The Hunt For CA-101

I’m not Ethan Hunt, CA-101 is NOT a secret code for any Halloween document, nor is this Mission Impossible: 4. It is this:

That is the CA-101. I bought a Nokia 7610 Supernova in November last year, and Nokia never gave a data cable with it. Losers. Why couldn’t they have provided one small cable and increase the price by a mere half-a-thoushand bucks, for a eleven thousand phone?

So I really needed a cable for this phone, as it had a 3.2 megapixel camera, and I wanted to check out the picture quality after transfer. Initially, it did look like it would get a universal mini-USB cable into it, but I was wrong. Thank god I didn’t buy a PlayStation Portable transfer cable.

Practicals ended on Friday the 13th and I thought this was the perfect day to hunt for the cable. I knew I would get it from the Mobile Store in Pitampura. So me and my brother (Adarsh) set out to buy one. I checked it up on Nokia’s official website, and saw that my phone needed a CA-101 type cable.

I chose an eco-friendly and highly economical transport to reach my destination. I cross the road through the subway, and approach the Mobile Store, with a familiar red-coloured banner.

Closed.

Damn. It’s always open whenever I go to Pitampura – enticing me with a display of some of the most gorgeous phones I often dream about.

But now, its closed. But wait! There’s another one! Its small, but it exists! Yay!

I enter the mobile store with a floursih, with an aura of confidence. Let’s get this cable!

Me- “Bhaiya, wo Nokia 7610 Supernova ki data cable de do.”

Shopkeeper- “Sorry, bhai. Woh to hamare paas nahi hoga.”

Adarsh- “To kis se le?”

Shopkeeper- “Wo peeche uncle ki dukan hai, aur aage computer ki. Pata kar lo.”

Meanwhile, Adarsh quietly steals takes a nice glossy looking booklet, giving info about the latest Nokia phones. 7610 Supernova is a “Hot Pick”. Doesn’t mention anywhere that it does not come with a cable.

Sheesh, man! I was positive about finding this at the Mobile Store! But hope is still there. We go to “uncle ki dukan” which is just around the corner. Its a Vodafone store.

Me- “Uncle, woh Nokia 7610 Supernova <flicks phone out> ki data cable mil jaayegi?”

Uncle- “No. Nokia Care mein try kar lo. Kohat Enclave ke paas hai”

Me- “Pakka?”

He glares at me with a look sure enough to defeat a Basilisk, and so me and Adarsh set out. We return to the Mobile Store.

“Aage ek computer ki dukan hai. Koi A-C-C-E; aisee hi koi naam hai. Shayad ass-her hai”

I think it was Acer. Adarsh tells me to try out RPG, which is just nearby. No luck. He recommends Nokia care.  We decide to go to “ass-her”, which is indeed – Acer. No luck here too.

“O jee Nokia Cee-ere par try kar lo.”

Well, you see, we were in a fix. Mom had given us about six hundred bucks to get the cable and snack about. Now we had no cable, had no clue where we would find it, and we were hungry. Very hungry.

If we eat something here and go to Kohat Enclave and get the cable, fine. But if we eat, and don’t find the cable in Kohat Enclave, we’d in trouble. Deep trouble. It would hurt our ego, and my parents would never trust me for going out and getting something expensive. I tried to find out Nokia Care’s number, but Opera Mini did not render Nokia’s store locator site. Even Google search didn’t help, as I was low on battery, and Opera Mini drains it like I drain ginger beer. Yes. Beer.

Finally, Adarsh advised me to take a risk and eat. Then we’d go to Kohat Enclave via Metro (which is a road cross away), and try at Nokia Care. His arguement was that three people had recommended it, so certainly there would be some chance. I must admit it was right, but I knew he was doing it to eat something. Bad boy.

We ate dahi bhallas at good old and not-so-economical-now BTW.

