Yearly Archives: 2011

369 posts

Mobile Operating Systems Compared

Technology

Dean Evans has written an interesting article “iOS vs Android vs WebOS vs MeeGo In Depth: Four mobile operating systems compared” on Techradar.

The article makes some important points and concludes:
“Android is the next best thing (with judicious use of a task-killer), followed by iOS. Apple has been criticised for not offering true multi-tasking. Instead, iOS 4 suspends apps in the background or offers limited functionality. You can run a radio app in the background or stay signed in to Skype. But it’s a resource-saving approach compared to WebOS and Android.

Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/ios-vs-android-vs-webos-vs-meego-925580#ixzz1Co4KZwc0”

Comcast’s First IPv6 Native Dual Stack Activated

Internet

Comcast has successfully activated our first group of trial users for IPv6 Native Dual Stack operation. These are the first Native Dual-Stack users activated in a production DOCSIS network in North America. Leveraging our state-of-the-art, production DOCSIS 3.0 network, these users can now access content and services natively over both IPv6 and IPv4. This means users do not need to use any IPv6 or IPv4 tunneling, translating, or NAT solutions; they can access IPv6 and IPv4 directly at high-speed, in an unencumbered fashion. This is a tremendous milestone for Comcast, cable operators, and the Internet community at large, and it is a critical milestone in our many years of work to prepare IPv6 to work seamlessly in a residential broadband Internet network. Each user has been delegated a /64 block of approximately 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 (18 quintillion) unique IPv6 addresses. We anticipate expanding our IPv6 Native Dual Stack trial in Colorado and in other areas in the coming weeks and months.

More: http://blog.comcast.com/2011/01/comcast-activates-first-users-with-ipv6-native-dual-stack-over-docsis.html

Google Chrome Gets 10% Browser Share

Internet

Google’s Chrome browser ended 2010 with 10.70% of the browser market share, according to Net Applications. Microsoft’s internet Explorer continues to lose market share. Firefox, the world’s second most popular browser, currently has a 22% share.

Apple’s Safari climbed four-tenths of a percentage point to 6.3%.

The upcoming launch of Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 may change usage, or so Mozilla and Microsoft are hoping.

Top browser market share at: http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=1

Really Strategies Announces RSuite Cloud™

News

Really Strategies announced the availability of RSuite Cloud™, a web-based editorial and production system for automated multilingual publishing to print, web, and eBook formats. RSuite Cloud is a hosted end-to-end content management and publishing system for book publishers to create, manage, and distribute single-source content to multiple channels. The system also provides language translation tools to publish in 70 languages, including all major European, Asian, and bidirectional languages.

“Publishers have been asking us for a publishing system that will help them generate new e-Book revenue streams and simultaneously reduce their production-related costs,” stated Dan Dube, senior vice president of cloud solutions at Really Strategies. “We are thrilled to respond with RSuite Cloud, so publishers can focus on developing new products to drive top-line revenue rather than focus on labor-intensive production processes.”

RSuite Cloud is available on a per-user license or Pay-Per-Page™ model. Pay-Per-Page is a revolutionary payment model where the software is free of charge and the publisher only pays for final pages published from the system.

RSuite Cloud readily accepts Microsoft Word manuscripts into the system and automatically converts the Word files to XML for web-based copyediting and automated page composition. Production workflows are easy to setup and execute to generate page proofs and eBook drafts for content review and approval. The system is configured to automatically publish print-ready PDF files, HTML output, and eBook formats. RSuite Cloud’s language translation tools facilitate localization of content, enabling publishers to expand their markets and increase global revenues.

Canon U.S.A. Showcases imageFORMULA Scanning Technologies

Technology

Demonstrating the versatility and benefits of its award-winning document scanning devices, Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging, will showcase its line of imageFORMULA solutions at LegalTech, the leading technology exposition in the legal arena. Attendees will have the opportunity for hands-on demonstrations of imageFORMULA products designed to meet the demands for precision, security and flexibility in the legal sector, in the Canon booth (Booth #1711) at the New York Hilton Hotel, January 31st – February 2nd, 2011.

“Canon is dedicated to addressing the changing needs of law firms and legal departments” said Jim Rosetta, vice president and general manager, Imaging Systems Group, Canon U.S.A. “We are excited to demonstrate our continued commitment to deliver scanning solutions, designed to improve practice management, collaboration and efficiency”

Canon will have a variety of its award-winning imageFORMULA devices on display during this year’s show, including:

* imageFORMULA P-150 “Scan-tini” Personal Document Scanner: The P-150’s compact size and ease-of-use is ideal for use by “road warriors” and office users in general-purpose distributed document scanning applications, as well as check scanning in remote deposit capture applications. Measuring 11-inches long, 3.7-inches wide, 1.6-inches high and weighing just over two pounds, the P-150 redefines the minimum dimensions of a document scanner with automatic document feeder.
* imageFORMULA DR-9050C Production Scanner: A high-volume, high image-quality document scanning solution, the DR-9050C scans at speeds up to 112 ppm/225 ipmi in color, grayscale and black and white. The DR-9050C captures images and text with clarity using three-line Contact Image Sensors at up to 600 dots-per-inch optical resolution, and incorporates a dust-free shading mechanism for exceptional image quality.
* imageFORMULA ScanFront 300P Network Scanner: The imageFORMULA ScanFront 300P network scanner is a full-featured, easy-to-use and manage device developed to capture, convert and share documents across a network while also improving the security of the data being shared and lowering overall workplace costs. Featuring a fingerprint reader to improve security, the ScanFront 300P is an ideal solution for capturing documents in decentralized environments and improves collaboration by allowing users to capture and share information seamlessly in central and field locations.

Further demonstrating the versatility and compatibility of its image capture devices, Canon U.S.A will feature a software partner, Drivve, showing its Drivve | Image Canon Edition software running in conjunction with the ScanFront 300P.

For more information visit www.usa.canon.com.

Google Wants Android Developers

Technology

Google is trying to recruit dozens of software developers to create applications for smartphones and other mobile devices, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“The Internet company has begun recruiting software engineers, product managers, user-interface experts and others who have ideas for mobile apps.

Benjamin Ling, a Google product – management director, has been leading recruiting efforts, the people familiar with the matter said. Google declined to make him available for comment.”

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703554204576112723686094898.html#ixzz1Cc9c9KaB

New Android 2.3 Exploit Found

Technology

Android version 2.3 Gingerbread has a security hole in the OS., reports Kelly Jackson Higgins writing on Darkreading.

“Xuxian Jiang, a security researcher at NC State University, has tested and confirmed the bug on a Nexus S smartphone running Android 2.3. An attack would work like this: An Android user clicks on a malicious link in an email or in the browser, and an attacker could then read and upload any files on the phone’s SD memory card, including things like online banking information, pictures, and saved voicemails. An attacker could also root out the phone’s apps and upload them to a remote server, according to Jiang, who is an assistant professor in the computer science department”

Full article: http://www.darkreading.com/insider-threat/167801100/security/vulnerabilities/229200006/data-leak-flaw-found-in-newest-version-of-google-android.html

Google Tackles Content Copying

News

Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team has written a post announcing a specific change to Google’s search algorithm to reduce content copying and spam in search engine results.

“we recently launched a redesigned document-level classifier that makes it harder for spammy on-page content to rank highly. The new classifier is better at detecting spam on individual web pages, e.g., repeated spammy words—the sort of phrases you tend to see in junky, automated, self-promoting blog comments. We’ve also radically improved our ability to detect hacked sites, which were a major source of spam in 2010. And we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.”

Read more: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-search-and-search-engine-spam.html

TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS Announced

Internet

The TYPO3 Core Team and the TYPO3 Community are proud to announce TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS – the first “Long Term Support” release of TYPO3. This release will be maintained for the next 3 years and guarantees maximum compatibility and a long lifespan for your website.

TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS focuses on:
* Long Term Support
* Compatibility
* Usability
* Enterprise Features
*Easy Development

TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS in detail:

Long Term Support
The suffix “LTS” in TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS stands for “Long Term Support”. For the first time a TYPO3 version will be maintained significantly longer than the usual release cycle would suggest. In 2010 TYPO3 has switched to a fixed 6-month release cycle, making new features and improvements available a lot faster. On the other hand the lifetime of a version now expires faster since only the latest three versions are actively maintained.

LTS versions will be supported for at least 3 years thus offering a good option for users that don’t need or don’t want to update every 6 months.
TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS is the last release to support Internet Explorer 6 for the Backend.

Compatibility
TYPO3 is used for a great variety of websites ranging from the smallest private homepage up to large multi-server, multi-language enterprise portals. Upgrading for everyone is easy, since the development team focused on maximum backwards compatibility with older releases. This provides a very easy and stable migration path to TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS.
Older features are still supported and the use of deprecated features can be easily tracked in a log file.

Usability
The TYPO3 Usability Week 2009 (T3UXW09) started several usability projects on TYPO3. Some results were already included in TYPO3 Version 4.4. All remaining projects have now been finished and integrated in the current release.
This includes a blazing fast and flexible pagetree based on ExJS, configurable Backend layout and rearranged editing forms for pages and content elements.
The new LiveSearch box is a highlight: it provides instant auto-completion. A similar technology empowers input fields to find connected records in a snap.
Additionally the whole Backend got an optical facelift. Icons, colors and the general arrangement of elements were streamlined. Many details were fixed to provide a more consistent appearance and workflow.

