Tag Archives: Microsoft

Die Intel!

My first PC came with an Intel Celeron 400 processor. Back then, I had no idea what I was getting; I was not aware of various PC parts & technologies. All I knew was that a friend of mine had a Pentium III computer and it was better than mine.

Dominance/Monopoly of Intel

Slowly, as I started to explore the world of PCs (with help from Chip and Digit magazines), I became aware of various components inside PCs and different technologies & brands. The market leader for computer processors even back then was Intel. AMD, Via and Cyrix were alternative brands. Over time, I began to hate Intel. I started looking at Intel as a company which made technically good but overpriced processors & indulged in false/misleading advertising.

Intel is Evil
Evil Inside, PC: LogoDix

AMD processors always fascinated me. When the Athlon series launched, I read about its performance with awe. However, AMD, VIA or Cyrix processors were very rarely seen in the real world, outside reviews. Cyrix & Via soon died completely and AMD remained elusive, plagued by overheating issues and solely in the realm of gamers & enthusiasts. When I did my first major PC upgrade, I had to get a Pentium IV because no one would assemble an AMD for me.

In the laptop space, AMD was even rarer. In fact, the first time I saw an AMD laptop was during my college days when Nihit (technically his girlfriend) bought a laptop with an AMD Turion processor.

I remember inheriting a Compaq laptop (which I still have today) from my father and it had an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. When Windows Vista came out, Intel released a beta WDDM driver for the GPU on this laptop, but later discontinued it. Consequently, the laptop couldn’t use Vista’s Aero Glass effect for themes even though the hardware was compatible. My hatred intensified and I swore never to use Intel again.

In 2000, Intel was forced to abandon its IA-64 platform for 64-bit computing and forced to license AMD’s AMD64 technology. They called it x86-64 and had to pay licensing fee to AMD for every processor sold.

My First AMD

In 2006, briefly, for the first time, Intel and AMD both had nearly equal market shares for Desktop CPU shipments. AMD would maintain the neck-neck competition till date, Intel was no more a monopoly. In fact, in 2021, AMD is arguably ahead of Intel.

When I moved to Gurgaon, I decided to assemble a new gaming PC myself, from scratch. I got the AMD FX 6300 and a Radeon GPU, shunning Intel completely. It cost me half of what an equivalent Intel platform would have cost and performed better. There were no heat issues to speak of.

Eventually I bought an Xbox and sold my gaming PC, never to buy a PC again.

Last Tryst with Intel – Surface Pro 3

I was re-introduced to the world of Intel, when my fiend gifted me a Surface Pro 3. To me, the Surface Pro 3 showcased the very worst of Intel. The external hardware, touch screen, keyboard and OS were all amazing. It was the Intel innards which sucked balls.

The Core i7 processor always ran hot, no matter how light the workload. Consequently the fan was always whirring loudly. It was so loud, you couldn’t sleep in the same room with the Surface if it was doing something. Still, the fan was not enough to efficiently cool the Surface and the CPU was throttled <50% most of the time. I had to install an external USB fan to keep it cool; which was ridiculous.

On top of that, it had issues with Sleep which remained unresolved even after many firmware updates over many years. You closed the Surface and put it in your bag expecting it to sleep. It, however kept on running at full throttle and when you got it out to use it later, you saw that the battery was dead. Microsoft blamed Intel drivers and they twiddled their thumbs, as usual.

Eventually, I sold it and got myself an iPad.

ARM and Apple M1

For those who haven’t been keeping track, Apple transitioned their MacBooks from Intel CPUs to in-house ARM based processors in 2020. We (technically, my wife) bought a MacBook with an M1 chip. After using sluggish/hot/battery sucking laptops over the years, the MacBook blew my mind away.

It is as snappy as an iPad, the battery lasts all day (My wife uses it 8-9 hours off the charger) and there’s no fan and no heat to speak of. On top of all this, existing apps made for x86 work flawlessly and with minimum performance penalty. On the other hand, my work laptop (Intel Core i5) doesn’t last more than 2 hours off the charger and any computational effort make its fans sound like a jet plane.

I would not be wrong to say that the M1 is a generational leap ahead in computing from the old/shitty X86 laptops.

The Future

All mobile phones already used ARM processors. Same for all embedded devices and IOT devices. Apple would probably transition their Macs to ARM completely within the next few years. Many custom-made servers operated by the likes of Facebook/Amazon/Google use ARM already, too. In fact, the current world’s most powerful supercomputer also runs on ARM.

Once Microsoft get their x86-64 on ARM emulation to work properly, we should see a significant chunk of Windows ultraportables and laptops move to ARM. I hope AMD embraces the ARM architecture soon, too.

That being said, x86-64 isn’t going away anytime soon. Gaming PCs, Enterprise workstations, legacy applications requiring native x86-64 and most servers would continue to be x86-64 based for the foreseeable future and Intel would probably continue to dominate this space. I just hope they are reduced to shells of their former selves soon and then eventually die.

