Laptop History

The book I read to research this post was Laptops for Dummies by Dan Gookin which is an excellent book which I borrowed from the library. I thought I'd do a little bit on the history of laptops. The first computer that could be considered in any way portable although calling it portable is a bit of a joke is the Osbourne 1 which would just about go under an airplane seat. It weighed 24 pounds and had a miniscule screen. It also had to run off the mains so you couldn't use it whilst travelling. It came out in 1980 and was priced at around $1,800 but did sell quite well. It showed that people were prepared to buy a portable computer. A little while later came the Compaq 1 which had a bigger screen but still weighed in at 20 pounds. It still only worked off the mains. Then came the Radio Shack 100 which only had a small screen but was the first truly portable computer. The first portable computer that was IBM/PC compatible and had a 286 processor was the Compaq SLT. Of course with many portable computers the battery weighs half as much again as the computer. Many manufacturers when giving the weight of a laptop don't include the battery. Also in the near future people will use fuel cells with their laptops rather than batteries. These are too large at present but technology is making them smaller and smaller. These will also require topping up with fuel but you know how people have to conserve power on their laptops, that may become a thing of the past.

Bebo

I visited the Wikipedia article on Bebo to research this post. If you type Bebo into google the link appears near the top of the search results. I highly recommend reading it. Bebo was started by a Californian couple in 2005 and they came up with the name first and the slogan - Blog early blog often - afterwards. Bebo at one stage had more members than myspace in the UK and was the most visited site in Ireland. Over a million irish people were members. They sold it to AOL for over $500 million but it had trouble competing with Facebook and it was one of the dot com casualties. There was work that needed doing on platform it ran on. AOL in turn sold it to a venture capital company for less than $10 million. As a result of these deals the CEO of AOL lost his job. After this the software Bebo ran on got an overhaul. At one stage it was possible to write apps for Bebo but this was controversial because it was possible to write an app that contacted all Bebo's members. Now it's no longer possible to write apps. There's a fully functional mobile site and there should be various apps for the various smartphone platforms to allow them to do things like post a blog on Bebo. 

Google vs Apple vs Microsoft

I just read the september issue of Stuff magazine and there was a feature comparing these 3 companies so I thought I'd do a shortened version of it. First of all there's phones. The Samsung Galaxy S3 runs google android and has a quad core 1.4 ghz chip and 1080p high definition display. Currently it's the hottest phone you can buy. The iPhone 5 has had a bit of a mixed reception although don't forget usually when a new version of windows comes out you get a few complaints but as people get used to it they find they like it. Certainly iPhone 5 is a radical upgrade. I still use a iPhone 4 S at least for the time being. The Nokia Lumia 900 only has Windows phone 7 so you might be better off waiting for version 8.
The Google Nexus 7 is the best value for money tablet but only has a 7 inch screen. Actually the idea of a small screen is gaining in popularity. The iPad has the most features and the most apps. There's a Microsoft Surface due to be released which has a touch keyboard and will run a streamlined version of Windows 8.
Android 4.1 Jellybean is optimized for both tablets and phones and includes the chrome browser. Apples iOS6 includes Siri and you can even ask it how far it is to the office. Siri is a voice activated assistant. Windows 8 RT includes a full version of office.
In cloud computing storage Microsofts Skydrive offers the most free space at 7gb. Google Drive will save your Google Docs & Picasa files. iCloud only works with Apple products.
Google Chrome Operating System integrates with google products like Docs. Windows 8 has done away with the start button and got a multi button feature called a metro. Apple Mac OSX Mountain Lion is only available for Macs.
In terms of streaming products look out for the Google Nexus Q which has lots of features but may be quite expensive. The Xbox 360 of course is also a games console. The Apple TV only works with iTunes but is cheap.
Sony are building the NSZ-GS7 a google box which will be compatible with things like Google TV. Again Microsoft have the XBox 360 which will stream films and music. There are rumours Apple are developing a console although there's always the iPad.
Finally Google has plans to build a space elevator which will make it easier to get into orbit. They'll probably build it in the next few years.

