Practical Technology

for practical people.

September 20, 2011
by sjvn01
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The Linux desktop is dead. Long live the Linux desktop.

I’ve been running Linux on my desktop for about 18 of its 20 years; I used to be the editor-in-chief of DesktopLinux; and today I use Mint 11 Linux as my main desktop. In short, I know a thing or two about the Lnux desktop. Today, though, I declare traditional Linux desktop to be dead.

It’s never going to catch up with Windows or Mac OS X in user popularity. It’s never going to show up as a common option from mainstream vendors. And, you’ll never be able to buy it at your local Best Buy or other big box store.

Why? Well there are a lot of reasons; but none of them have anything to do with its quality. I use desktop Linux distributions not because of some romantic attachment to free software or because I hate Windows, but because they work better and they’re far more secure than Windows or Mac OS X.

Historically, desktop Linux never got a fair shot because of Microsoft’s Windows monopoly and strong-arm tactics. For example, when Linux-powered netbook started eating Microsoft’s lunch on low-end laptops, Microsoft brought XP Home back from the dead and almost gave it away to vendors to stop the Linux bleeding.

It also didn’t help any that Microsoft finally realized what a total flop Vista was and brought back XP for all users. Indeed, Vista’s failure hurt Linux. If Microsoft had actually stuck with that dog of an operating system, desktop Linux would have gained more fans.

That was then. This is now. Those factors have always been around. They still are today. Several other things have arisen that makes me doubt that the traditional Linux is going to go anywhere.

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September 19, 2011
by sjvn01
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Thunderbolt: Beyond USB and eSATA

When I started in computing, we had two main peripheral interface choices: RS-232 serial and Centronics parallel ports. Neither was fast. RS-232, which was the more generally useful of the pair, topped out in early days at 20 kilobits per second (kbps). That was then. This is now.

Today, USB 3.0 can hit 625 MegaBytes per second (Mbps) and eSATA can handle up to 300 MBps. Intel’s creation and Apple’s newest darling interface technology, Thunderbolt can blast data along at 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps).

hat’s great news! If, that is, you have a PC and operating system that supports Thunderbolt and peripherals that can work with it. There aren’t many of any of these at the moment. Apple and Intel want that to change as fast as possible.

Indeed, one reason why USB 3.0 has so slow off the mark was because Intel still hasn’t built in support for it in its motherboards. Thunderbolt, though, is already available on some hardware, and will include this new technology, along with USB 3.0, on its 2012 Ivy Bridge motherboard architecture. In the meantime, Apple is already building Thunderbolt into its latest model MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac mini computers.

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September 18, 2011
by sjvn01
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Google Needs to Clean Up its Android Market’s Malware Mess

“Google! Stop playing with that copy of Angry Birds and go up to your Android Market room and clean it up right now!” Alas, Google is as likely to pay attention to my command as my once four-year old daughter was.

Listen, I like a lot of what Google does. For example, I think Chrome 14 is the best Web browser around, but have you seen the mess of malware in the Android Market? It’s shameful!

The security software company McAfee recently stated that the amount of malware targeting Androids phones jumped 76% in the last quarter (PDF), making it the most heavily attacked of all mobile operating systems. “Overall attacks are becoming more stealth and more sophisticated, suggesting that we could see attacks that remain unnoticed for longer periods of time,” said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee, in a statement.

Of course, they don’t need to be stealthy. Most people download their malware right off the Android Market.

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September 18, 2011
by sjvn01
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Chrome 14: The best Web browser keeps getting better

It’s odd. When Firefox moved into its accelerated development path, Firefox really didn’t get much better. In fact, it’s been getting less stable. Google’s Chrome Web browser though just keeps getting better with every new release. Chrome 14, in my opinion, is now clearly the best Web browser for any operating system available today.

Why? Well, look at all the raw numbers. To see how Chrome 14 ranked, I put it up against the latest releases of Firefox and IE 9 on a Windows 7 box.

When it comes to Web standards compatibility, Chrome 14 is a winner. On the Acid 3 compatibility test, which checks out how well a browser complies with Web standards such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript, and Extensible Markup Language (XML), Chrome had a perfect score. Firefox 6 had a score of 97 and IE had a 95.

On the recently, August 23rd, updated HTML5 Test, which checks to see how compliant the Web browser is with the HTML5 Web page standard, Chrome is king of the mountain again with a score of Firefox showed a significant improvement. This time, it came in with 341 points out of a possible 450. Firefox 6.02 came in second with 313 and. IE 9.0.8 came in a distant last with 141. Anyone who tells you that IE is HTML5 compliant is trying to sell you Windows. It’s not. It’s not even close.

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September 15, 2011
by sjvn01
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Google opens Google+ up for developers

Questions about Google’s new social network real name policies aside, I quite like Google+. One of the things I like about it, in stark contrast to Facebook, is that Google+ lets you access and back-up your personal data. Now Google has taken it one step further: The company has opened up some of Google+’s Application Programming Interfaces.

On Google+, appropriately enough, Chris Chabot, a Google developer advocate, announced “I’m super excited about how the Google+ project brings the richness and nuance of real life sharing to software, and today we’re announcing our first step towards bringing this to your apps as well by launching the Google+ public data APIs.”

Chabot continued, “These APIs allow you to retrieve the public profile information and public posts of the Google+ users, and they lay the foundation for us to build on together – Nothing great is ever built in a vacuum so I’m excited to start the conversation about what the Google+ platform should look like.”

So excitement aside, what’s the story with these APIs? A quick look at the Google+ Developers site reveals that we’re still in the early stages here. The sites states that “This initial set [of APIs] is focused on providing read access to public data. We’ll be adding more APIs over time to build on this foundation and help you create more types of integrations”

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