Shifting to Posterous

I’ve setup a posterous at blog.a4arvind.in. To be frank, I never wanted to move out of a4arvind.wordpress.com. But, I fancy URLs. Yeah, I do! (And don’t go "Ewww.. Geek!" about it with a tongue-in-cheek expression because I wouldn’t mind Blocking you). Yet to decide on how I would go about using it. Posterous seems promising. Only time will tell how it would fair against wordpress. Like I said http://twitter.com/a4arvind/status/7829343212, this would indeed become a "Lost Cause" if I go on yapping more. So am zipping it for now.

Long story short: I will blog on blog.a4arvind.in, and also continue to feed a4arvind.wordpress.com.

KThxBye!

Going forward one decade !

First of all, Happy New Year 2010!

And there goes another decade, just my second one though . 2009 was eventful – I mean it! I remember doing more things last year than any other year in college. Starting from Jan 2009 – 6th sem, Pongal hols, Feb14th, Pragyan’09, Toefl, GRE #fail, First Proj at coll, VSM, industry visit!!, prof letting for summer proj, escape from ogre magi, doms-iitm, tiffany-sleep-facebook-twitter-grepreps, <some_other_encrypted_events>,  prof-outta-town-so-pardy!!, dotadudes, replays, GRE #fail, stung-by-bees, monkeys in the doms toilet, iitm-dc++, daily movie marathons with idukks, proj-ends , 7th sem, ogre-multicasts, GRE #win , the WEIRdo tag, blore visits, only-dota-days, ooty trip, apping, winter vacs – movies et al…

Something to reminisce about 2009…

Finally, the last semester at NIT Trichy. Period. Its going to be fun! Thinking of catching up some new TV series and ofcourse DotA!

PS: Hope Aal izz well

Pentazzle – Online Puzzle – by Instincts (SSN)

Right now am hooked on to the online puzzle organized by SSN college of engineering Its a part of their cultural festival called “Instincts v5“. The puzzle is named “Pentazzle” (maybe cuz its the fifth version of Instincts) – and its based on a JK Rowling theme – every level deals with a Harry Potter trivia (to be answered from the clues given by them).

Want more info about pentazzle? Visit the Pentazzle blog and Pentazzle forum. Or if you are just about pumped up to play, just start off at Pentazzle page, it needs a facebook connect login though. So if you’re on facebook, you’re good to go

Am informed, PENTAZZLER ID#007 tweets at twitter.com/14anand88 & Official Instincts Tweet at InstinctsTweet

PS: Hope this will serve as a beacon of light for Googlers!

5 Best twitter apps for Java-based mobiles

Twitter has most certainly redefined the web. There are a lot of eye-candy & cool twitter apps for iPhone, Blackberrys, and other smartphones. But, only a very few java-based apps are available. Although, twitter introduced Airtel SMS integration in India, GPRS still proves to be cheaper if you can use the correct application. After about an hour long of search, I managed to find some of the better ones among the lot. So, if you don’t own those high end phones with lavish screen space, i am sure you will find this post useful

[ Edit: 28th Dec 2009 ]

This review is targeted for java-based lower end mobiles phones. To know about the best twitter apps for iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, Blackberry, Windows mobile, or Nokia S60’s – head out to this post at Labnol.

[ Edit: 22nd Dec 2009 - Added screenshots - as viewed in Sony Ericsson W595 ]

The 5 Best apps that make tweeting easy on java-based mobiles through GPRS are:

1. uTweetMe

   - Best one I’ve ever used

   • 2 clicks tweet – quick tweeting
   • Very low data usage (about <5kb per tweet)
   • Simple user interface
   • Feature to save tweets as ‘drafts’
   

   uTweetMe - Menu

   

   uTweetMe - Tweeting

   

   uTweetMe - Timeline

2. TinyTwitter

   - equally good as uTweetMe minus the draft feature

   

   TinyTwitter - Timeline

   

   TinyTwitter - Menu

3. Twittai

   - A good UI, data usage is more, easy to view twitter timeline, auto refresh, twitpic integration

   

   Twittai - Timeline

   

   Twittai - Menu

   

   Twittai - Extended Menu

4. Twibble

   - UI is not as impressive as Twittai, High data usage, insert favorite hashtags from templates.

