Tag Archives: Music

The Destiny Farm Stay, ooty

by geeksrik

In my last post , I wrote about my journey to Ooty, spiced up with certain constraints and situations. In this post, I will let you know my review of the Destiny Farmstay at Ooty. Read on ….

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The Destiny Farmstay is about 25-30 kms away from Ooty main bus stand. The car parking in Destiny is about 2km away from the actual farmstay, and the road beyond that does not permit normal sedans or hatchbacks to get to the actual farmstay as its very slushy, extremely bumpy and risky in terms of damage to the vehicles. The directions provided by the resort is fairly accurate, but towards the end you may have to keep your ears and eyes open for signboards, turns, identification points and the likes.

An army truck belonging to the Little Earth group who run destiny farmstay, took us from the car parking into the resort. The ride can be very bumpy and little kids can feel rattled and extremely afraid as did my little one. So take care of this part. The reception at the resort was neat and kept well attended and the staff there were very courteous in welcoming the people to the stay. A welcome drink was also made available on arrival since it would mostly be beyond noon when people reach there. As other formalities were being completed, the lunch menu was also being taken for order from different guests so that lunch could be made available on time.

A point to note here about the lunch or dinner is that they are limited in timings and one has to be within the time frame of cafeteria being open to source the required dishes. Room service is available at a cost but not always. So its best you return to the cafeteria at specified times in order to avoid missing out on the food. And you guessed it right that there is nothing near the resort where you can otherwise go for food and so you are by yourself. Another thing I felt about the food was that it was quite expensive (even beyond bangalore standards) which is not a good thing. This is always a demand supply factor resorts capitilize on and I am okay with that if the resort were to be otherwise highly rated. Though TripAdvisor rates this resort high, one must understand the fact that there are actually very few new, other resorts, around this place. So naturally everyone who goes here would tend to recommend only this one. Additionally they do not add too much spice into the food, so its kind of kid friendly too which is a plus.

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The rooms themselves are nestled neatly along a row overlooking a valley created by more than few mountain slopes. This is the valley where sloped farming is done. When we went to the resort rains were lashing ooty, and towards the evening the atmosphere was damp and the skies opened up a bit. The sunset was a surreal experience. The rooms were large with two single beds put back to back. So that meant some ample room for four of us (two kids). The toilets were large and neat, however not always did we get hot water. You can compare that to my review of the eagle eye holidays in chikmagalur where I did have hot water 24 hours of the day. So if they can do it, why not Destiny?

The room was supposedly a deluxe room, but the only deluxe part about it was the front verandah area overlooking the valley. Other than that the sofa inside the room was not well maintained and the springs had worn out. It was more uncomfortable to sit on it than anything the other way round. The rooms also had no tube lights or no fans and had a coffee maker in case you needed a quick one.

The farming itself consisted of many different type of flowers, cabbages, carrots and the likes being cultivated there. In addition to this they had a horse stable with atleast 3-4 horses who would take you for a ride at a specified time in the mornings with supervision on a high ground area. In addition to this were a large amount of cows, and some sheep. There were also rabbits and ducks which were near the pond down the valley. There were hundred odd steps that led to the valley below which is a good exercise if you take your kids down and back, assuming you are carrying them.

In addition to this, there is a disco room that’s operational at night, and there is a bonfire every night which in my opinion is absolutely necessary. Its advisable to carry a set of diapers, all essentials for kids, and atleast three pairs of footwear for kids. Some woolens and raincoats and atleast one or two umbrellas are a must.

Please be advised that there are NO medical facilities anywhere nearby atleast for a good 20+ kilometers, so you have to take all medical supplies that you might need. Remember that your car is parked a good 2-3 km away from the resort from where the nearest hospital is another 20km away, so this could be risky if you need urgent medical attention. From what I spoke with hotel staff, I am not sure that they are addressing this need.

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Its also mostly likely that the cafeteria or reception would remain out of reach beyond some earthly hours. There is also a well stocked library to spend some time in. One of the major reasons I went to this place was that they had advertised some activities for the kids such as nature painting and so on, but the person conducting these was away on holiday himself, so one promise never met. Luckily since I carried a whole lot of sketch pens myself, I was able to get some paper and let my son try his artwork there.

I stayed at Destiny Farmstay for only one night, but I feel its an experience where kids learn about farming, and look and feel domestic animals once in a way. To summarize Destiny is aiming to be unique in what it offers, but the expensive food and no medical help nearby might make it go out of your list for a holiday. If you still want to give it a try, the location is beautiful and would relax a tired soul.

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The cost for a deluxe room towards end of March was 5,500 + and the three time meal cost came to almost 1,700 +, add a fuel of almost 3,000 + from bangalore upto the resort and we are looking at around 10,000 for a day’s worth of holiday.

