10th December 2009. I came on national television for a tech debate – Cloud Computing vs Traditional Desktop OS’s. Saaket Unadkat vs Saket Gokhale. And yes, I won.
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Last Three Months : Rewind
Its been more than 3 months since my last post. Stuff has been happening. Well actually loads of it. Ive been busy like never before, and have encountered times when I was out of topics to write on. Not that anything wasn’t happening, just that my priorities had been on a tangent.
Here’s what has been happening :
- I applied for the Microsoft Student Partners India. Filled up their application form. And as an evaluation criteria, all applicants had to make a video on any Microsoft technology of duration 2 minutes. While every other person was going for ASP.Net or Windows 7, I decided to opt for Project Natal. Here’s the video I submitted:
- I did a short stint with AMD, details of which I cant divulge. Those 2 months were lots of fun and now I am a part of an elite group who gets to preview the latest stuff AMD-ATi churns out. Trust me when I say that anything related to AMD I’ve done has been awesome. Will continue being associated with them
- And then of course, after all the excitement about AMD and Microsoft began fading, exams had to turn up and everything I had at hand, or was planning to go had taken a backseat. Now that I am free from all, its time to get going once again. There are some changes I am planning here. And of course, regular posts!
- Also, I have made major changes to my rig, and I will be doing a post on that too! Detailed info when I write in the coming days.
Then on the 13th of October I got a confirmation email stating that I had been selected as one, but would have to prove my worth by performing certain activities as stated in the StudPart website and accumulate a specific number of points to clear probation. That part was a breeze and I am now an MSP.
There was a small meet arranged for us fellow student partners by Microsoft 4 days back. Got to interact with couple of MSFT folks and met other Student Partners and also received my Welcome Kit. More on the Student Partner stuff later.
Yes, I have become pretty much jobless till exams come again in May.
Posted in Life's Happenings
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You Can Build A Website Too!
Its been 3 months since I bought this domain, and ever since, people around have been asking me, “How do you do all this?” or “How did you do it ?” and the likes. They think it is some herculean task, only worthy of the geeks to achieve. But it isn’t even remotely as complicated as people tend to think of it. So here’s my own nifty little ‘tutorial-y’ post about it.
Everyone I know started their online experiences with websites by staring their very own blog using the numerous services available on the web today, the most popular being Blogger and WordPress. Just create an account with them and select a theme to suit yourself, and you’re ready to go with your first post. All in a matter of minutes. Sounds simple ? So, why would anyone want to anyone want to take the trouble of setting up their independent site and maintain it ?
And, Finally I Foray Onto The Other Side
Yes, as mentioned in the earlier post, I did go in for the deal offered to me by my friend. I’m now the proud owner of a brand new ATI Radeon HD 4850! And what a beast it is. Gives me crazy resolutions at times with the most demanding of games. And now suddenly the PC gaming world seems all so good.
The stuff does work well on my current Windows 7 RTM build, contrary to reports saying its too early for games working well on Win7. Another awesome thing about the 4850 that I’m loving is the ability to connect the PC to my Hi-Def TV using an HDMI cable. Brilliant stuff it churns out. Playing Crysis at 1920*1440 with 55-60 FPS is insane. Also, my windows experience index also shot up from a measly 3.3 to 7.3 ! All coz of the 4850. And Avivo video converter, well, converting movies and TV shows for my iPod was never faster…!
Anyways, stuff has been written all over about the prowess of the card and I wont be elaborating. Happy to own one now, knowing it doesn’t yet have any game to challenge it might as of today.
Me And The World Of Gaming
Many people associate people who sit on the computer for hours as gamers. Well, not always, but in very many cases. Every now and then I get asked if I play a particular game, or have a copy of another. And in most cases, the answer is a pure NO. Its not that I don’t play games. I do. But they are more of the casual types. I may own the new PSP and the good old PS2. Its quite a joy to download games from the net and simply burn then to DVDs and play. (Oh, Ive modded the PS2 and still not the PSP).
The only game that Ive ever completed is Need For Speed Most Wanted, undoubtedly my most favorite one. I also play a lil bit of Counter Strike Czero/1.6, and the occasional Fifa. But that’s on rather rare occasions. That’s all. No more. I go to the extent of even owning a top of the line rig, albeit only without a graphic card. So no COD4 or Crysis for me. And I don’t even think Ive been missing anything.
How To Watch HD Movies Without Blu-Ray Player
Ever since the successful triumph of the Blu-Ray disc format over the HD-DVD, all the new movies now have DVD and a Blu-Ray releases. Since the latter offers almost 10 times the storage compared to the average DVDs we use, the picture quality can be scaled up to very high levels and still make it possible to store the entire movie on one single disc. But getting that awesome quality not only requires one to buy a Blu-Ray copy of the movie, but also needs special hardware in terms of the video player. And those don’t exactly come cheap.
A standard DVD today costs around Rs.12-15 and unbranded ones come for Rs.10. But a bland Blu-Ray disc come for Rs.250. Steep. Also, to make a custom disc, one would again need a Blu-Ray writer. But there are people who have amazingly fast internet connections or those don’t mind waiting for a couple of days for the download to complete, make use of the numerous torrent sites and get the High Definition rips of movies/TV shows, but end up watching them on their computers.
Google Chrome OS – My Viewpoint
Awesome. I’ve read countless number of times all over the World Wide Web that the only thing where Google is yet to foray into is the world of Operating Systems. Many people had predicted that the day was not too far. And not surprisingly, a formal announcement from Google came in yesterday on the official Google blog. It will be quite interesting to see what the guys at Google think an OS should be like. And also, it has been named after their quite successful browser, Chrome.
Why people need the geeks…
Good enough that I am my own tech support person. And with the credibility of todays’ technology, I also handle the support calls of family, friends neighbours, acquaintances an the likes. Actually, its not that I’m smart. Its just that the smart people today have learnt that they can get their work done and more by ignoring the petty details of the tech in their lives. And then when the things go wrong, as they always will, they’ve figured out they can find some kindly geek to set things straight. Tragically, they are right.
How And Why I Got The Domain
As you people have noticed, my blog is now www.justsaaket.com from the earlier wordpress sub-domain. I’ve seen quite a few people on the web opt for a personalised domain for their blogs, and they do maintain it regularly, something which I need to imbibe from them. Also, the free version of wordpress had very limited options as far as modifying the appearance and site-content would go. Put it in simple terms, I could not personalize it to suit my taste.
Posted in Life's Happenings, My Reviews, TechBytes
Tagged Domain, GoDaddy, Hosting, Wrodpress
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Upgrade/Downgrade to/from iPhone OS 3.0 Final Build
Ive been using the iPhone for quite some time now, right from the good old OS 1.1.1. Since iPhones were not available in India that time, I had an unlocked and jailbroken 2G. Gradually, I went on upgrading to the newer OS’s till 1.1.4. Then after quite some time, I decided to try my hand at doing the Jailbreak and unlock myself. So when OS 2.0 came along, I read up tutorials and forums successfully migrated to 2.1 with the unlock in place and of course, Cydia and Installer. The WWDC saw the launch of the new OS 3.0 with a plethora a new features (albeit, after 5 beta versions). I never tried to use the beta versions since they required one to have the UDID registered, and I could not get my hands on one.