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Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Many years ago when I first became involved in computing there was a wonderful American computer magazine called ‘Byte’ which has sadly disappeared. The thing I loved about it was that it would take a concept such as say “Data Mining” and explore the topic from different view points in a series of feature articles each month so that by the end and however exotic the topic seemed, you ended up with a basic understanding.

Amusingly and in different ways, at the end of each months special feature they would end up with saying something along the following lines: “So this is the future of computing or, maybe just a bit of it…” I was reminded of this when reading an article on ‘Cloud Computing’: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/look-up-its-the-future-learning-to-love-the-cloud-2180196.html

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An interesting and quite amusing article the other day in the Telegraph called “Tablets and Mobile Phones” led me to contemplate the potential: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/ces/8240216/CES-2011-tablets-and-mobile-phones.html

This was of course, bought about by the opening of the CES Show in California. I think CES stands for ‘Consumer Electronics Show’ but in reality, it is a boy’s toys Gizmo event rather than the latest “domestic white goods”. But all that said, it did start a train of thought for me based upon the “latest toys for over grown boys” and the following is the result…

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Today Julia Assange was appealing against not being granted bail whilst his extradition proceedings come to Court and in this he is right under the Rule of Law because unless he poses a significant threat of “flight” so that he may not answer any charges bought against him, he is innocent until proved guilty and therefore ‘allegations’ should not deprive him of his freedom.

However it was noticeable just how many ‘media stories’ about various UK Government web sites being under threat from the brainless sub species who call themselves “Anonymous”. These stories were about them launching “Cyber Attacks” on the Tax and Benefits Systems and the latter, most likely is what these acne loaded idiots rely on most for their ‘supplies’. “Yeah, Peace and Love, we really are big rebels but still can’t get a job or a shag…ugh !”

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Apparently, the WikiLeaks web site has obtained a lot of internal documents from a major Bank and intends to publish them in the New Year, for now they are content to drip feed American diplomatic documents and rely on their press friends like The Guardian to try and ‘sensationalise’ any contents that they come up with.

In parallel with this though and as the American Government has tried to put the ‘squeeze’ on the WikiLeaks operations, we have seen a group of hackers called ‘Anonymous’ launch cyber attacks, against Mastercard, Visa, Amazon and PayPal. The problem is that taken together, these events contradict the ‘Anonymous’ claims that they are trying to keep the Internet open and free because they bring into play another unelected, self appointed and unaccountable group, THEMSELVES so that if there is tyranny, all they seek to do is replace one tyranny with another, their own which makes them less freedom fighters than would be Hitlers.

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This blog site gets more than it’s fair share of ‘spam’ since I started it in November 2007. However and to be accurate. I think that the spam only started in late 2008 or early 2009 and it seemed to have a pattern that indicated that my site was being used in some kind of “School for Spammers” somewhere to the East of the UK and as my ‘defences’ are reasonably robust, so what ?

However and of late, things have changed somewhat and it might be worth trying to both describe and speculate upon this which is what this particular ‘blog entry’ is about plus, in only 4 days since the “Anarchists are Anonymous” started spamming using criminal spambots,  I have received about 500 spam mails.

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There is a substantial audience in both the US and the Middle East for seeing ‘conspiracies’ under every bed and whilst I would agree that society should always have checks and balances to prevent the “structural abuse” of power by those “in power”, in the vast majority of situations, I tend to lean towards believing that most events are a combination of human frailty and total “Cock Ups” caused by a lack of forward thinking rather than some grand plan to deceive.

The current Wikileaks furore seems a classic case in point, it is in reality a traffic accident in slow motion likely wholly caused by a number of weak personalities and incompetents meeting at a given moment in time and space…

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Looking back across a period of say 1995 to 2005 and certainly since the late 1980s, when it came to computer software, I have always been someone who upgrades when a new version of the software I’m using came out and never thought not to do so.

However and with hindsight, I think that I was bonkers to do so, it is not something that I would do with say, my cameras where at most “every other model upgrade” or more likely, when a new model offers some radically new improvement over what I have got would trigger considering a new purchase.

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Gilbert Adair wrote an article in yesterday’s Independent about him ‘falling out of love with Apple Mac’. I fell about laughing, it provoked a massive response which considering all the really important things in this world was as pathetic as it was funny but to me, not at all surprising, people do love their Totem Poles I guess.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/apple-a-love-affair-turned-sour-2053373.html

I have written before that the saddest thing about our consumer society is that in retail terms, the iPhone is the most ‘radical product’ to have been produced in the past 10 years – how totally depressing !

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This essay is not just for the “Geeks” and therefore a little bit of background might help those who are not. In the “Corporate Space” there are a number of email systems but the two big hitters are IBM with Lotus Notes/Domino and Microsoft with Outlook/MS Exchange. In reality and in no small part due to user familiarity, Outlook is probably far more popular than Notes although in my view Domino/Notes is a far better corporate tool.

However, with the recent arrival of Windows 7 and for me the opportunity to overhaul my three main workstations, I thought that I might share something with my imaginary audience to do with email that might be worth a thought for now or in the future and it is the sort of thing not often covered because it has to do with the open Source Movement = Free Software !

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This particular blog is about sharing the actual experience of upgrading PCs to the latest Windows 7 so to a large extent, it is sort of nerdy and to be avoided if such things are not of interest to you. If however you were to ask whether it is a difficult thing to do because of all the “technical horrors” my answer would be NO and the reason being that people like Microsoft make it all so easy for you and fully automated.

Likewise theses days, even the main Linux distributors do the same unlike a decade or so back when a black pointed hat, black robes with stars on them and the mandatory magic wand were very necessary for a Linux install !

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