Sequoia National Park

During this long weekend we went to Sequoia National Park. Sequoia are the one of the largest trees on earth, huge in size & height. Sequoia National Park offers a wide variety of activities, hiking, biking, cave tours, scenic drive etc.

We reached Sequoia around noon, searched for a hotel and then went inside the park. First day we did not do much and just took a drive inside the park and planned our activities
for the next day.

Second day, we left hotel early to catch up with the first crystal cave tour. we stopped at Foothill to buy the Crystal Cave tours tickets and then from foothill it was 1 hour drive and 20 mins trail to reach to Crystal Cave. Crystal cave in Sequoia National Park is an amazing experience, i had never felt anything like this before.

Other things to do: Grant Forest Museum, Largest Sequoia Tree, Hiking and scenic drive.

Caution: Sequoia is bears habitat so all the food storage is must. One of the park ranger informed us bear can smell food even from 5 miles away. Not only food but also any thing which smells should be locked. There are many storage containers in the park to save your food and other items.

You can check out more Sequoia images at my flickr page

Singh is King...

Last Saturday me and my wife went to Singh is King a bollywood comedy movie. It was 2 hours non stop hilarious and brainless comedy movie. Akshay was great...I would give 4 out of 5 stars to this movie and recommend to everyonewho loves brainless comedy to go and watch this movie. This is definitely a laugh riots.

Berkeley Kite Festival 2008

Yesterday i went to Berkeley Kite festival. This was a very colourful event, i was seeing big kites first time in my life. Various Kite companies demonstrated various kites made of paper, bamboo, they also organize Kite competitions, hundreds of kids were enjoying the free kite making. There was also lots of food stalls. Thai, Fish, seafood, sushi, corn on the cob, pretzels, Ben & Jerry ice cream. I enjoyed Ben & Jerry ice cream.

You can check out the various kites images at my flickr page

Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, San Jose

I got chance to visit Egyptian Museum in San Jose, CA. I was amazed to see this museum, they had Mummys, statues, history etc. They have very big collections of old history. I was fascinated after learning Egyptian history. I highly recommend to everyone to visit this place if they are in Bay area. I took lots of photos of Statues, articles. You can check out the various collections photos at my flickr page. And to know more about this museum, click here

What is Symbian Signing?

Symbian signed is, its application signing program that promotes best practice in Symbian OS content and application development. The program tests applications against industry-agreed criteria in support of network operator and mobile manufacturer requirements.

Symbian Signed offers three signing options to support the different needs of Symbian OS, these options are

Test House Certification: Suitable for ISVs with a small number of applications. Applications are submitted to the Symbian Signed portal and tested by an independent third party test house.
Self-Certification: Suitable for ISVs with more than 15 of their own applications that require Symbian Signed status. ISVs or network operators certify their own applications through the re-use of internal, recognized quality assurance processes.
Publisher Certification: Suitable for application publishers, Symbian OS licensees and network operators or any public software distribution portal owner. The publisher tests and certifies the application using its own quality assurance processes on behalf of the originating ISV.

Symbian Signed typically guarantees that a signed application

• No files remains on the phone when the application is uninstalled
• The application only creates files on the drive where it has installed unless the user has explicitly given permission to write files elsewhere.
• The application can be closed thought the applications task list.
• The application detects low memory conditions and behaves correctly. Typically it should not start under particularly low memory conditions as this may compromise other key functionality of the phone.
• The application pauses when necessary, for example when there’s an incoming call.
• The application does not crash when storage memory is full.
• The application consumes too much system resources
• The application has been signed against a valid developer identity certificate.

Samsung Blackjack 2

This is one of my favorite phone. Blackjack 2 is light, compact, slick with great call quality, what else you need from a smartphone. It runs on windows mobile 6.0.

Samsung BlackJack i617 aka Blackjack 2 features

* 3G Broadband
* Built-in GPS
* 2.0 MP Camera/Camcorder
* Bluetooth
* Microsoft DirectPush & XpressMail

San Francisco Carnival Parade

San Francisco Carnival is organized every year in the month of May. This is two days event including various performances, food stalls, a grand parade, King & Queen competition. In this carnival parade various cultural groups participate Latino, Philippine, Chinese etc. Check out here for more information. Check out my flickr for colorful images of this grand parade.

How "Bluetooth" name is coined?

What is Bluetooth?

