Set top box and DTH Set top box difference. Things to consider while buying Set top box in India

In India, after digitization, TV transmission is going change. This change in TV transmission will start from 1^st July 2012 in 4 metro cities of India. With respect to this announcement, customers in India will have to choose either “Direct To Home (DTH) set top box” or “Cable set top box”. Of course It is customer who is going to get benefitted out of this change. However, I saw that, there are many people who are confused about this change and don’t know what are the important points to be considered before buying DTH or Cable set top box. Following are the few points I feel one should consider while going for purchase of Set Top Box in India. First of all let’s understand digitization.

What is Digitization of TV services –

TV signals are currently distributed in India in analog format as well as digital format. Most cable operators within country provides analog format TV services whereas all DTH operators provide digital format TV services. Digitization means that all household TV sets using cable services would receive digital TV signal through Set Top Box. As a part of digitization every cable operator will be legally bound to transmit digital signals, which can be received at subscribers home through set top box only.

Comparing DTH and Cable Service at high level-

At high level if we compare DTH and Cable set to box, then I will say DTH is better. Because, DTH receives signal directly from satellite and reach to the TV through Set top Box; hence the picture quality is extremely good. However, the primary requirement of DTH is, the sky should be clean else disturbance in signal is observed. Signal disruption is a common problem in rainy season in India. Also DTH is costly and few may not find suitable financially. Cable set top box is attached to TV using fiber wires and it is cheaper as compared to DTH service.

DTH providers in India are Dish, Airtel, Sun, Videocon whereas for cable connection in Mumbai, we have Hathway cable, In cable, DigiCable, Den Cable providers. All these DTH and cable providers work as per rules and regulations set by TRAI however, quality of services will vary depending on the company network capabilities.

Windows Azure – Shared Access Signature for Azure Blob Storage Container

My client has amazing chemical gotcha in his mind. One moment he says something and next moment he asks me to do exactly opposite of it.

Anyways, He asked me to create a Private container in Windows Azure Blob storage and then asked me to give rights to access the container for 1 hour. This is where I came to know about creating Shared Access Signature for Blob Storage. Shared Access Signature can be used in scenarios Azure Blob Storage container is private & still you want to give access to it for certain time duration say 10 days.

Following is the example how Share Access Signature can be created for Windows Azure Blob Storage container and how you can retrieve data from it. For demo purpose I am using development storage. As usual, let’s create a simple cloud service project and add a sample web role in it. Then add a page SharedAccessPolicyDemo.aspx in the web role. I added 2 buttons & few labels on the page to create Shared Access Signature for a private container and access data present in the blob. My final Solution structure is as follows –

Page design is as follow -

HTC one V – an android 4.0 powered smart phone from HTC - Features and Review

In the field of smart phone, along with BlackBerry, one more company penetrated deep in the market. The name is HTC. Initially, in the starting age, “smart phones mean HTC” was the trend. After that, Samsung and other few companies stepped into smart phone and HTC had gone on back foot. Now HTC is trying to rise again with new series of smart phones.

Great things in Small Packages

HTC describes their new smart phone HTC one V as “Great things in small Packages”. Main change in HTC 1 V lies in the size!!! The new HTC one V is rectangle in shape however corners are curved. Because of this curvature HTC one V has become easy to hold in hand.

Display

 It's a 3.7in LCD panel with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. The only downside is that the surface is less oleo phobic (lacking affinity for oils) than other smart phone screens so fingerprints are more vivid.

 

Using SQL Azure for Session State Management in Windows Azure Applications

We all know that, Inproc session management will not work in WindowsAzure. I am going to explain you how SQL Azure can be used for maintaining session state in Windows Azure Web Role Applications.

To start with let’s create a simple cloud service project in VS2010 and add a web role in it. Then I opened master page and changed the heading to “Session Management using SQL Azure Demo”. Open default.aspx and add a button and textbox. Input text written by user in textbox will be saved in session on the button click and on another button click it will be populated in label. Code on both the buttons is as follows –

protected void btnAddSession_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {

            Session["Value"] = txtValue.Text;

        }

        protected void btnGetSession_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {

            lblValue.Text = Convert.ToString(Session["Value"]);

        }

So my final solution structure and default.aspx layout is as follows –