To solve all these problems, there is a precious piece of software, especially designed for your android Smartphone. And the best part is, all of it comes for free! This is known as the Bubble.

How to Install Bubble in Your Smartphone

If you want to use Bubble, you must have any type of Android Smartphone and it should have Android version 2.1 or later. Then you can download the application from Android Market for free. The installation file size is 837KB. The application’s most updated release is version 1.1.0.

Once the installation is done you can access the application from the icon which will be there in your menu. Once you open the application you will see that there are three sections named ‘contact’, ‘bubbles’ and ‘call log’. By default it will open ‘contact’.

How it Works

Once you open the application as I said before you can see the contact list by default. You can tap on one contact to open it. Once it open you can see ‘add bubble’ button there. By tapping it you can add a note related to the selected contact, and then assign a color to the note as well. When you open the same contact again you will be able to see the note on the screen. There is a cross in every note to remove it in case you don’t want it anymore. After you successfully add a bubble to a contact you will be able to see the ‘bubble’ icon in the contact list in front of subjected contact.

In the ‘bubbles’ section you can filter out the contacts which are having bubbles. By tapping any contact you can access the previous screen which let you add/remove bubbles as well as directly make a call to the contact.

After you add these bubbles, when you make a call to contact which is having a bubble or when you are receiving a call, you will be able to see the attached notes in the calling screen instead of the default screen. They will be displayed in a bubble with the color you select when you make the note.

In the third section ‘call log’, you can see the list of incoming and outgoing calls and related bubbles to that. In here you can add, remove and edit bubbles depending on your calling activity.

Eg: Suppose you added a bubble for discussing a meeting with your boss. And few minutes ago you made the call and discussed about that. Now you don’t need that related bubble to your boss anymore. So you can go to ‘call log’ and, make sure you made the call to boss, then remove the bubble. If you have anything else to talk with Boss when he calls again, you can add a new bubble.

Unlike the traditional note book you used to maintain the ‘to-do’ list you can get the right reminder, with right activity, related to the right person in right time using Bubble android application. That’s how Bubble makes your life easier.

Below you can see a video released by “Bubble” development team, “GoodFriend” which gives you good idea about usage of bubble.

How to Use Bubble Effectively

Bubble is not a replacement for your traditional note book or to-do list. It’s an extension and a different version of it. This will be a very useful tool for the people who need to interact with many other people like businessmen, academicians, politicians, management and marketing professionals etc. They can use the conventional note book and to-do list for general purposes. In case you need a reminder, especially if you need to delegate some task to another person, best way to get the reminder for that is when you make the call to that particular person. That’s exactly what bubble does.

Politicians might use this to note down the things that he “must NOT tell” to someone else, especially to journalists. All he has to do is make a small note related to contacts of all journalists using bubble. Every time he make a call or get a call from those journalists, bubble will remind the politicians about the things that he “must NOT” speak about.

This will be a useful tool to management professionals. Most of the time, they have to assign work to fellow employees. After assigning he can make a note, a bubble in subjected employees contact. When he call him again or getting call from him, the application will always remind about the work you assign to him. Things will work the same with marketing professionals as well.

Another example is when you make a call to customer service division. After you make the call, you can make a note mentioning the last time progress with the complaint. So, next time when you make a call to same customer service, application will remind you what happened last time.

There are unlimited creative usages of this application. You will be able to share your experience with us as a comment.

Popularity of Bubble

In the android market the application “Bubble” is getting good user feedback. So far it has received 60 feedbacks and 32 are having 5 starts. Average rating is 4 stars. Currently application download is categorized as 10,000-50,000. When I take a deeper look into user feedback, I could see that Bubble users are having many different types of Smartphones including Samsung, Motorola, HTC and LG. It says that it is popular among variety of Android Smartphones. Considering the last 30 days download chart, I could not see a steady growth. It’s peaked in the last 15 days and then dropped drastically. I could not find a logical reason for this so far.

Suggestion to the Development Team

The application is simple, smart and exactly serves the purpose in a very user-friendly manner. In order to develop the application further and make it even smarter I have a few suggestions to the development team.

• Online synchronization system for bubbles, especially as a disaster recovery plan
• Ability to delete a note while call is on
• A checkbox for each note to mark them as done
• More readable font colors and sizes
• Search and narrow down contacts without scrolling

Notes of Genius is looking forward to see further developed versions of this valuable piece of software in near future and wishing all the best for the development team!

However, when you try to enter a building, at the door step Google maps leaves you alone. In the building you have to use a conventional printed map to find where you want to go. This is a very unpleasant experience to Google Maps users. The latest release, Google Maps 6.0 for Android solves the problem.

How It Works

When you are using Google Maps you can zoom in to see more details. Normally, zoom in stops at a certain level of detail. But when you are using new Google Maps, if there is a building with the floor plan you can zoom further in to see the indoor details of the building. Same as street details you can see names and description of indoor shops and offices if they are available. And of course you can search for them as well. This comes in handy when you want to quickly find the wash room in a huge air port. GPS technology is capable of measuring altitude, so the application is capable of changing the floor automatically as you move up or down. And there is a side bar for you to change the floor levels manually in case you want to take a look at the floor plan without going there. There is an online demo published by Google which explains the operations in graphic details. See the below video as well.

Is GPS Accurate Enough to Track Me in a Building?

The next big question, most of the time there is a light blue circle around the pointed location on Google Maps, which represent the accuracy. In other words you can be anywhere in that light blue circle. Furthermore Google maps gives you a numeric representation of accuracy as well, like 10M. Is this enough to pinpoint me in a small building?

The simple answer is YES! If GPS is accurate enough to keep you on the right lane on the right road, it should be accurate enough to point you usefully in a small building as long as you have strong GPS signals.

