Hi,
Todays saturday, but I'm in office......Thats 'coz I've been put into a new project and have to learn a lot of stuff.....Its been just 1 week since I've joined this project and my PM's asked me to start being productive from the coming Monday itself.
The past week's been just a whirlwind of trainings and sessions......and I couldn't even go to sleep....'coz there were just 5 of us for the sessions.....personalised attention can be such a pain in the neck u know.
Now, my PM's saying he's goanna keep a test for us on what we're suposed to have learnt during the past week.This is the limit.But anyway, tests are good for u.......as they're some sort of feedback.
Alls well thats works well!!
My close friend SuKu has come from chennai......and so, tonight we're goanna have a blast at Styx or some other nice pub in Bangalore....Will keep y'all updated on the happenings.
I kinda like Styx as its the only pub in bangalore which plays nice Metal.The other pubs compromise on the music.And u can enjoy the music for 2-3 hours for just 200 bucks.....thats cheap man! I remember once we went to a pub in Chennai.....and no ordinary pub mind u.The 'Bikes & Barrels' in the Residency Hotel on Pondy Bazaar road.The hotel looked posh (3 Star I guess).But the pub pissed me off from the time i entered.Its seems there are 2 floors for the pub and the stags were herded upstairs while the guys who came with gals tagging along with them were directed to the ground floor.....what the heck is this? So, the whole scene ended up looking like the whole level 0 was a stage with actors on them while the audience in Level 1 ogled at the gals below.....It was sooo demeaning.And they started playing bhangra stuff.......at one point I was almiost afraid they'ld play 'appadi podu...podu....' or 'manmatha rasa'.
I know I may sound like a snob for saying this, but my experience with the pubs in bangalore sorta raised the standards.
In bangalore u can be urself and headbang urself to nirvana.All in all an enjoyable experience as ur neck starts to hurt only the next day.
I'll update u tomorrow on how it went tonight.
Till then......Keep reading my blog.
I luv u all....
PS: This is for the guy who keeps commenting on my blogs.I have enabled word-verification.Hope this satisfies u.And keep commenting.....its people like u who make my days sunnier!!
-Cne
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Life's Great!!
Hi,
I'm back into Blogging after a loong hiatus.I'm working in a new project now....onn a machine with English OS - which has made life a lot easier.
Now, its possible for me to atleast try to decipher the error messages Windows pings me with.And I dont have to click on 'OK' or 'CANCEL' just by fuzzy logic.When I was working on the Japanese OS, any dialog box which opened would be totally in Japanese and so, we had to navigate by trial and error method.
Now, I can navigate happily...I remember the days when if i needed to change soem windows settings, I used to call up any of my friends who was working on the English version and ask him to read me the settings line by line......
In my present project , I'm learning lots of new technologies......its interesting.But my whole day is spent in one session after another.I'm unable to stay at my comp for any appreciable amount of time.
So,though I have a lot of articles written up in my mind......I am not getting the time to transfer them to the system.......would have been nice if there were some tool to directly download ur thoughts from ur mind to the system......hehe!!
Now, I'll post some of the articles I've writen.....enjoy maadi!!
-Cne
I'm back into Blogging after a loong hiatus.I'm working in a new project now....onn a machine with English OS - which has made life a lot easier.
Now, its possible for me to atleast try to decipher the error messages Windows pings me with.And I dont have to click on 'OK' or 'CANCEL' just by fuzzy logic.When I was working on the Japanese OS, any dialog box which opened would be totally in Japanese and so, we had to navigate by trial and error method.
Now, I can navigate happily...I remember the days when if i needed to change soem windows settings, I used to call up any of my friends who was working on the English version and ask him to read me the settings line by line......
In my present project , I'm learning lots of new technologies......its interesting.But my whole day is spent in one session after another.I'm unable to stay at my comp for any appreciable amount of time.
So,though I have a lot of articles written up in my mind......I am not getting the time to transfer them to the system.......would have been nice if there were some tool to directly download ur thoughts from ur mind to the system......hehe!!
Now, I'll post some of the articles I've writen.....enjoy maadi!!
