My heartiest well wishes to all of you on the occasion of India’s Independence Day (which is on 15th August). May our motherland, India, reach heights of success and achievements.

I pray to Almighty Allah for making our country overcome all the odds and succeed in all the avenues and be at the forefront of freedom for which we Indians have stood.

Freedom, as everyone should know, is in our blood. To fight for and uphold the values of freedom will and should always be the first concern for us Indians.

So, go out and do good deeds on this I-Day and raise the bar for other countries/communities to follow.

iPod touch 3G

Well, its been quite a while since I mentioned my adventures with my iPod touch 3G. It has been an experience through which I realized that I was better off without an iPhone.

Imagine an environment where you follow what one man has to say. You see what this man visualizes. And, you do what this man follows! Totally undemocratic, right? That’s exactly what I feel when I am using my iPod. Yes, there are goodies on it. And, there maybe some good stuff you can do with it. But, you still are stuck with diktats! There’s nothing that will change that. You cannot do things as you like with the device that you have paid for!

I’m happy that Saurik jailbroke this device with his little Cydia App. A jailbroken iPod is indeed a geek’s productivity center. Other than that, you get many good apps from Cydia itself.

While I have described quite some experience of mine, I would like to mention here that my iPod 3G is already jailbroken! I used the Spirit Jail Break to free my phone and ever since then I haven’t looked back.

Yes, I’m still using OS 3.1.3 as i didn’t feel like upgrading to the new version yet. Not having a jailbreak available for the iPod touch 3G on iOS4 didn’t help the cause either.

Other than all this, there’s a peculiar limitation from iTunes that prevents you from syncing the iPod on more than 3 authorised computers. This, even when I own the iPod, the apps, the computers and the music library. What could be the justification offered for this? Nothing.

But anyway, the discoveries go on as I march forward into the nether-realms of  Apple’s iPod. Before I sign off, I must say that some of the games are really good. I loved Angry Birds a lot. So, there it is. So, I sign off for now. Until the next entry on this, Ciao!!!!

As with all the good things that could have happened to our beloved country, you gotta give it to the politicians to spoil the celebrations!

Suresh Kalmadi (Image Courtesy: Times Of India)

As if the preparations for the Common Wealth Games (CWG) wasn’t enough, we have started reading and hearing daily bytes of the corruption (obviously with the ‘blessings’ of the high & mighty politicians) trickling in. The web is spread so wide that it’s surprising. It has acted as the perfect disgrace for a rising country called India.

No one from the government seems to be ready to talk about CWG. No statement from anyone has come in yet. Suresh Kalmadi, the man in the eye of the CWG storm seems answer-less to all the allegations that are coming up.

It is only in India that Mr. Kalmadi continues to head the CWG Organising Committee despite all this. What has happened to the moral responsibility of this man? (even if there is no proof of his involvement in all of this which I honestly doubt).

Even the PM hasn’t reacted to all this.

I request the hon’ble Prime Minister of  India to intervene on this matter and make Mr. Kalmadi resign to avoid further embarrassment for our nation.

Ok. Well, technically this is day 4 but practically it is day 2 as I spent two days without being able to use the iPod (as I was busy with office work).

So, with that behind us, I would like to mention a couple of things I noticed in my iPod touch as compared to my N97 mini. Please note that the comparison that I am making between the two devices is limited solely to the UI and other app stuff.

This doesn’t consider the phone, GPS, and other such stuff not present on the iPod touch.

Well, moving on, I must say that most of the apps I use on my N97 mini are available for the iPhone OS also (and which I mentioned on my first post). Having said that, I must mention that I was impressed by the following on my iPod touch:

• Good internet experience when compared to the slow built-in browser of the N97 mini.
• Great touch response (again an area where Nokia does not deliver as expected in a high end device like the N97 mini)
• Good email client (Nokia’s email client is ok but compared to the iPod’s, it still needs to smoothen out some things). Not to mention that I could access my corporate email on the iPod (you see, my corporate email is not on exchange but third-party managed). Nokia’s Email service doesn’t support my work email as of now. (boo -hooo!!)
• Wi-Fi configuration is really great and also supports most of the diverse authentication protocols I have come across when I visit my project sites (Nokia are you listening on this one?). Even though my Nokia N97 mini has configuration options for a proxy but the authentication given to the phone doesn’t work well, it seems. I am still verifying many more options on the iPod and therefore more on this as days pass by.
• Good processor on the iPod makes it quite responsive (Nokia could have done a lot better if they had used a 600Mhz+ processor on the N97 mini themselves).
• Pinch zooming and other features are good.

