What was the Kindle intended for? Thanks to the eInk and superb battery life it was supposed to be your perfect e-reader. However with the new Kindle Fire, you can read in colour, watch movies, listen to music and check mail and more. DISTRACTION. Yes, pure distraction if you ask me. I think what I need from the Kindle is what it does best currently – good battery life, some music and capacity for a lot of reading material. Anything else on it and you are tempted to check mail, catch up on the latest episode of sitcom or even end up playing games. Yes, my Kindle does have an experimental browser – but because its so crappy I don’t get tempted to browse.

Of course there will always be the camp which wants to have a gadget which does it all. But the way I see it – Kindle for reading and any other tablet like iPad or the kinds for entertainment.

And it was interesting as I was composing this blog post I happened to see some interesting tweets from @praval.

My final take – if you are serious about JUST READING – buy the basic Kindle and I prefer it with 3G. But if you want to do more, then go compare if Kindle Fire is what you want instead of the iPad.

I’ve been a satisfied user of Nokia phones for more than 6-7 years now. I also used the iMate Jam for about 3 years before I made the switch back to Nokia E75. But with the popularity of all those applications on iPhone, Blackberry and Android phones I thought I was really missing something. Finally the pressure came on to pick the Blackberry when I moved to Kenya for a work assignment. The Blackberry Messenger was the cheapest way to be in touch with family & friends back home.

So what’s good with the Blackberry

• I like the always on, unlimited internet access. News, twitter and email get done a lot more.
• Although the constant email alerts are a pain, I think it helps you sort out a lot of mail while on the move saving some time when you get back to the desk.
• The Microsoft Exchange sync keeps my work mail and calendar up to date on the laptop and phone.
• The BBM – one hell of a super thing to be in touch with friends and family.

And what’s disappointing

It’s been about a week that I have spent tweaking and configuring to extract the best from the Kindle and also experiment with other tools which make it a true delight for a reader. Here is a quick review to help decide if the Kindle is for you.

• Kindle – Latest Generation comes in a fabulous size. At about 6inches it’s just about the size of an average book and is super-thin making it very easy to carry and have it on you all the time.
• The build looks tough enough to protect itself from daily use, but I am going to get the cover very soon to protect its screen from accidental scratches or hits.
• I love the built-in Dictionary. No more dictionary.com or searching for the big-fat print edition in the home library.
• Kindle 3 supports social networking, so I can share notes from my reading material directly with twitter buddies and Facebook friends.
• The experimental browser is useful and let’s you do a quick web browse if you feel the need.

How am I going to use the Kindle?

Buying the Kindle Books or subscribing to the periodicals is of course the best way to get content to your Kindle. And Kindle’s got a wide range of free ebooks too so that you can test the waters before making your purchase of the paid books. [See my Wish List on Amazon.] But that’s not all. You can do some other interesting stuff and here are a few of my experiments. Don’t know how many will get sticky and continue on my Kindle.

Sendmeastory – A very interesting service and I think it’s going to make for some nice variety reading. Must subscribe.

Instapaper – If there is a web page which you think will need to read at a later time, just bookmark it with Instapaper’s short-cut. Then configure Instapaper to send you email updates which will pull out the article and send it to your Kindle for reading. The page formatting for web pages is not the best so a good tip is to bookmark print-friendly pages.

Send your personal documents to Kindle – Amazon has a good service which lets you send some popular format files like the Microsoft Word, HTML and PDF files to an email address registered with your Kindle. They’ll convert it to a friendly format and it’s delivered to the Kindle. If you’re on the Wi-fi delivery is free but on the 3G it’s going to cost some money, so choose accordingly.

So what’s not happening with the Kindle.

It’s not back-lit, so you are yet dependent on good ambient light for your reading sessions. Of course the fact that it’s not back-lit makes it more comfortable on the eyes, I suppose.

If your dependency on the Kindle increases and you stop buying paper versions – then you are stuck without any reading material if you forget the piece or don’t have enough charge.

As much as I would love to have all my reading material on the Kindle, I think for us in India the printed editions are much cheaper than the $9-11 price ranged Kindle books from Amazon. So I may not stop buying printed books yet. And of course the Kindle editions are going to be very selective.

My bookmarks collection is going to be used a little less. I am going to miss them.

Should I Kindle or iPad?

Totally depends on what your purpose is. I’ve used the Kindle for about a week now and played with a borrowed iPad for a little time. I think the iPad is more of a no non-sense web browsing, photo viewing device especially when on the move. The Kindle is more for serious reading. No distraction of apps, emails, full web-browsing; so I guess the focus is on reading your downloaded material.

What’s your experience been with the Kindle or the iPad? Got some favourite apps you would like to share? Would love to hear from you in the comments area.

Launchy

Always a problem finding the right file? Look no further. Launchy has been the most useful piece of software to get me directly to a file/folder or application by just typing out it’s name. Of course you need to make sure you index your hard disk, the right way. [Download]

ObjectDock

Is your desktop messed up with short-cuts to files & folders? Get ObjectDock, the Mac look alike taskbar. Easy access to folders and other applications without cluttering your desktop. [Download]

IrfanView
Simple, light-weight image editor. Crop, re-size your images quickly without having to load a heavy application like Adobe Photoshop for simple actions. Also with a few plug-ins it will let you view some of the more complex image formats without those heavy software installs. [Download]

Dropbox
A popular online storage which I only recently started using and it’s been super useful. I don’t bother with file transfers to the USB pen-drive anymore. Just copy the file in the Dropbox folder and it syncs with my Macbook at home. So I have access to important files at all time. [Website]

GTD wallpaper
If you don’t fancy those lovely desktop wallpapers here is something which is great to sort the files and shortcuts on the desktop. [Download]

And here is a bonus:

AvaFind/Google Desktop
If you’ve been unsatisfied with the search results given by Windows default search engine then get yourself one of these application. Google Desktop does a superb job of indexing content of the files, email applications so you can probably end up finding that needle in the haystack. [Ava Find Home Page / Google Desktop Download]

What’s your favourite piece of software that makes computing easier for you? Share your thoughts in the comments area.

