Fixing trackball scrolling issues in phones

If you own a Nexus one or any other phone with a trackball (e.g. several models of Blackberrys) and are running into scrolling issues, you may want to try the following home cure before calling the customer support. The symptoms that the following cure may help with are trackball not scrolling in one or two directions, scrolling is jerky or the scrolling sometimes works and sometimes not.

Take a clean sheet of some soft paper e.g. a napkin, and keep your phone face down on it. Apply a small pressure so that the trackball is in the clicked position. Now drag the phone around on the paper, in this position, so that the trackball rolls beneath it. After a few tries this should get your trackball working.

Scrolling problems are likely due to dirt and grime being stuck below the ball and preventing the ball from transferring the motion to the sensors (Like it happens in good old ball mouses). The best thing would be to open up the phone and clean the area below the trackball properly or pop out the trackball and do the same. Other remedy is use of some spirit to do the cleaning. In absence of these options, above should provide immediate relief.

Browse without using mouse! [Firefox only]

I know some of us geeky types not only find the use of mouse painful but obstructive too. Okay, i totally agree, browsing where you have to constantly use a mouse is painful. However, not many of us know how much firefox has to offer here. Its not only the in-built keyboard shortcuts, but some real cool extensions that would really make your mouse a waste! Also, using these shortcuts allow a much faster browsing experience. Let me start with the keyboard shortcuts available. Some of these are very common, while others are lesser known but equally useful. Note that mac users need to use the "Cmd" key (mostly) where Ctrl key is used in Windows.

Navigate the toolbar

• Select location bar: Ctrl/Cmd+L or Alt+D or just F6
  
• Select search bar: Ctrl/Cmd+K
• Back: Backspace or Alt/Cmd+Left
• Forward: Alt/Option+Right or Shift+Backspace
• Change search engine: Ctrl/Cmd+Down (Next), Ctrl/Cmd + Up (Previous)
• Autocomplete domain:
  
• .com: Ctrl/Cmd + Enter
• .net: Shift + Enter
  
• .org: Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + Enter

Opening/Closing pages and tabs

• Open and Close new tab: Ctrl/Cmd + T and Ctrl/Cmd + W resp.
• Opening last closed tab: Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + T
• Open link in new tab: Ctrl/Cmd + Enter

Switching tabs

• Next/Previous tab: Cmd + Opt + Right/Left Arrow (Mac) or Ctrl + Tab (Win)
• Select tab (1-9): Ctrl/Cmd+[1-9]

Some Miscellaneous ones

• Refreshing: Ctrl/Cmd + R or simply F5
• Find as you type text: /
• Caret browsing (this will insert a cursor on the page, and you can select text easily): F7

I would say, start using them, and once you start, you will not use the mouse anymore! You want more? Oh, visit this complete list. However, if you are not satisfied, let me tell you about this awesome firefox extension: Mouseless Browsing
What Mouseless Browsing does is, it adds a unique id against each link/element on a web page. Now, what all you need to do is type that number, and press enter, and the action will be done (i.e. , A link will be opened, or a form element activated) ! So simple, isin't it? Here is a snapshot of what cnn.com looks like when i am using this.


So, if you want to go to the 'world' section on the homepage, just type 30, press enter, and you're done! A couple of points to note for this add on: Sometimes because of these ids, some elements on the page can be distorted/misplaced. This is a drawback. Also, beware! if you have multiple tabs opened, this could slow down your firefox a bit. However, as a plus, the add on is highly customizable. You can choose some elements for which you don't want ids too. You could also specify URLs (for example *google.com) to automatically suggest sites where this feature should be enabled or disabled by default. As to summarize, i would say, if you are one who loves hating the mouse, this one is for you. If you still want more, and want to have keyboard shortcuts for opening your bookmarked sites, you should see SiteLauncher .

Palm Pre and its WebOS, Just another iPhone killer or something for real?

Palm launched Pre, its new smart phone, running a brand new OS termed as WebOS, this thursday at CES. This marks the launch of yet another, not only smartphone but a full platform, others being iphone and android. Palm, as we know with its dwindling fortunes and limping handset lineup, has bet heavily on Pre. Whether or not their strategy will materialize, only time will tell.

Pre with WebOS indeed looks awesome and is being considered at par if not above iphone. The phone itself is a nice and powerful piece of hardware with GPS, 8GB storage, 3MP camera, 3.5mm headphone jack and guess what a slide out keyboard. The display is full touch 3.1 inch with a gesture area below the screen.

The WebOS looks sleek and flaunts a new concept of application launch and management via cards. Each card is somewhat similar to what a desktop window is. These cards can be created, destroyed and arranged at will. This also means that multitasking is inherent unlike iphone. It even runs maps though flash is not supported yet.

What is more appealing is the seamless integration or 'synergy' of various services. e.g. chat card supports a continuous stream of messages irrespective of the protocol or medium i.e. you can view your sms and IMs(from different protocols e.g gtalk, yahoo) all in one window. It also has an elegant way of notifications which doesn't interrupt your current work. The notifications appear silently below the current card giving a visual feedback but no interrupts like alert box etc.

Applications are created using html, css and javascript. Access to all the phone features is provided via these. This reduces the intellectual burden as one doesn't have to learn anything new. How fast these will actually be is still a question. What is more Palm also has an application store similar to what iPhone and Android have, dubbed app catalog. All in all the OS and the phone both have good reviews from the first looks.

How it stands in front of Android and iPhone will only become clear when the sdk and the phone is released. Developing using html and css sounds old school, but doesn't have anything to do with the functionality anyways. Important part is how Pre is going to make a mark in an already fragmented market. Sprint users stuck in contracts will obviously be happy but converting users from iphone seems unlikely.

What all this adds up to is that now developers have one more platform to play with, users have one more phone to want to own and one more carrier has a special phone to woo customers. More important is the sudden focus that has come to the user. What this means is that users have more choices and many of which are awesome. All of a sudden this talk of integrating user experience and consolidating his web presence has started and whatever be the end result the user stands to gain anyways.

Palm Pre Video Walkthrough 1 from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

Hello from Tech-a-tak!

One lazy afternoon, amidst casual gab and conversation, we landed on this idea to have a platform to exchange views, share our opinion and inspire ideas.
Then the obvious question popped up in our minds... What do we share or rather what are we conversant in??
Since we are computer techies, guess, we would be tolerated only if we discuss technology in vogue. That includes hot gadgets, cool apps, tips and tricks, that will make your digital life better.
So, if you are a tech-savvy, look out for this space to be filled with notes, news and views!