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Nokia Nuron

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:03:44 +0000

White Plains, NY, USA and Bellevue, WA, USA – Nokia and T-Mobile USA today announced the upcoming availability of the Nokia 5230 Nuron, a smartphone solution for the masses packed with applications, maps with turn-by-turn directions, and more. Operating on T-Mobile’s blazing-fast 3G network, the Nokia Nuron offers dynamic Web browsing and rich experiences on a 3.2″ touch screen. The device is also the first pre-loaded with Ovi Maps, a free turn-by-turn navigation solution from Nokia, and the first to have the Ovi Store pre-loaded, giving consumers access to thousands of compelling applications and games. The Nokia Nuron is expected to be available in the coming weeks exclusively from T-Mobile.

“The Nokia 5230 Nuron is a great product of our collaboration with T-Mobile USA and provides consumers with more compelling mobile experiences as they navigate, watch video, play games and social network,” said Mark Slater, Vice President, Sales, Nokia. “The Nokia Nuron offers U.S. consumers a unique and compelling mobile experience that caters to their everyday needs and enables them to connect to their passions with an affordable 3G touch smartphone.”

The Nokia Nuron is a mobile solution that allows consumers to easily make their way around town, download content and applications to keep them entertained, or help to manage their busy lives. Consumers can keep up with friends and family via IM, text, personal or work e-mail, and offers the ability to easily surf the Web with a full HTML browser.

“Many of our customers are looking for smartphones that deliver a great mobile Web experience with access to games and applications, all at an affordable price,” said Travis Warren, director, product marketing, T-Mobile USA. “We are excited to partner with Nokia to offer our customers the Nokia 5230 Nuron, a 3G smartphone for the masses that delivers features like a full touch screen, free turn-by-turn navigation and a premium storefront for applications.”

The Nokia Nuron is the first U.S. carrier -supported Nokia smartphone to pre-load Ovi Maps, a solution from Nokia that offers consumers free turn-by-turn directions and navigation. Additionally, Ovi Maps makes it easy to discover great places to eat, concerts, movies and more with Lonely Planet guides. Other features include the ability to check the weather forecast and even share one’s current location on Facebook. With pedestrian navigation, Ovi Maps delivers the best routes through pedestrian zones and shortcuts as well as pathways through parks and buildings. Exploring the world or rediscovering your own city has never been easier or more fun with Ovi Maps. Nokia Nuron also comes preloaded with maps for the USA, Canada and Mexico – with the ability to access over 180 country maps at http://www.nokiausa.com/maps.

The Nokia Nuron will be the first device from a national U.S. carrier to come pre-loaded with Ovi Store by Nokia – giving consumers access to thousands of applications and other exciting content.

T-Mobile also plans to simplify the purchase experience for its customers and expects to enable them to pay for this great content by having it billed to their monthly bill or via a credit card.

To learn more about Ovi by Nokia, or for more information on how to develop for Ovi Store, please visit http://www.ovi.com and http://publish.ovi.com, respectively.

Availability
The Nokia 5230 Nuron is expected to be available on in the coming weeks in select T-Mobile retail stores and online at http://www.t-mobile.com. For more information, please visit http://www.nokiausa.com/NokiaNuron or http://www.t-mobile.com.

Use of some features or services may incur separate, additional charges and/or require a qualifying data plan. 3G coverage is available in locations nationwide, but may not be available everywhere. For more details on where T-Mobile network coverage is available, please visit www.t-mobile.com/coverage.

Microsoft’s first Android App

admin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:54:51 +0000

04 March 2010 – The BBC reports that Microsoft has developed its first application for Google’s Android platform. Called Tag, the free software uses a handset’s camera to turn it into a mobile barcode reader, enabling barcodes to effectively become coupons that link people to websites, pass on information or give visitors a discount in an online store.

Microsoft’s move may seem odd in light of the fact it has its own mobile platform that is struggling to compete with rivals. Indeed, last month the company announced the planned launch later this year of Windows Phone 7 Series, regarded by analysts as Microsoft’s last opportunity to remain a major player in the mobile operating system space. However, Microsoft has already made the Tag application available on the iPhone, BlackBerry and Symbian handsets, as well as, of course, on Windows phones. The BBC report notes that Microsoft’s Android launch is made against a background of greater co-operation among operators on phone software. Last month at least 24 of the world’s largest mobile operators announced an agreement to create an open international applications platform, regarded by many as a move by operators to wrest control of the lucrative apps market away from software firms and phone makers

My Opinion of Blackberry Bold 9000

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:51:50 +0000

Speed:

OS5.0 is FAST. Menus open and close with no noticeable delay and the device feels generally snappier. In fact, those that reviewed the Bold 2 9700 often attributed it to the newer device or the application memory but it appears it was entirely the new OS5 that comes preloaded with the new Bold. Upon loading it up in the older Bold 9000, the same snappiness was experienced. This is the single biggest improvement of OS5 and makes using the Blackberry a real pleasure.

