How to develop a progress bar in Java Swing using NetBeans IDE Drag and Drop Form.

import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;

public class Welcome extends javax.swing.JFrame {

Thread t = null;

public  Welcome() {
super(“Welcome”);
initComponents();
try
{

Thread t1 = new Thread()
{
public void run()
{
int i = 0;

while (i <= 100) {
jProgressBar1.setValue(i);

try
{
sleep(90);
}
catch (InterruptedException ex)
{

}
i++;
}
}
};
t1.start();
}
catch (NullPointerException e)
{
System.out.println(“Retrieving Data Fail”);
}
}

@SuppressWarnings(“unchecked”)

private void initComponents() {
//Code Hidden
}

/**
* @param args the command line arguments
*/
public static void main(String args[]) throws InterruptedException      {
Welcome s=new Welcome();
s.setVisible(true);
Thread t=Thread.currentThread();
t.sleep(10000);
s.dispose();
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable(){
public void run()
{
new nextform().setVisible(true);
}
});
}

private javax.swing.JPanel jPanel1;
private javax.swing.JProgressBar jProgressBar1;

}

Download the complete source code from here:-

http://www.mediafire.com/download/ajt18mzrzsrkdfx/Progressbar.rar

10 Back-to-school Android apps for students

In the month of June, students usually get the ball rolling for the next academic year, and now it is possible to organise and manage their schedules, assignments, homework, notes and more using mobile devices. We have seen how technology has been trying to change the face of Indian educational system over the past couple of years. The next-gen of Indian academics could go all mobile, and there is enough educational content to support these devices. We have picked 10 such must-have Android apps for students in their final school years or those heading to college.

My Class Schedule – Free

Manage your schedule

Though there are several apps that help students organise their schedules, including class time-table, homework, exams dates and so on, the My Class Schedule app does it quite efficiently and is free of cost. The UI is simple and students will instantly get a hang of the app. Once you feed in all the information, the app keeps a tab on upcoming classes and reminds about the homework and other upcoming events. The colour coded time-table UI appears very lively and cool. It lets you include courses, lesson times, homework and grades. The app is quite handy whether you are a school or college student. Moreover, college students can even use the automatic mute feature during lectures.

myHomework student planner – Free

Helps plan your homework, assignments

Firstly, myHomework planner has a beautiful and reliable UI and works as an efficient planner without the need for a network connection. You can also key in information on myHomework.com and sync the website with the mobile app. It syncs homework, reminders and also late as well as upcoming homework widgets on your device. The student planner adds a homework widget on the phone, which students can update with their school/coaching class homework and sets class schedules and deadlines using the homework calendar. This free app has a paid ad-free version too.

Trello – Free

For collaborative work

This is a great app for those looking for a collaborative tool. The Trello app is extremely simple and flexible to use. It is a good option for school and college group projects. The app lets you systematically organise the project, delegate work; others users can also add their inputs and comments right there. It will put the complete planning and executing process on the phone’s screen, helping students to interact with one another, set daily tasks and intimate others on completion of tasks. It has been supported by features such as checklists and to-do lists.

Wolfram Alpha – Rs 164.24

A complete computational knowledge engine

Wolfram|Alpha is a complete computational knowledge engine. It brings expert knowledge and instant computing in minutes by calculating accurate answers. Wolfram|Alpha covers a large domain for students, which include Mathematics, Statistics and Data Analysis, Physics, Chemistry, and also covers other topics like alloys, minerals and so on. You also find answers to equations, subjects related to engineering and astronomy, life sciences, earth sciences, units and measurements, geography, weather, music, history and more. The lengthy list of topics will not disappoint you and emit instant answers to all your queries.

Dictionary Merriam Webster – Free, Rs 164.21

Look up for meanings

The mobile form of the popular Merriam Webster dictionary is a very handy pocket tool. The app comes with voice search and helps you find synonyms, antonyms, example sentences and more. It also brings to students Word for the Day, allowing students to learn one word each day. The dictionary app is a real handy tool for reference, education and building vocabulary. Moreover, it doesn’t require Internet connection, and you can use all its features anytime, anywhere. It lets students save their favourite list of words and also includes audio pronunciation of words. While the free version will suffice your needs, the paid version offers additional 1000 graphical illustrations and over 20,000 additional entries covering people, places and foreign terms.

Lecture Notes – Trial, 240.69

Note-taking app

 Android tablets don’t enjoy the plethora of quality note-taking options like the iOS platform. However, among the handful of good apps that are available for Android users, the LectureNotes appears to be very cool and convenient for students. This app lets you make notes in your own handwriting, using your finger or the stylus. The app has been designed keeping students in mind and can also prove to be very useful for lecturers. The app lets one choose the notebook’s width, height, colour, paper pattern (for example, ruled, plain, checks, image), drawing tools and also offers several colour pencil and eraser options. You can also enter text via keyboard and cut paste within the notebook you’ve created. Users can export notebooks to the Evernote app. You can complement LectureNotes with the LectureRecordings app, which is capable of recording lectures.

SparkNotes – Free

Handy notes in your palms

 Students planning to major in English are quite familiar with Spark Notes. They can use these notes on-the-go with the SparkNotes app. The app offers study guides for literature, Shakespeare, poetry, philosophy, drama and short stories, bringing all of it in your palms. One can download the notes and use them offline or simply browse through them over Wi-Fi. The app also allows starting Sparknotes study groups right from the mobile device.

Periodic Table – Free

Know the elements

 Learning the Periodic Table – names of elements, shell configuration and group can be really tedious, and is something everyone has to deal with during the final school years. And if you happen to take up the Science stream in college, then be ready to deal with it yet again. The Periodic Table app will help you learn the table even on the go and utilise the commuting time doing something fruitful. The app shows the complete table and displays detailed information about each and every element in the table. You can look up elements, take up quick quizzes on elements and also watch videos. This is a great way to summarise and understand the complete Periodic Table.

Kindle – Free

Books, books and more books

Students who love reading books or keeping up with the latest news should check out the Kindle app. The Kindle app has something for all, be it newspaper reader, magazine reader or different genres of books. Students can pick from the list of free books or even shop for books. The app comes with built-in dictionary, Wikipedia and Google. It lets you read the same book across multiple devices and automatically syncs where you left off the last time you read it. Students can customise their reading by adjusting the font size, screen brightness, background colour and orientation (portrait or landscape).

Pocket – Free

For offline reading

Students have to browse through various educational and informative sites, whether they are researching for a project, looking for colleges/coaching classes, or likewise. The Pocket app, also known as Read It Later, allows marking the page for offline reading. It automatically syncs to your phone, tablet or computer so you can view it any time, even without an Internet connection. It is especially helpful while dealing with lengthy articles or blogs. On saving a page offline, the font, text size and line spacing can be adjusted to suit your viewing.