 

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Eagle Eye Holidays (coffee estate) review

by geeksrik

What is your idea of a holiday? Now that you have perhaps been to hundreds of resorts already do you still expect the 101st to be of the same ambience? Like a great reception with uniformed people welcoming you with some flowers or whatever, and then a grandoise room awaiting your fall on the bed to be in peace with yourself?

Or are you ready for a different type of experience? Are you the types who would prefer to check out something that tests your perception and mental skills a bit ? Besides that is your idea of a coffee estate something thats deep inside the clouds many thousands of feet above sea level with winds that chill your body to make you want that hot cup of tea more often than not?

My trip to Eagle eye holidays makes me think I need something like this again though i am unsure whether I would get such a right mix of things most often or not. Without much ado then let me tell you what made this trip memorable to me. Eagle eye Holidays is a coffee plantation or estate as we would often refer to it. This is situated near Kadavanthi or Kadathi, which is few tens of kilometres away from nearest proper civilization called Alduru (read: Aaldoooru). Alduru itself is few tens of kilometers from Chikmagalur which is the nearest proper town.

Reaching Chikmagalur from Bangalore requires that you partly travel on NH4 highway upto Nelamangala, and then take left to get onto SH48 which goes to Kunigal, Adichunchanagiri, Channarayapatna and Hassan along the way to Chikmagalur. The road upto Chikmagalur is what makes it worthwhile to undertake this journey. If you are a car driving maniac and are true to your wheels, you are not going to forget this hair rising highway drive. My current love is my Figo and speeds of 130kmph was a child’s play on this road. Particularly the SH48.

Though the NHAI is still developing the toll booths at a few places, the road by itself is an awesome piece of highway for speed racers! Don’t get me wrong, racing need not always be with another person, and need not always be of the rash type! If you are the expert driver types this drive should see you reach Chikmagalur in 4 1/2 hours flat. Such is the quality of the highway. But wait a minute… if you thought that’s all this highway is about quite contrarily – NO! How about throwing in some great looking paddy fields and rural sceneries on the way? And some lakes? How about the old tree lined roads you’ve always seen in your childhood? Some small hillocks? Lets make it more greener – Add some windmills churning power from the winds, and some neat twists and turns of the road. This is what being cheerful on a long drive is about. You got to drive to experience the talk.

And you thought its all over when you reach Chikmagalur? Wrong again. Is this all you can think of? Assume I make the road the airport runway tarmac types, smoothen it off a bit more, add greater angle to the twists and turns, remove uphill components, and also subtract oncoming traffic. This then becomes nothing short of annilhation. Add another car who is spirited in testing your driving skills and negotiation and we have nothing short of a F1, well expect your car of course :-)

The 30 odd kms between Chikmagalur and Alduru is sheer awesomeness for both speed drivers and slow drivers alike. The pristine beauty of large trees around, the amazing tranquility and discovering your inner self. Enough to rejuvinate you for some time to come.

Every good thing or bad thing will have an end. And if the good comes first the bad comes next in the cycle. After Kadavanthi somewhere along the way the next 10-20kms of road gets bad with potholes all around and this is where you feel the need for perhaps a cheap hatchback with 20" alloys to take on the road like a monster! The map given by the resort is more of a type you would use for a treasure hunt, leave alone navigate somewhere. In this case the treasure being finding the resort itself. Add poor road signages and you are now really one with nature. If nature wills you will get to the treasure else not.

Its therefore essential that you stick to the map. Yes, take some glue, stick the map to the windshield, use the same glue and stick your nose on that map as well. Why? Because if you dont, you would forget that right turn at the paddy field landmark and the left turn at the dam gate landmark. Sounds punky in 2011 isnt it ? Welcome to some rural tones!

Oh and by the way you would like to call the resort for directions would you? Well assume that none of the mobile signals show up besides good old airtel and you are lucky to be holding phones of other operators services and there you hit the jackpot of ruining one chance to reach the resort with any sort of help.

The more I followed the second map that showed me the way to resort, the more I felt lost by each passing minute. Some 2kms away from the resort (lets correct that terminology shall we: say coffee estate) the last right turn takes you to a stone graveled road that will test your car in and out. after two gates when you take left onto the property, with a mile or more to, you begin to wonder if this is a con-job. Yes, i would say yes, its a master crafted con-job to disprove the very perceptions you had of how a resort must be.

The last mile makes you wonder whether you entered someone else’s property by mistake and what if that guy let loose his gunmen on you. Straight from a movie flick. As your car struggles hard to cope the incline, you reach a dead end with a 180 sharp hair pin bend. As you wonder "what more?" and whether your car would want to take that hair pin bend, two people come to you and say "welcome to eagle eye holidays". It was a hot afternoon and we reached a bit late after some searching around and panicking. And a welcome drink was more than welcome. it was gulped down even without understanding what was given to us. The reception is more of a shack made with wood on a higher platform. And once you get onto the platform, you are no more interested in thinking about the journey.

