BSNL 3G: How To Recharge Online

So you have a BSNL prepaid 3G card and don't know how to recharge it online? Here's how you can do it.

1. Visit BSNL's website http://www.bsnl.co.in/
2. Look out for the link(looks like the picture below!) for "Online recharge Topup, Flexi topup", click on it. Or click here if you can't find it there.

3. Sign up by visiting http://portal.bsnl.in/portal/aspxfiles/registration.aspx if you do not already have a login.
4. Login to recharge site using your login and password. You should see something like this screenshot.
   
5. Choose the recharge or topup option based on your need. The data recharge and data topup options are similar to voice recharge and voice topup respectively. i. e.,
1. BSNL 3G Data Topup: You get only extra data recharge and no extension to your validity!
2. BSNL 3G Data Recharge: This options gives you both. Validity and data recharge. 
6. Enter your 3G sim number. If you are using your 3G SIM with a data card, you are not likely to remember your 3G number. Double check the number by checking it from BSNL 3G application on your computer.
7. Select the amount you want to recharge or topup your 3G mobile with.
   
   The numbers you see in the drop down do not make much sense! Unless you are familiar with BSNL 3G recharge plans, their validity and how much data you get to use in each plan.
   Go to their 3G website to learn more about the plans. Pick your plan and select the amount.
8. Click on the Submit button to proceed for payment.
9. Choose a payment method in the following page. They support bank transfers, Debit cards and credit cards.
10. Go ahead with online payment just like the way you usually do.
11. Take a print out of the receipt or save it on your computer for future reference.
12. Continue to use your 3G card/mobile.

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           Related Link

• BSNL Offers

How To Disable Facebook's Tag Suggestions

Yesterday Facebook rolled out a new feature called Tag Suggestions.

According to a blog post on The Facebook Blog, this is what the feature is all about:

"When you or a friend upload new photos, we use face recognition software—similar to that found in many photo editing tools—to match your new photos to other photos you're tagged in. We group similar photos together and, whenever possible, suggest the name of the friend in the photos."

Not surprisingly, this Face Recognition feature is enabled by default! This may be useful for some people who upload photos in bulk and tag everybody in every picture.

For others, if you don't want Facebook to automatically detect your face and suggest tag to friends, here's how you can disable this feature. It's very simple! (takes only 7 clicks!)

1. Click on Account 
2. Click on Privacy Settings
   
   

   

   Privacy Settings page

3. Click on Customize settings
   
   
   
4. Scroll down to "Things others share" section. Click on the Edit Settings next to
   Suggest photos of me to friends
   When photos look like me, suggest my name
   
   
   
5. Click on Enabled and change it to Disabled
6. Click on Okay to save that setting.
7. Congratulations! Now you can continue with your Facebooking, or whatever else you were doing before coming here :-)

How To Create a Facebook Page For Your Blog

If you like to create a platform for all your blog readers to know each other and discuss about your blog,  Facebook Page is a good start. You can create a Facebook page for your blog. That will not only help your existing readers to network with each other, but also to easily share your blog posts on Facebook and increase readership. After creating the Facebook Page, you can create a 'Like box' and add it to your blog so that people who visit your blog can find the link to your facebook page and can 'Like' your page without leaving your blog.

I just created a Facebook page for this blog. You can find the page here.

Now I will share how to do it.

First you need to create a Facebook page for your blog. Do the following:

1. Login to your Facebook account. Scroll down to the end of the page. Click on the "Create a Page" link
   
   OR
   Click here to go start creating facebook page.
2. Facebook will ask you to choose a category for your page. As of now, it has  6 categories at the top level. Choose "Brand or Product". I chose this because, this is the only category that had 'website' sub-category!
3. Choose 'website' as sub category.
4. Enter the name of the page. Keep it same as the title of your blog so that people can recognize it easily! (I used "My Life My Way")
   
   
   
   
5. Now your page is ready! And you can see it has URL of it's own.
6. Click on Edit info link to fill in details about your blog.
7. Write a brief description in "Description" field.
8. important: Paste the link to your blog in the "Website:" field. (http://sandeepaonlife.blogspot.com/)

After this, you can follow the steps on your page to..

