DIARY OF AN ONLINE SHOPPER

He is a great companion. He is always there with me. He goes wherever I go. He helps me with cooking and fixing almost all my problems in a jiffy.  Whether I want to watch a movie, go to a particular place, I just take his help. He never gets tired of my shopping (you read it right- NEVER). Nor he raises an eyebrow whenever I talk or chat with anyone. My kids go gaga to see him, though I don’t like if they get close to him. He had been my saviour many times. I just cannot imagine my life without him. And, before you come to any conclusion, just hold your horses.

I am talking about my smart pal- my smart phone. Yeah, life has become hell lot easier since they have entered into our lives. No one did ever think that these smart phones would impact so much and will become so endemic, especially during this pandemic. 

So, my favourite apps would be the shopping ones which help me every now and then. Amazon, being the most sought after, for most of household shopping, then Flipkart; Myntra, Nykaa Fashion and Firstcry for exclusive clothing. Nykaa for make-up and cosmetics and 1mg for medicines. So, in short, my world revolves around online shopping. The best part of shopping online is that you have the ease of choosing many products, shop instantly or build up your cart till you are ready to pay. You also have the access to the other apps and you can compare the products and deals and discounts too.

So, for me online shopping is simply the best choice and my favourite pastime too. I am also an e-window shopper. Who doesn’t like window shopping after all! Wink! Wink!

Stay safe and shop online.

HELP IN NEED, HELP INDEED – APP

As I grew older, I have noticed the evolution in every aspect of life. It may be the first love proposal, dating, courtship, marriage, performing duties as a wife, mother, and daughter-in-law, and many more. With time, we all have changed. Some in a better way and some in a different way, that can be better for a few and worse for others. It’s only the perceptions, we acquire according to time.

The same changes are seen in the writing field. When I was in my twenties, my uncle (who was a government official and a writer too) suggested me to keep a pen and paper or notepad with me always. So that whenever any idea or quotes or poems or stanzas come to my mind, I can note them down. This idea is still with me as a best practice and good luck. I started keeping a small pocket-size notebook always with me from that day onwards. It was like a part of my handbag. Including keys, tissues, and other kinds of stuff. When I travel if I feel like writing something then I can write at that time.

Gradually the mobile phones were replaced by smartphones. Firstly I was using it for messages, pictures, and calls. Then it stepped up one with Orkut, then Facebook, yahoo mail, etc. just 10 yrs back. After seeing others on WhatsApp and then Instagram was in use. After using the smartphone and WhatsApp, I decided to use the phone less. It’s like a disturbing element. But after the lockdown, my teaching and making ppts, worksheets, and others were done by the smartphone. Till that time I was not addicted or nothing was so much nearer to my heart as I am always an old-school guy with pen and paper.

During the lockdown, I started writing poems again after almost 18 yrs. I was writing in between these years, but very few. Still, those are in diaries. But since 2021 January I started full-fledged writing as I got one idea of clicking pics and putting my thoughts on it by editing. My first addiction and favorite is the Pinterest app. You will find anything in this app. That become my lifeline, helped me in creative ways, and get new ideas.

Then, I got to know about the writing app Your-Quote… and it just turned my life a complete 180°. A writer wants to be read by his/her readers. Or else there’s no point in writing if you cannot reach at least one person as your reader. I started putting my edited pics on Pinterest, then writing started flying high with Your quote platform. These two are my all-time favorite. For writing and editing, reviewing the write-ups, the Notes app is needed too. It’s like the storehouse.

Among these three apps, I am really thankful and in love with the Notes app as it’s the storehouse and can send any write-up to any platform, can store the Zoom links, can write and pin the important writings. Just copy and paste at your desired platform and the magic touch is there.

As a writer, I prefer the Notes app.. easy to handle, ongoing writing can be done. Just life is beautiful and easy now.

The things we have already, we ignore many a time. But these old things stay with us lifelong.
Use it and keep your things safe.

Happy reading.

WHAT’S IN AN APP?

Have you ever looked at something which was not always with you and thought “How did I ever manage to live without this?” Well, I look at my mobile phone and have this thought many times… Ok, I know what you are thinking. I am not that old… The mobile phone has been around for quite some time… But the apps inside them… they are even younger…

Can you count the number of times you open WhatsApp? I can’t imagine making a plan without making a WhatsApp group, where everyone will decide and then undecide and then re-decide a simple plan of meeting for lunch with friends. Makes me wonder how did I manage earlier? How did I complete my missed classwork as a kid without someone posting on the class group what was taught today…

How did families manage to keep in touch with their uncles and aunts and cousins and nieces and nephews without wishing all of them Good Morning every day on WhatsApp?

