Tag: Geek Stuff

Firefox 4

Firefox 4 leaked out a bit early so I’ve managed to have a little quality time with it. First I’ll state that I haven’t tested many of the new features and mostly played with the interface and realized several of my most beloved add-ons no longer work. But one key thing did pop into my mind when I used it, Firefox is trying too hard to be Chrome.

Listen Mozilla if I wanted to use Chrome I would be using Chrome. The fact of the matter is I don’t really like Chrome’s interface. Personally I think placing tabs at the top of the window is stupid. I interface with tabs far more often then I interact with the URL bar and having to move my mouse a bit further to get to the more used interface element is really just poor design. Likewise I miss my status bar, and popping up the URL of a link when I hover my mouse over it doesn’t count. There was also no reason to move the home button to the other side of the window. Yeah that last one is nitpicking but seriously if it’s not broken don’t fix it.

I admit nobody is asking me my opinion but that’s why I have a website, so I can express it anyways. Firefox had a good interface that worked well and there was little need to fix it. Mozilla should have spent their time on performance and security related issues. What would be great is if Firefox ran inside of a sandbox as Chrome does. Combining a sandbox with NoScript would make for some pretty heavy armor when browsing online.

Maybe the under the hood features will win me over but the interface changes haven’t. I will give Firefox kudos on one thing, having an actual title bar. Chrome’s biggest problem is the fact there are roughly four pixels above the tab bar that you can click to drag the window. It’s probably one of the most annoying interface elements I’ve seen in modern software since… I don’t know. Firefox has a full title bar that you can click on just like every other application on the planet. Good jobs on that.

High Speed Low Drag RAM

A company named G.Skill is releasing RAM for operators who like to operate in Call of Duty. Supposedly the RAM is supposed to look like a rifle but I only seem a slight resemblance honestly. With that said it does have some neat benefits:

According to G.Skill, the new Sniper series was designed in ultra-low voltage, particularly 1.25V. This feature alone points to a possible power savings of up to 10-percent, allowing PC gamers to push other components without having to worry about overheating issues with the memory. G.Skill said it performed extensive compatibility tests across a wide range of Intel and AMD platforms to “guarantee the best performance, quality and reliability for user’s gaming needs.”

Whenever a component manufacturer can reduce the amount of power a component uses while keeping good performance it’s a good thing. Power consumption means heat which is a pain in the ass. Hell you should see the heat sinks of my Mac Pro’s RAM, damn FB-DIMMs have heat sinks large enough to be mistaken for rectangular processors.

Attacking Phones Using SMS

Though this will come as no surprise to anybody but a couple of researchers have found a method of attacking phones using the Simple Messaging Service (SMS):

A pair of security researchers from Germany demonstrated several techniques at the CanSecWest conference here Wednesday that enable them to remotely reboot, shut down or even completely disable many popular mobile phones with SMS messages.

It should be noted that they’ve only test this on feature phones so we don’t know if smartphones will be affected or not. Likewise they only tested this on GSM phones so it may be such a thing where most CDMA phones will remain unaffected. Either way if you want to screw with somebody and you know their number this would certainly be a viable method. Heck if you knew somebody’s number you could potentially start a denial of service attack against their phone by constantly sending crafted text messages that cause your target’s phone to reboot.

Get Palm OS Running Under WebOS 2

Along with the new version of WebOS comes some other great news, somebody has found a hack to get Palm OS running under WebOS 2. If you’ve been following WebOS to any extent you know HP/Palm removed the Palm OS ROM from WebOS 2 which basically killed Classic (Classic is a Palm OS emulator application).

This was also disturbing news for me. WebOS doesn’t have a lot of applications currently available meaning there are some massive gaps in their software library. For example there isn’t an application for WebOS that allows you to edit Microsoft Office documents. To fill in these gaps I’ve been using the Palm OS emulator as there was software released for Palm OS to do practically anything.

I’ve not had time to try this hack but I will report back on it when I do. Either way it’s great news and greatly increases the functionality of WebOS.

WebOS 2.1 Released

Good news everybody who has a Palm Pre 2 (you know that other guy and me), HP/Palm has released WebOS 2.1. It’s an over the air update meaning your device will find it and automatically notify you of its availability. Needless to say I’ve not had much time to play with it but the update doesn’t seem all that significant.

