Enhance Your Capabilities with Bluetooth: Connect Wirelessly

As the popularity gadgets like cellphones and players increased, it was a demand among people that these devices should transfer data easily. At the beginning, there was the facility of 'infrared' in these gadgets. Infrared can easily transfer data between two devices within short distance provided that they are in line of sight of each other. Infrared had somewhat slow data transfer rate and so many other drawbacks. So, with the arrival of new technologies. Infrared quit from this industry permanently. Some of the new advanced technologies invented were Bluetooth and WLAN. We will discuss about WLAN later on. Let's turn towards our main subject, Bluetooth. We are using Bluetooth from last few years with the arrival of multimedia smartphones. We always use it for transferring files from one phone to another or to play music with wireless headphone. But right now, I am going to tell you about new interesting advantages of this technology.

Bluetooth is an open wireless technology for exchange or streaming of data over short distances (usually upto 100 metres) with fixed devices like cellphone, PC, laptop etc. Bluetooth creates Personal Area Connection with these devices. Bluetooth is a very secure technology. Bluetooth was invented by Ericsson in 1994. There is misunderstanding among people with word 'Blue' that the radio technology uses waves of wavelength nearer to 'Blue'. But, actually the name 'Bluetooth' is related with 'Halard Bluetooth' who was the name of son of King 'Gorm the Old' of Denmark in A. D. 935. Currently, Bluetooth is managed by 'Bluetooth SIG' (Bluetooth Special Interest Group).

Let me tell you some technical specifications about Bluetooth. Bluetooth is a packet-based protocol. Bluetooth implements a separate radio technology called as FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) which is a rapid method of transmitting radio signals among many frequency channels. In FHSS, the data being sent to other device is 'chopped' into small pieces and these pieces are transmitted upto about 80 bands each of bandwidth 1 MHz. Bluetooth has frequency range from 2400 MHz to 2483 MHz. This frequency range is reserved from Bluetooth or Wi-fi like technologies. The data rate possible is Bluetooth system is 1 Mbps. Bluetooth uses master-slave structure for communication. Bluetooth has range upto 100 metres.

There are three versions of Bluetooth which are most common in use. Bandwidth is enhanced in every upgrade. Version 1.2 has data transfer rate of 1 Mbps. 2.0 has 3 Mbps. Bluetooth 2.0 is currently very common in use in almost all devices. The most recent version Bluetooth 3.0 has highest bandwidth of 24 Mbps. The following picture shows a handy 'Bluetooth Dongle' connected in PCs or laptops via USB port which have no in-built Bluetooth reciever.

In order to implement this technology, that particular device must be compatible with Bluetooth Profiles for the use of desired services. So, Let us discuss about some of these profiles which is the main purpose of today's article.

A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile): This profile allows a stream of high bitrate audio to transfer over a Bluetooth connection from source device to handy wireless headset. The device like cellphone encodes the stream of audio into Bluetooth-friendly format and this signal is transferred wirelessly to wireless headset which recieves these signal and again decodes them into original audio. Today, almost all cellphones support A2DP. The audio codecs allowed are- MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (MP3) and AAC.



File Transfer Profile (FTP): This profile allows to transfer files within two devices in range. This profile is most commonly used in cellphones and is well known to all of us. It also allows one device to browse file system in other device.

Basic Printing Profile (BPP): This profile allows to send text and images to Bluetooth supported printer wirelessly for easier printing jobs.

Cordless Telephony Profile (CTP): This profile allows cordless phones to work using Bluetooth which increases efficiency of signal and audio quality.

Dial-up Networking Profile (DUP): It is one of the most important profiles of Bluetooth. It allows the Internet access over a Bluetooth connection. It is most common in cellphones. A laptop can easily access Internet by creating a regular GPRS connection using cellphone.

Remote Control Profile (RCP): Most TV remote controllers work with infrared and suffer many drawbacks like 'line of sight'. The remote control profile of Bluetooth allows TV remote controllers to work with Bluetooth. It covers almost all functions of TV.

Basic Imaging Profile (BIP): The profile allows to send images within devices. This profile is most common in digital cameras.

Human Interface Device Profile (HID): This profile allows devices like mouse, keyboard, joystick to work wirelessly using Bluetooth. For this purpose, a small device called 'Bluetooth HID' is inserted in USB port of personal computer which decodes these signals and sends to PC.

Hands-free Profile (HFP): There are many car accidents due to mobile phone. This profile of Bluetooth will save several lives avoiding this danger without rejecting the incoming call. A 'Bluetooth Hands-free kit' is installed withing car. If phone notices any incoming call, it routs this call to Hands-free via Bluetooth. Hands-free is connected to main speaker of car, so that one can talk without disturbing hands from driving.

Phonebook Access Profile (PBA): This profile allows to exchange 'phonebook' within devices. This is often used in 'Hands-free' kit of car to display the name of incoming caller.

SIM Access Profile (SAP): Many cars have in-built GSM receivers so that a car itself can act as a phone. This profile allows these receivers to access a SIM card within a phone via Bluetooth. Thus, car doesn't require separate SIM.

Video Distribution Profile (VDP): This profile allows to transfer a 'streaming' video (recorded or live) from one device to another. This profile also has application in 'videoconferencing'. This profile supports any of these two mandatory codecs- H.263 or MPEG-4 Visual Simple Profile. I think this profile will have better work in version 3.0

Bluetooth also uses a process called as 'pairing'. The two Bluetooth supported devices can be 'paired' so that they can remember each other and can transfer data without the permission.
The Bluetooth technology is leading day by day with increasing its application. I hope with the use of this information you will really try to get best of this technology.

Thanks and regards,
Nitish R. Muley

Windows 8: Developer 'Review'

Microsoft Corporation recently revealed the developer preview of the next release in its Windows line of desktop operating systems, codenamed as Windows 8. This may be the first time for Microsoft to publicly release the preview of its operating system for free. Microsoft is keeping Linux as idol in this sense! Well, I downloaded its ISO from official website of Microsoft Developers Network and tested it on my laptop computer. I present here my review and some of the snapshots of it. This review is based on my testing in non-touch environment.

Windows 7 was just an attempt of Microsoft to repair the pitfalls and flaws in Windows Vista. There are no considerable changes in Windows 7 in comparison with Vista. Unlike Windows 7, Windows 8 is really ambitious. Almost every corner of OS is well touched up and shows right working from boot. Windows 8 is inspired by its mobile cousin, Windows Phone 7.

Windows 8 is dual-UI operating system, first one is classic Windows UI and another one is Metro UI, inspired by Windows Phone 7. This Metro UI was the only reason why Microsoft released its preview. Metro UI is the new way for Windows developers for creating new applications. The classic Windows 7 UI remains mostly same. Windows 8 is essentially meant to be an OS that can run on tablet PCs. Windows 7 came up with multi-touch screen support, but it didn’t provide very good multi-touch experience. Windows 8 overtakes this drawback with tile-based metro UI. This Metro is complete different from classic Windows UI and is heavily optimized for touch screens.

Metro Start Screen

After a fresh installation and first boot, user is greeted with this metro UI. This UI shows the collection of pre-installed applications from both of the UIs. These tiles are easy to re-arrange just by drag-n-drop feature. This start screen really has a sexy look. Tiles are small windows into the application. Each tile shows the status of that application. Means, the e-mail app shows the count of unread mails. You can pin any application to Metro start screen, whether traditional Windows app or web URL.

There’s also instant search interface in start screen which can search any kind of search query, may be app, may be content of app or may be file. This feature is really efficient.

Search UI

After clicking on ‘desktop’ from start screen, the following desktop view is displayed, which is must similar to classic Windows 7 desktop. Now, you can have access to your computer but sill, everything is centralized around Metro UI.

Classic Desktop View

Optimized Lock Screen

Metro UI Style Login Screen

Windows 8 comes with Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) both in metro and classic UI. Metro IE10 does not allow plugins such as Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight.

Windows now has a new version of multi-tasking. Pressing Windows key suspends the active application. These suspended processes still remain in background and consume RAM, but they don't consume CPU resources. You will be presented with list of all running and suspended applications by opening the regular task manager. You can also choose to suspend those apps which are consuming too much CPU resources. This improves the overall performance speed. The task switching can be done via [Alt] + [Tab] as well as [Windows] + [Tab].

The login or lock screen is also metro-based and shows current date and time and a featuring wide-screen high-resolution image.

Internet Explorer 10 (Classic Windows UI)

Internet Explorer 10 (Metro Style UI)

The only and biggest loss in Windows 8 is Start menu :(. The new Metro UI doesn’t support start menu, instead it launches tile-based metro start screen as described already.

The Windows Explorer in Windows 8 has a brand new ribbon-based UI, with much better functionality. This UI brings back the lost menus in Vista and 7.

(New Explorer with Ribbon-based UI)

The ribbon UI toolbar shows the common options such as extracting ZIP files, properties, open with etc. Some of the common operations can be pinned to Explorer toolbar.

One more plus point with Windows 8, we can virtually mount or burn ISO file without any third-party utility. Just double click on the ISO file we want to mount. It gets automatically mounted as new optical drive. We can also unmount it just by normal eject operation. +1!

The file copy and move interface is also enhanced. All file transfer operations such as copy, move, delete appear in the same window. These operations can be also be paused.

Expanded View of Copy Progress Window

Expanded of copy window shows the graph of changes in file transfer speed versus time.

A new “Automatic” option for aero theme automatically set s the color of window border and title bar based on the current wallpaper.

The new task manager in Windows 8 is very powerful tool. It adds many attributes in addition to CPU and RAM utilization, such as disk and network utilization. It is very detailed.

New Task Manager (Detailed Processes View)

New Task Manager (Performance Statistics)

Windows 8 also offers Control Panel in Metro UI as shown below.

The Windows 8 provides inbuilt Anti-virus technology which includes Smart-Screen filter introduced in IE9. Windows automatically checks the downloaded files using any browser.

One more core improvement in Windows 8, even boot screen has Metro UI! Each boot option is optimized for touch-environment.

Metro UI for Boot Options

There is also serious improvement in boot speed. My PC now starts just in 10 seconds!

Windows 8 comes with in-built feature called as ‘Hyper-V’ for creating and accessing virtual machines. This feature needs to be turned on from ‘Turn Windows Features On or off’ from Control panel. But still this option is not a substitute for VMWare Player.

After all, if you can’t wait for having access to this coolest version of Windows OS, you can download its ISO file (Developer Preview) from this link. You can either mount it virtually or can write it on writable DVD and can proceed towards easy (may be time consuming) installation process.

The minimum hardware requirements for this installation are:

1. 1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

2. 1 GB of RAM (for 32-bit) or 2 GB of RAM (for 64-bit)

3. 20 GB for free hard drive space

4. Screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels

Remember, Windows 8 is just the codename for this version OS by Microsoft. The name can be different after its final release. This final release is expected to be in late 2012. This was just a pre-beta version to make developers aware about new development era for Windows Development apart from .NET Framework development. Many much changes are expected in final release. Waiting for your comments!

Regards,

Nitish R. Muley

Person of the Year: Steve Jobs

Here is the end of an era in Apple Inc following the resignation of the person behind iPhone, iPad, Mac and several other products, Steve Jobs as CEO. He is the person who has stood as an idol in business and entrepreneurship. In this article, we will go through a brief timeline of his life.
Steve Jobs as Youngster

Born on 24th February 1955 in San Francisco, US, his full name is Steven Paul Jobs. When he was born, his mother decided to put him for adoption because she wanted a girl. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. He attended Cupertino Junior High School in Cupertino, California. He was frequently attending lectures in Hewlett-Packard Company after school-schedule. Even he was hired there as employee. He passed out in 1972 from school and joined Reed College, Oregon. But he decided to drop out from that college after one semester because it was too expensive. His economical condition was not good at that time. He used to sleep on floor on friends’ rooms, returning coke bottle for 5 cents deposits to buy food. He also used to walk 7 miles across his hometown to get one good meal at Hare Krishna temple. He later said, "If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts." In 1974, He returned to California and worked as a technician in Homebrew Computer Club. During this time, he was influenced by spiritual thoughts of Buddhism. He also visited India for spiritual enlightenment after which he became a Buddhist.
In 1976, he and his friend (Steve Wozniak) started ‘Apple Computer Company’ in a garage. Their job was only to assemble a computer and sell it. This company started to expand and became popular within a short time. After 1978, they hired many CEOs for company. Company also went through some tough times during this period.
Steve Jobs introduced Macintosh Operating System in 1984. The Macintosh computer became the first successful computer with graphical user interface. It was the greatest achievement of Apple Computer. Jobs founded another company called NeXT computer during the same time. The products of NeXT computer implemented some innovative technologies. He also invented the new mail system NeXTMail. It was the first mail which would contain embedded accessible images. NeXT Computer also became popular within few years. It sold about 50,000 computer systems up to 1993.
During the same time, Jobs also bought the well-known graphics company Pixar Animation Studio. This company produced many box-office hit animation films with Disney Animation Studios such as Toy Story, The Incredibles, Monster etc.
Later in 1996, Apple purchased NeXT and company found its way to develop Mac OS. In 2000, Jobs became permanent iCEO of Apple. In 2000’s, Apple concentrated on the improvement of digital appliances. Jobs introduced the iPod, the portable digital music player in 2001. This iPod was popular worldwide becoming the common noun for all other portable music players. Another invention of company along with iPod was iTunes store, a digital music software. In 2007, Steve Jobs introduced iPhone and entered in cellular industry to eventually become the giant. iPhone was the first multi-touch screen cellphone. Later inventions of Apple such as iPad and iCloud are now at peak point of technology. His contribution in e-waste recycling is also considerable. In 2006, he started Apple’s Recycling Programs for Apple’s costumers for environment-friendly disposal of their old systems. He has listed about 230 patents for his several inventions such as multi-touch, keyboards, efficient batteries, power adapters etc.

Steve Jobs in Mac World Conference
In 2004, he announced his employees that he has a pancreatic cancer, a rare disorder. He underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy that appeared to successfully remove the tumor. Jobs later says that his willpower helped him to get healed.
Timothy J. Cook (Tim Cook) was the most reliable employee of Jobs who was head of worldwide sales and operations of Apple. Jobs is still having many serious health problems which forced him to resign. After his resignation, the post of CEO has handed over by Jobs to Cook.
After all, Steve Jobs has created an idol for us in every sense. Let us pray for his health and long life.

(THE FOLLOWING BLOCK WAS UPDATED LATER)
Steve Jobs died on 5th October 2011 at his California home, respiratory arrest caused due to pancreatic cancer. His death was very disappointing for all tech-lovers, Apple and Mac users.
RIP Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

-by Nitish R. Muley