In an earlier post [ Compare the UK iPhone price war: O2 vs Orange vs Tesco] we compared the actual price of an iPhone in the UK on the three carriers. Today, Vodafone released its tariffs for the iPhone. The question remains that whether the fourth addition to the iPhone carrier range really adds value for the customer or is it just yet another player which doesn’t add any significant change.
The data download limit for Vodafone remains capped at 1GB per month. Compared to the Orange data plan which allows 750MB download per month, it is not much of an improvement. But what about everything else? Let’s find it out.
Right, so here we are with not one, but three official carriers who are providing the iPhone in the UK [ unlike the US, where AT&T still has the exclusive rights]. We had O2 originally who were the sole carriers in the UK, but when the contract between O2 and Apple expired this year in November, Orange sprung into action. Yet, the rate and plans revealed by Orange for the iPhone were of no noticeable change than the ones of O2.
And now, UK’s biggest retail supermarket – Tesco – in partnership with O2, is posing as the third official carrier of the iPhone in the UK. The rate plans were released today [ visit: Tesco iPhone website]
So which one of the three is actually the one to look out, or has anything changed at all? Has the addition of 2 more players in the iPhone market brought any real value addition for the customer. We’ll try to answer that question with comparative spreadsheets of the various rate plans. Hit the jump to view the spreadsheet.

This is a long overdue review since the Sky Player was released on the XBOX 360 for UK users on the 28th of October. Well, I have been keeping busy. But nevertheless, I am here writing this review. Sky player’s introduction into the Xbox could be a major game-changer in terms of sheer innovation, control, and distribution channels that this medium opens up, and the game console can finally state as it has arrived. Frankly because, Sky is certainly the lion’s shareholder when it comes to Cable and Satellite TV distribution. All the major sporting events – Sky Sports; Movie channels – Sky; TV Entertainment – Sky 1 shows – House, Fringe, Modern Family and Stargate Universe amongst others. So there is no denying that Microsoft did choose the right partner to collaborate with. But does the Sky Player meet all the expectations or does it disappoint? The answer is a mixture of both.
After the Jump, Full Review of the Sky Player on the XBOX 360 including screenshots.
IMDb just turned 19. Yes, Techcrunch’s article reveals that the IMDb is actually older than the web browser. There’s a long ass explanation to that, which we’ll not be discussing here. But certainly, in these 19 years of web existence, IMDb is one of the most visited websites and also synonymous to the Wikipedia for movie lovers like me. We do have other ’superior’ movie rating systems such as Metacritic or Rottentomatoes, but IMDb totally belongs to the viewer’s rating and is not limited to critics. And hence, IMDb movie ratings are often considered to be closer to the taste of the audience.
The obvious utility of IMDb is that it is the largest compilation of movies and is not limited to just Hollywood or for that matter Bollywood. Every movie lover I know goes to IMDb first to check out if a movie is worth watching or not, or even to just have a look at initial reactions of audiences on a movie. So, for world cinema lovers, this is the one stop to gather information on movies. But other than the obvious use of viewing a movie’s ratings, what are the other ways that you use IMDb for? I have listed a couple of them below.
In the past couple of months of working on Excel and VBA Macros, I have been exposed to a few challenges which in the course of time, I have overcome. So, I thought I would share them with my beloved readers. This section: Excel Tips aims at sharing the small tips and tricks that I have come across which makes life easier for anyone working with Excel or VBA Macros. Cheers!
Here we’ll be focussing on how to select a range dynamically and perform further operations to it etc.
For e.g. If we have a Sheet “Input” of which one cell is required say column B, and we need to perform some kind of mathematical operation on them – viz. average, sum, etc. we need to do that by selecting the entire range of non-empty values of those two cells.
The problem here is that the number of entries in column A will vary from time to time, but we want a command button which automatically knows the amount of non-empty values and accordingly runs the mathematical operation. This is known as Dynamic Range Selection.
This post should not be considered as just a mere rant. This actually works for job interviews and in my experience of the few that I have attended, it has certainly got the positive attention of the recruiter. So, how does it work? By definition, blogging can be at different levels – personal – which is focussed on personal likes/dislikes etc and hence, is already driven by some niche. The other end of blogging is – professional blogging – which is primarily done by people who earn their bread and butter by means of blogging. Such are writers who majorly write about specific areas – such as Technology, Blogging, Making Money Online, Entertainment, Television, Pop culture etc. They are the next generation of press reporting, and arguably pose a threat to the traditional news reporting. Such is the impact that News reporters and the likes have resorted to Blogging online. So, coming back to the question is how does Blogging add value to one’s resume?