If you own a Nokia phone & your friend has exactly the same model as yours, then you would ideally expect that both of you would get important firmware updates from Nokia at the same time. Well, not really! The fact is that you must pray that Nokia has been kind towards your product code while releasing a firmware update for your phone model. Welcome to the unofficial lottery system of Nokia product codes.

What is a Product Code?

Every Nokia phone contains a product code, which contains data such as the phone model, the region it was released, language packs, keypad layout, etc. This product code is printed underneath the battery and is usually a 7 digit code which begins with a zero. Product codes are used by Nokia to control various variants of its firmware updates based on region & language.

The Product Code Lottery

Product code related firmware unavailability issues exist for almost all Nokia handsets, including the popular N97, 5800XM, E72 & N86, just to name a few.

To illustrate, Nokia 5800 (Red) is sold SIM free in India, under 2 product codes, namely 0575590 & 0559673. While product code 0559673 received firmware v40 with kinetic scrolling on 13th January 2010, product code 0575590 still has no firmware update available as on date. In fact this product code is still stuck at firmware v30 and has not even enjoyed firmware v31 which was made available to product code 0559673 on 14th September 2009. Customers buying phones with either of these product codes have paid the same price for their phone and purchased it from the same store. In fact in most cases, customers with product code 0575590 have paid much more since it was available in the market earlier than product code 0559673.

To make matters even worse, Nokia’s recent update to Ovi Maps with Free Lifetime Navigation can only be installed on Nokia 5800 with firmware v31 & above. In other words, if you have a Nokia 5800 with product code 0575590 then not only will you not have kinetic scrolling, but you will also not get the Ovi Maps update!

While the above illustration is a case of discrimination between different users in the same country, there are also cases of certain countries altogether facing delays in receiving firmware updates. Recently, agitated Nokia customers in UK launched a campaign for equality in getting timely firmware updates for all UK models.

Note that in case of network branded phones however, the responsibility of releasing firmware updates lie with the network as Nokia cannot force networks to make updates available, they can only recommend that the network approves it for release.

Firmware delays for North American (NAM) versions

Nokia’s customers in North America are also upset for receiving firmware updates much later than rest of the world. Phones in the NAM region do require a slightly different chipset because of the different frequencies that the region uses. But is it so difficult to port firmware updates over to the NAM versions in a reasonable time? Not surprising then that taking a cue from their UK counterparts, NAM customers have also recently started a similar campaign for equality!

Conclusion

Ideally, product codes are something which Nokia’s customers should not even know that they exist. They should only exist for Nokia to administer their firmware variants. In reality however, many customers are getting frustrated waiting for months for a firmware update & are discovering tools such as Nemesis Service Suite (NSS) & JAF to change their product codes & force newer update on their phones. In doing so, they take a risk of voiding their warranty, and possibly even bricking their phones. But has Nokia left them with a choice?

Lets hope that Nokia can soon get its act together in providing simultaneous firmware updates worldwide & ensure a positive customer experience for all its users. After all, iPhones & Blackberry users all over the world get their firmware updates simultaneously without any discrimination!

Have you also been a victim of the unofficial Nokia Product Code Lottery system? Do write your experiences in the comments section below.

Ever since Apple has announced the much hyped and anticipated iPad, everyone is trying to figure out what can the iPad be used as. For a change, even Apple fanboys don’t seem too impressed and Apple seems to have fallen short of expectations. Instead of making a smaller netbook, has Apple created a larger iPhone? Or possibly a larger iPod touch. We try to find out the best possible use of the Apple iPad.

iPad cannot be used as a phone because …..

….. It cannot make calls. Period

iPad cannot be used as a replacement for your laptop or netbook because …..

….. It does not have a multi-tasking OS
….. It does not have a Drag & Drop file management
….. It does not have a USB port
….. Its storage maxes out at a paltry 64 GB & has no expandable memory slot
….. It does not have a HDMI port

iPad cannot be used as an Internet Browsing device because …..

….. It does not have support for Adobe Flash which many websites use

iPad cannot be used as a replacement for Amazon’s Kindle because …..

….. Kindle is cheaper than iPad
….. Kindle has free worldwide 3G coverage; iPad needs a $30/month data plan from AT&T
….. iPad’s IPS LCD screen causes more eye strain as compared to Kindle’s E-Ink display
….. Kindle has better battery life than iPad

iPad cannot be used as a high end gaming device because …..

….. It has an IPS LCD display which has high motion blur as compared to OLED

iPad cannot be used as a portable TV or video player because …..

….. It has a display aspect ratio of 4:3 instead of 16:9
….. It has mono speakers

iPad cannot be used for video-conferencing because …..

….. It does not have a camera

iPad cannot be used as a Navigation device because …..

….. It does not have a GPS chip built in

And lastly…

iPad cannot be used as a feminine hygiene product because …..

….. It isn’t one. Don’t be confused by the name.

So what can the iPad be used as?

Well, the iPad can be used as a Digital Photo Frame. It can do that just right! But $500 for a Digital Photo Frame? Apple, can we have the next device please?

I actually began using Digsby by chance as my Google Talk program was once having issues connecting to the internet. And I have never looked back. Today, Digsby is the most important software I have on my computer to manage all my IM, email & social networking accounts and I highly recommend it to each & all. Here’s why.

Digsby: A superior Google Talk client

Digsby is a multi-protocol IM client that lets you chat with all your friends on Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, AIM besides Google Talk. It even logs you to Facebook Chat. Probably the only service of note missing is Skype. If one of your friends has more than one IM account you can combine them into a single merged contact to eliminate duplicate buddies.

The most popular IM service today is arguable Google Talk and Digsby is a very superior client as compared to Google’s own program.

1. Google has chosen not to update its own Google Talk program for many years now. So while it remains a lightweight chat client it misses some of the advanced features found in its competitors.

2. If you have multiple Google Talk accounts such as a regular Google account & a Google Apps account, then you can use Digsby to connect to both your accounts simultaneously!

3. Digsby also has a feature whereby if you hover your mouse over your contact’s name in the contact list, it shows you the client which your friend is using to connect to Google Talk. If Digsby shows that your contact is using a client such as Fring or Nimbuzz, then you know that the user is online on a mobile device.

4. While the Gmail integrated chat client has an option to login in invisible mode, the Google Talk application does not. You can login to Google Talk in invisible mode with Digsby though we do not recommend to do so at all times.

Note though that Digsby does not support the File Transfers & Voice Chat features provided by Google Talk application, so if you are using either of this then you may have to think twice before switching to Digsby. Hopefully, these features will be added to Digsby shortly.

Digsby: A Convenient Twitter Client

Digsby may not have all the features of TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop, but its just so convenient! Just hover your mouse over the Twitter section of Digsby and you can read all your tweets in your timeline. You can add multiple Twitter accounts, read, reply & re-tweet. Of course, advanced features such as following or un-following an user are unavailable but the convenience it provides of not having another application launched at all times is invaluable.