The view of the western ghats and the valleys below soothen you down and you just want to rest a bit with the cool windws blowing on you under the thatched roof. Before we stepped into our room, lunch awaited us. The food given by resorts is always questionable. Here too some foodstuff werent great, but not all foodstuff was bad. Given this fact, Eagle Eye holidays provided good food at best if not sumptuous. Some items like the next day morning’s breakfast were yummy to keep away from. The rooms themselves were well appointed and there are many different types of rooms. Valley view rooms, glass houses, (for the brave) the tree house which is mostly open and perched on tree tops, hutments, and standard rooms are available. The rooms themselves are between 2,500 bucks a night upto 5,000 a night. We stayed at a waterfall room which in my opinion is a ridiculous idea. Agreed the management wanted to save a few boulders and/or could not avoid removing a few rocks so they integrated those and few faux rock arrangements into a thematic waterfall room. However neither was there a waterfall which is swithced on for an hour, nor does the room lend itself into any kind of ambience as such. The Tree house or hutments would make better rooms to stay in in terms of practicality. Also given the foregone conclusion that the waterfall room is costly (at 5k a night) its best to avoid this altogether.

Other than that the hot water facilities are governed by solar water heaters perched atop and in between trees. Due to the tropical climate of the coffee estate, there is no dearth of hot water which gets generated by the solar during the scorching afternoons. The upholstery like blankets towels, bedspreads are hand washed daily in front of you and its a job well done compared to a washing machine type of wash cycles. Due to the sprawling nature of the 130 acre estate, there is enough room to dry clothes daily. The management have also created a 30 feet deep lake in the middle of the property. A natural trail of road leads to this lake which offers coracle rides and fishing activities. Again dont expect professional fishing equipment to be handed over to, but with whatever stick and wheat balls used to lure the fish, my cousin who accompanied me on this trip was able to catch a good sized fish. If you want to laze around and do things that are not of the usual resort type, these activities fall into that list.

Being situated at a coffee estate there is no dearth of good coffee provided at all times and there is no restriction on the amount you can have. if you are hungry you eat. Period. A stroll upto the lake, and few peaceful hours later, its time for some campfire. Of course hot drinks are served during this nightly hour with some loud music and dance to follow. To add some dazzle to the show, the clear sky makes it possible to view the wonderful constellation of all the stars for those hungry stargazers. During the day time, there are plenty of subjects to shoot photographs with in the resort – flowers, fruits, birds, objects, elevations, winding roads etc.

 

The only downside to this resort is that the rooms are aligned across a path which is very steep which makes it impossible for old people to climb and this could be a dampener to people wanting to go to this resort. It took over ten to fifteen minutes for me to switch between reception and room each time which shows difficultly level. Not that I am lean, well built and all that. I’m the usual paunchy type of mid-life-crisis-beating-man :-) Early mornings begin with chirping birds and a great breakfast, not to mention some games like shuttle, table tennis, and strong coffee again with a great view of the mist settling in the western ghats valleys. Post breakfast there is just about time to go for a 2 hour trek deeper into the estate. If one would like to skip it, we can have long chats over breakfast and freshen up with a bath and just enough time to pack the bags and leave. This is offically called the two-days-one-night-package-syndrome that resorts exhibit. Best part of the journey was just the occassional treats we packed for eating on the way, full meals taken care of package at resort, and some lunch on the way back home. Plus meals for your car (fuel). No other nonsense expenditure.

Its also worth mentioning that once you are in the resort its NOT worthwhile planning trips to Shringeri, Augumbe mountains, or Belur or Halebid which are all nearby. This is an exclusive deal. Not an all-in-a-single-day deal. So bottom line is would I recommend this resort to others?

  • For the off the beaten path ambience – YES
  • For the cost – SORT OF YES
  • For the meals – YES
  • For the peace of mind – YES
  • For the drive – Oh YES!!
  • For the hospitality – YES
  • For the coffee – YES
  • For their payment mechanisms – NO! (they accept only cash, so there is no confirmation of prior room booking)

The pictures would speak more than anything else. What are you waiting for? Hit the road now!

 

 

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Asus O!Play Air (HDR3) review

by geeksrik

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A friend of mine happened to recommend the ASUS O!Play Air media player to me and since the cost factor was tempting, I decided to buy it for myself. The need was to have the player play my media files over the wireless connection from an attached 2TB western digital hard drive and occassionally stream content from the internet – either videos or internet radio channels to be precise.

So did the Asus O!Play satisfy me? Read on! I ll make this review easier to comprehend by dividing it into crisp sections so you can read what interests you more about it.

Package & Cost


The O!Play Air is the third in the series of players Asus has released recently. The package itself is a compact one with the player, a HDMI cable, installation CDs for PC utilities and a rather chunky remote control. The power adaptor also had different country pin compatilibity. A manual accompanied the box and that’s pretty much it. One has to also at this point note that Asus is primariliy a hardware oriented company from Taiwan which has since spread its reach to other geographies. My expectation hence out of the software for this player was not great. The cost of the package was Malaysian ringgit 400, which works out to Rs.6000 INR. Not bad at all for what it provides. Competing media players which provide wireless capabilities are priced 1.5 times more than this box which makes this one an attractive proposition.

Setting up the box & connections

Setting up the box was rather straightforward, with just connecting up the inputs (RCA cable in my case), installing batteries for remote (which it came with by the way) and powering it on. Under system settings one can set the box to either work over LAN, wireless or even PPPoE. LAN was simple to configure to use DHCP IP addressing and the box could acquire an IP dynamically in a pretty straightforward manner. Wireless configuration was not exactly pleasant to set up though one only had to choose the access points nearby and hook onto one of them either on open system or a shared WEP key basis. If this were to have been done manually one has to use the rather uneasy remote to click on an alphabetic keyboard just with arrow and OK keys which made configuration cumbersome.

User interface and Navigation

I already mentioned that ASUS is primarily a hardware oriented company. Its no surprise then that one can expect only a sparse user interface on their products unless they are high end ones. In this context the primary menu is just a circular carousel menu cycling between online media, music, photos, files, and setup. Go into any of these and you are greeted with a simple list based navigation menu. Navigation itself is fast enough, but the remote control plays spoilsport in giving you the best experience. The IR receiver is not exactly accurate to handle remote control inputs.

Quality of audio/video

This is where the Asus is strong. It does what it states on the box. Plays all formats without a fuss. By default the thumbnail option is set to playing video even while control is on the list. This can be disabled however. Asus has been stupid enough to have this option as it keeps playing the same video endlessly with full volume even within the PIP window. Asus also handles media which is on USB stick, or via an eSATA connection. It also sports SD/CF and MMC slots. At the rear it has an ethernet port, HDMI output for digital TVs, RCA outputs for analog TVs and a power adaptor socket. Simple in design and very functional is the way one can put the characteristics of this box.

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Internet content

This is an area which is oft disregarded by small time players, or implemented very badly with respect to funtionality. Asus has not skimped on this and provides a lot of internet TV and radio channels, besides flickr and other internet portal support. Youtube however is not supported which is a shame. You can add your favorite channels any time you want from this list for easy accessbility and a good internet connection will mean you can access your likes fast enough.

Software updates and support

Asus releases software updates which can conveniently be copied to a USB key, and loaded onto the box with minimal fuss. The online forums are not exactly exciting so expect delays in implementing your suggestions. Support forums are also minimalistic but they do have useful suggestions to get you out of problems you face with the box.

Remote control and other quirks

These are better bulleted as under

  • Remote control sucks big time as the IR sensitivity is too low
  • There is no alphabetic keypad when compared to boxes like Boxee Box, which makes entering alphabetic information an irritating affair
  • Box does not remember wireless network credentials if switched off, which is pretty shameful for a product like this making users enter this information again and again. This happens if one of either the box or the router is switched off.
  • Logging onto network hard disks is cumbersome as it asks for network login credentials each time which sucks.
  • Though box does not hang, some menu items appear disabled without rhyme or reason and Asus has not bothered to spend time on fixing these issues.
  • The carousel menu isn’t the most exciting on this product. Asus could have outsourced UI to a different company if they did not have the skills.
  • The user interface assets or artifacts like screens, fonts could have been designed in a much better way consider the TVs they show up on
  • When a user presses a key to go to a different menu, Asus does not give preference to that key press, instead it keeps doing what it was already doing. This is a delay for the user who will not appreciate this much

Verdict

So long as Asus provides some quality fixes for the user interface behaviour, this box is good. If not its best to stay away from buying this box, considering the quirks mentioned above, even if it comes cheap!

 

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The Do’s and Dont’s of a birthday party celebration

by geeksrik

Everything comes by experience. Some details come by enquiries. Whichever way you look at it, there are still mistakes bound to happen and this blog post is a ready reckoner for those who would love to organize parties for their loved ones calling all near and dear. Particularly this post reflects on a recent birthday party I had for my son. Some important experiences I underwent while organizing this party has made me to pen them down here so that people organizing similar events would get a clue as to how to go about.

Invitation process:

  • I first wrote down a list of main invitees
  • I then counted how many people are totally there in each of the invitees families, which gave me a total invitee count
  • I logged into www.evite.com one of the well known invitation sites and added the main invitees and prepared a detailed invitation.
  • I presented/mailed the invite to everyone I added so that step one was done.
  • The total invitee list stood at a little over 200 (including family members)

Getting the people to respond:

This is no doubt the worst part of all, but then the organizers have to understand that the stakes of a birthday party are high. The main costs involved in organizing the party today is that of FOOD. Hotel’s charge per head and its generally about Rs.120 upto Rs.250 or even Rs.300 for some high end resort style hotels. So even for a meagre 100 people, this works out to Rs.12000/- bucks just for good. To add the icing to the cake, the hotel charges separately for the party hall in case your guests are less than a hundred. So basically this high cost covers only the FOOD and/or the party hall itself. Absolutely nothing else.

