Awesome kickass scenes which are not in the movie

Came across this awesome post :)

http://io9.com/5272895/kick+ass-scenes-that-are-in-trailers-but-arent-in-the-movies

Is Zune HD a step towards iPhone Killer?

Oh i know i might get blasted by Apple fan bois but lets face the fact this move from Microsoft to bring a very (let me repeat myself VERY) slick looking device which directly goes to compete against iPod Touch is something to think about.

From the specs it offers everything the Touch does PLUS the HD Radio and HD Video Out, talk about having a portable HD Player with you all the time, I don't know about others but hey it would make life much simple for me (Carrying the Zune HD to other room plugging it to HDTV and watching the movie is much easier the messing with Windows Media Connect and banging your head if its not working or you get jerks in the playback.

What's next? This is a question mark if you ask me, Can Microsoft's ultimate goal be to enter the celluar market and go against Andriod? Although Google is not there with hardware only software but still that's a market segement which in my opinion Microsoft must be keeping an eye out for.

Saving the keyboard after a spill

Directly from Lifehacker.com a awesome tip

If you've used a computer for any significant amount of time, you've also probably facepalmed after spilling some potentially sticky substance into the recesses of your keyboard. (If you haven't, your day will come.) Here's how to save your keyboard after that spill.

As I was finishing up work last night, I accidentally knocked a half-full glass of Diet Coke over and got some in my keyboard. Argh! I shook it out and went on my way, but then this morning 7's and 8's were mysteriously inserting themselves into words, and the spacebar was only working intermittently.

A spill doesn't necessarily mean keyboard death, but resuscitation can take some elbow grease. Unplug the keyboard (or for wireless models, remove the batteries), break out the screwdriver, and take that baby apart. It can take some time; my Logitech has at least two dozen screws holding it together. Lay out the pieces one by one and wipe them down with a slightly-damp cloth to get off any sticky residue. Use a dry paper towel to mop up drops. If you've got compressed air handy, this is a great time to blow out any dust, too.

When all the parts are dry as a bone, carefully reassemble them. All's well for me now; I'm typing this very post on the keyboard. Here are some photos of my keyboard's innards from this morning's clean-up.

Read the full article along with pictures

http://tinyurl.com/n6425c

Search is going to get lot smarter - Google Co Founder

Sergey Brin: 'Search is going to get smarter'

Expect to be surprised says Google co-founder

The size of the web isn't the problem for search, Google co-founder Sergey Brin claimed at the Google IO conference this week. Instead, the problem is the kind of questions search users want answered.

Brin says adding intelligence to search is the way to solve the problem. "We are starting to see more inherent smarts in the search engine. Google Squared [a new service similar to Wolfram Alpha] combines information from hundreds of pages and put it in a table for you. You're going to see an increasing amount of that kind of smarts going on - you'll feel the search engine is smart."

http://tinyurl.com/n3o5r2

Google Wave Video

A preview of the Google Wave check out the video, It looks and sounds impressive but will it be easy for us as consumers to change our computing habbits for wave? I mean c'mon facebook, twitter, msn and what not we are used to those things, hmmmm keeping my fingers crossed here

DOD developing portable hacking device for soldiers

It's not exactly news that the Department of Defense is looking at ways to make hacking a more practical weapon, but it looks to really be stepping up its game with its latest project, which promises to make complicated attacks as simple as a few button presses. That would apparently be possible thanks to a slightly mysterious device that'd be small enough to carry around in a backpack, but powerful enough to do everything from breaking into a wireless network to hacking into SCADA (or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems (used at power plants, nuclear facilities, and the like). While complete details are obviously a bit light, the system would apparently be able to, for instance, map out the nodes in a wireless network, cause them to disconnect, and watch them come back online to identify weak spots. It would then present the "hacker" with various attack attributes that could simply be adjusted using sliders on a touchscreen. No word if the soldiers will also be rewarded with Achievements.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/26/defense-department-developing-portable-hacking-device-for-soldie/

What's gonna happen on June 1st, 2009

For those people who don't understand what's on June 1st, well E3 2009 is gonna kick off with Microsoft's press conference and if that was not enough its the same date on which Kojima and his website's (http://www.konami.jp/kojima_pro/next/index.html) counter will end. Here is what i think is the relevance between them and is going to happen.

I personally believe Kojima is cleverly being used by Sony to under mine the Microsoft's press conference, The counter is going to end on June 1st the very same day Microsoft's press conference and they are going to announce another Metal Gear Solid game exclusive to PS3 thus creating a lot of vibe and taking the share of the publicity away from Microsoft.

I maybe wrong and like many fanbois out there hope that Kojima will announce MGS-5 and it would be on XBOX 360 so lets see :-)

Pacman The Real Deal

Who haven't heard about Pacman perhaps one of the most popular video game character ever, Remi (A guy who goes around doing insanely stupid and funny videos) and his pals decided to do real life Pacman and the result is hilarious

Reality TV

Introduction

Although the invention of television and related technology can be dated as back as late 1800’s commercial television was not around till mid 1900’s, the original debut of commercial TV was shadowed by World War II and got fame after the war ended.

