Earphones earphones everywhere!

Have you noticed how today almost every youngster has earphones on their ears? 10 years ago when I was a high schooler, mp3 players were considered really expensive and was not in the reach of the common man. However, technology has changed so much that you can now get a decent player for less than $10. The end result of this is that now almost every person I meet has earphones stuck on their ear.

However I wish to tell you something here. Prolonged use of earphones is dangerous. This might sound disgusting, but I would like to share it with you guys. A few months ago, my hearing on the right ear started diminishing a little. I started feeling a block in the ear. Busy with academics, I neglected it as a small issue. Upon consulting with an ENT specialist, I got the shock of my life. I had a huge wax impaction inside my ear canal. The first question the doctor asked me was, "Do you use earphones regularly on your mp3 player?" 

Nature it seems, the doctor told me, has a way of pushing out wax from the ear naturally as you eat, talk and do normal things in life. However, earphones block the exit for this natural process.In addition, earphones deliver sound closer to your eardrum. While this leads to good sound reproduction, it significantly damages your eardrum over course of time. The solution? Use headphones! They might seem odd and heavy to carry around. But trust me! Your ears will thank you.

And oh! What happened to my ears you ask? After using medicated eardrops and warm water irrigation into the ear, the problem went away. I quit earphones now and have switched to Bose's headphones.

Kamal

Skipping meals!

Skipping meals seems to be the norm of students these days. Sadly, despite knowing the evil effects of skipping meals, students continue to induldge in this mistake. I must admit, I am not exempt from this practice either.

So why do we do it? Simple! Laziness coupled with improper time management. I must admit that Indians in particular were spoilt as kids by their parents. We used to be cared for, provided for and be scolded to eat our meals on time by Mom. In a stark contrast, when we start to stay single away from home, we tend to think only of work and skip meals.

• All it takes is a little effort. Sleep on time! I try to do this but I always seem to have some work on hand. :( 
• Try to eat simple things to satisfy your appetite. Those days of getting rich foods from Mom is over! Get over it! 
• Avoid improper meals at improper times. I learnt this the hard way. Eating food at 4.30pm after skipping breakfast and lunch will leave your body confused about dinner.
• Get unhooked from the internet. It spoils your routine.

I paid a heavy price for skipping meals a few months back when I developed migraine as a result of prolonged starvation. The symptoms started interfering with my life and I had to seek medical consultation and now I am on tablets to help control it. So please! Don't make the mistake I made. Eat healthy, Be healthy.

Kamal

My laptop woes

Any Indian living in the USA will tell you how difficult life is in the US without a laptop. I came to realize it after my laptop gave up on me one fine morning. :(

Dell - a company revered to be one of the best laptop makers was my choice when I purchased my first laptop. The Inspiron 1420 from Dell served me really well for my entire first year in the USA. However, laptops these days have an uncanny ability to die after your warranty ends. My laptop started to freeze with a corrupted screen and I couldn't work on it anymore. For the video link of the description click here.

I was hesitant about making my call to customer service after hearing about the ensuing horror stories that many customers faced from "Mr.Smith", "Josh" or "Bryan" as their service technician. An almost perfect American accent will wither off once an Indian talks to the customer support I guess :P.  So anyways, the first guy tells me my warranty is about to expire and I would have to extend it. Eager to get this settled first, I paid a substantial amount to extend my warranty for three years. Then I get connected to a lady who asked me if I tried rebooting the system. (Duh!) And then, I get connected to XXX(name protected). Now, this guy says I might have problems with my drivers. Okay, so he connected remotely to my computer, uninstalls and reinstalls my drivers and gave me his personal number to call incase I experience the problem again. Sure enough, I got the problem the next day. I make the call, he does the same thing again. The problem repeats itself on the 3rd day. Finally, the technician says he thinks I have a problem with my NVIDIA video card (you think huh!?). He sends me a box next day to pack the laptop off to God knows where and assures me that it will be fixed. All said, I have to say though that this technician is one of the nicer guys I talked to among others. He was patient in listening to my problems and assures me that I need not worry over my investment with Dell. However, only time will tell whether he was genuine or it was a marketing tactic to get me to stay with Dell.

For now, I advise people to avoid Dell and HP. They are both crap in build quality of laptops when compared to the likes of Sony, Toshiba and Lenovo. That said, I do value other people's thoughts on this matter! What do you think?

Kamal 

My iPhone

Some say its too expensive and some say it lacks the features that a phone needs today.  However, there is no denying the fact that Apple revolutionized the mobile phone industry with the release of the iPhone. Featuring a large capacitive touchscreen, Apple demonstrated an innovative way to communicate with the world by using man's most primitive form of interaction - touching. Apart from that, Apple included an accelerometer, a small addition that rotates the screen as you move the phone. Features like these led to an explosion of applications to be developed for the iPhone. From games to dictionaries, the Apple Appstore has them all.

One thing I dont like about Apple however is their strict policy of safeguarding their phone for their own good. Jailbreaking (as many of you have heard) is the term used to describe freeing the phone from Apple's clutches so you can install custom themes, software that is not allowed on the Appstore etc.

I purchased an iPhone 2G - 16Gb version from eBay in Fall 2008. It was unlocked, by a method known as Ziphone developed by Zibri. However, Ziphone is a flawed unlock method that can only work on Firmware 1.1.4. Using the software available from the iPhone Dev team, I upgraded the firmware to 2.2, unlocked the phone and jailbroke it. Till date I am very happy with my iPhone. It is almost my second laptop and has become an indispensable gadget for my survival.

What are your thoughts? Do you think the iPhone is indeed a great device or just overhyped? Let me know! :) Please feel free to comment!

Kamal