Gmail Priority Inbox

I was seeing a small link in red called "New Priority Inbox _beta" from yesterday. Today I clicked it... it said, Failed to activate Priority Inbox.

After couple of tries it got activated. So, What is it ??

This new feature if it works really as advertised will be really an awesome feature for most of us. Simply to put up, it just prioritizes the mails for us. But how ? Just it does it by watching our read/sent mails and also it gives us an option to mark a mail as Important/ Unimportant.

And also there is a new mailbox view which categorize the mails as : 

1. Important and Unread  or
   
2. Starred  or
   
3. Everything Else
   

I have subscribed to lot of newsletters starting from Techrepublic to DotNetSlackers and etc. And now Im not reading all of them or at-least not all the issues. So the quantity of the mail, then mails from Dell, HP, etc are just filling my mailbox. I dont want to unsubscribe those and also I dont want to label and archive them. I want it in my inbox. And also, sometimes, there is a possibility of missing a mail from some person due to the number of these kind of mails. So, the better way is prioritizing it. Thats what its all about !!

New Priority Inbox didnt read my old mails and its not showing any proper Important and Unread messages. May be it need sometime to loop through mails etc.. Hope it works as expected.

Slate PC

In the CES keynote Steve Ballmer explained the HP slate tablet are "more powerful than a phone and almost as powerful as a PC. Perfect for reading, surfing the web and taking entertainment on the go," Ballmer showed the HP tablet running Amazon's Kindle software and played a video on it. Microsoft adopted the name slate computer to distinguish it from the pen-and-screen dealy introduced by Bill Gates in 2001. However, its not the real name for the tablet PC. Lets wait for the Slate!!

Update : 07 Apr 2010 - HP Slate info - leaked !!

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/05/hp-slate-to-cost-549-have-1-6ghz-atom-z530-5-hour-battery/

A long distance STD Call to one state to the other was around Rs 50 per minute. Likewise 500 Hours of TCP/IP internet connection (56Kbps max speed dial up based) was around Rs 10,000/- This was the situation in 1997/8, when I was doing 11th class, in  Namakkal, a town in TamilNadu, where there wasnt a internet dialup server, so I have to do a STD call to connect to the internet.

Today, due to high volume and usage, voice & data bandwidth are becoming dead cheap! When compared to the US, UK or Australia, we enjoy the "cheapest" rates, which is also due to the "high population".

In the West, lot of companies landline (wired phone), gives option like Pay flat for the call, ie., 10 cents/pennies per call, regardless of the duration of the call.. And in some cases, you can see, free outgoing from landline to landline. This was there for nearly a decade.

Oflate here in India,  when the new GSM Cellular providers came into the market, especially TATA DOCOMO brought Pay per second PLAN, which is now catching up very hotly. And parallely, we have got Pay per call, which is around Rs 3 per ten minutes, or Re 1 per three minutes (for Local/STD / while in Roaming) which is also catching up!.

Likewise the broadband connection is hitting the cheapest rate, like 20GB download a month is around Rs 750 etc Possibility of the rates to go down, as usage per Sq.Km is still getting dense (thanks to the indian population!!)

I still remember the days I liked to download few hundred MB,and it was pathetic!! Now, I love these rates,speed, and its just a throw away price.
Also, the technology has reached and reaching all the levels of people!!
But, when are we going to reach a saturation level ? Its soon, probably in few years..like the US/UK.

 

Using Credit cards

Credit card fraud is a big issue in India and abroad. I still know lot of people who never uses internet banking and earns more than a million rupee a year in IT field. Most of the time I have felt why these people are more reluctant?? Sometime back a colleague of mine used to give me money every week for booking him a rail ticket in IRCTC. He had a debit card, he was eligible for a Corporate Credit card but he never used those in the internet.

Even last week one of my ex-Manager who is yet to start a interior designing business came to my home to buy some softwares and domain name using my card in the internet. Lot of times I have used my cards for my friends’ purchase online.

But lot of Credit card based fraud are really making me to think twice before helping others to use my card... Visa & Master card gives a new way to secure your card information online called Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode. Most of the companies comes with their own way of securing or some good proven way to secure that. Nearly two years back I criticized in my blog about HSBC over killing the users by giving a security device.

