Tag Archives: Technology - Page 3

Windows 7 : How Microsoft won the world with Vista

Few days ago Microsoft announced that Windows 7 has gone RTM & select beta testers; TechNet & MSDN subscribers will get it as soon as August 6th. Apple few months ago in WWDC said Windows 7 is just same old technology as Windows Vista which is bad but even though Snow Leopard is same old technology as Leopard like what Microsoft did, its good…. well, here is the thing Apple, Microsoft played a gamble with Windows Vista & now they have won it.

Windows XP was using Windows NT technology when it was released but to move Windows in 21st century & to make a good foundation for future version of Windows, Microsoft needed a new technology, new architecture for Windows while still maintaining backward compatibility with Windows XP era application. Microsoft played a gamble with Windows Vista due to which they released many new technologies, architecture etc. which did break backward compatibility but it in a way paved the path for Windows 7.

If it was Windows 7 with which MS was releasing new technologies then Windows 7 would have had the fate like that of Vista. With Vista Microsoft gave us developers new API like WPF, WCF, WWF, DirectX 10, X-Audio etc. which wasn’t liked much when Vista released as the low end hardware at that time was not capable enough to run Vista, it was Windows XP centric.

64bit Computing & Hardware

Microsoft increased awareness about 64bit computing with Vista 64bit edition, people also started upgrading to more than 3 GB RAM for which 64bit computing is required & today after 3 years, all CPUs in the market are 64bit capable, they can run 64bit version of Windows which brings more stability, more RAM support & ability to do more work at ones. This just increases the efficiency of our current hardware. All the hardware purchased in the last 2 years need no upgrade to run Windows 7. It is highly optimized form of Vista & Microsoft won the gamble that today most of the PCs in the world have more than enough power to run Windows 7 without any upgrade which is essential considering the current economic crisis all over the world.

DirectX 10 & GPGPU

Microsoft re-created a large part of DirectX with DirectX 10 & released WDDM Driver model which bought much more stability even to the third party drivers which are the biggest reason of Windows BSODs. Microsoft also gave developers the ability to use the graphics card to use as a GPGPU which can assist CPU in tasks because a GPU is also like a big CPU but only for graphics. This wasn’t possible with DirectX 9 so the large re-write & no compatibility with Windows XP did make some people mad at Microsoft but Microsoft wasn’t thinking about short term gains, they had long term gains in mind. Now 3 years later, today, GPGPU is a common term. AMD & nVidia have their support in the form of CUDA & Stream API. Almost all new games use DirectX 10 which also makes them easy to port to XBOX 360, doubling the market reach. Again, a gamble MS played by not providing support for Windows XP but it won the gamble today with Windows 7 as now even onboard graphics support DirectX 10 hence GPGPU capability & enhanced stability.

Hardware Industry

With Vista & Aero, Microsoft forced GPU manufacturers to support DirectX 9 at the bare minimum in there onboard graphics too. Now, nVidia & ATI are the big dogs in GPU industry but enterprise & casual users don’t usually buy separate graphics card, they rely on onboard video which was arcane in form of Intel Extreme Graphics. For the first time in years, Intel started providing Intel GMA 950 with full DirectX 9 support, which had sufficient power to run Windows Vista & Aero but wasn’t enough to play games though this isn’t what Microsoft was aiming. If you are an avid gamer, you will sure buy a separate graphics card but if you are a casual user then Onboard graphics will also suffice. nVidia & then ATI (now AMD) also started giving powerful onboard graphics & 3 years later, today, even the low-end onboard graphics found in motherboards is enough to run full 1080p HD Videos, Aero & even casual gaming.

