India's first 4G LTE phone : Huawei Ascend P1 LTE launched in India by Airtel

At Qualcomm's IQ conference in New Delhi, Airtel and Huawei launched the first LTE-based smartphone in India - Meet the Huawei Ascend P1 LTE.

The smartphone will run on Bharti Airtel's 4G LTE network which is already rolled out in Kolkata and Bangalore; as well as in Pune, where 4G is expected to launch very soon. Huawei Ascend P1 runs Android Ice cream sandwich 4.0.4 with Huawei's custom UI on top, dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, 1 GB RAM, 4 GB user memory, a microSD slot, 4.3" AMOLED display with a screen resolution of 960x540 pixels with scratch-resistent Corning Gorilla glass, 8 MP camera and a good 1800 mAh battery.
Huawei Acsend P1 can only use 4G network in India, because of the 2300 MHz radio allotted to 4G spectrum by the Indian government.  Bharti Airtel is going to offer seamless Roaming between 4G LTE and 3G /GSM network across India. The device can handles high speed data on the LTE network (4G) and voice calls on the underlying 3G network using Circuit Switched Voice Fall Back (CSFB voice) technology.
Neither price of the handset nor availability is announced today.

Source : Telecom Talk, UnleashThePhones

How To : Partition your computer's hard drive without formatting

Many a times, the new laptops which come with Windows 7 pre-installed, offer no partition. There is a huge C drive which houses Windows system files. So it becomes a little difficult to partition the hard drive. It is recommended to store your important data such as documents and pictures on a different partition, so they can be safe even if the OS needs to be re-installed due to some failure or virus attack.

Luckily, Windows 7 sports a feature called as Disk Management, which lets you modify the hard drives. It is, although, hidden deep into the settings and not directly accessible through Control Panel. Let us see how to split the hard disk to a new partition.

Step 1 : Firstly, press Start on your Windows 7 machine, and type "Computer Management" in the search bar at the bottom. In the list that appears in Search Results, click on the program "Computer Management". A new window will open.

Step 2 : Click on the option "Disk Management" (highlighted in the above image).

Step 3: Right-click on the drive that you wish to split. Select "Shrink Volume". A dialog box will appear which asks the amount of megabytes by which to shrink the drive.

Step 4 : Select a size you wish, which should be less than the free space left in that drive.

Step 5: After the drive is shrunk, there appears an "Un-allocated Space". Right click on it and select "New simple volume". Fill up the dialog box appropriately and a new partition will be created.

Mapify your Facebook : Add a map as cover image of your Facebook profile

 Since Facebook has introduced the option to add large cover images to the timeline, it has become an extremely popular feature. Now there is a web-app to use a map of a place as the cover image of your timeline. Created by Technologies Evangelist, Simon Madine, Covermap.me gives your Facebook timeline a very distinctive and a very personal look.

 When asked about how he got the idea for this innovative website, Simon answers to a blog :

 A little while ago, Facebook introduced timeline cover images where you could upload a large image to appear at the top of your Facebook profile page. Naturally, my first thought was “Maps!” so I uploaded a Nokia Map centered on Berlin (where my office is based). After a couple of people comment that they like it, I realized I could make it into a fun little web service where people could do this automatically.

 When you sign in to covermap.me with your Facebook account, it shows you a map the same size and shape as the Facebook cover image with your profile picture in the bottom left. It tries to centre on your current location but you can search for anywhere. Once you’re happy with the map position, the next step allows you to choose between different map tile styles – standard, terrain, public transport networks, etc. When you’ve picked a style you like, another button press will upload the image to Facebook and ask you to confirm that you want to set it as your profile image. Cool, isn't it?

How to use older applications with Windows 7 using Virtual PC

There are a lot of old applications that used to work with Windows 98 and Windows XP, that refuse to run in Windows Vista and Windows 7. Many developers didn't update their software to work with the latest version of Windows, and users are missing out the functionality. That is a reason why many enterprises and companies are still sticking to Windows XP in their computers.

Microsoft has stopped selling Windows XP officially, now that Windows 8 is at the horizon. But many application developers have not upgraded their software to support the new version of Windows, and the applications fail to load in Windows 7 and 8. To use those, users had to dual boot their PCs with Windows 7 and Windows XP, but that's not a legal way to do it. Besides, it needs frequently restarting to switch between the operating systems. There is an elegant solution provided by Microsoft, which is absolutely safe, legal and advantageous -- Microsoft Virtual PC.

This guide will be useful to set up Winodws XP Mode in a Virtual PC environment:

Step I : Make sure that your computer meets the minimum requirements for Virtual PC here. Yes? Then, good. Then visit here, download and run Microsoft's tool which examines the system and tells you if your hardware is capable or not. If the tool says that 'Virtualisation is enabled', then go to Step II. If virtualisation is not enabled, visit here to learn how to change BIOS settings.

Step II : Visit this website and click on 'Get Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC now'. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/

Step III : Select your version of current OS and language, and download both 'Windows Virtual PC' and 'Windows XP Mode'.

Step IV : Run the files as per instructed on the screen, and you will find Windows Virtual PC folder in Start Menu. Select Windows Virtual PC in that folder. From here, you can start a virtual machine 'Windows XP Mode'.
Windows XP will load in a window and the screen will look something like this after loading.

Step V : You can install applications and access filesystem from Windows XP Mode as you normally do. Install your applications in it, and they will flawlessly work.

The Windows XP mode uses a virtual hard drive, which is not available from Windows 7 environment. Although, you can see the drives on Windows 7 in XP Mode's My Computer, so you can copy files.

Closing the virtual PC will shut down the Windows XP environment.

Have fun!

(If you are an advanced user and want to change the settings of Virtual Machine, right click on it and select Settings.)

Sony Xperia S gets included in Android Open Source Project; Bootloader unlocked

Sony mobile's flagship smartphone Sony Xperia S has been included in Android Open Source Project by Google. This means that Xperia S owners can enjoy vanilla Android on their mobile. This means a nexus like treatment and timely updates as well as the feel of stock Android experience. Xperia S is the only non-Nexus device which has been awarded with this honor.