Google documents does pretty much the same thing. But with Type.me, its a lot more minimalistic. Its for those quick brainstorming sessions and the instant document editing that you and your friends need. Type.me even lets you import your existing documents so you can work on them.

All your changes are saved on a timeline which lets you go back to any version of the document. Every edit is color coded for easy identification. Real time document editing with friends was never this simple!

TypeWith.Me

I’ve liked Amplify for being easy to use and for being based on my favourite WP engine. So for the first time, here is an autopost to all my services from my Amplify page. But is Amplify good enough to take over my posterous? I’m not so sure about that. Just like MeeGo, amplify needs to spend sometime smoothening out a few bits until it replaces my main “easy-to-post” blog engine!

I have used a lot of desktop enhancements, program launchers, docks and I can tell you that Launchy is one of the least intrusive and one of the most useful application launcher. Launchy is a keyboard friendly program(or whatever’s on your PC) launcher. Type in the first few letters of whatever you want to start and Launchy would provide you with a list of matches for those keys. The best thing is, you’ve got an integrated calculator (type and you get the result) as well as integrated search. Plus you can type in all those URLs directly to load them on your default browser (It would’ve been better if Launchy allowed you to set your browser preferences, but then that’s not too much of a problem) If you’ve got Chrome as your default browser then it works super fast. But if you’re like me and prefer to use Firefox, look for the solution below.

Firefox

Firefox. Now I guess I don’t need to even explain this. Most of my stuff is online, just like everyone’s and my browser is my window to the internet. Now if I don’t have the best browser around, then I’m probably missing something. Add extensions and you’ve got one customized superpowered supercharged superbrowser!

Chrome

Now that doesn’t mean I don’t like Chrome. I find Chrome to be perfect in many aspects, especially when it comes to loading time, minimalist interface and the way in which it really merges into the internet. It makes you feel as if there is no browser, its just the internet. Plus, the background updates (I’m going to update to the latest version anyway, so its better if the application does that for me) Chrome is also an awesome companion to Launchy especially when you create applications for web services. You can use launcy to load your Chrome gmail app by just typing in “gm”

Update: I’ve recently shifted to Chrome and I find that it’s more suited to my web browsing tasks than firefox.

Destroy twitter

I’m on twitter and you can follow me here. Everyone has their own favorite when it comes to twitter client and it just happens that I take a fancy to using Destroy twitter. I tend to use the twitterfox extension for Firefox as well, but then DT has to be my favourite AIR app.

Tray it

Tray it is a tiny piece of software which lets you minimize applications to the tray. They run in the background, as simple as that. I like doing that with many of my applications and you can find Firefox, DT and my mail client on my system tray. Having firefox on my tray lets me set up Firefox as my default browser and use Launchy to run searches/URLs real quick (since Firefox is always running in the background). Plus, if you’re a Firefox fan, there’s no way you would want to close the application anyway. Just minimize and send it to the tray.

Rocketdock

A dock is something which I have installed just because it looks good. The best part about a Mac is now available for a windows PC as well. Of the many dock applications, my favourite has been the Rocket dock suite. Easy to use and as light as it comes.

A few months ago I came across this bot which lets you tweet from the comfort of your gtalk (and delivers your tweets/mentions/DMs to your IM program as well.) You can use text based commands from within your IM program to pretty much use every feature possible on twitter, including following and unfollowing other people.

Sign up for twitalker , Login to Twitter and authorize the application, add the twitalker bot to your google chat friends and you’re good to go!

Technology is a topic worthy of being blogged about. But then, I think its not really a great idea to constrain a blog to a single topic unless of course I’m aiming at a targeted audience, Ad- based revenue or intend to become a master tech-blogger! Here are four reasons why I don’t think I shouldn’t be blogging about technology alone.

This decision to open up thunderror.com to topics other than technology should result in

1. Newer categories. For now, I have introduced 2 more categories > General & Humor. You will find them on the categories menu on the main page.
2. A wider audience. Technology blogs are everywhere. Every geek is out there creating a technology blog, but what about someone who doesn’t care for the most latest gadget or the latest product from Google?
3. This blog getting updated more frequently. I’m not really too sure of this, but well if this doesn’t work; I guess nothing will.
4. The blog feels a bit more human. I intend to smoothen out the steel cold technology edge that it has had all this time.
5. I still intend to write about technology out here. But then those posts would be
6. A lot more tags on my tag cloud!

I’m still not sure if I intend to use my posterous to autopost to this blog. But I guess I’ll make sure this post is on it for sure.

Google Reader has a user friendly interface which even makes desktop aggregators feel pale in comparison. But on a netbook, things are different, space is a premium, and the default interface has a lot of space left unused. The Sublime reader extension for chrome changes all that.  I’ve tried out a lot of minimal reader extensions and fe?w of them have been more impressive than Sublime. But I love the dark minimalistic interface. There are still a few rough edges. You still cannot read all items, your starred or shared items. But it makes up for all that with that stunning interface. Check it out below in action

Download Sublime Reader for Chrome.

