The H9 has a build you can't complain about, with its comfortably deep handgrip and a good size of 110 x 83 x 86 mm. Of course you have the option to increase the macho element a bit by adding the tremendously oversized and daunting hood attachment.The back of the H9 has a very annoying navigation system that keeps switching between the jog dial and the d-pad. Makes me really wonder how the engineers found this to be the right navigation method for a camera like this one. Evolve people, evolve! 
he camera also comes with an excellent remote control unit that allows you to release the shutter without physical contact. It's a great thing to have, and opens up a whole range of shots you can easily click without running back and forth for setting self-timers.When it comes to features the Cyber-shot H9 is a complete photographer's camera. Brilliant features enable easy shooting of all kinds of trick shots, making the camera usable under all conditions without the need to invest in a bunch of accessories.With the price on the street falling to Rs 23,800 (with camera bag and 1GB Memory Stick Pro Duo), the Sony Cyber-shot H9 is an excellent companion in all your journeys.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H9
Monday, January 7, 2008
Corsair Releases 32GB Flash Drive
Corsair has announced two new flash drives that boast incredible capacities of 16GB and 32GB: the all-rubber Flash Voyager and the aluminum, water-proof Flash Survivor.
Both these rugged devices are designed to safely store large amounts of data for users with active or outdoor lifestyles. These drives are bootable, so users can store full versions of operating systems and applications in order to recreate software environments and troubleshoot system problems.
Coming Soon: Batteries that Last and Last
If you’ve been complaining about your cellphone dying on you (or for that matter your laptop, portable gaming console, whatever), keep your shirt on, for a solution is at hand. Geniuses at Stanford have developed a technology that will allow your normal Lithium-Ion battery to last up to ten times its normal lifespan.
Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford, is the team leader in this endeavor. If you're wondering how a Lithium-Ion battery works, here’s a quick lowdown: Lithium-Ion batteries store ions on their anodes. The electrical storage capacity of a Li-ion battery is limited by how much lithium can be held in the battery's anode, which is typically made of carbon. What Cui has done is to replace carbon with silicon (don’t get the wrong idea, not the Pam Anderson kind; we mean the microchip kind).
Silicon can hold more charge than carbon. The problem is that silicon expands as it absorbs positively charged lithium atoms during charging, and shrinks during use (such as when playing your iPod) as the lithium is drawn out of the silicon. This causes immense wear and tear on the battery and can lead to an early burnout. You will no doubt remember the BL-5C battery scare, where this particular model expanded so much that it tended to pop out of the battery compartment. I’m sure we don’t want that experience again – but neither do we want to compromise on the longevity of our batteries.
The new batteries that Cui is aiming to develop will have Lithium stored in a cluster of silicon nanowires. These wires have the capacity to expand up to four times their normal size when they absorb the Lithium and each of these nanowires has a diameter one-thousandth the thickness of a sheet of paper. I can’t even imagine anything that small. The good thing is that with a system fashioned in this manner the silicon will have a much longer life.
Image Source: Cellphone Digest
"It’s not a small improvement; it’s a revolutionary development," claims Yi Cui, and I couldn’t agree more. Who wouldn’t want a battery that can give you an average of 30-40 hours of running time on a single charge? Even though Cui has filed a patent for this remarkable technology, it may be a while before you can have it in your mobile phone. Methinks it’s definitely worth the wait.
It may not be cheap, but as the guys from IntoMobile so eloquently put it: "Who wouldn’t pay a couple more bucks for a tenfold increase in battery life?" I know I would.
Information sourced from Nanotechwire.
Nikon D40X
The D40X is already a big hit with photography students and enthusiasts. With its budget pricing, straightforward design, and reliable performance, this is one of the best options to start your photography career with. Aimed as an upgrade to the earlier Nikon D40, Nikon pumped up the camera resolution to 10.2 megapixels and pushed in the same image processing engine that does duty in the D80 and the D200. The three-point auto focus is not the most cutting-edge, but it's still a great camera to own, as can be seen from our review here. The decision to go with AF-I or AF-S lenses may increase the long-term costs (and piss off old-school photographers in the process), so keep that in mind before you rush out waving your credit card.