Reality TV - Introduction

What exactly is reality TV? It is a genre / category of television programming in which there is no concept of pre scripted events or dialogues and is more focused on real time events not to be mistaken with documentaries and news / sports shows.

Reality TV - History

Reality TV can be dated back to as far as 1940’s with early shows as Candid Camera which was instant hit to early 1950’s Miss America Beauty Pageant laid strong foundations for Reality TV.

Reality TV - Reason for Popularity

Many factors can be accounted for outstanding popularity of Reality TV, few of them are listed below,

• Ordinary people coming on national television.
• Ability of turning ordinary people into celebrities.
• Unscripted events can lead to humorous situations.
• Provides chance to earn huge amount of money by participating in shows.
• People like to enjoy pain, agony, happiness and other emotional situation of another person.


Reality TV – Critical View

Although Reality TV is perhaps one of the most genres of television programming, It has its own lion’s share of criticism, We shall discuss the criticism based on morals, ethics and social point of views.

Morals / Social / Ethics

Different people from different parts of world and belonging to different casts, religion, and moral values cannot agree or be happy with the idea a director or producer had for the show, popular example would be dating shows which encourage girls and boys to come ahead and explore dating and unmarried sex which is prohibited in Islam and Christianity.

A certain type of show may not be popular in a certain area of the world (Temptation Island was a big failure in India) and popularity and success of the show depends on the social and ethnic background of the people.

Humiliation

Often reality TV shows are subject to criticism based on a phenomenon known as schadenfreude (German word meaning enjoyment taken from the misfortune of someone else.) Often in shows such as Candit Camera, America’s Funniest Home Videos etc, We end up laughing at someone’s account without taking into context how the other person is feeling about the issue.

Are They Real?

One skeptic view of reality TV is that the events portrayed and viewers see on their TV screen are not real but are pre scripted events and are molded according to surveys conducted to see what end viewer wants


Reality TV – Are WE Responsible

We as a viewer are 100% responsible for encouraging TV channels to come up with more and more ridiculous excuse for programs all in name of “reality tv”, programs ranging from “Khuwaja Ki Idalat” to “Living On The Edge” are just few examples of what our media is working on now days.

The concept of quality programming and shows is dying day by day because of viewers and their craving for reality TV. We won’t blame TV channels because they would not be launching a TV and spending xyz amount of money on it without conducting proper surveys and studies so they before hand know that its going to pay them back.


Reality TV – Media Point of View

We shall not be biased in bashing Reality TV and therefore we shall explore the point of view of a TV channel which is busily producing such reality TV shows.

At the end of the day a show is considered as success if it generates viewership and advertisement revenue. In a cut throat competition like we have in our country a producer / director is living on the edge (no pun intended to the reality tv show bearing the similar name) and is often forced to come up (our polite choice of word for plagiarism) inspired by some foreign show.


Reality TV – What Can We Do? (Media Point Of View)

Its not necessary to follow western media and copy each and everything they do, We cannot deny the fact that reality TV is popular but we can use all that popularity, all that energy into something positive by making a show which encourages some social issue, award a deserving individual by promoting him/her or making life of a deserving family better.

A show can be created to start a competition for individuals to adopt a particular area of suburbs and teach certain amount of children, Or the same amount of energy which is wasted doing dares (By now you can tell how much we HATE that show) can be utilized by making the individual help someone deserving by dare (anything which can make someone do a good cause).

Consumer Rights In Pakistan

Edit: Found this URL courtesy of Abbas at WCCK, its for Customer Rights Council Pakistan

http://www.crc.org.pk/

Originally posted on PakGamers.com

http://www.pakgamers.com/forums/chit-chat-cafe/29682-pakistan-consumer-court-playstation-3-must-read.html


The is a true story. I will not give out all the details and will have to cut the story short.


The primary purpose of reporting it here on pakgamers is so that each one of you who spends his hard earned halal money on console or games has basic protection.


The secondry purpose of posting this story is to teach all the shop owners a lesson that they cannot screw a customer ever again

PG Spoiler

Btw a little bit of factual information before i tell the incident.Coz i have read on various threads that people go to kiran zone after the guy at futurezone screws with them. Kiran Zone,Future Zone,Gameshock and several others including all their branches may it be in defence or model town or where ever are owned by the SAME person.

There is only one owner. most people don't know that. I personally know the owners son and they are the biggest importer and exporters of consoles in pakistan. he told me last month they exported 20,000 ps3's only to Iran and not counting other countries .so you can imagine how huge their business is. so it doesn't matter if you purchase a console at kiran zone or futurezone the money goes to the same man

Now with what happened..... I purchased a PS3 from a shop ( not going to name them coz their business might suffer ). A week later the lens of the PS3 dies.

when I was purchasing the PS3 the shopkeeper told me that there is no warranty or guarantee on the console. I was only allowed to check it in the shop and thats it.

I told him that it was a wrong and illegal practice so why was he doing it?

He told me that they don't get any warranty from behind so they don't offer any.

I told him that under the law ( which many ppl arn't aware off until consumer courts came ) if a trader sells an item and makes profit on it and the customer has a receipt. the shopkeeper is responsible for any kind of defect in the product that may arise in a reasonable amount of time.