Ecosystem

In technology, ecosystem is a big thing. I remember, 10 years ago, while looking for a device/service, one would go for whatever is best in that category. This approach doesn’t work that well anymore. These days it makes sense for a person to stick to an ecosystem and use products/services mostly in that ecosystem, otherwise things get messy. This is because each of the three big companies want the users of their services to use their products exclusively and as a result, don’t support cross-platform compatibility very well.
Here’s an overview of the services/products offered by the Big-three. For those who are curious, I am firmly planted in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Service

Apple

Google

Microsoft

E-Mail ME(iCloud) Gmail Outlook (formerly Hotmail)
Search N/A Google.com Bing
Desktop OS MAC OS None Windows
Mobile/Tablet OS iOS Android Windows
Social Networking N/A Google+ Socl
Photo Sharing N/A Google+ N/A
Productivity Apps Pages/Numbers etc. Google Docs Microsoft Office
Cloud Storage iCloud drive Google Drive Onedrive
Gaming Console N/A N/A XboX
Music/Video Store iTunes Google Play Xbox Music/Video
Maps/Navigation Apple Maps Google Maps Bing/Here Maps
Messaging/Video calling iMessage (proprietary) Hangouts Skype

Fuck you Google, and Goodbye

Yes, Google is evil
Yes, Google is evil

I was introduced to Google back in school, when it was just a search engine. Now it has its fingers and feet in almost every product/service category and is undoubtedly the market leader in most of them.
After Google search, I started using Gmail, then Google Chrome. It was only by chance that I didn’t buy an Android handset (almost bought the T-Mobile G1 once) and I am glad I didn’t. Google is evil. Google is at the moment, what Microsoft was in the 90s. Ruthless and evil.
Google has the right to read through your e-mail, use that information however it pleases and targets ads depending on the text in your e-mail. Also Google has deliberately not supported Windows Phone for years.
Yes, Google is evil
So a few months ago, I decided to say “fuck you” to Google and start moving away from all Google products. OneDrive replaced Google drive. Outlook.com replaced Gmail (it was a pain changing my e-mail address everywhere) and today, as the final step, I migrated my blog from Blogger to WordPress and deleted everything on Blogger.
Bye Bye Google, I am never coming back.

Features I want to be implemented in the Nokia Lumia series

I have been a smartphone user for almost as long as I have used a cellphone. As a user, I have evolved over these years. Most of my smartphone experience has been with Symbian (95%) and Windows Mobile (5%).

Planning to move to a Nokia Windows Phone in the future, these are certain features I am used to, which I find sadly missing on Nokia WIndows Phones
Notification LED: Its an LED on the front panel of the phone which blinks periodically whenever there’s a new Missed call or SMS.
For me, this is highly useful because most modern smartphones don’t show anything on their screens when in standby mode and you have to press a button and go to the lock screen to see whether there are any messages or missed calls.
Windows Phone supports this for Missed calls and voicemails only, not for SMS.
Nokia Windows Phones don’t have a Notification LED at all.
Profiles: I prefer to use different profiles when I am at home (Loud Ringer, no vibration, email alerts), when my phone is in my pocket (No Ringer, vibrations, no email alerts), when I am sleeping (No vibrations, low volume ascending ringer , no email alerts, calls only from family members) and Silent (No notifications at all).
This is something I have gotten used to such an extent that I felt terrible when I had to use an iphone for a week.
Windows Phone does not have this functionality natively at all.
Without these 2 features, there is no way I can buy a Nokia Windows Phone.

One month review of O2 XPhone II

It’s more than a month I have been using my new phone. So I thought it’s time I wrote a fair review about it. Following are the pros and cons of this smartphone.

Pros.:-

  1. Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition
  2. 64 Mb integrated storage
  3. 32 Mb Ram
  4. Mini-SD card support upto 4 gb
  5. Fast processor
  6. Large and very clear display with exceptional clarity
  7. Speakerphone
  8. Sleek and suave
  9. Keypad Light Sensor
  10. Long battery life
  11. Above average camera quality
  12. Runs .exe files and installs software directly out of .cab files
  13. Bluetooth/Infrared Connectivity
  14. Great Multimedia Album with zoom in videos
  15. Great mp3 quality in Windows Media Player 9 and other applications.
  16. Mirror on back for self-portrait
  17. Great t9 dictionary with intuitive suggestions while typing.
  18. Good volume
  19. Wma/wav ringtones

Cons.:-

  1. File explorer software has to be downloaded from official website.
  2. Maybe hard to use for newbies.
  3. Lack of mp3 ringtones(Can be rectified by 3rd party software)
  4. Sub megapixel camera
  5. Office apps not bundled
  6. Windows Media Player 10 not present
  7. Memory Card not hot swappable