E-Wadda's Blog

Iran's threat to Hormuz: Idle

2012-01-23T08:19:00.000-06:00

There has been a great deal of news coverage in recent weeks about Iran's threat to block the Strait of Hormuz. I have never been in the military, much less the navy, but a quick Wikipedia search shows the Iranian Navy with a mere 39 warships in service, 15 of which are classified as "patrol boats." In opposition, the U.S. Navy alone has 341 warships in service, not to mention the Royal Navy (100) and French Navy (72).

I have a hard time imagining how Iran could possibly contemplate attempting to close Hormuz against such odds. It seems like lots of big talk instead.

Played around with a Kindle Fire last week...

2011-12-12T14:53:00.003-06:00

In a previous post, I hinted that the 7 inch display on the Kindle Fire seems a bit small, particularly for a media tablet. Last week I had a chance to play around with a Kindle Fire at Best Buy, and my worries were immediately confirmed. I was actually shocked at how small the Fire's screen really is.

I have excellent vision (except when it comes to discerning colors), but I certainly would never purchase a movie to watch on such a small screen. I also find 7 inches too small for reading books, especially considering how slow e-reader navigation is in practice (page turns are slow to begin with, but try flipping back 100 pages or so on an e-reader--it's a real chore).

I find this worrisome for Amazon because their whole sales model with the Fire is to drive media consumption, yet I do not see what sort of media I would consume on such a small screen. In fact, I'm really interested to know how many Fires are returned by customers who bought it off Amazon without any hands-on experience. I would guess many people will use it for a few days, realize how small the screen is, and send it back.

Jakob Nielsen is skeptical of the Fire as well. He notes other issues, some of which I noticed in just a few minutes with the Fire:

The Fire only has one physical button. This was the single most irritating design flaw I noticed. Believe me, it will drive you nuts!
It's heavy! There is no way I could hold that thing for an extended period of time--say, the amount of time required to read a book or watch a TV show.

Bottom Line: It's a good start, and gets Amazon into the action, but I would never buy one.

Apple v. Samsung

2011-12-04T15:04:00.001-06:00

It is now coming to light that the Apple iPad is a slavish copy of a 17-year-old device.

I can't wait until Apple patents the design of the TV.

Amazon's Silk browser is faster without the Silk

2011-11-22T13:23:00.001-06:00

Amazon's new Silk browser is supposed to offer "Ultra-fast web browsing" by caching webpages in Amazon's cloud before delivering them to your Kindle Fire. However, AnandTech tested the Silk browser and found that enabling "Accelerate page loading" actually slows down page loads. The test does show that Amazon's cloud caching decreases data use by around 10%, but this provides no benefit to consumers because the Kindle Fire is currently Wi-Fi only.

I am interested to know the "far more nefarious explanations" for the development of the Silk browser.

A missed opportunity?

2011-10-05T12:13:00.000-05:00

Why didn't Nokia buy Palm?

MSE vs. Google Chrome

2011-09-30T18:00:00.003-05:00

Hah, this is a low blow in my book.

Thoughts on the Kindle Fire

2011-09-28T15:34:00.001-05:00

Everyone is acting like the $199 Kindle Fire is the long-awaited iPad killer, but my initial reaction is that Amazon basically just announced a stripped-down, locked-in, one-year-old tablet. It's stripped-down because it's only 7", has no camara (not even one), no mic, only 8GB of internal storage, and no storage card slot. It's locked-in because it seems to be tightly integrated with Amazon services. Why do you think the Fire has a pathetic 8GB of storage and no storage card slot? I'd say it's to force owners to use Amazon's cloud storage and media streaming services, which are, conveniently, tightly integrated into the Fire's customized Android OS. Sounds a lot like Apple's business model to me. And, it's one-year-old because it's running Android 2.3, which was released in December 2010. Of course, it's running a "customized" 2.3, but it seems like most of the customization is just integration all of Amazon's services into the OS.

Getting HP dm1z's wireless to work with Ubuntu 11.04

2011-08-31T14:30:00.003-05:00

I bought a HP dm1z in January and finally got around to installing Ubuntu 11.04 on it the other day. Unfortunately, the HP dm1z's Ralink 5390 wireless card didn't work in Ubuntu. I spent a good couple hours running through forums and finally found the fix! Here's what to do:

Go to Ralink-->Software-->Linux and download the RT539xPCIe driver to your Downloads folder. Open your Downloads folder and you will find a tar.bz2 archive called 2011_0406_RT5390_RT5392_Linux_STA_V2.5.0.3_DPO_GPL .bz2. Right click that file and select "Extract Here." A new tar archive will appear called 2011_0406_RT5390_RT5392_Linux_STA_V2.5.0.3_DPO_GPL. Right click the new file and select "Extract Here." Another new file will appear. Open this file (i.e., the one produced by the second extraction), then open 'os', then open 'linux', then open 'config.mk'. Once you have opened 'config.mk', set 'HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y' and 'HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y'. Then click save and close 'config.mk'.

