The Samsung Galaxy S is meant to be the Korean firm’s big assault on the smartphone market – packing oodles of top end technology into a handset it thinks can take on the iPhone 4.There’s more than just top end technology in here to beat the iPhone – the chassis looks decidedly similar too, despite the much larger four inch screen.

The feel of the frame is in a good way. It’s nearly a millimetre thicker than the iPhone 4 but it doesn’t feel it, thanks to the curved back.The downside of this construction is that it feels a little plasticky, which isn’t the impression you’re going for in a premium smartphone – but it is very light at only 118g.

The chrome bezel looks nice too, but it’s the screen that it frames that really makes the Samsung Galaxy S.While Google is intent on losing the custom overlays on modern Android smartphones, Samsung has finally decided to offer up its own skin for the search engine’s mobile OS.Known as TouchWiz 3.0, this skin is the evolution of efforts from a number of Samsung handsets – sadly most of which were pretty dire to use, with a range of widgets that underperformed compared to the competitors.

This overlay was first used on the Samsung Wave, where new widgets were the order of the day – while these widgets worked well, and 10 home screens was a bonus, on the Galaxy S you get seven displays to work with, and both widgets and icons alike.The latter is great, as it means you can mess around with placement of your favourite applications. However, widgets are less of an attraction, with very few on offer from both Samsung and the default Android offering – certainly you get a lot more from the likes of the HTC Desire.

The interface on the Samsung Galaxy S is more than the large, capacitive touchscreen is just tops. We’re not saying it’s better than the iPhone4, but for someone who’s never picked up a touchscreen phone in their life, this cannot be beaten.The lightest touch will produce an instant reaction, and coupled with the 1GHz processor from Samsung.

While we would have liked to see more from the menu system, you have to hit the ‘Applications’ icon on the Home screen to do more.Another feature we loved about the Samsung Wave was the intuitive menu system, where the most-used applications gradually moved to the top of the pile; sadly missing on the Galaxy S.But the simple icons and pages way of navigating your applications makes sense, seeing as the iPhone 4 has had such runaway success with such a system.

What is Samsung Galaxy S? is a post from: Universal Ramblings

No setup needed

Automatically follow the people you email and chat with the most in Gmail.

Share publicly or privately

Publish your ideas to the world or just to your closest friends.

Inbox integration

Comments get sent right to your inbox so it’s easy to keep the conversation going.

Photo friendly

See thumbnails with each post, and browse full-screen photos from popular sites.

Connect sites you already use

Import your stuff from Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, and Google Reader.

See updates in real time

New posts and comments pop in as they happen. No refresh required.

Just the good stuff

Buzz recommends interesting posts and weeds out ones you’re likely to skip.

Google Buzz is a post from: Universal Ramblings

Rentometer is a good place to compare what rental rates are going for in the area that you have your property at. They mainly focus on apartments vs. rental of houses but at least this gives you an idea. I use this to check out rent comps for my condos and then also increase the rent 10%-20% if it’s a single family house and depending on it’s amenities.

It’s easy to use Rentometer. They only have four required fields:

1. “I am” field, you choose you are a landlord from a drop down menu.

2. “City & State, or Zip” field, you will need the zip. If you don’t know the zip code you can Google the address.

3. “Current Monthly Rent” field, type in what you are currently renting the property for.

4. “Bedrooms” field, use the drop down menu to select, Studio, 1-bedroom, etc.

5. Click Analyze My Apartment.

Rentometer will then tell you if your rent is too high, too low, of just about right. Then comes a sentence chock-full of valuable information: “About 11% listings are higher priced,” for example.

If you click “Explain” you get more insight. If you click “Try by Zip Code” Rentometer checks again results based on 1,000 properties within a few miles from your location.

Rentometer is FREE to use and it will give you a gauge if your rent is high, low, or just right. Remember, Rentometer auto calculates this information, so until you drive by these properties, there may be other amenities (location, view, etc.) that Rentometer does not take into account.

Keep in mind, if you are on the higher end of the rent gauge, it will take longer to rent out your property than if you are on the lower end. So the question is, how long do you want it vacant and how aggressive is your marketing? Rentometer will help you with your parameters to get started.

Is My Rent Too High ? Try Rentometer is a post from: Universal Ramblings

Rich Skrenta had a good take on Google:

Google is a company that has built a single very large, custom computer. It’s running their own cluster operating system. They make their big computer even bigger and faster each month, while lowering the cost of CPU cycles. It’s looking more like a general purpose platform than a cluster optimized for a single application.

While competitors are targeting the individual applications Google has deployed, Google is building a massive, general purpose computing platform for web-scale programming.

This computer is running the world’s top search engine, a social networking service, a shopping price comparison engine, a new email service, and a local search/yellow pages engine. What will they do next with the world’s biggest computer and most advanced operating system?

As people use more and more web applications, the operating system becomes less important and it makes no sense to pay for it. The desktop mail client could be replaced by Gmail, the calendaring application could be replaced by Google Calendar, the office suite has lightweight alternatives: Google Docs and Zoho, it makes more sense to use an online feed reader like Google Reader, your scientific calculator is less powerful than Wolfram Alpha and you’ll rarely need a video player when you have YouTube, Hulu and other video sites.

“Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the Web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small Netbooks to full-size desktop systems,” Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director, said in the blog post.

Google Chrome Operating System, is initially intended for use in the tiny, low-cost portable computers known as netbooks, which have been selling quickly even as demand for other PCs has plummeted. Google said it believed the software would also be able to power full-size PCs.

