Sandeep Hegde

Watch This Movie “Dobara”

// July 21st, 2011 // No Comments » // Movies, Reviews // Written by Sandeep Hegde

The trip moves through all the places for which Spain is famous for, Pamplona, Costa Brava and Seville. And in course of their journey, the trio take a trip into their innermost fears. I know how “modern hollywood” that sounds, yet the surprise lies in the acting. Hrithik, Farhan and Abhay bring alive the characters they portray.
Kabir (Abhay Deol) is getting married. Imraan (Farhan Aktar) and Arjun (Hrithik Roshan) his two buddies since childhood are joining him on a trip to Spain. Arjun is a money minded broker, Imraan, a copywriter and aspiring poet and Kabir, the rich son of a construction company owner. Supposed to be a 3 week fun trip, it turns into something completely different. Many times the movie borders on the cliche. But the bold, different style of direction, frank emotions and the characters that we can relate to, pull the movie together making it one of the most decent movies made in Bollywood.
Two women play important parts in the plot. Katrina Kaif (Laila) is a dive instructor and Kalki Koechlin (Natasha) the fiance of Kabir. They both play their supporting roles well.
There is plenty of fun and spice, after all the movie is set in London, Spain and Mumabi.
All-in-all, Zoya Aktar has done a good job and if she  makes another movie i’m sure ill watch it.

Here comes the Mobile Number Portability !

// January 19th, 2011 // 2 Comments » // Tutorials & How to's // Written by Sandeep Hegde

This will be a new dawn for the mobile subscribers of India, as the Mobile number portability will be operational across India from January 20th, 2011. There might be some problems in the first few days. Kindly note that all the balance if any in the prepaid account will lapse once you port the number.

With the arrival of MNP you can switch to different operators of your choice from your existing CDMA to GSM, GSM to CDMA, CDMA to CDMA and also from GSM to GSM.

Telecom consulting firm data suggests a reasonably high subscriber churn after the launch of MNP of as much as 17 per cent in the prepaid and 19 per cent in the postpaid segment.

If you are not happy with your current Mobile Phone operator because of Billing Issues, Signal Problems, Call Drops or any other issues you don’t have to worry now because the TRAI [Telecom Regulatory Authority of India] has now offered a new scheme under which you can switch your operator at a cost of just 19Rs.

There are special offers being provided from operators to attract new customers to their network. Here are a few offers by leading mobile operators in India

BSNL:
BSNL is offering Free Bonus talk time of Rs. 100 on FRC and Unlimited Free GPRS (for period of 30 days) to new customer. In addition BSNL has waived off the mnp charge of Rs.19 too !

!dea:
Idea cellular has launched a dedicated MNP Pack which costs Rs. 37 in all which includes Rs. 19 towards the MNP Porting charges and also the Sim cost. Apart from providing features like CLIP, Call Wait-Call Hold, Call Divert, SMS, Pre activated National / International Roaming, Voice Mail on Request, Multimedia Messaging, GPRS along with a talk time of Rs.5, this tariff will be applicable for a period of 365 days.

Tata Docomo:
Ranging from Full and extra talk time offers to various 3G Recharge options, TATA DOCOMO is currently trying everything to acquire new customers.

Steps to move your mobile number to other provider

1.To begin with, you need to generate UPC (Unique Porting Code) by sending SMS to 1900. UPC is an alphanumeric code allocated, upon request, by a mobile operator to its subscriber for the purpose of facilitation of porting of his/her mobile number to another operator.

• SMS to be sent : PORT <your Mobile Number> to 1900. Operator SMS charges will be applicable.

• Eg. SMS PORT 98XXXXXXXX to 1900

2.After sending SMS to 1900, you will receive UPC (Unique Porting Code) as a SMS from 1901 giving 8 digit alpha-numeric Unique Porting Code (UPC) and UPC expiry date in MM/DD/YYYY format

3.Visit your nearest NEW Service provider outlet / showroom

4.Fill NEW Service provider Mobile Number Porting (MNP) form providing details like

• Current Mobile Number

• Current Operator name

• UPC code

5.Submit Address & Id proof documents, self-attested photo and last bill copy of postpaid connection (if applicable) along-with filled MNP form and Customer Agreement Form.

6.Buy the NEW Service provider MNP SIM card from NEW Service provider outlet / showroom. SIM charges, talktime value and porting charge are non-refundable in the event of cancellation / rejection of port-in request.

7.NEW Service provider will send an SMS on your old/existing operator’s SIM (existing connection) intimating about the porting date and time, i.e. the date and approximate time till when you can continue to use your existing operator’s SIM card.

