News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
The linked article gives a (slightly) technical history of the Ethernet protocol, which these days is almost ubiquitous for wired LANs. It also explains how Ethernet works compared to other networking strategies. Somehow, fast transfer speeds arise out of seemingly total chaos. If you’re technically inclined, I think you’ll enjoy reading this article.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
Cephalopods (squid, octopuses, and cuttlefish) are very, very good at camouflaging themselves—it’s their primary method of protection from predators. But just how good is shown in the linked video, where an octopus is hiding. The word “unbelievable” is appropriate.
Thanks to Josh for this link.
Some time ago, I had a computer program that would occasionally glitch and set its location to be somewhere off the screen. The program would run fine and would show up on the taskbar, but I couldn’t access it with my mouse because it was outside the visible area of the Windows desktop. Eventually I discovered the technique described in the linked article. This is a command that’s been around for a long time but isn’t obvious to the casual user, especially the part about using the arrow keys to perform the movement.
One of the problems with alternative energy sources such as wind and solar is their intermittent nature. Sometimes the wind is blowing and sometimes it isn’t. And the sun goes down every night. This is one of the reasons why fossil fuel plants are still a mainstay for any major power utility.
This problem has led to a quest for ways to store energy such that an alternative fuel power plant can supply energy on demand. One such method uses compressed air, while another has large batteries. More recently, a company named SolarReserve has received a $737 million loan guarantee from the US government for the construction of a round-the-clock solar power plant in Nevada—a plant that uses molten salt to store energy accumulated during daylight hours.
Link: http://www.forbes.com/…
(via Slashdot)
There’s just something magical about buying a product for 99¢. And in the digital world, where the cost of producing another copy is essentially zero, you can make serious money from a quality item that’s priced at 99¢. Steve Jobs figured this out, and it’s part of what made the iTunes Store so popular. Later, when the music labels wanted to raise the price slightly on newer songs, he fought them tooth and nail, saying that even a small price increase would ruin things. The labels won that battle, but that doesn’t have to be the case with self-published books on Amazon. The profit on a 99¢ book is 35¢, and it really adds up if you sell a few hundred thousand copies. The linked article is a bit old, but it reinforces the benefits of this sales model where you sell many, many digital copies of an item for a low price. The author of the article, for instance, saw his sales of The List go up by a factor of 20 (to 800 per day) when he dropped the price from $2.99 to 99¢. (I do find it funny, however, that the price is now back to $2.99.)
Link: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/…
(via Slashdot)
It’s a common belief: if you raise prices then income will also increase. But this isn’t always true. Earlier this year, Netflix, the DVD and streaming movie provider known for it’s affordable prices, made some changes to its pricing structure. They lost 800,000 customers as a result. Their stock price plunged, and they may be in the red for most of the next year.
Here at the Chad’s News network command center, we were the surprised recipient of an Amazon Kindle Fire—Amazon’s entry into the tablet market. After using it for a few weeks and reading some of the reviews, here are some comments:
The Kindle Fire is NOT an iPad. You won’t see all the features that you get in an iPad. But at something like 40 percent of the cost, this is to be expected.
The Kindle Fire is tightly integrated with the Amazon store. It doesn’t support the EPUB format, so forget about getting books through any venue other than Amazon. And even though it’s an Android device, you can’t purchase apps from the Android Market; instead, you have to use the Amazon App Store which contains a subset of the apps found elsewhere. (This is because the Kindle Fire, while based on Android, is not a fully-compatible Android device. So some apps won’t work on it.)
Storage space is limited, and you can’t attach an SD card to increase it. So storing videos or large music libraries on the device isn’t really an option. Most videos will need to be streamed.
All this being said, the Kindle Fire is a great device if you want an e-book reader with internet, multimedia, and apps. I’ve been having a ball with the Scrabble app. And while one reviewer thinks it will take over the entire low-end and middle of the tablet market, I think it may see some competition from the Nook Tablet.
One thing I really like is that the Denver Public Library has Kindle books that I can check out and read on my device. Way cool!
Link #1 (Review): http://online.wsj.com/…
Link #2 (Review): http://www.ubergizmo.com/…
Link #3 (Negative Stuff): http://www.nytimes.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
Link #4 (Comparison to Nook Tablet): http://www.komando.com/…
Link #5 (Comparison to Nook Tablet): http://arstechnica.com/…
October 31st, 2011 was the official day that the human population reached 7 billion. The last 2 billion of that happened in less than 25 years, and we’re on track to hit 8 billion in the next 15 years or so.
Link #1: http://en.wikipedia.org/…
(via Slashdot)
Link #2: http://en.wikipedia.org/…
Here’s a list of tech gadgets that you probably should NOT purchase during the Christmas season, many of them because smartphones and tablets already have the gadget’s functionality. The linked article does allow for exceptions, but generally recommends against purchasing these types of items:
Link: http://www.komando.com/…
NORAD is well known for its Christmas Eve tracking of Santa’s progress across the world, but this year is the first time you can use a smartphone/tablet app to track him. It’s named “NORAD Tracks Santa” and is available for the iPhone/iPad and Android devices.
Link: http://www.komando.com/…
Remember how Apple flat out refused to allow Adobe Flash on iPhones and iPads? Well it appears we are witnessing another legacy of Steve Jobs. Adobe Systems has decided to stop developing Flash for mobile devices. From their statement: “We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations…. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations.” Adobe will instead focus on HTML5 technologies and Adobe AIR. The article doesn’t mention Adobe Edge, but I think that will probably play a part in this new strategy.
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/…
(via Kim Komando)
Thin nautical rope can be a nice replacement for the shoelaces on your sneakers. I got a pair of work boots a few months ago, and the laces are already starting to fray (update: one of the laces broke, just hours after I wrote this post). Nautical rope is more rugged and should last longer. Of course, this isn’t something you can pick up at any department store—you’ll probably need to go to a marine store.
Link: http://lifehacker.com/…
