We are using diagrams to present complex data in a simple way. This is applicable for many engineering fields, especially for software engineering. Since software is totally intangible product, software engineers are using various different diagrams to make the software visible and explainable to the customer. In addition diagrams are used to gather complex requirements as well.

Normally we are using various different computer programs to draw diagrams such as Microsoft Visio, Visual Paradigm and Rational Rose. But we are in the era of rich internet applications.

Quick Catch-up

• Rich Internet Applications – Redefining Web Experience

Most of the complex desktop applications have gone online and we can use them simply with a web browser without going through complex installation process. So why not diagram editing software?

Diagramly

When I was stumbling across the WWW I landed on this amazing online tool Diagramly. In the first look it didn’t looks like an traditional website. It looked more like PC software we use every day, so I took a deeper look.

Diagramly is letting you to draw most of the common kind of diagrams with it’s online diagram editor and save them in your computer. It provide you the almost all of the features that comes with any other diagram editor such as adding items, labeling, arranging and text editing.

How to Start Using Diagramly?

• Visit Diagramly home page
• There you will be able to see the online Diagram editor. No sign up or conventional home page, directly to business.
• At the top you can see the menu bar and tool bar.
• Right hand side you can see the Diagram item navigator and in the middle the work space.
• From the edit menu you can adjust the view of work space.
• You can format an existing item using format menu.
• Text menu gives you all the common text editing tools. You can find some of them in the tool bar as well.
• You can organize your items using Arrange menu.
• Diagram item navigator is separated for few sections.
• By clicking on item or by dragging and dropping you can add it to work space.
• By double clicking on added item you can edit the label for that. Here you can use the text menu to customize it.
• If it’s a complex item such as class diagram, it will give you appropriate editor to customize entire data in it.
• When you adding a relationship, it also automatically get docked to existing items.
• By selecting and pressing delete key you can easily remove any item.
• Finally you can print the diagram or save it as a XML file using the file menu.
• If you need to export this in a image format you can get it done at File -> export.

Best Way to Use Diagramly

If you plan to use Diagramly for some serious work, the best way to use it is inside a site specific browser. Then you wont feel that this is actually a web application and you will be able to experience even greater level of performance.

Quick Catch-up

Wrapping Up

You must have figured out that Diagramly is proving almost all of the function you have in your installed diagram editor. Since this is a online tool you can access and use this on any computer, anywhere on the globe.

The diagram editor is highly optimized and didn’t give any glitches. Entire diagram items, menu operations and even complex relationships are also working just fine. At the bottom corner of the item panel there is a real time updating preview of workspace as well.

However, I still don’t recommend you to use this as your primary diagram editor. Further, if you are a software engineer you won’t be able to use this diagram to auto code generation.

I invite you to try this amazingly simple diagram editor and share your experience with Notes of Genius community.

Tags: #Diagram #Rich Internet Applications

Couple of weeks ago I introduced you a web application where you can draw your diagrams like you do it in Microsoft Visio or Rational Rose. You know that the next big thing in internet is rich internet applications and slowly they are dominating the tasks which were normally done by installed application.

Quick Catch-up

As a big fan of rich internet applications I always look for alternatives to replace my desktop applications with web applications. In my search I came across with another diagram editor which is providing way advanced and versatile diagram editing environment than previous application Diagramly. Today I’m going to take a closer look in to Gliffy, the best online diagram editing application.

How to Use Gliffy?

• Go to Gliffy home page.
• Gliffy is a commercial product. But it’s letting you to try it for free.
• Click on the button Try it now.
• It will open the online diagram editor for you.
• As the first step you have to create new diagram.
• There are several categories and templates listed there.  You will notice that it contain all the common type of diagram categories including wireframe, venn diagrams, organizational charts, flow charts, network diagrams, UML diagrams and floor plans as well.
• Select the category and template according to your requirement.
• Then click on create document.
•  It will create a document for you and it will contain few diagram items by default. Select all of them and delete before you start working.
• At the top you have menu bar and tool bar.
• Left hand side you have library where you can find diagram entities.
• To draw a diagrams all you have to do is just drag and drop items from library to document.
• To connect items you have connector tool in tool bar above.
• Gliffy support all the item arrangement features such as grouping and send to front/back.
• After creating a Gliffy account you can save your diagram online in provided space. In order to register you have the pay the fee.
• After a successful registration you can export the created diagram as different file formats such as SVG, XML, JPEG and PNG.
• It’s providing printing facility as well.

