Practical Technology

for practical people.

April 4, 2013
by sjvn01
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Intuit brings Mint to your bank

Intuit, makers of Quicken and QuickBooks, is making its popular online personal finance service Mint available to financial institutions. As Ron Shevlin, senior analyst at Aite Group, told American Banker, “I’m surprised it took so long“.

Indeed, you could see this move coming at least three years ago when Aaron Patzer, Mint’s founder and then Intuit VP and GM of personal finance said, “Quicken Online will be going away, and we’ll be migrating to Mint“. At the time, he also suggested that Intuit “will have desktop products for at least another five years, simply due to comfort level more than anything else”. We’re two years away from that deadline. Could this be the first step to putting an end to desktop Quicken?

That would be premature.

Intuit brings Mint to your bank. More >

April 4, 2013
by sjvn01
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CyanogenMod Android privacy vs. developer wars

It seemed like such a good idea. The developers of CyanogenMod, the popular alternative Android firmware, decided to require their users’ devices to report device-specific data so they could create better versions of CM. Who could argue with that? CM’s users could.

CyanogenMod Android privacy vs. developer wars. More >

April 4, 2013
by sjvn01
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Blink! Google forks WebKit

While some people may have been surprised that Google has finally made Blink, its own fork of the popular WebKit Web browser engine, in Web developer circles this move came as no surprise.

While Apple and Google had long worked together on the open-source WebKit project for years, developers both inside and outside of Google wanted Google to move away from Apple. In addition, the two tech giants had different visions for the Web browser engine.

Blink! Google forks WebKit. More >

April 1, 2013
by sjvn01
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Web browser war: The early 2013 report

The latest NetMarketShare browser numbers are in for March 2013. They reveal a three-way battle for the hearts and minds of PC web browser users, but on tablets and smartphones, Safari is leading by a wide margin. StatCounter, however, has Chrome and the Android native browser leading respectively.

Why the differences? The two most popular web browser counters use different methodologies.

Web browser war: The early 2013 report. More >

April 1, 2013
by sjvn01
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Why Torvalds loves the Chromebook Pixel: It’s all about the display

Yes, the Google Chromebook Pixel, at $1,299 for the Wi-Fi-only model, is quite expensive. But, in Linus Torvalds, Linux’s creator, it’s found a powerful friend. Why? Torvalds explained, “To make a long story short: it’s all about the screen.“

Torvalds has always loved the Chromebook Pixel’s display. He praised it for its “beautiful screen” when he first started using it. It wasn’t Chrome OS — Google’s lightweight Linux that uses the Chrome Web browser for its interface — or the Pixel’s other hardware. For him it really is all about the screen.

Why Torvalds loves the Chromebook Pixel: It’s all about the display, More >

March 29, 2013
by sjvn01
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Google, business, and open-source patent protection

Google’s Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge, in which Google promises “not to sue any user, distributor, or developer of open-source software on specified patents, unless first ‘attacked”, sounds good. Indeed, it is good. But this is far from the first time that Google has made such a pledge. Indeed, open-source companies have long banded together to protect themselves and their patents from outside attackers.

Google, business, and open-source patent protection. More >