Wubi is just like any other windows installer, except that it installs a complete OS on your HDD, no partitioning, no geek stuff required. The best part is, when you are done with playing around with your Linux OS, you can uninstall it from your windows menu just like any other application. I always try out my Linux on USB drives fearing compatibility issues. The last time I tried it out, it was my wifi card.

Wubi’s a small executable which should take about a minute or two to download. Run, select the OS you want to install, enter a username/password for your new OS’ local account and Wubi begins downloading the OS.

I set it up to install Ubuntu Netbook Edition and then went to bed. When I got up in the morning, it was ready and waiting for a reboot. One reboot later, UNR starts installing and partitioning. Select Ubuntu at the boot menu and I had it booting up in a few seconds. Enter the username/pw and you are good to go.

The last time I installed UNR, I had a few issues getting it to recognize my wifi connection. But this time, no hassles at all. And the best thing about installing on the HDD is persistence by default! Although it shouldn’t be too hard to get persistence on your USB drive as well.  After using Wubi to install UNR, uninstalling an OS is as easy as uninstalling a program.

Let’s start from the beginning, and that’s when I started waiting for my device, checking the DHL transit status page every hour. This C&H strip pretty much sums up what I was going through.

And at last, after numerous calls to the DHL, I was given possession(temporarily) of the N900.

I switched on the device and it welcomes me with the familiar Nokia animation. After some initial settings, the device quickly loads the device’s 4 customizable homescreens. The animations are quick and interesting and the whole interface takes seconds to get used to. Once you get the hang of clicking around empty spaces to exit any screen, that is. Multitasking works like a dream and its perhaps even better than on computers. The keyboard is really finger friendly and after a few hours, it really makes me forget that I am on a handheld device. I never had any complaints with the N97′s keyboard so I guess I get used to keyboards fast. The touch screen despite being resistive, is responsive and works like a charm. The default Micro browser displays websites at desktop quality and I would go so far to say that it is probably the best browser on any mobile device. The Fennec build wasn’t too fast and I found it a bit buggy so I decided to stick to the default browser. The permanent landscape mode (with the exception of when it gets into the phone mode) takes a bit getting used to, but after the N97, that wasn’t one bit hard.

It’s so hard not to review a device when writing about a gadget. I guess I got carried away so you can ignore the boring review above. I should start of by clarifying that even though WOM stands for world of mobiles, the N900 is not a mobile phone. It is an internet tablet, with a mobile phone feature. This means that I wouldn’t really miss the SIM card inside the N900, but then I’d need it for mobile internet access anyway. The device has an inbuilt chat client which integrates all your IM contacts to your phonebook (Here we go again, I am try hard not to review the N900) So, getting back to what I was talking about. The N900 is really good at being a handheld computer which runs Linux, because that’s what it is. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t good at handling calls or messages. But I found that the symbian platform of course makes for a better phone any day. But I’m really confused on this, I think threaded messaging is the way sms has to go. And, the N900 does that wonderfully well. Call clarity and reception are at par with the Symbian cousin as well. I was really confused about the N900, because it was a technological marvel, but yet it wasn’t really there. It fell short of perfection somewhere on the way. Now if only it could do this.

One more reason where the N900 loses out, are applications. Symbian’s been around for long. And the iPhone’s got a good(and definitely better) app store. A device is only as powerful as the applications which exploit it. True, the N900 has the power of the command line and is quite a geek friendly phone. It does an awesome job of integrating the IM client into the phone and witter’s a good app for twitter, but that’s about it. Gravity is an application that really reveals how powerful the symbian platform really is. If every Symbian app were that good, then  symbian would be the no.1 OS in the world. I really loved this battery application on the N900 which would display how I ran out of charge on my device. The N900 is built on the linux platform which provides it with truly extensive list of applications, and the application manager is truly a pleasure to work with.  But there is something about the applications that I, as a symbian lover miss. The N900 never made me “want” to install applications on it, something which I would do everyday with the Symbian. If I could, I would install every application every made for Symbian on my mobile phones. So the problem must be my love for the aging platform and also that the Maemo felt very amateur when it came to apps. Maybe I’m so used to signing applications and going through all those messy screens of installation that I find N900 a bit too smooth for comfort.

The internet browser, the quick snappy animations and responsive screen must be reasons why I should’ve loved the N900. But then, the internet browser is completely useless in India where we still don’t have 3G. There I was forced to use it over wifi, with great results. Over EDGE, the N900 bores you to death making you wait for the true internet to be delivered. The snappy animations. awesome interface and responsive touch screen all are reasons why I love the N900 still. I’m glad I didn’t really make this post right away and procrastinated a lot. Because, now I can link to this post as to why I really still love the symbian platform.

But the main reason I gave up on the N900 was its bulk. I found that the N900 was almost as bulky as the N95, if not more. I found it really a bit too bulky for my pockets after the N97. Maybe its because I don’t really carry even a bag around with me.

