May 19, 2012

IOS vs Android: Does it Matter?

I find it fascinating that with all the money and “smart” people who work on making products for consumers, that we all, consumers and manufacturers miss the point. Google states clearly that ALL of its creations are in BETA….

That is something that APPLE has vowed never to do. All of the works, programs, tools, websites, etc are all works in progress. I like Apple products, they work, look good and have a great track record. However I bought an Android phone from Boost mobile.

Why? For one simple reason…

I like not paying too much for anything. I’m frugal when it comes to buying technology or services that work with technology.

Again Why?

Simple put I work with Technology and I have many business’s that rely on me to make sure that where they spend their hard earned dollars doesn’t go up in smoke, or leave them wondering why I’m wasting my time with this gadget thingy that cost so god damn much.

I like the android platform, I like that I as a regular person can write apps for it without special hardware {Macs} and that there is more platforms than colors in the rainbow to choose from, unlike apple you get one flavor, IOS.

If you don’t like it, or have issue with lack of updates, then quit your crying and get an IOS device, otherwise do something about it yourself. Get a device that has a community to update the damn thing, Hack it yourself, campaign the vendor, I don’t give a crap.

Its yours to do with as you please, unless you want someone else to “fix” it and give you more reason to complain that someone else isn’t doing their job. I am gonna use till its working or not. And all the while I am gonna find out how to make this puppy do tricks even the makers had no idea it could do that.

Why Apple sets the standard…

and other useless ideas about how the technology world works.

I find it funny how with a Mac, you can’t repair it yourself, customer service knows less than I do [ i'm a windows certified expert], and the software to run it costs 100-1000% more than windows or linux software to do the SAME DAMN things…

So maybe i’ll deal with the occasional hiccup or repair, at least I can do it myself. If thats not for you, pay the fees and enjoy waiting at the mac store for service, I’ll get mine from 100 other places for my parts and service… I like having choices.

As for setting the bar, when a company that spends billions on style and design to make it monkey simple to figure out, and a way to charge you for every little thing, then yes it sets a standard because as a business who doesn’t want millions of mindless people with open wallets saying help yourself…

Email Privacy Doesn't Exist

Everybody wants to read your mail[^]

Ever since there has been email, there has been controversy as to how private it is.

In the early years thru the 90′s many ISPs had no way of going through all of the data, so they hired 3rd party developers to create “sort-n-serve” tools that we now call search engines.

If you think that google is the only one looking for the keywords in your inbox, think again.

What do you think Hotmail, Yahoo, and AOL have been doing for years. They may not be as direct as google and TELLING you that they are doing it, but they are.

Fool yourself all u want, but the truth is everyone of the services u use wants to use your data as a way to advertise or to forcast trends and social movements.

As for me I don’t care if they read my mail, so long as I can download the file into my thunderbird app and take it with me.

The only real option for privacy is to stop using the internet and your cell phone. Yeah, good luck with that!

Is the IPAD All that its Hyped Up to Be?

To Buy or Not To Buy?

Recently Apple has released its next market changing product the IPAD. A large sized version of its recent recreation the iTouch.

With a full screen size of slightly smaller than a sheet of paper (roughly 7.5 x 9.5 inches) it is the newest tough computing addition to hit the market since the tablet pc.

I have reviewed it and looked it over in the apple stores, and I have to admin it looks sleek, is a lot lighter than a laptop, and can be very handy for mobile computing in office and data entry environments.

Is it really worth it?

After the wow factor wore off, I had to really ask myself – is this really worth it to spend another $500 for a touch tablet that can’t run most of my existing software.

Can I really justify using in a regular office environment any more than my trusty laptop has already done for me. And at a lower cost to maintain!

Think real hard and consider what you are paying for. Don’t get me wrong, if I had the money to blow on a new computing device, all shiny with the fresh out of the box smell, then yeah.

Otherwise why did I buy its older yet small cousin the iTouch for…?

