The Symbian Foundation

Here at the Symbian Foundation we are of the opinion that the mobile industry offers enormous opportunities and challenges—and that the best way to take advantage of the opportunity is to bring as many resources as possible, working together, to build the platforms and applications of the future. That's why Symbian is open source—to involve more people, more creativity and in the end, create more opportunity for all.

More people, more opportunities addressed
The number of smart and capable people outside an organisation will always far exceed the number on the inside
Those outside of an organisation will have diverse and informed perspectives on what Symbian software might be used for
Freely available standard programming interfaces are an important first step to involving more people - but they only go so far
Freely available source code, that is open to modification and experiment, enables deeper and more substantial collaboration: collaboration in the evolution and refinement of the underlying software platform, rather than only on the edges of the platform.
The Symbian platform has a unique legacy

After more than a decade of real-world experience, Symbian has acquired battle-hardened skills in:
Roadmap design and execution
Managing software interfaces, platform compatibility, and rapid integration
Dealing simultaneously with disparate, powerful customers with divergent interests
Mixing agile and modular development with overall architectural integrity
Overnight builds, codeline management, and quality gate-keeping
The Symbian platform is a robust, cohesive, well proven, high-performance software system, whose scope covers the complete needs of mobile developers - from the metal, via extensive middleware, to applications and UIs. This stable base is an excellent starting point for further improvement.

source http://www.symbian.org/symbian-feature-set/going-open-source

Windows 7 Launch

Was fun fun fun! I have a picture or two, but am FAR too lazy to actually post them up. All I can say is that the launch was fun! Complete and utter fun. I now have two stickers on my computer table: a green Windows 7 and a very very pretty blue sticker (yes my favourite colour is blue).
The launch was officiated by the Business Group Director of Microsoft, a very unassuming guy. I mean, if I had met him outside of the launch I wouldn’t have given him a second glance, thinking him just an ordinary guy. But I had to admit, the launch for Windows 7 was quite a lot of hype.

Well, the consumer launch came and went in Malaysia on 7th November 2009. Didn't manage to capture much pictures or video this time cause I was a bit distracted by other things. I'd say this went down better than the Windows Vista launch a few years back.

That in it's own made it much better than the Windows Vista launch even if the queue didn't gain much momentum initially.

But then again, most people won't buy Windows 7 on it's own, but rather get the PCs that come with Windows 7.

If we were doing a pure square footage comparison of the event area, the Windows 7 launch in Low Yat is much smaller compared to Windows Vista's launch in Low Yat. All Windows 7 gets is the atrium area in Low Yat.

source http://www.win7.com.my/blogs/blog_details.aspx?postid=9b53fb74-cd37-47f6-8cb0-b42cb02fd0e5

Safari

Safari is designed to emphasize the browsing, not the browser. The browser frame is a single pixel wide. You see a scroll bar only when needed. By default, there’s no status bar. Instead, a progress gear turns as your page loads. And if you so choose, you can hide almost the entire interface, removing virtually every distraction from the browser window. A great browser should get out of your way and let you simply enjoy the web. Safari does just that. And it does it regardless of platform.

The first browser to deliver the “real” internet to a mobile device, Safari renders pages on iPhone and iPod touch just as you see them on your computer. But this is more than just a scaled down mobile-version of the original. It takes advantage of the technologies built into these multi-touch devices. The page shifts and reformats to fill the window when you turn it on its side. You zoom in just by pinching and extending your fingers. Of course, no matter how you access it, Safari is always blazing fast and easy-to-use.

see more at http://www.apple.com/safari/what-is.html

Open source software

Open source software (OSS) is computer software for which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that meets the Open Source Definition or that is in the public domain. This permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified forms. It is very often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open source software is the most prominent example of open source development and often compared to user-generated content.The term open source software originated as part of a marketing campaign for free software.A report by Standish Group states that adoption of open source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers.

Safari 4 Beta

February 24th, 2009 – Apple announced the public beta release of Safari 4 for both Mac and Windows platform. The tagline “Browsing made beautiful. And smart.”, certainly is true.

Apple lists a total of 150 features that makes the latest version of its browser a definitely appealing. You can check out those features from this page.

I downloaded Safari 4 yesterday and tried it out for my daily browsing. In general, I feel that the performance is good. Web pages loads pretty fast and being an Apple product, it looks good. I have one problem with Safari though. While writing this entry in Wordpress, I found that when I want to insert a link, the “Insert/Edit Link” pop-up freezes. It just hang. The pop-up appears, but the fields are all greyed out and I’m unable to type in the URL, etc.

Another thing that I do not like is the “Tabs on Top” (as Apple called it). I don’t like the idea of having tabs on the window title bar itself (similar to Google Chrome). It just don’t appeal to me. I found that there is a way to change that from this website. I tried it last night but the result was not that good. The tab did moves away from the title bar to below the menu bar, but instead of seeing multiple tabs, I can only see one long tab with a small button on the far right which upon clicking, shows the list of the remaining tabs. (Hope you understand what I was trying to say). Anyway, I removed the changes, and keep the tabs as it is, at the “top”.

Overall, for a beta, I give Safari 4, an 8 out of 10 points. I will continue using it for a few weeks and will write another review soon after.

