Another service I’m using that Google is killing off at this stage. August 9th is the day Google Latitude is being put to sleep. Some of their services just keep disappearing and its annoying, I used it a lot and a lot of people I know did, but recently a lot of people started using it less and less.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Flip Cover Folio

This is the Case that comes from Samsung, a simple Folio with a small cut out for the screen at the top showing some quick information. It’s a simple cover which protects the screen from being scratched but doesn’t protect the body from damage.

Honestly I thought this would be a better cover, but you just replace the back with a folio attached and I was a bit disappointed by it. The folio looks good but then its just disappointing that it doesn’t really improve the use of the phone expect that it gets in the way of the phone. You have to flip the cover off every time to use the phone normally which gets annoying quickly, this cover isn’t for everyone.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Spigen SGP Slim Fit Case

The Spigen cover turned out to be the perfect fit for my use. This is a full cover around the phone with the volume and power buttons working perfectly. The back is covered with a matt black plastic which makes it not slip like the normal back, and there is an opening for the Camera, Flash, and the speaker. The shape of the frame of the cover is perfect so you can really grip the phone easily and thats what I love about it, unlike the phone’s normal curved sides this gives it a bit of a better frame which makes it easier to grip. The only draw back is that not every USB head can fit into the bottom of this case.

The Beast from Samsung, they decided to combine their best selling product into a DSLR and came up with the Samsung Galaxy NX. It has Interchangeable lenses, Android Jelly Bean and 4G LTE to say the least. The device is said to be as big as the Canon Rebel than that of a smaller Samsung NX300 model. The size is a determination factor for some people looking for a DSLR but a very smart one in this case, connecting to Wifi or Bluetooth or LTE. This is when to great devices are molded together looks like.

Galaxy NX also packs a large 4.8-inch HD LCD display on its rear and is powered by a 1.6GHz Pega-Q quad-core setup and separate DRIMe IV Signal processor for imaging. The UI should look pretty familiar to anyone who’s used an Android device before, and specificly the Galaxy Camera before, with the common apps and widgets submenus, as well as the wheel interface for its 30 Smart Modes — employed when selecting imaging settings. And if you happen to own any of the company’s other NX cameras, you’ll be able to swap out lenses (13 in all) as the Galaxy NX is fully compatible with that range. It also incorporates a hybrid AF, culled from the best of DSLRs and compacts, with a shutter speed of 1/6,000th of a second and 8.6fps shooting.

This though is an interesting “mutation” from Samsung, there aren’t a lot of heavy duty use phone’s out there, and if there are then they are usually very low spec with a lot of armor. But the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active is high spec and its also waterproof and a bit of added armor, and barely any reduction in quality. The camera on this phone is a little less powerful from the 13 MP to 8 MP but it seems to compliment under water use. I just think this phone can take a beating and thats why some people would like it in comparison to the S4. And honestly I prefer the buttons at the bottom then they do the touch panel on the S4, I missed buttons when they took them away.

This one though is truly a phone, not just a data enabled camera like the Samsung Galaxy Camera. The phone features a 10x optical zoom lens in front of its 16-megapixel CMOS sensor, with a Xenon flash for adding some extra light to your images.

The S4 Zoom has a 4.3-inch qHD (960×540) Super Amoled display and 1.5GHz dual-core processor, runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and supports LTE. Predictably, it’s big and heavy, at 208 grams and 15.4 millimeters thick — nearly double the thickness of the original Galaxy S4. It is, however, measurably slimmer than last year’s Galaxy Camera, Samsung’s first crack at adding an Android interface to a consumer point-and-shoot. Photographically speaking, things look similar between the two: both devices shoot at the same resolution and max out at ISO 3200, although the older Galaxy has a much longer 21x optical zoom range. Its lens is also slightly (less than a third of a stop) faster, at f/2.8-5.9, compared with the S4 Zoom’s f/3.1-6.3 maximum aperture. So the Samsung Galaxy Camera is faster with a better Zoom but thicker, so who would go for this, I wouldn’t be too inclined since I have the Galaxy Camera and I’m very happy with it. But still its only a point and shoot, no comparison to the Canon G12 or G15 in my opinion as to speed or depth of shot.

Yes or No?

What do you think?

When Flickr tried introducing video a long while back, there was a huge whiplash and people hated, but now this seems to be completely different, people are reacting favorably to the video in instagram. Its taking a different form, people are testing it out and even I found it to be interesting.

Instagram has always managed to keep a level of imagination behind it’s picture, you always wonder how they took the picture, and some of them are amazing. I know sometimes I work at it to get the right picture, and some people uploading their pics from their DSLR camera for these amazing shots. But now the dynamic of instagram will be totally changed. Instagram is going after Vine & Keeker, and it will beat them with a very big stick.

But Instagram has laid some rules down for the videos, you have to hold down the button to record. It turns it into stopmotion photography, thats what a few people are doing, and some people are doing crappy videos, 15 seconds is the limit, and you don’t know how it will turn out since you really have to squeeze in.

