Tapbots Makes Netbot a Free Download to Spur App.net Adoption.
Cool stuff, I love their twitter apps, and Netbot is really just tweetbot with a grey skin. Course, you’ll need the $36/year app.net membership to use it. However, the scheme of making the best app.net client free is a good scheme, I wish them good luck.
I am a huge Evernote fan. Huge. They just released two huge updates this morning.
First up is Penultimate 4, a sketching / handwriting app that’s been around a while with Evernote integration, but now it’s improved:
- Now free
- Has full evernote sync, search integration, and a new UI.
- Also looks like you get a month of Evernote Premium just for running it. If you don’t want the Evernote integration you can also continue to use it as you have.
Evernote Penultimate app store link.
Second is a favorite app of mine, Evernote Hello with a big update. I’ve written about Hello before in the context of how I use it, but the new update has taken it to the next level.
- New UI (I kinda prefer the old one to be honest, it’s still pretty nice)
- Integration with LinkedIn, allowing you to pull down user information from LinkedIn to avoid having to enter it all.
- Better pulling down of information about a person based on an email in a calendar entry or a business card
- Speaking of business card scanning, Premium users get free Business Card scanning, though it’s free for everyone for a couple of months.
- A ‘find people nearby’ called “Hello Connect” which is similar to Facebook’s ill fated ‘find friends near me’, allowing you to easily transfer your profile information with others Hello users (anyone remember the Palm Pilot “Beam” contact info feature?)
Evernote Hello app store link.
All in all a huge day for the @evernote team. Congrats!
Found via Jeffrey at Faded and Blurred is the brilliant short film Voice Over. It’s subtitled, but well worth the watch.
Fairly good look from gigaom: BlackBerry 10 smartphone launch gets a few cheers, a bunch of jeers and a lot of meh. I particularly liked the “feature parity to 2010” tweet :)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I think that BB10 is a nice looking smartphone OS, and their new hardware looks good. But to be a plausible third player in the market they have to not only keep current BB users, attract new smartphone users, but also maybe pull some users from iOS and Android. That’s a tough road, especially when the behemoth Microsoft isn’t even in double digit market share after 2 years.
Great interview with Kim Dotcom. He obviously has an axe to grind, but I think that anyone who doesn’t think that the Megaupload takedown was amped up because of the RIAA/MPAA and their ties to the government is deceiving themselves.
Kudos to my buddy Jim for the link.
For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II. They were discovered in 1978, and it’s a fascinating read of a real life “unaware of the rest of the world” story.
That was in 1936, and there were only four Lykovs then—Karp; his wife, Akulina; a son named Savin, 9 years old, and Natalia, a daughter who was only 2. Taking their possessions and some seeds, they had retreated ever deeper into the taiga, building themselves a succession of crude dwelling places, until at last they had fetched up in this desolate spot. Two more children had been born in the wild—Dmitry in 1940 and Agafia in 1943—and neither of the youngest Lykov children had ever seen a human being who was not a member of their family. All that Agafia and Dmitry knew of the outside world they learned entirely from their parents’ stories. The family’s principal entertainment, the Russian journalist Vasily Peskov noted, “was for everyone to recount their dreams.”
Just imagine how terrified you’d be if someone appeared after you hadn’t seen another soul in decades, with strange devices and technology. Other details like how their language diminished into “blurred cooing” and how they had no replacement for metal (and how cooking became more and more difficult) are fascinating.
Something to think about the next time you think of leaving all technology behind and just living in the woods :)
Ok, this is the most awesome thing I’ve seen in a while. The sound of the dialup, pictured shows in both audio and visual forms what’s going on when a dialup modem connects.
The full size image is pretty awesome, and really shows what’s going on. Huge kudos to Oona Räisänen for putting this together.
I spent 4 years doing tech support Back In The Day(tm) supporting a dial up modem pool at the local Real Estate Board, and more than one time I asked the end user to put the phone at the back of the computer so I could hear what the modem was doing. I can still tell if hardware error correction fails or not.
Microsoft’s 64GB Surface Pro will only have 23GB usable storage.
I understand that there will be overhead.
I understand that Office and a bunch of apps are pre-installed.
I don’t understand 45G of overhead. I’m pretty sure that’s more than what I have used on my entire Windows 7 install!
