10 Types Of People

Thought I would do another blog post with lots of exciting tech news. So, here is what I’ve been seeing over the past few days.

• Amazon buys “TouchCo”. Touchscreen kindle in the works? One might wonder if they are going to be using this company for just that. The other question, however, is “If it is made, when will it be available in Britain?”
• Symbian is officially opensource. Symbian^2 (previously S60) is now open-source. It turns out the #symbiancountdown was the number of packages left until Symbian was totally open source. Well done Symbian. Now you need to step up and make sure than Symbian^3 is amazing and it better really step up and do what Symbian^2 hasn’t done. It needs to do a lot to be any good.
• JooJoo near launch. Fixes lots of problems that would make you not want an iPad (except the price).
• With or without you: Arm Ceo to Microsoft. The market will grow with or without Windows arm support. Good news for linux?
• Sonic 4 in production. A blast from the past, in high definition. Thats right, Sonic 4 is being made and will be available in the summer on PS3, xbox and wii. On PS3 and Xbox it will be in 1080p. Thats great!!!
• Apple yet again show how pathetic they are, by turning down an app because it is “not interesting enough”.

So, theres just a few bits of random news that I thought I would share with people. Have a great weekend guys!

Just thought I would put a wee blog post out to let people know that I am now officially engaged to Faye (@framemybear on twitter). I will post picture and explain how it happened another time, but I’m kinda busy just now

**EDIT** Spelling mistake – “not” changed to “now”

• Google and China

So, I’m sure you all know the details, so I will spare you the details. I will give you my opinion however. I think this is a great thing for Google to do. Now, I am not saying that it is good that Chinese people won’t be able to use google services. It is a good thing that Google are no longer just doing whatever it takes to get money. I’m not saying that Google are an amazingly moral company, but it is a step in the right direction.

I’m not sure how the Chinese government will take this, but I don’t think they will just ignore it. They won’t change their ways, but it is quite embarassing to have a huge company like Google to just up and leave when they aren’t happy with the terms of what they wanted anymore. It isn’t a huge thing that will make lots of changes in the world, but it might help.

• Gmail https

Looks like Gmail is using https by default now. This is very good. Means that gmail is fully encrypted. Who can say this is a bad thing, except hackers

• Youtube possibly using html5?

Youtube are redesigning there website, and are asking for your opinion. The most popular thing that seems to be dominating the poll is using html5 with ogg instead of the default being flash. Google officially replied to these and said:

We’ve heard a lot of feedback around supporting HTML5 and are working hard to meet your request, so stay tuned. We’ll be following up when we have more information. We’re answering this idea now because there are so many similar HTML5 ideas and we want to give other ideas a chance to be seen.

So, it seems that HTML5 with ogg will be implemented in youtube 2.0. We don’t know if it’ll be the default instead of flash, but at least it’ll be there. It sounds great doesn’t it.

• Nokia 5800 firmware update

Not many people will be interested in this, but the Nokia 5800 firmware has been updated to v40. It has features such as

• kinetic scrolling
• much better homescreen
• better sensitivity
• new screens for calls

So yeah, I can’t wait till I get this update for my phone. At least it’ll make the phone useable for the next few months, until I can get a new phone. It isn’t the best phone ever, but I’ll survive with these cool updates.

So these are just a few things that have happened recently. None of them get a post of their own, as I don’t have that much to say, but I felt that I needed to give them more than just a tweet.

Ok, what is the point of patents? Now, here I thought patents were to stop big corporations stealing little peoples ideas and selling more than them and running them out of business. Is that, or is that not, the idea of patents?

Today I heard the news that Kodak are sueing Apple and RIM about image processing and image viewing. I, to be honest, think this is pretty pathetic. How are Apple and RIM doing image processing and viewing that Kodak do in their cameras going to affect kodak??? Would you use a cameraphone over a camera? And if so, would you buy a camera if they didn’t quite process them the same way? No you wouldn’t. How is this going to affect Kodak if they didn’t file this.

Software patents are so pathetic. Can you think of the last time you heard of a patent that was decent? I know that software patents aren’t valid in Europe (citation needed), but they are in general a stupid idea. The fact that you can patent an idea, for example apple getting a patent on docks, an unknown company getting a patent on podcasts and another company getting a patent on an xml-based way of saving word processing documents. Are any of these good? No…they are not. They are all stupid. What happens if I code something that is patented, that I honestly thought up all by myself. Does that mean I shouldn’t be allowed to use it? Really? What gives them the right to use it when I thought of it, just a wee bit later than them.

