Why Google Bought Motorola
Motorola Atrix 4G The initial reaction of the stock markets to Google buyout of Mototrola Mobility was a 3% plunge in Google stock value. But ye Editor thinks the buy makes a lot of sense for Google for the following reasons: 1)Google is going to operate the company as is and not bring Mototrola into […]
HTML5 Evangelism: Adobes The Expressive Web
What might of gotten lost in Adobe’ s announcement of its HTML5 development Tool, Edge, was the equally important release of Adobe’s HTML5 Evangelism site, The Expressive Web. Adobe appears determined to seize the lead in HTML5 development. As the screen shot below shows the Expressive Web is certainly HTML5 snazzy. The Expressive Web has a […]
HTML5 Developer Tool: Adobe Edge
Adobe Edge HTML5 Animation Tool Adobe has just made two significant announcements this week on its support for HTML5. First, there is the new HTML5 tutorial and evangelism site, The expressive Web, which is chock full of examples of HTML5 +CSS3 code with comments, links, and Complimentary resources – see here for a review. Next, […]
Whither Goes Adobe?
Adobe finds itself in a dangerous place. The most popular platform for its graphics software, Mac OS/X, is becoming more hostile to Adobe software as Apple and Steve Jobs wage what appears to be a self-fulfilling war against Adobe. For examples, Adobe Flash is unfairly banned from iOS and thus iPad, iPod, iPhone; Adobe Photoshop, […]
With the Help of Apple, Windows Gets Another Reprieve
Apple has been very clever in the release of its new Macs. They are creating a PR perfect storm:1)release of astoundingly good quarterly results with annual sales rates now dwarfing Microsofts and many of the other IT pindustry players like Dell, IBM, and HP, 2)annoucment of the new Mac laptops and MacMini with first hints of […]
The OS Mess
The primary reason ye Editor is NOT an admirer of Apple and Steve Jobs is his relentless drive to establish a monopoly equal to or greater than Bill Gates’ Microsoft. Steve is out to prove that 30 years ago, he was the real deal, the real innovator in personal computing – and Bill …. Bill […]
HTML5 Web Browsers:Benchmarks and Market Share
HTML5 is rapidly coming of age as a)the major browser vendors move to implement more of HTML5 and b)Web developers, especially for mobiles, add more HTML5 features. So theOpenSourcery will be producing a quarterly report on the latest HTML5 Web Browser performance and market share numbers. Also commentary on Web Development related to the browsers […]
Bing and Baidu Hookup
A year ago January Google got hit with high caliber hack attacks from Chinese sources rumored to be Baidu and a regional university know for its hacking program. Steve Ballmer pooh-poohed and came to the rescue of the Chinese saying that Microsoft would be glad to replace Google with Bing as a major player in […]
jQuery Trends and Resources
The Chart of JavaScript usage on top 1 million websites tells the story jQuery has over the past 5 years become the essential JavaScript framework to know. Yes, there are many other good JavaScript frameworks like DHTMLx, EXTjs, mootools, and dojo/dijit among many others. But jQuery has 5 characteristics which set it apart from other […]
Swiffy: Google’s Flash to HTML5 Converter
Since Larry Page took over at Google, the Googleplex appears to be trying to do a remake of the movie The Fast and the Furious. Google Plus, Google Sites for Mobile and now Swiffy, “Swiffy converts SWF files to HTML5, allowing you to reuse Flash content on devices without a Flash player.” -all of this […]
Google Plus – Best Software of 2011
Google Plus/Google+ has provoked a lot reactions among Social Media users. After all Google+ is deemed the best challenger to Facebook for all those consumer eyeballs [700 million worldwide and growing for Facebook]and Web time [a Facebook session average 4-5 times longer than a Google session].Yet ye Editor has been cagey after the disasters that were […]
Google Apps Versus Microsoft Office 365
Two reviews catch the changed landscape for Microsoft in the Cloud. Information Week sees Google Apps ahead of Office 365 on 4 telling counts, Gartner is more cautious about the features but sees some problems; and the Guardian sees improved features over BPOS, the proceeding Microsoft Office Suite available on the Web. But no one clearly answers […]
Google Plus is ++
Dave Winer is yawning at Google Plus, the new social sharing service offering from Mountain View[what happens to Google’s Orkut??]. Dave says it is just a personal peeve between Google top brass and Facebook top brass. Ye Editor has moved from MySpace to Flickr to Fotki to Facebook never quite satisfied among existing Web/Social Sharing […]
Whose Post PC-Era?
