Amazon Kindle Touch : My Review

A couple of months ago, a colleague at work asked me about eBook Readers – he was planning to get one for his wife. His requirements were something that was primarily an eBook reader, with a color display interface, could handle a bit of multimedia, and was inexpensive. He had narrowed down on the Kindle Fire that was launched fairly recently and wanted my opinion on it.  For his requirement and use, it seemed fine. I was looking up reviews and product information about it on the internet, and I got very strongly tempted to pick one for myself, but my requirements were slightly different – I wasn’t too concerned about a color display or the ability to handle multimedia – I just wanted something with which I could read eBooks (which wasn’t very expensive), and the Amazon Kindle Touch seemed to fit all those requirements very well.

Now came the problem of sourcing what I needed – the Kindle Touch wasn’t available for delivery in India, however, the new Kindle priced at $79 was. I figured out it would be a pain to enter text with something that didn’t have a keyboard, and that didn’t have a touch interface, and decided to stick with my decision to by the Kindle Touch.

I asked around, and a friend was just about to travel to the US and graciously offered to pick one up for me. I asked him to order Kindle Touch [Ad Supported version] and Kindle Zip Sleeve [Charcoal color] [I notice that the price of the Zip Sleeve has fallen down by $10 now ]. Now remember this if you’re asking someone else to order and buy the Kindle – ask them to mark it as a gift, else Amazon automatically registers the Kindle to their account before delivering so that you’re all set to go. Deregistering and changing the account settings isn’t that difficult, but when it’s just a check box away and costs you nothing, as compared to doing it on the new device, may well be worth it.

A few weeks later, when he was back, I had my Kindle and the sleeve.

[Excuse the quality of the photograph - shot with my mobile phone]

The last few weeks, I’ve been regularly using it and here’s what I feel, along with a few things that may be of use to someone who’s planning to get a new Kindle. 

The Good:

1. Length and width are just about the size of an average book – it comes equipped with a 6″ display. Thin enough to easily hold – 0.4″. At a little over 200 grams, weighs a lot less than the average 300+ page book too.

2. Amazon boasts that they use the revolutionary E Ink technology for display, which is appears looks like real paper – I agree. Except for the part where you feel (or smell, for those who like the smell of paper), they’ve got it right. There is no strain on the eyes when reading for long duration. Do note that there is no backlighting, and you will need a source of light (just like a paper book). This also means you can read the book even under direct sunlight – something that you can not do with devices that have backlighting.

3. The manufacturer claims that the battery is built to last for two months on a single charge (with Wi-Fi turned off). I have been unable to verify this claim at the moment – but I can safely say that after a month and a half of use, with Wi-Fi on and off intermittently and 2-3 hours of reading a day, there was enough charge left to support this claim.

4. The device comes with 4 Gigs of storage – Imagine carrying 20 books with you when you’re traveling and you will realize how big a boon this is. (Personal experience – when I visited China in 2010, I was warned that it is difficult to get English books, and I carried a few, left some of them back there. This device would have saved so much of space in my luggage and the pain of leaving books behind)

5. Neat, uncluttered and easy to use interface – You do not need to be a gadget wizard to start using this device as soon it is out of the packaging.

6. Integration with Amazon Store – this is a huge boon. Once you register your device, you can buy stuff (not just books) right there on the Kindle. You can also browse on a computer, and buy eBooks which automatically get delivered to the Kindle when you sync-up using Wi-Fi (or 3G, if you have the 3G version)

7. Additionally, it comes with an experimental Audio player, and a browser – I have no idea how good the audio player is, since I am already equipped with enough devices to deliver music. However, for those who like audio books, this could be useful. The browser is quite decent, but remember that this device does not display color.

8. If you already have a collection of eBooks, this device can be used to read them as well. When you plug it in to the computer, it uses a Mass Storage Media profile. To read your personal files, just copy them to the /Documents folder on the Kindle and you are all set. As such, the Kindle supports a wide variety of documents. If you need a document converted, Amazon’s WhisperSync feature allows you to eMail the document (or documents bundled together as a Zip file) to an eMail address. If you use 3G for delivery, Amazon will charge you for it. If you use Wi-Fi, use the eMail address <your_user_name>@free.kindle.com and the Kindle syncs only when connected to a WiFi network – and there’s no charge.

9. Any document that you request to be converted stays on Amazon’s Cloud free of charge, accessible to you anytime. Amazon allows you to store up to 5 GB of data. This is applicable for documents that you convert. If you buy a book, it stays in the cloud and does not add up to this space. You can delete these book on your device and my understanding is that they will still be accessible.

10. Selecting a word will look it up on the in-built dictionary. The dictionary, by itself, is available for use.

The Bad:

1. As with all products that use software, there are bugs. My Kindle was responding very badly after 3 weeks of keeping it powered on – it was way too slow to operate and needed a reboot to get back to normal. There could be a memory leak that may need fixing.

2. Not a real book – This is not my complaint, but I’ve read this complaint on several forums. If the way a book feels is important, this may not be the best choice.

Amazon publishes a list of eBooks that they provide for free for a short duration from time to time on this RSS link. You’ll have to use your discretion on what to get, even if it is free

For my personal use, this has been a big plus – I’ve been reading more, it’s a lot easier to carry books when traveling, and when time is right, the Amazon Book Store gives me a great deal on books that I need. I can also read other books that I already have (PDF, mobi, epub, doc formats to name a few) on this device and the storage it offers is good enough to carry more than what I can read.

If you have an eBook in a format that is not recognized by the Kindle or WhisperSync service, you may find this software (which is free of cost) quite useful to convert books to a format that is recognizable by the Kindle.

If you have any other questions, ask them in a comment.

Addendum : Almost missed mentioning – it’s very easy to perform the basic operations with one hand, which is a big plus. I’ve read about a lot of people complaining that most of the older eBook readers are a pain to use since you can’t go to the next page without holding it in one hand and using another to navigate – that operation, is easy. For word lookups, using the menu, annotating – you will need to hold it with one hand and use the other.

