Archive for January, 2009

White MacBooks Get Update

Macrumors has reported that Apple quietly updated the bottom-end MacBook to include features probably in anticipation of the OS X Snow Leopard release. The upgrade includes bumping up the processor to 2.0 Ghz and default memory up to 2GB as well as the addition of a dedicated graphics card. The new graphics card is now a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M which is the same one included with the new aluminum-bodied MacBooks. The lower-end white platic version of the MacBook does still use DDR2 memory while the higher-end models use DDR3 memory. They also added the option to add a 320GB hard drive as well.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Jan 24th, 2009

RIM Begins Looking for Apps for Its “App Store”

RIM has announced it is looking for software developers to create apps for its answer to the Apple App Store. RIM, the maker of Blackberry announced in October that it was going to launch a central store to buy applications for Blackberry devices similar to the Apple and Google stores which has helped the platforms’ popularity. Having the store would mean that users would have just one place to go to get new applications as well as updates for those applications. Giving developers easier access to users makes the platform much more attractive and will help embed Blackberries into businesses as well as create a more pain-free experience for consumers. Applications that are submitted will have to go through a review process, much like the Apple store.

RIM and Palm seem to have settled in to do battle with Apple over the smart phone market. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer seems to think Apple should be the one adapting its own strategies and laughed it off before it was even released. Obviously, RIM has a lot more to lose than Microsoft if they lose their share of the smart phone market place (well, they have everything to lose..), but Ballmer doesn’t even seem to be taking the iPhone seriously. Time will tell on whether or not this new store from RIM will help the Blackberry, but it certainly helped the iPhone and iPod Touch. As long as RIM can release a good SDK and keep the developers happy, RIM’s new store should help them get entrenched in the market even better than before. The store was promised to be launched in March of 2009.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Jan 23rd, 2009

Isn’t It Ironic..

Tonight an article made it to the top of the technology page on Digg from msnbc.com which ripped on Linux users and called Linux a pain to use. Msnbc.com, of course, runs on Microsoft IIS (hence the ms in msnbc), but I think they ought to think twice before bragging about the Microsoft platform too much..

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Filed under Just for Fun : Comments (0) : Jan 23rd, 2009

Windows Automatic Reboots After Update

All right all you Linux haters, listen up. You no longer have the right to tell me that Linux is hard to use because you have to drop to a command line to do “simple tasks”. I was working in a Windows XP virtual machine today and had the machine automatically reboot due to some updates being installed. I was in the middle of a project and was flipping back and forth. At one point I didn’t go back into my Windows session for some time and just as I got there I saw the dialog box go away wondering if I wanted to reboot. Ugh. I just missed it. So.. here I am. Working on a project, changing nothing when the OS just decided “it’s okay, I’ll just reboot now, he won’t know”. Except I did. The one thing that I hate about virtual machines is you can’t kick them without affecting others. Okay, so maybe I won’t kick my machines, but seriously.. it can’t just stay on?

When the machine came back up I decided to turn that “feature” off. After all, Windows is so much easier to configure, right? I couldn’t find anything in the “Automatic Updates” configuration, so I hit Google. I found this page on how to disable the automatic reboots and prompts. The post is quite old but so far I haven’t found any newer solutions (I was using XP, not sure how Vista handles this) and there are comments dating up until 2008. Looks like one can either stop the Windows Update service and modify the group policy or change a registry setting. Really? Just to keep my computer from shutting off in the middle of a project, I have to modify the registry or change the group policy? Now, I’ll admit, things are harder than they should be in every OS (yes, including Linux and Mac and many others), but I want to hear nothing about how Windows is so much easier to accomplish simple tasks. Like, you know.. staying on..

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Jan 22nd, 2009

Ubuntu Takes Over French Assembly

A blog entry at the NY Times site is reporting that the French National Assembly has switched its computers from Windows to Ubuntu and is urging other European countries to do the same. The VP of the Assembly, Rudy Salles has reported the reasons were fiscal and political. He says that they estimated the organization can save around 500,000 euros in straight licensing and support costs. On the political side of things, he tries to convince other governments that using the open source software allows local businesses to offer support for the products at a lower cost to increase their business. Plus, he says, Microsoft doesn’t even pay taxes in France so the tax money is never seen by the government anyway.

But how well is it actually working you might ask? Mr. Salles says:

“We’re quite happy because it’s all working very well now,” Mr. Salles said. “We see that many countries are interested in our experience, and so we’ll try to help the other parliaments around the world.”

According to an internal survey, 80% of the staff were please with their new open source software and just 14% wanted to go back. As long as it’s the right 14% of the members, all is well in France :)

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Jan 22nd, 2009

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