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Archive for the ‘Utilities’ Category
Waiting for iPhone OS 4.0?
Thursday, May 13th, 2010Do you wish to answer an incoming SMS, complete taking a friend’s picture, chat with your boss, answer a call, and then go back to keep playing a game, just where you left it before switching to any of those tasks? If you think this “resume” ability (or in iPhone lingo – “multitasking and fast app switching”) makes an OS golden, you will be happy to know that Apple is definitely going in the right direction. The iPhone 4.0 is almost here.
So, what makes iPhone 4.0 superior?
Why should I have it?
Minimize Security Flaws Using Google’s Skipfish
Thursday, April 8th, 2010Open Source Application
Skipfish is an open source scanner written in C language used to detect vulnerabilities in web applications. Users can compile the code and execute it for installation. Skipfish crawls through the web application, detects the security probes and generates a report for security assessments.
Kindle App for BlackBerry from Amazon
Monday, February 22nd, 2010There is good news for e-book lovers from Amazon.
Amazon’s kindle, a wireless electronic portable reader which facilitates e-book reading has now become more capsuled, making it more convenient for people on the go. BlackBerry users no longer need to carry a separate kindle to read their favorite e-books. Amazon, has now launched a Kindle app for BlackBerry, enabling the readers to purchase and read e-books. (more…)
Locate Your Favorite iPod/ iPhone/ Apps Without iTunes
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010QBurst introduces “theapps.mobi” which gives you instant access to your favorite iPod/iPhone apps without installing itunes. theapps.mobi brings you a faster and easier to use platform with different categories of iPhone and iPod touch apps, ranging from Education, Business and Entertainment to Travel, Weather, Lifestyle and Games. (more…)
The Much Awaited Apple’s iPad Tablet Unveiled.
Thursday, January 28th, 2010After months of anxiety and speculation Apple has finally launched their latest creation, the iPad Tablet. Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, unveiled the breakthrough product in a grand meet held at San Francisco on 27th Jan 2010. Apple’s iPad is developed for people on the go to ease their online usage and other PC related tasks.The iPad is neither an iPhone nor a PC but a gadget that bridges the gap between the two. With its small size and touch screen technology, Apple’s iPad is all set to create a new era of Tablet Computing. Although the device lacks complex functionalities when compared to a PC, it is equipped with much desired functions like web browsing, delivering media, capsuling literature, video gaming etc.
The 9.7 inch device with half an inch thickness weighs just 1.5 pounds. It features a touch screen and is available in 16, 32 or 64 gigabytes of flash memory storage. (more…)
Apple Gets Geared for Apple Tablet / iSlate Launch.
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010Apple is all set to unveil their breakthrough product Apple Tablet / iSlate. Amidst the uncertainties and rumors crawling around the product, technology addicts are eagerly waiting to get a glimpse of the device. The launch is planned for 27th January 2010 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco. (more…)
Access Your Facebook Or Orkut On Your Mobile Without a Data Plan!
Monday, January 11th, 2010Ever Thought Of Locating Your Twitter On Your Mobile Phone Even Without a GPRS Subscription?
This concept has become a reality in India with the Shorthand mobile SMS browser introduced by the Shorthand Mobile-India(www.shorthandmobile.in), a subsidary of Smarttouch mobile Inc.. The browser once downloaded will connect you to your desired web content just through a text sms. Yes, it’s that simple!
The desired web contents are stored as SMS Apps and are listed in the Shorthand browser for easy scroll and click. The users have to just scroll down to their SMS App and click the same to access the online network. The web content is located as soon as the browser sends the text message. Hence, it does not require an active data plan.
iPhone To Be The Next Generation Credit Card Reader
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010Make your smartphone work even smarter!
Mophie, the powerhouse of iPhone and iPod gadgets and batteries is unveiling the hottest iPhone-centric Credit Card Reader at the 2010 International CES proposed to be held at Las Vegas from 7th to 10th Jan this year. To gear up for an even smarter shopping experience you just need to swipe your credit card into the Mophies iphone compatible credit card reader. The transaction will be processed with the help of a third party application.
The Credit Card Reader can be slipped into your iPhone just like the Mophie Juice Pack Air, the external rechargeable battery introduced in the mid 2009. The detailed information including its functioning and pricing is yet to be unveiled at the CES 2010.
What iDont, DROID does?