   

   Twibble - Home

   

   Twibble - Menu

   

   Twibble - Tweeting

   

   Twibble - Shortcuts

5. Snaptu

   - One of the latest, has a very impressive UI, equally high data usage, best to keep track of twitter timeline, can be used for other services like facebook, flickr, cricinfo. (You might want to switch off profile images to save up on the data)

   

   Snaptu - Home

   

   Snaptu - Twitter Timeline

   

   Snaptu - Tweeting

   

   Snaptu - Twitter Menu

   

   Snaptu - Twitter settings

The choice of app depends on the usage. uTweetMe and TinyTwitter work best when you want to tweet quickly without much hassle. Other apps come handy to review other’s tweets, RT them, sending DM’s etc.

Another app called Twim is good, but it fails to impress me.

Here is a quick comparison chart for the 5 apps..

Twitter apps for java-based mobile phones

When none of the apps seem good enough for you, use the the official twitter mobile website (m.twitter.com) or Tweete (m.tweete.net) or Dabr (dabr.co.uk) on your phone browser or Opera Mini An even better idea would be to switch over to an iPhone or Android

PS: These apps really have helped me tweet and keep a tab on my GPRS usage at the same time. Takes just 5 Paise for every tweet. I like BSNL for these reasons

Idiosyncratically Lazy

I feel like this December is jinxed. Why so? Because I’ve been “Idiosyncratically Lazy” (or atleast had it as my GTalk status ) for the past.. ummm… Ah! am too lazy to count even the number of days. Being online, keeping up with trends on twitter, reading up, apping sometimes, but mostly vetti. I am feeling so lazy even to Alt-Tab that I have setup dual monitors! Now, thats what i call ‘iLazy’.

A good friend of mine (i shall not reveal his identity for the sake of Pragyan!), who has a dogged determination to prove his skills by looting the university treasury, called up on me on jabber. The chat, which lasted for a several thousand nanoseconds, made me realize the true meaning of “Idiosyncratically Lazy”.

ChatLog

Him: wtf does that mean?

Me: google it am too lazy to explain

<< that kinda lazy >>

Him: thu! thu! thu!

Me: hehe..

Not just that, I got a hint how others treat lazy people. Although it was just a friendly banter, I could sense something real out of it. Absolutely no one respects lazy humans in this universe, unless they are your close family or maybe aliens from another planet

Guess its high time to get on with some work..

PS: I fancy this status of mine! maybe it will sound even more cool if I APPLE-fy it to iLazy

Chetan Blocks – The Story

Now if you’ve googled “Chetan Blocks” and come to this page. You’re on the right track buddy! Get to know how the #chetanblocks hashtag began Going from zero to a trendy topic on twitter within about, say just 6 hours? Yup! It was trendy, and here is the whole story behind it (from a commoner’s perspective ofcourse!)

Edit: According to WhatTheTrends.Com, it was @nikhilnarayanan who started #chetanblocks. Sify.com reports it was a result of a debate over piracy between Chetan and some journalists.

It started with @Flyyoufools (or as some claim @notytony) tweeting up on the 7th of December 2012 2009 (Oops, sorry, sad effect of watching the 2012 movie)… providing a link to a previous tweetdeck conversation at http://twitpic.com/sig0s

And then, wallah! Chetan Bhagat comes in…

Chetan blocked FlyYouFools and a couple of others as mentioned here. And #chetanblocks is exactly what you get when you cross an Indian Comic Flick guy (FlyYouFools) with a Writer (Chetan Bhagat) who blocks tweeters (and lives to tell the tale LOL)

Phew! I never even thought a hashtag could have such phenomenal impact on twitter. To my knowledge, Trending on twitter in just about six hours is “Mind-Blasting” (like Russel Peters puts it). Check out the stats below, if you don’t believe it.

