Have a Tech Filled Christmas!

There is no doubt that every person reading this blog post has in some way asked for a techy gift this Christmas! For example, maybe you asked for the iPad, or maybe just an MP3 player. Being myself, I of course got many techy gifts for Christmas this year. On second thought, they were were all techie gifts. A new Western Digital my book world edition 2 hard disk, a new Panasonic HDC-SD700 and dictation software, with which I am writing this post. Out of these gifts, my favourite must be the Panasonic camcorder: it has a manual focus ring and several customisable presets. the dictation software, from Dragon, is extremely good at recognising commands and voice; however it will of course make a few mistakes. The WD hard drive has been attached to my local network, for public access, and all the data on it can be accessed from anywhere in the world. It also has many other features, such as a downloader, where you can set the drive to download content from the Internet, and a dual backup protection system, which uses the two hard drives in the system to keep your data secure Enjoy the remaining hours of the 25th

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

The Internet: Its history and the WWW

The internet is a very complicated thing. It includes servers, data centres, real life sensors and over 2 billion computers within its network. The history of the internet is also extremely complicated and is sumerised inthis video below:






History of the Internet from Melih Bilgil on Vimeo.


Now, you might have been asking yourself this for a while now: What exactly is the difference between the Internet and the WWW (thats World Wide Web)? Are they the same thing? Well, I can now tell you that they are not. 


The Internet is a massive network of networks. It connects millions of computers together globally, forming a network in which any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as they are both connected to the Internet. 


The World Wide Web is a way of accessing information over the Internet. The Web uses the HTTP protocol, only one of the languages spoken over the Internet, to transmit data. The World Wide Web also uses browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Firefox to access web pages that are linked to each other via hyperlinks. Web pages/documents also contain graphics, sounds, text and video.


So, overall, the internet is just the network of computers and the WWW is the website you love, or Google, or Facebook. Its a way of accessing information over the Internet.

Just how Irrelevant is Flash Becoming?

I was looking through the internet, when I found some perplexing news: I, in 2 years of owning this macbook, have never installed Flash. Now, I considered this for a moment, then I looked through my applications folder to see if I had actually initialled Flash previously, which I was sure I had. I had installed Adobe Air, a similar product but different in some way. This surprised me as I had heard a lot about flash content here and there, but to be honest, most of the websites with effects like Sony's 3D World site are already using HTML5.

So, what does this mean for Adobe? Well, Flash was one of their most successful products for a while now, but, as we move away from the desktops and laptops, the mobile industry is becoming predominant with carriers offering a free smartphone every year. I believe products like Adobe CS5 will continue to be one of Adobe's better products, but Flash, Adobe Air, Microsoft Silverlight [Microsofts earlier attempt to combat adobe] and Sockwave will all become redundant as we move to mobile friendly platforms such as HTML5, JavaScript and a few others.

Apple Press Conference 20th October 2010

Apple have recently sent out a surprise invitation to their HQ in California. As the picture says, its all about the mac (since this year has been mainly based around iOS devises) and we are expecting some exiting things:

1) Mac OS X 10.7 Lion - the next major release is said to be announced tomorrow. People say it will have touch based interfaces and possibly face-time.

2) A new MacBook Air - this has long been overdue for an update now. It will have more USB ports, more RAM larger HDD space and possibly a disk drive (apple has taken these off the shelves in their retail stores now). 

3) A possible a new software range, iLife and iWork? - iLife and iWork are also now overdue for an update. We are still awaiting that "just one more thing" moment.

The event will be streaming live (I think) at 10am San Francisco time and 6pm London time.

iAd

During my visit to America, I managed to get my hands on iAd, Apples attempt to get into the advertising business. On returning to the UK, I remembered that iAd had not yet been released here yet. So I waited for what Apple promised us would be a revolution (revolution being their favourite word) in advertising.

At long last, 2 months after being launched in the US, I finally got to try a UK iAd, much to my disappointment. Apple said that they would supply ads that would interest us. I was still getting ads from dating apps and "cheap calls to international mobiles at £1 a second! Wow!" (bit of exaggeration there). Totally uninteresting. Then, these ads were boring. No fancy HTML5 widgets or interesting content, just a screen with a "Buy Now" option. Not exactly what apple promised us. 

At least the Americans get decent iAds, whilst us here in the UK have to still deal with "Zoosk is the No. 1 dating app for the iPhone!".

Sort it out Apple! 

First Ever Web Browsers

The first ever web browser, which did not make it far, was mamed "ViolaWWW". The first ever successful web browser which opened the web up to the feneral public was called "Mosaic". This was credited with making the WWW more popular. It was also the first graphical browser. For more info, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)

A letter to Steve Jobs: Apples's UK Pricing is too high!

Subject: A 13 year old Apple enthusiast with a complaint
Date: 19 September 2010 18:41:24 GMT+01:00

Dear Mr. Jobs,

I am a 13 year old Apple enthusiast, who lives in the UK. I have managed to convert my whole family from using PCs to Macs. My whole family now has MacBooks, MacBook Pros, iMacs, iPhone 3GSs, iPhone 4s and multiple iPods. My friends have now also purchased Macs due to my influence. To round it up, I love everything Apple, except the UK pricing.

Why is it that the new Apple tv in the US costs $99 and here £99? It should be at the most £80. Why is it also that the iPad costs $499 in the US and £430 here? Apple's UK pricing is nowhere near in proportion to the US pricing. At the time the iPad was first announced, I was seriously contemplating getting one, but when I saw the UK pricing, I was immediately put off. If UK prices are not lowered soon, products like the Samsung Galaxy Tab will push Apple out as the market leader simply because they offer the same services for half the price.

I do not wish to criticise, I just want Apple to be more accessible to the ordinary person with a less than average income. I have talked to a lot of people here and they all say the reason they do not get a mac, iPhone or iPad is because they are too expensive. At least make a mac and an iPhone 4 which cost less than half a thousand pounds. If Apple does, then you reap the rewards with more satisfied users, like me, and not fall to second place against the slow PC, clunky android phones and new tablet computers, simply due to cost.

Thank you for your time,

Nicolas Weninger