He just nodded his head and i bought the system a couple of games and TOLD HIM TO MAKE A RECEIPT He hesitantly started making one and on top of the receipt wrote" NO WARRANTY AND GUARANTEE" So i called the shopkeeper 'Ghattaia and cheap' and came back home with the console.

A week later while playing call of duty(which i have a platinum trophy for ) the game just got stuck and upon restarting the console it refused to read any disc.

I called the shop and informed him of the problem. He obviously tried to put the blame on me by saing that " I MUST HAVE BEEN WATCHING DVD MOVIES ON IT ".

Which I was not.( I had read reports on the internet of lens failing by inserting cheap dvd media discs in the PS3 )

After some quarrelling on the phone he offered to replace the lens for Rs: 3500. Which I refused by telling that i had paid money for a new PS3 not a repaired one.

He did not agree so i decided to contact the consumer courts.

The reason I came to know of their existence was through newspapers which reported on their daily activities on generators,UPS,Shampoos( YES Shampoo, woman paid RS 50,000 coz a shalmi made shampoo made her go bald LOL) ,mineral water, ETC.

To cut the story short within 1 hour of meeting with a lawyer at the consumer court my mobile was ringing off the hook as the shopkeeper was calling to apologize.

He said that I can get the PS3 fixed for FREE or i can have a full refund.

I went for the refund.

Moral of the story is that YOU as a customer have rights, so it does not matter weather your PS3 lens died or your 360 got RROD like in a week of purchase. If you have a receipt you can take the shop keeper to court.

I hope I delivered my message clearly and saved ppl thousand of ruppes.


1UP for Consumer rights

OpenSSH is Open After All

"Researchers at the Royal Holloway, University of London have discovered a flaw in Version 4.7 of OpenSSH on Debian/GNU Linux. According to ISG lead professor Kenny Patterson, an attacker has a 2^{-18} (that is, one in 262,144) chance of success. Patterson tells that this is more significant than past discoveries because 'This is a design flaw in OpenSSH. The other vulnerabilities have been more about coding errors.' The vulnerability is possible by a man-in-the-middle intercepting blocks of encrypted material as it passes. The attacker then re-transmits the data back to the server and counts the number of bytes before the server to throws error messages and disconnects the attacker. Using this information, the attacker can work backwards to figure out the first 4 bytes of data before encryption. 'The attack relies on flaws in the RFC (Request for Comments) internet standards that define SSH, said Patterson. ... Patterson said that he did not believe this flaw had been exploited in the wild, and that to deduce a message of appreciable length could take days.'"

New Version Of Google Chrome Is Out

New Version Of Chrome Is Out

"Google has released the second major version of the Chrome browser. This version features more speed improvements thanks to a newer version of V8 JavaScript engine and WebKit. JavaScript-heavy web pages will now run about 30% faster. Other new features include form autofill, fullscreen mode, and improved New Tab page. If you're already using Google Chrome, you'll be automatically updated with these new features soon. If you haven't downloaded Google Chrome, you can get the latest version at google.com/chrome."

I personally like chrome but i find it too basic in features to be used as my primary browser, so till the time chromes matures and gets good extensions like trusty ol firefox, I am not going to switch.

We Support Our Troops

Dedicated to our brave men and women fighting with enemies of our nation, We are with you

The Real Pakistan

The real face of Pakistan which western biased media does not show, Amazing video courtesy of pointcricket.com, Hat's off to the creator of this video it have some seriously good editing :)

Threat Vs Vulnerbility

Recently i was sitting with few of my friends from the industry and i was surprised to learn that even people with more than 10 years of working experience were confused when it came to differentiating between threat and vulnerability. Much of that confusion has to be credited to the fact that these two terms are mostly used in combination and are often mistook for being the same, Well they are not and today I shall humbly try to explain and differentiate between the two.

THREAT would be something or someone which can take advantage of any weakness of you or your business to gain unfair advantage.

VULNERABILITY is the possible weakness which any threat can exploit to harm you or your business.

In a common office environment getting your computer infected by a virus would be a possible threat while not updating your antivirus or not having any anti virus at all would be a vulnerability which a virus can take advantage off.

It's not necessary that every vulnerability has a threat, What i am talking about? Well very simple real life example should relate my point across to you. Lets me give you example of my young son inside the boundry of our house, he plays around in the secure boundary and we are not that much concerned but he is vulnerable as in he may fall or hurt himself etc etc but certainly no "threats" now slight change of scenario and place my son in a public place with other elder kids and suddenly we have the very same vulnerable child with different threats (other older kids for exmaple) that we have to look out for and be concerned.

Although we continued to discuss many other topics but the above example and discussion did cleared out the misconception to the participants of that coffee meeting, I hope it does the same for the readers of this post.

User Names & Passwords : False Hope Of Security

Recently my article on "User Names And Passwords" was published as one of the cover stories by CSO Pakistan (Part Of CIO Pakistan) magazine in their Jan 2009 issue (http://ciopakistan.com/2009/01/usernames-and-passwords/) . The very same article was than selected and published by Network World on their website (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/011509-giving-false-hope-of.html?page=1) so here is the very same article for your viewing pleasure.

