I've retired my main PC at home and this one now takes over as the default computer. My family is loving it so far ... my mom especially likes it because this new iMac eliminates a number of wires (she made me count):
Monitor power/VGA cable
Modem connection (using AirPort on the iMac)
Keyboard
Mouse
Speaker power and connection cables
Camera wire
Microphone wire
That's 9 wires! I'm pretty sure that within a few minutes of this post being published, I'll be sent this image:
Hahaha! If you guys know anything about me, I'm not a fanboy :) And speaking of repair, I also purchased extra AppleCare warranty via Apple's website which gives me 2 additional years of global warranty (which will be honored at a UAE reseller). I have my own laptop which is rocking Windows 7/Ubuntu and now I have a spare PC (+ 17" monitor, keyboard, mouse etc) at home. I want to give away (not sell) this PC - if you know anyone who needs a decent dual core PC with 2GB RAM and 160GB eSata HDD, let me know.
Days after introducing voice calling within Gmail, Google on Tuesday unveiled a "priority inbox" feature within Gmail intended to highlight important messages.
Priority Inbox will automatically filter incoming Gmail messages to place the most important messages up top, followed by starred e-mails, and then everything else underneath. Priority Inbox can be customized, however, to display the categories of your choice.
Once enabled, there will be a link on the left-hand bar for "Priority Inbox" atop the "Inbox" link, so users can switch back to their regular view if they choose. Users can also choose whether Google takes them to Priority Inbox or regular Inbox upon sign-in.
What type of messages will end up in the Priority Inbox? The system is constantly evolving, Rajen Sheth, a senior product manager for Google Enterprise, said in a phone interview, but if there is a thread to which you respond very frequently or certain types of messages that you often read very quickly, they would likely end up designated as priority.
"They start to be useful to people right away," Sheth said.
If Google flags something as priority and you do not agree, you can use the plus and minus buttons atop the page to notify Google that that e-mail is less important.
Priority Inbox will be rolling out to all Gmail users in the next few days. When it hits your inbox, there will be a "New! Priority Inbox" link on the top, right-hand corner of your Gmail inbox, which you can click to activate.
The idea behind Priority Inbox was to combat inbox information overload, Sheth said, pointing to the extra time the average employee takes to sift through mountains of e-mail. Google has been testing Priority Inbox for "quite awhile" internally, Sheth said, and "testers are spending 6 percent less time managing their e-mail, [which] translates to over a week of additional time each year."
"This is the next evolutionary step in making the inbox more intelligent and letting people deal with information overload," Sheth said. "Over the past 20 years, the inbox has just been a chronological list [of e-mails], and this breaks out of that paradigm."
Google envisions this being useful for the average Gmail user as well as its Google Apps customers, who will be able to access Priority Inbox if their admin has selected "Enable pre-release features" in the control panel.
"Obviously e-mail is tremendously critical to business users, and being able to save time is very, very valuable," Sheth said. "And literally time equals money in the business context, [so] we think this is going to be a great feature for our Google Apps users overall."
"But we also think it's going to have a great impact on our consumer users," he said, pointing to the level of organization Priority Inbox has brought to his own Gmail account.
Given Google's experience with producing relevant results via its core search product, Sheth said taking that to the inbox was a natural progression.
"Google is very well-suited to do this in that we're all about providing you with relevant information," he said. "[We thought that] if we could bring Google.com-like relevancy to your inbox, it would make your inbox a lot better."
Many believe that it will be difficult to challenge Facebook
An open alternative to Facebook will be launched on 15 September, the developers of the project have said.
Diaspora describes itself as a "privacy-aware, personally-controlled" social network.
The open-source project made headlines earlier this year when Facebook was forced to simplify its privacy settings, after they were criticised for being overly complex and confusing.
The project, developed by four US students, raised $200,000 (£140,000).
"We have Diaspora working, we like it, and it will be open-sourced on September 15th," the team wrote on their blog.
The team said they had spent the summer "building clear, contextual sharing".
"That means an intuitive way for users to decide, and not notice deciding, what content goes to their co-workers and what goes to their drinking buddies. We know that's a hard [user interface] problem and we take it seriously."
The project was started by three computer scientists and one mathematician from New York.
Their idea of building it gained momentum earlier this year during an intense period of criticism of Facebook, the world's largest social network
"We want to put users back in control of what they share," Max Salzberg, one of the founders, told BBC News at the time.
The team turned to the fundraising site Kickstarter to raise the $10,000 they thought they would need to build the network.
In the end the team raised $200,642 from nearly 6,500 people.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, reportedly donated to the project.
The initial release on 15 September will be to "open-source" Diaspora, meaning that the team will make the underlying code available for anyone to see and modify.
Many believe that it will be difficult to challenge Facebook, which now has 500 million users and is currently estimated to be worth $33bn.
Google is set to call the next iteration of its mobile OS Android Honeycomb, following on from the tablet-friendly Gingerbread platform.
Multiple sources have confirmed to TechRadar that the next version will be called Honeycomb, although details of what this upgrade will bring are still sketchy.
It's likely that it will be more of an incremental upgrade, in the same manner as Android 2.2 (Froyo) was to Android 2.1 (Éclair) as Google seeks to perfect the new platform on tablets and high-end smartphones.
That means Android Honeycomb will probably be Android 3.1 or Android 3.2, rather than a leap to the unimaginable magic of Android 4.0.
Honeycomb – a surefire way to eventual baldness
We've contacted Google about the new name, and unsurprisingly got no comment, but given each new Android iteration is named after sweets and cakes, there's not a lot to choose from.
Intriguingly, a quick Google search for 'Android Honeycomb' shows a few sites with the phrase present - but nowhere to be found when looking at the articles and sites in depth.
Gingerbread is due out towards the end of the year (or possibly leaking into 2011) with tablets from Toshiba and Samsung likely to make use of the upgrade, which will only work with fast processors and high-res screens.
However, it will be interesting to see where Android Honeycomb machines land in the marketplace against Google Chrome OS tablets, which we should start seeing in November onwards – is there a large enough tablet market to sustain two operating systems from the same manufacturer?
Facebook for Android (s goog) got a long overdue update tonight (perhaps the final push was Mark Zuckerberg’s installing the Android app himself last week?), after playing second fiddle to the iOS version for far too long. The updated app gains some of the iPhone’s client look and feel, but also adds a draggable Notifications drawer and a new photo reel showing pictures and videos from friends.
The new client for Android supports more actions from the main screen. You can now respond to friend requests in the app, for example. There’s also a one-touch button to post a status update, support for Events — including RSVP in the app — and the new photo reel along the bottom. A Facebook spokesperson told me via email that the new client now supports in-app video playback that uses H.264 encoding, although I haven’t tried videos just yet. None of my friends are camera-happy today, it seems.
Android device owners that already have Facebook installed will see an update in the Android Market now. There’s still room for improvement here — I’m thinking support for Facebook chat and contact groups — but overall, the overhaul is welcome. And the Notification shade is a nice play on the native Android notifications, allowing Facebook users to be informed, but not overwhelmed with new information from their friends. After missing the fuller-featured app when I moved from iOS to Android in January, I’m ecstatic that I now have a richer Facebook experience — consider that a warning to all of my Facebook friends that I’ll be annoying them far more often now.
Many of the updates seem designed to keep users in the application longer. That’s not a bad thing — I personally prefer to stay in apps instead of bouncing out to the web for related features. Though like other Facebook mobile products, the new Android client doesn’t yet have ads, Android’s massive growing user base combined with increased engagement could make a killer platform for mobile revenue opportunities.