Design and Usability:

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 has a high finish look. The touch and feel of the device is top quality and multi-touch is a breeze. Although the look of the phone defies it, the device has full touchscreen capability. Touch-sensitive systems are all pervasive nowadays – from desktop monitors all the way to cars. Since this is a bar phone, If you’re the finicky kinds that don’t want smudges on the screen from using your greasy fingers, feel free to use the fully functional keyboard. The text size of data in the browser still is hard to read at the default setting –although zooming one notch up improves the reading experience greatly.

A tip to BB is, “Hey look! We are not all old hyperopic businessmen who use reading glasses while on our devices”.
The availability of an Arabic keypad for the Middle East version adds to the appeal of the phone.
I did notice that if kept switched on for too long, the OS starts freeze. Shutting it down at least once a week prevented such occurences. The multi-touch is smooth and responsive.
The phone width  although quite useful for typing e-mails and the oh-so-important BBM s can feel a bit unnatural while answering calls since it exceeds in size when compared with other handsets. The slimness is noteworthy, conveniently slipping in and out of pockets with ease. The inner lining of my phone’s sleeve was uneven on one side though, causing smudges on the phone screen. I am not sure if that is the case in other pieces.

Another good design element is the rear carbon fiber finish as it adds to the appeal of the overall look.

This is no joke but the highly reflective screen is good for us vain birds to check ourselves out as the reflection has a natural tone. I wasn’t kidding.

Extension ability:
If you have a BlackBerry tablet, the functionality of the tablet is increased two fold once you have your BlackBerry mobile “Bridged” to it through Bluetooth. Bridging the two devices increases your mobile phone’s real estate by a minimum of three times regardless of the model you own. With the bridging, you can access your e-mails, BBM etc on your playbook. However, the browsing speed on your tablet reduces quite a lot.

Media playback:
The built in 8GB memory is sufficient for data and media although during playback, the speakers don’t perform well. While using the YouTube app, videos are grainy and fools one into believing that moving the antennae to the roof top shall get you better reception and hence better quality. It also feels a bit weird to have the headphone port on the side instead of the top. While in your pocket, expect constant pokes.

Camera:
Although the phone is relatively new (even compared to North American releases) the pictures lack quality and cannot compete with its American rivals let alone its European rivals.

Apps:

The app which I use the most frequently is the twitter app and don’t find it intuitive. It almost seems like the developers for BB take in the age factor of the users while developing the apps.
This probably explains why RIM created BlackBerry for business users.
Verdict: A new phone with a rather youthful/sporty/ modern touch but with functionality still geared to the likes of businessmen.

“What’s that you are holding? Looks interesting!”

“This is the BB PlayBook“

Eyes widen and hands reach out to grab the device out of my hands.
This reaction is common when someone sees the Playbook in my hand.

The Playbook certainly generates a lot of curiosity. The down side? It shifts attention from the user!

Out  of the box, it’s simple to use and the touch options are different from other tablets. For example, when within an app a downward swipe brings in menu options like they would in a regular computer program.

Another good thing about it is that the necessary drivers are built in to the device; the first time you connect it with your PC – it begins installing them to prepare it for first use. No need for additional CD’s to install drivers etc.

Other Pluses: Very handy size- sits almost perfectly in your semi-formal pants, or the back pockets of your regular fitting jeans.

It’s easy to hold too. The hand gestures are intuitive and overwhelm the muscle memory my fingers had begun to develop from using other touch devices.

The Blackberry Playbook has video zoom in, which is pretty useful when watching high definition videos. It has a mirror mode which allows you to share your screen with a larger display unit through HDMI. Transferring files on to the device is a breeze too. It can be done through the mini USB or through Wi-fi.

Now the down sides: I had big connectivity issues with the rather weak Wi-Fi detection and repeated disconnections from the internet.

The biggest disappointment however remains the unavailability of good apps for it. Being a twitter freak, I was very disappointed to see there wasn’t a native twitter app even among the paid apps. No Playbook versions of popular browsers were available to replace the built in browser which was a bit slow. No native e-mail app either.

So…why would you buy it?

You could buy it primarily to use it as a media device and if you want a conversation starter, this surely gets the job done. If you already own a Blackberry phone, it makes owning a Playbook much more fun because you have the option to bridge the phone with it. It mitigates some of the down sides by letting you access e-mails, run the popular BlackBerry Messenger and share the internet connection through the bridge connection on your playbook.

