ITechLog » Itechlog News

New Pandigital Novel eReader with android OS

Alex Costa — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:25:58 +0000

Coming soon.. the new Pandigital Novel eReader has a 7in Colour Touch screen and runs Google’s Android OS. It comes with some very nice features:

ebooks (integration with Barnes and Noble’s eBook store)
Built-in WiFi
SD/MMC card slot
up to 6 hours battery (reading)
Email access
Browser
Music and Video Player
Calendar
Games
and everything else you can find in the Android OS

Pandigital Novel. More than a Good book.
With a full color, touch screen display, the Pandigital Novel brings dynamic multimedia to the eReader world. (extracted)

Technorati Tags: Barnes & Nobel, ebook, eReader, Multimedia, Novel, Pandigital

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How software patent broke the system

Alex Costa — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:13:07 +0000

The issue of Software Patent has been around for a while, but unless you really have the time and drive to try to understand all that is involved you will be left like most of us, just wondering. The guys at Patent Absurdity have made a great documentary about this issue.

Patent Absurdity explores the case of software patents and the history of judicial activism that led to their rise, and the harm being done to software developers and the wider economy. The film is based on a series of interviews conducted during the Supreme Court’s review of in re Bilski — a case that could have profound implications for the patenting of software. (extracted)

The whole documentary was made with free software.

Cinelerra for video editing
Audacity for audio editing
Inkscape, Python and Blender for animation
Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis codecs
Edited on GNU/Linux machines

Watch the Patent Absurdity documentary here.

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Digg on The Go App for Android and the iPhone

Alex Costa — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 21:09:22 +0000

Digg.com has announced the availability of the Digg on the go App for Android phones and iPhones. To download the app just visit http://m.digg.com and install the the application.

Check out the the official announcement.

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Books for sale – Linux Shell, Qmail Handbook and SSL/TLS

Alex Costa — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:01:29 +0000

I have selling on Amazon.co.uk a copy of each of the following books:

Linux Shell Scripting with Bash (Paperback) (SOLD)
by Ken O. Burtch (Author)
Linux Shell Scripting with Bash will help you learn to not only get your system up and running quickly by employing the Bash shell, but it will also show you professional scripting solutions through the use of structured programming and standard Linux development tools. The book focuses on the Linux environment, which the shell relies on to function, and the robust Linux tool set, making this book ideal for learning shell scripting. Real-world scripts are included that are readable, extendable and easy to debug. This book is an asset to any Linux user.

The Qmail Handbook (Paperback)
by David Sill (Author)
qmail is used by hundreds of ISPs and thousands of other sites, including Hotmail since 1997, which has over 30 million users. qmail is popular because of its security, reliability, speed, low memory use, user-controlled mailing lists, straightforward administration, and much more! An Introduction to qmail is designed to guide system and mail administrators of all levels of experience through the installation, configuration, and maintenance of a qmail server.

SSl and TLS: Building and Designing Secure Systems (Paperback)
by Eric Rescorla (Author)
SSL and TLS: Designing and Building Secure Systems offers clear and comprehensive descriptions of these security protocols and their implementation, and also provides “designs”–tried and true templates that suit various scenarios. Armed with this book, you can become well versed in the importance of SSL and TLS, be able to work with them to provide solutions, and furthermore identify an appropriate tested “design” that will solve the security problems of a proposed new network installation.

Technorati Tags: Amazon, Books, Email, IT Books, Linux, Linux Shell Scripting, Qmail, Security, Server System administration, SSL. TLS

March 11, 2010 -- The future of gaming is OpenGL
March 11, 2010 -- Request the Audible.com books application for Android
January 7, 2010 -- Linux ClearOS to rival Microsoft’s SBS
December 8, 2009 -- Google Chrome Beta for Linux
August 20, 2009 -- Creating a bootable Linux USB flash drive

The future of gaming is OpenGL

Alex Costa — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:18:48 +0000

As a Linux user and Open Source enthusiast I always want to see people moving away from the proprietary stuff and into the Open Source world, but sometimes it’s easier to keep them where they are (stuck to Windows), specially when it comes to gaming. I am not a gamer, and would rather spend my time on other more fulfilling tasks like testing a ClearOS installation, but when it comes to helping people migrate from Windows to Linux, there’s always that dreaded question “Will my games work?” The answer could easily be “yes very well, better than before!” but in reality a majority of the games won’t. Why? The proprietary monster that is Microsoft has allured programmers, graphic card manufacturers and the common citizen into the idea that DirectX is the best, and it could not e further from the truth. While DirectX only runs on Windows, OpenGL offers equal or better results and runs on every platform.

