The Hype Around iPhone 64-bit Architecture

 

Apple’s new iPhone 5s will be powered by the new A7 processor, which is built on a 64-bit architecture. This is all fine. But, most of the media I can gather relates 64-bit architecture to improved performance.  Here is what Engadget.com had to say…

…as a result of the extra transistors and 64-bit architecture, the A7 is claimed to be twice as fast as its predecessor, both in terms of CPU and graphics performance.

However, technically, there is no relationship between 64-bit architecture and performance. The 64-bit architecture relates to memory addressing. i.e. 64-bit architecture can address 2^64 bits of memory as compared to 32-bit architecture which can address 2^32 around 4GB of memory. So unless iphone ships with (or can upgrade to) more than 4gb of memory it has no real advantage.

Qualcomm’s Chief marketing office, Anand Chandrashekher, said it better…

…I know there’s a lot of noise because Apple did [64-bit] on their A7. I think they are doing a marketing gimmick. There’s zero benefit a consumer gets from that.

he said that (emphasis mine) to IDG News Service, alas, he was re-assigned.

But, its likely Apple is working on a ARM based Mac, in which case it makes sense. Well lets wait and see.

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Amazing Windows Live Writer

One of the part of blogging is to find right tools to make the Writing, formatting parts simpler. One such tool is Windows live Writer. This is a free download as part of the windows live Essentials and it is amazing.

The live writer support all major blogging engine including WordPress, BloggingEngine.net so that was nice. Further it integrates with the theme of the blog thus preserves all the visual aspects as well. Unfortunately there are no options that I could find that meet my needs. Here I enumerate some of the feature of Live Writer which I have used over the last few years.

1. Deep Integration with Lots of Blogging Service.

Everything, I can do with posting blog post with the software which came with WordPress, I can do with Live writer, Rich Editor, Inserting Videos, Pictures, Post as Draft, Publish the post, etc. The Client is very intuitive and fast. This thing makes blogging fun. As mentioned above, this however, is not limited to WordPress, Live writer works seamlessly with tons of blogging services, including spaces, BloggingEngine.net, typepad and tons of other services.

2. Office like Ribbon

I have always been a big fan of Office Ribbon, it just makes discovery so much easier. I am able to find features easily, which otherwise, previously I had never used. The Live Writer Plugin is no different. It provides contextual access to different ribbon. e.g. When I am editing it enables the Formatting pieces, etc.  Spell check, Word count etc. become instantly accessible.

3. Amazing Picture (or Video) Integration.

This is another great feature, it makes integrating videos and pictures so much easier in the blog. The kind of finishing it provides, would be really difficult to do If we had to do this manually.

The integration with online albums from skydrive is super cool. Its very well integrated and makes my blog look so professional. All I have to do is setup some pictures on skydrive and live writer integrates deeply and sets up the albums with lots of options to tune the album as it seems fit.

The same goes with video, amazing attention to details, you could embed videos from anywhere, its gives a nice preview and makes playing with media so much fun.

3. A great plugins ecosystem.

A lots of amazing plugins have been written to enhance the experience that one can have with live writer from, integration with non-supported blogging services, plugins for beautify code in your blog post. You can find these plugins here.

4. Blog Migration and backup

One of the not so publicized part of windows live writer is the easy ability to migrate blogs from an one service to another. Just Add another blogging service and publish the same blog to that service. As I have done with this blog.

If you are into blogging, Live Write probably provides the best tool for bloggers. It allows you to create beautiful professional looking blogs, let you see how they would look like before publishing them. In addition it allows you to connect to any number of blogging site out of the box.

Do leave you experiences with live writer below in the comment section.

Jim Gray "Lost at Sea Or Sailed Away"?

Jim Gray a technical fellow at Microsoft, responsible for starting the Microsoft San Francisco Research center. A specialist in database and transaction processing. He received the Prestigious ACM Turing award in 1998 for his contributions to database and transaction processing research. I can go ahead listing his never ending list of achievements, but its enough for now.