Note: I have 57G of usable space on an iPhone 5. Just sayin’.
500px Returns To The iOS App Store, but now with more Apple walled-garden compliance.
Toronto’s 500px got its popular photo sharing iPhone app back on the iTunes App Store today, following a takedown that Apple said stemmed from multiple user complaints about pornographic material. The app returns with an age-gate warning, advising that the content in the app is for 17+ audiences, and also adds a new “Report Photo” button to help users quickly tag things they find offensive for potential removal from the network.
I normally give Apple a lot of leeway for their decisions, but some seem just silly. I’m glad they and 500px at least came to an agreement and their (excellent) app is back.
Just discovered MySQLTuner, a very nifty little perl script that will (read-only) analyse your MySQL install and suggest different configuration changes to make it work better. Going to be using this a lot I think.
MySQLTuner is a script written in Perl that allows you to review a MySQL installation quickly and make adjustments to increase performance and stability. The current configuration variables and status data is retrieved and presented in a brief format along with some basic performance suggestions.
The Verge has a Pebble smartwatch review, for you kickstarter backers frothing at the mouth for your watch to arrive.
Rabid iPhone and iPad users, iOS 6.1 is ready for download. Not exactly a thrilling release, with:
- iTunes match improvements
- Siri / Fandango integration
- More LTE support with new carriers
- Bug fixes
I just installed the over the air update, zero issues at all.
Mac Gamers rejoice: Valve releases the original Half-Life for Mac.
Fifteen years after its release in 1998, Valve Software’s groundbreaking first-person shooter Half-Life has made its Mac debut. While its sequel, Half-Life 2, and other games based on Valve’s later Source engine have been available on the platform for years, the original Half-Life has remained beyond the reach of Mac gamers without resorting to Boot Camp or other workarounds.
… and I use the term ‘songwriter’ loosely. I’m not going to embed the video, but here’s a link to Tweenchronic-Skip Rope for ridicule. Seems that the writer of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” and “Thanksgiving” is at it again.
To quote Ralph on Hollywood Babble On, “aren’t the rappers shooting each other still?”
I made it through about 12 seconds of this before I had to turn it off. I cry for the children of today.
Even though you can tell exactly how this movie will go, watching the Olympus Has Fallen Official Trailer #1 makes me really wanting March 22 to arrive. And possibly shoot something.
While the new IE viral marketing video Child of the 90s is very nostalgic, I don’t know if it would make me, or anyone for that matter, connect it with something new and hip that I should try out.
Note to filmmakers: Putting a 56k modem in an ad about something that’s supposed to be new and fast might not be the best idea. Just sayin’. At least MS is trying (and realizes that their browser is mostly used to download other browsers).
THQ Is No More. Here’s The Letter The CEO Sent Employees Today.
Today, THQ was officially sold and auctioned off. Within the next few weeks, the struggling video game publisher will be no more.
As someone who’s gone through more than one set of company layoffs, it sucks. Hopefully the THQ staff will be sought after for re-employment soon.
This is the first Clip of the new movie ‘jOBS’ and gives a first look at Kutcher and Gad’s roles.
Sorry but I don’t see anything but Ashton Kutcher acting here, I don’t see Steve Jobs (or frankly, Woz either).
The answer on reddit courtesy of imaginelove615, commenting on the ‘how does it feel to pass a kidney stone’ subreddit:
My family gets these a lot and as true rednecks, we have a cure! First, you need supplies: a case of dark beer (Guinness Black works best), a gallon of cranberry juice, and a gallon of water.Call your friends and family for moral support. Chug a beer. Chug a glass of cranberry juice. Chug a glass of water. Repeat until you’re too drunk to feel and your bladder is about to burst. Go to the bathroom. If you hear something that sounds like a bb hitting a hubcap, congrats! If not, time to keep drinking.
X-Surface: Don’t believe everything you read is the story of how a guy basically just faked a new Microsoft X-Box rumor and how the collective tech press took the bait hook, line, and sinker.
Note that the high journalistic integrity of the UFies.org staff prevented us from putting any such story up.
Course, I’m waiting for the guy pranking the media with a prank about pranking the media.
Prank-prank-prank.
