The week that was

Last week, when I had my exams going on, there was a lot of activity going on at Nokia.

Last week, Nokia released firmware updates to the Nokia N78 and N82. The N78 is now running V20.149.051.1 while the N82, V31.0.06. The N95 8GB also received a firmware update, now coming up to V31.0.015.

But the week (past 10 days actually) was dominated by N-Gage announcements. The entire week had so many announcements for N-Gage, more than any I have seen ever.

The week began with ‘Age of Empires 3′ being announced for N-Gage platform. The same day also saw ‘Monopoly’ being announced for N-Gage.  Then as the week progressed, ‘Real Football 2009′ was slated as coming soon for N-Gage. The highly addictive  ‘Cafe Sudoku’ was released for N-Gage.

And if that was not enough, ‘Prince of Persia’ was also reported as coming soon on N-Gage.

Now if that isn’t an N-gage week what is? 4 games being announced and 2 games being released! (Asphalt-4: Elite Racing, released on the 20th of January).

You can see the pages for the above mentioned games here.

Age of Empires 3: Click here.

Monopoly: Click here.

Real Football 2009: Click here.

Prince of Persia: Click here.

The games which have been released can be purchased from the N-Gage website.

At The World’s End

This Weekend was full of fun,as me, my wife and our Cousins went on a trip to the World’s End,one of Sri Lanka’s highest cliffs where you can experience the feeling of gaze into the end of the world!. Its about 710 m in height and most of the time, its fully covered with a thick mist, so the chances you get to see the world below clearly, are very rare. Beyond the cliff there is a cloud forest where the clouds run below you,this a heavenly place for many tourists ,and at the same time for some it’s a gateway to hell.Many have jumped from this haunted skystage committing suicide,where there bodies are rarely found.The journey to the World’s End is a bit tough as you have to walk about 4 km in and out so the at the end a good workout of 8kms in total. But the surroundings are astonishingly scenic, the meadows and streams are hauntingly beautiful,weather out there was so unpredictable sometimes you can see upto miles of forest and grasslands untill they meet the dull skies,but in the next instance you are lost in a thick mist,where the sound of blowing wind haunts your mind.

The high altitude,drives you across rapid change of climates,where foliage and the vegetation turns you imaginations into a presence of a gostly world.My N95 8GBs camera did a good job throughout the journey helping me to snap around 400 photos until its battery drained.I didn’t try to geo-tag the photos as I was afraid of loosing my battery for the GPS usage.There were some downsides too,I’ll bring them up in another post.There is whole lot of photos in this slideshow,so might need some spare time,but worth watching if you love the wild life and nature.

N95 8GB v30.0.018 Improvements and Additions

Finally I decided to go for it,I was bit skeptical on going for the new version,since last time it brought me nothing good.And I learnt a good leason too,”Do not repair it,if it isn’t broken” this the point you must use in finalizing your decision.Anyway after updating the firmware last time,my device was showing some odd symptoms,like frequent system hang up in out going calls when the receiver is busy,Long press of hash key not working,Multimedia menu not working after a new theme is installed until restarting the phone and very poor signal receiving and many more.So I had fairly enough resons for justifyimg my decision.

But when I connected the phone to NSU there was no update available,so had to change the product code and connect it back,and finally I got it ,the new version 30.0.018.This time the update took less time than the previous one.Since the official change log is there on the web for a while,I’m not going to repeat the same thing here,instead let me tell you what my personal experience with the update,

1. Long press of Hash key now working again.
2. Multimedia Menu bug I had was gone and now the it is working much faster.
3. New share online shortcut in the standby screen.
4. Google search built in for Search Internet.
5. Maps 2.0 is built in.
6. New n-gage version is preinstalled.
7. My Nokia application is available,but not working in my country.
8. Faster menu functioning and little bit of extra RAM.
9. Secman Hack is no longer applicable.

These are the things I’ve noticed so far,Nothing much or any surprises,neither the expected Geotagging or FP2 Menu effects,but at least it solved most of my problems.Still the ugly menu icon was there so had to hack the phone to get rid of it.Now with this fresh firmware,before installing all my application I’m gona live few days with the basics to test how does it feel,if I had to “live with basics”.Results I’ll bring in another post.

If you still haven’t updated or interested in official change log here it is,

NEW FEATURES

- Maps 2.0 (e.g. Pedestrian navigation, Traffic info, Multimedia city guides, satellite imagery)
- Full N-Gage
- Nokia Search 4.0 with Google plug-in
- Share on Ovi
- Enablers for “Comes With Music”
- Mosh & Ovi Bookmarks added to Browser

CHANGES/IMPROVEMENTS

- Download! application updated (v 3.1.50)
- New baseline for Startup settings
- New baseline/upgrade to Music Player
- Baseline update for Flashlite3 (improved viewing of sites like YouTube)
- Current consumption improvements (for e.g. WLAN scanning)
- New baseline for VoIP (with significant error corrections)
- General error corrections

A Strange Birthday Present : I won the SymbiaNational Geographic contest

Today is my Birthday and I’m very excited to say that I have a strange Birthday present,a real surprise,It’s the N78 from SymbiaNational Geographic contest for the photo shown above.