HD Audio

With X-Audio, Microsoft broke the monopoly of Creative & it’s EAX from the Sound Industry. Now HD Audio which was created in alliance with Intel & Microsoft rules the consumer PC industry & only some high end users & audiophiles buy Creative’s Sound cards as Onboard HD Audio provides better Value for money, features & stability instead of Creative. There is no point in buying another sound card when the onboard APU is enough to provide 32bit, multi-channel audio while Creative X-Fi is still 24bit. Since X-Audio is all in software, it can do wonders. Never doubt the power of software :-p

New API

Microsoft introduced WPF for Application development instead of GDI+. WPF is all C# managed code based due to which there are low memory leaks, large audience as .Net CLR is also available as open source & it is also supported on Linux with Mono, etc. When Vista came the 3rd party developers had a choice, either support the arcane Windows XP model of software development or slowly switch to C# & WPF. Many of the companies did this & after 3 years, a large market is there with .net based application for Windows Vista. Not only the 3rd party developers got certification for Vista, but they were also exposed to new technologies only available to Vista. They used the technology & 3 years later… many applications are using the new technologies provided by Vista so when Windows 7 is coming, the devs don’t have to do anything much. Their application is already Windows 7 compatible since a long time. Microsoft made developers update their code for Vista, it gave them 3 years to do it & with Windows 7, everything is already ready at launch.

Internet Explorer

Microsoft was lacking behind in terms of web technology support with Internet Explorer & they are also facing a silly lawsuit by E.C. & Opera. Well, Microsoft just listened to the customers & made IE 8 with much better support for current CSS & HTML technologies & a multi-process engine which later on even Google Chrome copied, followed by Firefox. If you hate a product due to lack of features, you won’t use it. But if all the flaws are fixed & it does what you want it to do the way you want it to do… will you still not use it or will you still act like a Firefox or Safari Fan boy. Internet Explorer 9 is going to be completely new HTML engine based with full support for HTML 5 if HTML 5 gets standardized before IE 9 is released but judging by the situation today, IE 8 will be able to hold for a long time as HTML 5 is not coming anytime soon. Though I myself wish it comes quickly.

Windows Live Services

Microsoft also changed their application bundling model with Windows 7. Windows 7 no longer comes with Windows Mail or Calendar, cos it doesn’t need to as Microsoft already develops them in form of Windows Live. Now, if a user doesn’t want to use Windows Mail, it’s not there at all. He can very well use Thunderbird or something else or install Windows Live Essential pack to get all those apps he might be missing. Now, no one can sue Microsoft by saying it is a Monopoly & since Windows Mail is inbuilt, no one uses XYZ E-Mail client. Consumers have a choice, either use whatever you want… or if you are unaware.. There is a link in Welcome center of Windows 7 informing them about Windows Live services.

Security

All those people who say Windows get virus, well… it’s been 3 years I am using my PC without any antivirus suite & there is no problem so far. I don’t even use Windows defender, but then again… not everyone is a power user so for them, Microsoft is releasing “Codename Morrow”, a free anti-virus suite from Microsoft which will sure come under Windows Live brand when released. Like I said previously, if you hate a product due to lack of features then you won’t use it. But if all the flaws are fixed & it does what you want it to do the way you want it to do… will you still not use it or will you still act like a Fan boy.

Microsoft also faced some stiff completion, Lies & Lawsuits but one thing I like about Steve Ballmer’s administration is that now Microsoft is listening to what people are saying. If it wasn’t for this, Windows 7 wouldn’t get this much overhaul in performance, UI & UX.

One of the biggest reason of Apple users making fun of Windows users is that Apple has a better UI. Well, guess what…. the Superbar One ups the Dock in every way. Windows navigation with Superbar is so better than even Apple copied Dock expose from Window’s Aero Peak. Apple even copied GPGPU in form of OpenCL but no one will blame them… it’s just cool hating Microsoft even if you don’t have a reason to hate.

In my workplace we use Windows, Mac & Linux. All the people who use the OS know how to use it so they are comfortable with it, we have no reason to hate the other OS cos we know at the end of the day, whatever gets your work done is the best thing.

Mojave experiment proved that many people hated Vista, didn’t like it just cos someone told them this. How can you hate something when you have never tried it? Sure with Vista Microsoft gave a new UI for explorer etc. but 3 years later, that UI is common & people using Windows 7 won’t be feeling new. They have been using & working on similar environment since 3 years. That Vista’s UI is now old & generic.

Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been but it’s a wrong saying. If it wasn’t for Windows Vista & its success/failure… Windows 7 would not exist in such a successful form as it is today.