-Cne
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
My Tuppence on Cell Fones...
Cell Phone Comparison
I've owned and used the following brands of cell phones
NOKIA(3210,3310,8210,8310,1100),Sony Ericsson(T100,T105,K500i), Samsung(R220,C100), Mitsubishi Trium, Motorola(Walkabout), LG (5130) and Panasonic(GD 90).
Based on my user experiences, I give my ideas on the comparison between these brands based on different parameters.
This is a completely subjective and approximate comparison. The absolute stats may vary based on the model u buy and the price range ur interested in.
Technology :
Sony Ericsson seems to be the winner in this area. All its models in all price ranges offer some technological edge over other brands in the same price range. Motorola comes a close second, with Panasonic and Samsung tied for the third. Nokia comes last in offering technological innovations. It is usually the last to offer innovations. LG is still learning the ropes.
The technological edge I mean can be
- Quality of voice
- Quality of the pictures taken with the camera in the phone
- New features like 64K color screen, Flash for camera, MP3 player etc.
The features offered by SE maybe offered by NOKIA in a higher model.
But speaking on the lines of 'More bang for the buck', SE phones are lot better. Motorola phones have good features, but only at a higher range. (>20K)
But in terms of Battery Standby and Talk times, NOKIA beats them all hands down!!
User Friendliness & Stability:
Predictably NOKIA comes trumps in this arena. All its phones are designed to be 'FOOL-PROOF’. They’re the easiest to use and incredibly stable. I’ve dropped my NOKIA phones (3210, 3310, 8210, 8310) too many times to count but they've always been fine. The maximum physical damage u can do to ur NOKIA phone by dropping it is to break its Panel and keypad-which are damn cheap to replace.
Panasonic comes second in user friendliness. Samsung and Sony Ericsson come third. The main differentiator is those small small improvements in the user interface, in the options menu. Those insignificant additions to the menu options go a long way to decrease user fatigue. LG is OK, but has to add the many small options (like being able to edit the number u just called) which we've come to accept as default.
One more thing I've seen is that Sony Ericsson phone soft wares seem to be designed on the same lines as Windows 98.All the fones I've used (T100, T105, K500i) will hang on the drop of a hat. U press 2 buttons at once, it hangs. U start a game, it hangs. Change the ring tone, it hangs. And sometimes it hangs without any reason at all. But once u re start it, it starts working fine- till the next hanging. Just like Windows.
And the behemoth Motorola comes last. The low end Motorola phones are designed for geeks i guess. In the higher end Clamshell PDA phones, Motorola is the leader, but it fails miserably in the lower end of the spectrum. The phones are a pain to use. And they have an attitude problem. The buttons for accepting and rejecting calls and the menu buttons are arranged in the opposite order to all other models. So, if u're accustomed to using other phones, u try to use a Motorola phone, u'll go mad.
All Said and Done,
I've chosen the categorized the users and the Brands suitable for each.
Yuppies (age 21-24) –
These are people who want the most features in the optimum price. But at the same time have a fascination for gadgets and smart phones. And they’r eready to pay extra if the phone catches their fascination.
The utilities these people need the most in their phones are-
- Nice easy key pad for fast & frequent SMSing
- Nice features like Real tones(MP3 set as ring tones), >1 Mega Pixel (still & video) Camera, Large onboard memory,MP3 player, VIDEO player,3D Arcade games, Bluetooth, if possible-Symbian OS, Net Browsing capability etc.
Brand: Sony Ericsson (K500i, K700i etc) or Motorola (E398) or even NOKIA (6600, 3230) etc...... They come for arnd 15 K now. But worth the money for the oomph quotient!!
(Yours truly falls in this category)
Business Users -(25+) –
These are the people who are PM & above who have to travel frequently. They use their phones as an extension of their office.
What this category needs in their phones:
- PDA capabilities. I can go on and on abt the features, but this tag line explains it all. They don’t need phones. The y need mini PDAs. Of course Sony Erickson P910i and NOKIA 9300 are pretty popular among them.
