What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

This is an interesting article from November of 1968... he got a few things right. I'm still waiting on the memory and intelligence pill though...

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/03/24/what-will-life-be-like-in-the-year-2008/

Meet the laptop you'll use in 2015

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9070158

Wi-Fi on steroids?

"Google on Monday said it has a plan to have American consumers from Manhattan to rural North Dakota surfing the Web on handheld gadgets at gigabits-per-second speeds by the 2009 holiday season.

The company, joined by other heavyweights like Microsoft and Dell, has long been lobbying for the Federal Communications Commission to free up unused broadcast TV channels known as "white spaces" for unlicensed use by personal devices. That portion of the TV band is highly prized because it can propagate long distances and through obstacles.

It also possesses the bandwidth to support vastly faster data rates than today's standard Internet service offerings--"Wi-Fi on steroids" or "Wi-Fi 2.0," as Richard Whitt, Google's telecommunications counsel, put it in a Monday morning conference call. "

Click Here to read the rest of the article.

Xen Teams with HP to Embed Hypervisor

I'm looking forward to the price wars between the top three that will most assuredly follow, especially after Microsoft releases it's hypervisor later this year.

Click Here to read the rest of the story.

git: This Year's Version Control Fashion

Here's an article on the newest fad in Version Control...

"Version control systems seem to run in waves in the open source world. For many years, the venerable CVS had the lion's share of usage. Then along came Subversion, with the announced goal of being "a compelling replacement for CVS." Subversion has gained enough popularity to be the baked-in choice in many tracking and management tools. Lately, though, I've been seeing more and more interest in git - the system used to track changes to the Linux kernel itself, among many other things."

Click Here to read the rest of the article.

Little old lady suing Sony, Samsung, Nokia and everyone else for infringing on her laser patents

"Oh sure, she looks friendly enough. But don't let her matronly, argyle looks fool you. Retired Columbia University Professor, Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, is looking to extract some cold, hard cash from a who's who of Consumer Electronics giants. "

Click here to read the rest of the story...

How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong

Interesting article on Steve Jobs and Apple....

One Infinite Loop, Apple's street address, is a programming in-joke — it refers to a routine that never ends. But it is also an apt description of the travails of parking at the Cupertino, California, campus. Like most things in Silicon Valley, Apple's lots are egalitarian; there are no reserved spots for managers or higher-ups. Even if you're a Porsche-driving senior executive, if you arrive after 10 am, you should be prepared to circle the lot endlessly, hunting for a space.

But there is one Mercedes that doesn't need to search for very long, and it belongs to Steve Jobs. If there's no easy-to-find spot and he's in a hurry, Jobs has been known to pull up to Apple's front entrance and park in a handicapped space. (Sometimes he takes up two spaces.) It's become a piece of Apple lore — and a running gag at the company. Employees have stuck notes under his windshield wiper: "Park Different." They have also converted the minimalist wheelchair symbol on the pavement into a Mercedes logo.

Jobs' fabled attitude toward parking reflects his approach to business: For him, the regular rules do not apply. Everybody is familiar with Google's famous catchphrase, "Don't be evil." It has become a shorthand mission statement for Silicon Valley, encompassing a variety of ideals that — proponents say — are good for business and good for the world: Embrace open platforms. Trust decisions to the wisdom of crowds. Treat your employees like gods.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

The Tools Google Uses Internally

Interesting...

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-03-12-n39.html

Lenovo's Got a MacBook Air Without the Compromise

I wouldn't necessarily call it an even match, there are obviously things that the AirBook does better (i.e. power cord, graphics, etc..). But overall for most users the Lenovo is going to be much more handy...
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/gadgetreviews/multimedia/2008/03/gallery_gadgets?slide=3&slideView=3

The 7 dirtiest jobs in IT

Somebody's got to do them -- and hopefully that somebody isn't you

By Dan TynanMarch 10, 2008
Working in IT isn't always pretty. After all, we can't all work on the cutting-edge technologies all the time. Some of us have to get dirty -- in some cases, literally.

Unfortunately, dirty jobs -- whether you're being chained to a help desk, hacking 30-year-old code, finding yourself wedged between warring factions in the conference room, or mucking about in human effluvia -- are necessary to make nearly every organization tick. (Well, maybe not the human effluvia part.)

The good news? Master at least one of them, and you're pretty much guaranteed a job with somebody. We don't guarantee you'll like it, though.

