So.. After a long time I managed to eek out some time for blogging...
This post is dedicated to my shiny new gadget... Apple iPhone...
Wah... After a loooooooooooong wait of nearly one and a half year, iPhone was finally available in Singapore starting from Oct 22nd 2008.
In this post, I'll try to review every aspect of the Phone, from the phone software to app compatibility to hardware and also try to compare it with competing phones...
First aspect.. the Hardware...
iPhone is not necessarily the best phone in terms of hardware compared to other contemporary phones. The camera is just a 2 mega pixel one compared to the samsung omnia which has a whopping 5 mpx. The phone is thinner than every other phone yet providing a battery life that is better than most phones except blackberries where iPhone falls by a small margin...
Many reviews point out that iPhone has a very poor battery life... But I would like to defend that. Yes, you might have to charge your phone in the mid of the day.. but that is only when you use your iPhone for over 4 or 5 hrs like me :)... I usually browse close to an hour simultaneously listening to iPod while commuting. When I reach office, the battery meter is usually at 75%... It's perfectly fine as nearly every other mobile phones of this class offer around 4 hrs of 3G Internet.
But because the iPhone offers the best mobile Internet experience, I would expect Apple to offer a better battery performance even at the expense of my iPhone becoming a couple of mm thicker.
The graphics chip inside the iPhone is pretty awesome and there isn't any jitter or lost frames while watching movies. So is the processor, a whopping 620 MHz underclocked to 430 or something. The iPhone is pretty close to a Windows 98 machine and no wonder, Quake III arena has been ported to iPhone though available only for jailbroken ones.
iPod
iPhone's iPod app is pretty good. If one has to compare it with the iPod, I would say that the sound quality of iPhone is slightly better at the expense of a little bass. Yeah.. the bass is slightly weaker for soft rock music and pretty awesome of hard rock genre. The user interface of the app has got to be the best in the world as it has become more easier to browse through your collection. But given the 16 gig meagre space, iPhone's UI may not be very useful as users tend to store only around 10 Gig of music(??). I would be happy if Apple launches a hard-drive based iPod touch or an iPhone to make better use of the user interface.
Though the UI is great, it still has some greatly missing features that are present even in the most basic mp3 phones. Yeah you heard me... Playlist creations on iPhone is still missing (except for the on the go playlists which can't even be renamed). the iPod still seems to be a passive app that depends on iTunes to build meta data for it. Synchronize your songs and play it on the go type of interface. The search feature found in the iPod 5.5 Generation is missing in iPhone. I would love to have this feature. This "missing thing", creating data on the iPhone seems to be pervasive throughout the iPhone. For example you can view your pdf attachments but cannot download them to your iPhone for reading it offline. (There is no finder, storage manager or file manager for that instance... more on this later...) Lyrics support is great and I like the overlay of lyrics on the album art. Apple has finally added support for lyrics added in other languages including tamil, though the rendering seems to be incorrect at times.
iPhone as a Phone
As El Jobso explained in his stevenotes, the killer app for a phone is "making calls". As such on the iPhone, its easy to make calls,. But the edge over for the iPhone is that, it makes other in-call operations like viewing your phone book, placing a call on hold, swapping between two calls, checking emails or any such task like that is made easier than every other phone. But I do have one missing feature. There is no clear distinction between outgoing and incoming calls and the call meter does not show how many outgoing minutes i've used. It's probably "Made for America" device where I believe most of the incoming calls are charged at outgoing rates. Another great feature is the grouping of phone numbers as you type it. iPhone uses the regional settings to detect how to group your numbers. For example (65 1234 5678 for Singapore) or (91 44 879765783) for India etc.,
Email on iPhone
The imap email support for gmail seems to be great, but I would prefer Google offers some kind of push email to iPhone. The mail app does not synchronize all the folders which means if you have rules set on the server to move your emails directly to a folder (or label + archive), iPhone will not notify you of a new mail.
Secondly the new mail notification tone is of very low volume and there is no continuous notification if you have not acknowledged the first. To add to it, the new mail notification tone cannot be changed and there isn't even a choice of tones which you can select. However the user interface is elegant and a majority of operations can be done at ease. I just archive my emails using the web interface now. Everything else, I do it on my iPhone.