After an almost 2 year contemplation of taking the leap, last month I bit into the Apple. Using the latest edition 13″MacBook Pro for about a week now. This is not intended to be a review, there are better experts out there who will tell you more about it. I am only going to share my initial experience of having moved to the Mac finally.

1. The sleek & sexy hold me baby looks make it very attractive and at the same time you are completely on the watch to make sure that the surface is not scratched.
2. Trackpad lets you do some rather nifty things like page scrolls, application selection, Zoom in/out with just a combination of 2, 3 & 4 fingers and some pinching. Great fun.
3. Back-lit keyboard which means no more typos when typing late into the night. And no more disturbing lamp light for the wife.
4. Awesome audio quality is making me pull out the iPod from it’s dock and play it on the MacBook more often.
5. A no nonsense set-up is truly a blessing after going thru Window’s multiple set-up screens. The Macbook was online with just one password entry. No IP address, No DNS etc.
6. Surprisingly the Mac OS does NOT come with a built in support for some standard Video formats like AVI and MPEGs. You yet need to get the popular Windows utility – VLC for that purpose.
7. The Mac OS has a very useful dock which gives you quick access to your set of key applications and documents. But at times gets a bit confusing to know which applications are currently active.
8. What I really miss on the MacBook from the Windows Keyboard are these keys – Home/End & Page Up/Page Down.
9. Print Screen is not easy either – needs a little app to take care of it.
10. The promised battery life was supposed to be 10 hours. But I am not sure under what conditions is this. I’ve got about web browsing on Wifi and music playing and it gives me about 6 hours approximately.

So that’s about it. I am sure knowing Mac’s usability ratings these would be just some minor getting used to features and then there shall be no looking back at the Windows. Looking forward to a higher output on the personal projects with the new MacBook.

Dad says he bought this walkman in April 1979 from Dubai, and supposedly this was the first model to hit the market there. So it’s a proud possession we have with us.

This article at Apple’s website, will help you just do that bit.

And if you plan to run presentations off your iPod, read up this article at MacWorld.

So going back to something I read a few years back about mobile towers being able to shoot out location based marketing messages. Now this would be rather interesting. Say you enter the vicinity of a mall and as you get within 100 meters of the mall, the cell tower in that area will shoot out special customized marketing messages related to the offers from that mall. There could be a limit of 1 message for every 100 meters; which means the closer you get to the mall more the messages you get.

Feasible? I don’t know because I believe the cell tower may cover a large area and not all those around maybe willing to entertain those marketing messages. Also what happens to regulars coming to the area? Do we bore them with the same message every single day?

Possible solution could be to set-up a SMS shooting device (something like a wi-fi box) which shoots out SMS to all those phones coming within it’s specified range. I don’t know if there is a discovery tool which can identify mobile phone numbers within the area. A database of messages ensure the user is not bored with the same message over and over again. Regular users could send a toll-free SMS to stop updates from the particular provider.

Could create an enormous SMS traffic, but if some thinking is put into it’s limitations, filters and viability I am sure a work-able solution could be found.

Got some ideas to share, drop me a line and we could get talking.

Being at IIT I should have guessed it would be a techie session but yet took my chances hoping they would discuss something on Internet Advertising, Revenues etc. But the discussions revolved around emerging technologies, VC funding and of course the hot topic – how do you survive in these tough times.

Let me share a few highlights which I thought were worth pondering over the weekend.

1. If there is something good about a recession it’s the fact that it maybe the best time to start a new company or launch new products. Funding is cheap, great talent is available at half the cost and while your big-fat competition is finding ways to survive you go out there and take away some market share from them.

2. Nobody knows the future of digital media and what’s the next success model. But if there is something interesting to look forward to is the mash-up of social networking and e-commerce. Consumers are very influenced when they see what their peer group is buying/using and tend to buy something similar which has been tried and tested. A great platform to push and execute your word-of-mouth activity.

3. Why do only bad times have to teach us lessons on cost cutting and streamlining operational expenses? Shouldn’t we all learn not to burn expensive VC funding or investor money at all times. Jolt up your teams and let them know this is how businesses should run at ALL times.

4. VC funding maybe the cheapest source of money but you’re giving away something very expensive – your equity stake. So think hard before getting more funding from them and use that money very wisely.

5. Are you launching a new product? Is it a COOL new technology? Or will it able to pinch a penny out of the consumer’s pocket. Unless you don’t have both it’s a FAIL.

Technology Out. Customer In.

6. And please don’t become an entrepreneur because your neighbour is one or your cousin brother became one. If you don’t have the fire within you to cater to a gap in the market or offer something which will make the consumer’s life easier – Please DON’T become one. 

Photo courtesy WATBlog.

This should be the kind of error message you should get if you try to: Install/Uninstall/Upgrade the .NET installation.

And the perfect solution is to get the .NET cleanup utility which does a complete cleanup including corrupted registry and other such problems.