Gaurav Gupta's Blog

1. Just like Nokia phones, we were waiting for iPhone 3G prices to drop. It never happened. Then why wait with 3GS?

2. Apple announced a tentative launch date way back. We’ve all saved up the cash.

3. It has been a year since 3G launch. We were all hoping for an “iPhone killer”. It never happened. iPhone still rules.

4. Old habits die hard. It was hard to digest that Nokia is no more the #1. Today usability is more important for some than features.

5. The iPhone lacked a lot of basic features even a 5k phone had. Apple fixed most of them.

6. Back then, the iPhone was new, un-reviewed and untested. Not many were ready to take the plunge. Not so anymore.

7. We were waiting for “3G” before buying an iPhone 3G. It never happened and it doesn’t seem likely either. The world has already started talking about 4G.

8. We were hoping that the iPhone will also open up to other carriers. Never happened.

9. We’ve seen it, touched it, heard about it. Everything seems so much more familiar.

10. 30k sounded like a lot of money those days. Now, a lot of phones kiss the 30-40k band. It doesn’t seem “that” expensive anymore.

Related post:
Apple seeking divine blessings for iPhone 3GS launch in India?

[This blogpost was originally written by me and published on WebYantra.net, but that website does not seem to be maintained anymore. I am re-publishing this article on my blog so as to keep the content available to anyone who may still be interested in reading it.]

We happened to get a test piece of the recently launched Nokia N97 after attending the Nokia N97 Bloggers Meet at Delhi a few days back. The Nokia N97 arrived at just the right time – I recently did away with my Nokia E90 communicator and was looking forward to my next smart device – And for a change, there were only a few models which I was considering, which included the iPhone 3GS, Nokia N97, Blackberry Bold and a few recent models from Samsung and HTC.

The first thing you will notice about the N97 is its size – It is nice and compact, exactly as long as iPhone, but not as wide. The phone provides a good, non slippery grip. Slide it into a jeans pocket and it feels “just right”. The physical QWERTY keyboard comes out in a snap… I almost dropped the phone the first time I opened the keyboard. But once its there, it fits perfectly into positioning and does not tend to slip back. Key size and spacing is comfortable, good for typing long emails. However, the 4 way direction key is on the left, which could be problematic if you are used to navigating a phone’s menu with your right thumb. The spacebar is oddly placed but I got used to it in sometime.

The screen is resistive touch, not the capacitive touch found in the iPhone and a few upcoming models from Samsung and HTC. So if you’re used to the touch screen on your iPod touch, you’ll initially find it difficult to use but will get used to it in a couple of hours, after which you can sense where and how hard you need to press to navigate through the menu. I must add that using the touch screen with the stylus was still much easier than using my fingers.

Then there’s Ovi, Nokia’s first attempt to provide downloadable apps right from the phone, which is obviously inspired by the popular App Store by Apple. Apps did exist for all Symbian devices even before Ovi, but there was no one place to find them. One typically had to download apps from specific websites, or download them to the PC first and then install it on the phone. The experience of the Ovi store on the N97 was better than on the E90. But the app quality and numbers are no-where in comparison to Apple. One needs to browse and try a few of them to sort the good ones from the bad ones.

Some apps are preloaded, including Facebook, YouTube, RealPlayer, JoikuSpot (an amazing software to convert your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot) etc. The one thing I like about Nokia devices is that they make the home screen actually useful, compared to the iPhone where all you see is just the menu.

The good things:

+ Lots of internal memory (32GB) expandable up to 48GB via a memory card
+ OTA (Over the air) software updates, which is nothing new but still cool to have
+ FM transmitter cum receiver, which provides an amazing way to couple it with your car’s stereo system
+ Customizable home screen (with “widgets”), not just a “active standby” like other Nokia devices
+ 5 mega pixel camera with flash
+ A much better browser compared to previous Nokia models, although panning and zooming is not as cool as the iPhone

The not-so-good things:

– Inconsistent UI – Some features work on a single click and some work on a double click. Confusing at times
– Scrolling menu’s with finger touch is terribly hard. Have to either use a stylus or pull out the keyboard
– Green/red calling buttons are not sensitive enough. Since the UI does not respond very quickly, it’s hard to guess whether you’ve pressed the button or not
– Stylus does not slide into the main device
– Symbian OS just doesn’t seem right for a touch screen device. But don’t think Nokia will ever have much of a choice here, considering their recent acquisition of Symbian worth half a billion dollars
– On screen keyboard is not full QWERTY, Therefore, typing on a full QWERTY keyboard with one hand (like say, E71 or the iPhone) may not be possible
– Terribly expensive at Rs. 36000. Nokia, what were you thinking?