So if I go with the most used App on my phone WhatsApp emerges number one and is closely followed by Facebook and Instagram…

If I am sitting or standing idle even for a minute with my phone within hand reach by default my fingers will pick up the phone and pay homage to WhatsApp, Facebook, and Insta in quick succession. Guys don’t judge I just don’t wanna miss out on any latest happenings.

Another guilty pleasure I have discovered on my phone recently is Amazon Prime App… I have binge-watched all my favorite shows of the early 2000s and 2010s… Grey’s Anatomy, House, The Good Doctor, Mentalist, Sherlock Holmes, NCIS etc., I binge-watched all these and more on the Prime app. No waiting for the next day for the next episode, no waiting for 6 months for the next season… I can consume as much as I want. This is my small window into another world. I am loving it. I get transported into their world. I watch and wonder do doctors really talk so much about their personal life while doing an operation? How are the houses of these murder victims so clean and well kept… if the police enter my apartment in an emergency will they judge my housekeeping skills?

Okay don’t laugh don’t such thoughts occur to you too at times…

Check out your phone and see which is your most used app and do share in comments…

MY FAVOURITE APP OF ALL TIME

It was in 2012 when I got my first phone. It was a feature phone meaning it had a keypad. I was so excited about having my first phone. It had a very small screen, just half the size of a passport-size photo! Today when I looked at my smartphone, I wonder was it me who was using that feature phone?

Even after using so many smartphones and high-end mobile applications, my first mobile phone is quite special. It was a Motorola flip handset. Though there were a few applications that allowed me to call and text people, it was still the best. There were no games applications on my Motorola phone. One of the best things about that phone was that in case, I received a message or a missed call, the tiny screen over the outer side of the flip, used to blink. There were tiny icons for showing battery life, messages, and calls.

I was so fascinated by this feature back then, that I would often ignore my incoming calls just to see the missed call icon blinking. After using it for over a year, I switched to a Samsung Champ handset. However, this was for a short time as my father lost it in a crowd. The reason why I switched to the new phone was that I wanted to experience what it was like to use a touch-screen phone. Once I asked my uncle to buy a new phone for me and he agreed and bought a Samsung Champ.

The Samsung champ had an in-built gaming application that was all about collecting diamonds. I often played that game and it was one of my favorite pastimes. Now since it was my first touch-screen handset, I loved playing that game by scrolling through the screen.

But no other game can compete with the Zombie HQ game that I started playing when I was pursuing my graduation. Back then I was using one of the Motorola smartphones. The game was so interesting that I could play it for 2-3 hours at a stretch. The game was all about hunting down zombies and killing them with some high-end weapons and collecting points. At first, the game seemed a bit difficult to me but then I aced it.

While killing the vampire, my fighters used to yell and grunt and I liked it. This is when I realized how games and other applications make us addicted to them. Soon, I uninstalled the application. This is when my friends persuaded me to use Instagram as it was the thing that allegedly made us cool. Eventually, I started using Instagram and I still use it.

Still, I am not a big fan of Instagram even though I use it every day to watch cute dog videos and scroll through my news feed. The only application that I genuinely admire was Hike Messenger. Its servers were shut down this year in January and trust me, I miss Hike every day. It was such a cool application but it didn’t get as much fame as WhatsApp and Instagram enjoy.

The best thing about Hike was that it had so many stickers. I mean you could type a word or sentence and you may see stickers in the auto-suggestion. The chat theme of the application was so vibrant. There were plenty of chat themes and they were undisputedly beautiful. Not only this, one could hide their private and important chat through the Hide Chat feature. The feature kept the chat hidden and no people could find it except the user himself/herself. The notification ringtone along with the feature to send offline messages was so good.

Even today I wish for the makers of Hike to make a comeback and start afresh. I haven’t uninstalled the application from my phone and I don’t think I would ever like to uninstall it. However, when I change my phone, I would be erasing all my data from my current phone, and then Hike will be gone forever and this makes me sad.

My friends often ask me to just let go of Hike and I don’t know why I am still not ready to do this. I know this is stupid. But I prefer holding on to this hope of seeing Hike back on the Google Playstore.

How true it is, that we hold onto certain things in life even when we know they don’t exist anymore!!! Does this make you wonder and ponder about it?

Well! Then keep doing that…

WRITE ON THE GO, LITERALLY

Year 2003, the first-ever mobile phone that came to my hand had no apps apart from a game named, ‘Banana’. Yeah, there will be monkeys on my trees as well as the bot’s. We will have our turns to throw bananas on each other to let the monkeys of the opponent fall off the trees. I won’t look at that game now even though it was my favourite pastime then. There was nothing else in that B & W phone apart from a Contact list, Clock and SMS.

