Practical Technology

for practical people.

December 11, 2012
by sjvn01
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Linux 3.7 arrives, ARM developers rejoice

Only months after the arrival of Linux 3.6, Linus Torvalds has released the next major Linux kernel update: 3.7. The time between releases wasn’t long, but this new version includes major improvements for ARM developers and network administrators. The 3.7 source code is now available for downloading.

Programmers for ARM, the popular smartphone and tablet chip family, will be especially pleased with this release. ARM had been a problem child architecture for Linux. As Torvalds said in 2011, “Gaah. Guys, this whole ARM thing is a f**king pain in the ass.” Torvalds continued, “You need to stop stepping on each others toes. There is no way that your changes to those crazy clock-data files should constantly result in those annoying conflicts, just because different people in different ARM trees do some masturbatory renaming of some random device. Seriously.”

ARM got the message. Thanks to Olof Johansson, a Google Linux and ARM engineer, unified multi-platform ARM was ready to be included in Linux 3.7.

Linux 3.7 arrives, ARM developers rejoice. More >

December 10, 2012
by sjvn01
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It wasn’t just you: Gmail went down briefly

Gmail, Google’s popular email service, crashed at approximately  U.S. 11:45 AM  ET/ 8:45 AM PT. At this time, we do not know why nor how this happened. Google has now said, “We experienced an issue with Gmail and some users experienced slow performance or errors. For everyone who was affected, we apologize – we know you count on Google to work for you, and we worked hard to restore normal operation for you. Although our engineering team is still fully engaged on investigation, we are confident we have established the root cause of the event and corrected it. Our current best estimate is that a significant subset of users’ Gmail web queries were affected for an aggregate of 18 minutes, from ~08:54 – ~09:00 and then from ~09:04 – ~09:16 Pacific Time.”

While the Google Apps Status Dashboard didn’t show any trouble with Gmail at the time, numerous users on Twitter, Google+, and other social networks reported the service was down. The handy Down for Everyone or Just for Me Web site also reported that Gmail was down.

It wasn’t just you: Gmail went down briefly. More >

December 10, 2012
by sjvn01
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IOS 6 Wi-Fi problems keep hanging on

t never got a fraction of the attention of the Apple iOS 6 map debacle, but months after its release some Apple device users still can’t get Wi-Fi to work properly with iOS6.

The release of iOS 6.01 in early November continued to leave users with grayed out, unusable Wi-Fi. The “official” Apple Wi-Fi fix:

Try the following steps and attempt to enable Wi-Fi or Bluetooth after each one.

1. Verify that Airplane Mode is off.
2. Restart your iOS device.
3. Update your iOS device.
4. Reset Network Settings, by tapping Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings.
5. Restore your iOS device in iTunes.

Doesn’t work for some users.

IOS 6 Wi-Fi problems keep hanging on. More >

December 9, 2012
by sjvn01
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Free software father declared Ubuntu Linux to contain spyware

Richard M. Stallman, aka RMS, creator of the Gnu Public License (GPL) and the Free Software Foundation has announced that as far as he’s concerned, Ubuntu contains spyware and that Linux supporters should shun Ubuntu for spying.

Specifically, RMS hates that Ubuntu 12.10 incorporated Amazon search into its default search function. So, if you searched for say “Hobbit.” you’d get results from both your PC and Amazon. When it was introduced, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu, defended this change by saying Ubuntu wasn’t going to incorporate ads into the operating system, which Microsoft has done with Windows 8, and that no personalized data would be sent to Amazon.

Slideshow: Say hello to Ubuntu 12.10 Linux

Later, Ubuntu make Amazon search an optional feature, while leaving it on by default. That’s not good enough for RMS.

Free software father declared Ubuntu Linux to contain spyware. More >

December 6, 2012
by sjvn01
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Microsoft’s DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong

Trash-talking, whether it’s on the basketball court or on online forums, has a bad habit of blowing up when you can’t back it up. So when Microsoft decided to launch a win a free Windows Phone Twitter campaign with “Do you have an Android malware horror story?  Reply with #DroidRage with your best/worst story and we may have a get-well present for you” on Twitter and Chris DiBona, Google’s Director of Open Source, fired back, “Wanna see what Flop Sweat looks like? Follow:@windowsphone” I knew this wasn’t going to end well for Microsoft.

True, Android malware is a real problem. True, Google needs to do more about blocking malware applications from ever reaching users in the first place via the Google Play Store. But, there’s also a lot of Android malware FUD and Android now has over 75% of the smartphone marketWindows Phone 8 doesn’t even show up as noise in mobile marketshare–and, what’s far more important for a public relations campaign, a passionate fan-base . So, what do you think happened?

Thanks for Hashtags.org a site that monitors Twitter hashtag usage and Twitter’s built-in search function, we now know from tweets like these:

Microsoft’s DroidRage Twitter campaign goes painfully wrong. More >

December 6, 2012
by sjvn01
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Google+ communities arrive

Vic Gundotra, Google’s senior VP of engineering, announced on December 6th that Google has started adding Google+ communities—online Google+ groups devoted to a specific topic such as a work project, a football team, Guild Wars 2 play, whatever—to Google+‘s social-network offerings.

Gundotra said, “We started Google+ in the first place to make online sharing as meaningful as the real thing. Too often, our online tools miss the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions, and Google+ aims to fix this. Fortunately we’ve got a vibrant community to guide us.”

He continued, “What’s been missing, however, are more permanent homes for all the stuff you love: the wonderful, the weird, and yes, even the things that are waaay out there.”

Google+ Communities promises to be “a gathering place for your passions,” Gundotra said, supporting:

Google+ communities arrive. More >