Since January, 2007 there is no clue where Jim Gray disappeared. Some think his 40-foot fiberglass cruiser called Tenacious sank, while some don’t rule out that Jim actually sailed away. And I really hope its the later. One day he will come back and say well all this technology you couldn’t still find me.

A nice article in Wired about Jim Gray a legend in database, transactions, large scale data processing who is lost at sea since January’07. This article about the high tech rescue effort that went subsequently.

I have been to couple of his talks and really enjoyed those talks and hope to hear from him soon.

Some references to Jim Gray’s research..

http://research.microsoft.com/~Gray/

Windows Live Service Agent

 

Today, I got a chance to attend this presentation about Windows Live Service Agent, its a interesting technology. A system to talk with, When you ask question  to the system, it responds immediately in a conversational language.

 

Several companies e.g. Comcast ( Ask Comcast ), Vonage, Cingular, xbox are using this as the first line of customer support. From what i have heard it works well.

 

 

Well, if you are feeling lonely, Windows Live Service agent can help, You can login into your MSN Messenger, add smarterChild@hotmail.com to your contact and start chatting….

 

Here are some of the response, I got chatting with the smarterchild (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarterchild).

 

Irfan Bondre says:

hi

– SmarterChild says:

Hi again, irfan.

Irfan Bondre says:

Whats the weather like tomorrow…

– SmarterChild says:

Which would you like?

1 What are the current weather conditions?

2 What is the weather forecast?

Irfan Bondre says:

2

– SmarterChild says:

Weather forecast for Fremont, CA:

Friday: Mostly cloudy. High 56F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph.

Friday evening: Some clouds. Low 38F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.

Saturday: Partly cloudy early followed by mostly cloudy skies and a few showers later in the day. Thunder possible. High 54F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.

Saturday evening: Cloudy with a few showers. Low 38F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%.

Sunday: Intervals of clouds and sunshine. High 53F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.

Monday: Sunny (High:55 Low:35)

Tuesday: Sunny (High:57 Low:36)

Wednesday: Mostly Sunny (High:57 Low:38)

Thursday: Partly Cloudy (High:59 Low:41)

To get the current conditions for Fremont, CA, just type "weather."

Irfan Bondre says:

bye

– SmarterChild says:

Bye bye.

MS at USC

As I have taken up this new endeavor of blogging, I will mention briefly about my route to a MS at USC.

 

After my Bachelors degree, I started working a bit, It was not a very pleasant experience as my education didn’t completely match the work I was involved in, nor did my education provide me with a foundation for particularly any task. At this time my elder brother was in US and my dear friend was planning on moving to US. There was like a small pressure from both of them to consider a MS. After a deep thought, I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to miss.

 

The task of preparing for such a move is difficult. The GREs, TOEFLs, Paperwork, VISA and so many other nitty gritty things just consume you. I finally manage to get through most of them without any difficulty. I got admit into couple of schools, and USC was a simple choice. Beside being a good school, there were people I knew, isn’t that comfortable.

 

Looking back, coming to US and doing my MS at USC was one of the best decisions in my life and it will have a profound impact on my career and my life. I cannot thank enough for all the help I got on doing that.

 

USC is a really cool school, ton of resources and good international crowd, your really feel at home. Most of the stuff that I did at USC was new to me, I tried to concentrate more on the networking aspect of Computer Science, even though my major was Electrical Engineering, I hardly did any course purely in EE. USC is an expensive School, I didn’t want to spend lot of money on completing the pre-requisite for a computer Science Degree.

 

Has it hurt by doing so, I think it has a bit, there are so many aspect of computer science I have missed by doing a EE degree. A CS degree does provide a terrific foundation, which I have missed, and it is a little difficult at times grasping those CS concept. I do spend a lot of time these days trying to understand some of those, If I get an opportunity, I will probably try to finish a CS degree.

 

I am so glad, that I got this opportunity and would recommend anybody who can, should take up this path.