codevalley

Which is the best 1st generation smartphone??

2011-01-06T23:45:00.000+05:30

For sometime now I have been carrying two smartphones with me, thanks to me being a Mobile Developer. Till yesterday there was a HTC Mozart(Windows Phone 7) and a Nexus One (Android Froyo), but today I had to swap my Nexus One for a iPhone 2G(iOS 3.1.3). While playing around with these phones, I realized both the iPhone and Mozart are first generation phones of their respective platforms. In that aspect, I have also used HTC Dream (G1, Android) for quite sometime. So the thought came to my mind, Amongst the 3 first generation phones, which is the best?

Before going into my opinion let me tell you that, I have traditionally been a Microsoft fanboy, and an Android lover, and a bit of Apple hater ;). But I will try to be fair on my judgement.

The iPhone2G is a first generation phone in terms of hardware, the OS is not. My 2G is running iOS3.1.3 which is almost 2-3 years younger than the rig. Also, it has a million+ apps base now backing it. But to even this advantage out, the 3 year old phone is compared with a new Phone that was launched few months ago, and another a little earlier.

User Interface

iPhone has a child-like user interface with embossed, glossy icons placed on a low screen resolution display, though many people say it is very intuitive and simple.

Windows Phone has an unbelievable and revolutionary user interface. Everything looks so aesthetic, and eye pleasing. Giving much importance to the actual content than Chrome, you hardly see the phone OS, you see exactly what you are looking for. Be it your phone book, or your tweets.

The HTC G1 has a very barebone user interface. And it feels like using Windows 3.1, in terms of the styling and theming, it is definitely not the most beautiful designs I have seen. It gives you most of the things you want though, in terms features.

Verdict: WP7 beats iPhone by a few miles and Android by a few light years.

Usability

As mentioned before, this is about the software, so technically iPhone has a little advantage. But still, it lacks multi-tasking, and looks more or less basic. I still get mails delivered in the background and my tweets pushed through notifications, so it is very much usable.

Windows Phone 7 fails here miserably. It starts with the lack of multitasking, similar to the iPhone it fetches your mails though.There is no push notification support, no sockets (no chatting), a poor browser (limited HTML5 support) and (hence?) pretty limited apps.

Android scores a home run here. It gives you everything you can think of. You can run a plethora of apps in the background (in the 70MB available memory), be available on chat all the time, receive tweets, and anything you could actually do in an computer.

Verdict: Android pays back Windows Phone,and iPhone stays where it was.

Stability

The iPhone I have is already 2+ years old, with a broken glass and is jailbroken (multiple times), but still is rock solid. No app has ever crashed while I was using it (you can't know if it crashed, even if it actually did :] ).

Windows Phone has to catch up here. Few of my apps have crashed multiple times ( eg: Foursquare) and my phone itself crashed once and I had to hard reset it.

Android was worser, I used to get "Force close" messages and numerous crashes regularly. Maybe I am biased here, as I used to develop apps and run them on the phone :) Moreover the I could run any spurious app I want, on the phone, with no app restrictions in place.

Apps

Apps have been iPhone's forte and it will be, at least for some (more) time. Only that many of the apps have evolved and ignores the 2G phone now.:)

Windows Phone has some good apps, and generally they have kept the quality of apps high. Also, every app has a "try" option which is good. I haven't seen gaming experience get any better than the XBox live hub in my Windows Phone.

Android again has had a different approach, you can find all sorts of apps; good, bad, harmful, crappy and what not. It was hard to find quality apps in the platform, though there were a few.

Verdict: App-le it is, followed by Windows Phone and Android.

I can't say which is the best first generation phone, each one of them have been exciting in their own ways, if it was the fresh User Interface in the Windows Phone, iPhone brought about the touch phone revolution itself. Android took smartphones closer to computers and gave me infinite possibilities.

But, if a G1, Mozart and iPhone was kept in front of me and I had to pick one, I would have probably picked the G1, er.. no... the Windows Phone..oh..or is ..it ... the iPhone?

Send in your choices. Which one would be your pick?

PS: I really miss my Nexus One. It is a hell of a phone!

-Codevalley

New Google Images Search ignores Safe search filters?

2010-07-23T00:48:00.005+05:30

Images Search was the only thing for which I still preferred Google after I switched to Bing. The Bing's newer ending page of images irritates me. But from yesterday I am getting the new Google Images Search, which looks more or less like Bing! With one exception, even if you are searching images with "Moderate" Safe search filter, you occasionally get Explicit results in your 1st or 2nd page (there is no "Page" as such, but logically). This happened to me quite a few times today. Most of the images were explicit frontal nudity pictures. I was really shocked at this mega blunder by Google. My office mate also told me he found some explicit things in Youtube as well, that too unintentionally!Can't get a clue how Google got the fetish for porn! Before you come to conclusions here are a few search queries which yielded some skin for me."Windows 6.5 Beehive" http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1280&bih=673&q=windows+6.5+beehive&gbv=2&aq=o&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

"Counter Icon" http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1280&bih=673&q=counter+icon&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

I has also taken the screenshots of the results ;)

Though I have not been blogging lately, could'nt resist but share this :) I think this at least helps me revive my blogging :)

-Codevalley

An early look at Froyo, a.k.a Android 2.2

2010-05-23T16:37:00.009+05:30

Well, it has been a long time since I wrote. Mostly because I was busy with *other stuff* and also because I was smitten by micro-blogging [read twitter]. Now that I am back, I will start with the talk of the town, Android.

For the last 2 days, I spent my nights watching youtube. But, before you come to weird conclusions, let me clarify, I was watching the GoogleIO live streaming like 25,000 other people around the world. And what I was primarily interested in was Froyo.

Froyo, typically means a dessert made of yoghurt {Frozen Yoghurt}. But Google meant a dessert of a different kind, it was the latest update for the Android OS, version-ed '2.2'. I was most amazed by the feature list that was unfolded by Gundotra. And right from then, I was restlessly checking on my Nexus One, whether it has been blessed with an Update from Google. After two [long] days of desperation, I came across a post in Phandroid.com which was an howto on manually updating the phone with Froyo. And within 20 minutes and a few taps, my N1 was running the Froyo.

What's new?

Immediately after installation and boot, when I tried tapping and swiping I found the system was little jerky and bumpy. Maybe, because it was the first boot and it had not done with it. Once it settled down, I went through it and here are the enhancements I found.

Animations: Animations are smoother, and are more fluid. Like when you drag between home screens, you have a bouncing halt rather than a jerky switch.
Applications menu: First they had the draggable applications menu, then the grid button, now they have the 3-icon set of Phone, Grid and Browser. And the applications screen is are bouncier and fast.
Call Log: The call log is more organised. If same caller has multiple calls consecutively, they are made into an expandable groups, so you can seen more info. I liked it.
Messages: The messages screen has been touched up a bit. Nothing special about it, but looks better.
Android Market: This is big. Market has got lots of goodies. Now, you can set auto-update for any app, it downloads updates whenever available. Even better, you have update-all button to download all updates. Also there is a separate, comments tab for applications.
Search Bar: Search bar is also enhanced with a drop down button, from which you can filter you search to Apps, Web, Contacts or All. I felt it was redundant though.
Mail: This is a huge [I guess]. I don't remember being able to add multiple Google accounts to my phone before. Now, you can do that. You can add as many Google accounts you want into your GMail and sync the contacts etc.
System speed: Though in general the system appeared faster, some places it lagged behind previous update. Like in the album application, the loading was pretty slow.

Flash 10.1: This almost gave me a nightmare. I installed the firmware and went to every flash website I knew. None of them were loading. I checked the system settings. No mention of flash anywhere. I was bamboozled until I checked in the Android Market. You have to manually install the Flash plugin as an Application. And it is a beta. Nevertheless once I installed it I could check out all the flash websites and even games on browser. I checked the desktop version of youtube.com [though] the video playback was not very smooth. Had a low frame-rate playback.
Applications: The manage applications screen also has minor make-ups. The biggest one being the ability to move installed applications to SD-Card to save space. But it was greyed out in my phone.
Google Maps: looks faster in the new build. The tiles load very fast. So is the case with Google Earth.

So that's my initial impression on Froyo after 3 hours of usage. Will post more updates as and when I find them.

The catch is that, this update is only available for Nexus One, that too would roll out in a period of over 3 weeks [unless you take my route]. What about the other phones? Samsung Galaxy and the likes are still running the Donut [Android 1.5].

Codevalley

My top 10 tech highlights of 2009

2010-01-02T11:23:00.022+05:30

2009 was definitely not the best year of my blogging. But was a very happening year in the tech arena. I have compiled my favourite top 10 tech events/products which caught my attention. The top 10 is ranked based on how big a hit (or flop) the product was or how much attention it gathered.

10. Windows Mobile 6.5/ Windows MarketPlace
Microsoft released the stopgap, not in the roadmap, version of Windows Mobile, to arrest their landslide in the Mobile market. With Blackberry, Android, iPhone and Palm Pre raising the bars, this was more of an act of desperation.
Though it had some positives, the launch was damp as not all the mobiles received upgrades to the new OS.
Again coming to Windows Marketplace, the situation was more or less the same. Only WM6.5 phones could use the Marketplace, and it is still not supported in most of the countries.

Verdict: Sloppy launch and post-launch and mediocre product pulled it down.
Status: Flop

9. Internet Explorer 8
Another story plummeting market share. After 2 years in exile, Microsoft's Internet Explorer team released a much needed upgrade to Internet Explorer7. It boasted of standards compatibility, ease of use, tabs etc. Though it had a lot of positives and was the new generation browser, it was no match to the new breed of browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Opera etc. All it managed was captured a major chunk IE market share (market shared between previous versions of IE).

Verdict: Improved usability, compatibility and features. Sloppy handling of tabs and in general slower.
Status: Near flop.

8. iPhone 3GS
Apple fans got to see a few launches in 2009. Which included the new iPod Shuffle, Snow Leopard and the iPhone 3GS. Definitely iPhone launch was the biggest. Commercially the new iPhone was a success, with it selling over a million phones in a week. But, the phone was not a great overhaul for a tech enthusiast as it did not have major feature upgrades.

Verdict: The new upgrade was a nice crowd puller, but was not a major feature upgrade.
Status: Average.

7. Chrome/ Chrome OS
The first stable (non-beta) Chrome browser was launched on December 2008. But it soon became the 3rd most used browser just behind IE and Firefox. Google was not content though, and went on to announce the web based Chrome OS. The announcement was initially met with mixed opinions, but the mounting concern of privacy and Eric Schmidt's controversial take on it has weakened the prospects.

Verdict: Still early to decide, but looks like a simple shell for basic users.
Status: Average

6. Ubuntu 9.10/9.04
As in the previous years, we saw two launches of Ubuntu in 2009, and each of them in entirely different scenarios. The first launch 9.04 received positive reviews. It was a major overhaul to the UI and driver compatibility. Ubuntu 9.04 equalled Windows in its ease of use and compatibility. Also, it had many takers as Vista was a pain in the arse for most of the Windows users.
But the latter version 9.10's launch was shadowed by the Windows7 and Snow Leopard. 9.10 did not have major features to offer, other than improvements to 9.04 and the Ubuntu Cloud.

Verdict: Ubuntu's credibility and market presence increased many folds in 2009 nearing to Linux is Ubuntu for Desktop users.
Status: Fair hit

5. Google Wave
One of the most hyped web application launches of 2009, and that too by Google. Launched after months of videos, tech presentations, blogs etc. The idea of Wave was welcomed by all and everybody was excited. But, the launch ended up damp. All that people had to say was, " I have 10 more invites, anybody want?"

Verdict: After the pre-launch hype, all Wave to create was a wave of unused invites.
Status: Flop

4. Palm Pre.
Mobile phones were definitely the major news makers in 2009, and it was Palm's all-in bet. And luckily for them Pre and WebOS met with positive reviews and opinions. It sold over 10000 unit over the weekend of launch. Better Multi-tasking, soothing UI and nice browser helped it gain market share.

Verdict: Palm and Sprint had their best run with the Pre's launch though the sales dipped in the 4th Quarter.
Status: Hit

3. Bing
Microsoft had a very good 2009. Bing was one of the reasons. After half a dozen companies trying to bring a search engine to push Google off the king's spot and failing, Microsoft was brave enough to give a fight. After the live.com debacle the second attempt Bing took off. Bing has already captured around 10% with an year of launch. And already Bing's homepage wallpapers is a phenomenon.

Verdict: Bing cached on the innovative search engine and UI and people wanting to try something other than Google.
Status: Hit

2. Motorola Droid
Droid is to iPhone what Bing is to Google. Over a dozen of iPhone-killers have been announced since its launch but none caught on. Motorola had its last chance to revive itself with the Android phone. With some help from Google (exclusive Android 2.0 OS), some stunning hardware specs and AT&T poor show Droid became a runaway hit. Droid should have sold around a million handsets by now.
Verdict: Genuinely good phone with slick marketing helped Droid gather momentum and market share.
Status:Hit

1. Windows 7
Though I listed my 9 major tech highlights of 2009, I will always remember 2009 as the year of Windows7. After the debacle of the decade, Windows Vista, Microsoft regrouped fast and brought out the best OS till date. It broke all the sales records, Amazon pre-orders surpassed Vista sales in 8 hours. Within days of launch it was sold out in many places. It even crossed the Snow Leopard market share in 2 weeks.
Apart from the sales statistics, the OS was genuinely fresh and friendly. In major benchmarks it beat Windows XP and Vista, and got mostly 9/10 in reviews. Microsoft worked more the stability and compatibility than on adding more and more features that does not work.
2009 will definitely be remembered as the year of Windows 7.

Verdict: One of the best desktop operating systems launched till date. Lived up to Microsoft's slogan for the OS "making your PC simple".
Status: Hit
And that is it. Again, this is the top 10 highlights which would come to my mind when I say 2009. If you have a different list, I would be happy to hear about it.

Windows 7 Launch event in Bangalore!

2009-09-26T11:07:00.002+05:30

I am greatly excited and honoured to tell you all that I would be hosting an official Windows 7 launch party in Bangalore. This is going to happen on Oct 24th, saturday, from 5:00 at my house which is at BTM Layout, Bangalore. Though Windows 7 launches worldwide on 22nd October, I felt it would be better to host the party on the weekend, so that more people make visit.
This is going to be a fun event. We can discuss over some snacks about the latest Microsoft offering. You can check out and play around with the Ultimate edition of Windows 7, ask questions, see what is new and know for yourself why Windows 7 got 9/10 in tech reviews. Also, come early at get some Microsoft Goodies! All free.
I would be more than excited to invite as many as possible and show them what is cool about windows.
To get an invite for the invite post a comment, or post me at the official Windows 7 launch party website.

Troubleshooting ICS between Windows7, Windows XP , Linux etc

2009-08-09T09:28:00.003+05:30

Internet Connection Sharing has always been a pain in the a$$ for me. There has been numerous hours which went in vain trying to connect between all combinations involving Windows7, Windows XP and Linux. Though I got them connected once or twice, I could not decode the exact methodology. Each time trying to use ICS ended in broken keyboards, fists etc. After many attempts I at last found out the reason the exact modus operandi to use ICS.
I am not going into a step by step instruction of enabling ICS, which are alredy given here. I will just help you out from the most common issues faced.

Here I am explaining the scenario where, your internet is connected through the wired LAN, and you wan't share that using your WiFi. Your wired connection is in Windows [XP, Vista, 7 etc] and you want to share it with any other OS.

Here, first you have to create a WiFi network from the host. This should not be a problem, and if at all it is, try to use [Open, WEP] authentication, instead WPA2 etc because these may not be compatible over all OSes.
There may be a scenario where the Ad-Hoc network is created, but internet is not being shared. This can be checked by these steps.

Goto the client PC, and goto the command prompt and type ipconfig. You will get the ip of the PC, note that.
Now create a shared folder in this PC.
Now goto the host and type \\ip-of-client. Now if you can see the shared folder, you network is established. Only internet is not shared.

Now to get the internet shared, you have to the following. Goto the properties of the wired connection, [the connection from which you get internet], and goto the sharing tab. There you have to enable internet sharing.
Sometimes,, this sharing itself would not be available/present. This maybe because, the sharing is enabled in any other connection. [Only one of the connection's sharing can be enabled]. So, disable this connection first and then enable sharing in the other connection.
Now reconnect the WiFi, this should get the internet working.
In, Windows7, you may have to choose which connections internet need to shared. There you have to choose the wired LAN [or the network which gives internet].

I already wasted a lot of hours trying to get ICS working, and there is a general notion that internet sharing through ICS is inconsistent. The fact which I inferred is that documentation and wizards on this topic is very scarce. If you have any doubts please post in the comments section and I would be more than happy to help.
-codevalley

6 Reasons why Chrome OS does not impress me!

2009-07-08T20:10:00.003+05:30

Today morning as I logged into GMail, the first thing I noticed was the missing beta tag, which was a part of GMail and Google Apps, all these years. Moreover, since I could not find any visible changes in GMail,I checked the Google Blog, but something entirely different caught my attention.
A post by Sundar Pichai titled "Introducing the Google OS" caught my attention instantly. I was excited many folds, and hurriedly went through the post. But frankly, I was left disappointed. Chrome OS seemed nothing but a thin Linux Kernel which will startup with Chrome browser. It may look exciting for a bunch of net addicts who can't wait for a minute or two until the system boots up. But think, you can ONLY surf, nothing else.

So here are 6 reasons, why Microsoft will be more interested in Iran Elections than Chrome OS:

Google is desperate
With Bing creating waves in the search market held by Google for years, they are trying to give Microsoft a slap back. This is further emphasized, when Google hastily removed the beta tag from its WebApps without any apparent changes. And on top of that, two back to back blog posts, one about the beta tag and the next about the new Chrome OS, all within a span of 24 hours. Also, Google did not give any technical details about this new OS, no system architecture, did not name any of the manufacturers' name, which they referred to as "partners", and announced they would launch this within an year. How can they get developers interested within this short span, if they don't provide these details?

Is this a breakthrough Concept by Google? Big No!!
There are many Linux distros which already does whatever Google has mentioned in the blog. And there are many other WebOSes, which are still struggling to make a mark. So, this is a well tried out concept that Google is trying to reinvent. And Google does not have the best tools for that either. Atleast Chrome is not the best browser around!

Where are the Applications?
Are Google Apps, GMail and iGoogle, the applications you want to use all time? What if you want to design a logo with Photoshop or any other image editor? Or if you want to watch you movie? Or what if you want to play some 3d Games? No, you have to wait for few more years maybe, when the Web evolves to support these.

Peers already have a headstart
If cloud computing market is what Google is aiming to capture, they are a tad too late. Because Microsoft already has a very rich and multi-layered Cloud platform called Azure, with a huge developer base, SDKs and beta applications. And it has been almost a year since Ubuntu announced its Cloud Computing plans. And every now and then we hear new WebOSes sprouting from nowhere like G.ho.st and Desktoptwo. So, the race is not going to be easy even if Google has a solid plan.

No huge market to capture
If you look at the OS market, things are pretty much in balance. With Microsoft is holding most of the home and corporate market, Apple is ruling the Multimedia market, and Linux flavours occupying a slice of Servers and Developers. Now, who are the potential end users for Chrome OS? Net Addicts who don't do anything else? And would that come to 0.01% of the market?? I doubt!

No internet, no OS.
From the information released by Google, what we can understand is Chrome OS, will be a packing of a thin Linux Kernel and Chrome running atop. That is, as you start you system, you will see the Google Homepage in a few seconds. And, if there is no internet, you can see a "no connectivity" error. And, OS stops there. Does it look great for home? Enterprise? Maybe, some hobbyists may use this to expand their collection.

Above all these, I feel Google is losing its way. It is holding on to some keywords like Linux, OpenSource, Free, No evil but are failing to impress. They already declared Android will not be restricted to phones, but netbooks also. Today, they have announced Chrome OS and Android will not share anything other than "Made by Google". Also, it has been quite some time, since Google presented something really Innovative.
Maybe, the "Google" tag and the hype created can deliver some business to Google. I don't see anything beyond that.
All said, I might be proved wrong when Google announces more details. Till then, I would say, Chrome OS is a side effect of Bing Success.

-Codevalley

PS: I started a new venture and was busy with that, and could not do justice to my blog. Anyway, I will try to be more regular. If curious about my venture, check these links: ESquare Labs., 24bar7Host

Browser comparison with end user benchmarks!

2009-04-19T11:48:00.001+05:30

Ever since Internet Explorer 8 released, I was excited about the situation in the browser market. The war is on! But how close it is? As I am using only IE8 in my Windows 7, and also have it in my Windows XP, I got used to it. And felt it is giving a decent performance. Whenever I search for browser comparisons, all I get is browsers compared with SunSpider test, Acid test etc. I am not saying it is not the right way to go, but I wanted a browser test done, the way we use it. Another reason for the same was the Microsoft's statement that, thought IE8 has a slower Javascript engine, in practical usage, it outperforms its peers. So, I made a few test cases, based on everyday usage patterns.

The subjects

I took 6 major web browsers for this test. They included, IE8, Safari, Firefox 3.0.7, Firefox 3.1 Beta, Google Chrome and Opera. The results were quite surprising, at least for me. More of that ahead.
The tests were done on a modest AMD Sempron 2800+ PC carrying 1GB RAM running a Windows XP Service Pack 3 over a 512KBPS internet connection. Each browser was tested as a fresh installation with other browsers uninstalled, but Internet Explorer 6 that comes with XP was never uninstalled. 5 trials were conducted for each test and average taken as the standard result.

Tests
Installing time: This includes the total installation time taken from the moment you click the installation executable. This includes the time taken for restarts and other system operations if any. In this test clearly Internet Explorer was bound to lose. As we all know it would take at least one restart. So the contest came down to the rest 5. Surprisingly Chrome took relatively longer time to get installed even without a restart, and Firefox Beta was lightning fast. You can see the exact results in the table.
Loading time: The amount of time the browser takes to load itself (with no homepage) from the moment the browser icon is clicked. Firefox has a bad reputation of being very slow to startup. But again Firefox 3.1Beta proved that wrong, being the fastest. Opera loaded a fraction of a second slower. IE 8 loaded almost 10 times slower than the latest firefox.
Browsing test: I randomly tested the browser for a few websites which I browse the most. Many of which had a considerable amount of AJAX built in it. So this could also be possibly be looked upon as the Javascript efficiancy test. The websites I used were:

http://www.news.com/

http://www.yahoo.com/

http://www.igoogle.com/

http://www.orkut.com/

http://www.gmail.com/

http://www.yahoomail.com/

http://www.espnstar.com/

http://www.cricinfo.com/

The winner varied from site to site. Though majorly IE8 was the slowest, Chrome also shared the place. Firefox 3.1Beta beat everyone with a huge margin, the same way IE lost huge margins. Other browsers exchanged places, pretty uniformly between them. But, the most unbelievable result was that of yahoomail. Firefox Beta took just 3.5 Seconds to load the mail page, while Chrome, IE and Opera took around 25 seconds, while Safari was ready in 17secs and Firefox 3.0.7 loaded in 7secs.
Memory Usage test: This is something every naive user might not be very interested in knowing. Each browser uses different methods to handle tabs. While Chrome uses entirely different process to isolate each tab and manage crashed tabs, IE does the same maintaining them in a single process. Safari was the lightest here using just around 25 MB, while firefox 3.0.7 was the fattest using almost 120Mb. Both Chrome and Opera used less than 100MB, while other used around 110Mb.
Multiple tab load time: This is to test the amount of time taken to load multiple tabs together, for browsers which support restore tabs upon opening. So, Chrome, Safari and IE8 does not qualify for this test. Again Firefox 3.1Beta made it no contest, while Opera and Firefox 3.0.1 clocking almost the same.
So that were the tests. The winner without any doubt is Firefox3.1. Though I am not a great Mozilla fan, I have to bow to it. And unfortunately, my favorite IE lost the race by a few yards. Other browsers were neck to neck, with no clear winner.

Other general remarks about each of these browsers include,

IE 8 still has problems with some sites including GMail.

Google Chrome does not even lets you decide where to install.

Opera had problem with back/forward navigation. In some cases, it does not happen at all.

Safari is generally very fast, but even if when you make it the default browser, links open in the previous default browser.

In terms of browsing speed Firefox 3.1Beta is a killer, Chrome is fastest from the rest of the lot.

How to use this table: This table shows how slow the other browsers are, compared to the fastest. For example, in the Installation test, if IE 8 has 23.2 compared to Firefox Beta's 1, means IE takes 23.2 x times the time taken by Firefox. So it shows the relative slowness of the browser to the fastest.

So, that is all about. The tests shows IE 8 is in average 5 times slower than Firefox 3.1Beta. The ranking goes like this.

Firefox 3.1 Beta
Firefox 3.0.7
Opera 9.64
Chrome 2.0.169.1
Safari 4 Public Beta (528.16)
Internet Explorer 8.

In closing note, thanks to my sister for helping me carry out these test cases.

-Codevalley

Microsoft tag! The next era of advertising?

2009-03-31T00:50:00.006+05:30

I came across something called Microsoft Tag for the first time when I was checking out free applications to download for my Windows Mobile phone from Microsoft's website. Microsoft tag was vaguely described as a barcode reader. So, I just downloaded it, and tried to read some barcodes with it, which it refused to. Then I went to internet to find what is Microsoft Tag.

Technically, Microsoft tag, is a multicolor barcode technology developed by Microsoft, which uses colored triangles to store information in the form of an unique ID. So, if you are thinking what is use of this unique ID, the answer is that the mobile phone application that scans and decodes the tag, will send this ID to the Microsoft server, from where it can get more information about the ID. Like websites, phone numbers, e-mail IDs etc.
But what makes it different from the conventional barcodes is that a cameraphone can read Tags from different distances. From wall posters, hoarding, computer screens, wrappers, anywhere. The publisher would get the statistics of who the person who has read his tag. So it is like a new way of advertising. If your mobile phone can get the position information along with the tag, the publisher can give you local results based on your location. So, you get the information you want, the publisher can target the customers in a better manner.

The great thing about Microsoft tag is that it is free (at least till date) and anyone can get a tag for himself and configure to his website or blog. I have already got a t-shirt printed with a tag which directs to this post. Fun eh?
The catch is that technology is still in Beta, so maybe once it is out of beta, it may not be free anymore.
Let us see how Google responds to this?

Get your tag here.
Microsoft Tag home.

-codevalley

"Honey, I shrunk the shuffle!"

2009-03-16T20:50:00.002+05:30

Steve Jobs maybe still fighting his ailment and is not in office. But that doesn't stop Apple, as they introduced the new iPod shuffle over a week ago. iPod is the product that reminds us of the revival of Apple, under Steve Jobs. And now iPod shuffle III launched without Steve Jobs [ still developed under Steve Jobs], let us see how good it is.
Shuffle is the cheapest of the iPod range, and like any 'next version' , the first thing that you would notice in iPod shuffle 3.0 is the form factor. Moving away from the original square faced shuffle, the newer version comes in the shape an USB stick, standing 1.8" tall. And you would also notice the navigation keys missing from the shuffle, except for the repeat/shuffle/off toggle key next to the headphone port.
Yes, that is the major setback [or innovation, as you may see it] of the new iPod. The navigation keys come in the earbud cord. Yes, like in the mobile phones [which I hate] you have to locate the keys from the cord and press on them. Also the navigation is the least intuitive and lot lesser Apple like, without the click wheel. This also means that you cannot use any other headphones other than the proprietary Apple earphones, unless you buy a "third party dongle" which would station the controls.
There are only three keys in the keytab, volume up/down keys and a big button. The button is used for every navigation action like, single click for play/pause; double click to goto next track and triple click for previous track. Yeah, really awkward and a giant leap backwards in terms of innovation. Think, to move from 5th track to 2nd track, you are going to click nine times, makes us wonder, if Apple endorsing Morse code, by any chance?
The next big 'feature' that ships with iPod Shuffle v3.0 is, VoiceOver. No, it would make Skype calls for you! iPod shuffle does not have a display, and you could be lost [with 4Gb/ 1000 songs in you array], the new VoiceOver will tell you the song tags, as you navigate, the playlist names, and even the battery charging status, as you plug your pod to AC Mains. All this without disrupting the track that is currently playing, blending in smoothly. Don't get amazed thinking how could such a small device do a text-to-speech. The voice tags are added to each track/ playlist, as you add them from your new iTunes software from your PC/Mac. The good thing is the iTunes will recognize [Apple says so] the language of the song and do the VoiceOver in that language, and it can do so for over 14 languages [But I don't see any of the 500 Indian languages in the list :p]. Apple also says, you will get different voice depending upon the type of computer you are using to sync with.
Overall, iPod Shuffle 3.0 is a mixture of VoiceOver and the not so comfortable controls. Let us see how this performs [sans Steve], with its $79 price tag.
Another accompanying news is that an iPod touch blasted in the pocket of a teenager, and Apple has been sued over that. So, Apple does blow a hole in your pocket!
-codevalley

Why Motorola is still at the bottom of the table!

2009-03-13T21:36:00.004+05:30

Motorola recently launched the "smallest & lightest" Enterprise Digital Assistant EDA] class phones, for the business class.
It leverages on Motorola's mobile computing platform architecture, MC55 and the features include, Windows Mobile Pro. 6.1,two-way radio, bar code scanner, digital camera, and mobile computer into a compact and lightweight design. It supports the GSM/GPRS/EDGE standard for wireless wide-area networks, offering voice and data services to provide the information needed for better decision making and business results. With an array of features, like integrated GPS,the new MC55 EDA supports a host of real-time location-based applications.
The phones have a whopping 3.5" [for comparison, iPhone has a 3.5"] and qwerty-keyboard, and has many unheard features like a 1D laser scanner, 2D imager, WLAN, WIFI,WWAN, VoIP, Push-to-talk, even support soft phone clients and integration with installed IP PBXs.
All goody goody?

This is how the phones look like!!

No, this is not some kind of joke of spoof. This is REAL!!

-codevalley

Idou, the next revolution or a senseless innovation?

2009-02-22T22:13:00.005+05:30

Sony Ericsson is known for the walkman revolution they brought into the mobile industry. Soon everyone was to follow them, and today literally every mobile phone is an walkman player, though still Sony Ericsson enjoys the throne with phones with the best audio clarity in their armour.
I have been a loyal Sony Ericsson fanboy, as I have used T630,K510, K750 and finally now having a P1i.
Sony Ericsson phones provide one of the best sound and camera quality and that has always been their strength. This also prompted them to bring exotic and extravagant walkman and camera phones like w995, and c905. But they have announced another surprising package by the name Idou (read I do U ) which is going to sport a 12 Megapixel camera. Yes, that was not a typo, I did mean twelve megapixel. Initially, even I was astounded, partly due to the amazement and partly because of skepticism. I did feel it was little unrealistic, to have this big a camera on a mobile phone, which is primarily for making calls.
Initially, I even thought this is just a rumour making rounds in internet, but soon was proved wrong when I checked the MWC 2009 coverage. Idou, the codename for the proposed phone, will run the new Symbian OS which is still in development. Neverthless, the preview of Idou prototype, at MWC was indeed cool. The UI is very fluid and deep, the best I have seen. Very much like a improved PSP interface.
The features of the phone include a 3.5" touch screen, with 360x640 pixels, face recognition, xenon flash, aGPS and all the other fancy features any modern smartphone would have. The speculated launch time in 2009 Q3, but we all know what happened with Xperia, so maybe it will be a few months longer.
Well Idou might be the dawn of next generation gadgets, or a senseless innovation. It is not ripe yet to conclude. In the meantime you can drool over these pages.
Idou Specifications
Idou MWC coverage, video.
Idou Official Page
I will be back with the coverage of just launched W995.

-codevalley

Internet Explorer 8 RC, at last a fighter!

2009-02-19T20:38:00.004+05:30

It has been some time since I have been using Internet Explore 8 Release Candidate 1, and I have found it very satisfactory in terms of performance. For ages, I always felt that Internet Explorer was a lighter browser compared to the foxes and Operas. But, the real downfall of IE happened with other browsers coming with tabs. Buy somehow Microsoft ignored the importance of tabs, for so long, I remember the first IE tabs, coming with the help of Yahoo! toolbar. But it was very messy nevertheless. Then IE came on with its own tabs. But, still they were very buggy. I remember even in IE 8 beta (even in my Windows 7 version of IE 8) whenever I open a new tab, the browser freezes for a few seconds (sometimes minutes) until the new tab is loaded. This is very irritating, since, we use tabs so that we don't have to wait until the page loads, we can carry on with the current tab.
But things have changed with the Release Candidate 1. Tabs are as fast as it is in any other browser, the tabs opened from a parent tab always group together with a same highlight color, for easy identification.
The address bar is much more than just a mere address bar. As you type, it shows relevant information, grouped and organized in a neat way, with domain highlighting etc.
The in-Private mode and in-Private filter lets you browse without leaving traces on the system. Something that comes handy to keep your browsing personal when you are using your dad's laptop. It also has a crash recovery system, which restores all the tabs back in case your browser has a crash. The compatibility mode is still there and it would be used for most of the sites you browse, unless you are frequent visitor to the Microsoft websites.
The browsers rendering is much better, with anti-aliasing of fonts and sharper rendering of images. Even other apps like Outlook which make use of the IE engine take advantage of this.
It also has a few other bells-n-whistles like the web slices, accelerators, add-in manager, etc which I have not yet used fully.
The only sad part apart from the compatibility mode is that IE 8 RC1 is still not available for Windows 7, I even tried downloading the Vista version and installing which did not work. I hope the wait would end soon.
Summing it up, IE 8.0 RC1 is light as Chrome, feature rich as firefox, at the same time clearer and sharper a faster than any other browser. I think IE 8 for the final release. And I believe it can give a really good fight this time. And, maybe, win too :)

Rating :4.5/5
I am not exaggarating on the rating, I could not find any flaw with it. Not even a single crash as well.
codevalley

User Access Control, a scapegoat?

2009-01-30T20:17:00.003+05:30

As Windows 7 is round the corner, lets get a little backwards in the time-line. Windows Vista kept us waiting for over six years, since the release of Windows XP, before hitting the retail stores in January 2007. Opening with mixed reviews, with some curiosity aroused by the Aero graphics engine and a new system architecture, the much hyped Vista settled down as a failure. Various reasons were given for the failure, which included the mammoth amount of system resources it required, the slow system performance, etc. But, one of the most cursed feature of Vista was the User Access Control.
UAC as it is commonly referred to as, is actually a feature which Microsoft added to Vista to enhance its security, by asking the user's confirmation before allowing any program to perform any serious (sometimes trivial) operation. People even went to the extent of rebranding UAC as User Annoyance Control. Norton noted that, "The more a user is prompted, the more likely it is that he or she will dismiss the prompt without reading it, and hence it is a false security model." And UAC became the easy target for Microsoft bashers and Windows haters.
But, is it really an annoyance? I personally felt it is not. Spending a few extra seconds reading a popup is always an easier option than installing a multi-megabyte antivirus software. Atleast you know whatever is happening in your system. Which all applications are trying to execute. I know each time my pendrive is trying to autoplay. It has helped me many a times from getting infected from external media.
After all is'nt this the very same security model followed in the Linux systems? Does'nt it ask for admin rights each time we try to do some system operation? In fact I have felt the frequency of popups more in my Ubuntu than in my Vista. I was rather disappointed when I heard Microsoft has partially removed the UAC from Windows 7. Though Vista may well be a below par product from Microsoft, I think the criticism on UAC was rather unfair. But, well that is MY opinion. You can have your say.
-codevalley

The Open Source Honeymoon!

2008-12-03T08:34:00.001+05:30

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!

2008-11-30T09:41:00.004+05:30

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???

2008-11-13T08:29:00.001+05:30

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.

2008-11-11T16:56:00.002+05:30

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!

2008-10-28T20:05:00.004+05:30

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!

2008-10-26T09:01:00.004+05:30

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?

2008-09-03T12:23:00.004+05:30

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!

2008-08-17T11:27:00.003+05:30

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?

2008-08-11T08:30:00.004+05:30

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.

2008-07-28T12:58:00.006+05:30

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.

2008-07-15T15:44:00.002+05:30

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

2008-06-27T08:17:00.001+05:30

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

2008-06-25T23:53:00.003+05:30

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.

2008-06-17T11:26:00.002+05:30

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.

2008-06-13T10:37:00.004+05:30

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

2008-06-12T17:18:00.002+05:30

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.

2008-06-10T15:40:00.002+05:30

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.

2008-06-05T18:03:00.005+05:30

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!

2008-06-05T00:53:00.006+05:30

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.

2008-06-02T09:28:00.004+05:30

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!

2008-05-30T13:59:00.007+05:30

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.

2008-05-24T10:06:00.007+05:30

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

2008-05-18T10:48:00.009+05:30

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!

2008-05-09T11:36:00.004+05:30

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

2008-05-03T19:50:00.003+05:30

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.

2008-05-02T00:15:00.005+05:30

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

2008-04-14T12:45:00.010+05:30

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

2008-03-23T15:25:00.004+05:30

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.

2008-03-23T10:44:00.004+05:30

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?

2008-03-19T12:00:00.004+05:30

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

Google's android, the new mantra or a damp squib?

2007-12-22T15:11:00.000+05:30

There was a time when we would relate the term Google with "web searching". Even the Oxford dictionary has added a verb "Googling" which means searching something online. But, since the, Google has grown too big. Their web presence virtually spread to all around the spectrum from banner ads, social networks, Video hosting and what not. But it seems, Google is not ready to stop with what they have. They are now on the process of developing an OS, No, I am not talking about the Googubuntu. This time the stage is different.
Google last month, in a consortium called Open Handset Alliance, announced a new platform for the mobile, called Android. Android is supposed to be very flexible and support 3rd party apps to any extent. The kernel is basically built around a modified and trimmed version of Linux GNU 2.6 kernel, and the whole framework works on Java Language. Java apps for mobile are supposed to be very secure, while limited and rigid in functionality. Now, Google is all set to change this concept with Android. Saying that, the coding would not be in J2ME as in normal mobile Java programming. Android has its own set of APIs and function to play with.
Even though there was initial excitement on this news, soon there were dark shadows cast, when I came to know the Open Handset Alliance does not include the major players in the mobile industry, like Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola etc, whom refused to accept the offer. (But still some like T-Mobile, Qualcomm, Intel, LG, Samsung, DoCoMo etc have lent their support.) Also, some already established mobile developers like Symbian, Microsoft, etc believe that this will only create more fragmentation rather than uniting the development.
But Google is again working with the magic world "Open Source", with Android. The android code is open and very easy to develop. They is offering a mammoth $10 million developers developing great apps for Android. But the news from Developers themselves is that Android is not very stable, at times it does not respond at all! But we need not take this very seriously since the actual Android release would be only by mid 2008, by which they can make the platform more reliable.

Android Home page
Android SDK Download
Android Wallpapers

codevalley

Road "Vista to Vienna", begins from Mini Kernel...

2007-10-21T00:33:00.000+05:30

Sounds too cryptic? First of all my apologies for my absence for over 100 days, my life shifted gears as I am now a Software Engg. in Bosch. So was busy with the new seat.
Anyway, let me unlock the riddle. Most of you know that Vista is the latest buzzword in the desktop market (I agree it was a damp release). Now, the successor of Windows XP, took almost half a decade to hatch out, after a bunch release dates and revises, when it did come out, it was not really welcomed as hyped by the market. All this is history. Vista is already there, what next?
Oh, the Vista Service Pack v1? That will be out in an year, don't bother about that, nothing really hot in that to fill up a whole article. So, Vienna? Yeah, Vienna is the successor of Vista, to be more precise, it is now called Windows Seven. The next release of Windows. The projected timeline is by 2010, but the exact details are yet to be known.
The Windows Seven is supposed to sport some complete new hood and internals. The first step for it being a fresh trimmed down kernel. It seems Microsoft is feeling the heat of the market, very unlike their style that they have put up a video about their new kernel for the public, which shows Eric Traut, a distinguished engineer, seen describing the new offing at the University of Illinois.
The kernel is codenamed MinWin, after a release where the Vista kernel would almost suck up 4gb of physical storage, the MinWin kernel megazips this to 25MB, or even less, according to Traut.
"That's kind of proof that there is actually a nice little core inside of Windows," Traut said. "A lot of people think of Windows as this really large, bloated operating system and that's maybe a fair characterization, I have to admit. It is large. It contains a lot of stuff in it, but at its core, the kernel and the components that make up the very core of the operating system actually are pretty streamlined."
He also mentioned that this kernel might be used for various purposes ranging from the Desktop to the embedded scenario, conveniently adding layers over it, still keeping the actual core slim. "This is an internal only (thing)...You won't see us productizing this, but you can imagine this being used as the basis for products in the future. We're definitely going to be using this internally to build all of the products that are based on Windows," he said. "We build a lot of products based on this kernel...It's still bigger than I'd like it to be" Traut said. Seems Microsoft is trying the Stephen Hawkings way, attempting for the Universe in a Nutshell.

Some say that project Vienna actually called Blackcomb earlier, was started as early as 2000, and was supposed to be the successor of XP and Vista just an interim release, but the hype and other reasons made Vista a full release by itself and eventually caused its flopped release. Vienna might well be the last of the Windows era, or may even be first of the new era.

Here are the 7 Windows Seven picks for you,
Windows Seven news
Windows Seven Blog
Windows Seven Transormation Pack
Windows Seven UserInterface Video
Windows Seven Wallpaper 1
Windows Seven Wallpaper 2
Windows Seven Skin Screenshot

Wishing all the best for the new W7, (7 being my own lucky number).
codevalley

Google search for Linux Desktop.

2007-07-08T16:54:00.000+05:30

The Google desktop search was one of the first of its kind, when it was launched for Windows, even as its fighting the desktop space with the likes of MSN desktop search, Coppernicus etc, they have launched the same for the Linux desktops. Not to forget that they had released the Desktop search for Mac. This Linux search can help you find files from your system and even retreieve your GMail and other saved documents.
The most interesting thing is that Google has moulded this to suit Linux users, as most users are programmers, it helps to find source code and other details easily, also it is released in various languages, English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean --and it works with many versions of Linux too. The search can be accessed through the quickbar, or by pressing cntrl key twice.

With this launch, Google Desktop is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Try it out now and read more on the Google Desktop Blog.

codevalley

AMD trying to pull Transmeta out of woods?

2007-07-08T16:18:00.000+05:30

A few months ago, I had written about the AMD- Raza deal,AMD selling off its Alchemy range to Raza and also stopping its Geode division, now it seems they did that to help Transmeta with their Crusoe and Efficeon family which where directly in contention with the formers' market. Now, they have gone a step further by granting a mammoth 7.5$ cash for preferred stock deal with Transmeta.

Transmeta was once one of the better processor manufacturers who were known for their low power processors, but lately are struggling int the market. Last year they posted a net loss of over 24$ million. They had to make amends by cutting over 39% of their employee strength and also concentrating more over lawsuits over intel on Intellectual property infringement. Maybe AMD felt they have to back Transmeta now, already AMD has lost a lot of money in 2007 Q1. As the saying goes, "Enemy's enemy becomes friend...".

Transmeta did not waste the oppurtunity to lavish praise on AMD, "AMD has long been a leader in the development and delivery of energy-efficient, high-performance computing technologies, standards and initiatives," stated Transmeta president and CEO Les Crudele. "Transmeta has been proud to endorse and contribute to those industry leading activities, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with AMD on technology initiatives in the future."

In return AMD may hope to take advantage of energy-efficient Transmeta technology to their own advantage . AMD President and CEO Dirk Meyer claims, "Transmeta was a key ally in helping to bring our highly-successful AMD64 technology to market and has supported the widespread industry adoption of both AMD64 and AMD’s HyperTransport technology."
But I am not sure if there is going to be a repeat of the ATI merger, here.

Interesting note: Linus Trovalds was an employee of Transmeta once upon a time.

codevalley

Sony Ericcson to take over Motorola??

2007-05-19T15:07:00.000+05:30

Motorola has one the oldest tradition when it comes to mobile phones.. Martin Cooper of Motorola is widely considered to be the inventor of the first practical mobile phone for handheld use in a non-vehicle setting. While, Sony Ericsson is the new kid in the block, a company established only in 2001. But, it seems the kid is going to take over the big daddy of mobile phones. At least that is what the rumour mills are spreading over the last few weeks. Motorola has not had much success in the last few years, their sales have gone down, and conversely, Sony Ericsson is even competing Nokia for the Prime Market. Now, that makes the rumour believable.
This is what Mobile Mentalism says,

For the first quarter of 2007, Motorola's mobile handset sales were down 15% from the previous year, and incurred an operating loss of $231 million. This was in stark contrast to Sony Ericsson and Nokia, both of whom enjoyed considerable success with their range of handsets.

Internally, Motorola has been having a battle with Carl Icahn, who owns 3% of Motorola's stock, and who recently failed in his attempt to win a seat on the Board of Directors at Motorola. Icahn has pulled no punches in his criticism of Motorola's current management.

Against this backdrop comes the rumour of Ericsson buying Motorola.

Also the analyst Ed Snyder at Charter Equity Research, has allegedly claimed that two of the main shareholders in Motorola told him that Carl Icahn has spread the rumours about this possible merger. And it's not like Icahn doesn't have his own agenda!

Who knows we might get too see MotoRokrs with Megabass, or a Motorazrs with CyberShot. Let us wait and see. You may be excited, I also may be. But this might be sending nightmares to Nokia, as this merger would definitely remove them from the top spot. Already Sony Ericsson is known for its perfection and is dominating the middle and high end market. Also, the critics have acclaimed Sony Ericcson for the better sound and camera. If this merger happens, they could easily invade all the markets.
codevalley

AMD's new desktop PHENOMenon

2007-05-16T10:20:00.000+05:30

AMD has said last month that Barcelona range of processors will get them their lost glory. Now, they have moved a step forward from dream to reality, as they announced that later this year they would be launching their new range of powerful desktop range of Quad Cores and Dual Cores named Phenom. Atleast the name looks appealing than the Core2 from Intel, for now. But we will have to wait and watch how they differ in performance. Later this year the quad core Phenom FX, Phenom X4 and the dual core Phenom X2 will be ready.

AMD has been pleading for long that the Intel quad cores, which are actually 2 dual cores fused are no match to their actual quad cores with 4 independent cores, better connectivity, independent processing backed up by the powerful and fast Hypertransport, [read Barcelona]. Intel who were arguing at first are now actually designing chips in the similar way with integrated Memory controllers and point to point links, this would be ready only by 2008. The product is called Nehelam.

The AMD quads are based on Barcelona architecture, and would be a big test for them. The enthusiasts are looking forward to this release as this is the superior to Intel's fused quads. This would also give AMD a chance to revive its multicore market which it lost to Intel last year.
AMD will also give 4x4 a boost, which was introduced in between a big hype but which eventually died down. They will also introduce a product called FASN8 which could hold to Phenom quads. That would be a nice fiesta for performance hungry users.
codevalley

Microsoft annoyed with Linux

2007-05-16T10:00:00.000+05:30

Microsoft lawyer Brad Smith, in an interview with Fortune said that Open Source violates over 235 patents. It said the Linux kernel itself violates around 42 Microsoft patents, while its UI and other elements around 65. The Open Office also violates 45, and 83 more by other Open source softwares. The allegations come as a surprise as Microsoft had lately signed a deal with Novell to work on bridging software between Windows and SuSe Linux.
No clues were given on how Microsoft would proceed with these findings, as the Open Source community has grown strong enough to defend their fort, Microsoft has to play safely. The Open Invention Network has been piling intellectual property, some of which could be used to counter attact Microsoft. The Network includes major players like Sony, Philips, NEC, IBM and Red Hat. They could virtually choke out Microsoft.
The violations are not a new discovery for the Open Source world, this was well identified a few years back, the community has been working towards eliminating the "evils of patents" and has been urging the developers to pool in the rights to the Open Source community for free use. In fact they have been forcing the developers to do so. The new GNU Pubic license in making, also includes clauses which would make the pacts like the one between Microsoft and Novell, virtually impossible, says sources.
courtsey: news.com.com
codevalley

Intel going for the kill??

2007-05-05T21:17:00.001+05:30

Two weeks ago, at Bejing, Intel revealed its new plans, which revolved mostly around a new chip, codenamed Larabee. which is actually dubbed as a processor for consumer devices, which uses an array of cores running in parallel to give trillion floating point instructions per second. The processor is also x86 compatible and hence easier to program, according to Intel. The processor would go public by 2008, maybe after the Fusion release by AMD. The processor is aimed at high end scientific apps.
Another one in the making is Tolapai, which also combines x86 processor core with an encryption co-processor, which will also consume less power and space. It would go in air later this year. It is aimed at the security computing sector.
Though the Larabee chip was slated as a competitor to the Fusion processor, the real threat is actually Nehalem processor, which would have a GPU core at some point of time. The chip which would be out the late 2008 will have upto 8 cores. It is also dubbed as the "dynamically scalable procesor", meaning the intel designers would develop variants of the processor for each sector. It would also support mutithreading, and also take the most successful technologies that brought AMD to top, a faster memory controller bus and the point to point links connecting the cores. This processor would be fabricated in the 45 nm technology.
Already the Penryn processor, which is etched on 45nm cores, will provide 20% performance improvement over Core2Duo on general apps and 40% on games. This is more or a less a shrink of C2D architecture into 45nm.
Intel already is working hard with Beyond3d to get their GPU homeworks correct. So, tighten your seatbelts and watch the processor war.
codevalley

e-mail eats Internet time, says Stanford

2007-04-12T21:39:00.000+05:30

Recently Stanford University had conducted a survey on Internet and its usage patterns. It has revealed that around 90% of people use Internet for emailing primarily, followed by general information, and surfing. The survey finds that still E-mail rules the internet. It says the Internet today is a giant public library with a decidedly commercial tilt and the current Internet is also emerging as an entertainment utility.
The survery has been even more wider, exploring the number of activities people do online, demographic tilts, the way internet has changed people etc. It has found that on an average, people do around 7.2 activities online. And also has found that internet is addictive, people tend to spend more time on it, as they go on using it.
The most important effects of internet being, people lose social contacts, spend less time with traditional media, love to work more in office and even home and do less shopping. The survey was conducted over 4000 respondents to select among a list of 17 common internet activities.
The full report is available here.
codevalley

Google My Maps!! Simple mashups for everyone.

2007-04-05T13:15:00.000+05:30

The Google maps service lately has introduced a new feature, the new My maps mashups lets you create your own version of My maps, where you can tag your favourite cafeteria, restaurant, hang outs and add your own descriptions, picture icons and labels to them. That too with a few drag and drops and cut-pastes. It is so simple that any person, with no coding experience can create his own mashups in less than an hour. The maps can be kept private, when it is not indexed and you can share the map URL, for others to see. Or, made public when, it is indexed in the Google Maps index, and anyone can search for it, though, it would take weeks for the webcrawler to find it.
You can add markers onto the maps and label them with descriptions. To make it even more interesting, there are a quite a few marker styles available to choose from, starting from the default teardrop icon, to icons of restaurants, apartments etc. That is not all, you can simply scribble all over the map, create outlines, shade areas etc. You can also tag each location with custom pictures or even videos from youtube.
There are other similar services aimed at laymen mashups, Platial, popular as "The Peoples' Atlas," and Microsoft's Live Search Maps Collection Hub. But both does not match Google my maps ease of use and immense search indexing.
And for more technically sound people there is a version of the same, which uses data from Google Spreadsheet, this needs a bit more programming skill and also they are not indexed.
codevalley

Apple all set to release torrent client : iPirate

2007-04-05T13:10:00.000+05:30

Well, the name might look a little bit out of the box, but the features of it are going to be awesome. The whole thing is still in alpha testing phase, but I managed to get a screen shot of it from the internet. The Mac OSX exclusive bit torrent client would include built-in private tracker search, Pirate Bay and Mininova RSS feeds, bandwidth limiting, automatic RIAA and MPAA detection to ensure your torrent isn’t bugged (damn those public trackers!), and a beautiful aqua-based UI that won’t lag like Azureus. That is simply a lot to ask for.
This should be a part of Leapord when it would be released this year end or beginning of next year.
codevalley

More Vista WoWs!

2007-04-05T12:24:00.001+05:30

Sorry, I meant woes. Vista has been released under much hype and expectations and Microsoft had a very hefty campaign to get it to the mass, the "wow" being their advertising keyword. But, it has not been all that smooth for them with over a month and a half after Vista's release, it is still not on track.

Animated cursor? I am afraid of it.
Those who have been closely watching the Microsoft the earlier versions of Windows, this might not a new issue. Right from Windows 98 through Windows XP SP2. this issue has haunted the software giant. Buffer overflow can be caused by a simple, malfunctioning .ANI file, putting the system in a crash-restart-crash loop. This was partially fixed in Windows XP SP1, but this recurred in SP2 and now in Vista too. This is simply ordinary stuff from Microsoft.

Security engineers at McAfee's Avert Labs confirmed today - and posted the video to prove this. When the system detects a crash because of the faulted cursor, it tries to save the vital system information before restarting, one of the new features of Vista, but this causing system to keep trying to load Windows Explorer each time and fail. The only remedy being to switch the power off. Many hacker circles are already exploiting the flaw to jeopardize Vista systems.

It seems Microsoft is not ready to take the embarassment, they announced last week that they would release the patch sooner, than the earlier announced date of April 10. "Since testing has been completed earlier than anticipated, Microsoft has released the update ahead of schedule to help protect customers", a Microsoft representative said in an e-mail. Customers can manually download the patch, or if the Automatic Update feature is turned on, it would be automatically patched.

Lately news have rolled out that the patch has been more of a thorn for many users as it is having conficts with the audio and networking drivers. Many lost all their ethernet and audio functions once they installed the patch, and regained as they removed the update and used the system restore. The funniest part is that Microsoft admitted they knew this Realtek driver issue. They had released a support article about that and later another patch for this, along with the cursor patch.

Avert Labs video
Microsoft Advisory

Lawsuit over low-end Vista
The "Vista Capable" sticker has proved to be costly for Microsoft, a Washington State woman has filed a class action action suit against Microsoft, complaining about this. Her system would not run the full version of Vista (read Ultimate) despite of her system having the sticker.

Her lawyers argue that Vista Basic lacks many features showcased in Microsoft's marketing campaign, the company has fooled the customers. This might not be a big case that would bring Microsoft to bankruptcy, but still this has scarred their reputation.

Microsft Vista campaign
The lawsuit

codevalley

technorati tags:Vista, lawsuit, cursor, patch, bugs, Microsoft, Windows

Open Source is not just for software.

2007-04-01T19:27:00.000+05:30

It seemed awkward to me when I heard it at first, but now it seems quite feasible. Opensource is making its presence felt at all walks of life. No, not because some of the Opensource software are used in many embedded systems like mobile phone and other electronic gadgets. But it has gone even more further, in the Autoshow, AutoRAI held at Amsterdam last week, an Open source car was unveiled. It was jointly developed by the Dutch Universities: Delft, Eindhoven and Enschede.
The car can take four passengers and runs in zero emission hydrogen. Anyone can contribute to the car's design and machinery as the design blueprints and technical data are available freely over internet, and the contributions would still be under Opensource.
The name of the may not be that impressive as the very news is, it is named c,mm,n (pronounced common, I am not sure why those commas are for). The c,mm,n site provides further details about the project and technical data, though most of the content is in Dutch.
c,mm,n website

codevalley

Google offers TiSP, the free wireless broadband!

2007-04-01T12:38:00.000+05:30

Google has offered so many wonderful services like, Google Romance, Google Gulp!, Google Lunar Job, Pigeon Rank, and The MentelPlex, all of those have been wonderful, overnight hits and even have had the internet jammed for a few days from release.
Now Google has come up with a better, bigger and utilitier product, Google TiSP. Once you sign up, Google will ship you with a self installation kit with which you can set up your own Wireless broadband internet for free! This kit setup guide, fiber-optic cable, spindle, wireless router and installation CD.
The broadband is to be installed on your closet and Google will make use of your sewage lines to connect to the server and provide high speed broadband. They offer it in 3 variants, The tricke, #2 and Royal Flush. The first one being the free version. Google cleared the doubt many had, announcing that this broadband kit will in no way hamper your actual working of your closet, but insisted to take technical support of a plumber to install the kit correctly.
Anyway if still have not figured it, then you deserve the kit, because you really are the right candidate for the Google's April fool pranks. Here are the links for you to sign up.

Google TiSP sign up(free)
TiSP FAQ
Google Press Release

codevalley

2007-03-29T23:54:00.001+05:30

myLot User Profile

Intel and the benchmark scams?

2007-03-28T20:51:00.001+05:30

We all believe that now, it is Intel's time to beat the hell out of AMD after the release of the Core Microarchitecture. But, for so long AMD had been shouting foulplay by Intel to mislead the analyst, Wall street and the consumers to make them believe this. Until recently, I never gave my ear to it, despite being an AMD fanboy. But, now analysis and post mortem of the presentation meet by, Intel Server Platforms Group general manager Kirk Skaugen on February 21st, and later on 28th is shocking to say the least.

The way Intel has presented the presentation has been very unprofessional and unethical. They have tried to impose and highlight their supremacy over AMD in a very cheap manner. These are the few of those.

Intel has compared their latest Xeon processors with pretty much old Opterons to declare themselves the leader. To make it worse, they even have a unnamed processor compared with the Xeon. Some of the benchmarks are with dual cores, some with single cores, and one nameless processor. All the while the Intel counterpart remains the same.
Lot of footnotes and disclaimers on each of the slide, which are hardly legible and the scores have been twisted, the slide title showing two high end Intel and AMD processors while tests being done between, the best Intel and a weaker AMD.
In the 1st presentation (on 21st), a footnote says " the latest opteron XXX has not been used because the benchmarks are not available, and hence we are comparing against an older version". Next presentation(on 28th) , the footnote is missing, so we naturally assume that it uses the latest Opteron, but on close examination, it is still the older one.
A slide show titled comparison of Xeon 5xxx with Opteron 2xxx, and not a single comparison is with 2xxx and this fact is safely buried in the cryptic footnotes.
They were using a six year old SPEC benchmark to prove that they were leaders and the wide gap in the benchmarks, while no one is using those benchmarks and the new ones are pretty common.

These medley of errors, or delibarate makeovers flooded the whole presentation. I wonder how could a high profile company even dare to do this? Obviously, every single analyst would have figured out these. This has simply been shameful, to say the least.
Adopted from: blogs.ZDnet.com

myLot User Profile

download the Intel presentation and check for yourself.
Read the original article.
Post-mortem report (must see).

codevalley

technorati tags:intel, amd, scam, benchmark, presentation, opteron, xeon, core, dualcore, singlecore, SPEC

WoW! Vista bugfixes start to flow in.

2007-03-28T19:25:00.001+05:30

Microsoft holds its tradition once again, this time with mega release of Windows Vista. Even before it was officially out on January 30 earlier this year, a number of bugs were found out by many product watchers and analyst. Now it is their turn to bring out the bug fixes. This is the pattern, at first they give you the fixes for free. After some time, they begin to call them as the Service packs and charge for it. May be I am being anti- Microsoft here. I am sorry, I was just kidding. Hope they fix all the bugs soon. And hope new bugs sooner.

I am not sure how many out there following my blog has already using Vista, I would not, at this very early stage, I want to get everything stabilized, before I make the payment for my copy. Anyway for the unfortunates, here are the fixes, you can download them right away.

Update for Windows Vista (KB931671)
Update for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems (KB931671)
Install this update to resolve an issue where an error message is received when placing a Windows Vista system into a sleep state while a PPP connection is active.
Update for Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter [March 2007] (KB905866)
Update for Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter for x64-based Systems [March 2007] (KB905866)
Install this update for Windows Mail to revise the definition files used to detect e-mail messages that should be considered junk e-mail or thatmay contain phishing content.
Update for Windows Vista (KB931174)
Update for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems (KB931174)
This update configures the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Programt o improve the quality of software information sent to Microsoft.
Update for Windows Vista (KB932649)
Update for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems (KB932649)
Install this update to resolve an issue where poor video quality may be experienced when configuring video to interlaced mode on a system running Windows Vista.
Update for Windows Vista (KB933824)
Update for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems (KB933824)
Install this update to resolve an issue where an Apple iPod may be corrupted byusing the Safely Remove Hardware feature on a system running WindowsVista.
Update for Windows Vista (KB932988)
Update for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems (KB932988)
Install this update to resolve an issue where when adding metadata to RAW images from Canon EOS-1D or EOS-1Ds cameras, the file is truncated andthe image is permanently lost.

I know you are as much shocked as I was when I first saw these. Yes, these are the patches for those using PPP and iPod issues and some other trivial issues. Sorry for the prank,as you may call it, but the real, bigger, bugfixes should be out soon. Till then, this is all you can get.
codevalley

technorati tags:Windows, Vista, Microsoft, Bugs, Bugfix, Service-pack

Flock: the social Mozilla

2007-03-28T18:46:00.001+05:30

I had read about the new free browser available in the web, that uses the same Mozilla engine used by Firefox. Recently I downloaded it and tried it. I found it interesting, and useful. Here is the review.

It took me less than hour to download the 10Mb installation file over my 64kbps cable net. The installation was smooth and the post installation setup gave me a deja vu. Yes, it was very similar to Firefox installation. Then I went over the web and read the biography of the browser. It uses the Mozilla engine, no wonder the similarity. I opened the browser, after importing the settings from Firefox which I was already using. The Flock homepage loaded and it said, "Flock, social web browser". I wondered what it could mean, I would find out soon. Initially I had a cold feeling, everything seemed to be like Firefox, I was amazed about the popularity of the browser as I could not find how it was different from Firefox, even the logo was quite similar, Firefox has a logo of globe being stormed by a fire, while flock uses globe with few water droplets. But, despite the striking similarity, something kept me using Flock. Was the the elegent theme? Or the simple and light weight mode, without any extensions? Or those few extra buttons which I was yet to figure out what they were?

Once again I went to do my homework and explored the Flock website, somewhere it said, this is the Mozilla browser custom made for blogging, photo sharing and other socially sharing web services, like Flickr, Del.icio.us, Technorati, Photobucket, and various popular blogging and news aggregation services. Soon, I was pulled in, I added my social accounts onto the browser, Accounts and Services menu was useful for this. Now, I can upload a photo onto Flickr in a single click, I am writing this blog from the browsers' own editor which will automatically add it to the b logger. I get all the news from the news tab. I am already a flockstar within a day of use.

The photo button, when clicked will open a photostrip near the toolbar with a slide of photos from flickr and it loads insanely fast. You can download, upload or view them. The news button will open a news sidebar, neatly organized, with different categories and unread news highlighted. You can save the feeds or blog them and do much more. Another amazing feature is the Create snippet feature. You can drag text or image onto this icon in the status bar and tag it. It could be saved for later use.

Grey areas
The versioning has only reached 0.7.1 beta and quite understandably a lot has been left desired. Checked for the extensions available for flock and could find only 3 of them. Also, though the themes tab is there, no themes are listed yet. But, I am not reverting back to firefox, I would like to see flock grow, and hope you people would like it too. It is an entirely different rendering of the Mozilla engine.

Product rating:

flock home
mozilla home
firefox home

codevalley

technorati tags:flock, mozilla, firefox, browser, free, opensource, flickr

Yahoo! Mail goes infinite

2007-03-28T15:46:00.001+05:30

Yahoo! Mail was launched in November 1996, when Internet was still in the nascent stage. Now over 10 years has passed and the Internet has grown, so has e-mail providers and competitors. Yahoo! has faced and is facing stiff competition from GMail, AOL, Hotmail etc, but still it is managing to hold its fort, with over 250 million users and is still the largest e-mail service provider, globally.

Google Bomb
Yahoo! received its biggest competition in April 2004 when Google began offering its own GMail with 1GB storage space. Many people even thought this was a Google prank, but shockingly Google did come up with it. Yahoo! was then offering paltry 4MB. Soon Yahoo! increased its space to its space to 100 MB, then 250MB later onto 1GB. Now, they offer 2GB as compared to GMail's 2.5GB, for the free accounts.

Going Unlimited
Yahoo! Mail Vice President, John Kremer, said that "We are watching the trend lines of how people are using e-mail...and they are sending more photos and videos and rich media," and that by May they would offer, unlimited storage space for the free webmail users. The process would be completed within a month, globally except Japan, China users. He said, "We will continue working with these markets on their storage plans".

This may be only the beginning, as Google did in 2004, it would only be a matter of time before other major players follow the suit. Anyway, this is a healthy competition and more importantly very good for the end user.

codevalley

technorati tags:yahoo!, mail, gmail, google, unlimited-storage, hotmail

Citizendium, the ghost of Wikipedia...

2007-03-27T22:05:00.000+05:30

Citizendium is a project similar to Wikipedia, started by Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia. It was officially out on March 25th. The word Citizendium means citizens' compendium of everything according to the site. They already have over 1000 articles with over 1200 authors and around 200 editors. Unlike it is big brother Wikipedia, Citizendium has more stringent rules for posting. Here you have to sign up with your original name to access the edit, and each post would be reviewed and verified before putting up to the public.

The members are called the citizens. Though most of the existing articles are brush ups of imports from wikipedia, they have claimed that their main project now is the Big Cleanup.
Here the editors' main job is to simply select the best version and inspect the overall postings. There are Constables, who are actually doing the real work to proofing every article posted in this site. These are all volunteers, contributing their time, energy, and professional expertise in support of a shared vision. A "CZ Constable" is a volunteer who is required to have a bachelor's degree and be "at least 25 years old." Larry is one of them. Articles which are branded "Live" have been proofed by CZ.

This wiki improves and overcomes the problem that Wikipedia has, by allowing free editing. This is also a bit more organized with the categories like Natural Science, Social Science, Humanities, Arts etc appearing on the home page to select from. The overall layout powered by mediawiki, as in Wikipedia has more or less the same look and feel with an little bit more lush of colors.
This site does look promising though my searches, "Google" and even "Larry Sanger" failed to return any articles, though when I did get hold of some article to watch over, I found it is no different from Wikipedia at least in layout. The Wikipedia framework has been adopted for this site. But, it seems all the articles in Wikipedia will be put under microscope before listing in citizendium. It seems, clarity and factual correctness is more important here.
Only the beta is out, so the actual release may be lot better and may really put wikipedia rest in peace.

Citizendium home
Wikipedia home
codevalley

Youtube under fire!!!

2007-03-27T21:06:00.000+05:30

Youtube has been one of the most popular video sharing sites available over the internet, and much more dearer than its rivals like Google videos, metcafe etc. But Google to noticed this very early and bought Youtube for a mammoth price of 1.65$ billion. Since then, many software giants(did I mean Microsoft?) have had sleepless nights and are fearing Google getting closer to invading the cyberworld. I am sure if this had anything to do with Youtube, maybe it is because Google did make Youtube a lot better and popular, attracting jealousy. But since the time Google took over Youtube, it is having a really hard time. You will find why.
A lot of criticism had been raised over Youtube's unconditional hosting of videos and many issues like no restriction on explicit content, copyright infringement etc were accused against Youtube's policy of free hosting of videos. Some even went to the extent by saying Youtube is the next napster. Here are the latest woes.

Viacom gets into the picture
Latest to run riot into Youtube is Viacom, they have sued Youtube ( and Google, of course) over a 1$ billion lawsuit for Massive International Copyright Infringement and have asked for compensation, and also has asked to stop the infringement. In fact, Google had agreed to add filters and checking of videos for any infringement, but has not moved a toe in the direction.
This fight is seen as the act of desperation by Viacom after Google turned down their offer to pay for the alleged 160,000 videos (100,000 owned by Viacom) that violate copyright. Now, Google has reverted their stand and say they are not doing anything illegal and are going by shielding themselves from liability on a 1998 law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Anyway Google has negotiated with many entertainment companies, including Warner Music Group, CBS and most recently, the BBC.

"YouTube appropriates the value of creative content on a massive scale for YouTube's benefit without payment or license..."
"YouTube's brazen disregard of the intellectual-property laws fundamentally threatens not just plaintiffs but the economic underpinnings of one of the most important sectors of the United States economy."
"YouTube has deliberately withheld the application of available copyright protection measures in order to coerce rights holders to grant it licenses on favorable terms,"

Viacom said in its complaint.

Viacom isn't the only entertainment conglomerate yet to partner with the Google division. Some executives have been very critical of YouTube's practices, includeing Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC. He though, refused to comment on the new lawsuit.

TV networks out with "Youtube Killer"
Adding fuel to the issue, now the Television networks are coming with another Video sharing site, which will be promoted by MSN, Yahoo, AOL, MySpace to name a few. This seems to be a collective war to end the Google's smooth voyage. Not surprising, Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC along with Mike Arrington, Peter Chernin (COO News Corp.) have announced the idea, which would be backed by two major film studios and over a dozen TV networks, branding it as the largest video distribution network ever assembled.
This seems to be impressive, they are trying to knock out Google from many angles. But they have left lot of details missing, about this new venture. But will they be able to get the fan support and community that Youtube has? Only time will tell. In the meantime here is a part from the press release.

At launch, full episodes and clips from current hit shows, including Heroes, 24, House, My Name Is Earl, Saturday Night Live, Friday Night Lights, The Riches, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, The Tonight Show, Prison Break, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader and Top Chef, plus hits from the studios’ vast television libraries, will be available free, on an ad-supported basis, within a rich consumer experience featuring personalized video playlists, mashups, online communities and video search. Plus, the extensive programming lineup will include fan favorite films like Borat, Little Miss Sunshine, Devil Wears Prada, The Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy with bonus materials and movie trailers.
Courtsey: zdnet.com, news.com.com

codevalley

Fusion, the AMD way...

2007-03-26T22:15:00.000+05:30

The ATI merger by AMD in the second half of 2006 was seen as a very strategic move by AMD. And the analysts got it right when AMD did not take much time and in late 2006 revealed its plan for the unique processor codenamed Fusion. Intel got back their prime spot with the release of Core series of processors, while AMD was caught napping over the 64-bit success. So, maybe this is the act of AMD to get closer to Intel once again.

What is Fusion?
The innovative plan of AMD is to integrate the GPU and CPU into a single die as two heterogeneous cores and hence improve the performance-per-watt-per dollar, a new yardstick posed by AMD. AMD already has the Hypertransport advantage. Now, in Fusion you have two cores, one for processor with its own cache, and another, GPU with its own buffers. Both of these are joined by the crossbar and integrated memory controller. Obviously everything is connected through the high speed hypertransport technology. But, it is not too clear whether the GPU will have a frame buffer for itself.

Is it good for me?
It is a hard question to answer, though AMD claims this compound processor will provide a reasonable graphics performance, it is not quite clear what do they mean by reasonable here. Anyway this is not for those hardcore gamers and AMD will continue to churn out graphics card under the ATI brand, as they agree graphics cards are necessary for high end users and physics processing. This fusion might be best suited for Laptops and notebooks.

When would the egg hatch?
Anywhere around 2008 Q4 or 2009 Q1 if everything goes well. But I still believe that is a far fetched call. They should get it by at least Q1 2008 if they need to pose any competition to Intel. As Intel is already getting ready for 45nm fabrication and even 30nm chips.

Anyway I feel this might well turn out to be a trump card for AMD to once again do the impossible, beat Intel. They have done it once, with 64-bit processors. But can they repeat itself and prove to the critics that it was not a fluke? Only time can tell.

codevalley

MyLot: e-arn for your thoughts

2007-03-24T23:43:00.000+05:30

myLot is fast earning reputation over internet. myLot is an online discussion forum like portal, where you get paid for your contributions in the form of new posts, responses, images etc. It is a very lively forum more than anything while the money earned is a bonus. But, if you are looking to buy the state of the art mobile phone by myLotting, you may have to post for a few years. You could earn around 20-25$ a month, if you spend around 1-2 hours a day.
Once you sign up for myLot, you get your home URL something like http://www.mylot.com/cultoffury, which shows your profile, and you can choose your interests, which are basically the categories which you would love to post. Though it is not necessary, to choose interests, it helps you find posts easier. You can add friends and keep an eye discussions they start. Now you get points for every discussion you take part in, whether you start one, or respond to. You also get rated by others and this is reflected in your star rating, you can get upto 10 stars, showing your reputation.

Earning
Earning in mylot is proportional to your points and you can get anything from 0.05$ to 0.20$ or even more for every point you score, this depends upon the "quality" of your posts, which depends on the content, the language and length of your posts, though the exact algorithm used to find the quality is known only to myLot creators. Also you get points for each image you upload. Your earning will be updated everyday and you get paid every 15th of the month for the previous month's earning. Your payments are sent to your paypal account or e-gold account. One thing is that myLot though pays modestly, it DOES pay. I earned my first payment last month, a shade less than 20$. So, you can guess the amount you could earn, in fact I was not posting too often, and not as a way to earn as well, but to share my ideas and thought with others and get ideas for blogging. If you work harder, you could earn around 50$ a month. You also have a referral scheme where you get 25% of your referral earnings.
Those who own an orkut account and do regular scrapping, myLot will surely interest you. Think how it would be if you get paid a dollar for every 5 scraps you make!! It is very much like that. With over 82,000 members and even more tons of discussions and interests, this really induces you into it. myLot other than helping you with some pocket money, helps you improve your English and general knowledge, I can assure you it is not another of those internet marketing frauds, as I have already got my first payment, as I mentioned. It is worth a try.

myLot home
my profile
codevalley

product review: Picasa

2007-03-15T20:47:00.000+05:30

Picasa is the digital photo management software from Google Inc. This product is available for free download from the Google's website. Picasa is one the best products in the market which can be used to manage digital pictures, videos, organize them, sort them and what not.
Google acquired Picasa from Idealabs in mid 2004, and applied the Google's magic onto it,now it is the part of the Google's goodies package. It has a sleek and glossy interface with graceful transition effects and fade downs, on loading and other refreshes. Picasa is available for the various platforms such as Windows XP, Vista, and beta versions for Linux flavours and Mac OSX. The latest version out in market is Picasa 2.5.

FEATURES
Simplicity is the main standout of this product. It is very easy to use. You can import images virtually from any device, you digital camera, mobile phone, or remote PC and Picasa will add it to the image library. Image library is very well organized and can be viewed as folders or tree stucture. You can also sort the library the way you like. The light weight process Picasa Media detector adds every new picture that enters your hard disk directly onto the library. The process does not eat up CPU time. Other features includes the Slideshow and Gift CD creator. You can also search pictures easily, and add tags to each image, or even rate them with "stars".
The timeline feature is a really creative idea by Google. It creates a three dimensional spiral of folders in your library chronologically sorted. You can select your "era" you want to explore. It turns you photo viewing into an amazing experience. Other such features include Geotag which lets you tag your pictures geographically with Google Earth. You can also find and remove duplicate copies of same pictures. You can create a collage, poster, slideshow, or video from the albums, or even publish a web album or blog from it. You can even e-mail or send the pictures to hello.

