Aug 28
AceTech Articles Apple, asus, ebooks, Google, Microsoft, snow leopard, xbox360
Tech news roundup for August 27, 2009. Yesterday was a slow news day, hence no news roundup for August 26, 2009. Today was also rather slow, to be honest.
- Google Now Offers Over a Million Free Ebooks in EPUB Format #
- Microsoft cuts Xbox price by 25 percent #
- Asustek to launch e-book reader under Eee family #
- Confirmed: $29 Snow Leopard Installs Whether or Not You’ve Got Leopard #
Google Now Offers Over a Million Free Ebooks in EPUB Format
Google currently offers 1 million books in EPUB format through it’s Google Books portal. Many of these books are in the public domain, so many of them are pretty old. But old books can still be good. Source at Mashable.
Microsoft cuts Xbox price by 25 percent
Microsoft has intensified the price war with Sony by lowering the price of its XBOX360 by approximately 25%. The Elite model will be 100$ US cheaper, with its 299$ US price point. The Arcade remains the same at 249$ US. The middle model, called the Pro, will be discontinued. This leaves the consumer with a simplified choice, says Microsoft. As of now, Microsoft is the only console manufacturer with positive sales. Source at Reuters.
Asustek to launch e-book reader under Eee family
eBook-readers seem to be in vogue lately. Word goes round that Asus, maker of the EeePC, will also be manufacturing an eBook-reader to compete with Amazon and Sony. Source at DigiTimes.
Confirmed: $29 Snow Leopard Installs Whether or Not You’ve Got Leopard
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will cost Leopard-users $30, and Tiger users $169, because they are supposed to purchase the Box Set. This includes the new OS, iLife ’09 and iWork ’09. It has been confirmed that OS X 10.6 will also install whether or not you’re actually using 10.5. It turns out the so called upgrade disc doesn’t check for prior versions. If you’re still on Tiger, you can skip Leopard all together and save a lot of money, but you’ll be violating Apple’s EULA. Source at Lifehacker.
Aug 24
AceTech Articles Apple, chrome, chromium, Google, gpu, Linux, Microsoft, Windows 7
Tech news roundup for the weekend of August 22, 2009 through August 23, 2009.
- Apple Opens Up on App Store Approvals #
- Remember Cuil? Now It’s a Real-Time Search Engine #
- GPU Computing and Windows 7 #
- Chromium popularity rising on Ubuntu, gains 64-bit support #
- More tech news on my FriendFeed
Apple Opens Up on App Store Approvals
In response to Apple rejecting Google Voice, the F.C.C. filed an inquiry to investigate Apple’s motives with the possible inclusion of AT&T colluding to ban all non-traditional voice traffic. Apple has responded to the F.C.C. stating AT&T has absolutely no part in the rejection of Google Voice. Its reason for the rejection is that it replicates too much of the iPhone’s phone, texting and voice-mail functionality. They’ve also stated they’re “still investigating” Google Voice and haven’t actually rejected it yet. Source at The New York Times.
Remember Cuil? Now It’s a Real-Time Search Engine
Cuil.com – the search engine engineered by two ex-Google employees launched last year – has added real-time search to their portfolio. While in the beginning the site knew a humongous surge of visitors, its unique visitor rate has been declining drastically ever since. The real-time search capabilities are a welcome addition, though not stellar and certainly not better than existing solutions. Source at Mashable.
GPU Computing and Windows 7
The Windows Blog discusses a new technology that will debut with the release of Windows 7. It’s called GPU Computing and will allow software to utilize the processing power inherent to modern GPU’s outside of graphics processing. By doing this, the main processor(s) can be relieved and address more processing power to other computational tasks. GPU Computing will require DirectX 11, which will be part of Windows 7. nVidia’s GPU’s already support GPU Computing fully. Source at The Windows Blog.
Chromium popularity rising on Ubuntu, gains 64-bit support
Chromium – the open source version that drives the Google Chrome browser – is gaining popularity like wildfire amongst the Linux community. It has recently gained full 64-bit support and is increasingly being seen as a viable competitor to Mozilla Firefox by Linux enthusiasts. Source at ArsTechnica.
Aug 21
AceTech Articles android, Apple, archos, azure, browser, chrome, Firefox, Google, Microsoft, mozilla, tpb, Windows 7
News roundup for August 20, 2009.
