A quick review on some amazing products of CES2017

                                                            

What is CES?

              The international CES is a world’s largest consumer electronics and consumer technology trade show that takes every January at Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. This show attracts huge amount of audience all over the world. Many MNCs take this a stage for introducing their new products.

And one important note almost all products at CES are bit pricey. Let me tell you about two amazing products in CES2017 which I personally liked a lot.

Asus Zenfone AR

Here is the coolest mobile phone which I have seen in CES2017.

·       The massive zenfone AR comes up with 5.7 inch screen a super AMOLED display.

·        Under the hood it has snapdragon821 which delivers high power and performance. This mobile just takes few minutes to get charged.

·       This mobile phone has a 23megapixel camera for making perfect photographs. And the front facing camera with 8megapixels. With the rear camera you can make 3840x2160 (4K) video recording.

·       The system is built with 8GB of RAM, which would allow you to run lots of application simultaneously.  

·       The mobile has got a huge storage space of 256GB almost a size of a computer. You can download number of applications and store a big collection of TV series too.

·       Another amazing thing is that this the first mobile phone that is google tango enabled. The tango mainly focuses on indoor navigation, 3D mapping and augmented reality. It enables us to see world around it without relying on GPS.

Now let’s come to most important thing of the product, that’s the budget. Though the features in the mobile were pretty amazing, the price of the mobile too amazed its viewers. This mobile phone is priced 59999INR. As I mentioned earlier all the products in CES are bit pricey.

Dell XPS13

         Lets see about the impressive dell xps13. These laptops are available in 13 and 15 inch display.

• ·       The laptops are well built with the great design and keyboard. This lightweight yet robust laptop weighs only 1.29 kgs making it the perfect companion at work and play.
• 
  
• ·       The laptop has got an infinity edge touch display with 3200*1800(3k) resolution. Boasting 5.7 million pixels which is 276 pixels per inch, even macbook’s retina display has 226 pixels per inch.
• 
  
• ·       It has 2 USB 3.0 ports one with power share and it also has USB C port that’s thunderbolt three.
• 
  
• ·        It is a touch screen laptop with scratch resistant gorilla glass. They also have a matte finish for non touch-screen laptops. The keyboard is really amazing. It has a backlit chiclet style keys which gives an amazing look to your laptop.
• 
  
• ·       It has a 56 watt power battery which would last for almost 12 hours while using it with minimum brightness and browsing the files normally.
• 
  
• ·       Though the laptop has a less storage capacity of 256GB it comes up Solid State Drive (SSD) which is 100 times faster than the hard drive (HDD).
• 
  
• ·       On the performance side of things, with Intel 6th Gen core i7 skylake processor and 16DD3 RAM, it handles nearly any day to day tasks.

  

Most of the American reported it as a worthy CES pick. Though this laptop costs 130000INR I would say its really worth for money dude dell xps.

Read More

Windows and Linux Operating Systems

Operating system

                         Operating system is a layer of software that provides abstraction and arbitration. In simple words it is a chief program that enables the computer hardware to communicate with computer software. In early systems, user interacted with the computer using command line interface but nowadays all the computers use Graphical User Interface (GUI).

Example: windows, linux, unix, mac os x

Windows operating system

                     Windows is one of the most popular operating system, when it comes to personal computers. It is one of the most profitable products ever made attracting millions and millions of users. It was the first to introduce Graphical User Interface (GUI). Even the first version of windows was pretty revolutionary. Windows made the general public realize that each and every household could have a computer and it wasn't just a machine that was used by big corporates.

Pros of windows

• Windows take more than 90-80% share when it comes to personal computers and desktops as it is the most user friendly operating system. Windows helps us to get millions of applications and provide support for all those application.
• One common thing that everyone love is gaming. In that case, windows is the best operating system for gaming, there is no OS which has support for better gaming and no OS that runs similar as windows. 
• Software compatibility is another advantage of windows operating system. Many useful applications like AutoCad architecture, Autodesk, Bandicam, Coreldraw, etc support only on windows OS. 
• Windows can nearly run on any processor like Intel, AMD. Hence it is compatible to any hardware.

