If you are regular on Techgearz you might have noticed last year Techgearz featured an article on Colayer, a Google Wave like project which is in market for all most a decade now. I had an exclusive interview with Markus Hegi, CEO Colayer yesterday on twitter. We discussed about Google Wave, Colayer and the future of real time communication. This discussion is based on the article that Markus posted on Colayer blog about Colayer and the Rise & Fall of Google Wave.

Interview with Markus Hegi, CEO Colayer ( @mhegi ) – on twitter by @anix86

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20697909920

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20697999320

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20698084489

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20698253516

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20698324856

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20698421743

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20698492859

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20698584530

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20698700421

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20698818534

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20698923610

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20699026343

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20699815102

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20699956814

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20700051918

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20700272765

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20700454390

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20700669262

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20700957370

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20701098028

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20701354250

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20701387654

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20702291043

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20702680321

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20702815340

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20703266596

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20703670825

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20704142024

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20704431066

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20704486078

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20704723442

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20705151474

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20705332954

You could also check these time lines in twitter search click here. Post your comments and view on the above discussion.

2010 kick start with lots of mobile gadget reviews and NEWS. Apple launches new iPad and iPhone OS 4. Many Android powered phone lined up for launch. Sony release its X10 Xperia powered by Android OS. Microsoft launched KIN few days back.  HP launch new HP Slate. 3G to be officially available with all GSM and CDMA providers in India.

But, if we carefully have a look, all these mobile phones and devices have one single target and thats called Internet. Everyone here is focussed on serving better Internet and social networking experience. All mobile phone company and service providers want people to watch Movies, TV Shows, Live IPL match on their mobile phone. You can do anything , anytime, anywhere with you mobile phone. And not to forget 3G will triple all your experiences.

Question that i have is, when you can do everything on internet using your Smart phone like iPhone, Android Phones and KIN then, whats the need for an iPAD or a Netbook or any Tablet Devices. Who will be interested in carrying this not so small – not so big device when they have a ultra portable mobile phone which can do the same thing.  Is’nt it an interesting topic to think about.

Though Netbooks have some advantage over the mobile devices, but , purpose of Netbooks are still not clear to public. If its only for internet users then mobile devices powered by android is anytime ready to kick off the net-book market.

Do we really require an NetBook in your bag to access internet when you have a mobile phone in your pocket which can do the same. My answer would be, No…, I would not require a NetBook or iPAD like devices when I have a mobile phone powered by 3G connection for accessing internet and related stuff. I  would be interested in carrying a mobile in my pocket rather than NetBook in my bag, for high-end stuff  i would have a High config Laptop rather than a Netbook .

So my question still remains open and I would like to get some interesting feedbacks / comments from the readers.

What is HTML 5  ?
Its a new web standard for developing web sites and web applications. W3C is bringing in more advance features in HTML, so that you can develop more interactive features in your web applications and users can access them without downloading any plugins like flash player or Microsoft silverlight plugins or any such replated plugins. These features will be built in your browsers, For example, HTML5 introduced a <video> tag to show videos in your website; in current version of HTML you do it either by <object> / <embed> tags which also require you to download some plugins / activex controls for flash or silverlight.

YouTube has recently launched HTML5 version, which plays video with the HTML5 <video> control. Early you need to download a flash player to view youtube videos and with HTML5 you need not do that. This version was released since Apple launched the iPAD which do not support flash and has only HTML5 video support. So now iPad users can view YouTube HTML5 videos using HTML5 enabled safari browser.

But YouTube do not support Firefox… and what is the reason.

YouTube videos are using H.264 codec to convert their videos which is a patented technology, meaning that it is illegal to use without paying license fees. ( Google and Apple are paying a huge amount for using this codec.)

Which means that if your need to show Youtube videos using HTML5 You need to embeed this codec in browsers HTML parser.

Firefox is a free open souce product which designed with open web concept and they do not believe in using paid codecs in their browser. Firefox support open media format. (.OGG format)

Youtube using H.264 codec has brough a big hurdle for Firefox users. Though Youtube Flash player is still supported and firefox users can view youtube video.  At present youtube HTML5 vides are only supported by Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Microsoft IE with Google Chrome extension.

Hope soon firefox will come with some work around to access YouTubes HTML5 videos in Firefox.

Below is a Demo of  HTML5 video, This video is in Open Media Format ( .Ogg format )… u can view it in Chrome, FireFox, Opera, IE with Chrome extension and Safari / other HTML5 compatible browsers

Source Code :
<video src="http://videobin.org/+yz/14s.ogg" id="video" 
width="300" height="240" autoplay controls></video>

IBM Lotus Notes/Domino Developers who are working on new R8.5.1 … you can now download Redbook for Domino 8.5.1 XPages. Its a PDF file from some well know redbook authors and some good examples and screen shots .

Check out this link for downloading PDF >> http://bit.ly/redbookr85

You can also find this PDF on IBM’s new Domino wiki site. Please leave a comment if you are unable to download it from the above link.

njoy coding

Soon Windows users will get an option to choose their favorite browser inside windows. This is as  part of a settlement between Microsoft and European Commission concerning the monopoly abuse by Microsoft. It is agreed between the to parties that users will get a browser choice screen in windows and expected to start appearing from early March.

