Practical Technology

for practical people.

November 30, 2011
by sjvn01
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Klout Craziness

I know many people think Klout, the social network reputation measurement service, is utter nonsense or even evil. Too bad. Klout does matter. Businesses may give you work or a job depending on your Klout score. You may find that troubling. Deal with it. What I find far more troubling is that Klout scores can bounce up and down like hyperactive five-years old on a trampoline.

What the heck is your social network reputation you ask? According to Esther Schindler, co-author of the forthcoming book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Twitter Marketing, while “No one can comfortably compare how important one person is compared to another,” the bottom line is that “some people can have more of an impact on your company than can others and that’s why services have sprung up to measure social media influence. ” Klout isn’t the only company that tries to measure this–PeerIndex and TweetGrader do as well-but it’s the most important of them.

I used to think Klout was dumb… and then an editor who was trying to talk me into writing a book wanted to know what my Klout score was. Since then I’ve talked to others and they tell me that their would-be employers wanted to see high Klout scores before giving them a job or contract. So, while you may doubt Klout’s value, your potential employers do care about your Klout score.

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November 30, 2011
by sjvn01
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Apple’s Worldwide War on Samsung and Android

Some fools still have this delusion that software patent and product design wars have something to do with some mythological real value of intellectual property (IP). While there are indeed cases involving a better mouse-trap, most such cases are about nothing but extorting cash from people who create real products, or, in the case of Apple vs. Samsung, Apple trying to preserve its market share against a would-be competitor.

Apple makes great products, but you wouldn’t know it from the way it’s attacking Samsung. Rather than let the marketplace decide whose products are better, Apple wants the courts to decide. Specifically, Apple is slugging it out with Samsung in a minimum of 19 lawsuits in 12 courts in nine countries on four continents.

Let that sink in for a minute. Apple is trying to use intellectual property law as a bludgeon around the world to protect its sales.

Around the globe the battle goes. In Australia, Samsung wins, for now, the right to sell their Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. In Germany, Samsung redesigns the same tablet in an attempt to avoid a European Union wide sales ban. And, the battle goes on and on.

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November 27, 2011
by sjvn01
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Internet TV Shootout: Apple TV, Roku and Sony Blu-Ray DVD Player

When people talk about Internet TV, I’ve noticed that they usually talk about either Apple TV or Roku. Both are fine devices, but you may be over-looking that are many other ways to get Internet video to your TV. Many of these are still too complicated for general use and others, like Google TV, are still half-baked. But, besides Apple TV and Roku, many Blu-Ray DVD players now come with Internet video built-in. If what you want this holiday season is a Blu-Ray DVD player and Internet streaming, one of these all-in-one players may be just what you need.

So, which one is right for you? Well, here’s what I’ve found in my years of watching Internet TV on my television. These days I use an Apple TV, a Roku 2 HD and a pair of Internet-enabled Sony Blu-Ray players for my TV watching pleasure. Indeed, a few months ago I cut the cord to my cable company and now the only TV I watch comes up either the Internet or from one of my own network media servers.

First, before you buy into any of these, you’re going to need a robust Internet connection. You’ll need at least a 3Mbps DSL Internet connection to make watching Internet video worthwhile. I’ve tried it at slower rates, and you’ll only end up getting ticked off at the crappy video.

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November 21, 2011
by sjvn01
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Linux Mint 12’s Three Desktops

The popular Linux distribution, Mint, will be giving its users three different distinct flavors of the GNOME for their desktop in its next release, Linux Mint 12, Lisa.

Like any Linux you can, of course, switch it to your own choice of desktop. Many, indeed, offer users a choice of desktops. Mint, for example, while primarily a GNOME-based distribution, also offers its users a version that uses the LXDE desktop for its interface.

By and large, though, Mint is best known GNOME-based desktop Linux. In particular, its most recent claim to fame that while Ubuntu has moved on to its controversial Unity interface, Mint stuck with the older and well-liked GNOME 2.32 interface… until now.

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November 18, 2011
by sjvn01
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The most popular Linux is…

Trying to figure out what the most popular Linux distribution is isn’t easy. We can safely say that Red Hat’s Rat Hat Enterprise Linux is almost certainly popular server Linux. You don’t close in on a billion in annual revenue without a lot of users. You could argue that it’s Android since there are over two hundred million Android smartphones out there, but I was thinking of PCs. So, which distribution do most individual people use on their computers?

For years, Ubuntu has been the number one end-user Linux, but, somewhat to my surprise, it looks like Ubuntu has to face not just a challenger, but indeed it appears that Ubuntu has already been dethroned by Linux Mint, my own current favorite Linux desktop distribution.

I say that Linux Mint seems to be number one now because on the site that tracks all Linux distributions DistroWatch’s, Page Hit Ranking list, Mint has been number one for the last week, the last month, and, indeed for the last six months.

In the overall rankings over the last six months, Ubuntu remains number two, but recent updates of openSUSE and Fedora have knocked Ubuntu into 4th place in recent days.

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