Posted by Jayesh on
September 8, 2008
Google Chrome: Reviewed
As any other g33k/person who knows whats going on in the world, I tried Google Chrome minutes after it was out. And my first reaction was ‘Wow’ the minimalistic design worked for me, the sandboxed tabs are one of the coolest things which has been launched since Firefox 2.0. Google Chrome is a hit to all three of the major companies developing browsers: Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla. However both the Google Chrome and Firefox are open source.
If you are a Firefox user you will notice similarities in Google Chrome and as a matter of fact, Google admitted to the fact that they have ‘borrowed’ a lot of things from Mozilla Firefox but that’s whats open source is right? I’m pretty sure we’ll see sandboxed tabs in the next version of Firefox.
The sad part about the whole thing is people who didn’t like the Chrome criticizing it. I think they should realize that this is the first beta version. It’s obvious it’s gonna have bugs! Even Google’s IM client: Google Talk has bugs and it’s been out since years. I think once Chrome gets plug ins and other customizing features and a better Bookmarks manager. I have no issues with the download manager actually.
Google Chrome as on 8th September has it’s pros and cons. It’s better at speed and stability. But lacks total AJAX support It has rough AJAX support which well won’t go well with the social networking addicts. And that is one of the reasons it’s not soon gonna be your default browser for the Youngsitaanes/Americansitaanes etc.
I have four browsers installed on my system. Google Chrome Beta 1.0 [0.2], Mozilla Firefox 3.0+, Apple Safari 3.0+ and Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 Public Beta 2. Out of all these I still find myself using Firefox more than any other browsers.
Below is a summary of Google Chrome.
- Speedy
- Very good usable UI
- Private browsing mode.
- No plug in support yet
- No AJAX support yet Rough AJAX support, doesn’t work with sites like Facebook properly.
- Not ready for general population.
- Bookmarks manager sucks.
- No Mac/Linux version out yet.
Posted by Jayesh on
July 24, 2008
Apple acts like the Government
The AppStore is a great thing isn’t it? You get all your iPhone/iPod Touch apps from it, it’s like a hub for everything iPhone/iPod Touch. But there is more then what meets the eye. Every person who puts his app for a price on the iTunes AppStore has to pay a 30% ‘maintenance fee’ to Apple. That’s fine for huge game developing companies like EA, Sega, Gameloft. But not every developer is a Sega, for others 30% is a big deal. So these n00b game developers are putting their apps for free on the iTunes store. Apple is disappointed by this news and was encouraging the developers to charge for their work as the business model of the Appstore is based on Apple getting the 30%. A survey actually pointed out that 71% of the apps on the App Store were going/already free, which is huge :)
However Apple isn’t charging any fees for hosting these applications on their lame servers. I say lame because if you recall the iTunes servers were down when the new firmware came out for the iPhone/iPod Touch also the same time when the iPhone 3G was launched. The AppStore is not a bad thing but Apple is being a dick about it. Yeah, there I called Apple a dick :P
So how is this related to the Government? Well the government taxes people and do nothing great for them, I am obviously here talking as an Indian. You see how I can get our government into all most anything? That’s what I actually wanted to prove :P
Anyway, the iPhone is a money making cow, as my friend Sanjit Nair rightly said. And the AppStore is just the beginning. It’s a huge platform and now it’s actually being treated as a gaming platform like the PlayStation Portable or a PDA. Most of the 3rd party applications are inclined towards the entertainment aspect of life, some of them are great utilities which help you to navigate through life more easily. I have personally tried most of the free apps, some of them are by far the most lamest thing ever created and some of them actually blow you away.
My favorite application list includes; Cube Runner, Spell Number, Scribble, CheckPlease, PhoneSaber, Blip Solitaire, Bubbles and eReader. [The links provided here when opened will open up your iTunes, if you don't have iTunes installed you can always get it here]
As far as the paid applications go, I decided to stay away from them the main reason being I don’t have a credit card. Sad? Yes very sad indeed. Anyway I am really waiting for Super Monkey Ball to be available for free through hacks or something.