After you have performed these steps, open a Terminal and execute the following code:

cd Downloads/2011*

sudo su

make

make install

modprobe rt5390sta

exit

You should be able to connect to wireless networks now!

Of course, when Ralink publishes an updated driver this process may not work, much as the processes for past Ralink drivers did not work for me. In that case, I suggest you visit this forum and hope chili555 is still on patrol! Oh, and I should also add that this fix will probably become moot in October, as Ubuntu 11.10 will supposedly support the 5390 chip.

Why has Libya made France a hawk?

2011-08-27T16:36:00.005-05:00

The New York Times reports that French support for the NATO operation in Libya has improved the U.S. image of French military allegiance. Let's not be naive. Just do a quick search through the annual reports of Total (French) and Eni (Italian) and you will see why France was eager to intervene, but Italy showed reluctance.

Total Lybian hydrocarbon production, 2010: 55 kbbe/d

Eni Lybian hydrocarbon production, 2010: 273 kbbe/d

It's that simple.

Jobs is gone, sort of

2011-08-24T22:38:00.002-05:00

I can't resist comparing Jobs' resignation as CEO and move to the Board to Vladimir Putin's move from President to Prime Minister.

Ames Republican presidential debate post mortum

2011-08-16T13:26:00.003-05:00

You can disagree with Ron Paul all you want, but how can you even consider voting for any of the other Republican candidates? Every other person on that stage was so obviously insincere; most (really all) are outright liars.

What I mean is, I can understand how someone could not vote for Ron Paul, I just can't understand how someone could vote for anyone else.

Google to buy Motorola Mobility

2011-08-15T14:57:00.001-05:00

I wonder if this has anything to do with this?

WordPerfect review

2011-08-04T15:18:00.003-05:00

I've been using WordPerfect since I started my new job in March. I have to say I've been extremely disappointed. I have somewhere around 120 programs on my computer, and WordPerfect is by far the buggiest of them all.

For instance, I've had a .wpd file open almost all day, but hadn't touched it in an hour or so. But, just a moment ago, it jumped me up a page on the document. No human or environmental interaction with the computer in an hour, and WordPerfect just decided I was kidding about wanting to be on page 112--really I wanted to be on 111. I guess it's nice to know it has a telepathy feature, I just wish it actually worked! Instead I feel like it's reading the mind of a June bug--just flying around aimlessly.

Anyhow, things like that happen every day with this software; it will just randomly decide to ignore my commands, or just do random things on its own. It's astounding. If it weren't for reveal codes, nobody would use this alpha-level program.

Computer problem

2011-06-12T11:32:00.002-05:00

Okay, I have been having this problem for the past two months or so where my BIOS and/or Windows 7 is only sporadically recognizing my two optical drives and my external HD. On rare occasions it even fails to recognize my internal HD on boot. I've tried the Windows forums and all that and no one has presented me with a solution.

First, my specs:

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

CPU: AMD Athlon II X3 445

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3

RAM: 8GB (4 x 2GB) ADATA DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Model AD3U1333B2G9-DRH

Video Card: Palit GeForce GT 240 512MB GDDR5 Model NE5T2400FHD51

HD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB Model WD5000AAKS

External HD: Seagate Expansion External Drive 1TB USB 2.0 Model ST310005EXA101-RK

Optical Drive #1: Lite-On iHES208 Internal Blu-ray Reader & DVD/CD Writer

Optical Drive #2: Lite-On iHBS112 Internal Blu-ray Writer

PS: Corsair Enthusiast Series 650W CMPSU-650TX

First, the external HD. When I boot, the detecting storage devices screen will detect my internal HD 99% of the time, but it only detects the Seagate about 10% of the time. So, for instance, when I try to boot Ubuntu from the Seagate, most of the time the drive isn't detected as a boot option. However, once I get into Windows I can always access the Seagate. I am fairly certain the issue is not with the Seagate because my laptop always recognizes it and boots from it if I want. I tried extending the time for detecting storage devices in the BIOS, thinking maybe it just needed more time to pick it up, but that had no effect other than prolonging my boot.

Now the optical drives. My computer probably detects the iHES208 on boot only 5% of the time, and detects the iHBS112 on boot about 90% of the time. However, for some reason if I try to boot an ISO from the iHBS112, even when it has been detected and is present in the boot options BIOS screen, it just boots Windows. Burning has also been an issue. CDBurnerXP has both drives in the drive menu, but it tells me there is no blank disc in either drive I try even though there is. But the iHBS112 will read discs in Windows.

When I first build the computer back in January everything worked fine. I can't really explain what is causing these problems. Any bright ideas!?

