Why a post on the n82 out of the blue? After all, it's been 8 months since I stopped using it full time and around 4 months since I gave it to my mother. Something happened in the last few days that made me realize that there is no turning back.

That something was a little option hidden in my Galaxy S camera app, the anti-shake. Until now, most of my photos were blurry, mainly caused by the fact that the SGS doesn't have a dedicated camera button and when you tap the on-screen shutter, it shakes the phone a little bit. But once I enabled this option, my photos became much sharper.

What does it have to do with the n82? Well, the camera on that little gem is a piece of art and a part of me always missed it, no matter how much I like the SGS in other respects. But now, I've realized that it is time to move on.

But there was one last hurrah for the n82. Last sunday, we bought a new cycle for my daughter. Like any normal kid, she wanted to ride it "Right NOW". It was around 6:15 pm and unfortunately, my camera's battery was out of charge. So which phone did I pick up? You guessed it.

I wrote this post after the Monaco race, but forgot to post it. Well, better late than never...

 

We are now 6 races into the F1 season and we’ve had 6 crackers with lots of overtaking, I cannot remember a time when there was so much happening all at once. Why was overtaking so infrequent in F1? What changed to make such a drastic difference? Here’s my take on it. DISCLAIMER:I don’t profess to be a technical expert, just a passionate fan who has been following F1 for the last 25 years . 

 

Firstly coming to overtaking, I think there are three main reasons for why it was so uncommon in F1

Aerodynamics: The most common method of overtaking in a straight line is slipstreaming. Slipstreaming occurs when the car behind occupies the hole in the air created by the car in front before the space is filled up by the displaced air. Due to the reduced wind resistance, the car behind is able to go faster and overtake. You may well ask why slipstreaming has reduced? When a car moves, the air that it displaces has to go somewhere. The goal of the F1 car designers is to direct the air as they pass through in a way that it presses the car down and gives more grip, thus enabling the car to go through the corner faster. It’s the reverse of aeroplanes where they try to achieve lift. That is why the F1 cars have these big wings in the front and back. The downside of the aerodynamics was that the air that exited the back of the cars was so turbulent that the effectiveness of the aerodynamic design was greatly reduced for the car behind. So, the effectiveness of the wings was reduced and the car could not go as fast and fell behind enough to not be able to slipstream

 

Cornering speeds: In the olden days, the cars would be going 300 kmph on the straight but when they came upon a corner, they would need to reduce the speed to 80-90 kmph to have any chance of making it through the corner safely. Since the tyres and brakes of the day were not that advanced, cars had to brake 50-100 m before the corner and this gave the opportunity for the car behind to delay their braking by 10-15 metres and overtake the car going into the corner. However, with the advance in tyre technology (and aerodynamics), the speed that the car could carry through the corner increased and with the advent of carbon-fibre brakes, the braking distances reduced significantly. As a result, the opportunity to “out-brake” someone into a corner reduced significantly.

 

Strategy: One of the biggest changes in the sport was the advent of Michael Schumacher and the usage of pit-stops as an overtaking mechanism. He figured that since modern technology can make it so difficult to overtake cars on the track, why not pass them in the pits? The strategy involved staying out for a couple of laps after the car in front had pitted and driving to the maximum speed so that when you pitted for new tyres, you would come out ahead. He did this with astonishing success during his heyday. The downside to this was that it was very boring for the average spectator who could not understand the intricacies that went into the overtaking.

 

The FIA has been trying to remedy the situation and put up a good show for the spectators for a while now. In 2010, it banned refueling and made the usage of two tyre compounds mandatory. The hope was that teams would adopt different strategies and we would see cars with varying grip levels on track together, thus promoting overtaking. However, it did not work out as the tyres proved very durable and most teams stuck to one or maximum two pitstops, most of which were in sync with each other. The aerodynamic issues remained as before.

