—DON‛T STOP UNTIL IT LOOKS RIGHT!
the ‘Shift’ button pressed to scale it evenly or your images
will appear distorted and quality will suffer in the final
print. From the ‘Format picture’ dialog box, you can add
borders and funky background colors to your pictures. You
can also add special entries to dates like anniversaries,
birthdays and holidays. Feel free to add icons and fun
clipart to relevant months and festive seasons.
4. Since we are using A4-sized photo paper for the final
prints, fire a couple of test black-and-white prints to make
sure the calendar and picture fits comfortably without
exceeding margins. Format the months so that you get
two per page—that way you can later cut them in half to
get the desktop friendly format as shown. After creating
the rest of the months, you’re ready to print your creation.
5. First up, buy a set of A4-size photo paper from
TRY A COUPLE OF TEST PRINTS ON PLAIN
PAPER AND TWEAK THE IMAGE AND CALENDAR
POSITION UNTIL YOU‛RE SATISFIED!
FOR BEST RESULTS, CHOOSE 260 GSM
PHOTO PAPER (THE THICKER, THE
BETTER)
your local stationary store. For best results, choose
the 260 GSM variant of paper and make sure that it is
for photography applications. With the correct printer
settings, this will deliver sharp prints and vivid colors.
Since these sheets have a higher GSM (grams per square
meter) rating compared to standard inkjet paper, they will
be thicker and therefore firmer—ideal for desk calendars.
This should cost you about Rs 300 for a set of 25 papers.
You would not need more than six (since we are fitting
two months per page).
6. Select the area you need to print, click on File | Print
and choose ‘Selection’. Click on the Preview button. You
would need to select the ‘Portrait’ setting, and under the
printer properties, make sure you have the best quality or
photo quality options selected. Insert your printer paper
FOR BEST RESULTS, SHELL OUT ON SOME GOOD
PHOTO PAPER. YOUR LOCAL STATIONARY STORE
SHOULD HAVE PLENTY IN STOCK
YOU NEED PHOTO QUALITY, SO BUMP UP
YOUR PRINTER QUALITY SETTINGS AND
SELECT PHOTO PAPER. YOU‛RE NOW READY
TO ROLL
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
 and hit the print button! If you’ve done everything right,
you should be satisfied with what you see! Do the same
for the rest of the months and assemble the prints of all
your months together.
7. For a desktop calendar, you will need to create an
appropriate base. There are two ways to do this—you
could either rip out the base of an old desktop calendar
which fits the size of your prints or you could create one
by cutting out a piece of firm cardboard and creasing it so
that it can be propped up on the table once your month
printouts are spiral bound to it. Settle for a base that looks
like the one in the image.
8. With the final pieces of your calendar ready, all that’s
CHEAT A BIT—TEAR OUT THE BASE FROM AN OLD
DESKTOP CALENDAR AND USE IT HERE!
NOW DOESN‛T THAT LOOK NICE? STEP 1: PLACE
ON TABLE, STEP 2: GLOAT!
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
left is to assemble them together. There’s nothing to stop
you from punching two holes at the top of your prints and
tying them together with some twine, but we decided
on a more elegant approach—spiral binding. Take your
calendar down to the local book binder and they’ll be able
to bind your creation together in a jiffy. Bind it along the
upper edge as shown. You should be paying not more than
Rs 30 for the work.
Note: Remember to arrange the months correctly
before handing it over for binding!
9. Prop up your calendar on your desk and get ready for
calendar orders from family and friends! ■
I Marco D’Souza
YOUR LOCAL BOOK BINDING WALA SHOULD
HAVE A SPIRAL BINDING MACHINE. HAND OVER
YOUR PROJECT AND SUPERVISE CAREFULLY!
THE END

A
n optical disc is the cheapest
solution to store data externally.
For a price as low as Rs 20, you get
a mammoth storage capacity of 4.7 GB. Or
700 MB for Rs 6! These shiny discs are
show pieces unless your computer has an
optical drive.
Depending on the type of the optical
drive, you can read, write and rewrite
CDs and DVDs making them the most
convenient and long lasting media
for storage. When your hard disk is
How to service your optical drive
STEP 1. You don’t require any special
instrument. All what you need are the
following—screwdriver, lint-free cloth,
petroleum jelly or vaseline, a few ear buds
and some water with a few drops of liquid
soap. Now grab a screwdriver and get ready
for the next step.
Add zing to
your drive
Quick tips to keep your optical
overflowing with documents, web pages,
songs, movies and other stuff, it’s the
optical media which come to rescue.
You feel handicapped when something
goes wrong with the optical drive. It then
fails to read some CDs or DVDs. In worst
cases, it refuses to pick up any! And if you
have a drive which ejects discs when it’s
unable to read them, you feel like venting
your anger on the drive.
Using lens cleaning CDs and DVDs hardly
make any difference. So before you lose
your patience and ask your technician to
replace the drive, hold on. Simply servicing
it may solve your problem. The reason may
just be dirty lens due to dust and carbon
having settled on it.
This workshop is a step-by-step guide on
STEP 2. Before you remove the drive from
the case, press the eject button so that the
tray is ejected. Open the case and detach
the power, data and audio cables by gently
pulling them out. Now, with a Philips screw
driver, remove the screws and gently pull
out the drive from the case.
drive up and running
how to service your optical drive. Right from
disconnecting the drive to cleaning its lens
and body and re-connecting it, each and
every step is explained in detail. Even if you
haven’t opened the case yet, you’ll still be
able to clean your optical drive in and out!
However, do the following before you go
ahead with the workshop:
Don’t tinker with your drive if it’s still
under warranty.
Don’t disconnect/reconnect the drive
while the PC is on.
Use a clean lint-free cloth.
Don’t use harsh solvents like acetone to
clean the body or the lens.
Don’t exert pressure while cleaning
the lens.
| Anand Tuliani
STEP 3. Now detach the plastic panel
attached to the drive tray. With the drive
turned over, displace the notches behind
the panel from the grooves and carefully
slide the panel off the tray. Also detach the
front panel of the drive using a screwdriver
to release the clips
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

How to service your optical drive
STEP 4. Hold your breath! It’s time to rip
the drive open. Turn the drive over and
lay it flat on the table. Locate the screws
holding the metallic plate—there’ll be a
screw at each corner. Unscrew them and
keep them safely. Now, carefully lift up and
remove the back plate.
STEP 7. The dusty metal plate and drive
cover are the easiest to clean. Wipe off the
dust using a dry cloth. If you stay close to
the sea, they may develop rusty patches.
You can dab some lubricant with cotton
wool on the patches to prevent further
rusting.
STEP 10. It’s time to clean the ‘eye’ of the
optical drive—the lens. With a clean ear
bud dipped in alcohol or spirit gently rub
the lens in circular motion. Don’t apply
pressure! It is usual for the lens to move
around a bit while cleaning. Repeat the
process and clean it with a dry ear bud.
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
STEP 5. Now holding the metal cover,
carefully overturn the drive and lift it up to
rip the drive open. The entire mechanism
will get exposed. Don’t be freaked by the
sight of PCBs and gears! You’re on the right
track. Now it’s turn to clean the various
parts of the drive.
STEP 8. Using a ear bud, clean the exposed
plastic and metal surfaces inside the drive.
You can lightly dampen the tip of the ear
bud if there’s too much dust. Never use a
brush to dust off the dirt inside the drive
—it will cause the dust particles to settle
somewhere else in the drive!
STEP 11. You’re done! Now, you’ve simply
got to put everything back and connect
the drive to the PC. First, fit the drive cover.
Holding the cover, carefully turn the drive
over and screw the back plate to cover the
drive. Fit the front panel and the tray panel
and push the tray in.
WORKSHOP | HANDS ON 113
STEP 6. Start off with simple parts like the
front panel and the tray. It is safe to clean
them with a damp cloth. Prepare a solution
by adding a few drops of liquid soap to a
cup of water. Wrap your finger with a lint-
free cloth, dip it in the solution and clean
the plastic surfaces.
STEP 9. The lens of the optical drive moves
back and forth on a carriage which slides
on a thin metal rod. The rod is greased for
smooth carriage movement. To re-grease
the rod, wipe off the grease with a cloth
and apply a thin coat of petroleum jelly or
vaseline with a clean ear bud on the
metal rod.
STEP 12. Slide in the drive in the 5.25-inch
bay and fasten it with screws from both
sides. Now attach the audio cable, data
cable and power cable. Then close the case,
power on the system and you’re done!
What you have now is a sparkling optical
drive once again!
114 HANDS ON | WORKSHOP
The living room PC
With all the hype surrounding Windows XP Media Center Edition, it’s easy to forget
that most of its functionality can be added to your existing PC for a fraction of the
cost of a new one
T
V tuner cards have been around
for ages, but it’s only now that
computers are becoming serious
contenders for space in our living-room
entertainment centers. Rather than
consigning a computer with a TV tuner
to the bedroom as a secondary television
set, people are starting to discover the
advantages of using “home theater PCs”,
devices that function as personal video
recorders as well as let you play your digital
audio and video files through your home
theater system. And it’s only now that
computers are powerful enough to encode
video to DVD quality in real time—just a
few years ago TV tuners that could display
TV full screen were a rarity. Combined with
a slim cabinet and a couple of quiet low-
rpm fans, PCs aren’t out of place in your
living room anymore.
That said, if you’re interested only in
recording your favorite TV shows, there’s
no need to go in for a full-fledged HTPC
setup. All you need is a decently configured
computer and a TV tuner card. Recording
and encoding video in real time is a
demanding task, so you’ll need at least a
1.5 GHz processor with 512 MB RAM if you
want to even think of encoding at DVD
resolution. You’ll also need large amount of
free hard disk space—budget for about 50
MB per minute of video at DVD
resolution. A DVD burner will come in
handy when you want to share recorded
shows with friends.
TV tuners don’t necessarily have to be
internal cards. Most of the tuners in the
market today use USB, so you don’t need to
open your computer cabinet at all. If you’re
buying an external tuner, make sure it uses
the faster USB 2.0 standard rather than USB
1. Check out what other inputs the tuner
offers—if you’d like to capture video directly
from your video camera or VCR, make sure
the tuner has composite as well as S-video
inputs. Whether internal or external, make
sure you get a remote control in the package
as well or you’ll kill your eyes watching
Vishwanath Vanjire
TV up close on your monitor. Keep your
operating system up to date; Windows XP
users should have Service Pack 2 installed.
Last, but not the least, check the quality of
the software that comes with the tuner.
The software is what lets you use all the
functions of the tuner, so make sure it’s easy
to use, especially from across the room with
the remote.
One thing that’s sure to become an
issue in the next few years is using TV
tuners with a cable TV set-top box. If you
have one, your cable won’t connect to your
TV tuner’s cable port. You have to use the
tuner’s AV inputs just like you would with
your TV’s—this is the same issue you’ll
encounter if you want to use a VCR or
game console through a TV tuner. Make
absolutely sure your tuner hardware and
software let you watch video as well as
capture it through the AV inputs, this
is a requirement that often slips through
the cracks.
| Jamshed Avari
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Setting up
STEP 1. In this workshop, we’re going to
use Pinnacle’s PCTV USB2. This tiny box
sits unobtrusively on your desk and has a
socket for your TV cable as well as the IR
remote reciever, S-video, composite video
and audio connectors on the front.
STEP 4. After a compulsory reboot, a
diagnostic program called PCTV Assistant
will launch automatically. It will test
your computer’s hardware, DirectX
compatibility and whether or not the
software was installed correctly.
STEP 7. The main Pinnacle Media Center
interface is designed to be used with the
remote control, and the text can easily
be read from across the room. It scales
perfectly to widescreen displays and is
extremely easy to get around.
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
STEP 2. Using this tuner is as simple as
plugging it into a free USB port on your
computer. Once that’s done, all you have
to do is pop the CD marked Pinnacle Media
Center into your computer and let the
software install itself.
STEP 5. As soon as the diagnostic tool
exits, the Pinnacle Media Center Settings
window will pop up. Here’s where you can
set all your preferences. Most of these
options can also be accessed through the
main Media Center interface as well.
STEP 8. The Live TV screen shows you a
preview of the currently selected channel
and gives you options to browse through
the list of channels by name, schedule
a program to be recorded or watch a
program that’s already been recorded.
WORKSHOP | HANDS ON 115
STEP 3. Installing the software will take
upto 20 minutes. You’ll be prompted
to enter your name, to choose which
components to install, and whether you
want the application to be available to all
users on your computer.
STEP 6. In the same window, click on
Channels, where you’ll be able to start
an automatic scan or tune your favorites
in manually. An automatic scan will take
about a minute and a half, and all the
channels it detects will be stored for you.
STEP 9. The IR remote that comes in the
package looks crowded and confusing,
but all controls are within easy reach. You
can use it to navigate the interface, pause
live TV, start a recording and change the
channel and volume.
116 HANDS ON | WORKSHOP