Dimensions 124 x 94 x 64 mm
Weight 522g
Type D-SLR
Connectivity USB/Composite
Storage SD card
Battery Type Li-Ion
LCD Type 2.5", 230,000 px
View Finder Optical
Sensor CCD
Effective Pixels 10.2 Megapixels
ISO Sensitivity Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 (3200 with boost)
Optical Zoom N/A
Digital Zoom N/A
Shutter Speed 30-1/4000 sec + Bulb
Aperture N/A
Format RAW, JPEG, RAW+JPEG
Scene Modes Children, Close-up, Landscape, Sports mode, Portrait mode, Night portrait
White Balance 6 positions, plus manual
Flash Front curtain, Rear curtain, Red-Eye, Slow, Red-Eye Slow
Self Timer 2-20 secs
Video Resolution N/A
Video Format N/A
Sound N/A
Nokia N82
The N82 has been making waves ever since it poked its head out from under the developmental stage drawing board. As I said before, I was quite eager to test it. Now I have it – and I’m glad I got the chance. Here’s what I can tell you.
Form Factor
The N82 is a bit bulky for some strange reason, but thankfully it weighs just 114g. On one side you’ll find the Micro USB port, a slot for your MicroSD memory card, and the charging port lower down. The other side has the volume / zoom keys, a dedicated key to take you to the gallery and just below that is the camera’s shutter release key. On the top you’ll find the 3.5mm (thank you, Nokia!) earphone / TV-out socket and the power key.
I’m not entirely impressed with the overall design of the device. But I’ll say this, it’s simplistic and the key placement is perfect. Since it’s 3G-capable it has a secondary VGA camera in the front next to the light sensor and above the brilliant 2.4 inch display. The 5 way nav-pad could have had the N81’s touch sensitivity but doesn’t – not that that’s a problem AT ALL! The 5 megapixel auto-focus camera with the Xenon flash are located at the rear and can be activated by simply sliding down the lens cover.
Features and Performance
The main feature in the N82 is the auto rotation of the display. It’s not as smooth as in the iPhone but it’s a good feature to have, especially while surfing the net and you quickly need to adjust the screen to type something in.
Audio and Video
The music player is great. I have no complaints, except that it’s a pain creating playlists from the PC Suite software. But the presets and the manually adjustable EQ are definitely a plus point. Since the N82 can be used with any set of earphones or headphones and also supports Bluetooth with A2DP profile, you can use a Stereo Bluetooth headset like the I-Tech Bluepro for a great music experience. Radio lovers rejoice, for the N82 also has an integrated stereo FM radio.
Worst Phones of 2007 - LG KG920
Surprised to see this phone in the list? Surely, this phone offers an excellent camera but as a mobile phone, it’s far from the best. Firstly, the phone sports a distinct digicam look and while the swivel camera/keypad is uber-cool, the bad key placements and the bulky look and feel combined with a not so engaging user interface, makes this feature-packed camera phone a downer.
MRP: Rs 27,500
Worst Phones of 2007 - Motorola KRZR K1
This was supposed to be an upgraded RAZR. However, it didn't quite match up. Firstly, it didn't sport the Razr's oomphy slimness. In comparison to the RAZR, the KRZR K1 is chubby and taller. The only improvement this one had is that it is not as wide as the RAZR. Feature-wise, it wasn’t too bad, but it didn’t offer anything spectacular either. So while this may not be the worst, it loses extra points for not living up to the expectations.
MRP: Rs 10,304
Worst Phones of 2007 - i-mate JAQ3
i-mate JAQ3
The JAQ3, no doubt, offers a number of improvements over its predecessors but is not up to the standards of what is expected from a Windows Mobile smartphone. Firstly, the call quality is quite poor. Secondly, the mobile applications are a sluggish access. Video playback is not even worth the mention and it does not offer 3G. All in all, not worth spending money on.
Worst Phones of 2007 - Nokia Prism
Nokia Prism
This was touted as the competitor of the LG Shine. Not even close – which is why this phone finds its way into this list. The half-hearted glossy look, plasticky keys that completely take away from the criss-cross design, and its clashy dirty pink and blue piping running along the side of the phone, make it the complete opposite of a good-looking phone.