Photographs on Instagram have always had a bit of heft or importance to them, you can really see some accounts with amazing photographs. Instagram has always been clutter free and amazing pictures, not noisy like Twitter and other social media, Instagram has been the clean place, but with video introduced its like people are stumbling with the video from a few of the ones I have seen and some are amazing with the use of stop-motion.

Then there is the other thing that is lost, the slow scroll through instagram, the one you do at work, or with the family or while sitting patiently waiting to do another activity and it takes up the right amount of time. Now suddenly videos come on and you have to jump to mute your phone, already happened to me a few times over the weekend. Lets see how Instagram will change with the introduction of video, you can’t load it up from a DSLR like some do for pics, but now lets see how things will change.

I love wakeboarding, and this is just over the top, would love to do 10% of what these guys do. Its impressive and they are light on their feet, and some very clean landings. Even though I think lakes have horrible water compared to our oceans, they are flat and easy to WakeBoard on.

For those still using Google Reader the cut off date is within a few weeks, Google will be pulling the plug. And Feedly has really stepped up, not just as an RSS Feeder but to do it even better then how Google did it. They are replacing what Google does for RSS Feeds, and they have created an open API so RSS Readers can connect to the Feedly cloud.

The Partners:

• Reeder
• Press
• Nextgen Reader
• Newsify
• gReader

Feedly is fast, and thats what I love about it, and they plan to make it even faster based on their recent expansions. They added more servers to make it even smoother, support for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, and other developments. The best part of the development is their ecosystem, there are a lot excellent Apps out there, but right now I’m loving the Feedly app on Android and online. But you can still use the Apps above to work with Feedly, and I think thats fantastic on their part. I have been on the Feedly forums and they have been intensely listening to users and adding features as fast as possible. If anything, Google Reader showed us that sometimes, someone besides Google does it better.

Simply put Sony annialated Microsoft on their launch, seriously, so many good things and they made fun of the XBox One’s DRM Crap. 80% of all games are launched on both machines, will the exclusive games push you to one or the other?

The Main Points of the PS4:

• $399
• Buy or Sell
• Don’t Need to be Online
• No kinect thats on all the time
• Region Free
• Indie Developers Liking
• Alot of Games at launch

The only reason I would buy the XBox One is for Halo, because even XBox live on XBox One is region locked, bad move on Microsoft. Even if they have the greatest exclusive games people will flock to PS4 because they made it a gaming machine. I think they forgot the main aspect of their success which is gaming, now they are looking at locking people in but I don’t think that would work. I was always buying XBox Games before if I had to to choose between the two, now it seems like I will be moving over to Sony’s camp. The first round of the big console wars has been lost by Microsoft, now lets see what they do when the device launches.

With the release of the Samsung S4 & HTC One, everyone was running to get their hands on it, true 4G Android Devices which honestly make the iPhone 5 look like crap and its going to have to do a lot more then just another hardware design to beat these two machines. HTC have been having a hard time getting things right with Android after Samsung took the lead as the best, but I honestly think they have a great device on their hands with the HTC One. The Samsung Galaxy S4 was a smart move by Samsung, the S3 was so successful that they just improved on it slightly in regards to the design and packed it with the best possible hardware they could put together.

There were a lot of comparison and technical reviews, but I wanted a real use review of both machines to see which fit better and for what use. I wanted to really try both phones and after almost a month of having them both I can honestly say there isn’t just one conclusion, it just depends what you want because they are both really good.

Wifi

It’s very important for a device to have a strong wifi signal capability, it has to capture it and use it. And out of all the Android brands out there, I can say that Samsung has that down, they pretty much have everyone beat. And sadly the worst out of the bunch is HTC, I had the problem with the HTC One X and with the HTC One it’s signal always weaker then the S4 and sometimes it can’t see the Access Points.

Screen

The Samsung S4 screen is huge, both screens are crisp and excellent touch interface. Honestly they are both excellent. If you want the bigger screen then the Samsung S4 is the way to go, but its a matter of preference. Both of them have amazing brightness and you can easily see them during day time.

Design

Honestly hands down the HTC One wins in this department, if Apple wants to copy anyone for their next phone then it would be the HTC One. The Samsung S4 is 80% the same as the S3 just bigger screen and an aluminum frame which I liked. The one benefit to the Samsung S4 is that it feels lighter then the HTC One, but still it looks better then the S4. One aspect that I like about the S4 is the ability to add the a MicroSD Card, that is a huge win for the S4 in my case. You don’t need that much space on your phones these days but having the ability to is a huge plus.

Above is the Samsung Galaxy S4 Shot & Below is the HTC One Shot

Camera

HTC has the Ultrapixel which is sort like a supercharged 4MP which performs better then most camera phones with higher Megapixels. The HTC has the machine gun shot which shoots multiple shots and you can choose the best or keep them all which is a great feature. The Galaxy S4 has an amazingly crisp camera, they improved on their best selling Galaxy S3. And they included all the features of the Galaxy Camera with all the different settings and mode. The HTC One has the low light shots done perfectly, this is one thing that HTC has had down. Between the two I preferred the S4 camera, but it’s just barely better. And hands down both better then Apple iPhone 5.