Best Way to Use Gliffy

I have mentioned this tip whenever I introduce a rich internet application to you. Your browser is designed to display web pages. It’s not a good environment to run web application. If you want to get the maximum out of a rich internet application, you must use a site specific browser (SSB).

Quick Catch-up

Wrapping Up

Gliffy is the most complete and versatile online diagram editor I have ever seen. It’s proving you a wide array of diagram categories and going beyond that, floor plans and wire-frames as well. All the functionality are well engineered to deliver smooth user experience. The performance of online application is also highly optimized and you will barely feel that you are using an online application.

However, this tool is not for free. You have to purchase the license to save document and export them as different formats. For online users it’s providing collaborative document editing as well. In addition it’s proving facility for you to integrate this application with other popular applications such as Google Apps.

If you are running a business, and if you need collaborative diagram editing environment, Gliffy might be the solution that you are looking for. Try it for free and purchase and plug it in to your business if it’s working good for you.

Tags: #Diagram #Rich Internet Applications

Within the past few years there was a tight competition between various mobile operating systems. According to the current status the operating system which is gaining more territory is Android, fighting with iOS and Windows mobile.

History of Android goes back to 2003 when Android Inc was founded. In 2005 it was acquired by Google. This move made Android bigger as well as Google. In 2007 Open Handset Alliance came in to picture having the objective of setting open standards for mobile handsets. Android was their first product.

The development moved on and in 2007 they released their first beta version. Along with the Operating System they released a software development Kit (SDK) as well. Introduction of Open Source Linux based mobile OS was a huge move by then and lots of software developers were attracted to this.

Version History

Version 1.0

The very first version of Android was released on 2008 and came with HTC Dream. It introduced lots of features such as Android Market, Web browser, Google application and wireless connectivity support.

Version 1.1

This came out in 2009 as an update to the previous version fixing its bugs.

Version 1.5 – Cupcake

This came out in 2009. The name cupcake initiated a new line of Android named after food items, especially desserts. Cupcake is the first version that came with widget support. Other than that it came with copy-paste, mp4 support and stereo audio streaming via Bluetooth.

Version 1.6 – Donut

Donut came in 2009 and it introduced speech recognition to Android world. It increased the supported screen resolution to 800 X 480, optimized the built in camera usage and includde support for CDMA.

Version 2.0 – Éclair

2009 was a busy year for Android. Three versions came out with major updates. And this is the time that android attracted significant public attention.

Éclair came with Advanced messaging features, HTML 5 support in browser, support for better contrast ratio and advanced camera features such as flash, white balancing, effects and macro mode.

Version 2.2 – Froyo

Froyo came out in 2010 with lots of updates. The major focus was performance optimization and this was critical to compete with snappy performance of iOS. Other than that it came with an advanced browser with Chrome engine.

A very interesting feature in Froyo was Wi-Fi tethering. Using that you can use your phone as a Wi-FI hotspot as long as it is connected to a 3G data service.

As a display improvement it started supporting greater pixel density up to 320ppi. This met the requirement of Apples retina display. And this made possible to include 720p HD display in Smartphone.

Version 2.3 – Gingerbread

This came out in last quarter of 2010. The most important update in here is advanced power management and automated Garbage collector for memory management.

As software updates it introduced new download manager and advanced copy-paste functionality. In addition it extended the support for larger displays as well.

By then most of the Smartphone manufactures included various hardware sensors such as Accelerometer, Gyro scope, Proximity sensor and Barometer. Gingerbread started supporting those sensors and that paved way for developers to use them in their applications.

Version 3.0 – Honeycomb

This came out in 2011 as a very special version. This was only for Android Tablet Devices. The very first device that came with Honeycomb is Motorola Xoom tablet.

Since this version will be running on physically big screens they could come up with lots of innovative screen designs. The basic screen was having a Holographic effect and quick access to notifications. In addition there are Soft buttons at the bottom of the screen.

By this time most of the users wanted to play 3D games on their tablets. Therefore Honeycomb started supporting Multi-core processors and Hardware acceleration. Further it supported externally attached USB devices.

Version 4.0 – Ice Cream Sandwich

This is the latest version of Android that came in 2011 Google I/O event. The very first device which tasted Ice cream sandwich was Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Again the main concern here was performance optimization and yes, it did a great job. In ICS most of the operations were very fluid, specially web browsing.

Other than that it introduced a long list of new features such as virtual buttons, improved voice recognition, face unlock, and 1080p video recording support.

What is Next?

This is the big question that everyone is asking. There are rumors that next version of android comes around 2012 July and its going be named as Key Lemon Pie. Some news say that it’s Jelly Bean. However if it’s coming in next July I believe that’s too soon. Most of the Smartphone and Tablets still could not taste Ice Cream Sandwich properly.

If you take a closer look in to Android project code names, you will notice that they start with Cupcake and ends with Ice cream sandwich following exact alphabetical order. According to this order the next code name has to be Jelly Bean, not Key Lemon Pie.

We will have to wait till the official announcement comes to get the accurate details of next version. However, there is one obvious fact that they will give maximum priority to improve performance in Android core.

Tags: #Android #HTC #Motorola #Samsung #Smartphone #Tablet

Few weeks ago Sony released their latest Android handset, Xperia Z with dust and water proof body, 1080p display and Snapdragon S4 pro chipset. They have taken the same goodness to a bigger device, a 10 inch tablet. Today we have Sony Xperia Tablet Z under the spotlight. Lets go and take a look.

Insight for Sony Xperia Tablet Z

Design

Dimensions: 266 x 172 x 6.9 mm

Weight: 495 g

Once you take a look at above numbers you will figure out that this is the thinnest and lightest 10 inch Android tablet ever. It comes with same dust and water resistant body same as Xperia Z Smartphone.

Front and back panels have clean design and well placed connectors and camera. There are no capacitive buttons and entire controller goes on the screen like in Nexus devices.

Display

Size: 10.1 inches

Protection: Scratch resistant glass

Technology: LED Backlit

Resolution: 1200×1920 px

Sharpness: 224 ppi

No doubt that this is one of the best tablets displays out there. Only Nexus 10 has more pixels that this. The aspect ratio is not same as other 1080p displays and it will give you more vertical space in landscape mode, like iPad.

Processor and Storage

Platform: Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro

CPU: 1.5 GHz // Quad Core // Krait

GPU: Adreno 320

RAM: 2 GB DDR3

Internal Storage: 16 GB

Expandable Storage: Yes, microSD up to 64 GB

This stronger hardware muscle would provide smooth operation to any application you can imagine of installing and any mobile game available. If you need more storage for multimedia content, yes you can have enough up to 80 GB total.

Software

OS: Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean

UI: Sony UI

If you are a fan of Sony UI you are going to love it here with buttery smooth UI transitions in Android Jelly Bean and all its goodness.

Camera

Primary: 8.1 MP // HDR // 1080p@30fps

Front Facing: 2.2 MP // 1080p@30fps

For a tablet a rear facing camera is not really essential. But this comes with a high end camera same as most Smartphone. We have seen HDR photography in many other devices, but HDR video in very few. Xperia Tablet Z can record HDR videos with the power of Snapdragon S4 Pro platform. You are going to love that for sure.

Connectivity

Mobile Network: 2G // HSDPA // LTE

Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n // Dual band

GPS: A-GPS // GLONASS

NFC: Yes

Bluetooth:  4.0

USB: 2.0 microUSB

There are 2 versions of this device, LTE and Wi-Fi. They comes with all sorts of connectivity features you can ask for even NFC and dual band Wi-Fi.

Battery

Type: Li-Po

Capacity: 6000 mAh

Battery Life: 10h (HD video playback)

The battery is relatively small compared to Nexus 10, but with relatively lesser resolution display and less power hungry Snapdragon S4 Pro platform this could live for 10 hours HD video playback which is pretty impressive.

Wrapping Up

Sony Xperia Tablet Z is breaking several records in Android market being the thinnest and lighters 10 inch tablet. Dust and water resistant body and scratch resistant glass will make it good for hard usage. The 1080p display is perfect for video playback and mobile gaming. The stronger hardware muscle with all the other goodness turns this in to a perfect tablet for anyone.

If you are looking for powerful Android Tablet to use in next 2 years, this might be a good fit for you.

Tags: #Android #Sony #Tablet

You are using Gmail at home but when you go to office or university are you still using it? Most of the people would say NO, I’m using Microsoft Outlook or some other installed mail client, But why? Of course in a professional environment it’s not only about receiving email and reply to them.