Steve Jobs and Apple are getting headline stories about the declaration of the Post PC Era; but the reality is that Post PC era started at least 10 years ago. The catalyst has been the fact that Microsoft with its ironclad monopoly wiped out a creative ecosystem around the PC [just look at the software […]
Chromebook is a Miss by Google
Google’s CEO Larry Page is famous for saying that Google prides itself on misses as well as hits. Well Larry has a big ChromeOS/Chromebook miss on his hands. In the past year, ye Editor has found himself disagreeing with MarketWatch’s John Dvorak on a number of his editorials. But on his recent review of Google’s […]
Very Good Apple Mac OS/X Lion Is Hobbled
Okay lets get the bad news off ye Editor’s chest – a very good update to Apple’s Mac OS/X is hobbled by the fact that multi-touch and gestures are still not brought to the Mac’s full screen. They are still confined to the trackpad and “magic mice”. Steve Jobs insists that touch screen operations would […]
Apple iPad Visualized in 1994
I vaguely remember this idea being demoed at Comdex or some other IT convention or presentation: And of course there was Apple’s many tries at portable computing devices during the 1990’s as described in this also precocious report: Apple has a miserable track record in consumer electronics outside of computers — and it’s not for […]
Asus Eee Pad Transformer Update
This blog has been predicting great things for the the Asus Eee Pad Transformer – see our April 17th review which rates the machine as the best dockable tablet. Now the machine has become available on April 25th in the US and canada for $399.99 for the tablet only 16GB version. And as noted on […]
Android/Linux Triumph II
Update: WSJ’s All things Digital has a story in which Nielsen not only confirms Android ascendancy as the number one smartphone OS in the US but also indicates that Android has taken a commanding 50% lead in new buyers intentions: Here is what John Paczkowski at All things Digital noted about the trend: The mercurial […]
The Best Dockable Tablet: Asus Eee Pad Transformer
Readers may know that ye Editor has been looking for a dockable tablet and it is fitting that Asus [creators of the Eee Linux light and portable Netbook phenomena of 4 years ago] are the first to bring the dockable form factor to fruition with the Asus Eee Pad Transformer. This is a brilliant naming […]
A Look at Scala
As a programmer who cut his teeth on Assembler [various MT4,UR,HEAD versions] and Fortran, ye Editor is not fond of new programming languages. Having wondered how the Tower of Babel produced so many spoken languages, Babel must have been Ancient Academia where NIH-Not Invented Here ruled the roost and thus so many tongues proliferated. And […]
Is There a Solar-ThinFilm Recharging Future?
WYSIPS-What You See Is PhotoVoltaic Source is a French start-up which appraently has a major breakthrough for solar power to electronic devices. The lenticular skin is transparent but generates serious power for directly charging anything electronic from smartphones to GPS systems. because the film is not only transparent but very thin and highly flexible it […]
Google Gmail Motion Mocks Microsoft Kinect
After taking a slap on the face from Microsoft with Redmond’s antitrust complaint yesterday, , Google returns fire with its superior GMail Motion on April 1. The Redmond UI experts who are working feverishly on a Wii to get Kinect into the Windows UI will be weeping and gnashing their teeth – or just LOLing […]
Steve Jobs Ballmer
Steve Jobs Ballmer look more and more like twins separated at birth or highly sympathetic fellow travelers. Look at the evidence. Both have tried to kill Java. Steve, oops, Steve J has banned Java from iOS4 and is now saying Apple’s Java support on Mac OS/X is deprecated and will be subject to termination. Hey who uses Java on […]
Waiting for a Dockable Tablet Phone
With the launch of the iPad 2 and Motorola Xoom the tablet wars are starting to really heat up. Just check out the stridency of the comments on Engadget. And despite my lust for GarageBand on the iPad2 or the GPS Navgation on the Motorola Xoom, ye Editor is still not budging. I want my […]
Chrome Debugger Overview
Lurking in the bowels of the Chrome browser is a JavaScript Debugger which is as as good as Firebug for Firefox or the Visual Studio tool in IE8 and IE9 if not better. CTRL+SHIFT+J is the key shortcut to use to get at the debugger. Or use the Tool Icon + Tools + JavaScript Console. […]
Adobe Wallaby Benchmarks
Adobe Wallaby is an Air app that converts Adobe .FLA files into a HTML5 group of files . The idea is another workaround to get from .FLA into acceptable code for Apple’s iOS4 and thus around the Steve Jobs blockade on Flash on his iDevices[Wallaby does nothing about the Jobs Java ban]. Having not a […]
