Digital Rover

HTC is one technology company I admire. They may not have a charming CEO like Steve Jobs or an aggressive marketing team like the one from Cupertino, but boy, they are one heck of an innovative company. I feel that it is the only consumer electronics company which can compete with Apple in terms of appealing hardware design.

HTC has called for a 'secret' special event on June 5th. Hardly a week away. So what could it be?

- An iPhone killer?

- An UMPC like nothing before?

- Slew of sexy Windows Mobile phones?

or is it the much rumoured Google phone? We have to hold our breath for another week!

Some closeups shot with my D40. The kit lens doesn't have great macro capabilities, but still doesn't disappoint.

Fruity Temptations

Shot at Bannerghatta Butterfly Park

More Plums

Abstract

Sometimes Google returns some strange results. As of today, a simple search for the keyword ‘readyboost hack’ returns this website as the top result (For this post). But unfortunately, instead of providing a link to the article, it returns a link to the RSS feed for the post. When you click on the result, you are shown the xml file which would look like garbage for most people. No wonder the bounce rate for this particular post is almost 100%. Why would Google show the xml file on a search result is beyond me, especially when the file ends with a proper .xml extension and the url has an RSS in it? I have seen this happening to many sites, not just mine. Can Google do something to quickly fix this bug?

Popular posts in this website for the last 10 days

1. Building a cheap yet powerful Hackintosh
   
2. Nokia N810 vs iPod Touch vs ASUS EeePC
3. iMovie 08: At Last, A solution for DVD Camcorder owners
   
4. India Maps now available on Nokia Map Loader
   
5. Why isn't there a cricket game for Wii yet.
6. iPod Touch vs Nokia N800
7. Staying with GTD
   
8. Hackintosh Stickers
   
9. Using Nokia Maps for Navigation in India
   

Eventhough the prices of DSLRs have fallen dramatically in the last one year or so, many people still prefer the convenience of Point and Shoots. Most high end P&S cameras now offer super zooms, covering incredible ranges like 24-400mm. Essentially - one lens, all type of shots. This one from Olympus is the master of all. Canon has the S5 IS and Fuji has the S9100. Panasonics range starts from the FZ8 and ends at the SLR-like FZ50.

One name conspicous by its absence from the above list is Nikon. They just don't have a P&S in the above class. Though Nikon has done a commendable job by helping reduce the SLR prices drastically, they are yet to release a versatile P&S which can be used in all shooting conditions. Once upon a time, they had some gems in the Nikon Coolpix 8700 and 8800 point and shoot cameras, but today the portfolio looks very dull. Its time for Nikon to come up with some good cameras in this segment. A 10x Zoom camera with a 10 megapixel sensor in a DSLR like body will definitely help Nikon regain some market share in the crowded P&S segment.

One gripe Windows Mobile users have been having for years is the short upgrade times. Unlike Vista, Microsoft has been very prompt when it comes to delivery of Windows mobile upgrades. Most of the time, a new OS update comes within a year of the phone purchase. This puts off many people as they get that constant nagging feeling of using an outdated device. Very few manufacturers - like DELL and HP - offered updates for old devices. Operators almost never issued ROM upgrades for existing users, unless it is a patch release.

But this time around, the news is very encouraging. In an unprecedented move, most device vendors- including but not limited to Motorola, ETEN, HTC, Samsung and ASUS have issued official Windows Mobile 6 upgrades to customers with WM5 handsets. All the upgrades are free too! This means many of the devices now have a lifetime of atleast 3 years which is remarkable for a Windows Mobile device. This move will definitely improve loyalty and satisfaction among end customers. Kudos to the operators and device makers.

PS: Ironically, HP has not offered any WM6 upgrades to its WM5 based phones. Definitely not a happy news for iPAQ customers.

