Wow.. I never knew I could get Linux Journal archives for free :). I really appreciate this.. for keeping the spirit of free knowledge alive.
I must say.. Its a wonderful magazine for Linux and has really widened my perspective about Linux. We do have an India alternative - Linux For You. Its the only Indian Magazine on Linux and the content is good.. Not bad and not excellent.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Good reviews are painful to write
I just posted a review about Opera Mini on Digitally Smart. Though I enjoyed writing this review very much, I also have to say, writing good reviews is a long process.
It took me close to 3 days to first take screenshots of Opera Mini, then uploading them on to blogger, then writing a review and placing the uploaded photos at relevant places. Given the fact that I hardly have time left are hectic hours at office and very little time that I spend with my kid, I usually wait till Nazia and Ahu to sleep so that I can carry on writing reviews.
Hope I get more time to post more meaningful reviews and information at Digitally Smart.
It took me close to 3 days to first take screenshots of Opera Mini, then uploading them on to blogger, then writing a review and placing the uploaded photos at relevant places. Given the fact that I hardly have time left are hectic hours at office and very little time that I spend with my kid, I usually wait till Nazia and Ahu to sleep so that I can carry on writing reviews.
Hope I get more time to post more meaningful reviews and information at Digitally Smart.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
AJAX initiative for mobile web
Read this news in Techmeme about leading vendors and companies taking part in a workshop aimed at bringing AJAX for the mobile web applications.
This further strengthens my argument from my previous post that mobile web is picking up. I think AJAX something that was definitely missing on the mobile platform. When most of the web applications are making use of AJAX to bring interactiveness and better usability, the mobile web has been lagging behind.
This further strengthens my argument from my previous post that mobile web is picking up. I think AJAX something that was definitely missing on the mobile platform. When most of the web applications are making use of AJAX to bring interactiveness and better usability, the mobile web has been lagging behind.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Mobile web is not all that bad
There was this post from Scott Karp on why Mobile Web sucks for him. I could hardly agree with what he had to say and I really wanted to post this message as a reply to that. I guess lot of others would also disagree the fact that Mobile web is bad and Russel Beattie's post expresses his opposition to the fact that Mobile web browsing sucks (well.. Ahmm.. good post Russ.. except that my ears are bleeding with so many f*** :))
I think mobile surfing (and mobile computing in general) is really picking up recently. As Russ has pointed out, lot of popular web services have started providing an alternate web link which serves mobile-optimized web pages which start with http://m.theirdomainname.com/ (well not necessarily all follow the same format. For example, Techmeme's mobile site has this URL http://www.techmeme.com/mini ). But for web sites who don't provide mobile versions of their web pages there are going to lose out on a huge number of users who browse from mobile devices. As I had mentioned earlier, the are vastly underestimating the need for a mobile optimized web site.
I know lot of us have trouble finding web services which are optimized for mobile browsing. I had the same frustration trying to figure out such mobile web pages. That's the reason why I am maintaining a list of web sites which are optimized for mobile browsing. I have been updating this list as and when I find newer web sites.
Coming to Scott's complain that mobile browsing is slow, I agree with that, but its not really that bad. There are ways to circumvent this. Just like Russ, I too use Opera Mini beta for browsing on my Nokia E61. One thing that Opera does intelligently is that it does not download the web pages to the phone as it it. The web pages are first fetched into the Opera proxy severs and then they are optimized and reduced in size (to a factor of 70-90% approximately) and then pushed on to your phone. So the browsing experience (fetching and rendering them on the phone) is very fast.
Mobile Computing is the future and the whole world is slowly moving towards it. I know there are problems with mobile computing but I am sure these are being addresses as you read this.
I think mobile surfing (and mobile computing in general) is really picking up recently. As Russ has pointed out, lot of popular web services have started providing an alternate web link which serves mobile-optimized web pages which start with http://m.theirdomainname.com/ (well not necessarily all follow the same format. For example, Techmeme's mobile site has this URL http://www.techmeme.com/mini ). But for web sites who don't provide mobile versions of their web pages there are going to lose out on a huge number of users who browse from mobile devices. As I had mentioned earlier, the are vastly underestimating the need for a mobile optimized web site.
I know lot of us have trouble finding web services which are optimized for mobile browsing. I had the same frustration trying to figure out such mobile web pages. That's the reason why I am maintaining a list of web sites which are optimized for mobile browsing. I have been updating this list as and when I find newer web sites.
Coming to Scott's complain that mobile browsing is slow, I agree with that, but its not really that bad. There are ways to circumvent this. Just like Russ, I too use Opera Mini beta for browsing on my Nokia E61. One thing that Opera does intelligently is that it does not download the web pages to the phone as it it. The web pages are first fetched into the Opera proxy severs and then they are optimized and reduced in size (to a factor of 70-90% approximately) and then pushed on to your phone. So the browsing experience (fetching and rendering them on the phone) is very fast.
