David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Microsoft finally released IE10 for Windows 7 after a long development cycle. Conspiracy theorists think it had something to do with Windows 8 sales. Whatever the reason was, it’s out.
Allegedly, you can slipstream it using these official instructions. I’ll give it a whirl the next time I have to install Windows 7. If you want to slipstream all the other updates, here’s how. You can skip the IE9 part if you slipstream IE10.
I work from home one day a week. Most of my coworkers do as well.
So I was interested when I read about Yahoo! doing! away! with! telecommuting! (with apologies to The Register. I couldn’t resist.)
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H1-Bs are a popular topic in Washington. Tech companies want them, since it lets them get the benefits of offshoring without actually offshoring, and politicians want them because companies want them, and they talk about luring the best minds to the United States as a side benefit. It’s such a great deal, they say, they want to bring in five times as many of them as they used to.
The problem is, they don’t stay. H1Bs aren’t about immigration–3% of H1B workers stay in the United States.
There’s news today that B&N’s founder is looking to buy the store’s retail and web business, but not the Nook business, and the Nook business could be spun off or even discontinued, but whatever happens, it’s likely to be de-emphasized.
My family owns two Nook Simple Touch e-readers, and we like them, but they have one very big problem.
I got a $25 Nook gift card for my birthday. I’ve seen a couple of books I wanted in the past 3 months, but nothing available as a Nook book. As I recall, all of those books have been available for Kindle.
The Nook is the better device, and I’m not sure it’s even close. But better hardware and better technology isn’t enough. You have to have something to buy. Especially when the consumption device is break-even or near-break-even. I remember, some 20 years ago, having a conversation with a friend. My Amiga was a much better computer than his unremarkable Dell PC, but he retorted, “None of that matters if you, you know, like having software!”
A year later, Commodore was out of business. Twenty years later, Dell is struggling, but by Commodore standards, Dell’s bad years would have been pretty good.
I’m impressed with the Nook tablet range too, but there again, being locked in to what Barnes & Noble has to sell makes me hesitant to buy one. Will everything I want to run on a tablet be available for it? If I’ve learned one thing over the last 20 years, it’s that when in doubt, you’ll be better off going with an open system over a closed one.
So, with no books to buy, one of our Nooks spends the bulk of its time displaying library books; I loaded the other one up with public domain e-books and other stuff I converted into epub format to keep handy. We’re happy, but neither of these uses makes B&N any money.
Is powerline networking secure? It can be, but just like wireless, you have to set it up securely. Here’s what you need to know about powerline networking security.
HP unveiled its first Android tablet this weekend. They’re not playing in the Polaroid or Archos space, but for $170–neatly between Amazon’s and Google’s prices–you get Android 4.1, a 1024×600 display, and a microSD slot. Read more
I’ve heard the suggestion several times now to use Quantum Hot Sauce fishing reel oil on model and toy trains. I finally decided to try it myself. I like it, for several reasons.
Now here’s a potentially huge money-saver. I still have phone service through AT&T that rings through old-fashioned phones (you know, like the kind you see in a museum) because there’s nobody that’s going to give me a wireless plan with unlimited minutes for about 30 bucks a month.
But, still, that’s $360 a year. I’m sure there are things I’d rather do with $360 a year if I could free that up, right?
What if I were to tell you that you could buy a device that costs less than $100 (potentially as little as $38) and you could make phone calls for free using your Internet connection?
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I found this chart earlier this week regarding SSD write endurance. Basically, it plots out how long an SSD would last if you set out to deliberately destroy it by writing to it continuously.
You could expect a mainstream 128-GB drive to last 4.7 years under those conditions, which is longer than a platter hard drive would last if subjected to the same kind of abuse. Other studies have similar results.
Mozilla quietly released Firefox 19 this week. Its biggest selling point is a built-in PDF viewer (like Google Chrome does), which makes me more comfortable than having Acrobat Reader installed–Mozilla is generally faster at fixing security holes than Adobe. Besides that, the built-in reader is fast. No waiting for Acrobat to launch. Short documents like IRS form 1040 display very quickly, though it wasn’t so crazy about me throwing the 237-page NIST 800-53 (if you’d like some light reading) at it. I closed the tab and revisited it, and it loaded the second time.
So this is an update you want. You may be wise to wait a day or two for it to stabilize (Firefox 18 was rapidly updated to 18.0.1 and 18.0.2 after its release), but being able to ditch Acrobat Reader (or leave it installed but only use it when absolutely necessary) definitely is appealing. Update it this weekend, maybe.