From Mom with Love!

Setup by my Mom to make me do my knee-extensions... ain't it cute?

An Encounter with ACER: Are ACER Stupid?

I own an ACER laptop.
A funny thing happened a few days ago. The power cord got cut from the inside (I don't know how!) and two wires shorted which led to the plastic sheath of the cable melting. Obviously the cord was now useless.

Before I proceed further I need to explain the construction of the power cord. It is made up of two parts.
The first part consists of the adaptor and the cable which plugs into the laptop. The second part consists of the power cord which connects the adaptor to the power socket. The two are separate because the power cord changes from country to country (depending on the pin shape) where as the adaptor remains the same.

Now the adaptor bit was working perfectly and I just needed a new power cord. Since I am an optimist, I started believing that ACER, which has a brand presence in India, would be able to solve my problem in a jiffy. Oh yeah! Good customer service HAD come to India. But something at the back of my mind told me 'Dude, you are in deep shit and you don't know about it!'.

Of-course had I been in UK when this happened, getting a replacement would have been almost boring. Just go online and buy the power cord.

Anyway, so I went online and found out the Delhi ACER office (in Okhla Phase I) number (+91-11-40568000, 40568001 / 2).
Called them up and they told me all these bits are sold by their shop (The ACER Mall opposite Home Saaz) in Lajpat Nagar (these days the Toughest Market to Shop at in Delhi, coz of the crazy traffic rules and HCBS/Metro construction).
So I called up the shop and asked them about the power cord. Well.. I don't have the words to describe what I was told, but I shall try my best!
They said that they only sell the adaptor (which I didn't need) and NOT the power cord. Furthermore they suggested that Nehru Place market would be the best placeto find a new power cord.

But the only thing in my mind was ARE ACER STUPID?

I mean who sells half the power supply? How idiotic is that?

Its like you damaging the cover of the headlight on your car and the car manufacturer saying that they can only supply you with the headlight case and not the headlight cover.

What good is half the power supply in any case? I wonder who all can go around Nehru Place looking for an ACER power cord. I am lucky that I live not very far from Nehru Place.

Looking at the brighter side, I am quite happy that the person answering the phone was able to point me towards Nehru Place and didn't leave me hanging without any info.

Brain on Vacation!

Arti: how is ur brain? is it on vacation? or it never existed

Azahar: you see I have given it to you on loan!

I am sure many girls would agree with Arti!

Some new things that people call me....

I have been called many things by many people! But here are two new ones that I came across while harrassing the women of India :P

U r a donkey!
- This is funny for SO many reasons, if only I could figure out why this person thought I am a donkey?

You are warped!
- Being a fan of Star Trek I really liked this one and all it took was a telephone call!


:D - atleast the women of india have gotten a bit creative and have moved beyond calling me 'mad' or 'crazy'!

Moving to England: 5 years later...

I went to England in January 2003 for my masters.
Five years later I am still there.
Five years later I am being forced to look back and think about those days.
The last days in India and the first few weeks in England; the things I learnt and felt as I was undergoing the transformation.

Many things have changed. Things have gotten so much more easier and at the same time, tougher.

While five years are not that long a period in terms of time, the changes that have come about are nothing short of amazing. The change have come also about at both ends, not just in India or UK.

A major change has come about in the first stage of the process itself.

• Five years ago, Internet was not as big a force as it is today in the application process. With the spread of broadband, both in India and UK, the prospectus can now be downloaded off the university website instead of waiting for it to arrive by post.
• Consultants and Universities now use emails and faxes within the admissions process for communication. The whole admissions procedure has been simplified as more and more Indian students go to UK for studies. The requirement for IELTS has now been relaxed by many Universities, for Indian students, as it has become quite clear that students from India, on the whole, speak quite decent English.
• On the whole UK Universities now are keen to welcome International Student Fee (approx. 3 times the UK/EU Student Fee) paying kids from India. In fact most Universities, now, aggressively target the Indian education market through consultants and direct presence during Education Fairs. The lower ranking ones, in a bid to make money, even give discounts (termed as 'scholarships' or 'bursaries') on the International Student Fee.
• The student visa application process has been made dead easy. When I went to UK, one had to que outside the British High Commission at the crack of dawn to get the entry token for the mandatory interview. Then you had to return in the afternoon to find out the status of your application and to collect the passport. Now all applications are accepted at the posh Nehru Place offices of VFS where the documents are varified and pre-processed before being handed over to the High Commission. The passports are returned within 48 hours. Most students are not even called for an interview. You don't need to apply in person and the passports can be couriered to your house! What a contrast! From ques outside the High Commission to couriered delivery of passports!

