Monthly Archive for June, 2009

What’s killing Opera Unite is their vision

operaunite

Their vision ? Yes, the fact they’re forerunners. They saw and built a brilliant browser, yet not a lot of people are used to these innovations. I’m not saying that, like, human beings can’t adapt; but we need more time. It’s really as simple as that. They gave us such a powerful browser that we don’t know what we’re going to do with it. We just don’t know.

There’s another problem with Opera Unite; the user interface. They surely did the more they can do to display the less information possible, but it stays overcharged.

You and I, we, don’t need more yet.

What’s Opera ? What’s Opera Unite ?

HTC Hero must be iPhone’s biggest fear

Hero is the third Android HTC phone, and oh, it rocks. I hate HTC, I like Android but look at this. Few specs:

Processor Qualcomm® MSM7200A™, 528 MHz
Operating System Android™
Memory ROM: 512 MB
RAM: 288 MB
Dimensions (LxWxT) 112 x 56.2 x 14.35 mm ( 4.41 x 2.21 x 0.57 inches)
Weight 135 grams ( 4.76 ounces) with battery
Display 3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 320x480 HVGA resolution
Network HSPA/WCDMA:

  • 900/2100 MHz
  • Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:

  • 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

(Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent.)

Device Control Trackball with Enter button
GPS Internal GPS antenna
Connectivity Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
3.5 mm audio jack
Camera 5.0 megapixel color camera with auto focus
Audio supported formats MP3, AAC(AAC, AAC+, AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI and Windows Media® Audio 9
Video supported formats MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 and Windows Media® Video 9
Battery Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
Capacity: 1350 mAh
Talk time:

  • Up to 420 minutes for WCDMA
  • Up to 470 minutes for GSM

Standby time:

  • Up to 750 hours for WCDMA
  • Up to 440 hours for GSM

(The above are subject to network and phone usage.)

Expansion Slot microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
AC Adapter Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz
DC output: 5V and 1A
Special Features G-sensor
Digital Compass

Weekly WebTrends #2

Less information this time. Next week, TweetMeme will be integrated.

Twitter (hash)tag of the day : 1
Most retweeted tweet of the day : 1
Digg 24:00 most popular tech : 1
Delicious most bookmarked of the day : 2
= 5 per day
5 x 7 = 35 links per week.

WEEK 2.
Tuesday June 23rd

Twitter
#Iran
#Iranelection

Digg
Find My iPhone works, and it is awesome.

Delicious
10 UI Design Patterns You Should Be Paying Attention To | How-To | Smashing Maga…
40+ Essential Front End Web Developer Cheat Sheets | tripwire magazine

Wednesday June 24th

Twitter
#Spain
#iranelection

Digg
In Case of Earthquake …   view!

Delicious
Let’s make the web faster – Google Code
10 Ways to Instantly Increase Your jQuery Performance – Nettuts+

Thursday June 25th

Twitter
#Brazil – Versus US in the final of the confederations cup (Brazil won)
#Mickael Jackson – Heart attack, death

Digg
Best. iPhone. Ever. (PIC)  view!

Delicious
27 Must-Have Starter Kits For Web Designers | Graphics
Text utilities

Friday June 26th

Twitter
#MJ’s
#Rip MJ

Digg
Windows 7 Pricing: Good News, Mostly

Delicious
35 CSS-Lifesavers For Efficient Web Design | CSS | Smashing Magazine
How To Hack Your Brain, Part 1: Sleep | Dustin Curtis

Saturday June 27th

Twitter
#iranelection

#MJ’s

Digg
Intel Teams Up with Conan O’Brien Again

Chris is so right, read why

If you feel you can directly get a 6 figure check while running your blogging site, you are sadly mistaken, it takes real efforts to build a site and make it loved by people. if you are thinking just the money online aspect it is going to fetch you no good in future, instead of asking yourself questions like how fastest money would pour in or how I can become famous in short time you should be asking yourself questions like how am I going to get the site that people will love, what type of topics people would love to read, how can I create a site which is user friendly and is suitable for people of all age groups to log in and surf, etc. if you create yourself and earn yourself a niche of a good blogger you can attract much attention then you can really think of.

This is a paragraph of a brilliant piece written by Chris about blogging and making money. That’s as funny as it’s weird because I said quite the same things in the About page.
But think a minute before reading it. It’s called “want great success” not “want a lot of money”.

