Tata Photon Plus 3G Internet USB Stick Review

I recently moved to Tata Photon Plus 3G USB Internet Stick. I decided to go with Tata Photon Plus because my hathway internet connection did not have feasibility in Wind Tunnel road, Bangalore.

Reasons for Choosing Tata Photon Plus

• Instant Connection and Activation. (was the most important one for me)
• Best reviews compared to others.
• Best price for device in the market.

In Murugesh Palaya, next to total mall i could find only one shop selling the Tata Photon Plus. I checked the price and rest of the details there and searched for other devices as well. Instead of taking offline i wanted to try booking it online through the Tata Photon website. I applied for the connection using the side bar Apply now button. Within 2 hours i recieved a call from their customer care team and they promised to send the agent according to my convienience.  By evening according to my convienient time the agent was home, and my connection was activated. It took around 10-20 minutes for setting up the device (installation + forms + payment).

On activation tata photon lets you browse Internet for 48 hours at lower speeds. I choose Rs 950 Unlimited plan (5GB data cap upto 3.1 Mbps and after words at 256kbps). The plan was activated the next day and i was getting considerably good speeds to watch a youtube video without buffering.

I got no complaints with the connection as it delivers what i need, though the speeds are not so great compared to a 2Mbps Airtel broadband connection.

Issues

The welcome team is horrible. I felt horrible due to poor voice quality of the calls and disturbances on the line. They do not understand that you are attending an urgent meeting and asking them to call later, they kept calling again and again. I got 5 welcome calls and everyone asked whether i did get any verification calls. The last welcome call identified as “bhaskar” was ver annoying and i felt he was in urgency to finish his work off. He called me  thrice inspite of telling that i am busy at the moment. The very next day my connection stopped working. Enquiring with the customer care i came to know that the connection is barred on the grounds on address verification. I felt that was horrible as i had taken the tata photon plus as i was in urgent need of an internet connection. I asked the customer care to activate it for a day as i had very important work to complete from home. They did nothing, speaking to their immediate supervisor also did not help. They promised me to send a verifiction officer the very next day by 1PM (friday). I waited the whole day and nobody came and customer care did not have an answer. The next day i called up the guy who gave me connection, and somehow managed to get a verification officer visit me (saturday). The connection was back to active state after i gave a call again to Customer care on Monday.

First place i did not want a postpaid connection. The sales agent said the prepaid connection is having problems with activation, so i have to choose a postpaid and then after 2 months i can move to prepaid.

Worst Part

I payed 1800 for the device and my friend a week later took two devices at Rs 1200 each after a bit of negotiation.

I am satisfied with the connection, but i strongly dislike the welcome procedure and other stupid formalities they have and a horrible customer care.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Chromebook – Chrome OS powered notebooks

Chromebook is a netbook by Google which is built and optimized for the web. All the functionalities will be available only if the Chromebook is connected to the Internet, which means that all data will be stored online. Google showed two Chromebooks built by Samsung and Acer.

Features of Samsung Chromebooks

• 12.1-inch screen
• 3G & Wi-Fi
• 8 hours of battery time.
• Dual-core Atom processors made by Intel

Features of the Acer Chromebook

• 11.6-inch screen
• Dual-core Atom processors made by Intel

Chromebook Pricing

The Samsung Chrome book would cost $429 for wifi version and $499 for the 3G version while the Acer Chromebook would cost $399.

Google claims that both Acer and Samsung Chromebooks will boot-up within eight seconds.Chromebook wont be available in India when it will be launched on June 15th 2011.

Popularity: 2% [?]

FaceTweak – Enhance your facebook features in Firefox

Are you looking to enhance your facebook experience? Do u want mouse over larger images in facebook? Do u want to select all facebook friends and invite them to a page or an event? FaceTweak is a firefox addon that works like a charm doing all these and much more.

