Venu Anuganti Blog

Yesterday evening (08/27/2007) I brought the brand new 2008 Mercedes Benz C300 sports sedan from Smythe European Benz Dealer. I was waiting for this model since few months as this is a brand new third-generation C-class body style which replaces the existing second-generation C230, C280 and C320 models.I just brought the base model (Steel Gray Metallic with Black interior) with the following options: Automatic Transmission Premium-II package I also wanted a ipod integration kit, which might be installed in later stage as Mercedes is still working on the support. The only package that was missing is the multimedia packagewith navigation and 450 watt harman/kardon 12 speakers. But to get this package, I have to wait for another 2-months.

I was tossing between Lexus 2007 IS250 and this model since couple months as IS250 has extra features like nice sound system, touch based navigation, backup camera, ventilated leather seats for almost 2K less than the C300. But anyway finally opted for Mercedes over Lexus.

Finally I also own an iPhone now. I ordered this on Aug 22nd and has the phone in my hand by 24th morning 10AM with the default free shipping. Good and fast shipping service from Apple. I used to think Dell used to ship the products asap if they are in stock, and looks like apple is also doing in the same way.

I enabled it using iTunes with another 2-year contract with Cingular with extra 20$ for the unlimited data plan. The phone is real surprise to me in terms of features…very good design and break through technology and most importantly its user friendly.

I thought the following could have been a nice to have features in iPhone as I felt lacking of them is becoming hard to keep the iPhone as the replacement to the other phones (I used to have Cingular PDA 8125 and Blackberry 8700C):

Features that I really liked in iPhone: 

• Light weight and cool UI interface
• Easy navigation to most of the features like stocks, weather, maps
• Safari browser with zoom in and out using two fingers
• Screen scrolling using fingers
• Phone and iTunes together
• Video clarity is too good (especially when playing ipod videos or you-tube)
• builtin Camera photo resolution and its clarity
• Yahoo! mail interface without the need of pop interface

Features that are needed in iPhone for common use:

• Copy and Paste functionality 
• Built in AIM for Yahoo, AOL and MSN
• Improve in the sound quality of the incoming voice, its very hard at times to hear other party and looks like other do not have any problem in hearing
• The home button is not that sensitive in the unit that I got, some times I needed hard press.
•  I noticed the safari browser often crashes and it immediately goes to home screen and you lost what you visiting. Could have been nice if they had a nice auto recovery of the last visited links
• After I place a call, I never able to go back and end the call, automatically the screen is locked by that time.
• Lack of flash support in the Safari is really a pain as we can not use all websites
• Easy way to configuration to support the keyboard with both numbers and letters in one-dial pad.
• Call Log history should have been with some more basic features like distinguishing incoming and outgoing calls along with the total time spent on each call
• Separate TODO list or gadget
• Safari setting to have the default home page (good that they provided a way to toggle between the Google and Yahoo search engine)
• Speaker volume is pretty much limited, it should have been bit more louder
• Maps feature should had a way to change from default Google to Yahoo and/or Map quest as Google maps often gives wrong routes.
• Lack of remote connectivity tools like a shell or terminal, ssh, putty, VNC viewer and a remote RDP client
• Maps is not  fully features (at least should had a way to re-route or finding a alternative way)
• Way to integrate web-based exchange e-mails
• Bulitin RSS reader could have been a great addition
• Could have been nice if ipod had its own Album section instead of going to more and then selecting the albums.

Overall its really a cool toy to play and it mostly suites for day to day software engineers life.

Recently I noticed that my Macbook pro is getting over heated and on the other day I almost felt like it will cause a fire…but the good and old Windows Vista shutdown itself without any notice …I am guessing may be because of the heat or it could have done my Macbook heating sensors.

What is happening is; lately when I goto office, I immediately connect the Macbook Pro to external HP 24″ LCD monitor along with external mouse and keyboard and close the Macbook lid by booting to Windows Vista under direct Bootcamp.

Normally its gets hot and the fan spins like anything under Bootcamp. But otherday it was such that I couldn’t even touch the laptop at all…man ? what kind of air ventilations the laptop has when the lid is closed ? Looks like closing the lid is the actual cause. I only noticed this when my laptop suddenly shutdown itself without any notice (just power-off, not a regular clean shutdown) and powering on back, boots to Windows and then shuts down automatically. After keeping the lid open for 10-15 minutes and then restarting the Macbook seemed to work fine.

So, no more closing of the Macbook LID when connected to external monitor… 

Today CNet blog posted an entry related to Windows virtual machine performance on the Mac and it is interesting article to read when VMWare(VMW) when to IPO. VMWare Fusion 1.0 seemed to out perform Parallels in all the scenarios except that the Fusion is not able to run Quake 4 where as Parallels was able to. Not sure if it is a legitimate test as Fusion was using more than one core in the tests along with 128MB RAM where as Parallels was restricted to single core(it does not yet support multi-crore) along with 64MB.

Using Bootcamp is the best choice as it runs the Windows natively and lately I only boot to Windows using Bootcamp instead of using any of the virtualization software as I always end up into some sort of problems (like OS and/or office activation and random crashes and white screen of death).

Finally I also filled my I-1485 for Green card on 08/15/2007 just before a day as 17th is the last day to receive the application. I was bit lucked out in this case as my new PERM though Yahoo! got approved on 08/14/2007 evening at 5.00 PM and immediately before 24-hours I filled my I-1485 (Employment Authorization Document (EAD), Advance Parole, adjustment of status along with my new I-140 under EB2).

Earlier I had my I-140 through my previous company and Yahoo! re-filled my PERM immediately to capture the priority date and now am also one of the thousands of  folks waiting for the receipt. Badly as I also do not have the visa stamped in my passport; that means I can not travel outside of the USA until I get the EAD…Not sure what is this travel logic…..

Thanks to Bernadette Vergara from Yahoo! immigration team who made this happen along with Petra Bloom, Clifford Chin and Sarah Tinati from USABal.