Digsby: A Powerful Facebook Client

You can set your Facebook status right from within Digsby. You can follow news feeds of your friends  & can even Comment on or ‘Like’ their status messages. You can also receive alerts of events such as pending friend requests, messages, group invites though you cannot authorise such requests from within Digsby. Digsby also displays enlarged photos uploaded by your friends & even lets you see a slide-show of their recently uploaded photo albums.

And as mentioned earlier, you can be always logged in to Facebook IM without actually logging in to the Facebook site.

Digsby: A Capable LinkedIn Client

You can set your LinkedIn status right from within Digsby. You can read status updates & connection updates of your contacts. And you can also see notifications for unread messages in your LinkedIn inbox. What more would you want in a LinkedIn client?

Digsby: A Prompt Email Notifier

You can manage your Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Mail or any other POP or IMAP email accounts right from Digsby. You can receive popup notifications when new email arrives, read snapshots of your email and perform actions such as “Mark as Read” or “Report Spam” or “Delete” right from Digsby.

Conclusion

I have happily replaced our Google Talk (and all other IM clients), TweetDeck (and Seesmic), Gmail Notifier with just one program: Digsby. Its a powerful application which has become an integral part of my social life.

Don’t get me wrong. TweetDeck is a far superior Twitter & Facebook client as compared to Digsby. But when you have the combined power of Gmail, Google Talk, Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn in just one application, it makes a difference. You don’t need to keep multiple applications open at all times in exchange for losing some of the advanced functionality they may offer individually.

Alternatives to Digsby include Pidgin, Trillian & VoxOx. But we are more than happy to use Digsby inspite of the controversies it has had over the last few month.

Have you used Digsby with other services such as Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Mail or MySpace? Which single program do you prefer to manage your IM, Email & Social Networking? Or do you prefer using individual clients for all these? Do let us know in the comments below.

Nokia today unveiled in Mumbai the new addition to its N-Series range: Nokia N97 Mini. We were there to cover the event live from the Taj Lands End, Mumbai. We bring you excerpts from our exclusive conversation with Jonne Harju, Senior Design Manager at Nokia Design Studio. We also got an opportunity to speak with Jasmeet Gandhi, Nokia India’s Head of Services Marketing, with whom we discussed not only the N97 Mini but also Nokia’s plans for the Indian market in general.

On the Nokia N97 Mini:

“Nokia N97 Mini comes with ‘Lifecasting with Ovi’  and opens up a new chapter of social & location-aware internet. It also comes pre loaded with Nokia Ovi Maps 3.0. The device has India specific widgets & applications on Ovi Store.”

“Nokia N97 Mini does not come equipped with a stylus because we want users to use the phone more with their fingers.” (in reply to our query on the lack of stylus)

“A physical qwerty keyboard eliminates the necessity of having a virtual touchscreen full qwerty keyboard  (in reply to our query on why the N97 Mini continues the N97 legacy of not providing that option to the user)

One thing is for sure …… N97 Mini does feel good in the hands as compared to the older N97.

On Nokia’s delay in introducing new handsets in India (something we covered in our previous post):

“Nokia wants to customise the handsets by bundling song tracks, movies & other India specific content. Moreover, we have no information on whether phones such as E52 & E55 will be launched in the Indian market. These decisions are made at Nokia Global HQ level.”

On whether the Nokia 5800 will get the firmware update to include kinetic scrolling:

“Yes.”

However we still don’t know the time line for the roll-out of the new firmware. Some users on the internet seem to suggest that the firmware will be launched in the second half of November.

On the likely date for the launch of the Nokia N900 in India:

“No information at present.”

We got a chance to play with the Nokia N900 alongwith the N97 Mini and we liked what we saw. We can’t wait for the Nokia N900 to arrive in India!

India is the second largest market for Nokia globally & in the past, Nokia has always shipped their latest models to Europe & India simultaneously. But recent trends in the last 6 months seem to indicate that Nokia is delaying the launch of its newer models in India.

Take a look at Nokia’s major launches worldwide in the last 6 months:

• Nokia 5630: Available from June 2009
• Nokia 5730: Available from June 2009
• Nokia E52: Available from July 2009
• Nokia E55: Available from August 2009
• Nokia 5530 XM: Available from August 2009
• Nokia N900: Available from November 2009

Except for the Nokia N900, all other models are long available in markets worldwide, but they are still unavailable in India. The Maemo based Nokia N900 has recently started shipping to Europe, North America, Russia & Middle East, but it is not shipping to India anytime soon.

There are also rumours that Nokia X6 will be shipping to India only after the “Comes with Music” service is launched in the country, or a version without this service will ship at a later date.

Hopefully, Nokia E72 & Nokia N97 Mini which was launched in India today (at a price higher than N97) will be available in stores in time.

Final Words:

Apple’s iPhone 3GS is not yet available in the Indian market but that’s no surprise as Apple has never focused on the Indian market. But such treatment being meted out by Nokia is highly surprising considering Nokia is India’s Most Trusted Brand !

Planning to buy that cool looking BlackBerry Bold or Storm you just noticed in the mobile store? Then prepare to pay more each month for the privilege of accessing your emails and surfing the internet. A BlackBerry data plan is one of the extras that many buyers don’t budget for when they purchase their new BlackBerry. And we are not referring to the generic data plan offered by your operator at a reasonable price; its the costlier BlackBerry data plan which your BlackBerry is best designed to work with.

BlackBerry data plans come in different packages: there is BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) for accessing your Gmail or Yahoo mail or corporate emails running on POP or IMAP, and then there’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), which includes the instantly synced e-mail, contacts, and events that corporate users crave.

The advantage of the costlier BlackBerry data plans is that on most networks, they come with unlimited data. But what if you can only afford the cheaper generic data plan? We tell you what’s possible & what isn’t if you plan to use your BlackBerry with a generic data plan.

Using BlackBerry with Generic Data Plan:

• You cannot use the resident BlackBerry internet browser; you will need to use a third party browser such as Opera Mini
• You cannot use BlackBerry Push email; you can only check your email through a third party browser such as Opera Mini or through a third party mail app such as Gmail Mobile App or through a third party push mail service such as Shangmail
• You cannot use BlackBerry Messenger service and cannot use the BlackBerry optimised apps for Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger & Windows Live Messenger; you can only use third party apps such as IM+
• You cannot use the latest version of Facebook (v1.7); you can use the older version (v1.6) and you can access the mobile version of Facebook from Opera Mini browser
• You can use any third party apps such as TwitterBerry which allow you to specify your internet connection as regular TCP/IP instead of BIS
• You cannot install apps over the air (OTA) since it requires the resident browser; you will need to use the Desktop Manager interface to install any of the third party apps mentioned above for browsing, email, messaging or social networking
• You can tether your phone to a laptop for accessing internet on the move. In fact, on some networks, if you subscribe to the costlier Blackberry data plan, it won’t include this ability. You will need to subscribe to a generic data plan separately over & above your premium data plan to do so!

