Network and Security

Talk about 15 minutes of fame: upstart social networking startup Ello burst on the scene in September with promises of a utopian, post-Facebook platform that respected user's privacy. I was surprised to see so many public figures and media entities jump on board—mainly because of what Ello isn't. It isn't an open source, decentralized social networking technology. It's just another privately held, VC-funded silo. Perhaps I'll get excited when BoingBoing posts there a second time ("we're not entirely sure what we're doing here yet") or if I get an invite; probably not. In reality, the road to a usable open source social networking technology is paved with the wreckage of good intentions. Remember Diaspora? In 2010, it raised $200,641 on Kickstarter to take on Facebook with "an open source personal web server to share all your stuff online." Two years later, they essentially gave up, leaving their code to the open source community to carry ...

Just when we thought that Nokia was done as an independent manufacturer, the Finnish brand surprised us by announcing a new tablet which runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop. The N1 Tablet looks like a decent comeback for Nokia and the device itself looks elegant with a similar design to the iPad mini. According to sources, the tablet is design by Foxconn (the same company that makes Apple products), features a 7.9-mm display with a resolution of 2048x1536 pixels, and is powered by a quad-core Intel Atom Z3580 64-bit SoC. It comes with a unibody design and is quite slim at just 6.9 mm. The price for the tablet has been put at $249 (Rs. 15,300 approx.) which sounds impressive. The tablet surprisingly runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop with the Nokia Z Launcher over it. Nokia says that it will brought to the market in Q1 2015 through a brand-licensing agreement with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partner responsible for manufacturing, distribution and sales. Here are some interesting feature...

Many people take medication, sometimes multiple times per day, to help them stay healthy. Making sure meds are taken on time and in the right doses requires an individual to be vigilant and disciplined. Software developer Tim Corey saw a way to improve the error-prone process of tracking self-medication by using technology to provide an easy-to-use personal medication assistant, one that never forgot a dose and had a perfect memory. This idea led to his creation of My Health Assistant. My Health Assistant is an app that helps individuals manage and track their medication use through a simple interface. The app also features a health diary, a GPS-based pharmacy and ER locator, and personal health information. Corey developed My Health Assistant as an entry in the Intel® App Innovation Contest 2013 hosted by CodeProject in partnership with the Intel® Developer Zone, and the app went on to win in the Health Category. The app was initially built for Microsoft Windows* desktop, wit...

TEL AVIV: An Israeli company says it has developed technology that can charge a mobile phone in a few seconds and an electric car in minutes, advances that could transform two of the world's most dynamic consumer industries. Using nano-technology to synthesize artificial molecules, Tel Aviv-based StoreDot says it has developed a battery that can store a much higher charge more quickly, in effect acting like a super-dense sponge to soak up power and retain it. While the prototype is currently far too bulky for a mobile phone, the company believes it will be ready by 2016 to market a slim battery that can absorb and deliver a day's power for a smartphone in just 30 seconds. "These are new materials, they have never been developed before," said Doron Myersdorf, the founder and chief executive of StoreDot, whose investors include Russian billionaire and Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich. The innovation is based around the creation of "nanodots", which S...

A s with the release of any new operating system, some users have experienced problems installing and running Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1. On this page we'll report the most serious bugs or upgrade problems and offer potential solutions. Help us and fellow readers identify and fix other problems using the comments facility at the foot of the article. Windows RT 8.1 BSOD The most serious bug reported so far affects Windows RT 8.1, with some users experiencing the dreaded Blue Screen of Death or Boot Configuration Data File errors after installation. The problem is so severe that Microsoft has decided to pull the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store. Many users have been unable to repair devices affected by the Windows RT 8.1 update, so Microsoft has released a Surface RT recovery image to help restore tablets to working order. Beware that clicking on that link will immediately instigate the 3.8GB download. It's not yet clear when Microsoft will release a patched versi...

The Advanced Startup Options menu in Windows 8 is the central fix-it location for the entire operating system. From here you can access Windows 8 diagnostic and repair tools like Refresh Your PC, Reset Your PC, System Restore, Command Prompt, and much more. Advanced Startup Options is also where you access Startup Settings, the menu that includes Safe Mode, among other startup methods that could help you access Windows 8 if its having problems starting. The Advanced Startup Options menu should appear automatically after two consecutive startup errors. However, if you need to open it manually, there are six different ways to do so. The best way to decide which method to use to open Advanced Startup Options is to base your decision on what level of access you have to Windows 8 right now: If Windows 8 starts normally: Use any method, but 1, 2, or 3 will be easiest. If Windows 8 does not start: Use method 4, 5, or 6. Method 1 will also work if you can at least get to the Windows 8 logon sc...

Throughout this series, we've focused on building maintainable WordPress meta boxes. By that, I mean that we've been working to create a WordPress plugin that's well-organized, follows WordPress coding standards, and that can be easily adapted and maintained as the project moves forward over time. Though we've implemented some good practices, there is still room for refactoring. For this series, this is done by design. Whenever you're working on a project for a client or for a larger company, the odds of you having to maintain an existing codebase are rather high. As such, I wanted us to be able to return back to our codebase in order to refine some of the code that we've written. Note this article will not be written in the format that the others have been written - that is, there won't be a "First we do this, then we do this" approach to development. Instead, we're going to highlight several areas in need of refactoring and then handle them i...

While the Twitter REST API is suitable for many applications, if you want immediate updates and access to a broader array of notifications, the Twitter Streaming API is essential. For example, only the streaming API will tell you when another user favorites one of your tweets. Using the Streaming API requires a persistent, keep-alive connection between your web server and Twitter. This type of implementation may be unfamiliar to many PHP developers. As soon as tweets come in, Twitter notifies your server in real time, allowing you to store them into your database without the delay of polling the REST API. Use of the Streaming API is also not subject to Twitter's API rate limits. Here's a visualization of how it works: There are three variations of the Twitter Streaming API: The Public Stream. This allows your application to monitor public data on Twitter, such as public tweets, hashtag filters, et al. The User Stream. This allows you to track a user's tweet stream in real t...

This tutorial will teach you the fundamentals of building Android interface layouts with XML. Read on! When you’re getting started with developing Android apps using Eclipse and the ADT plugin, Eclipse’s powerful graphical layout editor is a great place to start visually designing your user interface. However, this "what you see is what you get" approach has its limitations, and at some point you'll need to switch to XML. One of the major benefits of declaring your UI in XML is the ability to keep the UI and the behavior of your app separate, giving you the freedom to tweak your app’s presentation without disrupting its underlying functionality. In this article, I’ll show you how to design a basic XML layout from scratch, including defining the root element, specifying height and width parameters, and adding some basic UI elements. Finally, I’ll use this basic layout to demonstrate some advanced XML options, such as allocating different amounts of space to ...

Microsoft already shown the first look of  Windows 10 operating system on Tuesday at San Francisco. Microsoft promised an OS that will be more intuitive for the millions of workers still on Windows 7 and older OSes. It will span all hardware from PCs to phones and try to address the ills that have dogged Windows 8. Here are 10 things you need to know about Windows 10: 1. Why Windows 10? The natural name would have been Windows 9, but Microsoft is eager to suggest a break with the past. “We’re not building an incremental product,” said Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft’s Operating Systems Group. Microsoft considered the name “Windows One,” he said, to match products like OneNote and OneDrive and its “One Microsoft” business strategy. But he noted the name was snagged a long time ago, by a young Bill Gates. Perhaps Microsoft didn’t like the idea of being numerically one step behind Apple’s OS X. Whatever the reason, Windows 1...