Month: April 2010

Dell Flash Android Froyo Phone Specifications

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Dell Flash is yet another smartphone leaked along with Dell Thunder, Dell Flash, Dell Lightning and Dell Smoke.

Dell Flash sports a sleek and stylish design integrated with high-end specs like a big 3.5” WVGA touchscreen, 5MP camera, Android 2.2 Froyo OS, Wi-Fi, Qualcomm MSM7230 processor, TV out and much more.

Scroll down to see the full technical specifications list, photos and availability of Dell Flash.

Pictures:

Dell flash Android

[Picture: via Engadget]

Dell Flash Full Specifications*:

Dimensions 117 x 58 x 11 mm
Weight 110 g
Display -TFT 3.5” touchscreen (256k colors)
-480 x 800 pixels
-QWERTY keyboard
OS Android Froyo
Processor Qualcomm MSM 7230 800 MHz processor
Camera 5 megapixel
auto-focus
2592×1944 pixels
Memory 512 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM
external: up to 64GB microSD
Playback formats Video: MP4/H.263/H.264
Audio: MP3/WAV/eAAC+/WMA
Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 (2G)
HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100 (3G)
Connectivity -3G (download max speed: 14.4 Mbps, upload max: 5.76 Mbps)
-WLAN 802.11 b/g
-Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP
-microUSB 2.0
-3.5 mm audio jack
-A-GPS
Extras – Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
– Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
– Handwriting recognition
– TV-Out
– Digital compass
– Full flash support
Battery -Standard Li-Ion 1300 mAh
-Talk time: up to 12 hrs
-Standby time: up to 725 hrs
Availability Q4 2010

[*] These specs are not official, the table has been prepared based on the rumored specifications.

Price and availability:

The price of the phone hasn’t been announced as the phone will only hit the markets after Q4 2010.The price will be added when the announcement happens officially.

Compare: Dell Lightning, Dell Mini 5

SEA-ME-WE 4 Undersea Cable System Outage – Slower Internet Speeds In India

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The internet users in India may have been already facing the slower internet speeds from couple of days, due to the undersea cable system repair.There’s been a disruption in the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) undersea submarine cable system that connects South East Asia & Europe, the disruption was located near Italy and this is taking its toll the internet connectivity in south east Asia including India.This is not the first time that such a disruption is happening, in January 2008, almost 50% of entire India lost internet connectivity due to the undersea cable cut.

The SEA-ME-WE 4 project is a combined effort of a consortium of 16 international services, of which India’s biggies Bharti Airtel and Tata Communications are a part.

SEA_ME_WE_4

I’ve got a service message from my ISP regretting the slower internet speeds due to the undersea cable cut.

Due to undersea cable cut across Asia & Europe you may experience slow speeds & packet loss. Intl Service team is working on it,please bear with us-BeamTelecom

Well, the latest buzz is that the repair work will go on for four more days and the companies have been taking various efforts to minimise the impact on the users.

Resources: SEA-ME-WE-4 official site

Full Specifications: Dell Lightning Windows Phone

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Dell Logo

The Dell Lightning was leaked a few days back on Engadget.This 5MP touchscreen device has a lot of great features to boast of.This is phone runs on the latest Microsoft Windows Phone 7 OS and this is the first Windows Phone 7 device from Dell.

Checkout the full technical specifications of Dell Lightning:

Dell Lightning Full Specifications List:

Dimensions 64.4×121.6×14.9mm
Display 4.1” WVGA Samsung OLED- Multi-Touch OLED Touchscreen
Resolution: WVGA 800 x 480
Form Factor Slider with QWERTY keyboard
OS Windows Mobile 7
Processor 1 GHz QSD8250 Snapdragon
Camera 5 Megapixel with auto-focus and video capture
Memory -1GB Flash ROM
-512MB DDR SDRAM
-8GB microSD
Video supported H.263/H.264. 3GP, MPEG4, WMV, DiVx 4.x/5.x/6.x
Audio supported MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, Midi
Network UMTS 850/1900/2100     GSM/EDGE  850/900/1800/1900 (AT&T US)
UMTS 900/2100/AWS/    GSM/EDGE  850/900/1800/1900 (T Mobile, US & Europe)
Connectivity -WLAN 802.11 b/g/n
-Bluetooth 2.1 EDR
-USB 2.0
-GPS
Battery 1400mAh
Extras G-Sensor, e-compass, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, FM Radio,  Micro USB I/O
Flash support
Availability Q4 2011

Price and availability:

The price of the phone hasn’t been officially announced.We’ll update the price here as soon the official announcement happens.The phone is likely to be launched in the Q4 of 2011.

