• OPINION

  More data, more problems

  Life, James Hein, Published on 01/01/2020

  » It's time to make some predictions for 2020. A number were made by others a while back, most of which did not eventuate, like a Japanese base on the Moon, flying cars and a Beijing to London rail link. I'll try for a bit more realism.

• OPINION

  What does 2019 have in store?

  Life, James Hein, Published on 02/01/2019

  » We've made it to 2019. There are a lot of buzzwords being touted for this year; top of the list are artificial intelligence, Blockchain and, once again, the internet of things (IoT). Yes, it's that time of year where I don my pointy hat of stars and guess what the year ahead might bring.

• OPINION

  Australia still trailing Thailand in broadband coverage

  Life, James Hein, Published on 12/09/2018

  » Wither now comms in Australia? With the National Broadband Network or NBN a certified failure, Australia seems to be working hard to ensure that to make the NBN look reasonable, any emerging 5G network must be made to hobble by banning technology companies like Huawei from providing the same kind of support it has been giving over the past 15 years to the local telcos. The given reason is a lack of trust in any Chinese company, keeping the spying eyes of China out of the country. To be fair, there is some justification for this, as China has not been the poster child of espionage abstinence across the globe. What earth-shattering useful secret info they might get from the Australians is debatable, but it looks like the Land Down Under will not be improving their communications any time soon. Thailand is still well ahead on that front.

• OPINION

  Cloud tech is no castle in the sky

  Life, James Hein, Published on 06/06/2018

  » So, who has the best cloud? Gartner has been looking into that for you and the results are in. Amazon's Web Services and Microsoft Azure are the top two with a combination of maturity, ability to execute and a completeness of vision. As cloud technologies have evolved people are no longer looking for simply some rented space for data storage but are demanding more functionality. They also want stable availability, good security along with great performance. Of the eight vendors examined, IBM and Oracle finished at the bottom showing that just having a long history doesn't necessarily keep you near the top.

• OPINION

  Your TV is watching you

  Life, James Hein, Published on 15/03/2017

  » Love them or hate them as I write this WikiLeaks has just dropped a large batch of new documents for all the world to see, this time CIA secret materials. The part that has caught most attention is the information on how to spy on people, using commonly found household items. Apple and Android devices, Samsung TV's (glad I recently changed to Sony), Macs and Windows devices can all be used to spy on people -- no one in the US of course -- and pass info back to the CIA. There are also different malware products that can be used to infect all manner of devices including a USB stick that can be used to jump that critical air-gap between your system and the outside world. For anyone living in the real world none of this will be of any surprise. All the leaks really do is confirm what everyone knows and every country does.

• OPINION

  A very taxing problem for all

  Life, James Hein, Published on 08/03/2017

  » Every government wants taxes. It is, after all, how the salaries get paid, and how funds are raised for re-election and looking after the country, often in that order. Consider the UK as an example. Starting in April, there will be a new set of tax regulations based on the IR35 guidelines. With the uncertainty surrounding this change there has been a rush of IT contractors leaving government positions, in many cases over half, halting a wide range of projects. This has been happening for over a year now with, as an example, the Ministry of Defence losing 30 out of 32 contractors last year. When the process of government is stopped because of taxes imposed, you're probably doing something wrong.

• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  Xiaomi Redmi ticks all the boxes

  Life, James Hein, Published on 18/02/2015

  » So after a few weeks use of the Xiaomi Redmi 5.5-inch phone, which cost me about 6,500 baht shipped, for the price this seems an excellent product. It has a removable battery, supports a Micro SD card up to 64GB and comes with a 13MP camera. It supports 4G and connects quite well to Wi-Fi networks. It has a 720 x 1280 pixel screen which gives a pixel density of about 267, so it is not as sharp as units three times the price but still works well. Battery life is quite good, supporting all day use driving Android 4.4. With a quad core CPU it is snappy enough for most tasks. GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Direct round out the functionality with even FM support included. The price-per-function ratio is therefore very high for a 4G device. For the majority, this kind of phone will be fine for making calls and usual smartphone functionality. Best of all it uses a non Samsung-ed version of Android minus all those add-ons I find annoying. As usual shop around and make up your own mind.

• OPINION

  It's all about connections

  Life, James Hein, Published on 04/02/2015

  » There are many types of networks. People create social networks through using social media apps. A local area network, LAN, connects a number of computers together, for example, in an office.

• OPINION

  There's no such thing as free tech

  Life, James Hein, Published on 21/01/2015

  » Can hackers really ruin your day? Consider the story a friend of mine recently told me. He has been playing the game Stronghold Kingdoms for a couple of years now. Apparently, as a result of hacking, some players gained points and certain advantages and had their accounts spoofed. 

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