What do you think, internets? Do you agree?

**Edit** Just to prove my point, turns out apple just applied for a patent to “add a contact to a homescreen.” It probably won’t go through, as android and also symbian, already can do that. But still, it shows the patheticness of patents.

First of all, happy new year!!!

Ok, so, in light of the recent year change, I decided it would be good to do my 2nd annual tech predictions. I also realised that this is the beginning of a new decade as well. So, because of this, I’m doing a bunch for the coming year, and a bunch for the coming decade. Obviously, the decade ones will be a bit more exciting, and probably a lot more wrong.

This year has been such an exciting year, that my ideas of technology, and what will happen in the future, are hugely different from what they would have been if I’d been looking 10 years into the future this time last year rather than just now. We all have different ideas, however, so please please let me know if you agree/disagree with what I’ve said, or if you have made some predictions of your own, let me know. If I get a lot of people telling me their predictions I may post a blog post about what I think about them, with links to your blogs and stuff, so that might be an incentive to comment. I want lots of comments on this blog post in the coming months, and even years as I have put the next decades predictions as well.

I think I said in my last post that I would have 10 predictions, well, I couldn’t keep it to only 10 for each, so there are more. But anyway, on with the predictions. Go through the jump to see them. (more…)

It is that lovely time of the year again. “The 50 random things of the year” are on the telly, podcasts are talking about what they want for the coming year, people are saying what a great year it was, how many fantastic things happened this year. And I am writing my predictions. Don’t think this is them though, I’m not releasing them until the early hours of Jan 1st (although that is GMT, so some Americans may see them before 1st Jan). This is, however, my review of the year. Looking at my predictions from last year and seeing how correct I was.

So, go have fun reading over what I said this year, and if you were better than me in predictions, let me know. They are over the jump. (more…)

I was inspired to write a blog post about computer security due to a number of things. The World’s Technology Podcast had a security episode a couple of weeks ago (and I got a mention last week actually because I emailed them about it), and also the news that there has been a piece of malware distributed on gnome-look.

This malware for debian based linux systems, I believe, required admin priviledges because it was distributed as a .deb file. The funny thing was, this isn’t a security flaw in linux. Well, I think it might be partly. Why don’t we have a system to allow .debs to be installed locally? That would get around this partly. It would mean it wouldn’t be installed by root, only by the user. This malware then had a script that ran and I’m not sure exactly what it did.

The point is, however, that it doesn’t matter how secure an operating system is, people will still get around the security really easily. And what is the reason for this? People. Human beings.

Now, I don’t think a computer I have had has EVER had a virus. Even when I was running Windows. Is this because I didn’t have the internet? Nah, don’t be silly…I’m posting to my blog now amn’t I? Was it because I’m such an amazing computer savvy person? Nah, at one point I hardly knew anything about computers. But I do have computer common sence.

There is a very common thing that people say…common sence is not common. Which is even more so true with computers. And so, for this reason, I decided to write a list of things to make your computer safe.

• Run linux – this might sound like a stupid thing to say, but linux does have slightly better ways of dealing with these things, and as of just now there are hardly any viruses, etc on it.
• Run a virus checker – even on linux and mac. It will serve you well. Yes, there aren’t many viruses yet, but there still are some. It only takes one to muck your computer up.
• Only install from the repos of your linux distro – these have been checked by plenty of people and are safe and do not contain viruses, etc.
• If you must run something that isn’t in the repos (very rare for most distros) then check it out properly before you install it. Talk to people, look at reviews. Think about whether it is reputable (the creator and the distributer).
• Don’t download pirated software – not only because it is illegal and stupid, but because many viruses are contained within pirated software.
• Dont just type in your password to give admin priveledges to everything – think about it. If you haven’t opened up your installer, then why are you being asked for a password? If you just opened up a file you downloaded and it wants your admin password, ask yourself why it wants it. Most programs DO NOT need your admin password.
• Update as often as possible – there will often be important updates in these.

