Apple's Tiniest Touchscreen

Apple is in the limelight at the moment for too many things... some good, some bad...and some rumors. And the latest is a rumor, about the tiniest touch screen whose picture has been doing the rounds around the web at the moment.

The screen is only 3x3 cms in size and it can be for -
1) iPod Touch Nano
2) iPod Touch Shuffle
3) iWatch
4) Any other product ????

Well, we will have to wait, but I don't know for how long.

Source : tw.Apple.pro

Twitalyzer - Analyse Your Twitter Profile

So you have started to use Twitter. You are twitting about thee latest news, gossips, rumors, your daily activities and so on. You are following 1000+ people (even some celebrities) and you have got 1000+ followers in return. But how much impact are you making on your followers? How much are you influencing them? Are you generous enough to help out others?

If you want to know the answers to the questions mentioned above, here's a tool for you. Twitalyzer is a free tool which will analyse your Twitter profile and answer to the questions mentioned above along with many other information. All you need to provide is your username and password (yes, I was worried about this a bit, but after reading some reviews I went forward... they can be trusted). Check the screenshot for some of the information that it will provide.

So why don't you give it a try? Go here and check how much of an influencer you are. Do give me some feedbacks please :P. You can also follow me on Twitter.
                                                                                                                                                                  

Top Entrecard Droppers For June

This month I am taking the short-cut path to thank my top droppers. Because of my absence and some other reasons, I couldn't make the list of all the top droppers. So let's look at the list provided by Entrecard -

Slightly Sarcastic
bethere2day
on the verge
Cooking Japanese Style
Teen Suicide Talk
Symbian Freeware
Michelle's Menagerie
Living and Wellness
Winesworld The Amateurs Wine Guide
The Ad Master

Special mention goes to EihdraG of Make Money Online for being the top commenter.

So all these consistent droppers are the top droppers for June.Thanks and congrats to my top droppers and also to everyone who visit my blog. By the way, just a reminder. Because of my new blog, this blog will get less updates. I have already included Tech N Blogging in Entrecard.
And a Happy 4th of July to all my readers from America.

What Will I Do With $100

This is my official entry to  Noel and Levy's Thanksgiving Contest.

Hmm...a tough question indeed. $100 can be used for many things, including some good deeds like donation and charity. Well, even though donations and charity will give me some good karma, but being honest as a college student, I will think numerous times before making any donations. So I strike out that option, and will use the $100 for my use (to be more precise, for my blog's).

But how?

We the bloggers always think about the amount we have to pay for hosting and domain names, specially is the blog is new and not giving even a cent back into my pocket. Things get more complex if we want to brand out blog, like getting a new theme (of course paid theme, for example Thesis or Ultimate Blogging Theme). and also for advertising.

Even though I have not decided what exactly I will do with the $100 (if I get), but I have got some ideas in my head. I will definitely keep a good amount out of that $100 to hold a contest in order to promote my new blog. But obviously it won't be possible without sponsors. I will also keep some amount either to pay the next hosting fee or save that amount for a new theme (either - or). So now just a little remains out of that $100 which I will use to advertise my new blog on Adgitize.

So you can see, the whole amount goes to blogging.

The following part is not within the context of the contest.
All the blah...blah... above can come true if I win (which I don't think I will). But I will be really happy if either Mommy Rubz or EihdraG wins this contest. It's not that I know these bloggers (I do know EihdraG a bit),  but there are some reasons for which I am telling this.
                                                                                                                                                                

iPhone 4 Updates

We all know that the iPhone 4 was put on sale in the US, France, Germany, Japan and the UK since yesterday. But what's more important are the news and facts surrounding the iPhone 4 and the iOS 4.0. In this post, I am going to make excerpts of some updates that I have got from the net.

To start things off, let's make a post-mortem of the hardware of the latest version of the iPhone. Check out this post by my blogging friend Shabnam Sultan - iPhone 4 : Inside Detailed View Of Various Parts.

Okay, enough of dissecting that costly device. Let's view it as a whole. Here's a first impression about the iPhone 4, hands on (by Geeky Gadgets) : iPhone 4 hands On - First Impressions.

New products are always accompanied by bugs and errors, and so was the iPhone 4. Here's a report about some yellow bands appearing on the iPhone screen, towards the bottom. Yellow Spot Display Issue On iPhone 4 by Tech Bitts.

Complains, complains and more complains. If you hold the iPhone in a wrong way, the bars will decrease. This is what Apple (and Steve Jobs) had to say as a solution - Steve Job Replies To Email About iPhone 4 Reception Issues by Tech Bitts.

