It’s been a week since I bought my Nokia Lumia 800 and I think I’ve got enough experience to review it. Rather than writing it in the technical perspective, I’m gonna keep this review as what I like and what I don’t like in this windows phone, so that I can write close to the truth.

Lumia 800 is the new Windows phone from Nokia, featuring the Windows 7.5 operating system – Mango. Apart from the Lumia 800, there are Lumia 710 and Lumia 900. I couldn’t see any drastic change in the processing power (all are featuring the 1.4 GHz processor). Anyway, if you really want the finer details before choosing your next windows phone from Lumia series, you could compare Lumia 710 vs Lumia 800 or Lumia 800 vs Lumia 900.

Let’s start with what I don’t like first so that I can close this review in a positive note.

Lumia 800 – the things that failed to impress me:

1. Sound - as a ‘phone’ this is a big letdown in Lumia 800. Even if I keep the volume to the maximum, the sound is not much audible. I have to be in a silent place to hear it clearly. Forget calling someone if you are in a noisy environment, you won’t hear what the other person is saying unless you have very sensitive ears. The speaker too isn’t that impressive.
2. Data Connection Issues - I have configured my Lumia 800 with Airtel 3G. But suddenly, one day it stopped using the data connection and always throwing an Error Code: 80072EFD. I left with not able to access my emails for a whole day until I figured out a solution (i.e. delete the current APN and create a new APN). But still, it scared me off in the first place.
3. Difficulties in transferring files other than Music, Photo and Video - Zune software did a good job in synchronizing the photos, music and videos between my phone and PC. But when I wanted to copy a CAB file from my PC to Phone, I was hitting the dead end. Zune didn’t sync the file and I couldn’t just copy the file to my phone as it was not showing up a storage drive in my PC when I connected it. I’m still not able to the copy the file I wanted and looking for workarounds like uploading it to my Gmail and download it from there.
4. The cover that guards the USB charging port - before connecting your phone to a charger, you need to open a little cover on the USB charger port. Believe me, its not such happy experience given that the phone’s battery drains a lot (considering my usage) and every time it irritates me to snap open the USB cover before connecting it to a charger. It might seem a like a little thing but it adds up everyday.
5. Internet Explorer - oh, come on! As a web developer,  I have grown hating IE to the core and I’m let alone with this only browser in Lumia. But I must say that it renders most of the modern web pages very nicely (yay! my home page looks good in my phone too!), but still the browsing experience isn’t smooth. It does supports tabbed browsing, but its not easy to open a new tab with your favorite page in it. The browser needs something like a speed dial to save us some time. I’m trying to install Opera mini, but I couldn’t find it in marketplace and due to the point #3 above, I haven’t figured out a way to copy the installer to my phone yet.
6. Not much apps that I need - yeah! there are hundreds of applications in the Zune marketplace. But I couldn’t find the application that I need or the services I use. When the time goes on, the marketplace will grow. But at this point of time, you have to compromise yourself.

Lumia 800 – the things that I like the most:

1. People hub & Personal hub - the one feature that beats me my android experience left and right. It’s the only place that I constantly check to see what my friends are up to. I can easily connect my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Live accounts to my phone and see and post to all the social updates in one place. Totally love this feature.
2. Camera and Picture quality - Lumia 800 comes with 8MP camera. The picture quality is good and the camera application is very much user friendly. To take a picture, just open the camera application and then tap on the screen where you want the focus to be in and your picture is taken (no need to hard press any button that might introduce shake in the photo). Nice!
3. Performance - is real fast. The 1.4 GHz processor proves what its worth of (but as a side effect, the phone emits some considerable amount of heat, but you can’t help it right!?). Now the Angry Birds are much more angry and ferocious.
4. Multi-tasking - opening up several application and switching between them is simple and smooth. Just hold on the back button and you’ll be shown a list of applications that are currently open and you can choose from them by tapping on it.
5. The Metro UI - the new Metro UI surely gives a refreshing experience. Live tiles on the home screen, minimal UI elements everywhere – totally like it. Again, its just personal preference. You might have a different taste.
6. Nokia Drive & Nokia Maps - The phone comes with this free application that helps you to see the route map while driving (like a GPS device). Comes handy when you want to explore unknown places.
7. The on-screen keyboard and Auto suggestions - I have been using the Swipe keyboard in my Android phone that helped me to input words just by swiping a path. When I switched to Lumia 800, I was little worried about the keyboard performance. But then, now  I’m totally satisfied with Lumia’s keyboard. The auto suggestions were most of the time accurate and reduces my key input time very much.
8. SkyDrive and 25GB of free storage space - SkyDrive is the cloud storage system from Microsoft and as a Lumia user you are entitled to a free storage space of 25GB. Quite useful to backup important files.