It all comes down to how you use it.

I’d make a joke about how size doesn’t matter, being a guy and all, but when it comes to getting a job done (for a computer) size DOES matter.

More power, more MIPS (that’s a measurement of computing power, look it up) and storage space all add up to a well though out machine.

But the one thing that puts my wallet back in my pocket is the $500 price tag for the base model. I can buy a fully loaded laptop for that price, and I don’t have to worry about scratching the glass screen while I work on it.

So you have a choice…

You can stick with a time tested computing platform that has all the bells and whistles you can shake your wallet at.

Or you can be the first to own an untested, undetermined computer that who knows how long it will take you to see that shiny glass break and make it all come to a screeching halt.

If you have one, or would like to share your experiences with the IPAD or iTouch  leave your comments. I want to hear from you.

Twitter is NOT the Safest Network on the Net

Recently twitter and other social networking sites have come under attack.

While this is nothing new, how the attackers went about taking down one of the largest social networking sites was right out of the old school hacking textbook. Twitter having crashed and burned, suffering from a major DoS [ that's a Denial of Service attack] where the attacker has hijacked many unknowing user computers across the internet and used these unwitting machines to attack the servers and website of twitter to bring it to a screeching halt.

And you know what?

It worked, really well. People couldn’t login to send tweets, smart-phones and tweet software’s were left in disarray. It caused a lot of trouble, not just for twitter to deal with the attack, but the aftermath of the angry and frustrated users in a long history of twitter troubles.

I want to ask you the reader, Did you have trouble with your twitter account? We’re your tweets caught up in the frey that twitter’s attack caused?

Let me know by commenting.

Twitter in the Courtroom

Another software company has recently filed charges against Twitter for patent infringement. Their claim that “I did it first” is going to be tested in the courtroom, while twitter will see how the chips will fall.

It is kinda sad that a tech company that nobody has heard of has come out of the blue to sue twitter for something as trivial as sending messages to more than 1 person with a single click. However in this sue happen, I’m gonna get my due court system we have allowed it’s not surprising to see another example rear its ugly head.

I’m rooting for twitter, however the courts will decide who wins in this battle. Let the Tweets begin!

Your Next Processor maybe a Quantum Processor

There are more discoveries happening right now that are changing our world faster than our present understanding of how to use these discoveries.

Why change is good.

I remember reading of the times before the calculator was invented. They had slide rules for making calculations, and that gave us radio, TV, and even got us to the moon [ or at least close to it.]

Then the transistor was invented and that started to change things. Creating tiny switching elements in concert with a programmable nature to perform repetitive tasks extremely fast. Well that just changed everything back then.

Practically overnight, factories that made bulky parts went out of business. At that time LEAN was the word in businesses that made things. Everything that was taken from raw materials to finished goods had to become more refined, and at a faster pace than the time before the Semiconductor was created.

A computer in my home…  You must be crazy!

There was a time when you mentioned the word computer, the thought that was brought to mind was this huge conglomeration of cabinets and webs of cables, both power and data, running through an entire room. So when someone said I’d like to have a computer in my house, that’s what people thought.

“Buddy you must be nuts to want to have a computer in their house!”

And that’s how it was for a long time. However just as business had to get lean and mean. So did the computer. Lighter, Faster, with more capabilities added onto and into it. Totally driven by the business to win big by being better or faster to the market with the newest offering to the masses and their dollars.

A computer that fit in the PALM of your hand.

After a while throught the ever increasing tide of “NEW” computers and accessories, upgrades and options packages that I was so full of computer stuff that I had to say, I don’t need anymore right now.

The only thing I lamented about this progress was the fact that there was no handheld computer that was affordable. Then the PALM portable computing platform arrived. Small, Efficient, got the job done.

It had the one saving grace that made its name the name we use for all handheld devices … PALM Pilot or PALM, and that was the LiON or Lithium ION batteries we use today. It had at least 6 hours of usable time or more from a single charging.  With its auto off – easy / fast on feature, the batteries seemed like they would go on forever.

