{patrickrice.net blog}

So People out there craving for a tablet, well there are options coming, and even Linux and open source ones! Samsung is looking at bringing out one in September, which will be android based. so there is light at the end of the tunnel. For those people that have to have the shiny apple badge, then of you go. If you got to spend the money well then spend it. I think though for Christmas there is going to be plenty of tablets around the place, so I wouldn’t worry too much about the risk of not getting a tablet, That is if you want one. I haven’t seen any specks for the Samsung one yet but I would reckon that it may even have USB fitted, that means that you won’t have to buy an expensive exclusive keyboard with a special connector, and you may even be able to plug a printer or a camera in to it. so hold off and relax your tablet needs may be soon catered for, in a better way.

ya see I’ve come up with this computer, its got a screen and a ……. well actually its just a screen. Now I found a way to wrap it in nice shiny plastic and metal, so that it looks really lovely.

It hasn’t got a USB port, you can get a keyboard for it but it has to be a “special” keyboard, because I said so.

Rant is now over, but the IPAD has just been released in Ireland and looking at it it looks to be a let down. It’s €500 quid for just a touch screen, don’t get me wrong its a lovely screen, and the touch interface is cool, but will it be cool in 6 months or a year. It will if the price point is high, but if the price point starts to go lower then things could get interesting.

If you take the tech out of the equation, Steve Jobs is doing what Steve Jobs does best, he makes a device that is very closed off, makes a UI for the device, that is really good so people can use it in one minute and job done. The android Ipad clones are coming and, sure first to market is good, but could it be a good time to wait out the fools rushing in!

So I hope everyone has rushed out and bought an Iphone v4, looks like its only an “I” and not much of a “phone”, Well Thankfully Ireland, the land of innovation and “knowledge economy” that it is, has been spared the pain of the Iphone v4. well the early adopters have got burned, but what’s new, early adopters always get burned, that’s the price of innovation, Looks like when the Iphone was leaked and found in a bar, that Steve must have cancelled testing outside the lab. so it looks like Apple missed the testing in Europe part, and now the Iphone is not a Phone. Remembering my high school physics, I remember that the body was a good conductor, and If I remember from the little bit of radio tech that I know about, that a Grounded antenna isn’t much of an antenna, Well it looks like function was overlooked in this case. It looks like anyone waiting to buy the iphone v4 better wait till Iphone v4.1 cause its a hardware upgrade.

Well Samsung has just released some new 512GB ssd (solid state drives), Looks like the Tech for SSD’s  is getting there, even though people are going to get burned by the pain and price of early adoption, No OS or normal user needs over 256 GB at the moment, and is now a good idea to get in on the market for one of these 256GB drives? As the vendors Inventory’s of the 512GB drives start to fill the shelves! I’m Starting to think about buying one. one note of caution we haven’t seen SSD’s for the long term ( 2 to 5 years) so should you run them in a raid array with a normal disk, but doing that would defeat the point of getting a SSD, or maybe is time for a Shut-down sequence, that will copy the data across to a normal hard drive.

So all this stuff is now in the cloud, its great, everything is great, the cloud service are managing your life, as in e-mail, calender, docs, The whole kit and caboodle. Then ………(cue the horror music) ….. “your account has been blocked” …. so that’s not a biggie, I’ll just e-mail the cloud, “please Mr. Cloud can I have my account back… I have been good” but the cloud doesn’t respond or is responds with “I’m sorry you have been banned from the cloud”. So you e-mail the cloud again and beg for your e-mail etc. back, But the cloud refuses. So you need to escalate the problem, now you’ve sent a few e-mail but that’s not getting anywhere, so you need some human interaction, so that your needs are listened to.

That’s when you try phoning the cloud for tech support, unfortunately the cloud doesn’t have a phone number listed on the site, so time to get out the phone book and check if the phone number is there for cloud tech support, so no apparently not, no phone book entry for cloud computing industries. So where am I left now, I only have e-mail, and there ignoring that, so what do I do now. Well in my case I phoned the PR department, as that’s the one place that they will pick up the phone, and guess what they picked it up, but they said that they could not help.

So the moral of the story is, don’t ring the cloud, if your looking for support. and backup up everything off line. so when it rains in the cloud it doesn’t affect you!

Google are phasing out windows use, as in Microsoft on there desktops according to siliconrepublic.com, I wonder are we starting to see a change in tech here. I’m starting to think that this may be the first of many such events, or could it be another shot in the war between Google and Microsoft! Microsoft do have there security problems, but so do other systems, and note that this is coming form a person that is not a Microsoft lover. Microsoft is getting killed by legacy, and it might be the time to start to look at Linux as a real alternative. I write this on a Ubuntu box, which does me fine, in the real world. At lease the code is open to the world to see what is going on, so there is more of a chance of some one seeing holes in the code, rather than just a company’s code review.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/16413/cio/google-phases-out-windows-use

The tablets are a coming, it looks like there going to be lots of tablets out there this year, en-gadget are reporting lots of tablets, so don’t rush out and buy the ifad (Ipad) there even built on open platforms! Check the link below.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/01/vias-wondermedia-decorates-computex-with-arm-9-powered-android/

Just spotted this one, and could be interesting for the social media, ie the facebookers out there where on newstalk the Minster warns over social libel There could be a few intersting cases come up there on this. So watch what you write facebookers!

Well Thursday and Friday I returned to an old stomping ground of mine, Athlone institute of Technology, where I done my degree in Software engineering, I was there for edtech 2010. It a very different experience going back as a non student, especially as the exams were going on.

so what was at edtech 2010

well its all about tech in education, an there seems to be alot of new developments there.

James Clay gave a very inspiring talk, where he gave a new perspective on education, and the changes that are coming in the way we do business.

so where’s this tech going

• well Online rooms, in tech speak thats webex,
• social engineering and education, aka facebook but with education in mind
• Robert Hickey gave a great presentation on what you can do with mobile phones and brick layers
• Using smart board, Eimer Kelly gave a great presentation on the use of.
• What’s coming up in blackboard 9.1, They have finally discovered an API,  wonder how open it will be, it seems moodle is getting the jump on them.

I saw an IPAD from a distance, seems to be nice and shiny, for a low powered and expensive browser. I’m not sure if I could spend the cash.

More info to follow