Fraud Alert - Securecarrier Skillzindia

In first week of June 2018 I got call from mobile number 7289802552. Lady who called me said she is calling from Job consultancy and they would be offering assistance in Job search. I need to go online and make some payment. After that they would forward my resume to HRs in various companies and arrange interviews.

Although I was doubtful, but also had some hope so I agreed to do payment on Saturday (02 Jun 2018) by online method. On Saturday exactly at agreed time of 11 AM I got call from same mobile number asking if I can come online for payment. When I said yes, the lady said I would get call from her senior. After few minutes I got call from Man but from same mobile number. He sent link for payment (http://skillzindia.in/Payu_payments.php) through mail. I asked him to provide more details. As I was still in doubt. Then he sent another mail with link for their website (http://securecarrier.in/). After looking at website I felt it was genuine, so I made payment. But I said that I cannot make whole payment so I will make some payment later on Monday. The guy on phone was trying hard to make me do whole payment, but I said I cannot.

I was searching online is parallel for some clue whether this was any fraud, but until I made payment I did not not get any links suggesting it was fraud. After I made payment through PayTM gateway, the guy on phone confirmed that payment is received, and he will start further process and his recruitment team would contact me in 24-28 hours. As I feared and expected, I did not get any call for next 2-3 days. When I called above mentioned mobile number it was Switched off! I did reply to email which I received with payment and website links. But no reply for my emails.

So this is my request to all people, especially those who are desperately looking for job, that dont get trap into frauds who would be calling from Securecarrier or Skillzindia. Please spread this message to your friends and colleagues as well.

I don't know whom to contact regarding this fraud as I don't have any other details of that Guy and Lady who have cheated me. I was really stupid to not ask them their identity. But even if I had, I am sure they would have provided some fake details and as I was desperate for new job I got caught in their fraud!

Windows 10 for Phone (W10P) Technical Preview First Impressions on Lumia 830

I took risk and updated my Lumia 830 to Windows 10 for Phone Technical Preview. Since I don’t use my Lumia 830 as primary phone, so I was able to take risk, but I suggest readers that if you are going to try this on your primary phone, and keep another phone as backup in case your Lumia with W10P goes down.

Mention below some changes as well as issues observed with W10P on my Lumia 830.

I hope Microsoft address the issues present and provide updates for this issues soon.

Changes

·         Start Screen now has background Wallpaper. However Transparent Tile is not available.

·         More Tile size options are available. Now we have large tiles consisting of 4 medium size tiles, as well as Tall tile which is of 2 medium size tiles placed vertically. But I observed it working only for People tile.

·         App list background is transparent and can display Wallpaper.

·         Options for Apps in App list have grey background.

·         New installed Apps are on Top.

·         Clock App is replaced with Alarms which has option to set Alarm, but now also include World Clock, Stopwatch and Timer. So no need to install separate apps for these features now.

·         Settings Menu now has categories like System, Devices, Personalization, etc.

·         Keyboard is provided with Virtual Stick to move cursor inside text. But it appears only in some app.

·         Phone dialer is now sleek and number buttons are smaller then earlier. Not sure if this is because I am using high resolution phone or it will be for all phones. But I would have preferred bigger buttons for dial-pad.

Issues

·         Back button does not work from App list. So to go back from App list, we have to touch Start key.

·         Back button also does not work while customizing tiles. We have to touch Start key to exit tiles customization.

·         UI transition is not smooth, and some UI elements persist e.g. every time when we pull down Action center, some UI elements are displayed for few moments.

·         Glance Screen settings are not accessible. Even if I updated Glance screen app, I cannot open settings for Glance Screen from “Extras” in Settings.

·         Live Tile for Photo App has option to set only recent photos to be displayed in Start Screen.

·         Photo App is incomplete and we cannot view photos from Albums or Folder.

·         Data Sense options to set limit were disabled for me. So I was not able to set limit for data usage on my prepaid 3G mobile internet.

Windows Phone Cortana in India

After applying WP8.1 GDR1 (Developer Preview), Cortana is available in India. But to use Cortana, we need to configure Speech language as English UK (or English US).

Cortana is not able to respond any voice commands. Perhaps it is not yet able to recognize Indian accent.

Below are some screenshots taken from Cortana.

What information is Cortana gathering in non-US region Windows Phone?

I am running WP8.1 Developer's Preview OS on my Lumia 620. I have set my phone for India region, and never changed to US region to check Cortana or any other features.
Yet today while checking Data Sense, I saw that few data was consumed by Cortana as "Cortana: Info gathering".

Just wondering what information could be Cortana gathering. Hope its not spying on my phone ;)

Samsung Omnia W receives 2nd WP7.8 Update (7.10.8862.144)

After reading news about Microsoft seeding WP7.8 to fix Live Tiles issue, I immediately connected my phone to Zune to check update. And Surprise! There was update available message displayed on Zune without any internet disconnection method needed this time.

Zune displayed that new update 7.10.8860.142 is available for my Omnia W. Before checking for update I had only put my phone to Airplane mode to disable all wireless connection like 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth. Later I followed instructions on Zune to complete the first update.

After first update was complete, another update available message was displayed. 2^nd update 7.10.8862.144 was downloaded and installed.

I hope Live Tiles issue is fixed with this update. AccuWeather, NDTV and ESPNCricinfo apps live tiles seem to be working. But we need to check more if any more issues are not present.

OS Version: 7.10.8862.144
Firmware revision number: 2424.12.04.3
Hardware revision number: 23.15.0.8
Radio software version: 0424.12.3.1
Radio hardware version: 0.0.0.900
Bootloader version: 6.4.25.0
Chip SOC version: 0.74.2.1

So only OS Version number is changed, when compared to previous update.

Given below are the screenshots for upgrade process done on 15 March 2013.

 

Nokia Lumia WP8 Comparison from 520 to 920

To all of you who are looking to purchase Nokia’s WP8 Lumia lineup, here is my attempt to summarize the features offered by Nokia Lumias 520 to 920. I have taken data “as available” from www.gsmarena.com website which lists all specifications of these hansdsets.

If you look at the feature comparison, no doubt Lumia 920 is best handset available. If somebody is looking for handset with 4G/LTE support, 920 and 820 are best options available. If you want to store more data in form of songs or movies, 820 or 720 are best options as both of these support external memory card, which is not available in 920. For entry level phones, for anybody to try (at cheap price) WP8, 620 and 520 are also good options. But 520 and 620 doesn’t support Wireless charging, and these phones don’t have mention of Carl Zeiss lens for camera.

So if you are planning to purchase Nokia Lumia WP8 handset, I hope my chart is useful :)

Nokia Corp. WP apps for Non-Nokia Windows Phones

Today when I visited Windows Market Place on my Samsung Omnia W, I was surprised to see “Nokia Corp.” apps listed. 3 apps Nokia Pulse Beta, Nokia Phone Recycler and Saving calculator are listed. I am not sure when Nokia Corp apps were added in Windows Marketplace. Besides I didn’t find any of these app really exciting. It would have been better if Nokia release their apps like Maps or Transport for all Windows Phone (even if paid version), then many WP users would go for this apps.

I was able to download and install Nokia Pulse Beta app successfully.

 
Link for Nokia Corp apps on Windows Phone Marketplace.