For reminding us all to "stay hungry, stay foolish".
Rest In Peace.
a shell devoid of conventional syntax
For reminding us all to "stay hungry, stay foolish".
Rest In Peace.
UPDATE 07/04/2011 - The instructions have been updated for NetQin Mobile Guard 3.0 for Symbian.
If you own a Nokia phone and use or have considered using WhatsApp, then this post is for you. In case you don't know, WhatsApp is a cross-platform smartphone messaging application that allows you to exchange messages with your friends and contacts by utilizing your cellular data plan or a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) connection. BlackBerry users who are familiar with BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) will feel right at home with WhatsApp. For those of you who don't want to get a BlackBerry just for the BBM application, then WhatsApp is for you. At this point of time WhatsApp is free for a year's usage, and unlike most cross-platform smartphone messengers, there is a version for the Symbian platform that works on Nokia phones.
Unfortunately, the team behind WhatsApp neither ironed out the issue of battery consumption nor provided the users with a simple way to disable the application from running in the background upon exiting. WhatsApp practically halved my E51's battery life according to iON BatteryTimer. Nokia Messaging Email runs quietly and uses Nokia's push notifications flawlessly; WhatsApp does so at the cost of several hours of standby time. To work around this, I figured that just as Android has task killers, there probably was one out there for Symbian that could work. Enter NetQin Mobile Guard. What I liked about the application, other than the fact that it is a workaround for WhatsApp's background presence, is its optimization utilty set. Scanning your phone reveals suggestions to improve battery life, memory usage and security. The WhatsApp workaround though, is as follows:
The next time you start WhatsApp and you want to prevent it from running in the background by attempting to 'kill' the application process, just repeat steps 5-8 using the App Manager and in a few seconds WhatsApp will be disabled. If you want to prevent the newly installed NetQin Mobile Guard from interfering with your regular phone usage, follow these quick steps:
And that should provide a temporary fix to the WhatsApp battery drain and background process issue.
Just because I'm on hiatus from writing posts doesn't mean I can't still share stuff. So when are we going to have an iWorld?
Recently two of my posts made my college magazine's technical section and I'm quite pleased with that. The first being my thoughts on Web 3.0 and the second an article on Linux market share. I think its a good time to take a break from all the tech news and rumours and what not. A bit of a hiatus from blogging so to speak. The sling is off my shoulder now and I'm currently doing physiotherapy which is going well.
The time I'd spend working out has been replaced aptly though, and I'm half way through the third book of the Wheel of Time series. The author, Robert Jordan, passed away in 2007, just days after I completed The Eye of the World. I vowed to begin and complete the series after two years back then. Now, with time on my hands, I'm in the process of fulfilling my 'oath', and mind you, its been nothing short of EPIC so far. I have a profile on Goodreads so if you're bored enough, you can track my progress through the series and see what else is on my reading list. If you're an avid reader, I highly recommend you create an account on Goodreads. There is a vibrant community present and some of the recommendations are great, especially in specific sub-genres of one's interest. I'm going to follow that up with The Lord of the Rings, another series that has eluded me. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen the movies. I've read The Fellowship of the Ring, but I'll read that again, throw in The Hobbit as well and complete another fantastic 'experience' as a friend of mine calls it. The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin will follow. From then on, Goodreads knows what I plan to read. All this should stretch nicely over the summer. Epic fantasy aside, there is also the small matter of my 3D Game Collaboration project. I plan to begin work with my small team in late March, though I think the real fun will begin in a summer of code (not Google's SoC mind you). Thanks to a lighter course load this semester, I've had a bit more free time than I had envisaged. I obviously have lots to do and I'm looking forward to it. I won't be reading much of the news on Twitter either, though I might make an occasional tweet or two now and then. So I guess I'll see you when I see you, people.
In a previous post, I mentioned my plans for coding a text-based RPG derived from an old school project of mine. I planned to port it from Java to C++ and then provide a clickable graphical user interface using Qt. I had completed a considerable portion of the code, even with my arm in a sling, but I just grew bored.
I didn't have an original story, it was just generic stuff. I was focusing on being able to get the code to 'just work', which it did, because it was simple enough. So I deleted that dull NetBeans project and decided to start afresh. I buzzed up two friends of mine, who are also coders, and suggested we collaborate. Now we've chosen the Irrlicht Engine as our graphics engine. Irrlicht is a free, open source, feature-rich 3D engine that supports C++. It is completely cross-platform and supports D3D, OpenGL and also includes its own software renderer. Its got a great community and from what we've found out, the API is pretty clean.It sounds a bit crazy going for a 3D game project, with no experience whatsoever with gaming engines. We do however, know how to code, so we'll do what we can for now, amidst our academic commitments. During this summer though, this project could really heat up. Game programming is hard, we know, but we're up for this. As for a story-line, I did some brain-storming immediately after ditching my NetBeans code and after a couple of hours, I came up with a story-line. At the moment, its not very detailed but it has potential to be expanded. I do know a friend who has a good story-line in mind and depending on what he's got and what's feasible, we'll choose what to work on. We don't have a name for the project yet. We're just going to concentrate on getting familiar with Irrlicht for now. If anyone happens to be familiar with Irrlicht, I'd appreciate some feedback here.At 10 A.M. PT, on this day, Wednesday, January 27, 2010, Apple is going to unveil its "latest creation" in the form of a Tablet. I'm hopeful that Steve is going to present it himself and turn on the Reality Distortion Field again. If not, then Phil Schiller probably will and although it might not have the same effect, the Tablet will probably still be there for all to see. While that is obviously the big focus, I'm expecting some announcement relating to iTunes and I'm hoping for some news on a new MacBook Pro line as well.
