2D Bar Code Reader

Even though this application from Nokia is been around from long time, had never tried it. I recently came across Mobile Barcoder extension for FireFox!! It is really great.

Nokia 2D bar code reader uses the built in camera to scan and interpret the barcodes. I was wondering what it would be useful for. Nokia has a barcode generation site which lets you encode URL, text or business card information and generate a barcode. One can use the site to generate barcodes and display on the site.


There aren't much sites that support this, but with the help of the barcoder extension, it is very easy to use :)

Main use of this is transferring URL's to mobile phone without much hazels. Say I am downloading a theme for the mobile, I just have to browse on the PC; and transfer the url to the mobile and then download directly on the phone!!!

The above image was created using Nokia's bar coder for my blog :)

Web OS!!!

There has been lot of hype on the WEB OS's recently, I did find out the free ones already out in the market and listed them :)

Following are the different free WEB OS's available:
a) G.ho.st
b) Desktop Two
c) eyeOS

Each one of the above has its own pros and cons. But I like the way this guys have implemented. I will review each of the above and come up with my observations shortly :)

Till then happy logging on to web systems :)

Google!!!

Google just keeps on improving there search!! go google go!!
Just type in the flight number u have the information on its departure and arrival!!!
Google is just great.

2008 Season round up!!!

Just a simple small blog is not sufficient to cover 2008 season...it is one of the best seasons in the formula 1 history. The championship was down to the last corner of the last race of the season!!!! It just can't get better than this. I am actually short of words to describe or talk about this season.

Brazilian GP was really exciting, rain started to pour down heavily 10 mins before the start of the race. Race control delayed the race for 10 mins, for teams to change to wet weather tires. Massa had a great start, but after first few corners there were collisions; which made the safety car come out :(
David's last race ended in a crash, sad way to end a pretty long career. With Safety car around, only driver to make use of this was Alonso. Then Lewis managed to get to fifth place; a safe place for the championship.

After that the race was pretty boring with Massa set to win the race. But rain gods wanted to add some fun to the race :) it started to rain again on 63rd lap. Almost everybody did a pit stop to change to wet weather tires, with Massa pitting last. It worked well for Ferrari. With all the pit stop drama Vettel was behind Lewis and did manage to overtake him with just one lap to go!! Now Lewis was on 6th place which will put him equal to Massa on championship points. Toyoto's Glock was on sleek tires; as the rain picked up.. he could not maintain the pace. Finally on the last corner, he took a long turn which gave lewis some space to overtake. He did finish 5th which got him 1 point lead over Massa. There we have the new Champion for 2008 season Lewis Hamilton.

But I am expecting the next season to be even more thrilling with 6 drivers really competing for the top place ( Kimi, Massa, Lewis, Alonso, Kubica, Vettel). It should be great fun :)

Slick Messenger app

Slick is a messenger app very similar to Fring app, I liked slick more than fring because it is lot more stable and works well on my Nokia N95. It supports ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, Gtalk and Jabber protocols!!.. supports emotions(smilies) as well :) Most of all chat history is saved!
But since this is a testing version, it is free..but soon LonelycatGames will charge for this :(

This is a really nice app, must have app if you have a Symbian phone.

Fring app for phones!!!

Few days back I came across this wonderful application for my Nokia N95, which is all in one multi chat app. One can chat, talk and share multimedia stuff on your phone!!!
As usual after using this for few days following are the pros and cons:
Pros:
a) Supports Gtalk, Skype, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AIM, twitter chat protocols..Also orkut!!!
b) One can make voice calls over the above mentioned chat's but Yahoo & AIM are not supported for Voice as of now.
c) I have used this in quite remote places; where there is no EDGE network support as well!!! but it performed quite well, I could make voice chats as well.
d) The best part is one can log into all different chats at one time.

Cons:
a) Keeps crashing a lot!!
b) I am not a fan of the interface, but it serves the propose.
c) chat histories are not saved, so once u close the chat window with one user and again try to continue with the conversation..old conversation which one had closed cannot be viewed!!which is quite annoying

Over all it is quite a good app and more over it is free as of now..so no complaints.

My new N95 8GB!

I had to change my phone from HTC P3300...since it broke :( I had lot of options to choose from... I almost went for HTC touch Diamond. The only reason I did not buy HTC again is; I am not happy with there built quality and re-sale value in India. But if Sony ericsson's X1 was out..i would have got that. Anyways I got N95 8GB; reasons to choose them are:
a) 5 Mpix camera.
b) 8 GB drive :)
c) My budget
d) I have used symbian phones before, and it really has got a lot of 3rd party app's to choose from.