Starting an Online Business

The book I read to research this post was Starting and Running an Online Business for Dummies 2nd & UK edition by Kim Gilmour et al which is a very good book which I borrowed from the library. Britain has more online businesses per capita than any other country in the world. Generally the things you need like a computer and scanner you already possess. You need a good accountant to help you set up the limited company and do things like the VAT returns. You also need knowledge of local laws ie in Britain if an item is faulty the company has to pay the return postage. You need to join some business forums and also the small business advisor at your local bank is good for business advice. I know someone who invested a load of money in equipment for making handmade & bought a website. One thing she didn't do was any market research. Had she done that she'd have known selling a small box of 4 chocolates for £5 is too much. So far she hasn't sold a single box of chocolates. When people go on the internet they expect a bargain. The only possible is when the item is unique in some way. When you set up your website it's a good idea to buy all the similiar sounding domain names especially ones like .biz & .net. Microsoft had to pay $20 million to someone who had the website lindows.com because it sounded like windows. 

Announcement

I have done a post on http://scratbagroberts.livejournal.com which is about livejournal. Everyone's welcome.

Announcement

I have done a post on webnode exclusively to my site at http://scratbagroberts.net which is a webnode site.

Building Assets

The book I read to research this post was The Digital Writers Guide to Building Assets which is a very good book which I downloaded for free from kindle. Many people think the only times they should write are at times like if they have to write for their boss or when they are in a class at college. Actually writing is useful because it helps you focus your thoughts. This book has got me rather excited. Did you know ebooks on kindle outsell the books on its companion website which is amazon by 3 to 2. That was in 2011 so the disparity now might be even greater. Another thing I've noticed is there is plenty of books and ebooks on mainstream software like word 2010 and websites like facebook. What about software like autodesk sketchbook pro or xanga.com surely there is a market. The digital writer writes one book a week. Every tuesday the digital writer releases one book you pay for and one book which was previously on sale for free. If doing a cover is a bit difficult you can go to http://fiverr.com and at that website you can pay someone $5 to do it. You pay the website in advance but that money isn't released to the worker until you are satisfied with the job. At that is all manner of little jobs and each one pays $5. Another website http://e-junkie.com lets you do an ebook using their cloud service for $5 per month. Many publishers on kindle are selling thousands of ebooks per month. I think it's got potential. 

Announcement

I have done a post on web marketing at http://scratbagroberts.xanga.com You're welcome to have a look.

Facebook

The book I read to research this post was Facebook All in One For Dummies by Melanie Nelson et al which is an excellent book which I borrowed from the library. You might be interested to know I did posts on facebook marketing, facebook advertising and twitter marketing a while back at http://scratbag.me
For many people facebook is a while of life not just a social networking site. It has a GPS feature so you can tell your friends where you are although there has been some controversy over this due to the possibility of identity theft. If you are looking for any kind of product facebookers will often look at what their friends recommend. Also they will often talk to their friends about their experience with that product. With this kind of viral marketing a product can be very successful without a huge advertising budget. Of course facebookers can provide updates via their mobile phones. I have a friend called Claire who loves facebook and when she visits she always updates her page to say she's here and always likes to check her page and her friends pages on my computer. She also has a blackberry which is great for the aforementioned tasks. Practically every website has a facebook like button and it will often give you the option of copying stuff to your facebook page. I don't use facebook that much actually I am more of a twitterite but I like being able to copy stuff. Also when you do a blog you can often copy it into facebook. I have a product page called scratbag at facebook and apparently if all you want is a basic product page it's free. Of course the biggest draw to facebook is that most of your friends are bound to have accounts. If you go on holiday you can post photos of your trip an app called instagram which is free is particularly good for this. There are facebook games in particular facebook versions of commercial games like The Sims & Bejewelled. Some games like Cityville have started out as facebook games and gone onto become successful full blown online games in their own right with their own website and millions of players. Some people focus on sharing their thoughts via the personal timeline with their friends. Finally a lot of people won't have that many personal friends but may have many friends on facebook because often facebookers friend people they've just met.

