Nokia establishes Symbian Foundation …WHY? … Future consequences?

The recent “Open at own risk” promo disaster (yes it was a disaster) of Nokia has left quite a few Nokia fans including me annoyed. However that certainly doesn’t mean that Nokia has turned evil.

Around four weeks ago, on June 24th, 2008, Nokia purchased the whole of Symbian (for EUR 264 million) (previously it owned 48% of Symbian). And the reason why I said Nokia isn’t evil is the fact that despite the purchase, Nokia has decided to gradually open-source the entire Symbian platform code including even its own S-60 variant, over the next couple of years, under Eclipse Public License (EPL).

Nokia went further and established the non-profit Symbian foundation (www.symbianfoundation.org) which includes leading phone manufacturers like LG, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson; wireless carriers AT&T, NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone; plus semiconductor firms STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments. A huge ecosystem is already committed to the foundation:


WHY …. ?

Symbian OS is presently the leading most popular Smartphone platform in the world. Symbian started in 1998 and thus it also recently celebrate 10 years of its successful journey in the market (www.symbian.com/tenyears) 60% of the Smartphones manufactured today are built on Symbian platform which is a greater percentage than any other platform by far. Symbian OS represented approximately 7% of all mobile device sales in 2007. To date, more than 200 million Symbian OS based phones have been shipped, over 235 models, from 8 vendors and on more than 250 mobile networks around the world. More than 4 million developers are engaged in producing applications for Symbian devices.

According to a source, four billion people are expected to have joined the global mobile conversation by 2010. The mobile devices are now being looked upon more and more as a multi-utility gadget which is expected to provide the added functionality of a decent camera, music player a gaming console, internet browsing and virtually replace the personal computer. These advancing features must be accommodated while simultaneously lengthening battery life from model to model. That job falls largely to the OS and Open software is the basic building block for delivering this future as it accelerates and enhances the software development process to a large extent.

Since Symbian is already the leading open platform for mobile devices the establishment of the Symbian Foundation is expected to make it the undisputed platform for mobile innovation. The Symbian Foundation will promote the Symbian OS and provide royalty-free open platform and accelerate innovation.

As the Symbian foundation says, the purpose of Symbian is to:

“Bring to life a shared vision and to create the most proven, open and complete mobile software platform - available for free.”

But there is another good reason for Nokia to make such a move … The move is also a response to Google's cheap Android (Wikipedia) platform which is already open source and threatens to potentially replace Symbian as the choice of a device-independent platform. The Open Handset Alliance (Wikipedia) is working on Android and includes Symbian producers LG, Motorola and Samsung as part of its membership.

Moreover the OS X platform which is used in the powerful and popular iPhone also pose a severe threat to Symbian. The OS X platform, unike Android, is a closed platform, and has been increaing its market share at a brisk rate.

Thus basically the Symbian foundation came together because its members felt the need to join hands in order to keep up with the ever-rising demands of the consumer and to rise above their competitors.

According to Nigel Clifford, CEO of Symbian:

“Ten years ago, Symbian was established by far sighted players to offer an advanced open operating system and software skills to the whole mobile industry…Our vision is to become the most widely used software platform on the planet and indeed today Symbian OS leads its market by any measure. Today’s announcement is a bold new step to achieve that vision by embracing a complete and proven platform, offered in an open way, designed to stimulate innovation which is at the heart of everything we do.”

FUTURE CONSEQUENCES …. ?

One can safely say that the Symbian foundation has a really bright future owing to a number of good reasons.

Firstly, because the minds of the world’s leading mobile manufacturers will unite to develop a single grand platform. This will lift the burden of developing the core OS from the individual. The move will let each phone maker shift attention to making devices unique rather than rewriting some or all of the basics. Thus the development takes lesser time and resources for each member.

Moreover each manufacturer has agreed to provide the various smart developments they have made so far to the cause:

• Nokia has agreed to contribute their popular S60 platform to the foundation.
• Motorola and Sony Ericsson will contribute the developments made in their special variant of Symbian, called UIQ.
• NTT DoCoMo will also do the same with the MOAP software it uses for many of its phones.
• Nokia intends to combine Symbian, S60, UIQ and MOAP platforms and that is an absolutely brilliant strategy as each platform contains its own pros and cons. The unison to create a single open mobile software platform will drive the development of newer and highly advanced software and incredible applications for the phones to the delight of the consumer.
• And that’s not it. There are lots of other affiliates which further strengthen the Symbian Foundation by providing services in the areas where they specialize.

Moreover when the code will become completely open-source which is expected to be in around 2 years then the innovations will be further boosted as the code will be available to a wider community.

The carriers are also happy with the union and say that the Symbian Foundation will alleviate a great deal of market confusion and disparity. The Symbian Foundation will reduce fragmentation in the industry and holds the promise of incorporating leading technology and the most mature software into a unified platform for the entire industry.

