Improving app discovery the social way

I love to discover apps for my mobile, tablet, ipod touch, etc and I'm sure most of the others who have such handheld devices feel the same way. While the current app engines like "Google Play", "ITunes Store", "Amazon Apps", "Samsung Apps" etc try to fulfill this in some way or another, it still doesn't fully meet my/everyone's requirements.

For long, I've wanted the ability to know what apps are popular with my friends, and for me to publish what I use in an easy way so that others can see what I've discovered (other than me having to write about it).

Would it be possible for Google/Apple to aid app discovery by allowing my phone/tablet/... to publish the list of (my selected) apps that I have installed on my phone/tablet/... to Google+, Facebook, Twitter (via some URL), etc?

Google+/FB/ (or Google/Apple) then in turn needs to have a way for users to discover the popular apps, categories (and such) in their circles at the aggregate level and even deep dive to individual users.

I terribly miss the capability to share my list of apps in an easy way and/or discover what others are using.

Is this already available and I'm somehow missing it? Or do you know if there are such plans on the cards and it's on its way? If so, when? If not, do you know how it can be brought to the attention of the powers that be?

I feel that it may also be worthwhile to provide a mechanism to indicate the phone manufacturer, model, OS, etc in FB, G+ posts - if users wish to include it - and provide a similar mechanism for discover.

Upgrade after almost 6 years

Back in 2006, I talked about my second phone, the nokia 6233.

After spending about Rs.2000 recently in making it looking brand new, I decided to take the dive.

And got myself a Samsung Galaxy S3, 32GB!

That's the reason for excitement and cryptic posts :)

More another day, another time.

Virtualization on mobile phones - 2 in 1 phones!

And I'm not talking about dual sim phones.

Virutalization is very well know in the world of computers - laptop, desktop, etc. Infact, I had some of my first trysts with it _years ago_ when I ran Red Hat Linux on my Microsoft Windows desktop using VMware. There's still a lot of evolution happening in that part of the world.

Now, here's something neat and surprising. LG & VMware are supposedly working together to create a new phone which will use virtualization to support 2 phones - for personal and office use - on a single physical phone. Will be interesting to see how this takes off!

Snippet:
LG and VMware have created a partnership intended to deliver a dual-profile mobile smartphone sometime in 2011. As a result, users should eventually be able to carry a single device that logically segments personal applications and data from work resources so that IT departments can manage and secure just the corporate “side” of the device.
...
VMware mobile middleware will create two virtual instances of a smartphone in one physical device.
...
The virtualized phones will have two phone numbers – personal and work. Presumably, the employee could receive an invoice for personal usage and the company could receive an invoice for corporate charges.
...

Kindle 3 WiFi, e-readers, touchscreen tablets

So, I got Kindle 3 WiFi for Krish, still to get to Chennai with it. I like the concept of e-readers, but I'm aghast at the prices at which books sell legally :) IMHO, many product prices do not take PPP into consideration and there are possibly some valid reasons for it as well in the context of "e-goods". However, they do lose out on a large market for this very reason as well.

Well, FWIW, I'm quite tempted with the concept of touchscreen tablet when compared to a plain e-reader. I'd like to gift one to my parents who'll appreciate the ease of using a touchscreen device when compared to a regular desktop/laptop. However, I'm also sure that I'd be hogging the device if that was the only touchscreen tablet device at home :)

Samsung Galaxy Tab with 7" touchscreen, camera, wifi and android is a step in right direction - however I'm not fully convinced about screen size. I'd rather take the ~10" Apple iPad - however that's still missing camera (front & back) and is also exorbitantly priced without an external/SD card storage mechanism. I'll probably wait for the next gen tablets to make entry into the market. Apple can be quite greedy at times - afterall the 16GB iPad sells at $500 while 64GB sells at $700. $200 difference for 48GB! But then, the Samsung Galaxy Tab at $600 isn't a very inspiring price either for a 7" device. There was mention of a $500 variant with just Wi-Fi, but I can't seem to find enough information on it on the net - they mostly talk about the 3G+WiFi variant.

I do like Krish's take that a reader like kindle without extra-ordinary capabilities will keep him less distracted and dedicated to the task of reading! I couldn't agree more :) Will be interesting to see how HTC Nook Color (Barnes & Noble) stands up against Kindle.

In the meanwhile, if any of the readers are interested in gifting me one (either the tablet or e-reader), thanks in advance :)

Discovered TweetDeck recently

Discovered TweetDeck (for desktop) recently - kind of an answer to my earlier post asking for a social networking amalgamation.

The thing with all these "wonderful" tools (including Twitter, FB) is that their business model is unknown (not fully mature) at the moment.

And, while I've handed over to TweetDeck the keys to my LinkedIn, Facebook accounts, I'm still not ready/comfortable to hand them the Google keys.