The next question, “I have heard that GPS signals are weak inside buildings. So how can they be strong enough to point me accurately?”

There is a serious point, that signals get weaker when they go through buildings, especially through concrete. Therefore you might face difficulties about the accuracy of the positioning in a building. In other words, when you go to Nike store Google Maps will say you are near GAP store. But most of the time you will get 5-10M accuracy which is way enough to find the location in any small building.

This issue is beyond the Google Maps control but they have done their best. It is more of an issue with GPS satellites and their signal strength. What Google Map does is get the location details from your handset’s built in GPS device and present them in the map. Mobile handset manufactures will keep looking for solutions to capture the weak GPS signals, And there is always a hope that scientists will come up with new innovative technologies for Global positioning.

Where the Floor Plans Comes From?

You already know that you can edit the Google Maps by yourself. After moderation and verification, the changes you did will appear in the public map. This is what they call “Crowd Sourcing”, let public to develop the details of Google Maps.

In the initial version of Google Map 6.0 for Android has covered many important buildings by Google themselves. And again, further development is crowd sourced. You can add your building in here following below four steps.

Locate: Search you your building and locate it on the Google Maps. Drag and drop the marker to the middle of the building. If you are using Satellite view, this will be easier. Then proceed to upload.

Upload: After selecting the building you can upload the floor plan. As information you have to give the building name and floor label as mentioned in the elevator.

Align: In here you have to align the map with the Google Maps. For that they are giving 3 marks, to tell the Google Maps how to align the floor plan with the map.

Submit: Finally submit the floor plan for moderation and verification. After that it will appear on Google Maps, for everyone.

Here is a video released by Google Maps which explains the procedure of adding a floor plan step by step.

What Can We Do With This?

Travelers Support

This new feature of Google Maps opens many opportunities to the business world, majorly for Travel industry. Travel agents like to let their customers to be free during a journey. But in most of the cases there has to be a travel guide and travelers who purchase the package will have to follow him, which is not a good experience to travelers. Recently I have seen, travel organizers give a tablet device to travelers with Google Maps and they can be freely travelling in a certain area with the support of the map and GPS without travel guide around. Yet, it was limited , since there was no Google Maps for Buildings’ floor plans. If one traveler lost in a shopping center,it is huge time delay and bad for business as well. Solution again was a “Travel Guide” which leads back to the same problem.

However this new feature solves it all. Travel agents can let the travelers to be free even in a building with their Android tablet without a travel guide. It will be a positive experience to the travelers and good for the business as well. As long as Google Maps comes for free, Travel agent won’t have to spend extra for this. This will be an advantage for shopping tour organizers who send travelers to Singapore and Malaysia. However, they have to make sure the Google Maps have the updated floor plans of the required buildings.

Business Promotion

I have used Google Maps to find local business many times. But if a business office is located in a building and in the 3^rd floor, I will run in to a big problem. At the same time the business owner also facing a problem, why his customers can’t find him in Google Maps.

With Google Maps 6.0 for android, this problem has been solved and open new opportunities for businesses owners. They can list their office located in a building even with accurate floor level. So his customer can easily search and find the location of business. And most of the business web site embeds Google Maps in their web site. Now that they can embed the Map with floor pan of the building and floor level as well.

Google continue to surprise users by expanding its capabilities beyond the World Wide Web. It has already reached the mobile software market and dominated it defeating previous empires. Google’s Android is the most used mobile operating system today and moving on with frequent updates and developments. Google Maps 6.0 with indoor view will definitely add extra color to Android world and will be a good strength to stand tall among other mobile platforms, showing the power of “Free and Open Source”

No matter what technology and creativity never end and fly through obstacles, especially Apple Inc. Down the time they manage to upgrade the iOS to compete with other available mobile operating system. In version 4.0, they manage to introduce many significant features including multitasking for 3^rd party application, JAVA Scrip support and Wi-Fi multimedia streaming.

With those features iOS became a huge threat to other mobile operating system and sometimes it could dominate very old market empires. Symbian OS, HP WebOS (previously palm OS) and Windows Mobile OS like giant were moved with the improvement of Apple iOS. In 2011 June Apple announced the latest iOS 5.0 comes with lots of amazing features and it was launched in October. This OS initially came to the market with Apple iPhone 4S. It’s a good time to take a look in to effect that iOS 5.0 made to the mobile device world.

New Features

Notification Center

The notification canter is one of the main components in any Mobile OS not just in iOS. Previously the way it used to give the notification was not user-friendly and sometimes it was disturbing to the currently running application. In iOS 5 they have redesign it. The notifications come at the top of screen and disappear very quickly. In the case you need to see entire list of notification you can swipe the top edge of the screen. Further, when the screen is locked the list of notification displays and you can respond to them easily. You can configure the notification center to display the desired items the ways you want including news, weather etc.

iMessaging

This is a brand new messaging service only for iPhone and iPad users who are using iOS version 5. This is providing the facility for you to send text messages through 3G or Wi-Fi based data networks. The text messages are displayed in usual threaded design. You are free to send any type of content including text, images, video and many more. If you need group messaging it’s possible through this application. Its really cool that application keep the messaging history, so you can re join the conversation which you did maybe sometimes ago. To ensure the maximums security of your message which going to be transfer through a public network, the application uses advanced encryption algorithm.

Camera and Photos

iOS 5 provide many new features to iPhone camera. Manly it has made the access easy. From the lock screen you can directly go to camera without unlocking it. So you will never miss an unforgettable moment. Additionally it provides grid lines, to align objects in your frame, tap focusing and zoom in and out gestures. Normally iPhone camera decides the optimum exposure to the frame. But if you are moving rapidly through areas with different light, it doesn’t work well enough. To solve that problem, iOS 5 provide exposure lock to iPhone camera, which is a feature comes in professional cameras. And you have a hardware button, which is volume up button to capture a frame which is way better than previous touch screen virtual button.

