Yashventures

Ashton Kutcher shares a striking resemblance with young Steve Jobs. If Hollywood ever makes a movie about Jobs, Kutcher can easily fit the bill.

This is a true story and by no means over. The guy in question happens to be one regular lower middle class chap who grew up selling combs to confectionery to augment the family income. He spent his childhood in the company of comic books. He wasn’t alone. For kids growing up in early nineties comic books was an attractive and very economical option of entertainment because those were the days where there were no 24 hour cartoon channels and animation was limited to 2 hours of fun time every Sunday morning on DoorDarshan.

So when this guy grew up comics became his passion. He graduated from Indian super heroes to Marvel and DC. But comics remained his first love. And then he discovered the world of computers and Internet. At first he didn’t understand a thing. He couldn’t afford a computer so he would visit his friends and would visit web sites of his favourite comic publisher. He got intrigued by the world of comic art. He became interested in the process. He took a particular liking to the colouring process of the comics. He started asking people how the vivid colours of the comic pages were created and somebody mentioned Photoshop to him.

So the guy joined a course at a local institute and learnt Photoshop. He was helped by a couple of his friends who were in the designing field and he started honing his skills. He even managed to buy an old computer to practice. He would procure black and white drawings from the Internet and colour them and he would show them to his friends. That was all about it for a while. It would have ended there and he would have continued to sell biscuits for commission to local shops. But then something happened.

Somebody introduced him to Facebook.

And that changed his life. He didn’t understand it in the beginning. He did not know what that site was, or what its features were. One of his friends helped him create a profile and taught him how to upload images and how to make friends. The first thing he did was he befriended the publisher of the comic book which he had been reading since his childhood. Then he started uploading his colouring works on Facebook. And every time he would upload it, he would tag everyone in his friends list in the image. He didn’t know what he was doing. Someone just told him to tag people and he followed it religiously. It had a profound effect. Because the editor he tagged was friends with hundreds and thousands of other people and every time he tagged him, his image appeared in the timeline of that person. So all his contacts would see that work.

His free uploads on Facebook were now being seen by hundreds of people. And he started receiving feedback and friend requests from strangers. He accepted everybody’s request and the more people became his friend, he started reaching a larger audience. He would post a recent artwork he had coloured and he would get instant feedback and encouragement. That kept him going. And very soon his efforts were noticed by an upcoming publisher. And he offered him colouring assignment. With the encouragement and guidance of his mentor who had made a good name for himself in the field he accepted it and soon his name was printed as a colouring artist on hundreds of comic books.

He was elated. He had spent his life loving his comic books and now his name was there on a real comic book! Although he still wasn’t a professional artist cause it still wasn’t paying him much and he had to continue with his travelling salesman job, he had found a start. He continued posting refined samples of his artwork on Facebook and another publisher approached him and more work poured in. And then one day he landed the most prized assignment of his nascent career as a colouring artist. He got an offer to colour the comic version of the upcoming Bollywood Superhero movie. Although it was because of his mentor that he got the assignment, Facebook was responsible for taking him to that stage.

Facebook gave a new lease of life to this aspiring artist. Without Facebook he might not have got the wide platform to showcase his talent. For lack of feedback and encouragement he might have given up on his ambition. And Facebook’s photo tagging feature was instrumental in getting him the huge audience that eventually landed him a paying assignment for doing what he loved. Even his mentor who is a successful artist now wishes if he had Facebook when he had started out.

His story is by no means over, he has just started. He is working on 3 comic books right now and has even got a job offer from another comic publishing house at a salary that is double of what he is making as a travelling salesman.

He owes his career as much to Facebook as he owes it to his mentor.

Note: He is a friend of mine and the mentor I am talking about is not me. I am not into comic artwork, I am a programmer.

Captured this today at office car park. Some jerk has parked the car ignoring the yellow lines and wasted space for two cars!

How difficult it is to follow simple rules? How can people be so thick and careless to not think of the ramification of their actions. People just don’t give a heck about using a scarce resource judiciously. The parking will be full by noon and this guy has just denied parking to someone with completely irresponsible parking.

