Saturday, February 12, 2011

The New Face of T.V.

              I remember being a child and discovering the T.V. What fun, excitement, and joy that brought to me as a child. We only had a 13 inch black and white though, yes black and white T.V. Then the move to the 19 inch and color T.V. I could sit and watch for hours, and usually did, especially Saturday mornings. That’s when I got control of the T.V. Those were the days, cartoons here we come. As I got older, in my teens, or about, we like everyone else almost, got cable T.V.



                There was more channels to choose from, and I was getting older, so cartoons became boring. Then it happened on
August 1st 1981, MTV. That was the channel to watch. Back then, you could actually call it music television. I don’t know what they have going on there now, I haven’t watched in years, but it’s NOT music television.


                 Today though, I have found since I’m older, I’m a sports and news junkie on the T.V. CNN, ESPN and the likes, I believe to me is entertainment. I’m really not into much else. On occasion though I will watch something on the History Channel or the Learning Channel. Once in a while, Nick at Nite.


                 In the part of the country that I live in, we only really have 3 cable T.V. providers. They are all pretty much on the expensive side. Don’t even think about satellite T.V., the service is fairly well, but when it sprinkles, you get no service. I knew someday that something better had to come along, and it has. Now we watch T.V. programming from different avenues.


              Apple has released their Apple T.V. box, which allows you to watch T.V. from it. You can just buy your programs from iTunes. Then came Google and Sony with the Google T.V. You can either buy a Google HDTV or the Sony Google Blu Ray box. We also stream movies from Netflix, Hula, and the likes. The only thing that I don’t like is, the cable T.V. providers in this country want to block these new projects. Do a search, see for yourself. Go on now, get out there and enjoy your day!

Friday, February 11, 2011

The Joy Of Linux

                People often ask me what I think of the Linux Operating System. I truly think that a lot of the various Linux Distributions, are really great. It’s not like it was say 5-10 years ago, where you HAD to learn the command line. That is one of the aspects that kept people from making or transitioning from Windows to Linux. When people made the switch, there was no .exe file to double click and the program installed you had to know the command line and compile the program from scratch. People didn’t like it and when they made the switch, 9 out of 10 went back to Windows.


                  Like I said you don’t necessarily have to learn the command line anymore. Ubuntu had the  Synaptic Package Manager, which evolved into the
Ubuntu Software Center, Fedora has Yum or you can use the RPM, which is what you use on their parent distro Red Hat Linux. Almost all of the other Linux distro’s now have something similar to this, which has made the switch to Linux even better than ever.


                   I would say and even encourage you, if you are thinking of making the switch to try Ubuntu. Ubuntu edge’s out it’s closest contender’s Fedora and Open Suse, because it’s development team is constantly focused on the end-user experience. The team of Canonical developers and the Ubuntu community have spent a lot of time and resources on bringing ease-of use tools to this distribution , particularly in the area of installing Ubuntu and installing applications within Ubuntu. That is why I believe Ubuntu to be the best desktop distro.


                  There are a number of other great Linux distro’s out there, from Fedora, Open Suse, Red Hat Enterprise Linux ( pay to use). For laptop’s and netbooks, we have Ubuntu Netbook Remix, gOS, JoliCloud, Google Chrome OS Linux. There are even some great server editions as well.  Don’t take my word for it though, do a search for yourself and give Linux a try. I know that you will like it. The best part, it’s free and you can make all the changes that you want, it’s your distro! What are you waiting for? Get out there and enjoy your day!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Here's The New's


                It seems that Apple is going to make a cheaper smaller version of the iPhone. Sounds like a cool idea, but what kind of strings will be attached? They say it will be 1/3 smaller than the iPhone 4 that is currently out on the market. It should be on the market by mid year. They are also in the process of making a dual mode iPhone that will work with both CDMA and GSM.


                In other news, Microsoft today released the release candidate of the Internet Explorer 9. I don't know if anyone has tried it. I just don't like it to be honest with you. I moved away from the IE years ago. On occassions, I'll use it. I use Google Chrome. The fastest safest way to browse the internet.


                Speaking of Google, it seems as though they and our friends at Facebook both want to buy Twitter. Who out there wouldn't want to. It seems that these social media sites are all the craze and just money making machines.


                Do you think that the new HP touch tablet is going to pull people away from the iPad or the Android tablets? I would say no. I just feel as though that Microsoft is too far behind the times. They need to reevaluate where they stand in today's technology world. Should we dare say put a fresher face in there besides Ballmer?


           Those are just some of the things that I've found interesting today. What have you found? Go on get out there and enjoy your day!
    

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Guitar Hero

                          I like everyone else was saddened to hear about Guitar Hero being no more!  Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, released in 2010, will be the last game in the music game series for the foreseeable future, Activision said Wednesday.Activision Blizzard will close its music game business division, laying off hundreds of employees, and cancel the Guitar Hero game that was in development for 2011, the publisher said in a conference call Wednesday.
                          T
he drastic move comes after significant industrywide declines in the music game business. In 2007, Activision sold 1.5 million copies of Guitar Hero III in its first month of sales. Last year, Activision only sold 86,000 copies of the latest game in the series, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. Slowing sales of chief competitor Rock Band led Viacom to sell maker Harmonix and close the MTV Games publishing division.Activision said that the decline of the game genre, plus the high costs of licensing music and producing the games, led it to close the business.