IMAGE EDITING
Image editing in Picasa yet again impressed me to say the least. It has excellent features right from red eye removal, adding light to dark pictures, adjusting shadows and highlights, auto adjust contrast or brightness etc. You can also tune the color temperature and add effects like sepia, tint, glow, film grain etc. The best part of the editing is that the original picture is always backed up and even if something goes awry you can get back the original. You can even forget saving the changes to the actual image file. Each time you open Picasa you can see the touched up picture while on disk the picture is still raw. I could easily touch up pictures I took from my digital camera within minutes, which otherwise would have taken me hours with Photoshop. But to my surprise the quality of edit is very much high and comparable to that of Photoshop edits.

before editing after editing

That is not a joke, that is how effective the filters in Picasa are.

PULL DOWNS
To be frank, I could find anything serious which is really annoying with Picasa. Even though I don't like unwanted programs residing in my system tray, Picasa Media detector still found its place there, as I never felt any system load because of it. The only thing which I can argue of being a bit annoying is that, for each folder that Picasa scans and adds to its library, Picasa creates an .ini file in that folder. My system has a several hundreds of them. But otherwise Picasa consumes very less disk space, so this can be tolerated.
To sum up, Picasa is one of the better softwares I have come across in recent past. More amazingly it is offered free of cost. This is a must have for every home PC user.

SNEAK PEEK
In late 2006, Google acquired another technology from Neven Vision which can be used to recognize faces and search them from the pictures. Google has promised to add this feature to Picasa soon. As a matter of fact, Neven Vision has won several awards for its face recognition technology. So it is going to be even more exciting in the near future.

Rating

Website http://picasa.google.com
codevalley

Reason#1001 to port to Vista...

2007-01-17T16:09:00.000+05:30

Everyone is geared up to face it...The underground brought it way back in December 2006, the official OEM version was already with the vendors a few fortnights back, if you are not interested in any of those, then you can buy a retail license for yourself, it was released last week. Obviously, I am talking about Windows Vista. I don't think it is unfair to say the wait has been little bit too long, but hey! it is almost over. The most printed letters on the desktop screen.. X-P- will cease to exist soon and will be replaced by clearer..glossier...vivid letters V-I-S-T-A.

Now there would be very few people who's not heard of the blazing features of Vista.. the Aero's visual delight...3d cascading of windows...are just a few of them. But here is one of those which you might not have heard about. But sure you are gonna love this one.

The concept of Wallpaper is pretty old, the practice of covering the walls with beautiful paperwork is centuries old, but it was Macintosh which actually bought it to the computer "desktop"and Windows made it popular. Now every computer desktop has a wallpaper but our conventional walls are decorated by razor thin plasma televisions. Maybe that is what made Bill think over it and give decade old wallpaper concept a break.

If that seems too poetic, I can't help it. That is how much "poetic" my technical mind can go, anyway, the news that got my jaws hitting the basement is that Vista is going to support video wallpapers. It is called Windows Dreamscene, and what they claim is that, the wallpaper, which could be your favourite mpeg/wmv video, will not eat up your CPU time. The idea sounds really unbelievable. They say they have some kind of "pre-rendering", by which your CPU is kept at lower heat. You can also put a Direct3D animation as a wallpaper. They have introduced a new format DREAM which would help author protect his creations.

But I am not surprised. When Microsoft came up with Windows 98, they added the feature where you could put a webpage as your wallpaper. Now, this is one step ahead, though, I must agree that the step has been rather steep.

Here is the rest of the story.
codevalley

Google: The rising of 2006??

2007-01-03T17:06:00.000+05:30

2006 saw the rise and fall of many new brands in the Corporate IT. Whoever has been familiar with the silicon world would not find it hard to identify the names like youtube, orkut, adsense, wikimapia, blogger to name a few. But not all know that all these names are the derivates of one brand, a brand which is now familiar to every household, you can't get it wrong. Yes, it's G-O-O-G-L-E. Who would not have seen the nice and clear logo with red, blue and yellow letters? If you browse through my archives you may find it a little bit pro-google, but in fact this is not at all intentional, they were earned by their presence in the field.

Google filled the news columns of small and big perimeters all over the world throughout the year, be it the the much hyped youtube- google merger, the acquisition of this very blogspot, or the widespread of the orkut epidemic amongst the youth. They have easily pushed down the Microsoft with Vista, or Intel's release of the Core Series processors to become the newsmakers of 2006. What remained at the end of the day was google searchbar in every websites, even in desktops in the form of google desktop, and google adsense ticking the cash register of every small and big firm. The forecasters of the corporate have been predicting that Google would overtake Microsoft within 2009, I cant see a reason why they should go wrong.

Even though only a couple of nights of 2007 have seen dawn, already google is facing lot many challanges, the founder of wikipedia Jimmy Wales already have been caught commenting on cashing on flaws of google search to beat them, also heuristic search engines like powerset threaten to push google off the No.1 seat. Gmail was under the microscope after a serious flaw was discovered which could help spammers hijack the address book. Also a series of lawsuits are becoming the speedbreakers on the road to the victory for the search makers of the web. So let time decide the position of Google for the chinese year of pig.

Meanwhile here are a few Google's useful utilities that's yet to be popular but are worth a try.

Google Suggest
This a in the predictive version of Google search which still in the workshed. But anyone can try it. It is really worth a try.
Try it here

Google Download Accelerator
This is a small piece of software used in tandem with your browser to achieve faster loading of pages over a broadband network. It simply works a ISP which caches and preloads pages in a heuristic manner onto your local computer for faster loading.
Try it here

Always remember that google tracks every user with its umbrella of services like Search, blogger, adsense, which is present almost in all sites, so when you use any of Google services your behaviour is being watched and tracked...
As the Google's slogan says... "You can make money without doing evil"
codevalley

Really Shocking Snatch???????

2006-12-22T07:50:00.000+05:30

The news doing rounds over the web is that Microsoft has applied for patent over RSS protocol and file format. I you have your jaws hitting the ground with a thud! mind you are not the first one. I searched over the Internet for the contribution of Microsoft for the creation or development of RSS format, but to put it simple, their contribution has been almost ZERO, except for a trivial Channel Definition Format, part of Internet Explorer 4.0, which never saw light. Apart from that in 2005 nov, they have proposed Simple Sharing Extensions for RSS feeds. Ironically SSE was put under Creative Commons License.

Anyway the news will rather be a shock to the Bloggers all around the world and the millions of the websites using RSS feeds. Think if you have to fill Microsoft's pocket everytime you read my blog! Now that's not all, though unconfirmed I heard that the US Patent and Trademark Office, has already granted Microsoft the patent. Though the USPTO website database does not show any such thing. This could create further issues as the equally populer Atom protocol (blogger.com also supports Atom) and the RSS have many in common. So the patent will Atom infringing Microsoft patent.But Atom has the option to patent their own protocol, which would make both the protocols mutually infriging, so the only option I see is to keep RSS copywright open. There is so much prior art in this issue and I don't think USPTO could ever find it easy to allow this to be patented.

I found Tim Bray who was deeply involved in Atom, quoting in somewhere in the Internet,

"It will be interesting to see if the USPTO shows any evidence of having overcome the problems that resulted in their track record of obliviousness to prior art"

For now, once again Microsoft is stepping up the gear and getting into the forbidden zone, hope they don't find themselves in trouble, or rather put millions of websites and blogosphere into a fix either.
In the meanwhile I will give you a one final shock
Check this link out
codevalley

AMD stages a fightback!

2006-12-10T08:49:00.000+05:30

July 14th, 2006, was an important date for the two big processor companies. The processor giant Intel and the green counterpart AMD, duel turned to a new high as Intel released Core2Duo. AMD which had the market dominance for the past 3 years, at last lost it to Intel, and the rest is history.
Now after two Quarters, AMD is bringing a string of new releases, starting with the Quad FX range of processors released in November.

Quad FX
The strength that AMD had till last year was it's 90nm SOI technology which was much better than Intel's 90nm technology. But once Core2Duo was releases with a new 65nm technology, the strength turned into weakness in no time. The Quad FX range of processors, aka, FX70, FX72, FX74, clocked at 2.6Ghz, .8Ghz, 3.0Ghz is a great achievement as the engineers are concerned. To crunch millions of transistors and get a clock of 3.0Ghz at a 90nm SOI die, is no mean achievement. The whole idea was to get some vendor release a motherboard which dual socket which could host two Quad FX processors and provide some kind of direct memory connectivity, thanks to Hypertransport, and this could be branded as a Quad core. Intel had tried a similar trick by fusing two Core2Duo and calling it a quad core offing, Quadro.
Now the engineers might be amused but I am not sure if the enthusiasts and users were, as this bulky system sucked around 600Watts of power at peak load (mind that C2D sucks less than 100Watt). Also the benchmark did not show anything amazing, it lost even against the older FX 62, from the same school. But some argue that there in no Operating System at persent that could identify multiple cores and hence the benchmarks are not valid. But still no one could find a cork to fix the heating hole.
Now, thinking what AMD should do?? Goto 65nm fabrication?? Bingo!! that is what they exactly did...read on.
The Trimmed AMD
December 5, 2006, marked another important day for AMD, as they released their first 65nm SOI processor, the Brisbane -core, The Athlon 64 X2 processors are based on 65nm technology, with 4000+, 4800+ , 5000+ range of processors operating at around 2.1-2.6Ghz. These are only the entry level processors, but already some analysts claim they are more efficient than the Intel counterpart as it would consume only around one fourth power compared to Core2Duo. It has a TDP rating of 65watts(wow!!). The new processor works on socket AM2, and also has a reasonable pricing.
The entry level processors will be soon supplimented with, Lima, Kuma, Agena cores (stands for single, dual and quad core). The new processor has not yet been benchmarked though.
So wait and watch the drama as it unfolds...
codevalley

Desktoptwo...an Online mobile Desktop for free!!!

2006-11-24T21:41:00.000+05:30

Desktoptwo is an online Operating system(not exactly), that gives you the look and feel of your desktop within a browser window. It provides all the features of your normal desktop aswell as a 1GB space to store your files in the online hard drive, bunch of softwares like Open Office, MP3 players, messengers, free email ID and lots more.
If you have an internet connection, from anywhere in the world you can access your Desktop..ie your desktoptwo. So they say "You can bring your desktop too". The concept looks exciting and I think there are not much members, I could get the ID "narayan" while signing up. Also without a reasonable bandwidth, this idea seems to be just a dream.

The sign up is rather a breeze, asks for you name and address, and an alternate email id. Once you signup you can use your online desktop by pointing your browser to http://www.desktoptwo.com/your-id. It also provides you a email ID (POP account), your-ID@desktoptwo.com.

The beta version is out, so it's worth trying out and you might also probably get better ids as i got, and maybe in a few years this would prove worth. So here I am signing off, still waiting for my Desktop2 to load... ( I started writing this blog after opening it).

Site URL : http://www.desktoptwo.com
codevalley

Google again...buys YouTube for 1.65$ billion!!

2006-11-12T10:38:00.000+05:30

YouTube.com though started in Feb 2005, was fast to pick up the momentum and creating a new breed of video hosting, streaming and sharing, and today has a few million users. It's unique style and simplicity made it popular from word "go". As in the cases of orkut.com, blogspot.com, x, y, z.. Google once again found this one, and did not hold back, and bought youtube.com for a whopping 1.65$ billion on stock. This merger brings together the web's biggest video entertainer and sharing community with the technical giants of data organizing and searching.
Though Google said that Youtube will operate independently to preserve its brand and passion, this really gets the equation more interesting. Google already has it's own video sharing service called Google video, and recently it was quoted Google saying, youtube is better than Google video as it allows instantaneous availability of uploads. Now Google's umbrella of services are widening like anything!
codevalley

Google sprays e-mail worm accidentally!!!