Following is what I found quite bad and annoying and made me grateful to not have purchased an iPhone and instead proved my decision to stick to my N97 mini a worthy one. So, here’s a list of things that are bad with the iPod/iPhone:

• The first and the worst: Connect to iTunes to make your device functional and notify Apple of the activation. Not really acceptable, but do we have a choice? Nokia, you are superb…
• Landscape mode is only selectively available in selected apps. This means that there ain’t no landscape mode usage except for some areas like: Safari, Mail, Photos and Video Playback. Other than this, portrait mode is locked in! And they had been blaming Nokia for putting the N900 in a sort of landscape mode lock! Hypocrisy at play here, I guess.
• No good accessories support. I bought a dock which was advertised as “iPod touch compatible” but the stupid thing rejects is as “This accessory is not supported by this iPod”. Damn!
• No multi-tasking (should be solved when I get OS 4)
• No camera (Very very disappointing)
• No GPS (iPod uses the “known” Wi-Fi connection to know your current location) which means that the presence of maps is useless!
• No out of the box full featured apps or games (as opposed to what Nokia offers and has spoilt us with, over the years!)
• No good support (Everything’s covered under a “very limited” warranty as per Apple’s claim). When I asked the retailer at the time of purchase about support, he said I had to go to him and he would then ask for an email approval from the actual Apple service provider (in Riyadh) and then send my device to them by courier (after they approve!). Lousy, you say? Yep, very lousy. Compared to this, Nokia has got us covered (literally!).

Well, that’s a huge list of things I found in 2 days. More to come at a later date. See you then.

Finally, I managed to get myself a brand new iPod Touch 3G, 32GB version! Great thing. But the moment I purchased it, I have been thinking of installing all kinds of stuff on it. Already my music library has been transferred to it. Over 5 Gigs of Indian & English Songs. Plus, apps for Y! Messenger, Skype, Fring, Twitter and Facebook!

My iPod checklist for the days to come:

• Jailbreak
• Install more and more apps
• Configure Mail accounts
• Load my contacts
• More social apps
• Lot’s of games!
• Plus much more exploring to be done

Looks like my path’s cut out. iPod touch was something I had been looking forward to adding to my list of gadgets! Finally, iGot iPod. iPhone can wait until the time I can test all the functionalities of the iPhone OS and compare the same with Nokia’s Symbian OS s60 v5 which is running great on my Nokia N97 Mini.

Comparisons are inevitable. But all that can wait until later. I would be posting comparisons as soon as I am aware of the differences between the two softwares. And, see what all the fuss is about.

In the meatime, I need people to help me jailbreak my iPod touch with OS 3.1.3 installed (yea, I have been googling all day). Any suggestions guys?

Looks like finally we Nokia/Yahoo! users are in for some treat. As per the official blog post, Nokia and Yahoo! are partnering once again (they had previously partnered to offer Yahoo! Go on N series Handsets most notably the likes of N70, N95 and so on).

So, you must be wondering, what’s in it for us: the users? Here’s a brief from the post I would like to reproduce for you:

As part of the alliance Nokia will be the exclusive provider of Yahoo!’s maps and navigation services, branded as “powered by Ovi.” Nokia brings its ample experience in top-drawer, location-based products and maps to Yahoo!’s users. In turn, Yahoo! will become the exclusive global provider of Nokia’s Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat services, branded as “powered by Yahoo!.” Yahoo! brings its expertise in world-class internet offerings to the table for Ovi users.

From what I see, this pact is a kind of “switching of services” pact between the two giants. Nokia’s Maps services would power Yahoo! Maps as “powered by Ovi Maps” and Ovi Mail/Chat would be run by Yahoo! in return (also to be credited as “Powered By Yahoo!”).

For us Nokia and Yahoo! users, we would definitely gain. Especially, the crowd which owns Nokia phones and use Yahoo! services.

I can’t wait to see the difference that this pact would bring to the overall user experience.

