Eknath Kadam > Gizmo

I think in old days programming was easy. You were either writing softwares for your hardware or your desktop. Internet was not there and mobile was not there. With technological advancements we now have so many platforms to program for. Now if you want to tap full potential of your programming brain you will probably end up learning a desktop programming language like VC++,VB, Java Swing or Cocoa. A web technology like JSP, PHP or RoR. Needless to mention Javascript and HTML/CSS. As mobile is becoming a killer device you would like to learn Symbian, Windows mobile or the new kid on the block, Cocoa Touch for iPhone. To make daily mundane tasks easier and automate your routine tasks, you may end up using Shell Script, VB Script of Apple Script.

A desktop language, a web technology, a mobile language, and scripting language isnt all you need to be powerful programmer. Without basic skills like creative visualization and mathematical visualization you cant do any better in any language you learn. And I have often seen several programmers at loss cause they werent visualizing. My mechanical background helped me a lot in my programming career where I can visualize algorithms as used to visualize plastic mould design. Often I have seen mechanical engineers and civil engineers do a lot better in programming than computer engineers and my guess is because they are trained to visualize.

As I am learning Cocoa framework in Objective-C, which has great libraries for graphics and animation, my brain is now being challenged for high level of visualization. Writing a simplest game in Cocoa takes it a lot more than writing a complicated web app. Most of the programming is like 1D or 2D but when it comes to gaming, its probably more than 3 dimensions cause you add sound effects, and if its iPhone, in addition to sound you add vibration effects. Here on iPhone, to control a game, user doesnt use keyboard or mouse, but gestures that he makes with his fingers, and same time you have to remember that he may tilt his device which will be sensed by accelerometer so add few more dimensions. So thinking in more than 2 dimensions, I have started to get dizzy :).

There were big computers, a store room size and then came the PC and the whole world changed. When mobile phone came into world, people predicted that one day the this mobile phone will have the same capabilities that PC have.

Its been a long time we have been watching the mobile phone evolution. It has came a long way. Nokia dominated the handset market world wide. Symbian OS, Palm OS and Windows mobile were the primary softwares installed into these phones. From black and white phone to color phone with camera, BT, IR, FM mobile phone has seen a slow but steady evolution.

There was not much innovation happening in mobile handset/OS until iPhone came into picture. We all know why iPhone is such a great device. But people rarely think about why iPhone is such a great device. Its the Mac OS X. iPhone has Mac OS X as its Operation System. Mac OS X is the world’s most advanced OS, having Unix at its base and great UI, we have Server Grade OS into a phone. And that changes the whole paradigm.

All mobile phone OS makers were struggling hard to bring new great capabilities to a phone. As usual, someone else was making the handset and someone else was making the software. Developing OS is a big thing, and takes years for an OS to mature. In a way mobile industry has matured enough, but a matured OS and Handsets were missing, and iPhone with its OS has filled the Great Gap.

Now with iPhone and Mac OS X at its base platform, you can do almost everything that your PC did. When you have a server grade OS sitting in a phone, only sky remains the limit. And thats why with iPhone, we will see Mobile industry to move to a new version. Lets call it Mobile 2.0

Lets take a glance, what all you can do with iPhone which was very difficult with old mobile OS platforms.

1. True 3D gaming  (iPhone has an accelerometer, its Supports OpenGL and has 3D sound capabilities)
2. Handwriting recognition. (Its has a great touch based UI)
3. Full internationalization. (Its build right into Mac OS X)
4. Enterprise level mail and calendar support (iPhone 2.0 will have all these functionalities)
5. Enterprise level security (iPhone 2.0 will have all these functionalities)
6. Complex applications. (Office Apps and others)
7. Full blown internet, VOIP, and IM (Built in EDGE, WiFI and 3G, Safari web browser, and great SDK to write advanced internet apps like VOIP and IM)
8. High quality media experience. (Pictures, Videos, Music) (remember iPhone is an iPod too)
9. GPS and Traffic watch (iPhone understand wifi and mobile signals and uses it for GPS)

So to speak, with iPhone OS, iPhone is not only an iPod, a Phone, internet communicator, but its more than that. Its transforming into a full blown personal computer, a video camera, a GPS, a personal gaming console and much more.

June 2007 is still 6 months away from now, and 2008 almost 12 month, iPhone would be the longest awaited consumer electronics product in the history. And its worth waiting for. “An iPod, a mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communication device. And these are not three different products. We call it the iPhone.” This is how Mr. Jobs introduced iPhone to the world. And I also agree that they are reinventing the mobile phone.

