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Rel

For those of you who don’t know, HTCPCP stands for Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol. Let me explain…

Back in September when I started University, one of our first lab sessions for “Web and Media Development”, was looking up protocols on various given websites. One of the sites was http://ietf.org, which was when I remembered HTCPCP! I just HAD to look it up.

Low and behold, there was an article on HTCPCP, and its conception. The memo is 5 pages long, so I’ll talk about some of the best bits, and provide a link at the end of this post.

A coffee pot was not the first kitchen appliance to be controlled over the internet. I give you… The Internet Toaster! Controlled by SNMP in 1990, I’m sure the Internet Toaster was a grate success. So much so, I’m sure you still use yours, right?

The BREW method : Boil the water! “Coffee pots heat water using electronic mechanisms, so there is no fire. Thus, no firewalls are necessary, and firewall control policy is irrelevant.”

Say WHEN : Milk is offered, however the user must say WHEN enough is enough.

Accept-Additions header field : Like additional stuff in your coffee? No problem. Flavoured syrup, cream, whisky, rum, even non dairy milk for those unlucky people.

2.2.3 Omitted Header Fields : “No options were given for decaffeinated coffee. What’s the point?”

418 I’m a teapot : “The resulting entity body MAY be short and stout.”

Security Considerations : “Anyone who gets in between me and my morning coffee should be insecure. Unmoderated access to unprotected coffee pots from Internet users might lead to several kinds of “denial of coffee service” attacks.”

I can imagine some of you would HATE a denial of coffee service attack!  Any suggestions on what to do with people implementing DOCS attacks?

Link : http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2324.txt

This little device supports the most used functions of a normal IR remote control in a tiny package.  You can use it to change channels and volume, but it also supports an AV button allowing you to switch input modes easily.  There is also a mute button as well as a standby one.  You may be thinking, how does it know which frequency my television is using.  Fear not, this remote can be ‘tuned’ to use the same frequency as your television.  The packaging states that 85% of all TV sets are supported, so it should be able to control the TVs of those produced by the major manufactures.

Its compact size allows you to attach it to your keychain allowing you to take it anywhere with you.  Perhaps take it into college and wreck havoc when the teachers trying to put a DVD on…

Testing:

I have one of those obscure brand TV’s in my room from Tescos. Tuning the remote into the same frequency as my TV took about 10 seconds.  Once tuned, all the functions’ on the remote work as they should.

Setting the device:

To tune the remote control to the frequency your TV uses, press and hold the mute button until you see the volume bar on your TV (or when the TV mutes).  The instance that happens, immediately release the mute button and viola!  You’re good to go.

Specifications:

BudgetGadets are also offering readers of TechRant a 5% discount from any purchases using coupon code: CM5OFF9 as well as free shipping on all items giving you even more of a reason to go shopping there!  Whole sale options are also available.

URL: www.budgetgadgets.com

Cooper – GadgetGeek

Muting the TV downstairs is a fun way to annoy family members…

Analyists see the device as both a smaller version of Apples MacBook, but also with the addition of a touch screen it could function similarly to the iPhone and iPod touch with multitouch gestures.

Possible leak / mock-up of a new netbook from Apple

According to readers of 9to5 this screenshot came inside a Russian magazine. Gizmodo have deciphered the specifications to be listed as follows…

• 10.4″ WXGA display.
• 1280 x 768 pixel with LED backlighting.
• NVIDIA MCP79
• Intel Atom Z740 1.83GHz with 1MB L2 cache.
• 2GB DDR3-800.
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
• 64GB Solid State Drive.
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n
• 1 x USB 2.0
• 1 x Mini Display Port
• Battery Li-Ion 5100mA

According to them, it will come sometime in 2009 for $899.

These specifications seem to fill a gap in Apples current line up, one that users have been complaining about for a while. The suggested price however, leaves a lot to be desired. Windows and linux netbooks are readily available for under £400, take the Asus EeePC 701 reviewed by tech rant a while ago. It just depends whether mac users consider the extra price to be worth it, or not!

Rumors have also been ripe about a “premium” app store from apple, now many may think this has been delivered on with the iPhone 3.0 software update, however there is an opportunity here for Apple, if this netbook is released, to sell full price desktop applications through the app store. This would make sense for Apple and developers alike.

To conclude, the netbook would be a welcome addition to the Apple family, given a touch screen along with the specifications above and a much lower price. We really think this could be a winner!

Via [Gizmodo]

More recently a fourth version of this update was released to developers, suggesting that the update is almost ready for release to the general public. Information from various sources suggests that this build includes fixes for issues when macs are put to sleep, and problems with synchronising signatures in Mail.

Oddly Apple has included an updated Speech Dictionary within this update. This is aimed at improving Leopards text-to-speech performance and capabilities. The total number of bug fixes within this release are now believed to be over 90.