You may download Safari 4 beta from this link. The setup file (Safari for Windows XP or Vista) weighs a total of 25.4MB.

source http://www.jakpo.com/blog/index.php/2009/03/01/safari-4-beta-worlds-fastest-and-most-innovative-browser/

Ubuntu 8.10

It was quite a frustrating day yesterday as far as my attempt to install Ubuntu 8.10 goes. In my previous post, I mentioned that the installation was not smooth; it hangs mid way. Let me tell you in detail what actually happened yesterday.

First attempt to install Ubuntu 8.10 was on my 6 years old Twinhead Efio D212A with AMD Athlon and 376MB RAM. I tried to install twice, but on both occasions, the installation hangs at step 4 of 7 – at the partition stage. I thought it was going to take me 30 minutes to install, max… but, after almost 2 hours, I decided to take a break. But before I leave my notebook, I downloaded the latest version, 9.04.

source http://www.jakpo.com/blog/

New wireless router

Slightly more than 3 weeks ago, while on holiday out of town, my house was struck by a lighting. The damage:

• An ADSL Modem
• A Wireless Router (D-Link DI524)
• A Samsung 21″ TV
• A Philips DVD Player
• An aircond
• 3 light bulbs

WordPress 2.8.5

WordPress 2.8.5 was released a few days ago. I have successfully upgraded mine a couple of minutes ago. It only took me less than a minute using the WordPress auto update function. This version is considered as a security upgrade thus is very important for all blog owners running on WordPress platform to perform the upgrade.

Here are the summary of changes in the 2.8.5 version:

• Fix the Trackback Denial-of-Service attack.
• Removal of areas within the code where php code in variables was evaluated.
• Switched the file upload functionality to be whitelisted for all users including Admins.
• Retiring of the two importers of Tag data from old plugins.

Acer tries its hand in the smartphone arena.

We take a look at what happens when long-time computer maker Acer tries its hand in the smartphone arena.

By ONG CHIN HAN

The Acer F900 has one of the better and more well-thought out packages for a smartphone. It comes with software, an extra stylus, handsfree kit, screen protector and even a protective pouch. The volume rocker on the top right side of the phone also doubles as a list scroller.

The F900 is a slim but very wide and tall phone because of the large screen. It is solidly built with sturdy plastic and has a metal battery cover and metal accents.

The massive 3.8in resistive screen is in 16:9 ratio. It’s a joy to watch videos on it and the colours are vibrant.

However legibility under sunlight like most phones is less than desirable. In addition to the fully touchscreen interface, there are four touch-sensitive buttons below the screen: Accept, Windows, Back and Cancel.

The buttons don’t light up until you touch one of them so you might not notice their existence there in the first place.

Acer customisations

The Acer development team have actually put in quite some effort to replace the Windows Mobile 6.1 Today screen with something more usable.

The screen shows a desktop (no, really, it’s a desk) and you can sweep you finger to the left and right to access other features such as your SMS, e-mail, calls, calendar, weather, photos, music, time zone settings and program shortcuts that are on the desktop.

Sweep your finger up or down to get an icon-based display of all the options on the desktop which in my opinion is more useful as you can see all the options without having to scroll.

Functionality

Call quality was satisfactory. Video calls are not supported because there is no forward facing camera. The Acer Shell also did a good job of assisting in scrolling through the contact list using the Speed Dial feature.

The F900 comes with the usual litany of productivity applications that most smartphones have nowadays. You have the usual calendar, alarms and Office Mobile so you can work on your Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.

Outlook works flawlessly in managing your e-mail. Typing e-mail and text messages was quite speedy thanks to Acer’s customisation and tweaking of the on-screen keyboard.

Like any other modern high-end phone, the F900 covers most connectivity options. It offers GSM, GPRS, 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth.

All of the transmitters can be turned off in Flight Mode for use in hospitals and on planes. The microUSB port is used for data transfer, connecting the handsfree as well as for charging. The F900 has pretty good battery life as it lasts about four days on a full charge.

Most phones in the market now have an accelerometer which allows you to tilt the phone to one side to view the screen in landscape mode. The F900 accelerometer only works on a few applications out of the box.

You have to select the applications that are affected by the “Gravity Sensor” application so that the accelerometer will work on the applications you want. The special bit about the F900’s accelerometer is you can tilt the phone to either side to view the screen in landscape mode rather than to only one side.

read more at source http://star-techcentral.com/reviews/story.asp?file=/2009/9/30/prodit/20090929100905&sec=reviews&new=1&cat=2&rid=1292

eBook

e-Books

Early e-books were generally written for specialty areas and a limited audience, meant to be read only by small and devoted interest groups. The scope of the subject matter of these e-books included technical manuals for hardware, manufacturing techniques, and other subjects. Numerous e-book formats emerged and proliferated, some supported by major software companies such as Adobe's PDF format, and others supported by independent and open-source programmers. Multiple readers naturally followed multiple formats, most of them specializing in only one format, and thereby fragmenting the e-book market even more. Due to exclusiveness and limited readerships of e-books, the fractured market of independents and specialty authors lacked consensus regarding a standard for packaging and selling e-books. E-books continued to gain in their own underground markets. Many e-book publishers began distributing books that were in the public domain. At the same time, authors with books that were not accepted by publishers offered their works online so they could be seen by others. Unofficial (and occasionally unauthorized) catalogs of books became available over the web, and sites devoted to e-books began disseminating information about e-books to the public.

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