xAbhishek.com

The N96 is a better iPhone

Abhishek Nandakumar — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:44:27 +0000

All in all, if you are looking for more bang for the buck, go for the Nokia N96. Lookwise and as a fashion symbol, we still say there is no beating the iPhone!

All the iPhone analysis that’s been going on is shocking. And the whole buzz about school kiddos wanting the phone because of peer pressure is simply pathetic. TechNews.in recommends the N96 and doesn’t rate the iPhone very high comparing each of their features. Yes, I think the phone isn’t meant for the average Indian who loves to listen to the radio or transfer files via Bluetooth. But if I’m not mistaken, a few iPhone apps make transferring files wirelessly really easy. One thing TechNews failed to mention was the usability aspect. Then again, pointless; they would rate it lower just because of the absense of a physical keyboard with tactile feedback.

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Airtel’s challenge

Abhishek Nandakumar — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:49:01 +0000

This is simply idiotic.

Even if a hacker figures out a way to make voice calls from an iPhone procured from our stores using a non-Airtel SIM, he will not be able to access any of the ‘Airtel Live’ or ‘Airtel Apps’ features built into all the iPhones sold by Airtel.

Yeah, right. We want the iPhone for the Airtel Live apps!

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Windows 95 to Windows Vista

Abhishek Nandakumar — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:28:29 +0000

The first computer I played around with was a machine with an Intel Celeron 300Mhz processor, 32MB RAM and 1GB of hard disk space. Installed on it was an illegal copy of Windows 95. I was 8 and did not have the slightest idea about why we should pay for software we use. The computer was a really neat gadget to own then. With a superb 15″ CRT monitor, I was playing around with something that changed my life completely.

We upgraded the computer in 1999, boosting the hard disk space by additional 3GB and RAM by another 32MB. What I had right in front of me was a superb machine with Windows 98 installed(again, illegal). Prince of Persia and Paint kept me busy those days. The computer also had Office 97 installed with a high speed dial-up connection that my mom would use each time she launched Netscape Communicator to check her VSNL mail. I call it high-speed because VSNL’s service deteriorated with time, and we reached a point in 2003 where we were forced to switch to a cable connection.

In 1999, I bought a computer magazine for the first time. Not because I wanted to read it, but because I was interested in the 99 free games that were bundled on the CD that came with it. Those game demos made Windows 98 very unstable. I remember going into DOS and installing Windows 98 a dozen times every month. I also remember crying when Motocross Madness did not work because the Celeron board did not have a 3D accelerator. Then when I couldn’t do anything else, I started using software that my computer allowed me to use, namely, Flash and Photoshop.

In 2003, we bought our second computer(Pentium IV 1.9Ghz, 256MB RAM, CD Burner) at home. I installed Windows XP and got the required education about software piracy when I read about the anti-piracy system that Microsoft had planted into Service Pack 1. Productivity was highest with that computer. There were countless Flash movies that I had made on that computer.

Then in 2004 we got an HP laptop(Celeron 1.8Ghz, 256MB RAM) with Windows XP Home Edition. The laptop died a year later. I used the OEM disc to install XP on the desktop and that’s the license we were using at home till last year when we got another computer(C2D 2.33Ghz, 2GB RAM) at home just to be able to play more games. Windows is the reason I love computers so much. I can fully appreciate Mac OS X and Windows Vista having used all versions of Windows so far.

But I’m missing out on the fun of installing Windows a hundred times now that I’m using Windows Vista on the desktop which is oh-so-stable(and I’m not talking about malware). That’s why I’m installing Windows 98 and Windows XP right now on Virtual PC to be able to have all that fun all over again.

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Smultron and TextMate

Abhishek Nandakumar — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:00:20 +0000

Most of the Algorithms I implement are in Java and C++. I’ve been using TextMate instead of TextEdit to write code for the past two weeks and I find TextMate is simply great for writing code in C++ and Java. The editor is fine but I somehow felt I should be using a free application for my work instead of paying for TextMate after the trial period. And a quick Google Search directed me to Smultron by Peter Borg on SourceForge.

Smultron

I’ve been using Smultron for a while now, I think it’s the perfect application for coding. All I wanted was something like GEdit on Gnome. Smultron is the text editor I wanted, all the features I needed in a simple, free package. Now I’m sure you’ll be able to find interesting things in TextMate that Smultron doesn’t showcase in its feature-list but TextMate sells for $60. And Smultron is open source and free. I’m also sure you love using the text-editor you’ve paid for but I think you wouldn’t mind playing around with Smultron because it doesn’t cost you anything to try using it. Great, great application.

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iTunes Store India

Abhishek Nandakumar — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:58:13 +0000

After upgrading to iTunes 7.7.1, this is what I discover when I open the iTunes Store. I was initially shocked when the Music Search wasn’t working on the store and it redirected me to the Advanced App Store Search. India just got added to this page(and so did Pakistan; surprises me!).