Cons of windows

•  Windows is not an open source software it is proprietary owned. An original windows 10 OS would cost around 7600INR. 
• Most of the products in windows operating system like MS office, adobe photoshop, adobe aftereffects, etc are not free. 
• Windows is unstable and insecure. Microsoft has made great improvements over the years with security on their Operating System, their Operating System still continues to be the most vulnerable to viruses and other attacks. 
• Windows operating system is a resource hog as it uses too much Random Access Memory (RAM). 
• Windows operating system won’t provide the source code for their users as it is owned by Microsoft.

Linux operating system

                             Linux operating system was developed by Linus Torvalds. Linux was originally developed for personal computers. It was the model of free open source software which knocked down all the proprietary giants like Microsoft in order to maintain the development and distribution of computer program.

Pros of Linux

•  Linux is completely customizable as it is an open source software and provides the source code to the users who use them. It lets you dive deep into your system and mess with everything including the kernel. 
•  Developers and users more or less like to work within a relatively closed environment that places restriction on what can you do. 
•  Google developed the most popular mobile operating system Android with the help of Linux OS. As it was created from Linux, android was declared open source OS. 
•  Linux operating system is provides a safe environment as it doesn’t get affected by viruses. Relatively in windows security is a major concern, multiple firewalls need to be installed to protect from viruses. 
•  Linux has various distributions like mint, Ubuntu, elementary OS which is mainly based on kernel and packet management system.

Cons of Linux

•  Linux OS is not a user friendly operating system as it takes some time to get familiar with OS and its components. 
•  Linux operating system lacks hardware compatibility. These systems can only run only on Intel processor. 
•  Linux provides lots of free applications but those applications lack features when it is compared with proprietary applications. 
• Linux doesn’t support many applications and games as windows does. Most of the company make products which is compatible with windows as it is widely used. 
•  Many Linux distros have been developed for ease of use, but still windows is much easier.

Conclusion

           Both the operating system has advantages and disadvantages. Windows is the most user friendly operating system for new computer users. Though Linux takes bit time to master provides a safe environment than windows. My suggestion would be Linux operating system as it is Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Instead of spending lot of money on operating system and applications we can spend those money in buying new hardware devices which would be more worthy for future.

Read More

Integrated development environment

Integrated development environment

      An IDE is a software development tool that is mainly used by the developers to write and test the programs or software. These are actually a migration form of primitive text editors to use of more full function technologies that might help you in editing code more quickly and efficiently. Generally the IDEs are complicated to learn, takes time to master.

Why do we use them?

      For a professional software engineer to build a large scale systems he needs a technological support at the point of typing the code. At that point IDE comes in and helps the developer. The developers who are skilled in IDE can successfully understand, correct and improve large software systems faster.

What is a difference between a code editor and an IDE?

                      Generally the IDEs take you to a whole new level, particularly things like code completion, while typing code the IDEs will be able to guess what you’re about to type and a drop down list appears and select from them which makes the coding very easier. Moreover during compilation it is difficult to check errors in notepad or text-editors whereas in IDE things are bit simpler.

Features of IDE

      *It supports for coding by easy navigation through codes and code completion

      *It is very easier to test and debug a code in an integrated development environment than the code editor.

     *One of the most important useful feature of an IDE is support for refactoring.. i.e It helps programmers in differentiating the names of class, variables, packages, etc.

     *It provides support for IDE independent, cross platform, standardized by helping in compilation, testing, packaging and automated quality assurance.

Properties of IDE

       *Language aware editing.

       *Project definition facilities.

       *Integrated compilation.

       *Integrated stepwise execution.

Advantages of using IDEs

       *Reformat coding.

       *Check matching braces.

       *Single step through a function.

       *Traverse a package hierarchy searching for all the instances of a specific string.

       *Helps in generating the UML diagram.

Some of the best IDEs

     *Eclipse- particularly for Java.

     *Visual Studio- for programming languages like C, C++, C#.

     *Android Studio- particularly for Android Java.

     *Pycharm- Particularly for Python.

     *RubyMine-Particularly for ruby on rails.

     

     

Read More

How does your Facebook algorithm work?

          Many of us might be wondering how Facebook works and why you see only particular posts posted by friends or the fan pages you follow. Here are the answers. The algorithm that Facebook uses to manage newsfeed is edgerank algorithm.

What is that Edgerank algorithm and why?
ü Usually we won’t be able to see all posts posted by our friends or the fan pages we follow. Facebook decides what posts to be shown in each users newsfeed.

ü This algorithm helps in hiding the boring stories. EdgeRank is like a rating point: it's invisible, it's important, it's unique to each user, and no one other than Facebook knows exactly how it works.  Facebook calls every action we perform as "Edges."

ü  That means whenever a friend posts a status update, comments on another status update, tags a photo, joins a fan page it generates an "Edge," and a story about that Edge might show up in the user's personal newsfeed.

The formula is

                       ∑ u_e w_e d_e

    

                                 U_e  - affinity score

                                 W_e - weight for each edge

                  D_e - time decay factor

Affinity score
ü  The affinity score generally deals with how people are connected a particular person. More specifically speaking Facebook calculates affinity score by looking at explicit actions that users take, and factoring in

1) The strength of the action

2) How close the person who took the action was to you

3) How long ago they took the action.

ü  The actions include clicking, liking, commenting, tagging, sharing, and friending. Each of these interactions has a different weight that reflects the effort required for the action more effort from the user demonstrates more interest in the content.

ü   The affinity score doesn't include your actions alone it includes your friends actions too.  

 Edge weight
ü  In Facebook each category of edges(actions) have different weights. 

ü  Facebook changes the edge weights to reflect which type of stories they think user will find most engaging. For example, photos and videos have a higher weight than links. Simply speaking comments will add more weights that like does.

ü   New Facebook features generally have a high Edge weight in order to promote the feature to users. For example, when Facebook checks Places rolled out, check-ins had a very high default weight for a few months and your newsfeed was probably inundated with stories like "Shyam checked into Dominos". Generally, after a few weeks or months Facebook dials the new feature back to a more reasonable weight.

Time decay
ü The time decay is another important part in Edgerank algorithm. 

ü For instance I’m updating my status today and after two days the status gets old and gradually it loses score.

ü The Edgerank score is changes every time, it’s not fixed score. Your status update will only hit the newsfeed if it has a higher score--at that moment in time--than the other possible newsfeed stories. 

ü Mostly the time decay factor is based on how long and how frequently the user uses the Facebook.

Prediction and other information
ü Practically speaking it’s not possible to check your score using Edgerank algorithm. But you can measure the effects of EdgeRank by seeing how many people you reached.

ü Moreover Facebook keeps the algorithm a secret, and they're constantly tweaking it. So the value of comments compared to likes is constantly changing.

ü Apart from that, best time for your posting your updates are 7am, 5pm and 11pm. Why those are considered best and others not? Many private organizations conducted many surveys on reaching their people.

ü Everyday morning before the leaving out for work(5am), evening after returning from work(5pm) and night before going to sleep(11pm) are more chances for checking on newsfeed. So when you post your updates on those times there are more chances of reaching more audiences. 

Read More

why keyboard is not arranged in alphabetical order?

We use keyboard every day, be it our desktop, or laptop, or tablet or smartphone. But have you ever wondered as to why the keyboard is not arranged in alphabetical order?

The reason goes back to the time of manual typewriters. These typewriters in earlier days did have the keys arranged in alphabetical order. However, it was later discovered that the people typed so fast that the mechanical character keys got jammed very easily with this arrangement.

To prevent this, the keys were randomly positioned so that the weaker fingers were needed more frequently. This meant that people typed at a speed which the machine could handle. As a result, the ‘QWERTY’ keyboard came into existence that we find and use today.

The QWERTY keyboard layout was devised and created in the 1860s by the creator of the first modern typewriter, Christopher Sholes, a newspaper editor who lived in Milwaukee. Originally, the characters on the typewriters he invented were arranged alphabetically, set on the end of a metal bar which struck the paper when its key was pressed. However, once an operator had learned to type at speed, the bars attached to letters that lay close together on the keyboard became entangled with one another, compelling the typist to manually unstick the typebars, and also regularly blotting the document. A business associate of Sholes, James Densmore, suggested splitting up keys for letters commonly used together to speed up typing by preventing common pairs of typebars from striking the platen at the same time and sticking together.

There are varied opinions on this rearrangement of letters in the keyboard. The logic of the QWERTY layout was based on letter usage in English rather than positioning of letter in the alphabet. However, some sources assert that the QWERTY layout was designed to slow down typing speed to further reduce jamming. Also, the QWERTY keyboards were made so one could type using keys from the top row of the keyboard. On the other hand, there are sources who assert the rearrangement worked by separating common sequences of letters in English. Apparently, the hammers that were likely to be used in quick succession were less likely to hinder with each other. This random arrangement eventually became standard in computers later followed by the devices made after that.

Read More