The War Between Apple and Adobe

There has been a lot of words exchanged between Adobe and Steve Jobs. At issue is Steve Jobs' ban on Adobe's Flash on the iPhone and iPad. There is a lot of obfuscation and confusion about this fight, mostly from Apple-land. Steve Jobs claims he is banning Flash on his i-Whatever because of security reasons. He also says that new web page designing standard, HTML5, does what Flash does and thus Flash is irrelevant. That is a misdirection.

Flash has been around for a long time. Flash enables you to play games, watch videos on YouTube, and do all sorts of neat tricks. Web pages are coded in a language called HTML, Hyper Text Markup Language, and managed by the W3C. The web page designing standards are purposefully kept simple. This is because a simple design ensures compatibility and consistency among a broad range of devices. The new standard, still being designed, is called HTML5. HTML5 supports video playback without Flash and provides some other visual improvements to web pages. One of the benefits of Flash is that it picks up where HTML leaves off by providing neat effects. Many internet games now use Flash. Of course, Flash has been used to deliver annoying ads that take a long time to load. But the benefits of Flash are worth the abuse by advertisers.

Flash does have many security problems. But that isn't the reason why Apple will not allow Flash, or Microsoft's version of Flash called Silverlight, on their i-Products. The real reason is if Flash was allowed, Apple could not control what is allowed to go on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod. There would millions of apps that will flood the marketplace that use Flash, and Apple won't see one cent of that money. In the current system, Apple makes a cut of all the apps sold. If there was Flash on the i-Something, Apple would lose millions each year. That is why Flash and Silverlight are banned.

Of course, Techs-on-Call does not have an iPad or an iPhone to play with, so we cannot give you an objective review of the products. We are planning to get an iPad soon so that we can help you with yours and make an objective opinion about it. We really are waiting for it to be out a while so some of the kinks will be ironed out. More information about our opinion when Techs-on-Call buys one.

Posted by Wade Burchette at 8:51 AM - Categories: Annoyances | News

Be Careful With Facebook

Facebook has become an internet phenomon. It is now part of our vocabulary, along with other social networking sites such as Twitter and MySpace. People who are on Facebook love it. Some businesses have their own Facebook or MySpace or Twitter page. Techs-on-Call does not, and I do not either. There are many reasons for this.

The first reason is time. We all have a finite amount of time. I don't have the time to maintain a Facebook page and run my business. The blog will cover everything I need to share, without any the negatives with social networking sites.

One of those negatives is the lack of privacy found on social networking sites. Sure, you can restrict your information to "friends" only. But as the June 2010 issue of Consumer Reports notes, some key information is open to everyone. Information you post on social networking sites can be used against you. Employers do check your background through such websites. Law enforcement, with a warrant, can get the information too and use anything against you. Even if you restrict your information to friends, you may have a "friend" who is someone who never knew personally.

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Posted by Wade Burchette at 3:22 AM - Categories: Annoyances | General | Privacy

More Information About 3D HDTV

This is from the Consumerist, it seems Best Buy is charging to synchronize 3D glasses for your brand new HDTV. Sounds important, right? Wrong. The 3D glasses used in 3D HDTV are ready to go the out of the box. The only fee you should ever pay for your new HDTV, be it 3D or not 3D, is the fee to mount it on the wall. That includes extended warantees.

Another useless fee for your new 3D HDTV is a new HDMI cable. To display a 3D picture, the HDTV and the player both must conform to the HDMI 1.4 specification. The HDMI 1.4 specification uses the exact same cable requirements. What is happening is stores are selling cables labeled as HDMI 1.4, which is prohibited by the HDMI working group, at a much higher price. Here is a dirty little secret consumer electronic stores do not want you to know: All cables are very high markup. You can get a $5 HDMI cable from Amazon.com that works just as good as $100 cable from Best Buy. And yes, the $5 HDMI cable you bought 2 years ago will work in the new 3D HDTV's. Another secret you won't be told in the stores: With digital cables, it is all or nothing. You cannot get a better quality picture from a higher priced cable. It is impossible. And here is yet another secret of the cables: Gold does not bond to copper. The cheap cables have nickel at the end of the connectors. The expensive cables have gold at the ends. But since gold cannot bond to copper, there must be nickel below the gold. So the expensive cables go gold-nickel-copper; the cheap cables go nickel-copper. What benefit are you gaining by adding an extra layer of metal? None.

For a fact, the big money items in the stores are low markup. The store will likely make more money on selling you that expensive cable than on the new HDTV itself. That is why the stores push extended warantees and expensive cables aggressively. Just say no. You can get a cable much cheaper on the internet and it works just as good; no better and no worse because it is impossible to be better or worse. If I were to buy a new HDTV, I would look in the store to get an idea of quality and price, write down a few models to compare, then check with internet reviews and Consumer Reports, and finally order it online without buying any extras whatsoever. I would apply the same rules to computers, printers, Blu-Ray players, and any other big item electronics.