Links to “real” N900 reviews:

Joshua Wong considers the N900 as his Netbook replacement. Now this is something I can relate to, considering the N900 is more of an internet tablet than a mobile phone.

One authoritative review on the N900 is from @shivaranjan

Another one has to be the iPhone vs. N900 battle at Techpinas

This is a post for all those people who really don’t need an iPad, or atleast think so. They always say that a product so good that it can develop a need, is sure to be successful.

I really don’t sit at my desk and use my computer anymore. Instead I take the laptop around or my mobile phone’s always around for me to be online 24×7.

I look at the iPad to replace internet access on my mobile phone at home, and on my netbook at home. There are times when I don’t want to boot up my computer just to search for something on Google.  Of course, I use the hibernate mode to minimize time taken to get to my desktop on my netbook, But its still not fast enough when I want to search on wikipedia for a movie I’m watching, or for a book I’m reading or a game I might be playing. Or I just wanted to check that mail I had been waiting for. A Technology so sufficiently disguised that you don’t realize that you are using it. An iPad would fit the bill perfectly. I just pick it up, search for what I was looking for and put it down. An iPad creates/extends the market for tablet devices. Because, if Apple sells something, they create a market for it. Even if noone needs it in the first place.

Why should I get a iPad instead of a  tablet PC?

An iPad is much more closer to a mobile phone than a computer in many ways. By not supporting multitasking,  the iPad actually lets you be more productive and focused on the task at hand. The App store is a big enough reason by itself for wanting to get the iPad. Any device is only powerful as the application that runs on it and you have a huge library of powerful apps at your disposal with the iPad. It is true that other tablet PCs have OSes which actually support millions of applications. These applications are more suited to your computer, not for a mobile phone.

Does an iPad replace the mobile phone?

Its not really replacing your mobile phone. But it’s just replacing your mobile phone at home as an internet device, a gaming device, an email client, a YouTube viewer and lots more. One, its got a big screen which is meant to let you do all without squinting at the tiny screen, or scrolling around for 10 minutes for every 5 lines that you read. The iPad might not let you make phone calls or type out entire documents or work on long excel sheets at work.

Why should it replace your laptop/PC?

The iPad is meant to be used as an device when you really don’t want to boot up your computer or are just plain too lazy to walk up to get to it. One day, the iPad might actually replace your laptop/PC/netbook. Hook up a keyboard and it is ready to do that even sooner. If it can replace your ebook reader, double up as your youtube viewer, check your emails, access social networking sites and much more, then its almost ready to replace a normal internet user. But you still need your PC/netbook/laptop for heavy duty stuff. You’d still need it to write that last bit of code, or touch up on that photo with the full potential of the desktop Photoshop. You cannot access your command line on it, look at files and folders stored on it and its pretty much stuck with the same OS for life (Yes, it would get updates, but the OS is still the same) And as with all Apple products, No Flash! I don’t see it replacing my laptop soon. But I really need the iPad just so that I could use it as….an iPad. But what do I really use flash for? A few rare websites, and of course Youtube. But iPad has a dedicated player for Youtube, so that irons out the “flashy” problem.

Why did I write this post?

Because everybody’s writing about it. Because if I don’t, I might not be allowed to blog anymore. No tech blog is complete without a post on the iPad. It’s the most important invention after personal computers. And it’s been long since I’ve spent so much time typing out such a lengthy post. A post on the iPad most probably needs a photo of it to break the monotony. But I thought I might as well put up a link to do just that!

This post is not really complete. But I had to put it up because there’s another post which needs to come up real fast. Subscribe to the RSS feed, or just keep visiting until the post comes up.

Aardvark does just this. It creates a network of friends and their friends across which you throw around your questions and delivers their answers to you. It’s a bridge between the person asking the question and those who have the answers.

It involves extensive usage of the friend of a friend (FOAF) concept which is currently one of biggest trends in social networking. LinkedIn and Facebook already show you friend recommendations based on this concept. But Aardvark has been the first to put it to use in answering your questions.

You sign up for a free account with aardvark and then add your personal details(so that your friends can find you) and your topics of interest. Linking it to your Facebook account lets you import your interests from your FB profile. Add aardvark bot to your IM client and you are good to go. Questions on topics of your interest could flow to you and you are free to, answer, pass or refer them to your friends. The conversation happens freely through IM, with the Aardvark bot ensuring that you always know what keyword to type in.  Your dashboard on Aardvark has a list of all your questions and answers, asked and answered. If IN is not your thing, you can even ask questions and answer them on the site or via Twitter.

Time required to get answers is around 4 minutes usually, But then it all depends on the question. Many questions might remain unanswered, but most objective questions are answered promptly. Aardvark would do well to bring in a reward system of badges similar to the one found on Stack overflow.  Your questions are not always recognized as questions and you might be required to tag them or rephrase them if Aardvark doesn’t understand them. In spite of these trivial issues, Aardvark is a service which shows tremendous promise and is a must have bot for your IM client.

Thanks to @kushmakarsharma for recommending the site.