“Hold on let me transfer funds online” may have sounded like a distant concept a few years ago, but today it’s happening everywhere. We have moved from the conventional papertrail life to a digital life and with so many advancements so quickly. And everything happens at lightening speeds - just like the transaction.

Information Security is a vast field so what we’ll do in this article, is address the most common mistakes committed in our everyday cyber lives, both intentionally or unintentionally, making an impact on our privacy.

We’ll talk about the basics, where so much can go wrong username and passwords and the problems associated with them.

In a typical office environment, on average, an individual has a couple of different passwords. A times, these passwords are unique, while in other instances, they are not. But everything has a password - from accessing the domain to email,from the ftp servers or however your unique environment and it’s IT infrastructure works. Let’s go through the five most common problems associated with usernames and passwords and practices associated with them.

1. Keeping same password for multiple login
2. Writing the password on sticky note or on desktop with file name password.txt
3. Sharing of password
4. Easy to guess passwords
5. Shoulder Surfing

All of a sudden, our simple problem, doesn’t seem all that basic any longer.

Let’s admit it, we are always behind schedule and run ning out of time. In such a scenario (with alzheimer’s so contagious!) who has time to remember multiple passwords? If your IT or Network Administrator has enforced some policies than you have to remember combination of upper and lower caps, numbers, symbols and before you know it, you are not a very happy camper. So what you end up doing, is the most convenient option which comes to mind: keep the same password for everything or almost everything and make your life easier. Sure. It’s something everyone does on a regular basis. However what you are failing to realize is he big picture. Someone manages to guess one password, they will try that for every other connected faucet in your life. Something, most likely, everything, comes leaking out into the world and no longer remains in your control.

There are times when your IT administrator knows what he or she is doing and makes you have different passwords for different applications running under his domain. You mumble and jumble many impolite words under your breath and in the event that there is a policy which will force-change your password after a certain period of time your IT admin becomes an even less popular chap.

Most people, without really thinking of the consequences, scribble down the password on a sticky note and place it in their line of sight. And in case you aren’t a fan of sticky notes, then some opt to create a textfile and name it “my passwords.txt” on desktop. How techie is that!?

With sticky notes, you are inviting everyone in your surrounding to have a go at your private files or to abuse your authorization and authentication which puts you in all kinds of trouble. Server logs can indicate that you (yes, you!) were logged in at a time when something bad (bad!!) happened, and you get in blamed for it.

Password sharing in the office environment is also common practice. After all, you are among friends, aren’t you? Some colleague calls you to say the boss urgently needs something and requests your password to make the “transaction” happen. You try and rememebr to change it later on but forget, as is usually the case. Combine this with the risk that you may only have a “one password fits all policy” and this is one mega disaster just waiting to happen.

‘Date of birth’, ‘name of a child’, ‘PAKISTAN’, ‘KARACHI’, ‘spouse name’ or a phone number -you can’t be serious and put THIS kind of protection! Now again if we combin this scenario with our first one again and we have a potential problem on our hands.

Something known as ‘brute force’ refers to the fact that someone is just going to guess passwords based on the details they know about you, and as many tries as it takes, try and force his way into your data. Welcome to Information Security 101!

Is everything lost? No certainly not, there are many ways of properly authenticating users without compromising security. The most convenient way to do so is to use Digital Certificates for authentication purposes than there are OTP’s (One Time Passwords). Whichever product or service you end up using make sure it adheres to the five pillars for Information Security. These are:

1. Authentication (The person accessing the information is really the person he or she claims to be)

2. Privacy (Any information exchanged between two parties shall remain private between them)

3. Authorization (The person should have access to information according to his or her authorization level)

4. Integrity (Content of any transaction/information transferred among two or more parties should remain intact)

5. Non Repudiation (In case of any conflict the parties cannot deny or reject their role in the disputed transaction).

A Day At Track

Well not TRACK as in proper tracks abroad but more of a make shift desi track which means a long stretch of road, fast car (if you dont have a fast car than don't worry put on zillions of STEAAAAKERS / STICKERS / VINYLS, a cheap dholki / exhaust and a fake blow off valve to give your car a fake sound of turbo and you are good to go), lots of stupid people and good luck.

Today we had Adil from Islamabad with his insanely fast Supra which at the crank produces 800bhp (these figures were quoted to me and might be over or under exagurated) along with other Evo's, RX-7, S2000, EuroR's and others. One car which i would definately like to point out would be Faraz's Civic, a 93 Honda Civic stripped to the bone (no doors even) with a turbo charged B16 engine (as told to me) and it's run literally blew me away the car was insanely fast, i would let the following few vids do the talking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cK8Q07C2vs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK3M-RkGpnM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSBS9RqvjMk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhkK5PsX3gw

Something from my Nokia 2630 i miss on my N-79

Maybe it's just that i haven't been able to figure out how to do things on N-79, maybe i growing old or maybe, just maybe there are few things which are better to do on a set which costs you under 6k in comparison to a set which costs you around 32k.

