TIPS & TRICKS WITH SMS FUN

Decrapify / Debloat Windows 10 with a Powershell Script

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 22:08:00 +0530

Windows 10 is a decent OS from Microsoft after the disaster known as Windows 8 and 8.1. Although Windows is still better with no Modern UI crap, no ads, minimal telemetry, no Edge to bug you. But Windows 10 is a decent compromise if you want a stable OS with modern features like DirectX 12. Earlier OEMs used to bundle PCs and Laptops with crapware, with Windows 10, now Microsoft themselves bundle crapware. Welcome to Software as a Service (SaaS) model. On top of that we have OEM crapware on top of Microsoft crapware. As a result trying to Debloat or DeCrapify Windows 10 is getting absurd and as a system admin it is disheartening to see all that performance go to waste on the messed up attempt by Microsoft to do an Appstore and its apps. Fortunately a kind soul who goes by name Sycnex has worked painstakingly to provide us a simple solution that works considerably well. Let's Begin

To download the script visit here, and click Clone or Download and Click Download as Zip.

Save it to a convenient location. For example we have saved it in C: Drive.

Extract it to a folder.

Now in Windows Search, type Powershell, and right click it to select "Run as administrator".

Change Execution policy to allow a debloat script to run in Powershell type

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

Now using CD command navigate to the directory containing DeBloat scripts. You need to select "Windows0Debloater.ps1" if you have already setup a user.

During installation Script will ask you for some prompts.

Select yes to debloat windows 10, click Yes.

Next it will give you an option to remove everything preinstalled, or via blacklist. Choose Yes to remove everything from Store (Note:- It will also remove every app installed from Store, even the apps you chose to install yourself). If you have installed some apps from Appstore you don't want to lose than click No. This will Uninstall only the apps that came pre bundled.

Reboot your system. And feel you now have a clean Windows 10.

In case you find the work useful, you can consider supporting the developer.

Easily Join / Merge Rotate Two or more video files without encoding or convert videos using ffmpeg in Windows (Or any other OS Mac OS, Linux) for free.

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Mon, 7 Jan 2019 22:00:00 +0530

ffmpeg is a pretty handy tool for format transcoding, basic editing (trimming and concatenation), video scaling, video post-production effects, and standards compliance (SMPTE, ITU).
One of the basic requirement of merging or combining two or more videos is a task that can be easily accomplished by using ffmpeg. ffmpeg is a free and open source as well. And the performance is easily on par if not better than most paid software solutions.

In order to merge two or more videos follow the steps:-

First copy all video files into a folder. (Make sure you have checked "File name extensions".

Next you need to download ffmpeg for Windows from their website. Choose 64bit unless you are using 32 bit version of Windows and select Static.

Download the file. It should be a compressed file.

Now open the file. And Go to "Bin", there you will find three files. You need to copy ffmpeg to the folder containing video files.

Next open Command Prompt. And navigate to the folder containing video files.

Next type the following command to generate a list of files.

(for %i in (*.mp4) do @echo file '%i') > mylist.txt

Note:- If your video files have different extension like .mkv than replace .mp4 with .mkv in abbove command

You will see a file has been created inside the folder containing video files named "myist.txt".

If you open this file, you will find the name of all files inside the folder.

Next you type concat command to merge all files into a single file. This command will not encode the whole video so the process will be lot faster. But if you to convert files from one codec to another codec than this will not work.

ffmpeg -f concat -i mylist.txt -c copy output.mp4

Note:- Replace .mp4 with extension of your video files, if your input video format is not .mp4

Now you will find a new video file with name output.mp4 in the same folder where you stored previous video files.

Bonus: You can also convert video files from one format to another format with a simple command like

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 output.mkv

You can also easily rotate videos using a simple command

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "transpose=1" output.mp4

Here:

0 = 90CounterCLockwise and Vertical Flip (default)
1 = 90Clockwise
2 = 90CounterClockwise
3 = 90Clockwise and Vertical Flip

Above method is slow as it will re-encode your whole video. Also you can use

ffmpeg -i input.m4v -metadata:s:v rotate="90" -codec copy output.m4v

This will be lot faster as this will just edit the metadata and most modern video players will rotate your video automatically.

Here video.mp4 is the name of an existing file and output.mkv is the new file which we want to create.

ffmpeg is a cross Platform tool and above commands will work in Linux or Mac OS as well with little or no modification.

This is just one of the many useful functions ffmpeg offers for free. If you want to learn more about these features here.

World’s cheapest Deca-core Vernee Apollo Lite the all-metal with HELIO X20 CPU, 4GB RAM announced for just $200

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Sat, 9 Apr 2016 21:18:00 +0530

Vernee, the newest entrant in the Chinese smartphone brands, has gathered a lot of attention with its flagship Vernee Apollo smartphone that was recently launched at $400. The Vernee Apollo came with high-end features and was the cheapest smartphone with 6GB of RAM. But Vernee has outdone itself with 'Lite' version of the Apollo, which retains the powerful Mediatek Helio X20 chipset and offers 4 GB of RAM for just $200. The Vernee has also launched Thor another ultra low-cost smartphone priced at $130 and sports competitive specification.

Vernee Apollo Lite features a 5.5-inch Full-HD display at 1080×1920 pixels with 401ppi while the Vernee Apollo comes with a 5.5-inch 2K display (Personally we feel anything above 340ppi is almost indistinguishable to most users).Vernee Apollo Lite comes with an all metal uni-body design, just like it's bigger sibling Apollo but with minor design changes. It looks similar to Apollo but the fingerprint sensor and rear camera module have gone square in shape unlike rounded shape on Apollo. It is powered by the 64-bit MediaTek's Helio X20 SoC clocked which consists of two ARM Cortex-A72 clocked at max 2.0GHz, and two sets lower clocked Cortex A-53 Quad cores each in what Mediatek calls it's proprietary Tri-Cluster configuration which is an extension of ARM big.LITTLE configuration. Graphics is handled by a Mali-T880 MP4 GPU (where MP4 means a Quad core GPU). Along with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 32 GB of internal storage, MicroSD slot with up to 128GB. The smartphone comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow with customized UI.

The Apollo Lite comes with a 16-megapixel camera with dual-tone LED flash on back and a 5-megapixel selfie camera on the front. One limitation we found with this device is that just like many other Chinese brands Vernee has opted for a Hybrid dual SIM dual setup, which means you can either go for a dual SIM or a single SIM with MicroSD card. While the Vernee Apollo was priced at $400, the new Apollo Lite costs exactly the half, that is just $200.

The smartphone supports 4G-LTE, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS and Type-C USB port. At this price, the Apollo Lite is the most affordable smartphone in the market powered by deca-core Tri Cluster Helio X20 SoC. We really love how new Chinese brands are coming to the market, with the challenge of producing the most bang for buck smartphone in the market. Xiaomi was one of the first Chinese manufacturer to bring prince war in the market followed by Huawei, Coolpad, OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo LeEco (formally known as Letv), Meizu and many other OEMs. This has suddenly resulted in very decent smartphones coming at mid range which has has event the big manufacturers like Samsung, Apple take a notice. As consumers spoilt with choice, we are certainly looking forward to Vernee what it brings to the table. Vernee however has not confirmed the launch date of Apollo Lite, also the availability of this phone in international markets outside China like India, Indonesia, US is still a mystery. Stay tuned for more updates.

Ringing Bells Freedom 251 Legit or Fraud

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Wed, 2 Mar 2016 22:45:00 +0530

Ringing Bells, a seemingly unknown company has created quite a buzz among India smartphone consumers by launching a smartphone that costs Rs. 251/- only. Touted as the world's cheapest smartphone, Freedom 251 is offers a decent package at price that is cheaper than a decent smartphone case.

For those who haven't heard, Freedom 251 is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor (exact SoC is not yet known, most probably it's a Mediatek with ARM a7 cores), and sports a 4-inch qHD (Quarter HD not to be confused by QHD which is Quad HD) IPS display. It comes with 1GB RAM and 8GB internal memory, which can be expanded up to 32GB via microSD card.

It also features dual cameras, the a 3.2MP rear shooter with LED Flash and a 0.3MP front shooter. The phone comes with Android 5.1 Lollipop, and packs in a 1,450mAh battery. Connectivity options include Dual SIM 3G, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, and GPS.

Agreed, these are not the kind of specs to boast about, but the sub 4$ price is what makes it special. The price is also one of the most controversial aspect of this phone, which has everyone asking, is a phone at this price is possible? Has this relatively unknown done what seemed impossible, by giving a smartphone to every India? Or is it just another scam, trying lure customers with a promise of a phone at price cheaper than 1GB of 3G data in India? Let's try to find out-

According to their own website, Ringing Bells Pvt. Ltd was setup in 2015, a quick web search shows 16th September to be exact. And within a span of around 5 months, the company has launched four handsets. These include Smart 101, Master, 4u and Freedom 251. Out of these these handsets Master and 4u are feature phones. The Bell Master is priced at Rs. 999 and Bell 4U is priced at Rs. 799.

Both these seemingly common feature phones by the same company costs more than their new Smartphone. And at these price range, we could easily find brands offering similar phones.

