Srijan

Srijan

8 must have mobile applications and services

Think your cellphone can work a trifle more harder than you do? Think it can keep you that much more connected to work, friends and family? Here’s a list of applications that you should have on your cellphone to keep you happy.



FoxyTag is a collaborative application which warns you 15 seconds before a speed camera. Now before you go all crazy and get a Bugatti Veyron from somewhere and go berserk on the roads after you get FoxyTag, read this from their website.
“FoxyTag motivates neither speeding nor any other risky behavior, but allows the driver to concentrate on the road instead of having their eyes fixed on the speedometer.” Right said.




With ZYB, you can be sure that you’ll never lose your contacts and calendar ever again. It safely stores all your calender/contacts online and you can synchronize it with a single click. Can be a boon when you are migrating cell phones or have just plain lost it; mind and/or mobile.


.



Fring is to the mobile what Digsby is to the PC. It can keep you connected to Skype, Google Talk, MSN Messenger, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo and Twitter. You’ve also got push mail and video streaming for screaming out loud! Agreed most of you don’t use most of things mentioned here, but a long options list is never a bad thing. Over and above that you can make VoIP calls as well, but in India, you’re going to get royally screwed with the exorbitant data transfer rates when making calls via VoIP. So, if you’re an Indian and have escaped recession, make VoIP calls only when you are in Wi-Fi hotspots.
(If you are having connectivity issues with Fring, you can also give eBuddy a shot. Head to m.ebuddy.com for a quick WAP fix or download the application from their site.)




Shozu is basically a photo and video upload application with quite a comprehensive list of destinations to where you can upload them. Flickr, Picasa and PhotoBucket are just the tip of the iceberg. It also brings Facebook right in your hands and you can do a fair bit with it. Upload images, update descriptions, check out friends’ photo feeds and keep track of events. Shozu can also double up as a mobile blogger’s paradise with support for Wordpress, Blogger, Windows Live Spaces, Live Journal and what have you. And if you happen to have been bitten by the reporter bug, you can also report to BBC, CNN and Reuters with your pictures and videos. This thing also allows you to upload via FTP. Just falls short of taking your dog for a walk.



Like using Google Maps to find directions from your PC and laptop? You’re going to love Google Maps on Mobile then. It offers you the complete functionality of Google Maps right in the palm of your hands. You can switch from maps to terrain view to satellite view with a click and also find the best routes. And your phone need not have GPS inbuilt for using this. It uses approximation to well, approximate your location within 500 mts. Also, it’d have been great if Google compressed the data before sending it to us hapless Indian users. One simple map loading, zoom-in and zoom-out sequence takes up a good 0.25MB of data. What? Don’t look at me like that.

If you ask me, Opera Mini can easily be called the best innovation after the cellphone phone itself. A mid-server sitting somewhere in the Obama-land compresses all your web pages and sends it to you at just 1/10th of the size of the original web page. Also you can store all your bookmarks on Opera’s server and synchronize them between your PC and mobile; very useful when upgrading or such like. Supports uploading files, saving web pages, has a RSS reader and has a few themes in the latest version to suit your whims and fancies

If you are a Windows Mobile or Symbian S60 user, you could also try Skyfire.

GMail for Mobile is a simple Java application to access your Gmail account. It’s definitely faster and more efficient than trying to access it from your browser. Only problem is, you can’t attach anything.

.
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if you could read your voice mail rather than hear it? This text could then be organized in so many ways and you could build a humongous archive of all your voice mails for future reference. Alright, this thing is still in the making but looks promising. Do signup and get yourself on the waiting list.
And oh yeah, if you’re a developer, they have a big buck challenge happening.

Eye Soothing Effect with F.Lux

What?

A simple software that decides what colour temperature is right for your eyes at a particular time.



Why?

Ever sat late into the night completing some project and trudged right in to the morning only to find the sunlight pierce your world? Or lost your sleep because the monitor you were working was a tad too bright? Right from your childhood, you were advised against seeing television in the night or in dark rooms. That’s because our eyes expect to see something mellow in the dark. And bright things during the day.

Erm.. so?

Enter F.Lux which according to your geographical location decides how bright or not your monitor should be. During the day, it’ll be nice and bright as usual but as the day starts giving way to the night, F.Lux will start decreasing the colour temperature. This ensures that you do not strain your eyes whilst burning the midnight oil. And it also might help cure insomnia for those who end their day looking at a monitor and working their assess off right up to the time they hit the sack.

Really?

I, for one can testify the fact that its far better looking at the F.Lux-ed up monitor than just dimming the whole thing down a few notches. And this might sound a bit weird, but I guess the creative juices flow better when your monitor is not overwhelming you with its brightness.

Link Me!

Download F.Lux

Parents are Precious

This was narrated by an IAF pilot to IIT students during a Seminar on Human Relations:

Venkatesh Balasubramaniam (who works for IIT) describes how his gesture of booking an air ticket for his father, his maiden flight, brought forth a rush of emotions and made him (Venkatesh) realize that how much we all take for granted when it comes to our parents.
My parents left for our native place on Thursday and we went to the airport to see them off. In fact, my father had never traveled by air before, so I just took this opportunity to make him experience the same. In spite of being asked to book tickets by train, I got them tickets on Jet Airways.The moment I handed over the tickets to him, he was surprised to see that I had booked them by air. The excitement was very apparent on his face,waiting for the time of travel.Just like a school boy, he was preparing himself on that day and we all went to the airport, right from using the trolley for his luggage, the baggage check-in and asking for a window seat and waiting restlessly for the security check-in to happen. He was thoroughly enjoying himself and I,too, was overcome with joy watching him experience all these things.

As they were about to go in for the security check-in, he walked upto me with tears in his eyes and thanked me. He became very emotional and it was not as if I had done something great but the fact that this meant a great deal to him. When he said thanks, I told him there was no need to thank me.But later, thinking about the entire incident, I looked back at my life. As a child, how many dreams our parents have made come true. Without understanding the financial situation, we ask for cricket bats, dresses,toys, outings, etc. Irrespective of their affordability, they have catered to all our needs. Did we ever think about the sacrifices they had to make to accommodate many of our wishes? Did we ever say thanks for all that they have done for us? Same way, today when it comes to our children, we always think that we should put them in a good school. Regardless of the amount of donation, we will ensure that we will have to give the child the best,theme parks, toys, etc. But we tend to forget that our parents have sacrificed a lot for our sake to see us happy, so it is our responsibility to ensure that their dreams are realized and what they failed to see when they were young. It is our responsibility to ensure that they experience all those and their life is complete. Many times, when my parents had asked me some questions, I have actually answered back without patience. When my daughter asks me something, I have been very polite in answering. Now I realize how they would have felt at those moments.Let us realize that old age is a second childhood and just as we take care of our children, the same attention and same care needs to be given to our parents and elders. Rather than my dad saying thank you to me, I would want to say sorry for making him wait so Long for this small dream. I do realize how much he has sacrificed for my Sake and I will do my best to give the best possible attention to all their wishes.Just because they are old does not mean that they will have to give up everything and keep sacrificing for their grandchildren also.

They have wishes, too.Take care of your parents.

THEY ARE PRECIOUS.- KEEP THIS MESSAGE GOING BY SENDING IT TO YOUR FRIENDS"The voice of parents is the voice of gods, for to their children they are heaven's lieutenants." - Shakespeare"A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie" -- Tenneva Jordan