Worst Phones of 2007 - Nokia 6300
Nokia 6300
Nokia couldn't stop bragging about the slimness and they weren’t wrong. The 6300 is as slim as it can get. While it scores on design, it’s a big thumbs down performance-wise. The biggest letdown is its battery, which considering it’s from the Nokia umbrella (renowned for its long battery life) makes it an even bigger disappointment. Also, the multimedia is nothing worth mentioning – an un-engaging music player and a not so sharp two-megapixel camera.
Microsoft's Ultimate Gaming Mouse SideWinder
Microsoft has come up with a revolutionary gaming mouse "SideWinder" designed with unique shape and button positions for fast, comfortable, precise gaming action to provide you with unprecedented performance, handling, and adaptability. It supports extremely high resolutions of 2000 dpi and you can switch between DPI 400, 800, and 2000—or you can customize settings using special software.
It also comes with first ever LCD display on any mouse which displays DPI settings and macro recordings to reduce on-screen interference. It also lets you customize your main gaming buttons according to your preference.
Select your preference of mouse weight with the included 4 weights that gives you the choice to adjust your mouse weight anywhere between 5 and 30 grams in 5 gram increments. One-touch of quick launch button takes you to Games Explorer in Windows Vista that lets you easily access your games on your PC
Logitech V470 Bluetooth Laser Mouse
For those of you waiting for wireless laser mouse, perhaps you should turn your eyes to the Logitech V470; the shiny blue mouse. The V470 mouse features Bluetooth 1.2, thus conserving valuable desktop space and has a side-to-side scrolling plus zoom (allows you to instantly zoom in and out, or scroll horizontally or vertically). Logitech claims the battery will last up to 4 months and it comes in high-gloss blue or white.
Comfort and convenience
Bluetooth® wireless technology: Enjoy cable-free connection from up to 30 feet.
Protective pouch: Secures and protects your mouse during travel.
Light, durable design: More comfortable than a touch pad. Take it anywhere.
Battery life indicator: Eliminates surprises. And an on/off switch extends battery life.
Samsung Armani Phone
Samsung and Armani have just announced the deal according to which Armani will design phones for Samsung. The duo have officially unveiled Samsung Armani phone in Milan yesterday. The 10.5 mm wide, credit card sized luxury phone will be on sale in Europe from November.
Both parties expect it to "quickly achieve an iconic status." The Samsung Armani phone is cute and small and would attract customers who need a simple and stylish device.
Samsung and Armani are also planning to release an LCD TV in January.
Armani Samsung Phone Specifications:
• 2.6in 320x240 display Touch-screen
• Music Player Supporting H263, AAC+/MP3/WMA, MPEG4, AAC, e-AAC+ formats
• 3MP Camera
• Full Internet Browser
• Video formats: WMA and Mpeg4
• Bluetooth
• MicroSD Memory slot
• 87.5 x 54.5 x 10.5mm, 85g
The phone is expected to be priced at $900.
Subvert and Profit
You must have heard of Subvert and Profit. If you haven't ... let me fill in ...
Subvert and Profit runs an ever-expanding black market for votes on social media sites. We are simultaneously the easiest way to make money online and the cheapest form of advertising in the web 2.0 sphere. We are the crowdhackers, and we are very good at what we do.
I've been trying it out for a few months, I got excited when I got my got first payment of 10$.
And, I must say, what you have do is really very easy.
I got my second payment (10$) today.
They give you links to Digg and Stumble. You Digg & Stumble.
If you don't know what Digg and Stumble are, here ...follow me on...
Digg is a community-based popularity website with an emphasis on technology and science articles, recently expanding to a broader range of categories such as politics and entertainment. It combines social bookmarking, blogging, and syndication with a form of non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control.
StumbleUpon is a web browser plugin that allows its users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and news articles. These webpages are typically presented when the user -- known within the community as a Stumbler -- clicks the "Stumble!" button on the browser's toolbar. StumbleUpon chooses which new webpage to display based on the user's ratings of previous pages, ratings by his/her friends, and by the ratings of users with similar interests. i.e. it is a recommendation system which uses peer and social networkingblogging built in as well. Users can rate, or choose not to rate, any webpage with a thumbs up or thumbs down, and clicking the Stumble button resembles "channel-surfing" the web. Toolbar versions exist for Firefox, Mozilla Application Suite and Internet Explorer, but also works with some independent Mozilla-based browsers.
