Digital Day

Invaluable knowledge resources

[vladi] — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:59:34 +0000

There are numerous sources of knowledge on the Internet. Among the eLearning resources, specialized reading, focus groups, portals, etc., you can find the topic that is of interest to you and spend a lot of hours reading and watching videos on the subject.

I am also very keen on learning new things and gathering knowledge in various spheres of life. So, I was very excited, when several years ago, one of the most prominent universities in the IT sphere – the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), decided to start an innovative project – to make the courses, taught to MIT students, available online. Since then, many universities have made this step, and as a result, you can now “attend” top universities’ courses from the comfort of your own home, to mix and match content according to your own interests and needs, and to design unique curricula for yourselves.

So here is (hopefully, an ever growing) list of links to the publicly available university courses:

MIT Open CourseWare (OCW) project [http://ocw.mit.edu]
UC Berkeley Webcasts [http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php]
Open Yale Courses [http://oyc.yale.edu]

… and many more through the website of the Open CourseWare Consortium.

Feel free to propose other valuable resources, that belong to the list. Also, be sure to revisit this article, as it is my intention to keep the list updated as I find other valuable resources.

[Image by svilen001, taken from www.sxc.hu]

MagCloud – Magazine Publishing Reinvented

[vladi] — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 12:39:49 +0000

MagCloud – a new (beta) service by HP Labs brings the magazine universe in a single place. It is social, it is eco, it is innovative. It is the virtual magazine newsstand. It is a service, that offers print-on-demand magazines to end users. The beta is so far only available in United States, Canada and United Kingdom, but they promise to expand to more countries soon.

MagCloud started as an HP Labs incubation project to evaluate new, online marketplaces for buying and selling custom and niche magazines with print on demand fulfillment. MagCloud is inventing new ways to bring consumers and publishers together in a web-based marketplace where choice, flexibility and print on demand are the cornerstones of the community.

Give it a try!

Apple iPad

[vladi] — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:20:19 +0000

And here it is, only several hours old – the Apple iPad:

Big day for technology

[vladi] — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:37:28 +0000

Today is going to be a big day for technology. Two major technology events are going to happen at the same day – January 27th, 2010:

Sun + Oracle merger: At 9:00 AM PST (17:00 GMT) There will be an Oracle + Sun Strategy Update Webcast. It is entitled “Transforming the Way You Buy, Run, and Manage Your Business Systems”. The Sun acquisition by Oracle is by far one of the most significant transformations in the Enterprise segment, making Oracle an even bigger giant.

And then comes the most awaited event by the general public:

Apple: The long awaited announcement of a “major new product”, as dubbed by Steve Jobs, is going to happen at 10:00 AM PST (18:00 GMT). All rumors in the tech circles point it’s going to be the public presentation of the mystical Apple tablet, called iTablet, iSlate or iPod Tablet Edition. There is no live feed from the event, but rumor has it there is going to be a video on Apple’s website as soon as it’s finished.

To all people interested in technology – enjoy!

Do you poken?

[vladi] — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:29:39 +0000

You google. You text. You chat. Do you poken?

Social networks

[vladi] — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:17:11 +0000

A friend asked me today: “Do you have a Facebook?”
My quick answer was: “Of course not, I am a geek!”

Then it made me think, what is it that makes geeks hate the new social networks hype? It’s not like we are unfamiliar or feel uncomfortable, come on, we create these things for breakfast! And there definitely is an issue with geeks and social networks – all my geek friends avoid them, at least the fashion ones. It does not matter where everybody is, I just don’t care if I get a thousand invitations to Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, etc. And it is not like we don’t have social contacts also. It’s more like “you go into that fancy place and mingle with the fancy people. If you want to contact me, come where I am”.

So far so good. But then again, where am I? And most importantly, what makes it different from the other places where people communicate on the Internet?
I am on Twitter, I even have 2 accounts – one personal and one for the blog. I am on LinkedIn. I am on Jamendo. I may even be on some, or even most of the other social networks, but I am not really on them.

What is common between all of these places – they are not commercial. Even though Twitter is so popular, it is somehow clean. No marketing, no spam, no SEO bullshit. It got out of nowhere, some people were just having fun, others thought it is fun too. Another thing common is privacy – you are not bugged 20 times a day with invitations for mindless activities, fake causes and not embarrassed by someone, who thought it is very funny to share a picture of you when you had a bad day. Without asking you do you mind, or giving you any choice. And it is more personal too. You are not part of the crowd, it is like going out with friends.

