Double-Up your Airtel broadband speed for just Rs. 100

I got this information through e-mail from Airtel. According to this e-mail, now you can double your broadband browsing speed by just paying Rs 100/- extra over the current tariff plan. With this you'll also get Rs 100/- worth calling value, making it an awesome deal, if there are no hidden strings somewhere!

Here is the image from advertisement.

To activate this offer on your broadband just send a SMS DELIGHT to 53636 from your mobile number registered with Airtel or Otherwise you can fill-up your broadband details in this web page to activate this offer.

As per the customer care, activation should take at-most 96 Hrs and it should double up both day and night time surfing speeds!

Wait for few more days to know my results..

Technorati tags: OpenGuru, Airtel.

Default VLC keyboard shortcut for slow/fast video playback

If somebody is trying to figure out what is the default key combination for slow/fast video playback in Videolan player, then it is Shift -/+ respectively.

You can set this through

--key-faster Faster
--key-slower Slower command line arguments.

Technorati tags: OpenGuru.

Airtel Broadband - Night time speeds

Picture says it all..





And the best part of all? Its unlimited!

Technorati tags: OpenGuru, Airtel.

Device Driver download link for D-Link products

Most of the D-Link products drivers are not available for download from their main website. These products drivers can be downloaded from D-Link's ftp site.

Visit ftp://ftp.dlink.ru/pub/ from your favorite ftp browser and browse through respective category to download the device driver.

Technorati tags: OpenGuru, D-Link , Driver downloads.

How To: Fix Fedora's default open behavior with Nautilus

There are many people who just hate fedora because its default behavior related to Nautilus file manager. In Fedora, Nautilus launches a new window for each link/directory you open through it.

This can be seriously irritating for many people, as you will be left with bunch of windows to close even after a small file system browse. Hence many people try to avoid Fedora even though its a rock solid Linux distribution.

Well, many people out there don't know that the fix this default behavior is quite simple. Just follow the following steps to fix this default behavior.

1. Open Nautilus. This should simple to do. Just double click on Computer icon shown on your desktop.
   
2. Go to Nautilus preferences.
   
3. In Nautilus preferences go-to the second tab named “Behavior”.
   
4. You will see a check-box named “Always open in browser windows”.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Select this check-box to avoid opening a new window for each browse. If you want the default Fedora behavior keep this check-box unchecked.
   
   

That's all.

Technorati tags: OpenGuru, Fedora, Fix Fedora's default open behavior with Nautilus.

How To: Find the MAC address of network cards in GNU/Linux

This is quite simple. Just type in the following command in the command prompt, to know the MAC address of the network cards present in your GNU/Linux box.

ifconfig | grep HWaddr

Depending upon the GNU/Linux distribution you are using, there may or may not be a frontend to this command. However this command should work in all GNU/Linux boxes.

Hope this helps.

Technorati tags: OpenGuru, Technorati tags: Find the mac address in Linux.

Airtel Explore-1099 Speed Test result

The picture says it all. As of now very happy with the speed.

During the day time (6AM-10PM):



During the night time (10PM to 6AM):



Technorati tags: OpenGuru, Broadband, Explore-1099.

Airtel - New super cool plans

I just saw new broadband tariff plans released by Airtel. They are super cool and looks much more better than previous outdated plans.

You can check the new plans at Airtel website.

I guess, competition from Reliance & Tata Indicom with their 3G Wireless broadband service made Airtel to release new tariff plans.

Whatever the reason, time for celebration for the end user!

I am planning to switch to Explore-1099 plan, where speed is 384kbps morning and 1Mbps night time. All unlimited.

Time to call Airtel customer care..

Update:

Just called Airtel customer care. Looks like, Airtel is outsourcing their customer support to some other country during the night time. The guy who picked my called definitely wasn't a Indian. Anyways, That guy told me that, Explore-1099 plan's 1Mbps unlimited speed is only on Sunday nights!
WTF? Airtel website doesn't say this anywhere..

So, I switched to another plan which was recommended by that guy. The name of the plan is Turbo-1299. In this plan, I get 512kbps speed during day time and 1Mbps speed during night time. All unlimited.

Tomorrow Airtel marketing people is going to call me to confirm this plan migration. Hopefully, this plan doesn't have any loopholes like speed cap etc.

You can check this Turbo-1299 plan here.

Update-2: 21-Jul-2009

Today Airtel marketing people called me to confirm the plan migration. I asked that guy about the Explore-1099 plan. That guy gave me following information.

• Speed during day time is 384kbps.
  
• Speed during night time is 1Mbps.
  
• Night time is defined as 10PM to 6AM.
  