Analyists believe that we should be expecting a release sometime in April. Developers have reported that the update will be about 730MB for users to download and install.

iPhone 3.0 software has been released to developers, and was showcased in typical Apple fashion on March 17th 2009 despite a distinct lack of Steve Jobs! This software promises iPhone and iPod Touch users over 100 new features and is due to be released this summer.

Some of the new features Apple are introducing have been common place in other devices for a long time. You can now search your iPhone, this will be via a separate home screen as well as within certain apps like Mail, SMS, and Music. As well as searching you will soon be able to cut, copy, and paste from any app on your iPhone or iPod Touch. A feature which many will agree has been missing for far too long, but it has always been Apples way. Give the users a product which lacks certain basic functionality, then market it as a fantastic new feature a few years down the line!

All apps available from the app store can now use push notifications via Apples 3rd party server. This will allow apps such as ‘IM+’ chat and ‘Twitterfon’ to notify you if you receive a message without having the program running in the background. Apple claim this is a better solution than the much requested background tasks, which they say will drastically reduce the battery life of your device.

iPhone users have a few more new features in this update, most significant is the ability to send and receive MMS messages, again something which has been common place in many mobile phones for many years! Email and text messages can now be composed in landscape mode, something users have been requesting since the iPhone was first introduced. 3G iPhone users can now tether their iPhone to their laptop so they can use their iPhones data plan to surf the internet on their laptop or netbook.

Missing from this update are a few significant features that users have been requesting. Video recording on the iPhone has not been mentioned as well as the much requested Background tasks which would allow users to truly multitask. Other than this, the update will be a welcome refresh that is free to iPhone users, but will cost $10 for iPod Touch users. It will be interesting to see how many iPod touch users pay out for this, considering the iPod Touch 2G can now be fully jailbroken, and all of the 3.0 software features have been available to jailbroken users for quite some time.

A DOCK!

If you don’t know what I’m on about, it is a little bar of icons at the bottom (or other side) of the screen where you can launch your frequently used applications from.

Yes Windows does have one build in. OK, so it isn’t anywhere near as good as Apple’s glorious creation. Neither does it compare to the similar applications for Windows. BUT – it is very simple to do, and requires no installation, thus absolutely minimal impact on your system performance.

So how, I hear you cry, does one atchieve this feat? Here’s how…

1. Make sure your taskbar is not locked (Righ click on it, make sure the checkbox isn’t ticked)
2. Drag your taskbar up so that it is twice as high as normal
3. Create a folder somewhere, say in My Documents, and call it something like ‘Shortcuts’
4. Create a new toolbar in the taskbar (Right click, toolbars, new toolbar…)
5. Find your ‘Shortcuts’ folder
6. Drag the little handle on the side of your toolbar so that you can move it to the bottom
7. Your toolbar will now be at the bottom of the screen
8. Right click your toolbar and untick the option for ‘Show Text’
9. Do the same for ‘Show Title’
10. Finally, right click and change the ‘View’ to ‘Large Icons’
11. Remember to lock the taskbar again after.

Yes, I know that it looks nothing like the dock on a Mac, but it is jut as useful.

What is nice about this feature is that you can drag and drop icons for anything (program shortcuts, folders, files, URLs etc) onto it, and they pop right up. Simple, easy, and it fits in with whatever Windows theme you decide to use.

However after that many other makes of phone took my interest, they were a hell of alot more cutting edge and looked a darn sight better than their Nokia counterparts.

That is ofcourse until the N95 came along, I dont know what it is about it but it looks good. Yes it is a brick, but thats what Nokias are meant to be.

Even in this modern day and age Nokia have still got the right idea, Building the ’slimmest’ phone isnt neccessarily the best. Building a ‘brick’ that has alot more stuff built into it than the competition is better.

Maybe thats the geek in me speaking, but im sure that even the high ranking exectutive on his coffee break likes to listen to a kick ass music player or watch a whole episode of Family Guy to pass the time.

A couple lost in the Scotish highlands that thought it was a good idea to bring as little as possible and forget the map, can just whip out the N95, use the GPS and Sat Nav to get home with relative ease.

Its just more convienient for most people to have a ‘brick’ with lots of stuff in it.

Admittedly Sony Ericsson and Samsung have now jumped on the bandwagon and are now building Symbian OS smartphones similar and in some cases better than the N95.

Nokia in this case have made a phone that has set the pace.

Touch screen phones for example have been around and on the market for quite some time. Nokia have only just started selling fully touch screen phones. Which could be their disadvantage… or could be they were waiting back and developing the best one possible. I dont know, I havent tried it.

Nokia arent the company that starts trends anymore, they watch everyone else make them and then come along with something better. With the exception of the N95, which changed what everyone wanted.

Though similar in size ranging from 7″ models to 10.2″, they have different hardware specs (though a majority are similar).  The Samsung NC10 runs on the newly developed Intel atom architecture boasting a clock speed of 1.6GHz of Hyper-threading goodness.  The EeePC 701 has a Celeron M 353 under its hood clocking at 0.9GHz. 

