A Geek Blog

Rise Of Low Cost Android Phones

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 17:39:00 +0000

Android has really helped unconventional phone manufacturers to go smart phone! Earlier, not too many vendors had smart phones released to market. Thanks to Android! Anyone with the basic H/W can push phones to market. This is a success story of Open Source and Google has been manufacturer friendly with no rules for their OS to run on phones! Below is a phone, Huawei Vision – a hi-end Android smart phone (may not be cheap but compared other hi-end phones, will be cheaper). Earlier, I’ve never heard of Huawei making touch screen smart phones! Huawei makes other low cost phones such as Huawei Ideos. Also, there is a hoard of new low cost manufacturers in India who do Android phones such as Videocon, Karbonn, Spice, Lava etc.

Google Instant Pages For Chrome! Load Web Sites Much faster With Chrome!

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 09:00:00 +0000

Google Chrome is fast becoming popular browser. As more and more traffic will arrive from chrome, it may be worthwhile to understand what Google Instant Pages (pre-rendering of pages) are all about. Below is a browser market share in 2011. Internet explorer is fast losing market share and Chrome is gaining traction.

What are Google Instant Pages?

In simple words, Google instant pages is all about predicting the next link that the user is most likely to click and pre-rendering the link so that the link is available much faster. This is already available in the form of Google Suggest and Google Instant – they prefetch the links on the search page and load pages that the user is most likely to click next. This saves a lot of time of the user.

Using Google instant pages, you can customize your site, add the same intelligence so that when your website is viewed on Chrome browser, the next link that is most likely to be clicked would be pre-rendered. It is a complete rendering and very different from Firefox’s pre-fetching technology. This will guarantee that the next click of the link would be rendered instantaneously. A simple html code needs to be added as follows

How to enable pre-rendering in your blog?

Here is the details - http://sumtips.com/2011/08/enable-prerendering-on-wordpress.html

Sending Free SMS on Nokia, Android

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:13:00 +0000

Sending SMS over your GPRS or 3G data plan is simple with Whatsapp, a cross platform App. You can send free unlimited SMS using this App. It is really easy and cool. Available on Android, Blackberry, Nokia and more. Best of all, you can even share images, videos via this app. Try this fast :)

How To Create Great Looking Web Sites In Minutes? – Easy Web Site Creators!

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:43:00 +0000

Many of us want to have web sites for personal or business reasons but do not know how to program in HTML/Web 2.0. This is a major roadblocks for many. People believe that to create a great looking websites you need to have programming skills or need to hire a good consultant who could do just that. Well, yeah, it is true that we need to be able to program or hire a programmer. But, there are other ways as well, Such as an easy step by step website creating services such as Cabanova, Website Painter etc. They are so very easy to use and do not cost too much. Under $20 a month, you can get scalable and professional websites for your business. Cabanova even offers a free limited service (50MB storage) as well. You can check it out.

Cabanova

Very very easy to use web site builder
Lots of templates - 1000+ and neatly categorized.
Lots of widgets – Facebook, Twitter integration, photo galleries, statistics, polling, map integration and what not
Very light weight design – loads in seconds.

Website Painter

WebsitePainter is a web site builder for creating professional looking Websites, without HTML knowledge and programming. With a few clicks it is possible to create web pages with elements like Web2.0 buttons, gradients, round borders, hover effects, transparencies, continuous text and more

Zeta Producer

Zeta Producer is a free website generator CMS that allows you to publish your website within minutes.

Free Batch Watermark Creator – Add Watermark Easily

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 16:39:00 +0000

Sometimes you need to add watermark in to your photos to make them copyrighted. Or You may want to add time and date on which the photo was taken or add some fancy captions. There are many software tools available. However, this small watermark utility is a nice one. You can easily add watermark and even add watermark to the folder at one shot. Batch watermarking is a boon if you have too many photos. Very neat and highly configurable tool is highly recommended.

Check out - http://www.easysector.com/

Panoramic Photos Of Lepakshi Temple (India)

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 15:17:00 +0000

Recently I had been to Lepakshi Temple and I must say that it is really a nice place. Great historical place. Here is the map view.

View Larger Map

Some of the photos are here.

