I had been looking at the tablet market for quite some time now. Of course the iPad(2) is still the most known and popular out there, but now that Google has released their tablet-optimized Android version I felt that the time was right to plunge myself into this territory. I know that there had been quite some devices around before the Honeycomb era, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab or the Archos tablets. However, in my opinion, either the overall experience or the moderate hardware specifications of these devices left much to be desired.

This is where the Xoom comes in. This device sports a Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, doing its work on 1 Ghz. It has a 10.1 inch capacitive screen, a 5MP camera on the back and a 2 MP camera on the front. Running Android 3.0, which was partly developed on this tablet, giving you a really nice and polished experience when using it. Unlike Apple’s iOS, Honeycomb has support for Flash, which in my opinion alone is a huge advantage. Let’s face it, Flash isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and it is still the dominant technology for a lot of the interactive content you can find on the Web.

At the time of writing there aren’t that many Honeycomb optimized applications out there yet, but you can slowly see more and more appear in the Android Market. It’s true that some of the more popular apps don’t really scale well to tablet resolutions, which is especially true for games, but that doesn’t necessarily need to be a deal-breaker, since it’s only a matter of time before these apps get updated. Operating System wise I think Google did a great job here. Of course their own applications work like a charm and I’m definitely impressed with their Books application.

It speaks for itself that one of the primary functions of this device is reading. It’s a shame however that available titles on Google Books are a bit on the low side, at least here in Europe, but you do have the option to install both Amazon’s Kindle and B&N’s reader apps which work well. Alternatively you can also install one of the many PDF readers. My favorite is EZ PDF reader, which does require a small contribution, but I think it’s worth it. Addionally, checking out your news feeds is really a pleasure with the excellent Pulse news reader app. You might already be using this on your phone, but believe me, experiencing this on a tablet is a world of difference.

Another popular use for tablets, at least if you can believe the latest stats on this, is gaming. While I’m not that much of a gamer myself, it’s true that these type of devices open a whole new market. The way you play games is more akin to playing on a console than on a PC, but I actually believe it will become a subset of its own. Performance wise the Xoom tablet works really well, thanks to the Tegra processing power under the hood. 3D graphics are fluent, look great and there’s no stuttering whatsoever. If you’re into gaming, this definitely is something to consider, especially since I believe that with the plethora of Android & Tegra devices coming out we’ll be able to get some awesome looking games on these devices.

What I also like very much about the Motorola tablet is the fact that it is open. With this I mean that it is relatively simple to unlock and root the device. While many mainstream users don’t have an immediate use for a feature like this, I believe it is something that can be important if you value getting updates in the future. Let’s face it, most hardware vendors aren’t very keen on releasing new iterations of Android for their devices in a timely manner. This is of course not without reason. Porting their respective UI shells to new versions is most likely a challenging, time and resource consuming task. That is why I personally prefer the ‘vanilla’ Android devices. Buying one of these gives you a bit more certainty that updates will roll out faster. And even if the vendor abandons the device, you can always count on the many community developers creating ROMs for your tablet with the latest and greatest goodies. When getting a device which is easily rooted, you only increase your chances of finding community updates later on.

Honeycomb in general is looking good. You can tell that Google has put in a lot of effort getting their mobile OS ready for the tablet era. The general experience is smooth and enjoyable but there still are some quirks to work out. When you put the system to the test by running multiple applications at the same time, it can become a little bit laggy. Nothing to worry about, I’m just talking about a slight delay in response time when switching screens for example. It’s probably one of those things that’s coming from the fact that Android is a true multi-tasking platform and will get better as development progresses. Some applications have crashed on me, but only the ones that aren’t optimized for Honeycomb. The main operating system hasn’t failed me yet and I’m pretty confident it won’t either.

Of course it’s not all perfect. I’m sure there’s always some room for improvement, but my biggest annoyances are basically the fact that the Xoom is a bit on the heavy side, nearing 800 grams and the fact that in some cases you need to install multiple applications that basically perform the same task, but offer different content. Weight wise, this will surely get better over time and most Android tablet builders have some catching up to do with Apple on this front, but keep in mind that this is only the truly first generation of Android tablets to hit the market. On the application front I think the problem is a tad more complicated. I’m mainly referencing to the e-books apps here, but also the fact that you now have multiple application stores. Both suffer from the same issue: different applications and stores may offer both identical and unique content. This makes finding what you’re looking for difficult. Prices often vary (although for most items the difference is negligible) which can become quite confusing, especially when it’s not clear what the immediate advantage over a competitor is. This is a problem that I don’t really see being solved any time soon. These companies are trying to make money after all and if the company believes that they can get a fair market share on their own, I don’t think they’ll see any incentive for consolidation. On the other hand you might argue that it does increase competition which in many cases can be good for consumers. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see. As always, time will tell.