BTW is associated with discerning consumers for Tikki, Bhalla Papri, Gole Gappe etc. The success journey began years back when Mr. Satiram Yadav thought of starting this business realizing the weekness of Indian women for the delicious taste of Tikki and Bhalla Papri.

And oh BTW, did you know BTW has its own site? It would be cool enough if BTW had its own Wikipedia page, BTW. And oh BTW, you can also order BTW stuff online!

After a snack, we rush to Metro, catch a train and off to… Keshav Puram. Adarsh’s mistake. Wrong platform. So we rush back to the other platform and this time end up at Kohat Enclave. We reach the Nokia Care centre, which (thankfully) has the cable! We were told it was new cable, and so its availability in the market was sparse.

Yay! We returned home, and tested the cable. It worked. Cool, eh?

Cheap Internet for Airtel Prepaid Users

Mobile Internet can never be free. Face it. All those methods on the web are a waste of time, and will never work, unless you are an expert hacker.

Here it is! [P.S: Work only for Airtel Prepaid]

1] In the home screen/standby mode, type *567*1# and call.

2] In the message you get, you will be informed about the activation of Mobile Office, which charges you 30 paise/50KB, rather than the regular 30 paise/20KB.

3] Hit OK, or Answer, or whatever, and reply 1 in the Service Command Editor.

4] You’ll be notified that Mobile Office will be activated in the next 1 hour, but it hardly takes a minute, when you wil receive the settings. Save them, and make them the default ones.

5] Download Opera Mini, and run it with Mobile Office. It works wonders. Awesome speed, cheap internet!

Review: Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

Director: Aditya Chopra

Cast: Shah Rukh Khan [Surinder Sahni]

Anushka Sharma [Taani]

Vinay Pathak [Bobby]

Review

Aditya Chopra returns to direction after nearly eight years, to uphold the glory and magic of the Yash Raj Banner. Yash Raj’s most recent films, including Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai, Dil To Pagal Hai, Mohabbatein, Saathiya, Neal n’ Nikki, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, Aaja Nachle, Tashan, Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic and Roadside Romeo have bombed at the box office, and they turned to SRK, the “King Khan”, and also Aditya Chopra, to some extent, to save them some face.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi starts off as a narrative of an middle-aged, middle-class guy Surinder Sahni [played by Shah Rukh Khan] who works for Punjab Power, an electricity company. Rab di sau, he is completely devoid of love in his life. By Rab’s grace, he goes to his school teacher’s daugher’s Taani’s [played by Anuskha Sharma] marriage, and just like Rab as Rab wanted it, he fell instantly in love with her. Unfortunately, her fiance dies due to a road accident on that ill-fated day of her marriage, and out of Rab’s will, Taani’s father too suffers a severe heart attack, and has a last wish before going to Rab, that he gets his daughter Taani married to Surinder, the best match for her.

See how it feels? The word Rab, which translates into God, is used exactly eighteen times in the entire film. Try suing me if the number is wrong. I haven’t included the songs or the background music. Rab is spoken five times within the initial one-hundred-and-seventy-two seconds. Irritating? The film’s just begun.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is about this clumsy dork Surinder Sahni. The character is potrayed effortlessly by SRK, acting superbly in every scene. There’s not a single moment when you want to take your eyes off him. Living in a large kothi near the amazing Golden Temple in Amritsar (which looks absolutely stunning and gleams in the sun, excellent camera work!), Surinder is a middle-class guy who agrees to marry Taani, as her fiance dies on the day of her marriage. He wants to see Taani happy and gleeful like before, unlike her current mood of sadness and gloom. There are moments when Surinder wants to place some signs of love for Taani, but stops himself, reminding himself about her tragedy. There is this awesome scene when his Transcend 4GB Slider Pen Drive is inserted in his Compaq laptop running Office 2007 on Windows XP, and Taani turns up. In his excitement and clumsiness, he stands up, forgetting that the pen drive was strung to his neck, and thus overturning his lappie. Only SRK can pull of such an expression with extreme perfection.

