Niranjan ’s Home

First of all, i haven’t tested it anywhere else so i can’t guarantee this 100%.But in my laptop it’s working like i wanted it to work.

These are the steps for the great [blowin' ;)] sound on your Dell Studio 1535 Laptop.In my notebook, i’m having an IDT Audio Codec Driver for the On Board Audio Chip.And it took me 2 days to figure out that the IDT Codec actually sucks to the core.

Jump to the bottom for the summary if you don’t have time for this crap.

To the story then,

I was playing around with audio enhancement programs for making up my notebooks bleak sound.First I tried DFX which i recommend even now to my friends who has speakers with underused sound power ;).But then the funny thing was that it wasn’t making any noticeable [ ahem....  for me ] difference in the sound.So I went back of the Sound Blaster Audigy HD Audio Software emulation offered by Dell  [ as an upgrade  ] @ Rs 458 [ :O ] and i didn’t opt for it when i ordered the laptop. .I was searching for a demo of the software to find if that software would make any difference to the pooorrrr sound on the lap.I managed to get one tryout package of the software after 1 hour of googling on it. Then they said that i should be having Sigmatel Chip inside my lap for it to work , and i guessed that the Sigmatel Codec will work irrespective of my choice of "not to opt" for the Audigy MB Software package, because Dell wouldn’t change the motherboard just for the sake of a 458 Rs Software emulation upgrade.Would they?.

So I installed the Sigmatell Driver and then it was sayin that the Hardware isn’t workin properly [ ... i didn't have that much of hope that it will work though because the driver is for Sigmatel Chip and i started off assuming that my chip is the same. ].Then, the best thing happened.

I uninstalled the Sigmatell Driver and the IDT Codec wasn’t present so the MS Vista installed it’s default High Definition Audio Device Driver on it.Before installing the IDT driver back [ all my hopes were lost  right ? ],I played one song and i got a bit shocked because of the sound coming from my laptop.

it was triple the sound output ,I actually had to reduce the sound of the notebook when i played that song because it was too loud :D.

For the geeks,

• Uninstall the IDT Driver [ or Sigmatel . Whatever it is!, it's not using the speakers of the lappie well,So give them a break ]
• During the uninstall make sure that the driver files are removed too.!Otherwise it tends to reinstall using the same driver over again.
• Then,Install the driver ,Vista should pickup the driver automatically,if it doesn’t then select "Locate and install suitable driver"..The name of the driver should be "High Definition Audio Device".

It’s better than the IDT Driver and I don’t even have to use the Sound enhancement programs now because the sound is great .

Finally, i received the courier from Blue Dart [ DHL ] shipped by Dell, the midnight blue colored Dell Studio 1535 lappie :).

For those of you who are interested in knowing its specs, Here it is

Don’t drool [ Just Kiddin' :)].

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz T8300.

Memory: 4 GB DDR2 667 MHz

Display: 15.4" Widescreen XWGA

HDD: 200 GB HDD @ 7200 RPM

Graphics: ATI Radeon  HD3450 256 MB Dedicated.

OS: Windows Vista Home Premium

Other Features:

• Backlit Keyboard
• Bluetooth 2.0
• Wifi [ a/b/g/n ]] ie, 2.4Ghz and 5 GHz band support.
• Dell Wireless Bluetooth Mouse
• 8 in 1Memory Card Reader
• Slot loading DVD Drive
• 3 USB Ports and 1 eSATA Port
• HDMI Port
• ExpressCard/54 slot
• Media Remote control
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• 2.0 MP Webcam with stereo surround mic [ Dual Mic on both sides of cam , it's damn good .) ]
• Ethernet Port
• 1 Firewire 1394 port.

Well these are the specs. . Now here are some pics :).

Now all of you must’ve noticed that Orkut has made it impossible [for many users ] to save images from your albums.You can save the image easily if you are using IE , Firefox and Opera   , as these are the only browsers I have in my PC currently and I didn’t bother to test this in Linux so i don’t know about it.

If you want to save an image from Orkut, click and drag the image from the album to a folder or your desktop.

Read on

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Mobiles shouldn’t be used by kids , is that the old-generation’s excuse for banning mobiles in campuses?.In UK and USA , they are giving cell phones to kids of age 4 !.I’m not telling that it’s a good practice to do that because there are radiation problems and  heated arguments related to that are going on even now everywhere around the globe.I don’t think that any new generation person will actively agree that mobile shouldn’t be used at all by people.Because they know that it will come handy at certain situations.

On August 7th 2008 , I had Object Oriented Programming exam and I was nervous as usual because of my habit of opening my book for the first time ,after the study leave started ,on the Exam day morning.And there I was sitting in the exam [ With my phone switched off in my pocket!  this is what I did wrong ] hall thinking how it’s going to workout , worried about my paper  and re-assuring myself that it will be alright.Then comes the voice of the invigilator asking us to keep our mobiles  on the desk.And all of us who had the mobile with them kept it there ,thinking that she will return it after the exam ,like it’s supposed to!.And then after taking everyone’s cell she is telling us that , “I’m going to give these to principal now and all of you can collect it from him “.Who thought that was coming!!.

