Now, the first thing that should be mentioned is the direction in which Microsoft is taking Windows. Windows 8 effectively joins the club of other OS’s like OSX and Linux by bringing content to the user’s fingertips and not the other way around. So we now have a Windows Store much like all the other stores out there. It is relatively empty for now, but should fill up once the gates are fully open. But there is a slight after effect to this. Windows 8 makes internet an integral requirement for the OS what with real-time updates from Apps, SkyDrive storage for people who need it etc. Not much of a problem for many but the upgrade is basically pointless for people with no internet connection.

Mobile. That was the keyword on which Windows 8 was built on. And maybe it is a good thing. With its ability to run on ARM machines, Windows has swooped in smoothly into the tablet and smartphone markets. So essentially, the whole interface looks like it’s designed for touch-based devices. But while Microsoft claims that a mouse/keyboard setup works wonderfully too, there is a slight disagreement here and this is where most fans have had a difference of opinion. If you ask me, getting used to navigate through the OS takes a steep learning curve and some take an even longer time to get through it.

The primary reason for this is that nothing is visible on screen when you’re inside apps because they are designed to use up the whole screen. But once you understand the Charms bar, the Apps bar, and the occasional bottom bar, it feels more intuitive to use Windows this way. For one, no more digging through drop-down menus. Everything is at a consistent location throughout all your apps and your secondary devices are only a button press away. The unified search is slick a well. What I’m getting to is, there are some amazingly new features in Windows 8 that might just make our life easier but the OS detracts so much from our original perception of Windows that it is only natural to alienate it.

Coming to performance and compatibility issues, there are actually not many reports of it. I’ve had no problem running all of my previous softwares. And what’s more, many people have actually reported a performance rise while using some of the resource-hungry applications. Microsoft itself has claimed that Office 2010 will install a lot faster in Windows 8 when compared with Windows 7. And there is definitely an improvement in security features as well. These are some of the things you should keep in mind if you own XP, Vista or 7 because the $40 upgrade price is a steal.

But the reality is that many users and organizations have only recently shifted to the Windows 7 platform and might probably not be ready to make a radical shift to a new OS so soon. And the steep learning curve doesn’t help either. So the initial adaptability might be slow. And because Windows 7 is a perfectly good OS, people might just stick with it for a lot longer. And PC isn’t even what Windows 8 is aimed for in the first place. If the Surface tablets become a hit (and they just might, because Windows 8 is so good on touch), it will mean good days for the new OS from then on.

The world of web technologies was so default and static until the 1990s and remained in such a way ever since it first began,scopes of what the web could accomplish was low,until the new era of computing,not long ago began.

Until then the web was a medium to communicate with text and pictures only,no one in the whole wide world imagined the web could bring people’s lives so easier and connected…such is the power of web technologies these days..yet the power developers have is so wasted as the technologies were so limited.thus came the need for a new,enriched version of the prevailing technologies like html and css with the latest iterations of these technologies,the web has evolved to a state where they compete directly to the desktop applications..Clearly meaning only one thing

….THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING IS THE WEB….

What’s up in the world of CSS?

CSS3 is now the buzz word among all web developers worldwide,a feature you get with css3 is gradients..now gradients are old new for designers and a piece of cake for designers who use Photoshop etc.…so until now they used to make gradient images as backgrounds..now with the new css3 gradients,a picture can be replaced with a single line (a long line) of code.

yes.this is exciting,but the code is really long and its hard for people to visualise colours with code…so this is what i came up with..a Photoshop like way to create css3 gradients.

CSS Grady is a really easy to use Chrome Webapp that helps developers ,designers and newbies to create css gradients   for the web.

CSS Grady gives you a clean User interface to create gradients of different combination,.style and type..and the app gives you a preview of how the gradient will look like..it also generates the code meant for any browser right up….

Its offline too,,so you need no internet connection to use it..Check it out at the Chrome webstore .

.here is the link ..CSS Grady

Note:..you’ll need chrome to install it

A Quick Screencast of CSS Grady

The basic process of creating and publishing a blog post hasn’t changed from the previous versions but Word 2013 brings new things to the table like embedding an online video into your post. Anyway, the steps I’m going to detail below will also apply to Word 2010 and Word 2007. So, let’s get started:
1. First, to create a blog post, click on File -> New -> New Blog Post.

2. Once you click on it, you’ll be presented with a small window asking for details about your blog. You need to select the type of blog you’re using and then type some details like the domain name and your Username and password for authentication.