 

So, for 2011, they came up with 3 really bold steps, Drag Reduction system, high wearing tyres specification and KERS. Let’s look at each of them

DRS is the most controversial of the three rule changes. Basically the rear wings on the car are inclined at an angle when viewed from the side so that the air flowing over them presses the car down. This is most useful in the corner. However, in a straight line, the wings create more drag. That is why in circuits like Monza, which is a series of straights, we see the cars with wings that are almost parallel to the ground. DRS basically allows the teams to change the angle of the rear wing on the straight so that the car can go faster. Simple really. But, this is F1 and nothing is as simple. The catch is that DRS is only available if the car is less than a second behind the car in front and only on a specified area of the circuit. So, remember when you could not slipstream because you were falling behind on the corner? With DRS, you now have much lesser drag and can go significantly faster than the car in front and hence can get back into the slipstream and overtake.

 

The importance of aerodynamics had overshadowed the role that tyres played in providing the grip to the car. Historically, tyres have tried to strike a balance between softer rubber compounds that provide more grip but wear out faster and harder ones that last longer but aren’t as fast. The idea behind making the use of different compound tyres was the softer compound With the single tyre supplier rule in effect, Bridgestone had no real pressure to innovate. As a result, their tyres were so durable that 2010 saw many races reduced to a single stop race. In 2011, Pirelli won the contract to supply the teams with tyres and they were given the brief that the tyres had to wear out enough such that there was a marked difference in grip between the hard and soft compounds. In tracks like Spain, the hard compounds were two seconds a lap slower. But the soft compounds would wear out quickly, thus requiring more pit-stops. So, you had an option, lose 20+ seconds in a pit-stop but make up the time at 2 seconds a lap. An added twist was provided when top cars (Webber/China and Heidfeld/Spain) were knocked out in Q1. Since they had not used their soft tyres at all in qualifying, they were able to go much longer on these tyres, thus making it possible to gain enormous amounts of time on the cars in front of them during the closing stages of the race.

 

The least impactful change was the re-introduction of the KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System). While braking, the energy is dissipated as heat, KERS allows that to be transformed to electrical energy and stored in a battery. This gives an additional 10% “boost” over the engine power thus enabling the cars to go even faster. KERS can only be used for 6 seconds over a single lap, so the driver must choose the spot carefully.

 

So, what has been the impact of these changes? We’ve had lots of overtaking, some thrilling come from behind drives (Webber from 18^th to 3^rd in China, Heidfeld from 24^th to 8^th in Spain) and a huge number of pit-stops. There is so much action that it is impossible to get a complete view just watching it on TV. My usual practice is to have my laptop open with the Live Timing in one window and a twitter feed (where I follow some of the prominent F1 journalists) in another. The live timing gives you wonderful insight especially in the mid-field that rarely gets much coverage. It was fascinating to see the gap from Webber and Heidfeld to the driver in front come down by 2-3 seconds a lap. And just to prove a point that it’s not all about overtaking, we’ve seen Vettel soak up enormous pressure at Turkey and Monaco and still keep it together.

 

With all this excitement, I can barely wait for the next race to come on.

The 2011 motor racing season is kicking off in a couple of weeks and I'm really excited. There are a lot of rule changes for F1 with new tyres (Pirelli replaces Bridgestone), KERS, adjustable rear wings among others. The tyres seem to be the biggest change as pre-season testing has shown them to be not as durable as last seasons tyres, so it should make for good racing as tyres wear out. Still, I doubt the pecking order is going to change much, RedBull and Ferrari are clear of the rest with Renault the closest. The real surprise is how far back Mclaren seem to be, but never write them off.

I think the drivers championship is going to be one of Vettel, Webber and Alonso. I wouldn't be surprised to see Heidfeld, Massa, Hamilton and Button win a race or two, but they will struggle to match the top 3 over the season.

The MotoGP championship is going to be much more predictable. The year sees big changes with Stoner moving to Honda and Rossi moving to Ducati. In pre-season testing, Stoner had been fastest every single session, but Pedrosa had been quite close and Lorenzo not too far behind. So, I expect these three to fight for the championship with the rest quite a ways behind. Stoner should take it, but never count out Dani or Jorge. Rossi is quite a way back, I doubt he would figure in the front of the field.

Whichever way the races go, I'm going to be watching.

