How I use my new toy….I mean Nokia N79

It’s been 5 days I got my Nokia N79 & so far i have been busy in configuring it. Since this is the first time I am using a Nokia Smartphone, I was completely blank at the start & even now I am only 40% aware of the full capability of my phone. I bought Nokia N79 because I find Nokia N82 a bulky device to carry & I am not exactly a fan of its keypad. Nokia 5800 Xpress Music is also launching soon, but I am not a fan of Touch screen phones, although the 2D Icons of 5800 are quite good for the UI of a phone.

Since I use my phone for everything, I like to customize it. So far here is the list of all the applications I m using, I won’t be needing anything beyond these I guess.

1) Opera Mini. The inbuilt Webkit browser is good but Opera Mini is still better when it comes to browsing over pay-per-kb Vodefone Live service. I use the Webkit browser when I am on WiFi.

2) GMail App. I use the inbuilt mail client for checking my Yahoo & GMail over WiFi but when I am on Vodafone Live, I use GMail App because Vodafone Live doesn’t support POP3.

3) For chatting I use IM+ or Fring as applicable. For some reason they are not working over Vodafone Live.

4) For Personal information like passwords, ATM card number etc I use Best Safe from Smartphoneware. It is a simple & no nonsense application.

5) For personal expanse management I use Best Expanse again from Smartphoneware. Another simple & handy tool for keeping tracks of expense the way I want to note down. I also tried Handy Expense from Epocware but it was overkill for me.

6) For downloading torrent files in the phone itself I am using SymTorrent. It is quite good, few days back i downloaded a song directly in my phone from torrent over WiFi.

7) For recording calls I am using Best Call recorder, it does the work fine for me although I would want it to record the call even after picking up the phone instead of asking whether I want to record in the beginning of a call or not.

8 ) I found a great application called WordMobi for managing Wordpress based blogs. It lacks the best UI out there but better then visiting the Dashboard using the inbuilt browser. This requires Python Runtime for Series 60 to work.

9) Although I convert videos to native H.264 AVC based MP4 file before copying to phone, I still have DivX mobile Player installed in case I have a DivX file to play.

10) Since I was having trouble installing unsigned applications, I installed SelfSign & registered at symbiansigned.com to get my own certificate & published ID for my phone’s IMEI. Now using SelfSign I can sign any Symbian OS application in my phone itself, for my phone only.

11) The file manager of Symbian OS is good enough for my needs but I have also installed X-Plore, just in case I need it.

12) For task manager, I use Handy Taskman. It’s quite good & simple.

13) I also installed Wavesecure & activated it.

Since I like to use a picture for every contact, I had to remake all the Contact Pics as the previous ones from my K750i were too small. The ideal size for Nokia N79 is when you have the face of the person cropped & the largest side of the picture should be 240 pixels.  Anything big is down sampled automatically. Do not use Nokia PC Suite to attach these pictures to a contact or they will be reduced in dimension again. Copy the images to some folder in the memory card & then assign them to a contact. This way the pics will be big.

When it comes to video conversion I use TMPGEnc Xpress 4 to convert video to H.264 AVC MP4 with the following settings

Video size = Keep the aspect ratio same, but reduce the size to 320X240. 16:9 Videos look bad when converted to 4:3

Video bitrate = 384 kbps, H.264 AVC, keep the frame rate as original.

Audio = 128 kbps MP4 unless the source is having lower bit rate.

For Audio Sync, I simply use Windows Media Player 11 which automatically syncs the song to the phone when connected in MTP transfer mode.

For a custom theme I am using PureBlack my Pizero.

Windows XP - Tangofied

Windows Vista is all the rage these days & with cheap Windows Vista capable hardware available these days, you can very well make your Vista certified PC within Rs 20k. However there are many users out there who are still running old or low end hardware configuration for today’s standards & the herald of Netbooks have sparked another interest in Windows XP as Windows Vista is heavy on the GMA 950 available on most Netbooks out there. This is soon to change with nVidia Ion platform but till then, those using a Netbooks or low end configuration are either stuck with Windows XP or can install Linux.

In my office, I got a workstation running Windows XP SP3, so I decided to make the look & feel a bit more consistence, new & something black…like Vista. Now, instead of going with numerous Vista Shell Packs available, I decided to try something new & decided to go with the Tango Icon theme & something matching to it for Visual Style & Icons because Tango theme is simple on the eyes & easy to work with. They are not 3d Icons, they are all 2D Icons but still they do the work just fine & look good. I found some resources & made some of my own icons etc to make my Office’s Windows XP look like this.

