Time to go smart and sleek with ASUS!

With technology improving by the day, it is totally unimaginable the power of electronic devices that are coming out in the market these days. I was a proud owner of a bulky assembled PC just a decade ago. It costed me a bomb but had a measly 512 MB hard disk drive with 256 MB RAM, which was too good a configuration at that time that I used to wonder why would anybody want anything more than that!! I recollect how it had a bulky tower CPU and a separate CRT monitor, both so huge that it occupied a entire computer table at that time. Add to it a keyboard, there was hardly any space left on the table even to keep my hand and work! But yes, good old times, they retired!!

Thanks to ever evolving electronics industry, times have changed within a decade! Now we have the most powerful and sleekest of products at an affordable budget price. I happened to come across two such products today - ASUS EeeBook X205TA and the Ultra-Portable ASUS All In One PC ET2040. When I bought my Google Nexus 7 tablet from ASUS last year, I was totally impressed by the build quality of the product and the power that is packed into that small unit. From that day, I added ASUS to my watch-list for new electronic gadgets in the market! Today when I saw ASUS All In One Desktop PC ET2040 product listing in the Amazon's page, I knew it's time to retire my three year old PC finally!!


Being a freelance travel photo/videographer, I shoot for a lot of photography assignments and individual projects. My workflow typically involves transferring GBs of images and videos into hard disk, first to process them on Photoshop before finalizing them and delivering it to my clients. Currently my PC with its 1 GB RAM totally struggles even while copying the image files and with limited hard disk capacity, I can't even copy all the files locally to edit. Then to load the Photoshop takes its own sweet time rest alone editing a bulk of them!! Of late I was looking for a good desktop alternative in the market and today when I saw the specifications of this ultra-portable desktop I am again impressed with ASUS. Apart from the obvious fact that it is very slim and does not occupy much space at all, there are many useful features that make everyday use of a desktop a pleasure but I am listing below some of my favorite features that is well suited for my lifestyle!

As a photographer, my eyes are always drawn on the display characteristics of the monitor I use. With it's crisp 19.5-inch HD widescreen display with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, ET2040 scores very well for my needs to edit photographs and videos. Widescreen display is a sure boost for editing landscape format photographs and LED backlight technology is guaranteed to produce amazing brightness, contrast and colors to the photographs. I am sure it will be a treat to watch the final edited cut directly on the monitor!

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With latest and greatest Intel processor (Quad Core J2900) with super-fast graphics (Intel HD), it will be effortless to run even a memory hogging editing software like Photoshop. With 2 GB RAM, I can effortlessly edit bulk of my photographs and videos at ease!

Another common problem in India is the power-cut. Nothing can be irritating like that unexpected power-cut coming your way while you are editing a photograph! All the work gone the drain completely. Thanks to the savior one hour smart backup that keeps things going even in case of a power-cut! Really really useful I say!

Next impressive thing is the availability of built-in HDMI-out port! I can now directly connect my HDTV to the PC to check out the final edited videos and watch it live! Talk about all the time consuming job of copying the edited version to a separate HDD and connecting that to the HDTV to watch the cut. Again doing modifications and repeating the same task all over again! This is such a blessing, definitely!

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With the availability of super-speed USB 3.0 ports, connecting my camera or my external hard disk drive and transferring images will be such a pleasure. Don't have to make a cup of coffee and wait for the transfer to complete slowly! These USB 3.0 ports can also doubly serve the purpose of charging the smartphones and tablets. I love it when multiple things can be done at a breeze.

Last but not the least hands free entertainment is another big big plus! With advanced Hand-Gesture Recognition Software (HGRS) that uses the built-in camera to accurately interpret movements, I can zoom and rotate photos from a distance, without even touching a screen, keyboard or mouse. I say it's a big plus because while watching the final cut, it will be very quick to zoom and check specific portions of the photograph to finalize it!

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By checking out all my list, this PC looks like tailor made for a serious photographer like me. But yes this is just touching the tip of the iceberg, features that are very much suitable for my needs. For more features about this desktop, click here.

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Ready to dare and win the date!

Valentine's day is just around the corner and the restless days are on to plan and make it as special as possible! But hey did you notice already? this year's valentine's day is on a Saturday, which means one could be together for the whole weekend! BIG isn't it? so without doubts one has to walk that extra mile to plan and make things simply extra special! And when I came across this prompt "If you had to propose to your crush on Valentine's day how would you do it?" for close-up cupid games initiative, I thought I would definitely share my dreamy idea here!