The perception of a mobile phone has dramatically changed after the iPhone. Nokia’s tagline “Live online 24×7″ is exactly what people now want to do on their mobile phones. The N97 did a lot of things right but still there is no one-thing which I can call an iPhone killer.

Apple’s iPhone has set the direction and is of course the clear winner in the segment right now. But the exciting part is that the competition is yet to open up. Everyone is warming up for this big battle of becoming the #1 in this space. Google’s Android platform, the newly launched Palm Pre and a few upcoming models from Blackberry are certainly worth keeping a lookout for. Samsung and HTC are also trying for the top-spot with their Windows mobile range. Has Nokia played its trump card with the N97? Or is there more to come?

Final verdict? The N97 was a good first attempt but I am sure Nokia can do better than this. C’mon Nokia, yes you can. We know it. Come back stronger tomorrow. Shock us. Put us in awe. You need to prove the world that it’s not just hard but impossible to beat the #1 in the world (or else, its Game Over).

I recently happened to mistype the password when trying to set a password on my Windows Vista machine. As a result, I could not login to my computer after restarting it.

I was sure there was a way to “hack” into Vista without having to re-format my PC, and neither was I interested in downloading any software which claimed to reset forgotten passwords. Some amount of googling and I was “in” and ready to post this as a “tutorial” from my Vista machine 🙂

Here is what I did (find a geek to do this for you):

1. Boot your computer from a Linux Live CD (eg. Knoppix, Ubuntu etc.)
2. Open the “terminal” and type in the following series of commands:

sudo su – (gain superuser privelages)
cd /mnt (change directory to mounted drives)
ls (get the list of mounted drives)
cd sda1 (sda1 is the main hard drive)
cd Windows/ (change to the windows directory)
cd System32/ (change to the system directory)
mv Utilman.exe Utilman.old (backup original file)
cp cmd.exe Utilman.exe (copy cmd.exe as utilman.exe)
reboot

Now take out your Live CD and let Windows boot normally.

Once rebooted, on the Vista logon screen, Press Windows key + U (or click on the small Accessibility Options icon on the bottom left)

This will try to invoke Utility Manager (Utilman.exe) but cmd.exe will spawn instead, with ‘System’ privileges.

c:>net user mynewuser mynewpassword /add
c:>net localgroup administrators mynewuser /add

Reboot the system.

Now on the Login screen, you will see a new account “mynewuser” created. Login to Vista using the password “mynewpassword”

Now, go to Control Panel > User Accounts and remove the password for your original account. Reboot and login from your original Vista account and remove the “mynewuser” account you created for this hack (optional).

You can now (optionally) revert back Utilman.old to Utilman.exe to prevent misuse, incase a non-geek gets hold of your laptop 😉

Geeks are sexy!

P.S. You’ll find this trick on many other websites too, but the reason I “re-blogged” it is because it really works!

Caller: Hello, am I speaking to Mr. Gaurav Gupta?
Me: Yes

Caller: Very good afternoon Sir, I am Falah Dimkana calling from UCUCU bank. Are you currently using any credit cards from UCUCU bank?

At this point, just interrupt the conversation and answer back sternly (or even rudely) – “What is your TC code?”

The telecaller will be stunned since not many of them are used to getting stern replies like this. In all probabilities, they will hesitate to tell you their code.

Then ask them their full name, the name of their team lead and their team lead’s code, and pretend that you are noting down everything.

Threaten them by saying that your name is in the NDNC list and that you will register a complaint against the bank with this TC code if you again get a call from this bank ever.

The telecaller will apologize and hang-up. Do this for all banks that compromise your sanity.

It really works 😉

Travelling to Lucknow, a historic city known for it’s tehzeeb, ‘murga’ and paan was something I was waiting since long. Finally, a friend’s wedding and a desperate need take a break gave me the perfect opportunity to plan the trip.