This is how some applications look on my setup

When it comes to Casual Home use, Netbooks or Cyber Café or Office or even schools, users do not need much application to be installed. They just need some application as neither Netbooks are supposed to be uber powerful nor they are supposed to replace a desktop. So for place like this who are still using Windows XP, I decided to make this guide which can give their Computers running Windows XP a new & refreshing look. Keep in mind that I m making this guide strictly for the usage scenario’s I mentioned above. This isn’t some performance or tweaking guide; this is a guide to enhance the look & feel, as well as User Experience of the old & arcane operating system for today’s standards. All the applications mentioned below are free & there is no piracy. The icons are at a maximum size of 48X48 only.

Requirements.

1) A Clean unmodified installation of Windows XP. If you have any previous Shell pack or skin or theme installed, it will be removed. I am assuming that you have a newly installed Windows XP PC.

2) The following downloads…

a. Uxtheme Multipatcher & Luna Elements Black Visual Style for Windows XP

b. Tango Icon set for Windows

c. Tango Shell Patch for Windows

d. Tango uTorrent theme

e. Free download manager & tango theme

f. Abiword (In case you don’t want to use Microsoft Office or OpenOffice)

g. Tango Firefox 3 theme for Windows XP

h. XNView & Gnome theme

i. Segoe UI font

j. CCleaner

k. 7Zip & Tango 7Zip theme, also Tango WinRAR theme if you want to use WinRAR which in my point of view is useless for our use here. You just need to zip & unzip files so for that 7Zip is enough

l. Miscellaneous Tango Icons for various application

m. IcoFX. A free software to make your own icons from PNG files

n. Tango Icons which I have collected or created.

Customization

1) Start by installing Uxtheme Multipatcher & restart Windows. After this, extract the Lune Elements Black zip file & copy the “LE Black” folder to c:\windows\resources\themes. Extract the Segoe UI font & copy it to the Fonts folder. Now apply this skin by simply going to Display properties ->Appearance tab. Now click on advance & set the following fonts to Segoe UI.

a. Active/Inactive Titlebar

b. Icon

c. Menu

2) Now install the Tango Shell Patch for Windows & Install the Tango theme. There are other themes too which you can try. Let it patch the whole system & reboot windows.

For a PC like this, you don’t need many applications if it is a netbook or a cyber café or casual PC. So I will only install some simple & generic Application which are enough for a new or novice user but might help power users too.

1) For torrent client, nothing beats uTorrent for Windows. I prefer to use a portable uTorrent. To do this, just make a folder with any name, anywhere on your Hard disk. Copy uTorrent.exe to this folder, & then copy the content of the following folder to this new Folder.

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\uTorrent

After this, extract the content of the uTorrent theme given above & copy them to this new folder. Now your uTorrent is running in Portable mode with Tango theme & doesn’t need to be installed. You can simply zip it & take it with you anywhere you want.

2) Free download Manager is what it says it is. Install FDM, then extract the content of the FDM theme I gave above in the following folder

C:\Program Files\Download Manager\Skins

Now start FDM, configure it the way you want for speed, default download location etc & go to Tools -> General Settings -> Skins & select Tango from the Combo Box.

3) You can either install Abiword or Openoffice.org suite as you like or Microsoft Office.

4) Download the Tango Firefox theme mentioned above & extract it. Copy the folder to the “extension” folder of your firefox profile folder. After this select to use this theme from tools -> Add ons -> Themes

5) XNView is a free Image browser with some basic editing capability which should be sufficient for any casual user. Install XNView, then copy the XNView theme given above to the “skins” folder Inside the XNView installation folder. After this select this theme from Tools -> options -> Toolbar section -> Skins.

6) I prefer WMP11 but many might prefer something else. For a generic scenario I recommend VLC player as the new version is using Tango Icons. Install VLC Player & associate it with the file types you want. Since it is not your home PC (unless it is a netbook, in which case WMP11 is the way to go), a Library management is not required in most cases but still VLC should be able to do it just fine.

7) For CD Burning try InfraRecorder which already uses Tango Icons.

This does for the application customization for tango theme. You can search for or download many other icons all over the net for various applications as you require.

Is it time for Optical Media to die?

Since the last few years, I have been buying a new Optical drive almost every year as the tray soon starts to give problem which is the most common problem & the drive isn’t being used much either.