Memory wise, the NC10 has a 1GB of RAM as standard whereas the EeePC has only half of that.  Both netbooks come with XP preinstalled (Though a linux version is available for the EeePC, but to make things fair, I will compare the XP versions).  Having only half a gig of RAM may make the netbook rather sluggish at running multiple applications though luckily RAM is user upgradable on both netbooks.

At being only 0.4KG heavier, the extra weight is acceptable and welcomed for the extra power Samsung has packed into this tiny device.  The keyboard the NC10 has is 93% full size (compared to the 701 which has an 83% keyboard size), making the reduced keysize barely noticeable.  Though the backspace key and right shift key has been cut short and I always end up missing them making typing on this thing a tad tedious (but not as tedious as typing on an iPod Touch).  The keyboard on the NC10 is also coated with silver ions, giving it anti-bacterial properties, though it works scientists are still unsure whether it is actually safe for human use….

The monitor is 10.2″ wide, displaying a resolution of 1024*800.  Compared to the EeePC and its 7″ screen and resolution of 800*480, websites would be harder to view on the smaller resolution as most websites are now designed with the 1024*786 resolution in mind.

Connectivity wise, both netbooks come with WLAN (802.11 b/g) and an ethernet port (RJ-54 10/100) which are two pretty bog standard means to connect to the internets.  The NC10 also offers built in Bluetooth (2.0 + EDR) which allows you to connect to a mobile phone and surf the internet almost anywhere.  It is also a means of easily transferring files between bluetooth enabled devices.  Both netbooks also have the standard USB 2.0 ports (both have 3), a VGA port, headphone + mic ports and a SD card reader.

The sound quality is absolutely terrible on the NC10 and its stereo 1W speakers are barely powerful enough to be heard in a normal working environment.  At home I usually connect it to my desktop speakers, but when im out and about I have to use headphones.  Though it is a capable media player, you wont get very far with its built in speakers.

As part of the size shrinking and weight reducing process, netbooks do not come with disc drives.  This can be a tad problematic for those who store a lot of data on optical media.  There are various ways to work around this problem.  The easiest would be to purchase an external optical drive and simply stick it in the USB port.  The next option would be to use a computer with an optical drive to transfer all the data to the netbook via a removable hard drive or flash drive.  The most complicated option is to configure a computer with an optical drive to share it across the network, though once set up data transfer is as simply as copy and pasting.

The battery life on the NC10 is rather impressive.  In battery saving mode the battery can last between 6 to 7 hours (this is equal to a trip across the Atlantic from New York to London).  The long battery life means I can last longer between charges and it also allows me to leave the charger at home even though the charger itself is rather portable.

The NC10 uses a SATA 160GB HDD (running at 5400RPM) whereas the 701 uses a 4GB SSD (Solid State Drive) which has no moving parts whatsoever, the 701 also comes with an optional 30GB pocket-sized HDD for those who require more storage and also comes with an 18 month complimentary 10GB Eee Storage, which is an online storage solution.  Solid State Drives have multiple advantages over the conventional HDDs.  Because they have no moving parts, it makes them shockproof and it also means more efficiency as less power is consumed altogether.  It also offers faster boot times, but if youre willing to sacrifice these advantages for substantially more storage space then HDD is the way to go.

With only a 7″ screen it makes the 701 very portable at being only the size of a typical paperback book, so it will happily fit in a handbag or rucksack.  The NC10 on the otherhand is much larger in comparison.  So deciding on either is a juggling trick choosing either portability or functionality. 

If price is a huge factor in deciding which netbook to get then you are better off getting the cheaper 701 which averages at around £200 from most major electronics retail stores.  The NC10 is much more expensive averaging at £300. If you want to stick with Asus, the 1002HA is the Eee version of the NC10 and comes it at around the same price.

So all in all, the NC10 is a nifty little device and can do most of the tasks required for a power user.

Cooper – GadgetGeek

I can now sit at Starbucks with a Grande Caramel Machiato and pretend to be doing important work and gloat at the iPhone user next to me…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules

Just encase you didn’t understand what its trying to say, you can even listen to this wiki policy! There is actually a wiki page which attempts to explain exactly what the rule IAR means. In effect, its also known as common sense!

In fact there are no longer any "rules" on wiki, just a set of policies, and in essence, shouldn’t it be called "Ignore All Policies"? It itself, it is called a policy.

Maybe I’m just being picky, but I like wiki, and maybe this just proves the fact that wiki is user generated. Rather than making policies that mean you never need to ignore them to do what you need.

This makes me torn between the two sets of people who have feelings about wiki. Those that use it every day for information and rely it on being correct, and those that hate it to the ends of the earth, and tell people not to touch it with a barge pole.

Despite this, I think I will still be the first set of people. I mean although it CAN be edited by anyone, it is often edited back rather quickly if its seen to be wrong. Anyway, most of the time it provides some information about whatever. I have a Firefox plugin which will display the relevant wiki page for my google searches rather than displaying adverts. This has lead to a real appreciation for wiki.