BlackBerry Lite Plans:

Some operators have recently introduced cheaper BlackBerry Lite plans, such as this offered by Vodafone India, which gives you access to unlimited emails & instant messaging. So what’s the catch? You cannot access the internet for browsing nor can you use third party apps to connect to the internet!

Conclusion:

The real benefits of a BlackBerry lie in its proprietary Push Email & the BlackBerry optimised instant messengers & social networking apps with push notifications. You can arguably use a BlackBerry with a generic data plan by installing third party apps for all of this but then you could buy any other smartphone with a QWERTY keypad such as the Nokia E71, E72, E63 or the Samsung B7320 Omnia Pro!

Note: Some of the points mentioned in this article could vary based on your BlackBerry model & your mobile network. Its advisable to contact your mobile operator before making your purchasing decision.

If you use multiple computers at home & at work, then you may want to access your bookmarks saved on your home computer on your workplace computer or vice versa. Or perhaps you may reformat your computer and forget to backup your favorites. Its always convenient to store your bookmarks in the cloud. There are several tools available to sync your bookmarks such that any new bookmarks you add at work show up at home, or any you deleted from your office laptop browser also get deleted on your home computer.

Google Chrome’s Bookmark Sync:

Google recently added the Bookmark Sync feature to the latest beta of its Chrome 4.0 browser.

Interestingly, Google had discontinued its Google Browser Sync add-on for Firefox last year with the obvious intention of making it available exclusively for its own Chrome browser.

Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks):

Xmarks (formerly known as Foxmarks) can keep your bookmarks as well as your passwords synced across Firefox, Internet Explorer, and the Mac OS version of Safari.

Xmarks was originally called Foxmarks when it used to work only with Firefox. This changed later when it released an upgraded version with support for other browsers such as Internet Explorer and Safari (Mac OS). Recently it has also launched an alpha version compatible with Chrome which is currently available only to testers. So now you can keep all of your bookmarks synchronised across all of these browsers.

However, the service in its new form also continues to lose customers as the domain xmarks.com which is used to sync bookmarks, used to be initially used for an adult website & hence is blocked by many proxies & firewalls worldwide – particularly at workplaces.

Mozilla Weave:

Weave is a Mozilla Labs project which takes the concept of syncing much further for your Firefox 3.5 browser & does a lot more than synchronize only bookmarks. It also lets you synchronize your saved passwords, browsing history, and even your open tabs.

Even more impressive, Weave works with Fennec, which is the beta version of Firefox for mobile devices like cellphones and PDAs. Fennec is currently available for the Nokia N800 & N810 Internet Tablets and could make its way on the upcoming Maemo based Nokia N900 handset.

Opera Link:

Opera Link syncs your bookmarks, speed dial, notes, browser history and other useful browser data between your computers running the Opera browser as well as mobile phones running the Opera Mobile browser. In a way, Opera has been the pioneer in providing the sync functionality.

Conclusion:

Firefox, Chrome & Opera have their own tools for syncing bookmarks which can be chosen if you exclusively use the same browser on all your computers.

If you use different browsers, then Xmarks is the only cross browser tool available to sync your bookmarks. Or you may also want to try out Delicious, the social online bookmarking site.

Which tool do you use for syncing your bookmarks? Do let us know through the comments section below.

Till recently, if you were to check for news updates or new blog posts without going to all the different sites individually, you would probably only depend on RSS feeds. But lately, many Twitter users seem to be finding less utility for RSS and are actively endorsing Twitter to be exclusively used as a replacement. We examine whether Twitter has indeed undermined the utility of RSS.

Why Twitter could make RSS extinct:

Most of the sites you subscribe to in your RSS reader will probably also be having a Twitter feed. So reading a post in your RSS reader after seeing it on Twitter becomes a repetition.

Secondly, if you like to read breaking news before everyone else, then remember that news breaks out earlier on Twitter than it shows up in your RSS Reader. While Twitter pushes tweets to your Twitter client instantly, RSS servers need to constantly ping the publishing server to check whether there is anything new to be pulled. Depending on how often this happens, you will end up with a time lag. Note however that services such as RSSCloud & PubSubHubbub are doing their bit to solve this problem by providing RSS with a real time element.

Why RSS can still survive:

Twitter only provides you a 140 character message with a link to read the complete article on the publisher’s website. RSS feeds can provide you the complete article right in your RSS reader without requiring you to launch your browser to read the article. Of course, this is assuming that the publisher has configured their RSS feed to fetch complete articles instead of excerpts, otherwise you are still forced to open your browser.

Secondly, the huge information overflow that Twitter is, if you have a huge list of people whom you follow and if you are away from Twitter for a while, its likely that you will miss a particular blog post or news article posted in your Twitter timeline. RSS accumulates all your feeds properly sorted by categories so that you will never miss or overlook a post.

Role of the Mobile Web in Twitter’s success:

Twitter has managed to attract mobile application developers to create a plethora of apps for the mobile. This has made it very attractive & convenient to follow Twitter streams on your mobile even when on the move. In comparison, RSS readers for the mobile continue to be elementary. On the desktop, the scenario is not too different, with numerous applications being available for Twitter on the desktop than for RSS.

Conclusion:

Twitter & RSS can co-exist, and we are not referring to subscribing your Twitter streams as RSS feeds. RSS will continue to act as an able backup to read posts which you have missed out on Twitter, or to read complete posts without opening your browser. But that’s what RSS has become: just a secondary backup! The new primary source for following news is Twitter!

Imagine a world where your computer, mobile, gaming console, TV, music system and other devices in your home all play nicely together. You can watch videos & pictures taken by your mobile or digital camera on your big TV screen, and listen to music from your portable device on your Hi-Fi sound system, …. wirelessly!. This is possible already due to Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) which is a set of networking protocols bringing us one step closer to convergence of home electronics.

UPnP:
UPnP standards are defined by the UPnP forum which has more than 889 members which include companies like Microsoft, Cisco, Samsung, Nokia, IBM, Intel and many more. UPnP forum aims to create an open environment for interoperable device services using common technologies such as TCP, UDP, SOAP and XML.

UPnP in Home Networking:

The illustration above shows how music/video/files are shared among various devices at home.

There are more than 3000 UPnP certified products world wide. UPnP device and service standards have been defined and published for internet gateways & routers, audio-video media devices, printers, scanners and wireless LAN access points.

What is unique about UPnP plug and play technology?

UPnP architecture is more than just a simple extension of the plug-and-play model.

• UPnP supports zero configuration which means user does not need to configure anything manually. This enables a device to dynamically join a network, obtain an IP address, and convey its capabilities upon request. A device can leave a network smoothly and automatically when it is no longer in use.
• UPnP technology is independent of any particular operating system or programming language.
• UPnP technology can run on any medium including phone line, power line, ethernet and RF.
• Vendors use any operating system and any programming language to build UPnP-based products.
• UPnP technology is built upon Internet based technologies such as IP, TCP, UDP, HTTP, and XML.

