The Open Source Honeymoon!

Open Source, yes, that is what the computing world needs. Think how good it would have been if the software was sold rather than just the licenses of software being sold? Think about the infinite possibilities, you could get away from the blue screen of death, (and obviously get your own green, turquise blue or black screen of death, your choice!). You could remove internet explorer from the bundle and replace it with the browser of your choice (higly recommended), you could even customize the applications and software bundle of your windows and sell it as your own distro (and millions of different colorful bugs). But alas! that is not going to happen, as Microsoft is not going to follow the Linux way.
Look at Linux, how easy life is. Being a Linuxer for the past few years, I am still enjoying my honeymoon with my PC. I am never bored, (yes, there are very little games for Linux who minds) I spend hours formating and reinstalling new Distros. I could even keep my PC fresh and clean because of this, (yeah I do lose a confidential file or two, every now and then in the process of formatting, but who cares?). I can have a two page long list of distros in my bootloaders, so I use one for listening to music, one for browsing, one for office and so on, how convenient. Not like windows, where you have to do a series of clicks and find the app you need. Here you just need to reboot to the distro of your choice.Also, I have nice spending time buying a new hard disk every 2 months ( not because of excessive formatting. I lost only 2 hard disks that way, I actually buy because I run out of space installing OS).
I have also mastered my typing skills, thanks to the console prompt, whatever be the distro, how much ever friendly it be, I get a reason or two to get to the console and set things straight. Also my vocabulary is getting richer day by day, with extraordinary words like Ubuntu, Xandros, knoppix etc. I bet Open Source is the way to salvation! ( I have to log back into windows before I post this, my network card is not detected in my Ubuntu!!! )

"somethings look sexy when exposed, but some are better maintained under hood."

codevalley

Ballmer calls up Gates after Yahoo! Deal call off!

Note:This is an imaginary comic article. This is just a satire and contains no facts.

After the Yahoo! Deal was laid off, the whole Microsoft felt deceived and upset. On January 31st 2008, YHOO stocks closed at 19.03$. And a day after, the Microsoft announcing its interest to takeover the internet giant, its stock prices shot up to 28$ in a single day and even reached 30$ at some point of time. But because of the indifferent approach of Yahoo! Board, Microsoft had to call off the deal. Post Yahoo!, an upset Gates calls up Ballmer.

Gates: What is this, Steve? I expected more from you. You should have gone for the proxy fight. Why did you give up?
Ballmer: No dear. There’s no point in it. They were asking for too much. And moreover they will anyway tie up with Google; there is no point in taking over in that case.
Gates: What can we do now? How do we save our face? I am not able to concentrate on my philanthropy 'business', you see.
Ballmer: Even I am thinking about it. I tried my luck on Facebook, MySpace, but they did not budge. Then tried revamping Live.com, no one is even visiting it. Now after Yahoo! I see no way out.
Gates: Why don’t we take our fight to our old friend, Apple? Can we announce a iPhone killer?
Ballmer: Not a bad idea! We can in fact. We can use the Zune hardware, with an Xbox processor and put Vista in it….
Gates: Vista? Will it fit in? The kernel itself is 3 GB!!
Ballmer: Bill, why are you talking like a child! We can always revamp it. As we always used to do! We will remove the security module, Aero, the file system, the boot loader and…yeah, the multimedia too.
Gates: What will be left then?
Ballmer: The DOS kernel!
Gates: Still the DOS kernel? I thought we developed a new kernel for Vista?
Ballmer: Yeah, we did. Who said otherwise? We rewrote the whole DOS kernel from C to C#.
Gates: How innovative! I am impressed. Now what we will we name our new product? It should really be something people can easily recognize. Something like iPhone…how about oPhone?
Ballmer: I am afraid, O2 might complain….what about GPhone?
Gates: Its already there you homie…Google Phone, so are the SPhone, KPhone etc. All patented.
Ballmer: No alphabets left? Oh, hey! How about xPhone? That adds an x-factor... oh heavens.. I am amazed on my own creativity!!!
Gates: Dude, watch out, x rating your product won’t help. I think we should go in our Windows line, 98, Millenium, 2000, XP, Vista….why don’ we name it Pista?
Ballmer: Oh, you better name it some Chocolate or strawberry…ha ha
Gates: Hey! You said it! Strawberry! We can also challenge blackberry with it! You are a genius! I am convinced.
Ballmer: thanks (blushing).
Gates: So, when can we have the press conference?...

when technology gets advanced, people get silly.

codevalley

Yahoo! to bid for Microsoft???

After more than two months of speculation, negotiation, round tables, press conferences and ultimatums it seems both Microsoft and Yahoo! have said they have enough of the drama. Microsoft spokesperson on the press conference said that, "This is what we both wanted, to be in the front cover of all the business journals and portals, rise in share values and publicity. This was the biggest form of advertising both we and Microsoft could get and the master plan has really paid off!". He also noted that at the end we wanted to call an end to this drama, as we found the drama is losing its charisma.
"We are now thinking of bidding for Microsoft for maybe, 150 billion. I know we don't have that much funds with us. But we have asked Warner Bros. to sponsor this soap, and they have agreed to the same. They have their own publicity plans regarding the same, we will have a weekly show in BBC and CNN to get more publicity." When asked about how many months this new drama is going to last, Microsoft's Balmer said, " I don't have the clearest idea, but it could last for 2-3 months, depending on the publicity and popularity. Spielberg is in charge of the script and direction". "We are sure, both us and Yahoo! can tip Google from the top spot, with this kind of slick marketing. "
-Codevalley

This is a spoof and not real news. Don't run to buy some MSFT, YHOO shares half reading the article. I am not responsible for any loss occuring in such cases.
posted in sillytech on May 05, 2008

Windows may evolve, but bugs never.

Myth
Microsoft announced that it would delay its release of Windows XP service Pack 3, as it uncovered a new found glitch last week. The same glitch apparently is already there in Vista Service Pack 1 which it has already broadly released last week.
For lesser mortals, here is the full news.For others read on...

Reality
You need not drop your jaws if tomorrow Steve Ballmer announces that the same glitch has been found in XP Services Pack 2, 1 etc, or maybe Windows 98 Service Pack 1 as well. As each of these Operating Systems have been coded from scratch and are entirely different than their predecessors, it is only the theory of probability to be blamed if the same bug is surfacing on all the OSes. You people never listened when I said I maths is flawed!!
-Codevalley

posted in sillytech on April 2008.

Microsoft ambitious about the Azure Cloud!

