What to get in place of iPhone Xs Max -512 GB

I have a love and hate relationship with Apple. I love their Macbook air and earlier pros but hate their newly launched phones and newly launched macbook pros. This is especially because of their ludicrous prices for the same.
And for that ludicrous price you get even less functionality. Apple sometimes do innovate, if they don't innovate then they polish the features for sure. I will give them credit where it is due. Like- Magsafe charger ports, 3d touch, making fingerprints mainstream and awesome trackpad on laptops.
But iPhone XS Max is a beast of which wants more money than a 1060 GTX laptop.

This blog is just a rant if ever a 512 model is sold out which definitely would.
For the same price let's see how much features we can get-
1. Note-9 (Price-61900)

2. A noise cancelling headphone Bose QC35  (Price -29363)

3. A 400 GB class 10 microSD card

4. A smartwatch which need not to charge for 4 days minimum(Price around 29990 )

So what you got if you don't get the Max of iPhone Max(Mentioning the features which iPhone doesn't have)

1. A phone with a stylus which acts as Remote
2. A phone with headphone jack
3. A phone with expandable memory slot(total of 528 GB including above memory card)
4. A phone with larger battery
5. A phone with fast charger included out of the box
6. Best of the class wireless noise cancelling headphone
7. A tizen powered smartwatch with almost a week of charge

and you would still paying less than 135K INR.(Combining all 4)

Also remember these 4 are not mediocre products, they are best in their class. 

This blog is to think outside of the box for your any of the investment and is not limited to iPhones only. Purchase what you need or may need in future not what you want just out of desire. Think usability vs spending price. In economical terms think about utility of your purchase always.

Lastly some points where iPhones exceed any android in the ordered fashion:

1. Only iPhones can shoot 4k @60 fps right now- I am simply fan of this feature and kudos to Apple for doing it, but I have no use of it.
2. faceId is unparalleled feature- but again, I can live without it.
3. AR games- that's a great process technology wise.
4. Better software updates- that's a good thing about apple that even iPhone5s is getting iOS12.

recently got updates about iPhone XS that it got few problems- 

 1. Beauty mode is on permanently in the front portrait mode.

2. Charging having some problem

I am not bashing apple for these issue, probably some software glitches.

#NotaSamsungFanInGeneral #ButNote9Rocks https://www.dxomark.com/category/mobile-reviews/

Invite friends to test or develop your facebook app

You may want to test your app thoroughly before submitting to facebook for review. Facebook gives you freedom to do so. You can add developer and tester independently for your app.

Click on "Add Developers" or "Add Testers".

Robots are coming next door, Are you prepared?

If you read even a bit of recent technological news, you may have fair idea where it all going! And besides all the advancement, the main concern of our era is quick and revolutionary advancement of AI.

Before going into further detail, let's discuss some progresses already achieved in AI.

1.  You can be uniquely identified by your voice with 90% of accuracy. Link
2. Voice recognition has been as good as human being. These first two points jointly identifies who you are and what you are talking about. Link
3. Face recognition accuracy has been reached to 97%, where as human accuracy has been around 96%. More or less AI is reaching there where your one image can be identified at different places with certainty. Link
4. Letter scanning technology has been improved so far that it can identify your cursive handwriting with 99% of accuracy. Scan any image containing any text, it will identify and highlight texts within it. Be it a machine text or human text AI is now able to extract the textual information. Link (Read Conclusion)
5.  Google's AI Deep Mind is able to defeat world's Go Champion Lee in 4-1. This is done through AI without much computation as supposed earlier with such game's complexity. Link
6. Driverless cars are now a reality. Tesla is one such good example. Google has been running it's driverless cars for 2 years successfully. Link
7. News story can be created in real time with the help of AI. This puts news editor's job in danger. Link1 Link2
8. Book review is pipelined for AI.
9. Chatbots to help or chat with them.  Link
10. Poetry and music creation is now possible. Link1 Link2
11. It is getting better day by day in poker game even. Link
12. Able to create paintings. Link
13. Movie script writing. Link
14. Spam Filtering. Link
15. Movie and product recommendations. Link