Now, we look at their other offering, Smart 101. Which the company claimed to be the cheapest 4G phone in the world. It was launched with some hype by the company, a 4G that costs only Rs. 2999/-, yes it was cheapest phone in the market as well. But till the date of publishing this article, not even a single one of those phones have been delivered to public.

Now, let's have a closer look at their website shall we? Their website has crashing since they announced the prices for their phone. Their site when it initially went up actually had images borrowed from it's elder and seemingly non-existent sibling the Smart 101. They were replaced, before anyone realized. We used the Wayback machine for any archieves, and luckily we found what we were looking for.

Compare the above handset with the handset in the picture below

Now, it's look at the another aspect. The authenticity of the handset. If the company claims that the updated pictures are actual pictures of the handset, than they look identical to a little known handset Adcom Ikon 4. The Ikon which is readily available on Flipkart costs around Rs. 3700/-. Also the handset provided by the company to select journalists at the launch even were Adcom Ikon 4s with Adcom logo in from hidden by white pain & the logo at back scratched & superimposed by Indian Tricolor flag.

Now this begs a question that how can a company sourcing products from a another company can sell it at lower price compared to the original company? And on closer inspection the specs also appear different from the Ikon 4 product that is being distributed to journalists.
The absurd logic behind this pricing is given by Ringing Bells's president Ashok Chadha and CEO Mohit Goel is, quote "By making in India, this price goes down by Rs 400. Then we will sell online only. So, this pulls down the price by Rs 400 further. We are sure that this smartphone will be in a lot of demand. We are assuming to save around Rs 500 from this economy of scale. At last, we wait for our platform to grow, so that we can make money from other services". The Ringing Bells also expects to earn profits from this venture and this is without any subsidy from Government. This doesn't make any sense, first Make in India cannot take prices to such low levels. Considering most components like Display, Printed Boards, Memory, Camera etc... are not manufactured in India. So these components need to be imported & merely assembling these components in India won't help. In case you didn't know Foxconn has already started assembling in India, and many Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi, Gionee, Coolpad are already assembling in India, which hasn't brought down prices lower than before.

This company also has an impeccable record of not delivering a single product till date (except the demo units).

Another controversial move done by the company is that such a hyped phone is using icons copied from Apple's iOS Operating System. The original phone Ikon also uses the copied icons, so we thought since this is just a demo unit like company was referring this may be fixed in retail units. But the company went on to defend the move by declaring "We used Apple’s icons because Apple hasn’t copyrighted its designs". A company like Apple that even sued people for by patenting rectangles with rounded corners, can you imagine it committing such grave mistake.

Even the Govt. got suspicious with such claims, and the Income Tax department conducted raid at their office in Noida. This bad run continued and even the call center that supported Ringing Bells has sued them for not paying for the services. Than final nail in Freedom 251 dream happened when company finally announced that they are refunding all the money and will deliver it as Cash on Delivery mode. Our take on this is that, Ringin Bells still won't deliver phones for Rs. 251/- but CoD will make them less liable for delivering phones. People will soon forget about Freedom 251 and since no such phone ever existed or will eer exist.

uTorrent and BitTorrent beta comes to Android, available on Google Play

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Thu, 6 Sep 2012 18:47:00 +0530

Earlier this year, we heard reports that BitTorrent Inc., was working on an Android version of its popular uTorrent and BitTorrent client. Fans of the uTorrent and BitTorrent torrent clients can now rejoice!, your favorite desktop torrent clients are now available on your mobile devices, because BitTorrent Inc. has launched a beta apps of uTorrent and BitTorrent clients for any mobile or tablet running Android OS. These are fully functional, standalone clients unlike the Remote apps that were available until now. There are many torrent clients already available on Google Play, but most of them are have limited functionality and are ad-supported unless you have a paid version but both of these apps are currently free, with features like RSS feeds for serialized downloads, unlimited upload/download speed, and running and downloading over WiFi in background, currently there are no limits on download sizes either. Both apps support devices running Android 2.1 and higher.

Here are some screen shots of BitTorrent for Android

And uTorrent for Android

As seen in the screenshots, both these apps are virtually same with just a different name and logo.

The great thing with having a Torrent app on your mobile is that you can fully utilize your data plan by downloading big files. This is one clear advantage of Android over iOS, as an app like this would likely never be approved by Apple. The apps are still in beta and has some kinks to iron out, but overall no big issue that can hamper its core functionality.

Download uTorrent beta for Android or Download BitTorrent beta for Android.

Get our regular updates in Google Currents for Android or iOS platforms click here or scan QR code below.

Synology DS112j NAS detailed Review

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Sat, 1 Sep 2012 16:27:00 +0530

Summary
The Synology DiskStation DS112j offers an ideal entry product for those looking to start moving their files to a network storage location. The DSM software is class leading and will allow users massive potential to improve their network functionality.

Review Synology DS112j

A special thanks to Synology Inc and Thinkdigit for providing this device for review.
The Synology DS112J is a new NAS server intended for small business and personal home uses. For those who are unfamiliar with NAS concept. According to Wikipedia, A NAS unit is a computer connected to a network that provides only file-based data storage services to other devices on the network. Although it may technically be possible to run other software on a NAS unit, it is not designed to be a general purpose server. For example, NAS units usually do not have a keyboard or display, and are controlled and configured over the network, often using a browser. NAS not only operates as a file server, but is specialized for this task either by its hardware, software, or configuration of those elements. NAS is often manufactured as a computer appliance – a specialized computer built from the ground up for storing and serving files – rather than simply a general purpose computer being used for the role.

Synology’s DS112J is a budget-friendly NAS from Synology, small, yet powerful NAS best suited for those who are looking for a ready to use NAS device without configuring with the internals to set up the system. This NAS offers excellent performance and many advanced capabilities, the DS112J offers excellent Read/Write speeds for its class, its award winning DSM OS from Synology.

Synology DS12j Specifications
Processor	ARM, single core, 1 GHz
Operating System	DSM 4.0 (4.1 released as of today)
Memory	128 MB DDR2
Storage	3.5" or 2.5" SATA(II) X1 (With optional 2.5" Disk Holder)
Capacity	up to 4 TB
Networking	1x Gigabit LAN
Additional Connectors	2x USB 2.0
Dimensions	166 X 71 X 224 mm
Weight	0.72 kg
Power Consumption	Sleep: 4.4 W In operation: 12.1 W
Power Supply	External, 100-240 V
Fan	1x 60 mm
Warranty	2 years
Price excluding VAT (at the time of the review on Amazon)	$149.99

A single core ARM CPU powers DS112j and despite its low computing power it is more than enough, since this NAS doesn't support power demanding advanced RAID levels. Also the low frequency CPU consumes less power resulting in higher power saving, something important in NAS servers which usually work 24/7. The available RAM is only 128MB but the highly optimised and resource friendly DSM OS runs pretty smoothly on the available resources.

Regarding networking, a single Gigabit Ethernet port is available and the remaining I/O ports include only a pair of USB 2.0. An eSATA port is highly missed.

The minimal small white packaging is sturdy enough to protect its contents, and is made from recycled paper. The most interesting features and device specifications are printed on outer packaging.

Software and Installation

The software CD provides the software required to start your device. The Synology Assistant installer is a pretty straight process of few clicks.

After we have the Synology Assistant up and running, it should find the DiskStation location on our network. At this point the DiskStation will be showing as not installed, so we need to install the DSM software.

After Synology Assistant is up and running it should find the DiskStation location on our network. At this point the DiskStation will be showing as not installed, so we need to install the DSM software. Which can be found on the installation CD or you can download the latest version from internet.

Now it should show device as ready. You can now right-click on the device and click ‘Connect’.

DSM 4.0, Initial setup and UI

DiskStation Manager 4.0 is the current incarnation of the OS for Synology NAS devices. DSM 4.0 allows us to manage all aspects of the DiskStation via a single web browser tab utilising multitasking and personalisation. DSM 4.0 uses HTML5 and CSS3 to allow us to drag-n-drop windows around the browser tab giving us complete control over what we are viewing, you need to enable Java version in your browser if you want to browse your drives on your computer.

To use DSM we first login using the password and username we selected during the initial setup on our client PC. This presents us with the NAS desktop and quick links to some key features which include updates of the DSM from within the OS.

After login is successful, the DSM Quick Start wizard will greet you and help you configure your NAS quickly.

From the desktop you can manage most of the functions of your NAS. The Control Panel is one of the first place to go when you first first start your NAS device.

Here we find a plethora of options that allow us to control File Sharing, Network Services, System Settings and Application Settings.

First, thing you need to do is create a shared folder.

Here you can assign privileges to to different users. E.g Here we have created a folder named ‘Data’ which can be accessed by ‘admin’ but will remain inaccessible to ‘guest’.

All the folders in your Diskstation are also accessible from My Network Places.

The DSM is Linux based OS as a result it has a full fledged Package Manager to install applications to enhance functionality of your device. Just like Linux you can get install application from official sources and add third party repositories.

Some the softwares available in Package Manager are

Wordpress - it can be used to host a Wordpress site on your Diskstation.

Photo Station - features Facebook integration and support for a wide range of photo and video formats to share and manage our files.