All you need to know about buying in-ear earphones

I’m generally a fan of open-back headphones. The design prevents cabinet colouration and affords the drivers with a more open, natural sound signature. However, headphones aren’t quite portable enough for outdoor usage, where you need smaller earphones for convenience. Unfortunately, due to the limitation of physics, it’s impossible to achieve the same natural fidelity from smaller drivers. The fact is, as the transducer (speaker) gets smaller, it costs more to produce the same sound accuracy as its larger equivalent. Therefore, it costs much more to obtain the same level of sound quality from headphones as you’d get from a decent pair of bookshelf speakers. Due to the smaller planar surface of IEMs (In-Ear Monitors), it’s still more challenging and expensive for them to match the performance of headphones with larger drivers.

Tragically, since urban India has spread out like a cancer without much in the name of city planning, we have been cursed to spend anywhere between one to three hours of our waking lives commuting to and from work. Despite all of its disadvantages then, it makes perfect sense to invest in a good pair of IEMs that will block out the city’s chaos and transport you to your own personal space right in the middle of a crowded locomotive. Mind you, this guide won’t merely throw random brands and models. The main objective here is not just to learn which IEMs to purchase, but rather how to go about finding the right one for your needs.

Choosing the correct driver type
There aren’t many choices available in IEMs when it comes to the drivers, with dynamic and balanced armature (BA) drivers being the two dominant types. Dynamic drivers are most common because they are the cheapest to manufacture. These drivers are pretty much miniaturised versions of your regular loudspeakers employing a magnet and moving voice coil to oscillate a diaphragm, in order to reproduce sound. Balanced armature drivers employ a similar setup, but the voice coil is stationary. The diaphragm is moved by an armature that’s suspended frictionless between two opposing magnets and the voice coil.

Technical mumbo-jumbo aside, this configuration allows the BA driver to have phenomenal electrical efficiency, which allows it to produce a more detailed sound. However, since it doesn’t push a large volume of air like dynamic drivers, a BA driver lacks the ability to produce natural bass. To put it in a nutshell, dynamic drivers are cheap and produce great bass, whereas BA drivers are expensive but deliver great high-frequency detail at the cost of a stunted low-end performance.

Having said that, you have examples where multiple BA drivers are combined to produce a greater impact, or even instances where passive crossovers are employed to split high, mid and low frequency ranges across multiple BA drivers. Some expensive IEMs even use a combination of BA and dynamic drivers to deliver the best of both worlds—detailed highs and deep lows.

Getting the specifications right
That technical mumbo-jumbo at the back of the product packaging actually does account for something. If you can read it right, it should allow you to match the IEMs well with your PMP and decide if you should invest in a headphone amplifier. As a thumb rule, most IEMs have nominal impedance between 16-32 ohms, which makes them easy to drive without the need for separate amplification.

f that sounded Greek and Latin to you, here’s an easy example to understand what impedance really is. Imagine sipping a glass of milkshake through a straw, where your lungs are the amplifier, the glass of milkshake the IEM and the straw representing the concept of impedance. The impedance is higher when the straw diameter is small, whereas it gets lower as the diameter increases. It’s easier to sip milkshake through a thinner straw, but the volume of milkshake coming through is miniscule. However, you may be able to suck in copious amounts of milkshake through a two-inch PVC pipe, but that will also put a tremendous strain on your lungs.

IEM impedance works in the same way. A high-impedance driver won’t put much strain on your PMP, but the maximum volume will be limited. Conversely, a low-impedance IEM will sound louder, but it will put a lot of stress on your PMP’s amplifier. Certain balanced armature drivers can be tough on amplifiers due to their very low impedance, whereas some dynamic drivers may sport too high an impedance to provide sufficient volume without amplification. As a rule of thumb, these outliers are better auditioned with and without headphone amplification to see if there’s a noticeable improvement in sound quality.

Other important things to consider include sensitivity, frequency response and the type of magnets employed. A high-sensitivity driver will provide greater sound pressure levels per watt, which makes it easier to amplify. Frequency response, although it tells you about the sonic reach of an IEM, it never really gives you an idea of the quantity and quality of impact and authority at those frequencies. Take this spec with a pinch of salt and audition the IEM yourself to be sure. As a rule of thumb, powerful neodymium magnets will provide better bass than regular ferrite ones, so it’s an added incentive if an IEM is outfitted with the former.

Ear tips, isolation and sound signature
These tiny cushioning interfaces between your auditory canal and the IEMs may seem to exist for the sole purpose of ensuring better ergonomics, but there’s a lot more to the ear tips than it is otherwise apparent. You would be surprised to know what significant a part these tips play in the overall audio signature of the IEMs. In-ear earphones generate a miniscule power output because they have to move a very small column of air in the canal to produce sound. They, however, are at their best efficiency when the seal between the tips and ear canal is perfect. Any amount of leakage leads to a loss in the sound pressure levels, which directly affects the bass performance. It is therefore important to choose a tip that’s sized just right for you. Meanwhile, you may want to refer to this handy guide on how to wear IEM effectively.

Ear tips come in three different materials: rubber, silicone and foam. Silicone tips are superior to rubber ones in every single aspect including durability, hygiene and comfort. As such, only the cheapest IEMs will include rubber tips, because any decent brand worth its salt makes it a point to outfit its earphones with silicone tips. These tips themselves are available in varying thicknesses—a factor that can affect sound isolation as well as signature. Thick walled ear tips generally afford better sound isolation, but at the cost of making the sound darker or more bass heavy. Conversely, thinner ear tips may not provide the best isolation, but they are best paired with dark IEMs. Silicone ear tips also ship in double and triple flanged versions, which boost bass and mechanical sound damping by an even larger extent. These multi-flanged ear tips, however, may prove a bit intrusive and uncomfortable to some users.

Finally, you have foam ear tips, which are quite expensive and significantly less durable than their silicone equivalent. However, they are still preferred by audiophiles thanks to an unparalleled level of noise isolation offered. Because foam ear tips practically conform to the natural shape of your auditory canal, they are by far the most comfortable of any ear tips as well. The only problem is that these ear tips tend to attenuate higher frequencies and boost bass by a large degree. They are, therefore, paired the best with brighter sounding earphones, because they can make darker IEMs sound even boomier than they already are.