2006-11-09T20:04:00.000+05:30

Google Inc., one of the most popular name in the webbed world, today continued it recent series of bad runs when it spread a e-mail worm W32/Kapser.A@mm known popularly as the Kamasutra worm through its free video service, Google Video on tuesday. Almost 50,000 subscribers have been sent this mail, on this Tuesday. Recently Google's official blog had been hacked, even before that Google even deleted its own official blog accidentally.
"Some of these posts may have contained a virus called W32/Kapser.A@mm--a mass-mailing worm," Google said in a note on its Web site apologizing for the incident. Three postings were made to the Google video blog user's list on Tuesday evening. Google has also advised their blog users to use an virus removal tool to remove it. Google said they would be more careful and won't repeat the mistakes again.
The kamasutra virus as it popularly known spreads when users try to access porn content. It deletes the victims files on a specific date. No casualties have been reported from this Google mishap. Now think twice before going for the "cheap term life" over free web content.
This may interest you.
Google Video
W32/Kapser.A@mm
codevalley

Intel, AMD leave the mobile phone processor market

2006-11-08T20:36:00.000+05:30

In early june this year AMD divested the whole non x86 processor line, Alchemy line of processors selling it to Raza microelectronics Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Though this does not mean complete sell off of its mobile processor sector, their presence is now restricted to support the RMI.
As if following the "green company", Intel later in the month announced that they will sell off the XScale PXAxxx applications and 3G baseband based processors for a speculated sum of $600 Million along existing liabilities, to a company called Marvell. This is seen as a strategic move by the Chip major. It was quoted Intel saying that it was to focus on its core x86 and wireless LAN chipset businesses.
This makes Marvell the single largest supplier of 3G and smartphone processors. However, Intel has reserved some fuel for the mobile, as they still hold the 4G range of processor technology with them.
codevalley

Revised Licensing policy for Vista

2006-11-05T12:44:00.000+05:30

If you were to change your hardware configuration, you would be one among the many who wish, why doesnt Microsoft throw some sense into their Activation policy. The Windows XP registration policy does not allow any major handware changes, and if you do, you might have to buy a new license. Most of the people dont find it sane to pay twice for a single copy of software.
It seems Microsoft has realized this mistake and are making amends. The new policy would also eliminate the piracy issue, or that is what they think. In Vista, the product is activated by "calling home" or contacting Microsoft online and registering there.

"So, what's the big deal???" eh? Well, that's not all. You are allowed to cancel an activation and apply a new activation. Doesnt that mean sense?? Consider this, you are going to sell of your computer for good. And you plan to buy a new one. All you have to do is to simply cancel your old activation and apply a new. So for the time being it seems Microsoft is onto the right path to tackle the Activation policy criticisms.
The idea sounds good, but, we have to wait and see how they implement this to perfection. And here I am signing off, wishing all the luck to Microsoft for this idea.
codevalley

Adode says "No 64-bit Flash"! GNU,GPL say "yes!"

2006-11-03T17:06:00.000+05:30

Adode has been in the recieving end of criticisms lately, as they were not moving a step forward to support 64bit platforms for the flash player. Their recommendation is to install a 32-bit browser and use the 32-bit flash player, definitely not acceptable at any means. This has especially haunted the 64-bit Linux users, as most of the distros comes bundled with 64-bit browsers. Despite various online petitions and forum posts, Adobe is still not making a move towards the future.
But the crisis has almost come to and end with Open Source flash players for both Linux and Windows. The first step towards this was the GplFlash project started when there were no Flash player at all for Linux, and lost its importance once Macromedia released a 32-bit Flash player. But with the 64-bit issue propping up, the project was revived in 2005 and this was called GplFlash2, but it seems GplFlash2 has been stopped due to messy code, and it seems new design would be adopted. So there is no chance of it being released in the near future.
But, GNU has done their part to help the 64-bit users with Gnash project which is nothing but GNU Flash project. This is fully supported and is a full fledged player that supports the Mozilla based browsers, such as firefox. So now anyone can view their favourite Flash websites without the Adobe's proprietery Flash player. Gnash supports upto swf v7.0, which is a good news. but the bad news is that there is no Windows based binary for Gnash, though there is one for GplFlash1.
Here is the Gnash ftp download link.
Here is the Gnash homepage.
codevalley

Adobe Flex...redefining the web

2006-11-03T00:16:00.000+05:30

Once Adobe bought Macromedia, it was looking out to make the most out of the deal. And as everyone knows Macromedia's flagship product is Flash, and almost 80% of today's browsers are Flash enabled. Now the drawback with Flash was, it was good for animations and intros, but it's loosely held at the back by a language called Actionscript. It was not a powerful tool to employ databases and other deep web applications.
Now Adobe knew this very well and they were straight onto business when they released the first version of Adobe Flex, in March 2004 which combines the power of Flash with a coventional programming model. It includes support for major technologies like cold fusion, Java etc. it is used to develop Rich Internet Applications.
Flex uses Actionscript 3.0 and MXML(Macromedia XML) for coding. It's compiled using JIT compiler to produce swf files on the fly. Flex can be considered as the direct competitor to AJAX, OpenLazlo etc.
Flex can add more eye-candy to your web application without losing the strong connectivity capabilities. It's already used by major players like SAP, Harley-Davidson etc to build there website.
But all good things comes with a price and so does Flex. The flex builder which is the IDE to build flex apps, is based on Eclipse. There is also two other priced modules are Flex Data services and Flex Charting. The latter is used to create highly customized charts and graphs and the former for providing addition services for managing data. The Flex SDK, though is free of cost and can be downloaded from the Adobe website. It provides the Command line compiler, debugger and the libraries.
Flex is here to stay, or atleast that is what Adode thinks, take a look at this Flex based website to judge for yourself. http://harley-davidson.com
Latest Flex release : Flex 2.0
Manufacturer : Adobe
You can download flex SDK here
codevalley

AJAX. The rising

2006-11-02T07:34:00.000+05:30

The events that unfold in the computer industry is stranger than the most bizzare hindi movie you would have seen. A few years back who would have thought that AJAX would become so popular? Though the term AJAX was coined by Jesse James Garrett in 2005, the concept was very much there before that.Take the case of the MySQL. No one ever thought that Oracle would ever be shaken by some small swedish company, but in reality now MySQL is posing a big threat to Oracle, with a strong open source community support.Similar was AJAX's story, it's now one of the most sought out technology for the web applications, especially Rich Internet Applications.
AJAX stands for Asynchronous Java with XML. It avoids page refreshes and sends data to webserver asynchronously using Java. The concept was well foreseen by Microsoft back in 1996 when they released Inter Explorer 3, they added a component called iFrame for asynchronous page refreshes. Now they have a technique called remote scripting to work on this. Ajax is not a technology in itself, but a term that refers to the use of a group of technologies together. It is now widely used in web development, one of the popular implementations is Gmail and wikimapia. Now you can expect websites that look like your desktop applications and can do much more.
codevalley

2006-11-01T00:26:00.000+05:30

Vista still not ready - Symentac
Symentac claims to have found many security holes in Vista, and were bold enough to announce that in some parts, Vista is more vulnerable than Windows XP, especially in some parts of networking code.
They say that Vista uses fresh written code , replacing most of the tested an tried code, so new bugs and errors are bound to be there. So a bumpy road is ahead for the near future atleast until the code is stabilized.
Microsoft is not taking any chances and are rigorously beta testing the operating system, which is going to be the world's most used one. Already Symentac has announced that some of the holes reported by them have been removed in the RC2 of Vista, and many would vanish in the final release. Who would not listen to a company which has a tradition of 24 years in computer security?
codevalley

AMD Intel Duel heating up!

2006-11-01T00:06:00.000+05:30

July 2006 marked the revival of lost glory for the inventors of the microprocessors, Intel, with release of the Intel Core Series of processors and first market success in the last three years since the market invasion by Athlon and 64bit processors by AMD.
This was followed by the huge price slash by the Green company, up to 60% and acquisition of ATI, the graphics vendor giant. Now they have gone further and have announced their new offing, Fusion, a processor that will incorporate a GPU onto it. How far this is going to succeed is for time to tell. But AMD fanboys atleast have something to cheer, with the tentative date of Fusion release set to 2008 Q2. Also the 4x4 and Intel's Kentsfield will be locking horns soon with 4x4 schedule revised to 2007 Q2.
Analysts think that 4x4 is better than Intel's Quadro as it has the real quadcore architecture as compared to the pseudo quadcore architecture of Quadro.
codevalley

Apologies

2006-10-31T23:55:00.000+05:30

My deepest apologies for not posting for almost 2 years and thanks to blogger.com for retaining my account. I am active than ever from now, and you can expect some quality stuff now onwards. Also the topics are gonna be anything related to Computers.
codevalley

Is C++ a real OOP language??

2004-12-14T13:51:00.000+05:30

First of all, my deepest apologies for my absense for almost a month, but then i had my semester exams going on.. i could'nt help it... so i thought i should think of some exciting topic to get back into bussiness... so i think this one will interest you...
Okay, okay, for all those who are scratching their heads thinking about, what the hell is this all about...i won't keep you waiting anymore...here i go
First let me give you the definition of an OBJECT ORIENTED PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE, any language which is coded invariably in classes is a OOP language..still not clear.. that is the whole source should come under some class or other, yes.. no stray global functions global variables outside classes... yes in OOPs classes rule!! So by the above concept is C++ an OOP?? think again! it is never a OOP, you have atleast one function not controlled by classes.. main()?.. yes , you got it holmes... so it can never be coded in a OOP way, and mostly every expert programmer, even Bjarne Stroustrup( sorry if i got the spelling wrong!!) will have atleast a few non-class functions and variables...

So What is C++ afterall??
Good question!! even i often wondered about this... until somewhere i found the correct definition for C++ , it comes between Object Oriented and Object Based Languages.
That is , it uses objects and classes... but not completely dependent on objects.. remember that you can code a C program and compile it as a C++ file...

Gimme an example of OOP!!
Sure.. Java,C# are the most commonly used OOPs, Java is the most widely used OOP in the world, and for java illiterates out there, each java program is contained in a class with the name of the program... and Visual Basic is an example of another object based language.

Rumour: ANSI is taking efforts to make C++ an OOP!! Smells tasty?? maybe someday we'll have main() put inside some class... but surely not in the near future...

Coming soon..,
Review on the much raved open source browser from Mozilla... Firefox

pl mail me and let me know how my articles are.. i love feedbacks... and give me suggestions about how to improve my articles..
codevalley

Namespaces

2004-11-14T11:22:00.000+05:30

Namespaces in C++

Namespaces..uhh?sounds like all alien stuff?? even for seasoned C++ players? let me explain...Now we all study in classes that C++ is an "OBJECT ORIENTED LANGUAGE", but actually strictly speaking C++ does not come under the category of OOP, but it is actually an OBJECT BASED LANGUAGE. Think again, do you always start a C++ program from inside a class? naa!! That is why. An OOP language should have everything in the form of objects , that is classes are mandatory, like in Java program. But hey, then we can do C++ programs exactly like a C++ program exactly like a C program, in the structered approachthat is why C++ is not exactly an OOP language.SO what's the big Deal??Now this OOP issue was haunting the ANSI(American National Standards Institute), who are the cheif players in C++. So they came up with the idea of NAMESPACES in around 1997. Now ,some other languages support it. Whole namespace bussiness is about keeping the global part of the program from getting polluted. Now if we have too many global variables in one or many files,(read header files), it will create many problems of duplicate declaration(or redefintions). To avoid this , they introduced a new level caled namespace. Now, anyhing declared global come under the global namespace. We can explicitly declare our programs inside a separate namespace, so that we can use same variable names or identifiers used in stadard headers,(yes can have a variable called cout). Now, ANSI has patched all the standard headers and reincorporated them into the namspace called the std namespace.But this is just come into existance and not extensively used , even now. But most new compilers support this technique. To maintain compatability with the old mode of programming, the following changes have been brought in. The headers with namespace does not have the conventional *.h but , sans any extension, ie becomes . The choice is yours whether to include the namespace version or the conventional headers.But Dude, how do i exactly use namespace?Okay, into technical details of using namespaces

declaration:

namespace

{

//body //do anything!!,variables ,function,classes etc

}

I am not going into C++ details of using the namespaces in this episode, actually , i had that in mind , but the blogspot's html editor, thinks #include's tags and cout's insertion operators as html tags and creates errors, so i'll get back into that some time later..

In Closing...

Okay ,some may have convinced that namespaces are great, but then, is it not another face of classes itself!! Maybe not, definitely, namespaces avoid the global pollution. And you can use the standard names, they are not ANSI's private property anymore!! But , obviously it will take time before the namespaces are extensively used. Ahh, maybe this blog may speed that up!!

codevalley

Starter...

2004-11-02T21:55:00.000+05:30

Hi,
I m narayan, a comp. sc engg student, i ve been programmin since i was 12 years old... i wld like to share and also get new programming tips,techniques, news etc...
u can get me over narayan.babu@gmail.com.
codevalley