Not unexpected but Apple is shutting the doors on Lala May 31st 2010. Lala is no longer accepting users, you can download music but only if you previously registered. Any remaining balance can be transferred to iTunes. Or you can request a check from Apple for the remaining amount. As of May 31st Lala will be completely unavailable. It’s no surprise that Apple is shutting down Lala (it always happens). Its an end of an era, but business is business.
Archive for April, 2010
Apple Shutting Down Lala For Good May 31st 2010
April 30th, 2010Microsoft Backs Apple On HTML5 Being The Future Of The Web
April 30th, 2010Looks like Microsoft is backing Apple on HTML5 being the future of the web as we know it. Microsoft’s IE team says that HTML5 is needed over flash for native hardware acceleration (overall better performance), and H.264 being a better codec. IE9 will only support H.264 HTML5 which is offered on Youtube/Vimeo. Microsoft says that the licencing issue isn’t an issue since its patented, and as such can’t be offered for free.
Ubuntu 10.04 Released
April 29th, 2010
Ubuntu 10.04 is now out! Its been 6 months. Ubuntu 10.04 now supports iPod touch syncing, Ubuntu One Music Store, MP3 support, new themes, faster boot, new login screen and much more.
I am glad that Ubuntu 10.04 features iPod touch sync since it allows me to move away somewhat from Windows. Sure it’s no iTunes alternative but it is an option. The fast boot helps, and the new theme is very mac like.
You can learn more about what has changed on the new features list.
WWDC 2010 Planned for June 7th, 2010
April 28th, 2010
WWDC 2010. Image Credit & (c) Apple
Apple is getting ready to do WWDC for 2010. It will be on June 7th, 2010 @ Moscone Center in San Francisco. “Center in the app universe” verify’s that it is for the “iPhone 4G” which got leaked earlier. I can’t wait for the event because it will have iPhone and iPod touch refreshes (both which have been leaked). Center of the app universe also means that they would be explaining more of the 4th version of the iPhone OS, which is currently in beta.
iTunes 9.1.1 Out Now: Fixes Stability Bugs
April 27th, 2010
Israel No Longer Banning iPads
April 26th, 2010Israel earlier this week blocked the import of iPads because of fears that its radio device where to powerful. Those fears are over and you are now allowed to import iPads into the country. It took a while to do tests to make sure the iPad was up to European wireless standards. Apple said that this was completely unnecessary because they said the iPad complied with international wireless regulation. Israel does not have Wireless N like US/Canada do, so the new Wireless technology is more power which is probably where the confusion came from.
Why flash is like crack
April 23rd, 2010You may ask why I am calling adobe flash (player) the web version of crack. Well have you ever tried to visit websites without it? Almost every website will bug you for flash because 98% of users run it.
So it’s now a regular expectation that you have the plugin. If you don’t like flash because of its performance drain, or it’s vulnerability there is options. Click to flash will disable it from loading (like adblock plus) but still report you have it. This means you won’t get messages bugging you, but at the same time it tells web devs that you still use flash and don’t need an alternative.
Silverlight is an option but its lack of real support makes it real useless. HTML5 (chrome, ie9, safari, iPhone, iPad, Firefox, etc) introduces the ability to view videos and interactive advertising without flash. YouTube, vimeo, CNN, and other sites are embracing html5 so you have an alternative. Html5 is growing since it’s the only option in iPhone & ipad. Soon since it’s a web standard it will be used more. Currently there is an issue over codecs but that should be fixed soon. It would be nice to be able to browse the web without QuickTime, flash, or Silverlight. Hopefully html5 will be fully adopted in the up coming years.
Want The Next Windows Live On XP? Well Too Bad
April 22nd, 2010Windows XP is is almost 9 years old (shocking isn’t it?), yet half of home users still use XP, and almost all schools/company’s still run it. Well if you want IE9, or the 4th version of Windows live (messenger, mail, movie maker, etc) then too bad its not going to be out for you.
“As some have noted on this blog, Windows XP is nearly 10 years old and simply doesn’t provide the same level of platform support for graphics, and we recognized early in our work on Wave 4 that we could do much more in our software on a modern graphics platform. As a result our new version of Essentials will require the new graphics platform and controls that are only available on Windows 7 or Windows Vista and therefore will only run on these platforms.”
Same exact reasons why IE9 will not run on XP. I still use XP SP3 but only because I have to. If I could afford a new laptop I would gladly get a mac or get a new computer with Windows 7. XP is getting really old, and its blue taskbar is getting old but Linux (Ubuntu, Open Suse, etc) still have not passed XP. Granted I could use Ubuntu but flash is an issue due to Adobe not supporting the platform very well. I won’t miss not having the next Windows live since I use Google for my needs, and Trillian for IM.
Windows 7 To Be On 80% Of Organizations PC’s By 2011
April 22nd, 2010Well Windows 7 is obviously not the train wreak Vista was. As 80% of Organizations are planning to upgrade to Windows 7 by the end of the year. Sure right now is also the natural time when PC’s are refresh, but if they wanted they could delay getting new machines. With Windows 7 being a success it means Microsoft is still the titan it always use to be. Per reports over half of that will be 64-bit versions of W7 which take advantage of more memory, and allow it to be faster.
McAfee Update Bricks Windows XP Machines
April 21st, 2010McAfee once again brought down XP machines after it detected a harmless windows file as a virus. Virus update 5958 is bad. McAfee has released 5959 to fix the issues but only to users not yet affected. The “virus” is W32/Wecorl.a. Apparently its brought down 2,000 computers at a Calgary University, some hospitals, and 30,000 other machines.
This isn’t the last time that McAfee has done such a thing to the exact file! In-fact its the 3rd time in recent years that McAfee has done such a thing. AVG, Norton, Avast, Avira, ESET, Panda, Kaskpersky have also done this before also. It’s a sad thing that in this day and age anti-virus’s that we are trusting (including corporations) are vulnerable from not a malware attack but rather a bad update.
At this time is best to just use another product like Microsoft Security Essentials which hasn’t brought down millions of PCs due to a bad update. You would think Antivirals vendors would learn from their mistakes by white-listing the file, and testing anti-virus definitions but I guess not.
If your machine was infected with the update you need to run shutdown -a at a command prompt.