Remember the famous Windows 98 boot screen and wallpaper? The windows product name etched in a background of bright blue clouds. I am not sure who was behind that idea, but definitely he would have never thought the cloud, would mean so much to Microsoft over a decade later.
Azure as it has been christened, the next generation of Computing is getting ready for take off. The Microsoft Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie was all excited to announce the possibility of a Windows that runs inside Internet. Azure will go beyond the existing paradigms and create a Distributed Operating System Model hosted under Microsoft's Data Centers. And the services could be accessed through existing protocols like HTTP, REST, WS* and Atom.
The Azure platform will provide various Azure Services like Windows Azure, .NET Services, SQL Services and Live Services. Developers can write applications on the Azure platform and make it available to the users all around the world.
With Azure, Microsoft also makes a genuine Openness Promise, to support all technologies impartially over the Azure cloud. This means an Azure app could be running on a PHP application or use OpenID authentication.
Other Azure highlights are the possible subscription model of licensing that Windows Azure and the hosted apps may follow. The Azure network's fabric controller that manages the services and the ready availability of data which is spread over many data centers.
Azure seems to be the Logical evolution of Operating Systems, and when the leader of Operating Systems is initiating it, expectations are running high.
Though this looks like a promising step ahead, Azure is still in a very nascent stage and there is a long way to go until we get something that has a business value. For now, Microsoft has a limited Developer preview and some SDKs for the developers to play with. PDC 2008 also witnessed some small sample applications developed over Azure.
"It's a transformation of our software and a transformation of our strategy" Said Ray Ozzie, in the PDC speech. He was probably right, as web is the next home. And we will have to wait and see who will be the first to conquer this kingdom.
Azure Home
Azure Coverage on CNET

Codevalley

Mozilla sets up Minefields to blow away other browsers!

For the past few months, the browser war has reached new exciting levels, with Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Opera, all releasing new versions, providing drastic improvements to the older versions. Also, Google joined the party when they announced their own Chrome.
There are long running argument threads in the internet on which is the fastest.
Chrome had a dream start, first the comic book leak, then the sudden release, and public curiosity and all that. Initially Chrome did unsettle the browser community for a while, soon it proved to be just another browser.
Now, firefox is projecting its future Firefox, with the Minefield brand name. Minefield refers to all the alpha, pre-release builds of firefox which you are free to download and test. [Also, it is upto you to survive the crashes.] Though not recommended for normal users, the Minefield will give you daily and even twice-a-day updates, for whenever there is a new build, you get them. But, most of the standard firefox plugin go unsupported in Minefield.
But, the reviews have that Minefield is lightning fast and the javascript rendering of the new bomber browser beats all the browsers without doubt. So, firefox is not done yet. In fact they are getting stronger and better. Anyway things are rosy for users as we have options to choose from.
Minefield gives you the nightly builds which can be obtained from the Mozilla's ftp. You can see the future of firefox with Minefield builds. So if you are upto it, go ahead and download Minefield. One more thing, Minefield installations can be kept separate from the firefox installation. So go ahead and play!
Minefield Home
ftp Download page

codevalley

Google Chrome, reinventing the wheel?

Just over a week after Microsoft Internet Explorer  Beta 2, Google has come up with its own new offering christened Chrome. The whole release episode itself was in a bizzare fashion. A day before the release, the whole internet talk about some leaked Google comic book talking about the new Chrome browser, and just a few hours later Google announce that they aill release the beta the very next day.

Along with million others, I also waited to get my copy of my Chrome, once it was available for download. Though it looks lightweight and simple, the initial impression was that I was working with some lite version of a browser. No menus, only a few buttons. Even the settings tab had a very limited options. As I went on adding more tabs, I noticed that the browsing controls are embedded in every tab. Also if you have multiple windows, you can drag tabs from one window to another. The browser also rendered the pages properly, and the fears which developers had that they have to test compatibility with one more browser could be thrown away.

Another interesting thing I found was each tab had a process running in the tast manager. So, if some website misbehaves you can close them. Also Google had also announced that this browser would follow a secure sandbox model, no tab can access content of others. 

All looks fine. But there seems to be a lack of pull which we have for firefox because of no plugins themes, etc. Using the browswer five minutes, you feel like you have seen it all. Also, Internet Explorer Beta 2 is really proving good. When compared, IE consumes the least CPU, followed by Chrome and then Firefox. I will post the IE review soon.

Though initially I was against the idea of Google capturing another frontier by bringing its browser, this really looks good in terms of useability and simplicity. Now, one person holds your search history, browsing history, mails, and what not?

Google Chrome

Bump your desktop with 3d icons!

Recently in the TED conference, I came across a peculiar innovation. Bumptop, as the creator Anand Agarwala calls it, is a desktop which closely resembles the conventional physical desktops we have at home. It has icons which behave more like tangible objects on our desktop, which can be stretched tossed, pinned on the wall, stacked, arranged, shuffled, and even crumbled and thrown over the corner. The idea looks interesting, but I am not sure, if it will find its way into practical computing.
The young Anand starts by calling Windows desktop as flat and rigid, and though he says, you can sex it up, with more lickable Mac, he calls Mac the same old crap we had for last 30 years. The arrogance soon fades out with his demo of Bumptop. It basically looks like a physical desktop and each icons have physical attributes of real world objects. It basically uses pie menus and lasso selections to quickly select icons from the desktop and apply transformations on it. The physics looks really good, with heavier (bigger) icons actually looking heavier when pushed and tossed, etc.
But, the question is why would you want such a messy, 3D desktop, when you have the flat and rigid, by usable, and tidy desktop. It may be the fact that you feel more at home, and relaxed working with a real physical desktop. Or the subtelity and the clarity that it provides may be another reason. Anand maybe able to give more reasons. Anyway I havent yet got the copy of the software which is in private beta, so I cannot comment on its system resource comsuption and speed. I will post updates when I get one.
Bumptop Home
Bumptop Twitter

codevalley

Google on for a makeover?

Recently, Google announced officially that they are no more getting any profits from Youtube, along with a few other ventures like Google Checkout, Print Ads etc. To stress on the severity of the situation, Google even went on to say that Youtube might well prove to be a significant risk for the search ads giant. That is understandable, considering the amount of bandwidth and storage Youtube eats up every hour. But, what would Google do now? Since the incubation about 10 years ago, Google has been on a upward run, acquiring anything interesting and adding the Google brand to it. This included the likes of Blogspot, Picasa, Feedburner and ofcourse Youtube, which was bought for a whopping 1.65$ Billion. But, has the Google's downslide started? Is history repeating, as it happened the software giant Microsoft a few years ago?
For instance, I agree there were trivial improvements to youtube in the past few months, but has there been any major innovation? What happened to the iGoogle? Though it was a big hit overnight, soon Yahoo! and Live where able to kick butt, at least to some extent. What about orkut? Facebook is now in news everyday, but we seldom hear about orkut. Has the buying spree of Google cost them dearly?
Two weeks back, Google acquired Omnisio, a video annotation company for reviving Youtube. But still, for the first time, Google seems desperate and upset over Youtube, as this statement from Google proves,"[The] anticipated benefit of may of our acquisitions may not materialize. For example, we have yet to realize significant revenue benefits from our acquisitions of dMarc Broadcasting (Audio Ads) and YouTube."
Google is the undisputed king of internet, at least as on date. But, how many days more? I believe they have already entered the red zone, and you might well get to see some real makeovers to keep them in game. Rather than taking over anything that comes their way, Google might try to make the existing businesses profitable.
Recently an ad by Google on newspaper read,
"We are very much like a startup company, and think in the same way. So if you are innovative..." it goes on. I think, Google has to pull up their socks, if they don't want to end up like a startup company.
codevalley

Cuil ready for the Google Kill.