Well, that said, Lumia 800 is a great response from the Microsoft to the smarphone market. I hope the Application marketplace picks up pace and soon host all my needed applications. But that’s not a show stopper to buy this phone. Worth the money.

I’d never thought I would buy one Netbook for myself. I already own a Laptop and I’m quite happy with its performance. But, it’s 15″ screen made it uncomfortable to carry around. I have been using it more or less like a desktop (it hardly moved an inch from where I kept it few months back!).

That’s why I bought one netbook – Acer Aspire one 722 and I must say I’m more than happy with it’s performance till now.

Aspire one has this configuration: AMD Dual core processor (up to 1.33 GHz) with 2GB memory and 320GB HDD. The screen is 11.6″ and its ultra thin. Battery life comes around 5 hours (full charge). It comes with Windows 7 starter edition and costs ~Rs 20K.

On performance, this netbook has exceeded my expectation. Initially, I thought, one couldn’t open even  2 applications together as netbooks suck if you make them work hard. But, below is a list of apps that I usually run at anytime in my netbook without much trouble.

1. Eclipse
2. Sublime text
3. XAMPP server
4. Chrome (at least 5 tabs open)
5. Firefox
6. Gtalk
7. iTunes

And frequently I open other applications too and the netbook has run them all.

Of course, it gets heated up a bit (no wonder, considering the load I give to it). But, it hasn’t become a problem so far.

The only concern I have with its is the lack of separate Home and End keys. Instead, one has to press Fn + Pg Up / Fn + Pg Dn to get the functionality of Home and End. This could seem like not an issue at all. But believe me, if you do lots of coding, then you’ll pull your hair out every time you need to press 2 keys instead of one to move your cursor at the beginning/end of a line.

Overall, great value for money!

I’ve been using Google Friend Connect tool in this blog for my readers to join this site. But, last November, Google announced that they will be shutting down Friend Connect and recommended site owners to create a Google+ page, instead.

So, there it is: Google+ page for this blog.

There were 148 subscribers joined this site through Friend Connect. I have already sent out a newsletter to all of them, asking to add my blog to their circle. But, I highly doubt that how many of them have a Google+ profile already. So, I expect, the adoption would be little slow.

Anyway, If you are already in Google+, don’t forget to add my blog to your circle. Also, I’ve setup a Facebook page too!

Thanks for reading. :)

The time sure flies! Yet another December 31′st and ‘Happy New year’ wishes everywhere. What else would be the right time to stop and look back?

As I did last year, here’s a retrospection of things that I did in the past one year.

Last year resolutions:

• Release the new website I am working on – I did release it, around last March or April, I think. Though I didn’t made any BIG attempts to market it as I knew there are lots of things to be done before putting it on the line of fire.
• Learn a new language – ha.ha! this one became a sticky point in my every new year resolutions (like how people have ‘reduce weight’ in their list but fail to do so). Seriously, didn’t have any reasons to go beyond the languages that I already knew. I did learn few frameworks and new techniques but that won’t fall under ‘Learning a new Language’. Isn’t it?
• Network with more people in my field – Well, I was able to interact with some great people and I’m hoping to do so in the coming years too!

New year resolutions:

Time for setting new goals.

• Release treesk.com – I’m currently working hard on this and my plan is to release it in another few months and make it as a successful product.
• Get a new job – if I fail in my first resolution, obviously the next step would be to find a new job.
• Improve my skills in photography.

Important events for veerasundar.com/blog:

• My blog performed really well in terms of traffic. For the past four months, it was consistently hitting 40K page views/month and the total number of page views has crossed 800, 000 (compared to 400,00 page views last year).
• Adsense earning was comparatively good. Received the Google check twice last year. And, some ad offers were renewed.
• Google Friend connect subscribers grew to 144 (compared to 69 last year).

Traffic stats for 2011:

From WordPress.com stats plug-in:

From Google Analytics – stats for past 1 year:

Happy new year!

So, that’s it for now. As an end note, I’m wishing everyone a happy and eventful new year. May all your wishes come true!

Hi Friends! Need your help for a survey.

We are currently evaluating an idea to work on. We have created a set of questions to identify the market and potential value of our idea.

Can you spend 10 minutes of your time to take this survey?

Thanks in advance!

