The New Age Zombies

1. Smartphone Users

For us, let's face it, it's all about the Battery Charge, Bq!!

I’ve said this before, briefly, in my previous write-up about the strange life of the phone battery. The golden equation of charge retention for uninterrupted power outage and misery avoidance goes something like this

14 ≤ (Bq) ≤ 17; and valid for all integer (only) multiples of this value.

Any deviation from this rule will invariably involve frantic moments with high levels of perspiration, pockets bulging with chargers, constant charge monitoring of the battery level indicator and/or the cell phone dropping dead between a call!!

Scary, I know!

Of course, there are conditions apply to this rule too. Assuming that your typical work day starts by say 8 every morning, you are taken care of at least till 10pm; for the late nighters till about 1am!! Often with new age smart phones if this rule is met, it’s more than good enough!

Battery Blues

Imagine now you get battery backup in non-integer multiples.

So when Bq < 14, you may have to put it to charge just as soon as you might be reaching home; and then if your night involves a dinner out, you gotta charge it a little at least before you hurry out and then put it back on charging before hitting the sack!

When Bq > 14, you still have some charge left in your battery when you’re about to turn in for the night, and you are bugged thinking you really don’t want to charge when your battery is still 25% full!!

So either ways, you end up having to do a lot of math if you want to get your phone’s charging cycle right, and that’s almost every day!!

Why this matters?? (are you kidding me !)

Well, to the casual user these things hardly matter, but make this a practice, and soon you’ll see that your battery charge retention has gone down.

So after being through this frustrating mental exercise the first few months of my smart-phone usage, I reduced the time spent on non-phone features – most of which drains out my battery – games, heavy internet usage etc during the peak times of the day. If I’m left

with ample charge towards my day’s end, I then liberally use my phone for gaming and 3G surfing!

Still, I do a lot of math, and I don’t deny it does get difficult at times. But I’m slowly getting used it – most of it now comes to me as though it’s all hard wired into my system – am now one of those new age zombies \m/ !

Peace,

$ur

Nokia's Leap with Lumia

About 6 months back or so, I had blogged about how Nokia has been trying to keep it's loyal clientele happy with teeny weeny offerings such as the customizable apps for Symbian based Nokia smartphones !

I myself thought Nokia was almost out of the game when the Droids and iPhones were so much more intuitive and feature rich, while Nokia was still making phones on it's age old Symbian OS with updates that failed to capture anybody's attention. But then came the Lumia ! Bham !

Firstly, the Metro interface of the OS, then the awe inspiring form factor and the Nokia True Black screen resolution/clarity, Lumia is just mind blowing ! Bringing in a lot of innovation, and thankfully  with an interface that even a Droid or iOS will drool over, Mr. Jobs himself would have been pleased to see this one !

I'm certainly not a person who buys the hottest thing on the market just because everyone's after it. But the first chance I got to check out this Baby - Lumia 800, whoa, it really made my eyes ogle.

So off I started with my research.

Sure, there were some minor software bugs reported, being the first generation of it's kind. But overall, the experience I felt was worth owning ! Then on, I tried to find reasons why it would suite my needs :P lol. Well not exactly, but I did read on a lot of different forums that most of the glitches were minor and fixes for poor battery life and tethering were just around the corner.

The thing I've realized about the battery life that seems most important is whether it will give you enough to get you through your entire day - 8 am to 11 pm or no more than 15 hrs. (A post will be dedicated for this one !!) and I managed to get a pretty accurate estimate that the Lumia will not fail my expectations !

Next what I loved was the social networking integration in the OS. Further, the MS Office productivity suite and the ever growing app store gave me a strong impetus to zero in on Lumia. Given a choice, I would have opted for the newer of the Lumias, the 900. But it was more expensive and available only in the US with the Verizon bundle. Basically, this one has a bigger screen, a faster processor and a better battery (though the processor will drain out more, giving it only a slight edge). But importantly, the newer one might be the first of the Lumias to support the Windows Apollo / 8 OS. But alas, this wasn't an option, so I settled for the Lumia 800.

But, I must add I certainly hadn't settled for anything less ! Pure indulgence is what you get with this smartphone ! Be it web browsing, Xbox gaming, Office suite use, scheduling and RSVP'ing events, social networking or navigation in some of the most interior of places, I'm thoroughly happy with my decision. It puts out a decent 12-15 hours of charge on heavy usage and close to a day on moderate usage. 

I feel Nokia has really stepped up their ante in the Smartphone arena with the launch of Lumia following their collaboration with Microsoft. I'm still hoping though, that Nokia realizes sooner than later, what Apple's success factor has been with it's iPhone - providing iOS upgrades across all the models. If Nokia can somehow manage to pull this one off by making Lumia 710 or at least 800 upgradeable to Win 8, that'll be a huge bonus in terms of customer base retention !!

More to follow..

$ur

Blogger Updates

Sad to have learned the news of the passing of Mr. Steve Jobs, the Apple Inc. visionary. Anyhow, this post is not on that. There are already billions pouring their heart out on Facebook and though I feel a bit sad too at the loss of one of the world's greatest innovators, I'm not dedicating anymore time on what has happened !

