Practical Technology

for practical people.

November 9, 2011
by sjvn01
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Flash is dead. Long live HTML5.

Adobe’s love affair with its Flash format has come to an end. Oh sure, Adobe said they were just killing development on mobile browser Flash in favor of HTML5, but seriously, do you think, that they’ll keep working on Flash on the desktop for much longer? If you do, I have a nice, lightly-used bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. No, the end of Flash is in sight and HTML5 is now the one true future for Internet video.

In Adobe’s official announcement, Danny Winokur, Adobe’s VP and general manager of interactive development, wrote, “HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.”

Notice the second company there? Apple. With this move, Adobe has conceded that Flash was never going to make it to iPads or iPhones. Now, Adobe developers and independent software vendors (ISV)s can work on delivering the goods for Apple’s family of devices.

Of course, Adobe isn’t just saying forget about Flash. Adobe wants to bring all the Flash goodness it can to HTML5.

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November 8, 2011
by sjvn01
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Fedora 16, Red Hat’s new community Linux distribution, arrives

If you want to see the future of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), you need only no farther than Red Hat’s community Linux distribution, Fedora. In its brand new release, Fedora 16, Verne, Fedora comes with multiple cloud and virtualization improvements.

Of course, what most Fedora users, as opposed to RHEL system administrators, will be interested in is that Fedora now supports GNOME 3.2 as its default desktop. Good luck with that. For me, GNOME 3.2, like GNOME 3.0 before it, is a failed interface. I’m not the only one who doesn’t care for the GNOME 3.x line. Linus Torvalds, Linux’s founder, finds GNOME 3.x unusable as well.

Fortunately, you’re not stuck with GNOME 3.x. Fedora 16 also comes with the far superior KDE 4.7 interface. One area where both desktop Linux fans and system administrators may find equally interesting is that Fedora includes an advanced version of Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments (SPICE)-based virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

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November 7, 2011
by sjvn01
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Which of the big five Web Browsers is the Best? (Review)

With Firefox 8’s early arrival, and new major updates to three of the other major Web browsers, Chrome 15; Opera 11.5, and Safari 5.1.1 it’s high time to take another look at our current generation of Internet Web browsers and see what’s what. Only Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) 9 hasn’t seen a significant improvement in the last few months.

Why did I choose these browsers? The answer is simple. These are the most popular Web browsers out there. While Internet Explorer has dropped below 50% of the total Web browser market, it’s still the most popular Web browser. In most of the world, IE is followed by Mozilla Firefox, although in some places, such as much of Latin America, number three, Google’s Chrome, has already moved up to second place. After that Apple’s Safari, which owns the mobile Web browser market, comes in number four, and Opera hangs out to the fifth spot.

As time has gone on, Web browsers have been improving. For example, it wasn’t that long ago that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was a major security problem in and of itself. True, the pre-historic IE 6 is still an infamous security hole, but only a fool would run it. Today, IE 9 is probably as secure as Google Chrome and they don’t come any safer. But, in all honesty, all the 2011 Web browsers are far more secure than their predecessors.

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November 2, 2011
by sjvn01
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Microsoft contributes open-source code to Samba

Freak snowstorm reported in hell. Tea party agrees Obama is the best candidate for 2012 presidential election. Microsoft submits open-source code under the GPLv3 to Samba. Those are all pretty unlikely, but Microsoft really did submit code to the Samba file server open-source project.

This might not strike you as too amazing. After all, Microsoft has supported some open-source projects at CodePlex for some time now and they will work with some other projects such as the Python and PHP languages and the Drupal content management system (CMS). But, Samba, Samba is different. They’re an old Microsoft enemy.

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November 2, 2011
by sjvn01
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Is Internet Explorer Dying?

Sometime in 1998 or 1999, Internet Explorer (IE) became the number one Web browser in the world. It did so thanks to Microsoft illegally bundling IE with Windows. But, while Microsoft lost the anti-trust case, instead of being broken up as it was first ruled, Microsoft only had its hands slapped and Internet Explorer’s main competitor, Netscape, was destroyed. By 2004, Microsoft’s IE owned 95%+ of the Web browser marker. That was then. This is now.

In that same year, Firefox started taking market-share from IE. At first IE lost ground, ironically enough, because of its de facto victory over Netscape. For years, Microsoft neglected improving IE 6, and Firefox was able to quickly establish itself as the better option. Then, when Chrome was introduced in 2008, it made the Web browser races far more competitive.

In October 2011, according to NetMarketShare, IE is barely above the 50% mark of desktop browsers with 52.63%. That only tells part of the story though.

On the smartphone/tablet market, IE is a total non-player with IE and Microsoft Pocket IE combined having only 0.17% of the market. Put the total Web browser markets together, and you’ll see IE has finally dropped below the 50% mark. IE now has only 49.58% of the total market.

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