Odd tech trials #1

I use a lot of tech. And more often that not, I use them in ways that a typical user may not really use the tech. Nor it is the way tech companies design their products to be used. Here are some odd experiments I am currently running:

1) Using a Windows desktop PC with out a mouse. I have almost a decade old machine, of which internals have been upgraded over time. About 5 years ago (around the time Windows 8 was released), I had also bought a touch screen monitor, but seldom use the "touch" part of it. Few weeks ago, I decided to give up on my old wired mouse and keyboard in leu of a wireless keyboard I had got for an iPad (but which I found no use of). Now, I didn't have wireless mouse, so I decided to just rely on using the touch screen. So far the experiment has been going great. But these days, I use my desktop PC a lot less as I am away from home most of the time. (PS: this post is being written on my desktop PC).

2) Using an Android phone without Google account. I have been using Oppo A3s as my secondary phone for a while now. A week ago, however, I was getting increasingly upset over the way Google was tracking my movements. Yes, I could shutoff the tracking options, but then I decided to nuke the phone and use it without any Google account. But without a Google account on the phone there is no way to download apps from the Play Store. Being an Oppo phone, however, there was a "Oppo Store" where you could install most of the popular apps on the "Play Store", and the Oppo store didn't need you to setup an account or anything, but it indicated that it would constantly send "usage information" to "improve user experience". Something I have ZERO interest in, and of-course something that raises my inner eyebrows. So I nuked the phone again and set it up with out anything, disabling and removing everything possible to the bare minimum. But I needed two apps (one a popular messaging app and another an apartment security app) - for both of these I found a trusted source to get the APK and side load them on to the phone. As of now things are going fine. I don't recommend people doing this, but one can pretty much have a locked down phone (android), if one really wants it that way.

3) Using an Android phone just to take photos. I had been reviewing the so called phone called "Kodak Ektra". Now even though you can make phone calls using this "phone", it is very much a camera in all ergonomics sense. I tried to use it as my secondary phone but I just couldn't. So next I nuked this phone and removed all the apps (including phone and messages) except the camera app, the Google Photos app and Snapseed. Now I have a "smart camera" - that has only one function : take photos, on device editing (using the fantastic Snapseed), and backup to Google Photos over a Wi-Fi connection. Coming to think of it sounds pretty cool. I am just wondering, why have companies not yet come up with camera products that would offer this very limited and focused function: take photos, offer on device editing, and backup on cloud storage. I definitely think there is a sizeable marker for this device - and I already have a neat prototype of this ;)

Switching to Ubuntu from Windows

Long ago, I wrote a post (http://tovganesh.blogspot.in/2008/07/switching-form-ubuntu-to-windows-vista.html) when I switched from Ubuntu to Windows on my mini laptop. I got a few passionate comments on that post, but that is OK, such is expected. From that day, I have always used Windows on my home desktop, although at work it was mostly Linux and Mac. This was primary because my parents were comfortable with using Windows, and it served the purpose then. But since the passing away of my mother, the desktop machine is hardly used. My dad is now more comfortable using his Windows phone and an Android tablet.

So the week before I decided to switch to Ubuntu by nuking the Windows 8 installation all together on my home desktop machine. Since then, I have had not much for a chance to evaluate the change though, as most of my work now gets done either on my phone or when I am at work (where I have the Mac, and connect to a remote Linux box over ssh). But here is my initial impression on a few days of use:

1) Now that this is Ubuntu, I can do a hell lot of things. Literally. A lot of software stack that I wanted to try but was just not too great on Windows can now easily be done with Linux. Theno (http://deeplearning.net/software/theano/), being one of them.

2) Still needs proprietary software to work. MP3/ Flash is still around, so are a huge number of codecs - have they got more since 2008? The biggest gripe is however the graphics drivers. I have a Nividia card on my machine. And that is where the problem is. The default nouveau drivers are usable. But usable is a big word to use for those drivers. There are simply too many crashes. What is more, the Firefox is a pain to use the moment I open > 5 tabs or open the wonderful Flipboard web app. That made me to switch to Chrome. Chrome was great, but the scroll experience was anything but choppy. Finally, I switched to the Nvidia binary driver. It solved some problems and created others: the boot and the shutdown screen are now non-pretty. The issues that I had in 2008 seem to still around in 2015.