The photo viewer of iOS 5 provides on screen photo editing. You can do basic editing while you watch the photos like Auto enhancement which correct, exposure, blacks and color balance intelligently, cropping and red eye reduction. This is really helpful for frequently traveling people, especially for e journalists. They can capture the photos on sight, then edit them right there in iPhone and upload them to web site or social media applications.

PC Free

With previous versions of iOS it requires a computer which connected to internet to setup the device for the 1^st time. In other words, if you want to own an iPhone, before that you must own a PC or a MAC. But with the iOS 5, it has made the iPhone and iPad independent. The device itself can connect to internet right out of the box and download latest updates of iOS through any data service. Same with the 3^rd party applications, the device itself can connect to internet and download them. When it comes to your images, emails and contact like content, again you don’t need a PC or MAC since you have online storage, iCloud comes free with iOS 5.

iCloud

iCloud is one of the interesting feature that comes with iOS 5 and it’s totally free. It’s a online storage where you can sync all the data in your device. Hence you can use the same data in many devices after successful login. This service is integrated with multimedia contents like images and videos.

Ex: Once you take a photo you push that in to iCloud and you can access the same photo in another iOS 5 powered devices without extra effort.

With this service you will never miss any data if you are using many iOS powered devices. iOS comes with new email client that is also powered with iCloud, so you can access your mails with any iOS device. Same service could be used to sync and back up calendar entries and reminders too.

Other

To support the booming trend of social media iOS 5 has included the twitter application built in. Good news for twitter junkies! Gestures were introduced in previous version of iOS as well and iOS 5 has come up with more full hand gestures to make the device more usable. iOS is probably the most used mobile OS for gaming. So there is an upgraded gaming center in iOS 5. AirPlay was introduced in some previous version though this version iOS 5 support HD video mirroring through Apple TV. This will be a cool feature for professionals who planning to use iPhone and iPad for presentations. Location alert in reminders is another cool feature, which let you set a reminder which triggers not in specific time, but in specific place using GPS.

Other than visible features, there are various optimization of source code which of course no one knows for sure except Apple development team. The optimization are having the target of utilizing the battery power when heavy processes are going and utilize the processing power when multiple tasks are running.

All these features have extended the usability of iOS powered devices to initiate new trends and open whole lots of possibilities.

New Trends and Possibilities

Business Usage

Even in the early stage of iPhone some of the businessmen were using it to monitor and control their business through custom made applications. With the arrival of iPad this trend hit the roof due to the extended usage of iPad, specially its big touch screen. Introduction of iOS 5 has open more possibilities for the businessmen to use those devices more effectively. Mainly iCloud provide online platform to manage data and make them portable which comes handy for any professionals. You have your emails, calendar entries, to do list and other files wherever you go. With the improvement of mail clients, calendar application and new reminders, those made possible. With the performance optimization in core OS, they can trust the device for time critical online application like Stock trading. With new Notification center, you can easily configure it to display the status of stock market.

Communication

No matter what, the main purpose of any mobile device would be communication. I have mention many times before as well, conventional communication mediums like voice calls and SMS are less discussed subjects today, yet they are the most used. iOS 5 provide seamless integration of front camera to give excellent video conferencing experience to users. Further new iMessage general users can communicate through data service with much lesser cost. As always iMessage and SMS are having threaded discussion mode. And there is a new feature Newsstand let you manage your online subscription to various news sources.

Social Media

Social media is always made easy with iPhone and iPad. The increasing number of mobile social media users proves it today. Facebook applications came built in with previous version of iOS and now twitter application also comes with iOS 5. Using these applications provides more features that conventional web interface and let you utilize the full power of the device. With the new features in camera, we will be able to see more social photos uploaded to social media sites. And new image viewer provide on screen photo editing, color correction, cropping and red eye reduction. Users will be able to edit the photos, right in the device before they upload them to social media, without help of a PC or MAC.

Optimization and Continuation

The development of iOS is always backed by its previous success and version 5.1 beta is already out for developers. It’s expected to be containing with many more cool features. In next releases of iOS I expect it to be more performance tuned and more importantly less battery power consuming, unlike the previous version. Most of the users were complaint about the battery drain in iOS versions when they work with many applications at the same time. At the same time developers will have to keep a track on memory foot print, which was not a huge problem in iOS so far, yet highly complained issue in Android Mobile OS. When they increase features in iOS and make it ready for 3^rd party applications they might face the same problem. Looking forward to take a look at the iOS 5.1 and wishing all the best for Apple iOS developers.

To wait for a miracle and hope that things will get better without me doing anything is not the kind of approach I like to take in life, so there I was searching the internet for a possible solution. My expertise with computers is limited, but I know just enough to fear viruses and other malware, while realizing the negative impact that cluttered registries have on the system. I’ve talked to some friends who have a similar understanding of these matters and they suggested me to install an antivirus and a registry cleaner.

I had an antivirus, but unfortunately it never detected anything and for a while I though that’s because my computer is crystal clear. Armed with these recommendations I jumped online to search for a good antivirus and a registry cleaner and I was even willing to pay for them. I’ve stumbled upon various products both free and paid, but among the names that appeared with a higher frequency was MacKeeper.

What I liked about this product was that it incorporates an antivirus and a registry mechanic, at a price that was better than most similar products bought individually. I was not reluctant to pay for a quality product, but since there are so many free software I decided to try the trial version first. Much to my surprise, the trial period didn’t restrict my access and I was able to browse through all the features and use them freely. I have to admit with a great deal of shame, that my attention was diverted instantly by the Fast Cleanup button, which proclaimed that it will clean my MAC quickly and safely.

