I had been promising a blog post if someone suggested me Nokia Symbian based Twitter clients. So here it is, a set of 4 free clients tested on my Nokia 5230 3G phone.  Hope one of these fits the bill for you, almost all of them are easily available over Nokia Ovi or otherwise(have given a link though). Of course I have not tested Gravity, because it is a paid app.

Snaptu

Snaptu is a Java based client and as a result supported on a variety of phones, which makes it an attractive application. Another key advantage being that it is more like a mashup of different applications like Facebook, Weather, Twitter, Picasa at a single place. The user can add or remove his favorite applications as provided by Snaptu.

I have been a loyal Snaptu user since I bought my phone and have been using it primarily for Twitter.  The biggest issue which I faced with Snaptu is on screen rotate, in order to fit in to the rotated screen the application tries hard to fit in but almost always gets stuck at ‘Rotating…’ and I ended up restarting my cell to get the app back on. This is quite annoying if your phone has an accelerometer and supports screen rotate.

Advantages

• Java application, runs on many phones including older N Series phones
• Wide range of apps can run through Snaptu, making it a powerful single point of access
• Auto updates silently as key app runtimes are downloaded on runtime
• Good Interface
• Supports Retweet, DM, URL access
• Separately shows Updates and @ tweets, which makes it a very powerful twitter client

Disadvantages

• Gets stuck at screen rotate
• Speed

Tweets60

As the name goes, Tweets60 is for Symbian 6 OS. It is a very light client, particularly quick to install and use on Nokia phones. Touted as the next big thing after Gravity, I tested TweetS60 Lite on my phone, hoping that it could just be the end of the search.

Post login the application doesn’t show any signs of trying to update my timeline. It’s a long wait as the polling settings are manual. This enables you to save GPRS bandwidth if its expensive on your side of the world.

Ok so I now selected the Refresh setting from the Options Menu(not as navigable as Snaptu), but this User Interface would definitely be very useful on a non-touch phone where two menu options at the bottom are to be used for almost everything.

The application did refresh my timeline, but scrolling is painful, not as smooth as Snaptu and I ended up using the stylus. The Profile images never refreshed and while the timeline is updated I cannot scroll through.

Advantages

• Made for Symbian
• Light
• Supports all basic functionalities including following, unfollowing, RT etc…
• Can easily minimize the application to background
• Stable

Disadvantages

• Interface not as colorful/cool as other clients
• Does not fully utilize touch features of your phone, although rotating works well.

STEW

STEW is a widget for Nokia phones and can be easily integrated on the main screen shortcuts of your phone. I had read amazing reviews about STEW on the net, so decided to test it out myself.

STEW opens through the browser of your phone, although this may not be noticeable.

I dab the application to open it, and wait…the screen goes blank! I get a feeling that it is hung up but no, it comes back to life…a good 7-8 seconds of staring at the blank screen. Okay so here I got, entering my login credentials, and the screen pops a warning that the login details are being sent as plain text and would not be encrypted!

Then the cool STEW interface pops up. I love the color theme and cool icons, but the application doesn’t support most of the common twitter features. All I can do is update status, search for tweets or view the refresh settings. Moreover, on screen rotate the timeline text does not justify within the screen edges, thus not readable.

Advantages

• None really, except the interface

Disadvantages

• Very slow load times
• Very limited tweeting support, unless you with to type @ or RT yourself
• Text justification goes for a toss when the screen is rotated

Nokia Messaging for Social Networks (BETA)

The is the last application I tested on my Phone. As you can see it is still in BETA, and is freely downloadable on Ovi.

The communities application supports facebook and MySpace too, the user needs to add his account details and can simultaneously login into these services.

The loading time is slick and the interface is quite comfortable. The best feature is a right side pane on the screen which has shortcuts for DM, RT, @ and favorites. It makes it very easy to use the application, it also has a planned support for uploading images directly from the phone and tweet them. There is also a drop down which can be used to select twitter pages as on the website.

One downside of the application is the constant popups requests for internet connection authentication which renders it almost impossible to use on my phone. Maybe other users do not get those popups.

Advantages

• Nokia’s native application
• Supports Facebook and Myspace too
• Smooth interface
• Supports most common twitter features
• Screen shortcuts

Disadvantages

• Still in Beta
• No option to save login details
• Annoying Internet authentication popups

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.

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.

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!)

The traditional Malai Makkhan in Lucknow

Malai Makkhan or cream butter is one of the most amazing sweet snacks sold during the winters in Lucknow and Kanpur (and also some other parts of UP). While the name may scare the diet conscious, the true product is much much lighter and devoid of any noticeable fat content.

I normally had trouble describing how it looks like, and thus the picture above. Incidently, I have been buying this amazing sweet from the same seller (who comes on a bicycle singing along makkhan malai on the streets) for over a decade! 

