Practical Technology

for practical people.

February 3, 2012
by sjvn01
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Apple gets kicked in the teeth by German patent lawsuit decisions

I like Apple products. God knows I own and use enough of them. But, I hate their out-sourcing business practices and their world-wide anti-Android lawsuits. So, when I learned this morning that Motorola Mobility had won a permanent injunction against Apple’s iCloud service in Germany because of a patent violation and Motorola had followed that up with another patent victory, which has forced Apple to take all its older phones, 3G and 4 and all iPads off its German online store (German language link), I was pleased.

True, Apple can still sell its current iPhone 4S in Germany, but this is a real kick in the teeth for Apple and its patent attack ways. Apple is putting the best face it can on its defeat. An Apple spokesperson said, “Even if some iPad and iPhone models are currently not available in our online store in Germany, customers should have no problem finding these devices in our stores or from authorized dealers.” Sure. Right. The bottom line is that iCloud’s functionality has been crippled and German Apple customers will have trouble getting their favorite mobile products.

Apple gets kicked in the teeth by German patent lawsuit decisions More >

February 2, 2012
by sjvn01
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Spark, free-software Linux tablet, to ship in May

Aaron Seigo, one of the KDE’s lead developers, and a leader of the Spark free-software Linux tablet development effort, has reveled more about the Spark, including, alas, that the Spark won’t be available until May 2012.

Seigo explains, “We have a lot of pieces to coordinate, and not just technical issues like the OS image and the content add-on store, but things like packaging design, manufacturing, shipping, import, retail channel coordination. So far we’re on track, but I don’t want to offer a more precise date than ‘May’ until we pull the trigger on production.”

When it does roll down the production line, Seigo says, “the Spark will be available for order online worldwide. We will be focusing primarily on Europe first, but we will be able ship worldwide from day one. We are looking for retail partners elsewhere in the world: USA and Canada, South America, Australia, etc. to make it easier to procure.” Pricing will be around $260 or 200 Euros.


Spark, free-software Linux tablet, to ship in May More >

February 2, 2012
by sjvn01
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How Web savvy are Romney, Gingrich and Obama?

President Barack Obama recently held a Google+ video Hangout; Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich promised to have a permanent U.S. moon-base by 2020; and fellow Republican Mitt Romney, along with Gingrich and Obama, are against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA). So, as politicians go, these guys are all pretty tech-savvy right? Well, yes and no. If you look at their Web sites, which is what Strangeloop, a Web site optimization company, did, you’ll find that neither Republicans nor Democrats are as up to speed as you might like.

According to Strangeloop president, Joshua Bixby, “I wanted to see if [their] pro-tech stance extends to Web performance, so I decided to take a shallow dive into their websites and mobile strategies. I was actually kind of surprised to see some interesting patterns emerge.”

First, “Web site speed correlates (mostly) to position in the primaries. At 46.4% and 31.9%, respectively, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich led the Florida primary. Interestingly, both also lead when it came to site speed. Gingrich’s site is fastest, with a load time of 7.7 seconds (maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to laugh at his plans to colonize the moon), while Romney’s loaded in 9.3 seconds. Rick Santorum and Ron Paul lagged in both areas, trailing far behind in votes and suffering load times of 10.7 and 13.5 seconds, respectively. (Interesting to note: President Obama’s site fared worst of all, with a load time of 13.6 seconds.)” But, then Obama’s not really running yet either.

How Web savvy are Romney, Gingrich and Obama? More >

February 1, 2012
by sjvn01
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Spark: The first free-software, Linux tablet is on its way

Open-source software and Linux, thanks to Android, is well represented on tablets. But, if you didn’t want to deal with proprietary firmware and software, you were out of luck… until now. Aaron Seigo, one of the KDE’s lead developers, and his team are just about ready to roll-out the first tablet based entirely on Linux and free software: The Spark.

For those of you who are a little puzzled right now–”But, isn’t Android based on Linux??” let me start by explaining that yes, Android is Linux and open-source software. But, its implementations on various smartphones and tablets always uses some proprietary software, firmware, and/or shims to combine the code into a working device. Spark is different.

As Seigo explains, “We decided to go with Mer, the community continuation of MeeGo, as our base OSS [open-source software]. With the amazing help of the Mer community, we have been able to bring up a non-Android, built-from-source kernel on the device and even boot into Plasma Active. There is still work left, and we still do have some binary drivers, but this progress is already one massive crowbar that’s prying open the doors that have been shut on the world of ARM based devices.”

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January 31, 2012
by sjvn01
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Mint’s Cinnamon: The Future of the Linux Desktop? (Review)

Over the last few years, we’ve seen radical changes to the Linux desktop. Some, despite initial opposition, such as the KDE 4.x re-start, took a while to gain favor, but eventually became popular. Others, such as GNOME 3.x have alienated many users and first Ubuntu’s Unity and now it’s Head-Up Display (HUD) have not been greeted with overwhelming approval even by hard-core Ubuntu Linux users. So, Linux Mint’s developers have decided to go back to the past with a GNOME 2.x style desktop: Cinnamon. So, how well have they done? I give them an “A” for effort, but only a “B” for execution.

To put Cinnamon to the test, I used my faithful old Lenovo ThinkPad R61. This 2008-vintage notebook is powered by a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor T7500 and has 2GBs of RAM. I also used it on my Dell Inspiron 530S powered by a 2.2-GHz Intel Pentium E2200 dual-core processor with an 800-MHz front-side bus. This PC has 4GBs of RAM, a 500GB SATA (Serial ATA) drive, and an Integrated Intel 3100 GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator) chip set.

For the operating system, although Cinnamon will run on Ubuntu 11.10, Fedora 16, OpenSUSE 12.1, Arch Linux, and Gentoo, I elected to run it on its “native” Linux Mint 12. Cinnamon runs on top of GNOME 3.2, but its look and feel comes from GNOME 2.x.

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January 31, 2012
by sjvn01
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Red Hat extends Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle to ten years

I’m a big believer in “It’s not broke, then don’t fix it.” So is leading Linux company, Red Hat. The company has just announced that it is extending the production lifecycle of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 and 6 from seven to 10 years in response to enterprise customer demand and Red Hat’s hardware original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners.

For any company, upgrading to a new version of an operating system requires detailed advance planning. Red Hat has extended the Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle so customers can remain on their current version longer. With the new Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle, customers will benefit from continued feature enhancements while Red Hat’s application binary interface (ABI) and application programming interface (API) compatibility for their existing application.

In addition, quite a few RHEL customers have only relatively recently adopted the Linux operating system. For many business users, RHEL 5 was the first Linux product that they had deployed in their infrastructure.


Red Hat extends Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle to ten years More >