I’ve only seen one other comment about this online, but it looks like it’s getting to other people, including me (sometimes). Seems that Google is testing a new Image search UI. The search results page looks the same, but when you click on an image it looks like this:
Some of the features of the new search results display:
- Keyboard navigation between images
- Image result closes on hitting “Esc”
- Sexy flyout animation
- Easy links to the original image or page
- No more weird “image overlaid on top of the website and where do I click” issues.
It doesn’t seem to be everywhere yet, I opened a new browser window and got the traditional image search, but hopefully the new results will roll out to everyone soon.
Actual Facebook Graph Searches is the best tumblog I’ve found lately.
Nice look from ZDNet of how Oracle installs deceptive software with Java updates.
In the background, the Ask toolbar installer continues to run, but it delays execution for 10 minutes. If you are a sophisticated Windows user and you missed the initial checkbox, your natural instinct at this point would be to open Control Panel and check Programs and Features. When you do, you will see that only the Java update has been installed. You might also check your browser settings to confirm that no changes have been made to your settings. You might conclude that you dodged a bullet and that the unwanted software wasn’t installed.
But you would be wrong. The Ask installer is still running, and after waiting 10 minutes, it drops two programs on the target system.
I knew about having to opt out of the toolbar crapware, but some stuff in there I am amazed that they get away with.
Short version: there’s almost no reason to use Java, so don’t install it. Ever.
I had no idea that the Evil Dead was being remade and got itself a green band trailer. Looks pretty sweet, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Those less squeamish will want to check out the Red Band Trailer:
Think that Apple is infallible and always right? Think that I think that? Nope, saw this today: Apple Pulls 500px’s Mobile Apps From The App Store, Claiming It’s Too Easy To Search For Nude Photos and I think it’s a completely stupid thing.
The apps were pulled from the App Store this morning around 1 AM Eastern, and had completely disappeared by noon today. The move came shortly after last night’s discussions with Apple related to an updated version of 500px for iOS, which was in the hands of an App Store reviewer.
If they are pulling apps for being able to find nude images, pull the Safari app, anything vaguely like a web browser, anything that lets you browse flickr, etc.
Seriously stupid.
If you don’t know, 500px is a fantastic photo sharing site that I use and has a amazing quality of images on it (my work aside). And yes, you can easily find nude images on there, of which most are artsy and high class.
Sorry Apple, no love from me on this one.
Mozilla is Announcing the Firefox OS Developer Preview Phone!
Developer preview phones will help make the mobile web more accessible to more people. Developers are critical to the web and to Mozilla’s mission to make the web accessible to everyone. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide use Firefox to discover, experience and connect to the Web. A web based on open standards and open technologies. We couldn’t have done this without web developers. Now we are working on bringing the power of the web to mobile, through Firefox OS, along with all the power of open standards and an open community, and once again, we’d like to invite web developers to join us.
Awesome news that the (great) site 500px has updated their Lightroom Plugin and open sourced it.
This was an exciting week for 500px Lightroom Plugin! We’ve updated the plugin with fixes & new features and released it open source. Which means better plugin for you and endless fun for developers world-wide.
‘Every empire crumbles’ by John Moltz is a fantastic read. Make sure you read the punchline.
Apple is losing its hip and unpredictable edge as it risks being left behind by the very technology it helped to proliferate…
Definitely a good look at how people look at Apple’s position in the market.
Where is the best Twitter experience on the iPhone? asks 9to5Mac.
If you’re anything like me, you’re constantly on some form of social media or another. You’re not a self-proclaimed “social media guru” or some kind of “expert” on getting people to follow you, just someone who enjoys talking to interesting people online.
Good article, even more so because it compares apps that I actually use :)
Webupd8 has a nice list and details of the Unity Changes in Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail.
You know those friends who still have a tiny bit of doubt about the moon landings in 1969? The ones what whip out random things about carvings on rocks, or shadows not lining up, and how scientists that were involved died mysterious deaths? Yea, we all know at least one.
Found while surfing through FlipBoard while waiting for friends to show up at dinner is this great video of Why the Moon Landings Could Have Never EVER Been Faked: The Definitive Proof
This video is so good, so incredibly brilliant, solid and simple, that you will want to paste it all over your Facebooks and Twitters just to piss off all the IMBECILES who still claim that the Moon landings were faked.* The reason is simple: the technology to fake it didn’t exist.