Bluetooth is the term used to describe the protocol of a short range (10 meter) frequency-hopping radio link between devices. These devices are then termed Bluetooth - enabled. Today Bluetooth technology has become a norm to replace cables from short range electronic appliances. Bluetooth radio modules operate in the unlicensed ISM band at 2.4GHz, and avoid interference from other signals by hopping to a new frequency after transmitting or receiving a packet.

Do you know how Bluetooth name is coined?

Bluetooth has a very interesting namesake in the person of a 10th century Danish King. Personally responsible for the unification of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, King Harald Blatland’s legendary affinity for tooth-staining blueberries gained him the nickname of Bluetooth.

Just as King Blatland successfully united different cultures centuries ago, bluetooth technology has united the realms of today’s electronic devices with resounding success. As a wireless tip of the hat to King Blatland, Bluetooth technology has embraced the runic alphabetic characters for H and B as its logo.

Pursuit of Happyness

Pursuit of Happyness is one of my all time favorite movie now. I saw this movie two months back and was amazed how one can change his/her life with only one thing dedication and hardwork. Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is a poor family man
struggling to make day to day needs. Despite his valiant attempts to help keep the family afloat, the mother (Thandie Newton) of his 5 yrs old son Christopher (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith) is buckling
under the constant strain of financial pressure. No longer able to cope, she reluctantly decides to leave. Chris, now a single father, continues doggedly to pursue a better-paying job using every sales
skill he knows. Finally He finds an internship at a prestigious stock brokerage firm, and although there is no salary, he accepts, hoping he will end the program with a job and a promising future. Without a
financial cushion, Chris and his son are soon evicted from their apartment and forced to sleep in shelters, bus stations, bathrooms, or wherever they can find refuge for the night.
Despite his troubles, Chris continues to honor his commitment as a loving and caring father, using the affection and trust his son has placed in him as an impetus to overcome the obstacles he faces. Story is
written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

This is a very emotional movie, i recommend you to watch it if you love emotions.

Point Reyes, CA

Last month me & my group of friends went to Point reyes. Point Reyes is a prominent cape on the Pacific coast of northern California. It is located in Marin County approximately 30 mi west-north of San Francisco. In Point Reyes you will feel connected to Nature, it has full of redwood trees, lots of hiking trails. It also has a light house. Near the light house this place is very foggy and even during summer noon time it was difficult to even stand there. It was so windy & foggy that we could hardly spend time outside our cars. By official records too, this place is the windiest and foggiest on the Pacific Coast.Point Reyes Light Station is one of the District’s outstanding tourist attractions. This place is good for Hiking, picnicking and Kayaking. You can check out Point Reyes photos at my flickr

Nokia N95

Nokia N95 was unveiled in September 2006 and was released at the end of March 2007. N95 runs on Symbian OS Series 60v9.2. This phone has some of very compaling features.

GPS - N95 has integrated GPS and loaded with Nokia map navigation software. Also these maps are free and can be downloaded for your country from Nokia website.

Multimedia - N95 is a music player with a slider dedicated for music controls. This phone supports WMA, MP3, real audio, midi, MP4 formats (There might be other formats as well, but i have not tried them).
Another great feature of this phone is TV-Out control. TV-Out allows user to connect the phone using supplied tv out cable to any TV. This helps phone owner to watch videos on big screen, see Photos on TV and user can also use internet, music, games too on TV screen.
Phone also has FM Radio, Videos recoding can be done in VGA (640X480) format.

Camera
N95 has integrated 5 MP camera with autofocus. It has Carl Zeiss optics. Phone also has front video call camera

Internet
N95 has build in WiFi (802.11b/g), it supports UMTS, EDGE, and HSDPA network for fast internet connection.

Other features
USB 2.0, 4GB or 8GB variant, two way slider

Overall this is very good camera with tonns of loaded features. Only negative points i find is, it does not have QWERTY keyboard. If you are not a too much email or SMS savvy on mobile then this is a must have phone. Actually i would rate it better than iPhone

iPhone a super hyped phone

I don't understand what is so much exciting about iPhone. If you compare iPhone's feature with Nokia N95 then you will find, iPhone has less to offer. More over there are some problem which are basic in nature, iPhone battery life is poor, the battery can't be replaced. It has no voice dialing, no hardware keyboard and you will make tonnes of mistake while using soft keypad. Over that you pay recurring premium every month. So what is there in iPhone which inclined people to by
iPhones, there are few good things about iPhone it's elegance, sexiness, ease of use and the user interface. So i am not against iPhone and i want an iPhone as badly as the next guy, but iPhone is much hyped than it's features set. I am waiting for 3G iPhone to come out to store....