Battery Life:

Battery life seems to have improved a bit. With 3G turned on and moderate use, surfing, streaming Youtube, lots of Blackberry Messages, Google Talk running in the background, couple of texts and a few short calls and 17 hours later, I just hit red at 6% battery. This used to run flat about 3-4 hours earlier with IM off! Do note that my battery is rather old and it may have lost some of its original charge holding ability but you can expect your phone to last the day without the need for a recharge with moderate use.

Reception:

Now reception is a tricky one considering even on the 4.6 builds, this varied greatly from build to build. However I didn’t see any notable difference between this and my previous build 4.6.303 which is generally a good thing!

Bootup Time:

Another thing many reviewers reported was the faster bootup time. I’m actually not too sure about this as on my build, it did seem a tad faster though I have a suspicion it’s a psychological effect due to the new progress bar shown while on bootup. The bar gives you a rough idea of how far its into the bootup process and gives you the feeling that ’something is moving’ rather than just a blank hour glass loading that has no apparent end.

On my test, my Bold took 5 minutes to boot-up, still far too long, but the progress bar makes things better.

Media:

Now perhaps the most important thing that was resolved is that thumbnails load quickly now and media scanning no longer takes an eternity.I loaded some 187 songs into my phone, complete with album pictures and folders and it scanned them all in less than 10 seconds. A pretty good improvement considering that it used to take minutes. There are also some slight UI changes though nothing significant.

Browser:

Slightly faster, but still chokes on Javascript. We probably still have to wait for their Webkit based browser.

Almost the same just some slight cosmetic tweaks

Blackberry Messenger

Many of you who had upgraded to BBM version 5.0 which is available on the older OSes would see no surprises here. Those who haven’t would see use of Avatars, a nicer UI, the option for Blackberry Groups, barcode scanning and very importantly remote backup of your BBM Contacts

Blackberry’s Killer App is improved

Threaded SMS

For those of you envying IPhones for their threaded SMS feature, envy no more! Threaded SMS is here with a variety of styles and works pretty well making it feel like a BBM conversation. Expect your SMS bills to soar.

Threaded SMS finally!

IM Contact on Home Screen

I’m unsure if this is a new feature of OS5.0 or simply an updated function of Gtalk and MSN but now you can place contacts on your Home Screen or folder for quick access! I felt this was pretty neat.

Closing Thoughts

Now I didn’t have much expectations of OS5.0, expecting it to be a minor cosmetic update. Although yes the OS remains by and large the same, the speed improvements and snappier feeling, improved battery life combined with the faster media scanning makes it a must upgrade for Blackberry users (who know what they are doing). OS5.0 is a huge step in the right direction and all the Blackberry needs now is a real browser (and perhaps a slightly snazzier UI) and a bigger app library. Annoyingly, you still can’t easily add a new number to an existing contact….

It’s a bit of a bittersweet feeling as I recently purchased myself a 9700 Bold which will now feel almost exactly the same as my old Bold in terms of responsiveness since it has the same 624mhz processor. Battery is still at 1500mah and I have a feeling we’ll get similar battery performance. Suddenly the 9700 Bold seems to be a much less compelling upgrade with only a better 3.2 megapixel camera, trackpad, a smaller form factor (which to those with large fingers is a bad thing) and a higher definition screen (which in real life is practically unnoticeable).

Is the 9700 Bold worth the high RM2XXX price if you are an existing Bold user? Probably not with OS5.0 running so well on the 9000 Bold. I’m frankly quite surprised that RIM did not take the opportunity to upgrade the processor further but perhaps they didn’t see the need to with OS5.0 running so smoothly already on existing hardware. I do feel that it was a missed opportunity to really have a device that stands out considering the Bold IS the flagship device for RIM. I think this was most apparent when the 9700 Bold and Storm 2’s release was almost entirely overshadowed by Motorola Droid’s release. RIM seriously needs to get its ’sexy’ back.

Oh and would appreciate if comments were steered away from ‘IPhone ROX’ sort by the Mac fans among you. They do rock as a lifestyle device but still have ways to go before becoming a true business communication device with secure e-mail and multi-tasking still unimplemented and a short battery life which I’m sure would be rectified in future releases.

