The content on this site is my own and does not necessarily represent my employer’s positions, strategies or opinions.
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How to Install Apps With Ubuntu Software Center – PCWorld Business Center
“The latest release of Ubuntu 10.04, code-named Lucid Lynx, has a somewhat revamped user interface. One of the most significant changes is the Software Center, which provides a simple, user-friendly way to find and install your choice of thousands of free, open source apps. While there are many ways to install apps in Ubuntu 10.04, the easiest way is to click Applications from the top-left panel and select Ubuntu Software Center.”
tags: ubuntu
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Writer Neal Stephenson unveils his digital novel The Mongoliad | VentureBeat
“Author Neal Stephenson has been credited for inspiring today’s virtual world startups with his novel Snow Crash. Now he’s launching a startup himself: Subutai, where he is co-founder and chairman.
The company, based in Seattle and San Francisco, has developed what it calls the PULP platform for creating digital novels. The core of the experience is still a text novel, but authors can add additional material like background articles, images, music, and video. There are also social features that allow readers to create their own profiles, earn badges for activity on the site or in the application, and interact with other readers.”
tags: stephenson book
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In Search of the Right Case to Protect the iPad – NYTimes.com
“While the iPad’s aesthetics are exemplary, its built-in protection is a bit spare, especially when it comes to its 9.5-inch screen. Transporting the iPad can sometimes resemble a trip home from the grocery store with a dozen really expensive eggs.
But fear not, iPad owners: thousands of armed-guard-like cases are available to protect your frangible computing device. ”
tags: ipad
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iPad to get iOS 4.2 in November | Crave – CNET
“During Apple’s music event, Steve Jobs gave a brief preview of iOS 4.2, the iOS update that will finally bring the iPad up to speed. In November, the update will finally bring the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad up to the same iOS version, and it will also bring Game Center to the iPad.”
tags: ipad
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The End of the Virtual World — THE Journal
“Teachers are looking for alternatives as Linden Lab prepares to close down the Teen Grid–a region of the immersive virtual world Second Life designed just for teenagers and their education institutions. Where will all those teen avatars wind up? And is there an upside for those who’ve spent years developing educational resources on the proprietary platform?”
tags: second-life teen virtual-world
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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IBM, open source community aim to improve Internet accessibility | ZDNet
“IBM and groups like the OpenAjax Alliance are launching a few initiatives to make the Internet more accessible to folks with mobility or sensory disabilities.
The overarching theme here is that the Internet needs voice Web development and other interfaces to address 750 million people around the world with disabilities and another 900 million illiterate folks. The elderly as well as people with disabilities have largely had to sit out the Web 2.0 advances such as social networking.”
tags: ibm open-source accessibility
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What’s New in VERDE 4.2 VDI/Desktop Management Solution
“iVERDE™ Built on the open-source iDesktop™ client, iVERDE allows iPad and iPhone users to access VERDE Windows 7, Windows XP and Linux desktops. iVERDE is fully integrated with the VERDE distributed connection broker and user console, providing a user experience identical to any other VERDE client. iVERDE has been contributed to the open-source community under the GPL license, and is available through Apple’s AppsStore.”
tags: verde virtual-bridges
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Open source WordPress powering CBSNewYork.com on NewscastStudio Blog
“The use of WordPress in this case is significant because it represents one of the highest profile installations of the free, open source software. Long a favorite with smaller scale Web sites and blogs, the software was originally developed for bloggers but has expanded its capabilities to include full-scale Web site content management.”
tags: wordpress open-source
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Google Wave Washed Out — InformationWeek
“Though loudly cheered by developers when it was introduced at the 2009 Google I/O developer conference, Wave has just not been widely used. Despite a year-long beta period, no one really succeeded in finding a compelling use for the technology. It found fans as a way to interact during conferences and as a real-time collaboration tool, but these business use cases never translated into popular appeal. “
tags: google wave
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Historic Tours and Charters – Blue Mountain Lake, NY
 “Our two hour scenic boat cruise crosses three beautiful lakes: Blue Mountain, Eagle and Utowana. The Osprey and Neenykin, vintage 1916 launches, along with the 40′ Towahloondah perfectly complement the historical narrative spun by experienced guides. In the late 1800s, Blue Mountain Lake attracted the very wealthiest families in America as a great retreat; some of their great camps are still visible from the water. Behind the scenes, the servants and lumberjacks of the area lead to many interesting stories that give this region its rich cultural heritage. Our tour features the camps, hotels, steamboats, workers, and players in the late 1800s.”