Both the companies are at a difficult juncture in their remarkable success paths. Nokia is facing an onslaught from the various wannabes and they are well equipped indeed (And, you thought being an industry leader was easy! Nokia should learn lessons in industry dominance from Intel), while Yahoo! has been struggling to expand its profits by focussing on areas where it holds expertise. (Fact: Yahoo! is still the most visited homepage on the internet today).

Let’s see what comes out of this exciting collaboration.

Links of Use:

• Yahoo! Yodel Anecdotal (Official Yahoo! Corporate blog)
• Nokia Conversations (Official Nokia Blog)

My heart goes out to the families and friends of the victims in the tragic accident involving the Air-India Express Flight from Dubai to Mangalore on 22nd May 2010. Even though I have been late in doing so, my intention is clear. I am saddened by this tragedy and I hope that the government of India can investigate the cause behind this tragedy and put checks in place to prevent any such disaster in the future.

As of today, some of the key recorders/devices including the ‘black box’ from the doomed aircraft have been recovered and I hope the investigating teams find the cause.

Once again, my heart-felt condolences and sympathies to the families of the victims. I pray to Allah to protect us from such tragedies and safeguard everyone from such harm. Amen.

For complete information, check out: Special coverage of the Mangalore crash tragedy on TOI.

In the recent open letter about flash written by Steve Jobs, he has mentioned several reasons highlighting “deficiencies” in Flash that has kept them from supporting the technology on their iPhone, iPod or iPad or whatever “i-products” they have.

One of the reasons sighted by Jobs to keep it out of iPhone is the battery hungry nature of Flash, which ironically runs on my Nokia 97 mini without using much juice! (as claimed by Jobs)

Another reason sighted by the so called openness loving leader of Apple is that Flash is 100% proprietary and is a closed system, incidentally Apple itself practices questionable policies with regards to the total control on it’s own products. (cases where developers were barred access to the App Store highlight this).

Talk about openness! Talk about hypocrisy! Steve Jobs, sir, you have achieved dizzy heights in both.

The real reason behind barring Flash from iPhone OS based devices could be that Apple itself would loose a lot of the revenue currently being generated from the App Store (Apple gets a 30% cut from all sales) as it’s a lot easier to develop games and run videos based on it. Plus, there’s a whole bunch of things you could do with Flash.

Be brave, Mr. Jobs, and accept your product’s closed nature. Accept that you fear loosing out on that extra cash that you are extracting from the hapless developers!

Even Microsoft has a few things to learn from you I guess. Nokia has a few thing of it’s own to learn from your so called practices.

I hope the consumers take notice of this and get smart. Think before you choose products from such a company.

Over the past couple of months, whenever I heard Black Eyed Peas’ Don’t Phunk With My Heart I felt it sounded familiar. Finally I came to realize the source of the similarity. It seems that Black Eyed Peas’ song is “inspired” from Asha Bhosle’s chart-topper, “Ye Mera Dil” from the Amitabh Bachchan starrer, “DON” (1978).

At first I thought it is just a coincidence but then I noticed that the song’s entire opening notes are similar to Ye Mera Dil’s opening.

Now, if you are music expert, you can realize that this cannot be a mere coincidence.

Anyway, I am not complaining. Just noting that inspiration exists not only in Bollywood but also in Hollywood or generically in other parts of the world as well.

You are welcome to correct me if you think I am wrong.

It is common knowledge that Ms. Sunanda Pushkar, who is a friend of ex-Minister of State Mr. Shashi Tharoor, has let go of her sweat equity in the Kochi IPL team. In fact she is pursuing the matter legally in consultation with a Dubai based Indian Lawyer.

While all this storm is brewing in good old Dubai, there seems to be another one let loose by someone on Facebook posing as the Lady in the eye of the storm.

It seems the folks at The Times of India found it interesting to publish some of the updates from this Sunanda’s supposed Facebook profile without even trying to validate the profile!

From the status update excerpts that I read in the article, there are so many grammatical mistakes (this excludes the short hand net lingo that we all use). Since this is a lady working at some company called Dubai Holding at a senior consulting position, it is only fair to assume she understands the queen’s language (and even speaks it well).

Not to mention the fact that Sunanda Pushkar is very particular about her privacy.

Not responsible journalism at all. I hope the people with the pen behave more responsibly rather than reproducing some impersonator’s rants in their articles that only gives legitimacy to the wrong person and in a way defames the person in question.