It was on Sat Aug 16, 2008, that I won the bidding on my "HTC touch diamond" from Ebay, for £295 + £15 postage. It was my first smart phone - well, just that in another two days, I painfully discovered that it was "smart", but not very much of a "phone". It showed me google maps when I needed direction, it showed my GPS position when I was lost in a forest, it helped me write documents and create spreadsheets while on the move, it helped me take notes, draw pictures, record videos, click snaps, listen to radio - yup - all the works - except that I prayed each time I made a call, or took a call! Yeah - it worked like a charm except for everything except "telephoning".
The complaints were of two kinds:
- The device hung randomly when I was on calls.
- I lost cell phone signal randomly, on calls or not
In both cases, I had to restart the phone (4 minutes) to get things working again.
I couldn't get a replacement handset from T-Mobile, as I had got this one off Ebay. Having not yet lost my tech-edge, I took it as a challenge to mend it rather than put my hands up - I observed the pattern of failures, I researched around, I tried to flash a new ROM, and I even changed the O/S from windows 6.1 to Android! I learned a lot in the process, got my hands burned too - I emerged wiser at the end, but the device remained the same! Can't call - can do everything else! :-)
After almost a year, I decided that its time to move on, as my professional requirements demanded a more reliable communication device. But I still needed a PDA, whose gap the HTC was so brilliantly taking care for the past one year! I researched each device out there in the market, but found that they were either too much of an investment at the moment, or too meager to meet my requirements.
At last, the Spock in me spoke - buy a cheap "phone" to meet your telephoning needs, and retain the HTC for your PDA needs. This resulted from logical conclusions from a number of parallel threads spawn to resolve the issues I faced with my communication device, against the solutions offered by the market, and my own engineering skills.
Having decided on a secondary phone, I started researching for the cheapest phone which could pass my communication requirements, which included an inbuilt speaker phone, a decent LCD screen, a versatile address book, and bluetooth, along with trendy looks. Although I could have opted for £10 phone, the alpha-arien in me just couldn't digest the idea! a I narrowed down on two phones - the Nokia Xpressmusic 5310, and Motorola RAZR V3i. I could have got one of them free with a subscription, but since I didn't intend to stay in the UK for a time period long enough, I chose not to go for a subscription one - my only option was to either buy a handset, or buy a pay-as-you-go (prepaid) bundle. Having done my research on all UK cellular service providers, and resellers, I roamed Ipswich town-center on Saturday, the 16th May, targeting each of their counters.
After spending around an hour scanning the counters of T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2, Carphonewarehouse and the likes, considering their prepaid options, and ruling out the locked cases (which I could get easily unlocked, but recently I had been making a few wrong choices - so didn't want to take the risk provided the pattern continues dictated by some unknown cosmic laws), I found that there was one handset available for purchase immediately, from carphonewarehouse, one that didnt suite everything - but one that suited the most - the Sony-Ericsson W580i, along with a Virgin plan, for around £80. I went to the lady over the counter -
"Good morning, I'd like to purchase a Sony Ericsson W580i with the Virgin pay-as-you-go plan"
"Sure", the sweet lady smiled.
I waited as she disappeared beyond a "Only Staff" door, to fetch my phone.
As she typed stuff on to the screen, I enquired "... and, this phone could carry any SIM, right? I have a T-Mobile"
"Oh yeah - anything - its not locked" and, she paused "um..."
then she continued hesitantly, her eyes fixed on the computer screen "why did you want a virgin plan?"
"'cause I found it the cheapest?!" (the phone alone came to £135.00, and with a plan, it was cheaper)
"No, Vodafone is the cheapest"
I looked back at the display where I found Virgin the cheapest, and narrowed my eyes
Then, with a smile, I turned to her "... then, vodafone it is!! Thankyou very much for mentioning"
"My pleasure" she went back to fetch my vodaphone package
A few minutes down the line, I emerged from the carphonewarehose showroom a winner, along with Subin a Nambu who had been helping me out make a choice all the while, took out the T-Mobile SIM from my HTC, plugged it into the Sony-Ericsson, and stowed the Vodaphone SIM into the HTC. (My credit card dropped down on its spending limit by around £80.)