 BBC claims that they have purchased UK residents credit card details from New Delhi. [More] This new issue and other stories are really making me to feel that those reluctant people are better!

 Multiple Inboxes for GMail

Last month Gmail Team announced a new GMail Lab feature called Multiple Inboxes. I really thought its about having Multiple Inboxes. Its not so. It wont allow you to see multiple Inboxes at the sametime. Its just a Multi-view or Multi-pane view of messages in some order or pattern. ie., You can create a view and define that to display all the mails labeled something, or from some account etc.

I have five accounts in Gmail (my old Gmail Id, other 3 ids for three different reasons created in the Google Apps - Kiruthik.com account). All the four are forwarded to the id mail-at-kiruthik.com. So mails from those account would reach this mail@kiruthik inbox.

Movies in your City from Google

After Vasanth, its my time to get amused by Google.
Searched for Movies in Madras, it just showed me. Even for Tiruppur, Salem, Madurai... the list goes on.

Free SQL Server 2008 Hosting

 

Again, MaximumASP has comeup with free SQL Server 2008 hosting like Free IIS 7 hosting account. This SQL Server 2008 account comes with 100 MB Space. Worth to try!!

http://www.sqlserverbeta.com/

.Net 3.5

The new .Net Framework is 3.5. Even it comes with Visual Studio 2008, with which can start developing applications. Still I could see people thinking .Net 3.5 is a new Framework with new Architecture(s).

Unlike .Net 2.0 & .Net 1.1, .Net 2.0, 3.0 & 3.5 are closed integrated. We can tell .Net 2.0 is a subset of .Net 3.0 which in turn is a subset of .Net 3.5!

Windows Live Ids

Get your Windows Live ID here soon!!

Live.com site is up and running for more than a year I think. Now Microsoft is giving email Ids with @live.com

The main advantage is that you can link your existing @hotmail.com or @MSN.com or @passport.com to this. Instead of having something like username1308@hotmail.com, name.2005@msn.com  etc., you can have yourname@live.com

All the service like your MSN/Hotmail Messenger, mail etc., can be linked so you will maitain only one ID that is yourID@Live.com Id

Get it sooooon here.

Windows Server 2008 Beta 3

Got my Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 DVD, but due to RAM and other issues, I didnt install it, for more than a month. And last week, I got time to explore Windows Server 2008. Windows Server 2008 is having all the cosmetics which is present in Windows Vista. I tried using AERO which was really great for my laptop with Intel 945 Graphics card, with 2GB of RAM. Though my laptop display is 12", I could really feel the nice AERO interface. Then comes our great IIS 7.0, which is why I got interested more towards the Longhorn Server.

Scott Hanselman's 2007 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

Computer ZEN presents the updated list of tools. Many tools, from the List is what Im using, and also the list is only making me to learn those-which are mostly new to me!! Thanks to Scott.

  Link to Scott Hanselman's 2007 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

 

Microsoft Surface

I was so excited to see the Multi-Point Interaction Technology implemented and working. Similarly, Microsoft has come up with something called Surface. Microsoft Surface preview is really so good and awesome. It should have now drained almost all the Microsofts' Rival CEO & Managers due to the interest that people show towards it. For sure Microsoft Surface will become so big Hit...

What is Microsoft Surface ?

Years back, Microsoft introduced / re-invented the Tablet PC which was a great success. And like that today its Microsoft Surface. Surface is some device, looks similar to your Carrom Board with touch screen on it. The touch screen is not similar to the one

Connect Netgear wireless Router WGR614 with BSNL Huawei modem

Last week I went to my cousin Sudhans' house. He is using BSNL Dataone, also he is having Linksys Wireless Router, which is not in use.

So I took my Netgear Wireless Router WGR614 to his house in tiruppur. Unlike other major ISPs in India, BSNL uses PPP(PPPoE) based dialing to connect to BSNL Broadband (Dataone) network.