(This blog post is meant to be a guide for people visiting the city… how to reach, how to travel, where to eat, what to eat, what to see, where to stay etc. as well as sharing my own experiences along the journey)

The Delhi-Lucknow Shatabdi express is a comfortable option to travel. Tickets are reasonably priced (Rs. 1500/- approx. for a return ticket) and train timings are suitable to travellers. We left New Delhi at 6:15am and reached Lucknow at 1pm. As expected, we were greeted by a lot of touts and auto-wallah’s on the station.

We figured out that Lucknow is an especially cheap city. A ride from the station to the various hotels nearby will cost not more than Rs. 5 – Rs. 10 per head. The Lucknow city is confined to a very small area, so travel is not expensive. Moreover, unlike metropolitan city’s, Lucknow roads are not crowded by private vehicles. Public transport (auto and cycle-rickshaw) are the best means to hop from place to place.

We decided to unpack at Hotel Mera Mann, a comfortable hotel at Hussain Ganj round-about (golchakkar). Mera Mann is somewhere between a budget and a star-rated hotel, with rooms costing around Rs. 3000/- per night for a double-bedded room, with complimentary breakfast. If you work at one of their “listed” companies, you are entitled for a 15% off. So do carry your business cards along. The services, food and stay were excellent overall.

After unpacking, we headed straight to:

Destination 1: Ameenabad

Ameenabad is like the “Chandni Chowk” of Delhi. Where else would you find a road jammed by cycle-rickshaws and pedestrians!

Where to eat:

1. Tunday Kebabs – A must go eating joint to try out the famous “Galauti” kebabs, typically eaten with Roomali roti or parantha’s.

2. Prakash Kulfi – A few shops away from Tunday’s, I didn’t find anything special in the Kulfi, but it’s worth a visit, especially when it’s nearby.

What to buy:

1. Lucknow is famous for its Chikan (embroidery) work. We found a shop in that market and got some really good women’s suits and sarees at a reasonable price. You can bargain big-time at these shops. Do not buy Chikan from posh shops and showrooms at Hazratganj or other places, where the same item could be sold to you at up to 5 times the price!

By then it was evening, so we returned to our hotel for a quick nap. At about 7pm, we headed to

Destination 2: Falaknuma restaurant at Clarks Avadh Hotel

Clarks Avadh is a 4-star hotel and Falaknuma is situated on the 9th floor. The restaurant opens at 8pm. The boundary walls of the restaurant are all glass and give a great view of the Lucknow city (similar to Parikrama at Delhi, without the rotation). There is live music playing with the best of Jagjit Singh ghazals to set the right kind of mood. Try out Murgh Malai Kebab in your starters and don’t miss the Phirni in the desserts. The Phirni is totally my own discovery 🙂 and believe me, you will love it. The preparation and taste is very “Awadhi”. A meal at Clarks Avadh would cost you approximately Rs. 1000-1200/- per head (starters, main course and desserts. Without alcohol based drinks).

Next morning, we woke up early and reached

Destination 3: Bara/Chota Imambara, Bhul Bhulaiya

The main tourist attractions at Lucknow include the Bara Imambara, Chota Imambara, Rumi Darwaza, Photo Gallery, Ghanta Ghar and Bhul Bhulaiya (Labyrinth). Fortunately, all of them are pretty close by. The best way is to reach Bara Imambara by auto rickshaw. Take a full ticket (costs Rs. 25/-) which covers entry to all the above mentioned places.

From there, we took a “tanga” (horse cart), to visit Chota Imambara etc. Beware of touts trying to take you to the Chikan showrooms at the “Chowk” area. Steer clear. The ride includes travel to all these places, where you can drop down, see the place and come back to the tanga. You can take a “guide” at all these places, who can show you around. My companion friend was so impressed by all the places he saw, that he called it the “Google” of those times – something so memorable that people will remember it for many many years to come.

From here, we headed to our next destination

Destination 4: Hazratganj

Hazratganj is the “posh” area of Lucknow, known for its malls and branded showrooms. Needless to say, I was least interested in all of that and jumped straight to the food! The chaat outside “Royal Cafe” is famous, especially the “Basket Chat”. Try Butter Chicken and Keema Naan at Royal Cafe. An old and famous sweet shop in that area is “Ram Aasrey”. Try the “Malai ki ghilauri” (also called “Malai Paan”) which is a delicacy not found elsewhere of Lucknow. In case you plan to bulk-buy mithai, there is a better shop to go for (read on).

