Is Open Source Just For Do-It-Yourselfers? We blame Richard Stallman. Stallman, God bless him, is the Godfather of the Free Software movement (and by extension, the God-uncle of the Open Source movement), but he projects this image of the world’s oldest hippie. Add to this that many of the original Free Software founders and [...]
Will DOS Always Be With Us? Kind of like the COBOL programming language, DOS is in a state of perpetually being declared dead, while still seeing moderate, if unenthusiastic, usage. There are very good reasons for this, but they lie in the murky depths of computing history. To deal with COBOL first, [...]
I never thought I’d see the day when a piece of free software got me reaching for my wallet and singing the praises of everyone involved – but here it goes… It’s a quick story over two days… So bear with me. The story starts with the stark realisation that even after shelling out for [...]
There needs to be a Gadget for everything? Right? Well given that cardboard is so 1980′s and every item of clothing will soon need to have a battery to make it “do something” – the MingleStick fills an age-old niche. The business card replacement. While I can’t see companies handing out MingleSticks instead of business [...]
On occasion, I give presentations both in my office and traveling. I had considered buying a projector to use with my laptop, but put it off because most of the ones I had seen were bulky and expensive. I was thrilled when I came across the Pocket Projector for only $399. It is simple [...]
Every time we check lately, there’s another glowing review of an HTC Touch mobile device online. This Engadget story is one of the latest, linking to a German review calling the HTC Touch HD an “iPhone killer”. The praise mentions features including the TouchFLO 3D interface, the Opera web browser, and the large display. We’re [...]
As fast as technology moves, it’s always amazing when you reflect that the main medium hasn’t changed much. We started with IRC and Usenet and have come all the way to Twitter and SMS, and our primary means of communication is still sending each other little strings of text. Well, games can be played in [...]
We’re going to go out on a limb here and say that Photoshop is probably the best-known graphics editing program out there. But it’s a top-dollar item. And really, it isn’t the best solution for everybody, with its steep learning curve. There’s plenty of competitors to Adobe’s flagship product out there, and some of them [...]
We start with Moore’s Law, which states (roughly) that the number of transistors which can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles every two years. In other words, electronics component density will allow computers to double their efficiency to size ratio every two years. This means that devices can keep getting smaller, and that devices [...]
It’s not the manufacturers that drive the computer/tech industry any more. As soon as something new comes out, the techies are hacking away, trying to see just what they can make it do. I saw an article when the first iPods were rolling out about someone who made a mount out of RTV Rubber for [...]