Office 2010 : Breath of fresh air… again

Posted by Saurav Srivastava on July 14, 2009 1 comment

Microsoft recently released Office 2010 Technical Preview on Microsoft Connect. I downloaded My copy right away. The 32bit version weighs around 530 MB.

M.S Office is the de-facto standard when it comes to Office Productivity suits out there. OpenOffice.org does provides a good competition but Microsoft just one upped them again with the new UI in Office 2010. Working in Office 2007 & 2010 is so easy now, that OpenOffice looks like an arcane antique compared to it.

The Technical Preview contains most of the application usually available in regular Office suits but I only installed Excel, Word & Powerpoint as these are the only application I use in M.S. Office anyway. Neowin has already done a good review of Office 2010 technical preview so I won’t go into many of the details as those are something people will be able to read on various websites anyway.

So, why another version of Office? Wasn’t Office 2007 good enough? How much can Microsoft enhance an already mature product like Office which hardly has any features lacking that I can think of so why another Office? The answer is simple, The new Office Web & a user experience catered to Windows 7.

Since the day I used Office 2007, its hard for me to work on Office 2003 or OpenOffice. I just can’t keep searching for options under all those menus. Microsoft Office already has so many features, just that these features were not visible to most people due to which they though M.S office is boring. The ribbon UI did a good thing that it now shows all the things that you will need right in front of your eyes. It made working on Office even more easier, something even Apple iWork & OpenOffice are not able to provide yet. Apple iWork is still good as it is only available to those using a Mac.

I downloaded some DOC files available in Connect, reading a document is so much better in Word now, which is something I miss in other Office Suites. You can minimize the ribbon at will. But the best feature that I like is the security feature which were already three in old version of office, just that now they are in your face due to the new Back Stage feature of Office 2010 which makes everything much clear. You can set permission etc to Office documents like who can edit it, or even if editing is allowed. The color scheme used in Office 2010 is also more soothing to the eyes.

Whether Microsoft admits it or not, but for a casual user, office person etc the changes are mostly in the UI & ease of use only. Office Web is good but since I haven’t used it much right now, I won’t comment on it. However, Office 2010 provides native integration with Office Live. It even supports saving in PDF format without any 3rd party plugin. It would be better if Microsoft provides native access to Live Mesh so that we can share documents directly on the cloud & share with whoever we want.

Since my work in SlideShare includes creating occasional slides & presentation, Powerpoint 2007 is a necessity while Office 2010 just makes my work better & simpler. Finding things, creating styles, arrows… links etc is quite easy.

Now the million dollar question, should you switch to Office 2010? The following scenario come to my mind….

1) You are an Individual Student who occasionally needs to edit a Presentation or Document. You don’t have any Office suite installed & don’t want to go for pirated software. Since you needs are occassional only even I don’t recommend paying $150 for Office Student & teacher edition as there is no point paying so much money for something you only use once in a while. You best bet is to use OpenOffice or similar office suite from other vendors.

2) You are a student & can Pirate Office 2010, well… then I can’t do much to stop you from using it.

3) You are a business using Office 2003, just upgrade. Office 2010 will bring huge time saving to your enterprise

4) You are a business using office 2007, stick to what you got. The feature set isn’t much different from Office 2007 so better stick to that only.

5) You are a business buying Office suite for the first time. If it is only basic work, where individuals work on Excel Sheets on there workstation then stick to OpenOffice, if you require collaboration then buy Office 2010. It collaborative feature & intigration with SharePoint Server is unmatched by all rivals.

Other then the UI refinement, there isn’t much that I will be missing in Office 2010 over Office 2007 myself.

Nokia Ovi Suite 2.0 : What PC Suite should have been

Posted by Saurav Srivastava on June 30, 2009 4 comments

Nokia users are using Nokia PC Suite since god knows when. It is a software I first used with a Nokia 6600 4 or 5 years back. It looks still the same, except for the updated icons maybe. Nokia was lacking behind Microsoft when it comes to a Mobile phone’s desktop counterpart application. They tried to succeed with Noka Ovi Suite 1.0 which was created in WPF for Windows XP, Vista & Windows 7 but it lacked SMS & Contact Management feature & Instead gave Music, video, photo management instead. Seriously Nokia, a phone is for making calls also.

