I must agree with myself on this that switching to a Mac wasn't the easiest thing to do, I had to learn around new tricks to get my work done and also, for me, the experience was much different to what Windows had to offer, much better and more flexible.

Since the most usual and important task that I perform nearly every 10 minutes or so is taking a screenshot, so with time I managed to learn a couple of techniques to do it through different ways and here I am sharing them all as a future reference to myself and for other Max OS X users. { Read more... }

Yahoo! has finally decided to launch the Yahoo! Messenger 10 IM client in beta for Windows. As claimed, this new release will add more to the features of the world's most favorite IM client for PC users.

The most noticeable new improvements have been made to the webcam feature which now allows the user to make high-quality video calls. Features include the ability to swap video windows, position the video windows side-by-side, mute the call or place it on hold.

Other new features include:

• New "Y! Updates" view of your contact list.
• All-new Yahoo! Insider.
• Choose your language easily.
• New ways to sort your contacts.
• New icons in the IM window.

Can't wait to try out the new Yahoo! Messenger 10 beta already? Download it for Windows.

Its hard to believe that Apple couldn't hold its horses on this one, but its out and official, Apple's new operating system Mac OS X Snow Leopard is now available for purchase at the official Apple store and will ship on August 28th.

The price is $29 if you are upgrading from Leopard, $49 for a Family-Pack and $9.95 only for users who purchased a Mac computer on or after June 8th, 2009.

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Earlier there have been quite a few rumors about Nokia entering the Netbook market but until now, the debate was nothing more than a piece of wind-talk. However, this morning Nokia announced that it will soon be shipping a new product which it calls as the Nokia Booklet 3G and from what it looks like, its more than just a Netbook.

Interestingly! Nokia itself is hesitating to brand this machine as a Netbook and goes on by calling it as a mini-laptop. Though we definitely would like to support Nokia on this as this device is more powerful and efficient than a regular netbook, even though it bears the guts of an Intel Atom processor which is now a standard for Netbook devices.

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A couple of months ago HTC announced a new handset called the Hero. Even though it was powered by Android, it was much different than other Android-powered phones such as the G1 and the HTC Magic in the sense that it wasn't Google-branded and also brought along a new user-experience dubbed as the HTC Sense UI.

Looking at the preview of this beauty, I was much appealed by what it had to offer and also because I got quite bored of using my iPhone, so I went ahead and purchased the HTC Hero. So here comes a detailed review:

The body of the phone is what makes it feel like it has come from heaven. It has a fully teflon-coated back which takes it to the next level of smoothness and gives the bearer a great pleasure in holding this little beauty.

Other noticeable features of the phone include, a 3.2-inch touchscreen, a trackball, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi, a 5-megapixel camera, an SD slot and a 1350mAh Lithium-ion battery.

Now there might have been some debate over whether the 528Mhz processor on the back-end makes the Hero an underpowered phone but in my say, it does not. The processor is as good, and even better than many other smartphones out in the market so it all comes down to how many apps you plan to run simultaneously. As in case of the iPhone, its only one app at a time so comparing Hero to the iPhone does not do full justice.

The OS on the phone is an up-lifted version of the Android cupcake with new icons, better navigation and the HTC Sense UI which provides up to 7 workspace screens with custom widgets and addons.

Battery-timing of the phone was what impressed me the most. It managed to survive through a complete day with EDGE turned on 24/7 on the backend and trust me on this one, no one uses EDGE like I do.

Notes to Follow

For those planning to buy this phone, here are some notes to follow:

1. Its Android, so make sure you get a preview of it before going out to purchase an Android phone for the first time.
2. Don't compare it to the iPhone since both have different classes, one has full multitasking features while the other doesn't.
3. Speed is not an issue on this phone as the rumors say, its all about how many apps you want to run in the background.

Good news is that HTC will soon be rolling out an update for the Hero that will make its UI even more fast and snappy. I would definitely recommend this phone to anyone who is tired of the iPhone and wants a change, and also to those who want to experience Android for the first time.