Surveillance Station - can be used to record feeds from different IP cameras to safeguard your home or office.

Download Station - allows us to set up the DiskStation to download files autonomously. The DiskStation can be used as a 24/7 download centre for BitTorrent™, FTP, HTTP, eMule and NZB news server. Downloads activities can be restriction to certain hours of the day by setting up a download schedule.

Web Station - allows us to host our own web sites on the DiskStation. Using a virtual host we can have multiple web sites on our DiskStation, up to 30 web sites. Web Station has built in support for PHP and MySQL. (The unit can also be set up as a mail server with support for POP3, SMTP and IMAP).

Print Server - is a complete print server solution for both inside and out-and-about. By connecting a printer via USB to the DiskStation we have instantly created a network printer. DiskStation Print Server supports Apple Airprint and Google Cloud Print.

iTunes Server - the DiskStation can work as an iTunes Server to share Music within a local network. After enabling iTunes service in DSM, iTunes will recognise the DiskStation as an iTunes server under the SHARED list.

Audio Station - utilises AJAX technology to bring us an innovative and enjoyable listening experience. Once enabled we can listen to music stored on our DiskStation from anywhere via our iPod, Internet Radio or other UPnP/DLNA media servers. All of the key formats are supported by the unit, including FLAC, MP3, AAC, WMA.

Antivirus Essential - is a full fledged free antivirus to protect your NAS device from harmful viruses.

Data Replicator 3 - allows us to back up our desktop date, Outlook® or Outlook Express® emails to the DiskStation. Data Replicator 3 is provided free on the installation CD that comes with the DiskStation.

Mobile Support - Synology offer a number of mobile apps to access the DiskStation. These apps are available on Apple and Android platforms, including smartphones and tablets. Apps such as DS Audio allow us to play our music on our mobile device from our DiskStation.

Cloud Station - it provides a Dropbox or Skydrive like alternative to to backup and synchronise your files over the internet across various devices. The service is connected through Synology's dynamic DNS service, while UPnP should mean you don't have to worry about opening any ports. This feature is still in beta for DSM 4.1, and currently only Windows and Mac OS X clients are available with the full release of the update, which is typically a couple of months after the Beta, while Linux version is still not available. For this feature you need to sign up for a Synology account which is free. For this feature to work both your device and your NAS should be connected to internet.

Miscellaneous Features

Media Playback - With this device you can stream your videos and audio directly from to your device, like a mobile or PC. If you are on same network you can stream FullHD movies from this device flawlessly.

Download Manager - as mentioned before, this device supports various downloading options like ftp, http, https, sftp, magnet, torrent etc.. This can be used as a low powered download manager.

Time Machine (MAC OS X) - this device can also integrate with Time Machine feature of MAC OS to take regular snapshots of the files on your system. This feature is right now unavailable on Windows. In future, same concept can be used to backup snapshots from Linux distros when ‘btrfs’ format becomes stable.

Manage your PC and USB drives - The File Explorer in this device can be used to manage files on your PC and USB drives. I regularly use it to open Pen Drives instead of PC, since DSM is Linux based OS most virus which are targeted on Windows PC become useless in this device. Therefore it can also add a an extra layer of security from some unknown wild virus.

Mobile Apps - If you have a smartphone you can easily manage your device without even touching a PC using mobile apps provided by Synology on Google Play on Android and Apple App Store. You can also login into this device using a mobile browser. It will automatically redirect to a mobile version of the site.

The mobile site has limited functionality but you can also redirect to a full fledged desktop version if you have a capable browser that can handle HTML5, and CSS. We tested the desktop version on default Android browser on Android ICS and the site was usable.

Synology apps are also available to to manage your device more efficiently.

Update DSM4.1
Synology has announced an update to DSM. The DSM 4.1 is available from today, which unfortunately could not be covered in this article.

Value and Conclusion

Pros
Price/performance ratio
Very capable OS
Great transfer speeds
Mobile apps
Lots of features
Intuitive and windowed operating system
Optional application packages boost functionality
Low energy consumption
Very low Noise
Decent build quality
Ease of use
Small footprint

Cons
No support for hot-swap disks
An x86 Atom CPU to increase Application Packages available
USB 3.0 is not supported
Νο eSATA
Cannot format an external disk to NTFS
High CPU utilization during USB transfers

The Synology DS112j is a NAS server which addresses budget oriented users or small offices, that don't need four-bays or even larger NAS boxes, and can live without RAID arrays. It may not have hot-swap disks, USB 3.0 support or an eSATA port but it has most of the functionality and features of more expensive Synology NAS servers thanks to the DSM operating system it runs. Thanks to its small footprint it doesn't draw a lot of attention and its power consumption is very low, so is output noise. The build quality is top notch and the setup and management is quite easy for this device.

For value, Synology also score well. Pricing the DS112j at a competitive $149.99 and bundling all of the cables and connectors to get us up and running. Few NAS systems offer as much functionality for this price, at such a good price I can't ask for many things, that's for sure, and the fact that the DS112j achieved by better performance/power than my previous NAS, which was a Pentium IV PC with FreeNAS installed. All in all the DS112j is a very good choice for all who want to enter the NAS world and explore the numerous capabilities that these marvelous devices have to offer.

RIP Safari for Windows and older Macs

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:10:00 +0530

Apple has finally shipped Safari 6 with the the new Mountain Lion, but has silently removed Safari for Windows and users of previous versions of Mac OS will get limited new features of the new browser, the reason behind this is that in order to take full advantage of new web browser, you'll need to be latest OS.

As announced back in June, Safari 6 on Mountain Lion incorporates some ideas taken from Google Chrome. One big Mountain-Lion-only addition is a feature called iCloud Tabs, which lets Apple users with iCloud sync their tabs across Macs and iPhones, iPads, and iPods running iOS 6. Another cool feature is “Tab View,” which makes it easy to quickly look through all your open tabs. The new browser also includes built-in sharing to Facebook and Twitter.

While most of Safari 6′s new features are for Mountain Lion users only, users on Lion, can still take advantage of the new omnibar that combines the address bar and unified search made famous by Google Chrome, Do Not Track support, and a new password storing option. Important bug fixes, HTML5 web notifications, Improved JavaScript support with multicore-enabled version of Apple's Nitro JavaScript engine, Redesigned Web Inspector, hardware acceleration, CSS rendering and new Webkit engine.

While features like the new multi-touch enabled Tab View feature allows users to pinch to view all of their open tabs and swipe to scroll between them, the Share button, which makes it easy to post URLs via email, Facebook, or Twitter, and the iCloud Tabs, which sync a user's most recently viewed pages between Macs and iOS devices. will require Mac OS X Lion.

While Lion users can download Safari 6, not all of the browser's features will work on the OS, and users of earlier versions of Mac OS X can't get the update at all.

More surprising, Apple's Safari website no longer includes a download link for Windows. Apple may have stopped developing it entirely.The older version is still available as a direct download, and it does have it’s own support page, but Apple has stopped trying to get anyone to download it. The download link isn’t visible on Apple’s website, either, and that’s why the current working theory is that Apple hasn’t simply delayed releasing the new version.

Lion users can get the new browser now via Software Update. While users upgrading to Mountain Lion will get Safari 6 by default.

Windows users, on the other hand, might start looking around for alternatives. Google Chrome, Firefox or Opera are actually better on Windows compared to Safari.

Get our regular updates in Google Currents for Android or iOS platforms click here or scan QR code below.

Microsoft shows off Windows 8 GPU acceleration performance improvements

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 17:30:00 +0530

With Windows 8, Microsoft has set out to enable all applications with high-performance graphics enabled by modern graphics hardware. Gamers now rejoice great news for you, Microsoft has shared more details about the graphical improvements which means, a 150% increase in framerate compared to Windows 7 when rendering paragraphs of text. Rendering small chunks of text like those often found on interface controls such as labels and menus has improved 131% and heading-sized text used for titles in Metro style apps has improved 336% due to DirectWrite smokes Windows 7 in terms of raw performance. This means that if you are playing a text based game you are going to get blazing fast performance. Windows 8 takes three of the APIs introduced in Windows 7—Direct3D 11, DirectWrite, and Direct2D—and makes them even faster. Applications that use these APIs will be able to take advantage of some considerable performance improvements.

The DirectWrite and Direct2D APIs in Windows 8, have been optimized to various common usage scenarios. For example, DirectWrite and Direct2D are often used to show short runs of large text on things like headlines and subheadings, so Microsoft has made this scenario faster.Unlike, Windows 7 where Direct2D uses CPU, Direct2D in Windows 8, utilizes Direct3D 11.1, with suitable Direct3D 11.1 hardware, the rasterization and antialiasing step can now be performed by the GPU, avoiding the need to perform this task on the CPU.

A new feature, Target Independent Rasterization (TIR), has been developed for DirectX 11.1 GPUs to render irregularly shaped objects, like geographical borders on a map. The advancements mean fewer CPU cycles are spent on tessellation, allowing it to pump drawing instructions to the GPU faster without influencing visual quality. Direct3D 11.1 also enables support for a feature that's found on some GPU hardware called Tile-Based Deferred-Rendering (TBDR). Traditionally, GPUs have been engineered for game-type graphics, where the whole screen (or at least, almost the whole screen) changes every frame. Imagine running around in a first-person shooter, for example; while your HUD might remain fixed in view, everything else you see will change because you're standing somewhere different in the 3D environment.

