2011 a personal year review

Posted on January 3, 2012 by prasanth

Last year in every sense was a bad year, personally for me.

But when I look back there are some amazing things that I did even in a bad year. May be this will help you look back at your life and realize that it wasn’t all that bad after all.

Some of the highlights this year for me were.

Attended two world cup matches 

This was a dream of mine, to attend at least 1 world cup match. I saw both of the matches in Chinnaswami Stadium, Bangalore. It’s a 5 hour-long journey for me to get to the ground and was totally worth it.

I saw India V/S Ireland & Australia V/S Canada

For India match I went with friends and for Australia match I went with family. It was really an amazing experience. Glad I went last year, I would have had to wait at least 20 years for next world cup in India, if I missed this one.

Drove car for 450 Kms in a single day.

My biggest drive ever. It took 7 hours. I went to Maruti driving school for a week and then did this drive. Had my license for 6 years but didn’t have the confidence for a big drive.

I did a bike ride of same distance 3 years back. But 4 wheels is the way to go given the Indian road conditions.

It was so liberating, there is nothing like going for a long drive to put your life in perspective. The vehicle was Maruti SX4 by the way.

Been waiting for this at least 6 years.

Watched a new movie on the release day 

I was always afraid to go to movies on a release day because of the crowd. But this time i made an exception and tried it.

I still don’t recommend it, if you want to watch the movie peacefully, too much noise from fanboys. I wouldn’t go for one again.

I am not writing about the movie because it was a shitty one. And I don’t want to give it any more publicity. This was three months back.

But glad I did it once to see what the fuzz was about. But I prefer quietness in theaters so this experience is not for me.

Started stock trading 

I always dreamt of doing trading. Thought it would be a good match with my personality. Even though it didn’t go the way I wanted.

Could not have chosen a worst time to begin trading, but you have to start somewhere right.

Glad I started trading.

Started uploading videos to YouTube

I always wanted to review new gadgets and mobiles. Luckily Nokia started sending a few review units Nokia N97 Mini, Nokia X7, Nokia BH 905i.

Luckily my youtube channel was approved for advertising this year.

More videos coming in 2012…

See even in a bad year there were so many good things. What were yours comment away.

Hoping both you and I will get to do many new things this year.

Posted in Opinions | Leave a comment

My 2012 predictions

Posted on January 1, 2012 by prasanth

Many said the world would end. But we are still here… Yay for human race.

How will the coming year be…

3G

It’s such a failure in India that even after 1 year no one i know has 3G, not because it’s not available. But many still think its very costly.

Even I have not yet taken 3G because it cost nearly 1000 Rs per month to get a decent bandwidth connection.

Hopefully the telecom carriers will come to their senses and reasonably price the service in 2012.

There is always the rumor of getting 4G from reliance (Mukesh ambani’s company). Hope it comes soon and give the 3G a run for it money.

Tablets

Akash tablet was launched last year, I still think if you have the money iPad is the tablet to buy.

That will be the same in the coming year too. There will be plenty of chinese and local tablet manufactures. People will buy them and be disappointed and never use them again.

Apple will not launch a smaller version, but it will launch iPad 3 with double battery capacity of the current model. Retina display is also a sure thing.

Transport

More new car models will be launched this year. Reva from Mahindra will be an interesting thing to watch out for this year. If they plan and price it well this car could take off this year. Also new improved nano will see some good sales.

petrol prices will stay the same or could go up, as more problems seems to come up in middle east everyday.

Stock Market

By the end of the year both nifty and sensex will reach their all time highs. Most of the damage has already been done. Its time to go up, but slowly…

Politics

Nothing special will happen no new bills will be passed, until the next elections don’t expect any big reforms.

Sooner or later Indians have to realize that local parties can’t be given power. Coalitions governments will never be successful, it will become true as the year goes on.

