Topics by John A

Hitachi has now announced a 1-terabyte internal hard drive, claiming they're the first to unveil a 1 terabyte hard drive in the industry. It doesn't sound terribly impressive, given the fact that storage mediums are increasing faster than you can blink an eye. However, they have done quite a feat …

User input/output is a key component in the programs you write, yet most online tutorials just provide a quick-and-dirty method of grabbing data. In other words, it works right up until the point the user does something unexpected. In this tutorial you will learn how to avoid the common mistakes …

So I finally bought a domain name via GoDaddy. Only problem is, I don't know how to map it to my server! I assumed that they would let me use their nameservers to map my domain name to my server's IP address. So they give me 3 pairs of nameservers …

[URL="http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/40255643/"]Line Rider[/URL] is an extremely addictive web game. (Try playing it, and see when you can stop.) Now a lot of programmers would rather play that than work on their project. But actually, if you program right, you can actually make it fun instead of being a dreary bug-fixing experience. …

[B]Introduction[/B] A question many Linux newbies ask is how can they install software. Nearly all Windows programs come with a nice installation program that unpacks everything on their hard drive, and then they're good to go. Well, on Linux it's not quite so easy, but it's not exactly hard. [B] …

[B]Introduction[/B] Many people might wonder why you would want to compile source code. After all, most Linux programs can be had by simply opening up their favorite package manager and clicking "install". The package manager does the rest. However, there *are* reasons why you would want to do this. For …

GPT, an acronym for GUID Partition Table, is likely something you've never heard of before. Perhaps that's a good thing. Throughout my usage of GPT, I've come to see that it's a total and complete waste of time. What is GPT, anyway? Wikipedia defines it as a partition layout standard …

[U][B]Installing Mac OS X Tiger[/B][/U] [U]Before installing[/U] I've installed Mac OS X many times on the same computer (don't ask me why, I do many stupid things :)). Anyway, here are some things you should know before installing: 1. Make sure you have a legal, licensed Apple Machine (a.k.a. Mac). …

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the right forum to post this thread in, but here it is. Even though I program on the Mac OS X platform, and am quite good at it, I'm really doing game programming, so I never really learned much Cocoa or Carbon. Can …

I don't know about you, but I find this just ridiculous: [quote=http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=11000CHFINA0]The Opera Web browser will be available for Nintendo's Wii starting on Friday[/quote] The technology to browse the web has been around for some time now. And I think there was a reason why game console designers didn't have …

How often is it that we hear stories from people who work as tech support about the stupid people they have to deal with? Indeed, it seems as though working as tech support could potentially be an extremely entertaining profession, provided that you have a good sense of humor. Of …

The constant worry of soldiers leaking top-secret information onto the internet via blogs had forced the commanders to approve every blog entry that a soldier wrote before they could post it onto the world wide web. Fortunately for them it's called off, at least for now. Just 3 days ago, …

If you like listening to Pandora but are not living in the United States at the moment, you may want to enjoy it while you can, because Pandora has announced that they're going to block non-US visitors in short order. Why? You guessed it: licensing problems. Previously, Pandora had only …

A school in Meridian, Idaho, is banning iPods and other digital music players during tests due to the fact that students were using them to hide answers, as one teacher overheard. The iPods in question could be loaded up with notes hidden in song lyrics, or recorded lectures stored on …

Today I received an email from "Halifax bank" that contained the following: [quote]Dear halifax customer, During our regularly scheduled account maintenance and verification procedures, we have detected a slight error in your billing information. This might be due to either of the following reasons: 1. A recent change in your …

If you're visiting a known site such as Google.com, you're perfectly safe, right? Wrong. New DNS vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Windows 2000 and 2003 severs could potentially allow a DNS server to get hijacked, and redirect a user to a completely different site than they expected to see. The vulnerability exists …

Somewhat surprisingly, Apple has admitted that they can no longer stick to the Leopard schedule that had previously planned this spring of 2007 as the release for the new operating system being brewed by the developers of Apple, and so you should expect it 4 months later, says Apple. Reasons …

Today, [URL="http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/09ipod.html"]Apple announced that they have now sold over 100 million iPods[/URL], which comes after they had released the first iPod 5-and-a-half years ago. Grammy award winner John Mayer said about the iPod: "Without the iPod, the digital music age would have been defined by files and folders instead of …

