A life of unfulfilled dreams, a shelf of unread books...

This post comes with a special rule - at any point during the perusal of this post you are allowed to say, "Sunil bhai, you are crazy!" but you can't do it twice! Read on!

Recently I read this phrase somewhere "A life of unfulfilled dreams, a shelf of unread books..." and it struck me as the ultimate wisdom. That's what we are left with at the end of the innings. Due to the nature of desires (we have one new desire with every breath, it is said) it doesn't seem likely that anyone would be able to fulfill all their dreams but still there is only one life and one chance to do all that you want to do.

Following this philosophy recently I started on another one of my dreams - to make a film. Here is a good place to call me crazy!

I am not one of those people who were born with the dream to be a hero or knew that he was going to be a film director when he grew up. Far from it. I actually didn't like learning about these things. Once I learnt that the actors always carry empty suitcases on screen. When you see someone coming off the train or pushing a trolley on the airport with loads of big suitcases on it...there's NOTHING in them! Totally empty! Another time I learnt that when the actors pretend to drink anything like coffee or tea, the cups are totally empty. There NEVER is any coffee in them, not even a little bit. After knowing these, and other things like these, I was always focused on it and could tell that the actor was just pretending to drink. With that special knowledge I could actually judge who made a good job pretending and who was just so so. But still, I didn't really want to know these things. I'd have preferred the bliss of ignorance.

On the flip side of this was the fact that I always found those movies interesting where they showed the moviemaking business. Fake rain coming down from the roof, fake car racing scene, all kinds of fake stunts, I found it fascinating!

It started with second life. I decided to make a movie there. About my motivations to make a SL movie, the less said the better, but suffice it to say that I spent a few months working on that project and finally finishing it. A movie where you capture game footage is called a machinima. The actors are all animated avatars but after you capture the footage, the editing is just like editing a real life movie. For that I had to learn editing. I did it the way I learn everything - from books.

The experience was amazing! It was so thrilling to work on that project and see the output. My friends who learnt about it from me said why don't you do it for real. And I always had an answer why it was not feasible to do that in RL. Money is usually a big part of it.

But then slowly, the idea took root - why not? With the advent of digital filmmaking, it has become possible for people to make low-budget short films.

Then finally, last month, in March, I did a course on filmmaking. It was a course for beginners, taught over 4 weekends. 4 Sundays, full time. I have mentioned this class several time in my posts, but never revealed what the class was for. Well, now you know. :)

The plan was to learn to make films by making a short, really short, film about 7 minutes in length. We were going to interface with an actors' class from the same institute to cast for our film. After 4 weeks we were supposed to have the finished product in our hands. Everything went well, but we ran out of time when it came to editing. So, now that film is being edited in our own time, when all of us, including the teacher who is a well-known, award-winning director, can get together. First such session was this Monday when we got locked out afterwards.

This film will be finished by the end of this month but I took a copy of the whole footage and made a backstage video for it, something like a "Making of" for our project. If you are curious (and you should be if you read this far), you can watch the video below. Your comments are welcome.

Eating an elephant!

Question: How do you eat an elephant?

Answer: One spoon at a time!

No, no, that's not my way of saying that I have turned non-vegetarian. I am still quite strictly vegetarian other than having an occasional omelette, but I found this English expression quite funny and very apt for what I am about to tell you.

I suddenly got it into my head that I want to be a pilot!

When I took my first, very first, plane journey to US from India, I was quite excited! I loved the feeling of taking off, being airborne and even landing. It was a good landing. But since then I have lost count of my plane journies (nothing phenomenal there, most people do after 6), and during all these air voyages I have had some unpleasant experiences. No, nothing too bad, nothing extraordinary that would get in the newspapers, just simple stuff like weather turbulence where the plane drops for 10-20 seconds at a time straight down and you start looking for something to plug into your mouth (like a shoe) just so you can keep the heart down ; or the landing where the pilot brakes hard immediately after the rear wheels touch down like he's riding a bicycle. Stuff like that has made me kind of...well, not afraid of flying but kind of apprehensive, even during takeoffs and landings, normal ones.
So acting on the age-old wisdom of "face your fears" I thought I'd go for some flying training. Which is kind of weird coming from me as I don't even like roller coasters. That heart-in-your-throat feeling is not very good! Other than that though, flying training in England, (I am sure, everywhere), is quite expensive. I can't afford it! It'd be a huge project for me to take up. The best idea for a huge project, if possible, is to take it in small steps - so I am starting my training from the computer. There are several programs available that simulate the flying experience, some of them free like FlightGear, most of them paid like Microsoft Flight Simulator, arguably the most popular of them all. It's marketed as a game but it is in fact so accurate in its simulation that people do, all over the world, use it as a training aid, before, during or after their real flying training.
Then there are books available for real as well as simulated training which help you understand the concepts and acquire the related knowlege. And believe me there's an enormous amount of knowledge to acquire, it's not just holding the stick (the control column) and moving it back and forth!
During my research on the topic (you are right, it started from www.google.co.uk) , I found this community or rather communities of people who fly a plane on the computer and then online, using software programs to interface with other pilots and even real, live ATCs! I was amazed! Look at www.vatsim.net if you are interested! So, that's the next step of my training ladder. Then there are other things to do, until, step by step I build up my skills on the ground and hopefully also my fund for my real training.