On the whole… the foundation is a gleaming prospect as ultimately the value of a phone depends not on the hardware but on the underlying software. Nokia bought Symbian with the stated long-term intention of giving the OS away as proper open source and to me it appears to be a wise decision on the part of Nokia as it protects the Symbian OS from upcoming rivals.
The move is also hugely beneficial for us the users as it would be great for us to get more and more innovative Smartphones with lots of wonderful features. This can certainly be a reality if the super powers of mobile software development industry honestly join hands and work in collaboration.

Already, there is lots of great news about the upcoming Nokia touch-phone tagged Nokia-tube which is expected to release until next year. Having seen some of the video releases that Nokia has provided for the S60 platform and if the leaks about the configuration of the Tube are to be believed, then I must say that even much hyped iPhone will soon be given a run for its money.

I really do hope that the Symbian Foundation provides a wonderful environment to its members and marshals a new era in the mobile software industry.

Cheers!!

Press release
whitepaper

Useful Firefox 3 add-on extensions for the 'common' user:

Before I write this post, I want to make it clear that this is not like some other top-ten add-on extensions list. Neither is this a must-have list. Actually I personally feel there is no such thing as a must-have list. It just depends upon the need of the user.
However the add-ons on list which I have made here are quite handy and helpful for the common Firefox user and not meant for needs of a web-developer or some other advanced user.

So here we go...

1. Interclue:
This is a link augmentation tool. In simpler terms, it lets you view what is behind a link without having to actually open the link in another tab. Interclue will open a small window where you can see what the link looks like before opening it … it is highly customisable and can be turned off for specific sites or for a specific session too. Small icons appear on moving our mouse over links to warn you about dead links, Malware or Phishing Sites, etc, and for any valid links Interclue provides compact link previews, relevant extra information and useful next action buttons.
From the developer:

“Here are some sites that Interclue works really well on: Most search engines, and local site searches. Google Reader. Bloglines. Gmail. Del.icio.us, Digg, other social bookmarking sites. Bugzilla and Trac ticketing systems. Most news sites. Almost any given blog. If you're a knowledge worker, don't forget to try it on your intranet. Interclue generates page summaries inside the browser rather than getting them from a server, so there is no privacy risk involved in using it on your intranet. Interclue is fast, smooth, and easy to use.”

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4999

2. Webmail notifier:
Webmail Notifier automatically checks your webmail accounts and notifies the number of unread emails and new mails … it fit nicely in one corner of my status-bar and I just need to move my cursor over it to check the number of new/unread mail!!!
It supports Gmail, yahoo, hotmail, daum, naver, empas and nate.
I use it for my yahoo account since it is cumbersome to have the yahoo-mails checked through my e-mail client 'thunderbird'.
download webmail-notifier:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4490


3. Down-Them-All:
The first and only download manager/accelerator built inside Firefox! The mass downloader for Firefox. However, if already use Internet Download Manager (IDM), you won’t need this one embedded to your browser.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201


4. Ad-block 'Plus':
This will ruin my ad-sense’ earnings but still… :-) … Adblock plus is good for if you get annoyed by ads…actually I myself have this one installed and it works quite well.
Pages load faster and appear cleaner.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

5. ColorfulTabs:
Surely you want this one in your browser. As the name suggests, it colours every Tab in different colour and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appeal of the interface… And if u are like “ i-open-20-tabs-at-a-time-and-have-a-hard-time-locating-them” kind of surfer…then don’t miss it because you can even choose to colour the tabs according to your choice !!
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1368

6. ScribeFire:
Ok you can skip this one if you are not into blogging … but u must definitely check this out otherwise …. Its a fully featured blog editor that integrates with your Firefox web browser and lets you easily post your blogs...
Well if I were to have a browser with only one add-on allowed [as stupid as it may sound], I would choose scribefire … because it is the best offline bogging tool I have… I have written this blog on scribefire itself…. even inserted the images while I was offline and then I had to connect to the internet just to post my completed blog.
It provides a “lot” of features … actually all the features you can think of while writing your posts offline … if your internet is not free or too costly then this is the best blogging tool for you… just type out your post while you are offline and then you need to connect to the net just to post your blog complete with all the pictures and videos added.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1730

7. All in one sidebar:
All-in-One Sidebar (AiOS) is an award-winning sidebar control, inspired by Opera's. It lets you quickly switch between sidebar panels, view dialog windows such as downloads, extensions, and more in the sidebar, or view source or websites in the sidebar.
Comprehensive Sidebar management and enhancement…has a lot of options and can be set on
auto-hide mode too.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1027

8. IE tab:
Ofcourse there are few occasions where you want to use internet explorer to open some particular site … with this addon internet explorer can be opened as a tab of ff3 itself without you having to open i.e. in another window … saves time and provides easy browsing by embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419

