Haven’t seen too many people use this feature. Google Calendar provides an option to send SMS reminders for all events in your Google Calendar absolutely FREE (unless of course you have a shitty telecom provider that charges for incoming SMS).

Here’s how to get it setup (Follow the links for detailed instructrions from Google Calendar):

• Register for Google Calendar Services
• Make your first Calendar

• Register your Mobile service

  These are the list of supported mobile providers. Even if your provider isn’t listed give it a shot and enter your number. Zain for Kuwait wasn’t listed originally but still worked.

• Customize your event notifications-Now for any particular event/calendar you can add “SMS” Reminders.

A pretty nifty feature, if you want to make sure you never miss an appointment.

What is Google OneBox?

Sometimes the very first result Google shows, is in a nice formatted stand out type of box called OneBox. For e.g. try “1KWD to USD”. Google instantly gives you the conversion of 1 Kuwaiti Dinar to US dollars. Other similar uses include finding the local time: “time kuwait” gives this OneBox result :

A new option of Google OneBox that has been doing the rounds now, is finding the time of Sunrise and Sunset of your location. For e.g check the screenshots I took for Sunrise and Sunset times in Chennai:

I live in Kuwait and so tried “Sunrise Kuwait”, unfortunately the option didn’t seem to work. But a little more digging and trial-error resulted in this:

Google OneBox stands most relevant for the State/City rather than the Country. Kuwait is a pretty small country and doesn’t have very clearly defined “states/cities”. But the capital of Kuwait is supposed to be “Kuwait City” which is basically like an area, hence the mild confusion. So try your Google OneBox searches against the City/State rather than the country.

What am I going to do knowing the timing of Sunrise and Sunset :P ?

• Planning for Camping,hiking,outdoor activities.
• Photography-knowing sunrise/sunset timings is critical for planning a good photo-shoot.
• Astrological Calculations in Hinduism (Horais) are calculated based on this
• Prayer timing for Muslims – Salah

Other Cool Google OneBox queries

• pizza in kuwait city – Notice you have to put city/state here again
• weather kuwait
• time delhi
• time india

The Google Operating System blog has a comprehensive post on some of the other useful Google OneBox searches.

Studies shows we humans require a minimum of 7 hours to function at our prime (brain gets all swooshy and muddled without 7hours of quality shut-eye). My work starts at 7:00am and it takes me about 15 minutes to get to work. This essentially means I NEED to sleep by 11:00 pm and be up by 6:30am. The latter tends to be a problem since i’m not very diligent about the former. So I had to find the perfect alarm system for waking up in the morning.

I prefer to use my phone for the Alarms because a) It’s portable and b) it isn’t another device i have to chug along when travelling. But most default alarm bell tones are as good as silent to me when I’m in REM mode. I researched the net and found the “perfect alarm ringtone”. One that’s loud enough to wake the bejesus out of you while at the same time just keeps you clear of the Cardiac Emergency Room (can’t guarantee latter). Download the Ultimate Alarm Bell Ringtone here. I also use the Stock Buzzer Alarm that comes default with the Nexus one. I set two alarms to make sure I don’t snooze my way to sleep-dom.

• Morning Alarm 1 (Wakey Wakey) [6:00 am] – Buzzer Tone (comes default with the Nexus 1)
• Morning Alarm 2 (Fire Fire!) [6:30 am] – Ultimate Alarm Bell (this is the shit bro!)

Having two alarms help because, let’s face it, everyone needs those precious 5 more minutes of bliss. It’s critical for me though that the two alarms have different ringtones. This indicates the time without having to take a look at my phone (not to mention finding those darn spectacles). So even if i snooze of Alarm 1 and don’t realize it, when snoozing or switching off Alarm 2 i know i’ve reached my limit.

Discalimer: Use the Ultimate Alarm Bell at your own risk. Seriously people it is “alarming” and not for the weak hearts (better wake up late than in a hospital).

Any suggestions?

What happens when you mix a TV addict and a productivity enthusiast. You get me!

In the good old days I had an excel file where I listed all the TV shows that I watched with an auto date-updater. I was thinking of writing a program but never got around to it. That’s when I discovered next-epdisode.net. I was relieved of my primitive excel ways. Then technology took a leap: enter RSS feeds. A service called showRSS was pretty cool and also conveniently provided Torrent Links (not that I used any of these illegal torrents. No sir, I simply waited until they aired on a legally subscribed dish channel :P). It seems there are some who are determined to make it even easier to download TV Torrents. Gentlepersons I present to you TED: Torrent Episode Downloader.

Coupled with a bittorrent client like utorrent, you don’t have to do anything. Seriously, you don’t…. Once setup, it automatically downloads the Torrent files and if you allow utorrent to download the files directly, even that part is taken care of. You just go about doing your normal do da and will find your downloads folder updated with the latest TV episodes. Simply brilliant stuff.

so to recap my creepy TV following ways: Excel > Next-episode.net > showRSS > TED.

The process of setting up TED is drop dead simple:

• Install TED from here
• Click the First button “Add Show” and you’re done.
• Some additional settings: Extra > Preferences > Configure where torrent files are saved e.g: E:\Downloads\Torrents.
• Make sure to check “Open it in your default bittorent client”. That’s the sizzler that makes this application a beauty.

TED is still maturing so prepare for some mild wonkiness. The only painful process is for some reason you format your pc or something crashes, you have to manually add all the shows again, which can be a real back-biter. To make it even simpler (if you share the same viewing choices as me) download this .ted file to your PC. Open TED, click File > Import Shows and point it to this downloaded file. yup that simple!

For unobstructed Torrent downloading and viewing goodness, change the following settings in Utorrent under Options > Preferences > UI Settings, Ensure:

• “Don’t start the download automatically” is UNCHECKED
• “Activate the Program window” is UNCHECKED
• “Show a window that displays the file inside the torrent” is UNCHECKED

Prepare for some unobtrusive TV viewing Goodness!

You’re welcome ;)

After much desperation,depression and waiting, GCal-SMS alerts is back for Kuwait cellphone users. For those unaware of this feature, sign in to Gcal –> Click Settings (RHS top) –> Click the Mobile Setup tab –> enter your mobile number and wait for the verification message. The rest is self-explanatory (make sure you pick the right country, the ISD code gets prefixed appropriately).
What this gold nugget of a feature does is essentially send you a reminder of any event by way of SMS. I practically lived with this feature up until 3 months back when the wonderful state of Kuwait decided to convert all telephone numbers to 8 digits. Gcal took sometime to reflect these changes. It is now back and I am a marginally more productive man as of today :D. Surprised the Google help group didn’t notify us of this update earlier!