I have been a huge fan of netbooks but they do have their drawbacks, I picked up the HP 2133 but it had the Via chipset which was slow as hell but with the new Atom it worked better. There are a lot of drawbacks as well as advantages to the netbook phenomenom and one major point is they trade processor power for portability. This time around I think they struck middle ground with this HP unit, and I really liked the build and quality of the HP 2133. This time around it seems to have the same quality build with a lot of other extras that I am curious to try, it supposed to come out sometime in July and starting at $449 which isn’t bad. I’m assuming that will jump up with the SSD option, and most probably I will downgrade it to Windows XP SP3 instead of Vista because it would suck the life out of it and based on the screen details I’m assuming it can play HD movies without any real issue.

Specs that I am looking at:

• Intel Atom N280 (1.66 GHz, 512 KB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB)
• Mobile Intel® 945GSE Express
• 2 GB 533 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
• 128 GB Solid State Drive
• 10.1-inch diagonal LED-backlit HD anti-glare
• Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
• Integrated 2 MP Webcam
• Intel WIFI Link 802.11a/b/g draft-n;
• optional HP Mobile Broadband powered by Gobi;
• 6-cell (55 WHr) high capacity Lithium-Ion

Link: Gizmodo

I have been waiting for Windows 7 for some time now, planning on installing it on one of the test machines that I currently have laying around. I have always been one to opt for installing the higher versions of Winows XP or Vista, since they have a few features which aren’t available in the home variety. This time around Microsoft has taken it a step further, not only is Remote Desktop not available in Windows Home and Windows Home Premium, but you can’t Remote Desktop into a Windows 7 machine running Home or Home Premium, that I find to be a major disappointment.

• Windows Home (No Remote Desktop)
• Windows Home Premium (No Remote Desktop)
• Windows Professional
• Windows Ultimate

The HTC Hero has tickled my fancy, I’m not really a fan of HTC but I’m curious to try it out, especially with this being the third iteration with a lot cleaned up.

They have worked on integrating, Twitter, Facebook, and Flicker seamlessly into the one. The only one that really interests me is Flickr but a lot of people would enjoy the other application. And this time around they have Adobe Flash support for the phone. And now that the Android Market has had time to develop it won’t be an issue to find some applications that will suit my needs.

• 3.2-inch HVGA touchscreen
• 5-megapixel cam with autofocus
• GPS
• 3.5-mm headphone jack
• 512MB of onboard memory with microSD expansion
• Flash support

Link: Coolhunting

At last they have come to launch the Blackberry Service, as of today Wataniya has launched the new Blackberry Service with the pricing plan below. Looks like their tis going to be competition for the Blackberry Subscribers, and our brethren in the Wataniya camp can at last communicate with us through BBM. Now I wonder how many people will be switching over to the BB service who already have Wataniya.

It seems you can easily switch between the plans, you don’t have to stick to one or the other.

Pricing Plan:

• Basic: 9 KD with 1 fils per KD
• Unlimited: 13 KD 10 GB Free
• Unlimited +: 25 KD 10 GB Free & 10 MB Free Roaming
• Update:Prepaid Blackberry Service Available

I have found it to be the funniest thing, and it has happened to us a few times as well. There have been a few times when we have gone out to lunch or dinner, one person gets a BBM (Blackberry Message), then another person gets one, then the next. We spend the next 10 minutes bbming the person we are talking to in complete silence, and even sometimes we might be bbming in a group and even the people sitting together at the dining table are involved in the BBM group chat. This is damn addicting and you can notice others who are addicted to it. The one time Zains’ blackberry service went down, I was really really annoyed that I had to use sms to communicate with people, it felt so archaic and slow in comparison with BBM which gives you answer right away, and it so damn satisfying. I even get annoyed with those that don’t answer right away or are too slow to type. I think that BBM is an excellent feature, but sometimes you just have to put it down and enjoy what ever you are doing.

After having my Blackberry for a couple of weeks at this point, this is a simple evaluation of the Blackberry service and my phone the Blackberry 8900 Javelin. Overall I am happy that I made the switch at this point, I have got an excellent phone and majority of my friends already have it so its simple enough to ask a questions. I have a few essential applications but I’m not planning to install too many.