So to just sum it up : AppStore is great but Apple charges every developer who puts his application on the AppStore for a price which is why many developers are thinking of putting their apps for free and probably adding some fancy very WEB 2.0 ‘Donate here’ button. Or maybe they could get sponsors/ad-sense or whatever.
Oh and I have decided to stand in line for the iPhone when it’s launched in India, a night before outside the Vodafone store but the problem is I don’t wanna get one, so I am asking people around who want to get an iPhone and I could stand with them XD
Posted by Jayesh on
July 11, 2008
iPod Touch [16GB] : A Honest Review by a Honest AppleFanboy
[All the links have been verified and trust us there is nothing in them which could harm your computer]
Okay, now before most of guys are wondering why I got the iPod Touch, when the iPhone is going launch officially in September in India on Vodafone and Airtel. Well, the main reason being that I am not a big fan of a post-PC device which is multi-purpose. Heck, I have nothing but ring tones in my Sony Walkman mobile. Weird? I guess so, but I like more focused devices XD
So I bought an iPod Touch on July 6th 2008, as I opened the plastic on the box with John Legend’s photo on it, I hoped that I would just by chance get the limited edition Thriller 25 iPod Touch. And even though I didn’t get one of those, I was still happy to look at a beautiful 3.5 inch device waiting to be plugged in to the computer. Desperately waiting, well. It was disappointing to see that I couldn’t use the iPod before I connected it to my PC and fired up iTunes. The anti-scratch glass screen looked solid but the back was already smudgy as I took the plastic off. However that didn’t affect me much, because I had already experienced the lame-backside of an iPod before.
I plugged it in, and no driver was required and as I already had iTunes installed it hardly took me time to register the iPod and name it, than select how I wanted to manage the songs on it. So far so good. I tried to sync 225 songs with album-art and lyrics through the USB 2.0 cable which came in the box [And by the by, I liked the previous cable better cause it had those 2 side button kinda things where you could eject the iPod quite easily. And there is no Apple logo in the new cable, WTF?!] Anyway it took me more then 25 minutes to just sync 225 songs, which made me angry. I left home with my new iPod to check how the Wi-fi works on it, I reached Croma [It's like the Circuit City of India] and they have free Wi-Fi. I picked up a scratch guard there and went online, and the experience was unexpectedly good, I even updated my Facebook status from my iPod Touch and than just added the Facebook Web App on my Home Screen.
Next day, as I tried to find my iPod in ‘My Computer’ I realized that the Touch couldn’t be used as a disc drive, one of the major bummers for me. Because I have always had the habit of using myiPod as a pen drive. Maybe that was the reason why the iPod Touch never shows ‘Do Not Disconnect’ And even when it’s syncing songs or something else, it just shows ‘Slide here to cancel sync’. Which means you can play songs while the iPod is connected to your computer, which is a great thing XD
I have nothing to say about the built-in Apps like Mail, Maps, Stock and YouTube, because everyone knows they pwn =P
Now, the core functions of an iPod include:-
1. Playing Music : It does it wonderfully, however the coverflow is still kinda buggy and might take a long time to respond. While the accelerometer is very sensitive to whatever is going on, sometimes it ignores the movement, that is again annoying, but it’s still the first generation device.
2. Playing Videos : The 3.5 inch screen is great to look at, plus the stand included in the box is a good add-on even if it’s just plain plastic, however the accelerometer isn’t useful for video. You can view video one way only. Bummer for those fidgety people like me XD
3. Displaying Photographs : The pinching is fun to do, and is easy too. Even my granddad got used to it, now you can see him looking at a really old picture of me and my dad everyday. The photographs can be rotated 360 degrees which is a cool thing.
The iPod does whatever it says it does and more, the battery life is great for me, I can watch 2 movies and a Scrubs episode and still the battery doesn’t die. A great thing for a night-owl like me or a person who travels alot.
The bad thing about it is, that it’s still kinda buggy, the keyboard layout gets annoying and frustrating, there are no games available yet on it, which makes the iPod boring. But then again, the AppStore is being launched this Saturday in India, and even though you have to pay roughly 430 Rupees for the update [10$] I think this update will solve many of the problems and get some great new features to both the iPhone and the iPod Touch.
