There is a white paper at http://www.internet.com that says that iOS 5 weren’t ready in time for the iPhone 4GS and that there might not be that long a wait for the iPhone 5. I think that anyone thinking of getting into a long term contract should think twice. It might be an idea to have an upgrade option.
The book I read to research this post was Digital Video Handbook by Tom Ang which is an excellent book and which I got from the library but bear in mind this book is 5 years old although I am sure there is an updated version but some technologies like category 10 SD cards aren’t mentioned.
Obviously the first digital item you need is a DV camcorder. If you are serious about film making you need a prosumer model. Prosumer stands for professional consumer and while these camcorders have many of the features of broadcast standard cameras they can be obtained for a fraction of the cost.
Then you need a camera bag or preferably a hard case obviously to protect your camcorder another similiar item is a waterproof housing which protects it from the rain. A battery charger and a spare battery are a must. A lens hood protects the lens from bumps and a matte box shields your lens from the sun. A tripod keeps your camera steady while shooting. A microphone is a must & if it’s windy a windsock will protect it from the wind. If you need to record actors dialogue a boom is needed to position the microphone.
You obviously need a computer with decent graphics card, sound card & monitor also you may need calibration software for the monitor. You may need an external hard drive and external blu ray writer. Finally a useful item is a DAT recorder which records uncompressed sound but the tapes are expensive.
The book I read to research this post was PHP Fast & Easy Development by Julie C Meloni which is an excellent book although it is a little old and I bought it from a car boot sale. One thing I particularly like about this book is it sets out the steps to setting up apache, php and mysql in an easy to follow format.
Here are some uses for PHP:
It performs system functions ie creating directories and modifying permissions.
It gathers data from forms.
It accesses databases and modifies elements of a database.
It sets and accesses cookies.
It starts sessions and uses session objects.
It restricts access to parts of your website.
It creates images.
And it encrypts data.
The book I read to research this post was Exporting by James W Dudley which is a very good book and which I got from a garden fete a long time ago.
This book was written in 1989 so some of the info might be outdated. With a lot of countries getting rid of their trade barriers in favour of free enterprise there has never been a better time for companies to export their goods abroad. It is now getting to the stage where companies will have to cut their mark up and sell as many goods as possible worldwide. To this end a web site is essential along with foreign distributors. Small companies have the advantage of being able to sell to small niche markets which large companies have to leave due to lack of profit. We are getting to the stage where only firms who sell worldwide will have the capital to develop the new products necessary in todays world.
Some factors which are opening up markets are:
American multinationals
The rise of business skills and purpose in japan
The information technology revolution
The fall of communism and
The single european market.
The book I read to research this post was The Blackberry Playbook for Dummies by Corey Sandler which is an excellent book which I got from kindle.
The blackberry has a 5MP camera on the back and a 3MP camera on the front. It contains 1GB of system half of which is the operating system. It also contains removable memory which comes in three sizes 16GB, 32GB and 64GB and it is best to get as much as possible because this is not upgradeable. It’s possible a third party will offer some kind of upgrade at a later stage. It is compatible with the blackberry enterprise server, and it is compatible with blackberry smartphones via an app you can download but this may become part of the operating system with future smartphones. You can download music from 7digital.com and there is an app that is an ebook reader and you can download books from kobo.com
Steve jobs poked fun at the playbook for only having a 7 inch screen but it is worth pointing out that it is very portable and the screen image is so crisp you look at it close up with out it going blurred. It is the only tablet that is approved security wise by the FBI and it is worth pointing out that blackberry update the operating system quite frequently. When the first playbooks went on sale they needed updating immediately.
Wernher was born in 1912 and died in 1977. He is probably best known for the development of the V2 during world war 2 although later he became a key member of the NASA space program. Before world war 2 wernher worked on a rocket building project that was privately funded but was very short of cash. He realised if they were going to get anywhere they needed military funding which he got. Interestingly rocketry wasn’t forbidden by the treaty of versailles. From an early age he wanted to work on space flight but later he found the best way to do that was to build missiles. He saved a lot of scientists from concentration camps and they joined his team working on the V1 and V2. It has been said that conditions were bad for some of these scientists and there is evidence he appealed to his bosses to improve things for the sake of the program. If he had asked them to be more humane it would have fell on deaf ears.
Between 1945-51 there was virtually no rocket building and no space program in the USA. This changed when sputnik was launched. Wernher was a key member in the design and construction of the saturn 5. Also he was able to work with a lot of people who he had worked with on the V2. In 1972 he joined fairchild who were primarily an aircraft manufacturer but were also involved in building satellites and rocket components.
He was a major celebrity and his favourite story was that once he visited a school and among the people wanting autographs was a young girl who wanted two. He asked her why she wanted two autographs and she told him she was going to swap them for one elvis presley autograph.
The book I read to research this post was Dr Space by Bob Ward which is an excellent book which I got from the library.
Despite the PSP’s proprietary format software does exist that saves your psp games and umd films to a memory stick or a pc. The practice of copying a umd to a memory stick is called dumping because you copy everything on the disc. You need to be running 1.50 of the firmware. Incidentally most hacks require 1.50 because many of the weaknesses which programmers exploit were sorted out with the later versions. Don’t forget bypassing copyright is illegal in most places. The best web site is probably http://www.psp-hacks.com
UMDEmulator and DAX ZISO Loader are two emulators that will play psp games on your pc.
The book I read to research this post was The Rough Guide to the PSP by Nicholas Gilewicz et al which I got from amazon and it is an excellent book especially if you have a PSP.
File Transfer Tools
Text Editors
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
Graphics Editors
HTML Editors
http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/
Sound Recording
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Web Servers
http://savant.sourceforge.net/
http://roxen.com/products/cms/webserver/
Database Tools
Wiki Software
mediawiki.org
Script Tools
I may start writing about open source software in addition to technology on this blog.
The book I read to research this post was The Definitive Guide to PC-BSD by Dru Lavigne which is an excellent book and which I got from my local library.
BSD stands for Berkeley Software Distribution and it was a version of Unix developed at Berkeley University in California and which they kept updated until the early 90’s when the open source community took over. In march 1993 the NetBSD community was formed which developed BSD so that it would work on virtually any computer architecture. Another group called the FreeBSD group concentrated on making BSD work on personal computers and eventually wrote 21,000 applications which all work on the BSD format. There is another group called the OpenBSD group which deals with security issues. It has to be noted the author of this book has been using PC-BSD and FreeBSD for 10 years without any problems with viruses although there is an anti virus program available on the internet. In 2005 a user developed PC-BSD which is easier to use and install than FreeBSD which still retaining the features of that operating system. There is a magazine available that specializes in PC-BSD called BSD and you can buy PC-BSD on dvdrom if you don’t want to download it.
The book I read to research this post was The Rough Guide to Videogames by Kate Berens & Geoff Howard which is an excellent book and which I got from the library.
Despite its limited capabilities the gamecube gave the xbox a run for its money. The xbox came out around the same time. It used a 1.6 gb small proprietary disc. There were some excellent games ie resident evil 4, available for it and it looked like something that was fun to use. Most of the games on the gamecube especially when it first came out were family games. It marked a change of direction for nintendo instead of competing with sony head on as they had with the rather unsuccessful N64 which should have been more popular than it was. It was superior to the psone and saturn in processing power and had almost indestructible cartridges which loaded straight away. This was continued with the wii which though lacking graphically was more fun to play with than the xbox360 and PS3.
scratbagroberts 