sankara.me

(Copied from Crunchgear)

Having used Zune HD for over a month now I thought it would be good to write a review about this unfortunate little device shadowed by market leader iPod. No boring long paragraphs; let me quickly list down the pros and cons.

Cons first:

• Missing features & apps: if you had used any recent generation iPod, there is a chance you would miss the following: Alarm clock, Calendar alert & integration with Outlook, tasks & TODOs, apps & games.
• One touch pause/play: requires a button press and a screen touch to pause/play; could be an issue outdoors.
• Battery life: battery life is really good for music/radio but goes down drastically with Wi-Fi on or apps.
• No USB file support: Yup, you cannot use it as a USB drive.

Pros:

• OLED screen: excellent in bright environment; enhances battery life. The screen is scratch proof. You would still need a scratch-guard as it’s not really oil/dirt proof. Comes with mutli touch too.
• Processor/Graphics: Excellent. Tegra processor has real HPJ. Built-in games would demonstrate this well; no hiccups. Had a chance to compare graphics side by side with an iPod touch; Zune HD wins hands down. As an incidental side-effect you get to watch your HD videos in hyper-quality.
• Radio w/ HD: I know iPod nano 5^th generation has brought in radio/FM too. You simply can’t miss the 10+ FM channels if you are in a city like Chennai.
• No iTunes: not sure many would agree with me; I hate iTunes to the core. Zune software has a refreshing new look& feel. On a related note, there is no lock in: yes, you can sync with multiple computers with guest sync support. Wireless sync lets you go cordless.
• Intuitive interface: for a change MS has made Zune HD really usable. Try it once to appreciate it.
• Well built: Well-built and boasts a masculine bold look. I hate the iPod nano esp J.

Other features:

• Zune pass: while not a real treat if you are outside US; it is indeed a great deal for music lovers. For $14 you can listen to unlimited songs; better yet you get to download 10 songs as well.
• Browser: Zune’s browser is good enough to access emails/twitter. The fact that it’s a variant of the windows mobile browser would show up in heavy sites. Lacks flash though.
• Keyboard: Zune’s on-screen touch keyboard is indeed useful. Auto correct feature is really good.
• Power-off: You can “power-off” for real in a Zune HD.
• Not really an advantage, but I do like the fact that I can automatically exclude and “remove” songs I hate/dislike. It’s usual for me to copy a whole album, listen to all the songs and after two or three plays mark a song as “dislike” in one click. It would eventually be removed in the next sync. I love this feature; helps me free up a lot of space without much effort.

Useful reviews:

Crunch gear review: http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/18/review-zune-hd/

Zune HD’s UI: the full tour: http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/16/zune-hds-ui-the-full-tour/

Review of the 3D games: http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/11/11/video-checking-out-the-zune-hds-new-3d-games/

Engadget review: http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/17/zune-hd-review/

CNet review: http://reviews.cnet.com/mp3-players/zune-hd-32gb-platinum/4505-6490_7-33665869.html

An article today grabbed my attention today. It brought one nasty aspect of software; language, not the programming one. The article claims it’s important that you use your software and OS in English. The reason specified was very valid and is perfectly practical. But I disagree that everyone should be forced to use English. I’ll list down my view point and “my” opinion on why it is wrong to enforce English as the only language.

The reason as per the article is that a search for an error message might not be futile in your native language. This IMHO is a limitation of the search engine. Search engines should evolve to search by semantics rather than just plain dumb words. And all indications are pointing that each and every search engine is working hard to achieve that goal. I still remember the very first search I did in Yahoo! in the 90s. The results were mostly dumb. We have come a long way from there and we have miles to go indeed. This process can only be accelerated if more and more people start using the web in their native language; the language they feel more comfortable with. Domain names in non-English languages, Unicode as standard encoding format for everything from your source code file to email, more and more blogs and sites in non-English languages, local versions of major sites…etc. indicate we’ll reach there eventually. Asking the whole world to learn English is neither feasible nor acceptable. If information has to reach people who need it the most, language should not be a barrier.

-- Sankara

There is no better way to exemplifying “simplicity” than the current block buster program Deal? No-Deal? In SunTV. If they were to telecast a program where a participant is asked to choose a box out of 25 each of them containing an amount between 1 and 25lakh and leave with whatever they win, would anyone watch? Of course, no. And so the all “intelligent” crew behind the show came up with an idea that has no parallels. The participant should not open the chosen box instead they will open the remaining 24 boxes to finally find out the amount in box 25 i.e., their chosen one. Wow! And lakhs of viewers sit in front of their television “engulfed” in the thrill and suspense of the program not willing to spare a minute as otherwise they would miss a box opening ceremony. Anyway, sarcasm and scepticism aside, only Kalanithi Maran can market such an idea and yet be successfulJ.

BTW, it’s not a rare event that I come across similar things in code. A simple example, given a requirement to show one element in addition to list x in the UI, would you create a new list with exactly the same elements as list x plus the extras required or define complex polymorphic code that through some magic adds the extra element only to find out it won’t work in a second place? Of course, complexity is always fun.

Remedy: Read the story of Gordian knot once a day every day before you go to sleep for forty days.

Recently switched to Safari to just try it out. Finding it to be good in terms of speed and rendering of sites. But of course not without irritants.

1. No way to add more search providers – Locking to Google is CRAP! There seem to be workarounds but nothing works for Windows. The preference file is RSA signed. Why the hell would someone do that! Isn't this anti-competitive?! And btw, I love Bing. It's yet to be polluted with SEO junk.
2. No undo closed tab - A problem that I get into very frequently. I'm one of those who close tabs inadvertently. And when the competition has it and as a user I have had a taste of it (including in IE8) why would I want to miss it.
3. No process isolation - One crappy site, one tab hangs and you lose all your work? Oh come on!
4. No recent tab order - Again having had the taste I'm missing this.
5. Address completion is still naive - If you can optimize your algorithm to ignore the beginning "www" why not optimize it a little more search across words.
6. No private browsing. - There, but!! What's the point if Google gets my cookie when I have chosen to browse in private! Why the hell did I turn on Private Browsing? To hide history in my browser but expose it to Google? Come on, guys! That's ridiculous.
7. 280 MB for just 5 tabs in windows is ridiculous. I mean, seriously, not even Intellij Idea requires so much memory.
8. Missing about:config or similar powerful preferences editor.
9. Plug-in support - Same problem as IE. But IE is at least popular enough to have the most essential plug-ins.
10. Clearing private data – Firefox beats everyone else.

1. Our department is going down in stature mainly because of poor management credited to one single person which most people reading this blog should be aware of already.
2. Interaction between students and industry is at a new low. SSK sir suggested that we, alumni, have regular interaction with students.

   

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Hello there. I'm Sankar 24/M/Chennai. You'll know more about me from my posts henceforth...