I was just analyzing my mobile phones over the years and the reasons I bought them.

My first mobile phone was Nokia 3530. I had no idea about mobile phones then. It was sometimes in the first half of 2004. I chose a Nokia phone because that was the only solid brand then I guess. And I wanted a phone with colour display! Yes those are the days when phones with black and white display were main stream. So I went with probably the cheapest Nokia phone with colour display. It had no data cable, no USB, bluetooth kind of stuff. But it had GPRS. I came to know of it while reading the manual. I subscribed to Orange’s GPRS plans for 100 Rupees a month. Not many people even knew they could access Internet on their mobile back in 2004. I got it it for 6500 I guess. I had to buy the hands free earphones separately.

Brand and price were the primary decision making factors in choosing my first mobile.

After using the Nokia for about a couple of years I upgraded to Sony Ericsson K750i. It was an impulse purchase. My friend got that phone, showed it to me. I immediately fell in love with the phone’s bright display, speed, themes, 2 MP camera and amazing sound! I said I want one too. So I bought one. I believe it was for around 16000. It was the same phone as Sony Ericsson W800 which was a big launch in those days. W800 had more storage and later version of ROM because it was a walkman series phone.

Features of the phone was the primary reason why I got the Sony Ericsson K750i.

The phone turned out to be quite sturdy as well. Till last month my wife was using that phone. It has gone through a lot including spending half an hour socked in the water in the pocket of my jeans which required replacing the display which had to be changed once more since then.

iMate JAMin

I wanted a Windows Mobile, a touch screen and WiFi. I had been developing programs for Windows Mobile and I had a Toshiba Pocket PC E400. The E400 is a superb device and I wished it also had a phone and WiFi capabilities. iMate, O2 and Dopod were the only brands selling Windows mobile phones in India back in 2007 which were actually rebranded HTC devices and quite expensive. HTC had not started selling phones directly yet. I shelled out about 26000 for the iMate JAMin. When I look back it looks horrible! But my wedding day was near and I convinced myself to treat it as a wedding gift to myself!

Operating system was the deciding factor in me choosing the JAMin. The OS was ok but the hardware was horrible.

Nokia E72

After spending a couple of years with the JAMin, I wanted a business phone. One where I can check emails. I had horrible experience with HTC hardware and my love for Windows was gone too. Touchscreen too wasn’t a priority (that was a mistake). I thought I needed a BlackBerry type phone. QWERTY keypad sure was a necessity because typing things on the onscreen keyboard was terrible, especially with a stylus. I also passed Android which was in the market for about a year. That was another mistake I think. After a lot of research and deliberation I chose Nokia E72. The initial experience was bad. My cousin who had bought it on my recommendation got tired of it in a couple of weeks and wanted to sell it. I should have gone for BlackBerry I think. Getting a small screen was a mistake. A ROM upgrade sorted out many issues but I was never 100% satisfied with the phone.

Usability, hardware and brand were crucial for going back to Nokia. Nokia had a reputation for making solid phones and I was tired of the clunky HTC/iMate.

Samsung Google Nexus S

I was craving for Android! It was becoming big and I regretted not getting an Android during my last upgrade. I wasn’t particularly looking for a new phone but I decided to develop something for Android and thought of getting an Android phone for testing. Then while checking out the features, one thing led to the next and I ended up buying the Nexus S. I have written in detail about my reasons for choosing Nexus S. So far I am liking a phone despite a few shortcomings. Here’s a review.

Once again the OS and the hardware were the deciding factors.

Why no iPhone?

I have never owned an iPhone yet. I don’t really like to spend money just for the sake of the brand. When you compare an Apple product feature to feature with other similar phones the price difference is glaring. Sure the money is for the Apple experience and not the hardware. But I will pass it for now. To a certain extent I am also pissed off at Apple because they treat India as a dumping ground and their products are officially released here only after the world has its fill. Its like they are throwing away their leftovers to us Indians after a lavish party! If they snub my country, I snub them!

Many banks offer zero interest EMIs on credit card transactions. They apparently don’t charge any interest but only take a one time processing fee which looks to be very reasonable.