Everyone knows about Google, it is synonymous to search, and to Internet for many. Every week we techies hear about new ventures and acquisitions by Google, and the horizon is ever increasing. But, a husband-wife team from Stanford is trying to dent the giant’s domination, and that too aiming at the bull’s eye. Searching, which is the heart of Google's business.
Cuil is the new search engine which was unveiled earlier today (28th july), and unlike many other failed attempts by smaller and bigger companies to take down Google, Cuil looks fresh, genuine and original.
Cuil, (pronounced as cool), is fundamentally different from Google, be it the way it indexes results, shows results or navigates. Which is better is another question, that only time would answer. Initially when we hit the Cuil home page, you have a calm feeling with a black page and a very prominent search bar inviting you. But, as soon as you start typing you know Cuil is indeed very different. You get a drop down will autofill suggestions as you type a search string.
The Results page is the most innovative part, its built up into 3 parts, the bottom bar which has the Google like search page numbers, the top bar having the search box and category tabs (another innovation which we will explore more) and the content area, which unlike other search engines, shows the results in multiple columns, with images added wherever relevant. It gives the immediate feel of the each result. Also it has tabbed suggestion boxes,showing you related terms. All done in a neat Web 2.0 model, with limited loading time.
The key word for Cuil is categorizing, in the top bar, it shows various categories for results. when I searched for “Michael”, I got many tabbed categories like Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, George Michael, More..., helping me to close in onto what I am looking for. The results, by default show the All results tab, with entries from all categories. Along with the results we have a box of tabs called “Explore by category” which further categorizes the content. It is more easy and fun searching in Cuil rather than Google’s all in a bucket way of searching.
Cuil's About page says it indexes over 140 Million pages (Google’s index comes to around 40 million) and they are the world’s biggest search engine. And, they do not use the Google’s page rank kind of indexing, where popularity (in terms of clicks and links) is the earning points. Instead, Cuil goes by content of each page and categorizes it. But, how far this fetches us realistic results is a question in hand. For example searching “Codevalley” returned one of the popular articles from my site, indexed by some other RSS site, and my profile from various blog directories. But, it did not show the website www.thecodevalley.com in the top five search pages. Also the image shown along with the search results were sometimes totally unrelated to the actual result. Also, the search engine refused to show any results at all many times, even though second try yielded thousands of results for the same query. Still, the most severe drawback with Cuil is that there is no image search, or any other type of search for that mattter, other than the normal search.
The conclusion is that Cuil beats Google by a very big margin in terms of Presentation of the results, but the actual searching technique of Cuil is to be tested. But, Cuil is worth trying, as it makes searching more interesting and interactive.
Start Cuiling here
codevalley

Sorry for my absense.

Last two weeks, nothing much happened in the codevalley. I apologize for that. Busy schedule, trying new things and my new blog ventures, kept me away from codevalley. But, I have made adjustments in my schedules to make sure I deliver my daily byte of technology thru codevalley. So the codevalley is alive again. In the meanwhile, I will tell you about what was happening in the past weeks.
I started a new philosophy blog, Mating Life. Where I would preach what I learnt, are the ingredient for a peaceful and happy living. It is just launched and has one post, at the time of this write up. I am yet to get the domain registered.
Till then you can get it at http://matinglife.blogspot.com

My Last Theory web novel was in my head since I started it, and to get my adrenaline even more up, it had reasonably good traffic, until last week when I had a bad run. Traffic was scarce and I decided not to post the fourth chapter, until I get more readers. This week hopefully I will be posting the fourth chapter.
You can read it here http://thelasttheory.com

I decided to take part in the Moblin developer challenge and develop a software product for the same. I will explain to you more about moblin, in a short time, in my next blog post. Moblin is a Operating system based on ubuntu for mobile internet devices. The concept of my product, called Me! (Mobile Everything) is available at the blog, http://concept-me.blogspot.com

So that was it. 2 weeks passed on without codevalley. But, its turning on again, with more power, hopefully.

Protect against online Plagiarism with Copyscape

Copyscape is a search engine, with a little different purpose. It finds the web pages which has copies of your content. It is a very creative idea, where you type in the URL of your website or page whose content you want to check in internet. Once you hit the Go button, Copyscape will return the pages in internet which has parts your content. Parts of content means even small paragraphs or phrases of your content. Though Copyscape only finds the text duplicates and not other media like images or sounds, this itself is very useful. Consider, a person sits down and writes an online tutorial for some new tool, and hopes to earn small pennies with ads and banners. But, without his knowledge someone else might have been using this content to boost his own revenues, with the original content maker not even aware of this. This is where we can use Copyscape to detect the plagiarists.

The free and open version gives you only the top ten results, and you need to sign up for a premium account to get all the results. Also, for the premium crowd, copyscape provides tools like Copysentry, which will monitor your web content continuously and reports every new duplicate that sprout in the internet. Another premium tool is where you can copy-paste your offline content and check if it is there in internet. Already many lawsuits have been filed against plagiarists with the help of the Copyscape tool (according to Wikipedia), including the one by a small CSS tutorial Author, who sued Apple for copying his content.

How does it work? Copyscape uses Google APIs to do the job, along with their own proprietary algorithm to exactly pinpoint copies. The site owned by a company called Indigo Stream Technologies, Ltd. and was launched in 2004.

The low points being that it cannot detect other media plagiarism except textual content. Also, it cannot tell which is the original copy and which is the duplicate, and that most professional tools will cost you. Anyways, for bloggers and other people who use internet as a writing medium, Copyscape is a tool to bookmark. They also provide a banner to post in websites showing “Page protected by Copyscape, do not copy”.

Copyscape search page.

Copyscape Forum discussing on IP rights.

Codevalley

The Last Theory, my first novel

Sorry all for not posting anything for over a week. I was busy with publishing my maiden web novel, the Last Theory. It is a sci-fi sequel, where I will be posting one chapter a week, and depending upon reader comments and feedback I will take forward my story.
Last Theory is a scientific theory which I have been working on for the past few years. I thought I would put it down as a novel. Again, there I found the medium, Internet and "Blog" as very interesting, and that is how I am attempting to write a blog novel.
Hope I will get nice response to my novel as I am getting to this blog.
You can check out the novel here.
http://thelastheory.wordpress.com 

The Ubuntu of Cricket games, by the fans.

