Airtel super singer has been such an obsession. Thursdays through Sunday feels very different when this program is not relayed. I have been following it quite regularly and the obsession doesnt get justified without a blog post! Just adding my favorites from the show so far, see if you like them
Not a great fan of Ragini. But here along with Ravi it was quite a performance!
Missed this on the show, but thanks to youtube! Vijay truly rocked!
Wished Renu believed in herself. If someone can create magic, its she
Just a 'Wow' to that. Ravi's ego is easily visible generally. When he can get rid of it and enjoy singing, the outcome is like this!
Other performances I did not have patience to search little deeper on Youtube, but worth mentioning are - Ajeesh's 'Amma enrazhaikkadha' and Prasanna performance on disco round.
Irrespective of who wins the show, the memories it created is unbelieveable. To hear one the voices for yuvan will be interesting
Smiles,
Vinayak
Monday, April 13, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Does this Xpress Impress?
A phone review, As posted by me as envyram on Mouthshut.com
First, let us get into a bit of history. My first mobile phone was Samsung and it had an amazing additional feature which not many models had – an alarm clock. Now, seven years after, mobile phone manufacturers are basking in on the mobile phone addiction that people have got into. They realize that the man and the mobile phone are inseperable, and they add every feature which someone would want into this amazing gadget called mobile phone (I am wondering why it is still called that).
Nokia's 5800 Xpress music is such a wonder when it come to features. You name it and this phone has got it. Starting from a large 3.2” touch screen, it has a 3.2 MP camera, 2 LOUD speakers, GPS, Maps, Radio, Web browsing, WAP and phew an alarm clock as well!! Only it doesnt calculate my average sleep cycle based on how I set the alarm clock and the number of 'snooze' I make before getting up and I cant take the phone with me when I go for bath!
Getting on to serious business, first most attractive feature of 5800 is its big clear 65 million color screen. With a high-quality Asin wallpaper, it got the drool out from few guys. I must admit here that the drool had nothing to do with Asin. The screen is very visible in even brightest of sunlights. The touch itself is not as exceptional as an Iphone or as unresponsive as a buffalo's skin, but lies somwhere in between. The little vibrations when you touch, is interesting. The phone also features a full-fledged web browser that supports flash (to let you see animations and video sites like Youtube). Large screen with uninterrupted browsing makes it quite an experience. But the phone picks up a lot of finger prints damaging its beauty.
The phone also does justice to what it is called – Xpress music. The phone comes with and 8GB external memory card and some pre-loaded songs. When you add songs, it quickly refreshes the library. Just couple of touches gets you into the music player and you get going. The loudspeaker output is a little distorted at highest volume, but when you want to play a song for friends you can sure make them hear it.
As I said, the phone has most features you would expect from a high-end phone. There is a lot of Nokia-ness in the phone as well. So if you are just upgrading to a better phone amongst Nokia, you should get going in no time. Other external aspects like plugging in the SIM like a memory card, a normal head phone jack (to which you can connect any headphone and not necessarily Nokia's), accessories like cool mobile-case, a stand(!) and the ear-phones are all impressive. The 3.2 mega pixel camera is nice and has a flash powerful enough to make people blink when you click. The Phone is little big for today's standars, but is not heavy or bulky.
Every mobile manufacturer, these days, is pushed to include Iphone-ish features. Nokia is no exception. The accelerometer (I'm 90% sure that is what it is called) works reasonably well i.e. your images, applications get tilted to landscape and potrait as you tilt your phone. When you are browsing images, you can just slide you fingers and .... wait ... wait .... you get the images. In Nokia the Symbian sluggishness in inevitable, but I should say, it was not as bad as I thought.
While the phone has many features that will make you excited, it has a few that can certainly annoy. The camera is strategically placed so that your index finger doesnt miss the camera lens whenever you hold the phone. I cannot call this the most annoying for the fact that you will get used to it i.e. touching the lens. I had a Motorola A1200 before this one. It was a small phone with loads of features. Best of them was user friendliness. This is one aspect Nokia is far behind. For instance, in my motorola I had this @ symbol on the QWERTY keyboard. It is just a small thing, but was of immense use when I used to type email addresses. In Nokia, I have to switch the keyboard to see the symbol. I use to have a right-mouse-click kind of option on my motorola. In Nokia it is all menu driven. Surprisingly, I found a 'Copy' pop-up appearing when I selected a text in the email application. But that is not found in all applications. Also, few applications open on single touch and few others on double touch. Small things like these add up to show that Nokia has a long way to go when it comes to consistency in user interface.
