Tuesday Tidbits and Rude People

I found these recent items interesting and/or important.

* Not quite sure what this spells for the future of IT, but here’s an Android 4.0 7″ tablet for $80 (can you say “disposable tech”?)

SVP Android 4.0 ICS 7″ Tablet PC w/ Google Play Store, Capacitive Touch Screen, WiFi, A13 & 1.3GHz

“Introducing SVP 7-inch Android 4.0 ICS Tablet PC with Google Play Store; Smart Pad with Capacitive Touch Screen, A13 1.3GHz CPU, WiFi Capability, Camera, 4GB Internal Memory. This is a recommended Tablet Computer in the market with superior design, easy application and top performance.“

* CISPA pits privacy against security: A closer look at the issues

“The United States Congress is once again considering a bill that could forever change how we as individuals use the internet. Michael P. Kassner looks at what those changes are.” Read more..

* 8 basic options for mobile printing

“Want to print something out using your tablet or smartphone? Although many mobile printing applications are still rather rudimentary, here are some applications you might want to research.” Read more..

* I find this funny. China’s foreign minister: Cyber space needs rules, not war

“A Chinese government official, who called mounting claims about the country’s cyber spying on the United States “shaky,” charged governing bodies to devise global hacking rules – a feat much easier said than done, history has proven.” Read more..

(That’s a bit like Hitler saying we need to give peace a chance..) (Oh. Wait. He did say that.. )

* Have people gotten ruder? You bet. Here’s an interesting article: Disruptions: Digital Era Redefining Etiquette

“Some people are so rude. Really, who sends an e-mail or text message that just says “Thank you”? Who leaves a voice mail message when you don’t answer, rather than texting you? Who asks for a fact easily found on Google?

Don’t these people realize that they’re wasting your time?” Read more..

* They said this tech would free us up from menial labor, and give us all a life of ease. I think it has resulted in job loss (replaced by a robot!) .. but ease? Four Steps to the Cloud: Start By Firing Your Sales Team

“Looking to get into the cloud business? Then fire your sales people.” Read more..

Well, that’s enough for today. Hope you found something interesting in that assortment. (The bold emphasis were mine.)

Today’s quote: “Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.” ~ John Adams

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Google Play (New) | Hotmail = The Best | 200+ Free Games

It happened while I was waiting for an antivirus scan to finish…

Yesterday during a malware removal job, I grew a wee bit bored waiting for an AV scan to finish, and so I clicked some little-noticed links, and did some exploring. Maybe you’ll be glad I did!

This first link you have probably seen – if you ever played any of the games that come with Windows, such as Solitaire, or my fave – Chess.

Get more games online

I must have seen that “Get more games online” link 500 trillion times. Well, I (finally) clicked it and was taken to..

200+ FREE games from Microsoft (Click me)

.. where I found a whole bunch of those online “Flash games” you play in your browser. Fun timewasters and free! Take a look at the selection, here.

The next link is more obscure, and I found it by exploring the pre-configured “Favorites” in Internet Explorer – which I normally do not use to surf the web (I use Firefox with NoScript).

I have mentioned “Microsoft At Home” before – specifically the ‘learn computing’ video tutorials, but it has been a long time since I’ve taken a look myself. While there, I noticed that the much-maligned Hotmail had been named Top Web App of 2011 by PC Magazine.
What?!

* Hotmail named best web app of 2011 by PC Magazine

“The Hotmail team got some great (and humbling) news recently – Hotmail was named best web application of 2011 by PC Magazine. We were particularly excited to see that people are taking notice of Hotmail’s war on Graymail and the work we’ve done this year to make Hotmail faster. There are a lot of great web applications out there, and we’re in great company, but it was an honor to make the very top of the list.”

Now.. the reason I use Hotmail is because there was a time before Gmail (and I wouldn’t touch AOL), and I don’t like Yahoo! Mail’s propensity for showing ads. I have ignored all the “Advice columns” advice to not use Hotmail – especially not for business – all these years. Now, I feel somewhat vindicated.
I still use Hotmail as my primary personal email as Gmail creeps me out.. the way they read every word.. and show me ads related to my email. Google As Big Brother. Another topic for another day.

More games: Hey.. what is that???

Click me

Introducing Google Play

Now your favorite music, books, movies, apps, and games are all in one place that’s accessible from the Web and any Android device. Discover, buy and share like never before.

*     *     *

Bonus: The Digital Patent Wars

“In today’s intellectual property environment, patents have evolved into weapons of war. In fact, patent lawsuits have escalated so much that many are debating whether patents should be abolished.

Internet Evolution is examining the situation today in a brand new Big Report, “Digital Patent Wars: How Companies Are Suing Their Way to the Top.” Click here to read the analysis.”

I am out of time. Have a good one, everybody! (And don’t spend too much time on those games… ha!)

.. “Graymail”? A new word for me.

Today’s quote: “Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.” ~ Mark Twain

Hey! The United Nations wrote me today…!

Copyright 2007-2012 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Quad-cores? I want 80 cores

From time to time in my writing I have made reference to Moore’s Law; which, phrased simply, means “the power of computers doubles every 18 months” (some say two years). I like Moore’s Law– smaller, faster, double the power (and often, power consumption is lower too).

Moore’s Law is most often comes up when speaking about CPU‘s (your computer’s “brain”). My first Intel computer ran a very good CPU– a 486 DX (at 133MHz [that’s .1GHz]). It had a million transistor on it, and was considered Top of the Line.
Today’s Top of the Line consumer chip is actually four-CPU’s-in-one (or, “quad-core”) and runs at just over 3GHz.

I don’t think you have to be particularly good with numbers, nor particularly geeky, to see that there’s been some improvement since the 486.

Just the other day, in an article about chip-maker AMD and corrupt European Socialist bureaucrats (EU punishes Intel+corruption, greed, gov’t) it was mentioned that chip-maker Intel had produced the fastest chip ever.
I like fast, so I looked into it.

The chip is capable of performing a trillion calculations a second (called a “teraflop”), is the size of a fingernail, and has 80 cores. Oh yeah, and it’s dialed-down to 3GHz but can handle 6.

Wow.

The condensed (sound bite) details of the new (and yes, revolutionary) chip design can be read here, Intel Will Revolutionize Computing with the Fastest Chip Ever. And Intel’s press release version (detailed) can be read here.
Intel says we’ll see it in our devices in “about 5 years” (Boo!).

* The electrical outage mentioned yesterday has not been truly resolved, but hopefully, Tech–for Everyone will appear as usual. Y’all have a good weekend now. Ya’ hear?

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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