Using WiFi On The BlackBerry 8320

Posted on by Roshan 1 Comment

One of the main features of the BlackBerry 8320 is the Wifi option. I don’t have WiFi at home but from the moment I got the 8320 I wanted to try it out in a place that offers free WiFi – like Barista Cafe in Bay Pride Mall.

A little after I order my coffee and sat down, I wipped out my 8320 and tried setting up a WiFi connection. I switched it on and did a search for the offered WiFi network – from Barista. At my corner table I was able to setup and start using their network in less than 2 minutes! Which is quite impressive to say the least. The router name, TechnoFIRST-Baypride Free Wi-Fi then appeared on my phone screen.

Hot dog! I then tried out the browser and checked a few websites to see if it was much faster than the speeds shown on while I was using the Edge network provided by Vodafone. To tell you the truth there wasn’t that much difference that I could notice, except that Cisco’s website seemed to download pretty quickly. CNN, Google and a couple of other sites that I could compare were downloaded at almost the same speeds.

But I must say that this new experience was made all the more impressive by the range. I went out of the cafe and walked along the hall, then to the front of the mall, down the steps and onto the car parking area and across the road – all the way upto halfway across Shanmugam road. Those of you who know Cochin well, will be able to relate. That impressed me quite a bit.

Lunch With My Cousin

Posted on by Roshan 3 Comments

Today was the day that I would finally get to meet face to face my cousin Sujith. Sujith is my second cousin, a dude of 25 years, and how are we related? Well his mom is my mom’s first cousin.

I have never met Sujith before however I’ve been chatting & corresponding with frim for over 3 years. We met via Orkut, when some cousins of ours started a family community thingy. The rest of us barely correspond with each other but Sujjo & have stayed in constant touch – through Orkut, Gtalk, Gtalk voice chat and finally over the phone. He now works in Bangalore but is in Cochin now as he has quit his company and wanted to spend some time at home before joining a new one (which he has to in a few days).

But in all this time I have never seen him face to face. I asked him if he wanted to get together for lunch today and so we arranged to meet at Barista Cafe. Due to traffic block for him and work related issues for me, I ended up reaching Barista only by 12:44 pm, famished and starving and he was able to reach there only around 1:25 pm. I had to guide him to reach the cafe as he wasn’t aware as to where it was. We chatted and talked and downed our coffees and checked out the babes that passed by. What can I say? We due share the same blood.

We then headed over to Sea Lord hotel and entered the air-conditioned restaurant cum bar. I’m really surprised that they serve drinks at this place because it looks a lot like a family restaurant rather than a bar. Anyway, I quite like the setting even though their furniture is quite old and not that comfortable to sit in. We ordered two fish finger plates to begin with (long fish fingers with chips, cucumber & tomato slices, french fries and a mayo cream mix to dip the stuff in) and sipped Kingfisher strong beer.

We talked a lot and filled each other in about a few family stuff and secrets. We also spoke a lot about work and stuff. I really enjoyed this afternoon lunch and hope I get to spend some more time with him in the coming months. Whenever he has time to come down from Bangalore that is.