Instead of just listing out the hottest IEMs in the market, what you have here are all the important parameters that need to be considered before purchasing a pair that’s right for you. This not only allows you to choose an IEM with the right type and configuration of drivers, but also check out the box and figure out if you would require a separate headphone amplifier or not. Once you have purchased the IEM of your choice, though, don’t forget to experiment with different ear tips to fine tune the sound signature to your liking

How To Email Like A Pro

Email is one of those things that started off as a convenience feature but quickly became something to dread. I know that when I have hundreds of unread emails, my gut quickly sinks into a deep void and I ignore those emails for even longer. But maybe if we were to adopt the tips and tricks of the pros of email, we would not view our inbox as an obstacle.

There are a lot of factors that play into email efficiency – not just writing the emails, but setting up the inbox, managing emails, knowing when to check emails, and more. Boosting email efficiency means boosting productivity, and that ultimately means getting everything done in less time. That’s exactly what we want.

Note: One aspect of being a pro at email is to stay safe and secured. Read these 7 important email security tips before getting started here. Losing access to your email account can be extremely detrimental.

Schedule “Email Checking” Time

One of the greatest blunders of users who have extremely active inboxes is that they will leave their Gmail, Thunderbird or Postbox open 24/7 and running in the background. Another blunder is the use of notification addons or features that will alert you the minute an email arrives, no matter how trivial that email might be.

Undeni able fact: frequently checking in on your emails means you can’t dedicate focus to another task. Undeniable fact: if you ever do manage to build focus, notifications will break it in an instant.

Therefore, you should view your inbox as an activity like any other. Don’t allow it to be an “always on” aspect of your life. Instead, schedule blocks of time – maybe once a day, maybe three times a day – where you check into the inbox, do everything you need, then close it. It may take a while to break the habit but, trust me, your productivity will skyrocket.

Eliminate the Excess

The very first thing you should do when opening your inbox is to quickly skim it and delete every email that doesn’t seem important. Think of yourself as a sculptor with a huge block of fresh marble. Before you start on the real work, you need to hack away in broad strokes and get rid of the excess.

Imagine checking in and finding 350 emails waiting for a response. All it takes is five minutes – yes, really! – to skim through and click the checkboxes next to emails that hold no importance. When you’ve gotten through the bulk of it, click on Delete to erase all of those checked emails. Now you only need to respond to 50 and that’s a big psychological boost.

Read and Reply Immediately

Do you often open up an email, see that you need to do something, but leave it for another day? This can be a risky habit. What if you forget about it? What if you lose the email somehow? What if you need to respond sooner than you think you need to?

Better to do it all immediately. It prevents the buildup of “I still need to answer that email” thoughts that will nag away at you until you finally get around to it. It reduces the chance that you forg et about an important email. It keeps your clients, friends, and business contacts happy because you reply with such punctuality. As a bonus, you’ll have a big load off your mind.

With a clean and empty inbox that isn’t cluttered with messages to which you need to return, you can more easily implement the earlier point of only checking email at scheduled times. If you really don’t want to read and reply immediately, then at least look into an email reminder addon.

Canned Responses

Canned responses is an amazing feature that has become something of a standard in all of the top email services and clients. Basically, a canned response is a template reply that you can build ahead of time and use with a single click. These are great when you find yourself typing the same reply over and o ver, such as when people frequently send questions about a particular topic.

You can enable Canned Responses in Gmail by toggling it in the Labs section of the settings. Yaara has written an instructional post on how to get started with Canned Responses in Gmail.

Keep It Brief

The best way to cut down on the time that email sucks away from you: spend less time writing replies. Of course, don’t sacrifice proper business or personal etiquette by writing terse responses, but you also don’t need to write 5-10 paragraphs for every email you send. Email is less formal than traditional letters!

Identify the main message you want to get across, then try to get it to t he recipient in one to three paragraphs maximum. You know how you’re having such a hard time slogging through so many emails? Well, the recipient is probably facing the same problem. Not only does shortening your emails save on your time, it saves their time as well, and they’ll be grateful for it.

Use Filters to Organize

Utilizing the power of filters can revolutionize your email workflow. In essence, a filter looks at every incoming email and, if it meets the criteria of the filter, performs an action on it. This action could be moving the email to a certain folder or setting a particular label. The criteria of a filter can include who the sender is, the subject of the email, the body content, etc.

Filters are a fantastic method of keeping your inbox organized. Do you receive a lot of newsletter updat es from retail chains, notifications from social media, or electronic bills? Filters can keep those emails separate from your inbox, drastically cutting down on the amount of emails you need to slog through. Plus, there’s less of a chance that you’ll delete one of those accidentally.

Conclusion

Email is a simple technology but there are advanced ways to go about it. The most important thing about being an email pro is to identify where most of your time is being spent and find ways to cut down on that time. Hopefully the tips outlined above and a few more email efficiency tips we had covered earlier will help you to see where your time is sinking and how to combat that inefficiency.

6 Things to look for when buying a ‘future-proof’ smartphone

Smartphones have suddenly become ubiquitous in the past year or so. And today when we talk about mobile phones in general, it’s more often than not a smartphone. Call it fragmentation or a smart move to put the final nail in the feature phone coffin, Android is the primary reason why smartphones have been able to penetrate the budget level segments, making it more accessible to the masses. At the entry level segments, Android wouldn’t have been this successful if it weren’t for companies like Micromax, Karbonn, etc. who continually launch phones with “high-end” specifications but for less than half the price. It’s also because of this fact that you hear the argument crop up time and again – why spend something like Rs.30,000 on a phone when I can get roughly similar functionality and performance from phones that cost less than half that price? 

If a smartphone is an investment for you, then ideally you should be looking at a use cycle of at least two years before you chuck it out for a new one. Looking at the rapid pace at which mobile hardware is advancing, most smartphones have a shelf life of about a year – and that’s if they’re lucky. The trickle of software updates start dwindling after about 6-8 months in most smartphones life cycle, unless and until it’s a highly popular phone or there are major complaints from users.

If you’re out looking for a new smartphone, then there are a couple of pointers you need to have ticked before you can start splurging. These are the bare essential features we feel you must have if you want your handset to be relevant two years from now.

 

HD display
A 720p display up to five inches still gives you a good enough pixel count for sharp images and text. Depending on the size of the display you feel comfortable with, make sure that the pixel count is at least 250 ppi, if not more. Basically, anything close to 320 ppi is ideal since the human eye can’t distinguish between pixels above this. You can quickly calculate this by using DPI Calculator – all you need is the resolution and display size. There’s also such a thing as overkill. Full HD display’s will continue to dominate flagship phones as there’s no going back; however, this resolution does make sense if your screen size is about 6 to 6.8 inches, where the pixel count borders on 320. We have no doubt that such devices will arrive soon, but when they do, your display will look just as good if you keep the pixel count in mind now. 