To start with, the bonus in my case is we have a lot of common friends and many of them already have a slight clue about my 'special' interest towards her :-) Also, since this year's valentine's day is conveniently falling over the weekend, I would simply plan a weekend trip to Goa with all of them! Boy, do I know already she loves Goa and the beaches?!! ;-)

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Saturday morning would be all about prepping her indirectly through brilliant clues leading to a fantastic evening! Starting with a fortune cookie delivered exclusively for her by a cute little pup [yup yup I know she loves dogs!! ;)] with message "This evening is going to be extra special to you!". And for the evening, I would arrange a beach-side barbecue party exclusively for us friends at one of her favorite beaches! Sssh.. secret .. I collected that info from her best friend already! ;-)

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Cold winter evening, star studded sky, moon peeping from behind the clouds, silent waves slowly touching the shore, live guitar music mildly playing in the background, warm bonfire and all of us sitting around it! Well .. how does it all sound? Yes, that would be my chosen setting for the evening at that secluded beach! Nothing is better than starting things in a regular-casual way. Of course, no fun making anyone nervous straight away right? I would let the evening progress on its own sweet pace - cracking jokes, making fun, preparing great bbq food with amazing drinks to accompany!

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When the tempo is high and everyone is at great mood enjoying the evening, I will have the musicians play her favorite tunes one after the other! Then at one point I will grab a guitar, walk straight up to her looking at her eyes, playing her most favorite tune (Yes, yes, it all takes a lot of groundwork to know things, you see!) and then kneel down in front of her to ask those few precious words that matter the most - 'Will you be my Valentine!!' :-)

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Given such a brilliant setting and mood, I am sure things will work out in my favor!! Oh wait, wait, now that's not the end of things there! If she accepts my proposal, which I am sure she will, I will hold her hands and slowly walk her up to a separate table a little distance away for a brilliant beach-side candle light dinner setup exclusively for the two of us!! Finally not to miss the flight over the beach with glowing letters that reads "Oh girl, he loves you so much!!" :-)

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Don't you think that would make things complete for a fantastic valentine's night together?? I am sure it will !!! :-)

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Speak out, when and where it matters!

"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth." 

~ William Faulkner

With this meaningful quote, I would like to introduce my readers to this new campaign by Strepsils called "AbMontuBolega". This campaign resonates the importance of "Voicing Out" our opinion when and where it matters! Yes, we have all read "Silence is golden" but that is not always true. Words that are not spoken loud at the right moment totally loses its worth whereas the right words spoken at the right moment is as beautiful as gold apples in a silver bowl! This campaign motivates people to open up and speak out loud against injustice done to them or to the society around them! Watch this video for starters.


We Indians are sadly trained for tolerance knowingly or unknowingly! We tolerate people urinating in our compound wall, someone drinking and making ruckus in the neighborhood. We don't take a single word against that rowdy collecting money illegally from the poor farmer selling vegetables or trying to molest a girl in the public etc etc. We have always been silent spectators! We like to just 'circle around and watch' things as they unravel. Why? We fear 'them', we don't want to mess with 'them', we are just common public, we don't have time and energy to fight them! Our system has been like this for ages now. Nobody wants a change and people who didn't want this change to happen in our society have already taken this to their advantage!

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If we need to blame someone for this situation, it is us and our wrongly developed tolerance for the injustice happening to us, right in front of our eyes. Why do we want that special 'someone' with superpowers to appear from somewhere and fight for us while we happily sit inside our air-conditioned house and continue to blame our system comfortably? Why are we still driven by the ideologies that our movies feeds us? Why don't we realize the reality is very different?

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Well unlike movies where there is a Hero like robin-hood who suddenly raise into power, fight against injustice and free public from their problems, in reality everyone needs to be a hero who voices against injustice and work together for a change that they want to see in the society! With the kind of rigid system we have already developed, this change is not possible until everyone makes their first move towards it before expecting others to cooperate and follow.

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Tomorrow when you notice someone littering the road, feel free to make them realize it is wrong and show them the direction towards the dust-bin! If you notice someone smoking in the public, make them realize none of the others are wishing to die of cancer. If you notice someone sexually abusing someone, try to stand out and fight against it. Boldly say NO to child labor and deny drinking tea from the tea stall or taking food from the hotel that employs child labor. Follow the traffic rules and make sure not to tolerate anyone who is trying to break the rules. Feel free to voice out your opinion when you know you are right! Let the public notice you. May you appear odd man out but don't feel shy about it. Remember heroes in the movie don't stand in the crowd and speak, they always take their first step out for them to be noticed as a "Hero"!

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So stand out and voice out like a Hero. The right time is here, waiting and complaining will not take us anywhere near the change we all dream about! Visit http://www.abmontubolega.com/ for more information about this campaign (#AbMontuBolega) and make sure to join them on Facebook and Twitter to voice out your opinion and most importantly BE HEARD!

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