Sports

India is expected to pick up some gold medals at olympics this year. They will but not in major sports like Hockey or athletics etc.  China & America will dominate.

Cricket will see India dominate at home but suffer overseas. I wonder if winning is because of lack of competition from other countries. No other country has genuine match winners.

Mobiles

No new os releases this year, just few updates here and there.

Android will dominate, Apple will keep continue making profits. Kind of dull year mobile os wise. There will hardware excitement through out the year mostly from android.

And apple will release its 1 model. I don’t expect the price of iPhone 4S in india to come down, it will stay they same.

Gaming

It’s about time for new consoles, Nintendo has already shown its hand, now its Xbox and Sony’s turn. They will showcase their new devices this year but might not release them this year.

Portable gaming will never reach its heyday as iPod touch & iPad will give them a stiff competition.

Sony’s portable viva will be more successful than Nintendo’s 3Ds

It will be interesting to watch, I will do a year-end review of my predictions…

Posted in News & politics | Leave a comment

Zinio iPad app video review

Posted on December 17, 2011 by prasanth

Zinio iPad app is a magazine store and reader app. Most of the indian magazines are available here. And they are much cheaper than the magazines in apples new news stand.

These magazine are much cheaper than their print equivalent.

Click here if the above video of Zinio iPad app doesn’t work

Posted in Video Reviews | Leave a comment

Samsung Galaxy S2 video review

Posted on December 16, 2011 by prasanth

Samsung Galaxy S2 Review, this android phone is available for 29000 Rs. This is the top of the line for android at the moment. This video shows some of the features of the phone.

Samsung Galaxy S2 video review Click here if the above video doesn’t work

Posted in Video Reviews | Leave a comment

Samsung Galaxy S2 review

Posted on November 27, 2011 by prasanth

Samsung Galaxy S2

The is the top of the line android phone that you can buy at the moment. This phone will also get the recently released ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich update).

Hardware

The first thing you will notice is the 4.3 inch screen which is huge compared to iphone 4S or other similar devices. The screen is Super AMOLED Plus screen, so its gorgeous.

The second thing is its weight less, it almost feels like a fake phone with nothing inside. Its only weighs 116 g. Go to your nearest mobile store lift a iphone 4 and then this phone and you will be amazed at how weightless this device feels.

The back cover of the phone is a paper thin piece of plastic. Which helps in keeping the weight down considerably. The battery occupies most of the back side, which means its a big battery that lasts all day.

It also has a 8 MP with autofocus and LED flash, it can record 1080 p video at 30 fps which means video will look stunning and smooth. Also has a secondary front facing 2 MP camera for video chatting and self portraits.

It has one home button like the iphone the other two buttons are touch sensitive buttons which light up when you touch them.

Usage

Samsung Galaxy S2

The phone is amazing to use with a big 4.3 inch screen. Using the web or watching videos etc is really fun to do because of the big screen. Video looks amazing on this device.

Samsung Galaxy S2

Even with hard to use android operating system, with Samsung’s modifications it is easy to use. Even though there is small learning curve once you know about all the feature you will love this phone.

Once you use 4.3 inch screen for a few days you can’t go back to smaller screen size. The touch screen works flawlessly.

The battery on the phone easily lasts a full day with internet usage and phone usage.

Samsung Galaxy S2

Samsung have added some special touch gesture to make it much easier to use. You can swipe right on a contact to send sms or swipe left to call the person.

There are some other special gesture called motion gesture like the double finger zoom or the single finger panning etc. These can be found in the settings under motion. But you will not use them after trying them for few times. Those are not really practical to use.

Samsung Galaxy S2

Samsung also provide some beautiful widgets with the TouchWiz UI v4.0 (which is the customization layer they add on top of android). It also has some nice settings to make it easier to use.

Samsung Galaxy S2

Verdict

How good is this phone, i have made this phone as my primary mobile device thats how good. If you are looking for the best phone on android at the moment, this is the best one out there. Even google’s own newly announced Galaxy nexus comes way behind this phone.

