1. Under settings>privacy, make sure backup my settings and restore applications are both checked
2. Install all applications that you need. Phone memory will get to almost zero.
3. Do a factory data reset settings>sd and phone storage>factory data reset
4. Setup the phone with your previous google account. The phone will take a long time to download all applications from market.
5. Move all applications to sd card. Except widgets, they don’t work from sd cards
7. Voila, suddenly you have an immense amount of internal memory free.

I just did a reset, my space is coming down but even with all my previous applications and more games, i have 50megs free. Previously I was struggling with 10

Let me know if this worked in the comments

I have had a kindle for over a year now. And from time to time, I have found hardware and software solutions that come in quite handy. Here is a collection of all my Kindle related hacks and tips.

How to Send a PDF, Word Document to your Kindle?

I’m sure most of you already know this, but just wanted to make sure that this got out of the way. The simplest method is to mail the document to your kindle address (xxxxx@free.kindle.com) and in the subject line, write the word “Convert”. Amazon will convert the pdf and will send it to your kindle. However, in most cases this does not work out very well. Usually, they screw up the formatting.

How to send all ebook formats to your Kindle?

This one is a bit more difficult. There are a lot of ebook formats out there. Kindle works best with the .mobi and .azw format. But what about the rest such as epub, lit, txt, doc and so on? This is where a ebook library manager software comes in. The on I use is called Calibre. It’s open source and works extremely well. It is the itunes of ebook readers. First you import your ebook collection into the software and then you can send them to your Kindle and it will convert it to the right format. You can download Calibre from here www.calibre-ebook.com

For more help on how to use calibre, you can use this video tutorial

How to send articles to your kindle from Google Reader or the web?

I use Google Reader to read a lot of articles. Some are quite long and is not suitable for a PC screen. I always send them to my kindle to read later. Sendtoreader is a very simple service to send web articles to your kindle. Visit http://sendtoreader.com and login with your facebook account. The instructions are all there. You can add a button to your Google Reader or simple add a bookmark in your browser to send a page to your kindle.

How to read black and white comics on Kindle?

Kindle is crappy with full color comic books. (Yes, that is why I need to buy a tablet) But it’s brilliant for black and white ones. I am a huge fan of Calvin and Hobbes and have a lot of black and white strips lying around in my PC. To make them suitable to read on my kindle, I use a software called Mangle. If you are a fan of black and white manga then this definitely is the software for you. You can download the software from this link http://foosoft.net/mangle/. The link also contains details of how to use the software.

How to create and manage Kindle collections on your pc?

I have more than a 100 books on my kindle and it gets really annoying to browse through all of them to find out which one I wish to read every time. Thankfully the Kindle has a simple solution for that called “Collections”.  However, putting 100 books into 10 collections is a task in itself. Tired of clicking on every book to put them into a collection I found a smarter solution. The Kindle Collection Manager is a tiny software which lets you create and manage your kindle collections on your pc. Here is the link to the download http://www.colegate.net/KindleCollectionManager/ After you are done preparing the collections, your need to restart your kindle for them to take effect. You can do that by simple sliding and holding the power button for 10 seconds or more until the screen goes blank. After that wait for five second and then slide the power button again until the screen blinks 3 times. Then simply wait patiently for the Kindle to reboot.

Hope this tips help you in some way to get more out of your Kindle. Let me know in the comments if there is something more I can add to this list.

First, you need to have Firefox or Chrome. If you are on Internet Explorer, I have a solution for you too. Click getfirefox.com and get firefox. Then follow my instructions.

Second, get an add-on called greasemonkey. It is a very handy plugin and has lots of other applications. You can download it from here. If you are on chrome you can move onto step 3 and skip this

Third, get a greasemonkey script called Facebook Sidebar Chat Reversion. Download it from here

Install and you are good to go. Hope this helps. Copied this from Tech Web Talk. You can see their post for a more detailed instruction here

P.S: If you have to get this on IE. There is no tested method. There is a risky method of installing greasemonkey scripts in IE, but there is a very slim chance that it will work. You can find the method here

Managements are roughly humanoid beings under the influence of one or more Companies. Their humanoid forms are maintained by a Strictly Professional Look (SPL) disguise field generators. SPL generators are exactly like other disguise field generation technologies, excepting one big difference. They are powered by indecision and inexperience of the people surrounding them. However, when the indecisiveness and inexperience of the SPL user is greater than that of the surrounding, the SPL generator does not work properly and gives out a non-SPL (Strictly Professional Look with a shabby and worn out face). And since most management is indecisive due to inexperience, they always tend to look worn out and old.

No one knows what a management actually looks like under the disguise. According to some, management usually has a boggart like tendency to become the worst fear of the people surrounding it. Some argue that true form a management is visible for split second when it is removed from the influence of a company by force. Some say managements are two headed humanoid creatures. One of their head constantly gives out praises for their superiors. The other continuously shouts at the people who work for them. Some argue that there is a third head capable of uttering only one phrase, “Yes boss/sir”. Apparently that head only comes into action when the Management faces the CEO (definition of CEO is covered in a later edition of GGC).

