Nokia E5

I am very impressed. Dedicated volume keys, GPS, 5MP camera, LED flash, 256MB internal memory, much faster cpu, very good battery life and 2K cheaper than what I bought my E63 for (12.5K). Removes most of my complaints except the lack of apps. I predict this phone is going to be the hit of 2010.

I am still leaning towards the Android but I think I'll hold out for Samsung Galaxy S pricing before taking a decision on my next geek toy ;-). Ganesan

Samsung Galaxy Spica i5700

I currently have a Nokia E63. Had endless trouble with it initially - it would hang frequently when answering a call. After a firmware update, things are a lot smoother and I've begun to like the phone. Push mail via Good messaging works pretty neat. Google Maps is excellent - though I wish I had splurged and bought an E71 for the GPS. Phone is pretty decent for the price - I bought it for about 12.5K Rs and it's now dropped to around 9K Rs. For the price, it's definitely value for money. The keyboard is pretty usable and it's definitely a decent business phone. All that said, I do have a long list of complaints for the phone

• Phone becomes very slow sometimes - could be due to Good Messaging.
• Good drains battery and introduces an annoying bug. Incoming calls don't show the user name, only the number is displayed.
• Lack of dedicated music keys. The soft key is buggy. If you're listening to a song/podcast and try to fast forward/backward the mp3 will restart. I found in some forum that the bug is triggered if you change the volume while it's playing (which I happen to do all the time). I can't believe this stupid bug is yet to be fixed.
• No GPS. I already mentioned this. Cell tower based location identification is pretty neat but doesn't match GPS.
• Lack of apps. I would dearly love scrabble and some decent apps on the phone. The only one I like currently is Google Maps.

All of which makes me interested in the Samsung Galaxy Spica i5700 which has recently got a Android 2.1 upgrade. Phone is available for about 12.5K which somehow seems to be my sweet spot for buying mobile phones :-).

Cisco's recruiting

Almost a year since my last post :-(. Ah well, can't be helped. As is probably true for many companies, Cisco's also recruiting. Specifically in our Business Unit we're looking for a experienced manager in the platform area (bring up Linux on a Line card, drivers, diagnostics etc). Candidate should be 10+ years experience in related work with minimum of 2+ years in managing a team.

We're also looking for an experienced kernel programmer (4+ years) to work on the protocol stack in the kernel.

Work will be on Cisco's NX-OS which is based on Linux. Platform would be MDS 9000 and/or Nexus 7000 datacenter switches. Please send your resumes to grajagop at cisco.com.