Giant Nandi is the star attraction! More than 400 years old. I wish God had taken a time lapse video since its early days. Many generations would have been captured in that video.

ShareBaazi – Unique Virtual Trading Online Game

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 12:16:00 +0000

ShareBaazi is an interesting trading game that teaches the player the nuances of share trading in a thrilling manner. ShareBaazi is powered by Economic Times.

ET Sharebaazi gives you Rs 10L of virtual money to invest and lets you try your hand with real stock at real prices. Since this is just an online trading game, there is no risk of losing money :) However, it is a game with some rewards for sure. You can win lots of rewards and prizes for winning the game. Getting started with the game is simple;

Just Sign Up and Sign In. Follow simple rules to create a winning portfolio and you are all set to win prizes every week!

How To Create Your Own Retail Shop In Minutes? BuildaBazaar – A Cloud Retail Shop Builder

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sun, 29 May 2011 08:07:00 +0000

Building an online retail shop has become easier than ever with BuildaBazaar service. As easy as a few clicks with zero upfront investment opportunity for business enthusiasts! It guarantees automatic product visibility to millions of users using cloud services. Not only that, It offers instant integration with social media, store management, user friendly navigation, branding and personalization. These are really great feature for any one who is looking to have an online business presence.

Please check their How It Works section.

How To Backup Your Facebook Account?

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:36:00 +0000

Downloading all your data from Facebook is really simple. There is a little feature in Facebook account page, that lets you backup your entire data by downloading.

Steps:

1. Log in to Facebook

2. Click on Account (on Top most corner)

3. Click on Account Settings

4. Click on Download information –> Learn more

5. Facebook takes a while to gather all information – include everything, photos, messages, personal info, media etc.

6. Once the data gathering completes, Facebook triggers an email to your registered email with the link to download. Simple!

This tool lets you download a copy of your information, including your photos and videos, posts on your Wall, all of your messages, your friend list and other content you have shared on your profile. Within this zip file you will have access to your data in a simple, browse able manner.

Micromax Journey In To Froyo – Bling 2 Girlish Phone Specifications

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Tue, 17 May 2011 18:02:00 +0000

Micromax is expected to release Bling 2 in May, 2011 which is their successor of highly successful Micromax Bling. Exclusively targeted for ladies, Bling 2 is affordable at the same time, feature rich phone. It is expected available at a mere 8K odd price tag, with Android 2.2 (Froyo), 3G, GPS, Bluetooth, Dual SIM, Mi Fi, Capactive Touch screen, 3MP Camera and with lots of storage capacity is surely going to rock the ladies! Also, it has crystals on them :)

Price – Approx 8,990 Rs/-

Micrmax has surely understood this hidden untapped market – feature rich phone designed for ladies!

Rise Of Mobile Internet Users In India – Mobile Internet Trend [Opera Report]

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sun, 15 May 2011 15:15:00 +0000

Mobile internet users are getting increasingly more in numbers in India. There will be a whole lot of players (mostly start ups) who are going to leverage this trend in the coming days.

More than 40% of Indians prefer Mobile Internet because of unavailability of Desktop Internet in someway or the other.
Reason for this large user preferring Mobile Internet are
- Cheaper rate plans
- Easy accessibility (easier than using a computer)
- It is more convenient to use Mobile instead of a laptop
More than 95% of the Indian mobile internet users are Males

Some of the stats from Opera and On device research are below.

Via [IndiaInfoline]

Secret Growth Of Amazon – Excellent Statistics On How Amazon Is Leveraging Multiple Startup Success

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sun, 15 May 2011 09:16:00 +0000

Amazon.com though started as an electronic – online book store in the mid 90s has now become a multi faced conglomerate. They have a successful cloud infrastructure, online retailing, electronic shops and many acquisitions in the last few years have really made Amazon as mighty as the Amazon river!

Here is an interesting Slide that explains why Amazon is as strong as Apple or Google or Microsoft! Their rise is phenomenal and here is why:

Amazon.com: the Hidden Empire

View more presentations from faberNovel

Samsung S5620 Monte Review – Highly Recommended Cost Effective 3G/GPS/WiFi Phone

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 17:59:00 +0000

Today, I visited Samsung Demo at a local Mall and one of their new Mobile Phone Samsung Monte (S5620) instantly! Really, amazing phone with great features. Anyone who is looking for a 3G phone with good features, should grab this one!

