Apple iPad - What Is It?
The hype surrounding Apple's
"tablet" computer turns out to have been just that.
My definition of a tablet is a full-fledged, personal computer with a touch-screen and no physical keyboard. The iPad is not a tablet. It's also not a Mac - it runs the iPhone/iPod Touch OS, not Mac OS X.
The iPad is an iPod Touch. A very large iPod Touch.
If the claims of battery life approaching 10 hours are true, the iPad could turn out to be a great eBook reader. It might work out well as a person's primary PC if activities are limited to email and the Web. It might be a replacement for a netbook-style PC.
But as long as it can run only one app at a time, it cannot displace the typical laptop or full-scale tablet for those doing work. And given the enormous successes of the iPhone and BlackBerry, with their ability to vanish inside a pocket or purse, I don't think it can displace the smart phone, either.
January 28, 2010
Internet Explorer Security
As usual,
Windows Secrets is right on top of the
current
security problem with Internet Explorer. These security-related articles
from the best source of Windows information on the Web are required reading.
They will refer you to the most relevant source material and usually contain
the practical advice for dealing with threats.
Not surprisingly, the most serious threat is to computers still equipped with the now-ancient version 6 of IE. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of abandoning use of IE6 in favor of any contemporary browser, including IE8.
January 21, 2010
Mozilla Thunderbird 3
Mozilla's
Thunderbird
3 is a disappointment and I cannot fully recommend it at this time. Those of my
clients using Thunderbird 2 should stick with it if they are using the
Lightning calendar add-on.
Originally, Lightning was to become an integrated part of Thunderbird. I lost track, but at some point that plan must have changed. The Lightning Project remains intact as a separate entity and Lightning remains an add-on.
Here's the problem: Lightning 0.9 won't work with TB3 and Lightning 1.0 missed its deadline. A month after TB3's release Lightning remains in beta.
I was excited by the prospect of a serious and economic competitor to Outlook. TB3 is not yet there.
January 6, 2010
Mac OS X Snow Leopard
I received the Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6) upgrade
as a Christmas gift yesterday. This morning I installed it. Would that Windows updates were so
easy.
The experience included something I have never seen before with any system I've used in my long computing career - an upgrade that resulted in more free space on the hard drive than there was before the update. This has been widely reported over the past few months, but seeing it for yourself is something else again.
My Mac is a two year-old Mac mini with an 80GB hard drive that came with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Prior to the update, it reported 35GB free out of roughly 76GB available. After installing the upgrade it reported 46GB free and after subsequent online updates, which themselves involved about 700MB of downloads, it reported 47GB of free space.
For a Mac like mine with relatively little storage, this is a huge bump. I gained 12GB or 15% of the total drive!
Extraordinary.
December 26, 2009
Oracle, MySQL, and PostgreSQL
A
recent
article in Computerworld
listed ten promises or "undertakings" Oracle made to the European commission about MySQL in an
effort to gain that body's approval of Oracle's proposed merger with Sun. The problem is that
the promises have a lifetime of 5 years, after which Oracle could renege on all of them. That is
exactly what some critics, me among them, think will happen - I don't see what Oracle has to
gain by keeping MySQL around.
This exposes a broader problem with the programming language PHP. Many Web sites are built using PHP and make specific calls the the MySQL library. In most modern programming environments, calls are made to a database "abstraction" layer that isolates the application from a specific database. Developers who use such a layer can switch horses by changing a few lines of code to invoke use of a different database system. PHP has a layer called PDO that does this.
The beneficiary of the uncertain future of MySQL may be the highly-regarded PostgreSQL. Unfortunately, while almost all Web hosting companies provide MySQL, very few offer PostgreSQL as an option.
December 15, 2009
Sadly, My Favorite B&B Closes
My
favorite hostelry, Stoney Brook Bed & Breakfast, closed a couple of months back when the owners
decided to retire. I don't know why; they were both energetic. Apparently they wanted to spend
more time with their grandchildren or something silly like that. Go figure.
I was a regular guest at Stoney Brook during Gettysburg's semi-annual Bluegrass Festival. Eventually that led to designing and building the inn's Web site, a dramatic improvement that raised the B&B's profile on the Web over the previous site.
It has always been a favorite of mine for its elegance and simplicity. In an unusual move, I've placed the entire site in my portfolio as an example of my work. The actual site will go offline in a few months, which is why I wanted to preserve it here.
December 14, 2009
Mac On The Move
One
would think a sane marketer would try to avoid Windows Week when announcing
new products. Apple, ignoring that sage analysis, marched ahead this week
with a significant refresh including an updated "white" MacBook, new iMacs,
updated Mac minis and, most interesting, the Mac mini
Server.
October 21, 2009
The Evolution of Fastie.com
A
new site design is coming to both my business and
personal sites. The same design, featuring
my iconic virtual self (left), will be shared between the two. A key goal is better organization and one important feature will be that
all computing content will be here, on the business side. The most significant
technical change is that the domain fastie.net will be discontinued next
year. Starting immediately, I'm all fastie.com (check your email
records).
I look forward to hearing from you about these changes.
October 6, 2009
Decoding Intel Processors
Back
in the old days, when life was simpler and Intel boastfully marketed each
successive generation of processor with its clock rate, it was fairly easy
to tell which chip was king of the hill. Then came hyper-threading and
micro-architectures and multiple cores and a shift in marketing tactics that
made it very difficult to tell what was what.
Although the complexity is still with us, Intel has done a superb job with its current consumer site - for the first time in a long while it is easier to distinguish chip from chip. The Intel Processor Ratings page is an excellent summary and each processor page is comprehensive.
Nice job, Intel, and thanks.
September 8, 2009
About Will Fastie