You can ruin anyone’s exam by psychologically breaking them , in between the exam, where that person can’t even move without the staring glance by the invigilator and that’s what happened here.She actually managed to create this un necessary tension in us  even before giving the question paper to us and a big THANKS for that , lady!.And the best part is that , in our exams invigilator will be from our own college and then this kind of stuff is happening , that’s what makes this all stuff stupid.

After the exam when we enquired her , she asked us to go to the Examination Cell , which is in charge of the Examination stuffs, and when we asked there ,they asked us to wait till the answer papers are packed and all those urgent matters  are finished.So we stood there for about 1 and half hours , some of us  including me didn’t even have lunch because of this , Then they asked us to meet another officer in our college and told us that they gave the cell phones to him .Then when we went and enquired him  , he asked us to write an apology letter saying that we wont repeat this “illegal” act of bringing “switched off” phones in the exam hall .We all hurried to write an apology letter and when we gave it to him , he tells us to wait  [ " Now what !!  " ??? ]  and then after  some “waiting” he told us that he gave the phone to the person with authority [ I'm not naming the post or the name of the person here ,  ] .Then we all virtually ran to that person and he was telling things like

• “We will take necessary actions on this ”
• “We will review this and will be submitting your details to university for bringing the cell phones inside the exam hall” .
  • Trying to scare us  huh ?.. We were trying to get back our phone  after skipping lunch for this and were standing there in the college without any way to inform our parents about this and then he is telling us that he is going to give compliant to university ?. WTF actually happened here?. Did we try to copy or do any kind of malpractice with the cell phone?. Did any one of us even plan to do such thing with our mobile? NO!!.I can assure anyone that none of us had any plan to do such thing with mobile!.We aren’t honestly that much technically advanced to do things like cheating with iPod Player . Surely , there are possibilities for things like that to happen but in our case our phones were switched off and we weren’t certainly hiding them in our  “hidden parts” for cheating .
  • And aren’t we studying in this college.We didn’t come here from elsewhere?.They are supposed to understand us ,I believed so at least ! [ Until NOW! ]
• “I don’t want to hear a word from you people ! Write down any kind of apology you are planning to tell and give it to the principal  ” [ who was absent on that day ].
  • That was straight away blocking us from explaining what actually happened.He must be thinking that the invigilator caught the mobiles while checking us and he wasn’t even ready to hear what we were saying to him.

Mobiles like anything else can be misused but that doesn’t mean that it will be always misused  by everyone.Those who misuse will keep on doing it whatever means authorities take because they are having problems with authority.And why do we ,those of us who never did anything like that, have to suffer for this kind of matters ?. I have read in some news paper that Kerala Government is going to ban mobile phones in all the campuses [ both students and officials ].Isn’t this barbaric stuff to do with the young generation?. They should be enforcing law to prevent misuse of the mobile phones by people and instead of that they are preventing people from using it. As far as I know neither Kerala Government nor The Government of India has made it strict for the telecom companies to have tracking equipments installed in their customer base.And the best part is that BSNL doesn’t have that facility while many private companies can track the particular mobile number if they want to.If they want to actively curb all the anti-social stuffs people are doing with mobiles they should be making these kind of important decisions.Instead of this the government authorities are spreading news like ‘they are able  to track each and every message transferred through bluetooth !.

You can read the news report about the Great Kerala government planning to ban mobiles in schools [ even in +2 !! ] here. And they are saying that

“The move comes close on the heels of a girl student attempting suicide after she was allegedly strip-searched in class to check if she was carrying a cell phone”.

***???? Who asked them to strip search and what made them to do so ?. they themselves are the cause of the whole thing.”

“What we had till now is merely a government order stating that mobile phones can’t be used in schools. But now we will introduce new laws to this effect, banning the use of mobiles in all schools,” state home minister  told the assembly.”

Aaha! that’s the point , the government gave the permission to check for the mobiles ! and that’s what caused this whole trouble, strip checking a girl? Can you believe it? and they are again attributing this as misusing of mobile!!! .Nice work!

What all stupid stuffs are we supposed to live with ,unnecessarily ?.

PS: I will be posting updates about my mobile after enquiring the college about why they are keeping it with them un necessarily

Hey guys, welcome to my personal space in this vast internet.

I didn’t have a domain in my own name for a long time though i was active in the net for a decade now.And i started this Gadget News Site named Gadget Live 1 year back and since then i was waiting to buy a domain in my name itself. For expressing my personal views of course..

So… once again welcome to my world.. n dont forget to check my About Me page if you think that you don’t know me.

Chao..