Facebook: What it is and what I want it to be.

Posted by Bhavishya Kanjhan on May 15, 2008 in Default | 0 comments

It was this very month, in fact this very week of May when Facebook was opened up to my university among others in the UK. Judging from my profile ID (223400006) I’d like to think I was #6 to sign up. Facebook has changed immensely since, and not always for the good. From opening up to general public to releasing the Application Platform, an old school user (I’m not talking about me) wouldn’t recognise the Facebook he/she saw today from the one back then. However this isn’t a post to bitch about ‘features’ I dislike. Instead I’ll talk about where I see Facebook headed, or want to see it headed.

As it stands now, Facebook is pretty popular Social networking platform. I have all my friends on here and I can see what they have been upto in a variety of ways. Their photos, reading their walls, their notes (blog posts), events they are attending and most importantly status updates. I can find out common interests too by looking at their profile or the outlandish groups they join. Communication is done via public wall posts or Messaging, which Facebook hopes will replace email but more on that later.

Digsby – More than a multiplatform IM client. It doesn’t even suck!

Posted by Bhavishya Kanjhan on May 14, 2008 in Default | 0 comments

I tried Digsby earlier on in March and was quite impressed with it but since I’ve never really used a multitude of Instant messaging platforms I didn’t really care for it. I’m only on Google Talk and WLM/MSN Messenger and running those two clients was perfectly fine by me. However on May 1 Digsby announced support for Facebook chat. I strongly believe Facebook Chat has a strong potential of becoming the biggest IM provider as the approach of building IM around a social network makes more sense than the traditional approach of doing it the other way around. So this made me take the plunge and drop the GTalk client (sorry Google <3).

The feature list is really extensive so I’m not going to go through it all. I will go through some of the main ones though. Firstly, it has supposed for all major IM platforms( MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, and Facebook Chat). In addition you can configure multiple email accounts in the client, and that’s not just notification , it’s complete control (open, delete, forward, mark as read etc). Facebook stalkers enthusiasts will love the Social networking feature which lets you receive updates from Facebook (other social networks supported too). This can get pretty extensive actually, I ended up unsubscribing from that as it was an overload. There’s a lot more you can do with it, writing about it all will result in a really long boring post.

You can really customize the application and it’s appearance a great deal, right from buddy list to conversation window. The way I’ve set it up now is it connects to my Gtalk account, Facebook account, Twitter account and retrieves email from my two Gmail accounts. Still haven’t given up on MSN because believe it or not, I like the client. However should it exceed my bloat tolerance threshold I won’t have qualms about dumping it.

If nothing else, it’s a good enough client for Facebook Chat. Give it a spin. They have a new build as well.

http://www.digsby.com

Facebook is Microsoft’s rebound fling! Will we see a happy ending ?

Posted by Bhavishya Kanjhan on May 8, 2008 in Default | 0 comments

After months of bickering, Microsoft and Yahoo did not tie the knot. The decision while celebrated by some, disappointed others, including Yahoo. Aw Yahoo I understand what is to be broken hearted.

Adding insult to injury is the news from WSJ reporting Microsoft’s bankers have informally approached Facebook over a possible acquisiton. Flashback time: Microsoft invested $240m for a 1.6% stake (which valued Facebook at $15bn) and was an all advertisement deal.

Knowing that, what Microsoft stands to gain from this deal is unimaginable. The affair with Yahoo was to try and build up a stronghold in the search and ad market (to compete with Google), and Facebook hasn’t (yet) been a strong ad platform as one would’ve thought it out to be. In fact, it is yet to present a sustainable source of revenue (1$ gifts can’t do it all). And if Microsoft has already locked up the pageviews, where do they go from there ?

I have to say as much as I love and respect Microsoft, Livebook doesn’t sound appealing to me.

I guess we’ll only have to see if Microsoft updates it’s relationship status from ‘It’s complicated’ to ‘In a relationship’, and at what point will Yahoo update its ‘Looking for’ ?

HTC’s Best Yet! Touch Diamond

Posted by Bhavishya Kanjhan on May 6, 2008 in Default | 0 comments

I would have been very disappointed had it been any other event where only one product was launched. But I’ve gotta hand it to HTC for making me excited yet again for their newest device, the HTC Touch Diamond. HTC has been in the market for many years now manufacturing devices for various companies including iMate and QTek; but only recently did they enter the retail market themselves and noone can argue they have done a brilliant job at it. All the devices they distribute themselves are manufactured to the highest quality, first examples that come to mind is the TyTn II and the Touch. The Touch Diamond is no different.

The specs are as follows:
Processor: Qualcomm® MSM7201A™ 528 MHz
OS: Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
Memory ROM: 256 MB
RAM: 192 MB DDR SDRAM
Internal storage: 4 GB
Dimensions 102 mm (L) X 51 mm (W) X 11.5 mm (T)
Weight 110 g (with battery)
Display 2.8-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with VGA resolution
Network SDPA/WCDMA:
* Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
* Up to 384 kbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds
Tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
* Europe/Asia: 900/1800/1900 MHz
GPS GPS and A-GPS ready
Connectivity Bluetooth® 2.0 with EDR & 802.11 b/g
Camera Main camera: 3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus
Second camera: VGA CMOS color camera
Battery Rechargeable Lithium-ion or Lithium-ion polymer battery
Capacity: 900 mAh

Quite honestly I couldn’t ask for better specifications in a phone. This one sounds like a beast and has near damn everything and at 11.5mm, it’s pretty damn slim. However the main winner is the User Interface here. See the video linked below and you will see what I mean. HTC has added a superior overlay of it’s own to bring up the user interface standards to the already high productivity standards offered by Microsoft. While some may argue that this shows MS was incapable of doing this on their own, the reality is that MS has always let the 3rd party developers work their magic on their software; MS just provides the foundation.

UI Demo:

More Diamond Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/htc

Photo Gallery: http://www.htc.com/www/product.aspx?id=46280

Microsoft Live Mesh – Complete Synchronisation

Posted by Bhavishya Kanjhan on May 5, 2008 in Default | 0 comments

Take a look at the short promotional video by Microsoft on its upcoming Live Mesh service. As of now the service only entails folder synchronization, but in the future MS aims to have complete synchronisation that includes files, applications, settings over a variety of devices. Contacts, Messages, Applications everything will be the same everywhere, anywhere. If there is one company with the ability and the resources to pull it off, it is Microsoft. The company which is #1 in profitability in the Technology industry has the such a strong foothold with its involvement in Computers, Mobiles, MP3 Players, Consoles and lot’s more is much closer to achieving centralization among all it’s products.