Category: Computers, Science & Technology

So, we just talked about the 30th anniversary of the IBM PC, now, the 20th anniversary of the World Wide Wide (to be clear, the Internet itself, apart from the Web, is much older!) And, as usual, your friendly Computer Curmudgeon remembers it as though it were yesterday! Note, that the main article I link to was posted YESTERDAY as I type this!

20 years ago today, the World Wide Web opened to the public

“Today is a significant day in the history of the Internet. On 6 August 1991, exactly twenty years ago, the World Wide Web became publicly available. Its creator, the now internationally known Tim Berners-Lee, posted a short summary of the project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup and gave birth to a new technology which would fundamentally change the world as we knew it.

The World Wide Web has its foundation in work that Berners-Lee did in the 1980s at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. He had been looking for a way for physicists to share information around the world without all using the same types of hardware and software. This culminated in his 1989 paper proposing ‘A large hypertext database with typed links’.

While the initial proposal failed to gain much momentum within CERN, it was later expanded into a more concrete document proposing a World Wide Web of documents, connected via hypertext links. World Wide Web was adopted as the project’s name following rejected possibilities such as ‘The Mine of Information’ and ‘The Information Mesh‘. The May 1990 proposal described the concept of the Web as thus:

HyperText is a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will. Potentially, HyperText provides a single user-interface to many large classes of stored information such as reports, notes, data-bases, computer documentation and on-line systems help. We propose the implementation of a simple scheme to incorporate several different servers of machine-stored information already available at CERN, including an analysis of the requirements for information access needs by experiments.

The document envisaged the Web as being used for a variety of purposes, such as ‘document registration, on-line help, project documentation, news schemes and so on.’ However, British Berners-Lee and his collaborator Robert Cailliau, a Belgian engineer and computer scientist, had the foresight to avoid being too specific about its potential uses.”

Man! It was fun while it lasted! The “IE Users Are Dumber” Study trues out to be an elaborate hoax. OR, this revelation is a Microsoft plant to discredit the real study! Yeah! Maybe that’s it! Thanks to a faithful reader for forwarding this on to me!

Whew! Study was a hoax, IE users not dumb after all

“Highly publicized research that found Internet Explorer users tend to have a lower IQ than those who use other browsers, has turned out to be an elaborate hoax.

Major media outlets around the world, including CTVNews.ca, BBC, CNN and Forbes, jumped on the quirky data last week after it was released by a Vancouver-based firm calling itself ApTiquant.

It is still unclear who is responsible for the stunt, but the ApTiquant website has been updated to reflect the fact the study was a scam designed to draw attention to the flaws of IE6.

‘ApTiquant was set up in late July 2011, in order to launch a fake ‘study’ called ‘Intelligent Quotient and Browser Usage,” the website’s homepage now states.

‘The study took the IT world by storm. The main purpose behind this hoax was to create awareness about the incompatibilities of IE6, and not to insult or hurt anyone.

The research, now known to be fake, was purportedly based on online testing of 100,000 invited participants.

It claimed that users of any version of Internet Explorer tended to have a lower intelligence quotient than respondents who used Firefox, Chrome or Safari.

“From the test results, it is a clear indication that individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist change/upgrade of their browsers,’ the report suggested.

It eventually emerged that the website for the company had only been set up in the past month. Upon closer inspection the BBC reported that the images found on ApTiquant’s website had been copied from a French research firm Central Test.

The note now posted on the ApTiquant site says ApTiquant is not related to Central Test, the French company, in any way.”

So, Adobe is behind Flash. HTML 5 replaces Flash. Now Adobe is bringing out a tool to work with HTML 5 instead of Flash (or, more exactly, in addition to Flash… hummmmm…)

Adobe Edge Information

“Adobe® Edge is a new web motion and interaction design tool that allows designers to bring animated content to websites, using web standards like HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3.

Edge will be updated regularly to add new functionality, stay ahead of evolving web standards, and incorporate user feedback to provide the best functionality and experience possible. This is an early look at Edge with more capabilities to come.”

PC Magazine says: “Adobe released a preview version of Edge, an HTML5 development tool that will allow Web developers to build those ‘little beautifully designed jewels on the Web featuring animations,’ according to Devin Fernandez, Adobe Group product manager. As PCMag software analyst Michael Muchmore noted, Edge is something of an acknowledgement by the premier design software house that the Web is moving away from Flash to focus on open-standard HTML5 and its many sub-standards, which are capable of creating the same effects in a non-proprietary manner via compliant Web browsers, without a plug-in.

But in a Monday blog post, Jack Nack, principal product manager at Adobe, dismissed the notion that Edge will produce a face-off between Flash and HTML5.

