Jun 30 2008
The New York Times has an interesting article that makes the argument that Microsoft should start all over again on Windows.
Jun 29 2008
Louisiana has passed the latest attempt to end-run the Constitutional church and state provisions
Jun 29 2008
Welcome to the second episode of "TechMan's Giants of Technology: Important People You Probably Never Heard Of." Today's topic is the man who invented network e-mail. ... Read More...
Read the complete post at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08181/893223-371.stm?cmpid=techman.xml
Jun 27 2008
Today is Bill Gates' last day at Microsoft. He is leaving to devote full time to his charitable foundation.
Despite what you think of Microsoft, you have to admit that Gates is a giant in the history of the computer industry. Of course he was very well rewarded for his work.
Anyway TechMan says good luck Bill. If he is anywhere near as good at giving away money as making it, some of the world's problems might be solved.
Jun 26 2008
If you having problems viewing post-gazetteNOW -- www.post-gazette.com -- please follow these steps.
For example, if you do not see the Stock Market report near the bottom of the left column on the home page, hold down the Control and F5 keys on your keyboard to refresh the page.
If that does not work, follow these steps to clear old information from your Web browser.
For Internet Explorer:
• Go to Tools in the top menu bar, then click on Internet Options.
• In the middle of that window, click the Delete Files button, then the Clear History button.
• Use Control and F5 keys to refresh again.
For Firefox:
• Go to Tools in the top menu bar, then Options
• Click on the Privacy tab at the top
Clear Private Data using the Settings and Clear Now buttons.
In Safari
• Click on the Safari tab at the top of the screen
• Click on Empty Cache
Jun 26 2008
This may be a little off topic, but I guess cable TV news qualifies as technology.
While I was at the gym the other day, I was forced to watch the Fox News channel because it was on the TV above the piece of exercise equipment I was using.
The show that was on was called Live Desk. What a joke. First of all, the program is one giant commercial for Fox News with a scanty bit of news thrown in. And the news they cover is almost exclusively crime, diasasters and scandal. The format is that the anchors, who chat about the news among themselves, walk around the newsroom to various "producers" sitting at monitors. They ask them, with much breathless urgency, what's going on and the producers tell them what they are covering.
In one such scene, North Korea had announced something about its nuclear program. The producer pointed out that Fox News was covering speeches by President Bush and the two candidates to see if they commented on the development, but then never reported what any of them said about it or anything else. So what we learned was that Fox News covers stuff.
In another case, the producer at the national news desk said he was covering A Britney Spears appearance in court. He said they were trying to get a report on what Britney was wearing. Give me a break.
Technology has brought us 24-hour news coverage. Unfortunately it often seems to be a contest to see who can hit the lowest common denominator.
Jun 25 2008
Slashdot has an article on research being done on an eBook reader with two screens that allows you to "turn the page."
It looks pretty cool and it is improvements like this that have to be made to put eBook readers in the mainstream.
Jun 25 2008
Associated Press reports that ICANN, which is the group that oversees the rules of the Internet, is considering some of the first changes in 25 years. AP writes:
An Internet oversight agency is considering the first sweeping changes in the network's addressing system since its creation 25 years ago.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, closing weeklong meetings in Paris, was scheduled Thursday to consider proposals for streamlining new domain name suffixes.
The new guidelines could lead to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Internet addresses to join ".com," including ".lat" for Latin America and a Bulgarian address in the Cyrillic script. New names will not start appearing for at least several months, and the Internet agency, called Icann, will not be deciding on specific ones quite yet.
Domain names help computers find Web sites and route e-mail. Adding new suffixes can make it easier for Web sites to promote easy-to-remember names, given that the best ones have mostly been claimed already under ".com."
One proposal under consideration by Icann would permit addresses entirely in non-English characters for the first time. Specific countries would be put on a "fast track" to receive the equivalent of their two-letter country code, such as Bulgaria's ".bg," in a native language.
Demand for such names has been increasing around the world as Internet usage expands to people who cannot speak English or easily type English characters. Addresses partly in foreign languages are sometimes possible today, but the suffix has been limited to 37 characters: a-z, 0-9 and the hyphen.
Also under consideration are guidelines that would make it easier for companies and groups to propose new suffixes in English. Icann had accepted bids in 2000 and 2004, but reviews took much time, and one - ".post" for postal services - remains pending more than four years later.
The streamlined guidelines call for all applicants to go through an initial review phase during which anyone may raise an objection on such grounds as racism, trademark conflicts and similarity to an existing suffix. If no objection is raised, approval would come quickly.■
Jun 24 2008
Welcome to TechMan's new home on the Post-Gazette Community Server. This new abode will give the TechMan blog room to do some additional things, most notably receive comments from readers.
Not only would I like to see comments on my postings and replies to others' comments, I'd like to see people post their technology problems and maybe TechMan or another reader could post answers. It could be sort of a cross between comments and a forum.
I also invite you to listen to the weekly Tech Talk podcast at post-gazette.com/podcast. And the TechMan newspaper column has moved from the business section of the Saturday paper to the business section of the Sunday paper.
So again, welcome. I hope you will be a frequent visitor and post your comments.
Jun 23 2008
To many of us, searching the Web means Google.
With a 69.4 percent share of the search market as of March, Google certainly has dominance. The remaining four top search engines' market share: Yahoo, 14.8 percent; MSN/Live, 10.2; Ask, 3.7; and AOL, 1.5.
But while Google has the largest database of Web content, it alone is not always sufficient. Less than half the searchable Web is fully searchable by Google. Overlap studies show that more than 80 percent of the pages in a major search engine's database is available in only that search engine, according to the library at the University of California, Berkeley.
Some non-Google search engines may be specialized to do a better job finding what you are looking for, or may display the results in a more understandable form.
A good example of the second case is Clusty (clusty.com), a homegrown search engine that uses "clustering technology" to organize search results.
Clusty is a product of Vivisimo, a company started by three Carnegie Mellon University scientists and headquartered on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill.
In Clusty, search results come back sorted into categories. Clusty tells you how many results fell into each category. It is especially useful for a term that has varied meanings.
Clusty is an example of a metasearch engine. Metasearch engines do not build their own databases but use open databases, often from smaller search engines. Be aware that metasearch engines may not have access to the Google or Yahoo databases.
One metasearch engine that does have fairly wide access has the unfortunate name of Dogpile (dogpile.com).
Another search engine with Pittsburgh roots is Lycos. Started in 1994 as a research project by Michael L. Mauldin of Carnegie Mellon University, Lycos boomed and in 1999 was the most-visited online site in the world. It since has been sold several times and now is more of an entertainment portal, but you still can use it for search at Lycos.com.
There are myriad search engines that are specialized to search for particular kinds of data. If you go to search-engines-2.com you'll see a list of more than 12,500 links to search engines sorted by topic, country/region, meta and other categories. At webquest.sdsu.edu/searching/specialized.html you'll also find a list of specialized search sites.
A few examples: technorati.com searches blogs; newslink.org searches newspapers and magazines; earthcam.com searches for Web cameras; lib.utexas.edu/maps searches for maps -- the list goes on and on.
But TechMan's point here is that when you are searching for something on the Web, it's often good to get a second opinion. Dr. Google won't mind.
Want to send a question to TechMan? Just fire an e-mail to techman@post-gazette.com. Please include your name, hometown and a daytime phone number. Visit Techman's blog at post-gazette.com/techman and listen to the Tech Talk podcast at post-gazette.com/podcast.
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