8.There will be a 2-hour ‘no service period’ which will begin after the porting time as given above. The ‘no service period’ will be between 12 midnight to 5 am during which your mobile service will not be active on any SIM. All efforts will be made to ensure that this ‘no service period’ causes minimum inconvenience to you.

9.After the ‘no service period’, you can replace your existing operator’s SIM card with the new NEW Service provider SIM card in your handset.

Once your NEW Service provider SIM card is activated you would be ready to enjoy NEW Service provider’s high-quality network, innovative value added services and best-in class customer service using your existing mobile number.

Credits:
AllAboutBelgaum.com
AmitBhawani.com

If you have any further queries regarding MNP, you could comment them below.

Do you plan to change your service provider? If yes whats your current one which one would you opt for?

Happy New Year 2011

// January 1st, 2011 // No Comments » // My Zone // Written by Sandeep Hegde

Facebook Trick : Play Pranks with your Facebook Friends

// July 17th, 2010 // 7 Comments » // Fun, Web // Written by Sandeep Hegde

I just found a interesting facebook trick over the internet and sharing the same with you. This trick helps you to play pranks with your facebook friends just by updating your status. All that matters is a link, which make people fool

Post your Status with this link :

http://facebook.com/profile.php?=73322363

Just try it out Yourself. Whenever a person is Logged into his facebook account, when this link is accessed, this will redirect the person to his Own Profile Page.

So you could add your Status Message like this ,

“I just love this person so much. http://facebook.com/profile.php?=73322363″

Upon reading the status message your friends will be obviously curious to know who that person is ! Some times they don’t even realize they have been fooled and start asking questions

Note :

• While sharing the link on your wall, don’t forget to remove the Thumbnail linked with it.
• Post the status with a plain text and the link.

I have personally tried out this trick and simply love it. Hope you people will also have fun with this trick . Share your Comments

Credits : Siddharth Raman

Birthday Giveaways

// March 28th, 2010 // 6 Comments » // Freebies, My Zone // Written by Sandeep Hegde

Its March 28th ! It’s my Birthday ! Its the day many of you were awaiting ! Its the day to announce the the winners for huge birthdays giveaways !

Contest 1 : Facebook Ads Voucher GiveAway

The winner is: Brian Montez

Contest 2 : Google Adwords Voucher give away

The winner is: Deepi

Contest 3 : Free Domain Name give away

The winners are as follows :

* balachandra

* glf

* indocontest

* dementia

* vmsun22

* brillie

* vernx

* dhadha

* akira07

* theblogshy

Hearty congratulations to all the winners

Note :

All winners are requested to contact me at the earliest to receive their freebies

Domain Name winners need to redeem the domain name before March 31^st. So contact me at the earliest on my twitter profile at http://www.twitter.com/sandeephegde

Happy Ugadi

// March 16th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // My Zone // Written by Sandeep Hegde

WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS UGADI.

“Yuga Yugadi Kaledaru,
Yugadi Marali Baruthide
Hosa Varushake, Hosa Harushake
Hosathu Hosathu Tarutide…”

The Song of Yugadi by D.R. Bendre

I’ve mentioned only a part of the song. Here goes the meaning of the whole song in English.
“Ages after ages,
Millennium after millennium,
The Yugadi keeps on coming!
Bringing with it new joy
of the new year and of a new life.
I can hear the melody of the love-struck beetle,
on the golden lush fields.
As the Yugadi fills my ‘neem’-filled life
with the aroma of a tender flower,
renewing the magic of the Master!
As the green leaves of Mango,
in all their magnificence,
wait for the arrow of Kama,
I can see the fleet of parrots,
camouflaged amidst the leaves, rejoicing
and singing the sweet music of a great harvest.”

According to the Hindu Mythology, it is believed that Lord Brahma created the Universe on this day and hence the name YUGADI, which means ‘Beginning of an era’.

This year it is called the Vikrutinama- Samvathsara. ವಿಕೃತಿನಾಮ ಸಂವತ್ಸರ

For Hindus, there are two types of calendar:Chandramana(lunar) calendar and Souramana(solar) calendar. Those who follow the Chandramana (lunar) calendar, the festival of Ugadi heralds the beginning of a New Year, celebrated on the first day of the month of Chaitra. The festival marks the beginning of a new Hindu lunar calendar with the change in moon’s orbit.

The specialty of Ugadi is that on this day, people partake a mixture of Neem flowers and jaggery. They offer the mixture, which symbolizes the fact that life is a combination of happy and sorrowful events and both should be treated equally, to relatives, friends and neighbors.

ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗು ಯುಗಾದಿ ಹಬ್ಬದ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು. ಸರ್ವೇಜನೊ ಸುಕಿನೊಭವಂತು.

Getting Started with Your-Freedom Software

// February 18th, 2010 // 7 Comments » // Software, Tutorials & How to's // Written by Sandeep Hegde

I have explained briefly about Your Freedom in my last post “Your-Freedom – Bypass Restrictive Firewalls and Filters”. In this post we shall see how to configure Your Freedom and use Your Freedom software, with live screenshots and details. If you have any queries please comment at the end.

1 Registration process

Your first step in using the service is to register on web site. You need to visit http://www.your-freedom.net/ and create an account there. There is a link underneath the login and password form fields in the red part of the banner.

On the registration page, choose a username (preferably one that is not likely already used) and provide a password.

Once you’ve filled everything in, click on the “Create account” button. You will be asked to confirm your details by clicking on “Create account now”.

Within a few minutes you should receive an email containing an activation link. Activate your account by clicking on the link in the email (or cut&paste it into your browser).

What if you cannot access the web page because it’s blocked? Well, it’s a hen and egg problem then. Either ask someone else to create an account for you (or do it from somewhere else) and modify it later, or obtain the client software from another source than our server, and use the username “unregistered” and the password “unregistered” in it. This account will only provide access to Your Freedom web page, however. Alternatively, if you are able to send an email to the customer support, ask them to create an account for you. Just write to [email protected] telling them about your problem, suggest a username (please limit yourself to ASCII letters and numbers, dashes and underscores) and a password, and ask them to email you the client software (please state which type you’d like, read getting and installing client software ). If all the odds are against you and you can’t get the client software from anywhere else they’ll mail you a CD as well.

2 Getting and installing the client software

Once you’ve created an account you may use it to log in on the web page. This will give you access to the Download section of the page. Log in, then click on “Downloads”.  There are several ways to run the Your Freedom client, and consequently there is more than one download option:

• Windows Installer Windows users who already have a suitable Java Runtime Environment3 installed on their system and who have enough rights to install software should be able to use this version. The download is about 1 megabyte in size. If you are unable to download files ending in .exe, try to copy the link location and paste it in the URL field of a new browser window, then change the .exe to .txt.

• Windows Full Installer This version comes bundled with a JRE of its own so there are no prerequisites. Every Windows user should be able to use this one, provided that you may install software on your PC. The download is rather fat, about 28 megabytes. Again, this is an .exe file, try changing the ending to .txt if this is a problem. A benefit of this version is that it’s compiled to native code and will probably consume less resources.

Both Windows installer versions are installed by running the .exe file. Just follow the instructions in the installer and you should be done in a minute.

If you are not running Windows or if you cannot install software on your PC, your best choice is the Java archive version. Download the ZIP file and extract the contents into a folder to which you may write. This could also be a memory stick, or a CDROM, by the way. Then run the Java interpreter with the “freedom.jar” file. With Windows it’s usually enough if you double-click on the JAR file, but you may want to open a “cmd” window instead, “cd” to the directory and run “javaw –jar freedom.jar” instead. On Unix boxes you’d normally use “java –jar freedom.jar” or “kaffe –jar freedom.jar” or something similar; Unix users normally know.

Your Freedom also offers a Mac OSX installer version but  it might be less current than the others. You should be able to use the Java archive version on your Mac without problems – OSX is built on Unix and ships with a pre-installed JRE.

Alternatively  all files are also available from http://mediafire.com/yourfreedom.

Here is the screenshots of installation of Your freedom on Windows 7 operating System :

Generally, the Java archive version of the Your Freedom client should run on every computer that has a suitable JRE – and enough memory. We love to hear from you if you’ve managed to run it on an exotic piece of hardware (or in an unusual place)!

3 Connecting for the first time

When you start the Your Freedom client application for the first time, you’ll be presented with a “wizard”. It’s safe not to use it and enter all required information manually, but if you are unsure, give it a try first. Manual configuration may be required in difficult connection scenarios.

Now let’s assume that you are using the wizard. It will first present a Welcome page:

Do as you are told and click on the “Next” button. You’ll see this page:

If your Internet connection is through a web proxy, enter the details here. If you are unsure, try to click “Next” first. If all you get is an empty list of available servers like this:

(ignore the “auto-choose best” part) you need to figure out about your web proxy (or configure everything manually, e.g. if you want to use an FTP proxy!). If you get this:

then you’ve filled in the proxy details properly but you need to authenticate on the proxy. Click on “Next”…

… and fill in suitable login credentials. In many cases this will be your Windows Domain login (don’t forget to fill in the domain as well!). Just try until it works, you can click “Next” to try.