Why I don’t like the new Google Reader Interface

Goodness, this is becoming a habit. I draft out a page when I get pissed, and don’t publish it. Anyway, here is something that pissed me off this morning, and I am publishing it.

The Culprit : Google Reader‘s new ubercool interface upgrade (Yup, got that right)

The most popular use of Google Reader is to subscribe to RSS feeds, as most of you who use it would know. It integrates neatly into my mobile phone, allowing me to read whatever I want, wherever I want, whenever I want to. Apart from subscribing to RSS feeds and sharing articles that I like, I also use it as a lovely bookmarking service. The ‘Note in Reader’ feature that is subtly present, that most folks miss out on, was a blessing in disguise for me. Prior to ‘discovering’ this feature, I used Instapaper, and once I found it, I realized I didn’t need to have another account with yet another service when I already had service from Google that did it. So there you go – two features that I loved about Google Reader – reading articles and a Read-it-later service.

This morning, when I logged into Google Reader, I noticed that I’d gotten the ‘Upgraded’ interface. Frantically searched for the ‘Notes’ tab and couldn’t find it. Now I have over 60 bookmarks in the notes section, including a few that I couldn’t read yesterday, a few pages that I read once in a while for inspiration, and some quick references. Imagine my state when I couldn’t find it. Among other changes the ‘Share’ button has been replaced with ‘+1′, but the ‘Note’ feature was missing.

I did a little bit of digging within Reader settings, and found that they allowed me to Export my notes as a ‘JSON Activity Stream’ or a ‘Reader JSON’ . The JSON Activity Stream, as per what’s stated, is an industry standard. But now I needed a bookmarking service that would allow me to Import the file. The file is an XML file containing details of the website, and the note. Being curious, I opened the file in a standard text editor, and found contents like this :

{"published":"2011-10-30T15:52:03.572","actor":{"objectType":"person",
"id":"tag:google.com,2005:reader/abcdefghijklmnopqrst","displayName":"GoogleUserName;"},"verb":"noted","object":{"id":"tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/ac6a1d9f8cdcd2b1","url":"http://www.google.com/reader/api/0/stream/items/contents?i\u003dtag:google.com,2005:reader/item/ac6a1d9f8cdcd2b1","content":"\u003cp\u003eOmmwriter is a simple text processor that firmly believes in making writing a pleasure once again, reinvindicating the close relationship between writer and paper. The more intimate the relation, the smoother the flow of inspiration.\u003c/p\u003e",
"displayName":"Welcome - Ommwriter","objectType":"post"}},

Note : Content above edited to protect privacy

Yup, doesn’t make much sense at first glance (but it does if you know what you’re dealing with), and imagine having to deal with over 60 notes like this. Oh well, it isn’t that difficult to understand, but here was the problem – I couldn’t get the link I had bookmarked – in some cases, the URL was present as part of the note, and in others, I couldn’t find it. Gave up.

Next – checked Google Reader on the mobile, and I found that the ‘My Stuff’ tab contained some of the articles I’d bookmarked. Whew, relief. But wait, it didn’t have all of it. Salvaged whatever I could, and went ahead with ‘discovering’ other ways.

Some basic research searching on Google gave me this a reference to this thread – http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/reader/thread?tid=3039452d99060eb4&hl=en which states you can access all your notes using this link – http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/-/state/com.google/created – That link gives you a list of all your stared items irrespective of what version of Reader you are using. Standard technique of copying and pasting the links works well. I moved all my notes to Read It Later, which has a nice client for a mobile phone as well – but the free version of mobile client can display only 10 bookmarks at a time. I could get the ‘Pro’ version of the client, but I would like to try it out for a while before taking any decisions.

With that little activity, I ended up spending an hour of my time that I’d have otherwise spent doing absolutely nothing. Among other inconveniences, I’d set up my Google Reader account for sharing an article very quickly. I am not sure if I can setup RIL to do the same.

I hope this helps those who have been using Reader’s ‘Note in Reader’ service. Though my mingration is complete, I’d be interested in knowing if you have any other better ways of doing it efficiently.

Fighting Fairly

Blast from the past. One of those moments that taught me about fighting fairly. This happened when I was in college, my classmates, if any, read this may be able to recollect the moment.

We had a lab session, and generally, lab sessions are for 3 hours. This was in the afternoon, and I was busy coding away problems to glory (which roughly means solving other problems that were of interest to me since I already knew the solution). The computer lab was fairly large, and could accommodate at least two batches – there was another class of students with ours. A lecturer for one of our classes (Mr. L) also happened to play the role of the lab in-charge, which meant he was the person of authority as far as anything with respect to the lab. During the time we were supposed to work out solutions, other folks came in to use the spare computers to get some urgent work completed. There were two groups of students from two different classes, and they were using whatever computers were available on a time sharing basis. Things were OK till the evening, when the administrators in the lab realized that one of the computers was not where it was supposed to be. Now, we are talking about desktops here – even at that time, I knew that it would have been impossible for *anyone* to carry one in whole or in dismantled form (which would have been very unlikely since it would have drawn attention, and furthermore, these were the older models which had screws, nuts and bolts – if you know what I’m talking about). Following a frantic search, the computer was found safe in another location within the lab – one of the mischievous students from the 4 batches that were present in the lab decided to pull a prank, and did it very successfully.

Next day, in class, Mr. L bestowed some harsh words on us for quite a while. Mr. L was one of the more feared lecturers in our college and no one (including me) wanted to mess around with him. I was getting agitated with his speech for there were mistakes that had happened from the administration too. When I felt I’d heard enough, I stood up and raised my concern. This was the conversation that followed (the words may not have been the same – it’s been a while):

Me : Sir, excuse me for interrupting.
Mr. L : Yes, what do you want?
Me : There were 2 batches scheduled for the lab session yesterday. Is the other batch being questioned too?
Mr. L : What?
Me : There were 2 batches that were scheduled to use the computers in the lab. Apart from that, there were 2 more batches of students.
Mr. L : So?
Me : How can you be so sure that the person who pulled the prank is sitting right here?
Mr. L : [Brief silence]
Me : I feel it there was a mistake on the administrator of the lab in letting the other two batches without prior permission – the students just came in and went. I agree that something went wrong, but it is not correct to assume that one of the students sitting right here could have done it. You will have to question the other 3 batches as well.
Mr. L : Why haven’t you shaved?
Me : [Sputter, and realization that I hadn’t shaved in 3 or 4 days] I will do that today.
Mr. L : You’re in an engineering course, shouldn’t you shave everyday?
Me : I will do that today.
Mr. L : I do not want you in my class till you’ve shaved. Leave now.
Me : But sir..
Mr. L : Leave.