Pausing, recording and editing TV shows

STEP 10. Pausing live TV is as easy as
hitting the ‘pause’ button on the remote or
clicking it on screen. The screen will change
to show the exact time you pressed pause,
and how much longer you can buffer your
show before running out of space.
STEP 11. Click on ‘Record’ to tell the
software when your favorite shows will air.
All you have to do is specify the channel,
start and end times, select how often the
show recurs (daily, weekly, etc) and choose
the quality of the output.
STEP 12. The ‘Recorded TV’ screen lists
all the shows you’ve recorded. Each entry
shows the name of the channel as well as
the date and time the clip was recorded.
Just make your selection and hit enter to
start watching!

STEP 13. The PCTV USB2 also comes with a
basic video capture and editing application
called Studio 9 Quickstart. While most of
the advanced functions are disabled in this
version, it’s more than enough to add some
basic effects to your TV shows and videos.
STEP 14. You can set the program to
capture video from any TV channel or the
AV inputs on the tuner. Click the button
marked ‘Settings...’ to set the format and
quality you want to use. Then all that’s left
to do is click on ‘Start Capture’ to begin.
STEP 15. The ‘Edit’ tab shows you the
video you just captured with each scene
automatically cut into clips. Drag these
clips to the timeline and apply transitions
and special effects to your heart’s content,
before making a DVD or VCD of your work.

Digital Set-top Boxes

These boxes are starting to appear all
over the country. They plug into your TV’s
AV inputs rather than its tuner (the cable
socket). These boxes act as the tuner
themselves, and output audio and video to
the AV inputs that your television set uses
to connect to VCRs, DVD players and game
consoles. This renders your TV remote
useless; you change channels and make
other settings through the set-top box’s
newspaper all the time. Of course, you Pinnacle’s Media Center doesn’t let you
tuner instead of the TV’s.
can also use your TV tuner’s AV inputs to watch video through the tuner’s AV
Digital cable is much clearer than
connect a VCR, game console, digital inputs, so those with set-top boxes and
traditional analog cable, it has bandwidth
cable set-top box or video camera, and game consoles are out in the cold. You can
for hundreds of channels and offers
capture the footage to edit on your however see the input in the video capture
features like an interactive program
computer. preview in Studio 9 Quickstart.
guide so you don’t have to refer to your

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006


Indulge in WAP!
WAP and GPRS technology were earlier available only in high-end phones.
These days even entry-level phones are WAP-enabled. Here are some exciting
projects for your WAP phone
T
he action is now in your palm. How
about mobile karaoke, railway
bookings, online search, viewing
family photos, transferring your own
ringtones, and checking email? Some
of this may sound familiar, because you
experience it on your computer. But when
a mobile phone is coupled with the
Internet there are lots of exciting
possibilities, thanks to WAP and GPRS.
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and
GPRS are two technologies that were once
the purview of pure techies. In those days,
both technologies were present only in
the high-end phones. As the gap between
affordability and technology closed in,
WAP seeped into entry-level phones,
priced between Rs 5,000 - 6,000. Playing
around with my new WAP phone (a Nokia
6030) during the long commute home, I
discovered some useful enhancements and
services. This happened much to the envy
of fellow commuters who enquire about
the model and price.
The common fare on WAP sites are
news, screensavers, games, ringtones,
wallpapers, and themes. While the
wallpapers and ringtones usually cost Rs
10 each, the games work out to Rs 50 - Rs
100 a download. Then there are games
that one can try and buy. These ‘samplers’
cost far less or are free (limited tries) and
they are meant to get you hooked. We also
discovered some innovations like mobile
karaoke and file transfers from your PC to
your phone via a WAP site.
So what does one need to surf across
WAP sites? While WAP technology takes
care of the web surfing part, GPRS handles
connectivity to the Internet, via a service
provider.
First, subscribe for GPRS connectivity
with your service provider and check if this
service has been activated.
How to connect
Test out the connection by initiating a
WAP session. Select the web option on the
Vishwanath Vanjire
phone’s menu. In the Nokia menu system
select “Options > Other Options” and then
“Go to address” from the phone menu.
Then type the address for a WAP site and
select “OK”.
We recommend that you create a
bookmark when the main page for a
particular WAP site appears. It offers the
same functionality as browser bookmarks/
favorites. To create a bookmark on the
Nokia phone system, select “Options >
Add Bookmark”. And to use a bookmark in
future, select “Options > Bookmarks”.
If you want to play it safe and avoid
viruses we suggest that you stick to known
WAP sites. Viruses can cause havoc with
your phone software and disrupt normal
operations!
Google
wap.google.com
It’s hard to miss Google these days,
especially if you spend much time online.
Need to reference something on the road?
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