If you see this page:

it means that you have not provided a working proxy configuration. Click on “Back” and modify the hostname/IP address and/or the port setting. Many proxies “listen” on port 80, 8080 or 3128, to name the most popular ports. Check your web browser’s configuration, it should be able to tell you.

Oh by the way, if you find that the wizard has the proxy details already filled in, then it’s not magic – it just found them in your PC’s registry and probably has made life easier for you.

Let’s assume you’ve been able to make it work. (If not, please ask a knowledge person around you how you can use the web proxy, or try a manual configuration). It worked if you see something like this:

It’s important that you see a “yes” or a number in any of the columns HTTP, HTTPS, FTP or UDP. A “yes” means that the client has been able to use this protocol to connect to the server using the default port settings, a number would mean that it has been able to connect but on a different port, and a “no” means that the protocol could not be used to connect to this server. The results are sorted by preference (a number between 0 and 10), it indicates how well the server fits your requirements (if you’ve set any). Choose a server (any will do for now, unless it’s all “no” – don’t use “auto-choose best”), then click on “Next”.

On this page, enter your Your Freedom username and password; it’s the same you used to download the client from our web page. Click on “Next”.

It seems you’re done now! Click on “Save and Exit”. The main window of the Your Freedom client should now look like this:

Note that the client just doesn’t know anything about the server and your account’s profile before you’ve connected to the server, that’s why some of the values seem to be somewhat odd (including the bandwidth – it’s not unlimited unless you’ve bought a package). Click on “Start connection” and you should see something like this after a few seconds:

Note that all the details are now filled in, and the bandwidth reads “64.0k”. That’s kilobits, about the speed of an ISDN connection or a bit faster than with a high-speed modem. Click on “Account Profile” now.

This panel contains your account details. Without a package, you may not use any special servers (just the default ones), your bandwidth is limited, your maximum number of simultaneous streams is rather low and you may not relay connections from other PCs that use your PC as proxy. Your server connection will be terminated after 60 minutes (but you may reconnect when it happens). No server ports are assigned to you so none of them are forwarded to you. But at least, there are no access restrictions, you may access everything on the Internet.4

OK, time to configure your applications. Once you’ve set up at least a web browser to use Your Freedom the main objective should be reached: you should be able to access the web freely!

4 Configure applications – Automatically

Windows users can simply click on the “Applications” tab and see something like this:

This is a list of applications whose configurations can be modified automatically by Your Freedom. The ones that are installed on your system have working checkboxes, the other ones are greyed out. Tick the ones you wish to use with Your Freedom, then click “OK”. You’ll see something like this:

Hope it’s all successful! Then click “OK”. To restore the previous configuration of your applications, choose “Restore”, then tick the ones you would like to restore, and click “OK”. Note that applications that you’ve configured to use Your Freedom will only work properly if the Your Freedom connection to the server is up and running. Also, don’t forget to restore all your settings before de-installing the Your Freedom client!

To manually configure your applications, have a look at the Ports tab first:

This tells you that your local PC is now acting as a SOCKS4/5 proxy on port 1080 and as a Web Proxy on port 8080. To change these values, untick the service, then modify the port, then re-activate (this can be done on-the-fly!). “Relay for others” will only work with some packages.

If for some reason you cannot configure your applications from within the Your Freedom client, you need to manually configure them to use web proxy “localhost” on port “8080” or SOCKS proxy “localhost” on port “1080” (if you’ve got the choice, use SOCKS version 5).

Where are I find more details?

Visit the Docs & FAQ’s section at http://www.your-freedom.net/index.php?id=doc

Stay tuned to this blog to know more about You Freedom and similar software’s. Do not forget to Subscribe to my RSS Feeds and follow me on Twitter.

If you have any queries please comment below.

Happy Valentines Day

// February 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // My Zone // Written by Sandeep Hegde

Happy Valentines Day!!

Or for some of you, not so happy valentines day.

For me? Oh well, it doesn’t effect me all that much. Its just another day

Valentines day for some people is a day of love, joy, unity, and happiness . But for others its a day for pressure, tears, and heartbreak. Sometimes we’re all so quick to jump and forget about those that really don’t have anyone. And for that, I tell you all Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Shivratri

// February 12th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // My Zone // Written by Sandeep Hegde

About Maha Shivratri :
Maha Shivratri or Maha Sivaratri or Shivaratri or Sivaratri (Night of Shiva or “Great Night of Shiva”) is a festival celebrated every year on the 13th night/14th day in the Krishna Paksha (waning moon) of the month of Maagha (as per Shalivahana or Gujarati Vikrama) or Phalguna (as per Vikrama) in the Hindu Calendar (that is, the night before and day of the new moon). The festival is principally celebrated by offerings of Bael (Bilva) leaves to the Lord Shiva, all day fasting and an all night long vigil.