Features of Face Tweak for Facebook (Firefox Addon)

• AutoLogin – Auto-login to Facebook (assuming Firefox is set to remember your password)
• Chat Emoticons – Adds smileys to the side of Facebook, clicking on one adds to your message
• Replace Smileys – Replace text smileys as graphics (graphics are original from Facebook.com)
• Fixed Header – Makes the Facebook navigation menu remain ‘fixed’ to the top of the screen
• Fixer – Bigger photos, better albums, download videos, show age, Google Calendar integration, etc.
• Auto Confirm Friend Requests – Automatically accept all friend requests
• Autopoke – Automatically pokes back pokers listed on your home page
• Deletes – Bulk delete friends
• Ignore All Requests – Denies all facebook requests on button click
• Invites – Invites your friends to the app if they’ve already allowed the app access
• Highlight Birthdays – Highlights today’s birthdays on your home page
• Games Quick Invite – Adds quick invite links to various games (needs ‘Invites’ option enabled)
• Poke All – Adds ‘Poke All’ and ‘Poke Selected’ buttons above the pokes on user homepages
• Reply Button – Adds a reply button to comments
• Select All Friends – Select all friends at once instead of having to do so one by one
• inYOf4ceBook – Larger versions of thumbnails and profile pictures on mouse-over
• Video – Adds links to download or convert videos with Zamzar.com, and provides embedded code
• View All Photos – Places link to view all photos of a user
• View Photo in Album – View all photos of a user or an albumI

The tweak worked like a charm selecting all facebook friends and suggesting them to facebook pages. The only issue I experienced was that it was crashing my Firefox 4 a number of times. It pulls out script from the facebooktweak.com website and causes the browser to go into a non responding state (hanged). Overall Facetweak is a brilliant enhancer for your facebook.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Top Search Keywords in India for 2008

Ever wondered what Indian’s search Online? Google has released this years India search trends and Orkut and Gmail tops their List.

What Indian’s searched in 2008 

• orkut
• gmail
• yahoo
• google
• youtube
• yahoomail
• indian railways
• rediff
• cricket
• katrina kaif

Popularity: 4% [?]

Logg off from Gmail Remotely

Forgot to log off from gmail from Office PC and you want to log off from Gmail? Gmail now lets you do the same. Login to Gmail from home and its give you a chance to disconnect remotely from your office PC.

Gmail now lets you know if you are logged on elsewhere in any other systems and you can disconnet from those systems remotely. A very great feature which i always wished Gmail had. The notification is bound to be useful, though it’s by no means foolproof. You have to be log on somewhere to learn of other active sessions, and you have to look carefully for that notice. And if you have chosen to save your password on the other computer, someone else can simply log back on unless you change it.

Popularity: 3% [?]

End of Porn and illegal activites in Orkut?

Google signed an agreement with Brazilian public prosecutors to help combat child pornography on its social networking site Orkut. Google will be using filters to remove and prevent illegal content from orkut.

Google will be preserving six month access logs of users being investigated for illegal conduct. 90% of illegal internet content being investigated in Brazil involves orkut. Orkut out of the 60 million users, half of the users are from Brazil.

I still remember the days when orkut started when it was purely more professional and less spammy. Now a days its the biggest source of spam for marketers and people promoting website or some product. Porn is also another major area that is giving orkut a thumbs down. The amount of sleazy profiles and communities in orkut has gone in large numbers. Fake profiles,Defaming people are all part of this. Lets hope Orkut does some sorta move like this in India also to counter the Indian Spam and Porn posters.

Popularity: 3% [?]

A guide to Using Orkut Themes – the new latest addition from orkut

Orkut has launched themes and there are around 7 themes which are now available for you to select. Thank god this would bring down the number of spam scraps regardin new orkut themes that where circulating around. Nice move orkut!

How to change your theme.

1) http://www.orkut.co.in/EditSkin.aspx?ch=1 Go to this link and you can change the Theme.
2) You can find the link to theme changer on the orkut menu bar on top and in the right side next to where your email is shown.

The Screen shot of the theme changer window + a look of the new orkut theme in a profile page is shown below.

Popularity: 4% [?]