Although I could not, you can also try out chaat at Shukla Chaat Bhandar (opens at 4pm) and Moti Mahal restaurant as well as the famous “meetha paan” of Lucknow at any of the Paan shops. The Paan is made of Gulkhand, petha and elaichi, giving it an all new flavour, much different from the typical sweet paan of Delhi.

Next day, we headed to

Destination 5: Residency

Unlike the Bada Imambara, this place is not crowded with tourists, which makes it a nice destination for people seeking a quiet and relaxing garden. Needless to say, many young couples from Lucknow can be seen getting cosy in the quiet corners of the garden. There is a nice museum in the centre (Monday closed), which is worth a visit. You have to leave your mobile phones outside the museum, in a locker.

Destination 6: Cantonment / Sadar Bazaar

Known for the famous sweet shop “Chappan Bhog”, I brought tons of sweets, namkeen and rewri-gajak from here. The prices are on the high-end (comparable to Haldiram’s in Delhi) but the quality and taste is outstanding.

The “tehzeeb”, which Lucknow is known for, was very much apparent after spending a few hours at this city. Road rage is non-existent. People drive with a lot of patience. There is a general sense of respect for everyone. Living in Lucknow is like living life in slow motion. Far far away from the hustle bustle of Delhi, Lucknow is a great spot for anyone looking for a relaxing time.

I saw a stark contrast between Jaipur and Lucknow. Jaipur is making a lot of effort in preserving the city as a tourist attraction. Jaipur could have easily been a modern city, but CHOSE not to be one, so as to attract tourists to Rajasthan. Lucknow on the other hand, did not make a choice. It went with the flow. As a result, a part of Lucknow is modern and hi-tech, but a part of it is the typical “nawabi” Lucknow, which people want to see.

After a stomach full of murga and mind full of memories, I finally boarded the Shatabdi Express in the afternoon and reached back Delhi.

Home sweet home.

Somewhere in the middle of 1998 I got my first computer at home. Which means 2008 is the year I complete 10 years being a part of the digital revolution. Like almost everyone who’s been a part of this since the early years, I love looking back at those early days and recalling how the journey has been.

I remember playing cricket outside my house with friend’s when someone came to deliver our first desktop computer – an HP Vectra machine. I dropped everything I had in mind and ran towards my house in maddening excitement. A cool “HP” branded desktop, sparkling white with (Genuine) Windows 95, 16 MB RAM, 133 MHz Intel Pentium Processor, 2.1 GB hard disk and a 14″ color monitor was jaw dropping. One of my first questions to the “engineer” who came to install the computer at my house was “if we save a file to the hard disk, do I need to remember where I saved it to be able to access it again?”

Next year I upgraded to 32 MB RAM, 266 MHz processor and somehow convinced my dad to move to Windows 98. Software was moving quickly and applications for Windows 95 were getting harder and harder to find.

Somewhere around that time I started buying computer magazines, mostly for the free CD’s that used to come along, containing games as big as 100 MB. “Chip” and “Computers@Home” were my favorites. CD’s were the one and only source of gaming. My dad gifted me a Cricket 97 CD on my birthday and I can hardly under emphasize the countless number of hours I spent playing that. Soon after, I laid my hands on Need for Speed High Stakes, which added many more hours of fun and games after school hours.

In a few months time, the Internet made way into my home, with a “cool” 3Com U.S. Robotics 56kbps voice modem. I was regularly visiting sites like Hotmail, AltaVista, HappyPuppy and many other sites which were a rage that time. It was not long when I made my own web-page using a text editor I installed from one of the “free” magazine CD’s. By year 2000, I had my own website on the web. One of my first web pages had a bright blue background and text in yellow containing a recipe of an Indian sweet dish. I advertised the URL wherever I could. I even spammed a few high-profile guys to force them to see my website (yeah, I was really really proud of it!) which ultimately caused my website to be taken down by my web-host where I was hosting for free.

Getting into college marked the next big move- a mobile phone, a cheap but popular Nokia 3310. Not to mention, I fell in love with brand Nokia instantly, although I hated it initially.

It has been a journey ever since- today I own multiple dual-core CPU based portable computers, over a 1000GB of permanent digital storage, satellite radio system, ultra high end mobile devices which are more powerful than the first desktop I owned! Whew!