UPnP does suffer from issues such as lack of lightweight authentication protocol & the fact that UPnP uses HTTP over UDP even though it is not standardised.

DLNA

Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is a newer standard than UPnP & uses some of the UPnP specification and protocols. In some way we can say DLNA is built on top of UPnP. DLNA also aims to achieve interoperable network of consumer electronics, personal computers (PC) and mobile devices in home and on the road enabling seamless environment for enjoying new digital media and content services.

DLNA goes a step further as you see in the illustration above to enable access to their devices from anywhere at home or outside.

UPnP / DLNA Devices

Right out of the box, a Windows PC can operate as a UPnP AV client through the use of Windows Media Player’s Window Media Connect feature, and for the Mac there is MediaCloud.

But the fun really starts when we get into non-PC UPnP clients. Both the PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 can operate as a UPnP AV client. Philips, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba are already including the UPnP technology in their new TVs.

Amongst mobile devices, many of Nokia’s N-Series devices such as N95 8GB, N96, N79, N82, N85 & N86 are UPnP & DLNA certified. Samsung i8510, Samsung Omnia HD, Sony Ericsson W705 & Sony Ericsson C905 are DLNA certified as well.

Apple has its own technology, dubbed Bonjour, which competes with UPnP, but does similar things.

You can find a list of DLNA certified devices here. Now the next time you buy a electronic device for your home, don’t forget to check for the “DLNA Certified” logo on your device!

Opera recently released the beta version of its popular Opera Mini 5, a mobile browser for any Java capable device. The elegant & visually styled Opera 5 Mini comes with a redesigned UI to make it look like Opera 10 on the desktop, and that is obviously intentional. We review the Opera Mini 5 to find out whether you should dump the default browser in your mobile in its favour.

What’s New?

Opera Mini 5 comes with new features such as Tabbed Browsing, Speed Dialing,  Touchscreen Keypad and Password Manager. What is missing in the beta version is support for RSS feeds and the ability to Sync Bookmarks.

Opera Mini 5 compresses web pages by up to 90% before they are sent to your phone resulting in faster page load times than in other mobile Web browsers. So where bandwidth is at a premium, you can save a lot of time and money by browsing in the Opera Mini. And since most of the complex processing is done on the server, Opera Mini 5 can run on relatively low spec phones.

Comparison with Webkit powered Browsers:

Opera Mini 5 features a couple of significant improvements over the Webkit based browser found on Nokia S60v5 phones such as Nokia 5800 XM & N97. Our tests on the Nokia 5800 XM showed that when we select the back option in its default browser it reloads the entire page, whereas Opera Mini reloads it from cache making browsing faster.

Secondly, the Webkit browser lack the ability to locally save a web page, an option which is available on the Opera Mini.

However, Opera Mini 5 disappoints where it matters the most. A downside of Opera Mini’s server based protocol is that since all the processing is done on the server and what is supplied to the client is a snapshot of the web page, some sites that feature heavy Ajax functionality or background scripting may not behave quite like you would expect. JavaScript is supported in a limited way and there is no Flash support either. Most static sites though will function without a problem

We tested popular sites such as Facebook, Google Reader & Cricinfo which require heavy Ajax & JavaScript support by loading them on Opera Mini 5 & the Webkit browser of the Nokia 5800.

• Due to the standardised fonts used in Opera Mini 5, the mobile version of Facebook rendered with reduced legibility both in “medium” & “small” font options, whereas the Webkit browser rendered the page with pleasing legibility.
• Due to lack of Ajax support, Opera Mini 5 could not retain Google Reader’s ability to expand a news item after clicking on a headline, whereas the Webkit browser did this perfectly.
• Lastly, Opera Mini 5 messed up the tabs of Cricinfo, which were loaded flawlessly by the Webkit browser.

Conclusion:

Make no mistake about the Opera Mini 5 beta. Its interface is stunning and is the best thing that could have happened to mid end to low end mobiles with limited memory and processing power. Here the choice is probably simpler as Opera Mini 5 is much advanced than the default browser pre-loaded on low spec mobiles.

But, Opera itself claims that Opera Mini 5 does not support Ajax, JavaScript & Flash as the browser has not been designed to handle complex CPU intensive activities. So if you have a high end device such as a Nokia N97, why would you trade the advanced page rendering of your Webkit browser for the speed & jazzy UI of the Opera Mini 5? Unless of course you are on an extremely slow connection.

We are not yet willing to dump the desktop like browsing experience provided by our Nokia 5800 & Nokia N97 browsers in favour of the Opera Mini 5. And if you are an iPhone user, then for once you will not rue Apple’s reluctance to let a competing app install itself on the iPhone!

If you liked our article on Short Reviews for Nokia High End Smartphones but are on a budget and want to choose a cheaper entry to mid level Nokia mobile, then read on. We help you choose amongst the current Series 40 based Nokia mobiles in the market. All the phones considered below are not smartphones but have all features which were considered high end until a couple of years ago and which have now become basic expectations for a mobile.

Tthe 5 models selected for this comparison are:

• Nokia 2700 classic
• Nokia 5130 XpressMusic
• Nokia 3720 classic
• Nokia 5220 XpressMusic &
• Nokia 6303 classic

All these phones are equipped with the following features which qualified them to be considered for this comparison:

• MP3 Player
• FM Radio
• Bluetooth
• GPRS Internet with EDGE support
• Memory Card slot for expanded storage
• USB Connectivity

We have deliberately avoided creating a comparison chart for these 5 mobiles as you will only end up with a chart with a tick mark in front of all these features for all these mobiles. What can set one model apart from the others are factors such as size of the display or specifications of the camera.

Camera Specifications:

The Nokia 6303 is the only phone of the lot which has a 3.2 MP camera equipped with autofocus & LED flash. The image quality is just about average though.

None of the phones except the Nokia 6303 & the Nokia 3720 have a LED flash for the camera. The Nokia 5220 makes it up partially with its Nokia Proprietary Processing Algorithm (NIPS) technology which takes decent photos in low light.

Disappointingly, most of these mobiles are notorious for taking an annoying long time (as much as 10 seconds in some cases) for saving the captured images.The Nokia 5220 is quickest of the lot saving images in less than a couple of seconds. Nokia is trying to rectify this issue as can be found with the latest firmware on the Nokia 5130 which tremendously improves the picture saving speed over previous firmwares.

All the phones mentioned here can only do QCIF video recording at a maximum of 15 fps (we sorely missed the 30 fps video recording of the discontinued bestselling Nokia 6233)

Audio Quality:

The Nokia 5130 has arguably the best audio quality followed closely by the Nokia 5220. All the models have a 3.5mm standard audio jack, except for the Nokia 3720.

Display size:

The Nokia 6303 & Nokia 3720 lead in this category with a larger 2.2 inch display as against the smaller 2 inch displays found in other models.