Monday, November 16th, 2009Internals
The DROID runs on Arm Cortex A8 CPU 550 MHZ processor, 256MB of RAM, and 512MB of ROM. The CPU is actually 600 MHZ but it has been under-clocked at 550 MHZ. Reason for this could be battery life and over heating. There are system level applications available to clock it out at 800 MHZ but it will compromise the battery life heavily. From the initial responses it seems the Android 2.0 OS will help DROID utilize the full potential of this processor. One of the features of the DROID being hyped by Verizon is in fact its ability to switch between multiple applications at run-time – true multitasking. With this processor, there are reports that the DROID will be the fastest Android device on the market.
One important difference between the iPhone and DROID is that the iPhone comes with internal memory of 8GB, 16GB and 32GB variants with no provision of adding a SD card. The DROID has a standard internal memory but supports SD cards up to 32GB. One drawback compared to iPhone is that DROID provides only a meager 256 MB for application storage. Google does not support directly installing apps into the SD card, which largely limits the developers while deploying their products. This is a problem when it comes to graphics / game development which typically takes up a lot of space. It is also like a paradox because Google has introduced APIs for 3-D graphics and OpenGL libraries with the release of Android 2.0. Developers can however store app resources in the SD card similar to Windows Mobile development.
Touch and Feel
The screen on the DROID is a 3.7-inch capacitive touch screen (unlike the resistive iPhone / Blackberry screens) that showcases a full glass display with WVGA resolution at a handsome 480 x 854 pixels. The responsiveness on the DROID due to the capacitive touch is better than most of the other smart phone counterparts. For example gestures and flicks are registered with little to no lag. Whether that can be attributed to Moto’s screen technology, Android 2.0 improvements, or just the speedy CPU inside the DROID is anyone’s guess, but that certainly won’t let the phone down. Another advantage to having that big screen is seeing webpages how they’re meant to be viewed, and browsing on the DROID is certainly a solid experience.
The phone comes with a huge touchscreen with multi-touch but still has space for an actual hardware keyboard. It is just slightly thicker than the iPhone at 0.5 inches but manages to pack a full QWERTY keyboard, which makes it the thinnest QWERTY keyboard mobile available in the market. The only comparison that can come in its way is the Nokia N97 but it too can’t match up with its huge screen and its interface offered by Motorola and Google.
Camera
Google has made some pretty major improvements to the camera application in Android 2.0. This includes more control over white balance, focal length, flash settings, and effects. To complement this Motorola has smartly outfitted the DROID with a 5 megapixel camera coupled with an LED flash. However many initial users claim that the camera is painfully slow to focus and take a snap.
Video
The peformance of video capture and playback, on the other hand, is astounding. The DROID is capable of shooting at a 720 x 480 resolution, producing viewable if not totally shake-free video. The phone definitely proves to be better in this department than with stills. The phone also comes with a HDMI port for High Definition Video. However with a resolution of 720 x 480 pixels, the full exploitation of the HDMI support is worth questionable.
Software
Android 2.0 addresses some important changes to the smart phone scene including Google Navigator, voice improvements and more. Google is in fact taking a pro-active approach at improving the platform, along with the opportunity to sync multiple Exchange and/or Google Accounts. The DROID is the first phone to come with Google Maps Navigation, which provides free, turn-by-turn, spoken driving directions.Verizon will sell a car mount for the DROID, as well completely eliminating the need of third party navigation devices like Garmin. The combination may make the DROID the best GPS phone on the market. But what really makes the software a complete win is something completely invisible – APIs. Google has added account/contact/sync APIs that will greatly improve the platform, and inherently the phone’s capabilities over time.
Browser
Mobile internet browsing is another interesting feature of this handset. The browser is of top quality supporting Flash and HTML 5. Google has promised to support Flash 10 from 2010.
Connectivity
DROID comes with a EVDO rev A on-board card for super fast 3G connectivity on Verizon Wireless. There is support for GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and a USB 2.0 port. The speed of connectivity is observed to be a notch higher than the iPhone 3GS.
Battery
The system comes with a 1400 mAh removable battery which is not bad at all but we expect that it won’t deliver the rated 270 hours standby time or 6 hrs 25 min talktime, especially comparing it to the previous CLIQ. However Motorola has managed to provide a decent talktime of around 5 hrs 30 min, thanks to the somewhat ironic under-clocked CPU!