I don’t know how long the journey will be and when humanity will reach it’s ultimate limits, but till where we’ve got so far, it has been pretty exciting! I am sure a lot of you have similar stories to share. I would love to hear them from you.

Update: A humorous video on those times:

1. Social web and cloud computing workshop, organized by Google

Talks about OpenSocial, Shindig and Google App Engine. Must attend for all developers. Details can be found here. Registrations for the event are now closed.

2. AV Expo 2008, Ashoka Hotel, New Delhi – 5 Sept to 7 Sept, 2008

A great place to catch up with what’s hot in the world of electronics and gadgets.

3. OSS Camp Delhi, Sept 27-28

An “unconference” for techies to meet and socialize around tech, the Internet or anything else they want to discuss. Details can be found here.

The One Minute Manager is an amazing book about how managing people takes so little time and effort, if done correctly.

The book is about a guy walking into an office wanting to learn about how good managers do their jobs. He comes across a man who calls himself “One Minute Manager” because it takes precisely one minute for him to manage his employees. The young visitor is taken across the office meeting various people who work under the One Minute Manager, who tell the young guy about the manager’s “One Minute” techniques.

The book ends with “The” One Minute Manager becoming “A” One Minute Manager.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is responsible for managing people as a part of their job. Even if you don’t, probably this book will help you give an all new perspective about managing people. Here’s the link on Amazon.com

The Hindu reports, “Apple’s iPhone, the touch screen handset that acquired a cult status in the US and other western countries, will be available to Indian mobile users through private telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar from August 22, giving competitors like Nokia, Samsung and others a run for their money”.

The first part may well be true but the latter is debatable. Is India ready for an iPhone yet? Read the complete article…

Update (20/8/2008): Vodafone has finally made the iPhone prices in India official: Rs. 31,000 for 8GB model and Rs. 36,100 for 16GB model

[This blogpost was originally written by me and published on WebYantra.net, but that website does not seem to be maintained anymore. I am re-publishing this article on my blog so as to keep the content available to anyone who may still be interested in reading it.]

Dhingana.com is a social network built around the concept of sharing music. Dhingana aims to provide a large base of streaming audio for Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi and Tamil songs. What makes it interesting however is that the music is streamed by Dhingana itself.

If you are not interested in the social networking aspect of the website, Dhingana is just a great place to find a bunch of latest songs which you can listen to streaming over the Internet. Streaming is smooth and the site claims that they have plenty of bandwidth for which they have planned in advance to maintain a good quality of service even during sudden traffic surges.

Dhingana has got a step further and added a lot of interesting social features like Public SmartLists, Public mGreetings & Musical Profile Pages. Put simply, Public Smartlist is like your online playlist which you can build using Dhingana’s huge song repository and then share publicly on the site. They also feature a 360Widget, which allows you to feature a song collection by adding a widget to your blog.

Dhingana is reportedly experiencing fast paced growth. For now, their revenue source remains online advertising which is displayed on their website. But the company plans to experiment with other revenue sources in the future.

I am not convinced about their “Games” section however. For me, it’s just a dilution to the site theme and an unnecessary distraction to their main motive of building social networks with people sharing similar tastes in music. The videos section requires the Windows Media Player 11 plugin incase you are viewing the site in Firefox. In IE, the videos tend to play smoothly. Dhingana does not promote user generated content at all, which some people might find restrictive. For example, a music composer might want to spread the word about his compositions through Dhingana and may want other users to listen to his music and add the songs to their playlists, blogs etc. Dhingana.com offers a good collection of regional music as well, but it’s still restricted to Marathi, Punjabi and Tamil songs only. More regional content would be a great addition.

Dhingana has a attractive search feature to allow searching for songs based on the album title, song title, singer etc. This makes it really convenient if you are say, wanting to listen to songs from a particular singer only.

If you are looking only for online music streaming only, there are a few other sites in this domain too. Sites like Raaga.com, MusicIndiaOnline.com and Smashits.com are established players in this field. MingleBox shut down their streaming service recently because of licensing issues.

My overall verdict would be Dhingana needs a lot more work to be known as a social network but when it comes to searching and listening to quality streaming music online, it does a great job. Excellent for a start, considering that providing good streaming would be the major force to pull the masses to Dhingana anyway.

Review posted by Gaurav Gupta (with inputs from Swamy G.)