Nokia Lumia 820 – Apps, and more.

When I wrote my first post about Nokia Lumia 820, I didn’t have much time to play with the apps to understand if this phone feels complete as an end user. Firstly, I got to admit that this phone has minimized my usage of wife’s iPad2. Before talking about this phone, let me cover my use cases with iPad2, a few apps that I typically use in iPad for, Twitter – especially to read all the tamil tweets, Facebook – my social world, Flipboard – connected to my twitter, facebook, google reader account – the source for all my technical blog reading stuff, Times of India App – source of all news around India, Dinamalar, Malaimalar – Tamil news sites apps, and Skype – for video chat with my friends, and family.

I can’t think of any other apps that I frequently use in my wife’s iPad. Perhaps Youtube too, but not that much, so I didn’t even bother to list that in the above list. For my use case, I’m trying to compare the Apps that I’m using in my Nokia Lumia 820:

Rowi

Rowi, perhaps is the best twitter client out there for Windows Phone. This also supports multiple accounts. With WP8 supporting Tamil fonts, I pretty much follow my timeline on my mobile. You can get the app here. Apart from the multiple user support, even the free version includes the ability to include the location in the tweet, and also to add #nowplaying that adds the currently playing song from the Music hub. I do many #CommuteTweets, and #CommuteMusic tweets from this app, and I absolutely love it. I should say that, since I’m now able to read Tamil in my WP8, this app has stopped taking iPad to use the Twitter app (which is one great app, by the way!).

 

Facebook

Facebook on iPad is definitely superior, considering my new phone, but that’s mostly due to the large screen. I know it’s a very blind comparison of a tablet with a phone, but I’m trying to compare based on my usage stats. Of course, with my phone’s ‘Me’ tile, I do not miss any notifications, and I’ve also pinned the ‘Facebook’ app for Windows Phone to my start screen, that gives me toast notifications that keeps me always connected to my facebook world.

Flipboard, and other news apps – replaced by NextGen Reader to a larger extent

As I mentioned earlier, Flipboard gives an absolutely fantastic magazine style reading experience in the bigger screen iPad. I’m sure there is no matching Windows Phone app, yet. However, for my use case, I have the NextGen Reader – a google reader app for Windows Phone. This app is one of the superior google reader client, and also has an Windows 8 Store app as well. Other news apps like TimesofIndia, etc has apps even on Windows Phone platform, also on the Windows 8 store.

Here are a few screenshots of this app, you should use it to believe the superior experience I’m talking about. This also has a Live Tile, and can post a detailed status right on the lockscreen, which is awesome! You don’t even need to unlock your phone to see the latest in your subscriptions.

Great Apps from Nokia

One of the many reasons why I chose Nokia Lumia 820 is for it’s exclusive apps. To name a few that I use it frequently, Nokia Drive (Beta), Nokia City Lens, Nokia Music, and the PhotoBeamer app.

I think the web has many reviews for all these apps already, and I don’t want to repeat how awesome they all are! Nokia Drive has even ‘Tamil’ turn by turn navigation, and that’s just awesome! Also don’t forget to try the ‘Surfer Dude’ for some fun while driving.

Nokia Music is worth mentioning, which offers FREE MP3 downloads to your phone. They have almost all the top albums available, and it’s a bliss that you hit the download button (while connected to WiFi), and start listening to your favorite songs in minutes. This is a must have app for music lovers, and comes exclusively for the Nokia Lumia, and for free. What more you can ask for!

PhotoBeamer

You see it yourself in the below video by PocketNow. It is a great app to be used to project some photos on any screen. Imagine you are on the stage, and you want to show off some photos from your phone that you recently took. This is an amazing app, and I’m sure other phone owners would be jealous since it’s exclusive to Nokia Lumia phones.

Credits : PocketNow

That’s it for now, but I’ll write more if time permits

Nokia Lumia 820 – my thoughts

There are too many good things in this world, and Lumia is certainly one of them 🙂 I finally got my Nokia Lumia 820. It’s a white one that I went for, although I think ‘Red’ (which was the initial color I thought of selecting) wasn’t too bad.

