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Nokia N1
Android tablet all set for Indian debut

So yes Nokia can't make phones till end of next year, but there's always the tablet space where they can focus and show off their manufacturing prowess on. And that's precisely what the Finnish handset maker intends to do pretty soon.

The brand showcased its N1 Android tablet earlier this year at the MWC 2015 and later it hit the shelves in China and now in all probability the device is set to be available for consumers in India as well. How can we be certain about that you ask? Well, the import data site, Zauba has been showing the listing of device which looks very similar to the make of N1 tablet.

Nokia N1 is the first-ever product to make use of Android platform which has been made in unison with China-based manufacturer behemoth, Foxconn. It sports an iPad mini-ish 7.9-inch form size with a display resolution of 2048x1536, reminiscent to that of Xiaomi Mi Pad.

Apart from the size and look of iPad Mini, the slate packs a quad-core Intel Atom CPU with 2GB RAM and offering built-in 32GB storage only. The tablet comes fitted with an 8MP rear snapper, while a 5MP front shooter isn't too shabby either. And last but not the least, N1 powered by Android 5.0 Lollipop comes loaded with a 5300mAh battery.

It will be interesting to have the tablet on our shores thereby bringing back the memories of a brand which was close to everyone's heart not that long ago. The tablet is priced at $249 (Rs 15,687 approx) and one can expect the numbers to be similar to that in the country, when announced.

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How to set up your Raspberry Pi in Linux

If you've never used Linux before, don't worry. It's just as easy to use as any other operating system, and in many ways, it's easier.

There are no drivers to chase and new applications are always installed through the Linux equivalent of an app store. And, as you're going to be installing and using Linux on your Raspberry Pi, it makes good sense to create your SD card from within a Linux environment.

It doesn't make the installation any better, but it gives you a great opportunity to try it out before plugging in your Raspberry Pi. We recommend Ubuntu, as it's ideal for beginners, but these instructions will work for nearly any other version of Linux - replace the Ubuntu Software Centre with your package manager of choice and ignore the desktop specifics.

Linux is also a good failsafe option, because it can be run from a live CD without installing anything. Just insert the CD and boot your machine from the optical drive. After a few moments, choose the 'Try Ubuntu' option from the menu, rather than 'Install'.

This will take you to the Ubuntu desktop without needing to install anything on your machine.

Getting started

The one problem with using the live CD for an installation is that you won't be able to download the Raspbian image. There isn't enough RAM allocated for storage space on the desktop session, so you'll need to download the image on to some external storage (but not the SD card we're using for the Raspberry Pi).

Users with Linux installed won't have to worry about this, and they can just download the latest image directly to their hard drive. With the image sorted, you should also check the state of your SD card.

Insert this into a card reader and it should appear on your desktop with a window for each partition on the drive. All this data will be lost when we install Raspbian, so you need to make sure there's nothing you want to keep.

As Ubuntu loads the contents of each partition, regardless of the way each partition is formatted, you can check every spare byte of your storage if you need to.

We're going to use a tool called ImageWriter as a graphical front-end for writing the Raspbian image. This can be installed from Ubuntu's Software Centre application, which can be launched by clicking on the basket icon in the launch bar. Search for 'imagewriter'.

A single result should be returned. Double-click on this and the next screen will announce this is available from the 'universe' source. This is an additional repository for software, and it's not enabled by default, but you need to click on the 'Use This Source' button to access it.

Wait for the progress button to finish updating the internal package list, then clear the search field and search for 'imagewriter' again. You should find that the package has been updated, and when you select it, an 'Install' button appears.

Click on this and the package will be downloaded and installed automatically. You might wonder why this worked when you're using a live CD, but the answer is that there's enough room in the memory to install quite a few packages, just not enough to hold the entire Raspbian image.

With ImageWriter installed and your SD card mounted, you're now ready for writing the Raspbian image to your card.

Write the Raspbian Image

ImageWriter needs to be launched with your SD card connected, otherwise it won't run and instead complain it can't find any storage. When the application window appears, you need give it one or two parameters.

The first is the location of the Raspbian image you want written to the USB stick, and the second is the device you wish to write the image to. It's the second that's most important because if you've got more than one device connected - such as to read the image off an external drive while you write it to the SD card - the wrong selection could overwrite your data.

Both Windows and OS X suffer from the same problem, but at least with Linux it will only let you choose an external USB storage device. It will also display the name of the manufacturer so you can be sure you've selected the correct device.

