Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Micromax partnered with Microsoft



Well, both the ‘Micro’s are gonna make ‘Macro’ changes in the Indian gadget market. At the Microsoft's BUILD conference in San Francisco, Terry Myerson(Microsoft Executive VP), has officially announced their new partnerships with 11 new partners including India's homegrown handset maker Micromax to offer Windows 8.1-powered devices. The deal  is expected to intensify competition in the smartphone and tablets market especially in India.

 Micromax is considered one of the leaders in Indian market for smart devices, standing second to the giant, Samsung. Micromax's revenues were Rs 3,168 crore for the financial year 2012-13 and it expects to clock revenues of $1 billion for the last fiscal ended March 2014,helding about 16 per cent market share in 2013. Some its top selling models were the entry level smartphones like A35 Bolt and A67, IDC data showed.

Besides, Microsoft has also announced that they will offer Windows OS free to smartphone and tablet makers which will help them to compete firmly with Google's Android and Apple's iOS in the fiercely competitive market. This offering also enables hardware partners to provide their customers a one-year subscription to Office 365.

Indian Customers can expect entry level Windows 8.1 powered smartphones from Micromax at a cost less than that of Lumia520.Well it will be a tough competition for the  Finnish phone maker Nokia, As the companys Windows phone range starts from 8000-8500 INR. Micromax is expected to launch their devices later this year. The phones will be having dual-sim functionality for sure, where as Nokia has launched their first windows 8.1 powered dual-sim phone Lumia 630 at Rs.10000 INR along with Lumia 630(single sim),635 and 930,all powered by WP8.1. Microsoft is also planning for Universal apps which will work with all four platform variants from Microsoft including Xbox One and 'WINDOWS IN THE CAR' similar to Apple Car Play. Some other announcements at BUILD conference are featured here.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

A lot of reasons to get excited on Windows Phone 8.1



Its already confirmed by Microsoft that the update of windows phone 8 to Windows Phone 8.1 at its Build developers conference in San Francisco, The first major update in 18 months. The update will be giving a completely new experience to WP8 users as the phone will undergo major changes. Available for all phones running on WP8(including 520), the update will be first rolling out in US and other countries getting it within this year. And finally the phone will be having a notification drawer called Action Center, which collects text messages, emails, calls and updates from social networks and other apps. It also has quick toggles for things like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

One of the much awaited feature in the update is Cortana, a personal digital assistant similar to Apple’s Siri, who can help make your life easier.Instead of searching for things, you ask Cortana - so if you want to know what the weatherforecast is, how many pounds are in a kilo, who's winning the match or when Obama's birthday is, you'll ask and Cortana will give you the answer. She has some sort of answers for everything. you'll be able to set a reminder to ask somebody about something, and the reminder will pop up if you text, call or otherwise interact with that person. Microsoft stated that Cortana will be socially intelligent. She has the ability to search the Internet, set up alarms, shift calendar appointments, find restaurants, send messages, place calls and much much more.

Cortana wasn't the only new aspect of Windows Phone 8.1 d appears as a Live Tile on your device. Her intelligence comes via Bing, which has access to Tellme's natural language processing.She replaces the search function in Windows Phone and the Bing tile is no more in your homescreen, Cortana also has the ability to figure out what your habits are (when you wake up, when you're at work, what you frequently search for), and use that information to predict your next move. Similar as it maybe to Siri and Google Now, Cortana isn't a straight clone either. Unlike the other two services,Microsoft will not only allow third-party apps to utilize Cortana's service, either by controlling apps via voice or fetching data for predictive search. . Microsoft demonstrated Cortana working in Skype, Hulu Plus and Facebook.


Microsoft promises that Cortana will be the best thing ever: she'll take the best of Google Now's analysis and Siri's user-friendliness, bring them together and then take everything one step further. Cortana won't just listen to you, she'll understand you, and she'll be aware of everything from your location to your personal preferences.Cortana will be available to third party developers: unlike Siri, which is limited to Apple's own apps and a few Apple services, Cortana could potentially work with any of your apps. Ask Cortana who’s her daddy, and she’ll say;

“Technically speaking, he’s Bill Gates. No big deal.”
watch the video here.
For Indian users, the full version of Cortana is expected to come in 2015 which is obviously very sad. but theres a good news also(read it here).

Thursday, April 3, 2014

5 Desktop Customization Softwares for Windows

Here are the top 5 Desktop Customization Softwares which will make your Windows PC look changed:-

Fences
Fence is a customization tool for windows. It is a desktop organization tool used by millions of user worldwide. With Fences you can sort your icons into organized clusters on your desktop which can be visible or hidden. So they are easier on the eyes.Fences is best recommended for automatic desktop organization. You can create your own tab with a category name and much more…

Download Fences


 ObjectDock
Are you a Mac fan?  ‘Dock’ in Mac OS, equivalent to ‘taskbar’ of windows is what Objectdock is going to give you. You can just replace the windows taskbar with Apple’s.Currently running programs are displayed in the program window. You may feel like it really lacks a system tray but it’s available for you if you are happy to pay $20 for the paid version.

