Trip to BITS Pilani

Here is a short excerpt of my trip to Pilani this weekend. I had to skip my end sem regulars at Delhi this April, actually NOIDA (where the Exam center was located) because of a family engagement, and had no choice but to plan a trip to Pilani for the makeup. I had been to Pilani last year for the same reason in the Month of April, but it was much cooler and more pleasant this time around. I was hoping to have some of the other MSSS guys accompany me but it didn't work out so I was on my way all by myself, and the driver of the cab I hired of course. This was the same cab guy I hired last year and he was quite familiar with me and the route, or so I thought. This Yadav guy, made a last minute request to allow one of his friends, who needed to find his was to a village en-route to Pilani, accompany us, to which I readily agreed. We finally started out from Gurgaon at 2.30 PM on friday the 15th April hoping to be at VFAST by dinner time.But.. The journey started uneventfully and I was trying to catch up with the ppts I had printed from the BITS VU website. It looked good till we reached a place short of Mahendargarh past Rewari. The cab slowed down and we were almost crawling on the highway, hoping for the cars ahead of us to start moving, when suddenly our cab (Indica) hurtled forward and I heard a painful crunching sound. It did not take us long to realize that a TATA 407 that just sped past us on the wrong side of the road had hit us big time. Yadav gave a quick chase to the TATA 407 and we caught up with it. This TATA driver got off and was defiant and insisted he was not at fault for either hitting our cab or for fleeing away without giving us a second glance. A quick look at the left front of his TATA made us realize the magnitude of the impact, because the entire grille had caved in about a foot. This made us quickly examine our Indica to realize that the tail light assembly and the metal that surrounded had got crushed in and the cab looked a mess. The Indica driver was furious and so was the small crowd that usually comes for free with such roadside spectacular entertainments. The TATA driver, it turns out was stoned drunk and couldn't even stand or talk, and was in for a quick vigilante justice and was slapped and jolted by the small gathering to breathe some sobriety into him, but in vain. It was just past 4.30 pm. Someone pried open the glovebox of the TATA and found the driver's license and someone from the crown proclaimed that he was from the same village as the TATA driver. He, along with his friends in a loud Scorpio, offered to drive the TATA to a Police Station up ahead to seek justice for my driver, who by now had estimated his loss to be in the range of Rs 10k at an authorized dealer and 4 to 5k at a roadside mechanic. In either case his loss was around 5k ish. In the melee that ensued, my driver pocketed the mobile phone of the TATA guy and when I found out, I suggested that it be returned, which he did later. Now we were moving in a cavalcade, a loud Scorpio, a TATA 407 and us in the Indica. While we quietly drove hoping to find the 'nearest' police station, my driver Yadav, suddenly realized that what we may be heading for, may not be a police station, but a possible village mob from the TATA driver's neighborhood. And it may turn ugly. While he was considering whether he should stick to the cavalcade or just move on our way, the Scorpio ahead of us suddenly pulled over, flagged us down and uneventfully asked us to take care of the TATA and the drunk driver and drove away. Now we were left with a drunk TATA driver, and a TATA 407 in the middle of nowhere. I asked my driver's friend to escort the TATA to a Police station while we would give a lift to the Drunk driver in the Indica since he was in no condition to drive. So we did. The driver who had hit us, was now in our cab and he kept saying 'Meri kya galati hai?'. What is my mistake? I tried to tell him that he was drunk beyond limits but his vocabulary was limited to 'Meri kya galati hai? while he swayed uncontrollably on the front seat due to his inebriated state. How could he even imagine being behind a wheel in this state and be a live and loaded missile waiting to hit unsuspecting cars on the road, I wondered. We finally reached a small cluster of shops on the highway, and soon after a crowd gathered and few dramatic heated arguments later, cops in uniform appeared in a PCR. They listened to the story of the TATA Driver who kept saying 'Meri kya galati hai?' to which the cop let loose at him and told him how dangerously drunk he was. I was in the cab watching the entire theatrics from afar on advice from my cab driver. The cops then ordered both the vehicles, the TATA 407 and our Indica to a Police station nearby. At this point, at the police station, Yadav, my driver, requested me to come out and talk to the cops. I did. I told them how the TATA guy was totally dangerous on the road and how we had got him there. It seems that the TATA guy was trying to implicate my driver in a case of theft by alleging that my driver had stolen Rs 40 k from his TATA 407. The cops did not buy the story, and the TATA driver heard the cops speak with their open hands and fists which I had no option but to be a moot spectator to. We later wondered whether those guys in the Scorpio were really his village mates or just highway looters who stole his money. We would never know. The cops asked us if