So when she asks him about joining Dancing Jodi (Mumbai ki bahut badi dancing cumpanee), he agrees immediately. Taking his sidekick Bobby’s help (played superbly by Vinay Pathak), he transforms himself into a metrosexual guy Raj, as he wants to see Taani in her original naachti phudakti style, as she was before marriage.  Kyunki yeh kahani Rab (and Aditya Chopra) likh rahe hain, he becomes her dance partner for a competition Dancing Jodi.

What follows is confusion and drama, when Surinder tries to hide Raj from Taani. She eventually falls in love with Raj, as she begins to see Rab in him, and is in a dilemma, whether to run away with her lover, or stay with her boring husband, oblivious of the fact that both are the same persons. Meanwhile Bobby urges Surinder to reveal the truth about Raj’s identity, but he Surinder refrains from doing so, as he wants to see whom Taani really loves. There are some emotional moments, some cliched scenes, and some boring segments, but Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi has a fair amount of well-choreographed foot-tapping numbers. There is this song called Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte, the line SRK often repeats in the movie, which uses lyrics from songs of Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna and Rishi Kapoor (yes, in that same order!) to create a medley under a tune of their own. The effects is quite good, and I liked it, though it did look strange. There is also this juvenile bike scene, where Taani does some Dhoom action with Raj sitting behind, to chase another Jodi which picked up a fight with them. Quite funny!

Finally, when Taani has become ready to run away with Raj on the final day of the competition, she begins to see Rab in Surinder, and decides against it. The climax is absolutely stupid, when Taani realises that she has been fooled, as both Raj is Surinder in actuality.

Anushka Sharma acts pretty well, but her poorly written role makes her unable to outshine Shah Rukh Khan’s brilliance in playing Surinder. Vinay Pathak is absolutely outstanding, and potrays is character of a sidekick and barber fantastically. Hats off to him! However, the script is flawed and the story doesn’t know where its going. Although I would not recommend spending lots of money on this film, do watch it in a multiplex if you must, so that you have a comfortable chair to relax on, during the boring parts of the movie.

Detailed Ratings [Out of 5]

Plot: 2

Acting: 4

Cinematography: 3

Music: 3

Direction: 3

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Review: Asphalt 4 Elite Racing HD for Nokia S60

Gameloft released Asphalt 4 Elite Racing recently, after Asphalt 3. Since Gameloft is the best in mobile gaming, Asphalt 2 Urban GT was awesome. But Asphalt 3 was a huge disappointment. I didn’t have much expectations from Asphalt 4 Elite Racing, but oh boy was I wrong. Here are the main features of the game, which are enough to bowl you over:

The Good

• Extreme High Definition 3D Graphics
• Great Gameplay
• Superb cars such as Bugatti Veyron, Ferrari F430 Spyder, Nissan GT-R and bikes such as Ducati 1098
• Realistic Weather Conditions such as rain and snow with exclusive handling difficulties for each
• Six Most Happening Cities To Race: Los Angeles [USA], New York [USA], Paris [France], Monte Carlo [Monaco], Dubai [UAE] and Shanghai [China]
• Bluetooth Multiplayer Mode

The Bad

• Tedious controls
• Poor Soundtrack
• No Story
• No new game modes

Review

Asphalt 4: Elite Racing is a vast improvement over its precedessor, Asphalt 3. The graphics are better, the racing is nicer, the difficultly level has gone down slighltly and the rides are pretty good. The races are fun, and there is an urge to unlock new cars and cities to race in. But unfortunately, other than the cities and the cars, there is no major change in the game. When Asphalt 3 released, it had different game modes such as Cash Attack, Cop Chase, etc. which lacked in Asphalt 2. But there are no new ones in Asphalt 4. They are the same, but are still a treat to play. There are lesser bugs, which were innumerable in Asphalt 3. But in the end, the racing experience is enjoyable. The races do become sluggish and boring after completing about the half the game, but nevertheless, it is a good experience. Although more improvements could have been done to make the game more exciting, Asphalt 4 is obviously the best racing game on the mobile I’ve ever played.