One of most compelling and challenging sector of software industry is the gaming industry. Development of each game requires years of hardwork and millions of dollars of funding. But, still most of these games, developed with such effort find a fan following and manage to earn something for their effort. The gaming market being so large, you have many genres associated to it. You have, strategy, action, racing, sports etc.
I being a great cricket fan has always looked upon big banners to produce a genuine cricket game, with vivid gameplay and graphics. Electronic Arts, one of the legends of console gaming, never lived up to their expectations in this regard. EA cricket, right from cricket 2000 to cricket 2007 were not even the shadows of EA FIFA soccer brand. Be it the gameplay, or graphics. They could have easily adopted the FIFA graphics into cricket. Wonder why they never did it. Then you had Brian Lara Cricket, this was too not too better, apart from relatively better gameplay, both were limited in the aspect of enjoyability, for any cricket fanatic.
The Art Of Cricket
This saw the birth of TAOC, which is actually a cricket game, being developed by game modders, game patchers and designers. It started from the set of cricket enthusiast who patched cricket games in the market, through a forum called Planetcricket.net We already have seen those thousands face packs, ground mods, AI mods for EA cricket and other cricket games. Now, they have taken up the challenge of developing a cricket game of their own. And when I went through their website and checked the features, it looked awesome, least to say. There are also a few videos of the game which is still in the making. It looks better than any cricket game available currently. With over 38 shots to choose from, different bowling actions to bowler and over 30 stadiums, vivid player rendering to advanced options like Duckworth Lewis, Dew factors, Day and night matches which has fading light as match progresses, even the twenty20 format playable.
As I browsed the whole site, the most interesting part was that, the forum was filled with discussions between the developers and fans, and people suggesting what they would want from the game.
This "underground" ultimate cricket game might be out by this year. This could called more like an Open Source Cricket game. They might charge a very nominal fee for all the effort they have put for this, which by no means is a problem for fans. I can't wait to lay my hands on this new public owned cricket game, till then these are the links for you to check and drool over.
TOAL Features.
TOAL teaser Videos.
TOAL Website

Yahoo! divorce’s Microsoft for Google.

Recap

It looks pretty much like a prime time soap. For month’s Microsoft had been negotiating and proposing to Yahoo!, first came with a 31$ buyout offer, later raised it to 33$ trying to make ends meet. But finally Yahoo! pulled off. Again with the help of Icahnn, Microsoft tried to acquire the strategic search portion of Yahoo! The final talks happened on Thursday, and reportedly, Yahoo! were ready to accept the earlier 33$ whole buyout, which Microsoft were no more interested in. Instead, Microsoft were willing to pay 35$ a share for a 16% on Yahoo! to get the search market portion. This Yahoo! found unacceptable and were not even willing to think about. Yahoo! quoted in a press statement “...that such a transaction would not be consistent with the company's view of the converging search and display marketplaces, would leave the company without an independent search business that it views as critical to its strategic future, and would not be in the best interests of Yahoo stockholders.” (The trademark “interest of shareholders” argument).
Yahoo! also noted that it was Microsoft who has now moved off the full buyout bid, even at the earlier quoted price. And this followed a heavy 12% dip in Yahoo’s share closing at over 23$.

The Twist
A little while later, Yahoo! announced its new fiancée, Google. It had already struck a 10 year deal with Google to divert some of Google’s search traffic to Yahoo! and is expecting an additional 800$ million revenue this year. But is this the forbidden Apple that Yahoo! is trying to have? Subsequently the story could go such a way that, Yahoo! will become more and more dependent on the Google’s cash, and will not be able to survive without it. Is Google playing the Wolf in the lamb’s skin? We all know Google’s motto of “don’t be evil”, will they keep that word? Only time can tell.
But this is what Google CEO Eric Schmidth had to say, “This agreement will preserve the competitive and dynamic online advertising space.” But how? Hope we find an answer soon.
Now, Google, the new found friend of Yahoo! is also sharing there IM circle with Yahoo! and Yahoo! chat can support Google buddies, clearly an advantage Google deal.
Already the Anti-trust authorities are scrutinizing the deal and pretty skeptical over the happenings.
So what will Google do with this new found friend? Is Yahoo! falling into bigger trap to waiver off immediate slaps from Icahn and Microsoft? How will Microsoft react? What can Icahn do? Wait for the next episode.

-codevalley

Let’s bury the iPhone, Omnia unfolds an era

Samsung’s growth and rise as a mobile phone market major went unnoticed, until earlier this year when they surpassed Motorola to become the World's 2nd largest Mobile phone manufacturer. Lately Samsung has been putting a very strong and challenging competition even to the market leader Nokia. With constantly launching new handsets with rich features and presenting those with competitive prices have been their strategy.
Now, they have come up with a dream phone, a phone which has everything one could think of, a phone which could be could challenge a 2 year old PC, in short we call it Omnia.
Overview
Omnia is a candybar phone with a 3.2” touch screen and WQVGA display on a 12.5mm thin body with platinum finish. It has a 5MP camera with almost professional features and runs the latest Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. It has a built in memory of 8GB or 16GB and supports additional memory via memory card. It even has a laptop like optical mouse for one hand navigation. It also has WiFi, GPS, Word, Excel, Powerpoint what not?
Multimedia
Going into details, the camera has face detection, smile detection, auto focus, long panoramic shots with auto-panorama shots. There is also extending video recording features like adding subtitles, live dubbing, trimming video etc. The display looks very vivid and clear and the touch interface used is a new patented Samsung technology called TouchWiz, which is genuinely above par to iPhone’s interface. It has support to all major video formats including DivX, Xvid etc.
Connectivity
The phone has GPS for navigation and geotagging. Along with the normal EDGE, Push mail, FM Radio, GPS, Bluetooth A2DP, Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 etc, it also has HSDPA 7.2mbps, Quad-band GSM. It also has Outlook for handling e-mails.
User Interface
No stone has been left unturned in this new Samsung’s all in one package. Omnia has a multitouch with TouchWiz technology, (do watch the video at the end), with intuitive tap, sweep, drag and drop operations as well as an on-screen qwerty keyboard. It also has unique calling and texting methods. Another elegant addition is a widget full desktop, which can be fully customized, (I have never seen a thing like this before). There are also dedicated keys for communications and other shortcuts.
The phone can also download large files and store in them, thanks to the native windows OS in it. It can be used much like a PC without great difference.
Only negatives I could find is the display resolution of 240x400 which I feel is ordinary. Also the 5MP camera doesn’t seem to have a camera cover.

Overall, Omnia SGH-i900 is a PC packed into 12.5mm of metal which is designed for the pocket.
Omnia will be launched by June in South East Asia, and later by July in UK and rest of the world.
And iPhone, what is that???
TouchWiz Demo video


-codevalley

iPhone 2.0, double the performance, half the price.

iPhone 3G or the iPhone 2.0 was revealed yesterday here by Steve Job and it has already been creating hype with so many diggs and search results for the same. I don't believe in rehashing information, but I thought I should let my readers know what is actually different in the new iPhone compared to its older sibling.
The looks
The new iPhone looks little bit thicker but shapier compared to the original, which is understandable, but there is no difference in the display size or resolution (it remains 3.5 inches). The 3 hardbuttons (short cut keys) are now in metal, rather than in plastic (as was in original iPhone). The headphone port now allows the normal headphones to be connected to it. The phone has single color for the back side also, instead of the original metallic back. The phone is also available in ivory white for the 16GB version.
Features
The changes in features includes a faster processor and network chip which boast of 2.6 times faster internet, and also 3G capability.  There is also a front camera for video call. The new iPhone also has AGPS which makes it more useful for map applications like Google Maps, working better. Also theres is a unified push method which allows all background IM and email programs to fetch data at one time from Apple's server which caches the data, thereby increasing battery life because of less network seek. Also, the new iPhone would support software upgrades meaning which is a big plus. You also have a sim card ejector to pull out the sim card.
Pricing
Pricing is the most important difference that iPhone 3G has to offer. If the former version cost you 399$, the new iPhone would cost you only 199$, yes, only half the price. That would be THE cheapest touch screen phone, or maybe smartphone ever heard. I am not sure why Apple took such a drastic step. But Steve Jobs would not do things without some great thought behind it.
-codevalley

New look to my blog, thanking all my readers.

