If you are having problems configuring your bluetooth devices and your standard manufacturer's software does not fix it, try http://bluetoothinstaller.com/ .

My problem(was):
Installed Win7 on a old Dell laptop and bluetooth does not work. Got the mouse working, but the mosuse wheel does not work. Tried a lot of things, (installing Dell drivers, Broadcom driver software), etc. But after running this on top of the Dell's software everything is perfect.

Last week I got my new car, the Hyundai's New Fluidic Verna 1.6 SX VTVT. This blog is about my own review of how to came to short list this car with so many options available in the Indian market today. All opinions are my personal opinions.



Lets look at my requirements first.

Requirement #1: I have been driving a Maruti Alto for the last 8 years. With my kid going to school and my wife also working, a need for a second car came up last year. Since then I have been seriously researching my options.

Requirement #2: I had faced lots of issues with a small car when friends and relatives come visiting and while going for long drive. So the requirement of a sedan or a SUV got added to my requirement.

Requirement #3: The element of comfort and luxury inside the cabin was very important for me. The more the features inside the car, the better for me. My heart was always for an SUV but with the budget of 10lacs I could only get the Tata Safari or the Scorpion and I will tell you later why I did not select them.

Requirement #4: Exterior looks and high-class branding was not so important for me. Having driven a Maruti for 8 years and the service you get from a well spread service network is not something I would compromise for brand-value or class. Nevertheless brand is always important, but it came at #4 for me.

Requirement #5: I drive daily around 25km and I go to long drives 3-4 times a year. I think I will clock around 9000km per year.

Now lets look at all the options that I went through one by one. As I said there are too many options in India today and I did not necessarily do a detail review of all of them. But the ones that I evaluated are:

1. Tata Safari Dicor.
2. Mahindra Scorpion.
3. Suzuki SX4.
4. Fiat Linea.
5. Honda City.
6. VW Vento.
8. Hyunda Old Verna
9. Hyundai Fluidic Verna.

Tata Safari was always something my heart wanted. I saw it first somewhere in the year 1998 and I was "fida" on it. However I was disappointed to see that they did not make significant improvements to the car for so many years. So the fear of this car getting out-dated soon was the main reason for rejection, but I must say that the looks and build are something I still admire. I did not even bother to take a test drive.

Mahindra Scorpion happens to be the next only affordable SUV in India in my budget. My close friend has it and it was me who recommended him to get this and I think he is enjoying it. My reasons for rejection are interior comfort and suspension. The large gaps between panels, poor finishing, lack of features was the problem. The new Micro-hybrid looks much better than ever before, but suspension and lack of element of luxury inside did not impress me. My wife did not like the way the car moved sideways when it found even a small pothole/hump on the road.

Suzuki SX4. I don't understand how they managed to build such a small cabin inside such a big looking car. The car really looks cramped inside. The test drive felt like I was handling a huge car. The pick up and power was good and I will bet my kidney that you will never get a better service network than Maruti in India. But it did not fit my requirements nicely.

Old Hyundai Verna. I thought the car was over-priced and the cabin look was very old fashioned -- like the cars in the 80s. It was ugly looking on the outside also, specially the front look. I never understood why it was so expensive.

Fiat Linea. I was impressed with this car and its test drive. The looks inside and outside were examples of perfect engineering. Every thing seemed to have got the very detailed attention. From seating comfort, to dash board, ease of handing, looks, bonnet and the tail, it all looked well-engineered. It had all the features I wanted--a spacious looking cabin, large boot space, Bluetooth, heated OVRMs, reverse sensor, ABS, airbags, modern looking and a service interval of 15000km which speaks of their confidence of the engine and everything inside the bonnet. So what did me out? User feedback and the fear that I wont get good after sales servicing. My neighbor gave me an example of his friend where he had electrical problems with this car and had to go to the consumer court to deal with it. Apparently he never got his money back but had to settle with a Tata Manza. I can never imagine me settling with a Tata Manza!!

VM Vento. I dont know much about this car, but the looks simply did not impress me. It has a very traditional look.I know I said that exterior looks were not my #1 or #2 requirement, but in this case, the looks were too old fashioned for me. But I kept hearing that this is a good car.

Honda City. This is the car that has the highest brand value in India. To own a Honda itself puts you in the high class society. It has got a class attached to it, which no other cars in the range of 10lacs can give you in India. For many people I know this is a very important factor when they purchase a sedan. If so, go for it you will not regret. It was a tough decision for me but the following factors in the City made it easy for me to go in favor of the new Fluidic Verna.

a. Low ground clearance. Long drives in India could be painful with the underbelly always kissing the ground or the hump.

b. No climate control. I dont want to change the A/C every now and then after paying 10lacs. This is old technology and Honda should have had it.