tags: historic tours adirondacks ny
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Poll: Does the type of open source license matter to you? | Programming and Development | TechRepublic.com
“When you are evaluating an open source development tool, how important is the kind of license it uses to you? Let us know by answering this poll question.”
tags: linux open-source poll
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Ubuntu 10.10’s New File System: btrfs | WorksWithU
“Between ext3, ext4, reiserfs and others, Ubuntu has no shortage of file systems to choose from when installing a new system. And those options are set to become yet more numerous in Ubuntu 10.10, which will introduce support for btrfs. Wondering what this new file system is all about and why it might matter to you? Read on for an introduction.
Introduced last year, btrfs is a new file system intended to address the shortcomings in ext4, which is currently the default choice for Ubuntu and most other Linux distributions. While ext4 is pretty robust and efficient, it lacks some advanced features, such as support for snapshots and advanced scalability, that are particularly important in the enterprise environment.”
tags: linux ubuntu btrfs ext4
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A Web Designer’s Guide to Linux Fonts
“Linux users might make up a small part of your user base, but they’re technologically savvy, engaged, and often quite vocal. You’ll win some well-earned appreciation and support by serving your Linux users’ needs in allowing them to see your site in “their” fonts. Besides, it’s the right thing to do.”
tags: linux fonts typography
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Mark Shuttleworth » Blog Archive » Healing old wounds
“We should start every discussion in free software with a mutual reminder of the fact that we have far more in common than we have differences, that individual successes enrich all of us far more in our open commons-based economy than they would in a traditional proprietary one, that it’s better for us to find a way to encourage others to continue to participate even if they aren’t necessarily chasing exactly the same bugs that we are, than to chastise them for thinking differently.”
tags: shuttleworth ubuntu linux open-source
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Google Watch – Bing – Google Neutralizes Microsoft in Search By Aping Bing
“Bing can keep pumping out new features, and Google can keep copying them. This deprives Bing of claiming it offers something Google doesn’t.
With Google matching Bing’s feature sets, there is no practical differentiator. That’s a huge competitive advantage for Google and a big reason why Bing will never beat the Google gorilla.
Of course, Google won’t beat Facebook in the social arena. Maybe Facebook and Microsoft should just get together and become more cozy than a simple search integration.”
tags: google bing microsoft
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What Microsoft isn’t saying about its iPad compete strategy | ZDNet
“Bottom line: “WinPads” are still about a year away, I’m predicting. Expect Microsoft execs to downplay the coming Windows Embedded Compact slates and start acknowledging that this year’s Windows 7 slates are business-centric devices. Instead of risking another Kin debaucle (launching then pulling a misguided product at great cost), Microsoft is rethinking its answer to the iPad. Better late than lame….”
tags: microsoft apple ipad slate
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Now that the iPad has been out for about 3 months and I have had mine for a bit longer than 2 months, I’m going to revisit math software on the iPad. I previously did a couple of blog entries on the subject:
What is the state of math software available in the Apple App Store for the iPad?
Here’s my lightning review of most of the titles: pretty bad.
I’ll break the apps down into categories and highlight several I think are worthwhile:
- Math apps for teaching really little children how to do simple arithmetic. I’ll admit I haven’t looked at all of them, but make sure you ask your child if he or she thinks the app is inane before you purchase it.
 Calculators, lots and lots of calculators. Too many calculators. Some of these fall under the sub (or super?) category of “my first iPad app.” Since Apple provides a calculator for the iPhone but not for the iPad, evidently tens of people think this is a huge market opportunity. There’s only so much you can do with a calculator. I use the Calculator HD for iPad and I think it’s pretty elegant and worth the $.99.If you are an HP or TI calculator aficionado you have several choices, so look around. You have quite a few options if you don’t want to pay anything, so I suggest you start by trying out several of the freebies first. You’ll develop criteria pretty quickly for what is junk and what isn’t.- Limited apps that do simple high school math like computing greatest common divisors or solving some simultaneous equations. You need a whole lot of these to cover the basic algebraic operations. I can’t imagine many of these took too long to write.