This screen will have browser options like Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari and Opera along with 7 other small browsers. It is expected that this option will help users to chose the best browser of their choice. Well for me firefox is always the best one and i too prefer using firefox for all internet users. Well only thing to check out would be, will this option be available for all windows users or only for European users.

till then … Happy Browsing 

We have observed that in past few months every other technology blog having a post on cloud computing and cloud OS. Cloud Os is also called future of OS by many blogs designed for accessing internet and web application primarily and compatible with any netbook.

It was Google who first came in public about its cloud based OS, Chrome OS which is much awaited Cloud OS, yet to be released (god knows when). Its not just google coming up with this futuristic idea on cloud OS there are many other companies in Q and already in market.

Some months back on techgearz we saw an article on gOS and cloud OS built on Ubuntu 9. Jolicloud is another such cloud OS release 2 weeks back again built on Ubuntu.

Idea of Jolicloud started in summer 2008 when Tariq Krim started thinking about the possibility to build an “organic” laptop, a combination of the greenest technologies and a fair trade production. This device would run an Internet operating system and replace existing costly software with their web alternatives.

He meet few manufacturers, designers and industry friends regarding the same, later he decided to drop the hardware to focus only on building the Internet OS. He was later joined by Romain Huet and Tristan Groléat, two young developers who shared his vision. They spent a few days drafting the blueprint of what an Internet OS should be. They decided to buy a few netbooks, refresh their knowledge of Linux and rented some office space in the Montorgueil area of Paris.

Jolicloud is a lightweight Ubuntu based cloud OS designed with netbooks and internet it mind, according to @jolisupport (Joulicloud’s online support team on twitter) joulicloud support almost 98% of netbooks available in market and it has the latest Linux kernel. Its not just limited to netbooks, you can install it on PC too with minimum configuration of Pentium processor with 300 Mhz and 32 MB Ram – 256 MB recommended.

( Normally, netbooks comes with AMR based / Atom processors and 1 GB Ram ).

At a Quick glance, desktop of this OS reminds me of a simple portal website with all necessary links to your favorite web sites and applications, just a click and get started. Unlike other Linux based OS its not too bulky and loaded with many desktop apps, its just a 602MB ISO file (click here to download), ported with basic applications like Firefox, Ping IM etc and other Linux basic apps for administration purpose.

It also has a Internet tab where you can find many internet based applications like facebook prism, shortcut to Firefox, bittorent client and any internet based software which you installed (check the above image, i have installed Linux based chrome & Twitter Prism and it started appearing in Internet tab on desktop). Unlike many Linux versions, Jolicloud doesn’t contain a Open Office pre-installed, but can download it from “My Jolicloud – App Directory”. It contains quick reference to internet based office apps like Google Docs and Zoho document editor.

My Jolicloud is a web app to access joliclouds online community, you need to create an profile / account for accessing this space., this can be done once you install the OS. You can synchronize your My Jolicloud profile contents with your Facebook profile.

My Jolicloud also contains list of users who are using jolicloud, you can follow them and check their statuses like you do in twitter. This status basically contains which software they have installed recently, what update did they do to their profile and so on. I saw around a 300 registered users when I logged in, this may increase soon as many users start using it.

Another interesting part in My Jolicloud was something called App Directory, you will find many application like Open Office, Google Chrome, Skype etc and Firefox Prism of many web apps which includes, Gmail, YouTube, Zoho office, Twitter, Facebook to name a few.

( Firefox Prism allows you to have a quick reference to any web apps on your desktop, which you frequently access. )

Google’s Chorme OS claims to have a 7 second boot-up time, well jolicloud took me around 30-35 secs to boot completely and around 10 secs to shutdown. ( It might be b’coz i am using it on VMware Player and not a netbook, with a shared CPU was already running window vista)

Well apart from the above features, you can find easy to access system administrative tools, etc. It would be out of scope of this article to explain every details of this OS, so soon you can expect a video post on joulicloud.

You can join discussion on cloud with us @ Facebook and Twitter

Check out some screens shots from joulicloud  below  OR Click Here

What is PaaS?

According to wiki: “Platform as a Service” or “PaaS” is a computing platform used to deliver “Software as a Service” or SaaS. In a layman’s term, its a platform available as a service to develop web applications without actually worrying about the hardware infrastructure and software layer required for developing and deploying application.

PaaS is purely web based solution, you don’t have to download or install any software for developing your web applications / services. Most of PaaS based services come with the capability of developing workflow & web services bases applications, you can test and host the application in few steps. Developer can login to PaaS and start developing his application on internet and he need not store any thing on his PC /Mac.

This platform allows multiple people to collaboratively work on an application, irrespective of their geographical locations.

Why to use PaaS ?

Traditionally when an organization is planning or building an enterprise application,  they need to plan for hardware infrastructure, operating system, selecting software platforms like Java, .Net or PHP to develop those applications and so on. And if the application is complex they need to have a huge infrastructure with 24×7 electricity supply, high cooling systems and heavy bandwidth which is attached with a huge cost.

