Mobile and some other things

Hello, is anyone around?! It's been a long while, there were cobwebs on this site when I opened it today. However, no better time to make amends... and I realise, now that I'm here, I like being here!

The best way to restart is to boast some...

A link about my new mobile-tricks from my main blog

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And it does seem my fears have been well-founded after all. I've been petrified to use the credit card online though I come from a stock of people who do not think twice about it. This kind of stealing makes you so completely powerless - you only realise after the damage has been done.
This time its not just the raving of a using-the-credit-card-over-the-net-phobic; I've facts to stand me up...

* Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report

There!

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And, of course, have you Twittered?!

New yahoo

Wonder if you guys noticed this. I just did. Yahoo mail has this awesome hyperlink pop up prompts for place names; click on the pop up and you get a map and other information about the city or country thus linked.
I wish I could've illustrated it with a screen shot, but wth, you can check out your yahoo mail.

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Very interesting site I came across today. They're very well laid out, including their statement of accounts on the home page too!

Free Software is a matter of freedom, not cost. It is a matter of liberty, not price. The word `free' in Free Software has a similar meaning as in free speech, free people and free country and should not be confused with its other meaning associated with zero-cost. Think of Free Software as software which is free of encumbrances, not necessarily free of cost. Think of it as swatantra software.

FSF India is a non-profit organisation committed to advocating, promoting and propagating the use and development of swatantra software in India. Our goal is to ensure the long term adoption of Free Software, and aim for the day when all software will be free. This includes educating people about software freedom and convincing them that it is the freedom that matters. We regard non-free software as a problem to be solved, not as a solution to any problem.

Sounds good huh? But what about Intellectual Property Rights? Yes,I'd like to fancy code-writing needs no intellectual protection, but then, I don't write codes. Anyways, first things first: I'd like to know who is fighting for Open Source Software. And to that mill, I will add more grist.

Some good news

I don't think so many people have been so eagerly waiting for a roll off the assembly line ever before. Not even for the poor man's car - MAruti 800.
The super-cheap laptop has just been launched in China. They say some finetuning is required, and currently costs Rs.135 USD, but eventually the price is to dip to 100 USD.
At 100 USD, it's literally a steal.Imagine the huge ramifications it will have for India, provided affordability and access are not given a byepass. Finally, then, finally on the path to a knowledge-driven society? Let's lap it up!

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Defence Minister Pranab Mukerjee told the Parliament sometime ago that e-passports will be introduced soon. These electronic documents already in use in international travel will contain biometric information (pupil/fingerprint scanning) along with other essential details in travel documents. Via Deccan Chronicle...
Diplomats and bureaucrats are going to be the guinea pigs, the Defence Minister said. Fair enough. If anything goes wrong, at least they have immunity!

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I actually won a Philips camera phone in online photo contest. YEah, you've seen this before here... But it is amazing that prizes are actually given out in these instances. They came over to office, gave me the phone and actually took a pic of it...Hopefully, my luck's changing! :)

God and the mobile

Finally, the Pope might be getting the right end of the stick. Apparently, round the corner is a possible Papal ratification of the first-ever Church proposal to encourage people to use condoms! With HIV/AIDS such a real threat, time the Church converted! Benedictus Benedict, or whatever!

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Sony Ericsson is at it again. In 2008, it will be possible to watch television broadcasts on your mobile phone! In dummy language, your phone will also double as a TV, small, compact, in your pocket and yes, you can still speak on the phone. Transmission will be, obviously, wireless, but the details I'm not quite familiar with. However, it's good news. Except in Chennai, where we have lousy service providers like AIRCEL, who are still trying to figure out their GPRS system. If you don't get it right, technology can make you feel like you've just wheeled into the Stone Age!

Wii love thee

Ever since I discovered that Nintendo's latest gaming answer to PS3, Wii, has a console that can be used as a simulator, I am determined to get my hands on one.
Though the Real McCoy gamers can tell you what Wii is all about, in my (dummy's) opinion, I am really excited by a game console that you can merely swing around in order to play your game. Say, for instance, you are playing a game of boxing or tennis; all you have to do is swing your console to indicate the move you want your player to make and there, you've got it on the screen. This, instead of twiddling around with buttons.
Of course, this means you got to be a good tennis player/boxer, but as far as Wii goes, this one's really an ace!