Motorola announced the RAZR2 revisions this week. The RAZR phones are no longer dumb phones. Sporting an ARM11 500 MHz processor , the new phones should be blazingly fast. Apart from the processor, there is a major change under the hood - all new RAZRs run on Motorola's Linux platform. Even if these new RAZRs are only half successful as the previous generation phone, it will still help Linux capture a huge market share in the smartphone segment. But I still do not understand Motorola's logic of not providing a native SDK. Looks like a pretty dumb move for me.

By providing a phone with all radio options, right from 2.5G to 3G, Motorola has essentially covered 90% of the cellphone market segment. RAZRs are always known for people who are fashion conscious rather than for the do-it-all phone crowd. The new revision is even more thinner, shiny and looks damn sexy. (If only I can get a Windows Mobile phone in this housing. Moto, Are you listening? I don't want the Q9 by the way).

To make the RAZRs more appealing, Moto should make this design exclusive to the RAZRs. An etched keypad in most phones, even the entry level ones make these phones little unappealing as most Motos now look like RAZR. This may put off many potential RAZR2 buyers.

PS: Anyone knows who is the manufacturer of the ARM11 CPU in these phones? I have been trying to get the info, but no luck.

Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe (P.S.)

Simon Singh takes you through a journey of a billion years - in one of the most fascinating stories ever told. In an enviable writing style, the author explains in layman language on how the understanding of the origin of the universe changed (or keeps changing) as man's knowledge of the heavenly bodies progressed.

In this 516 page book, Simon Singh narrates the origin of the cosmos as its understanding evolved over thousands of years. The author explains the scientific rationale along with  the snippets and stories about the great scientists who helped in discovering them.

It makes an interesting reading if a scientific theory is narrated from its creators perspective. The ego of those astronomers and scientists is what made them great. Many models of the Universe would'nt have survived if not for their inventors. Be it Aristarchus or Ptolemy, Copernicus or Galileo, Lemaitre or Einstein, they all contributed to the amazing astronomy and  physics discoveries which contributed to the theory of the Big Bang, which surprisingly is endorsed by the Church too.

It is not easy to explain many of the prinicples in layman terms, but then, Simon Singh is a master of scientific story telling as evident from his previous books. Chapters are pretty long, so there is a nice summary mind map given at the end of every chapter. It helps you to quickly revise what you learnt. Pretty neat.

Some of the advanced theories are only briefly touched upon. I won't call this as a negative point of the book as the intended audience are you and me rather than researchers.

If you want to learn how the universe was formed or why so many planets and galaxies exist or how the astronomers identified and catalogued millions of heavenly bodies, this book is a must read. It reads like a fast paced thriller, so you will never feel like putting the book down.

One of the important aspects in the digital darkroom workflow is to get the calibration of your LCD monitor correct. This will ensure that the colors in your photographs will look like the same when you print them. There are very accurate hardware calibration solutions available, but for hobbyists they are pretty expensive. Best bet is to use a software calibration utility. Simplest one is here. Adjust your monitor's brightness/contrast settings according to the instructions on the website. Make sure that you go into full screen mode before you start the calibration. Use the graphics card properties screen to adjust the brightness/contrast and color temperature to get the best settings.

Worked pretty decent for me.

I have read several articles and reviews on Windows Vista. I noticed that no review covered one of the highly improved features in Windows Vista - the cleartype font rendering. Sure, cleartype has been around since Windows XP days, but in Vista the default font rendering looks dramatically improved. On an LCD monitor, the fonts render as if they are on print. You can keep looking at the monitor for hours without getting your eyes tired. This is way better than the default font rendering that comes with many Linux distributions or the blurry font rendering in OS X.

Vista also ships with a new set of fonts (all starting with the letter C) which look ultra cool. For developers, the Consolas font is probably one of the best fonts ever created for programming. If you are on Vista, set all your text editor fonts to Consolas and see the difference!

I have slightly tweaked the CSS on this site, so that it uses some of the 'C' fonts that come with Vista.