Enterprise features
When working in an Enterprise environment workflows are an important instrument to organize team work. The Workspaces Team and the Usability Team rebuilt the whole workspaces management interface from scratch, using latest technologies (Extbase, ExtJS).
Besides the new interface, additional features like custom workflow stages were added, offering great flexibility while still assuring highly improved usability.
A new library for sending mails was added to ensure RFC-compatibility on outgoing e-mails. Plenty of other features will make sure 4.5 stays competitive for the next 3 years: UTF-8 by default, HTML5 support, ExtJS based Backend, etc..

More new Features
The new Extension Manager is a lot more comfortable using ExtJS and a grid view for extension listing.
A new Linkvalidator module was integrated as a system extension. It can check all kinds of links inside the content managed by TYPO3: internal, external, mail and file links.

Download TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS now!
TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS can be downloaded directly from www.typo3.org/download/. Technical documentation and the detailed release notes can be found at typo3.org/download/release-notes/typo3-45/

TYPO3 – The Enterprise CMS
TYPO3 is an Open Source Enterprise Web Content Management System released under the GPL. It currently runs more than 500,000 websites worldwide. The application has been translated into 42 languages and is being actively developed by a community of over 500 active developers in over 60 countries. Some of its end users include Lufthansa, Daimler, Cisco Systems, General Electric, the United Nations and Harvard University, as well as numerous other companies, universities, government agencies and non-profit organizations.
For additional information about TYPO3, please visit www.typo3.org.

About the TYPO3 Association
The TYPO3 Association is an association under Swiss law (as defined in Articles 60 et seq of the Swiss Civil Code), which was founded in November 2004 by members of the TYPO3 community, including Kasper Skårhøj. The TYPO3 Association is headquartered in Baar, Switzerland (Switzerland).

According to its statutes, the TYPO3 Association is promoting the free TYPO3 project under the GNU General Public License. The TYPO3 Association is a non profit organization, making software development by third parties publicly available. To finance the development and hire qualified developers, the association collects membership-fees and donations for development projects.

The TYPO3 Association is politically and religiously neutral.

The association consists of members and sponsors, whose names can be found on its website (association.typo3.org).

TYPO3 Association
Sihlbruggstrasse 105
6340 Baar
Switzerland
Phone: +41 (0)41 511 00 35
Fax: +41 (0)41 551 00 39
E-Mail: [email protected]

Android 3.0 Preview and SDK Tools

News

Xavier Ducrohet writes on the Android Developers Blog about highlights of Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) a new version of the Android platform that is designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets.

Highlights:
UI framework for creating great apps for larger screen devices: Developers can use a new UI components, new themes, richer widgets and notifications, drag and drop, and other new features to create rich and engaging apps for users on larger screen devices.

High-performance 2D and 3D graphics: A new property-based animation framework lets developers add great visual effects to their apps. A built-in GL renderer lets developers request hardware-acceleration of common 2D rendering operations in their apps, across the entire app or only in specific activities or views. For adding rich 3D scenes, developers take advantage of a new 3D graphics engine called Renderscript.

Support for multicore processor architectures: Android 3.0 is optimized to run on either single- or dual-core processors, so that applications run with the best possible performance.
Rich multimedia: New multimedia features such as HTTP Live streaming support, a pluggable DRM framework, and easy media file transfer through MTP/PTP, give developers new ways to bring rich content to users.

New types of connectivity: New APIs for Bluetooth A2DP and HSP let applications offer audio streaming and headset control. Support for Bluetooth insecure socket connection lets applications connect to simple devices that may not have a user interface.

Enhancements for enterprise: New administrative policies, such as for encrypted storage and password expiration, help enterprise administrators manage devices more effectively.

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/01/android-30-platform-preview-and-updated.html

For an complete overview of the new user and developer features: http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-3.0-highlights.html

Gmail Timesavers

News

Kristin Burnham, writing on Macworld has posted an interesting article, “Five great Gmail timesavers Tap into advanced features in Google’s e-mail service”

Tips are:

Granting access to your Gmail account allowing someone to read and respond to your e-mail on your behalf.

Toggling between two Gmail accounts in one browser, using Gmail’s new Multiple Account Sign-in feature. To enable this feature, visit google.com/accounts and choose Edit next to Multiple Sign-in.

Opt-out of conversation threads

Easily schedule events in different time zones

Auto-advance to the next conversation

Full Article: http://www.macworld.com/article/157362/2011/01/gmailtips.html?lsrc=rss_main

Google Adds Unread Message Icon to Gmail

Internet

Google has added an unread message icon to Gmail.

“When you’re visiting sites other than Gmail, it’s easy to find out how many unread messages are in your inbox by glancing at the title of your Gmail tab or window. However, if you have a ton of tabs open, or if you use Chrome’s “Pin Tab” feature that hides everything except the tab’s icon, it can be tricky to figure out without switching tabs.”

Google says that this feature will only work Chrome 6 and above and Firefox 2 and above. In other words, everyone who will care about such a thing should be able to use it. To enable it, go to the Labs area in Settings and turn it on and save.