Always plan an event in advance. This will give you enough time for you to go behind people for their responses on their availability. This may mean calling them until they respond or even daily birthday reminders by email, but so be it. It is important that we learn to estimate almost exactly on how much food is needed to be served.

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Ford Figo 1.4 Titanium Diesel review

by geeksrik

Today I happened to test drive the FORD FIGO TITATNIUM DIESEL. Initially I thought i would take the car only for a short distance, but then I decided to try this baby out on a rather empty stretch of almost a 10 to 20kms highway. This was the Electronics city toll elevated highway. Person from Ford with whom i interacted with for the fiesta promised yesterday that he would be here in my home at 10AM and he appeared about 15 mins late.

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(source: http://www.theautomotiveindia.com)

I jumped into the car and without wasting time shot off on my drive. From here on some crisp points about the drive itself. Just to give you a background, I ve owned 2 800s, one palio petrol 1.2, one swift diesel 1.3 and one honda city 1.5 iVTEC. Also test driven the punto 1.4p, 1.3d, manza 1.4p and 1.3d, linea 1.4p and 1.3d. Also test driven 1.3 swift Dzire ZDI and fiesta 1.6S petrol. Today was the figo’s turn after all this.

Seating position is spot on with ample room in the footwell. While the absence of a dead pedal would be found annoying by some people, especially on highway drives, due to ample room in footwell, this is hardly a concern on the figo. Unlike the cramped footwell of punto due to dead pedal, the figo was far more spacious down there.

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(source www.fordfigo.in)

The gear shift is similar in nature to fiesta. Its not exactly slotty, but kind of still precise without leaving room for errors while shifting. There is no engine roar as in swift exactly but though the figo takes some time to pick up, once it does, nothing can beat it. if used effectively this translates to a 2000 rpm + manouvre on each gear. The torqueyness isnt exactly as good as swift but it is not unbearable as the car responds the moment you accelerate on any gear.

Driver and passenger ergonomics seem spot on though a bit lower than swift. the reason i keep comparing to swift is because i owned it before this one. being lower also means better stability on the road which i will come to shortly. thankfully the one i drove had the black dashboard and not the pink one. Seats have sufficient thigh support although back support could be bolstered a bit more. Plastics and interiors look a bit cheap, but then this vehicle is about value for money with respect to function not great interiors. For that look elsewhere like the polo which is more expensive.

Clutch was pretty easy to use and with an excellent gear shift, made the driving a pleasure. The AC is an absolute chiller. Though Figo does not offer climate control one can easily still control the temperature with the manual heat adjustment to offset for the chillness. The presence of a rear defogger also means good defogging in bangalore city during rains especially in the nights. The electrically controlled side view mirror switches are of very high quality and are also of precise action without errors or doubts. Needless to say when compared to the swift, which does not provide this feature, it is definitely a plus point during those hard to negotiate reversal and parking manouvres. The 154cc compressor acts immediately putting everyone in the cabin at utmost ease quite soon.

The lower height (if not necessarily ground clearance) only means that the car stays well planted on the road. What better example can I take than the fact that I had to remind myself that I was overshooting 140kmph all along the long tollway drive. One of the superior characteristics I found about this engine was its eagerness to push beyond 140 all the way upto 160 or more without much ado. Of course I did not try this feat due to obvious reasons. Going at 140 seemed like going at 60.

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(source www.fordfigo.in)

A few times I had to negotiate slow moving traffic ahead of me in a zig zag fashion and the braking was near perfect with ABS and EBD at play. Considering atleast people at front have seat belts on, braking is a no nonsense affair and the car exhibits extreme maturity doing this. Needless to say its also confidence inspiring for the driver. The steering is a bit heavy I thought and did not really check if its tiltable. Neither did I confirm whether seats had height adjust. In a relative context, I did not quite appreciate the open 12V socket and the bonnet latch on passenger side. This was pretty lousy in my opinion as kids in front on passenger side can be easily fiddling with this latch.

The door latches themselves are pretty cheap looking and cheap in function too. In the sense that children in the front can easily pull the door latch when least expected. This is quite dangerous to even think of and I wish Ford had heeded this possible issue during design. Instead they seem to have copied fiesta functionality as is causing some heartburns. Atleast when the car picks up a certain speed, the door latches should not be openable. Neither is there a complete shut possible from drivers side for windows or doors. To add to the glory only front two windows are power windows. While Ford says due to the way the Figo is designed, rear windows have not only had to be mechanical, but also they open only to the tune of 70-80%. Perhaps while in one way this is okay, the rear windows not being powered is a shame and only speaks of some serious cost cutting in some sense. Whatever it is this doesnt seem quite great.

