Practical Technology

for practical people.

November 5, 2012
by sjvn01
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Grandpa the programmer

I’m 56. I’m not a grandfather — not yet anyway — but I’m old enough to be one. I first used the Internet in the ’70s. My first programming language was IBM 360 Assembler. My first operating system was the IBM mainframe’s OS/360. I was the first journalist to write about this new network service called the Web and say it just might matter. You know what? I think I may just know a wee bit about computing.

I’m far from the only one. Lately, though, I’ve been noticing that the old meme about how grandpa can’t understand iPhones, Linux or the cloud seems to be showing up more often even as it’s becoming increasingly irrelevant. I’ve been guilty of using it myself.

Think about it. The big names of our field? Dennis Ritchie, creator of C and Unix, was 70 when he died last year. Ken Thompson, co-creator of Unix, is 67. James Gosling, founder of Java, is 57. Bill Gates is 56. So is Steve Ballmer. Steve Jobs was 56 when he left us. Tim Cook, his successor as head of Apple, is 51.

Grandpa the programmer. More >

November 4, 2012
by sjvn01
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Apple’s iOS 6.0.1 still has Wi-Fi bugs

The latest version of Apple’s new operating system for iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touch, iOS 6.0.1, is still giving some Apple device users Wi-Fi fits.

You’d think by now, seven weeks after Apple released iOS 6, the technology giant would have fixed all this major mobile operating system’s Wi-Fi networking problems. Wrong.

Customers are still reporting that Wi-Fi is completely inaccessible with a grayed out Wi-Fi option even after the recent 6.0.1 update. As before, this problem seems to strike Apple iPhone 4S users far more often than other users. Any Apple device running iOS 6.x may be vulnerable though.

Apple’s iOS 6.0.1 still has Wi-Fi bugs

November 4, 2012
by sjvn01
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NBC Web sites hacked

NBC, the major U.S. television network, suffered a Web site hack earlier today. The sites are now coming back up, but hours after the initial Sunday morning attacks, there are still dead pages and others that aren’t working properly.

According to Deadline Hollywood, the attack first appeared to hit such popular specific sites such as Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Fallon, and Jay Leno pages. It quickly became apparent that the attack was much bigger and it also hit the main NBC site. At the time of writing, 3:15 p.m. EST, some NBC pages are still down, and many others are still broken.

NBC Web sites hacked. More >

November 2, 2012
by sjvn01
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Roku Adds Killer App for Internet TV: Cross-Service Search

Roku has long made great, easy-to-use Internet TV streaming boxes. Now it has set itself apart from the pack by adding cross-Internet streaming service searching. I think Roku has its killer app.

If you’re old enough, you recall that VisiCalc was the PC’s first killer app: a program that made the purchase a necessity rather than a “nice to have.” VisiCalc turned microcomputers from toys for hobbyists to tools for enthusiasts. Similarly, Lotus 1-2-3 forced many businesses to buy IBM PCs, because the spreadsheet only ran on that platform.

I think Roku may have found its killer app in its new, integrated search feature. Roku lets you search across Amazon Instant, Crackle, HBO GO , Hulu Plus, Netflix, and Vudu from within the Roku 2, Roku LT, the new Roku HD players, and the Roku Streaming Stick’s display.

Roku Adds Killer App for Internet TV: Cross-Service Search. More >

November 1, 2012
by sjvn01
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IE gains in latest browser war results

It seemed like a predictable trend: Watch Internet Explorer’s (IE’s) market share drop. For the longest time, you could count on IE losing Web browser market share and either Chrome or Firefox picking up users. However, the latest October 2012 numbers from NetMarketShare show that IE is continuing to regain lost ground, thus ensuring its rule as the most popular desktop Web browser, with 54 percent of the market worldwide.

IE’s still-above-the-halfway mark is followed by Mozilla’s Firefox with 20 percent and with Google’s Chrome nipping at its heels with 19 percent. The other “popular” Web browsers remain mired in the single digits. Apple’s Safari comes in fourth with 5 percent and Opera takes fifth, hitting 2 percent only because we round up the percentages.

IE has gained half-a-percentage point since September. This came mostly at the expense of Chrome, which dropped 0.31 percent while Firefox lost .09 percent. Those numbers are small enough that formal market researchers would say there’s essentially no change. However, a little more variance is evident if you poke around in the numbers. If you included Chrome pre-rendering, a technique Chrome uses to pre-load Web pages for better effective performance, into the rankings, Chrome would take second place from Firefox, 30 percent to 20 percent, but Chrome’s overall market share would still be slightly declining.

IE gains in latest browser war results. More >

October 31, 2012
by sjvn01
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Windows 8’s Halloween surprise: Metro patent lawsuit

“Boo!” Microsoft has just been sued by a heretofore little-known operating system technology firm, SurfCast for its use of tiles in Windows 8’s Microsoft Design Language interface, a.k.a. Metro.

SurfCast, based out of Portland, Maine, claims to have been the first to design the interface concept referred to as “Tiles:”

Tiles can be thought of as dynamically updating icons. A Tile is different from an icon because it can be both selectable and live – containing refreshed content that provides a real-time or near-real-time view of the underlying information. Tiles can provide dynamic bookmarking – an at-a-glance view of the current status of the program, file, or content associated with it. Tiles enable people to have all their content, applications, and resources, regardless of whether on their mobile device, tablet, computer, or in their Cloud – visualized persistently – dynamically updating.
I bet that sounds familiar. That text could be a description of the Metro interface. As Ovid Santoro, CEO of SurfCast wrote, “We developed the concept of Tiles in the 1990s, which was ahead of its time. Microsoft’s Live Tiles are the centerpiece of Microsoft’s new Operating Systems and are covered by our patent.”

Windows 8’s Halloween surprise: Metro patent lawsuit. More >