It has become increasingly apparent to me lately that it would seem that struggling consumer electronics companies feel that the best way to keep their heads above board is to sue the pants of their successful competitors. What sparked this thought of mine?! Well the most recent story going around is that of Kodak, the has been photography company, has decided that mobile phone companies such as Apple & Blackberries Research In Motion (RIM) are utilising technology which Kodak holds the patents for in relation to how photo’s are viewed on their mobile devices.
This is only one of a few stories like this recently. The other most notable one in recent times is that of the battle between Finnish company Nokia and computer company Apple. The contention here was similar in nature to that of Kodak in that Nokia is claiming that Apple is infringing their patents in many of the ways that the iPhone works such as multi-touch technologies. Apple true to form have of course counter sued Nokia claiming that in fact Nokia is exploiting up to 13 patents that Apple holds.
I do understand the importance of companies in such highly competitive markets to protect their competitive advantages however it almost seems as though the ‘underdog’ company, in these cases Nokia & Kodak are suing to help bump up their incomes.
Would it not prove more productive for them to put the energy and money into developing products that have increased appeal to the consumer? I would certainly prefer to see companies pouring their resources into developing some compelling offerings rather than into senseless efforts to gain a quick buck. Not only that, but what what does all of this legal action mean for the end price that the customer needs to pay ? Well when a company is paying out big bucks for lawsuits and lawyers it must get factored into the pricing of their products some how.
Unfortunately it does seem to be part and parcel of operating a business in todays litigious environment so in a way I suppose we will see this more and more as it becomes more important to protect your intellectual property and the things that you have that give you an advantage over your competitors.
It was back in January of 2008 when Google first released their very own web browser by the name of Chrome, since that time it had only ever been available to people running windows as their operating system. Unfortunately for those of us who run either Mac or Linux as our main operating systems we weren’t able to get in on the action of this new browser. Ever since the launch however Google had said that there were plans for a Mac and Linux based version of the browser which has now arrived.
I downloaded it late last night and thought I would have a quick browse around with it. I almost always use Safari on the Mac which I consider to be a very fast web browser and on par with Firefox, but upon opening up Chrome and using it for a little while you do notice the speed in which web pages load. Speed is always something that we are looking for in a web browser because we all want the fastest load times possible and Chrome certainly doesn’t disappoint here.
As far as appearance goes, if you have used the Windows version of Chrome at all you will notice that it is all very similar but with a more…Mac’ish feel to it, the colour scheme has been adapted to better fit within the OS X environment. Although Google have equipped Chrome with a host of different themes that can be added to it as well to change up the look. It does offer the now expected feature of tabbed browsing, however it does so in a different manner to what we are all used to. As mac users if you remember back to when the beta version of Safari 4 was released the behaviour of the tabs was to sit above the address bar? Well this is the same way that tabs are implemented in Chrome – I really like this way of setting out the tabs as it maximises your viewing area which can be especially valuable if you are on a laptop and it is something that I wish had been kept in Safari.
The other neat thing that you will notice is that you lose the search bar that we have come to expect, it is no longer a separate box to type your search into. Google Chrome integrates the address bar and search box all into one and they call it the Omnibox. Therefore if you know the URL go ahead and type it in, but if your not sure use the same box and do a Google (or other specified search engine) search.
One of the other things that has become standard in all modern browsers is the ability to browse the web in ‘private’ mode, Chrome also has this functionality which they call Incognito. Essentially meaning that there will be no cookies or web history saved from sites you visit while ‘incognito’ this is a very good feature if you are using a public computer and would like to further increase your safety while doing internet banking or shopping. I do however like the rather humorous explanation that Google gives about the Incognito function.
All in all this is a very capable browser and I like it a lot! I’m glad it is finally available on the Mac and Linux platforms for all to utilise. Google Chrome is available for download here: http://www.google.com/chrome
And further information about the browser is available here: http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/features_mac.html
Posted by Luke | Posted on 20-11-2009
Category : Internet/Tech, Random & Interesting
Tags: gen-y, iTunes, Music, Record Store
It all started with the introduction of the iTunes Music store! Since then there has been an increasing availability of online music stores where you can legally purchase and download your favourite music tracks and albums. It was just the other night I purchased a full album off the iTunes store when I had a little realisation. Wow that was easy, and I didn’t even have to leave my house.
