Quick Look: Splat Dirt Remover

Imagine all the kinds of dirt there is in this polluted and populated world – dust, sand, cobwebs, food crumbs now decayed and gooey, milk stains (yes, I drink milk, it’s healthy!), soft drink spills, greasy spots, wafers, etc., and you will have a pretty good idea of how my keyboard is. It is an absolute nightmare.

In fact, I believe it is so dusty and dirty, I am actually sure there are living organisms brought up and raised under the protective shade of the tiny black keys. There is a whole civilization in fact, and I can assure you it never has food or water shortages.

I can boast of being a big hearted guy and say that it is the reason I never clean my keyboard. I wouldn’t want to kill those tiny little things, now would I? But that’s far from the truth. I want to squish the hell out of them. I have just been lazy.

And there aren’t many effective ways to clean a keyboard is there? My old Microsoft keyboard is a testament that to the fact that a vacuum clean is a bad, bad choice. I still have dent on my finger from the missing Arrow key.

So, for the mess like of my keyboard, the Splat goo sounds like an effective choice. The gooey substance, which immediately reminds me of Ghostbusters for some reason, can be molded and squeezed into hard to reach spots with its sticky elements absorbing dirt and debris into its bloby stomach.

I gleefully put Splat into its ultimate test. Can it clean the years old dirt and decay of my keyboard? Here are the before and after pictures:

I don’t think any such substance can make a three old dusty keyboard squeaky clean, so the results achieved by the Splat are quite impressive. There are visible places the goo has managed to remove dust and the overall appearance of the keyboard has improved slightly as well. It even managed to subdue some of the stains as well. If you have a moderately dirty keyboard, Splat shouldnt have much of a problem bringing the clean back.

I also tried it on my HDTV remote which has far less grooves and damning caverns than my keyboard:

The result here is more profound, cleaning most of the dust from around the buttons. I can finally safely touch my remote control!

The only drawback that I can think of is that the goo sometimes tends to go crazy, depending on room temperature and what not, resulting in it leaving residue behind.

In any case, Splat is a decent investment for AED 15. Buy in good stock, though, as the Splat is only useful for 50 applications, and if your hardware is as dirty as mine, you will surely need some.

Skype 3.0 – Time to reconnect

When Skype finally listened to their customers and released the video calling feature with their latest update, it was truly a blessing in disguise. In case you didn’t know, one of iPhone 4’s most touted features, FaceTime, which allows free video calls between iOS4 (and Mac) users over WiFi, was taken out by Apple when the iPhone 4 launched within the Middle East region. This feature was sorely missed, but not for long as other apps, such as Tango, sprang up to allow video calling not only over WiFi but 3G and Edge as well. Sadly such apps could not really meet the high standards of FaceTime.

Not until Skype came along to save the day. After v3.0 launched on the App Store 2 days ago, literally everybody I know who knows an iPhone 4 downloaded/updated to v3.0. Skype on its own was a wonderful free app because of its brilliant quality over VOIP and the fact that people could communicate for free using their data plan while on the move. Although some people did feel the need for video calls, pretty much everybody was sort of quiet on the issue since iPhone 3GS didn’t have a front facing camera. Heck, many even wrote the lack of video calls on Skype as a technologically insurmountable feature. However, with FaceTime, pretty much the entire Skype community clamored for video calls.

Sure enough, after more than half a year since launching iOS4 devices, Skype has allowed video calls over WiFi and 3G. So the first thing I did was call up some folks in the family and some old friends whom I hadn’t talked to in a while. Firstly, it was nice to geek out with everybody over the iPhone 4; secondly it was good to finally catch up with some of them. It’s just much more convenient to video call people whenever one feels like, no matter the place, instead of taking some time out and sitting in front of the PC. I’m surprised, to be perfectly honest, that Apple allowed video calls on Skype, since they are known to take down apps that directly compete with their own apps on the App Store. I guess Skype was too big a name to say no to? No matter, everybody, especially people in the Middle East, will definitely welcome this new functionality and enjoy it till it lasts. While people on du will obviously have no problem, Etisalat users are still left in the dark. If only they unblock the ports for Skype on their 3G network…

Sharing books now possible with Kindle

What’s more pleasurable than reading a good book? Sharing it, of course. Thankfully, Amazon has realized this deficiency with its Kindle e-book reader (which btw has become Amazon’s best selling product of all time). Kindle users can now share books across to other Kindles, and also to any other device that has the Kindle software.

