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BlackBerry announces the launch of BlackBerry Torch 9800

BlackBerry Torch 9800The day has come. BlackBerry today has announced the official launch of BlackBerry Torch 9800. This is an exciting moment that a RIM’s BlackBerry device finally comes with the modern touchscreen as well as the conventional and popular BlackBerry keyboard together in a compact slide device. And to add to the excitement, the phone has the new BlackBerry 6 OS which has been leaked and rumored about for quite some time now.

From the looks of it, it’s a BlackBerry Storm on the top and a BlackBerry Bold 9700 at the bottom. It will be available on AT&T to start with and other networks to follow.  You can find the device specs here.

BTW, it’s rumored to have a 1.2 GHz processor (not confirmed yet).

Mobilink Milestone Launch and a free phone :)

What a day in the life of a blogger!

It all started when the whole local blogger community was invited to the launch event by Mobilink and Google to join hands and make good use of the social media and blogger community to create a stir in the online world and announce the launch of the Motorola Milestone. The launch event was quite a happening event right from the beginning with free giveaway key chain with a 50 year calendar, red bull servings and a cool setting altogether.

I thought I’m the last person to reach as I got quite late though I found out the event is yet to start when I finally reached the venue. The event was all about Mobilink, its new handset Motorola Milestone and obviously the Android 2.1 OS by Google. The session was really interactive with not only speeches but discussions, interaction with the audience, several interesting competitions including sms speed typing test but the biggest of them all was a free Motorola Milestone Giveaway.

And guess what? Yours truly (yeah that’s me) ended up winning the big prize. What was the competition? Well it was “Post a Facebook status about the launch event and get most comments on it“. I’m highly grateful to my friends and fellows who commented on my status and by the time the comments counting began, I had more than 800 comments on  my status. Woohooo!! While there were many close competitors, the phone lands in my hands and now I’m the first proud user of Mobilink Motorola Milestone. My free gift pack comes with a Mobilink Motorola Milestone  handset with an 8 GB of Micro SD card and a beautiful charging doc that I use more for watching videos now 🙂  . Thank you very much Mobilink for a great free phone and an amazing evening.

More about the phone

Motorola Milestone is an Android 2.1 smart phone with a 3.7 inch multi touch TFT screen with a slide keyboard. This is the same phone that is known as Motorola Droid out there in US. The black colored device has a 5 megapixel camera and features a ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz processor for normal processing and PowerVR SGX530 for graphics. You can find more details about the phone here.

Google Motorola Milestone

The phone has been introduced in Pakistan by Mobilink exclusively and the latest 2.1 version of Android OS is the biggest attraction for me. When you  buy this phone from Mobilink, you get 3 months of GPRS/EDGE free and I’m waiting for a referral code that Mobilink promised. Once I have the referral link, I’ll update this post and you’ll get some discount on your purchase. So if you are looking for an Android phone locally, why buy used T-Mobile Androids? Go for a Motorola Milestone.

BlackBerry Apps – App of the day

BlackBerry Viigo App for RSS

As I promised to keep you guys updated with the valuable BlackBerry apps, here’s another must-have application for your BlackBerry. Viigo is basically a feature rich RSS reader. You download this app for free, make an account and add your RSS feeds to it. You can read your RSS feeds anywhere and everywhere you can carry your handset.

The app comes preloaded with several interesting RSS feeds, weather feeds, score feeds and a directory of feeds and podcast to search from. If you subscribe to video or audio podcast, you can download and play media on your BlackBerry device and it works seamlessly with the native blackberry media player.

I’ve been using it for years now as it has been a very useful tool. Viigo for BlackBerry is such a useful tool that in March 2010, Research in Motion (RIM), manufacturers of BlackBerry handsets, acquired Viigo and now Viigo team is part of research in motion.

So don’t wait and go download Viigo for your BlackBerry now..

Android – Free course and confirm job for Android Developers in Lahore

Android Training LahoreWe’ve been hearing about the Android software development training course to be held in Lahore in collaboration with P@SHA and PSEB. Things have taken a very interesting twist. The top Android development company Geni Team in Lahore has promised two confirmed jobs and four scholarships of 100% fee waiver for the students joining this course. So four lucky students will get to study it free and two of them have a job offer for sure.

Cant this get more exciting than this? Go ahead and register now.

Training details are available on this link.

I’m at P@SHA – TiE – Sofizar Constellation Interactive talk in collaboration with LUMS

I’m at a talk by Imran Sayeed organised by P@SHA – TiE – Sofizar Constellation and lums. Its expected to be a good interactive talk and man it feels so good being back on LUMS campus after quite a while.

More details about the event can be found on Jehan Ara’s blog.

T-Mobile retires HTC G1 today :(

HTC G1 Android on T-Mobile

G1 is the first phone to be launched on Android OS and it becomes a very valueable “first” pioneering the Android revolution. I’ve been using this handset for a long time now and this post at Mobile Crunch proved to be emotionally touching for me. The post says:

Today saw T-Mobile finally retiring the venerable G1, forerunner to the ongoing Android revolution. I’ve been using a G1 since launch, so this is an emotional moment for me. Let’s just take a quick trip down memory lane out of respect for a solid phone.