The second stage, the travel arrangements and infomation gathering (about the city/country you will be studying in) have been similarly affected.

• Now you can get really cheap tickets (18,000/-) and special 'student discounts' on several major airlines (with direct flights). Excess luggage offers are now quite common with carriers like Air India, for students traveling to UK for the first time. We had to settle for second rate carriers with stop-over flights (Kuwait Airways).
• With Google Earth and Google Maps it has become so easy to explore the city you will be travelling to right from the comfort of your home in India. For example using a mapping software I was able to locate my friend's University department and indicate the route from the bus station. I was also able to figure out the bus timings from Heathrow. With the maps a lot of local information was also easily available. Information regarding cheap eating places (such as McDonalds) and grocery shops in and around the campus. If you have the address of your accommodation then you can even explore the area you will be living in using Google Earth and understand the lay-of-the-land.

The third stage is the actual arrival in UK and travelling to the city where you will be studying at. This can often be the most difficult and tense period for both the traveller and the parents/relatives/friends back home. Unless you are lucky enough to have someone meeting you at the airport (from the University or otherwise) or if you have travelled to the city before, you will naturally be stressed out trying to figure out how to get to your city while managing your luggage, money and important documents. At the same time your relatives back home will be waiting for you to re-appear on the radar.

• With international roaming at reasonable rates and shops through which you can get a UK mobile connection from India itself you can re-appear on the radar as soon as you land! A working cell allows you to get in touch with any and all of your contacts in UK. Even if they cannot meet you at the airport they can always guide you from far or just provide helpful advice and a friendly voice to talk to! You can contact your friends and relatives back home and they can call you (facilitated by cheaper calling rates) so that everyone knows you have arrived and you are well! When I had gone there, international calling rates were sky high. We were lucky that someone came to collect us at the airport otherwise it would have been difficult to manage with the luggage and stuff! We got a drop direct to our houses.
  

The fourth stage is the arrival in the city where you will be living. This is the settling down stage where you get your room and start setting up your own space. This is the best stage of them all! By now you have passed through the 3 stages of hell - Exile, Pain and Loneliness. Now you can start relaxing, getting over the homesickness (as you set-up your new home!), get your schedule going, enjoy the new life, start making new friends, reconnect with old friends and get into your course. The amount of fun you have during this stage is dependent upon you!

• With things like broadband and mobile Internet you will always remain connected with friends and family back home. When I had gone there, broadband Internet was very expensive. So expensive that we were sharing a dial-up connection between five people! VoIP services like Vonage and Skype have blossomed and now allow low cost calls to anywhere in the world. In fact if your family members have a VoIP enabled handset in India you can talk to them for peanuts! Mobile Internet allows the use of Skype over mobile handsets! Calls for peanuts where-ever you are!
• When I had gone there we had to spend money buying calling cards from shops and then seek out phone booths to call home. Now you have Reliance India Call service providing a virtual calling card which can be recharged over the Internet and which offers excellent calling rates!
• It was also tough to get a mobile connection let alone use mobile Internet. With 3 mobile service you can now use unlimited mobile Internet for £5 a month! They also give great discount contracts to students. We were forced to use pay-as-you-go for 6 months before we could get a contract.
• Internet banking is another big thing to come up since that time. We were forced to start with crappy Natwest bank. To check bank statements and balances one had to seek out ATM machines or go and visit the bank branch. With HSBC and Lloyds accounts not only do you get the flexibility of a fully working Internet Banking account you can also get things done on phone or through email.
• The number of Indian students in UK universities has exploded in the last five years. You are bound to find students from India in your University. During our days, it was difficult to find a large number of students from India.
  
• India has also come a long way as a country in the last five years. Now more people are aware of India and Indian culture in UK. This makes it easier to make friends there!

Perhaps the BIGGEST change in the last five years, which should really encourage students to travel to UK for studies, is the recently introduced International Graduate Scheme (IGS). Under IGS one can work legally in England and Wales for a year after completing any degree course.

