jbrodkin - Slashdot User

Submission + - Mario and Zelda: My 25-Year Love Affair (itworld.com)

Submitted by

jfruhlinger

on Monday December 05, 2011 @10:41AM

jfruhlinger writes: "Hopefully this year's 25-year anniversary of the Zelda games didn't make you feel too old. One Nintendo nostalgist took a long look back and several decades of Zelda games — and Mario, Nintendo's other most beloved franchise — to try to figure out why these characters have remained fresh and lively (and lucrative) while others have faded."

Comment 3TB drive (Score 1) 304

by jbrodkin on Friday November 25, 2011 @08:45PM (#38171284) Attached to: Hard Drive Prices Up 150% In Less Than Two Months

I bought a 3TB drive from Best Buy for $150 or so. By the time I received it in the mail, about 3 or 4 days later, the price was already up to $250. Glad I bought when I did.

Submission + - The first time I used an Apple computer was... (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by

jbrodkin

on Thursday October 06, 2011 @09:17AM

jbrodkin writes: "When I saw the news that Steve Jobs had died, I thought about 1984 (give or take), when I was about 5 years old and my parents bought an Apple IIe. It was the first computer I ever used. Even as a child, I knew there was something fundamentally new and exciting going on, that this was a step forward in human capability. At the very least, typewriters suddenly were archaic. We used the Apple to write school reports and play video games. We used floppy disks to load software and save files, and sometimes when I was bored of video games I played another game called "see if you can destroy a floppy disk." After years of using Windows as an adult, Apple crept back into my life with the iPod, and never quite left. As an occasional history buff, I marvel at the impact Jobs and his competitor Bill Gates had on my life and the lives of so many others. But mostly, I remember what it was like when I first used an Apple computer. All of us technology nuts have stories like this, so I asked my colleagues to share theirs. Here's what we came up with."

Comment Better than Chrome on Mac but worried about addons (Score 1) 495

by jbrodkin on Tuesday September 20, 2011 @05:39PM (#37460900) Attached to: Mozilla Contemplating Five Week Release Cycle

I switched from Firefox to Chrome 2+ years ago because at the time FF was constantly crashing. Just this week I switched back to FF because Chrome on Mac has had numerous problems for me over the past month. So far I am liking Firefox, but I am relying on a few plugins or add-ons. The quick development cycle will make it tough for users who have to rely on add-ons that may not be updated to support new browser versions immediately upon release.

Comment Re:Ziff Davis doesn't publish PC World. (Score 1) 53

by jbrodkin on Thursday September 15, 2011 @09:23AM (#37408676) Attached to: Ziff Davis Secretly Paying Sites To Track Users

Parent is correct. Admittedly this story is up to /. standards, but the editors should fix the post. Parent is wrong about "published". PCMag isn't in print anymore, but is still a busy web site. Disclosure: I have written for them for many years and run the Security Watch blog.

Well, as an online writer I use the word publish to mean anything published online or in print. Hell, I read all my books on the Kindle now. Anyway, I used to write for IDG so I noticed the error right away.

Submission + - correction: Ziff Davis doesn't publish PC World (slashdot.org)

Submitted by jbrodkin on Thursday September 15, 2011 @09:06AM

jbrodkin writes: just a heads up that Ziff Davis doesn't publish PC World. they do something called PC Mag. as a former IDG employee, I can tell you there is a difference ;-)

Comment Ziff Davis doesn't publish PC World. (Score 3, Informative) 53

by jbrodkin on Thursday September 15, 2011 @08:58AM (#37408496) Attached to: Ziff Davis Secretly Paying Sites To Track Users

PC World is published by IDG. Ziff Davis published PCMag.

Submission + - 2 phones, 1 device: Samsung virtualizing Android (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by

jbrodkin

on Wednesday September 07, 2011 @07:39AM

jbrodkin writes: "VMware’s mission to bring virtualization to the mobile market gained a major supporter last week when Samsung pledged to use VMware software to build business-friendly smartphones and tablets. The project known as Horizon Mobile will let Android phones use virtual machine technology to run a second instance of Android, in much the same way virtualization works on servers and desktops. The user essentially has two completely separate phones running on one device, and can switch from the personal one to the corporate one by clicking a “work phone” icon. With Samsung pledging to add VMware software to the Galaxy S II phones and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 tablets, virtualized Android devices are expected to ship within "the coming months.""