Recently Nokia released Nokia OVI Suite beta 2.0. This time it is made using Qt Framework due to which it is very slim is size compared to over 200 MB for WPF based Nokia Ovi suite 1.0. Lets not talk about Nokia PC Suite 7.x as UI wise it was garbage. Though it was pretty fast & used to do everything fine. Development in Qt also gives Nokia the ability to port Ovi Suite to Linux & Mac OS. Since Nokia is a device vendor, the best way for them to make money & capture market share is to make there product available on all OS.

Sony Ericsson released SE File Manager & then Media Manager which bought a nice UI & experience. Nokia just one upped them with Ovi Suite 2.0. Things are clearly laid out in the new Ovi Suite.

The home tab has everything you will usually need. It shows a glance at all your contacts, SMS, Pictures & Music on the device. You can also connect the phone to internet for using GPRS/3G on your PC using this Ovi Suite. Nokia is touting Ovi suite as the only connectivity application you will ever need & they are not wrong. It can even update the phone’s firmware, applications from Nokia etc.

I don’t use Outlook anymore but it even supports syncing your contacts & notes, calendars with Outlook or some other colander. You can add contacts using Ovi Suite & it will sync it with the Phone next time when you sync it. I disabled automatic sync because then it takes time to get usable after starting.

Keep in mind that Ovi Suite has 2 contact lists. One is of your phone which can be seen after clicking the small arrow below the contact list which will then open the contact list of your Phone. What I did was to make changes to my contact list in my Computer once, then connected the phone via bluetooth & copied all the contacts to the Phone by dragging & dropping on the phone’s list.

SMS is in the form of threaded SMS. Now I am someone who cleans his Sent items folder so its of no use for me. But for those who don’t, its actually good. You can also make smart filters which will sort SMS they way you define. Not just that, you can see SMS by Contacts or a list of all SMS. It also shows the SMS saved in the “My Folder” of SMS application. Though I prefer the old PC suite way in which it used to show SMS saved in folders inside “My Folder” in a tree view. I am filing a bug, hope Nokia is able to incorporate that feature.

You can also use Ovi Suite to sync your Music, but I prefer Windows Media Player for that which automatically converts music to WMA & my Phone as well as PC are in Sync. For some reason Ovi suite doesn’t converts songs, it just copies them as they are.

If you have Ovi Suite connected to your phone via Bluetooth then it shows a notification when there is a new SMS or Call in the system tray too.

From what it seems, Nokia is trying to bring an experience unrivaled by any other Phone manufacturer. They now have there own music store too which makes sense as people are using more & more there phones for there music needs as well as video. Having an all in one Suite like Ovi Suite can make the N Series phones just more user friendly. You can download Ovi Suite 2.0 from Nokia Labs

Finally, I am also on Twitter

Posted by Saurav Srivastava on April 19, 2009 2 comments

Everyone is on Twitter & no matter how much I find it pointless, it is a good way to communicate to many people at one time, or announce something to all of them etc etc.

I joined twitter today & integrated it to my blog. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/gx_saurav

Here is the thing, don’t expect me to write everything I do in my life on Twitter, its for announcements, queries etc only. I even disabled Facebook Integration with Twitter as it looks pathetic when my Facebook page is filled with friend’s twits.

After using many Twitter clines, I am settled at Blu. It is a really good looking WPF based Desktop client. I also tried Witty which is equally good but Witty doesn’t support TinyURL while you are writing, while Blu will automatically convert your link. Now I wish I could get Witty’s notification system & minimize to tray feature in Blu.

I tried Twhirl, Spaz etc too but didn’t like them. Adobe AIR applications have very small font. Twhirl was somewhat good though as it had custom font support but the icons then were very small

On Mobile phone I am using Tweete recommended by Manan. Its good, I don’t need any mobile clients either. Its a browser based service which works beautifully with Opera Mini.

BumpTop : Managing your PC Desktop like a real Desktop

Posted by Saurav Srivastava on April 10, 2009 2 comments

Few years ago I saw a video on YouTube which was demonstrating BumpTop UI of managing your Windows Desktop using physics based gestures & rules of real life like dragging & dropping, piling together etc. At that time It was just a concept demo but it is possible today in form of BumpTop which will run with .net runtime 3.5 SP1 on Windows XP, Vista & Windows 7. BumpTop is using OpenGL though which makes it possible to create a cross platform application. This UI is so useful in real life, it would be a crime not to release it for Linux based touch screen devices.

