See One, Do One, Teach One

With my father considering a new computer purchase, he will soon have to decide if he wants a new laptop or another desktop. The popularity of laptop computers continues to grow. Although the differences between laptops and desktops have narrowed over the years, going portable involves many trade offs. Is going mobile worth it?

Basics–

photo credit: jeremyfoo

The goal of the laptop is mobile computing. They are frequently called portable, mobile, or notebook systems. Laptops are powered by a rechargeable battery. The monitor is either a standard size or widescreen LCD. Keyboards allow for easy input. Mouse control is typically provided by a trackpad. Also contained within the device are the typical computer components such as a CPU, video card, and hard drive. In a laptop everything is included in one package. Getting “under the hood” and changing components can range from hard to impossible.

Although the desktop largely contains the same components, the parts are not as integrated. Any beginner can change the keyboard or monitor of a desktop; however, the same beginner would find that changing those components on a laptop near impossible.

In contrast, a desktop is not portable either. Desktops and laptops are very different beasts.

Strengths of the Desktop–

Price. Based on similar specifications, a laptop can cost over twice as much as a desktop. For the same money, you will always be able to get a much more powerful desktop with a larger screen and more storage. A desktop is always going to give you more for your money.

credit: PPDIGITAL

Power. Many high end desktops contain components that are not available in laptops. Some of the video cards out now are almost as big as some entire portable systems. Power requires cores and chips. Power requires cooling. Power requires wattage. Large desktop systems have plenty of room for big components, big power supplies, and redundant cooling. Power dependent task such as editing and rendering video will proceed less painfully on a desktop beast. A laptop is always going to settle for smaller, more efficient hardware. Many laptops that were sold as “Windows Vista Compatible” were not able to run Vista with all features enabled. Because it is purchased with less reserve, a laptop will not provide as many years of productivity before seeming underpowered and dated.

Screen size. We are in the world of ever growing LCDs. A 30 inch LCD computer screen is beautiful. If you have a desktop, you can even have multiple monitors. Many laptops start at 13 inches and the largest is 19-20 inches. If you go with a laptop over a desktop, sacrifice of screen real estate is the norm. External monitors can easily be connected to a laptop; however, there is the obvious loss of portability.

Wireless Network Required. With a desktop system ethernet works well. Having a notebook that is tethered by cat-5 cable makes no sense at all. To enjoy using a notebook system, a wireless network and internet is really required. Wireless networking is getting easier but is nowhere as easy as just plugging in a cable. Using and securing a wireless network requires learning a whole new set of computer skills.

Toughness. Laptops get dropped, banged, and generally mistreated. A desktop stays at home in general safety. My son broke the “e” key off one of my laptops after my daughter took it up to her room. He knows not to bang on my desktop but a laptop in his sister’s room was too inviting to pass up.

credit: booleansplit

Upgrading / Fixing. Another hard drive can be added to most desktops easily, and changing out a keyboard or monitor is trivial. Upgrading or fixing a laptop frequently requires a trip to the shop. Desktops can frequently be given new life with a newer, more powerful video card. As video is integrated in a laptop, this upgrade is not possible. The difficulty in upgrading is another reason that a laptop will not provide as many years of productivity when compared to a desktop.

The Powerful Portability of the Laptop–

The strength of a laptop is its mobility. It is the trump card that can overwhelm any of the desktop’s advantages. The cheapest, most powerful desktop in the world does not help the student that needs a computer in class. Chilling at a coffee shop with a mocha and your lappie can be magic. Recording or making music at a club or friend’s house is easy on a laptop. Getting work done or watching a movie on a plane can make the time fly. Can you really put a value on checking email from the potty?

Although portability is amazing, it is frequently not required or utilized. I know three of my neighbors that have their notebook sitting on the exact same place on their desk day after day. They are never mobile with their mobile computers. Many people really think they will take their computer everywhere, but then they never do.

In Defense of the Laptop–

Desktop worshippers will die arguing the strengths of the desktop that I have described; however, none of them are really deal breakers if portability is required. A laptop will always be more expensive and underpowered compared to the desktop. The careful consumer, however, can purchase a powerful laptop that will run non-gaming applications perfectly. (The majority of games will run on a laptop system too, but occasionally the video may not be as impressive.) A 15 to 17 inch laptop screen is plenty for most users. The integration of wireless networking into the major operating systems is making wifi easier as well. Industrial strength laptops that can tolerate the toughest of conditions are available for the clumsiest of us. If mobility is required, these are trade offs that can be comfortably tolerated.

Conclusions–

A desktop is always going to provide the biggest bang for the buck. Users rendering high definition video files or playing the latest games will naturally gravitate toward the powerful desktop systems. Users that must have mobility will require a laptop. The rest of us will have to decide if the convenience of portability is worth sacrificing the strength of the desktop.