9. pdf download:
PDF Download helps encounter PDF files on the Web. Whenever you click on a PDF file, PDF Download lets you know before trying to open it, and then offers you choices such as downloading, opening, or converting it straight to HTML.
Developer :

PDF Download helps to stop PDF files crashing your browser, stop PDF files taking forever to open and make PDF files download like other files in Firefox.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/427


10. All-in-One-Gestures:
This extension allows you to execute common commands using mouse gestures, rocker navigation, scroll wheel navigation and page...
It does simplify browsing but needs little time to get used to
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/downloads/file/31871/all-in-one_gestures-0.19.1-fx.xpi

11. NoScript: (Security tool)
It speeds up your browsing by stopping the big scripts loading up, and can improve your anonymity and security. It allows you to selectively disables browser scripting (JavaScript)…Allow active content to run only from sites you trust.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722

12. Sage Too:
Newer version of the popular RSS manager ...Sage 1 was a basic and lightweight RSS Reader and Atom feed aggregator extension for Mozilla Firefox.
The newer version has a lot more to offer and the detail is presented nicely on the download page. Worth trying out...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7263


13. Del.icio.us and stumble upon:

‘Delicious Bookmarks’ is the official Firefox add-on for del.icio.us, the world's leading social bookmarking service. It integrates your del.icio.us bookmarks and tags with Firefox and keeps them in sync for easy, convenient access.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3615

With StumbleUpon you can also connect with friends and share your discoveries, meet people that have similar interests, and check out what other people are discovering. StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/138

14. Flagfox:
Well if you care to know about the location of the server of the website you are visiting, then flagfox displays a country flag in the status bar depicting the location of the current website's server, and provides quick access to detailed location and webserver information.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5791

15. Firefox 3 universal uploader:
As the name says, this firefox extension allows you to upload/download files from any website using a friendly interface. Upload files/photos/videos to Flickr, Picasa, Youtube, Box.net, Facebook, Webshots, OmniDrive, SME Storage and Google Docs in this version.You can add multiple files to the queue at a time. Extension will take care of uploading them for you.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4724
New Firefox 3.0 compatible version is posted on http://www.fireuploader.com


16. Hyperwords:
Select any word or words on any web page. A menu pops-up. Choose from any one of the many powerful commands. Customizable menu and behavior.
Select any text on any page for one-click access to References, Searches, Conversions, Translations, Email, Blogging & more.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1941

17. Video Download Helper:
The easy way to download and convert Web videos from hundreds of YouTube-like sites. This works also for audio and picture galleries.
DownloadHelper is a tool for web content extraction. Its purpose is to capture video and image files from many sites. Just surf the Web as you are used to, when DownloadHelper detects it can do something for you, the icon gets animated and a menu allows you to download files by simply clicking an item. For instance, if you go to a YouTube page, you'll be able to download the video directly on your file system. It also works with MySpace, Google videos, DailyMotion, Porkolt, iFilm, DreamHost and others.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006

18. Flashblock:
Never be annoyed by a Flash animation again! Blocks Flash so it won't get in your way, but if you want to see it, just click on it.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433


Finally ……
The add-ons certainly do add a great flavour to browsing but one should try to keep only those add-ons in their browser which they really require and not just because someone says they are good. They need to be carefully chosen to give the user maximum ease in browsing. For instance, if you are not comfortable with the sidebar, there is no point keeping it. Too many add-ons slow down your browser and it takes a long time to start. Moreover it can give your browser a messy look.

Other then extension add-ons you also have lots of Firefox themes add-ons to choose from and also plugins which are installed as and when they are required.

Happy browsing!!

Apple releases iTunes 7.7 : A review

iTunes is Apple’s media player, media organization and sync software. Apple released iTunes 7.7 recently on 10 July, adding support for the iPhone 3G and the iTunes App Store.

This latest version of iTunes is required for the iPhone 3G, Firmware 2.0, App Store and MobileMe.iTunes is available for free download. Get the latest version here:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
(System Requirements: Mac OS X(10.4.7 or later) or Windows
File Size: 48MB)


Whats new ?

The App Store:
iTunes Version 7.7 contains support fo making downloads from the App Store. The app store will have Applications and games for the iPhone and iPod touch. However the highly awaited store has not yet been launched as I write this post. One of the most awaited applications is the all new remote application…

The Remote application:
The iTunes users can utilise the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback remotely. The iPhone/iPod touch remote application will be available as a free download from the App Store.
According to Apple:

" The new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store."

The software is a 50MB download.

iTunes 7.7 support:

iTunes 7.7 is available for Mac and Windows. The iTunes Music Store offers Windows users the same online music store as Mac users, with the same music catalogue, the same personal-use rights, and the same 99-cents-per-song pricing.
However, iTunes runs slower on windows and eats away lots of system resources. However there is no such problem on Mac.

iTunes Store:

The iTunes store has been enormously successful and has gained wide popularity. One can Shop the itunes store for music, TV shows, applications and audio-books. One can also download free podcasts from the iTunes store 24*7.