Internet on iPhone
Though much hype has been around the missing Java/Flash support, you don't find that a great problem as you tend to get a "ad-free" experience without flash. The screen is large and the UI is designed just for casual browsing and it's great. There is however no support for syncing iPhone bookmarks with Firefox or with foxmarks online servers. You can however firefox bookmarks to IE using a variety of plugins available (just Google for it). The app's quality is however not great as it crashes a lot and feels "un-apple". Sometimes while it crashes, it does not even re-open the windows which I was browsing the last time. 3G is great in Singapore and though the advertised limit is 3.6 Mbps, I get around 1.2 Mbps download speed, which is more than enough for browsing on a mobile device.
Singtel offered a generous 1GB @ 3.6 Mbps for my plan though there are plans upto a download limit of 50GB for the same cost at a lower speed (1Mbps). However I use only around 350 MB per month browsing two hours a day over 3G. Because iPhone does not support tethering your device with a laptop i would not rate the Internet on iPhone to be one of the best. Jail broken iPhones however do support tethering. Apple is notoriously not supporting this feature as AT&T's crippled 3G network will be hogged even badly. Still in this field, iPhone seems to be an American device rather than a International device.
Singtel's Network
Singtel's 3G network is quite ubiquitous except for some underground stations and as such I've never experienced call drops neither did my iPhone switches to EDGE while browsing. Because the city is also WI-FI enabled at many MRT stations, iPhone seamlessly switches between 3G and "Wireless@SG" network seamlessly. However, unless you complete your browser authentication, other apps using Internet connection seems to fail. That is if you are sending a mail and iPhone switches to WIFI, you have to close the mail app, open safari, authenticate the wireless access via browser, close browser and open mail again. Or switch off WIFI or forget Wireless@SG network as I do.
Third party app support
The ecosystem around iPhone development seems to be so hot that Stanford is offering iPhone development classes for teaching students on how to write apps for the iPhone!!! The quality of the third party apps seems to be pretty good, kudos to the SDK. Free as well as low cost games are too good. This could basically stem from the fact that Apple blocks out useless apps from the App Store. However, there ain't no fring or skype for iPhone unless you jail break it. Which means you cannot make a skype to skype free voip call with your iPhone though technologically it is possible. Again, Apple is crippling iPhone because AT&T wants to.
What I expect from Apple in the forth coming firmware releases
iPhone still does not have skype or VOIP via 3G. I think this will be available only when Apple divorces AT&T.
iPhone badly needs a file manager. Though there is an app called "AirSharing" and a lot many, I simply cannot integrate it with other iPhone apps. For example it's not possible to store email attachements for later reading.
Bluetooth A2DP - The crippled bluetooth profile needs a great revamp. As of now bluetooth filesharing, printing files through a bluetooth printer etc., are simply impossible. bluetooth serves only for hands free phone calls as of now. You can't share anything over bluetooth. Very bad Apple, very bad...
iPhone still does not have a "copy/paste" functionality. you cannot simply copy text from safari and email it. This is a must have feature for a smart phone.
iPhone still does not have mobile TV support. Even an app will suffice, but unfortunately there ain't one.
More features in the iPod app including playlist creation, sorting the list of songs by any column right on the iPhone and such are missing. Custom equalizer is also missing in the iPhone.
iPhone tethering is badly needed atleast for countries like Hongkong and Singapore where Singtel offers around 50GB monthly data limit and nearly 100,000 iPhone owners (in a country with 4.5 million population).
A larger storage could be a "nice to have" feature.
Hope the review was interesting. Leave your comments...
--
Mugunth
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
iPhone Review
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Review on Windows Vista -- Part II
As some of you might remember, I wrote a review on Windows Vista when I purchased by new Dell Laptop. Should be around 9 months back and it is here. With 9 months of hardship, with this beasty operating system (yes Vista is 15GB and XP is 1.5GB), I called Dell support for my legal downgrade rights. Yes!, I own Windows Vista Business, and this is what the customer support agent told me.
This is an automated email sent from Dell Chat. The following information is a log of your session. Please save the log for your records.
Your session ID for this incident is 84530.
