Mar 31 2010

BSNL Broadband 75Mbps and 100Mbps plans introduced

Category: Broadband,BSNL,India — Kamlesh @ 2:17 pm

After 2 days Airtel introduced its 30Mbps and 50Mbps plans; its time for BSNL to chase its competitors.  Today, BSNL introduced 75 Mbps and 100 Mbps plans for both Home and Business users.

75Mbps – Rs.8,500 per month

100Mbps – Rs.9,999 per month (WOW that used to be LAN/Ethernet speed)

Although the rates are very competitive, but the download limit still exist for the Unlimited Download users.

The detailed tariff chart is available at this link.  Its time to buy bigger Hard Disks!  Thanks for visiting.

Update (23-Mar-2013):

I realized few months that my above joke has become reality.  BSNL now offers a product called FTTH Broadband.  Check the below link for details on their plans which are up to 100 Mbps speed.

http://www.bsnl.co.in/opencms/bsnl/BSNL/services/broadband/bb_ftth.html

 

Mar 29 2010

Random Team Generator in Excel (Tip: Save Paper)

Category: Microsoft,Microsoft Office — Kamlesh @ 11:00 pm

At my last Organization, we used to conduct Team Building Activities within the entire Project Account.  Usually, the first game in this exercise, was to come up with an innovative game to form the teams in various groups.  Microsoft Excel’s Random Team Generator is a interesting tool to solve your Team Formation process.

Input Sheet

In the [INPUT] sheet of this excel, you can enter Organization Name, Name for Breakout, Number of People, Number of Houses and names of all team members.

Group Sheet

Once done, goto [GROUPS] sheet, and press F9 to randomly generate your teams. Its so simple and environment friendly (avoid printing chits).

Another real scenario of this tool usage would be to nominate a group of team members for a training.  In certain situations, this tool can become handy for L&D Coordinators and Managers.

For more details and template download, please visit Office Online link here.  The website mentions that it is specific for Excel 2007, but I found it working on my Excel 2010 Beta too.

Mar 28 2010

Notepad++ Plugin Manager and NppExec prompting for Updates frequently (Fixed)

Category: Opensource,Vista,Windows 7 — Kamlesh @ 11:19 am

Since a month, whenever I launched Notepad++, it was finding Plugin Manager updates and prompting me to update online. The updates were shown for both Plugin Manager and NppExec components (Refer the current and new version details below):

Available updates for Notepad++ Plugins

Everytime, I used to choose “YES” for online updates; it used to download the updates, show me progress bar and restart Notepad++.

Downloading Notepad++ Plugin updates

Strangely this used to happen regularly – I was wondering why is Notepad++ team releasing so frequent updates!!!  When I digged into the problem, I came to know that my Updates where not getting applied on Windows 7 due to permission issues.

To fix this, you have to start Notepad++ as Administrator and then run Plugin Manager updates.  It’s the similar problem with Notepad++ Updater, as I wrote in my last post.  My existing Plugin Manger version (Plugins -> Plugin Manager -> About) is now having the latest version 0.9.3.1 released in February 2010:

Plugins -> Plugin Manager -> About

Hope this helps you to fix your problem.

Mar 21 2010

Notepad++ Update Error – The requested operation requires elevation

Category: Opensource,Vista,Windows 7 — Kamlesh @ 4:39 pm

Recently when I tried to Update Notepad++ online on Windows 7 Operating System, I received “The requested operation requires elevation.” error (Exception 1002).  Such errors were not seen earlier on Windows XP Operating System.

Notepad++ Update Error

This error appears because Notepad++ needs Administrative rights in Windows 7/Vista.  To fix this problem, start Notepad++ with Run as Administrator option and then try Update option.

Notepad++ - Run as Administrator

Notepad++ (latest version 5.6.8) is one of the most popular Open Source Text Editor, which is available freely for developers.  Its very useful for Administrator permission to execute the Updater.

Applies to: Windows 7, Windows Vista

Mar 20 2010

World House Sparrow Day – 20th March

Category: Nature — Kamlesh @ 2:03 pm

When did you see a House Sparrow last near your surroundings?  For me – may be 3 to 4 years back.  It is a fact that we cannot see this bird now in the city life.  According to the latest sparrow census put together by various environmental organizations, there has been an 80 percent decline in their numbers during the past decade. The disappearance of sparrows in India has been widely reported, but responses have been quite muted so far.

A male House Sparrow

The sparrows used to build their nests below tiled roofs of houses. With contemporary architecture making a clean sweep in cities, tiled roofs have become a thing of the past, and sparrows have lost their prospective nesting spots.

The first World House Sparrow Day is being celebrated on 20th March in a bid to create awareness about these birds that are gradually disappearing from many cities across the globe.  It is an International initiative by Nature Forver Society in collaboration with Bombay Natural History Society, Cornell Lab of Ornithology (USA), EcoSys Action Foundation (France), Avon Wildlife Trust (UK) and numerous other national and International organizations across the world.

House Sparrow in different Indian Languages: Goraiya (in Hindi), Chimani (in Marathi), Pichhuka (in Telugu), Gubbachchi (in Kannada), Kuruvi (in Tamil), Chakli (in Gujarati), Charai Pakhi (in Bengali), Chirya (in Urdu)

Mar 10 2010

How many Points you know from Microsoft

Category: Microsoft — Kamlesh @ 10:56 pm

Have you noticed that some of the Microsoft Product names have “Point” suffix.  Here are these:

PowerPoint – Nobody needs any introduction to this world-class presentation software.

SharePoint - is used for Collaboration, Process Management, Search and Document Management.  Also known with these names – WSS (Windows SharePoint Services) and MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)

PerformancePoint - is a BI related Management product which allows customers to monitor, analyze, and plan their business as well as drive alignment, accountability, and actionable insight across the entire organization.  As of April 1, 2009, Performance Point server will no longer be available for purchase.  All its features are now merged with SharePoint Enterprise edition.

MapPoint – is both a technology (“MapPoint Web Service,” previously known as MapPoint .NET) and a specific software program created by Microsoft that allows users to view, edit and integrate maps.

MultiPoint – A new Windows product that increases access to affordable computing in educational scenarios such as classrooms, labs and libraries by allowing multiple users to simultaneously share one computer using multiple screens.

Do you know any more Points?

Mar 10 2010

What you were doing 10 years back?

Category: Programming — Kamlesh @ 1:58 pm

Recently, Scott Hanselman created an interesting post with his 10 year old Presentations.  Those were the days of Windows DNA, WOSA, Classic VB and ASP.  I still remember Personal Web Server setup, which was required to host ASP files.

Comparing to those days, now most of the applications have moved from Windows Platform to Web.  Thanks to the fantastic UI support in all upcoming Internet Browsers.

Mar 06 2010

Home Sweet Home – CeeKam.com

Category: Uncategorized — Kamlesh @ 3:02 am

Finally, I got my own domain and moved my existing Blogger/WordPress blogs to this today.  It took a while because I faced problems with Import/Export process.  Overall, the migration experience was great.  WordPress is an ultimate Blogging Platform!

There might be some issues with images/links, which will be addressed based on feedback from the visitors. Let me call this as Beta version, because I am yet to work on some Layout changes.

Happy Weekend to all!