The newest version of Firefox run faster

admin — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:44:16 +0000

The new version 3.6 of Firefox for Windows which Mozilla released on 21 January is 14.5 percent faster than its predecessor which debuted in June 2009 but still lags behind the speed demons Safari and Chrome, shows recent tests by Computerworld, USA.

Mac version has accelerated even more and now run by about 30 percent faster than Firefox 3.5.

Firefox 3.6 is the third fastest of five browser for Windows. Firefox 3.6 JavaScript runs in three times less time than Opera 10 and over four times faster than Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). But even when the reinforcement JavaScript, Firefox 3.6 is generally two times slower than Safari and almost two times slower than Chrome 4.0. Safari also won first place, the Google browser diverging about 6.5 percent, slightly shorter than that recorded in the lead for the test of time on Mac in November 2009.

Most aggressive developers of browsers boast improved using JavaScript in the past two years. From Microsoft said that work on the acceleration of IE9. In November last year, Steven Sinofsky – president of Windows and Windows Live, said that work on the next version of Internet Explorer is set browser’s JavaScript speed to a level of competition. Although it is not yet known data from any testing IE9, neither version is available for independent testing.

In another evaluation system – Acid3, which checks how close one browser standards associated with DOM (Document Object Model), CSS2 (Cascading Style Sheets) and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) – Firefox 3.6 obtained rating 92 points out of possible 100. Current versions of Safari, Chrome and Opera compiled 100 points, while IE8 is finished with 24.

Other OS is considered by iPhone

admin — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:37:15 +0000

The holder of the news seems sensational, no doubt you are quite right, but not publish it if we did not know which is endorsed by the prestigious Mashable and supported by a job offer that Apple publishes jobs. apple.com.

The offer amounts to a position to seek cover in Cupertino for an expert and I quote the ad text “integrate the iPhone OS on new platforms.” And say Mayra G. K. (the oldest in the place know who I mean), “until I read here, now the rest of the world (Maquera, that is) we have to interpret these lines.

Looking a bit more in detail we will also call for development experience under Unix platform, circuit design expertise and experience in mobile phones based on Unix, because clearly focused supply people for example who has worked as a developer for the same iPhone or Android. If we let ourselves be carried away by the rush, they are bad counselors, may interpret that Apple may want to open the iPhone OS to other platforms or other Unix-based phones. Big mistake, or rather, should it happen that Apple would be throwing away his philosophy that developed the software that runs on their hardware, hackintosh and Jailbreaks through. Without doubt the possibility that recounts the sensational headline and the previous paragraph can be produced, clear and also it can snow in the Gobi Desert. However, I would rather bet on the other possibility, is that those other devices that can integrate the iPhone OS, future devices will be developed by Apple. For me it makes perfect sense, but not opening the platform to be used by other phones or to compete with Android. Think What sense does that now appear HTC terminals, to take one example, the iPhone OS? I do not see much sense. We advocate freedom and how nice it would be an open platform and share with many terminals and open the possibilities of the platform and … okay, what about the practical business sense and ?. And what devices might be? We just have to get carried away by our imagination: An evolution of the Apple TV for example with a command to the Wii would have enough sense that it could host an adapted version of the iPhone OS or some other multimedia device that has yet to come, such as a multitouch iPod nano or a more basic model of the iPhone, why not an iPhone Nano. Or, if the iPad is your concept of “netbook”, may also consider making a kind of EEPC but with a multitouch screen. Although they may seem far-fetched ideas, I hope you see the sense in which I would like to holder, that are other Apple devices and not naturally imagine, so the company objectives are others who bet heavily on operating system that has given them so many benefits so far. I sincerely believe that this is the way that Apple wants to exploit in the future and has designed and planned a series of devices that will evolve along with the capabilities and potential that gives the iPhone OS platform. As Steve Jobs said in his day “Skate to where the puck is going), not to where it was” therefore I think Apple’s bet for the future is very clear, has a name: iPhone OS

Browser Competition Continues

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:23:22 +0000

We’ve previously mentioned the browser wars and the Microsoft anti-trust browser case, and this week sees the initial limited roll-out of Microsoft’s “web browser choice screen” for European users. In a nutshell, the European Commission ruled that bundling Internet Explorer (IE) with the Windows operating system was a big no-no and forced Microsoft to give users the choice of which browser they wanted to use.

Accordingly, as of today, a ballot screen can be downloaded via Windows Update (or automatically downloaded if you have this set up in XP, Vista or Windows 7) which will ask users to choose between Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE and Opera as their default browser. Microsoft are calling the initial roll out a “test” of the choice screen, which will be followed by a full roll-out in early March.