(The story however, seems better with new Intel hardware. The driver support on Linux on the latest Intel CPU / GPU combination is probably a lot better than what is on my 2007 Intel Core 2 machine with Nvidia graphics)

3) It boots a lot slower than Windows 8. That is quite surprising to me. I would have expected Ubuntu to boot a lot faster than Windows. But looks like Windows 8 (and now Windows 10) has done a lot of work to improve boot speeds, which makes it comfortably faster than Ubuntu on my desktop PC.

For now, I continue to use new installation without major issues. I will keep updating this post as I more regularly use the desktop for stuff that I do.

Social Bus Spotter update

The Social Bus Spotter app (for Android), has got an update. The new features include:

- Real time position update of commuter (you!)

- Auto update bus position for next 5 - 30 minutes, once recorded.

With this, the commuter position is updated when using the app automatically in real time. Further, you can auto check in the bus position you are travelling in for a scheduled time span (up to a maximum of 30 minutes). The auto check in (update) to the bus position you are travelling in is useful to give a live feed of the bus. You can download the latest version from Google Play Store (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.busspotter).

Social Bus Spotter app is now also a Web App accessible via. http://bus.savarinow.in

With this you can now access the Web App from any modern mobile browser - iOS / Windows Phone / Firefox OS / Android, are tested and works -. The Web App is simple and has limited functionality compared to the Android app. However, the basic functionality of viewing and making bus checkins are available.

Quick takes on Notion Ink Cain

I have written a short review on Notion Ink Cain : http://theaffordable.blogspot.in/2014/09/notion-ink-cain-best-affordable-2-in-1.html. Hope you find it useful!

 

OS X Yosemite : it has got really more advanced than Windows

I love staying up late to watch the tech events live. And the latest one is that of Apple: the yearly WWDC.

Of all the presentations I watched this year, the one by Apple yesterday was simply in a whole new league. It was pretty long, but not a bit boring. In fact it was more entertaining than a long spidy movie I had watched recently. It was that good. The best part of the presentation for me was the continuity feature demonstration on OX Yosemite and iOS 8. People who remember the Nokia Symbian may say that similar phone and message integration was provided on Windows back in 2006. That is true, idea is not new, but Apple has nailed the implementation ( search for my own app, btsms, to see how arcane was this back then, and then have a look at the Apple implementation - similar idea, miles apart in implementation ). But that is what Apple does, and known to do it extremely well, so well that all the 'credit' goes to them for inventing something that was already there. OK not really. But you get the point. Others are simply not able to take an idea and execute it in the best possible way, the Apple way.

After the demo by Craig Federighi, I can safely say that Yosemite blows Windows 8 in terms of usability, to the level that I am seriously thinking of shifting my home PC to a Mac (already use a Mac at office). By focusing on touch screens, Microsoft has lost all the time and energy to bring real usability to it's desktop. The thing is so bad right now that your desktop apps are called legacy apps. And that too when they are the most usable and productive of the apps. By focusing on touch first in Windows, Microsoft brought down the learning curve for a new user, but completely alienated an experienced and power user.

With continuity, Apple has shown how desktop and the mobile device can work in harmony, something that Microsoft has been trying to do, but never made it (may be 8.1 fixes some issues and probably 9 will be a lot better, but then precious time was lost). OSX usability does not stop at this feature, it goes on to everything from spotlight search to notifications to improvements in the mail and photos apps, all of which are simply quite superior to what is there on Windows 8.

The story on the developer side is an equal mess for Windows, but seems to be  quite a harmony for OSX and iOS. And with the introduction of a new programming language, Swift, Apple has not only made programming a joy for existing developers, but is sure to attract a lot of new learners to the platform.

PS :

// has become hit, I think it will over take printf("Hello, world!"); -)