All posts by vyom

My Nexus 7

I bought Nexus 7, 16 GB, 2012 Wifi model from Flipkart a week ago. And I have to say, it is one of my most awesome investment that I ever did. I immediately started my research on rooting it so that I can unlock the true potential of this beast. Now I have installed Ubuntu Touch on N7 and its dual boot with Android. But I faced numerous challenges in doing so, due to lack of experience in this regard. I decided to document my research and finding so that other who may want to unlock the bootloader of N7 and want to flash Ubuntu Touch can do so easily.
I am going to post this guide in three part post. In this first part I am presenting unboxing video and some screenshots of the N7 running Jelly Bean.

 
Images are scaled down, click the image to open the image in its original quality
The Lock screen:

Continue reading My Nexus 7

Mawaru Penguindrum – Anime

I have watched a few Animes over the duration of a couple of years. I have watched Clannad, a beautiful comedy drama that make me cry many times over the course of two seasons. And I have watched Steins;Gate a science fiction anime which haunted me for days with its creepy “time travel gone wrong” images. But I have never watched an anime like Mawaru Penguindrum which was confusing yet engrossing with each passing episode, although after a period of time.

Mawaru Penguindrum is a story of three main characters: brothers Shouma and Kanba and their sister, Himari. The girl Himari has a terminal illness that causes her death just as the series begins. But a magical penguin spirit revives her from death on a condition that the brothers must find a secret stuff called, “Penguindrum” which would give her sister’s life for forever.

What follows is a strange tale of complex story, subtle humor and dark pasts of the characters involved. What makes this anime unlike any other is the extensive use of Symbolism. Most of the flashbacks and even the climax are mere representations. This makes the series hard to understand since its difficult to decipher whats real and what’s not. But that is also what makes the series worth the watch. Since it relies on viewers to decipher the hidden meanings that it bestow.

One more contrasting thing about the series is its weird mix of childish humor with mature themes. The significance of the sexuality theme is once again left for viewers to decode and the one thing which have left me in awe.

Coming to music, there are a fair number of different compositions spread across the series. Two different opening theme songs, and nine ending songs. It also has three insert songs (the songs played in the middle). And all of the soundtrack are excellent, with my favorite being, “The Children of Fruit and Destiny” which I think is the crux of the series. Music amply complements the comedic nature of about first 12 episodes and the sudden pace of the tone and speed of the second half of the season.

You need to have watched a fair amount of anime to get used to the tone of Mawaru Penguindrum and to truly appreciate the genius behind it. This series is must watch for those who like to watch something different and not something clichés and formulated and its for those who like to figure things out rather than being spoon fed.

If you ever decide to watch Mawaru Penguindrum then one thing have to be kept in mind that the first half may deceive you. And you should hold on until the real plot starts to kick in. But be warned that when it comes it may catch you unguarded, while you frantically search for the answers, buried deep inside the minds of the characters.

I for one will need to watch the series again, cause I myself am not sure what actually happened with Himari and their brothers and how to interpret the climax. After all, the Penguindrum is not an easy thing to find!

After Earth : Danger is real, Fear is a choice

*** This review may contains Spoiler ***
Genre: Action | Adventure | Mystery | Sci-Fi
After Earth is a Sci Fi survival story of a boy named, “Kitai Raige” (Jaden Smith) who crash landed on a planet along with his father “Cypher Raige” (Will Smith), and have to survive various kinds of dangers that Earth greets the crash landers with.
I have to admit that the trailer when I saw it months ago, did get me excited. But fortunately I saw today that it was directed by M. Night Shyamalan, and all my hopes were out. It was this low expectation that made the movie worth a watch.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Mr. Night, but he have a knack of making movies too boring sometimes. But fortunately his last movie “The Last Airbender” wasn’t his last movie as a director. So when I say After Earth wasn’t a total disappointment, I mean it.

Story wise movie doesn’t give much to offer. Except the basic premise of survival and some flashbacks there isn’t much to say. Visual effects were also just acceptable. Certainly not that what is expected of this age. The pace of movie was rather acceptable, and father son combo was the selling point.
But what I think lacked much in After Earth, was the fact that Earth didn’t seem much dangerous to me. Mr. Night failed to get more dangers for the actor to fight against. And it felt like movie was cut short due to budget constraints at a later stage of production. This is why the time is took to built the pace seemed long, but the actual time devoted to Earth felt short and rushed.
Talking about performance of Jaden, real son of Will Smith, I have to say he needs much to learn. He is shown to be a boy who gets scared easily. But is later shown to gather courage to do what he sought out to. Its not like this is his fist cameo with Will Smith. He first worked with his father in “The Pursuit of Happyness”. But unlike that film After Earth wasn’t a Will Smith movie. After Earth can be said as Jaden’s role as a first billed star cast.
One thing I liked about this movie was the Soundtrack. It felt immersive enough. After all the music was created by James Newton, the man behind soundtrack of Batman Begins, along with Hans Zimmer.
Overall, movie didn’t feel something to drool over. But is worth a watch. Maybe when it comes out on DVD, or TV. But I liked it. It’s not a lot of times when you get to see a father and son movie that are father and son in real life.
Rating: 6 / 10.

Continue reading After Earth : Danger is real, Fear is a choice

Nine rules for how to effectively manage an FB page

I have been an admin of a page for quite a while now. I wanted to document some points that one have to take in mind while posting on pages. Cause with greater power comes greater responsibility.