I took a deep and contended breath, as the W580i came to life.
Later that day, I connected both the devies to my Toshiba Portégé, ran MS ActiveSync to get all my 580 contacts from the HTC onto my Outlook 2007, and then the Sony-Ericsson PC-Suite to get them all onto my new W580i. (Unfortunately, I don't have a data-plan on my company-provided T-Mobile, else I could have done a GoogleSync) The SMSs would now be taken care of the other software I have in place to browse the internal phone contents, but I'm now on a quest to see if I can get my T-Mobile SIM cloned, so that both my devices can have the same SIM for inherent benefits. Not sure if T-Mobile supports multiSIM (have heard so, with business accounts - one which I hold), but not sure how accurate the legal subscription is, to the lines of usage portrayed in Bourne ultimatum, or National Treasure 2 - but, however it is, I'm sure of one thing - I'll anyway be politically correct - one thing my profession has instilled in me!
Thus, I, Tedy Kanjirathinkal, became the carrier of two mobiles!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
How I came to carry two mobiles!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
"Numbers": How they change perceptions!
It was lunch time, and during general chit-chat, I broadcasted to the crowd around the table, my latest addition to the fitness regime - 20 push-ups and 20 sit-ups every morning, with an aim to raise it to 100 gradually in two months' time!
And, guess what the first response from an overwhelmed colleague was?! "How do you find time for all these!!" A couple of heads nodded along, as if, yeah! How do you!!?
I was puzzled, but then answers have to be answers... so, I went something like this -
"Do you know how much time it takes to do a single push-up action?"
"2 seconds?"
"Yeah - pretty much - make it 3 if you really want to squeeze those muscles. So, how much does 20 push-ups take?"
"3 x 20 = 60 seconds"
"Exactly - it takes only a minute extra from your regular chores to do it - add a minute or two to preparations etc, so if you set your alarm to, say, 3 minutes earlier than your regular time, you can do 20 push-ups every morning!"
"Hmm... true"
How perceptions change when you talk in terms of numbers, or say, when facts are laid across bare!
Simple analogy, but wide possibilities! Look at the following typical questions, from across walks of life:
Nah... you wont turn into a machine, or loose your human nature, or loose fun in life if you think numbers or facts where they are required :-)
Sunday, October 26, 2008
5 addictions of life
Alright, been long since I'd been consumed heavily by work; and my good little friend Cris has nudged me, with a rather loud "Oy! wake up!" :-)
:-) thanks, Cris... for the nudge... and more than that, for caring to...
Well, okay, the tag is to list 5 addictions of life... and here I go...
1. Family chat: Talk to my entire family at least once a day, where ever on the globe I am; an addiction since around 2003; gets all jittery if not done - really, can't sleep :-))
2. Undulations of craziness: Need a change of seasons along with the nature, and each season has its own tinge of madness - sometimes work itself... sometimes art... sometimes health... sometimes literature... sometimes music... They all come and go in a rhythm, to return again; I'll go crazy if they don't i.e., if they don't undulate - and that undulation itself has become the addiction!
3. A little discipline: Hates over-sleeping, sleeping during the day, being late, breaking promises, not washing the dishes you soiled, and not cleaning up the mess you created.
4. Pizza: A true addiction - can eat it for all three meals, and even for snacks :-)) Although an Italian item, my choice is the Americanized version, specifically the thick-crust ones from Papa Johns & Dominos, and that too, the ones they make in the USA (yeah, I don't really like the ones they sell elsewhere in the world - believe me; however justified, it tastes different)
5. Ice cream: Vanilla, with a tinge of chocolate in it. Yup, can keep on eating dawn till dusk! :-) Prefers Cornetto cones and Magnum sticks for their taste and convenience :-) Oh no no, I'm not an brand ambassador of Unilever's heartbrand :-))
Now, I'm passing on the tag to five of my pals; you're tagged, guyz: :-)
1. Nithin
2. Aneeshji
3. Alco
4. Vini
5. Sreenath
;-)
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The "late" Indians: a quiet retrospection
This may sound rude or offending to some, but tell me, when's the last time you had attended a function or a meeting, with all the "Indian" attendees arrived on time? Well, my motive here is not to condemn this trait or anything, but instead, to take an interesting perspective on it.
