UTM Emerginov @ Orange Expo 2010

//ki news?  Orange Expo 2010 !! Yeps … as you probably know … Orange Expo will be held at Swami Vivekananda Conference Center as from 26-28 March 2010. If you are thinking of investing in some new technology, why not visit the expo to get a good idea of what’s available on the Mauritian market?  This expo will gives you the opportunity to discover the latest trends and innovations of the Internet and mobile phones. Sneak peek of the latest models of mobile phones and multimedia functionality and try something out of the ordinary.

Expo Overview

• Have Fun!! Family fun (video games and loads of entertainment for children)
• Explore and test new mobile services and Internet TV services
• Special Orange Expo offers on all products
• Need a job? Discover the different  BPO industry in Mauritius and many other job opportunities

3D TV (Du jamais vu avant)

I think 3D TV will be the “star” of the expo. Special glasses will be available for visitors to discover a new viewing experience. Total immersion in a movie with more intense emotions …. wow !! 😀

Orange Expo 2010 Twitter Contest > Win an Alcatel OT-800?

To participate just:

1. Follow > @OrangeMauritius
2. Retweet this post  > RT @OrangeMauritius: Orange Expo 2010: Win an Alcatel OT-800 #OrangeExpo2010 http://bit.ly/8YRdkj

Orange Emerginov Code Camp (UTM – UOM)

Emerginov!! Err?

Emerginov is a new multimedia platform developed by Orange Labs to bridge the gap between mobile users and the web. Students from the University of Technology, Mauritius (UTM) and UOM  have developed new innovative applications on this platform. They will present their applications during the expo.

University of Technology students(UTM Code Camp Team 2010) have developed:

1. Traffic Watch for Mauritius (Watch M1 Traffic Density, Incident Alert & more)

2. Buddy Locator (Using GPS and SMS Alerts)

3. SMS Notification API (a new core API developed from scratch)

Please do come and visit the UTM Emerginov stand.

Get free invitations for the expo

Download and print your free invitations on the website of Orange Expo.

We will wait for you on the UTM Emerginov stand 😉 . J’espere que vous allez en prendre plein les yeux … 😛

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Ultimate PC Troubleshooting Tips

//  A slow booting PC, a dead power supply, Winblows blue screen of death ? Every computer user hits a bump now then. Strange computer problems and errors are sometimes difficult to solve even for the most intellectual geeks. In some cases technology seems more trouble that it’s worth. To save your time and frustration when trying to troubleshoot your computer, here are some top computer troubleshooting tips that will make your life so much easier.

Backup and Drivers 

Backup important files and drivers(if necessary). Yepp, the golden rule of PC troubleshooting is to ensure that your tweaks never make the problem worse. Create a “System Restore Point” which often helps. To backup your system drivers, try out DriverBackup, a nice and user-friendly free tool. Oops, if you forgot to backup your drivers !! Don’t worry, most drivers are available on the web, checks out the links below:

1. DriverFiles

2. DriverSkit

3. TouslesDrivers (French)

 

Start Crawling the Web for your Tech Support Needs

There are many sites where thousands of users are sharing their experience and they are most often free. Many of these sites require registration before you can post a question but it’s worth. From my personal experience , here’s some top sites that can save you loads of time during troubleshooting:

1. Tech Support Guy : Very active site with fast technical support.

2. CommentCaMarche (French) : One of the top, with lots of nice tutorials.

3. FixYa : Tech Support, Manuals & Troubleshooting for Consumers.

4. AnswerBag : Site where you can ask any questions, very interesting.

5. TechIMO : Tech Support Forums.

6. Annoyances :  A complete collection of information, problem and error related to Microsoft Windows platform.

7. Tom’s Guide : A Good High-Tech source of information.

 

Windows Troubleshooting

Oufff Windows!!  The OS with million of problems. Site like LabMice and PCHell is a must for tech-savvy, they provide a huge list of common Windows errors. Check out the Microsoft Developer Network which provides a list of all system error codes. 

For Vista users, Microsoft has just launched a new site named “Microsoft Answers“, currently in beta. It’s a support forum in the Q&A format. The sad part is that, Microsoft is limited to only Vista-related questions.

For IT Pro:  You can use Sysinternals utilities to manage, troubleshoot and diagnose your Windows systems and applications. These tools can be of great help if you know how to use them. Visit the Sysinternals Forum if you want to know more about these tools.

 

Tools for Troubleshooting & Optimizing a PC 

There are some tools on the web that can make troubleshooting much easier. Here’s a list of 17 portables applications, these softwares are very useful. You can also try out TuneUp Utilities which is one of the best optimization software I have used to date. I highly recommended this software to troubleshoot complex PC performance issues.

Hope this article helps, computer bumps may be annoying, but they can’t stop us to enjoy the ride. 

 

 Please take a moment to vote:

Gmail experimental features

// For those of you who have not yet try the experimental features in Gmail. Features like Quick Link, Superstars, Pictures in Chat, Signature Tweaks, Muzzle, Old Snakey(Game), Email Addict and more.

To activate these features:

1. Open your Gmail

2. Go to Setting , then to Lab Tab

3. From there you can enable/disable experimental features

To deactivate the labs option temporarily (in case of problems), go to http://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0.

Simplest file hosting service

// I just watched Click(BBC) and they talked about a free file hosting service, MediaFire. I give a try and I was amazed with their transfer rate.

But MediaFire is not the only one, their are other free file hosting services (like rapidshare, adrive, thelinkup, filefactory, among others) but according PC Magazine mediafire is the best. Choosing the right one is base on several issues, file types not usually supported, online storage capacity and the max. size of the file. Generally, these free web hosting services are operated on dedicated servers due to their popularity and high bandwidth usage required. Transferring of files from one computer to an other has never been so easy. I stopped sending files via msn, now I use MediaFire as the same link can be shared among several friends. Just give it a try.

Note: If you have Kaspersky Anti-virus installed on your machine, you must pause the protection while uploading a file. Until now, that’s the only drawback I found with MediaFire.

Link: www.mediafire.com

Use Gmail as external hard drive

// Use Gmail for backup? Yes, it is possible using this small extension, Get ready to start:

Step 1: Download this Windows drive shell extension for windows users. I used it on windows XP pro and it works fine.

Step 2: Install the extension by running the setup application.

Step 3: A Gmail space appears in My Computers/Windows Explorer as an external drive as shown in the picture below.

Step 4: Now double click on the external drive (GMail Drive) and a login screen will pop up, enter your user name and password.

The extension is loading and enumerating the folder.

Step 5: And now you can drag and drop your file to the drive, you can use it as a normal external drive. It sends an email to your GMail account with the file as an attachment. Enjoy ; )

The downside:

These GMail storage solutions are very useful and until the much-rumored but slow-to-surface GDrive comes along and makes solutions trivial, the provide a nice way to access the same batch of files anywhere you are. However, there is a potential and significant downside. In the midst of my research with these tools, I ended up receiving the following dreaded “Unusual Usage” screen.

I know that a lot of people use these tools regularly and have never seen any major problems, I used both GMail Drive and GMailFS(Linux) extensively in a very short period of time so chances are the same thing won’t happen to you. Hope one day, Google will remove the Unusual Usage Lock. Use wisely and at your own risk.

Share your tips and experiences in the comments.

Note: Linux users can check out GmailFS and Mac users can try gDisk.