Per scriptural and discipleship traditions, the penances are performed in order to gain boons in the practice of Yoga and meditation, in order to reach the goal more swiftly and avoid rebirth.

Mayank Sharma – Brain Behind SMStweet.in

// February 6th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // Interviews // Written by Sandeep Hegde

As I have stated in my earlier post SMStweet – Tweet using SMS in India, I’m finally here with the interview of Mayank Sharma, the brain behind SMStweet. It took me quite a few days to get the information from Mayank Sharma, due to his busy schedules. Living it asides here we go with my interaction with Mayank Sharma.

* Let know more about you.

I have started a company called ezeecoupons. We intend to provide discount and offers over mobile phone as a simple SMS. People will be able to search for discount vouchers in stores that they are interested in. We have launched a prototype version of it in a Bangalore locality called Jayanagar. I like to read a lot love trekking. But these days most of my time is taken up by my daughter Raina, so don’t have time for other things.

* How and when did you get idea of starting smstweet?

Twitter was initially intended to be used on mobile phone originally. The simplicity of twitter made it so addictive that people started using on the internet as well. And it is on the internet that it found its adoption. If you start tweeting, you realize that it is so addictive that you want to keep on doing it even when you are not in front of your computer. Hence the need for it had always been. And then sometime in October I got introduced to a friend who told me about smsgupshups API’s. The moment I heard about it, I immediately grabbed an account there, and SMSTweet was born. Call it by bad luck or what, but the day I was testing out my application I heard the big news about Airtel providing Twitter access on mobile phone at 1 rupee.

* How did you get started?

As I said, I just got a demo account with smsgupshup and in couple of days implemented a basic version of SMSTweet. Thereafter just fixed bugs and made it more robust.

* How is smstweet built?

SMSTweet runs on Google Appengine. I used python to code the entire application. SMSTweet uses SMSGupshup’s SMS gateway to receive messages. I map the phone number from which the message is received to the correct Twitter user and post it on their behalf using Twitter’s open API.

* How was response of people initially?

Initial response was quite disheartening. Apparently no one in my circle of friends was as twitadict as I was and hence no one was actually using it. Almost a month later couple of people found out about it and they started using it. Most of them blogged about that helped SMSTweet reach out to a wide audience. In one sense it grew virally from that point onwards.

* Who are the key people/supporters behind?

From technical point of view, there is no one supporting me. It’s a fairly small piece of software so I don’t think I require any help from that perspective. Rohit helped me out with the design of website. He also reviews my code and keeps me honest with the code that I write. Other than that a large part of credit goes to all the bloggers who blogged about it. Seriously if not for those bloggers, hardly a handful of people would have know about SMSTweet.

* Why have not you provided local numbers beyond Mumbai and Bangalore?

These local numbers actually do not belong to me. They belong to SMSGupshup and I am just sharing it with them. It is upto SMSgupshup to add more cities so that a lot more people can use it as local SMS. I have contacted SMSGupshup and they said they will tell me if they decide to add more cities. But I don’t think lack of local numbers is a hindrance. Most of the mobile operators provide free local/STD sms plans for negligible account. So if you have one, you can virtually use SMSTweet for Free.

* What are your future plans?

I will keep on adding features as and when I have time. The usability of SMSTweet is quite restricted as the application does not initiate a SMS to a user. It only listens to SMS from users and responds to it. I have made this conscious decision because from the day one, I had decided I’ll not spend money on this tool. Google Appengine is free for me. SMSGupshup charges nominal amount to keep the account alive. And I don’t send out any outgoing SMS’es from my account. In this restrictive environment it is quite hard to innovate. But let’s see if we get some good ideas, I will implement them.

* Anything else you would like share with our readers

I would really like to thank everyone who has promoted SMSTweet either through blog or on  twitter. Without any marketing budget that is the only way to reach out to your audience. So I hope people keep on using it, send me feedback and if some one gets a wacko idea, share it with me so I can see if I can implement it.

This was my first experience of taking someone’s interview(anyways had experience of being interviewed !). This was an essential step to keep by blog unique. The interview series will continue in the coming days, letting you aware of unknown personalities. Your feedback and suggestions are welcome. Do not forget to Subscribe to my RSS Feeds and follow me on Twitter.