After using N95 from almost a month, following are the pro's and cons I could think off:
Pros:
a) Awesome built quality
b) Pretty good software bundle. I liked the Nokia multimedia converter..which converts most of the available video formats and stores on ur phone!!
c) Camera is quite good, I m not impressed with the Flash... but it is fine for a phone
d) Battery life is good.
e) Syncing the outlook calender/Contacts has been modified by Nokia, and I am quite impressed by it.
f) I found lot of useful apps..and themes as well


Cons:
a) I feel the device is quite slow.. defiantly needs more ram and a better processor.
b) Music playback on A2DP is pretty bad!! I really hate this part.
c) I have seen this device crash many times when using blue tooth modem :(
d) Does not charge on USB. I am not sure why Nokia is not getting this on there phones.
e) retail package does not include any games.
f) GPS is not so great.

My PSP on firmware 5.0!!!

I updated the PSP firmware from 3.20 to 5.00 and man I did see the difference in performance.... Cool theme... and lot of cool features added.
I really liked the feed reader, internet radio, flash support and most of all sleep timer in Music player :)
Also cool one is connectivity to PS3 and a PC.. now one can browse files in PS3 and a PC via PS3 using PSP... now Sony is really convinced me to buy a PS3!!!

Happy gaming!!!!

Chinese F1 Update

Wow!!! now the last race of the season is the decider for the championship. Probably Lewis is on his way in making history!!
Can't wait for the Brazilian race, it is Massa's home track.. Yuppeee. So we should expect Massa is going to give a tough fight to Lewis, just 7 points seperate Massa and Lewis. Massa can win the championship only if he wins the race and Lewis finishes 6th or below. If Lewis finishes 2nd, he will still win the championship.
Now to the actual race, I am not really sure why Ferrari was on softer compound tires looked to me that it was the main reason for Ferrari being slower to Mclaren. Also after the Massa's second pit stop, he changed to hard compound tires and he was looking much more comfortable and car was doing good speeds. Ferrari should have started the race with hard compound tires. Guess Ferrari should win the Constructors title this year, they are leading the points table now.
Surprising fact is Alonso and Renault.. man that car was good on tracks. Next season should be fun, having real 4 strong teams competing.
I would have loved to see Ferrari one two on the podium.

Well 11 more days to go for the Brazilian race, till then happy waiting ;)

Japanese F1 update

Again what a race!!! kudos to Alonso and Renault, he his back to top again :)
Talking about Renault, they have been lacking in Aerodynamics from more than a year now..looks like they have sorted out the problems :)
It has been a dramatic race, first corner mann..one has to watch it to believe it!!! Lewis was penalized( drive through penalty ) for breaking hard and late at the first corner, which made almost all cars to slide of the track!!!!
Then it was massa's turn, he was penalized with drive through for bumping his rear tire into Lewis which made him spin and move back to the last position!!!
It was a bad day for Mclaren, Heikki Kovalainen's had a engine problem and retired race very early. Lewis did not manage to get a point!!!
Kimi started the race from P2 really well, but due to the over aggressive move by Lewis actually threw him out of the circuit to 5th or 6th place..he managed to finish the race at 3rd place...but he is out of chances from now on to retain the championship :(
Just 5 points difference between Massa and Lewis!!! Guess will have a 2 great races to watch :)

Now with 4 teams really doing good - Ferrari, Mclaren, BMW and Renault. We will have a great race next year toooooo.

EU Directive...on removable Batteries !!! Apple watch out

Well here we go again.... Apple may be in trouble soon if they do not change there current devices battery layout. As per the new Eu directive, all electronic devices should have easy replaceable batteries for easy disposal. iPod family and iPhones does not have the easy factor in it.... Lets wait and watch Apple's answer for it :)
For more info.. follow the link

HTC P3300

I had switched from Nokia N73 to HTC P3300..well actually this was the very first Windows phone I used it for long time!!!!
It has been a good device, pretty good battery performance. Almost never saw the device hang!!! But i never liked the built quality. I used this for almost 8 months now.
Okay now for my fav thing..listing pros and cons :)
Pros
a) Value for money.
b) Feature rich device.
c) Good Battery, Screen.
e) GPS is really good, especially the response times!
f) App support is really great!! one can find almost anything for this phone..infact I found Apple iPhone's interface for Caller-ID screen and Locking/unlocking the touch screen!!!!
g) Great music performance especially with my Motorola blue tooth stereo headset.