Download ObjectDock
RocketDock
Similar to Objectdock, Rocketdock also is a Mac’s taskbar.  The dock can leave on any four edges of your monitor and comes with more than 20 skins. More icons and widgets can be downloaded from the app’s website. This is a fully customizable, completely portable and runs greatly on slower computers.

Download RocketDock


Tiles
Lessen the stress when you need to move from one application to the next or to force close an application. Tiles is the easiest way to get the job done. It has got an autohide feature so you don’t lose any monitor space. You can drag any software, file or folder you use or open often into this windows8-styled sidebarits size, location and behavior can also be customized. So download this feature-rich sidebar and make your desktop organized.

Download Tiles

Dexpot
Dexpot allows you to create multiple desktops on your screen in order to increase your work area by upto 20 times. You can switch between the virtual desktops from the tray icon or via hotkey and each of these virtual desktops are independent from each other. As a personal experience while I was installing, this program installs many third party components which is not much useful. It is better to pay attention during the setup. 

Download Dexpot (Unofficial Link)



How to Activate your sim card instantly

When you buy any new sim card, the shopkeeper will tell you to wait for few hours/days to get the sim
 card activated.
When you purchase a new sim card you will get two or three papers in which you have to fill the details.
Check the page in which your mobile number is written and near your number you can see SR NUMBER [serial number].
You can also find SR. No. on sim card's slip on plastic cover.

If you want instant activation then insert your sim card in your Mobile and then Dial the Serial Number two times.
Thats all. Your sim card will be activated within one minute.

How to Remove Shortcut Virus from Pendrives and Memory Cards without Antivirus

Follow the below Steps:-

*Go to Start -> Run -> cmd.
Or just open Command Prompt as Admin

*Go to your pen drive, memory cards or even mobile phone directory.

*Type "attrib -h -r -s /s /d e:\*.*"

*Replace "e" with your drive letter.

*And then press Enter.

NOTE: Make sure to Backup your important documents from the Pendrives or Memory Cards before running the commands. 

CloudGOO, This is what we call cloud storage

CloudGOO, a newly launched Android application offers a way for you to smush together all your cloud-based file storage accounts to form one big cloud drive in the sky. That is, the app aggregates your cloud drive accounts into one mobile interface, then uses that space as if it were one drive for things like automatic uploads of photos, videos, music, and documents.
The service is launched by Berlin-based developer Jared Preston, who previously spent a few years in Seattle working for Microsoft on the Windows Live platform.
He explains that unlike other platforms, such as Jolicloud for example, which attempted to aggregate a user’s web services under one roof, the idea with CloudGOO is not to have you navigate between your drives or media spaces using the app. Instead, he says, “you simply access and use your stuff, no matter where it is stored.”
“Theoretically, you could just sign in as many Google Drives, Dropbox, etc., as you wanted, to create a total space available for you to use. CloudGOO can then be set to ‘automatic upload’ and would just utilize the space available,” says Preston. “You would not have to worry about managing the space, just using it.”
Currently, the app supports cloud services including,

*Google Drive

*OneDrive (previously SkyDrive)

*Dropbox

*Box

*SugarSync

*Amazon’s Cloud Drive

To get started, you connect your accounts, and the app tells you how much storage you have available on each, and how much is already used in total. You can then fine-tune your settings to specify which file types (e.g. photos, videos, documents, etc.) you want to back up, and whether those files should be backed only over Wi-Fi.
You can also choose to let CloudGOO decide which online destination to use for each upload, so it can optimize your drive space utilization, or you can specify where each file type should be stored on an individual basis.
A basic user interface lets you access your content from the app, by tapping on big icons for photos, music, videos, and documents. From there, you can view your files, quickly share them on other social services or email, or copy them over to another cloud storage account.
Support for offline access is also available, and you can configure the cache size the app should use.
CloudGOO is currently a paid  download in Google Play
The nice thing about this app is that it lets you easily take advantage of the free space online storage space cloud providers give away, in hopes of hooking you into becoming a paying user. For example, Google 
Drive gives you up to  15 GB for free these days, while Dropbox offers another 2  GB of free space to start.
But until now, it’s not been convenient to combine your accounts to maximize the free offerings Or else you have somehow managed to sign up for accounts with all the providers, and now have no idea where to go to find the files they’ve uploaded all over the web. CloudGOO solves this problem and its worth the download.


Play Store download Link: Click here to Download

Posted in behalf of +Vivek MT