Time Details
04/01/2008 05:38:32PM Session Started with Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar)
04/01/2008 05:38:32PM Mugunth: "Windows Vista -"
04/01/2008 05:38:40PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "Hi Muguth"
04/01/2008 05:38:46PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "thank you for contacting dell"
04/01/2008 05:39:19PM Mugunth: "Hi... I just saw this, http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/2/3/d23b9533-169d-4996-b198-7b9d3fe15611/downgrade_chart.doc"
04/01/2008 05:39:24PM Mugunth: "from Microsoft's website..."
04/01/2008 05:39:48PM Mugunth: "that, OEM versions of Windows Vista Business can be downgraded to XP Professional..."
04/01/2008 05:40:18PM Mugunth: "I wanted to know two things... regarding this..."
04/01/2008 05:40:32PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "ok"
04/01/2008 05:41:13PM Mugunth: "Is it possible to re-convert that XP to Vista at a later stage... (say when drivers are available)..? and will my current copy of Office 2007 (activated under vista) work on XP?"
04/01/2008 05:43:43PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "Mugunth let me check 1 moment"
04/01/2008 05:44:04PM Mugunth: "ok..."
04/01/2008 05:50:39PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "Muguth, ive check"
04/01/2008 05:50:48PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "the 2007 can run under XP"
04/01/2008 05:51:05PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "however for your system 1420 is build for Vista"
04/01/2008 05:51:11PM Mugunth: "Yes.."
04/01/2008 05:51:22PM Mugunth: "but drivers for nVidia is not working well..."
04/01/2008 05:51:25PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "the driver for the CXP will not be availbe completely"
04/01/2008 05:51:35PM Mugunth: "CXP means?"
04/01/2008 05:51:39PM Mugunth: "XP?"
04/01/2008 05:51:57PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "yes XP"
04/01/2008 05:52:09PM Mugunth: "which all drivers are not available?"
04/01/2008 05:53:28PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "The Motherboard controller"
04/01/2008 05:53:42PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "the dell notebook system software"
04/01/2008 05:55:22PM Mugunth: "wont the drivers for vostro 1400 work on this?"
04/01/2008 05:56:50PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "it will but the vostro is not 100% similar to the inspiron in term of the system board"
04/01/2008 05:57:18PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "it will work as already being use by many system"
04/01/2008 05:57:26PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "but with the reservation"
04/01/2008 05:58:20PM Session Ended
If you require further assistance, please visit us at support.ap.dell.com
Firstly, I was offed, by the sudden disconnection by the agent. Secondly, though Microsoft offeres legal downgrade rights, the OEM builders do not. Though they say we are selling Windows XP even after June 30 or whatever stupid date, these idiots are selling XP only on low end PCs.
The next most important point is that, support for the operating system is not available through Microsoft for OEM copies of Vista. They replied me that, for OEM copies, please contact your PC manufacturer. The OEM manufacturer told me that, I did not purchase operating system support and hence, I've to resort to forums and newsgroups for getting support. If I've to resort to forums, why the hell should I spend so much money on this stupid PC? A mac comes with hardware and software support for slightly higher price. The higher price is warranted by the high quality software. This windows box I got came with a useless laptop integrated webcam driver that does displays a picture in picture of the same frame and will not allow me to turn it off unless I buy the "pro" version. Contrastingly iChat is a great app that allows a variety of customizations and backdrops, ppt/pdf sharing like a video conference and so on... Same goes with nVidia driver. It knows nothing but to crash. I naively thought that BSODs were a "feature" of Windows 95/98. With Vista, Microsoft introduced this "cool" feature yet again. My XP machine never BSODed. However vista is not as stable and it's primarily because of the faulty nVidia driver.
Here are some screen shots of the driver problem.
"The display driver nvlddmkm stopped unexpectedly and has recovered". What the hell is expected out of the end-user? Bang your heads on the keyboard and restart?
Click on the picture to view it large, you could see pixellated images of my desktop. the pixellated desktop dissolves like the powerpoint's dissolve animation... Cool feature... lol... ;-)
Hey, comeon, where is my wallpaper? And why should this driver crash when I play Quake III deathmatch??? Ok, I don't expect my PC to be rock solid and allow me to play Crysis or BioShock. But I should be able to play atleast Quake III Arena, a decade old, yet popular game.