So if you can afford 29000 Rs and like using android this is the phone for you.

Click Here for the Samsung Galaxy S2 video Review 

Posted in Mobiles, Reviews | 4 Comments

How to beat the aircel and airtel gprs

Posted on November 27, 2011 by prasanth

If you are looking for a cheap way to use internet on your mobile.

Both these companies offer 1 month unlimited gprs plans that cost 97 and 98 Rs per month. You get 2 Gb to 3 Gb with each carriers, after which you will be charged.

But most mobile users will not cross this limit, so for 100 Rs per month you could be connected all the time.

So how to beat them, this is not hack to get free gprs or anything like that. What both these companies do is they automatically deduct money after the 1 month period, no warnings or reminders. If you are not careful you will lose the balance on your mobile.

So to use the internet fully for 98 Rs.

Make sure to recharge only with 100 Rs talk time. That way even if you forget the 1 month limit only 100 Rs will be lost. So recharge with less than 100 Rs talk time at a time. This also helps you keep track of your mobile use.

Also set a reminder to recharge your 98 Rs internet, make sure to set it a day or two earlier than 1 month. That way you will recharge it and you will not lose your talk time balance.

Also install apps to track your data usage like netcounter for android. There are free apps for ios and other platforms too.

By keeping track of your bandwidth you can make sure that your don’t go over the 2 GB or the 3 GB limit set by these carriers.

So use these tips to stay connected all the time. I been burned a few times by forgetting to recharge in time. So these are the tricks I use now to take full advantage of the gprs service provided by both the carriers.

By the way this gprs service is only available for 2G users sorry 3G people, until cheap data plans come i am not switching.

Posted in Mobiles | Leave a comment

Samsung Galaxy S2 unboxing video

Posted on November 24, 2011 by prasanth

Samsung Galaxy S2 unboxing video, review to come shortly. You can buy this phone for 29000 Rs. This is the top of the line for Android phones at the moment.

Samsung Galaxy S2 unboxing video

Posted in Mobiles, Video Reviews | Leave a comment

Indian videos going viral on YouTube

Posted on November 24, 2011 by prasanth

These 2 videos are taking YouTube by storm.

Why This Kolaveri Di Full Song Promo Video in HD

This song from movie 3 which just had its audio launch. Song is sung & written by the movies hero Dhanush, Shruti Hassan the heroine and music composed by Anirudh.

You just want to hear it again and again, it nice to see such creativity in Indian movie industry, keep it coming. Hoping the movie is also this good. It has more than 27 lakh views and 12000 comment as of this post. Just amazing viral buzz.

India Talent Show – Warriors of Goja AMAZING

This video is from a talent show on Telugu channel called Adhurs. Many people and groups from all over India show off their talents like music, dance, martial arts etc to win the weekly price of 3 lakhs.

This group is called Warriors of Goja from Punjab. They show of their martial arts skills which makes even the judges, who have seen such performances before and still they are stunned into amazement.

This shows that we have many dare devils in India, but they don’t have the opportunity to show off their talents. Hope many such talented dare devils get the chance to showcase their talents to the rest of the world. Guinness book are you looking, they would have broken few records, just take look at the video.

Posted in Television & Movies | Leave a comment

Micromax X40 Video Review

Posted on November 1, 2011 by prasanth

This is a projector phone that you can buy for 4800 Rs. Check out some of the features of this projector phone and how the projector works.

Posted in Mobiles, Video Reviews | 1 Comment

Rugby World Cup app video review

Posted on October 22, 2011 by prasanth

Rubgy World Cup should be a standard for every live sporting event app from now on.

This app is available on all major platforms. I take a look at three platforms, links to that at the end of this video. And it is really well designed to work with even slow mobile connections.

Good job rugby world cup app team

Posted in Mobiles, Video Reviews | Leave a comment