Microsoft has just announced the release of a Windows Live instant messaging client for its Xbox 360 game console, giving gamers the capability of chatting to their PC friends. There was already a video and voice chat feature via Xbox Live, but this feature enables players to connect with up …

What better use of an iPod than to save a soldier's life by stopping a bullet? [URL="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiki/445618364/in/pool-appleusers/"]This photo[/URL] appears to prove it, although the actual story was that the iPod [I]alerted[/I] the soldier to the fact that he had been shot, but it was his armor that actually stopped the …

Open source means that it's not possible to pirate the software, right? Well, somehow OpenBSD developers have found out exactly how you can do that, by copying sections of some Linux wireless drivers (released under the GPL of course) and then releasing them under OpenBSD's less-restrictive license, allowing proprietary use. …

In an effort to bring Firefox users closer together, Mozilla has released a conceptual design dubbed "Coop" that would give Firefox the ability to share "photos, news stories, links" with other users, reports [URL="http://www.computerworld.com"]Computerworld[/URL]. Mozilla of course, says that this is purely conceptual, and that this is as far as …

Starting May 2007, Yahoo is going to offer unlimited inbox storage. That's right, to celebrate their 10th anniversary, [URL="http://yodel.yahoo.com/2007/03/27/yahoo-mail-goes-to-infinity-and-beyond"]there will be absolutely no limit on the number of messages you can hold in your mailbox[/URL]. This is obviously to compete with Google's Gmail and other similar providers, which are offering …

Today I somehow ended up at my local library (which I rarely visit nowadays). As I wandered the computer book aisles, a certain book caught my eye: "Why you should stay away from Microsoft", or something along those lines. I was interested to see what it would say, and I …

The DVD format war continues, with neither side determined to give up. So who seems to be winning now? Well, this article [URL="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2104850,00.asp"]seems to claim that Blu-ray is winning[/URL], and will soon displace HD-DVD, as were a number of other articles I read in the last few days on the …

Intel's finally received the kick-in-the-pants from its rival AMD, and, trying to kick that reputation of having hot chips has decided to revamp its server quad-core Xeon chips. The new chips, which have started shipping, use a mere 50 watts of power. It also has a 60 percent reduction from …

If you've been keeping up to the news, you'll likely be aware of the fact that [URL="http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37941"]Vista's activation code scheme for anti-piracy has been cracked[/URL] by using a brute-force method, allowing any pirates to download Vista and just let the cracking program do its work. I find this insanely ironic. …

When we think of "open source", many things come to mind: free, created by volunteers, open to everyone, no profits, etc. That's the steriotype that the media paints mostly, and that when open source programs are created, they are done for the passion of it, and not at all for …

Since the launch of Vista, articles have been [URL="http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128737-c,vistalonghorn/article.html"]fairly negative[/URL] about Microsoft's next-gen operating system. Which can be expected, since it's "Microsoft", is prone to bugs and viruses, and is a slow monster, right? It couldn't be farther from the truth. This "bug" which we speak of - how can …

The big moment is set. Microsoft has announced the release date of Vista to consumers, which happens to be January 30. So now, all Microsoft has to do is convince users that XP is dead and that Vista is the "new" OS now. Is Vista next-gen? I would say definitely …

Microsoft has now hit 100 million users for Internet Explorer 7. But, says analysts, this isn't an impact on competing web browsers. This is simply internal growth. Sure, maybe. But it's saying something that people are quickly switching to Microsoft's latest browser. I think that the interface looks very cool; …

[URL="http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-caught-uploading-fake-torrents/"]TorrentFreak has reported[/URL] that the anti-piracy watchdog group MPAA has been uploading false torrents in the hopes of logging IP addresses of pirates to bring them to court. They do claim to have methods of detecting the fake torrents, but don't give away all the hints, saying, "we wont reveal …

In response to [URL="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,241557,00.html"]this article[/URL], claiming that the DVD format war may soon be over, I highly doubt it. In the article: [quote]The high-definition DVD format war, which has slowed consumer acceptance of the new players, may soon be over.[/quote] They go on further to state that hybrid players coming …

While Apple has displayed a [COLOR=Black][URL="http://www.apple.com/"]new banner[/URL][/COLOR] on its website declaring Happy New Years, "The first 30 years were just the beginning. Welcome to 2007," the [URL="http://projects.info-pull.com/moab/"]Month of Apple Bugs[/URL] has been launched, as if to scorn Apple's website banner. The Month of Apple bugs aims to reveal a new …

