Tech Talk at ShieldsGroup

One of the most frustrating things about a fresh install of Ubuntu is that when it asks you to set your keyring password, it warns you of security issues. And when you set your password, it asks for it every time someone wants to connect to the secured wireless.

To get past this, try the following:

1. Right-click on your Network Manager applet in the upper right corner and select “Edit Connections”.
2. Click on the Wireless Tab, select your wireless network, and click “Edit”.
3. At the bottom on the following window put a check in the “Available to all users” box.
4. Close all windows and reboot.

This makes the wireless available without entering the keyring password.

-Steve

Tim and I are always arguing about batteries in our laptops.

He says that you can use and use your battery without accelerating it’s degradation and that keeping a lithium-ion battery fully charged is constantly exposing it to one of its greatest enemies: heat. I say that it’s best to keep it fully charged — that the battery’s enemy is exhaustion of life-cycles. I had once read that the average lithium-ion battery has a life expectancy of 300 cycles. If you cycle it daily, it will die in under a year.

This chart gives good information:
www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-21.htm

So the chart says Tim is right–you can use and use your lithium-ion battery. Heat and deep discharges are the enemy.

It still puzzles me that he’s been through two batteries in four years at school and in the four years I’ve had this PC, I’ve only been through one.  My guess is that it’s because of the deep discharges his experienced while sitting in the dorm lobby watching football.

So — the bottom line: Use your battery in your laptop, but don’t deeply discharge it needlessly.

It looks like a big iPod Touch (no phone) the big iPhone version will be out later.

I was surprised at some of the choices Apple made:

• No camera so no video chat.
• No flash, it is suppose to be an easy way to access the internet and it doesn’t support flash?
• No USB port, it has no camera and then no way to get photos from a camera, oh wait a minute there is an adapter to give it a USB port. That is almost as bad, it takes an adapter to connect USB devices?
• Only 64GB, and no way to add memory cards, even basic netbooks come with 160GB
• No user swapable battery.
• All applications have to come from the Apple App store.
• It doesn’t multitask, it has a big powerfull CPU and it can’t multitask?
• No HDMI out, you get a cool video on it (that doesn’t require flash) and you can’t show it on your TV?
• The version which supports cellular access will be unlocked, but it will only have a GSM radio which in this country is used by AT&T and T-Mobile. The only thing is that their 3G data networks are on different frequencies.  The iPad only supports AT&T’s 3G frequency. If you use it on T-Mobile you will be stuck at 2G speeds.

The market has been telling everyone that smaller is better, you don’t need a desktop, a laptop is better. You don’t need a laptop, a netbook is better. You don’t need a netbook, a smart phone like the iPhone is better.  Now Apple says we were wrong, you don’t want a iPhone, the iPad is better?

~alacy