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(source www.fordfigo.in)

Flaws aside, the stereo is great to use. While FM radio was a bit cracked to listen to, CDs would sound much better on this system as compared to say Manza or the DZire. I also could pair my iPhone to the music system via bluetooth and the sound quality of songs from my iPhone to the Figo stereo was astounding without the real need for an amp/subwoofer. That said I am not yet clear whether Figo supports 4 channel amp + subwoofer. Also in the midst of listening to a song, when I accelerated the song cut off for a fraction of a second before resuming. Just some signal interference and nothing to think beyond that I feel. As a bonus I also made one call and received another call on the stereo and the caller’s voice was very clear and they could also hear me clearly. I am not sure where the mike is placed for this purpose. Bluetooth is one of the most important aspects of the figo at this price w.r.t swift, and these days its an indispensable feature to stay put on concentrating on the road while still enjoying a call or two.

The horn of the Figo is somewhat hard to press but provides the necessary sound externally to deter any annoyances displayed by other vehicles on the road. My personal choice would however be to put in a windtone horn (like what the skoda laura would have) as its more pronounced though it needs to be used maturely. I did not get a chance to test the headlights as it was daylight driving but I assume it would be good enough without warranting a change to Philips 100/120W.

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(source www.fordfigo.in)

The rear space of the figo is an interesting aspect to talk about. I initially had the opinion that it would not provide me anything more than a swift. But to my surprise I found that with me being 5’10" and my driver’s seat pulled back to my comfort level, I could still sit in the Figo’s rear seat without feeling cramped. This is a marked departure from the swift days honestly and this could be a deal breaker for me other than price vs features. The third person (the guy in the middle) is always an unwanted guest and it so remains even in the Figo case. We should start treating all cars as strictly four seaters from now on and should not accept an additional guest simply because its our culture!

The only thing then left to talk about is the boot. By and large the boot is much much larger than say swift. Additionally one can also perfectly (100%) tilt the rear seat to make for much larger space to even carry a bicycle if need be. With this kind of versatality one does not really need a sedan for these purposes. The external design of the Figo looks somewhat oldish, but if one can just excuse that for the features it provides and a price its coming at, its perfectly drool maal. The tyres are not alloys but for a mere 15k more, one can add ford made alloys to the car.
The suspension itself is a bit soft which means if the car is fully loaded, one has to drive carefully on speed breakers. I scraped once with four people in the car at a certain high speed. so take note of this.

Finally, the pricing is the icing on the cake. with some cost cutting by Ford, they are today the only car in the category of diesels with so many modern features and a reasonably responsible engine and handling characteristics. The 1.4 engine isnt exactly a gem at 69bhp and 160NM torque at 2000 rpm but then it isnt a laggard either. The only thing then that will make Figo a winner or loser is the long term complaints about the car and service issues considering whether the strategy of Ford works or not as the case maybe.

The fuel efficiency must be in the range of 16 to 20 easily between city and highway driving which is what one can expect from most diesel hatches cut out for this kind of performance.

So what are you waiting for? Take your own test drive today and enjoy sheer bliss.

The iPhone 3GS in India – a review

by geeksrik

 

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Many reviews have been written on the iPhone 3GS and now even the iPhone 4G with its impending launch sooner than later. However it was only in the last one month did Apple launch the iPhone 3GS officially in India, almost a year later than other countries and with good reason. With the country seeing a surge in 3G connection options from BSNL and the impending followup by other mobile operators shortly by September post the 3G auctions, the iPhone 3GS has enetered at the appropriate time into the country.

While some people may scoff at the fact that many mobile providers offer the service pretty late to developing countries, they must also realize that its not only about being a late entrant, but the limitation in technology makes in infeasible for higher grade devices to be launched at the same time. What would someone in India do with a 4G apple iPhone without an actual 4G service? Besides, red tapism and bureaucratic hurdles in our country only more definitely point to the fact that every new launch will be delayed if its linked to the spectrum. Having said this, still the iPhone 3GS launch in India deserves some coverage with respect to the aspect of having a great device to work with and this review makes these opinions rather precisely and to the point.

So what is the USP for going in for an iPhone? Well after my tryst with many other phones, including the Nokia 5800, Blackberry 8520, Blackberry Storm 2 9550, and Nokia N900 – I decided to sell off all these phones (except the last which I didn’t own) to finally decide to buy an iPhone 3GS. While all the above mentioned devices were no doubt great at their functionalities, the touch sensitivity and eye-catchiness of the user interface was rather sub standard and resistive touchscreens only made it worse for instance on the 5800 by Nokia. After ten years of being with Nokia the time had come to bid a rather eventless goodbye to the once upon a time king of mobile world. While their devices still continue to support multitude formats and be technologically advanced even now, unfortunately the company has not concentrated on the user interface and intuitiveness of use which has led to a steady downfall for Nokia. This is also the time companies like RIM and Apple have got very aggressive in their marketing pitch with their phones. While I wish to talk about the Storm flagship model from Blackberry later on, its now time to give standing ovation to a phone well made by Apple – the iPhone 3GS.