It’s a good idea to bookmark a WAP site as
the main page appears on the screen
Look up the Google WAP site on your
phone itself!
From your phone menu select “Options
> Other Options” and then “Go to address”.
Then type: http://wap.google.com and
select “OK”.
The Google search box appears and it is
highlighted. Select “Edit” and begin typing
some keywords, putting a comma after
each word in a list; put double quotes before
and after a set of words that are expected
to remain together in the search results (as
in “California Elections”). Press the * key for
special characters. Then select “OK”.
Press the down arrow key on the phone
and select one of the following links: Web,
Mobile Web, or Local. Mobile Web implies
search only on WAP sites.
A few seconds later, the search results
will appear on your phone’s screen. Use the
up or down arrow keys to move between
links and press “Select” to choose a
highlighted link.
Yahoo
wap.yahoo.co.in
Besides mail, Yahoo offers a plethora
of online services. Though not all are
accessible on your WAP phone, you can
actually check your Yahoo Mail, use Yahoo
Messenger, and view your photos (stored
online). There’s web search too, and you
can also access your online calendar and
address book. Also, use Yahoo to download
games, wallpapers, ringtones, and logos.
We recommend that you explore Yahoo
mobile on your PC first. Log in to http://
in.mobile.yahoo.com/. This will make you
familiar with the site and its offerings.
You’ll see similar sections when you browse
the WAP site (wap.yahoo.co.in).
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
| Browsing Tips
User IDs and passwords are case
sensitive. While entering these change
the text casing to small before typing the
first alphabet, just as you do when typing
an SMS in lower case letters.
Look for the highlighted object. Use the
up and down arrow keys to move from
one link to another. The current link will
be highlighted. Text boxes (such as the
password box) and buttons (like “Sign
in”) can also be highlighted.
Get familiar with the phone’s menu first.
Explore all the menu options in your
phone’s browser.
Be aware of the folder system in your
phone. Create separate folders if
needed. If you are familiar with the
folder structure you can organize your
downloads better and find things easily.
If a WAP site has a web equivalent (like
Rediff and Indiatimes), then it would be
easier to navigate through that web site
using a PC. This will make it easier to
locate specific content when you browse
that WAP site on your phone, later.
Yahoo offers services like mail, search,
messenger, and photos on its WAP site
Rediff
mobile.rediff.com
The WAP equivalent of the popular Rediff.
com web site is called Rediff Mobile Zone.
It’s a stripped down version of Rediff.
com and offers downloads (wallpapers,
abstract art, paintings, animations, games).
Then, of course, regular sections like news,
astrology and Rediffmail. Be sure to explore
the Specials that change periodically. How
about “Man’s World Special”, “Wild Life
Special”, and “Corbis Imagery Special”?
Looking for a swimsuit model? You’ll find
WORKSHOP | HANDS ON 119
Explore the Specials section on the Rediff
WAP site
one here!
The Mobile Zone on Rediff.com can also
be explored on your PC (there’s a link at the
bottom of the Rediff.com home page).
Indiatimes
Poly.indiatimes.com/site1/wapsite
This offers similar fare as the Rediff
WAP site. The highlights here are the
contests, specials and exclusives.
The downloads section offers
wallpapers, polytones, tru tones, regional
tones, mobile and WAP games, and
themes. If you thirst for hot bikini babes
and supermodels, check out the wallpapers
Indiatimes offers news and plenty in the
Downloads section
section. You could also check your
Indiatimes mail here.
Planet Hutch
hutchworld.co.in
The service provider of this WAP site offers
news headlines, cricket scores, and specials
(mainly promotional material for new
Bollywood films). The Downloads section
offers a rich fare. There are wallpapers,
ringtones, SMS tones, animations, mcards,
railway bookings, and news videos. We
found some innovations too, like Mobile
120 HANDS ON | WORKSHOP
Hutch’s WAP site offers plenty in its
Downloads section
Karoke. Yes, try singing along to your
favorite tunes!
Other service providers also have their
own WAP sites. Check out AirTel Live! (live.
airtelworld.com), BPL Mizone (wap.mizone.
bplmobile.com), and Idea (10.4.43.4:7501/
wap).
Indiagames
202.46.200.191/orange/Test
The main page on this WAP site also offers
wallpapers (some animated) of Bollywood
actresses and Indian models. There are
tempting offers for free downloads
(games), but these are like the “buy-two-
shirts, get-one-free” offers.
Other interesting sections to explore
are Cricket World (mobile cricket games
and cricket wallpapers), and the gaming
categories. You’ll find plenty of games
on this WAP site, and these are organized
under heads like Racing games, Action
games, new games, etc. Just don’t get
carried away and download with a
devil-may-care attitude, because each
game costs Rs 99. Download five and
you’ve spent almost Rs 500—just like that!
We recommend the Try and Buy games
(trialware).
Indiagames offers plenty of mobile games
and wallpapers
Handygo
www.handygo.com/wapx/
There are plenty of add-ons and
enhancements for your mobile phone at
this WAP site. There’s a variety of poly
tunes, D tones, and sing tones. Before
downloading ensure that your phone
supports their file formats like .amr.
Undoubtedly, this site has a comprehensive
and good collection of movies, wallpapers,
animations and themes—neatly organized
under many categories. Do explore the
mobile games and utilities too.
Handygo has an exhaustive collection of
ringtones, movies, and wallpapers
Esato
wap.esato.com/wap/#esato
Besides the regular fare of wallpapers,
screensavers, ringtones, and themes, this
WAP site does offer something different.
Gakkamations is a section of realistic
animated pictures—like a Christmas tree
with blinking lights. Developers can indulge
in the WML/WAP or xHTML forums,
although it would be easier to read the
postings on a regular web site. And then
there’s a collection of Java games. Esato
also offers free themes and wallpapers,
matched to specific phone models.
There’s a choice of ringtones at the Esato
WAP site
Zedge
wap.zedge.no
The web site http://www.zedge.no/
offers free wallpapers, ringtones, and
other goodies for specific phone models. A
section named “Upload Shack” on this site
caught our interest. Through this section
you can upload your digital pictures, midi
files, MP3 files, etc to the site. Later, you
can log on to its WAP site (wap.zedge.no)
on your phone and download anything that
was previously uploaded to your upload
shack! Incidentally, some midi files (.mid)
also make good polyphonic ringtones.
First log on to www.zedge.no using your
computer and register for a free account.
Note your password and ID.
When you sign in, click the “Upload
Shack” link on the menu bar (left side).
Then click the “Add File” button on the
page. Specify the name and location of the
file in the text box and click “Upload”. Once
this is complete, click “Go back” and upload
other pictures or music files. Finally, log out
and get your WAP phone out.
Connect to the web on your phone and
go to the address wap.zedge.no. Once the
main page appears, enter your username
and password. Then select the “Login” link.
Scroll down the page and select the link
“My Upload Shack”. You will see a list of
files that were earlier uploaded. Select a
file link and then select the target folder
on your phone (Tones or Graphics). You will
see a numeric file name. Delete it slowly
by pressing “Clear” repeatedly on your
phone. Then type a new file name. The file
is downloaded to your phone. If it’s a digital
music file and your phone supports that
format, then you can set it as your ringtone.
| Brian Pereira
Transfer ringtones and pictures via the
Upload Shack on Zedge
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Checking email on your phone (Gmail)
Checking mail on a WAP phone is similar to checking your web mail (like Hotmail). You need to know the address of the corresponding
WAP site. Once you enter that in your phone’s browser, the log-in page appears. A link or box or button will be highlighted. Use the
up/down arrow keys on your phone to move between links or boxes. Pressing the “Select” button on your phone is equivalent to clicking
a link on a conventional web page.
STEP 1. Connect: Connect to the web by
selecting the web option on your phone.
From the phone menu, select [Options>
Other options > Go to address].
Enter the address m.gmail.com and select
[OK]. Once the Gmail web page appears,
you can bookmark the site by selecting
[Options > Add Bookmark] from the
phone’s menu.
Checking email on your phone (Yahoo Mail)
STEP 1. Connect: Make a connection to
the web by selecting the [Web] option on
the phone.
Select [Go to adress] from the [Options]
menu. When prompted, enter the address
wap.yahoo.co.in or wap.yahoo.com and
select [OK]. A security message will appear.
Select [Yes].
When the Yahoo home page appears,
you can bookmark it for future access by
selecting [Options > Add Bookmark]. Scroll
to the bottom and select the [Mail] link.
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
STEP 2. Sign in: When the Gmail page
appears, scroll down and highlight the
username box. Select [Edit] and enter your
Gmail ID. Then select [OK]. Scroll down
and highlight the password box. Again
select [Edit] and enter your password. Then
select [OK]. Move down and select the
[Remember me] box if needed. Then select
[Mark]. Scroll down and select the [Sign
in] button. Select a message to read it and
after that use the [Back] button.
STEP 2. Sign in: The sign-in screen
appears. With the Yahoo ID box
highlighted, select [Edit] and enter your
Yahoo ID. Then select [OK].
Scroll down and highlight the password
box. Again select [Edit] and enter your
password. While typing the password, the
characters appear for a brief moment and
then turn into an asterix, so be quick while
typing. Scroll down and select the [Sign in]
button. A security message appears.
Select [OK].
WORKSHOP | HANDS ON 121
STEP 3. More views: Gmail on WAP
offers options that are similar to those
on the Gmail web site. But these are on a
separate page.
If you scroll towards the bottom of the
main page on your WAP phone, you will see
the other folders and options [More views].
Be sure to sign out after you finish. The
sign out link is at the bottom of the main
page on Gmail.
STEP 3. Check mail: The list of mail
folders appears. Highlight the folder to
be checked and press [Select]. The list of
messages appears. If there are several
messages you will find a [Next] link at the
bottom of the page. To read a message
highlight the message link and press
[Select]. Select the [Back] button to view
the folder list again. Don’t forget to sign
out after checking messages. You’ll find the
Sign out link at the bottom of the page (in
folder view).
122 HANDS ON | WORKSHOP
Transfer pictures (wirelessly) into the phone
Don’t have the cable for connecting your phone to the PC? No sweat. Here’s a way to transfer pictures wirelessly, via a WAP web site.
STEP 1. Resize the image: The new
phones can automatically resize the
image for the phone’s screen. In case your
phone can’t do that, use an image editing
software and resize . Check the phone’s
screen resolution in the manual or on the
manufacturer’s web site.
STEP 4. Connect to the Web: Initiate
a connection to the web by selecting the
web option on the phone’s menu. Then
select [Options > Other Options] and then
[Go to address] from the phone’s
menu. Then type: wap.yahoo.co.in. Select
[OK].
STEP 7. Download picture to phone:
Select [Options] and then [Other Options].
Then select [Save Image] and [Save]. Select
the [Graphics] folder on your phone. Then
select [Save to]. Type the name for the
photo (you can select the [Clear] option to
delete the default name. Then select [OK].
STEP 2. Sign in to Yahoo Photos: Using a
computer and browser, log on to photos.
yahoo.com and sign in. Click the [Add
Photos] button. A list of existing albums is
shown. Create a new album if needed and
click the [Continue] button. Choose the
[Private] option and click [Continue].
STEP 5. Sign in to Yahoo on your phone:
Select the [Sign in] link. With the Yahoo ID
box highlighted, type your Yahoo login ID
and select [OK]. Scroll down till you see the
password box. Enter your password in the
box and select [OK]. Scroll down and select
the [Sign in] button. Select [OK].
STEP 8. Sign out: Remember to sign out
from the web site and also to terminate
your WAP session.
Select the [Back] button till you go back to
the main Yahoo page. From there select the
[Sign out] option. Then select [Options >
Quit] on your phone’s menu .
STEP 3. Upload to Yahoo Photos:
When prompted to do so, click on [Select
Photos]. Then indicate the location of the
folder that contains your photo. Within that
folder, click on the photo and click [Select]
and [Continue]. Wait a few seconds as the
photo is uploaded to the Yahoo server.
Do note the album on Yahoo where you
uploaded the photo. Click the [View Album]
button to verify. Finally, sign out from
Yahoo and get out your WAP phone.
STEP 6. Select an album: Scroll down
and select the [Photos] link. Then select the
link for [My Albums]. A moment later all
your albums will appear. Select the album
in which you stored the resized photo.
Then highlight the resized photo within
that album.
STEP 9. Viewing the picture on the
phone: From the phone’s main menu
select [Gallery]. Select the [Graphics]
folder. Highlight the photo that you just
downloaded and select [Open]. You can
then select the [Options > Zoom] or
[Options > Set as Wallpaper] .
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Made a Backup Yet?
It’s time you made a copy of all your important documents, if you haven’t so far.
Let’s take a look at how XP’s Backup can make your life easier.
A
lot of personal data has been lost
because of procrastination—I’m
sure the same has happened to
a lot of you too. Well, I woke up from my
slumber and started taking backups more
often. I used to manually copy files on to
optical media, and then I started using
proprietary software to automatically
save select files on my computer. Then
I started using XP’s Backup Utility,
which turned out to be a very simple
and inexpensive way of backing up
information on your computer. XP’s
Backup Utility is a very handy tool for the
user at home or in a small office—it has a
variety of settings to choose from to suit
your needs and is part of the operating
system (no costs at all in terms of money
or bandwidth). One can take a backup of
personal files, system files or everything
on the system partition (‘C’ drive). The
Backup Utility in Windows XP Professional
also has an additional feature known as
Automated System Recovery. This method
allows you to create a backup of the
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
System State and create a diskette, which
aids in reinstalling your operating system
(faster) and all the data as well from a
backup made earlier. In addition to this,
there is the scheduling feature that allows
you to automate backups while you are
away from the computer.
There are a few things that you need to
know before you begin using the Backup
Utility. There is a little fine print in the way
you can use this Utility. For example, XP
Home Edition users will not find ‘Backup’
under System Tools. This is because it is not
included by default—it needs to be installed
from the CD. You will find the installable in
the ‘Valueadd\MSFT\Ntbackup’ folder in the
XP Home Edition CD.
After you have installed it, you will
notice that Windows XP Home Edition’s
Backup Utility does not have the
Automated System Recovery feature.
Windows XP Professional, on the other
hand, has Backup installed by default and
also has the ASR feature. There is a caveat
to using the ASR method for backing up
Manoj Tandel
your system – it only supports FAT16 and
NTFS partitions. It is preferable to use the
NTFS file system for your system partition.
If you are not going to use NTFS, you can
still use the rest of Backup’s features of
backup and restore.
This workshop will take you through
the different types of backups like System
State, Incremental, Differential, etc and
then tell you how these can be restored
at a later stage. The final part of the
workshop deals with the Automated
System Recovery feature in Windows XP
Professional. You can use floppies to take
backups (which is quite pointless since
you will not have enough floppies for all
the data) to save it on another partition
(anything except the system partition)
or hard drive. External storage can also
be used to store ‘backup sets’. Make sure
your external drive has enough storage (at
least 2 GB, if you are going to make a copy
of your system files) before you go ahead
with the backup.
| Ashutosh Desai
124 HANDS ON | WORKSHOP
Create a Backup
STEP 1. Click on Start | Accessories | System
Tools | Backup. Use the wizard to help you
create a backup set on to a storage device
or another partition. Choose ‘Back up...’
and click on Next.
STEP 4. If you want to set the kind of
backup then click on ‘Advanced’ instead
of clicking on ‘Finish’. If you just want to
create a plain old backup then click on
Finish. It will create a Normal backup.
Restore your Backup
STEP 1. Run the Backup Utility again, opt
for ‘Restore files...’ and select the backup
set. If want a select few folders or files,
check the appropriate boxes and click on
Next.
STEP 2. Select what you want to backup.
‘Everyone’s documents and settings’
will save My Documents, My Folder, etc
of all the users on the computer. ‘All
information...’ will also create an ASR disk.
STEP 5. Within ‘Advanced’, you can select
Normal, Copy, Incremental, Differential
or a Daily type backup depending on your
needs. Below the option you will find a
small explanation of the backup type.
STEP 2. Select the destination where you
want the backup to be restored. If want
to restore a few files only into a particular
folder then select the ‘Single Folder’ option
and browse to the destination folder.
STEP 3. Choose the destination of the
backup you are going to create. Do not
forget to type a name for the backup—keep
it simple and easy to understand. It helps
when you create multiple backup sets.
STEP 6. The “Backup Progress” dialog box
first analyzes all the folders that are to
be backed up and then begins the actual
process. Do not work on documents or any
application at the same time.
STEP 3. Certain files might have certain
security settings or contain mount points.
If mount points are not preserved then the
contents within the mount folder will not
restored.
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Automated System Recovery
STEP 1. If you create an ASR back, click on
the ‘Advanced’ link before you click on Next
to start the backup wizard. (You can start
your Backup/Restore wizard from here also,
if you wish.) Click on Automated System
Recovery Wizard. A floppy is also required.
STEP 4. While restoring the operating
system, the system partition will be
formatted. This will take some time
depending on the size of the partition. The
system partition is usually the C drive.
STEP 7. By default, the last backup set
taken will be displayed in the field. Click on
Browse to select the .bkf file you want to
use. Click on Next and continue with the
restore process. After the PC restarts, you
will be back to your desktop as it was.
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
STEP 2. Create an ASR in the same way
as a backup. At the end of the backup you
will be asked to insert a floppy to create
the ASR foppy. This method only creates a
backup of the System State and is used to
restore the operating system quickly.
STEP 5. After the initial preparation, the
operating system will begin installing. This
process is of a shorter duration since it will
restore from the ASR backup instead of
running a complete reinstall.
STEP 8. To further configure the Backup
Utility, click on the Tools menu and select
Options. Browse the tabs to set the kind of
backup/restore you want to set the utility
to use. You can also use the ‘Verify data...’
option to avoid taking corrupt backups.
WORKSHOP | HANDS ON 125
STEP 3. To restore your system partition,
boot from a Windows XP CD and press
F2 (when prompted to do so) to run ASR.
Insert the ASR floppy that was created
during the backup. The restoration of the
operating system will begin.
STEP 6. At a particular stage of
installation, the ASR recovery wizard
will begin. If you have used an external
storage device for backup, make sure it is
connected to your computer. Click Next.
STEP 9. Once you are comfortable with
taking backups, you can use the Schedule
Jobs option to automate the process. This is
where the Incremental, Differential backup
types will come of use. They basically
append files to the same backup set.
126 HANDS ON | TIPS & TRICKS

