Dell Optiplex 980 Amber Power Button and Not Starting - Solution Found !

Two days ago my home computer which is a Dell Optiplex 980 failed to power on and blue LED in the power button was showing Amber and the usual sequence of power on self check and sequence of blinking numbers did not appear.

I trying power cycling and the status was the same. Looked behind the computer and the power supply unit's indicator was green. Then I recalled that last time when the machine had started the clock was reset to an older date and there was a possibility that the onboard CMOS battery would have drained. Typically a drained CMOS battery would not stop a machine from booting but it would be a thing worth trying. 

Opened up the unit, removed the CMOS button cell CR2032 and replaced it from a new one from my stock of batteries. After that the computer powered on, the amber in power button was back to blue, machine did initial configuration and powered on. I set the date to current date rebooted it once more to check that every thing works. I breathed a sigh of relief.

E-Commerce in India - Players review based on my Personal Experiences

E-Commerce has come a long way in last few years in India. From the days, few years ago when Flipkart and eBay were the prime players, entry of Amazon around a year back and a large number of small to medium size players have also been helping shape the industry and customer experiences.

I had shared my earlier E-Commerce Website Experiences since 2012 through various posts including the summary post.  I have continued to shop online for my home shopping needs from clothes to electronics, also I am an active user of bill payment services and now thought of sharing my recent experiences and my feedback.

Amazon has been giving a tough competition to both Flipkart and eBay. Snapdeal, HomeShop18 have also been growing. Specialty Fashion portals like Jabong and Myntra (acquired by Flipkart earlier in year 2014), grocery sites like BigBasket.com also have been doing brisk business by offering convenience of delivery of products at doorstep.

There is also online presence by Brick and Mortar stores like ezone and Croma which some times offer good deals on products.

Overall experience have been reasonably positive dealing with most of these sites and I did not have any horrifying experience like I had earlier with  Letsbuy.com when they delivered my a used LED TV.

Primarily I shop on Amazon, Flipkart and eBay. All three are currently a platform for thousands of sellers to sell their products. Flipkart sells and promotes products listed by their subsidiary WS Retail, which they list as one of the sellers.

Experience incident from Flipkart

Experience with Flipkart has been good with products purchased from their own selling subsidiary WS Retail. They also have one or two days guaranteed delivery option with certain products in large cities. In February 2014 I had ordered Moto G phone with a guaranteed delivery option and when it got delayed by a day they refunded me double the amount of Rs99 they had charged for expedited delivery (total of Rs99x3 refunded including amount I had paid). To my surprise after few days they also sent a sorry card along with a free Bluetooth headset as a goodwill gesture. I had not experienced such customer service in India at least. That is what is called causing delight to customer even when one of the commitments was not met.

Experience incident from Amazon

Experience with Amazon India has been good and they over last one year have given touch competition to Flipkart and other retailers. Items I purchased from Amazon include books, clothes, sporting goods, electronics and electrical items. Although they all have been sold by different sellers but "fullfilled by Amazon" and they have done well in terms of delivery in good condition within committed timelines. 

Motorola Moto G 16GB Dual SIM XT1033 Indian Retail Version - Ownership Review - Android KitKat 4.4.2 Update

Moto G got launched on 6th Feb 2014 in India and placed the order on first day on Flipkart. Got the phone in hand on 8th Feb. Amount paid for 16Gb version including taxes for this unlocked phone is Rs 13999 which is around USD 225. 

Manufacturer - Motorola Mobility Technologies China Ltd. Tianjin China
Date of import (by Flipkart India) - Jan 2014
Maximum Retain Price (as per box) - Indian Rupees (Rs) 14499.

I also made a small video of this showing box contents. 

Box contents picture - 

Moto G Phone and Included accessories in box for India

Package contains only the phone, ear phones and USB charger. No USB cable is included in this Indian version.

Note that FCC id mentioned on package is IHDT56PF1 

FCC report is available at FCC Report Link.

My initial views on using the phone for few days are positive. 

Screen is sharp. There is no lag in performance with the quad core, 1GB RAM inside. Internet browsing, WiFi performance is good so far.

Phone build quality is good. far better compared to many phones in this price range. Curved body feels good in hand. the metal buttons provided for power and volume control feel good and solid.

Battery is not user replaceable.

Few pictures of the product. 

Non Glossy Textured Back of Moto G

Back of Moto G phone with back cover removed. two IMEI numbers listed for Dual SIM support

Label - saying that battery is not user removable.

Right side view of Moto G with cover removed. This side has SIM2 slot

Buttons are metallic and feel solid

Moto G SIM 2 Slot. Micro SIM is needed.

Moto G - SIM 1 Slot. 

Update to Android 4.4.2 KitKat.

Moto G in India within a week of launch of product received the Android 4.4.2 KitKat update. Here are the product screenshots for the original 4.3 version. update notification and updated version.

Note that the download size is 230.7MB for the version here in India. Not sure if it is same in different geographies.

Moto G Original SW Version Android 4.3 shown in screenshot 

Moto G KitKat update notification screen showing size of the download.

Moto G Screenshot showing updated Android version 4.4.2

Updates - After 2 plus weeks of usage.

I have added the white color flip case that works very well and protects the phone. Switches off and locks the screen when flip cover is closed. 


Phone performance has been good so far. No significant issues on lag or slowness.

