My Geeky Encounters

Moved to Blogger

maneck35 — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:54:24 +0000

I have now moved my blog to Blogger – You can find it at http://maneck35.blogspot.com/

Sharing files with you friends..

maneck35 — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:32:43 +0000

My previous post about Online backup services reminded me of another recent venture of mine. A friend of mine, the complete Apple Fanboy that he is, wanted to share files with me remotely over the internet and had been using iDrive until his trial period expired. He wanted me to look for a free alternative to this.

My first instinct was to set up a shared Gmail account, which we could both access, and use it to store files via programs like Gspace, Gmail Drive, gDisk etc. But since Google’s been working on a similar service of their own, they’ve changed the way Gmail work thereby rendering most of these services useless.

After a lot of ‘Googling’ I came across www.myotherdrive.com. A brilliant service that offers free user 2GB worth of space online, a Java desktop app that makes it easier to upload files directly from your desktop thereby eliminating the need of a browser, and the best of all, NO FILE SIZE LIMITS! This is the best service I found so far and if you and you friend have really fast internet connections, it’s very very useful!

Give it a shot guys! It’s totally worth the effort!

Tagged: best online storage, free online storage, myotherdrive.com, share files with friends, use gmail as drive

Hard Disk Problems..

maneck35 — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:18:25 +0000

I bet everyone who’s used an external hard drive, or any computer for that matter, has faced problems with their hard disk. It can be as small as a corrupt MBR or as big as the infamous and irreparable ‘Click of Death‘.

I’ve come across a variety of problems like a corrupt MBR, a faulty hard drive enclosure and finally the Click of Death.

Corrupt MBRs are very easy to identify – most of the times when you plug in the drive it asks you to format it even though there’s data on it. This is a good sign because it shows that your hard drive is detectable and it’s only a software glitch that can be fixed. The program I used to solve an MBR problem a friend’s drive had recently was Partition Table Doctor. It was really easy to fix and took less than a minute!

On the other hand a friend of mine dropped his hard drive and now it won’t even initialise. That’s almost 1TB worth of precious data gone! What annoys me is the fact that hard drive manufacturers offer 3 to 5 years warranty but none of them recover your data for you for free! What’s the point of the warranty then?! They just give you another hard drive as a replacement while you sit there wondering – what if the same thing happens to this one?

Hard drive manufacturers should seriously think about providing free data recovery services. Or another suggestion (well I can’t call it a solution) is not to store really important stuff on your hard drive – instead use online backup services like Mozy. This has saved my data quite a lot of times in the event of hard drive failures and system crashes and I highly recommend it! The free version provides 2GB worth of backup space which I can say is enough for me to store my really important files.

So there we go, those are a few of my tips and tricks I use to avoid major hard drive problems – oh, and one more, don’t throw your hard drive around and treat it like shit unless it’s a SSD.

Tagged: click of death, corrupt MBR, hard drive asking me to format, hard drive failure, hard drive tips

BBM problem

maneck35 — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:48:43 +0000

I have this weird problem that’s been putting me off from installing new apps on my BB via the BB desktop manager. I connect my BB to my laptop, start the desktop manager and goto the applications section to install my app but alongwith installing the app I want, it gives me a choice to either downgrade my BBM or uninstall it – apparently the desktop manager has an older version of BBM than the one provided by the Blackberry App World – strange and highly frustrating! Anyone found a solution to this? (Click on the above pic to view the full bigger screenshots..)

Blackberry repositories

maneck35 — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:31:52 +0000

Found a couple of sites to start off my Blackberry adventures:

1. http://icrack.info/category/cracked-blackberry-applications/ – Check out the blackberry unlocking tutorials as well

2. http://www.ipmart-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=403 – One of my all time favorite forums for mobile warez.

Hope this is useful ..

Tagged: cracked blackberry apps, free blackberry apps, unlock blackberry

I love dogs :P

maneck35 — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:33:07 +0000

This is a bit off topic but over my Christmas holidays I found myself getting attached to dogs … being the loving and loyal animals that they are, I’ve found myself badly wanting one! I went back home to my dad’s village to his brother’s place to fall in love with a Brown Labrador that they recently brought home. Bruno (that’s what he’s been aptly named as) is a very loving and affectionate dog that loves meeting new people and always greets people by pouncing on them and biting their forearm – this sounds scary but he doesn’t aggressively bite, it’s more of a harmless and playful bite.

The first time I met him I was affectionately greeted with a big pounce with his paws reaching my chest – I was completely caught off guard and never thought a dog could be that powerful and heavy.