• Music: it has More than 8 million songs for 99¢ each with music from all five major music companies and more than 600 independent labels.
• Movies: Rent from $2.99, buy from $9.99.
• Music Videos: More than 11,000, from 99¢ each.
• TV shows: Over 20,000 episodes.
• Applications: Hundreds of apps for iPod touch and iPhone.
• Audio-books: More than 35,000 titles.Podcasts: 100,000 and counting. 100% free.
• iPod Games: lots of games at $4.99 each.

Other older Features :

Media management: iTunes keeps track of songs by creating a virtual library, allowing users to access and edit a song's attributes. iTunes supports ripping from CDs.

Library views: three different views for the music library

File format support: iTunes can currently read, write, and convert between MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC and Apple Lossless. The Windows version of iTunes can automatically convert but doesn’t support direct playback of WMA. It is well known to support a large number of ‘audio’ formats for playback.

Sound processing: There is a feature called "Sound Check" which automatically adjusts the playback volume of all songs to the same level.

Video support: iTunes did not come with video support initially. But with each new version, video capabilities are getting further enhanced and it has improved a lot. However, I still prefer VLC player for playing my video files as iTunes is still no match for VLC (click here to view my review of VLC player).

Smart Playlists support: Smart playlists are playlists that can be set to automatically filter the library based on a customized list of selection criteria.

Integrated Audio and video Podcasting support: Apple's iTunes player is also considered the dominant podcatching client. It also lets us manage podcasts on iPod.

Synchronizing with iPod and iPhone the moment it connects, can also sync with Apple TV.
Integration with other applications like iWork and iLife and Garage-band.

iPhone activation: Since the introduction of the original iPhone, users could use iTunes to activate their phone through their mobile carrier. However, a worldwide crash of iTunes’ authentication servers on the day that the iPhone 3G was released has caused major issues.

iMix: It is a user-created playlist published in the iTunes Store. Anyone can create an iMix free of charge.

Internet radio supported

Plugins: iTunes supports visualizer plugins and device plugins.


Finally….
Well since iTunes is easily available for windows, it has become a must have, not only because of the popular Apple tag behind it but also because of so many unique features and audio-format support it provides the user. Apple is expected to also released the 2.0 Firmware and App Store shortly, as well as launching MobileMe. Moreover the iTunes store which guarentees 24*7 entertainment has gained incredible success and all that it has in store is another big attraction towards iTunes.

Part-2 : " Open at Own RISK ! " gets crazier

This post is in continuation to the post made by me on July 1 {click here to see previous post} about the new Nokia promotional campaign "Open at own Risk" which nokia had been spreading through an exclusive website.

I had giving a few screen-shots of the website as it appeared at that time and it seemed to indicate that Nokia may release something nice on the coming Monday, i.e. today.

But shockingly enough, when I opened the website today to find out if there had been any launch, I was greeted by a "Notice of immediate Termination" for the website. I back-checked to see if I had made any typos in the address. No ... not the case. Better check out the site yourself here :
www.openatownrisk.com


What is more insane is that the notice says says that the owner of the website

...will stand before the trial, accused of intent to publish content driving peope insane.

Are you kidding me ??

People are still checking the site for some new developments but in vain {until now}. Maybe by the time you read this blog the site would be updated again but I would certainly try to keep a track of that.

What to say ... great creativity or foolishness on the part of Nokia ...

OK i do agree that the promotional campaign has been an interesting one and can be termed successful. Normally I do not follow these promos or write about them in my blog but this one promised something good and Nokia is quite trustworthy.

But since the release date was today and there has not yet been any change to the site, i hope that Nokia doesn't make a fool of itself. Because after so much of hype if the mobile phone manufacturing Giant fails to please us with something grand then its reputation is truly going to suffer.
Nokia, though, is still silent on what is going on.

Lets optimistically hope for the best ... !!

to be continued ...

P.S. : The original site is still available here in case you missed it : http://www.openatownrisk.com/teaser.swf

VLC Media Player : A review

VLC Media player is simply incredible .... I have been using it for more than an year now and it has never let me down ... the best thing is that it plays just about any file format you wish to ... it really does ... even in this pathetic era where everyone is trying to develop a new format of audio/video.

And the other great thing about it is that it is opensource and free to use !!!

