/bin/true

In the classifieds today under “Film Related”:

Khun anek, lekin manzil ek. Aisi hee garibon ko insaaf denewali kahaniyan… Badlegi bollywood ki duniya 1. Gunhaon ki saja 2. Raton ka tufaan

Phone numbers excluded to protect the shtrugglers.

The Zenbe mail interface

After weeks of waiting, Zenbe.com finally sent me a confirmation for an account request. Was it worth the wait? Sort of. It’s nice, but if your primary email is Gmail like mine is, it’s just different. Which is good, I suppose.

Design

Clearly, a lot of thought and work went into the design of Zenbe. It feels fresh and well put-together. Things are intuitively arranged, cool colours, rounded corners etc. There are, however, some bits that can be confusing. For example, the “Settings” dialog is just for your email accounts. Other settings are done through the Gear icon, which changes function based on context. In the calendar, it gives you options for the calendar. Logical, but it took me a while to figure out. Another minor niggle I found was that buttons are just text-based on top of the message view. I’m sort of used to having a trashcan icon around to delete things.

The sidebar is a plus. I say this because it is not something I immediately want to get rid of, as I do in most other apps. It holds your calendar, contact list, to-dos, twitter, facebook and google chat tabs. I’m not super-excited about the whole “social” angle, but I suspect with more use, I’ll begin to appreciate having everything in a single browser window.

Conversation view is also nice, in an iChat sort of way. Gmail has done this forever, but the presentation in Zenbe is more literal.

Features

Zenbe has lots of features. Conceivably, it could grow to become a complete PIM solution. I’m not organised enough to know the difference between two online calendars, but Zenbe includes one, and it works fine. It also shows up in your sidebar, so that’s convenient. I haven’t explored the system enough to know whether it has any neat tricks like creating meetings out of emails, but if it isn’t already there, it probably will be eventually.

An interesting feature is “ZenPages”, which are collations of events, discussions, email, files and to-dos. ZenPages can be shared with anyone, even people without Zenbe accounts. A bit like the “Sites” feature in Google Apps, but much more accessible, since it’s available on a tab right in your email view. I’ve begun using it to track things about a couple of projects. Just having shared email on a ZenPage is reason enough to try it.

Attachments get special treatment in Zenbe, with a dedicated “Files” tab in the main view. This shows you all the recent attachments you may have received in your email. A nice touch. I routinely rifle through email to find and refer to documents. The files tab saves a few steps in search. File previews are available on hover (at least for images) and documents open in a pop-up window that uses Scribd to display the attachment. It works well, if slightly slowly. I would think that files would have links back to the email, but this is not the case. A glaring omission, I thought. This would essentially make the “Files” tab a list of email sorted by attachment, but not being able to find the email containing an attachment just seems counterintuitive.

Like Gmail, Zenbe uses tags to organise your email. This was familiar and comfortable for me, and I was pleased with the implementation. To tag a message, you can do it the Gmail way, or simply click on the tag on the left sidebar. A tag can even be set to automatically archive, which is what I like to do with press releases. Select, click, gone. This alone is a good enough reason for me to use Zenbe as my mail front-end.

Technical

Mail front-end is probably a good way to describe Zenbe, since it doesn’t require you to switch to a new email account (though you get that by default). Zenbe polls your other POP3 accounts and brings them into your Inbox, letting you keep your “From:” header. It does this smartly—like Gmail—so I can poll my personal and work email and reply to it without any extra steps. This will work fine for most people, but it doesn’t for my slightly elongated chain of email (personal gmail forwards to google apps polled by Zenbe).

POP3 implies timed polling. Zenbe polls fast enough for my email needs, but I’m sure there’s a delay somewhere in the chain. I didn’t notice, so I don’t care. I did notice that Zenbe is able to pull in my Sent items as well—I don’t know how it does this over POP3. This is very useful with the conversation view, since I can continue using my gmail/google apps/work email on my iPhone as separate accounts, and get a nice consolidated view in Zenbe.

The system also provides POP3 and limited IMAP access to your Zenbe mail. I briefly considered getting rid of the multiple accounts on my iPhone and just accessing Zenbe through IMAP, but even though Zenbe can intelligently manage multiple accounts, the iPhone can’t. I’d have to stick with one “Reply-to”, which is unacceptable. Under the circumstances, Zenbe must remain solely my desktop front-end.

Wishlist and conclusions

I like Zenbe so far. I’d like to continue using it. It makes keeping your inbox empty quite easy. I hope it extends to mobile handsets soon—a simpler web interface perhaps? SyncML would be nice too. Better, consistent keyboard shortcuts would help (ESC doesn’t always work as expected).

The latest 2.2 firmware doesn’t add much I want. Street View in Google Maps is admittedly cool, however. The phone is snappy and crashes less. By now, there are no must-have apps left in the jailbroken realm, but since caller ID STILL does not work by default, I’ve been forced to jailbreak and replace the phone format file by hand. Thankfully, a one-click fix is already on Cydia, so the next time round will be easier.

Here’s hoping the next time round actually, finally allows background notifications.

Perks of the new job: renewed respect from the watchman, other drivers, beggars etc.

Disclaimer: Experience-wise, I am a new driver with all of two months of suicide-inducing, insane Mumbai traffic and one Mumbai-Pune roundtrip under my right foot. Naive impressions are my own and probably have nothing in common with the official line.

On with it then.