Most management are actually EMPLOYEES. They are usually identified as potential management material very early on in their life. EMPLOYEES who do no work but still can get away with it are the primary candidates. However the final selection happens based on a ritual called the Yearly Review (YR). Yearly Review is the ritualistic slaughter of the people who work hard and the deification of the people who work smart (Work Smart is a well used phrase which is applicable when you don’t work, claim others work as yours and get promoted). Those who show the highest score in Work Smart in YR are selected as Management and given the SPL Generator. Some claim that the moment EMPLOYEES join Management, their two heads start to grow. You can actually hear some of the words of the other two heads while they wait to receive the generators. They start thanking the management and give the finger to the employees.

What to do if you are faced by a management in a dark alley. Keep saying the phrase, “Your leadership has really showed me the way”. This phrase apparently soothes management enough to get away with almost anything.

GGC: Graduate’s Guide to the Company

GGC: Talent

It’s hard to find out all the details of it today. But thanks to cricinfo, the results are still here and so are the stories. Whatever we miss out in the writing please give us back in the comments. It was called the Carlsberg ICC Trophy. The tournament took place between March 14 to April 19. And this is how it turned out.

Day One – Monday, March 24:
Bangladesh played their first match. They were in group B with Denmark, UAE, Malaysia, West Africa and Argentina (You read that right, Argentina!). Bangladesh beat Argentina by 5 wickets on their first match. Argentina Scored 138 in 48.3 overs and Bangladesh crossed the mark in the 24th over. Naimur Rahman, the MoM, scored a 37 ball 53 and took 3 wickets while conceding 21 runs only. [Full Scorecard]

Day Two – Tuesday, March 25:
Bangladesh took on West Africa and pulverized them. In 39.1 overs, the west African Innings was wrapped up for a meager 82. Only three of their batsmen managed to reach double figures and none of them crossed 20. The highest score was 16, which came from the extras. Within 19.4 overs Bangladesh wrapped the match. Minhajul Abedin was adjudged MoM. Surprisingly, it was for his bowling. He took 3 for 8 runs in 5 overs. [Full Scorecard]

Day Four – Thursday, March 27:
Bangladesh took an easy victory over Denmark. Denmark’s 98 was chased down by Bangladesh in 33 overs. Aminul Islam took home the MoM honors with his 53 ball 33. [Full Scorecard]

Day Six – Saturday, March 29:
Defending champions UAE slipped closer to elimination in a big loss to Bangladesh. Fortunately, the whole match report is available. And here it is.

Report from Dawn

Bangladesh beat UAE to enter Q-finals

KUALA LUMPUR, March 29: Bangladesh moved into the quarter-final round of the ICC Trophy with a one-sided win over the United Arab Emirates here, Saturday. Defending ICC Trophy champions UAE were expected to dish out a strong challenge, but in the end Bangladesh sauntered to a handsome 110-run win to book their berth in the final eight.

Bangladesh who are seeking to atone for their failures of the past, were in no mood to allow UAE, who played at the last World Cup, from spoiling a party they hope to gatecrash in 1999. The Bangladeshis have never played in the company of the Test-playing nations at the World Cup. The closest they came to qualifying was at the 1990 ICC Trophy in Holland, when they entered the finals but were beaten by Zimbabwe. Since then, Zimbabwe have joined the ranks of the Test-playing nations and the World Cup has increased its patronage by allowing three associate members to qualify.

At the last ICC Trophy in Kenya, Bangladesh floundered in the semi-finals losing to Kenya and then to the horror of the country’s cricket-crazy fans, they were pipped by Holland in the third place play-off. Coached by former West Indian Test opener Gordon Greenidge, Bangladesh are now determined to forget previous setbacks and instead are focused on the job of earning one of the three places open for associate members at the 1999 World Cup in England. Bangladesh’s bowling attack saw them remain unbeaten in the preliminary round, Saturday.Defending a total of 205, Bangladesh bowled UAE out for 95 in the 35th over, to ensure their quarter-final berth.

Kenya also booked their place with a 119-run victory over Ireland. Maurice Odumbe hit a scintillating 99 off 121 balls as Kenya piled on 247 for seven in 50 overs. In reply, the Irish could only manage a meagre 128 for nine in their allotted overs. Meanwhile Denmark beat Argentina by 150 runs to also move in sight of a quarter-final berth.

Enamul Hoque was the MoM for his 37 runs and two wickets. [Full Scorecard]

Day Seven – Sunday, March 30:
Bangladesh closed their last group match by beating Malaysia by 58 runs. Minhajul Abedin again found himself on the MoM stand. [Full Scorecard]

The final points table from group B

Group B
		P	W	L	NR	Pts	RR
	Bangladesh	5	5	-	-	10
	Denmark	5	4	1	-	8
	United Arab Emirates	5	3	2	-	6
	Malaysia	5	2	3	-	4
	West Africa	5	1	4	-	2
	Argentina	5	-	5	-	0

And the tournament moved onto the QF rounds. It was again a group match stage where Bangladesh were playing with Ireland, Hong Kong and Netherlands.

[To be Continued]

–

I just wanted to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU to all BD fans for the support so far in the world cup. we might not win the world cup but we can win the best fans award at the world cup.

