iPad Advantages?

iPad seems to be the next best thing after iPhone, but compared to iPhone,

• it’s got a bigger screen,
• great touch-screen technology,
• faster processor,
• more storage space,
• ambient light sensor,
• and few little details…
• Cool design,
• iPad Applications
• Classy,
• …

But as far as it goes with the details on Apple, there aren’t many advantages to iPad.

iPad, a laptop or a HUGE iPhone?

iPad is definitely not a laptop and neither a netbook, it’s 9.7 inches big screen, it gets close to 10 inches netbooks but the fact that it does not have a great storage space, nor a built-in webcam, nor a USB support moves the iPad far from the competition of all-in-one computers!

To me, iPad is just a HUGE iPhone!

iPad Disadvantages?

• You can’t extend the memory!
• You can’t connect any devices to it, apart from a computer (or a headset/music stand),
• It doesn’t have a webcam,
• Limited language support,
• Not Universal data connection cable (Apple exclusive, not an issue if you got an iPhone already)

What now?

So, after all this, the question is, why should I buy an iPad? What are the best purposes of the iPad? Can iPad replace my iPhone? Can iPad replace my laptop?

What to use iPad for?

• iPad is best for:
• Reading books,
• Being your calendar,
• Be your small TV,
• Watch movies on it,
• Photo screen,
• Basic game console.

Now, if you get one (or already got) everyone reading this would be happy if you share your ideas and points of view. My last question before ending this post is:

“What problem iPad solves in your life?”

Windows 7 is the latest Microsoft’s operating system. It’s something made out of Windows XP and Windows Vista. I found it a stable system and the visual effects are pretty cool. Something I do not really appreciate is the User Account Control which pops up everytime you make a system related operation. I disabled the UAC at the first startup.

Windows 7 was released first to computer manufacturers and leaked on the internet. Today, a retail version is available to everyone.

There are a lot of articles on the internet written about the features of Windows 7, its advantages and disadvantages. Lots of webhsites provide information on how to download and/or activate Windows 7. I would strongly recommend you buy a genuine version of Microsoft Windows 7, so you get all the benefits and avoid all problems. (Do not make/use illegal copies)

Windows 7 not booting?

Here in this article, I’m going to discuss a special case of error in which Microsoft Windows 7 does not boot. This specific case happens when you alter the hard disk’s Master Boot Record (MBR). This might usually happen if you tried to use an activator to activate Microsoft Windows 7 (which is an illegal procedure).

There is a simple way to fix this issue. What you need to do is to fix the boot record. This is done using the Windows 7 installation disk.

“Repair Windows 7″ steps:

1. Set your computer to boot up from the DVD (using BIOS setup, or pressing a specific key on the keyboard while your PC is getting on which lets you choose what to boot from.)
2. Have the DVD inserted when booting the computer,
3. Press any key to start from the DVD once prompted,
4. Wait few moments,
5. Choose language, keyboard layout and click next,
6. Wait few seconds,
7. Click on the “Repair your computer” link on the bottom of the appearing window,
8. It scans for installed operating systems, and tries to fix it if possible, so wait a few seconds,
9. Then (if unsuccessful), click finish,
10. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click on “Command Prompt”,
11. Locate your Windows drive by navigating the hard drive(s), let’s suppose your Windows is installed in “E:”
12. Type in these commands (and press ENTER after each command) :

    
    
    Bootsect /nt60 E: /force /mbr
    
    Bootrec /FixMbr
    
    Bootrec /FixBoot
    
    Bootrec /RebuildBcd
     

    
    

    (More info on BootRec http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392)

13. Remove the DVD and restart your computer.

Your Microsoft Windows should be alive again now!

Ref:

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showpost.php?p=138888&postcount=1228

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392/

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?p=87550#post87550

Y-Browser

Here’s another Symbian file browser which lets you browse all the system folders and drives on your phone. It comes with plugins to let you access your inbox and message folders for easy file transfers from your messages to your phone’s memory card. More details here.

Mobiola Web Camera

If you need to use your mobile phone as a wireless webcam, here’s Mobiola Web Camera, which is very reliable and supports bluetooth, wifi, and even USB cable connection, read more on this in Use you mobile phone as a wireless webcam.

… I’m actually writing next items, give me some time…

- Intro – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 -

Warning!

