Life with Android 4.X

FINALLY, I am part of the « true » Android family. It is not a particular pride for me, just that I spend countless hours checking the latest updates in the smartphone industry on the internet, but the smartphone I owned was not “cool” enough to download all the apps I read about. This is history since August 22^nd, when I purchased the Samsung GT-I8190, also known as Galaxy S3 mini. Now, it’s definitely NOT the best device you can currently carry, it is even supposed to be a budget phone…

If so, I guess people who can afford budget phones have reached another level of comfort! Because this phone really seems and feels premium. But this post is not going to be about my new phone (even though I really love it), It will be about the applications that are rapidly changing my life.

Even though I knew about mobile applications for a long time, I never really measured the impact that they can make in one’s life. The funny thing is that I don’t even have access to the internet at all times, like what happens in more developed countries. Still, I found a way to enjoy the applications I downloaded, and it looks like losing my smartphone would hurt more than being dumped by my girlfriend! No I‘m kidding of course.  Really, it is just a joke. Anyways, here are my favorite apps for Android:

1.       Any.do

I first downloaded this sweetheart (yes, I know this is too much, but that’s how I love it) on my former Android phone, the Galaxy Young Pro. I uninstalled soon after because it did not suit the format of that phone, and I never really got the chance to experience the app to the fullest. Now, it’s simply one of the most useful pieces of software I ever had. The idea behind it is to list all the tasks that you have to do, and the app beautifully organizes them for you. You can either organize them in folders (personal, work), or on a time basis (tasks for today, tomorrow, etc.). if you choose the time the time basis method, you can tap on “plan your day”. Then plays a nice animation for you to set the time and remainders of the tasks. This is just brilliant because the mobile phone is the one device that we carry all day long, therefore there can be no better entity to remind you of the stuff you have to do. A must have for all those who find it tough to manage their time.

2.       Evernote

Thoughts fly, writings remain. I don’t know if my translation of this French expression really catches its essence, but it’s enough to describe the reason why you should have Evernote installed on your phone. The idea is simple: just write down everything you have in mind, whether it’s related to work, family,  entertainment, anything. It could a recipe of a dish, the lyrics of a song, the code of a computer program, the procedure to obtain a visa, etc. You can even add voice notes, images or videos. All the notes can be synchronized online, so that you can access them on any device with an internet connection. There is no more excuse to forget about anything now.

3.       Moon+ reader

If you read the very first post of this blog, you must have understood that I have been trying to get back to a couple of activities that I used to like. One of them is reading. Let me introduce you the application that helped me get back to it: Moon+ Reader. This one worked already on my previous phone, but it’s even better now with a larger screen. You can get books in different formats (epub, pdf), and just enjoy the best novels from your phone, with a large choice of customization: colors of background and text, fonts type and size, portrait and landscape mode, and so many more options. It is now impossible to get bored when sitting in a waiting room or while travelling. It also is a nice way to bring people to reading, since they don’t need to carry books around; you can have a whole collection of books and novels right in your pocket.

4.       Pocket

Talking about "pocket", there exists an application of the same name which is a must have for those who read lots of articles on the internet. The former name of this app explains its use:  “Read it later”.  The idea behind it is to save into Pocket all the articles that you don’t need to read online. You can then access them offline, with all the formatting of the web page you visited. The app also gives you the opportunity to set some articles as favorite, or to archive others. It is compatible with hundreds of article based websites.

5.       Feedly

If you are looking for a single place to find articles that you can later save in Pocket, Feedly might be of a great help. It is just the best replacement of Google Reader as an RSS reader. You can choose among hundreds of RSS feeds, sort them in categories and let Feedly’s beautiful design and features do the remaining. Another nice feature is the fact that it supports 5 languages, and features the best article based sites for each language.

6.       WhatsApp

I left India more than 2 years ago after my degree studies, but I feel like I have never moved thanks to  WhatsApp. When you install it on your phone, it registers your phone number, checks the numbers existing in your contact list and discovers those that have WhatsApp installed on their phone. You are then able to send text and voice messages, images and videos to all your friends and relatives as long as they have a working internet connection on their phone. 

7.       Temple run 2

Games are an important part of the applications on Android, and one of my favorite is Temple run 2. As the player, you control a character that steals something in a temple, and starts running away from a big monkey chasing him (or her). You are supposed to avoid all the obstacles and traps that stand on your way and be stay away from the big and ugly monkey. You can also collect different kind of items to break records or increase the efficiency of your run. Really addictive game.