There you need advanced configurations like automated reply, signatures, tasks and event reminders. Can’t you have the same features in Gmail? Of course you can but most of the non-techy people are not aware of those.

Here comes the step by step guide to configure Gmail as a professional email service.

Professional Features

Vacation Responder

This is essential for any professional. It’s too bad to not to reply to emails even when you are out of town for a vacation. The best thing that you can do is set an auto responder. Here is how to do it in Gmail.

• Go to Settings -> General -> Vacation responder
• There you will be able to see below options.

• Here set the radio button to vacation responder on.
• Then select the data range, fill the subject and message.
• If you don’t want this responder go to all the people check Only send a response to people in my contacts.
• Click save changes, it’s easy as that.
• Now Gmail will automatically reply to the people who are sending you emails when you out of town.

Signature

It’s very important to make your email credible and authenticated. In a paper mails you always sign at the end. It’s not possible in digital world, but you can add some signature text or an image of your signature.

Most of the emails clients are having option to auto add signature at the end of each and every email you are sending. Being the best online email service of course Gmail also having it.

• Go to Settings -> General -> Signature.
• It will take you to below options panel.

• If you have many email account connected with Gmail, you can assign separate signatures for each account.
• In that case you will be able to see drop down menu with all the email accounts connected.
• In the text editor, design your signature.
• You can add image of your signature as well.
• Finally click save changes.
• Now Gmail will automatically add your signature to end of every email.
• When you are sending email as different account, Gmail will auto add different signatures as configured.

Auto Forwarding

Depending on your professional requirement you might need to forward all your emails to some other address as well. Most of the people do this for back up purpose. With Gmail you can easily set up auto-forward emails to another address.

• Go to settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP -> Forwarding
• Click on the button add forwarding address

• Enter the address and click next.
• Gmail will send a confirmation email with a verification code to forwarding address.
• After forwarding process complete you will be able to see the forwarding in settings page.

• Enter the code there and you are done.
• Now all your emails will be forwarded to given address.
• If you need to forward selected emails to another address, use Filters.
• In filter, after defining the search criteria set the action as forward it.

Now you can see that most of the extended service that provided by popular mail clients are also there in Gmail as well. In addition to those you can manage your task and event right here in Gmail with the support of Google calendar. Important Gmail tips about that coming up soon.

Tags: #Gmail #Google

If you want to move huge files between different hard disk drives, you know it will take a very long time. If it’s same HDD and different partitions there won’t be any problem, but think about two physical HDD. The situation gets even worse when you try to move many huge files to removable storage device such as a USB flash drive.

Sometime after you copy a file in to a removable storage and take it to another computer, it says that “Can’t open the file”. In other words the file has been corrupted during the copying process.

There is a nice solution for all the above problems you have faced. It is TeraCopy, a file copying software which will speed up the whole process ensuring the safety at the same time. The basic version of the software comes for free, only for windows platform and if you need advanced features you have to buy the pro version.

How to Use TeraCopy

Installation

• Click here to go to download page.
• Click on Download now link.
• Save the installation file in a known location in your hard drive.
• Launch the installation wizard and follow the steps.
• The installation wizard will require an active internet connection.
• Ask it to place a shortcut in desktop and launch the application.
• It will take you to below window.

• It has a very simple interface where you can do all your file copying and moving effectively.

File Copying

• Open TeraCopy.
• Drag and drop the file need to be copied or moved to main window.
• It will detect the file name.
• Click on Copy To or Move To button and give the destination.
• It will automatically start the copying or moving process and close the application on completion.

Replace Default File Copier

• TeraCopy replace the default file copier in Windows platform during the installation.
• In that case whenever you copy or move file, it will be automatically handled by TeraCopy.
• If this option is not enabled by any chance you can set it from More -> Menu -> Preferences -> Check Use TeraCopy as default copy handler.

Why is it Faster?

Normally when you are copying files to a physically separated media, the copy handler will have to do lots of work such as manage file allocation table and manage I/O buffers. The default file copier is giving maximum priority to other OS functions rather than copying function. TeraCopy gets more system resources and complete the file copying.

It dynamically sets the IO buffer sizes depending on the situation in order to minimize seek time. You might have experienced that when you try to move large number of files to a USB flash drive, it’s taking an unusually long time. TeraCopy will solve that problem for you. Furthermore this uses asynchronous file handling which again speed up the multiple file copying.

Advantages

It’s not only about faster file handling. It does its job safer as well. On completion it’s asking you whether you need to verify the files. This comes in handy when you are dealing with removable storage. You can permanently enable this from preferences menu by checking in always test after copy.

Additionally you can skip file, pause and resume during the file handling process. Finally you can tell the TeraCopy to either shutdown computer, eject the media or close the window on completion using below buttons on main window.

I tested this with several removable USB storage devices and it was super fast than with the default file handler. Currently I’m using TeraCopy as the default file handle in my computer. So far I could not test the performance of TeraCopy in different computers connected via LAN or WLAN.

Alternatives for Other Platforms

One major drawback in TeraCopy is its limited to Windows platform. If you are using other platforms TeraCopy is not for you at this moment. However there are some alternative software you can use. Here are some suggestions.

Let’s hope TeraCopy developers would come up with a Mac version too due to the increasing public request.

No doubt that this is a very valuable piece of software if you are a person who always deals with many number of large files and separate physical storage locations. If you try this once, I’m sure you will never use the default file handler in Windows ever again.

Tags: #Files #Tools #USB

In a series of articles I clarified most of the factors that you must consider before you buy a Smartphone. When you take a look at most of the Smartphone specification you will find lots of terms that we discussed here and many marketing jargons used in promotions as well. Now you are in good shape to shop for a Smartphone with solid knowledge about them.

Quick Catch-up

Here in the last article in this series I’m trying to focus the attention on Battery life of Smartphone. No matter how advanced they are, once the battery is gone it just become a piece of plastic. So having long lasting battery is very important factor that you must consider.

However, you won’t be able to get a good idea about battery life by just reading technical specification why there are lots of misleading and vague information. Most of the time actual battery life is way lesser than the value in technical specification.

What Decide the Battery Life?

There is no direct answer to this question and of course there are too many factors you have to consider. The worst part here is most of variables are interdependent, hence it’s a very difficult decision to make.

• Larger the battery, longer the battery life. It will be mentioned in technical specification as mAh.
• Powerful processors drain battery faster.
• Large displayed consuming more electricity.
• LCD display consumes more electricity than LED displays.
• GSM, HSDPA, Wi-fi and GPS are the biggest battery drainers.
• Usage style is also a major contributing factor.
• iOS consume lesser power than Android.
• Some applications also reduce battery life drastically.
• There are latest technologies to save battery life such as 4-PLUS-1 technology in Nvidia Tegra 3 Chipset.

These facts might give a good picture about battery life in Smartphone. However there is no way to know the actual battery life till you start using the Smartphone or ask a person who already using one.

The best way to find actual battery life in a Smartphone is ask a likeminded online group, may be in Facebook or a Forum.

Wrapping Up

The built quality of the battery is the major contributing factor for the battery life. The durability of the battery is also important factor. Some smart phones are having great battery life in first few months and then start decreasing rapidly.

According to my experience and social findings Apple iPhone is having one of the most powerful and durable battery. The hardware and software architecture in iPhone is very carefully designed to use the battery power efficiently.

Generally Android devices are having lesser battery power, yet with the latest Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset, they seems showing some improvements.

I’d appreciate if you can share your brand specific personal experience about Smartphone battery life and it will be great support for lots of people.

This is going to be the last article of this series and hope I could sharpen your knowledge about Smartphone and related technical terms and marketing jargons. Our discussion is always open for any further clarification or feedback.

Tags: #Battery #Smartphone

In the past few years Smartphone technologies skyrocketed. It’s practically started with Apple’s iPhone and then it became a “Smartphone Fever”. Lots of other competitors came in to the game such as HTC, LG, Samsung and Sony. Some of them were already in the game and accelerated their innovation to be the king in Smartphone world.

But for most of the customers, it’s a freaking nightmare. They can’t decide which Smartphone to buy. There are various brands and models with different marketing jargons. The worst part is there is a wide price range from $150 to $1200. It’s very difficult to figure out what is the Smartphone which fits for you and your needs.

To worsen things more, you buy a high tech piece of equipment just to follow the trend, but you don’t really need it for any of your day to day work. So after few weeks it becomes just another phone for you and a huge waste of money.

