Technology Effect

Apple executive briefing at first Apple retail store, May 2001. Ten years ago -- that's right, 2001 -- Apple made four investments that bore fruit in a 21st-century success story. Everything that came afterwards, even iPad and iPhone, traces back to what I call the "2001 Four." Apple made these investments during difficult times. The dot-com bust rippled disastrously through the tech industry, the United States was gripped in recession and Apple's stock value had collapsed. Shares opened at $343.72 today about four bucks off the 52-week high. Apple's market capitalization was $317.21 billion at yesterday's close. Going back in time, Apple shares traded for less than $10 a decade ago. As I explained last month, Apple's fortunes have dramatically changed . The four investments all turn 10 this year, and there surely will be anniversary stories from Mac enthusiast blogs and news sites, perhaps even from more mainstream media. But I expect...

For anybody building and deploying Java Web applications, whether internal business applications or public facing applications for general usage, hosting the application is a primary consideration. Google App Engine (GAE) provides a hosting environment that is potentially suitable for both types of applications. Before choosing GAE as the deployment environment a number of decisions, both technical and commercial must be made. From a technical view, key questions include are what version of Java Standard Edition (JSE) is supported?, is all of enterprise Java supported (JEE)?, are there any special configuration files required ? and many others too. Business considerations include what is cost of the service, what is the support available, the reliability, vendor lock-in etc. GAE runtime environment uses Java 6 so supports developing applications using Java 5 or 6. The runtime environment has some restrictions which enable it to provide scaling an...

  On January 26th of this year, KDE released version 4.6.0 of its Plasma Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. While many major versions of KDE have focused on features, 4.5 was mostly a stabilizing release, fixing thousands of bugs. The 4.6 release is all about polish. It is the icing on the cake for KDE 4, adding speed, visual enhancements, and increased hardware compatibility. Faceted Browsing for Dolphin – Pressing Ctrl+F in Dolphin used to open Kfind, a search interface that used various Linux/Unix search tools such as “find” and “locate” to get you the files you wanted. In KDE 4.6, you can open the search interface within Dolphin and find indexed files quickly and easily. The addition of a filter side bar also allows you to find exactly the types of files you want, giving you options for file type, creation date, and even rating. Kate SQL Client – The popular all-in-one text editor for KDE now has basic SQL client func...

If you’ve been a Firefox user for a long time, you’ll know it’s hard to consider changing to Chrome. Yes, there’s no doubt that there’s some great Chrome features you’d love to try out, but how would I live without extension XYZ? It can’t be done! I was right there with you until very recently. Finally, Chrome extensions have evolved enough to include certain things I find essential to my browsing experience. If you’re toying with the idea of changing to Chrome yourself, read on. You’ll probably like what you see. There are plenty of reasons previously discussed on MakeUseOf as to why someone might move to Chrome. Ad-Block Extension Firstly, I can’t imagine how I would cope with most of the Internet without some sort of ad-blocking feature in my browser. Of course, I’m sure to allow ads for all my favourite sites, because I know the bills need to be paid somehow. But it’s nice to know I won’t see all the completely irrelevant ads thrown my way when I follow random...

A while ago I posted Tips for creating enterprise-level HTML, CSS and JavaScript , where I mentioned a few examples from the Enterprise CSS , Enterprise HTML , and Enterprise JavaScript sites. The examples on those sites are meant to be ironic, showing what not to do. Some readers have contacted me because they feel that the irony isn’t completely obvious and are worried that people getting started in front-end web development would misinterpret the “tips”. They do have a point, so I thought I’d bring up a few of the examles from the Enterprise CSS/HTML/JS sites and explain why I think they are bad examples. This isn’t a comprehensive list, and please note that some of my explanations may be somewhat biased by personal preference. CSS Organize properties/value pairs by length. This may look neat in your CSS file but makes maintenance a hassle since each time you change a value you may need to reorganise the properties. It will also lead to properties that are logical...

Practical iPad Music Making: Connecting Hardware What’s this MIDI thing about? Creatively, music is about assembling a new whole out of lots of pieces. So it makes sense that in a music workspace, making connections is important. Like traditional computers before it, part of what makes the shiny, new iPad musically useful is its ability to work with other gear. Enter MIDI. For the uninitiated, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is the de facto industry standard means for communicating musical events between different hardware and software. It doesn’t transmit sound, but it does transmit information like pitch, note events, knob twists, button presses, and clock and transport information. I’ve been working with Tekserve, an independent Apple service and sales shop in Manhattan, to help show iPad owners how they can use this protocol – now more than a quarter century old – to make all their gear work together. Tonight at an event Tekserve titled “the future of...