Installing the stated applications stated, and using them, might require a large amount of data transfer over the internet from your phone, be aware of the connection fees that may apply to you by your mobile operator.

Interactive Voice Call Manager

This application by Mobisophy provides you with tons of features and is one of the best and most reliable call manager applications available on the market. Use this application to record voice conversations (without beep), have a personalized answering machine, send busy tone when you don’t want to answer a call, reply with text message when you’re not available, mute the ringer on scheduled hours and so on…

Salling Clicker

Salling Clicker is the ultimate bluetooth remote control from your computer. With Salling Clicker you can use your phone as a remote control, more details and download…

Yahoo GO

Here’s the application for all your Yahoo needs, more details here.

Google Maps

Google maps is a must have application, it allows you to search local businesses and addresses, and can use your phone’s internal GPS for advanced maps features. Enjoy Google Latitude on your phone, computer or both to locate your friends and familly. More details here.

ActiveFile

ActiveFile is a free browser giving you access to all your files and directories on the phone. You can navigate through your sms messages and backup your sms. It has lots of advanced features and tools. I recommend this application for free and advanced file browsing.

- Intro – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 -

Warning!

Installing the stated applications stated, and using them, might require a large amount of data transfer over the internet from your phone, be aware of the connection fees that may apply to you by your mobile operator.

SFR Vodafone Live (French users)

Download and install the SFR Vodafone Live application, and run the application from your phone to get it updated with the lastest version.

MobiTubia

MobiTubia application is one of the best YouTube players available. You can search, watch and save YouTube mmovie clips on your phone. If for any reason MobiTubia is not the right choice for you, I recommend using either YouTube Player or emTube.

Nokia Photo Browser

This is a very easy to use and cool photo browsing application with stunning 3D effects from Nokia Beta Labs.

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Nokia Conversations

Nokia Conversations is an add-on application that allows you to follow your communication with contacts as streams of conversations, which it organizes, based on individual contacts. The application also makes it very easy to reply to received messages and continue an ongoing conversation with the contact.

Garmin Mobile XT (GPS Software)

This is the best GPS application available for Nokia N95 , E71, E73 and other Symbian OS phones. Detailed installation instructions is available here: Garmin Mobile XT on Nokia E71 and N95 (Internal GPS supported)

- Intro – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 -

Warning!

Installing the stated applications stated, and using them, might require a large amount of data transfer over the internet from your phone, be aware of the connection fees that may apply to you by your mobile operator.

Here’s “TOP N95 Applications, Symbian S60 Applications – Part 4“

Today, I’ve formatted, reset and updated my Nokia N95 8GB to the latest firmware available (v.31.0.015), and now, I’m installing the required applications on the phone.

You can install these applications on your phone and be ready to go too. Just note that I installed these applications on Nokia N95 8GB with Symbian OS even though other versions might be available.

Backup your Phone

Backup your phone! This is NECESSARY! You do not want to loose anything when trying new stuff on your phone. Details on how to backup your phone’s memory are available at http://www.gibni.com/update-your-nokia-phone

I recommend that you backup your memory card too.

Update your firmware (If needed and available)

It’s recommended to use the latest firmware available for your phone. Even though this is not essential, but it might help solving many bugs and errors in the system and the software. For updating your phone, read Update Your Nokia Phone.

Restore your backups

If you have formatted your memory card, or updated your firmware, you need to restore your backup(s) to get your personal stuff back on the phone.

You need to restore your backup data either from your computer or your phone’s mass memory. These backup data contain your Contacts, Settings, Notes, Messages …

Set your Settings

Get your GPRS, WAP, MMS and all other configurations from your mobile operator (usually, you can use your operator’s website to get more information)

- Intro – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 -

Warning!

Installing the stated applications stated, and using them, might require a large amount of data transfer over the internet from your phone, be aware of the connection fees that may apply to you by your mobile operator.

Having a bulky USB webcam with that annoying USB cable when you are on the go, with your laptop, is not always the best thing to happen to you. That’s when a wireless webcam comes in handy.

Talking about wireless webcams, if you’ve ever thought of it, and searched about, you know that they cost a minimum of 100 USD, and are most of the time bulky, need power supply, and are relying on a network.

Now, you can have a good wireless webcam almost for free if you’ve got a mobile phone with a camera and a bluetooth connection to your computer.

Mobiola.com offers great applications for portable devices. I’ll discuss Mobiola Web Camera in this post.

