Thursday, May 13, 2010
Finally we have a Steam client for Mac for FREE from Valve
Friday, October 09, 2009
How to easily download Entire / Complete Photo Albums from FaceBook
A few days back, we had been on a trip down country side with my friends. We were about 10 of us and carried 6-7 cameras. As one can expect - after returning from the trip we had 6 different sets of photos - some snaps were good in some camera's, so I had to download each of the albums to store it on my Hard Disk for personal memoirs. But how do I do it?Well - I started hunting for an app that could help me download entire albums off FaceBook easily. Then I found a very cool free Firefox plug-in called as FreePAD - short for Facebook Photo Album Downloader!! It allows you to easily download entire albums of photos of friends off the internet easily.
P.S: This will work only in Firefox - so you need Firefox to be installed first.
- Download the FacePAD Firefox extension directly from here. You may get a message block from Firefox - right click and allow that.
- Once you have installed - You will need to re-start Firefox to begin using the new extension.
- You will now see FacePAD added to your list of Plugins in Firefox.
- Head over to your friend's profile page and click on Photos. There you will find all the albums of your friends. Simply right click on the photo album and you will now get a new option "Download Album with FacePAD". Go ahead and download the album.
- Currently you get a weird message to indicate that the album download has begun.
- You will now find all the photos of the FaceBook album neatly downloaded to your Hard Disk with absolutely no effort.
Now that's a really cool app to have. Makes tasks that much more simpler and fun.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Got a new NetBook – Acer Aspire D250 exclusively for Blogging
Yes, we got a new NetBook last week after quite some research. There were just so many contenders that it made the process of choosing the right NetBook that much more difficult. The NetBooks’ on offer were from HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, HCL, Sony, Acer – all the top brands have atleast 2-3 models on offer and each of them have different specs and whistles added to woo the buyer.
I visited a couple of stores in Bangalore like Croma (Koramangala), eXcite (Koramangala), Staples(Marthahalli) and eZone. Also visited numerous online websites to look for reviews and recommendations. Finally I narrowed in on the following models:
- HCL MiLeap MH214 – Priced at INR 19000 (Approx 400 USD )
- Wipro e-go Atom 26an – Priced at INR 20000 (Approx 420 USD )
- Acer Aspire One AOD250 – Priced at INR 22000 (Approx 460 USD )
- Lenovo S10 – Priced at INR 23000 (Approx 480 USD )
As you can see there was much competition in the price points too – after all we are all so very price conscious. The stores didn’t have any in-house discounts or frills thrown in for any of these models, but the company’s did have a few optional whistles on offer. Here’s my review of each of these models.
HCL MiLeap : It comes with the following features (specifications):
- A modest 7" TFT touch screen.
- Runs on the older 800 MHz Intel A110 Processor which comes with 512 KB L2 Cache and 400 MHz Front Side Bus.
- Has the Mobile Intel 945GU (ultra low voltage) Express Chipset Motherboard.
- Like the rest it comes with 1-GB DDR2 533 MHz SDRAM (You can Max it upto 2 GB in 2 slots)
- A moderate 80-GB 5400 rpm SATA hard disk
- An integrated 1.3 MP Camera
- Integrated WiFi 802.11a/b/g LAN connection
- Integrated Bluetooth v2.0
- Integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN connection
- 4-in-1 Media Card Reader, Multimedia Card (MMC), Memory stick (MS), Secure Digital Card, MS-PRO
- It can be converted into a Tablet with Touch Screen also has a Stylus Pen.
- Comes pre-installed with Windows XP Home
- Weighs only 960 Grams
- 2 USB v2.0 ports
- Touchpad with 2 button
- Build-in Stereo 2 stereo speaker system 1.5 Watts each
- Built-in Microphone
- Runs on the new Intel Atom N270 processor which packs in 1.60 GHz, 533 MHz FSB and a good 512 KB L2 cache.
- This too has the Mobile Intel 945GSE Express Chipset.
- Has a very good 10" WSVGA high-brightness LED Backlit screen.
- Has a 1-GB DDR2 533 MHz SDRAM.
- A good 160GB hard disk
- Integrated WiFi 802.11a/b/g LAN connection
- Integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN connection
- Media Card Reader which natively supports Secure Digital (SD) Card, MultiMediaCard (MMC), Reduced-Size Multimedia Card (RS-MMC), Memory Stick (MS), Memory Stick PRO (MS PRO) and xD-Picture Card (xD)
- Upto 3-hour battery life with a 6-cell Lithium-ion battery pack
- Comes pre-installed with Windows XP Home
- Weighs 1.26 kgs
- Three USB 2.0 ports
- An integrated 1.3 MP Camera
- Touchpad with 2 button
- Build-in Stereo speakers
- Built-in Microphone
Another good feature was that it had a LED Backlit screen which displays very crystal clear images(You must see to believe it). But the processor was N270 while there are competitors with N280 though they have an added 0.6GHz of higher speed – but it surely does matter on the move when processing power is at a premium. The price seems good too.
- Has the new Intel Atom N270 processor which has the same 1.60 GHz, 533 MHz FSB and 512 KB L2 cache.
- This too has the Mobile Intel 945GSE Express Chipset.
- Has a very good 10" WSVGA TFT screen.
- Has a 1 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz.