Say you bought something for 6000 on a credit card and bank offers you an interest free option of paying it back in six months with a one time processing charge of Rs. 70 per thousand. Do you think its a good deal? 70 per 1000 doesn’t look like much although if you calculate you would see that its 7%. So on a 6000 sum your processing charges will be Rs. 420. You pay 420 up front and then pay 1000 every month. So 7% looks like the rate of interest that company charged you isn’t it? Even though they say its zero interest.

Wrong. Nothing comes for free. And there’s no such thing as a free lunch and no such thing as zero interest loan. And you think you just paid 7%? That looks really low compared to home loan rates of 11.5%, auto loans of 12% and personal loans at 24%. Lets calculate the real rate of interest you actually paid.

Remember you paid 7% for using 6000 for six months. So on a per annum basis the rate of interest comes out to 14%. But its not really 14% either because you are paying the interest in advance. Not unlike a typical loan where you pay the interest at the end of each month AFTER using the money for that month. Here you are paying the processing fee BEFORE using the money. You paid 420 on 6000 and you will still pay 1000 every month. In effect you only got to enjoy 5580 in the first month. And on that principle amount you will be paying an EMI of 1000 per month.

Using the Interest rate calculator at emicalc.net you will see that a loan of 5580 for 6 months where you pay 1000 EMI is having a rate of interest of 25.36%! That’s the real cost of the supposedly zero interest EMI scheme on the card.

PS: How clever are the banks to disguise a 25% rate of interest in sweet words like Rs. 70 per thousand. They don’t even say Rs. 7 per 100 because that “sounds” too much. Anyone can instantly calculate that 7 per thousand is 7% but 70 per thousand doesn’t really sound like that much.

However Kotak Mahindra Bank is having a genuinely zero charge EMI option for three months where they don’t charge interest or processing fees. And so do ICICI, Citibank and HDFC for transactions on eBay (For 3 EMI option only). I have tried them and I know they are genuine zero charge but all those 6 months, 9 months are just hogwash.

I have been using Samsung Google Nexus S for a couple of weeks now and here’s my review of the phone. This is also a review of Android because this is my first Android phone. After comparing various phones I finally chose Nexus S mainly for its 16GB in built storage, screen size and price.

The Good

Phone is awesome!
The display, the touch, the responsiveness – everything is superlative! Display is bright and does not strain the eyes even after prolonged use. The screen is feather touch. Although it takes a while to get used to! In the beginning you end up doing random stuff because you touch some or the other part of the screen. The phone doesn’t look too big even though it has a 4″ display. The size is perfect for web browsing and playing games.

Android Market
I spent first couple of days browsing and installing tons of apps on my phone. Since this is a developer phone it doesn’t come with many pre-installed apps. Only the default Google apps. I took some advice from my friends already using Android and downloaded many apps and games. Finding apps on Android Market and installing them is a snap. The first app I downloaded was Talking Tom. Finding and installing new software for phone had never been so easy on my Windows Mobile or Symbian phones.

Android
As soon as I connected my phone to the Internet I got notification about Android 2.3.4 upgrade being available and I upgraded without a hitch. It was as smooth as installing any other software. I guess that’s one benefit of having a developer phone. You get the first shot at OS upgrades. Android is amazing. It is fast, responsive and lightweight. The thing I liked the most is that I can replace virtually every bit of phone’s software if I wish. I tried my hand at a bit of Android development as well and I was up and running with my first Hello World app in no time. It wasn’t long before I started playing with notifications and vibrations. If something has given me goose bumps at 3 in the night in a long time then it’s Android!

Web browsing
Nexus S has become my preferred device for casual browsing. I no longer trouble my laptop to check emails, read blogs, check Facebook and Twitter. I used to do many of these things on my E72 as well but thanks to Nexus S’ 4 inch screen the experience is as good as that on desktop. The stock Android browser is really good although I quickly installed Firefox and Opera Mobile too. I didn’t like Firefox much but Opera mobile is a gem. It’s better in many ways than the default browser. Although default browser is better at displaying Google’s own sites. I use them both. The best part I like about browsing is that when the pages load I get to see the preview of the whole page and then I can simply double tap on the part of the web page I wish to read and the browser will zoom at that location. The experience is unparalleled.