Compare this phone with Dell Mini 5

[How To] Start Video Chat Inside Gmail

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Google has introduced Gmail voice and video chat long back.But as I still see, some users who rarely use Gmail aren’t really aware of it, as they still stuck to the voice chat through Gtalk desktop version.It may be that they are not really aware of how to setup Gmail voice and video chat inside Gmail.So here I’ve decided to discuss about how to get this video chat feature inside your Gmail that lets you start a video chat directly from your inbox besides reading and sending Email messages through Gmail.

gmail voice and video chat

All you need to get Gmail voice and video chat inside your browser is to install this Gmail voice and video chat plug-in.Just download the plugin and install it.Close all your open browser windows while installing it and then restart your browser.Now you’ll see a small green camera icon right before your name in Gmail chat.That means that the plugin is successfully installed and running.

You can now start a video chat on Gmail, iGoogle or Orkut with anyone who has also installed this plugin (in which case you see the same green camera icon before their names in chat).

Gmail voice and video chat works well with all Firefox 2.0+, Internet Explorer 6.0+, Safari 3.0+ and Google Chrome.

Download Gmail voice and video chat plugin

Read: New File transfer feature launched in Orkut and iGoogle chat (soon to be launched in Gmail).

BtProx: Auto-Lock Your Computer When You Move Away [Software]

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Bluetooth logo

Bluetooth Proximity Lock or BtProx in short is a free Bluetooth based application that locks your system using a paired Bluetooth device.BtProx works with any Bluetooth device that is already paired with your system.Just use your Bluetooth enabled phone (paired already) to start with.BtProx automatically locks down your computer screen when you move away from the Bluetooth range of your PC or alternatively it can be user initiated too.You can configure the BtProx to set a custom timeout , the time after which the computer screen needs to be locked down once the Bluetooth connections is lost.

Bluetooth Proximity Lock:

Bluetooth proximity lock

Once your Start the application, it monitors the paired Bluetooth connection for any connectivity issue.Once the connection gets lost and the timeout time is reached, your computer gets locked keeping the running process as such.The program runs on any Windows operating system including Windows 7.

Download

How To Create A System Repair Disc In Windows 7 & Vista

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Windows logo

Creating a System Repair disc in windows vista and Windows 7 is very simple and straight forward process.System repair disc would be very much useful when in situations like your Windows encounters a serious problem and unable to start properly.

A system repair disc can be used to boot your computer.It also contains Windows system recovery tools that can help you recover Windows from a serious error or restore your computer from a system image

Let’s see how to create a Windows System repair disc in simple steps.

Steps:

1. Go to Control panel> System And Security> Backup and Restore, click “Create a system repair disc”

backup or restore

2. Now it’ll ask you to select the CD/DVD drive and insert the blank CD into it. Select the drive and click “Create disc’ once you have inserted the blank disc into the drive.

create system repair disc

3. Let the DVD/CD (we need a DVD for Windows 7 backup) burn.

4. Now you have successfully created a system repair disc.

Using the system repair disc:

1. Insert the system repair disc into your CD/DVD drive.

2. Restart the computer

3. Windows will automatically discover the system  recovery disc.You will be prompted “press any key to start the computer from the system repair disc”

4. If your computer primary boot device isn’t set to “CD/DVD" drive”, go to BIOS settings and change the boot order to configure your computer to start from a CD or DVD.

5. Choose your language settings and click “Next”.

6. Select a recovery option from the following:

# Startup Repaid

# System Restore

# System Image Recovery

# Windows Memory Diagnostic

# Command Prompt

System_recovery _options

You may also refer to our earlier Windows 7 guides like Install Windows 7 using Microsoft USB/DVD tool, Install Windows 7 using bootable USB

You can also our exclusive posts about Windows 7

Delete Hiberfil.sys from Windows 7, Vista & XP By Disabling Hiberation

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hibernate

Running out of space in C Drive?

If you are running out of space in C drive and if you don’t want to delete or move any data from it, you can probably try these two things:

1. Disable System restore or delete the restore points.

2. Delete hiberfil.sys file from your hard disk.

HIBERFIL.SYS is a Windows system file managed by Windows for the purpose of Hibernating the system. Hibernation mode of Windows allows you to completely save the current process and power off your computer where the system will not require any power. During Hibernation the system will write the complete status and process of your computer and save it in the hard disk which is the hiberfil.sys.

While you start your computer, the system loads the status from the hard disk which was written in hiberfil.sys file.

HIBERFIL.SYS reserves around 2.5 GB in Windows 7 and Vista. And it takes 512 MB in Windows XP.

Important Note: You can delete hiberfil.sys only if you do not want to use the hibernation feature. Even if you delete the file you can still use the sleep mode. If you want to see the hiberfil.sys file in your C drive then you need to show system hidden files.

hiberfil_sys

How to delete HIBERFIl.SYS file from the your drive?

As hiberfile.sys is a system file we cannot delete it directly. So in order to delete it we need to disable the Hibernate feature in Windows.

Disable hibernation mode in Windows 7 and Vista:

Open Command Prompt. Press Start + R. Type CMD and press Enter.