2GB RAM
Apps, multitasking, boot times, etc. will all benefit from a decent helping of RAM. Going by today’s standards, we feel 2GB is a good place to start. The difference between 1GB and 2GB might not be very evident at the OS level, but heavy apps like games, which tend to load high-resolution textures into memory, will benefit. Windows Phone 8 is designed in such a way that it runs pretty much the same on 512MB of RAM as it does on 1GB, which is not the case for Android.     

At least 16GB of on-board storage, if non-expandable
Just like a desktop PC, expanding the storage on your smartphone lets you carry along much more of your personal media files, take longer HD videos and install/move large games onto it. Unfortunately, not all phones (mostly high-end) have this feature, which means you need to think twice before you start copying data. In case you’ve set your sights on a handset without expandable storage, then make sure it’s at least 16GB. The reason for this is that the OS will easily take up around 2GB or more, leaving you with lesser usable space.

Look for either a dual-core Cortex-A9 or a quad-core Cortex-A7
Number of cores and higher speeds don’t really matter unless and until you have the right combo. Dual-core chipsets can be equally or even more powerful than quad-core chipsets. The Galaxy S3 is the perfect example of this as the US variant, powered by a dual-core Qualcomm chipset, was faster than the international version with a quad-core chipset. Finding the perfect chipset is next to impossible since there are a million possible combinations and the performance varies from app to app. However, a speedy dual-core chipset should guarantee smooth running of any future OS updates, at least for the next couple of years.

 

8MP shooter, preferably with a BSI sensor
The camera has become an essential part of today’s smartphone; it’s no longer just used for that occasional picture or home video. Augmented reality apps, card scanners, OCR and face tracking for gesture support – all rely on your phone’s camera. More than the megapixel count, it’s the type of sensor that matters. And looking at today’s phones, a BSI (Backside Illuminated Sensor) sensor is a good place to start. Another factor affecting the picture quality is the image processing chip added by the OEM, which can have either a positive or negative effect. 

GLONASS
In addition to GPS, GLONASS has become increasingly popular in handsets launched this year, and we feel this will soon spread to more handsets in a couple of years. The advantage of GLONASS is faster triangulation of your position as well as re-locking your position in case you switch between apps. The advantage of having both radios in the phone is very noticeable – we feel it is very essential going ahead. 

The bottom Line
There are some features like NFC and LTE that haven’t made it to the list, and this is because it’s not something that you can’t live without. NFC has been hyped for a long time now, but we’re yet to see any impactful real world use of it. LTE or 4G should gain momentum towards the end of the year, but honestly, today’s 3G speeds are good enough for most tasks, including streaming HD video.

Looking at the current market, a couple of phones that match or come close to our future-proof requirements include Apple’s iPhone 5, LG Nexus 4 and the Samsung Galaxy S4, to name a few.

Looking for food past midnight? Check out these services

Imagine you are burning the midnight oil, studying for your exams and you suddenly get the craving to have a cheesy sandwich or a spicy biryani. Where do you go then? Or what if you are having a party and run out of soft drinks? That can surely take away the fizz from the celebrations. At such hours, finding local shops and restaurants that are still open will be difficult.  Even if you live in a metro, you will find some roadside eatery or some shops that might cater to you, but they may not always be conveniently located, besides venturing out at such an unearthly hour is not always the safest thing to do.  

 

Coming to your rescue then, are midnight food delivery services. Most of these are established by those familiar with the hunger pangs that invariably strike at the oddest hours. The menu is available on their site or their Facebook page and you can call them to place an order. They will bring piping hot food at your doorstep well past Cinderella’s hour. Apart from food some of these services also supply essentials like packaged water, medicines, condoms and more. So the next time you find yourself without these essentials, do check out these sites.    

 

Fly By Knight 

 

Started in June 2012, by Neha Jain, an ex-Google employee, Fly By Knight is quite popular amongst the night crowd in Mumbai. She thought of the difficulties she faced as a single woman living alone in Mumbai, where getting food or even packaged water in middle of the night is a task. The idea of a service of this kind came from her friend Sanjiv Nair and Fly By Knight started out with delivering just the ready to eat food items. But by popular demand they started serving hot meals. They have a limited menu – you can choose between vegetarian and non-vegetarian food items that consist of things like Biryani, Fried Rice, Noodles, and Gravy. You can also opt for munchies like wafers and packs of Maggi noodles. For those with a sweet tooth they have chocolates and brownies. In beverages they have soft drinks and packaged water. In Mumbai it’s the only service that apart from food also provides other items like cigarettes, lighter, condoms, hygiene products, chewing gum and even Eno! Fly By Knight also offers several cost effective combo packs that you can opt for, these include combos of both hot meals as well as munchies. It operates between 11.00 PM to 4.00 AM and their service is available in all areas between Colaba and Goregaon. Delivery charges are a Rs 100 over the bill; however, for orders over Rs 500 the delivery charges are waived off. Neha and her business partner Jude de Souza (who owned a similar service named NightCall, which joined hands with Fly By Knight) is looking to expand the services and has NCR and Bangalore on their agenda. Another area they want to venture into is to offer medicines online.  

 

Midnite Express 

 

While there are a couple of midnight delivery services catering to the hungry junta in Delhi and surrounding areas, Midnite Express operational since 2010 was the first one to introduce the concept. A software engineer by profession, Karan Anand, first started the service in North Campus of Delhi University. He was aware of the fact that Delhi as a city was not safe for women and they couldn’t step out late in the night for a quick bite, unlike guys. Sensing an opportunity, he decided to act on it. After convincing his parents about his business idea, he started off by selling hot Paranthas amongst students. From selling Paranthas he now delivers wide range of vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals. You can choose from food items like Bhurji, Spring rolls, Biryanis, Curries, Rolls, and of course a wide range of Parathas. It offers good combo meal options, which are reasonably priced. Apart from meals you can also order for mineral water, juices and beverages. Midnite Express also delivers stuff like chips, chocolates, paan and even hookah. And if you want to surprise your loved one, then you can choose their service to deliver cakes and flower bouquets. Currently, they have two kitchens and are operational from 10 PM to 4 AM. They provide free delivery to homes and offices and cover the areas of Gurgaon, Dwarka, South Delhi and North Campus-Delhi University. In the pipeline is a food-on-wheels service that will be operated at two junctions to deliver food.

