Tech Blog

If you couldn't buy a dictionary, would you even notice? When was the last time you picked up a paper-based dictionary to look something up? I think I looked maybe a couple months ago, but last night I consulted a dictionary several times. Through Spotlight, on my computer. Hmm. Word has come this morning at the next edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary might not come out in print at all (Mashable & GigaOm). I don't know if this no-print declaration would include the smaller abridged versions that most of us have on our shelves (I do, actually have an unabridged dictionary here, but not the Oxford), but what if it did? Would you notice?

Word has come from Mashable and All Things D that Facebook is announcing something on Wednesday and the rumour is that we're going to see the much-anticipated location services to take Foursquare, Gowalla, and Yelp head on. I'm a reasonably active Foursquare user (Disclosure: I'm in the midst of writing a book on using Foursquare), but don't use the other services. Many people feel that if Facebook launches "location services" will effectively kill competing services, but I wonder if people would use or even switch to a Facebook service. Is this Facebook's bridge too far or just another thing Facebook is doing to build and improve the user experience? Read more...

Last week Nicholas Negroponte was quoted as saying that the physical book would be dead in 5 years—Nicholas Negroponte: The Physical Book Is Dead In 5 Years—which I thought is pushing it a little. Sure I love ebooks, and would rather have an ebook version over a paper version now, but gone in 5 years? Now I don't know if it was just kismet of timing, around the same time, Kobo announced that it was dropping the price of its eReader device from $150 to $128 dollars. Hmm, okay, that's just competition with other eReader devices. Well today I read on Ars Technica something that to me finally tips the scale to the full-on decline of paper—Mass romance novel publisher going all in on e-books. Read more...

Routers may be the devices that help feed us our Internet access, but they can be a hassle to set up for the average person. And after setup, what is there really that someone can do with a router anyway? More advanced users take advantage of port forwarding and other features, but for everyone else, Cisco’s Valet Plus router is probably the easiest router to get up and running.

Web.AppStorm profiled 15 of their favourite web-based app alternatives—15 Web Alternatives to Popular Desktop Software | Web.AppStorm—and while I was thinking I'd review them, that's not really that interesting. What is interesting might be if we've progressed to a point where you could work for a week using only web-based apps. Rather, let me make this more specific: work for a week without major disruptions using web-based apps. My gut tells me that I think you could do it, but it a) wouldn't be easy and b) would take planning to pull off for the long term. Read more...

Are we starting to take the internet for granted? It's ubiquitous and, most times, can be had freely and cheaply. It's to the point that when we are charged outrageous rates for internet access, even overseas, we tend to bristle a bit at the charges. Read more...

While last Thursday/Friday brought out an update to iOS, today brings an update to iTunes and iBooks. Part of the iTunes fix is for people who were having trouble updating their iOS devices, but together I think these mean a lot more. I think this is the first real step to iBooks becoming a full-on eTextbook, eMagazine, and Multimedia eBook device. Read more...

Okay, Mike got the word out to you earlier that Netflix was coming to Canada this fall (sort of)—Netlfix Coming to Canada—but this started me thinking about some of the other (legal) options we already have for getting videos on demand. Here in Chez Hussey we use Shaw's video on demand pretty often. Between the ones that are included for free (because we subscribe to the Movie Central bundle), we often rent a movie or two. Pretty convenient, a few dollars and we have a movie for 24 hours. Although I haven't played with either of them, we could also buy and rent movies through both iTunes and my Playstation. Okay, so now Netflix is in the mix and Zip.ca has been mailing DVDs for a while now (I've never tried it), so does this mean the corner video store is a thing of the past? Read more...

Over the past couple of days there has been quite a dust-up in the WordPress world over whether or not themes are considered derivative works under WordPress' GPL license. I've written about my own feelings about the situation on my own site—WordPress, Thesis, GPL, and premium themes | TrisHusseyDotCom—but here I want to talk about why GPL is essential to how we use computers today. Oh and not only our computers, but the Internet itself. This is: Why GPL is important. Read more...

Yes, I harp on the whole "you really need to back up your computer regularly" thing. Having bailed out enough friends coupled with said friends' tushies being saved only because they had a backup (or two), I think this is a topic that can always stand a little discussion. Today I'm taking the "you need to back up" to the next level, you need to back up and have a backup backup plan. Why? Simply this: backup drives fail. Often. Read more...

I've been having a love-hate relationship with my host (Dreamhost) of late. My blog has been running slowly and often throwing errors like 404 not found on administration areas (which can't be "not found"). After bantering about with my host's support team (who are rather good and very patient), it became clear that, really, the burden was on my shoulders to fix. And fix I did. The important thing, though, is how I went through the support process. Read more...

Here's a challenge for you, run not just your business, but your entire industry on open-source software. Think you could do it? A lot of industries probably couldn't. There are some pretty specific apps and tools for some tasks, however I think it's certainly worth a try. One newspaper chain that was pretty close to the brink decided to take the bull by the horns and instead of spending millions and millions to upgrade their entire system has tried to do as much as they can with open source (and free) alternatives. I give you—The Ben Franklin Project. Read more...

Now here's something pretty interesting. Turns out that social networks and social media really do give us a warm fuzzy feeling: Doctor Love | Fast Company. From studies of the hormone oxytocin turns out that we get a nice boost when we are giving and share things. When we use a social network and experience the same thing, we get the same hormonal boost … as you can imagine our bodies like this and encourage us to keep it up. Yep, Facebook is an addictive drug. Read more...

One of the drawbacks of the iPad is that it doesn't have a file system (per se). You can't, say, save a Pages document to your Documents folder and then connect to it as you need to from your Mac. There are lots of interesting ways to get around this. Both GoodReader and ReaddleDocs (my fav app) let you connect to Dropbox and over WiFi (GoodReader also re-released a USB connector tool last week that let's you skip iTunes), but it's Dropbox that I find most convenient. Why? Oh let me tell you the ways. Read more...

That's an old saying we used to joke about when prepping for back country field work. Because if there is a bear chasing you, the last place you want to be is the last person in the line. Same thing goes for passwords. You don't have to have the best most awesome password in the world, you just need one that is hard enough that there are much easier pickings out there. Read more...