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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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.

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.

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#

Tata Docomo has announced five new GPRS packs as follows:

-To pull internet settings please sms “INTERNET” to 52270 and save them as default settings on your mobile

-To get Recharge Instruction for all packs: Call 12526(toll free) OR Dial *135*<pin># OK

-To activate the Rs. 5/- Daily Pass,  SMS  ”GPRS” to 121

-For more information on the TATA DOCOMO GPRS Packs visit:  www.tatadocomo.com/gprs.aspx

Airtel has two unlimited GPRS packs for it’s prepaid customers. One day pack offers you unlimited browsing all the day for Rs.20. Similarly you can go for weekly pack for Rs.99 & do unlimited browsing throughout the week. Getting these packs activated is quite simple via SMS shortcodes as follows:

• To activate daily pack (Rs.20), send MO to 56123
• To activate weekly pack (Rs.99)  send MO to 56122

Since I’m not an Airtel user, I don’t know more about other GPRS packs Airtel is offering. If you are aware of any, please share it with others in comments section.

Airtel has introduced a new service “M Paper”offering its users to read news papers on wap enabled mobile phones. The service is powered by PressMart & IMI Mobile. To avail this service goto Airtel Live home page & click on “Infotainment”. Find M Paper link & click. There are two options for subscription:

• One News Paper/30 days —– 30 Rs
• Three News Papers/30 days —— 50 Rs

There are many news papers to choose from, but only Delhi, Mumbai & Chennai editions are available, not Bangalore.

When you activate GPRS on Airtel connection, you will receive an SMS saying GPRS service is active on your number, Visit Airtel Live to download free A.R.Rehman ringtone. But when you go to Airtel Live it is hard to find where it is available.When I was new to GPRS, I faced the same problem. Here is the path to download:

1. Goto Airtel Live home page.
2. Click on “Airtel Recommends“
3. If still not found click on “More…” to go to next page.
4. Now you will find “AR Rehman Tone – Free” link.
5. Click on that & download tone.