If you follow this advice, then your chances of getting viruses will be greatly decreased. Security is partly in the hands of the developers, but it is also hugely down to you. A normal user. If you get a virus, it is probably your fault.

Thats right…Lester Polfus (Les Paul) is dead. He died today (August 13th) of pneumonia. If you know who Les Paul is, then join with me in taking a look at his long and fantastic life.

Les Paul learned to play the harmonica, banjo and guitar in the first 13 years of his life. He then got his first professional guitar job at a cafe. This was when he invented the very first electric guitar. And the first solid-body guitar. Les Paul was not satisfied with acoustic guitars and decided that his guitar wasn’t loud enough so, way before the first transistor was invented, Les Paul messed around with his electronics, and made the first electric guitar.

This was Les Paul’s first invention. But, it wasn’t the last. Les Paul spent his life creating. So now, Les Paul has started off his life making and playing electric guitars. With no electronics training, he started playing more and more with guitars, and general electronics. He eventually created another world shaking invention.

In the mid 1900s, the only way to record more than 1 instrument was to play all the instruments at once and record them. Les Paul decided this was not right, as he needed to record more than 1 instrument, but didn’t want the annoyance of getting people to play them all at once. He dabbled into his electronics more and more, and created the very first multi-track recorder.

This was the very first thing that you could record one instrument with, the play back and record another instrument over it. At this time, Les Paul married his wide, Mary Ford. With Mary, he recorded a number of albums on his multi-track recording, which included 3 tracks of Mary singing in harmony, and a full band behind her.

Lester’s multi track recorder paved the way for the music industry to boom, and create amazing things that could never have been created before.

In January 1948, Paul was injured in a near-fatal car accident  which shattered every bone in his right arm and elbow.

Doctors told him that there was no way for them to rebuild his elbow in a way that would let him regain movement, and that his arm would remain permanently in whatever position they placed it in.

Les then instructed the surgeons to set his arm at an angle that would allow him to cradle and pick the guitar. Talk about dedication to playing the guitar. This just shows him being such a fantastic man who loved his guitar.

Les created a number of albums, one of which he won a grammy award for.

Of course, no mention of Les Paul would be complete without mention of the iconic guitar that is named after him.

Truly, Lester William Polfus was an amazingly clever man, with a nack for electronics, music and inventing. He is a great example of a man who saw a problem, and created something to fix it. He spent his life creating things to solve annoyances, and he lived a fantastic, successful life, which also made a lot of people’s lifes easier.

Les will be sorely missed in the world, and he was a fantastic guitar player, even one of the greatest guitar players ever, and certanarily one of the greatest inventors in the world. Period.

I will leave you with a picture of my lovely Gibson Les Paul Faded Double Cutaway in Cherry Red.

Ok, some of you may remember I put down my 10 predictions for the coming year. Well, a few of them have come true. Lets see…

2. Apple won’t wait till Christmas to release their new Iphone, which is what they said they will do. – Turns out I was right with this one. They have released the iPhone 3Gs already, halfway through the year
5. I will get my computer working again. – This one did happen, but I didn’t update you with it. I got my money back for my old motherboard, and bought a new one.
6.Google will release 2 more versions of their G range of phones, taking as long to release the source code as they did with the first version. – Turns out this one is right as well, with the release today of the HTC Hero
7. Canonical will make an increasingly stupid name for version 9.10 of Ubuntu. Kranky Kangaroo or something. – This one happened as well. As we all know, it is called Karmic Koala
10. Thunderbird 3.0 might get released…that would be nice…taking long enough. – This one might happen soon, as we currently have the Beta 2 of Thunderbird, and mozilla don’t do many betas (ha…)

So, looks like a very successful year for me so far in predictions. More to come people…

I’m sorry, I’ve ranted about this subject before, but what is the various phone companies’ obsessions with releasing a phone on 1 carrier? Lets have a look at various ones:

• HTC Dream (G1) – T-mobile
• HTC Magic – Vodafone
• Apple iPhone – O2
• Blackberry Storm – Vodafone

And now…the Palm Pre will be on O2

Seriously dudes? Why do you do that? It drives me insane. Obviously, I am not looking for a new phone just now, as I have my Nokia 5800, but it just drives me insane, a person who thinks we should have choice, that we don’t have choice to choose a phone, AND a carrier. You choose a phone OR a carrier nowadays.