When I had gone to UK, our future beyond the first year, was bleak and uncertain. Getting a job was almost impossible because we were not allowed to work full time (under the student visa) and no company would apply for our work permit. Things looked bleak and without hope once the course was completed. Many students deferred their course and started working 40+ hours in a part time job to earn money. Now students have an incentive to quickly complete their studies so that they can legally work in UK full time through IGS!

The new HSMP rules (since December 2006) further brighten the prospects beyond the one year with IGS.

Probably the only thing that hasn't gotten easier is leaving your friends, family and home behind and moving to a strange country. All in all, things are quite good now and they look to become even better as time passes!

:)

Dedicated to a special friend.
Thank you for the memories!
Thank you for making me smile!
Hope you enjoy your time in England!

Thoughts on Special Ability

Recent months have been spent in quiet contemplation of life.
Due to my knee injury and subsequent immobilization of my left leg I was forced to use crutches to get about for approximately 2 months. Spending all that time in the house, not being able to move around normally got me thinking about people with permanent disabilities.

It showed me life from their point of view. I realised how difficult even small things can become and how easily we take a normal lifestyle for granted. Taking a bath means planing each move like a chess game, climbing stairs feels like climbing Mt. Everest.

In the end, I also realised that it is about what you think more than what you can do. Your actions are limited only by your thoughts. If you think you cannot do something, then most probably you will never be able to do it!

Then the other day I was listening to a program on Meow FM (104.8 FM - Delhi) and the presenter (Manisha) was talking about sensitising children towards people with disabilities. One of the callers happened to remark that 'everyone is disabled, no one is complete, no one has everything'. This made me feel really happy for some reason.

This basic fact made me realise that we should always keep pushing ourselves to achieve new things in life. Somewhere inside we all have disabilities to deal with. How well we can over-come them, that depends on us!

Radio Ga Ga - Queen

One of my all-time favourite songs! It has an amazing video which uses clips from the famous silent movie made way back in 1927 called Metropolis

The Funny McCoy's

Check out this funny bit. ...

Real McCoy's chips with flavours such as Roast Ham and Mustard are 'Suitable for Vegetarians' (see the pic!)! Funny isnt it? I wonder which vegetarian would enjoy the taste of Roast Ham. Would they even know/remember the taste of Roast Ham?

> In fact the main thing is... what does it mean to be a vegetarian now?

> Is vegetarianism just about not eating meat?

> Is it ok if synthetic compounds, tasting like meat, are used?

> Does that still come under vegetarianism?

From IP to HoIP

What is IP (Internet Protocol)?

- It is the protocol used to create the internet. In conjunction with TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) it forms the logical basis for the internet. This blog post is not about IP or its details. If your interested in IP check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol

Networking is defined by the famous OSI 7 layer stack.

IP is defined in the Network Layer (3rd layer). The entire stack uses a different set of protocols at each level. All the protocols taken together form the 'protocol stack' which defines how applications running on your PC communicate through the protocol stack over the network. Kind of like how the CEO of a company reveals long term strategy to senior managers who in turn assign specific goals to middle managers so that the goals can be attained. In turn middle managers break down goals into specific sub-tasks and assign them to different teams.

So when you click that send button in your chat window a whole series of activities occour up and down the protocol stack in micro-seconds before your message is sent across the network.

IP is quite old (late 1970s). It was used as the foundation for richer applications like HTTP - for web-pages and FTP - for file transfer. But all this also quite old (around mid 1990s).

Following up on this was the concept of transmitting voice over IP (VoIP). This allows for efficient transmission of voice over traditional network systems (all this by creating stacks of protocols). VoIP has come into its own since 2002 and more and more data traffic on the worlds network is VoIP related.

So if we look at a time scale it is something like this -

-30 years (approx) - Internet Protocol - low level usage.

-10 years (approx) - Applications over IP (AoIP) such as mail/web/file-transfer.

-3 years till current (2007) - Voice over IP (VoIP) - integration of voice communication with packet based networking technology as compared to traditional circuit based implementations of communication systems.

I was reading "The world is flat" by Thomas L. Friedman. He predicts that the next big thing is going to be Services over IP (SoIP). SoIP is about delivering services like TV, Radio, Telephony etc. over a single connection. Treating everything like a packet of data - be it TV signals or voice signals. Where the money is charged for the services being used and not the duration of their usage.

