The FuNK Blog

Would you like a digital copy to go with that?

Bhavi — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:38:30 +0000

I was reading Matt Mason’s book titled The Pirate’s Dilemma which, broadly speaking, narrates how pirates have changed our world in more than one way by their own altruistic ways (we’ll come back to that later). A while after I remembered reading a quote by Machiavelli in the book but couldn’t find a reference to it in the index. That’s when I realised how useful it would be to be able to search through a book much like the way we search through a virtual document everyday with our Ctrl + F. This got me thinking and I thought it would be quite easy to do that if I had the electronic version of the book.

I decided to search for a pirated version of the book (oh the irony) as soon as I was done with the chapter. When it came to it, I decided to look at the author’s website wondering if did actually practise as he preached and offered a digital copy of the download. And surely enough he did. The way Matt set it up was any website visitor is able to click on the link and download the book. In doing so the user is presented with an option to enter an amount he would like to pay the publisher. I of course selected zero because I had already paid for the book.

Later it got me thinking that what did in a way impress me (the digital download on the author’s website) should in fact become what Herzberg describes as Hygiene Factor, in the non business sense of course. Each purchase of a hardcopy of the book should be accompanied with a digital version of the book so the buyer is able to consumer the product wherever, however and whenever he chooses to. For those concerned with the issue of file sharing and distribution let me point you to Music Industry who has already, for most part of it, abandoned DRM and is still doing fine. The fact of the matter is those who wish who pirate, will pirate. I was going to have no qualms or difficulties in obtaining a pdf ebook version from one of many websites. But the fact that Matt and his publishers made it available to me was nice and got me thinking, why aren’t we given a digital copy with our purchases.

Vista’s weakest link: Apple

Bhavi — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:33:28 +0000

Microsoft has had ‘mixed’ success with Windows Vista. I say mixed because even though the newest operating system in the Windows family is the best so far, the company has fallen well short of reaching its target. The ‘credit’ for a large part of this can be given to Apple’s marketing team whose relentless bashing through the Windows v/s Mac ads have been tremendously successful in instilling fear, uncertainty and doubt in the minds of the average consumer. Websites like PCWorld with their less than neutral coverage of Windows Vista haven’t made things any better. I’m in Mumbai at the moment and I happened to speak to a cousin of mine - whose geekometer clocks just a tad bit higher than the average consumer - and we got talking about Windows Vista and XP. He told me he didn’t really like Vista and preferred XP as an operating system. I asked him why this was the case and he told me he had “heard from someone” that Vista had a lot of problems. I immediately questioned him on whether he had used the OS himself before making the judgement to which he defensively reacted he had, however for less than a day. He had seen a demo machine somewhere and spent a while tinkering with it. His biggest complaint was that he didn’t quite understand it. I told him him to come speak to me when he had given Vista a real chance.

I’ve personally been using Windows Vista since RTM and the number of crashes I’ve had since are less than the number of fingers on my hands, literally. While some early adopters may have been plagued with instability issues - mainly caused because of immature drivers - I have been considerably luckier. And with the arrival of the first Service Pack the system has become as solid as a rock. I keep my laptop on for days altogether and the uptime counter only stops increasing when I restart the machine myself to complete an installation or something of that sort. Add to that many of the simple improvements in user experience - breadcrumb navigation and search to name a few - and you have a brilliant operating system on its hands.

Microsoft has made attempts to lift Vista’s image with the Mojave Experiment which is part of the 300 million dollar budget it has allocated to promotion and advertisement. In my opinion this move is long overdue especially if it has to compete with a company whose strongest asset is its brilliant marketing and PR team. Should Microsoft be able to formulate a marketing strategy / campaign that does indeed cleanup the undeserved Vista mess, it can most certainly see itself winning back the market share it may have lost.

..and this is why I don’t do Cloud Computing.

Bhavi — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:04:33 +0000

The concept of cloud computing isn’t new new by any means. The idea of being able to view and process information / data regardless of what device we’re using, has been around for a while. However it’s only recently that innumerable services and startups have come up offering ’solutions’ to these ‘problems’. But the recent downtime of Gmail serves as a stark reminder of how 100% availability simply cannot be expected of any online service. It doesn’t matter how grand the infrastructure is or how scalable the application is, it is the smallest of problems that bring down the biggest of setups.

I still insist on using Outlook for my email, calendar and contact needs. Most of the time when I need access to this information I am on or around my laptop so I have instant access to this data. In the off chance that I am not, I have my phone (Nokia E90) which syncs up with my desktop giving me the exact access (emails are only the recent ones). The situation is exactly the same with my RSS Feeds (Feeddemon) and Office Suite.

Now I’m a student and as such not particularly bothered by any of the issues the privacy evangelists have with data being in the cloud. My main issue of concern is data availability. If I am to completely depend on web applications for my daily computing it would also mean constant availability of a data connection which as we all know is not possible in even the world’s most connected cities. I went travelling across Europe recently for about 2 weeks and it was particularly hard to find cheap , let alone free, hot spots. If I did find a free hotspot, I would quickly do a ‘Send/Recieve’ in outlook and refresh all my feeds in Feeddemon so I could go to my hotel and read them. Even though the issue of data availability on a holiday is no minor one, the bigger issues comes in when your internet access is disrupted in your daily routine. I’ve had my Internet connection disconnected three times in the last two years for a couple of hours each time; two of which were unplanned downtimes. If i was completely reliant on web apps, I would have been rendered completely helpless in such a situation.

