Laptop speaker stopped working after using headphones
Something very weird happened yesterday. I was listening to some songs on my laptop in the office using my earplugs. That’s fine nothing wrong here. I then wanted to see a video on Youtube at home. THE SPEAKERS STOPPED WORKING. Had I done something wrong? was the sound card corrupted? Why did I not renew the warranty? Why did this have to happen only after the warranty had expired? These were some of the thoughts playing in my mind. I tried everything. Even RESTARTED the laptop. NO LUCK. It would work fine when I inserted the headphone / earplugs. But as soon as they came out … no sound. I tried everything, updated the drivers, restored to a previous point et al. No luck what so ever. The last thing I wanted to do was to reinstall the OS. Common, there should be a simpler solution. Then, I got frustrated (I was angry as well, but could not bang my laptop on the floor). WALLA. Never heard of that. I then googled and found out that I was not the only person who solved the issue in this way. But this is really a weird solution. All’s well that ends well. Cheers.
Make Phone Calls in Gmail
It’s free after all, as long as you’re calling someone in the United States or Canada, and the promise of international calls billed as low as 2¢ a minute doesn’t hurt, either. So here’s how to do it: Log into your Gmail account, and under the Chat section on the left side you’ll notice a new option that says Call phone. Click on it Upon clicking it, a traditional phone dial pad will pop up. You’ll need to install the Google Chat and Video plug-in for your browser before you can make a call, but there's a link provided right in the call interface and it doesn't take too long to set up. After you've set that up, make sure you’ve got a microphone hooked up to your computer, input a number for someone you’d like to call and hit the Call button. It rings, acts and sounds exactly like a regular phone call, and the best part is: it’s free!! Head over to your Gmail account and check it out today!!
Archiving in GMail
Archiving
One of the first concepts that you have to get used to with Gmail is that of "Archiving". The overall power of Gmail is in its message management, searching and archival capabilities. In order to really leverage this, you need to get past the "I have to delete everything because I don't have enough storage space" mindset. With 1GB of storage, the average email user will have enough storage space to hold several years worth of emails. Yes, there will always be emails that you simply don't want to keep. Don't fret, despite some speculation, you can always delete any message you want. You aren't required to retain every email you ever received or sent.
OK, so what's Archiving? Archiving a message simply tells Gmail to remove the message from your Inbox screen and keep it in your "All Mail" screen. Simple enough, but what does this mean? When you receive an email, it first goes into your inbox. You can read it, reply to it, forward it, etc. You can apply a label to it (more on labels later), you can trash it, or you can report it as Spam. Pretty typical functions. All emails will remain in your inbox until you specifically "Archive" them. Archiving simply removes the message from your inbox screen.
But what happens to it? Don't worry, all messages are always accessible through the "All Mail" screen. Archiving simply cleans up your inbox. Once a message has been archived, should you ever want to, you can easily move it back to the inbox, but there really isn't a need for that.
Online Chess Puzzles
I came across these two online chess puzzle websites. I think this is a good way to improve your tactical game!
Google Distance calculator
Ever wanated to know what is the exact on-road distance between any two point in google map? try using daftlogic.
Buy a home in UK – A Beginers guide
Yes, I want to buy a home in UK. Not sure when. But I thought I did start some research for my presonal benifit.
The plan is to buy a house which is either 30 miles from Office (RG21 6YJ). If need be I will broaden the seartch by selected any town which is 30 miles from Basingstoke. The reason to do that is that I am an IT professional. I may end up having a job in London. So I want to be in a position where I can commute easily to London.
Where do I want to buy my house?
For that I have selected the following county's. If you click on the link, it will show you the list of towns in the county.
At the moment, I want to stay south/ south-west of London. If need be I will explore other regions later on. To get an idea of Range I am looking into please see the County Maps.
What Kind of houses do I want to buy?
House types:
The following concepts helps us in selection of house.
- Preowned : Somebody is moving out, or its a repositioned house.
- New: Buy house from a new builder / build your own house.
- Part owned / Part Rented: Mostly flats come unders this criteria. This is mainly because the house is on a leased land. The owner owns part of the house (mostly 60%) and you own the rest. This kind of house can be selected if your budget is very low and you have a very small / no family.
- Free Hold: Best deal. You own the land and the house. Hence it is your liability / responsibility to maintain the land.
- Leased: You own the property but not the land. After the lease of the land is over, anything can happen to your house. The land owner may claim the house with the land (TBC).
- Flat: We also call it appartment. How you would love to have a penthouse!
- Terraced house: This is similar to the concept of row-house in othe countries. Out of 4 walls, 2 walls are common and shared with your neighbour.
- Semi detached: Only 1 wall is shared and you wond the other 3 walls.
- Detached: Hurray! You own all the 4 walls. Ususally you have a floor in this house.
- Bunglow: Very similar to Detached house, the only differece being that you don't have a floor here. Its the most expensive types of house as the amount of land is more.
I also found a link of chain free houses (Area + 30 miles of Basingstoke)
Some more links that may be useful are shown below.
List of Home Builders - 1
List of Home Builders - 2
Find a Land
New Homes - Houses from UK House builders
More Information on new homes
Leagel Process information
More info can be found on Pranav's Blog.
My First Blog
my first blog...
One would ask, why and when did I think of blogging. Well most of us does a bit of blogging. But my inspiration was Big B (Amitabh Bachchan). I read somewhere that AB does post his comments on blogging. I thought, if he can why can't I? He has been an inspiration to millions of people in India. No wonder he is an inspiration to me.
The plan is to keep on blogging as frequently as possible. Lets see how successful I am.
Cheers.
-JJ-