On a lighter note, #chetanblocks had created a sudden flurry of mocking tweets. If only you had followed, you would know how funny they sounded! I’ve listed some of the good ones here, just as an appetizer, visit Rohan’s post for a heavy dose of laughter

• Why can’t anyone be in Chetan Bhagat’s good books? Because there aren’t any. #chetanblocks
• The first 3D Blockbuster – My dear kutti Chetan #chetanblocks
• Where did CB buy his phone from? The Blockmarket #chetanblocks

Links to some of these funny tweets and pics: @krishashok, @rameshsrivats

Even YouTube and Adolf Hitler have participated in #chetanblocks Check out the video “Hitler finds out that Chetan Bhagat has blocked him on Twitter” by krishashok. (Therikka vudra da nee!!, with all due respect.. ). Don’t forget to turn on the captions to ‘English: Chetan’.

There were a lot of RT’s too, which made the whole thing trendy. Thanks to all those guys who made it a good fun evening

PS: Chetan Bhagat tweeted up later explaining the whole issue, which took him several tweets as shown below

Finally, lets all thank Mr. Chetan Bhagat himself. I know it wasn’t good to make fun of him this way, but then it was all in good spirit. And thanks to him, my blog can feed on a couple of extra hits

BSNL NIC Wireless Internet – Review

After a careful search on the different wireless internet service providers, i settled for a BSNL NIC (aka CDMA Data Modem). Although i found considerable amount of info at BSNLdatacard.com, it still didn’t impress me. So, after using BSNL NIC Datacard i felt i should write a review about it and shed some light on BSNL wireless

BSNL offers two kinds of Datacards presently, the NIC and the EVDO card.

• Wireless NIC (Network Interface Card) works on CDMA which offers speeds upto 144Kbps (comparatively slow) all over India
• EVDO (Evolution Data Optimized) Card offers speeds upto 2.4Mbps (only in the metro cities, in other places it performs just like the NIC)

A comprehensive list of comparison based on speed offered can be found here

BSNL has unlimited plans for both cards which amount to Rs.250 per month(PM) for NIC and Rs.550 PM for EVDO Card. There are two options of getting the connection – rent the card (requires you to pay Rs.1000 as refundable caution deposit) or buy the card. Rent for NIC is Rs.150 PM and for EVDO it is Rs.200 PM. And it costs Rs.2800 to buy the NIC whereas Rs.3500 for EVDO Card (Promo offer till 30-9-09 – Rs.1680 for NIC and Rs.2100 for EVDO Card)

So, the cheapest way out would be to rent the cards – Rs.400 PM for the NIC and Rs.750 PM for the EVDO Card. I feel renting is better because in case of any failure/malfunction of the card, it becomes easier to get it exchanged/repaired as it will be the liability of BSNL.

I have settled for a NIC (Rs. 400 PM) as its cheaper when compared to other providers like tata-indicom, reliance.. and it delivers decent download/upload speeds of 7-12 Kbps throughout the day (this depends on your proximity to BSNL tower also, i get full signal strength where i am). I have attached my Speedtest report below and as its mentioned i get 9Kbps up/down speed at the moment.

BSNL NIC Wireless Internet Speedtest

BSNL NIC Speed Comparison

Tech Specs of Huawei EC325 NIC USB:

• Air interface: CDMA2000 1X RTT
• Standard Mini USB interface
• Internal Antenna
• Dimensions: 84mm x 42mm x 12mm
• Supports Data rates upto 153.6kbps (because its CDMA!!)
• Supports Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Seven and Linux too!

Download Huawei EC325 NIC USB drivers from http://bit.ly/huawei-drivers

Some facts you ought to know before you go in for BSNL NIC are:

• NIC connection is stable enough for a voice chat through Skype or GoogleTalk but gives average results for a video chat.
• Good browsing experience for Gmail, Facebook-Lite, Twitter and some light downloads under 20MB.
• NIC gives you a static IP which makes it tougher to download files simultaneously from filehosts like Rapidshare.
• Frequent movement may disrupt the connection as it may involve switching over to another tower coverage.
• Being wireless, i feel its even better than the Cable Sify Broadband at home where 64Kbps unlimited plan costs a lot more than BSNL NIC!
• Although BSNL claims here that roaming is available for both the cards, i am yet to check it out.

Bottom Line: If your game for an unlimited connection without expecting phenomenal speeds, then BSNL NIC is the one for you! And its the cheapest of its kind too!!