Soon came Samsung Bar phone. ‘Bowling‘ was my favourite game. It was again a no-apps, but coloured phone. Soon came ‘FM Radio‘ in the next-generation phones and that took my heart away.

Later, the desire for better grew. Greed crawled freely wearing a mask of Need in my heart and mind. I aspired for a touch screen big phone named, Microsoft Lumia, the first-ever window phone. And I achieved it by hook or crook. Finally, I got a phone with something called, APPS. And the favourite app of that phone was a daily devotional app called, Our Daily Bread.

Soon everyone in the world went up the Level of Unsmartness and became smart enough to hold at least the cheapest Smart Phone in their hands with all the minimum apps in it. Now, presently, I am holding maybe, the 12th phone of my life and it has almost all the latest apps to get addicted to. So let me come to the main body of the article, “My Favourite Phone App“.

What do you think would be the best app for a writer?

Maybe, an app of a Writers Community but there’s not much or I don’t like them. Maybe, an app for bloggers and most of us are using WordPress.com. But let me tell you what is my favourite app.

It’s a very lightweighted and offline app and doesn’t consume much of your phone space. It’s highly user-friendly app. It is called – “Writer Plus (Write On the Go)” If you want to jot it down something quickly with a title, you can rely on it. Type it out and leave the phone, the text will be there, saved automatically. You want to organise and arrange each note or article in different folders, you can do it easily by creating different folders. Keeping a back-up of all your notes is extremely easy. Simply safeguard the app folder and copy it in your laptop and you will have everything intact when you reinstall the app later.

For more information on the App, you can look into this video, HERE:

Demo on WriterP mobile app

This app taught me one lesson, and that is – “Efficiency can be achieved with simplicity.” The machine, the app or the person him/herself doesn’t have to be very sophisticated or complex to achieve something big. Simplicity does impact and bring about good enough results and changes in life too.

I have been using WriterP for more than 5 years by now, to record my sermon outlines, articles, thoughts, ideas, valuable information. When there’s no internet access or laptop or paper or you don’t have mood, this app in our mobile phones come handy and extremely effective.

There are many other apps which I use more than WriterP app but this one is my favourite.

Friends! Download it, use it and remember me.

Stay Blessed!

SIRI, BUY GROCERIES VIA BIGBASKET/CORTANA, PAY VIA PAYTM

I remember my first phone. Many of you must remember it as well, CDMA Reliance phone? Yeah? Yeah, the one that we loved because it had an app called M World. Feels weirdly nostalgic.

Since then, my phone has gone from strength to strength. Both in cost, technology and smartness. But what makes our phone so unique? The Apps. 

It feels so easy to do anything, anytime. I think the apps were a helpful tool in surviving the pandemic and lockdowns. Without them, it would be a long haul of loneliness and isolation. But they made us feel connected, rooted, and alive. (Practo was a lifesaver with no doctors around.)

If I am asked about my phone, I have over 50 apps. And I will share a secret with you; I don’t use half of them. They are there, just in case. Some are there because I need them daily: Zomato, Swiggy, Gpay, WhatsApp, 1mg. Some are there because I like to delve into social media: FB, Insta, Messenger, Telegram, Hangout, Twitter. Then are those which are there for the creative person inside me to serve as a muse and inspiration: Canva, Pinterest, YourQuote but, some are there just for panache. 

We all have to let our friends check out our phones once in a while. They should feel we are “trendy”, and for that purpose, I have Zara, Today, TED, NASA, WazirX, Discovery+. I rarely use them, but they must stay to make me seem smarter. 

Now that I think of it, Apps swallowed so much hardware into a small square on our screen. Remember the huge radios, players, drawers full of cassettes and CDs? Not needed anymore; we have Spotify, Gaana, YouTube. I still remember the summer vacation. I used to beg my father to get my cable TV and watch English movies and sitcoms. Now there is no rush to tune in at 9:30 to watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Netflix and Prime video are there to tune into. Setting up an alarm for Sunday morning cartoons and waiting one entire week for the next episode was so much fun, but now, Disney Hotstar and Zee5 are there to binge-watch at my fingertips. 

We were taking those bulky Kodak and Canon cameras hanging around our necks with pockets full of Fujifilm rolls. Who needs them with 64-megapixel cameras on our phones where Instagram allows us to add 100’s of filters. And shopping for rare collectibles in the narrow streets of Karol Bagh or the handicraft on Janpath is a waste of time; Myntra and Amazon are always there at my service. I miss cleaning my closets every Diwali because I need more space for my paperback. Thanks to Kindle, I can store a million books but never hold one. It was so risky to carry money around, but now you don’t need cash. We are in a cashless age. But sometimes, I miss holding the cash and counting it twice, getting those pictures in my hands from the Fujifilm outlet, and holding my paperback book in my lap while I snuggle up with my stereo.

