Applications to calculate new auto rickshaw fare in Bangalore

From August 1st, auto rickshaw fare in Bangalore has increased. And rickshaw drivers haven’t yet updated their meters with new fare system. Government has given them three months of time to update the meter with new fare. Until then we have to rely on whatever driver says or look into the chart which most of the drivers carry.

I wrote a simple web application which calculates new fare based on old. Since it is based on math, application returns accurate fare like Rs.27.29, use your brains to round it up

www.techbangalore.com/auto

I haven’t added any style or images to the pages to make it load quickly on mobile devices. But, if you like to have it in a form of application which can work offline, Sriki has built them. He had created one for Android and one for Java, get them here.

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Almost everyone is impressed with Google Android, but unable to switch to it because of price tag it comes with. But you no longer have to be in that situation. Acer E110 beTouch, which runs Android 1.5 is available on Flipkart for Rs.8,999!!

3 mega pixel camera, 3G, 2.8 inch resistive touch screen, 256 MB inbuilt memory with SD card slot expandable up to 32GB,  GPS with A-GPS support are the other features this phone comes with. Phone has 1 year Acer warranty.

Buy it from Flipkart

It’s been more than a week since I started using Nokia N900 smart phone. At the same time an android phone visited me (Samsung Galaxy S) which failed to impress! I continued using N900 & handed that device over to Santosh to write a guest review on Tech Bangalore. Since it’s too late to write a detailed review of N900, I’m just pointing out what all features I liked on this phone.

Build:

Many said it’s bulky/heavy, but I personally like the way it is built. It perfectly sits in my hands & makes it totally comfortable to use QWERTY keyboard. You will feel it’s bulkiness when you keep it in pocket, you cannot keep anything other than the N900 in your pocket!

Browser:

Almost all N900 reviews talk more about browser! Though I had an option of using Firefox (AFAIK only smart phone which runs Firefox), I liked using the default browser. Default browser is powered by mozilla technology & gives desktop browsing experience. I was really impressed by capabilities of this browser. For ex: Few days ago I wrote a simple location aware foursquare app using Geo APIs supported by Firefox. Out of curiosity I tried accessing this app from N900 & voila, N900 gave my application GPS location & my app worked perfectly fine. I had actually written the code without any intentions of accessing GPS location, all done by the browser.

Angry Birds!

Killing time in power cuts is not that easy. Angry Birds make me feel like Power, don’t come for another hour please!. Angry Birds is a simple yet very addictive game which first came on Maemo & then launched for iPhone too. It’s one of the most selling games on iPhone app store. Game is simple, just throw birds at pigs and kill them!

Vagalume:

I hugely rely on last.fm (I don’t know how many times I said that!) for music. I wouldn’t buy a phone if it can’t play last.fm radio, it is so important for me. Vagalume is a last.fm client for Maemo platform which can play last.fm radios. Unlike other last.fm clients I have seen, vagalume automatically downloads free tracks on last.fm while playing a radio. That means, it plays that track locally instead of streaming it again. One more unique feature I liked on Vagalume is that, you can enter a last.fm url & play that radio. It can be friend’s library, friend’s loved track, similar artists page…anything.

Joikuspot:

The application which enables you to carry wifi hotspot wherever you go, Joikuspot is my favorite right from the day they launched it for Symbian. Thanks to MyNokiaWorld which gave away a premium license of Joikuspot to me. If you aren’t already aware of, Joikuspot uses your GPRS/EDGE/3G connection & converts your phone into a wifi hotspot. Other devices like laptops, iPod touch, tablets can connect to this hotspot & access internet.

Android 2.2 (Froyo) has this feature inbuilt, you don’t have to install/buy any application to do it.

Tunewiki Widget:

Tunewiki widget automatically fetches lyrics of the song you are currently playing on N900′s music player. Tunewiki syncs the lyrics with the playback which enables you to sing with your favorite track. This can be ultimate karaoke machine!!