Apple came up with a solution, but a temporary one, with an extra accessory for $29. Apple's Solution To Reception Problem In iPhone 4 by TechieZlounge.

I will keep on updating this post with further updates.
                                                                                                                                                                    

I'm Back - To Win $100 !!!

Finally, after numerous phone calls and visits to my internet service provider's customer care, I managed to get the problems fixed. So now I will again get back to blogging, but I need to regain the lost momentum.

So to start things off, here's a contest that I want to enter. It's Noel And Levy's Thanksgiving contest with a total prize money of $200. The break up of the prize money among the winners is as follows -
1st Prize - $100
2nd Prize - $30
3rd Prize - $20
4th and 5th Prize - $10 each.
Further, there are 5 consolation prizes of $5 each.

To know more about the contest, visit Living Life To The Fullest. And here's the list of the sponsors -

Designer's Depot
Mga Kwentong Maalamat
Hearts content of a Mama
LuckyZoan
My Thoughts, My Heart, My Turf

Pensive Thoughts
Spread the Word!
Pinkville- Pink and Magic Convergence Zone
Make more Money
BHO: Blogurdian Hellsite Overcrashed
Earn Money Online with Red
My Red Hot Reviews
The Adventurous Little Prince
A Woman Remembers
My Journey to Life
All About Life

Anything Baguio
My Random Best
Tricks of Magician
Mom Fashionista
Travel Junkie Mommy
Reviews Inc.
Sexy Blogging
Novice on Blogging
Camera Sexy
At Home Here
Make or Break
Dishes by Pehpot
Lifestyle Magazine for Moms
Bloggityboop- The Magic of Mommyhood
Mommy's Infodose
Baterya.Com
Kitchen Trips

Llamas Journal - Ad space
Sharing My Thoughts-  Ad space
Something to Live By- Ad space
Wonderful World of Peachy- Ad space
Sweet Thoughts and Wonderful Life-  Ad space



That's enough for the moment. I really need to get things up and running again. By the way, you can also visit my new blog at Tech N Blogging.
                                                                                                                                                                  

Update

This is a short post to inform all my visitors that my absence from the blogosphere is due to my internet connection. I had no internet connection for one whole week. Then I got back the connection two days ago, but it was only for a few hours. Then again I was cut off from the www. The connection is back now, but it's very unstable, can't even make a proper post, and I am not sure for how long I will remain connected. I am trying to contact my service provider to get this problem fixed, but unfortunately, their service is horrible.  Sorry for my absence. 

                                                                                                                                                                         

My New Blog

Oh! At last I have done it. All these days my hands were tied because of Blogger's limited resources and inflexibility and most importantly, the (dot)blogspot domain name.

But now I have got my own domain name and a self hosted Wordpress blog. You can check it out here(opens in a new tab), even though you won't find anything except a single welcome post. Since this is the first time that I am using WP, so it will take some time. By the way, Tech N Blogging is going to be my main blog in a month's time while this will be my secondary blog.

I have already installed some plugins like All in one SEO, Akismet and CommentLuv. It will be great if you can suggest some other plugins. Also, if you have some other suggestions, please feel free to do so. Anyway, that's all for now.
                                                                                                                                                                      

EC Top Droppers - May

Its time to thank all my visitors and  commenters. I am already late for this post by one day, so I won't delay any more. A special thanks to my top EC droppers and congrats to them for being so consistent. I had to include 23 blogs this time with minimum of 30 drops. Here's the list -

31 Drops

Beyond Left Field

Winesworld - The Amateurs Wine Guide

Picture To People Blog

The Mad Genealogist

The Ad Master

Bible Examples

Seek No More

30 drops

Space In Pictures

Positive Men

Confessions Of A Fitness Diva

Mutual Love

Small Town Mommy

Fact Of The Day

Slightly Sarcastic

Teen Suicide Talk

Serian Man

Crazy Suburban Mom

Comedy Plus

3arn.net

First Door On The Left

The Cooling Stream

On The Verge

Security For Idiots And Others That Care

A special mention goes to Marlene of Lemback Blog for being the top commenter.

Since there are 7 top droppers, it was not possible to provide the banner exposure to all the 7 blogs in a 30 days time, so I have taken the help of Random.org to pick 2 blogs who will get the exposure for 15 days each. 

Here are the snapshots...

That's Seek No More (June 2 - 16)

And...

WinesWorld - The Amateurs Wine Guide (June 16 - 30).

So, thanks again for visiting my blog.  

