Showing 1 - 10 of 46
Covid computing
Life, James Hein, Published on 06/05/2020
» Things are quiet on the IT front. Well, that's not necessarily true, as many are trying to come to grips with the whole working-from-home existence. Many, including myself, are spending a lot of time in front of a screen. Instead of getting up and conferring with a colleague at their desk, it is a Skype chat. Instead of a walk to the meeting room, often on another floor, it is a Skype meeting or similar. Many do not have a video camera at home so it is voice only. There are new collaboration technologies like Microsoft Teams to get used to. Instead of handing a report to someone, it is uploaded into a shared area for all to browse. I find that I am sharing my screen more often to go over a document or diagram. On the plus side I recently had an upgrade to my Internet speed. This has helped with downloads but not much else, as a chat takes up very little bandwidth.
The world knows where you've been
Life, James Hein, Published on 16/01/2019
» A reminder for those operating in the digital world. This includes the internet, your phone, social media and basically anything in the public sphere. You can all but guarantee that everything you post online is eventually available to everyone. It doesn't matter what promises your provider might offer -- and maybe they're even being as honest as they can be -- eventually your data will turn up on a public server somewhere. The golden rule is simple: if you don't want everyone to see something, then don't post it anywhere on public networks.
VPNs outlawed in Russia
Life, James Hein, Published on 08/11/2017
» By the time you read this a new law in Russia will have banned the use or provision of virtual private networks (VPNs). ISPs will be required to block websites that offer VPNs and similar proxy services, currently used by millions of Russians to bypass state-imposed internet censorship. President Putin justified this draconian step as a measure to prevent the spread of extremism online. Its real purpose is to restrict the population to information approved by Russian regulator Roskomnadzor, being the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, or more simply censorship.
Upgrading to the Samsung S8
Life, James Hein, Published on 05/07/2017
» So, I finally went for the smartphone upgrade and ordered a Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus. The Chinese phones are not quite there in terms of feature set, and the prices on them keep rising. The next article will cover some of the issues I faced moving from my current S5, and the wonders of the new phone as I discover them. After that, the next question will be "Do I get the docking station and VR kit or not?".
The inflexibility of silicon
Life, James Hein, Published on 26/04/2017
» Since the 1950s, silicon has been the basis for our integrated circuits. The changes in component density since then have been staggering, with your smartphone now more powerful than the early supercomputers. Current chips can cram over 10 million transistors into a square millimetre, and these can be scaled in 3D, giving us the storage solutions we have today. The problem for some applications is that silicon is quite rigid, and while it is not going away anytime soon, some applications want processors to be bendy.
Money trumps morals in the online world
Life, James Hein, Published on 07/12/2016
» In a world where making everything smaller and lighter is the trend, a half-tonne CPU is certainly an anomaly. The 42,300 transistors, 10,548 LED CPU machine was built by hand from regular components and can be seen at the Centre for Computing History in Haverhill, England. The builder is James Newman, who wanted to learn about transistors and then got busy. The result is a CPU that shows how it is working in real time by following the flashing LEDS. At 15m² it roughly equates to the old 33m² Intel 8086. OK not quite that powerful as it only has 256 bytes of ROM and RAM and runs at an estimated 20kHz. I'm putting this in for the people with way too much time on their hands category. You can find out more here megaprocessor.com/programming.html.
Android finally matures with sweet new Nougat update
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/10/2016
» Unless you are a Google Nexus owner you may not be aware that Android Version 7 aka Nougat is out. This is an even more stable version than the last one and it finally feels like Android is getting to the place where it has matured as an operating system. Performance is better, multitasking is smoother and the look and feel is familiar. It is essentially the same interface as Marshmallow but there are a few changes like the new Settings menu, though many of the upgrades have occurred behind the scenes.
Malware doesn't exist, says Google
Life, James Hein, Published on 29/04/2015
» In the world of political correctness, IT people are normally immune, but not always. According to the Android security division of Google, malware does not exist on Android, but Potentially Harmful Applications do. Apparently they have also tried to drop a number of other typical terms like Spyware. Instead, malware sub-terms are used by Google engineers to reduce confusion. Since Spyware implies, according to them, the taking of lots of information and sending it off, in their mind then, if information relating to your exercise regime was grabbed and circulated then this might perhaps be called exerciseware.
Arguing over social media
Life, James Hein, Published on 15/04/2015
» This week's article is a little different. The modern world is now largely based around social media. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Secret, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Taptalk, Skype, Yahoo Messenger and many others are linking people all around the planet, 24/7, 365 days of the year. Some countries like China have banned some of these sites and replaced them with local variants, but for the most part, no matter where you are, you can let people know what you are doing.
SSD can be a fragging pain also
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/03/2015
» A solid state drive (SSD) has no moving parts and for the most part is — or at least should be — faster than a regular platter based hard drive. Over the years I have had a 128, 240 and more recently a 512GB SSD that I use as my system drive. After the installation of the last one, things started to slow down until it took less time to copy to a regular hard drive than to my new SSD. As you should when you want to check on something, I Googled (any other search engine will also work) for anything to do with my SSD model having problems. Unfortunately, while it is a Samsung 840 series, it is not the one that has had all the problems, so no useful suggestions. Finally, I decided to see if it was slow because it was fragmented.