 Fancy calculators with alternative user interfaces. My choice in this category is Math Sheet. It’s not quite perfect: I don’t know how to use a previous result in a later calculation and it doesn’t support big, arbitrary precision integers. It uses the iPad screen real estate well and it’s free.- Really nice graphing apps. These really give you insight into graphs, especially 3D ones. My favorite is Quick Graph for $1.99. Here’s some advice from a former mathematician and math teacher: you really, really need to understand equations and their graphs to do well in pre-calculus and calculus. Don’t try to shortcut and learn the minimum necessary. If you learn it well, your geometric intuition will help your algebraic and analytical problem solving, and vice-versa.
- Kitchen sinks. These are ports of desktop apps to the iPad. They are often expensive because the authors, I would guess, are afraid of cannibalizing their desktop markets. I suspect they will get subsetted and will change to better use the iPad user interface if they are to survive.
- Numbers. This is a mini version of the Apple iWork spreadsheet for $9.99. If you don’t expect it to do everything its older and bigger sibling can do, I think you’ll be impressed. Check out the sample new spreadsheet documents to see its power.
I’m still waiting for an iPad version of Maple or Mathematica. Having been part of a team that built a computer algebra system, I know it will be a lot of work to bring a credible one to the iPad. As with many apps, they will really need to take advantage of the multitouch interface. Otherwise they might just look like today’s batch of kitchen sink apps, see above.
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What the hell is going on at Microsoft? | ZDNet
“The sudden rise and fall of the Kin is a clear pointer to the fact that Microsoft has no clear mobile strategy. The company is flailing wildly, throwing money about like it’s a solution to everything. It isn’t. the phrase that lingers in my head to describe Microsoft’s current mobile plan is “here today, gone tomorrow …”.”
tags: microsoft kin
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Wired Magazine App Updated, Issue Price Reduced :: App Advice
“Conde Nast Digital has released yesterday a new issue of its Wired Magazine app for the iPad and in the process has revamped a bit its approach to tablet magazines. When the first Wired Magazine app was released in May for $4.99, it contained only the June electronic issue of the technology magazine. The new app however is free and contains previews of past and current issues of the magazine and will be updated monthly. Now users can determine which issues to purchase based on their preferences.”
tags: magazine wired iPhone
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451 CAOS Theory » While lies beyond the open core debate?
“Open source software monitoring and management services delivered as part of a subscription package are not uncommon. Could it be that the key to differentiation in the long-term is not products or services, but data? That’s one possibility. What are the others?”
tags: open-source
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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I was wrong about Apple iPad | Betanews
“The world does need an Apple tablet — and perhaps others — contrary to what I asserted in late January. Gloaters will circle my admission like vultures pecking a carcass, but that’s the penalty for being wrong. Yes, I was wrong. I admit it.”
tags: ipad, apple
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Tablet-makers adapting to iPad’s popularity
“To compete, the biggest PC makers are looking beyond Windows. Dell, the third-largest manufacturer, is turning to Google Inc.’s Android operating system and ARM Holdings-designed chips for one of its tablets. Hewlett-Packard, the industry’s leader, acquired Palm Inc. to gain its own operating system for portable devices.
Demand for the Windows tablets currently sold by Hewlett-Packard and Dell has been lackluster, according to IDC. Before the iPad went on sale this year, the researcher had been forecasting that sales of tablets would decline to less than 1 percent of the overall PC market in the United States. IDC has predicted total shipments of just 523,000 tablets.”
tags: tablet, ipad, windows, microsoft
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Google Earth Arrives for IPad – PCWorld Business Center
“Flying across the world like a virtual Superman just got a little more portable and touchable, as Google has updated Google Earth in the App Store with an iPad version.”
tags: google, earth, ipad
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Microsoft Office Web Apps: Limited, mediocre, dismal | Applications – InfoWorld
“If you’re actively searching for an alternative to Microsoft Office lock-in, however, don’t be distracted by the Office Web Apps. If you can deal with their primitive feature set, they may save you the cost of a desktop Office 2010 installation, but they do nothing to address the real issues at stake.”