- A good 160GB (5400 rpm) hard disk
- Integrated WiFi 802.11a/b/g LAN connection
- Integrated Bluetooth
- Integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN connection
- 4-in-1 card reader slot (SD/MMC/MS/MS pro)
- Only a 3-cell Lithium-ion battery pack
- Comes pre-installed with Windows XP Home
- Weighs 1.25 kgs
- Only two USB 2.0 ports
- An integrated 1.3 MP Camera
- Touchpad with 2 button
- Build-in Stereo speakers
- Built-in Microphone
- Has a added feature of an express card slot
The Lenovo looks very sleek and has most of the features you need. Packs in also an Express Card Slot which maynot be really very useful currently. You don’t currently get that many devices that will plug into the Express Slot and moreover what else do you need coz it’s got almost all the essentials integrated. Also, it comes with the Face Recognition Software for unlocking the machine – kinda cool but do you really need it on a netBook?
The downer was as usual the N270 Atom processor so also the price, also it didn’t come with a LED display and sports the TFT screen. Also, has only the 3-cell li-ion pack.
Acer Aspire One AOD250 : The Acer Aspire One AOD250 is well built, well and are as follows :
- Runs on the most advanced and latest Intel Atom processor N280 which boasts of 1.66 GHz processing speed, 667 MHz FSB and also 512 KB L2 cache.
- This too has the Mobile Intel 945GSE Express Chipset.
- Has a superb 10.1" SD 1024 x 600 (WSVGA) pixel resolution, high-brightness (200-nit) Acer CrystalBrite LED-backlit TFT LCD.
- Has a 1-GB DDR2 SDRAM .
- A good 160GB hard disk
- Integrated WiFi 802.11 a/b/g LAN connection
- Integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN connection
- Multi-in-1 card reader
- Upto a whooping 7-8 hours battery life with the standard 6-cell Lithium-ion battery pack
- Comes pre-installed with Windows XP Home
- Weighs 1.27 kgs
- Three USB 2.0 ports
- An integrated 0.3 MP Camera
- Has a Multi-touch(found in high-end Laptops) Touchpad with 2 button
- Two built-in stereo speakers
- Built-in Microphone
- Integrated Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
This is one hell of a beast I must say – has the latest N280 processor, a 160GB HDD and what makes it stand out from the crowd is the 7-8 hours of seamless battery backup that it offers via a 6-cell lithium ion Battery pack. The multi-touch keypad that supports gestures is also a very good added feature – this helps you easily scroll webpages / documents, also you can easily zoom or shrink an image with a pinch gesture.
The Back-Lit LED display serves two purposes – one, it provides very stunning image quality that is in par to high end HD televisions and secondly, having an LED display saves a whole lot of power and also the life of the screen is considerably increased.
The Final Verdict :
So, as I said before – the NetBook market is currently spoilt for choice. You have just so many options and all of them revolving around the same processor’s (N270 or N280) and the identical MotherBoard and very similar RAM , HDD features. So, in the end you need to make a choice of “Value For Money”. I found the Acer Aspire One D250 to be more of a value for money and also it fulfilled all my needs perfectly.
I got a Acer Aspire One D250 “Sunset Red”, coz as the official website says
Red is a heartbeat, the color of determination, passion and of a fiery soul.
So, it very much speaks for itself and my passion for blogging. As you might have already observed – the number of blog posts and the frequency has already begun to increase. Will keep you folks posted on updates as I use more of the NetBook on the move than my Monster Desktop.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Gift Ideas : Custom USB Pen Drives
A custom flash drive is a very simple yet very effective gift that a company can provide either to it’s employees or as part of promotions / campaign’s. There are just so many different types of Custom USB Pen drives that can be tailor made to suit each company. The advent of cheaper Solid State memory of 1-2GB has made this idea much more practical and also very effective.
Let’s say a company that sells laptops / Desktops give out a 2GB Custom flash drive with their name etched on it along with the website url – The pen drive is surely gonna change many hands as a person uses it over a period of time. This leads to a lot of publicity. Also, if the USB Pen drive doesnot sport the common leather / metal outer casing and instead features the company’s logo or mascot – it’s surely gonna be a real publicity spinner and will make much more people get interested about the product that is being marketed.
The costs involved in this kind of passive marketing is much lower when compared to print / media ad spends but they target the right audience and instils a positive marketing pitch with the prospective customer. The best part is that the gift is very practical too and is many times useable.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
FireFox 3.5 to officially release today
The latest and most anticipated version of the popular Mozilla browser FireFox 3.5 is gearing up for a possible release today – if all goes well. The Geek world atleast is waiting for this significant release since it will give the users at large a first opportunity to not only see a completely stable version of Firefox but also a couple of new features like the support for the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine and also the HTML5 web standards. There is already a demo posted on the website about dynamic content injection for all to see. This clearly demonstrates the new version of Firefox's native support for HTML5 with just not embedded video, but also with the ability to have JavaScript that can embed graphics or video in an embedded video – all this can be achieved in real-time and also at speeds of several frames per second.
So, this is gonna be an important release to watch out for. I have been running the Firefox RC2 on my Windows 7 NetBook for a few days but to be frank – I don’t see any speed improvements with the 3.5 release. Not sure if the 3.5 release is not tweaked well for the Windows 7 environment. Let’s wait and see if the newer releases help Mozilla gain more market share.
You can test the Portable Version of Firefox 3.5 RC release here - "Download the Portable FireFox 3.5 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) for Free".
Monday, June 29, 2009
35 Interesting, Funny and Practical USB Pen Drive Designs
This is more like when beauty meets the brains or do we call it when practicality meets new age design? Call it whatever you want, but you now have a lot of choice for sure.
How boring it is gonna be to carry that old pen drive any more - isn't it time to upgrade?
