Posts tagged Technology
Office 2010 : Breath of fresh air… again
Jul 14th
Microsoft recently released Office 2010 Technical Preview on Microsoft Connect. I downloaded My copy right away. The 32bit version weighs around 530 MB.
M.S Office is the de-facto standard when it comes to Office Productivity suits out there. OpenOffice.org does provides a good competition but Microsoft just one upped them again with the new UI in Office 2010. Working in Office 2007 & 2010 is so easy now, that OpenOffice looks like an arcane antique compared to it.
The Technical Preview contains most of the application usually available in regular Office suits but I only installed Excel, Word & Powerpoint as these are the only application I use in M.S. Office anyway. Neowin has already done a good review of Office 2010 technical preview so I won’t go into many of the details as those are something people will be able to read on various websites anyway.
So, why another version of Office? Wasn’t Office 2007 good enough? How much can Microsoft enhance an already mature product like Office which hardly has any features lacking that I can think of so why another Office? The answer is simple, The new Office Web & a user experience catered to Windows 7.
Since the day I used Office 2007, its hard for me to work on Office 2003 or OpenOffice. I just can’t keep searching for options under all those menus. Microsoft Office already has so many features, just that these features were not visible to most people due to which they though M.S office is boring. The ribbon UI did a good thing that it now shows all the things that you will need right in front of your eyes. It made working on Office even more easier, something even Apple iWork & OpenOffice are not able to provide yet. Apple iWork is still good as it is only available to those using a Mac.
I downloaded some DOC files available in Connect, reading a document is so much better in Word now, which is something I miss in other Office Suites. You can minimize the ribbon at will. But the best feature that I like is the security feature which were already three in old version of office, just that now they are in your face due to the new Back Stage feature of Office 2010 which makes everything much clear. You can set permission etc to Office documents like who can edit it, or even if editing is allowed. The color scheme used in Office 2010 is also more soothing to the eyes.
Whether Microsoft admits it or not, but for a casual user, office person etc the changes are mostly in the UI & ease of use only. Office Web is good but since I haven’t used it much right now, I won’t comment on it. However, Office 2010 provides native integration with Office Live. It even supports saving in PDF format without any 3rd party plugin. It would be better if Microsoft provides native access to Live Mesh so that we can share documents directly on the cloud & share with whoever we want.
Since my work in SlideShare includes creating occasional slides & presentation, Powerpoint 2007 is a necessity while Office 2010 just makes my work better & simpler. Finding things, creating styles, arrows… links etc is quite easy.
Now the million dollar question, should you switch to Office 2010? The following scenario come to my mind….
1) You are an Individual Student who occasionally needs to edit a Presentation or Document. You don’t have any Office suite installed & don’t want to go for pirated software. Since you needs are occassional only even I don’t recommend paying $150 for Office Student & teacher edition as there is no point paying so much money for something you only use once in a while. You best bet is to use OpenOffice or similar office suite from other vendors.
2) You are a student & can Pirate Office 2010, well… then I can’t do much to stop you from using it.
3) You are a business using Office 2003, just upgrade. Office 2010 will bring huge time saving to your enterprise
4) You are a business using office 2007, stick to what you got. The feature set isn’t much different from Office 2007 so better stick to that only.
5) You are a business buying Office suite for the first time. If it is only basic work, where individuals work on Excel Sheets on there workstation then stick to OpenOffice, if you require collaboration then buy Office 2010. It collaborative feature & intigration with SharePoint Server is unmatched by all rivals.
Other then the UI refinement, there isn’t much that I will be missing in Office 2010 over Office 2007 myself.
Nokia Ovi Suite 2.0 : What PC Suite should have been
Jun 30th
Nokia users are using Nokia PC Suite since god knows when. It is a software I first used with a Nokia 6600 4 or 5 years back. It looks still the same, except for the updated icons maybe. Nokia was lacking behind Microsoft when it comes to a Mobile phone’s desktop counterpart application. They tried to succeed with Noka Ovi Suite 1.0 which was created in WPF for Windows XP, Vista & Windows 7 but it lacked SMS & Contact Management feature & Instead gave Music, video, photo management instead. Seriously Nokia, a phone is for making calls also.
Recently Nokia released Nokia OVI Suite beta 2.0. This time it is made using Qt Framework due to which it is very slim is size compared to over 200 MB for WPF based Nokia Ovi suite 1.0. Lets not talk about Nokia PC Suite 7.x as UI wise it was garbage. Though it was pretty fast & used to do everything fine. Development in Qt also gives Nokia the ability to port Ovi Suite to Linux & Mac OS. Since Nokia is a device vendor, the best way for them to make money & capture market share is to make there product available on all OS.
Sony Ericsson released SE File Manager & then Media Manager which bought a nice UI & experience. Nokia just one upped them with Ovi Suite 2.0. Things are clearly laid out in the new Ovi Suite.
The home tab has everything you will usually need. It shows a glance at all your contacts, SMS, Pictures & Music on the device. You can also connect the phone to internet for using GPRS/3G on your PC using this Ovi Suite. Nokia is touting Ovi suite as the only connectivity application you will ever need & they are not wrong. It can even update the phone’s firmware, applications from Nokia etc.
I don’t use Outlook anymore but it even supports syncing your contacts & notes, calendars with Outlook or some other colander. You can add contacts using Ovi Suite & it will sync it with the Phone next time when you sync it. I disabled automatic sync because then it takes time to get usable after starting.