A Bit on Linux and Railways

First of all I read a magazine which was an old edition of Linux Format and found a story. Apparently Ubuntu who make a version of Linux have written an operating system for the next generation of televisions called Ubuntu One. It seems the dividing line between televisions and computers is set to become a bit hazy. Another story this time from an old edition of Stuff magazine is that there is technology to charge things without plugging them in. It seems the electro magnetic current will just travel through air. Another story is in around 2020 in either China or India they plan on building underground tunnels which will contain a vacuum and an environmentally controlled pod will travel through it at upto 4,000 mph. Eventually it will be possible to travel under the pacific from America to China in an hour. It's interesting that if you go to Dawlish in Devon in the 19th century there was a system to propel a train by creating a vacuum and as they pumped out the air the train travelled along. The pumping station is still there.
Apparently electric trains which are fed electric from underneath can't go at much more than 100 mph because when they reach the points the cable underneath hits the rails and part of it could break off. Also the rail providing the current isn't continuos so they need a second locomotive attached to the train. A single rail provides the current and the earth is via the wheels to the ground. Underground trains have a separate earth rail in addition to the strip or rail that provides the positive current. Apparently one strip is +400 v roughly and the other is approx -200 v. Finally the IRSE or Institute of Railway Signal Engineers is celebrating its centenary at the moment but with railways in China growing rapidly and there membership being worldwide they are expecting a lot more chinese members in the next few years. It could maybe have to relocate in China at some point. 

Modern Railways

I read a magazine called Modern Railways so I had some information to blog about. First of all I'll tell you I have a friend who has worked as a signals tester and designer for over 30 years for a railway company in Britain. He told me a couple of stories. The first is he used to have to go out to any railroad crashes as part of his job. When they had the Clapham Junction crash in 1984 he had to go out to it. Apparently train crashes are horrendous worse than anything you can imagine but anyway as he was walking about examining the scene he almost stepped in someones remains. Apparently he has a copy of the accident report for that crash and it's almost written in the style of a thriller. It says things like at 7am this happened and at 7.10 am that happened. The other thing I'm going to tell you is you know passenger trains get priority over freight trains. Often a freight train will pull onto a siding to let a passenger go past before going on its merry way. Freight trains are normally slower than passenger trains. Nowadays the freight carrier has to guarantee it will get there by a certain time and day. Anyway in the days when British Rail was a public company freight wasn't a priority. Apparently between Carlisle and Gretna Green was a siding where freight trains had to wait to be called to complete their delivery. Nowadays there is a marshalling yard which has speeded things up. Apparently it was common for a driver to come on duty, wait by his train and at the end of his shift the train still hadn't been given permission to carry on its way. This situation often lasted for several days.
In Modern Railways apparently Hitachi are going to build the train that replaces the class 125's in Britain and are going to relocate their research and testing facility here. The Thameslink Phase 1 in London has been completed they've done a massive upgrade to Farringdon station which is set to become the busiest station in Britain. In Blackfriars by St Pancras they've been soundproofing the part of the track that goes under a hotel. Apparently St Pancras is a grade 1 listed building. Finally at Borough Market they have been building an extra viaduct to ease congestion on the current viaduct. It's one of the busiest places for trains in the world. 