Cleaning cache and binaries was something I understood right away, but when I’ve been asked about clearing languages and logs I was a bit surprised. The best thing when you encounter something that is not perfectly clear and it implies deletion of files, is to investigate the issue. That’s exactly what I did and fortunately, these features were harmless yet beneficial as they allow you to get rid of useless languages from applications and outdated user log files.

Like a snowball, my interest grew and was aroused by the other features incorporated in the cleaning section, such as Disk Usage, Duplicate Finder and Files Finder. I consider myself to be a neat person and like to keep the applications in order, but even so, I found some programs that were not supposed to be there. I can only imagine what these applications would find on my sister’s machine, but for the time being I used them on my beloved MAC to free some space.

As soon as the Fast Cleanup reached the conclusion, a long list of junk files appeared, waiting to be deleted. The advantage of being a pessimist is that you always have pleasant surprises and that’s exactly how I felt when being allowed to fix all those problems right away. In an overwhelming majority of cases, you are presented with the errors and instructed to buy the full product to be able to get rid off them. Now, this doesn’t inspire me a lot of confidence, since I can’t tell for sure if these are made up, to make be buy the software, or are really there.

I’ve got into such a cleaning frenzy that I almost forgot about the main reason I was here for, and that was to scan my computer for viruses. Located in the security section, the antivirus protects the MAC against both malware and spyware, which I found to be a relief, since I was positive that my old antivirus only dealt with viruses. I decided to choose the in-depth scan even though it took longer, so I would explore the other features while the scan was under way.

The first that caught my eye was the one sharing the security section, namely Anti-Theft. I was very amused initially, because I assumed that unless the laptop will release an electric charge or trigger a remote alarm the second it is stolen, the application is useless. In fact, it functions on a very simple principle, locating your device when it goes online and announce you about it, so you can notify the police. Very exciting is the ability to take snapshots of the thief and send them to you as well.

I was already in the optimization section, learning how to speed up the computer’s boot time, when the antivirus announced the end of the scanning process. The result was me praising and cursing my former antivirus at the same time, because although it kept my computer virus-free, it allowed the spyware to infest it. Wiping out all these threats didn’t take long and I’ve barely refrained myself from restarting right away to see the benefits.

Since I was already exploring the prospect of reducing the applications that launch on start, when the scan ended, I returned to the section and solved the problem. Most of the programs were not being used daily, so I got rid of them and also used the Update tracker function, to bring the rest of the applications up to date. To cut to the chase, I’ve restarted the MAC and watched in disbelief how little time it took for it to boot and how fast the computer ran after that.

The data control section with all the free tools available to maintain the privacy of sensitive information, to retrieve the ones deleted by mistake or remove forever certain programs, was nothing more than an incentive. I’ve bought MacKeeper the same day and I am using it ever since and it never gave me a reason to look any further. I can’t say for sure if there are better products, in terms of either efficiency or price, because I was so happy with this product, that I never considered the search should continue.

Also check this software for Mac recovery and Mac data recovery.

The latest of these, Anti-Virus 2011, is taking the industry press by storm. The reasons are easy to understand. In performance-tests conducted by independent experts, who assessed it side by side with its rivals, the innovative Kaspersky product excelled in virtually every feature.

This 2011 upgrade is an improvement on the previous product, Anti-Virus 2010 that, in its own right, was well ahead in its class. For those not too familiar with the 2010 version here are the main features. (The 2011 upgrade incorporates all these, plus more.)

• Small signature files with hourly updates
• Real-time proactive protection
• Negligible impact on system operating speed
• Unique screen keyboard for inputting sensitive data
• Detection of threats other anti-malware software misses
• Exceptional technical support

Anti-Virus 2011, just on the shelves, offers all the above features with significant improvements. These include:

• Improved scanning for malware and malicious code from all sources
• Improved permanent digital identity protection
• Enhanced technology that enables anti-malware installation even on infected PCs
• Heuristic analyser technology that blocks suspected and even unknown threats
• Desktop gadget for quick and easy access to settings
• Better system performance through built-in computer tune-up

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011 surpasses the best competition in features and support. In terms of cost, it offers excellent value for money. One current offer states: “if you buy 3 licenses of Kaspersky Antivirus 2011 we will give you one more license for free! The best offer!” For such exceptional anti-malware software, why would anyone think twice about grabbing a great deal like that?

About The Writer

Henrik Larsson owner of a new application that enables users to install additional Facebook Emoticons writes. Emoinstaller enables users to use additional Facebook chat emoticons.

Bit of History

Sometimes ago there was huge trend for palm top computer and at that time mobile devices were only used for voice calls and SMS. Most of the professionals and businessman used palm top computers to access internet on the go and manage their busy life. PalmOS was the most popular mobile operation system in that time.

It started as PalmOS back in 2002 and then bought by a Japanese company after noticing its potentiality. It was getting popular and was there in many Palm top devices. After identifying its success HP bough it and started developing it. The result was WobOS. They transform it to a multipurpose platform from previous Palm Top device operation system.

Today it continuously evolves as a proprietary product of HP. It’s used in many Tablet devices, smartphones and in printers very successfully introducing many brand new concepts to the mobile device world.

Cool Features

‘Card’ Interface

One of the major and brand new features in WebOS is its card interface. It could be identified as a major competition for popular Windows based interface which was there for long time. It’s mimicking organization deck of card. You can go through cards, select one and make it full screen, if you don’t want one any more flick it away to the top.