An event pops in to my mind as I ponder more on this topic: I slept over at a friend's place on a Friday, and the referred-to episode happened the following morning around nine, as we sat sipping coffee at the living room, frisking the newspapers. My friend's elder brother and family too had come over the previous day, as they had to attend a wedding in town. The wedding was at 9:30, and there was around half an hour's drive to the venue. The elder brother had a son, aged five.
So, around 9:00, the boy tells his father "papa, lets go, or we will be late"
The father, without lifting eyes off his magazine, replies, "Its okay; no one would arrive at the scheduled time. If we are on-time, we will be the idiots"
The son, having received a precious piece of advice on life, picks up a kids' magazine and squats at the veranda. In time, he would pass on this little advice to his next generation (if not learned otherwise in due course), as his father got it from his, and he from his.
Amongst us Keralites, the dialog mentioned above is quite a popular one. Its one of the greatest pieces of advice passed on from generation to generation, equipping people to live a smart life on land. This advice and the related practice, though frowned upon by some idealists, is not considered an evil in the society (you know, each society has its own culture eg: Say "dating" in India, people freak out, while its a way of life at most places in rest-of-world; say "late" in England, people freak out, while its a way of life at some places in rest-of-world); its just that everyone "knows" that others will be late, and hence smartly adapts to the scenario.
Now wait! "Everyone knows that the others will be late"? hmm.. interesting! Being a man of science, I can't help not breaking it down into an equation, and analyzing further.
Let's take two people: 'x' and 'y', positioned at two different families. They both are to attend a function at a time 'z'. Now, 'x' thinks that 'y' would be late, and hence gets himself late to handle it smart. In the meanwhile, 'y' thinks that 'x' would be late, and hence gets himself late in response. Both turn out to be right, as the other person was late.
But hold on, isn't there something wrong? Its a freakin' catch-22 situation!!! 'x' was right about 'y', because 'y' was right about 'x',
Putting it into an equation, if ψ denotes "was right about", and β denotes "because", then,
(x ψ y) β (y ψ x)
=> x ψ y β y ψ x
=> x (ψ y β y) ψ x
=> x (0) ψ x , because (ψ y β y) is just vanity (~ bullcrap).
=> x ψ x
i.e., 'x' was late for the function, because he was late for the function!!! The other person, parameter 'y', doesn't really play a role at all in this phenomenon, as 'y' nullified itself in the equation - its just a "temporary hypothesis" borrowed to prove the phenomenon. In other words, "the others would be late" is a 'hypothesis' brought in to set up this social institution of justifying oneself to be late, and prove that one was quite right in doing so. You take out that hypothesis, and it all breaks down!
Ah! the vanity!!!
Tail piece:
Hmm.. what if I once become the President of India, and proclaim on the Republic day to the nation, "dear all, according to the recent secret survey conducted, your fellow citizens have informed my team that they wouldn't be late anymore from the 27th of January, ie, tomorrow. You might want to plan accordingly."
Would everyone think from the morning of 27th, that "Oh, all would arrive at the scheduled time; its bad if we are late - lets go early", or would they think, "brrrrr... we know them - no one would keep their word; lets go late and prove we are right!"
:-)) the catch-22 might just continue to roll on...
oh, me the bloody pessimist!!!
LOL
Saturday, August 30, 2008
"On the move" blogging
Okay, now this might sound a bit like a technical boohoo, or like the confessions of a bloody technocrat a geek; but here I go... cant resist the temptation of just blabbering it out :-)
As I "write" this directly on to blogger.com, I'm cruising in a super fast "national rail" train to "Newcastle" in northern England, a place just below Scotland (to meet my cousine brother and his family). I started at 6 am from Ipswich, (South-east England); time is now 8:40 am, and I still have over another hour to reach my destination.
