IT Stuff — No comments
05
Sep 11

Apple restrictions hurting them

There is no doubt that Apple has brought huge innovations to the technology world, but these days Apple seems to be moving from its cool Apple guy mantra to the big bully corporation.

There is already a big portion of iPhone users that are tired of Apple’s restrictions, and this has given birth to a new parallel industry of Jailbreaking and Unlocking , but Apple does not seem to be willing to allow any innovation that does not come from inside their walls.

On the one hand Apple has worked very hard to create this new iPod/iPhone/iPad market and they are not willing to ease their tight grip on the business, and on the other hand users feel the devices they have paid for are theirs and they can do whatever they wish to with them, even though they implicitly signed a users’ agreement with the purchase.

At the end I think the free market (and Android) will force Apple to reconsider their practices or they will be left behind. In less than three years Android has surpassed Nokia, Blackberry and now iPhone in US sales.

IT Stuff — No comments
05
Sep 11

Fake Apple stores in China

It is almost normal to find replicas of Apple products like this fake iPhone in some countries and on web stores. Last July a new kind of replicas were made evident by a blogger living in China: Fake Apple Stores!

These stores located in the city of Kunming were so carefully done that it was difficult to tell them appart from the real ones, if not for the fact that Apple does not have any authorized retailers in that city.

After this issue became viral, the Chinese government ordered the stores to close, but why were the stores allowed to open in the first place? It is not like they were small shops that could be overlooked.

China has been named one of the worst countries in copyright theft prevention for several years in a row, even though their copyright laws are very similar to the ones in the U.S. It is clear that at least for now, complying with these laws is not a high Chinese priority.

Sources

BirdAbroad. “Are you listening, Steve Jobs?.” BirdAbroad. N.p., 20 July 2011. Web. 5 Sept. 2011.
< http://birdabroad.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/are-you-listening-steve-jobs >.

Life — No comments
21
Aug 11

The social network–the movie

I normally go to the movies to get some entertainment, not so much to see a high productfacebook_in_real_life_1-751669d of art, thus almost all of the time I am in disagreement with movie critics. So when The Social Network came out, and I read some of the critics, I decided I was not even going to bother seen it.

Tonight I was at a friend’s for a movieton. We watched several movies, and The Social Network was the last one. I was a bit surprised, the movie was not bad, I think I liked it! but I did not like one thing.

To give you an idea of my movie preferences, which I guess are a little typical for a Computer Science student:

  • Favorite movie ever: The Matrix – Wow!
  • Second place: Star Wars – all of them – Lucas just rocks!
  • For what is worth, I am not a Start Trek fan.

So I have nothing against tech and science fiction movies, but Hollywood disappointed me again with the same lame geeky, socially unfit personality they always give to any character good with computers.

Is it that you need a geek and not a normal person to make the movie interesting?  I don’t think so, but again, I am not a movie critic!

Infosec — 1 comment
19
Aug 11

Digital forensics are necessary but …

Anderson, Brandon. Crime Scene Tape. 2006. Web. 19 Aug. 2011. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/nullvalue/4188517246/in/photostream/>.Most of my clients are small companies, from 1 to 20 employees. They, like almost everybody have issues with malware, at least 40% of my work involves cleaning infected computers. What do I normally do when I find infected computers? I clean them up, I check the rest of the computers, and … and that’s it.

Would I like to do more? Yes. Do they want to? May be, how much? Oh, no thanks. I’ve been working for 10 years in the IT field and I see this happening all the time. Small companies just don’t have the money do do Digital Forensics after their systems have been compromised.

In reality, I don’t expect that, but what surprises me is that even big companies tend to react in the same way. Just a quarter of them conduct forensics after a data breach, and only half of them do anything at all to correct the problem.

Companies have to balance security an budget, and sometimes they just can’t afford to do more, in this economy this must be happening a lot.

Sources
Moscaritolo, Angela. "Forensic Intel." SC Magazine Aug. 2011: 28+. Print.

