My picks of 2009

These are my picks for the best 'revolutionary' softwares/OSes/web apps of 2009:



1. Google Chrome - This is without doubt the most interesting product of 2009. Although it was released in September 2008, Chrome really came of age in 2009. There's now a Windows, Mac as well as a Linux version of Chrome and the usability and feature set of Chrome has virtually doubled in the past few months. Its looking like a much more complete browser now than it ever did! And well here's the thing, I was an ardent fan of Firefox (maybe I still am) but seriously, Firefox doesnt really have the 'nifty-ness' of Chrome and frankly speaking, the development of Firefox isnt really headed in that direction! And now Chrome has a really good set of "Extensions" (aka the "add-ons"), so you wont really miss Firefox!



2. icloud - Cloud computing is the future, there's no debate about that. The thin line between desktop and online computing has been blurred forever thanks to cloud computing. Now you can access your favourite desktop apps and files no matter where in the world you are. And among all the other cloud computing 'sites', icloud is without any doubt the sleeker and the most popular one. This surely was one of the most awesome stuff we've seen in 2009 and we're surely gonna see more of cloud in the years to come.



3. Ubuntu - Linux also came of age in 2009. This year saw the release of one of the most user-friendly Linux OSes ever, Ubuntu 9.10 (codenamed Karmic Koala). It shattered the myth that Linux was all about terminals, kernels and everything geeky. Linux as of now is as user-friendly (and in some instances, even more) than its Windows counterpart. The sheer fact that everything is customisable is the plus point of Ubuntu. Also, the impenetrable security of Ubuntu has also been the talking point. Ubuntu is coming up with its LTS (Long Term Support) release next year 10.04 codenamed Lucid Lynx which promises to be another revolutionary step in Linux.



4. Twitter - Who'd have thought a 140 character stupid social networking concept would turn out to be one of the most most important path breaking achievements in the social networking scene! Twitter has used 2009 to usher into a social networking giant, competing with the likes of Facebook and Myspace. Sure Twitter has teething problems and annoying outages but the fact is for millions around the globe (and that includes celebs as well), Twitter has become a way of life.



5. DivX 7 - An unlikely candidate you might say? Erm...no. Infact I might venture to say, the release of DivX 7 was perhaps the most important landmark achievement of 2009. What does that mean? Well in the words of Wikipedia, "On the 6th of January 2009, DivX 7 was released, which added H.264 video, AAC audio and Matroska container support, surpassing the restrictions of their previous formats." So now, you can convert your favourite high definition videos to a format which will compress them to a large extent (much larger extent than Xvid or DivX) without apparent loss in quality! If you have a video which you want to share with the world, size is now no at all a barrier. (Some might say H264 and Matroska existed way before DivX 7 released, but the fact is because DivX 7 has integrated these codecs, it will now receive a worldwide recognition and acceptance from users. What this also means is that come 2010, and we might see products aka Blu Ray Disc Players which will play videos which use the H264 codec! Should suffice to say, this is music to millions of videophiles across the planet)

That was my pick of 2009.

My browser dilemma

Image via WikipediaTo be frank, I never ever thought I would face such a situation. I am totally pissed off as I write this post.

All I was asking for was a plain and simple browser with decent speed and easy functionality. Is this asking for too much? Apparently, yes.

The problem with firefox is that...its just a browser, nothing else. I mean it just browses and does nothing more. The loading time of firefox isnt really impressive compared to its google counterpart and opera.

Next I checked out Flock, a firefox based browser but with a lot of tweaks. Now thats all cool, except for the fact that its still in beta and very much so. Loads of irritating problems and bugs. Also, because its not yet a stable version provides ample opportunies for hackers to take advantage of its instabilities.

Finally had no other option but to check out the crappy google chrome. I know it has privacy issues, but the fact that browsing speeds are mind blowing is what lured me. Even here I was thoroughly disappointed, the browser not just hangs, it screws up big time even while chatting on facebook!

As you can see, I am left with no other option but to return to firefox. Lets hope we see better browsers in the future, coz the present batch is pure and utter crap.

Flock, the "social browser"

Flock, a new Mozilla Firefox based browser has caught the attention of many coz of its innovative features, especially the ones for social networking sites.

I decided to give the Flock a try. Well, firefox was getting a bit boring. :P Anyway, so after googling "flock", I was directed to the official site which had the download link. The file size is around 12.6MB for the latest version, and have to say, compared to firefox, this was almost double the size of any standard browser. After downloading, the installation was a breeze. No stupid customization questions, simple express setup and youre done.

Next came the task of figuring out how the thing worked. First up, the interface looks damn cool! But to be frank, its not really simple. One needs time to get accustomed to it. If you're a newbie, chances are you wont really like this stuff much. Anyway, once you've got the "adaptation" thing sorted out, the next part is about signing in to various sites. Easy enough? Wrong! No matter how many times I signed in, the Flock would show that I wasnt actually signed in. This is really a pain in the arse!

Now the best part of flock is that you can acess all the social networking sites and various other sites, just by cling on the "people sidebar". And you're logged in to all those sites simultaneously, which is really really cool! The other awesome feature of flock is the fact that no matter what site you visit and even if you havent logged in to facebook, you will be able to see and edit your status as well as chat with your friends in the status bar of the browser itself! Also, the fact you can post on your blogs right from the browser itself is another innovative feature. Now if that isnt mind blowing, I dont know what is! :)

However I do miss some customisation options of firefox. Say for example, the fact that you could add a keyword to every bookmark of yours (unavailabe in flock) is something you wont find in many browsers.

To sum it all up, flock is a cool browser which introduces a completely new genre of "social browsing", something which I hope the rival companies like IE or Opera will pick up soon. But the program as of now is very much in beta and isnt really something which I would call "error free". However its a start and thats what's important.