Tips&Tricks JANUARY 2006

WINDOWS 127
1 Windows XP Slow installation
2 Windows XP Monitoring the system
3 Windows XP Removing programs from “Open with”

INTERNET & COMMUNICATION 128

4 Web Browser Enhancing Firefox functionality
5 Web Browser Opening link in new Firefox tab
6 Web Browser & Portable Internet
Umesh Dahiwalkar Email Client
7 Outlook Tweaking Outlook
Tip of the month
Windows XP APPLICATIONS 129
How can I make my own personalized icons in 8 Adobe Photoshop Creating images for web pages
Window XP? 9 Word Utilizing word count toolbar
10 Word Updating time in Word
It’s extremely easy to create your own icons 11 Word Creating shortcuts in Word
in Windows XP. Here you go : Click “Start >click
12 Word Embedding fonts in a document
All Programs>click Accessories> and then click
13 Winamp Making Winamp dance to the beats
Paint. On the Image menu, click Attributes. Type 32
for both the width and height of the document, and
make sure that Pixels is selected under Units. Click
HARDWARE 132
[OK] to create a new 32x32-pixel document: the 14 Speakers Correcting noise problem

size of an icon. 15 Hard Drives Prevent excess heat and vibration

Now add type, color, or do whatever you’d like 16 Digital Cameras Get bright images without flash
to with your image.When you’re finished, open the 17 Digital Cameras Checking for actual lens resolution
File menu and click “Save As”. Use the dialog box to 18 Cabinet Avoiding clutter in the case
choose where you want to save your file, then give 19 Cabinet Cleaning the case
it a name followed by “.ico” (without the quotes),
20 Monitor Installing the right monitor
and click “Save”. (The extension “.ico” tells
21 Mice Using the mouse pad
Windows that it’s an icon
file). We just created an
icon. Now you can change
any shortcut or folder to
your own icon and just
browse to it on your hard
drive.

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006


Windows
1 | Windows XP
Slow installation
My Windows XP installation has been
progressively slowing down over the
past few weeks. I tried out plenty of
applications from the Internet and this is
beginning to clog my system. I can’t stop
myself from doing this, so I want to know
what precautions I need to take to ensure
that my system is running at its optimal
best, despite my download-heavy
lifestyle.
During the course of normal
computer usage, there are several
opportunities where your hard disk can
get progressively filled with unnecessary
programs and fragments of files that
are remnants of your Web browsing
and application installations. All this
system junk will certainly slow down your
computer. There are several areas from
where you can weed out all this junk and
keep your system spiffy clean.
First, get rid of all the extraneous files
on your hard disks that might have been
left by old program installations, Internet
browsing, deleted files etc. Go to Start
| Run and type “cleanmgr /sageset:99”.
This opens up the Disk Cleanup Wizard.
This little application lets you select
one of many areas of your Windows XP
installation and safely deletes superfluous
files that clutter your hard disk. Some of
the sections include offline web pages,
temporary setup files, log files, etc.
There’s nothing to stop you from selecting
all of these categories and hitting the
1 Bring up the disk cleanup application to
help you weed out junk files
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
[OK] button. However, there might be
instances where you might want to keep
your Internet cache, for example, to take
advantage of better load times while
browsing your favorite web sites. If you
don’t really want to do so, go ahead and
check all of these areas and Windows will
proceed to remove all of these files, leading
to a cleaner (and faster) system.
There are other ways you can optimize
the space allocations of common Windows
resources such as the System Restore
Points and the Recycle Bin. Both of these
are notorious for allocating enormous
amounts of hard disk space that can
otherwise be put to more productive use.
By default, Windows allots 10 percent of
the volume space to the recycle bin—that’s
4 GB from a 40 GB hard disk! Reduce
this by right-clicking on the Recycle Bin,
selecting properties and swinging down
the slider to 3 percent or less. Similarly,
with the System Restore Points, right click
on [My Computer] in Windows Explorer,
choose Properties and drag this down to
three percent or less. There, you’ve now
recovered several gigabytes of space on
your hard disk.
2 | Windows XP
Monitoring the system
I would like to know with several
applications running, how much free
RAM does my computer have. How I can
monitor the temperature and fan speeds
of my system and processor fans? Also, I
want to know how I can obtain a detailed
report on the hardware configuration of
my computer.
There are various applications
you can use to monitor the state of your
system at any given time. One of them is a
program called CoolMon (www.coolmon.
org) where you can monitor about 22 of
the most geekiest system parameters like
the temperature and speed of your system
fans, the number of processes running,
the total available memory on your hard
disk and RAM, CPU utilization, etc. Each
of these can be individually configured to
appear on the interface. Best of all, this
monitoring happens in real time. Better
still, the program is free.
TIPS & TRICKS | HANDS ON 127
2 Unearth every specification of your
computer’s hardware using this nifty
tool
If you need more details than what is
offered by Windows System Information
or the Device Manager, try out an
application called Everest Home Edition
(www.lavalys.com). This application
hunts through your hardware and
software setup and extracts every piece
of information you might need about your
processor, motherboard, graphics card,
hard disk and any other piece of hardware
or software information that you might
care to know about your computer.
3 | Windows XP
Removing programs from
“Open with”
When one right clicks on a file ones sees an
option called “open with” which links to
different programs which can be used to
run the same file . In case I want to delete
them, how do I go about it?
Click Start, Run, Type REGEDIT
Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \
Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ FileExts
Find the extension you wish to edit
and click on the [+] sign to expand
OpenWithList (in the right pane, you will
see a list with the programs, like “paint.
exe”, “notepad.exe”, etc).
Use the File, Export option to back up
the key.
Click on the one you wish to delete and
press the delete button.
Still some items may show up in the
Openwith lists, which comes from the
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT registry key, which is
128 HANDS ON | TIPS & TRICKS
common for all the user profiles. You may
remove the entries from the following key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ .xxx \
OpenWithList where xxx is a file extension.
With that removed, Windows may still
show some default open-with lists.
Depending upon the file type, the open-
with listing is generated from the subkeys
under:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \
SystemFileAssociations \ <Type>\
Simply put, don’t remove this part
as it affects many file types, not a
particular one.
Internet
4 | Web Browser
Enhancing Firefox functionality
I’ve been using Firefox for a while now
and am really addicted to its extensible
architecture where I can add the feature I
need. What are the cool extensions that I
can use to truly beef up the functionality
of Firefox and take my Internet experience
clear into the geek domain?
Firefox lends itself to extending its
functionality using a range of tiny plug-ins
called extensions. There are extensions
for several applications such as FTP, AD
blocking, mouse gestures, weather and
stock updates, enhanced download
functionality, etc. Some of the must-have
extensions you need to make your Firefox
installation into a power web browser are:
Adblock: Besides speeding up your
web browsing experience, this plug-in
eliminates all web advertising from the
web pages your browse through. It works
by referencing a list of known advertising
web sites and selectively blocking content
from these sites which appear on other
pages in the form of banner Ads, popups,
etc. The list can be modified to incorporate
future inclusions as well.
All-in-One Gestures: Once you start using
it, there’s no looking back—using your
mouse, you can define specific movement
patters to execute tasks during your web
browsing experience. This enables you to
virtually control your surfing using just the
mouse, where you can browse through
4 Give Firefox a shot of steroids—these
are some of the must-have plugins
pages, navigate between open web sites,
close web sites and move forward and
backward within them with just a flick of
your wrist.
Tabbrowser Preferences: Tab browsing
is one of the best pieces of functionality
in Firefox. This extension extends this
functionality by giving you greater control
on how tabs appear, where they appear
and how links within them are handled.
FoxyTunes: For all you music junkies out
there, how would you like to control your
MP3 player software from your browser
itself? FoxyTunes lets you do just that—it
hooks into popular MP3 players like iTunes
and Windows Media Player and offers full
audio control from a toolbar in the browser
itself. Very handy.
IEView: There are some web sites that
aren’t Firefox-friendly. For these, you can
open them in a dedicated window using
this extension.
Google Toolbar for Firefox: It’s been
around for a while, but this version is
now officially released and supported
by Google. This Google-enabled Firefox
extension lets you search from within the
interface itself.
Gmail Notifier: Just like your local
e-mail client, this extension provides a
notification each time you receive mail on
your Gmail account. Neat.
Flashblock: If you’re bogged down by
those Flash-heavy web sites that slow
down your surfing experience, this
functionality banishes them to digital
oblivion!
5 | Web Browser
Opening link in Firefox
How do I open a link in a new tab in
Firefox?
It’s known that in Firefox you can
open a link in a new tab by clicking the
link with the ‘ctrl’ key pressed. But there is
a quicker way. If you have a three-button
mouse, you can click a link with the middle
button (in a scroll mouse, the scroll wheel
is also a middle button) to open it in a
new tab.
6 | Web Browser and E-mail Client
Portable Internet
I travel a lot and very often I need to access
my mail and the Internet from various
locations. However, I don’t have a laptop
and so I often need to access information
from public places and computer in other
offices. Is there any way I could keep
my familiar web browser and POP mail
client with me and use this to access the
Internet?
If you’re addicted to your specific
settings on your browser and e-mail client,
it’s only natural that you’d want the exact
same settings no matter where you go.
There’s hope—portable versions of web
browsers like Firefox and e-mail clients like
Thunderbird do exist. Using these scaled-
down applications, you can carry them on
a portable storage medium like a thumb
drive, an MP3 player like the iPod.
To start off, you’d be best off getting
yourself a USB 2.0 enabled thumb drive
as these will give you the best application
response compared to those based on the
older USB 1.1 standard. A 256 MB drive
should more than suffice, with space to
spare for your other files. Then, you would
need to download and use the portable
versions of a browser like Portable Firefox
(portablefirefox.mozdev.org) for your
web browsing and Portable Thunderbird
(portablethunderbird.mozdev.org) for
your e-mail client. You can even try out
Portable Nvu (portablenvu.mozdev.org)
and Portable Sunbird (portablesunbird.
mozdev.org) for browsing and e-mailing
respectively. All of these applications are
specifically optimized for use on a USB
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

