Category Archives: Tech

Hey Google, Happy Now?

Dear Google,

Is this website to your liking now? Just to let you know, if you haven’t already noticed, I’ve decided to turn off Google Adwords on my website. That’s right. I’m breaking up with you. Nice knowing you. Have a nice life. I hope you feel better.

Do you want to know why I dumped you? I’m no longer participating in your dumb Google Adwords program because you have way too many rules and regulations. You can’t do this, you can’t do that. First, you demand “nofollow” on all links. But that really didn’t matter, because you manually altered and lowered my page ranking anyways. I could care less about page ranking. You can rank mine to negative 5 million if you want. I don’t give a hoot.

Finally, today was the final straw. Now, you want to dictate how and where I can place my ads. So that everyone here reading this knows, here’s the warning and alert message from Google.

LAYOUT ENCOURAGES ACCIDENTAL CLICKS: Publishers are not permitted to encourage users to click on Google ads in any way. This includes any implementation that may encourage accidental clicks, such as placing ads near flash games or navigation bars, or placing ads and site links extremely close together.

Please. I am done with you. Now that your dumb ads are gone from my website, I can finally have my freedom back. I can do anything to my site. I can use any layout, and any design that I want, without you telling me what to do. I don’t have to adhere to your stupid rules and regulations just to make you happy.

By the way, you can shove that worthless couple of dollars a month to where the sun don’t shine. You guys are cheap. Other advertisers pay more. I’m sorry I already found a replacement. And please, don’t bother explaining and rationalizing what you did, because I’m done listening to you. Comments are off.

Netflix Is Down

Tonight is one of those nights lots of families are staying home. Watching Netflix might be one of those favorite past times in between all the festive activities. The timing couldn’t have been worse for Netflix to go down tonight. Blame it all on AWS, Amazon Web Services, for the spotty web service, stemming from the its Northern Virginia data center. This is the third time AWS has gone down this year.

iPad Magic

Here’s some iPad magic by Simon Pierro, courtesy of Mashable. Here is Simon’s Youtube channel if you’re interested in seeing all his magic tricks. He is a decent magician, and he has put on a ton of work with the iPad. It’s refreshing to see a magician use and embrace technology, and incorporate it with something as old as magic.

Skewing Prices Based On Location

Gizmodo just ran a piece how some websites would skew their online prices depending on where you live. Of course, this is entirely possible based on info they already have about you, when you log in with your account info. Wireless providers have been doing this for years, presenting different types of phones and services based on the zip code provided. Shipping rates have also varied based on location. That’s understandable, but online prices being different based on where you live is bit discriminatory. I wonder if you can fool the system by logging into different web proxy servers with IP addresses that are registered in different parts of the country. Anyhow, interesting stuff.

SMS Text Messaging Turns 20

I can’t believe it. SMS text messaging is 20 years old. Although, it has been around for 20 years, a few people have not use it, or use it sparingly. A few have become billionaires because of SMS, wireless, and telecommunications in general. If you’re curious what the first text message ever was? Here’s an excerpt from CNN’s report.

The first-ever text message was sent December 3, 1992, by software engineer Neil Papworth, to Vodafone director Richard Jarvis, who received the message on his husky Orbitel 901 cell phone. It read simply, “Happy Christmas.”

Six billion SMS (short message service) messages are sent every day in the United States, according to Forrester Research, and over 2.2 trillion are sent a year. Globally, 8.6 trillion text messages are sent each year, according to Portio Research.

SMS messaging is expected to be a $150 billion-a-year industry in 2013, with carriers charging set monthly fees for unlimited texting, or as much as 20 cents per text. The actual cost to carriers for sending a text message is about 0.03 cents.

Marvell 8864 Gigabit Wireless

Marvell, the maker of wireless chips, plans to release the 8864 chip for the wireless 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard, which is capable of up reaching gigabit speeds. The release is scheduled for some time next year. Excerpt from Computerworld:

The Marvell 8864 chipset increases performance by using four antennas to receive and four to send data, a configuration which is referred to as simply 4×4. Sending and receiving data using multiple antennas is possible thanks to a technology called MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output), which is already used in both Wi-Fi and LTE networks.

In addition to MIMO, Marvell’s chipset also uses a technology called beamforming, which improves performance by aiming the signal at the receiver. The way Marvell has implemented beamforming means smartphones, tablets and laptops don’t have to proactively support it to get the advantages.

The combination of multiple antennas with beamforming results in higher speeds, as well improved range and reliability. For users the improvements also mean longer battery life, because devices such as smartphones can “get on and off the air” faster, Giordano said.

To take full advantage of the 8864 chipset’s capabilities, clients also have to have a 4×4 antenna configuration, but other clients will also see significant improvements, Giordano said.

The Marvell chipset will be used on a multitude of different products, including access points, routers, gateways, video bridges and set top boxes, the first of which will start shipping in the middle of next year.

Remmina Remote Desktop Client

Remmina is a free and open-source project released under GNU GPL license. Remmina is a remote desktop client written in GTK+. It’s perfect for system administrators and travelers needing to work on remote computers. Remmina supports multiple network protocols like RDP, VNC, NX, XDMCP and SSH.

I currently use Remmina to view my Macbook Air remotely from my Linux desktop. It works great so far. I have it running for a better part of the day. It’s seem to be responsive. The remote mouse and keyboard works perfectly. The screen quality is not quite near as the Macbook Air display, but then again, it’s a remote desktop client.

Remmina is available to Ubuntu and Linux Mint users. You can install by typing on the Terminal:

$ sudo apt-get install remmina

The Remmina Remote Desktop Client icon is available under Menu > Internet.

Visit Remmina’s website.

Mac Mini With USB 3.0

Along with the iPad mini being introduced on October 23rd, Apple also plans to upgrade the Mac Mini with USB 3.0 ports. Will there be processor and storage upgrades for the Mac Mini? There is no telling at the moment. I guess, we just have to wait until the October 23 announcement. Regardless, the USB 3.0 upgrade is good news for prospective Mac Mini buyers, like me.

iPad Mini At $249

You gotta love leaks. The word on the street (internet) according to Gizmodo is, the new iPad mini is going to be priced starting at around $249 for the 8GB version. Higher models will be priced more. Here’s an excerpt from the LA Times:

The posted picture, which according to the blog comes from an anonymous informant, shows 8 GB versions of the iPad mini will go for 249 euros, or about $320. But Gizmodo is reporting that the U.S. price is likely to be $249. As it points out, Apple charges roughly the same figure in Europe for the third generation iPad as it does in America. It doesn’t conpensate for the foreign exchange difference.

As for the inventory list provided by the German blogger, the price goes up to 349 euros for the 16 GB model, 449 euros for the 32 GB device and 549 euros for a 64 GB version. The cellular-connected versions of the iPad mini start at 349 euros for the 8 GB model, 449 euros for the 16 GB model, 549 for the 32 GB and 649 for the 64 GB versions of the device.

Now, how accurate these figures are, you really can’t be sure. But, it looks very promising for people looking for a smaller and affordable iPad. Interestingly enough, Amazon’s Kindle Fire is priced at $249. So, it looks like Apple is matching the price of the Kindle Fire.

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the online surfer