Anyone have any feedback?

Schools & Twitter

It just occurred to me that schools can keep parents notified with announcements / news by using twitter as an easy & free (for now) medium.

All that the school has to do is establish a twitter account and all parents can be notified about the same for subscription.

Will work wonders for regular news as well as unexpected announcements like declaring a holiday due to rains (or such).

Contacts Management, Social Networking

Any way to easily merge/manage contacts on linkedin, twitter, facebook, orkut, gmail, etc? Need some kind of dashboard that shows information available for each contact (including emails, phone numbers, blogs, etc), provides option to discover/connect to them easily on each of those networks, etc. Need this from web and mobile.

Looks like some of the latest high end smart phones are going this route, though not necessarily sure whether they provide capability to do this on the web as well and how far they are elegant.

Thoughts, suggestions?

Twitter Airtel India

Twitter is now "truly" available in India via Bharti Airtel. Read their blog update here. I'm guessing absorption will truly increase in India now.

Exclusive to Airtel for about a month. And then the floodgates probably open.

The irony of this volte-face on net neutrality

The volte-face change of stance on network neutrality by some of the biggest players smacks of irony and a scamper for $$ at any cost.

Google Wants Its Own Fast Track on the Web

I'm not really an expert on net neutrality, but this one sure leaves a bad taste in the mouth for the way in which the biggies are retreating or doing an about turn :(

Youtube on my mobile (nokia 6233)

Thanks to Opera Mini, I learnt that I could see YouTube videos on my mobile (Nokia 6233), via m.youtube.com.

P.S: Not that I'm a big fan of youtube videos, it's just that it's possible and convenient now.

6+ minutes to boot

My office laptop takes about 6 minutes 20 seconds to be finally ready for regular action. There's a gazillion stuff that it loads and I keep wondering about which to keep knocking off without having to put it back on again.

The machine - Dell Latitude 530, Intel Core 2 Duo, T7250 @ 2GHz, 1GB RAM @ 777MHz, running Win XP SP2.

I'm guessing that my home machine, HP nx7400 also probably takes around the same time, will time it another day.

P.S: The reason I'm writing this now is I had to reboot my device and was timing it due to the general frustration I've had with ultra slow boot times.

Reliable, Free Online Backup Storage

Mozy, an online storage company from the storage world leader EMC is offering free online backup storage upto 2.2GB. For those who need more space, unlimited backup at less than $5 per month.

Referring a friend helps me get 512MB additional free storage if the friend signs up via my referral link. Hence, can you please sign up for free online backup storage via my referral URL ?

Hint, hint ... :)
Please use the following URL for signup.
https://mozy.com/?ref=C7HREM

Kindly note that EMC is a very large company and one of the leaders in the storage space (hence less fear of your content being abused) and Mozy has received good comments as far as privacy is concerned. So, rest assured that your data will be safe by any normal standards.

Alternate options for online storage backup include cloud storage via Amazon S3 Storage from players like Jungle Disk. I'm intending to trying that as well if I get a chance for a free edition. The one "true" issue with all of this that I see that my home bandwidth is a puny 128kbps link and most of the services are not in India (local access could speedup things a bit).

Nokia 5800

Kinda waiting for Nokia 5800 to launch in India, quite tempted by it :) Don't think I'll end up buying it in the near future though.

Will be interesting to watch
* the price factor across the globe as well
* the ExpressMusic / "Comes with Music" facility hitting Indian shores, if at all

My Nokia 6233 does a decent job, although the S40 platform does have its limitations.

Not having an S60 platform (with its world of applications), Wi-fi connection, large touch screen, qwerty keyboard, etc adds to the yearning :)

Recommendations needed for UPS

I need to have an UPS to keep up the following devices

* DLink ADSL modem
* Linksys Wireless Router

I don't need this UPS to power/backup PCs (desktops).

* What is the capacity of UPS required ?
* How much time will it be able to power on the devices ?
* Any recos for specific makes ?
* Any recos for places to buy from (in Chennai) ?

Scramble for ideas

"Scramble" is probably putting it too loud and mostly clamoring for the headline :)

But if you see the number of companies paying to get ideas off the general public, it is indeed interesting.

I'm not counting the true blood VCs in this game, for it's their daily work. Some of the ones below are turning into that category. I'm just making an observation of some companies that I've seen make such offers in the recent past.

First it was Cisco with IPrize
Next I heard of Future Group with Future Ventures
Then, I saw Airtel come up with Airtel Innovation Fund
And now, I'm seeing Google come up with Project 10 to the 100th !
(The above list is in no chronological order, only as I saw it).

Interesting trend.

GetDropBox

Virtual drive of 2GB (free) that can be shared across multiple computers (Windows, Linux, Mac). Supposedly secure and very easy, intutive to use.

