Tech Bangalore

[Video] Ice Cream Sandwich / CM9 running on LG Optimus One P500

Prashanth — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:11:27 +0000

XDA member lupohirp has ported CyanogenMod 9 which is based on latest Android version Ice Cream Sandwich. I flashed it on to my LG Optimus One to see ICS experience on my device.

What’s not working?

Audio
Wireless
Camera

Get the ROM & more details at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1448697

Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) desktop client 10CentMail lets you save big on email marketing

Prashanth — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 09:42:48 +0000

Amazon SES is an email service provided by Amazon for bulk and transactional emails. SES is very cost effective solution (10 cents for 1000 emails) compared to any other similar service in the market. But one problem with SES is it’s still in beta & hence its usage requires basic level of programming skills.

To address this issue, an application development company called Carver Lab has come up with the windows application 10centmail. 10centmail is very easy to use application which lets you take advantage of Amazon SES’s cost effectiveness without programming knowledge. You can create multiple email campaigns with set of recipients & email content. 10centmail supports CSV import for importing your email lists & HTML for content of the email. It also has mail merge options which lets you customize emails with name of the person etc. You can view real-time log of status of delivery of all emails and take actions if needed.

10centmail is free to use but free version adds a line “sent using 10centmail….” at the end of each mail. To get rid of this message, one has to buy license by paying 99 USD.

Nokia Lumia 800 first impressions

Prashanth — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:50:51 +0000

I got a chance to play around with Nokia Lumia 800 today. Thought of just jotting down what I like & dislike about the device. The device was with me for about an hour, so I consider this as first impression rather than a detailed review.

Build – It felt like a piece of chocolate!

One thing which no one can beat Nokia is, the build quality. Lumia 800 gives a great feeling when you hold it, unlike Samsung, it doesn’t feel like a cheap plastic finish. Power button is placed on the right side rather than usual top position. So it took me few minutes to turn it on, but it’s just one time surprise & you will get used to it later. Top of the phone consists slots for micro SD card & micro SIM card. Again little unusual to see those slots on top. One more turn-off was micro SIM slot. Yes, you read it right, you need to either have to use a SIM cutter or get a micro SIM replacement from your telecom operator to switch to this phone.

User Interface – Buttery Smooth!

“Buttery Smooth” was the term used by the Nokia person who gave the demo & it indeed is buttery smooth. UI was very responsive with amazing smooth transition effects. There was no evidence of lag anywhere. Lumia comes with two themes, light & dark, I liked dark theme more. Pinning a contact, bookmark or an app shortcut to the home screen makes it easy to access stuff we need often. Landscape mode isn’t supported on many places of the phone.

Browser – IE9 isn’t bad!

Being a developer, I know how much IE sucks. Half of the web designers time goes in making things work on IE! But IE9 is standard compliant unlike older versions. Lumia comes with IE9 as default browser & rendering is surprisingly great. Pages loaded quite fast, looked crisp & pinch to zoom was flawless. Interestingly the address bar is at the bottom unlike any other mobile browser & I personally felt its a good usability tweak.

I couldn’t try much of other great features like Camera, Nokia Drive, XBOX Live, Windows Office etc. Overall it looked like a very well made phone. What lacks in this smart phone is apps developed by developer community. It’s no way comparable to Android or iOS. But Nokia in association Microsoft are putting their best efforts in encouraging developers to develop apps on Windows Phone platform. So, we might see great development in days to come.

How non iPad users can take advantage of BSNL 3G iPad micro sim tariff!

Prashanth — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:07:52 +0000

BSNL recently announced exclusive tariff for iPad users. Once the SIM gets activated, customer gets 1GB of usage per month for 6 months at no additional cost. All you need to pay is Rs.100 for the SIM card!! Another good thing about BSNL iPad offering is unlimited plan, which isn’t available for normal consumers. BSNL offers two unlimited plans for iPad users, Rs.99 per day & Rs.999 per month. But since it is micro sim, it can be used only with devices with micro sim card slot.