Here are the steps involved to make money.
- Have accounts at both Digg (here) & StumbleUpon (here).
- Have a Paypal ( here) account, to receive the payments.
- Create an account at Subvert and Profit (here). This as would know is a referral link, you can remove the link and go straight to the original page to create your account, but you would lose nothing by being my referral, infact, I'd answer any query of yours for free (Joke. I'll be for you, for any of your doubts, just reply to this mail or contact me @ tuxbug@gmail.com.)
- Submit your Stumble & Digg ids at S&P to get them activated.
- S&P gives you a set of links to digg or stumble or both everyday. You digg or stumble as required.
- That's it, ... wait for your money.
Just takes 5 mins. of your day, everyday.
Easy job. Easy money.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Hitachi's 500GB HDD
The ever-expanding 2.5-inch HDD market is all set to get another boost with the launch of Hitachi’s two new large capacity laptop drives offering 400GB and 500GB of storage space. These new drives boast the storage capacity of a desktop with the portability and convenience of a notebook, and are therefore well-suited for use in 'slim' desktops.
The Travelstar 5K500, available in 400GB or 500GB variants, is the fourth-generation Hitachi mobile drive to use PMR. The half-terabyte drives can store up to 500 hours of digital video, 178 feature length movies, 250 games or 125,000 four-minute songs. The drives are available with a 3.0Gb/s Serial ATA (SATA) interface. Hitachi will also offer an enhanced-availability (EA) version, called the Travelstar E5K500 – also available in 400GB and 500GB capacities – designed for applications requiring 24x7 operation in lower transaction environments, such as blade servers, network routers, point-of-sale terminals, and video surveillance systems.
"The Travelstar 5K500 was designed to address some important trends taking place in today’s notebook computing market," said Larry Swezey, director, Consumer and Commercial HDD, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "Consumers tend to think of their notebooks as less of a pure technology tool and more of a mobile entertainment device for taking large libraries of movies, music, games and pictures on the go. As a result, notebooks are now starting to ship with wide, high definition screens and large, high-quality speakers for playing digital audio and video. Hitachi’s new Travelstar 5K500 responds to these dynamics with the features, design innovations and technologies that enhance the overall entertainment experience."
"PC form factors are changing dramatically as PCs shift from productivity tools to lifestyle devices," said Richard Shim, Personal Computing Research Manager at IDC. "The most notable change is the emergence of notebooks as the dominant PC form factor over desktops. At the same time, desktops are slimming down without sacrificing, and in some cases improving, performance. One key component enabling this is the less-is-more concept in PCs is hard drives, which continue to increase in capacity while maintaining their relatively diminutive sizes."
The Travelstar 5K500 will ship worldwide in February, while the E5K500 is expected to be available later this year.
5 Tips to boost your Adsense Revenue
Google AdSense program has made it easier for webmasters to make money through a website. Webmasters who run an AdSense campaign will display Google's contextual Ads relevant to the content of their sites and thus encouraging visitors to click the ads and earn money for each ad click.
However you will earn very little AdSense revenue if you don't know how to optimize your AdSense ads on your website. Here are some tips to increase your AdSense earning:
1. Focus on one Adsense ad format. The Large Rectangle (336X280) ad format seems to work better than other ad formats because this format tends to result in higher click through rates (CTR). Another reason is that the ads will look like normal web links that visitors use to click on them. It doesn't matter whether the visitors know that they are clicking AdSense ads or not, as long as there are clicking, you earn AdSense commission.
2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Select a color that matches your website's background. If your site's background is white both, the color of ad border and background should set to be white too. Also the color of the ad title should be similar to coloe of the links in your website. This is to make your AdSense ads look like it is part of the web pages. Again, this will boost AdSense CTR.
3. Don't place your AdSense ads at the bottom of your webpages because it is proven to be less effective. Displaying your AdSense ads at the bottom is like hiding your AdSense and thus leads to low CTR and AdSense revenue. Try to put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between AdSense locations can make when you see your earnings.
4. Try to place your AdSense ads near rich content as visitors main focus usually are your content. There are several ways to insert AdSense ads into your content and one of the ways is place your AdSense just after the end of your content.