Jailbreak is coming soon to iPhone 3GS

iphone-been-pwn

You know, a few times ago, I was wondering, where is Geohot ? Who’s Geohot ? He’s the first guy in the world to unlock, in a hardware way, the iPhone. I mean the first one. So, I went on his blog and I saw that he was actually working with the Dev Team (the team behind all the recent jailbreak/unlock programs) to jailbreak the iPhone 3GS. That’s great news, and especially for me. But why ? Simply because I have a problem syncing my iPhone 3GS with iPhoto, it doesn’t recognize my phone. So I’ll jailbreak it, and then I’ll connect via SSH and I’ll manually drag and drop the files.

What is jailbreak, what is unlock and what’s SSH ? Folks, if you want to become a pure iPhone specialist, you’ll want me to show you these two websites HackThatPhone and iPhone Alley, both created by my friend

Updating WebTrends with TweetMeme

Today, I discovered TweetMeme ! It’s a great service, that works just like Digg but with the number of retweets. So, I’m gonna add it to WebTrends and I’ll begin to use it next week

Can your PC do this ?

[Source]

Intel & Nokia went public, could be interesting in the long term

intel_nokia_collaboration

Well, they haven’t released an incredible device, a Mobile Internet Device; no. A long term relationship. They got married folks. This is the press release, credits to SlashGear.

Intel and Nokia Announce Strategic Relationship to Shape Next Era of Mobile Computing Innovation

SANTA CLARA, CALIF., and ESPOO, FINLAND, June 23, 2009 – Further uniting the Internet with mobile phones and computers, Intel Corporation and Nokia today announced a long-term relationship to develop a new class of Intel® Architecture-based mobile computing device and chipset architectures which will combine the performance of powerful computers with high-bandwidth mobile broadband communications and ubiquitous Internet connectivity.

To realize this shared vision, both companies are expanding their longstanding relationship to define a new mobile platform beyond today’s smartphones, notebooks and netbooks, enabling the development of a variety of innovative hardware, software and mobile Internet services.

Taking advantage of each company’s expertise as leaders in their respective fields, these future standards-based devices will marry the best features and capabilities of the computing and communications worlds and will transform the user experience, bringing incredible mobile applications and always on, always connected wireless Internet access in a user-friendly pocketable form factor.

The Intel and Nokia effort includes collaboration in several open source mobile Linux software projects. Intel will also acquire a Nokia HSPA/3G modem IP license for use in future products.

The companies expect many innovations to result from this collaboration over time.

“This Intel and Nokia collaboration unites and focuses many of the brightest computing and communications minds in the world, and will ultimately deliver open and standards-based technologies, which history shows drive rapid innovation, adoption and consumer choice,” said Anand Chandrasekher, Intel Corporation senior vice president and general manager, Ultra Mobility Group. “With the convergence of the Internet and mobility as the team’s only barrier, I can only imagine the innovation that will come out of our unique relationship with Nokia. The possibilities are endless.”

“Today’s announcement represents a significant commitment to work together on the future of mobile computing, and we plan to turn our joint research into action,” said Kai Öistämö, Executive Vice President, Devices, Nokia. “We will explore new ideas in designs, materials and displays that will go far beyond devices and services on the market today. This collaboration will be compelling not only for our companies, but also for our industries, our partners and, of course, for consumers.”

Open Source Software Collaboration
The effort also includes technology development and cooperation in several open source software initiatives in order to develop common technologies for use in the Moblin and Maemo platform projects, which will deliver Linux-based operating systems for these future mobile computing devices.

The companies are coordinating their Open Source technology selection and development investments, including alignment on a range of key Open Source technologies for Mobile Computing such as: oFono*, ConnMan*, Mozilla*, X.Org*, BlueZ*, D-BUS*, Tracker*, GStreamer*, PulseAudio*. Collectively, these technologies will provide an open source standards-based means to deliver a wealth of mobile Internet and communication experiences, with rich graphics and multimedia capabilities.

Hosted by the Linux Foundation, Moblin is an optimized open source Linux operating system project that delivers visually rich Internet media experiences on Intel® Atom™ processor-based devices including MIDs, netbooks, nettops, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), and embedded systems. For more information see www.moblin.org.

Maemo is a Linux operating system, mostly based on open source code and powers mobile computers such as the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. The Maemo platform has been developed by Nokia in collaboration with many open source projects. For more information see www.maemo.org.

Enabling common technologies across the Moblin and Maemo software environments will help foster the development of compatible applications for these devices – building on the huge number of off-the-shelf PC compatible applications. The open source projects will be governed using the best practices of the open source development model.

