Showing 1 - 7 of 7
Chip shortage over by 2023... maybe
Life, James Hein, Published on 29/09/2021
» The current chip shortage could should be a thing of the past by 2023... maybe. The current foundries are booked out for the rest of the year and are starting to catch up with current demand. New plants will be coming online by the end of 2022. The maybe part here is the potential shortage of raw materials needed in the fabrication process. This could be a problem by 2023, or perhaps we may have new manufacturing process by then. Fingers crossed that all is good by the end of next year.
Smartphone sales chilling like a fridge
Life, James Hein, Published on 03/02/2021
» According to the UK company CCS Insight, the smartphone trade is beginning to resemble the market for white goods. Instead of jumping on the newest model, many are now waiting until their device is broken or showing signs of age before they trade up. Not that long ago people upgraded every two years or so, this has extended to as much as five or six years for about a third of the market with the new average at around four years. Some manufacturers only provide support for three years of upgrades but Apple and Samsung are now committed to a longer support cycle.
SA follows CCP's lead?
Life, James Hein, Published on 19/08/2020
» The South African government is working to pass the Films and Publications Amendment Bill. Any quick read will give the conclusion that South Africa wants to be like China, i.e. they can censor anything they don't like from animated GIFs to non-commercial bloggers. Basically, anything that can be streamed, written or posted online will be subject to review. The strange thing about this story is that I have yet to see even the tiniest mention of it in the usual media sources. Instead I found it in a Parler post echoed by a blogger I follow there. Covid seems to have overrun all the other world news.
A lot of money for fairly little phone, Apple
Life, James Hein, Published on 26/09/2018
» So, the news of the week, or at least as I write this, is the release of the new Apple iPhone range. There are three models ranging from the 5.8 and 6.1 inch models up to the XS Max at 6.5 inches. The latter is a real departure from the early days of Apple declaring that no one needed a large-screen phone. Compared to the latest phone specs across other brands, the features in the new iPhone range are not so special. They do all have very special prices and the bottom of the line starts at US$749 (Thai prices are TBA) and goes up from there topping out at $1449, which would make the whole range easily the most expensive phones per feature on the market today. For this you get no fingerprint reader, no headphone jack, average pixel density and cameras, no expansion memory port but dual SIMs, wireless charging and face detection. Even my most ardent Apple-lover friend will not be forking out their cash for those kinds of prices. I don't expect this range to sell anywhere near as well as earlier models. Seriously, what were they thinking?
How to get around your ISP or country's restrictions
Database, James Hein, Published on 21/07/2010
» Internet control around the world seems to be settling out into a number of different camps. On the one hand there are the open Internet societies such as you might find in places like the United States. Next are those places that specifically restrict subject matter on a case by case basis if it causes some offence, like Qatar, Pakistan and Bangladesh. At the bottom of the stack or the restrictive nations that actively censor all manner of sources, like you may find in places like China and North Korea. Places like Thailand are not as free as the US but nowhere near as restrictive as China.
The importance of preparing for disaster
Database, James Hein, Published on 02/06/2010
» After the recent events in Bangkok, I suspect many companies will be considering the issue of a disaster recovery plan. Anyone who has received formal training in project management will be familiar with this term, but it has been my experience that many organisations ignore this aspect of project management and that of risk management in general when building up their businesses.
Bigger is not always better, especially when running a notebook
Database, James Hein, Published on 10/03/2010
» Is bigger really better in the computing world? As an example, I've chosen the latest iteration of Visual Studio, VS 2010. There has been a trend over successive versions of many software developers to add in everything they can think of in a new release.