So if you're tuning in here, I'll be following the event via stream, but I'll do my best to provide a good experience here on the blog. If you're the kind who likes to be spoilt for choice, there's always Engadget, Gizmodo and TechCrunch to follow for the latest as it happens. I'll be updating this page as the event takes place. This is my first attempt at a liveblog, so try and take to it kindly.9:35 AM - From what I gather, the line outside is now filling up the Yerba Buena Center and people are making their way to their seats.
9:47 AM - Can't tell what music's playing. Harmonica? Stage looks set. Just need someone to walk on it now. Oh and I just saw British actor Stephen Fry having a chat with someone.
9:51 AM - Bob Dylan music playing in the background. Interesting. Hilariously I just saw Mossberg and I can't help but laugh everytime I see him now!
10:00 AM - Lights dimming. We're under way. Jobs takes the stage to cheers.
10:04 AM - Some updates from Steve. More than 250 million iPods sold. 140,000 applications in the iPhone App Store. Apple are bigger than Nokia in terms of revenue. We now have... the iPad.
10:09 AM - "Now some people thought that was a netbook -- the problem is that netbooks aren't better than anything!" Hilarious!
10:15 AM - Steve's relaxing on a couch and surfing with Safari - "Let's go to Time magazine... see what's up there." Lost my stream for the moment, should be back up in a few minutes.
10:16 AM - Back. Email preview up now. One touch and up pops a keyboard. Similar to the iPhone.
10:18 AM - Steve's browsing through photos, very like iPhoto and we have some applause.
10:21 AM - iTunes loaded up on the iPad followed by the calendar.
10:24 AM - HD on YouTube previewed with a few clips. Portrait and landscape modes shown again.
10:28 AM - Star Trek clip on show. I think that's it with video for now.
10:29 AM - "It's powered by our own silicon. The 1GHz Apple A4 chip. It screams." Sweet.
10:31 AM - 9.7 inch IPS display, 16-64 GB Flash memory storage and 10 hours of battery life.
10:33 AM - Scott Forstall on stage to talk about third-party applications in the App Store. Facebook app shown.
10:35 AM - Forstall demos a game from ESPN. Works smooth.
10:37 AM - Applications re-written. I hope there's support for scaling in the iPhone SDK.
10:40 AM - Holy shit. An FPS running in fantastic quality. On to New York Times.
10:41 AM - "We think we've captured the essence of reading the newspaper. A superior experience in a native application."
10:46 AM - Steve Sprang from Brushes is demonstrating a popular app that's a bit similar to Photoshop.
10:48 AM - Travis Boatman from EA demos Need for Speed Shift. View from the driver's seat. Isn't this a 1Ghz device? Stunning.
10:49 AM - Chad Evans from MLB.com -- "We were excited to build something for the iPad. We had to create a whole new experience for this display." So there's a baseball game. Looks interesting. UI looks a bit new to me.
10:51 AM - Live video within this app itself. Live baseball I mean. Nice.
10:52 AM - Steve's back up. Demos iBooks, an ebook reader app. It looks beautiful. Pages off a book, really.
10:54 AM - Penguin, Macmillion, Simon & Shuster... and more among the tie-ups. I can't make out the prices though.
10:56 AM - Font face, size is customizable. "And that is iBooks".
10:58 AM - Woah. "Now, something very exciting... iWork. A little over a year ago I asked the head of our team about creating iWork for the iPad. The reaction was... 'ahhh they require a lot of horsepower'"
11:00 AM - Phil Schiller is up now. Demos spreadsheets and presentations. Rendering, in this case is important and it looks perfect.
11:02 AM - I'd like to point out that the apps so far are clearly designed for the iPad, its just not some iPhone re-hash.
11:03 AM - Transitions in presentations shown as well. Schiller goes for word processing - "Like Keynote I see a gallery of documents."
11:08 AM - New dropdown menus and keyboard contributing to a lot of the UI.
11:10 AM - $10 for each iWork app. Not bad.
11:12 AM - Return of the STEVE. Now I'd like to talk about wireless networking. Every iPad has WiFi... but we're also going to have models with 3G."
11:15 AM - $14.99 for 250 MB /month and $29.99 for unlimited data /month. No contract. Sensible.
11:16 AM - "However, all of the iPad 3G models are unlocked, and they use the new GSM microSIMs." This is pretty big.
11:17 AM - We're getting close to a price announcement I think.