‘It’s worth noting that both Dreamweaver & GoLive were pushing Web animation starting in the 90’s, that Adobe championed SVG early on, and that it has been a main contributor helping to improve jQuery and lots of other HTML/JS/CSS tech,” he wrote. “Point is, Adobe’s been driving both rich, animated HTML5 and Flash for 15 years, and the company will keep evolving both to address different customer needs.’

Also yesterday, Adobe released Expressive Web, which showcases the features and functionality available with HTML5 and CSS3. ‘Look for future Edge updates as we integrate new features over the next few months, with commercial release slated for 2012,’ Brady wrote.”

Read more: Adobe Edge Tops 50K Downloads in 24 Hours

Talk about making a guy feel OLD! I was in the computer field BEFORE the IBM PC came out… I remember getting one at work and thinking, “Wow! How cool is this!” All 4.77 mHz (NOT GHz!) of it! Sigh. So, happy 30th, PC!

The IBM PC, One Of The Most Important Milestones In Computing History, Just Turned 30 Years Old

“It was August 1981 when IBM released the Personal Computer Model 5150. Costing $1,265, it didn’t have a monitor, parallel ports or even a hard disk. To the casual observer, it was more of a box than a computer.
But it sold like crazy, even after the wild success of other revolutionary computers, like the Apple II in 1977 and the Atari 800 in 1979.

The 5150’s open architecture and use of third-party hardware and software certainly had something to do with its success, but we can’t help but feel like the over-the-top marketing campaign with a Charlie Chaplin lookalike played a role as well.

This computer was the first one to be a truly open system — it was customizable, users could install whatever they wanted and easily write their own software. Internally, the machine boasted a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 processor and a 256K RAM.

Of course these specs sound like a joke compared to modern hardware, but they were groundbreaking for their time. Impressive work, considering it was designed by a team of just 12 people working out of Florida.”

You knew that, right? Aren’t On-Line Internet surveys fun!?!

STUDY: Internet Explorer Users Are Dumber

“A research firm posted an IQ test on its Web site and then compiled the results from more than 100,000 users.

It found that there was no substantial difference between users of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

But Internet Explorer users had IQs below average.

That’s a switch from five years ago, when IQs were more or less the same across all browsers.

The company, Aptiquant, bills itself as a “psychometric consultant.” Its main business is creating tests to help businesses hire well.

Now before all you Opera users get too satisfied with yourselves, there are lots of possible reasons why IE users scored so low:

IE has about twice the installed base of any other browser, so IQs are more likely to tend toward the mean.

IE is the default browser of 95% of people who don’t know how to download and install a new browser, which drags down the average. (Mac users in this boat stick with Safari.)

People who use other browsers include a disproportionate number of computer geeks, which brings their averages up.

Online IQ tests — or IQ tests in general — are silly.

IE users really are kind of dumb.

Today is the 12th Annual celebration of System Administrator Appreciation Day! Say something nice about your System Admin!

12th Annual System Administrator Appreciation Day

“A sysadmin unpacked the server for this website from its box, installed an operating system, patched it for security, made sure the power and air conditioning was working in the server room, monitored it for stability, set up the software, and kept backups in case anything went wrong. All to serve this webpage.

A sysadmin installed the routers, laid the cables, configured the networks, set up the firewalls, and watched and guided the traffic for each hop of the network that runs over copper, fiber optic glass, and even the air itself to bring the Internet to your computer. All to make sure the webpage found its way from the server to your computer.

A sysadmin makes sure your network connection is safe, secure, open, and working. A sysadmin makes sure your computer is working in a healthy way on a healthy network. A sysadmin takes backups to guard against disaster both human and otherwise, holds the gates against security threats and crackers, and keeps the printers going no matter how many copies of the tax code someone from Accounting prints out.

A sysadmin worries about spam, viruses, spyware, but also power outages, fires and floods.

When the email server goes down at 2 AM on a Sunday, your sysadmin is paged, wakes up, and goes to work.

A sysadmin is a professional, who plans, worries, hacks, fixes, pushes, advocates, protects and creates good computer networks, to get you your data, to help you do work — to bring the potential of computing ever closer to reality.

So if you can read this, thank your sysadmin — and know he or she is only one of dozens or possibly hundreds whose work brings you the email from your aunt on the West Coast, the instant message from your son at college, the free phone call from the friend in Australia, and this webpage.”

