Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon
Join Dr. Bill as he examines the wild and wacky world of the web, computers, and all things geeky! Hot Tech Tips, Tech News, and Geek Culture are examined… with plenty of good humor as well!
Dr. Bill pontificates on all things technical!
We are about to crank up some exciting things here at Dr. Bill – The Computer Curmudgeon! In order to stay informed, ALL you need to do is sign up for our Email Newsletter… it is right below the video… and is called “Dr. Bill’s Newsletter!” (So simple, straightforward… easy!) So, sign up! We promise… NO SPAM!
I had left the Firefox fold for Chrome… because Firefox had gotten slower and slower… but, one thing I didn’t like about Chrome is that it didn’t handle RSS feeds like I wanted… I preferred the way Firefox did it, but I couldn’t handle the slowness anymore! Well, heewack, it’s back! It is 20% faster than it was… check it out!
“After months of testing, Mozilla has finally released Firefox 3.6, the newest version of its popular browser. The new edition of Firefox (Firefox) sports an array of features, least of which is an increase in speed — 20% faster than Firefox 3.5, according to Mozilla. It uses Gecko 1.9.2 web-rendering, which improves its load times, startup speed and stability. Javascript execution is faster and smoother as well. We’ve talked about some of the other new features before, but our favorite has to be Personas, which lets you customize your Firefox with a single click and without a restart. There’s also autocomplete form functionality and full HTML5 support. You can check out all of the new features here. The Firefox 3.6 beta has been in testing for several months now, but the release candidates only started coming out this month. It looks like the releases went smoothly, so Mozilla is rolling it out for everyone.”
“At an event described by members of Google’s public relations team both as ‘seminal’ and ‘anticlimactic,’ Google on Tuesday introduced its Nexus One mobile phone. The debut of a Google-branded phone is anticlimactic because so many details about the device have been made public, a sharp contrast with the fanatical message management exercised by Apple, Google’s strongest competitor in the mobile space. At the same time, the Nexus One affirms that mobile computing is where the tech industry is headed and where Google will focus its competitive energy. The war with Microsoft is going well enough that Google can open a second front. Apple’s reported plan to buy mobile ad firm Quattro Wireless, after Google snapped AdMob away from it, underscores just how important mobile devices, not to mention advertising revenue, have become. The Nexus One runs Android 2.1 — available as open source in the next few days — on a 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU from Qualcomm. It comes with 512MB of ROM, 512MB of RAM, and a 3.7-inch AMOLED 480 x 800 touch screen. It’s 11.5 mm thick — or 11.5 mm thin, as Google senior product manager Eric Tseng put it — and weighs 130 grams, about as much as a Swiss army knife. It includes a 5 MP camera with an LED flash, stereo bluetooth support, a 3.5 mm headphone jack and two microphones — one on the bottom and one on the back — for active noise cancellation. ‘The Nexus One belongs in an emerging category of devices which we call ‘super phones,” said Google VP of product management Mario Queiroz. Software represents the other half of the equation and what Google can do with software is magnified by the power of its cloud infrastructure.”
Google Reveals Nexus One ‘Super Phone’
The difference between phones and computers just keeps blurring!
What do YOU think? Will the “iSlate” from Mac (a Mac based tablet computer) be as “big” as the iPod? There is a lot of hype about it, but tablets haven’t caught on, and they have been around a loooong time! I know, I know, this one is an Apple… so it be be “cool.” But Will it? Really?
Marketing Hype and the ‘iSlate’
“While a certain amount of speculation is healthy for any industry, I believe there’s a tipping point beyond which it becomes more than a little silly. We spend so much time discussing the minutiae of what this mystery thing may or may not do that we forget the big picture of why we use technology in the first place. As I wonder about the tablet, I can’t help but think about netbooks. These diminutive, inexpensive devices were the hardware story of the year as budget-crushed consumers looked for ways to remain productive without cutting into that week’s grocery order. There was no runup of publicity surrounding netbooks. No lineups around the block. No frenzied speculation about feature sets. The netbook is the anti-tablet, then, a known device with known capabilities that consumers instantly get. The tablet? Not so much. Not that Apple should ever feel the need to make its own netbook, mind you. The company will never play in the low-margin end of the market. It doesn’t need to play the price game to compete, and the tablet will continue that premium strategy. But when the hype machine kicks into overdrive, too many consumers end up buying not because they need it, but because they feel they’ll be missing out if they don’t buy in now. It’s as shallow as the pet rock was, a purchase rationale that revolves around being part of the crowd and not around actually meeting a particular life need.”
My other “score” this Christmas! This thing is amazing! Light weight, but up to 1080p HD video, and, best for me, it has a jack that allows me to plug in an external mic, and even adjust the sound level! Look for me to restart my Dr. Bill.TV Netcast, as a “semi-occasionally” report on tech-iness! You can shoot 5 Megapixel still images, video that records to an SD card! And, it has both a “flip-out” USB connection, and an HDMI connection to hook it up to your TV. Check out the photo below; this thing is TINY! It fits right in your hand! Dewd! Rock on!
Yep… I talked about it for SO long… I finally got one for my Birthday+Christmas (combo present.) I love it! I am SO into reading my Star Trek books on a Kindle (I pretend it is a PADD from Star Trek!) Cool! I even got a cool leather cover for it as well. So, get with it, folks! Get a Kindle! Join the 21st Century!
New OSes! What every super-geeky dewds like me like! I am liking what I see of Windows 7, but I am also looking forward to Ubuntu Linux 9.10! So, happy days for geeks!
Best Buy employees are trained (by a Microsoft slide show) to mislead people on Linux… and this surprises someone? Why else are they (M$) called the “Evil Empire?”
We teach Best Buy to Trash Linux
Microsoft (MSFT) has confirmed the authenticity of a controversial set of training slides that it prepared to train Best Buy (BBY) employees in what the software giant calls ‘the important differences between Linux computers and Windows computers.’ Pro-Linux advocates — including the Best Buy employee who initially leaked the training slides onto the web — had accused Microsoft of ‘indoctrinating’ workers with anti-Linux propaganda to mislead the public. The Best Buy worker, whom DailyFinance has spoken to, remains employed. For now.”
And I was there at the beginning… but, hey, I AM the Computer Curmudgeon!
“The concept of an Internet free world now seems unimaginable and to a certain degree, frightening. You may be surprised to know that LOLCats and Rick Rolls weren’t on the minds of two California universities when they began tests 40 years ago, successfully sending data between two computers in 1969. These were the humble beginnings of ARPANET…what is now, the Internet. What better time to recap on the last 40 years and provide a brief history of how a technology that has changed our lives, came to be. Before you begin reading however, if you’d like a more visual representation, you may want to sit back and watch this wonderful video that will take you through the decades to today.”
So… enjoy your Internet… and celebrate the access we have!
I never thought I would… but, Mozilla Firefox has been hanging, and crashing lately with the latest version… and I certainly wasn’t going to use IE! So, I am now using Google Chrome… and I got to admit, it is nice! Come on, Mozilla! Get your act together and get Firefox more stable… or, you will have a huge defection on your hands! Really, I LIKE Firefox… more I have to be able to do my work!