PaaS solves all of these problems for you, it provides you with infrastructure required to run your complex applications on internet and you will pay only for the services you are using. It has easy to develop interface, plugins and widgets which help you to develop the application faster. With PaaS, you can concentrate more on the innovations so that you can come up with your applications and stop worrying about the infrastructure you required to deploy the same.

[Coming sessions we will get in dept of PaaS and the solutions in PaaS ...]

About cloudPaaS – A PaaS Knowledge base.

cloudPaaS is a Free, Open Knowledge base on PaaS. An Open-Organization formed with the intention of spreading the knowledge about PaaS and the benefits of using PaaS in your organization.

Join cloudPaaS on Facebook and Twitter , keep your self updated about on PaaS. ]]> http://techgearz.com/2009/11/introduction-to-paas-platform-as-a-service-part-1/feed/ 2 http://techgearz.com/2009/11/twitter-will-have-a-maintenance-window-on-nov-17th-at-11p-pst/ http://techgearz.com/2009/11/twitter-will-have-a-maintenance-window-on-nov-17th-at-11p-pst/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:26:35 +0000 http://techgearz.com/?p=343 Continue reading →]]>

Today morning twitter started showing alert which states that “Twitter will have a maintenance window on Nov. 17th at 11p Pacific“. i.e on 18th Nov 12.30 pm (IST) twitter will go for a maintenance release.

So Tomorrow 12.30 pm IST [afternoon]  Indian twitter users might face some issues accessing there account.

Few weeks back on Techgearz Facebook page we also saw about twitter rolling out the “retweet” feature soon. We will have to wait and watch whether this maintenence fix will include this feature and any other new feature as well or not.

Firefox is turning 5, Firefox team and fans are going to take this to the streets of Rome on 8th of November. In last 5 years we have seen many faces of firefox and phases in the life of firefox, had a tough completion from the day one it came to the market. But like a brave boy it has cleared all the challenges and still holding the No 1… Woow.

Check out the above firefox cake.. isnt it yummy guys….

Every firefox fan has to make this birthday very special and lots of stuffs uploaded in internet. [ will be sharing the link in next post.]

Techgearz is proud to be associated with firefox and spreading the word. I will update this space with more and more activity goin on for this b’day celebration. Keep reading this space for that. Also check out a small recap of whats going on for the 8th November 2009. >> more updates

If we look into the so called Google Chrome OS and Cloud OS from gOS, they are all  browser based or you can say a OS designed to access internet and date present in internet.

If we talk about data, your data like documents, presentation will go into Google docs or similar applications / YouTube, iMeem and other alike application for videos / audio and gmail, Facebook, IMs and other social networking sites to communicate with your friends. Or you can say your data will be floating in the internet and you need to go to each application for access them. In a way, we will loose the ease of  accessing data at one place i.e our desktop and we have to login to all these above mentioned applications.

Question coming to mind is, can we still collaborate all data at one place like we do on our windows / Mac desktop ??

Here we have one answer to that “Question?” that called web based OS … It not exactly an OS but, web based mimic of OS that we have today.

One of such web OS is eyeOS (there are many others also), eyeOS is a php based Web OS/ application (we will be referring it as OS here). Its completely Open Source solution and any one can download it under GNU-GPL license.

It can store all kind of data at one place and access from something called your online / web desktop, its also powered with some cool application again a mimic to original desktop versions.

Application>>

• eyeOs comes with web based office application which replaces your desktop version of MS office. It not as matured as them but useful for editing excel and document file.
• It also has a good file management capability
• Also have an inbuilt media player.
• You also have a in built IM chat and mail client, you can configure it your requirement.
• Also it has desktop management tools, you can change desktop themes like you do for your  window desktop.
• Last but not the least, Its an open source product ,  you could also develop application  using simple html, javascript ajax and php.
• [check out screen shots below to see few of them.]

What Good / Bad about it.

Good part of this OS its completely online you can save data and access it from anywhere whenever you want. Its open source, so you could download it and modify it to your requirement.

Bad part is you need to be online to access it.

But how do i access it ?

It is purely Cloud Computing example. Currently this eyeOS is hosted on eyeOS linux based server. You can access Demo version of eyeOS by registering for the same with eyeOS.com. Demo version comes with 1-gb of free disk space and those cool applications.

I am not sure how much it will cost if you want to expand the space. eyeOS also comes with an enterprive cloud based paid serive.

Or else you can download this OS under the GNU-GPL license and use it on your PHP server,

Note For  PHP developer, You don’t have to install MySQL or any other kind of database for this OS / application, it work on pure folder structure of system you are using to port this application. [ Download eyeOS ]

<< Screen Shots Eye OS >>

Web based desktop of eyeOS

Playing Linkin Park music on eyeOS flash based web -media player

Interface to upload files from desktop to web based eyeOS desktop

online document editor - online replacement to original office apps

Control Panel to manage users and themes.

File management interface, similar to linux file management interface.