Installing MIUI7 on your device

Xiaomi has released MIUI7 and that is receiving rave reviews from all. If you do not see an OTA or want information on how to upgrade it, read on!





We got the word Xiaomi would be releasing stable rom in October 2014, but you can always install the beta version (developer version), which is very stable unlike previous releases. Here is how you can install it on your phone (Redmi1S, Redmi2, Redmi2 Prime, Note3G, Note4G, Mi3, Mi4i, and Mi4)
If you are wondering what are the new features in MIUI7, read on this link : MIUI7 features

Installation
You can download the MIUI 7 Global Beta ROM 5.8.22 for your device from this site : Xiaomi downloads.
After you select the right device, download “Developer ROM”.

1. Once you have downloaded developer ROM on your PC just plug in your smartphone device to your PC and copy the ROM file to internal storage of your phone.

2. Go to Updater App (Settings -> Check for updates -> Menu on Top right) from your device and tap on options from top right corner and select choose update package and choose the ROM which you have copied.

3. Sit back, your phone would reboot, enjoy MIUI7 !


Note : Flashing your smartphone with above recovery files will not clean out your existing, but it is still advisable to keep a backup.

Xiaomi releases MIUI7

Have just tried the beta rom for MIUI7 and I am extremely pleased (having risked my phone with a beta rom). Now I am waiting anxiously they release the global rom for my Note3.

Some of the cool features are

1. Performance : Performance is the key in this update. Apps load quicker than ever before and leave a very pleasing usage experience. No more waiting for apps to turn on, they start almost instantly after you click. Magic behind this is the preemptive loading of data, while app is still on loading screen (animation page)
   
2. Themes : New interesting themes.
   
   
3. Battery : Battery is claimed to be improved by 25 percent. In true sense this would depend on apps you use.
   
4. New Child Mode
   
   
5. One hand mode : Although this was also there in MIUI6, but for phones like Note3, there was hardly a gap between MIUI6 and MIUI7.
   
6. DND : New DND mode, and it extends to other devices like MI Band. When you are in sleep all devices sleep with you.
   
7. SMS Filtering : New options to filter non contacts sms’es.

IBM Connections/ Social Cloud Mobile App

IBM just announced that latest update to the IBM Connections Mobile is now available in the app stores.

The app provides a native set of collaboration capabilities so you can work seamlessly with your team, anytime, anywhere.  In this update you will find that you have a new hidden navigation which provides for more on screen real estate.  The new navigation also can be personalized based on the individuals needs and preferences,  so that you can organize the navigation based on what is most important to you. Apart from overhaul of UI, new views include History, Blogboard, Favorites etc.

Android ( Google Play )
IPhone ( Apple Store )

New features of IBM Connections 5 release

IBM announced the new release of IBM Connections 5 for June 2014 including some new features like:

External Collaboration 

External users will only see content shared with them and only the people associated with that content. Administrators can see who is external and manage or invite them. External communities are explicitly flagged.  External members cannot be a community owner.  External users can see business cards but not profiles. External users can search but will not see public data returned nor can they see the company directory. External users are always flagged somehow in the view (name or icon). External files are also flagged in the community. 

Deployment: You edit LotusConnections-config.xml to enable “visitorModelEnabled” to True. You then restart the server.  Enable Waltz Profiles Integration (WPI) to make sure profiles_directory_service_extension_enabled is enabled in LotusConnections-config.xml 

Disable Anonymous Access for the Connections Instance 
Register external users into the Profiles DB 
Set employee.extended role 

Licensing: CCM not supported with External Collaboration. Only authorized users may provide External Users access to IBM Connections. 


Files 
Files gallery and preview : grid view of thumbnails. More information when hovering over the thumbnail. Information like Externally shared, public, private and more via thumbnail. Plus a quick access download link.  Files Gallery can be added to the community to showcase files.  IBM File Viewer is used to generate thumbnails (free download of 1.0.6). All the files will need to be converted. You can run wasadmin for existing content.  The Media Gallery can be migratred with a few steps. The Media Gallery Feature will no longer be able to be added to a community and replaced with the Gallery App. Existing Media Galleries will keep working. 

File sync: Sync to a native mobile app or desktop. Bandwidth can be taperd to Wifi only.  Desktop File sync can save directly to Connections from any desktop app. Round rip editing.  Using the web UI you can mark files to be available offline. File Sync requires Windows 7 or 8. Also available on iOS and Android since IBM Connections 4.5 CR4. Works for personal files. 



Some of the new additional features coming in C5:

• New Activity Stream algorithm to show relevant information
• View all notifications in one area
• Link Previews to summarize content
• See recent Collaboration Spaces you have accessed
• Users can now reorder the navigation how they want
• Mark content as important using a Star like Google Mail
• People Typeahead from the search bar using name
• Activity Stream Search to look for any content like hashtag and content
• Custom landing pages in communties
• Rich text editor with Ephox EditLive!
• Expanded @ mentions across blog comments, Ideation Blogs
• Activity stream updates include conversation updates/responses inline
• Use of hashtags in status update comments
• See threaded comments from the Forum Embedded Experience.
• Some Community updates including multiple ideation blogs and recovering deleted communities
• Threaded comments in blogs (finally) and the ability to edit blog comments

Furthermore a new release for IBM Docs ( 1.0.6 ) will also be released.

Cloud, Mobile And IBM

Marketing teams across world and domains like to sum up features of products by one word, Cloud. Ironically industry still has not been able to agree on a standard definition of what a Cloud based Software is, going by the current frenzy it would be appropriate to define Cloud as a mechanism to boost sales, “Whatever sells is cloud and only Cloud is what sells“.

 What has led to this : A slow recovering US economy and a troublesome financial forecast of Europe, Software companies are aggressively marketing their products in developing economies. Industries ( even Government establishments ) do not posses the kind of money power which US or Europe companies have, so how do you sell your services to them while retaining healthy profits margins ? Answer is Cloud. SAAS model of Cloud works well for selling Software companies and for buyers. Suddenly buyers are using software’s which otherwise would have costed them a substantial portion of their budgets.
Impeding Factors : All Cloud software have one common infrastructural requirement, Excellent Broadband. Unfortunately this part of infrastructure has been largely ignored in developing countries. Neither Broadband Accessibility nor Affordability have really hurt software companies who had hoped for explosive growth in this sector. It would take years if not decades before broadband infrastructure in these economies matches upto the standards set by developed nations.

Future Hope ( Which is why big dollars keep getting invested in this domain ) :Telecom sector has booming across the world. More and more companies are now targeting mobile platforms. Which is not only important for developing economies only, it is extremely critical for western economies as well where Mobility is becoming a necessity. For software vendors like IBM, this a key area to server its customers. Take for instance the cloud offering by IBM named SmartCloud. It has lots of free mobile applications for all the major platforms (IPhone, Adroid, Symbian, BlackBerry etc. ).

Another change has come because of hand burning by big vendors ( another reason to always go with an established brand like IBM ). They are now more aware of the network scarcity in developing nations. A drastic change has been made through out project cycles, lot of time goes in developing the optimized cloud infrastructure, designing the API’s, writing the service layer of client applications and a lot more focus goes in improving the performance. Extremely strict guidelines have been laid out in testing with performance at times even guiding which features make more sense then others. Any feature which looks extremely useful but needs a lot of api requests for completion is rejected. So next time you use your shiny smartphone to leverage Cloud services from Lotuslive, its the technology by IBM which really shines.