Type the following commands and Press Enter after each command:

cd/
cd Windows
cd System32
powercfg -h off

It will look like:

cmd_disable_hibernate

To turn on the Hibernate feature Type:

powercfg –h on

Disable hibernation mode in Windows XP:

In Windows XP it is easy. Follow the instruction below:

Open Start menu, Go to Control Panel. In control Panel, go to Performance and maintenance. Then Click Power Options

In power options windows, go to Hibernate Tab. Uncheck Enable hibernation and press OK.

disable_hibernate_xp

If you want to re enable hibernation, then check the check box and press OK.

Now after performing the steps, if you check your C drive, you will find that the hiberfil.sys file is gone.

Hope you have got some free space at least for now 🙂

Device Doctor : Automatically Searches Your System For Out Of Date Drivers

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Device Doctor is a great free software, that automatically searches and downloads any driver updates in your system.

I have downloaded and installed the application on my Windows 7 laptop and it did it’s job perfectly it has searched and found as many as 9 driver updates (I never knew that there are updates available for all those drivers until I did this search !).

This is one great free software that any PC user with an active internet connection should install.Out  of date drivers could not only slowdown the system performance, but they may also result in unexpected behaviour.These are particularly true in the case of important hardware device drivers such as Ethernet card drivers, video card (or graphics card), sound drivers etc.Sometimes you may see the error messages like "This device cannot start. (Code 10)" or "This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)” etc.

So the ultimate solution for this is to update your drivers regularly.The Device Doctor does this so perfectly for you.

Device Doctor:

driver_doctor_updates

Just download and install this small application in your Windows system and let if automatically search and download the driver updates for you.

device doctor driver download

Device Doctor supports all versions of Windows: Windows XP, Windows Vista & Windows 7 both 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

Download Device Doctor (6.90 MB)

Create Keyboard Shortcuts For Programs in Windows

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Windows logo

At Techrena, we always strive bring the best available tricks for making your life easier.We have been updating our blog off late with lot of interesting windows and internet tips and more.

Today we are coming up with a very easy but effective feature in Windows, adding keyboard shortcuts to the windows programs.This saves a bit of time particularly if you need to open that program too frequently.Just like our last week’s tutorial about adding keyword shortcuts to Firefox bookmarks.

Follow these steps to add Keyboard shortcuts to your favorite programs.

1. Right click on the program icon and select “Properties”.

2. Find the “Shortcut” tab under the properties.Look for “Shortcut key” under the tab.

keyboard shortcut for programs in windows

3. Use your keyboard to assign a shortcut key for this program.

4. Click “Apply” and press “Ok”.

Now you use the shortcut that you have set to launch the applications directly.In the above case, I have added “Ctrl + Alt + N” to launch notepad.

Think Before Using USB Flash Drives To Run Applications or OS: Advisory

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I am writing this post on an advisory note. With the extensive use of USB flash driven in our day to day activities, now we have been aiming to make even our Operating System(OS) portable by installing it in a USB Flash Drive and carrying around in our pocket. Moreover we can run applications such as Mozilla, Anti Viruses etc. from a USB pen drives. Here I am going to explain, why you need to think twice before using your USB Flash Drive to run an Operating System from it.

Why you should think twice before using a USB Flash Drive to run an OS or applications for prolonged period?

All flash memory devices can sustain only a limited number of write and erase cycles before failure. While running a normal OS or an Application from a Flash drive, the system will write and erase a huge number of files and data in the flash drive. With prolonged use, the write/erase cycles of your flash drive may come to an end and may eventually fail.

The write/erase cycle performed while running an Operating System(OS) such as Windows XP or 7 will be very much more than what we can perform manually, by copying and deleting data. So this should be a consideration as it may make your flash drive run out of Write/erase cycles much faster than expected.

a failed usb flash drive

Another usage of USB is Windows ReadyBoost. Windows 7 and Vista can make use of a USB flash drive as a cache memory to improve the performance.  In this case also the cycles are be used a high rate.

Points to be Noted:

  • Flash memory devices have a limited number of write and erase cycles before failure
  • Running an OS or an Application from a Flash drive will write and erase a huge number of files or data in the flash drive per second.
  • Running an Operating System(OS) will perform these cycles much more than what we can perform manually
  • Prolonged use will make your flash drive run out of write/erase cycles and may eventually fail much before expected

How to address this issue?

To address this, as well as space limitations, some developers have produced special versions of operating systems such as Linux in Live USB or portable applications such as Mozilla Firefox designed to run from flash drives. These are typically optimized for size and configured to place temporary or intermediate files in the computer RAM rather than store them temporarily on the flash drive.

Compared to other portable storage devices such as external hard drives, USB flash drives still have a high price per unit of storage. But Hard drives have a higher minimum price.

Alternatives:

  • Run applications or OS which are configured  for Flash Drive use only
  • For Prolonged usage, try buying an external Hard Drive
  • If you are using your USB Drive as a Cache device to improve performance, why not upgrade your RAM size?

Notes:

1. Manual usage of your USB Drive will take years to use up the Write/erase cycles available, so no need to worry.

2. Most Failures in USB Memory Devices are due to wear and tear