Yesterday I received my new Cingular 8125 windows mobile phone as a replacement to anothe one which I had since few weeks. The old one used to hang randomly after the phone call is done; and at times; the touch screen suddenly stops functioning . So, after calling the warrenty department, they sent a new replacement.
I used the builtin WIFI to connect to internet as I do not have the data plan yet from Cingular. I installed the following free applications to play with it as I got 2GB mini-SD card as the storage card and plenty of space left.
- TCPMP Media Player to play DivX video songs along with free Codecs like AC-3 from its corecodec website. This is must needed to play videos that Windows Pocket version of Media Player does not support.
- Free Vista themes from http://freewmthemes.com
- Yahoo! Go 2.0 which is a internal version, yet to release to public; syncs both my copy and regular Yahoo! mail. Good thing I really liked about this is, I do not need a VPN to get my corp e-mails!
- Total Commander to edit registry to have the support for Wifi-G; which is disabled by Cingular by default; instead they allow only ‘B’.
- MagicButton Task Manager to control all currently running/open applications. This is a must have handy utility, which displays small icons on the top of today screen.
- Pocket Putty to connect to my linux and web servers using ssh or telnet. Its real cool to work from mobile sometimes.
- Terminal Services Client; to remotely connect to my home Windows box. It came with pre-installed.
- PHM Pocket PC Power Toys, comes with nice tools like notepad, voice command to perform tasks, run command, reset for soft reboot, suspend, tray launcher and a task manager. I really liked this; but everytime the unit boots I get a error notice that ‘traylaunch’ can not be found; not sure it is becuase I installed on to storage card. Anyway, uninstalled it.
- PocketNotepad; which is similar to notepad that you get on Windows; and must needed one for every day use.
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Few things that I did not like in 8125; am not sure if they were rectified in 8525 which is released few months back:
- By default the WIFI is not enabled; and when you do soft reboot; its get disabled. I could not find a way to make it auto start along with Windows. May be they disabled it becuase of battery life; but should have left with an option for end-user.
- The screen some-times is annoy; and it never responds.
- Overall the speed of the system when loading apps is not that great. May be I need to get adjusted.
- I could not find a way to associate file types to open with certain applications.
- I am not able to reach the contacts directly as in case of regular phones; either I have to use stylus or pull the keyboard. Currently I am managing with voice dials for frequent callers.
Lately am facing some issues with some of the code that I had written in the fast to learn the things in the free time. I never had any source code license for any of the code and when I join a company; some of them were re-used and part of the product line. I was very much happy to give away as at least there are people to use it now.
For example; here is the list of products that I developed.
- ODBC Command Line Utility
This is a simple command line utility that connects to any ODBC data source and executes queries and displays the results. The name of the product was odbcisql and later on this is adopted in my later companies.
- ODBC thin layer for cursor library
This is another good library that I had which implements all ODBC cursor library
- ADO.NET Provider on top of ODBC.NET and managed code
This was developed as part of my learning curve for ADO.NET. I wrote this ADO.NET provider on top of ODBC.NET and few functions using managed code to take direct advantage of underlying ODBC Driver Manager (odbc32.dll) which are not supported or exposed by ODBC.NET. During this process of development; I had few issues that was noted in ODBC.NET and they were reported to Microsoft as well.
You can also find related article Exploring MySQL in Microsoft.NET environment from MySQL dev center. After I left MySQL, I decided to write this provider as it elimiates any database company to have their own native ADO.NET provider instead they can use this on top of their existing ODBC Drivers. Even though ODBC.NET does not provide all the features demanded by ADO.NET; but I was able to manage it using managed code, for example the simple catalog info.
- OdbcCommunicator
This is a GUI tool written purely in C# as part of learning .NET. This is actually done by my wife Priya and I helped her a bit. Which actually uses the above ADO.NET layer over ODBC.NET; so that this GUI tool can also be used with all ODBC data sources. This tool initially uses Sharp Develop editor plug-in called ICSharpCode.TextEditor and later on Priya developed her own editor plug-in. Even though this editor was not so much customized; but we never had a chance to look back as its stalled.
Currently am planning to license all the code, so that even if I need to give away to anybody; it becomes easy. There are few more products; but I need to dig my old computer hard disks and backup disks to find any.
This is really a nasty week for me as I have to prepare and submit all the documents needed to transfer my H1-B visa to Yahoo! inc. Immigration is one of the process that I really hate in my whole life. Here is the list of docs that I submitted to Berry, Appleman & Leiden LLP, who is incharge of immigration for Yahoo!
- I-140 and Labor approval notice
- I-797 of current employer along with all old employers of mine and H4 dependent
- I-94 receipt of mine and H4 dependent
- Copies of all passport of mine and H4 dependent
- Recent pay stubs
As I changed the job from ANTs to Yahoo!, I need to do the same process again. I still do not understand why IRS needs all the documents back and forth. As they have everything already; they should just cross check from SSN and/or I-94 receipt and do the approval for the transfer. If it is a new H1-B then we can imagine why they needed it.
Anyway, am crossing my fingers now; as I already completed 6 yrs and on 3-yrs extension now (I just got this 3-yr extension a week back as I have I-140 approval). Only thing that is pending is; once my H1-B is transferred I wanted to fill for my labor and get the I-140 ASAP; so that I can take advantage of my old priority date.
Last Friday (Feb-09-2007) was my last day at ANTs Software Inc (ANTs.OB). I joined ANTs in 2004 and after about 3.0 years I decided to leave the company as I did not like the work what I was doing lately.
Within last 5 months, am like 5th or 6th person to leave ANTs after like Boyd Pears - CEO, Girish Mundada – VP, Prasad Kommoju – Dev, Rao Madduri – Dev Contract and Myself and a recruiter as well.
When I decided to leave, I felt so bad whether to really leave ANTs or not as company is taking good care of all employees. But after the ill-treatment on the final day, I do not regret myself any more. Sudos to management!Â
