The State Of Being Blank !!

Did I just take such a long break ? Oh no how is it possible for me to stay away from my blog for such a long period of time ? Was I too lazy to even open my blog and at least give it a glance ? These are some questions that I have been asking myself. Just the way my blog stands blank my mind stays equally blank with my life becoming lately uneventful. It has been quite some time since I last wrote about being selected in IBM and my happiness about it. I was truly overjoyed at my little success but when I saw the same post after about a month or so I felt stupid to write so enthusiastically about my placement. No harm in being enthusiastic but there is a sense of fear that creeps in letting the mind be skeptical about seemingly innocuous things.

Okay so lets come back to the present.  Here I am sitting in Chandigarh in the middle of Punjab - the land of the Sikhs waiting for a single call from IBM to invite me to join work on....well I don't know when. Chandigarh though being a joint capital of Haryana and Punjab is mostly Sikh dominated and every second person will be speaking Punjabi here. At this point I can proudly say that I have lived among and observed the two most divergent and prominent cultures of India and thus I am a true and real Indian...haha !! But unlike Tamil I am satisfactorily comfortable with the Punjabi language which is very much similar to Hindi. The first thing that you notice about Chandigarh is its comparatively lesser population than big cities like Delhi and Chennai. This has an advantage in that it lets you stay in peace of course and the disadvantage being that it has no big malls or anything advanced for that matter which leaves you craving for the shopping pleasure that you used to get in the big cities (Of course shopping is my weakness). But, overall, its my home and almost my native and hence I am sure to have a gala time here. But, unfortunately, I cannot do anything without any proper dedication which I do not have currently. I would have loved to start working here itself but I have to give way for the big brother and that is IBM which has led me to kill my time by staying at home all day and making my laptop steal the much acclaimed and suitable tag of an 'Idiot Box' from the television set which doesn't get as much as even a glance from me. All hail the Internet. Right now is the most demotivational time which will distract you from your bigger responsibilities without any external force mounting any pressure on you. You are just left at the mercy of your sluggish mind with on and off periods of motivation with minimum results.

In fact, this is what happens when your vacation period extends the normal duration to keep everything in balance. And, you find yourself desperately wanting this period of nothingness to end. Here, give me the liberty to fast forward to my future posts.       

Yeah that is what I am - bored

Music - Its Evolution as I see

I have been a die hard fan of music since the time I remember. After all who isn't ? I haven't heard of anyone who isn't fond of listening to music. If such a person exists then he is definitely not from this world. Even babies shake a leg at some disco music. There are many ways and methods that I followed to listen to my favorite music since childhood. These 'methods' make their memories precious. 

Starting from the time I remember when I just started understanding what is music, I will describe my first 'method'. 

We had a very antique radio with us. During the 90's the radio used to be the modern age music system with very huge body and very heavy. But, at that time that was the only source of music for us. It had a cassette player too. But I was unaware of the concept of buying new cassettes as I was just a kid with no knowledge of music and the cassettes kept by my parents were very old and the music didn't seem to interest me at all. So, all I had to do was to dote upon my radio. I, as a kid, used to carry around the radio all over my house even keeping it by my side whenever I used to get bored and sometimes, surprisingly, hiding under the table with it and lying down listening to all kinds of songs being played by the radio jockey much to the disappointment of my mom. I was at the mercy of the radio jockey who played whatever songs he liked but I never complained. I simply enjoyed myself listening to it. 

Then when I grew up, I caught hold of the concept of audio cassettes. And, most importantly our radio was replaced by a sort of deck. It had very huge speakers and professional looking cassette player which did nothing but just played audio cassettes. The old radio stations went into a state of oblivion as now I had the freedom of buying audio cassettes of my choice and thus listen to music of my choice. And yes, sometimes, making others listen too at times much to their disappointment and at other times to their pleasure. At that time I loved my music system so much that, occasionally, I just had to stand and dance in spite of myself as I always rocked to the tunes being emitted out of the huge speakers that you now particularly find only in marriage ceremonies.