we wanted to book the TATA 407 driver, to which I declined because we had better things to do and did not want to spoil the TATA driver's future. But I did request them to not hand over the keys to him till he was sober enough, for fear that he might put some other life in danger. We left the police station a little while later and soon my driver's friend took leave from us and got off the cab. We were finally on our way to Pilani, but this entire episode had eaten almost 3 hours of our precious lives and the damage that Yadav had suffered was still unpaid for. It was past 7 PM and the road was bad, exceptionally bad. We could hardly touch 10 to 15 kmph for the remaining 20 to 30 odd km. Whenever we thought that the road now looked better, there was a big pothole to remind us that it didn't. A few thousand potholes and a few sharp turns later we were at BITS Pilani gates. We entered the VFAST gates and I scrambled for booking my room since I had heard that there might be a big rush for make-up exams due to the regulars coinciding with the World-cup weekend. It was 9.45 PM and we were lucky to find some leftover dinner which I shared with my driver. A while and meal later, I retired to my room numbered 13 and wondered if all the back luck was in anticipation of the unlucky number I was going to be allocated. I tried to study a bit but my eyelids just kept dropping on me. I gave in and hit the bed around midnight. zzzz I woke with a start and looked at the time on my phone, which beamed 6 am. 30 minutes past my normal wake up time. I got up, slipped into my slippers and stepped out. It looked like a promising day. The sun was just waking up, the birds were chirping and the green grass in the lawn facing my room was inviting me to walk on it bare feet. Yes this was going to be a good day. A lost peacock then descended on the roof of the hostel. It was probably wondering what a miserable life I lived without a shiny beak and a plush bouquet of feathers. It was probably mocking my colorless life. I smiled and breathed in the wet grass through my bare feet. The peacock looked away in disdain. A few minutes later I was back in my room, I freshened up, had a shower and dug into the BITS VU power points I had a printed earlier. After breakfast I moved back to my room and continued delving into the PPTs and decided to look around BITS campus later, before lunch. I also caught glimpses of what they were showing on the 15" Sony TV with a cable connection with the volume near muted. Nothing very interesting was happenning in the world, so I could let go and concentrate on the PPTs. I called my driver around noon and drove down to the museum to discover that it was shut for Mahavir Jayanti. Sadfully I moved to the Saraswati Temple to find it shut for lunch too. So I was left with no option but to return to Vfast and after a good lunch and a quick nap, browsed the PPTs all day long. Later in the day around 6.30 pm I took a walk to the small market in the BITS campus to find every shop selling coke, pepsi and chowmein. I walked on to what looked like a Shivji Temple. It had a waterbody that led towards the Shiv figure that was in a samadhi posture and looked well kept. On coming closer I discovered that this was actually a park with a small building in the center and a moat surrounding it. The moat also served as a fish tank and there were warnings about not sullying the water or feeding the fish. I did neither. It was a nice view and I walked all around the moat and discovered a small temple which I visited and a short cut that led me on the rear side of the Saraswati temple. I walked around the temple and found the gates open this time. I was held spell bound with the majestic view of the temple structure. It was domineering and serene and made from whitest Makrana marble. I walked up the steps and soaked in the serenity. There was a lone young girl offering her silent prayers to Saraswati Devi and I could feel the strength of her blessing soaking the atmosphere. While taking a parikrama of the temple, I noticed among figurines of devis and devatas, some more recent greats etched in the walls in marble that included Gandhi Ji, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Tagore, and yes JF Kennedy, Abe Lincoln et al. I was kind of taken aback with the likenesses and wondered if the American Devatas had to do with any leanings towards the west or were merely PR exercises for visiting politicians of the US. Headed back to VFAST to find that there was a small crowd gathered at the reception. On closer scrutiny I learned that there was a bunch of people trying to get a room at VFAST but were being declined and pointed to other motels outside BITS since VFAST was already running full capacity. A little while later, I experienced my first power outage at Pilani. Everything went dark, the horizon went from gray to black and the skies lit up with heavenly bodies. This was an amazing sight since I had not been in a totally dark area in a long time. And believe me, the sky looks so different without any light pollution from our 'overly lit' cities. Even when we have power outages in Delhi, which is not uncommon, the neighborhood remains lit up due to the numerous generators, invertors and the like. I decided to retire to my room after dinner a little while later and packed all the reading material I had brought for the open book exam in the back pack I was carrying for the purpose. I tried