It's Christmas time again and in many countries it is a lot easier these days to simply order online for you presents and gifts. As usual I am in Australia for Christmas and I have already ordered a number of presents online. I just saw a colour laser printer from Samsung for $125 including delivery that might make a nice present for myself. Toys are a fraction of the store prices which shows just how much mark up there is here in Australia. Stores are starting to complain about mail ordering but when you are making 200 percent on a sale you have little room to play the hurt party.
In the modern age the real issue is with what to get someone who lives in a Western society? The children seem to have everything or too many toys as it is. They are better at mobile phone games than their parents, already have a DSI like gaming device of some kind and deciding what to get them is becoming increasingly more difficult.
In the IT and electronics world the situation is getting to the point where some parents are getting their young children an iPad or similar because they have everything else already. The one expensive present approach rather than the many smaller gifts. How you can justify giving a child a $600 plus present shows just how well the Western world is doing.
Thailand has embraced the idea of Christmas as well, well at least the stores have. It was not that long ago that Christmas passed by without a mention, now there are decorations and 'buy me' displays in most shopping centres. So iPad or Android tablet? It depends where you live and if Apple has managed to keep an injunction on Samsung or not. Sure you can buy another brand of Android unit but the Samsung devices seem to be the better ones at the moment otherwise Apple would not be so afraid of them. No, my nieces will not be getting a tablet from me.
Found a very useful utility for splitting audio files where you have an associated CUE file, e.g. for single DTS .WAV files. Medieval CUE Splitter. It is free and you can get it from here http://www.medieval.it/cuesplitter-pc/menu-id-71.html. It is fast, works great and did I mention it was freeware?
Now if I can figure out a really good and simple way to convert stereo tracks to DTS 5.1 sound.
On that note the one area of software that never seems to get any better or easier is media conversion. Yes there are a plethora of products out there, some for free and some professional. None of them is flexible enough to do the kinds of things I have every wanted to do. There are long complicated conversion methods using a series of steps with freeware apps but none are easy to use and there is always some problem at one of the stages. Worse there are as many conversion methodologies as there are task types.
In the professional world this is well recognised and you need to mortgage your home to get all the right software and VST plug-ins. One day it will all be easier.
Industry News
So which browser protect you the best from online attacks? I bet you think I'm going to say Firefox but no that one is the worst at the moment, sigh. According to a recent 102-page report, prepared by researchers from security firm Accuvant Google Chrome offers more protection against online attacks than any other mainstream browser. Surprised? The report compares all kinds of attacks based on the underlying assumption that buffer overflow bugs and other security vulnerabilities are certain in any complex piece of software. Chrome came out on top with IE close behind. Firefox came after that mostly because it doesn't have a security sandbox that shields vital parts of the Windows operating system from functions that parse JavaScript, images and other web content.
The report was commissioned by Google. The authors say that they had complete autonomy in deciding what metrics to use and what conclusions they made. This may indeed be true but bias is hard to eliminate when the people paying you are asking you to review their product. According to the report Chrome, IE, and Firefox are used by more than 93 percent of web users.
Proving yet again that online data is not safe Australia's Telstra customer self-service site has had to be shut down recently because they opened up their sensitive customer data to the whole world. Basically they allowed any Internet user to bypass the front-page security of the BigPond self-help site and access details of other users. The data available would have had an identity theft ring drooling. Details included telephone numbers, users’ names and addresses, bundle information, and according to some reports users’ login and password information. As soon as they were made aware Telstra closed the site down, accidentally interrupting BigPond users’ access to Webmail. To be fair the site is a cloud based one hosted by a third party, one about to be purchased by Oracle. The breach was potentially a large one because there were over 650,000 new bundle customers sold last year but according to Telstra only 60K will have to reset their passwords. Following Telstra's usual customer service policy it took a while to let customers know.
Apple has lost another court case this time in Australia. The High Court has refused Apple’s application for special leave to appeal in the ongoing Apple-Samsung case. This means the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be on sale in Australia before Christmas. Samsung must however keep detailed records of sales of the device and application sales. The twist here is that by the time the case has been resolved both vendors will probably have new models out. Samsung already has units on the shelves (as of Dec 12th) List prices, i.e. the prices that only the non clever pay, are $AU579 for the 16 GB WiFi Galaxy 10.1 Tab, and $AU729 for the 3G version. Or in more realistic terms, less expensive than the iPad.
In other negative news for Apple, Motorola has been successful in getting an injunction against Apple sales in Germany based on patent violations. The injunction has cost Motorola €100m in bond money. This is in case the German court brings down a later ruling overriding the decision. Apple asked for €2bn which is somewhat ambitious. If you have forgotten Samsung now owns Motorola. Meanwhile Apple cannot sell their stuff in Germany. This is what happens when you indirectly annoy Motorola who has a gazillion patents in many, many areas that Apple has an interest in.
PC forecasts for 2012 have been downgraded because of the ongoing hard drive crisis and because demand has been dropping. IHS has estimated a 3.8 million unit shortfall in PC shipments against their earlier estimates. Current HDD stocks are expected to run out early in 2012. On the plus side there is still a projected growth but there are slight price increases in the final products and even more rises predicted. This goes against the normal trend of prices coming down.
In response Western Digital has ramped up production in Malaysia and has the flooded plant producing some units as well. Full production is not ex0pected in Thailand until after the middle of 2012. By the end of 2012 expect to be able to pick up inexpensive hard drives.
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