"The smart Magical-web"

Internet  is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructureto support email says wiki!

Not even the web of spider man amused me as much as the WW Web did ! During 90s when Internet was slowly evolving in India and  cyber cafés and gaming zones were appearing suddenly in  bustling areas or dead ends of my own colony I was always elated looking at them.I wanted to go inside and explore and weave more in and around that magical web. I remember very well that I created my first email id on rediff.com as afshi786@rediff.com  when I finished my SSC exams (in the year 2k) .Am not sure if its working now but people say rediff email ids are life time ids and they never expire. Whatever id it might be it made me glad . I felt as if I just got selected in the much awaited finale of some competition. I immediately typed out  2 long mails to my sis in US and my friend. To do this I took nearly one and half hr and was charged 15rs. Its 10/- per hour. Later when I became a frequent visitor the cyber-café aunty used to reduce the amount. For one hour I used to get half hr bonus. It was the best brownie point I can get at that time. Later on I took a step ahead and created email ids on Yahoo and hotmail. I realized there is a yahoo messenger and that I can chat on it with all beautiful emoticons but I used it only to mail to my sis and some friends as our timings never matched to catch up on IM .The idea of just talking to a person and watching him/her sitting in any corner of the world felt magical!I used to love the emoticons , Avatars, native sounds and gaalis like Kal moohi etc etc. It created fun and lively atmosphere. I still remember my sis getting scared on listening to the bhoot icon :D. I tried Yahoo chat rooms along with friends but  was bored by the monotonous talk in 10min.

Later I had no much chance to use IM as I was in a residential  college and Internet was like a once in a blue moon thing then due to people lining up in long queues outside the labs/ Internet cafes inside the college. I was never so patient to stand in queues just to check mail or chat. Ofcourse for educational purpose we had digital library which we rarely used to make notes for exams or to prepare for  seminars but we were less interested in it for obvious reasons. Once I opened my cousins pics very carefully in the dig-lab but boom- the tutor appeared out of thin air and warned me saying if I repeat it she will complaint to HOD . After mouthing some swear words I continued with my boring notes! There was one Comp sci lab where we had one favourite tutor who allowed us to even listen to music/ check mails, images. I was never in the league when it  comes to being trendy or to be a part of whats hot on the internet ? This might be the reason that I didn’t know what is ORKUT till 2006 . Once I finished my grad school I saw in the slambook that every one scribbled orkut in their favourite website or pass time. I thought it is some kind of online game and as I never even played Dave’s or road rash with great enthu so I thought its natural to not know about “orkut” but then one of my friends sent me a orkut request and I created a profile to myself and found interesting profiles with single/married statuses, about mes , testimonials etc etc and the rest is history . I must say I was used to it though its not addictive like in case of FB! One thing I vividly remember about orkut is I made a friend from Kurukshetra – Haryana who is a Msc PHD and quite an intelligent lady and we still call each other and she almost became my agony aunt and great advisor. Her name is Gulhina and the relation progressed from orkut to gmail to phone and thanks to Orkut for this . I met many Timepass friends from school/ college/ various communities, had fun and forgot about them!

Now that I mentioned Phone I remember that the topic is “internet being fun” on your mobile. Well I was not much aware of using Internet on mobiles as I never had a smart phone and I never felt comfortable to use net on normal Nokia/samsung phones where typing a lot leads to a shooting pain in wrist. To me mobile meant radio and lot of new songs which I used to upload and enjoy during my long bus ride to office or during long journeys!

Then I realized the beauty of using Internet on not exactly phone but I-pod touch when I was gifted the same by my brother on my bday last year. I was so over joyed that I  dedicated a poem to it ("My new unconditional love"). I never had Wy-fi at home so didn’t enjoy the device much other than the you tube and occasional mail check when a wy fi used to fly in to the device!

Few months back I got a I-phone 4s a gift from my husband and I was again over whelmed looking at the wonder device. Am not good at gauging the good and bad features of electronic devices / reviewing the phones but I loved my I phone 4s. It is sleek , beautiful and as it’s the perfect touch screen, typing is damn easy. The only annoying thing is the dictionary suggestions I phone gives when you start typing! The best part I discovered lately Is if you have Wy fi and have to sms another I phone user , it will not charge you money . It displays some thing like I-Message on top of the window and the conversation looks like chat and you can see the person typing.

