Archive for the ‘Tech’ Category
Go social with these WordPress plug-ins
August 25th, 2009 | 
Author: With the help of plug-ins, you can extend the functionality of your WordPress blog far beyond what’s available to you when you add it to your server.
One of the best ways to get the most out of your blogs is through social plug-ins. These simple plug-ins can be added to your blog to help you connect socially with both your readers and their friends. They offer a fine way to build traffic to your site.
Full Story :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10316017-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Source :
CNETNews Go social with these WordPress plug-ins http://bit.ly/11o187
Posted in Communication, Internet, Tech, WordPress | 
Tags: plugins, social networking, WordPress | 
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Report: Steve Jobs concentrating on tablet
Jobs, who came back following a liver transplant and six-month medical leave, is overseeing every aspect of the new tablet, especially its advertising and marketing strategy, the Journal said Tuesday.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs, last October.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET)
Apple staffers have faced Jobs’ scrutiny after a period of freedom over product strategy during his leave. “People have had to readjust” to his presence, noted the Journal, quoting a person familiar with the matter.
The rumor mill has been abuzz with stories of a possible Apple tablet, Netbook, or giant iPod. But those familiar with the device declined to reveal details about it or disclose its release date, the Journal noted.
Still, many industry watchers expect that it will be a multimedia device that will let people surf the Web, watch movies, play games, and possibly read e-books. And they expect it to debut later this year or in early 2010.
Jobs’ attention to the tablet is a sign of how important the new device is to Apple, the Journal said. Since unveiling the iPhone in 2007, the company hasn’t released a new product category, choosing instead to enhance its existing line of MacBooks, iPods, and iPhones.
A tablet has been in the works for some time. Apple was granted a patent on such a device last year. But the design process apparently hasn’t been a smooth one. Jobs halted the project twice, once because of poor battery life and again because of insufficient memory, a person familiar with the matter told the Journal.
In an e-mail to the Journal, Jobs said that “much of your information is incorrect,” but he didn’t provide specifics. An Apple representative declined to comment further.
Source :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10316970-37.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-2
Video: Using InDesign to lay out comics
I have certainly used InDesign to package finished comics projects, but since it’s primarily a page layout tool, I have never seen it used for any sort of drawing. In this video Gareth Hinds shows how he uses InDesign’s vector pencil tool to do the rough sketching and layouts for his comic book adaptation of The Odyssey.
This is the first in a series of videos for which he plans to share the other steps in his comic-making process.
Source Plus video :
http://drawn.ca/2009/08/12/laying-out-comics-in-adobe-indesign/
Intel, Microsoft event to highlight Windows 7 improvements
Intel and Microsoft will hold an event next week to discuss collaboration on improvements to Windows 7.
The event next Tuesday in San Francisco will “share how the two companies collaborated on key enhancements during the development of Windows 7,” according to Intel. Steve Smith, vice-president and director, Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group Operations, and Michael Angiulo, General Manager of Windows Planning and PC Ecosystem at Microsoft will talk at the event.
Windows 7 collaboration will be demonstrated and illustrated by engineers from both companies, according to Intel. Not surprisingly, Microsoft is working closely with Intel, whose chips will power the vast majority of PCs running Windows 7.
In a blog posted in July, Intel described how Microsoft and Intel “saw unique opportunities to optimize Windows 7 for Intel processor technology” in the areas of performance, power management, and graphics.
The blog points to improvements to multitasking based on “SMT Parking,” which provides additional support to the Windows 7 scheduler for Intel Hyper-threading Technology. With Hyper-threading, the operating system sees a single processor core as two cores (i.e, a dual-core chip becomes a virtual quad-core processor), thus potentially improving multitasking–or doing tasks (threads) simultaneously.
Improvements over Vista for boot and shutdown times have also been targeted.
Intel also lists desktop motherboards on its site and associated drivers that have passed logo certification for Windows 7.
Another beneficiary of improved Windows 7 technology: Intel solid-state drives, which are typically faster than hard-disk drives and gaining ground in niche markets such as high-end laptops, gaming PCs, and servers. SSDs will be able to take advantage of Windows 7 technology called the Trim Command. Trim will allow blocks of data to be freed up for reuse to better maintain the performance of the SSD.
Windows 7 will also do more than previous operating systems with graphics via DirectX 11. Advanced Micro Devices has described DirectX 11-related technology that enables games developers to create smoother, less blocky and more organic looking objects in games. And, beyond games, Windows 7 has the potential to turn a graphics processing unit (GPU) from AMD or Nvidia into a general-purpose compute engine, used to accelerate everyday computing tasks like a central processing unit, or CPU. Specifically, “the compute shader” can be used to speed up more common computing tasks. The buzz word used to describe this technology is a mouthful: GPGPU or general-purpose graphics processing unit.
Source :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10315957-64.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Apple to ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard Aug. 28
Apple will ship its newest operating system to customers a little earlier than expected. The company said Monday that Mac OS X Snow Leopard will be available this Friday, August 28.
(Credit: Apple)Apple made it clear from the beginning that Snow Leopard was not as much about adding new features as it was about refining the code in the operating system.
For instance, according to Apple, 90 percent of the Mac OS X code has been worked on for the Snow Leopard release. This isn’t just application code, it also includes working on the Finder, making it more responsive.
Apple says that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous operating system and frees up to 7GB of drive space once installed. No doubt this has to do with the refinements in the operating system, but Snow Leopard also only supports Macs with an Intel-based processors, not the older PowerPC processors.
As for speed increases in Snow Leopard, Apple said that its Mail application loads messages twice as fast, Time Machine does its initial backup 80 percent faster, and the included 64-bit version of Safari is up to 50 percent faster.
Snow Leopard also supports Exchange Server 2007. This means that you can use Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal out of the box with Exchange.
Mac OS X Snow Leopard will cost $29 as an upgrade for Leopard users. For Mac OS X Tiger users, the Mac Box Set, which includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife ’09 and iWork ’09, will cost $169.
Apple had said at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June that Snow Leopard would go on sale in September, though more recently some tech blogs had been bandying about an August 28 date.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10315866-37.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
