Santosh

  • muCommander – The best MacOS Finder alternative

    After the recent upgrade of MacOS, Finder has been crashing without any reason. This was pretty annoying when Finder is at core of almost all the work you do on your macbook. I also realized that Finder is pretty useless when it comes to dealing with networked storage locations, specially using ‘smb’ protocol.

    http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.jsI just looked for free alternative for Finders and found muCommander. And since, then I hardly use Finder. This free software is brilliant. It has two panes so moving and copying files/folders is pretty easy. You need not open two windows of crappy Finder. It also worked seemlessly with all the networked devices and the connection is pretty stable. I faced many problems moving files from my computer to networked location using Finder. The connection to networked location kept on dropping. muCommander solved the problem. It is available for Windows and Linux platforms as well and surely its better than the default options available on these platforms.

    It does not have finish of MacOs and lacks tabbed windows but it is far better than Finder. Highly recommended.

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  • Buying eBooks in India ?

    A few weeks ago, Apple opened its iTunes music and movies store for India users but Apple bookstore is still not available for Indian users. Similarly, Google Market/Google Play does not offer its vast collection of ebooks to Indian users. The Indian stores Flipkart and infibeam do offere ebooks but their collection is nothing much to talk about. The only option Indian users have is to buy books from Amazon kindle store.

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    This is strange considering India is a booming market for tablets. And, many of the tablet users do use the tablets as ebook reader but when it comes to buying ebooks they do not have many optoins. Recently, we saw Amazon launching its outdated ebook reader Kindle in India and Asus launching its Nexus tablet. Although, ebook readers are not going to find much market here (even globally they are losing out to tablets) but people are looking forward to buying ebooks and reading them on iPads or android tablets. But eBook lovers do not have many options. As of now, there is only one option. Buy ebooks on Amazon and download kindle app for reading books on your devices (luckily the app is available for all your devices and for all operating systems). However, the prices of ebooks/kindle books are more than the price of hardcopy edition of the same book in India. I wish google play or Apple bookstove soon start selling ebooks in India till then we are better buying hardcopies of the books.

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  • 2% extra for credit card payments?

    There are many shopkeepers that insist on 2-5% extra for payments made through credit cards. And often, we have to either to pay the demanded extra money or move to another shop. The 2-5 percent is the extra money that, the shopkeepers claim, is paid to bank or the credit card provider. However, the banks and credit card company clearly state that this money is not supposed to be paid by the customer if customer is purchasing at MRP.

    The practice of demanding extra 2-5% in case of credit card pyament is more rife among small shopkeepers, and seldom I have seen known retail chains or big shops asking for it. So,  last week when I went to buy a rather pricey electronic item from Gizmos shop at Saket CityWalk, New Delhi, the request for extra 2% payment came as surprise. The shopkeeper insisted on not only getting 2% extra but also getting the extra payment in cash for which there was no bill. I insisted on getting a receipt for the extra charge but the shopkeeper summarily refused. This clearly smacked off some wrongdoings. First, the shopkeeper was charging extra money which was illegal and second he was receiving payment in black money by not providing receipts.

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    The shopping experience turned sour when he also insisted us on buying the mandatory accessories with the electronic item without which they refused to sell the product. Since, we had already made up our mind and the item was not available with other shopkeepers, we bought it paying 2% extra and with some accessories that we did not intend to buy.  I am not sure whether the parent company Audio Voice is cognizant of these practices or it is the shopkeeper making some extra money, but I am not visiting Gizmos store again.

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  • iPad Mini: A disappointment

    The iPad 3rd generation (with ratina display) is a fantastic piece of technology but it is surely not for those who want to use it for prolonged period as a book reader. It is too big and too heavy to be a great ebook reader. So when the rumors started about the possibility of miniature version of iPad, I had this inkling that it would a good device for those who want to use iPad for their primary ebook reading device. And, yesterday’s Apple event confirmed that. iPad mini is great for those who want to buy a light portable ebook reader or for those who think the iPad is too big and bulky.

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    I would have surely gone for iPad mini had it been priced under USD 250. At sub USD 250 price, it would have killed the competition. But it does not deserve the USD 329 price. First, the display is quite a disappointement. Anyone who has used retina display iPad or iPhone would be disappointed by the low resolution display. Google Nexus and even Amazon Fire HD have better displays than this iPad. The processor and RAM are also not upto the current standards; it has A5 processor and RAM is only 512 MB.

    On the technological innovation front, it offers nothing. It is just watered down miniature version of the iPad. Probably, I will be better buying Kindle Paperwhite if I need a great ebook reader. It comes much cheaper at USD 119 and Amazon does sell ebooks globally. For us living in India, iBook store is still not available for buying ebooks.

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  • The must know Excel Financial Functions: Future Value

    Future Value : The future value of an asset or investment is the value of asset or investment on a specific date in future. Most of the people who use excel for financial analysis or accounting purpose rely heavily on the excel’s inbuilt function for deriving the future value.

    FV = (rate, nper, pmt, [pv], [type])

    Example: You just opened a bank account with Rs. 20000 and you have decided to deposit Rs. 4000 at the end of every month for next 10 years. The bank offers 9 per cent annual interest on the savings account. Now, you want to know how much money you will have in your account at the end of 10 years. Here you can use excel’s future value function to calculate the total amount that you will get at the end of 10 years.
    Lets break this problem in key variables that will be required by the FV() of Excel.
    Rate: 9 per cent per annum. But we need to calculate the monthly rate of interest as the period of payment is monthly. So Rate = 9%/12% = 0.75% or 0.0075 (Take note of the percentage sign).

    Periods (nper): 120 months (10 years X 12 Months)

    Payment (pmt) : -4000 (since its going out from your pocket, hence the minus sign)

    Present Value (pv): – 20000 (same logic as above)

    Type : 0 (if payment is deposited at the end of the period), 1 (if payment is deposited at the beginning of the period)

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    The function now becomes:

    FV=(0.75%, 120, -4000, -20000,0)

    You will get Rs. 823,084.25 as the result. This is the money you will receive at the end of the 10 years.