I was thinking, do we really need an optical drive now anymore? Other then Installing Windows on a new computer, I seriously see no use of my Optical drive today at the end of the year 2008. The availability of cheap bandwidth & Torrents has changed the way I get my digital media.

Windows 7 : Where is the future heading?

Windows 7 is all the rage these days. With Microsoft PDC 2008 just around the corner with the eyes of all third party developers, anti-trust lawyers & fan boys set on it as Microsoft will give the first Beta 1 release to its partner companies to start developing applications & drivers for it.

When Vista was released & Windows 7 start to make noise as some people for no apparent reason declared Vista a failure without even using it, I predicted something that with Windows 7 Microsoft doesn’t need to start fresh to make an OS. What many users don’t realize that Microsoft makes Windows as a platform on which third party developers develop & sale applications. With Vista, Microsoft gave the developers & for the first time, designers a lot of power when it comes to developing & designing applications for Windows.

With .Net 3.0 & now .Net 3.5, developers & designers find it very easy to make applications for Windows. I can’t say about development side as I am a Designer but from my point of view visually designing an application with Visual Studio 2008 SP1 & Microsoft Blend is much better then what we had in past. Microsoft has given WPF, WDDM, WCF. WWF & a plethora of technologies inside Vista due to which at least I don’t call Vista a failure.

Before Vista it was hard to design an application for Windows with good native & fast look & UX but now it is very easy. WPF brings Vector based, resolution independent, GPU accelerated UI to Windows due to which that powerful GPU installed in most of the people’s computer won’t be sitting idle when using just the OS to do something & not playing games. This brings more efficiency to the computing environment when heat & electricity are becoming a growing concern rapidly.

GPGPU is the next big thing & right now the time is absolutely right to make a career in GPU programming. nVidia has already shown with CUDA what level of performance and scalability a GPU can reach if applications are coded with GPGPU support. ATI demonstrated it long back with there AVIVO Video converter which converted H.264 in fraction of time which it usually used to take with CPU based encoding. It won’t be surprising to see Microsoft supporting GPGPU in DirectX 11 or Visual Studio’s next version using which even Software vendor like Adobe can make Photoshop apply filters faster then before because as we all know, a GPU is simply a processor which can do lots of calculations like a CPU as calculation power of a GPU is more then a CPU. It is actually a good thing as right now we have CUDA API only for nVidia cards & ATI’s own Firestream API. With Support from Microsoft in Visual Studio or DirectX, developers can make one code which will run same on both AMD & nVidia hardware instead of coding for 2 APIs.

WPF & Microsoft Blend are already making lots of noise. Designing an application using WPF is easy & fast, also they look cool. I really love that for the first time since the beginning of Windows, Microsoft is paying attention to the user experience & interface making it easy for people to do things on there computer.

.Net 3.5 & soon .net 4.0 will sure be making head turn the Microsoft way. Due to the native code generation & MSIL support, the applications can be made really fast by JIT when installing. Now just imagine the flexibility of .net CLR, the speed JIT brings, the look & feel WPF brings, the secure environment of Managed code & it’s not hard to believe that the future of Windows foundation is upgrading itself to be more solid.

Some people will sure say that Microsoft is going the Linux or Apple way, well…here is the thing. There are only some ways of doing something & Linux/Apple did it before Microsoft, so is it wrong for Microsoft to copy something good? Well, it is copying for sure but to make something better & I myself say….”Redmond start your photocopiers.”

With Windows 7 Microsoft doesn’t need to make a completely new OS. They just need to optimize the code & polish the features of Vista. Even if it is like Windows Vista R2, even then it will be big because with Windows 7, Microsoft will give all those features & speed it ones promised with Vista but wasn’t able to. The foundation technologies are already there in form of WDDM, WPF, Aero, WCF, WWF, Office Technologies, Windows Live Services….they don’t need to code anything new, they just have to optimize what they already have & tweak it.

The reason for the success of Microsoft in the past was that it integrated things & made it easier for the hardware & software developers to work together. As an example, before DirectX we had many 3D API from many different GPU hardware vendors. 3DFX had glide, nVidia/ATI had OpenGL & all of them were not compatible on the same hardware. Now a developer can’t code a game in Glide for 3dfx & then again code it in OpenGL for the rest of the GPU. Microsoft solved this problem with DirectX due to which today it is the de-facto standard when making games for Windows. The developers were now able to make the game in DirectX be assurance that if it runs on Windows, it will run across a wide range of GPU. Microsoft is doing the same thing with Windows 7 & the technologies it gave in form of DirectX 10, XNA & those mentioned above.