The video is good enough to embed right here for your watching pleasure.
Kim DotCom’s new site Mega has launched. Torrentfreak has the story: Brilliantly Secure, But Not Anonymous. Main site is down right now sadly.
Kim Dotcom response to the Record Labels saying that the Only Way to Stop Piracy is Suing File-Sharers.
Of course, what they should’ve done - a full 10 years ago - is outlined in Dotcom’s Tweet.
I won’t spoil the tweet, but he’s boiled it down to 140 characters (and no one will listen). It’s what we all know already, but something ignored by the “old media”.
Not Pacman, as noted by Cult of Mac, is very different from Pacman, but looks the same. Mostly.
Ever wondered how Pacman would be like with physics? No? Well, it’s revolutionary. This mashup of “Not” and “Pacman” puts The Pac and the Ghosts in a in a Pacworld cage, at mercy of gravity and the level’s shape, controlled solely by you. Ghosts still don’t like you very much, so you should be careful to make Pacman avoid them.
Free download for mac/windows/linux.
The latest version of The Fedora Project has been released. Here’s the F18 release announcement, and here’s the download link.
Just saw that Mac Productivity software OmniFocus has gone free until OmniFocus 2’s debut.
Not a bad way to deal with the quandary of “should I buy now or wait for the upgrade?” question, being that the Mac App store doesn’t support upgrade pricing yet. Omnifocus 1 has been around for a while, is stable and good, but is also $80, and when the (Omni Group](http://www.omnigroup.com/) started talking about Omnifocus 2 people (myself included) asked themselves if they should buy now, or wait (being that Omnifocus 2 was a fair ways off (allegedly)).
The Omni Group has come up with a novel approach to dealing with the question of “should I buy OmniFocus now, or wait until I know what the next version is going to be like?” Since the company has already announced that the next major Mac version of its popular GTD-ready task manager will be unveiled on January 31 during Macworld 2013, it’s making the current version of OmniFocus for Mac free to use until then.
Of course, on their suggestion, I bought it ($79 is, in theory, a small price to pay for being productive) a few weeks ago. Sucks to be me I guess :( Really hope that their theory that they can get upgrade pricing working.
Got to see a MaKey MaKey in person last night, thanks to one of the guys at the FV.rb meeting last night.
MaKey MaKey is an invention kit for the 21st century. Turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet. It’s a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything inbetween[…]
Basically it’s a circuit board with a USB connector to plug into a computer, and it acts as a keyboard. It has several connectors (wsad and up down left right, plus a few others) that when they’re connected, translate into that key being pressed.
This kickstarter project was overfunded by about 20x, and for what it is, I think it’s pretty damn cool.
Very interesting read on Why Programmers Work At Night from Business Insider. I always figured it was because it takes me about 8 hours to properly wake up in the morning.
Coworker pointed me to this lovely memory: Terry Tate: Office Linebacker definitely brings a smile to my face.
The Next Web points out that The new Myspace is now open to the public. Now the big question is “will anyone care?”
Via iPhone in Canada: Facebook Launches Graph Search Beta (It's Not a Phone):
What is Graph Search? Graph Search is a new way for you to find people, photos, places and interests that are most relevant to you on Facebook.What is Graph Search useful for?
Graph Search will help you instantly find others, learn more about them and make connections, explore photos, quickly find places like local attractions and restaurants, and learn about common interests like music, movies, books and more. All results are unique based on the strength of relationships and connections.What can I search for?
With Graph Search, you can search for people, photos, places and interests.
Very interesting.
Up until the end of the trailer I didn’t know if the Cyberpunk 2077 Debut Trailer was for a movie, a game, or what. Turns out it’s a game, and the trailer is gorgeous.
Pretty amazing, can’t wait to see what it’s actually all about.
Via Forever Geek.
Video of Apollo Robbins Pickpocketing from the New Yorker:
In this video, Apollo demonstrates some of his tricks and techniques, using Green as his victim.
Well worth the 6 minutes to watch it.