8.       Fruit Ninja

Fruit Ninja is kind of game that makes good use of the touch screen of your phone. Your finger becomes a blade that is meant to slice fruits that appear on the screen, but you need to make sure not to touch the bombs that sometimes appear along with the fruits to fool you. It is just impressive how innovative developers can be. Easy with your screen though.

9.       I can’t wake up

With classic alarm clocks applications, you can just tap the snooze button, go back to your sleep and make sure to be late for work. But if you really need to get up, I can’t wake up is what you need. When the alarm rings and vibrates at the time you set, you will need to do much more to stop it. You can choose between shaking up your phone, solve mathematics equations, play a puzzle, and find the right capital of a country and so on. There is no way you will feel sleepy after you’re done passing this app’s challenges. Another brainy idea.

You understood, part of my life revolves around my phone now. I can work, socialize, play or organize my life with all these great tools. Listing and describing all the apps I like on my phone here  will make of this post an essay; so I will just mention apps like Facebook, Twiiter, Viber, Instagram, Angry Birds Star Wars 2, BMX boy… If you’re part of the “family” yet, I hope this post makes ou understand what you are missing!

Short and happy moments

What does it take to be happy? I think a billionaire travelling all over the world and discovering amazing place would call himself happy. A mother will always be happy to see her children healthy and full of life. A football fan (maybe me) would be more than happy to get to play in one of the most famous football stadiums in the world, possibly with the most famous players. But i what I want to talk about is different. Have you ever experienced brief and intense moments of life, during which you are doing something that was not necessarily planned in advance, and it just gives you some kind of unexplainable joy? Here is a non-exhaustive list of these special moments.

•          Read an exciting book by a fine weather in your yard or a beautiful park
•          Being served breakfast in bed by your beloved
•          Have a very chilled beer by a very hot day
•          Jog early in the morning listening to quality music playing with headphones on
•          Sing your heart out your favorite song during a concert
•          Being thrown a surprise birthday party in office
•          Smoothly ride  the best bike ever on a curvy road
•          Swim in a perfect pool by a sunny day
•          Watch a football game with friends supporting the opposite team, eating pizzas and drinking coke
•          Have romantic sex during winter in a confined and warm place
•          Drink a cup of hot and nice coffee in your car while it’s heavily raining
•          Walk by the beach with your best friend, coolers on
•          Watch the most funny movie ever with your family
•          Dance on the coolest song in a nightclub
•          Have a good and strong alcoholic drink after a break up
•          Drive a comfortable car on a quiet road
•          Play video games on the widest screen you’ve ever seen
•          Spend all the money you saved in an entire shopping day
•          Get the surprise of your beloved, who prepared a romantic night
•          Run under the rain

I believe that a life full of these kinds of moments, and many more could definitely be called a happy life. 

Feel free to add your favorite moments to my list.

Game Camp 2013

Thursday 28th February 2013, Madison Square Garden in Cocody, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. I reached that amazing gaming venue more than an hour late and was a little bit scared that Bacely Yorobi - the organizer of the 2013 Game Camp in Abidjan - get pissed with me. But he welcomed me with a smile, and that’s how started one of the most innovative events happening in Abidjan.

This year was the second edition of the Game Camp. The idea behind this event is to put together all African people, regardless of their age or their job profile, who are interested in the industry of video games. They can be simply gamers, programmers, designers, animation specialists, or any other professional who can contribute to the establishment of an industry of video games. Africans do develop great video games, and it is a fact that there is no well-known African industry dedicated to video games, like EA, Activision, Ubisoft and so on. As it is a new concept, the aim so far is to create a community of people interested in the project. Once this is done, we can think of how to practically create the industry. Bacely Yorobi is the man who set everything up, and we can say that he did a great job. After last year’s success, four other African cities embraced the concept. Therefore, the 2013 Game Camp happened simultaneously in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire), Lomé (Togo), Dakar (Senegal), Saint Louis (Senegal) and Tanger (Morocco). Now that’s what I call success!