Here are seven of the dirtiest jobs in IT, and why your organization needs them.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Group Policy Optimization

I think everyone has questions and concerns about this topic...

I am frequently asked the question, "From a performance perspective, is it better to have fewer, bigger GPOs or a lot of smaller ones?" That question and others related to Group Policy design and performance are the focus of this article. And, as with most sweeping questions, I can tell you the answer in advance: "It depends." While this may seem evasive, my goal is to illuminate the mechanisms that underlie Group Policy processing so you can make informed decisions about your Group Policy design, regardless of whether you are just starting out or looking to optimize an environment with hundreds of existing GPOs.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

ADM and ADMX Templates for Group Policy

ADM files. You either love 'em or you hate 'em. Or maybe both. That's because they're both necessary and confusing. And now there are ADMX files, a new format that can seemingly only add to the confusion. Well, it's time for me to shed some light on this cloudy subject.

Why Do We Need ADM Files?
Group Policy covers a wide range of areas. If you dive down into the Group Policy Object Editor (GPOE), you'll discover lots of different "stuff" you can do with Group Policy. For instance, you'll find Software Restriction Policy, Group Policy Software Installation, Folder Redirection, and, yes, the one we utilize most: Administrative Templates. The Administrative Templates node appears on both the User and Computer sides. As you'd expect, users can only embrace User-side policy settings and computers can only embrace Computer-side policy settings.

But where do all these magical settings within Administrative Templates come from? When new applications are "born," there are some settings you can potentially manipulate. That's where ADM files come into play. They describe the areas of the application that are ready to accept settings defined by an administrator. ADM files are limited right away, unfortunately, because they can only address Registry settings within an application. But an application might save its settings in other areas such as .ini files, .js files, .xml files, and databases.

Click here to read the rest of the article...

Take Control of Windows PowerShell - Nice PowerShell GUI

Here's a article from the January issue of TechNet Magazine...
PowerGUI
powergui.org
If you haven't started using Windows PowerShellTM yet, you most likely will be using it soon. Windows PowerShell is becoming a core administrative tool in the world of Windows Server®. For starters, it has become the basis for script-based management of Exchange Server 2007.

To get the most out of Windows PowerShell in its native format, you need to memorize a fair amount of syntax, cmdlets, and general structure. Of course, you may not have the time (or mental energy) to dedicate to this. But what if you had a centralized graphical administrative console for managing your scripts? A user interface that would give you customizable templates, IntelliSense®-like editing features, and a script-sharing community base? With this sort of environment, you would be able to quickly script the tasks you need and always know where they are located for future reuse and reference.

Click here to read the rest of the article

It has now been officially released - http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2008/02/29/powergui-now-officially-released.aspx

Shifting Google Gears to mobile

Monday, March 3, 2008 10:51 PM
Posted by Charles Wiles, Product Manager, Google mobile team

Ever use a mobile web application and suddenly lose your cell connection? That's happened to me many times. If you've shared my pain, you'll be excited to know that we've launched Google Gears for mobile, which lets users access Gears-enabled mobile web apps offline. Initially available for Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices, mobile web app developers have already started integrating Gears for mobile into their online services.

Click here to read the rest of the article

Supercharge Your Wireless Router With Open Firmware

Nice...

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Supercharge_Your_Wireless_Router_With_Open_Firmware

A 'Quarter-Terabyte' of Memory???

Only $50,000, for a limited time only...

http://www.metaram.com/pdf/press/MetaSDRAM_2_25_08.pdf

Everex's gPC Gives Mac Mini a Rune for it's Money?

Interesting comparison...

"Everex's gPC mini is the third in its new lineup of cheap, linux-powered computers. With smoothly rounded corners and a pearly-white paint job, it's like a Mac Mini from another universe. And that's certainly what its designers want you to think: at $500, it's a mass market PC that comes in a similar tiny form and at an even tinier price.

The specs are good for the price: check our a comparison chart at the bottom of this post. Its Intel T2130 CPU is not as powerful as the Mac Mini's, and it has only 512MB of RAM to the $600 Mini's 1GB, but it has more storage (120GB vs. 80GB), a DVD burner, and various useful trimmings like an S-Video port, front USB port and a card reader. Like the Mini, it comes standalone: bring your own mouse, monitor and keyboard."

Click here to read the rest of the article

Middle Ages Technical Support

Oh how I can relate! I guess some things just don't change. :)