Cons.
a) Pretty Bad camera.
b) built quality is pretty bad. The scroll wheel stopped working many times for me.
c) Pretty bad performance when in low network coverage areas.
d) Had lot of trouble with syncing with Vista/XP machines.. especially my mail box and calender.
e) No 3.5mm Audio Jack.


And of course I did not list 3g and other stuff because this is a pretty oldy from HTC.

The Blue Zone from Andrew Gross

As the guru of Andrew Gross comments on this novel...it is really tense and Chilling. The pace of the book is pretty good. This is the first book from Andrew where the "co" was removed against his name :)
Blue Zone is a term used by FBI when the cover of a protected witness identity is blown!!!
I felt this book is much better than The Dark Tide. Okay coming to the real thing.
This book is about Kate Raab and her family. She loved, trusted her family ( mom, dad, one younger sister and one younger brother). Her father always taught her that family is everything...
Family secrets, skeletons in the closet, would you really want to know, if the truth would destroy everything? Such questions had never entered Kate Raab’s mind. Until she got the call from her Mom, that would devastate her life. Those words “your father has been arrested, come quickly,” made no sense. There had to be a mistake. Money laundering, connections to the Mercado Family, her father didn’t know anyone from Colombia. Or, did he?
With a steady flow of action, suspense, and strong family emotion, The Blue Zone follows Kate as she discovers her life has been a lie. She decides to stay away from WITSEC program, but all others in her family decided to stay within WITSEC program.
Then one fine day she finds out that her fathers missing, her best friend Kate is been shot with a bullet meant for her.
The story unveils from there on... read for yourself to find out. It is a pretty good read. I rate this actually perfect 10 out 10.

RockBox for iPod!!!

RockBox is a open source Firmwire for music players!
I was really bored of the Apple iPod's interface after using it for more than 2 years!! Recently found this firmwire with the following features really impressed me a lot :)

a) Supports players like Apple iPod, irriver etc.
b) Multi boot feature, which allows you to choose the interface you want - rockbox or apple original!!
c) Also one can play supported music files that are copied on the iPod using explorer!!! bye bye iTunes!
d) Supports themes!
e) Games which are in Doom mod's can be played on iPod...man..this is a cool one.
And lot more exciting things!!!

This should keep my fiddling fingers happy for few more days..hehehehe.

G1 is offically out.

Follow the link below for the official T-Mobile G1 site :)

T-Mobile G1

Those who are not being following with Google's OS - Android. G1 is the first device to have Android!!!
As rumored it is a HTC hardware.. comes with a 3 Mpix camera, comes with 2 email clients ( one for Gmail and the other IMAP) but it does not support microsoft Exchange server :(
Also it comes with Amazon's Mp3 store app, but it does not have a 3.5mm jack!!! one has to use the HTC proprietary USB-3.5mm convertor :(
It comes with Google Street view..which is pretty impressive. And believe it or not.. it does not support multi touch.
Some more on G1 soooonnnnn.

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

This book as been around for a long time, finally managed to get my hands on it :)
In fact finished reading it few days back. It is really the definition of power reading!!!
It is an epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present.

The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption, and it is also about the power of fathers over sons-their love, their sacrifices, their lies.

The story begins with Amir and Hassan growing up in Kabul. Amir is the son of wealthy business man and Hassan is the son of the Amir's fathers servant. How Amir betrays Hassan and his father Ali, and after that how that guilt troubles him all along. Later when Afgan is in trouble, Amir and his father move to US to have a better life. There he falls in love with an Afgan girl, they get married. But never have children, in the mean time in Afgan, Hassan also gets married. He had a son, Later Afgan had been in the hands of Taliban, during this time... Hassan and his wife are shot dead. Then Rahim khan who was Amir's fathers best friend and Amir's too, calls Amir to Pakistan after Amir's father died of cancer. Rahim khan tells him a truth, which was hidden from him from his childhood, he goes back to Afgan to get Soharb who is Hassan's son. Will he be able to get him back to safety??? Well have a read to find out.

It is a great read, I rate it 9 out of 10.

F1 Update

This was of real surprise, STR-Ferrari(Toro Rosso) is a part of red-bull racing...and they use this team to train new drivers, team members etc. It is just a second team for everything in Red-bull racing..and they won a grand prix... hahahaha. Shame on you Red-Bull..you have been ignoring the potential of these guys.
Sebastian Vettel really is talented young rookie...proved his talent :) made history by becoming the youngest driver to win a grand prix race!!!!
Also Toro Rosso team has been around for more than 15 years..this team never managed to win one race before..forget wining they never managed to get to pole position!!! Vettel managed both for them. He did not win by accident..this young chap really has talent. He lead the race from qualifying to finish.
In 2 weeks time, First ever F1 race under lights will be hosted in Singapore!!! So far this year has been really exciting for F1 fans!!!
Now to championship points, Lewis and Massa are seperated by just 1 point!!!! Man this is what is called nail bitting finish..4 more races to go; I am already at edge of my seat.
Wish Kimi comes back to top 3.

