Facebook vs Google+,

THE DUEL

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acebook founder Mark Zukerberg will be happy if you to replicate your entire life with the new timeline feature whether or not you really want to. The timeline replaces exiting profile pages provides facebook user with totally new options to record their experiences in their digital diaries. The introductions of timeline could be an answer to the latest strong competitor google+. Since September social networks have been on overdrive to retain users interest and facebook is in danger of slipping out of its comfortable dominant position. Time for a test, in which we ask the question which is the network of the feature?

            Simply put the network in which one fids the majority of his or her friends, i.e. his social sphere. Facebook with around 800 million users has a clear lead here. Search giant Google is playing the role of David in this case. Even though it already has registered approximately 40 million people. Our aims for the test however lead us to examine what both networks offer their users in terms the option for communication information search usability and data security.

            Facebook is rolling out a strategy change with lots of new feature since its activity has started leveling off in some countries such as the USA. The new strategy is to make more content visible on each page and strengthen the connections between user. Along with the timeline facebook uses a system called open graph 2.0, which integrates the data from apps into the profile. And Google+ has a better search function to offer, and the strong integration of other Google service.

            User communication remains the most obvious common offering of both services. Facebook is aligning the focus on personal content and experiences, while Google emphasizes information and how it flows in each user network. This mirrors the different strengths of the contenders. Can Google+ seriously challenge facebook this way? In contrast to Google+ facebook has been designed as a platform that opens up like a self-contained world of communication entertainment and discovery. Facebook and its many out side developers continually improve this products and provide user with a highly personalized experience. Google+ has till now only used user profile to used user profiles to link friends and contacts of course has its email video and chat services already online apart from a trump card in the form of its own mobile operating system Android. If Google+ become a danger facebook  which is historically weak where mobile access is concerned. It all depends on three factors communication usability and data security. The main purpose of a social network is communication so what matters is how well one can chat and interact with others privately and publicly on-the-go and on the PC. The ability and ease of representing ourselves and histories will also begin to matter. How easily one can find information or small details in profiles on either service and how easily you can control who else sees them? How transparent is the sharing of our content and how can we control it exactly? The platform itself becomes useless if we the users are vulnerable to publishing and other attacks.

            Communication: The central element in both networks is the stream of information that represents news about one friend. Facebook seems to functions perfectly since our expectations are based on this model. The “Top news” view sorts the stream as per the an algorithm which fevers multimedia updates likes photos and videos along with posts that have attacked many comments. You might not like the filtering but it is helpful when checking large volumes and updates to display what facebook believers to be interesting more prominently. A real time chronological view is implemented in the form of a live ticker that displays all news items from friends in the right side margin. Googol+ on the other hand has fewer options and displays everything cleanly chronologically which does not offer any scope for customization. Only if you sort friends into many circles and then filter within the circle can you manage the flow of news.

            Usability: The huge scope of functions on facebook has one disadvantage: the site is often confusing and features are nested within each other. Google+ users have an easier time as we have measured in practical tests. A typical example of this is the data security setting which are divided into numerous sub-categories in facebook and take a long while to fully understand. In fact it seems unnecessarily complicated to change the user does not change them leading to potential disasters in the future. In Google+ you can edit all settings for visibility of personal information directly as it should be “oogle has learned from the Buzz disaster and Google+ has been developed from the beginning with awareness of data security. The difference also surely lies in age: facebook has been around for about eight years and Google+is still less than a year old. It is a challenge for Google to maintain pleasantly simple operation while adding as many features as its competitor has over the years. Using the very successful timeline facebook provides users with many more options to represent themselves. They replaced the old profile page and reproduced the user profile as a record of all his or her private and professional life experience.

DYNAMIC PHOTO HDR

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he objective of HDR processing is to achieve results that are coolest to what the human eye can see. Unlike the human eye digital cameras struggle to capture a vast dynamic range. For example the human eye can perceive shadow brightly lit areas and accurate colors all simultaneously. But digital cameras fail to do so especially in brightly lit scenarios and indoors. You meter the sky’s brightness and the objects on the ground get underexposed and vice-versa. HDR involves shooting the same frame with increasing exposures starting from underexposure and going way up till you get overexposed shots. The HDR application then blends the optimal exposure in all the images and render a single shot in which the entire scene is optimally exposed the deepest blacks and the brightest while maintaining the colors. Dynamic photo HDR by Mediachance is one of the best HDR application we have come across.