3. Once that is done, you’ll reach the editing page. One tip I’d like to give here while writing your content is, the page margins are quite wide apart and since any blog does not generally spread from end to end, it’s better to reduce the right indent to the length that better fits your blog page. This way, you’ll be sure of how your content will look when you post it.

4. You can also categories to your post from Word 2013 itself. Simply click “Insert Category” and Word will query your blog for available categories. A drop-down box will get displayed near to your Title and you can choose a category from there. To add another category, simply click “Insert Category” again.

5. After finishing everything, you can directly publish your post from here. But it’s advisable to “Publish as draft”, simply because it’s always best to do some final proofing in your WP backend before publishing. One word of caution though, the content might appear disoriented when you see it in your backend, but don’t get worried. If you see a preview of your post, you’ll notice that the content is displayed the way you intended it to be. I have no idea why this is happening and will update this post duly when I find out the reason.

That’s it! You will have successfully posted your post to your account. If you want to make any changes to your existing blog account or would like to add an other, you can do so by clicking on “Manage Accounts”.

Posting to WordPress via Word is an exciting option because apart from allowing you to work offline, you also get to take advantage of many of Word 2013′s new graphical features like SmartArt. It’s also best used when your post has a lot of pictures like this one because then you wouldn’t have to upload each of your pictures individually into your blog. Word takes care of that for you!

As already mentioned, the UI part of Android is highly customizable with shortcuts, widgets and folders. However, we need to thank the developers of the Launcher apps for making such wonderful apps that take the customization beyond our expectations with very little difficulty. The launcher apps give many additional features like themes, animations, grouping apps into folders, resizing widgets, transitions and many more. Though the default launchers provided by the device manufacturers are good enough, trying the below launchers (if not already tried) will surely redefine your opinion on Android.

List of Best free Launcher apps as of July 2012

1. Go Launcher Ex

With more than 10 Million downloads, Go Launcher EX is on the list of highest downloaded app in the Play Store with a user rating of 4.6 out of 5! It has a lot of additional features than the default device launcher provides. There are many smooth home screen transitions, folders can be created, customized number of home screens, built in app killer, resizing of widgets and most importantly, the themes! There are numerous themes available in the Play store for Go Launcher that literally help you change the look of your screen into whatever way you want. Be it iOS or Symbian or even Windows Phone Metro UI. And its completely free, we owe a lot to the developers of such wonderful apps.

Click here to get Go Launcher EX

2. ADW Launcher

ADW Launcher is also a highly customizable launcher app with large number of themes. The themes of ADW launcher are very attractive compared with any other launcher. It gives a more polished look to the home screen and the app drawer screen compared to other launchers.Though it has almost every option that Go launcher has, they all aren’t available in the free version. You need to buy the ADW Luncher EX which is a paid app from the market to make this app fully customizable.

Click here to get ADW Launcher

3. Launcher Pro

Launcher Pro is hot favorite launcher for those who love things slide like butter. It gives a very smooth transition effect with animations not laggy like they do in some other launchers. With all the basic features of customization included, it also has a paid unlocker in the Play store as Launcher Pro Plus  to unlock all the features of the app. However, the price of unlocker is nominal.

Click here to get Launcher Pro

4. Regina Launcher 3D

Regina Launcher 3D is an innovative launcher that provides 3D animations for transitions. You must’ve already been awestruck if you watched the above video of Regina Launcher 3D in action. It still needs a lot of improvement when the features are considered. However, the look and feel of the launcher, especially the transitions will surely impress you like never. This launcher has 3D-like effects which might not work well in some low end devices and may even drain your battery quickly.

Click here to get  Regina Launcher 3D

5. ssLauncher

ss Launcher is yet another user favorite launcher. It has a different UI compared to that of all others mentioned here. It doesn’t have an app drawer screen or a dock! well, thats a bit more like MIUI version of Android. The home screen shows the time and shortcuts to phone, browser and other frequently accessed locations. There are more pages which give you access to bookmarks, applications, contacts and all other stuff. It is a bit different but to those who are bored with the same look of Android can try this and believe me, you’ll surely be satisfied.

Click here to get ssLauncher

6. Nemus Launcher

The Nemus Launcher is very less known when compared to the above apps. Actually, it isn’t a competition to above launchers to hit this list. However I thought including it in this list because of its functionality and agility. Surely, it is less functional compared to other top launchers but for an app under development, it surely deserves an applaud mainly for its resource utilization. It consumes a very small chunk of your RAM and processor.

