27856172
submission
stinkymountain writes:
Tech reviewer Howard Wen got his hands on a Chromebook a year ago and has been using it as his primary computer ever since. He reports on the good, the bad and the ugly truth concerning Google's Chrome OS based device.
24048082
submission
stinkymountain writes:
There are hundreds of thousands of Android apps, including many that are useful for IT professionals on the job. These apps can help connect to servers, monitor computers, access databases, analyze the airwaves, scan networks, and serve as a reference. Here are 16, most of them free.
22849312
submission
stinkymountain writes:
When Jed Clampett's shot missed its intended target, hit the ground and struck oil, we got "The Beverly Hillbillies." Part of what made the story interesting was that old Jed found unexpected riches in something he already owned.
Today, people are discovering value in a new type of real estate that many already own: Internet domain names. Granted, there have been only a few who, like Jed, stumbled onto millions, but there are lots of people now sitting — unknowingly — on domain names worth hundreds and thousands, and in some cases even more.
So, how do you know if you have a domain name of value and, if so, what do you do with it?
22816404
submission
stinkymountain writes:
Lightweight notebooks running Google's ChromeOS have hit the market. Here's a compilation of Chromebooks you can buy now and others that are still on the drawing boards...
21959304
submission
stinkymountain writes:
Among the multitude of Android tablets that have been released, or are about to be this year, the Nook Color has managed to achieve impressive sales and spark a cult following. (Since its release in November 2010, it has reportedly sold 3 million units.)
The Nook Color is marketed by the bricks-'n'-mortar Barnes & Noble bookstore chain as an e-reader. This is despite the fact that it features several tablet attributes, including Web browsing. It runs on a customized version of Android 2.2 ("Froyo").
Several companies are vying for a piece of the Android tablet market this year. Yet, as audacious as this sounds, here are six reasons why the Nook Color is already the best Android tablet you can buy now.
21934110
submission
stinkymountain writes:
The corporate desktop has looked the same for decades: computer, keyboard, mouse, desk phone, maybe a printer. But do these tools dominate because they're the perfect combination of technology needed for work today, or is the enterprise workplace due for an extreme makeover? According to industry analysts, hardware vendors, architects and futurists, the odds that major changes will revamp the standard corporate cubicle, technology tools and even buildings, rise every day.
21596490
submission
stinkymountain writes:
Ubuntu 11.04 (nicknamed Natty Narwhal) marks a decided change in direction for the Linux-based operating system. The biggest change is that Canonical, the organizer of Ubuntu, is replacing the Gnome/KDE desktop environment with a new user interface called Unity.
This is a market response by Canonical to the perceived superiority of the MacOS and Windows 7 user interfaces. While Linux has always been a "what's under the hood" rather than "sleek styling" operating system, Unity immediately draws comparisons to Windows 7 and MacOS.
You might like it and you might hate it, but Unity provokes. It's a radical departure for a Linux desktop distribution to eschew both Gnome and the KDE desktop environment — although both are available for those that must use them for application or hardware compatibility reasons.
21446478
submission
stinkymountain writes:
Microsoft recently allowed select OEM partners to download updated preview builds of Windows 8. Since then, there have been several leaked images of supposedly new features that you might see in the next version of Windows when it launches (perhaps in early 2012). And Microsoft showed off some features in a preview last week. Here's a compilation...
20207270
submission
stinkymountain writes:
With nearly $100 million in new funding, Internet2, the faster, better Internet reserved for research and education, has embarked on an upgrade that will boost backbone capacity to a staggering 8.8Tbps and expand services to hundreds of thousands of libraries, schools and medical centers. Internet2 was created by 34 university research institutions in 1996, when the commercial and non-commercial branches of the Internet's evolutionary tree split off and went their separate ways. The mission of Internet2 was to provide reliable, dedicated bandwidth to support the ever-growing demands of the research and educational communities, and in doing so, to develop technologies that would advance the state of the 'commodity' Internet. Some say it has failed in that latter category.
20126536
submission
stinkymountain writes:
Are two screens better than one? In recent years, device makers have been exploring this question with mixed results. Lenovo sold a notebook less than a year ago with a slide-out second screen, but no longer offers such a model. There are similar notebooks which incorporate slide-out dual screens, though these clunky devices are not readily for sale in North America. Other computer makers — including ASUS, MSI and even the One Laptop per Child organization — have presented concepts for dual-screen notebooks and tablets, but have not released actual products. The biggest success so far with the dual-screen concept has been in the area of gaming, with the Nintendo DS.
Still, there are several devices utilizing two screens that you can buy now — plus a couple more that their makers hope to bring to market soon.
19749746
submission
stinkymountain writes:
In a side-by-side comparison by Wayne Rash in Network World, Motorola's Xoom scores points over the iPad 2 with real multi-tasking, widescreen for watching HD video, Flash support and a better rear-facing camera. But iPad 2 hits back with faster screen rotation, more apps and a more fully baked OS.
18795726
submission
stinkymountain writes:
Speaking at the 33rd annual Pacific Telecom Council meeting last week in Hawaii, Dr. Robert Pepper, Cisco vice president for global technology policy, presented findings from the company's Visual Networking Index, which showed that global IP traffic is expected to increase more than fourfold (4.3 times) from 2009 to 2014. In fact, global IP traffic is expected to reach 63.9 exabytes per month in 2014. This is equivalent to 766.8 exabytes per year — almost three-quarters of a zettabyte.The most surprising trend is that video traffic surpassed peer-to-peer volumes in 2010 for the first time.
An unexpected driver in this overall growth of Internet traffic is the surge in ambient video. This is so-called "puppy cam" traffic — fixed video sources featuring pets, so-called "nanny cam" child care and health monitoring video streams, and especially security camera applications.
``This a much bigger deal than anyone thought,'' said Pepper. He added that the popular Shiba Inu Puppy Cam site was said to have more Internet viewing hours than all of ESPN online video. In fact, of the top online video sites in Europe last year, "three of the top 20 are ambient video, and these didn't exist a year ago."
18532894
submission
stinkymountain writes:
Firefox was once the cool alternative to Internet Explorer. Then Chrome emerged as the hot, new thing in browsers, while Firefox lagged in performance and mindshare. However, Firefox is fighting back with a new version that’s currently in beta and is slated to ship early this year. Network World's Howard Wen tested Firefox 4, Beta 8 and found that this new version puts Firefox back at the cool kids' table.
15752364
submission
