Reviews – Page 86

I came across some real good stuff on Yahoo! News today. First, was something I’d already read about and which is a milestone in the free (as in speech, not beer) software world. The first ever lawsuit was filed for violating the GPL, and then a scared company decided to settle it out of court. I sure did get some publicity for the GPL, and sent a message across that the GPL is NOT something mess around and get away with – a message that I’m sure the Free Software Foundation wanted to send out months after the launch of GPL v3.

However, the more interesting article was on 7 reasons to hate Linux. Well, ok, note hate actually; but stinging though the criticism (and unfair, IMHO) might be, this guy HAS made some valid points. However, what I must say is that the people reviewing Linux for professional magazines bay for blood whenever something goes wrong, but if everything DOES go right (which is most of the time), then they make it ‘the usual Yada Yada stuff’.

Then there’s Walt Mossberg, who’s the biggest moron I’ve ever come across, because he clearly doesn’t know forty two pixels about Linux, and yet, ‘reviews’ stuff. Here’s an excerpt from his review of Ubuntu:

When I tried to play common audio and video files, such as MP3 songs, I was told I had to first download special files called codecs that are built into Windows and Mac computers. I was warned that some of these codecs might be “bad” or “ugly.”

I guess he didn’t even bother to check the third part of the Gstreamer package (the ‘codecs’ he was referring to) was named ‘good’. ‘Good’, ‘Bad’, or ‘Ugly’ is what the Gstreamer package comes in, but it doesn’t refer to the quality of the package at all! It’s supposed to be a joke, by naming the parts after the 1966 Sergio Leone movie The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

So yes, I agree with that guy on Yahoo! News – he does have some stuff that the open source community needs to take note of. However, the power to influence, and influence most novice users is something that these ‘reviewers’ should be aware of; and they MUST do proper research before making any adverse comments. Just this of it – Mossberg would immediately have noticed the joke had he paid any attention to the other package name. Or maybe, he doesn’t watch movies…

My rating of cellity freeSMS (official cellity site): 8.9 / 10

I wanna say this right at the beginning, that this post is NOT a sponsored one. I’m posting about this, that too in the middle of the exams when I should be studying because this little something is so cool that I can’t help but ‘share and enjoy’. Apart from the fact that more the people use this, more this can be used, but let’s leave that aside for a minute.

SMSing is pretty popular among cellphone users throughout the world, and I claim to be no exception. However, the telecom companies practically rip us off. I heard that in Chennai, cellphone operators charge 5 paise per SMS, but here in Delhi, it’s more like Re 1 per SMS. Which is quite a difference. So when I stumbled across cellity on GetJar, I was quite sceptical about getting a free lunch…

cellity freeSMS is a free Java midlet for cellphones – and practically every mobile phone which is Java-capable is supported. What this app does is that it allows you to compose an SMS, up to 2048 characters long, and then sends it via GPRS to the cellity server, which then forwards it to the recipient. Now the slight hitch in this scheme is that BOTH people need to have cellity to receive it – and in case the recipient hasn’t registered his / her number with cellity, then cellity sends a normal SMS (free of cost) containing the download link and the start of the message. cellity itself doesn’t charge anything for using its services, it’s only the data transfer cost of the telecom operator that the user spends. And unlike other mobile software, cellity doesn’t download advertisements or anything.

cellity freeSMS itself is a tiny 29 kB download, and its not very data intensive. You can choose to have it ‘dynamically refresh’ to check its servers for messages – in the beginning it will check every 30 seconds or so and slowly increase the time duration to 5 minutes. You can also turn it off and choose to check for new messages manually, or set your desired time period from the presets. In case your phone supports it (not many do), you can also minimize the app and carry out other work. Also, it’s not required that you keep the app on – you can close the app and in case you have a new message, cellity will call you from a predefined number (you can’t pick up that call) reminding you that you have new messages. You can then power up cellity and check your messages.

Now why on earth would anyone want to use this? It’s simple – cellity is CHEAP! Normally, it costs Re 1 to send an SMS (local, in Delhi); but with cellity transferring data via GPRS you pay a fraction of that. Even a fairly long SMS composed in cellity takes about only 1-2 kB of data transfer. For example Airtel charges 15 paise for 10 kB, ~~Hutch~~ Vodafone charges 10 paise for 10 kB, Idea charges 2 paise per kB; so effectively you spend only 1-2 paise to send an SMS instead of Re 1!

Registering for cellity is pretty easy – point your cellphone’s browser to wap.getjar.com and download the app – it won’t be difficult to find since it’s one of their featured downloads. I could’ve said ‘get it from the official site’, but GetJar is better at detecting your phone model and detecting any compatibility issues at the early stages itself. You COULD also download onto your PC, transfer to your phone, and then go ahead – but why bother when the file is so small? After installing, open the midelt and it’ll ask you to register. Enter your FULL phone number, along with country code, and it’ll SMS you an activation code. Exit the app, note down the activation code from it (it’ll be probably be a 4-digit number), open the app again and enter it. Voila, you’re done! It opens a blank screen on first use, because your inbox will be empty! Go to ‘New SMS’ to compose.

cellity freeSMS supports sending SMSs to multiple numbers, viewing messages in conversation view, replying / forwarding messages etc – everything your normal SMS can do. You can keep an eye on how much data you’ve used up by its ‘Traffic’ option. A very responsive software, and doesn’t hang.

Good though cellity freeSMS is, it does have a few drawbacks. You won’t be able to access your contact list, so you’ll have to enter all the numbers manually (don’t forget to include country code, preceded by 00). Also, say you’re composing a long SMS, and then try sending it – it could be possible that your GPRS connection will go into idle mode, or you might simply have lost the GPRS link temporarily – in that case, message sending will fail, but the message isn’t saved. Nothing irks more than typing out a long message and see it all go waste because of a cell connection.

Now I know there might be other apps which achieve the same, but cellity freeSMS is the first one I tried and it works – so I guess I’m gonna stick to it for some time now…

PS – cellity also has other products, which you can check out on their site, but they cost money. Also, keep in mind that keeping your cellity on auto-refresh at smaller intervals might not be that good an idea since it would defeat the very purpose of saving money.