jueves, 29 de abril de 2010

Winter storm at April end

Yes, it is April 29, 2010, and we still have winter in Calgary with ‘Winter Storm Warning’ is still in effect. Wasn't it supposed to be the warmest year for some time? When you go out, it seems, the reported ‘Wind Chill’ is a bit on the higher side. Some photos of the spring buds follow:

miércoles, 28 de abril de 2010

Steve Wozniak entertaining the crowd waiting in line for iPad

Steve Wozniak is a complete opposite to Steve Jobs with whom he established Apple company. Woz, brain behind the Apple computer, is a fun loving and person with down-to-the-earth attitude but, Jobs is serious and ruthless entrepreneur.

youtube.com/watch?v=obW80HDtNE4

martes, 27 de abril de 2010

iPad clones available in China

The high demand of the iPad tablet in the United States forced Apple to delay its international launch. Reuters reported that Chinese counterfeiters have already launched their own version of iPad at a much lower price. The device is told to be power by Intel Atom N450 – the processor designed for Netbook and runs Windows operating system. Vista is pre-installed which can also be upgraded to Windows7. The Atom processor clocked at 1.66GHz with memory to 2GB and the hard drive is 250MB does even look superior in configuration when compared the original iPad’s Apple A4 processor, clocked at 1GHz. Good things: it has 3 USB ports, costs 2,800 yuan ($410), less than the $499-699 price-tag of the original. Reuters quoted one crew-cut agent Lin saying: "This is just the first rough version. Eventually, the factories will be able to make a much better copy."

Lost iPhone prototype issue getting complicated

The issue of lost iPhone and Apple's formal letter to get it back was stretched beyond the lost-and-found case to criminal offense. On Friday, members of the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, or REACT task force executed a warrant to search the home of a Gizmodo.com blogger, Jason Chen, who had published information about a lost Apple Inc. iPhone prototype, seizing computers and other equipment. Chen he returned home Friday to find police searching through his possessions, having broken down the front door.

REACT, the California police task force steering committee is reported to have included members of several large Silicon Valley firms -- including Apple, Google, Adobe, and others.
In a recent twist in the story, Gawker Media, the owner company of Gizmodo blog, claimed that the warrant used by police to search an editor's home was invalid.
In another statement, Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, told that the engineer who showed Woz an iPad on the morning of the iPad launch was fired. Woz told, he was not aware that the iPad was unreleased 3G version.
The iPad in question could be the following twitter photo of Woz holding iPad.

jueves, 22 de abril de 2010

Stupid laws of Alabama

Stupid Laws of the US state of Alabama It is illegal to play dominoes on Sunday.It is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while operating a vehicle.In a 1991 issue of Radiance Magazine, author Robert Pelton writes that, “a full-bodied woman should never eat peanuts while attending church in Ryan Crossroads, Alabama. The pastor has the legal right to make offenders stand in a corner or leave the church until the service is finished.”It is illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church.Putting salt on a railroad track may be punishable by death.It is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while operating a vehicle.Dominoes may not be played on Sunday.You may not drive barefooted.It is illegal to maim oneself to escape duty.It is illegal to impersonate a person of the clergy.Women are able to retain all property they owned prior to marriage in the case of divorce. However, this provision does not apply to men.Masks may not be worn in public.Putting salt on a railroad track may be punishable by death.Boogers may not be flicked into the wind.Bear wrestling matches are prohibited.It is legal to drive the wrong way down a one-way street if you have a lantern attached to the front of your automobile.Men may not spit in front of the opposite sex.Incestuous marriages are legal.It is illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church.You must have windshield wipers on your car.You may not have an ice cream cone in your back pocket at any time.

Alabama stupid / dumb or outdated laws by county Anniston You may not wear blue jeans down Noble Street. Jasper It is illegal for a husband to beat his wife with a stick larger in diameter than his thumb. Lee County It is illegal to sell peanuts in Lee County after sundown on Wednesday. Mobile It is unlawful to wear women’s pumps with sharp, high heels.It is unlawful to howl at ladies inside the city limits. Montgomery It is considered an offense to open an umbrella on a street, for fear of it spooking horses.

