Copy Orkut Birthdays to Google calendar and Outlook

Till date, Google has not added support to export Orkut Birthday calendar to the personal calendar (Google Calendar) and hence there is no easy way to have the same in Outlook.

Here is a manual way of copying Orkut Birthdays to Google Calendar and Outlook.
(Note, this method allows you to copy only one birthday event at a time to your google calendar)

1. (Skip this step if you already see Orkut Birthday calendar in your Google Calendar) Login to Orkut and add your orkut friend's birthdays to Google Calendar. How to?
2. In Google Calendar, click on the birthday event you wish to copy.
3. If you get a popup, select 'copy to calendar' option. If not, and you get the event details, under 'More Actions', choose the option 'Copy to yourname/emailid'. This will open the event details for editing.
4. Change the 'Repeats' option to yearly if preferred. Edit Reminder options as required.
5. Click Save. The entry will be added to your Google calendar.
6. Now sync Google calendar with Outlook, see how to.

How I upgraded the firmware on my Nokia E51 (against Nokia's wishes)

I bought a Nokia E51 in India with firmware version v200.34.36. For reasons best known only to Nokia; firmware updates are very slow to reach this part of the world. If I use Nokia software updater, it would politely tell me that my current firmware is already the latest available. However, The latest version of firmware for other regions is v400.34.011, hence I decided to give it a try.

Step 1: Backup phone and Memory card data. I backed up using two methods.
1a. (PC Suite mode) Backed up the complete phone using Nokia PC Suite backup feature. (Handy if something goes wrong while updating firmware and I want to revert back all settings and changes)
2a. (Removable drive mode) Manually copied the contents of Phone memory and Memory card to a folder on my Laptop. (Handy if I wish to restore some apps or documents manually. After all you really don't want to copy all the old settings again!)

Step 2: I downloaded the Nemesis Service Suite (NSS) Beta 1.0.38.15 from here.
I downloaded the Nokia Software Updater 1.8.10 from here.
I already had the latest version of PC Suite 7.1.30.9

Step 3: Now this is what worked for me. Disconnected Phone from PC Suite.
Uninstalled Nokia PC Suite (and Software Updater, since I already had it)
Restarted the PC.

Step 4: Install NSS using Virtual USB as the option.
Install Nokia PC Suite
Install Nokia Software Updater

Step 5: Exited out of Nokia PC Suite at this point (right clicked on tray icon and Exit).
Start NSS. Connected the phone to laptop in PC Suite mode (important to select PC suite mode on phone. Did not start PC suite at this point)

Step 6: In NSS, click on the Scan option present on top right corner of screen. Once successful, clicked on the Phone Info icon . Then under 'Production Data Edit', clicked the Read button and NSS was able to read my phone contents.

Step 7: I used this APAC product code 0552352. Clicked Enable corresponding to Product Code and entered this code. Then clicked Write. Status at the bottom left confirmed that it was successful. (no other message pops up!)
Closed NSS and started PC Suite.

Step 8: Clicked Software Updater and proceeded with firmware upgrade. This time the updater showed that a new firmware version is available. The further steps went smoothly. Followed on screen instructions.

Step 9: Restored messages, contacts, calendar, notes and user files using my backup copy. Did not restore 'Settings' since I think its unwise to restore settings.

Now, I have the shiny new firmware and with nice updates!