Showing 81 - 90 of 119
Are Padfones one step too far?
Life, James Hein, Published on 11/06/2014
» Sometimes all you need, or want, is a simple version of a device that will meet your needs. All too often in the IT and technology industries, builders keep adding bits and pieces to a product to try and make it all things to all people. Microsoft Office is one example. How many people use all the functionality of, say, Word — or even 50% of what’s available?
OnePlus One is new
Life, James Hein, Published on 04/06/2014
» The OnePlus One is a new Android phone from Oppo Electronics out of China. It sells for US$299 (about 10,000 baht), which puts it under half the price of the big models like the Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8. For that price you get the latest Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor, 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a 5.5-inch 1080p IPS screen, 13MP camera, 4G LTE support, Bluetooth 4 and a 3100mAh battery. You also get Gorilla Glass 3 in a polycarbonate shell.
Happy birthday, Gmail
Life, James Hein, Published on 30/04/2014
» This month Gmail turned 10. According to legend, it was created in the free time of Google engineers, who were allocated 20% of their time for personal projects. In those days there was Microsoft (who managed to lose all of my Hotmail emails one year; I’ve never touched it since), Yahoo! and AOL, making Gmail’s rise from nothing quite an achievement. Gmail introduced threaded mail, more data storage and allowed users to send larger emails. They also introduced an “undo send” option, long-term storage of emails, better searching and didn’t delete your account if you remained inactive for a while. It handled spam decently and worked on almost every browser. Microsoft responded by charging for extra space. No wonder it is now the top free email service, at least according to some measures.
Passing the hacker hat
Life, James Hein, Published on 02/04/2014
» A “black hat” is a skilled hacker who tends to lurk in the background, rarely gets caught and is a master at breaking into systems, programs and data. These people have been represented in movies and are usually considered shady characters. There are, of course, rewards in being skilled in this field — both monetarily and in terms of underground notoriety — but there are also risks, such as retaliation from those that have been hacked and the continual threat of government agencies tracking them down. Lesser known but becoming more so are those called “grey hats”, who often straddle the line of legality. And as a recent conference showed, you can be rewarded for finding vulnerabilities in operating systems and application codes. There is a growing market for skilled grey hats, who are used to find holes in social media platforms and all manner of other products, ranging from smartphones to major systems. Government departments will even hire ex-black hats to secure their systems against attack. Major corporations do the same thing. So if you are a budding young hacker, you can potentially make up to $250,000 (8 million baht) if you find a zero-day problem in iOS or around half that for a Windows problem. The zero-day issue was recently represented in an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles.
It’s now or never
Life, James Hein, Published on 26/03/2014
» I was having coffee with my son recently and he became frustrated because Facebook wasn’t providing the answer he was looking for fast enough. The new generation wants their information now, not in five minutes, but now. This also supports my theory that in general they are willing to accept the first answer that is provided rather than cross check the facts. This dependency on instant information means that manipulation by the media and other groups becomes a lot easier. Not sure where this is all going to end up.
How safe is your data?
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/02/2014
» Researchers from Rutgers University have developed a smartphone tool that tracks how often applications track them. The app essentially monitors other applications and logs when they get location data and transmits it. The results indicated that lots of applications, sometimes those where it was not expected, grabbed location data and passed it along. Some apps will notify the user but the research found that others are not so forthcoming. The researchers concluded that Android permissions are not an effective method for disclosing and consenting for location data access. They also found that the flashing GPS icon is largely ignored or not registered by users. You have been warned. You can find the full report here: http://bit.ly/NrTyQN
Spies like us
Life, James Hein, Published on 20/11/2013
» Does anyone else find the current rhetoric around countries spying on each other hypocritical? Everyone does it, either officially or unofficially, and every country spies on its neighbours, enemies and even allies in the name of national interest. History shows us that neighbours _ and Thailand is well aware of this _ can turn on you at any time so you have to keep tabs on them. In the past the only way to do this was using human intelligence, reading letters and intercepting telegrams. These days emails are read, phones are tapped and servers are hacked in addition to using regular human intelligence. To pretend otherwise is just plain silly. For the moment the US National Security Agency just happens to have the biggest and fastest computers to do this with.
USA? It's the United Spam of America
Life, James Hein, Published on 30/10/2013
» Hands up if you know which country is the biggest spammer in the world? No, not China; they're fifth. The winner of this year's inglorious gold medal goes to the US which generates over 14% of the world's spam emails, nearly triple that of Belarus, which lies in second place. Besides advertising dodgy products, many carry malicious attachments designed to make your computer _ and sometimes personal life _ miserable. If you were wondering when the first spam was sent, this is attributed to Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, who were lawyers that back in 1994 sent immigration service offers to all the Usenet groups at the time. The biggest problem in the US is the large number of unprotected computers that get used as spambot hosts.
Yahoo update fails to bring much change
Life, James Hein, Published on 23/10/2013
» I'm not a fan of the latest update to Yahoo! Mail. I keep needing to refresh the inbox to make the emails appear, even after upgrading to the Yahoo-friendly version of Firefox. They have also done a Microsoft by rearranging everything so that regular users now have to retrain where they look for different options. Intrusive ads seem to have no problems displaying at any time. The update I have most eagerly been awaiting is support for sub-folders, so that I can organise my messages, but there's been nothing on that front as yet. The recent alterations have been more about the look and feel and allowing for themes rather than any substantive changes. At the time of writing this, a forum called "Tell us what you think about Yahoo! Mail" had received requests from over 31,000 users asking for tabs to be brought back (the reason many people decided to stick with Yahoo rather than migrate to Gmail). Other visitors to that forum had complaints about useability, some describing the latest update as a big step backwards.
Can you spot the difference in the latest iPhone?
Life, James Hein, Published on 02/10/2013
» Reports on the iPhone 5S keep coming in and they're quite mixed, with even a few Apple lovers seemingly jaded by the lack of obvious improvements. My favourite so far is a rather professional-looking clip of a man who's holding two phones, one in each hand, and he keeps getting confused as to which is the new model.