The popularity of this player is well reflected by the 89 million downloads {wow !} reported on its website as of now. { The current download rate is 1.1 downloads per second ! }

Presently the latest release is version 0.8.6h. This is a bugfix release.
You can download the player right here right now:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ {9 MB }
or you can have the source code here:
Source-code

The interface of the VLC player appears really simple as compared to some of the other players available i.e. Windows Media Player and Real Player etc. But do not get deceived by its simple looks ... it is compact but highly loaded and fully featured as i shall elaborate below :

Positives :

1. It is a Cross-platform open source media player with a very simple user- friendly interface; The setup file size is small and download and installation is easy and free.
OS supported: Win95/98/98SE/Me/2000/NT/XP/Vista/OS X/linux{various versions}
However in the upcoming versions, the support for older OS will be dropped.
2. Plays most formats : As i said above, a whole lot of formats are available these days and most players play only certain formats and display error messages for the rest. But VLC plays most audio and video foramts. Infact there are so many formats i cant mention them here. So you can get the list on here -
supported formats: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html
Running DVDs of any kind is really easy and the playback quality is very good too. According to a review at sol4.net :
"....It not only plays them with support for menus etc regardless of the drive used for playback....VLC bypasses the drive, ignores the region setting on the disk and retrieves the encryption keys as it plays the title....."
3. Plays incomplete video files too: Well if there is any part of the file which is playable then vlc will play it. I have experienced this a lot. I download lots of TV series from the net and occasionally i have files which are corrupted but still vlc plays a part of it. But when i try to play the same file in other players they completely refuse to play it.
4. Lots of skins : you can modify your vlc and give it a Windows media player look or an OS X look. Download skins here : http://www.videolan.org/vlc/skins.html
5. Other common features include a graphic equaliser, adjustment of video colours and options to take a snapshot of the screen while playing a video and the ability to increase the volume to 400% level { with notable loss in sound quality}. Also, the hotkeys are really helpful once you get used to them. eg. ctrl + up to increase volume upto 400% mark.
Lots of option for the advanced user are available in the preference window but the normal user never needs to disturb those settings.

Negatives :

1. When i run videos in the player and try to simultaneously perform other operations on my computer {why would i do that? :) } then sometimes my CPU gets overloaded and the colour theme of my PC automatically changes to vista-basic theme to save memory...
No i am not using an antique machine but the fact is that CPU overloading has been a problem with earlier versions of VLC and they have not completely sorted out the problem in the latest version as well.

2. The all too simple interface can be a bit problematic initially if you are used to working with some other player which have some features more user friendly than the others like creating playlists. However once you get used to the hotkeys things do get a lot simpler.


SUMMING UP ...
Even if you dont use VLC player as your default media player because of its not-so-inspiring looks, it is still a must for your PC as a fall-back player because of its ability to run a great variety of formats. while i Tunes gives a fair competition when it comes to playing audio files, when it comes to playing video there is hardly a player so diverse as VLC player. And it keeps improving with each version update. The next version 0.9.0 is going to be released soon ...

screenshots: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/screenshots.html

advanced users: http://www.videolan.org/doc/play-howto/en/play-howto-en.html

Open at Own Risk : New Promo by Nokia

While browsing the net today, I came across this really creepy looking website: http://www.openatownrisk.com

Well you do need some brains to be able to enter the site {you need to solve the simple puzzle that appears on the opening page} and then you will be shown some strange text .

And this is what you get there …

“Hundreds of years ago, scientists, artists and members of Royal families gathered to produce a clip of grand weirdness. A clip stranger and more amazing than anything that had ever been made before.But the clip turned out to o weird! People went mad from seeing it and it was too much for the common man to handle. Thus the clip was locked away, in a mysterious box with four seals.The knowledge of how to break the seals has been passed down from one generation to another, hidden within the technological masterpieces of history.Edison’s light bulb, the Wright Brothers’ airplane and Apollo 11 all held the secret of unlocking the box. A secret that can now be found within Nokia Download service, allowing the public – you, to find the key to break the seals. And see...the weirdest clip. Ever made... ”

Well I didn’t type out all that stuff ; I simply copied the page source … smart :)

OK so what is it all about … well this is actually a promotional site of Nokia … but it doesn’t still tell you about any specific product yet …
well if you look carefully there is a timer that appears occasionally on that site … it actually would count down to zero on Monday … so you can expect a big release by Nokia this Monday ...

By the way the upcoming releases of Nokia include the Nokia N96 expected to release o the 31st of this month. Others in the upcoming release category are include N77 ,N78, 6210, 6220, 6120 and also the N81[8 GB].

However, the biggest expected release is a Nokia touch phone [codenamed TUBE] which is expected to release late this year and is expected to be tough competition for the iPhone ... well that would certainly be amazing but for the time being let see what Nokia has to give us on Monday.

Mozilla THUNDERBIRD : Complete Review of Latest Version 2

Mozilla Thunderbird, just like Mozilla Firefox, is another highly successful opensource software developed by Mozilla Corp. It is a great e-mail and news client and offers RSS feed reader and a good contacts management system too. Thunderbird is safe and fast and has a great user interface, nice spam filters, quick message search, and can be customized to a large extent.

The areas where it scores over the other software offering similar functionality like MS Outlook and Windows Mail are the ease of use, better speed and a few more good features which offer better functionality. And of course the best thing is that it is free !!!