If they're already using Palm Pilots / Handspring / Oxygen PDA phones, and also need a simple phone for talking purposes only, I’ve noticed that they go for basic models of NOKIA (Eg:3310,3100,2100 etc) which fulfill their need for a low maintenance, simple to use phone with good battery life.
Older people (55+) –
They are mostly our parents whom we gift cell phones so that we can keep in touch with them all the time and also for medical emergencies. They also need low maintenance, simple to use phones with good battery life. Basic models of NOKIA or SAMSUNG will fulfill their needs. (In my case, my dad uses a 1100.But my mom refused to be happy with such phones and snatched my cute little NOKIA 8310 away from me.)
Women –
I know I may draw flak for categorizing them as a separate category. But from ‘my experience’, most of the girls I’ve seen have been always attracted to small, cute, clamshell models with colorful screens to which they attach frilly lacy straps and carry around in their hands – flaunting their feminism. That’s the reason Samsung R220 in spite of being a crappy phone was blessed with a faithful female following. The main reason being that while all other brands at that point of time had utilitarian yellow or white display light colors, R220 had a ‘bright’ blue display. The girls fell for it every time.
Now that all the models have color screens as default, I guess they’ll now be going for the clamshell models from Samsung or NOKIA (2650, 6170, 6260 etc). But there are a lot of women who fall in other categories as well.
Rest of the people –
These are the people who (rightly??) use and consider a cell phone as just that – a phone. They just want a simple to use phone with ok features and ok battery life. They form the segment to which most of the Mobile Phones advertising aim at. They are the people who are easily influenced by the catch words and the promised lifestyle the ads promise. And as they don’t care what they buy as long as it fulfils their needs, they go for a phone without researching the market and the features of the phone that they’re goanna buy.
This results in the fact that many end up buying phones because they wanted some feature which was described in the ads as being awesome and something they cant live without, but finally end up not using the feature at all. But I’m not saying they’re all unhappy with their choice. Just that their decision may not have been the most efficient and optimal.
These people form the bulk of the population.
So, finally after all these ideas and opinions, what am I trying to convey??
When ever u decide to buy a phone, please try to do the following:
Ø First decide on ur price range and identify the phones in that range from all brands.
Ø Take some time to reflect on what ur goanna use it for. If u’ll be using it mostly for SMSing and calling, NOKIA and Samsung phones will be the best as they have nice handy Keypads which are very good for SMSing.
Ø Think if u will be needing the extra features like radio, speaker phone, GPRS etc. The salesman may say that the phone has GPRS and u can browse the net using GPRS. But believe me, it’s no fun browsing sites with a screen the size of 3 postage stamps. GPRS is usually useful only when u have PDA phones or have camera phones.
Ø If ur going for camera phones, see what photo resolution the phones offers. If its anything less than 640 x 480, its not worth it. And most importantly, ask how much memory it has and also what facilities it has to send the photos u take to ur system. For eg : NOKIA 6220 was a nice phone with still and video camera.(One of the first from NOKIA I guess) .But it had a measly 4MB memory. So, even if u took photos or videos there wouldn’t be enough space store them. Ditto with Sony Erickson K500i. It had just 12 MB memory which had to be divided among photos, videos, MP3 songs, Games, Applications, and Themes etc. Memory management becomes a big head ache.
In these cases go for phones with expandable memory (accept MMC cards) and which have Bluetooth. Infrared is of not much use.
Ø Try not to buy the first version of any phone. U may get lucky or be unlucky? (Like the buyers of NOKIA 3530 – the first color mobile from Nokia.)
Ø But at the same time, don’t be afraid to experiment. With the mobile market in India growing at an amazing pace, more and more BIG players are entering the market. For eg, u’ld may not have heard of SAGEM or BIRD, but they are very big players in the European market. U may get great value deals.
In the case of Cell Phone Networks, I’ve used AIRTEL, HUTCH, IDEA, BSNL, AIRCEL , BPL and RELIANCE.
In Bangalore, AIRTEL had the best network, but I heard form a honcho at Hutch that they’re pumping in loads of money to better their coverage in India. And in CDMA phones, I heard reliance is good. But all these depend upon who has a tower near ur house/office. So, don’t believe what I say. Talk to people around u what connection they’re using and decide for urself.