What a race!!!

This weekend race at Belgium was one of the most trilling grand prix race in living memory. It was a mixed day for Ferrari and Kimi. But Kimi really is running out of luck, engine blow outs...now a crash at final lap.
Kimi started the race at 4th position, did manage to be the race leader at 2nd lap. Was the race leader till 43rd lap, thanks to rain gods... with hot hard compound tires and water on track. It was like driving on ICE with diesel spilled all over it. At 43rd lap, rain started to pour and Lewis did manage to over take Kimi, but did make a error of cutting short on one corner, which costed him the first place!!!!
He was declared race leader but later a penalty of 25 secs was added to his race time, which made him 3rd!!!!

In middle of all the spins and overtakes, Kimi did push for the limit and managed to crash into a side wall :( and was declared 18th place for crashing at the last lap..poor Kimi. Being a Ferrari fan, I would have loved to see Kimi win. But hard luck, for Kimi.. but not totally for Ferrari...since Massa was declared as the race leader after Lewis was penalized.

This season has been really great, no clear race leader as previous years. Guess last race will be the decider. Hoping for a nail bitting finish at Brazil.
Go Ferrari Go!!!

Google Chrome

I have been using Google's all new browser called Chrome from 2 days now. Initial impression is Google has done a great job. But after using it on different hardware, guess the performance with plugin's like flash player is pretty bad. I did use Firefox 3 on the same sites on same hardware, performance of firefox was really great. Guess Google have to work on the fine tuning the performance.
Little details that i liked in Chrome,
a) In browser task manager.
b) incognito mode, where browser history is not stored. similar to IE8 Feature.
c) when a new tab is opened, recent or frequently visited sites are listed..which is pretty cool.
Will post more pretty soon..busy working today!

Sebasitan Faulks-Engleby

I recently finished reading Engleby. It was a disturbing but compelling read.
Engleby is the story of Mike Engleby, told by himself, from childhood through university and adulthood.

Jennifer is an important character in the book. Mike likes her, but she does not seem to be interested in Mike. She goes missing early on. What happened to her? Was she murdered? For most of the book, we don't know, and the investigation peters out within a few pages. Engleby then follows the life of the eponymous hero - wherein he becomes a journalist and ends up interviewing Ken Livingstone, Jeffrey Archer and even Maggie Thatcher - until the point when Jennifer's body is found. I can't say what happens next, but Engleby is not a murder mystery and long before it is actually revealed, one may easily guess who the murderer is.

What makes Engleby disturbing is Engleby himself. His unlikableness comes from the fact that he drinks too much, takes too many drugs, is self serving and, as the precis to the book says, is devoid of any scruple. But perhaps all of these things could be suffered if Engleby tried to redeem himself. Alas, there is no redemption story here. As far as he is concerned, he does what he does and simply moves on. But Engleby is not an intrinsically hateful person. His mistakes - his malice - have their origins not in pure evil but the events of his life, for example, his beatings at the hands of his father and at school, in his own painful shyness and mistaken attempts to deal with that. He is always alone and never tries to make friends or was not able to get one.

Engleby is not a beach book. It is rich work that represents, for me, a return to form for Faulks.

Cuil - will it beat google?

Ex employees of Google Inc, have started the a search engine called CUIL claiming it to be the biggest!
Cuil means knowledge in Irish. Well there we go, knowledge aquired by working in Google hehehehe.
My first impression is looks neat, and they have added drill down feature ( which is nothing but search by category). Well that did not immpress me much. I still rate search me more than Cuil, but will have to wait and see who performs better on the long run. But Google is still the king for me

Search Me.. what way to search the web

Type in what you wann search, you get small icons on the bottom... click on them.. WOW you get a bigger page will all the pages loaded!!!! scroll along..select which page you were looking for. Now this is what I call good visual experiance.

It is like iPhone of search pages!!!! URL is http://www.searchme.com/ lets search the web :)

iPhone crazy world!!!