Connecting the Huawei modem with my Netgear wireless router was not possible with my knowledge, so I googled for a longtime. It gave many results but I was not comfortable as I found that PPPoE based connection is supported by NetGear. So I thought it will be very easy than those step by step guides in the links. I read the Web Based documentation of the Netgear Wireless Router. It showed a very simple way to do that.

Im considering that your BSNL based connection is working, so this is just a add on to your existing connection to make you a wireless broadband experience.

• Just login to the Netgear Wireless Router Web based Configurator / Manager
• Select "Does Your Internet Connection Require a Login" to YES
• Choose Other as your ISP
• Give out your BSNL Dataone -  username & password
• Make sure Internet IP Address is selected to Get Dynamically from ISP (Choose the appropriate one as per your current settings)
• Set DNS Address as the following

BSNL DNS Information :

Primary DNS : 61.1.96.69

Secondary DNS :  61.1.96.71

Multi Touch Interaction Technology

 

I have heard of Multi Touch Technology a long back, when I started reading about Tablet PC & Handhelds. A cool video, which shows a Professor (Jefferson Y. Han) using a device that has Multi Touch Interaction Technology. Read more on this.

How it will be ? If we get such a device infront of us in the office instead of 17" LCD, a mouse and a Keyboard. Just think of those Fiction movies....

Im expecting some Tablet Manufacturers to use this in their Tablet, so that my next Tablet PC will be of this type!!

Source : [Vasanth]

Smallest Projector

The world techies (Germans) has done this nice job. Everything is becoming so small now a days, starting from Computers to Camera. This projector is from Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics & Precision Engineering in Jena. Its a 16mm wide projector which works by shooting LASER on a mirror. These projectors can be embedded into a Portable Medium, but they didn't convey anything about the price & availability. [SOURCE]

Prototype for Software(s)

What is a Prototype ?

Prototype is used to help the consumer of the software and the developers to understand the requirement. In general, Prototype can be defined as : pseudo system to validate the requirements.

Prototype can be used to give the end-user of the software a clear vision of the system. Also, it helps the developer(s) to identify their work product clearly.

Types of Prototype :

• Evolutionary Prototype &
• Throw-away Prototype

SkypeIn & SkypeOut

Im using Skype for nearly 2 years. I used SkypeOut to call my cousin Durgaa Vaishnavi in UK / Scotland, which was damn cheap, ie., it was less than Rs. 2 /min for a Landline number. Suddenly the university(Strathclyde) where she is doing her Ph.D., replaced the ordinary phone lines with a shared one, to which the call rated from SkypeOut was around Rs. 8 /min which was again equal to a call made from BSNL landline from here. As we used to talk for hours, I was looking for someways, where SkypeIn comes into picture.

SkypeIn

"With SkypeIn, you can get your own, regular phone number. So if your friends who aren’t using Skype want to call you by dialing a regular number, you can still receive the call in Skype/SkypeIn. No matter where you are"

0141 416 0313 is my UK number(SkypeIn), so anyone in UK can call me from their Landline/mobile which is damn cheap for them. I have recd' calls from London, Warwick & Glasgow as of now, and the people who are calling me feels it very cheap. Note : Its not only a number for people to call from UK, from anywhere in the world I can receive call just by adding 0044 to the number

There is something like PhoneIn from Yahoo, similar to SkypeIn. There the UK numbers are sold out. So im just waiting for that to try....

BarCamp Chennai 2006

1) What is BarCamp ? You can say its as a Tech Meet.

2) Who can attend ? Anyone can attend...

3) Im not still clear about BarCamp ? Barcamp is : Just a get together of unknow people to know the latest development in technologies in your town.

4) Where is it Happening ? It happened, is happening, will happen all over the world....

5) Don't confuse me, what exactly it means ? No one will be clear unless & untill you attend a Camp!!

6) Ok, ok Who is going to talk ? You are going to talk & we are going to listen.

7) What ? Yes, everyone in the conference is a participant.....

Ok, I will add more, stuffs in few hours..