5. Try to automate the insertion of your AdSense code into the webpages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your AdSense code in a text file, name it as “AdSense textâ€, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then use SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.
These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. There are other ways to optimize your AdSense that produce high CTR also. You can learn more tricks by reading in AdSense and webmaster forums.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Nokia N95
Equipped with an amazing 5 megapixel camera, music player, large QVGA display, built in speakers, support for HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), integrated GPS plus 8GB of internal memory. The Nokia N95 8GB truly is a remarkable device. And it's only slightly heavier than it's counterpart the N95 and also has a larger display.
The Nokia N95 is a 3G smartphone built on the Series 60 Symbian interface (version 3.1). Let's be clear from the start that these types of phone are slow, have a tendency to freeze or shut down, and have unstable firmware. They are also large and heavy. At 120g the N95 is of average weight for a smartphone, but is pretty bulky, despite its slide design. At least you won't forget which pocket it's in! When closed, you can access menu functions using the 5-way navigation key and the associated control keys. The N95 also has several other dedicated media keys that can be used as shortcuts to media functions. This is a good feature if you like to have lots of buttons to push, but sometimes they just end up getting in the way. When you slide the phone open you have access to a full keypad, but like the Nokia N73, the buttons are too small to be really comfortable. The user interface will be familiar to anyone who has used a Series 60 phone before: it's not as simple to use as the Nokias of olden days, but you wouldn't expect such a high powered device to be, would you? So, without getting into the functionality of the phone yet, we'd give it 2 stars for usability.
The Camera boasts a plethora of features including auto focus, red-eye reduction, flash, self timer, Carl Zeiss Optics and there's also a 20x zoom plus resolution of 2592 x 1944. Supported image formats are JPEG and Exif. At this number of pixels, you can (theoretically) match anything that a dedicated digital camera is capable of - provided that you have the optics to back up the megapixel grunt. Nokia have been developing their camera capabilities quite impressively recently using Carl-Zeiss optics and Tessar lenses - the Nokia N93 being the best camera phone before the release of the N95. The N95 lacks the optical zoom of the N93, but retains the autofocus, flash and lens.
Take superb quality photos and video clips with your Nokia N95 8GB, share them with your friends and family or for the big screen experience why not show them on a compatible TV with the TV output feature.
The other most interesting feature of the N95 is the built-in GPS navigation system. The N95 actually has a GPS system built into the phone, that communicates directly with the satellite. This enables you to use the phone to track your position either on foot or in-car. You'll need to buy a license to use the Nokia mapping system though. Now, whilst this is a nice feature to have in a phone, we've got to say that it doesn't match the quality of a dedicated satnav system like the TomTom One. The sensitivity and reliability of the GPS receiver is not as good, and neither is the user-friendliness of the system.
If you're after music on the go then you wont be disappointed with the Nokia N95 8GB. It supports a host of audio formats: AAC, AAC+, eAAC, eAAC+, MP3, MP4, M4A, WMA, AMR (NB-AMR), MIDI Tones (poly 64), RealAudio 7,8,10, SP-MIDI, True tones (WB-AMR), plus audio streaming and has an audio recorder.
These are the most groundbreaking features, but the N95 has almost everything else you could think of including in a phone too: a music player with support for all common music formats, a stereo FM radio, integrated handsfree speaker, speaker independent voice dialling, talking ringtones, HSDPA (the fast data transfer technology dubbed "3.5G") and lots more! When it comes to connectivity, the N95 is the best-connected device in town, with support for Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, Infrared, Wireless LAN, TV-Out and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Its memory is also more than adequate with up to 160 Mbytes of onboard memory and support for microSD memory cards (up to 8 Gbytes). Battery life is OK - when you consider how much work has to be done to power this beast, you can't really set your expectations too high.
In a nutshell: The most technically advanced smartphone ever! Complete with GPS satellite navigation, a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, 3G video calling, and every other gadget you can think of! On the downside it's large, and like most smartphones does not have 100% robust firmware. If you've used another Nseries phone or Symbian phone before, then you'll love it! Available in 4GB and 8GB versions; in silver and black.
You'll never get lost again once you own a Nokia N95 8GB thanks to the integrated GPS and map application!
