Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

girish.r · Post by **girish.r** » 19 Nov 2013 17:39

vina wrote:
Anujan wrote: I have a new Retina Macbook pro. No other laptop comes even close vis-a-vis the construction. .
I am planning to get a 15" Retina MBP. How portable is it , in case you want to take it out for YumBeeYea /Client meetings occasionally ? For me , it is a debate between the 13" and the 15" MBP. I definitely will have good use of the i7 quadcore. The 13" can be upgraded to a i7 dualcore, but the difference between the top end 13" and lower end 15" makes me want to go for the 15" , if the weight penalty for occasional YumBeeYea giri is not too much. I am looking at it as a desktop / linux dabba replacement (I run an old dual core i3 1st gen, getting very long in the tooth (more than 6 yrs old)).

How good is the Airport Time Capsule. Any experience with that ? Thinking of getting that and the 15" to take care of my back up and disaster recovery, as well.

Hi Vina,

Allow me to suggest. MBP are pretty reliable. If price is not a factor go for it (15 "). If you plan to spend more time creating presentations and ebooks, you will find a great integration of such apps. Timecapsule is also great. Only one issue for me is the screen, if you can adapt to the gloss, then it gonna be just fine.

Good Luck.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 19 Nov 2013 20:47

Raja Bose wrote:^^^I don't see enough info or interest in it to warrant a thread.

---

Good article on the history of Google's Self Driving car

The Beemer self driving car they are talking about, we actually had it as a loaner for a week, back in '09 - surreal and a bit creepy/scary.

RB, All the more reason to start a trend and pioneer the way forward. 3D printing will commodotize the small lot mfg just as the IBM PC commodotized the whole IT business.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 19 Nov 2013 22:51

^^^3D printing is inherently slow....it cannot scale up for anything beyond very low volume manufacturing as far as I see it. That is why it is used to create the moulds but not the product.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Nov 2013 03:11

For those interested in game controller design and human factors engineering...

The Xbox One controller: Projectors, smells (!), and other stuff that didn’t make it in (part 1, exclusive)

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Nov 2013 04:43

Dunno how I missed this....too much focus on running during that period I guess

So the Galaxy Gear was concepted by Pranav Mistry's (of Sixth Sense fame) team in Samsung (SISA ThinkTank Team next to SJC hawai adda). Priceless quote from him during the product launch in IFA Berlin

“We have uniquely positioned the speakers and microphone so that you can talk as you would talk to the hand . It is such a natural gesture, just raise your hand to your ear and talk,” he gushed to the thousands sitting in the audience at a packed venue in Berlin.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 20 Nov 2013 05:09

i read win 8.1 supports 3d printing and nfc printing.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 20 Nov 2013 06:07

I moved up from a 2010 15 inch MBP to a retina MBP. Much lighter (guess not in the air ballpark though). Maybe you need a air if it is for yum bee yae giri?

I use a 15in because it gives me a two split emacs windows of 80 columns with a proper fontsize. I dont transport it much (I use it to work from home, I have a proper Linux workstation at office).

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 20 Nov 2013 07:15

Anujan wrote:I moved up from a 2010 15 inch MBP to a retina MBP. Much lighter (guess not in the air ballpark though). Maybe you need a air if it is for yum bee yae giri?

What was the benefit of moving up from the 2010 MBP to the rMBP, other than weight ?

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 20 Nov 2013 08:25

@Vina saar - SHQ has the 15" rMBP. She uses it in much the same way you would, client presentations and the like. She does a lot of Photoshop work and Illustrator / PDF creation as well, and she is very happy with it.

vina · Post by **vina** » 20 Nov 2013 09:57

girish.r wrote:If price is not a factor go for it (15 "). If you plan to spend more time creating presentations and ebooks

Yes. Makes sense. The diff between a top end 13" rMBP with dual core i7 and a lower end 15"in rMBP with quad core i7 and Intel Pro graphics is quite small (around $200), so makes sense to go for the 15", my only concern was lugging it around.

Anujan wrote:I moved up from a 2010 15 inch MBP to a retina MBP. Much lighter (guess not in the air ballpark though). Maybe you need a air if it is for yum bee yae giri?

I use a 15in because it gives me a two split emacs windows of 80 columns with a proper fontsize. I dont transport it much (I use it to work from home, I have a proper Linux workstation at office).

I work from home pretty much and this would be largely home based if left to myself . However, my investors are asking me to sit at their Aapish everyday

and wear a pant shirt (no monkey suit in India thankfully) and do smooch-smooch with Kasht-o-murs who will come in to visit! I have got so used to not commuting and working in T Shirts and shorts I dread it. If have have to do what those folks say, lugging it around will be daily affair and hence the question on portability . Between the 13" and 15" , there is a one pound (roughly 500gm difference).

For YumBeeYea giri / presentation giri, I nowadays use my iPad ! Best thing to carry around and hook it to up to Kusht-o-mur's projectors .

BhairavP wrote:She uses it in much the same way you would, client presentations and the like

I will use it for pretty long computation runs (statistical stuff, with a lot of Monte Carlo simulations) and graphics and that is where the quad core i7 and the Haswell chipset with Intel Pro graphics and fast pcie based SSD is attractive, especially with a killer display and laptop config.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 20 Nov 2013 10:38

Anujan wrote:Maybe you need a air if it is for yum bee yae giri?

If I were to do yum bee yay giri, I would go with gas or vapor - MBG or MBV (but then MBA is MacBook Air). Had Mahdi been alive he would have introduced MBG and MBV and Harvard (or is it Reed College from which Mahdi dropped out) would co-promote two degrees with same names.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Nov 2013 10:39

i wonder how its cooling will behave for long cpu bound jobs. laptops generally do not remotely have the airflow of a proper desktop with push-pull fan system..as in gaming rigs etc.

niran · Post by **niran** » 20 Nov 2013 11:37

is not 15" MBP weighs around 2.5 kilos without any load outs?
that increases to 4+ kilos with bag and other carry on, and my
presumption is VINA guru surely must be 40+ in age, I can imagine a 40 plus guru
lugging around kilos for his yem be yea giri, if the guru need any aide to ease out
shoulder or neck ache, moi can help.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 20 Nov 2013 11:39

Suraj wrote:
Anujan wrote:I moved up from a 2010 15 inch MBP to a retina MBP. Much lighter (guess not in the air ballpark though). Maybe you need a air if it is for yum bee yae giri?
What was the benefit of moving up from the 2010 MBP to the rMBP, other than weight ?

Well weight. And retina screen is really sharp. Bit faster. Mostly just abuse of office resources (my laptop was due for refresh after 3 years).

vina · Post by **vina** » 20 Nov 2013 12:38

Singha wrote:i wonder how its cooling will behave for long cpu bound jobs. laptops generally do not remotely have the airflow of a proper desktop with push-pull fan system..as in gaming rigs etc.

Well, this is a laptop grade low power cpus which throw off far less power in the first place than the equivalent desktop, and second as Pandyan saar said, Al is a pretty good conductor of heat to throw out . In any case, Phroot uses laptop grade cpus onree , even on it's desktops ( iMacs, including the 27 in one and Mac mini), and RAM (SoDimms onree), all in the interest of thin , sleek onlee (with power and cooling requirements coming down) and EPA isthaar ratings onree. All that hardware , engineering and attention to detail costs a pretty packet though , but well worth it IMHO.

vina · Post by **vina** » 20 Nov 2013 12:43

niran wrote:presumption is VINA guru surely must be 40+ in age.

And so is R Bose babu, despite his protestations to the contrary and all that boasting about working out at the gym to build those biceps and pectorals. I am sure he puffs and huffs up the stairs weighed down with a couple of brick like devices like Smart phone, tablets and laptops, in addition to carrying his chamiya's stuff.

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 20 Nov 2013 13:46

Singha wrote:i wonder how its cooling will behave for long cpu bound jobs. laptops generally do not remotely have the airflow of a proper desktop with push-pull fan system..as in gaming rigs etc.

Vinaji

take a look at the W series by Thinkpad-Lenovo. Those are workstation-laptops for High performance Computing.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Nov 2013 14:41

vina wrote:
niran wrote:presumption is VINA guru surely must be 40+ in age.
And so is R Bose babu, despite his protestations to the contrary and all that boasting about working out at the gym to build those biceps and pectorals. I am sure he puffs and huffs up the stairs weighed down with a couple of brick like devices like Smart phone, tablets and laptops, in addition to carrying his chamiya's stuff.