Regarding Post Paid or Pre Paid. I would suggest those who wanna restrict their Phone bills and make very few outgoing calls to stick with Prepaid. U may think that u pay 300 per month as rent (Assuming u charge ur cell with 2 Rs: 315 cards a month) and if u come to post paid, u’ll have to pay only arnd 200 rs as rent. But unfortunately, life doesn’t follow this logic. Once u don’t have that little message telling u ur balance after every call, u don’t think of restricting ur calls and end up spending a lot on bills.
Always remember, the Mobile Services companies use the Prepaid to lure users to postpaid. So, prepaid users have more features, more freebies and more hype but generate very less income for the company. The postpaid users are the cash cows who have to pay for the deficit of the prepaid business of the network provider.
So, switch over to Postpaid only if u make a lot of Outgoing calls.
And finally, do remember that the Indian Market is one of the fastest growing in the world and has the cheapest call rates in the world too. This won’t be like this for too long. Make the best use of this as possible. Try to make the most optimal choices and extract the most benefits out of ur network provider.
Happy Calling…..
Regards,
-Cne
Standard Disclaimer:
I accept that all these above words and the ideas described in them are mine. U didn’t pay me for these words, so I assume no responsibility for any actions u take based on the above ideas and comments. But I’ll be happy if u have gained something from reading this.
Bouquets and brickbats please direct as comments.
I've owned and used the following brands of cell phones
NOKIA(3210,3310,8210,8310,1100),Sony Ericsson(T100,T105,K500i), Samsung(R220,C100), Mitsubishi Trium, Motorola(Walkabout), LG (5130) and Panasonic(GD 90).
Based on my user experiences, I give my ideas on the comparison between these brands based on different parameters.
This is a completely subjective and approximate comparison. The absolute stats may vary based on the model u buy and the price range ur interested in.
Technology :
Sony Ericsson seems to be the winner in this area. All its models in all price ranges offer some technological edge over other brands in the same price range. Motorola comes a close second, with Panasonic and Samsung tied for the third. Nokia comes last in offering technological innovations. It is usually the last to offer innovations. LG is still learning the ropes.
The technological edge I mean can be
- Quality of voice
- Quality of the pictures taken with the camera in the phone
- New features like 64K color screen, Flash for camera, MP3 player etc.
The features offered by SE maybe offered by NOKIA in a higher model.
But speaking on the lines of 'More bang for the buck', SE phones are lot better. Motorola phones have good features, but only at a higher range. (>20K)
But in terms of Battery Standby and Talk times, NOKIA beats them all hands down!!
User Friendliness & Stability:
Predictably NOKIA comes trumps in this arena. All its phones are designed to be 'FOOL-PROOF’. They’re the easiest to use and incredibly stable. I’ve dropped my NOKIA phones (3210, 3310, 8210, 8310) too many times to count but they've always been fine. The maximum physical damage u can do to ur NOKIA phone by dropping it is to break its Panel and keypad-which are damn cheap to replace.
Panasonic comes second in user friendliness. Samsung and Sony Ericsson come third. The main differentiator is those small small improvements in the user interface, in the options menu. Those insignificant additions to the menu options go a long way to decrease user fatigue. LG is OK, but has to add the many small options (like being able to edit the number u just called) which we've come to accept as default.
One more thing I've seen is that Sony Ericsson phone soft wares seem to be designed on the same lines as Windows 98.All the fones I've used (T100, T105, K500i) will hang on the drop of a hat. U press 2 buttons at once, it hangs. U start a game, it hangs. Change the ring tone, it hangs. And sometimes it hangs without any reason at all. But once u re start it, it starts working fine- till the next hanging. Just like Windows.
And the behemoth Motorola comes last. The low end Motorola phones are designed for geeks i guess. In the higher end Clamshell PDA phones, Motorola is the leader, but it fails miserably in the lower end of the spectrum. The phones are a pain to use. And they have an attitude problem. The buttons for accepting and rejecting calls and the menu buttons are arranged in the opposite order to all other models. So, if u're accustomed to using other phones, u try to use a Motorola phone, u'll go mad.