Gone are those days when train journeys used to be unproductive... Here I sit with my "HTC touch diamond" Pocket PC running windows mobile 6.1 (which also, by the way, serves as my mobile phone). Connected to the train's wireless internet, I'm browsing the net, scribbling emails using the stylus directly on to the touch screen which dynamically recognizes my handwriting and transcribes it into ASCII text...
I sit finishing off my spreadsheets and word documents and viewing pending powerpoint presentations using the installed MS office 2007 mobile suite! Entering text is a breeze with the transcriber, those days are already memory, when touch screens used to recognize scrits only character by character!
I check where my journey has reached, using the google maps application, zooming to the rail lines of England's map. I turn on the inbuilt GPS system, and a blue dot blinks to life, moving up north along the rail, indicating where I am, realtime! I switch to satellite-view mode, and the screen shows the beautiful green landscape through which the rail line runs like a vein! In the near future, probably I might even be able to see the train streaking along the vast green!
Phew!!! I remember the days of childhood - the early 80s, when I learned the alphabets on "slate"!!! How much has technology changed in a mere less than three decades! And I wonder, how much would it change in the next three... So much it may, that I might write once, about a younger generation "pocket pc" that I had in the 2000s!
Here I submit my first ever post "written" (literally!) entirely using a stylus on a palm-top device.
Amen!
Friday, August 8, 2008
Fearless!
!Its called "fight or flight", and we all choose one of the two, when confronted with a hostile situation. We either avoid the situation, or decide to face it chin up.
What do you think the majority chooses? Lets take some situations, right from childhood (my non-Indian readers might not be able to relate to most of the following):
Cases go on... and most of us might react different to each of these, and we have our own honest reasons behind these. I'm not generalizing, but I did a short survey, presented these and a few other standard scenarios; for those who chose the "flight" option, I encouraged them to just imagine what if they had chosen the "fight" option. I helped them with scenes, descriptions and outcomes in the short-term and long-term. I also carefully noted down the anecdotes of those who had opted the "fight" option in their lives.
And, the result was something like this:
Flight: Those who took this option claimed to experience the following:
Fight: Those who took this option claimed to experience the following:
Many more exist in both buckets, but to summarize, flight (or in other words, fear) might provide you short-term reliefs, but plunging you into long-term suffering; while fight (or in other words, courage) might get you into short-term issues, but guarantees long-term glory.
Fear, quite an emotion in itself, at times narrows down to a deadly thing that can ruin an entire existance. Caution and care are good alternatives, but fear somehow seems to have a different purpose or perspective. Take the classic example of walking across a railway track, and suddenly finding the train around the corner. If fear grips on, you are paralyzed, your limbs give away, and you'll end up staring at the train and scream. Else, you'll just walk across in peace.
Again, interesting thing about fear is, that it seems to provide a false security of short-term gains. It lures its preys in, only to reveal itself in black some point down the line. Courage, interestingly, can not only provide what you think fear can, but even much more.
Well, at the end, it seems that its always your choice to make :-) After all, you 'start' like everyone else, you 'end' like everyone else... but between these two, what you are, how you are, and where you are depends solely upon you and your choices.
An interesting line from Gabbar Singh goes like this: "Jo dar gaya, woh mar gaya!" (meaning, if one gets frightened, consider him dead) :-)
Friday, August 1, 2008
Reminiscing a road trip
[A memoir - a carefree, scattered email to Alco, sent on Jun 2nd 2008]
Three years ago, around this time...
Not sure if you remember,
but, it was three years ago, around this time, that we went on that legendary Chicago trip :-)
2005 May... It was the Memorial Day long weekend... we had been planning a trip for a couple of weeks...
We even went to the coffee place we use to haunt often (Mug Shots? ), and checked out places over the internet... noted down placed to visit... it was chicago, which we planned there..
But, nothing really got finalized... until everyone had already left for their long weekends...
We started to consider other options too... at the 11th hour... Utah..? :-))
Monday was the holiday... but most folks took the Friday too off, to add a day more to the holidays...