My conclusion is that tablets are definitely on the rise. It might be a bit soon for Joe Plumber to jump on the wagon, but if you’re an early adopter or just love technology I’m sure you would not regret investing in a tablet. What device you choose in the end depends on your needs and preferences. All I can is say, give Android a chance, I’m pretty sure you won’t be disappointed. I’m not pretending to give an objective opinion here. My personal preference is and will probably always be with Android. I do believe that it has a very good chance on becoming the dominant platform and therefore a relatively safe bet. Concerning the Xoom, I’m sure it’s not for everyone. It does have its weaknesses, but offers plenty of other things to make up for them. It remains a pricey item for sure, but thanks to the openness of Android we’ll soon be seeing less expensive alternatives.

Where Internet Explorer uses Trident, Firefox uses Gecko, and Chrome & Safari using Webkit, this one uses all three. Of course not at the same time, but you can switch between engines on-the-fly. Claiming 3 times faster start-up time using the fastest javascript rendering engine in the world (as claimed on their site), this new piece of software is looking promising.

I think this might be a very good start-up and sure looks like such a project could have a bright future. Why installing and using three different programs, hogging your resources, while you can use one and have it all! Maybe this won’t become the mainstream browser for the big mass, but in the technical environment, things could really leap forward. For (web)-developers, this is surely a gift from heaven.

The competing browsers are Firefox 3, Safari, Google Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer 7. Tests performed include the new V8 javascript test, browser extensions testing, the Acid 3 test, a Flash test, a Javascript test and a general speed test.

Firstly, they performed the V8-test. This is quite a new test for the rendering of javascript. When the V8 code is included in your browser, this test is blazing fast. Currently only Google Chrome & the new Firefox alpha (MineField) include this code. Since Minefield is not officially out yet, it speaks for itself that Chrome is the winner here.

Next up is the browser extension test. This is for testing XML capabilities. Here IE7 did not come out good at all, since this is not supported in it. The winner here is Firefox, but the differences between the other 2 browsers is minimal.

Third test, Acid 3. This tests the default settings of the browser, plays an animation and compares the result to a reference. To pass this test, the browser must have a final score of 100. None of the tested software passed, but the best one was Opera with a score of 85.

Fourth up is a flash test. Of course when you install flash it’s used by all browsers, but not all render the same flash animation/video at the same speed. This test is best performed by Firefox.

Next test is for javascript. The tester used the SlickSpeed test, which is normally used by developers to test for compatibility. Here, IE7 failed miserably since the test took a ridiculous amount of time to load. Safari didn’t complete it, and the rest went OK. The winner here is Google Chrome.

Last but not least is the Webspeed test. Testing some content-rich websites, the tester checked which browser was able to load them te fastest. Differences between all browsers are not that large, but again here Chrome wins.

The final score is 1st place for Google Chrome. Firefox finishes as second and Opera as third. Safari & IE7 both didn’t perform that well. This shows again that free is (at least in this case), better. Granted, you could consider all of the tested browsers ‘free’, but the differnce is that the three ‘winners’ aren’t usually shipped with an OS. Again Firefox here is a bit of an exception on this rule since it’s becoming more & more the default in a lot of Linux distributions.

All in all, I think both Chrome & Firefox are the best browsers currently available. Chrome might be the winner today, but Minefield is looking promising as well, and might just kick Chrome of that number one place soon.

This new database is to provide screenshots (duh!) of all the applications in their packages repository. Before installing you will now be able to see how an application will look before you actually install it. Even more impressive (to me at least), is that they allow anyone to upload screens, which of course provides a lot better view of a possible application-look.

Personally, I’m super-enthusiastic about this. I can’t seem to stop browsing all the screens, and while I’m currently running Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex at home myself, this makes me want to migrate to pure Debian (and I think I will since Intrepid has been kind of troublesome lately ).

