Great Site for Icon Freaks

Here is a great site for all you icon freaks. If anyone has not discovered http://iconfactory.com/home yet, please do so because it has some really cool collection of icon ideas.

Lekhapani Adventures

Well I hope the story is not too long :)
Anyways here it goes....
It was Holi that that day and people could only identify us with the colours on our face... late in the afternoon is when we decided to stop the play and clean up ourselves. Someone amongst us gave a wierd idea of taking a mass bath in a spring that he knew (he had only heard of) in the jungle. Without thinking of the consequences we just drove ourselves to the jungles behind our colony....

There was a guy called Pawan who used to stay in the valley and occassionally used to share his evening gossips with us during playtime. He was the one who warned us saying that it could be dangerous. But we were a bunch of adventurous kids and his warning amused us all the more. We were six guys - Debashish, Amit, Pawan, Harjinder, Dinesh and Ajab Singh. We had a battery torch, a knife and a thick stick as our weapons and ammunition :). It was 3:45PM when we started and by the time we crossed the valley to get into the jungle it was 4:15. The path was becoming darker, not because the evening was approaching but the density of the jungle was increasing. Suddenly, the first breakthrough--- we saw a Jaguar (Bagheera of Mowgli) staring at us from the peak of a tree. He had no choice rather that sitting and staring at us, as we were more in number. We just watched him for 10 minutes and carried on our search for the spring. We could hear to some unfamiliar sounds which I never heard after that in my life --- sounds of animals who were not quite happy to see men invading into their teritorry. We were all quite as we all had something in our mind because by now everyone had a blurred understanding of the mistake we did coming here without letting anyone know in the other world (the world out of the jungle). But as you know that the show must go on... we kept walking inside.

Here comes the second surprise, this was not an animal this was actually a crack of the mountain which unfortunately came in our way and seemed like a small creek which could be crossed by a calculated jump. When Pawan and Ajab Singh jumped across it was my turn and when I peeped through the creek only to witness darkness. It was deep crack in the mountain which had split it into halves. But just to prove that I was a brave kid I jumped across. Harjinder had some second thoughts in between but he also jumped successfully. Dinesh and Amit were not looking convinced and they thought of dropping the idea of jumping across. 4 guys at one side and 2 at the other doesn't work. We started convincing them that they can do it and they were not convinced anyhow. Finally they started crying and we decided to jump across once again and go back home.

Within two minutes I don't know how but they were at our side. Guess they got conviced but, a bit late :) We were happy to get each other on the other side. But we never realised that it was 5:00PM. By then and the sun was about to leave us in the jungle alone to face the dark realities. We kept walking and saw wild rabbits, few snakes and deers crossing our ways. Finally, we reached the spring.

Aha...till date I remember that surreal scene. The spring was beautiful and a huge gang of living beings were basking around--a huge gang of snakes. They were countless and all of us were chilled till our spines. We never had anything to do rather than stare at them. I feel so bad sometimes because none of us had a camera. :(

Finally we decided to go back as it was getting late. We stepped back and started walking and within a matter of few minutes it was all pitch black. We had no clue what to do. We could not even see each other. Someone tried putting the torch on so that we could see some light in our lives. But of no use Pawan said that by that we would direct the non-human creatures in the jungle to find their dinner but, I guess he was wrong as I know now light would have kept them away from us. But we all were kids and relied on whatever little knowledge we had. We were in dark again. We were walking holding each other in a series realizing that it was the biggest mistake of our lives.

The worse was waiting to happen and it happened as we lost our way back. We all felt that tonight is the last night of our lives. I dont know about others, but I could see my parents and my brother after my death. Time was passing by and we could see the increasing number of radium-lit pairs all around us. These were nothing but the eyes of creatures around us. We were so afraid that we never cared about the reptiles crawling over our toes, fortunately not hurting any of us and even more fortunately, we never hurt any of them. Now the challenge was to save our lives by finding the right way. We went back and phew!! we got a tree that we marked while coming there. We started walking on the right way now and to confirm that we were on the right path was the creek which appeared again. I guess we started seeing things in the dark by now. believe me this time it was less than couple of seconds that everyone jumped across without saying a word as we all knew that we had to survive. Just after crossing the creek the path got broader and we literally started running for our lives. After some time we could see lights in the valley and were assured that life is close now. This was the moment when everyone ran so fast that I am sure they never did in their lives again. We reached the valley :) :) :) and then we reached home as well.

I never told it to my parents and My brother knew about this few years back when I was in college. I was mentally disturbed for around a week after that. My mother asked me many times about the reason and I lied to her saying that it was nothing but unsatisfactory marks in the unit tests. I have no contacts with anyone of that group. But I am sure that we will always remember each other in this life to have faced something like that.

I hope you enjoyed reading this piece of my life as I loved sharing it. Sometimes I feel that god is really there because had he not been there today you wouldnt have got this guy in your lives...

bye and take care...