To save all the trouble for you, I decided to write this series of articles with the name Smartphone Buyer’s Guide to make it easier for you to pick a good Smartphone with good features for good price which exactly does what you need. Today I’m going to talk about Processing Power.

Quick Catch-up

Read Technical Specification

It’s really important for you to read technical specification of the Smartphone rather than going after marketing materials. There you can find important features of the gadget which decide whether it fits for you. But the next big question is, most of the people doesn’t know the meaning of half of the words which is there in technical specifications published in manufactures websites.

So we are trying to break them down and understand one by one. As I mentioned before today our focus is processing power which is the most important factor in any Smartphone.

Processing Power

When you are reading the technical specification of processing power there are four main things you have to pay attention to.

• Chipset: Platform that processor runs on.
• Clock Speed: How much work that processor core can do in one second.
• Core: How many processor cores are there.
• GPU: What is the processor dedicated for graphical functionalities and here clock speed and cores come to the picture again.

The most powerful Smartphone would be the one which is having latest and advanced chipset, very high clock speed, maximum number of cores and most powerful GPU. One example is shown below.

• Nvidia Tegra 3 Chipset and 1.5 GHz Quad Core Cortex A9 with GeForce GPU.

Above example is having Nvidia Tegra 3 chispet which is the latest and most powerful, then 1.5 GHz clock speed which is very high. It’s having 4 CPU cores which give you 4 times of power and GeForce GPU which is having 12 graphic processing cores.

If you are a heavy gamer you have to go for a Smartphone like this. But if you are mainly doing web browsing, email checking and eBook reading this is way too much for you. In that case consider below specification.

• Nvidia Tegra 2 Chipset and 1GHz Dual core cortex A9 with any average GPU.

Nvidia Tegra is the most popular and stable chipset, but there are more.

• Apples A5 and A5X comes with iPhone
• Exynos comes with Samsung Galaxy S II
• Snapdragon comes with Asus Smartphone

GeForce is the most popular GPU in android world, but again there are more.

• Adreno comes with Asus products
• Mali-400MP comes with Samsung Galaxy S II
• PowerVR comes with Apple iPhone

When it comes to processors you should know only about ARM. All the above mentioned phones come with that. Normally in technical specification it will state like Cortex A9 etc. Only thing you have to worry about is its Clock speed and number of cores.

I hope this explains you most of the marketing jargons in Smartphone processors. Now you can make a list of things that you would do with your Smartphone and find out the processing power needed to perform them. Then you can decide what sort of Chipset, Clock Speed, Number of Cores and GPU you need.

If you still are feeling lost, drop a comment here and get good help from Notes of Genius community. We are here to help you to buy the best Smartphone which is an exact fit for you, your needs and your pocket.

See you soon with next article which is Storage options in Smartphone.

Tags: #Smartphone

In the past few articles I was talking about important things that you should analyze when you are buying a Smartphone. The main objective was to educate you about how to read and understand a technical specification resolving various marketing jargons.

Quick Catch-up

Today I’m going to focus your attention on Connectivity which is one of the most important features. You are buying a phone as a communication tool. Connectivity is letting you to turn the hardware in Smartphone to communication device by connecting you to service providers.

2G

This is the most primitive yet most important type of connectivity. This is letting you to make conventional voice calls and send SMS. In technical specification this will look like below.

• GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

This says that your Smartphone can connect to any GSM network in given frequency ranges, in other words to any GSM network available. Since this is supporting four frequencies, this would call as quad band GSM device. Most of the modern Smartphones are quad band and I’m pretty sure you won’t face any problem with 2G connectivity.

GPRS is another extension to 2G networks also called as 2.5G which is letting you to connect to data services. Using that you can connect to internet with up to 48kbps speed. This technology is hardly ever used in modern Smartphones.

3G

This plays a big role in any Smartphone. Using this data service you can check your email,  browse internet, download and install application etc. Most of the interesting things that you will do with Smartphone will have a close relationship with its 3G connectivity. So you have to pay close attention to this.

In technical specification it will looks like below.

• HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
• HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps

Same as in GSM this is explaining operation frequencies and the technology used which is HSDPA. In the 2^nd line it explains the maximum data transfer speed this device supports.

Most of the modern devices will have similar looking specification. If the device you are looking for is having lesser data transfer speed no matter how fast data connection you get, you won’t be able to utilize it. So pay close attention to data transfer speed.

4G/ LTE

This is one of the latest technologies which is letting your Smartphone to connect to network with the data transfer rate up to 100mbps. However most of the Smartphones doesn’t have this technology yet while most of the service providers started to introduce this technology.

In technical specification it will looks like below.

• LTE 700 MHz Class 17 / 1700 / 2100

Same as before it’s explaining what is the operation frequency and speed would depend on your service provider.

If you have a requirement to access high speed internet, make sure your Smartphone support LTE technology.  However, this will cost you extra $$$.

Wi-Fi

I’m pretty sure any Laptop user must have used Wi-Fi. It’s a short range data technology and you can find free wi-fi hot spots in many places in your town. I consider this as a essential feature for any smart phone.

In technical specification it would looks like below.

• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot

This explains the types of wi-fi networks this device supports. In addition it says that it support DLNA which is multimedia streaming technology which is letting you to connect your Smartphone wirelessly and wi-fi direct is this device is capable of setting up device-to-device wi-fi network, finally wi-fi hotspot means the device can set up its own wi-fi hotspot and letting other device to connect.

Any Smartphone you are buying must have at least basic version of wi-fi.

GPS

If your Smartphone is having in built GPS unit you can connect to GPS satellite system and get the exact coordinates of your location for free. This could be used to find locations in map and driving assistant applications.

Same as wi-fi this is also an essential service, make sure your Smartphone have this as well.

Wrapping Up

Connectivity is fairly less complicated topic for most of the general users since it’s pretty much standardized and mobile service providers are taking care of the technical issue. All you have to do is make sure the device you are going to buy is having required connectivity support. Below set up would be ideal for most of the people.

• GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
• HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
• HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot
• GPS

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Tags: #Smartphone

Android mobile operating system was a hot topic among mobile application developers as well as general community in past few years. It attracted developers since it a total free and open source operating system which is JAVA programming language based and due to the availability of free applications, it attracted general users. There are various smart phones which are having the Google android as its operating system and most of them were manufactured by well known companies including HTC, Sony Ericson, Samsung and Motorola. Those sophisticated devices were gaining the popularity among the other market competitors with their smooth snappy performance. Now the Google android OS is taking its steps to deal with the new trend of ‘Tablet’ mobile devices.

Android OS

History

The development of Android OS was started by Android Inc in 2005. Then the company was taken over by Google after that by Open Handset Alliance. The core of the Android OS is a modified version of Linux Kernel and it provide platform to develop it using JAVA Programming language. The first announcement of Android Distribution was made on 5^th November of 2007. At this moment there are so many industry giants working in Android project including Google, HTC, Intel, LG, Samsung, Nvidia and Sony Ericson.

Features

The most attractive feature in Android OS is its GUI. It provides highly comprehensive extensible GUI to the user with Open GL based 3D graphics. It supports all the modern wireless connectivity technologies. When it comes to the storage the developer can use relational database in the mobile device like in a personal computer with the aid of SQLite. When it comes to the multimedia it provides encoding to all the common media formats. The multi point touch screen enhances the user experience along with advance voice recognitions system. Most importantly it supports JAVA programming languages with multitasking. The SDK is released to developers for free. Therefore users can install freely available millions of applications on it.

The ‘Tablet’ Trend

The ‘Tablet’ trend was initially started with laptop computers couple of years ago. Those laptop devices provide 180 degrees rotatable LCD display with multipoint touch screen. Therefore it could be used as a traditional laptop computer as well as a tablet PC when the screen it rotated. The well known manufactures for these devices were HP and Samsung. After that the laptops and tablet devices were going on different specialized paths. Most of the tablet devices introduced after that was having a single-block design with large multi point touch screen. The trend of tablet devices was further stimulated with the mobile Gaming industry. The traditional mobile phone screen was way too smaller to play games and Laptop is not enough portable for that. The tablet devices gave a perfect solution for this problem with the improvement of 3D rendering hardware infrastructure in them. Furthermore people don’t like to read a book on a Computer screen. It never gave the real sensation of reading a real paper book. With the trend of Tablet devices the era of E book reborn with new energy since the readers could have almost a ‘real book’ like device to read e books. With the arrival of Apple iPad the tablet trend was a day to day hot topic among every one.