Hyundai Fluidic Verna. Like most of the reviews on paper and TV, it true that Hyundai got it right this time. Available in both Petrol and Diesel you wont get such a powerful sedan at this price range. The 1.6 Petrol comes with 123PS@6300rpm which is higher than almost all it counterpart. Even the Scorpion comes at 115BHP@3800rpm. The Verna is definitely powerful than all the sedans I mentioned. Verna Diesel has even higher power.



The second thing that impressed me is the fact that ABS, 2-airbags, alloy wheels, fog lamps are all standard features in the SX version(you get 6 airbags in the higher diesel version only).

The cabin is spacious and the features are rich and its something that I always wanted.



The auto-climate control is definitely useful because you dont have to worry about turning the knob when it gets too cold or too warm. Just set the temperate and have the car do the rest.

The next is the Bluetooth phone connectivity. They have conveniently placed a mic right above the driver's head, but as per my testing everyone in the car can talk. Setting up the Bluetooth was a bit challenging as I had to do a Blue-tooth pairing every time I entered the car, even though the manual said it was a 1-time setup. I discovered that my Blackberry had encryption enabled by default and once I turned encryption off, I never required to re-pair again. The moment I get into the car, my phone would get paired. The call buttons are on the steering wheel and so are the volume controls.




iPod connectivity is cool with the 2-din audio display as you can browse through your playlists comfortably. I have a 1-Din iPod-ready music system on my Alto, but it requires extreme commando training to browse through your playlists through your music system. In Verna, its a breeze. It took me some time to connect the iPod to the system as you need to use a Hyundai specific cable and you need to connect the iPod to both the AUX and USB input on your car. If you dont connect both it does not work. The cable comes with the car (you dont have to buy separately).



The rear-view mirror is a charm. First of all it reduces the glare from head-lamps at night. I have seen the lights going dull-green sometimes when somebody is driving at high beam and it continuously adjusts thereby preventing glare. The other good thing is that the rear-view camera displays right on your back view mirror while you reverse. And with the proximity warning signals rear parking is such a breeze at office even when I am late ;-)



The side mirrors are not only electronically adjustable, but they fold at the touch of a button, which means that in the traffic jam you can fold them to allow two wheelers to pas through without hitting you.

I am also impressed that after the 1st service which if after 2 months, the subsequent servicing interval is 1 year or 10,000 kms. This speaks of the confidence they have on the car. Most cars in India have a service interval of 6 months or 5000kms.

Few other fancy features are
1. Air-cooled glove box for chocolates,
2. Driver side height adjustable seat-belts. It useful if you are not a tall person.
3. Tilt steering.
4. Sun glass holder.
5. Luggage net.
6. Driver information display is rich and worth mentioning are the following:

a. Distance to empty.
b. Average mileage, which gets reset when you refill your talk with 6+ liters.
c. Separate front and rear defogger buttons. Rear defogger with timer.
c. Door ajar indicator and low fuel indicator.
d. Instantaneous fuel mileage indicator.
e. Average speed.
f. Inside and outside temperature.
g. Audio remote control
h. Steering mounted audio control with phone buttons also.
i. Tilt adjustable driver seat (not electronic).

Size: Since Honda City is the most popular car in this segment, let me tell you the size of this car relative to the City.
-- Its -5 cm shorter than the City in length.
-- Its +0.5 cm wider than the City.
-- Its -0.5 cm shorter than the City in height. Despite this the head room of Verna for back passengers is more because its seat is low. On the city, I had my head almost touching the ceiling. (I am 6 ft tall person)




The music system is good enough that you don't need to add anything extra. It has very few audio tuning controls compared to my old Pioneer system which has so many tuning parameters. The sound is very nice inside the cabin.

And did I forget to mention that the side and the back looks are to die for. It has a bold yet sleeky sporty look. Hyundai has done a great job with their Fluidic sculpture design. No doubt.



Driving experience:
The driving experience has been good so far. I hit a few speed breakers under the bump for the 1st few days -- meaning that the ground clearance is not so big, but much better than the Honda City. I have seen the City struggling in my rear-view mirror. The power at 2nd and 3rd gear is something I love, specially while overtaking. Even at 5th gear, the over-taking capability in highways gives you a sense of confidence. I have read about wobbling at high speeds, but I am yet to figure it out. I have driven at 130 km/hr at Nice Road, Blore and I haven't felt as bad as the reviews said. I have a few longs drives coming up and will know soon. But so far so good.

Verna is known for its Diesel variant. I did my own calculation and found that I may not be able to break even the cost of a diesel car quickly with my daily usage, but I still wanted to buy a diesel because the cost of petrol was very hurting. But the Verna diesel had a 8 month waiting period which forced me to go for the petrol.

Regrets:
1. I dont like the fact that the door does neither lock automatically when you start the engine nor when you reach a speed. On the automatic version, the door locks automatically only when it reaches 15km/h.