You can follow the entire computer4dad series here.

Technorati Tags: laptop versus desktop, laptop, desktop, computer purchase

The journey starts off innocently enough…

To: “David Kirk”
Subject: Lap Top
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:41:18 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0

I am going to get a laptop. I need your help on what and where to get .

Dad

My father wants to get a laptop. I have that feeling that a parent gets when a child asks for a car or a bike or whatever. What appears to be a simple task is really a challenge to find the perfect fit.

photo credit: Andrew*

Easy answers exist. If I were a zealot one way or another, then I would tell him to get whatever is my favorite device of the moment. I could be lazy and just send him a bunch of links and then hope he figures it out all on his own. Easy answers would lead to confusion and frustration for both of us — especially with parents living 13 hours away.

Dad is currently running an XP box with broadband, printer, scanner, and a couple of digital cameras. He learns well through step-by-step directions but can stumble if new obstacles are thrown his way. He transitioned away from AOL easily enough. However, storing, editing, and retrieving photos in an efficient way still seems challenging.

Just when I think Dad’s system is running well, he wants a laptop. Of course, he does. Everybody wants a laptop. My desktop is used less and less since I started with my laptop. My wife is the same way. A laptop, however, introduces a whole bunch of new challenges.

To work well, a laptop needs a wifi network. To exchange files between a laptop and desktop is not painless or intuitive. Using a scanner and a printer with a laptop has unique challenges too. To top it all off, I have to decide if now would be a good time to introduce Dad to the world of Apple and OS X.

I wanted Dad and me to sit down over some adult beverages and discuss this; however, he is excited to get started. Anxiously, I have been pondering my plan, and I hope I have found the correct path. I am going to tackle each potential decision as a separate blog post. I will try to weigh the strengths and weakness at each step to help Dad make his choice. Hopefully, my blog readers will chime in with additional information as well.

Here are a few examples of planned posts:

• Laptop versus desktop
• Apple versus Microsoft
• Save or ditch the desktop

I will start each post from a beginner level and expand into our normal geek territory. If interesting comments appear, I will amend and edit my posts to reflect new ideas as well.

My father was key into getting me into computers. I get my technology-loving side honestly. Help us find him the best system.

I will blog these entries as computer4dad if you want to keep up with the series.

Technorati Tags: computer4dad, laptop vs desktop, os x vs vista

This probably will not last long, but it is fun for now. Much like our hacking the wii servers with firefox post, user agents are providing fun once again.

Starbucks and AT&T wifi recently opened up free access to the iPhone. By changing the user agent the browser, anybody can make their browser look like the iPhone to the servers. A couple of easy switches away and it is access for everybody.

Here is how to do it in Safari. Switching user agents in firefox is almost as easy. This documents the iPhone user agent information.

1. Open Safari while connected to a AT&T wifi
2. Enter the Preferences, select the Advanced tab, and then select Show the Develop menu in the menu bar
3. From the Develop menu select User Agent
4. Select the iPhone User-Agent
5. The page will reload and ask for a geniune iPhone number. Everybody has a friend with an iPhone, right?
6. Welcome to free internet from Starbucks

I did a quick demonstration of this at my local Starbucks. Forgive the stammering but I didn’t want to take a bunch of cuts sitting outside the coffee house. Screenflow is adding some pauses and slurring too… Nice, but buggish program.

High resolution pod cast available here. YouTube video available below.

CamTwist is an OS X application that will add realtime video affects to a video stream. Most commonly CamTwist is used to provide video effects to a webcam or live video stream. CamTwist is free and requires a version of OS X that supports Quartz Extreme. This screencast demonstrates all the currently included video effects. Youtube version and higher resolution video podcast versions of this demo are available. CamTwist is free and is available now.

Technorati Tags: CamTwist, demo, video effects, screencast

Last Request: Please Don’t Smoke

Originally uploaded by Sean (Ajka_Hungary).

As a pulmonologist and an ICU physician, this is the most powerful picture I have seen in a while…

While browsing my buddy arn’s MacRumors site, I chuckled at hp throwing money away at adsense on his site…

You might want to work on your adwords campaign there, HP.

Many people have assumed that once the official SDK was released that jailbreaking would die. I believe that the jailbreak process is something that will be linked to the iPhone for eternity. As long as Apple limits absolute and complete control, the jailbreak community will continue to flourish.

Let me take a step back for those less geek-inclined. Programs can be developed for the iPhone through two different methods. The official SDK that is being released by Apple will eventually allow programs to be released to users through iTunes. These applications can be purchased much like users purchase iTunes music or videos. Prior to the release of the official SDK, unofficial methods that were not approved by Apple were used to develop software for the iPhone. In order to use these applications, the user is required to “hack” or to jailbreak the phone. So now, two different, incompatible styles exist for iPhone application development — the official SDK and jailbreak methods.