TBDR is designed to optimize this kind of scenario. With TBDR, the screen is divided into tiles, and each tile is drawn separately. This allows the GPU to skip redrawing those parts of the screen that haven't changed, such as the YouTube, Vimeo webpage, and only expend resources redrawing the parts of the screen that have changed, such as the video on the webpage itself.

TBDR is implemented in mobile GPUs such as the Mali and PowerVR Series 5 SGX used in the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Apple TV, Samsung Galaxy series, Blackberry Playbook, Motorola Droid series etc. This technique enables the GPU to do less work, it offers both performance advantages, efficiency and power savings.

Moving away from the GPU, but still in the graphics stack, Microsoft has improved the code used to compress and decompress JPEG and PNG images, to make better use of vector instruction sets provided by CPUs. The new JPEG and PNG routines can decompress and display pictures in about 60 percent of the time that they took in Windows 7.

All Metro-style applications will utilize Direct2D and DirectWrite, will definitely get a performance boost from hardware acceleration, which is missing from current Consumer Preview and Release Preview.

Windows 8's graphical stack has plenty of performance to offer, for the right kind of application—but we're going to need to switch to a whole new set of Metro applications if we want to take advantage of it. The inclusion of raw numbers for one test, but a complete omission for everything else makes us makes us suspicious that the raw numbers are not impressive. Microsoft in order to keep up the “show” used the percentages for their marketing blog entry. Still the lack of any reference to the hardware used for this test negates the whole thing since we cannot compare their findings they are little more than unsubstantiated claims.

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Reset Your Firefox to gain speed without loosing important information

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 18:22:00 +0530

If you've been using Firefox for a while, you might see a lot happening in the background that can slow your browser down. It's not dangerous or even necessarily wrong, but you might notice that Firefox is a little more sluggish than it used to be.

Over time, you acquire plugins that you may or may not have willingly downloaded, toolbars you don’t remember installing and more. These can slow down your browsing, cause annoying crashes and just make a big old mess.

Who has time to troubleshoot these things? It’s tedious, sometimes frustrating and often doesn’t fix the problem.

Firefox has a solution. It’s like hitting the reset button. Actually, it is a reset button. Go to your Firefox menu bar and select Help > Troubleshooting information. Click the “Reset Firefox” Button, confirm your action with the slide-down prompt and then click “Done” when Firefox lets you know it’s reset. How cool is that?

When you reset Firefox, you don’t have to start from scratch. Here’s what you’ll still have in your browser:

Bookmarks

Browsing history

Passwords

Cookies (you won’t be logged out of any sites you were logged in to before the reset)

Web form auto-fill information

What won’t be in your browser anymore:

Extensions and themes: although helpful, they can sometimes cause problems. Reinstalling them one at a time might point out the culprit. But regardless, you’ll need to reinstall them.
The reset process will close all open websites. Bookmark sites before your reset and you’ll be able to return.
Site-specific preferences, search engines, personal dictionary, download history, DOM storage, security certificate settings, security device settings, download actions, plugin MIME types, toolbar customizations and user styles are also not saved.

So the next time your Firefox seems sluggish — or crashes — give the reset button a try.

Read more about Firefox Reset. We think you’ll find it useful — and probably want it for other things. Like bad dates. Or that email you wish you didn’t send.

Source:- http://blog.mozilla.org/theden/2012/06/13/resetfirefox/

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Windows 8 How to Skip/Bypass Metro UI to Boot Directly the classic Desktop Interface

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 19:44:00 +0530

As, many of the regular readers of this blog might know, I am not a very at all happy with what Microsoft have turned Windows 8 into. I am still firm with my opinion that Windows 8 could have been a refined version of Windows 7 with many performance improvements, new Ribbon UI in Explorer, improved Task Manager, decreased boot-up and shutdown times etc.., but Microsoft decided to shoot them in the foot by stitching the ugly looking Metro Garbage into it and replace the beautiful Aero Glass with classic white color scheme.

One of the biggest complain I hear from Windows 8 users is, about how ugly Metro UI looks and is almost unusable with Windows 8. I've been running the Windows 8 Release Preview for quite some time and although I'm okay with no Start Orb visible but I hate how I get to see Metro see the new ugly interface by default every time I boot and I have no desire to see a full-screen Start Menu when I log into my PC.

Unlike Windows 7 and its predecessors, when Windows 8 boots, it displays a lock screen that you have to move up with an awkward gesture before entering your credentials, and then you have to dismiss the Metro interface before accessing the desktop.

I hope Microsoft develops some sense in their sane minds and the retail version of Windows 8 will allow Metro to be fully disabled, although chances are very slim.

But Matthew DeCarlo of Techspot has a solution for Windows 8 users who don't want to see Metro but still want to enjoy the improvements Windows 8 brings. Here is the original post.

According toi his solution, just copy the text and paste it in Notepad and save it as .bat file somewhere, its safe from accidental deletion:-

_echo off
C:\Windows\explorer.exe shell:::{3080F90D-D7AD-11D9-BD98-0000947B0257}
end_
Now, you need to run it every time you you start your PC, for that you need to create a new task to run it at log in. You can do this directly through the Windows Task Scheduler or by attaching it to the Windows Logon event in the Event Viewer. We'll walk you through the second one, for no particular reason:

Search for Windows' Event Viewer in Metro's settings (it appears as "View event logs").
Click Windows Logs > Application in the left column to get a list of events in the center.
Scroll through the list until you see an information event with the source "Winlogon."
Right click the Winlogon entry and choose "attach task to this event" to schedule a task.
Name your task anything you want and click next three times to choose your script.

After the script is configured to run, you won't have to manually dismiss the Metro interface anymore. It's worth noting that you will still see Metro briefly as the script takes a second or two to kick in, but at least it'll show itself to the door. If anyone finds a quicker-acting solution, feel free to share it.

Disabling the Windows 8 lock screen to log in faster

This one's less involved. Fire up the Group Policy Editor (search for gpedit.msc via Metro) and head to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Personalization. Once you're there, double click "Do not display the lock screen" and enable the policy. The lock screen should be disabled.

Automatically log in to your Windows 8 account

Naturally, you don't want to do this on a notebook or any other machine outside of a secure area -- including your home if you have mischievous siblings or roommates -- but it'll make the log in process that much quicker. Search for netplwiz via Metro and uncheck "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer." Provide your credentials and your account will load automatically.

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VLC media player for Android now available

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Wed, 4 Jul 2012 17:47:00 +0530

The VideoLAN Project has finally published a VLC for Android to the Google Play Store. The player right now in beta brings most of the famed features of VLC to Android in a native UI in the Android 4.0 Holo style. It is a big news for movie buffs using Android (like me) which means, no more headache of converting a movie to a supported codec before it can play on the phone. It plays all files, in all formats, like the classic VLC on Windows.

The beta published to the Google Play Store today is only compatible with ARM systems that use the ARMv7 architecture set and support the NEON instruction set. That means that there are several devices — mostly those released before Google/HTC Nexus One in 2010 — that cannot run the current beta. The major exception here is the Nvidia Tegra platform. Nvidia’s Tegra 2 lacks NEON instruction set as a result cannot run VLC currently.

The NEON instruction set is general-purpose SIMD engine efficiently processes current and future multimedia formats, enhancing the user experience. SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) instructions are also referred to as vector math instructions, which provide hardware support for processing parallel data sets. These instructions are often used for vector manipulation, which is critical for dealing with multi-dimensional data such as 3D polygons for graphics. NEON technology can accelerate multimedia and signal processing algorithms such as video encode/decode, 2D/3D graphics, gaming, audio and speech processing, image processing, telephony, and sound synthesis by at least 3x the performance of ARMv5 and at least 2x the performance of ARMv6 SIMD. It can be called the equivalent to Intel’s SSE instructions. ARM claims NEON give 60-150% performance boost on complex video codecs

The NEON instruction set is supported in Samsung Exynos, TI OMAP 4 and 5, Qualcomm Snapdragon S2, S3, and S4 chips. Nvidia Tegra 2 is also ARMv7, but there’s no NEON instruction support unlike Tegra 3.

A non-NEON version of VLC will become available on the Play Store, as well as a version for ARMv6 processors. Until, then you can get VLC non-NEON apk from here. The VideoLAN nightly build server has builds for ARMv6, ARMv7 with NEON, and Tegra 2.

VLC currently supports all versions of Android, all the way from from version 2.1 (Éclair). It plays all files, in all formats, like the classic VLC, supports Subtitles , embedded and external, including ASS and DVD subtitles, Multi audio or subtitles tracks selection, Support for network streams, including HLS, udio and video media library, with full search.

Here is a software performance on Phones for H.264 codec.