This display driver problem is augmented by the new Desktop Composition Engine. Previous versions of Windows, if I understand correctly, used GDI to render the desktop. Windows Vista uses Direct 3D which in-turn taxes the graphics processor and the driver heavily. This nVidia driver is not able to support that intensive graphics which is why the rate of crash is higher in Vista. May be in Windows XP, if the display driver is very badly written, only games crash. Here, the WDM, the desktop composition engine crashes and makes life miserable.
I also posted a video on youtube on how badly a desktop can look with such a poorly written driver.
Here it is...
Probably, I'll switch to a mac after Mac OS X 10.6 is released if it's announced in WWDC 2008 or else by July. Sick with vista in 6 months... :-(
Monday, April 14, 2008
C# vs C/C++ Performance.
Well, this is my first post in this technology series. In fact, the title of this post, forced me to start of a technology focussed blog. Well said about all these, let's now jump into the issue.
There has been a lot of heated discussion on different forums, newsgroups, and various other threads about the above topic. Now why should I discuss about the same again here?
Well, though there are many discussion groups that claim C++ to be faster and efficient, a small group of people still claim C# to be more efficient.
How the hell can a language that is not compiled to a native code be faster that a C++ binary?
Though the above statement is perfectly valid from the point of C++ programmers, I would like to highlight a few points that could state why some (not all) C# programs are *really faster* than it's equivalent C++ programs.
Point 1: C# is compiled twice. Once while the program is written and second when the program is executed at the user's site. The first compilation is done by your C# builder and the second by the .NET Framework on the user's machine. The reason why C# compiled applications could be faster is that, during the second compilation, the compiler knows the actual run-time environment and processor type and could generate instructions that targets a specific processor. Classical C++ compilers generate native code that is usually the Lowest Common Denominator of all the available processors which means, a C++ program will not be able to take the advantages of the "Hyper Threading" instruction set of the Pentium 4 HT processor. (Of course HT is outdated now...) It will also not be able to take advantages of the Core 2 duo or Core 2 Quad's "true multi-threaded" instruction set as the compiler generated native code does not even know about these instruction sets.
In the earlier days, not much changes were introduced to the instruction set with every processor release. The advancement in the processor was only in the speed and very few additional instruction sets with every release. Intel or AMD normally expects game developers to use these additional instruction sets. But with the advent of PIV and then on, with every release, PIV, PIV HT, Core, Core 2, Core 2 Quad, Extreme, and the latest Penryn, there are additional instruction sets that could be utilized if your application needs performance. There are C++ compilers that generate code that targets specific processors. But the disadvantage is the application has to be tagged as "This application's minimum system requirements are atleast a Core 2 Quad processor" which means a lot of customers will start to run away.
This is precisely where the C#'s framework compiler comes into picture. Because the application is compiled the second time at the user's site, the Framework knows about the actual running platform and is able to generate code that runs the best on the given platform.
Point 2: So, then why doesn't *all* C# programs run faster?
C# or for that matter any .NET based application runs in a sand-boxed environment and hence many instructions have to be checked for safety. Because additional safety is not free, C# comes with a performance overhead, which means a program like,
for(int i=0;i<100000000;i++) style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);" size="4">Point 3: So when is C# really faster?
A well designed C# program is more than 90% as fast as an equivalent "well-designed" C++ program. But the catch is "well-designing" a C++ program. How many of us can manage memory efficiently in a C++ application that's so huge say a million lines of code? It's extremely difficult to "well-design" a C++ program especially when the program grows larger. The problem with "not-freeing" the memory at the right time is that the working set of the application increases which increases the number of "page faults". Everyone knows that page fault is one of the most time-consuming operation as it requires a hard disk access. One page fault and you are dead. Any optimization that you did spending your hours of time is wasted in this page fault because you did not "free" memory that you no longer needed. A lot of classical applications including Google Picasa suffers from memory management problems. After about two or three days, you can notice that these applications become slower necessitating a Windows Restart. This problem is completely alleviated in C#. the Framework comes with a broom behind you and sweeps your drop during the course of the execution and as a result your working set never grows (unless you really use it) which means lesser page faults. This means that "well-designing" a C++ program is far complicated than a equivalent C# program which is responsible for its sluggish performance.