Star Wars: Machete Order is a look at how to solve the issue of watching the full six Star Wars movies in an order that makes sense:
How can you ensure that a viewing keeps the Vader reveal a surprise, while introducing young Anakin before the end of Return of the Jedi?
Sounds like I need to spend a couple of weekends re-watching in both Alternative Order and Machete Order, to see which works best!
I was so happy to hear that my favorite Linux ranter Fab put out a special video rant about the Mark Shuttleworth keynote, where he picks apart all the crap that was spewed about the Ubuntu Phone.
I have to say I don’t disagree with most of what Fab has to say here, and that’s said as a Linux user, lover, and full time at-work user of Ubuntu desktop.
Well, it got over 34,000 signatures, but sadly, the Whitehouse Responded for the petition to build a death star, and This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For :(
Some of their (faulty, IMHO) reasoning is:
- The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
- The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
- Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?
That said, there’s a lot of good stuff in the response about the current state of technology that’s good to see. Kudos for to the white house for responding.
Meowbify by Mobify lets you put in a site and get back the site, but with cats.
“I can’t tell the difference between Ufies.org and the meowbified version!” — an unnamed friend.
You can also hack the source yourself if you need to.
Via my buddy @halkeye is the news that Microsoft has confirmed that Messenger will be retired and users migrated to Skype on March 15:
Microsoft on Tuesday started mass emailing its 100 million+ Messenger users to let them know that the service is officially being retired on March 15, 2013. On that date, all users will be migrated to Skype, which Microsoft acquired back in May 2011 for $8.5 billion.
I really wonder how they’re going to handle non-microsoft clients, or if it’ll be more a microsoft-client-only transition?
Thanks to @brian5tevens I found the bit I missed from the Pebble Press Conference that the watches will start shipping on January 23.
Update: The official page has been updated with the full story, livestream link, and details. Other juicy bits:
- Water resistant to 5 atmospheres
- Cool magnetic charging system
- Compass built in
DPReview has posted their Pentax MX-1 hands-on preview.
Boil the Frog is a sweet looking mixtape creator:
Boil the Frog lets you create a playlist of songs that gradually takes you from one music style to another. It’s like the proverbial frog in the pot of water. If you heat up the pot slowly enough, the frog will never notice that he’s being made into a stew and jump out of the pot. With a Boil the frog playlist you can do the same, but with music. You can generate a playlist that will take the listener from one style of music to the other, without the listener ever noticing that they are being made into a stew.
Not bad checking out U2 to Johnny Cash.
Qualcomm’s insane CES 2013 keynote in pictures and tweets, and the video below.
When having Big Bird come out during your keynote isn’t the weirdest thing in your key note, you’re doing something… uhm…. something. Seriously, go through the tweets and pictures then watch the video, I can’t believe that this isn’t a parody.
Just watching the video made me feel uncomfortable. I love how there’s no applause or laughs at the carefully crafted breaks (at least they didn’t show up on the edit).
Running a Ruby on Rails site, you may want to know about the Multiple vulnerabilities in parameter parsing in Action Pack (CVE-2013-0156). The link includes links to patches if you can't upgrade ASAP.
Amazon Prime Launches in Canada, Unlimited 2 Day Shipping for $79 Per Year. Nice, finally some of the conveniences coming to the great white north.
Now when will the full selection of electronics and other gear be available as well…? :)
Jon Stewart: If You Can’t Vote For This, ‘Then We’re F*cked’ | Mediaite. Color me naive, but I didn’t think that this would be an issue. Also, who doesn’t love a good Jon Stewart rant?
Go ‘murika?
Via forgetfoo comes HulaCam at Burning Man 2012.
Hope you don’t have a weak stomach for spinning things. Also note there are (covered) boobies in the video, as it seems most women at Burning Man go as close to topless as they can.
Update: Via this page it seems that the updates are only for existing users, as they’ll not be able to re-install if the activation servers are offline. Makes more sense. Sorry for the bad post and not checking sources more!
Update2: I’ll just leave this here and let you determine if your license qualifies you.
Gizmodo notes that you can Grab Photoshop and CS2 For Absolutely Free from Adobe, without any catches (kinda).
Well, unless you think having an Adobe account is a catch. Anyway, apparently Adobe’s tired of keeping the activation servers running to support legitimate installs of the 10-year-old CS2, so it’s decided to just give it away. Sounds great to me.
