There comes a time when sometimes things move too fast, and we’re left frustrated over missing something vital. That seems to be the case with Windows 8, especially with SSD based machines, such as ultrabooks, that boot Windows 8 in just 7 seconds.

As such there’s hardly anytime to select boot options during startup. In fact, according to Chris Clark, who’s a program manager at the Windows User Experience team, ”We have SSD-based UEFI systems where the ‘F8 window’ is always less than 200 milliseconds. No matter how fast your fingers are, there is no way to reliably catch a 200 millisecond event.”

In that case you can actually setup you computer to take specific actions, depending on your system and requirements.

As such you can easily select whatever appropriate option you’d like to have once the settings are done, wherein the below screen will allow you to select the appropriate option without any worries.

The latest version of iOS is a minor revision that works on sorting out bugs- something that should be obvious given the very small increment in the version number. As per Apple, this update contains improvements and bug fixes, including:

- Improves reliability of using HDR option for photos taken using the Lock Screen shortcut
- Addresses bugs that could prevent the new iPad from switching between 2G and 3G networks
- Fixes bugs that affected AirPlay video playback in some circumstances
- Improved reliability for syncing Safari bookmarks and Reading List
- Fixes an issue where ‘Unable to purchase’ alert could be displayed after successful purchase

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website

Available for your iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S as well all models of the iPad and the third and fourth generation iPods, the latest build 9B206 can be downloaded directly as an OTA to your device or through iTunes.

According to research firm Fiksu, Top 200 free app downloads for the iPhone have fallen to 4.45 million per day in March compared to 6.35 million per day in February, a 30% decrease in one month. The last time app downloads were at similarly low levels was in October 2011, when app downloads were 4.91 million per day.

Another factor contributing towards lower downloads could be the recent change in developer policy implemented by Apple in March, whereby developers were warned that anybody caught using bots to their apps (to boost the chart ratings for their apps) will be disqualified from the official Apple developer program.

“With the novelty factor of the iPhone 4S launch and the holidays well behind us, and no other events in March to spark discovery, March’s download dip was expected,” Micah Adler, Fiksu CEO, said in a statement.

It’s always fascinating talking to someone who has created something massive but had no idea on how big their product would become when creating it. At The Mobile Show 2012, one of the keynote speaker was Igor Pušenjak from LimaSky, creators of the massively popular Doodle Jump game.

After his session, Igor was kind enough to spend a few minutes with me where we talked about how his company expanded and is coping up with the success that Doodle Jump brought them as well as advice for someone looking into developing apps. Igor makes no excuses for repeatedly stating his fondness for Apple and the platform they have developed. It’s certainly a very interesting conversation.

I would like to thank Igor for taking the time to speak to us and wish him continued success.

The Internet Show and The Mobile show is currently going on in Dubai, UAE and RIM has a big presence there in the form of a booth as well as a lounge where users can come in and charge their devices. One of the things that RIM is doing is upgrading their batch of OS7 devices to OS7.1 and you can bring in your Bold or Curve or Torch to get the latest OS version.

While OS 7.1 is available on the web for pretty much all new BlackBerry Smartphones, owners of Porsche Design P’9981 were left in the dark. However, starting next week, they will also be able to upgrade their super-expensive device to the latest OS7.1. I took my particular unit and got it upgraded as the following video shows.

You get all the goodness associated with OS 7.1 in this upgrade including the Battery Saver mode, Device Analyzer and Wi-Fi hot Spot capabilities.

Microsoft today made a ground-breaking announcement and confirmed that the next version of its operating system will be called…Windows 8.

Apart from that, the company also confirmed that there will be three final versions of the operating system. The basic Windows 8 version is geared to the everyday user and includes the new Metro interface, an updated Windows Explorer, Task Manager, and other bells and whistles. The Windows 8 Pro edition includes all of this as well as featured geared towards power users and IT administrators, with featured such as encryption, virtualization, PC management and domain connectivity.

Lastly, Windows RT is the version that will come pre-installed on PCs and tablets that run on ARM processors.

For a full table of features in each version of Windows, head here.

Instagram is a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your photos with friends and family. Snap a picture, choose a filter to transform its look and feel, then post to Instagram. Share to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr too – it’s as easy as pie. It’s photo sharing, reinvented.

The Android Instagram app supports Android 2.2 and above and can be downloaded through the the Google Play store. Aside from letting you add a number of filter effects to your pictures, it lets you share them to a number of different social networks as well.

Let’s see what the acquisition by Facebook means for Instagram and how it’s shaped in the future.

SAE Institute, that is locally a part twofour54 since late last year is going to be running an iPhone Application Development course from 28th of April to 16th of June this year. The course lasts 8 weeks and has classes every Saturday that last the duration of the entire day- from 10AM to 5PM.

The course focuses on the fundamentals of Objective-C Programming and iPhone/ iPod/ iPad application programming along with the business model of the Apple App Store. Participants will be introduced to the programming environment for application development and will have a hands-on approach to programming using the Objective-C language.

Coupled with the introduction of Apple’s app review process, they will also learn the submission process to Apple for appraisal. Participants will be able to produce functional applications at the end of the course.

On completion of this course, participants will be able to:

L1 Demonstrate the understanding of the fundamentals of Objective C Programming
L2 Demonstrate the ability to code and fix Objective-C applications
L3 Demonstrate the ability to create a simple iPhone/ iPad application.
L4 Demonstrate the understanding of the iPhone/ iPad SDK
L5 Demonstrate the ability to prepare the application for submission
L6 Demonstrate the understanding of the Apple App Store review process

This course is targetted towards the novice user- someone wanting to learn programming and thus background in programming is not compulsory as sessions include fundamentals of Objective-C programming.

The course is priced at AED 8,000 and instructed by Amir Jahanlou who is a pretty cool fellow. Click here to register for it.

Over at Nokianesia, some new images of Nokia’s upcoming “Carla” OS update have been leaked. The images show some very interesting developments for this upcoming update for Nokia smartphones.

The biggest change comes in the form of the new lock screen which now uses the ‘swipe to unlock’ method, replacing the old Unlock button. Next up is the new on-screen QWERTY keyboard which looks very much like Nokia’s Windows based phones. Lastly the music player receives a small refresh from the aging design of the original. Even the Browser sees some improvements.

All said and done, the new Carla update seems like it’s following in the footsteps of the MeeGo UI  as far as looks are concerned. This new update, though, will only come to Nokia 603, 700, 701 and the upcoming 808 PureView.

If you have ever built an HTPC, chances are that you have come across XBMC- one of the best ways to playback movies from your PC. XMBC has been in that space for a very long and the way it works is that it looks at your media folder and scrapes information of movies present in it such as posters, actors, fan art and synoposis.

The new version, as described by the team that makes the app, includes Addon Rollbacks, vast improvements in Confluence (the default skin), massive speed increases via features like Dirty-region rendering and the new JPEG decoder, a simpler, better library, movie set scraping, additional protocol handling, better networking support, better handling of unencrypted BluRay content and structures, adjustable display refresh rate in OSX (to match the already available feature in Windows and Linux), AirPlay support, an upgraded weather service with geoip lookup, and much, much more. Check out the highlights in the summarized changelog.

You can download this latest release from here.