Technology Blog

For the first time since Chrome was made, it has overtaken...

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 13:14:07 -0500

For the first time since Chrome was made, it has overtaken Firefox as the most used browser. This was reported by Stat Counter, a web analytics company. The stats report that Chrome took 25.69% of the worldwide market (up 4.66% in November 2009), compared to Firefox’s 25.23%. Microsoft is still in the lead with 40.63%. One day, Chrome shall take over the world!!

Remember that catchy tune on the "You Wouldn't Steal a Handbag..." antipiracy notices? Yup. They pirated the music.

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 13:10:49 -0500

Remember that catchy tune on the "You Wouldn't Steal a Handbag..." antipiracy notices? Yup. They pirated the music.:

Anti-piracy group BREIN is caught up in a huge copyright scandal in the Netherlands. A musician who composed a track for use at a local film festival later found it being used without permission in an anti-piracy campaign. He is now claiming at least a million euros for the unauthorized distribution of his work on DVDs. To make matters even worse, a board member of a royalty collection agency offered to to help the composer to recoup the money, but only if he received 33% of the loot.

I think the copyright owner should issue a fine of 100,000 euros per DVD containing the track. If you don’t get the reference, Joel Tenenbaum downloaded 30 tracks and was persecuted by the RIAA for $675,000. There is a double standard here, and it really proves that the recording industries and the anti-piracy groups are all in it just for the money.

The amount of DVDs made with this pirated track exceeds 10,000,000! If Joel Tenenbaum was charged for $675,000 for 30 tracks, and if you do the math… BREIN should owe 225000000000 USD!

11/11/11 - A lot of people are excited for this day because a...

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:04:00 -0500

11/11/11 - A lot of people are excited for this day because a game gets released today, Skyrim. Its cool and all, but don’t forget, today is Veteran’s Day AKA Armistice Day. Whether you agree with the war or support the troops or not, take a moment to think about what the vetean’s of the US have done.

Also, if you are so inclined, call your local representatives and ask what they are doing to get the homeless veterans off the street and how they are helping veterans with PTSD. About 25% of all homeless are veterans. They are often stuck because they can not get the proper paperwork to prove they are veterans and recieve help from the VA. Many of them suffer from a mental illness, which is caused by their time serving in the military.

Furthermore, we Americans should also note that Veteran’s Day is a far more solemn occasion in Europe, and rightly so. The first world war ravaged the entire continent far worse than Americans have ever seen in their land. Armistice Day celebrates the peace that came, even though it may have been short-lived, in the wake of the conflict. Americans seem to have ignored this celebration and instead change it into a celebration of our own soldiers. The fact that Americans now honor our own rather than mark November 11th because it commemorates the ceasefire that came from the bloodiest war in the world has ever seen at the time deserves a fair amount of skepticism.
I am not trying to undermine what the American Veterans have done. All veterans deserve our respect and gratitude. I am just trying to convey what the true meaning of Veteran’s day is and how much damage it has done in other places.
Picture credits to Tony the Misfit

Microsoft has made a great invention. If people tinkered around...

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 23:26:47 -0400

Microsoft has made a great invention. If people tinkered around with it and it was a Sony product, they would lock it down and try to sue. Microsoft however embraced this open community and saw what Kinect really had to offer.

As someone on youtube said, “Dear Steve Ballmer, this is what we expect from MSFT. Kinect is the most incredible thing I’ve seen from any technology company in the past 1-2 decades. We love Windows and your other products, but it is time to give us more things like Kinect. Continue to free your mind Microsoft. When you do, you can change the world”

St Johns takes away the game again against C.W. Post!! This was...

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

St Johns takes away the game again against C.W. Post!!

This was held at Carnesecca Arena and we won 110-80!

This game doesn’t affect the rankings, but we started out very well! it wa sa great game and it was a wonderful feeling!

Facebook could face €100,000 fine for holding data that users have deleted

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:05:21 -0400

Facebook could face €100,000 fine for holding data that users have deleted:

Why am I not surprised. Facebook has been caught holding deleted data. According to Irish laws, facebook can be heavily fined due to this! Hopefully facebook will learn from this and stop storing user’s deleted data against their will. I mean deleted data SHOULD be deleted data, right?

Skype users BitTorrent habits traceable even when logged out for 3 days

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:03:41 -0400

Skype users BitTorrent habits traceable even when logged out for 3 days:

First EA’s Origin can track your computer, now skype will track your bittorrent usage. Is this an invasion of personal information? Not really, if you read the EULA and the ToS, it says that it can!

EA’s Origin service is basically spyware, according to Origin’s EULA. Agreeing to the ToS gives EA permission to track all kinds of information about you and your habits, and sell them to third parties.

The Writing Center, or formally the Institute for Writing...

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The Writing Center, or formally the Institute for Writing Studies, is a place at St. Johns where students can learn about every stage in writing and get help in every stage of writing. They help with all kinds of papers, research papers, thesis papers, cover letters, résumés, creative writing and any other writings. The writing center is staffed by undergraduates and graduate students, and you can make an appointment or walk-in, although you will have better luck if you make an appointment. Furthermore, if you want, you can just come in and just use the silent and scholarly atmosphere to do your work alone.