With Mobiola Web Camera, you can connect your mobile (camera) phone to your computer wirelessly and use the phone as a wireless webcam. Mobiola Web Camera, offers three methods for the connection: Bluetooth, Wifi and USB cable connection.

The installation is quite straight forward, once you get the software, you install the desktop software on your computer and you install the mobile client application, and proceed through the configuration via the wizard.

Once installed, run the client software on your phone and the desktop software on your computer, and connect your phone’s camera, with the method you prefer. Either it be bluetooth, wifi or USB cable, the software guides you through the connecting proccess.

After the connection is successful, you can use your webcam in you instant messaging software(s) like Yahoo Messenger, Skype, Windows Live and all other software that can video record from a webcam.

You might need to configure the video (webcam) options in your computer applications to use the Mobiola Webcam instead of other webcams (if available).

Some users may face error messages when running the Mobiola Web Camera desktop application. These errors include (but are not limited to)

- “cannot find import; DLL may be missing, corrupt, or wrong version
file “connAPI.DLL”, error 126

To resolve the connAPI.dll error which is related to Nokia Connectivity API, I suggest you install the latest Nokia PC Suite ( http://europe.nokia.com/A4144903 )

or download the required “connAPI.dll” file and install it on your computer. (http://www.dll-files.com/support/)

- msvcrtd.dll file missing.

Download and install the msvcrtd.dll on your computer.

Well, some may answer with “Yes! in French!” (or Portuguese, or Italian…), but, what I mean is in other languages like Arabic, Farsi (Persian), Urdu, Chinese…, languages which have characters other than the basic “A,B,C…”

Basically, when you write a blog post on your blog, it is stored in a database, and what characters that database supports, defines the characters you can use for writting your post.

Well discuss about the two general types of WordPress, the WordPress.com blogs and self-hosted WordPress installations.

WordPress.com blogs:

Typing other languages such as Farsi or Russian or Arabic should be supported by default and you should be able to write in almost any language without problem.

But if it’s not enabled on your account, according to Fatih Syuhud [1], you should:

- Login to your administration area on WordPress.com

- Go to “Settings” > “Reading”

- and set the encoding for “Pages and Feeds” to “UTF-8″

This procedure gives you the possibility of writing all kind of characters on your pages and posts and feeds.

Encoding for other specific character:

• Latin/Hebrew: ISO-8859-8
• Hebrew: windows-1255
• Latin/Arabic: ISO-8859-6
• Arabic: windows-1256

Self-hosted WordPress installations:

Remember that you take full responsability for the modifications and actions you do on your blogs/sites! Proceed at your own risk.

The contents of posts are stored in a table called wp_post (by default) inside your WordPress main database.

What defines the type of characters supported by a table, are the charset and collation of the table.

By default, all installations of WordPress (prior to 2.3.1), use the latin1_general_ci (or latin1_swedish_ci) encoding for their rows and tables.

To post articles in Arabic or Farsi (Persian) (or Urdu, Chinese, Russian…), you should change the encodings of specific tables and respective rows to utf8_general_ci.

Step One: Backup

You should first of all, backup your files and database! use Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan’s WP-DBManager plugin, or do it manually by following the procedure from this article: WordPress Backups.

Step Two: Convert

First Solution proposed by Fatih and Mukhlas Rowi [3] ( 70% success rate , maybe some data loss)  is:

- Open your WordPress database in phpMyAdmin (in cPanel),

- Click on the “wp_post” table and then click on “Operations”,

- Change the collation to “utf8_general_ci”,

- Save.

- Now, browse to the “wp_post” table, and check all rows with a collation attribute,

- Click on “Edit” bellow the list of selected rows,

- Change all collations to “utf8_general_ci”,

- Save.

That’ it.

Second solution: Use a plugin to do the conversion! I’ve tested the bbwp2UTF8 plugin and it works great (at least with WordPress 2.7.1), you can download it from my Downloads Page or from WordPress.org home page: bbwp2UTF8 Home page. ( 30% success rate, big data loss)

- Install the bbwp2UTF8 plugin by extracting its content in your plugins directory (usually /wp-content/plugins ),

- Go to the plugin’s page (link is below the “Plugins” section on the left side of the page in WordPress 2.7) .

- Check the desired tables to convert ( I recomment you convert all tables),

- Proceed with the steps to complete the conversion procedure.