I know you must be feeling, “Is she talking Pro or Against the apps?” But this is not a debate. I agree that I am ambiguous and don’t know what my heart relished more. This high-tech, smartphone, smart-app era or that simple bygone era where things were just THINGS and people and feelings and sentiments meant much more to us. 

Apps have made us safer, prudent, wiser, but they have also made us narcissistic, one-directional and miserable. We can find all antisocial elements on social media, and fraudulent scamsters are always looking to trick us. We are secure but more susceptible to hackers and spammers.

In the end, I would say I am pragmatic and love this easy lifestyle, but the old soul in me pines for those times when I could walk out on the street and go to my friends’ place to hang out with her while her dog chased me around. I chat with her, but it is NOT the same. 

I am giving you five apps I love.

Rhymly: It is the only app that gives you rhyming words for Hindi. You gonna love it if you have a streak for Shayari or Poetry.

Clubhouse: It has some excellent rooms, and I can hear some exceptional people talking while quietly sitting in a corner. If I wanna speak, they allow me. 

Elevate A place to exercise my mind and challenge myself to keep getting better. 

Duolingo: Lets me learn any language I wish to learn in a very interactive and fun interface. 

Headspace: It slowly teaches you to meditate and helps you stay on track with a gradual process that leads to placid and tranquil moments. 

I can’t close the chapter without mentioning Pubg.

Alexa. Please bid goodbye to my readers.

Goodbye. Have a fun time.

APPS APPS EVERYWHERE!

If you’re going to be reading this post on WordPress, I can bet 9/10 of you – you’re doing it from your WordPress app on your phone. That is the thing about apps, it has made life so convenient wherein – just a few taps here and there on your screen and you’re connected to anything – anywhere – anytime!

…and then there’s ME. Am I the only one who prefers the website version over its app? I’ve always preferred the bigger screen if given the option, but with people on the move and multi-tasking being a normal thing – phone apps have brought in a fresh sense of convenience to one’s life, not to mention everything now is literally at our fingertips.

From being entertained (Youtube) to knowing the time (Clock), having trouble counting? There’s always a calculator or even using the flashlight – it’s all on one gadget, in the form of an app. Easy, convenient, and at your fingertips – just the way the young people of today like it. That said, I too belong to that set of people who like doing things in one place or having various features on one gadget. A dream come true!

“a couple of screen taps and you can have pizza delivered to your doorstep, 2 more taps on it and money is sent across distances. Groceries, Vegetables, and even a date/marriage partner can be simply found on an app“

While we’re still talking about apps, we all have our favorites among the dozens we have installed on our phones. Do you find yourself going back to that app again and again when you’re well…. bored?

Let me take you into some of the apps I have on my phone….

From OTT platforms of Netflix, Zee5, & Hotstar, there are more useful apps of Quora, WordWeb, Wordpess, Wattpad, & Kindle to gaming apps like Scrabble, Ludo, Uno, Candy Crush, Coin Master, & Real Cricket, to the more fancy apps like Clubhouse and of course the more necessary social apps of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, & Whatsapp. Music apps are a must for me-that are looked after by Gaana & Radio Garden along with Youtube. Google Pay and Paytm round up the apps looking after online money transactions… and a few more

That’s a minimum of 23/25 apps on a gadget, I charge once/twice a day and probably use 10% of the apps I’ve actually installed on it. So much of using my SmartPhone, smartly.

While I do think that all these apps have some use to me at some time or the other in my life – when I’m stressed out or just need some ‘me time’, I find myself (more times than not) on the Ludo app. Yes! Remember the Ludo game? I don’t particularly fancy that game, but it is my way of ending a tiring day or destressing my mind, on a simple game, that does not require too much thinking. That said a good e-book would do the same.

So while I personally might not have a favorite app that I would always turn to – I have a range of a few to keep me distracted into a fictional world, which importantly keeps me away from the daily life drama that happens on a daily basis. Nothing beats learning from the app, or at best you are still learning how to use the app if nothing else – that is still learning, the knowledge that no one can take from you. After all, life is all about learning – that will never stop.

I had this once weird dream that people everywhere, on the street, in offices, at home, were a whole bunch of QR codes, and the only way we had access to them was if we scanned them. Once we did that, we would link to them. I would have loved to have seen how that dream ended, but like everything in my life, most things are attractive incomplete trailers.

Imagine if something like that is in store for the future? Something to think about maybe?

My Name is Savio AND I am not an APP