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square..."

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:15:29 -0400

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

When i was 7 years old i saw a man in a black turtleneck and...

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:14:52 -0400

When i was 7 years old i saw a man in a black turtleneck and Levi’s standing on a stage talking about a little white box that he said would “change everything” Turns out it did, that device was called the iPod and it changed the way we all listen to music. Many years before that this same man introduced the first computer with a mouse, now you can’t find a computer without one. Only a few years ago he held up a small black device with a touch screen and called it revolutionary, and he was right. That device changed how we all interact with technology and with each other. Steve Jobs was not only a great visionary, but a revolutionary. This man deserves a moment of silence from anyone reading this. Because of his massive effect on the consumer electronics industry you can read this from a device you can fit in your pocket. Nearly every piece of technology you own has a touch of his presence. While many saw him as a dictator over his kingdom of Apple, there is no denying his incredible impact on not only the electronics industry, but the world. Please take a moment to give this man your respect and thoughts.

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” - Steve Jobs

Rest in Peace

Phone Security

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:25:09 -0400

Scarlet Johanson’s recently photo leak is now among others like her, Jessica Alba, Vanesse Hudgens and Blake Lively. Now all of these have one thing in common: Their phone (allegedly) all got hacked.

Now this post will be about phone security, but security is a broader issue, on computers, laptops and other personal devices.

So how can phones get hacked? What can you do about it?

First of all, do you know about phishing sites? Those sites make you believe that the site is another site. For example, a site can look like chase.com but isn’t. Then it fools you into putting in personal information. They have sites like this, except they don’t fool you into believing its another site, they just hack your phone.

So the broswers, phone broswers, and computer browsers, they all have exploits and holes (Except Google Chrome). If someone finds this exploit, they can use it to inject a virus into your phone or computer. With that code, it can control your phone completely, it can control your camera, files, pictures, even calling. Anyone who knows about JailbreakMe.com knows what this is.

Another way the picture could of been stolen is that she e-mailed someone and someone else hacked into her account. Now, weak passwords are an issue. How many of you have the same password for a majority of your accounts? If someone hacks the database of one site (I’m thinking Gawker), they know your other passwords.

So in the end, dont’ visit any random sites, and make sure your passwords are strong and vary.

Portal, Valve’s first person platformer is now free to...

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:37:00 -0400

Portal, Valve’s first person platformer is now free to play on Steam for both PCs and Macs. This game was very revolutionizing, with very new concepts. Valve just released Portal 2 recently, which was a huge hit.

Diablo 2 came out almost 10 years ago, and today it still costs $30 bucks. Basically, it seems like Blizzard is trying to milk the most that they can out of Diablo 2.

Portal is one of the best PC games that ever came out, and they could easily sell copies of it for $10. This promotion is tied to Valve’s initiative “Learn with Portals”, which will encourage teachers to teach math, engineering and physics using the mechanics with Portal.

If you go to St. Johns University...

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:22:09 -0400

And you have a Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, you may or may not have noticed that there is a new wifi network around campus called STJ-WiFi.

This WiFi uses WPA Enterprise as it’s a more secure kind of security where it uses your credentials to log in.

Some of you have updated to the new Mac OS, 10.7, Lion, and you may or may not have noticed, you can’t just add 802.1x profiles anymore, you must import them. So since this was a problem for me, I had to make a profile.

Here it is! It’s kind of in beta now, but I’m pretty sure it’s in it’s final release.

Enjoy!

Download link here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9866366/stjwificonfig.mobileconfig

My day with Technology

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:21:00 -0400

When I woke up at 10, I realized that I had no classes and I gave a sigh of relief. I checked my phone to see if I had any texts. None. With this in mind, I dozed back to sleep.

Three hours later, I woke up, and the first thing I did was check my laptop, again, but this time I would check my e-mails, facebook and texts, because I knew that I am the kind of person where if I knew there was something I needed to do, I would have to do it. And if I didn’t, then it would “itch”. Got some e-mails, nothing personal however, besides the spam e-mails, there wasn’t any that I was interested in. I got up and went to get food downstairs, but I brought my iPod Touch, in case I got a text or in case I got a call, I forwarded phone calls to my house phone.

After breakfast, or lunch, I went back upstairs to check Reddit, a social news website, for the news, new memes, jokes, etc. Then I went on Steam to find that there was a sale on a game that looked remotely interested, but after I did some research and looked for reviews, I decided that it wasn’t worth it. My rule of thumb for buying games is that the Metascore is 80 or more.

I then started up my iMac, but not in Mac OS X, because I wasn’t going to do any work, but to Windows 7, for Gaming. After it started up, I looked through my game library to figure out what to play, and I settled on Team Fortress 2 again, why not add to the 600 hours I already played on it? While I play, I set my iPod Touch down in front of me so I’ll see when I get a text.