Recently am enjoying the Wy fi usage on mobile to the fullest, so thanks to indi as I can express it all here. I never played many games on the net, but am recently addicted to ANGRY BIRDS! Well my friends even teased me saying you are still in 2010."I neither had a I-Phone nor a plenty of free time like I have now to explore the web"- I-reply :)The game is a big success and there are about a billion downloads till now and they are still counting. Its my favourite pass time other than writing and there is new Angry Birds space which I have not tried my hands at! The idea of  game started by just a sketch of stylish wingless birds and then they “Vuiiiiiii” and go collapse all those green grunting pigs! Am so obsessed with the game that  I have my FB cover pic of angry birds representing the onset of summer and also angry bird wall papers and planning to buy tees and stuffed toys. At times its good to be  a angry bird than a love bird. Trust me! The first such creation I had craze on were Zoo zoos. Zoo zoo stuffed toy ,  zoo zoo wallpapers, calendars, zoo zoo key chain, zoo zoo tee – I loved every thing. Now angry bird stuff is slowly getting added to that collection.

One more funniest app I enjoy the most is Talking tom  both 1.0 and 2.0 versions .It is outstanding. They can instantly make you laugh out loud and change your mood and you realize you are laughing more more and little more. Especially my voice is more kiddish and funny when Tom talks! I keep recording every ones voices and mail across . I recorded my 2 year old nephews broken words which were more cute when Tom spoke. You can create and save videos using Talking Tom so are there many funny versions of songs on you tube including Kolaveri di and other native punjabi , hyderabadi videos. Below is one such funny video:)! My nephew as soon as he sees my phone comes and grabs it shouting “TOM CAT DEKHNA HAI” 

Along with these two fun apps there are many things on I phone to pass time with like the latest song apps, movie reviews, Whack the boss kind of games. There are unlimited games if you get bored with one. Ofcourse the interesting ones always have a price tag of minimum 0.99$ and so am actually planning to buy Angry Birds space !

These days as you all know Facebook is a synonym to the internet. I am also in the league as I don’t want to be a non-social animal. I rather want to be a social animal along with many grunting , roaring , cooing species over there ;) So the FB app is also an important one to me on my mobile, though I turned off the notifications due to continous irritating sound even in the late midnight. 
Along with Fb plug in some other apps which are really useful to chat or stay connected with the world (provided you want to ;)) are Whats-app, Talkatone using which you can chat with friends over gmail yahoo etc . Below are some of the images of my Iphone showing some interesting and some fun apps I use!

This article would be incomplete if I don’t mention the Facetime/ Facedial.
It’s a free video chat service provided for apple users ofcourse! You can facetime each other and its pretty clear and better than a phone call . For others there is ofcourse a skype app which is a cooler one too!

That’s all friends.I don’t know how good is the intervention of these smart phones or internet in our lives but right now it feels magical and one should have self control to use them as fun devices judiciously and not get glued to it and get wild ideas like using some “Find a girl in your neighborhood” app or some thing named on similar lines which was banned later . I don’t exactly remember the name, but it is an app which uses google maps and FB profiles with less privacy and tracks and displays all their details like age / relationship status / where and with whom they are hanging out etc . Actually this app does less. More help to the app is done by people who use Facebook as tracebook and pour everything about them in it minute to minute. So its in our hands to use it judiciously and not find fun in anything and everything which may not be remotely funny to others! There are many such banned apps on android and Iphone which you can google and know. Its interesting! The only disadvantage with phone is it being a small device , reading blogs and books is tough and at times sync-Non sync issues of Iphone using I tunes is complex and you need to listen to your phone rather than thinking of doing what you want with I phone.

That’s all folks ! Whatever app/ news/ info I need I go to app store and type out and then it works like a perfect charm and conjures gifting me what all I need ! I fret over my net  only when wyfi has some connectivity problems. Many argue the samsung galaxy note is better or some other mobile has more pleasing features but for now I immensely love my Phone. Its my priced possession.Yes steve jobs did bless us with an apple which changed the world after Eve's and Newton's apples but Steve’s apple is the most loved one I should say!

Please visit the link www.vodafone.in/fun

Do you love internet on phone ? If yes do drop your ideas at "Internet is fun" by Indiblogger along with Vodafone!
My post is at"The smart Magical Web" .Let me know your ideas of fun on phone too :)