Summary of this week:

Chinese smartphones DO steal your data
Robin Williams commits suicide at 63
USB type-C connector spec is finished

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday

Monday August 11, 2014

A look inside "Apple University."

Ars Technica goes to the gun range for more shooting of precision guided firearms from TrackingPoint.

Coming this week, a new commercial imagery satellite capable of ten-inch resolution.

Microsoft's Hyperlapse software speeds your boring GoPro footage and makes it smooth.

More on the dangerous use of sleeping pills on the International Space Station.

Microsoft tries an old ad campaign of comparing its tablets with Apple's. You try to put your product next to a successful one so that the consumer will as well. It might help as nothing else has helped the sales of Microsoft tablets.

A look at Drupal, Joomla, and Wordpress for content management.

The City of Detroit, its government, can't seem to do anything right.

This machine can make people working the fast food kitchens all unemployed.

Chinese smartphones are shown to steal your data and send it back to China.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Tuesday August 12, 2014

Robin Williams takes his own life at 63.

Someone has found an original HP-01 calculator watch from 1977 in an un-issued color. The cool factor won't fit on any chart.

Coming real soon now from Intel—low-power Broadwell processors.

Start up companies continue to fail at 90% and more. Little has changed in the real world of business.

Uber and Lyft are so successful that they are now using dirty business practices. Success sometimes leads to failure.

Uber drivers are making a lot of money driving the rich to and fro in the Hamptons this summer. At times I wonder about the US economy. Unemployment is high, see, e.g., all these educated people trying to make a living by giving rides to rich people. If they could find a real job they wouldn't be an Uber driver.

The birth of the US Digital Service. Good intentions; doomed to failure. The creators are showing an incredible lack of knowledge about how government agencies (dys)function.

Here is what happens to you when you like everything on Facebook.

It appears that Amtrak has been giving passenger information to law enforcement for years.

Most of us spend much more than we need to for health care. Collective Health aims to stop that. I wish them well.

Among millennials, Snapchat is the #3 social media platform.

A look at some Microsoft ads comparing its Surface Pro with the MacBook from that other company whose products people actually buy.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Wednesday August 13, 2014

Ahead of its arrival, Apple is working with several major hospitals on its HealthKit system in iOS 8.

The USB Implementers Forum completed the type-C connector specification. It is smaller to fit with today's smaller mobile devices. It will be in devices real soon now.

Law enforcement has the tools to spy on Android devices, but not on iOS.

All levels of government are moving to iPads and other Apple mobile devices.

Stories of hackers hacking smartphones at Def Con. Of course Health Care dot Gov is secure. I don't understand adults who believe in the security of government web sites. I must be missing something.

One person's project to lose weight and help his friends become healthier.

Google now offers Classroom free to any teacher. More on the story from Engadget.

For rural broadband, ViaSat now has an unlimited high-speed satellite service.

Rural public libraries continue to lag urban libraries for Internet access and speed.

Apple released its diversity numbers. 70% male (not "good") 55% white (surprisingly balanced).

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Thursday August 14, 2014

The death of the battery in my MacBook Pro (five years old) kept me offline.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Friday August 15, 2014

Johanna Rothman has an excellent post on the folly of treating people as resources and cutting expenses.

New Intel processors promise an upgrade to the Mac Pro (little cylinder supercomputer).

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge continues to spread. Someone should probably win a Nobel Prize for this. Just exagerating—slightly.

github and its efforts to educate our government on the use of open-source software.

Thoughts on letting your smart home take care of itself while you are away. CAUTION. Much of the smart home devices have been shown to be security hazards.

Hemp fibers perform as well as graphene at 1/1000th the cost.

The Health Care dot Gov website disaster goes onto the list of such government programs.

One young woman's experience with Girls Who Code. I love the results. I am concerned, however, with disciminating by gender to end discriminating by gender.

Researchers show how to use a smartphone's gyroscope as a microphone for surveillance.

If you don't already own a tablet, laptop, and desktop computer, those big-screen smartphones make a lot of sense.

Windows 7 is the new Windows XP: that OS that we will use longer than we thought (because its successor, well, you know).

Google Classroom and enforcing really old teaching technologies and practices.

Templates for infographic-style resumes. Clever.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Saturday August 16, 2014

Facebook has 1.2million ice bucket challenge videos. Someone should get a Nobel Peace Prize or something.

Apple still has health and safety issues at some of its Chinese supplier factories. I doubt other companies are any different.

You can get malware by watching videos on YouTube and other sites. Not to worry, the most expensive website in the history of man, a.k.a., Health Care dot Gov, is immune to security problems.

Coming real soon now, solid-state batteries that are better and cheaper than Lithium Ion.

The "cable TV" companies now have more broadband customers than television customers.

Government to the rescue again. Our FAA rules that private pilots cannot share a ride and share expenses.

Small businesses and individuals are rapidly buying cloud storage.

Our government has approved China's Lenovo buying IBM's server business.

At Def Con, a portable router that hides your Internet traffic.

American citizens are suing the American government about being put on secret watch lists. By the way, these American citizens all have the same religion. I am not naive, and our government cannot target people because of their religion.

Email me a t d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Sunday August 17, 2014

Don't quit your day job. Excellent advice that isn't popular today, but it is still the best advice. One famous scifi writer, pardon my lapse of memory on his name, but he is famous, taught college. He decided that he would keep his day job until his writing income equaled his teaching income two years in a row.

The easiest, silliest way to create a GIF using an unpublished YouTube tool. This is known as an Easter Egg.

The self-charging device. Sound waves are everywhere, they can vibrate a power-generating machine in your smartphone. Yes, physical motion is everywhere. All we have to do is transform the physical energy into electrical energy. Perhaps one day this will come to something.

The Sharing Economy—where everyone owns their own one-person business—freedom and uncertainty.

Some jobs that make writing at night a little easier.

How some writers are using Google+.

Writing lessons from a freelance editor.

The phase of rumination for writers. Do lots of stuff with other people to help an idea form in your mind.

Writers, make sure your books are available from Apple. People own iPads and read from them.

Thinking of moving from a day job to full-time freelance writing? Here are some tips. First and foremost are those pesky financial considerations. Reduce your cost of living in half. Then do that again. Then do that again. Ready to start now?

Some thoughts on the length of blog posts.

More on fear and failure. "There's tip number one: Start by writing an intentionally bad sentence. Make it the worst sentence you can think of to express the thought. Then throw that one away and get to work."

Fear of failure and how it hurts writers. Write anyways. You are going to fail anyways.

Thinking and working like an editor.

Tips on attempting to publish your short stories in magazines.

A good fiction technique: let characters show that they know one of the characters better than that character knows himself.

Several sites where you can create an online portfolio of your writing.

Email me a t d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page