The database migration went smooth (though I had to use some tricks), but I’ve now to fix the image URLs manually and also work on modifying the template. Over the next few days I guess, depending on when I’ve time in hand.

Adios to Nucleus, my faithful blog engine for 3½ years.

It has a sucky camera (VGA, 640×480 pixels), but I’ll never need to use it. My Sony Ericsson W810i comes with a very good camera but I’ve hardly taken any shots with it. It will also no doubt have some very cool apps available including games, online bingo, videos and other things like that. I don’t need too many apps but it is always nice to have a few things to play around with.

E250 is very light-weight (80 grams) and has interesting features such as mobile tracker, voicemail, offline mode, and more. Not bad for a $100 phone!

The specs are: 1.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 mobile processor, 1GB of 667 MHz bus DDR2 memory, 2 MB L2 cache, 120 GB SATA hard drive, 15.4″ WXGA “CrysalBrite” TFT-LCD display (1280 x 800), double-layer DVD burner, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, 56 Kbps ITU V.92 modem, Gigabit Ethernet, Intel PRO/Wireless 802.11a/b/g, Type II and 1 ExpressCard PCMCIA slots, 4 USB 2.0 ports, IEEE 1394 FireWire port, 5-in-1 card reader (SD, MMC, MS, MS Pro, xD), infrared port (IrDA), mini-DIN S-Video output, microphone and speaker and so on.

And oh, it comes with German keyboard… there are some extra keys, and Z is placed on Y and vice versa!

Visit http://russelljohn.blogspot.com to find out what I’m doing right now, and what I did earlier. Keep track of me round the clock!

Here’s what raged my anger: I wanted to register a domain that expired over a year ago, but BTTB officials told me that it’s not possible if I’m not the “original” registrant. According to their dumb rule, anyone who registers a .BD domain becomes the “owner” of that domain for life. Even if he doesn’t pay the yearly due it’ll be marked as a registered domain and BTTB won’t allow anyone else to register it. Can BTTB get any more dumber than this? Do they understand how the domain registry business works?

You can decode QR Codes with a camera phone. VGA camera is good enough, no need of fancy 3 megapixel ones. You need to install a QR Code decoder on your phone, my favourites are i-nigma and Kaywa Reader. Here’s how to get them:

• i-nigma: from your phone, point your browser to www.i-nigma.mobi and it’ll automatically detect the brand and model. Go to the next step to download and install it.
• Kaywa Reader: same way as i-nigma, point your browser to http://reader.kaywa.com and follow the instructions. This reader is much more simpler than i-nigma, and I use it myself.

Now that you’ve installed one of the above programs, let’s decode a QR Code. Let’s try with this one:

Decoded correctly, the code above would display my phone number and will you if you want to call or not. The same way, it can decode URLs and take you directly to that site; decode SMS that can be sent on a preassigned number; decode contact information that can be added on your phone’s address book. And yes, simple texts can be encoded and decoded as well.

Generate your own QR Codes from this site or this one and play with it.

Day 1:  I went to BTTB’s Internet services office at Mogbazar, where they told to submit a formal application to the Division Engineer requesting him to change the DNS entries for my domain. They gave me a sheet of paper and showed me to a table to sit and write.

So I worte one and submitted it to the clerk. He told me that it’ll be taken care of the next morning.

Day 2:  I waited, hoping they are working on it.

Day 3:  I waited till the last hour, when I realised that they haven’t done anything yet. I called them up, but all their numbers kept on ringing. I was so annoyed at this! Finally after trying for half an hour on different numbers someone picked up and told me angrily that they are getting ready to go home and asked me to contact the next working day! He hung up without giving me a chance to say anything.

Day 4 and 5:  Weekly holidays, they are probably watching Hindi movies from the comfort of their homes.

Day 6:  Called up the tech guy who’s responsible for making the edit, but he told me that he has not yet received the application. Why not? No answers. So I called the clerk whom I gave it, but he says he has already sent it to the tech guy! I was like, WTF? I called the tech guy again and told him this, but he says it’s not on his desk! Once again, I was like WTF!!!

I got the feeling that I’ll have to be there in person if I want to get my job done, but I was stuck with some other work, and couldn’t make it by office time.

Day 7:  I went to their office again, and went directly to the clerk’s room. He serached for my application on a pile of papers, but couldn’t find it there.

The other staff went to their boss’s room, and after searching for 10 minutes came back with my application. It was supposed to be “approved” by their boss, but he somehow overlooked it or didn’t sign it on purpose. May he thought that my application wasn’t formal enough? When I asked them why this could have happened, they told me that their boss doesn’t stay in office for more than two hours a day and doesn’t work much in this time. Anyway, the clerk told me to wait for another day and assured me that he’ll get it done by the next morning.

Day 8:  The tech guy finally received the application. He said he’ll take care of it in a while. Time passes, my tension rises, but nothing happens. At around 4 o’clock when I was preparing to call him again, I discovered the updated whois information. Not to mention how many times I had hit F5 on the whois page the whole day.

Day 9:  I wait for DNS propagation to take place.

Day 10:  Alright, my site is finally up. Mission accomplished with much pain.

Related topic: BTTB is Pain (Posted on April 17, 2006)

Being a “Walkman” phone, the sound quality is superb, and so are the earbud headphones. The packages includes two tiny external speakers, which are of very good quality and can come handy if you want to listen to Radio or MP3s when a sound system is not available. This nifty device has a 2 megapixel camera, GRPS, HSCSD, and EGDE connectivity, infrared and Bluetooth for wireless transfers, and so on. For storage, a 512 megabyte card is included (Memory Stick Duo Pro) and supports upto 2 gigabyte.

Once cool feature of this phone is the ability to use the data cable to recharge it, which can be very useful for a tech person like me.

I’d love to provide free hosting for non-profit organisations and open source projects, so feel free to get in touch with me if you’re looking for a hosting sponsor. Youngsters looking forward to put a presence on the cyberspace contact me to get a discount… you might also end up getting a free account!

For the night vision function, the cam uses 4 infrared LEDs which are placed around the lens. There’s a bright flash-like light panel on top of the cam that acts as a filler in low-light conditions. The cam is mounted on steel tube, which can be extended upto 16″ or 40 centimeters. The tube is flexible enough to be bended and stretched to bring to cam to eye level. A microphone is built-in as well which seemed to be of good quality. It has a “snapshot” button that can be used to take quick pictures (however, it’s a software dependent feature). The front-side sliding cover is a good attempt to protect the lens, and can come handy if you suddenly need to disappear from a chat session!