I was reading through some blogs.. guess what I found?
A site deticated for requesting Apple for features on iPhone...
http://www.iphonefeatures.org/

World is really going crazy for this baby :)

I could not control my laugh looking at this. This shows how crazy people can be ;)

My HP Pavilion TX 2170

Few months back, I got myself a tablet. I choose this one because i cannot afford any other tablets in the Market.
But after using it for 2-3 months now, I really love the performace of this machine. With 3GB of RAM, even thought it is Vista; this baby works well. Even when running Microsoft Virtual machine..which i use to run XP. The performance is awesome. Let me list down the pros and cons as I usually prefer :)
Pros:
a) Cost to features.
b) Camera, finger print scanner, DVD burner, etc. for 1000 USD.
c) Weight
d) Double battery :)
e) Remote is cool... I can do most of the stuff like watching movies, images..playing music. Cool to show off ;)


Cons:
a) Built quality is questionable...especially battery holding clips etc.
b) I am facing problems with finger prints... :(
c) No in built TV tuner card..one has shell out more to get external TV tuner.
d) Screen is not so great when out doors.

Well thats all for now... I will post more about it sooon.

RIM's (Blackberry) answer to iPhone

Wow!!!! What an answer from RIM. Go BlackBerry go!!!!!
Rumor's suggest this as Blackberry Thunder!, and it also been rumoured to have multitouch, screen made of glass! and losts of other goodies :)
Click on the image to read more.

The Dark Tide

I have been reading lot of novels, best pal on business trips :)
Recently finished reading, The Dark Tide from Andrew Gross. Man what a read it was, really chilling and Thrilling, a bit of comedy, love, suspense, things on finacial speculation and speculators... you name it. This book has got it!!
Initial chapters go a little slow and at times it feels dry. But towards the end, man I could not sleep, really wanted to read more and get to the end. I would defently recommend this has a excelent read and rate it 9 out of 10.

Touch Diamond... What a Phone.

Wow!!! What a phone. HTC's real gem. Comes in 2 varients, Pro which has a sliding qwety key board!!!. But will add in thickness of course. I will prefer the plain HTC Touch Diamond, no pro for me.
After really looking at this gem closely, following are pros and cons,
pros
1) 3G
2) deticated 3d card!!
3) Awesome Screen
4) Touch flow 3d interface, which is getting better with each release from HTC.
5) 4GB drive!
6) Good battery life.

Cons
a) only 3.2 Mpix camera, but a lot better than 3g iPhone and yeah supports video. Shame on you Apple.
b) No deticated audio jack. Same port used for audio, charging and USB interface to PC!. Latter 2 is good, one can charge using a usb. But I cannot connect my Bose head phones to the phone :(
c) Still feel 528 Mhz processor is slow for the device.
d) Price in India 27k man. Where no 3g networks yet :(. TRAI wake up, whole of Sri lanka is on 3g network.

iPhone 3g... Apple is a good learner?

Looks like Apple did learn from there earlier iPhone ( 1st gen as termed in Apple's language ) Following are the things that apple did correct :
a) Battery is no longer soldered to the circuit :)
b) Touch screen glass is not gluded now, which will be easy to replace.
c) Microsoft Exchange support, Blackberry watch out.
d) GPS - There is glith here, only works with google maps. Sad, but have to wait for any softwares to be released in the App store.
e) 3G ofcourse :)

Things Apple did not learn:
a) Ask any gadget lover, would like to forward SMS's at times. Apple do something about it. Please do add this in 2.1 firmwire
b) There was lot of problems in activations again.
c) 3g ok, where is the front facing cam? 3g only for web use :(
d) Please use a different material on the back of iPhone. Finger prints and smudges will make the iPhone owners cry!
e) Where is A2DP? Motorola L7 has it man.
f) Safari Browser. Whaaaaaaat is this a browser? can't even open links in new tab. Use Gtalk and it needs to be open always!! Google can't we it App Store as a new App?
g) Initial view from users, Battery life is not as good as Apple promised..hmmmm. Apple now its your turn..blame it on 3g :)

Smart Phone War!!!

After iPhone came into the market everybody in the industry wants there share in the market!!!
But the phones to look out for now is Sony Errison's XPERIA X1, HTC Touch Diamond ( which is already out in the market) and of course 3G iPhone. Google's Android OS on the demo HTC looks great as well. But it is not expected to be in the market this year.

So for 2008, smart phones to look for is Nokia's answer to iPhone rumored to released this year, called Tube. But I am looking forward for X1's release. The only thing this phone lacks is multi touch. I am fine with it :)

Active Blogging

It is has been long since I had blogged, I guess I will give it one more try to start blogging again.