Boy, was I glad when Apple unveiled the iPad2? Other than a speed bump and cameras, nothing very special. Nothing that screamed "Buy me.Buy me."

I'm glad for that. I won't have buyers remorse for buying the iPad. I won't have to break into a sweat to think of a reason to justify buying it.

All I need to do is stop listening to Macbreak Weekly. Because when Andy Ihnatko waxes eloquent on how much better and faster the iPad 2 is compared to the original, all bets are off:-)

I was coming down in the lift this morning and overheard a couple of neighbours talking. One of them had a problem with their baby sitter. Apparently, she had asked for a couple of days leave and when they refused, she left saying that she was quitting. She came back a couple of days later, apologized and resumed her duty. In his words "You can't believe the arrogance of these people, they know we have no choice and take advantage...I am going to build a backup...teach a lesson..."

I wonder what he would have thought if he could listen to himself speak. Who is arrogant, the poor woman struggling to make ends meet, who probably made an emotional decision in the heat of the moment or him, who thinks that paying someone a few thousand rupees a month allows him to control her life?

Experiences like this make me despair for the future of our country.

We are on the lookout for an affordable 2bhk apartment in Bangalore (an oxymoron if there ever was one). Last weekend, we learnt that one flat was available in our neighbourhood.

It is a no-frills apartment complex, the builder had used almost 90% of the land to build a 5 storey complex. The build quality is decent with good materials used everywhere. The flat itself was fairly good, decent ventilation and lighting with minimal wear and tear. A similar flat had recently sold for 43l, so I expected the owner to quote around 50l and settle at around 45l.

Imagine my surprise when he quoted 69l for the flat. His reasoning was this, he paid 42l when he purchased the flat in 2005, paid a load of money in pre-emi till he got possession in 2007, paid registration, spent a few lakhs on woodwork and has been paying emi for the past 4 years. Considering all these as his investment, he feels that he will lose money unless he sells for this price.

I felt sorry for the guy, he felt that he was buying an asset, instead he has got a big white elephant, one on which he has lost money and the losses are only going to widen over time. Doubly sad is that due to the high prices prevailing today, more people are falling into the same trap.

I have pretty much decided that the current desktop computer that I assembled back in 2007 would be the last conventional desktop tower that I would build/buy. Though my usage of this computer has been minimal and has further decreased since I got the iPad, it is still used regularly by my mother and daughter for surfing the net and casual gaming. It has been going strong and has shown no signs of death.

Atleast until last weekend. On Saturday, when my mother turned it on, nothing happened. There was a number of beeps and the power would just turn off.

I knew that the beeps meant something. Unfortunately, I had disposed off the packaging box for the motherboard, so I had to open up the case to look up the model number. A lookup on Intel's website revealed that the beeps were caused by the CPU shutting down for thermal reasons.

So, this meant taking off the heatsink and fan. I was fearing the worst that the thermal compound would have to be reapplied again. However, I saw that the heatsink had a lot of dust trapped between the plates. I cleaned that up and fixed the fan back and voilà, the PC was back in operation.

Here's a snap of the dust that was taken out of the heatsink and fan.

Lesson learnt from this, it's not enough just to clean the outside of your PC. Especially in Indian conditions, open up your case atleast once a year and blow out the accumulated dust.

For the past 10 years, I have managed my personal to-do list via Outlook. But as I go through the process of leaving my current job, I started looking at options that would allow me to maintain this data independent of my employer. I had a few simple requirements

 

1.       Ability to create one-time and recurring tasks and assigning a due date to them

2.       Simple UI to enter a task and  view the list of pending tasks

3.       Store the data in the cloud to be accessible anywhere on any device

4.       Ability to access the list via desktop and mobile. In addition, have an app for the two main mobile platforms of today (iOS and Android).

 

The first and most obvious choice for me was gmail tasks. It has a number of advantages: its free, very well integrated with my google account. On the flip side, it is extremely basic, has no features like categories, recurring tasks etc. And the real bummer is that there is no native Android app (from Google atleast) for it.