The HTC G1 had its first peek in technical drawings back in August of 2008. Its pricing and availability was rumored a few days later, and it was spotted in the wild and leaked by T-Mobile a few days before the official launch. We philosophized, we tested, and eventually we reviewed.

Technology moves fast and leaves behind you a lot of memories and obsolete, marvelous pieces of engineering and design that you once loved and may keep loving forever.

See original post here.

BlackBerry Apps that add value to your phone

I must confess, I always hated BlackBerry phones but since the day I was forced to carry one, I’m stuck with it and I cant help carrying one all the time. It’s been several years now. No matter if my company gives me a handset or not, I go buy one and I keep using it for all its wonderful features.

Today I’m starting a new series of posts that will continue in days to come. I will be introducing BlackBerry apps that you can install on your phone and can do more than what you do with it today. To start off, I will be listing down the most common apps that are used with BlackBerry phones. Here starts the list:

BlackBerry Messenger
BlackBerry MessengerIf your phone did not come with BlackBerry messenger pre-installed, install it today. This useful little app will allow you to text chat with any other BlackBerry user on planet earth totally free of cost. You can not only send text messages, you can send images, can do group chats adding more people to your conversation and can share your current status. Very useful and addictive. Download Now!

Google Talk for BlackBerry
Google Talk BlackBerryIf you use Google Talk for instant messaging, this is your companion in your pocket that will keep you online anywhere. Jus download this app and its as simple as ABC. Download Now!

Windows Live Messenger for BlackBerry
Windows Live Messenger for BlackBerryWindows live has been one of the most popular instant messaging tool on PC and now you can use it for chatting on your favorite BlackBerry phone. Download it from here.

Facebook for BlackBerry
Facebook App BlackBerryAre you addicted to Facebook? Do you carry a BlackBerry? This is the first app you should install on your phone. This app will allow you to stay updated all the time on your BlackBerry about your favorite social networking account. You can post messages, write on walls, send photos, tag them, comment on them and much more. Your BlackBerry will can even ring every time you get a notification from Facebook (but it’s totally customizable).

Twitter for BlackBerry
Twitter for BlackBerryIf you tweet a lot or follow twitter users, you should use this official Twitter app on your BlackBerry. Everything you do on Twitter website can be done on this sleek Twitter BlackBerry client. Download.

Yahoo Messenger Client
BlackBerry Yahoo MessengerYahoo came into instant messaging even before Windows Live messenger existed and if you have more friends on Yahoo Messenger, you should use this client as well. This official BlackBerry client for Yahoo Messenger is simple, lightweight and a breeze to use. Download.

All above apps are officially released by Research In Motion, manufacturers of BlackBerry phones themselves and are available for free. I think the list is enough for now but i will continue to introduce more software apps that you can install on your BlackBerry and can add value to your phone.

Micro Card for your phone – 32 GB

Are you looking to upgrade or buy a new Micro Card for your phone? If you are confused, I’m talking about the MicroSD card. In most common language in most parts of the world, MicroSD card is known as Micro Card. If you think your current Micro Card is too small and goes full, think about upgrading its size. These micro cards are getting cheaper every day and their capacity goes double almost every year.

With new devices, cameras, smart phones and tablets coming out every day, memory requirements are drastically increasing. Phones have high megapixel cameras like Nokia N8 having a sizzling 12 megapixel camera. Obviously the photos captured with this camera will take several megabytes of space and more pictures you take, more space is needed on  your phone.

Similar camera phones like Samsung Wave has a HD video camera that can record video at 1280×720 resolution with 30FPS. That takes a lot of space as well. You definitely need a multi-gigabyte Micro Card for that. But nothing to worry about, Micro Cards are now available in different huge capacities like 8GB, 16Gb and even 32 GB now. You can choose one that suits your needs and fits your budget.

You can buy one f these cards  by simply clicking on your desired Micro Card

BlindType for TouchScreen Phones

We’ve seen several variants of touchscreen typing mechanisms but BlindType is too good to be true. Watch this video how they use this virtual keyboard, once mastered will not require any keys shown on screen, saving valuable screen space for you. See BlindType in action in this video:

I lived in the days of Muralitharan

This blog will serve as my diary when I’ll not be around. The blog will tell you that it was an age of cricket magicians that I lived in. It was an age when the two Ws used to scare the batting line up of any world class team by opening the bowling attack, it was an age when Imran Khan raised the world cup, it was an age when Brian Lara used to keep his head lower than the bat before hitting the ball against the basic rules of cricket and scored the unbeatable multiple century more than once, it was an age when Miandad was an unbeatable middle order rock-wall, it was an age when Inzi used to walk in-to the stadium with a standard painful expression on his face and then soon everyone else’s face on the field copied his expression due to his shots all around. It was an age when Sachin Tendulkar had a never ending, never tiring and never a mundane career, it was an age of Mushy’s Spin and Ramiz Raja who became a more popular analyst than a player. I’m happy that I lived in the age of Mutthiah Muralitharan, the magician of spin and the greatest  spin bowler of all times.

(more…) “I lived in the days of Muralitharan”