When you're ready, click on 'Write to device.' If you've got the correct one, the activity LED for the SD card should start flickering to indicate data is being written. If not, 'Close' the ImageWriter window as soon as possible to halt the process.

The write process can take a while, as it depends on the speed of your storage and USB ports. Ours took 15 minutes, but the progress indicator kept us updated, and when complete it was time to test the new SD card.

Unlike with both Windows and OS X, Linux is the only operating system that can read both of the partitions created by the write process.

The first is formatted with a Windows FAT filesystem and is almost 60MB in size. This is how the USB stick boots the Raspberry Pi, as this partition is read first before passing control on to the second partition. The second takes up the best part of 2GB and contains the root Linux filesystem.

As both of these partitions will be mounted when you next insert the SD card into Ubuntu, you'll be able to take a closer look at the files both partitions contain. The Linux one will be very similar to the desktop version of Ubuntu you might be running, and this is because they're both derived from the same 'parent' distribution, called Debian.

The home folder, for example, contains a user's own folder, where they can store their files and settings. Raspbian is pre-configured with only a single user, called 'pi', although this can be easily changed when you've got the distribution running, and you can see this folder and the files it contains when you click on 'Home'.

When you've finished, unmount the device from the file manager and insert the card into your Raspberry Pi.

Failsafe Install

There's one other method for installing Raspbian on the SD card, and we want to cover it because it's useful as a fallback. But this method does make it easy to accidentally overwrite your data, so we'd only recommend it if nothing else works.

This method involves the command line and the dd command. This takes a raw input and copies it - byte for byte - to another device. Get the destination device wrong, and you'll be overwriting a hard drive with your precious photos on it.

To get the device correct, first disconnect your SD card and look for and launch Terminal from Ubuntu. This will open the interface to the famous Linux command line, but it's really not all that difficult.

Now type tail -f /var/log/syslog and insert your SD card. What you're doing is displaying the output logs of the system, and you need to look for a line that looks like sdb: sdb1.

This means the system has detected a new device and given it a node on your file system of sdb (sdb1 is the first partition on sdb). There should be lots of other output as your Linux box attempts to read the filesystem and mount it.

If it is mounted, unmount it from the GUI and then type sudo dd bs=1M if=raspbian.img of=/dev/sdX, replacing both the IMG filename and the /dev/sdX node with those of your specific configuration. The image will now be written to the SD card with not a GUI in sight.

How to replace your iPhone 5 battery for free

Quite a specific guide this week for those who are having battery woes on the iPhone 5, rejoice, there may be a solution. Plus we visit all the normal stops on the Keitai express including Winston, the scary press shot and of course the retro video of the week.

How to replace your iPhone 5 battery for free

There was a little issue with the iPhone 5 that meant certain handsets had weaker batteries that died off quicker than other handsets.

Apple acted to make up for it and offered free replacement batteries and that's still going on right now. It's only for a limited time though, if you're eligible you've only got until January 2016 to switch it out.

Here are the steps to make sure your phone is eligible and how to replace it.

1. Are you eligible?

First up we need to make sure your phone is eligible. You need to have bought the phone between September 2012 and January 2013 - Apple will know this from what serial number your phone has. Your phone also has to be in working order and have battery issues - Apple is bound to check this out beforehand in the testing process.

To make sure you're eligible you can enter your serial number into the box on this site. To find your code you should press Settings > General > About and then look for the devices serial number which you can copy and paste.

2. Book a genius appointment

The next step is to book up an appointment at the genius bar. Then you'll be ready for them to check your phone is eligible and get on with the process.

3. Prepare your phone

Now it's time to prepare the phone for your appointment. They're going to need it cleared so back up all your data to iCloud and then turn off Find my iPhone. From there you can delete everything on the phone - don't worry, you've backed it up - so press Settings > General > Reset and Erase all Content and Settings.

That gives the Apple store a fresh canvas to work with.

The last step is to remember although the service is usually free they may need your phone to be in tip top shape to continue. Therefore they may need to do some repairs if say, your screen is cracked. That means it could end up costing you a little to replace the battery - but Apple will tell you that before they go through with the repairs.

They're an integral part of your computing setup, and you use them so often you practically forget they're there. We're talking about your mouse and trackpad, and there's more to them than you might think; both input devices offer options and shortcuts that can make your life easier. Here are six top tips to improve the way you use your Mac's mouse and trackpad

1) Customize Mousepad Guestures

Open System Preferences > Trackpad. Click on the first tab, Point & Click. If you'd rather tap your Mac's trackpad than press down to click, check the first box. If you want to add a secondary click (a control-click action), check the next box down and choose one of the options from the drop-down menu.

The next option, Look Up, is very useful. Check it and you can tap any word in any document with three fingers to look it up in the dictionary, thesaurus and Wikipedia. Finally, to move windows by dragging with three fingers, check the bottom box.

2) Control the way you scroll and zoom

Your Mac is configured to allow you to zoom in and out of images and web pages by either pinching and unpinching with two fingers or by tapping the trackpad with two fingers to activate what Apple calls Smart Zoom. That can be very useful, but can also be confusing if, say, you tend to leave your thumb resting on the trackpad. To switch off this behavior, tap the Scroll & Zoom tab in the Trackpad System Preferences pane and uncheck the second and third boxes. If you don't want to rotate an image with your fingers on the trackpad, turn that off, too.

3) Change default guestures for navigation OS X

In OS X, you can activate Launchpad or Exposé and slide between full-screen apps using either three or four fingers to swipe across the trackpad. The default is four, but we prefer to use three. To change it, click the More Gestures tab in the Trackpad pane and make sure the relevant items are checked. Choose "Three fingers" from the drop-down menus. If you set swiping between full-screen apps to use three fingers, make sure you also set the "Swipe between pages" option to two fingers to avoid confusion.

In addition to system-wide gestures, there are some that only work in specific apps. In QuickTime Player, drag two fingers from left to right across the trackpad to scrub forwards through video. To return to normal speed, just lift your fingers from the trackpad. Drag two fingers from right to left to scrub backwards. The further across the trackpad you drag, the faster the video will go. To enter full-screen mode, spread two fingers across the trackpad. To leave full-screen, pinch with two fingers.

Apple's Magic Mouse uses many of the same gestures as the trackpad, and you can customize these as well. To change the direction in which pages scroll when you swipe up and down with one finger, open the Mouse pane in System Preferences and click Point & Click. Uncheck "Scroll Direction: Natural" (that's "natural" according to Apple, anyway).

You can switch off the right-click option of the Magic Mouse here, if you find the lack of a separate external button confusing (or hard to press with consistency). We find, though, that if you leave it on, you'll eventually get used to it.

You can swipe between pages and full-screen apps, as well as activate Mission Control, using gestures on the Magic Mouse. Navigating pages can be done with one or two fingers. If you set it to one, make sure you uncheck the "Swipe between full-screen apps option" in the More Gestures tab of the Mouse pane to avoid potential confusion.

If you don't use Mission Control, you might want to uncheck the box that allows you to activate it with a double-tap, so you don't keep launching it by accident. Finally on the mouse front, if you ever want to check your mouse's battery level, click the Bluetooth menu bar item and hover over the Mouse that's currently connected to see the charge remaining.

Time for Google to dish out next version Android
One smartphones

We have been talking about them for a while now and it's finally about to make its presence felt yet again. We're talking about the Google's much maligned Android One project and the same is now set for a wholesome revamp.

Reports emerging today suggest the search giant is all geared up to launch the next version of Android One devices along with India-based mobile brand, Lava later this month. In addition to that the report also states the possibility of getting the phones priced at around Rs 12,000, making it twice the price of the original Android One (A.O) devices.

The partnership with Lava has to be the most intriguing twist to crop up with respect to A.O saga and that in many ways suggest Google is looking for help from local brands to get things right this time around.

The report goes onto add that the upcoming Android One phone will feature a 5-inch display, and hopefully for this price, we're looking at a 1080p quality. The phone is expected to get powered by Mediatek CPU (octa-core most likely) which is contradicting the whole point of Google-Qualcomm tie up earlier this year. In all likelihood, expect the phone to become a cheaper version Nexus device which, unlike the first variant, will be available across all channels i.e. online as well as offline.

We've voiced our opinion as to what and how Google should be eyeing the A.O v2.0 devices and it looks like, they have decided to start the project from scratch which should work in their favour. Having said that, Lava doesn't strike out as a name which can be pegged to offer Google the right kind of A.O assistance but then we might be wrong.

So, let's wait and watch for the next Android One phone and hope Google gets it right this year.

Getting started

Write the Raspbian Image

Failsafe Install

How to replace your iPhone 5 battery for free

How to replace your iPhone 5 battery for free

1. Are you eligible?

2. Book a genius appointment

3. Prepare your phone

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