- Mozilla makes much ado about nothing over browser ballot #
- Xmarks extension alpha for Chrome arrives #
- Archos soft launches own Android app store #
- Irish ISP to block The Pirate Bay #
- IT IS HERE: A Fully Functional Copy of The Pirate Bay #
- Microsoft offers cloud database previews #
- Like Vista, Windows 7 will grant 120 grace period #
- Check out my FriendFeed – uh, feed - for more tech news.
Mozilla makes much ado about nothing over browser ballot
I only recently blasted Opera for pushing its childish whims into the lap of the EU and now Mozilla – Firefox’ creator of which I didn’t expect this – also chimes in and is urging for even more strictness and regulation of Microsoft’s browser ballot screen. If you haven’t read my prior rant, I’ll reiterate: it’s preposterous that Microsoft is even buckling under the EU’s weight, let alone it even have to bolt the specifications of the ballot screen down even more (!). Mozilla spokesperson Anderson brings up issues like “Microsoft is causing inadvertent changing of the default browser in Windows and that’s not right” (which isn’t true, BTW) and other nonsense. Don’t be such a crybaby, Mozilla. Source at ArsTechnica.
Xmarks extension alpha for Chrome arrives
In response to Google’s own bookmark syncing feature for Google Chrome, Xmarks – the maker of password and bookmark syncing add-ons for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari – put out its alpha version of their add-on for Google Chrome. Source at CNET.
Archos launches own Android app store
Archos has launched its own Android application store, in response to Apple and RIM. The apps in this store, however, won’t only work with Android-enabled Archos devices, but will be available to any compatible device. Source at TechRadar.
Irish ISP to block The Pirate Bay
Eircom, an Irish ISP, agreed to cut off customers that illegally downloaded music or movies – after an out-of-court settlement with the entertainment industry. Now, Eircom will also be preventing its customers from viewing The Pirate Bay. Source at IrishTimes.
IT IS HERE: A Fully Functional Copy of The Pirate Bay
Speaking of TPB: after a torrent was put out containing the whole Pirate Bay repository, people were wondering what to do with it. Today, btarena.net has brought a nearly exact replica of the whole Pirate Bay site online, including downloads, tracking and searching. The site is also capable of hosting new torrents, although its creator insists that this must remain to be a mere backup, for now. Source at Mashable.
Microsoft offers cloud database previews
SQL Server 2008 R2 and – more importantly – SQL Azure came out for developers to preview and use with their web applications. SQL Azure is Microsoft’s hosted relational database which developers can rent for a monthly fee. Prices vary between $9.99 US for 1GB to $99.99 US for 10 GB. With SQL Azure, Microsoft provides pay-as-you-go storage and promises graceful scaling – if necessary. Source at ReadWriteWeb.
Like Vista, Windows 7 will grant 120 grace period
Windows 7′s predecessor, Vista, allowed a user to prolong his 30-day trial to 120 days by using the ‘rearm’ run command at the end each trial period. This was possible up to three times, after which you were supposed to purchase a license key to continue using Windows. As it turns out, Windows 7 – now in final form – will also support this behavior. Moreover, it has been confirmed by Microsoft as not violating the license agreement.
So basically, one can do the 120-day thing, re-install Windows and go at it again – endlessly, without ever needing to pay for Windows 7…
Aug 20
AceTech Articles att, blogging, Browsers, Google, google voice, Microsoft, mobile, office, office web applications, P2P, PS3, sony, tpb
Tech News roundup for August 19, 2009.
- How The Pirate Bay will be legalized #
- Sony unveils slim PS3, price-drops #
- Blogger “strike” in Italy #
- Office Web Applications will support mobile browsers #
- Opinion: Why AT&T killed Google Voice #
- More on my FriendFeed at friendfeed.com/aceontech
How The Pirate Bay will be legalized
GGF – the company which is to acquire The Pirate Bay – has laid out its plan on how it thinks it will be able to legalize the notorious torrent sharing site. It proposes, as it had stated before, to start charging for the use of the site. Use of TBP would include downloading as well as uploading (sharing) of files. It’s not yet set in stone how steep the subscription fee will be, but GGF has stated it would grant copyright holders two options if they object to the free sharing of a certain file. The way they hope to ‘legalize’ TBP is to offer either a financial contribution with each download or pull down certain torrents at request. If copyright holders collectively go for the latter, I imagine TBP won’t continue to exist much longer. Also GGF hopes to establish partnerships with the entertainment industry and possibly start offering ‘official’ paid torrents. Source at TorrentFreak.
