Practical Technology

for practical people.

January 9, 2009
by sjvn01
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Linux 2.6.28’s five best features

While you were likely to be opening up Christmas presents, Linus Torvalds was giving Linux users around the world a special present: the release of the next major Linux kernel: Linux 2.6.28.

e had some time to tinker with this latest and greatest Linux, and it’s my kind of Christmas present: solid improvements to my favorite operating system. Here are the five features that I think most of us will appreciate the most as we move into the New Year.

1) Ext4

The next step up in Linux file systems, has finally arrived. Ext4 improves, well, everything about hard drive storage. It gives you larger file-system and file sizes, faster I/O, better journaling, and it can defragment your drive on the fly.

In particular, its delayed allocation functionality greatly improves hard disk write performance. This won’t help your PC hard drive that much, but if you’re running a database server, you’ll see significant improvements. How fast is ‘significant?’ In my informal tests with MySQL 5.0, I saw write-speed boosts of approximately 30% on a 400GB database. Try it yourself on your servers, you’ll be impressed. In addition, since Ext4 can handle up to 1024 petabytes per volume. I expect Ext4 and Sun’s ZFS are going to be fighting it out for top server file-system for the next ten-years.

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January 7, 2009
by sjvn01
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Microsoft’s Windows 7 Vista replacement plan

How badly does Microsoft want you to forget about Vista? Badly enough that they’re already offering people who buy PCs with Vista after July 1st a free upgrade to Windows 7.

According to sources, computer OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) will be given Windows 7 upgrade media. Of course, we still don’t know when that will happen. Maybe later this year, maybe sometime in 2010. Personally, I’m betting that Microsoft ships Windows 7 as fast as humanly possible.

Once Windows 7 is out, the computer vendors can then ship it to their customers. From this, we can conclude that you will not be able to update Windows Vista to Windows 7 online. Windows 7 may be little more than a Vista uber-patch, but Microsoft plans on selling it like it was a completely new version of Windows.

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January 6, 2009
by sjvn01
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Apple kills off DRM

DRM (Digital Right Management) has been a thorn in the side of music and video lovers for years. Now, Apple, after wheeling and dealing with the major music companies, is killing DRM off for good in iTunes.

You should now be able to buy DRM-free songs in one of three price ranges: 69-cents, 99-cents or $1.29. These prices are for, respectively, older catalog titles; current but not especially popular songs; and top hits. So, for example, Credence Clearwater Revival’s 1969 hit Bad Moon Rising, is likely to sell for 69-cents; the Dropkick Murphy’s I’m Shipping up to Boston, should sell for 99-cents; and Kanye West’s Heartless would go for $1.29. Most, about 90% of iTunes musical catalog, will be available at these prices and without DRM by the end of March.

These songs will also of higher quality than their DRM-crippled brothers. Instead of 128Kbps, these tunes are played at 256Kbps. You won’t be able to tell the difference on a set of generic PC speakers, but you’ll certainly be able to tell that 256 is better on any decent stereo system.

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January 5, 2009
by sjvn01
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Everyone’s free Linux: DeviceVM’s Splashtop

One of the neat things about Linux has always been that you can run it on just about anything: iPhones, xBoxes, PS3, you name it, you can run Linux on it. So, why not, the good people at DeviceVM thought, make a desktop Linux that came bundled in a PC’s motherboard: Splashtop.

Splashtop is a mini-desktop Linux distribution that’s based on the 2.6.20 Linux kernel. Currently, Splashtop comes pre-installed on pretty much all ASUS motherboards and on netbooks and laptops from ASUS, HP’s high-end VoodooPC division and Lenovo. Rumor has it that Splashtop and similar baked-in desktop Linuxes, like Dell’s “BlackTop,” aka Latitude ON, will soon be appearing from other PC and motherboard vendors. I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if DeviceVM makes some new partner announcements at this week’s CES (Consumer Electronics Show).

The concept behind Splashtop and its competitors is to make it possible for you to open your netbook or laptop and be able to get to work in five seconds or less. It’s not a Windows replacement idea. Most of these systems come with Windows pre-installed as their main operating system. Instead, vendors are addressing the needs of today’s hurry-up-and-go users. These folks simply want to get to a desktop quickly so they can check their e-mail, make a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) call or check a Web site, and then close it to catch their next flight.

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January 2, 2009
by sjvn01
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The Google Linux desktop has arrived

Google has been slowly, but surely, displacing Microsoft as the number one PC technology company. Google has done it by misdirection. Instead of taking Microsoft head-on in desktops, Google first consolidated their hold on Web search and only then start moving into Web-based desktop applications. Then, in 2008, they made their first direct strike at the desktop with the release of their own Web browser: Google Chrome. Now, Matthaus Krzykowski and Daniel Hartmann, founders of the stealth startup Mobile-facts, have found that you can take Google’s smartphone operating system, Android, and use it as a desktop operating system.

In fact, the dauntless duo found that it took them only “about four hours of work to compile Android for the netbook. Having done so, we (Daniel Hartmann, that is) got the netbook fully up and running on it, with nearly all of the necessary hardware you’d want (including graphics, sound and the wireless card for internet) running.” In short, they found that Android was already a desktop operating system.

This didn’t come as a surprise to either of them. They’d been expecting Google to use Android for more than mobile phones for months. What I find a bit surprising is that it was already so easy to port Android to a PC. Heck. I could have done it, and my coding skills are really rusty.

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December 31, 2008
by sjvn01
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Zune misery mystery solved

Some people say I like to beat Microsoft up. Not really. I just dislike bad technology, and Microsoft makes a lot of poor-quality hardware and software. Anyone unfortunate enough to own a 30GB Zune knows exactly what I mean.

Today, December 31st, many, if not all, 30GB Zunes, Microsoft’s first generation of music players, stopped working. They were as dead as doornails.

Now, Microsoft is explaining that the so-called “Z2K9” glitch was the result of how the device’s firmware handles leap years. While short on details, the Microsoft press representative also said that the frozen Zunes should start working again by by noon GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) on January 1st. In other words, by 7AM Eastern time tomorrow morning, your bricked Zune should be working.

Microsoft assures users that they won’t need to reset the time or do anything else fancy. If you buy Microsoft’s story, users’ Zunes will just magically start working again.

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