I agree with him, IPTV is already making waves. Streaming movies and video content are already popular (e.g. YouTube). The hardware is available along with the storage to run the mutlti-media content servers.

So over the next few years we would see a growth in SoIP. But what next? What is the next thing afrer SoIP?

I think after SoIP it is going to be HoIP.

Human over IP (HoIP)

Where two people will be connected through IP directly. As computers come closer to the human, the day of embedded computers talking to each other through IP is not far. Computer based interfaces are going to form a separate sense for humans and IP is going to be the foundation to achieve the interconnect at that level.

That would mean I can talk to ANYONE or SEE ANYONE on the Earth AT ANYTIME! Usually one can just talk to the people around you (through voice). For people further away one needs to use a phone. But what if human senses were converted to IP?

So if I wanted to SEE you, you could convert your image into a live video stream and send it directly to the computer interface for my eye and it would be shown within my eye. Same thing can happen with voice, touch, smell!

Digitization of voice is already possible. With a wi-fi connection I can talk to anyone in the world (through Skype)! Down the line the other senses will get digitized and all humans will be connected.

You're never going to keep me down!

I get knocked down.

But I get up again.

You're never going to keep me down!

- From the song I get knocked down by Chumbawamba

The above lines are really inspiring. We all get knocked down at-least once in our lives. By knocked down I mean we feel as if life couldn't get any worse. Whenever you feel that way remember those above lines. Realise that those who turn failure into success are the biggest winners.

Say to yourself:

'I will smash through all barriers that stand between me and what I want to achieve, like a tank through a brick wall.'

Give yourself a confidence boost. You KNOW you can do it!

Be a tank. Let nothing stand in your way. Make your path clear through the problems that surround you. Grind your problems into dust.

The Price of Dreams

The other day I was thinking about fulfiling our dreams and the price we pay to fulfil them.



Most dreams have a clear price that you can pay to fulfil them. For example a car enthusiast might dream about owning a particular car which will most certainly, have a clearly defined price.

Then there are dreams which do not have a fixed price. There is no upper limit to the price that one might have to pay to achieve those dreams. Dreams of fame and fortune, for example, have traditionally compelled people to pay a very heavy price.

One might have many dreams to go after but limited resources to use in their pursuit. Therefore in the end it is down to a kind of cost benefit analysis to select the dreams to pursue.

All the analysis cannot answer the one moral question that has plagued mankind since the beginning: What is the price you should be willing to pay for your dreams?

Is there anything like an 'excessive' price?

What are the moral implications of chasing your dreams?

Will the paying of the price and achievment of the dream benefit a single person or a large number of people?

These are some of the questions hidden behind the one moral question, which one must think about.

Things people have said about me...

You should be banned from sending emails to OFFICIAL EMAIL IDs (SK)

A thousand devils would have died before you were born (DU)

Ek sapna to pura karo (SS)

a tight slap for you! (VG)

SHUT UP OH PLEASE FOR GODS SAKE, SHUT UP! (TK) <-This was implied and never actually spoken!

ho gaye tumhari non-tareeke ki baten shuru? (AC)

God Is Love!

The Bible says God is Love!

Thinking about Love, I wonder if the readers know that the ONLY major religion not to have caused any bloodshed in its name is Buddhism!

Maybe we should give the teachings of Buddha a little more thought.

Peace and Love.. what else do you need in life?

And India HAVE DONE IT!

A bright and young Indian team, under the dynamic leadership of Dhoni have done it! The team for once did not have anything to loose and everything to gain! I am, like the rest of India, looking forward to the coming few months of cricket. India - Australia then India - Pakistan followed by India touring Australia.
Exciting winter of Cricket ahead!

INDIA IS IN THE FINALS OF THE 20/20 WORLD CUP!

Here are the highlights of the Australian Innings!
See the wickets fall. See the sexy fast bowling from the Indian Bowlers!

I LOVE it when our bowlers clean bowl the opposition batsmen. The ball is released, it swings through the air, in-between the bat and the pad, CLEAN BOWLED!
The MIDDLE STUMP TAKES A WALK! :D
Thats what happened to Gilchrist! That was a classic delivery.
It nearly gave me an erection (being an ex-student and fan of physics!).
Because of that one delivery I will forgive Shreesanth his (sometimes) idiotic behavior and (occassional) lack of control (both over the ball and his temper).