Rating: 3/5 [Good]

Screenshots

Race Selection

Bugatti Veyron

Ducati 1098

Ferrari F430 Spider

RUF RGT

iPhone vs Stone!

This is a cool comparison of the iPhone 3G [2008] vs the Stone [50,000 BC].

It really was a close contest, but the stone managed to win in the end (its way cheaper).

iPhone vs Stone

Tips and Tricks for Nokia Phones Running Symbian

Get over the iPhone now. The Symbian OS is probably the best ever OS released for any mobile phone. No wonder Nokia is the leader in the Mobile Phone market in the world – most of their phones run Symbian in it. However, there are some tricks and tips to get the most out of your Nokia phone.

1) Know Your Firmware Version

Dial *#0000# to know your firmware version. Knowing the firmware version of your phone helps you to update the firmware regularly, which means less crashes and better performance. Nokia periodically releases firmware updates, which you can download via their website. This also gives details about the date the phone was manufactured.

2) Know Your IMEI

The IMEI is like a personal identification number of the phone, which can be used to determine the manufacturing location. Many times, the IMEI is also used in keygens for generating keys for various useful apps

3) Pump Up Your Battery

Go to Settings and keep the screen brightness minimum, make the screen-saver and backlight time the least, and also switch your Bluetooth off. If you have the latest Nseries phone like the N96, turn WLAN scanning off.

Avoid switching your phone on and off repeatedly. Doing this will eat up battery. Also avoid frequent charging. Batteries have limited charge cycles. Each charge cycle is basically an input and removal of AC current (from your charger). So let the phone battery run down completely and then charge; disconnect only when you see the battery full signal.

4) Preserve Memory

You might be low on memory quite a number of times. Try reducing the image quality. In Camera, click options and settings. Reduce the image quality. You shouldn’t do this if you have a 2 Megapixel camera or lesser. Pics at 0.8 Megapixel become unclear. Do this if you have a 3.2 or 5 Megapixel camera.

Installing apps over Bluetooth saves a great deal of memory.

Clearing the Web Browser cache removes junk stuff from the phone.

5) Bluejacking

Bluejacking is a hacking over Bluetooth. Here’s a method to fool a nearby person. Make a contact by the name “You have been bluejacked” without any number. Save it, send it by Bluetooth and the recipient will be clueless about where the message came from.

6) Shortcuts

Call key opens Log.

Holding Menu key opens Task Manager, where you can kill unnecessary/unresponsive tasks by pressing  <C>.

Holding 0 opens the in-built web browser.

In phones running Symbian 3rd Edition (like Nokia N73), holding the music key open radio.

7) The Pencil Key

Most of you are unaware about it’s miraculous use. Hold the pencil key and move right with the D-Pad or joystick and you select text. Pressing it lets you cut, copy or paste it!

Holding the pencil key and booting the phone leads to faster start-ups

Crash and Burn

If your phone crashes, remove the memory card and hold *, Call and # and then switch the phone on. This will restore original factory settings. Now format your memory card using an external memory card reader which plugs into the USB port of your PC.

So that’s it folks! Comment if you liked, or didn’t!

Review: Nokia N96

When I first heard about the N96 being termed as the Next Generation Phone by Nokia itself, I knew it had to be extraordinary. I finally laid my hands on this special phone, even before it was released in the stores. Though I haven’t got any pictures to prove it

Nokia N96

Nokia decided to do a world launch in India so as to retain its monopoly in the mobile phone market and not let the Apple take over with the much-awaited iPhone 3G.

When I saw the N96, my first words were “You gotta be kidding me. This is the N81!” Of course all of you will agree that it bears resemblance with the N81 8 GB, but when I actually explored the features, I was blown away.

When you hold this phone, the first thing you notice is that it’s heavy. But it’s got all the features crammed into it that you really don’t mind. This phone is a revolution in telecommunication devices. The N96 sets new standards for phones to match up to, and I don’t think any phone other than the OMNIA can give the N96 a run for its money.

