by ·Comments Off on The PC Market is Getting Smaller and Better

A note to lead this off: Unless otherwise noted, I refer to laptops/notebooks and desktops as PCs regardless of whether they run MacOS or Windows. So when you see “PC” here it will be making a distinction between gadgets like phones and tablets, and non-mobile and less mobile devices.

October 29, 2016. This week the technology landscape was dominated by discussions around events held by Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft’s event on Wednesday, Oct. 26 was officially a software event where the company revealed changes and improvements coming to the flagship product, the Windows 10 Operating System.

Available ‘Early 2017’, the next major update to the OS has been dubbed the ‘Creator’s Update’ by the company and focuses a lot of energy on making Windows appeal to the creative market such as graphic designers, photographers, and illustrators. Historically the creative market has been a strong segment for Apple while Microsoft’s strengths and customer base have been more in the enterprise and productivity realms along with gaming.

Microsoft has not abandoned their base with the update, though, as they are working improving productivity, especially by way of making collaboration smoother, and pouring time and talent into the burgeoning field of virtual reality, which appears to many to be the next big revolution in computer gaming (though VR also has promise for broader applications than just playing).

Despite it officially being a software/Windows event, the hardware announcements of the day generated the most buzz. The company revised and upgraded their existing hardware products (the Surface Pro tablet and Surface Book notebook that can be turned into a tablet), but the big news on the physical front was the new Surface Studio. This new device is an all-in-one desktop computer with a top tier  28″ screen which offers high pixel density, capacitive multi-touch, and precision stylus input.The clever design is both well-reviewed aesthetically and impressive in its functionality. The base contains all the main computing components while the screen is suspended on a trick hinge that holds the screen stable in whatever position you place it, but allows the screen to move with a single finger motivating it into whatever new position you wish, including a nearly horizontal, drawing table like surface. There is also a wireless ‘Surface Dial’ which is a new accessory that can be used to offer quick access to certain tools and adjustments, by spinning the Dial on the screen or desk.

Apple’s event was held on Thursday, Oct. 27, and focused on the MacBook lineup. Apple’s popular MacBook Pro lineup was showing its age and the aforementioned creative professional demographic was ready for a mobile computer offering more power than Apple’s lighter duty MacBook and MacBook Air options with newer and better internal components than the MacBook Pro offerings that were now a few years old in design.

Apple released a completely re-worked MacBook Pro in 13″ and 15″ screen sizes.The new notebooks have simplified the port offerings, sporting four Thunderbolt 3 (via USB 3.1C) ports that serve as charging ports (in place of Apple’s popular MagSafe connector which is not present on the new offerings), video (in place of the HDMI or DisplyPort options most people are familiar with), and the only option for adding digital peripherals. This will prove an interesting transitional time as users of the new MacBook Pro will have to deal with adapters and dongles for a while until cables for connecting USB-C to many common items are readily available. The new notebooks do sport a 3.5mm analog headphone/headset jack but have done away with the onboard SD card reader that is near ubiquitous on laptops.

The prominent new feature of the 2016 MacBook Pro is the replacement of the function key row (above the number row) with a touch screen that offers the expected volume and brightness controls while also adapting to the application in use on the main screen of the laptop. This adaptive area of the touch strip allows app developers to offer custom tools and buttons to the user. On the right edge of the strip, a TouchID fingerprint sensor has also been added for logging into the system, and integration into Apple Pay for online purchases.

The popular MacBook Air lineup has been left untouched. This has been mostly seen as the first step in abandoning the now aging lineup, with their non-Retina displays, and older overall architecture and these suspicions are fed by the release of a ‘budget’ model of the 13″ Pro that starts at the lowest Pro price point by sacrificing the new touch strip in favor of a more traditional function key row.

While the PC market as a whole has been in decline for years, and some people are finding their computing needs met by some combination of smartphone and tablet, it is obvious that even in decline the PC market is still plenty large and receiving attention from the large players in the tech world.

Postscript: While these major players are putting time and resources into their part of the PC industry, by no means does this mean their fan bases are entirely thrilled with the direction or results. The new MacBook Pro is especially under fire for its specs compared to price, with some professionals making the case it no longer deserves its “Pro” designation.

by ·Comments Off on A Note to the Non-Existent Readers of This Site

To anyone who stumbles across this site, an obvious question would be “Why does this exist?”

The purpose of this site is primarily to give me an outlet and an impetus to regularly write. I chose to write about technology since it interests me and is a broad field with many products, plots, and players. It is also something I follow generally due to working in Information Technology for years.

This site will never compete with the top players in technology reporting. I am not a journalist and have neither the skill nor the stamina to offer full featured coverage of this expansive industry.

There are plenty of great sources to keep up with technology news and progress, and realistically I don’t expect to gain a readership other than the occasional friend, relative, or co-worker. One benefit of this lack of an audience is I can do some experimentation.

What can you, the mythical, as of yet non-existent reader of this blog expect? I will likely start writing up small reviews of the apps and services I use. I can then give them to people who ask what I use and why for various tasks. I will also post small pieces about tech happenings that interest me, and I hope to start creating headline/aggregation posts sending you to the publications and pieces that interest me.

Let’s go.

by ·Comments Off on 2016-10-24 – Large Internet Outage Caused by IoT Botnet Attack

On Friday, October 10th, 2016, cyber attacks on an extremely large scale targeted a deep level Internet infrastructure providing company called Dyn. The attacks resulted in many internet traffic problems, especially on the East Coast, and resulted in a large number of prominent sites and services being down entirely. Visa, PayPal, Reddit, and Amazon were among the many large internet presences that faced outages.
The attacks were implemented by taking advantage of security vulnerabilities in so-called “Internet of Things (IoT)” devices. These include modern household appliances that have internet connectivity. After taking control of these types of devices on a large scale, the as of yet unknown masterminds of the attack were able to attack Dyn with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. This flood of traffic is designed to overwhelm the target with an impossible amount of traffic and information requests. With Dyn crippled, it was unable to serve the routing and translation needs it generally provides to internet providers and data centers (AKA Server Farms).
Even offline communities and individuals were affected when retail establishments were unable to process credit cards and perform other tasks that rely on internet provided communication.