Category Technology

Mason Sans ή αλλιώς το Χαος

Μετά από αρκετό καιρό αποφάσισα να κάνω κάποιες αισθητικές αλλαγές στο cosmix.org. Δεν είναι κάτι το ιδιαίτερο ώστε να αξίζει αναφορά εδώ, όμως παρατήρησα κάτι που με προβλημάτισε. Κοιτώντας στο Web για γραμματοσειρές πέτυχα την Mason Sans Greek Alternative. Τη γραμματοσειρά μπορείτε να τη δείτε στο νεο λογότυπο του cosmix.org. Ψάχνωντας λοιπόν τη βρήκα στο […]

How Microsoft lost control of VC-1

A two page article on The Register on how excitement over VC-1 waned and H.264 ended up ruling the current generation of video codecs. While I am not keen on trusting Microsoft with any additional power over computer technology and I am quite happy that H.264 seems to have won the battle, what's really interesting here is how patent law, as ludicrous as it is, can even backfire on the mightiest players of the industry.

Why I stopped using Skype. Kind of.

I was one of the early adopters of Skype, the, now ubiquitous voice over IP application/platform created by Niklas Zennström of Kazaa’s fame and now owned by eBay. But, truth be told I never really warmed up to it. You could say it was imposed on me when its simplicitly stood there laughing at my […]

So, where's the Fibre?

In 1994 one of the buzzwords you were bound to hear if you were even remotely interested in technology was the “Information Superhighway”. Of course, as a quasi-technical-turned-social term, it had a multi-level meaning, depending on who you were talking to. Laypeople would immediately infer a superfast, all-encompassing, ubiquitous network infrastructure that would allow them […]

Two-finger scrolling For The Rest of Us

This is iScroll2, a modified ADB trackpad driver (based on the Darwin sources) that adds two-finger scrolling capability to those of us with older {i,Power}Books. Good stuff.

A New Era.

Just a few hours ago, Apple and EMI announced the availability of DRM-free, high bitrate tracks on Apples iTunes Store. One thing is certain: Today’s announcement is an important milestone for the media industries, but it also sets a precedent as the first major offering that disentangles technical restrictions of media and consumer rights. This […]

Νεα Ελληνική Apple IMC ο 'Γερμανός';

Σύμφωνα με σημερινό άρθρο στο Macscoop η εταιρία "Γερμανός" φέρεται να είναι η μελλοντική διανομέας/αντιπρόσωπος της Apple Inc. στη χώρα μας μέσα στο 2007. Εφ'όσον η αναφορά του Macscoop αληθεύει (κάτι διόλου βέβαιο), το βασικό μου ερώτημα είναι: θα γίνει ο Γερμανός η νεα ελληνική IMC, κρατώντας στα χέρια του ολόκληρη την αγορά και επιβάλλωντας που, πως και πότε θα πωλούνται οι Mac, τα iPhones, τα iPods κλπ. ή θα υπάρξει --- επιτέλους --- επίσημη παρουσία της ίδιας της εταιρίας (βλ. Apple Hellas) και ο Γερμανός θα αποτελεί απλώς βασικό διανομέα; Δυστυχώς, μάλλον το πρώτο..

Surflinks Redux.

It's been about two months since I started providing sidebar links (and an Atom 1.0 feed) to interesting pages I found while surfing, in a section I called 'Surflinks'. I did this for two reasons: 1. to avoid cluttering the blog (and main feed) with numerous miniposts that did not necessarily merit accompanying text or comment, and 2. to still have a way to provide numerous links for those that care. I think some of you --- clearly --- liked it as I've had enough (non bot) hits on the feed. The problem was that I was only informed a few days ago that the plug-in I was using to process the feed was not functioning properly anymore and that the links did not point anywhere. This is now fixed. Apologies to any of you who had trouble accessing the linked pages from the sidfebar or SL feed.

Google Solar

Η ανακοίνωση δεν είναι νεα. Στο παρελθόν είχα αναφέρει εδώ στο cosmix.org, τη πρόθεση του Google για χρήση του ηλίου ως πηγή ενέργειας για μέρος των αναγκών του. Το άρθρο του Ars Technica μας θυμίζει πως αυτό είναι κάτι παραπάνω από οικολογική συνείδηση, ηθική υποχρέωση ή κόλπο μάρκετινγκ. Πέραν από το συναίσθημα της ελευθερίας και της αυτονομίας που παρέχει η απεξάρτηση (έστω και μερικώς) από το ηλεκτρικό δίκτυο και η χρήση του ηλίου ως πηγή ενέργειας, το εγχείρημα του Google βγάζει νόημα και οικονομικώς. Και όπως κλείνει το άρθρο του Ars:
It's a textbook example of the convergence of business and environmental concerns, and Ravitz hopes that Google's example will inspire other firms to explore alternative energy sources.

Objective-C 2.0: The Garbage Collector

Before Java was conceived (let alone used), before C++ became the de facto application development language — certainly before it got STL and compilers worthy of mention — NeXT Inc. licensed Objective-C, a Smalltalk resembling, object oriented true C-superset, as the main language for its NeXTSTEP operating system. Objective-C and the (typically) accompanying APIs built […]