For the past 1 month, I have taken my blogging very seriously and I am investing a lot of time into it as well. I am in turn being encouraged by increased traffic. My heart felt thanks to all the visitors. I felt the blog needed a makeover. So I have put on a new template and also bought the domain http://www.thecodevalley.com
This is only a beginning, I would keep on improving my blog, so that keep my visitors happy. And did I tell you that I would like all your feedbacks more than anything? Keep throwing in your feedbacks be it positive or negative. It would only help me serve you better. I am also looking for a designer to do a full makeover of the my blog's looks. If any designer is reading, please feel free to respond.
If you feel my blog has been any use to you and would like to support me, feel free to use the button below to donate any amount.

Thanking you all,
-Narayan aka codevalley

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Review: Ubuntu 8.04, a definite show stopper!

As usual, as May approached, I went to the ubuntu portal to get my copy of new Hardy Heron, for the past 4 releases, this has been the modus operandi. I get my copy, try it out, explore the feature, be happy for some days, but it used to fade out soon, for some reason or so. Butby the time 7.10 released, I had got my laptop, and Ubuntu refused to run on it. So I was away from the tux for quite a few months. Even when I got my Hardy Heron CD, i did'nt give much hope of running it in my laptop. In fact the CD pouch remained unopened for over a week, until I thought of trying it on my desktop.
First of all, I have an AMD desktop, with Nvidia board, so I knew, there are possibilities of driver issues, but I was proved wrong, and I got my Ubuntu going in 20 minutes. Nothing really noticeable from the previous versions. The same old brown theme, the drum sound everything the same. But again, I began to notice subtle but definite makeovers. First of all, my update manager "suggested" if I would want to use the restricted NVidia graphics drivers so that I can get the maximum out of my card. I gleefully accepted the request, and by the time I also noticed, my bluetooth dongle was infact working perfect, Ubuntu had installed required drivers for it. I paired up my PDA to it and downloaded some songs.
Now, I got excited, I went on to install all the updates, and began setting the OS up. The Compiz was already active with the Nvidia Driver in place, all the Aero effects and more was in the offering. Suddenly I remembered, during installation, it had even ripped the users and their documents & setting from the Windows XP, that was really a handy option, now I had all my documents ready in the Linux desktop.
In the meantime I also tried the same installation in my laptop, that too running on an AMD/Nvidia combo. No problems at all, everything went smooth, and while I was downloading updates I noticed, the internet is pretty fast, compared to windows. All the drivers also got into place automatically, bluetooth, ethernet, wifi, everything got detected, even my Webcam started rolling, once I installed cheese (I had issues with it on my Windows ).
Now, I went through the packages, somehow I got a feeling that in this release, the Ubuntu people have gone soft on the restricted drivers, it was easily locatable and installable, right from my graphics card driver to installing mp3 codecs,, all done in the background. When I opened youtube, I was asked whether I want to install flash (yeah, that is also restricted software), and went ahead to install flash 9.0. The same when I installed my favourite amarok, I could get mp3 songs songs rightaway. Another thing I noticed was, it was easier to locate installed software from the main menu itself, even if it is a gnome package or KDE package. And the number of packages and support has increased many folds. I could access my NTFS drives in read/write mode, get windows TTF fonts installed, burn DVDs etc. I could not login to my G.ho.st Virtual PC though, I am not sure why. The login kept on failing.
For the first time I felt Ubuntu has outshined Windows (Vista). The plenty availability of software packages, crash free environment, and more importantly very userfriendly and neat interface, now anyone can shift to Ubuntu from Windows with ease. It really is worth a try. I have not logged onto my windows for the past one week. And I send files from my desktop to laptop via bluetooth.
On the negatives, Canonical is not anymore sending you 50 CDs just as you request, so that you can have Ubuntu's hung above your car's rearview mirror. And every two days, I get an updated kernel worth 50 MB, so my internet is put to full use.

If you people want me to, I will blog more about this Hardy Heron release, but only if you would ask me to, and tell me what you want to know, so start sending me your opinions and comments.
-codevalley

Review: G.ho.st OS...nothing haunting about it.

Recently I came across a variety of online virtual desktops, which claim that they are Virtual Operating Systems and give you the ultimate experience across PCs. In fact, one of the early birds in this category was Desktoptwo. Desktoptwo came into limelight almost 2 years ago, and now we have a dozen more competitors which are fighting for the spot. At first I thought of comparing each of them, but once I reviewed the G.ho.st OS I felt it deserved a full blog review.
G.ho.st stands for Global Hosted Operating System, and they have got a unique and creative domain name g.ho.st. They call themselves a virtual computer. At first when I came across this, I was pretty laid back. I had already tried Desktoptwo. I hardly used it though, because I never found real use for a virtual OS, where the network bandwidth is still at premium, these flash based players take ages to load, and even though they offer web storage, it takes hours to upload stuff, and download them back. But, still I just went on to the ghost portal, still curious about the peculiar domain name.
Once the portal opened, I was pulled in. The designers have done a very good job, with nice artwork, and appealing logo and colors. I involuntarily clicked on sign up. Again, a minimal and simple sign up took place and I got the confirmation mail. Now, I logged on to the OS. I was expecting at least a few 10 minutes before I could log on, since I have a 64kbps network connection. But amazingly I could see my desktop hardly within 3 minutes. The desktop gave a Vista like feel, with icons, designed in a cartoony way. There were a few gadgets lying over, a ghost tour, clock, some sticky notes, etc. The tour was more of pictures and less text which compelled me to finish it. It was pretty informative.
You have a virtual OS framework and you allow 3rd party applications to run over your framework, that is basically what ghost is upto. So, logically it does qualify for the name, virtual PC. Next I went through the start menu, there were applications found in a normal linux installation like accessories, games, widgets etc. It also had a browser app, so it would be actually a browser inside a browser, a nice way to proxy. Next I went to the mail client, rather a rich app like outlook with many features like calender, address book etc, The mail can be configured to a pop client in your mobile phone or so, so that you get your g.ho.st mails into it. Also this email client itself can download mails from other players like GMail, Live etc, through POP configurations. That was useful, I have configured my mails into this. You have another option to configure your logins, something like the OpenID. All your login-passwords can be stored in this application which automatically authenticates to these services once you log into your ghost OS. You have ZOHO Office suite, Google Docs, and many other third party apps, that you can run in your Ghost.
Now, the techie part, the OS fully works on Flash, though it was indeed light and fast, there might be incompatibility issues where you don't have flash. G.ho.st also provides 5 GB space, which is not readily available, you get 1 GB initially and rest 4 when you refer 4 friends. You can use ftp to upload and download stuff on to your ghost web drive. I tested g.ho.st in Internet explorer, Opera and Firefox, it worked without a difference. Unlike Desktoptwo, I feel like working from inside my G.ho.st OS, it gives me a feeling of a conventional OS and amazingly fast too. Only negative I found is that they used the peculiar domain name even for the email ids, like codevalley@g.ho.st Also I found occasionally there are login problems, where you get stuck in the login screen. But, ghost is still in Alpha stage, since April 2007, let us wait for the main release.
I would recommend you g.ho.st, and is worth trying out. It gives you an out of the box experience, also did I tell you that ghost is a joint venture by Palestinians and Israelis?