But don’t let me talk to you about this, as I said I am not a gamer, let those who know what they are talking about tell you. This great article will help you understand Why should you use OpenGL and not DirectX (Wolfire Blog), and you may also enjoy reading this article Commercial Gaming coming to Linux? from the Linux Magazine.

Technorati Tags: DirectX, Gaming, Linux, Mac, Microsoft, OpenGL, Windows, Xbox

May 12, 2009 -- Offline Blogging Tools
January 28, 2009 -- Synergy – share mouse and keyboard cross platform
January 7, 2010 -- Linux ClearOS to rival Microsoft’s SBS
September 18, 2009 -- Open .eps files on GIMP for Windows
April 9, 2009 -- 96% of Netbooks sold last year have Windows – Why?

Request the Audible.com books application for Android

Alex Costa — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:04:33 +0000

I am deeply shocked at audible.com for not having an app for Android. They claim that “the Android media player does not allow playback of our titles“… right. Anyway they are now attempting to get the ball rolling for an App for Android in 2010. There’s a signup for upcoming beta testing on their website and I urge every Android user (or user to be) to sign up and put a little bit more pressure on them.

Android is a great mobile platform and companies like Audible.com (an Amazon associate) are stalling its growth with short sightedness.

UPDATE from comment by JP White: “A Beta Audible app is now available for Android devices. Read more at
http://wp.me/pCOs1-aw“

Technorati Tags: Amazon, Android, Android App, audible books, Audio books, Beta, Google

May 24, 2010 -- Mobile Apps overload?
March 26, 2010 -- Books for sale – Linux Shell, Qmail Handbook and SSL/TLS
December 11, 2009 -- Microsoft’s attempt to bribe its way to the top
September 30, 2009 -- Google Wave
September 18, 2009 -- Google Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

Campaign for the right to create, forward and follow links

Alex Costa — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:17:48 +0000

There has been a talk for while about news agencies blocking bloggers, aggregators and search engines from indexing their content. This has started to become a reality when the Times Online decided to block the news aggregator site newsnow.co.uk. In response Struan Bartlett the founder of NewsNow started the right2click campaign. Watch his campaign video.

Technorati Tags: NewsNow, right2link, Times Online

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Microsoft’s attempt to bribe its way to the top

Alex Costa — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:04:09 +0000

Once again Microsoft is showing it’s dirty claws. According to a report in the Financial Times (also mentioned in the KPMRS Blog), Microsoft is planing to offer to pay publishers to remove their content from Google in an attempt to make its search engine Bing (no link on purpose) the #1 search engine.

According to the FT, one website publisher approached by Microsoft said that the plan “puts enormous value on content if search engines are prepared to pay us to index with them”. – extracted

I cannot believe the greedy minds in the media industry are already thinking about embracing it. Again Microsoft has gotten it all wrong, will they ever learn? Attitudes like this will only promote two things, firstly the dissemination of online content theft, were people will republish full content of paid websites to drive traffic to their sites/blogs and secondly it will take away the choice that users now have of using any search engine they like. This is so “un-internet”!

I agree with the comment on the KPMRS blog by blogger Greg (null pointer) who said:

“How about instead of Microsoft spending millions to make their search results appear (artificially) better than Google’s, they spend that same money to create better search algorithms? That’s real competition!” – extracted

Technorati Tags: Bing, Google, Microsoft, newspapers, search engine

September 18, 2009 -- Google Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues
June 5, 2009 -- Keyword search and website ranking tools
March 11, 2010 -- The future of gaming is OpenGL
March 11, 2010 -- Request the Audible.com books application for Android
January 7, 2010 -- Linux ClearOS to rival Microsoft’s SBS

Google Chrome Beta for Linux

Alex Costa — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:15:41 +0000

Google has announced the release of a beta version of its browser Google Chrome for Linux (Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/OpenSuse).

