{balki Blog}
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Last weekend I gave my wife a very nice surprise. It was a RAM aluminum bike mount specially designed for Garmin iQUE 3600 (my GPS). I was puzzled however when she not only hated the gadget but burst into a powerful tirade which involved phrases like “I will never see your face again if you do anything geekier than this!”, “You are a freak”, “Of all the geeky things you did so far, this is the freakiest”.

Two days later she changed her strategy and started debating the value of this gadget and challenged me to provide enough evidence that this tool will pay for itself, or else she would start investing in a Manolo Blahniks shoe collection. That ultimatum prompted me to start preparing this “top 10 list of benefits of riding a bike mounted with GPS”. I have been bike-commuting to work for the last 4 days, so arriving at this list was not difficult at all.

TOP 10 REASONS I NEED A BIKE WITH ON-BOARD GPS INSTEAD OF JUST AN ORDINARY BIKE:

1. How else can I save the world from pollution and depleting energy reserves? By riding a non-GPS enabled bicycle? No way!
2. How else can I save money on commuting costs? (based on various factors like my laziness quotient, the spot price for a barrel of crude oil, etc,. the bike, the GPS, accessories and the bike mount will pay for themselves within 28.764 years)
3. How else would I discover that, between our house and Corillian, the elevation ranges from 167ft to 249ft above sea-level?
4. How else would I discover that I can reach a top speed of 13.22 mph riding my bike? (top speed greatly assisted by the 24-ft elevation drop between Cornelius Pass Rd and John Olsen Pkwy)
5. How else would I reduce my cholesterol levels, and track my commute on a real-time 3D map?
6. How else would I catchup with the tons of podcasts that I greedily subscribed to over the last few months? (I have to finish listening to 134.4 hours/7.59GB/348items worth of my favorite podcasts)
7. How else would I reach work before 9am unless I adjust my pedaling speed based on real-time satellite-assisted GPS navigation?
8. What else can I brag about at the next Northern Hillsboro Geek Convention?
9. How else could I increase the odds of getting my own gym locker at Corillian to 1 in 11.75?
10. How else would I look geekier than I already am unless I add this GPS to my bike along with an iPod, a smartphone and a garage door-opener?

I am doing a power-point presentation to my wife using this list. If you can think of any other uses for my bike-mounted GPS, please add them to the comments section.

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1. 320×240 QVGA screen: The 2.2 inch TFT active matrix screen is a treat for the eyes and I enjoy every minute I spend watching photos/videos and browsing the Internet on this awesome screen.
2. The 1.3 MP digital camera/video-recorder is not shabby either. Especially because I can immediately e-mail the pictures to friends and family using one of the messaging tools (hotmail, outlook email or any of the other email providers)
3. The flight-mode: Simple yet brilliant idea. I don’t need to shut off the phone completely while flying; I just need to change it to flight-mode so I can continue doing other geeky stuff using the phone.
4. Photo Contacts: Lots of cool features around picture caller Id functionality. (PS: I am still waiting for PocketX to release a version for Cingular’s QVGA screen).
5. Support from 3rd party developers: There are 1000s of 3rd party applications out there already and there is always a possibility of writing my own! In fact I have a wish-list of features which I might someday start working on if nobody else offers them for under 14.95
6. Windows Mobile Media Player 10: The media player on 2125 is no match to iPod/iTunes but it is a pretty convenient replacement when my wife steals the iPod on Fridays. I bought a 1GB miniSD card on buy.com for 20$ and now I can listen to most of my favorite music and podcasts on my phone
7. SmartphoneNotes and Oxios ToDo list: These are 2 of the most versatile replacements for Windows Mobile Notes and TaskList. I keep discovering new features with them every single day
8. T9 Predictive Text Input and Smart contact list: Go to contacts and start tying the first few letter of the contact name and boom I can locate the number with very few key strokes (just 1 key press per letter; I don’t need to press the 7 key four times to get the letter ’s’) . For a more detailed explanation of T9, go here
9. Google Local: Not sure how google managed to pull off this application but they have done a pretty darn fantastic job! I can locate just about any business address on the map quite easily (handy links to the phone number & directions to that location are just icing on the cake)
10. Automatic profile: What a brilliant idea! I stay on automatic mode all the time and let the phone take care of switching between normal and meeting modes based on my calendar. There are several applications that take this concept even further (features like changing to flight mode based on some keywords in the calendar, and changing to silent mode after a certain time every night) but I am still debating if I want to complicate this simple and elegant feature that already works like a charm.

Technorati : Cingular 2125, smartphone
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I am working from home today because the battery in my car is busted. Our house is full of windows and I had a hard time avoiding the bright sunlight glare on my laptop screen. I tried different places within the house but nothing worked. Finally I found a corner in the house that was protected from the sunlight by multiple window curtains and setup shop there. I also created a poor man’s ergonomic computer desk using common household furniture like an ironing board and a breakfast lap-desk. As soon as I setup my desk and started working, our gorgeous kitty Ginger slid underneath the laptop and camped there all morning, creating a cute photo op for my blog.

Since one of the pre-requisites of a successful blog is posting pictures of pets, I thought this was an apt time as any other to post pictures of Ginger. So, here you go….

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Greatly inspired by the mostly lukewarm success of my attempts to keep up with friends and family in the United States, (see my previous article Calling friends and family is fun again!) I ventured on to haunt my numerous international family members and friends. And by the way, when I say “international”, I mean my home-country India and by “numerous family members and friends”, I mean my mom.

Firstly, I needed to find an easy way to dial the numbers (especially with super long international numbers). However, since Cingular’s international rates are a little too steep (click on the image to the left to see calling rates to India), I also had to find a clean way to include Sargam Direct’s (a reliable and cheap calling card provider) toll-free number as part of each international phone number. I call India mostly during the weekend, so wasting air-time on my cell phone was not a big concern.

Anyways, after a few minutes of research, I came out with an easy way of calling any international number using a calling card, with only two clicks! The key is to add appropriate number of “p”s after the calling card number (to signify the pauses while the phone waits for the automated instructions to complete) before entering the actual international phone number and/or the secret PIN for the calling card. In Sargam Direct’s case I had to use two “p”s.

PS: This technique will most likely work on many cell phones, not just smartphones. However, the process might be slightly different. For example, on my wife’s Motorola Razr, I had to “insert a pause” instead of adding the letter “p” in between.

Technorati : Calling cards, Cell phone, smartphone
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