I got an email today. It had a subject line of: Computer Operator II Needed in Winston-Salem, NC. Okay. I read the message. The recruiter said that I might be interested in a computer operator position. There was a requirement of at least a Bachelors degree. I started laughing… best laugh of the day… then, I was perplexed. Should I let her know how far off the mark she was with her email? What if she offered it to other high end computer professionals… so, I responded as below:

“Your message gave me a good laugh! Have you even read my resume? I have over 30 years of system admin experience and I’m professionally certified in VMware, Citrix, and web server administration… and you send me a computer operator position? Maybe back in 1984, but I am a little further down the road by now. I also have two doctorates, a Ph.D and and ND; so the Bachelors degree preference should be no problem.

I mention it only because you might send a similar message to someone with a less developed sense of humor. BTW, I am NOT looking for work. Thanks for thinking of me, though! ”

So, obviously, I was jabbing a bit… but what do you think? Too much?

Gotta love this! Microsoft buying Linux support! How cool is that?!?!

Microsoft extends SUSE deal, agrees to buy another $100M in Linux support

“Linux vendor Novell Inc. is no longer a standalone company, but Microsoft today announced an agreement with its successor, Attachmate’s SUSE unit, to extend by four years the technology collaboration agreement and controversial patent protection deal that the companies announced nearly five years ago.

As part of the extended agreement, Microsoft agreed to spend an additional $100 million on support certificates for SUSE Linux Enterprise, as a way of helping customers run both Windows and Linux servers. Microsoft and SUSE say their collaboration has served more than 725 customers worldwide to date.

Under their pact, the companies agreed to not to sue each other’s customers for patent violations. That provision was criticized in the open-source community as an implicit concession by Novell that Linux violates Microsoft’s patents, although Novell executives said repeatedly that wasn’t the case.”

Are you “biting?” Google+ pulled in 20 million users in three weeks. There does seems to be “a buzz!” I have a Google+ account, but haven’t really played with it much yet. We’ll see. I was a reluctant Facebook user, and I still only check it occasionally, but it is a bit more “comfortable” at this point… but as with everything else, there is always a “learning curve.” So, we’ll see! Maybe I will drink the Google Kool-Aid yet!

IPTV as an industry is heating up! Now there is a rumor that Apple may be negotiating to buy Hulu!

Apple May Bid for Hulu Online Video Service

“Apple Inc. (AAPL), with $76.2 billion in cash and securities on its books, is considering making a bid for the Hulu online video service, two people with knowledge of the auction said.

Apple, the world’s second-most-valuable company, is in early talks that may lead to an offer for Hulu, said the people, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

Hulu would give Apple a new subscription service and represent a possible challenge to Netflix Inc. (NFLX) Hulu’s media- company owners, Walt Disney Co. (DIS), News Corp. (NWSA) and Comcast Corp. (CMCSA)’s NBC Universal, are offering suitors a five-year extension of program rights, including two years of exclusive access, people familiar with the matter said earlier this week.

‘Part of the ecosystem of Apple’s future is to include more video,’ said Scott Sutherland, Wedbush Securities Inc. analyst in San Francisco who recommends buying the stock. ‘It’s something they are focused on.’

Meredith Kendall, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles-based Hulu, declined to comment, as did Tom Neumayr, a spokesman for Cupertino, California-based Apple.

Hulu’s price tag could exceed $2 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and SNL Kagan.”

Although, Peter Kafka at “All Things D” seems to disagree with this rumor!

Don’t Hold Your Breath on That Apple Hulu Deal

He says that even though Apple is considering it, others are more likely buyers:

“And there are still some smart folks who think the pool of real bidders for the site may end up being very, very shallow. A quick guide to some of the usual suspects:

Apple could certainly afford to buy Hulu at any price, since its ever-growing cash pile is now at $76 billion. And the company has already shown an interest in the subscription TV business that Hulu Plus sells — recall its efforts to cobble together a $30-a-month video service. But the free ad-supported business that makes up Hulu’s core is pretty alien to Apple.

Industry folks I talk to think Google would love to get its hands on Hulu, and none of them think the company will make an offer. The search giant is already facing a wide-ranging antitrust probe, and adding an exclusive deal for three of the four broadcast TV guys to the mix seems like a nonstarter.

Amazon is a logical buyer: Adding Hulu would make a lot of sense for a company that’s trying to jump-start its online video business. The problem here is that content sellers say that Amazon seems wholly uninterested in paying anything close to a premium for online video.

Lots of people in and outside of Yahoo would like Carol Bartz to buy Hulu, so this one seems most logical. The question is whether Yahoo’s board will approve what would be a Hail Mary deal.

Other possible homes for the site include Verizon and AT&T, as well as Liberty Media/DirectTV. The last one has particular appeal to some folks I talk to, who see Hulu as a natural extension of the satellite TV company’s existing business plan.”