When sending message, on my 2630 when it comes to selecting the people i want to send the message i have following options

• Favorite (A name which stays on top of the list)
• Recently Used, list of recently used 10 contacts.
• Call Register, takes you directly to call log and you can select the contact or number directly from the log to send them a message.
  
• Contacts
• Contact Groups

As far as i have seen, the N-79 only support two ways out of above which are (1) Contacts and (2) Contact Groups.


Secondly the keypad on N-79 simply SUCKS! when it comes to good ol T9 messaging the 2630 OWES N-79 hands down and i am still using it as my main "texting" device lol

Using GPS (Karachi Maps) On My N-79

I don't understand why Nokia does not includes Pakistan in it's official map releases? (routable version) Hello a humble request to Nokia Pakistan people, apart from all the marketing and nice working you people are upto, Kindly get us a place in Nokia Maps, N-Gage and other places, It hurt to see India there but us Pakistani's being ignored.


So coming back to the topic, I recently got myself a N-79 and like many other smart phones out there it comes with a built in A-GPS (Assisted GPS) to help you navigate. Now i presume more than 80% of the users don't even use this functionality and think its useless, well on face value it is useless since there are no maps available for us to navigate on, but if you willing to spend sometime and do some khuwari (okay i will be a nice person and cover most of the khuwari topics for you) and you can get a working GPS with routable map on your GPS enabled phone.


The credit goes to wonderful people at pkmaps (http://pkmaps.freeforums.org/) a small community who believes in doing the hectic work of plotting a working map to use with Garmin GPS devices. The first action of the day would be to hand over to their forums, register yourself, pass a friendly hello to everyone and download the latest map for your city (As of now Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore are supported).



Second step would be to head up to Garmin's website and get yourself a copy of Garmin XP Mobile ( http://www8.garmin.com/support/collection.jsp?product=010-11034-00 ). Extrect the archieve and copy the content of GMobileCard to the memory card, Once you insert the memory card in your phone (i.e. if you have taken it out, the way i did was to connect my phone in mass media mode) your phone automatically ask you to install the application, if it doesn't than don't need to panic, simply browse to your memory card and install the provided sis file (garminxt.sis) just like you install any other application, so far so good.


Now come the tricky part, the software allows you to connect to external GPS unit via Bluetooth and will only allow you to use the internal GPS once you purchase it ($99) well i didn't purhased it (although this piece of software would be getting my hard earned $, its worth it i believe) so i had to rely to other ways which are oftenly frowned upon, Search for a keygen and enter your Unit ID (Once you start Garmin XT, select "Use External GPS", tools, About and it should display you the unit ID) get the key and that should sort things out and you would be able to use the internal GPS.

The map of your city which you downloaded would be named GMAPSUPP.IMG you need to copy this file to your memory card in Garmin folder. Start Garmin and click on map and you should be able to navigate once the GPS connects (if you are indoors it can take some time otherwise go outside and wait for 2-3 minutes till it connects).

One problem i faced was i kept getting Europe map instead of Karachi map (i also installed the base maps along with the simple Garmin application) and a friendly person at pkmaps told me a handy way to sort things out, i went to my phone's GPS data settings and checked my current location, once it locked my position i shooted up Garmin and it was able to pin point my location on the correct map.

As of this blog post the map has2600 points of interest pointed out on the map and more than 14500 roads and the map keeps getting updated very regurarly so do keep checking the forums, again hat's off to PK MAPS people.

All Pakistan Bloggers Meet # 2

Oh well i was a little bit late but that's better than not coming at all i guess? right? ahan! so well we are discussing how us bloggers here in Pakistan can make an impact, and darn people are full of ideas and suggestions, few of the points we discussed



1. Posting images of Pakistan, beautiful places from around the nation to improve the image of our nation.


2. Using good key words to improve google rating.

3. Showing our nation's flag proudly on our blog.

4. Should not have negative attitude towards our nation, If we need to talk about something negative than use it in a language which should not destroy our countries image.

5. Proper tagging of items posted and images posted.

6. Should not be about making money but for the nation.

Nokia N79 Review

I am back (Arnold Shalwar Naikar Style) and this time i am going to do a review of Nokia N-79 cell phone (which Nokia INSISTS to call as computer) but before i start i must thank the people who made it possible in the first place

• Mr. Adeel Hashmi (Nokia)
• Mr. Muhammed Ayaz (Syntax Communications)
• Mr. Muhammad Waqas (Syntax Communications)

The Box, Nothing Fancy Yet Have A Unique Presence

So now that i am done with obligation of thanking people lets go down (sounds pervert but honestly i don't mean it like that) to business shall we?

