Google’s public-only, profile policy: An opportunity, not a punishment
Let me first get this out into the open first. I don’t see Google’s removal of the option to have private profiles as an issue. That’s right. I’m saying that I don’t care. For that matter, you shouldn’t care either.
Users have never been required to provide government-issued documents to validate the date of birth, gender or uploaded avatar. No, people have always been free to omit biographical information, make things up and use an alias. Isn’t that what Dateline NBC’s ‘To Catch a Predator’ series taught us? From an Infosec standpoint, full disclosure of your information on any site, to include those with supposed ‘private’ profiles, is never recommended. Whether publicly available on the web or hidden from general view, the data you input and files you upload still reside on someone else’s server and can be exfiltrated by authorized admins or unauthorized third parties, via exploitation of unmitigated vulnerabilities, brute force attacks, and similarly scary methods employed by recreational and professional hackers.
Banana TV: Enable Airplay from iDevices to Intel Macs
Anyone who has an iPhone or iPad will likely tell you that Airplay is a great feature…if you have an Apple TV. Thanks to the developers of a new tool called Banana TV, Airplay can now be achieved from iDevices to Intel-based Macs. How does it work? The good news is that it doesn’t require a jailbreak or any potentially painful tweaks to the iPhone or iPad. Installation and configuration is surprisingly simple and is done entirely on the Mac.
Does it sound intriguing? If so, you’ll want to take a minute to watch the demo video from Banana TV. Of course, we go a bit more in-depth and explain the minimum requirements and how it works further along in the post.
PlayBook or Bust – The Final Chapter
It has been a little over 4 weeks since I first posted my intentions to attempt creating an application for the PlayBook in 9 days. I figured that I owed it to you guys to post a final word on it, and update you on the last few things.
For those who haven’t followed along, I decided to challenge myself to create an application, from scratch and with no prior programming experience, in 9 days. The endeavour ended up spanning a full 4 weeks, from start to finish, even though I succeeded in coding a fully working application within the 9 day timespan.
PlayBook App Development – Some Helpful Links
During my recent crash course in PlayBook development, I spent a lot of time with my nose in books, and exercising every ounce of my Google-Fu to glean as much information as I could. In the process of doing so, I accumulated a large number of bookmarks, and a couple new books that have aided me greatly.
Since sharing knowledge is part of the fundamental belief system here at GSL, and part of my natural inclination, I figured that it might help one or two of you if I collected some of the links I used here in one post. Not all of the links I collected would help in a general sense, since some are specific to what my goal was, so I’ve omitted them. By no means is this a comprehensive guide, but it might serve to get you started when you are staring at your screen wondering where to begin.
How Science Fiction Failed Us – Where Almost No Man Has Gone Before…
A couple of weekends ago, some of you may have seen me post a tweet about my rear sharing space with Bill Shatner’s rear. No, I wasn’t part of some failed teleportation experiment, and no I didn’t actually meet Mr. Shatner (a lifelong dream, I have to admit). What I did do was sit in the Captain’s Chair of the Enterprise; the ORIGINAL Chair. In fact, given a sufficient amount of time, I could probably point it out in an episode. Apparently, this was one chair of many, each uniquely created to make the chair appear to be more functional than it really was. What surprised me the most was the wooden arm rests. That’s right; wooden arm rests. Even in the 23rd century, in a ship built of Transparent Aluminum and Tritanium and powered by a matter/antimatter reaction channeled through a dilithium crystal, the Captain’s Chair had wooden arm rests.
It’s comforting to know that even in the 23rd century there will still be a need for good carpentry.
Now, this article isn’t about woodworking in the distant future. It’s about nostalgia and technology. The event with the Chair was a Star Trek Exhibition at the Louisville Science Center (it’s going on until sometime in May… check their website out at http://www.louisvillescience.org/). On the whole, it was mostly a display of props, or in many cases replicas of props (really?), that were used in the various incarnations of the franchise. They had uniforms from all the shows and movies, as well as model ships that were actually used for filming (the Enterprise D looked rough). They also had clothing and weapons from the major races on the show, including the Bajorans, Cardassians, Klingons and Borg. Some of my favorite pieces were the Borg Sphere model and the original Type III Phaser (rifle).