0 comments - Posted by Wade Burchette at 8:38 AM - Categories: Annoyances | Hints and Tips

The Truth About Registry Cleaners

We've all seen them, claims of cleaning up your registry to increase performance. The truth is registry cleaners are a waste of money. Don't waste your money or your time with these registry cleaners. Especially when you can get something that does the exact same job for free. Registry cleaner programs play off ignorance. Do you know what the registry really is? Probably not. It sure does sound important and complex.

So what really is the registry? It is an efficient database that has everything about everything for the operating system currently running. The registry concept is not limited to Windows. The fact is the registry is already very efficient. You are not going to speed it up. In fact, if you are not careful, messing with the registry can cause problems so severe, you may have to re-install Windows. Some poor registry cleaners can also cause severe problems to your operating system.

What registry cleaners do is remove entries in it that are accidently left behind and entries that are automatically generated by the operating system based on your actions. For example, recently used programs are put in the registry automatically by Windows. In every instance like that, the operating system is doing something to try and make your life easier. A bad registry cleaner will remove entries it thinks are left behind but really are not causing severe problems.

A problem with registry cleaners is they lack the ability to get rid of certain registry entries that are purposefully left behind. For example, you install a trial program. This program creates an entry in the registry saying when the trial was installed and other information, such as data required for the program to work and personal preference and so on. When you uninstall this program, it purposefully leaves behind that data. Then if you want to re-install the trial, it knows right away when you first installed the program. A registry cleaner cannot get rid of entries like these because it cannot know which entry is related to programs currently installed or programs that have been uninstalled.

Don't waste your money. A free program called CCleaner can do the exact same thing as these pay registry cleaners. CCleaner removes temporary files freeing up hard drive space. It also has the ability to remove obsolete registry entries too. And it is free. Now that your know, don't waste your money.

Posted by Wade Burchette at 8:39 AM - Categories: Annoyances | Hints and Tips | Windows

The Food and Drug Administration is Going After Illegal Internet Pharmacies

By now, you probably have gotten an email for cheap Canadian drugs. It is one of the most common forms of spam email. Cybercriminals use a variety of techniques to make a person's computer a spam sending machine. One of our earlier blog entries described how spammers make $1600 per day on Canadian pharmacy spam.

The FDA decided to take action. The FDA shut down 136 Canadian pharmacy websites. But that was not all. The FDA took steps to make it harder to operate a Canadian pharmacy website by sending warning letters to domain name registrars and some web site operators. Of course, cybercriminals are persistant and smart. As much money as they make, it is not in their financial interests to go down quietly into the night. Already, the cybercriminals take efforts so that if one site is shut down, your spam email link will just send you to another website.

It cannot be stated enough, do not click on spam emails. The most effective defense against spam is to ignore it. If it is not profitable or effective, the greedy cybercriminals will just move on to another scam. Just remember that spammers don't have your best interests at heart.

References: FDA takes aim at illegal net pharmacies from The Register

Posted by Wade Burchette at 1:15 PM - Categories: Annoyances | News

Canadian Pharmacy Spammers Make $1600 Per Day

Sophos security research Dmitry Samosseiko recently published research into the economics of spam email. One of the biggest spamming groups is the Russian Partnerka. Dmitry Samosseiko was able to examine one of the tens of thousands of online Canadian pharmacy websites. His research proves one of the main reason spam is still around is because spam work.

Spam is, of course, not the potted meat but the unsolicited bulk advertising found in email, message board, blog posts, instant messanging programs, social networking sites, and on any other internet related activity. To make it harder to track and to increase the amount of spam, spam is rarely carried out by a person directly anymore. One of our earlier blog posts pointed out how bad spam really is. Somewhere between 90% to 97% of email is now spam. Spammers quite often infect computers with malware to send out spam in various forms. In the case of Partnerka, they infect both Windows and Macs.

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Posted by Wade Burchette at 8:43 AM - Categories: Annoyances | General | News

Making Your Windows 7 Disc Compatible With All Editions

It is a common Microsoft practice to limit what editions of Windows can be used with each disc. For example, with Windows XP, the Home edition and the Pro edition each required their own disc. Not only that, there are different discs for retail discs and OEM discs. The result is that someone who may need to re-install Windows XP now needs 4 different discs. This is very annoying because the only difference between each disc is one file which tells the installer which edition and being used. Every other file was the exact same and found on all the discs. Windows Vista did away with this requirement. So it was hoped that Windows 7 would as well. As it turns out, this is not the case.

But there is good news. You can make your Windows 7 discs universal. All you then need are 2 discs, one for the 32-bit version and one for the 64-bit version. This tutorial will show you how to make a master Windows 7 disc. You still an appropriate product key for each edition. This will not allow you to get Windows 7 for free.

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Posted by Wade Burchette at 4:00 PM - Categories: Annoyances | Windows