Headworx

Information Week published an interesting article ranking " The Greatest Software Ever Written ". The pole position in the 12-item hall of fame is held by UNIX operating system, conceived at Bell Labs as an individual pet project. During many years UNIX migrated to various flavors, with Linux being the most known and widely used today. We all know Linux is strong at server side, while most of the client machines running Windows. This is easy to understand, especially when we look at the roots of each operating system. Windows was growing on client PCs, replacing DOS being its first major goal. In the meantime it became clear Windows internals are strong and solid enough to power servers. But still the most evident part of Windows is its GUI (Graphical User Interface), something servers can live without. What is more - it is hard to imagine Windows without GUI, and this makes somehow difficult for it to invade several market niches. One of such niches is so called embedded s...

Recently I got some controversial comments from one of the readers to my BlueSoleil post . Tam Hanna says the power supplies will never be standardized. And I have to admit, I do not agree. While device manufacturers still want to be protective of their own market shares (and avoiding standards is their way to go), there is a de facto power supply standard already present on the market - USB. At the moment 90% of my gadgets are powered / charged using USB. That includes a mobile phone (HTC), my wife's phone (SonyEricsson), an iPod, a Bluetooth headset , my son's Gameboy and Sony PSP. I even have a GP PowerBank USB , to charge standard AA batteries from any USB port. And the USB standard makes it way forward. One of the ultimate gadgets is pictured here world power adapter (a single, reconfigurable mains plug that fits US, European, British and Far East / Australian standards). Designed by swiss travel products, apart from being just a plug adapter, it has a USB power socket...

S ometimes I happen to go through a lengthy process of configuring something (usually related to one of my computers or parts of my home network ). Sometimes it looks like others may face similar challenges, so I decided to launch a dedicated blog ( http://techbulletins.blogspot.com/ ), where, from time to time, I will publish some technical information. For starters there is a how-to on upgrading an IBM ThinkPad hard drive . This process was more difficult that it seemed to be initially, and I could not find a good step-by-step guide on The Net, so I decided to write it down and archive. Blogger seems to be the best place to store things like that.

mylo , the recently announced WiFi communicator by Sony is another missed opportunity. I ranted about missing keyboard in otherwise fantastic Sony PSP. Now they release mylo - a keyboard equipped PSP2 that... does not play games... Will they ever learn? For years it was obvious mobile phones would be used to play music. Yet Sony buried the Walkman brand and designs for a long time and could not figure how to equip and market their mobiles. Only recently they have "discovered" the phone can indeed be a Walkman (with a great market success...). So how difficult was it to take the current PSP, give it a mylo - style keyboard and create a PSP2 (even the branding would be almost free, thanks to the PS2 popularity). This would be exactly the device loved by teenagers. Games, movies, accelerated graphics, WiFi, web browser, RSS reader (all these features are in the current PSP), plus a messenger/ email keyboard and VoIP support. Giga dollar giga market. Seems they just don't w...

S lowly, below radars, Google moves toward the goal to provide integrated Web - based Office - like suite. Just a couple of days ago I noticed the tabs in the top - left corner of my GMail changed. Now they show Mail, Calendar, Photos, and Spreadsheets... And Writely - based "Word" is surely coming. Is something missing? PowerPoint? Not quite... Picasa Web Albums can easily be used to prepare presentations and slideshows. There are no fancy animations yet, but we are getting closer. Network computing in a full swing. I love this!

What is the oldest design, still absolutely common among all the Star Trek 21st century computers we use today? Yes, even the Titanium Intel Core Duo Macs... The QWERTY keyboard , patented almost 130 years ago. And the primary design goal was for it to be as slow and uncomfortable, as possible. Ironic? Yes, it is. And if you look at the keyboard on the mobile phone, it is even worse for what it is used nowadays. 12 numeric buttons to be the input device of choice for mobile email, chat, instant messaging, SMSes, navigating 500+ entries in the address book... 8_44_444_7777 1 444_7777 1 2 1 5_666_55_33_!!! (this is a joke!!!). We are flying to the moon, building ultra fast HSxPA mobile networks, launching cell-based Sony PS3 supercomputers to the masses, yet all these designs share 130 years old design at the very center. Time to break free? At least this is what Digit Wireless thinks, giving us the Fastap design. And I do agree. Despite T9 and other approaches to solve the text ent...