So which browser will you choose? What will the market share pie chart look like this time next month? Will the anti-corporate outrage deliver big wins for the little guys? Or will people just keep doing what they’ve been doing? Presumably people who care about this sort of thing are already using their browser of choice so, no biggie, and those who don’t care…well, they probably still don’t care. My guess is that there may be a little shuffling of deck chairs, with IE losing some ground to the other browsers, but ultimately I’d be surprised if we saw a dramatic shift in any direction.

Still, anything can happen in the wild and wacky world of the interweb, so I’ll make sure to have the brown sauce on hand if the time comes to eat my words…

Google PageRank Analysis

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:05:02 +0000

In the SEO community there is a lot of focus on PageRank as an indicator of a domain’s value. Although it is probably one of the most important factors in a domain’s value in the eyes of Google, there are a few points that should be understood. The higher the PageRank, the more likely Google is to trust it. This holds true for both external and internal hyperlinks. Google PageRank has 11 values, between 1 and 10. Google gives each page on the internet a weight and when one page links to another it passes some weight onto the page it is linking to.

First of all, for anyone who doesn’t know what PageRank is – it is a value used by Google to determine how important a domain is based on analysis of link on the internet. Web pages that don’t have any PageRank are often referred to as having N/A PageRank. Also, pages that have a lot of low PageRank and PageRank N/A links pointing to them can have their PageRank lowered as a result.

A website can have a high PageRank with relatively few links pointing to it if those links are of a high PageRank.PageRank is generally not assigned to a web page higher than the pages that link to it. Probably the most important factor in the distribution of PageRank to a web page is the PageRank of the web pages linking to it. So, if a page has 4 PageRank 4 and 3 PageRank 3 links pointing at it, it will probably be assigned a PageRank of 4. The sheer quantity of links does not help to increase PageRank. The higher the PageRank of pages linking to a given page, the higher its PageRank is likely to be. Some people suggest that the text content of the page affects PageRank assignment, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. There is no substantiated evidence that text affects PageRank other than pages that have been spammed often have their PageRank reduced. When it come to sub-pages, time is a factor in PageRank assignment. When new sites first get assigned PageRank their sub-pages often remain without any PageRank. In general, sub-pages are a little slow to get assigned PageRank. Google is generally less trusting of sub-pages unless they belong to a trusted domain. In particular websites with a lot of sub-pages and even more so sites that link to a lot of internal pages (like directories) can really struggle to pass their PageRank to internal pages. The structure of the site has a major role to play in the distribution of PageRank. Google uses what is known as block level analysis to pick apart web pages. They use their vast knowledge of the structure of the web to decide what links on a page are probably the most trustworthy and the pages these links point to are more likely to be assigned PageRank. Google can and do manipulate websites’ PageRank. This is generally as a penalty for sites that have used unhonest methods. This can often cause all the site’s sub-pages to loose their PageRank. It has also been claimed that in the past Google has made mistakes in PageRank distribution. Finally, the PageRank of a web page may change even when there has been no change in the links pointing to that page. This is either due to changes in the structure of links between all websites or modifications made by Google. Sky Alfaro is an SEO consultant with the SEM Labs SEO Agency where she helps small to medium sized companies with search engine marketing training.

OpenOffice 3.2 is Released

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:34:05 +0000

The OpenOffice.org Community has recently released the final version of OpenOffice.org 3.2, the free alternative to Microsoft’s Office productivity suite. The new version is faster than previous releases, offers new and improved features and functionality, gives better compatibility with other office software, and fixes bugs and potential security vulnerabilities, announced the OpenOffice.org Community

Calc and Writer in OpenOffice.org 3.2 for example show a 46% speed increase compared to version 3.0. “Cold start” times for Calc and Writer in OpenOffice.org 3.2 take almost half as long as they did in version 3.0.

Here are the other bits and pieces you can expect to get from OpenOffice.org 3.2:

- Faster start up times
- Improved compatibility with open standard (ODF) and proprietary file formats
- Improvements to all components, particularly the Calc spreadsheet, with over a dozen new or enhanced features
- The Chart module (usable throughout OpenOffice.org) has had a usability makeover as well as offering new chart types

Marketing Project Lead of OpenOffice.org, Florian Effenberger, comments: “Some people are currently locked in to other personal productivity tools – maybe by corporate IT policy, or by tie-in to other legacy software. For everyone else, we want OpenOffice.org to be the 2010 office software of choice, and 3.2 takes us another step towards that goal.”