I wrote about only these many features to just to maintain uniqueness of my writeup. There are lot other things which I like on N900 like unified conversations, unified contacts, camera, email client, customizable multiple desktops, community support….and lot others.

As a special offer to Tech Bangalore readers, you will get a stereo bluetooth  headset free with the purchase of N900 worth Rs.4000. Store price of the handset is around Rs.24k. Leave a comment below to know how to avail this exclusive offer.

The most waited device by techies, Linux based Nokia N900 is finally coming to India. Device will be available at Nokia stores starting 9th June. Though the device came out around 8-9 months ago, it wasn’t available in India due to some regulations & few other reasons. Nokia N900 sports ARM Cortex-A8 600MHz processor, 1gb of RAM (256MB + 750 MB Virtual), 3G, Wifi, 5 MP Camera with Carl Zeus lens, 3.5” resistive touch screen, 32gb of internal memory & external memory expandable upto 16gb with micro SD card.

That’s all about hardware, N900 runs on Maemo 5, a Linux based OS. Maemo is open source & has a great community support & hence there are tons of applications built for N900. N900 bundles full fledged mozilla based web browser with flash 9.4 & AJAX support. So, you no longer have to visit mobile version of websites, N900 is capable of loading the full web site. User can also install Firefox on the device which enables tabbed browsing. I can say N900 is a true internet device with tight integration of social network contacts with your phonebook. I liked the concept of having unified contacts & conversations.

This device wins my heart by all it’s offerings, but priced at Rs.30639. A little disappointing point for me since there are Android based smart phones at around same price tag. But, it’s MRP, store price will be definitely less than that.

Vote via SMS is the most commonly used voting system these days. From reality shows to surveys & contests everywhere it’s been used. But, I personally don’t vote at all using this system since it uses 5 or 6 digit short code which my service provider will charge around 5 to 6 Re per SMS. Because of this pricing, participation in voting becomes very less.

I remember reading an SMS forward which says “Missed call system is invented by Indians”!! We use this “Missed Call” technique so much in our daily life. My mom & sis never call me from their phone, they always give me a missed call & I call back! Just because they don’t want to burn their currency talking to me. Taking forward this widely used “Missed Call” technique, ZipDial has come up with a “Missed Call to Vote” system!

For Ex:

Q: Should Meg Whitman become Governor of California?

If YES, give a missed call to +91 40 44 55 69 30
If No, give a missed call to +91 40 44 55 69 31

All you are doing here is giving a missed call, so you will not be charged anything to vote! And this system is so simple, you don’t have to remember “Send XX to YYYYY” and bleh bleh to vote! It is just different numbers to dial for different options.

I spoke to people behind ZipDial at AppJam & they said they have plans to open ZipDial for public where anyone can create a poll. They have just started, I wish everyone including TV channels start using this system. Visit ZipDial & start voting for polls & win some gifts.

Every website uses services like Stat Counter, Google Analytics to tracks visitors & get detailed analytics about their visitors. But, these tracking systems are mainly concentrated at visits made from computers. Though it tracks visits from mobile devices, details are very less. With growing smart phone popularity, you can’t just ignore this space. I personally underestimated traffic which comes from mobile devices to Tech Bangalore, which I found 20% of overall traffic after enabling mobile analytics!

PercentMobile:

PercentMobile is a free mobile analytics service which gives granular details about visitors browsing your website from mobile devices. Details which PercentMobile gives you is just awesome, like, how many devices were wifi enabled, how many were touch screen, how many were smart phones, how many had QWERTY keyboard…etc. PecentMobile also lists all the devices which are used to browse your website.

I enabled PercentMobile for Tech Bangalore few days ago & above screenshot shows how much detail you can get from PercentMobile. Screenshot is partial, there’s more to look in analytics, like Network provider, region, most visited URLs, referrer…etc.

So, head over to PercentMobile & enable mobile analytics to your website!

