Posts Tagged ‘computing’

You might remember the products. You might remember the hype. Then, you are tooling down highway 41 years later and all of a sudden you think to yourself – “Hey, whatever happened to…”

Failed ideas. Maybe it was a great idea, but wasn’t made right, or design errors brought it down. Maybe it was just a bad product. Well, let’s take a stroll down memory lane and see if we cannot repeat these errors again.

Oh yeah, why 16? Well because we could.

The Computer Watch: Whether it was the Ruputer, the MSN Direct ‘Smart’ Watches, the Timex Data Link Watch or another gadget watch – BTW – I remember having a “Transformers watch”. It was awesome!

Still, the Dick Tracey style communication watches, the “Computer on a wrist”, never really hit it off. I even remember a watch that gave you directions. You would put in the paper tape and turn a little dial to indicate where you are and where you are going.

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Day Off - Sort of
A late Ramblings this week as I decided to stay offline last week. It was a long week and I was playing all weekend. It has been a while since I last took more than 24 hours off a computer, so that is a big feat for me.

HP Tech Forum

I had a fun time talking and working with Andy McCaskey and Kara Karsten with SDRNews. We had such a blast. We also put forward the mobile interview booth rig. We call it the “MacGyver” rig. Nonetheless, it was connected to uStream and we were able to conduct a few interviews for the event. Check out all the info on the Twitter log at #HPTF.

Great to meet some new bloggers: Shane Pitman of Neowin, John Obeto of AbsoluteWindows. We had a great week along with Halley, Tom, Calvin and Rebecca from HP and Buzzcorps.

Fryes at Vegas

Also got to go to Vegas again. While we didn’t run around town as much as with CES (everything was contained in Mandalay Bay), we did venture out to go to Fryes. It’s actually my first time at Fryes and I was pretty impressed. Of course, it was Vegas, so the store has a big slot machine up in it’s store front and stacks of coins as barrier posts. The inside was very big and complete. Andy had to get a new scratch drive since the one he brought died. We got what we needed and headed back to the safe Mandalay Bay

Mandalay Bay

Wow. This is a city contained in a building. That is, if you have the money for it. My room – which I call the “Bob Newhart” room – was decked with all the amenities. TV in the bedroom and the bathroom. You can connect an external device easily and be watching a movie while soaking in the tub.

The casino area was always hoppin. There were bands both on the “Sushi Pop” and “House of Blues” stages. Restaurants all over the building. A small walk and you are at “theHotel”. They even have their own beach – where we watched the Beach Boys play a set. Well, it was a short set for me, since I had a flight to catch.

Podcast on the show floor

I had the unique opportunity to record the show from the HPTF Expo floor. It was great because I didn’t have to set up a rig, do a show, rip it down and go to another area to post. I would also like to thank Simon Calder for helping out with the show notes so I could focus on other things.

What I got out of the show

Of course, there were a lot of things I have learned from this event. I have run server rooms before, but I was a little out of touch with the current technologies. FCoE was the big one I learned about. Also building a server is a lot different than before. Greener, more powerful and reliability were the best parts.

The Keynotes were just amazing. Learning about how these big companies are working on green technologies is amazing. Dr. Michio Kaku and his views for the future were amazing. A “Smart toilet” is definitely something to get excited about.

The Weekend

I got back to Madison at 8 AM on Friday. It was a long trip (5 hours, turned into 7 due to timezone changes). What was worse was on the trip back, I was not really impressed with the airline I flew. The one thing I noticed is they were not really friendly.

An example: We flew through a couple storm fronts during the trip. Most airlines would say “This is the Captain. We are seeing some turbulance, so please remain in your seats and buckle your belts. Thank you.”

The airline I was on? Well: “Please buckle your seatbelts”.

The airline also had screens drop from above. While I would normally invite this, I was in a evening flight. I had difficulties sleeping when something like a video monitor is playing. Of course, I didn’t pack my sleeping mask. Therefore, I was stuck watching “Confessions of a Shopoholic”. While other people loved this movie, I didn’t find it as interesting.