That’s all! Your database and tables have been converted in the right manner, and you should not face any loss of data.

(In case you don’t like the plugin suggested above, or it doesn’t work for you, you may try: UTF-8 Database Converter by g30rg3_x ( I haven’t tried this out!) )

Geeks’ solution: Follow the guide at WordPress.org : Converting Database Character Sets

Now you can type UTF8 characters in WordPress and let your visitors type in UTF8 characters in the comments section.

Read More here:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Converting_Database_Character_Sets

http://www.haidongji.com/2008/11/11/convert-character-set-to-utf8-in-mysql/

http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/ultimate-solution-to-weird-utf-character-encoding-problem

http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php#Database_character_set

http://www.haidongji.com/2009/02/16/perl-script-to-convert-mysql-character-set-to-utf8/

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/utf-8-database-converter/installation/

Ref:

[1]- http://fatihsyuhud.com/2009/01/16/how-to-enable-arabic-letters-in-wordpress/

[2]- http://codex.wordpress.org/Converting_Database_Character_Sets

[3]- http://www.mukhlas-rowi.web.id/2008/11/11/mengatasi-problem-penulisan-huruf-arab-di-blog/

Now that Gibni is expanding and I get more and more visitors per day, I am worried about the speed and loading times, so I am trying to make pages load faster and faster.

I’ve been using caching techniques, CSS sprites and other optimization techniques some developed by myself and some mostly inspired from AskApache ; and managed to get the best possible loading speed.

Today, I feel it’s going to be the last day for MyBlogLog widget on Gibni. And within the next 12 hours, it will be removed. The main issue with this widget is that it makes many requests to Yahoo servers and this keeps client’s browser connections busy, so it slows the page and the user has to wait for this widget to be ready to have all the site’s functionalities.

If you are using this widget on your site, it might be slowing it down too. Visitors usually don’t like to wait more than few seconds for a website to appear and be fully functional. This will affect your site’s impressions.

This widget has a quite heavy javascript file, and uses a lot of separate image files.

On the other hand , it”s a good tool to build a “website/blog community”. At last, all depends on what matters the most to you?

1- Landscape Pro – Functionality included in new Firmware

2- RotateMe v2.0 – Functionality included in new Firmware

3- Handy Taskman 2.0 - Still Good!

4- Office Suite 4.5 - Still Good

5- Agile Messenger – Obsolete (Recieved minor bugs and application crashes reports)

6- Salling Clicker – Still Good

7- ALON MP3 Dictaphone – Updated version available

8- Nokia Maps 2 (Beta version) – Final Release included in Firmware or available to download from your phone.

9- Y-Browser (from Yucca Tools) – Still Good

10- NiiMee - Updated Version Available

And here goes the third list:

11- Python : This is a programming language, but even if you don’t know what that means, to run some applications you would need this, so you may want to install it anyway.

12- MobiTubia : With MobiTubia you can get YouTube.com on your mobile phone. Great menu, easy to navigate, you can save clips you like and you can even open FLV files directly if you know the URL. MobiTubia allows you to search on YouTube and also shows you updated lists of featured videos. It is free to download and install, here’s the link: http://www.mobitubia.com/

13- TomTom : There’s been a long time waiting until people discovered how to run TOMTOM on Symbian S6ç, specially with N95 internal GPS! Well the way is that you install an application which creates a virtual bluetooth gps and sends your GPS data on it, and then, you have to set TOMTOM to recieve data from the virtual GPS!

More info on this will be available in the next post on this topic. For now, you can find almost everything you need by Googling around.

14- Yahoo GO : It’s one of the most used of my applications. It allows you to check your Yahoo emails very easily and quickly, and allows to send, reply and forward emails too! You get access to a lot of other Yahoo Services from your phone and you can add user made widgets like Facebook Widget and so on…

Go here to get more informaion http://mobile.yahoo.com/go

15- Google Maps : You can get many of the Google Maps functionallity on your phone with this wonderful application. It helps you localize yourself on the map and know your location even if you don’t have a GPS!!

Here it is: www.google.com/gmm/

Warning!

Installing the latest applications stated above, and runnig them, will require a large amount of data transfer over the internet from your phone, be careful to know about the connection fees that may apply to you.

In the next post on this topic, I’ll try to provide you downloads of many of the stated applications.