to go online to keep up with the larger mails that do not render properly on my Blackberry and realized that though the Reliance Netconnect+ dialer signalled 'Hybrid' on the screen, the speed I managed was no better than 100 kbps or lesser. Frustrated with this trickling bandwidth I chose to call it a day and resigned from any further browsing and settled in my bed for the night. There were no mosquitoes since I had sprayed the room with HIT earlier and also had packed an ALL-OUT with me which was keeping the mosquitoes away. Took my 1st Exam the next morning. I did get dropped at the SBBJ counter and walked a good 300 metres of corridors to room 2201 on the east end of the main building. My driver was waiting for me when I left the exam hall and I headed to VFAST. The first exam, 'Pervasive Computing' had gone off well enough. I had barely entered the gate when I realized that the only chance I would get to see the museum was now or never. I headed back, paid the customary Rs 10 for the entry and entered the museum. And OH! this was not what I was expecting. I was expecting the museum to be about the history of BITS and about Pilani but this was a science museum. Remind me to ask around before I go to a museum next time. I decided to get my Rs 10 worth. :) A couple of exhibits later I noticed that my bored driver had followed me inside the museum. And found him keenly interested in many exhibits there and I found myself busy being a free guide to his curiosity. So now I had a BITS Museum returned Cab driver who looked a shade smarter. With my second exam over, my hand was aching for I had written and scribbled and written for a straight 6 hours since morning. I headed straight for the hostel, checked out, paid up, and was Gurgaon bound by 5 pm. The driver had in the meantime asked around and was advised to take the other route back to Gurgaon. This route was via Loharu, Dadri, Jhajjar and I can vouch that this was a much better road. Lined with golden wheat, swaying in the fields or recently harvested and lined in neat golden piles on either side of the road. My driver, a farmer by birth, returned my favour and explained to me many nuances about farming that I had never known. I learned that wheat is sown best in November and reaped in April. Those who rotate cotton in their fields sow wheat later in December because cotton is reaped in December. Such late wheat is not as good as the timely wheat and normally is sold for a discount. Normal wheat is sold at Rs 1000 a quintal and the seeds are wheat grain itself. An acre of land could be sown with about 30 Kg of wheat grain and 40 to 50 Kg if you were sowing late. Yadav and his brother were not in thier village and his father was too old to farm, so his entire 10 bigha farm was being managed by his wife and his sister in law. He said they made around of 1.5 lacs from the farm per annum and that onion was the most paying crop but also the most difficult to manage and protect from insects and pests. In addition he money ordered anywhere between 10 to 20K home every month from his cab business. This was apart from the 8k odd installment he was paying on the Indica. Soon, halfway into our conversation about the oldest profession (well almost), it started drizzling, then raining, then raining heavily and then hailing. The hail stones were as large as big marbles and were pounding on the wind screen with loud 'rat-a-tat' sounds. Yadav then explained how his village people must be warding away evil spirits to ward off the hail which is a curse for the crops. The hailstones destroy unharvested and harvested wheat lying in the fields by knocking the wheat grains off and losing them to the soil below. A better way to pile up harvested wheat was in big heaps so that the grains knocked off from the top, do not find their way all the way to the bottom and remain stuck somewhere in the middle of the stack and can be reclaimed when they thrash the wheat. Feeling more learned, I was trying to imagine how much wheat was getting sucked into mother earth each minute it hailed. Soon after the hail and rain stopped, I was hungry and asked the driver to look for a reasonable dhaba. We were near Jhajjar and finally saw a decent looking dhaba which turned out to be just a sweet shop so we drove on. Many miles later and many turns later we were almost in Gurgaon where we found a good dhaba and I asked this farmer turned cab driver to join me for dinner with me. He looked elated and ate heartily. His normal meal was cooked by him and his 3 roommates at the room they shared in sector 45 in Gurgaon so it must have been a welcome change to eat well. I was expecting traffic in Gurgaon when we hit Hero Honda chowk but there was none, and when we hurtled at nearly full speed towards Golf Course Road. Yadav explained that it being Sunday, he was hardly expecting any rush, which I had not anticipated. I hit home just past 9.30 and let the driver go with a small tip and a smile on his face. I recounted the day as I watched TV with Nanu (my nephew ) and discussed his school issues, and thought it was a day well spent, with 2 exams written, one museum visited and a few things about a whole new profession, farming learned, and having helped my nephew look at his 'pressing' issues in lighter vein. And also learned that next time around I would never take the Rewari route. I was soon yawning and so was Nanu, who had school the next morning so we called it a day.