 

Beyond gmail, the next option was to look at the offerings from the other 3 internet giants, yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook. Yahoo offers similar functionality to Google but there is no mobile sync, so it was ruled out. Microsoft Live too offers the same functionality and also has ActiveSync support as an added advantage. However, even its tasks functionality was quite basic. I didn’t see any real differentiators between this and the Google solution. Since I use an Android phone, I preferred using Google’s offering. However, if I was to switch to Windows mobile, I’d probably go the other way.

 

There are a number of other companies that offer quite full-featured to-do lists, the most famous being Remember the Milk. I even went and created an account there, but it has a lot of restrictions on the free version and only the pro version (25 USD/year) gets features like access via the Android app.

 

Considering all these factors, I feel that Gmail tasks is the best compromise. I have downloaded an app called gtasks for my Android phone and will start the process of transferring all my tasks from Outlook to the Google cloud.

Spoilt with the ipad at home, my trusty old Nokia n82 was proving a little too clunky and limited in functionality. But, due to my mis-step with the nexus One, I was hesitant to take the leap. I considered many models, but every single one of the phones had some boxes that were left unchecked. Iphone 4, not released in india. Iphone 3GS, why buy one when the iphone 4 was launched. Desire, old gen processor. Galaxy S, no flash in camera. Nokia N8, too slow
processor. Thinking about it a little more, I realized that ss the new models kept coming in, my expectations from the phones was increasing and I was getting into a state of paralysis by analysis. Something had to change, so I decided to stop analyzing and pick the phone that offered the best compromise of the Ps and F’s, price, performance, features, future proof-ness. At this time, there was only one choice, the Galaxy S. I had quite a lot of time with the phone, having played with it at a Croma store and used a friend’s phone extensively to know that it was not a total dud.

 The phone is a massive hit for Samsung, catapulting it from the also-rans in the Android world to the very top of the heap in a matter of months. As a result, it was unavailable at a couple of the stores, Sangeetha and  Univercell. Luckily, when I checked at flipkart.com for 28K INR, it was available and I decided to order it without any delay. The phone arrived in a couple of days.

My Impressions
The first thing you notice is the weight, or the lack of it. Even my wife’s Wave feels much heavier. Many have equated this to a cheap feel, I think it is a choice between a heavier metal body and a lighter plastic one and Samsung has made the choice. The screen is fantastic and as it is gorilla glass, I haven’t worried about fitting a screen guard so far. It doesn’t have a dedicated camera button, so taking pictures is a bit of a pain. I also did not like the fact that the loudspeaker is at the rear of the phone, would have preferred it at the front or on the sides.

 A real positive surprise for me has been its performance as a phone. My biggest gripe with the Nexus One was that I would miss the phone ringing and when I would answer, I could not hear the other party in a noisy environment. The Galaxy S has been awesome, never missed a single call and calls sound even better than Nokias.

 I haven’t really used the camera extensively, but it seems adequate. It is fast to start up and operate. That was my biggest complaint with the n82, though it had a great camera, it would take 10-15 seconds before it could actually start shooting, which meant that the moment had already passed. One area where the Galaxy S falls short is the lack of flash, which means that it is pretty useless in low light conditions.

One problem with most Samsung phones is their commitment to providing regular updates. The Froyo update was delayed by almost 3-4 months and there is still some doubt on whether future updates will be forthcoming. When I bought the phone, it came with Android 2.1 (Éclair) and a couple of weeks later, I upgraded it to Froyo (2.2) using the official upgrade software. On both 2.1 and 2.2, I noticed a bit of lag, on occasion, the phone would just hang for a second or two. After some research, I discovered that it is a common problem caused by a wrong design decision made by Samsung and there is a software fix available for it (isn’t Android awesome). I rooted the phone (using the app z4root) and installed the fix (z4mod) and the phone has been fast ever since.

I am quite impressed with the battery life. With the Galaxy, I feel that the phone and the apps are so good that I use it a lot more than the Nokia. I typically unplug it at around 8 am and when I return back home at 7 pm, the battery is usually at 40-50% charge. This includes a couple of hours of phone calls, continuous twitter/facebook/email checking, web browsing and using a number of apps. I feel that as the phone gets older, I am not going to play with it as much, so I should easily end up with a 60% charge. The great thing is that the phone charges over USB, so there is no need to buy an extra charger, a plain
micro-USB cable is sufficient.