Internet Browser:

While most of these phones come pre-installed with the java based Opera Mini browser, the newer ones based on the 6th edition of Series 40 such as the Nokia 3720 & Nokia 6303 have a Webkit based browser which is the same engine used on the iPhone browser!

Phone Contacts:

All these models can store upto 2000 contacts with the exception of the Nokia 2700 which can only accommodate 1000 contacts.

Battery Life:

The battery life of all these models is remarkably good with the Nokia 6303 having the best specifications of 450 hours of standby time & 7 hours of talktime.

Recommendations based on Pricing:

If you are on a shoestring budget & want to spend the least but still want all the functions mentioned above, then the Nokia 2700 fits the bill perfectly.

If you are willing to spend a little more, then the Nokia 5130 is your best Value For Money (VFM) phone as it has a decent mix of good picture quality and excellent audio quality.

At an even higher price point, the Nokia 6303 with its larger display, 3.2MP camera with autofocus & flash isa good buy

The Nokia 3720 can be chosen if you need a sturdy unbreakable phone to protect damage from water, dust or accidental falls. The Nokia 5220 has superb camera as well as audio quality in a slim form factor but many buyers may choose to ignore this model only due to its asymmetrical design.

While choosing the phones based on pricing, it may also help to check the memory card provided in the sales package in your region as buying a memory card separately can increase your cost.

Phones not considered:

Other phones in this price bracket include the Nokia 7210 Supernova, Nokia 5310 XpressMusic and Nokia 6300. There is no reason to choose the Nokia 7210 whatsoever considering that it has a poor confusing keypad & the Nokia 5130 is available for only a tad bit more. The Nokia 6300 and Nokia 5310 are aged models now having been released more than 2 years ago While the Nokia 6300 was always dogged by its below par battery life, the Nokia 5310 cannot justify its present price when compared to Nokia’s cheaper & newer offerings.

Many free photo sharing sites exist on the internet such as Flickr, Picasa Web Gallery and Photobucket. But if you have your own domain then you would ideally want your photo gallery to be hosted on your own domain. Everybody remembers this URL and it makes sense. We evaluate the various options you have to present your photos on your own domain either for sharing with your friends or for creating a portfolio gallery.

Installing open source photo galleries:

You could use free open source galleries such as Gallery or Coppermine or Zenfolio on your site. But it requires a lot of work such as tweaking the themes and updating the packages in order to prevent hacking. The development of these packages has been very slow and they continue to be bloatwares. Plus they are not as “social” as compared to Flickr & Picasa.

Integrating Flickr, Picasa or Smugmug:

If you want to integrate Flickr on your website, all that Flickr provides is an option to display your Flickr badge on your blog. Neither Flickr & Picasa offer the facility to map your own domain with their service. Neither in the free versions nor in the paid Pro versions.  Only Smugmug offers this facility if you subscribe to their Power Account costing $60 per year. But you may not want to pay that sum if you already pay a lot to your web host, or you may just prefer Flickr or Picasa over Smugmug.

Your options include embedding your Flickr or Picasa URL in a frame under your own domain. But it doesn’t look that professional as you still see the Flickr or Picasa interface beneath your domain name.

If you are using a Wordpress powered website, then there are many plugins which use the Flickr & Picasa API to integrate your photo albums on your website or blog. For Flickr we recommend the Flickr Photo Album plugin whereas for Picasa we recommend the kPicasa Gallery plugin. If you have uploaded your photos to Facebook then you can use the Fotobook plugin to integrate your Facebook photos on your website. We haven’t forgotten the very popular NextGEN Gallery plugin but this one requires you to upload your photos on your own web host instead of pulling them from third party services.

The pros of using this Flickr/Picasa and Wordpress Plugins combo over installing open source photo galleries are manyfold:

• You save precious space & more importantly bandwidth on your webhost
• You do not need to keep updating your gallery installations
• You get to display your photos using the same theme & look as the rest of your website
• You can use the social features of Flickr & Picasa
• You have a backup of your photos on third party servers which may be useful just in case your hard disk crashes. Backups on Yahoo or Google powered services ‘may’ be more dependable than on your own webhost.

The cons of using this route are that Open source galleries such as Coppermine or Gallery provide you much more options to password protect your photos compared to Flickr or Picasa. They also provide you much more advanced options to customise each individual aspect of your photo gallery.

But all things considered, its a better option to choose storing your photos on Flickr or Picasa and displaying them on your website using the several Wordpress plugins available.

Buying the right digital camera can be a tough job and if you want to use your digicam to shoot videos you need to take extra care to check the camera’s video capabilities. Some experts argue that you should not consider the video capabilities of a digicam as its quality is nowhere close to that of a camcorder; but that’s like saying do not buy a point & shoot camera for shooting pictures because its quality can’t match that of a DSLR!

So what features or specifications do you need to check before you buy a digital camera with good video capabilities?

1. Widescreen Aspect Ratio:

Even though computer screens & LCD TVs have shifted from the conventional 4:3 aspect ratio to the new 16:9 aspect ratio, most cameras still shoot videos in 4:3 VGA format(640 x 480). These videos will not look good on your widescreen laptops or TV. So ensure that your camera can record videos in 16:9 aspect ratio.

2. Resolution & Frames per second – Support for HD videos

For a widescreen aspect ratio, a resolution of 848 x 480 at 30 fps is minimum. Newer cameras can shoot videos in 720p HD resolution at 30 fps which is essential if you plan to see your videos on your HDTV. If you prefer conventional 4:3 videos, then look out for a resolution of 640 x 480 at 30 fps.

3. Video compression

Most cameras use the older uncompressed Motion JPEG codec for encoding your videos. While such videos have better quality, they utilise large amount of space on your memory card which limits you from recording lots of videos. Motion JPEG does have its advantages such that it is easier to edit videos and you can extract a still image from your video easily.

But newer cameras use the MPEG4 family of codecs to compress videos to fit in more movies on your memory card. And the loss of quality is not visible to a human eye; think of it as using a MP3 audio file instead of the CD quality WAV format.

To further illustrate, a camera using Motion JPEG codec can record upto 8 minutes of 720p video on a 2GB memory card. Whereas a camera using MPEG4 codec can record upto 41 minutes of standard 720p videos on a 2GB memory card.

4. Opticial Zoom during recording

Most of the cameras in the market today lack the ability to adjust optical zoom once you start shooting a video. You can only adjust the zoom before you start shooting. You may need to spend more if you need support for optical zoom during recording.

5. Limitations on recording time

Check whether the camera has any limitations restricting recording videos to a fixed time limit, say for example 10 minutes. Your camera should allow recording videos for unlimited time, only limited by the size of your memory card, or limited to a large video size of say 2GB.

6.Video container format for output

While some cameras record videos in the ubiquitous AVI or MPEG formats, some cameras also record them in Quicktime’s MOV format. Do check whether the video container format suits your liking with regards to support in your favourite media player and video editor.