Sadly PALM fell out of grace, having hit their peek and collapsed under its own hubris by trying to improve upon Perfection.

Where do we go from here?

After a little trip down microprocessor lane, we come to the point where we are now [as of the time of this article] that computers are taking another turn into the deeper waters of processing and computing. They are entering the unknow waters of Quantum Mechanics.

As a species on this planet, we are the only ones who have yet learned to manipulate matter at its atomic scale, yet we have only the faintest idea of how all of the baryonic matter in the universe really works deep inside its core. So far we have investigated, made a few breakthrough’s. Like coming up with a theory about how something could work and if two or more separate parties come up with the same result. Then we publish the findings and say to the researchers, “what can you do with it now?”

The Discovery of using large scale groups of atoms that ACT as a Single QUBIT is pretty impressive. Once a processing and memory array are created using these new building blocks, a different way of processing and storing all the information in our world will transform how we live and interact with the world. In fact the world will be so new that all generations from that point on will never know a world that wasn’t monitored by atomic scale processors…

The Future is NOW!  Are you ready for it?

Feds Set to Eliminate Water Regulations…

Can you believe it.

Its not bad enough that we have to wonder what is in our drinking water, NO.  Now I heard from Wired.com that the bush administration is going to repeal more regulations that keep our drinking water clean enough to not kill us.  But now added in the repeals of these regulations, neurotoxins, the stuff that kills and damages nerves is included in the deregulations on certain lethal and damaging chemicals.

And this is our DRINKING WATER I’m talking about here.

Is this unreal or what. It wasn’t bad enough that we are in a resource crunch, instead they deliver the pink slip to the American people saying “Thanks for not voting us back in… by the way… where did you get your water from?  ’cause you might be drinking something you shouldn’t”

I for one am looking into Reverse-Osmosis filters real quickly.

Read more about this insane artice here.

Googles' New Chrome Browser is Shiny on the Outside…

But after having given it a thorough spin, I find that’s all there is to it. 

The Interface is Simple in the extreme, and its import ability [with Firefox] was extremely superfluous. I have discovered a few things that both work for and against its adoption as it stands right now.

Pros:

  • Fast, sleek and a no frills approach to loading web pages and internet dynamic content. 
  • It does take up relatively small amounts of memory [RAM] to operate, though for every tab it takes up to 12-15 Megs for each tab.
  • Intuitive design and scheme of layout, reminiscent of IE 7. [ Kinda make me wonder why?]

Cons:

  • Has a lot of features [NOT!] certainly lacking in that department, but as I have seen with google. That will change over time.
  • It appears to be a little TOO simplistic for business or IT adoption, however children will take to it like a snickers bar, and an Xbox 360.
  • It definitely lags on .NET and ASP pages, probably due to the coding and lack of Microsoft compatibility. Hence why IT has taken a pass on its usage let alone trying to see for themselves.

All in all, its fast, clean and extremely easy to use. It is still and early adoption test, and for those who like trying something new, this takes the cake for now. For example, I;m writing this post through chrome as we speak. And I don’t see any really difference, rather than the points I stated above.

 

But don’t take my word for it, try it out for yourself. And tell me what you thought I’m curios to see what you have to say about it. 

 

Here to stay and develop, or another fruit lost on the vine? Only time and testing will answer that one.

-Robert Bronson

Who's Government is it?

With all the attention on WHO is going to run the country, one might wonder why the country is in the state that it’s in at present.

I see it not as an administration issue of who is the leader, but who is actually executing the plan. Also where in the plan is there a follow up to see if the plan was ever followed at all!

That’s how I see why the system breaks down. From our own government to our own businesses. Its not the head of the business, but those who implement on our behalf, that need to be managed as closely as those who laid the plan out.

Robert Bronson
www.robertbronson.com