11:20 AM - $499 starting price. BOMBSHELL. After all that talk about $1000, this is phenomenal. The 64 GB one is $829. 60 days worldwide availability. "It's obscene". Hell. yeah Steve!
11:22 AM - There's a video playing now. Promotional video of the iPad.
11:26 AM - Ok while the promo's playing, lets just be clear - no phone call features and nothing regarding multitasking. The latter is a bit of a letdown.
11:30 AM - Steve's back - "We think we've got the goods. We think we've done it. Another thing we're excited about is that there's already 75m people who know how to use this because of how many iPhones and iPod touches we've shipped." More statistics.
11:32 AM - "This is a magical device, at a breakthrough price."
11:33 AM - That concludes the presentation. Everyone's heading for a hands-on experience now. Lucky people, I gotta say.
Watching the iPad petting zoo, but this concludes the liveblog. Thanks for tuning in.
As an enthusiast of all things tech, I just can't but help feel excited (understatement, really) before the big event. January 27th at 10 AM PST is the date and time to put on your phone calendars right now. I'm going to try and live blog this one. I don't have the biggest audience on my blog, but I always pretend I do (screw you, if you're laughing at this). It'll be night time here in Mumbai, 11.30 PM IST to be specific. If someone's got a video feed or there's an official one, I'll link to that too. I'll just leave you with this quote from the charismatic genius himself, before he takes the stage, once again, to present a new innovation to the world.
Apple at the core, its core value, is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.
It's like I've said for umpteenth time now, Techcrunch (who just got hacked and restored back again), you guys aren't giving me credit for predicting the Tablet's gaming potential. Even Mossberg didn't see it coming.
This doesn't say a word about market share, profits or the like. Its just an indication of the kind of artillery these giants happen to carry.
You would think that Apple could take over a couple of startups with smart search algorithms to complete the dots. Or that Microsoft and Google could acquire a few startups that specialized in embedded systems to do the same. But its not so easy to budge a real rock in the search engine market like Google. Bing tried to, but its still just beating at the edges of Google's supreme foundations.
One row that could have been added to the above table, is mapping services. Microsoft has Bing Maps while Google and Yahoo have their respective namesake versions of the same. Apple bought Placebase last July and might be working on entering that market as well.
A row that could be added with only Microsoft having a foothold in thanks to the XBox, would be gaming. In a recent tweet, I mentioned that the invitation of IGN and a few other gaming companies to Apple's media event in two days time, probably hinted that Jobs' latest innovation could indeed be as awesome as old Mossberg thinks it is.
I think eventually its always going to be between Microsoft and Apple as far as taking the rows of that chart down further are concerned. Google will probably add a few more that the former two wouldn't compete in but that unfortunately could lead to unhealthy monopoly.
Right now though, I'm buzzing for the Apple media event in two days. I'm looking forward to their "newest creation" but if an upgrade to the MacBook Pro line is announced with the new Core i5 and i7 in place, then I will go nuts. I'm due a purchase in March and I don't want to have to go for one of the old models.
Show us something amazing, Steve. More after the event.
First off, I'd like to start with some bad news - I've dislocated my left shoulder. I won't go into details about how it happened, but I can tell you that it was something that could have happened to anyone who was in my position. This happened exactly one week ago and I'm in a sling for about a month, as per the doctor's recommendation. Its only now that I've been able to adjust myself to type with both hands with no pain barrier or positional discomfort. This incident means that my plans for physical fitness for this year will be on hold - for a long time.
Fortunately, its not the end of the world as far as activities are concerned. This means more time for reading and coding. Coding, ah yes. That brings me to the point of this post. Back in 2006, I wrote a project in Java for school, which was basically a text-based role-playing game (RPG). I'm a fan of fantasy books and films (but not much of a gamer) so I based some of the entities in the game on fantasy. Fast forward to 2010 now, and I have more experience with C, C++ and Java. Not enough for my liking due to academic commitments, considerably more nonetheless. Now is the time however, to get back to the standard I've set. I'll be rewriting the code with a few things I couldn't do back then. There's no particular reason why I'm doing this project, its just for a bit of fun, really. I'm going to focus on ensuring that its very user-friendly and not some geeky garbage.As much as I'd like to, I won't be sharing my feature plan for the project here. If you're really interested, get in touch with me via Facebook or email. At the moment I'm just writing it in C++ with a view to have the game functionality implemented. Once I'm satisfied with the text-based implementation, I'm going to turn it into a Qt project. The only additions then, would be to have a clickable interface as opposed to the console menu-driven one in C++. Qt does have potential for adding OpenGL graphics to make it more like a real 3D game. I have no experience in coding in OpenGL and at this point of time, I don't plan to use it. Right now, I'm going to keep it simple and make sure it does what I want it to.The final Qt product will be cross-platform and free to use. The name I used for the project back in 2006 was 'Evolution Inferno'. For now, I'm just going to simply call this project 'Inferno'. I'll post updates to this project as and when I can. To conclude, I'd like to share this whitepaper I came across while browsing Stack Overflow, that compares Qt and Java for large-scale GUI development. Its an interesting read if you're a programmer. Until my next post, later chums.