The philosophy of BumpTop is to make you manage your Windows Desktop the same way you manage a real life Desktop or Table on which you work. What do you do there??? You pile things on top of each other, put sticky notes, pictures, frames etc. You get a similar experience with BumpTop just that it is inside a computer. Here is how BumpTop looks like on my PC. I wish Yahoo Widgets would go flat on the floor of BumpTop.

A better picture of BumpTop found on Arstechnica

BumpTop from my point of view isn’t that useful when used on a PC with Mouse but is extremely useful when used on a Touchscreen Tablet PC. It just makes more sense there to use it.

Here is a Video of BumpTop running I found on YouTube. It really fluid & without any performance hits even on my PC.

The Small Wonder : X-Mini Max

Posted by Saurav Srivastava on March 23, 2009 4 comments

It is very hard to believe that despite of using computers for almost 10 years , I never purchased speakers. I am not that much into music & movies & watch them once in a while only so my primary source of Audio is my Philips SHP8900 Hi-Fi headphones.

Due to all this I never had good experience with speakers. I wanted to buy small portable speakers for my Nokia N79 which can run on battery & provide enough volume & loudness for 1 room. I don’t want to disturb the whole neighborhood so wanted something which is small, can run via battery, can be charged quickly & which can be carried to small parties in a Cargo Short’s pockets or a simple Backpack.

I found X-mini Max Stereo Speakers but wasn’t expecting them in Lucknow but I found them in Jumbo Electronics in Fun Republic. Jumbo Electronics is indeed a good place for such kind of fancy electronics items which are usually hard to find anywhere else in Lucknow. I was surprises to find X-Mini Max there & after a bargain I was able to buy it at Rs 2,200.

X-mini Max is available in a cylindrical packaging as shown above which is quite compact. The speakers look like a small bomb form a Sci –Fi movie when they are both connected together. Many eyes were looking at us when we were trying them in McDonalds .

The package contains the speakers, one connectivity cable & one small pouch to keep the speakers while traveling. When the speaker is inside the cloth pouch, it is still very small to carry in your Cargo’s side pocket.

My primary purpose of buying these speakers was to use with my N79 & once in a while with my PC when I have many people watching a movie in my room.

I captured some videos during video & music playback with my Sony Cybershot W80 Digicam.

Don’t compare these with full blown speakers like Creative T40 or iTrigue because they are real PC speakers & they are indeed better if you plan to use them on a PC only however they are not as portable as these X-Mini speakers.

X-mini gives sufficient audio to completely fill a medium size hall with audio. Whether you are listening to music on PC or using a digital audio player or mobile phone, the X-Mini will indeed give you sufficient audio. However, don’t plan to use them in Outdoor environment as due to open area the audio will spread in all direction & overall volume will decrease. The speakers are marked at 3.5W RMS each.

The only thing I have to which I can compare the sound quality of these speakers is my T.V’s speakers. Compared to them the vocal dialogs of T.V shows wasn’t that loud. The audio doesn’t distort up to 90% volume level but does distorts at 100%. Make sure you close the Bass accordion when watching movies as movies usually have dialogs more then music at which Bass can produce bad audio with these speakers.

Audio when watching movies is better when the speakers are placed on a 90 degree angel facing you.

The speakers provide a playback time of 8 hours with a full charge & take 2 hours to charge completely. They can be charged either by connecting to a PC via USB or a USB Wall A.C adapter. They can also be charged using D.C batteries if you have a portable travel charger with a Mini USB connector. I found one on ebay & have ordered it. During charging the light turns to red, when fully charged or playing they turn to blue. Light blue means battery is low.

Overall, if you are looking for big full blown speakers & if you are an audiophile for which even a point increase in treble means a lot, then buy these speakers after checking properly. However, if you are looking for something portable to use with your Notebook or Netbook PC, or Mobile phone or iPod or something else portable then X-Mini Max stereo for Rs 2,200 is a good purchase.

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