Interface normally gives you icon dock at the bottom for you to open a card. One card represents one open application. If there are many application opened, they will displayed in the main window once you hit the hardware button available in the device. You can use touch screen to go through cards. Tap on the card will make it full screen and you can use the application. To close an application, you can flick the card to top in the all card view. There is a gesture area at the bottom of the display. Using that you can use few touch gestures to control the behavior of the applications that are opened including ‘Go Back’ and ‘Go Forward’

I see this as really cool and convenient lay out for mobile devices with relatively smaller screen than desktop computers. You can easily manage your ‘Cards’ and go though them even in a smaller screen very easily. And the way they have designed to close a card impressed me without wasting extra screen area and making it very user friendly. With the combination of touch and gestures it make pretty solid and streamlined way to interact with the device.

Multitasking

Multitasking is ignored as an important feature by some competitive operation systems for a long time. However, WebOS provide multitasking to the application platform utilizing devices hardware to the optimum level. With the aid of ‘Card’ interface you can easily manage applications that are opened simultaneously. Whenever there is a notification, it will be displayed in the bottom line of the screen. So you can switch to the required application very easily without closing the current one. This comes in handy when you are dealing with SMS and emails.

Other than communication application this will be useful to run multimedia application. You can listen to your song while you surf. In the case you need to switch to another open application, all you have to do it, hit the phone main hardware button, flip the card and tap the one you want.

Searching

Searching is one of my favorite feature in WebOS. It allows you to search ‘Everything’ on the phone in one search application. This reminds me new searching in Windows 7. Most of the other operation systems use separate search for each items like contact, SMS and Email. In WebOS it’s really convenient to search whatever you want and also see the related other items to the search term in the same interface. If you search for email sent by ‘Malinda’ at the same time you will be able to see the Malinda’s contact details as well.

Communication Management

When it comes to calling and SMS WebOS provide very user-friendly interfaces to get the work done with minimum steps. However, nowadays calling and SMS has became the least important feature in a mobile device with the latest web surfing and social media. However, WebOS has put extra effort to make SMS, IMs and Emails more readable. They are arranged in a threaded discussion way, so that you can get a very clear idea about what you are discussing very easily by looking at previous messages in the thread.

Synergy

Synergy is another feature that attracted me a lot. It crawls through all the types of data in the device and prepare a index. Using that index it could display personal data related to individual in once single card which is really smart. This comes in handy when you need find some ones email address, SMS number, Web address and Facebook profile at the same time. Synergy will collect entire data from your activities and present to you in once single card.

It Goes Online

WebOS is having a browser named ‘Web’ and its providing entire facilities required to surf web in a easy and fast way. Its main page allows you to keep some quick launch icons. Other than browsing WebOS having facility to synchronize your files to a online space which will be very useful for professionals and businessman. It could be used as a global access point as well as a backup mechanism. The built in service is called as ‘Hotsync’ and it keep your files online in a cloud based service.

Application Development

One of the major contributing factors to any mobile operation system would be its third party application support. That was the main reason to iPhone and Android to be popular. As long as there are many applications user won’t get bored with the device. Every day they can try out something new.

Having the objective of giving the maximum support to WebOS application developer, HP has come up with HP Palm Developer program. They provide all the required development tools, emulators to test application in the development environment and support documentation. They allow you to develop application using standard HTML, CSS and JS as well as C/C++. As a result there are many applications out there for WebOS, yet it’s not much as iPhone and Android as it seems.

Conclusion

WebOS is pretty solid looking stuff, and probably it will give tight competition to iOS and Android in the near future. As the same time it has good hardware support as well with HP’s most advance technology. As a big plus points they have really cool brand new features like ‘Card’ interface and Synergy. I believe these will take the WebOS to a significant market share in near future.

New Features

Multi-Touch Gestures For iPAD

There were many touch screen mobile devices in market, yet iPhone was one of the most prominent out of all mainly due to its amazingly fast responsiveness and multi point sensitivity. iOS is giving support to use this capability to deliver an unmatched multimedia experience to users. Along with this advance hardware and software, developers can come up with more creative ideas like ‘Gestures’. In here the software captures the special and unique movement using touch screen to trigger commands. Now with the advancement of iOS 4.3 they have come up with multi touch gestures which are specially designed for iPAD. It allows the users to minimize and maximize multi task bar, switch between applications etc. using four or five finger touch gestures.

Hardware Rotation Lock

Hardware rotation is one of the most attractive features in both iPhone and iPad provided by iOS with the aid of its accelerometer. The hardware was sensitive enough to capture even a slight variation of angle of the device relative to gravitational field and it was good enough even to play a car game using it as a controller. However, at some instances user was required to switch off the screen rotation and they were using hardware switch in iPad. In iOS 4.2 it was only a mute button and many of the users requests to let them choose the functionality of the hardware switch. As a result in iOS 4.3 user can select whether the hardware switch need to be mute switch or rotation lock switch which will be very useful to the iPad users.

AirPlay

This was one of most prominent features in iOS 4.2 which allowed user to send a stream of media which may include video, audio or photo to another AirPlay enabled device. However, it was enabled for built in application. In iOS 4.3, it’s going to give the same facility to developers, so they can use AirPlay in their own application to make them more attractive to the users. The limitation for developers when they are using AirPlay is not yet defined according to my research and I hope they will give maximum. That was one of the catchy points in iPhone development that they give lots of freedom to developers to use OS features and hardware unlike in previous dominant platforms like J2ME

Camera Effects

There were unofficial reports which contain some details about new camera effect in iOS 4.3. The camera in iPhone is one of most discussed hardware in it. There were lots of complains about its quality and incapability in the early stage. However it supported many software applications to deliver a high quality multimedia experience to its users. With the improvement of hardware, the camera also came a long way. Currently the ‘I’ devices are equipped with high quality cameras even with front camera for video conferencing. The iOS 4.3 will provide extended support for those hardware capabilities along with more camera effects in future.

