Ok. So here is the question. Where can you buy books, music, movies and the infrastructure to build the next MySpace, Flickr or YouTube?
Amazon.com has the worlds biggest retail site. That takes quite a bit of infrastructure to run a site like that…right? But an infrastructure like that is also a valuable commodity if you can monetize it…Amazon seems to be trying to do just that. They want to provide the infrastructure that will power the next wave of web sites. The amazing part of the Amazon Web Services offering is that there are no setup charges or other up-front costs required to setup a world-class scalable web application. If you can imagine it, you can build it…on the Amazon framework.
So here is what they are actually offering and what it means.
Until my last post, I didn’t realize how popular the iTouch really was. I also didn’t realize how frustrated people are that Apple is not opening up the OS for the iTouch and iPhone and letting users install 3rd party apps. I have gotten two types of responses to my previous post. The type that I really appreciate are the ones where individuals are relieved to have finally found a coherent description of the steps for jailbreaking their iTouch. The other type is interesting. I have actually had individuals blame me for their iTouch not working. I’ve approved the comments that I could. Some of them were so inappropriate that i couldn’t approve them. Read the rest of this entry >>>
I know there are hundreds of sites that describe how to upgrade, download, break in and break out of iPhones and iTouches. I was intending to wait until the official release of the iPhone SDK because I simply didn’t have time to try and repair my iTouch after I turned it into a brick through the unavoidable experimentation with different sometimes vague directions on how to jailbreak your device. Read the rest of this entry >>>
Whether you like Macs or not, whether you like Apple or not, you have to admit, the iPod and iTouch are simply cool! I used to admire HP engineering but with the iPod, the iPhone, the iTouch and the MacBooks (especially the MacBook Air), i have to say the award for best hardware design goes to Apple.
And now, for the moment we’ve all been waiting for…well, the moment, i’ve been waiting for anyway…
Steve Jobs: “Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February.”
Bruce Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography and other books and articles on security and privacy, leaves his wireless network unprotected. My first reaction was probably the same as yours. What an idiot! He then goes on to make a few points that made me regret my first reaction. Bruce highlights the many other ways we take security for granted including leaving doors unlocked, drive in the rain while on a cellphone (whew!) and make other security sacrifices for the sake of convenience.
He explains that while it leaves your computers more vulnerable to leave your wifi open, you are exposed when you use your laptop in a public location anyway so you had better learn to secure your computer.
While I agree with nearly all of Bruce’s comments, I think i’ll keep my wifi secure. Oh yeah…i’m going to start locking the back door when I leave the house now as well!
Less than a week after it came out Sony BMG was planning to sell music not loaded down with copyright, they’re officially selling DRM-free MP3s through Amazon’s MP3 store later this month, making it the first to carry DRM-free music from all four major labels.
I remember when the hoopla was about radio scanners eavesdropping on analog cordless phones. Every new technology seems to introduce a new way to violate our privacy. This little gem seems to allow capturing or recording audio while a bluetooth device is not actually in a call. This would mean that you can eavesdrop from room-to-room or with a laptop, from car-to-car at a stoplight even when someone is not using their bluetooth headset.
Here is a link to a useful collection of bluetooth hacking tools.
Firefox 3 Beta 2 has been officially released over at Mozilla.
[Improved in Beta 2!] Firefox 3 Beta 2 includes approximately 900 improvements over the previous beta, including fixes for stability, performance, memory usage, platform enhancements and user interface improvements.