1. Don’t Spam:

A page should have interval between posts. No one likes an endless stream of posts consecutively over a short period of time. You can use apps such as Hootsuite to schedule posts over optimal intervals of time for a greater impact.

2. Try to engage readers:

Ask for feedback, like, ‘do you think…’, ‘will you…’ etc in the end of your posts.
Don’t post a link directly as a post. Always give a preview of what the link is about.
Instead of “Checkout this link for new Samsung S4″, you can post something like this, “Samsung S4 seems a really cool gadget that have taken us for a ride ever since we have got our hands on it. It has this and that feature. You can checkout this link for a hands on review…”.
Point is to make a user “engage” and get their attention and if you get successful in doing that, your reader will automatically want to read more.
Remember, readers don’t like posts to which they can’t connect to. While on the other hand they don’t like posts which sounds too artificial too. So, try not to overdo it!
Continue reading Nine rules for how to effectively manage an FB page

Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani

I had low expectations from the movie before I went to watch it on Friday night with 3 of my friends. Owning to the title of the movie and Bunny (Ranbir), I thought this will be another cheesy bollywood rom-com film. First half of the film was right upto what I was expecting. Typical masala type movie with a dance number and awesome larger than life “Hero” character. But the humor didn’t disappointed, and there were many instances were we got the opportunity to laugh. Specially the tomboyish character Aditi (Kalki Koechlin, I like her), and his dialogues.
Yeh-Jawaani-Hai-Deewani-3 Continue reading Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani

Looper (2012)

Genre: Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Looper

If you know me any better you would know that I love Science Fiction. And Time Travel stories is what I live for. Maybe that’s why I was excited beyond my wits when I went to watch Looper.
Rian Johnson‘s Looper is a Sci Fi thriller based on the aspects of Time Travel. I won’t reveal the plot apart from quoting IMDb:

“In 2074, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent 30 years into the past, where a hired gun awaits. Someone like Joe, who one day learns the mob wants to ‘close the loop’ by transporting back Joe’s future self.”

You get to know the plot in the first 10 min itself as a self narration by Joe played by “Joseph Gordon-Levitt” as a lead role. And then begins a story set 32 years into the future. It doesn’t take long before we encounter “Bruce Willis” played as the future Joe, which sets the  story in true motion.
What strikes the most is the low budget of the movie. With less than half of the budget of Unbreakable (another Bruce Willis movie from 2000 and the closest movie with which I can compare the two in terms of production value) I did feel it lacked the glam of Hollywood. But that doesn’t mean movie is bad. In fact story of Looper is quite original and which stands it out from the crowd of sequels/prequels that have engulfed Hollywood today.
Continue reading Looper (2012)

Guide to Backing Up Your Android Data


Cause data = “My Precious”!
 
Little did the founders of Android know that this Linux based Operating System would become the world’s leading smartphone platform when the first Android-powered phone was sold in October 2008. When compared with the now legacy OS like Nokia’s Symbian, BlackBerry OS and iOS, Android was able to dent the mobile OS market rapidly and with a greater success than others that came before it.
Being an open source OS helped Android and as it’s approaching to Jelly Bean it’s becoming more stable, reliable and fluid like never before. But as of ICS, there are a few nooks and crannies that a user experience over the course of using it. And as such Google have make sure all the data is safely backed up on clouds of their servers a user has to make sure it’s working like it’s supposed to.
 
In this guide I am going to mention some steps that you can take in order to make sure majority of data is backed up or the clouds or on the card, since precaution is always better. And in case you are doing hard reset or just plunging into the rooting and custom ROM’s venture, backing up data is and should be at the first priority. So here we go:
 
1.  Contacts backup:

The first time a user starts his Android phone he is greeted with a Google Sign-in screen. And although the phone can be used without signing into your Google account, it’s a great step to make sure your contacts are not backed up!

So, if you haven’t signed in, do that now. And make sure “Sync Service” is enabled. You can check that by going into, Settings -> Accounts & Sync and making sure your Google ID is listed on the page and Sync is turned on. This will make sure all your contacts are backed up, which you can check by going to Gmail and observing the “Contacts” page.

The Amazing Spider-man

Watched The Amazing Spider-Man today morning.

It was amazing. Despite that it was a reboot, I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were various aspects which made this movie less dramatic but more closer to reality. I got to know a lot about Spiderman then the previous franchise ever told. Since the movie covered some aspects of the Peter Parker’s parents, it felt more involving. From the childhood to how he managed to become Spiderman, the character development seemed phenomenal. But the role of Irrfan Khan totally looked like it was for namesake.

Whoever saying it contains less action is disillusioned, or maybe skipped some scenes while buying popcorn or something I think the action was justified. Granted not a lot of action sequences were done in broad day light like it did in the former trilogy, but that played a little role in making the movie a little dark and grim.

One of the things that I missed in this version of the Spiderman was the quote, “With great power, comes great responsibility”. But I totally loved the humorous side of Peter Parker. The appearance of Stan Lee was also funny! And Gwen Stacy (played by Emma Stone) was a welcome change. She was cute!

Also, I would like to say that it’s better not to compare it with the original Spiderman. Both have their places. Personally I won’t be able to tell which of them is better until the end of the trilogy (if it’s done). But the after credit scenes guaranteed a sequel that seems worth waiting for.

Totally worth the watch for me. Might also go for a second time, with a friend. Rating: 4/5.