Mobile Computing is the future and the whole world is slowly moving towards it. I know there are problems with mobile computing but I am sure these are being addresses as you read this.
White Paper on growth of Web Apps
This survey from Rubicon on growth of web applications is interesting. Email and games still are the most favorite/used web applications.
Also one interesting fact to notice was that people spend 58% of their time on internet of which 22% is spent on web apps, of their total time spent on the computer.
Email and Games may be the leading web apps because I feel that the majority of the crowd using web apps is pretty young and obviously email and games are on top of their list. I am sure as the crowd gets old, their needs would change and different web apps may lead the race.
Also one interesting fact to notice was that people spend 58% of their time on internet of which 22% is spent on web apps, of their total time spent on the computer.
Email and Games may be the leading web apps because I feel that the majority of the crowd using web apps is pretty young and obviously email and games are on top of their list. I am sure as the crowd gets old, their needs would change and different web apps may lead the race.
Will the Apple PDA click!!
When the Apply iPhone became a phenomena, It was quite obvious to me that they would eventually come up with a iPod which was similar looking to iPhone (with the multi-touch screen). It happened and then iPod Touch was introduced recently.
I was thinking as to why would Apple stop with that and why would they not extend it as a mobile computer/handheld. So now we get to hear rumours about Apple's coming up with their PDA :).
But as I think deeper.. would I be interested in a Apple PDA as a standalone device. Why would I buy an apple PDA if the PDA like functionalities could be clubbed with mobile phone capabilities as in iPhone.
When the world is moving towards convergence, would a strategy to diverge work out?. My instinct says NO. But probably the business/market analyst at Apple can better explain.
I was thinking as to why would Apple stop with that and why would they not extend it as a mobile computer/handheld. So now we get to hear rumours about Apple's coming up with their PDA :).
But as I think deeper.. would I be interested in a Apple PDA as a standalone device. Why would I buy an apple PDA if the PDA like functionalities could be clubbed with mobile phone capabilities as in iPhone.
When the world is moving towards convergence, would a strategy to diverge work out?. My instinct says NO. But probably the business/market analyst at Apple can better explain.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Opera's problem with Creating a new post in blogger
Whenever I am at my in-laws place, I use Opera as my preferred browser. One reason for me to use Opera is because this is shared PC being used by my sis-in-law, my wife and myself. Usually, we all login into one of our numerous accounts such google, yahoo, etc. and logout so that next time one us uses the PC he/she can login. I found this to be a pain and hence wanted to use a different browser which would be used only by myself and there would be no problem of logging out. If not IE, then my next obvious choice would be FireFox. But I really wanted to try to something different from IE and Firefox and hence my next obvious choice was Opera.
I have been ignoring Opera for quite sometime. I remember those days (many years back) when Opera was a commercial browser and then how Opera changed their business model to have ad-enabled browser and finally ended up providing a truly free browser. Opera has its own group of dedicated followers (though not many). Well, when I went to the opera website to look at the latest features of Opera, I was surprised to see how advanced it was compared to IE or FireFox. I am planning to have a dedicated post comparing the features of Opera with that of IE and FireFox in Digitally Smart. Some of the most notable features are the tab-preview feature and the speed-dial functionality.
But there is this slight problem that I've been facing with Opera. When creating a new post in blogger.com, I am having a problem wherein when you are typing a really long line, the text never wraps up and also when it does wrap up, it leaves only a few words in the first line and rest of the words end up being in next line. The problem is kind of intermittent and pops up very often.
I was trying to get a screenshot of what I meant, but I am unable to reproduce the problem again. I will get a screenshot the next time I see this problem. But it would be great if these small problems are fixed. Got to check if there is a Opera user forum when I can report this.. for now I got to run to office..
Below is the Opera version information.
I have been ignoring Opera for quite sometime. I remember those days (many years back) when Opera was a commercial browser and then how Opera changed their business model to have ad-enabled browser and finally ended up providing a truly free browser. Opera has its own group of dedicated followers (though not many). Well, when I went to the opera website to look at the latest features of Opera, I was surprised to see how advanced it was compared to IE or FireFox. I am planning to have a dedicated post comparing the features of Opera with that of IE and FireFox in Digitally Smart. Some of the most notable features are the tab-preview feature and the speed-dial functionality.
But there is this slight problem that I've been facing with Opera. When creating a new post in blogger.com, I am having a problem wherein when you are typing a really long line, the text never wraps up and also when it does wrap up, it leaves only a few words in the first line and rest of the words end up being in next line. The problem is kind of intermittent and pops up very often.
I was trying to get a screenshot of what I meant, but I am unable to reproduce the problem again. I will get a screenshot the next time I see this problem. But it would be great if these small problems are fixed. Got to check if there is a Opera user forum when I can report this.. for now I got to run to office..
Below is the Opera version information.
Version information:
Version - 9.23
Build - 8808
Platform - Win32
System - Windows XP
Java - Sun Java Runtime Environment version 1.4
XHTML+Voice- Plug-in not loaded
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