Google Phone G1 Unveiled!

First Google Android Phone unveiled.

I heard about Google Android through Vipin Sir(faculty at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham) sometime in December 2007. Google introduced the Android Software (Operating System) for designing Mobile phone devices last November, in a move they said "could help the cellphone industry make the Internet work as smoothly on phones as it does on computers". One of my seniors at college had taken up this cellphone-industry-transformer and was developing on it using Eclipse. 

He showed me some of the features of Android and its graphical capabilities. Most of his exhibits to me were Google videos and some code fragments of the SDK. I also checked out the Android Architecture at the Google Android site and it did say a lot of things.

But it was not yet implemented then and I wanted to see it in action.

So now, here it is: First ever Google Android Phone: G1 was launched on 23/09/2008 

This promising event may trigger significant progresses on the multimedia face of Mobile Devices. 

Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA will be the first carrier to offer a mobile phone based on Google Inc's Anroid Software, according to a New York Times report.

I guess everyone who has the Apple iPhone or thinking of buying one will be in a state of dilemma after the "gPhone"'s inception. 

Have a look at this article if you need a little help.

Hey, and for everyone in India waiting for the Android Phone, this news article says that the Android Phone will enter India in December. The phones will be sold by HTC which is partnering with Google for the products.

I still dont know about the cost of the gadget or any other technical specs. However, the article says that the gPhone will be priced above Rs.20,000. 

Get latest news of Google Phone here.

By the way, the Android system is open source and anybody can get their hands busy on it, if they wish to. 

Want to develop a phone of your own? Download the Android SDK here.

Anyone out there owning a G1? Please comment your experience with it. 

Derby:Reported Bug Resolved

Anyone who has read my very first post would know that I have been involved in the development of Apache Derby for a very brief amount of time.

At the time, I had reported a bug and was quite excited about it since that was my first 'Bug Discovery' and was a student then.

But then, after I joined the Industry and started working as a full time developer, I realized that reporting a bug was no big deal even though it is very important.

Nevertheless, I am happy to tell that, that very bug:

https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DERBY-3408 has been fixed today by Bryan Pendleton in the latest version of the Apache Derby.

I'll be soon contributing to the Apache Derby Project again if God wills.

Whoa! Google Chrome has Crashed

That's the message that Google Chrome gives out when it real crash. Yes, It does Crash, says Rishi Narang from Evil Fingers

 According to Narang’s advisory :

“An issue exists in how chrome behaves with undefined-handlers in chrome.dll version 0.2.149.27. A crash can result without user interaction. When a user is made to visit a malicious link, which has an undefined handler followed by a ’special’ character, the chrome crashes with a Google Chrome message window “Whoa! Google Chrome has crashed. Restart now?”. It crashes on “int 3″ at 0×01002FF3 as an exception/trap, followed by “POP EBP” instruction when pointed out by the EIP register at 0×01002FF4.”

There are couple of glitches reported too but I thought I should post this one since I pointed this special feature in one of my earlier posts.

Another problem with Chrome that I encountered is this:

When You want to open a link in the new tab, You usually either hold down CTRL and click the link or you press the scroll button on the link. These shortcuts doesn't work in Chrome. When you do this, a new tab is opened, but both the tabs will have the new URL in the address bar. However, Please note that this happends only for pages that contain frames.

Ramadan 2008/Ramadan 1429

The last 3 years, I was in Kerala, India during Ramadan when I was studying at College. and before that I used to be in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. And this time I am in Kolkata. This is the first Ramadan after I joined my first job.I had heard that there are lots of beautiful mosques in and around Kolkata. Though, I am having a tough time finding them. Everytime I check my mail and Orkut scrap, people are asking me how's work during ramadan and what are the timings, et cetera. I pointed out to them that here in India, there are no changes in job timings(like you have it in the gulf countries).

Nowadays, I am making an effort to understand the meanings of the verses in The Holy Quran. I rely on a a new publication of Abdullah Yusuf Ali's 1934 Translation of the Quran. I used to read the Quran in it's Arabic script without really understading its meaning. But now, when I am getting the essence of the Holy Book, I am realizing that Its really Amazing! Its answering a lot of questions.Really!

Later on, through the internet, I found out that there are lot of people evangelizing Islam through music. I had already been a fan of Yusuf Islam(A.K.A Cat Stevens),a prominent convert to Islam and loved most of his songs and Nasheeds(Islamic Songs) and his previous songs such as Moonshadow,Father and Son, Wild World.. He really got this beautifull voice. I first found him through the "A is for Allah" song.

Then, the internet searches introduced me to Zain Bikkha and Dawud Wharnsby Ali,another convert. Zain Bikkha and Dawud Wharnsby Ali have really nice numbers to their credit.
This particular song, "No, You can't take it With You" is a real good example of showing how pure messages can be communicated through music.
I hope the whole or atleast the majority of the music, media, etc portray such meaningful and useful messages.
I listen to Talks of Yusuf Estes when I get time. He has got this way of keeping you awake [:-)] throughout his speech. His style is excellent and I really enjoy and learn while listening to him.