The kinda-catch is that this is a Mac-only, PowerPC version, so it’s a non-starter if you’re on a remotely modern Mac.
Notch.me is an interesting new way to visualize your health. It connects with a variety of online services (RunKeeper, FitBit, etc), and creates cool visualizations of the data it can pull from there.
The NPR story of Hearing A Mother’s Song After Tragedy was the only place I could find that had “Mother” by Natalie Maines, from the upcoming soundtrack from West of Memphis.
I heard the song on the Howard Stern show Friday just her and Fred Norris on acoustic guitar and it was amazing. The version you get when you click on the play button below the article is more produced, but still epic.
Photo credit: g33kboi via photopin cc
This morning Pentax announced the Pentax MX-1, in both silver and black. Here’s the exerpt from the announcement:
Classically Crafted, Contemporary Quality
With its genuine brass covers and advanced digital compact capabilities, the PENTAX MX-1 is where craft design meets contemporary quality. The MX-1’s fast F1.8-2.5 lens, 4X zoom and large 12 megapixel backlit CMOS sensor allow for bright everyday imagery inside a stylish body. As its brass wears with time, feel the good old days come back to life in your images of today with the PENTAX MX-1.
Some of the highlights of the body are:
- 1/1.7” 12mp sensor
- F/1.8-2.5 aperture lens
- 1080p @ 30fps video mode
- 28-112mm 35mm equivelant (4x optical zoom, with digital (ugh) of 1.95x to make 7.8x zoom effective)
- 3” tiltable LCD
- Face and pet face detection
- SD/SDHC/SDXC, with 75mb of internal memory, also Eye-Fi compatible
- Weighs only 12.8 oz (without battery)
- Sensor shift optical image stabilization
I really wish that they’d taken a bit more of a cue from the Fuji X-100 in terms of the sensor, but the modern styling does look beautiful (if the pictures do anything). Also it’ll be interesting to see how the sensor stacks up in terms of low light. Anyone from Pentax out there want to send me a review unit? :)
With the talk lately about Apple’s (theoretical and rumoured with no basis in reality) Smart Watch, the fine folks over at The Next Web took a Look at how great a Google smartwatch could be.
What strikes me though, is how a smartwatch from Google would be a perfect fit for working with Google Now. A Google Now-equipped watch would be in sync with your Google account, notifying you about upcoming meetings, flight delays, birthdays and more just as Google Now does on recent versions of Android. What do you say, Larry? Make it happen!
Exactly what I was thinking. As an iPhone user Google Now is something that I’m insanely jealous of (though I don’t depend on Google’s services for mail/calendaring), and having that in a watch, especially with sweet designs like this? That’d be awesome.
Starving polar bear attacks BBC cameraman in pod in Arctic Norway. Seriously, you approach someone in that contraption and what the heck do you think is going to happen!
The perspex ‘ice cube’ the photographer was housed in for much of the filming was ‘pretty much bombproof’. But there was a risk it could get brittle when very cold - making the task of filming the polar bears even more perilous. He said: ‘There’s no doubt polar bear cubs are the cutest animals in the world and even the adults have an aesthetic which isn’t threatening.
Trust the BBC to remain calm while a 9’ tall man eater is a sheet of perspex away from eating you for dinner.
The new ‘A Good Day To Die Hard’ Trailer looks awesome, especially the last (or almost last) scene (with the chopper).
The Big Picture has a set of powerful images of the outrage over the recent Indian rape victim’s death.
Number 21 got to me.
Today’s Doghouse Diaries on How Things Work makes me happy that I’m not the only clueless person as far as explaining technology.
Scorpion Software, a noted security company from Chilliwack, has a good article on their blog on testing your password security, including a free whitepaper.
I’m all for bitching about the cold and snow as the next guy, but this video of Snowboarding In Downtown Montreal has got to be the coolest thing I’ve seen lately.
Interesting read of My Quest For A Defect-Free Microsoft Surface Goes Surprisingly Poorly over The Consumerist.
Nitpicky? Maybe, but I spent ~$600 on this thing, shouldn’t it be well made? I dealt with these minor cosmetic issues for about two weeks, but then couldn’t stand it anymore. This Tuesday I went looking online for their support options, and found that they’ve got a nice warranty site set up.