               
The publisher will also cancel upcoming game True Crime: Hong Kong. It said the cancellation of these two projects and the layoffs will affect 7% of its roughly 7000 employees worldwide, or about 500 people total. But Activision said that it expects its net headcount to bounce back to that 7000 number by the end of the year, since it is making further investments into a new massively multiplayer online game from its Blizzard division, makers of World of Warcraft, and into new Call of Duty projects like a free-to-play game for the Chinese market and a “suite of online services” for players of the military shooter games called “Project Beachhead.”

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Tech News

                     Wow today has been a great day, not only in the world of technology, but all around. I wanted people to know if they hadn’t already heard about the first dual screen smartphone. Yes, you heard correct a dual screen smartphone. It is the Kyocera Echo. It looks as though that the mobile provider for this phone is Sprint. Head on over to their website at http://www.sprint.com/  It seems as though that it has a 4.7 inch screen and is powered by none other than the Android. This phone looks simply amazing folks.



                         In other tech news, it seems as though that Dell has jumped again onto the tablet bandwagon. They will release a Windows 7 tablet later this year. It seems as though that the HP Slate finally has some competition. Just like its HP counterpart though, this model seems destined for the enterprise market meaning it likely won’t end up at Best Buy. It’s pretty clear that major computer makers have zero interest in releasing a consumer-oriented Windows 7 slate device even though it’s clear there’s a market for such a thing.
                        Additionally, Dell plans to extend its existing tablet portfolio with a 10-inch, Windows 7-based business-ready tablet later this year. The upcoming tablet is designed for end-users who need greater mobility, as well as IT organizations that demand control, security, manageability and integration with existing infrastructure investments. Dell’s tablet will empower a more mobile workforce in a way that offers customers the business applications and corporate data they need, while meeting regulatory mandates and IT requirements.

                         In other news, has anybody seen the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play? This thing is incredible. The Playstation Phone. Of course it’s powered by the droid as well. For further reviews of this phone, head on over to here: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/26/sony-ericsson-xperia-play-playstation-phone-preview/   That’s all for now. Go on now get out there and enjoy your day!
              

Monday, February 7, 2011

Motorola Xoom


                   Today I would like to expound a little upon one of the new tablet's on the market. I know that I've talked about the tablet's before. After seeing one of the Super Bowl commercial's last night, I had to talk about the Motorola Xoom. Has anyone seen this? It has a 10.1 inch screen, a dual cor processor ( I think that may be a first for this new craze of tablets), 32 gigabytes of storage space, and of course the newest release of the Android OS, Honeycomb.


                     The Xoom, if you will features front and rear facing camera's, a camcorder, and Adobe Flash all on a 10.1 inch widescreen HD display. Will this give the iPad a run for it's money? Motorola is sure hoping so, but I don't think we as consumer's want to pay more for a tablet than we do for a notebook or netbook.


                   I believe that if all of the computer and cell phone provider's really want to push these tablet's they really need to make them affordable for everyone, especially the average hard working individual. I believe they will sell more, if they make them a little more simplistic and not worry about what big brother Apple is doing. It's all about the money, when in fact it should be about the individual purchaser or consumer. I know that you are like I am, we work hard in this country for our dollar. If you like you can see more detail's of the Xoom at : http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles/Consumers/US-EN/XOOM/index.html?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=NA_US_XOOM_Q1-2011&WT.mc_ev=click

            

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Super Sunday


                     Well just like I'm doing, I hope everyone is watching the big game. That is the reason why I named this writing what I did. That's what we have today Super Sunday. Wow, I can remember being glued in front of the T.V. as a child. I think back then we had one of the old floor model's. I can remember it like yesterday. It was probably 5 feet long or so. It wasn't an ordinary floor model, no Mom and Dad's was different. We had the floor model T.V. that had the built in record player on one side and an 8 track and cassette player on the other side, with speaker's in the front. It was big back then in the late '70's.


                      We sure have came a long way in this world on all aspects with modern technology. Now most of us have our flat screens, or big screen's that we watch the big game on. Retailer's and restaurant's make a fortune around this time of year. I'm really surprised that it's not a holiday in this country. We all watch the game, the commercials, and there is alway's the big half time show entertainment. There is alway's a lot of celeberaties as well.


                     It doesn't matter who you are rooting for, be it the Steelers or the Packers. It's sure to be a great game, as always. I'm sure we all really turn in for the great commercial's. It seems in this country that we are alway's trying to make a quick buck. The advertiser's are certainley no different. This year though with modern technology if for some reason you have missed a commercial just head on over to Youtube. Once again head on over here: www.youtube.com  Go on enjoy the game and enjoy your day!

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