Showing 61 - 70 of 98
Asking the right questions
Life, James Hein, Published on 17/12/2014
» As I write this, I am in the US conducting some training for a new software system. While a lot of work went into the specifications, design and expected results, when I was actually presented with the system a number of things became apparent. For those involved in business analysis, systems analysis, design and related fields, the following will not be a surprise, but for those on the other side (the user community) here are some observations.
Buyer's market for smartphones
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/11/2014
» With the Western markets saturated, the pattern for smartphone sales is starting to change. It is a very good time to be the buyer as competition is fierce for those upgrading and for the tiny minority who don't yet have a model from the upper end of the market. Last month, LG was the only major retailer who had a positive number in their earnings statement. By comparison Samsung, HTC and Sony did not do so well. Elsewhere, like in China and India, the markets are expanding and people are starting to update from a regular phone to the smarter variety, but in the lower price range.
Networking ain't easy-PC
Life, James Hein, Published on 05/11/2014
» When it comes to all things IT, networking is not my strong suit.
Unconcerned China hacks the iCloud
Life, James Hein, Published on 29/10/2014
» Apple was temporarily enthused that their iPhone 6 was going on sale in China since this has been a reasonable marketplace for them in the past. Then it was reported that China state-supported hackers were actively implementing a so-called man-in-the-middle attack against Apple's iCloud which would give them access to people in China trying to connect to the iCloud.com server. This attack replaces the certificate used by the customer and allows monitoring of user names, passwords and activity.
Watch this? Maybe not
Life, James Hein, Published on 10/09/2014
» What would the week be without another Apple rumour? The new iWatch, out next year, will apparently cost US$400 (about 13,000 baht). I recently ordered a smartwatch for about $40, just to see what it could do. I seriously doubt I would ever pay 10 times that amount for a similar item. More when it arrives and I get to play with it.
The Cloud is thinner than we think
Life, James Hein, Published on 28/05/2014
» The world is currently enamoured with the Cloud, which is more of a concept than a reality. The recent two-day crash of the Adobe Cloud highlights just how fragile this technology is. The Cloud is definitely spectacular, and the usual suspects jumped onto the bandwagon — unfortunately so did certain CEOs captivated by glossy handouts and presentations, as usual not bothering to first check in with their system administrators. This is new, bleeding-edge technology that should typically be something from which an organisation steers clear until it has matured.
Myforecasts and how they fared in the end
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/12/2013
» It's that time of year again where we look back and review what the past 12 months brought us _ and check how well I did with my predictions from this time last year. While I forecast that the Galaxy S4 would do well against the iPhone, I didn't expect Apple to fall as far as it did this past year, compared to other firms, in terms of overall market position and sales. The 5S was indeed a catch-up for Apple and had no wow factors at all, causing some users to move away from the Apple line. The 5C was a sales failure and the iPad mini didn't do very well at all against the less expensive equivalents. As expected, Apple is still actively involved in litigation and trying to secure as many ridiculous patents for itself as possible instead of focusing on true innovation.
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.