The version 2.0 was released a few months back and is available in over 35 languages. It is compatible with windows vista and has been undergoing constant updates since release as expected. Mozilla claims it to be a reloaded version more powerful than ever.

You can download the latest version of Thunderbird [presently 2.0.0.14] here:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

I am a Gmail user and the the first impression was simply fantastic. The ease with which a new Gmail account gets created in Thunderbird 2 is worth appreciation, very unlike Windows Mail where I had to go to my Google accounts page and check out few things. AMAZINGLY all you need to do is to type in your user name and password in the account creation wizard and the client will do the rest of the required settings for you.

Here is all I had to do:

step 1 :

step 2:

And that's it :


Easyyy ... ehh ??? that’s the Gmail support it offers. It does rest of the settings by itself via POP3 access. [POP 3 access has to be enabled in gmail account setting though ! ] Moreover the default settings leave a copy of the mail on the server upon download so the mail on the server doesn’t get removed … good work. And we can customise any of the settings as per your requirement in the account manager window.

And this is what I got in windows mail when I tried to open an account in gmail. I had to visit my google account settings page to fill up this stuff:


Another great feature if you are a windows vista user is that you can get all your mail indexed in windows vista and you can find yor e-mail directly from start menu search box.

No integrated calendar??? Not a problem …
Yes there is no inbuilt calendar in Thunderbird like the one in MS Outlook but that’s not a problem as you can download an extension called LIGHTNING which adds an integrated calendar.
Download the extension here:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/download.html

When Thunderbird 1.5 was released it promised better security, automatic updating, automatic spell checking, anti-phishing technology, and other useful features. The newer version has got even more in its arsenal. Let's take a look at the impressive list of new features in the version 2 :

Message tagging:
Message tagging is a nice little feature that allows you to add tags to individual emails using available tags or you can create your own tags too. Each tag comes has a corresponding colour so when we tag a message, it gets colorized in the mail folder. We can add multiple tags to a mail and it allows a great way of organizing the mail.



Contact management:
The address book is divided into two : first is the personal address book and the other is the collected addresses book. This allows better sorting of the addresses too. You can easily import address book entries. Auto complete results of the address while sending a mail is done according to how often you send e-mail to each recipient.

Add-ons and updates:
There are quite a few handy addons available which can furthur enhance your experience of working with Thunderbird. They can add lots of new features to thunderbird. One of the most important ones was mentioned by me above called as Lightning for adding an integrated calendar.
There is an add-on manager available [Tools ...- add on] for this purpose just like the one in Firefox. Over 170 extensions for Thunderbird are available. Thunderbird add-on can let you manage contacts better, place voice over IP calls, listen to music, keep track of birthdates all from your inbox , add mouse gestures support, dictionary search, a tool that can switch between multiple proxy configurations and a lot more !!! Really cool !!!
You can configure Thunderbird 2 to automatically download new product versions and security updates.

Themes:
We can look for themes for thunderbird and install or uninstall them using the add-on manager [Tools ... -add on]. These add to its user friendly nature even more by allowing you to change the look of the interface. Initially though, only one theme is available as the default theme.

Configuration:
Thunderbird is hugely configurable and an editor is available for this but it is definitely not a place that I would like to visit because one really needs to have some good knowledge before making any changes there.

Mail filtering:
Sorting : The message filters are easy to design and do come handy when we need to manage large volumes of mail. They give a great way to organize our mail folders.
Spam Filtering: Mozilla has updated Thunderbird’s popular junk mail folders to stay ahead of spam. Each email you receive passes through Thunderbird's leading-edge junk mail filters. Each time you mark messages as spam, Thunderbird “learns” and improves its filtering so you can spend more time reading the mail that matters. Thunderbird can also use your mail provider's spam filters to keep junk mail out of your inbox.

Find as you type:
Finds and highlights message text as you type. This speeds up the search process. It is identical to that in firefox for searching the text in the current page. Thunderbird also supports a Saved Searches feature, which is like the one available in vista explorer. A saved search is a folder that contains the results of a search you previous performed.

New mail alerts:
The notification appears in the system tray. In addition to the subject of the email, you'll see information about the sender and the part of the body text when possible. Thunderbird's notifications are usually quite a bit bigger than those offered by Outlook. The program doesn't remain in the tray to check mails once it is closed which obliges you to manually open the program to check e-mail and feeds.

A notification :

Wide support:
The version is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It supports POP, IMAP, Gmail and .Mac [on OS X] accounts for e-mail.I did write about how easy it was for me to open my new gmail account in Thunderbird. Gmail and .Mac users can access their accounts in Thunderbird by simply providing their user names and passwords.It works fine with multiple accounts of all kinds.


