October Geekiness
I have a few geek and technology smaller tidbits to share so I thought I would get it in really quickly before the end of the month passed by. There are a range of potential subjects in this posting and I hope that I can remember to include them all. A few possible subjects include what note to do if you want to keep you geek card (a la top ten style list), a small rant about some buzz kill blogger suggesting Gen X is looking back and it is going to be up to Gen Y, the idea of self-evident computing (and I will take it step further and say self-evident technology) and what that means – especially to technological professional gurus like myself, the apparent silliness at Google and attempts to speed up the network by compressing JPEG’s even more, why we need IPv6, and the best – Open Office is forking from Oracle with a new strain called Libre Office. As usual, I realize that the technical side of things is not for everyone – so feel free to skip this one if you need to, though I do recommend the geek card bit, as it is FUNNY!
- I will start with the geek sins list that will get your geek card revoked, as I found it the most entertaining thing of the list. Basically, these are the kind of things that all true geeks would either know, or in most cases, know to avoid. It was done by Tech Republic originally and can be found in full currently here. A couple of the funnier ones in my opinion, to give you some idea include the following: Taking something to the so-called ‘geek squad’ for repairs; confusing anything about Star Trek and Star Wars; Buying any kind of paper book that is a how to about something computer technology these days. I will point out, if you go to the list, I find the definition of hexidecimal light. While it true that its use can make manipulation of and readability easier for binary – lets not forget it is its own numbering system of base sixteen!
- Okay, IPv6 is needed for a lot of reasons, but most of them are lost on the casual user. Suffice it say, numbers are associated with machines on the internet and then associated with names so we can find them. Currently the scheme that is used is IPv4, which has 32 bit addressing system. Needless to say, there are very finite limits to the address range given the number of devices out there now, not to mention the groups of addresses that are ‘proxied’ through to one real address on a given network. IPv6 has enough for all devices to have a unique address that could stay the same regardless of location. Additionally, a bunch of overhead was gotten rid of and it should make the network faster in general.
- Speaking of faster, what is Google thinking? If I remember correctly, they are working an additional compression algorithm that will see some minor gains for graphics over the current JPEG format (itself a compressed format, so not much more speed). I understand that folks still suffering through dial-up speeds might get some benefit. But then again, how many of those folks have pictures turned off in the browser? Also, how many folks like myself are going to go back and redo graphics, images and such on my sight?
- I read this one article that went on about how Gen X is very much into using yesterday’s technology, especially in communication in the workplace. The author went on to suggest that as Gen Y comes into the workplace they will bring newer ways of communication into the mix and specifically pointed to video and social media. What hog-wash. Not all, and in fact all quite the opposite in my circle of Gen X friends are so pre-occupied with the backward medias mentioned – email, phone, and face-to-face. Most of use are more apt to use most any media aside from email – and when email is used, based on my own experience lately, it is much more like a text message. Second, Gen Y is already in the work force. Depending on whose number you use to define it, we have roughly ten years of Gen Y in the work force now.
- Idea of self-evident computing should be self-evident, right? For those not in the know, the concept is that you pick up a device and it so simple and intuitive you can figure it out without a manual or having to be an uber-geek to get it all set up and working correctly. Same would be true of software and so on with anything. Big thing that means over the current model is developers have to say NO more quickly the feature creep syndrome that so often occurs in the development world of today. Hats off to Apple for getting this right on most of the current Apple line – which is partly why it is so successful right now. It is going to hit some technology professionals hard – but others will find gainful work in making things that are now complex simpler. After all, Word does a great job and occasionally you can even write a document – but who would want it if it did not do most of the things we want it to do and take for granted? Sure, I know a dozen people who have only used mail merge one or two times – but gosh they sure did want it when they were doing it.
- Best news of all as stated, Open Office, or at least the open source code behind is being taking from Oracle’s clutches. I am still not at all sure how those kind of things are allowed to happen. I mean the whole open source code products ended up a licensed product that a corporation can own. It just baffles me. Thankfully, the open source code in this instance was still out there and while they can’t use the term Open Office, they are working on minor updates (more than Oracle can say) and have plans for a major upgrade in the future. The fork in the code is being called Libre Office. I will be giving it a spin shortly and reporting back.
** – Image from http://blog.meday.co.uk/.
