Living on the cloud
Posted: June 28, 2011 Filed under: Internet | Tags: chromium, cloud, Internet, joli os Leave a comment »A year back I thought living on the cloud was a very stupid idea, but having tried it our for two months I’m less frustrated than I thought I would be.
The most difficult part uninstalling XP and intsalling Joli OS. The installation process itself was pretty easy what was difficult was the thought of letting go of all the software that I had taken for granted. Especially apps like Gimp.
I replaced notepad, which I use a lot to collect random text for a story or blog post or for reading later on with simplenote, which also works as a great bookmarking application.
Replacing MS Word with Google Docs on the other hand was not that easy. When internet speed is good, it works like a charm, but when it get slow, like it happens towards the end of the month when I exceed data cap, it gets tricky and the whole process feels like a waste of time.
I’m glad I made the cloud shift with JoliOS and not Chrome OS as I can install Linux based software if necessary as the OS is based on Ubuntu. The flaw with the OS is the limited offline functionality for cloud apps such as google docs.
Using twitter from the website all the time was not such a good idea either as there were times when it wouldn’t load correctly. Finally I installed Adobe Air and DestroyTwitter — problem solved!
So what do I really really really miss? Gaming! Yes, I’m using a netbook alright but I would still be able to at least Counter Strike on it if it had XP. Other than that using an operating system like Joli OS is not going to kill you. It’s definitely worth a try. 
Jume.in, have you helped out someone today?
Posted: November 14, 2010 Filed under: Internet | Tags: Jume, questions, Quora, tasks Leave a comment »Jume is a new website which lets you share what you plan to do in the future, get help and suggestions from friends before you do it. To put it bluntly, it’s a more social version of Google Calendar, but it could be much more than that.
On Jume, a user can play two roles — you can create a task or comment on a task which another person has created. I’m not going to write on why you should use the service, as Prashanth at TechBangalore has a very good write up on the same.
I would instead prefer to write on things which I still don’t understand or like to see on the site.
- The site lets me posts tasks that I want to do, but there’s no way I can specify things I could do help with, as part of the task. For example, Mark has a post here saying: finalise on a restaurant for my anniversary — but there’s no place to add further details to that question. Mark can only post the details as a comment, which is a very limiting option if you ask me.
- An option to get help offline. When you try to copy a friend’s task, there is an option of where you want to do the task, now why isn’t it possible to invite friends to join you in a task? For example, I need to buy a new phone and want to invite a few of my friends when I go for it, how do I do that?
- I’m surprised that there are no tags considering Quora and Blekko have used it with some success bringing the focus back to it and away from natural language search. Tags can make it easier for users to find tasks they might be interested in, provided there are additional filters to show only tasks from a particular area or a timeframe for a specific topic.
- What’s the difference between ‘help’ and ‘commenting’? Under every task there’s an option to comment or a link which says ‘help’. Posting via help essentially send your reply as a private message while comments are publically visible. So those who reply via a comment are not helping?
- Why not pull in answers from other sites? Every task can lead to a ton of questions. For example, there might be hundreds of people who might have to accomplish a task: Buying a phone and there might be common questions they might have, which they might try to get answers for on Quora, or Twitter, or Facebook. Now why isn’t there any option to ask questions? Or pull in relevant answers from these sites?
- The design has been inspired by Quora, no doubts there, so then what happened to the ajaxy search box? Or is search not that important in this case?
A Tablet For $35? Give Me A Break!
Posted: July 23, 2010 Filed under: India, Internet 2 Comments »I’ve been really excited about Notion Ink’s Adam since the day it was announced and now there are rumours of the company being taken over by Reliance, but that’s not what really made the news yeterday. What’s been making news is Kapil Sibal’s announcement of a $35 tablet. A tablet with a 7-inch touch screen, built-in speakers, wi-fi antenna, 2GB RAM and decent memory for Rs1,750? If that was possible we would have had smartphones selling at that price.
Let’s be honest here, when it comes to production of hardware India is not cheaper than China (as of now) and the only way they can bring down the cost to that level would be by bringing down the quality of materials used. It’s also possible that the stated $35 price-tag is a discounted one. Since the device does not have an option for a sim card (at least no one’s mentioned it yet!) I don’t know what the folks handling PR for the product was smoking the night before!
Good luck with that, great idea, but not practical sorry!
How do we prevent such a situation?
Posted: July 6, 2009 Filed under: Internet 8 Comments »
Yesterday I saw this story about Lori Drew who was recently acquitted off her crimes by US federal judge. Remember Lori Drew? The woman who impersonated a boy’s profile on MySpace and drove a girl (Megan Taylor Meier) to suicide?
What I found interesting was the argument put forward by her attorney.
Dean Steward argued that the facts used to support Drew’s conviction on illegal access –that she violated the website’s terms of service by creating a false account — do not constitute a criminal offense and there is no evidence she even knew the rules existed.
I argue with his argument that most people are not aware of the laws or bother to read through the terms of service. But do everyone on “dating sites” like MySpace lie? Is there any details posted on your Facebook / Orkut account which you would call a lie? At least not in my case. I am surprised no one pointed out the difference between lying on a small detail and impersonation. Even if no one pointed it out to the attorney, I can’t believe judge took his theory to come to such a conclusion.
That said, what rules does India have in this regard? Of course there is a law which holds bloggers responsible for content posted on blogs and even for content posted in comments. (comments too?) So what about Fake IPL Player, the same dude who’s cynical posts were one of the reasons quoted for the increasing conflict within Kolkata team? Can Shah Rukh Khan sue him? If yes, why didn’t he? Would a judge in India accept to the point put forward by the lawyer in MySpace case? I doubt it. That aside, shouldn’t India make an addition to its IT law to get rid of such a loop hole…
After all, you have to ‘agree to the terms’ when you sign up for any service don’t you? What say?