Adobe on SW Development Fastrack
Adobe is on a fasttrack, signs of an Agile approach to development similar to Google. Here are 4 announcements indicative of that fast turnaround approach: 1)after just releasing Flash Player 10.2, Flash Player 10.3 is in beta with a number of refinements for cloud service use and user configuration of the player; 2)after promising in […]
WebOS on all HP PCs
Leo Apotheker, the new CEO of HP announced yesterday that all HP PCs will be loaded with webOS – not just HP tablets and smartphones. Note that webOS will defer to Windows 7 in the case of desktop PCs and laptops. Nonetheless, this is marks two important milestones: 1)the continued cracking of the Windows PC […]
Complete Specs – Apple iPad2 vs HP TouchPad vs Motorola Xoom
Steve Jobs said today the launch of the iPad 2 along with latest iPhone 4 and iTouch developments signals the full flowering of the post-PC era. Notably the idea of post-PC era was made by Steve at the beginning and emphasized again at the end of the presentation. And there is solid substance to the […]
Steve Jobs Post-PC Era:The Computing Divides
Steve Jobs in his announcement of the Apple iPad 2 emphasized that client computing has reached a Post-PC era. In fact, Jobs cited the complete product line of Apple iDevices as leading the way into the new Post-PC era of computing . Nowhere has this Computing Divide of the Post-PC Era been made more apparent than in a […]
Bing vs Google Search
For all you Mad Magazine fans, Spy vs Spy is alive and well in the Search business with Microsoft Bing vs Google Search. Bing started it off with a fast and snappy background images and a sidebar of menu items. Google responded by matching that sidebar with more easily accessible Google-wide as well as search […]
Mobile Tablet Race Update for iPad2
2010 was supposed to be the Year of the Tablet. 2011 will truly be the year of the tablet as a)Apple and Steve Jobs have put their imprimatur on tablets with the iPad and its 15million unit sales; b)there is a dirty dozen IT players that don’t want to be iPhone-ed out of the market; […]
Tableizer: Spreadsheet Data to HTML
Tableizer is a online conversion utility that converts Excel, iCalc, OpenOffice and other spreadsheet data into a HTML table. It is online and dead dsimple to do. Just select and copy the data you want [including column and row headers as desired] using CTRL+C or your spreadsheets copy function and then paste into the Tableizer […]
Customizable Touchbook: Acer Iconia’s Dual Screen Magic
In our striptease reveal of the the Motion CL900 ye Editor implied that dockable tablets get no respect; but lets amend that to dockable tablets running Windows 7 get no respect. So what is Acer doing with one of the most innovative tablet/laptops seen on the market in the last 3-5 years? The Acer Iconia […]
The Beastly Browser Market
Depending on who is doing the counting Microsoft’s IE Browser is starting to drop below 50% market share for all its versions – IE9, IE8, IE7, IE6 and IE5. This has been long overdue since IE has been one of the worst browsers for the past 8++ years. Only now does IE9 comes close to […]
The Web as Revolutionary
When Time magazine was rumored to make the Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg its Person of the Year, Ye 5th’s Editor thought that another Media “Academy Award” was a little too much. But with the revolt in Tunisia and the outbreak of dissent and protests in Egypt, both largely organized and propelled by social media including Facebook […]
Dockable Tablet: Motion CL900
Since dockable tablets get no respect, Ye Editor thought a striptease might be appropriate for the Motion CL900 tablet. Yes, Engadget and PCWorld had a story on the Motion CL900 but in general the coverage was cursory as Android tablets got the most attention. So here are the CL900 specs in a slow, revealing strip: – […]
No-cost Websites and Blogs
There is an awful lot of free web development software and even complete website services – Google’s Sites and Weebly are just two examples of essentially free blog and website creation+operation services that are available today. How do these free services make money? Well in the case of Google and Microsoft it is online ads […]
Dockable Tablets: Upcoming HP/Palm Tablet
Well now that Motorola has caused such a buzz with its eminently dockable smartphone, the Atrix 4G, more tablet players are leaking their dockable plans to the gadgetari. Case in point, Engadget’s coverage of the upcoming HP/Palm Tablet. And if Engadget is right, the Palm Tablet will be most impressive in the directions and features […]
What Is 4G?