tags: microsoft, office, web
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Novell Celebrates 10 Years of Market Leadership with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for IBM System z
“In recognition of the 10 year anniversary of Linux* on IBM System z*, Novell today announced customer adoption, open source product innovation and ISV and partner support of SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server for IBM* System z. As the market leader for Linux on System z, Novell is the only operating system vendor to support Linux on IBM mainframe servers for its entire 10 year history and continues to capture market share with new customers and channel partners. Since 2000, when SUSE Linux Enterprise Server became the first commercially-available enterprise Linux distribution for IBM System z mainframes, Novell has delivered Linux-based mainframe solutions that customers across all industries can deploy to expand their critical applications and workloads.”
tags: novell, linux, ibm, suse
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Barnes & Noble offers free coffee to promote in-store e-reading – Computerworld
“Free coffee is Barnes & Noble’s latest means of inducing customers to use its BN e-reader software in various devices, including the retailer’s own Nook, while inside its stores.
During the limited promotion period, customers who show a Barnes & Noble cafe server an open e-book on any device running the BN software can get one free tall cup of coffee. The eligible devices include the Nook along with iPads, iPhones, iPod touches, BlackBerries or HTC HD2 devices and portable Mac or Windows computers.”
tags: ebook, coffee
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Why I Sold Zappos
“Tony Hsieh built his online shoe retailer into an e-commerce powerhouse. But with credit tightening and investors eyeing the exits, Hsieh was forced to ask: Was selling Zappos really the only way to save it?”
tags: zappos, retail, amazon
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
I’ve now had my Apple iPad for a bit more than a month, so I thought I would share some of my thoughts on what I think of it and how my perception of it has changed during that time. I’ve written before about my experience after almost two weeks, but now I’ve had more time to kick the tires.
- I’m glad I opted for 3G. While I do use the iPad at home quite a bit, bringing it along with me when I travel or even run around town is extra convenient because I have Internet access. While coverage is not 100%, I usually don’t have to think about whether I can get onto the Web.
- I’m glad I opted for 64Gb. While this did push the price up, I already have more than 32Gb of material on the device, and it’s been nice not to have to edit down my music collection.
- When I first got the iPad, it brought in all the apps I had installed on my iPhone. I then deleted most of the apps that weren’t necessary, but I’ve gotten much more aggressive lately about either deleting the iPhone apps or looking for bigger, or “HD,” versions. I typically have my iPhone with me when I have the iPad, so there’s no need to be redundant other than convenience.
- One annoyance is that similar iPad apps are usually more expensive than their iPhone counterparts. I also suspect some of the iPhone app developers have gone away because some iPhone apps that would have reasonable iPad editions have still not materialized.
- I’ve managed to keep to one screen of apps that are especially good when I travel, though the mix has changed.
- Similarly, I have a screen’s worth of games, though I delete them if 1) I don’t play them and 2) I didn’t pay for them. I am willing to keep around games that my son plays. Scrabble and, of course, Solitaire are excellent time killers.
- My most recent new screen of apps is devoted to music especially, for some reason, guitar tuners. The coolest new one I’ve found is PolyTune. This allows you to tune all six guitar strings at one time.
- I’ve become much more comfortable with using the iPad as an ebook reader. I have several nonfiction books and I’m reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I recommend that a good way to get adjusted to reading a book on a device is to get a book you really want to read, a real page-turner. This may seem obvious, but otherwise you’ll just collect ebooks that you want to have versus want to read.
- I simply don’t miss Adobe Flash on the device. Sure, I’ve run into a few websites that use it, but I’ve always been able to find alternatives to getting the information I wanted. This is not a comment on the Apple/Adobe debate, just an observation.
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Ballmer says Windows will shame iPad • The Register
“It was a standard Ballmer-and-Microsoft defensive play on the PC’s place in the future of technology, a defense that conflates the idea of the computer with machines that run Windows.
And when it comes to tablets, Microsoft tried and failed under co-founder Bill Gates to rally OEMs on new devices running Windows. Tablets running Windows saw limited uptake, and only in vertical sectors. The iPad is going where Windows failed: into general consumer and business users’ hands.”
tags: windows, ipad, ballmer, apple
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Digital Self-Publishing Shakes Up Traditional Book Industry – WSJ.com
“Much as blogs have bitten into the news business and YouTube has challenged television, digital self-publishing is creating a powerful new niche in books that’s threatening the traditional industry. Once derided as “vanity” titles by the publishing establishment, self-published books suddenly are able to thrive by circumventing the establishment.”
tags: publishing, ebook
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New York State Senate – Drupal Module Reviews and Ratings
“This collection of Drupal modules powers the website of the New York State Senate and is available as-is for use and adaptation by anyone who wishes to build a public-facing website for government or other agencies.”
tags: drupal, politics
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CiviCRM | CiviCRM Community Site
“CiviCRM is a free, libre and open source software constituent relationship management solution. CiviCRM is web-based, internationalized, and designed specifically to meet the needs of advocacy, non-profit and non-governmental groups. Integration with both Drupal and Joomla! content management systems gives you the tools to connect, communicate and activate your supporters and constituents.”
tags: opensource, crm, drupal, cms, civicrm
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How to get rejected from the App Store | Developer World – InfoWorld
“So let’s try to tally the score. There’s no guarantee that anyone’s app will be accepted, but as near as I can tell, here are a few things you can do to get you booted off the App Store”
tags: apple, iphone
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iPhoneDevCon – San Diego
“Software development for Apple’s mobile platforms is hot hot hot. With more than 50 million iPhones sold, along with 35 million iPod touch devices and hundreds of thousands of iPads, there are opportunities for every developer, every marketer, every entrepreneur, every ISV and every enterprise IT professional.
Come to iPhone/iPad DevCon to learn how to succeed with your mobile apps development, deployment and marketing.”
tags: iphonedevcon, iphone, ipad, apple, conference
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Converting ODF to ePub
“With ODFToEPub everyone can write an e-book with full control over how it will look. All you need is a word processor that can produce a document in a format suitable for OpenOffice.”
tags: odf, ePub
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Digg is Deadd – Website Magazine – Website Magazine
“It was a good run, Digg.com. You certainly had a great idea and funneled plenty of Web traffic to opportunitstic and manipulative publishers.
Alas, the run is over. And it’s not coming back.”
tags: digg
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How to avoid being rude when using your iPad – CNN.com
“The iPad from Apple is the latest member of a new, multi-use generation of technology. It’s a book, it’s e-mail, it’s your social network or your office, it’s your music and your photos plus the apps for all of that.
And the more ways we can use a device, the more we’ll want to take a look at how using it affects those around us.”
tags: ipad, apple
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Comcast to Make Your IPad a Giant Remote – PCWorld Business Center
“Judging from the press release, “remote” may be a bit of a misnomer for this app, considering the slew of features it comes with. In addition to controlling your TV viewing experience, Xfinity allows you to share your favourite shows with your friends and invite them to watch them in real time, thus adding a whole new social dimension to your living room entertainment experience.”
tags: ipad, comcast, remote
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Canceling a TV show: The network’s POV – Boing Boing
“Canceled shows are one of the most aggravating aspects of TV. You check out a new series, watch for 5 or 10 or 13 episodes, fall in love with the characters and the story, and then suddenly some faceless jerk executive in a suit who never cared about the show cancels it. Argh!
That’s the general perception anyway. From my side of the table things tend to look a little different. Shows are never canceled blithely.”
tags: tv
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Four indie games to go open source – The H Open Source: News and Features
“Following the success of the recent Humble Indie Bundle offer, four of the five indie games developers have announced that they will be open sourcing their games and one has already done so. Through the bundle offer, which went on sale just over a week ago, anyone can purchase World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru, and Penumbra Overture as a package for Windows, Mac OS X or Linux for any price they want, with a portion of the proceeds being donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Child’s Play Charity.”
tags: games, indie, open-source
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[Phoronix] It’s Official: Valve Releasing Steam, Source Engine For Linux!