I was thinking of getting a tablet on my birthday for a better browsing experience but maybe I won’t need one now me thinks.

It’s fast
The phone scored an impressive 1392 on Quadrant benchmark test. The first test I ran showed more than 1400 but that was before I had installed tons of apps. This shows that the 1GHz processor has some meat and is capable of doing some heavy duty stuff. Neocore score of 55 however was not that good.

Camera
Camera is ok. I have seen better and worse cameras on phones. The 5 MegaPixel one on Nexus S is better than the one on E72 I think but still not as good as the one found on Nokia N series or Sony Ericsson phones. The box shot on top is taken with the phone’s cam. Click on the photo to view the original full sized photo. 720p video recording is cool.

The Bad

Poor connectivity
Wi-Fi is not that good, phone keeps dropping signal at my home. My Nokia E72 was better than this one. Also 3G speeds and phone signal reception is not up to the mark. My phone is virtually useless for talking in my office where signals are very weak. Not being able to use a phone for making calls is terrible. I don’t know when Wi-Fi on mobile devices will become as good as on laptops.

Too much integration with Google
Google forces you to associate the phone with a Google account. Unless you do that you won’t be able to add contacts to your phone! That sucks! You cannot add contacts directly to the phone. You have to select an account for that! That’s bad!! I like the good old way of adding contacts just to phone. And then it syncs with your Google Contacts. That means every single person whom you had ever sent an email from your GMail will show up on the phone! WTF! Yes I can hide the contacts and show only those with phone numbers but still…. it’s junk data on phone and I don’t like it.

Lack of dedicated hardware buttons
There should have been a dedicated camera key and dedicated keys for accepting and rejecting a call. Dragging a green ball across the screen to receive a call is not the optimal way on a large screen phone especially with one hand. The feel of hard keys to make and disconnect calls cannot be matched by soft ones. May be I will get used to it as the time goes.

Speaker sound is very low.
Ah boy! Nothing can match Sony Ericsson phones in terms of sound quality. Both the near ear speaker and the loud speaker. The alarm sound is not enough to wake you up in the morning.

No easy way of synchronizing with Microsoft Outlook
This was shocking! I was not able to sync my Outlook contacts with the phone for nearly a day! I liked it with my Nokia E72, iMate JAMin and SE K750i, whenever I would connect my phone to comp through USB it would sync my Outlook contacts, calendar and tasks and also update phone date time. Samsung did not provide any software or drivers for connecting the phone to computer. I tried Samsung Kies but it didn’t work. Tried some other lousy ways like exporting all contacts as vCards and importing them in phone it didn’t work either. I never had so much trouble in past when I changed phones. Eventually I had to sync my contacts with my Google account using Go Outlook Sync Mod and then I was able to get them on my phone.

There are some paid products for synchronizing Outlook with Android over USB but they are outrageously priced at $35 and above. This gave me an idea for a product for Android. Outlook sync for Android. There are millions of Outlook users who must be having similar problems. May be I can build a product for them and price it reasonably say somewhere around $5.

Overall I am quite impressed and satisfied with the Samsung Google Nexus S despite some of the drawbacks. I mainly use it for browsing and the device does a phenomenal job there. Talking Tom and Angry Birds are a bonus!

I have written an article about why Google+ is no threat to Facebook on Trak.in.

Facebook is personal. That makes it successful. There are many people who are on Facebook but they are not on Twitter. You know why? Because Twitter is NOT personal! When I login to Facebook I see updates FROM my friends, and ABOUT my friends. Who changed the relationship status, who got a kid, who changed the display picture, who friended whom etc. The news that matters to me the most! It is not the same on Twitter. And it is not the same on Google+ either.

Facebook is a community. It’s about people. Google is a robot. It’s about content. Social networking is about people. So Facebook will prevail over Google+.

Read the full article on Trak.in

With Harry Potter series’ last movie out some people may still not have an idea what all the hoopla is about. Here’s the story of the seven Harry Potter books in a nutshell. I have only covered the juice of the story. A quick five minute read of the Harry Potter saga.