As a fan of Nokia for many years, I feel sad that I have to shift loyalties, but the reality is that they are so far behind and competition and are falling further behind. I have most probably bought my last Nokia product. However, I still intend to keep the n82 as a backup phone for my BSNL connection. But for the next year or so, the Galaxy is going to be my phone of choice.

When Apple released the iphone in 2007, it unleashed a veritable
tsunami on the mobile industry, so far ahead it was compared to the
competition. A couple of my friends had bought the original iphone
then through unofficial channels and the few minutes that I spent with
it was enough to get me hooked. Apple never launched the original
iphone here in India, they waited for a whole year and launched with
the iphone 3G. But, they priced it way too high at over 30K. At that
time, the max I had ever paid for a phone was 15K and my upper limit
was 20K, so I passed on the opportunity and bought a Nokia instead.

Part of the reason why I didn't pay the extra 10K was that I had
partly satiated my iphone lust with an ipod touch 1st generation that
I had bought a few months back. In the two years since, I have been
extremely happy with the ipod touch and am amazed at how well this
gadget has aged. It still runs most of the apps on the App Store, web
pages still load fast, the battery still lasts a few hours and the
screen looks as fantastic as ever.

Despite all these positives, I still felt that the ipod touch lacked a
few things as compared to the iphone. It was essentially a device that
was chained to the wifi in my house. It lacked a speaker, it didn't
have a camera. A good device it was, but it was no iphone.

By 2009, the mental price barrier that I had set for myself had gone
up significantly and when Apple launched the iphone 3GS in 2009,
fixing many of the shortcomings of the older model, I was sure that I
would buy it once they launched it in India. But, the wait was a long
one and as the months went by, my enthusiasm waned. In January, Google
launched what seemed to be the iphone killer, the Nexus One. I jumped
at the chance to buy one and got it in February. Compared to my ipod
touch, it was a speed demon. But it had so many rough edges that I
never really felt very comfortable with it. The other major problem
was the quality of the apps that were available for it. I could
clearly see that the apps for the ios platform were far superior. So,
when my friend offered to buy it from me, I did not hesitate and
resumed my wait for the iphone. Apple did finally launch the 3GS in
May this year, but that was too close to the iphone 4 launch, so I
decided to wait and watch what Apple had in store.

In January, a new phenomenon had arrived on the scene, the ipad.
Pundits were proclaiming how April 3, 2010 was a day that would be
forever remembered as the start of the ipad era, when computing
changed forever.  Though everyone who had seen it and used it was
raving about it, I was skeptical. I wanted to experience it for
myself. I had a couple of opportunities to buy the ipad and get it to
India, but the logistics never did work out. When I finally got a few
days back and used it for the first time, realization struck. The ipad
wasn't over-hyped, it was under-hyped!!! The naysayers may call it an
oversized ipod Touch, but the extra real estate transforms the user
experience in a way that words can never describe. Once you watch a
video on the big screen, the ipod touch's screen feels puny. To see a
photo slideshow playing on the screen is pure magic. While the app
developers came out with fabulous apps for the iphone, the ipad
provides a larger canvas that enables them to create masterpieces. The
ipad is now my favourite gadget and in the two weeks since I got it,
my laptop and desktop have been neglected.

So, what about the iphone? Earlier this week, my friend who had bought
the original iphone in 2008 got himself an iphone 3GS and wanted my
help to sell the iphone 2G. It was still on the ios 2.x firmware, so I
told him that I will upgrade him to the latest firmware after doing
some research. I managed to upgrade, jailbreak and unlock the phone
and used it for a couple of days. But the magic was gone. The camera
was awful and it had no video capture. My headphones didn't work with
it as the 3.5 mm jack was recessed into the body.  The phone was slow
when compared to the ipad. So, though I had the option to buy the
phone at a fantastic price, I passed on it and returned it back to
him. My dream of owning an iphone still lives on...