You guys just shouted and cheered every run, every wicket we took and every stop we made. THIS IS WHAT WE WANTED.

We have a definite advantage when we play in front of our own fans. Keep cheering for us what ever happens…

We need you all against the West Indies – we want to make them feel miles away from home and uncomfortable. Your unreserved support lifted everyone.. please, please keep it going!

–

Dear Mr. Pont, please thank the team for giving us the chance to cheer our hearts out.

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there were 3 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 32 posts.

The busiest day of the year was April 20th with 114 views. The most popular post that day was HowTo – Use Gmail on a Sony Ericsson Phone.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were google.com, chromeaday.com, wiki.answers.com, programmerfish.com, and facebook.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for google sync sony ericsson, google calendar sony ericsson, sony ericsson google calendar, sony ericsson calendar sync, and sony ericsson google sync.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

HowTo – Use Gmail on a Sony Ericsson Phone August 2008
28 comments

HowTo: Sync Sony Ericsson Phones with Google Calendar September 2008
9 comments

HowTo: View DOC, PPT, XLS, PDF Files in Sony Ericsson January 2009
6 comments

HowTo: Setup Sony Ericsson for MSN, Yahoo, AOL Messenger August 2008
10 comments

Howto: Open Hotmail in Chrome [Working Hack] November 2008
3 comments

First came the Urni (Which is basically an Orna and why a guy needs it is beyond my comprehension)

Then we found Short Panjabi – Panjabi, just shorter

And this year I found Fotunji = Fotua + Panjabi (I doubt if this falls under the Shondhi bichchhed we learnt at school)

But the greatest innovation in this classic dress has been brought by the man who invented Pyjama with Chain and Pocket.

O’ great one, who ever you are, where ever you are, just know this “Man” kind is forever in your debt.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

I took a walk in the rain.

It was a not a great rain. Just one of those where you have very little water and whole lot of wind.

After 15 days of scorching heat, 15 or 5 I really can’t tell anymore, it rained today.

I took a walk in the rain.

Filed under: Rambles Tagged: Personal, Rain, thoughts ]]> http://drabir.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/it-rained-today/feed/ 0 drabir Walk in the Rain http://drabir.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/staying-in-sync/ http://drabir.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/staying-in-sync/#comments Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:36:47 +0000 drabir http://drabir.wordpress.com/?p=245 ]]> It seems that certain convoluted solutions that I prepare are actually not that convoluted after all. They actually provide some help to the people (The evidence is my poorly written Sony Ericsson HowTos which are still way popular than they should be). I therefore will now make an attempt to bestow some of my other technological messes.

My phone is a Nokia E63, my email and calendar application is Thunderbird 3.0 with Lightning. There is only one problem, my calendar application of choice is Google Calendar (SMS Notification, Conversational Text Based Entry and Easy Integration with Gmail are just 3 of the top reasons, there are hundreds more). And this creates the problem of keeping all three of these in sync. Thankfully, there are multiple solutions which work together in making my life a bit easier.

First, for syncing my phone events with Google Calendar, I use Google Sync, the setup instructions are here (Should work on all Nokia E, N and X series phones)

Second, to sync my laptop calendar to Google Calendar I use the Provider for Google Calendar Plugin for Thunderbird 3

And voila, my calendars always stay in sync.

Thankfully, Google Sync also syncs my phone contacts with Google Contacts. To sync my Thunderbird addressbook with Google Contacts I use Zindus. It’s an amazing solution for keeping your contacts in sync.

And that’s it, all my calendars and contacts always stay in sync, no matter what I update and in which device.

The thing simply looks brilliant.
However, before it is ready for mainstream there are a lot of things that need fixing

1. Bookmark Sync from Opera Mini 4
2. Better Bookmarking options as it is hard to bookmark from history. The dials should have options to fix them from the bookmarks as well
3. And finally, please fix the keys to interpret long presses to mean the symbols on Nokia e series keypads. They just don’t work very well

If you have Ovi Store installed on your Nokia E63 then do the following.

Go into Ovi Store, “Recommended” tab and search for the word “digitalchocolate” without the quotes. All digital chocolate games are available for download for free. I’ve been downloading for the past hour and still have managed to get to the 2nd page only. It may work on E71 as well.

Let me know in the comments if it worked for you

I used to have a regular workout, three years ago. I couldn’t pay for it then and had to borrow my father’s money for the yearly gym membership. But then I started to earn money. And finally I had started to earn enough to pay for my workouts.

Unfortunately that is also the time that I had to quit my gym because I had no time for it after working hard enough to earn the membership fee.

Moral of the story, if you have to work too hard to pay for a gym, you may not have time to have a workout there.

And that is why I have switched to a home routine now. Check out hundredpushups.com

Currently I am in the middle of Week 2. I used to be able to do only 30 pushups in four sets. Today I managed 68 in 5. Try it out. I bet anything that you’ll like it.

23rd Augusst 2009, a red marked day on my calendar. I’ve already set alarms and sms alerts for this very special day. It is (or was) the day that Michael Schumacher got back in an F1 car.