Some further links
The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet. It’s the End of the Middle Class
Elon Musk: artificial intelligence is our biggest existential threat

AI works best where there is certain rules to follow and need little human intervention, but it is not limited to above use case only. It can learn almost all of human skills in quick manner if it is programmed that way whether it is a labour intensive job or requires a creative thinking.
Knowing the recent speed and efforts companies are putting in AI, there is no surprise there will be AI for all kind of job, in that scenario what will human left to do is a big question to think!!!
Now you got the fair idea that AI is reading at human level or at par with human in some or other fields. In today's internet world it will take no longer to reach such technology to other part of planet. (Read developed world to developing world). We will see more and more applications based on AI in near future at a rapid rate. Everything that can be automated will be automated.
But there is a catch for you, once automation will be in place, it will be hard to bypass/trick an AI based robot. Let's see some hypothetical examples:

• Suppose there is a Robotic Traffic Police Man which controls traffic as well as gives challan to traffic rule violators. Can you manage to bribe that Robo Cop? There is a 100% surety that it can't be bribed and 99% chance that it can't be fooled.
• Similarly if you have evaded some taxes then some Robot based income tax inspector will come to arrest you, can you bribe him?

In coming 5 to 10 years, it will be hard to evade from your wrong karma and if you are able to escape from God's punishment make no mistake. AI will punish you for sure. He will track your current record as well as previous records and will do the needful.  

Review of 360 security lite app

Being graduated from Computer science I know how much effort it takes to make an effortless application. Since my initial days I loved open source. Which gave me freedom to sneak into real code and able to tweak them according to my need. Therefore, I chose Linux over Windows and similarly Android over iOS.

I thought I will have freedom and security of Linux in Android as well. But I got the freedom of Linux but not the security - Why? Actually this has two reasons to mention:
1. No lock for app install: This is one of the major advantage and disadvantage of Android ecosystem. You have to freedom to install apps from Google Play Store as well as from other app stores as well like- Amazon Appstore and UC Browser/Opera Browser. And even you can install apk from anywhere. This is why it gets tricky. If you install apps other than from Google Play Store you may find yourself in danger of leaking your sensitive data through apps.
2. Market share:  We know as of 2015 Q2 Android market share reached 82.8% (Source) . But with great market share comes great security threat. This was/is true for Windows (PC) and still holds true for Android too. This is the reason you need antivirus on Windows and Android.
3. Lots of freeware:  Freewares are good thing but if you don't know its history its hard to say what it does besides its claimed functionality. This is where we Indian can get unlucky, due to budgetary constraints we usually rely on freeware which may compromise heavily with device security and memory consumption. And out of freely available apps we used to install tons of applications whether we use them or not.

This is where 360 Security Lite came to rescue. It has inbuilt antivirus as well as cool features for Android smartphones. Here are some snaps

This app got following notable features:

1. One tap antivirus scanning 
2. One tap Junk cleanup
3. One tab speed boost of system 
4. Widget to help one tap control these three as well controlling the flash light of camera.

Above all it gives us detailed information which application is compromising with security, Disk space or System memory. You can pin down individual app and remove them as well if they not needed.
It effectively free up disk space by removing junk files and frees RAM by stopping battery draining application. This is why it can be said #MadeForIndia. Overall very nice app and simple interface to use.

Rating:  5 out of 5.

I am reviewing the 360 Degree Security Lite App for the #MadeForIndia activity at BlogAdda.

Saving money, mind and time with UCBrowser

 We are very lucky who got old while seeing performance of legends like Sachin, Rahul, Ganguly, etc. The best part was we used to enjoy with our family. But now a days not everyone stays family and doesn't get enough time to watch on TV. Our primary gadget has become our phone to consume all kind of entertainment and news.

But there is an issue with phone - our bandwidth is limited. If bandwidth is not issue then data limit becomes an issue.

We have to live with these issues but it becomes unbearable when cricket comes into picture. Why because we can't afford to miss to any ball in cricket, each ball brings different excitement.

