GreenPhone!!

amit August 16th, 2006

greenphone.jpgThat’s exactly how a developer would name a variable or in this case a phone. But apart from the name and the color, I like Trolltech’s “Greenphone”; designed in partnership with Yuhua Teltech it’s a mobile phone specifically designed for – you guessed it – developers. It’s a GSM/GPRS mobile phone with a bootloader that lets you re-flash the phone with Linux-based firmware via a mini-USB port. What’s more it comes with a complete SDK. Beautiful, now only if it were black.I am aware of various alternatives that allow you to write applications for cell phones on top of Windows Mobile or some sort of J2ME stack, but I am not a big fan of those platforms. This phone on the other hand runs the stock Linux kernel 2.4.19 enriched with Qtopia (Qt edition for the mobile platform), which apart from giving developers full control of the hardware allows them to port many of the native open source applications fairly easily. For instance it’s reported that the phone is Wifi enabled and has the SIP stack to make VoIP calls … possibilities are endless.

Rockr e2 in largeIf you are one of those skeptics who doubt linux phones are commercially viable, allow me to point you to Motorolla Rokr E2; a basic phone and mp3 player with up to 2GB SD memory expansion slot, camera, bluetooth, USB 2.0 connectivity with the PC etc. I hope you noticed – it sports a sexy name “Rokr E2″ and does come in black. This one is certainly an end user phone that one wouldn’t want to break apart, but if you are so inclined, you can find the source for E2 here.

I must also point out some people are voicing concerns about developers having such control over the phone hardware, which unlike a PC has a radio regulated by FCC that, and the fact that the carrier networks are designed to trust their phones implicitly could create problems. I for one favour the hacker’s, more good than bad is going to come of this … rock on!!
Trolltech expects to ship the Greenphone sometime in September, hopefully they can price it competitively – keep watching.
Greenphone specs:

Software

Qtopia Phone Edition 4.1.4
Linux kernel 2.4.19

Hardware

Touch-screen and keypad UI
QVGA® LCD color screen
Intel® XScale® 312 mHz PXA270
64MB RAM & 128MB Flash
Mini-SD™ card slot
Broadcom® BCM2121 GSM/GPRS baseband processor
Bluetooth® equipped
Mini-USB port

Greenphone’s user manual.


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What are you up to Mr. Bezos?

amit May 10th, 2006

Jeffrey P. Bezos, does not attract news like Bill Gates, or Larry Page, or Larry Ellison or a bunch of other people. But don’t let that fool you he is doing his share to innovate and bring a change through technology. Amazon is not a technology company it’s an online retailing giant, but with technology at its heart.

They have had a few hiccups: lost the contract with Toys R Us, published a very conservative outlook for the coming quarters and so on and so forth (Google finance it). Wall Street naturally and perhaps rightly dumped them, they are down to around $35 and this has me excited. For all the bad news, I think they GET the whole internet thing. They have the absolutely the best web services to access their stuff; the design, concept and even pricing of S3 leaves little to be desired, and although I don’t think A9 is spectacular with search it has its innovative features (check it out).

Essentially its time to get in, now they say the first rule of investing is never to be attached to a company – well screw rules. I love Amazon, I am not sure what Mr. Bezos is up to and I know his name doesn’t inspire confidence, but there is definitely something brewing there and I like the smell of it.

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An ideal to live by!

amit April 13th, 2006

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son

–Rudyard Kipling

A friend pointed me to this poem and I liked it so much that I wanted to share my thoughts about it, but as with most things beautiful, it is best left untouched. I will just leave it as a top level page – http://zuberon.com/an-ideal-to-live-by – a constant reminder.

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Don’t just get to work .. commute!

amit April 3rd, 2006

Why wouldn’t one like to start a monotonous workday or end a stressful one with a drive at 80 mph, wind gushing through the windows and Led Zepplin blaring through the car stereo, is beyond my comprehension. As for me, I love my commute. It’s more often than not better part of the day, not just because of my hippie inclination to music but for the quality thinking time it affords.

Our days are increasingly occupied with friends and family, chores to run at home or work, time spent on hobbies etc. What little time is left is easily consumed by the infinite sources of media – the ever present and the cancerous tube or the addictive internet. There is hardly any time left to ponder, or introspect -except for that wonderful commute.

Good investment decisions, such as the one from this morning’s commute – to cash out of the stock market and shift to mutual funds [1]; ideas to share on my blog, such as this post itself – thought up during this evening’s commute; solutions to many seemingly intractable problems – like the best way to run outdoors at night, are all examples where my commute has made a difference. But, these are just examples that work for me now, when I drive to work, different circumstances could present other opportunities.

A few years ago I was commuting by bus, spending about an hour each way, in a few months that I had to do that – I finished reading the “Design of the Unix Operating System – Morris Bach” and the “Linux Kernel Development – Robert Love”. I haven’t finished anything as technical and voluminous since. It’s an aside, that they were completely irrelevant to my job, but that’s just poor judgment, besides I am sure they were good for my soul [2]. You just need to jump start the process the commute itself would unleash your creativity.

Commute is not a waste of time, it’s quality time like no other. Its regularity and duration are a boon, not a curse – you can bank on them and plan around them. It spares you time to your self with a minimum of distractions. A highly qualified surgeon I know, refers to the toilet seat as his thinking chair – for the very same reasons. It would be a sad state of affairs if one could not occupy/ entertain themselves with their minds for even an hour or so a day. Don’t let that happen to you.

Try to make most of this time: get podcasts you would like to hear, get a book on audio, call friends and family you should stay in touch with, read books, write papers whatever – do what works for you and switch when you find something better. I recommend dropping the windows, turning up the music, and contemplating life.

Ignore the people who talk about the cost of fuel, or the depreciation of the vehicle, or the fare, or the cost of a few speeding tickets etc. They are the kind who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

FootNotes

[1] In my opinion the economy is looking good, the housing will continue to crash and the stock market as a whole is going to rally in 2006. Better returns at a significantly lower risk can be gained by simply investing in funds rather than picking individual stocks because economic factors are going to outweigh individual performances and will be the primary factor determining the stock prices.

[2] I learned the concept of certain things being good for the soul, from Prof. Harry Perros at NC State.

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