Hello …
With several High-Def movies now available for download …
I’ve been try to figure out a way …
To watch these movies on my 37″ Philips TV …
The problem I was facing was with the file formats …
As you may know … most HD movies come as .mkv files …
And most of the Multi Media players sold today …
Do not support this format … not even with latest firmwares …
So the best and easiest way to play these movies on my TV …
Was to connect a computer to my TV and fire up VLC …
However … connecting a computer to my TV …
Just to watch HD movies …was a bit of an overkill for me …
And so the research began … to solve this problem …
My answer came from Western digital … a reputable company …
I’ve been using their products for several years …
And they’ve never failed on me … they’ve earned my trust …
They’ve recently released their Multi Media Player …
It’s called WD TV … and reviews were sprouting up all good …
It was small … good design … sturdy build …
It handles a whole lot of audio and video formats …
The best part was it played .mkv files … at 1080p resolution …
It was available in a few shops in Male’ … I couldn’t wait …
I sold the Abigs divX player from Sarotech …
Ran out and bought WD TV … cheapest was at Formax shop …
Installation was simple … power and HDMI cables only …
Picture quality is good … I mean really very good …
User interface is nice … and the unit is silent in operation …
WD TVs has become very popular now … no surprises there …
And as with all other products that become popular …
WD TVs are being modded for extra functionality …
Check out www.wdtvc.com for more info …
I wish I’ll not regret my decision to by this gadget …
May be I never will .. eh … ???  ;)
Laterx …

Hello …
Its been sometime since I blogged about gadgets …
But this sure is a good time to do so …
As you may know if you follow me on twitter …
I was having an iPhone … and I enjoyed it a lot …
I’ll be the first to say … the apple iPhone is a good phone …
Its a fancy device … its the smoothest touch phone ever …
But for me … it had some annoying limitations …
Bluetooth didn’t work … couldn’t forward text messages …
I couldn’t even send a contact’s detail to a friend …
(Yeah … i know about WeTool … it seldom works) …
These small annoyances can make one go mad pretty soon …
So I decided to get a new phone and started to explore options …
I finally settled on the new Nokia E71 … and sold my iPhone …
Believe me when I say this … Nokia E71 is an amazing phone …
Its really looks nice … and build quality feels really good …
It has a full qwerty keyboard and some kewl functions …
I use fring for IM/Skype … and twibble for twittering …
And ofcoz … I installed Opera Mini as my browser …
I’m testing push email on it … with emoze …
Its a very stable phone … haven’t crashed yet …
If you are in the market for a smart mobile device …
I recommend you seriously consider the new Nokia E71 …
That being said … I do have a small problem …
If I have a contact saved in the format +960xxxxxxx …
If I get a text message … the name would come up fine …
But if a get a call … it shows the number without +960 …
I’ve been told a firmware update would fix this …
But so far … there is no upgrade available for my phone …
I do know a guy who has the same Nokia E71 he bought in Dubai …
He doesn’t seem to have this problem with his phone …
So i guess it the software and a region setting … or both …
Any help in solving this problem would be greatly appreciated …
Laterx …

Hello …
Since a lot of us are into photography these days …
I wanted to share a very kewl resource I’ve discovered …
Its called … The Week in Photography … or TWIP …
It a weekly audio podcast … with some video tutorials …
They have a blog at www.twipphoto.com … check it out …
The show comes from Pixelcorps … in San Francisco …
These are the same guys who bring us famous stuff like …
This Week in Tech (TWIT) and MacBreak … among others …
TWIP is a fairly new show … only two months old today …
It debuted number 1 in tech category in iTunes …
And quickly rose to top 100 … and remained there since …
I listen to the show almost religiously … and I can tell you …
For amateur hobbyist photographer like most of us here …
Its a very good show … informal … informative and fun …
Check it out if you’ve time … take a listen … be a TWIPer …
Also … if you listen to or know of any other shows like this …
Let me know what they are … I’d like to give ‘em a listen …
Laterx …

Hello …
We all know nobody wanna part with any of their iPods …
But sometimes you want the sell the old to buy the new …
So here I am selling … its a 2nd generation 2GB iPod nano …
I bought it a few months ago … when I lost my old iPod …
I’ll give the iPod loaded with all kinda songs and podcasts …
So you could check out the kinda freaky stuff I listen to hehe …
I’ll even throw in a brand new pair of iPod earphones…
If any one is interested in a buying my iPod …
Please let me know here so that I can contact you …
I wish you all, but islamic extremists, a happy hijri new year …
Laterx …

Update 13/01/08 ::
Sold to Nimal for USD 80/- …
For all who showed interest through this blog and texts messages …
Thank you …