Batman Delivers 

 

If you stay in Gurgaon, then you can rely on Batman Delivers to satisfy your midnight food cravings. Armed with a cool name and a logo, the service has been co-founded by Leena Malik, 26 year old fashion designer, who thought about starting a service after the Delhi rape incident. Having recently relocated from US to Gurgaon, she became acutely aware of how unsafe the city was. Alongwith this what also acted as a deciding factor is the fact that owing to the changing lifestyles there are more people who stayed up late in the night, either working or partying. After months of planning, the service went live in April this year. Batman Delivers is not just restricted to food but also delivers beverages, medical essentials and party items. They have an assorted food menu, apart from popular Indian delicacies like Biryani, Kathi Rolls, Parathas, you can also pick from Salads, Sandwiches and Pastas. When it comes to beverages, you can choose from soft drinks, milk shakes and mineral water. Those with a sweet tooth can pick from cakes, chocolates and even ice creams. An interesting section is ‘Essentials’ where you will find an array of useful things ranging from cigarettes, basic medicines, condoms, hygiene products to even tissue papers, disposable plates/cups, and even shaving kits among other things. They have a central kitchen from where they operate and currently deliver in the entire New Gurgaon. Depending upon the distance, you will have to pay a delivery charge that is anywhere between Rs 50 and Rs 100. You can order food any time between 9PM to 5AM, and they take around 40 minutes to deliver. They plan to expand their service to other parts of Delhi and NCR and also on the cards is a physical store. 

 

MadBites     

 

Here’s another option for Mumbaiites. Established in December 2012, by Avik Chatterjee, MadBites delivers scrumptious food all night long. Avik himself a night junkie, was aware of a lack of good places that delivered food late in the night. He was sure that there would be many like him suffering the hunger pangs and he started MadBites, to address the same. They have a kitchen located in the heart of the city from where they deliver piping hot meals. You won’t find any snacks, but instead you can choose from wide variety of food items like Salads, Pastas, Pizza, Burgers, Sandwiches, Chinese, Curries and Biryani. For desserts you can choose from Chocolate Mousse, Brownies, and even Ice-creams. MadBites provides you with the option to place an order and pay online, or you can choose to pay cash on delivery. It delivers from 8PM to 4AM, in areas between Dadar and Mulund on the Central line, till Malad on Western line and till Chembur on the Harbour Line. They have a minimum order policy of Rs 350, for areas other than Powai, Chandivli, SakiNaka and Vikhroli. MadBites keeps conducting promotions on their Facebook page and also gives away freebies. They even have an interesting no door bell policy, and their delivery boys instead of ringing your doorbell, will call you on your phone. MadBites plans to expand to other metros and also in the offing is a 24×7 service.        

 

Midnight Munchies 

 

Arjun Sethi, a former Ernst & Young employee, led a typical lifestyle followed by most youngsters today. He often found himself staying out late at night, either working or hanging out with friends. And when he got home, food was always a problem. That’s when he thought of launching a service that would deliver food past midnight for those like him. He launched Midnight Munchies in September 2012 and hasn’t looked back since. What Midnight Munchies offers is vegetarian and non-vegetarian food items like Sandwiches, Pizzas, Rolls, Noodles, Wedges and Nuggets. In beverages you have soft drinks, juice and packaged water, while desserts are restricted to cup cakes. They deliver to almost all of South Delhi and you can place an order from 11.30PM to 4.00AM. They do not have delivery charges, but you will have to place a minimum order of rRs 350. They are looking to open more satellite kitchens all through NCR and also on agenda is a mobile application and online payment gateway.    

 

MidNight Hunger Solutions  

 

For the techies in Bangalore, there is MidNight Hunger Solutions, established by Vaibhav Ali, which has been catering to hungry stomachs since February 2012. Ali who was formerly an event manager would end-up working late in the night and often have to settle for street food. Concerned about the hygiene and the nutritional value, he came up with MidNight Hunger Solutions. Even though it is named MidNight Hunger Solutions, in reality it delivers food 24×7. They have a central kitchen and they deliver all over Bangalore. Depending on the distance, you will have to pay a delivery charge that ranges from Rs 50 to Rs 100. They have an extensive menu, though the vegetarian food options are quite limited. You can choose from Parathas, Rolls, Chinese, Tandoori, Gravy, Rice and Noodles. You can opt for full or half meal, which is a good thing. They don’t serve munchies or any junk food.  Rather unfortunately they don’t have beverages on their menu, which could come in handy to wash down the heavy food. Their clientele is a mix of both office crowd and party goers. Ali says that their Chicken and Biryani dishes are quite popular amongst their patrons. MidNight Hunger Solutions also runs promotions on Facebook, and currently are giving away one movie ticket for a couple, every week.

 

NightDragon 

Another post midnight food delivery service in Mumbai, NightDragon was established by Sachin Singh and his friend. They came across several people, especially those living alone in the city, who faced the dilemma of getting good quality food after coming back from work late in the night. They launched NightDragon that delivers meals, ready to eat food items, and beverages. They have tie-ups with late night restaurants across the city and depending on the order, deliver food from the closest kitchen. NightDragon has a limited menu to choose from  – vegetarian and non-vegetarian Indian delicacies like Bhurji, Biryani and Curries. Additionally, they also have some Chinese dishes. However, if you are craving for something that’s not on the menu, then they will check with their kitchens whether it can be arranged and if it can, then they will inform you about the same. And though not mentioned in their menu, they also deliver cigarettes and even medicines on request. They take orders between 10PM to 3AM and deliver all across Mumbai and even in Thane. Depending on the area, they charge Rs 50 or Rs 100 as delivery charges.

Disclaimer: We haven’t tried any of these services and therefore cannot provide guarantee about the quality of food or the service

      

Latest quad-core smartphones for less than Rs 15,000

The competitive smartphone market is getting fierce with multi-cored processors and large 5-inch displays. While not everyone can afford such devices from top of the crop phone makers, some Indian manufacturers have ensured that we enjoy the next-gen quad-core efficiency at an affordable price. Lately, a slew of such handsets have been launched in the Indian mobile space – sporting all the nifty features that one expects in a high-end smartphone. We have jotted down the latest quad-core budget smartphones priced under Rs 15,000.

Xolo Q1000 – Rs 14,999
The quad-core Xolo Q1000 packs in a nifty set of features for Rs 14,999. Following the latest fad of large screen smartphones, the Xolo Q1000 brings the “phablet” experience with its scratch resistant 5-inch display, which won’t disappoint you with its HD quality viewing. The smartphone is up for pre-order and online sites are selling it for a lower sum of around Rs 13,999. This new handset appears to be a worthy adversary to the Micromax Canvas HD. Powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, the Xolo Q1000 runs on Android v4.2 Jelly Bean.