Sadly, as I’ve just seen the confirmation on all news sites I follow, that will not be slow. The greatest enemy of cars, motorcycles, have seen to it that M. Schumacher is no longer fit for driving an F1 car. Therefore, My Life Is Average again.

However, in the scathingly tangy taste of disappointment, I am somewhat happy. He left at the top of his game with a race that really showed what he was made of. No need to come back now and ruin the dreams, right? (Ahem, Ahem, remember Michael Jordan anyone?

I’ve seen the greatest racer, the greatest basketball player, the greatest cricketer, (Not the greatest footballer though), greatest golfer, greatest tennis player, greatest swimmer, the list goes on. I guess I can be moderately satisfied with the emergence of talent during my lifetime.

Take rest Michael (Schumacher, not Jackson), we have your old race videos. They’ll serve to fill the void that you’ve left in F1.

P.S. How about coming back next year? Yeah? Yeah?

“Confidence is function of knowledge, You have to believe it. YOU MUST!”

“You have a beautiful mind. WHO CARES?”

“Appearance is so important. APPEARANCE IS EVERYTHING!”

So many other quotes are out their from this source. Just need your help in compiling them. Fire your collected quotes away in the comments. Lets see how much we can collect!

Open Menu, go to Notes and write you reminder. Click Done. Select the note from the list, click options and select “Set on Standby Screen”. There you go, instant reminders for your activities.

I usually write a to do list and keep updating it on the screen. Have fun!

The correct link for downloading doc viewer is :
http://rapidshare.com/files/36805406/Doc_Viewer.jar.htm

I am using this application on my Sony Ericsson Aino.
It is very fast and good.

Edit: From reader Ulisses

<Hi, I found this great app for viewing XLS and DOC files. It read files very fast: http://rs58.rapidshare.com/files/36805406/Doc_Viewer
Tested on a Sony Ericsson W380i, works real great.
Found on this forum: http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=153064
Cheers!>

It works. Thanks Ulisses

This is more of a workaround than a how to.

1. Install Opera Mini 4 (Visit http://operamini.com)
2. Start Opera Mini and visit http://mobile.google.com
3. Go into Google Docs (The direct link [skipping step 2] is http://docs.google.com)
4. Login with your Google Login and Password
5. If the document you want to view is in Gmail then you can simply go to http://m.gmail.com and click on the attachment link to view the file. If it is in your phone’s memory card, then follow the next step
6. Go into Google Docs from Opera Mini, select upload after logging in. Show the location of the file on your memory card. (The phone will ask if you want Opera Mini to read or Write to memory and a lot of other permissions, simply say “Yes”)
7. After the upload finishes, the document will be available for viewing at the list of documents at Google Docs.

I’m still looking for a Java application for this. But for the time being, this seems to be the only option.

Let me know if you find something at the comments,

T.A.L.E.N.T stands for Typically Asynchronus Language for Ensuring Notable Tension & temper.  The tension and temper, incidentally,  is caused to the other beings near a verbal exchange in T.A.L.E.N.T due to their complete misunderstanding of the ways of it. 

Little is known about T.A.L.E.N.T as it is only understood by the companies and another group of semi-humanoid beings called MANAGEMENT (MANAGEMENTs are covered in details in the 73rd edition of the Graduates Guide to the Corporates –GGC, an excellent book suitable for all individuals hoping to work in a company, completely unsuitable for anyone with the slightest bit of common sense).

 The beauty of T.A.L.E.N.T. lies in the fact that untrained ears consider it to be a meaningless exchange of bragging and blatant a$$-kissing. Following example defines the case in point. 

(The following conversation took place between two company managements, one higher in rank and a direct boss of the other) 

——————-

High Manger (HM): Well done! Pulled another 13 hour day, I see.

Low Manager (LM): Sir, with you as a leader, I never dream of going home. Who needs a wife when I have a job like this?

HM: Now, now. Work life balance is very important; we don’t want you to move away from your family.

LM: Boss, it doesn’t matter. My work is my motivation. The last big project we successfully implemented gave me more pleasure than anything I have ever felt. It feels good to be valued to be given so many important tasks.

HM: Yes, we like people whose work is their motivation. I personally feel I would still work even if the company stopped paying me.

——————-

At this point, the unfortunate listener hacked the LM to pieces and delivered a fatal blow to the HM. In his last breath the HM gave the only translation of T.A.L.E.N.T. ever heard by a humanoid.

——————-

High Manger (HM): Well done! Pulled another 13 hour day, I see. (You inefficient moron, I can do your work in 10 minutes)

Low Manager (LM): Sir, with you as a leader, I never dream of going home. Who needs a wife when I have a job like this? (Go ahead then. And where is that promotion I have been busting my a$$ for?)

HM: Now, now. Work life balance is very important; we don’t want you to move away from your family. (Promotion? What promotion?)

LM: Boss, it doesn’t matter. My work is my motivation. The last big project we successfully implemented gave me more pleasure than anything I have ever felt. It feels good to be valued to be given so many important tasks. (Then I have no choice but to look for other options. There are lots of other places!