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This is a phone people die to own. This is a phone people cannot afford to own. This is a phone that people will not sell once they own. This is a phone that defines your lifestyle from the moment you own it. This is a phone which is truly capable of making your life more meaningful and productive. And finally this is a phone for all ages right from the child in you upto the old man in you :-)

There is nothing to not like on an iPhone. The capacitive touchscreen and the user interface deployed to work with it by Apple, is by far the best strategy by Apple which has seen nothing short of its market share and stock price increasing from day one of launching its iPod and iPhone series of devices which are now in their fifth generations. It will take a long time for other companies to perfect the touchscreen input recognition and these companies will merely be second fiddling Apple for sometime to come. If there is anything you would want to pay money for to own an Apple, its the ridiculous simplicity of usage and nothing else! So does the iPhone stack up as worthwhile for the 35,000 odd bucks you would want to spend on it in India ? Read more to find out !

I do not in this review wish to dwell deep into each and every feature (known or hidden gems) that the iPhone provides, but I will try and make it as detailed as possible on things that I know after being with it for a month.

Design

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When you design a phone whose usage will be across generations, you better keep things simple. While I may know the hardware to a greater extent than my dad, my kid may only know how to touch the screen to get things going at a little over two years old. So the point is Apple has really paid attention to this fact and kept the design of the instrument simple. The only buttons around the device are the On/Off button, Mute button, Volume button and well the Home key. Other than this are the two neatly placed speakers around the charging port, and on top you find the rather uncomfortable-to-take-out sim card tray and a 3.5mm standard headset jack. Period. Nothing else nowhere around the phone. No removable battery, no removable memory card and an almost no removable sim. This is where the Indian safety pin comes in handy. That or the paper clip are the only way to remove the iPhone SIM. Besides why would you keep removing your SIM card every now and then ? You wouldn’t and this is what exactly Apple wants from you as well.

I must not forget to add rather hastily that the phone is ultra slippery. One mistake could send such a costly device plummeting to the ground and break it before you can wink your eyes. While its a shame that Apple did not think of a hand grip (like a recess somewhere on the phone body), this is where companies have made a living making cases for the iPhone, besides a gazillion other things.

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Ecosystem around the phone

If a phone has to survive for a long time as an icon which is desired, then it not only needs to look good, be simple to use and function well, but it has to have or create an ecosystem around it which makes it extensible for a good amount of time to come. This ecosystem must not only help this model, but also be readily available to be used by other models which are due. This is what AppStore is about and iTunes is about. Apple has slowly but steadily built the much famed AppStore which sports thousands of applications which are available either free or for a fee which is as cheap as eating out at a local fast food joint. Not only has this proved a life saver for Apple, but has also enabled thousands of developers to test their popularity on the AppStore. The result is that there are some wonderful applications which are highly usable yet simple and keep you productive and entertained for as long as you have the phone.

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It will take a long long time before any other mobile phone provider can reach this level of the number of apps with Apple, and the release of iPAD has only increased the heat even among tablet developers to be on their toes for apps. Its not just the apps which are available, its their quality that makes their usage on a device such as the iPhone more outstanding.

Performance

This is one area which is a sure shot opportunity to produce a winner of a phone. While speed is not the only thing that matters all the time, it sure is one quality of the phone which makes people buy it. Comparing my early Nokia 6600 which was great during its launch, phones have come a long way in what they can achieve for you. Much to the extent that a PC’s processor now sits within a phone. If you had asked me an opinion about the 3G version of iPhone, I’d have passed it off as yet another normal phone. The speed took a hit due to the amount of graphical manipulations happening on the user interface and to the extent of causing annoyance among users after having spent a little over 30 grand. However Apple quickly worked on it, and with the 3GS speed is no more a concern. But if you want some serious improvement for speed wait for the 4G which will sport a 1Ghz processor.

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Back to the discussion, the speed on 3GS is sufficient to make applications open rather instantaenously and perhaps the OS 4.0 would be only better in handling these. I have about 4-5GB of songs on the 16GB memory, and with these many, the unitasking system does well in terms of speed and data access. The browsing speed is also decent and Safari does well in rendering many pages properly. The scrolling, touch input are almost at a perfection level which many other manufacturers will never be able to achieve and these are the reasons Apple is sought after for their devices. With no stylus, the only way to input on the phone is your finger and Apple has done a good job to ensure your touches are interpreted correctly most of the time.

