Some of the First in Technology

               I thought that I would try and showcase some difference today. I'm going to write and show some pictures ( a first for me here on this site), of some of the firsts in Technology. I thought that it would be fun and educational as well. Below we will look at the first mouse, first Apple home computer, and the first computer. Sort of a walk if you will in a time machine. Just look at the technology from then, we sure have come a long way in the world of technology  baby!


                                                              The first Computer Mouse?

                  Proving that things were way cooler back in the day, is the world's first computer mouse. Made by Douglas Engelbart in 1964, it "consisted of two gear-wheels positioned perpendicular to each other -- allowing movement on one axis." Just look at this thing. Ergonomic shape, great button placement --and it's made of wood. If that ain't style, then I don't know what is. Sure the front has rotted out, but who cares. My mouse looks like that, and it's brand new.


                                                        AHH The first Apple Computer!

                    

          This is Apple I. The first Apple computer. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the most famous members of the Homebrew Computer Club, designed it over 30 years ago, in 1976. It was mostly a kit computer. Users bought the workings and built their own case.Many leaders in mainline computer companies like IBM and Digitial did not believe at that time that personal computers were powerful enough to have a market. Sales of the Apple I and other PC’s that followed it, proved them wrong.



Here it is, The 1st Computer!

             Originally announced on February 14, 1946, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), was the first general-purpose electronic computer. Hailed by The New York Times as "an amazing machine which applies electronic speeds for the first time to mathematical tasks hitherto too difficult and cumbersome for solution," the ENIAC was a revolutionary piece of machinery in its day. It was constructed and operated here at The Moore School of Electrical Engineering, now part of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.Today, it is difficult to imagine how we could manage without the myriad electronic devices that we utilize each day. From our "smart" phones, touch screens, and tiny cameras to our automobiles, airplanes and medical equipment and devices, electronics is the engine driving us forward. So there you have it! What did you think? I thought that these pictures were facsinating! Get out there and enjoy your day!

 

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Bits & Pieces

                         Yes you read the title correctly, that's what we have today, just bits and pieces of the news in the world of technology. Today we will start with the release of the new MacBook Pro's. Yes and they released it on Steve Jobs' birthday. Happy Birthday Steve. The updated MacBook's take this fine line of laptop's to the next level. They have truly evolved to one of the best, if not the best laptop out there. With the updated version, the Nvidia graphics are gone, which have been replaced by Intel's Sandy Bridge CPU's paired with switchable graphics between an intergrated Intel chip or a discrete AMD GPU. The mini display port interface now shares it's port with Apple's impentation of Intel's Light Peak Technologhy, code named Thunderbolt. There is more MGz to the chips with 1333 instead of 1066. Obviously these were updated for the release of OSX Lion in a few months. As usual with this release, Apple shows us why they are the biggest technology company in the world. Always the very best products!



                          In other news, if you haven't tried Google Doc's, I would encourage you to do so. Google Doc's ( short for Documents, of course) can open almost any type of office document file, from Microsoft, Open Office, Libre Office, Adobe PDF, the list goes on. Now they have released what they call Google Cloud Connect. It has been in development for awhile. It allows you to synchronise your Microsoft Office 2003,2007, and 2010 documents. Another cleaver application from Google. Speaking of them, it seems as though they have change their search engine algorithm. The change was made in light to those who pay for backlinks. Trying to get a higher page ranking.



                        The Motorola Xoom tablet started shipping today as well. This is the first tablet to be released with a dual core processor ( the Nvidia Tegra 2). Yes, this comes with the newest Android operating system, code named Honeycomb, there are many more tablet's waiting to be released, Motorola was the first though. With 2 processors running at 1 GHz at a time, 3D video capture as well. The Xoom should give the iPad a run for it's money. Apple is sure to beef up their iPad with a new processor. It seems as though that not only are the tablet wars are on, but the processor wars as well.  The Xoom does't have as many apps as the iPad yet.


                         In other notable news, Bing has started adding "Facebook Likes" to their search results. It sounds like a cleaver idea to attract a younger audience. Starting on Sunday Sony will drop the price of the PSP by $40, bringing the Playstation Portable down to $129.00. They are also adding new games to their greatest hits collection. All in all, I think that it has been a great week in the world of technology. I can't wait to see what the future has in store for us. Get out there and enjoy your day!

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What is Intel's Light Peak Technology?

                  I think that the company named Intel make the very best processor's for computer's. Some people call them CPU (central processing unit), or processor for short. The CPU is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program , and is the primary element that carries out the computer's functions. The CPU carries out each instruction in sequence to perform the basic input/output operations of the system. The term CPU has been around since the 1960's.



                  That being said rumor's have been the buzz on the internet about Intel's light peak technology. It will be in the release of the new MacBook's today, just in time for Steve Jobs' birthday. Intel has been working on this for quite some time. So, just what is this light peak technology? Intel is supposed to hold a special event tomorrow. I did however find out a few things, I'll explain.


                  There is going to be just 1 port to replace all formats that we currently use such as USB, FireWire and all other devices that you've connected to your computer at one time. This is in hopes of cutting down the number of ports needed on your computer. It has unbelievable fast transfer. You know we have USB, Fire Wire, USB 3.0, with the advance of technology. They say the Light Peak can transfer a full length Blue-Ray movie in 30 seconds! Talk about speed, WOW!