There were different kinds of balls I used to love -

1. The ball which can Sachin 50,100,200

2. The ball which can bring hat trick for our bowler .

3. Every ball after Yuvi's third six which converted to 6, 6s.

4. Winning sixer or run from MS Dhoni

5. Sehwag's unpredictable innings glued us to our television set.

6. Rahanne's classic how can someone afford to miss.

7. Dravid's rock solid defence was an interesting thing to watch.

8. Then there is a thing called world cup and IPL.

Going through all these 8 or more points, we all have different reasons to watch it. This is where UC browser's UC Cricket.  Which will give you instant updates about cricket.

When you don't watch on television or cable, you are left only with two options whether you watch a recap or take help of Internet to watch. Recap doesn't give pleasure of live performance as you already know the news. So we left with the option of watching our favourite sport on mobile. Watching on mobile has its own consequences as it hits your data pack which is a costly affair. In India there is a lack of faster internet(read 4G and poor 3G reception) that's why buffering a video is norm here. This norm is violated by UC browser which gives you uninterpreted browsing experience. Being fast it saves bandwidth as well as which eventually saves your money.

Beside this very useful feature it has many more features.

1. adjustable screen brightness in the browser itself which saves battery as well as strain in eyes.- Night mode

2. Cool landing page in home screen mobile as well as browser.

3. In the browser you can download even various apps just like google play store

4. You can create your own wi-fi and you can let your friends connect to it.(See the Wifi- icon above) 

5. Smart Download - This will help you resume bigger file download.

6.  Custom theme- This will help you customise your browser accodring to your taste. 

7. Control of video's volume and brightness through gesture.

Download UC browser for all your web needs from http://www.ucweb.com/.

Happy and fast Browsing !! Way to go UC!!!!

Excitement for the next zen aka Asus Zenfone2

I was already a fan of launch of Killer devices which big brands kept continuation in iterative manner.
Simple take Apple as an example. iPhones... now the iteration reached to version iPhone 6+.
Similarly in the case of Samsung with its Galaxy S series. Now the iteration has reached S6 edge.
Then we have HTC which has managed to reach its iteration to M9.
Also, who can forget Google for the nexus series , which has reached Nexus 6.

I used to follow all those devices blog by blog. Even drop tests and tear down. But there is a common thing if you notice for all those iterations, these devices are very costly from an Indian middle class perspective.
As the above mentioned devices almost cost a good configured Laptop. Therefore I used to only look those devices with a dream when these will be mine , when will be I able to get hands on those devices.
Then suddenly I got invite for the ZenFone 4 and ZenFone 5 launch previous year. Attending that launch simply blowed my expectation from Asus as Asus was a new player in the market.

Man!! what a piece(or say masterpiece ) I had in my hand. What a screen, what an amazing camera feature (Loved the low light demo especially). I was blown away instantly the phone. I was not only blown away by the feature, but it was also the price vs feature comparison. Coming from the last year launch I used to suggest my friends to get this phone. And 2 of my friends who used to rely on my expert advice went ahead and bought ZenFone5. Till date I have no complaints from those two friends. I have used the ZenFone for two days and love it all.

I didn't expected an iteration of ZenFone from Asus. But again Asus did it and did it again what customer wants.The following features of ZenFone 2 make it stand out of the crowd of other Phones.

• 64-bit Intel Atom 2.3G CPU (Yay!! 64 bit)
• 6430 PowerVR 533MHz GPU (533 MHz GPU :) )
• 64-bit Dual-Channel 4GB RAM (Are you Kidding me !!)
• Cat4+ 250Mbps LTE W/ CA (Again 250 Mpbs ...seriuosly !!)
• 802.11ac 433Mbps WiFi (My expensive NetGear doesn't match this :(  )
• 13MP PixelMaster camera with its f/2.0-aperture (Greeeeeeeatt!!!)
• 60% of Battery Capacity in 39 Minutes! (Need I say more .....)

Here is the detailed configuration:

http://www.asus.com/Phones/ZenFone_2_ZE551ML/

There are several other features in ZenFone 2 which makes it grab the phone as soon as possible type category. I am very much excited to get my senses on this phone. Especially my eyes and my hands are becoming eager to get it on ASAP. Mind it!! It has a gorgeous 5.5 inch screen and 60ms Touch responsiveness , that's why my eyes and hands are getting eager.