Basically, Nemus Launcher virtually transforms the look of any android device into that of an ICS (Android 4.0) device. The keyboard, icons, smoothness are all similar to that of ICS. Folders can be created and customized very effectively. Widgets can be resized and all such basic features are already there. Hope the developers of this app turn this into a competitive launcher to the above listed ones in the future.

Click here to get Nemus Launcher

Best launchers for ICS (Android 4.0)

1. Apex Launcher for ICS

I own a Motorola Defy that runs both ICS(CM9) and Jelly Bean(CM10) using Multiboot feature. I use Apex Launcher for both these installations. Apex launcher is specifically developed for Android 4.0 and higher versions. So, this isn’t for older devices with Gingerbread or Froyo. Apex launcher has some great features which are unique. One such feature is the ability to use any theme of other launchers too. You can use a theme of Go Launcher or ADW or Launcher Pro. Such is its level of customization. There are many gesture options to reduce the clutter of shortcuts on the home. Its very smooth and supports creating of folders. Though most of the features are included in the free version, there is also a paid version as Apex Launcher Pro for additional advanced features.

Click here to get Apex Launcher

2. Nova Launcher for ICS

Nova Launcher is a close competitor to Apex Launcher. This too is only compatible with devices running either ICS or newer ones. Nova Launcher has almost all the basic features mentioned in the Apex Launcher but I do not find any reason why I incline towards Apex Launcher over Nova Launcher except that the latter is a bit laggy compared with the former one in transitions. Try this too if you’re on an ICS based device and let me know if you find any good reason to negate with my opinion.

Click here to get Nova Launcher

It’s a really hard thing to start a game from scratch. Also when it comes to sequels, it should be made better than its predecessors. After a mere 200 MB hit that was Max Payne 2 in 2001, Max Payne 3 is ever more surprising and all the more fun.

The new addition in the max Payne series is one that keeps your adrenaline pumping all the way through. Believe me, this is a game that showers the advances in technology at the right efficiency. Feeling lost? Let me explain…

Max Payne is a cinematic game. The protagonist, Max, keeps telling you his story and the series of false choices he took that led his life to the miserable state he is in. The game has an excessive lot of cut scenes. But the remarkable thing is that the end of a scene and start of a game is so seamless it’s barely recognisable. The game quality is simply stunning.

First Impressions

Now there are lot of stunning games out there but this one is special.

I have a GT 520 – the slowest of the 500 series graphics card at NVidia. It has 48 CUDA cores which is just a namesake that it is CUDA capable. Now I was under the impression that this game by Rockstar, is going to be another like GTA 4, a slow and intensive game. And as it turns out. It uses the same engine like the one from GTA. But is way optimised. How can I say that?

Well for starters. The game selected the high settings by default. And it worked like a charm.

FXAA is enabled by default. Users can choose between DX 9, 10.1 and 11.

Physics is simply amazing and so robust even on a 48-core card!!!

Break all the glasses!

A nice GTA style memory meter is shown for how much graphics memory is going to be utilised.

Well how’s the story?

Ah…well…the story is very weepy. Max Payne regrets his life and keeps ending up in even worse situation than ever, so you’re up for a very sad story line.

For the Max Payne fans and newbies, this game is a must play. The game has amazing visuals and a very well refined game play mechanics. The world is dynamic as hell. If you’ve played Mafia 2, you’ll know what I mean, although this game has a loooooot of killing. And killing here is shown brutally.

What about the gameplay?

The gameplay is very simple. Not a lot of keys to remember but amazing mechanics. The enemies are very responsive yet don’t die unless you wound them in a crucial area. Bullet time is amazing and very amusing: the last enemy on the floor gets a slow kill. The world is breath taking and the cinematic to game transition is awesome.

Verdict

Pros:

• Great Graphics.
• No Load times.
• Amazing game mechanics.

Cons:

• Enemies can be drama queens when they’re dying.
• Story could have been better.
• Very short for its size.
• Aimless gameplay.

These days, there’s a camera on every phone and tablet that you can lay your eyes upon. While the camera is almost indispensable when it comes to mobile phones, the situation is slightly different in the tablet ecosystem. Most people find holding the tablet up to take a photo awkward and generally limit the usage of camera altogether. But pushing this aversion aside, there have still been discussions on the lack of a rear-facing on the Nexus 7 tablet. And this morning, ASUS has finally revealed why they had do away with the rear camera.

Those who already have laid their hands on the Nexus 7 know that there is no built-in camera app. That aside, there is still the front-facing camera which can be used for video chats (And G+ Hangouts, predominantly!). The manufacturer’s faced a dilemma wherein they either had to include a high-end camera and thereby increasing the cost of the product or else go with a low-end camera but which would significantly reduce the overall user experience. The decision they finally was to not include a camera at all.