My top 10 Songs/Nasheeds:
Welcome O Ramadan (English)
The Articles of Faith(Arabic/English)
Don't Talk to me about Mohammed(English)
What Did I do Today(English/Arabic)
Allah Knows(English)
Not Afraid to Stand alone(English)
Ramadan Moon(English)
I look I see(English)
Animals Love Quran(English)
Sing Children of the World(English)

Videos to Learn From:
Talk by Yusuf Estes regarding Ramadan - Part 1
Talk by Yusuf Estes regarding Ramadan - Part 2

Talk by Yusuf Estes regarding Ramadan - Part 3

Talk by Yusuf Estes regarding Ramadan - Part 4

Talk by Yusuf Estes regarding Ramadan - Part 5

Talk by Yusuf Estes regarding Ramadan - Part 6

Lets pray for peace and harmony in the world and to eradicate poverty.
May Peace be Upon You!

Google Chrome!

I saw.I downloaded.I smiled.
This is one of those good things that happen to you when you keep getting those Fatal Errors on your browser and then the whole set of tabs that are open disappear just like that when the IE crashes. Well, I did get an error of some sort while using this beauty but guess what, all my other tabs remain! Guess what! This thing never crashes! That really kept making me use Chrome.
I noticed that Orkut and Picassa photos load much faster in Chrome. So, I guess it should be a faster browser too.
But I also observed that YouTube videos are loading a little slower compared to IE. But need to check it out again.
Another thing worth noting is the Large area in which a lot more Information can be fit in.

Later on, I went through the WebComic. I did try some of those tips in it. The way it works too is Xcellent. A product of Pure Simple Thinking.

But a serious problem remains. I miss my add-ons that I used to use on Firefox and IE. Most importantly, a google product again- Google toolbar because of which I can't bookmark the pages into my google account anymore.

I hope the guys at Google or someone comes up with these add-ons real real soon if they need people to hook on to GChrome completely! Anyways, I'm lovin it.

Well, I want to carry on this post a little longer since I want to showcase some of the best features of this browser:

1. Task Manager : Google Chrome has its own Task Manager! It will list down all the open tabs and windows just like they are processes running. Well, they indeed are different processes running. Check it out on WebComic and you'll get it. Press Shift+Esc to get the Chrome Task Manager.
2. Dynamic Tabs : You have this tabbed browsing capability in Google Chrome. But thats not all. You can carry around your tabs anywhere you wish. You can go ahead and make it a separate window if you wish. No need to Copy/Paste the address after opening a new window. Just drag it outside the "Tab Place-holders".
3. UnderCover browsing : The Google guys call it Incognito browsing. When you are browsing incognito, all recording of your activities on the web using Chrome gets blocked. That means, if you access sensitive data through the browser and forgets to clear the history, that would'nt be a problem. Morever, no cookies and form fields will be saved on Chrome leaving no trace of where you have been on the net on the computer. Really useful on shared computers.
4. Arrangement of History and the default new tab contents : Whenever, you open a new tab, it gives thumbnail views of screenshots of web pages from your history. Also, the arrangement of items on the history page resembles that even that is a web page. This last feature is present in Opera too.
5. Large area : Google chrome gives you a very large Information displayable area which minimizes the usage of scroll bars. Browser Developers too are aware that scrollbars are a pain and not only the Web Designers.

There are many more which I've not yet explored. Please add comments if I've missed any.

And the best part of Google Chrome has not yet been spoken of in this post. IT IS 100% Open Source! Get the source here!. Hmm..Thinkin of building your own browser?! Better than the best,eh?

A day-long trip around Kolkata

I have been in Kolkata for almost 3 months now and yet I've not seen much of the "Old Calcutta". The first things that come to mind when I hear 'Calcutta' are Mother Thereasa, the British buildings, Rabindranath Tagore, etc.
But My friends here and I have not yet been to any of these great personalities' locations of activity and our views were thus confined only to the Salt Lake area and some parts of "New Calcutta".
However, Last week, a friend and professor at Amrita University,Amitapuri Campus Mr.Probal Ray Choudhury was in his hometown(ThakurPukur in Kolkata) for the Onam vacation. He offered to take us for a ride across Kolkata. We jumped at the offer.

So, it happend that we visited Belur Math.
Belur Math is the headquarters of Ramkrishna Mission and houses the things used by Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ramkrishna and the like.
It contains an exquisite museum which tells us the Birth of the Organization and the Travels of Swami Vivekananda to the West, his life there and a variety of other things.
It is a beautiful place that any person who is visiting Kolkata should see.
We were able to admire the beauty of the River Ganges. Across Ganges, we could see another temple and a boat service from Belur Math to that temple is available too.

Later in the day, we took a long drive to a place called RaiChak. Raichak has nothing special except that you can admire the beauty of River Ganges to the core. From here, You can see the Bay of Bengal in a distance.
From Raichak, we went to Diamond Harbour. Here, You can feel the calm sea breeze on your face.
It is a good place to read a book provided there is not much traffic on the adjoining road.
For dinner, we went to Mr.Probal's house. His mother had cooked some excellent Bengali Food and I had the best food that I've had in 4 months.

Now, that was a sunday spent well.