The first two days happened in Madison Square Garden, a video games showroom in Cocody. On Thursday, we introduced the concept of the games to the participants and asked them what they think about it. The response was positive. The theme for the first night was TEKKEN, one of the best fighting video games ever, and the least I can say is that participants really knew the subject and enjoyed the discussion. Then, we had a Skype conversation with Farid from Algeria, who told us about the concept “webdays” to bring African tech professionals together, and also encouraged us in our work. We concluded the first day with a projection of a movie: “IndieGame: The movie”. It was a very inspiring movie about independent programmers who created several popular games on their own.

We met the second day at the same time at the same venue for a maximum of entertainment! After watching the beginning of HALO 4, we just took the joysticks and participants showed their skills on FIFA 12, NARUTO and TEKKEN 6. No need to mention that I was the best at all of games.

AMN center welcomed us for the last day of the 2013 Game Camp. The affluence was much more than the first two days since it was a Saturday. Several Ivorian professionals including Necemon Yai joined us on a Google Hangout, and gave us informative and inspirational speeches about what they do in the world of technology and Internet. Participants got to express their doubts and ask questions to the professionals and received necessary guidance. After a refreshing lunch break, participants got the opportunity to attend workshops. Two workshops were provided: one about drawing techniques and the other one about computer games making. Participants definitely learned a lot and were got out of there with a lot of ideas for the future. We all got a stylish Game Camp T-shirt which made the last photograph even more beautiful.

Satisfaction is the feeling that we all felt as we left AMN on Saturday. We created awareness, we enriched our knowledge, we enlarged our network, and we increased the number of members of the Game community. Can’t wait for the 2014 Game Camp which will certainly be a major event in the Abidjan area!

Love/Arranged marriage

November 2006. I had been in India for only a few weeks, and I was attending English classes every afternoon of the week days. After a couple of classes, I could be somehow understood and I finally decided to take part of this big debate. With my western mind, my position was pretty clear and there was no way I could find even a tiny positive facet of arranged marriage. Ever since, I have seen so many situations and heard so many things about the subject that I can no longer say that I am 100% in favour of one or the other kind of marriage.

My arguments back then were straight forward: you grow up, complete your education and get married to the girl you are in love with and who also is in love with you. Most of the time, you are supposed to have met her while in high school or college. Your parents and other members of your family have not got to spend a lot of time with her, so they really can’t judge and say whether she is good enough for you. You know by yourself that she is the right one anyway since you managed to stay with her for a long time.  I was 19 years old when I thought that way. I also thought several other things that I considered absolute truths. I am now almost 25, and what I am absolutely sure of is that I know less about life than I used to think.

I simply realized over the years that things do not always go the way we want. Actually, they rarely do. Put this into the subject, it means that love marriage does not guarantee a successful marriage. Except the fact that your family may not accept your loved one, you may realize at a late stage that you got married for the wrong reasons, like beauty, money and popularity. I could give hundreds other reasons like the difference of culture, the lack of communication, jealousy, and so on. On the other hand, many successful marriages I have heard of and also witnessed mostly begin the same way: two best friends eventually become a couple and then tie the knot. 

Let’s analyse this case: the couple is made of two people who met randomly or not, became friends and then best friends, spend a lot of time together, got used to each other and ended up in a love relationship. We can say that the marriage become successful because the relationship between the husband and wife has very strong foundations. But wait a minute: take two people from two families that know each other and share the same values, religion and opinions, introduce them to each other, let them spend a lot of time together, get used to each other and eventually get them married! Isn’t it what arranged marriage about? Oh well!

Unlike what it looks like, I did not try to do some mathematical deduction to prove that arranged marriage is actually almost the same as successful marriages. I am unfortunately not that good in mathematics. What it proves is that my 19-years-old way of thinking was certainly not an absolute truth, even though it works in some cases. Arranged marriages may even have a higher chance to be successful because the families are always there to guarantee that everything goes well through constant checking and advises. Now I am not saying either that arranged marriages are perfect. What happens when one of the people really is boring? Nobody wants to spend a lot of time with a boring person. What if the age difference is too high? And most importantly, how will be the sex life if one of them does not feel the slightest physical attraction for the other? These are some questions that will never be asked in a love marriage since those aspects of the relationship have already been mutually accepted. 

The subject of love and arranged marriages is one that I had no doubt my way of thinking was the right one. Accepting today that I was wrong makes me entirely reconsider the way I see life in general. And I think it is for the best!