2. The central locking system does not make a sound which means its difficult to find your car in a large parking space.

3. The remote does not open the trunk. You have to key in or pull the lid from inside the car.


Cost:
The Verna 1.6 SX VTVT costed me Rs. 10.5 lacs on road(no extra accessories), which is slightly higher than most of the other cars I compared above, but I think its worth the money.

PS:
Advaith Hyundai took a picture of me during delivery and posted to Facebook.


Happy Driving.//

Why would you want to reinstall your blackberry device software? Several reasons, I had to do it several times and here is the list of those reasons I know

1. You often get lot of "Uncaught exception" messages and few things dont work after that. This is likely to happen if you install several apps.

2. You blackberry does not restart after a power down. It goes into an infinite loop during start up.

3. You want to reset the security policies and any possible firewalls. Basically you want to start fresh because your blackberry is not functioning like the way you want it to.

4. Some other reason and you think re-installing the OS or device software would get rid of it.

Reinstalling the device software is not straight forward.
Getting the device software
First of all you need to get the device software installed on your computer. The CD that came with the box probably has a very old version. You better download the latest device software for your device. The device software is specific to your service provider. You can start from country list and get to your service provider.

The service provider for India is here. Its recommended that you install the latest version available for your phone model.

This is around 150MB in size. Once downloaded install it on your computer.

Now you need to download the Blackberry Desktop software.
Getting the Blackberry Desktop software
This is the software that lets you manage your phone from your computer. This will also help you re-install the device software, manage apps, etc. What I found (or could not find) was that with the latest version of this software (6.1.*), you cant do certain things like:
-- you cannot synchronize your certificates. This is needed if your organization support email encryption and you want to read and send encrypted emails from your blackberry.
-- you cannot use the blackberry as a internet modem. Maybe there is a way, but I could not find out using the 6.1.* version.
You can get the latest Desktop software at here.

So which version should you download? First check with your organization. They may have the supported version. For me its 5.0.1 and this version supports both Certification synchronization and Modem functionality. Its a pain to search for this software on their site. Here is the direct link for Bharti Airtel, India.

Install it on your computer. After you install you will see it in your Programs Menu.

Reinstalling the device software.
The steps mentioned here are a bit tricky, but trust me, these steps will work even for a Blackberry which does not even boot up. Note that after you reinstall, all your apps will be lost and most of your data will also be lost. Your phone book will remain and your blackberry unlock password will also remain. So backup what you need.

Follow these steps to reinstall the OS:

1. Go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Research In Motion\AppLoader and start Loader.exe. You will get to the screen shown below. Note that you dont see anything in the "Connection:" pull down menu. Be patient!



2. Now remove the battery of your phone and put it back. Dont switch on your phone. Connect your phone to your computer using the USB cable. As soon as you do this, you will see the "Connection:" menu populated with a number as shown below. The number can be different for you. It does not matter.



3. Now click Next as soon as you can. This speed of clicking is necessary for Blackberries which go into an infinite reboot loop. You just have a few seconds to catch it and prevent it from going into an infinite loop. If you miss once, goto step 1 and try again. You dont have to worry about the speed if you phone is not suffering from the infinite reboot loop.

4. Follow the screen instructions and you will reach a screen that shows the list of applications to install. To reinstall the OS, select "Blackberry 6.0.0 System Software" or whatever is applicable to you. You may also select optional packages. You can ignore all the language packs not applicable to you.

That's all. Have fun.

Here is a youtube video on how to do this:



Download your favorite apps from the blackberry store. The best free apps are those that were developed by "Research in Motion". They are here.

Note: You can find Google maps from their blackberry download site. To install Google maps, visit this URL in your phone's browser: m.google.com/maps

Happy reinstalling.//

Yes, they have discontinued to support Google Desktop since last month. I have been using Google desktop for several years now and have always flaunted it to my colleagues. Of late, I have started seeing that it wasnt functioning very well. It failed to index several of my emails and today I uninstalled but I cant find it on their site any more. Anyways, if I search hard, I could find one, but it want working well any more.

Last month I tried Windows Desktop search but did not find it useful. It started using a lot of CPU and memory when my desktop starts and randomly in between. I also changed the way I search for files in Explorer. Maybe some people like it, but I found it counter-intuitive and not very helpful. I should not be required to learn to use a search operation.

But I require a search engine on my desktop, specially for my Outlook and I am again trying Xobni for Outlook. I saw a few of my colleagues using it. I gave it a try last year, but due to Google desktop I did not use it much. The first impression of Xobni is spectacular. The speed at which it shows results is impressive. Only time will tell if it can search stuff that I need.

Happy searching.//

I reinstalled my PC a few days back and reinstalling all my apps was a pain. Today I come across this free software manager called Ninite which I think I will try next time to install all my apps in 1 shot. Sounds promising.

Happy Niniting.//