It was this review for the opera 10 browser that made me think about it. Thanks to the proliferation of apis, desktop and mobile applications which have made my devices completely internet enabled devices, I now wonder what I would the browser for.

1. I check my email. But I can check that using IMAP on my mobile phone or via Thunderbird on my desktop.
2. Facebook. I get an email notification, that’s when I need to check the facebook page. I have the facebook app on my mobile, which does quite a decent job, and even Gravity supports fb. I don’t use seesmic, so on my laptop, I need to use the browser.
3. News that which twitter hasn’t delivered, I need a browser for. Of course I could use RSS feeds, but I find that most of the RSS feeds for newspapers pretty much crowd up my reader with several items which will remain unread forever. So I do need a browser, or I could just read the newspaper!
4. Twitter. Gravity on my phone and Destroy twitter on my laptop.
5. Reference. Most of my reference is when I don’t exactly have access to a laptop or don’t have time to get to it. Which means, my mobile search tool is what I use for reference. It still uses the default browser on my mobile though.
6. Google reader. Gravity does a decent job, but I still would like to see images and links on my mobile phone. Now this is something I definitely need a browser for.
7. Blogging. Thanks to posterous, all I now need to do is to send an email and I have a blog post.

My laptop is all about the browser. In fact, the browser is on the startup application list. So if I don’t need the browser, I don’t need the laptop?

After writing this post I realized that Gravity for S60 is becoming a really important application in my mobile arsenal.

I have tried to take an extreme view of certain sites in here. You must’ve noticed that I still need a browser for many tasks, but the point is that I’m soon beginning to see myself using my mobile more than my laptop, and my applications more than the browser.  Now if only my mobile phone had more screen real estate and a bigger keyboard.

Even though face recognition is not as popular as other biometric means of security such as fingerprint recognition, it still is a powerful and easy to use way to increase your security. Banana screen lets you harness the facial recognition to login to your PC without typing in your password.

Being used to a biometric fingerprint scanner on both my work and home laptops, I was disappointed when I started using my ASUS netbook. I had to think of an alternate way to login without typing in passwords. Searching online gave me results on only one application, Banana screen from Banana Security. But even lifehacker’s links weren’t alive since Banana security’s website had nothing on it, let alone a download link. After a bit more googling, I found a link to a Banana screen download at Softpedia.

Banana screen requires that you enter the windows password before the first time you use it. After installation, you create a profile of yourself called a model. The Model is a webcam capture of your face which allows you to login. I would have liked BS to completely replace the windows login screen, but BS only creates an alternate windows lock screen (Alt + L). Every time it fails to recognize (the first few times, since it needs to adapt the model to different lighting environments) you’d have to enter your password to login. And it updates the model. It learns!!

One tip would be to set the camera timeout to a low value on the settings. That way the camera doesn’t stay on for long. To login, press shift to activate the camera, and lo, access granted!! If you enjoyed the application, leave a comment..

Originally uploaded by hunyaga

The ultimate technology in fictional robotic technology, Gundam now hovers over the City of Tokyo. Gundam is a futuristic robotic warrior anime character who was immortalized by several TV series, movies, video games and anime series.
The Gundam is a huge metal suit which human pilots can wield from their cockpits inside them.

You can watch the video of the Giant robot below.

The latest version of your Firefox is now out! I’ve been using firefox ever since it was pheonix and I never had complaints. So I guess I wouldn’t come up with any right now!
Firefox 3.5 makes browsing faster. And adds a lot of minor/major functionality tweaks. Makes the awesome bar, even more awesome, and Introduces private browsing at last. But you could wait until all your extensions get upgraded. But most developers have already updated their extensions and you shouldn’t be surprised if most of your popular extensions would move up the upgrade ladder without much trouble.
Site rendering &performance has improved a lot. Read all about their performance upgrades here!
Go here for a complete list of top features.
Click on help > Check for updates on your firefox browser. Or use the link below.

Posted from a mobile phone:
This post is to commemorate the success of mobile royale, the completely mobile maintained blog. I came across his blog through one of my google reader entries. You can read his account here. All the more appreciable is his effort considering that it is hosted on a free domain name and attempts to keep it alive inspite of the tough times.

My passion for mobile tech has ensured that I read most blogs relevant to the subject..Is it possible to completely eliminate the use of computers? After all, what you have in your pocket is not one thing. It is manthis post comes from my mobile phone as well. from my trusty e66.

I use the Wordpress mobile plugin to make blogposts from my mobile phone. The plugin barely does its job if you ask me. It is good enough to provide a mobile interface for your blog but not for making blog entries from your mobile phone. Which is why, I had to complete this blog post from my PC, since the plugin kept moving the cursor around and didn’t even let me complete the blog post. Yeah! I said trusty e66 and a not so trustworthy plugin. Try out ready.mobi to check whether your blog is truly mobile web ready!

Using Chrome? Well..I do..since I find it to fast and light and runs as smooth as a browser should. I love my firefox too…but there are certain things which Chrome is good at. And security/privacy is not one of them….

Every install of Google Chrome comes with a unique ID which identifies the user. Removing it is not easy without help… After all..doesn’t Google already know enough about you through your gmails, indexed chats, your browsing and search history, what you buy, your maps, your photos (if you use Picasa) and they already have the earth mapped up to them…

UnChrome promises to do just that, to remove the unique ID (Just don’t forget to close chrome before u do it)…If not anything, atleast their Icon looks cool!