 My best pick of features in this phone is RAM and Charging speed which will come handy in day to day usage.

Hopes are alive from Asus that these features don't burn a hole in my packet.

setting path variable in RHEL 6 or OEL 6

If you want to set a path globally(i.e. for all users) then better to write a script in profile.d folder.
e.g. : I want to set java bin path in all user's path.

Steps:
1. Create a java.sh file inside /etc/profile.d/ folder
2. include/add your java path in this file as

PATH=/usr/java/jdk1.7.0_51/bin:${PATH}

3. Logout from the session and login again to take effect.
4. Done

Dynamic sql table from dual

select DBMS_RANDOM.string('X', 15) FirstName,DBMS_RANDOM.string('A', 5) LastName, DBMS_RANDOM.string('U', 5) Email from dual CONNECT BY LEVEL <= 20

get the rows from table for maximum value of a column

select e.*
from table e
inner join (select column1,MAX(column2) v from table where column2='xxxxxx' and column4='yyyyy' group by column1) m
  on e.column1 = m.column1 and e.column2 = m. v ;

This can be useful for extracting data from table like
Name Salary Dept
User1 5000         IT
User2 10000 IT
User3 12000 Civil
User4 25500 Aviation
User5 16000 Civil

And the should be rows containing  highest salary in the Dept

User2 10000 IT

User5 16000 Civil

User4 25500 Aviation

Hacking whatspp chat i.e. msgstore.db.crypt file

Whatspp saves your chat history locally in a file labelled as msgstore.db.crypt. 
I tried once and after googling I succeeded to crack my own whatsapp chat history.
As I love linux the decryption was a breeze as openssl comes with linux preinstalled. I used the command

 openssl enc -d -aes-192-ecb -in msgstore.db.crypt -out msgstore.db.sqlite -K 346a23652a46392b4d73257c67317e352e3372482177652c

 And I opened the file msgstore.db.sqlite by installing sqliteman through synaptic.

Funny side of Linux

Usually people think as Linux as a serious OS. But it has some inbuilt commands to make you smile.
here It goes::::

1. $yes
This command echoes your string repeatedly until killed
e.g. -> $yes this will be repeated indefinetly
2. $wall
This command will display your msg to all your logged user.
e.g.-> $wall hi to all
"hi to all" will be received by all of the user logged in through terminal
3. Black hole of linux :: /dev/null
redirect any output to this file and and it will return true that file has been written but this file is always null{blank}
4. file filled with NULL bytes :: /dev/zero
Accepts and discards all input; produces a continuous stream of NULL bytes. Can be used for low level disc formatting or erasing hardDisk data permanently
e.g. #dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M
5. file filled with random bytes
Accepts and discards all input; produces a continuous stream of random bytes. Can be used to wipe out hardDisk more securely.
#dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda bs=1M
6. A file with no space to write :: /dev/full
Produces a continuous stream of NULL bytes when read, and returns a "write error: No space left on device"  message when written to
7. bc {indian readers only}
it's actually binary calculator.made for calculations in terminal
8. toilet
it is not installed by default . so apt-get helps you
$sudo apt-get install toilet
e.g. -> $toilet --gay You are so gay
9.sl {steam locomative}
shows a running train in terminal
$sudo apt-get install sl
10. oneko
this makes mouse pointer as jerry and tom keeps running behind it
$sudo apt-get install oneko
11. $man woman
you will output as "No manual entry for woman"
12. $make love
make: *** No rule to make target `love'.  Stop.
13. cmatrix
matrix in your terminal
$sudo apt-get install cmatrix

Autologin in Linux mint 13 -Enable / Disable

Enabling/disabling autologin has become very easy in  Linux mint 13.
Here are the steps::
Menu>Preferences>User Accounts>Unlock>Automatic Login>ON/OFF

get day of the week in linux for a specific date

and the command goes like

rahul $ date -d 20121212 "+%A" 

Wednesday

another 

rahul$ date -d 20121213 "+%A" 

