Thameera's MicroBlog

This blog lives. For the past few weeks I’ve been just wandering lonely as a cloud without purpose. Have never had a purpose in life, but it’s struck me like never before lately. Suicide is but a distant option.

No, you just can’t walk away from life.

There are things in life you don’t have a say on and you just have to survive.

Okay, enough drama for the day.

Do you always plan to wake up early and get some work done, but have never been able to actually wake up? Do you always snooze the alarm until it’s really past the hour? Do you simply turn off the alarm and go back to sleep each time? Have you even given up the idea of getting up early just because you know you can’t do that? Do you always say to yourself ‘I can’t wake up!’? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions you’ve come to the right place. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you, I Can’t Wake Up!

Joking aside, I Can’t Wake Up! is the best alarm for android I’ve yet come across. You can make use of several ‘wake up methods’ to make sure you just don’t turn off the alarm and fall back to sleep. Wake up methods aren’t new to the world of alarms. For example I’ve been using Alarm Clock Xtreme Free for more than a year and it had this ‘math to dismiss’ this feature. You have to solve some math problems of a specified skill level if you are to turn the alarm off. I always chose ‘Hardest’ so that I’ll have to turn on the computer to solve them, thus making sure I won’t go back to sleep. But as of late, I became so accustomed to the problems I could just solve them in bed and go back to sleep.

Main screen

Set of available wake up methods

I Can’t Wake Up includes several wake up methods to make sure turning it off ain’t easy. What made me fall for it was the ‘Bar code’ method. Once the alarm goes off, you have to authenticate using one or more barcodes (or QR codes for that matter) to turn it off. Let’s say the barcodes you find in the back covers of books. You first scan the codes in to the app and place a few books in various places of the house at night. In the morning you’ll have to walk to each book, turn on the lights and scan all the codes (which may take a few seconds per code if you’re too sleepy) if you’re to turn off the alarm.

List of bar codes you need to scan to turn off the alarm

Solve all the math problems to turn it off. Mind you, this isn’t the hardest level.

There are a few other alarm apps that make use of the barcode method, but I Can’t Wake Up does it at the best. And it’s feature-packed than any other. Not that it’s perfect. You can’t sort the alarms by time as of yet, and there are ads in the free version. But the pros outweigh the cons.

Wish it had a feature that would only turn the alarm off after I write and publish a post in the blog. Anyway I promise to continue updating the blog every once in a while. Not that anyone cares if I blog or not, but still. So… until then.. back to wandering lonely as a cloud searching for the meaning of life.

Bookhub.lk was launched two days back, and Sri Lanka has finally got a proper ebook store. Proper I say because the project is backed by two giants: Etisalat from the mobile world and M.D.Gunasena from the book industry. There have been previous attempts like pothpath.lk (which isn’t a store after all), but Bookhub is fortunate enough to have the backing of good sponsors.

Even though initiated by Etisalat, the books aren’t restricted to its users. You have to visit the bookhub.lk website and register for an account to purchase books. You can either pay with your credit card or Etisalat credit. Then you open up the bookhub e-reader app (which is only available for android for the moment, but apparently a PC edition and an iOS edition are on the way), and download the purchased books to the device. And you’re good to go.

The downloaded ebooks reside in their own directories with separate files for content, styles, images and meta data. The content is in OPF files, so if you zip such a directory and rename it as an ePub you’ll be able to read the book with any e-reading app or device. This also means that there’s no DRM and you can share the books with anyone once downloaded.

And talking about the android app, it sucks (see footnote). The user interface isn’t friendly and the menu options don’t work. You have to enter login details every time to download the books (so please choose an easy-to-type password while registering). Text rendering isn’t perfect, but readable. When you touch the edge of the screen to flip through the pages, several pages turn instead of one. I emailed the developers yesterday about this but still they haven’t replied. Later I learned that I can properly flip the pages if I touch the screen very… gently and take the finger back asap. It’s like a beta app; or an alpha one rather.