Programming — No comments
17
Aug 11

Java 7 is here

After almost five years, Java finally has a major revision. This time under the direction of Oracle, and with changes the community had been waiting for a long time. It is true that changes are not revolutionary, but nonetheless, they are changes that will make developers’ lives easier.

What’s new?

- Java has improved support for dynamic languages, Python one of my favorites is there, as well as Ruby, Groovy and Javascript, they will run in the JVM with much better performance thanks to the InvokeDynamic feature.

- The new Fork/Join Framework allows for parallel programming, developing for multicore systems is native now.

- New I/O allows working with different file systems.

Is Oracle good for Java?

I think it is. Java was not moving anywhere with Sun. Oracle is investing heavily on Java and the JVM, and I agree with many, that Oracle is doing things right – at least with Java… MySql is a different story!

Sources
Taft, Darryl K. “Oracle Launches Java 7, as Innovations Sprouts.” eWeek 15 Aug. 2011: 24+. Print.

Windows Tips — No comments
16
Aug 11

Where are the bookmarks located?

For windows users this is where you can find your bookmarks for the most popular browsers:

For Internet Explorer copy all the contents of the folder:
%USERPROFILE%\Favorites

For Google Chrome, copy the “Bookmarks” file located at:
%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

For Firefox, copy the folder named “xxxxxx.default” located at:
%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

How do you open the folders?
Copy the command, i.e. “%USERPROFILE%\Favorites” and paste it into your run command.
( START/Run ) or seach box ( START / searchbox )

Ubuntu — No comments
15
May 11

Streamtuner is back as Streamtuner2 – for Linux

Streamtuner was one of my favorite apps in Ubuntu, until it stopped working!

Streamtuner2 is Streamtuner new reincarnation: It is a directory of on-line radio stations organized by provider (Shoutcast, Google, Live365…). It is really comprehensive and lightweight. Combined with a lightweight player like Audacious makes a responsive duo.

I personally don’t listen to cds or mp3 player’s music in my computer, I always stream. If you are like me, you’ll be happy with Streamtuner2.

Amarok has a Shoutcast plugin, but I find Amarok to be too heavy, in my old computer it slows me down; on the other hand Streamtuner + Audacious deliver great music, great sound and my computer works fast.

You can download Streamtuner2 from SourceForge

Streamtuner2

Ubuntu — No comments
14
May 11

How to disable the drums login sound in Ubuntu 10.10

I am not sure if this happens in other versions of Ubuntu, but in 10.10 you cannot disable that annoying drums sound right before you get to the login screen. This is bad, because there is no way for you to login silently. 

I use my computer for school, and these drums would always disturb people around me. Anyway, I could not find how to disable this sounds using the GUI, I tried these two settings first:

System > Administration > Login Screen > Accessibility > Play Login Sound (disabled it)
as well as
System > Preferences > Sound > Sound Effects > Sound Theme > No Sounds

Every other system sound was gone, but the drums stayed, after looking online I found the solution, using the terminal do this:

Ubuntu — 1 comment
10
May 11

System wide equalizer for Ubuntu

I love Ubuntu, but one thing that I miss from Windows is a graphic equalizer for music players. For some reason Linux players for the most part lack this important feature (at least for me). Some players like Amarok have it, but most don’t. So what can you do to take care of this? Install a system wide equalizer of course!

All you need to do is the following:

This is thanks to Andrew from webupd8.org.

System Wide Equalizer

Web — No comments
07
Dec 10

Tumblr’s Search Sucks! – How to fix?

Update 2: I got tired of Tumblr, I moved back to WordPress!
Update: I got tired of Tumblr search, I set up Wibiya’s toolbar which has Google Search, and it works just fine! Tumblr search? ditched!

This blog runs on Tumblr. Why am I trashing Tumblr then?
Sorry guys, but it is time put your act together and fix this!

I used to have my blog in WordPress, I fell in love with Tumblr and moved here. Since the beginning  I noticed Search was not working, but I thought it was a temporary glitch.

It’s now over 3 months since I am here, and Search still Sucks!

For a blog Search is crucial! Guys, I know I am not the only one unhappy about this! If you want your community to keep growing you have to pay attention to things like this and fix them!

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