Technical Specifications

• 2.4" 16M-color LCD TFT display of QVGA resolution
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash and AF assist light
• VGA video recording at 30fps
• Symbian OS 9.3 with S60 3.2 UI
• ARM 11 369 MHz CPU
• 3G with HSDPA support
• Quad-band GSM support
• Wi-Fi with UPnP technology
• Built-in GPS with A-GPS functionality and 3 months of free voice-guided navigation
• microSD card slot with microSDHC support
• 4GB memory card included in the retail package
• Built-in accelerometer for UI auto-rotation
• Swappable Xpress-on smart covers (two of them in the box)
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• TV out
• Stereo FM Radio with RDS
• FM transmitter
• Stereo speakers
• Navi wheel navigation
• USB and Bluetooth v2.0
• One free N-gage game
• Keylock switch

History Of N-Series

Why reviewers avoid going into history of a product is beyond me, maybe it has something to do with the boring history classes we were forced take in school? Anyways i personally believe unless one take a quick look at the history of the product or brand we would not be in a position to justify the pros and cons of the product properly, Having said that lets explore the rich history behind N-79 shall we?

Like the name suggests "N" means that this particular line of product is targeting the "multimedia" market segment, that in layman's language means that any device having the brand name of "N-Series" will pack a serious punch when it comes to watching videos, photos, taking pictures, blogging, mobile gaming and other areas of multimedia.

Being only introduced in 2005 one can debate that the brand does not have that much history behind it but i'll eat my hat if someone can debate with me on the impact N-Series managed to make in such a short time, hat's off to Nokia's team for that.

The few common features one will find in N-Series phones would be

• Above average camera
• High Speed data connectivity
• Symbian platform (started off with Symbian 8.1 and now Symbian 9.1+ I would like to point that two N-Series phoens did not used the Symbian platform and were using Linux based OS, this is for "OMG YOU ARE SO WRONG OMGOMGOMGOMG" folks out there)
• Ability to view images, movies and listen to songs on the road bringing the device in parallel to mobile mp3/video players.

So now that we have taken a brief look at the platform this particular device is based of lets see which existing device(s) this particular phone (computer, ARGH) is going to replace.

N-79 Predecessor

Things get slightly complicated here, on the face this device looks and feels just like N-78 so i won't be surprised if it's automatically related to N-78 after all they share the looks (somewhat)

As you can see with N-78 on the left and the N-79 on the right, The N-79 DOES looks like an updated N-78 with more bells and whistles attached but that's where it all stops, I am serious if we go down comparing the specifications for both the phones its funny that they are ALMOST the same phones with different camera modules.

Why would Nokia want to introduce a new phone to replace an existing phone just couple of months down the road (N-78 available May 08, N-79 available 08) makes me assume that in Nokia's opinion N-78 was not a good seller and Nokia felt like bringing something new to the table. I personally believe that N-79 is here to take the crown from N-73 for being the new best seller phone packing features like 5 megapixel camera to make the deal more spicy.

That again is my assumption but N-78 failed to achieve the results and that does put a lot of weight on shoulders of N-79. Things get more complicated when we see the immediate competition the phone has from companies own offerings.

Target Audience

Before actually coming up with potential threats lets see the target audience this particular phone is catering. In my opinion the phone is for tech savvy style oriented people who (1) Wants the newest gadgets in their hand (2) Wants the top of the line technology with them. Maybe Nokia design team have something different in their mind but as far as i am concerned these are the target audience for the phone.

Internal Competition

My gripe with manufacturers is that they give you so many choices that making up your mind to choose a product becomes IMPOSSIBLE, an d by the time you end up deciding your mind there is a new product in market ARGH!

With the above discussed target audience in mind, N-79 have some serious competition ironically from it's own "brothers and sisters" like N-95, N-96, 6220 Classic, N-85 and N-82. You might say hey N-82 i understand but N-95 and N-96 noway! so lets see in which aspects the device is competing against the other three sets

N-95

At one time the flagship product for Nokia packed some serious punch, from 5 megapixel camera with xenon flash to integrated GPS, accelerometer and list of other goodies was a phone which many drooled on (myself being exception because i was never into BRICKS)

5 mega pixel camera was perhaps the main selling reason behind N-95 atleast in my opinion and N-79 packs a similar on surface 5 megapixel camera in a candy bar design and much lighter and slim.

N-96

The new flagship product from Nokia which replaces N-95 currently offers its user heaps of different features from a 5 megapixel camera to integrated GPS to what not, I shall be covering N-96 in more details in an upcoming review.

N-82

Before even writing anything about N-82 let me admit, i drooled a LOT on the set because of its features, yeah people might not agree with the style and specially the keypad (which resembles the one with N-78) but it had all the features one would want in a candybar form. You get a 5 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, accelerometer, GPS among other features.

For the record, i prefer the phone in black color.

6222 Classic

Personally i owned 6120 Classic and i loved it to death, unfortunately my wife lost it (WHAT? NO! ARGGGGGGHHH!!!!) and i still miss it, it was a powerful Symbian based phone which was very fast with adequate camera and was hassle free to use. I can go and on talking about 6120 Classic but we are talking about its elder brother 6220 Classic with among other major upgrades to the platform packaged a 5 megapixel camera with Xenon flash.

Nokia 6222 Classic, Following the Footsteps Of Highly Successful 6120 Classic

N-85

Both these phones are not really competition i mean they do feature similar set of features but in different form factor, i am personally not a fan of sliders or flip so candy bar has always been my style but there are people who prefer having sliders and N-85 is good option for them. With a 5 mega pixel camera and a good screen size (2.6 inch) the phone does offers a lot.

Nokia N-79 And N-85 Side By Side

So here we have three different models from the same manufacturer offering nearly the same set of features yet different slabs i.e. N-96 higher end, N-95 the previous higher end now catering the upper middle end and the N-82 catering the upper middle end.

The Box Content

Keep in mind that piece i received from Nokia was in retail packaging however it was not sealed so the content you may get in your retail back might be slightly different. There are products with box which gives you the "cheap" feel but N-79 feels every bit worth of the money you end up paying for it. The moment you lift up the lid your eyes would be dazzled with N-79 along with two covering

The Green Color Looks "More" Eeeky Due To Flash, The Brown Was Very Elegant I Must Say

• N-79 Handset (Seriously it was there! DOH!)
• Two bonus smart covers, our box had one in brownish color and one in green. The colors may vary.
• Two piece (two earbuds) handsfree with integerated remote.
• MicroUSB cable.
• DC Charger
• 4GB Memory Card.
• Leflets, Manuals, DVD's etc.

Design

From the pictures i saw i thought the phone would be BIGGGGGGGGGGGG!!! but once i got the device and i took it in hand i was pleasantly surprised, make no mistakes i still don't think it felt as nicer as E-51 or 5300 Express Music (You can judge from my approach that i like thin phones) but certainly its much better than N-95/96 or N-73. But let me just get away with one statement, this has to be the prettiest looking N series phone upto date and that Sir indeed is a compliment.

Much of the dimensions of the phone are covered by large and bright 2.4" display and the keypad. On the front you have the secondary VGA camera which serves for video conferencing a feature our mobile operators currently don't offer but can be used to take self portrait (This feature gotta get attention from self obsessed people)

On the left side of the phone you will find the slot for memory card and the micro USB along with the socket for the charger, i always prefer NOT having the charger slot on the bottom of the phone as it hinders placing it in holders etc.

On the right side of the phone you will find the volume rocker which also serves as zoom function in the camera mode and a dedicated camera key. You will also found two stereo speakers on the right side.

On top of the phone you will find a power button which can be used to change profiles quickly and a small "slider" button which locks and unlocks your phone, i found this feature to be really nifty (instead of using the good old keystroke combination) however i did found it to be slightly buggy (at times it didn't locked and took several attempts same goes for unlocking)

On the back we have the 5 megapixel camera which is covered by a active cover and dual LED flash. Once you slide the slider to expose the lens camera application automatically starts in landscape mode. While we are talking about the back it would be unfair to forget the battery which powers this baby, not a small measly one but a powerful 1200 mAh BL-6F Li-Ion battery and through out the vigrous check for a week it never let me down.

While we are talking about back lets talk about the interchangeable covers, the model i received came with green and brown in the box and the phone itself had blue colored cover, now one neat feature which Nokia has added is that when you change a cover thanks to a "contact" (you can say a chip) the phone automatically changes the theme according to the color of cover you are putting on. You however do have option of turning it on/off.

Overall the phone is very pocket friendly and light (i still remember how i used to hate the weight of my N-73). I honestly could not find any reason to whine as far as the build quality of handset i received is concerned, now i was just not happy with that so what i did was to visit few local mobile dealers in Khadda Market (DHA Karachi) and managed to see 3 sets and even they had awesome build quality (When will Shop Keepers start keeping actual working demo sets than those dummies?) so it's not that Nokia specifically choose their best assembled set to send for reviews.

Display

Sharp and bright, i would had not complaints with the 2.4" display IF i had not seen the OLED display of N-85, honestly why Nokia choose not to give OLED goodness to N-79 is beyond me, unfortunately i did not had a N-85 on hand to show you side by side comparison of the displays so until i get my hands on them together you will have to take my word for it.

If we ignore the OLED factor than like i said above the display is sharp and very much readable in sunlight. No complaints here with the 16M color TFT on that front.

Keypad

The keypad of N-79 is joy to use, i have small hands and it took me no time to type sms in giffy, In fact if you have EVER used any Nokia phone it would take you not time to be at home with N-79's keypad. I HATE (should i repeat myself? oh well my blog, my review so my rules, I HATE) keypad of N-82 and N-78, i didn't got much time to spend with both these devices but it was frustrating experience and fortunately enough with N-79 we are back with "proper" keypad.

The Navigation "Wheel" or the D-Pad is touch sensitive (i admit that it took me some exploration of the phone to figure it out, *blush*) but after a little while i switched it off because it was not "smooth" enough for me, maybe its just me or maybe its something which would be resolved in future firmware updates.

Battery

I had the phone for over a week and during this time i only charged it twice. I used the phone extensively to shoot pictures and videos, doing browsing via wifi and playing around with different options on the phone. Since mostly i had my secondary sim in the set the actual voice and sms conversation was not that much. Still i am very impressed by the battery life of this set considering all the features it packs in the little candybar body.

Voice Quality

The phone was loud enough for me even in busy environments. I managed to easily talk while bowling at Royal Rodale on top of all the music and noise there (If you have been to Royal Rodale's bowling alley or to Area-51 you can understand the amount of noise there)

Speaker phone was pretty good too, managed to use it a lot when driving and had no problems what so ever with it. No complains from my side as far as the sound is concerned.

