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Monthly Archives: July 2009

Transferring data to my laptop

July 29, 2009 by Naman Bagga | 1 Comment | Filed in Tech Talk

I don't need to remind regular visitors of this blog that not-so recently I bought a laptop. Let me first tell you a bit about my PC. Its 9 years old and doesn't have an Ethernet card. I really haven't made any changes to it ever since I got it. All I could use to transfer data and connect my Beetel 220BX ADSL modem is the USB ports. When I got my laptop, I started to think about ways to connect my laptop and PC simultaneously. One strange and interesting thought then struck my mind. What would happen if I connected my Laptop to the modem through Ethernet and PC through USB. I tried doing so and I was able to connect both the computers simultaneously.

Then I thought about ideas to transfer data from my PC to my laptop. I couldn't use a crossover Ethernet cable just because my PC has no Ethernet card. I also don't have an external hard disk and don't wish to buy one in the near future. Using a Pen-drive was a very tiring option as I could transfer just 2GB at a time. Then, a different thought struck my mind which was just what I needed. My modem created a local network between my PC and Laptop. I used it to transfer all my data from my PC to my laptop. It took some time but it was acceptable and I feel any method would've taken that amount of time.

An ADSL modem which supports both USB and Ethernet is a useful thing to have indeed. This method is very useful if your PC doesn't have an Ethernet card or you don't have a crossover Ethernet cable and want to use a Straight cable to transfer your data. I used this method with a Beetel 220 BX modem but this method is not specific to a particular modem. It will work with all similar types of Modems/Routers.

The Ultimate Fantasy Football Guide

July 23, 2009 by Naman Bagga | No Comments | Filed in Sports

Everyone football fan loves to play fantasy football. Initially, people tend to think that its all about luck and involves little or no skill. Some people are capable to staying up to date with the latest happenings through different sources but most of the people don't have all that time to stay glued to the sports news. Thankfully there is an alternative for such people.
WaiverWire is a site designed to help you win fantasy sports. They offer different packages to stay updated with the latest happenings in the world of football. These include the Stimulus package, the In-Season Pass and the Full-Season pass.

The In-Season Pass is ideal for the casual fantasy football player. It is reasonably priced at $9.99 for the entire 2009 season and provides all the features that can help you win in fantasy football. These features include real time player alters via Email, Text and to the users Waiver Wire profile page, player injury alerts, expert fantasy football analysis for every alert telling them users impact on a fantasy team/league, potential replacements, etc. The site even has forums to discuss your fantasy football strategies. Other great features like Strength of schedule rankings, points allowed, player projection are very useful indeed.

Waiver Wire is a very innovative idea. It will definitely give you the edge over other people in fantasy football. $9.99 is a very small price to pay as compared to the value of the prizes you stand a chance to win. So sign up and play with an edge.

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Dell Studio Screen Brightness Control Problem in Ubuntu

July 23, 2009 by Naman Bagga | 6 Comments | Filed in Linux, Tech Talk

When I installed Ubuntu on my Dell Studio 1555, I faced more than one problem. I forgot to mention about this issue in my last post. In Ubuntu, the brightness control buttons of my laptop refused to work. They worked for the first 30 seconds or so after startup and after that the brightness and wireless buttons refused to work. The brightness slider too was unable to control the screen brightness. Brightness control is a very important feature and its something you can't live without if your laptop runs on battery power very often.

As usual, the reason I'm writing this post is because I did find a solution to the issue and managed to get the buttons working. Here's the simple solution-

1.Edit the GRUB menu.lst file by running the following code in the terminal

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

2.Look for the line

# defoptions=quiet splash

and change it to

# defoptions=quiet splash noapic

Save the file and close the text editor.
3.Now update grub by running-

sudo update-grub

4.Reboot your laptop. Your brightness buttons should work perfectly fine now.

The GNOME Power Manager offers quite a bit of configuration but at times you feel the need for some more configuration options. You can make those customizations by editing a few keys in the GNOME Configuration Editor. Be careful, you should edit a key only if you are sure about what you are doing. To open the configuration editor, run 'gconf-editor' in the terminal. The GNOME Power Manager keys can be found under /apps/gnome-power-manager. You can control settings like how much the brightness is reduced when on battery power and actions to perform under various circumstances. This way you can make more customizations than the GUI offers.

Note: This method will only work with the GRUB legacy bootloader. If you are using GRUB 2, wich is very likely after the release of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, you should have a look at part 2 of this post- Dell Studio Screen Brightness Control Problem in Ubuntu-Part 2

ShopWiki Desktop Computer Buying Guide

July 23, 2009 by Naman Bagga | No Comments | Filed in Reviews, Tech Talk

Shopwiki is a guide for shopping online. It is like a shopping search engine. It crawls different online stores just like search engines like Google do. Conventionally, shopping sites show only those stores that pay for placement but ShopWiki is the ultimate shopper's guide. ShopWiki not only provides stores but also has an extensive Wiki. Its a complete shopping guide.

The desktop computers buying guide is a good guide for people who don't know the basics of a computer. ShopWiki has a guide for everything you can think of. They have a separate guide for buying Printers, Computer Monitors, Keyboards and all other peripherals.

Buying a computer mouse can be a bit tricky. Although it is neglected very often, a good mouse makes a lot of difference. The number of options available while selecting a mouse is mind boggling. There's even a Computer Speakers buying guide. In short, Shopwiki has guides to buy all the parts of a desktop computer. ShopWiki is not limited to desktops or laptop computers. It includes guides for buying all kinds of products.

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