Last but not the least, the battery life is quite impressive for a smart-phone. After all of my fidgeting as soon as I bought the phone, the battery laster for 2 days. That included couple of hours of music, few clicks is the dark getting the flash to work and I had hardly put the phone down (so the screen would have been lit for at least some hours). When I dont hear to much of music and when the camera is mostly off, I re-charge once in 3 days. I found that impressive.
Oh, did I mention I can make calls, receive calls and send sms using this phone! On a final note, if you are used to smart phones and have seen and used one before, this phone does not have anything much different to offer. But the most important things is, it has it all, and comes for just 19K while the Samsung Omnias and Blackberry storms and the Iphones cost you a fortune. If you can live with Nokia's usual sluggishness, and if you are getting your first touch smart-phone, you should feel nothing short of excited.
Regards,
Envyram
(p.s. Thanks for reading a lengthy review, if you have come this far)
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Rewind 2008
I should admit I am not really sentimental about New year and stuff. But, 2008 was an extraordinary year for me and so couldn't help myself from not writing this one.
I spent most of the first 4 months in a state of desperation. I wanted to get back home and spend some time with my parents and sister. My manager finally agreed that I can go back home (I was in UK, btw). Booked my tickets for 5th May and year 2008 was such a roller coaster from there on.
In general, it has been an exasperating year in both personal and professional life. As I mentioned earlier, had to spend most of my time convincing (euphemism for "fight") my manager, for a release from the project. If that is not exasperating enough, the later half of 2008 had loads of health troubles in store for family and friends (closest ones). I also failed terribly attempting to switch my career.
Amongst all these, there were moments that I cannot forget. The best of the lot:
Moment of triumph:
I cleared the driving test in UK, and in first attempt. People say to get a driving licence in UK is one of the toughest things. But there were things tougher than that - training yourself for the driving test. My instructor Alan said, "My clients say that taking a driving test in UK is a lot easier than driving with me". How true! It was such a relief that I would not have to drive under the supervision of Alan again!
Lake District trip
It was a trip for a lifetime. 2 Cars, 8 of us and loads of fun. First time I felt the freedom of driving in Motorways after getting the licence. That was the smallest part of the fun. We stayed in a beautiful cottage with amazing facilities. The places we visited were just so amazing and the frequency match among 8 guys was incredible.
 |
| From Lake District |
The moment of horror!
I should not have taken our crippled Rover (it had a head-gasket issue) out that day. I was about to travel back home the next day, and it was a big risk taking out a dying car out on road without insurance (which I had cancelled). The car stopped in the middle of London road and there was heavy traffic. Me and Stephen (my friend) were pushing the car up the slope for around 20-25 minutes and holding up traffic. How lucky we were that the police did not come (1) It was a crime to drive without Insurance, (2) If I was held up in UK, my VISA was about to expire in another 5 days!!
That was the biggest risk of my lifetime. We then had to scrap the car
Happiest moment
I landed in Chennai and reached home. First thing I did after refreshing myself was to take my bike and visit my Sister. That was the first time I was seeing her after her marriage and it had been an year since. I realized how much I had missed her.
Will I see that girl again?
When you take your handkerchief out of your pocket, your keys can fall quite often. But not quite often you hear a "excuse me" to find a beautiful girl running towards you from behind and hand the keys over to you. I am not speaking about a dream I had; it was all real. And only in movies, after such a sequence a hero gets to see a heroine again.
Cricket retires
Can still remember how sad I felt when Anil Kumble retired. More on my earlier post:
These are the ones that comes to my mind immediately when I think of 2008.
Tough times I spoke about earlier came to an end early in December 2008. And, I decided on a few things to-do that I have always wanted to do. These are not my new year resolutions, new year is just a coincidence! Next post on my to-dos
Smiles,
Vinayak
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