HM: Yes, we like people whose work is their motivation. I personally feel I would still work even if the company stopped paying me. (Go right ahead. We have lots of people standing in line for your job at much lower pay.)

——————-

T.A.L.E.N.T is universally understood by all companies in all part of the galaxy. Some say, the proficiency of MANAGEMENT in T.A.L.E.N.T is what promotions are based on in companies. As a result most people feel that the braggers, a$$-kissers and the completely talentless (not to be mistaken with T.A.L.E.N.T.less) are the ones to get promoted in a company.

Which, of course, is exactly what happens.

(1) English is a grossly underdeveloped earthbound language used by humanoids and semi-humanoids.It does not even allow the simplest telepathic, telemorbismic or even day to day conversation. Inter-Galactic Council of Language (ICL, which is shunned by Inter-Galactic Permissible Lingua (IPL) for the simple reason that they eat into their profits!) defines English as, “A Medicore language like method of communication which is yet to decide on a way of saying hello. The current mode of greetings in English include “Greetings”, “Good Morning”, “Hey”, “Yo”, “Wazzup”, “Yo Maan”, “Whatcha Cookin’” (What cooking has to do with greeting is the beyond the comprehensive intellect of ICL and IPL combined), “Yo Bro”, “Hiya Sis” etc. and the less used but infinitely  more meaningful, “Hello”.)

Edit5: Now hack works in the Official 1.0 Releases.

Note something about the script. There are two dashes at the start of the script, not one large one.

Edit 4: Confirmed that this hack only works with the dev channel build of Chrome v0.4.154.33

Edit 3: At long last. A solution is available. With the developer release of Chrome v0.4.154.33 Chrome Developer Team has notified of a temporary workaround. Here is how it works,

Right Click on your Google Chrome Shortcut on Your Desktop and select properties

Paste this following code in the Target field in addition the text already there (Something like “C:Documents and Settings<Username>…Chrome.exe”). Make sure to keep a space after [Chrome.exe"] and then paste

–user-agent=”Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.19 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1 Safari/525.19″

Note something about the script. There are two dashes at the start of the script, not one large one.

Click OK. Then open this new shortcut to browse Hotmail. This enables Hotmail to recognize Chrome as Safari. Chrome team has said they are trying to sort this out with MS. And those who thought this was a problem with MS not Chrome were absolutely right. This is a issue solvable only by Microsoft. Until that happens (don’t hold your breath), keep using this.

This hack should work with previous versions of Chrome as well. I’ve tested with Chrome v0.4.154.33 and worked fine with me. Just a suggestion, before you start browsing using the new shortcut just clear your browser cache for good measure.

If you want to use the dev releases (Extremely unstable releases) you can learn how to do it here. Please mind that sometimes the dev builds mess up (as they said they would) big time. For instance the current build v0.4.154.33 has serious issues with Flash. However, they usually patch up large glitches within a few hours, I’ve never seen any other software dish out updates so fast.

Happy Chroming!

Edit2: Still no solution. But if you are tired of the BS of MS please help yourself to this handy tutorial for migrating to Gmail.

Edit: Sorry all. I didn’t test out Hotmail properly before writing this. I couldn’t send mail, just like the previous versions. However, reading and other activities like sorting and storing mail seems to work fine. If you are having problems with facebook, please upgrade your chrome with devchannel. Then it works fine

It seems a few people are landing on my blog looking for a way to open Hotmail in chrome.

Here goes,

1. Visit Hotmail.com

2. Login

3. The resulting page says that Hotmail cannot identify your browser (Typical MS style, if you think it’s better than your own, pretend it doesn’t exist! Try ignoring Firefox now!). Near the bottom of this page is a link which says “continue anyway” or something on that mood. Click on that and you are good to go. And use the new 0.4beta of Chrome for better performance.

Take care

There are choices aplenty and choosing the best is hardly a task to take lightly. As I, a deadlocked Firefox fan, have recently found out, choice gets pretty difficult when upgrades arrive. Currenty I’m using Google Chrome for those Javascript heavy pages and Firefox for everything else.

So, which one is the best? Is it the ever trustworthy, feature and plugin packed Firefox? Or should we look to the shiny newcomer Chrome? Or is the answer, simple and trendy Safari? Or is it, God forbid, the monster from the house of evil, Internet Explorer?

Unfortunately, at this point I got really confused. There are features I love in all of these browsers. But none of them are perfect. If I absolutely had to live with just one, I’d live with Firefox, hands down. But is there no one to do them one better? Do I have to make sacrifices?

What if I didn’t have to? What if there was a browser which had the best from all of these and made a “Super Browser” which would be the ultimate browser of them all?

So, what would that browser be like (apart from the fact that they’d name it after me of course).

• It’d have the interface of Chrome. Simple, elegent, flowing and just too good to use. It’s an absolute joy to use. Most importantly, it has a ton of screen space and zero clutter.
• It’d have Firefox’s add-on support. And also that huge library of add-on goodies.
• Safari would donate the font rendering. Even the crappiest sites look like a beauty in Safari. Great going Apple, now hand it over. Please!
• Technology would come from various sources. Namely Chrome’s Sandboxing, Firefox’s security and customizability, and definitely Webkit.
• Opera’s start up dial and integrated downloader with torrent support would be lovely.
• I heard IE8 webslices are kinda nice. We could take that from Microsoft’s browser I guess, or not.