martes, 20 de abril de 2010

Lost and Found iPhone 4G, Apple wants it back

Next version of iPhone is expected to be released in June. But, this is the the first time an Apple device reached in somebody else’s hand (unauthorized) before being unveiled by Steve Jobs. It was so unlikely event that almost everybody suspected the authenticity of the device when TechCrunch published the photo of the iDevice. Then, by some means TechCruch’s rival blog Gizmodo got hold of the device. Gizmodo said it obtained the prototype a company engineer had left at a bar. The device, disguised as the current 3GS model, was found in a bar in Redwood City, California. Today, Gizmodo has reportedly told that it paid $5,000 to get hold of the device. Gizmodo said Monday evening that it is making arrangements to return the errant device, following a request from Apple's legal department. Gizmodo in a post posted the letter and says that the letter is a proof of the authencity of of the device: This phone was lost, and then found. But from Apple's perspective, it could have been considered stolen. I told them, all they have to do to get it back is to claim it—on record. This formal request from Apple's legal department is that claim. It proves—if there was any doubt in your mind—that this thing is real. It is still a mystery how an unreleased Apple product could be left at a most unlikely location, a bar. Apple is notoriously popular for closely guarding access to new products. According to some people familiar with a more than 10-page non-disclosure document for iPad, told that the testers had to promise to keep it quarantined in a room with blacked-out windows and key-card locks.  According to Gizmodo, the new device features: Front-facing video chat camera Improved back-camera (larger lens) Camera flash Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM (like the iPad) Improved display. What looks to be a secondary mic for noise cancellation, at the top, next to the headphone jack Split buttons for volume Power, mute, and volume buttons are all metallic

jueves, 15 de abril de 2010

Obama pointing fingers at Harper

Does the photo say anything? In the photo above, U.S. President Barack Obama (R) greets Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington April 12, 2010. Some are questioning the ‘greeting’ gestures of world’s most powerful man, Barack Obama and Canadian Stephen Harper. (Photo credits: Reuters) Have your say in comment!

iPhone to be updated in June

Rumor of forthcoming iPhone update in June is in line with the iPHone 3GS release last year, June 8. According to Regina Leader-Post SaskTel, a Saskatchewan-based wireless provider, will start offering the next-generation iPhone on June 1. "The good news is that (Apple) is coming out with a new version of the iPhone in the June time-frame and they're going to put us on that," Watson was quoted as saying. "So we're quite excited about that." New version of iPhone is expected to feature camera flash to improve photo quality in dark and dimly lit locations. Presence of iChatAgent process in the prerelease version of iPhone OS 4 also suggest a forward facing camera for video chat.

miércoles, 14 de abril de 2010

Non-US iPad launch delayed by one month

If you were waiting for the iPad to launch in your country (other than the US), you have to wait one more month, according to reports. In Canada, the iPad will launch at the end of May and Rogers will: … offer iPad price plans for all models from the end of May in Canada. With more than 500,000 tablets sold in the first week of availability in the US, the tablet’s popularity should have taken Apple by surprise, as the availability of device in Non-US market is shifted from ‘late April’ to ‘late May’. Apple will unveil the availability and pricing for the international audience on May 10.

martes, 13 de abril de 2010

Opera Mini - new browser in iPhone OS

Everybody knows how control freak Apple is. That was the reason why Opera developers held their breadth until the App Store approved the Safari compitator.

I wanted to try how this blog looks on the Mini. Here are some screenshots.

First screenshot: Doesn't look that good


I disabled the "Load Image" - for faster load time.

The I switch on the 'Mobile View'. This is the best view - without any plugins in server side the feature works great and the Google ads are all gone. For a webmaster, this might be a missed monetizing opportunity, but for a site visitor it sure is a best browsing experience. I wish it also remove Kontera ads.

This is the settings page: The output above is the result of the settings show below:


Tabbed Browsing


Settings

jueves, 8 de abril de 2010

iPad sales – 450,000 in 5 days

600,000 ebooks and 3.5 million app downloads on the 450,000 iPads sold in 5 days of its release. There are 3,500 apps designed for the new device. There are 185,000 applications being offered through the App Store for 50 million iPhones, 35 million iPod touches and the iPads. That sums up to 85.5 million devices running iPhone OS and capable of accessing the App Store. The Apple’s Safari web browser shipped with these devices has helped the iPhone OS grab more than 65% of the mobile browser market.

jueves, 1 de abril de 2010

iPad reviews: Best computer ever

Apple's iPad multimedia tablet goes on sale on Saturday, April 3, bundled with Winnie the Pooh iBook. Steve Jobs told the bundling the kid’s book in an interview featured in the latest issue of Time magazine. The the interview the Apple co-founder discusses the iPad, his career and his life. Reviews are pouring in and the reviewers obviously had high expectations on the Apple’s latest creation. As far as the expectations go – many reviewers think that the iPad has met or exceeded most of them. The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg thinks iPad's interface and design is great: The iPad is an advance in making more-sophisticated computing possible via a simple touch interface on a slender, light device. Only time will tell if it's a real challenger to the laptop and netbook. New York Time's David Pogue thinks everybody, who is not thinking of replacing the laptop, is going to enjoy the device. PCMagazine's Tim Gideon points out the iPad's limitations, but praises it nonetheless: BoingBoing's Xeni Jardin can imagine traveling with iPad instead of a netbook: I like it a lot. But it's the things I never knew it made possible - to be revealed or not in the coming months - that will determine whether I love it. The Houston Chronicle's Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus thinks that Apple's iPad is better than expected Think of the iPad as a new arrow in your technology quiver, an arrow that will often be the best tool for a given task. The Chicago Sun-Times' Andy Ihnatko says the iPad is pure innovation and one of best computers ever