The main additions is the inclusion of voice dialing and exhibition mode. Voice dialing is pretty self-explanatory but it allows you to dial a number by holding down either volume button and then speaking the name of the person you wish to call. Exhibition mode is rather neat as it allows your Pre 2 to display information when it’s placed on a Touchstone. The information it displays is configuration about mine is currently displaying my daily agenda. It will be a bit before any developers make real use of this feature but I can imagine some cool things coming down the pipe (I know I have an idea on how to utilize it that I’ll likely be working on in the near future).

As HP/Palm aren’t big on releasing any changelogs for WebOS updates in a timely manner I’m not sure what else has been included in this update. I’m guessing not much.

iOS 4.3 Released

Last night Apple released the newest version of their iOS operating system. As it sits you can upgrade if you’re running an iPhone 3GS or GSM 4 (the CDMA iPhone 4 doesn’t get this update), iPad, third or forth generation iPod Touch, or an Apple TV. All support for the iPhone 3G appears to have been abandoned which isn’t surprising considering how Apple doesn’t really like supporting legacy products (although they seem to support their devices longer than most phone manufacturers).

So what’s changed? Most notable is Apple has now included Wi-Fi hot spot functionality… to those who have tethering plans. This allows you to turn your phone into a Wi-Fi access point. When a device connects to your iPhone it is able to use the iPhone’s data plan. Of course being you need a tethering plan (which I don’t get on AT&T since you pay by data usage you should be able to chose how you want to use your data) this feature is potentially very expensive.

Another feature is the ability to use iTunes Home Sharing. This feature simply allows your iOS device to access your iTunes library (podcasts, music, videos, etc.) if you’ve set it up to use iTunes Home Sharing. I can see this being nice if you have a media collection too large to place everything on your iOS device.

Under the hood Apple has included enhancements to Safari’s JaveScript engine, AirPlay improvements, HDMI-out capabilities (with purchase of the Apple 30-pin to HDMI adapter), and the ability to configure the iPad’s side switch to either be a mute switch or an orientation lock.

Needless to say nothing really Earth shattering was included but that is to be expected with a point release.

Xcode 4 Released

Bear with me everybody because today is going to be mostly geek news as every major company I follow has seen fit to release new versions of stuff. Apple has finally released the newest version of their integrated development environment (IDE), Xcode 4. I will say it’s a major update as practically the entire IDE has changed.

Apple seems to be moving from the separate window interface of yore to single window interfaces. Xcode 4 integrates most everything into a single window now including the console (which even using the single window interface of Xcode 3 was a separate window). Another thing Apple seen fit to do is integrate Interface Builder into Xcode. I don’t really see any upside or downside to this but it does remove an icon from my already crowded dock.

I’ve not determined if all the interface changes are for the best as I’ve only played with a tiny bit of it last night. I do find adding linked libraries to be more straight forward and I feel the debugging interface is improved. I’m still up in the air on the new way auto completion is done. Instead of simply filling in the word you’re typing with the most likely (to the IDE, probably not you) word Xcode 4 now presents a pop-up menu under what you’re typing with every potential option (think the Eclipse IDE). I’m finding the new method faster but also much more in your face.

As I said I’ve not had time to really play with it but so far I’m liking it. One thing I don’t like is the fact Apple now charges for the IDE unless you’re a registered developer (registered Mac and iOS developers still get it for free, which means I didn’t have to pay for the upgrade). They aren’t charging much, only $4.99, but it’s still a barrier for entry. An advantage of providing free developer tools is you’re more likely to get people willing to try developing software for your system. Most people don’t want to spend any money to try something they may or may not enjoy. Even Microsoft offers free version of their development tools in the form of Visual Studio Express. I haven’t a clue what made Apple decide to start charging for a previously free product.

Slow News Day

It’s a slow news day so that means I’m going to toss in some filler material. The current filler material is going to be speculation on Apple’s new iPad 2 which is going to be announced today at noon (for those in the central, and therefore only one that matters, time zone). I have a current generation iPad and like it quite a bit so some of this speculation is going to be wish list while other is just stuff I feel is rather no-duh.