So now I can hear you asking me,
So to conclude what should I do?
That's a nice question. Except for writing time-critical blocks of code, prefer C#. Write all your algorithmic code in C++ (not VC++ .NET), compile it into a dll and call that using a Dll Interop through C#. This should balance the performance. This technique is not new or not invented by me or anyone. It's similar the old age C programming vs Assembly, where people on one camp fight assembly programming is faster and the other camp stating C is easier to develop and then people started using assembly embedded within a C program for time-critical applications using an asm block.
History repeats...!
Mugunth
Place Locator (Natural Language Question Answering System)
Recently, I was reading through materials on Natural Language Question Answering system.
What if we use wikipedia to answer some of our often sought questions? This project is precisely one of that. I've tried to implement a system that could show places when a city is typed in.
I'm still working on an update that could show states and countries, though typing them as of now, would sometimes take you to its capital.
You can try the application by downloading this exe.
It requires .NET Framework 2.0 which is available if you use Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista or any higher operating system.
(Update): Program updated to include "What is" and "Where is type of questions".
--
Mugunth
Protect your word documents from being plagiarized or copied or modifed
How many times have you wondered that you were able to protect your resume or other information from being copied? you would want the other person to read it, but prevent him from plagiarizing it...
You can't use the traditional Save options's "password to modify". That will only prevent him from editing the *current* document. He can always do a "Save as..." and create his own version of the document you've just sent.
Microsoft offers a costly version of protecting intellectual property though their Digital Restrictions Management (actually the right term is Digital Rights Management), get a digital certificate etc., etc.,
You can do the same thing for free...! no software install required, no additional burden...
I've shown the step by step way of doing this...
First open the word document in Word 2007.
Click the Office Button on the top left corner and choose "Word Options". A dialog like the one shown below pops up...
Ensure that the "Show Developer tab in Ribbon" is enabled.
Close the Word Options dialog and select the developer tab on the Ribbon.
Click the Protect Document Buttion and Choose Restrict Formatting and Editing...
A pane as shown below opens up.
In the second part of the displayed form, Check "Allow only this type of editing in the document" and choose "Filling in forms"
Click on the "Yes, Start Enforcing Protection" in the third part.
Enter a password when prompted. You should remember this password as this is the only way you can modify this document in future.
Now while saving this file, choose "Save Options" from the tools menu in the save dialog box and add a "Password to modify". I think this is quite easy and it's also explained in microsoft website which can be found here (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101483331033.aspx#1a)
You are done!
If you open the document now, you will not be edit the contents, copy it, do a select all or whatsoever.
However, there is a catch. A clever person may print this document out to a PDF printer and extract the text by copying and pasting the content from the generated PDF. Most PDF printers obey the Document Security settings applied to a word document. For example, the default PDF printer that you can download as soon as you install Word 2007 will not allow you to copy content from the generated PDF if the main word document does not. However, using some third party tools, users may still be able to extract text. To prevent this, you can write a macro.
Press Alt + F11.
Double click, "This Document" on the left pane to open the code editor.
copy paste the following code.
Sub FilePrint()
MsgBox "Document Printing is protected" ' or anyother useful message.
End Sub
Now, when macros are enabled, word will show this message when user tries to print this document. When macros are disabled, word will ask the user to enable macros when user tries to print this document.
To add a double protection to your document, you can also prevent select all, cut, copy paste and other functions in a similar way.
Sub EditCut()
MsgBox "Forbidden", vbExclamation
End Sub
Sub EditCopy()
MsgBox "Forbidden", vbExclamation
End Sub
Sub EditPaste()
MsgBox "Forbidden", vbExclamation
End Sub
Sub EditSelectAll()
MsgBox "Forbidden", vbExclamation
End Sub
The methods described above works for any office version. Just that the way to access these features varies. I'm using Word 2007, which is why I posted the screenshots in Word 2007.
Hope that helps...
Mugunth
Friday, September 28, 2007
Windows Live Search (New and Updated?!)
Today, I just stopped by the Microsoft website and saw their Latest News section.