                                                                                                                                              

Birth Of Compact DSLRs

A Short History To Begin With
Ever since the SLR (Single Reflex Lens) began to take the digital path (DSLR), the weight of the camera increased tremendously because of the components that needed to be included with the camera for the digital sensors to work, specially the digital signal process. As a result, DSLR was getting bigger and heavier. Even though there were many efforts to bring out lighter DSLRs, but that was at the expense of features like speed, quality and above all, ease of use.

M 4/3
Big and heavy was the standard rule until one day Olympus and Panasonic got together to create something evolutionary, the M 4/3. So what is it? Micro Four Third (M 4/3) is a system in which instead of having the pentaprism and the mirror to reflect the image to be seen by the sensor, it would use the sensor right away to provide a live view of the picture. Now this made way for smaller and lighter designs by removing the 2 elements which wer not needed by the digital sensor.

Practical Implementation of the M 4/3 system
The first camera that was based on the M 4/3 design is the Olympus PEN E-P1. Even though the initial reactions were that since it was light and small, it would be crap like the Point-and-Shoot cameras. But later, it had some good reviews.
Then Olympus released an update to it, the E-P2 which resolved some of the problems of the drawbacks of the E-P1. Finally, they released a low-price model, the Olympus PEN E-PL1.
Panasonic too came up with their own model, the Panasonic GF1 based on the M 4/3 design.

The Latest Entry
The latest entry to this mirrorless compact digital SLR category is Sony with their models the NEX-3 and the NEX-5. Both are 14.2 megapixel shooters with APS-C sized CMOS sensors that can shoot high-definition videos. The NEX-5 is capable of shooting videos at 1080p in AVCHD format and at 720p in MP4 format. The NEX-3 is only capable of recording at 720p in MP4 format. These will have a 18-55 mm lens or a 16 mm lens. In addition to that, Sony will launch a 18-200 mm lens.
More information about these two cameras can be found here.
                                                                                                                                                          

Does Your Blog Have A 7-Digit Alexa Rank

I couldn't come up with a good topic to post about, so I decided to post about Adgitize's special summer promotion. Those who are not members of Adgitize or do not know at all about it, Adgitize is an ad service on blogger's budget. Let me first write a small review of it.

As a publisher, you need (recommended) to show ads on your blog (maximum of 10 slots). You will get points for the ad views and the page views. You can also get 100 daily for writing 1 blog post (max 1 per day). You also get points by clicking on the Adgitize ads on other blogs (max 100 per day).

Now comes the main point, the advertisers. The cost of advertising your blog on the Adgitize network is only $14 per month. With this special promotion, you can easily get back $14.57, if not more. Now here's how you can do it -
1) As an advertiser, you will get 100 points daily.
2) You need to click on 51 adgitize ads (100 for publishers) on 51 different blogs to get 100 more points.
3) Write 1 post daily, you get 100 more points each day.
4) You will get more points for the page views and ad views. Other members have told from their experience that their page views increase by about 75+, daily. And because of the traffic, you will have a good Alexa rank too, as many Adgitize members use the Alexa toolbar. So if you have a 7 digit Alexa rank, there's every reason for you to advertise here.
So you have 300+ points. Now as per their special promotion, you will get a minimum of $0.47 for getting 300 points (plus you have some extra too). $0.47 for 31 days add up to make $14.57. So you can easily make some profit and also get some more visitors to your blog, a win-win situation.

This promotion will run through July 31, 2010. If they meet their goal of getting 25 new advertisers per month, they will run the promotion for the whole year. So what are you waiting for? If you are not a member yet, sign up here (affiliate link, will be great if you can help a fellow blogger out...haha..shameless promotion) and start advertising.
                                                                                                                                                            

NComputing U170 - USB Virtual Desktop

Before mentioning about the gadget, I will like you to ask those parents with two kids about the ideal solution for sharing time on a single computer. I think most parents will grow another grey hair instead of finding an ideal solution to it. Isn't that so?

Here come the NComputing U170 Virtual Desktop, a rather elegant solution to this problem, although it can easily be extended to suit a small business or a school set-up. The premise is simple - modern day PCs are so powerful that people (specially kids) use only a small fraction of the processor's capacity, and the U170 taps this unused resource so that a computer can be shared by many users.

All you have to do is plug the U170 into the PC via USB, connect the second set of monitor, keyboard and mouse and install the program on the host PC and voila! The second fully-functional independent PC is ready to go.

