Friday, June 15, 2007

Safari Browser for Windows


Apple's Safari Browser is now on Windows (now, that's another browser for me). Although I might say that I am not a Safari fan on the Mac OS (I frequently use the Camino Browser from the Mozilla Foundation). Anyways, there's no harm in trying it out, I would like the check out what Steve Jobs is boasting in the WWDC 07 held a couple of days ago and that is the speed. 
I did not run any sophisticated benchmarking software, but by comparing it with Firefox on my WinBox, I can definitely say that Safari is indeed faster. And the speed is noticeable too! Check it out yourselves.

There goes my Digital Camera


I love my digital camera, it's a SONY Cybershot that pumps out 5.1 megapixel images. It has been with me for I think more than 4 years. I also love my mobile phones, I'm a SonyEricsson fan and has a handful of mobile phones in the closet, still functional and still in prestine conditions. When the Cybershot phones came out, I refused to be pulled into the foray, for I have not seen a perfect convergent device, that is perhaps until now.
SonyEricsson released a set of new mobiles and one of them is the K850i, it's the latest iteration of their Cybershot phones, what's good about it is, well, it's got a 5MP camera at the back. Damn! I was eyeing the P1 for my next phone, but this thing is irresistable. It's got a Xenon flash to boot, not those LED faux-flash on other phones, this one really works.
Well, I'll be checking out the other sites to check for early reviews, and perhaps, I will be one of those who can get my hands on the first versions of the phone in the country. Well, I did it with the K700 and the K610 so why not with the K850i.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

The fuss with the Foleo


Since Palm announced it's new product line, the Foleo, a big fuss around the tech community of it's purpose? What for? What is it?

Looks like those people who are skeptic of this device are starting to have 2nd thoughts. Why would I want one when I already have a notebook PC that is more powerful than that? Then again, my notebook maybe powerful but is too big and bulky and heavy at that.

Ok then let's try to compare a laptop with the Foleo, in the real world. This means that average notebook PC users are those that use it mostly for Email, Document editing, Presentation and surfing the web (which includes watching videos in YouTube).

Email: Foleo - yes; notebook PC - yes
Document Editing: Foleo - yes; notebook PC - yes
Presentation (Powerpoint):
Foleo - yes; notebook PC - yes
Internet: Foleo - yes; notebook PC - yes

By the looks of it, it's a tie! Maybe, but let's see, a typical notebook PC (windows) will have an approximately 10-20 secs to boot up after a hibernate (most windows notebook users out there doesn't even know that their laptops are capable of hibernating, they would just turn their machine on and off per session), but the Foleo has in instant on and off feature, that means, no waiting time. Apple users will argue that most macs are instant on as well, well, yeah, ok. Then there's the seamless synchronization with your smartphone, no one notebook at the present time can do this.

Whatever the argument would be, I think Palm is not trying to push the notebook computer out of the scene. This is the same reason they gave before with the Palm Pilot device, people thought that it's the laptop replacement, and eventually it made it to the top in it's category for some time. I think the Foleo is being groomed as another device (not even an accessory), that's why they called it as another "product-line".

People have been very disappointed with this device, but still it made more people think twice. Do we need to bring the notebook when we will not be using most of it's power, so why not bring the Foleo?

Perhaps it's still difficult to gauge what the device's impact until it is released to the market. We also for that matter don't know what Palm is trying to prove at this moment. But I have this feeling that there's still more to this device than meets the eye.