So living in the present and moving on with life, when I learned of the new Dynamic Views feature on Blogger, I was once again excited to spread the novel updates on the web ! Dynamic view templates will definitely drive in more traffic into blog for one thing. It will also make the random stumbler on your blog click on more posts of yours and perhaps discover more interesting stuff on them!

I think this is one of the best things to have happened to blogger lately and I'm just loving it. Whats more pleasing is the fact that, the readers can themselves select the dynamic view in which they wanna see your posts and that customization is again very thoughtful on the part of Blogger.

So for those of you who've probably lost your interest in blogging because of the lack of reader outreach in spite writing fantastic blog posts, this is one way you can revamp your blog and make your mark once again on the web ;)

If you received this post via your email, do check out my blog page to see what I'm drooling about ;)

Inner Peace \m/

$ur

It ain't Game Over for Nokia, yet !!

Hola !

I'm sure some of must have come across my blog app called The Maverick which went up on the Nokia Ovi Store. And when I checked this morning on my application summary report on my developer's page, I was surprised to see that my app has been downloaded from 6 different countries already ! So much for motivation :) cheers guys, I'm flattered !!

I've been wanting to blog about the Nokia App Wizard which I stumbled upon few days ago. To be honest, my regards for Nokia went up a tad for sure. I was very excited to see that it is all free to make your own app and that anyone with absolutely no programming skills could conjure up one. My first thought was to see if I could create a Symbian app for BeanHunter. But, soon enough my hopes were let down when I realized after signing in that there aren't too many options on what apps can be created. I was about to sigh in disappointment, when my eyes caught the Blogger Logo on the screen and I thought, "Wow, now that's not a bad idea. Let me make an app for my own blog!"

So I started off. Let me tell you this, it was easy enough and it wasn't too misleading after all the effort I put into deciding what pictures to choose to display as the logo, what to name my app etc. when finally Nokia allowed me to submit my app for their review before it went up on the Ovi Store. I was a bit skeptical that I might have to pay a small fee on submission that would have thwarted my plans. Anyways, so everything went on just fine and I got my app approved in less than 24 hours.

As I said before, I was impressed by Nokia's constant efforts to keep improving their services though I'm sure they themselves know they are fighting a losing battle to win back once loyal Nokia customers from Apple and Google with the launch of the iPhones and the Androids respectively. But Nokia has certainly not decided to give up without a good fight back. Yes, I do realize most of you would say that is a very meager attempt on Nokia's part at playing catch up with Android et. al. I wouldn't so much say myself that Nokia has upped it's ante, still, over the last few months, I was happy to have gotten Ovi apps for the World Rally Championship, Formula 1, and from a utility point of view, it even released an app for the Melbourne Transport Network - The Metlink. Now, that stunned me a little because who would have thought Nokia is even used so much in Melbourne. I rarely see a Nokia Smartphone here in Melbourne, though occasionally when I do I feel privileged to be part of that small and 'niche' community we've become !

Well, my loyalty has been attributed sheerly to the utilitarian and value for money aspects of my Nokia Smartphone than any intangible emotional attachment to Nokia. I don't mind saying that I would have gone for Droid if  there were any phones offering me the same specifications at the same price, and most importantly not compromising battery life !

So, for all you Nokia Smartphone users out there, the Nokia App Wizard is really something to cheer about and check out. Here is the link to the page, http://appwizard.ovi.com/web_nokia/signIn.jsp

Hope you enjoy it !! 

Inner Peace \m/

$ur

iRant - Food for thought ;)

I'm personally of the opinion that though technology is supposed to make your life much simpler, making it too simple that your life is totally dependent on it, is a vicious ploy of the current "cutting edge" technology developers. 

Well, it wouldn't be therefore farfetched to hint that this is one of the reasons why I don't like the Apple iPhones much. Though I'm sure it's arguable enough, why wouldn't anyone want to make communication as simple as possible. My issue with that argument is just that, the iPhone creates a big lot of snobbish users who act as though they've been given a very 'user unfriendly' gadget, if they have to at some point operate (god forbid) a Nokia or an Android phone. So my reasoning is that because the iPhone made things so blatantly 'simple' (as they claim it) or to out in my words, created so many iZombies, that if one fine day Apple decides to pull the plug (again god forbid, though this time it's them praying), we will have a population so typical of the one in the Idiocracy movie !

Don't even get me started on the iPad or the iPods. Though I imagine, and to an extent have experienced firsthand, the quality and seamless attributes of the latter, if you have ever stepped out of an Apple user's shoes, you will realize how much of an iBitch these users are. The reasons are obvious - you need iTunes to sync songs, it can be synced only with iTunes installed on just 1 machine at a time (though there is a hack, which I'm sure is out of question as it's too high level for the comprehension of, let alone of any use to an iBitch). The iPhone and iPad also have such limitations, but still it makes you wonder, then why on earth would so many people pay premium to use Apple products?

