One year with Nexus One!

Yay, it’s the first birthday of my Nexus One – my first smart phone. Thanks to Google. If not for a Google phone, I would have never purchased an Android phone. I totally love my Nexus One. It opened up the Android space on this blog and some of my posts became popular on the web. It gave a new identity for myself on the web. Android is so open that you can tweak almost anything and everything on your phone. Moreover, you can learn a lot by doing so.

Popular Android Posts

• [How to] Install Android market on Emulator. Link.
• [How to] Change the DNS server on Android. Link. Link.
• [Review] IP Webcam – Turn your phone into a network camera. Link.
• [How to] Change fonts on Nexus One. Link.

Some of the aforementioned articles are quoted on famous Android community sites like AndroidPolice, AndroidCommunity, etc. Check out all my posts on Android here. If you are interested only in Android related posts, subscribe this feed.

Android development. After getting the phone, the very first thing I did was to download the Android SDK. Though I have gotten my hands dirty on Android development, I have not developed anything big enough to make to the market. But, stay tuned, there is an interesting app coming soon. Also, I have written many small scripts to automate some of my daily tasks like archiving old SMSes, etc.

Any Regrets? Though Nexus One is one of the best smart phones of its generation, it has its own set of problems when compared to other phones. The first item on the list is its Touch sensitivity – on continuous usage the screen becomes sticky and less responsive when compared to Apple devices. The device gets heated up while charging. Apart from these two issues, I don’t have any major complaints with my Nexus One. The device has no front camera and is definitely a drawback. My complete review on Nexus One.

-- Varun

Happy birthday Blogger!

One of the best blogging platforms available till date, Blogger, turned 11 this month. I have been using blogger even before it was acquired by Google. It is a very good blogging platform even for a person with less technical knowledge. To celebrate its birthday, Google has arranged for the first ever Blogger global birthday party (BloggerFiesta).

 Hyderabad Bloggers meet

The Hyderabad bloggers meet (BloggerFiesta) was organized by the city based six-digit blogger Amit Bhawani at Ohris Jiva. The number of entries for the same had been restricted to 50. Around 40 bloggers turned up for the event which started around 7 PM. The event started with a quick round of introduction from the bloggers present there. There were people from different background and it was nice catching up with the fellow bloggers and their interests. After that people started networking with each other while enjoying their food. Chetan Bhawani (Amit’s brother) and his friends organized an open quiz for the participants and goodies were given to the winners. The quiz was interesting and I participated actively answering many questions. Won a gift voucher and a T-shirt too. :) Though I have met Amit on few other occasions before, just happened to talk to him personally today.

Few valuable tips about blogging were given to the participants as a hand-out. Though Amit was actively answering the questions asked to him, it could have been better had he given a talk on blogging instead of just the hand-out. Also, the choice of place could have been better. Overall it was a good experience catching up with few interesting people from Hyderabad.

Thanks to Amit and his team for organizing the bloggers meet.

-- Varun