Fast Trains

The book I read to research this post was Fast Trains by Nancy Nagle Bolts et al which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. In britain we have the eurostar which doesn't go that fast in this country due to track limitations but I think gradually things are improving in that respect. The chunnel or channel tunnel which goes under the english channel has been called one of the seven wonders of the modern world and is actually 3 tunnels, 1 service tunnel and 1 each going to and from france. The eurostar is a form of TGV the french high speed train and these cover most of the long distance routes in france. It's interesting that air france scrapped its paris - brussels because of competition from the TGV. There is talk of a tunnel going under the bering straits which would link america with asia via alaska. This would be a 64 mile tunnel. China leads the world in high speed train use and has more high speed rail infrastructure, 16,000 miles in fact than the rest of the world put together. There is a 200 mph rail link between shanghai and beijing which does the trip in around 5 hours. It features the second longest bridge and the longest tunnel in the world. There is a 311 mph maglev link between shanghai and its airport but it's difficult to appreciate its speed due to it being a short distance. There is a high speed train linking barcelona to madrid in spain. Spain is very keen to have a high speed rail infrastructure. Japan of course was the first to have high speed rail with the bullet train see my article on the bullet train at http://scratbagroberts.com
Japan developed a high speed steam train network prior to the second world war but these were scrapped during this conflict. A high speed rail network made a lot of sense because there are many outlying cities around tokyo that needed to be connected. 

Confessions of an Entrepreneur

The book I read to research this post was Confessions of an Entrepreneur by Alana Sugar which is an excellent book which I downloaded for free from kindle. Alana Sugar isn't her real name as she was writing this book anonymously. This book is about what it really is like to be an entrepreneur. It's a world where most bosses have iphones rather than blackberries because they can play angry birds. Most businesses don't make huge amounts of money. 70% of new businesses fail in their first year. Alana works in a business hub which is a kind of open office which houses several businesses. She runs a marketing consultancy business. She doesn't get up early and doesn't wear a suit unless she has an important meeting. 2 men who run a social network which means they can't get a date share the same hub. A scourge of many companies is employing work experience students which means they are unpaid and looking to put it on their cv. Many bosses employ a pretty young thing in a short skirt. Many other bosses give the work experience person jobs like making the tea. Another thing is often where there is a young female  boss pseudo investors will offer to invest in the company as a ruse to getting a date. Another interesting scheme was a company offering to invest £2,000 in her company and give free business advice. It turned out you borrowed £1,000 and got £1,000 as a grant which went to the advisor if you didn't meet your targets at the end of the year. One boss even tried to use Linkedin as a dating site. 

Amazon Relational Database System

The book I read to research this post was Amazon Relational Database System or RDS Developer Guide which is very good but rather short and I downloaded it for free from kindle. A relational database means it has several tables which are each linked by at least one column which is called a primary field. A primary field means the same column is duplicated in at least 2 tables. You can construct a complex database in this way. RDS is a cloud computing service that works as a back end database. You need either MySQL, SQL Server or Oracle RDBMS on your computer to interact with it. Incidently MySQL is open source and free and there is a version that works with windows. You use SQL to do your queries and there are 4 computer languages you can use for development work including ruby and java. You do have to pay to use this service but it should save you a stack of money you would normally spend on computer hardware.

Amazon Simple Email Service

The book I read to research this post was Amazon Simple Email Service SES Developers Guide which is a very good book which I downloaded for free from kindle. SES is a bulk emailing service and one of the perks is Amazon is trusted by many people so as long as you don't send spam your emails are more likely to be read. Amazon will handle the formatting of the emails for you so all you need do is provide the content. You can use languages such as java and ruby to jazz up your emails. Be warned Amazon verify all the email addresses you either send to or from and they monitor to see if any bounce and also if they get any complaints these are passed onto you. Basically don't send spam especially with this service. With this service you have to build trust with Amazon so at the start you can send upto 10,000 emails per day but after 2 weeks if all goes well you can send upto 1,000,000 emails per day. Normally 1,000,000 is the limit but if there are special circumstances they may increase it. 