Oh, sure -- Google's being all-too-kind by handing out a few free megabytes of Verizon data with each of its Cr-48 netbooks, but if you're both lucky enough to have one and more inclined to use that dust-collecting AT&T SIM of yours, there's hardly a better day for you to pay attention to a hack. After noticing that a recent update to Chrome OS added GSM support for Qualcomm's Gobi 3G chip, Hexxeh dug in a little to see what it'd take to get the Cr-48 operational with a data SIM from Ma Bell. Turns out there's shockingly little needed from you; simply flip the Developer switch beneath the battery and follow the shell commands listed in the source link. It should be noted that there's no data counter here, so watch those gigabytes if you're working with a data cap. There, we solved your Saturday. You're welcome.

Android HoneyComb is the Android OS for Tablet PC from Google which got previewed by Google earlier in CES 2011. In the recent Google Event more information and HoneyComb Apps Demoed , now we can see the stunning and cool booting animation on Honey Comb. At Verizon – Motorola’s Xoom launch event TechCrunch was able to get a quick video of the boot up animation for the new Motorola Xoom running Android Honeycomb.

Android apps for print editing: what functions best? When we have been operative with your android dungeon phone as well as we wish to take a design we might appear during a interlude point. What if we need to supplement extras, urge a lighting, or even put insert text. Well, with a assorted android apps it is possible. But we have to watch out since a little have been improved than others, as well as a elementary ones have been a ones we have to be clever of. The improved ones have been still easy to operate nonetheless have most energetic features. Here is a gathered list of a couple of of a most appropriate apps for design modifying upon a android phone. The initial as well as substantially a most appropriate app around for design modifying is a PicSay app. It has assorted uses, though a little of a improved facilities have been substantially a supplement in content as well as design supplement ins. It can additionally crush a design as well as concede we to operate opp...

With the free app Android Injector, you can install apps (.apk file) that you have downloaded to your computer on your Android smartphones via USB connection, without having to get them through the Android Market. It is very useful, especially for phones that only allow loading apps through the Android Market and  for apps that not available through the Market. This application is very small and easy to use. Just connect your phone to your PC via USB cable (USB drivers for your phone must be installed). Select Android apps (.apk file) and click “Install to device”button. That’s all. No rooting or anything is required. Download Android Injector from the following link .

Blogger is catching up with Wordpress now … Wordpress is a feature rich blogging platform. Now Blogger is catching up with recent updates/enhancements launched. Earlier Blogger Mobile Template is launched and now its native Android app for posting posts to your blogs on the go. Blogger's Android app is really basic and doesn't offer too many features. It's mostly useful if you want to write a new post, since you can't edit the existing posts. The editor only lets you enter text and include one or more photos. You can add some labels and geotag your posts, taking advantage of your phone's GPS. If you haven't finished a post, you can always save it as a draft, but you won't be able to publish it from a computer because it's only saved locally.

Nextbook, Next2, Nextbook 8.4 Vendor gadgets from USA, USA issued a Next2 Nextbook, 7-inch tablet device running the Android operating system. This device serves as an e-book reader, media player, photo viewer and Internet browsing device. Next2 tablet also supports WiFi connectivity 802.11b / g and has a 800 × 480px touchscreen, built-in speakers, microSD card slot and a 3.5mm jack. One drawback found on these gadgets is that still use the Android OS 1.5, but predicted this gadget also supports the Android version on it. Text file format and movie files that can be played are: ePub format, PDF, TXT and FB2 files, DivX, XviD, RM / RMVB, MOV, MKV. From the news circulated nextbook also issued their latest namely nextbook 8.4.

The Israel-based leading designer and manufacturer of embedded Computing products has announced a new pocket sized tine desktop PC namely, Trim Slice. It is powered by NVIDIA Tegra 2 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 dual- core processor and has 1 GB DDR2-800 Memory . The upcoming device supports Gigabit Ethernet, and Wi-Fi 802.11n connectivity connectivity options as well as comes with NVIDIA Tegra 2 low power consumption . User can install any number of Linux based or Google Android based operating systems that supports ARM architecture . It can be used as a media player, or gaming system or even as a desktop PC.   CompuLab Trim Slice Tiny Desktop PC Specs Powered by NVIDIA Tegra 2 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 dual-core processor Supports Gigabit Ethernet, & Wi-Fi 802.11n connectivity Integrated ultra-low power GeForce GPU Includes HDMI, DVI, & four USB ports Can install Linux OS & Google Android OS 1 GB DDR2 -800 Memory Up to 64GB of SSD Bluetooth connectivity Micro ...