Voice Recorder for blackberry

When you are in a class sometimes you find a really good professor who opens up so many new horizons for you that you really enjoy his class. At other times your grades depend on being able to remember what was taught in class. Or when you are just too slow to take detailed notes or listen to the prof. I was trying to find a substitute for taking class notes because I couldn't pay attention to everything being taught if I was occupied with taking notes.

I decided to try record the audio of one class. I used the voice notes feature built into blackberry. The results were pretty bad in terms of sound quality but I could make out what was being spoken, which helped me elaborate my notes. I was happy with the result so I decided to experiment further. The main problem I faced with BB's recorder was it was limited to 60 mins in length my lecture were 75 mins long sometimes stretching to 90 mins. So started searching for a voice recorder app. In blackberry app world, I came across a few, most of them were useless or too expensive. I needed something simple. Then I found VR+ on app world.

Its a paid app with a trial period of 30 days. Most of the premium features weren't something I needed. But once the trial was over, the app would work as a lite version which was free to use.
Over its a good app. It can record in the background. It can encode it in the AMR format which is lite, just 5mb for 60 mins. It can also email the recording and you can choose the default save location. Problems: It takes a lot of processing power which makes the phone slow and drains the battery almost at the same rate as calling (may be slightly better). The lite version also puts a small self-introduction in the file before the actual recording.

But it gets the job done. And I'm happy with it so far. It has features that I haven't used even once. And its free.
Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone

Aliens Vs Predators

I have been reading some stuff off my alexa toolbar. Most of the news relates to politics, sports, movies or recently reddit pages. There is a lot being said about TSA. There was this particular post about a photographer having posted about not going to a US anymore, because of the harrasment he has faced during airport checks. Small town police and residents being overly cautious of him when he is photographing on the streets (he was street photographer). As you can image, it had a long list of comments (i spent 45mins reading and i wasn't even halfway through.) Surprisingly there was very little flaming. I have read comments to yahoo news articles, and it makes me want to shake my head in..... frustration? dispair? hopelessness.. yes that's appropriate. Everyone on the reddit page seemed to be pretty much on the same page (metaphorically) as far as what they felt about US.

I was thinking, 'When I go to US, I'll stay away from airports. I'll hire a car, drive for 18-20 hours, rather than endure the TSA"

Then I read this today - America's Worst Speed Traps

I was wondering if government in the US was taking capitalism to ITS heart. To an outsider like me, this was more like "gaming", as if the authorities were playing their version of 'angry birds' or some arcade game. "Ok, now this guy is going to come out from here at 70, so lets put a 55 limit on this section and a speed trap. That should take care of state department's electricity bills this year"

They are playing more aggressively than large Corporations. May be because they are the 'monopoly', there's only one government.

So there goes my option of driving cross country into the bin. Makes me think if I should even be going. I'm free in my country, REALLY.

Another point to notice, US is caving in under the weight of its own regulations. For so long China has been portrayed as a heavily policed and censored state. Seems like US is importing these things as well from China.

PS: A special note to my sisters in the US: Come back. Grass is greener on this side, for a change.