Amazing Finger friendly 3.0 inch 256K Color Capacitive Touch Screen
3G Network support
A-GPS
WiFi
3.2 MP Camera without Flash (Secondary Camera is also present!)
Accelerometer
Facebook/Twitter and other built-in Social Apps!
FM Radio
Much much more.

This phone is just a bargain. Here in Bangalore, this phone is getting sold at around 9,500 INR which is great! I might buy this as well!

The only disadvantage is that it comes with Samsung’s proprietary OS. So, if you are really geek, interested in trying out applications, customizations then you should research more. (Pictures from GSMArena.com)

Waterproof, Shockproof Rugged Cameras

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:34:00 +0000

If you are an adventurist, make frequent trips to the deep jungles, go for out door activities and worried that your camera might get scratches then don’t worry. There are many rugged camera that are shock proof, water proof, freeze proof and highly durable. Some of them are listed here. The following Casio EX G1 is a 12MP Camera which is capable of handling 7 feet drop and is 10 feet water proof.

FujiFilm HP10 also has similar features. 10 Ft Water resistance, 1M Shock resistant body, 12MP Camera is quite rugged.

Olympus Stylus Tough 8010 is not far behind, 7 ft Shock proof, 10M Water resistant, dust proof, 14MP Camera is indeed tough. It has 720p video recording, 5x optical zoom, HDMI-out, and a 2.7-inch LCD

Via [TechCrunch]

Track Your Sleep and Share It With Your Friends!

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:09:00 +0000

Very Simple, just track your sleep pattern over a period of time, add details of dreams etc. Share it with everyone, see how others sleep etc. A very nice collaborative tool to view own sleep pattern as well as see others!

YawnLog tracks the number of hours you sleep per night. It places the information you input on a handy graph so you can track your sleeping patterns over an extended period of time.
YawnLog also allows you to label your dreams with "tags," view your friends sleeping nearby (future implementation), and visualize recorded data in new ways!

Learn to ABC, 123 On An iPhone! iPhone For Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:25:00 +0000

iPhone Apps are an eye opener for others! The kind of impact they made with their App Store is something phenomenal! So many Apps out there, from tracking your Asthma, Blood Pressure, Calories intake, Stress level, management, audio editors to everything under the Sun! Look at this App, ShapeBuilder and think what it can do to your preschooler! Best of all, it costs just $0.99!

Features:

Total of 146 puzzles!
30 Music instruments with sound effects
17 Fruits & Vegetables
37 Animals - awesome sound effects!
26 Letters - speech therapist sounds out each letter in a fun way
20 Numbers - 1 ball, 2 flowers, 3 turtles... up to 20 Ladybugs!
16 other fun items like Firetruck, and Police Officer
Random play resets after all puzzles are completed

Via [touchscreenpreschoolgames]

The Best Android Phones In India

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:01:00 +0000

Well, we saw iPhone coming and changing the mobile phones forever. Google is now following it with Android OS! Couple of years ago, I was really wondering what a search engine giant is doing with Android targeting mobile phones! I really didn’t think Google would become a formidable iPhone rival! But, I was wrong! Android is just amazing! Gem of a software! Of course, it has a lot of catching up to do.

At the moment, fine Android phones are available in India. Some of them are listed below and my views on them.

Samsung Galaxy

This is one of the best value for money Android Phones available in Indian market. There are 2 variants. Both of these phones have all the must have features like WiFi, A-GPS, Capacitive 3.2’’ Touch Screen, Fast CPUs (i7500 with 528MHz and i5700 with a 800MHz), 3G support etc. But, the best of all the price. Samsung i5700 is available at around 12,300 INR (at the time of writing) and the Samsung i7500 at around 15,000 INR (as it has 5MP Camera with 8GB inbuilt memory). This is really good stuff and great value for money if you compare it with phones like HTC Tattoo or HTC Hero.

