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We know data in the cloud might be a good idea, but there are few hesitations come to mind that make data in the cloud a good idea but not practical.  We know data in the cloud might be subjected to security risk, losing one’s right to data (you never know), and bandwidth limitation!  The other two are obvious, but let me focus on the last which is even more obvious.  Yes, bandwidth is what making data in the cloud for average users a good idea but not practical.  Home users, not enterprise users, are facing data caps from their ISPs.  Many ISPs are so gung-ho in capping home users’ bandwidth around 100 Gigabyte to 250 Gigabyte range.  Sure, 100 GB to 250 GB range sounds like a lot, but believe me it’s not if home users decide to backup their huge 650 GB to 2 Terabyte worth of data onto the cloud!  It’s now obvious that data in the cloud is simply not a computing tool/solution for everyday folks, isn’t it?

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Samsung has got a lot headlines lately, because it has been sued by Apple in many parts of the world in regarding to smartphone patents.  Anyhow, Cnet made a video on Samsung’s history.  It is an intriguing video, because it points out how large Samsung has become.  Did you know, besides the making of awesome smartphones that Apple loathes, Samsung made so many things that even a tank was a Samsung product?  Come to think of it, my modern refrigerator is a Samsung.  By the way, Samsung is not only big in brand, but it’s also big in size.  According to the Cnet video below, Samsung employs just about 160,000 employees.  Indeed, Apple is picking on somebody Apple’s own size!

Source:  http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/20/cnet-shows-us-samsungs-history-talent-for-building-tanks-vide/

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Meat (Photo credit: Divine Harvester)

As time goes on, world population is going to grow even larger, therefore the demand for foods will have to be even more vicious.  This notion along with other notions such as the explosion of livestock would produce higher amount of methane gas in the atmosphere and fast-track the global warming have scientists in Netherlands produce cow meats in lab.  According to Guardian, Dr. Mark Post, head of physiology at Maastricht University, plans to showcase a burger made from lab-grown meat.  The problem is that it is going to cost around £200,000 to produce a burger with lab-grown meat.  So, the people who cannot take the idea of having to see lab-grown meats to be sold in supermarkets, at least the super-expensive process of making lab-grown meats can assure these folks that they won’t see lab-grown meats in their supermarkets anytime soon.  My question to you is, to eat or not to eat lab-grown meats?

Source:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/19/test-tube-burger-meat-eating

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I think many Linux beginners might have the fear in learning how to use command lines on Linux.  Instead of playing with command lines on Linux, many Linux beginners might just stick to popular graphical user interfaces that come along with the popular Linux distributions.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with this!  Unfortunately, sometimes, there are things on Linux can only be done through command lines, therefore some basic knowledge of command lines on Linux would be useful in the long run.

In the video right after the break, I won’t go into how to use specific Linux command lines, because I might create short videos but full of detailed instructions for essential command lines in the future.  This is why you may find me giving Linux beginners a pep talk and some insights on how to learn command lines on Linux in the video right after the break.  Enjoy!

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Music lesson Staatliche Antikensammlungen 2421.jpg - This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Wikipedia's image!

Creator of Zya, Matt Serletic, might know something about the Internet, because he is hoping his creation will enable people who may never even think about making music to have a real chance in making music hits.  Perhaps, more stars will be born from Zya creation, because we know there are just that many more talents out there who never have a chance to showcase their talents.  The world is huge after all, but with Zya the world in term of making music might just get smaller.

Of course, Zya isn’t special, because Apple and few others already have their own creations to help make the unknown talents known.  Nonetheless, it seems to me Zya might have Apple’s iTunes/GarageBand a run for Apple’s money (and few other competitors), because Zya is a complete music model.  Zya is a distribution center, music creation platform, revenue sharing, and a redistribution center for older music hits.  In a way, any user can use Zya to create music, make older hits reborn into something new but without the hassle of convincing the copyright owners to allow them to use such hits, and much more.

How enjoyable to play around and make music with Zya?  I do not know since I never have tried it.  Nonetheless, from the look at the video right after the break, it does feel like a video game somewhat (my kind of thing as I play video games a lot).  Of course, what do I know unless I have my hand on Zya.  Anyhow, check out Zya in the video right after the break.

Source:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/kymmcnicholas/2012/02/15/apples-garageband-and-itunes-have-some-new-competition/

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Graphic design folks are going to love Photoshop CS6!  The new trick for Photoshop CS6 is content awareness.  By this I mean Photoshop users are going to be able to simply move any object within a photo around in mere seconds.  After moving an object away from its original position, the new photo would look as if it’s the original.  Furthermore, Photoshop users can use content awareness’ extend feature to extend an object such as its length.

Basically, content awareness is a timesaver for graphic designers, because they don’t have to use various tedious tricks to painstakingly shifting objects within a photo around.  Since this painstaking trick is now simply executing in mere seconds through Photoshop CS6, I cannot help but wonder will someone be able to use this technique (obviously Photoshop isn’t for video editing) and apply an automatic process frame by frame for videos?  It might be a stupid, on the fly idea which pops into my head as now, but it’s quite fascinating to me!  Anyhow, check out Photoshop CS6′s content awareness trick in the video right after the break.

Source:  http://gizmodo.com/5885285/photoshop-cs6-can-magically-move-around-any-object-in-your-photos

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(Whenever I refer to a cloud, I mean a third party cloud service, OK?)

