http://randalflagg.net Your Source for Social News and Networking Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:56:57 CST en http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/five-things-ie9-is-actually-doing-right/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/five-things-ie9-is-actually-doing-right/ Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:56:57 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/five-things-ie9-is-actually-doing-right/ Microsoft - the company we all love to hate - is turning over a new leaf. This is true, at least, with its latest iteration of Internet Explorer, the company's web browser.

At the risk of being completely alienated by my fellow developers, who - like me - have fostered a gut instinct reaction to stand on guard and be ready to attack whenever we hear the words "Microsoft" or "Internet Explorer", I'd like to highlight a handful of things that the company is finally doing right with their browser.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/why-apple-needs-to-loosen-up/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/why-apple-needs-to-loosen-up/ Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:34:57 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/why-apple-needs-to-loosen-up/ Along comes Apple with a walled garden. Not only does it produce the iPad's processor, its operating system, and the device itself, but Apple sells its content, via iTunes, and keeps 30 percent of the money. It also operates the App Store, the only place selling applications to run on the iPad, and it keeps a 30 percent slice there, too. This summer it will start selling ads that run inside the apps and will keep a 40 percent slice of that revenue.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/hp-buys-palm-precentral-net/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/hp-buys-palm-precentral-net/ Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:39:03 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/hp-buys-palm-precentral-net/ HP is buying Palm for $5.70 a share, or around $1.2 billion. More to come - conference call at 5pm EST - we'll be liveblogging it for sure. We have HP's Press Release after the break. The whole thing should be done by July 31st.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/hot-out-of-china%E2%80%99s-knock-off-oven-ipad-clone/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/hot-out-of-china%E2%80%99s-knock-off-oven-ipad-clone/ Sat, 20 Mar 2010 22:00:15 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/hot-out-of-china%E2%80%99s-knock-off-oven-ipad-clone/ Apple has stalled the international launch of the iPad due to high demand in the United States, and Chinese bootleggers are rushing to fill in the gap.
They actually sound better than the original iPad.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/50-places-linux-is-running-that-you-might-not-expect/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/50-places-linux-is-running-that-you-might-not-expect/ Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:58:45 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/50-places-linux-is-running-that-you-might-not-expect/ It was not long ago when Microsoft Windows had a tight stranglehold on the operating system market. Walk into a Circuit City or Staples, it seemed, and virtually any computer you took home would be running the most current flavor of Windows. Ditto for computers ordered direct from a manufacturer. In the last decade, though, the operating system market has begun to change. Slightly more than 5% of all computers now run Mac, according to NetMarketShare.com. Linux is hovering just beneath 1% of the overall market share in operating systems. And although that might sound like a small number, Linux is far more than just a fringe OS. In fact, it's running in quite a few more places than you probably suspect. Below are fifty places Linux is running today in place of Windows or Mac. For easy reading, they are divided amongst government, home, business, and educational usage.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/anti-virus-program-goes-berserk/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/anti-virus-program-goes-berserk/ Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:22:51 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/anti-virus-program-goes-berserk/ Computers in companies, hospitals and schools around the world got stuck repeatedly rebooting themselves today after an antivirus program identified a normal Windows file as a virus.

At Rhode Island Hospital, the state's biggest, the computer lock-up prompted personnel to divert emergency room visitors without traumas to other hospitals. The hospital also postponed some elective surgeries.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/adobe-scraps-work-to-bring-flash-apps-to-iphone/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/adobe-scraps-work-to-bring-flash-apps-to-iphone/ Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:04:09 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/adobe-scraps-work-to-bring-flash-apps-to-iphone/ When Apple changed the terms of its iPhone 4.0 software developer kit license, it effectively blocked Adobe's move. But in his Tuesday announcement that Adobe will cease future development of the Flash-apps-on-iPhone technology, Mike Chambers, Adobe's principal product manager for the Flash platform, let loose a tirade that indicates the battle between the two companies isn't over yet.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/ubuntu-10-04-is-hit-by-major-x-org-memory-leak/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/ubuntu-10-04-is-hit-by-major-x-org-memory-leak/ Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:00:16 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/ubuntu-10-04-is-hit-by-major-x-org-memory-leak/ Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is set to be released next Thursday and a release candidate is poised to be released tomorrow, but there's some last minute problems within the Lucid Lynx camp. There's a last-minute X.Org Server update that's being looked at as a result of a "major memory leak" that has been found over the past week.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/10-things-linux-does-better-than-windows/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/10-things-linux-does-better-than-windows/ Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:36:12 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/10-things-linux-does-better-than-windows/ To be clear about this article's intent, it's not to bash Microsoft, or Windows. Because to be fair, despite using Linux 95% of the time while I'm on the PC, I can find more faults with it than Windows. So, this article's goal is to highlight some of the major pluses of Linux, and also showcase where Windows could improve in the future, should Microsoft take heed of the suggestions.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/geohot-restores-ps3-otheros-feature-may-work-on-slim-too/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/geohot-restores-ps3-otheros-feature-may-work-on-slim-too/ Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:26:04 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/geohot-restores-ps3-otheros-feature-may-work-on-slim-too/ Good times, good times. Sony received a ton of deserved flak after it announced it would remove the PlayStation 3's "Install other OS" feature, despite advertising the machine with said feature, and despite promising only a few weeks earlier not to remove the feature. iPhone and PS3 hacker George "Geohot" Hotz promised to restore the feature - and less than a week later, he delivers.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/vodafone-distributed-handset-found-pre-installed-with-mariposa-bot/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/vodafone-distributed-handset-found-pre-installed-with-mariposa-bot/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:37:11 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/vodafone-distributed-handset-found-pre-installed-with-mariposa-bot/ Security researchers have found the Mariposa bot client pre-installed on a mobile phone handset distributed in Europe, and say that the malware looks to have been installed on the phone's memory card.