One Week with Blackberry Bold 2 (9700), what I missed most...

I spent a week with a Blackberry Bold aka 9700 and here is a list of things I liked and missed as compared to my old faithful Nokia E72.

1. In India, there are no Blackberry Maps available, the only option is to use Google Maps or as many threads have suggested Amaze GPS (which is no longer a free mapping service) as compared to my Nokia E72 on which there is free OVI Maps (free turn by turn mapping for the entire planet) and in addition you can have Google (better connection to the cloud for better context searches).

2. You can not update an address book record from the main screen. Like, if you got a call from someone, and the number shows in the received call register, there is an option to add this number to contacts, but the 9700 does not give you an option to update and existing contact (like the Nokia E72 does) and the only option is to painfully copy the number to clipboard, navigate to address book, navigate to the contact desired, choose edit, and then paste the number from clipboard. Duh !!!! Blackberry, please wake up.

3. The email app on the BB 9700 is good but...hello. I have some 40 odd folders on my Gmail which filter the various groups / newsletters / threads that I subscribe to, and they are neatly sorted in folders on my Nokia E72 (it allows I think 10 folders) but the Blackberry does not understand IMAPese. It has no idea that there are folders there, and it shows all those partly unnecessary mails in my main email view if I have chosen to update Gmail mails there. I have an option to go to filters and turn off these mails through filters, but then I do not get to see them anywhere at all on the Blackberry till I turn these filters off. The only option is to go to my PC to check these mails. Is this retarded? With my E72, I do not need to go near my PC at all, and the filtered mails are there on the E72 whenever I want to see them without an irritating alert every few seconds. (as on the 9700)

4. The Blackberry Bold 2 does not have an inbuilt dictionary app.

5. You can access the open apps by long pressing the menu key, but, hey, you can not close these apps by clicking the cancel/delete key like you can on the Nokia E72. Which means, going to individual apps and then scrolling down to 'close' to close these apps.

6. The native Blackberry Browser on the 9700 could not open my bank site. Must be an issue with https. I am not sure. It just showed a blank screen. And the browser is too darn slow.

7. The Camera on the 9700 is good. It renders the colors nicely and auto-focuses without any problem before clicking a pic. There is no need to first focus the camera as in the E72.

8. When the Blackberry Bold 2 rings, and you have an incoming call, the only options provided to you are 'answer' or 'ignore' the call. The E72 gives you the options to reject call with a pre-defined text message like "I am busy, will call back later" or any message of your choice.

9. If you are using any Mapping software, including Google Maps, I found the GPS fix taking a long time despite assisted GPS enabled. Also, the GPS needs to be switched on and Off through the main menu under Advance Settings. On the E72, the GPS fix is much faster and the GPS radio switches on or off automatically depending on the Map app being on or off. Saves the batteries.

10. No native Skype app for Blackberry yet. So the E72 pips the BB here.

11. BB messenger is a great app to keep in touch with other BB users worldwide for free, provided you know their device PIN. No comparison here.

12. No Opera Mini for the Blackberry Bold 2 yet, which is a certain let down.(Update- Opera Mini is now available and works OK)

13. Optical track pad is much responsive and makes it easy to scroll through pages, but if you want to scroll down a long page, it's easier on the E72 where you can hold down the D-Pad and not have to swipe the optical track pad a gazillion times.

14. The clock application on the Bold 2 has the option for only one single alarm time that you can set. The E72 allows you to set multiple alarms with their own repeat daily, weekly, monthly or yearly instructions.