This all made me think a little about what actual purpose the ‘Record’ store actually serves in the current world that we live in. One of the biggest differences between the two and reason that I think that online music stores have been so successful is not so much the ease of purchase but more so the ability to pick and choose exactly what songs you want. No longer do you have to spend $30 for an album where you only get two or three songs that you actually want to listen to. It think this is the major appeal, but what about pricing?
While albums available for online purchase all come in at different prices depending on the number of tracks, when comparing their prices to purchasing a CD from a store there is a significant price saving.
I have a feeling that the preference to purchase music on a form of media like a CD may also be a bit of a generational thing as well. Given the fact that in the past people have always had a very tangible experience when purchasing music and movies, essentially they would walk into a store, hand over their hard earned cash and physically get something for it. From what I can see it seems that those generations of people still want that tangible experience. However for the younger generations that are used to the more intangible experience of handling their media I think we will slowly see the need and want to have a physical copy of a movie or music slowly fade, and with it will the need for bricks and mortar record stores. Just the way I see it anyway. What do you think? Let us know in the poll below!!
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Posted by Luke | Posted on 11-11-2009
Category : Internet/Tech
Tags: Home User, internet, network, OpenDNS, Security
To start off with here I will explain a little about what a DNS is and will later describe a service to help increase your security on the web and speed up your browsing experience.
DNS stands for Domain Name System, and what does this mean? Well the main purpose of a domain name service is to turn domain names (the address or URL of a website) into something meaningful to humans. Essentially the internet is a massive number of computers which all connect to one another and every computer that has access to the internet has a number the usual format is something like 111.222.3.44. The way you access websites is by telling your computer to go and get information off another computer using a given number. Due to the fact that the internet would be largely unusable to us if we had to remember these numbers each time we wanted to visit a site, we have domain names. each domain name is an easy way of presenting the string of numbers the computers use to talk to each other.
Normally when you type in an internet address you’re computer speaks with your internet service provider who then gets the page your looking for. However services such as OpenDNS allow you to direct your internet traffic through their data centres rather than through that of your own internet service provider. This is achieved by either re-directing at each of the computers on your network or you can tell your router to control this allowing easy set up for all computers on your network.
If for nothing else the benefit of using a service like this enables a good speed boost to your web browsing experience. On some of my tests I noticed that sites were loading around 2 seconds quicker than they previously were through my ISP’s service.
I feel that all households should make use of a service like this in large for the security features that they offer. If you have children it may be of interest to know that you have the ability to specifically blacklist websites that you want to restrict access to. This is often more effective than the built in parental controls on the computer itself becuase it is being controlled by a third party service externally, therefore it is not possible for them to work around this. There are presets provided by OpenDNS which allow you to quickly and very easily filter your web access the presets include:
- None: no restriction to your browsing, you may select this if you’re not using the service for security
- Minimal: protects you against phishing websites and attacks
- Low: protects you against limited adult material & phishing attacks
- Moderate: protects against all adult material & illegal material & previously mentioned items
- High: restricts all adult material, illegal activity, social networking, video sharing, general time wasters plus previously mentioned items.
If you run a business you may find the high level of protection suitable to protect you and your employees from accessing unwanted websites and material. To further add to the offering, if you are so inclined down the big-brother kind of path you can enable stats. This logs all websites that are visited and makes them available for you to view, this can of course be turned on or off.
One of my favourite uses of this service is mainly because I’m lazy, and this is the shortcuts feature. Once you have set this up within the dashboard on your OpenDNS login you simply add a website to the list and give it a shortcut. For example I have it set so that when I type ‘fb’ into my address bar, it will automatically direct me to facebook.com. Pretty handy if you can remember your shortcuts. There is always bookmarks in your browser of course. To add to this is the auto correct feature, this means that if I type facebook.cmo by mistake it recognises this and redirects me to facebook.com instead of giving me a 404 page not found error.
One of the last things that I will mention here for personal users is the ability for the service to redirect when you come accross a site that either no longer exists or you have entered incorrectly and isn’t able to be auto corrected. What happens is that if I am to try and go to fabebook.com, this is obviously spelt wrong but instead of my browser giving me the very annoying 404 page not found error, OpenDNS spits up a page which politely says why you weren’t taken to the page and gives you a list of alternatives or you can do what looks to be a google search.
These are some of the reasons why I feel that this is a service that all homes should be using, and the best part is that for the basic account which gives you all of the things I have mentioned here it is all free! No theres no catches all free. If you’re a business and want some of the more advanced features that this kind of service can provide you do pay a fee. So even if for nothing else but a bit of a speed boost to your browsing head over to OpenDNS.com