Camera

*sigh* If i had to express myself in one word than it would be DISAPPOINTED. What's the use of having a 5 megapixel camera when most of the time you end up having a grainy picture? If you are looking for a Camera Phone than honestly go for either N-95 or N-82 they simply RULE when it comes to imaging.

Now i know you must be thinking that i have totally dissed the camera module on this phone, not entirely true, the image quality which one can achieve using the camera depends HEAVILY on light conditions, in good light conditions the phone managed to take some awesome images but unfortunately like i said those "awesome" shots were in minority. I personally think if this phone had a Xenon flash than phone would had given N-82 a run for it's money because in my opinion the ONLY aspect this phone does not wins/draws over N-82 is the camera, in all the other aspects N-79 is equal and excels when in comes to keypad. Cost factor was an issue at one time when N-79 was cheaper than N-82 but with recent price drops the N-82 is couple of thousand cheaper than N-79 (If you want a fast phone with excellent camera capabilities and do not mind measly keypad issue than go for N-82 no questions asked)

Few are just few of the pictures i took using the N-79, Click on the images to see them in full resolution.

I was satisfied with the videos i was able to make with the phone, VGA resolution at 30 fps with okay image quality was adequate for those "candid moments"

Connectivity

The phone offers you almost all the available mediums to connect your phone, Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, USB, Wifi someone i know whined about IR not being there i punched him in the face for being an idiot, on serious note i think with all the options available for connectivity not having IR is not your average user will even notice considering that even the lower end phones have started coming out with bluetooth.

The front camera supports 3G video conferencing which is a feature which we lack here in our nation so unless some provider decides to introduce 3G here in Pakistan our only means of "broadband" on cellular phones is EDGE.

Browser

Nokia has the BEST browser out there, there i got it out of my system, Safari users are going to hunt me down now, the virtual mouse cursor makes navigation very easy and the results are crisp with seeming less shift from horizontal to vertical views.

Productivity

Calendar, Quick Office, Alarm, ZIP Manager, Unit Converter, Calculator, Notes, Voice Recorder and other typical applications makes a return in N-79 and like in many other cases of higher end phones i don't understand why Nokia gives the half baked cake (Office) to us? Why only give us the ability to view documents and ask us to "purchase" the full version, it would had been nice if they had provided the full version at least for their higher end of phones. Overall the productivity suite is complete.

N-Gage Yeah Baby!

The phone came with a N-Gage client and 10+ trial games which i had to install (under 1 minute time per game) and included was a coupon by which i could purchase a game (nice touch there Nokia). Now the first thing which i noticed was the resemblance with XBOX Live was just uncanny, from having your "gamer tag" to "gamer score" to "reputation" and i felt right at home, of course i did not ended up making my own tag and stuff which i doubt i could have done in the first place since Pakistan would not be in the supported list but i liked the N-Gage system.

There is also a "market place" where you can browse games, download trials and purchase games, again all this sounds all to familiar to me :) Overall the gaming experience was nice and i wasted good amount of time playing games which was partly due to KESC and partly due to the fact trial games could only be played for limited levels/time.

Other Features

Yes there are things i could not test and they are

GPS here in Karachi WITHOUT going third party hacks / software's which honestly i would not want to do with the phone Nokia had sent me, if it was my own phone than definitely i would had jumped the band wagon and tried "stuff" out! :)

FM Transmitter is a new "gimmick" added which will transmit the song you are playing to a fixed frequency so that your friends can "tune in" to that frequency and listen to the same song as you are.

Price

Currently the phone is available for 31,000 Rs and in that price range you can get phones like E-71, N-82, N-95 to name a few, in my opinion if the price range of this device was around 20,000 Rs. than it would had taken the market by storm much like N-73 did.

Conclusion

Time to wrap up this long review, Overall i loved the device, i wish they had provided a good quality camera with Xenon flash. I have said before in my review that this perhaps is the best looking N-Series device out there. Problem is that the phone offers almost all the features every other new phone is offering and does not bring anything innovative to the table and that makes the buying decision very hard for the end user, this device is no E-71 or 5800 Express Music for instance, both the devices i mentioned have unique propositions on the table which make them attractive to the consumer.

On a scale of 1 - 10 i would give this phone a nice 8

A Day At Business Plus

I got invited as a guest speaker / geek / expert on Right Click a technology show which air's on Business Plus hosted by charming Ayeesha Athar and stud Faraz Tayaab, We talked about information security and general trends in our daily computing lifes which can create potential problems for us and give a hacker a walk in the park to our sensitive information. It would be unfair not to mention Imran Khatak the person behind the show for his energy and brains behind the show, I wish all the best to Right Click team and would be looking forward to working with them in the future :)

Reboot Episode 5 On Youtube

Episode 5 got aired this week and it is on youtube for you to watch!

Part 1



Part 2

Reboot Episode 4

Episode 4 of Reboot is now on youtube for you to watch!

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Part 2

Debug Episode 3 Now On Youtube

In case you managed to miss the episode you can now watch it on youtube

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Part 2