In my last post we saw Samsung unveil the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 750. While I was not very impressed by the first Galaxy Tab (I’ll tell you why in a very short while), the 750 in its all new avatar has simply blown me away! We are gonna go through a few of the features that really stand out.

I have to admit, I am never really amazed by how much Gigabytes of storage a handheld has or how fast it’s processor is. It doesn’t really bother me that the 750 only has a 3MP rear camera. The reason being that it is safe to assume that these numbers are bound to grow over the months. In a few months time we’ll probably have 3Ghz dual core processors in cellphones. Its a given. Plus, do you really want an 8MP camera on your tab??

Here are 3 features that have amazed me the most in increasing order of their awesomeness (No1 being the best):

3. Splendid Design

The first Galaxy Tab was ugly to say the least. It was bulky and so very Nokia-ish (I hate Nokia phones BTW). It was 7 inches diagonally and 12mm thick! It was neither a smartphone (obviously there’s nothing smart about a 7inch phone) nor a regular tablet. Samsung thought they had come up with a brilliant device, but they had not. Well, now they have!
Take a look at the image below:

Doesn’t it look just amazing!! I know it looks very similar to the iPad but it is still much better than their last Tab.
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Samsung is giving away 20 Galaxy Tabs this month. More details about the contest will be revealed at the Samsung Blogger’s meet at Bangalore. If you stay at Bangalore, head over to the IndiBlogger site and register yourself for the event. If not, just come back to this post on the 10th of August, 2011 (Saturday) from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM and I shall stream the whole meet right on this page!

UPDATE: In case you missed the live event, you could even watch the recorded video on youtube.

Good communication is the key to a successful business. But as your company grows, using the traditional analog phone systems could mean running into huge bills. If that is your case, you need to switch onto Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

What is VoIP?
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a technology that enables voice transmissions to travel over an Internet Protocol (IP) like the Internet rather than over traditional phone lines. Speech is converted to packets of voice data which are sent over a broadband internet connection to another phone where the stream of voice data is reassembled into its original form.

Erm.. Will that reduce my office’s phone bills?
Most certainly. It has been seen that in some cases, companies have seen monthly savings of upto 80%!! It is a relative figure though. If you are a very very small company which doesn’t need to make a lot of phone calls, doesn’t need number extensions, it might not seem very profitable. But otherwise, VoIP is the thing for you. I know the recession is behind us but who doesn’t like a little cost cutting!
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Samsung's New Open Platform OS

Being the first of a kind has its implications. A brand new OS needs a flagship capable of facing up to the sizable competition. A chat with Samsung India’s President of Mobile Sales Atul Jain and the Developer Head at the recent Samsung Bloggers Meet, Mumbai blew away all the scepticism I had about the new Bada OS. 3 days into this phone and I must confess, I’m in love with this phone!

Build Quality

At 118 x 56 x 10.9 mm Samsung S8500 Wave is pretty compact and easy to slip into the pocket. The seamless brushed aluminium body makes the phone very solid and a joy to hold on to. The metallic exterior is slim, elegant, ergonomic, conservative and undeniably Samsung.

It has the usual volume rocker buttons on the left, camera and lock buttons on the right. A Speaker, a 3.5mm jack and a mini-usb port with a sliding cover on top. The 3.5mm doubles up as a TV out port which will allow you to view movies or games on a big screen!

The front is dominated by the 3.3 inch Super AMOLED tempered glass display, which is scratch-resistant. Under the display, are the only three hardware keys on the Samsung S8500 Wave front panel. The Call and End buttons are either side of central diamond-inspired Menu key. All controls are large enough and solid to press with excellent tactility.

Turn on the awesome display and the rest of the world just fades away. The ‘Super AMOLED’ screen is supposedly 20% brighter, 80% less sunlight reflective and yields 20% longer battery life. The screen is also supposed to be oleophobic (resistant to oil and thus fingerprints). Mind you, I put on a screen protector and the advantage was gone.

Below the aluminium battery cover is a 1500mAh Li-Ion battery which promises upto 35 hours of nonstop music playback. Below the battery we find the microSD card slot and the SIM compartment. The memory card isn’t hot-swappable since you would have to take out the battery everytime. Not Cool!

I give the phone a solid 4.5/5 on build quality. The only problem is the memory card slot but then, having having a really slim body has its quirks.

Score: 4.5 / 5

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As you might know, today is my Birthday. Yes I turn 21 today and I am proud to present the ‘Swoosh Away’ theme for WordPress. This is the first theme that I have made for people to download and it is free.