Features Of Android Tablets

Acer Prototype

One of the most noticeable prototypes has been demonstrated by Acer. The article about this was made online by Shufflegazine. According to that the device 7 inches display with 2GB memory. Most importantly as seen in the photographs of demonstration it’s equipped with a real physical keyboard. This will be good news for many people who don’t like to use on screen touch keyboard.

Samsung Galaxy Tab

According to another unofficial sources Samsung also about to release a Tablet PC. The market of the device appears to be ‘Samsung Galaxy Tab’. Furthermore it will be having high resolution 7 inches TFT display and front facing camera.

Dell Mini 5

There is an official report about another Android powered tablet device which is ‘Dell Mini 5’. It’s having 5 inches display with multi point touch sensor. The wireless connective will be provided through SIM card, so it appears to be supporting all the modern wireless technologies. In addition to that its having Wi-Fi connectivity as well.  The Android OS versions used for this prototype is 1.6. Most importantly when it comes to image capturing, the device is equipped with 2 cameras, One 5 MP camera on rear panel and front VGA camera for video calling.

Archos 5 Android Internet Table

Archos 5 Android Internet Tablet is already available tablet device in market. It’s available in 2 versions which is having 16GB and 32GB. The processor is 430MHz ARM Cortex-A8 and display size is 5 inches. This is having highly portable design and having great multimedia capabilities including 720p high definitions video playback. Additionally it is having built in GPS receiver as well.

The Android mobile OS provide a versatile platform for all the above Tablet devices to deliver those exceptional features to the user. In near future there will be even greater devices with further improved hardware capabilities. Most importantly there will be improved 3D graphic and it will support advance gamming on Android Tables. Furthermore due to the JAVA programming language support there will be even wider free and open source application range. Most importantly the Android OS uses an advance mechanism to run JAVA applications without the support of traditional JVM, so it will save the devices battery life.

Competitors

The most significant competitor to the Android OS is Apple mobile OS which comes with iPhone and iPad. It was gaining its popularity due to the highly improved user interfaces and great multimedia capabilities. Furthermore in Apple app store there are more than 200, 000 of applications available to download.  Even with all these Android OS can gain the advantage due to few reasons. The main reason is its free and open source. Due to that there will be millions of applications available written using JAVA programming language. Apparently the GUI in Android OS is almost good as Apple interface. In this moment Apple seems to be the market dominant tablet device OS. But in near future Android OS will take that place due to its limitless capabilities of free and open source development.

Next Chapter

All the open source development gets mature with the time. So the next chapter of Android mobile OS is pretty unpredictable. It’s already having the entire comprehensive featured required for a Tablet devices as well as any mobile device. Furthermore it has special mechanism to reduce the power consumption when it’s running third party JAVA applications. The next expected development would be the performance improvement and it will be a continuous process. Since most of the mobile devices have limited hardware resources, this will be a curtail factor for the success of Tablet OS. Other than that the next most important factor would be wireless security. Even in current versions Android OS provides advance encryptions and secured protocols to transfer data. Since the devices are always connected to various wireless networks this may need to be further improved. The gaming support of the OS is another expected development in future versions. The revolution of Android powered Tabled devices is upon us. The next surprise of Android OS is not so far as it seems.

References

• Android, C. (2010, February). Dell Mini 5 Android Tablet gets FCC approved. Retrieved June 2010, from canadianandroid.com: http://www.canadianandroid.com/b/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/dell-internet-tablet-slate-announced-6.jpg
• Edgar, J. A. (2009, November). Archos 5 Android Internet Tablet: First Impressions. Retrieved June 2010, from phandroid.com: http://phandroid.com/2009/11/11/archos-5-android-internet-tablet-first-impressions/
• Hannaford, K. (2010, June). Leaked Photo of Samsung Galaxy Tab Shows 7-Inch Android Tablet. Retrieved June 2010, from gizmodo.com: http://gizmodo.com/5554446/leaked-photo-of-samsung-galaxy-tab-shows-7+inch-android-tablet
• Nystedt, M. (2010, May). Acer CEO shows off 7-inch Android tablet. Retrieved June 2010, from www.shufflegazine.com: http://www.shufflegazine.com/2010/05/27/acer-ceo-shows-of-7-inch-android-tablet/
• Perez, A. (2010, January). Dell Announces Android Powered Tablet. Retrieved June 2010, from phandroid.com: http://phandroid.com/2010/01/08/dell-announces-android-powered-tablet/

Tags: #Android #OS #Tablet