The cloud, the thing that you do nowadays so the data will always be within your reach as if you just look up, point, see, and say, “That’s my cloud!”  Sure, it’s quite reassurance to know the cloud might save you from a rainy day when the cloud actually shines and the rain has nothing to do with the cloud, but it has to do more with how your computers and local backup suddenly say bye bye to your precious data.  The mighty cloud shines like a sun as it allows you to recover your data, but are you sure the cloud will always shine, bright, and dry?

You need to know that the cloud is for your convenience only, therefore it’s convenient but not really safe!  Convenient?  Yes, you can access your data anytime at anywhere as long any place has any Internet connection so any computer there is can allow you to access any file!  A promise of conveniency and an extra point of redundancy might be just what some people need, but be very careful in relying on someone to take care your precious data!  After all, it’s you who has the most interest in having such data out of harm’s way.

You might forget that an extra point of redundancy which the cloud promises might not be hard to set up yourself.  You can rely on any third party cloud service and ignore that any third party cloud service might just be the many servers that hum cozily in some datacenters, but these servers and datacenters are just as susceptible to hardware failure, data corruption, and hacks as your local machines.  In fact, third party cloud services might have more problems than your own machines since such cloud services have to scale up (e.g., bigger datacenter, more hardware, more sophisticated software) to keep up with demands.  If demands aren’t there, third party cloud services will eventually dwindle away along with your data.

Cloud is shiny, bright, and pretty alright, but it’s so gorgeous only when the sky is just as bright.  Cloud can get darkish and nasty when the rain pours down hard on you (this rain has nothing to do with the rain outside).  So, don’t think the cloud is a miracle for all data problems, but just use the cloud as any other tool.  Try to use the cloud when you actually need to backup some not so important data, because these data you want to have easy access to and care not so much if someone else might accidentally have a peek at.  The truth is, within the cloud you never will have total control over your own data (i.e., except for the cloud that you actually host and run yourself).  In a way, you can view the cloud as a safe where you can just reach for whatever at your convenience, and you know it will always be there unless…

The cloud should never be a place where you have had the need to keep your data safe and away from prying eyes.  If you want to have redundancy for your precious data in case of data corruption, hardware failure, and the likes, you should store or backup multiple copies of such data locally.  If you have to store or backup your data remotely, make sure at least you have full control of your machines (or even the cloud).  One good example would be installing a machine in a datacenter which allows you to sign up for a co-hosting (i.e., also known as co-locating) plan, because this way you have full control of your machines (i.e., ensuring you have full control of your data at the cost of paying some monthly fee).

People might argue that the cloud will give you more free time since you don’t really have to worry about hardware failure, security measures, other technicalities and responsibilities in keeping your data and machine safe.  Plus, it’s rather convenient!  Nonsense!  The cloud can have just as many problems, and you might not know anything about it since such problems might be taken care of without your presence.  Sure, you don’t have to take care of such problems yourself, but when the real problems come knocking at you anyway, it’s when you know you should be at the helm when the problems go haywire to no end.

The argument is that bad things happen, with or without the cloud, therefore the cloud isn’t a miracle but just another tool among tools within your famous computing toolbox.  Use it wisely, and you have the bright, shiny, pretty, and happy cloud.  Use it wrongly, and you have one heck of a monster that eats and might even share your data with another monster (i.e., a hacker’s machine).  You should take the approach to be safe than sorry when it comes down to how to use a third party cloud.  How so?  Check out the random tips below:

• Only store data that you might want to share with someone in the cloud
• Encryption can be broken, but if you must store super important data that you might not want anyone to take a peek at, you must encrypt such data in the cloud
• Backup only unimportant data in the cloud
• If you must share cloud data, make sure you have the option of creating a share directory so only people that you grant access can take a look at a specific directory and data
• Do not allow people to have the ability to change your data in the share directory (e.g., no write permission, no execute permission, no delete permission)
• If you must allow some people to download your data in the share directory, you must know that you’re liable for sharing such data (i.e., do not share data that aren’t yours)
• Cloud encourages behavior where you log onto any computer to access data, therefore such data should not be important to you at all if you intend to log into your cloud through public computers
• Cloud isn’t a miracle or should it be replacing your usual local storages, because it’s just an extra point in data redundancy plan of yours, but for unimportant data only
• Cloud can be hacked and might be more targeted by hackers than your regular machines (i.e., all types of data for hackers to mine in a single point)

Perhaps, electronic devices such as iPad might be too distractive, therefore it might not be effective enough in exposing children to books?   The fear is that children might go for pretty graphics, therefore video games on tablet devices might be something they might want to play with instead of learning how to read.  The exception would be video games for children that encourage reading, because such video games might teach children how to read after all.

Anyhow, my opinion is that we should introduce real books to children at early age, and then as they grow up they can explore more books through electronic devices such as iPad (i.e., eBooks).  The idea here is to get rid of distraction, but stimulating enough so the children won’t shy away from reading at early ages.  Perhaps, parents should show high levels of excitement in children books in order for the children to show some enthusiasms in reading children books.  I’m not sure, but colorful children books might not be a bad idea as long the messages within are meaningful.  Boring meaningful messages might not be stimulating enough, therefore children books might need to be somewhat exotic to expand children imagination, in a good way of course (i.e., turning boring but positive messages into exciting messages).

In the end, I do not know the effectiveness of exposing children eBooks to children at the early age, because I’ve yet learned or read of a study which tackles this subject.  I do know though, the time before eBooks, children had always been exposed to regular children books (i.e., not children eBooks).  The question I’ve been curious of is which children book form is better in term of enticing children to read early, children eBooks or children regular books (i.e., made from papers)?  My intuition tells me that children should be exposed to regular children books first before they old enough to read eBooks.  What do you think?