Security:
Phishing protection :Thunderbird protects you from email scams which try to trick users into handing over personal and confidential information by indicating when a message is a potential phishing attempt. As a second line of defense, Thunderbird warns you when you click on a link which appears to be taking you to a different Web site than the one indicated by the URL in the message.{For knowledge on phishing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing }

Thunderbird will display an information bar with a graphical red shield any time it believes the currently-selected email is an email scam. You can then tell the application the email is not a scam, or delete it. Suspicious emails are allowed to display simple text only, so they can't access your system programmatically.

{ I tried to explore the net and found out that more security features in Thunderbird include S/MIME, digital signing, message encryption, support for certificates and security devices. I do not have a clear idea of how all that works but anyhow I felt like including it here. }


Image blocking:
Remote images in the e-mail messages are blocked by default in Thunderbird 2. However you can tell mark certain addressed as trusterd and for mails from these addresses the image loads automatically.

Navigation:
Thunderbird 2 offers message history navigation that allows you to click “forward” and “back”. These back and forward buttons are provided in the interface for easier navigation while we are viewing our messages.

Finally…
Well it can obviously be difficult for a long time MS outlook user to switch to thunderbird as few of the features and few shortcuts do differ. But Thunderbird is a fully featured e-mail client with lots of extra functionality and people are working to constantly keep improving the software. The user-friendliness of Thunderbird and the fact that it is free is ensuring that lots of new users are opting for it. Lets hope the versions to come will be even better than the present one and provide lots of interesting features.

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 : A personal review

Well I came across the Mozilla Firefox Browser only around an year ago and the first thing I noticed and really liked about it was its comparatively higher speed than the other available browsers. As I got acquainted with more of its features, I realized what an amazing browser it is. Thus I dumped the Internet Explorer Browser which I had been ignorantly using till then. and now I fully support the “Spread the Firefox” campaign.
Actually it is not just me but the whole world is slowly becoming a fan of this small, fast and easy to use ‘opensource’ browser which scores over its rivals in so many aspects has gained global appreciation.


The huge popularity that this browser has gained was evident when the new version 3.0 was released on the 18th of June at 10:00 PST. Mozilla had been hyping this day as the DOWNLOAD DAY for around a week and had urged the people around the globe to download the new version on the release day itself so that a new world record could be created. The response was amazing : a whopping 8 million downloads on the very first day . It is being claimed by Mozilla as a new world record for release day downloads.


And ofcourse one can download the latest version here :


The servers reported serving almost 9,000 downloads a minute day on the “download day” and exceeded the first day download mark for Firefox 2 of 1.6 million after just five hours of availability for Firefox 3 ... Over 700 community launch parties were registered on http://www.mozillaparty.com You can find out the present number of downloads of firefox here

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/

I too got a taste of the latest version too. It claims to be {and is !! } even faster than the previous version and boasts of malware protection and many other features. Some of the new features which I liked are :


1. QUICK BOOKMARKING AND EASIER TO SORT BOOKMARKS :
Now we can quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click on the star icon in address bar and a second click lets us file and tag them. Tags are keywords that we can associate with our bookmarks to sort them by topic so now we can quickly access our recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as more frequently visited pages with the new smart bookmarks folder on the bookmark toolbar.

2. AUTO-CHECK FOR ADD-ONS:
Various add-ons are available for further enhancing the firefox browser and the add-ons of the 2.0 version may not necessarily be compatible with the 3.0 version. There is no need to hunt for the add-ons anymore. Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugins versions and will disable older, insecure versions. Earlier version we had to go to install required plugins from http://www.mozilla.org/start/1.0/addons.html and other such sites.
Users can disable individual plugins in the Add-on Manager. The Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of Add-ons available from the community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended Add-ons is shown.

3. ONE CLICK SITE INFO:
Click the site favicon (the small icon before address) in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if your connection is protected from eavesdropping. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. When a site uses Extended Validation SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company you're connected to.

4. IMPROVEMENTS IN TABS :
Tabs are easier to locate with the new tab scrolling and tab quick-menu. To drag a tab simply click on the tab and pull it along the tab-bar. Right click on the tab bar for a variety of cool options. You can even undo closing of a tab and Firefox will also prompt users to save tabs on exit.

5. SECURITY AND PROTECTION :
Malware Protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware. The content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown. Clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate. To improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled. Firefox will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.

6. NEW DOWNLOAD MANAGER:
The revised download manager makes it much easier to locate downloaded files, and you can see and search on the name of the website where a file came from. The active downloads and time remaining is always shown in the status bar as your files download.
Users can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.

7. FULL PAGE ZOOM :
Zoom in : ctrl ++ ; zoom out : ctrl -- ; additionally there is a feature which allows us to zoom only the text portion.

8. FASTER :
Improvements to JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in continued improvements in performance. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.

9. EATS UP LESSER MEMORY:
Several new technologies work together to reduce the amount of memory used by Firefox 3 over a web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.


