If you have been looking for online computer hardware stores in India where you can check prices for computer hardware parts before you go personally and haggle over the counter or if you want to order online, you have come to the right place. Here are some online stores which have a good range of products and prices are fairly representative of over the counter sales prices.

1) The IT Depot @ http://www.theitdepot.com/
This is one of the most professional looking online stores in India besides being one of the oldest. Based out of Chennai, IT Depot offers a lot of brands that were once hard to find in India. They deal with brands like Antec, OCZ, Logitech, Belkin, Sennheiser, Cooler Master, Silverstone, Razer, Abit, Corsair and EVGA. The prices are slightly higher than over the counter prices but then a lot of brands available at this store are not found elsewhere. Products are neatly categorized and are selectable by price ranges, brands and other sub-classifications. You will also find product specifications here.

2) The IT Warehouse @ http://www.theitwares.com/
Based out of Mumbai, this store is not very flashy looking but one look at it and you know they mean business. The website has a minimalistic look and is well organized. Some special brands dealt by this store are Tagan, Seasonic, Dell, Thermaltake, Razer, Thermalright and Arctic. Products are priced pretty decently.

3) Buy Gaming Stuff @ http://www.buygamingstuff.com
As the name gives away, this website prides in dealing with gaming related hardware and most importantly, the games themselves. They are the only store I have come across that sell popular games online and the pricing is competitive with retail stores. Most popular brands mentioned for the previous stores are also available here but mostly with focus on their gaming products. The store also deals with XBox and Playstation games and accessories.

4) Techshop @ http://www.techshop.in
7 days shipping, 6 shipping options and 4 payment options is the tag line of this store. Very similar to theitwares website, techshop in addition to computer hardware also deals with mobilephones, MP3 players and cameras. I also found the Zotac Mini-ITX GeForce 9300 motherboard here which was an interesting product.

5) Prime abgb @ http://www.primeabgb.com
Prime is just like most of the other stores mentioned here. What I like about their product range is their collection of Silverstone chassis. I have been lucky enough to work on a silverstone chassis and felt that it was one of the best in terms of attention to details to make life easier for the user. Now I know where to buy it from in India. And the prices are in line with most of the high-end chassis from Coolermaster and Antec chassis from other sources. They also have a decent collection of highly rated CPU and GPU Heatsink Fans.

6) Media Home @ http://www.mediahome.in/
I guess there are enough websites in the list already that should give most users a decent idea of the prices of popular and highly rated brand of computer hardware. Media home is yet another one in this list and their collection of Seasonic branded powersupplies impressed me. They also seem to have most of the brands. Suprisingly there is no separate section for motherboards. I also found some image rendering issues with the website that definitely needs a fix.

7) ComputerWarehousePricelist @ http://www.computerwarehousepricelist.com/
Computer Warehouse Price list is another old website which I used for checking prices of commonly available hardware before other websites became popular. Back then the prices mentioned were overpriced by about Rs.500-1000 but were a good indication of approximate counter prices. They don't seem to have the more popular and niche brands like the other websites. The website also feels very clunky though organized.

There it is. 7 Stores in India from where you can buy the coolest computer hardware parts. International brands and high performance products all now available in India. Now I wait for the day when Amazon and Newegg start delivering parts in India at competitive prices and raise the bar for online stores.

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Lightbot is one of the most awesome flash games I have come across. Don't let the article title fool you into thinking that this is some geek stuff that requires technical knowledge. It doesn't. What it does require is the love for puzzles and/or free time to kill.

Lightbot is a brilliant introduction to programming for anyone who doesn't know how to write code and wants to learn. This game will teach you the fun in programming and help you see how programming is relevant to problem solving in everyday life. Also, any programmer who calls himself that should be able to finish the 13 levels in breeze. Else you should consider yourself another career.

You can directly play the game in the flash box below.

Insane Central Arcade

The objective of the game is to move the lightbot (the cute looking robot) to the blue square and light the square. This is done by providing commands to the robot. Once you command the robot to reach the blue square and light it, the playing field changes and obstacles are introduced in different styles in newer maps. The difficulty level increases as you progress (not everyone might agree to this) and simple but interesting programming concepts are introduced gradually.

The game screen has commands at the top in the form of icons. Commands are like: Turn right, turn left, jump, light the bulb etc. To command the robot, drag the icon into the main function (one command per tile, a total of 12 tiles available) in the order in which you want the commands to be executed. Click on "Go" to see the robot in action. If you make a mistake, you can always change the sequence of commands and try again by clicking "Stop" and "Go" again. As the levels progress you will notice that you will need more than 12 commands to get the lightbot to reach all the blue squares and light them up. So you put in the additional commands into either or both of the functions Funct1 and Funct2 provided and call them inside the main function by using the F1 and the F2 command icons in the main.

Like I said earlier, this truly is one of the best ways to introduce kids to programming and I feel bad about not having the opportunity to play a game like this as a kid when I was learning to program. Have fun. And remember, the boss is always looking from behind your shoulders when you are playing at work. But of course, your code is compiling.

Lightbot for the iphone/ipod touch is now available at the itunes store.

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