Just a quick note to let you know that the design of this blog has been changed a bit. If you are using a wide screen monitor (> 1100 pixels), you would notice that the blog title has been moved towards the left, leaving more space for the post content.

Floating the title left caused a broken layout in resolution that are less than 1100 pixels. The title was displayed on top of the content, because of the absolute positioning. But, thanks to media queries, the layout is now adopts itself to all monitors.

@media all and (min-width:1100px){
.custom #header{border:none;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100px;}
}

And, there’s space for the social buttons too, which I shamelessly copied from my own home page.

So, what do you think?

PS: If you are reading this post in an reader, never mind!

It’s my first trip to United States (or to any foreign country for that matter) and I was kinda excited to be here. Having spent the first three weekends in my hotel room and haven’t got a chance to take out my Nikon, I was eagerly waiting for an outing.

So, we planned a trip to San Francisco, which is close to San Jose and can be reachable by public commute. Including myself, there were five guys in the group. Our main aim was to go to Golden gate bridge (and of course, to take lots and lots of photos!).

On a sunny Saturday morning, as decided to start at 7:30, we started at 9. I didn’t have any jacket with me and I was getting severe warnings from folks who had already visited SFO that I’m going to freeze to an ice. At first I didn’t believe any of those warnings (typical software engineer who ignores all the warnings!) mainly because the sun was out and shining like a… sun (duh!) in San Jose and I hoped even SFO would be having same climate.

We went to the Karina rail station and boarded the Mountain View train. From there our plan was to catch the Cal train to SFO. It took almost an hour to reach Mountain view and we had around 20 minutes of waiting time before the Cal train comes. It was 10 in the morning but still it felt like the mid day. Who cares to wear jacket in this heat?

Mountain view station

At 10.20, the Cal train reached mountain view. We got into it and went to the upper deck of it. Train wasn’t crowded at all. All this time, I was just wondering again and again at how well the public commute system works well. There was automated ticket vending machines, clean platforms, trains reaching the station at correct time, patient driver who waits till the last passenger get in/out of the train, prompt station name announcements and the list goes on..

While you were reading the above paragraph, our Cal train reached San Francisco. When we stepped out of the Cal train in SFO, it was 11:30 am. We walked out of the train station and directly opposite to the station there were several buses waiting. We got into one after making sure that the bus goes to Pier 39.

Unfortunately, the bus we took was not taking the direct route to Pier 39. It was going around almost all the places in SFO and we got a cheap city tour for 2 bucks. On the way, we saw a group of old men, riding the bicycles in the middle of the road – naked! And, I said to myself “WELCOME to AMERICA!”.

After an hour or so, we finally reached our spot – Pier 39. It’s the host of several tourist attractions, including an aquarium, ferry ride, wax museum and sea food hotels.

Entering Pier 39

After reaching Pier 39, I was slightly started to feel the chill, but still I was hopeful that I wouldn’t need a jacket. We decided to go in a ferry that takes us below the Golden gate bridge and around the Alcatraz island (remember The Rock) for $25. We bought the tickets and had to wait for thirty minutes before the ferry starts. And my Nikon didn’t fail to capture the surroundings in the mean time.

boats at Pier 39

And then started the ferry ride. The moment we left the shore, the climate immediately turned from mild cold to ‘damn, it’s cold!’. For the first time, I felt I should have carried a jacket.

Anyway, the ferry ride was so awesome. When we reached the bottom of Golden Gate bridge, everyone on the ferry were shivering like a dunkards but never missed to photograph the gigantic structure in front of them.

Golden gate surrounded by the fog

In the ferry they were narrating the history of San Francisco and the mystery of the Alcatraz prison. I hardly get to listen to that, thanks to the fog and the noise out there. Anyway, we returned back to shore after an hour of ferry ride.

Foggie skylines of San Francisco

Our next plan was to take the city tour in a double decker bus. This tour would take us around the streets of San Francisco till the Golden Gate bridge and will return to Pier 39.

Taking a bus ride in San Francisco is exciting mainly because of roads of SFO. Wanna know why? Just look below and you’ll understand.

roads in San Francisco

Finally we reached the Golden gate bridge (again) and accomplished our mission by posing for a group photo (thanks to the foreigner who took this one!)

Mission accomplished

Just a little contribution from my side to spread the awareness. You are welcomed to copy/paste this content (as I did) in your blog/social network sites.

10 things to know about Anna Hazare ‘n Jan Lok Pal Bill.. !