There are a few reasons why I chose Nokia Lumia 820 over other phones:

• Exclusive Nokia Apps, especially Nokia Music (unlimited MP3 downloads), Nokia Drive (heard it is coming for other devices too, but still I have it now), and more.
• Nokia’s commitment to the Windows Phone platform, and I trust there are more exclusive apps that are going to be considered for the Lumia series phones.
• Interchangeable back panel. Not that I change it often, but I’m sure I will damage it sometime.
• Optional Wireless Charging panel. I’m going to buy this sooner they become available.
• Removable Battery. Enough said why this is so important in places like India.
• SD card slot. Oh yes, I can insert another 32GB card to store my collections.
• The greatness of the Windows Phone platform itself.

What do you think? The phone felt a bit heavy in the hands, though it is certainly not a deal breaker for me. I will perhaps write more about some exclusive apps soon. Stay tuned.

webtechnews – my first windows 8 store app

Finally, my first windows 8 app has been published to the store, and you can download it from here. It’s a very simple HTML/JS app that I wrote, perhaps in a week or so. Design took a bit longer, refreshing all my CSS skills again. Not a great app I know, but just a starter for me.

If you are using Microsoft Web Platform for your development, this app of mine might be useful to you. This aggregates a few important blogs together, and gives you a way to share with others using the share charm. Give it a try, and let me know. A few UI tweaks, ability to add your own custom feed URL are the ones you should expect in the next update, and offline reading in the later.

I spent more time in getting the vibrant color right, and the CSS shadows right. Here is what the landing page looks like, give it a try if you are interested. I still remember my early days of HTML/CSS with notepad, and IE6. I felt the same excitement in writing this app, in a nutshell there isn’t much I spent time to read with my existing HTML/JS skills, except understanding WinJS, and few controls. There are tons of articles available in Channel9, and MSDN.

What are you waiting for? If I can, you can too. Bring your HTML/JS skills back to life.

Windows 8 rocks!

Laxman gone from the fiel…

Laxman gone from the field 😦

VVS Laxman announced his retirement from international cricket yesterday. This is very sad, indeed. I’m not sure who is there to back the team when most of the top order fails. There is no time when I ever doubted Laxman will ever fail. But, yeah – he has done it a few times, he is just another human.

Now, the big question still remains : how about sachin? I personally feel, Sachin has still atleast 2 more years to go. He looks still fit, and BCCI’s decision to give him rest for most of the tours working in his favor to continue his play in the national team for few more years. May not be long though!

Link : http://www.espncricinfo.com/india-v-new-zealand-2012/content/story/578096.html

Testing out the WordPress Win8 app

This is a test blog from the WordPress Win8 app. If you are reading this, then you know what happened 🙂

Tiruppur–the forgotten city

I hail from this town turned city, and has always been very close to my heart. Although, I’m not directly involved in the textile industry for my living, most of my relatives are. My dad was in this industry as well while he was alive.

This City faced a very common problem. Ignorance by the Government. Lot of times we talk about the cities growing bigger in population, industry, etc., and cribbing that no-one expected this growth. Ex: Bangalore for it’s IT growth. I say, that’s a wrong statement. We have a Government with all best minds, and it’s their duty to predict the growth, etc. of an industry, place. These are lame excuses one could make on a disastrous situation.

Such is a state now, in this City – Tiruppur. It was a very small town (even a village) during my birth, but have seen steep growth in the last 20 years. It has become a home to a lot of migrant workers from other parts of the state (Tamilnadu), and even from other states like Bihar.

Tiruppur has various textile manufacturing establishments, and as well it’s sister industries such as Dyeing, Compacting, Embroidery, Spinning, etc. Now, the industry has become stand still because of the Court’s order to close the Dyeing units in and around this city. Court has ordered because these Dyeing’s were letting the polluted water into the Noyyal river directly. Thanks to the other low-cost markets like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Srilanka, the foreign buyers have started transferring the orders from here.

There is only a few options available to rescue the City from this disastrous situation. Options are:

1. Taking the water to sea.
2. Implementing zero discharge.

Both these options are very tough, the former takes a very long time (and money) to implement. The latter is certainly costly which most of the dyeing units may not be able to offer. So, how can Government save this City?