The new earphones suck but less then the previous ones. They don’t really fit in my ear, well.
The box contains a pair of earphones, a stand, a USB cable and a dock adapter, a polishing cloth and a manual/warranty.
The iPod Touch weighs around 120gms, which is very light and it uses a flash drive which helps to make a 16GB lighter than an old 6GB iPod Mini.
More technical information about it HERE
A great MP3 player, a bit expensive but worth the 400$[In America] 23600 [In India] for people who love a focused Media Player.
Rating :
Design : 9/10
Features : 8/10
Ease of Use : 10/10
Price : 7/10
Overall : 8.3/10
The prices mentioned above are the prices with warranty and with bill, the American Dollar is taken to be 43 rupees in this case, the iPod Touch 16GB which is reviewed is with firmware 1.1.4 [With Software Updates] Apple has not sponsored this review in any way.
Please Note : I broke the news of the Indian iTunes AppStore being already live on Twitter =)
Posted by Jayesh on
April 25, 2008
The Fastrack ‘review’
I have never really been a ‘watch’ person or a junk mail reader for that matter, however, the mail from the company called ‘BlogWorks‘ caught my eye, it basically said that they wanted my feedback on either Fastrack’s new eye wear or their new watch collection, I chose to get a watch ;) It took kinda a while to reach me, and plus I didn’t get the watch which I had asked for, however, this won’t really affect the review.
Why am I reviewing a watch? Isn’t this blog about more serious things? Oh well, this how ‘we’ keep the blog running, even though practically we don’t spend a dime to run it, but we will soon, however I wasn’t forced to blog about my feedback/review on it, but I still am doing it , as a simple ‘thank-you-for-the-free-watch’ gesture.
So, I open up the packaging, and I see this tin which reminded me of my first Fastrack watch (because it had the same packaging, like ‘duh’) I obviously don’t remember the model number of that watch, as its been more then six years.
Anyhoo, let’s start the reviewing on the Neon Disc 1443SL01, it was requested by their side that the feedback be on the below given points. (The photo’s of the watch which I have reviewed : Neon Disc 1443SL01(On Flickr) | Photo’s shot by me(On Imageshack))
The style of the watch is quite original (not like it had a triangle dial or something) It’s ’subtle’ and it’s crafted well, it has backlight, which is obviously a boon for a person like me, who doesn’t want to strain his eye’s to look hard at the time, during the late hours in the night XD However, you can’t see the date in it which was kinda a bummer for me, and plus the backlight is no novelty as such :P Though, the watch looks cool when the backlight is on XD
The comfort level was not bad either, though it had a leather strap, I wore it for a 40 minute brisk walk in the morning, and it didn’t feel heavy, nor did the strap feel moist (I sweat like a pig, I do), the watch happens to be quite light, which is nice.
Now, we come to the main part of it, is this watch worth 1895 bucks? No, it’s not, when you can get a fake Rolex watch for 200, even though you won’t really get a ‘warranty’, of that watch, and even though the warranty is important to alot of people, but as this watch is trying to be more youth friendly, or as we call it, nowadays ‘Youngistaan’ friendly, it should make the watch available for a little less dough, because the college people don’t really save money, and most of them don’t get so much of pocket money and because they believe in the ‘use and throw’ system, however I do understand that you can’t really be a well established brand and then make products which are used and thrown away, however, the company which wants to make a special connection with the college going crowd, has to get their price right, I am not saying, people don’t buy Fastrack, I am saying, more people will buy it when the prices go down, then again it’s a honest opinion.
To compare Fastrack with another brand is difficult. Fastrack has it’s own place in the market, and it’s dominating the lower/mid range in watches.
And no, I don’t write reviews on my blog XD And I’d like to thank my mom, my dad, and my brain for the free watch, oh and obviously the Fastrack team XD Oh and Manpreet Kaur, the person who contacted me on behalf of BlogWorks.