Am trying it. GetDropBox.

Read an interesting "review" here.

Why Apple iPhone3g doesn't make any sense in India

Offered with no comments.

1. There are no 3G networks in India, YET.
2. iPhone retails in US between $199 to $299 for the 8GB and 16GB phone. That works out to about Rs.8000 to Rs.12000 (approx) in India (at simple conversion of 1USD = Rs.40). However, the two "exclusive" providers, Airtel and Vodafone want between Rs.31000 to Rs.36000 for these models.
3. iPhone3G is going to operate on GPRS network at the moment. Both Airtel and Vodafone, have unlimited GPRS plans for as "low" as Rs.199 per month. However, for iPhone, they are not looking at this unlimited plan, but want to sell separate data plans with following "features"
* plans priced anywhere between Rs.500 to Rs.100
* "free" data downloads from 0 (zero) kb to 500MB
* additional downloads between 30paise/50kb to 5paise/10kb
4. 12 month warranty as long as one sticks with the service provider and these plans

While there will be some fanatics who may buy the iPhone, I think for vast majority price of the handset has to drop and so does data plan price.

xobni for MS Outlook

For the record, Thunderbird (and the mozilla email family - netscape communicator) has been my primary email application of choice for a long time (close to 9+ years now).

After having said that, I hate to have to admit that I'm also using Outlook :) (Hate is actually too strong a word, nonetheless ...)

Recently, I found an "interesting" tool for outlook called xobni (that's "inbox" reversed).

I've been running it for a few days now and certainly find it convenient 'cos it gives me all of the following in a handy place along with the current email I'm reading
* contact information (mobile/office/home/main/...) of sender of email that I'm reading,
* conversations (almost as in gmail) with that sender,
* email attachments that I'd exchange with that sender, etc.

There were a couple of crashes at the beginning when it first began indexing my email, but steady after that.

The one "bug" that bothers me is that profile information of sender of email I received before installation of this software is not correct, i.e, for all email I'd received before I installed this software the profile information of sender matching the email I'm reading is incorrect. It shows information pertaining to some random user instead of the actual sender of that particular email.

I've written about this to the product support team, they've acknowledged the problem, but interestingly closed the case saying that it needs to be solved !

Here's more of what I'd written to them for those interested in the other aspects as well.

** I observed that this happens only for email that has been indexed
prior to xobni being installed.

Profiles are not being show correctly for my old email that was
indexed. However, ever since xobni was installed and new email started
flowing in, the profiles shown are according to the correct sender
information.

So, it looks like there's some problem matching older email (email
prior to xobni's installation) and profile information.

** On a different note, if the problem does exist and it's something
you are working on, whatz the point in "closing" the case ? Shouldn't
the case remain "open" till resolution of the problem ? Also, if the
case is closed without resolving the problem, how will I ever get an
update on whether my problem was actually resolved in a future update
? I know that there may be 100s of users who are reporting the same
problem, but it still doesn't usually qualify for "closing" the case,
IMHO. Just trying to understand how your process works.

** Would love to know how end users can track their case information
online. Some on the lines of "provide you case-id to find out current
status of the request".

** When I submitted the error report / support request, I was kinda
informed that I'd get a notification / reply. However, I didn't get an
automated response nor immediate acknowledgment. It indeed made me
wonder if the system had registered my request. I think you should
provide an automated reply with the case-id. Or at least provide an
option to Cc the email that (s)he is putting up on the website. That
way, if for some reason the request doesn't get registered, the user
doesn't have to retype everything they put up in the first place.

** And, you certainly have a very interesting product here ! Kudos to
what you've done ! Wondering how the business model will work going
forward once free beta is over. How do you plan to monetize xobni and
how will beta users be benefited by their participation ? Will there
be discounts, free upgrades, ad based free installs, ... etc ?

Would love to hear from you.

Technology for sharing bandwidth

From a pure technical perspective, is it possible to share unused bandwidth available across multiple independent ADSL connections ?

Like, if I were in an apartment complex and everyone (or almost) had an unlimited 128/256kbps download ADSL connection from their service provider of choice, would it be possible in some way to share the total bandwidth across all interested parties ?

Note that I'm not getting into the clauses the service provider has for connections, I'm just looking at technical feasibility. Maybe someway of hooking up via some wireless mesh whereby everyone was guaranteed their "assured" bandwidth, but still was able to leverage if someone's else was not being used ? It may probably "break" the assumptions of connection pool sharing being taken into consideration by SPs, but that's another matter. For example, they may assume not more than 10% of their connections will be active online at a given point of time and purchase their backend bandwidth accordingly.

Note that I'm also not getting into issues like what is the incentive for someone to get into such shared connections, etc.

Thoughts, ideas, known solutions, ... ?

Known problems/legal constraints ?