VLC officially recommends these phones for optimal experience

Galaxy Nexus; (OMAP 4460)
HTC One X; (Tegra 3)
Samsung Galaxy S3; (Exynos 4 Quad)
Motorola Defy; (OMAP 3610)
HTC Desire; (QSD8250 Snapdragon)
Nexus one. (QSD8250 Snapdragon)

However, if you live in the United States or Canada, you will not be able to get the VLC beta from the Play Store. VLC is available globally through the Play Store except for North America. The VLC team explains that they do not have access to North America-specific Android devices to test the builds with. If you live in North America and wish to use VLC for Android, you can grab it from the VideoLAN nightly build server. For, rest of the world, head to the Play Store to get the VLC for Android now.

Note that the beta is in early testing, and VideoLAN claims it is rather slow right now due to all the debugging options enabled and the UI is unfinished and will likely be drastically different in the final version. But I have been using it since the alpha version on my Xperia Mini Pro using both (Gingerbread 2.3.4 and ICS) and didn't encounter any critical bugs till now. It plays up-to 720p videos on my Mini Pro flawlessly.

However, if you do encounter a bug do report it on their official forum.

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Microsoft: Of course we don't care for Windows Phone 7 buyers

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Mon, 2 Jul 2012 18:45:00 +0530

When Microsoft announced that Windows Phone 8 won't be availiable to any of the current generation phones, it clearly meant was "We accept Windows Phone 7 is a failure and we don't care for those users who bought them". This might have upsetted a lot of its customers. But some loyal fan are still tryig to defend Microsoft with whatever means possible.

Microsoft's senior product manager for Windows Phone Greg Sullivan in an interview said, "this clean break for Windows Phone 8 was by design and in fact part of the plan for the platform from the very beginning. Back when buyers were grabbing the very first Windows Phones, Microsoft was already working on Windows Phone 8 for future buyers only".

Why would Microsoft's plan involve leaving early supporters in the cold? Apps, according to Sullivan, or more correctly developers building Windows Phone apps. They needed an installed base to get developers interested in creating apps, so they pushed Windows Phone knowing it would be forked in very short order.

Microsoft has stated clearly that Windows Phone 8 requires phone hardware that no existing handset possesses, and thus the need for leaving older phones behind. That may be so, but unsuspecting buyers of Windows Phone between now and the rollout of new Windows Phone 8 hardware will never get to experience what Sullivan admits is cooler than anything to come yet.

"There are a whole series of... new capabilities and features that will come that we haven't talked about and there's integration with Windows 8 that we'll demo closer to the date," he says.
Sounds pretty nice but new buyers of a Windows Phone, even those who buy after this is written, will never get to run Windows Phone 8. The bus has left the station and Microsoft is firmly behind early Windows Phone buyers.

So, what Sullivan indirectly means to say is that Windows Phone 7 was a paid beta test for Windows Phone platform. Now, the argument Microsoft loyalists put are like-

"But Microsoft still gives us a Windows 7.8 update." This is untrue, WP7.8 has nothing new to offer except smaller tiles. It just mimics the WP8 look to please some users. Its like Windows 6x with WP7 skin with no new feature.

"But the current hardware won't support it." Again if Microsoft is lazy enough or don't care about current phones then, there is no chance they will support new feature. I have one doubt here, if single core processors are not supported in WP8 will that mean, dual-core will be an entry point for WP8 phones.This will make WP8 platform only available for mid and upper market segment and not the lower mass market which still accounts for bulk of sales.

"But Android and iOS don't follow the same strategy." OK, here Android for one doesn't follow this strategy. Android can be installed on meager 600Mhz single core handsets to latest and greatest Quad cores. Yes, the device manufacturers are culprits here. And, one important thing here is that most apps are backward compatible unlike, WP platform where WP7 apps will work on WP8 but reverse is not possible, which is the only thing matters to average customers. Another thing in favor of Android is that, advanced users can simply install third-party ROMs to get the latest and greatest version of Android. However, on Apple side, this is partially true. Apple do limit some features to only latest models, but that's because it is the main selling point of the their handsets. Like, iPhone 4 was only restricted from Siri to differentiate it from flagship iPhone 4S.

For full coverage on on Windows Phone 8 head over to this article.

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Microsoft Windows Phone 7.8 and Windows Phone 8 - The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:21:00 +0530

Microsoft has officially removed the wraps from Windows Phone 8 aka Apollo, the next major upgrade to its failed mobile OS and shot its entire existing user base to hell in the process.

Lets start with Good things first, of Windows Phone 8. There we have plenty of new features Windows Phone 8 will support like Better Hardware dual-core and quad-core CPUs, higher screen resolutions (WVGA, WXGA, 720p), swappable memory cards, IPv6 and native NFC.

It will feature a "Wallet Hub" which will allows to use Windows Phone 8 devices for mobile payment and more, a "Company Hub" which allows companies create their own Windows Phone 8 Hub for custom employee apps. Additionally, Office for Windows Phone is also being beefed-up for enterprises, though no specific details were shared on this aspect.

It will also include Internet Explorer 10 (IE10), Skype and Bing Maps replaced with much better Nokia Drive will be pre-loaded on all Windows Phone 8 devices, enabling offline navigation free, turn-by-turn, and voice-guided navigation.

Windows Phone 8 will share the same kernel as the desktop version of Windows 8. Developers previously restricted to working in Microsoft Silverlight can now write native code, as well as code in HTML5, XNA, .NET, and C#. The new OS will even use the NTFS file system and support enterprise-level security hooks similar to those for desktop and laptop PCs.

Last but not least, Windows Phone 8 will get a new Start Screen which will has more Tiles and allows to set the size of each Tile (with a choice of small, medium and double wide sizes) and each tile can be assigned a unique colour, making Windows Phone pretty much looking like a Windows 8. The new Start screen makes it more flexible and usable then the current version where you only have big blocks for each and every app. It definitely triumphs over iOS but Android is still the king of ambient information with its robust widget framework. Android added resizable widgets in Android 3.0, and many of them have additional capabilities like direct playback control and flick scrolling. Android is far more customizable, but it still differentiates between icons and widgets.

Now Lets start with bad things in Windows Phone 8. Much more fragmentation Windows Phone. Previously, there were mainly two types of Windows Phones, high end one and low end ones. The low end ones like Lumia 610 were unable to run most popular apps and games while the high end ones like Lumia 800 and 900 were able to run almost all apps in the Windows Marketplace. Then, some other OEMs like Samsung and HTC phones which which even with capable hardware were restricted from many apps which were exclusive to Nokia. Now, we have Windows Phone 8 increasing the fragmentation. Now this is bad news ealry users of windows Phone 7. While Windows Phone 7 apps will work on Windows Phone 8 devices, but Windows 8 developed apps won't run on Windows Phone 7. And I would assume that many developers will sooner or later switch to the new Windows 8 APIs exclusively. Which means no new apps for earlier users. Consider this on scenario on Android where most new apps are still compatible with previous versions of OS.

Now, Windows Phone 8 will support 720p screen, congrats Microsoft when the whole world is moving to 1080p and above screens now you have raised the limit to 720p.

One minor nuisance is the new flat logo of Windows 8 as Windows button looks pretty ugly.

Finally, we come to the ugly part of Windows Phone 8. There have been early rumors that next gen Windows Phone OS update will not be compatible with current generation of Windows Phone. Now, Microsoft has officially confirmed that rumors were indeed true. As a compensation, Microsoft has announced that Windows Phone 7.8 for current phones. Windows Phone 7.8 is just a skin, to mimic the look and feel Windows Phone 8 start screen pretty much that's it for Windows Phone 7.8, which means it will not support any new features of WP8. It's like Microsoft would have added the Windows Phone 7 skin to Windows Phone 6.5 devices. Technically possible but without any benefit for the end-user, except that he would have received a thumb-friendly user interface. However, Microsoft said yesterday that Windows Phone 8 isn't supporting hardware, etc. Sure it's won't, until you develop the drivers for it. I just got Android 4.0 ICS update on the year old Sony Xperia mini pro.

One other thing that worries me is that if current generation single core phones are not compatible with Windows Phone 8 and dual-cores are now the lowest limit, how will Microsoft handsets to cater low end market.

To conclude, I think this update certainly makes Windows Phone more competitive with Android and iOS devices, but it still isn't future proof and competition is really moving fast and soon WP8 will be a thing of past. There isn't any exciting features announced in new Windows Phone OS.

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Why Microsoft Surface Tablet will be dead on arrival

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:43:00 +0530

Microsoft recently unveiled its Surface Tablet hybrid. Its a tablet that can connect with a iPad like smart cover which has integrated keyboard and track-pad. The Surface has Magnesium chassis, vapour deposition coating, cutaway edges, ClearType HD display. It will come in two versions normal and pro. The normal version has ARM processor and comes with Windows 8 (WOA, RT or whatever they are calling it now). The pro version has x86 Intel 3rd Gen Core-i5 processor(Ivy Bridge). The ARM version has a 720p HD display and x86 version has 1080p display.

Now, to actually compare the Surface to other tablets and hybrids in the market, Surface doesn't offer anything revolutionary or new to the market. The only revolutionary feature it has is a smart cover which has keyboard and track-pad. Seriously, it feels like Microsoft has accepted that touch can never replace physical keyboard. This strategy is a failure from the get-go. Even though, iPad has many optional keyboards for those who need, still they are never the selling point of iPad. On other side the biggest feature of Surface is the keyboard. And, don't forget this hybrid approach is nothing new Asus Transformer comes with a keyboard and its actually a lot better then a rubber gimmick keyboard Microsoft is offering.