Sony unveils slim PS3, price-drops
True to Sony’s track-record and business cycle, it will be putting out a slimmer version of the PS3 somewhere in September. It will allegedly take up 33% less space and suck 34% less power. Sony’s also offering the console at lower prices, near to $300 US for the lower-end model and $400 US for the higher end model. Source at NewsWeek.
Blogger “strike” in Italy
Because of the impending Italian laws that could cause independent bloggers and content creators to have to pay fees if they refuse to pull down content, bloggers decided to have a strike to counter it. The Italian blogosphere went quiet for one day, but one might wonder, is this the way to achieve something? One would rather think it would be more efficient to make more of a raucous instead of plainly shutting up… Source at TechDirt.
Office Web Applications will support mobile browsers
Microsoft’s release of Office 2010 will bring along version 1 of Office Web Applications, the full Office suite for the web, for free. Features will be limited, of course. For only so many features are useful for the web. The surprise here will be that not only all major browsers will be supported, but that mobile browser will also get full support. Microsoft is essentially giving Office away for free to millions of users, including Linux and Mac users alike. Source at ArsTechnica.
Also, read Paul Thurrott’s preview of Office Web Applications 2010.
Opinion: Why AT&T killed Google Voice
Andy Kessler from WSJ writes: “Telecom operators are yesterday’s business. It’s time for a national data policy that encourages innovation” and opines why AT&T pulled Google Voice for the iPhone. The article also broadens its spectrum (pun) and calls for unifying voice traffic and cable distribution to become mere data traffic – making matters more neutral and ultimately cheaper. Source at WSJ.
Jun 18
AceTech Articles Getting Things Done, Google
Keeping track of your paper administration can be a pain. Well, I know it is to me. Most countries’ laws force you to archive your paper administration pieces like invoices and tax-related papers for up to 10 years. Aside from the legal requirements, it’s important to archive in an orderly fashion, so you can retrieve a given piece easily and quickly.
There are obviously several ways to do this; you could get a shoebox and let everything pile up, or you could go with something more organized like a bunch of [real life] folders in which you divide sections with tabs. This is a fine methodology, but it tends to get rather voluminous after a couple of years. And along with added volume comes greater difficulty at finding what you need when the occasion proposes itself.
To accommodate this issue, I started scanning and digitally storing the most important pieces for a while now. While you could come up with a virtual folder system for local storage, it soon also becomes unpleasant to retrieve something – even with Windows’ Search or Mac OS X’ Spotlight. There are some proprietary database archiving systems out there that let you automate this, but I dislike my data being stuck in a closed box.
Google to the rescue
Recently, I noticed that Google added PDF-support to it’s online productivity suite Google Docs. While I don’t think Google Docs is very suitable for day-to-day word processing/spreadsheet-work, the PDF-support can be of particular use when dealing with administration and the like.
This is how I do things to keep track of my administration:
- I keep paper copies of everything in physical folders as described above.
- I scan the important stuff and export it to PDF.
- I upload the PDFs to Google Docs, archived into a particular directory structure. Just rudimentary folders suffice, e.g. ‘Invoices’, ‘Taxes’, ‘Contracts’, etc.
- That’s it.
While this system works for me, it may not for you. Also, consider your privacy when uploading PDFs to Google Docs. It’s not proven that any physical persons have access to the contents of your account, it’s generally known that Google has software scanning for keywords in order for them to offer contextual text-based advertisements. I acknowledge this is a genuine concern to be taken into account, this doesn’t particularly bother me.
Harnessing Google Search
I keep paper copies of everything because it’s compulsory where I live. The real handiness of putting everything online is the Google Search functionality embedded into Google Docs. This will only work if you enabled OCR when scanning of course (but most scanners do this by default). So whenever I need a given invoice or other document, I can just start typing any string I can remember into the search box and I’ll be sure to find the appropriate document reasonably fast.
I talked about me not liking closed ecosystems, but isn’t Google just that? The short answer to that question is a clear ‘yes’. Google’s solutions are mostly proprietary and thus entirely closed. On the other hand, Google is pretty reliable and offers its services for the best price around – free. All things considered, it’s just as easy to get things into Google as it is to get stuff out of it. At any time, you can download the original PDF back to your computer. There’s no straightforward way to get all of your documents out at once, however (another thing to consider).
