Windows vs. Mac – My 10 cents to the age-old debate

Well, how should I start this one? I am not surprised if your thoughts after reading this post’s title go something similar to this, “uh! Not one more of these never ending, 15 year old debate”. Also, there is a high chance you already have your own strong ‘opinions’ about both platforms. I am merely trying to add my own 10 cents to it.

My work – because of its ‘complexity’ – makes it a necessity for me to be well versed with Windows & Linux. Since MAC provides a Linux-similar development setup and Windows similar user environment in one box, my office issued me a Macbook Pro. Being a self-proclaimed gadget geek, I wanted to review it then itself. Later I decided against it thinking its better to wait a bit more and get to know the new toy.

Steve Jobs and his company sure know how to make users feel great. ‘Feel great’ is actually an understatement. The feeling of using a Mac is different. It’s not like using a PC, which is just another tool to check mails or get jobs done. With Mac, the whole ‘computer experience’ is different. Its simply different – in an awesome way. That’s the first and the most important thing I felt after using a Mac. By user experience, I mean whatever the user is directly in contact with - the touchpad or the display or the sound or the cool looks & feel.

I am a person who shuts down my windows pc/laptop after I use it, or else the whole system simply slows down over time. With Macbooks, I just close the lid. It’s just like switching on/off a TV set. I have used many windows laptops and none of them ‘gets ready’ as fast as a Mac – as soon as you open the lid. With Windows, it simply won’t work.

For embedded developers (like me), a Mac is a good choice as it runs a Linux-like kernel. Also, for graphics designers a Mac is the best choice as the display is stunning. There is no comparison.

Being said all that, I still can’t imagine a Mac replacing Windows. Mac allows good Windows integration with Bootcamp (Yes, I use dual boot). I also have a windows VM running in background all the time.

Most of the general-purpose software is available in both platforms. Exceptions are Picasa Photo Viewer or irfan view or gTalk, which I use extensively in Windows. It’s very hard and sometimes impossible to find support for some software especially specialized (industrial) software/hardware in Mac. Another reason I can’t let go of Windows, is gaming. Mac is not an option for a true gamer.

If anyone has a misconception that Macs wont get stuck or there is no Ctrl-Alt-Del in Mac, now is a good time to leave them behind. Macs do get stuck in the middle of nothing, some times even for trivial things like muting. Also they are not significantly faster than Windows, as some may suggest. Its just that Macs always come with expensive and high performance hardware associated with them.

Even though Safari is their flagship browser with a cool look and feel, it's one of the worst browser I have used, till date. It simply won’t work with Gmail or even blogger. It also has compatibility problems. Firefox is not as evolved as in Windows and so most of the times I end up using Chrome in Mac.

The biggest problem of all is that Macs are super pricey. Not only a Mac, but any software or accessory that is associated with a Mac comes with a hefty price tag. A normal Mac is almost as costly as a top class Windows laptop (which makes Mac a rich man's toy, in my opinion).

I can’t conclude in a single statement whether Windows or Mac is better. I would like to put my conclusion in this way. If you are planning to purchase a computer/laptop,
1.    If you are in a budget, don’t even think about going for a Mac, you’ll probably end up bankrupt.
2.    If you have just enough money to buy a Mac, use it to buy a top class Windows machine.
3.    If you have surplus amount of money at your disposal (or your office is providing you the machine), buy a Mac and install Windows in it so that you can exploit the good of both worlds (which is what I am doing currently).

That’s it, I would never choose a 'Mac only world', but having a Mac with Windows is a powerful combination – something I would like having always.

Review: Google Nexus One

It’s been around 2 weeks since I’ve got my hands on my new Nexus One. I’ve got pretty excited when I saw the DHL vehicle parking in front of my office to deliver it (yeah! I was waiting for them). I’ve got the same level of excitement even now, writing this blog and I am really happy to say, this gadget has exceeded my expectations. That’s my review in short. It’s awesome and it changed the way I’ve been experiencing the web. On the downside, there isn’t a single day my friends haven’t asked me, “is this phone more important to you than us?” both joking and seriously.

As they say, this is definitely “Web meets phone”. Previously, there wasn’t a single day I don’t use my laptop. After I got Nexus One, I haven’t used it more than 4-5 times. I do most of my ‘web-things’ using Nexus One, such as mails, messengers, social networking, news etc. After I started using Nexus One, my ‘online presence’ has increased a lot.

Now to the review I’ve offered. I wanted to post this after the first couple of days, but I felt I won’t be doing the phone justice by an early review. That’s why I waited patiently and jotted down the points.

