My Phone & Twitter

For those who didn't catch the news...I got a nokia 5800 phone somewhere in April. And, embarrassingly enough, I thought I blew the set on the 1st day itself!

You'd truly appreciate this product if there are certain services available in your area. Like for e.g. I have a Maps application on the phone. It has a 90 day trial period, after which you need to acquire license to use it; and this license is only valid for certain places, mostly metropolitan cities. (Or so I guess).

Initially I couldn't use the maps and all since my GPRS settings were screwed. I couldn't use a lot of apps. My boss had installed Google Maps on my phone with the hope of locating me, but he was turned off. No matter what he did that application would not work. He bluffed about being able to track me and all through that app. I don't know yet if this is possible, but I still sort of believe it. I was relieved when he concluded that Google Maps doesn't work! I mean, the last thing I'd want is to walk into a resturant and find my boss sitting next to me!

Nowadays if you happen to spot a lonely guy holding out a black-colored device that looks like a mobile phone high up and facing the sky it would most probably be me!

Yesterday at around 12am, I was standing outside Allsec's gate trying to get the GPS co-ordinates of Allsec. And then after I got them, on my way back into the office, some of my co-workers saw me, stopped me, interviewed, and started to get curious if I had an affair with someone outside the office.

I explored more about this gps stuff today. Its not only locations you can get; it can help you with navigation. Yes, I went to a mess near suterland, and "navigated" my way back to Allsec. For someone who has never witnessed this feature, it rocks! It even shows the speed at which you are travelling.

Well, theres more to come I guess. Currently I am researching on ways to share the co-ordinates I have. If I can upload it online ppl can download it onto their phones and "navigate" to my place if they'd like.

Lately I've just downloaded a twitter client app for my phone. Now my phone is officially a twitter client. You'd see more frequent updates on the sidebar. I was longing for this app for a long time. And now I have it. How I found it was even more interesting. I just searched twitter. Just keyed in nokia5800 in the search box; it listed posts related to the query, and I happned to see a tweet about an application called Tweets60. When I browsed to the link mentioned there...Eureka!

Plus there were a lot of new cool things I found about Twitter trends. If you really want to dig into the twitter vibe try tweeting trendy topics which appear on page. Here are some popular ones as of this moment:

• #11thcommandment
• #geekpickuplines
• #Twitpocalypse (it about twitter going to die or something, it has everybody tweeting & re-tweeting)
• and there is something about NHL (hockey) going on right now I guess

A tip: if you want to see your tweets appear on those searches remeber to include that topic in your tweet with a '#' as prefix like i've shown above

Well I'm just too proud of my phone today, and feeling hyped about digging into the twitter vibe.

Just taking a break...

Researching ways to take break amidst a busy schedule...

I am not doing it for my self, so to speak. We are supposed to put up slides or articles on the subject for the weekend's jam session. If I go ahead and explain what that is all over again, I think it would be the most boring-est thing ever to be doing on a saturday. But what other interesting things do I do on a saturday anyway...

Moving on...Sometimes you know when you are in front of the keyboard doing something really serious, and you know you are done with a part of the entire job, being elated and all, you just can't help your poking your finger into your neighbour. You know, just stir up the other person. I don't reckon its a man/boy-thing. Even girls do it. Its actually part of a bigger thing called bonding at work. Here is aim is to make the work group cohesive. It is actually a stress reliever but however not an acclaimed one.

Why?

Because if your neighbour, without your knowledge, happens to be a good looking female from a conservative family who has four elder brothers, one of which happens to be your boss, you are literally in for taking a break amidst hectic schedules...

Argument against vegetarianism

I've been blogging about why I don't think a vegetarian lifestyle is the apt lifestyle. Because one does not often realize how we became what we are now. But I am not saying that a totally meaty diet is the apt lifestyle either. I say that a balanced diet is the best. :)

Check out this post. Beware it is a long post, but I'd say, you'd find it interesting.

Tweet tweet, tweet tweet

I have finally got my twitter feeds to appear on this blog (check the sidebar). I was obsessed with this for the past two days. Phew! Now you can see my tweets refresh every two minutes. I’ve added an ajax-like capability which should hopefully avoid stalling your page when the twitter servers are busy. I acknowledge there are better implementations of the same exercise, but I feel as though this is going to be one of my (short-lived) feats. I mean, it is not something I am going to enjoy it for the better part of my life, and that’s a good thing. :)

Anyway I did stumble upon some painful discoveries about the internet and stuff. Plus well, I know you’d be sort of interested in trying to implement the same exercise for your blog too. Check out the two posts on my programming blogs (Show tweets on your blog & Thoughts on the Twitter Exercise ). Or if you can’t wait, just view the source code for this page and dive in… :)

In case people were wondering where the link to the rss feeds for this blog is…it is still where it is :) ; you’d have to scroll to the end of this page. Alternatively, (and if you do wish to keep in touch)(no sarcasm intended), there are two things you can do:

• Get a blog account at http://blogger.com. Once you have that you can come back to this page and simple click on the Follow with Google Friend Connect feature. After you enroll you can start following my blogs and keep updated with happenings. Remember you'd only know of my new posts; and you can see this on your blogger dashboard, as well as on google reader.
• The other way (if you are not fond of google reader), there is a Subscribe To section. There you have the option to subscribe to my posts as well as comments on my posts. You'd be automatically redirected to online rss readers, don't worry.
  

So...nothing more to say. Just keep in touch. :)

Grown up or overconfident

I've got an exam today – principles of management. Well, I've completely mismanaged to study it! I was too dug up with other things in spite of planning. I guess I never took it as a priority. I kept promising my self I'd study, but instead I got hooked up with some new discovery over the internet or with my pc. When I sit to study I cannot concentrate.

Okay, now with the above phenomenon running in parallel, and, as the zero hour approaches, I usually get irritated. Once (during college exams) this went to the degree that I actually decided not to write a paper.  Those days people, whether they prepared for the exam or not, simply sat and wrote the paper. I guess if they didn't do that they'd be under the stress of writing it again, and stuff. (A majority of the people I know had backlogs). Even otherwise, the thought of bunking an exam would have been suicidal for some. But for me it was a small relief!

Today I am not under any compulsion or stress. I can bunk the exam if I want to or not. I have decided to write it, in spite of the fact that, I still have 6 chapters pending. Coz I have faith – I attempted two online assignments and passed both of them!

This doesn't solve the moral issue here, but who cares!!!