Recommended Cameras for videos:

Amongst the major digital camera brands, Panasonic has been the pioneer in implementing widescreen videos in its digital cameras since a long time. Most of the Panasonic cameras support widescreen recording in addition to conventional VGA recording. The Panasonic TZ7 (also known as ZS3 in America) supports HD videos in highly compressed AVCHD format at 60 fps and also supports optical zoom while recording videos.

From the Sony stable, cameras such as W270, W290 & WX1 models support 720p videos in compressed MPEG4 format.

Canon has been surprisingly late to the HD videos party and even though their latest models support H.264 compression, they produce videos with file size as large as those created by Motion JPEG, thereby defeating the purpose of using compression.

We highly recommend the Panasonic TZ7 (ZS3) if you intend to use your digital camera for recording videos with the Sony DSC-WX1 behind at a close second.

We are back with our annual review of the latest Nokia mobiles available in the market similar to the one we did last year. We have added many new models and removed older discontinued models.

Reviewed below are current high end Nokia mobile handsets. No more reading through multiple page reviews of mobiles to draw your conclusions. Just short summary reviews, covering the things that matter.

Scope & Objective:

• The objective of this post is to enable people to evaluate Nokia mobiles through reading short summary styled reviews instead of long reviews which extend to multiple pages.
• The objective of this post is not to list down the complete specifications of each individual Nokia mobile; but to present a short review of its positives & negatives. If you want to filter Nokia mobiles by specifications, you can visit Nokia’s official website or GSMArena’s Phone Finder or PhoneArena’s Phone filter.
• This post covers only high end Symbian smartphones.

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Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

The Positives

• Large 3.2 inch 16:9 display
• Touchscreen Interface with Symbian S60v5
• Wi-Fi connectivity
• Built-in GPS and A-GPS
• Goodies such as Standard 3.5 mm audio jack, TV-Out & Accelerometer
• VGA video recording at 30fps
• 8GB memory card in the retail box package

The Negatives

• Poor 3.2 MP camera which is worse in low light
• No protective cover for the camera lens
• UI slightly immature with somewhat dodgy user experience
• Resistive Touch instead of capacitative touch. (Note however that resistive touch has its benefits such as the ability to use the phone with a stylus)

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Nokia N97

The Positives

• Large 3.5 inch 16:9 display
• Touchscreen Interface with Symbian S60v5
• Slide-out full QWERTY keypad
• Wi-Fi connectivity
• Built-in GPS and A-GPS with Digital Compass
• Goodies such as Standard 3.5 mm audio jack, TV-Out & Accelerometer
• 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss autofocus camera
• VGA video recording at 30fps
• FM transmitter
  
• 32 GB internal storage with further expandable memory slot

The Negatives

• UI slightly immature with somewhat dodgy user experience
• Resistive Touch instead of capacitative touch. (Note however that resistive touch has its benefits such as the ability to use the phone with a stylus)

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Nokia 5530 XpressMusic

The Positives

• Large 2.9 inch 16:9 display
• Touchscreen Interface with Symbian S60v5
• Wi-Fi connectivity
• Goodies such as Standard 3.5 mm audio jack  & Accelerometer
• VGA video recording at 30fps
• Full Kinetic scrolling in touch interface out of the box
  
• 4GB memory card in the retail box package

The Negatives

• Poor 3.2 MP camera which is worse in low light
• No 3G Support
• No GPS
• No TV Out functionality
• Screen size comparatively smaller than other Nokia Touchscreens
  
• Resistive Touch instead of capacitative touch. (Note however that resistive touch has its benefits such as the ability to use the phone with a stylus)

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Nokia 5230 XpressMusic

The Positives

• Large 3.2 inch 16:9 display
• Touchscreen Interface with Symbian S60v5
• Built-in GPS and A-GPS
• Goodies such as Standard 3.5 mm audio jack, TV-Out & Accelerometer
• VGA video recording at 30fps
• Ships with an 4GB card

The Negatives

• Poor 2 MP camera which is worse in low light
• No Wi-Fi connectivity
  
• Resistive Touch instead of capacitative touch. (Note however that resistive touch has its benefits such as the ability to use the phone with a stylus)

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Nokia N82

The Positives

• 5 megapixel camera with auto focus, Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash
• Wi-Fi with UPnP
• Built-in GPS and A-GPS
• Goodies such as Standard 3.5 mm audio jack, TV-Out & Accelerometer
• N-gage platform for gamers

The Negatives

• Difficult keypad (takes time getting used to)
• Uninspiring looks (though the black N82 looks much better than the silver)

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Nokia N95 8GB

The Positives

• 5 megapixel camera with auto focus & Carl Zeiss optics
• Fast user interface & multitasking due to presence of 128 MB RAM
• Large 2.8 inch display
• 8GB Storage
• Wi-Fi with UPnP
• Built-in GPS and A-GPS
• Goodies such as Standard 3.5 mm audio jack, TV-Out & Accelerometer
• N-gage platform for gamers

The Negatives

• No protective cover for the camera lens
• No Xenon Flash for the camera
• Rather bulky and hence not easily pocketable

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Nokia N96

The Positives

• 5 megapixel camera with auto focus & Carl Zeiss optics
• Fast user interface & multitasking due to presence of 128 MB RAM
• S60 user interface with latest Feature Pack
• Large 2.8 inch display
• 16GB Onboard Storage with support for extended memory
• Wi-Fi with UPnP
• Built-in GPS and A-GPS
• Goodies such as Standard 3.5 mm audio jack, TV-Out & Accelerometer
• N-gage platform for gamers
• Built-in DVB-H TV tuner

The Negatives

• Very Poor Battery Life
• No protective cover for the camera lens
• No Xenon Flash for the camera

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Nokia N85

The Positives

• 5 megapixel camera with auto focus, Carl Zeiss optics & Dual LED flash
• Large & bright 2.6 inch AMOLED display
• Wi-Fi with UPnP
• Built-in GPS and A-GPS
• Goodies such as Standard 3.5 mm audio jack, TV-Out & Accelerometer
• N-gage platform for gamers

The Negatives

• No Xenon Flash for the camera
• Questionable build quality

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Nokia N86

The Positives

• Large & bright 2.6 inch OLED display with scratch-resistant surface
• 8 megapixel camera with auto focus, Carl Zeiss optics & Dual LED flash
• 28mm wide camera lens & variable aperture
• Wi-Fi with UPnP
• Built-in GPS and A-GPS with Digital Compass
• Goodies such as 3.5 mm audio jack, TV-Out & Accelerometer
• N-gage platform for gamers
• 8 GB internal storage with further expandable memory slot

The Negatives

• No Xenon Flash for the camera

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Nokia N79

The Positives

• 5 megapixel camera with auto focus, Carl Zeiss optics & Dual LED flash
• Wi-Fi with UPnP
• Built-in GPS and A-GPS with Geo-tagging of photos
• FM transmitter
  
• Goodies such as 3.5 mm audio jack, TV-Out & Accelerometer
• 4GB memory card in the retail box package
• Very good battery life