After this things go badly. Recommended to read the full thing. Note that I don’t see this is a failure specifically against Microsoft or the Surface specifically, but more as just horrible customer service. They just get the top billing because they have a big name, similar to anything attached to Apple or Google.
MyPaint 1.1.0 Release with a bunch of new tools.
MyPaint is especially designed to create images from scratch and it’s not intended to be an image manipulation application (like GIMP), although you can still do many such operations using it. The application features a simple interface, unlimited canvas, extensive brush creation, basic layer support and more and is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OSX.
If you’re into painting and not the heavy graphics that something like the gimp is designed for, this looks nice.
From JWZ passed on by my buddy @halkeye: Bypass full-disk encryption and passwords on any powered-on computer via Firewire.
The tool can unlock (any password accepted) and escalate privileges to Administrator/root on almost* any machine you have physical access to. […]
Well of course, any machine you have physical access is kinda screwed, unless you use some sort of encryption like ….
It is primarily intended to do its magic against computers that utilize full disk encryption such as BitLocker, FileVault, TrueCrypt or Pointsec. […]
Oh.
Kinda scary, but the circumstances needed (powered on, has firewire, physical access, etc) make it not needing to run around screaming just yet.
He’s The Computer Man is possibly the best thing I’ve found on the internet, ever.
Full kudos go to my tame designer Joe for finding it.
Lest anyone be kept on pins and needles about the big announcement teaser from Ubuntu, you’ll be happy to know that Ubuntu for Phones has been announced.
First and foremost, I’m excited about this, I really am. Even though I’m a freedom-hating iPhone and Mac user (in addition to Linux of course), Ubuntu is doing something new and interesting. The use of edges and the “welcome screen” looks very cool.
I am, however, wondering a bit about the whole “reinventing the wheel” thing, instead of building off of Android. However, I do look forward to seeing what shakes out of this!
Note: the phone section of the video starts around 5:30.
Time to get out the excuses for rolling a tear while at work while you watch this story of a Man with Iron Man costume makes autistic boy’s Christmas wish come true.
Cameron, a 13 year-old boy with down syndrome, had his Christmas wish come true thanks to the kindness of a guy with an Iron Man suit and the internet.
Via Hollywood Babbleon.
Not technically (I think) a limitation of the new Fusion Drive per-se, but more a limitation of the drive size and it's interaction with the BootCamp drivers. Either way, if you got yourself a shiny new iMac with a 3TB fusion drive and found you can't install Windows, you'll want to check out Installing Windows via Boot Camp on a 2.2 TB or larger Drive in Lion and later over on TwoCanoes.com.
Boot Camp Assistant is not supported by Apple for hard drives larger than 2.2 TB. If you purchased a new iMac with the 3TB option (either with a Fusion drive or just a standard drive), Boot Camp Assistant will refuse to partition your hard drive into a Mac and Windows partition. However, it is still possible to create a working Boot Camp partition for Windows, provided you use the partitioning scheme as outlined in this tutorial.
Via 9-5mac.
OUYA has shipped developer consoles to early subscribers.
These are the early versions of OUYA that developers will use to start making games. They’re on their way to developers around the globe - by land, air and sea. OK, only by air — we want you to get them quick. Devs, expect them on your doorstep within the next few days.
Honestly I didn’t think I’d see this. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come for this android game console kickstarter project.
Mark Shuttleworth Blogs that Ubuntu in 2013 is all about mobile.
That’s why Unity in 2013 will be all about mobile - bringing Ubuntu to phones and tablets. Shaping Unity to provide the things we’ve learned are most important across all form factors, beautifully. Broadening the Ubuntu community to include mobile developers who need new tools and frameworks to create mobile software. Defining new form factors that enable new kinds of work and play altogether. Bringing clearly into focus the driving forces that have shaped our new desktop into one facet of a bigger gem.
Apparently there’s a surprise from Ubuntu being announced tomorrow.
“Save the date: Jan 2—Ubuntu set to disrupt a new ecosystem,” wrote Katherine Noyce, presumably quoting Canonical sources. “Ubuntu will announce a brand-new product.”
Tablet? Phone? TV? Or something boring like a new LTS setup?