Submission + - Microsoft's five biggest weaknesses (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

jbrodkin

on Thursday September 01, 2011 @12:53PM

jbrodkin writes: "Microsoft is still a giant no matter how you measure it, but its position as the world's dominant provider of software to consumers is at risk. The primary factors (cough, Apple and Google, cough) can be debated, but this article argues that Microsoft's five biggest weaknesses are in search, Web browsers, Web servers, mobile devices, and Windows itself. Microsoft was provided the list in advance of publication, but for the most part declined to provide specific responses."

Submission + - Reverse engineer Microsoft patches, launch attacks (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

jbrodkin

on Wednesday August 24, 2011 @02:22PM

jbrodkin writes: "The security company Qualys this week demonstrated how to reverse-engineer a Microsoft patch to launch a denial-of-service attack on Windows DNS Server. The proof-of-concept shows the steps hackers could take to attack Windows and highlights the importance of deploying Microsoft patches as soon as possible after their monthly Patch Tuesday release. 'We reverse engineered the patch to get a better understanding of the mechanism of the vulnerability and found this vulnerability can be triggered with a few easy steps,' Qualys says. Qualys used a binary-diffing tool called TurboDiff to compare the unpatched and patched versions of the affected DNS Server files. Once the vulnerabilities were identified, Qualys set up two DNS servers in the lab and crashed one of them by typing in a few commands."

Submission + - IBM: The PC is the new mainframe (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

jbrodkin

on Friday August 19, 2011 @07:06PM

jbrodkin writes: "On last week's 30th anniversary of the IBM PC running Microsoft's MS-DOS, IBM CTO and PC co-designer Mark Dean said PCs are "going the way of the vacuum tube." But a more accurate description — courtesy of another IBM luminary — may be that the PC is going the way of the mainframe. While the mainframe still brings in lots of cash for IBM (yes, really), even IBM executives know that it's no longer the center of innovation in the IT industry. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a 41-year veteran of IBM and one of Linux's biggest champions at Big Blue, says PCs will become a legacy platform like the mainframe, "but the bulk of the innovation will now happen in the mobile platforms, smartphones and tablets." IBM realized this is selling off its PC business, and perhaps HP is now doing the same."

Submission + - Linus Torvalds: ARM has a lot to learn from the PC (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

jbrodkin

on Thursday August 18, 2011 @10:13AM

jbrodkin writes: "Linux and ARM developers have clashed over what's been described as a "United Nations-level complexity of the forks in the ARM section of the Linux kernel." Linus Torvalds addressed the issue at LinuxCon this week on the 20th anniversary of Linux, saying the ARM platform has a lot to learn from the PC. While Torvalds noted that "a lot of people love to hate the PC," the fact that Intel, AMD and hardware makers worked on building a common infrastructure "made it very efficient and easy to support." ARM, on the other hand, "is missing it completely," Torvalds said. "ARM is this hodgepodge of five or six major companies and tens of minor companies making random pieces of hardware, and it looks like they're taking hardware and throwing it at a wall and seeing where it sticks, and making a chip out of what's stuck on the wall.""

Comment Re:Nobody knows where anything is (Score 1) 266

by jbrodkin on Friday August 12, 2011 @11:21AM (#37068714) Attached to: How Does GPS Change Us?

One time I was driving from my apartment to the gym and there was a major detour because of a parade, with no obvious way around it. I stopped and asked the police offer how to get where I was going and he says in the most condescending way possible: "How long have you lived in [city I lived in at the time]?" I lied and said a few months, and he proceeds to attempt to give me directions around the detour. And he eventually gives up because he doesn't know the way or the names of any streets.

Comment Nobody knows where anything is (Score 1) 266

by jbrodkin on Friday August 12, 2011 @02:05AM (#37065640) Attached to: How Does GPS Change Us?

My own experience is that on those rare occasions when I need to ask someone directions, no one has any idea where anything is, even if they live or work in the area I am lost in. I'm not sure whether to blame GPS, or general human stupidity. Luckily, my phone GPS usually works.

Submission + - The epic unpopularity of Windows smartphones (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

jbrodkin

on Thursday August 11, 2011 @01:50PM

jbrodkin writes: "Everyone knows the iPhone and Android is killing Windows Phone 7 in sales. What you may not know is Microsoft's phone sales have been cut in half since that huge "Really?" marketing campaign last year, and even now trail Bada — a smartphone you might never have even heard of. Bada is a side project for Android-focused Samsung, sold mainly outside the United States, but is already more popular worldwide than Windows phones, with 2 million sold in the most recent quarter. HP's WebOS seems to be the only major smartphone platform MIcrosoft is capable of out-selling. If Bada can top WP7 despite Samsung betting the farm on Android, what hope does Microsoft's partnership with Nokia have?"

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