Well, if you ask me, I would say, there are couple of different reasons,

• Initial success of the Apple computers, creating a niche of high quality, high end, virus free computing.
• Benefits from the technology lock-in through increasing rates of return which mainly in Apple's case is through the externality caused by reasons of compatibility - almost every website/company offering some service has an iPhone app and this is one main reason why people are buying the apple products. Another example is that of the integrated car audio systems that are increasingly made iPod compatible.
• But the 3rd and most important reason is that people like it more when their intelligence isn't questioned :P- and no one does it better than Apple; and no offence, but Linux did just that until Android came out ! 

Though the last reason may sound like the beginning of a new conspiracy theory, I certainly do believe nobody understood and applied human psychology much better than Apple. But, I don't disagree one bit that Apple hasn't done any good. They are pioneers in using some of the most eco-friendly and recyclable materials in their products and I personally am also a big fan of Mr. Steve Jobs. 

The reason why I had to rant about this was stemmed from my thoughts on how they have to an extent manipulated the people so much that people (especially in first world countries) who are otherwise so used to complaining if one small feature is missing, have unbelievably accepted the shortcomings of Apple's products - be it forwarding messages, playing flash, very few customizable features etc. to name a few. The sheer number of Apple users (I do not include MacBook users because I truly believe they have the least malevolent influence among all other Apple products) henceforth is a testament in itself of how many Apple has actually brain washed and continuing to.

Well, so certainly, if you wish to have some food for thought, I have laid it out for you. It is definitely worth pondering, but if you think it is too much of a headache to think so deviantly, then it might be better to move on and enjoy life (to be read - go download some new app :P) !

Inner Peace \m/

$ur

For the Geek in you

I came across a really cool website today. Well it's actually a computer geek site and goes by the name http://www.howtogeek.com/.

It has everything you could imagine to tweak or know about your computer. From simple, yet very powerful registry hacks to some complex troubleshooting and utility information. Some of the tips, tricks and hacks vividly reminded me of times when I used fiddle around a lot with my 386 model computer in my school days -  and a particular time when I had to get a 400pg e-book unzipped using DOS commands and the only place I could find information on how to do it was at a local computer teaching center a kilometer away from my home. So I guess times have changed for the good and these days it's just a click away.

One might feel that there is a lot of a reading material up there and is a bit too cluttered, until you get a hang of the way the site has been laid out. This I feel is typically how a geek's room would like if depicted digitally, though I don't in any way suggest that only if things seem haphazardly arranged does it necessarily fit the stereotypical description of a geek :P !

Nevertheless, I suggest that you bookmark this site, for it will definitely be a lifesaver when you need help. It has almost everything you would need and you can most reliably turn to this site for troubleshooting tips if you ever go overboard with your crazy mods.

Till next time.

Inner Peace \m/

$ur

Computerized cooker ?

Any thoughts :) ??

Technology saves the day, again :P

After what seems to have been a writer's (blogger's) block, I've sort of been wanting to get back to blogging more actively. Well, as for the block, I figured it is best if I can find an application to blog from my phone (ahem, yes, you thought right, the generation is to be blamed for :P). Well, so in a rather desperate attempt to salvage my blog, I frantically searched for an app (between the intermittent reception of network coverage on my phone) while I was on a long train journey. After a while, I realized, as the first step of getting to use my blog through phone, it is better that I carry out this step when I'm less mobile with a better connectivity.
So on getting back home, later yesterday, I sat down to sort this once and for all. And, here I'm trying this out the first time through my phone. God save technology !!
Peace,
$ur

Megapixels Myth !

Nowadays, we hear a lot about digital camera manufacturers increasing the megapixels of their cameras to lure the public into believing that a higher megapixel camera is better than a lower megapixel one.

Well, too few megapixels compromise the quality of a photograph, but too many is a waste of money !

The number of megapixels largely determines the maximum print size up to which your image can be taken without loss in quality.As the megapixels in a camera increase, the price of the camera also goes up.

Using a 2 or less megapixel camera for instance, you can print photos that are quite good in quality for web based uses, for emails etc....The size required to store these are also pretty less.

Using a 3 megapixel camera, one can easily print stunning 4x6 images and lovely 5x7s . Some cameras of the same megapixels can even print decent 6x9 images.

I myself use a Sony Cybershot 3.2 Megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom.

I hardly take photos in 3.2 megapixels, because when you need to share them with your friends and family via photo sharing applications like Flickr and Picasa, their sites themselves restrict the sizes of each photo to less than 500KB. And a 3.2 megapixel photo takes around 1.5MB(around 1536 KB) of size !

People are crazy about going for cameras with more megapixels, but more isn't always better.
So, the number of megapixels you need to go for depends on mainly 2 things-
1)How big an image you need to print ?
2) What your budget is ?

This I say so because, there are hardly any improvements in other features of the same company's camera with different megapixels. Higher megapixels also means larger image sizes, which in turn means more expensive memory cards and more storage space required on your hard drive.