The display is another key factor here, Surface RT supports only 720p screen which is what current mobile phones have and Surface pro will have 1080p screen, which is satisfactory from current standards but with new iPad and Macbook Pro offering ultra high resolution retina displays and Android OEMs currently testing high resolution displays on their tablets, 1080p later this year will available in low and mid range tablets, while Surface is a premium tablet.

Surface will come with an OS that's a new OS, which is currently under testing and the reviews are anything but positive. The Metro UI is called ugly and inefficient by almost every reviewer and user alike. The OS lacks apps and in case of ARM version it even lacks legacy software, while the x86 version will bring the legacy compatibility, it also adds complexity to the tablet and not to mention the compatibility of malware and viruses for Windows.

Microsoft at core is a software company and has been very successful by partnering with various OEMs to get their products to the market, that's how Microsoft defeated Apple in PC market. Except for Xbox 360 and Kinect, every hardware product has been an utter failure, e.g. Zune, Kin, Xbox, Windows Slate,Tablet PC, UMPC, Home Server, MSN Direct Smart Watch, MSN TV, etc... And this move is really going to alienate the OEMs from Microsoft, since they are now directly competing with them in the market. The current market is different from what it used to be. Apple has much more stronger hold on the market at high end. The low and mid range is dominated by Google Android which is free for all OEMs to use and modify, while Microsoft is not allowing any modifications in the OS and has strict hardware requirements for OEMs to adhere. Already world's fourth largest PC maker Acer Dismissed Microsoft Surface Tablet.

Another, important factor that will lead to Surface failure is the price. Microsoft didn't announced actual pricing but said that Surface RT will be priced similar to competing tablets, which means expect it to be priced similar to iPad, but Bloomberg expects that Surface will be pricier then iPad. And, Microsoft announced that Surface Pro will be priced similar to ultrabook. That means in the price point expect both Surface tablets to be in high end market with with mediocre features. What Microsoft doesn't understands is that there's no market for the Surface with Windows 8 Pro, People who primarily use a laptop, will buy a laptop with a bigger screen, better keyboard/trackpad and a hinge that supports the screen at the same or lower cost. People who primarily use a tablet, will buy a lighter tablet at a lower cost. So, who is this tablet for? People who want a bulky tablet and a small laptop at a high price? That's nobody. Buying a separate tablet and laptop will cost more, but it's a better value.

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Microsoft to offer cheap Windows 8 upgrade for ₹699 or $12.6 India and $15 for US consumers

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Mon, 4 Jun 2012 17:12:00 +0530

After getting negative reports on Windows 8, Microsoft is getting desperate to make it a success. Windows 8 Release Preview which released on 31st May 2012, just like the previous Developer Previews and Consumer Previews versions is getting mixed to negative feedback from the market. Now, Microsoft has already confirmed prices for upgrade to Windows 7 users. In the US, Windows 7 PC buyers starting June 1st will be offered Windows 8 upgrades at $15 when the OS launches. Microsoft's Windows 8’s final launch is expected around October.

In a press release issued by the company, Microsoft India has confirmed ₹699 for Windows 8 Pro upgrades with bundled 90 days of support from Microsoft. . For PCs bought starting June 2, 2012 Offer valid till January 31st and is redeemable before the program expiration at the end of February 2013, Windows 7 versions eligible for upgrade are: Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional & Ultimate, while Starter is not eligible. In the US, the upgrade price is $15 which comes translated to roughly ₹831 at ₹55.4 a US Dollar. Another limitation is that PCs eligible for Windows 8 upgrade must have Genuine Windows 7 licenses to be authenticated before upgrade.

This might count as the most cheap upgrade to Windows in the history of Microsoft. With Microsoft firing all cylinders to ensure Windows 8 succeeds in the market.

Talking about this pretty reasonable price point for this upgrade, Mr. Tami Reller, CMO and CFO of Windows at Microsoft says:

“We’ve seen a great interest in Windows 8, especially given the availability of the Windows 8 Release Preview this week, and yet we know many consumers want a new PC now,”

Register here to get more information about this offer register here.
Download the free version of Microsoft Windows 8 beta Release Preview Release Candidate (RC) from here or Windows 8 server beta Release Candidate from here.

More on How Windows 8 will be an utter failure, despite best efforts from Microsoft here.

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Why Microsoft's Windows 8 Tablets will be an utter failure

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Sat, 2 Jun 2012 18:29:00 +0530

Microsoft's just released the Release Preview of Windows 8 yesterday. With Windows 8 Microsoft is trying to 'Kill two birds with one stone' i.e. its targeting both desktop PCs and Tablets. Can Microsoft succeed in this ambitious plan, we are certainly not sure. Here are some of the points that suggest Why it will be an utter failure bigger then Vista why:-

Metro UI/UX-

First and foremost thing users will notice when they boot up to Windows 8 will be a new interface. Gone are the traditional Windows UI elements like Minimize/Maximize/Close buttons, the gorgeous Aero glass effects, now everything is replaced with a gaudy colors that remind you of classical Windows 1x era. Instead of icons you will be greeted with big in your face tiles for each app that might remind you of Tetris or Lego building blocks or remember AOL 1996. The Start screen is your new desktop, Yes you read it right now you default desktop will be Start Menu with its ugly looking blocks changing their state randomly.

The Metro apps look pretty basic on a big screen and rarely utilize more then 50% of your screen real-estate, especially if your monitor is above 22''.
Metro apps can't be used in windowed mode, which really confuses us why Microsoft still calls it Windows 8 instead of 'Window 8'.
According to Metro design guidelines, most apps will hide all menus and settings from the user. You need to guess where the setting is hidden.
Metro is absolute mess when you use Keyboard and Mouse. Its almost unusable, although all these limitations are solved when you have a tablet (not a touch PC) and things looks and feels a lot better and refined.

Fortunately, You still have classic Windows mode, which has now reduced to a just another app in Metro black hole now called 'Legacy Mode', but Microsoft is desperate to make it even more worse. To begin with, there is no Start Button orb, instead you have an invisible hot corner to go back to Metro Start Screen.
The Shutdown/Restart options are hidden inside, an already hidden Charm bar.
And, the switch between Metro to Classic desktop is pretty jarring. It looks like someone forcefully stitched them together. This Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde approach does look ugly and might confuse average users increasing their frustrations.

Microsoft have even made it clear that Aero Glass won't be a part of final release of Windows 8 instead, a bland looking opaque white flat interface is designed (which Microsoft claims looks premium), for further details read here.

This is what Microsoft claims to be your new desktop when you turn on Windows 8 for first time now call Start Screen, but they one hidden fact is, after installing a few applications and programs this will turn even more hideous, and real My Hyde part of Windows 8 will show up.

This is the same desktop after few applications and programs have been installed. But wait this is just the beginning, try installing Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, etc.. and witness the disaster yourself.

But wait till you see you All Programs

To conclude, Metro looks like ten-step back from current Aero Glass (Which Microsoft now claims looks cheesy) or for record even Aqua of MAC OS and Gnome Shell, KDE, Unity of Linux. Are you listening Mr. Steven Sinofsky, its your so are god sent Metro that looks cheesy.
Metro also looks very confusing and will be very difficult for person with non technical background. Here is an example look at this video of a average guy named 'Joe' trying to use Windows 8.

The man in the video ends by saying "Are they trying to drive me to Mac?".
And even the testers with technical background are not happy, go on Google you will find hundreds of guides to tweak Metro to make it a little more useful, some software already released to disable from the Windows 8. Microsoft should understand that no one is buying Metro Ui with their abysmal sales of Windows Phone where even older Windows Mobile leads in marketshare. Now forcing users the same crap with Xbox and Windows would only alienate more users.
To conclude Metro is really, the worst possible UI/UX Microsoft or for record any company could have come up with. Not only designers but, whoever approved its implementation as default UI for Windows, should be dumped into space to prevent another tragedy.

Just for fun, look at Google's suggestions on Windows 8.

x86 or Windows RT (Windows on ARM or WOA)-
If Metro itself isn't enough for the fall of Windows 8, then Microsoft has stuck another nail in its coffin, users can actually have six different types of Windows tablets and that's just in software front, we are not even talking about hardware here.
On x86 (Intel and AMD) you get two versions 32-bit/64-bit versions and both of which will be sub-divided into standard and pro versions. That makes upto four possible types of Windows 8 on x86 platform alone. Considering, Windows 8 Enterprise won't be installed on tablets.
Now Windows RT or WOA tablets too will come in two flavors, standard and pro.
Most people will buy tablets on recommendations from salespersons, who will are not really skilled, they might offer x86 tablet to a consumer who really doesn't need a legacy apps and will also need to tackle the malware and viruses that have annoyed Windows users all these years.
On the other hand, a someone who needs to run Office and other leagcy apps might accidentely get Windows RT, just by getting confused for free version of Metro version of Office with that of real Office.

More confusion will occur when consumers with non-technical background, have to decide which version to get. “Windows 32-bit vs. Windows 64-bit” debate that had been confusing consumers since Windows XP. The problem with the x86 vs. ARM debate is that there’s going to be a unification down the line and the two platforms will always have a gulf between them. And, everyone accused Android for fragmentation, at-least even a person with least technical knowledge can buy Android by just getting the model with latest version of Android.

One OS to rule them all (Jack of all trades, master of none)-
Microsoft has made another approach in this edition of Windows. Its available for tablets, laptops, desktops, servers and Microsoft is even preparing a version of Windows 8 for mobiles code-names Apollo. Microsoft should know that every platform is different with different needs. Microsoft is trying to get everything under one-roof. Apple gets kudos for developing iOS for mobile devices and keeping MAC OS X for desktops. They might be merging some features between the two OSes as of lately but still they are pretty different serving their intended audience very well. But when you look at Windows 8, you see an OS that works very well on touch based devices but fails pathetically with mouse and keyboard. Microsoft could have easily maintained Metro for touch based devices only and let the desktop users have classic UI Windows 8.
I can just end this point with one of the quotes from Apple current CEO, Mr. Tim Cook "You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those aren't going to be pleasing to the user"

Two Internet Explorers (IE Metro or IE Classic)-
Another Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde feature of Windows 8 is that, it actually has two versions of IE10. One that runs on on legacy mode and one that runs on Metro mode but still use the same rendering engine. Further, increasing to the confusion of users. On positive note, this limitation is only applicable to x86 version and not on Windows RT.

Two Control Panels-
If the above points were not enough, now here is another to add to confusion of its users. Windows 8 will have two versions of Control Panel like IE 10. Just like IE 10, there is a Metro and Legacy version. Also, just like IE 10, this limitation applies only to x86 version of Windows 8.

Enterprise reaction-
I already know what many enterprise customers think about Windows 8. They look at that that new user interface, and all that touch stuff and see having to throw a lot of dollars at training employees to make sense of it all. And this at a time when dollars are tight.

Another problem that those I’ve talked to in enterprise have with Windows 8 is that they can’t see a compelling for touch to be in the OS as they can’t see a need for it outside of specific (and quite limited) scenarios.

Enterprise customers aren’t going to be replacing traditional keyboard and mouse systems with touch systems in a hurry given the cost of doing so, and that might mean they stick with Windows 7 and see what happens with Windows 9.

Another minor niggle is the new Task Manager is more useful then previous version, but in looks department it looks very ugly.

Gartner has predicted Windows 8 will be an utter failure on tablets.

Now, I can finish this article on positive note. I have mentioned all negative points of Windows 8, but Microsoft has somehow managed to improve some features. Example- Integrating Hyper-V, making performance tweaks to make Windows 8 more snappier, The new lock screen looks pretty and is useful to get basic notifications, the picture passwords is cool nifty feature but not usable for security point of view.

I am certain Microsoft won't change anything in current version of Windows 8. But, I hope they can get learn from their mistakes and makes different version for tablets and PCs. And, my personal favorite Aero Glass makes a comeback. Right now, Windows 7 is more then enough to satisfy my computing needs for few years. If Microsoft continues this path even in Windows 9, then I might shift to Linux or who knows maybe MAC OS.

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Sandbox and lock Android to make it safe and secure for kids with Play Safe

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Fri, 1 Jun 2012 21:03:00 +0530

As a concerned parent, You must be be worried when your kids use your smartphone. Who hasn't? But, it's impossible to trust your toddler to stay within a designated app and not explore.

Enter Play Safe, it is an Android app that that gives your kids a sandbox, allows you to set a predefined list of apps your child can access which ensures that they can play, well, safe.

The setup process walks you through selecting approved apps for your child, along with how to unlock the app once your child is done. Right now, you press and hold on the Play Safe logo for 5 seconds to exit the app.

When you want to give your young one a turn with the phone, you just run Play Safe, then rest easy in the knowledge that he or she won’t be able to do anything but run the apps you’ve sanctioned.

When the time comes to exit Play Safe, you simply hold down the app’s logo for three seconds. Older kids might be able to figure this out, which is why the developers will soon be adding password protection.

The app is free and doesn't have any ads on you. It’s compatible with all phones running Android 2.2 and later, excluding Galaxy Nexus. You can find download it here on Google Play.

Get our regular updates in Google Currents for Android or iOS platforms click here or scan QR code below.

Kinect for Windows: Update 1.5 Released

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Tue, 22 May 2012 14:23:00 +0530

Microsoft today updated to version 1.5 of the Kinect for Windows runtime and SDK, and made Kinect for Windows hardware additionally available in Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. The company says that additional countries will be added in June, which include Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, India, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. The current price of Kinect for Windows is $249 .

The updated release adds several capabilities intended to help developers use the Kinect sensor in new and intriguing ways.

Kinect Studio, which allows developers to record and play back Kinect data, dramatically shortening and simplifying the development lifecycle of a Kinect application. Now a developer writing a Kinect for Windows application can record clips of users in the application’s target environment and then replay those clips at a later time for testing and further development.

The Face Tracking SDK, which provides a real-time 3D mesh of facial features—tracking the head position, location of eyebrows, shape of the mouth, etc.

Seated Skeletal Tracking, meanwhile, "tracks a 10-joint head/shoulders/arms skeleton, ignoring the leg and hip joints." It's not restricted to seating positions, which Microsoft said will allow developers to create seating-optimized apps (such as office work with productivity software or interacting with 3D data) or standing apps that only focus on the upper body (such as interacting with a kiosk or when navigating through MRI data in an operating room).

New capabilities to enable avatar animation scenarios, which makes it easier for developers to build applications that control a 3D avatar, such as Kinect Sports.

Skeletal Tracking is supported in Near Mode, including both Default and Seated tracking modes, which allows businesses and developers to create applications that track skeletal movement at closer proximity, like when the end user is sitting at a desk or needs to stand close to an interactive display.

Microsoft has improved the performance and data quality enhancements, to improve the experience of all Kinect for Windows applications using the RGB camera or needing RGB and depth data to be mapped together (like Green screen applications).

Finally, Microsoft has also updated guidelines for natural user interface development, and significant additions to sample code and SDK documentation and added new language support for speech recognition: French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. There are also new language packs that help distinguish the way a language is spoken in different regions.

Get our regular updates in Google Currents for Android or iOS platforms click here or scan QR code below.

Windows 8 will ditch Aero Glass interface

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Sat, 19 May 2012 23:13:00 +0530

Microsoft's Jensen Harris, Director of Program Management for Microsoft’s User Experience team, over on the Building Windows 8 Blog has revealed that it has made some big changes to its desktop UI for Windows 8, which includes moving away from Aero Glass — the UI first introduced with Vista. According to the company, this means visual changes that include "flattening surfaces, removing reflections, and scaling back distracting gradients."

Aero gave the appearance of highly-rendered glass, light sources, reflections, and other graphically complex textures in the title bars, taskbar, and other system surfaces. The effect, which was purely cosmetic, allowed the desktop, icons and windows that were hidden beneath other windows to show through the surround of the application.

This the new theme that will replace the Aero Glass UI.

To conclude, I am not a fan of Metro UI, it looks and feels to boring and dull (read ugly) to me. The use to bold colors adds makes it look even worse. While, I am fan of Aero Glass since its inception. I was already thinking of ditching Windows 8 and ditching my favorite Aero UI has made my mind clear this Windows won't be getting on any of my PCs, mobile or tablet. I’m curious why Windows 8 can’t simply include Aero themes in addition to something flatter and duller, especially for those desktop PC-using power users who will primarily use the desktop environment and not care about (let alone need) better battery life. But I’m starting to see more clearly what’s happening here and starting to accept that Windows is growing into something that isn’t so much for me anymore.

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Samsung Galaxy S3 review

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Sat, 5 May 2012 22:56:00 +0530

Samsung just unveiled its flagship Galaxy S3. With host of software and hardware improvements. looks like HTC One X has finally got some competition.

Hardware wise,it has a Quad Core Samsung's own Exynos chip @ 1.4Ghz, which is made on 32nm manufacturing process, making it more power efficient. The S3 has a bigger 4.8 inches screen and the phone is slightly longer and wider. Amazingly the S3 is thinner than the HTC One X.

Here are some of the features of latest Galaxy phone-

Memory
The S3 comes with 16GB and 32GB of internal storage, a memory card slot as well as 50GB of free storage with DropBox.

An AMOLED Screen
The biggest pull of the Galaxy S III, at least initially, is its screen. At 4.8 inches, it’s huge, larger than the screen of the Galaxy S II and a tad bit smaller than that of the Galaxy Note.

Wireless charging (optional)

This is a optional feature announced. You can purchase a separate wireless charger and use it to charge the phone without connecting any wire to the phone. The wireless charger is a pad on which you place the phone to charge it.

Samsung's answer to Siri

Samsung have added their own version of Siri into the S3 and called it 'S-Voice'.

SmartStay Eye tracking camera
One of the more unique and compelling features in the Galaxy S III is Smart Stay, a technology that uses eye tracking to prevent the phone’s screen from dimming while the user is looking at it. It’s a clever feature, and though Samsung will be hard-pressed to be able to effectively advertise it, it’s certainly something that owners of the Galaxy S III will notice and appreciate.

