Prakash Advani's Blog

This is awesome News.

Skype is planning to open source its Linux client.

The current Skype client on Linux is functional but buggy and it lags behind the Windows version in terms of features.

Now if Skype opens up, it will make the client development go faster, people will be able to fix bugs faster and add more feature.

Waiting for this to happen.

“There are at least 142 vulnerabilities in IE6, 22 of which are not yet patched.”

Read more.

If you are still using IE, time to switch to Google Crome or Firefox. I have been using Firefox for a while now, find it very good. Off late I have been trying out Crome and find it faster  because most websites today make heavy use javascripts and Crome is fast at rendering them.

I was comparing the pricing of External drives and here are the results. Its Amazing to see how we used to talk in MBs, then GBs and now TBs.

The cost per GB for two 1TB is the same as one 2TB. Unless you need more than 1TB which is a lot, I would buy a 1TB drive and keep the budget for another drive in the future. Who knows by the time you run out of your 1TB, you could get another 2TB a the same price.

The bottle neck will now be the data transfer, USB 2.0 is just not fast enough.. so look for eSATA. Your PC/Notebook should also have an eSATA port. A NAS box with Gigabit Ethernet would also be fast, provided your network card and your network is 1GBps.

Olympus  has launched the E-P2 soon after they launched the E-P1. E-P2 has an electronic view finder which was absent in the E-P1.

Rest of the specs remain more or less the same as the E-p1.

Here is a tip to save time while sending emails using Mozilla Thunderbird.

If you compose an email with Thunderbird, you do not come back to the inbox immediately, unless the email is sent which take a few minutes.

A solution to this is to use the add-on Sendtools. Once you install this, your emails are sent in the background and you are immediately returned back to your inbox.

This also allows you to schedule sending emails at a specific time.

Note: I have tested this with the latest Mozilla 2.0 but sendtools wouldn’t install as it checks for version compatibility and doesn’t install if you have a newer version.

Here is a fix. After you download sendtools, you will find a .XPI file.

Right click on the .XPI, this will open in your archive/zip application.

Now you will see a install.rdf, open this file with any text editor.
Change the max-version to 2.0.*
Save and close the file.
Save and close the archive.

Now install sendtools, it should work correctly.

Two years ago, I said good bye to my lone Desktop. I wasn’t sure how I would survive since I had so many peripherals, but I am doing pretty well so far.  I only use a Notebook these days.

Would I still buy a Notebook or a Netbook would fit the bill? Was just thinking if I were to buy a notebook next, what would I be looking for?

Pre-Installed with  Ubuntu: The last 2 Notebooks I bought, had Windows pre-loaded. I didn’t have an option to buy without Windows, this is a big pain. I am paying for something that I am not using, so why not have a choice? Ubuntu pre-installed notebooks are available, but there is not enough choice. Currently I need to boot into Windows perhaps once in 6 months to update my camera software, only because the application doesn’t have a Linux port. Other than that I don’t need to use Windows.

Good Battery life: This is important, I  can’t survive with just 1-3 hours. I would look for 10 hours of battery life, useful for long flights or go for meetings the whole day without a charge.

GPS built in: This will help in integrating with Google Maps.

3G Built in: With 3G getting very common these days, it makes sense to have the 3G build-in, so you don’t need to carry those dongles.

SD Card slots: these are common these days in Notebooks and Netbooks but now can’t do without them

More USBs: I already have 3 USBs and sometimes find them insufficient specially when I connect external mouse and keyboard.

eSATA: With external 1TB hard drives becoming cheap, the bottle neck to transfer huge amounts of data becomes the USB port. eSATA is about 3 times faster and you can get a hard drive casing with an eSATA port. Make sure your notebook/netbook has an eSATA port too.

LED Monitor: These are nice displays which are easy on the eyes and they have already started showing in laptops. What would be even better is an epaper type reader  that doesn’t hurt the eyes since we spend so much time reading in front of the computer each day.

Good resolution Webcam: these are also common but not all of them are high resolution. With Skype video getting pupular this is nice to have.

Tablet Convertible: I have see a few notebooks which can double up as a tablet, they are a little rough, but nice feature to have. Not sure if I would actually use it alot. But my wants exceed my need.

SSD: Solid State Drives are getting cheaper, they are safe to use in mobile environments and consume less power too.

What about processor speed? Well this is irrelevant today. For basic computing todays processors are fast enough. Most PCs have only 5-10% utilisation so why have this craze for faster processors and hurt the environment? when we can buy small low powered processors?

Netbook or Notebook?
I may invest in a Netbook instead of a Notebook, they are sufficiently powered for my need. Now only if they have a nicer keyboard too.