I walked out without speaking another word, which happened to be the first time I got booted out of a class in college. The mistake I’d committed was that I had not shaved in a few days. And no, I wasn’t upset with being booted out – I went to the canteen, had a snack and a cold drink, and was in time for the next class. The next day, Mr. L made me stand up and checked whether I’d shaved my stubble off or not before starting the class.

This incident taught me one thing – to fight fairly. Mr. L didn’t. When he didn’t have a reply to my question, he used his power and booted me out of the class. I’ve met several people since, who’ve abused their power and overruled an argument simply because they didn’t have an explanation to offer or they didn’t think of everything before a confrontation. I’ve forgiven most of them, since I know that this is the environment we are brought up in. I have no hatred for Mr. L either, in fact, we had a very good relationship since that exchange. Unknowingly, Mr L also helped me learn something that I did not know about before, and instilled it in me never to do what he did to me – so I have to thank him for that.

If you are in a position of power, fight fairly, and you will earn respect of those who work for you / with you. If you are a teacher, never, I repeat, never do this – most of my classmates lost respect for him after that exchange, which wasn’t my intention. It also instills an idea in the students that it is all right to use power to divert the subject of a conversation and throw someone out who’s been raising genuine concerns. On the other hand, if he’d acknowledged my questions, accepted the flaw in his argument and backed off from accusing us, I’m quite positive, if not everyone, I would have had a greater deal of respect for him.

And if you are curious, I eventually found out that it was indeed one of my classmates who’d moved the computer. Mr. L had, to this date, as far as I can say, has no ideas about who, from which class, did it.

“Digital SLR Camera : Which one to buy”

Once in a while, people ask me for my opinion on what camera they should be buying. Some ask me for my opinion, others want me to agree to theirs.

These are the questions I generally ask people when they ask me for my opinion:
1. What do you want to shoot?
2. Why a dSLR and not a good P&S?

The most common answers I get:
1. “Everything” followed by “I’m a photography enthusiast, and I love good photos. I want to take good photos”
2. “I already have a P&S and am not happy with the images”

dSLRs are an expensive investment – pick one up if you have time & patience to learn. Most of the point and shoot cameras these days offer excellent image quality, and some of my friends make excellent images with those. More importantly, you will realize that the kit lens that you get for ‘for’ free can not zoom as much as your 12x P & S camera, and to get that range on a dSLR, you’ll have to shell out a fortune. Yup, lenses cost a lot of money, and good lenses cost even more. Barring human error in using the right settings, good lenses play a key part in making good pictures.

Most folks want to immediately jump into Semi-professional or Professional models right away, without testing the waters. Their reasoning for this is that good cameras give good images. I read somewhere an apt response for this statement – “If I got you the Ferrari, can you win F1?” I’ve also seen several people buying expensive professional models and then eventually selling them for cheap because no one will want to buy it.

My first dSLR was a Canon EOS 350D, and I bought it for cheap. It was one generation old at the time when I bought it, and was about to become two generations old, but heck, it was cheap, and I wanted to figure out if I could sustain picking this up as a hobby. The intention of this article is just to show that a basic outdated entry level dSLR camera can be used to make good images, if you know how to use it.

[Click on the photos below to view it large]

Lens Used : Canon EF 70-200 f/L USM

Lens Used : Sigma 17-70 f/2.8-4.5 DC Macro

If your reaction is – “These kind of pictures are easy to shoot with an entry level camera. I want to shoot animals, birds”, hold your horses.

Lens Used : Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 USM L IS

Lens Used : Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 USM L IS

Lens Used : Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 USM L IS

Lens Used : Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 USM L IS

Lens Used : Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 USM L IS

Still think it is impossible to take good pictures with an entry level camera?

It is important for one to understand the limitations of the gear that they use. Here are a few photographs that I shot with a different camera body (Canon EOS 1D Mark III), and an explanation as to why it would have been difficult to get the same shots with an entry level camera. I’ve also offered alternative methods to get similar pictures.

Lens Used : Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 USM L IS
This wouldn’t have been impossible, but rather difficult to accomplish with an entry level camera. This photograph was done with ISO 640 – it may not be possible in most to increment ISO at 1/3rd stops either – so one would have to use ISO 800 (at which most entry level cameras exhibit visible noise, or rather, used to exhibit) or ISO 400, which may not have been sufficient. High ISO noise control and 1/3rd stop increment of ISO is a key feature that most semi-professional / professional offer. These days, as I am aware of, you can decent ISO performance even in entry level cameras. It is possible to clean up the noise later on a computer using software.

Lens Used : Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 USM L IS
I found this shot in the middle of a 10 frames per second burst. Most entry level cameras do not offer anything more than 4 frames per second. Still not impossible to get similar photographs with the element of ‘luck’.

Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro
Once again, this is at ISO 1250, and shot handheld, and shot with manual metering, completely ignoring what the camera’s light meter was telling me. At this ISO range, most entry level cameras will exhibit noise and render the image unusable. It is possible to use stabilization mechanisms to use a lower ISO and get similar exposures.

If you know your camera well, and understand the ‘technical’ capabilities, you will be able to make good images even with an entry level camera. If you’re new to photography, and are keen on buying a Digital SLR, but not sure how it will end up, buy an entry level dSLR camera, and invest in some good lenses. Good lenses are key to making good images. Good images make you happy and keep you going. When you are at a point where the camera’s limitations really limit you from making good images, upgrade. For specific requirements, there exist rental services from whom you could rent the camera body for a few days.

Specific questions or remarks – please leave a comment.

Note:
I hold the copyright to all images/text presented in this article. If you would like to use the contents or a part of it, please contact me.

Android Tip : Moving applications to your SD card

One of the best things that could happen to a smart phone owner is the variety of applications (both paid and free) available. Android Market has a huge catalogue of applications that fit your every need. The bad part is running out of space on your phone – most of these applications directly install on to the phone memory and not to your memory card.

A few applications provide a feature where you can move them to the SD card [Application Manager, Select Application, and Select 'Move to SD Card'] and free up space on your phone memory. Some of the applications can not be moved, as the button is not disabled. If your phone runs OEM firmware, it will have a lot of crapware that you can’t uninstall or move to SD card. Also, one has A2SD (Apps 2 SD), which involves creating an EXT3 partition on your memory card. Though rooting is easy, most people don’t do it. So here’s a simple trick that you can use, without rooting your phone, to move all your applications to the SD Card, and this also ensures that whatever new applications you install, go directly to your memory card, thereby saving precious phone memory.

First, you would need to Download the Android SDK kit and tools. This is free, and don’t worry – we will not be writing any code. The kit contains a few essential tools that we need to set our preferences. Extract the contents of the ZIP file. Now here are the steps:

1. Set your phone on USB Debugging mode [Settings, Programs, Development Settings, USB Debugging - Select this option if it is not selected already]
2. Open a terminal shell (On Windows, open a command prompt session), and navigate to ‘Tools’ folder in the extracted contents.
3. Type “adb shell” (On Windows) ["./adb shell" on Linux/Mac systems]
4. If you set the phone in the correct mode, you will get a ‘#’ prompt.
5. On the prompt, type

pm setInstallLocation 2

6. Wait for the ‘#’ prompt to appear. Type ‘exit’ to quit adb prompt. You can exit the shell window now.

You’re done. You will be able to move most of the applications to SD Card now. All new applications that are installed will go directly to the SD card.

A few things to take care of:
1. If the application provides Widgets and you use them, DO NOT move them to SD card – the widgets will not function correctly if you move them to the SD Card. If it provides Widgets, and you are not going to use them, or the app does not provide widgets, it is safe to move them.
2. If you’re planning to root your phone using Unrevoked Forever, you will have to reset the default install location to phone memory (Details on that below).

Restoring the install location back to phone memory:
Follow the steps listed above, when you get to Step 5, use this command instead:

pm setInstallLocation 0

This will not void your phone warranty, your phone does not need to be rooted. I’ve checked this with FroYo (Android 2.2) and Gingerbread (Android 2.3) and it works beautifully.

Notes:
1. I did not discover this method. Most websites talk about moving apps to memory card, but do not talk about how to restore it back in the same page. Also the note on being unable to use Unrevoked Forever for rooting is missing. It took me a while to figure it out that I couldn’t root my phone because the apps were being installed on my memory card, and to use Unrevoked Forever, you have to reset this.
2. I’ve done this several times, never facing any problems. If you do follow the steps mentioned here to the ‘T’ and end up screwing up your phone, I can not be held responsible.

Handy script to rename multiple files on a Mac / Unix-based system

As a photographer, one of the frequent operations I require to do is to rename multiple files in a directory – I generally add date and the location where I took the photograph as part of the selection process.

For Windows users, the wonderful Irfan View’s batch rename feature can perform this task very quickly, and one does not need to know much of scripting / tweaking. Just select the parameters, hit the button and you’re done. I couldn’t find a similar application that could perform batch renaming operations on a Mac with ease. It can be very frustrating to manually rename a bunch of files.

I came up with a script that one can run on a console, that performs batch renaming operation. Pre-requisites are that you would have to manually sort out the files into folders based on your requirements and all files should have the same file extension. For example, if you have a bunch of files to whose names you would like to add ‘Bangalore’ and another set to which you would like to add ‘Mysore’ – you have to keep them in separate folders, and all of the should have ‘.jpg’ (or any other type) as their file extension. You can check the file extensions quickly by issuing a ‘ls’ command and checking if the characters after the last ‘.’ are the same. You can have multiple ‘.’ in the file name, but the characters that follow the last ‘.’ should be the same.

Open ‘Terminal’ application [Application -> Utilities -> Terminal] or press ‘Command (Apple key) + Space’ and type ‘Terminal’ (without the quotes) and press the Enter key. Navigate to the folder using ‘cd <<Folder_name>>’ command, and type this:

for file in ./*; do mv $file <<DATE>>`basename $file .<<FILE_EXT>>`”_<<LOCATION>>.<<FILE_EXT>>”; done

Replace <<DATE>> with date (or anything else you’d like to prefix) and <<LOCATION>> with location name, <<FILE_EXT>> with the file extension and press enter. This will rename all the files present in that folder.

Example: If you have the following files in ./tmp folder:
IMG1.jpg
IMG2.jpg
IMG3.jpg
IMG4.jpg
IMG5.jpg
IMG6.jpg

Use the following set of commands:
cd ./tmp
ls

IMG1.jpg IMG3.jpg IMG5.jpg
IMG2.jpg IMG4.jpg IMG6.jpg

for file in ./*; do mv $file 2011_07_02_`basename $file .jpg`”_Bangalore.jpg”; done
ls

2011_07_02_IMG1_Bangalore.jpg 2011_07_02_IMG3_Bangalore.jpg 2011_07_02_IMG5_Bangalore.jpg
2011_07_02_2011_07_02_IMG2_Bangalore.jpg 2011_07_02_IMG4_Bangalore.jpg 2011_07_02_IMG6_Bangalore.jpg

There, that’s done.

For the curious, here’s what the script does:

for file in ./*; do mv $file 2011_07_02_`basename $file .jpg`”_Bangalore.jpg”; done

This executes three commands, one after the other. Let us go through it one by one:

for file in ./*

This statement is an iterator – it populates the variable file with the name of every file present in the current directory, one after the other. [Current directory is represented by ./ and the * is a wildcard that stands for all files]

do

Indicates the start of the iterations

mv $file 2011_07_02_`basename $file .jpg`”_Bangalore.jpg”

This statement is the logic behind renaming the files. This statement uses two native commands:
mv is a command that moves files from one location to another. We are using this command to rename files, since some distributions do not support a native command to rename files.
basename is another command that extracts only the name of a file, if we provide the extension. The iterator will give the full file name, which means the file extension will be present in file variable. ‘.jpg’ is the extension that we are attempting to remove from the file name. As an example, if we have IMG1.jpg basename IMG1.jpg .jpg will print IMG1 on the console.
If your system does not support these two commands, you will have to find equivalents that get the job done.

Now that you know about mv and basename, it should be fairly easy to understand the rest of the statement. $file will fetch the value that the variable file contains. basename command extracts only the file name. We are essentially moving the file whose name is present in file variable to a new file name as specified by the second parameter, which will be concatenated. The diacritical marks tells that the shell interpreter will have to take the output of what’s between them (Please note – it’s diacritical mark, the key above the Tab, to the left of 1 key on your keyboard, and not a single quote). Our format here specifies the interpreter to insert the date, file name & the location with the file extension. Not so complicated, isn’t it?

done

This closes the iteration sequence and the for statement will fetch the next file name into file variable, the sequence is repeated till the iterator runs out of files to process in the current directory.

And if you are asking how the statement doesn’t run into an infinite loop since you will always have files in the directory, the iterator statement will consider the names of the files when you first executed it, and does not scan the folder for changes.

Hope this helps. And as I mentioned earlier, this script is not subjected to renaming images – you can rename any group of files with a slight modification of this script.

Enhancement options: Extract the file extension so that the user need not worry about entering the correct extension – I’m a little too lazy to work on that now.

And if you have any questions, leave a comment and I’ll respond to it. And if you also have other ways to do the same operation, do let me know – I would be interested in knowing how to do this efficiently.

PS : This script was put together with ideas from various forums and other blogs that I went through in trying to find a solution for my problems. You are free to use it, enhance it, redistribute it without any acknowledgement whatsoever. This is safe to use, and I’ve been using it for a while now without any problems. However, I will not take responsibility for any problems that come out of using this script directly or by modifying it.

Album Review : Radiance – The Burning Sun

Short Version:
You will like this if you like any of : Meshuggah, Gordian Knot, Cynic, Devin Townsend Project, Spastic Ink, Periphery, Scale the Summit, Spiral Architect, Fredrik Thordendal, Blotted Science, Xerath

Top notch experimental progressive metal (with clean vocals). Mind numbing guitar riffs, drumming.

Here’s the title track (split into three)
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Check out Part 1, if you don’t like the first 120 seconds, you’re better off not listening to the rest of the album or reading the rest of the text.

Long (er) version

I am writing this because I couldn’t find a review of this album that did justice to what it is – a masterpiece of technical progressive metal. A project of Sami Raatikainen, whose previous work I have not heard. [As I understand, a lot of fans of his work with the current band may not like this album] Sami writes about the difficulties he faced in getting the project completed on his website – www.radiance.fi. You can also stream all the tracks for free here.

As mentioned, the entire album is just one song, but has been split up into 7 tracks. The complete track listing:
1. Lambda 475 01:42
2. The Burning Sun 18:41
3. Lambda 610 03:05
4. 0 03:19
5. Downward Spiral 14:23
6. Lambda 690 02:23
7. Conclusion 05:14

The song is centered around three sections that are aggressive and hard hitting – The Burning Sun, Downward Spiral and Conclusion

Lambda * – All the tracks starting with Lambda are ambient music, that set the mood for the next track.

The Burning Sun – The longest track off the album. I can not find the right word to express the creativity that has gone into crafting this masterpiece. Check out the song from the links posted above – and you will know what I mean. The opening riff is a killer. Very appropriate lyrics and the voice of Mats Levén add brilliance. The song is a mix of powerful rhythm and softer sections where one gets to hear ambient sounds with soft sung / spoken words.
Sections that I love :
First 2 minutes
6:30
11:06

0 – A short ballad.

Downward Spiral – This is my favorite track off the album. Some of the rhythm sections, solos, chord progressions, lyrics are really deep and very well received. [YouTube link]

Conclusion – The final track that closes the album beautifully. [Youtube link]

Yes, in all, three songs that are super brilliant. As I understand from the details written by Sami, he handled most of the instruments and editing work. Quite possible that a lot of music was electronically edited as well – the brilliance is undeniable. There’s only one thing that I didn’t enjoy too much, and that would be the synthesizer parts – sometimes they are too loud and I felt the track would have been all right without those parts. It’s a minor gripe, and does not overshadow what I’ve said above. I’d recommend this album very highly – I’ve been listening to this one for quite sometime, and absolutely love it.

Summary:
Music : Top notch technical progressive metal with complex guitars & drums
Vocal style : Clean, whispers

One More Day in Hong Kong

Before you read this, please read my first post about spending a day at Hong Kong.

There were not many places to go to after my first visit as a tourist to Hong Kong. I’d visited HK a few more times for shopping, but there was not much for me to see. I had a few days time off, and I decided to go to a few more places. Lonely Planet’s comprehensive guide gave me a few pointers here. I decided to visit the following places:

1. Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery
2. Man Mo Temple
3. Tian Tan Buddha
4. Victoria Peak

Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery

As usual, I took the most comfortable route out of Shenzhen to Hong Kong, the metro. I got down at Sha Tin station and walked the rest of the way. The directions are fairly clear, and there are distinct route markers to the place. The ‘monastery’ is located behind a couple of large buildings, at a dead end, and for first time visitors, this can be a little confusing. This is not an actual monastery as there are no monks living there. Instead, you get to see statues of Buddha with different expressions and postures. Photography is not allowed in some areas.

The stairs to the monastery have sculptures of Buddha on both sides.

There is a small restaurant on top of the hill – you get water, soda and some snacks over there. I went at around 8 AM, and as I recollect, they were not serving any food at that time.

Honestly, there’s not much to see here. One can think about skipping this place if there’s a lot to do.

Man Mo Temple

I walked back to the metro station, and went to Sheung Wan station. I should add that the inspiration for me to visit this place was a picture on the guidebook which showed incense coils hanging from the roof – not one, not 10, but a few hundred. The temple on Hollywood Road, is the largest Man Mo temple in Hong Kong. There is no objection to photos being taken – you are expected to remain silent since most of the people visit to offer their prayers.

The Hollywood Market is quite close to this place, where you can spend some time shopping if that interests you. The world’s largest outdoor escalator system, The Central-Mid-Levels Escalator is also at a walkable distance from the temple. You can take the escalator and avail a HK $2 discount for metro system if you have an Octopus card.

Next stop, Tian Tan Buddha.

Tian Tan Buddha

The place is accessible through taxi, but I would recommend taking the Cable car. You can take a metro to Tung Chung station, and the cable car station is right next to it. Here are a few images that I got on the way to the island:

I also noticed a few people hiking to the monastery. As you can see, there is a path to walk / climb. You could try this out if you have a lot of time – I didn’t

And here’s another photo from the cabin – the buddha statue is visible now. We were still a good 15-20 minutes away from the monastery, which should give you an idea of how big the statue is.

Here are a few images of the idols at the monastery – unfortunately, light wasn’t too very helping. I shot what I could and here are some of the photos.

Took the cable car back, and was off to Victoria Peak.

Victoria Peak

Only accessible through the Peak Tram, this place has a shopping complex, Wax museum, and a lovely platform for viewing the rest of the city. To get to Victoria Peak, you can take the metro to Central station, and take a taxi or a bus from there. I chose to walk, and it took me around 10 minutes to get there – there are plenty of route markers guiding you, and eventually, you are greeted by this sign.

Once inside, you will have to wait for the tram to come. Here’s the scene when it arrives:

The tram ride is probably one of it’s kind. It climbs the hill at an obscene angle. I was quite scared thinking what would happen if something went wrong. A while later, we did end up alive on top of the hill. I picked up a few souvenirs for friends at the station, which happens to be the lower floor of the shopping mall, and headed to the terrace right away. The place was insanely crowded, and it was extremely tough to get a spot from where I could see the city without obstruction. Finally I did manage to do that, and the view was magical. Here’s what you get to see:

The sun had already set, and it was getting dark.

Here’s a picture of some of the skyscrapers and the approaching tram.

And then, it was time for me to head back to Shenzhen. Took the tram down, couldn’t get a seat, so stood (they do allow passengers to stand) holding whatever I could. The trip down was more crazy. Took the metro back to Hong Hum station, switched to the East Rail Line, and headed back to Shenzhen.

I’m not sure when I’ll go to Hong Kong again, but am looking forward to it. Beautiful place, a tad too crowded for my liking though, nevertheless a great place to have fun.

Exploiting Android Phones

To make it perfectly clear, these are just my views and opinions on how, you, as a user can mess around with your Android phone. And not to forget, you will find a few million other people talking about the same thing on the internet. What I write here is nothing new.

First step : Root your phone. Depending on who made your phone, the rooting process is different. I own a HTC desire, and I would vote Unrevoked as the easiest way of rooting your HTC phone. Check if the phone is in the list of supported devices, follow the instructions to the T, and you’re done. Unrevoked also installs ClockWork Recovery on your phone, that allows you to take backup of your NAND Flash (these backups can be extremely useful if something gets screwed up and you need to restore a working OS). Explore the bootloader, just make sure you don’t delete / wipe / factory reset without first taking a backup of the NAND flash.

Personal Notes on rooting:

I’d been trying to root my phone with Unrevoked for a while, but it kept failing. Eventually I discovered the problem – I’d used an ADB shell command to set the default location of installed applications to my SD card on the Stock Froyo ROM that was released by HTC. In case you’ve done that, Unrevoked will not be able to gain root access. Just reset it back to the phone memory, run Unrevoked and you’re good to go. For the curious, the command to set the install location to SD card is “adb shell set pm InstallLocation2″ and the command to reset it back to phone storage is “adb shell set pm InstallLocation1″. If you don’t know what adb shell is, forget you ever read this.

Custom ROMs :

To start with, I tried Cyanogen Mod. It’s one of the most popular ROMs on the internet. Do take a look at their website to see what extras they offer.

I am currently using MIUI ROM which offers a clean, and user friendly interface. It is also quite fast.

Advantages of a Custom ROM:
1. Updates are released very quickly. Security patches, upgrades, anything else you can think of. Plus, you don’t have to wait for an eternity to check if the manufacturer will provide you with an update or not. Recently, there was a press release from HTC stating they will not be providing Gingerbread update for HTC Desire, and then they retracted the statement. If you’re running a custom ROM, you don’t have to worry about whether or not HTC will be providing you with an update.
2. No more crapware on your phone. All the stuff that comes pre-installed with your manufacturer’s ROM that you never use aren’t there.
3. You have a choice to decide what you want to install and what you want to remove.
4. A lot more useful features – For example, MIUI ROM has a firewall built into it that I can use to control what apps I can choose to give internet access. Cyanogen Mod has CPU governors with which you can overclock or underclock your CPU. Underclocking your CPU can come in handy when your battery is running low. [Note : Overclocking will consume more battery and may cause damage.]
5. It’s fun. Change the ROM and you end up with almost a new phone.

Disadvantage : There’s only one – Custom ROMs are not as extensively tested as those provided by manufacturers. They may come with a few bugs, which generally get fixed in the next release if reported. These are generally very minor bugs and occur in rare scenarios.

Tools that I use for backup:
1. Clockwork Mod Recovery – for a full NAND flash backup in case something goes wrong when flashing the new ROM. In that case, I’ll still have a backup of a working ROM that I can restore and use the phone. If you root your phone using Unrevoked, Clockwork Recovery will be installed by default [If your phone is rooted without a recovery, you can install Clockwork Mod recovery through ROM Manager]
2. Titanium Backup – Backsup all applications and settings on the phone to SD card. After installing a new ROM, all I need to do is restore the backup and I get back pretty much everything I had on my phone.
3. SMS Backup and Restore – At times, there is a possibility that the SMS application that you were using on your previous ROM does not store the messages in a way that is compatible with your current ROM. In that case, this tool is very useful to restore all the messages that were on your phone.
4. Call Log Backup and Restore – Restores the call log on your new phone.

All of the above applications and the ROMs are free [Apps are ad-supported / minimal features. ROM is fully functional and does not display ads]. These are sufficient to get you started with and playing around with custom ROMs.

To inspire you, here are a few screenshots of my phone running MIUI ROM, with features that I find nice. Oh yes, I got the screenshots directly from the phone, and not through a cable. That’s a really cool feature built into MIUI ROM which the manufacturer’s ROM lacks.

MIUI ROM, with Gingerbread [Android 2.3.4] on a HTC Desire

Home screen with Lego Theme

Lockscreen with quick access icons for Calls (on the left) and Messages (on the right). These will take you to the respective apps directly.

Long press of the power button gives this screen of toggle buttons. The entries here are completely customizable.

A view of the settings menu:

The file explorer shows me what type of files are present and how much of space they occupy. I can also quickly access the types of files that are displayed here. The phone also comes with an FTP server through which I can connect to and access the files over WiFi.

Folder display

Multiple file selections with toolbar

On connecting to the computer, the option to use the phone as a Mass Storage device pops up immediately. Very useful, I should add.

And you can stop using the phone as a USB mass storage device anytime you want to. There’s a toggle available for that on the notification window once the phone is connected.

And here’s the enhanced music app. Pretty cool, I’d say.

As always, any questions – I’ll be glad to help.

If you really want to go deeper, I’d suggest you hang around XDA Forums – be sure to read the rules and then post your questions. A great resource for getting to know more about your Android phone.

Disclaimer : Rooting your phone will void the warranty. If you do not follow instructions mentioned in the linked websites correctly, there is a chance that you may brick your phone. I will not take any responsibility for any damage that arises. Do it at your own risk.

Macau – The Gambler’s Paradise

WARNING : Long post, 27 images.

Macau is one of the two Special Administrative Regions of China [The other being Hong Kong]. Once a Portugese Colony, one would be surprised at how different the place is when compared to China. Lovely streets, great food, lots of Casinos. Here’s what me and a group of friends did at Macau. I visited Macau twice, but honestly, if you aren’t there for gambling, there is not much to do. Two days is more than enough to go around the place, and I am summarizing both days.

Gambling in China is illegal, and is generally not tolerated by law enforcement officials. So no matter how authentic a joint looks (Several cities allow people to gamble), don’t do it. One may end up in jail for this. I’ve read that the Chinese people love to gamble. But seriously, I was shocked at times by the way they were ‘throwing’ their money around.

A few friends who’d visited Macau earlier gave me pointers on where to go, what to do and where to get help when at Macau. Macau is about an hour away by ferry from Shenzhen. We exited China immigration checkpoint at Shekou port, and took the regular ferry to Macau. On the way, they screened a Cantonese movie Poker King with English sub-titles. I caught the movie in the middle but it was funny. [I finally ended looking up the movie and finding it].

As soon as we started approaching Macau port, the view caught my attention. Beautiful cityscape, bridges, buildings. Clearing Macau immigration is an absolute ease, and one gets Visa on arrival without any further documents. The tourist visa is good for 30 days from the date of entry. There are several Government operated ‘Tourist Counters’ at the ferry terminal, where one can pickup a map of popular tourist attractions, current events and what to do at Macau. I had my Lonely Planet China travel guide to assist me too. With both, I was quite sure I wouldn’t run into much trouble. The map provided is incredibly detailed, which tells one how to get between Macau by buses. Please note that you will need change to travel in the buses and if you pay excess, the driver will not give you the balance – you drop the money into a box and get down where you’re supposed to. The map, however, does not have a listing of budget hotels which is where LP’s guide is of great advantage. Consider picking it up if you plan on traveling across China, HK and Macau. As for money – Macau’s currency is delightfully colorful, and is called Pataka. You find plenty of ATMs and most international debit cards work well. Exchange value works out to be pretty close to Hong Kong Dollar, less than the Ren Min Bi Yuan.

Our first stop was The Venitian – a beautiful building that even has a canal built on one of the floors, complete with singing Gondoliers. For a charge, you can travel the length of the canal when the Gondolier sings to you. Us being us, we skipped this. Anyway, here are a few pictures from The Venetian.

Beautifully setup wedding cake:

Nicely arranged glasses:

One of the several statues that welcome you to The Venetian:

A view of the artificial sky – my friends are the ones in the foreground taking the picture

And in our search, we found an angel:

One can board a free bus that takes you to the Venetian from either of the ferry terminals and drops you back there. Inside the Venetian, you find lots of shops – we picked up a lot of stuff (Backpacks, Wallets, Jackets) from the Manchester United showroom. My friend even won a lucky coupon that allowed him to go upstairs and play a few games. For the hungry, there’s a McDonald’s outlet. There’s a huge gambling area where photography is not allowed. But we saved up our gambling experience for later. Next, off to the Senado Square, which is fairly close to the Ruins of St. Paul. We took a taxi from the ferry terminal to Senado Square.

I am not really sure whey the street is decorated so beautifully. Ruins of St Paul is at a walkable distance from here, and we got to walk through a few streets and shopping zones of Macau. One can take a break and try one of the several milk products stores – my favorite was a small shop called ‘Milk Top’ where I got to eat delicious ice cream.

These streets are pretty famous for local snacks. Plenty of stuff whose names I don’t know, but those that I recollect are those delicious Portugese Egg Tarts and Almond Cookies from Heaven. A fair number of shops make Almond Cookies and they invite you to try them out. And if you do eat, you are most probably going to go in and pick up a box, or more. I do not have any specific recommendations, but you could try out a few shops before deciding on where to buy from.

And our destination – Ruins of St Paul. Looks good during the day time, but more beautiful during the night.

Here’s a view of what you get to see :

My intention was to get the focus on the structure, and I blame my camera’s AF for not getting it right

During the day time, the place can get *VERY* crowded.

A view from the back of the monument, with The Grand Lisboa Casino in the background.

Behind the monument is a crypt which contains a few articles that were left behind, and also the bones of human beings who were buried there. Nothing creepy or eerie.

Nearby the Ruins, right across the road, is a small museum. The museum is situated atop a small hill, and is setup with a few vantage points with pay and use binoculars. You can enjoy a good view of Macau from here, though there’s not much to see.

A couple of kids were pestering their parents for some change so that they could peer into the binoculars.

Most of the Chinese kids (and those from nearby areas), especially girls, are very photogenic. They know how to pose for photographs. The boys are somewhat shy though.

And now off to Macau Tower which is one of the tallest towers in the world. The tower has plenty of shops, restaurants, cafes and offers a lovely view of the city. During the month of September, there is a lovely fireworks display. Standing on the observation deck of the tower, taking a look at the city with the fireworks can be an incredible view. I did not carry my tripod and ended up getting some really terrible pictures of the fireworks display, which I will not be posting. The fireworks display was not known to me when I went there, and it just happened ‘by accident’. It starts at around 8 PM and continues for a really long time, close to 45 minutes. The view from the top, is breathtaking, during the night. Here are a few images:

The Ponte de Amizade bridge across the ocean

And if you are of the adventurous kind, this tower’s got something for you. It offers Skywalk on the platform outside the observation deck, Mast Climb, Skyjump and Bungee jumping from 233 meters above sea level (Click here for website and information). This is run by the world famous AJ Hackett International. The first time I went, I wanted to take up one of these, but it was drizzling and I wasn’t so sure about it. The next time I did go there, I saw a couple of people jumping of the ledge and decided to do something.

Having fear of heights, I did not want to take the more extreme Bungee, and decided to take the Skywalk, which is more of an assisted jump. The folks who work there hooked me up to the supporting cables and gave me instructions, which ends up to pretty much this ‘Don’t touch anything and just relax’. Hard to relax when you are fall from 233 meters though I stood on the ledge and looked down. The view was lovely, but to think……

In my excitement, I forgot to hit the restroom before I jumped. And I’d had plenty of water to drink. Plus the height – so here’s a tip – don’t forget to hit the loo before you jump off. Fortunately, nothing catastrophic happened

The nice people who work there offered to take the photos for me (for a fee of course ) And as for the jump – The dude who was hooking me up to the cables told me that I will not be pushed and I will have to jump myself. He got everything ready, there was a final call for checking the hooks, and once the check was completed I remember telling him “I can’t do this”. He, being a natural, counted down from 5. 5..4..3..2..1 and as if on cue, I jumped. I kept my eyes open through the jump which lasted a few seconds, and boy, I was glad I did it. There was a huge airbag and another person helped me out of the harness. He asked me if I enjoyed it and when I replied in the affirmative, he said that I should try the Bungee next time. And if I do go there again, I will.

Oh, almost forgot the part about the Casinos. Went there in the night. One is not allowed to take photos inside the Casino though.

Most of the Las Vegas biggies (not that I know much about them) have opened an ‘outlet’ here. I have never tried gambling in the past. The first time, I was apprehensive about trying it out since the bets were too high. Then I realized that I was at the high stakes table. Folks were betting somewhere close to HK $30K at one go, and most of them made good money. And then I noticed that there were tables that allowed you to bet HK $100. I tried my hand at two casinos – Casino Lisboa and Grand Lisboa. I ended up making about HK $ 400 in total (both times) with a total of HK $2000 as seed money (HK $1000 each time, which averages to HK $200 each time, and yes, you can pull out anytime you want to). Pretty happy with the profit I made

And as for the games – Baccarat, Slot Machines, a very simple dice game (which is what I tried). The banker rolls three of them, you bet on the outcome – Any number between 4 & 10 is a ‘small’ number, a number between 11 & 17 is ‘big’. You can also bet on specific numbers that may show up on the face of any dice or the total. For big/small or specific numbers on the dice, you double your bet if you win or lose whatever you put on the table. If you bet on the total, what you win depends on how difficult the number is to get. That is, 4 and 17 will give you maximum profit. They also take special bets on rare numbers such as 3 ones, 3 twos … which give you more money if you win. Statistics of previous games are displayed on screen behind the banker.

That, pretty much, brings me to the end of this post. To summarize, if you’re not into gambling, there’s not much that you can do at Macau. A beautiful city though, stark contrast to the traditional Chinese cities that you find in that part of the world. A good place for a fun outing though, if you have the right company. If you’re in HK and have a day or two to spare, and are bored of HK, this may well be the place to check out Just make sure you have a hotel reservation – they can be pretty hard to get at the spot, especially on a weekend.

A few things to take care of:
1. Beware of touts – you’ll find plenty at the ferry counter offering you a 2 hour ‘guided tour’ of the city. In my opinion, the free map is more than enough to guide you around the place.
2. In the evenings / nights, at Casinos, especially if you’re winning, if you are a guy, you WILL be approached by women (Oh well, you know what I mean).
3. Walking on the streets seemed to be pretty safe. Me and my friends were out pretty late in the night. However, a plethora of ahem, women, approached us. Beware. One of my friends was thoroughly harassed.
4. Don’t forget the hotel reservation if you plan to stay there.
5. After 10 PM, only the Casinos and a few 24/7 convenience stores are open. Getting food can be a problem. (Unlike mainland China or HK where you have KFC and McDonald outlets that run 24/7)
6. Plenty of warnings in Casinos on pick-pocketing, though I didn’t see any victims.
7. Fairly easy to manage if you know English. Your lessons in Mandarin will not be of much help here. Cantonese and Portugese is what the locals speak.

If you have any questions let me know on a comment and I’ll respond to your question