If you are confused as to what 4G means other than faster access to and from your smartphone or tablet, you are not alone. There are several competing technologies including T-Mobile’s HSPA+, Sprint’s WiMax and Verizon’s recent LTE among others. And each technology does improve througput to your smartphone or other tablet/device – but the […]
Bob Muglia “Steps Down” at Microsoft
Bob Muglia, President of the Servers and Tools business has been announced as stepping down – euphemism for being Robbie Bach-ed at Microsoft. Bob was reponsible for bringing all the disparate developer tools together at Microsoft back in the mid 1990s with Visual Studio – still one of the best development platforms in the IT […]
The Wave of Tablets
CES is not the only place where a wave of tablets have washed up on shore. There is a horde of “me too” variations on iPads and smartphones making it onto the market: many are Android based; most are from Taiwan and China; and most are competing on price based on a common set of basic […]
Agile Software Vendors: Apple vs Google vs Microsoft
One of the hallmarks of Web 2.0 and broader software development has been the rise of Agile Techniques. This is a roster of development methods that vary in exact processes but emphasize much shorter development and delivery cycles of 3-9 months instead of 1 to 3 years, client particpation through prototyping and testing, and adapting […]
Dockable Tablets at CES2011
This blog has been saying for a long time a dockable tablet makes a lot of sense; especially for the legions of iPad wannabee vendors at CES trying to differentiate their product from the 60, yes 60, new tablets introduced so far this year. Well to my chagrin very few tablet vendors it seems has […]
HTML5: Sencha’s Wishlist for 2011
Sencha are the people behind the EXTjs JavaScript framework with great database connections, Sencha Touch JavaScript for Mobile applications with full Webkit multi-touch capabilities [read works on Apple iOS4, BlackberryOS6 and Qnx, Google Android and ChromeOS], EXTGWT for Java to JavaScript UI development. So these gals and guys are on the frontline of Web 2.0, mobile and […]
The Mac IS Dead II
Our “esteemed friend[s]” at Taketh5th.com have taken exception to our post on why the Mac is Dead. Essentially their argument for the Mac being alive and well rests on the fact that Mac business is too big to fail for Apple. $18 billion dollars too big. Takethe5th notes that Mac sales are growing despite the […]
iOS4 Takes Over from MacOS
The past year has been a very, very good one for Apple – and particularly its iDevices – iPhone, iPad, iPod line of products. Apple has now passed Microsoft in stock value and is approaching the highest valued company in the World, ExxonMobil. And next years prospects are even better: Trefis Model of Apple Stock […]
Apple MacOS on Windows PC using VMWare Player
Yes, dear Readers this is a screenshot of Apple Mac OS 10.5.5 running on a PC laptop using Windows XP Service Pack 3 with 3.048GB of RAM and Core Duo 2 Intel P8600 CPU @ 2.40GHz plus the latest VMWare Player 3.1.3[the player inthe VM uses 2GB of the 3GB of RAM]. The how-to can […]
Antechinus JavaScript Editor
Oh no! Not another JavaScript editor. Well that may be a true statement. But finding a JavaScript editor that goes beyond color coding, smart editing with savvy Intellisense, and goodies like collapsible code/functions has been very difficult. Eclipse, Dreamweaver, Netbeans, Aptana Studio, and Komodo Studio are some top tier JavaScript editors. All have excellent editing, […]