                   For laptop, tablet, and netbook fans, it means thinner devices. For now it's just another new port. Will people adopt to this new concept? How much more money will it cost? I'm sure with Intel the price at first will be costly, but their technology is usually amazing. That is all I know for now. Get out there and enjoy your day!  

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Windows 7 SP1

                 Hello and good day to all. I don't know how many people are still running old Windows XP? I know that there are still people out there running it though. We all know that no one wanted to make the switch to Vista though. It really had a nice interface, but just too annoying. How many people though have switched to Windows 7? If you haven't, I would encourage you to do so. It is the best Windows Microsoft has put out on the market. It really has the ease of use just like XP. I know though, it's like most people, the afford ability issue. Microsoft has made a lot of money from all of us. Therefore from those points let’s move on.


                  It’s that time again yes, it’s time for SP1, this time for Windows 7. If you missed it, it came out yesterday. It can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/  As they tell us, this is the most important update to Windows 7 to date. Microsoft ranks service packs among it’s most comprehensive, patching fixes, issued only 2-3 times per edition of Windows. For once with these updates, I was a little motivated by it. I set out to install it. They claimed the update would be between 44 and 533.1 megabytes, once done though, it only took up 64.5. When you have updates to install, it always seems to take forever, if you don’t have a lot of memory, these updates can be resource hogs.



                     I was glad to see that it didn’t take up a lot of space. It’s only been a year and a half since the release of 7. Did they really need a service pack now? Most service packs make a lot of major changes, or have in the past. The only thing that I know about 7’s SP1 is that it includes new improvement’s to features and services, such as improved reliability, when connecting to HDMI  audio devices, printing using the XPS viewer, and restoring previous folders in Windows Explorer after restarting. These of course came in the “what’s included”. That was all I could find though. Was this necessary so soon?



                  What was so big about SP1 for Windows 7? I’m not sure, Microsoft clearly didn’t document enough evidence on their website for me. I’ll be glad whenever we don’t have SP1’s to deal with, let alone updates. I know that all computer operating system’s all have certain vulnerabilities. It just seems that some more than other’s. Now go on now get out there and enjoy your day!      

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The Man Steve Jobs

                            You know we here in America, we want to be rich, we want to be famous. Some strive, work really hard at it, would do anything for it. Some even eat breathe and sleep it. Now all of the rumor’s going around about Steve Jobs, the main man behind Apple. Rumor has it, he’s dying of cancer and has 6 weeks to live. Of course, we here in the media will stop for nothing for a story. Some people in the media should really be ashamed. Cancer is a very devastating disease. I know first hand, I lost my Mom last summer to it. Can’t people respect this man’s privacy and the privacy of his family to just leave him alone? If it’s true, Mr. Jobs, will let us know if he wants to.




                             Some of the story about Apple, the world’s biggest tech company. Where did it all start? How did it all start? Let’s have a little look shall we? Steve Jobs is an American business magnate and inventor. He is the co founder and chief executive officer of Apple. In the 1970’s Jobs, cofounder Steve Wozniak and others designed, developed and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computer’s, the Apple II. In the 80’s they went on to develop the MacIntosh. After losing a power struggle with the board of director’s, he left Apple in 1984 and then formed the company NeXT. Apple bought out NeXT in 1996, Jobs came back on board to be the CEO of the company he helped co found and has held the title since.


                            Much like Apple of it’s time, NeXT was very advanced in the computer technology world. Once it was purchased by Apple, a lot of their technologies found their way into Apple products, which led to the MAC OS X. Then in 2001 he brought us the Ipod. We all love our iPODs! There is so much more to Steve Jobs than Apple. He purchased the animation branch of Lucas films ( Star Wars), which became Pixar. Jobs held onto it, until he sold it to Disney. He is still one of their biggest stockholder’s. It’s going to be sad to lose a great American icon inventor. If he and his family want their privacy, leave them alone. Go on get out there and enjoy your day!

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ReDigi

                Only in America. We are a very peculiar people. Here in this country, we will and do buy and sell anything and ecerything. I've heard and seen it all now though. There is a new website out there where you can go to buy and sell your old digital music. It's called ReDigi. It is officially launching this summer, it is in beta right now. It's founder's are calling it, the industry's first of it's kind. The name ReDigi is short for recycled digital media.This is a privately funded company that claims thatb it has developed a business model that passes copyright first-sale doctrinetests that were barrier's for other's who had tried this before. It was developed by MIT graduates,



                You can go there and legally sell your used MP3's and other digital music files and buy other people's used music files at discounted prices. Now, Apple the music industry and  other companies are not going to like this. You will be able to go to their site and file transfer from your computer to another's that you are buying from. Upon the completion of the file transfer the digital media is permanetly deleted. How long will it take the pirateer's to figure out a way around this?


                 They will set their prices based on availability and other factors, but most are expected to sell between 59 cents and 79 cents. Not bad. How good is the quality though? Seller's get free membership to upload their music through a simple drag and drop process from their iTunes library or other media player to a ReDigi recycle icon.



                How long will it take Apple and the RIAA before the legal suit's start knocking on their door? Will we see any official launch of this site? I don't know, I can't answer that question. I am though going over to the website and signing up. I started this with here in America we will buy and sell anything. You know what? We also like to save a dollar as well.  If you are ready to clear off that old MP3 player, then head on over to ReDigi. They can be found here: http://www.redigi.com/   As always get out there and enjoy your day!

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