thumb drive—they are small to begin with,
they minimize the amount of times they
write to the device and don’t store data
like web pages by default. All of this makes
for a very usable experience while working
with these applications.
A portable drive is highly susceptible to
being stolen or pilfered. So you can use the
file encryption software that came with
your thumb drive or download third-party
encryption applications such as Cypherix
Cryptainer LE (www.cypherix.co.uk) or
Dekart Private Disk Light (www.dekart.
com) to add an extra level of security to
your portable applications.
7 | Outlook
Tweaking Outlook
I rely on Microsoft Outlook for everything
from e-mailing to tracking my schedules
to assigning tasks to my team members.
However, there are times when the
application responds in a very sluggish
manner. Is there a way I can move the mail
Outlook file to a different directory or hard
disk, to make it easier to take backups
of it?
Outlook, being the multi-faceted
application it is, lets you do plenty of tasks
for the home and office. However, in this
age of bloated attachments and relentless
e-mail forwards, it doesn’t take too long
for your mailbox to swell up to hundreds
of megabytes. There are several ways
to counter this and to help keep it slim
and trim.
First, you can compress your mailbox
(and all attached files along with it). To
do this, select Tools | Options and choose
the ‘Mail Setup’ tab. Now click the ‘Data
files’ button and select ‘Settings’ from
the following screen. You’ll see a button
here called ‘Compact’. Clicking this will
enable Outlook to compress the data file
that is used to hold all your e-mails, tasks,
calendar entries etc.
The default location of the mail Outlook
PST storehouse file is within a long-winded
folder structure in a hidden location. Since
this is a critical data file, you would want it
to be in an accessible location from where
you can back it up easily. Therefore, it’s
best to move it from its initial location.
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
7 By relocating your personal files folder
to a new location, managing it is easier
First you need to locate the ‘Outlook.
PST’ file. From the menu bar, click on
‘Tools’, then select ‘Options’ and click the
‘Data files’ button. Now click the ‘Open
Folder’ button. A new window will open,
containing the main outlook file. Copy this
path to this file from the address bar. Now
close Outlook and navigate to this file using
the path you saved. Cut the file from this
location and paste it to the new location
in an accessible folder. Now, the next time
you start Outlook, it will throw up an error
box since the file will not be found. Simply
navigate to the new location, select the file
and click [OK]. That’s it, from now, Outlook
will access the file from the new location.
You are now free to take backups of that
file from its new location.
APPLICATIONS
8 | Adobe Photoshop
Creating images for web pages
I am learning to create my own web site.
Since I am quite new to this, I’m using an
easy-to-use web design software. I have
noticed that many web sites have some
really cool logos, icons, etc. It’s easy to
just click, save these images to my system
and then use them on my web pages. I
would like to create images on my own.
I have Adobe Photoshop installed on my
computer. Could you tell how I can use it to
create some images for my web site?
There are a whole lot of things you
can do with Adobe Photoshop—you can
design almost all the elements of your
page in Photoshop. So the best time to
start learning how to do that is now! Here,
TIPS & TRICKS | HANDS ON 129
we will create an image for your page that
will make use of shadow, emboss and burn
effects. This image can be used to add to
your web page, as part of an
e-mail or a desktop wallpaper.
In Adobe Photoshop, create a new file
– File | New and enter Image Size’s Width
and Height to 400x400. You can change
this depending on your preferences. Notice
the estimated file size as you enter the
dimensions into the fields. Also make sure
that the “Contents” is set to ‘Transparent’.
Set the foreground color by clicking on the
‘Foreground’ in the Tools bar (if it’s not
visible, click on Window | Tools).
8 Use the color picker to set the object’s
color
Click on the Rectangle Tool to get a
list of the additional shape tools. Select
Custom Shape Tool.
Select the symbol you want from the
drop down list. Click and drag to create
the shape onto the new file that you just
opened. After creating the shape the color
should get filled in automatically since you
had selected it earlier.
Create a new layer, click and drag it
below the ‘Shape’ layer. With this new layer
http://www.postmaster.co.in
Peace Of Mind
Unbeatable on-the-ground presence.
To ensure that you're free
to focus - on the next level of productivity
for your organization.
Truly Next Generation
For a free trial call QuantumLink Communications Pvt. Ltd.
Mumbai - 26820004. Bangalore - 51152792.
New Delhi - 26691152 / 927. Pune - 9373307992
Or write to - sales.ho@postmaster.co.in
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
130 HANDS ON | TIPS & TRICKS
8a The custom share tool has a lot of
options to play around with
selected, select the Background color. Use
the Pain Bucket Tool (press [G] or click on
[Edit | Fill]) to fill the background with the
color you just selected.
With this done, you go ahead adding all
the effects to the shape. Select the Shape
layer and right click on it. Select ‘Blending
Options’. In the Layer Style dialog box that
appears, you can fiddle with any of the
8b Right click on the symbol in layers and
select the blending options
features listed here.
The ‘Blending Options’ can be left as is
– Default. Click on ‘Drop Shadow’ to enable
it and set the ‘Blend Mode’ to Multiply.
Set ‘Opacity’ to 75 percent. If you like you
can change the angle of the light source by
changing the value against ‘Angle’. Set the
‘Contour’ as Linear under ‘Quality’.
8c Select Drop Shadow and choose the
amount and quality of shadow
Now click on ‘Bevel and Emboss’
and choose the ‘Emboss’ ‘Style’ under
‘Structure’. Set the ‘Technique’ to ‘Chisel
Hard’ and the ‘Depth’ of this style to “505”.
You should play around with these settings
and see the changes that occur on the
symbol you created a while ago.
Change the ‘Gloss Contour’ under
‘Shading’ to Gaussian and check ‘Anti-
aliased’. Set the ‘Highlight Mode’ to
8d The Bevel and Emboss feature will give
some high relief to the symbol
Darken, ‘Shadow Mode’ to Multiply and the
‘Opacity’ to 75 percent.
Now click on ‘Color Overlay’ and select
‘Darken’ for the ‘Blend Mode’ and the
‘Opacity’ to 75 percent. Select ‘Gradient
Overlay’ and set the ‘Opacity’ to 85 percent
to choose the kind of ‘Gradient’ you want
to apply to the image. Select it and click on
the arrow new ‘Presets’ to load additional
gradient styles. The changes can be
observed on the image, all the while. After
you are done with setting the gradient
style, select the ‘Style’ as Linear and check
‘Align with Layer’. Do not set the Gradient
Scale too high, as it will only darken the
image completely.
Click [OK] to confirm the changes you
have just made. Use the ‘Burn Tool’ to
create a ‘singed’ look on the symbol. (You
8e The ‘Burn’ tool increases the darkness
of a color
will need to disable the Gradient Overlay
settings to make the ‘burn’ effects visible.)
You can make each layer ‘invisible’ by
8f The ‘History’ tool lets you undo many
steps at a time
clicking on the small eye icon to the left of
the layer (or effect under that layer).
To undo some actions, click on Window
| History—this will list all the actions you
have performed on the image. Select the
step from where you want to restart your
work. You can select a particular step and
click on the trash can icon to delete it.
Just selecting the particular step without
deleting anything to continue your work
from is good enough.
Save the file as a .psd (if you want
to continue working on the layers later
on) and as a JPG file (choose the quality
depending on the use). You can use this file
for your web site or to create a wallpaper or
greeting card.
8f Your final web image—embossed,
raised and ready for upload
9 | Word
Utilizing Word count toolbar
How do I get the word count in a Word
document? Is there a way to keep the word
count display active for all the documents?
The word count option is present
under the ‘Tools’ menu. Apart from
word count, it also displays the number
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

of characters, lines and paragraphs in a
document. The shortest way to get word
count is by using the shortcut [Alt+T+W].
But if you want to keep the word count
active permanently, there is a way to add a
word count toolbar. To add it, go to ‘View |
Toolbars’ and select ‘Word Count’. After the
toolbar gets displayed, you can drag it to
the standard or the formatting toolbar so
that it snaps into place.
Now, to get the word count, you
simply have to click the “Count” button
on the toolbar. After you have edited the
document, you have to click on it again
to get a fresh count. A simpler way to
get the word count on the toolbar is by
pressing [Alt+c]. If you wish to get a count
of characters, lines or paragraphs, you can
set the option in the toolbar from its drop
down list.
9 By utilizing the word count toolbar, you
can keep tracks of word count in a jiffy
9a Choose the option ‘Update
automatically’ in order to keep the time
updated in word
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
10 | Word
Updating time in Word
What is the shortcut to insert
automatically updating time in a Word
document?
To insert time, you have to go to
the ‘Insert’ menu and then choose ‘Date
and Time’. Then in order to keep the time
updated, you have to choose the option
‘Update automatically’.
Next time when you want to insert time,
just press [Alt+Shift+t] and your work will
be done in half a second. This shortcut also
works in PowerPoint.
11 | Word
Creating shortcuts in Word
How do I get some useful shortcuts in
Word?
Here you go! These shortcuts will
help you to save time and keep your hands
off the mouse while you’re working on a
Word document.
Previewing a document: To preview a
document, you either have to go to ‘File |
Print Preview’ or click the ‘Print Preview’
button on the Standard toolbar. A quicker
way would be to press [ctrl+alt+i]. Don’t
worry about clicking the [close] button
after you are done with the preview. You
simply have to press [alt+c] to resume
working on the document.
Page setup: Rather than going to ‘File |
Page Setup’, it’s easier to double click the
blank area at either sides of the horizontal
‘Ruler’ bar. Even though using the former
method is easy, the latter is surely an easier
and a time-saving method.
Zooming: Zooming in and out is not a big
deal. You just have to select or type the
zoom percentage in the zoom field in the
Standard toolbar.
But there is a quicker way without moving
the mouse! If you have a mouse with a
scroll wheel, keep the [ctrl] key pressed and
scroll the mouse wheel up to zoom in or
down to zoom out. Piece of cake, isn’t it?
If you have a keyboard with a zoom slider,
nothing like it!
TIPS & TRICKS | HANDS ON 131
12 | Word
Embedding fonts in a document
I have downloaded and installed some
additional fonts. If I create a document
using those fonts, the document doesn’t
appear the way it is meant to on other PCs.
Please give me a quick tip.
The document won’t appear with
similar formatting on other PCs unless they
too have the fonts that you have used. The
first and the most common way to solve
this problem is to carry the additional fonts
that you have used in the document and
copy them to the ‘Fonts’ folder located in
the ‘Windows’ folder.
A wiser option is to embed the font
in the document itself. It does make the
document a little larger in size, but you
won’t to worry about installing the fonts
on other PCs. To do so, click [File | Save as]
and click the “Tools” drop down list in the
12 By embedding fonts in a document,
they needn’t be installed on the
computer it’s used
http://www.postmaster.co.in
State-of-the-art
E-mail hosting and
management system.
With a 99.5%
performance guarantee.
For a free trial call QuantumLink Communications Pvt. Ltd.
Mumbai - 26820004. Bangalore - 51152792.
New Delhi - 26691152 / 927. Pune - 9373307992
Or write to - sales.ho@postmaster.co.in
132 HANDS ON | TIPS & TRICKS
‘Save as’ dialog box.
Choose ‘save options’ and check ‘Embed
TrueType Fonts’. You can exclude the
system fonts from being embedded to
keep the file size low.
13 | WINAMP
Make Winamp dance to the beats!
I use Winamp majorly. Please give me a
funky tip for Winamp.
Did you know you can make
Winamp’s main window flash to the beats
of the song it’s playing?
To check it out, you need to have
Winamp 5. Set the skin to ‘Winamp
Modern’. Now type ‘NULLSOFT’. After each
‘L’ the ‘open file’ dialog box will open, so
you have to hit escape. So actually you’re
typing N,U,L,Esc,L,Esc,S,O,F,T. Watch the fun
if you’ve got it right! It looks very funky.
HARDWARE
14 | Speakers
Correcting noise problem
It gets quite disturbing when there’s
a continuous hiss or distortion in the
background while I am listening to my
favorite tracks. I can detect the hiss more
correctly when I use my headphones. I
would like to know what causes the hiss.
The hiss could be due to various
reasons like a bad sound card, faulty
speakers or headphones and also due to
some interference from other devices in
your computer. But the most common of
all factors is the soundcard itself and its
inputs, which might be enabled in spite
of them not being in use. To correct this
problem you need to follow the steps:
a) Open the software mixer or volume
control. There are several inputs that can
create noise in the speakers.
b) The microphone and the modem are the
usual culprits. Mute these two items. This
should eliminate all or most of the noise.
Note: The microphone does not have to
be un-muted to use it. Un-muting the
microphone allows you to hear what you are
recording through the speakers while you are
recording. It doesn’t stop you from recording.
Therefore, the microphone should always
be muted so that it does not cause a hissing
sound or low-level hum from the speakers.
15 | Hard Drives
Prevent excess heat and vibration
While installing a second hard drive, what
are the precautions I need to take?
With hard drives becoming more
and more affordable, buying a second
hard drive to boost the computer storage
is a very common upgrade amongst users.
Hard drives have a major contribution to
the overall system heat and hence you
need to take the following precautions
before installing a second hard drive. Here
are some tips to ensure that the new hard
drive does not bring new worries.
1) Make sure there is enough ventilation
in the cabinet and ensure that the hard
drive is not in physical contact with any
other device (floppy disk drive, hard drive
or optical drive).
2) The two hard drives should have
sufficient space between them, if they
are too close to each other, the heat
emitted by them can not only cause
damage to the hard drives but also
pushes the system temperature higher,
putting the other components in danger
of excess heat. Maintain a minimum
distance of 1.5-2 inches between the
two drives; in case you have more
than two drives, which don’t allow
sufficient gap between the drives, it’s
recommended that you use hard drive
coolers to control the heat.
3) Being mechanical devices, hard drives
have a tendency to vibrate in case they
are not attached properly. Loosely fit
hard drives can cause vibrations that
not only damage the hard drive but
other components as well. To avoid
such issues, make sure that they are
fit properly and ensure that they are
attached to the chassis of the cabinet
from all four sides.
16 | Digital Cameras
Get bright images without flash
How do I ensure bright images without
using the flash?
There are several issues with digital
cameras although they are easier and
smarter than film cameras. Low-light
shooting is one of these issues. Capturing
images in low-light can become a daunting
task, especially if you want to avoid the use
of flash. Using flash tends to overexpose
(brighten) the image too much. To capture
decent images in low light, you will have
to increase the ‘Exposure’ setting, which
basically determines the sensitivity of the
sensor to ambient light conditions.
The exposure settings are used to
lighten or darken the image by overriding
the default exposure. Most cameras
provide “EV Compensation” to adjust the
amount of light that reaches the image
sensor—this is controlled by a combination
of the lens aperture and shutter speed.
Experimenting with the Exposure setting
will yield surprisingly accurate results in
low-light conditions.
17 | Digital Cameras
Check for the actual lens resolution
I am planning to buy a digital camera and
I have a pretty much tight budget. Please
tell me about the most important factor I
need to look for.
Digital cameras are mostly sold on
the criteria of “lens resolution”—higher the
resolution, the more preferred it is. Since
the resolution is the single most dominant
factor, lots of manufacturers play around
with words by boasting of resolutions of
5 MP and above. These cameras are sold
for almost half or an even lesser price than
the other models in a similar category.
This can easily convince the user to buy
the particular camera. The catch lies in the
fact that the resolution is not the actual
lens resolution; in fact it’s the interpolated
resolution. These cameras have an
inbuilt interpolation technique, which
converts the images to high resolution by
interpolating them—the result is a dull,
washed out and pixilated image. The actual
hardware resolution of the lens is nearly
half of the claimed resolution, thus the
quality suffers a great deal.
To avoid such confusion and buying
hazards, always check the resolution of
the lens, ask the seller to provide you with
the exact hardware resolution. Always
evaluate a camera on the actual hardware
resolution of the lens and the image
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

