I am back!

Hi All.

Firstly, my deepest apologies for not putting any new posts for the last 3 years! A lot was happening back then and I just got too busy to publish. This year has been quite busy as well, especially because I joined a new company ;)

Time is a horse that no one can tame, it just keeps on running ... running away. I had meant to put up a  post last December, but got busy, and one thing led to another and next thing I know, it is the start of July!

I will try to pickup momentum as time goes, starting with one post a month, and maybe increasing it to two a month.

As always, if there is anything that you would like me to cover, feel free to email me at nivleshc@yahoo.com and I will do my best to accommodate it.

By-the-way, if you are in the Southern hemisphere, and you were to look towards North-West just after sunset, you will see two bright objects, one much brighter and bigger than the other. The bigger and brighter of the two objects is Venus and the other Jupiter! Visually, one could easily conclude that Venus is so much bigger than Jupiter, but that is as far from the truth as you can go. Jupiter is the biggest of the planets in our Solar system, and one can go as far as to say that its huge gravity has made our solar system what it is today! However, it is much further away from us while Venus is very close, reason why it looks much bigger. Last night, the two were so close, you could not tell them apart, however tonight they are further apart and will keep getting so for the nights to come. Saturn can be found close to the Scorpion constellation.

Did anyone get affected by the leap second that was added at midnight UTC on 1st July? (the UTC clocks ticked from 30/06/2015 23:59:59 to 23:59:60 and then to 01/07/2015 00:00:00). The addition of that extra second was done due to the fact that earth's rotation is getting slower, which means a day measured using earth's rotation is getting longer. You can read more about the leap second wikipedia.

Also, while on the topic of Astronomy and Space, New Horizons, the space probe which was launched in 2006 to do a flyby of Pluto, is getting closer and closer as we speak to its goal. It will do a flyby of Pluto on the 14th of July, 2015, providing lots of information and photos of Pluto and its moon Charon. Previous to New Horizons, the best photo of Pluto was a pixellated image by Hubble. However, now that New Horizons has started transmitting photos, it is amazing to see the blocky pictures of Pluto turn into circles! Check out the latest photos on www.space.com

Though it might be late, but then again, it is never to late to wish you all a very happy New Year. Here's to lots of posts this year .. and to the awesome photos of Pluto and Charon in the coming weeks!

Samsung Galaxy S3 Launch in Sydney on 31/05/12

Here is the live stream url for this.

http://blog.vodafone.com.au/blog/live-stream-at-950am-thursday-31-may-2012/

Transfer Contacts from Blackberry Torch to iPhone

I hate to say this, but nowadays more people are ditching their blackberries for the iPhone or Android devices.

I recently had a request from a user who had been happily using a Blackberry Torch. He had just bought an iPhone 4S and wanted to know how he could move all his contacts to his new phone. I took this to be an easy task to do, but as I found a few minutes later, this was going to be quite a challenge. I found that I could not bulk copy the contacts onto the sim and move the sim across to the iPhone. The Blackberry Torch did not have any option to bulk copy contacts!! With at least 200 contacts, I did not want to waste a few days just moving contacts around, so I decided to find a better solution.

And here it is.
1. Create a gmail account (unless you already have one)
2. Download Google Sync onto your Blackberry Torch.
3. Sign in to your Google Sync using your Gmail Credentials from step 1. above
4. You will then be asked to sync your contacts to Gmail. Change the frequency to Manual.
5. Do a sync of the contacts so that all contacts are uploaded to Gmail.
6. Once this is complete, login to your Gmail account
7. Go into Contacts. Under More, you will see the Export option. Click this.
8. Choose the following settings for Exporting Contacts

    - All Contacts
    - vCard format (for importing into Apple Address Book or another application)

9. Once you have done this, you will get a file with all your contacts in it.

Now we will import this into your iPhone. To do this, we will login to your iCloud account.
Please note that to get an iCloud account, you will need to be running at least iOS 5.0 on your iPhone. If you have not already done so, please create an iCloud account.

10. Login to your iCloud account using your browser by going to http://www.icloud.com
11. From the dashboard, click on Contacts (you might be asked to install the iCloud Web App Plugin) Click Install  for this.
12. Once you are in your iCloud contacts section, at the bottom you will see a spiked wheel icon. This is your settings icon. Click on it and choose Import vCard
13. You will then get a popup asking you for the location of the vCard file. Point it to the file that you exported from Gmail (Step 9)
14. Once the import is finished, Viola! Your contacts would have been uploaded to iCloud.
15. Ensure your iPhone has been setup to Sync its contacts with iCloud. If it has then all your imported Gmail Contacts will now show on your iPhone.

Yay!! How easy was that?

Samsung unveils Samsung Galaxy S III .. well ahead of the rumored iPhone 5 launch

Have you been caught in the rivalry between Apple and Samsung? It seems like a neck-to-neck battle between these two giants, with Apple backing its iOS device that revolutionised the mobile market some years ago, and Samsung pushing itself into the mobile market with Android (the mobile flagship OS of Google).

As most of you might be already aware, when the Samsung Galaxy SII came out, many took it to be the iPhone killer. With such close similarity to iPhone 4, it is no wonder why this phone has been so popular. Even so because it is so easy to use and with the loads of apps and hardware features it contains, it is a must have.

There are rumors that Apple is set to release its next iPhone in the coming months. This will surely be a must see product since it will be the first iPhone that would truely be released under the reins of Tim Cook. Will it have a bigger screen? NFC chip? Faster processor? A newer look?

Well ahead of the iPhone 5 launch, Samsung has unveiled its next installment in the Galaxy S series. The Samsung Galaxy SIII was unveiled in UK not too long ago. From first looks it seems like a marriage between Samsung Galaxy SII and Samsung Nexus. Unlike its predecessor, the new Galaxy SIII has got a more polished edge (like the Nexus). It boasts a quad core processor and has got Android 4.0 installed (Ice Cream Sandwich).

Currently the Samsung Galaxy SIII has only been announced for UK and Europe markets but the company has announced that other countries will soon follow.

Will you be rushing out to buy this new phone? Or will you wait till the next iPhone is released to decide which one to get?

You can read more about Samsung Galaxy SIII at the following websites

Tech Jungle
Sydney Morning Herald
Engadget