Would you ?

I am sure you are all aware of the URL even if you don’t have an account.
If you do, you probably know that the people who subscribe to your feeds (tweets) are your “followers”- (makes you feel like you are a religion, doesn’t it?)

With considerable amount of “live” time that I’ve spent on twitter, I’ve seen behavioral similarities between different individuals and their “following” patterns. You might have noticed these too and more but I am restricting it to the types that I’ve experienced.

1.”Follower”
A genuine person (few of these left, both in the twitter and real world), who follows you for your content and probably to stay in touch using twitter as a medium.

2. “You Don’t – I Don’t”
A typical Tit For Tat example- You don’t get followed unless you follow. Sometimes
they expressly say it to you, even have it written in their limited space-bios. Should you commit the grave sin of unfollowing them, expect an instant unfollow back. Applications like Twittaquitta – were made just for people like these.

3.”I Do, You Do”
These gracious folks are kind enough to follow you first… but with a catch. They will want you to follow them back almost instantly. They’ll probably give you a month, a week, a day.. Some won’t wait over an hour. And if you don’t return the follow within this window, they will resort to un-following you *gasp*. “What would I ever do without you following me?”

4. “I’m all about numbers; You are just a statistic”
These are the sneaky ones. They’ll follow you and you may follow them back out of politeness. But watch out, they are the least interested in your tweets. They were waiting for you to follow them back so they could inflate their follower count. So don’t be too surprised if you are unfollowed right away. It was nothing you said. You know how it goes, “It’s not you; it’s me.”

5. “I am right HERE. Look At Me!”
The attention grabber… that annoying kid in class who is always waving his hand. You find them on Twitter too. These guys follow you and un-follow you and then follow you back and then unfollow you again in repeated fashion until you can set your clock by it. But all they want to do is a remind you that they are a part of your flock and you should be a part of theirs.
They may also want to be seen higher to the top on your list of followers and increase their visibility. They will also retweet just about anything you say as a sign that they have good taste.. hoping against hope that at least their more-than-generous retweets will garner a follow back. Little do they know….

I am sure you know at least one twit who falls in the category or perhaps identify yourself as one of these types. But I hope there shall be a different attitude in people on twitter after they are done reading this article.

Jokes aside, when people unfollow you, it probably means that the person doesn’t find your tweets interesting anymore, nothing personal. Surely your self esteem doesn’t rely on your number of followers. Besides, if you want to stay in touch you can add each other on Facebook. Twitter is NOT a social network!

Moral: People in Qatar should stop taking twitter and the politik of follow-unfollow a little less seriously.

image credits: http://www.dreamsystemsmedia.com

For Hire

So this particular day
I was getting late
No time for breakfast
On a plate

I was in a hurry
All things lied scurry
Stuffed food in my mouth
My head hit the wall,couldn’t shout

Couldn’t sit down and
Nurture the wound
To console myself
I uttered a sound

I got out of my house
Located on E-ring
Got into the car
Didn’t see the steering

Fumbled in my pockets
To find the keys
The only thing that came out
Were salted peas

I realized I was sitting in the backseat
When there were no pedals below my feet
“Right right” , I said to myself
I had to take a taxi to work

All of a sudden I hear a thunder roar
The sound was from a a guy running towards me I was sure
When the yellow car owner gave me a jab
I thought This is Qatar,the car had to be green to be a cab

I wrote for the first time with the pen she gave me
needless to say the words weren’t all favorable.

. . . . . .

On another note, do you think someone will not like an artist because his songs speak of what that person is or plans to be like in a relationship?

Is this what this world is about? Half-truths?Hidden Desires?
Everyone has choices,but to keep one in the loop for indefinite period isn’t going to work all the time……………………

Lesser population means that with existing resources we can create more well being, spread education further too. Have a safer society by means of trackability of each person .Human resource development programmes administration and implementation would become easier.
Afterall a thing that is scarce/limited ( that Is what we want to achieve in population) is much valuable to something which is abundantly available. Higher Salaries due to fewer professionals is also an outcome of lesser population. To sum up we have
Question Time again.: Do you think a country is in a better state where
It has 20 well learned/educated postgraduates hoping to get employment against one job opening Instead of having 180 lesser learned average post graduates for that same job?