Disclaimer: This review is solely based on my experience as a consumer. This might not be true for any of the other Nexus One’s out there. I have tried my best not to be biased, but then again, I love this phone.

1. Device (General)
Fast, fast, really fast: The thing I was sceptical the most was about the speed of the device before I bought it. I’ve got to admit, it’s really fast. Gone are the days when we press an icon and wait for the phone to load the application. I don’t know whether it’s android or the hardware, which is also pretty impressive. I haven’t been much of a smart phone user before, mainly because I felt it was not the right time to get one. But I always tried to be updated and whenever possible tried different phones. None of the experiences matches with this one.

Multitasking: You can use anything with anything (use any app with any other app). This is really an awesome feature. I can talk over phone and at the same time share images or web pages or videos etc with them. And this is going to be a long post.

2. Web Experience
“Everything is in the cloud, babe”: Since Nexus One is directly from Google, all of their services are tightly integrated to the phone. To me, it’s a boon as I use almost all their services except for a very few. For e.g. I prefer Flickr (to Picasa), Facebook (to Orkut), twitter (to buzz) etc. For some users, it might be a curse as you may have to rely on third party apps for things like contacts or reminder (calendar) if you don’t like syncing with your Google account. Some of my experiences are given below.

Contacts: If there is anything I don’t like about Nexus One, it’s the contacts. I had to spend around two days to get everything right. I used to store all my contacts in my SIM card. After I inserted it and copied the contacts, I couldn’t see them in the contacts list even after I disabled syncing with Gmail. But they all get added to my Gmail contacts (multiple times as I copied it multiple times) and my address book was in a big mess. After spending around one day merging and deleting the duplicate copies of my contacts to Google contacts, I added my Facebook account. It synced everything to my contacts and messed up everything again and I was back to square one. The same thing happened with my Orkut, twitter and other accounts. Finally I decided not to sync any of my accounts except my Gmail & Facebook account. Some of the other problems I faced (and still facing) with contacts are,
1. There is no option to set a phone number or email id as the default option. Some of my contacts have multiple numbers – personal, mobile, work, home and multiple profiles – Google, Facebook, Orkut etc. I cannot find the option to set a particular number or profile as the default.
2. Joining contacts from different accounts is also a mess. The phone automatically chose the default name for the contact. I have friends with multiple profiles. They have same mail id, but different display names in different accounts. I want to choose the display name, but I am unable to do so. Even if I edit my Gmail contacts, it may display another profile’s info as the display name.

Syncing: I noticed most of the syncs, especially YouTube takes some time. This happened when I favourite-d a video using my laptop and tried to accessing favourites via Nexus One.

Browser: The browser is really fast with features like the pinch to zoom, multiple windows, bookmarks etc. I cannot find much of a difference between a normal (PC) browser and the Nexus One browser. A double tap automatically formats the page to display screen after zooming which is really easy for reading. I am eagerly waiting for Froyo (Android 2.2) for flash support. Some of the features I wish for in the future version of the browser are,
1. YouTube video in browser restarts when switched to other tasks. It would have been nice if there was a ‘resume’ feature.
2. I haven’t figured out which fonts are supported by Android and how to install them. I read regional language news and that is one thing I miss as Nexus One doesn’t support Malayalam fonts.
3. Even though there is pinch to zoom capability in browser, it won’t work if the browser is opened from other apps, say twitter for example. That’s really annoying.

Mail: Since my main account is Gmail and my work accounts are also sync-ed with Gmail, I don’t have to use another email client. But to send using my work mail servers, I have to configure the email client provided. I haven’t been able to do that till now. The Gmail app is cool, but I would like to see a few additional features implemented in future.
1. I have configured multiple accounts in my Gmail account and when I compose mail from a PC, I can choose which account to send from. I cannot find this option in the Gmail app.
2. When I press the attach button during ‘compose’, it opens the gallery. Instead I would have loved if it opened the file system. Now I use a third party file explorer to tackle this issue.
3. Unlike the PC version of Gmail, there is no ‘frequency based email id selection’. If I want to mail a friend with multiple mail ids, I have to type the exact mail id, and cannot simply select the one on the top. Also the email ids won’t fit in the screen in portrait mode.

3. Apps
Lots of ‘em: I have seen iPhone ads which boast over 250,000 apps and Android store having only around 50,000. Come on people, do you really think you are going to install all the apps? I haven’t had any problems finding the apps I needed. One might argue its because I was not a previous smart phone user. In the worst case, you always have the choice of writing your own app since Android is an open platform. And believe me, it’s not that tough if you know java. (Yes, I have some experience with that)

Gtalk: We cannot change the “Available”/ “Busy” status without changing the current status message. There is no option of simply using the same status message and changing the status as in the Gtalk PC application. Hope they add this feature in the next release.