After about two hours of playing TF2 I got tired of it. I went back on reddit, no new content. I checked some subreddits, and they had some interesting things, namely /r/tf2, /r/technology and /r/eli5.

After a bit exhausted the content on reddit and I went back on steam to started up a new game, Dead Island. There was a lot of hype for this game before it came out, because it had a very well done trailer, so I bought it, and it turns out the game wasn’t that polished yet. For example, its FOV is 60 degrees, which may not seem like a big deal to you, but it actually causes headaches for some people, like me. Its also limiting your vision so if a zombie comes a you, you may not see it. Frustrated, I looked on google for some answers, and lo and behold, yes there was. I modded some of the game files so now I get a 90 degrees FOV.

I would continue to play different games, like SPAZ, Portal 2 and Civ 5 until dinner, then I would do some homework.

That was my day.

AT&T and T-Mobile

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 00:57:00 -0400

In this article, I will call AT&T as ATT and T-Mobile (Or Deutsche Telekom) as TMO.

Well even before I write this article, I can see that I can not complete this in one blog post, as it is an extremely vast topic here. Just a disclaimer.

On March 20th, 2011, ATT announced that they, and TMO will merge. This spurred a lot of reaction, from negative to positive all across the board. The deal was, ATT would buy TMO USA for $39 billion from Deutsche Telekom, and what is included in the deal are 33.7 million subscribers, which would make ATT the largest mobile operator in the world at 130 million subscribers. In the US, if the deal goes through, ATT would have 43% of the market share, which would make ATT significantly larger than its main competitors, Verizon and Sprint.

Here are the Pros and Cons of the merger that I can think of.

Pros:

ATT will have better coverage, covering 97% of America.
Better 4G coverage as TMO already has a head start in their 4G development.
TMO users can finally use the iPhone with 3G without jailbreaking (maybe).
Thats… really it.

Cons:

They will more or less have a monopoly over the mobile phone market (Which can be bad in many many many ways, but more on that later).
Jobs will be lost (as opposed to them saying that jobs will be gained).
Current TMO users will have to buy new phones as TMO’s 3G frequencies are 900 and 1700 and ATT’s is 850 and 1900 and most phones only have 850/1900/2100 or 900/1700/2100, meaning it simply will not work.
ATT will be the sole provider of GSM phones in the USA. Verizon and Sprint use CDMA.
Less innovation on ATT’s part.

Recently the United States Department of Justice announced that they will file a lawsuit to block the said takeover. Also Sprint has filed a lawsuit as well.

Image from Engadget.com

Hello all

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 00:45:00 -0400

My name is Gabe, and this will be my tech blog. Here I will post my opinions of tech news, and reviews of tech that I already own. I, like many out there was born into the generation of technology. I remember my first laptop, a Dell Latitude C510/610. It had a Pentium III processor with only 512 of RAM. I was 13 at the time that I had this laptop.

I remember building my first desktop with my father. This was in 2001. He bought all the parts separately, and let me watched as he taught me how to build a computer. This was a Pentium 4 computer with a 2.7 GHz processor and 2 GB of ram. At that time, the computer was a beast. It ran Maxis’s The Sims, and more importantly, Blizzard’s Starcraft very well.

The first time I built my own computer was for a client who wanted a cheap computer. I forgot exactly what time it was, but it was a budget computer. A Core 2 with a cheap GPU and 1 GB of RAM if I remember correctly, and I didn’t make any mistakes. Of course I was very nervous, but it turned out in the end, as long as you get the right parts, its all going to be okay. To date, the most expensive computer I’ve built cost almost 9k. At that time, the six core i7 just came out, and costed 1k, three 5870s (I tried to get 5880s but they were constantly sold out) which alone costed 1.5k, 32 GB of RAM at 2133 MHz, EVGA Classified mobo, Corsair 800D, Corsair 1200w PSU (it seriously needed THAT much), three 24” HP IPS monitors (500 bucks apiece), a 7.1 surround sound speaker system and to top it off, complete with water cooling. This was my creation, my pride and the client loved it. I felt proud of myself.

On top of computers, I also do photography, so you may see a couple posts about photography around here. Namely Canon’s SLRs, but to be honest, for mirrorless syetms, its fair game. I’m thinking of the Fujifilm X100 or the Sony NEX-7 for my next portable camera. I have yet to choose and I will let you guys know when I do.

I’m going to be honest here, yes, I do play favorites. I prefer Intel over AMD, Corsair for RAM, PSU, Chasis and SSDs, Canon for SLRs, Western Digital for HDDs (Recently, Seagate has been pretty appealing though) and Logitech for peripherals. I say this because, yes for budget computers, I can easily use AMD processors, but instead I get i3’s. For HDDs, I could be using Seagate, but I use WD, for RAM, SSDs and other flash memory, I could use Kingston, Kingsington, or Crucial, but I stick to Corsair.

I hope you enjoy my commentaries on various tech and tech news.

-Gabe