I got home around 9 AM, in which I proceeded to collapse on the bed for a couple hours. Woke up, caught up on some work I missed during the week, then headed off to play a show. Since it was out of town, I had to pack for another night away from home.

Band Gigs

Saturday was a day of playing. We played a friends graduation, then it was up to the Dells for our regular show at the Baja bar. There were 4 different Bachelorette parties that night and they were not in the Baja at the same time. As one party left, the next one showed up. Crazy.

New Guitar

While we were in transit to the Graduation party, we stopped at a local music store. There, I found a used Acoustic / Electric guitar. I picked it up as a spare for future shows. It needs some work to it, but not much to make it ready to play out.

Lazy Sunday? Not.

Of course, the day started out with this post. A quick breakfast, then it’s getting things ready for the week. Have to work on “Week in Tech History”, then I have to figure out how to put together the new video studio. Lots of soundproofing to do.

I suppose I should get to it. Thanks again to everyone for a great week. How do you top that?

How to put a PC in a car? How about a full dashboard that is monitored by PC? Hyundai wants to help out.

Hyndai KIA Computer Display

Andy McCaskey talks with Michael about how computers are getting integrated with vehicles. Wifi in the car and a great alarm system are some of the features they talk about.

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During CES, they gave both reporters and bloggers chances to catch up and upload their content through the respected lounges. During the week, these lounges uploaded tons of reviews, audio comments, videos and a lot more. The fine folks at CEA even provided computers as to work from (if needed).

We take a quick walk through the Blogger lounge.

Judging by this description from McAfee, when Koobface infects a computer, it connects to the net and downloads additional malware. Here’s one item it attempts to download.

The worm uses social engineering to spread. It sends users bogus messages posing as an invitation to watch a video and prompts the user to download malware disguised as an Adobe flash plugin.

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As a little explanation, I specify Gnome in the title because, with other Linux desktops, there can be other file managers. They all do pretty much the same thing, but they can look different.

Fun Fact: Google runs on Linux.

If you have never used Linux, I think you will find browsing your files and home network looks a lot like what you are used to. In a Linux interface, as in Windows, there can be several ways to start a program. To keep this simple, I will show only one.

File Browsing with Nautilus:

The Gnome file manager is called “Nautilus,” I think because it goes under the surface.

To start Nautilus on Debian, go to Applications–>System Tools–>File Manager.

The File Manager will open to your home folder (a folder and a directory are the same thing. The word “folder” came into use because it described the function of a directory and was less intimidating to new users).

(The only files in my “home” folder are some screenshots I took for this series of posts.)

The home folder is similar to the C:Documents and Settings[username] folder in Windows. Unlike Windows, it does not contain pre-configured subfolders such as “My Documents,” “My Pictures,” and the like. The only pre-configured subfolder is “Desktop.” It is a blank slate for you to set up as you wish.

It also contains a number of hidden files and folders. In Linux, a file or folder is hidden by putting a period in front of the its name. “Docs” is open; “.Docs” is hidden. These folders store your preferences, menus, email database, and so on. Generally, there is a hidden folder every program you use, whether you run it from the menu or it runs automatically in the background. Hidden files perform functions like “locking” your login and user privileges.

Here’s a shot of the same folder with “Show Hidden Files” enabled under the “View” menu item:

You can

1. double-click on a folder to view its contents,
2. double-click on a file to open it in the default application, or
3. right-click on a file or folder to view a pop-up context menu.

The navigation panel on the left and the arrow buttons on top allow navigation about the computer. Here’s what I saw when I clicked on “File System” on the left:

This is where even the most expert Windows user is on foreign territory. The folders and files in a Unix or Linux system are arranged in a way completely different from how they are arranged in a DOS/Windows world. I am not going into this subject now, save to mention that the only folders that a home Linux user is ever likely to have to look at, besides the home folders, are /etc, /usr, and possibly opt. (Fun fact: Folder names are preceded by a forward slash, not a backslash. This is why internet addresses start with forward slashes. The internet began as a Unix thing.)