LTE support
While the Galaxy S III is set to launch later this month in Europe with an HSPA+ radio, LTE support will also be incoming a bit down the line. This, of course, is a big deal for Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon, all of which are pushing heavily their own 4G LTE offerings. That alone makes it likely that the Galaxy S III will appear on at least one, if not all three, of the carriers when the phone launches in the U.S. this summer.

Pop up Video
Samsung have gone the extra mile and added a couple of features that I really like. The first is the pop up display. This allows you to watch a video in a pop up window while performing other tasks on the phone like texting or browsing the web.

Access to the Battery
Samsung has allowed users to access Battery. A very convenient for those who like to carry extra batteries. A features increasing skipped from manufacturers like Nokia, HTC, Apple etc...

8MP Camera with Zero Shutter lag
Samsung haven't upgraded megapixel count in Galaxy S3 but has managed to put in some cool stuff. First feature is zero shutter lag, which means you can click the pictures almost instantaneously without any lag. There is a best photo feature takes a burst of 8 photos and shows you the one it thinks is best.
The S3 can also recognise your friends faces and give you the option to instantly email them photos of themselves.

Drawbacks:-

Galaxy S3 is no doubt a great phone but still has some drawbacks. Some of them are:-
It lacks the premium feel for a high end device.
The Home button looks a little odd.
All plastic body feels a little cheap.
To make it zero shutter lag, camera is not upgraded, 12 mp would have been appreciated.
Subjective, but I don't like the raised back of camera lens.

Compared to HTC One X, Galaxy S3 has more powerful and power efficient processor. The Exynos processor is manufactured on 32nm process, compared to 40nm of Tegra 3. Exynos also supports LTE which is not supported in Tegra 3. S3 also has external memory which is missing from HTC One X. Also the Super AMOLED looks better compared to Super LCD on One X.

Some advantages of One X, it is obviously the better looking of the two and has a premium feel. Some prefer HTC Sense over Samsung TouchWiz. Although real world tests are yet to be revealed but Tegra 3's 4 plus 1, core may give longer standby time.

The S3 is expected to be in stores on the 30th of of May and is already available for pre-order.

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LG is through with Windows Phone, will concentrate of Google Android

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Tue, 1 May 2012 16:06:00 +0530

LG Electronics has backed off from Windows Phone smatphones and will focus on Google's Android, according to a report.

This news comes with the announcement of Steve Ballmer headed to Seoul Digital Forum on May 22 where he will be meeting with various business and developers. Though LG claims to not know his business schedule the implication is that Ballmer may meet with LG for some damage control regarding their recent smartphone decision.

LG has noted that Windows Phone 7, based devices hold less than 2% of the global smartphone market, according to multiple market analysts.

“The total unit of Windows Phone sold in the global market is not a meaningful figure,” said the LG spokesman, further elaborating that it currently has no plans of rolling out another LG-manufactured Windows phone soon.

LG will now be putting resources into developing Android devices and needs to continue doing so to compete with Samsung and HTC devices.

This is clearly a sign that not only consumers but also OEMs have rejected the Windows Phone OS. Nokia which is currently the top manufacturer of Windows Phone is also struggling with actual numbers. Although Nokia Lumia 900 is touted as a success by CEO Stephen Elop, even saying the demand has out grown supply of the device. But they have shied away from telling the actual sale figures.

This is really a time for Microsoft to rethink its strategy, Windows Phone and Metro UI so far have only impressed critics but not customers. This reminds me of a situation of Mac Os vs Windows. When first Windows was released it was compared negatively with Mac OS. But Microsoft roped in OEMs and allowed them freedom to tweak OS according to their use. Which eventually lead them to dominate PC market for decades. Right now same approach is followed by Google with its Android. While Android allows to be tweak it to any limit by manufacturers differentiate their offerings from the market. E.g. Samsung has TouchWiz, HTC has Sense UI etc.. Windows Phone is same regardless of the OEM. This really makes the brand name. Therefore, the only thing that will differentiate Samsung to Nokia will be the outer body.

To sum it up another win for Android and loss for Windows Phone.

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Officially Unlock AT&T iPhone, no Jailbreak required

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Mon, 9 Apr 2012 16:48:00 +0530

Good news for AT&T iPhone owners. AT&T has officially announced that the company will finally allow its customers to unlock their iPhone. This will allow its customers to use other carriers' SIM cards in your device, which you own, No jailbreak required. The official date for unlocks to commence was yesterday, April 8.

Here is the process get get your iPhone unlocked:-

To unlock an AT&T iPhone, subscribers must have completed their service contracts and their accounts must be in good standing or pay an early termination fee. Previously, AT&T refused to unlock subscribers iPhones, though the company had no problem unlocking other phones.

The unlock can be conducted in your local AT&T store, but that’s not the only way you get your smartphone unlocked. You can also hit the AT&T website and have your iPhone unlocked using the company’s online chat feature. Apparently, the process takes only a few minutes and the only information needed is your iPhone IMEI.

Best of all Apple is actually the one unlocking your device. Once you have given the information, Apple will E-mail an unlock code during the next 72 hours to your e-mail address. That means everything is done by Apple with AT&T simply intermediary.

Get our regular updates in Google Currents for Android or iOS platforms click here or scan QR code below.

Metro UI now available to download for Android Tablets

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Sun, 8 Apr 2012 16:32:00 +0530

Metro UI on Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 is very unique, but if you are on Android tablet you cannot experience it. But its release for Android tablets has made it possible, 'BroBot175' from XDA developers has designed and released Metro UI for Android tablets giving them the Metro tiled look of Windows 8.

The theme is flashable to your device using ClockworkMod recovery. It’s worth noting that the theme is in beta, but there is a website with instructions for installing the mod. Apparently, the mod will work on the Asus Transformer and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets right now. The beta release supports tablets running Android 4.0 and there are widgets under development just for the mod. If you don’t own either of the two tablets specified for support right now, another theme is coming that will support more tablets. The Metro UI theme will change your your homescreen and notifications panel.

This release is a work in progress and many other things like Music widgets, bug fixes are still in progress.

If you can't wait to experience the Metro UI on your tablet, you may install the beta version from the developer's website. Get the latest changlog and give feedback to the developer here.

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Run Android apps in Windows PC or MAC OS X

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 23:00:00 +0530

Ever wanted to test out Android apps before installing them on your device or just want to use the same apps on both your Android device and your computer, check out the free BlueStacks App Player.

Currently in alpha stage, BlueStacks runs Android apps in full screen on Windows 7 and comes preloaded with 10 apps, including news reader Pulse and several games like Bubble Buster. You can install up to 26 more apps, but will have to connect to the BlueStacks App Channels with Facebook.

I tested BlueStacks on a tablet PC and the apps worked, though a bit slowly probably due to it being an older netbook. Having a touch interface is ideal for running Android apps on your computer, but without one you can still get a feel for an app with your keyboard and mouse.

The App Player also syncs apps between your PC and your phone or tablet if you install the BlueStacks Cloud Connect App from the Market onto your Android device. This could be useful when you want a (sort of) seamless experience going from your Android device to your computer and back.

Bluestacks have demonstrated Windows 8 with Bluestacks to show how seamless it integrates with the new OS.

A version for Mac is in the works, as is a Pro version of BlueStacks App Player will let you play premium apps like Angry Birds. Download Bluestacks from here.

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Adobe releases Free Photoshop CS6 beta with more content aware tools and 3D editing features

noreply@blogger.com (Akashtaker001) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:13:00 +0530

Adobe has released upcoming Photoshop CS6 Beta, preview of the company’s popular flagship digital imaging software, and bringing with it a range of new Content-Aware tools and 3D capabilities, which includes enhanced performance and the ability to change the position, color, material, shadow, and light source of a 3D image.

The most obvious change is the color scheme: Photoshop now has a dark color scheme made up of various shades of gray. It’s a more trendy look — Photoshop Elements already has it — and Adobe says that it helps the tools retreat into the background so you can concentrate on your image. Various elements such as dialog boxes, sliders and other controls are now more consistent, too. The new Content-Aware Patch, for instance, can easily duplicate an area of an image elsewhere as a fill, while Content Aware Move lets you drag objects or people around in a photo — and Photoshop automatically repairs the background. With the right type of image, it works remarkably well.
The Beta also includes the CS6 Extended 3D editing features and quantitative imaging analysis tools, to give users a taste of what they can expect from the more expensive Photoshop CS6 Extended release. Adobe hasn’t confirmed pricing for either it or the regular CS6 at this stage.

Under the hood is Adobe’s Mercury Graphics Engine, which promises more speed in the Liquify, Puppet Warp, and Crop tools. Quick-search for layers, new type styles and custom strokes have also been included. Adobe has finally has an auto-save feature with CS6 a much desired feature for Photoshop users. Adobe says it has “62 percent more new features.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta is a free download from Adobe Labs for Windows and MAC OS X. The full version, is expected in the first half of 2012. Adobe has said that Photoshop CS6 will be included in the Adobe Creative Cloud package that can be availed for $50 a month subscription fee.

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