The Negatives

• No Xenon Flash for the camera
• No TV out cable in the retail box package

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Nokia E71

The Positives

• Full QWERTY Keyboard
• Excellent build Quality & slim form factor
• Lots of preinstalled licensed applications
  
• GPS and Wi-fi
• Superb battery life

The Negatives

• Below Average 3.2 MP camera with pictures showing purple tinge
• Video recording limited to QVGA@15fps
• No Blackberry Connect
  
• No Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• No Accelerometer

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Nokia E72

The Positives

• Full QWERTY Keyboard
• Excellent build Quality & slim form factor
• GPS and Wi-Fi
• Superb battery life
• 5 MP camera (the major factor distinguishing it from the E71)
• Accelerometer
• Standard 3.5mm audio jack

The Negatives

• Video recording limited to QVGA@15fps
• No Blackberry Connect unlike previous E-Series phones
  

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Nokia E75

The Positives

• Slide out full QWERTY Keyboard
• Excellent build Quality & slim form factor
• Wi-Fi with UPnP
  
• GPS
• Superb battery life
• Remote Wipe functionality
• 3.5mm audio jack
• 4GB memory card in retail box

The Negatives

• Average 3.2 MP camera

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Nokia E63

The Positives

• QWERTY Keyboard
• Wi-Fi connectivity
• Superb battery life
• Standard 3.5mm audio jack (which is not present in E71)
• Remote Lock and Wipe feature
• Cheaper price as compared with E71 with almost similar functionality

The Negatives

• Below Average 2 MP camera
• No GPS
• Slightly thicker design as compared to E71
  

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Nokia E66

The Positives

• Excellent build Quality
• GPS
• Wi-Fi connectivity
• Accelerometer

The Negatives

• Below Average 3.2 MP camera
• Video recording limited to at QVGA@15fps
• No Blackberry Connect unlike previous E-Series phones
• No Standard 3.5 mm audio jack

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Nokia E90 Communicator

The Positives

• One of the best QWERTY keyboards
  
• GPS
• Wi-Fi connectivity
• Blackberry Connect
  

The Negatives

• Below average 3.2 MP camera
• Bulky size; not pocketable
• No Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• No TV out

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Nokia E52

The Positives

• Fast 600 MHz ARM 11 CPU
• Excellent design & build Quality
• One-touch shortcut keys
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology, DLNA support
• Built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS support, Digital Compass
• Remote lock/wipe over-the-air
• Great Battery Life
• Goodies such as standard 3.5 mm audio jack, accelerometer

The Negatives

• Below Average 3 MP camera
• No TV out support

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Nokia E55

Basically Nokia E55 shares the positives & negatives with the Nokia E52 above. The only major differentiating factor is the “semi-QWERTY” keypad
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Nokia 5630 XpressMusic

The Positives

• 12mm slim form factor
• Wi-Fi with UPnP
• Built-in GPS
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• 4GB memory card in the retail box package
• N-Gage support

The Negatives

• Questionable build quality
• Smaller 2.2 inch screen
• Average video recording quality of the 3 MP camera

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Nokia 5730 XpressMusic

The Positives

• Slide out full QWERTY keypad
• Wi-Fi with UPnP
• Built-in GPS
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• 8GB memory card in the retail box package
• N-Gage support

The Negatives

• Average quality of the 3.2 MP camera
• No TV-out support
• Poor Battery life

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Many individuals using Google Apps continue to be frustrated due to the chaos of Google Apps account being different from their regular Google account. These individuals do not have any organisation who are served by Google Apps; in fact they are the one & only users in their Google Apps account using Gmail for their own personal domain. Google’s recent fix for the “on behalf of” issue while sending mails from your other email address may actually be a hidden solution for these users.

Why should these users consider switching from Google Apps Gmail to Regular Gmail:

• Google Apps accounts do not provide access to services such as Google Reader, Picasa Web, Blogger, Orkut, Adsense, etc. For these accounts, Google Apps users are forced to use regular Google accounts associated with regular Gmail.
• Google Talk / Chat contacts as well as Gmail contacts remain divided between these dual accounts.
• This creates a confusing experience for these users as they have to keep switching identities and cannot integrate their Google services through a single ID. This confusion is acknowledged by Google.

Our Proposed Solution for Google Apps account woes:

1. Migrate your existing mails & contacts from your Google Apps Gmail account to your regular Gmail account using Gmail’s mail fetcher or mail import tool.
2. Configure your regular Gmail account to send email on behalf of your Google Apps address without the irritating “on behalf of” tagline
3. Retain your Google Apps account to act as a Mail Exchange (MX) server for your domain’s email.
4. Enable forwarding from your Google Apps Gmail account to your regular Gmail account.

That’s it! With these simple steps you can stop switching between your dual Google identities; while retaining your domain based email address! All your Google services including Gmail can now be accessed from your regular Google account!

So what do you feel? Should these personal users switch over from Google Apps to a regular Gmail account? Or should they stay put with your Google Apps account hoping that someday Google will come out with a solution for its individual users ? Let us know in the comments below.

A few days ago, Gmail servers hit another outage with the result that several users were unable to check their Gmail online. Immediately, as usual, several pundits started doubting the utility of having your email in the Cloud. Even Lifehacker debated the practice of backing up your Gmail in Outlook on your desktop. Actually, all you need to do is take a backup of your email in the cloud in another cloud. We tell you how !

Gmail provides you the option to auto-forward your incoming mail to any other address of your choice. So simply forward a copy of your incoming mail to a non Gmail account such as Yahoo Mail or Windows Live Hotmail and you are done.

As regards existing mail in your Gmail inbox, you can use the POP3 retrieval or mail fetcher feature provided by your alternate email service provider to import all your existing mail.

This way, anytime Gmail goes down, you can still check your mails in your alternate email service. Or even if your Gmail account gets hacked or you get locked out of your account for some reason, you will always have a backup online. Its highly improbable that Gmail and your other service provider will go down at the same time!

Many Firefox addons like Laterloop do not work with the latest version i.e. version 3.5. So what should you do? Shoot an email to Laterloop? Nah!  There is a workaround for this! Follow these steps:

• Save the extension (.xpi file) to your computer: right-click and select “save link as”.
• Download 7-zip, an excellent open-source software for archiving files, and install it.
• Right-click on the extension, click on “7-zip” and then on “open archive”. Right-click on “install.rdf”, select “Edit” and replace “3.0.*” with “3.5.*“. Save the file, close Notepad and update the archive.
• Now you can drag the .xpi file to your browser and install the extension.

Pretty Geeky huh? Apart from Laterloop, Google Notebook (R.I.P. for new users) can also be installed using above steps. To download Google Notebook addon, go here.

Note: This workaround works with only certain Firefox addons and not with all of them.

In order to convince you to buy a new digital camera, manufacturers are toeing the more-megapixels-are-better myth. But buyers of compact point & shoot cameras are slowly beginning to realise that buying a camera with higher megapixels does not necessarily improve the image quality. What they still don’t know is that more megapixels may actually spoil the image quality of your pictures!

