Digsby, the new IM cloud.

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

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AMD out from Hibernation, but Intel never slept?

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

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

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

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

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

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).
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