There are seven books in the series, first six books tell the story of one year of Harry’s life at Hogwarts. He doesn’t return to the school in the seventh book.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Harry Potter an orphan boy comes to know on his 10th birthday that he is a wizard. He is invited to a school for magical kids – Hogwarts. He also comes to know that when he was a toddler a very powerful wizard named Voldemort killed his parents and also tried to kill him. However, Voldemort’s magical spell rebounded on himself and his body was destroyed leaving only his soul. Harry survived and that made him famous in the wizarding world. Harry befriends Hermoine Granger and Ron Weasley at Hogwarts. Voldemort tries to get the Philosopher’s Stone which can bring him back to material form. Harry foils his plan and Voldemort has to vanish again.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
One of Voldemort’s followers (also known as Death Eaters) gives a diary to Ginny Weasley, sister of Ron Weasley. The diary belongs to Tom Marvolo Riddle who is Voldemort. Through the diary Voldemort posses Ginny and she opens a secret chamber which has a very large snake known as Basilisk which can kill anyone merely by looking in to his/her eyes. Harry manages to kill the Basilisk and save Ginny. He also destroys Tom Riddle’s diary in the process.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
A mysterious man named Sirius Black escapes from the wizard jail Azkaban. He was Harry’s parents’ friend and Harry believes it was Black who told Voldemort about Harry’s parents hiding place and was instrumental in getting them killed. However Black was a loyal friend of the Potters and it was another friend named Peter Pettigrew (also known as Wormtail) who actually betrayed them. Pettigrew was hiding as a pet mouse for Ron Weasley so that he could spy on Harry on behalf of Voldemort. When caught, Pettigrew runs away.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
A magical tournament named the Tri-Wizard Tournament is held at Hogwarts involving three wizarding schools. Harry’s name is mysteriously entered in the tournament even though he is underage for the tournament. Harry manages to go through the levels of the tournament with suggestions from his friends and a teacher named Professor Moody. Harry and a fellow Hogwarts student Cedric Diggory make it to the final level and suddenly then Wormtail and other Death Eaters appear with Voldemort who is in mere flesh form. They perform magical ritual to bring Voldemort into material form. Pettigrew kills Cedric. Harry manages to escape with Cedrik’s body and informs everyone of Voldemort’s return.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The magical world doesn’t believe Harry about Voldemort’s return. Ministry of magic appoints Dolores Umbridge as High Inquistor at Hogwarts who forbids many things at school and makes life difficult for students and teachers. Harry forms a secret group called Dumbuldore’s army (Dumbuldore is the headmaster of Hogwarts) with his friends and teaches them magic that Umbridge has banned from school in order to protect themselves from the looming danger. Harry finds a prophecy that states either he will kill Voldemort or Voldemort will kill him. One of them has to die.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
In his sixth year at Hogwarts Harry finds a book which earlier belonged to one half blood prince. The book helps Harry excel through his academics. Harry also starts feeling a connection with Voldemort. He can read Voldemort’s mind and vice versa. Harry comes to know that Voldemort has hidden pieces of his soul in seven objects called Horcruxes and he can not die till all the Horcruxes are destroyed. Two of the Horcruxes have already been destroyed one being Tom Riddle’s diary in the second year. Harry goes on a hunt to find and destroy remaining Horcruxes with Ron and Hermoine.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Harry manages to destroy all but two Horcruxes and comes to know that he himself is one of the Horcruxes because he was the only living thing present when Voldemort was destroyed so one piece of Voldemprt’s soul attached itself to Harry. In order to destroy that soul Harry has to be killed by Voldemort. Voldemort attacks Hogwarts and an epic battle ensues between Harry’s friends and supporters and those of Voldemort’s. Harry and Voldemort face one another where Voldemort attacks Harry with a killing spell which instead of killing Harry kills Voldemort’s soul inside him. Harry’s friend Naville kills Voldemort’s snake Nagini which was the last horcrux and Voldemort dies in a battle with Harry.

