Tech
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Dvorak Missing the Point?
Monday, December 10th, 2007Cranky tech pundit John C. Dvorak recently wrote a PC Magazine column slamming the One Laptop per Child project. Dvorak knows his stuff, and he makes some good points about these children being exposed to all the garbage on the Internet. However, I think he may have missed the point with his “let them eat [...]
Gimme 13 Inches
Monday, December 10th, 2007Size Comparison
Originally uploaded by MikeOliveri.
If nothing else, this MacBook experiment is making me fall in love with 13″ notebooks.
I’ve been lugging a 15″ Dell Inspiron 8000 around for six years now, and it’s somewhat of a beast. It’s unwieldy in the lap because most of its weight pitches toward the back and ends up right [...]
Still Doesn’t Count
Friday, December 7th, 2007A friend sent me this video of a Toyota-made robot playing the violin in response to my Psychology of Robotics post. It’s very cool and all, and yes, it’s an amazing display of the dexterity robots are becoming capable of.
But when you break it down, I’m sure people were just as impressed with the player [...]
MacBook: First Impressions
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007It’s here!
Originally uploaded by MikeOliveri.
The MacBook arrived today. I’m tapping out this blog post on it right now, in fact.
I have to give credit to Apple, they certainly know how to handle product presentation. White isn’t my first color choice, but though it pervades everything from the packaging to the laptop itself, it gives the [...]
The Psychology of Robotics (or Lack Thereof)
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007Robots can do some pretty cool stuff these days, but so far most of it is trivial in the grand scheme of things and I think we’re a lot farther off from true artificial intelligence than most people believe.
I read a Wired article about new robot hands, and it discussed the methods scientists are using [...]
Vista Crawls
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007I didn’t intend this to be tech day on the blog, but now I’ve found this CNet article talking about how Windows XP is a lot faster than Windows Vista. My first reaction was “tell me something I don’t know.”
While I’m not a big fan of Windows XP, I do admit it’s the best system [...]
Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007I finally got around to reinstalling Linux on my desktop PC, and wound up taking both Ubuntu and its KDE-driven sibling Kubuntu for test drives.
My DVD drive didn’t like the Ubuntu CD for some reason; the disk worked fine in other boxes, and Kubuntu and even Xubuntu CD’s worked just fine. Put Ubuntu back in [...]
Gonna Take a Bite Out of Apple
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007I’ll soon be writing one of these from a MacBook.
Sadly, it won’t be mine. At least, it won’t belong to me; I’ll just be hammering on it for the next several months. My boss, it turns out, has been impressed by what he’s seen out of Apple software and thinks there’s a lot to take [...]
Xubuntu Impresses
Monday, November 12th, 2007I’ve pretty much written off my good old Dell Inspiron 8000 as an obsolete clunker doomed to crawl along, but I keep it around because I can still run Linux at a reasonable speed on it, connect via wireless in various places, and get some writing done on the road. I most recently ran Fedora [...]
Let Me Count the Ways
Monday, October 29th, 2007I’m not a fan of Windows Vista at all. The chief reason is because it’s a resource hog: even on a brand new machine with a fast processor and a gig of RAM, it just kind of pokes along, even without enabling the fancy Aero graphics. And that’s before running an app on it. User [...]
« Previous Entries Next Entries »