I always like to see technology getting incorporated into everyday items. It's nice when you can find a use for the technology in something other than a desktop PC. The car manufacturer Ford is now going to incorporate Bluetooth technology into its vehicles - something that other higher-end car manufacturers …

If previous reports of iTunes music store sales lulling were worrying analysts, they've got nothing to worry about now –– the iTunes store sales have more than quadrupled during the Christmas season, according to a report made by E-Commerce. People using their iTunes gift cards and new iPod users recieved …

With the recent release of [URL="http://wesnoth.org/"]Wesnoth 1.2[/URL], the open-source strategy game, the game's developmet never seems to stop. It's so popular, and it's addictive to play. These days, anybody without internet access is considered to be "living in the dark ages". And with the ever-growing popularity of social networking services …

Spam continues to rise. In November alone, people saw a 35% increase of spam in their online mailboxes, and not only do that but also use new ways to fool spam filters to somehow get into peope's email. 31 billion spam was the average amount sent in October, but that …

Microsoft's new Internet Explorer 7 has a special bar that turns green when visiting "safe" sites, which it determines if it recieves a special strict security certificate from Microsoft. But, small business owners and corporations are worried that users will leave their sites feeling unsafe, as they are not eligable …

Who needs the Wiimote? ...when there's laptops. But, you say, you can't wave laptops around to control your videogame! Actually you can. Many laptops manufactured now come with motion sensors to suddenly freeze the hard disk when it gets bumped around. These sensors can be read by software, which you …

A recent prediction from Gartner states that blogging may soon reach its peak. By the first half of 2007, it says, the number of bloggers will only be around 100 million. Recent data from Technorati shows that although there's 100,000 new blogs online, 200 million bloggers have quit. Additionally, less …

As of late, many conflicting reports are saying that altough iPod sales continue to rise, iTunes store music sales are decreasing. They go on to state that sales now are 65% lower than in January, with average transaction sizes dropping by 7%. I think this is really crazy. Why? Apple …

Research In Motion (RIM) is now suing the hand held maker Samsung, claiming that Samsung's new product named "Blackjack", released earlier last month, is causing lost revenues and misleading consumers into thinking that Blackjack is another product in the Blackberry line. Now at first thought, the names don't seem very …

Monday, Sun Microsystems released the latest version of Java -- Java Standard Edition 6. It's available to developers in the Sun Developer Network ([URL]http://java.sun.com[/URL]). The final release is planned to ship in January. Java's taken a lot of time for this release. They've worked at it for at least 2 …

Everyone is up-in-the-arms about Nintendo's new console beating Sony's. The sales of the Wii in November (roughly 467,000) are more than double the PS3 sales (147,000), according to NPD. But what most articles about this don't talk about: the PS2 is still winning, and easily. It managed to sell 664,000 …

It seems like users are doing exactly what Nintendo intended when they created the fancy Wii controller. Users are having so much fun, they're getting carried away when playing their video games, and [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkdihGX7iWM&eurl="]literally throwing it around[/URL]. The Wii-mote, a uniquely designed game controller for Nintendo's Wii game console, works …

Why doesn't everyone switch to Linux? Is it because it's too difficult? Not exactly. The problem with Linux isn't because you have to run millions of commands to start it up, it's because it gives users too many options. Commercial companies like Microsoft standardize their product when they create it. …

MySpace seems to be where all the kids go -- it's the online meeting place for a lot of young people. But it also seems to be a place where pedophiles hang out, something that [URL="http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128087-page,1-c,internetlegalissues/article.html"]MySpace is trying to change[/URL]. It seems as though MySpace is trying to incorporate one …

[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBfLjqfYKM0"]Oh boy[/URL]. If Kevin Rose, the founder of [URL="http://www.digg.com"]Digg[/URL], is correct, he may soon be facing a lawsuit big enough to cripple a small country. In his podcast, he gets drunk and tells "vague details" of the much rumored iPhone. He starts off by saying, "I have a little bit …

Microsoft just released their iPod killer -- except that it isn't killing the iPod. Although it looks promising, it has had a number of [URL="http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/13/installing-the-zune-sucked/"]negative Zune reviews[/URL]. It may seem like the Zune is a total flop, after all, "it's from MS". But no, I don't think that is the …