“Valve Corporation has today rolled out their Steam Mac OS X client to the general public and confirmed something we have been reporting for two years: the Steam content delivery platform and Source Engine are coming to Linux. This news is coming days after we discovered proof in Steam’s Mac OS X Client of Linux support and subsequently found more Linux references and even the unreleased Steam Linux client. The day has finally come and Linux gamers around the world have a reason to rejoice, as this is the biggest news for the Linux gaming community that sees very few tier-one titles.”
tags: steam, linux, mac, games
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Packing Tips From Professional Travelers – NYTimes.com
“NOW that nearly every airline is charging baggage fees, travelers are motivated to pack as efficiently as possible. And who knows more about packing than professional flight crews? In interviews with a dozen flight attendants and pilots, one theme emerged: to pare down and still have everything needed at the destination, think strategically.”
tags: travel, packing, howto
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Twelve days ago I got a new iPad with WiFi and 3G and promptly took it on a one week business trip to Europe. Generally, I think it lived up to its hype and is quite elegant. I very much like the choice of apps and I’m excited about what the changes to the UI will mean to software and the industry. Coupled with the upcoming tablets based on open source, I think competition will drive some real innovation in this space.
There are two areas where I repeatedly found myself thinking that the tablet was less convenient than a laptop: multitasking and text editing for my blog.
It is well known that the iPad does not do multitasking in general, though the Apple apps can do it. This means that generally when you move from one app to another, the first saves state and shuts down. When you want to go back to that first one, it restarts and lets you reload your data. This is not fast nor convenient, and gets tiresome quickly. I don’t mind the one-app-per-screen rule, but the slow context shifting hurts productivity. Better multitasking will come later this year, though it will not be the same as we used to on modern operating systems like Linux or OS X.
The second area, text editing, is just awkward. When I create a blog entry I often include links, lists, and some special formatting. This involves selecting text, copying, opening forms, pasting, and so forth. Copying text from one app to another can be slow because of the multitasking, but the general browser-based interfaces such as the WordPress admin and editing panels have been tuned for mice and full keyboards, not fingers. Coupled with not being able to use social bookmarking sites like Diigo in an easy way means that I won’t be doing much on my iPad for my blog for some time, other than the really easy things like approving comments.
Things I do like are the interfaces for music, App Store, video, the Kindle App, maps, and some games like Scrabble. Using a browser with a screen that’s big enough to see a lot of the page is a big improvement over the iPhone. Safari on the iPad needs tabs, again for speed of switching.
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iPad Templates and Stencils – Emily Chang – Designer
“While consumers await the arrival of the first generation iPad on April 3, designers and developers have been working on apps in anticipation.
Here’s a list of free iPad templates and stencils that we’ve been using at Ideacodes to get you started”
tags: ipad, templates, stencil
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Chrome continues surge as IE drops below 60% market share
“Remember back when Firefox hit version 1.0 and over 90 percent of the Internet used Internet Explorer? As of April, fewer than 6 out of 10 people now use Internet Explorer. The browser trends that we’ve noted over the past several months are continuing with no sign of alteration: IE continues to slip, Firefox and Opera are fairly static, Safari is very slowly moving forward, and Chrome is pushing ahead at breakneck speeds.”
tags: chrome, ie, firefox
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Gamers Mad at Sony for Yanking PS3’s Linux Compatibility
“A group of Linux users has filed suit against Sony, upset about the company yanking Linux capability from its PlayStation 3 (PS3) game console.
When PS3 made its debut in 2006, it gave users the option to run a so-called alternate operating system, something that couldn’t be said of Nintendo Wii or Xbox. The “Install Other OS” feature was popular among gamers who used Linux, the Unix operating system that is free to download.
But a software update released on April 1 neutered the option, labeling it a security risk. Although the update was technically optional, gamers who failed to install it would no longer be able to watch BluRay movies, play new games, or download copyright-protected videos from a central server.”
tags: linux, sony, ps3
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Providing Leadership on Standards to Address National Challenges | The White House
“To this end, I am joining my colleagues from the Office of Management and Budget—Vivek Kundra, U.S. Chief Information Officer, and Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs—in establishing a Subcommittee on Standards under the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Technology.”
tags: standards, obama, government
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Warcraft on the iPad «
“World of Warcraft steaming to an iPad from Gaikai server over regular Wifi.”
tags: warcraft, ipad
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Can the iPad work for me as a viable device for reading certain kinds of books? What are the characteristics of such books?
I sat out the first wave of iPad shipments in order to get an early birthday present of an iPad with both WiFi and 3G. I travel for business a lot, and I wanted to have 3G support so I could have more ubiquitous connectivity. I received the device late in the afternoon this last Friday. Earlier that day I had gotten a root canal, so it was a good excuse to think about something else.
Friday evening and Saturday morning were spent installing and organizing apps for the iPad. When I first registered the device in iTunes, it copied down all my iPhone apps. I then went through and deleted the ones I didn’t want or need on the bigger iPad, and then looked for newer editions of my favorite apps that took advantage of the larger screen. I splurged for a few new apps like Pages, Keynote, Scrabble, Pinball, and Plants vs. Zombies.
Oddly enough, some of the iPhone apps like Calculator and Weather do not come with the iPad, though there are several good substitutes. For the latter I went with WeatherBug. I also downloaded the Apple iBooks and the Amazon Kindle e-book reader apps.
I have never been much impressed the Kindle device itself, and whatever it is going to turn into, it is now a mono-function piece of hardware. I don’t like DRM for books, much less music, but at least Amazon allows you to read Kindle content on an actual Kindle device, plus iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Mac, and Windows. The iBooks app only works on the iPad and has significantly fewer books in its catalog than does Amazon.
I very much like real books, but there are some kinds that would serve me better in electronic form. Characteristics of these are:
- Very heavy books that I would read while I was traveling but can’t afford the extra poundage in my backpack.
- Books whose content is likely to become obsolete or at least somewhat out of date within two or three years.
- Books that are most useful while I am away from the house.
- Books that I would normally buy in paperback form for a one-time read that come out earlier in electronic form.
With these points in mind, I’ve now bought or obtained the following books as part of an experiment. Will I read them? Will they be useful in their electronic forms? Will I later have reason to to want the paper version? Were they worth the money in electronic form?
My plan was to get one of several different kinds of books and try to answer these questions. It’s too soon to tell how the experiment will turn out.
- Blackout by Connie Willis. This is a science fiction book that was not available in paperback when I book the e-book. In the last year I read two other books by Willis as part of my plan to work through the Hugo and Nebula award winning novels.
- The Power of Pull by John Seely Brown, Lang Davison, and John Hagel III. This is a new business book by well regarded authors. I’m not a big fan of business books and they usually get packed up and put in the attic to make room for other books. Maybe I’ll read this one if I don’t need to lug it around. (I can give no greater endorsement yet since I’m only in the Introduction.)
- Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, Third edition by Aaron Hillegass. Very heavy book, likely to be replaced within a few years. I’ll need this if I ever get around to writing an iPad app.
- German Demystified by Ed Swick. I took a year of German in college in the mid-70s and I only remember a bit of it when I travel to Germany on business. Maybe having it with me will encourage me to work through it, and at least I’ll have the material with me when I go abroad.
- Music Theory for Guitarists: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask by Tom Kolb. I already own this book in paper, but it is in a large format and a bit heavy, so I’ll see if the e-book version works. It’s excellent in all forms. (Also see my Guitar Reading List.)
- Pride and Prejudice Enriched E-book by Jane Austen, because evidently everyone needs to have an e-book version of this classic. This has some extra formatting and is not just a text dump of a book that is out of copyright. It cost about $3.
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This is out of copyright and was free. There are thousands of free older books out there, many courtesy of Project Gutenberg. Note that quite a few have not been well reformatted for e-books, so do check them out first to ensure that they have tables of contents with links and so forth.
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AppShopper.com » Blog Archive » Number Crunching: Calculator Apps for iPad
“As we mentioned in last week’s article on iPad weather apps, the iPad does not come with all of the same apps as the iPhone out of the box. Why? If rumors are to be believed, these apps were left off the iPad because their scaled-up designs for the iPad’s larger screen were personally rejected by Steve Jobs. Whatever the reason, new iPads don’t offer an easy way for users to calculate much at all fresh out of the box. We’ve found a few apps to fill this gap.”