Pre-paid users get all those cheap GPRS packs & post-paid users are always ignored! I don’t understand why all these service providers can’t have same packs for both the users! Though it can’t come no way close to what it offers to pre-paid users, Airtel has affordable GPRS packages for post-paid users too. User can opt for one of the following packs based on usage:

• Mobile Office 99: Rs.99 per month, 300 MB of usage. Send mo99actv to 121 for activation.
• Mobile Office 199: Rs.199 per month, 1GB of usage. Send mo199actv to 121 for activation.
• Mobile Office 299: Rs.299 per month, 2GB of usage. Send mo299actv to 121 for activation.

For normal mobile browsing, twitter, facebook, orkut, uploading pics once in a while, 300MB must be good enough. If you have plans to connect your phone to PC to browse internet, it’s better to choose a better pack.

Here I come again with another mobile phone review. This time it’s not a phone which costs a bomb, which you can’t think of buying! It’s Nokia 5233, a full touch phone running on Symbian S60 5th edition.

Nokia 5233 sports 3.2 inch touch screen, 2MP camera, 3.5 mm audio jack, 70 mb internal memory & external (microSD) expandable upto 16GB. Touch is pretty good & responsive but better with stylus than fingers. I always ended up typing wrong words even after using the phone for a week full time! Anyway that also depends on personal choices, I don’t really like typing on a touch screen.

Home screen has contacts widget, music player controls & application shortcuts. Contacts widget is like a fast dial, u can add contacts which you keep calling again & again. Clicking on a contact here pops up recent activity done with that contact like messaging, call logs. You can also add an RSS feed to contact & track! (I used Friendfeed RSS feed of my friend). Application shortcuts can also be configured based on your requirement.

Though it has a 2MP camera, you can take descent pictures from it. Music quality is comparable to any other music phone in market. Since it supports upto 16GB of external memory, you can store hell lot of music in it. 3.5 mm audio jack gives you an opportunity of using ear phones of your choice.

Since the phone runs on Symbian S60 5th edition, almost all the symbian apps which are there in market will work. When it comes to phone, availability of apps is one the major considerations for me. All major symbian apps like Gravity, Fring, Nimbuzz, Google Maps…etc work on Nokia 5233.

What’s not there?

Well, it’s important to know what’s not there before going for a phone. Nokia 5233 doesn’t have 3G, GPS & Wireless. It is really impossible to put them all into such a low priced phone. Decision is yours, you know better what you need. If you really need those features, I suggest go for Nokia 5800. I heard 5800 is much better after recent firmware update.

How Much?

I have been to my cousin’s marriage last week & did a small research with the phone! I asked around 13-15 people “What could be the price of this phone?”. Most of them said it’s around 20k!! Yeah, it looks like that! But the MRP of the phone is Rs.7,999, should be less in showrooms.

Airtel is getting more competitive in it’s GPRS offerings by offering one more GPRS pack at very affordable price. My friend Ashwin posted a screenshot sometime back which says about this new pack:

So, as per the screenshot if you easy recharge with Rs.19, you can browse free till 200MB. Though it’s unclear how much validity it carries. If you know, do let everyone know via comment section.

Update:

As Chaitu commented here, validity of this plan is 3 days.

Airtel has recently rolled out a new GPRS pack which is very competitive with GPRS packs offered by new providers like Docomo. With new plan user gets unlimited browsing all through the month for just Rs.98. Though Airtel calls it “unlimited”, it comes with fair usage policy limit of 2Gb. If you are using GPRS only on mobile device, 2Gb is more than enough for a month. If you are connecting your laptop or PC to browse internet, then you should be counting on those bits!

To get this plan, just “Easy Recharge” with Rs.98. But, before that activate Mobile Office on your number. To do that dial *567*11# & you will get a confirmation message. Dialing this activates basic plan of Mobile Office, which is 30paise/50kb, pay as you browse. After you ERecharge with Rs.98, it overrides the basic plan & you will get 2Gb of free browsing. It’s instant

If you don’t have settings send ALL to 543210

Update:

To check your usage details & expiry date of the pack dial *123*10#