Practical Technology

for practical people.

October 19, 2011
by sjvn01
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Android 4.0’s Five Best New Features for Users

Silly name aside, Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), is perhaps the most important Android release to date. With this release, Google has brought its tablet Android fork, 3.x, back into sync with its smartphone trunk, 2.x. In addition, all of ICS will soon, as I understand it, be made open source.

What that means for you is that independent software vendors (ISV)s can stop wasting time in developing two different versions of programs and focus their energies on making the best possible Android applications. Since, at the end of the day, the success of any operating system is all about its applications, this bodes well for Android.

Like Google told its developers, “Android 4.0 is a major platform release that adds a variety of new features for users and app developers. Besides all the new features and APIs [application programming interfaces] discussed below, Android 4.0 is an important platform release because it brings the extensive set of APIs and Holographic themes from Android 3.x to smaller screens. As an app developer, you now have a single platform and unified API framework that enables you to develop and publish your application with a single APK that provides an optimized user experience for handsets, tablets, and more, when running the same version of Android-Android 4.0 (API level 14) or greater.”

Don’t get too excited about Android 4 quite yet though. While Android 4 has lots of good features–the most important of which I’m going to talk about here–it’s also not going to be available for most of you on your existing smartphones and tablets.

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October 18, 2011
by sjvn01
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Free Software Foundation urges OEMs to say no to mandatory Windows 8 UEFI cage

If you buy Microsoft’s explanation for the company requiring a version of UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) on PCs that can run Windows 8, it’s there to protect users from next-generation malware. If you think that’s the only reason for the UEFI to be in there, I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. The UEFI requirement is also there to block Linux and other alternative operating systems from booting on Windows 8 PCs. In response to this open-source operating system threat, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has started a petition to urge original equipment manufacturers (OEM)s to give people a way to easily opt out of Microsoft’s Windows 8 UEFI cage.

The FSF fears, with reason, that Microsoft will make it difficult, if not impossible, for end-users to install other operating systems, such as Ubuntu 11.10 on Windows 8 systems. So it is that the FSF is asking users to “Stand up for your freedom to install free software” by signing a petition asking that UEFI be installed on Windows 8 systems in a way that will allow users to install Linux or other alternative open-source operating systems such as FreeBSD or OpenIndana, the successor operating system to OpenSolaris.

Specifically, the FSF is urging “all computer makers implementing UEFI’s so-called ‘Secure Boot’ to do it in a way that allows free software operating systems to be installed. To respect user freedom and truly protect user security, manufacturers must either allow computer owners to disable the boot restrictions, or provide a sure-fire way for them to install and run a free software operating system of their choice. We commit that we will neither purchase nor recommend computers that strip users of this critical freedom, and we will actively urge people in our communities to avoid such jailed systems.”

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October 18, 2011
by sjvn01
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Point-and-Click your local Servers to the Cloud: Racemi

As people are getting their heads around the economic benefits of cloud computing–pay just for what you use servers and services–I’ve been hearing a lot of people say they’d use the cloud if only they could move their existing servers to the cloud without a lot of blood, sweat, and toil. This is where Racemi, a cloud-services company, comes in with its easy server migration program.

Racemi’s answer for server to cloud migration is an online point-and-click tool that lets you easily take your servers from your server room to the cloud of your choice. This magic trick is called Racemi Cloud Path.

Cloud Path is a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering that the company claims “requires no infrastructure at the customer location so there is no hardware to buy and nothing to maintain. Cloud Path makes it possible to quickly migrate existing applications to cloud computing providers, like Amazon EC2, Rackspace, Terremark, and GoGrid without costly professional services or rebuilding servers from scratch. By comparison, it can take hours or even days to migrate an existing application manually, costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars.”

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October 18, 2011
by sjvn01
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ICANN takes control of Internet Time Keeping

“Does anyone really know what time it is? Does anyone really care?” Well, even if you don’t remember this popular Chicago song, if you’re on the Internet you do care. Many network services, such as authentication, depend on everyone agreeing on the exact time. So when a lawsuit threatened the Internet’s authoritative source for time-zone data this had the potential to really foul up everyone’s network time.

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October 13, 2011
by sjvn01
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Ubuntu Linux 11.10: Unity comes of age

When Canonical, Ubuntu’s parent company first announced that it was going to drop the GNOME 3.x desktop for its own GNOME-based desktop take, Unity, a lot of people were unhappy. They also weren’t thrilled with Unity’s first mainstream deployment in Ubuntu 11.04. Now, if these same people, if they give the brand new Ubuntu 11.10 desktop a try, I think they’ll really like this new Ubuntu.

Don’t get me wrong. Unity still isn’t for everyone. Hard core Linux desktop users-and I’m one of them-will still find it keeps them too far away from Linux’s fine-tuning controls for comfort. But, for everyone else, I think Unity may be the best pure desktop Linux desktop interface I’ve ever used. And friends, as the former editor-in-chief of DesktopLinux and a Linux user since its early days, I’ve seen all of them.

What am I talking about, well let’s take a look at the new Ubuntu and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.

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October 13, 2011
by sjvn01
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Installing the latest Ubuntu Linux: Ubuntu 11.10

October 13 is a big day for Ubuntu fans. It’s the day that the next version of Ubuntu arrives. If you want to give it a try, download a copy of Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot, burn an ISO copy to a CD or USB stick, pop that into your PC, and follow along.

Before doing anything drastic, like actually installing Ubuntu on your PC, make sure it works first. Only after testing it out for a while, should you reboot your computer and chose the Install Ubuntu option.

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