Practical Technology

for practical people.

June 3, 2012
by sjvn01
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3 things to know about IPv6 as World IPv6 Day approaches

June 6, 2012, World IPv6 Day, is almost upon us. On that day, many major ISPs and Web sites will add IPv6, the next generation Internet protocol, to their existing network stacks. So: Should you start panicking now or should you wait a bit?

Actually, you don’t need to panic at all. Come the morning of June 6, the sun will still rise in the east, kitty cats will still purr in your lap when you pet them, and the Internet will continue to work just fine after you boot up your computer.

What will have happened on that day is that numerous major ISPs, such as Comcast and Time-Warner Cable, and Web sites, including Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, will offer their services with IPv6 in additional to “classic” IPv4. All these major Internet powers have been working on deploying IPv6 for years, and there’s no reason to believe that a mass roll-out of IPv6 is going to cause any Internet trouble.

3 things to know about IPv6 as World IPv6 Day approaches. More >

May 31, 2012
by sjvn01
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Judge crushes Oracle’s API copyright claims like a bug

Larry Ellison bought Sun in the hopes of winning intellectual property riches from its Java programming language. Those hopes have now been smashed. After having Oracle’s Java patent claims against Google Android all but completely smashed, and a mere nine lines of code found to actually have been copied into Android from Java, Oracle’s last hope was that U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup would rule that Java’s application programming interfaces (API)s could be copyrighted. Instead Alsup has smashed Oracle’s API claims as if they were cockroaches.

Oracle had sued Google over copyright infringement related to the use of 37 Java APIs used on the Android mobile operating system. Google argued they were free to use because Java both cause it was open source , and that, in case, APIs can’t be copyrighted and that they’re required to use any language.

Judge crushes Oracle’s API copyright claims like a bug. More >

May 31, 2012
by sjvn01
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Facebook isn’t dumping Chrome for Opera

I think that Facebook buying the Opera Web browser would be a silly move. You know what would be an even dumber move though? Dropping the increasingly popular Google Chrome in favor of Opera as a recommended Web browser.

Never-the-less, that’s exactly what a story in Neowin claims. I quote, “It is beginning to look like Facebook’s management are changing their recommendations towards certain browsers. As of today, Facebook’s “unsupported web browsers” page has removed Google’s web browser, Chrome, and replaced it with Opera.”

Leaving aside the convoluted grammar, the story makes it clear that it’s claiming that Facebook has dropped Chrome as a most favored Web browser for Opera. There’s only one problem with this report. It’s not true.

Facebook isn’t dumping Chrome for Opera. More >

May 30, 2012
by sjvn01
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2012’s Best Linux desktop: Linux Mint 13

The very popular Linux distribution, Mint, has a new version Linux Mint 13, Maya, and a new take on the GNOME 3.x desktop interface: Cinnamon 1.4. The result is, in my opinion, the best Linux desktop for experienced users to date.

Not everyone will agree with me. They’ll find Mint’s other default desktop MATE to be much more their speed. MATE is a fork of that old Linux desktop favorite, GNOME 2.x. While I haven’t looked at the MATE edition of GNOME closely, other Linux reviewers, like Jim Lynch, have and Lynch likes what he’s seen of Mint 13 paired with MATE.

Setting up Mint 13: 2012’s Best Linux desktop

Even with the little work I’ve done with MATE though I can see what GNOME 2.x fans will like it. It’s a very clean desktop and it feels and works like a natural extension of GNOME 2. GNOME fans who abandoned GNOME after the annoying changes in GNOME 3.x for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE) will want to give Mint with MATE a try. With MATE, GNOME 2.x is back.

2012’s Best Linux desktop: Linux Mint 13. More >

May 28, 2012
by sjvn01
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Open source and the National Security Agency, together again

The Open Source Software Institute, a non-profit group that supports open-source adoption and the National Security Agency (NSA), the organization in charge of all out of country eavesdropping, will co-host an Open Source Software Industry Day on Wednesday, May 30, 2012. The unclassified, one-day event will be held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory’s Kossiakoff Conference Center near Fort Meade, MD, which is where the NSA is based. Alas, pre-registration is already over.

If you were one of the lucky 640 to make it in, you’ll get to hear about agency’s interest in opportunities made available through open source software solutions. Yes, the NSA is looking for a few good spooks. The conference’s speakers will present information on existing open-source software products, as well as service and support offerings; and encourage government suppliers to include open-source options in their strategies and service offerings.

Open source and the National Security Agency, together again. More >

May 28, 2012
by sjvn01
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Why WiDi wins and losses for your computer/TV connection

When I first got started with personal computers, I often used a TV to show computer video. Well, to be more exact, I didn’t have any choice but to use a TV as a monitor to display CP/M-80 command line interfaces. There’s been a lot of changes since the 80s, but getting your PC video to your TV is still something of a pain. True, you can hook up an HDMI cable to do the job, but I’ve never been a fan of having cables running across my living room. I’m also no fan of using a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, with their limited range, to talk to the PC media server. No, what I really wanted was a way to just have my laptop in front of me and then just throw my video from my 15.6” laptop display to my 42” HDTC TV without any fuss. That’s what Wi-Fi Direct (WiDi) promises. Unfortunately, there’s still trouble with it delivering the goods.

WiDi has been certified for over a year and a half now. Based on 802.11n technology, WiDi is backwards compatible with the 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi networking family and uses WPA2 security. However, it’s used more like Bluetooth, albeit it with much greater range, than a LAN technology.

It’s meant to make direct connection quickly and easily from PCs to printers, displays, and so on. To do this, instead of switches, routers, or access points, WiDi devices incorporate software access points to enable ad hoc point-to-point networks. The case I care about is the one of connecting my WiDI enabled laptop with a similarly equipped TV.

Why WiDi wins and losses for your computer/TV connection. More >