G.ho.st website

codevalley

D conference, 6th edition of digital Pandora's box!

All things Digital is the yearly conference of the tech world, hosted by Wall Street Journal and has been going on since 2003. Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher shoot questions mercilessly at the opponent, be it the richest man on earth, Bill Gates, or his most innovative counterpart Steve Jobs.
The D6 or the 6th edition, was held from 26th to 29th of May and was eagerly watched over by the Geeks. It was really a Pandora’s box which opened Microsoft's ideas for Windows 7, Yahoo's own Jerry Yang's confessions, Facebook's Toddler CEO Mark Zuckerberg's amateurish answers. You have all that. It a complete, 3 day long soap for techies.
Last 3 days I was doing no work in office, but following the whole D thing. And thanks to the D6 website, I could get nice video highlights, and transcripts of the happenings. I wish I were in California rather than in some remote town in India, so that I could also get to see these things live.

Nevertheless, the 6th edition was pretty interesting to watch, it kept up with its tradition. Remember the Bill Gates- Steve Jobs sharing the podium in last year’s version? That is the best thing about the D. There are no cuts, no second takes, no cover ups. The sharp tongues of Kara and Walt battle with the big corporate legends, and even audience get their chance. It foams out so much information.

I will brief some of the highlights of this year, before I write separate blogs for those which I feel are very much interesting and useful.

First and foremost, as always the Microsoft, wherever they go they pull crowd. This time it was Bill Gates along with his long term partner and CEO Steve Ballmer, and discussed about the Yahoo! deal, the Vista debacle, and more interestingly the first sneak peaks on Windows 7.

Then you had Jerry Yang along with Yahoo! President Sue Decker almost struggling to put up a smiling face and say Yahoo! is not dead! Yahoo! is rising.

Also, the sandal CEO, Mark Zuckerberg at last shed his habit of wearing sandals for public meets! No that is not the big news, he along with Sheryl Sandberg opened up about what is actually Facebook, “Share, share, share, share…” he kept on saying this so many times. It was clear, though he is too good a techie, not yet trained completely for the public speech. And between share, he also said, Facebook is not interested in Microsoft deal or an IPO right now.

We had Melinda Gates talking about pulling Bill out of Microsoft for more efforts on philanthropy, and their plans on how to make the world a better place.

Apart from that there were many others like Rupert Murdoch talking about news in general and news.com in particular. Amazon.com’s own Jeff Bezos and much many. But I will end this blog with some interesting quotes.

“No product we have shipped including Windows 95 has given 100% of what i wanted in that product…” Bill Gates, when asked whether Vista was able to achieve what it expected to.

"I do think I'm the best person to run Yahoo. Not only because I bleed purple, and bleed Yahoo..." Jerry Yang, when attacked asking whether he should actually remain Yahoo's head.

"Eric (Schmidth) and Larry (Page) came over to my apartment, but I didn't have enough furniture, so Eric sat on the floor.." Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, when asked about his relationship with Google.

"we have a culture that is very much about "we need to do better". Vista has given us more opportunities to exercise the culture than some other products we have shipped." Bill Gates, again on the Vista failure.

"Kara:Do you use MySpace? Murdoch: No. Kara: Facebook? Murdoch shakes head: No", media veteran, and news Corp. head Rupert Murdoch.

That will all in this coverage I suppose, I will come back again with the individual events, which I found interesting, till then here is link for you to feed upon.
All things Digital website.

Also check out my tech blog with a sense of sattire and humor, sillytech.
codevalley

Post Yahoo!, Cashback challenge from Live.

Post Yahoo! debacle ( I don't consider it a debacle though), Microsoft is working hard, it seems. Their creative brains are being squeezed to get innovative and useful ideas for the net. This time around I would try to cover some of the new innovations and improvisations by Microsoft.
Live Search Cashback
How did Google own the web? Search engine and ads related to that. Yes, and this is what Microsoft tried to rip apart with a Yahoo! takeover. But when Balmer said, we have different strategies, he was not bluffing.
The mastercard ad says "there are somethings money can't buy, for everything else, there is mastercard" The same will apply for Live search cashback. The basic idea is, you search for the goodies you want to buy online using live search. You get the list of shoppers' who sell the item and the price each of them offer. And once you choose a shopper and go forward for the deal, Microsoft will pay you a bonus, for using their search system. Yes, they are sharing the revenue directly with the consumer. Nice idea. And they are not keeping anything back. They are sharing the FULL profit to the customer. That is indeed a bold decision. No, that is not the only reason why you should opt for Live cashback. It offers innovative features like bottomline price, where you get the actual price you will have to pay, after tax, shipping etc. So you won't be fooled to go all the way to the merchant site, add to cart etc and at the end find a different price.
Also, enrolling is a breeze, just submit your mail id and go ahead with your purchase, you get the incentive and in the subsequent purchases, the cashback account accumulates the money. Once it reaches 5$ you can request payout.
I tried with searching for "windows vista ultimate" and I got a couple of hundred deals, it was easy to choose one from the list, as each search entry had details of base price, product details etc. I went ahead with my choice, and enrolled to Live search cashback. The price of the product was 180$ and I got a cashbak of 10$. Yeah! it is that huge!! I would whole heartedly recommend this, not just because of the cashback, but the genuineness of the idea. (Don't get baffled by the low price, I bought an OEM version).

Community Clips
You already have your Youtube for videos, but Microsoft is bringing up this new portal for people to post help videos on Microsoft Products like Word, Excel, powerpoint etc. You can join the community, post your videos, share information, rate videos, etc. Looks nice. It is still in the Officelabs, waiting for it to come public.

TaskMarket
Again another labs product. Not much of a breakthrough idea in this, there are many sites like Rentacoder, getafreelancer, etc doing the same. The basic idea is, you post a job; logo design, article proofing, small webdesign project etc. And coders bid for it, you choose your coder and get the job done. Nothing new, except that it is a Microsoft's!

