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.  

The Moment - At least Once it Belonged to Me !!!

It was a fine Sunday evening. Dusk had just set in. Dark clouds were ominously hovering in the sky. A slight humidity made the weather a bit prickly. Occasionally, a short burst of breeze rode past my face reminding me that normally at that time I used to be at my home seated by my laptop listening to my favorite songs or reading my favorite book. But in my mind I was thinking that day was different and was forever written as a part of my life which will be always remembered and cherished. Because that day was a first of something which had to eventually form my future.

There is something exhilarating associated with college life. The freedom, the sense of responsibility and maturity, the best and the most enjoyable moments spent with your friends unlike any other time in your life, the thrills of bunking and being crazy about a visit to canteen and of course knowing fully well that you have chosen a career path of your choice. And when you reach the end of your chosen professional course, there comes the opportunity knocking at your door asking you to show yourself and your prowess in the real world where there is a huge demand of talent and perfectionists. Well, yeah I am referring to the process known as campus placement. These placement drives not only provide you with job but introduce you to a world where you can be what you want to be based upon your academic skills and this is the precise moment to realize your long held dream from childhood - that dream varies from person to person but everything begins from there. And, will I be left out of all this ? Nah, and that is what happened on that fine Sunday evening.

I have already expressed my thoughts in my previous post about my grand reason to come to Chennai and join my current college. I had mentioned something about placements and I too had mentioned about my enthusiasm towards this very chance at the beginning of my course. But, just as the usual trend, I became a youth from a teenager and forgot everything that I had resolved to do but just went with the flow of enjoying my life more and automatically abstained from going near the textbooks and worry about exams. Oh come on life is much more than just that. So, there started my journey and I never thought about placements at all until the end when I had no other choice. As the companies came one by one and as I literally got rejected in the same manner, a heavy feeling constantly started accompanying me reminding me of my stupidity to be careless since the beginning and my conscience chastised me for not being sincere and falling in the devil's trap by ignoring my more important responsibility,which, if I had taken care of, could lead me into a more blissful state without straining too hard or worrying incessantly. But, upon thinking about it now (you seem to get more polite with yourself once the mission gets accomplished and forgive yourself in a way that was not even imaginable earlier) I realize that it is nothing but the usual unpleasant nagging of your subconscious before something needs to to be done for sure. This is the case with every student during placements. If you don't get in soon and especially when you see your friends and other classmates getting in before you, it seems to you that you will never get placed and that your future is bleak. But, hold on, after all you are a qualified person and that is why you are here today. If not now then some time later. These words are supposed to be soothing but don't find place even in small recesses of your mind under that heavy weight and you naturally become a pessimist against your own wishes. During one of such processes, I managed to reach till the interview part of at least one company and after getting rejected even for that, the familiar sinking feeling hit me hard and left me hopeless. I was on the verge of tears because may be I had dared to be way too optimistic and had resolved about one thing that nothing at all can be predicted out of these placement drives. Normally, it is ninety percent your intelligence that works and ten percent is your luck supporting you but here the ratio is discouragingly a bit modified - it is fifty percent your skills and knowledge and the other fifty percent is your luck standing in your way smirking at you with a hint of mischief in her eyes.    

Success and failure are like two sides of the same coin. It was proved to me refreshingly on that Sunday evening of 23rd September, 2012. A well known company named IBM was visiting our campus starting from Friday of that weekend. I don't know about my friends, but there was almost no excitement at all in my mind towards it but I had to force as well as constantly remind myself that I just had to try doing whatever I could do without raising my hopes at all as I was afraid of doing just that - a very contradictory arrangement for my mind who is used to predicting results based upon its performance and those turn out to be exactly how I expected. I never cared to even think what IBM was about as a company. At that time also, I just knew it as a company with its logo on several of the computers and laptops that I had seen and that's all. That is what the interesting thing about these placement processes is - at one instant you don't know or care to know anything about the visiting company and at the next instant that company becomes your everything and you go gaga at the mere mention of it !! So, I sat for the first written test round like an hopeless fellow grinning at the IBM people arranging for the tests like a poor person with minimal means looks with awe and longing at the rich enjoying all kinds of luxuries of modern life. With a highly time constrained and challenging written test, I took a sigh of relief after finally finishing it and completing my responsibility as of now. Results of that round almost came at midnight that day and I nonchalantly checked the list. Not surprisingly, my name was there. Well, I said not surprisingly since I had cleared similar first rounds earlier too but was always kicked out in the second part that is interviews. So, careful not to raise my hopes, I prepared myself to be at college the next day earlier in the morning which happened to be a Saturday against all my wishes because weekend is not a time when you feel like facing a place called college and that too at a time when I was supposed to be enjoying myself in my dreams. I reached college fifteen minutes late and managed to peek through the large crowd gathered at the teeming auditorium at the presentation slides being given by IBM people dressed immaculately in professional attire. My sleepy mind didn't register any awe but I was just eager to accomplish the mission for which I had come that day and retire back to home and to my normal life not wanting to think in any hopeful way. Then came the second round of fifteen minutes checking our skills in summarizing a given passage in six sentences and after what seemed like ages I was once again ushered in for the next phase that was group discussion. That too proceeded with a snail's pace and not until eight that night I came to know that I had to once again be at college the next day for the final and the most dreadful interview round. Still, not wanting to raise any hopes, I once again grudgingly prepared myself to face one more harrowing day with an equally harrowing round. 

The next day, people around me were discussing the possible questions but I had no guts in me to face even that and sat in a corner desolately waiting for my turn. Just like the previous day, after what seemed such a never before experienced  long period spent waiting for my turn under humid weather and uncomfortable surroundings, finally my turn came which left me fidgeting nervously minutes before the interview. This was the round which finally made me cheerful and hopeful as just two minutes later the final declaration to be remembered by me my entire lifetime was given out - that I am selected. Still, not believing any such thing I went in a daze to the auditorium where I was supposed to submit my documents and other formalities and after some time only the realization sank deep in the recesses of my subconscious making me feel like doing just one thing - rush and hug all the IBM people who had come to our campus. 

This was the moment. A moment that belonged to me. This is what is called delight. All of my five years of college life concluded at this final moment. A moment that reminds you of all the important elements in your life - your parents and God. A moment that you can never ever forget because it brings a divine happiness on your parent's face and nothing, absolutely nothing can be as blissful as that. This is the moment when you feel that you are blessed and you are floating and soaring high above in the sky among the fluffy clouds. 

A heavy weight lifted off my shoulders that very moment and not only me but my selected classmates were also gushing with joy. This was such a memorable moment and such memories along with the sad and distressed ones make what is called life. 

I do not know what my future will be and what I am going to do after becoming an employee of IBM but for now I can be proud at the fact that I did what I was supposed to do as a student and fervently wish that I prove to be a very good asset to the organization and stay happy with my work.   

PS: These two days were the longest days of my life and if you are wondering whether I would like to party or not then let me say that I am partying since that day and would like to dance at the tunes of only one song - The Gangnam Style !!!