Hayden, lost his wicket to a wild slog shot (trying to intimidate Sreesanth) and that made me want to run naked through the streets of Bristol (Thank God I can't do anything like that now!)

The Pathan Delivery (the one that got us the match) to get rid of Symonds. Intelligent bowling. Tempt Symonds with the width and yet not throw it all that wide (so that it doesn't miss the stumps!). Great stuff from the experienced bowler. He needs to be back in the team now!

Then the Bhajji yorker, right in the block-hole with a bit of flight! SWEET! UMMMMMM

The icing on the cake was the on-the-sweetspot yorker from Sharma making the Leg Stump take a walk!

I heard a familiar song during the game, being played on the ground. It was being played during the Australian Onslaught. It is a song by Men At Work - The Land Down Under. But it should be used for India after their performance yesterday!

Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover!

:D

Land Down Under Lyrics
» Men At Work
Traveling in a fried-out combie
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
She took me in and gave me breakfast
And she said,

"Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover."

Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
And he said,

"I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover."

Lying in a den in Bombay
With a slack jaw, and not much to say
I said to the man, "Are you trying to tempt me
Because I come from the land of plenty?"
And he said,

"Oh! Do you come from a land down under? (oh yeah yeah)
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover."

Oh and a final note:

The FIRST ICC MINI WORLD CUP was held in SA/Zimbabwe and India reached the Final after defeating both Australia AND South-Africa. Their Final match was against New Zealand which they lost.

This time for the FIRST ICC 20/20 WORLD CUP (again held in SA), India has reached the Final after defeating both Australia AND South-Africa. Their Final match WOULD have been against New Zealand but they lost to Pakistan.

Thus for the ICC 20/20 WC for the FIRST TIME, INDIA AND PAKISTAN are going to face off in the Finals of a MAJOR INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENT.

The Triumph of Death

Bruegel, Pieter

The Triumph of Death

c. 1562

Oil on panel117 x 162 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Keane - Bedshaped

Keane - Bedshaped



Many's the time I ran with you down

The rainy roads of our old town

Many the lives we lived in each day

And buried all together

Don't laugh at me

Don't look away



You'll follow me back (YOU ARE FOLLOWING ME BACK)

With the sun in your eyes

And on your own

Bedshaped and legs of stone

You'll knock on my door

And up we'll go

In white lightI don't think so

But what do I know?

What do I know?



I knowI know you think I'm holding you down

And I've fallen by the wayside now

And I don't understand the same things as you

But I do



Don't laugh at me

Don't look away



You'll follow me back

With the sun in your eyes

And on your own

Bedshaped, two legs of stone

You'll knock on my door

And up we'll go

In white lightI don't think so

But what do I know?

What do I know?

I know



ahahaa ahahaa ahahaa ahahaa(Choir)



ooooohhhhhhhh

And up we'll goIn white light

I don't think so

But what do I know?

What do I know?

I know



This is a VERY SPECIAL song for me. The video is what got me hooked to this song a long long time ago. Check it out. The video is just amazing!

This song is dedicated to a Very special friend in my life. The one who ended the night and bought a new dawn!

What do I know?
I know

:)

KC

A.

The Bible and its Prophecies...

Recently I was reading about the so called 'prophecies of the Bible'. The text talked about how the Bible predicts things. Some of which have come true and some are yet to come true.

It got me thinking about how we use religious texts. We use them mostly to push our own ideas. We interpret them in our own way and use them as a basis for spreading our own idealogy and proving or disproving theories. From justification of violence to creating false hope.

I think all religious texts tell us how to live. They are good for the here and now… they were good when they were written, they are good now, and shall remain so in the future.

The main reason for this is: these texts were written by humans for humans. The essential human nature has not changed. We still do many of the same things that we did back then. The method might have changed but the act hasn’t.

We still get up, go to work, come back home, sleep, eat, make love, produce babies and so on.
Our core emotions are still the same. We still love, hate, get embarrassed, get jealous etc.

What made us human back in the days of the Bible (or any other religious text) makes us human even today (and hopefully shall continue to make us human in the future!)

Therefore one should accept the Bible and OTHER religious texts not because they help us in prediction but because they help us understand ourselves.

The interpretive analysis of the Bible and connecting it with prophecies can be done with any religious text. But we should remember this, when we interpret something as complex as the Bible (or for that matter The Gita, The Ramayana, The Quran, The Torah etc.), we do end up putting our own knowledge and beliefs in the interpretation. No interpretation can be purely objective.