Chrome-less

2011-05-31T21:00:00.002-05:00

I am appreciating the humor in Mozilla's not too subtle swipe at Google Chrome with their release of Chromeless.

Quote of the day

2011-05-01T11:17:00.003-05:00

I got a laugh out of it. On Gaddafi:

He has a split personality--both parts evil.

-Gaafar Nimeiry

The future of Safari

2011-04-30T23:46:00.005-05:00

What are Apple's plans for Safari? I can't really see why they don't just end development.

Safari is operating on a woefully slow release schedule compared to Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and even Internet Explorer. Furthermore, Safari has allowed the far more advanced Chrome browser to totally usurp the WebKit banner. It just doesn't seem like Apple really cares about keeping up anymore. I can't even remember the last time they added a significant feature that wasn't already standard on the other major browsers. Just think that in the year between the releases of Safari 4 and 5 all Apple managed to come up with were extensions (a Firefox feature for years prior) and Bing.

I guess it still looks pretty, but what's the point anymore?

Google TV, Logitech Revue, and other internet boxes

2011-04-29T10:05:00.005-05:00

I just read an article summing up the profound struggles of the Logitech Revue and Google TV, and I tend to agree with most of the author's analysis.

The studios have been keeping TV in the stone-age because of their copyright fears, so combining search and TV content is certainly long overdue. However, the Revue, which is little more than a small box with Google's TV search engine, started at a ludicrous $300 price point. It's down to around $230 now, but even that is grossly overpriced. As the article suggested, there are other software products that have capabilities very similar to Google TV. Hulu, Boxee, and Windows Media Center, for example, all offer search capabilities and Hulu and Boxee are completely free. So why would anyone pay $230 for a device that does nothing but run Google TV? Heck, I can't even understand why anyone pays even $100 for Apple TVs and Roku boxes. If you don't care about Blu-ray, you can buy a $200 nettop and download the Hulu and Boxee clients for free, play Netflix in your browser, and have access to iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and everything else!

In January I decided I needed to get Blu-ray and Netflix up and running on my TV. I looked into the Revue, Apple TV, Roku boxes, networked Blu-ray players, etc.... What I found is that you have to pay about $100 to get something that will either do Netflix or Blu-ray. To get a networked Blu-ray player that will do both Blu-ray and Netflix, you have to pay about $150. And of course you could get Netflix and Google TV on the Revue for, at the time, a whopping $300! On the other hand, I found that you can just buy an actual computer that will do Netflix, Blu-ray, and everything under the Sun for less than $400 if you're savvy. I can see that in many cases people won't want to buy a $400 computer for every TV, but why buy Apple TV, Roku boxes, Boxee Boxes, Revues, etc..., when you can get it all on a nettop for $200 or get a networked Blu-ray player for $150?

Mozilla mimics Chrome's release channels

2011-04-13T13:31:00.002-05:00

Mozilla now has four Firefox release channels: Nightly, Aurora, Beta, and Final Release.

The Middle East and the Executive

2011-04-03T17:32:00.003-05:00

We have all been watching the ongoing popular uprisings in the Middle East aimed at toppling the region's many long-time dictators. This has caused me to rethink some of my ideas about the executive.

I have often wondered how to structure the executive so that the very best members of society would be interested to seek the Presidency. For instance, I have often considered whether it would be preferable to dramatically increase the President's compensation.

However, I recently read an article (I can't remember where the article was) that made a very good point: the Middle Eastern executive is generally the seat of nearly absolute power and wealth, such that once anyone obtains that position they will do much to keep it. The limited executive in the U.S. system may not attract the brightest leaders, but that seems a small price to pay for stability.

Motorola: Part 2

2011-03-30T08:57:00.004-05:00

Well it seems I may have heaped praise on Motorola too soon. There are new reports that they are now developing a proprietary Linux-based mobile OS, presumably to replace Android on their devices.

I do not understand this, especially considering the current plight of Nokia. Mobile computing is little different than desktop/laptop computing, in that the marketplaces does not want to deal with more than 2-4 operating systems. It just breeds incompatibility. Looking at the mobile OS marketplace right now, there is Android, iOS, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry OS, and WebOS. All of these seem to have enough industry and market support to survive at the moment, with the possible exception of WebOS, though I think HP's plan to install it on all their computers (and even some printers!) is a great idea. Why does Motorola think diverting resources from device development to software development is a good idea with all that competition?

What's more is there is a company that just tried to develop their own Linux-based OS, with the help of AMD and Intel, only to find out that no one wants to develop for a sixth mobile OS. This company also has significantly more experience developing mobile OSs and significantly more market share than Motorola. That company is, of course, Nokia, which recently accepted market realities and terminated their MeeGo mobile OS in favor of Windows Phone 7. Why does Motorola think diverting immense resources to compete with Google, Apple, Microsoft, Research In Motion, and HP will yield a different result?