• There is a speed cap of 100GB. Once you cross this limit your speed will reduce to half of the original.
  
• On Sunday, you will get 1Mbps full day!!
  

YES, You have read it correctly! 1Mbps full day on Sundays. I have triple checked it. After listening to Explore-1099 plan details, I changed my mind and switched to this plan instead of Turbo-1299. After all, my date time broadband usage is limited to Weekends.

As per the conversation, Migration should be done by tomorrow. I hope that, this plan is not just another upto 1Mbps plan, where you will never get full speed. Hopefully, I will get full 1Mbps speed during night time. If not, I will switch back to my previous plan. Any ways, I can cross check and do all my experiments with broadband speed tomorrow. I will post my experience with this plan tomorrow (If it is necessary).

I guess its time for a quick analysis of different new broadband plans from Airtel. Expect a new post in this regard soon..

Happy browsing..

Technorati tags: OpenGuru, Airtel, Broadband plans.

100th post

After 3 years of this web blog introduction, here I am with my 100th post!

Technorati tags: OpenGuru, 100th post.

How To: Fix Kannada Font problem in Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope

Even though Ubuntu Jaunty comes with Kannada fonts pre-installed, due to some technical problems these fonts never work properly.

For example,

Above screenshot shows the Kannada portal Sampada.net running in default Ubuntu Jaunty installation.

You can fix this issue easily. Just do the following..

install the package named "ttf-kannada-fonts" from synaptic.

or

issue following command in terminal.

sudo apt-get install ttf-kannada-fonts

or

click here to install the "ttf-kannada-fonts" package.

After doing this, same website is rendered perfectly in Ubuntu.

This article is available in Kannada language.

---

ಈ ಬರಹವು ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ಬಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿಯೂ ಲಭ್ಯವಿದೆ.

ಉಬುಂಟು ಜೋನ್ಟಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ಬಾಷೆಯ ಫಾಂಟ್ ಲಭ್ಯವಿದ್ಹರೂ, ಅದರಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಕೆಲವು ತಾಂತ್ರಿಕ ತೊಂದರೆಗಳಿಂದಾಗಿ ಸರಿಯಾಗಿ ಕಾಣಿಸುವುದಿಲ್ಲ.

ಉದಾಹರಣೆಗೆ,

ಮೇಲಿನ ಚಿತ್ರವು ಕನ್ನಡದ ಖ್ಯಾತ ಅಂತರ್ಜ್ಯಾಲ ಜಾಗವಾದ ಸಂಪದ.ನೆಟ್ ನ ನೋಟವನ್ನು ಉಬುಂಟು ಜೋನ್ಟಿಯಲ್ಲಿರುವ ತೊಂದರೆಯೊಂದಿಗೆ ತೋರಿಸುತ್ತದೆ.

ನೀವು ಇದನ್ನು ಸರಿ ಮಾಡಬಹುದು. ಇದಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ಕೆಳಗೆ ನೀಡಿರುವ ಸಲಹೆಗಳನ್ನು ಪಾಲಿಸಿರಿ.

ಸಿನಪ್ತಿಕನ್ನು ಬಳಸಿ "ttf-kannada-fonts" ಎಂಬ ಪ್ಯಾಕೇಜನ್ನು ಇನ್ಸ್ಟಾಲ್ ಮಾಡಿರಿ.

ಅಥವಾ

ಟರ್ಮಿನಲ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ಕೆಳ ಕಂಡ ಕಮ್ಯಾಂಡ್ ನ್ನು ಟೈಪ್ ಮಾಡಿರಿ.

sudo apt-get install ttf-kannada-fonts

ಅಥವಾ

ಈ "ttf-kannada-fonts" ಪ್ಯಾಕೇಜ್ ನ್ನು ಇನ್ಸ್ಟಾಲ್ ಮಾಡಲು ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಕ್ಲಿಕ್ ಮಾಡಿರಿ.

ಅಷ್ಟೆ!

ನೋಡಿ ಇದೇ ಸಂಪದ.ನೆಟ್ ಈ "ttf-kannada-fonts" ಪ್ಯಾಕೇಜ್ ಇನ್ಸ್ಟಾಲ್ ಮಾಡಿದ ನಂತರ, ಎಷ್ಟು ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಮೂಡಿ ಬಂದಿದೆ.

ಗೂಗಲ್ ಬಳಸಿ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಟೈಪ್ ಮಾಡಲಾಗಿದೆ.

P.S. Typed in Kannada using Google.

Technorati tags: Kannada, Ubuntu and Kannada, Solution To Ubuntu Kannada Font Rendering Problem.