Therefore just accept the religious texts as a window into your soul and nature. Not as a guide to what is going to happen tomorrow.

Why?

Because your tomorrow, is largely in your hands!

Flowers of the Arctic

Posting some old pics I came across from my Yellowknife, Canada trip, thanks to a friend!
These pictures were taken using my Sony camera.

Nokia 6110 Navigator

NOKIA 6110 NAVIGATOR

The phone with the slider open.

The 6110 Navigator is the latest phone from Nokia. It is a slider phone as you can see above. The slider mechanism is quite solid and feels reliable. The screen is a 2.2inch QVGA high resolution one (just like the E65).

It is a 3.5G phone (supports HSDPA) and has a front facing camera for video calls. Just above the camera is the light sensor which modifies the brightness and keypad lights based on ambient light. This is quite useful and saves the battery life. So for example when you are in a well lit area the keypad buttons don't light up. But as soon as the lights go down (say when your in a movie theatre) the keypad lights come on.

This phone has 7 main interface buttons and a 5-way navigation/click key in the centre.

Two buttons below the screen (blue light) are for selecting the screen options. The green/red keys are for connecting/disconnecting calls with the red key doubling up as the power on/off key. There is the traditional 'Menu' key and a cancel 'C' key. The final key (in between the 'C' and Menu keys) activates the GPS application (yes the 6110 Navigator has in-build GPS!).

On the left side there is a programmable 'My Own Key' which you can set to any application you like for one click access. On the right there is a +/- key used for the camera and volume control along with the shutter key.

The 6110 compared with Sony Ericsson P990i.

Volume: 89 cc
Weight: 125 g with battery
Dimensions: 101 x 49 x 20 mm

As you can see the phone is not all that small (especially when you compare it to some of the Samsung sliders) but then again it has TONS of useful features. The metallic finish ensures that keys feel sturdy.

Top view, from L to R: Power connector, cradle connector, 2.5mm headphone jack.

The phone has quite a few different connectors all over the place. The top part of the phone contains the power, cradle and 2.5mm headphone jack (which makes it really easy to use your normal headphones with it!). On the left side it has a small-formfactor USB port which means you don't need a special data cable to connect it with your PC and a Memory Card slot (microSD - 512mb card comes free with the 6110 in UK).

The main screen with the Light Trails theme.

The interface is very well designed and the software really quick (especially when compared with some of the Sony Ericsson phones). The phone comes with Real Player, MP3Player and it also has built in FM-Radio. It comes with QuickOffice and PDFReader application and of course special GPS applications, maps and navigation software. Games are bit boring (just Snake and Marble).

The back view with the slider and camera shutter open, note the GPS antenna.

The main camera on the phone is a 2.0 Megapixel one with flash. It is protected with a shutter. In the above picture the stereo speakers can also be seen below the camera housing. These stereo speakers provide 3-D affect and allow the use of '3-D ringtones'. How useful that feature is, well that is up to you! With the slider open the GPS antenna can also be seen.

The Nokia Navigator map application, note the Navteq and Route 66 logo.

The mapping application uses Route66 software. The GPS is really powerful and was able to do a cold start within 2 minutes. Hot-fix is established equally quickely. The software application is surprisingly powerful for a small phone like this. 2-D/3-D views, landmarks, places of interest, pedestrian option, digital compass and many other features packed into the software. If your operator supports it, you can pass your location on to them and they will dynamically update 'places of interest' within the software, based on your location!

The top-view map with the GPS running.

It is a fairly feature packed phone. I think the phone would have been successful even without the GPS. But the GPS adds that extra punch to the list of features. With a large number of supported countries (with maps) this is the kind of phone which you would WANT to carry with you all over the world!

Without the GPS, the 6110 would have been just another 3.5G smartphone. But with the GPS it becomes much more than a phone.

The Negatives

Well I did not have many complaints with the phone. A minor complaint was a lack of good application software and the fact that a 3.2 megapixel camera would have really hit the spot. Perhaps, also, Nokia could have been a bit less lazy and made a slightly larger screen (rather than re-using the screen from E65!).

The Final Word

If you were looking out for a GPS receiver, you should instead go for this phone. Just think of it as a GPS receiver with a smartphone and camera built into it rather than a smartphone with GPS.