Intel to License Nokia’s HSPA/3G Modem Technologies
Building on today’s announcement, Intel and Nokia have signed an agreement that will enable Intel to license Nokia’s HSPA/3G modem technologies with the aim of developing advanced mobile computing solutions that deliver a powerful and flexible computing experience – combining the best-in-class 3GPP modem technology with the high performance and low power consumption of future Intel Architecture-based platforms.

Intel supports multiple mobile broadband standards on its platforms to address the needs of service providers worldwide, and to provide people with an always-connected experience.

The Nokia modem license complements Intel’s broadband wireless technologies and will enable the company to extend chipset solutions incorporating Nokia’s modem technologies across its mobility offerings in the future.

Nokia is continuing to develop its leading modem technology, which includes protocol software and related digital design for the full suite of 3GPP standards through WCDMA/GSM and its evolution, and then licenses the technology to chipset manufacturers to develop and produce chipsets for device manufacturers.

Nokia’s licensable modem technology is the trusted connectivity choice, providing credible and reliable options for the industry based on Nokia wireless modems’ embedded history and experience. The Intel license of Nokia’s modem technologies is another step in executing Nokia’s chipset strategy to create multiple, competitive chipset choices to the industry.

Still, I’m really happy they’re gonna use Moblin, I simply love it. (Send me a netbook !).

Weekly WebTrends #1

Finally ! Hey ? What are WebTrends ?

This week was all about Iran. So there are the links; I’ll comment the less obvious ones.

Monday June 15th
Twitter
#iranelection
#musicmonday

Digg
Microsoft Donates Eight Meals For Each IE 8 Download

Delicious
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/15/take-your-design-to-the-next-level-with-css3/
22 Mixed Quality WordPress Hacks | Tutorials | instantShift

I forget Tuesday. I forgot Monday for next week. Sorry, I’ll try to keep it tight.

Wednesday june 17th

Twitter :
#iranelection
#att – Firmware 3.0 was released and no MMS for AT&T users.

Delicious
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/15/40-helpful-resources-on-user-interface-design-patterns/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/11/effective-strategy-to-estimate-time-for-your-design-projects/

Digg
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=717413 – Spoiler alert: Can I download the Internet ?

I’m cutting it here because it’s too long. And horizontal blogging sucks. But continue reading, it’s worth it.

About the Very Urgent Message Twitter tag

*

We talked about it last week, I want to add some features.

  • So this tag could be introduced with one * and concluded with the same symbol. No, in fact, it should be just introduced with it and then concluded with nothing but a dot. For a simple example, think about this Perez Hilton incident.
  • Ok, another feature is usability. A person who uses this tag without real need will be punished. By Zeus himself. No, I’m kidding. Still, if somebody uses this twice without a real need, the person’s account should be blocked/censored for two days or something. Or two hours.
  • For this tag to work properly, it should have a category in the sidebar for itself. Maybe between the Trending Topics and Search. Like this, everybody could see what’s happening and if the urgent thing is happening near your area, your citizenship will act for yourself.
  • In the timeline or Trending Topics (i.e “*Earthquake in LA #san andreas) VUM’s should be highlighted in a different color.
  • For what reasons VUM’s should be used ? Medical stuff, incidents, fires, earthquakes, unexpected event. VUM’s are about bad things that are happening. If you’re baby is born, it’s really cool but don’t use a VUM.

So, what do you think about this ?

Is Intel about to dive into a new market ?

There is a thing I really can’t understand. Last year, netbooks emerged on Earth. So you know, Netbooks are small-sized computers etc. Now, Intel is about to unveil a deal they made with Nokia. What’s that fuss all about ?

Actually, we care about Intel.

They’re the ones behind this netbook mania. Of course, they launched a netbook called the Classmate but this isn’t that important. What’s important is that they made the chip everybody uses in netbooks, Intel Atom. And now, Intel will announce something this morning in about two hours, PST (8:30 AM).

Bloomberg says Intel is going to announce a deal with Nokia; Intel will deliver new chips for them. It’d mean Intel dived completly into mobile phone’s market.  And it’d also means maybe Nokia is going to launch a new product. I bet it’d looks like a MID. What’s that ? A Mobile Internet Device. A hybrid device, between laptops and mobile phones.

But you know, as always, we should wait for it; it’ll maybe be legendary (yeah, I’m totally into how i met your mother).

