Leisure: Pretty Good Podcasts

I'm relatively new to the podcasting world. Although I've known about them for a long time, I never got round to subscribing to any of them mainly because I saw it as something exclusively for mobile devices. I finally got around to checking some podcasts and I found two which I specially like.

GeekBrief.TV
This is your normal geek tech news feed which delivers alot of good content in a small time. They interview people from time to time. It's not gizmodo but it's the best tech feed that I've seen so far. Feed Link: http://geekbrief.podshow.com/wp-rss2.php

ChannelFederator
Being a cartoon buff, I couldn't stop myself from subscribing to this feed. It puts up a new episode about once a week containing independent animations and sometimes some vintage classics.
Feed Link: http://www.channelfrederator.com/rss

Life: Online Registration for June Term Subjects

Online registration for subjects has thus far remained a luxury limited to the students of the CSE department. Not any more. For the first time we opened up online registration for the next june term for the whole faculty. Everyone was waiting until 9 a.m. to pounce and pick the easiest subjects (of which meditation was one). Within two seconds after the opening of registration, meditation was gone. Other subjects followed suit. The system didn't have a mechanism to check whether students were enrolling for more than two subjects. The result was that some unluck ones were left without any subjects. Makes you wonder whether they should have picked a time like midnight to open registrations.

Before:
After:

Phones: Sony Ericsson Fun & Downloads Section

Sony Ericsson's fun and downloads section is a cool idea. You could find loads of wallpapers and themes and a coupla ring tones. Most of the wallpapers seem to be promotional stuff so they wouldn't exactly express the creative side of you.
The most significant drawback is that users can't share their own creations. Such a feature would create a strong community feeling among SE mobile users and increase brand loyalty. Their might be copyright issues and legal stuff that might come up from time to time. The work around would be to put in a disclaimer clause or to evaluate each submission before puttin it up for downloadin.

Views: Premium Mobile Phone Stuff???

Do we actually need em. Get any decent phone suite and you'll get enough tools to create your own wallpapers and ringtones. I'm specially pissed off cos my carrier is charging HUGE amounts for stuff thats not worth it.
Recently I got two ringtones by Chinthy each for 30/= which is way too high. And it was only about 25% of the song. Come on!!! I could have ripped the song from the audio cd and created my own ringtone! (Hope that's not illegal..) I don't mind paying 30/= for a premium RINGING tone cos frankly... I don't have a choice... but for a ringtone???
Next time you want a ringtone or wallpaper OR video (you have to mess around a bit to create your own vids but I guess no one really downloads them anyway)... see if you could create it first before gettin it from the carrier SPECIALLY if you live in Sri Lanka and using Dialog... OOPS! I said it!!!

Stuff at Yahoo Mobile (not available in Sri Lanka)

Software: Mig33 - Cool Messenger for Java Mobiles

This app is mainly for making calls via gprs but you can also use it as an MSN/Yahoo messenger. Yep there are other mobile messengers but the cool thing about this is that it's MUCH faster than most other apps (actually it's the fastest I've used but then again I haven't used ALL of them).
You can join or create chat rooms and stuff...

Oh yeah... you can download the app for free :)

http://www.mig33.com/

Phones: USB bluetooth adapter

Got myself a new usb bluetooth adapter so I could connect my (outdated ;)) k700i and pc. It cost about Rs.1800/= (company - VPI ???). Anyway, there were some other branded and supposedly better adapters.

Seagate 10m - 1750
MSI 20 m - 2400
MSI 100m - 2800

All prices are in Sri Lankan rupees. I didn't actually bargain for these models cos I wasn't gonna buy any of them so it's quite possible that you'd be able to get for around 200 - 300 bux less.

The smooth operation of the device was quite a surprise. I was able to get file transfer, serial port connection, object push and computer controller running straightaway without any probs.

Sometimes the phone wouldn't get detected but this could be fixed by stopping the bluetooth service, removing the usb adapter, pluggin it in again and restarting the service.
Ran into some issues getting the GPRS internet connection going but finally got it to connect by replacing the number to dial from something like #9**1 to something like #9****6.
It's a bit slow sometimes and seem to crash when transferring large files about 5mB. Donno whether these are common issues so you should probably consider other brands before buyin one like this. I'm pretty happy with the VPI model for now.

www.vpi.us/usb-bluetooth.html