Last week I was kinda busy with my work,and was struggling to find some spare time time to blogg,but it turned into a really long week.Anyway things do happen in strange ways whenever I feel like moving away from blogging something brings me back on to the stage,this happened several times,and now it ’s happening again.If you are a frequent reader here,the story of squirrels might not be a strange thing,So again the Lucky squirrel brought me luck,last time I won the N95 8GB and the Mobile Film Making kit,this time an N78.Thats the long story in short but I got so many request for an explanation on how I shot the photo which made its way to the first place(85 votes out of 99 in the Jury) SymbiaNational Geographic contest held at p@sco’s site.So here’s a complete dated diary of this story,

7th of April 2008

I found these two infants orphaned,in their nest,dunno what happened to their mother,she never showed up.They were very small and haven’t even opened their eyes at the time I found them.So there was no way for them to survive on their own,especially in the cold and rain.So we took fed them and took care of them,with our full effort and both were doing well,they opened their eyes after a day or too,but unfortunately the weaker one didn’t make it,and left us after a week or so.The one survived grew rapidly and It’s a great pleasure to nurture an animal and observe how he grew,I was lucky enough to experience all the stages of his life and I documented it all with my N80,Loaner N82 from WOM World and with the N95 8GB.

After about a month,he started to venture out and explore the world where he really belonged,so we never try to stop him but in the  first few days,it was kind of a difficult task to keep an eye on it,cos we had to always look what he’s doing out there and whether he’s adapting to the nature back again.Step by step he graduated and successfully passed all the hurdles of his life,except one thing,he didn’t have the guts to stay outside at the night.So to spend the Night he always rushed in before it gets dark out there.He loves to sleep on top a tube light and warm up a bit.

22nd of April 2008

I Saved the life of another squirrel from a crow(sorry I stole his meal,I don’t like to interfere the way it should be in nature but I couldn’t stop my self,that cry for help was that intensive)I bought him home and it wasn’t a big deal for me to nurture him,but the problem was to keep the little buddy away from the big brother as he showed no love at first,probably its because he had never seen baby squirrel before other than his brother.So it was another task for me keep them apart and feed them separately,Cos though the big one oftenly stay outside he sometimes come inside in search of hi favourite biscuits.

16th July 2008

Something amazing happened today,Big one has finally managed to find the place where I kept him hidden,and I thought that’s the end of the little one.But miraculously he didn’t bite him,instead they started to groom each other and bit by bit they started to live in peace.After few day they both started to go out together and that was an event I enjoyed alot.

23 July 2008

The big one built a nest outside my house and started to spend the night there,succeeding his final step of blending back to the wild,and in few days the little one too followed him.So now they both can live on their own,can find food,I see them playing with the other squirrels too.But still they come to see me,love to being fed,and  some times comes inside my house especially when it rains at night.

I was able to shot some nice photos,especially of the big bro(little one doesn’t pose for the camera much instead he always needs a bite off from my phone),also I was able to snap some very unusual behaviours,that we rarely get a chance to observe,like the one showing how he sleeps(Not drunken :-)),and the way they groom each other(these shots are not in good quality as I snapped most of them at night and  they move very fast)

So that’s all about the squirrel story,that everybody was very curios about,hope this answers all the questions and doubts.

Now its time to talk about the contest,First of all a big thank goes to Pietro(p@sco) for coming up with such an idea,I participated it without knowing what the prize is,as it was a pleasure for me to join such a competition because I love nature and love to meet others who do so.Thanks for the N78 and the full credit should go to my squirrel.

Also I wanna thank the jury for selecting my entry and all the people who commented on OVI and in the p@sco’s site.It’s a great pleasure to know there are so many tech geeks who love nature and most of all I met so many bloggers who are passionated with Nature photography like James Burland,Mike Macias,Pietro Paschino and many more.So Thanks again for all the appreciations and your comments makes me and my squirrels feel happy.

Full Slideshow,

Nature Through N95 8GB : Insects

When it comes to snap the Nature,size really doesn’t matter,but its not so unusual for any of us to miss things when they happen to be small in size and most of all if the subjects are less attractive,In this manner Insects will not be a word many of us would like,especially for girls.But revealing a hidden world of tentacles and antennas it’s very interesting to study them closer,see how complicated  the composition of organisms that they are made out of.So this is just a start to peer into their world with the camera of my N95 8GB.Spiders,Wasps,Dragonflies and grasshoppers they all have unique designs and patterns like they are painted on them,lets see how the Macro mode can pick them lively.

Note : To view this slideshow you need Flash player for you browser installed.

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