 "BarCamp is an ad-hoc unconference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction. The two day BarCampChennai focusses on Web 2.0 and Next Generation Internet. It takes place on April 8th and 9th (Saturday and Sunday)" - Kiruba.com

My Canon Powershot A 610

Two weeks back I bought Canon Powershot A 610 Digital Camera. Sony Mavica FD-73, was my old camera which I used hardly for a year in 2000, which was a floppy disk model and it can hold only 10 images in one media. Later, my cousin Sudhan with whom I roam a lot, had few cameras, and also  Canon PowerShot S410, so I had no intension of buying a digital camera. And the truth was I want to sell my Sony Mavica FD-73 before buying a new one.

But, last year  I was interested in buying a new camera, so I started searching and reading many reviews. I always recommend Canon, Sony & Nikon cameras. So, I selected  Sony DSC-W5, Nikon Coolpix 5600, Canon PowerShot D450 & Canon PowerShot A610 in October. From then, I took nearly two months to select Canon PowerShot A610.My budget was around 300$. But in a good deal we can get this for even 225$ (with a Dell.com coupon). Here in India, the price is around 16,500 INR (around 350$).

And memory card I have 256 MB SD which is not even sufficient for a one day shoot. So Im planning to buy a 1GB SD Elite Pro Kingston from Buy.com

Specifications :

5.1 Mega Pixels
4x Optical Zoom
4x Digital Zoom
ISO Rating : Auto, 50, 100, 200 & 400
Focus : Auto & Manual
Exposure compensation : -2 EV to +2 EV in 1/3 EV steps
2.0″ vari-angle color LCD with up to 10x playback zoom
Program AE, Shutter-speed priority, Aperture priority and Manual modes
Shutter speeds : 15 seconds to 1/2500 second
Inbuilt Microphone & Speaker
and more...

Canon Powershot A 610 is bit bulky, & its difficult to keep into your shirt pocket, but still the size gives you better result!!

Canon Powershot A 610 Back side View

Back side View with Credit Card (to Compare)

Canon Powershot A 610 compared with my Credit Card

Canon Powershot A 610  Side View showing the USB, AV & power supply port.

Top view of Canon Powershot A 610 with Minimal Zoom

Also, I will post more photos soon, & Im planning to write a review soon

Electronic giant Sony has introduced Sony Reader, a PDA sized device, which lets you to read ebooks. Also it comes with a headphone socket, which helps to hear MP3 songs as well.  

It lends the display technology from e-Ink.

Display      :   15 cm(6 inch)
Weighs      :   250 grams 
Thickness  :   2 cm

Supports Adobe PDF, JPEG & Blogs(RSS). It supports both Secure Digital & Memory Stick to have more memory.

Best of all is, many of the world's leading book publishers will support Sony eBook Reader, including Random House, HarperCollins, Penguin Putnam, Simon & Schuster and Time Warner Book Group.

 

November 3^rd is considered as World Usability Day, by Usability Professional Association (UPA) . World Usability Day is a project of UPA : promoting usability concepts and techniques worldwide. Around the globe the event is happening in more than 200 places. And in India, as on date, the event is going to happen in three places, viz., Bangalore, Chennai & Hyderabad.

If anyone is working / interested in Usability then feel free to attend   And there is also a blog for World Usability Day - Chennai.

Venue :

            Anna University,
            Hall of Guines 68,
            Department of Manufacturing Engineering,
            Sardar Vallabhat Patel Road,
            Chennai, 600 002

UPA also has a Indian chapter based in Pune.  Also Muthu, a Usability Engineer is blogging about Usability, which is named as Usability in India. Worth Clickling 

Last week MSN & Yahoo announced their plan to connect their Instant Messaging(IM) network together in the first half of next year. i.e., you can send IMs to your friends in MSN, if you have logged into Yahoo, and vice versa is also applicable. We can share emoticons, add new contacts etc. Also, voice chat is possible. Hopefully they will be in the phase of syncing up their databases

This is will be a dazzling feature which gives AOL & Google Talk a big punch. AOL is mostly used in US, where they have more users, than the combined users of Yahoo & MSN users. But outside US, Yahoo & MSN stands. Whereas, the new comer for this line Google-Talk is the main sufferer, even for Skype, its the same. Well, Yahoo has marked this service "Coming soon" in their Messenger page as featured partners.