Maps: I would love to see the map data stored locally in the phone, so that I don’t need a data connection while travelling (especially when I am at sea).

4. Display, Camera & Gallery
The display is gorgeous. The colours are so beautiful that you won’t feel like taking your eyes of the screen. The AMOLED screen can be used smoothly even in bright sunlight. It’s got a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash. Normal users (who need some/any camera) can use this as a replacement for their point and shoot cameras. Unfortunately, I - being a power user - don’t fall in that category. I feel phones are not yet ready to replace even point and shoot cameras.
Don’t get fooled by the appearance. To test the camera and the display, I took 2 similar snaps with Nexus One and Canon IXY910 IS during one of my recent trips. The shot with Nexus One looks awesome in the phone even better than the canon one. But when seen in a normal display, it doesn’t look that great. Check their properties (attached) for the details. (Notice the time difference between the two shots, as they were not taken exactly at the same time)

Taken with Nexus One

Properties of photo from Nexus One’s Camera

Taken with Canon Digital IXY 910IS

Properties of photo from Canon IXY 910S

Some of the other comments are,
1. The camera settings menu gives only very basic settings. Atleast a custom timer option can be easily implemented, I guess
2. As for the image editing part, after I crop an image to set as wallpaper, I noticed the images losing their clarity. I didn’t dig much in to this, so it may be a problem with what I did.
3. There is also the issue of photos not being loaded to the gallery immediately after they are taken. Sometimes, when the gallery is opened right after the photos are taken, they may not be there. So, it would have been nice to have a refresh button for the gallery.

5. Connectivity
Since I do not have a data plan, I depend heavily on Wi-Fi. In Singapore, you will find connectivity almost everywhere. At shopping malls, there is Wireless@SG program and one can easily find data access.

WiFi Stack: It’s fast and almost perfect. Yeah, almost perfect. There are many features I would like to see in the WiFi utility/stack in the future,
1. The main one being the ability to set priority for hot spots. There are two hotspots in my office and I want to set the priority between those two.
2. Most of the hotspots these days use web captive portal method for authenticating users. So it would have been easy if Nexus One could remember the user names. This is not the “remember username and password” feature in the browser I am talking about, but the “Adding to dictionary” feature. My login ID is a weird combination of my name and the department name. Every time I have to manually type it rather than selecting from a set of choices shown. It’s a pretty basic feature I have seen in other phones, but not in Nexus One.

6. Battery
Space for improvement: Hmm, this is one place all the smart phones need improvement. With Wi-Fi & GPS turned on all the time and on medium display brightness level setting, I have to charge the mobile once every 12-18 hrs on an average. While charging, it gets a bit hot, but not as much as my previous Nokia handset.

7. Music Player
Simple and Plain: The main functionality I wish for in music players are the ability to sync manually, which is already there. I love the Nexus One player for just that reason. I haven’t tested any third party music players. Some of the features I am looking forward in the future version are
1. MP3 tag editing option
2. Wireless Synching like Microsoft Zune

8. Miscellaneous Experience
Some of the features I am really looking forward which cannot be classified in to any of the above categories are

1. Undo: The most important feature which is applicable everywhere in Nexus One is the ‘undo’ feature. When I tap the textbox and if it selects an already typed text and if I accidentally touch the keyboard, it’s gone forever. I can’t find the undo option anywhere.

2. Search: When I click the search button, the search box comes with the previous searches. When I select any of the previous search terms, it directly start searching, I want it to wait till I press the search button, so that it will enable appending of additional search terms, before it start searching.

3. Wireless mounting: Accessing of Nexus Ones storage over WiFi. I don’t want to carry my data cable everywhere I go.

4. Landscape Dock: The dock available now is only for the portrait mode. If there was a landscape dock available, it would have helped for watching videos.

5. The fact that to enable simple speed dial we have to install a third party app is a bit irritating. I hope the android team will include speed dial in the future revision.

Conclusion
I have barely scratched the surface of the things I wanted to write here about Nexus One, especially why I love it so much. At the same time, I didn’t want this to be a long post which even I don’t want to read. Since I had time & space limitation, I mainly focussed on the features which are not currently there in Nexus One. The experience Nexus one offers far outweighs all the missing things I had mentioned above. Then again, there is not much point in writing about all the features which is already very well covered in the common technology blogs. Over all, I love my decision of going for a Nexus One.
I hope this post helps some of you who is confused about which phone to go for. I would definitely say, go for Nexus One.