15. I use the '$' sign while writing messages only once in the bluest of moons, and I use the '.' sign (full stop, period) every sentence. Yet, the BB team have the keyboard fixed so that the '.' sign needs a double key press (alt+ '.') and the '$' sign is a single press. High time they interchanged the two. What say people...?

16. The keyboard on the 9700 is not as user friendly as the E72. The keys are designed to be used with both your hands whereas on the E72, all keys are raised in the center making it very tactile and easy for one-handed use. E72 also has a 39 key keyboard as compared to a 35 key keyboard for the 9700. Way to go, Nokia...

17. Despite having 3G connectivity, the 9700 does not have a front camera for video chat. How uncool is that??

18. The Speed Dial on the 9700 is cool with all 26 letters of the alphabet available for Speed Dial excepts those reserved for voice mail (#1).

19. The Nimbuzz app on 9700 does not allow making voice calls on Skype, and only text chat is available. Unlike E72 where you have a choice of using native Skype or using Nimbuzz with all the capabilities.

20. The Speaker Phone on the 9700 is effective and loud and with a dedicated key, is quite useful. It even has equalizer controls for changing the treble / bass level.

21. The headphone jack hole is placed on the side, which means I can not really carry the phone in my pocket with the headphone plugged in. Nor can I put the phone in a Blackberry provided case with the headphone plugged in. What were you thinking BB?

22. The phone requires a reboot (which takes all of 10 minutes) every time I install or remove even a simple app. Comeon BB team, even simple phones do not require the reboot drill.

23. The phone is much thicker than the E72 and I can 'feel' it in my pocket. The E72 just melts away in your pocket.

24. I recently got an email notification from BB for an OS upgrade to 5.0.0.862 but the inbuilt wireless update didn't show the update. I had to connect to the PC to update. The E72 has OTA firmware update functionality which is quite handy.

25. There is no multiple selection of files if I am trying to attach more than 1 file to an email or move them from one location to the other. I have to painfully select each file and attach or move. The E72 is sooooo much better at this.

26. The search application on the Bold does not allow me the option to search documents or files, whereas the E72 has a very comprehensive search which includes searching over the net on google, all in one GUI.

27. I have not yet found a free app for the Bold for tracking my route (using GPS) like the Sports Tracker on the E72 (free). There is no comparison here.

28. All these shortcomings apart, the only area where the BB Bold scores over the E72 is the solidness of the emailing functions (minus the IMAPese, remember). Period. Otherwise it's a distant also ran. But I need to mention here that Nokia Customer Service has a dedicated team, and quite well trained at that, who solve the Nokia Email issues if any. I had a couple of issues and they promptly solved them for me. (I had 2 phones configured with the same id, so the server was getting confused, Nokia support deleted the phone I no longer used. Though I think this should happen automatically, but then hey, the Nokia Email service is free in India, yes totally free with the E72 which costs almost 1/2 as much as the Bold 2 in India).

29. Last but not the least the E72 has short cut buttons for putting the torch on and off (long press space bar), the bluetooth (dedicated button), etc. On the Bold 2 there is no way to get the torch (LED) to come on, so I use a trick like I have mapped the left convenience key to the video camera and I have the LED set to 'ON' as default in the Video camera. So I do get to use the left convenience key as the 'torch' key of sorts.