If you are currently using OpenOffice.org 3, then you should upgrade to version 3.2 and take advantage of all the new and improved features and functionality the software has to offer. If you are still using OpenOffice.org 2, then you should definitely upgrade. The OpenOffice.org Community stopped supporting version 2.0 since December 2.0. This means OpenOffice.org no longer releases security patches of bug fixes for this version.

As always, the software is available for download free of charge to Windows, Mac OS X and Linux users. A detailed list of changes in OpenOffice.org 3.2 is available.

The Wma Converter

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:42:52 +0000

‘Music’ they say is the food of love. There is probably no human soul on this planet who does not like music. Now, if it is classical music and that too by some renowned composer, there is nothing like it. So here we go – the ’easiest to use process’ to create your dream play list. For every music source, the files have to be selected that you want to download. This will be time consuming as far as creating CD’s are concerned, because the audio files takes time for their storage. However, there is nothing to feel depressed about the matter. At present, with the development of technology, such issues are dealt with quite smartly. If you are really passionate about music, the only effort that you need to make is create the WAV files. This appliance would help you in developing an effective and rich audio collection. The factory audio converter
helps you in listening to the most favorite songs and you can also store them in recognized formats.

The Wma converter is always busy thinking how it can provide more convenience to the people. Any common format that you select can get stored on different known hard drive. This in turn reduces the problem of storing music and downloading it. You can now easily get the music on handy CD’s, mp3 players, some different hard drive or car player with the help of wma conversion to mp3. This is highly effective tool and you can even cut costs on this appliance. If you know by now the various options that the wma to mp3 converter
can bring about, it is for sure that it’s not false to any extent, every stated statement is true.

Seeing is believing – as popular ones say and quite often very true. Therefore, you should first see the tool and then believe it for yourself. For this reason, you should first and foremost select the songs that you want to download or the files that need conversion and the rest of the work will be done by this effective device. You really need not worry about the complex technology used by it to make your life easier.

The wma converter
can even help you in converting the lengthiest songs in few seconds only. Now, the task of collecting the favorite songs during one time has become all the easier. Even if you are not careful while you download various music sources that have the same compatibility with a particular player, there is nothing to worry about! The only work that you have to perform is to recognize the files that need conversion to the ‘audio files’ from one particular format to the other.

Moreover, if you are handling the mp3 converter for the very first time in your life, there would not be any problem. It is all very simple! In this case, just select the files that will have compatibility with the hard drives available in cars or homes. Therefore, there is nothing to fret about the issue. You can easily install this converter to your personal computer. That is why it is considered one of the most effective appliances for covering different problems related to music format. As a result, just take the device and abide by the simple steps to know it even better.

Google Chrome for Mac

admin — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:28:12 +0000

Google has updated the Mac version of the Chrome browser to version 5.0.307.7. Google Chrome Beta for Mac 5.0.307.7 comes with the following new features: extensions, bookmark sync, bookmark manager, cookie manager and task manager.

Windows users have been able to take advantage of Chrome extensions ever since the final, stable version of Chrome 4.0 was released late this January. Extensions, as Product Manager with Google, Nick Baum explained at the time, are “little programs, created by developers, which add useful functionality to the browser and to the websites you visit.” Extensions are to Chrome what add-ons are to Firefox – hope that clears things up for you.

With the launch of Google Chrome Beta for Mac 5.0.307.7, Mac OS X users can now enjoy extensions just like Windows users have been for a month now. There are more than 2200 extensions in the Chrome extensions gallery for you to try out.

Another feature that Windows users have been enjoying for a while is bookmark sync. Now Mac OS X users can take advantage of this feature as well. Bookmark sync is meant for the Chrome user that frequently changes computers. For example the person that uses Chrome at the office, at home, and at his girlfriend’s house. Keeping all the bookmarks synchronized could prove to be a daunting task. But it is a piece of cake thanks to the bookmark sync feature.

To celebrate the release of Google Chrome Beta for Mac 5.0.307.7, a funny little poem has been posted by Software Engineer with Google Chrome, Mark Mentovai. Here it is:

The last time we put on a show
was just over two months ago.
We polished our Chrome
for Mac! It’s at home
on anyone’s MacBook or Pro.

It’s fast, and of course, we ensure
the browser will stay more secure.
But some wrote a letter–
they wanted it better!
So clearly it had to mature.

Today, we are happy to mention
on Mac, you can use that extension!
And bookmark sync too,
plus, there’s more for you
and if I still have your attention: