Published on by Nayar

A Tiny Comparison between Google+ and Facebook

I managed to get into the new social networking site Google+. Some people say it is THE Facebook-Killer. Is it really so? I made a tiny comparison of both sites:

Privacy:-

Google+ definitely has a better privacy options than Facebook. You can post materials which only people of selected groups or circles can see. Therefore your boss or relatives won’t be able to spy on you as they did before. If you are concerned a lot for your privacy, i would recommend you to switch to Google+ now. But still, you should always be careful on any social site and don’t do stupid things which you might regret later.

Friends and Contacts:-

Google+ doesn’t have a thing knows as “Friend Request”. You can add anyone in your circle and the other person would just be notified about it. He or she wouldn’t be obliged to add you to his or her circle. It’s a bit like twitter. I really miss the Facebook friends system. It seemed more natural and exciting.

Universality:-

Facebook seems to be a more universal platform. You can join Facebook with any email account e.g. gmail, yahoo, hotmail or even your own personalised mail. However, Google+ is for gmail users only (atleast for now).

Stupid Apps and Peoples:-

Google+ fans say that Google+ doesn’t have the Farmville, daily love percentage guys and apps. Therefore it’s cooler. But when Facebook was newly created, it was like this too. Instead of me moving to another social networking site, why not send the farmville guys to Google+ and i enjoy my current location? 😛 j/k

Chat and Video:-

Facebook has recently introduced Video Chat. It has also enabled adding more people to a current chat. Google+ and GMail had these feature long time ago. But most of my friends are on Facebook the majority of time. Therefore, Facebook chat and video FTW!!!

Webmasters:-

Google+ has re-invented the wheel once again. The same coolness at the start which might get bloated later. Webmasters would have to add the Google +1 button and work on Google Friend Connect services just like Facebook Like button and Facebook Connect. The Facebook APIs change very often. It is difficult for webmasters to keep up with the changes. But now, we will have to follow the Google APIs too. Just PITA! 🙁

Conclusion:-

Google+ has lots of potential but i prefer my gud ole Facebook. It is just eye candy except it’s improved privacy. It is also helping Facebook to improve itself as competition increases innovation 😀

Published on by Nayar

Facebook Introduces Video Call

Facebook recently introduced Video Call Feature. It install very quickly and is very easy to use. All you have to do is to click on the video button and follow the instructions.

Testing the Video Call:

My friend’s webcam was not too gud (VGA) and there was lots of noise in the sound. Lots of lag. Anyways, we managed to have a little conversation despite all these.

This feature is currently NOT available on linux. I had to switch to windows 7 to try it. Hope they make a linux version soon.

Enjoy!

Published on by Nayar

Orange E-Transfer Limit

For those who didn’t know, you can only send 90% of your current Orange credit through Orange’s E-Transfer service. I got this message when i tried to send my dad all my money

2047: Your current request to transfer Rs.65 cannot be processed as you can transfer up to 90 percentage of your balance. (Sender 8500)

For those who don’t know how to use this service, here’s a screeny from their FAQ

Published on by Nayar

Settling down with Kubuntu

I finally managed settled down on Kubuntu 11.04 after lots of unsuccessful attempts with Ubuntu 11.04. I can say i have an almost perfect dual booting system with Windows 7 and Kubuntu 11.04 now.:

  • My Music, Movies, Documents are stored on a separate 200GB partition which can be accessed by both OS. I made the drive auto-mount in Kubuntu by modifying /etc/fstab file.
  • My Windows 7’s Firefox bookmarks, saved passwords and browsing history are now synchronized to my Kubuntu’s Firefox using using Firefox sync. Its really great. The browser transition is really smooth 😀
  • My Kubuntu bit torrent client (KTorrent) can continue downloading and seed a torrent initially started from Free Download Manager(FDM) on Windows 7. However FDM doesn’t resume the download where KTorrent leaves it. It re-downloads the chucks again. Hope FDM would fix this issue later. Else i might switch to another bittorrent client.
  • My Desktop wallpapers are shuffled from the same picture directory on both OS.
  • I changed my Kubuntu Apache localhost directory to one created by XAMPP on Windows 7. That’s the main reason that allowed me to finally settle down on Kubuntu. The default directory is located at “/var/www/”. This location is very “manhoose” (inauspicious/evil). Despite being an administrator, you can’t freely save or edit anything there without using the ‘sudo’ command lines in the terminal. This really sucked.
  • I use the same editor i used on Windows i.e. Notepad++. The editor does not run natively on Linux and you would have to use Wine emulator.

If i didn’t have such a Dual Boot system, i would have continued to use Windows 7 as i have read somewhere that Change just for the sake of Change is counter-productivity. Moreover, the Ubuntu Nattay Narwhal’s Unity just pissed me off. *sigh*

Anyways, Kubuntu FTW!!!