[Source]

Spotify enhances premium accounts with better sound quality

Oh. And when I say better sound quality, I was talking about CD-like quality. Let’s quote TechRadar; they’re the ones behind the information.

Spotify’s Premium subscribers will be able to listen to streamed music at CD quality, with the music providers beginning to roll out the improved offering for its paying customers.

Oh, thanks. That’s nice.

[Source and more concrete informations]

Twitter is our Web 2.0 revolution, but you already knew that

A short introduction to this video

While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.

Spoiler: Mr. Shirky has Tom Hanks voice.

I was about to write a huge article explaining how and why Twitter is changing the way we live etc. Then, I found this video on TED’s (have you met TED ?) website. And videos are good, too.

Quick list of beautiful websites

They’re simply gorgeous. Simple, innovative, technologic yet gorgeous. Why ? Answers in the list:

Panic

[nggallery id=2]

Panic.com is the home of very well-know software products such as Transmit (for me, the best FTP client for Mac). Panic has a brilliant simple design and some very intelligent features.

Atebits

Atebits is the website of also well know developers. They are the ones behind Tweetie ! Yes, yes.

[nggallery id=3]

Made By Elephant

Made By Elephant is the home website of a brilliant web designer, Tim van Damme.

[nggallery id=5]

Cultured Code

Do you know things ?

[nggallery id=6]

iPhone 3GS; the review

That’s it folks. Today is the day the 3GS will show its real nature to the world. Every Apple geek, every geek and every good men will test their new precious. Today is the day Apple will stop controlling what we say about it. Today is the day our freedom will approach the iPhone 3GS. Today is the day/ Alright, I stop here, j’ai compris.

Well.

At first, when you take your iPhone 3GS out the box; it looks like your iPhone 3G. You say, in your head, you wanted the first iPhone design because aluminium equals style and plastic equals cheap. You’re maybe right. But you should know that aluminium is conductive and electromagnetic ain’t good for you. I’m not saying it’s, like, deadly (be aware that no study in the world is finished, completed about this so nobody really knows how electromagnetics waves react with us).
Another important thing about the design of this iPhone is the matte case story. Remember, some bloggers said that the new iPhone’s back will be matte and not glossy. Actually, it is glossy. The fact is that maybe Apple noticed, after a long and active use of an iPhone with a matte back that the back would degrade itself so they sticked with glossy. This isn’t confirmed, I said maybe.
Finally, the screen has been modified, enhanced. Your finger marks won’t appear on the screen, it’s been treated with some special chemicals (all natural, I guess, because Apple said the 3GS was the greenest iPhone). It’s also very easy to clean and it stays shiny.

Ok now, let’s talk about the hardware, the inside hardware. iPhone 3GS is faster. Really faster. My settings page loads approximately twice as fast and my landscape/portrait keyboard change is instant. However, I can feel that it heats, more. So, all of your pages, applications and stuff will load faster, like, a lot faster, so they didn’t lie. You can’t say much about the speed; you’ll understand why.

Let’s see the new features. Video recording, Voice Control, Compass, Accessibility and more.

Video recording, with the 3GS is as you expected it’d be created by Apple. It’s very clear, very simple to use, the editing part is smart and the autofocus works very nicely.
You can adjust the length of the video, but just from the beginning to the end but not from certain parts to some other parts. That’s not that cool. But, of course, nobody asked for an integrated iMovie in the phone, be realist (ask for the impossible (or not)). Another thing to keep in mind is that once you chose where the autofocus must act, you can’t change it while you’re recording. Basically, that’s it.

Voice Control isn’t particularly incredible. It’s nice, it’s smart. But if you set it in french, it sucks. Ask for Bob Dylan and it’ll prononce the “an” at the end, like in french. I think it could’ve been enhanced if it has integrated more features; questions like “Where am I”, “What time is it” and more.

The Compass application, alone, is quite useless. When you’re in town or something, you don’t really need a compass. But, but, but. The Maps built-in compass is incredibly cool. How to use it ? Simple. Tap once your geolocalisation icon, tap it twice and the magic operates.

Accessibility is a menu where a lot of new fonctions appears. i.e, the black/white and /white/black screen.

Finally, the iPhone 3GS is a better phone. But it’s way more an evolution than a revolution. But wait, Mr. Rose from Digg said this. So, we’ll wait quietly for the revolution though Apple disappointed us a little bit, this time.

That’s it.

If you have questions, feel free to comment.