Overall, the DROID is a nice phone and joins the ranks of one of the best smartphones that are available in the market today. However, it’s a mixed bag on whether this handset could really usurp the iPhone as the best performing smartphone on the market. Nonetheless, DROID is a formidable competitor of the current top performing smartphones on the market, and there is a serious competition just getting under way between the different supported mobile OS’s.
Windows 7 – Vista Debacle Fixer or Ideal XP Successor?
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009The wait is over. Microsoft is all set to launch its new Operating System Windows 7. Although the product was released to manufacturing on July 22nd, 2009, it will be available for the public only today (Oct 22nd, 2009). The Operating System comes in 6 packages. Each of these packages is meant for different types of customers. The packages are Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, OEM and Enterprise.
A look back
Windows XP has survived more than Microsoft would have imagined. Since its first appearance in October, 2001, the Operating System is still one of the best in the market. Microsoft says over 400 million copies were in use. Although Microsoft stopped the delivery of XP from Jan 31st, 2009, downgrade option is still available. To be in market for 8 years and still find place to stick around, is an achievement to talk about.
Known by its codename ‘Longhorn’, Vista came into the picture with great expectations in 2007. But the Longhorn did not serve to be a horn for Microsoft. Vista neither compromised on low hardware configurations nor delivered the expected performance. Complaints and weird feedback filled the air. And not surprisingly, most of the customers either continued with XP or looked for alternative Operating Systems.
A positive look forward
With the bar set high for the next Operating System, the Microsoft team started working few years back and has now come up with a product which has generated non-skeptical positive response even from the world’s best analysts. Let’s take a look at a few features that has paved the way for this.
System Requirements – Normal
The Operating System is designed to support 32 bit and 64 bit processors. The minimum system requirements for the best performance of the product are not highly demanding. Glance at the following table for the exact details.
|
32 bit |
64 bit |
|
| Processor speed | 1 GHz | 1 GHz |
| RAM | 1 GB | 2 GB |
| Hard disc space | 16 GB | 20GB |
| Graphics | DirectX 9 | DirectX 9 |
Lightweight
It takes not more than 30 minutes for a normal install. However, this certainly depends on the hardware of the system and the type of install used (Upgrade or Fresh). The development team has worked in optimizing the underlying code and also removed software like Movie Maker, Mail etc. These are now available in the Microsoft site as free download. The adoption to this new trend has reduced the size of the Operating System and has made it lightweight. Windows 7 can be installed in netbooks and nettops also.
Better Battery Life
One of the concerns for a laptop user is the backup time his laptop offers. If the Operating System enables him to increase this backup time, it is definitely something to cheer about. Windows 7 saves 30% of the backup time if the previous Operating System used was Windows XP. This was announced publicly by Rob Bernard, Microsoft’s Chief Environmental Strategist.
Third Party Software Evaded
Windows 7 emdeds into it, functionalities that require third party software support. Notable ones are:
- ISO image burner
- Fingerprint sensor management
An ISO image file has so far been an unrecognized format in Windows without a third party software support. In Windows 7, you can double click an ISO file and burn it right away. Windows Biometric Framework is a new addition that avoids the necessity for third party software to manage all biometric management activities. Fingerprint sensor is one example. Windows 7 manages this on its own.
New Taskbar
The new taskbar is arguably one of the best features of Windows 7. It works even better than the Mac OS X dock. It looks like a modified Vista. But behind the screens, there is a complete change of code. Mouse over has been dealt with in an innovative way that is sure to attract the public. Pinning to start menu has also become much easier now. Jump list, a new feature, manages recently opened documents. The show desktop icon is brought into the taskbar. And it works with just a mouse over.
PowerShell
PowerShell is a command-line tool that administers various tasks using cmdlets. Cmd and command were available earlier. With the new command-line tool, it is possible to bring out all GUI functionalities. This tool could become very handy for administrators. Although PowerShell could be downloaded for XP and Vista, it was not a very big hit. Microsoft has decided to bring it as a built-in feature for Windows 7.
There are a number of other features that are sure to influence the public. The control panel has been modified and made more users-friendly. The Operating System integrates backup utility with the control panel. Problem Steps Recorder is a new tool that captures user actions and helps debuggers. System repair disc can now be created during administrator works. The features and innovative developments in Windows 7 makes it more than just a Vista debacle fixer or an ideal XP successor. I can’t wait to get my hands on it!