quality rather than making the decision on
the basis of the claimed/advertised lens
resolution.
18 | Cabinet
Avoiding clutter in the case
In what way do I get rid of all the clutter in
the case?
Your computer might be the coolest
of all in terms of looks and technology
but opening the computer case might
reveal a completely difference picture.
With a lot of hardware installed in the
computer, the clutter of wires is almost
unavoidable to begin with, but there are
simple and effective ways of managing the
clutter in a way that it causes minimum
inconvenience. The clutter of wires also
poses a risk to the components because
they might obstruct and disturb some of
the components from functioning properly.
With coolers fitted with high-speed fans,
there is a high probability of the wires
obstructing the fan and causing damage
to the components. To keep such incidents
at bay, you can simply tape all the wires
together in such a way that they cause
minimum clutter and also are safe from
18 By organizing your computer’s cables, it
not only looks neater, it also runs cooler
fans and other equipment.
19 | Cabinet
Cleaning the case
Can I use a vacuum cleaner to clean the
insides of the computer case?
I have seen many a times people
using a vacuum cleaner to suck up or blow
the dust inside the computer case. This
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
can be lethal to the components inside the
computer case since the vacuum cleaner
generates a lot of static electricity, which
can damage the components. Users can
use a vacuum to suck up dirt, dust, or hair
around their computer on the outside case
and on their keyboards.
20 | Monitors
Installing the right monitor
Please tell me how I can install the correct
monitor.
Most often what happens is
Windows XP fails to realize your LCD/CRT
monitor type and model. The result is that
the highest resolution support and the
refresh rates supported are not displayed
accurately in the video control panel.
Windows XP takes the monitor as either
a “Default Monitor” or “plug and play
monitor”, installing generic drivers with
the most common set of features and
settings for the display device. To install
the correct type of drivers, follow the steps
given below:
1) Go to “Start | My Computer”
2) Right click on “My Computer” and
select “Properties”
3) Go to “Hardware” tab and select
“Device Manager”
4) Under the device manger click on
“Monitors”
5) If it displays a “Default monitor” or
“Plug and play” monitor then that
implies that the correct monitor driver is
not installed
6) Double click on the “Default Monitor”
and select “Driver”
7) Click on the tab “Update driver”
8) The Driver update wizard will be
launched; in case you don’t have the
drivers downloaded, you can either let
the wizard connect to the Internet and
look for them. You can also alternatively
trust Windows to have the drivers in
its database; in such a case select the
option “Install from a list or specific
location” and in the next screen choose
“Don’t search, I will choose the
driver” option to manually select the
driver from the data base.
9) Select the monitor manufacturer/brand
TIPS & TRICKS | HANDS ON 133
20 Most mice (especially optical ones)
have pads at the corners called skids.
They help smoother usage
from the given list and then select the
correct model number. Once done, click
on “Next”.
10) Windows will not accept the driver if
it doesn’t match the hardware. Once
the driver is accepted, click on “Finish”
to complete the driver installation
process.
21 | Mice
Using the mouse pad
Since the optical mouse doesn’t have a
ball, is it ok to use it without a mouse pad?
If you flip your optical mouse and look
at its back side or rather its bottom surface
which rests on a flat surface, you will notice
that it has small plastic or rubberised
pads called skids (generally four along the
edges). These, if used on a coarse or not so
smooth surface, tend to get grazed due to
friction and then the mouse does not feel
as smooth or tactile as before. Hence, use a
mousepad. It mostly comes for free. ■
http://www.postmaster.co.in
E-mail, content
protection &
Internet sharing
through one
intuitive interface.
For a free trial call QuantumLink Communications Pvt. Ltd.
Mumbai - 26820004. Bangalore - 51152792.
New Delhi - 26691152 / 927. Pune - 9373307992
Or write to - sales.ho@postmaster.co.in
158
134

Chip and the Chick

Gadgets that draw the woman towards technology? Suprisingly there are...

W
why aren’t women drawn towards technology,
unlike their male counterparts who drool at every
chip, circuit and computing device? Most gadgets
are male biased and are otherwise seemingly inconsequential to
femininity in the larger frame of life.
For those wondering why, it’s of little surprise that most
technology and gadget related content available on stands
is aimed keeping in mind men’s fascination towards gadgets.
Boy’s toys so they say! A host of technology information and
gadget magazines are ostensibly woman-repellent, what with
the spread of bikini babes (take a cue from the recent front cover
of CHIP’s anniversary issue) and boorish lad humor, how do we
welcome the women folk to develop interest in the world of
technology? Apart from wooing them with pink fluffy things,
I’m not sure if women see immense value in USB powered
epilators or the like. While research states that electronic gifts
actually arouse the greatest response in women, the biggest hit
in the world of entertainment and media are DVD and music
players, and to a very niche female audience—gaming consoles.
And who could deny the ubiquitous mobile phones without
which love and social lives would be zilch. Technology is strongly
appealing to estrogen rather than purely to testosterone,
provided women know what’s out there and how they could
use it for their benefit. The approach is everything. Men and
women shop differently and are interested in technology in
different ways.
Dismay not sisters! Here’s a rundown on a few gadgets—
some exclusively for women and others universally accepted.

1 Benq Qube Z2
A mobile combined with a MP3 player, the Qube Z2 breaks the
conformist handheld mould; it’s also a pretty 1.3 MP digital camera
available in three flower-themed designs. The square design makes
the Z2 look like Sony MiniDisc player, but fits snugly in your palm.

2 Siemens CL75
The CL75 clamshell mobile from Siemens seems an ideal companion
with its soft contours, a floral-motif, lightweight, nifty design and 11
MB memory bank. Interestingly, it turns into a pocket mirror at the
touch of a button!

3 LG Xtick
This dandy USB device packs quite a punch. LG’s futuristic trackable flash drive
also known as Xtick, contains an embedded privacy-safe tracking software
called Inspice Trace that would email you the location of your flash drive, if an
unauthorized user uses your information without your permission.

4 Logitech Ladybug Mouse

Here’s one appealing especially at aesthetics. The Logitech Ladybug Mouse is
Unwind

two-third the size of a standard Logitech mouse, and with an optical sensor and a
USB connection, it is easy to set up and use.

5 Creative Zen Neeon

With eye-popping skins or Creative Stik-ons—decorative skins for the player’s
cover—the Creative Zen Neeon is a flashy little player, easy to attract attention
without compromising on the product’s features or the music quality. So go out
there and flash your music the way you want it to be!

6 Luella Bags for Sony Vaio

And while you are busy showing off your spiffy little music player, you could add
some finesse to the boring laptop you tote around. Fashioned by none other than
Luella Bartley in collaboration with Sony, Bartley has created a limited edition
laptop bag, designed exclusively for Sony VAIO notebook PCs. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Pramod Jadhav
 7 Mimobot
Mimoco’s line of Mimobots are impressive little designer toys with a USB flash drive. Available
in 256 MB, 512 MB and 1 GB, these three-inch tall figures can be plugged into your computer’s
USB drive and are compatible with both Mac and Windows OS.

8 The Panda Humidifier

With a capacity of holding a gallon of water, this kinda cute looking humidifier helps add
moisture to the air, as most heating and drying units could dry out the air in your room. It
performs quietly, and turns off automatically if the water should run out. It comes in a range of
animal designs including a frog.

9 QWATCH
QWatch is a video surveillance camera that will help you to keep an eye on your kids or
pets, suspicious people in your store, etc. The best part about this camera is that it can be
connected to the Internet, and controlled remotely. Videos from the camera can thus be
viewed directly on the PC as well as on the mobile phone.

