I don’t know what is better, the fact hat WiMAX is so powerful that it could disrupt satellite communications, or that satellite communications weren’t thought about when developing WiMAX? From Engadget: a report from the Satellite Users Interference Reduction Group (SUIRG). Apparently those folks found “conclusive” results of “unacceptable” levels of interference from WiMAX of satellite signals in the C-band. Naturally, it sounds like this group’s primary purpose is to come up with data like this to protect that satellite spectrum turf, but it’s disconcerting nonetheless I don’t think this is something that will be a big deal, as WiMAX isn’t a very fast moving standard. By the time we Read more »

Joe Wilcox has written up a great post on ten things he warned Microsoft about when they were developing Windows Vista. This post addresses many of the errors in judgement the company made with the operating system. My favourite: 5. Vista reminds too much of Windows Me. In late 2006, I had dinner with some Vista user interface designers. By then, I had used Vista betas for nearly 10 months. They heard: There are two Microsoft operating systems that the more I used them the less I liked them—Windows Me and Windows Vista. While not my intention, the comment hugely insulted the UI designers, because of how much Windows Me Read more »

One of my fascinations is solar technology, and I especially love to see things going on in the Canadian market, since I live in Canada. Much to my surprise, Kelowna, British Columbia is getting some solar street lamps. I think this is a great use of solar technology. As we continually light up our world, why not use the energy of the sun during the night? From SolarHype: Kelowna, BC is getting a shiny new set of solar powered LED lights at their city hall, as well as a bunch parks and transit facilities. Thanks in part to a nice big $500,000 grant from the Canadian Federal Government, and Carmanah, Read more »

I have always been worried about security and even more so as we place small radio transmitter chips on a variety of items. RFID tags, continue to be added at an increasing rate to the variety of shipments traveling the world, but it is quickly filtering down to the more common place world that we know and love. The Netherlands are using RFID tagged cards as part of their national payment system, and over one billion cards based on the Milfare Classic RFID chip are now at risk. Two different teams have managed to crack the encryption on the chips, making it possible for hackers to make perfect clones of Read more »

I was browsing the web and saw a post on The Wall Street Journal about computer monitors, and the title is the same as this post. I was all giddy with excitement. Could this be the text I need to convince the wife to let me get a second monitor to go with my boring 19″ LCD? People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones. I tried first to convince her to let me buy a 24-inch monitor but at the current prices she wasn’t Read more »

I own a Philips DVD player that includes DivX technology, allowing me to feel confident that my player can pretty much play any disc that I throw into it. I really enjoy the player and I am happy to announce that Philips and DivX has signed an agreement that will see Philips continue to license the technology for the next two years. This means that the new generation players from Philips will include the DivX technology. I am looking forward to buying a Blu-ray player, once the standard has been completely locked down, that includes DivX. Even more interesting to me would be to get a portable DVD player that Read more »

Discover Magazine has a great article that highlights some of the things you can do with your computer’s idle time. Most people know about Seti@Home, and Folding@Home, but there are many other great programs you can run to help society. FightAIDS@Home What it is: Run by the Olson Laboratory at the Scripps Research Institute, this is the first biomedical and the first humanitarian distributed-computing project. How it works: Uses computational methods to help identify which drug molecules could best fight HIV. Our take: It’s a good cause in need of volunteers. Climateprediction.net What it is: Roughly $2 billion is spent each year on modeling the impact of global warming. This Read more »

Thomas Baekdal recently wrote a post with the same title, and it interested me. I have known that sooner or later YouTube would put up some better quality videos, as they have Google’s deep pockets backing them, but what Thomas has shown is that YouTube is already doing so, at least on certain videos. YouTube has long been the place to watch low-quality videos. While most other video sites allow you to see videos in high-quality, YouTube has stubbornly stuck with its abysmal 320×240. But there is actually a way to boost the quality. All you need to do is to add “&fmt=6″ to the end of the URL. He Read more »

As a Windows, Linux, and Mac user, I am always interested when something says cross-platform, and LifeHacker doesn’t disappoint with their tutorial on how to create your own cross-platform backup server, something I am currently working on, so the timing couldn’t be better. I was originally thinking about going the Drobo route, but in the end, the whole thing was just a little too pricey for this blogger, and I ended up dragging one of my old computers out of the closet and throwing a bunch of hard drives into it. I am definitely going to be using this guide in re-setting it up, as it currently works in a Read more »

While at the Northern Voice conference in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada, I was able to meet up with a few of the folks that work on Flock, the social web browser. I asked them many questions, some harder than others, and they answered them with grace, so much so that I am going to be giving the browser another go starting today. Flock recently released their version 1.0, and I have been hearing great things about it. One of the advantages of Flock over Firefox or other browsers is its ability to make blogging easier. It allows you to bring in your Flickr photos, snippets of content, and your ideas Read more »