W3hobbyist

Web developers working with Indian devanagari language may face some issues while pulling out strings from the MySQL database. If not done correctly, one will get a series of question marks instead of the devanagari.

Solution:

Set the ‘collation’ of the database, table and column to ‘utf8_unicode_ci‘. Now, whenever you want to retrieve the unicode string, simply run the below given query before running the actual query to retrieve the unicode string.

mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'");//run this query first
$resource=mysql_query('SELECT book_title FROM hindi_marathi_books');

Thats it! Now use PHP to parse the strings as you like!

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On my road back from Mulund, I stopped near this newly-opened ice-cream shop “Darshan Icecream”. The guy there told me that the shop had opened just on 2nd March. Anyways, there are many flavours to choose - enough to confuse you ! I tried ‘mango-lichhi’ in cone. I loved it. It didn’t feel like just essence or a sugar solution, you could feel the milk in it too! I took a ‘hira-moti’ parcel to my home :D  . Some of the flavours are rich with dry-fruits - unlike some other ones where dry fruits are used only on the packing box where as the actual ice-cream contains very less amount of dry-fruit.

The only form of measurement is the ’scoop’. I you say half-a-liter parcel, he gives is 5 scoops — there is no way for me to know if the scoop is 100 ml or not.

The price is reasonable for the quality, through slightly on the higher side. There is no sugar-free icre cream for diabetics. The ice-cream is served either in cones or cups. There is no waffle cone.

The shop is located at : Shop no. 15, B wing, Gurunanak Co-Society, Daulat nagar, Thane(E), Mobile: 9702398254 . It is located along side the road from fire-brigade depot to Bharat School just besides the famous ‘Solanki’ bagwalla.

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Its almost 6 months that I have been using a Set Top Box (STB) from InDigital. My top-line cable operator is Incablenet (Hinduja TMT). CAS as such has not been implemented in my area(Thane East)–so I get almost 200 channels for Rs. 280 monthly. It used the MPEG-2 technology.

Installation-

The installation was easy and was done my my cable operator. There is no ‘dish antenna’ to be installed on the terrace or near the window. The STB can be placed just besides your TV. The input connection is the same co-axial that was earlier used to be plugged directly into the back of your TV. With STB, this cable input is fed into the STB. The output is drawn through 3 cables - 2 audio(L and R) and one for video–all of which are fed into the ‘AV input’  of your TV. The TV should be set to ‘AV’ mode. The STB required a ‘CAS card’ — its size is of a credit-card and functions like the mobile phone SIM card. Total time for installation is under 5 minutes.

Remote control-

The remote control is lean and decent in looks, unlike those fat and ugly remote controls I have seen with Reliance Big TV. Few buttons on the remote control are redundant. The keys could be confusing at times.

Switching on the STB-

After switching on, it takes around 10-15 seconds to ‘actually’ switch on. During this gestation duration, it just flashes the Incablenet logo. Then, it switches to the first channel no–101[Channels start from 101 as opposed to 1]. In some models, it switches to the last channel or the most viewed channel. Its seems that the STB keeps on learning your preferences(some models only).

Picture and sound quality-

The picture quality is remarkably better. The sound is crisp-clear. The co-axial cable needs to be well maintained-esp the pin that feeds the signal from co-axial into the STB. If this pin this rusted or loose-connected, the picture and sound may be scrambled[like a CD when it is scratched]. This caused a lot of annoyance initially until I replaced the pin.

Changing the channels-

Changing the channels is not so smooth. Every time you change to a new channel, it shows a black screen for some time(1 - 2 secs) and then the actual picture and audio can be seen. It is thus a pain and not user-friendly. There is a blue bar shown at the bottom of every channel which shows current time, the now running serial/movie name and that of next serial/movie. In some models, . These details in the blue bar do not get updated automatically. You need to escape that bar(ESC or OK button) and bring it up again to update again. This is another drawback.

Changing the volume-

This functions against your intuitions. The volume is relative to the main volume control of your TV set. The volume is set on per-channel basis. This means that though you may adjust the volume of one channel, you may need to re-adjust it when you change to another channel. Though once set for a particular channel, it remains at that level until you switch off the STB.

Channel listing and surfing-

Channels can be listed alphabetically or serially. When listed serially, the channels are grouped by their genre–i.e.–All music channels together, all finance channels together, etc. This genre grouping makes it easy to find closely related channels.

Radio-

Though many radio-stations are available, there are mainly regional and Govt.-run stations. Radio-stations from all over India are available. There is no FM/SW1/SW2/MW/AM/etc. switch. Stations from these frequencies are available under one-roof — serially one after the other.

Other utilities-

The only other utility I see is games. But I think these require a subscription in addition to my monthly cable Tv charges. There was no way I could use them so no review about it.

Miscellaneous:

The error codes are descriptive and understandable by the lay man. There is facility to lock channels, bookmark/favourite them. “Service messages” can be sent by the service providers(I have received 0 in the past 6 months) and there is an option for firmware upgrade.

[.::Screenshots coming soon::.]

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Unwanted 72 is Mankind Pharma’s version of Cipla’s popular post-coital emergency contraceptive pill - iPill. Unwanted 72 has the advantage of tapping into a readymade market most of which was created by Cipla’s iPill.

Anyways, there is something wrong with the ad. The ad starts with Tanaz Currim realizing that last night they had not used any protection. Bhaktiyar comes into the frame. His facial expressions are kind of blank. I think he should be anxious or panicky, etc…but his face is darn blank. Are the ad makers sure that they are projecting the correct message and not some other message?

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