analysis

Nintendo E3 2009 Keynote Review

by David on June 2, 2009

Soooo… Ninty has done the do at E3 and here’s some headliners for you hungry consumers of Gadg.

Wii MotionPlus™: The new higher accuracy Wii Remote dongle promises to provide even more immersive physical reality in its games, including a heightened awareness of it’s position with a 3D area.

Wii Sports Resort™: The main first new MotionPlus game, centred around a resort supposedly on the beach of the Wii Fit Island (You know – where you go jogging in Wii Fit). Events include Frisbee that your Nintendog can catch (Good grief!! I haven’t fed poor little Rex in about 2 years!!), Jet ski’s and Kendo to name but a few.

Fetch!
Fetch!

Wii Fit™ Plus: The much anticipated update to Wii fit. Now includes tailored workout routines. You can also work towards a goal such as [Continue Reading]

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Happy Birthday 5 GMail. And why I still love it.

by Sujoy on April 6, 2009

**10 reasons why I still Love GMail**

Today is the 5th birthday of GMail. I have been using since 2005, that’s a good 4 years of it. Yes, right from the invite only days. Those were the days, when GMail account invites were being auctioned on eBay, and if you were in the club, it was Elite. From 2004 till today, GMail has come a long way. Here is a top 10 list of what we still love about GMail, and why we keep coming back to it.

GMail Turns 5

1. The self-complete contact on the To-address list, which everyone else is now copying.

2. Fast loading Inbox, faster than the fastest inbox loader out there.

3. IMAP, POP

4. Labs for GMail- from editing Chat windows, to themes, to Color settings

5. Chat within the Inbox. Video-Chat within the Inbox..with Widescreen window.

6. Contacts-Quick edits, pictures for Contacts, and status messages.

7. Loadsa Space…yes and counting. Started with 1 gig inbox, now 7 gigs and more

8. Attachment Size. No body allows 25MB still.

9. One account, multiple uses. Picasa, Orkut, Groups, Docs, Blogger et al.

10. And finally, Labels. Multiple Labels for single mail. And totally searchable.

So, what are your top 10 reasons for loving GMail still. Are they different from mine?

[Image courtesy: GMail Blog]

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Skype Video Downgrade?

by David on February 6, 2009

Skype 4

Back in the day, we all used phones to communicate. Then Skype came along and changed the world. Sure, there were other systems before it, but Skype had it all sewn up with a neat little package that bundled the hallowed VOIP with a simple interface and of course – It was free!! Later, video was added (that Beta seemed to last forever!) and the whole thing really took off. Skype has always had some big hitters looking over its shoulder with the likes of the goliath Windows Messenger (Currently in its ‘Live’ incarnation) and the Gmail (With its flexibility and low resource usage) to name but a few.

With this in mind the major release of Skype 4.0 was much anticipated… What new wonders can we behold?… Well, I can tell you one thing – if you’re expecting better video you may be sadly disappointed.  :-\

Last week if you’d have asked me what my preferred video calling software was I’d have said Gmail and Skype were pretty much 50/50, this week however it has to be Gmail. The new Skype 4.0 video looks like a nasty police photo-fit or, worse, a deliberately pixelated news item. Yes it gets a little better if you give it a few minutes but the previous video was clearly better (IMHO). They have, however, done a good job with the voice side of things which is undoubtedly smooth, and sure, there are some new whistles and bells to play with (the “Open” or “Open with Video” seems so obvious now) but why would you release an update with worse performance on the one thing everybody stares at???…

Now if only Google could make their video a little more resilient to all those sudden crashes….

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Bad review: 8Hands Social Networking Client Beta

by Sujoy on January 28, 2009

Unless I am extremely tormented and harassed by an application, I tend to remain on the good side of review. But this little application install has been a nightmare. Extremely dodgy, unfriendly and useless. I am talking about the latest beta release of the Social Networking Client-8hands for Windows. It supposedly claims to integrate all your social networking needs and bring Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Blogger, WordPress, et al under one giant umbrella, conveniently operating them from one client (at least what they claim). 

8hands

I got to know about this app, through DownloadSquad’s post on 8hands. First things first, the app needed some update of Microsoft .Net to be installed on my machine, and a reboot. Ok, no complaints. Once installed, the application required me to make an account to login, giving in my e-mail credentials. No activation link from email required. Ok, cool so-far. Setting up Twitter easy as it goes. Click the twitter icon, enter username and password. Done! 

Facebook next. Enter user-login (email address) and password. Doesn’t accept. Tried again, doesn’t accept. Signed out of Facebook from browser, and then tried login in 8hands, doesn’t work. Tried 3 more times, whilst I was updating my frustation on Twitter via 8hands (Get my twitter feed here) . If I cannot get my facebook set-up here, what’s the damn use?

Went to Start, Programs, 8hands— No uninstall exe. Went to Ctrl-Panel, Add-Remove Programs. Found 8hands. Removed. 

The other thing I noticed while I was updating Twitter through 8hands was that the messages were getting updated quite well on twitter, but there was no updates on the client itself. I could not wait for them to get updated, and hence hit the uninstall button. If anyone can set-up their Facebook account here, please let me know. Cheers and DONOT install. 

P.S. The image means , 8hands doesn’t require Refresh. Yeah right!

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