Category Technology

PayPal Everywhere?

I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of PayPal as it has more than its fair share of security issues, but I occasionally use it as it is convenient. Nevertheless, in the past few days I've noticed that several 'major' online stores have added PayPal as a payment option. Take for example HP or Native Instruments. Several international online retailers (e.g. Expansys or Pixmania), have had a PayPal payment option for a long time and many smaller retailers take advantage of the company's streamlined services. I am not sure what the demographics of the service's users are, but I'm quite certain that users in several European countries are not really big customers of PayPal. My personal experience with it has been generally good, with the exception of one time when I tried using it for a relatively large amount and ended up having my card deactivated for a few days --- banks don't seem to like PayPal much. Yet its adoption as a payment option in the online stores of large corporations may signify that it's becoming an accepted alternative to bank payment processors, a manifestation perhaps of the e-currency theories of the 1990s. What do you think?

dte 2007 και η μίζερη υποκουλτούρα.

Η τελευταία φορά που επισκέφθηκα ελληνική έκθεση τεχνολογίας ήταν το 1994. Τότε που η χωρητικότητα των σκληρών δίσκων μετριώνταν σε ΜΒ, η Μicrosoft δεν ήταν ακόμη ο παντοδύναμος κυρίαρχος της αγοράς των προσωπικών υπολογιστών, το λίνουξ ήταν παντελώς άγνωστο στο 99.999999% του πληθυσμού και υπήρχαν ακόμη κάποια — έστω λίγα — δείγματα πρωτοπορίας και ενθουσιασμού […]

Lucida Grandε.

This has been itching me ever since I installed Leopard. Lucida Grande, the ‘default’ font for much of OS X’s UI has been ‘upgraded’ to version 6.0. This wouldn’t be a problem (or even noticeable) if the new Lucida Grande hadn’t replaced the glyph for the hellenic character epsilon with the ugliest, most striking version […]

FakeStevey got it…wrong.

Check this post by Fake Steve Jobs. It's hilarious and not just because it nails what the real Steve Jobs probably thinks of Openness, but also because it highlights what was always wrong with his approach: whenever his companies were weak (NeXT in the late 80s and early 90s, Apple in the late 90s and early 2000s) he touted Openness, standards and formed alliances with other companies. Take Adobe's Display PostScript in NeXTSTEP, Darwin, Display PDF, OpenGL, OpenAL, CUPS, UNIX certification, gcc and a number of other standards, APIs, libraries and applications between 2001 and today in OS X or his 'agreement' with Microsoft in 1997. But just when things do well, he tries to usurp the dominant position, showing complete disregard to their partners, development community, users and sometimes even employees. In my discussions about Android with friends over the past day I compared Google with Microsoft in the 80s. Many have done the same. This comment by 'chickenface' in the linked article is, I believe, representative of how I see Android evolving and eventually dominating the market:
This is 1984, the iphone is the 128K Mac, and GPhone is the PC. Look, there's no actual consortium; there's Google and its customers. Kinda like Apple and AT&T, but they've got so many customers we're calling it a consortium. When're you gonna get this straight: Microsoft were like the Klingons - we made a sort of peace with them and held our nose. Google, they're way worse -- they're the Borg.

The MetaSocial

Yahoo! seems to have yet another social networking site in the works, after the failed 360° and the still in beta mash. Its name is Kickstart. This new network seems to position itself somewhere between LinkedIn and the original Facebook, trying to map student relationships and match them to employer requirements. I really fail to […]

Android and the Open Handset Alliance.

Apple may have produced a great, polished and closed device in the iPhone. Revolutionary? Nope, but very impressive nevertheless. As a device, as a user interface and — soon — as a platform. Yet in some years from now, what will probably be the iPhone’s single most significant contribution to the world was the belief […]

Πού είναι η ψηφιακή τηλεόραση;

Μέσα στο 2006 έγραψα πολλές φορές [βλ. εδώ, εδώ, εδώ και εδώ] σχετικά με τη ψηφιακή τηλεόραση, στα πλαίσια της έναρξης του ‘πιλοτικού’ προγράμματος της ΕΡΤ, των τριών καναλιών της ΕΡΤ Ψηφιακής. Πάνω από ενάμιση χρόνο μετά η κατάσταση όχι απλώς δεν έχει βελτιωθεί, αλλά βρισκόμαστε πιο κοντά στην διορία τερματισμού των αναλογικών εκπομπών. Σύμφωνα […]

Τα εργοστάσια της πληροφορίας

Τον Ιανουάριο του 2006 έγραφα για την ελληνική Wikipedia και μεταξύ άλλων πρότεινα κάποιες από τις εργασίες των μαθητών σε γυμνάσια και λύκεια να επεξεργάζονται ομαδικά από τη τάξη και στο τέλος να συνεισφέρωνται στη Wikipedia. Όπως φαίνεται δε θα μπορούσα να ήμουν ο μόνος που θα είχε σκεφθεί κάτι τέτοιο. Το σχετικό εγχείρημα μιας […]

Leopard UI flaws

Apple likes showing off. In Leopard lots of things are improved, the UI is more consistent and polished. Yet there are a number of completely ridiculous aspects of it that go quite a long way towards demolishing Apple's reputation as a leader in UI design. Take for example the new Dock, which besides completely pointless is also an ergonomic nightmare, heavy on resources and ugly. Did I mention pointless? (Thanks to the_unknown_Apple_dev for the no-glass option!). The linked blog entry more or less sums up most of the things I found completely, utterly stupid while looking at Leopard images and videos online. I've got some more, such as the relatively dark gray 'platinum' look (I prefer the lighter gray of the 'inactive' windows), CoverFlow (mostly useless in the Finder if you ask me), the proliferation of etched text among others. [via daring fireball] Update: As usual, a really good and thorough review of Leopard by John Siracusa, can be found at ArsTechnica.

Guitar Rig 3

Also read the Guitar Rig 4 Mini-Review A bit more than a year ago I wrote about Guitar Rig 2, Native Instruments’ flagship product for Guitarists. Guitar Rig 2 was an excellent product in most ways, with exceptional sound quality, a solid foot controller and several improvements over the original. About two years since Guitar […]