There is a good introduction to the Linux file structure here.

Network Browsing:

Browsing the network is similar.

Remember that Debian asked me to configure my network settings at time of install, so the network connection was already configured at the time of the initial reboot. In this case, we are browsing using Samba, which enables Linux and Windows computers to talk with each other.

Start the network browser by going to Places–>Network Servers:

The Network Browser opens to a list of “servers.” You can open a “server” by double clicking it. Same for a folder that’s shared over the network and for a file.

The picture shows

1. The first network browser window, showing the list of computers available on the network.
2. The list of shared folders in server “mackeral” (this laptop I’m typing on right now).
3. The list folders and files in the “//mackeral/docs” subfolder.
4. The list of documents in the “//mackeral/docs/manuals” subfolder.

Depending on the permissions granted on the various servers, I can delete, copy, open, edit, and move files. When I finished taking the screenshots for this post, I used the Network Browser to drag them from //swordfish/home/frankbell to //Interlock-3/blah-blah-blah/pix, where I edited them, then I dragged them from Interlock-3 to my server. (You can see a slightly-outdated diagram of the network here.)

While I was editing this post, I realized that some of the screenshots and pictures needed more work (that’s a fancy way of saying I saw that I blew it), so I opened them over the network on this here laptop, recropped them or added the captions or edited them, then saved them back to the server.

Just for grins and giggles, here is the Network Browser using the list view, rather than the icon view:

And that’s a quick intro to file and network browsing with Debian Linux and Gnome.

Most of the work of the Debian installation is done. There are a few loose ends before we can walk away and let the computer do its thing.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.8MB)

Debian is one of the oldest Linux distros and has a reputation for not releasing an update until it is rock-solid stable. In the web install, a small image is burned to a CD and the bulk of the software is retrieved from the web, so that the computer must be connected to the internet. This post and the next one will walk step-by-step through the installation, with lots of pictures.

I decided to do this because I realized that many persons have never installed an OS; it’s easier than you think.

A Linux install typically involves at least two and maybe three steps:

1. Setting basic options.
2. Partioning and formatting the hard drive.
3. Installing and Configuring the System

(I know. I said that a Kubuntu install was next, but it was not to be. If you’re curious, you can see why at the end of the post.)

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I started a new group a couple months ago to not only get new podcasters interested, but also have existing podcasters get together and talk about different aspects. I decided that if it’s a meeting about Podcasting, it should be a podcast itself. Therefore, we recorded the first Madison Podcasters Group Podcast.

I decided that since this isn’t really a centric item and there is a lot of good information, then it will be added to the Quickcast. It will also have it’s own group, too.

The subject of the first podcast group – how easy it is to set up and make a podcast. We talk in general about setting up a mic to a computer and recording it, how much it’s going to cost you and how difficult it really is to set up a podcast.

There is some great information out of this hour. The sound is a bit ‘hummy’, I have tried to work out the noise. It is chuck full of some great material, so please bear through the hum and check out the show.

Next month’s meeting will be: How to host your podcast. 3-03-09

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (33.7MB)

Need a way to get those media items from your iPhone to a computer? Synchronize the media you already have for the friends and family to view? Well that is where Phanfare comes in.

Andy McCaskey talks with Andy about this new Cloud based service.

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Phanfare

Listen to the Show here

Green Gas

3G iPhone Announcement on June 9

Ubuntu 8.04 Released

Feature: Getting XP after the cut-off date:

Change. Some love to do it, others would like to stay where they are. Sometimes change is needed – newer, faster, more powerful to take over old and un-updatable. Still, within time change happens like it always does in life. Its really a question of whether you want to change with it, or stick with the same.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (6.3MB)