Some of the apps which I have added so far include- 

1. Official Chromecast App for use with my Chromecast device 
2. AllCast - again to cast media from my phone with Chromecast device
3. Open Mic+ for Google Now style voice controls and search. 
4. Pedometer app - Noom Walk
5. Kindle App
6. WhatsApp
7. Viber
8. Skype
9. Twitter
10. eBay and Amazon shopping Apps
11. CamScanner for scanning documents through pictures/camera
12. Facebook
13. Lync 2010
14. iPP podcast player

and few games all of which work very well.

Moto G Flip Case Retail Packing

Sample Pictures taken by Moto G

Moto G sample picture - Outdoor in day light

Moto G sample picture - In basement with flash

Moto G sample picture - Evening twilight at a school event

Moto G sample picture - Evening Twilight - Panorama at a school event

Pioneer - MVH-X169UI - 2014 Car Stereo Review and Error - 19 Resolution for USB

Got this Pioneer - MVH-X169UI from Pioneer's 2014 car entertainment line. It is a USB player with Mixtrax, USB direct control for ipod/iphone and certain android phones. It is a unit without any disc drive. So no CD/DVD supported.

Product Features

MIXTRAX (MIXTRAX EZ for Quick Non-Stop MIX Play)
USB Direct Control for iPod/iPhone (Optional Cable Required)
Android MTP -USB Direct Control for Certain Android Phones
Bright USB Port (Front: High Current 1A Handling Capability)
AUX Input (Front)
MP3/WMA/WAV Playback
Advanced Sound Retriever
RCA Preout x 1 (2 V)
5-Band Graphic EQ
Detachable Face Security

USB
DEVICE USB
DECODE(FORMAT)14*WMA/MP3/WAV(4)
LIST SEARCH (File/Folder/iPod)

AUX - 1(Front)
iPod INTERFACE - YES(USB)
ILLUMINATION(COLOR) RED (Single color)

DISPLAY
DEVICE - LCD(NEGA)
COLOR - BLACK BACK(NEGA)
There is no brightness or contrast adjustment

Installed it in car. I have a simple set up with only two front speakers and so installation was easy. Just had to connect wires matching with the description and color coding (only connections required were)
1. Main battery (Yellow)
2. Ground (Black)
3. Red (Ignition key power control)
4. White + White Black - Left front speaker connections
5. Grey + Greay Black - Right front speaker connections
6. Antenna coaxial connection for radio 

Error 19

Initial set up is just setting up the clock if you would like to set up clock. Then connected my iPhone and it worked flawlessly first time after connecting the iPhone USB cable to the unit. Later also tried a USB memory stick. It was an 8GB HP memory with around 3GB worth of music. It started reading but after few seconds later gave ERROR 19 message.

Looked at the manual and it says Error 19 is a communication error and Perform one of the operations
- Turn the ignition switch OFF and back ON.
- Disconnect the USB portable audio player/USB
- Change to a different source.
Then, return to the USB portable audio player/USB memory.

I tried all these few times but nothing seemed to help. Then I brought the USB to my Windows machine and did a scan / error checking to fix the file system and bad sector errors. Device was formatted originally to FAT32 which is OK. USB scan for error reported that there were few file system errors which are fixed. So after that I tried the USB device again in MVH-X169UI and it started working without any problems.

Photo of installed unit running from USB after resolving the Error 19

I did search on web and saw some people suggesting different bit rates settings, not using variable bit rate songs etc and also removing the tags information from songs to make it compatible. I did not do any of these things and atleast my problem got resolved just by scanning and fixing the file system errors.

This solution may or may not work for all but I hope this information is useful for some of the users.

Updates on WD TV Live and comparison to Google Chromecast usage in India (Bangalore)

I have been using WD TV Live on and off and also more recently got a Google Chromecast device also so thought of updating how WD TV Live and Chromecast experience have been for online applications, streaming from India.

For earlier usage reviews you can refer to my original post here.

WD Live TV 2011 model experience

WD has been updating firmware regularly and now there are many more applications available compared to what we had in 2011. There are changes within applications like YouTube, where now we can also control videos from mobile/tablets by pairing your device. This then becomes very similar to what we do with Chromecast for playing YouTube videos.

Good application additions to WD TV Live include Euro News (euronews), CinemaNow and also Red Bull TV.

Current list of active services on WD TV Live in Asia Pacific include -

1. Facebook
2. YouTube
3. AOL HD
4. SlingPlayer
5. Tweet by WD TV
6. Flixster
7. Euronews
8. Creepster.TV
9. PlayJam Games
10. TuneIn
11. RedBull TV
12. Shoutcast Radio
13. Vimeo
14. Picasa
15. Dailymotion
16. Live 265
17. Launchpad by Flingo
18. Accu Weather
19. Yupp TV
20. WSJ Live
21. Deezer
22. XOS College Sport
23. WatchMojo
24. Comedy Time
25. American Pop Classics
26. ADC
27. All Fitness TV
28. Asian Rush
29. Cook
30. CloudMe
31. Family TV
32. GoDigital
33. Great Movies
34. Manga
35. MBC America on Demand
36. Pop Flix Classic Movies
37. Pop Flix Classic TV
38. TG Toon Goggles
39. Vanguard
40. Snag Films
41. SEC Digital Network

One of the recent Firmware releases has been 1.16.13 and detailed release notes are available from WD support site .

Link to WD Support and Download page.

Current List of Applications on Chromecast from Wikipedia Chromecast Page.
Wikipedia Chromecast Page - list of Apps