BSNL iPad plans were irresistible for me to just leave, so I did a little research to see if I can make use of this micro sim card. A search on ebay for micro sim adapter brought up many results!! So basically there are adapters available to make micro sim as big as a normal sim card so that it can be used in any device! Be it your phone, datacard etc! Right now it is working fine for me, I’m not sure how long it takes BSNL to detect device and block the connection! Or will they even care about it!?

BSNL 3G iPad tariff

Ebay Result for adapters

Update:

This no longer works since BSNL recently changed their iPad tariff and discontinued unlimited plans as per TRAI regulation. Check for more details: http://www.bsnl.co.in/service/3G/3G_files/ipad_dataplans.htm

Tech Bangalore Android App!

Prashanth — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 04:10:46 +0000

For all the readers of Tech Bangalore who use Android, there’s a good news! Now there’s an app of Tech Bangalore which you can install on Android and access this blog from there itself. Remember that you need to enable installing from unknown sources by going to “Settings->Applications”. For those who don’t have android phone, Tech Bangalore has a mobile version too.

Download Link

QR Code:

[Chrome Extension] Bring back Les Paul Doodle on Google Home Page!

Prashanth — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 18:39:50 +0000

My obsession with Les Paul Google Doodle has not ended yet! I previously wrote how one can still access it. Now I went one step ahead to bring it on to the Google home page itself. I’ve written a Google Chrome extension which replaces Google logo with Les Paul guitar doodle. Currently it works only on google.com. google.co.in & google.co.uk. I need to find a list of all google domains to make it work on all google home pages.

Install the extension from Google Chrome Webstore & do report issues/bugs through comments.

Update: Now works on 181 Google domains!

Loved Les Paul Guitar Google Doodle? Here is how you can still access it!

Prashanth — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 04:32:20 +0000

Google had an interactive doodle on 9th June on occasion of Les Paul’s 96th birthday, American country & jazz guitarist. This was instantly one of the popular doodle Google ever made. The Guitar doodle allowed users to play it & record what they played. If you have missed it here is the link to access & play with it!

http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html

Browser Wars in India: Narrow market share gap between IE, Firefox & Chrome

Prashanth — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:47:22 +0000

Internet Explorer had been very dominent in India in terms of market share. But since the launch of Google Chrome back in September 2008, people are switching to Chrome quite rapidly than they did when Firefox came out. It may be because of speed Chrome offers & also the company behind it, Google!. Many people in India still aren’t aware of “Mozilla Foundation”!! To understand the current scenario of Browser market share in India, I took a snapshot of stats for last 12 months.

As you see in the graph above, Firefox pretty much remained in the same position with 32.53%. Huge difference of market share is happening for IE & Chrome. Chrome is eating up IE’s market share with 27.4% market share & IE has dropped from 49% to 36%. Opera & Safari pretty much stayed out of the competition with 2.75% & 0.91% market share respectively. So much has changed over past 12 months in Browser market share & if it follows same pattern ahead Google Chrome might swap place with Internet Explorer in days to come!

Mobile Browsers:

When it comes to Mobile Browsers, there’s not competition, dominated by Opera with 57% market share followed by Nokia with 25.53% market share. I’m quite surprised to see Android at the bottom with just 1.4% of market share though people are switching to it.

Tech Bangalore gets a fresh new look & faster server!

Prashanth — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 05:39:56 +0000

It’s been very long since I changed the theme for Tech Bangalore. In the long run there was too much legacy, unwanted code with the old theme which made the site lot slow! It was easier to switch to new theme rather fixing issues with the old one!

Faster?

Since this is a fresh new theme without any unwanted code, site is instantly faster. But, that wouldn’t affect the speed of the website for a large extent. It’s the server which hosts the website which should be faster. From today Tech Bangalore is hosted on E2Enetworks servers which has datacenter in New Delhi. Everything put together site is quite faster now!

72% time spent online by Indians is planned, not spontaneous! [Infographic]

Prashanth — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:36:13 +0000

Microsoft advertising, MEC & Mindshare had conducted a study & they have released the findings today. Following are some interesting findings of this study:

49% to communicate with others
35% seek information
Entertainment in the form of music, video and gaming is the motivation for going online for 22% of all online occasions
14 per cent to create content in the digital space
12 per cent for online transactions

Here is the Infographic:

You can read the complete press release from Microsoft here