A couple of hours ago Twitter experienced the longest downtime in history which resulted in a global 'black out' for the online micro blogging website. The site went down on the Thursday morning leaving millions of Twitterers frustrated.

Initially the twitter team was not clear about the problem as it posted on the twitter status blog:

Site is down, we are determining the cause and will provide an update shortly.

Upon further investigation, it was finally declared that the server went down because of a denial-of-service attack as posted on the twitter blog:

On this otherwise happy Thursday morning, Twitter is the target of a denial of service attack.

Denial of Service attack is an attempt of paralyzing a server by increasing the work load of a server through external communication methods. This results in the consumption of the server's resources, which bars the actual users from using the 'victim' machine.

According to reports twitter is under a massive hack attack this time. Pertinent to know that twitter had been into the headlines in the past for its security loop-holes. We saw a number of twitter accounts being hacked be some hacker, leaking secret information.

The Twitter team is working on the problem as said by the Twitter blog:

We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate.

Though Twitter is back but users are experiencing unusual delays and time-outs. Highlighting the matter, the twitter status blog says:

As we recover, users will experience some longer load times and slowness. This includes timeouts to API clients. We’re working to get back to 100% as quickly as we can.

Others sites which experienced a similar DDoS attack were Facebook, LiveJournal and YouTube. The attack was generated from some parts of Russia and Germany.

Good news for all the Android users out there is that Amazon has launched an app for the Android platform that will allow you do mobile shopping right through your Android phone, receive new offers or even track your purchases.

Much like the Amazon app for iPhone and Blackberry, this app for Android offers pretty much the same features.

• Fast: Shop over 40 product categories from Amazon
• Convenient: Access your Amazon account, wish-list, cart, payment and shipping details and much more.
• Secure: All orders placed through the app are processed by Amazon's secured servers.

The app even lets you make 1-click purchases and the most interesting of all, you can search for a product on Amazon by taking a snapshot of its barcode and the app will search through the Amazon catalogue.

The app can be downloaded for free from the Android App Market.

Apple has always managed to keep a lot of things secret around its campus but what really isn't a secret anymore is the fact that Apple will be launching a Tablet soon.

Even though Apple has previously denied that it would ever be planning to enter the Netbook market, it still doesn't keep us away from thinking that Apple is probably working on something more catchy and innovative, that would eventually turn out to be a Tablet media device.

According to 9to5mac, the new Apple Tablet device may have already been previewed by an un-named analyst and that he predicts for it to be announced by Apple at an event somewhere in September.

The un-named analyst has also suggested that the Tablet device will be shipped in November, for a price of around $700-$800 and will focus on experiences such as Movies, E-book reading and Gaming.

Back in June, Apple gave a preview of , the upcoming OS that is dubbed as the world's most advanced operating system and also announced that it would be shipping the OS in September this year.

Even though the final shipping date has not been confirmed by Apple yet, the OS can be pre-ordered at Amazon which will then ship the package once it arrives.

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There are some reports circulating on the web that iRiver is developing a portable media player which will challenge the most awesome digital media player ever produced, the iPod touch. Named as K2, the gadget is expected to be launched in 2010.

According to a report on an Australian news website, K2 will run on the Android platform. The gadget will have a 3.5 inch touch screen, a built-in browser, wifi, bluetooth, accelerometer and a possible digital TV tuner. K2 is still in its initial phase therefore it is not yet clear that whether the touch screen would fully compat with the human touch or a stylus would be used. The memory capacity of the PMP has also not been revealed.

Though the Portable media player will surely not have the luxury of Apple's app store or the iTunes sync feature but still it would be a great challenge to Apple's iPod touch. Being an android based gadget, K2 will most probably have the access to the android based open source third party software.

The gadget is still a rumor and it is not yet confirmed whether it gets the approval by the company or not. If green-signaled the gadget would bring some sort of competition with Apple which would eventually result in further improvement in the newer version of Apple's iPod Touch.

The Austrailian site also reported that iRiver is also working on an ebook reader and an internet tablet.