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.

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

The browser boots up, and gives me a list of all those addons which need updates. Of course I’d like to have the latest version. Isn’t it why I had it installed there in the first place? If its my unlucky day, even Firefox would need an update. And there is nothing I can do except wait until all those messy updates are done. Wait, there’s more..After the updates comes the installation. Its very frustrating I need to use a browser quickly for 2 minutes and I need to wait for 5 minutes until Firefox is done dressing up itself. And I almost forgot, update the browser and be assured that atleast 3 out of 5 extensions wouldn’t be compatible. Very, very frustrating.
Chrome updates in the background. I don’t care what you download as long as its from a trusted vendor. 5 seconds and its ready to browse the web, anytime of the day. Installing extensions or themes is just instantaneous with chrome, no restart required.
Because at the end of the day, all I want is to have is to browse the internet. Not just keep looking at progress screens of addons getting updated. Now that Chrome has all extensions I use on Firefox, its been days since I’ve clicked on the Firefox browser. I’ve still not decided to uninstall Firefox, but then I’m getting there.

P.S. When I opened WordPress to write down this post, I was informed that WordPress needed to update to 2.9.1. Here I go again…

But, the interface looks really minimalistic and I loved it so much that I went around searching for a download. And here it is, in all its glory. Download the file, extract, click and drag the *.jar file to your Mozilla addons window.

Thanks to “BoneyardBrew“  and “SoapyHamHocks” @ DeviantART for the awesome theme. Do check out more of his work at his DeviantART gallery!
You would also need to install the Firefox Personal menu extension to complete the look.
Have a cool theme to recommend? Leave a comment!

Even though they’re called netbooks , its not exactly possible to ensure that they’re always connected to the internet. What if the friendly neighborhood cafe did not have free wifi? And Netbooks without the power of the net are well, just books. Or so we have been lead to believe. Until the making this list that is. My list of perfect software had to make sure it fulfilled two primary needs. Firstly, to be able to run on a machine with limited processing abilities. Secondly, the capability to be used even when you did not have internet access.

Browser: Chrome

Chrome had to be the browser of choice. Light, fast and easy to load. I still am a fan of firefox on my laptop but for my netbook I chose the ultra light chrome with the power of Google Gears. That makes sure I can read my feeds offline, my mail offline, my blog and loads of other Gears compatible stuff offline.

Edited on July 17, 2009: Firefox takes over my netbook. Its impossible not to use firefox especially considering that the internet is the center of your netbook. Plus the font rendering on firefox is much more adaptable to netbooks, which means its much more comfortable to browse the web.

Mail: Thunderbird

I couldn’t find a better mail client than this so I had to surrender to the power of Mozilla. Handles multiple inboxes, junk/spam protection, easy to use. Just like all other good Mozilla products you get the power to use extensions just make sure that you are making an application heavier on a netbook. I just have the minimize to tray extension installed.

Chat: Pidgin

This open source chat agent had to take the cake when it came to chat. Lets me run multiple IM services, light and powerful. Though originally designed to run on linux, Pidgin is now available for windows as well. Pidgin is functional, has an interface that’s the least distracting and comes with a multitude of options to customize it. I use gtalk considering that its the lightest around, considering I do not need multiple IM support.

Office applications: Microsoft Works

I still am using the Microsoft works, but this section might update once I install the Open office. Still considering this section, so do leave your choices in the comments section.

Blogging: Blogdesk

For the first time, I’ve considered the use of an offline blogging tool and after trying quite a few of them, I’ve decided that Blogdesk, albeit its limitations is the winner. Blogdesk has support for most common blogging platforms. I would have recommended the use of Scribefire extension if I were using firefox, but since this is a list, Blogdesk is a blogging tool with a functional interface, but lets you write blogs offline, save them and post them later.

Antivirus: AVG

This is really easy. You would want to keep the resource usage to a minimum and still ensure protection. Stick to AVG . Does a good job and is light on the processor as well.

Desktop enhancements: Launchy

Well, just because its a netbook doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dress up your desktop. How about a OSX styled dock? Rocketdock is only of the fastest and lightest docks out there. I would recommend using Launchy , the keyboard based program launcher especially since it works wonders when the super fast chrome is your default browser.

That lets me enjoy a coffee at any cafe (no more dependance on wifi!) and blog at the same time! I tried out blogdesk and found it really useful especially on long flights, airport waits (esp. at airports which have exclusive tie ups with specific internet providers)

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Appcelerator’s Titanium is an open source alternative to Adobe AIR to help you build your rich internet apps easily. We first saw Titanium hit the racks of the internet around December. Its three months down the line and at least we think they haven’t made the noise they ought to have generated.

But we haven’t seen as much of Titanium as we should be? There are a few easy things which Appcelerator hasn’t done yet. And correct us if we’re wrong.

1. Average branding. Titanium is a great brand name, but my search on Titanium on Google brings up only one result on the first page which is relevant. Titanium Appcelerator seems to work though!
2. This is something Appcelerator has to do. Write a Wikipedia page. It is after all an open source project which needs users for it to get popular.
3. Get more people to tweet and write about it. We decided to blog about it after getting impressed with the free SDK, awesome tutorials and the wonderful twitter application, Tweetanium.
4. Get more blogs to write about Titanium. Because we really think Lifehacker should have featured Tweetanium. True many have already featured Titanium, like the Readwriteweb blog

The Titanium App is open source and cross platform.  Preview release 2 is now out and adds support to Linux as well. We think open source is the way to go and Titanium is a step in the right direction.
Download the Titanium SDK here and start making your own apps.
Show your support to Titanium by downloading Tweetanium

Follow them here

Do you disagree with the statement that Titanium has branded itself the way it was supposed to? Do you think Titanium has already got its share of fame for the period of time it has been around? Would you be willing to give up on AIR and go open source? Leave your comments!