My second issue is that of application speed. There is no doubt that AJAX and technologies alike have improved our browsing experience tremendously and even in the recent past it was hard to even imagine the things we can do right in our web browser. However the snapiness and responsiveness of desktop applications still lack in a lot of the web applications. If it isn’t that then it’s pure functionality. Come to think of it, it’s only in version 2.6 did Wordpress include the Word count feature.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that I have options available should I for some reason not be around my desktop and have my phone battery die on me. That is exactly why I sync my Outlook calendar with Google’s and enjoy having a webmail interface. But the lack of 100% Internet availability and lack of speed are reasons why I don’t do cloud computing.

Proponents of Cloud computing say it is very useful especially when dealing with a multiple device setup which I can understand. I’m getting a netbook next month (not sure which one yet) but I know I’d rather use one of the sync web services to truly keep data current across both machines. Live Mesh is looking to be a good option and I’m particularly looking forward to try it. Even with getting the netbook I still intend to install one of the office suites on it among other desktop applications. That’s the reason why my netbook will not serve so much as a ‘Netbook’ - in it’s definition and implied meaning - but as a extremely light and portable laptop to carry around for lectures and meetings.

All in all, I am of the opinion that that web applications serve as perfect compliments to our desktop applications but they will however remain that - compliments.

Dell Global Mobility Event : Live Blogging

Bhavi — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:12:22 +0000

Dell is hosting an event titled ‘Freedom from Business as Usual’ and is was expected to announce their netbooks and possibly even a phone. That didn’t happen though. Dell is really pushing the concept of a ‘Digital Nomad‘ (their term, not mine). They claim to have achieved a 19 hour battery life for notebooks and this will be included in their newest (4th generation) Latitudes some of which will be available starting today on dell.com

Among other things the machines are expected to include Backlit keyboards, all day batteries, SSDs, Centrino2 processors, integrated webcam and microphone and even smart card security. Track lost notebook as well as remotely wipe data.

New Latitudes are E6500, E6400, E5500, E5400 with E4300 and E4200 as portables and E6400 ATG as the rugged machine.

E 6400 - Thinnest lightest mainstream notebook. 19 hours battery life. magnesium alloy chassis. Exciting keyboard technology. 9 cell gives 10 hours of battery life. Add a battery slice and get about 19 hours of battery life. (E6500 is 15″ version) E4300/4200 - 13.3″ and 12.1″ screen. less than a KG - no spindle - SSD sub system. Choice of colours in Business Computing.

E6400 ATG - for harsher environments, outside viewable screen, shock mounted hard drive, no compromise to performance or battery life. Dell’s new technology “Latitude On” - Working on ‘Instant access’ and ‘Always on’. Coming later this year. Most expectedly going to be a splashtop-type linux OS!

More coverage at : Direct2Dell , Engadget Hands on

Apple Surprise!

Bhavi — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:45:08 +0000

It is all but confirmed Apple is launching the 3G iPhone on the 9th of June. What is expected is 3G(obviously), GPS, and possibly a bigger or a higher resolution screen. However Apple has known to surprise, which is why I have a feeling we might be seeing something more than just an iPhone launch.

I have a feeling Apple might deliver a new product to the market. To extend it`s development along the iPhone-esque lines with touch included would be quite possible. One could speculate Apple might release a UMPC of it`s own but that is highly unlikely as Apple usually enters a given market extremely late. While rumors of a rebranded .Mac service surface - with MacRumors providing the latest scoop - I can`t help but wonder what Mr Turtleneck`s new trump card will be.

What I love about my Nokia (Symbian S60v3) - Ex Windows Mobile user

Bhavi — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:42:55 +0000

It’s been about 5 weeks since I moved from the HTC Tytn to the Nokia E90. This was a huge change for me as it meant I was coming back to Symbian S60 after 4 Windows Mobile devices (SP5, Prophet, Wizard and Tytn) and the last Symbian OS device I used was the side-talkin-taco-lovin N-Gage. So far my experience has been a fairly good one. There are a lot of things I absolutely love about my E90 and a few I don’t. In this post I’ll focus on some of the former.

1. Snappiness

I’m not even sure if that’s a word but it sure is hell should be. The Symbian OS is generally much more responsive than an out of the box WM device. Even though you don’t notice the lag after a while in a WM device after a while because you’re used to it, you can tell the difference when you use a Nokia phone.

2. Profiles

This is one thing I have absolutely missed the most. The ability to preconfigure message, call and email tones, levels and vibrate settings into presets has been sorely lacking in WM. Sure there are third party applications for this ability (as for most additional functionality) that work just as well; but this should really be included in the basic phone features.