What else should be there? What are your thoughts?

Please leave a comment. And if you choose IE, be warned.

Bad things can happen.

At first I expected to write a detailed step by step HowTo for this. But having gone thorugh the process again a few days ago changed my perspective.

Zyb.com now has a very freindly and step by step instruction to help you set up your phone. You don’t even have to put in the settings yourself as Zyb can send you an SMS on your phone to automatically setup.

I wrote the last part a week ago. And throughout this week I have used all of Zyb’s services. I cannot emphasize this enough, it is an absolute gem of a service. From a mere storage space for your cell phone contacts it has moved onto a full fledged contact manager. Following are the best parts and also some parts that may need some polish on Zyb.com

1. Brilliant Contact Management: I imported all my phone, gmail and facebook contacts. Once in, Zyb let me merge the duplicates, add and remove details, connect face book profiles with numbers and best of all, sync them all back to my phone. Zyb also identified the contacts who were already using Zyb and updated their details from their Zyb profile. Cool!

2. SMS Storage, Photo Storage: Zyb rightly identified that contacts are not the only things I want to store. So they let me store photos and SMS as well. I just wish they could sync them though.

3. Duplication and Errors in Syncing: Yup! It’s not all sugar and cream. Sometimes I found duplicate contacts and sync errors which I haven’t yet figured out how to get rid of.

4. Things I wish they add: Best thing would be to pull contact details from facebook profiles. Another feature request, sync contact photos if possible.

Zyb also has a software for N-Series and smartphones which seems to be pretty nice. I haven’t had the chance to use it though. All in all, I give Zyb.com a 3.5 out of 5.

They can easily get full marks by fixing what they already have and by giving me what I want.

If both captains have a chat and BD declares the 1st Inning without batting and NZ declares the 2nd in the same manner, we shall have a thriller on our hands.

What do you guys think?

Even though I started to write this quite a while back, I never got around to writing it in full. And today the point has already been made therfore this post is rahter reduntant.

That never really stopped me before and this time is not going to be any different in case you expect something different.

ICL has created two teams that have something in common. Both teams have a lot to prove and absolutely nothing to lose. While team Bangladesh has moved forward by winning agianst New Zealand, Dhaka Warriors are now fighting for their lives in ICL. So far, they have done quite a good job of it.

Why should we cheer for Dhaka Warriors?

1. They’ve given the cricket of Bangladesh a much needed thrashing. Cricketers, coaches and board execs needed a sudden wake up call from the state of complacency that they were in
2. Dhaka Warriors have made sure that BCB hunt for more talents. They’ve also made sure that people want to take up cricket as a career, because there are now other big money makers than just the national team
3. In the national team they didn’t gave me anything to cheer about in the last year. Now they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I belive they’ll play a much better game from now on
4. BD won against New Zealand after these guys left, for that alone, I am greatful. I really am!

And lastly, I’m happy to have two teams to cheer for.

Go Bangladesh!

Best of luck, Warriors!

The phone rings in the background. An indiscrete noise inside a bland decor of red and white. Indistinguishable from all other rings except for the strength of it. I know it rings from the table beside mine.

I don’t pick up.

The gentleman at the “table beside mine” is on holiday. The phone rings for me.

I don’t pick up.

The printer comes alive, page after page rushes out. I wonder, “How much wood does this floor go through every day? How many trees?”
The phone keeps on ringing.

I don’t pick up.

People rush through the isle. Some with purpose, some with haste, others just for the sake of rushing. I see a familiar face. The face notices, acknowledges recognition with a perfunctory wave, rushes by. I never wave back.

The phone stops ringing.

My cell phone comes alive.

I don’t pick up.

I close my eyes.
I pick up my bag, throw away my tie, push someone out of my way, run to the door and never stop. Cars honk, pedestrians shout, children cry, beggers beg, dogs bark and I run. Streets give way to brick roads, brick roads to mud lanes, mud lanes to grasses, and finally, grasses to trees.
I stop running.

Green, quite, soft, mellow and kind, the forest seems unaware of my presence. I breathe the clean air, savour the silence and sit down on the ground again.

In the distance, a phone starts ringing again.

I open my eyes.

I don’t pick up.

Picasa 3 is a worthy update that any picasa user may try out. I am not going into a detailed feature review. But I am going to touch on a few things that everyone should watch out for when the final edition comes out.

Picasa Photo Viewer: This was the only option that picasa lagged. And now it has arrived. You can configure picasa to open files and browse through them all you want. The ribbon like picture sifter at the bottom of the screen is pretty handy. But few things are still required.  First, a setting for controlling the zoom level in the picture viewing window. I have some photos which look miniscule on my 20 inch. I need them to appear at a certain level of zoom everytime I open them. ACDSee had such an option and it made all the difference. Secondly, I need some control over the slideshow mode. The options setting from the picture viewer doesn’t let you do much. At least a timer control would be nice. But I loved the keyboard and mouse based zoom in zoom out and also faded and transparent background that shows the desktop while you are viewing a smaller photo. Oh, you can upload from the photo viewer as long as you are logged into the web album. Loved that part, makes photo upload a piece of cake.

