Practical Technology

for practical people.

June 4, 2012
by sjvn01
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Run Android apps on Windows with BlueStacks

So you love Draw Something, Air Attack HD, or some other Android application? If you wanted to run that or any other Android app on your Windows PC, you were out of luck – until recently. BlueStacks now makes it possible to run Android applications on Windows systems.

While still in beta, the BlueStacks App Player delivers the goods. I’ve only tinkered with it myself, but everyone I know who uses it a lot think it’s great.

It’s not just we techies who like BlueStacks. What’s more telling is that PC-giant ASUS has signed a deal with BlueStacks to include its Android app player on the company’s next generation PCs, including the models running Windows 8,

Since Microsoft plans to make it difficult to dual-boot or root any other operating system on Windows 8 systems and to make it impossible to add or switch operating systems on Windows RT (Windows 8 on ARM) tablets and phones, BlueStacks likely will be the only way to run Android applications on Windows 8 PCs, tablets, and smartphones.

Run Android apps on Windows with BlueStacks. More >

June 3, 2012
by sjvn01
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3 things to know about IPv6 as World IPv6 Day approaches

June 6, 2012, World IPv6 Day, is almost upon us. On that day, many major ISPs and Web sites will add IPv6, the next generation Internet protocol, to their existing network stacks. So: Should you start panicking now or should you wait a bit?

Actually, you don’t need to panic at all. Come the morning of June 6, the sun will still rise in the east, kitty cats will still purr in your lap when you pet them, and the Internet will continue to work just fine after you boot up your computer.

What will have happened on that day is that numerous major ISPs, such as Comcast and Time-Warner Cable, and Web sites, including Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, will offer their services with IPv6 in additional to “classic” IPv4. All these major Internet powers have been working on deploying IPv6 for years, and there’s no reason to believe that a mass roll-out of IPv6 is going to cause any Internet trouble.

3 things to know about IPv6 as World IPv6 Day approaches. More >

May 31, 2012
by sjvn01
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Judge crushes Oracle’s API copyright claims like a bug

Larry Ellison bought Sun in the hopes of winning intellectual property riches from its Java programming language. Those hopes have now been smashed. After having Oracle’s Java patent claims against Google Android all but completely smashed, and a mere nine lines of code found to actually have been copied into Android from Java, Oracle’s last hope was that U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup would rule that Java’s application programming interfaces (API)s could be copyrighted. Instead Alsup has smashed Oracle’s API claims as if they were cockroaches.

Oracle had sued Google over copyright infringement related to the use of 37 Java APIs used on the Android mobile operating system. Google argued they were free to use because Java both cause it was open source , and that, in case, APIs can’t be copyrighted and that they’re required to use any language.

Judge crushes Oracle’s API copyright claims like a bug. More >

May 31, 2012
by sjvn01
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Facebook isn’t dumping Chrome for Opera

I think that Facebook buying the Opera Web browser would be a silly move. You know what would be an even dumber move though? Dropping the increasingly popular Google Chrome in favor of Opera as a recommended Web browser.

Never-the-less, that’s exactly what a story in Neowin claims. I quote, “It is beginning to look like Facebook’s management are changing their recommendations towards certain browsers. As of today, Facebook’s “unsupported web browsers” page has removed Google’s web browser, Chrome, and replaced it with Opera.”

Leaving aside the convoluted grammar, the story makes it clear that it’s claiming that Facebook has dropped Chrome as a most favored Web browser for Opera. There’s only one problem with this report. It’s not true.

Facebook isn’t dumping Chrome for Opera. More >

May 30, 2012
by sjvn01
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2012’s Best Linux desktop: Linux Mint 13

The very popular Linux distribution, Mint, has a new version Linux Mint 13, Maya, and a new take on the GNOME 3.x desktop interface: Cinnamon 1.4. The result is, in my opinion, the best Linux desktop for experienced users to date.

Not everyone will agree with me. They’ll find Mint’s other default desktop MATE to be much more their speed. MATE is a fork of that old Linux desktop favorite, GNOME 2.x. While I haven’t looked at the MATE edition of GNOME closely, other Linux reviewers, like Jim Lynch, have and Lynch likes what he’s seen of Mint 13 paired with MATE.

Setting up Mint 13: 2012’s Best Linux desktop

Even with the little work I’ve done with MATE though I can see what GNOME 2.x fans will like it. It’s a very clean desktop and it feels and works like a natural extension of GNOME 2. GNOME fans who abandoned GNOME after the annoying changes in GNOME 3.x for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE) will want to give Mint with MATE a try. With MATE, GNOME 2.x is back.

2012’s Best Linux desktop: Linux Mint 13. More >

May 28, 2012
by sjvn01
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Open source and the National Security Agency, together again

The Open Source Software Institute, a non-profit group that supports open-source adoption and the National Security Agency (NSA), the organization in charge of all out of country eavesdropping, will co-host an Open Source Software Industry Day on Wednesday, May 30, 2012. The unclassified, one-day event will be held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory’s Kossiakoff Conference Center near Fort Meade, MD, which is where the NSA is based. Alas, pre-registration is already over.

If you were one of the lucky 640 to make it in, you’ll get to hear about agency’s interest in opportunities made available through open source software solutions. Yes, the NSA is looking for a few good spooks. The conference’s speakers will present information on existing open-source software products, as well as service and support offerings; and encourage government suppliers to include open-source options in their strategies and service offerings.

Open source and the National Security Agency, together again. More >