Take a quick look at the spec sheet of the Xolo Q1000:

• 5-inch capacitive IPS display with 1280 x 720 pixels resolution
• Dual-SIM (GSM + GSM), 3G, Wi-Fi
• GPS with A-GPS
• Bluetooth 4.0
• 8MP autofocus, BSI rear camera, 1.2MP front-facing camera
• 4GB internal storage, expandable by up to 32GB via microSD slot

 

Micromax Doodle A111 –  Rs 12,999
Continuing its strategy to bring out affordable Samsung competitors, Micromax lately launched the Canvas Doodle A111. Priced at Rs 12,999, the Canvas Doodle is an uber-affordable competitor to the popular Samsung Galaxy Note. Not as sleek and svelte as the S-Pen, but Micromax’s Doodle also comes with a stylish stylus. In terms of processing power, the Doodle shares the Canvas HD’s 1.2GHz quad-core processor, but instead of a MediaTek MT6589 chipset, Micromax has gone with the Qualcomm MSM8225Q processor. The smartphone runs on Android 4.1.2 out of the box, with minor customisations in the notification drawer.

Here’s a quick look at its spec sheet:

• 5.3-inch capacitive display with 480 x 854 pixels resolution
• 3G, Wi-Fi
• GPS with A-GPA
• Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP
• 8MP dual-LED, autofocus rear camera, 2MP front facing camera
• 4GB internal memory, expandable up to 32GB via microSD slot

 

Micromax A110Q Canvas 2 Plus – Rs 12,100
The next in our list is the quad-core version of Micromax’s uber-popular A110 Canvas 2. The device has more or less similar spec sheet as the A110. It features MediaTek’s MT6589 chipset with each of the four cores clocked at 1.2GHz , along with 1GB RAM. The device runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and it is appreciated that the device runs the updated OS at such a low price point. The improved version is expected to offer a prolonged battery life, owing to its power-efficient chipset and low-res display. While the original A110 is selling around Rs 10,000, the A110Q quad-core version is being sold for Rs 12,100.

Take a quick look at its spec sheet:

• 5-inch IPS FWVGA display with 854 x 480 resolution
• 3G, Wi-Fi
• GPS
• Bluetooth v4.0
• 8MP rear camera with dual-LED flash, 2MP front facing camera
• 4GB internal memory, expandable up to 32GB via microSD slot

 

Spice Stellar Pinnacle Pro – Rs 14,990
Last month, Spice unveiled its first quad-core smartphone – Stellar Pinnacle Pro. One of the key highlights of the smartphone is its front-facing 5MP camera with a wide angle view, making it apt for video conferencing. It is powered by a quad-core MT6589 processor clocked at 1.2GHz and 1GB RAM. The Pinnacle Pro also comes equipped with the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Another highlight is the expandable 32GB memory that allows ample space in addition to the 16GB internal storage. The Pinnacle Pro’s battery usage will squeeze through a day owing to its 2550 mAh Li-ion Polymer battery.

 

Specifications of the Stellar Pinnacle Pro Mi-535 are:

• 5.3-inch IPS display with qHD resolution
• Dual-SIM, 3G, Wi-Fi with Wi-Fi tethering and hotspot
• GPS
• Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP
• 8MP autofocus rear camera and 5MP wide-angle front camera
• 16GB internal storage with expandable memory up to 32GB

 

Zen Ultrafone 701HD – Rs 11,999
Zen entered the affordable quad-core smartphone segment with its Ultrafone 701HD. It is an extremely affordable quad-core, large screen combo priced at Rs 11,999. The smartphone rivals Micromax’s A116 Canvas HD, which features a similar set of superior specs such as quad-core processor, 5-inch HD display, 8MP rear camera and a 2MP front facing camera. However, Zen has lowered the price by around Rs 3,000. On paper, the device looks at par with other potential devices in the same segment

 

Here’s a quick look at the specs of the Zen:

• 5-inch IPS display with 1280 x 720 pixels resolution
• Dual SIM (GSM + GSM)
• 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
• GPS
• 8MP rear camera with LED Flash, BSI sensor and 3.2MP front-facing camera
• 4GB internal memory 32GB expandable memory via microSD card slot

 

iBall Andi 4.5d Quadro – Rs 14,999
Although slightly old, the quad-core iBall Andi 4.5d Quadro is worth mentioning. Fuelled by a 1.2GHz quad-core Cortex A7 processor and 1GB RAM, it runs on Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean. It packs a massive 12MP camera at an affordable price tag that reads Rs 14,999. The device can accommodate two SIMs (GSM + GSM). Unlike most budget smartphones, the Andi 4.5d Quadro does not follow the “phablet” trend and sports a smaller 4.5-inch IPS display. However, the 960 x 540 resolution ensures better screen quality compared to some 5-inchers we’ve seen.

 

Key highlights of the Andi 4.5d Quadro spec sheet:

• 4.5-inch capacitive IPS display with 960 x 540 pixel resolution
• Dual-SIM (GSM + GSM), 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n,
• GPS
• Bluetooth 4.0
• 12MP auto-focus, dual LED rear camera and 3MP front-facing camera
• 4GB internal storage, expandable by up to 32GB via microSD slot

 
Besides, the new sleek quad-core Gionee E3 priced at Rs 14,999 appears to be a good option, at least on paper. The device has a promising spec sheet, which includes 4.7-inch IPS HD display, 8MP camera, 16GB internal memory and Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean OS. Some more options include the Celkon A119Q and the Lava Iris 458q. The A119Q is a quad-core, Android 4.2 version of Zen’s previous A119 handset. It is priced at Rs 12,499. The Lava Iris is a sub-Rs 10,000 smartphone with almost all the features that you see in most of the above mentioned smartphones. It is priced at Rs 8,999.

Micromax A110Q Canvas 2 Plus: A Specifications Review

Micromax recently pulled off a stealthy launch of its new phone, dubbed the A110Q Canvas 2 Plus. Apart from having a long name, there are other interesting features of the handset, such as the quad-core processor. However, the low-resolution on the display does seem like a letdown. Lets take a look at what makes the phone tick.

OS – Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
The A110Q Canvas 2 Plus will run on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean right out of the box. This is a great thing, since that means the handset is essentially just one step behind the latest version of Android. Android 4.2 brings many features, including expandable notifications and Daydream, which is essentially a screensaver. Since this is Jelly Bean after all, Project Butter will help make the phone better with Google Now and a better camera interface, among other things.

Cellular network – Dual-SIM GSM and 3G
The A110Q Canvas 2 Plus will retain the dual-SIM functionality and will support GSM and 3G networks. You should be able to use both SIMs simultaneously as well.

Display – 5-inch IPS
The display is a 5-inch IPS panel, which would give great viewing angles. However, all of that is offset by the fact that the handset runs on a resolution of 854 x 480, which is rather disappointing. The low resolution will be even more obvious because of the giant display, since the handset has a very low pixel density of 195.93 ppi.

Connectivity – Standard fare
Connectivity options on the A110Q Canvas 2 Plus include all the standard fare that one can expect from an Android handset. This includes 3G, 2G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS. Bluetooth will undoubtedly have support for A2DP. As of now, it is unclear whether the GPS will run on A-GPS or GLONASS.