Videos: Ever tried making videos from you photos? Quite a cumbersome task if all you want is to just put a track at the back and some captions at the bottom. Take it from someone who has used quite a lot of video editing options, Picasa3 is the best option for you to make videos out of your pics. The effects are pretty simple, and there are not a bunch of options for editing and text effects. But for making a simpe slideshow, video with a music track, customized timing, and text caption, Picasa3 is by far the best software out there. Best of all? You can directly upload to Youtube from the software

Collages: Now there is a lot more control over the collages you create. The previous pathatic click-and-hope-everything-turns-out-the-best approach is gone. Now you can rotate, change, mix and match and do a bunch of things to the picture pile you just created. Have fun with your background people. That’s what my collages are usually for

GeoTag: Does exactly what it says. Couple it with Google Earth and you can place your photos on the exact spot that they were taken.

Other things to look out for are the options to make posters, posting to blog and many other teeny tiny improvements. The overall sorting and shuffling and archiving and other functions are better. The whole interface contains little tweaks that make the experience a lot better. Try it out, you’ll see.

Some experimental features are also on this beta. And some of those should make it to the end product. And the one I want most is

Find Duplicates: I have millions of duplicates of my photos and I really need something to sort them out. The experimental feature doesn’t show all duplicates side by side, but that should not be a problem to fix. To the guys and gals at Picasa, “Please make this work right.”

Another killer feature would be the ability to export all your photos to a single place. Sort of like the iTunes music folder organizer option. There might be something already in Picasa for this, but in case there isn’t, “Could you please make this happen as well.”

You can download Picasa 3 beta from here

Since there is very little chance of finding one such guide on Earth (it may be stressed that such a guide is most likely in existence somewhere in the universe simply due to the vastness of the universe itself and the law of probability), I have decided to write one myself. Therefore ladies, gentlemen, androids and corporate slaves, welcome to

The Company

According to the guide, the Company is the largest paradoxical being in the history of the universe. Anyone outside it’s influence want to be in it, and everyone in it wants to get out. The only other being that the Company is similar to is a Vogon. Therefore, by definition of a Vogon, a company is a large and unpleasant being mostly concerned with order among the people near it and a great fan of paperwork. It is not evil, in the sense of the word, but according to the people who has come into the contact of a Company, it is preferable to stay away from one. As for it’s love of paperwork, it is said that if the Companies were not in existence, there would be a lot more trees left in the universe. In fact, Composphere, the home planet of the Companies, was destroyed due to massive logging and paper-making leading to global warming and eventual destruction of the planet.

History of the Company suggests that they settled into various parts of the universe right around the time human race came into existence, roughly somewhere in the official galactic year of 420.666. Coincidentally, this is the year when Earth was declared off limits to all galactic being except the Companies.

Today Companies are spread across the universe in many forms. In the second capital of the Galactic Empire of Darth Vader, Companies are large leech-like creatures that try to suck money out of any unaware civilian near them. Unfortunately, during the process, the civilian usually dies.

Food habits of the Company are variable in nature. But they usually prefer money. When in short of money Companies have been known to have cannibalistic nature. Large Companies, when hungry, eat smaller Companies.

Companies have a habit of sharing small portions of their food with people around them. That is why beings who like money tend to be around Companies.

What to do when you face one in a dark and blocked alley?

Most people say that you deserve to die because you let yourself get caught in that position. Others say that running or fighting is futile. Any fight with a Company can only be won if you have another Company’s support.

If you are all alone in that alley with no hope of help from anywhere.

Take a piece of paper and a laptop and pretend to be hard at work.

It helps.

I stayed at Hotel Mustafiz in Mymensingh for the trip – Clean and well maintained with guarded parking and a filling station in front. Can’t ask for more, can I?

I ate at two restaurants  – ROM 3 and Sarinda. Both served excellent food in a moderately clean interior. I’d recommend both

I took my own car as I couldn’t find anything for hire in Mymensingh. In case you are planning to go without a car, make sure that you hire one from Dhaka. The other modes of transport are not very friendly and definitely not comfortable

And if you can, get someone like my friend Ahmed Raihan Ahsanullah to go along. Thank you for everything brother, it was an absolutely marvellous trip.

And last but not least, if the wheel of your car happens to get stuck in a dirty clogged drain, people will gather around to see the spectacle. They will suggest that you let the tiniest one of them a chance to pick up the car by hand and drop it on the road. They’ll not listen to your requests of keeping clear of the drain and eventually someone will fall in it due to his infinite enthusiasm (at this point some of the people looking at the car will get distracted and will put their attention on the man in the drain). They’ll come even closer when you’ve managed to raise the car by a jack and are trying to build up revs to get up from the ditch. They’ll again ignore when you warn them of being hit by a barrage of sh*t laden drain water. And in the end some of them literally will get a mouthful of the foul smelling garbage from the drain and only then will they retire.

Trust me, this is what happens.

At least, this is what happened when my car got stuck.