Google’s plans for the new operating system fit its Internet-centric vision of computing. Google believes that software delivered over the Web will play an increasingly central role, replacing software programs that run on the desktop. In that world, applications run directly inside an Internet browser, rather than atop an operating system, the standard software that controls most of the operations of a PC.

Google has already developed an open-source operating system called Android that is used in mobile phones. The software is also being built into netbooks by several manufacturers.

Google OS: What a Surprise…NOT! (Call it Chrome OS or Google OS) is a post from: Universal Ramblings

“Microsoft Hohm is a free online beta application that helps you save energy and money. With Microsoft Hohm you can better understand your home energy usage, get recommendations to conserve energy and start saving. As with any recommendation engine, Hohm will provide increasingly more accurate and relevant suggestions for energy conservation as its users contribute home energy input and feedback. One of the objectives during our beta period is to refine our tool and further increase the value our product can offer to you.”

Hohm works by tracking one’s energy consumption and providing some optimization advices, based on the information that is provided by the user, or by sensors. Hohm will provide an estimation of the savings induced by a proposed change (use different light bulb, choose a different time to plug your electric car ) and will track the actual results after you follow the advice. Hohm will constantly refine its data to provide ever more pertinent advices.

The good thing about Hohm is that there is a path that is completely data-entry free. Microsoft has built APIs that let utility companies upload your energy consumption data (with your permission), just like Quicken gets your banking information directly. This could be automated to the point that you don’t have to take care of it. That’s great. However, right now, only a handful of companies will support the direct communication with Hohm.

Microsoft and other home energy monitoring companies plan to work with device manufacturers to get energy information from thermostats and “smart plugs.” That would allow a person to attach a smart plug to a refrigerator or dishwasher to get usage information in real time to a home network or Web application. Over time, those appliances could be controlled to dial down usage during peak times.

Hohm is Microsoft’s response to Google’s PowerMeter and similar services. Hohm is dedicated to giving consumer’s information about potential energy savings, while at the same time connecting those consumers whose energy providers already use smart meter technology with real-time information about their own energy consumption at home.

It’s also noteworthy that Hohm was developed on top of Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform.

For more details, you can visit http://microsoft-hohm.com and learn more about the product. We think that the ease of tracking one’s power consumption and the option of having cheap smart plugs all over the house is a winning combination, but remember, the smart plugs are not required. If it works as advertised, and if users enroll in mass, Hohm’s greatest impact in the short term will be to raise awareness. We think that “if it can be measured, it will be improved”, and Hohm seems to be a great tool for that.

Hohm: Microsoft’s Venture in Energy business is a post from: Universal Ramblings

Google Wave is a new communication and collaboration tool that lets people work together more productively online.

A “wave” is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

Wave combines aspects of productivity tools, social networks, and micro-blogging. One of the most interesting features is that every change to a wave is captured and users can ‘replay’ how the specific wave developed over time. Wave will allow users to send private and public messages

Here’s a review of Google Wave:

The first two columns look pretty familiar if you’re used to the standard Gmail set up: the left-hand navigation has your folders and mailbox features as well as your GTalk contacts. The middle column has the inbox—but the difference here is that these aren’t individual messages, like you’d see in most mail clients, or even threaded “conversations” like you see in Gmail—these are the Waves that give the product its name.

How are Waves different from standard email? Well, for one thing you can communicate in not only “delay time,” like we do with email, but also real time (if you’re both online). And not just like IM, but see-as-you-type real time (though you can enable a “draft” feature if you want your friends to wait and see). Unlike email and even Gmail, you can click anywhere to start typing a reply to your friend’s messages—or other content, since you can include pictures, event invitations, games, maps, Wiki-style content and more.

Waves can also feature more than two people—just drag a friend’s photo from your contacts and drop it in the Wave to add them. They can sue the Playback feature to catch up on what you’ve been discussion.

Your head spinning yet? ‘Cause we’re just getting started.

Waves can remain private in your inbox or be published on the web, fully indexable by search engines. (They say that public waves are clearly marked as such in your inbox and in the wave itself.)

But that’s just the beginning of Wave’s portability. In the second phase of development, Waves will also integrate with other websites as a platform—for example, you could include a post from your blog in a Wave to discuss with friends, and have their comments in the Wave integrate with the comments on your blog (though all the details haven’t been hammered out on that one). Other commenters can also join in the wave.

And it’s not just blogs: the Google Wave team also sees lots of other kinds of sites using Wave for everything from customer service interface to contributor group chats.

And as if all that weren’t enough, Google’s also working hard with developers to make sure that the system is fully featured and ready for the masses. They have 50 internal Google developers who’ve created apps for Wave.

The APIs for Wave open tomorrow (tomorrow), but eventually the whole system is going open source as a protocol for its third phase. Waveprotocol.org has more details on that phase.

Which I know is making you wonder just when this is going to roll out. Google showed the launch at Google I/O, and though APIs are going to be available tomorrow, Wave itself is just a little ahead of its time. Google says its engineers are looking forward to HTML 5, which will enable Wave to operate within the browser without any necessary plugins (well, the “modern” browser, they say to exclude Internet Explorer).

And THAT is all. For now. You can sign up to be notified of the public launch at http://wave.google.com

Whats Google Wave ? is a post from: Universal Ramblings

1. First login to your account and click on Settings link.

2. Next click on “Miscellaneous” link which can be seen in the right corner of the menu.

3. In this menu, uncheck the option “Display groups in Profile” and then save the changes.

From now on, profile viewers won’t be able to see the groups you are part of.

How to Hide Groups in your MySpace profile is a post from: Universal Ramblings