Practical Technology

for practical people.

November 5, 2008
by sjvn01
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Big vote: FCC approves white-space Internet broadband

Obama won the election, but for technology, in the short run at least, the even bigger voting news was that the FCC, by a vote of five to zero, had unanimously approved the conditional unlicensed use of white-space television spectrum.

White space, the 700-MHz spectrum that’s being freed up as TV channels switch from fat analog signals to thinner digital transmissions, has the potential to be used for many important uses. As Larry Page, co-founder of Google, wrote, “We will soon have “Wi-Fi on steroids” since these spectrum signals have much longer range than today’s Wi-Fi technology and broadband access can be spread using fewer base stations resulting in better coverage at lower cost.”

This is more though than just Wi-Fi on steroids. This is the opening of a new era of broadband. Today, most of us at home use either cable, DSL or, God help us, modems to connect with the Internet. Cable can be fast, but its speed is cut by the number of subscribers on any given line. DSL delivers OK performance, and as for modems, the less said the better.

Even as its best, cable at about 20Mbps, though today’s Internet demands even more bandwidth. It’s not just file-sharing with BitTorrent and the like that’s grabbing bandwidth. We’re moving to IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) with devices like the Apple TV, Netflix Player, and TiVo. Even the fastest Internet connections are stressed by 720p HDTV for these devices, and with 1080p HDTV just around the corner, our last mile bandwidth infrastructure simply isn’t up to the challenge.

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November 3, 2008
by sjvn01
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Why I voted for Obama

I have strong political opinions, but I don’t talk about them much. I don’t pretend to know much about politics. Technology yes; business, yes; politics no.

I do know, however, that the country can’t afford another four years of government that resembles in the slightest what we’ve been subjected to for the last eight years.

Mea culpa. I voted for Bush. Twice. My excuse is that I really disliked the Democratic alternatives.

But now, after years of good men and women dying for no good reason in Iraq; after an economy that’s had been run into the ground by a pro-business administration that seems to have no clue about how to actually run businesses; and a government that runs over and around Constitutional liberties whenever it suits it, I’ve had enough.

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November 3, 2008
by sjvn01
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3 out of 10 Asus PCs run desktop Linux

I don’t get it. Why in the world are people reporting that seven out of ten Asus PCs is news. Hello. Wake up call. Nine in ten PCs, counting Macs as PCs, are already running Windows. The news, the real news, is that three out of ten Asus PCs are being sold with Linux.

To be exact, according to Asustek, “The company shipped 2.5 million notebooks in the first half of this year, 1.7 million units in the third quarter and is expecting to ship 1.9 million units in the fourth quarter, bringing the company’s annual notebook shipments in 2008 to at least six million units.” Breaking that down by operating system, “The ratio of Eee PCs preloaded Windows XP and Linux stands at 7:3.”

So, by year’s end, there will be 2.4-million more desktop Linux uses. Maybe my colleague Preston Gralla is right. Perhaps Microsoft is getting worried about Linux on the desktop and that’s one reason why they’re cutting the fat out of Vista Second Edition, aka Windows 7, to make it more competitive with Linux. Certainly, Microsoft is already doing its best to flim-flam people with overly-rosy early reviews of Windows 7.

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October 31, 2008
by sjvn01
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Microsoft bribes again?

My former colleague, Joe Wilcox, observes that he doesn’t think it’s a big deal that Microsoft handed out laptops to bloggers, analysts and reviewers loaded with the Windows 7 alpha. He adds that “All week, I have watched for someone to raise a fuss and hoped that no one would.” Wilcox then added that, last time around when Microsoft did this with Vista, that Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols “joined the chorus of critics calling the laptops bribes,” while he had defended Microsoft’s practice.

There’s a reason why I haven’t called these laptops bribes. I wasn’t at Microsoft’s PDC (Professional Developers’ Conference) in Los Angles and I hadn’t heard that Microsoft was once more handing out bribes.

Now if Microsoft was just loaning laptops for the show, fine. After all how many people-beside someone like me–bring test systems to install new operating systems on to a trade show?

But, if as appears may be the case Microsoft is letting people have Dell XPS M1330 laptops with 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processors and 3GBs of RAM on ‘indefinite loans (wink, wink) then it’s a bribe in my book. What do you think? If you knew someone had been given a PC with a list price of $1,956 and then wrote nice things about the operating system that came with it would you be inclined to think that they might be just a wee bit influenced by the almost two grand worth of computer?

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October 31, 2008
by sjvn01
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OpenSUSE Starts Steering its Own Course

It’s not easy for a Linux company to let go the reins of control over its community Linux distribution. Just ask Red Hat, which started to let go of Fedora and then decided to keep managing it (Red Hat keeps its grip on Fedora). But, now Novell is loosening its apron strings on its community Linux openSUSE.

The first step was to allow a community-elected board to take charge of the project. While Novell still has a large say, the company appoints the chairman and half of the board’s members come from Novell, the community of openSUSE developers does get a larger say in the popular distribution’s direction.

From the non-Novell side of the community, Pascal Bleser and Bryen Yunashko are the newest members. While, from Novell, Henne Vogelsang and Federico Mena-Quintero have been elected to the board. Novell appointed Michael Löffler, the openSUSE Product Manager, as the new board’s chairman.

Novell is pleased by these first steps. Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier, the openSUSE Community Manager, said “I think this is an important milestone for the project. As you know, the previous board was handpicked by Novell — and I think that the company made good choices for the “bootstrap” board, but it’s necessary for the project to elect its own members for the community to really feel like it’s being well-represented.”

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October 30, 2008
by sjvn01
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Desktop Linux tidal wave alert

In 2009, more Linux-powered desktops will sell then will Windows-powered ones. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? Think again.

What’s happened is that people don’t just want; they’re demanding that their computers boot-up Right Now. Vendors aren’t fools, so they’re delivering laptops and desktops that can boot-up really fast.

Of course, while most of the vendors would like to give their customers Windows, they can’t. Windows is no more capable than booting fast than John McCain is of winning the Olympic gold in the 100-meter dash. That’s where Linux comes in.

You see you can boot Linux up in a hurry if you do it from the hardware and thanks to a company called deviceVM and its fast-booting Linux, SplashTop. PC OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) like ASUS, Dell, HP and Lenovo, are all including SplashTop on their lines.

SplashTop, which can boot from either the firmware or the hard drive, is a lightweight modern Linux. The package includes a simple graphical desktop, Blackbox and a selection of popular network-aware applications. These include a Web browser, which is based on Firefox; Skype VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol); and an IM (instant message client).

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