So I convince the ancient Maharashtrian guard to open the showroom and hand me the keys. He confirms that the name on the visiting card is mine, twice (it wasn’t). Following which, he hands me two plastic things with two buttons each. This, to a man who’s car and bike keys are interchangeable for the most part. Okayyy… quick call to the dealer tells me I just need them near me to start the car. Knob where the key should be starts the car. I step outside to check if its on, it’s that quiet at idle.

Okay, I confess. I stepped outside because the car wouldn’t move at all and felt like it was wheelying. I forgot the handbrake. Why one would use the handbrake for an automatic car with the ‘P’ mode, I don’t know. But then, I’ve never driven an automatic before, much less an automatic that I couldn’t pay for with both kidneys, liver, heart, eyes, nervous system, limbs etc. Or maybe, as is the financial fashion these days, I just sell myself short.

Down the ramp and off home, which is half a kilometer away. The vehicle has sharp steering, and is certainly easier to maneuver than my decrepit Maruti 1000. Turning radius feels smaller and the power steering has a nice feel, unlike the Playstation-like Hyundai i10. Destination reached, I proceed to park in single file between an old Armada and a new Scorpio. This SUV feels big, but isn’t. It easily fits within the width of a Mahindra. CVT transmission makes parallel parking incredibly easy, and I made out like a pro.

Half an hour later, it’s off to pick up the wife from the train station. Strange man is next to her in the parking lot, singing aloud, trying to catch some attention. Large SUV crushes gravel and said romeo’s self-esteem. Meanwhile, super-enthu eccentric rich mechanic neighbour kid has hitched a ride and is playing with the console and rattling off specs from his photographic memory. Climate-control: check. It reads your mind and gently breezes over sweaty toes. Temperature control makes me shiver, but then my fridge makes me shiver; so for the naturally-insulated, mileage may vary.

Audio system is a six-speaker Rockford Fosgate with a 10″ subwoofer. It’s plenty loud and has overpowering bass. If you’re a pimp, you’ll like it. I don’t. Steering-mounted controls work as expected and the readout on the head unit is reasonable, if a bit short for anything but single-word song titles. The car came pre-loaded with greatest Goan konkani hits, which I purused. This should count as a plus.

Bells and whistles abound, as they should in a fully-loaded car. Electrical driver’s seat has enough adjustments to choreograph short performance-art skits. The car beeps and complains if you move without both seatbelts being fastened. It complains (I think) if the car is off and the headlights are on. It complains if you’re too close to something behind you (an override for this feature will be needed if you’re driving in traffic).

Sunglass receptacle on top is neat and opens up in a smooth, damped motion. Center arm-rest is comfy and has a large storage compartment beneath. CDs go into another roomy box on top of the dash, while the glove box is where it should be. All power windows, of course, and the dash is LCD and reads speed, mileage, fuel level, whether the doors are open etc. The light inside is smart and switches itself on and off depending on the situation. Very useful, and it fades out gracefully.

I DON’T GIVE A FUCK! JUST TELL ME ABOUT PERFORMANCE section

2.4 liter, 4-pot MIVEC. Disc brakes all round. Brakes rock my world. Stopping from 80 to almost zero for a 90-degree right turn was smooth and effortless, with no drama. Wife later mentioned that she slid from the right side of the back seat to the left, then fell behind the passenger seat. Must remember to take note of well-being of family members while driving fun cars.

Power is adequate, but not thrilling, even to a driver who wouldn’t know any better. The CVT is a pleasure to drive leisurely, but annoying if you want performance. Thankfully, the Outlander has paddle-shift, which are paddles of fun. Kick down two or three ratios and the engine growls and surges ahead. Relatively. It’s fast, but not brutal or scary. I had no issues punching the throttle between traffic and making quick strides before jamming the brakes at a stoplight. Still, full-auto CVT is more for smooth, worry-free drives. Use the paddles for any fun.

Suspension is decent and I had no problems flicking through the gears at 100 clicks on stone, gravel, butchered tarmac. My wife was doing 100+ on Palm Beach road and scared herself when she looked at the speedo. Effortless, quick. Cosseted, safe feeling inside with great brakes are all confidence-boosting. Handling is great as far as I can tell, and the size of the vehicle was a non-issue. Super visibility, much respect from tailgating bastards. Nobody cuts you off, and few can catch up anyway.

The car also has a 2wd/4wd/lock knob, but I didn’t use it. Lights are HID and excellent. Wipers dead silent, which is a good thing when you keep putting them on when you want to signal right. High-beam flasher took some getting used to, since the toggle and the flash motions are in the same direction (towards driver).

To sum up: Fun, fatigue-free, well-sorted and well-loaded. Looks great to me and I think the Outlander should have no problem competing with the CR-V and Captiva. At about 24 lac on road, the price is probably not outrageous. Not much else I can report based on two hours of driving.

And so we have the third bug-fix update since the big 2.0. Minor changes to the iPod app and a relatively faster SMS experience. It’s been a year since I had a real chat application on my phone and my patience is running wafer-thin. At this point, the Nokia E71 is looking like an increasingly attractive alternative—it has every feature I’d want and can do everything the iPhone can’t. I’d lose the super-fluid and intuitive interface, but I grew up with DOS, so…

In brief: I wouldn’t recommend an iPhone to anyone, anymore. It’s not worth the compromises, or the official price. It still makes some sense for me, since I mostly live on the Web and appreciate the touch interface. But 15 months and still no background data? Come. Fucking. On!

Update: Looks like a lot of you are having trouble with the lack of caller ID on the iPhone in India. If you’re jailbroken, try this link. It’s what I used. There’s also an Installer.app package that does the same thing, but I haven’t tested it.