Battery life

For any Smartphone which does a lot of work from the morning to the evening and a large screen  as its offering, the only area of suffering would be the drain on battery. And drain it does, each single day and requires a charge each day more or less. The best I have got is one and half day (36 hours) and nothing more than that. If you ask me a question whether Apple has thought of plonking in a better battery, I am sure they would have, except that the reason they did not include it would be because of the design constraints which would have otherwise made this device as heavy as a brick. One has to also look at heat dissipation and other parameters like this with decisions on powering the device.

So yes, the battery is not the best, but a charger for the home, office, and the car must keep the phone going as the battery charges up pretty quickly way beyond the 50% mark. Some tips to conserve the battery power is to keep the brightness low to the extent you can read the screen, to switch off the wifi, bluetooth and 3g radios while not in use, and perhaps even keeping the volume low on the phone to the extent you can hear it. If you dont browse too often, or hear music too often, and dont use speaker or talk on bluetooth too often, then you get a bonus of a few more hours.

Price and conclusion

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There is always a debate why Apple has priced this beyond 30 grand in India and the fact that the phone costs much more than a laptop. While I believe for other phones that manufacturers always make a killing in profits up to the tune of about 4-5 grand extra, with Apple I think even if it is the same case, you get a device that keeps you happy for a lot of time to come. And yes, the smaller and technologically advanced the device gets, the more costlier it is, so its not very surprising that a laptop should cost much lesser.

The best part of the phone is its great capacitive touch screen, stunning user interface, and outstanding simplicity of usage. The points that drag it down in terms of popularity would be its low battery life, its limited memory, non removable battery and also a non exposed file system which causes options like jailbreaking to be available for hackers.

On a more mediocre front, the ringtones could have been better, the camera could have sported atleast a flash and optical or digital zoom and the grip could have been better.

What will keep you happy though is its capability with respect to download and install (on a free or chargeable basis), good applications which will keep you amused and productive for many more happy days to come.

The Apple iPhone is not a phone, its not a music player, its not a video player, its not a photography device, its not for business alone, its not about data – but to sum it up – its a LIFESTYLE device which will appeal to all age groups alike and is extremely simplistic to use by people of these age groups.

F-(Y)-I

by geeksrik

So you must be wondering why there has been no update on this blog since ten days now. Is this a new year hangover? Is this a relief to people who are fed up of my blogging? Is this an anticipation of something big? – Well, I understand the thoughts in your mind. And believe me the last fortnight has been the most electrifying part of my life for the past ten years. Keen to know what’s behind all this high voltage? Movie making!

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Download Movie Maker (7MB) Download Video Spin (148 MB!)


Yes! I have been busy venturing into another creative area which I badly needed to explore in recent times. And the way its turning out is nothing short of impeccable. I have been involved in creating a funny video sequence which involves shooting sequences, writing scripts, editing, processing, direction, production, animations, titling, and what not! A true cinema making experience. I have been using two tools to help me around with this, Windows Movie Maker and Pinnacle Systems Video Spin. If you need these tools, click on the icons above to download them and experiment.

Meanwhile, I’ll be back sooner than later with more updates on Namma Bengaluru !

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Nokia 5800 shock pricing in India – is this really an Apple i-Phone killer?

by geeksrik

The Nokia 5800 is now officially launched and the pricing has come as a shock to me. Before I dwell into the details, lets have a look at the phone itself and its features.

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(Picture courtesy: blog.wired.com)

The main features of this one of a kind new nokia launch are:

  • Full touchscreen based input
  • Standard 3.5mm headphone jack
  • upto 16GB of storage
  • upto 3.6mbps of browsing speed
  • bluetooth and tv out functionality
  • GPS and WiFi
  • Full email support
  • 3.2MP carl ziess camera + twin camera for video call recordings
  • FM radio and N-Series music player and music management

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 Click the PDF icon, to know the full specifications

Now for the shocking part – the PRICING. I prebooked this phone just for the dealer in Koramangala, to call me up when this would be available, and sure he did give me a call. He also gave me a shocker. He said this phone would cost 21,500/- bucks. All along all media had been suggesting a price of 16,000 to 18,000 bucks for this piece to make it a true APPLE i-Phone killer. Though the pricing is slightly higher (call it preferential pricing in world markets), it still is juicy for the features it has to offer. And for a limited time, you also get a Sennheiser portable headphones worth .Rs.2,500 bucks free and also a VIP pass to an event in Palace grounds with this phone purchase. Arguably Sennheiser is one of the best brands of headphones and that must make listening to music only even better with this phone.

I was really hoping that this phone would fall in the price range suggested by the various media and I guess I will have to wait for more time to dispose of my MotoMing which does most of what Nokia does for half the price! Of course the polyphonics are a class apart, but then so is the price :)

If you want to prebook this phone, click here. I am sure you have comments and opinions about this phone. Use the comments column to voice your opinions!

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