This is the summary of the “what” part of the story. The “how” part is what you get to see in the movies and read in the books. There are many sub plots and side stories. There are elaborate back stories of the characters and there are many characters. I have only covered Harry and Voldemort, two characters here but the story is incomplete without Ron, Hermoine, Dumbuldore, Hagrid, Snape, Weasley family and many more. A more detailed summary can be read here.

Harry Potter is recommended to everyone.

After a lot of deliberation I have decided to go with Samsung Google Nexus S

There were four contenders for my next phone

HTC Desire Z
Samsung Galaxy SL
Samsung Google Nexus S
LG Optimus Black

HTC Desire Z was my first choice because it has a full QWERTY keypad. Also the price of 17K on Saholic was too good. But it was out of stock and everywhere else it was available for around 22K. I didn’t really want to spend 20K on a new phone.

Samsung Galaxy SL is a great phone too but it does not have an LED flash. Big deal. I do use my mobile’s flash as a torch. So that one put me off.

Now it was between LG Optimus Black and Nexus S. I was leaning towards LG because feature wise it was the best of the lot. However Nexus S won because of its 16GB memory and Android 2.3. I know I can upgrade Optimus Black to 2.3 but its better to have it right out the box. Optimus Black does not come with an included memory card so I’d have to spend another 1K to get a 16GB card, that would take the price to above 20K. I got a fabulous deal on Nexus S on eBay. I had an eBay voucher for Rs. 1,000 so I got the phone for 18,490! With bill and warranty. That was a steal!

Nexus S doesn’t have FM radio but I haven’t used the radio of my Nokia E72 much so I won’t be missing it. The only thing I compromised on was a QWERTY keypad. But after playing with the onscreen keyboard on some other Android phones and looking at the demo of Swype, I thought I can do without a QWERTY keypad. If I could have gotten the Desire Z at around the same price I would still opted for it.

Now waiting for the phone to arrive.

One of my favourite songs from A. R. Rahman. The world came to know of Rahman through Slumdog Millionaire. But Slumdog is no way near the best music of Rahman. This is another of his gems.

Not just the music but also the lyrics – written by the genius Gulzar – are fabulous! It has a trance like quality and the word Fanaa just resonates in your head.

The word Fanaa means means annihilation in Sufism, a mystic tradition of Islam. It also means destruction or destroyed in love in Urdu/Hindi. In Urdu/Hindi, it can convey the meaning of totally lost in love, or completely engulfed by love.

The Fanaa in background is by the great Rahman himself.

Here’s the song and the lyrics in Hindi, English and English explanation of the words.

Put on the headphones, turn up the volume, close the eyes and experience the trance!

Fanaa, Fanaa, Fanaa….

Hone do DIL ko Fanaa!
(Let your heart be destroyed in love)

Hone do Dard ko Tabah!
(Let your pain be destroyed)

Udne do har ek wo tamanna
(Let all those desires fly)

Aao na aao na aao na hona hai Fanaa!
Aao na aao na aao na hona hai Fanaa!
(Come come come, we have to get destroyed in love)

Ulfat ka hai dariya, ye jaan ek katra
Dariya mein hai katra ya katre mein hai dariya
(There’s a sea of Love, this life is just a drop
Is there a drop in the sea or a sea in the drop?)

Saaya hai badan ka ya tan mein chhupa saaya
Dono mil gaye to kya tan kya saaya
(Is this a shadow of the body or body of a shadow
If both come together you cant tell them apart)

Hone do DIL ko Fanaa!
(Let your heart be destroyed in love)

Hone do Dard ko Tabah!
(Let your pain be destroyed)

फ़ना, फ़ना, फ़ना….

होने दो दिल को फ़ना
होने दो दर्द को तबाह

उडने दो हर एक वो तमन्ना

होने दो दिल को फ़ना
होने दो दर्द को तबाह

आओ ना, आओ ना, आओ ना होना है फ़ना!
आओ ना, आओ ना, आओ ना होना है फ़ना!

उल्फ़त का है दरिया, ये जान एक कतरा
दरिया में है कतरा या कतरे में है दरिया

साया है बदनका या तन में छुपा साया
दोनों मिल गए तो क्या तन क्या साया

होने दो दिल को फ़ना
होने दो दर्द को तबाह