Sixth Sense

Sixth Sense

Reminds me of the dialogue by R.S. Shivaji from "Magalir Mattum" :
"Technology has improved so much.."

Very Interesting !

Go figure...

Insurance from Superstar

http://www.bosskaboss.com/en/index.htm

I wonder if Superstar gets royalty for these things...!

My Ultimate Shredding Machine

From A36 to N95

This was what I had to say about my phone roughly four years ago.

http://ythee.blogspot.com/2004/05/my-mobile-phonesiemens-a36-there-is.html

A lot has changed since then, so has my choice of mobile phones, also, my perception towards mobile phones. Initially, I resisted buying a cell phone when everyone around me had one. Primary reason was that I did not need one at that time. Eventually,I had to buy one (thanks to BSNL) because BSNL took close to 7 weeks to move our land line when we moved to a new place. I remember going to a cellphone dealer with my friend who had good experience dealing with cellphones. I tried to find the most basic GSM phone which can make and receive calls, the rep. showed me few models and the siemens A36 happened to be the cheapest (Rs 3000) and most basic. I was not too keen in getting any new phones since then until N95 was announced during late 2006. I have been following the phone waiting for the price to drop. The prices never dropped until the introduction of iphone recently. So finally, I managed to lay my hands on one. I have been using one for about a week now and it has been very exciting, so far. The phone has every convceivable(comes very very close) feature in it. WiFi-GPS combination opens up a world of opportunity for innovation. You can turn the phone into a tracking device, use it as media player, access your home media from any where, use it for navigation, internet application, control your PC/notebook, Games, VOIP, of course as a phone and the list is pretty long...

Essentially, I was looking for a one-device-do-everything solution and the Nokia N95 comes very close to doing that. The others in the race are iphone, wince / android based phones, but, they are far behind in the race in terms of features and stability. The comparison I am making here is at the phone level and not at the phone OS level. Nokia has been in the business for much longer than the others which shows up in their product's stability and packaging.

The comparison gets quite interesting :

General Status Discontinued Network (2G) GSM 900 / GSM 1800 Form factor Block Antenna type External Size Weight 120 g (with battery) Dimensions 118 x 46 x 21 mm Display Type Alphanumeric Lines 3 Coloured No Memory Outgoing calls 10 Lost calls 5 Calendar notes No Ringtones Number 15 Polyphonic ringtones No Networking GPRS No DATA No USB No Bluetooth No WAP No Browser No Email client No PC kit No Features Vibration No SMS Send / Receive Camera None Java No Games Yes Clock Yes Alarm No Calculator No Calendar No To-do list No Voice dialing No Voice memo No T9 No Multiple numbers / contact No Handsfree No Headset jack No Changeable faces No FM Radio No Thermometer No Barometer No Interface languages Yes, 20 Standard Battery Type Ni-Mh Amperage 600 mAh Standby time GSM: 100h Talk time GSM: 3h Extended Battery Type Ni-Mh Standby time Talk time

General Status Available Introduced September 2007 Network (2G) GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900 / GSM 850 Network (3G) HSDPA 2100 Form factor Dual slider Antenna type Internal Size Weight 125 g (with battery) Dimensions 103 x 55 x 18 mm Display Type Graphical Coloured Yes, TFT, 16M colors Size 240 x 320 pixels - Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate Memory Shared memory 140 MB - Photocall - microSD (TransFlash), up to 8GB - 128MB RAM, 256MB system memory - Dual ARM 9 264 MHz CPU Ringtones Polyphonic ringtones Yes, 64 Ringtone profiles No - Monophonic, True Tones, MP3 Networking HSDPA speed 3.6 Mbps GPRS Yes, Class 32, 107 / 64.2 kbps EDGE Yes, Class 32, 296 kbps; DTM Class 11, 177 kbps WLAN Yes, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology USB Yes, 2.0, microUSB Bluetooth Yes, 2.0 with A2DP WAP Yes Browser Yes, WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML, RSS reader Email client Yes - Symbian OS 9.3, S60 rel. 3.2 - Instant Messaging - Push to talk Features Vibration Yes SMS Send / Receive MMS Send / Receive Camera Builtin, 5 MP, 2592x1944 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, video(VGA 30fps), flash; secondary VGA videocall camera Java Yes, MIDP 2.0 Games Yes, (changeable) Clock Yes Alarm Yes Calculator Yes Calendar Yes To-do list Yes Voice dialing Yes Voice memo Yes T9 Yes Multiple numbers / contact Yes Handsfree Yes Headset jack Yes FM Radio Yes Interface languages Yes - Built-in GPS receiver - A-GPS function - MP3/AAC/AAC /eAAC /WMA player - 3.5 mm audio output jack - TV out - Organizer - Office document viewer Standard Battery Type Li-Ion Amperage 950 mAh Standby time GSM: 230h / 3G: 200h Talk time GSM: 3h 50m / 3G: 2h 30m

and...... not surprisingly, The Nokia N95 helps you publish your blog entry :-)

Virtual PC Knoppix

It took me a while to figure this out, though google yields a lot of results on this topic there isn't any easy HowTO; here is a mini How-To for knoppix on Virtual PC.

1. Download latest knoppix iso
2. Download Virtual PC 2007 (yes it is free)
3. Download Virtual CloneDrive to mount the iso image. Other option is to burn it on to a CD or using the iso directly from Virtual PC, the later didn't work for me,several attempts to get it working was just futile waste of time.
4. Start Virtual PC create a new instance use the wizard, just point click appropriately.
5. Now choose the instance and click start.
6. On the new window choose CD menu and choose the source drive that has the iso image. If you want to just capture the image and boot choose "Capture ISO Image..."
7. If you get into full screen and want to exit press Right-Alt and Enter key combination
8. If all goes well VPC will boot using the image.
9. Mouse will most likely not work, use the following command at the "boot:" prompt
"knoppix -- i8042.noloop"
without the quotes, of course.
10. Enjoy ! :-)

Tare Zameen Par

Yet another Bollywood flick - perhaps you are wrong this time. I was reluctant myself, when my wife insisted that I watch the movie with her. After watching the film I felt it wasn't quite a waste of time. The movie has been handled very sensibly, I am not sure if the credit should go to Amir Khan or Amol Gupte; Looks like it was originally to be directed by Amol Gupte being his script but Amir Khan ended up directing the movie. If it was indeed Amir who did the direction he must be commended for the work. "Darsheel Safary" who plays the dyslectic child has pulled off a brilliant performance. I have always been critical even a little biased when it came to watching Hindi films. More so because of consistent lack of quality, particularly in the recent few years. I can even stand Govinda's naive humour but cannot stand stereotypical film making of the "Karan Johar"s and "Sanjay Leela Bansali"s. However, "Tare Zameen Par" is one those few rare pleasant surprises that bollywood has to offer. Should mention; Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's music has quite a calming and pleasant influence on the movie.



Bottom Line : Even if you loathe Hindi cinema, like me; you shouldn't miss this one.