Home of DJ and technophile Jonathan Puddle (aka J Puddy)
News
Palm: Back from the dead
Jan 14th
Do you remember Palm? Or their PalmPilot? It seems like years since people had PalmPilots… overtaken by the Blackberry and the iPhone. Palm’s been floundering in it’s own inefficiency and lack of zeal for the last 10 years or so.
Until now. I declare that Palm is back, and is badder (read: better) than ever. The second gadget at CES that has got me really excited, is Palm’s new handheld OS: WebOS, and their new device: the Pre.
Let us review the list of requirements for the ever-elusive ultimate-smartphone: 1: Give me the iPhone’s ecosystem, processing power, and polish without the More >
Asus EEE keyboard: a whole lot of lovely
Jan 9th
Keyboards don’t generally see a huge about of development money, or media attention. Except for the these two, but they’re exceptions to the rule.
Enter, another exception to the rule! The Asus EEE keyboard… which is really an entire PC built inside a keyboard frame. It looks like it’s designed for media centre usage, including a wireless HDMI video output, as well as the usual connectivity options. Plus it’s got a 5″ LCD screen built in, which can display the GUI that’s booted, or various other things.
See CES news coverage here and here.
Honestly, this is first of three gadgets in a long time More >
What to do with the Canadian government
Dec 14th
If you’ve been following Canadian politics at all, you’ll know the last month has seen some very interesting headlines. I’m convinced now more than ever, that what Canada needs most is electoral reform. The current system of election is so remarkably unrepresentative of the population’s desires, that it’s no wonder we end up with back to back no-confidence votes and posturing to take over the government. No matter who you support, I believe you owe it to yourself to examine the way our government is elected, and to look at the alternatives.
Fair Vote Canada is a nonprofit, multi-partisan advocacy group for More >
Gig: Passionate Heart 08 in Lahti, Nov 22
Nov 14th
The good people of Lahti have asked me back to DJ at Passionate Heart 08. It’s an evening of music, dance and community outreach, and this year it will be in their newly renovated facility building, which I hear is great.
Passionate Heart 08 @ Wanha Walimo (Vesijarvenkatu 25, Lahti) Nov 22nd, 6-10ish Free entrance
Come on out to hear yours truly dropping some of 2008′s finest trance and progressive music.
Amazon’s new packaging initiative: Oh please oh please!
Nov 4th
I came across Jeff Bezos’ announcement on Amazon yesterday, regarding their new packaging plan. Slashdot reported it as well. Basically, they’ve convinced a number of manufacturers to simplify and green-ify their product packaging, and are hoping this will catch on over the next few years.
All I can say is good freaking job Amazon. Here is a company using it’s clout to effect some positive change. I am sick of the massive amount of plastic and crap I get sent when I order just about anything, from just about anywhere. Simplicity of opening is one thing, as I have certainly sliced my More >
Dangers with the iPhone
Sep 14th
Truth be told, I kinda like the iPhone. I’ve thought about buying one. Shocking? Haha, perhaps. I don’t want to like it really, because I don’t like Apple, but it’s a nice looking/functioning product. A good package. (My thoughts on Google Chrome are similar… nice, functional, but surely fueled by an evil empire.)
Anyway, one thing keeping me away from the iPhone is the slowly growing list of concerns surrounding it’s security and (more importantly to me) it’s openness and extensibility. Or lack thereof, it seems.
A number of sites are linking the recent story about an app Apple blocked. Here’s a More >
Psystar brings Macs to the masses, and litigation!
Aug 27th
For a few months now Psystar has been selling Mac clones, flying in the face of Apple’s End User License Agreement, which forbids people running Mac OS X on non-Apple branded hardware. Not everyone knows, since moving OS X to run on Intel processors, OS X will run “pretty much fine” on regular PC hardware. I’ve done it before myself.
Apple have naturally sued Psystar for doing this, and Psystar have now replied with a counter suit of their own, claiming unfair competition! Lots of places are reporting this. I’m excited to see where this goes. If Psystar have some decent lawyers, and anti-competitive More >
Apple: Stop being stupid
Aug 21st
I’m no Apple lover, let’s be honest. It’s not because I don’t like their products, or because I like Windows or any other superficial reason. It’s because I wholeheartedly believe that in a different world they would be the Microsoft. The things that are fundamentally wrong about Microsoft are fundamentally wrong about Apple as well. But I digress.
Apple’s being stupid (read: being normal) about recent 3G iPhone problems. There’s been lots of talk about dropped calls and other connection issues with the 3G, and Apple have been typically silent about it. They’ve just released an update for the phone which may be More >
Facebook – Too many stupid fan pages
Jul 28th
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I’ve decided there are too many fan pages for people I think it’s silly to declare yourself a fan of. The catalyst for me has been Christian leaders and teachers. These are good people we assume, maybe I would be even be a supporter of them. But I’m not a FAN of anyone of them anymore than I am a fan of my wife, or many of my friends. In fact, there are many who I agree with theologically More >
Firefox 3 vs secure certificates and authorities
Jul 20th
I installed Firefox 3 the other week, and have to say I’m quite impressed. The memory leak issues are not fully resolved, but big steps have been made. (With certain programs like Flash and Adobe Acrobat Reader it’s still churning the memory for me. I compared with Opera 9.5, and that’s still more conservative.) Like this image… no browser should do this:
Anyway, the topic it hand is Firefox’s freaky warnings when reaching a site with an untrusted certificate. Internet Explorer 7 has a similar screen, which requires you to click on the non-default option to proceed to the secure More >
US ISPs standing against child porn. Or not.
Jul 20th
Slashdot is reporting the news of an agreement signed between major American ISPs to block newgroups containing child pornography.
It would be better if the agreement wasn’t bull. Maybe they’ll help a little, but the reality is they could do things a lot smarter if they actually cared about child pornography. It seems they care more about controlling what their users are accessing. What a surprise. From Techdirt, via Slashdot.
Taking a stand against child porn wouldn’t be overly aggressively blocking access to internet destinations that may or may not have porn (and there’s no review over the list to make sure that More >
Nissan Skyline comes to the USA
Jul 8th
I am by no means a car enthusiast, or junkie. I know nothing of rebuilding engines, and can’t even drive a manual. But there are a few vehicles that do make me… swoon, shall we say. One of those I’ve written about before is the Nissan Skyline GT-R. A legend among sports cars.
Well, Nissan have finally seen fit to bring them to America. Exciting news :)