So what are the advantages? Well, there are many. Firstly, you just need to buy the U170 (about $100), a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse and speakers. So you save money on RAMs, motherboards, processors, video cards and other hardwares. Further, you need to maintain only one PC with the OS and the anti-virus, so here also you save some money. You also save on electricity as it draws only about 2 watts of power, much less than an independent PC.

need to connect more PCs? Just add more U170s, upto 9 maximum. But if you are running a memory exhausting application like Photoshop on the host PC, then the connected PCs are bound to suffer. Well, the question is, do the kids need to use image and video editing softwares?
                                                                                                                                                                    

Google Pacman Logo - Its Playable

Did you notice the Google logo today? I guess almost everyone has, so this is for them who are yet to notice the main feature of the logo - it's playable. Yes, you can play the real game which you used to play on the video games.

Commemorating the 30th birthday of the popular video game of the 80s and the 90s, Pacman, Google has used the Pacman logo (or should I say the game) on its search engine homepage. By clicking on the "Insert Coin" button or simply keeping the page open for around 10 seconds will start the game. The direction(arrow) keys are used for control. So what are you waiting for? Open the search page and start playing instead of searching.
For more information about this logo, and about Google's strategy to use HTML, CSS and JavaScript instead of Flash to develop the logo, please visit Questechie.

                                                                                                                                                         

Looking For A Sound System

Recently, my Intex 2.1 sound system has been giving me a lot of problems. To be fair, I don't like Intex speakers. One of my friends has got a Intex 5.1 system, and I don't like its sound quality. The treble is okay, but the bass...its just not there. Anyway, I have decided to upgrade my sound system for my PC, and I have decided to buy a 5.1 system this time. So, the search begins....off course with Google.

My budget is around 6000 INR (approx $130). So, the first search was something like "5.1 speakers for pc". From here. I went to a forum where two models got my attention - (1) Creative Inspire T6060 and (2) Altec Lansing VS3251. So, I searched again for these specific models. First was the Altec Lansing. But the very first impression was not good. I didn't like the looks, so its out. Next, the Creative Inspire. This one looks good, very modern. The review said that its a value for money product with very good sound quality. The only con is the wired remote (not wireless). Well, that's not a problem for me. Further, it costs about $100, so its pretty much inside my budget.

But wait a minute. The review also stated two more models - (1) Logitech X540 and (2) Logitech Z5500.
So, back to Google. First, the X540. This one looks good too. I think it looks better than the Creative. The satellites are wall-mountable, a feature which can come handy in my room. This too has a wired remote. Price?About $100 again.
Next is the Z5500. Oh man! This one is awesome. Look at the subwoofer. It has got plenty of features. And also comes with a SoundTouch Control Centre and a wireless remote. But oh! The Logitech guys broke my heart. This one will create a huge hole of 400 bucks in my pocket. So, goodbye to Z5500.

Back to the Creative and the Logitech X540. While reading more and more reviews of these two, suddenly one thing caught my attention. My default sound card that came with the Intel motherboard does not support surround sound. Which means that i won't be able to get the real surround sound effect that these two are capable of. I need a sound card. So I googled "Creative 5.1 sound card" (I knew Creative had one). Yup, got it. Creative Sound Blaster 5.1 will be good enough for a basic 5.1 system. But the price? Again I took help of Google with the keyword "price" attached to the previous search.  Woot woot! It costs only around $25, which means that either the Creative Inspire T6060 or the Logitech X540 plus the Creative Sound Blaster will be very much within my budget. But......there's still a BUT......The Logitech Z5500.....I want that......... :(
                                                                                                                                            

Future Kitchen Concept - Aion

This may look like a command deck of a Starship Enterprise, but in real, this is a futuristic kitchen. And it not only looks like a command deck, but also shares another feature related to aerospace.

Designed by Antoin Lebrun, the Aion kitchen concept uses specialized plants developed by the aerospace industry. These plants are known for their cleaning and filtering properties. Apart from providing a renewable supply of fresh water and vegetable soap (while cleaning), they also filter smoke and fumes while cooking. 

For the cleaning purpose, simply putting the utensils in the sink and closing the hood will start the natural clean cycle. Further, the display shows the current status along with illuminated lights indicating cooking or washing etc. 

This is a very eco-friendly concept to reduce wastes and smoke, but unfortunately, it's just a concept at the moment.
                                                                                                                                                          

SmartFaucet - Tap With A Touch Screen

You may have got the most wired house in the neighbourhood, but the SmartFaucet from iHouse will surely blow your mind.

It's a water tap with built-in face recognition that automatically adjusts the water pressure, temperature and the lighting to your preferred settings (yeah, you read it right, it's a water tap).

What's more?? The touchscreen display even allows at-a-glance access to e-mails , appointments and the outside temperature while the LED illuminates the flow with temperature matching colors!!!