That's why I call it by the funny title, breaking a huge task into very small, minute, doable parts and then tackling them one by one. That's how you eat an elephant....one spoon at a time!

Edit: Thought I'd put a picture there to spice things up. It's a beautiful picture and courtesy of fellow VATSIM pilot Jordan Jafferjee.

Thought of the day - 21st Nov 2007

"The starting point of achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires produce weak results, just as a small amount of fire produces a small amount of heat."
-Napoleon Hill

HTC TYTN 2/Vario III/HTC P4550 review

HTC TYTN 2/Vario III/HTC P4550 review

I should actually call this review First Impressions because I have not yet fully explored this wonderful device, but I know I am too lazy to write second impressions so, let it be.

Background - Every reviewer writes from previous experience, they compare their previous phones or similar phones with the item under review. I am going to do the same, only my previous phone is a little different. I have a QTEK 9000 also known as i-mate Jasjar, quite a hefty 250gms mammoth with 3.6" VGA screen., opens like a laptop with a full QWERTY backlit keyboard. Before this I had i-mate K-Jam which was more like TYTN2 in shape with a slide-out keyboard. That said let's delve into the Vario III.

Design - Compared to my QTEK 9000 (will call it Q9 from now on), the V3 (Vario III, of course) is smaller and lighter, seemed disappointingly tiny when I unboxed it and I had to remind myself that the Q9 (which has been called Brick and Laptop by my colleagues in the past) was not my favorite for its size. I had had to settle for the size because of the advantages it had to offer, the main one being the A2DP profile that I was crazy for at the time (A2DP=Advanced Audio Distribution Profile - lets you listen to music over bluetooth). V3 is lighter, smaller, slimmer, prettier and the Q9 poses no challenge in that area to V3.

Usability: Comparing them calmly the Q9 still has those advantages, it is big and heavy but the 3.6 inch VGA screen is beautiful to watch, not just for video but also text, the V3 visibly lacks it and I felt it in every application, TomTom, SMS text, even handwriting recognition.
Same goes for the keyboard, Q9's bigger keyboard is definitely better for typing. Having said that, I had to admit that the V3's keyboard is as good as could be given the size and other features of the device. The design and keyboard layout has been improved considerably since K-Jam and it doesn't take much practice to start typing on this little keyboard. The Function and Capslock lights are a great addition and very practical to use.
The tilting screen which has attracted and fascinated most users and reviewers is a great party gimmick but hardly worth more than that. But one place where I have to admit it's usefulness is when you want to watch a video or MMS placing the phone on a tabletop. Otherwise it hampers typing, covers the soft keys on the slide-out keyboard and the top row of keys doesn't benefit from it either. But I still love it, esp. the fact that it can be adjusted to any angle up to almost 45.

The V3 has a very solid feel to it and its slim shape is good to hold in the hand and comfortable to slide in the pants pocket. One thing that was missing in the Q9 was its one hand operation without opening the keyboard. It has very few keys for that. K-Jam was better, Vario III is the best. There are a multitude of keys on the front and around the sides of the phone that let you do a lot of things without having to open the keyboard or pull out the stylus. The best of all being the 5 way block that you can use to move around or select items. The 3-way jog-dial on the left is a welcome addition that I had been missing since my Sony Ericsson P910i. That was 5-way but 3-way is good enough here.

The keyboard slides under to the right as opposed to K-Jam and other devices that open to the left and that I don't like. In time, I'll get used to it, but I still don't like it. They should have asked me first.

While on the subject of usability, thank God they got rid of the telescopic stylus. My K-Jam's stylus had lost the will to telescope in the last months and that was a chore to pull it open by hand. This one is slim and fragile-looking but quite usable and accurate. The right-bottom slide hole for the sylus is a big inconvenience esp. when you have the keyboard out and you realize that you are right-handed.