The Micromax A110Q Canvas 2 Plus

 

SoC– MediaTek MT6589 (quad-core)
The A110Q Canvas 2 Plus features MediaTek’s MT6589 SoC, which contains a quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU and PowerVR Series5XT GPU. While the CPU uses the slightly older architecture from ARM, the SoC is built using the newer 28nm fabrication process, so it should do well in terms of power efficiency. Micromax hasn’t detailed all the multimedia capabilities of the A110Q, but digging a little deeper into the chipset’s capabilities, we find support for 1080p video recording. Whether or not Micromax chooses to use this is yet to be seen. Nevertheless, the four cores should easily help in gaming and even the general responsiveness of the UI.

Storage – 4GB on-board with room for expansion
The A110Q is equipped with a paltry 4GB of on-board memory, with 1.4GB taken up by any apps that you might want to download and 1GB usable as mass storage. Luckily, however, there is a microSD slot where you can stick in a 32GB microSD card.

Primary Camera – 8MP sensor with dual-LED flash
The main camera on the back of the handset is a hefty 8 megapixel shooter, like the one found in the A116 Canvas HD; there’s no BSI sensor.

Front Camera – 2 megapixels
The 2 megapixel camera on the front is much better than the VGA cameras we’re used to. Video calls and self-portraits should be serviceable.

Sensors – Proximity, gravity and motion
The A110Q is equipped with the standard proximity sensor, which is used to tell when the phone is close to your head during a call so that the display can turn itself off. Other sensors include a gravity sensor and a motion sensor.

Battery – 2000 mAh
The A110Q is equipped with a beefy 2000 mAh battery. While this wouldn’t have been enough because of the quad-core processor, the lower screen resolution ensures that the handset isn’t too power hungry. Micromax quotes a standby time of 280 hours and 6 hours of talktime.

The bottom line
On paper, the A110Q Canvas 2 Plus seems a lot like an older phone from Micromax – the A116 Canvas HD. Both phones even use the same SoC. However, the A110Q has a considerably worse screen. The A110Q Canvas 2 Plus has been launched with a price tag of Rs 12,100, so assuming a street price of Rs 10,000, buying the phone doesn’t seem to be that bad of a deal. It’s also bound to have a decent battery life because of the low-res display.

How IRCTC can make tatkal bookings easier

Online travel ticketing in India has gotten mature and more Indians are making their travel plans online, says a latest research. Whether it is air tickets, bus tickets or rail tickets, people have begun to trust online booking systems like IRCTC, MakeMyTrip, RedBus and many others. In online travel, the Indian Railways has a significant contribution and IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation), a subsidiary of the Indian Railways, handles online ticketing among other things. However, unlike other e-ticketing sites, it has often faced consumer ire for sluggish and laggy performance.

 

Needless to say, the number of people accessing the IRCTC site is much higher than the others, especially during the two hours of tatkal or last minute bookings. The reason is simple – tatkal online booking window opens a day in advance before the date of your journey just for two hours, and all the tickets are sold within an hour. The site almost breaks down at 10 AM as it is unable to handle the load. The site has to handle 10.7 million (and growing, according to the comScore report for April 2013) unique visitors per month and it is capable of handling about 40-45,000 tatkal railway tickets during the 2-hour tatkal window. Needless to say, this isn’t enough. We are a huge population and the number of seats available could be small compared to the number of seats required (each ticket has four people trying to book it), but let’s not dwell on that. Technology cannot resolve this issue. However, the overload that the site suffers at 10 AM everyday can be resolved.

 

During the Union Budget this year, spruced e-ticketing and server capabilities were promised with an estimated budget of Rs 10 crore. The site was to be improved to handle 60-65,000 tickets with the help of servers upgraded to 64GB RAM. This would allow 80 lakh concurrent connections compared to the current 10 lakh. While all this sounds good, we think with the growing popularity and feasibility of online booking, the number of people opting for online booking will increase year by year. IRCTC can currently handle 2000 tatkal bookings per minute while the latest proposed improvement is around 7,200 tickets per minute. Now, it isn’t clear what upgrades IRCTC has planned for its servers, but here are a few things that could help resolve the long waiting hours for IRCTC tatkal consumers and prepare other e-ticketing sites for future.

Role of servers and why they cannot handle the load
In general, e-ticketing has two main aspects – one part includes networking, interconnectivity and servers while the other part includes convenient billing system made available to consumers. While the technical aspect has to ensure that complete operation or process is smooth and swift, there should also be ample of easy payment options given to users. The server helps to form secure connection for each consumer who logs into the site. e-ticketing companies design these servers to handle a particular number of connections, but in the past couple of years, this number has been growing with each passing day. During the tatkal booking 2-hour window, the server has to handle multiple times the number of connections than it can manage. So, if you are disconnected, you have to wait until there is room for you, which is possible only if someone else gets disconnected. Moreover, a failure at one step means the person has to begin right from the start.

Raj Jadhav, VP Solutions Consulting, Tech-support and IT, D-Link, tell us that one also has to understand the Indian consumer behaviour as there are many people accessing the site just to check the rates, view the ticketing process or likewise; the server capability has been designed considering such bogus connections too. So while designing the server, it is important to consider these additional connections that your server will have to handle. He explains, “The machine won’t understand if you are there to genuinely buy the ticket or simply view the process or check rates. As soon as you log into the e-ticketing site, a secure connection is formed, genuine or not. So, if the site is capable of handling for instance 1 lakh connections then, maybe some percent of connections are not genuine but the site has to still maintain them.”

According to him, another aspect that should be considered is the kind of relationship these e-ticketing companies have with banks or telecom companies to provide the right communication infrastructure and banking response so that the transaction is completed on time. The system understands technicalities and it has certain wait time after which it will get disconnected.

Improving server infrastructure
Raj Jadhav says that e-ticketing companies like IRCTC can spruce up the server capability by deploying L4 to L7 (Layer 4 to Layer 7) infrastructure. This infrastructure allows to instantly add new servers. For instance, if a server experiences a surge in traffic, then immediately one will be able to add another server, which will take care of the extra load. With this system in place, the IT team manager can decide and share the load on multiple servers, i.e., server load balancing.

A job can be allocated per server; for instance, one server can handle only 300 tickets. If the server is overloaded, then one can add another server that can handle 200-300 transactions per minute. This is something that sites like Facbeook and Twitter are doing – the only difference is e-ticketing is done over a secure connection. This is one reason why we don’t see these sites complaining about overloaded servers. One should have the feasibility or capability to keep on adding servers. 