Where is all the code being developed with the official iPhone SDK? As far as I can tell, there is only one SDK app, other than the examples, that can be found in the wild. Tons of jailbreak code and examples can be found. One of the reasons behind this is that the official SDK will allow programmers to make cash from their applications. Once money is added into the equation, suddenly people are less willing to show source code to the public.

One would assume that the promise of coding for dollars would make jailbreak methods die a quick death. However, it has not. Why? Here are the reasons that jailbreaking will be around forever.

1. Official SDK has coding limitations. The SDK will never allow full access to the iPhone’s complete capabilities. Cellular VoIP, background processes, wireless synchronization — these are just a few of the multiple limitations in the official SDK which are being explored (or exploited) with jailbreak code.

2. Users are passionate about hacking and unlocking their mobile devices. I think seamonkey420 hacks or mods a mobile device about once a week. Like tattoos, clothing, or jewelry, cellular devices are now part of a person’s style. Making the phone unique or using it in a locale where it is not supposed to work is part of the mobile hacking drive.

3. Until the iPhone is carrier independent, jailbreaking will be required. Lots of countries do not have an iPhone carrier. Unlocking the phone is tied directly to jailbreaking. People will pay good money to be able to use their phone with whatever cellular service they want. As long as jailbreaking is tied to cellular independence, it will continue to exist.

4.People will want apps that Apple will not allow. Free music, free “pictures,” and streaming technologies are all examples of applications that Apple will be unlikely to ever allow. AT&T (or whoever the iPhone carrier of choice is) cannot allow bandwidth to be drained from the system.

5.Apple may limit or repress application distribution. Applications with encryption may not be exported out of the United States in certain circumstances. Apple may require that apps have extensive testing prior to release. Such a process may prevent hobbyist programmers from joining the game. Apple could even require that applications not be distributed for free. The way Apple handles the iPhone application distribution could really change how excited developers are to use the official system.

I am sure there are other reasons that the process of jailbreaking will continue to exist. I do believe that the official SDK will gain traction. If iTunes allows small programmers to make money the way it has allowed small musicians to compete in the music marketplace, it will be successful.

Although Apple has little desire to make the official SDK compatible with the unofficial methods, the converse is unlikely to stay true. The unofficial methods will eventually develop and absorb SDK compatibility. That way if an app developed with the official SDK is denied access to the public through iTunes, it can still be released through alternative, jailbreak installers. If there are two ways to code something, most programmers will choose the official methods to keep their options open for later release.

Although Apple is finally opening up the iPhone platform to application development, the unofficial jailbreaking methods are not going to disappear. The terms “iPhone” and “jailbreak” will be forever linked in history.

Technorati Tags: sdk, iphone, apple, itunes

This is a quick screencast describing how to remove toolbars in Firefox 3.

Matt Cutts is one of google’s most public faces. His insights into google’s philosophy and direction are high yield information.

Although usually followed for the etiquette and ethics of search engine optimization, Matt is also a highly skilled tutorial writer. Followers of tech-recipes will certainly appreciate these gems from his blog.

Moving to a New Web Host - Seemlessly moving to a new host or IP without losing google juice is a gastric reflux inducing concern. From MySQL dumps to DNS changes, these step-by-step directions will help keep the heartburn at bay.

Dynamic Adjustment of iFrame Height - The use of iFrame elements are necessary evils in some projects. Matt’s ideas and the comments that follow should help solve many common iFrame issues. Since adsense uses iFrames, it is not surprising that google would be interested in smooth iFrame integration.

Highlight Author Comments in WordPress - On Matt’s blog (and the upcoming transition of tech-recipes to WP) author comments are highlighted in an unique color for easy identification. Matt’s code and the suggestions that follow explore multiple solutions for this issue.

Downloading and Splitting Podcasts in Linux - Podcasts are wonderful sources of information; however, getting them into bite-sized morsels can be difficult. Matt’s tutorial downloads the podcasts and carves them into manageable sections for ease and comfort.

Technorati Tags: matt cutts, google, seo, linux, tutorials, howto

Imagine creating an unique, living organism as easily as writing software.

Craig Venter’s techniques build DNA from scratch. The DNA software package can be placed into an organism as a chromosome. The host organism boots the DNA software from the chromosome and virtually creates a entirely new organism.

If you want a program to do X, you most likely can pick your langauge and code it. Now if you want an organism to do X, one day you will likely be able to code that as well.

He plans to create organisms to convert CO2 back to fuel. However, this research will not stop there.

The creation of synthetic life will be more revolutionary than the invention of the computer.

Please watch the video. As a biology/medical type, I’ll be glad to try to explain any of the confusing issues…