Video Scrubbing Options

Most of the portable video playback devices doesn’t provide video scrubbing feature, just play and stop. In case you need to quickly go through a video to get an idea, it will be difficult or may be not possible. However, iOS was providing video scrubbing manually where you can drag the curser in video play back time line. In iOS 4.3 you have more options. By dragging down the finger in video playback time line you can switch between few scrubbing modes and current mode will be displayed under the time line.

In addition to above features iOS 4.3 will be equipped with more user interface advancement like icon arrangement, onscreen keypad improvement, and extended support for retina display. Further, it will be having options like 10 times SMS tone play, ping restriction and HTTP live streaming statistics.

Evolution of iOS

In the early time when 1^st iPhone introduced, iOS was an inferior operating system for mobile devices compared to other operating systems available in the market in that time, including Symbian and Windows. Top of all in that time it didn’t even have very basic functionalities like multi tasking. However, due to its exceptional user interfaces and multimedia capabilities it survived. The huge success of iPhone was defined by the ‘Apple’ name itself and its exceptional hardware capabilities including multi point touch screen and accelerometer. But today thing are way better, iOS came a long way adding more and more functionalities in to that. Now it’s having multi tasking, extended application support, improved hardware accessibility to 3^rd party application and great developers support. I wouldn’t hesitate to say, today iOS is way better than Symbian in many aspects. However, the major competitor of iOS, Android OS is out there growing fast too.

Future Market Impact

Apple iPhone and iPad has already made a phenomenal impact on market point of view on mobile devices. They actually redefined the previous standards and showed ‘This is how a mobile device should be!’ They made billions of dollars worth sales and dominated the market. In the meantime they developed themselves as well, both in software and hardware side. Now they present iOS 4.3 and they gave multi-point touch screen, accelerometer and retina display before. Those things make evident that they are the best and on top of the market. But are they really? Android OS is giving a silent yet significant challenge to iOS showing the strength of open source community. It’s also equipped with more and advance applications and features. Further, it’s also having a Software Development Kit released for developers which is building a huge development community around it. Most importantly it’s using the language JAVA which is the most popular according to TIOBE index. It comes as open source so its evolution is not decided by one company. It comes with many devices from many manufactures which will give a wide selection and features to its users. Hence, it takes leaps ahead in most aspects which will directly affect the market share. However, the most important factor which will decide the existence of any application of hardware would be the community and culture it will develop among its users. There is no argument that ‘Apple’ is the best in there with their ‘i’ culture where Android is nowhere near. So it is going to be a tight game and current stats say that Android is growing faster. No matter what, end of the day consumers will get the best product for cheaper price as a result of any market war.

References

• Patel, N. (2011, January 12). iOS 4.3 beta arrives for devs, brings AirPlay video support to apps, personal hotspot and customizable iPad side switch (update: video!). Retrieved January 19, 2011, from www.engadget.com: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/12/ios-4-3-beta-arrives-for-devs-brings-airplay-video-support-to-a/
• Viticci, F. (2011, January 11). Apple Releases iOS 4.3 Beta, Here’s What’s New. Retrieved January 19, 2011, from www.macstories.net: http://www.macstories.net/news/breaking-apple-releases-ios-4-3-beta/
• Woods, B. (2011, January 13). Apple rolls out iOS 4.3 SDK to developers. Retrieved January 19, 2011, from www.zdnet.co.uk: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/tech-tech-boom-10017860/apple-rolls-out-ios-43-sdk-to-developers-10021483/

Performance

Memory Footprint

One of the major problems faced in previous version of Firefox was its huge memory footprint. If you open many number of browser tabs its start consuming large amount of memory which is way beyond the expected allocation for a web browser. Sometime it leads to total system crash always iterated its users. The Mozilla team has identified that problem and make it’s a higher priority development in forthcoming version of Firefox. However during my tryouts of beta version, I didn’t notice a significant change. It’s still consuming 100s of megabytes if you open many number of browser tabs. Yet, we can have a hope the problem will be solved with the stable release. If the technology engineers will come up with a solid solution to this problem, Firefox will be unbeatable and obviously win the browser battle with Google Chrome.

Page Rendering

Firefox was always famous for its super speed page rendering technology. It was one of the major contributing factors for its current success. With the upcoming development the engineers have improved its page load engine to work 3 times faster than Firefox 3.0 which is amazing. During the tryout of beta version I noticed the sign of this super speed page loading. Most importantly they have focused on JAVAScript engine performance. The major reason is most of the modern web sites are using Rich web interfaces and they using heavy JAVAScripts and related technologies to deliver a flicker-less web experience to the Surfers. Further, with those kinds of interfaces, surfer can experience PC application experience in a web page. With the development of JAVAScript engine Firefox will be the best browser to use Rich internet application which is the next big thing in World Wide Web. In order to support the speed load time, browser engine has improved its caching capabilities to work with latest web servers and technologies.

Security

Same as the previous version of Firefox, the forthcoming version also will provide private browsing, clear history, parental control and Potential harmful site warnings. In addition to that they have improved the warning mechanism for Malware and Phishing sites which is really good news for Surfers who are looking for safer ride. Its identified that some of the installed third party browser plug-ins lead to security vulnerabilities. As a solution to these problems, forthcoming version is capable of identifying the outdated plug-ins which are installed and generate appropriate warning message to users. As always like in previous versions Firefox working hand in hand with Windows antivirus programs to protect your computer from the security threats which could be downloaded as file to your local storage device.

