Make PDF Reader intelligent on HP TouchPad

The PDF reader on the HP TouchPad currently just reads pdfs  :) It would be great if it could remember the last page that I had read on a particular pdf and it would be great if it allowed me to bookmark specific pages on pdfs.

Well, it seems that this particular wish is now granted and works well according to this thread on preCentral forums. It is a simple as downloading and installing this ipk - that's all one needs to do to get this awesome feature!

Note that this is just the beginning and there's lots of work still to be done.

WebOS 3.0.4 Update released

Ari Jaaksi, the head of webOS & services and HP announced on his blog here that they are releasing a new software update (3.0.4 - 77) for the HO TouchPad. It is an OTA update and has lots of perforamce improvements, better support for camera, UI updates & tweaks, and more apps!

So go ahead and update your TPs, but if you have HomeBrew and custom kernel & patches, then worry not. According to this forum post and this one, and this wiki page, updating your home-brewed TP is harmless and you do not need to do anything special. The patches may just stop working for some time till the latest updates of those patches are available and get updated. Also, some of the issues being addressed by the patches may also be taken care of by the new update.

So, as Ari says - enjoy the new update - no strings attached  ;)

Google gets a Patent for Doodles

Was checking out today's Google Home Page Doodle "Gumby" and stumbled upon the fact that Google's Sergey Brin got a Patent (7,912,915) for it! The application was filed more than 10 years ago on April 30, 2001 and is described as "Systems and methods for enticing users to access a web site"
To quote the text of the Patent:
[Quote]
A system provides a periodically changing story line and/or a special event company logo to entice users to access a web page. For the story line, the system may receive objects that tell a story according to the story line and successively provide the objects on the web page for predetermined or random amounts of time. For the special event company logo, the system may modify a standard company logo for a special event to create a special event logo, associate one or more search terms with the special event logo, and upload the special event logo to the web page. The system may then receive a user selection of the special event logo and provide search results relating to the special event.
[/Quote]

Use FoxIt for filling in forms in PDFs

Needed to fill in a form in a PDF which had not been made originally in such a way that Adobe Reader could understand there were fields in it. Most probably it was a scan & print to pdf of a word document.

In such a scenario, FoxIt Reader came to the rescue! It has a tool called the Typewriter which allows you to click anywhere on the PDF and type in text in desired font, size & color - viola! Used that to fill in the form and print it out. Only problem is if you save this PDF, free version of FoxIt reader adds a watermark so better print it before saving the changes.

You can get the portable version of FoxIt Reader from here or if you prefer the full version, you can get it from here.

Entrepreneurship is the "in thing" in India

The Entrepreneurial spirit is very high in India these days with tons of very good companies and products coming jostling for attention. Many of the ideas are adaptations / localization of successful ones across other parts of the globe and some are very unique to the unique needs/demographics of the country. Here are a few that I cam across - not necessarily listed in any order of relevance or importance but more for my own future reference.

• Revu - a twitter style instant review from via SMS
• Paytm - instant recharge of your phone, data or tv card and get free coupons
• freecharge.in - instant recharge of your phone, data or tv card and get free coupons
• roopit - localized craigslist / sulekha for Bangalore only
• mobisy - consulting to create apps for mobile platforms
• Kreeo - platform to manage content, knowledge and social networking inside enterprises
• CraftsVilla - online market for Indian handicrafts (on the lines of Etsy except that artisan cannot interact directly?)
• Craftila - another online market for Indian handicrafts (on the lines of Etsy except that artisan cannot interact directly?)
• goibibo - domestic flight, hotel, holiday & travel booking
• kidloo - online toy store carrying all major brands
• firstcry - online store for branded infant and baby products
• timtara - fast growing online store
• buyTHEprice - online electronics store
• pluggd.in - Indian version of TechCrunch?
• flipkart - India's very own version of Amazon?
• mime360 - secure digital media distribution platform
• mYusic - streaming legal bollywood music

Let me know if you see any more sites....

Good day for Developers

It seems that today is a very good day for Developers!
On one hand, Google, launched its APIs for the Google+ platform here.
On the other, Windows is offering a free download of its' latest Win8 build here.
Hmmm ... decision, decisions, time crunch!

State of Mobile OSes

What with Android, webOS, MeeGo, bada, WinMo7 in the race to become stable and the de-facto standard after iOS, things don't look very good for end-users. QuiksMode blog has a very nice entry summarizing the current fragmented & cloudy (pun intended) state of affairs for mobile OSes here. From this report - it seems that Apple may continue to be the winner unless webOS or MeeGo manage to turn the tables around.

Happy Programmers' Day!

Today is 13th September - the 256th day of the year. The number 256 holds a special place in the eyes of (most) programmers as it is the highest value that can be represented with a byte: 2^8 or 0b11111111. Since this is the highest integer less than 365 (days in a year) that can be represented with powers of 2, this is celebrated as Programmers' Day. Read more on the history of Programmers' Day at Wikipedia.
Sadly - Google does not have any Doodles for this on their home page even though they are a very techie company.

Better Blogger Interface

Blogger is working on a vastly improved interface and I got a preview of it recently.
The new interface is really nice and am hoping it will become the standard interface soon.

HomeBrew on HP TouchPad

On HP TouchPad, side loading of apps - referred to as HomeBrew - is very simple and consists of a few simple steps! No complicated rooting, jail-breaking or difficult procedures as all. As detailed in this site, the steps are as follows:

1. Enable "Developer Mode" by typing webos20090606 in the "Just Type" box at the top of the home screen and enabling it
2. Download webOS Quick Install (WOSQI) developed by Jason Robitaille from here and install it on your computer.
3. Connect TP to this computer and click on close when prompted to enable USB Drive mode
4. Launch WOSQI on the computer and click on the globe like button on the right to install the Package Browser/Installer (note that it may take some time to load all the feeds and you may be prompted to load drivers from NovaCom - this is ok)
5. Launch Preware from Downloads and read through the notices - you can safely skim to the end
6. Search for and then Install the following patches to improve performance of your TP - note that you can restart after you have installed all these apps instead of once each time each app is installed:
1. Unset CFQ IO Scheduler
2. Muffle System Logging
3. Remove Dropped Packet Logging
4. Unthrottle Download Manager
5. Quiet powerd Messages
6. Faster Card Animations HYPER Version
7.  Reduce logging level - you can safely ignore the warnings that pop-up:
1. Open the Phone application and dial ##5647# followed by the green send button to open the logging menu
2. Clear the existing logs
3. Set logging level to minimal
4. You can also delete the trace/dump file from the menu on the top left

All of this took me only 15 minutes from beginning till very end!
Hopefully after reducing logging levels and speeding up the card animations, performance on TP should be vastly better.

Note that for reducing logging level, you do not need to pair to a phone or setup a phone application. Just open the included Phone app and select your own webOs account.