10 Wallet Flash
The Wallet Flash is an ultra-slim USB flash drive, and the world’s first credit card-sized
wallet-friendly consumer electronics device. Founded by Walletex, Wallet Flash heralds the
rapid arrival of the day when consumers will be able to choose from a broad range of credit
card-sized wallet-friendly products.

11 LaCie Carte Orange USB Key

As small as a credit card and easy to use, the new LaCie Carte Orange USB key is the smallest storage device ever with up to 8
GB capacity and credit-card-thin being the new fad in gadgets, this tiny thing can bundle quite an amount of data. It can be used
anywhere without the need for a cable, power supply or drivers.

12 Tulip E-Go
E-Go is a ‘Dutch-design’ notebook, with a unique form factor and interchangeable covers. Touted to be
out in the European markets, this one is meant only for the
ladies, with the competitive edge/unique selling point being
the design and design accessories like design bags to cover
the product.

13 Seiko SVRD001
Imagine this funky bracelet cum watch on your wrist. Seiko is the first company to release
a watch that uses e-ink (or e-paper) to display time. With a minimal power consumption
it uses electrostatically charged balls as the basis for its display. A limited edition of 500
units is currently available, so grab your watch now!

14 CD Shredder
If you’re wary of disposing your used CD with sensitive data, simply feed them into the CD
/DVD shredder before disposing of them to ensure that the sensitive data on that disk is
completely unrecoverable. This device does not break the media into pieces but ends up
making a certain dimpled impression that will make the CD completely unreadable.

A better way to draw female attention would be an approach
that would focus on desired practicality and added features.
For that researchers would have to understand problems and
opportunities women face in their daily lives and help them see
how technology might solve the problem, meet the need, leverage
an opportunity, etc. Women as ‘technophobics’ is a myth. Thanks
to changing and evolving standards among the two genders—in
the workforce, domestic sphere and society—the astronomical
metamorphosis in the working patterns of women is evident
worldwide. Since women fighting in the career space are growing,
they are increasingly using and employing the same technological
weapons, as their male counterparts.
So it’s not just boys who love shiny toys; the girl-next-door is
the new geek round the corner. And while at it we believe that
gadgets could do with an increase in aesthetical flair and élan.
Gadget envy now being non-gender specific, can truly be
declared a global phenomenon. ■
| Carol D’ Costa

JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP


Top: Ouch! Getting hurt really
looks bloody good
Middle: The untouchable! Me
in my tank in the vast expanse
Bottom: Green smoke - Smoke
effects are the best ever
Vishwanath Vanjire
Price: Rs 1,299 Publisher : Activision
XP/ 2000, 1.5 GHz CPU, 256 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0c compatible video card with 64 MB or more, DirectX 9.0c compatible soundcard, HDD with 4 GB, 8x CD/DVD drive
The most perfectly balanced FPS till date!
Y
ou’d probably be sick of WWII shooters
and their ever increasing tiresome
expansion packs, MOH certainly got to be
a bore! But someone forgot to mention this to
the developers—Infinity Ward and that’s a good
thing! CoD 2 without deviating from its previous
successful formula that made the first game a
hit, is immensely exciting and entertaining from
first shot to the last.
Game play: CoD 2 mirrors much of what we have
experienced in the past two installments. It’s still
pretty much the same in core game play, such as
reaching your objectives, holding positions until
reinforcements arrive, etc. But what’s changed
is the pace, level design and openness of the
game. It hasn’t changed in linearity but you have
the choice of completing those objectives in the
order you wish to.
The emulation of wide open spaces is
beautiful. It wouldn’t be Call of Duty without
big movie-like set pieces such as Pointe Du Hoc
(which you’ve seen in the trailer) where you find
yourself climbing a rope up the side of a cliff as
bullets ricochet all around you.
Like its older sibling, CoD 2 covers World War
II across three interwoven campaigns featuring
the Russians, the British, and the Americans.
However, now you can revert back to a previous
level or campaign, once you’ve played through a
batch of missions.
Innovation equals immersiveness: The biggest
enhancement in the game is the perfect pace
maintained throughout. This is helped more
with the game featuring ‘auto-regeneration’
—there are absolutely no health or armor packs.
You must take cover to recover from wounds
indicated by a red bloody screen and a heavy
heartbeat. This may seem blasphemous to
hardcore FPS fans but it’s much more realistic
than tediously backtracking hunting for a health
pack across a hail of MG42 gun fire. Infact, the
game doesn’t even sport a HUD (a recent trend
Distributor: Placebo CD-ROM Club Fax: 022-56237766
in games a la King Kong). When not firing, no
health bar or ammo information is available,
stupid as it may sound, but surely helps you to
immerse yourself in the game.
True life savers are the grenade and damage
direction indicators. Whenever a grenade is
thrown close to you or when you are shot,
an icon appears on the screen with an arrow
indicating the direction that it came from,
it’s up to you to duck or get your polygon ass
out of there!
There are no quick saves unlike in the
previous CoD. What it has instead is a very robust
auto-save game feature that acts much like the
quick-save. All these innovations lead to only one
thing—lesser frustration during game play. Looks
like Infinity Ward really paid a lot of attention to
the immersiveness of the game.
Smart (scripted) AI: AI including your comrades
as well as the enemy are well
balanced. They don’t dumbly stand
in the path of machine gun fire
or kamikaze while you openly
fire at them! Squad mates
do a good deal of legwork
on their own, they do a great
job of sticking with you, opening fire
and calling out targets and enemy
grenades.
The game runs smooth, looks
really beautiful, with best ever
seen smoke effects and sounds
equally awesome. This is one
FPS you don’t want to miss! ■
| Nikhil Rastogi
RATINGS 9.0 / 10
For: Perfect game play balance, new health
system improves the pace, more sprawling epic
firefights.
Against: Hardcore FPS fans might not like
automatic health regeneration, devoid of
quick-save option.
E-mail: placeboclub@rediffmail.com System: Windows
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Get ready to face the ultimate racing challenge of the season,
XXXX
Most Wanted gets the adrenaline pumping!
F
ast cars, hot chics and a lot of money—if
this is what you want from a racing game,
look no further! The latest from the need
for speed stable has got it all and more. The
cops are back in the race, keeping an eye on your
moves and waiting for that half chance to put
an end to your riding days. Normally I would
drift into my conclusion slowly but this game
makes me shout it out loud. Need For Speed:
Most Wanted rocks! Let’s start with the game
play—it’s day time racing, something that we all
craved for after the last two NFS offerings dealt
with street racing at night. There are multiple
racing modes—starting with the basics, you
have quick race, random race and also free roam
mode where you can roam around exploring
the maps. If you are in for some serious racing,
you have the formidable blacklist staring at you.
Fifteen of the top underground racers pledge
to give you more than just a tough time on the
road. You gotta climb your way to the blacklist to
defeat the number one on the list and take the
crown of the fastest racer in town. You are not
alone; you got “Mia” with you, the sweet chic
who helps you make the right moves while you
climb the blacklist. Your arsenal has almost all
the supercars that one can think of possibly with
the exception of the Ferrari which I am sure will
be missed by a lot of die-hard Ferrari fans.
You can mod your cars with performance
upgrades, body parts, and loads of eye-candy,
as long as you have got the money to buy them.
From the game play angle, Most Wanted is fun
with a lot of variety, fun and attitude. The game
play is supported by stunning visuals; detailed
racing environments and a lot of eye candy in
the form of bloom and blur effects that add to
RATINGS 8.5/ 10
For: Excellent graphics, fun game play, it’s NFS!
Against: Sound track is not up to the mark,
Pramod Jadhav
cheezy cut scenes,
Price: xxx Publisher : xxx Distributor: xxx Phone: xxxx
Price: Rs 1,499 Publisher : Electronic Arts
RAM, DirectX 9 compatible video card, soundcard, HDD with 2 GB space
Windows XP/ 2000, CPU 1.4 GHz or faster, 256 MB RAM or more, DirectX 9.0c compatible video card with 32 MB or more, DirectX 9.0c compatible soundcard, HDD with
3 GB or more space, 8x or faster CD/DVD drive.
JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
REVIEW | UNWIND 137
the realism. Making the most of modern
day GPUs, the game can look absolutely
stunning at ultra high graphics. Sound
is good with accurate engine growls
which are very unique to each type of
car and they also change as per the
engine upgrades. The sound track
is nothing great. I still feel that NFS:
Hot Pursuit 2 had the best sound
track of all the NFS series.
One feature that I dearly missed is
the “replay” option which was offered
in the underground series; you certainly
want to have a second look at that race,
especially when you take down the blacklist
members! The blacklist is most definitely the
most exciting part of the game, and it keeps you
hooked for sure. Almost midway through the
blacklist the skill level suddenly jumps to a new
high, it calls for some frustrating times because
you certainly will have to boost your racing skills
accordingly and also spend monies to upgrade
your ride. Amongst all the competition, you go
through some very cheezy cut scenes which
could have been handled much better; though
they don’t spoil the racing experience, you do
want to run through them quick. There is no
conclusion to this review because I already said it
at the start, NFS: Most Wanted rocks! Don’t
miss this ride! ■ XXXXX
| Soham Raninga
RATINGS 7.5 / 10
For: XXXX
Against: XXXX
E-mail: xxxx System: Windows XP/ 2000/Me/98 Pentium III 933 MHz or equivalent, 256 MB
Distributor: Gayathri Impex Pvt Ltd Phone: 022-23881443 E-mail: gamemasti@vsnl.net System:
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
 Are you ready for the face off with Lord Voldemort?
W
ith EA Games having released Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire almost
simultaneously with the movie, you
can experience the magic of the movie in the
game also.
For the legions of Harry Potter fans out there,
this game will be quite a different experience
from the earlier installments of the same series.
Much of the game has a dark and spooky feel
just like in the movie. The game installs in a few
minutes and once you run it you realize that it
does not support the mouse at all. So for the
entire in-game menu selections as well as game
play, you are left only with the keyboard as your
controller. Before you start playing, you are
allowed to choose the character that you would
like to play namely Harry, Ron or Hermione.
Even though you select only one from them, the
remaining two will be there most of the times
to help you out. The actual game begins after
you (Harry Potter) are mysteriously selected
for the Triwizard Cup by the Goblet of Fire and
thereafter you are trained under Professor
Moody so as to be able to cast perfect jinxes and
charms.
Your next task is to collect Triwizard shields
from Hogwards Exterior and The Forbidden
Forest so that you are eligible to compete in
the Triwizard Cup. After completing the three
Top: Harry Potter and his
Triwizard Tasks along with a few other stages,
friends being instructed by
Professor Moody you will have to confront Lord Voldemort
himself. While playing the game you will find
Bottom: Your first
that at some stages your individual spells won’t
Triwizard Task where
you have to outrun the be sufficient, you will have to use combined
Dragon
spells with Ron and Hermione. At the end of
each stage you are automatically leveled up
Pramod Jadhav
depending on the charms that you have cast and
Price: Rs 1,299 Publisher : EA Games Distributor: Placebo CD-ROM Club Fax: 022-56237766
XP/ 2000, 1.2 GHz CPU or faster, 256 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0c compatible video card with 32 MB or more, DirectX 9.0c compatible soundcard, HDD with 1.2 GB or more free
space, 8x or faster CD/DVD drive
how accurately you have jinxed.
The overall graphics of the game is a notch
higher than the earlier games of the same
series; the characters of the game are the same
as in the movie. The cut scenes in between
the various stages of the game are also done
very aesthetically and they show a level of
refinement that was missing in the earlier games.
The background score also adds to the overall
suspense and thrill that the game throws at you.
Most of the game play revolves around the
usage of few keys for casting charms and jinxes.
And this version doesn’t offer anything new; it’s
the same old hack and slash title. The younger
players will definitely like it but the more mature
Harry Potter fans are likely to lose their interest
after a few levels.
But although the game has significant
improvements over the earlier series, there are
a few glitches. There is no option to control the
camera angle. Hence what happens sometimes
is the creatures and enemies attack you off-
screen before the camera focuses on them. Also,
there is no option to adjust the graphic settings.
All these make you wonder whether the
developers had children as their target audience
while creating this game. But whatever they had
in mind, all I would like to say is no matter what
the age of a person is, an invitation to step into
Harry Potter’s shoes is definitely tempting! ■
| Anup Pillai
RATINGS 7.0 / 10
For: Improved graphics, simple game play.
Against: No option for changing the camera
angle , cannot use mouse as controller.
E-mail: placeboclub@rediffmail.com System: Windows
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

Top: Your Creature - a giant
cuddly pet or a fearsome war
machine?
Middle: Unleash an Epic that
ravages the enemy forces.
Bottom: Sometimes attack is
the best form of defence. Raise
a massive army and train your
Creature to fight.
Vishwanath Vanjire
Price: Rs 1,299 Publisher : Lionhead Studios
RAM, 3.5GB HDD, 8x optical drive, 64MB video card with pixel shader 1.1, CD/DVD drive
God’s at the PC and all’s right with the world! Or is it?
I
f you’ve played the game Black and White,
you will be familiar with the basic game play.
You are a god with followers whose needs
have to be provided for and their city has to be
defended. Black & White 2 works on a similar
principle, but with a tighter storyline and more
streamlined controls.
The game starts with a comprehensive tutorial
guided by your two spiritual advisers, or the two
halves of your conscience. The good one in white,
sitting demurely on a puff of cloud; the bad one
with red skin, bobbing around and sometimes
making vulgar pelvic thrusts! These two advisers
will be your constant companions as you play.
While very useful at first, the good guy/bad
guy act of the advisers gets on your nerves after
a while. Skipping the tutorial is impossible, and
every time you start a new game you have to yet
again follow asinine instructions about how to
scroll and move about in your world.
When the story begins, your people, the
ancient Greek, have been overrun by the Aztecs.
However, you manage to save some of them and
get them to a safe place, from where you will help
them rebuild their lives and their civilization.
The enforcer of your (divine) will in the game is
your Creature. You choose from an ape, a wolf, a
lion and a cow. Once the Creature wakes up, you
will have to train it. Training the Creature is not as
hard as it sounds. You can teach it to be good or
bad. If you don’t want your Creature moulded into
a builder, gatherer, entertainer or soldier, you can
give it free will and let it do what it wants.
Your interaction with the game is via a giant
hand. It’s used to place buildings, move people,
direct armies, pet your Creature, perform
miracles, and just about everything else. But you
Distributor: Gayatri Impex E-mail: gamemasti@vsnl.net
are limited by your “circle of influence”, a green
ring denoting the boundaries of your land. As your
city grows, so do your boundaries of influence.
How you choose to progress is up to you. You
could be a peaceful deity or a power-hungry
control freak. A rational middle path is always
available. At various points in the game you will
come across scrolls that contain quests. Gold
scrolls contain the main objectives, silver ones
have additional quests, and bronze ones are
tutorials. Some quests are silly, but fulfilling them
earns you tribute, which is your divine currency.
The Town Center has an information scroll that
gives statistics of your city; shows the people’s
desires and displays your alignment (good or evil).
However, good planning is essential.
Providing good infrastructure and defences
make your people secure and happy. Making and
maintaining disciples ensure that your will—and
your people’s needs—are looked after and you
city runs smoothly.
Overall, Black & White 2 is a fascinating
game. If you are already a Black & White fan,
this sequel will not disappoint you. If not, you
will find that god playing can be quite addictive.
Game play aside, the game’s graphics are also
quite stunning, with beautiful locales and
intricate details. However, be warned, the
system requirements are quite high. ■
| Payal Dhar
RATINGS 8.0 / 10
For: The presentation and game play are
stunning.
Against: The long drawn-out tutorial in the
beginning can’t be skipped; high system
requirements.
System: Windows XP/2000, 1.6Ghz processor, 512MB
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
140 UNWIND | BOOK REVIEW
PC talk
One of the best bets you could lay your hands on if you want
to maintain and upgrade your PC
I
f you are desperately in need for a guide that
will teach you the basics of computer hardware
as well as how to upgrade and maintain your
PC then this book is your best bet. It starts off
with a quick guide to popular upgrades like MP3
players, scanners, digital cameras, web cams, DVD
players, speaker systems, etc. The book is divided
into six parts with each part dedicated to different
aspects of your PC.
The first part explains about the core
components that make up your PC. The first
chapter in this section introduces you to the
functions of CPU, peripherals, buses and
interfaces. The next chapter explains in detail
about the bus and its functions,
CPU speeds, motherboard,
slots and sockets, system
controllers, etc. The
subsequent chapters
in this section deal
with rebuilding
the PC, preventive
maintenance, installation of new circuit
boards, system memory and power supplies.
The second part is devoted to all your PC
devices. What you essentially get is a full chapter
explaining the terminologies related to hard
disk drive like heads, tracks, cylinders, etc. The
remaining chapters tell you in detail about the
working of CD-ROM and DVD Drive, Blu-ray
and other Blue Lasers, ATA and SCSI drives,
partitioning and formatting your drives, and
most importantly, protection and maintenance
of your hard disks and data.
The third part of the book contains chapters
that explain the various printer types and
interfaces, troubleshooting of inkjet and
laser printers, scanners. The fourth section
| The Complete PC Upgrade &
Maintenance Guide
Authors : Mark Minasi, Faithe Wempen,
Quentin Docter
Price : Rs 499
Publisher : Wiley-Dreamtech India Pvt Ltd
Phone : 011-3260877
E-mail : wdt@vsnl.net
is completely dedicated to multimedia. Here
you will find chapters that give details on how
to shop as well as install a video card, select
speaker system and install a soundcard, these
also dwell on installation and performance
problems related to your soundcard. This part
also has a chapter that deals with Flash RAM
and digital cameras. This chapter will definitely
help you solve most of your camera connectivity
problems.
The next part of the book exclusively
deals with hardware management and
troubleshooting. In this part, there are chapters
that will guide you as to how to manage your
hardware in Windows, how to use the Internet
for hardware support and troubleshooting your
PC problems. The sixth part of the book contains
chapters that talk about the various networking
concepts and hardware, troubleshooting
networks, types of viruses. The last chapter deals
with notebooks where you will learn how to take
care of your batteries and conserve your battery
power. This chapter will also enlighten you about
PC-to-laptop syncing and syncing your data with
PDAs.
Simple and informative, the book is meant for
anybody and everybody wanting to know more
about computers. What is worth mentioning is
that most of the description is well accompanied
by a picture of what’s explained. For example,
when you are reading about the motherboard,
you will find well illustrated pictures of
Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium 4 so that you
can understand more clearly the various ports,
sockets available on it.
The book is a useful guide for the novice and a
very good reference guide for the more advanced
reader. Even though it’s long and exhaustive
reading, it doesn’t allow your interest to wane.
The book is also a one-stop solution for all
your PC problems. So if you don’t want to keep
calling your vendor, you can get this book home.
This edition has been updated to cover all the
latest technologies. The only drawback that I can
point out is that the pictures are not in color. ■
| Anup Pillai
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
 Classifieds 141

JANUARY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

146 Classifieds

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006

148 LAST WORD
The Last Word
T
here is always a story to tell when one travels,
right? Well, I used to think otherwise. A friend
of mine would narrate hilarious experiences
while travelling in the Virar local. “How do all these
things happen around you only?”, I would ask over
peals of laughter. “It happens to all of us, yaar. We
just don’t pay attention most of the time”, would be
his standard reply. I really didn’t believe him. I just
assumed he was hardwired to attract incidents, until I
started travelling more often by outstation trains and
by air. The kind of people I met—at the ticket counter,
in the queue or even at an adjacent seat—have been
either highly amusing or down right frustrating. At
the end of day—as my friend says—you look back
at it, chuckle and tell someone else your story. And
that is exactly what I am going to do now—narrate
the incidents I was put through while I travelled to
the Northeast for my annual vacation. (Note that
while some of the incidents might tickle you pink in a
sadistic sort of way, they had left me positively livid.
So once you are done with your smirking, do spend a
few moments empathizing.)
I have always wanted to visit the Northeast,
so when my wife’s friend invited us to visit
Kohima, I was most thrilled! We found out
that Indian Airlines (now known as Indian)
is the only service that has flights to
Nagaland. Some of the Northeastern
states are ‘unviable routes’ for private
airlines (like Jet, Sahara, etc) and Indian
Airlines is the only option by air. There
are other routes if you want to stick to a private
airline—fly to Assam and then take a bus out
of there. But our travel agent went the Indian
Airlines way to save us time and energy. Even
though I had never travelled with IA, I had
heard enough to know that it was going to be
one hell of a ride to Kohima and back.
Almost a month before the flight, we
received a phone call informing us
that our flight schedule from Kolkata
to Dimapur had changed. A change
in time table already accompanied
with a personal update! I didn’t know
whether I should feel glad or not! On
the date of departure, we were at the
airport at 6 am in the morning.
I didn’t care how early it was, I
Dinesh Desai
just wanted to get out of the city! But Indian Airlines
did not let me go so easily—we were made to stand
in the line for over half an hour. There were only two
counters, operating at a speed that would make a
snail look like it’s on steroids. When our turn finally
came, I realized that the check-in counters were
nothing like the ones handled by the private airlines.
Here, things were being written manually and just
one weird looking machine was being used to punch
in information. Instead of a barcode, a handwritten
sticker was pasted onto the bag. I wiped the sweat off
my forehead as our new Aristocrat bag drifted away
on the conveyor belt. A boarding pass resembling
an outstation train ticket was handed to us and my
wife pulled me towards the ‘waiting lounge’ as I
continued staring incredulously at my train ticket...
I mean my boarding pass (I knew that dot matrix
printer looked familiar). Our train, I mean, our plane’s
airhostesses were extremely polite—something I
did not expect at all. But take away the cabin crew
and the Alliance Airlines planes will put the fear of
flying into anyone—old and rickety, they have a tiny
overhead luggage space, which cannot accommodate
the average trolley bag. The plane we traveled on our
way back from Kohima was tinier than the first one!
It must’ve been a 46-seater and carried 23 noisy-
as-hell Japanese tourists. While one happily clicked
pictures of his friends, my wife pointed at a strange
bug on the front seat! A stowaway! It looked like a
garden bug—only more exotic—brownish, mottled,
with long legs and the freakiest antennae I have ever
seen. They were each tipped with a small black bead,
like a yuletide decoration. Then I spotted another, its
friend I assumed, perched on the corner of the seat
in front of me. But it soon got bored of the Japanese
landscape and decided to take a walk, away from
me, thankfully.
My vacation is over and my wife and I came out
of the IA flights unscathed. Our luggage, however,
suffered much trauma along the way—a broken
stand and excessive shoving around had worn a hole
into its side. The personnel could do nothing about
it, as always, and now my bag is crippled thanks to
“Indian’s” rude and careless attitude. I shall bust my
butt traveling on a bullock cart but will not sit in an
‘Indian’ plane—that way I can only blame myself for
the pain in the ass. ■
| | Ashutosh Desai
INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | JANUARY 2006
 2006
01

Our Lives Ahead | Next-Gen Phones | Return of the King! RNI Registration No. MAHENG/2003/12687