Above is the Samsung Galaxy S4 Shot & Below is the HTC One Shot

Battery

This takes a bit longer to figure out but both Android devices lasted a full day of abuse. Nonstop wifi use, making phone calls and sending messages, they could both take it. And I know over time I will get the Mophie battery case for the either phone, and its a matter of time the case comes out for the S4 since its selling like crazy as expected.

Interface & Feel

To be very honest you can go with either of them, this really comes down to preferences. I prefer the HTC One Sense Skin feel over the Samsung Touch Skin, since its less intrusive in this case. I always prefer getting phones from Google because its a clean installation and I can do as I please, but in this case I had to choose, and the HTC One was cleaner and crispier. I just get annoyed with Samsung trying to make things more watery with the TouchWiz Skin. Now for the Sound hands down the HTC One has amazing sound, by far much better then the S4 and it can easily blast music in a room, you wouldn’t think its a phone speaker.

What I don’t like about the Samsung S4

I really hate the keyboard, had to get the Swift Keyboard so my fingers don’t feel like they are stretching across the screen. It really made me feel like I was learning how to type for the first time. The speaker is loud but not crisp, I wish they put it up front. The air gestures aren’t really that useful, I only like the finger hover when in the gallery for a preview but the rest makes you look crazy when your staring at the screen trying to make things move, if you have an S4 you know exactly what I’m talking about.

What I don’t like about the HTC One

I hate the Blink Feed, wish there was a way to get rid of it since its taking a piece of the screen that I could use and you only have a limit of 4 screens. The Weak wifi signal is a breaker for me, I have to have good wifi on my phone.

Which One

Choosing between them is tough but I had two deciding factors which were the Wifi Signal and Camera, which in this case the S4 was the better choice even though I really like the HTC One design. I picked up the Samsung S4 LTE from Al Babtain and got the HTC One from a friend. Honestly Babtain did a great job of making the phone available all over Kuwait and quickly, the HTC One was like hunting an endangered species.

Recently my desktop has had a few hiccups but being almost 3 years old it has taken a beating. A lot of things I do myself and around the house revolves around the Lian Li machine which was repurposed from a Windows Home Server to a Heavy Weight Single Desktop use. With the launch of the new Intel Haswell Processors and a few interesting pieces of hardware I had laying around I decided to put this new machine together and also add some more gaming capability to it.

Hardware

• Thermaltake Urban S41
• Thermaltake 1500W
• Samsung 840 SSD 500 GB SATAIII
• Intel Core i7-4770
• Gigabyte Z87 LGA 1150 Dual LAN ATX
• Corsair 16 GB DDR3 1600Mhz Vengence
• Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB GDDR5
• Digistar BlueRay Drive (Slot Loading)
• OCZ 128 GB SSD SataIII
• WD 3TB SataIII

For the software I want to dual boot both Windows 8 & Windows 7, honestly Windows 7 is amazing and does the job and extremely stable. I have one Windows 8 laptop with a touch screen, and for Windows 8 to work smoothly it has to be a Touch Screen integrated into it. So dual boot option looks like its something I’m contemplation at this point, but the first install is going to be Windows 7 at least. Then the Windows 8 install on the other SSD and W8 can handle the dual boot option on start up, but lets see how it develops.

Razer just announced a more 14inch Blade, we always picture gaming machines as heavy bricks attached to a big screen, thats as portable as it will get. But Razor has a different idea, they wanted a Gaming machine as powerful as desktop yet as mobile as a Mac Book Air, I like where these guys are going, they have the vigor that Alienware and Voodoo once had. I really feel the guys behind the Razer are true gamers and want a portable gaming machine, not something that weighs a ton and has to be plugged in to play.

“We tried to distill the very best reference points of the MacBook Air for our gaming laptop,” says Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, pointing out that the 0.66-inch thin model is thinner than the thickest point of Apple’s machine. Despite the thinness, it uses the same graphics card and an unspecified fourth-generation Intel processor at 37W TDP, with a matte 1600 x 900 screen and a multi-touch trackpad.

The company claims it will run Crysis 3 at 45 frames per second on average. It carries 8GB of RAM and a baseline of 128GB in solid-state storage, expandable to 256GB or 512GB, and you’ll find three USB 3.0 ports and an HDMI port on the sides. It promises six hours of battery life, which is far more life than one could expect from a larger gaming laptop, though that number might be a bit overzealous compared to real-world usage, but still not bad. The 14-inch Blade will start at a hefty $1,799, with pre-orders beginning June 3rd at midnight.

• Future 4th gen Intel Core processor (formerly codename Haswell)
• RAM 8GB onboard memory (DDR3L-1600MHz)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M (2GB GDDR5 VRAM, Optimus Technology)
• 14.0″ HD+ 16:9 Ratio, 1600×900, with LED backlight
• 256GB SATA III SSD

Price: Starting @ $1,799
Link: Razer