Santosh

  • How to configure iCloud mail on Android and other devices?

    After three days of initial outage, I finally got my iCloud mail id working. It was really strange the way iCloud smtp server behaved. But anyway, I think this problem is over. After configuring iCloud email on my mac and windows, I really needed it on my android phones so that I can check my mails on the go. Here is a step by step tutorial for configuring your email client on Android phones (the setting works almost on all the devices).

    1. Go to the native email client application and go to new account setup.

    2. Fill your email address “xxxx@me.com or xxxx@mac.com” and password and click on the Manual Setup.

    3. Choose IMAP and fill “p07-imap.mail.me.com” (or p01-imap.mail.me.com etc..)port: 993 and Security type : SSL.

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    1. On the following screen configure smtp server by entering these values SMTP Server: smtp.me.com Port: 587 Security type: TLS You need to check “Require Sign In” and provide your username and password. Keep in mind that your username should not be your full email id but just the part before @sign e.g enter sa123 for email id sa123@me.com.

    2. Enter the values in option fields and enjoy your icloud mail on android. Note: You need to check your imap server as iCloud has assigned the different servers (p01-imap to p09-imap) to different email ids so check which one of the these works for you. You can also see this in your iOS device mail setting, use the same imap server for android.

    Update: Please do let me know if this setting work for you… I would like to know whether this is working universally or just for a few. Update  2: Try changing your password of iCloud account if above settings are not working. For some servers this has solved the problem. Look at the comments sections, you can see what has worked for some other people. The best blog-editor for Mac (Do you agree with my choice…share your views here) 

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  • The Mind of the Market

    For someone who works on ‘understanding markets’ and is familiar with previous works of Michael Shermer, picking “The Mind of the Market” from the bookshelf was an impulsive decision. And, the blurb made it clear that I have an interesting read for my weekend.

    Shermer, drawing extensively from behavioral economics, neuroscience, psychology and evolutionary biology, offers his explanation of our seemingly irrational and often unpredictable economic behavior. Shermer, en route to his explanations, builds an excellent repository of cutting edge research in several disciplines and provides his readers a plethora of interesting examples and theories which have been part of great debate among academics; this itself makes his book immensely valuable and enriching. He starts with drawing parallels between Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection and Adam Smith’s invisible hand makes a cogent argument about interconnectedness of these two seminal works and how they affect behavior. His rebuttal of ‘Homo Economicus’ might not be very convincing to some but it does provide some good insights nonetheless. 

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    “Morality of the market” and “morality and market” are the two themes you will come across in many chapters.
    While Shermer confesses the limitation of research findings when applied to real life settings, yet he does resort often to the same for his arguments. Shermer cherry-picks cases and examples to establish the creativity and efficacy of markets and its self correcting mechanism; and this has invited a fair amount of criticism to this book. This was almost expected if you consider that Shermer is also known as skeptic and wrote a scathing criticism for Ayn Rand’s philosophy in his essay “The unlikeliest cult in history” , in this book Shermer the skeptics takes the back seat and Shermer the libertarian emerges very strongly.

  • What I read in 2011

    Fiction

    1. Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro Kazuo Highly recommended if you are looking for a good thought provoking science fiction.  A mushy story about the lives of clones who were raised to be ‘donors’ for human beings. Was shortlisted for Booker in 2005.

    2. 1984 by George Orwell I read a couple of dystopian novels recently. This was surely one genre defining novel. Does not need any recommendation.

    3. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Probably the most widely read novel by an African author. Loved this book, reading this book was a pleasure. Simple story, simple writing, great impact.

    4. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevesky One of the greatest Russian novels. You will love the struggle of ‘the original’ protogonist  with the materialistic society. The tragic love story of Prince and Nastasya adds a number of new dimensions to relationship and love.

    5. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury The second dystopian novel that I read this year.

    6. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain A very highly rated crime novel. Some people put this novel in top 100 novels of last century. Did not impress me that much, story seems too familiar.. probably I read too many adaptation or saw different versions of the story in some movies.

    7. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King Somehow finished it. I am not a big fan of horror stories, Stephan King’s writing and story telling skills made me tolerate this one.

    8. Along came a Spider by James Patterson Wanted to read some light fiction and picked the Alex Cross series for time pass. Nothing much to write about here. A time pass.

    9. Max: Maximum Ride by James Patterson Juvenile fiction. Well just picked it out of curiosity and lack of other options.

    10. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

    I read this 15 years ago, could not get much of this book at that time. Re-read it.

      11. 2666 by Roberta Bolano A slow and very lengthy novel. Over 1000 pages. It was an ordeal in patience and test of my passion for reading as the story did not move much in first few hundred pages.

      Non-Fiction

      12.I hope they Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max Curiosity. Yes, that’s why I picked the book.

      13. May I hebb Your Attention Pliss by Arnab Ray By One of my favorite bloggers who turned author. A great satire on our life in eighties and nineties.

    1. The best indian e-book reader.

      On my last trip to US, I wanted to buy a Kindle book reader, but the pain of ordering it online forced me to by Barnes and Nobles’ Nook. There is not much difference in Nook and Kindle if you consider the book reading experience but Nook does not have a physical keyboard as Kindle does. I looked at other options such as Sony Reader and Kobo. Nook is a great choice if you want to use this book reader in US as it offers some good freebies but if you want to use Nook in India and do not have a US credit card then it is a pain. Barnes and Nobles online bookshop does not allow you to buy books using Indian crdit cards! I bought it despite knowing this fact as I was not relying on doing a lot of online shopping from Barnes and Nobles. I just wanted to transfer my collection of ebooks which I can transfer to Nook and read.

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      Recently I got my hands on a friends’ Infibeam Pi2  and this seems to be the best ebook reader for Indian market. It has more features than Nook and uses the same e-ink technology; the best thing you can buy books from Infibeam bookstore at Indian bookprices (lower than what you pay at Amazon or B&N). The new version has touch screen, so for those pampered by the touch screens of their smartphones and iPads it does gives you a better experience than any Nook or Kindle.

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    2. How to root your Samsung Galaxy S- The easiest way..

      Disclaimer: Backup your phone data and do it at your own risk, this can brick your phone.

      Rooting unleashes the enormous power available with Samsung Galaxy S (SGS)’s super hardware, but sadly there are no official application to do that. Also, there are many applications which are pain in wrong place to get a rooted SGS. Luckily, I tested an android app ‘z4root’ which is in my opinion the easiest way to get your SGS (with Froyo, android 2.2) rooted.

      Follow the given below instructions for rooting your SGS. You need to know how  to transfer files from your computer to SGS; if you use Windows OS you can download latest version of Kies from official site of SGS and use that for transferring files. In case you are using MacOS, you can connect your SGS as external usb drive and transfer files.

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      1. Go to Settings>> Applications and check on “Unknown Sources”. This will allow you to install non-android market applications.
      2. Now Download z4root from this link.. (remember this app is not  available in android market), save the apk file on computer and transfer it to your phone memore/external card.
      3. Locate the apk file using file manager “My Files’ on your SGS and install z4root.apk file.
      4. After installation launch the application and select “Root” option. And you are done.

      This has worked pretty nicely for me on My SGS running froyo.