Until here, I was used to large music systems that weren't portable and thus whenever there was any kind of outing I always assumed there would be no music. But then technology evolved a bit and there came the turn of walkmans. A walkman, as it's name suggests, used to be a portable, battery operated and small sized cassette player which could be used to listen to music while walking or doing anything else for that matter.   

Being portable, I used to carry one along with me at the time of an outing without missing out on my favorite music. Of course, it required me to carry many cassettes and batteries that used to increase my already overflowing luggage. But, it was worth it. Music was there with me wherever I was. And, not to mention the rapid speed with which the Everyday batteries used to drain out.  

After the generation of walkmans, came the generation of audio CD's. The biggest advantage of audio CD's is that they can be played on any computer system as well as a music system. We even installed a CD player in our car such that car rides became all the more enjoyable. But, at that time these CD's used to be very expensive and did not allow me to exploit them just the way I did the affordable audio cassettes. But they did brought about an amusing change.

Then when I came at an age when it becomes almost impossible to live without music, something very interesting happened to the world of music. It was as if it listened to my growing addiction to it and completely revolutionized this field. Welcome the father of all kinds of music - the MP3 !!! This music format just changed the way I listen to music even today. Walkmans got replaced with MP3 players with their size ranging from almost negligible players to quite impressive and stylish ones. I still remember the way I squealed when I first came to know that my little player in my hand can play any song that I like and can store thousands of songs at a time without the hassles of carrying batteries and cassettes. This was like feeling myself to be in heaven.

Earlier I was troubled by the fact that to play MP3 songs I had to once again take the trouble of buying MP3 audio CD's. But then, music was not the only field that got revolutionized. All hail our friend the Internet. Any song, yes, practically any song can then be downloaded from the Internet and within minutes can be transferred to our players. And, Voila !!! Our favorite music then is there right in front of us without doing any hard work to acquire it. 

Today, in the age of smartphones, the same MP3 music can be played in our phones as well. That makes listening to music even easier than ever. 

Now when I am writing this, I have my earphones plugged into my ears listening to some awesome music as the day seems way too dry without some. And, it's a pleasure to think the way I saw the evolution of music in front of my own eyes within 25 years. Now, I am curious as to what the next generation has to witness in the world of music. Till then, plug in the earphones and forget the outside world.

PS: Don't forget to check out my favorite song of the week on the right hand side of this page.  

Smartphones Are Really Smart !!

Today, technology has taken over our lives like nothing before. In just a matter of a few years it has surprisingly evolved so much that it has left us dazed making us want to drown in it more and more. Indeed, computers have been making our lives easier since their inception but today technology is more than just a computer that has always brought an image consisting of a monitor, keyboard and mouse along with the entire system consisting of what kids have been taught to name as CPU as soon as we think of one. After a simple desktop computer came a laptop. This transformed into an even more portable version in recent times which is known as a tablet being first introduced by Steve Jobs as an IPad. Well if I want to believe that a tablet is the most appreciated and standard product of evolving technology then I must admit that I cannot be more astonished and dumbfounded by the most happening invention of today's age - a smartphone. Smartphone has undoubtedly and undeniably revolutionized our world like nothing else in just a matter of few years which is very less interval when we observe the difference that this small sized harmless looking gadget has brought to our lives.

Just three years back I had no idea at all that I would ever be fascinated by a mobile device. I never felt any need for it except of course for making some emergency calls on rare occasions. Even then no one knew that this device can become much more than just that. Today, it has become practically impossible to stay without it. Wherever I go it follows me and not once can I stay separated from it. It is a living thing inspite of being non living.

So what is it that makes them so special. They wouldn't have been so if they weren't smartphones. There's a multitude of difference between a normal phone and a smartphone. The exact reason why I am suddenly out of the blue so passionate about them. You cannot get enough of the countless number of apps in the Android market. Apps for guaranteeing that you wake up at right time by making you solve complex equations to stop the irritating wake up call. Apps for recording certain patterns while you sleep which you were never aware of. Apps that let you decide which best restaurant to dine at even if you are at a completely new place. Apps for suggesting and reminding you to eat healthy food according to your customization. Apps for this, apps for that. Our entire world starts revolving around just one word - "Apps". The first time that I knew that I would be owning a smartphone my heart used to leap out with joy whenever I browsed Android Market. There were unlimited number of apps that were constantly gaining my attention.