Keep in mind that Ovi Suite has 2 contact lists. One is of your phone which can be seen after clicking the small arrow below the contact list which will then open the contact list of your Phone. What I did was to make changes to my contact list in my Computer once, then connected the phone via bluetooth & copied all the contacts to the Phone by dragging & dropping on the phone’s list.
SMS is in the form of threaded SMS. Now I am someone who cleans his Sent items folder so its of no use for me. But for those who don’t, its actually good. You can also make smart filters which will sort SMS they way you define. Not just that, you can see SMS by Contacts or a list of all SMS. It also shows the SMS saved in the “My Folder” of SMS application. Though I prefer the old PC suite way in which it used to show SMS saved in folders inside “My Folder” in a tree view. I am filing a bug, hope Nokia is able to incorporate that feature.
You can also use Ovi Suite to sync your Music, but I prefer Windows Media Player for that which automatically converts music to WMA & my Phone as well as PC are in Sync. For some reason Ovi suite doesn’t converts songs, it just copies them as they are.
If you have Ovi Suite connected to your phone via Bluetooth then it shows a notification when there is a new SMS or Call in the system tray too.
From what it seems, Nokia is trying to bring an experience unrivaled by any other Phone manufacturer. They now have there own music store too which makes sense as people are using more & more there phones for there music needs as well as video. Having an all in one Suite like Ovi Suite can make the N Series phones just more user friendly. You can download Ovi Suite 2.0 from Nokia Labs
Finally, I am also on Twitter
Apr 19th
Everyone is on Twitter & no matter how much I find it pointless, it is a good way to communicate to many people at one time, or announce something to all of them etc etc.
I joined twitter today & integrated it to my blog. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/gx_saurav
Here is the thing, don’t expect me to write everything I do in my life on Twitter, its for announcements, queries etc only. I even disabled Facebook Integration with Twitter as it looks pathetic when my Facebook page is filled with friend’s twits.
After using many Twitter clines, I am settled at Blu. It is a really good looking WPF based Desktop client. I also tried Witty which is equally good but Witty doesn’t support TinyURL while you are writing, while Blu will automatically convert your link. Now I wish I could get Witty’s notification system & minimize to tray feature in Blu.
I tried Twhirl, Spaz etc too but didn’t like them. Adobe AIR applications have very small font. Twhirl was somewhat good though as it had custom font support but the icons then were very small 
On Mobile phone I am using Tweete recommended by Manan. Its good, I don’t need any mobile clients either. Its a browser based service which works beautifully with Opera Mini.
BumpTop : Managing your PC Desktop like a real Desktop
Apr 10th
Few years ago I saw a video on YouTube which was demonstrating BumpTop UI of managing your Windows Desktop using physics based gestures & rules of real life like dragging & dropping, piling together etc. At that time It was just a concept demo but it is possible today in form of BumpTop which will run with .net runtime 3.5 SP1 on Windows XP, Vista & Windows 7. BumpTop is using OpenGL though which makes it possible to create a cross platform application. This UI is so useful in real life, it would be a crime not to release it for Linux based touch screen devices.
The philosophy of BumpTop is to make you manage your Windows Desktop the same way you manage a real life Desktop or Table on which you work. What do you do there??? You pile things on top of each other, put sticky notes, pictures, frames etc. You get a similar experience with BumpTop just that it is inside a computer. Here is how BumpTop looks like on my PC. I wish Yahoo Widgets would go flat on the floor of BumpTop.
A better picture of BumpTop found on Arstechnica
BumpTop from my point of view isn’t that useful when used on a PC with Mouse but is extremely useful when used on a Touchscreen Tablet PC. It just makes more sense there to use it.
Here is a Video of BumpTop running I found on YouTube. It really fluid & without any performance hits even on my PC.
Ah! I love to reflex my Rake Muscle
Apr 4th
Other then what I do for living, I am good in one thing only…Talking. People usually call me a Devil or sometimes Rake, better known as a maestro of words.
I had 3 presentations lined up this week in 3 Colleges of Lucknow with the marketing guys of my company. They wanted me to talk instead of them, so I had a good opportunity to stretch my Rakeness.
Today I had presentation & seminar in Sagar Institute of Technology & Management, in Barabanki, near Lucknow with the Third Year students of B.Tech – C.S & I.T.
As usual, I didn’t take any PPT with me or anything else, I just barged in & went on to talk with the students. The students were mostly mum & taking things lightly. I tried to ask them “What you don’t like about computers & how do you think you can fix or change it"?”
I found the same complaints which I have myself faced in academic life…
1. Education & B.Tech is regarded as a way to get a degree only.
2. Students have ideas & innovation, they just don’t know how to implement it. Most of the time when they do try, they are told by the teachers to concentrate on there course only.
3. They are unable to think out of the box.
Well, the situation has not changed a lot since the time when I passed 12 & when I decided not to go for B.Tech. I told the students just one thing, To hell with the system.
The job market is under recession right now due to which companies are not hiring fresher. They are instead going for people with some experience, but students are not able to get experience without proper training. All I told them that never let an idea die. If the teacher isn’t supporting, don’t take his help. If your parent’s are not supporting, don’t take there help. Its your life & do what you think you can do instead of being told what to do. Sometimes even the parents are not supportive so we cannot blame the students completely either.