Customization

Firefox was always having a great strength over other browser which is availability of Add-ons. Currently Add-ons library is having more than 6000 Add-ons and counting. Using these Add-ons you can transform your browser in to a total multimedia browsing mode, social media connector or a web development platform. There are various famous Add-ons used from different purposes like Firebug which gave a great support for web developers. There is an Add-on manager embedded having the objective of easy Add-on management, upgrade and searching. In addition to Add-ons you can insert Browser toolbar, search engines, Quick access buttons, Bookmarks and RSS links to further customize your web experience with Firefox. Have to mention that availability of different themes add an extra color to browsing experience with Firefox.

User Interface Design and Others

Tabbed based browsing was a one of the most significant contributing factor for Firefox browsers popularity. However with the arrival of Google Chrome, it introduces further optimized and user-friendly tabbed based browsing style. In the latest development of Firefox has also following the same style and tab is wrapping the address bar as well. Previously address bar was on top of the tab which was confusing. The address bar is further improved and they call it ‘Awesome Bar’ where you can search not only URL, but important key words/tags in the titles and URLs. Same as the previous versions of Firefox new version also providing one click bookmarking, password manager, Auto complete, download manager, spell checker and free auto updates.

New Technologies

There are various new technologies are introducing to improve the web interfaces which are mainly focused on developing artistic designs. The major issues with those technologies are cross browser compatibility. However Firefox is always step ahead in that area. It supports almost all of the latest web technologies including CSS3, HTML 5 and latest JAVAScript techniques. There is a trend to use vector graphics for the web pages data presentation. Google map is one of the significant examples for that. The new Firefox will support advance SVG rendering to present those graphics in a performance tuned smooth manner. Additionally the graphic engines has improved to present hypermedia including streaming audio and video in a effective manner with high quality color and contras. As previous versions new Firefox also will provide streamlined integration with external application like local email clients and Fire browsers.

Browser Battle Continues!

Long time ago there was very few options to internet surfers. Windows people were using Internet Explorer and Apple people were using Safari. There was so many browsers came and go and according to my memory the first significant challenge to above was Opera browser. By that time some people were using Dial up internet connection and Opera provided way faster browsing experience in those connections than other browsers. However with the improvement of internet connection speeds, importance of Opera was reduced and people were again started using default browsers, yet Opera was rocking in Mobile browsing. With the introduction of Mozilla Firefox, it made shattered previous operating system default browser monopoly. It was free and open source, gained popularity as a sky rocket. People started saying ‘IE is a great browser, The greatest usage of IE is downloading Firefox’. Then Google Chrome made a significant impact on Firefox world with its exceptional performance and memory management. The browser battle continues, Firefox 4.0 is coming, Chrome is there and IE 9 is also in the game. No one gives up and Surfers are always benefited.

Getting Started

Microsoft OneNote is a default package content of Microsoft Office. Initially it came with Microsoft office 2003 but gained popularity with the release came with Office 2007. If you can’t find OneNote in your start menu with other office package software, you might have excluded it when you install Office package. If that be the case you can go to control panel and change the office package and that might require installation CD. After you successfully install OneNote it will appear in your start menu with other office software. By clicking on it you can launch the application and that will place a icon in your system tray by default.

Features

Notebook Management

OneNote Provides very user friendly way to manage your note books. In the left hand side you can see your note books and at the top you can see separate section inside a specific notebook. Inside a section you can find your notes. Using the all note book list icon you can see the organized structure of your entire notebooks. Inside a section you can create a sub section to make your note further organized if it’s required. You can always drag and drop your notes between sections to organize them dynamically. In the case you have no clear idea to put a note in a specific section, you can use unfilled note and place it in a suitable section later.

Note Editor

Note editor would not be new to any Microsoft word user. It provides almost same functionality as word and much more. By clicking on any space in your note you can start writing. It provides set of tools to format your notes in an easy manner. In addition to that that it provides set of drawing tools and that will be useful if you are using a tablet PC with OneNote. As usual you can add tables, images and various type of content in your note. If you copy past some content from a web site, it will display the original URL under the content and that will be useful, in the case you need to refer original. If you are using a light pen with your tablet PC you can take notes by writing, without typing. To make the notes more readable you can apply a theme for each note from the provided theme collection. Another special feature in note editor is it supports calculation like in Microsoft Excel. When you place the ‘=’ sign after a calculation OneNote will do it automatically for you once you hit the space bar. (Ex 2+5=)

Tasks and Tags

Task is a one of the most important feature comes with OneNote. If you are a Microsoft Outlook user, you already know how tasks works like. You can create an Outlook task inside OneNote and it will appear in Outlook task list. Same as in Outlook you can set time duration for the task and mark it done. Entire activities will be synchronized with Outlook, real-time. In addition to that it provides wide sets of tags to make it easy to search the content in your notes. You can enable tag tool bar by right click on empty tool bar area. After selecting a desired text or content, you can tag by clicking on a tag from toolbar. After tagging you will be able to search the content based in type of tag the content has. Further, some tags will have different stages and you will be able to use them to manage to do list to make your work more organized.

Multimedia Support

This is the most significant feature in OneNote to make to lead ahead from a traditional note book. It can keep notes using various multimedia formats including audio and video. If you are in a conference you can easily record the whole conversations instead of write down. In addition to that if you have a web cam in your lap top you can record a video and keep it in a note. These are value added featured in OneNote. In addition to that in provides facility to screen capture in an easy way. All you have to do is press window key + S, and then the whole screen will be alpha masked. After that you can select the area that need to be captured. The captured image will be automatically placed in an unfilled note or copied to clipboard according to the pre configuration done using OneNote icon on the system tray. In the case you need to extract text from an image you pasted in a note, OneNote provide sophisticated optical character recognition engine. All you have to do is right click on the desired image, click copy test from picture and past the test where ever you want. It’s easy as that.