1. Temporarily allowing 2000 TDS (or something acceptable) via court. This is a very tricky one where Government need to sit with the Farmers association, and the Dyeing owners to come to a mutual agreement.
2. Setting up CETPs under Government supervision, and Dyeing operators pay cost for their usage of the plant.
   If the Government cannot make the #1 happen (temporary allowing), Tiruppur will not be able to recover very easily.

Debts are raising, and many industries are closing their shop. And, the time is running out. If this Government even takes more than 2 months to find a solution to this problem, this City is going to be under very tough situations. Again, this is my personal opinion, and I could be wrong on facts. I’m sure there could be legal hurdles in making this happen, but Government if steps in, could save an industry, and it’s glorious future.

 

How much the Dyeing folks asking for Government’s help on this, they should think about the Farmer’s as well. Take responsibility of polluting the river, and at least act smart from now on. Else, there is a black future for all.

Yes, Navabrindhavanam trip planned!

As a family, we have been wishing to visit the sacred place, Navabrindhavanam for a quite a long time now. From the time I wrote this earlier post of mine, been trying very hard to find time to visit. If I get time, I may not get the proper people to visit the place together. For some reason, I do not want to visit this place all alone.

It all happened on a weekend when I visited my friend’s place. They just returned from a trip to Hampi. And, I talked about this place which is very near to Hampi. His friend was so excited to know about this place, and it’s sacredness. All of a sudden a trip to this place was planned, and I didn’t quite expect this. Train ticket booked, and all excited.

God calling. Finally visiting the sacred place in another 2 weeks! The place is considered very sacred, and clean all your sins. I came to know about this by KumudamJyothidam AMR sir’s writings. We are visiting this place on April 9th which is my birthday too (yeah, I’m growing older!). I will write about our visit later.  I’ve been searching on the web, and finding very useful links explaining about the places around. We are not planning to visit Hampi, but just Navabrindhavanam this time. Let me know if there are any tips that I should hear about this place.

What a divine moment!

My thoughts on Windows Phone 7

It’s been more than a month since I started using this little magic device. For people who are used to the modern touch phones (aka iPhones), this certainly would look similar. But, the experience is certainly different. For me, this is the most fluid mobile operating systems that I had my handson till now. I have used WinMo 6, 6.5, Nokia Symbian smartphones till date.

The world is going crazy over apps. People buy phones for apps. I’m not sure if I completely agree with that. Just having a great app doesn’t make me buy the phone. It is the day to day experience for simpler tasks like making a phone call, reading emails, even using just a calculator application that matters to me. May be it is just me. I wish to use the phone as a phone. Sometimes for games, but those won’t impress me to buy the phone.

Outlook app in the WP7 is the best I have used. The email experience is amazing, and I couldn’t believe that I feel typing using the onscreen keyboard is great. The keyboard is one of the killer points. Love the Facebook integration (not the app), and forth coming Twitter integration would be great too.

But, people doesn’t call it the BEST since it lacks a few basic things you would expect from a smartphone like copy-paste, multi-tasking, etc – few of which is expected in the first software update.

And, developing for a phone is just easy as you do write a simple C# application. Just started playing with the SDK, hope I will deploy a few apps in my name.

The platform has to evolve much more, but it has the potential to stay in the game. Game on!

And, I thought I will also write about my favorite apps. Mind you, I won’t agree to the claims of many people that people buys phones for apps. I just use them as and when they are required, still using my device as a phone matters to me than these.

These are my favorite apps, not in the order.

• Camera – the most impressive one. My HTC Mozart has a 8M camera which is pretty decent.
• Pictures Hub – the most innovative pictures viewer that I have used.
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Wonder Reader – an amazing Google reader client
• Games
• Ultra Air Hockey 2
• Triangula
• Traffic
• Tic Tac Toe

My wife enjoys these free games too, and should mention that I loose everytime playing with her on these multiplayer games.