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And, talking of indigenous innovation, this one really takes the cake, er...perhaps oilcake...
They've now discovered a way of making electricity from cow urine. Via Sify. Well, who are we to wrinkle our noses when a fuel crisis looms large? More power to the cow, then. At least, more piss!

Wet Wet Wet

And today, a post to keep up with the season. Since it is pouring intermittently outside, and mostly without warning, and we all use cell phones, here's a neat piece on how to revive wet cell phones by Christopher Null, from the yahoo tech blog.
P.S.The comments are more interesting!

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I've discovered a mobile photo contest on the Univercell online store. Appropriate to mention in this season-post as this month's contest theme is 'Monsoon.'
Suggested M.O.: Just step out into the rain, click a picture with your mobile phone and then ref. above post for redressal.:) But if you get lucky, you might win a brand new mobile camera instead! :)

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From early reviews it seems as if Microsoft's Zune (duh,MP3 player) has had some rather cold water thrown on it. I'm, confessedly, devoted to my iPod Nano and I'm watching to see if Zune will 'kill' the iPod as was forecasted at it's launch party. Zune nearly looks like the iPod, the 30 GB version. Imitation might be a form of flattery, but will it sing GAtes'money-tunes?

This shirt Rocks!

The ubiquitous, totally Peter-act of pretending to strum a guitar when some one else is playing, sometimes accompanied with headbanging, just got serious.
Scientists in Sydney, a Guardian report says, apparently have the first t-shirt with sensors that will track the movement of the arms and transmit signals to a computer that would then play the music...
I can imagine how much that's going to cost, but if you could have one, you could probably boast that you not only live your music, but you wear it too. Interesting proposition.

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Do we trust Blogger?

Your new version of Blogger is ready!
The new version of Blogger now has all the original features you're used to, plus new post labels, drag-and-drop template editing, and privacy controls. And, it's a lot more reliable.

After you switch you'll need to sign in with your Google Account, but your blogs will stay the same. Their content and layout will not change.

Switch to the new version

I wonder if it is safe. People who tried the beta version have complained that they have lost data, sometimes the whole site. What do you think?

Games people play

SONY unveils PlayStation 3.
The only time I've trifled with PlayStation, largely believed by those who are in the loop to be the mother of gaming toys, turned out to be the darkest chapter yet in my life. I was playing with a friend's nephew several years younger, on the origial handheld PS, and he beat me again, and again, and again. He might as well have pushed me down and jumped on top of me. Sigh.
But since then, I've averaged passable at games if it does not require too much eye-ear-hand co-ordination!
Btw, to serve the larger purpose of this blog, here's some dumbing down, via the new faithful - the wiki.

" The PlayStation is a video game console of the
32/64-bit era, first produced by Sony Computer
Entertainment in the mid-1990s. The original
PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation
series of console and hand-held game devices..."


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And now, for some really fun trivia,

** Officially, Ang Yang's got the nimblest fingers in the world! Yang won the contest for the faster texter, (SMS-er if you wish) in the world. Should we send him to pick some tea now? Eh?

** I think this could've been better written, but Somasegar sure is an interesting guy.

DO NOT DISTURB

It is such a relief to learn that you can hang the Do Not Disturb board on mobile phones too.
Apparently, there is a way to keep those annoying text messages offering you the range of services you can manage to live without - from caller tunes to 'nakkal jokes'- out of your life! Yes, that is the good news today.
Karthik has a story in The Hindu today, with a helpful list of URLs through which you can deactivate this feature. Though I believe the default mode should be 'DEACTIVATE', it is comforting to note that you can also call up your mobile service provider's call centre and ask to deactivate it. It takes 24 hours to do so, but remember to ask for a docket number so that you have something to fall back on when/if you discover you've been lied to.
Ah, now that we've settled that, ladies and gentlemen, let us devote our time and energies to find ways to warn us when that pestilential credit card salesman calls from an unidentified land line to thrust eminently resistible offers. Some flashing red light,perhaps? Hmmmm...
OR better still, perhaps we can find a way to convince HIM to offer an interest-free, non-repayable loan!

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And, this, i think, is a stylish way to mix work(outs) with pleasure.

Have you the gut?

If you want to know what goes on there, here is your chance. A human stomach that's human just as it much as it can replicate parts of what the original can do... which is not much, even its inventors say.
But for what it is worth, ladies and gentlemen, presenting unto you the 'not-so-human stomach.' Ta da!
Boy, the underbelly sure is ugly! Nearly as much as it is fascinating.