In their own words:

To make this device accessible to the widest possible market, price is very important. ASUS believes that for this device a good rear camera is important. Adding a high quality rear facing camera will increase the price point and many users would not have a use for it. Adding a lower quality rear facing camera would compromise on the overall user experience so the decision was made not to include a front facing camera therefore keeping the price down and user experience extremely high.”

With the number of pre-orders received for the device, we don’t think that a camera is a deal breaker anymore for tablets. This is especially true when you already have other gadgets with cameras. ASUS may have done the right think to keep the price point under $200.

It was the talk of the tech town when Opera browser for PC introduced a feature called Turbo to reduce the data consumption and increase the loading speed of web pages by optimizing the images and other rich web content efficiently. While users with low bandwidth speeds and limited data plans lauded this feature then on PC, the same has been well implemented for mobile browsers again introduced by Opera for Mobile. Since then, the browsing experience on Android phones has become better and better with support of advanced features like Adobe Flash, Tabbed browsing, Desktop view, Downloads management, Cloud sync with other devices and many more.

1. Dolphin Browser HD

The Dolphin Browser HD is the most popular and highest downloaded browser in Android Play store. With most of the abve mentioned advanced features, it has a very smooth UI and loads pages with highest compatibility for mobile browsers. The social media integration to share the web pages on the go is a great feature. Sliding gestures are however the best part of this browser. Bookmarking is also easy and featured too. Add-ons feature is an added functionality.

Click here to get Dolphin browser HD

There is also a mobile specific version by name Dolphin Browser Mini for mobile page viewing.

Click here to download Dolphin Browser Mini

2. Opera Mobile

Opera Mobile browser for Android is my favorite and default browser. Though it has not as many features as of Dolphin browser, it is pretty fast and formats the web pages very well when compared with other browsers. It was not initially released on Android but was introduced after massive response received by Opera Mini for Android. The Opera Mini is specifically for low data consumption by optimizing pages for mobile view. Whereas the Opera Mobile helps view pages as seen in the Desktop PC with Adobe Flash support. However, recent versions have not been upto the mark.

Click here to download Opera Mobile

Click here to download Opera Mini

 3. Skyfire Web Browser

Skyfire has been the best browser for last generation Operating Systems like Symbian where Java browsers were the days’ heroes. However, Skyfire failed to retain the top position in the Android league for some reasons. While it has all the top features similar to Dolphin browser, I personally feel it doesn’t give a great user browsing experience. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it is something to do with the effective web page size. The viewing size of the web page is reduced due to the menu bars up and down. Otherwise, it surely is a very good browser for Android users.

Click here to get Skyfire browser 4.0

Click here to buy the video license for Skyfire

4. Boat Browser

A less known yet powerful browser, the Boat browser is used vastly but is not as popular as the above ones. It has all the basic features and supports ICS too. Sharing pages is easy. It has very good bookmarking facility. Also has Incognito mode which is useful to browse anonymously without the need of deleting history each and every time.

Click here to get Boat browser

Click here to get Boat browser Mini

5. Google Chrome

Google Chrome for Android was released with so much hype but didn’t get the response everyone expected. Well, I don’t think it deserves so much of it, atleast now. With compatibility reserved to only Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0), it has faced the brunt of users with older OSs. Though it was specifically released for ICS, it didn’t fare well because it didn’t have anything better than the other. The Hardware acceleration requirement was another feature much talked about Chrome. However, even after releasing a stable version, Chrome isn’t still considered best browser in Android. Sad that Google failed to build a good browser for its own OS. However, Chrome is now made official browser (default) for Jelly Bean (Android 4.1)

Click here to download Chrome for Android (Only for ICS devices)

6. UC Browser

UC Browser was once a revolution in Java mobiles. It used to load web pages very fast with very less data usage. Tabbed browsing also became famous after UC browser for Java. It still works the same way in Android. Less data usage but is not a choice for users who prefer quality rather than mobile optimization. Gestures, Tabbed browsing, Mobile page optimization are some of its prominent features.

Click here to get UC browser

7. Ninesky Browser

Another less known yet good browser. Loads pages fast. Has all those features of a standard browser. Bookmark Sync is great tool in it apart from other basic functionality. However, it doesn’t give you the best browsing experience.