I almost forgot the last time I blogged about windows 7. The successor to the Vista series..Now, apparently Microsoft didn’t benefit much from Vista, so they decided to copy Macs a bit more and make a more macintosh like OS.

Here are the first look pics of the Windows 7 desktop:

Now thats terribly disappointing…They try to recreate a dock bar like appearance which belongs to the Mac, but fail miserably at doing that…It looks like they made the quick launch bigger…what a joke…The start menu has changed too, but I really am not too impressed with that…and btw clicking on these icons gives a content sensitive, application relevant menu…

There are several changes under the hood…but I am a man of the desktop and you can judge a book by its cover..But, considering this is just the first look and there are changes still to come, Microsoft still might be able to make a difference..After all, when the first preview of the longhorn was released, it was nothing like the Vista we know today…

Wish to make your PC look like windows 7, atleast you can get the wallpaper here

Read the full review of the Windows 7 first look here.

I got a taste for Bumptop after my friend Vijay recommended Ted. TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an invitation-only event where the world’s leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration. But, videos of all the presentations at the event are available for free viewing. And the content on Ted is quite remarkably polished and innovations presented at TED are nothing short of praiseworthy. 

Bumptop is the dream child of Anand Agarawala and was created at the University of Toronto. Currently the project is in private beta and is available for download only on an invite basis and I was lucky enough to get an invite. Here is the video from TED.

The Beta version does almost most of what is shown in the video and is quite smooth and polished for beta version.

You get a 3d room interface where you put your desktop icons and then you can just grow and shrink those icons using shortcut keys. The shortcuts are very easy learn and the interface is quite intuitive. But, I really think that touch interfaces would be the right arena to utilise bumptop to their fullest potential. The project makes complete use of the mouse and allows you to organize files on your desktop in best possible manner.

Bumptop is actually a boon for people who tend to have a lot of files on their desktop and need to organize (or disorganize) them. The ability to stack documents, form grids/groups, view images by shuffling through them and allowing you hang priority docs on the walls, combined with the real life physics engine makes Bumptop a shining example of what true Innovation we can bring about even with the current technology.

The collision detection system is really great and you would appreciate the way icons/others dangle when you hang them on the wall.

Bumptop shows that innovation need not always be about new technology, it can be about using existing technology to do new things in newer ways.

However, I did find that it ran faster on my slow XP machine with just 1GB of RAM than on my Vista machine with loads and loads of RAM + a Graphics card (Yeah, maybe I should turn anti aliasing off)

Many of my friends asked me to give them an invite to Bumptop, but its not possible for a user to invite others and the only way to get Bumptop is to sign up for their invite at their site. 

While I was waiting for the invite to come by, I did realize the existence of certain clones of Bumptop. One of them was Real Desktop. Real Desktop is quite a good product but the free version is extremely limited in what it offers and once you get an invite to Bumptop, you’ll not go back to Real Desktop (even if you had paid for it).

And before I forget! Here is what my desktop looks like now

My bumptop interface

Vista gives you two themes to select from, your Aero theme and your windows classic theme. But how long do you stay without getting bored? Get new themes, and install them, before that, you need to follow this tutorial.

More desktop customization, and my search for the free windows manager takes me to Styles XP. But, it is neither free nor is it available for Windows XP….So, my search continues until I find Code Gazer’s VistaGlazz. Vista Glazz lets me install third party themes, visual styles for Vista (and the best part is, it is free..)

Step 1:

Install VistaGlazz and run the program.

Now select the second icon (the one that looks like a shade card (the tick mark will be not be present until you run the program once. Follow the instructions and you are all ready to rock.

Step 2:

You can find vista themes all over the internet. I prefer deviantART for all my desktop customization needs. To illustrate, let us use the Leopard 1.0a theme by Masterhack.

Download the file by clicking on the links on the left of the page. Unzip the file after you have saved it. Copy all the files to the following folder on your hd:

C:\Windows\Resources\Themes

Click on the Leopard.theme and apply it. Done. Enjoy your new theme.

Installation of theme should make sure that you no longer need to use Objectbar as mentioned in my earlier post which lets you make your desktop look like a Mac.

This is how my screen looks like now.

Top secret Geek stuff (what, the vistaglazz app does)

It replaces three files on your hard drive (inside the windows/system32 folder) This enables you to add new themes other than the default themes which Microsoft has provided you with. These files are available for your version of windows at Within Windows

IMPORTANT:

• The theme file is a rar format (a compression format similar to zip) . You will need winrar to unrar it (thanks to Sabrina for reminding me that I need to provide a link)
• This tutorial is only for Windows Vista. For Windows XP, I guess you don’t have an option but to buy Styles XP.
• Do not try this tutorial if you have Vista Home Basic Version.
• In case you have already installed Service pack for Windows Vista, download VistaGlazz from here (instead of the link at the beginning of the post)
• There is a chance that things could go wrong and your computer could explode, implode, crash or become a black hole after trying out my tutorial. So, do it only if you know what you are doing and you are willing to take a risk.
• The author, website or anyone in this universe is not responsible for your actions after reading this tutorial, in fact, they weren’t even responsible for your actions before you read this.