Notes on my notebook | Bangkok Post: tech

COMPUTER Currents

So, after many years, I have a new notebook. I settled on the Acer TM 6293-A3G32Mn. It also marks my personal foray into the world of Windows 7. I like the notebook because it comes with Win 7 Pro instead of the usual Win 7 Home edition. There are a number of reasons for this including the support for the virtual Windows XP and all the other features that a Pro version of Windows brings over the generally useless Home versions.

I also like smaller notebooks because I use a notebook for offsite and away from my desk use. This one comes with a 12" screen, a 320GB hard drive, 3GB of RAM and all the other usual features you find in higher end notebooks. The unit comes with a media-less "downgrade" to XP if Windows 7 turns out to be more trouble that it's worth. The unit also comes with a free docking station and case, which was nice for the price. There is a fingerprint reader for security, a five-port memory card reader, Bluetooth, the latest Wi-Fi, three USB ports and a camera. I will also probably get the bigger battery for the unit, which while adding to the weight also provides a lot longer usage life.

I am also planning to keep the unit as simple as possible as far as software is concerned and the unit will start out its life with just Firefox and Open Office installed. Since I will be mostly using the unit for writing, this will not be a problem and also if I downgrade back to XP, I won't be cursing myself for all the software I have to install.

While I have played with Windows 7 on other people's machines, this will give me real experience with it as far as connectivity with ease of hooking up to wireless network and general usage feedback. I also expect to see what the compatibility is with my existing devices such as my scanner. My report on this will follow in a couple of weeks.

In today's world, things happen very quickly. You can check out a book in electronic form faster than you used to be able to go to the library. You can look up information instantly, though it is up to you to then check if the information is correct or not. Things that used to be private are now found on Facebook or YouTube for anyone, including you spouse and boss to look up with a few keystrokes. Tell me you haven't Googled yourself at least once to see what information is out there.

Stock markets respond to the slightest twitch, as home inventors and those closer to the market react with their computers, where it used to be a phone call.

Twitter, or, as some call it, a micro blogging update, can also get you into hot water. Just ask the idiot who sent a Tweet that he was going to blow up an airport in the following Tweet: "Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!"

While the message did not affect the airport, nor was it considered credible by the authorities, he was prosecuted for sending a threatening message and lost his job as a result.

All this for a max 140-character "what are you doing now?" message.

There is an appeal and it does all seem a little bit over the top but does highlight how seriously what you might consider to be a joke can be taken.

Industry news

Apple tightened the screws on what can appear on their devices and has given more fuel to the jailbreakers of the world. The latest addition to the developer terms and conditions concerns in application advertising services. On one side is Apple's own iAd service and on the other side is everyone else. So to start with there is the rule that applications may not collect statistical information without Apple's written permission. Even if you have permission, you can't collect demographic information to feed to analytical services.

It gets better. Information can be collected with the user's permission but only as an "independent advertising service". The fine print implies that anyone other than Apple is not classified as independent. The rules for Apple are different, of course. It seems to me at least that every week Apple comes out with more restrictions. Those that fail to comply are, at best, kicked out of the Apple fold. Those unit users that fail to comply can have their units bricked. I keep waiting to read that the new Apple employee's uniform contains jackboots, brown shirts and nightsticks.

Unfortunately for Time Warner they ran into a judge with some decent sense recently in a lawsuit against pirates. The studio lumped together 4,500 or so defendants as John Does. In other words, they did not even have the names of those they were going after. All Time-Warner have is a list of IPs. Those in the computing world well know that an IP does not necessarily point to a single person. They could be spoofed, represent a large group of people such as a university. The lawsuit breaks a number of federal rules such as that the lawsuit should be filed in the district where the individuals live.

From July 31, Microsoft will no longer be bribing - err, I mean paying - you to use their search engine, Bing. Yes, the Bing Cashback program is coming to an end. It all started when Bing was released and they wanted to catch up with Google. In reality it started before that with Live Search. If you purchased some items after finding them using Live Search, Microsoft would refund up to 35 percent of the purchase price. When Bing came out the plan name changed but it works the same. The program has not been all that successful, hence the terminations.

According to Samsung, Steve Jobs may have overstated the facts during his iPhone 4 announcement. Steve seems to love IPS technology and claimed it was superior to OLED. Samsung says that the display on the iPhone gives a mere three to five percent advantage in sharpness compared to their own Galaxy S Amoled screen. The Samsung screen supposedly gives better viewing angles and contrast also that the Apple screen uses 30 percent more power.

If you have a HTC EVO 4G, then there is a clever magnetically mountable macro lens that gives surprisingly good pictures. You can find them at Amazon and eBay.

Apple's new Safari 5 is not doing so well with its users. Add-ons that don't work, websites that won't display or hang, and other problems have plagued the new version of the browser. DNS pre-fetching seems to be one problem area, as does home networks. A solution to the latter is to switch back to 32-bit mode and run Safari under Rosetta and wait for version 5.0.1 before going back. The best solution to date seems to be to install another browser liker Firefox and use that until Safari comes out in a working version again. The next version of Firefox, available by the time you read this, comes with a hang detector that automatically terminates add-ons that stop performing properly. Perhaps you may never want to go back to Safari.