Thursday

date is in YYYYMMDD form

Must have android Apps

1. Device management
   1.1. AirDroid  ::
AirDroid is an awesome free app that lets you wirelessly/wired manage your Android from your browser.
   1.2. Astro  ::
I use astro basically for backing up my installed apps
2. Productivity 
 2.1 Evernote::
This is best note app you can get free. Seemless sync across devices/platforms
2.2 Dropbox ::
Dropbox get you 2 GB of free cloud storage with no restriction on file or file length. Through referral you can increase it to 24 GB. Its amazing sync lets you sync across multiple devices or platforms[Window/Linux/Mac is out of box supported] 
3. Browsers.
3.1 Opera Classic::
Favorite due to ease of use and functions . My favorite since my Nokia time.
3.2 Google Chrome
This browser lets you sync tabs and bookmarks in real time
3.3 Firefox

During the time this browser has become much smoother,faster and easier to use. It can easily replace your stock android browser or chrome.

Syncing a folder without copying it to Dropbox folder

You can sync a folder in dropbox without pasting that folder into your Dropbox syncing folder.
So here it goes how .
For Windows
1. open the command prompt
2. type mklink /D yourDropBoxSyncLocation\linked_folder   folder_tobelink
eg ::

command :: mklink /D C:\Users\"Rahul Kumar"\Dropbox\linkedMusic  C:\Users\"Rahul kumar"\Music

Output:: 

symbolic link created for C:\Users\Rahul Kumar\Dropbox\linkedMusic <<===>> C:\Us
ers\Rahul kumar\Music

For Linux
1. Make a link of the folder{folder-Right Click-Make Link} which you want to sync .
2. Cut-Paste this linked folder into the Dropbox

3. You are all done. {See above -the folder is a just a link -But Content will be synced into this folder }

Turning off Android apps / Games ads

You might be knowing this , but its better to tell than not . This may be useful to new Android users.
Before going to play a game in which ads are bothering you just turn of mobile data/Wi-Fi (if the game is not depended on mobile data/Internet). As the ads coming in Apps comes directly from web . So turning off mobile data/ internet should work ..

Lock your Gnome Screen or Desktop from Linux Terminal or Command Line

There may be cases when you don't want to click some buttons to lock your screen .
Then there is command for you to do so and it is fairly simple..

gnome-screensaver-command -l

-l will activate your lock screen ,

-t will activate your screen saver after the time you specify

Access internet using phone { Nokia } through Bluetooth in Linux

If your phone supports PC internet connectivity through  bluetooth then chances are high that you can connect your phone to your Linux PC through bluetooth and enjoy the net surfing without installing any addition application.
There are several posts when Nokia users want Nokia PC suite for Linux to just connect to Linux PC for ineternet.
Connecting through data cable is fairly simple , just connect with Nokia PC Suite Mode and choose your carrier in the setttings....
Below are the screenshots to see how can we configure to connect a Nokia Phone to PC for internet via bluetooth . Click on bluetooth icon on your bar and select Set up a New Device...

Now check the second one Access the internet using your mobile phone

Now just go to your network icon and select Idea Cellular default{In my case} yours may be other network providers..

Enjoy,,,,,,,

Screen / Desktop Recording in Gnome 3 { Linux } or above

There is always a great demand of a good screen recorder in Linux from a long time , so Gnome 3 included in as a inbuilt app without much hype . It is pretty simple app . You press the required buttons and it starts recording {as simple as that }.
The  shortcut to launch the Screen Recorder is Control+Shift+Alt+R.
The shortcut remain the same to stop the recording.
The recorded file goes into the home folder and it is named as shell-date-n.webm
The benefit of webm file is - that you can play this file in any modern browser.

See the Gnome 3 Screen Recorder in action below{Right below corner -The red dot}

This is tested on Linux mint 12 . Hopefully it should work on all distro that includes Gnome 3 like-
Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint 13, Open Suse 12.2 ...etc

Google search box now supports handwriting for touch screens

This may be useful for certain situations like hating your touch keyboard....
To enable this service go to Google.com on your touch device,open settings in the page (find it somewhere around bottom)  and enable handwrite ..(that's it ) and save it ...

Go back to Google.com and u can see a bar below the google page if not try reloading the page ..

Comments are welcome ...