David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Since MS Office 2003 turns into a pumpkin in April 2014 or so, I decided maybe it’s time to start looking at alternatives. I’ve looked at Open Office off and on over the years but its sluggish performance always turned me off. But I thought I’d give Libre Office, the successor, a look.
And now that I’ve lived with Office 2010, I don’t find Libre Office 3.6 all that bad.
There’s a disturbing story on Slashdot today: Kids are playing dumb to avoid being bullied.
I have two things to say. I was bullied when I was a kid. In seventh grade, it was me against the world (or at least the entire school), and the problem followed me, though not as intensely, through two more schools, until sometime in my sophomore year.
But it gets better. Trust me on that. Some of the losers who picked on me never graduated high school. Some spent time in jail. Some couldn’t get a date if their lives depended on it now. Their lives peaked right around age 18. Meanwhile, things are pretty good for me, largely because each time I’ve been told to pass a long test if I want to keep my job, I’ve been able to do it.
Microsoft is sniveling that mobile web sites are written with Webkit browsers in mind, because Webkit has 90% market share on tablets and phones.
For those who are over 30, the irony is nauseating. Read more
Well, that was a disappointment. It was retracted nearly as quickly as it burst onto the scenes. Crud.
A reasoned, level-headed analysis of the problems that current copyright law creates rocked Slashdot yesterday. The amazing thing is, this thing came from Washington.
Here’s the highlight reel: Read more
Whatever you do, don’t call this post Optimizing Android 2.3 for Games, Graphics and Multimedia. I’ll kick your… nevermind.
But of course the first thing I wanted after I installed Cyanogenmod 7.2–which is based on Android 2.3.7–on my Nook Color was to make it run smoother and faster. What else would I want? So here’s some stuff I did, since adding three CPU cores obviously isn’t an option.
Over the past year, I grew tired of hearing people say nobody wants electric cars. There are certain people, who for reasons I can’t figure out, want the masses to believe nobody wants electric cars. I don’t know why the Chevy Volt is a flop.
But what I do know is that there’s a dedicated number of individuals who have been putting plugs on Toyota Priuses so they can charge them overnight, and these modified Priuses are popular. Starting now, that’s no longer necessary–you can buy one with a plug on it.
So, after most of a year, I finally revisited Cyanogenmod 7.2 on my Nook Color. Competent tablets are available for around $100 now, so perhaps this is less interesting now, but I had a Nook Color, and figured I might as well try it out before spending money on something else.
I was never happy running it from an SD card–it was way too laggy and sluggish–but Cyanogenmod 7.2 is competent when installed on its internal memory, at least for the things I most want to use a tablet for–light web browsing, reading e-mail, watching SD video, and reading PDFs–and it leaves the SD card slot open for storing the media I want to consume. Read more
It’s still a couple of weeks off, but we already know two retailers will be offering sub-$200 laptops on the day the United States gorges itself on bargains.
The question is, what do you get for your $200 on these minimalist laptops? I’ll answer those questions, then you can decide whether they’re worth $200 and braving the crowds, the weird hours, and likely the cold. (Yes, there are costs beyond the money you spend.) Read more
Earlier this year, I did some cosmetic fix-up of a house that, among other things, had a lot of painted-over outlet covers. Preventing that is easy–it takes a couple of minutes to unscrew the cover and put tape over the outlet–but if someone didn’t do that, the cleanup is cheap and easy too, even years after the painting mishap. And all you need are common household items to clean paint from outlet and switch covers or other types of wall plates.