1.  Add a profile image
2. Invite your friends
3. Tell your fans
4. Post status updates
5. Promote this Page on your website
6. Set up your mobile phone

Now that we have a facebook page, let's see how to add a 'Like box' to your blog.

1. Click on the "Add Like Box" button.
2. In the page that shows up, customize the Like Box for your blog
1. Change the URL to point to your newly created facebook page
2. Change the width of the widget if you want
3. Pick a color scheme (to match your blog's theme)
4. My Like Box looked something like this.



My Like Box Looked like this

5. As you customize your like box, verify the changes in the preview.
6. Once you are happy with your customization, click on "Get Code" button.
3. Get the code for the widget (copy it to clip board)
   

   
   

   
   

   

4. Add it to your blog(Steps for Blogger blogs.)
1. Login to your blogger account
2. Goto "Design" tab of your blog 
3. Click on the "Add a Gadget" link
4. Choose HTML/JavaScript
   

5. Paste the code you copied in step 3 above
6. And save the widget!
7. Congratulations! Now you have Like Box for your Facebook page integrated to your blog.
   (You can see the Like Box on the right side of this blog. You can see it working! )

If you run into any problem/errors during this, share it in comments. I would be happy to assist.

How to generate a random string in java

Want to generate a random alpha-numeric string in Java? Here's how you can do it.
If you are into coding, sooner or later you will run into this!

There are many ways to do it. Here's the one I used recently in my code.

import java.security.SecureRandom;
import java.math.BigInteger;

SecureRandom srandom = new SecureRandom();
String rand = new BigInteger(176, srandom).toString(32);
/* and you have your random string in 'rand' */

What random libraries/functions do you use?
Write in comments.

How to display Ads on your blog using Google AdSense

You might have heard about people making money by displaying ads on their blogs using services like Google AdSense.

If you have a Blogger blog, setting up AdSense is fairly simple. Just follow these steps.

Step 1:

          Sign up for Google AdSense. The approval may take anywhere between few hours to many days. 

Step 2: Once you have an activated AdSense account,

• Login to Blogger.
• Goto Monetize tab of your blog by clicking on Montize from your blogger dashboard.

• 

  Monetize link in Dashboard

  In 'Adsense overview' tab, configure how and where you want the ads to appear.

Configure ads

• Choose/login to your adsense account that you created in step 1.
• And you are done! Now you track the ad statistics from this tab! Congrats :)

Track your earnings!

P.S: I just did this to my blog.

Facebook addiction : Too Much

If you are on Facebook, I am sure you will find this hilarious 

The 76-year-old woman walked down the hallway of Clearview Addictions Clinic, searching for the right department. She passed signs for the "Heroin Addiction Department (HAD)," the "Smoking Addiction Department (SAD)" and the "Bingo Addiction Department (BAD)." Then she spotted the department she was looking for: "Facebook Addiction Department (FAD)."

It was the busiest department in the clinic, with about three dozen people filling the waiting room, most of them staring blankly into their Blackberries and iPhones. A middle-aged man with unkempt hair was pacing the room, muttering,"I need to milk my cows. I need to milk my cows."

A twenty-something man was prone on the floor, his face buried in his hands, while a curly-haired woman comforted him.

"Don't worry. It'll be all right."

"I just don't understand it. I thought my update was LOL-worthy, but none of my friends even clicked the 'like' button."

"How long has it been?"

"Almost five minutes. That's like five months in the real world."

The 76-year-old woman waited until her name was called, then followed the receptionist into the office of Alfred Zulu, Facebook Addiction Counselor.

"Please have a seat, Edna," he said with a warm smile. "And tell me how it all started."

"Well, it's all my grandson's fault. He sent me an invitation to join Facebook. I had never heard of Facebook before, but I thought it was something for me, because I usually have my face in a book."

"How soon were you hooked?"

"Faster than you can say 'create a profile.' I found myself on Facebook at least eight times each day -- and more times at night. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night to check it, just in case there was an update from one of my new friends in India . My husband didn't like that. He said that friendship is a precious thing and should never be outsourced."

"What do you like most about Facebook?"

"It makes me feel like I have a life. In the real world, I have only five or six friends, but on Facebook, I have 674. I'm even friends with Juan Carlos Montoya."

"Who's he?"

"I don't know, but he's got 4,000 friends, so he must be famous."

"Facebook has helped you make some connections, I see."

"Oh yes. I've even connected with some of the gals from high school -- I still call them 'gals.' I hadn't heard from some of them in ages, so it was exciting to look at their profiles and figure out who's retired, who's still working, and who's had some work done. I love browsing their photos and reading their updates. I know where they've been on vacation, which movies they've watched, and whether they hang their toilet paper over or under. I've also been playing a game with some of them."

"Let me guess. Farmville?"

"No, Mafia Wars. I'm a Hitman. No one messes with Edna."

"Wouldn't you rather meet some of your friends in person?"

"No, not really. It's so much easier on Facebook. We don't need to gussy ourselves up. We don't need to take baths or wear perfume or use mouthwash. That's the best thing about Facebook -- you can't smell anyone. Everyone is attractive, because everyone has picked a good profile pic. One of the gals is using a profile pic that was taken, I'm pretty certain, during the Eisenhower Administration. "

"What pic are you using?"

"Well, I spent five hours searching for a profile pic, but couldn't find one I really liked. So I decided to visit the local beauty salon."

"To make yourself look prettier?"

"No, to take a pic of one of the young ladies there. That's what I'm using."

"Didn't your friends notice that you look different?"

"Some of them did, but I just told them I've been doing lots of yoga."

"When did you realize that your Facebooking might be a problem?"

"I realized it last Sunday night, when I was on Facebook and saw a message on my wall from my husband: 'I moved out of the house five days ago. Just thought you should know.'"

"What did you do?"

"What else? I unfriended him of course!"
--
P.S: Got it from a friend in email. Thought this forward email is worth sharing here.

Syntax Highlighting for Blogs

Code snippets inside blog posts can be very difficult to read if they are written using normal font.

Consider the following piece of code.

int i, sum=0;
for(i=0; i<n; i++)
{
sum = sum + i;
}
Code without any special formatting.


HTML <pre>...</pre> and <code>...</code> can be used to preserve the white spaces and long lines.
Here's the same code put inside a <pre><code> block..

int i, sum=0;
for(i=0; i<n; i++)
{
    sum = sum + i;
}

Structure of the code preserved using <pre> & <code>

This version looks much better than the first one. The monospaced text makes it easier to read.

However, this is not enough. These generic <pre>&<code> do not highlight the keywords in the code snippet. This is where Syntax Highlighting comes into picture.

Syntax highlighting is a feature of some text editors that display text—especially source code—in different colors and fonts according to the category of terms. This feature eases writing in a structured language such as a programming language or a markup languageas both structures and syntax errors are visually distinct. Highlighting does not affect the meaning of the text itself; it's made only for human readers/editors. (Read more on Wiki..)

Let us apply Syntax Highlighting to the above code.

int i, sum=0;
for(i=0; i<n; i++)
{
    sum = sum + i;
}

Now, this looks much better! This is achieved using a third party Syntax Highlighter plugin.
There are many plugins and other tools available on the internet for Syntax Highlighting.

I am using SyntaxHighlighter for this blog. I chose this because it's easy to use and supports many languages. Will talk about plugin integration with blogger in my next post.


Cheers,
Sandeepa Nadahalli