The phone, the HTC Magic, runs the Google Android mobile operating system, and is a low-priced handset distributed by Vodafone. A researcher at Panda Security received one of the handsets recently, and upon attaching it to her PC, found that the phone was pre-loaded with the Mariposa bot client. Mariposa has been in the news of late thanks to some arrests connected to the operation of the botnet.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/the-secret-origin-of-windows/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/the-secret-origin-of-windows/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:36:15 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/the-secret-origin-of-windows/ Few people understand Microsoft better than Tandy Trower, who worked at the company from 1981-2009. Trower was the product manager who ultimately shipped Windows 1.0, an endeavor that some advised him was a path toward a ruined career. Four product managers had already tried and failed to ship Windows before him, and he initially thought that he was being assigned an impossible task. In this follow-up to yesterday's story on the future of Windows, Trower recounts the inside story of his experience in transforming Windows from vaporware into a product that has left an unmistakable imprint on the world, 25 years after it was first released.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/chuck-norris-botnet-karate-chops-routers-hard/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/chuck-norris-botnet-karate-chops-routers-hard/ Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:34:53 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/chuck-norris-botnet-karate-chops-routers-hard/ If you haven't changed the default password on your home router, you may be in for an unwanted visit from Chuck Norris -- the Chuck Norris botnet, that is.

Discovered by Czech researchers, the botnet has been spreading by taking advantage of poorly configured routers and DSL modems, according to Jan Vykopal, the head of the network security department with Masaryk University's Institute of Computer Science in Brno, Czech Republic.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/sk-telecom-crams-android-processor-inside-a-sim-card/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/sk-telecom-crams-android-processor-inside-a-sim-card/ Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:50:08 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/sk-telecom-crams-android-processor-inside-a-sim-card/ The SIM cards in cellular telephones might be smaller than a postage stamp and less than a millimeter thick but that hasn't stopped South Korea's SK Telecom from cramming all the major components needed to run Google's Android OS inside one of them.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/hands-on-new-single-window-mode-makes-gimp-less-gimpy/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/hands-on-new-single-window-mode-makes-gimp-less-gimpy/ Sat, 02 Jan 2010 15:26:55 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/hands-on-new-single-window-mode-makes-gimp-less-gimpy/ The venerable GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is undergoing a significant transformation. The next major release, version 2.8, will introduce an improved user interface with an optional single-window mode. Although this update is still under heavy development, users can get an early look by compiling the latest source code of the development version from the GIMP's version control repository.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/today-delayed-gpu-switching-comes-to-linux/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/today-delayed-gpu-switching-comes-to-linux/ Sun, 27 Dec 2009 13:45:25 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/today-delayed-gpu-switching-comes-to-linux/ The Linux hybrid graphics patch known as "vga_switcheroo" is now on its sixth revision. The fifth iteration of the graphics switcheroo migrated some of the ATPX handling in the xf86-video-ati driver and the sixth does some preparatory work for hooking in Nouveau support so that NVIDIA graphics processors can be switched on and off.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/how-the-ps3-hypervisor-was-hacked/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/how-the-ps3-hypervisor-was-hacked/ Sun, 20 Dec 2009 14:49:30 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/how-the-ps3-hypervisor-was-hacked/ George Hotz, previously known as an iPhone hacker, announced that he hacked the Playstation 3 and then provided exploit details. Various articles have been written about this but none of them appear to have analyzed the actual code. Because of the various conflicting reports, here is some more analysis to help understand the exploit.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/blu-ray-3d-specifications-finalized-your-ps3-is-ready/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/blu-ray-3d-specifications-finalized-your-ps3-is-ready/ Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:49:40 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/blu-ray-3d-specifications-finalized-your-ps3-is-ready/ In case plans by AMD and a slew of other tech vendors planning to showcase 3D Blu-ray compatible products at CES wasn't a tip-off, the updated specifications are done. The key details? First, that the Blu-ray Disc Association has chosen the Multiview Video Coding (MVC) codec to store 3D, so that even though it is now providing a full 1080p frame for each eye, it will only require about 50% more storage space compared to the 2D version, and all discs will be fully backwards compatible, in 2D, on existing players. Better than backwards compatibility, the PlayStation 3 will be forwards compatible with the new discs -- a new HDTV setup (the spec promises to work with plasmas, LCDs or projectors equally well) with IR emitters and glasses will still be necessary. According to the PR (after the break) we can expect Blu-ray 3D-stickered products in 2010, our only advice is to keep those responsible for the Cowboys Stadium abomination far, far away from it.

2 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/shuttleworth-steps-down-as-ubuntu-ceo/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/shuttleworth-steps-down-as-ubuntu-ceo/ Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:40:35 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/shuttleworth-steps-down-as-ubuntu-ceo/ In a morning press call on December 17th, 2009 Mark Shuttleworth announced that he was stepping down as head of Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. In his place, Jane Silber, the current Chief Operating Officer who has been with Canonical since 2004 will take over as CEO.

1 Flagg(s) ]]> http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/d-link-tips-linux-based-boxee-box/ http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/d-link-tips-linux-based-boxee-box/ Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:56:20 CST http://randalflagg.net/computers-consoles/d-link-tips-linux-based-boxee-box/ D-Link unveiled its soon-to-be-released "Boxee Box" at Boxee's preview of Boxee Beta in New York last night. Few details have been disclosed other than that it runs Boxee on Linux, provides HDMI and both analog and digital audio outputs, and hooks up to the Internet via either WiFi or Ethernet.

2 Flagg(s) ]]>