Comments welcome

Skinput - Touch screen on your skin

Sneak Peak at Symbian^4 Interface

and

Samsung Wave Hands on Video with Bada UI

Dual Boot N900 Maemo and Android

E72 - suggestions to the Firmware Update Team

1. When dialing a number, the left soft key says 'loudpeaker', once
the number connects, this shifts to the right soft key. This is rather
confusing. I expect one softkey to remain as the 'loudspeaker' key
either during the dialing process or after connection.
2. The phonebook search could include numbers. Like if I want to
search 98100......, the search should show me numbers beginning with
98100 in my phone book. All windows mobile phones have this lovely
feature.
3. Symbian team could work at making shortcuts of all keys (long
press). i.e. if I set long press 'c' for camera, long press 'e' for
email, long press 'k' for calculator, r for 'recorder' and even use
some for speed dialing like a for 'Arpit' etc, a lot of my navigation
through menus is reduced. All keys could be used for short cuts or at
least the alphabet keys.
4. They should consider adding a feature to find duplicate numbers in
the phone book.
5. The navi key makes you jump just one icon in the menu screen with
one scroll even at high sensitivity. There should be an option to
enhance this sensitivity so that users could scroll the entire length
or breadth of the screen with one finger swipe. It reduces effort.
6. The bluetooth key is a good idea, but there should be an option to
use this key for a. turning bt off or on (as it is already there), or
b. turing on the main bt screen (this is sometimes required to connect
your paired device and eliminates the need for going through the
menus.)
7. On the menu screen, there could be an option to turn off the menu
labels and hence pack more menu icons on the screen. The menu labels
of selected icon could display at the top of the screen.
8. The icons could be less colorful on a business phone, so all Nokia
needs to do is come ont with a serious business theme with simple,
colorless icons.
9. On selecting a contact, there should be an option to 'set meeting'
with the contact and open the calendar screen with the contact details
populated.
10. In the music player, while the music is playing, there should be
an option>lock keypad so that the optical key does not get activated
by mistake. (currently you need to go to main screen and lock, this is
cumbersome)
11. There is a lot of animation / transition time in the email
program. I would ask NOKIA to add an option to do away with the
transitions and make it snappy.
12. The Email software is regressive. The IMAP folders are not easy to
reach as on E71 and they do not display the number of unread messages
in brackets. You need to open all folders to be able to know if there
are any unread messages.
13. Another issue is that unlike E71 messaging, there is no option to
sync the 'read' message status. It automatically does. Meaning, if I
have read a message on the phone, or deleted it, it will show as read
or deleted on my pc as well. This is a bummer.
14. While updating the music library, it adds all sound files,
including ringtones that are small files. There should be an option to
set a minimum size of files to add when updating music library.
15. Moreover, if I install some sis or jar file using Ovi suite or
Nokia PC Suite, it should retain a copy of the sis or jar (0r jad)
file in a special folder on the PC so I can reinstall them through the
PC any time and the OVI Suite or PC Suite knows which all programs are
installed by a log file it maintains for the purpose. It makes the job
much simpler after a hard reboot. (hard boots are currently required
after every few weeks/ months to increase system performance, which
starts lagging dues to insufficient garbage collection)
16. The light sensor of the front of the phone
could be used to switch the optical navikey off (when the phone is
next o the ear) rather than have the optical navikey disabled during a
call as default. I think this feature of light sensor could also be
used to switch the phone to sleep mode when put inside it's case.
18. The lock screen is cumbersome with 2 keys, though I know it is
safer (less chances of getting activated by mistake) , but other
options like maybe double clicking the voice command key or double
tapping the d pad (navikey) could do the same.
19. The phone hangs, reboots and sometimes drops connection in the
middle of a call. Serious investigation of the same needs to be done.
20. Every application should have it's own choice of 'predictive input
'on or off rather than having it universal. I like to have it on while
doing a search on Ovi Maps, but do not like to have it on while
composing SMS, but like it while composing emails, or while writing
notes. But since there is a universal on or off for predictive input,
this is not possible.
21. I am still not sure if the E72 set I have is a 600 Mhz processor
as mentioned here http://www.forum.nokia.com/devices/E72/ , or a
slower processor.

E72 in my hands

Here is my take on the Nokia E72. I have had the E72 for a month now and I am frustrated like hell.

Issues:-

1.Camera takes 4-5 seconds to open and the 'processing' message remains for as much as 6 seconds after takin a pic. On my E71 it took less than a second. (update) I got my MicroSD card changed and now the response is a tad faster.

2. Phonetinfo, and Phoneinfo show the processor speed as 192 Mhz, though some claim that a newer version of Phonetinfo will show 600 Mhz. (I managed to install a later version and it shows 600 mHz, whew!!)

3. The Email software from NOKIA is regressive. The IMAP folders are not easy to reach as on E71 and they do not display the number of unread messages in brackets. You need to open all folders to be able to know if there are any unread messages.

4. There is a lot of animation / transition time in the email program. I would ask NOKIA to do away with the transitions and make it snappy.

5. The back cover on E71 was solid but on E72 it keeps coming loose. There is only one button which is gets pressed accidentally and many a time I have lifted my phone from the table and the back cover is falling off.

6. The menu has been redesigned to make you go several levels. On E71 it was menu>setting> whereas on E72 it is menu>control panel> settings making you click more buttons. In order to go to maps you need to go to menu>app>gps rather than menu>gps on E71. I know one can rearrange the icons but this is regressive development from Nokia.

