Bud Boy Tech

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Reviews

Rob Steenwyk — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 04:10:07 +0000

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is one of the most anticipated phones of the year and its US release date is getting tantalizingly close as it has been confirmed it will be released in November. Many people across the blogosphere are saying it will be released sometime next week (21st through the 25th) but that is still just speculation at this point.

Despite not knowing the release date, us Android fanatics can at least whet our appetites on the multiple reviews that were posted today.

The Verge - by far the most in depth review I've seen so far
TechCrunch -
MobileSyrup (almost as unknown as Bud Boy Tech : ) )
Computerworld
CNET

One major concern that many have had about the phone, the Super AMOLED Pentile screen, looks like it can be put to rest. The screen on the Galaxy Nexus is, according to all the reviews I've read, gorgeous. To see for yourself just take a look at this comparison courtesy someone over at HowardForums.com.

Have any other reviews you think I should have linked? Let me know in the comments!

How to auto join a chatroom ( MUC ) with Psi

Rob Steenwyk — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 04:09:54 +0000

Psi is an excellent cross-platform Jabber client with full MUC (Multi User Chatroom) capabilities. There are other Jabber clients out there, like Pidgin, but Psi is my favorite due to all of the options available, specifically the ability to change users roles in a MUC. But in order to use all those cool options, you first need to be in a chat room.

Get connected to the Jabber service of your choosing
Click General --> Service Discovery and select the name of your Jabber service
Expand "Chatrooms" then right click and "Join" on the room that you want.
That's it!

System Administrator Communities

Rob Steenwyk — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 02:18:19 +0000

If you are in the IT field, whether in desktop support, system admin or networking there will be times where you simply won't know the answer to a question off the top of your head (probably many times a day if you are anything like me). Google or your search engine of choice obviously fills in most of the gaps, but to get the information you want out of Google you usually need to know enough to ask the right question, or there simply hasn't been anything posted online about it yet. When both your brain and Google fail you, wouldn't it be nice to be able to turn to a community of people in the same field to bounce your questions off of? Well, thanks to the modern marvel known as the internet, you can!

Sometimes it can be hard to find the quality communities that actually stay on topic (AKA not filled with head hunters or SEO weenies). Over the years I've come across a few different sites that have wonderful communities of real IT professionals just like me who sometimes need a helping hand. Without further ado, here you go!

Reddit Sysadmin - Reddit for sysadmins!
ServerFault - A Q&A style website where users can vote the answers up and down based on the quality of the answer.
Ars Technica forums - Specifically the Server Room, Windows Technical Mojo and Linux Kung Fu sub forums.

Those 3 are my go to sites when I need to ask a question that Google just can't find an answer for. Remember, if you decide to ask a question on any of those sites provide as much information as you can and be polite!

I'm back baby

Rob Steenwyk — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 01:33:56 +0000

Wow, it has been over a year since I've last posted something on BudBoyTech, I let the domain expire and all my "Google Karma" is gone. Oh well :)

No promises on how much I'll post, but we'll see. I've been thinking about posting an update to my article on Google Apps vs Microsoft BPOS, but that will take some pretty serious research, so we shall see.

Anyways, if anyone is reading this, thanks for stopping by and remember to subscribe to the RSS feed to catch any new content.

D&D on Microsoft Surface

Rob Steenwyk — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 02:17:10 +0000

This is cool. CNET has an article up, with video, of Dungeons and Dragons being played on the Microsoft Surface. Now, I've never actually played D&D, mostly because all the tables and math and line of sight scares the crap out of me. But if I ever got the chance to play on a Surface, I'd definitely go for it, because the computer handles all the boring crap for you.

Considering that Surface costs over $12000 dollars, I doubt I'll ever get the chance to play on it, but if costs come down on similar units in the future, your kids just might be playing D&D on a device similar to it in the future.... of course, that future might be a long ways away if you play D&D :)

Here's the video.

If you want to read the CNET article, click here.

Banking with Facebook - Probably not the best idea ever

Rob Steenwyk — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 04:13:05 +0000

Mike Bailey at Skeptikal.org wrote up last week about a new Facebook app called MyMoney. MyMoney is an application that according to its creators allows you to:

Manage your finances right from your Facebook profile, simply and securely! MyMoney is an online home banking application that interacts with a variety of financial institutions, so you can view your account balances, transfer money between accounts, review histories, and much more.

Sounds kind of cool? Hold your horses. In a post dripping with sarcasm (letting you know in case your detector is a bit off) he says:

I know you're thinking this is a bad idea, and are concerned about MyMoney's security. Don't worry, I checked it out. They have "multiple layers of security protecting...data and accounts." The application iframes you into their site (hosted on https://mm.galaxyplus.com). If you forget the URL, they left zone transfers enabled for you, so you can just select from a list of galaxyplus.com subdomains. The iframe's URL has a parameter called "fb_sig_user." If you manipulate this parameter, you get to see the contents of all your friends' accounts (presumably so you can borrow money without all that awkward asking). The only thing I don't like about this application is that they left error reporting on. I don't like seeing those ugly ASP stack traces every time I use an HTML tag as a form parameter. Lol!

Note to readers: online banking should be done in a virtual machine if at all possible, and that is all that you should do with VM, nothing else. If that is too much of a hassle, at least download and install a browser like Firefox or Chrome and use that browser exclusively for your banking.

If you'd like to read the entire (hilarious) post, click here.

Did you like this article? If you want to get more articles like it, please consider subscribing to the Bud Boy Tech RSS feed by clicking here.

Unbiased Motorola Droid Review

Rob Steenwyk — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 04:56:39 +0000

Verizon Droid Smart PhoneIf you've been looking for a review of the Motorola Droid from the perspective of the average geek, check out a friend of mines review here. I worked with Andy at a previous company and he is both an excellent Network Administrator and writer, so I hope you enjoy it!

3D Modelling in Firefox

Rob Steenwyk — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:00:09 +0000

I know I'm at risk of becoming a Ars Technica whore, but I thought their article on WebGL being implemented in Firefox was sweet.

The future of the web is bright with the <video> tag coming with HTML 5 and WebGL on it's way perhaps even sooner. w00t!

If you are a nerd like me, definitely read the article.

Chrome coming to Internet Explorer

Rob Steenwyk — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:09:42 +0000

According to Ars Technica, Chrome is coming to Internet Explorer in the form of a plugin. Once the plugin is widely deployed, web masters will be able to put in a simple meta tag telling IE to pass off the rendering of the webpage to Chrome's renderer.

The plugin is not yet available, but Google has open sourced the code and is hoping for testers and contributors to contribute to the project. I honestly don't know how many people will actually install the plugin, or how many developers will require IE users to install it, but it could definitely become interesting if Google can get even 25% of IE users to install the plugin.

I'm sure web masters the world over will be rejoicing if the plugin can become mainstream.

Did the Google Search Bar Get Bigger or am I going crazy?

Rob Steenwyk — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 22:01:17 +0000

Am I crazy or did Google change their search bar?That seems to be a question many people are asking. No, you aren't going crazy, at least not in noticing this change. Google made the search input box larger, and also made the search suggestions that drop down while you are typing in your query a much larger font. I'm not exactly sure why Google didn't put a notice up on the main page explaining this change, perhaps they didn't think people would notice or care. People do care though, I have heard a few people at work wondering out loud WTF was going on. I would have been in the same boat, but thankfully I had read a post on the Google Blog explaining that the change was coming, so I could just cackle with knowing glee :).