It was updated with
"NEWS Microsoft releases updated Live Search engine"
I read the press release and other Blah Blah Blah, and though why don't we try it...
So, my first search was for "Windows Vista"
and this is what I got...
Microsoft's *new and updated* search engine is linking to "Bad Vista" campaign when you search for "Windows Vista" . And they call that as "Updated live search"...
Ha ha very funny...
Is this what Microsoft meant by "updated live search"???
--
Mugunth
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Review on Windows Vista
Recently, I got a Del Inspiron 1420, with Windows Vista Business...This blog is about the review of the laptop, the OS and the Office 2007 package which I bought.
Firstly about my laptop, the looks were rocking… just like this…
Keyboards are very good in this Dell. Looks wise the laptop rocks. Not like the old beige body inspiron 640 Alpine white, I think is the only professional looking color. Black attracts fingerprints and blue looks like dark black and the finish is dull... (Microsatin). The colored laptops are microsatin finish, and they don't attract finger prints... White, though not comparable with the MacBook, it looks quite ok compared to MacBook.
Now, the bloatware. There was literally very few, I should say. Norton 30 days trial. (Uninstalled and using AVG), Microsoft works 8.0 (uninstalled and using office 2007 professional plus). Yes, I installed office 2007 professional plus... *original* edition. Finally, I *bought* my first software...! Though I’m a Bill Gates, fan boy, I have been using pirated Windows, Office and Visual Studio so far. My college, participates in the student select program of Microsoft and I got office for 121.25S$ including GST, the original price is somewhere like 800S$ or something. The number of themes bundled with office is very less and Microsoft’s strategy is that, if you buy original office, u can download themes and others for free. The downloaded themes are far better than the bundled one and give ur document a real professional touch...
Now on to Vista Buisness,
First thing I noted about Vista was the lack of virtual desktop... With computing becoming increasingly powerful, its become very common to use more than 10 windows open in parallel. Managing them with one single desktop is very difficult.
Secondly, Vista as you know uses the Window Desktop Manager to render its windows and other graphics on screen. But there isn't an option to change the animation it uses. I was expecting options like, "Fade effect" and "Genie effect" as in Apple Tiger... Though I don't like the Genie effect, I wanted some new effects that could be customized. -- Disappointment number 2...
Did Microsoft renamed IE 7 beta as IE 7 and bundle it with Vista? This browser crashes like hell... I always preferred Microsoft products (as I’m a Bill Gates Fan boy), except on this crapware stuff… I tried Mozilla Firefox, (my default browser at least since the release of v1.5) also. It’s quite stable, but not as it’s on XP. Somehow, browsers are not rock solid. May be that could be due to the increased security in Vista. But, with increased security, when a website is trying to invade a Vista machine, is should be blocked. Crashing is not the answer to the problem. Firefox, if it crashes, it’s not a problem, as these bugs can be fixed only after some initial days of release of Vista. But IE 7 should not crash. It was developed in parallel to Vista. I was very unhappy about it.
Now comes the visual aspects part. Vista’s icons are visually more appealing and larger than XP’s. Hence a minimum screen resolution of 1440X900 is required. With laptops having 1280X800 resolution, icons look very large and ugly. Just like the 800 X 600 resolution of Windows XP. The Dell Ultrasharp screen, which I purchased was extraordinary. Priced at 80S$ higher, it’s worth the money you put in. If you are going in for a desktop, prefer an 1920 X 1200 monitor with atleast 17 or 19 inch. These days, large LCD monitor are damn cheap… However, they extra resolution comes with a price. The nVDIA graphics card I got, was not performing well with Aero. The WPI rating was a mere 3.6… It was not so great for Aero performance with a screen of this resolution.
It's ok for 1280 X 800... smooth. In my laptop (1440X900 res), minimizing a maximized window sometimes jitters the playing song occasionally (very slightly.. may be for 500 ms or so)
The config T7100, 128 MB, nVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS graphics card, 2GB ram is only a sort of OK OK type...
It’s not a ultra modern laptop, though, for college purpose, it’s rocking good…
The Gadgets that come with Windows Vista are very limited.. Downloads are even much limited and of cheap quality..