Alienware Area-15 m9750 - A Dream Comes True

“Just when you thought it couldn't get any better... we bring you this!”
Most of you might be wondering what this things is, something related to aliens, from another world? You are almost right, ‘cos there is almost nothing in this earth which can compete with this bad boy! It’s the most recent edition to my gadget collection, and the most priced one too, my new laptop. I cannot entirely say its brand new, ‘cos I’ve had this baby for around a month.

From a Bad Start
I would say, I added this buddy to my collection at a really bad time, at the beginning of the first semester of my Masters. I had some problems getting right ordering and support and also with the factory installed software and drivers. Also I still haven’t got time to play around with it, the way I want to. But I can’t wait to write this entry for so long. ‘Cos its one of my dreams coming true.

My Alienware Area-51 m9750

The Spec Stuff
You can get a usual round of review from any review site in net, but I am going to present the details of my system. In short, it’s awesome. Better than the best machine I have seen and used so far. (that includes desktops also, since I haven’t used any desktops with the Ge-Force 200 series GPUs). Armed with GeForce 8700m GT GPU - “the world's first Microsoft DirectX®10 supported high performance enthusiast gaming notebook GUP”, after which any serious gamer started to think about gaming on a laptop, with a core clock speed of 625MHz, memory clock of 800MHz, dedicated 512MB video memory and a total of around 1269MB (including ~700+MB shared memory), 32 stream processors, and a 128bit memory interface, this baby flies with almost all the latest games. Other specs of this machine includes a Core 2 Duo T7200 @ 2.0 GHz processor, 2GB DDR2, a 17” LCD Display with a resolution of 1920x1200 @ 60Hz, 5.1 surround speakers with sub woofer, 160GB HDD, blah blah blah...

The combination of the big display and the 8700m GPU give you the best imaging quality you have ecer experienced. With digital vibrance technology, I have realized that images were this colorful and vibrant. And with that high resolution, you mostly never have to use the scroll function, since a 100% zoomed MS word page will fit in one screen.

As some of you may have already guessed, this is not the newest laptop or the best configuration available in the market. I wanted to have an SLi with the 9M series, a 4Gig RAM, an SSD HDD etc, but I had constraints on my ‘pocket size’.

I have included screenshot of the System requirements Lab Analysis report of Tomb Raider 8 and Halo 2 here. The recommended requirements for Tomb Raider 8 are shown failed ‘cos they expect to have a CPU with 2.2GHz speed and also a GPU which is Ge-Force 9800GTX/ATI HD 4800 or higher. For a DirectX 9 based, previous generation game like Halo 2, this system passes both the tests.


Gaming Gaming Gaming! - “Seeing is Believing”
As I have stated earlier, I haven’t got enough time to play around with this baby. But I somehow managed to test it with Crysis and Tomb Raider 8. I don’t want to explain the experience. Just see it for yourself.




You could see the expression in Lara’s face. Gaming in this machine is not just fun or entertainment, but it’s an experience. [You may have already guessed it, I am waiting to finish Tomb Raider 8 and write an entry on it ;-)]

Best Machine (with some glitches), Worst Support
Event though the laptop is the best of its class, there is no excuse for the continuous bad support (or lack of support) I am receiving from Alienware. I had to wait for more than 2 months to get my order shipped. Of course it was an international order. Even then, whenever I call them, I got overall really bad experience. (Exceptions are there).

I am having trouble with the integrated webcam. When I received the system, the cam was working fine for 2-3 days. Now it’s not at all showing anything other than a dark screen. I have tried updating my driver. No result. I found that others also had the same experience from some forums, but no idea how to rectify it. I have already sent 3 support request mails to the Alienware team, but no replies. Also, my wireless adapter stops abruptly sometime. The problem used to occur frequently in the beginning, but after driver updates, its working fine.

From my experience, I seriously urge anyone who is thinking to go with an Alienware machine to reconsider your decision, if support is of utmost importance to you.