1. Change the default Blue Skin to Black – Million thanks to Upnishad from GeekPedia
2. Put the home button on the toolbar – a silly one, I know, but still I saw people asking this in some forums. Thanks goes to Technipages and others who wrote a Howto for this
3. Download Google Chrome Portable without Google Update – Thanks to Caschy
4. Block ads in chrome (adblock replacement) – Two ways of doing this as far as I have found

Privoxy – Here’s how to use it with chrome – Thanks goes to Boris Fritscher

Admuncher – Sorry, can’t find a Howto for it

This is the list so far. Will update as for TnT rolls in. Cheers

Before going into a feature for feature review of Chrome and Firefox I’d just like to point out something. At this point Chrome is at a very early Beta. It is supposed to be buggy and underperforming than the others. I shall point out where each browser does well. In the future whoever builds on their own strengths while copying good stuff from everyone else will be the final winner.

Feature against Feature Review:

• Startup Time and Speed: This is what got me interested in Chrome. Even in my Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM mahcine FF takes a second or two to fire up. But Chrome was almost instantaneous. I open and close my browser quite a few times over the day, those two seconds matter to me. Period. Chrome also performed pretty well in processing Java based apps like Gmail. FF 0 Chrome 1
• Memory Management: Conceptually Chrome is a clear winner with seprate tab processing and stoppage of memory leaks. However, it still doesn’t play well with some of the plugins, especially Flash. So a visit to Youtube and other flash based websites are quite disastrous. This has been an improvement area for FF for too long, particularly on the issue of memory leaks. I’m just sad that Google got the concept right on this early beta. (I’m a FF fanboy) If you use non-flash websites and open a few tabs, Chrome takes much less memory. Closing the tabs also frees up more memory in Chrome than FF. FF 0 Chrome 2
• Look and Feel: Chromes tab-at-at-the-top, omnibox, translucent windows, lack of a statusbar works for me. I like the small animations in moving tabs, starting downloads,  closing and opening windows, reattaching and reorganizing tabs. They just make a mundane task a little bit bearable. I also like the option to use web apps through stand alone shortcuts. FF 0 Chrome 3
• Javascript and Other Support: Yes chrome was faster, but it still does not play too well with a lot of Google’s own websites. And in some Ajax based sites, particularly Facebook, it couldn’t process some codes properly and they showed up beside text boxes and other places. For now at least, FF 2 Chrome 3 (This is worth 2 points to me on any day)
• Plugins and Customizability: Chrome doesn’t even come close to FF. A lot of Chrome and Operas features can be mimicked through plugins. This advantage alone is worth three points to FF. However, I should point out that Google plans to bring plugin support to Chrome and if only a few major FF plugins make it to Chrome then the whole game would change. FF 5 Chrome 3
• Omnibox vs. Awesome Bar: I’d say I like both. Neither is a clear winner yet. I like the search engine integration in chrome. But FF is better at giving suggestions from history and bookmarks. Somehow I felt Omnibox was a bit confusing, but that maybe just from lack of familiarity. But all in all it’s a draw. FF 5 Chrome 3

To summarize, Chrome is not ready for mainstream yet. It excels in unchartered territories, but lacks in the common ground. I can guess that Chrome will learn to play a lot better and will sort out a lot of the kinks. I am amazed that Chrome works with so many websites at such an early stage. If they listen to the feature requests and bug reports (which I think they will), Chrome has the potential to be at the top. However, I’ll be sticking to Firefox for the days to come. Having said that, I’m not going to uninstall chrome either. Because when Chrome hits 1.0

I just might switch.

This is a very simple method of a rather complicated process. Thanks to the people behind gcalsync Project for making it happen.

This is a little java application that connects to your google calendar and downloads the entries. Unfortunately the upload function created duplicates in the online version so I had to disable it. Another backside is that it doesn’t understand repeated events. But it still beats not having calendar syncing at all. Here is how to do it.

1. Visit http://wap.gcalsync.com on your mobile phone or http://www.gcalsync.com on your computer. Then download the signed version of gcalsync.jar (it is available on the front page)
2. Follow the installation instructions, that is, press yes on whatever the phone asks (for using the file downloaded in your computer file, transfer the gcalsync.jar file to your phone via bluetooth or cable)
3. Start up gcalsync from the application menu (I’m guessing you’d be saving it under applications)
4. It will ask for your google email and password. Put in your complete google email address i.e. “yourID@gmail.com”. Press “Save”
5. Go to Options>Upload/Download and uncheck the box beside upload and press “Save”
6. You can customize your sync period. I usually sync for 30 days ahead and 1 day before. You can change it under Option>Sync Period
7. Press Sync. It will ask to connect to internet, then to read user data and then to write user data. Say yes to all of them and you should be done. Trouble shooting tips are available here. Scroll down, when you reach the page, for tips.
8. In case the software can’t connect to the internet, or read/write user data then exit the application. Go to Application>put the cursor on gcalsync and press More>Permissions and then set
   • Internet Access to Ask Once
   • Read User Data to Always Ask
   • Write User Data to Always Ask

And that should sync your google calendar with your Sony Ericsson W810i.

Keep organizing!