All Said and Done,
I've chosen the categorized the users and the Brands suitable for each.
Yuppies (age 21-24) –
These are people who want the most features in the optimum price. But at the same time have a fascination for gadgets and smart phones. And they’r eready to pay extra if the phone catches their fascination.
The utilities these people need the most in their phones are-
- Nice easy key pad for fast & frequent SMSing
- Nice features like Real tones(MP3 set as ring tones), >1 Mega Pixel (still & video) Camera, Large onboard memory,MP3 player, VIDEO player,3D Arcade games, Bluetooth, if possible-Symbian OS, Net Browsing capability etc.
Brand: Sony Ericsson (K500i, K700i etc) or Motorola (E398) or even NOKIA (6600, 3230) etc...... They come for arnd 15 K now. But worth the money for the oomph quotient!!
(Yours truly falls in this category)
Business Users -(25+) –
These are the people who are PM & above who have to travel frequently. They use their phones as an extension of their office.
What this category needs in their phones:
- PDA capabilities. I can go on and on abt the features, but this tag line explains it all. They don’t need phones. The y need mini PDAs. Of course Sony Erickson P910i and NOKIA 9300 are pretty popular among them.
If they're already using Palm Pilots / Handspring / Oxygen PDA phones, and also need a simple phone for talking purposes only, I’ve noticed that they go for basic models of NOKIA (Eg:3310,3100,2100 etc) which fulfill their need for a low maintenance, simple to use phone with good battery life.
Older people (55+) –
They are mostly our parents whom we gift cell phones so that we can keep in touch with them all the time and also for medical emergencies. They also need low maintenance, simple to use phones with good battery life. Basic models of NOKIA or SAMSUNG will fulfill their needs. (In my case, my dad uses a 1100.But my mom refused to be happy with such phones and snatched my cute little NOKIA 8310 away from me.)
Women –
I know I may draw flak for categorizing them as a separate category. But from ‘my experience’, most of the girls I’ve seen have been always attracted to small, cute, clamshell models with colorful screens to which they attach frilly lacy straps and carry around in their hands – flaunting their feminism. That’s the reason Samsung R220 in spite of being a crappy phone was blessed with a faithful female following. The main reason being that while all other brands at that point of time had utilitarian yellow or white display light colors, R220 had a ‘bright’ blue display. The girls fell for it every time.
Now that all the models have color screens as default, I guess they’ll now be going for the clamshell models from Samsung or NOKIA (2650, 6170, 6260 etc). But there are a lot of women who fall in other categories as well.
Rest of the people –
These are the people who (rightly??) use and consider a cell phone as just that – a phone. They just want a simple to use phone with ok features and ok battery life. They form the segment to which most of the Mobile Phones advertising aim at. They are the people who are easily influenced by the catch words and the promised lifestyle the ads promise. And as they don’t care what they buy as long as it fulfils their needs, they go for a phone without researching the market and the features of the phone that they’re goanna buy.
This results in the fact that many end up buying phones because they wanted some feature which was described in the ads as being awesome and something they cant live without, but finally end up not using the feature at all. But I’m not saying they’re all unhappy with their choice. Just that their decision may not have been the most efficient and optimal.
These people form the bulk of the population.
So, finally after all these ideas and opinions, what am I trying to convey??
When ever u decide to buy a phone, please try to do the following:
Ø First decide on ur price range and identify the phones in that range from all brands.
Ø Take some time to reflect on what ur goanna use it for. If u’ll be using it mostly for SMSing and calling, NOKIA and Samsung phones will be the best as they have nice handy Keypads which are very good for SMSing.
Ø Think if u will be needing the extra features like radio, speaker phone, GPRS etc. The salesman may say that the phone has GPRS and u can browse the net using GPRS. But believe me, it’s no fun browsing sites with a screen the size of 3 postage stamps. GPRS is usually useful only when u have PDA phones or have camera phones.