Motorola is already at the forefront of mobile device development with the Atrix and Xoom, but they have to keep up with tons of competition from companies like Samsung, HTC, and many more. I do understand that all this competition is commoditizing mobile devices and forcing Motorola to differentiate, but is jumping in the ring with the aforementioned mobile OS heavyweights really the answer? Unless their mobile OS will be ultra-compatible with Android (e.g., able to run Android apps, which is not out of the question), I wonder how this is a successful strategy for Motorola.

Motorola and the Future of Mobile Computing

2011-03-09T12:06:00.000-06:00

With smartphones, netbooks, and, particularly, tablets here to stay, I've been left wondering what services and technologies will arise to keep all of these devices in sync. And what of the possibility that someone may own an Android smartphone, an Apple tablet, and a Windows netbook?

Okay, I admit, if you're drinking the Steve Jobs Kool-Aid, you will probably have an iPhone, an iPad, and an Apple netbook. So you will probably be able to fill most of the void by shelling out $100 a year for MobileMe. But what if you're not gung-ho for Apple? How will you keep everything in sync?

To a certain extent you could at least keep most of your files with you by using a cloud storage and sync service like SugarSync or Dropbox. But there is always going to be a limit to device inter-functionality because of software compatibility issues (e.g., OS, office suites).

I think Motorola is onto something with their new Atrix 4G (which I plan to purchase when it becomes available). Motorola sells an optional "Lapdock," which is essentially an 11.6-inch netbook, just without any computing innards. All the Lapdock's computing power comes from a docked Atrix, so there are no sync or compatibility issues.

Essentially, Motorola is suggesting that we own only one mobile computing unit that will do the thinking for all of our mobile platforms. I think this is a fantastic shift in mobile computing! Instead of having a desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone, we can shift to a desktop and smartphone/laptop/tablet setup. Simplicity!

If this mobile setup works for Motorola and other companies, it will largely validate Palm's premature vision with Foleo. The difference between Palm then and Motorola now is that, with SOCs like the Nvidia Tegra 2, smartphones finally have the computing power to support all of the functions of a netbook and tablet. Additionally, the Android OS is far more powerful than Palm OS ever was, and Android phones enjoy compatibility across cell phone manufacturers and cell carriers.

Best WWII FPS

2011-02-12T21:24:00.012-06:00

I haven't played a WWII FPS since MOH:AA because pretty much every FPS released since then has been a modern warfare-type, which I find pretty boring. The COD series has made matters even worse by causing FPS development to shift to a modern warfare-arcade model (as if modern warfare wasn't arcadey enough already). Thus, the current state of FPS development is totally inimical to the WWII FPS, which is necessarily based on a simulation model due to the weapon constraints of the period.

Having thus been out of the FPS world for so long (MOH:AA and Battlefield 1942 were both released in 2002!), I decided to search around for anything that had missed my attention over years. I did a few Google searches and was surprised to see the name Forgotten Hope 2 listed as the top WWII FPS on almost every forum. I learned that FH2 is actually a free community-developed mod for Battlefield 2. Free mods don't make any money to buy any press, so it was little wonder I had never heard of FH2. Despite its obscurity, I can now say that FH2 is, without question, the best WWII FPS there is.

You might think the game would be pretty dated, since it's building off a 5+ year-old engine, but I completely disagree with that sentiment. The FH2 developers are, apparently, extremely dedicated, probably thanks to the knowledge that EA and Activision are off fighting insurgents in Wherever-istan for the foreseeable future. The dev team has created some amazing historical maps and objects. Another thing to consider is that you can run the game with maxed graphics settings on pretty much any half-decent graphics card these days. The kicker: since FH2 is a free mod, all you have to buy is BF2, which you can get on Amazon for $8!

Oh, and FH2 is still actively developed. Apparently the Eastern Front is in the works! (Though I can't imagine any theater besting the North Africa maps).

3G E-Readers

2011-01-26T20:29:00.002-06:00

I could never understand why anyone would shell out $50 bucks just to add a 3G connection to their e-reader. It seems like I may not be alone, and Barnes & Noble may be picking up on it.

Nook's built-in memory alone can hold 1,500 books. How likely is it that anyone would ever run out of books, and not be in the vicinity of free Wi-Fi (especially with tethering and mobile hotspots on the horizon), and be absolutely desperate to read some book? Not to mention, if you can't find a Barnes & Noble, Borders, Starbucks, McDonald's, etc..., you're probably not in a 3G coverage area anyhow.

Those of us stuck with AT&T could:

2011-01-04T16:07:00.006-06:00

1. Buy a Captivate now, or

2. Wait a few weeks and get a dual-core Android 2.3 phone