Samsung Galaxy I7500

Samsung Galaxy I5700 (Spica)

HTC Tattoo

HTC Tattoo is a great phone too. It has actually every damn feature (in international market! sigh). I came to know that it doesn’t support 3G in India (not sure why) and it is a big turn off! If it supported it, it would have been my recommendation to all of you as it just cost around 15,000 INR. It has 2.8 resistive touch screen, WiFi, A-GPS, WiFi, HTC Touch Sense UI which is really really cool. Well, if you are not very particular about 3G, the just go for it. It has a capable 528MHz CPU to power the rich HTC Touch Sense UI! and yes, its cover can be changed or its skin can be changed as per your requirement! like your old Nokia 3310!

HTC Hero

HTC Hero is a good phone, practically has every feature including 3G, WiFi, 5MP Camera, A-GPS, 3.2 inch Touch Screen, FM Radio and much much more. Really good phone though the 22,000 INR (when I enquired) is a little steep! but HTC UI is really good and comparable to iPhone! Good buy if you are reckless on money :)

There aren’t really many buyers for Android phones in India. It will take some time to get popular here. Yeah. Motorola Droid, Google Nexus One will be released in India soon but it would be priced a little too high! Finger crossed!

Photos via GSMArena

The Best Blog Editors Of All Time!

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:28:00 +0000

I have been using Blog Editors for a while now. I have used ScribeFire, Windows Live Writer, w.bloggar, Post2blog etc. But, all of them have some or other issues. Finally I have come to a conclusion that it is Microsoft that excels in Blog editor performance! MS Live Writer is really good. If you have a blog, then I highly recommend using Live Writer as your offline Blog editor! You will not regret it!

Live Writer makes it easy to share your photos and videos on almost any blog service—Windows Live, Wordpress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, and many more.

Are You Stuck With Facebook Lite? Follow The Steps To Get Out Of The Hell!

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:52:00 +0000

Facebook Lite is a light weight version of Facebook released in US and India. It is good for those who like less cluttered interface. But, sometimes it will be a bit difficult for you to get adjusted with the simplified interface layout, to check your Farmville (sorry I don’t like it but seems to be very popular) points etc etc.

My concern is that there is no straight way of getting back to Facebook Normal from Facebook Lite version. Clearing cache/cookies do not help at all.

However, there is a simple but not so obvious way of getting back to Facebook Normal!

Just scroll down to the end of Facebook Lite page and you will find a “feedback” option. Just click on it and on the top, you would get an option to go back to Facebook normal mode. That’s it and don’t forget to send your feedback to the Lite team! You’re done.

Anyways, Facebook Lite is an experimental feature and it will get better over time.

Online Armor Free Firewall – Free Download

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:06:00 +0000

Online Armor Free Computer Firewall Software, is packed with features and a great download! It is free and nothing goes away from your pocket. Yes, some features are just available in premium editions but again it is affordable. One interesting feature that premium edition has is Banking Mode – that gives you total security while doing online banking.

Free Firewall Edition Features:

Kernel Mode Security
Manual Updates
Execution Protection
Termination Protection
Limited Autostart Protection
Standard Mode Firewall
Standard Mode
Keylogger Detection
Tamper Protection
Script/Worm protection
Program Guard

Download here.

BitTorrent Giant Mininova is Dead!

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:33:00 +0000

Well, Mininova is not really dead but all its interesting stuff was taken off of the server on Nov 26th, 2009. This has been a long battle for mininova and finally as expected had to comply with copyright laws. However, If you are a content developer or have your own content, then you can use Mininova for free and use bandwidth to distribute across the world! Adieu Mininova…

Here is the official Blog Update!

“Hi all,

Today is an important day in the history of Mininova. From now on, we are limiting Mininova.org to our Content Distribution service. By doing so, we comply with the ruling of the Court of Utrecht of last August.

Unfortunately the court ruling leaves us no other option than to take our platform offline, except for the Content Distribution service. According to the verdict (Dutch link) we have to prevent uploads of torrents to Mininova that refer to certain titles or to similar-looking titles. We’ve been testing some filtering systems the last couple of months, but we found that it’s neither technically nor operationally possible to implement a 100% working filter system. Therefore, we decided that the only option is to limit Mininova to Content Distribution torrents from now on. We are still considering an appeal at this moment.