Today after about a year of smartphone use there are certain number of apps that have become my favorite and those without which my phone's smartness quotient will stay incomplete. Of course this is my own personal choice and might differ from other users in a vast way but they will always remain fundamental apps for my smartphone:

1) Androidify: 

This is the first app that had all of my attention even before I had the thought of buying a smartphone in the remotest part of my mind. Leaving alone me being an Android operating system fan I had always been in love with the Android logo. I find it sort of cute and the reminder of the awesome gadget always in my hand. Androidify is the best app for such logo lovers who can customize the already cute green robot into whatever appearance they like with the help of so many pre-installed customization tools from clothes to hairstyle to shoes and even heart warming accessories. The logo can be resized to make it extremely thin, fat, short or long. The skin color can also be changed such that the logo can become your exact replica. The robot doesn't stay still but moves it hands, blinks its eyes, shakes and nods its head bringing a smile to your face. Overall, it is a great enjoyment to customize your Android robot and even share them with your friends. That is why this app is at the top position in my list. 

Check out: http://androidify.com/

2) Go Launcher/Go Locker:

Well I am quite sure most of the smartphone users will be very well aware of these two apps as they are trending and most popular apps in the Android market. But they have got mixed reactions from users. Some love them and many others hate them equally quite unlike Angry Birds game about which no one gives any negative review. (And yes, here I would like to say that I am no angry bird fan and not as fond of this game as most are). But, the simple reason why I love both these apps is because they spice up my phone's appearance and make it look cool and there is always a scope for deviating from the same dull look of your phone's home screen everyday with cool animations. In short, I love decorating my phone. But others hate them because they take up too much memory space and drain the battery a lot and the most devastating effect being that they make the phone extremely slow by constantly running in the background such that there's always an irritating delay before opening any other app or even while trying to make a call. Okay, there are serious reasons not to use them but my phone's appearance is more important to me. Hence, I cannot use my phone without these two. 

3) Fancy:

Here comes a spectacular app - Fancy !! The name itself signifies the purpose of this app - to fancy certain things that catch your attention to be in your collection IF you can afford them. This app aims at the shopaholics that will display all kinds of stuff that you can buy including day and night stays at beautiful locations around the world. I did not install this app with the intention of buying anything but just to browse through the things to know about so many different and unique things available. Sometimes, some of the stuff is extremely interesting and hilarious as well. So, whatever thing that catches my attention is fancied by me which gets added to my online collection. I just love browsing in this app which is so relaxing and enjoyable. 

Check out my profile: http://www.thefancy.com/anika1988  

4) Instagram:

Nope I am not a photographer or rather I want to be a photographer but I don't know how to become one but still Instagram is an app that will always stay at one corner of my phone with me adding photos to it occasionally if not frequently. This is because there's something about it that catches my attention inspite of there being several similar and maybe better apps in the play store. Maybe its just the app's huge popularity or its neat interface but all the same it is one such app where I will keeping adding photos however few that I might capture. 

5) App2SD/One Tap Cleaner:

Finally comes the tools that are vital to manage your phone for a rich android experience. I don't care about battery enhancing apps as they kill many processes automatically that is highly unwelcome but I do care about memory enhancing apps that clear away all the cache and extra memory space so that I may use and install several apps at once. Thus the two apps :- App2SD - for shifting apps from limited internal memory of the phone to the spacious external SD card and One Tap Cleaner - for clearing cache and other unused memory space are highly useful for smartphone users. I highly recommend them to all for better and efficient memory management as I have had bitter experiences with respect to phone's memory. 

The above list is really very short but these are the apps without which I simply cannot use my smartphone. Still, I can expand the list to announce my preferences but those are not as favorite to me as these are. 

Technology is advancing really very fast and in another couple of months or so many other terrific apps may come in the play store. So, lets see what my smartphone can do for me even more than what its doing right now.