Live Search Cashback
TaskMarket
Community Clips

codevalley

Merge your Identities over the web

let me ask you a simple yet confusing question, how many identities you own in the internet? It would not be easy for most you to answer. The yahoo, Google, AOL, MSN, blogger and so on. There are many services over the internet, and each time you register for a service, you are adding another identity. Haven't you felt this is getting unmanageable over a course of time? At least some people felt it. That gave birth to the OpenID foundation.
OpenID is decentralized and open way to manage all your identities in the internet. No it is not like those digital wallets which remembers all your user accounts, it is different. OpenID does not add a new useraccount to your long list, but it helps you use any of the existing identities as your OpenID. Your Yahoo account, your AOL account, or your blogger ID. The list of services that are becoming OpenID compatible are pretty long and it is getting longer day by day.
OpenID foundation has created a Open and free framework which anyone can use and adopt in their site, and eventually become OpenID provider. So once you choose your OpenID provider, whom you trust, you can use this ID to login to any other website supporting OpenID. And most of you are already OpenID users, if you have a Yahoo, AOL, WordPress, Blogger account holder (the list is longer).
Anyone can become OpenID provider and have access to the OpenID database, does it sound vulnerable? At the end of the day, you only chose OpenID provider of your trust, so you have the choice. Also OpenID uses technologies like HTTP, SSL, Diffie-Helman etc to make things more secure. So start converging.
OpenID website
What is OpenID?
OpenID Providers
How to get OpenID?

codevalley

Xobni, Nitroboost your Outlook!

I was going through the unsuccessful takeover attempts by Microsoft in the recent times. Along with big guns like Facebook, Yahoo, etc I saw a lesser heard, weird name, Xobni. If you are wondering about the strange name, Xobni is inbox written backwards. But, except the name everything else about Xobni is clear and straightforward.
Xobni is a plugin for the Microsoft Outlook, which helps you organize, manage and analyze your mail, contacts and the mailing patterns very easily. It integrates itself nicely into your outlook, as a retractable sidebar and provides you extensive information whenever you select a mail on main panel. Like, it tells you about the person sending the mail, how many mails you people have exchanged, the past conversations, list of attachments exchanged, the graphical meter on time of day he usually sends you mails. And for each contact, it creates a profile containing his rank (based on your interaction with the person), his social network, i.e. the people whom he sends mail frequently. It also extracts his contact details and phone numbers.
The best part is the side bar is designed in a very neat way to access all the information. Xobni is also highly stable. I never had my outlook crashed because of Xobni. And in fact Xobni has made the mailing experience as interesting as if you are in Facebook or MySpace. You get to know the people with whom you are dealing with and whom they are dealing with. You also have the Xobni analytics which brings in even more analytic details about the mailing patterns.
Simply put, it is like adding a nitro button to your Outlook. Right now in the public beta phase, I got a chance to download and install it. You can download the Xobni beta from the Xobni website, and the package is very small (3 MB). Installation is also fairly simple, a few mouse clicks and you are ready. Next, Xobni will index your mails and get itself ready for the show. This might take a few minutes, depending on your mailbox size. Once this is done, you get a revamped and empowered Outlook. It is really worth using. Once you get along with Xobni, you can’t do without it. That is the kind of impact it makes on you.
On the downside, Xobni works only on Outlook 2003/2007 under Windows XP and Vista. I was disappointed to find Xobni is not of use in my office running Windows 2000, really a big let down. Another thing is Xobni does not work on your outlook pst files.
Outlook has been dominating the mail client market for over a decade. But, the improvements have been happening in snail pace. Third party apps like this could boost up the development cycle and make it better.
Xobni Website
Xobni Download

codevalley

Yahoo! bid for Microsoft: spoof

Here is a blog which gives you a funny view of the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal, in fact the spoof is about Yahoo! bidding for Microsoft. Makes nice reading.

Yahoo! to bid for Microsoft???

Codevalley

Live Mesh, seamless sharing across devices.

Think about this, you have a new business idea, and you create a rough plan from your home PC, then while travelling you refine the plan from your PDA and simultaneously your colleague also adds his ideas to the document and it instantly reflects in your versions. I am not presenting you my new idea, but this is what Microsoft presented in their latest Web 2.o conference, and they called it the Live Mesh.
Using Live Mesh, you can share documents, files, folders etc across your PC, notebook, Mac or even PDAs. It does not end here, once you add devices to your "ring", you can even run programs across the devices. There is a central web based control panel called Live Desktop, which lists all your shared devices, folders etc. You even get 5GB free space in your Live Desktop to store the files.
It goes even beyond this, you can even colloborate with your partners using Live Mesh. Using your Live ID you can see who all are accessing your shared files, and on your desktop you even get the notifications on latest changes in your documents. At the extreme, you can live chat with the people who are working on your files. All you have to do is download the Live Mesh software to your desktop and presto! Your ready for the seamless colloboration and sharing.
Now, that is what Microsoft means by Live Mesh. It is not completely ready as yet. The sharing across desktops, and working with other users is ready by now. But Live Mesh for devices and Macs are in the pipe. Also, whatever is available, is available through invites only for developers. So you have to wait for some more time until you can lay your hands on this.

codevalley

The iPhone, Tube and Windows Mobile 7

iPhone started it all, but will it prevail at the end?
Once upon a time, the cell phone was meant for calling and maybe SMSing as well. But, with the advent of the iPhone, the cell phone turned out to be a pocket PC, it could chat, mail, read your daily news feed, prepare your presentations and what not?
I am not telling you cell phones did not have these feature until iPhone was launched, but iPhone, with its intuitive multi touch, glass like interface and slick marketing, became a fashion statement. Soon, the word iPhone killer began to be associated to every new high end phone that emerged. If not all, at least some of them where marketed that way. Samsung and LG were the first to start this, with their “do all in touch” phones hitting the market. Soon, the Mr. Perfect Sony Ericsson also joined the bandwagon, by announcing their version of the mobile-PC, the Xperia, and that too backed by the software giant Microsoft providing their brand new Windows Mobile 6.1 for it.
Now, Nokia, the Finnish mobile leader, has announced their first ever touch phone, codenamed Tube 5800. That is not all, the story will also cover Microsoft’s mobile dreams with their Windows Mobile 7, (yeah, the Desktop dream is also called Windows 7, might not be all coincidence!!).
The Tube
Nokia were never into touch screen business, they always had the traditional keypad based mobiles. But, now with the pressure mounting up after so many iPhones and iPhone killers, the giant has now changed their stand and now has announced their first touch phone codenamed Tube 5800. From the initial snaps which I could find in the internet Tube looks similar to the iPhone (less glossy though). With the screen size slightly less (3.2”) but does support 16:9 video and tilt detection.
It was shown first a slide at the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference in Redwood City, Calif. "It's our first touch device," said Tom Libretto, vice president of Forum Nokia. The road map for the phone’s shipment is not clear yet. But definitely once the king is in the market it could kick some others out of their seats. What makes Tube even hotter is that it might be Nokia’s one of the slimmest offing and will sport a 3.2 MP camera, Quad-band (850/900/1800/1900Mhz) GSM/EDGE, radio, 3G UMTS/HSDPA, WiFi and GPS too. It will also have a standard 3.5mm audio jack and maybe a TV out too. As usual Nokia will get the software from Symbian, (Symbian 60). It also supports Java and Flash, another no-no in iPhone.

Windows Mobile 7

While Nokia and other vendors are coming up with the iPhone killers, Microsoft is fighting out the battle in their own style. Microsoft is coming up with their next version of mobile OS, and it will change the entire scenario. It would not only be a thud on the head of Apple but also to many others like Google (remember android?). The mobile 7 rests itself on the touch interface and mobile gestures to run business. You will be able to flick through lists, pan, swipe sideway, draw on the screen. Forget all those scrollbars and dropdowns, shake it, tilt it, touch it to get things done.
It also has breathtaking visual effects and transitions much reminding Vista, (maybe iPhone also :p). The touch screen doesnt need a stylus and will work on your fingers, all the apps look new and cool, the new media player, the tabbed internet explorer with "shake to switch tabs".
Another great feature that WM7 offers is, it doesnt need a phone with an accelerometer to work the gestures, the OS will utilize the camera to detect motion and analyze it. It does sound very innovative, but how much battery it would drain in this process is a question. Windows Mobile 7 will also run on phones with keypad and no touch.
They are so many other new, exciting features in this new OS, which you can read here.

iPhone started with a great hype, but now there are so many variants and competitors which are, maybe even better than iPhone. So, what is Apple doing? Wait till iPhone 2.0 is out.

Windows Mobile 7 To Focus On Touch and Motion Gestures

Tube 5800 Snap

codevalley

Sony Ericsson's Show stopper: Xperia

Xperia, though not even out in market, has already gained many nicknames, like iPhone killer, show stopper, ultimate mobile experience are to just list some of them. For all those mortals who are still scratching their heads on what is this all about, Xperia is the new mobile phone from Sony Ericsson. A a company which was formed just over 7 years ago, is already making their presence felt in the arena. SE is already getting in level to Nokia in terms of popularity, passion and even resale value.
Now, Microsoft and Sony Ericsson have joined hands to give a masterpiece, the Xperia. For the first time, a mobile gadget would be running on Windows Mobile 6.1. Xperia story does not end there, in fact it starts with this. It has an unique, arc design slider with a metal finish and full qwerty keyboard with aesthetically chiselled keys and full 3" touch screen, too add cream to the pie, it also has a 4 way key and an optical joystick. Further you have handwriting recognition, aGPS, EDGE, a 3.2 MP camera to list a few.
The interface; I have never seen such a breathtaking interface. Xperia user interface is based on a bunch of panels. Panels are like desktops, you can fill them with icons and tools you want, and you can have many of them. One for each occasion, like an Office panel which would have all your outlook and meeting gadgets arranged and a holiday panel which will list all your multimedia, games etc. The panels will cascade on a press of the hot key and you can choose which one you want. From the initial videos of the phone, the whole software seems to be very swift and crystal clear.
Now, let us get under the hood, what Xperia is made of. The display has a resolution of 800x480 pixels (no I am not talking about my laptop), running on a Qualcomm MSM7200 528MHz processor, 400 MB internal memory, 128 MB RAM, and a 256 MB storage memory. It can beat my 5 year old Laptop, if you put in a 4 GB MicroSD card to it. Even my lappy does not have the WiFi, or A2DP Bluetooth and 3G. The phone comes in black and silver paints.
Though the spokesperson refused to comment on its price, it could be easily be a topper in that section too. I hope it would be cheaper than 145grams of gold.
Xperia Mini-site
Xperia Specifications from GSM Arena


codevalley

Digsby, the new IM cloud.

People might have heard about twitter, it is a place where people can maintain an online, public diary. People could write whatever they want directly from the twitter portal or even through various IMs by adding twitter ID as buddy and sending them IMs. The service is really unique (and wierd, some may think), but nevertheless very popular. It even won the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi)( aka "spring break for geeks.") awards. Twittering is also referred to as micro-blogging.
Now, after creating a new realm in the web, they are with their new product, Digsby ( I could not get a meaning for this word, though). Digsby is an integrated IM client which can handle multiple protocols like Yahoo!, MSN, Gmail, AOL etc. But, that doesnt end there, it can handle e-mails and more amazingly the social networking accounts like MySpace, Facebook too. That might give it an edge over the existing Trillian, Miranda etc. And the interface too looks better.
At first, even I thought Digsby is just another Trillian. But, it didn’t take me much to realize I am wrong. The installation was a breeze( you have binaries for Windows, Linux and Mac, I tried Windows). Then the configuration, you can add your accounts to it, IM accounts, e-mail accounts, and Social Networking accounts( only MySpace and Facebook for now, but they promise for more in future). Once this is done, the main window is divided into panes to show your chat buddies, mails and social links. You can even configure their placement. It looks really organized. Another feature is you can group your buddies, that is, if you have a same buddy in MSN, Gtalk and Yahoo!, you can create a single nickname for that and it would be compact. Whenever you run your mouse over a buddy name in the list, it will automatically show his profile details, fetched from the internet. Another good thing about Digsby is that it has dozens of nice and appealing themes for every taste. I spent over a night choosing my style. The information and alerts come up as nice little pop-ups on desktop. Digsby also lets you create your own widgets.
In the downside, there is not support for Orkut and other social networking accounts. And in the IM side, the buddy images does not come up correctly, even if they have an avatar of icon, set, Digsby tends to ignore it and show the default icon. But things will change in the near future. Atleast, the beta tag is still hanging around Digsby’s neck. So, hope you enjoy the experience with purple colored, egg shapped, capped buddy.
Digsby Home.
Twitter Home.

Codevalley

AMD out from Hibernation, but Intel never slept?

By this April AMD will roll out its long famed Barcelona Quad cores, onto the retail market. They were supposed to do this by the end of 2007 [read here], but unfortunately, some issues like Visualization problems and breakdown at high workloads kept them from going. But, now they have filled in new silica and are all set to challenge the blue chip maker.
Barcelona is the code name for the new quad series of Opterons, and is a continuation of AMDs quest for dominance in the multicore market. Though most feel that AMD is trailing by an year, they are confident and proud about their offering. AMD says this gives better performance and have a cleaner and compact instruction set, and even does not have extra heat dissipation compared to its earlier dual core variants. Already the Barcelona has been deployed in some high profile computer centers like Texas Advanced Computing Center. Now, AMD is looking at vendors like HP, IBM, Dell etc to sellout the new Opterons.
At the same time Intel has announced it would be ready with its new 6 core processor code named Dunnington (sure, even I feel the name is wierd), which is supposed to hit the markets later this year, also the 'Tukwila' (that's the wierdest) project which is a quad-core Itanium with 2 billion transistors, the already famed Nehalem.
Well most feel Intel is ahead now, at least for the next 12 months, but we cannot rule out the Green boy, he has done it before, he may repeat the "Hamilton act" (as we call in Formula1).

P.S. I am sorry for not posting for last four months, I had some personal debacles, but now it is going to be as frequent as ever.

codevalley