Embracing the cloud

I am a Software enthusiast. Not really sure when I have used the right word. But I always want to try to new Softwares and see how it works. But at least for last couple of years, the software landscape has changed and keep evolving like anything. Thanks for the browser wars to make the web better. 

Cloud is something which I am fascinated for long time. Even I feel a bit difficult to explain the real concept and infrastructure behind cloud, the mix of Software, Virtualization and hardware in a new paradigm entirely taken away the industry.

Most of the services we’re daily using here are already embraced cloud. When I started my career back  I started hearing new things like POP and Exchange for emails. It was hardly difficult to understand why really do we need  an exchange mail. I realized it later when I travelled abroad and started working from both home and office. I found exchange is really fast, useful when we’re mobile. It’s an old story but again there are several cloud services which I am really making out in daily life. I simply can’t live without them.

Gmail - The cloud based email and the best web based email I ever have seen. I never felt to install a client for Gmail as it rocks well in the web version. Instead of downloading message down the system we’re using, simply a data render happens when deal with GMail. None of the things are really stored our system. It works well across platforms including mobile, desktops and tablets.

DropBox - I am loving it. One of the best natively integrated file storage and handling services I have seen. There are many replicas and services came to online file storage but DropBox remained strong and still gaining more users. The service currently hosts more then 100 billion files. As per the survey, peopel are storing files more in dropbox than tweeting. The clients are available at all platforms like iPhone, iPad, Android, Desktop (Linux, Mac and Windows). I never will have to bother carrying the files around. Also the client allow you to partially sync with the required folders under DropBox.

Evernote – The best desktop application I have seen in my professional life. The notes taking application comes in all form. From Bookmarklet to brilliant desktop and mobile clients. The software is simply an art. The premium versions are even better than the free version. Even you can used your evernote storage stpace onlnie to save your documents. I am sure you will love it.

Google Docs - I am almost left the office suite in my personal computers. Most of the things I wanted from office suite is available for free at Google Docs. I have prepared several documents and drawings with it. It’s getting matured day by day. I am loving it.

Google Calendar - It tracks all my events and appointments without fail. Even I am using Google Calendar Sync to sync my exchange calendar information back to the Google Calendar. It works in mobile and dekstop platforms so well.
Remember The Milk - The best task organizing tool I ever have seen. It has got Gmail Plugins, Android and iPhone (Free but lot of limitations). But whatever we’re getting in the desktop is simply awesome. It supports the quick add of events like “Meeting my friend on Saturday 10.00 AM. This may simply create even called “meeting my friend” and the time and other information will be parsed from the input text given. Simply implemented similar to Google Calendar Quick Add Features.

Android - Some of the apps like Gmail and Google Maps are simply awesome in Android platform and most of the cloud based apps are available in this platform and keep evolving

What  I am missing. I need a perfect cloud based image editor similar to Photoshop. The concepts of Tablets and Chrome netbooks are exceptionally promoting cloud centric softwares. I hope we will be handsfree soon.

IE 9 Vs Firefox 4 – Hardware Acceleration and Page Rendering comparison

 

3 days ago, IE has released it’s latest and greatest version of browser. Internet Explorer 9 beta is available for download from http://beautyoftheweb.com/

After several years IE 9 became my default browser. Despite of my early review I’m not really happy with the rendering of many websites, including facebook, cool tumblr websites. The hardware acceleration is amazing and it’s damn fast. While on the other hand, firefox is doing a real good job with Direct2D rendering and if you believe it or not, almost all websites works well. I’m not sure it’s because of the sites are optimized for Mozilla Platform, while less cared about Internet Explorer. By default Mozilla Firefox 4 isn’t not hardware accelerated. You can run simple test to ensure if the hardware acceleration is enabled or not. Run this stress test. You will get at least 60 FPS if you’re running a good graphic card. If it’s not enabled see my previous post on how to enable to hardware acceleration in Firefox 4.

Here I’m running IE 9 Beta 1 (64 bit) and Firefox 4 beta 6 (32 bit) for tests in my Dell XPS M1330.

Hardware Acceleration performance

– Firefox outperforms Internet Explorer. IE – 60 FPS and FF – 76 FPS. Some application ensure the rendering performance to monitor refresh rate (normally 60FPS) because higher FPS may cause high CPU utilization and make the application wait to refresh the screen. May be Internet Explorer limited this to 60FPS. Both are using using same technology for rendering

Firefox 4 beta 6 Internet Explorer 9 Beta

But in IE Psychedelic Browsing test, IE outperformed Firefox even IE renderer slightly higher number of vertical pixels. (They’re just close anyway)

Firefox IE 9

Broken Websites

Here where Firefox rocks. Most of the websites works stunning in Firefox while IE 9 is broken with many websites. Here are some examples.

http://codereflect.com/ (I’m using Google Open Fonts in this website. This is the reason why I selected my own website)

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Tumblr Blog

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IE Broken Facebook Wall – (You can see two share buttons)

 

Dual

Hope all these fixed in the final release of the product!

How to enable Direct2D Rendering with Firefox 4 Nightly Builds?

Finally Direct2D rendering is here with Firefox 4 nightly build.

Prerequisites

  • Windows 7/Vista with latest service pack
  • You should have DirectX 9/10 enabled Graphics card

 

1. Download Firefox nightly build

2. Take configuration page by navigating to about:config from address bar

3. Change mozilla.widget.render-mode value to 6 (default is –1)

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4. Change gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled to true (Just double click. default value is false)

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We can’t ensure it’s drawing using Direct2D because some plugins may force the browser to draw using GDI. If possible disable/remove the plugins

Now how to test it?

Check the following tests. Probably these test should execute so smoothly if hardware accelerated.

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Performance/PsychedelicBrowsing/

http://people.mozilla.com/~vladimir/demos/photos.svg

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Bas Schouten has published the performance gain of Direct2D over conventional GDI interface.

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Image Courtesy Bas Schouten