What do you think about it? How is it for you? And don’t forget to share this within your social network!

[Image by Davide Guglielmo, taken from www.sxc.hu]

Nokia N900 Tablet

[vladi] — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:11:33 +0000

Nokia just announced the preorder availability of its new 3G Tablet phone Nokia N900. It runs the Linux-based open-source operating system Maemo 5.

Technical specifications include:

Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 900/1700/2100
800 x 480 pixels (WVGA) Touch screen
5 megapixel Carl Zeiss autofocus camera with dual LED flash (4:3 and 16:9 ratio) with CMOS sensor
Side-slide full QWERTY keyboard
Up to 32 GB internal storage with up to 16 GB microSD memory card extension
Total available application memory up to 1 GB (256 MB RAM, 768 MB virtual memory)
GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA, HSPA, WLAN WiFi IEEE 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth
Desktop with up to 4 personalizable views
Email, Mozilla-powered browser with Flash 9.4 and AJAX support
Integrated A-GPS receiver with Ovi Maps application
MP3 (.mp3, .wma, .aac, .m4a, .wav) and Video (.mp4, .avi, .wmv, .3gp) player
Micro-USB 2.0, 3.5 mm audio jack, TV out (PAL & NTSC)
Tons of applications from the Ovi store and maemo.org

Nokia N900 – Product showcase

Maemo 5 user interface

N900 interaction documentary

The Nokia N900 Tablet is available for preorder for 499 £ (UK) or 599 € (most of Europe, 649 € in France).

Nokia Booklet 3G

[vladi] — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:56:30 +0000

Nokia just announced its first netbook – the 10.1″ Nokia Booklet 3G.

Highlights include:

10.1″ display
a palette of broadband connectivity – 3G, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth
A-GPS navigation
HDMI
a stunning 12-hour battery life
weight: 1,25 kg.
the new Windows 7

Here is the preview:

Always-On PC

[vladi] — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:59:35 +0000

There is a new service available for the people, who wish to have a full-featured desktop while on the road. The service is called AlwaysOnPC, and is in essence a virtual desktop, stored on a server that you can access anytime, and from anywhere.

As it is described on their website:

Introducing AlwaysOnPC, the world’s first personal cloud computer that works from any device, anywhere – including your iPhone™.

Your own online virtual personal computer loaded with a full set of applications and 2 GB of personal file storage. Accessible from an iPhone (other platforms tba) as well as any netbook, laptop, desktop, Internet kiosk.

The service includes an always-on PC with 2 GB of storage, available for documents, files, photos, etc. It is ideal for the travelers, who need to access their desktop remotely from different locations – a computer, their iPhone and soon-to-come other internet-connected platforms. It includes a variety of applications:

Internet applications – Firefox browser, Email client, Instant messenger (supporting multiple IM services, such as AOL, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!, etc.)
Office package (Word processor, Spreadsheet, Presentation application, Project-management application)
Utilities (Contacts manager, Calendar, Text editor, Archive manager, Calculator, Dictionary, etc.)
Multimedia (Movie player (no sound for the time being!), GIMP – a full-featured image editor, etc.)
Games (17 board and puzzle games)

and even some heavy-duty programming tools including Eclipse and Glade interface designer.

Important! You can get a free registration to try it for 5 days, but in order to get the service permanent, you have to download the AlwaysOnPC app from the Apple AppStore (a one-time 29.99 USD) and login from your iPhone or iPod.
From Xform Computing.

10th Annual System Administrator Appreciation Day (SysAdminDay)

[vladi] — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 11:33:12 +0000

Each year, the last Friday of July is a special day for a certain category of people. These are the (mostly) invisible people, that make sure our digital day is as flawless as possible. The people that support your computer, the people at the internet company that make sure you are online, the ones that support the servers, running your favorite websites. Pretty much all people, that make sure your bills are calculated correctly, your ticket is reserved online, your cell phone has service – the system administrators, or sysadmins for short.

Ten years ago, a special day was chosen to be the day of appreciation for these people – The SysAdmin Day. If you are happy with the geek that fixed your computer, or the internet connection of that new ISP – some congratulations are due.

To all tech people, who make our lives better by taming the technology beasts for us – Cheers, mates! May you never have to wake up early, or stay at work overnight! May all your data be safe, the rest is a matter of money :->