Free Windows Vista Upgrade Coupons Starting October

Thanks to Microsoft's sluggishness in getting their Vista operating system out, and thus, missing Christmas '06, they're offering free upgrade coupons to new computer buyers starting October. If you buy a "Vista-capable PC" later this year, you'll get a coupon for a free upgrade to Windows Vista when it does come out Q1 2007.
This promotion is most likely a way to placate angry PC manufacturers like Dell, who would see a sharp drop in sales thanks to people waiting until Vista was out to buy a new PC. Instead, now they can still go ahead an buy a computer for Christmas and still get their Vista-fix next year. It's a win-win for manufacturers and customers

Sony Ericsson K800i Available Soon In Brown

If the basic black and grey color of the standard K800i isn't to your liking, perhaps you'll enjoy the 3.2 megapixel cameraphone in something a bit more...poopy? The Sony Ericsson k800i is going to be available in brown starting September, exclusively in the Hong Kong and Taiwan region. After that, it'll flow all over Asia, into Europe, spreading its caramel goodness into hands of eager consumers everywhere.
If we're good little boys and girls here in the US, we may even get one of our own! Wouldn't that be spectacular?
K800i Da Bian Yan Se [Phone Daily via Slashphone]

A Live Interface

Again an amazing Japanese handset. Designed by Oki Sato the FOMA N702iS has the element of what I call a “live interface” – simply put the interface you can play with (or interact besides common tasks). The default screen looks like it’s filled with water. If you tilt the phone or shake it, the “water” will behave correspondingly.

More pics here.Image from Mobile - Review.

Living World UI

Living World UIMobile-review published today their thorough review of new Samsung D900 (it’s only in Russian for now, usually the English version follows shortly). The phone features so-called “Living World” UI with elements of live interface (apparently made using Adobe's Flash Lite 2.0). First, what is shown on idle screen depends on the country you are in – in Moscow you’ll see a Kremlin wallpaper, Houses of Parliament wallpaper in London and so on. Also it depends on time of day: sunny sky wallpaper during daytime and dark sky and lighting in the evening.
















But there’s more. Signal strength is connected to the sky condition. Good reception is represented by clear sky, poor reception by slowly moving heavy clouds. The pop-up messages for unread messages, missed calls and alarms have their own “live” representations that depend on time of day: a flying plane or a bird at daytime, shooting star and fireworks at night.



Nice move, Samsung!Images from Mobile-Review.

Sony Releases 50GB Dual Layer Blu-ray Discs

It's been an industry non-secret that manufacturers have had an easier time making dual-layer HD DVD discs than dual layer Blu-ray discs. Hence, 30GB dual-layer HD DVD media have already been on the market, beating the single layer 25GB Blu-ray discs by five whole gigabytes. But now Blu-ray has the last laugh as Sony finally gets the 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray discs onto hands of US consumers.
The 50GB discs can hold four hours of HD content, and transfers at 24Mbps. They've got a built in scratch guard and "archival reliability" to prevent bad burns. Which, at $48 a disc, would be the most expensive coaster you've ever made.

GlucoPhone: A Cellphone for Diabetics

Good news, diabetics! No, there isn't a new gadget to magically make all delicious foods sugar free, but there is a new cellphone out that can manage your diabetes easily and conveniently. This phone, from the folks at HealthPia, is essentially a cellphone and glucometer. It will measure blood sugar levels, record and send results to yourself and others and even manage your meal plans. The system uses custom software along with an LG UX5000, VX5200, or LX350 and a Glucopack. My pops is a diabetic, now while he isn't technologically savvy, I would still feel better knowing he could monitor his blood sugar level anywhere he goes. Good job, HealthPia. – Travis Hudson

Skype 2.1 For PocketPC Released

If you've got one of those 400 MHz HTC TyTN badboys, head on over to Skype to download their new version 2.1 for PocketPC devices. Among the improvements:
One click Skype access: A Skype icon on the device home screen allows users to view and call contacts easily.
Multi-person chat: Users can have multi-person chat sessions using animated emoticons with colleagues, friends and family and when mobile users are offline, chat messages will automatically update the next time user logs in.
Enhanced contact list: Users can now see their contacts avatars and mood messages.
Profile personalization: Users have the ability to take a picture with the camera on their mobile device and immediately update their profile.
We especially like being able to tell everyone that our mood for today is sulky with a slight chance of brooding. – Jason Chen

Mobile devices feature comparing tool

Not sure what phome model to buy ?Nevermind. Using the Phonescoop comparing tool you can have an efficent tool forcomparing different mobile devices fatures:
PhoneScoop Compare Tool
Unfortunately it does not mention anyting about Falsh Lite embedded feature :(Is there any wish list for next release ? ;)

Designing Isometric Adventure Games for mobile devices

If you are searching for a tutorial on how to develop a games for mobile devices, you can't miss this great resoruce from Forum Nokia :
Designing Isometric Adventure GamesThis document discusses game development, specifically the designing of an isometric adventure game, from mobile perspective. It takes a look at the design process, content creation (graphics mostly), and finally deals with the programming issues. The discussion is mostly general, but an isometric example game "Into the Darkness" written in C++ for the S60 platform is frequently used as an example.