Why I like DRM & Internet based distribution

It’s been 2 months since I am in Delhi & distances are quite long here, it’s hard to do all things at one time. 24 hours in a day seem less to me sometime. Why don’t we have 8 hrs for work, 8 hrs for our personal stuff, 8 hrs to sleep & 4 hrs for traveling from one place to other?

Life is following a static cycle but its good, what else will I do in my free time?? There is nothing much to do. Sometimes I feel bored on weekends. My roommates wait for weekend to finish their pending work, I don’t. I do what I have to do even if it is a weekday but due to all this I don’t have time for time pass. I get weekends but that is passed in doing pending work like shopping etc which means I work, work, work….which is what I hate. I like to work & I don’t sit Idle but I need breaks too. I like being social, meeting people, making friends but I am unable to due to all the work. This isn’t a problem with just me; everyone these days in a Metro City like Delhi has this problem. A person doesn’t know the other & doesn’t even give a damn about him. Lucknow was better, people were better there or maybe I have yet to understand Delhi people. Here, if someone doesn’t know you then talking to you is like a crime for them they don’t want to commit. I even had to initiate conversation with my neighbors here myself.

Entertainment is something everyone needs. For me it is more of a distraction then entertainment. When I am out of my home then either I am talking to a friend on phone or listening to Music as it keeps me distracted from rest of the world. After coming to Delhi only I have realized the worth of “Content on Demand”. I don’t watch TV as there are not many shows which I like so I don’t need a physical TV or DTH here. News I get from RSS feeds of Indiatimes.com or NDTV Delhi which I access in my K750i as well as my Dekstop so I don’t even need news paper, however I do watch some TV shows such as Heroes or House but like I said, I don’t have time to watch House every week on AXN at 11 PM as I have office next day. This is why I prefer IPTV or Internet based Distribution.

Everything is available on Torrents & considered piracy but I would actually like to pay for it if I get a proper distribution system via torrents. If the companies charge me Rs 200 monthly for a subscription based service like we have with DTH of a TV show in 720p HD resolution which should be about 500 MB then I would gladly pay for it because then I can download the Video file even when I am in the office & then watch it on weekend, in my phone or anywhere else as I “own” the file. I don’t mind them putting DRM on it as Piracy is wrong & it is something you realize when you are yourself making such broadcast content but implement the DRM in a better way. Microsoft has playforsure DRM which is available on a wide range of Devices due to which if you buy a song from a Playforsure service provider then you can be rest assured that it will play on any compatible device. I would urge other device manufacturer to provide support for playforsure or some other unified DRM system.

Today I bought a game from Nehru Place for Rs 120 & it is not working. Now, I am not going to go back to that shop keeper & fight him for Rs 120 but I paid him so I need service at least. Valve has been distributing games via Steam & those are original games tied to your account which means you can download & play the game at any computer provided you are logged in with your steam account. I just love this concept. I can simply download the game without thinking of all the hassle or running to the shopkeeper then praying that the game works. I am going to download the same game from Torrent but I am all in for legal digital distribution. Give me a proper & legal digital distribution system for games, videos & music & I am all in & will be the first one to opt for it. Since I like a mobile phone to do everything for me, including if possible, baking cookies once in a while. I have decided to buy Nokia N82 because with it I can download a whole 500 MB House Episode HD rip via torrent in the phone itself using SymTorrent or even Rapidshare & other such file sharing networks with an Unlimited EDGE connection from Idea for Rs 600 a month.

I have a computer which is my TV, Gaming Machine, Web browsing device, Bank & Finance management, account management, Media Center, Video Player, Music Player, Picture Organizer & Album etc etc etc. My Workstation is the center of all my digital needs. I use it for everything so why not enhance it further. Learn something from Microsoft, get your ass up & listen to the customer. We need one, yes just one DRM scheme out there compatible across all devices. You don’t want us to distribute our songs & videos to curb piracy, well….then lock the content with a Login Key. Like I should have one Windows Live ID which I can enter in my computer & it will play all my DRM based files in my computer, I should also be able to enter it in my Mobile Phone to play the same & I should be able to enter in a PMP like iRiver Clix using a software in the OS after which I can play the files in PMP too.

Some people don’t like DRM & in a way I find DRM restrictive too. There are two things a company can do now, either stop supporting any DRM & give content without DRM as today with torrents, DRM content isn’t making any money anyway or Provide a standard DRM scheme tied to one particular Login Account which is compatible across a long range of device out there.