The only doubt I have is : is it possible to send offline messages to MSN users in that case  ????

After Gmail, its 30gigs now. They are offering 30GB of mail storage. But this one is not from a very big company & they have registered their site (30gigs.com) for only 2 years. The user interface may look good. If anyone is left with an invitation, send me that to mail@kiruthik.com 

Year back,  Hotmail gave 2MB & Yahoo  6MB, now there are offerings in GBs.

Update : I have many 30 Gigs invitations left to give out   Mail me, if you need it....

My cousin Durga, who is doing her Ph.D., in Strathclyde University left to Glascow this morning after a months' holiday. I accompanied her with Kanchi (another cousin of mine who is studying 11th standard in Lady Andal School) till Chennai(Madras) International Airport. Inside the Airport, in a public telephone booth, I saw a sticker, saying BSNL Wi-Fi SPOT. As usual I got wired up, since I have blogged about BSNL Wi-Fi a month back. Anyway Wi-Fi is becoming cheaper in India. Interestingly Kanchi was having a  Nokia 6230i which had a 1.3Mega Pixel camera, so I clicked and send it to me thru Bluetooth.  The original picture is here : [link]

I can't access any FTP site from my office. So Im using Geocities, to upload images

Toshiba already rules the 1.8 inch HDD segment with a market share of 85%. Now they have come up with a new HDD with  Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR).

As of now this HDD is for CE devices like Portable Media Players, Gaming console, Imaging devices etc., This technology is based on a new magnetic disk structured to support perpendicular recording, a new high-performance perpendicular magnetic head, and disk and head integration technology that maximizes their combined performance. Conventional method is the Longitudinal Recording, which stores data on a magnetic disk as microscopic magnet bits aligned in plane.

I still have a 40MB HDD, which was manufactured by Seagate in 1990's, which is in the size of today's desktop HDD. But see the difference in the capacity!!!!

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), to provide Wi-Fi access. I have heard that the  private operators are finding it difficult to increase their Wi-Fi customer base. I hope that BSNL is the best PSU in india, having all the lastest features in by its counterparts in the world. And service offered by them are seamlessly comparable to all the private operators in the country. They didn't miss to provide any service provided by its private-competitors. Im planning to review global Telecom giants, supporting BSNL

Even BSNL is having a website (Cellone.in)to provide Value Added Services for its mobile phone customers.

For more news/rates on BSNL Wi-Fi visit :  http://bsnl.co.in/newsdetailed.php?news_id=222

"In a world of more to do, more to discover the desire is clarity", says Microsoft Windows Vista.

The official name for Microsoft Windows Codenamed Longhorn will be Microsoft Windows Vista. Like Windows XP, Microsoft plans to puch Windows Vista by enforcing it with a new type of clear/claritative displays. That clearness seen in XP will be more in Vista. Its feature include better search(not using this Indexing), parental controls, home networking & easy to use external connectivity, etc.,

 
 

The official release was told in 2004 once, and got delayed many times. Now they are planning to set out Beta 1 this August 3^rd. And  the full release will be in 2006 second quarter it seems. Many expected features like WinFS are not implemented, may be they are for the next release,  Windows 2010 ????!!!!!

Im waiting for August 3^rd, 

After a month, MSN announced its Virtual Earth, the search engine giant released its own version called, Google Earth ( beta ), which is a advancement of Google 's Mapping (KEYHOLE), which allow users to search for a location to get an aerial view of that place.

Like MSN Virtual Earth, Google also offers many features like satellite view,..... It lists Banks/ATMs, Schools, Movie Rentals, Hospitals, Churches, Restaurant, Airports etc., Its a 100% GIS Application, but the images will not be a map, but it will be of Aerial & 3D view. I clicked, Hard Times, a movie rental Shoppe, and it showed the address.

 

Like we bookmark web pages in a browser, we can also bookmark a place. And if you search for a address, it will find the area exactly, and shows the image with the Latitude & Longitude points. Like GIS applications, they split the area with the same Layer concept. For e.g.., I selected Shopping centers in the layer, in few seconds, it showed many shopping centers with a $ symbol. Likewise I tried lodging & banks.