The N96, according to Nokia, is the “official successor to the N95″. The N95 was intimidating itself, but when one actually worked on it, many minor and major flaws were noticed. It was buggy and excruciatingly slow at times, but the N96 is a great improvement. Check out this page for a huge list of flaws in the N95 and also how to boost it up. I could have written another post on the N95 tips and tricks, but hey, that would be copying.

Back to the review now. The N96 has so many features, that you feel it’s too much. It has 128 MB of RAM as compared to 64 MB, which its predecessor had. So, it’s much faster and the applications boot up at a greater speed than on any Nokia device I’ve ever experienced.

It’s also got a 5 Megapixel Camera with a Carl-Zeiss lens, which even its predecessor possessed. But the Xenon flash is an improvement which can take excellent quality photographs even in the most ridiculous lighting conditions. But a problem is that pictures at this quality mean each picture is more than a megabyte in size, which can eat up your memory. But Nokia’s taken care of that too. This chunky phone comes preloaded with 16 GB Internal Mass Memory and adding an 8 GB memory card, you can upgrade your N96 with 24 GB memory! This means, that you can store more than 20000 images of full quality in your phone. I see this as a great improvement over the N95 Classic as it had only Flash memory.

This phone has also got some small details such as the stand on the lens behind the phone, which enables the user to pop it out and place it on the table for easy video viewing.

The N96 is a dual slide phone, which means that it has numbers on one side and dedicated music buttons on the other. The speaker is loud enough and gives the required booming noise for heavy metal songs like Crawling (by Linkin’ Park) and also provides clarity for soothing instrumental songs like Hotel California (Eagles).

The most impressive part is the video quality, which the camera captures at an amazing 30 frames per second. Also, the phone supports videos in .avi and .flv formats too. I was surprised by the Flash Video format support. It was unexpected, as .flv files are usually ripped YouTube or similar videos, which many companies condemn. Anyway, resolution of .flv files is generally 240×320, which exactly matches the N96 resolution, which means that the videos are top quality.

The battery life has deteriorated. I recollect friends complaining about the terrible N95 battery life, which used to exhaust itself by night. Although the various features might suck the battery, yet Nokia has made a blunder by providing an entirely new and less powerful battery for the N96. There are battery saving techniques such as turning automatic WLAN detection off and decreasing the screen brightness.

The phone also has 3G with HSPDA, which means you can have video conferences, and also access super-fast internet on your phone while engaging in a conversation with another person.

But there are some problems. This phone does not have a single touch sensitive component. Other large players in the market such as the iPhone and OMNIA come with full touch-screen. But considering this problem with an optimistic outlook, it means that the phone would definitely have been more expensive, if Nokia has provided a touch-screen facility.

The phone also lack dedicated game buttons, which are a great asset to the N81; but I do have a feeling that the music keys can be used as game buttons. However, speculation can never, and should never, ever be trusted. It was just a rumour I heard.

But just as I was beginning to feel that these were minor drawbacks, there came a major blow. The N96 has no encrypted e-mail! Since the N96 is seen as an entertainment phone and not a business phone, Nokia must have not have considered encrypted e-mail as a priority. However, I recommend office goers not to use this phone as lack of encrypted e-mail may expose the e-mail contents (including the username and password) to others, which may prove to be quite a danger. [Note: when I consulted a clever-looking Nokia salesperson about this major flaw, he said that "the E-Series is tailor made for business people, not the N-series. The latter is targeted at a younger audience". This answer was quite satisfactory, and therefore, I walked away.]

All in all, the N96 is an amazing phone. My only grudge against it is that it needs to lose some weight and slim up a bit. Although it may seem a bit pricey (Rs 37000 approx.) I must say, it’s worth it. This certainly lives up to the title The God of Phones.

You can visit this site to get a full list of the N96 technical specifications