Mobile Integration

If you are using a smart phone with Widows mobile operation system, you can synchronize your entire notes with your mobile device. Further, you can write notes in your mobile device and synchronize it will your PC as well. In order to do that you can go to the menu time Tools -> options -> OneNote mobile after plugging your mobile device to your PC. This will make it easy for you to use your mobile phone to record video, audio and capture images, especially business cards.

Sharing, Import and Publishing

Unlike in a traditional note book in OneNote you can share notes with your friends or Colleagues. In that case one note will be edited by various individuals at the same time which enable highly interactive collaborative environment. In the case you need to send your notes to third party you can easily convert your note into many formats including .docx, pdf and send it via email. Another interesting feature in OneNote is you can import any document to one note as a printout. All you have to do is print the desired document and select OneNote as the printer in the printing window. Once you click the print button the document will be automatically exported to OneNote. In addition to that you can drag and drop any file you need be added to the note.

Usage Tips

As it seems OneNote will be highly effective way to keep notes for professionals and students. Since they can use audio and video recording the notes will be detailed than ever before. In addition to that if a student is doing an academic research he can keep his entire note in OneNote. In the case he copy past some content from a web site, the original URL under the pasted content will be useful to further reference. OneNote could be used as a business card directory for professionals. After you configure your windows mobile smart phone with OneNote you can capture any business card and extract the text from it for make the searching even easier. In addition to that the collaborative editing of notes will improve the efficiency of communication.

Software Contents For The Packages

There are several applications that would be available in every edition of Microsoft Office. They are;

• Microsoft Access 2010
• Microsoft Excel 2010
• Microsoft Word 2010
• Microsoft OneNote 2010
• Microsoft Outlook 2010
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2010
• Microsoft Publisher 2010
• Microsoft Office Communicator 2010

In addition to them, Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010 and Microsoft InfoPath 2010 will be available only in Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus edition.

New Features In Microsoft Office 2010

64-bit And 32-bit

Microsoft Office 2010 will be available for the Operating systems came after the Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3. A 64-bit Office 2010 version will be there for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows 7 operating systems. Meanwhile Windows XP Professional edition will not be supported for Microsoft Office 2010.

Office Mobile 2010 And Web Applications

Mobile 2010 will replace the currently available mobile applications that are used to read word, excel and other documents. This will required to have Windows mobile 6.5. There are several updates being done to the Mobile 2010. The new SharePoint Workspace will give the ability to view and edit the document content in offline mood. Microsoft Office 2010 provides the facility to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote online. This gives the user to work in remote machines as well.

Embedded Videos In PowerPoint 2010

PowerPoint 2010 provides a new facility to add the videos embedded inside the presentations. This will encourage the users to give much effective videos to the public without using flash. In addition, PowerPoint will have more techniques to edit the images and videos. Adding fades, reflection will give a much better output.

Office 2010 MAC Edition

Microsoft will release the Office MAC edition in 2011. It will be a 32-bit application and there will be no beta versions according to the statements. This will be a great encourage to the Apple users to bend their necks more to the Windows side for their personal and office purposes.

Appearance

The main eye catching change in the appearance is that applying the ‘Ribbon’ menu system to the every tool in the Microsoft Office 2010. It was not available in Microsoft Office 2007 for some tools such like Outlook 2007 and OneNote 2007. In addition, the big circular Office button has been replaced with a small rectangular Office button.

Open Office vs. Microsoft Office

Open Office is the most popular open source office package that is available in multi language and multi platforms. Sun Microsystems introduced Open Office with the for data interchange in Open Document Format (.ODF). It came very much popular due to the free availability among the users as a promising software package. It also allows the users to save and edit the files in the Microsoft Office formats as well. The Oracle Corporation does a large part of development of this software package.

The latest release of the Open Office is OpenOffice.org 3.0. The Open Office statistics shows that more than 98 million downloads were done by the people all around the world. It is an outstanding performance at the moment. But the number of Open Office users has reduced due to the several reasons. They are;

• The attractive interfaces of Microsoft Office
• New tools availability
• Attractive and in-built fonts
• Cracks and patches availability for the Microsoft Office

Challenges And Threats

There are several challenges that Microsoft has to face and they are already facing. Several countries used to ban some Microsoft Office products due to several issues. Security is one of the most considerable factors. Microsoft has solved several security issues by the results they got in the beta testing. File block, Office file validation and protected view are some of steps taken to assure the security of Microsoft Office 2010. The universities also used to encourage the students to use open source software rather than using the Microsoft Office because of it is proprietary software.

Microsoft Word Banned in USA

Microsoft has been banned to sell Microsoft Word in USA once due to an appeal from a company named i4i. This order was released by a judge of Texas court. This was regarding to an XML format used by the Microsoft Word. ‘i4i’ is a Canadian firm who had the patent for their XML plug-in has appealed that they own the XML plug-in which were used by the Microsoft Word 2007 and Word 2003.

What’s Next?

Microsoft Office has always provided a set of promising tools to the world that can be used for day to day life. There will be a good trend for accounting software and a diary software in the future. As far as the world has tended towards the digital world, the diary book will not remain in the future. There will be a good trend to a digital personal or a business diary in the office. Accounting is another important thing that should be removed from paper based books. Several accounting software exists in the world. Microsoft can provide an excellent tool for personal and business accounting. Microsoft has taken a huge step to develop a mobile application of Microsoft Office 2010 that could be carried with the mobile phone. An inbuilt personal tracking application would be a great implementation for future releases. That might be useful to add a ‘Geo tag’ for the documents.

References

• Cashmore, P. (n.d.). Judge: Microsoft Banned from Selling Word in the US. Retrieved 06 11, 2010, from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/08/12/word-patent/
• Protalinski, E. (2009, 12 01). Office 2010 confirmed for June 2010 release. Retrieved 06 11, 2010, from arstechnica: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/12/office-2010-confirmed-for-june-2010-release-1.ars