It comes in 4 editions, but as of now, the free one is not available for download. And if you are that much interested, then go for Google Earth Pro Trial, which is available for download.

Edition	Pricing in $ (Annually)
Google Earth	Free
Google Earth Plus	20
Google Earth Pro	400
Google Earth Enterprise	NA

NA - Not Available

“Acrylic” is the codename for a new professional design tool that brings together the richness of pixel-based painting and the flexibility of editable vector graphics for a more fluid and flexible creative workflow. With Acrylic you can create sophisticated designs and graphic elements for your on-screen, Web, and print projects.  
                                                                                                                                                              -Microsoft

Looks more like Expression, its Predecessor.

Cool one, i tried it, will be posting more later........ [Download]

Microsoft Chairman BillGates announced MSN Virtual Earth, Microsoft's Satellite/Geo Mapping & Local Search service, on 3D conference in California. It lets the user to zoom in on a local area and get information about the restaurants, cafes, hotels, dry cleaners, coffee shops & so on. The first release of it will be available in the summer, sometime between June & September.

Google, Yahoo & other search engine giants have this Local Search service running already.


Features include :

· Imagery -- satellite maps and a unique 45-degree-angle view of buildings and neighborhoods, Eagle Eye view.

· Hybrid Maps -- street maps overlaid over satellite maps

· Full-bleed Map Views – a nearly full screen map that users interact with

"High-fidelity images captured by a fleet of small planes will be added to the service in the fall", said Stephen Lawler, General Manager Microsoft's MapPoint business.

The aerial images are provided by Pictometry, the worldwide leader in Digital Aerial Photography.

MSN coming late but with Latest.

The SIMPUTER – a Simple, Inexpensive, Mobile ComPUTER – was co-developed in 1998 by Encore Software Ltd and scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore. I have heard about this Simputer before. But not seen till this Linux-Bangalore 2004. Encore was the Silver Sponsor for the event. So they had a stall. And gave a talk in the event about the Sathi.

 "Are you from the country where Simputer was born ?", somebody asked Atul once in Singapore it seems, he said in the LB2004 event.

Really its cool. I had chance to work in that for few minutes. Great work by a Indian Company. It was fast enough to take my inputs. Myself and Prady were in their stall. They explained well about the device. They deliver Simputer with Linux, but previously they had a option of giving it with WinCE.Net :)

Once I read a article in PCQuest, " Honey I shrunk the Kernel". This suits them well. 
 

Hardware Specifications:
 » Intel Strong ARM Processor-SA1110 @ 206 MHz  
 » 240x320 Monochrome/Color TFT Panel with backlight Touch Screen used with Stylus Pen  
 » 16MB-64MB of DRAM 
 » 08-32 MB of Flash for Permanent Storage 
 
Connectivity/ Interfaces:
 » Internal V.90 Data Modem 
 » SmartCard Reader/Writer 
 » RJ-11 Telephone Jack 
 » USB Master Interface 
 » IrDA (Infrared) Interface 
 » Internal Speaker/Microphone/Voice Recorder 
 » Connector to External Speaker/Microphone 
 » Connector to Expansion Cradle  
 
 Power Supply:
 » Internal power management system 
 » Operates with External AC Adapter 
 » Operates with 6V-12V Solar-Power Kit 
 » Two AA-sized NiMh rechargeable batteries with internal battery charger 
 
Systems Software:
 » Linux Kernel 2.4.18 
 » TCP/IP, FTP, Telnet, PPP, HTTP, etc. 
 » GTK+, glibc Library, J2ME 
 
Applications:
 » Address Book, HTML 
 » Browser, E-mail, MP3 Player, Memo Pad, Calculator, Image Viewer, File Transfer  
 
Application Development Software Support:
 » GNU/Linux ARM Cross-development Tool Chain on Linux PC 
 » X Windows Library 
 » GTK Toolkit 
 » Encore's Application Development Framework 
 » ADB Mobile Framework

My Idea : I feel this great one. If they add a mobile unit(supporting GSM Mobile Kit), then it can be marketed as a PDA (World's Feature Rich PDA!!!!)

[Encore Simputer]