Warning: Beware of areas having no CDMA tower coverage! BSNL datacards wont work there. Like in the primitive parts of Trichy – NITT – Thuvakudi. Sometimes BSNL is such a letdown

Rock on at Festember’09

About 2 hours before the start of ProNite this Festember, i am sure no soul would have ever thought what an awesome night it would turn out to be! By far, my most memorable one till now As Russel Peters would have put it.. ProNite @ Festember’09, NIT-Trichy was just “Mind Blasting” (thats right, it was Mind Blasting rather than Mind Blowing).

Benny Dayal

ProNite was composed of brilliant (but short! thanks to the curfew restrictions! grr!!) performance by the playback singer Benny Dayal. Some of the scintillating numbers he sung were Yethi Yethi from Varanam Aayiram, Kaise Mujhe from  Ghajini, Masakali from Delhi 6, Taxi…Taxi from Sakkarakatti, Antha Arabi from Bombay, etc. He sure was a crowd entertainer!! But then! the goddamn fun began only from 23:15, when the Bandish started rocking away!

Although i was skeptic about their performance in the beginning, i was thrown overboard by sheer joy and enthu around! Man, you should have been there! The Barn just came alive seeing them on stage and i too had a time of my life

The Bandish

80 Minutes of non-stop blood pumping, body thumping action.. Bandish sure won the hearts of all NITTians present there. They staged all kinds of exciting numbers with the hits like Zehreelay, Pichle Saat Dinon Mein and Rock On!! from the movie Rock On!! to their own creation called the Goonj from Kaise Kahoon. Hats off to you Bandish!! Your just Awe.. wait for it.. Awesome.. And you showed us how to Rock On.. Kyunki.. Jindagi Milegi Na Dobaara

Edit: Some pic of decent quality i could lay my hands on.. (Courtesy : Badri)

Bandish - Live at NIT, Trichy - Festember'09

Festember’09 was indeed a fest to remember (inspite of the minor let-downs and incessant rains). I know its a cliched expression uttered by most of the final years, but its just worth it.

A note to the cow-girls of NITT:  I also like to thank you people for evacuating the Barn early tonite. We dudes had a rocking nite without you No offense !!

The mail.nitt.edu Phishing mail

I have been using Google Mail (aka Gmail) all this time and i have not been stumped by any spam/phishing email more than this one. The reason being, the mail that i received had in it the sender’s name in bold “mail.nitt.edu” – which is the mail portal of the university where i study. Although it was evident after careful perusal that it was a spam, it would have proven  fatal if i had replied to it in haste!

Now, if you face a similar threat – not being able to decide if a mail is spam or not – feel free to follow these steps which will help you to spot the bad-ass phishing mails.

Spam inbox view in gmail

Even though the mail was categorized as “SPAM” by gmail automatically, the mail subject was curious enough make someone open it. But the point to be noted here is that any mail subject which has the URL of the service instead of the service name may be potential spam. Because legitimate emails from the service admins would surely have the service names like “Twitter” or “Facebook” or “Orkut” instead of their url’s viz. “twitter.com” , “facebook.com”, “orkut.com”. Likewise, it would have been more cogent if it was “Dear NITTmail Account user” instead of “Dear mail.nitt.edu Account User”

Spot the sender using the show details option

So, what if you don’t use gmail? Here are some more ways you can identify bogus mailers

The phishing mail }:-)

Give aways the its a spam

• Note that the sender’s mail address is not from the “nitt.edu” domain
• The reply to points to a suspicious “techsupport” address
• The mail asks for the LOGIN NAME and the PASSWORD in reply! BUZZ! Never do the admins ask you for a password!

Any mail server can masquerade the sender’s name but not its address. That is why you can identify if a mail comes from a trusted source this way.

Some more preventive measures to check spam is to use the filters feature in Gmail. Just try these ten must have filters which featured in LifeHacker. One of the filters helps you to identify bulk emails that are not sent to you alone but to many others too. As spam mails are bound to be mailed in bulk, this helps you to mark them as “Not to me” (“f/! me” as shown in the screenshots).

Lastly, a word of caution to nitt junta: Just don’t be foolish (NITTmail admins never would have apologized for anything in any of their mails ). Stay safe

Sweet!

#success #!fail #phew