Hello …
I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a tech wish …
But if there is such a thing … here is mine …
I wish for podcasts … podcasts by Maldivians …
I know some bloggers have talked about it …
I’ve been told that a few even tried it …
But I have yet to know of a regular Maldivian podcast …
I enjoy listening to podcasts … I listen to many a week …
There are lotsa podcasts out there for you to download …
An insane number of them on all topics you can think of …
And I think it would be a good idea … a great idea …
If a Maldivian started to take up podcasting …
To talk about local stuff … to cover local issues …
Several months ago … or was it a year … I’m not sure …
I tried to put out a podcast with simon as a guest …
We even recorded a few takes … it was fun …
Then I got busy with other stuff … lost my focus …
But when I did manage sit down and learn Garageband …
And figured out how to edit and add intro/outro/jingles …
The moment had passed and the things we talked about …
Had become pretty out dated … bummer …
So I didn’t manage to put out that podcast …
But I seriously wish that someone else would …
We are here to download … to listen … to comment …
To compliment … and of coz … to constructively criticize …
So all you guys out there … if you have something to say …
Say it with a podcast … or better yet … a video podcast …
Or is that wishing for too much too soon … ???
Also … I was thinking that it would be kinda kewl …
If some radio shows were made available as podcasts …
So we could listen to them at our convenience …
Laterx …

Hello …
A friend calls … invites me for a coffee …
I go meet him … and he asks me to give him some movies …
He threw across a pen drive … I caught it and had a look …
God damn it … it was small 32GB pen drive … a SONY …
Compared to the 8GB cruzer that i carry around …
The 32GB pen was like enormous … capacity wise … hehe …
I was impressed … and wanted to ask him for more details …
But i didn’t get time … i had to leave …
Later … i come home … copy some movies on to the SONY …
On the way to return the pen I meet this techie buddy of mine …
I show him the 32Gb pen … hoping he would be impressed too …
Feeling sorry that I had that pen … he explained …
The 32Gb pen was a serious piece of crap …
You can apparently see files being copied to it …
But the files are corrupted and cant be used …
I didn’t believe him … and checked it out …
Holy shit … he was right … I couldn’t open any files …
It said something like data corrupted … or truncated …
Sulking … I fired up my HEX editor …
I’ll be damned … just a bunch of zero’s …
The pen wasn’t writing any data on to it …
It was just writing a shit load of zero’s that can’t be used …
I called up my friend and let him know what I’ve learned …
All he wanted to do was call the seller and ask for a refund …
So guys … I know there are some cheap 32GB pens going around …
Don’t fall for it … check it out really well …
Before you cough up your hard earned cash …
Laterx …

Hello …
This might be good news to some guys I know …
Not so good news to big corporations … hehe …
The hottest item on the planet … right now …
The iPhone … has finally been fully cracked …
It can now be used anywhere with any telecom carrier …
I saw a few iPhone used in male’ the other day …
Click on the pic … you’d notice MV DHIMOBILE as the carrier …
Who says Maldives isn’t a tech community … hehe …
Of course … I check out the phone a bit …
Pictures and videos just doesn’t do ‘em justice …
The actual thing is like … wicked kewl …
Only probelm is … its just a bit expensive for me …
Well … the price is gonna come down soon I guess …
I’ll just … wait this one out for a while … hehe …
But you … get it if you can … its just awesome …
Laterx …

PS::
Keep an eye on  this site …
Some kewl iPhone hacking videos might pop up …

Hello …
I just went out to meet Yattey … an old friend of mine …
He was in his office … with a colleague of his …
They were deep in discussion … when I entered his cabin …
The moment I walked in … I was awestruck …
My friend was holding a brand new iPhone in his hand …
At first … I thought it was a good fake …
It took me a moment to realize … that it was the real deal …
I immediately took it and checked it out …
It was real alright … very real … it was beautiful …
It was smaller than I had previously anticipated …
It seemed smaller than the video iPod and lighter …
I slid the screen button to unlock the phone …
But of course it would not work as a phone yet …
As we all know iPhone is locked to US AT&T network …
My friend told me that he just bought it today …
And with in a few hours … he’d try and hack it …
So that it can be used here in Male’ … that’d be kewl …
I immediately placed a bet … and he accepted …
I told him that if he could hack the iPhone …
I’d buy the iPhone off him and meet his asking price …
I don’t think I’m gonna loose this bet … what do you say ???
Thought the iPhone cannot be used as a phone yet …
It can still be used as an iPod … and other stuff …
Just holding the iPhone sent a chill down my back …
It was really beautiful … it was amazing …
That was one freaking awesome piece of hardware …
The best “I need to have that” gadget right now …
Laterx …

Hello …
I’m falling in love with Opera, no … not Oprah … hehe …
I’m talking about my favorite browser … Opera …
I have it on my Mac at home, my windows box at work …
And I also had OperaMini installed on my phone …
But I never really started using OperaMini until recently …
I was thinking what would I do with it on my phone … ???
I started trying out OperaMini on one of my commutes …
And I tell you … don’t underestimate this little beast …
I’ve learnt that OperaMini can do lot more that I first thought …
The feel, speed and functionality are just awesome …
History and bookmarks management is a breeze …
Say like … I can read any website … check out mvblogs … …
I can administer and moderate my own blog …
I can read bloglines … and pull my email and RSS feeds …
I can do stuff on facebook … even upload pictures …
OperaMini is like the best thing on my phone now … hehe ..
Opera is probably the best browser on the planet … hehe …
Try it out … you’d like it … am sure you won’t regret it …
Laterx …

PS :: Kudos to Primary0 for intro’ing it to me …