Hi everyone!

As you must have noticed I have upgraded to WordPress 2.0.5 - Ronan which is hardly a month old now. This is due to an unfortunate technical issue on my hosting provider. I have survived the crash by keeping a backup. But have lost some of the latest posts. So bear with me for a while…. till then, enjoy the new cool look of the site ;)

June 10 - Exactly 3 days after my birthday, I decided to buy myself the ultimate birthday gift. A brand new Nokia 3250 with a full black body finish. This twisting, turning, music playing smart phone is IMHO the best convergence device that money can buy. It is a PDA, iPod, 2 MPx Camera, Jukebox, USB pen drive and more all rolled into one. Its outstanding speakers plays clear music (much better than the tin sounds emitted by mobiles these days) that can be heard even in the adjacent room! Its battery lasts for 10 hours of continuous music playing, which makes it an ideal iPod killer.

Technically, the main superiority of this model is the ability to plug in 3.5 mm type headphones (yes, your normal headphone) and the use of Series 60 3rd Edition OS. The former compliments its excellent audio fidelity and the latter is the most touted feature of Nokia N Series phones. Priced must lower than an N Series phone, I must say 3250 is an extremely good value for money. What more, unlike its predecessor 3230, the phone admirably has no bugs or complains whatsoever since its release last month. Looks like Nokia has a winner in its stables this time.

After some playing around, I realized that this is currently the only phone that can play music while conversing. This is a really cool feature. From faking the background noise of a noisy cricket ground to playing birthday tunes to your (physically) distant relatives, one can find many imaginative uses for such a feature. I also love LifeBlog software by Nokia which stores all my snaps and smses in chronological order automatically. Sweet! Though, being a new OS, there are not enough Symbian software ready for OS 9.0, I quickly realized that there are tonnes of J2ME midlets that run flawlessly on this phone. My only gripe with this phone is, ironically enough, the charger. Unlike the standard 3.5 mm pin Nokia charger which is readily available anywhere in the world, 3250 uses the newer 2 mm pin charger. My package disappointingly doesn’t include a 3.5 mm to 2 mm converter. Thus, it is clear that Nokia has done no major modification to the charger, but simply reduced the form factor a tad bit. But by making such a trivial change they have created a frustrating incompatibility for most of the Nokia users.

The model boasts support for the newer and more efficient music formats like enhanced AAC. I also attempted to convert my mp3 music collection to this format. I was quickly dissapointed by my results. After a bit of reading I realised that this transcoding process results in inferior quality files because we are converting one lossy format to another. Both MP3 and AAC uses different mathematical and spectral models, hence it is bound to loose a lot of information. Hence, I decided to retain the mp3 files as they are.

PS: The phone has been christened Paaru. For non-mallus Paaru is the affectionate shortened version of Paarvathy (Lord Siva’s better half). Why Paaru? My search for the perfect convergence device draws parallel to Siva’s relentless search for his conjugal partner, I might say. Naaah…. I just loved the name…. it just clicks ;-)

This time around it was plain obvious that this time around my birthday wouldn’t go unnoticed. Vinu, my school mate who happens to be in Mangalore, ensured that I was literally counting down to the D day. Well, for a guy whose birthdays have mostly been on school vacations period or College study leaves, I have largely escaped from the ceremonial cruelties like bumps and cake smearings. Vinu menacingly seemed to guarantee that this time, unlike my earlier birthdays, I wouldn’t simply go Scot-free. I had hoped that since coincidentally his birthday falls on the very next day(i.e. June 8th), the idea of him getting a similar treatment, would be enough reason for him to rethink his plans. Well, to his credit, not only he delivered what he promised, but much more!!!

On the fateful night, it would be the biggest understatement to say that I couldn’t neither sit not lie down without wincing in pain. It would an equally big understatement to say that I was covered in food. Layers of cake, sambhar, potato curry and tea remains were literally oozing from my hair and dripping on the floor. On that night, I thanked my stars that Dinesh, our cook, hadn’t prepared any more food in the kitchen. I also thanked that the birthday party that night was just four of us, else my rear end would have remained sore for several days to come. Apparently, my stars were not too generous to my plight. My remaining birthday bumps were awaiting me, not too surprisingly enough, at the workplace. Yes folks the very barbaric act was to be performed in front of hundreds of half amused Infoscions in our Food Court. Actually, it is almost a routine sight in our food court to see a jolly good chap hung like grilled chicken at two ends being subjected to filial love in the form kicking his bottoms out. But suddenly I realized that one could attract enough attention by crying your lungs out even before the ceremony actually started.