tags: ipad
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A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects – Software Freedom Law Center
“Our intended audience for this Primer is any person interested in a basic understanding of the legal issues that impact FOSS development and distribution. In particular, this Primer, like most of our other public work at SFLC, is addressed to two constituencies. First, we provide creative, productive hackers insight on how to interact with the legal system—insofar as it affects the projects they work on—with a minimum of cost, fuss and risk. Second, we present a starting point for lawyers and risk managers for thinking about the particular, at times counter-intuitive, logic of software freedom. While these are the primary audiences we intend to reach, we hope others will benefit from this Primer as well, and we have purposefully given it a non-lawyer style of communication (for example, by intentionally omitting dense citation of judicial or other legal authority that is the hallmark of lawyers writing for lawyers).”
tags: open-source, law
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Ubuntu 10.04: Never a better time to switch | Education IT | ZDNet.com
“However, there are probably plenty of places where the latest and greatest (and it really is great) release from Canonical can save you money and hassle in the long run.”
tags: ubuntu, linux
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The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash – Charlie’s Diary
“The PC revolution is almost coming to an end, and everyone’s trying to work out a strategy for surviving the aftermath.”
tags: apple, flash, adobe, wifi
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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“Experiences with Keynote and the iPad VGA connector: not so good” from The Business Blog at Intuitive.com
“Not that great, and certainly Keynote worked, but it was surprisingly crude and simplistic compared to the great experience of a two-monitor setup for Keynote on the Mac itself.”
tags: ipad, keynote
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Jobs: Why Apple banned Flash from the iPhone | Deep Tech – CNET News
“In a rare open letter published Thursday, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has detailed the technological reasons why his company refuses to let Adobe Systems’ Flash Player onto the iPhone: he thinks it’s a relic, not the future.”
tags: apple, jobs, flash
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How to Find Open Source Software » Sos open source
Good collection of strategies for finding that open source project you need or with which you want to get involved.
tags: open-source
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New York Yankees: Not the Most Hated Team in Baseball – WSJ.com
“Contrary to popular belief, the Yankees are only the fifth-most despised team in the majors, according to an Internet algorithm built by Nielsen Co. that analyzes how people feel about certain things.”
tags: baseball, yankees
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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IBM, Dell Tout Strengths of Their Server Platforms – IT Infrastructure from eWeek
“For their part, IBM officials said since IBM’s Migration Factory program began four years ago, almost 2,700 businesses have migrated their workloads onto IBM servers and storage. Most have come from high-end HP and Oracle/Sun customers, with 95 and 117 customers, respectively, moving in 2010 so far.”
tags: ibm, dell, oracle, hp, sun, server
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iPad ban rumors nixed at Cornell, Princeton, GWU | Apple – CNET News
“However, iPad owners at all three–Cornell, Princeton, and George Washington universities–have faced varying degrees of connectivity issues. CNET contacted all three institutions, and they all categorically denied that the iPad was ever banned on their campuses.”
tags: ipad, apple
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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Sos open source
“What is SOS Open Source? SOS Open Source is an automated methodology to to qualify and select open source software.
What is SOS Open Source aimed for? SOS Open Source returns a score for each open source candidates, based on strength (stable, mature and backed by a viable community), level of support (either by a community or vendors) and promise of evolution (have readable and maintainable code).”
tags: open-source
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Ditch the Biz Plan, Buy a Lottery Ticket
“Hardly a day goes by when I don’t have a rookie entrepreneur ask for advice on raising money from VCs. They usually have a fancy-looking business plan with detailed spreadsheets showing how their company will be worth billions by capturing just 1% of a market. All they need is some financing, and they’ll take the world by storm. My advice is always the same: ditch the business plan, and buy a lottery ticket. Your odds are better, and you’ll suffer less stress.”
tags: startup
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Newspapers on the iPad: Surprisingly Good | News & Opinion | PCMag.com
“I tried reading papers on the Kindle a while back, and I didn’t find the experience to be particularly compelling. I missed the graphics and navigation aids I expected with the physical papers. But on the iPad, the applications look a lot better, and in general, reading the papers that way has been a great experience.”
tags: ipad
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20 best iPad games | iPad Atlas – CNET Reviews
“Wondering what games to buy for your new iPad? Well, this early in the product’s life, it’s actually pretty hard to sort the really good stuff from the just decent stuff, particularly with the prices for many games being so much higher than their iPhone counterparts. But we took a shot at putting together a list of top titles that we feel meet the criteria for a good iPad game.”
tags: ipad, games
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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