App Developers: Reviews can be your friend…if you let them
Yesterday, I received some feedback on the storybook app comparison post published on Monday. While both were from the respective developers of the iPad apps discussed, they couldn’t have been more different. One was positive and thanked me for choosing to cover their topic. The other was decidedly critical of, not just the discussion of their app, but the article, as a whole. Had the communication been posted as a comment, versus an email, I would have gladly approved it for publication.
First and foremost, let me say that the positive feedback was nice but was neither sought after nor necessary. I don’t write reviews of mobile apps, computer software, or anything else in hopes of receiving kudos or swag. I do it because I test a lot of apps, especially iOS ones, since it’s what I use most of the time. In turn, I like to pass on objective information, to include the pros and cons. I do this in order to help the average user who doesn’t have the time or financial resources to do their own testing. Moreover, the intent is to help them make an educated decision before downloading an app, whether it be free, $0.99 or $3.99. From another perspective, reviews by any tech-related website also help the developer. This last point is the true subject of this article.
Amazon Cloud Player: The long sought-after musical grail?
This morning’s tech news was abuzz with the news of the availability of Amazon’s latest musical venture, the Amazon Cloud Player. Hailed by the company as an innovative way to “securely store music in the cloud and play it on any Android phone, Android tablet, Mac or PC,” the news was met with great excitement by many an audiophile. According to Bill Carr, vice president of Movies and Music at Amazon, “The launch of Cloud Drive, Cloud Player for Web and Cloud Player for Android eliminates the need for constant software updates as well as the use of thumb drives and cables to move and manage music.”
Carr’s statement is part of Amazon’s official press release, which explains how the service works. What are the obvious questions that come to mind? Does it really work? Is it easy to use? What else can I do with it, besides listen to music? Of course, according to a Reuters’ report, Sony was less than thrilled to learn that Amazon had given customers the ability to stream their purchased music, without it granting licenses that extend to music streaming. This raises one last question. Is there a potential for illegal music sharing via Amazon’s service?
Calibre eBook software, a multi-function client for virtual bookworms.
The paperback is a bit of a dying breed when it comes to books these days, following the way of much of the print media that has been so traditional. eBook readers are becoming more prolific, and it has become standard practice to release a novel in both print and eBook formats. Depending on which eReader you choose to use, each has their own proprietary formats, and their own strengths and weaknesses.
Another branch of the eReader family are the smartphone applications such as MobiPocket Reader or the Kindle application for various platforms. As a BlackBerry user, I love the Kindle app for BlackBerry, which is functional and eminently useful, although it does seem to be perpetually stuck in beta. I am hoping that the developers can iron out the kinks in time and bring out a fully fomed client, but until then, it’s stll my number one choice for reading eBooks on my device.
Vicious Tech Cycles: Apple sues Amazon while judge orders Steve Jobs to answer about iTunes
It seems the only thing Apple may do more than refresh iDevices is spend time in litigation about iDevice-related issues. In the latest case, Apple Inc has filed suit against Amazon.com Inc. In question is Amazon’s use of the term “APP STORE”. Apple’s assertion in the case is that Amazon is using the term to attract software developers.
Despite the fact that a trademark hasn’t actually been granted to Apple for the term, it didn’t stop Apple from filing case #11-1327 with the U.S. District Court in the Northern California district. According to Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet quoted in a Reuters report, “We’ve asked Amazon not to copy the APP STORE name because it will confuse and mislead customers.” Apple may have a legal leg to stand on, but is the term App Store really synonymous only with Apple offerings?
BES in the Cloud
Some big news for business came out on Thursday, with RIM detailing their new cloud-based BES offering, apparently to be available in 2011. The thrust of this new service is to cater to companies that want BES-like control, without the cost and upkeep of having a full on-premise BES.
This will ultimately help cut costs and IT time for businesses able to use the service, with all support provided by RIM themselves, and with all components being physically hosted at RIM instead of on-site at the business. However, this is really a slimmed down version of BES, similar to the BESX offering brought out by RIM in 2010, with a few important differences. This new cloud-based BES will still require users to be on a BES plan through their wireless carrier, whereas BESX allows use by those running on a standard BIS data plan. The extra cost per month of the wireless data plan would be offset by the savings of a hosted BES, with no hardware or IT personnel required to run it.