FEATURES:

You start with loading a photo taken with multiple exposures. This can be done using exposure bracketing or by manually adjusting the shutter speed or EV. As a bonus feature the program also supported creating HDR with a single image. The exposure levels are guessed automatically or you can specify them manually. Toy can choose from four processing models- tone mapping, fusion blending, complex HDR fusion and HDR video. Tone mapping is the regular method, while fusion blending uses multiple JPEG files to deliver realistic results in a few steps. Complex fusion further involves tone mapping and you get to tinker with a raft of tools. HDR video mode adds HDR like effects to videos.

                In the next step the program creates the HDR image and you move to tone mapping the result to tweak the brightness, color saturation, dynamic light strength and so on. You can either go the manual way and choose from seven presets. You also have the option to tweak a gamma, curves, color and hue using the curve graph. The intensity and directions of light can also be controlled by simply dragging the light source around the frame. If you want surreal color and effects, you can use the color filters and match color tools. Each of this has around 20 presets, which can be instantly applied with a click of a button. Clicking on the work areas extracts a preview of the frame. You can have multiple preview panes and select  the one that you like best or revert to the original. You can specify the audio and video codec. However the choice of codec offered depends on the codec pack that you have installed. Mediachance suggests you install K-lite codec pack which has most of the needed audio and video codec. The time needed to encode the video depends on the kind of hardware you have and the resolution and length of the source video. The work area displays a real time preview of the frame being rendered. What we would have really liked the option to select a clip from the video and support for GPU-based processing. We hope Mediachance adds these features in the next update.

PERFORMANCE:

Our test rig was an average desktop PC powered by the Intel core 2 duo E6700 processor, 2 GB of RAM, and running windows 7 home premier, 32-bit. The software is extremely resource friendly and it ran smoothly without any nags despite using heavy RAW files and real time preview. The quietly of result completely depends on how you tweak the values. However you might want to reduce the noise and chromatic aberration using an image editing program. Videos with HDR-like effects added look nice. The output has better contrast and the colors appear more vivid.

LETMEKNOW.IN

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etmeknow.in is the perfect solution for students to keep a track of all the happenings of their interest. Since its inception in 2007, it has received over 550,000 unique visitors from more than 150 Indian cities. The sites provides information about seminars, collage fests, events, exhibitions, internships and even job opportunities.

            Under the tab see all opportunities you can select the categories you want to view the opportunities in. the categories include technology, business, art & design, maths & science and social science. So if you select technology then you can see all the opportunities in this field right from jobs,  another handy feature is deadlines here you can see all the opportunities based on their deadlines in a data wise calendar view. So if you do not have time to browse trough all the opportunities then you can simply go here and view the once whose is fast approaching. It also has a tab providing information related to higher education.

            Letmeknow.in has a network of campus ambassadors, as well as good rapport with companies, which makes it possible for them to get first hand information. You can also sign up with letmeknow as an intern and become a campus ambassador to provide them information about the happenings in your collage.

ETECHIES.IN

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hether you are a geek or a complete novice, you will need help resolving certain issues. Insteade of waiting around for the tech guy to come to you , would not it be better if you could simply place a call and get your queies resolved? Well you can do that now with eTechies.in.

            It is india’s first organized door step online and phone technical support and repair service for desktop laptops and other devices. If you are facing trouble with your gadget, then simply call the toll free number 1-800-102-3311 for instant technical support. Of course this won’t be for free and you will have to pay for one time charge if you opt for remote assistant in case of software issues. While for windows the one time charge the one time charge is rs.500 for MAC, it is around rs1500 alternatively. You can sign up with etechies and opt for yearly remote support service that begins from rs 1499 for windows while for MAC it is around rs 3500. these annual remote service also include assistance for setting up printers MP3 player digital camera etc.

            On the other hand their door step service are available in Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida etc. they very soon plan to expand it to maharastra , Bangalore and couple of other cities.

QUIRKOSHOP.COM

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f you are bored by same old mundane stuff and want to add a dash of fun to your environs, then there are lots of option you can choose from online. Whether you are looking for something to jazz up your house, as a gift option for someone special, or for kids, you can choose from some quirky stuff online that will make your gift standout.

            Quirkoshop.com has been around for a while and boasts of some of the coolest stuff you can find online. Looking for buy something on Quirkoshop is quite easy as well thanks to the tags on the left ‘for your bar’, ‘for your desk’, ‘for you wall’ and more alternatively, you can look for stuff from the drop down menu according to the products you are looking for.

            Chappal-shaped ashtray, melting, wall clock, chaddi buddies, badge, animal pot sticks watering cans the list can not get crazier than this. Quirkoshop delivers all over India at an additional shipping charge and the products are usually delivers within 3 or 4 working days. Quirkoshop features products from popular brands like happily unmarried, chumbak, loose ends, Elan, etc. what’s more if you are an artist then you can add your own designs for sale on the quikoshop.com.

ARCSOFT PANORAMA MAKER 6 3D

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hen you don’t have a digital camera or a phone that can automatically shoot panoramas the only option that you have is to shoot the frame and stitch them into a single image manually using a panorama maker 6 3D. panorama stitching is a complex process but this tool makes it appear as a cakewalk and outputs incredible result which displays the images with thumbnails in the right pane. After you have selected the images you can specify the type to stitch or leave it as auto. On clicking next the images are analyzed and stitched into a panorama and the software automatically corps out the useable rectangular area. This can be saved as an image in JPEGG, BMP, and TGA formats or MOV or HTML with flash content. If you have an Nvidia CUDA compatible graphics card you can enable the option to accelerate the stitch process. The most striking feature of the software is 3D support with which you can preview the panorama in 3D. however you can not export the result in 3D. the software is extremely easy to use and it takes just three steps to create a panorama.

EASEUS PARTITION MASTER

There are times when you need to resize your hard drive’s existing partitions to accommodate larger programs or higher amounts of data. This calls for tedious work such as backing up all your data, repartitioning the drive, installing the OS and applications and then dumping the data back. There are numerous partition management utilities that can do the resizing without the need of backups and save your time. But playing around with the hard drives partition can be extremely dangerous and can cost you if something goes wrong. Using easeus partition master makes it look like child play. You can convert partition  resize them create or delete them. The utility has a simple GUI and novice users will feel right at home. Other options available are file system check disk deframenting margine two or more partitions creating a bootable disc and partition recovery. When in the utility you can make changes as you require and the final work is done after you give the go ahead.  But remember to take backups as a precaution. The utility is quite similar to MiniTool partition wizard which is also free. 

PHOTODEX PROSHOW PRODUCER 5

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f you love creating slideshow whether it is for fun or for work then you must try photodex proshow producer 5. you’ll be quite literally spoilt for choice when it comes to the editing options it provides. Beside it is quite easy to work in photodex proshow owning to its timeline feature that makes it easy to simply drag and drop the images and videos to be used in the slideshow.

                At the start you have the option to opt for an auto-generated slideshow using the wizard option or create a slideshow from scratch by selecting the blank show option. You can olso choose from an exiting template and simply add pictures music or videos to it.

                With proshow you can control every aspect of your slideshow including effects layer speed and motion effect. It is also possible to edit individual images either by using the inbuilt option or you can set your default external image editing tools. The in built option includes tools like sharpen blur shadow etc. adding audio is also quite a breeze.

                What sets proshow apart are the number of effect available to tinker with. The slide style includes effects ranging from basic montage to camera flash effect. Once you are done with the slideshow you can click on publish. Here you have the option to create a blu-ray DVD or web show share it via you tube, Facebook or e-mail save it as a screensaver and more.

SMART BACKUP

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mart backup uses an extremely simple yet effective approach towards data backup. Instead of an elaborate suite with lots of functions it features a lean UI with minimal functions. It takes only a few minutes to install because the installation takes up only around 10 megabyte of storage space. On running it for the first time you’ll be surprised to find almost 80 percent of the user interface empty. The rest is just a vertical stack of buttons to the left which do all the magic.

                You start with creating a backup job by clicking the create button which brings up the tabbed interface. In general tab you have to specify the name of the backup task and the type of backup you wish to run. Here you can choose to perform a simple file copy mirroring and data synchronization. Farther you can choose to backup data to a compressed to archive, FTP server or optical media. Depending on the type of backup, you need to specify the parameters, such as the destination directory, compression level the password for ZIP archive login details for FTP access optical drive for burning data and so on. The option to prompt before deleting data can also be checked for mirroring and synchronization where data deleted at the source will also be deleted at the destination and vise-versa.

                In the next tab automatic refresh you can check the option to re-run or refresh the backup on a set date and time or interval. The refresh time can be as less as a minute or once a day on windows startup once every day in a set time, once a week, every 6 hours or 12 hours or every time the drive is connected.

                The next step opens a windows explorer type interface where you have to choose the files and folders you wish to backup. Again it is a simple as using the checkbox to select data. After this the backup task you created appears in the white space. You can run the task by double clicking it. You can modify the parameters by clicking on the properties button. Smart backup also adds an option to the window context menu from where you can choose to add a file or a folder to the specified backup task. For example if you wish to add a bunch of files or folder to a task.

                If you notice the create button carefully you’ll see that it has a drop down list which has an option to create a sequence. You can select the backup tasks that should run one after the other and after that you can specify whether you wish the software automatically log off the user restart or shut down the PC.

MOTOROLA RAZR XT910

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he RAZR XT910 is a little over a millimeter slimmer than the Samsung galaxy s II at 7.1 mm. it features an impressive 4.3 inch super AMOLED corning Gorilla Glass touchscreen that’s clear and legible in all lighting conditions irrespective of intensity. The colors are sharp and vibrant. A few diamond-cut aluminum accents add to the overall elegance of the design and thanks to its Kevlar fiber and splash guard coating that extends to the boards on the inside of the handset, it is also quite durable. It is equipped with a micro HMDI port and like the Lumia800 features microSIM card. It has 8 GB of internal storage and microSD card support.

                Motorala’s motoBLUR has been beefed up extensively and functions like a dream on the RAZR. A feature called smart actions is what makes the RAZR seriously standout as a smart phone. It takes into account a variety of factors and provides helpful options on how to preserve power or get the best out of the handset.

                The RAZR XT910 features EQ presets and surround sound for earphones and the speakerphone, making audio playback enjoyable. What the RAZR lacks is an FM radio. The bundled hands free with in ear styled earpieces did not appeal to us in terms of aesthetics, however it was quite capable for both voice calls and other audio. The RAZR XT910 support MOV, WMV and a few AVI files as well with full HD playback support for the native player

                Aside from 3G connectivity the RAZR is also equipped to handle wi-fi and DLNA for media streaming and wireless data transfer as well via MotoCast with flash II support too.

                The 8 megapixel shooter with LED flash is capable of full HD video recording at 30 fps.  Although the video quality is quite good as far as its competition is concerned.

                If you are looking for that heavy duty device for work or play the RAZR XT should be definitely be at the top of your list.

CANON Wi-Fi ENABLED LEGRIA

The updated legria camcorders now features an integrated wi-fi adapter. So you can view and transfer the recorded video and the images directly to your pc or ipod.                             Canon EOS 1DX

Canon’s ultimate shooting machine targeted at professionals it is equipped with an 18.1 megapixel sensor and is capable of continues shooting at a whopping 14 fps.                      Canon G1X

This one’s targeted at those who want full manual control and pristine imaging quality the G1X features a 1.5 inch sensor which translates to less noise and excellent background blur.

priPrinter Professional Edition

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riPrinter professional is a handy tool that allows you to manage and edit your documents before printing. You can easily edit WORD and PDF files and even images. Once installed, you can set it as your default printer. It allows you to add effects, watermarks, save as PDF, compress images, ecomode when printing to save link, reposition pages, crop them, etc. the interface is styled like word 2007 and is easy to use. It allows you to define magins accurately so you know the exact placement of your data before printing. The latest version includes the 3D view that allows you to see the front and back view of each pages. Another tool is the “loupe” that is like a magnifying glass to read fine text. Frequent user the script to create buttons to automate repetitive tasks. You can create your script and execute it from the quick access bar.

ZenWriter

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en writer is an alternative to the straight forward windows notepad. It features built in background music wallpapers and typing sounds which can be customized according to once performance. The indirectly help focus on your work without any distraction. The app includes a spell checker auto save function formatting fonts text size line spacing and word counts. What the software lacks is grammar check and the ability to add new words to its dictionary. Work can be saved as an RTF file or in plain text. The application automatically opens the last edited documents when launched. Zen writer mainly benefits those who needs a serene environment while typing and like not to be disturbed by any other distractions on the computer such as emails social networking and chat. Zen writer is aimed towards journalists and writers but is priced pretty steep.

Size Explorer Pro

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ize explorer is unique and helpful utility that can quickly highlight the space-hogging folders and files both on your hard drive as well as your network shares. The utility can graphically inform you about the size of each file and folder which helps point and printout potentially useless data that can be clogging up your storage. Size explorer features a duplicate finder, which can help locate duplicate files across the drive or network. Other feature include graphical chart file distribution statistic snapshot file management printing file compression and snapshot comparison. The utility is easy to use and the UI is easy to operate. When selecting the drive and folder all you need to do is click analyze and you’ll see a listing of files and folders occupying the drive. Finding duplicate and deleting them safely is never this easy.   

YOUR UNINSTALLER

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his utility claims to help manage all the software on their PCs, clean up leftover crud and free up wasted space which it’s unforgivable that it bundles the Babylon toolbar, which delivers ads and hijacks browser setting. Your uninstaller offers a number of features beyond the obvious. There’s a file shredder, a “trace eraser”, and a startup program manager. On closer inspection there is no way to know which algorithms the file shredder uses the “trace eraser” offers only standard internet explorer privacy tools and the startup manager only mirrors MSConfig. What is actually does seem to be good at is uninstalling software. Safe moods runs the program’s standard uninstall routine but also scans the registry and the system files. Normal mode runs and extended scan and takes slightly longer. Super Modes runs a detailed system scan to find dependencies and stubborn traces. Advanced uninstall shows a number a number of software titles and plugins that are not usually shown in the Add/Remove programs dialog, though trying to remove some zune desktop language packs on your test PC resulted in the program trying to do away with Microsoft office. Your uninstaller seems like the sort of unnecessary utility that people might like to have around because it pretends to do a lot. It would not matter if this program was free but for the price we suggest looking elsewhere.

CREATIVE TACTICE 3D SIGMA

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he stylish headset is powered by 50 mm neodymium drivers with a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz the built is predominantly plastic but sturdy metal strips run through the headband. From padding ensures that it fits on the top of head fine the sigma includes a THX complaint inline USB sound card there is decent noise isolation the sigma is very bass heavy the mids are lost and highs are not crisp enough so some music geners do not sound good. But bass are sound separation are important to gamers so the sigma can not be compared to headphones made for music. 

iBALL CLICKSCAN A3

iBALL CLICKSCAN A3

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ball clickscan A3 is not so much a scanner as it is a camera on a metal arm. It’s mean to point downwards and capture image of sheets of paper or 3D objects that are placed beneath in its camera head the metal arm swings down when not in use or upwards to make room for A3 scans. The base is heavy enough to keep the arm from tipping over and eight LEDs in the head can illuminate the subject. We were excited to test its potential but found the actual performance to be lacking. Apart from clarity printed test images were noisy off color and of poor quality. It took a while for the camera to focus but scans themselves were quick. The continuous video preview can be displayed full screen which brings up the possibility of using the clickscan as a 3d projector video capture were atrocious this device is clearly not meant to be used for moving objects. The software contains a number of useful features but looks and behave like it was designed for windows 95. most impressive was the OCR function which recognize clear printed text perfectly. There are also a few photo filters and basic adjustment tools but no way to manage previously captured images.

QHM-9800 2.4G WIRELESS COMBO

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he average keyboard and mouse combo cost around Rs 750. put in a few hundred rupees more and you get this wireless combo by QHMPL. The design and aesthetics are good except for a few glossy patches which allow the surface to get scratches the keyboard has a standard layout with additional keys on the sides and top for browser shortcut media control volume search calculator and email. The arrow and WASD keys were red to top gamers. The mouse sports a right handed design and has keys for forward and back double click and dpi. The device are comfortable. The keys feel slightly stiff but that might be performable to you keyboard uses a pair of AAA batteries and the mouse uses a slight AA battery. 

QHM-889

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he QHM-889 has a good built and sports a red and black dual tone matte finish exterior the head mount and ear cups are foam patted for wearing comfort but the ear cups don’t sit snugly over the ear for efficient noise collection. The left ear features a volume control wheel and also the retractable microphone which is short and is almost invisible to the user the cable is convenient two matters long and has a thick rubber sleeve for additional strength the two 40 mm , 100 mW speakers are good enough for casual music and VolP use since the bass and treble are juyst about average and tend to distort at high audio levels these headphones are not recommended for those looking for high quality music and video playback. 

HP PAVILION DV6-6116TX

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vailable in espresso black the dv6 looks stylish and definitely has a premium feel to it. The lattice patterned lid keeps fingerprint away leaving just a backlit HP logo at the bottom. The built quality is very good, just as we have come to expect from this series.

                Connectivity is taken care of by four USB 2.0 ports, VGA, HMDI, two headphone out ports, microphone, LAN and a card reader. The stereo speakers are placed in the front and feature beast audio. Inside you get a full sized keyboard with chiclet keys making it quite comfortable to use even for extended typing sessions. The edges of the track pad are lit, lending it a cool look.

                For a mainstream multimedia laptop, it comes with a pretty decent kit. Powering the dv6 is an Intel core i3-2310m running at 2.1 GHz. We also have a single 4 GB stick of RAM allowing you to add another one. Storage has been taken care of by a 500 GB SATA drive running at 5400 rpm and AMD Radeon HD 6490M with 1 GB GDDRS memory. The 15.6 inch screen is LED backlit but with a resolution of 1366*768. The discrete graphics card also features switchable graphics, which automatically shuts down when performing regular tasks and only kicks in, once you start any graphical application. HP also bundles a ton of feature like a Recovery Manager protechsmart Symantec Norton internet security evernote skype and office 2010 trail version. The dv6 also feature a biometric fingerprint reader for security, but you can also configure it to start up any application that you frequently use.

                We have compared the HP dv6 with the Acre TimelineX 5830TG, since they both cost about the same and are mainstream multimedia laptops. Here the Acer 5830TG does come across as a better performance simply because of the faster processor and better GPU.The audio quality is also good. Thanks to the beast audio. The bass is lacking but the audio doesn’t feel flat in any way. You will enjoy watching movies or music even headphone. One thing that we do miss, however is USB 3.0 which hopefully HP will add to the 2012 lineup. The 6 cell battery managed about 1 hour and 10 minutes in battery Eater pro which makes it just about average.

                For its price the pavilion dv6 6116tx is a bit underpowered but not many notebooks at this price are built as well as this. If you are not going to be playing too many games then you won’t be disappointed with the dv6. 

DELL VOSTRO V131

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he vostro V131 looks quite similar to the V3350. It comes in a Lucerne red finish on the exterior, which is quite prone to finger prints because of it’s shiny coating. The only bits of steel that are visible are on the hinges. The rest of the laptop looks and feels quite compact and light.

                The ports on the left include the card reader, HDMI, and the USB port, along with a pretty effective fan vent. The right consist of two USB 3.0 port, a VGA port and a 3.5 mm jack. However the absence of a DVD drive may be a problem for some. We were not exactly impressed with the built quality. Though the hinges themselves are pretty sturdy, the area between the hinges is fragile. A slight press from the outside and we could see impression forming on the screen.

                The V131 is powered by the Intel core i3-2330M processor running at a clock speed of 2.2 GHz. The other spaces include 2GB of RAM a 500 GB hard drive and the integrated Intel HD graphics. It has also got the usual stuff like Bluetooth 3.0, wi-fi, an integrated webcam and a fingerprint reader. Everything is held together by the windows 7 professional operating system. Boot up times for the V131 were pretty quick so you will be up and running in no time. The brightness, however did not really impressed and hence features as one of the cons of this laptop. Video playback as a result was not something we really liked about this laptop, because colors didn’t appear bright of the vivid enough. The speakers though are loud enough for personal use.

                Typing on the normal sized chiclet keyboard is a pleasure, and the soft keys on the touchpad make for easy manoeuvring. The touchpad itself is pretty smooth considering how often this part of the laptop makes or breaks usability. The vent is on the side and we ran the laptop though a few performance intensive programs to gauge its heat dissipating capability and the vostro passed with flying colors. We put the V131 through our standard synthetic and real world tests and the result were very impressive.

                The V131 comes with a 65 Wh battery and in our battery eater test, it lasted an hour and forty minutes. Under normal performance you will easily be able to crank out 4.5 to 5 hours. Plus it has integrated graphics so it will be able to last longer than those with dedicated graphics card.

PHOTO TOOL--COLLAGEIT

Collageit is a free utility for creating fun collages from your favorite captured moments. It is fairly simple to use-choose the template or style you prefer ; dump the photo collection that you want to make a collage from: choose the layout (random or shuffle): tweak settings for number of photos to use, space between pictures, rotation and frame:and finally, export it formats such as JPG,GIF,PNG,TIFF,BMP OR PSD .Other options of exporting include sending as email,setting as wallpaper,uploading to Flicker or sharing on Facebook. The actual process is possible in just three simple steps. Minor tweaks such as page setup, background and skin alterations and cropping of photos are also possible. you can see previews in real-time. You also have the option of framing each photo with setting for border width and color and shadows.   The whole process takes a few minutes,but is slow when there are many photos.Sadly,the free version leaves a watermark and does not allow photo cropping. The pro version can be purchased for around $20. Collageit is a nice collage utility for those who like to display their photo collections. It is ideal for gifting photo collages to loved ones.

NIKON COOLPIX S1200PJ

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ikon has been trying to revolutionize cameras by adding built in projectors for a while, and it’s at it again with the S1200PJ. The cameras boasts of 720p video recording. A projection brightness of 20 lumens, and ability to output content from an iOS device. The S1200PJ is a looker. The minimal design features nothing but lens, the lamp which is covered by a sliding flip, and the flash on the face of the camera. The back only features a 3 inch display, 4 way navigational pad, a scene button, play back key, and menu, delete and video recording buttons. The S1200PJ comes with a 14.1 megapixel CCD sensor and 5x optical zoom. Image stabilization is handled by a combination of optical as well as electronic VR. The interface is extremely easy to use. The projector can display image running from 5 to 60 inch in size. The quality isn’t too good when there is ambient lighting but it’s  better in a dark room. During our ISO sensitivity test the noise at ISO 80 was negligible. At ISO 200 there is a slight noise noticed, but at ISO 1600 onwards the noise levels are very high. The camera handled 720p HD video recording well. The S1200PJ is designed for those who like showing off their images conveniently anywhere. This can be a great way of showing images to large audiences by turning off the lights and using the built in projector.

SONY CYBER-SHOT DSC-TX55

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part from it being the world’s slimmest camera the TX55 boasts of a full touch screen interface. 3D image capture as well as full HD video recording, it is just 12 mm in depth which makes it convenient to carry around. The front sport the lens cover that has a matte black finish. The back has a large 3.3inch OLED 16.2 megapixel exmor R CMOS sensor that is powered by sony’s BIONZ processor which they claim offers reduce noise in low light shots. The OLED touch panel offers significantly more clarity than regular clarity displays. The image appearing onscreen are vivid with a lot of detail present. The handling of the TX55 is very simple due to its ultra compact size. One can capture images using a single hand without any difficulty. The noise levels at ISO 100 are negligible and there was no desaturation in color. However at a relatively low ISO of 400 noise began to appear in the image. At ISO 3200 which is the highest there was a lot of image noise. Indoors images captured well, with there being hardly any grain. However the amount of detail expected from shots was not present as compared to other cameras in this price range. If you are in the market  for a really small camera with very slick touch screen capability primarily for casual photography then this is the ideal option.