And the second cake cut that day, as you would have expected by now, ended up mostly stamped on my face. As if to put a cherry on this cake of humiliation, a birthday testimonial was written about me. As a practice in Mangalore DC, this email is circulated to the entire DC. The testimonial reads:

Arun, the most lean fellow in the GAP Team. Who always bubbles with Energy with his witty Jokes and spends most of his after work hours exploring his interests in www :-).

Arun V Ravindran hails from Trissur and had joined Infosys in May 2004 as an Acon in ES (EAI). Don’t get deceived by his innocent looks. He’s got all the tricks in his hands to get anyone carried away in his way :). An Associate consultant who wins one of the prizes in the coding competition is about the best way to start introducing him to anyone who doesn’t know him yet. After a Solid stint at UBS project in Pune DC, he was allocated GAP WBI project in Mangalore, which makes his longest stint at Mangalore DC. He is known for his witty conversations and brilliant Jokes. He is sportive and does not hesitate to share crazy jokes on Mallus as well.

By nature he is a studious guy and an ardent music lover and an avid reader and yeah he’s got the talent to sing that’s what he thinks and tried his luck for Minfy Idol too. He along with his sis does some karaoke recording and sends them to all his friends. God save them! :)

He keeps a huge dump of movies and music. Legend has it that he still has 500 GB storage of assorted movies and he keeps updating the list. Rumor is still on that he has a huge fan following in London (including a French girl). A keen observer of facts - in one of the training sessions he had pointed an error in a flowchart from the official presentation of software major.

Most of his friends envy his most precious possession, a very high end Digital Camera which u can see him carry on all Events held in MINFY. Guess, it’s needless to say that he is interested in photography. He recently won a prize in the Photography contest in Ittesbin 2006.

He’s other interests include Pencil Drawing, Flash Programming and of course any sort of Programming latest being Orkut. Wonder if he can be called Jack of all trades master of none.

Word is out that his room mates and closest friends had a great time partying and treating him equally.

Here’s smilES wishing him a great Birthday!

Well, suffice to say that this birthday was truly unforgettable. Especially for the next few days whenever I tried to sit or lie down somewhere. Vinu never got the taste of his own medicine. His birthday was a very mild version of what I was subjected to. But, of course, there are many, many birthdays to come ;-)

To borrow phrase from the teen comedy “The Girl Next Door” for my post’s title, last week would be best described as mildly crazy and tonnes of fun. I mean if someone had told me that I would be singing three songs in 3 mins and playing in a funny skit on stage in front of hundreds of people. I would have said, ‘No way!’ But I did and thoroughly enjoyed it too.

The most common question my friends are asking me now is ‘How come you sing so well?’ In fact, it has lead me to thinking about writing a short article. This isn’t meant to be any motivational crap that is so common in our RSS feeds these days. This article tentatively titled Developing Artistic Skills You were Never Born With is in the works. Meanwhile enjoy your weekend!

Yesterday, I completed 2 years in my present company, Infosys Technologies Ltd. I realized this while I was in the bus, traveling to the office. Two years, in IT industry years, is like a decade. I decided to immediately fire a mail to all my induction program batchmates. Loads of replies came and we found ourselves catching up with what has been happening over the last couple of months.

Yesterday, was another important date. I (and three of my roommates) shifted to a gorgeous new apartment within Mangala Enclave. This is my third apartment in the last 2 months (Mathias and His Grace being the earlier ones). All three apartments have been in the fifth floor. At this rate I might even surpass my earlier record of four transfers in three months during my initial years in Infy ;) !

Oh, an update on me would be incomplete without a mention of my latest technological “investment”. I bought a camera tripod. Lately, I have been dissatisfied with my skills in portrait photography. Despite being the field I’m most interested in, you feel quite limited without a tripod because my 350D lacks image stabilization. Posting self shot pictures, judge them yourselves!!!