People who blindly buy a 12 MP camera instead of a 10 MP camera are the same ones who purchase a computer with a 2.6ghz processor instead of a 2.2ghz processor even though the former may have much lesser RAM as compared to the latter.

Megapixels & Image Sensor Size

The size of the sensor of your camera’s lens is more important than the number of megapixels. Compact cameras are normally equipped with a sensor size such as 1/2.5-inch, 1/2.3-inch or 1/1.6-inch. For those who aren’t very strong in mathematics, a 1/1.6-inch sensor is bigger than a 1/2.3-inch sensor.

As the megapixel war between manufacturers escalates, they cram more and more megapixels into the same sensor size simply because larger sensors are more expensive to make. As a result, the individual sensors become smaller, they receive less light, and eventually it increases the noise, which looks like grain in your photos. To counter this, camera processors impose heavy noise reduction which results in blurring, reduces the amount of fine detail and make the pictures very soft.

How many Megapixels do I stop at ?

What is important is to compare the number of megapixels in relation to the size of the sensor. This is measured in terms of what is known as ‘pixel density’. So while a 12 MP camera on a 1/2.3-inch sensor would be extremely poor, a 12 MP camera with a 1/1.6-inch sensor may not be that bad, all other specs remaining equal.

The best approach would be to first get the largest sensor in your budget, as larger sensor translates into better pictures even in low light, and then look for the number of megapixels giving lower pixel density on that sensor, subject to a minimum of 3-4 MP. Of course, nowadays you won’t get anything lesser than 8 MP.

The reason why DSLRs tend to have better image quality than compact cameras is that they are equipped with a much larger lens. This is not to say that there is no point in buying compact cameras. It only means that you should not buy a compact camera having a very high pixel density.

Phasing out of cameras with lower megapixels

Most manufacturers such as Sony, Canon, Panasonic & Nikon are phasing out their 7 MP and 8 MP cameras in favour of 12 MP cameras with the result that soon you won’t find good cameras in stores with a low pixel density. So buy your 8 MP camera today instead of buying those newer 12 MP cameras. All other specs remaining equal, not only would you get sharper pictures, but you would also save storage space on your memory card and hard drive!

When Lifehacker reported that Google has finally removed the annoying “on behalf of” behaviour from Gmail, it did sound too good to be true. But since Google had already informed that a solution was on the way to rectify this annoying problem, we thought that finally Gmail could be truly used as a consolidated inbox. Alas, a couple of day later, Google Guide Sarah brought all Gmail users back to earth by clarifying that the recent removal of sent “on behalf of” was only a bug which will soon return to haunt all Gmail users and that the “solution” is still some time away.

For those who are not aware of the issue, just a recap. Gmail can theoretically be used to consolidate multiple email addresses so that you can receive all your emails in various inboxes in Gmail and also send an email from any of your other email address from within the Gmail interface. It’s a great feature in theory, but it has one annoying and frustrating flaw. The emails sent from the other email addresses are sent with a ‘From’ field that looks something like: “From yourusername@gmail.com on behalf of customaddress@mydomain.com” if the email is read by the recipient using Microsoft Outlook or Windows Live Mail.

Recently Google had promised to solve this issue after many users complained through this thread. However, Google declined to give any timeline for rectifying this problem. So when many users started observing the disappearance of “on behalf of”, it was felt that Google has finally issued a bug fix to resolve the issue. But Google’s clarification that this solution was a bug by itself and not the proposed bug fix has highly disappointed users. Google intends to resolve this by offering users an option to use their domain’s SMTP server from within the Gmail interface.

Google claims that this tagline is being used to help prevent your email from being flagged as spam by your recipients’ email services which support DomainKeys. However, Yahoo mail, which otherwise is less innovative than Gmail, does allow sending emails from your alternate email addresses without the “on behalf of” annoyance, and such mails are not marked as spam by their recipients’ mailboxes!

If you are a Google Apps for your Domain (GAFYD) user who is struggling with another flaw of Google whereby your Google Apps account is different from a regular Google account, then this upcoming bug fix could solve your woes. If you are using Google Apps only for your individual email on your personal domain, you can then simply use Google Apps to forward your domain email to your regular Gmail account and then reply from your regular Gmail interface using your domain’s email address. This would allow you to access Google services such as Reader and Picasa which are not currently offered on a Google Apps Account, through a single Google account and allow you to streamline your Google Talk usage by only using your regular Gmail account instead of multiple Gmail and Google Apps accounts.

So Google, on behalf of all the Gmail users, we sincerely request you to rectify this problem as soon as possible.

If you are one of those who keep forgetting birthdays, then you need to take a little tech help from your social network and your smartphone. Social networks such as Facebook and Orkut are great in reminding you about your contacts’ birthdays. But you may not login to your Facebook or Orkut account daily. So a better approach would be to import your contacts’ birthdays into your mobile phone’s calendar.

You need to only follow a couple of steps to get your contacts’ birthdays out of your online social network into your mobile phone calendar. The main task here is getting the data out of the social network in a standard calendar format such as iCal or CSV. While this can also be done manually, doing it for a large contact list can be a tedious process.

Facebook

Facebook does not allow you to directly export your contacts’ birthdays to any calendar. You will need to install popular Facebook applications such as Birthday Calendar to your Facebook profile to do so. In the past exporting data out of Facebook’s walled garden has resulted in users’ accounts being deleted, hence there is a certain amount of risk involved. However note that these Facebook applications available within Facebook have millions of users currently using them.

Once you have your birthdays in the form of a csv calendar file you can then import them in Microsoft Outlook and subsequently use your phone’s sync feature to synchronise your phone calendar with Microsoft Outlook directly (for Windows Mobile phones) or using Nokia PC Suite (for Nokia phones) or Apple iTunes (for iPhone).

That’s about it. Your mobile phone calendar now has your Facebook contacts’ birthdays stored within and will display them and remind you on those dates through your phone’s home screen !!

Orkut

Orkut has recently enabled an option to export your contacts birthdays to Google Calendar. Until now you could only export them to your iGoogle page. But now you can use the newly added “view your friends’ birthdays in Google calendar” link on your Orkut profile to export your contacts’ birthdays to your Google calendar.

If your mobile phone supports the calendar synchronising feature of the recently launched Google Sync, you can sync your phone calendar directly with Google Calendar. Or you can sync Google Calendar with Microsoft Outlook initially and subsequently sync Outlook with your mobile phone.

Update: 14/03/2009: As rightly pointed out by Deepak Jain, Google Calendar restricts syncing of calendar entries to only your main calendar and does not sync the Orkut Birthdays calendar entries with Outlook. Hopefully, Google will rectify this problem in the future. Thanks Deepak for pointing this out.

Currently only Blackberry devices allow syncing of multiple Google Calendars with the phone directly. So if you do not have a Blackberry then you are out of luck as far as syncing of Orkut Birthdays with your mobile is concerned.