Practical Technology

for practical people.

May 7, 2012
by sjvn01
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The muddled mess of the Oracle vs. Google trial

On the surface, it may look like Oracle won the first round of its intellectual property (IP) lawsuit with Google. Look again. No one’s won anything and that includes Oracle.

While we wait to see what the jury has to say about the two remaining patents, let’s take a closer look at what the jury decided. They said that Google’s Android mobile platform infringed on part of the Java programming language. So, could this be, as one writer would have it, “be a major blow to Android, Google’s mobile operating system?” Nope.

You see the jury, however, couldn’t decide if Google’s violations of Java and its application programming interfaces (API)s were actually OK because its use of them in Android fell under fair use. Ack!

Google, immediately asked for a mis-trial. Judge William Alsup, who’s presiding over this case, had previously said, that “I’m not going to let this court go to waste.” It sure looks like a waste to me.

The muddled mess of the Oracle vs. Google trial. More >

May 7, 2012
by sjvn01
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Searching the Internet B.G. (Before Google)

When I started using the Internet in the 1970s, it didn’t look anything like it does today, and our search tools were primitive. But when all you have is stone knives and bearskins, you make do.

Before I began writing for a living, I put myself through graduate school by doing research on the very first online database systems: NASA RECON, Dialog, and OCLC. These systems, which are still around, are part of what’s called the Matrix, and, no, I don’t mean the movies. The Matrix, as defined by Carl Malamud, is the superset of all interconnected networks. Today, unlike back then, you can get to these networks over the Internet, but you’ll be blocked from venturing deeply into them without permission.

As for the pre-Web Internet itself, it didn’t have search tools at first. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that the Internet became searchable. When I started, we had to go through ftp file directories screen by screen and hope that the file was in there somewhere.

The first major search advance was Archie, which beginning in 1990 made it possible to search through a site’s file directories. Archie was painful to use, but compared to what we had been dealing with, it was wonderful. Archie was quickly followed by the University of Nevada System Computing Services’ Veronica, which tried to provide Archie-style searches for plain text files.

Searching the Internet B.G. (Before Google). More >

May 7, 2012
by sjvn01
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Ubuntu 12.04 vs. Windows 8: Five points of comparison

2012 has already seen a major update of what’s arguably the most important Linux desktop: Ubuntu 12.04 and we’re also seeing the most radical update of Windows with Windows 8 Metro coming since Windows 95 replaced Windows 3.1. So, which will end up the better for its change?

1. Desktop interface

Ubuntu replaced the popular GNOME 2.x interface with Unity when their developers decided the GNOME 3.x shell wasn’t for them. Some people, like the developers behind Linux Mint, decided to recreate the GNOME 2.x desktop with Cinnamon, but Ubuntu took its own path with Unity.

In Unity’s desktop geography, your most used applications are kept in the left Unity Launcher bar on the left. If you need a particular application or file, you use Unity’s built-in Dash application. Dash is a dual purpose desktop search engine and file and program manager that lives on the top of the Unity menu Launcher.

Its drawback, for Ubuntu power-users, is that it makes it harder to adjust Ubuntu’s settings manually. On the other hand, most users, especially ones who are new to Ubuntu, find it very easy to use. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has made it clear that regardless of whether you use Ubuntu on a desktop, tablet or smartphone the Unity interface is going to be there and it’s going to look the same.

Ubuntu 12.04 vs. Windows 8: Five points of comparison, More >

May 6, 2012
by sjvn01
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Five Internet TV cable cutting considerations

I’ve been watching video over the Internet since its first days. And, I’ve been pushing that video from the net to televisions for almost as long. It wasn’t until late year though that I finally cut my cable and went to just watching television over the Internet and with a little bit of over-the-air (OTA) for good measure. If you’re considering cutting the cable or satellite cord too, here are some things you should know.

Five Internet TV cable cutting considerations. More >

May 4, 2012
by sjvn01
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Linus Torvalds likes the Google Chrome OS Linux desktop

Linus Torvalds, Linux’s primary creator, hasn’t been happy with the direction his formerly favorite Linux desktop interface, GNOME, has gone. In fact, Torvalds downright hates GNOME 3.x. He’ll get no argument from me. I hate GNOME 3.x too. Recently though, Torvalds has start toying with Google’s new Chrome operating system’s Aura interface and, guess what, he kind of likes it.

Torvalds wrote, “And I haven’t really played around with it all that much, but as a desktop it really doesn’t look that bad. I could name worse desktops (cough cough). [That would be GNOME.]

Torvalds continued, “It allows such radical notions as having easy mouse configurability for things like how to launch applications. Things gnome removed because those kinds of things were “too confusing”, and in the process made useless. And an auto-hide application dock at the bottom. Revolutionary, I know.”

Linus Torvalds likes the Google Chrome OS Linux desktop. More >

May 3, 2012
by sjvn01
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Court slaps down the use of IP addresses in file-sharing cases

The MPAA, RIAA and other copyright holding companies have long used Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to identify users for their lawsuits. They’ll find that people at various IP addresses have used BitTorrent or some other peer-to-peer (P2P) service seem to have downloaded copyrighted video or music and then sic their lawyer attack dogs on them. They may not be so quick to unleash the hounds though after they read U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Gary R. Brown’s Order & Report & Recommendation (ORR).

As first reported by Fight Copyright Trolls, a legal news and opinion blog that follows Internet copyright issues Judge Brown wrote that accusing someone of stealing copyrighted material purely on the basis of an IP address is simply wrong. Brown noted that it “is no more likely that the subscriber to an IP address carried out a particular computer function — here the purported illegal downloading of a single pornographic film — than to say an individual who pays the telephone bill made a specific telephone call.”

He continued, “[M]ost, if not all, of the IP addresses will actually reflect a wireless router or other networking device, meaning that while the ISPs will provide the name of its subscriber, the alleged infringer could be the subscriber, a member of his or her family, an employee, invitee, neighbor or interloper.”

Court slaps down the use of IP addresses in file-sharing cases. More >