The Good the Bad and the Ugly
Pros
- Amazing graphics, fast gaming performance
- Awesome screen resolution and large display
- Cool, Solid Design
- Best laptop in its class and worth every penny you spend

Cons
- Weight = Min 3.5Kg/8lbs, Portability = 0, Not for travelers.
- Pricing. I went for the relatively low configuration. But it cost me $1716 + my long distance calling charges for tracking the laptop updates.
- Bad Support

Summary - “Neighbor’s Envy, Owners Pride - Onida”
This machine is not for the ‘casual, light hearted’ people, who’s concept of a laptop is ‘just’ another portable electronic gadget. This is the real thing, custom built for enthusiasts or gadget geeks who are performance hungry, who likes to stay in the bleeding edge of technology. Its not all about performance alone, but about the brand also. Most of the people whom I have come across have no idea what Alienware means or which company made this laptop. But for the few who know what it means to own an Alienware machine, I have seen the mixture of respect and envy in their eyes at the mere mention of the term Alienware or when they see that blue eyed alien shining on the lid of my laptop. I can read their thoughts from their expression - which is something I used to have before, “I wish…”

Links and References
http://www.alienware.com/products/area-51-m9750-notebook.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51M9750&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3840
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3070
http://laptoplogic.com/best-gaming-laptops/
http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8700m.html

Scientific Explanations

Last week I watched a movie named The Reaping. It’s all about God and Satan and all. The movie is a typical Hollywood horror/thriller movie. The protagonist [hero/heroine] doesn’t believe in God due to the past events in his/her life and by the end of the movie, he/she end up being a believer due to the events of the movie. I can name any number of movies with similar themes. But some specific parts in the movie made me thinking. Most of you may be familiar about the ten plagues which fell up on Egypt, described in the Bible, Old Testament. The Pharaoh, enslaved God’s people, and God gave him the ten plagues. I am not going in to the details. This movie is about similar things happening in a small town. Here is a portion of the movie where we get a scientific explanation for what exactly happened back then. Watch the clip and let me know what you people think about it? The second clip explains what really happens these days which we ‘believe’ are miracles. Anyway, by the end of the movie, it is clearly stated that God exist [in a very pathetic manner].


For those who do not have access to YouTube, here is the dialogue.

Ben: This is getting little hard to ignore Katherine, we are four for four, chapter and the verse and I mean actual verse, blood, frogs, flies, dead life stock
Prof. Katherine Winter: These cows aren't dead.
Ben: No not yet but from where I'm standing, it looks pretty damn serious.
Prof. Katherine Winter: The Bible says that God sent the plagues as warnings to the Pharaoh to let his people go. What is he supposed to be saying here?
Ben: Well maybe it’s not from him. The Pharaohs sorcerers used their own magic to match God, plague for plague, evil against good.
Prof. Katherine Winter: Well who's responsible? Satan?
Ben: I didn't say that. I don't know. What I do know is that we are witnessing biblical events.
Prof. Katherine Winter: Alright, you wanna talk Plagues? Let's talk Plagues.
In 14OO B.C. a group of nervous Egyptians saw the Nile turn red, but what they thought was "blood" was actually an algae bloom, which killed the fish which prior to that had been living off the eggs of frogs; those uneaten eggs which turned into record numbers of baby frogs who subsequently fled to the land and died. Their little rotting frog bodies attracted lice and flies; the lice carried the Blue Tongue Virus which killed off 70% of Egypt's livestock. The flies carried glanders a bacterial infection which in humans causes boils. Soon after the Nile river valley was hit with a three day sandstorm otherwise known as The Plague of Darkness. During the sandstorm intense heat can combine with an approaching coldfront to create not only hail but also electrical storms which would have looked to the ancient Egyptians like fire from the sky; the subsequent wind would have blown the Ethiopian locust population off course and right into downtown Cairo. Hail is wet, locusts leave droppings spread both on your brain and you have michotoxins. Dinner time in ancient Egypt meant the first born child got the biggest portion which in this case meant he ate the most toxins so he died. Ten plagues, ten scientific explanations. Gotta wash up.


Prof. Katherine Winter: Deep well injection. That's what it's called when a factory drops hazardous waste down a dry oil well. This kind of illegal underground disposal has been common practice in Third World countries for years. In this case, ethanol and methanol mixed with the aromatic compound DMSO and benzene seeped out after an earthquake running off into the sewer system below the monastery, the fumes of which has the dual effect of preserving human tissue (showing the preserved body of a ‘saint’) and if inhaled, creating intense hallucinatory effects. Throw in a population economically deprived enough to believe in almost anything… and you've got yourself a miracle. A miracle created by a greedy, cost-cutting corporation. Instead of providing cures for the faithful it provided them with lungful of toxic waste. This puts me at 48 miraculous occurrences I've investigated with 48 scientific explanations. I'm sorry to say, the only miracle is that people keeps believing. Have a great weekend.
Go, Tigers.
They need a miracle.

My question: Do you really need miracles to prove God exists? Is it really hard to believe in something without proof?

Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed - John 20:29

For more information about the movie, visit
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0444682/