We launched our Content Distribution service in 2007. This service allows producers and artists to easily publish and distribute their content for free through Mininova. The launch of Content Distribution has proven to be a success. Countless content owners have used Content Distribution to distribute their content (e.g. albums and documentaries) for free to millions of users. For example, the Dutch band Silence is Sexy released their complete album on Mininova and received the Interactive Award 2009 for doing so. The Dutch television broadcaster VPRO decided to start using Content Distribution in 2009 in order to distribute documentaries.

We would like to thank you for your support. Especially everyone that contributed to Mininova receives a big “thank you!” for the effort! We hope to keep welcoming you on Mininova and our other projects (e.g. Snotr, Dispostable).

Thanks! The Mininova staff”

Alternatives to Beyond Compare – File Comparison Tool

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:35:00 +0000

Beyond Compare is quite good at comparing files and folders. It can show the differences in different colors and that makes us compare different source code files or even the entire directory easily. You can even compare binary files and do a CRC checksum to see if they match.

However, Beyond Compare is not free. Well, There are so many such free File Comparing Tools out there. One such editor is Cream. An enhanced Vi Editor and lots of User Interface enhancements. It will also let you compare files for instance.

The other ones like WinMerge, FreeFileSync etc are also good. So bottom line is, lots of free ones are there for you to compare the content of files or folders.

Read here for more.

Screenshot of Meld

Nokia N900 – Will it survive with its Maemo 5.0 OS against Android?

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:42:00 +0000

Nokia N900 looks neat and I feel Nokia Phones like N97 are not that good when compared to Apple’s iPhone, HTC’s Tocuh series phones etc. Traditionally, Nokia phones have been based on Symbian OS. But, the new N900 is based on Maemo 5.0 which is a Debian based Linux variant and that is going to power their next generation smart phones with focus on finger friendly mobile phones. Damn, I must thank Apple for teaching all these companies about user friendliness. I have been using touch screen devices for quite some time and post the launch of iPhone, people realized the need for finger friendly touch screens rather than the lousy stylus based touch screens.

Maemo comes with lots of apps like;

Web : Maemo Browser (Mozilla based web browser with Adobe Flash 9.4), RSS reader
Phone application
VoIP : Skype
Conversations (IM chat and SMS, no MMS)
Media : Camera, Photos, Media player
Production : Email, Calendar, PDF reader, Contacts
Ovi Maps (Find position on a map using the GPS, Search an address or location, Plan routes)
Utilities : Clock, Notes, Calculator, Sketch
System Tools : File manager, Application manager for downloads, Widgets
Games : Bounce, Chess and Mahjong

Third party Apps like Pidgin for multiprotocol IM, AbiWord for Word processor, GNumetric for spreadsheet support and more are out there. This I believe is Nokia’s attempt to handle the threat of more advanced OS like Android from Google, LiMo from LiMo foundation and Windows Mobile 7 (which is going to be released in 2010) etc.

N900 with Maemo 5.0:

Looks great, Has all the features like GPS, WiFi, Widgets, Multimedia support, TI OMAP 600MHz CPU, 32GB internal memory, up to 1GB App Memory (RAM), and more. Let us see how it succeeds in the market.

Source Nokia N900

The First USB 3.0 Motherboard Is Here!

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:22:00 +0000

The Asus P7P55D-E is apparently the very first USB 3.0 motherboard. It's an Intel P55-based mother board that uses a third-party USB 3.0 controller for a pair of ports. It has 10 USB 2.0 ports as well. In essence, It is not a complete USB 3.0 mother board and in the coming days there will be Mother Boards with all USB 3.0 ports so we will have to just wait for a while! Nevertheless Asus is pretty fast!

Via [Gizmodo]

BlackBerry Curve 8520 Review – Value For Money

noreply@blogger.com (Vikas Bhat) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:03:00 +0000

If you are looking out for a great business mobile phone with good features, then you probably should explore BlackBerry Curve 8520. It’s available here in India for about 15K and its great value for money.

For:

Great music player, Extended battery life, track pad is really good, DivX/XVid video support, pre-loaded Facebook and other social networking apps, Wi Fi, Comfy QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth and the usual features.

Against:

Average 2MP camera, No GPS, No 3G support

This neat BlackBerry will give many business phones a serious run for their money! Recommended!