Click here to get Ninesky browser

Other prominent browsers for Android are :

8. Maxthon Browser

Click here to get Maxthon Browser

9. Mozilla Firefox for Android

Click here to get Mozilla Firefox

10. ICS Browser+ for ICS

Click here to get ICS browser+ (Only for ICS devices)

According to the Judge, Colin Birss, the notice should appear on the website for six months, as well as on several newspaper publications and magazines to correct the damaging implication that Samsung ripped off Apple’s ideas. An attorney representing Apple argued before the court that mentioning Samsung on Apple’s official website would amount to “an advertisement” for its rival. And that is ultimately true, as everyone who’s supporting the BoycottApple movement will relish when the notice finally appears.

But all’s not well for Samsung. Remember this is the same judge who made a baffling comment during the July 9th court decision that people cannot mistake Samsung’s Galaxy Tab with the iPad because it is “not as cool”. Judge Colin Birss said that Samsung’s slates “do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design.” While it all ends favorably for Samsung, it is still an insult in disguise.

But Apple did have successes in other countries, though. It successfully obtained temporary injunction of the device in the US, Germany and Australia. One wonders why Apple is so fiercely battling it out, in the end. It has already received a lot of negative criticism in the mainstream media. As Samsung replied after the hearing: “Should Apple continue to make excessive legal claims based on such generic designs, innovation in the industry could be harmed and consumer choice unduly limited.”

The need for Cuda computing began with the invasion of multicore processors over the computing industry. This lead to the analogy that multiple cores can improve performance the way multiple processors on your CPU do. This lead nVidia to implement the concept on their graphics cards; thus distributing computing power over various cores on the graphics card. This indeed was successful and since then nVidia has been implementing Cuda.

So let’s break things down…what is CUDA?

CUDA stands for Compute Unified Device Architecture, but you don’t need to worry about the terminology. It is basically nVidia’s parallel computing architecture.  It started with the 8 series graphics card and now all of nVidia’s recent series of cards like 9, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 and 600 support Cuda.

So what can Cuda provide for me? You say

Well for starters, Cuda can deliver great performance in gaming. The more the Cuda cores, the better performance you get. In the computer game industry, in addition to graphics rendering, GPUs are used in-game physics calculations (physical effects like debris, smoke, fire, fluids); examples include PhysX and Bullet.

So is that it?  Cuda accelerates games?

Not quite…Cuda is now being ingeniously designed and utilised to accelerate graphical programs as well , also Cuda and the so-called Cuda-computing-genre began with multimedia applications that utilise Cuda cores to accelerate their performance in common user tasks such as viewing pictures, video conversion, Video decoding etc. This doesn’t mean that every Cuda machine has such acceleration out of the box. Only application written for Cuda computation can utilise the Cuda hardware.

Is CUDA one of a kind or are there alternatives?

Fortunately there are. While nVidia had the idea to set up Cuda, Microsoft included the DirectX compute as a part of window 7 and DirectX 11, which deals with utilization of GPU (graphics card) cores, for programming.

Also the OpenGL team made their version called OpenCl (Open Compute library).

So the competition is tough, because Cuda works on nVidia card only. Whereas the others as mentioned above work on ATI as well.

So what kind of performance are we talking about??

Well, as you can see, Cuda is way ahead of others in the race but as
is the case in technology, it won’t be much longer before the others pick up.

Publishers:   Electronic Arts

Developer:   BioWare

Genre:   Action , RPG

Release Date:   March 6th , 2012

Platforms:   Xbox 360 , PS3 , PC

MSRP: 59.99 USD

Minimum Spec:

OS :     Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1, Win 7
CPU:      1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (equivalent AMD CPU)
RAM:    1GB for XP / 2GB RAM for Vista/Win 7
Disc Drive:    1x speed
Hard Drive:    2.5 GB of free space
Video:    256 MB* (with Pixel Shader 3.0 support)
*Supported chipsets: NVIDIA 7900 or better; ATI X1800 or better. Please note that NVIDIA GeForce 9300,             8500, 8400, and 8300 are below minimum system requirements, as are AMD/ATI Radeon HD3200, HD3300, and    HD4350. Updates to your video and sound card drivers may be required.
Sound:    DirectX 9.0c compatible
DirectX:    DirectX 9.0c August 2009 (included)

Recommended Spec:

OS:    Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1, Win 7
CPU:    2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (equivalent AMD CPU)
RAM:    2GB for XP / 4GB RAM for Vista/Win 7
Disc Drive:    1x speed
Hard Drive:    2.5 GB of free space
Video:   AMD/ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB or greater, NVidia GeForce 9800 GT 512 MB or greater
Sound:    DirectX 9.0c compatible