A nicety about Google Docs is that it allows for online sharing similar to how Google Docs handles sharing with text documents, presentations and spreadsheets. When you hit the share button associated with any given PDF you’re presented with a form on which you can enter your friends’/coworkers’ e-mail addresses. Once they accept the invite, they’ll get read-only access to the chosen document. The catch: your correspondent must have an active Google Account in order for this to work. You could just as well attach the PDF to an e-mail, while you’re at it, then.
Concluding note
Moving my administration to the cloud was one of the last steps in my digitized ‘getting things done’-effort. Incidentally or not, I ended up entrusting all of my data to Google. The future will point out whether it was a wise choice. For now, Google’s services are pretty darn reliable considering their price (free). As a testament to that, I also have my e-mail, calendars and todo-lists up in the cloud with Google.
Short note to Google: you’ve completely suckered me into your services.
Feb 25
AceTech Articles Apple, beta, browser, chrome, Google, safari
Apple obviously used Chromium as a base for their Safari 4:
Sep 23
AceTech Articles browser, chrome, Google
Firefox has been a part of my browsing-life since it was still in pre-1.0 beta stages and went by the name of Phoenix. The reason clung so to this new browser (at the time) was due to the fact that I had become frustrated with the much lamented Internet Explorer Microsoft that was developed to sweep Netscape off the table. Back then, Firefox only held a modest percentage of the browsing market-share, its’ main selling point being its open-source nature and security.
Browsers, much like everything else in the computer software business, started to evolve into something much more sophisticated and complex than first envisioned. It seems to me that while Firefox 3.0 was vast improvement over its predecessor, it has lost a lot of its attractiveness, a direct consequence of its increasingly intricate nature.
More
Sep 08
AceTech Articles e-ink, Google, Intel
Mostly Google in the news again with the release of its first slew of [security] updates to it’s newborn baby Chrome. Also, Intel came out with the best performing hard drive on the planet (for now), and it’s an 80 gig SSD. Lastly, eBook lovers can finally eat their hearts out with Plastic Logics’ pretty — almost malleable — e-Ink touchscreen.
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Apr 01
AceOff-Topic, Tech Articles fools, Google, joke, Prank
Google has a history of loving pranks and especially April Fools’ Day.
Yep, today’s that day.
For a full listing of all of Google’s jokes, visit the Google Operating System Blog.
iGoogle from right to left
Today, I saw my iGoogle homepage shift everything to the right.
Gmail Custom Time
Gmail Custom Time is a feature in Gmail which lets you set how recipients of your mails will see the datestamp. Dates in the past will also be reflected in the recipients’ inbox. And older message will appear lower in the list than newer ones, making your friends believe they’ve just forgotten about your message, instead of you being late.
The catch is that you can’t set dates back before April 1st, 2004, Gmail’s launch-date.
Tagline: “Be on time. Every time”.
Every time, this time, means you can use the option up to 10 times before it disappears.
gDay
Google Australia gDay, a feature that lets you search the web of tomorrow today. It uses a special technique to forecast what websites will like look like and which content they’ll deliver.
Virgle: The First Permanent Human Colony on Mars
Vigle is a contraction of Virgin Airlines and Google and is a company that will make the first human settlement on Mars, announced by Google’s Main Blog. Here’s the video announcement:
Apart from it not being very believable, it also shows signs of bad acting. But who cares.
New Google Docs Option
The file menu on Google Docs now has a new entry, called ‘Create a new airplane’. It renders an image of an airplane. Well, sort of. It still needs to be folder and that task is up to you.
Happy April Fools’ Day everyone!
Mar 24
AceTech Articles Google, Microsoft, wireless
So, Google didn’t win the wireless auction. Instead, it has formed a technology coalition with Microsoft, Dell, Intel, HP and Philips Electronics to make sure the white space spectrum will be freed to allow ‘open’ wireless broadband services. Earlier, Bill Gates also urged the FCC for more or less the same reasons.
Broadcasters often fear that the utilization of this white space could cause interference with television broadcasts and wireless microphones.
Google handed the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) a proposal on Monday that promises an enhanced system to prevent wireless devices from causing serious interference.
The FCC is assessing the possibility of allowing two categories of uses for the spectrum:
- For low-power portable devices
- For fixed commercial services
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