I'd prefer yahoo widget engine to this... I did not get the "WOW" factor that Bill Gates promised… The sidebar platform is good.. but not the gadgets by itself. For Example, Yahoo Widget has a wonderful option of dragging the widget to the desktop and enabling it to be “Always on top” and “Ignore mouse clicks”. I’m kinda so addicted to this option that, I used to drag my clock and a calendar out of the Yahoo Widget Sidebar (I don’t know the exact name) and set these two options… Without these options, I would say that, a gadget engine is useless… Moreover, gadgets have more options in Yahoo Widgets than that of Vista Gadgets. For example, the clock can be set to chime every hour, which again is one of my favourites.
The thumbnail icons below the minimized screen is one of the advantages of Vista, though it does not warrant for the 5yr protracted development time. As you see from the pict below, are more visually better than before.
The famously touted flip 3d is another totally useless feature... Using flip 3d, you can do anything productive apart from showing off to your friends that, Hey see I’ve got Vista... and it has got this cool feature… You just can’t drag a file from one window, use flip 3d to find the target window and drop you file there. You can drag a file, use flip 3d, find the target window, flip to the target window, make the target window active and then drop the file. That’s in 3D mode, windows are not real “Window objects”. They are only snapshots of the content of the screen. Thus in 3D mode, your windows are just graphical snapshots and will not respond to any interactions, except mouse clicks. As opposed to this, in Leopard, Expose does this perfectly, drag a file, “Expose” the target window and drop it there… More useful… than Vista flip 3D.
I did not expect this sort of overt copying… Copying features is ok... but not the look and feel… and that too not to this extent.
U3 drives, esp the older ones don't work and I asked SanDisk. They replied that they are not ready to provide a firm ware update in short time. I uninstalled U3 and am using portable apps. Now that I've my laptop and a internet connection, I don't want a portable apps solution though I use one with Firefox alone. (Just to remember my passwords and cookies)
Vista's instant search is one of the fantastic features of this latest release. Better the Yahoo (X1), MSN, Google desktop search. People, who have used X1 desktop search, may like this vista's default search. The index engine is sort of very light weight, better at indexing that any other third-party desktop search in XP. I somehow got addicted to this feature that I can’t go back to XP now. But again, the lack of Windows file System (WFS), an object oriented file system, is still a missing feature out of it. With the five year protracted development time, Microsoft could have added this feature into Vista.
Switching between users will blink your screen like hell as it was in XP… No improvement here…
Text-to-Speech is fantastic. You can read aloud any document and the TTS engine is no longer robotic!!! But still a lot of improvement is remaining in this area…
Vista has a lot of features new on the background... Support for .NET framework 3.0, which means a lot of new class libraries for developers like me... A redesigned kernel that prevents patches made to it by malicious code, registry virtualization, etc., etc., But on the usability part it has to mature more. Mac OS X leopard is just too good… but comes with a hefty price tag… remember that though, Mac OS X leopard is just 129$, but you can’t get OS X separately… you ought to buy a Mac to get it… It’s all a marketing gimmick… A similar configuration of Mac would have costed me at least 1000S$ higher… My Dell is just 1750S$.
Office 2007, A rocking piece of work… though the ribbon interface may be difficult for a lot many people at first, the logical grouping of the features are so great that, professional looking documents can be created easily with Office 2007 than with previous versions of Office. I’ll strongly advise you to upgrade to Office 2007 if you are using an older version. I just can’t live without ribbon these days..! But I would prefer having one more tab… “Search”. I should be able to type in some features there and Office should automatically direct me to that feature. Like, if I type “smart art”, I should see the smart art icon in the search tab of the ribbon… this would have made an already rocking UI, the best one. I would also like to see ribbon interfaces in other applications like Windows Media Player, windows explorer etc.,
So finally to wrapup... I was not happy with this OS... I did not experience the "WOW", which Bill Gates promised... I would not advise some one to go ahead and purchase vista if you are happy with XP. But if you are a search junkie, and you have a huge hard drive and a lot of data and simply find it difficult to organize, go get this one... It's far better than any desktop search in XP. If you are getting a new PC, prefer Vista over XP as it's more stable than XP... Yes, in my case, the OS have not crashed once so far...
Critical comments are welcome...
Mugunth