The SIM-card slot is behind the screen when you pull out the keyboard, which is not commentworthy but I am glad the SIM compartment is quite solidly built into the body with a lockable cover over it.

There is a cover over the GPS external antenna hole but no cover or recession for the camera lens. Why is common sense so uncommon? Now I have to be careful where I place this beautiful piece of art for the next one year.

Ok, let's talk about specific features now.

GPS: Of course, that's the ultimate gimmick of all so we'll talk about it first. There are other devices in the market that have built-in GPS receiver but if this is not the best, there can be none better. I was using an external bluetooth GPS reciver with my Q9 and TomTom as the s/w. I am still using TomTom Navigator 6 with V3's built-in GPS and the differences are noticeable. One thing, let me get it out of my system, the text looks crap compared to Q9's VGA screen. Other than that it's as wonderful as an obedient,beautiful wife.

GPS Setup. Once I figured out that TomTom takes some time to find the built-in receiver, it was all good. TomTom takes about 10 seconds. And after that in 10 seconds or less you get the first fix. It picks up satellite even from indoors if you have a window open. With my external GPS I had to take it to the window and then it took about 1 minute or more to get the first fix. This little guy is amazing.

Oh, one thing where my external GPS was quite unusable. If you started moving before turning the receiver on it took forever to get a fix, sometimes I simply had to pull over if I really needed directions. With the V3, no problem. 10 seconds.

Using the GPS. Fantastic! I used to have about 50-100 yards lag when using the external GPS. Now, it's so real-time like there's a camera focused on my car. You can see the street on your left when the map shows you passing that street. It's really great for people like me who get confused in the English roundabouts. Now, I don't have to count the yards to the exit, I can see my real time location on the screen and see which exit the GPS lady means when she says,"..take the 5th exit". I'd buy it just for the GPS if for nothing else.

Camera: Haven't used it much yet but it's 3MP and lives up to it. No cellphone camera with or without flash took good pictures in low-light and night and I don't expect any different from V3, though I haven't tried it yet. One thing that I have tried and noticed is the autofocus. Usually autofocus means there's no zoom, in this one it really does focus, when you press the shutter halfway you can see the focus moving and it works great. No mirror for self-portrait, very bad. You can take your own picture from the front camera but that's just VGA so, mirror was needed. Anyway, spilt milk.

Media player. The performance is great. Windows Media player works fine. But of course, you'll download other programs to play more formats on it. Oh yes, the performance is really great. My Q9 had 520 processor while this little guy has only 400, but the performance is noticeably better. It must be because of the double RAM and ROM.

The Home screen and the related features, like finger scrolling and panning are very useful and impressive.

Windows Mobile 6 maybe the latest word from God (or Bill Gates, same difference, isn't it?), but I don't like it. So far, I have found one application, very very useful one that lets you use your camera phone as a webcam on the computer, and it runs on my Q9 with WM5 and doesn't run on V3. So, until people start developing apps for WM6, I am going to keep on hating it.

Battery - I can't really talk about battery life. For a new phone you have to fully discharge and recharge the battery at least 3-4 times to get its full potential and I have done that only once yet. I am expecting that I'll have to charge it every night with a fair amount of usage and I am ok with it. Considering that I have access to computers everywhere and it can charge from USB port, it's not a big issue anyway.

Storage - I won't give figures but on my Vario III plenty of memory is free even on the device. Must be because T-Mobile got stingy with applications. I didn't even get the World Card Mobile that I was looking forward to. On the card side, it supports the microSDHC (HC=High Capacity) cards, so far as I know, it's the only piece to support the HC part, and I bought a cheap 6GB card for it from mobymemory.com and you can too. 6gig is quite enough to live in and I am happy about it. The access performance is very fast, on the phone and on the desktop over the cable.

Connectivity - It boasts of many options for connectivity, 3G, HSDPA,HSUPA, EDGE, GPRS, Bluetooth, (no IR though), quad-band GSM and it delivers on all of them. I have very sucky T-Mobile signal where I work but it still lets me access email etc. over GPRS so that's fine. With T-Mobile's web n walk package, it's a really fun phone to own.

Bluetooth - I can see a very clear and definite improvement over my Q9 while listening to music over bluetooth with my Sony Ericsson wireless earphones.

Oh well, it's a herculean task trying to describe all the features of this pocket pc and their impact on one's life, but at least I tried.

Maybe some other time I'll talk about the applications I am installing on it. But of course, Google maps was the first thing I downloaded. :-)

Thought of the day - 17th Oct 2007

My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself...
- Trieu Thi Trinh

If you want to know who this person was, check here.