You can view a live demo at http://themes.angadsodhi.com
You can download the file from here.
Here’s a screenshot of the theme:

Click to view larger image

Creating this theme from scratch was fun. I have a few people to thank whose posts were very useful:

• New page menu function in WordPress 2.7
• Display your tweets without a plugin
• How to add a dynamic sidebar in WordPress?

Theme properties:

• Widget-ready
• Fixed width
• W3 XHTML valid
• Designed with SEO in mind (eg <h1> appears just once on every page and that is the poast title)
• wordpress 2.7 ready (I presume it shouldn’t have problems with wordpress 2.8)
• Threaded comments (requires Brian’s Threaded Comments plugin included in download package)

The most difficult part was naming the theme! With thousands of WP themes already available, it has become so difficult naming them. I’ll be grateful if you can suggest me a better name.

Please let me know how you like the theme. Even if you don’t end up downloading the theme, please do let me know what you think about it. Comments and suggestions are always welcome! I’m coming back from a long layoff so please help me spread the word. Digg it or tweet it if you like it.

Psst: I plan to make many more themes before my next semester starts. If you like this theme, please subscribe to this blog. Expect a much better premium theme in the weeks to come!

If you have been following me on twitter, you would know that about two week ago I won a cool iPod nano from Motive Interactive in the Zac Johnson Affiliate & twitter contest. The green (or rather ‘Apple’ green) beauty arrived 2 days later and I haven’t put it down since! Thank you Motive Interactive.

Twitter contests are fun. You just have to tweet about the contest and you are in! Contests cannot get any simpler than this. They help the contest holder gain followers and it gives you a chance to win something really cool!

About Motive Interactive:
Motive Interactive is a performance-based (CPA, CPL, CPS) advertising network that has great Advertiser and Publisher Solutions. That are rather new but very good. If you haven’t joined them yet, signup now! Motive Interactive also has many more twitter contests so do follow them at @motive where they also tweet about exciting new offers.

Motive is still giving away an iPod nano a week in the Shoemoney Las Vegas Challenge contest.

As quoted from the official post,

Three Ways to Win:
1.) Join Motive Interactive and earn within any of the Commission Levels above during the month of June. Contest tier prizes only awarded to new Motive affiliates signed up through this blog during June 2009. YOU HAVE TO SIGN UP THROUGH THIS LINK TO BE ELIGIBLE
2.) Follow @Motive and Tweet this contest on Twitter. Just “tweet” the following from your Twitter account and you are automatically entered to win a new iPod Shuffle each week.
“Follow @motive and join Top Rated CPA Affiliate Network Motive Interactive to make money and win big prizes! http://xr.com/s1g RT 2 WIN! “
3.) Blog about this contest promotion. If you have a blog, simply link back to ShoeMoney’s contest blog page and talk about this contest. Then you will be entered to win a new Xbox 360 Elite plus two games.

Thus, you can win an iPod nano everyweek just by tweeting about the contest and win an Xbox 360 by blogging about the contest the way I have done here.

If you are good with Affiliate Marketing, you stand a good chance of winning some even bigger prizes:

Network Earnings Prizes
$500,000+ Tier – Vegas VIP Prize
. 1st Class flight for two to Las Vegas
. Fairway Villa for two nights
. $5,000 in cash
$200,000 – $499,999 Tier
. 1st Class flight for one to Las Vegas
. Wynn – The Suite Life Package : Parlor Suite 2 nights
$100,000 – $199,999 Tier
. $4,000 in cash
$50,000 – $99,999 Tier
. 2 tickets to UFC 100 with accommodations and flight for 2 for 2 nights
$25,000 – $49,999 Tier
. Sony Plasma TV
$10,000 – $24,999 Tier
. Xbox 360 Elite plus Halo 3 and NEWEST UFC XBOX GAME
$3,000 – $9,999 Tier
. iPod Touch 32GB
$1,000 – $2,999 Tier
. Best Buy Gift Card

More details can be found at the official post about the contest.

Motive also gave me a nice “What’s your motive” tshirt. Loved it guys. Thank you once again, Luke. (Sorry for the late post. I was busy with exams) Here are some pics:

Simply love the color!

This is on the back of the tee.

The nano and the tshirt. Hope to win many more!

Psst: It’s my birthday tomorrow! Even this blog celebrates it’s birthday tomorrow. I turn 21, my blog 2!! Expect a bit of a surprise here tomorrow..