Practical Technology

for practical people.

June 25, 2010
by sjvn01
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Sexual assault by Internet

Now, this is different. A computer cracker, Luis Mijangos of Santa Ana, CA has been arrested by the FBI for taking over more than 100 Windows PCs and used what he found on them to extort sexually explicit videos from women and teenage girls by threatening to release their personal data.

It started, from reports, like many other hacker attacks. He trolled for victims on P2P) peer-to-peer file-sharing and IRC (Internet Relay Chat) networks under the nickname “guicho” Mijangos is alleged to have sent out malware disguised as popular songs. Once downloaded, Mijangos took control of their computers and used them to spread the malware to their friends over IM (instant messaging). He also planted “keyloggers” on their PC so he could record their every keystroke as they went about their daily computer use.

So far, we’re not talking about anything that doesn’t happen tens of thousands of time a day. But, this is where the story takes a different twist. Mijangos didn’t just automatically use the infected computer to send out spam and malware or siphon down credit-card passwords and the like the way most botnet controllers would do. No, instead he went looking on his victim’s computers for sexually explicit or intimate images and videos of the women.

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June 23, 2010
by sjvn01
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Better Readability Today won’t save E-Readers Tomorrow

My goodness. When I wrote about the Barnes & Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle’s price-war as showing the way to the end of dedicated e-readers, I didn’t expect quite so many people to insist I was wrong. Wrong I tell you!

Of course some people, like ZDNet’s Jason Perlow agreed with me that “eReader devices face mass extinction.” A lot of other people flooded me with arguments for why dedicated e-readers would keep going.

Their arguments amounted to two different factors. The first was that Amazon and Barnes & Noble could afford to sell e-readers for ultra-low prices because they made their real money from selling books for this platform. This sort of business policy is known as the razor-blade plan. The idea is you sell something cheaply, the razor itself or, in this case, the e-reader, while making your money from the razors, or book in this example. This works. This same plan is why we can buy great printers for less than the cost of manufacturing while paying through the nose for printer ink and toner.

The problem with this plan is that it breaks with e-readers. Tablets, like Apple’s iPad, and the coming wave of Android Linux-powered and ARM/MeeGo Linux tablets, can do everything that the e-readers do using Amazon and Barnes & Nobles’ own software, and more. Even if you drop e-readers prices below $100, as Ron Miller suggested, you still can’t get around the fact that the competition will be able to do so much more than a dedicated e-reader.

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June 23, 2010
by sjvn01
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Linux’s old KDE 3 desktop lives!?

I love it. KDE 3.x, which has always remained my favorite Linux desktop interface, is making a come back. A tiny group of open-source developers from Pearson Computing is trying to bring KDE 3.x from the grave in a project that they’re calling Trinity.

I’m not sure how much will come from this project. The group behind Trinity seems to be quite small and the Web site has been swamped to the point where it’s been unusable. Still, the very fact that someone is trying to keep KDE 3.5 alive is good news as far as I’m concerned. After all, I am the guy who suggested that KDE be forked into KDE 4 and KDE 3 branches back when KDE 4.1 was the newest KDE desktop.

Specifically, according to the lead developer, Timothy Pearson, on the KDE 3.5 Maintainers page the project is meant to support “KDE3.5 for Ubuntu Intrepid and above. Emphasis is placed on keeping KDE3.5 as a viable Ubuntu desktop environment, easily installed and used alongside others, just like Gnome, XFCE, and KDE4.x.”

While I’ve warmed to KDE 4 beginning with the KDE 4.3 edition, I’m still not crazy about it. For me, at least, KDE 3.5x is still easier to use and manage. Indeed, I still use KDE 3.5.10, the last official version on my main Linux desktop, which runs the Debian Linux variant MEPIS 8.

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June 23, 2010
by sjvn01
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Google Voice: The Web’s best free voice app

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I hate the telephone. I hate being interrupted when I’m in the middle of writing. I can’t stand mobile phones, although I use them, and I’ve gotten sick and tired of buying both new landline and mobile phones every other year. Those are some of the reasons why I think Google releasing Google Voice for everyone — well everyone in the U.S. — is great news.