Ø If ur going for camera phones, see what photo resolution the phones offers. If its anything less than 640 x 480, its not worth it. And most importantly, ask how much memory it has and also what facilities it has to send the photos u take to ur system. For eg : NOKIA 6220 was a nice phone with still and video camera.(One of the first from NOKIA I guess) .But it had a measly 4MB memory. So, even if u took photos or videos there wouldn’t be enough space store them. Ditto with Sony Erickson K500i. It had just 12 MB memory which had to be divided among photos, videos, MP3 songs, Games, Applications, and Themes etc. Memory management becomes a big head ache.
In these cases go for phones with expandable memory (accept MMC cards) and which have Bluetooth. Infrared is of not much use.
Ø Try not to buy the first version of any phone. U may get lucky or be unlucky? (Like the buyers of NOKIA 3530 – the first color mobile from Nokia.)
Ø But at the same time, don’t be afraid to experiment. With the mobile market in India growing at an amazing pace, more and more BIG players are entering the market. For eg, u’ld may not have heard of SAGEM or BIRD, but they are very big players in the European market. U may get great value deals.
In the case of Cell Phone Networks, I’ve used AIRTEL, HUTCH, IDEA, BSNL, AIRCEL , BPL and RELIANCE.
In Bangalore, AIRTEL had the best network, but I heard form a honcho at Hutch that they’re pumping in loads of money to better their coverage in India. And in CDMA phones, I heard reliance is good. But all these depend upon who has a tower near ur house/office. So, don’t believe what I say. Talk to people around u what connection they’re using and decide for urself.
Regarding Post Paid or Pre Paid. I would suggest those who wanna restrict their Phone bills and make very few outgoing calls to stick with Prepaid. U may think that u pay 300 per month as rent (Assuming u charge ur cell with 2 Rs: 315 cards a month) and if u come to post paid, u’ll have to pay only arnd 200 rs as rent. But unfortunately, life doesn’t follow this logic. Once u don’t have that little message telling u ur balance after every call, u don’t think of restricting ur calls and end up spending a lot on bills.
Always remember, the Mobile Services companies use the Prepaid to lure users to postpaid. So, prepaid users have more features, more freebies and more hype but generate very less income for the company. The postpaid users are the cash cows who have to pay for the deficit of the prepaid business of the network provider.
So, switch over to Postpaid only if u make a lot of Outgoing calls.
And finally, do remember that the Indian Market is one of the fastest growing in the world and has the cheapest call rates in the world too. This won’t be like this for too long. Make the best use of this as possible. Try to make the most optimal choices and extract the most benefits out of ur network provider.
Happy Calling…..
Regards,
-Cne
Standard Disclaimer:
I accept that all these above words and the ideas described in them are mine. U didn’t pay me for these words, so I assume no responsibility for any actions u take based on the above ideas and comments. But I’ll be happy if u have gained something from reading this.
Bouquets and brickbats please direct as comments.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Bangalore is cool
Funny Start
Here I am sitting in a I way paying money and creating my blog.......Sound funny when u know that i have high speed net connexion at office and i can do it in a more relaxed manner,and can write more without worring abt the time.
But what to do?? Since i'm working in a project for a japanese client, my system is loaded with Windows XP - Japanese version and these Google guys have coded their blogger page in such a way that it automatically detects my language settings and i get all of my google pages in nice graphic japanese....and i can make nothing out of it.
I've gotten accustomed to this being the case with my working environs......didn't think this could intrude on my fun life too....Anyway, i hope that once i've created and configured the bog, posting wouldn't be that tough!!
Lets see.......
-Cne
Here I am sitting in a I way paying money and creating my blog.......Sound funny when u know that i have high speed net connexion at office and i can do it in a more relaxed manner,and can write more without worring abt the time.
But what to do?? Since i'm working in a project for a japanese client, my system is loaded with Windows XP - Japanese version and these Google guys have coded their blogger page in such a way that it automatically detects my language settings and i get all of my google pages in nice graphic japanese....and i can make nothing out of it.
I've gotten accustomed to this being the case with my working environs......didn't think this could intrude on my fun life too....Anyway, i hope that once i've created and configured the bog, posting wouldn't be that tough!!
Lets see.......
-Cne
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