I have checked out his online timings. face it Vinaji you can't hope to run 21km in 2:09 now...like a 686 pentium in a world of i7 and snapdragon800s. age is onlee a number - 30 or 40.

either up the game or be prepared to be called "weak uncle"

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 20 Nov 2013 19:19

pandyan wrote:
matrimc wrote:[quote="Anujan"Maybe you need a air if it is for yum bee yae giri?
If I were to do yum bee yay giri, I would go with gas or vapor - MBG or MBV (but then MBA is MacBook Air). Had Mahdi been alive he would have introduced MBG and MBV and Harvard (or is it Reed College from which Mahdi dropped out) would co-promote two degrees with same names.]/quote]

saik - how come you have two accounts?

If I can hack into any math guru's brain, that would complete one of my objectives in life. BTW, what gives your thought I have exactly and only two accounts?

ps: btw, having one BR account akin having one wife. two a/c -> two wives and soon.. on that account, spinster has many.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Nov 2013 22:46

Looks like vina uncle is feeling lonely in his age bracket that he wants to drag others into it

Shape up uncle ji or ship out!

I carry a Surface Pro 2 and a phunwa onlee....that takes care of all mobile needs. MBP is left in apphice.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 21 Nov 2013 03:06

pandyan wrote:
matrimc wrote:... would co-promote two degrees with same names.
saik - how come you have two accounts?

Why did you get such a doubt? Mind you, I would love to have SaiK's equanimity. All you have to do is to find one issue on which we disagree - a simple diagonalization argument to separate us.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 22 Nov 2013 05:08

Android 4.4 KitKat was released OTA to my Nexus 7 earlier today. Initial impression is that the change is cosmetic - nothing that really sticks out as very different, unlike say iOS 7 vs anything before it.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 Nov 2013 06:54

iOS7 is a step backwards in terms of UI, at least Android KitKat is not. As for folks going WindowsPhone is another Zune, looks like its here to stay.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 Nov 2013 08:00

pandyan, it is between you, me and matrimc.. others (should not be an admin though) can't prove and will have no clue now that all three of us are the same guys!?

now, other avatars who seek proofs, can join in.. to be 4th, 5th so on avatars, but have to sacrifice their end-game identity by being anyone of these three primal-avatars.

if you are game for this, we can prove on that premise.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 22 Nov 2013 09:33

Raja Bose wrote:iOS7 is a step backwards in terms of UI, at least Android KitKat is not. As for folks going WindowsPhone is another Zune, looks like its here to stay.

aiyyoEss 7 has some annoying little issues with it e.g. I can't configure all home screen text to be black. My fav pic of HQ serves as my home screen wallpaper and it has a bunch of whites around it, and with all text in white, it makes it hard to read. Other than things like that, I haven't found it terribly annoying. I did turn off the parallax thingy.

Haven't yet used by tablet much since KitKat update while at work. I'll check it out over weekend. At first I thought the update didn't go through because the screen looked about the same

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 22 Nov 2013 09:51

after turning off parallax and getting rid of a bunch of games my son had installed to eat up memory, my ipad ios7 speed has remarkably improved back to ios6 level.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 Nov 2013 10:25

aah games.. many times my aiyo yes 5 freezes up - in the sense screens expands beyond its capacity like 10 times.. scrolling is a pain to find the button to restart.. always felt like it needs a reset button like our good old pc.. a difficult button to reset like a hole will also work.. this is annoying everytime it does.

few days back, driving it froze.. this time differently.. no screen enlargement or steroid business, but it just would not respond to any buttons on screen or the mechanical ones. it took a while to clear like 5 minutes, and then again another 5 minutes with the bitten apple logo.. and then it came back to normal.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 22 Nov 2013 11:42

question for you home office warriors. I need to buy a printer this weekend and the choice based on my budget is between these two (one is cartridge, one is ink bottle based). use will mainly be for my son's school work so not high volume but I would like to avoid hassles like ink drying up etc.
both seem to have wifi printing which is a must for me.

http://computerwarehousepricelist.com/e ... inkjet-psc

http://computerwarehousepricelist.com/c ... inkjet-psc

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 22 Nov 2013 12:03

Singha, if you don't care about color go for laser. OPex will be lower. If color is needed then laser capex is high. For color volume matters. In my case, older kid prints stuff at her school but she will be done in another eight months. Next year on printer is least of my worries (expense wise pocket change compared to the tuition even if she goes to state school).

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 22 Nov 2013 12:06

i received much the same advice. laser is the way to go.

vina · Post by **vina** » 22 Nov 2013 13:01

Singha wrote:question for you home office warriors. I need to buy a printer this weekend and the choice based on my budget is between these two (one is cartridge, one is ink bottle based). use will mainly be for my son's school work so not high volume but I would like to avoid hassles like ink drying up etc.
both seem to have wifi printing which is a must for me.

http://computerwarehousepricelist.com/e ... inkjet-psc

http://computerwarehousepricelist.com/c ... inkjet-psc

Be a Paki and get it printed at work. A printer at home is a massive rip off. The cartridge replacement cost is something like 25% of the printer cost (for el cheapo printers). Paper and stuff adds up as well. So best choice, do it at aapish (i cant be more than a few pages at best)or I am sure there is a neighborhood browsing center close by (okay not where you live definitely in Strategy IT-VIty cross roads surely, but near work, maybe), get it done there, costs 3 Rs a pop in Bangalore these days (up from Rs 1 a year or two ago!).

As for signing/vigning, I now got a Digital Signature Certificate and print to pdf and using the freeware Digisigner , sign the pdf and email. That is way cheaper than printing, signing, scanning (adds up to Rs 15 to Rs 18) and emailing or couriering (Rs 105 to Dilli) , on a regular basis. DSC is Rs 1300 for 2 years (and anyway, it is mandatory for me).

vic · Post by **vic** » 22 Nov 2013 13:08

Laser is the way to go!

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 22 Nov 2013 13:17

Raja Bose wrote:iOS7 is a step backwards in terms of UI, at least Android KitKat is not. As for folks going WindowsPhone is another Zune, looks like its here to stay.

And the lumia 520s and 620s are gaining popularity in the NCR region as I see it.

Lots of users now

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 22 Nov 2013 13:32

it costs 150 to refill cartridge , never had any issues with that

habal · Post by **habal** » 22 Nov 2013 13:38

vic wrote:Laser is the way to go!

Not for color prints. Cheapest color per page in India may just be the ink tank thing in Singha ji's link, only if the ink or the ink in the print head does not dry off due to non use for a few days.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 22 Nov 2013 14:39

ok I am going to try the epson ink bottle thing. going out to get it printed is not so simple in ORR belt - maybe in mixed use well established areas like rajajinagar or jayanagr that is feasible. here have to brave insane traffic only to see the shop has no power and often these school work needs to be submitted next day which means I cant print in the office. plus they usually involve colour.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 22 Nov 2013 14:47

ink will dry up if not used for long time.

merlin · Post by **merlin** » 22 Nov 2013 15:13

Colour means injet. A colour laser will be much more expensive and usually have inferior quality (except the super high end ones). Prepare for insane ink costs though. And the cartridge running out of ink fast.

habal · Post by **habal** » 22 Nov 2013 15:38

the ink cartridges on that are 70ml each for 4 bottles.

vina · Post by **vina** » 22 Nov 2013 16:38

Singha wrote:ok I am going to try the epson ink bottle thing. going out to get it printed is not so simple in ORR belt - maybe in mixed use well established areas like rajajinagar or jayanagr that is feasible. here have to brave insane traffic only to see the shop has no power and often these school work needs to be submitted next day which means I cant print in the office. plus they usually involve colour.

Isn't there a Staples in ORR near Cisco someplace. That is the GO TO place for all this kind of thing, esp color. If you are going to print color regularly , it will cost you a packet.

Frankly, you should give the birdie to your kid's Dilli Billi school and tell them to take a walk if they want you to do "Posh" and "Cool" things like printing some random stuff out of the internet to bring to school!. Why, you can email that thing to the teacher and ask them to use a Projector and say that you are being environmentally friendly! For my kid, when I get such requests, I give my kid pen and paper and crayons and ask her to draw and color!

All in all, this printer business doesn't sound like a good idea. If you need to absolutely do color for a few sheets, grit your teeth and go to staples and be done with it. I cant imagine you having much use of that printer anyway, maybe twice a month or something at best (if it is anything more, you should tell DPS to take a walk), and that will see the ink gum up.