He then continued to greet me by gnawing on my hand and slobbering all over it. He also had this funny way of grabbing someone’s attention – he’d run away with your slippers and get him to chase you all over the place for them. I had a wonderful time with him and can go on and on about him..

After coming back from my short winter getaway, I was surprised by my friend with this cute little Pomeranian puppy named Enzo. 11 weeks old, this one’s a hyper little brown fur-ball!! Not being trained, he pees and poops all over the place but is a real delight to play with.

He’s extremely cute and looks like a fox the size of a hamster. All this just makes me say one thing … Damn, I so wish I had a dog..

It’s been a while..

maneck35 — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:08:57 +0000

Well, it’s been a while since I last updated this blog…lots has happened technologically in my life..I gave my 5800 away to my sister and I guess that’s what stopped me blogging about it. Since then I moved on to the HTC Magic but never found anything interesting to tweet about it.

I know, its Android and all but I never felt the desire to mess around with it, load custom firmwares and all that. I’ve been eyeing the Blackberry Bold 2 (BB 9700 Onyx) since the time rumors about it popped up and I finally got myself one about a week back…and it’s been quite an experience for me since then! I’ve never been so connected to my friends and my little universe. It’s truly an experience in itself.

I admit I loathed Blackberrys at first but come to think of it, my only complaint was the weird keyboard it used to have – the ones where each key had 2 alphabets. One of the major reasons I got myself

a BB was BBM and the fact that most of my friends had gotten themselves BBs and so far, I’m loving the whole experience. I think Blackberry has gotten themselves another die-hard fan.

Talking about my technological upgrades, I GOT MYSELF A FUCKIN’ ALIENWARE! It’s been my dream machine since I was a boy and HOT DIGGITY DANG AM I EXCITED TO HAVE IT! The delivery and all is a story in itself … let’s just say I had to unbox it at the train station just before I left back home for Christmas..all thanks to my bro CP for bringing it to me in the nick of time! I’ve been enjoying working and gaming on it quite alot with my one and only regret being it’s weirdly choppy and annoyingly sluggish trackpad – I simply can’t use it without an external mouse. Other than that – it’s awesome!

As of now, 2010 is turning out to be one of my best ‘Gadget Years’ and hope it continues to be this way

Nokia 5800 Apps

maneck35 — Sun, 03 May 2009 20:27:04 +0000

From now on I’ll be posting the apps and games that I use on my 5800 out here with download links Please note that the installation of some of these apps and games might require your phone to be hacked.

1. Fring : I love this app! IM for your phone – MSN, Skype, Gtalk and loads more! Check it out on www.fring.com ITS FREE!
Direct Download link HERE.

2. Slick v0.48 : Another IM app! Download here.

3. Adobe Reader (Cracked ) : For all your PDF needs! **Please read the ‘readme.txt’ file** Download here.

4. Joikusoft Premium (Cracked) : To share your GPRS connection over wifi! Handy app! Download here.

5. Scratch Pad : Use your phone as a notepad to scribble down notes. Download here.

6. X-plore : The famous file browser to browse all the files on your phone. What’s special about it is it has millions of features like copy paste, viewing hidden files, viewing system files and much much more!! A MUST HAVE! Get here.

7. Mobisystems Diets (Cracked) : An app for all you health freaks (like me) to keep track of your calories and macros. Get here.

8. Texas Hold’em Poker : Nice game! Get here.

9. Micro Pool : American Pool on your phone! Addictive!!! Get here.

Hope you guys enjoy this! More coming as soon as I find something new and interesting..!

Nokia 5800 updated to v21.0.025

maneck35 — Sun, 03 May 2009 19:59:29 +0000

Alright, so it’s been quite a while, but frankly speaking I had nothing to add to my blog. I’ve not been upto anything techy lately until a few days back when I updated my 5800 to v21 (as it’s known as in short). I updated the firmware over-the-air (OTA) and it was much better than doing it via NSU since the update’s size was much smaller (4MB!).

As always, backup your data before updating.

**Please note that v21 is hackable and I have upgraded my s60v5 hacking guide! The guide can now be used to hack v20 AND v21!!**

If you got any questions/comments please feel free to ask in the comments section and I’ll reply ASAP.

A few forums for Nokia 5800 apps, games, themes etc.

maneck35 — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:28:57 +0000

1. S60 v5 Symbian OS 9.4 Applications – MobileCastle

2. Symbian S60v5 Forum

3. GizmoGates – Symbian S60 5th Edition Application / Games / Themes

4. NOKIA 5800XM – OPDA

Hope this is useful…