7. The sync cable is like 6 inches long. On the E71 I could lift the phone from the table and answer a call while it was connected to my laptop, but in E72, I have to disconnect the cable or bend awkwardly to take a call. Why a 6 inch cable, down from a meter long cable on E71.

8. On the E71 camera screen, you could go to options>gallery, but on the E72, the gallery option is missing making you scroll through the main menu to go to the gallery. (Update, they now have an icon to take you there)

9. During a call, the optical key stops functioning. If you are scrolling through a number or the menu while on a call, the optical key will not work. It also does not work in the Camera menu tool bar once the picture is taken. It works before the picture is taken. (Update: I am told this is intentional since the optical key is next to your face during a call, and keeping it inactive helps.)

10. I have not had once incident when the voice recognition could make out who I was trying to call. It always gets the wrong name.

11. The plastic covers for the Micro USB and the MicroSD card fall off. They have to be very carefully pulled out or else you can lose them. (They have not fallen off for some time now. Strange!!)

12. Another issue is that unlike E71 messaging, there is no option to sync the 'read' message status. It automatically does. Meaning, if I have read a message on the phone, it will show as read on my Gmail. This is a bummer.

13. There is no option to turn on HTML messages universally. One has to do it for every mail individually.

14. While playing music, the optical key is inadvertently sensing the insides of my pocket and skips from song to song. I have to go to main screen and manually lock the keypad to be able to use the music player with the phone in my pocket.

15. The RAM shows only about 25 to 30 MB free with all apps closed using Taskman for the purpose. On E71 it used to be 60 MB or more. I have many a times got a 'memory full' error message on my E72. I never ever got this message on the E71 ever.

16. I have sometimes got the 'maximum number of connections in use, close a connection?' error message when I have only one opera mini screen open. Bug ??

17. The Internet Radio app has been removed.

18. There are only redundant games like solitaire and block cascade.

Apart from these the positives are a larger C drive (260 up from 120 on E71). The Torch key (long press space bar). The integration of Nokia Email with the Nokia inbuilt messaging app. Option to change snooze time in clock alarm , etc.

Overall, I am still not excited about this phone and hope I had kept my E71. This phone is going to be hopefully fixed with a firmware update. If any other user has a different experience, then please do leave a comment and let me know.

Update: The stock MicroSD card is class-4 whereas class-6 cards are much faster. I'm gonna get me one soon.

Google maps intoduces turn by turn directions with voice

MTNL Launches 3G phone for Rs 5500/-

MTNL, the Govt. telecom service provider for Delhi and Mumbai has launched the cheapest 3G qwerty mobile phone from Micromax for Rs 5499/- (Just about US$ 100) . Check out the details here

Yahoo launches Meme, a Twitter lookalike

Yahoo launched twitter lookalike. Check it out at http://meme.yahoo.com

Don't shred, Stamp out

Bodies in Urban Space

Sync your bookmarks on Firefox using Xmarks

Visit www.xmarks.com for more details

Tata Nano Crash Test

Read more about it here

Solar Eclipse 22nd July 2009

Check out how the eclipse looked in it's entire path with this nicely done mashup here

Bentley Continental Supersports Debuts

The Fastest Bentley

Omni-Directional Tread Mill

Bandra Worli Sea Link - Finally

Nokia E72 pre-release vid

The phone makes you drool.

Iphone 3G S sells a million sets in 3 days

Apple's Iphone 3G s, the latest phone from Apple's stable sells a million sets in 3 days flat. What's new with this phone? It has cut-n-paste, finally apart from a few enhancements like a better cam and an upgraded OS. Read on here

Ipod touch controlling car through the internet.

Making of Trek Madone's Carbon Fibre frame

Nokia Debuts Noise Cancelling Head Phones

World's strongest Laser Burns Like the Sun

The world's strongest laser - powerful enough to create conditions as hot as inside the Sun - was unveiled Friday in the western U.S. state of California.

The stadium-sized National Ignition Facility actually houses 192 lasers that all point towards a tiny blob of hydrogen. The Laser, scientists expect, can make hydrogen fuse into helium, a chemical reaction like what makes stars burn and nuclear bombs explode. Read on here