Amazon Mechanical Turk

The book I read to research this blog was Amazon Mechanical Turk Developer Guide which is an excellent book which I downloaded from kindle for free. I was a bit critical about how many web services Amazon because I thought it could do with streamlining but this is a good idea. Basically they have a website where you can advertise particular jobs like for example you want an iphone app written and then other people who are the workers can browse the site and see if they want to do that particular job. It isn't a proper job site like Monster.com it's just something people can do if they have a few hours spare. You can specify what skills they must and minimum qualifications and can even give them online tests via the website. When they do the job they can also download their materials or upload a file also via the website. You can specify things like a location and how many workers you want and if you are unhappy with their work you can refuse to pay them and ban them from working for you in future. Obviously what you offer to pay for a particular job and the number of hours it takes has to be competitive with the other jobs advertised.  This site is particularly useful if you have a skill like to type or program. Even if you haven't got a skill it's worth looking at the site because there might be a job like doing market research in a particular area. Finally I also think you are expected to declare what you earn for tax etc.

Digital Camera Technology

The book I read to research this post was Advances in Digital Camera Technology by Phil Donald which is an excellent ebook I downloaded for free from kindle. I am only going to look at a few of the most interesting features mentioned in the book but I would if anyone is interested in finding out more they sign up to kindle and download the book which at only approximately 30 pages can be read quite quick. A recent development in a lot of the more expensive cameras is the touch screen which is a bit like that on the mobile phones except obviously it's camera features. Another thing is sometimes you can change the light levels in the photo on the camera which previously you had to invest in a program like photoshop to do. Digital Cameras often take video and alot do it in HD which is called AVCHD and means you can play it back on a big HD television. Another development is faster SD cards the fastest being category 10 although your camera must be compatible and higher capacities. SD cards are commonly used to store photos. Yet another development is facial recognition where you can have the camera recognise upto 6 faces and the photo is optimized for them faces. On the really expensive cameras you have an LCD touchscreen where you can select the faces. Another thing is smile detection where ie if you are at a wedding you can set the camera to take a photo each time someone smiles although if you choose the highest setting it will be going off when someone only smiles slightly. Often cameras start at around 12 MegaPixels which means you can have large good quality prints. Finally another development on DSLR's where you can change the lens is the light meter inside it and the viewer can get dust on them affecting your photos and on some cameras if they detect dust they vibrate saving you having to wipe it.

Using Amazon EC2 With Windows Server

The book I read to research this post was Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Microsoft Windows Guide which was a very good book which I downloaded for free from kindle. Amazon EC2 or Elastic Compute Cloud which is basically a cloud version of a company server can be used with either linux or windows server 2008. If you use the Release 2 version the activation is done automatically when you go on the internet. A lot of companies like to install wordpress and MySQL which work together to make potentially a good website and both now come in windows versions. Amazon uses AMI's or Amazon Machines Instances which is basically a partition where your operating system and data is installed. Don't forget you only pay for what you use and there is no minimum payment so if you only use minimal storage it may qualify for free tierage. A benefit of EC2 is you are only paying a reasonable amount every month rather having to have several servers and a complex network which obviously would cost a lot of money. It does say in this book it is unlikely to be more than a few pounds a month which I think is quite reasonable. Something I'll mention is by default using EC2 is set to you using a server farm in the Eastern USA so ie if you wanted to use the one in Singapore you would have to select that. You might be interested to know I have done 2 blogs called Hybrid Computing & Cloud Computing which I think you'll find interesting at http://scratbag.me
That is my main computing blog which has over 500 posts.

Amazon Flow Framework

The book I read to research this post was AWS Flow Framework Developer Guide which is very good and which I downloaded for free from kindle. I think Amazon needs to simplify their web services and I think at over 20 there are too many. Anyway this service isn't that different to Beanstalk on which you can run software you write yourself. Also it works in conjunction with Simple Workflow Framework or SWF. With Flow Framework you write a program in java and eclipse and it can do tasks like process credit cards. You might for example want it to process the payment and if the card bounces or the buyer cancels the order you cancel posting him the merchandise. To write the program you need AWS for java software development kit or SDK and also the latest eclipse software. If you need to do something like change the time out setting look in the documentation for AWS for java SDK. You can use Flow Framework in conjunction with a datacenter server at your place of work although you should be buying less computer hardware and letting Amazon take care of that. Often you will give Flow Framework lots of tasks and it will have to be done in a certain order because one process is dependent on another task having been done. Flow Framework does a good job of this.