Flexible booking timings
A little flexibility in the tatkal booking timings can also help. For instance, there can be a 1-hour tatkal window for trains leaving before 2 AM, while another 1-hour window for trains leaving after 2 PM. This way the concentration of the load will be distributed over two hours.

Cloud server comes to the rescue
In case of IRCTC, overcrowded servers are the biggest challenge they are facing. Amazon may sell 13.5 million items worldwide on a record-breaking day, while Indian Railways consistently sells more than 1 lakh tickets everyday. Another possible issue could be all their servers are concentrated in one region. For instance, a person from western India is booking the ticket, but the main server is in Delhi – this could also cause delays. The key solution these days is cloud computing. If they have cloud computing infrastructure in place, then Delhi customers can connect to Delhi servers and Mumbai customers can connect to the western server, wherever it is placed.

 

On deploying cloud, another convenient factor is if the Delhi server is overloaded, then you can move transactions to the server in the nearest region and this will help proportion the load. Every networking device has its limitations, but there is a mechanism to share the load on multiple devices.  

Rather than deploying third-party cloud services, it is more convenient to build their own, and Railways can afford to have their own cloud. Managing cloud servers is simpler and one person can remotely take care of it. This is something employed by giants like Yahoo and Google too. There won’t be any downtime and the L4 to L7 design will further add to the convenience. The cloud company also helps manage the security. Moreover, one doesn’t have to worry about the type or amount of RAM needed to upgrade.

Developing nations like China had been facing similar e-ticketing issues, but have resolved them efficiently. The Indian Railways has grand plans for IRCTC – claiming to make the site capable of booking 7,200 e-tickets per minute, in the current fiscal. This would mean 5200 additional tickets will be booked per minute. The estimated cost by Railways for this is said to be 100 crores, which is ten times the 10 crore budget announced during the Union Budget 2013. In a nutshell, we require a scaleable operation, as simply adding more resources may just not help. Building a scaleable application along with a good architectural solution could help IRCTC perform efficiently for the next couple of years. We’d like to point out that we tried contacting IRCTC for this story and about the status of improvements promised in the budget, but received no response.

5 Tech gift ideas for mom on the Occassion of Mother’s Day

Finally, my mom’s learnt to send a text”, “My mom misses the physical keyboard” – Sounds familiar? Whether your mom is tech savvy or not, you can always introduce and help her indulge in some modern technology. And what better than “Mother’s Day” to get started with it. So, we have 5 tech gift ideas to help you find a gift that perfectly snuggles into that gift box.

Tablet
Gift your mom the most trending piece of technology – a tablet. These days, you can get a decent tablet for almost every budget starting at Rs 4,000 and ranging up to Rs 40,000. An average 7-incher tablet offers large enough viewing experience and will let her listen to music, watch movies and even lay her fingers on some cool apps. Talking about apps, she can check out everything from cooking to gardening, using the device. One such cool gifting option is the iPad mini, especially the white-silver hued one. It sports a 7.9-inch LED backlit display, and is fuelled by iOS 6 and A5 chip. The tablet comes with a 5 megapixel iSight camera and up to 10 hours of battery life. The iPad mini is priced at Rs 21,900. If your budget is slightly lower, then the Android Jelly Bean-enabled Nexus 7 can be grabbed for Rs 16,000. The Nexus 7 features a 7-inch HD display and is powered by a quad-core processor. It brings access to the tens of thousands of Android apps and other services. If you are looking for a cheaper device than here’s our list of tablets under Rs 10,000. Those looking for a tablet above 7-inches can click here to check out large screen tablet options under Rs 20,000.

 

Digital photo frame
Photo frames have been great gifts for years now. Instead of gifting a frame that can hold just one photo, how about gifting your mom a digital photo frame bundled with years of cherished memories. In fact, we think digital photo frames are one of the ideal gifts for family members.  A very good and affordable option is the Sony DPF-D810 digital photo frame that can be conveniently handled with a remote control. The photo frame can be used as a digital table clock, and also comes with a built-in calendar. Sporting an 8-inch display, the photo frame can hold 250 images with built-in memory, which can be further expanded via card slots and USB port. It is available online for a price of around Rs 5000. Another option could be the Kodak EasyShare P750 7-inch digital picture frame featuring a 7-inch display. Slightly expensive at around Rs 7000, the P750 comes with 2GB of built-in memory to store ample photos, and a set of decent functions.

Online vouchers
If you want your mom to pick a gift of her choice, then simply gift her online shopping vouchers. She can browse through  various product categories from the comfort of her couch. With the growing e-commerce trend, it is the right time to teach your mom to indulge in some online shopping. You can get online vouchers that can be redeemed at various online stores. If your mom still frets buying products online, then there are several vouchers that can easily redeemed at offline retailers.  Vochersmate is one such site that offers coupons for various retailers and eateries. The shopping site also has a section on display for specially crafted Mothers Day gifts. Popular e-shopping sites like Flipkart offer gift vouchers which your mom can redeem by buying goods of her choice. GiftcardsIndia is yet another option that offers vouchers that can be redeemed at several stores. For further online discounts, check out sites that offer coupons and deals here.

 

Smartphone
Let this Mother’s Day be a reason to introduce your mommy to the world of smartphones. If she has been using a smartphone, then it is the time to upgrade to a new, better one. If you want to gift your mom her first smartphone ever, then the Micromax Canvas HD  seems like a cool option for starters. Priced at around Rs 14,000, the Canvas HD comes with a superior set of features. Click here to check out our detailed review. If you are looking for an affordable option then check our lists of smartphones priced under Rs 10,000 and under Rs 15,000. The latest high-end smartphone options could be the Galaxy S3 or the iPhone 5. Teach her to take maximum advantage of the smartphone such as using the camera, listening to music, using apps like pedometer and more.

Hybrid/Convertible PC
If you have a complete tech savvy or professional working mom, then give her a trendy hybrid/convertible notebook. A high-end laptop-tablet combo could be a cool gift if you have a heap of crisp green to spend. The Stylistic Q702, a Windows 8 Pro-based hybrid, sports an 11.6-inch LED backlit HD display and the detachable keyboard offers comfort while typing. The device has all the key ingredients required to dish out a perfect convertible tablet-laptop, and one will have to shell out a whooping Rs 69,000 to buy it. Another trendy and extremely stylish looking hybrid is the Ideapad Yoga 11 priced around Rs 61,000. It has a similar 11.6-inch HD display and a host of features that make it a solid device. Click here to read the complete review of the Ideapad Yoga 11. Those looking for an extremely high-end hybrid can also check out the Acer Aspire S7 MS2363.

 

 

That’s quite a list to pamper your mom this Mother’s day. Do you plan to gift your mom a tech gift?