It’s also great news for anyone who wants free — that’s free as in beer — control of their telephone communications. Google Voice is a free Web-based application that gives you control over all your various phone numbers — work, home, mobile, you name it — from a single, central phone number. And it includes most of the features of a PBX (Private Branch Exchange): call forwarding, voice mail, call recording.

I’ve been lucky enough to be using Google Voice for over a year, and I’m thrilled it’s free for most people now. I’ve wanted to get my friends on it ever since I first used it, and now I can.

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June 22, 2010
by sjvn01
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Bill Gates doesn’t work at Microsoft anymore

Love him or hate him, Bill Gates was, and still is, the face of Microsoft. What Microsoft doesn’t want you to know though is that Gates has almost nothing to do with the company anymore.

That’s what comes across loud and clear in the recent Fortune overview of the world’s richest man. Instead of plotting out how to knock Apple back into the dirt or how to put Google in its place, Gates spends his days on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, stopping by the laboratories of Intellectual Ventures to talk blue-sky ideas every few weeks with Nathan Myhrvold, and dropping off or picking up his three kids from school.

Bill Gates? The great white-shark of computing doing the suburban dad routine!? Yes, yes he is, albeit I doubt he drives a mini-van.

While this is fine for Gates, it doesn’t bode well for Microsoft. As ace Microsoft reporter Mary Jo Foley, told me when we talked about the article, she liked the article “because it admits what MS doesn’t want out there: Gates is no longer really involved at the company. They are scared for that to be known even though to us it is obvious.”

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June 21, 2010
by sjvn01
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Dedicated E-Readers: They’re History

Barnes & Noble just launched a new Wi-Fi only version of the Nook for $149 and cut the price of the original, with both Wi-Fi and 3G from $259 to $199. Whoops! And, what’s this? I no sooner finish this blog and Amazon drops the bottom-line Kindle’s price to $189. That’s great, right? Wrong. It’s actually just postponing the end of all dedicated e-readers.

As it happens, I like e-readers in general. And, I like the Nook and Amazon’s Kindle. So why am I unimpressed by this price-cut? I’m unmoved because I don’t think there’s a chance in heck that dedicated e-reader devices will still be around, except as vastly discounted electronic toys by 2011’s holiday season.

My reasoning is quite simple. Everything a Nook or a Kindle can do an Apple iPad can do better. And, what’s far more important, an iPad can do far, far more.

Why should I buy a Nook or Kindle to read a book, when I can read the same books, from the same vendors, on an iPad? Or, for that matter, an iPod Touch? As Jason Perlow pointed out in his great overview of iPad e-reader applications, anything you can read on one of those devices, you can read on an iPad.

Besides, with an iPad, I can also listen to music, watch videos, play games, etc. etc. Of course, an iPad is expensive. In fact, it’s a lot more expensive. The cheapest iPad is $499 compared to the new Nook’s bottom line of $149 and the Kindle’s lowest priced model is now $189. But, it’s not going to stay that way. Historically, Apple drops the price of its earlier models when it introduces a new one. While you may lust in your heart for a new iPhone 4, your brain and your wallet might be very happy with the last generation iPhone 3GS, which Wal-Mart will be happy to sell you for $97.

Besides, in the next few months you’re going to see a flood of Linux-powered iPad clones and other tablet devices. I expect these tablets to have prices ranging from $150 to $250 and, thanks to most of them running Google Android, they’ll be able to run many of the same applications that now live on Apple iPads. Besides, when it comes to e-readers, the Nook is an Android Linux device and there’s already a Kindle for Android application.

The one hope that I see for the dedicated e-readers, and Nook already has the foundation to pull it off, is to give up being single-purpose devices and join the general purpose tablet revolution. But, dedicated e-readers, or GPSs, mobile-phones, and the like? They’re history.

A version of this story first appeared in ITWorld.