Amazon Simple DB Database

The book I read to research this post was Amazon Simple DB Database Developer Guide which is a very good book which I downloaded for free from kindle. The whole point behind this cloud service is that it is easy to use or relatively for a database. It helps do away with the need for a database administrator. You can set upto 250 domains which is just another name for tables and they can be upto 10Gb each. You can add items and their associated criteria to a table already in use at a later date. You don't need to learn SQL to use it. You can add or delete upto 25 items at a time which prevents someone doing wholesale damage to your database. It works in conjunction with simple storage service and elastic compute cloud. There is a free tier usage system if you haven't got much data but what is on your domains must be used at least once every 6 months or they may delete it. The pricing policy only charges you for the storage you use if for example you don't use any extra storage for 2 weeks then use 2 GB for another 2 weeks you are charged as if you used 1 GB for 1 month. Finally you may want to use more than one Amazon server farm in case one goes down they have a European one in Ireland, Asian ones in Singapore and Tokyo and a South American one in Sao Paulo among others.

Amazon Simple Queque Service

The book I read to research this post was Amazon Simple Queque Service Developers Guide which is an excellent guide which I downloaded for free from kindle. Amazon SQS in a nutshell is a method of sending a message upto 64kb in length from one computer to another via their servers on the cloud. It saves building a complex network. It doesn't deliver messages by default 1st in 1st out but rather weights them according to length although that can be changed in the settings. There are 2 types of permissions or rather who can read a message there is simple API which is the sender and the recipient and then there is advanced API which is setting permissions for other people to read it. There is a fair usage policy which prevents you abusing the system for example using it as storage. It's compatible with other amazon products in particular Simple Storage Service, Simple DB Database & Cloudsearch. Your messages have a minimum lifetime of one day although that is configurable. Amazon also guarantees every message will be delivered at least once. I think it's quite a useful web service.

Amazon Beanstalk

The book I read to research this post was Amazon Beanstalk Developer Guide which is a very good book which I downloaded for free from kindle. Amazon apparently has more than 20 web services. Beanstalk works in conjunction with elastic compute cloud or EC2 & simple storage service or S3. It allows you to write your own software and you can upload it to this service and Amazon will make that hardware wise and compatibility wise the program will run on the cloud. If you opt to run it in a sandbox or in other words test it you may be eligible for the free usage tier depending on how much storage is needed. Beanstalk is compatible with linux, windows 7, windows server 2008 r2 & macs. There is a whole host of languages you can write the program like java & PHP although some may require the relevant amazon software development kit.

Amazon Elastic Map Reduce Service

The book I read to research this post was Amazon EMR Service developer Guide which is a very good book which I downloaded for free from kindle. You might be interested to know I have done blogs on various web services offered by Amazon at the following blogs.
My computing blog http://scratbag.me
My technology blog http://scratbagroberts.com
My business and finance blog http://melissaball86.com
EMR is a web service that works in conjunction with Amazon EC2 or elastic compute cloud, S3 or simple storage service, & simple DB database service. It's a service for companies that do intensive processing like in data mining or web indexing. It tends to use EC2 to do the processing and then sends the data to be stored in S3. Some companies like to use Dynamo DB database or Relational DB database to use the data as a database. Relational DB lets you use SQL which a lot of people like to use. EMR uses Hadoop and when it's processing uses a hadoop cluster and then stores the data as a HDFS or hadoop distributed file system. When the data is sent via the internet to your workstation they use the secure internet protocol https. Hadoop works with Hive QL which does your queries and often a development language called pig is used. You have to be careful the versions of these 3 languages are compatible with each other and EMR. Often a script is needed to do your processing, there are plenty of languages like ruby and python that are supported but officially you are limited to 256 steps in your processes although there are workarounds like using secure shell or SSH. A final comment if you are doing anything like this is see if you can download a similiar script that you can adapt. Often they are free or very cheap and you save yourself a load of work.