If you are getting an Android device, make sure it’s a Nexus

I had a Samsung Galaxy Captivate for 2 years before I upgraded to a HTC One X. While both phones are pretty good, the lack of software updates is extremely frustrating.

 

Samsung took forever to release Gingerbread (version 2.3) for the Captivate. By the time they released it people were already running Ice cream sandwich (4.0) ROMS on it. I got frustrated and switched to an ICS ROM, though playing around with ROMS can be another headache.

 

As for the One X, it is a gorgeous phone with a wonderful screen, but HTC promised a Jelly Bean (4.1) update by the end of 2012, and here we are in 2013. It is simply frustrating for users who want to be on the bleeding-edge (yes you can root your phone and install a new ROM, but I was unable to since AT&T has heavily locked down their phones). 

 

In the meantime Google released the Nexus 4 in 2012, which came with 4.2 (will the One X ever get 4.2? Probably not). Even the 2-year old Nexus S got updated to 4.1 quickly (though it won’t be getting 4.2). 

 

I place the blame on the carriers, since HTC has released the JB update for worldwide phones. AT&T and other carriers like to load the phones with a lot of crappy apps which you can’t get rid of. I just want a pure and straightforward Android experience. It also doesn’t help that manufacturers like HTC and Samsung like to modify Android themselves to make it more distinct, but in my opinion it only slows down the Android experience and doesn’t add a lot. 

 

As for tablets, the same rule applies. Get a Nexus 7 or a Nexus 10.

 

There is a reason why Apple preferred to have total control over the iPhone software experience – and which is why you should get a Nexus device, free from the constraints of manufacturers and clueless carriers.

Advertisement

My Google Chrome extension – “Comment Save”

(UPDATE December 29th, 2012: Comment Save is now on version 0.6.x, and has support for filters (black and whitelist), timed deletion, Disqus/LiveFyre support, Google+, etc.)

Though I focus mostly on computer graphics, I also have an (amateurish) interest in web-design and web-programming.

Late last year a friend of mine brought to my attention a problem he encountered: he wrote a bunch of text in a textbox and when he clicked submit the server responded with an error. He had lost all he wrote which was frustrating. I thought it would be useful to have an extension which records everything you type in one of those boxes so you can recover it if you lose it.

Another friend suggested it would be nice if the extension kept a history of all your posts (if you are one of those people who comment across many sites a lot). And so I came up with “Comment Save” (which has roughly 500 users as I type this).I’ll let the description describe it:

As featured on Lifehacker!

http://lifehacker.com/5715657/comment-save-keeps-track-of-your-comments-on-the-web

Ever written a large post or comment on a website, click submit, only to see your comment get lost in the internet wilderness? Or your tab/window closed somehow before you could submit?

Or maybe you just like to keep track of all the posts you made on different websites.

Comment Save (CS) helps you keep track of what you have been writing as you type. Icon beside the address bar brings up a window showing you the last post you wrote alongwith a link to the page. Link in the window allows you to view your post history.

You can also filter websites where you don’t want any of your posts to be tracked.

Works on sites like:
– Youtube
– Facebook/Google+
– Gawker blogs (Gawker/Gizmodo/Jezebel/Lifehacker/etc.)
– Engadget/Techcrunch/etc. (Sites which use Disqus)
– WordPress/Tumblr
– Forums of all kinds
– Digg/Reddit
– CNN/New York Times/The Guardian/other news websites
– And lots more!

FEATURES:
——————
* Records your post as you type so you can recover it if you lose it.
* Keeps a history of all your posts along with a link to the page and the time.
* Allows you to add filters so you can disable tracking on certain websites.
* Simple checkbox in the popup window enables/disable tracking globally

The extension helped me learn Javascript more (and also helped me deal with HTML Web Databases). The source code for the extension is open-source and has been released under the GPL v2 license. The source code can be accessed on Google Code here. Feel free to look through it.

If you have any feature requests for the extension please let me know. Some features I have thought about adding include:

• Delete all comments after a set time. (User-specified time, for ex. 10 minutes, 1 day, 1 month, etc.) (UPDATE: Added in Version 0.5 on 9th August 2011)
• Search Comments: Within that include searching by website, within a specific timeframe, etc.
• Delete Comments by website

Any other suggestions would be welcome!