Category Archives: ICT World

How I Listen to International Music Legally

11 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by in ICT World, Software Review, Tutorials

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Well, I respect intellectual properties and I try my level best not to use anything illegally. I stopped using pirated software years ago and since almost a year I do not listen to pirated western and Bangladeshi music. Well now the question is how. The answer is simple. For Bangladeshi music, I buy original CDs, as they are super cheap.  For western I am depended on Spotify. Well may be Taylor Swift is not on Spotify but I can live without her music. 😉

Spotify’s slogan is “Music for Everyone” but unfortunately it is not. You have to live in one of those countries where Spotify operates and unfortunately they do not operate in my country Bangladesh!

Spotify has two types of subscription, Free and Premium. Free is ad supported music streaming service with some restrictions and premium gives you freedom to listen to your favourite music wherever and however you like, even when you not connected to the internet. But unfortunately everything is limited to the countries they operate. Now if you have money and want to become a paid premium subscriber, you cannot just do that. So how I am doing it!!

Well, I did some research and decided to avail the service using VPN. With VPN (virtual private network) you can have secure and new network footprint. Almost all Internet connections of Bangladesh are routed through Singapore, so getting both Spotify and VPN service from Singapore would be the perfect blend. I have subscribed to Express VPN because they have 3-4 servers in Singapore and I can access their service from almost all the devices I own. I have a long term agreement with them, I have paid for a year and getting the service for 20 months. So it a good deal for me.

I have subscribed to Spotify Premium with Singapore Dollars 9.99 per month and I have the freedom to listen to whatever I would like to. I do agree that this is not 100% legit way to avail the service, but at least I am not cheating the artists.

I do encourage everyone to avoid using illegal/pirated materials.

Android Wear – The Ultimate Junk

16 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Android, Google, ICT World, My Gadgets, Review

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Well, Apple is overpriced but how you will disagree that they has the ultimate design innovation talent! Sometimes it feels like all the consumer innovations are only coming from them. Recent days Google pretends many things but their only intention is the sell ads to the consumer.

Many of my friends know that I am an early adapter, so if I am fascinated about something, I get it despite of all challenges. When Android Wear came, I thought this is the most innovative step from Google and Android team. I bought a LG G watch R back in January, which is currently running Android Wear 5.0.2. I feel so sorry for the device and the operating system. Let me highlight some of the points one by one.

Not even a Remote Control for your phone: Say you want to play music on your phone and control that from your watch, what things you would like to do? Definitely you would not like to skip tracks and control volume, a $50 Samsung phone’s headphones can do that. You may like to look into the playlist and then play the tracks you like or manage your queue etc. Unfortunately this Android Wear cannot do beyond what that $50 Samsung phone’s headphones can do.

No Playlist: No matter what media player you are using on your phone, there is no option to browse through the playlist on your watch. So you cannot just tap on your song and play it, you have to trust on forward/next options. I found only Sony Walkman and Google Play Music are the only apps that the phone supports. If your watch has internal memory (Sony, LG and Huawei does) you can download your selected playlists on your watch and play them directly on a Bluetooth device. But on the same case you are not allowed to browse the playlist and directly play the track you want to!

No Contacts, Calling: I was expecting I would be able to call someone right from my phone. The feature is there but only if you are connected to Google Now cloud services and if they can understand your pronunciation. You may want to call home, they will call mom. That is what happened with me.

Well, calling became so challenging because there is no contact list you can see from your watch. Say, I am wearing the watch and my phone is connected to my car’s speakers (AUX), if there is an incoming call, I can see who is calling and I can take/reject the call right from the watch. Now if I want to call someone it will be super challenging. You cannot browse the contact list and just tap to call someone. I have no clue why Google did not think about this simple feature but this is what it is.

Cannot Rearrange Apps: Say you like and use Google Keep a lot and want to access the app easily from the app menu. You are not lucky, you cannot re-arrange the apps, have to access them as they are.

Notification Without any Clue: If you want to keep things private on the phone, they gets private on the watch as well. For example you have chosen to keep your message notifications private on the phone (phone will show incoming notification but will not show summary etc.) then the messages will not appear on the watch as well.

Disappointing Google Now: You know there is nothing called Google Now, right? The information you see on Google now are already backdated, e.g. game results. The weather Google Now shows are few hours old. So Google Now is not Now, it is may be Google’s now not ours. It is not watch Google Now, for every platform it sux big time.

So that is my honest opinion about Google’s latest innovation! At this point we can only hope things will get better in coming days else Apple will dominate this market too.

Cheap International Calls from Free Bhutan Telecom (B-Mobile) Tourist SIM

30 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by in ICT World, Telecom, Tutorials

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As soon as you arrive in Paro international Airport – Bhutan, you can avail a Prepaid tourist SIM card for free from Bhutan Telecom (B-Mobile) by just giving them your passport number and filling up a simple form. The SIM comes with Nu.100.00 preloaded, so you have to pay that upfront.

After completing all immigration procedures, you will see Bhutan Telecom counter right beside the money exchange counter (by they way use this money exchange counter to exchange your currency as they provide the best rate than outside banks). Any ways, let’s go back to our topic. Just walk in and ask for a Prepaid Tourist SIM. Most of the time they do not have any Micro/Nano SIM, so if your phone do not take regular size SIM card, you have to cut it from outside shops. Your taxi driver or travel guide may help you with that.

B-Mobile’s international tariff is quite high, but there is a very good way you can make cheap international calls as low as Nu.4.00 per minute. Unfortunately this is not mentioned anywhere on their website or promotions. To make that, just add 010 in front of your number. So the number format would be:
010 – Country Code (without 00 or plus + sign) – number.

For example if I want to call a Bangladeshi number +8801712345678, the format for cheaper tariff number would be:
0108801712345678. Like that if I want to call +6141765432 in Australia, the format would be:
0106141765432. I hope you get it by now.

And pay as you go 2G/3G is also quite reasonable for email or social networking. The SIM card will say it comes with 3G pre-activated but I did not find my one working. So if that is also your case, you can  just call 1600 from the number for free, follow the IVR to talk to an agent and they’ll activate that for you. Bhutan do not have very good 3G coverage, but 2G works fine everywhere where you have network coverage. So never set your phone to use 3G/4G only.

Oh! and set internet as Access Point Name in your phone to get the internet working for you.