Down for SOPA WordPress Plugin

If you have a personal blog or a tech blog like mine, go ahead and install this simple WordPress plugin – Down Against SOPA. This plugin will automatically run create a simple page with your message against SOPA. It will also list brief information about what this SOPA is all about and what you can do to prevent this from becoming a law.

Down for SOPA

Spread the Word via Social Media

Spread the word by posting information about the SOPA via your Facebook wall and via Twitter. You can also post a blog about SOPA. The Oatmeal one of my favorite comic designer has created a special GIF to illustrate in his own way what will happen if SOPA and PIPA were to be introduced. You can share it with your friends as well.

Contact Local Representatives

Last but not the least. If you are living within the U.S., contact your local representatives. Urge them not to pass the bill. To help you do this, Wikipedia has created a handy page wherein you can type in your zip code and look up for representatives. You can call them and let them know your opinion about this bill.

Do share what other ways you have thought of or used to spread the word about SOPA and PIPA in our comment section.

Update: Came across this video in TheNextWeb.com website. It talks clearly about the effects of SOPA and PIPA. Check it out and spread the word.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet

Aspire S5 has 13.3 inch screen and weighs less than 1.35 Kg. It has instant-on capability (1.5 seconds), weeks of battery life in sleep mode, Intel iCore processor chip, slim DVD drive and a total of 8 hours of battery life.

Acer's Aspire S5

Acer is trying to push this as a new product into a market. However, considering the technical specifications of Aspire S5, it looks like it is a direct competition for Apple MacBook Air.

Industry analysts note that its going to be difficult for Acer to push this new product because one, the ultra thin notebook market is getting crowded with Toshiba and Samsung likely to launch its own thin notebooks. Two, this marked dominated by Apple, which set the standard for ultra thin notebooks, is going to be tough to beat. Third, tablets have started to make notebooks outdated. With newer, faster and better tablets coming out, its going to be difficult for any laptop manufacturer to convince users that ultra thin notebook is the way to go.

Another of Acer’s announcement, which has generated a lot of buzz, is AcerCloud service, but for the wrong reasons. Since its announcement in CES 2012 by chief executive JT Wang, many bloggers and media have described the service offering, where users can share photos, music and video online, as blatant ripoff of Apple’s iCloud service.

AcerCloud service

Steve Kovach of Business Insider notes that even the terms of service is very similar to Apple’s own offering.

Acer hopes that its new cloud service will catch in the Windows/PC world. It hopes that users with smartphones with both Windows and Andriod OS in them will use Acer’s AcerCloud service to upload photos and share music online. However, with competition from Google alone in Windows world, is going to be an uphill battle, which it seems to be doomed at this point.

It will be interesting to see how Acer’s new service and its new line of notebooks fair in the following months to come.

If you have the option to go for AcerCloud service, will you give it a try? Would you also go for this ultra thin notebooks instead of a tablet if given the option? Share your thoughts in our comments section.

Consumer Electronics Show 2012

Engadget is going to report live from Las Vegas and cover the entire event. You check this page during the event to get the latest updates.

Toshiba’s Announcement

It is being reported that Toshiba is going to introduce the World’s thinnest 10.1 inch tablet and a 13.3 inch Ultrabook. Although no further details have been released, the claim of World’s thinnest and lightest has the whole blogosphere buzzing. There are some rumors which think that it could be powered by a quad-core but is all we are hearing at the moment.

Microsoft’s Last CES Appearance

This year will be Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer last CES keynote. There is a lot of buzz as to what Microsoft will be talking about. There are two lines of thinking going around. According to Engadget, there won’t be any significant news from Microsoft but rather a wrap of last year achievements. However, according to Techradar, they think that Microsoft will talk about its next generation gaming console XBOX 720 and Windows 8. Whatever it is, we are excited and hope that we do get to hear about news regarding XBOX and Windows 8 future.

There is also a rumor that Sony might show off as to what we can expect from its latest gaming console PlayStation 4. It also seems that Nintendo, another player in gaming console market, is making its massive presence in the show floor to showcase Wii U.

In addition, Samsung will be talking more about its latest launch Galaxy Note, Nokia discussing about its latest adventure with Windows based phone Nokia Lumia 800 and Intel talking about the launch of its latest hardware, Ivy Bridge.

What else do you think we are going to see in CES 2012? Share your thoughts and rumors that you have come across in our comments section.

Nokia Online Shop

You can search from the latest phones to value added phones and buy them online without any hassle. You can search for the phones based on price, size, model and type of the phones. You even get discounts on the various models they have. Currently have have Nokia Lumia 800 series phone on sale with a 5% off.

To purchase the phones, you need an account. You can either login using Facebook credentials or create a new account.

Nokia Login using Facebook

So have you tried this online store already? Share your comments about your views on this new store by Nokia.