The Great Part

• Bandwidth Optimization – You get connected very quickly and easily, this is without using the 3G network only EDGE for now
• Overall Cost Reduction – Less calls just BBMs
• Smooth Operating System – The system of the 8900 Javelin is stable and smooth, much better then the Bold which hangs often with people
• Great Web Browsing
• Synced with email – Gmail or otherwise, if you read it in your Blackberry then its read in your Inbox when you open the browser. Connection through IMAP which is setup manually rather then the automated setup which goes through POP
• Instant and easy connectivity – Everything is updated without a headache, Weather, Google Latitude, Emails, and other things
• The Battery is decent, compared to the Bold its a lot better. From what I’ve seen with friends the Bold doesn’t always last the whole day sometimes half way through you need to charge it. After about a full 12 hours of usage the Javelin is at about 25% – 30% of its power. This includes messaging all day, on the phone, web surfing, and taking pictures which isn’t too bad. The only thing is that you have to charge it through Mirco-USB

The Other Side

• One things is that if you are trying to transmit too much data it doesn’t receive information right away such as sending multiple pictures through BBM, there are a few minutes there when you don’t receive anything but suddenly you get lots of BBMs which were pending
• BBM – It is one reason to switch to Blackberry if you know enough people who have Blackberry’s and to my surprise I know more people then I thought who have BBs. But the bad part is that if you are used to the instant gratification of this communication system you really get annoyed when the system goes down. It happened once and I was surprised how annoyed I got at the damn phone, SMS just doesn’t cut it anymore

Over the past couple of months I have started getting these numbers below for most of the international calls I’m receiving. This is points out to the Voip Gateway that M.O.C is installing and using, meaning they are using Voice over IP for our international calls instead of the traditional methods, which cost a fraction of the price for the Ministry yet they still charge us the those ridiculous pricing per minute, and their billing is usually completely wrong.

• 22263060
• 22256891
• 22260790
• 222xxxxx

Calling into Kuwait from any country is usually a hassle, you get the voice saying “All calls to this country are busy now, please try later”. It happens where ever I am, for some reason they haven’t managed to improve the countries infrastructure over the past 20 years but they have managed to start using Voip and not implement it correctly or smoothly. Our Communications systems need a major overhaul and a real maintenance plan, not just fixing it when its broken. Its funny, MOC gets to use Voip for its personal use but makes it illegal to use in our country, and most of the electronic (Computer/Network oriented) items are always held at customs due to this stupid rule. We have too many idiots working in MOC with little to no working knowledge of Telecom or Network systems.

I remember when I first moved to the Bay Area I loved visiting the Metreon. Its a building with everything Sony, a fully technological building. I remember seeing the robotic dog AIBO for the first time there in 2000 and there were lots of them. Now they are closing down the Playstation store, a store which is everything Playstation and you could literally try every game. It is right across from the Sony Store which I hope they don’t close either.

Link: Gizmodo

I went to Dubai for exactly 24 hrs, went to a few meetings on Thursday morning and afternoon. Had a very late lunch, then a late dinner. It was a very short trip and came back the next night on Friday.

Throughout my whole stay I wasn’t able to call anyone on their mobile from Dubai. I thought something was wrong with my line, I remembering paying a hefty bill. I could call Kuwait landlines, any Emirati number, everything except Kuwaiti mobile numbers. I could text people but I couldn’t call them, I kept getting network busy for the full 24 hours. It was extremely annoying, I couldn’t figure out what was the problem. Anyone trying to call me or any of the people with me in Dubai got a network busy tone as well. I met a lot of Kuwaiti people who were in Dubai, and it seems they were suffering the same problem. The problem could be from Zain or Etisalat but there was no other indication of problems. Still it was extremely annoying and nothing that could be done for the whole time there, I hope this gets resolved.

Archos are known for making great media players which are able to play Hi-Def Video files on tablet media players with a large amount of space to store these movies. Then there is the internet surfing capability which was turned them into very successful products.

Now Archos is releasing their successful product as an Android phone with all the usual Archos capability. At 10mm thick it will have the Android software , 500 GB Hard Drive, 7 hours of video playback, and Flash support. On top of all that, it doubles as a phone.

Link: Engadget