The best description of the recipe of this treat is  - saffron flavoured frothed cream, made by hanging unsalted butter overnight in dew and then aerating it by beating it.

Dew being an important factor to manufacture this delicacy, its only during the winters and early spring that we Lucknow-ites are blessed with this. I has a slightly sweet flavor of  frothy cream which just vanishes in your mouth tickling your taste buds wanting for more.

So I managed to grab tickets for the special preview of Ghajini. After the confusion of the court order on its release, I was pretty anxious whether it shall be released or not…and it did!

For those who have seen Memento, it is a nicely inspired version where Aamir takes up the role of Guy Pierce. However, while Guy was much more icy in Memento, Aamir has brought human anger and emotions to Sanjay Singhania’s character.

I guess the next fashion fad after his hairdo would be the rolled up sleeved shirts (already being sold by a leading fashion label). Anyways, so Sanjay aka Sachin suffers from antiretrograde amensia and forgets his memory every 15 minutes. He is searching for his beloved’s killer with all the tatoos and Polaroid pictures helping him add up the clues to find the man.

Asin could have waited for a meaty role, all she does in this movie is being chirpy and a good samaritan…which is quite unbelieveable at times. But she has done justice to the role and has looked pretty in all the right places.

What the movie lacks is pace and bad placement of songs which drag it down in patches. Another element worth mentioning are the action scenes which look unbelievable and are shot in a unique fast forward way…may remind you of Rajnikanth action style even.

All in all I liked the movie and would recommend it..its better than the current fare available and Aamir, as always, has delivered the goods.

I am sure that plenty more bloggers have already posted their reviews of Google’s new web browser Chrome, many of them might be more technically erudite than me; but what the heck! Here’s my take on Google Chrome which I have been using since the last 14 hours now!

The striking observation on the first start of the browser would be the placement of Tabs on the top, there is no File Menu (hidden or otherwise) instead you have a file icon on the right side of the Address Bar.

The interface is uncluttered and sleek, and the browser opens in a jiffy quite faster than Internet Explorer 7.0 or Flock on my computer, which is very admirable.

Another great feature is that every tab exists as an individual process, so in case of an application crash (which IE seems to have often with Adobe Acrobat) only that tab dies and the rest are saved from annihilation.

There is no search tab  you do it only from the address bar, also I cannot figure out where to change my default search engine. Apart from this, this baby is loaded with all bells and whistles like Popup Blocker, Icognito tab (the browsing history is hidden in this case, something which we can notice in IE 8 BETA).

What it lacks is that most Advanced Options are so well tucked away that it can be a bit uncomfortable for seasoned users. It also has this constantly running process GoogleUpdate running in the background all the time, which seems utterly not critical to be running all the while.

I could also not see any support for add-ons the way Firefox does, hope its still on the cards.

Would I use it regularly? Well, I dont know…atleast till the honeymoon’s over. I do love the fact that this browser opens up in a split second.

The verdict is that Chrome shows a lot of promise, but then it doesn’t offer anything out of the world which would make you switch. Also, I am tired of Google’s perpetual BETA versions of services and software like Gmail(since 2004), Gtalk(2005) and now Chrome(2008)…what if they never cross the beta stage again?

You may download Chrome from http://www.google.com/chrome

Here’s a note from a new startup; try being a part of its success:

We are LiveHead, a Hyderabad based startup who are in the process of developing a community driven Quiz Portal. We aim to be the single destination for quizzing on Internet.

We are looking for people who love quizzing and have a passion for finding, asking and answering good quiz questions. No academic criteria but all they should be able to do is to create/find great quiz questions. A desire to go out of the routine mode and innovate with quiz formats will be not only an added advantage but also will make the person eligible for an offer from LiveHead to be a part of our team!

And ofcourse people get paid for their efforts. As mentioned impressive candidates have a chance to earn an offer from LiveHead for longer stints and much more!

Interested readers can contact us for more details at: contact@livehead.in

Yups, I did manage to find some time out for a movie, and it was the new SRK starrer ‘Chak De India’. Getting on the final feel of it, i actually liked the movie, and would suggest people to go for it.

Now to the movie, first of all…its a movie without any song and dance sequence, no heroine per se, and just one person SRK who gets the maximum airtime.

It shows all aspects of team formation, norming and performing based on the true story of a previous indian hockey player Negi’s life. Do not compare it with Lagaan in terms of role play, but it surely has its own share of magic moments. The second half of the movie focuses on the Women’s Hockey team’s participation in the Hockey World Cup. It has been shot very well, with the audience and the gameplay seeming very very authentic.

At times I did get a feeling that they may have been inspired by ‘Remember the Titans’, but it is definitely not a rip-off. I returned home with a feel good feeling where the underdog beats the champion….and for a change it was India in sports winning!

On a serious note, I realised that I didnt even know simple hockey rules, and maybe this movie shall evoke some interest in the official National Sport of India.