OT: Technology and Geek Stuff Thread

[nhwbrooklyn]

Microsoft has a good OS every other one. I'll pass on W-8 till someone else reviews it and says otherwise

I think the focus of w-8 is to be inherently touch screen friendly. It's likely not going to be long before we expect all screens to be touch interfaces.

I would wait too.

[froot loops]

No matter what they do, they ain't replacing the keyboard.

[SeattleLionsFan]

Obviously Froot has not seen Star Trek...

[froot loops]

Hey! Scotty had some keyboard skillz in Star Trek IV: A Voyage Home. He used them begrudgingly when he encountered a computer than didn't have voice recognition. It wasn't the first time he encountered a keyboard. The captain might use it on the bridge, but he's showing off. The crew in the background are using them.

[Panoptes]

Don't know how far behind the times I am on the following but I just discoverd Crackle.com this evening.

Not bad for a growing collection of movie/TV show freebies. Plus, it works through my PS3 (which streams better than my aging laptop).

http://www.crackle.com/

[The Ken]

I think the focus of w-8 is to be inherently touch screen friendly. It's likely not going to be long before we expect all screens to be touch interfaces.

I would wait too.

don't miss out W8 is a kick ass OS and makes W7 look silly. Yes it is touch enabled but it is fully non-touch enabled too.

W7 is really Vista and W8 is the actual release.

[The Ken]

BTW WebOS is the part of the future and will changed the next version of Windows after 8.

If you haven't tried WebOS then try it, you will love it.

[-Deborah-]

I dumped my Blackberry yesterday in lieu of the HTC Sensation. I'm really lost with all of the apps and features on it so far and I miss the physical keyboard. But it pretty much rocks.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0053Z8XCO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=detroitlionsf-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creati veASIN=B0053Z8XCO"]Amazon.com: HTC Sensation 4G Android Phone (T-Mobile): Cell Phones & Accessories@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41rhtbA5zQL.@@AMEPARAM@@41rhtbA5zQL[/ame]

[Tony G]

I can turn in my Droid (original) in August but I'm holding out for a better 4G selection of droids. That said, I'm keeping on eye on the phones now. It's sort of exhausting to wade through all the chaff to find good info (even reading cnet)

[bimmer84]

.... so far and I miss the physical keyboard. But it pretty much rocks.

You might try Better Keyboard 8 if it is still free. I have always used a physical phone keyboard until this current phone (HTC Thunderbolt), and I am having trouble with the screen keyboard. After a couple of months I still don't like it, but Better Keyboard 8 seemed to help.

[nhwbrooklyn]

The android apps can be overwhelming. At first it seems like it's impossible to figure out which ones are BS and which ones are useful.

For the android, googlemaps/navigate is a must have, I love Pulse as a news feed reader (very intuitive), I surprisingly use "color flashlight" a whole lot (all it does is turn your screen into a solid color of your choice... makeshift flash light). "quick settings" is nice too for changing your phone settings on the fly.

For games angry birds is obviously a big hit, plants vs zombies is good too, and then wordfeud (scrabble) and a bunch of card games are nice to have to kill time. I'm sure there are more time wasters out there too.

A good blog to follow for android stuff is http://www.androidcentral.com/ (download pulse and then put this one in your feeds).

Mashable and lifehacker are also good blogs that will occasionally have good info on android apps though they are not focused on android stuff only.

[Tony G]

You might try Better Keyboard 8 if it is still free. I have always used a physical phone keyboard until this current phone (HTC Thunderbolt), and I am having trouble with the screen keyboard. After a couple of months I still don't like it, but Better Keyboard 8 seemed to help.

I would use my droid physical keyboard more if it had autocomplete. It doesn't so I use the on screen one.

[mason reese]

Got a question for any network knowledgeable IT people here.

My company has two products. One sends a stream of data to a TCPIP port, the other listens on that port and processes the data. Somebody decided that security was an issue and brought up SSL encryption to secure the data.

I know nothing about SSL and little about the parts of the products that are sending/listening for the data. Every search I do on SSL talks about having a certificate associated to a website...what do I when there is no website inbetween the two parts of the process.

[-Deborah-]

I'm not qualified to answer that. But is the communication going across the internet? If not, Google "SSL on an intranet"...

If so, then try "SSL between two servers + internet".

[Coop]

Mason - not knowing alot about your situation, SSL encrypts data being sent across the Internet. Often it's used when processing sensitive information, such as credit card payments, or login credentials.