As usual, Debian has done a stellar job on this one, and this is definetely worth checking out!

This version is currently only available for Linux users, and can be obtained here. This decission was made because 64-bit Linux distributions don’t ship with a 32-bit browser by default. Neither do they usually offer an extended 32-bit emulation layer. The need for a native 64-bit flash player thus is the greatest for this platform.

Windows and Mac users should not worry, a version for their platform is in the make as well, and will be released soon. In the end, the final versions will all be released on the same time anyway.

I think this is a very, very good development. The community has been screaming for this to come out for years now. Many of us already had given up hope. Yes it is true that with using a custom wrapper, emulating or other means you could solve a lot of flash problems, but working native is always better!

While this release is far from finished, it’s already gaining popularity on the web. One of the most amazing things about it is its speed. With what is reported to be fastest javascript-engine of the world, it’s even leaving Google’s Chrome browser behind by 10%.

Of course there are a few drawbacks. Not all your plugins will be supported, but a lot of them already seem to work. Since this is an alpha release, it’s bound to have some bugs, although no huge problems have been reported so far. A plus to counter these is that installing this version does not affect your current Firefox installation, so you can happily run both next to each other.

All in all, for this stage in the development, I’m very impressed. In fact, I’m considering replacing my usual Firefox 3.0 with this one for my day-to-day use. If you’re tired of slow browsing, give this newest Mozilla-child a chance!

The most significant improvement here is that with this new version, there is now support for effects and filters that are custom created by the designer. Also, for playing 3D elements and effects, the software can now directly make use of the computing power of your graphic-card. Further on, the layout possibilities for text and the audio-processing by the program have been improved.

To me, the most stunning fact however is that this release is so close to the new Silverlight by Microsoft. I don’t think it’s a coincidence these direct competitors both come up with their new version so close to each other.

Where Silverlight yesterday seemed hot news, and probably still is, it’s still in it’s infant shoes (although MS would like us to believe otherwise). The bad, or lack of, support in the cross-platform section, is definitely something to watch out for. Granted, Flash isn’t that wonderful on, for example, Linux either, but at least there is some support, and hopefully this will improve even more with version 10.

In my opinion Adobe has made a very smart move here, as it will probably result in slower adaptation of it’s competitor. For the moment, Flash player seems to stay the software of choice for multimedia content on the Web. Will it stay like this? Only time will tell…

This new version, which is supposed to be an even more fierceful competitor for Adobe’s popular Flash player, looks very promising. Among one of the most eye-catching improvements is the promise that this new version will be shipped with cross-platform and cross-browser support.

Supported platforms are Microsoft Windows (duh ), Mac OS X, but surprisingly, also Linux. For the browser world, you can use Internet Explorer (another big duh of course), but also Firefox and Safari.

I’m glad too see Microsoft has gotten the message from the community and is releasing this functionality also for Mac & Linux users. With version 1 so closely tied to their own Windows platform, they have had a lot of criticism to endure. Of course Mono (2) promised to partly cover these platforms, but it’s nice to see that our Redmond friends took a closer look at some other popular operating systems.

On the browser side, I’m a bit disappointed to not see any Opera support. Probably in the next few weeks we’ll see some workarounds and community patches surfacing for this, but nevertheless, I’m surprised it’s not natively supported. However I’m sure this is only a matter of time.

Whether this newest Silverlight release will be nibbling at the market share of Flash is still to be seen. So far, I haven’t really seen much use of it myself, apart from during the Beijing Olympics, where Microsoft had cleverly set up some partnerships in an attempt to boost their software use. The main drawback at the time was of course the lack of support for other browsers and platforms. Now that this has been solved (however yet to be proven), Silverlight can finally really take off. Probably more partnerships with big content providers are coming, but now at least it has a good chance of breaking through to the mainstream.

I’m sure that we’ll hear and mostly see more about this the coming weeks/months. For the time being, I’m going to take a look how Silverlight performs on my Ubuntu/Firefox setup . To be continued …

Update 15/10: Tried to download it yesterday for Linux, but currently the runtime for this platform is not yet available… Only Windows & Mac are to be found.

Welcome to my new blog! I’m going to try to write about my life in IT here… This will be about all kinds of topics, but most, if not all, IT related.

Some of the topics I will be covering:

• Operating systems
• Hardware
• Software
• General IT news
• …

Come back soon to see more!