1. Who is Anna Hazare?

An ex-army man. Fought 1965 Indo-Pak War

2. What’s so special about him?

He built a village Ralegaon Siddhi in Ahamad Nagar district, Maharashtra

3. So what?

This village is a self-sustained model village. Energy is produced in the village itself from solar power, biofuel and wind mills.

In 1975, it used to be a poverty clad village. Now it is one of the richest village in India. It has become a model for self-sustained, eco-friendly & harmonic village.

4. Ok,…?

This guy, Anna Hazare was awarded Padma Bhushan and is a known figure for his social activities.

5. Really, what is he fighting for?

He is supporting a cause, the amendment of a law to curb corruption in India.

6. How that can be possible?

He is advocating for a Bil, The Jan Lokpal Bill (The Citizen Ombudsman Bill), that will form an autonomous authority who will make politicians (ministers), beurocrats (IAS/IPS) accountable for their deeds.

8. It’s an entirely new thing right..?

In 1972, the bill was proposed by then Law minister Mr. Shanti Bhushan. Since then it has been neglected by the politicians and some are trying to change the bill to suit thier theft (corruption).

7. Oh.. He is going on a hunger strike for that whole thing of passing a Bill ! How can that be possible in such a short span of time?

The first thing he is asking for is: the government should come forward and announce that the bill is going to be passed.

Next, they make a joint committee to DRAFT the JAN LOKPAL BILL. 50% goverment participation and 50% public participation. Because you cant trust the government entirely for making such a bill which does not suit them.

8. Fine, What will happen when this bill is passed?

A LokPal will be appointed at the centre. He will have an autonomous charge, say like the Election Commission of India. In each and every state, Lokayukta will be appointed. The job is to bring all alleged party to trial in case of corruptions within 1 year. Within 2 years, the guilty will be punished. Not like, Bofors scam or Bhopal Gas Tragedy case, that has been going for last 25 years without any result.

9. Is he alone? Whoelse is there in the fight with Anna Hazare?

Baba Ramdev, Ex. IPS Kiran Bedi, Social Activist Swami Agnivesh, RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal and many more.

Prominent personalities like Aamir Khan is supporting his cause.

10. Ok, got it. What can I do?

At least we can spread the message. How?

Putting status message, links, video, changing profile pics.

At least we can support Anna Hazare and the cause for uprooting corruption from India.

At least we can hope that his Hunger Strike does not go in vain.

At least we can pray for his good health.

Thanks for reading.

Now, lets do a small exercise. Have a look at the below photo and tell me which button will you press to see the balance in your account? second one…or the third one?

the problem with ATM menus

No, 2.5 isn’t the right answer. I figured it out that the third button will do the balance checking while the second button will withdraw money from my account. Well, it took two tries to figure this out, thanks to the confusing placement of ATM menus and their corresponding buttons.

Well, it isn’t the problem of UI designers. They did their best to bring out a visually pleasing screen. But then when you integrate that screen with the physical ATM interface, the usability has gone for a toss. Mainly because the viewing angle.

As you can see from the above photo, most of the ATM users will be looking at the screen from the same point of view as seen in that photo. Due to the perspective, the screen menus often mismatch with their corresponding buttons. To see the correct button for the menus, you need to bend down and keep your eyes parallel to the screen.

Good exercise, huh!? And, when tall people do this, it would be real fun to watch!

Coming back to the point, how hard it will for the ATM vendors to design an interface like this?

properly numbered atm menus

Numbering the menus and buttons will make it easy for choosing the correct menu. I hope this will avoid the confusion. What say?

Days back, I visited the Theevu Thidal area for a photo shoot. Theevu thidal is located right next to the infamous Marina Beach and is one of the few places in Chennai where several exhibitions took place.

It’s a huge ground surrounded by walls and long walking platforms. Years back, the localities were using that platform as their latrines and few of them lived there in the platform itself.

The Chennai corporation decided to clean things up and make Chennai to look somewhat clean. So, they’d come up with the idea of drawing paintings on the walls. Fine Arts college students helped them in implementing this idea. Now, if you go around in Chennai, you can see lots of paintings like this in many areas. This drive gave some pretty good results too!

Here are some of the photographs that I took there.

Theevu Thidal wall – the longest canvas for the painters!

Jallikattu -The adventure game of South India!

Farmer at work – loved the lighting in this painting.

When guys play with bulls, girls play with ‘kals’ (stones)!

My favorite. Because this was the profession of my parents and I grew up amidst the sounds of Jacquard weaving.

The eco-friendly vehicle – no pollution, ever! Look the shadows in the bottom, very real.

Finally, the theevu thidal road. You can see the war memorial in the background.