Lending a book is a simple process: users can share a book by going into the “Manage Your Kindle” section of their website, expand the details of the book, and click the “Loan this book button”. They will be then asked to enter the recipient’s email address, who then has seven days to accept your offer. The recipient then has two weeks to read the book before it is automatically returned to the original owner. Like in real life, the original owner can not read the book while it has been lent to a friend.

There are bunch of restrictions, however. Amazon has provided publishers to disable the share feature if they want. Also, even if the publisher allows sharing their books, the book can only be lent out a single time before the feature is locked.  Amazon’s also mentions that sharing of books can only be done through their website and not from the Kindle itself. It would be great if sharing was possible through the device itself as it would be much easier to share books among friends and family, but I guess that’s for the next update.

Source: Amazon.

Intel develops ultra-small SSD

Press release:
Intel Corporation announced today the Intel® Solid-State Drive (Intel® SSD) 310 Series, an ultra-small solid-state drive (SSD) that delivers Intel® X25-class award-winning SSD performance, but in one-eighth the size. Measuring 51mm-by-30mm and only 5mm thick, the Intel SSD 310 is a fast, ultra-compact SSD that brings flexibility, ruggedness and scalability to innovative form factors and devices. It can enable highly responsive dual-drive notebooks, innovative single-drive tablets and low-power, rugged embedded industrial or military applications. When paired with a high-capacity hard disk drive (HDD) in a dual-drive system, the Intel SSD 310 can improve overall PC system performance by up to 60 percent.¹

A solid-state drive uses no moving parts, and thus is more durable and reliable than a mechanical HDD, while using less power and providing better system responsiveness. The Intel SSD 310 Series contains 34 nanometer (nm) Intel NAND flash memory and is available in an  m-SATA form factor in 40 gigabyte (GB) and 80GB capacities.

The Intel SSD 310 supports SATA signals over a PCI Express (PCIe) mini-connector for on-board, compact storage in single-drive netbooks, tablets or handheld devices. Weighing just 10 grams, the compact size also enables dual drive all-in-ones, notebooks or small-form-factor (SFF) desktops to help accelerate boot time and access to frequently used applications or files.

“The Intel SSD 310 series will allow us to provide the advantages of a full-performance Intel SSD paired with the storage of a hard disk drive in a small, dual-drive system,” said Tom Butler, director of ThinkPad product marketing, Lenovo. “We’ve offered Intel SSD solutions for our highly innovative Lenovo ThinkPad laptops for some time, and now we’re looking forward to incorporating this new solution across our ThinkPad line.”

With its rugged design, the Intel SSD 310 Series has been chosen by DRS Technologies for a new ARMOR communications tablet PC to be unveiled at Storage Visions in Las Vegas. The ARMOR mobile and field unit tablet PC is certified by DRS to work in extreme temperatures and hold up to shock, vibration and drops, delivering up to nine hours of operating time.

“In order to meet the rigorous demands of our mobile users, we design for mission-critical tasks that require connectivity and handheld mobility in all-weather operations,” said Mike Sarrica, vice president and general manager for DRS Tactical Systems Inc. “The Intel SSD 310 Series fits the bill by offering a reliable and high performing memory solution.”

“The Intel SSD 310 Series is the first in a wave of SSD products we will introduce throughout the next year,” said Tom Rampone, Intel vice president and general manager of Intel’s NAND Solutions Group. “With this introduction, Intel is offering full SSD performance in a compact, ultra-small form factor.”

Already shipping to customers, the Intel SSD 310 is priced at $99 for the 40GB capacity and $179 for the 80GB version, both in 1,000-unit quantities. More information on Intel SSDs can be found at www.intel.com/go/ssd or by accessing the multimedia press kit at www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/ssd. Follow Intel SSDs on Twitter: @intelssd, Facebook: Intel Solid State Drive (Official) or communities.intel.com.

Skype adds video calling to iOS

As rumored, Skype has added free video calling service to its iOS app. The new feature works on the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, and across platforms with users on the PC, Mac and Linux.

We at the Tbreak office had eagerly tested out app and were reasonable impressed with the service. Video calling over WiFi and 3G was on par, however, video quality left much to be desired (Skype over Etisalat 3G did not work). We also noticed a lag of a few seconds, or sometimes even mins, before video was activated on the device. While we didn’t use it long enough to note the effect on battery life, Engadget has noted that 10mins of video calling takes up at least five per cent of battery life.

Skype v3.0 is now available on the Apple App Store. The company has also released a short video to show off the new video calling functionality.

t-break podcast episode 001- Hello World!

We finally managed to get our act together and record a podcast. In this inaugural episode, we talk about souq.com, kinnect, the MacBook Air as well as Anti Virus applications.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

2010: five surprises and disappointments

With the year coming to an end, we look at some of the products that surprised as well as some that turned out to be disappointments. Now this is not a top of the year list- simply products that were better or worse that what we expected out of them. Lets start out with Smartphones.