Main interface of the app

Purchased books can be downloaded in one tap

Alice in Wonderland. Text rendering isn't perfect but readable.

Aladin. It's not just text.

Dhaaraa. The only book I'm going to read from the available ones.

The store only has about 25 books for the moment, some Sinhala ones and some English. There will be tamil ones in the future as well. As for the English ones, all the books currently available there are ones from the public domain. Pride and Prejudice costs 400 rupees, which is ridiculous. You can get it for free from Project Gutenberg.

Regardless of the shortcomings in the app and the current state of the book store, the project is likely to be a success. The Etisalat website reports,

The content will go beyond novels, potentially including any locally published material such as educational publications, magazines, children’s books, religious texts, business journals, etc. Going forward the parties involved also commented on the possibility of adding newspapers and school textbooks to the eBook store.

This is likely to fill a huge gap by making local books available for the digital media and and the userbase will most probably grow once the store is able to boast of a considerable amount of titles. I just hope the prices wouldn’t make it cheaper to buy the paperbacks.

P.S. I almost forgot the most important piece of information: all the books currently in the store are available for free for the week starting from Monday, 26th of March. So hurry up and grab if you’d like to give the service a try.

The bubble around the asteroid marks its gravitational field

The eagerly awaited Angry Birds Space, the fourth Angry Birds game from Rovio, finally landed today on Android, iOS, MacOS and Windows. It had been announced since a few months ago, but I was a skeptical about how they would create a new experience that’s markedly different from the previous versions. In fact, all the three games they’ve released up to now had basically the same gameplay except for the new levels and all.

First level of the Danger Zone

Half an hour with Space proved that my doubts were unfounded. It’s a totally different experience. The game takes place in outer space, which means it doesn’t have the earth’s boring gravity anymore. Things are worse. When you release the bird, it travels in a zero gravity space until it reaches the atmosphere of a planet or an asteroid and is forced into its own gravitational field. This can be more complex than it sounds. I still couldn’t get past the first level in the Danger Zone, which, according to Rovio, is the most difficult Angry Birds level pack ever.

Angry Birds Space and Galaxy Note

The exclusive level for Note

Samsung Galaxy Note is the official launch partner for Space. There’s a special level in the game featuring Lazer Bird exclusively for Galaxy Note owners and they get the Danger Zone pack is free for three months. But ironically, it’s clear that the game hasn’t been optimized for the Note’s screen. Most cut scenes and menus are obviously made for low resolution displays. Which is a shame coz of all the advertising Samsung did before the release. But still, the game play is pretty fun than playing on a smaller screen. I’m yet to try the game on a tablet.

A perfect phone may not have been invented yet, but the Galaxy Note has triumphed in becoming the closest to that extreme.

– Oscar Wilde

The Galaxy Note

Why would one need a 5.3″ phone? Let me ask you first, why would one need a phone? If all you need is to make calls and text, even an iPhone would be enough for you. But for those of you who need a smartphone and not just a phone, you’ll have to think further.

Enter the Galaxy Note

But.. but... is it a phone or a tablet?

Phone? Tablet? Two words: both. Well, that was only one word. Anyway, the Note is the best of both worlds. It is capable of doing everything a normal smartphone can and most of the stuff a tablet can. And it can do stuff neither device is single-handedly capable of.

Making phone calls: Some people still use mobile phones to make calls. And they have the rational fear of the Note being too large to fit in your hand during the call. But that’s only till you really try making a call with it. You’ll find that there is no inconvenience at all. If you are too scared of taking it to your ear in public, you can always use the earphones.

"I love you, too, honey!"

And talking about the earphones that comes in the box, you can’t ask for a better pair to come bundled with a phone. It’s still scores less when compared to my skullcandy, but I’ve given it a break and started using the Samsung pair full-time.

Surfing the web: The web browsing experience is enhanced by leaps and bounds thanks to the large screen. You can safely turn off the mobile views of the pages and deal with the real stuff. Now that this has become my main surfing medium, I had to upgrade to the 2GB data package. Perhaps this won’t be enough either. Thankfully Dialog gives half-a-dozen of attractive data plans to choose from.