3. Browsing

The included browser with the Nokia devices is just a delight to use. The cursor allows for precision compensating for the lack of touchscreen. The biggest improvement however is the speed of rendering, it’s just blazing fast. And then since the layout is web-like and not mobile-formatted, looking at full websites on a handheld device is great. (This is in comparison of the browser of WM6, not WM6.1)

4. Connection Managing

Should I set it to, any of the applications will let me choose the connection I want it to use. This is especially useful, when you have a data plan but also access to WiFi at a lot of places. Not only will this let you save up on the data plan (if it’s not unlimited) but allow faster data transfer too since Wifi at most places generally seems to be faster.

5. PC Suite

Most people don’t realise it, but the Nokia PC Suite is actually a brilliant application; miles ahead of Windows Mobile Device Center or ActiveSync. Among other things it will let you configure synchronisation, pictures and file transfer, install applications. However what stands out most for me is the almost perfect backup and restore application and the desktop messaging. The former will backup files (phone memory and memory card), contacts, calendar, notes, messages, settings and bookmarks. This is a huge time saver when it comes to upgrading firmware. The desktop messaging will allow you to send text messages from your desktop when connected to your phone.

6. Firmware Upgrades

Nokia periodically releases Firmware upgrades for it’s phones (mine just received its last week). These mostly include performance tweaks and bug fixes, but can often include significant upgrades. Flash Lite 3 was included in the last E90 update which allows me to view flash content directly on the web page now. These upgrades aren’t generally found with Windows Mobile phones.

I still have a few complaints with the device and the operating system too. Some of them stem from my use of the WM operating system, others being general annoyances. I’ll be talking about them in a separate blog post.

Acer jumps into the UMPC game too.

Bhavi — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:14:18 +0000

We know that Acer was planning an entry in the oh-so-hip UMPC market fairly soon and confirming that a lot of information has come leaked out today.

Here’s the scoop as it stands:

Specification:

Acer’s Mini-Note is called “Aspire One“

Windows XP SP3 on the 8.9 screen with resolution of 1024 X 768. (ouch)

Atom 1.6Ghz Hyperthreading (running at 800 M Hz at lower load)，533Mhz FSB，45nm，SSE3，L1 D-cache 24KB、L1 I-cache 32KB、L2 512KB。945GME +ICH7-M/U chipset，Insyde BIOS，DDR2 512MB 4-4-4-12-16。

4GB SSD
Battery(2200mAh).

No word on the price from the forum leak but digitimes.com seems to think it will be at 299 euros (US$469.49)

News Source: 3Fire , Mobile01

Picture source: UMPCPortal

Dell Mini boasts impressive keyboard.

Bhavi — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:38:21 +0000

Gizmodo managed to get a sneak peek at Dell’s forthcoming into the UMPC market. Dell had earlier announced that they will be releasing a product sometime in the Summer to compete with the likes of HP and Asus. There is no word on the specifications, screen size or price, but one can certainly expect some information soon. Atleast with the red colour it’d be safe to say the ultraportable will be coming in a variety of colours too.

However what stood out the most is the unconventional key layout. The function keys have been totally let go and the Shift, Caps Lock and other keys have been dramatically reduced in size too in order to give enough width to the letter key which tend to be more frequently used. Another thing visible in the pictures is the lack of a bezel. While no information is given on the screen size either, my guess is it might hold a 10″ screen in a 8.9″ casing similar in size to the HP 2133. More pictures on Gizmodo while a HP vs Dell comparison has been posted below.

Link: Gizmodo Gallery

Windows 7 to feature multitouch! Can I hear ‘Revolution’?

Bhavi — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:27:51 +0000

Steve ‘Sweaty’ Ballmer and Bill Gates showcased one of the major features of Windows 7. They use the Dell Latitude XT (which is already available in the market) to showcase the operating system which looked a lot like Surface, except (obviously on a smaller surface). The usage was quite fluid and refreshing and one can see this being useful in a variety of situations. This is brilliant work building on the already mature tablet PC platform perfected by Windows over XP and Vista. It’s interesting to note at this point Micorosft has been in the touch screen sector since 2000 with Windows Mobile and since 2002 with Windows XP Tablet Edition.

Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7

What YOU can do with Windows!

Bhavi — Sun, 25 May 2008 20:04:43 +0000

Windows users often get a lot of flak from Apple fanboys about lack of the Operating systems’s ability to do shiny 3D UI stuff. However what most people (including Windows users) fail to understand is that Microsoft really wants the user to take control of the system and use it the way they want it. Which is why there exists such a vast 3rd party application library to do tasks from the most minute to the extremely complex ones. And the same applies to the UI aspect too; 3rd party applications give users an incredible amount of control so they can personalise anything from their wallpaper to the logon and boot screens.

I found these screenshots floating around on the internet with some claiming them to be that of Windows 7. But it doesn’t take a computer scientist to figure out the fake. However a lot of them are real interfaces built on 3rd party applications and they’re just what’s needed to prove my point. Windows is customisable to such an extent where you can completely change the look and feel of it beyond recognition. I’ll stop babbling right about here and let you have a look at them.