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By Ankur, February 21, 2010 9:39 pm

Installing/Upgrading Nokia Ovi Maps on my Nokia 5230, and then downloading India Maps data on it was not an easy job. This deserves a DIY post.

I believe this installation process would atleast help Nokia 5230, 5530, 5800 XpressMusic users, maybe others too.

Before we begin, the pre-requisites for this are:

• Microsoft .NET 3.0 framework or higher must be installed on your computer
• Nokia PC Suite must be installed
• Data Cable (needless to say here, but you’d need that) for your Nokia model

A lot of readers would tell me that the process I mention below is longer, and I could have done the updates via the Nokia Ovi Suite instead (which I did try to do, but the India map data would never download properly, even after 5-6 attempts).

So here’s are the two applications you need to download, and everything shall be fine:

• Nokia Maps Updater – Download this to install latest version of Nokia Maps on your phone
• Nokia Maps Loader – This one is critical to download the Map data for your country on your Nokia phone (the advantage is that you’d use less of your data bandwidth while using GPS now, as the map data would already be on your phone)

Once you are done installing the above applications, do this:

• Run Nokia Maps Updater, connect your phone to the computer, download the latest version of Ovi Maps. Let it sync and install on your phone.
• Keep the phone connected, now Run Nokia Maps Loader, Select your country and click on download maps. It’ll download map data from the web onto your computer and then sync it up on your phone.

Only disadvantage is that your phone needs to be connected all the time, and it screws up when you get a call in between the updates! Hope this posting is of help.

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By Ankur, February 15, 2010 12:18 am

It was just two days ago I was in Pune for some work. It was nice to be back in the same place where I spent two years as a student…visited all my favorite joints on the FC Road. Relished the breakfast at Good luck, dosa at Vaishali and what not.

Incidently had crossed German Bakery but just didnt get the time to stop by and grab a bite, it was the perfect western eating joint at KP. A day later, on Saturday 13 February evening, we got the news about the blast at German Bakery.

I was shocked at the news, recalling that I had wanted to visit it. But the real shock came after an hour when we got the news that 4 of my college friends’ were amongst the injured in the blast and that one of them wasn’t traceable.

What followed was an agonizing hour of waiting for any news with networks being jammed his phone was not reachable. Thankfully he was found and had escaped with minor injuries. Thankfully all of them were safe with no severe injuries, but 9 people had already lost lives there!

I for one, had never imagined this could happen to any of us. I never felt that terror could hit people I knew. Had I stayed back in pune for the weekend, I would have been a part of the meetup too!

Maybe we focused too much on the movie release that police couldn’t focus on other things which mattered.

I don’t know the answers, but it has made me realize that this is real…any of these days we could just become a statistic….a casualty. With that our dreams and hopes to make a mark on this world could just end, for no fault of ours, for reasons we cannot comprehend.

Fear wouldn’t solve it, only action would.

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By Ankur, February 11, 2010 11:42 am

3D Artwork at the Kala Ghoda arts Festival

A few months ago, a friend of mine, a Xaverian (hope thats how they are known as) told me not to miss the Kala Ghoda Arts festival. I was less than enthusiastic about it, afterall Mumbai has its fair share of concerts, theatre and art events. What I didn’t realize was that no other event could blend all of this together and cook it into a delicious offering served to you within a few square miles in South Mumbai!

This is the 10th year of Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (or KGAF), it is a week long street festival where visitors can be a part everything for free! I visited the festival area on the first two days, and cannot wait to go back this weekend for more. There is so much happening there that you cannot be bored…concerts, workshops, film festival, plays, photography, street plays, heritage walks…okay thats all I remember.

Handmade accessories at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2010

There there, enough of advertising, I’d just summarize what all I did and missed too! I missed being a part of a literature workshop on getting one’s work published…well, was waitlisted for the workshop, I couldn’t go for the heritage walk, missed the plays as well!

I did go for the Heritage bus ride across South Bombay(Mumbai!) which had a dash of history, architecture, British India and of course heritage. Never knew that Nariman Point and the likes is on reclaimed land, or that VT Terminus was built over 10 years at 16 lakh bucks!

I absolutely loved the photo exhibits right next to Jehangir art gallery and Museum Gallery.  The pictures of Project Dharavi, Blind Photographers, Diti Kotecha and Shekhar Sidaye were absolutely amazing. I wish I could take pictures like that.

The festival has plenty of visual art as you move around in the Kala Ghoda area, the themes are focused on nature, water conversation and education for children. Unfortunately, I did witness extremes right there in the vicinity which took away the true essence of the messages.

I’ll just add up the pictures below, for words cannot describe the atmosphere…the colors and the creativity which flow freely during Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.

Used a bit of my camera's defect for this image

Odd one Out!

Its on till 14th Feb 2010, do visit.

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By Ankur, January 30, 2010 12:30 pm

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

As an Indian I am quick to write off a myriad different things about my country,  saying that it won’t work. Today I am writing off our national animal – The Tiger (not to be confused with a certain Tiger woods, who has been a real tiger in bed of late!).

With just 1411 of these wild beasts left alive in India (out of the only 3500 left alive around the globe), this may just be the end of the Tiger. Project Tiger was launched back in 1973 in order to conserve these animals; the numbers increased from 1827 to around 3500 in the 90s. However, the number dwindled to 1411 in the last decade.

Save Our Tigers is a campaign to raise awareness and concern about the state of the national animal. Do visit the website and make your pledge.

Honestly I don’t know whether my blogging about tigers could make a difference; for its just a form of opinionated inaction”

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By Ankur, January 28, 2010 11:02 am

Since half of the world and almost all of twitter was in a iPad/iSlate frenzy yesterday; I have decided to bank on the internet trend and get my blog a few hits today

To the uninitiated (really? You haven’t heard of the Apple iPad yet? Wake up!), an Apple iPad is a 9.7″x7″ touch device which is barely half-an-inch thick and allows you to play audio, watch TV, video, run applications off App Store and surf the internet on 3G, cellular networks and of course Wi Fi. It comes in capacities of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB and runs a 1 GB processor.

It also boasts of a finger print resistant coating (oh yeah, now i could kill someone with an iPad and not worry about those nasty prints for CSI) on the screen.

Well the price is pretty high $499 to $899

Honestly, I feel that my 16GB iPod touch is just a smaller iPad!! Features aren’t too different, maybe applications later would make all the difference! Carrying the device maybe a pain, afterall it isn’t a netbook and it can’t fit in your pocket.

On the marketing front, Apple got plenty of free Internet Buzz…lucky them! But naming could have been different iPad sounds like a sanitary pad!

Even though it doesn’t have a camera, is over priced, cannot multitask, is just a bigger iPod touch…i’d still want it ‘coz its cool and its from Apple (sigh! I can already head Admiral Ackabar screaming: It’s a  ’Marketing’ trap!)