Here are a few facts from the Google Chrome team:

60,000 lines of Linux-specific code written
23 developer builds
2,713 Linux-specific bugs fixed
12 external committers and bug editors to the Google Chrome for Linux code base, 48 external code contributors

Technorati Tags: browser, Google chrome, Linux

March 26, 2010 -- Books for sale – Linux Shell, Qmail Handbook and SSL/TLS
March 11, 2010 -- The future of gaming is OpenGL
January 7, 2010 -- Linux ClearOS to rival Microsoft’s SBS
August 20, 2009 -- Creating a bootable Linux USB flash drive
July 21, 2009 -- Firefox Add-on Collector

Google Wave

Alex Costa — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:35:48 +0000

Google Wave is an online (and open source) tool for real-time communication and collaboration.

A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

On an interview with the BBC technology site the developer behind Wave described it as “a communication and collaboration tool”.

“It struck us that e-mail is still the main communication tool on the web, which seemed remarkable given that it is 20-year-old technology,” said Lars Rasmussen, who, alongside his brother Jens, was the brains behind Google Maps. (extracted from BBC Technology)

An interesting (but possibly annoying) feature is the live transmission as you type. With this live typing participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

To test Wave you will will need to request an invitation, if accepted you can then invite 5 more people to join in the experience.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

Technorati Tags: Google, Google wave, instant messaging, Open Source, share photos, social network, team collaboration, TEchnology News

May 26, 2010 -- Facebook privacy
March 11, 2010 -- Request the Audible.com books application for Android
December 11, 2009 -- Microsoft’s attempt to bribe its way to the top
September 18, 2009 -- Google Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues
July 25, 2009 -- PHP-GTK is still live

East Africa Undersea fibre optic network is live

Alex Costa — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:52:26 +0000

Undersea fibre optic network ready to deliver unprecedented capacity and connectivity to Africa

23 July 2009 – SEACOM today announced that its 1,28 Terabytes per second (Tb/s), 17,000 kilometres, submarine fibre optic cable system linking south and east Africa to global networks via India and Europe has been completed and commissioned. Backhauls linking Johannesburg, Nairobi and Kampala with the coastal landing stations have been established and SEACOM is also working with its national partners to commission the final links to Kigali and Addis Ababa shortly.

The launch of SEACOM opens up unprecedented opportunities, at a fraction of the current cost, as government, business leaders and citizens can now use the network as the platform to compete globally, drive economic growth and enhance the quality of life across the continent. (extracted)…. read in full

Technorati Tags: Africa, Broadband, SEACOM, Undersea fibre optic network

July 12, 2010 -- Virginmedia has bad customer service
April 26, 2009 -- Cheaper Phone Calls with Vonage (VOIP)

Firefox Add-on Collector

Alex Costa — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:40:34 +0000

Now you can have a list of your favourite Firefox Add-ons to share. I have always tried to keep a list in my bookmarks of the Add-ons I find most useful and normally recommend to people, now life has become much easier.

Discover more of the best add-ons and organize your favourites in easy-to-manage collections. Subscribe to see how the collections you admire grow, and fans follow when you manage and update your own collections with Mozilla Firefox Add-on Collector.

You can have a look at my small collection at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/itechlog

Technorati Tags: add-on, browser, Firefox colletctor, fireftp, Mozilla, twitterfox, web developer

May 21, 2009 -- Mozilla FENNEC – the Firefox gone mobile
December 8, 2009 -- Google Chrome Beta for Linux
March 26, 2009 -- Firefox Vulnerability
March 19, 2009 -- IE 8 is ready

New iTunes blocks non-Apple devices

Alex Costa — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:06:14 +0000

According to the BBC technology website, Apple claims to have fixed a hole in iTunes that allowed it to sync non-Apple devices. Interesting that this comes out as a lot of iPhone competitors are on the market and some of them like the Palm Tre do sync with the iTunes library. Thanks to Apple if you live in a mixed enviroment you are now stuck. Isn’t this what people would call the “drug dealer’s technique”? You give them access to it, get them hooked and make them buy more and more. I have always been unimpressed with Apple’s rip-off marketing strategy and even more with the cultish behaviour of its users but this is a new low.