It allows you to add tags to your expense so that you can know what it is that you spent your money on. You can also send in multiple entries if you spent money on more than one item. All you need to do, after creating an account, is to configure the web app to send reminder emails so that you can reply to it in the following format:

$ 100.00 car #gas
$ 10.00 catfood #pets

The Birdy

The expense gets recorded automatically into your account along with tags. If you are living in the US, you can send in the same via SMS. Just register your number and start using it. You can also do this by logging into the account and recording your expense.

The Birdy also provides you with quick comparison of your expenditure month-over-month. This tells you whether or not if your expenditure is going up or down. The pie-chart tells you if you are over spending or under spending on some of the things that you buy.

The story of how this web app came into being is quite interesting. The creator, Corey Maas, has tried some of the existing online web apps to track his expenses. But they were either too complex to use or too boring. He also realized that since he is logged into his email inbox most of the time, he decided to use his email to track his expenses as well.  Thus, The Birdy came into existence.

Its really a cool app and do give it a try. If you have already, do share in your comments about the app.

Google Christmas Doodle 2010

Google Christmas Doodle 2011

Google Doodle first begun when the one of the founder of Google, Larry Page, designed the first Doodle for the Burning Man festival. Recently Google has also started selling Doodles where users can buy Doodles from its website – DoodlesonDemand.

Check out the rest of the Doodles from Google.

Ever since HP announced its fire sale of its TouchPad, it has been selling like hot cakes. Now it seems, the whole blogosphere is abuzz with the news that people are looking for a way to install Android OS for the TouchPad. There even seems to a reward announced in the amount of $1500 for those who can do it.

Buying HP TouchPad for $99 during fire sale is a good option. In fact its a slam dunk buy as it is a good bargain and good value for money. However, since HP has announced that its closing shop on WebOS, the OS which is primarily designed and developed for TouchPad, how good of a hack there has to be for TouchPad users who wish to use it with Android OS? I am guessing pretty good. 

HP TouchPad / TouchDroid

Otherwise, they might be in for a rude surprise. Agreed that any community based OS or app will flourish, but given that there are so many other options in the market not to mention good value and strong customer support, why would anyone want to buy HP TouchPad and then hack it with Android OS?

If you look at the crowd, the ratio between Power users and General Users is quite small. These Power users are the one who go around hacking things, trying new stuff with their brand new device, who also know a good deal of programming and has hacked iPhone or iPad in the past. The rest of the crowd are mostly general users. They use it for web browsing, Skype chat, using Google Docs, etc. If you tell me that you have bought a TouchPad for that particular reason, then I applaud you. Yes, its a good idea. WebOS itself isn’t a bad OS.  Engadget has done a thorough review with lots of videos and photos of it.

However, if you are looking to buy HP TouchPad with the notion of hacking it with Android OS, well I say you are a damn fool! Why you should do it in the first place? There are tons of options available which has both guarantee plus good deal of technical support available for the devices you buy.

Recently I came across an Indian manufacturer called LACS (Lakshmi Access Communication Systems) who has developed a tablet, which runs Android OS, officially, plus its in the same price range of that of HP TouchPad.

Pepper-108i

More to the point it has 3.5 mm jack, a HDMI port, WiFi enabled, 10″ in size, front camera, 3G compatible, 4 GB in-built memory and expandable up to 32GB. Its called Magnum Pepper 108i. In addition, it also has a range of products which look amazing. This Pepper tablet looks great value of money considering that it is officially supported by Android and you will get technical support in case something goes wrong.

Not just Magnum Pepper, there is also Olivetab from Convergence which available for Rs. 13,000. Its not in the same cadre in terms of price point as Pepper, but it is much cheaper than Galaxy tab and iPad2.

With HP TouchPad/TouchDroid, do you think HP will be happy to help you, trying to repair your’s if something goes wrong? Think again!

You don’t need to leave the page and just go through the information that the toolbar provides. However, it seems that you need to install Google Toolbar in your web browser in order to access it. Check out the video they have created which explains about this service.

I am posting here a couple of screenshots I took from my email account. To enable this option, go to options on top right corner and click on “Labs” option. Scroll down to Preview Pane and click on ‘Enable’, save the changes and when you go back to your inbox, you see the Preview Pane option enabled on the top right side of your inbox.

Preview Pane available in Gmail Labs

Gmail Preview Pane in Vertical Mode

Gmail Preview Pane in Horizontal Mode

You can also remove the preview pane option by click on ‘No Split’. You can also set a 3-second “Mark as read” option enabled via Gmail Lab settings according to its official blog.

In my opinion, if you try it using the vertical pane it looks ugly and difficult to navigate through. However, if you use the horizontal split, it works nicely. You can also drag around the split around to keep a view on recent emails and the thread it displays to your comfort level.

Check out the a simple screen cast I made for Gmail’s Preview Pane option:

I find this option to be extremely useful. Go ahead and give this a try and share your thoughts on this in our comments section.