We didn't have any solid plans... but at the last moment, we too decided to take the friday off... I remember Sashi had dropped by in between, but fell off after a while...
We started burning CDs... borrowed few from Aneeshji too...
At last, around midnight, we set off from Irving... on a Buick Rendezvous... did some purchase off Walmart, had a heavy dinner from Steak and Shake...
You drove first... we switched hands somewhere while it was still dark... and then I drove...
We dropped first at Abraham Lincoln's birthplace, on the way... then we switched wheels again...
the stereo was playing songs from Udayanaanu Thaaram...
We passed St. Louis... I was sleeping when we passed the arch.... :-)) We stopped at a Fast food joint ( a McD? ) for a late lunch...
I drove for a while, I guess till we stopped for Gas at a country side... there was a beautiful farm house at the middle of vast green...
You drove... we entered Illinois... it was raining... there was a rainbow...
Had real fun with the soft drink cans... :-)) the rear of the SUV was filled with rattling empty cans of pepsi and lemon tea.
we were slowly nearing Chicago... we drove towards O'Hare... halted for the night at Elk Grove Village...
Had to drive around a while till we found a place to park our car...
Checked out of the motel next morning... went straight to downtown Chicago... well, soon we had got lost somewhere... pulled over at some gas station, and figured our way out...
Parked near Sears towers... checked out Sears' sky-deck and saw the 
entire vast of Chicago from sky-height; had long walks along the downtown... walked along river Chicago...
walked along the Magnificent Mile... checked out lake Michigan...
Visited the Buckingham fountain... walked along the park... saw a wedding party and their Limousine...
We checked back in to the motel at Elk Grove Village... kinda had lost our way a bit in between...
Started off morning next day... Visited some real beautiful villages on the way... a beautiful church, its graveyard... what was the town's name...? St. Marys..?
Dropped at Black Hawk's 'fort' too...
It was on this way, that we saw that Irish Pub, which said "May the roof above us never fall in & May we friends gathered below never fall out"... it was a beautiful place in blue, red and brown...
We then stopped by a small town called Galena... had a walk around... remember we had coffee at a place, which displayed the story of "Kaladi", the shepherd who discovered the coffee bean..?
We started off again, halted again to wet out legs at River Mississippi :-)
We drove overnight... it was the fourth day... we had started to feel exhausted, and yearned to reach home, to take a smooth nap :-)
By the time sun rose, we had reached Kansas City... drove around the city for a while, drove to one of the highest spots... took a look around... spotted river Kansas...
We were hungry by the time we started off... pulled over at an exit not far away, saw a flea market called "Merriam Marketplace"... I guess we pulled over at a Sonic's drive-in or something.. and got some deli...
By around afternoon, we took an exit which led us to Bonca City... a beautiful old town... we drove around... checked out the Marland Estate Mansion.. took the only photo in the trip where we appeared together :-))
We started off again, and joined the interstate back home soon... The stereo was playing "Chaanju nilkkana pootha maavinte"..
Oklahoma city welcomed us on the way... we checked out the "Myriad Botanical Gardens" at first... and drove to the bricktown....
exhaustion had consumed us... and we soon turned the wheels to hit the interstate again...
We pulled over somewhere near the texas border, into a Subway, where there was an extremely tensed rookie waiter boy... :-)
We joined the interstate soon... but unfortunately found ourselves in a loooooooooooooooong traffic jam, due to construction work... did we spend a couple of hours in it...?
Soon, the traffic thinned, and we were shooting out again.... and as night closed, the city lights of Dallas closed in... I35 gave way to I635... and soon it was McArthur... and then Hidden rdg, and atlast the Jefferson park apartments...
Whew!!! How much has life changed... wonder if days like those would ever come back... those were the best days of youth... days which are lost for ever, but whose very memory brings on a smile across the lips...
I wish Irving comes once again into our lives... sometime not too far away..., I mean, before its too late for a lighter life...
may be it would never... and life might have something else in store...
Still...............