 

Disclaimer : I work for Microsoft, an d received a WP7 from my employer. This blog certainly is my view, and I’m not paid for writing this. All views are personal.

Welcome 2011. Another important year in my life.

Wow. What an year, 2010 has been to me. Lot of great things happened this year to me, and the most important was my marriage. Yes, that would explain my transformation from a boy to a man. Marriage gives you responsibility, and have someone to see through the world. World certainly looks different in her eyes. With marriage, got many more relatives, and many more long phone conversations. Responsibilities are endless. But, I’m thoroughly enjoying the ride. Its different, and its great.

I should say that 2010 for me was truly an year of Twitter, and Facebook. Made great friends, enjoyed the online stay. But, I should admit that’s one of the reason my blogs got ignored. Also, I spent less time on Google reader since most of the news read through Twitter follows, and Facebook links from fellow friends, and online bloggers. I’m not a great blogger though, but still manage to put my thoughts into blogs earlier. My main resolution for 2011 (perhaps, the only one) is to give my blogs life. Both personal (this one), and the technical one. Hope I keep up my resolution throughout this 2011. God bless.

2011 is going to be another important year in my life. It would be exciting, and awesome. I can sense how is this year going to be. But, we don’t have great plans though, just face the life as it comes. I’m sure it is going to be a greatest year in my life.

You must be extremely lucky!

“You must be extremely lucky!” – this is exactly what you are going to say after reading this post. Recently I had a few queries regarding an existing loan that I have with ICICI bank. I called up their customer care, and got to speak with one of their customer service people. She was extremely nice to me, but failed to give me the information that I needed. I have lost my loan account number, and I wanted to check the status of the loan. She asked me all my details, and finally said that she is unable to find any information regarding me. I’m completely shocked. She asked me to visit the nearby ICICI branch for the same. Now, after reading a lot of horror stories about loans, and banks, I was little worried.

I vented out my frustration by posting this on twitter.

ICICI bank.You cannot identify my personal loan account number. Very bad! Sick, running out of my vocabulary to explain how I feel about u.

Oh well, after a few days ICICI Bank’s customer care replied to me on twitter.

@rakkimk Sorry for the inconvenience caused. Please DM us your contact details & we’ll get back to you.

Now, I thought it is going to be very smooth ride till the time I get my queries answered. Waited for 4 more days for someone to get back to me as ICICI promised me on Twitter. But yeah, nobody got back to me (at this very time of writing this post as well). So, I thought let me pay a visit to the nearest bank. Visited their Jeevan Bima nagar branch. I live in Bangalore incase if you don’t know. Entered the branch which is comparatively a small branch, not sure whom to approach – haven’t visited ICICI in a long time. There came a very friendly officer with a big broad smile. That brought me some happiness, and I can still remember his smile. He was so friendly, and asked me about the visit to this branch. He forwarded me to another branch, luckily it was near – Indra Nagar branch.

In the IndiraNagar branch, I saw a few iron-faced people. It was 9:30 in the morning, and I don’t understand why you have to have that kind of a look when you see your customers. Luckily again, I wasn’t serviced by one of those people. Got the token, and waited for my turn. After 10 minutes, I can see my token number flashing, and the counter number was 11. Thank God, there was some smiley-faced lady waiting for my query. I went there, she was busy with her own work. I soon understood that her PC is not working, and she cannot connect to the network (which is obviously needed to answer my query).

I explained my query, and she said her office network is down (oh yeah, where isn’t it down when you need the most). The smartest thing she did was, she called up the customer care herself, and put me to an officer on the phone. I told her that I have tried this route, and they weren’t able to find my details, and that’s why I’m here. But, she was totally confident that probably last time I was answered by some new officer, and perhaps she didn’t know to pull up my details. WTF? Now, I waited patiently on the phone to get a new officer on the phone. He simply asked for my information, and got my queries answered. What? This was so easy to give my information? Why wasn’t I given this last time when I called? This could have saved me from hopping from one branch to another?

Whatever it is, do you think I was lucky enough? I thought I was extremely lucky enough to meet some extremely helpful folks in the bank to help you out. Most important is their smile. That’s exactly any customer would like to see first.