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Hierarchy and Ego

Abhishek Nandakumar — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:13:42 +0000

For the first time in college today, I lost control of myself. Here is Group A of students(including me) trying to organise a welcoming party for the freshers(students joining this year) with the planning process going on for half a month. Group A had a couple of students(not including me) confident of being elected to become part of the Computer Science Student Council. Group B of students are just watching Group A all along. The result of the elections held today was that students of Group B became the President, Vice-President and Secretary. These students were suddenly interested in all that was going on and suddenly started questioning all the work that had already been done in preparation for the party, this coming Saturday.

What the students of Group B did was wrong. But how the students of Group A behaved wasn’t exactly angelic. Group A has people with big egos. It hurts them to see what happened today. Answering questions of Group B doesn’t make them feel proud, it saddens them, makes them feel as though the credit they deserve is in the process of being stolen. Today wasn’t a very eventful day. Looking back, I find it hilarious that I was involved in the battle that decided whether we were going to keep Pepsi or fresh fruit juice. Everyone in Group B was against fruit juice. Group A was tired of fighting, and just to be able to make a decision, agreed to go with Pepsi. Group B made a couple of calls, to order the Pepsi, and then came back just to tell Group A that fruit juice isn’t that bad an idea after all.

When the head of my department wanted me to nominate myself for the Council posts that she considered important, I politely tried my best to go against her. In the end I did end up nominating myself, but I spoke against the whole idea of having a council everyday. The worst thing about hierarchy like this is the politics that it carries along with it. The egos go along with everybody anyway, but hierarchy simply amplifies what’s bad about a person and his/her ego. I just hate this whole inferiority/superiority complex that people get when hierarchy comes into play. One negative point of a person places all the positive points below it’s shadow.

As for losing control of myself, I am sure the people who got a little uncomfortable because of me knew that spurt of anger was coming. I feel like apologizing for that too now. Treating poison with poison may not be the best solution, even if it works.

Hierarchy is bad for an organisation and I respect the idea of calling a group of interested people the core organising team(Somehow Dynamix, Ramjas come to my mind first when I think about this) instead of tagging some of those people with posts like President and Vice-President which defeats the idea of team-work in my opinion. Whoops! I think Ego doesn’t agree with me.

Being more important than someone in the form of hierarchy is different from getting incentives and rewards for good performance. I prefer the latter.

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Yahoo! Mail Free POP3 and IMAP

Abhishek Nandakumar — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:52:58 +0000

No other desktop application makes it this easy. For Mac, Windows and Linux.

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The Dark Knight

Abhishek Nandakumar — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:58:58 +0000

Must watch. I am not sure what the movie would have looked like without that superb Heath Ledger who will no longer be seen. Not exactly like the comics but very, very good portrayal of characters. And was it the Nokia Tube I saw in the movie?

Cannot rate such a movie. It’s just a movie that shouldn’t be missed. Don’t wait for the DVD.

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Fresh start to Flickr

Abhishek Nandakumar — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:21:16 +0000

My new Flickr account is going to be THE Flickr account I use from now. It’s also easily accessible through flickr.xabhishek.com.

If you prefer an unmasked URL then http://flickr.com/photos/xabhishek/ is where you have to head to.

The photostream is live.

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The passing away of spaces on the web I considered important

Abhishek Nandakumar — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:15:21 +0000

1. revieware - I’m not sure this really ever took off. People still prefer to use their own blogs to post reviews and things they find interesting. I think revieware as a community website was a failure because there was no real aim. A review website built to allow anybody to post anything may never be a good idea. In my view, it has to have a certain minimum number of administrators who are willing to nurture it over its life. I thank all the people who helped start revieware.blogspot.com and subsequently revieware.net. I’m not sure I find the need to keep the domain name, someone else could probably put it to better use. I’m just happy I got to play around with revieware.

2. fotogrAbhishek - I think Prateek was the only person who really visited this blog. And looking at Rungta’s Photoblog is what got me busy starting that blog. I figured that I certainly do not have that passion he has, and it’s only something I would like to but not so much as to be able to maintain a separate photoblog. The photoblog has ended but not fotogrAbhishek itself. If you noticed, it has become part of xAbhishek.com. So yes, feel free to remove fotogrAbhishek.xabhishek.com from your feed readers and list of active links.

3. Orkut - It was a crazy invite-only service that became crazier when public signups opened up. I joined, I browsed, I updated profiles once in a while, I got a lot of spam, I screamed, I deleted my Orkut account.

4. Hotmail - A service I signed up because everyone else I knew did. I used it for MSN Messenger, I still do. But the Hotmail part of it is gone and I am happy without it.

5. Blogger - A great service, but I may never use this service again. I hope that I don’t have to. Wordpress.org is what I’ll stick to for the time being.

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