First I don’t think we’re going to see a retina display on this thing. We may see a new higher resolution display but not nearly as high resolution as the current iPhone 4 screen. Why? Because it would cost too damned much money. The higher the pixel density that higher the cost when you talk screens.

There will likely be a GSM and CDMA iPad for those people who need the 3Gees on their tablets. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple had a single 3G model which worked on both Verizon and AT&T’s network, in fact that would make a lot of sense. Apple is a company that likes to have the bare minimum number of models available for each device. Having a separate AT&T and Verizon iPad 2 would be slightly confusing and it would make sense that Apple would rid themselves of the hassle.

Currently available cases for the iPad 2 almost guarantee a front and back camera. I’m betting the back mounted camera will be equal or just slightly better than the one found on the iPod Touch but will remain far less capable than the iPhone 4 camera. Likewise currently available cases point to a redesigned speaker grill.

We’re likely to see 512MB of RAM on this new device. Shocked? Didn’t think so. In fact a bump in RAM would sum up what I think the iPad 2 will be; an all around improved iPad with no real revolutionary features. I doubt we’ll see anything super ground breaking with the new iteration of the iPad simply because Apple’s style is to slowly increase the capabilities of their devices over time instead of make large jumps. I would be willing to bet money that we won’t see any 4G capabilities on the new iPad.

Thunderbolt I/O

I’m kind of a gadget whore. I love new and shiny devices and honestly the MacBook Pro line hasn’t really had anything shiny added in a few years. This year Apple finally lifted a few fingers and added something new, Thunderbolt. I should first note that Thunderbolt is the new marketing name for Intel’s LightPeak technology which doesn’t actually run on anything fiber (hence the need for a name change).

I want to talk a bit about Thunderbolt because it looks fucking awesome. Apple’s implementation uses the mini DisplayPort connector which I find a bit odd but at the same thing it’s a pretty nice sized connector so I’m not going to argue (unlike the giant plug for FireWire 800). I would say Thunderbolt is Intel’s answer to USB 3.0 but it’s really not. Thunderbolt has a maximum read and write speed of 10Gbps which is pretty damned impressive. Currently it’s only used to connect to monitors but any peripheral should be capable of plugging into a Thunderbolt port including USB 3.0 hubs and even graphics cards. How? Well underneath everything Thunderbolt uses good old PCI Express as it’s transport mechanism. This is what makes Thunderbolt more than a simple USB competitor, it can act like a faster PCI Express slot on any laptop built by somebody besides Apple.

The other nice feature of Thunderbolt is the fact devices can be plugged in sequence. This means even through this is only a single Thunderbolt port you can plug in another Thunderbolt device to the primary one much like SCSI or FireWire. This means you could have a Thunderbolt capable monitor at home with an external Thunderbolt hard drive plugged in. When you plug in the monitor both the monitor and the hard drive will start up and connect to your laptop.

Honestly Thunderbolt is pretty impressive technology to say the least. I can’t wait to have a computer with it equipped in a few years (as that’s how long it will take before any peripherals come out that use Thunderbolt anyways).

Full Motion Video on an E-Ink Display

It’s not secret that I love E-Ink displays. Comparing reading on my Kindle to reading on my iPad always comes to the same conclusion, the Kindle is far superior for reading. Not only do E-Ink displays cause less stress on the eyes but they also consume far less power. The downside of E-Ink displays is the lack of color and the slow refresh speeds. It appears as through Bookeen may have found a solution to the latter problem and have demonstrated full motion video running on an E-Ink display. Bookeen claims that the display running in this mode sucks no more power than an LCD screen… that isn’t back lit.

Before anybody bitches that it’s not in color I realize that (believe it or not I can see color). Color E-Ink displays are in the works already. If we can get E-Ink displays to the point where they look comparable to modern LCDs we could increase the battery life on our mobile devices by a good margin (the main power sucker on modern smart phones and laptops are the displays). Likewise we’d actually be able to use out device in direct sunlight. Honestly I’m all for replacing current LCD technology with E-Ink displays once the technology has fully matured.