Music: I didn’t like the in-built music player at all. It doesn’t even have a home screen widget. Settled with the free version of PowerAmp.

Movies: Just drag in any type of video file and it will play flawlessly in the Note. Yeah, you don’t get the movie theatre experience, but it’s far more pleasing than watching a movie in a normal smartphone. The quality of the 1280×800 super AMOLED display is a must have experience. Also, I found it perfect for watching video lectures.

Camera: The 8MP camera does way better than it’s supposed to do. And the camcorder is awesome. 1080p movies! Just imagine! The 2MP front camera lets you ditch the mirror for Note.

Reading: It’s a good replacement for your reading device. The screen is big enough not to make the reading experience awkward. You don’t have to turn the page after each sentence. Installed Screen Filter so that I can control the brightness of the device at my will. Sorry, Kindle. And if you’re a comic fan, the Note is the perfect device for you.

The first book I read with the Note

Battery life: Note comes with a whopping 2500mAh battery. So don’t worry about the screen being too large. All the reviewers, including Engadget, praise the Note’s battery. As mentioned earlier, you can optionally use an app like Screen Filter to manually control brightness and stuff, and if you’re still worried you always have JuiceDefender.

A stylus? Weeeeeee!
The S pen almost doubles the usefulness of the Note. Doodle, take notes, swype, or just give your finger a break. And the pen is able to perform several other control functions, including taking screenshots. Anyway the hand writing recognition was a fail to me. Oh well, I’ve never been good at hand writing.

A doodle by Sapumal

Ice cream sammich!!
Samsung says they will release an update for ICS within the Q1 of 2012. Hope they’d keep their word.

Looking to buy one?
I wouldn’t recommend the Note to everybody. Your needs may differ. But if you’re like me, this is the phone you’ve been waiting for all your life. The best advice would be to try before buying. You’d also be interested in the stuff you can’t do without a Galaxy Note.

And finally…
I’m so in love with the Note, I doubt there’s room left in my heart for a girl. I even sleep with it by my side. Simply because it’s so awesome and worths a hell lot more than what you pay for it.

So finally I ditched my beloved Nokia E63 to an android, Vodafone 945. It isn’t a high-end device, but it’s as far as I can reach to an android right now.

Talking about the cons, the resolution (240×400) of the 3.2 inch screen is rather low, but one can live with that. Perhaps that’s the only major problem with this phone. The response time of the capacitative touch screen is quite satisfactory and it’s fast for a 600MHz device. There’s nothing to whine about the battery life too. The OS is Android 2.1 (Eclair). I’m still trying hard to get used to the touch keyboard. Badly miss the physical QWERTY keyboard of my E63.

The 5 megapixel camera works great. Here’s a snap I took this morning. (Click on the photo to view the original size)

Rooting
You can simply install the app z4root and root the device. I wasn’t able to do a permanent root, only the temporary one (which lasts till the next restart) worked. But it’s enough for the needs.

Installing Sinhala and the Ubuntu font
After rooting, install the app Root Explorer and copy these three fonts to the /system/fonts directory. You’ll have to enable R/W permissions for the directory. You won’t get complex scripting support for Sinhala unicode, but the outcome is readable.

It’s also advisable to use Root App Remover to remove the stupid trial-ware that come pre-installed with the device.

Many thanks to Akila for walking me through rooting and installing Sinhala.

So I decided, I really don’t need an android. My symbian is able to provide me with almost all the stuff I would want from a phone. With it I can read books, listen to music and podcasts, scrobble to last.fm, set alarms, tweet, check email and browse the web occasionally, look up for definitions, take notes, and finally, call and text. At the moment there really is no other reason why I should look for a better phone. Why would I pay huge sums just to have several more apps and play Angry Birds? So, until the day I get a job and collect enough cash to buy an HTC Desire, my sweet little E63 will stay by my side.