Apple tried to keep cool about it with this (lame) statement…

“Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple digital media players” and warned that “newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality” with them.” extracted

Maybe it’s time to switch to something like Song Bird, the open source competitor to the iTunes that syncs with most devices, including iPods.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, ipod, itunes, media player, Palm Tre, Song Bird

May 24, 2010 -- Mobile Apps overload?
May 25, 2010 -- HTML5:Up and Running book on pre-order
July 8, 2009 -- Android to iPhone Apps with XML
January 31, 2009 -- Is Mac Safer?
January 10, 2009 -- The MacBook Wheel revealed by Onion News Network

Android to iPhone Apps with XML

Alex Costa — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:54:49 +0000

Why has no one thought of it before….. ? You may ask. But someone now has. The XMLVM project was created by Arno Puder and his team at San Francisco State University. What it does is provide a bridge between disparate compile-time and run-time environments — in a word cross-compiling, as described by Frank Ableson on the Linux Magazine website.

XMLVM serves as an umbrella for several projects. For all projects, a Java class file or a .NET executable is first translated to an XML-document. Based on the XML-document generated by the front-end, various transformations are possible. (extracted)

The possibilities are immense, but I think it will really take off in the mobile market with Applications being able to run cross-platform from Android to iPhone and so on.

Technorati Tags: Android, Development, iPhone, Mobile, Programming, XML, XMLVM

May 24, 2010 -- Mobile Apps overload?
June 20, 2009 -- OpenSuse Factory
March 11, 2010 -- Request the Audible.com books application for Android
July 25, 2009 -- PHP-GTK is still live
July 19, 2009 -- New iTunes blocks non-Apple devices

Google to launch OS in 2010

Alex Costa — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:51:55 +0000

Google has announced it will launch an Operating System in 2010, the Google Chrome OS. On its official blog Google said that it will target primarily Netbooks and that the OS will be Open Source. They also stated…

” Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work. “

Read it in full at Google’s official blog…

Technorati Tags: Google Chrome OS, Netbooks, Open Source, Operating System

September 30, 2009 -- Google Wave
July 25, 2009 -- PHP-GTK is still live
June 20, 2009 -- OpenSuse Factory
June 3, 2009 -- SwitchVox IP PBX
May 21, 2009 -- Mozilla FENNEC – the Firefox gone mobile

OpenSuse Factory

Alex Costa — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:03:20 +0000

On June 18th 2009 The OpenSuse Project announced that its development factory has been made more accessible to package contributors. Joe Brockmeier’s post at opensuseNews states…

”we’re making it easier for contributors to take responsibility for packages and to contribute directly to openSUSE. This means contributors will be able to be directly responsible for packages, without having to go through a Novell employee to make changes.“

Keyword search and website ranking tools

Alex Costa — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:43:30 +0000

Any webmaster and marketer will know how important it is to keep track of their website ranking, keyword positioning, visits, ROI and so on… There are a lot of interesting tools out there to help us.

Google Analytics – Visitor tracking, keyword positioning, goal setting, demographics and more…
http://www.alexa.com – web traffic metrics, top sites lists, site demographics, hot urls, and more…
Google Webmaster Tools – detailed reports about your pages’ visibility on Google
Yahoo Site Explorer – detailed reports about your pages’ visibility on Yahoo
Bling Webmaster Center – detailed reports about your pages’ visibility on Bling (former LiveSearch)
Keyword Spy – Research and track keywords in 3 search engines and 30+ countries.
KPMRS – website rank monitoring services on various search engines
for multiple keywords.
XML-Sitemaps – Generate sitemaps online. Up to 500 urls Free.
WP Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog.

These are just a few tools I use the most, please share yours.

Technorati Tags: Analytics, Bing, Google, Keyword lookup, KPMRS, ROI, Search, SEO, Site Explorer, Sitemaps, Visitor tracking, webmaster tools, Wordpress, Yahoo

December 13, 2008 -- SEO and Wordpress
December 11, 2009 -- Microsoft’s attempt to bribe its way to the top
December 4, 2008 -- Search Engine Optimization SEO in PHP (Book)
March 11, 2010 -- Request the Audible.com books application for Android
September 30, 2009 -- Google Wave

Spotify – listen to more than three million tracks legally and for free

Alex Costa — Sun, 17 May 2009 12:00:42 +0000

Spotify is a streaming service, which lets fans listen to more than three
million tracks legally and for “free”, it has more than a million
users in the UK already. The system has 3 packages on offer, starting with “Free” (showing ads between songs), a Day Pass £0.99 (ad free) for 24hrs and a Premium Subscription for £9.99. All 3 packages give you the ability to:

Search – Find and browse by artist, title, album, genre, year
Specify your own radio channel based on genre, year and artist
Share - Create, share and collaborate on play lists and share links to music

The Premium package also comes with exclusive access to pre-releases and concert ticket lotteries.

The company plans to expand it’s service to the mobile market and beyond the UK. They also expect to announce a deal with fellow streaming
site Last.fm to provide song recommendations, making it easier for fans
to find acts they like.

Spotify can be downloaded from http://www.spotify.com and currently works on Mac and Windows, and there’s a tutorial on their site on how to run it on Linux using Wine. Again a company wanting to go global has started by cutting corners with the Linux community, an easy but unforgivable mistake to make.

Technorati Tags: Last.fm, Mobile, Music, Spotify, Streaming

July 8, 2009 -- Android to iPhone Apps with XML
May 21, 2009 -- Mozilla FENNEC – the Firefox gone mobile
February 5, 2009 -- Google Latitude

Intel Fined 1.6bn Euros

Alex Costa — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:33:08 +0000

Intel has been fined 1.6bn Euros by the European Commission for anti-competitive practices. This is the biggest fine for a major corporation since the 2004 Microsoft 497m Euro fine. The Commission found that between 2002 and 2007, Intel had paid
manufacturers and a retailer to favour its chips over AMD chips.

Intel claims that such payments did not exist, instead they do “provide incentives to customers to buy our products”, according to Bruce Sewel, Intel’s vice president, on an interview to BBC Five Live.

This decision was welcomed by AMD which had filed complaints since 2000 against Intel. “The EU decision will shift the power from an abusive monopolist to computer makers, retailers and above all PC consumers,” said Giuliano Meroni, AMD’s European president. (extracted)

Read more on the BBC Busines website

Technorati Tags: AMD, Business News, Computer Processor, European Commission for anti-competitive practices, Intel, Intel fine, TEchnology News

September 30, 2009 -- Google Wave
April 12, 2009 -- Acer Aspire One A150L 8.9-inch Netbook (Linpus Linux Lite, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Intel Atom Processor N270 1.60 Ghz, Pink)

Offline Blogging Tools

Alex Costa — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:35:44 +0000

Offline Blogging Tools let you comfortably write and effortlessly publish new entries to your blog. I personally like the easy to use Scribefire, a Firefox addon, but there are many others our there. Here is a shortlist…

Technorati Tags: Blog, BlogDesk, BloGTK, Drupal, ExpressionEngine, Linux, Mac, MovableType, Qumana, Scribfire, Serendipity, Windows, Windows Live Writer, Wordpress

March 11, 2010 -- The future of gaming is OpenGL
January 28, 2009 -- Synergy – share mouse and keyboard cross platform
April 9, 2009 -- 96% of Netbooks sold last year have Windows – Why?
January 31, 2009 -- Is Mac Safer?
January 14, 2009 -- Old Novell Ad (I am a Linux)

ITechLog » Itechlog News

New Pandigital Novel eReader with android OS

Related Posts

How software patent broke the system

Related Posts

Digg on The Go App for Android and the iPhone

Related Posts

Books for sale – Linux Shell, Qmail Handbook and SSL/TLS

Related Posts

The future of gaming is OpenGL

Related Posts

Request the Audible.com books application for Android

Related Posts

Campaign for the right to create, forward and follow links

Related Posts

Microsoft’s attempt to bribe its way to the top

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Google Chrome Beta for Linux

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Google Wave

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East Africa Undersea fibre optic network is live

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Firefox Add-on Collector

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New iTunes blocks non-Apple devices

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Android to iPhone Apps with XML

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Google to launch OS in 2010

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OpenSuse Factory

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Keyword search and website ranking tools

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Spotify – listen to more than three million tracks legally and for free

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Intel Fined 1.6bn Euros

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Offline Blogging Tools

Scribefire

BlogDesk

BlogGTK

Windows Live Writer (by Microsoft)

Qumana

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