Yes it is true that some bugs have been reported for 3.0 version already. But that is and always will be the case. As a matter of fact updates are constantly made available and it keeps improving with each and every update.

One can confidently say that firefox is currently leading from front in the battle among opensource softwares and the rest. What I believe is that ultimately it is going to be the former which come out as the victors just because of the way they are spreading and gaining wide acclaims.

Blu-RAY Disc --- the next generation optical disc

Blu-ray Disc (BD) is the next-generation optical disc format and is jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a group of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers (including Apple , Dell , Hitachi , HP , JVC , LG , Mitsubishi , Panasonic , Pioneer , Philips , Samsung , Sharp , Sony , TDK and Thomson ).

The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. The format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs and can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc.

The project was originally started by SONY and initially it faced competition from a similar format of optical disc called HD DVD which was initially more popular. But this changed when Playstation 3 was launched, since every PS3 unit also functioned as a Blu-ray Disc player. By January 2007, Blu-ray discs had outsold HD DVDs. Finally, by February 2008, Toshiba announced it was pulling its support for the HD DVD format, leaving Blu Ray as the ultimate victor.

The current optical discs, i.e., the DVDs and the CDs use a red and near infrared laser [650nm to 780nm] to read and write data, the Blu-ray Disc uses a blue (technically violet) laser [405nm] instead, hence the name Blu-ray.

Despite the different type of lasers used, Blu-ray products can easily be made backwards compatible with CDs and DVDs through the use of a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical pickup unit.

The benefit of using a blue-violet laser (405nm) is that it has a shorter wavelength than a red laser (650nm), which makes it possible to focus the laser spot with even greater precision. This allows data to be packed more tightly and stored in less space, so it's possible to fit more data on the disc even though it's the same size as a CD/DVD. This together with the change of numerical aperture to 0.85 is what enables Blu-ray Discs to hold 25GB/50GB. Initially it was more prone to scratches than the normal DVD but with advances in the polymer technology this problem has also been solved.

Blu-ray is currently supported by more than 180 of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer, recording media, video game and music companies. The format also has broad support from the major movie studios as a successor to today's DVD format. In fact, seven of the eight major movie studios (Disney , Fox , Warner , Paramount , Sony , Lionsgate and MGM) have released movies in the Blu-ray format and six of them are releasing their movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format.

For information about new and upcoming Blu-ray releases, as well as what movies are currently available in the Blu-ray format check out

www.blu-ray.com/movies/ .

LATEST NEWS :
After the Blu-ray disc manufacturers have eliminated the rival HD DVD format its prices are rising gradually these days. Since the Blu-ray format is being supported by almost every major Hollywood studio, it is bound to gain popularity in the upcoming years and together with its high-storage capacity it is correctly being termed as the next generation optical disc which will offer consumers an unprecedented HD experience.
Recently Samsung released a 100GB Blu-ray Disc which is a four-layer disc compared to the normal single layered 25GB disc.

Computer programming in Hindi ???

Open source softwares are developing globally and gaining wide popularity at a brisk rate. Indian developers are playing a key role on the development of the open source software industry. The Indian developers have come up with a variety of open source software solutions which is helping millions of users in India and globally.

One such really smart desi open source software is Hindawi programming system.
Hindawi is a multilingual programming language tool. This means that using this software, we can program in languages other than English.


Hindawi is also the winner of the FOSS India awards for 2008 which clearly shows how successful it has been. [the FOSS india awards is a well recognied initiative to appreciate free and open source softwares developed by indians and the award is supported by the LINUX FOR YOU magazine ]

The users can write programs in various Indian languages including Hindi, Guajarati, Bengali, assamese etc

The great thing is the wide varieties of programming languages it supports. It allows the user to program in the equivalents of C, C++ , lex , yacc , BASIC , LOGO and even assembly and many more computer languages.

The equivalent languages are called Hindi C or Hindi assembly or bangle C correspondingly.

Moreover these equivalent languages are syntax-compatible with their traditional English counterparts and can therefore utilize the existing libraries such as glibc etc in a manner similar to the way C++ is syntax compatible to C and hence can use most of the C libraries.

After winning the FOSS '08' award, key developers of Hindawi , Abhishek Choudhary and Sweta (Karwa) Choudhary shared, "Hindawi Programming System has shattered the technological myth that full-fledged programming systems cannot be feasibly developed in non-English languages. This is evident from the flurry of activity seen towards reproducing our results globally, and especially the interest of commercial entities in doing so... Let us think of our brothers and sisters who have not been privileged enough to go to English-medium schools. Even they have a right to benefit from the ICT revolution at all levels of technology, from primary school education to robotics and super-computing in their mother tongue, without the need to master English."

download Hindawi here : http://hindawi.in/en_US/download.php

This is just a warm-up post

Hi there ... an empty list of published posts never looks so cool ... so if you happen to be here and read this then just feel good about it ... coz i will definitely be updating soon ...

SAYONARA