I downloaded 500MB keynote from bittorrent and its duration is almost 2 HRS. Steve Jobs thouroughly demos the new iPhone. And whats most intresting is the new user interface. Yes, they call it multi-touch screen. Its is so interesting to see why they call it multi-touch. So when you want to scroll through the music collection, how do you scroll it, you just move your finger top-to-bottom and the list scrolls. If you want to zoom a picture ? how do you do that ? you just put your two fingers on the screen and literally stretch it and the picture zooms in, so on and so forth. Unless you watch the keynote, you wouldnt get whay I am saying.

So again, after iPod Apple is ready to write another chapter in the history of consumer electronics, so keep watching ….

Creativity has no limitations. If you are innovative enough money will follow without any extra efforts. I bought iPod a couple of months back and was very excited to write something about it. But that didn’t happen. Today I downloaded a free e-book published by iLounge then I couldn’t avoid the temptation to write something. After I had a look thru the book I was amazed to see how innovative people are. iPod is the most popular word in the world these days after the word f**k. I appreciate Steve Jobs for his amazing brain. When you would go through this eBook you would know, how this tiny iPod has created a huge industry around it and great revolution for music listeners. There are more than 900 iPod accessories sold in market today and their prices start from $1 to $900. Few of them are listed below.

Adapters and Cables - Data , Adapters and Cables - Indoor Power, Audio/Video Cables, Bluetooth Wireless, Camera, Adapters, Car Mounts, Car Power Chargers, Kits and Adapters, Cases - iPod 5G (with video), Cassette Tape Adapters, CD Ripping Services, Cleaners & Polishes, Clips and Cord Managers, FM Radio Receivers, Transmitters - Car Only, Headphones & In-Canal Earphones, Clips and Guards - iPod shuffle, Clock Radios, iTunes Phones, Microphones & Microphone Adapters, Remote Controls, Headphone Expanders, Software, Speakers, Stickers, Guards, and Film.

One just goes crazy while going through all these accessories. If you don’t have an iPod and at least one extra accessory, you feel like you are missing something

Download the iLounge book from here The iLounge e-book

After waiting for a long month, finally it arrived. This is one of those few times when I have waited for something so desperately. The waiting has been wonderful. Sometimes I used to get so impatient that I would hit the compudirectpc.com’s order status page again and again. But it wouldn’t change. They kept the order status ‘In Production’ for 20 days. After waiting for first 7 days I started calling compudirectpc guys and ask when are you guys shipping my laptop ? And he would say, ‘Sir, you have ordered a very high end laptop. We don’t have that in stock. Its still in production and we would ship it next Monday. When called on next Monday, customer rep said, ‘not this Monday, but the next’. Hmmm….another week of waiting. This time I called on Tuesday and asked you were supposed to ship it y’day. He apologized and said we would do it on Wednesday. I called again on Thursday and found the customer care guy apologizing again. This time he said sir we don’t have the 1 Gig of memory with us, so we are waiting for it. I thought they are just fooling me, so I wanted to say, just send me as it is, you can send the memory afterwards. I warned him saying this is the last time I am calling you, next time if I call you, it would be for canceling this order. He assured me that Monday we would definitely ship it. There was long weekend ahead and I was without my laptop :(. Monday, though it was a holiday I went to office and started surfing the net. To my surprise Yahoo ! messenger’s mail alert shown me that I got a mail from compudirectpc and the subject line was ‘Your order shipped via DHL’ . Hurray !!! Then I started hitting DHL’s website again and again. There were still 4 days to wait. I registered my mobile number with DHL so that they can alert me when they would deliver my laptop. But the very next day when I was preparing to leave for office, I got a voice mail saying your shipment has been delivered. It was a shock and surprise too. They delivered my laptop 2 days in advance. I liked the way DHL makes people happy. SO FINALLY IT HAS ARRIVED. And the wait is over. I spend a lot time confirming I have got what I had ordered. And here goes the configuration for my laptop.

NEW! DELL INSPIRON 9400/E1705 LAPTOP
• Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2500 (2GHz/667MHz FSB)
• 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife™
• 60GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
• 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer write capability
• 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms)
• 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (80 WHr)
• 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 7800
• Dell Wireless 350 Bluetooth Internal(2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate)
• Microsoft Windows XP PRO (Operating System)
I did a lot of research while choosing each component. The best part of the configuration was the DUAL CORE PROCESSOR. Which means Intel Core Duo 2GHz is equivalent to P4 4.8 Ghz. Seeing this configuration one of my friend criticized me saying why I am buying a datacenter. Datacenter ! Wow sounds good !!!