The BlackBerry Torch 9800 was the surprising hit of the year. I thought the BlackBerry was down and out but they made a decent comeback with the Torch. While it does not have the glamour that the iPhone enjoys, it is an extremely functional Smartphone with a decent UI and killer battery life that none of the other touch screen phones can match.

The Nokia N8 on the other hand turned out to be disappointing. While Nokia has done an excellent job with the hardware of the device, the latest version of Symbian still looks like something out of the 90s.

The importance of being beautiful

As geeks, the concept of beauty and looking good is generally lost on us. As a personal example, I probably wear the same pair of jeans four times a week, rarely shave and my entire wardrobe now consists of promotional t-shirts from various technology launch events I attend. However, we can tackle my dress sense or rather lack of it at another time. What I want to talk about is the importance of being beautiful.

As human beings, we naturally like beautiful things. If we didn’t, things like paintings would have no meaning at all. Why would we care for colors on a piece of paper? But we obviously do care about it. And if you really think about it, everything around you has probably gotten a bit more beautiful with every passing year. Cars have gotten better looking since the 90’s, websites have gotten prettier over the past few years and soap containers which used to be once white little boxes now come in all kinds of curvy shapes and colors.

In a similar vein, technology has also got more beautiful. Think about mobile phones for instance. My first mobile phone was shaped like a brick and was slightly worse to look at. However, phones now are so beautiful that they can be thought of as fashion accessories rather than a means of communication.

The iPhone for instance is a gorgeous phone. But then again, Apple have always understood the importance of beauty. Everything from their operating system to the fonts they use is just beautiful and they realize it’s a lot easier to sell beauty than performance. Take the Macbook Air for instance. Sure, it’s a capable device but for the same price I could easily get a different laptop with twice the performance. So, why then am I so tempted to buy the Macbook Air? Probably because beauty matters more than brains in this form vs function equation.

Sure, there’ll be those who can look beyond the superficial surface and will want their ugly Linux boxes over a Mac but I for one am liking this trend of everything turning prettier and better looking. Here’s looking forward to a beautiful 2011.

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MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II Review

AMD recently launched their Cayman boards, aka the HD 6900 series, and while I was impressed with the highest end model, the HD 6950 was something I was particularly looking forward to. This was mainly because AMD themselves are targeting this card to be below the GTX 570 but above the GTX 460 (and presumably GTX 480). The HD 6950, according to AMD, is in a “class of its own”. Let’s see where it really stacks up the DirectX 11 GPU ladder.

Obviously the Twin Frozr II name in the title should have already indicated that this is not a reference AMD design, that MSI have applied their own touch to the HD 6950. So what we have here is a completely different heatsink from the reference AMD design, which according to MSI keeps the card 6% cooler and 19.6dB quieter. Due to the heatsink itself, MSI claims the overclocking ability of the card greatly increases, especially due to GPU overvoltage through their Afterburner overclocking utility. That said, the R6950 did come with a miniscule factory overclock of 10MHz on the Core clock speeds.

So without further ado, let’s get down to the number crunching. Turns out the old girl will sing one final song before the year ends. The system specs for our soon-to-be-retired machine comprise of an Intel Core i7 965EE @ 3.2GHz on an ASUS Rampage II Extreme motherboard, packing 3x 1GB Corsairs XMS3-1333 ram, a Kingston 64GB V-Series SSD running Windows 7 Ultimate; all of which is powered by a Corsair HX1000W PSU. For comparisons I have used the AMD HD 6970 and the Zotac GTX 570.

Tags: 3DMark 11, ATI, gtx 570, hd 6950, hd 6970, MSI, nVidia, r6950, twin frozr ii

Creative Tactic3D Sigma Headphones

December 30, 2010 by Mufaddal Fakhruddin  
Filed under Product of the Week

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“Experience high-resolution 3D gaming audio with the Sound Blaster Tactic^3D Sigma gaming headset. Hear the clash of weaponry and the sound of footsteps as if they are really happening with high-resolution 50mm Neodymium drivers that produce the finer details of game audio. Touchscreen software and TacticProfile allow you to save and share your favorite settings including THX TruStudio Pro Surround for immersive 360º headphone surround and VoiceFX voice morphing technology. In addition, enjoy a choice of analog or USB connection with Dual Mode. Use the headset in analog mode with standard minijacks or connect the Dual Mode USB adapter to your PC or Mac for the full THX TruStudio Pro experience.”

Read our full review.

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