Good-bye.

I tried to start this blog as a way of promoting my opinions and ideas of technology in this ever changing world but I haven’t been able to attract any audience for this blog, this is my fault however, as it has become apparent that I don’t have what it takes to be a blogger, I am by nature a very quite individual so it is difficult for me to just talk about anything without there being a discussion going on. So today I am officially shutting this blog down, I will not be posting ever again.

Good-bye,

Joshua Powers

You are the weakest link, Good-bye.

Let me start off by saying that I like open-source and Ubuntu very much, and after trying Ubuntu 10.04 and seeing the rapid pace of improvement in Ubuntu 10.10, I can say without a doubt that by the next LTS (Ubuntu 12.04, which will release roughly the same time as Windows 8 ) will be a vastly superior desktop class operating system than anything else on the market. That being said an operating system’s primary purpose is to run applications and so an operating system is only as good as its apps, which has always been Linux’s Achilles heel (that and multimedia but that is directly related to lack of apps and vendor support). Yes I know none of this is Linux’s fault, it’s the fault of third-party software vendors not supporting it. But at the end of the day if an operating system doesn’t have the apps people want then it’s useless. Now that doesn’t mean Ubuntu can’t take on Windows 8 come 2012, there may be a window of opportunity as the desktop market is being marginalized back to the realm of corporations and geeks thanks to the iPad and coming onslaught of tablets that are proving popular with the non-tech savvy consumer crowd. Being Ubuntu is aimed squarely at the consumer crowd and Microsoft apparently can’t make a consumer OS to save their life, then they have a chance to sway the remaining consumers, but to do so Ubuntu needs to start courting third-party software vendors (if they haven’t already) and independent developers to develop for Ubuntu. I have talked with many people who have heard of Ubuntu and would like to switch but at the end of the day it comes down to apps and vendor support.

The Codec Conundrum. UPDATE!

The computer world as we know it is going through some massive changes, the most notable one is this massive shift from traditional localized computing to cloud computing. As you can imagine this big of a change produces many problems, people want to try to direct the changes to better suite their groups needs and beliefs, industry giants are in a frenzy trying to deal with said changes and the general computer using populace is completely oblivious to the dramas happening behind their monitors. One of these dramas is what I call the Codec Conundrum.

Teething Problems

Can’t we all just get along people?

There has been a lot of changes and transitions going on in the tech world as some of you may have noticed, so I would like to take a look at what’s going on and try to see past these issues to the future. Like with any change there will be what I call teething problems, change hurts as we humans are creatures of habit, we (or most of us) find out how the world works and we develope a habit or routine that allows us to go through most of life on auto pilot. This gives us a kind of peace as we don’t need to make a lot of decisions every day, naturally when things do inevitably change it hurts until we get used to the new, like cruising at mach 2 in a fighter jet then making a 9 G turn, the law of inertia hurts and crushes us until we catch up with the jet then we are fine. So in this series of post I plan to look at the major issues facing us in this transition and reassure people that we will eventually make it through and what’s going on now, as bad as it is, is actually natural.

Why I like FOSS

Today I would like to share with you a little bit about me and my interest so you may be able to better understand my positions on some hot tech topics. The first thing I want to share is my love of FOSS. First off let me start by explaining what “FOSS” is for those of you who don’t know. FOSS or Free and Open Source Software, is basically software that is freely created, shared and modified among it’s users and not owned exclusively by a company. Let me also say that while I am explaining why I like FOSS I don’t believe that FOSS is the end-all answer to all tech problems. That being said lets move on to why I like it.

The death of IE 6…

There will be a funeral for the default web browser in Windows XP, Internet Explorer 6, check out the details http://ie6funeral.com/

I will explain more about this tomorrow when I’m not on my way to work.

Joshua Powers

The New Desktop

The regular readers of this blog may recall that a couple of post ago I refereed to the iPad and the new class of tablet computers (based on mobile hardware rather than desktop hardware) as couch computers, and while I still think that, I have done some thinking and researching on how consumers use computers and I believe and the tablet market may be bigger than we first though.

iPad vs. Chrome OS, Round two!

Welcome to the second round of this article. Last time we took a detailed look at the pros, cons and bottom lines of Apple’s new iPad. To recap, iPad and all of these new emerging tablets are essentially couch computers, filling the very small void of computer activity in your life where laptops/netbooks are too awkward and smartphones/MID’s (Mobile Internet Devices, think smartphone without the phone, like an iPod Touch as opposed to an iPhone) are too small to comfortably watch movies and surf the web when your relaxing and not on the move. Also, because Google’s Chrome OS relies heavily on cloud computing, I will also use this time to discuss some of the potential and alleged drawbacks of cloud computing as Chrome’s success depends largely on weather or not cloud computing is ready to take on the everyday tasks of the average computer user.

IPAD vs. Chrome OS, Fight!

Round One!

I was originally going to write this at one go, but as I wrote it became apparent that it would be much longer than I originally thought. So I am breaking it up into multiple parts that are a little bit easier to chew. In this part I am going to address the complaints from the geek community about the iPad. Unless you were hiding under a rock for the past week, you might have heard that Apple has unleashed it’s mythic tablet computer onto the world. I say mythic because, like the iPhone, this product has been predicted for several years (10 to be exact). Most of us geeks new about this months in advanced, though we didn’t have many details (Apple actually did a pretty good job keeping us in the dark, no small feat mind you.) These rumors caused many of the other PC makers out there to get in the game early and announce their own tablet devices at CES 2010 two weeks ago. But at the beginning of the event Steve Jobs, with a snub, made it clear that he doesn’t think too highly of the very popular (read: Extremely popular-almost-killed-off-desktops-and-laptops) netbook class of computers. While I do agree netbooks could be a lot better than they are now, I think netbooks (or their new form-factor coming this year: smartbooks) still have a place, and they will find that place when Google finally launches Chrome OS.

Warning, Google may hand over your data to the police!…wait, what!?

I am sure by now we have all heard about Google’s CEO’s blunder a few weeks ago, and while many people use this as ammo to bash Google and the entire concept of cloud computing, and while from and public relations point of view, it probably wasn’t the best thing for him to say, I would like to actually use my brain and present a sane reason as to why he would say something like that. But first, a few disclaimers:

1)   This is just a theory, I have in no way contacted Google’s CEO for a statement, everything written here is my    opinion, which I am entitled to (at least here in the USA, not sure how that works in other countries.)

2)   I am a Christian, and as such I: 1) don’t believe in paranoid conspiracy theories (emphasis on theory, if you can prove it then that’s a whole new ball game) and 2)  I try to assume the best in people and give them the benefit of the doubt (and yes many people have told me that’s a bad idea, but I still believe it’s what God calls me to do.)

Anywho, all that being said I now present my theory as to why Google’s CEO said what he said: