I write plenty of tedious posts about computers and technology, and I usually tag them according to what they're about. As I write this, the tag cloud for this blog looks like the picture on the left—Apple and Microsoft loom large, Nokia and Oracle get a look in, and there's no reference to Linux at… Continue reading Linux
Year: 2012
Windows Phone: a bit like BeOS
Today's possibly stretching-a-point Technology Analogy In a previous article I compared the situation of Windows 8 on the desktop to that of OS/2 in the late 80s. Windows Phone 8 is in a different position. While Windows 8 gets its awkwardness from the need to provide compatibility with the dominant platform—which in this case means… Continue reading Windows Phone: a bit like BeOS
Can you develop research software on an iPad?
I've just written up a blog article for the Software Sustainability Institute about research software development in a "post-PC" world. (Also available on my project's own site.) Apart from using the terms "post-PC", "touch tablet", "app store", and "cloud" a disgracefully large number of times, this article sets out a problem that's been puzzling me… Continue reading Can you develop research software on an iPad?
I quite like the Surface RT. It must be doomed
The Surface RT is the device Microsoft must hope will cause their Windows 8 strategy to start making sense to the world at large. It's a tablet along the lines of the iPad, with an optional flappy felt keyboard cover and a cut-down version of Windows 8 on it. Microsoft Office is included, but it won't run any other software from… Continue reading I quite like the Surface RT. It must be doomed
Windows 8: A bit like OS/2
Today in Technology Analogy Week... In 1987, three years after the world's perception of the possibilities of the PC had been changed by the Apple Mac and two years after the Mac's cheap knockoff Microsoft Windows had been released, the world's leading PC manufacturer released a new operating system. OS/2 was the perfected pinnacle of… Continue reading Windows 8: A bit like OS/2
Porto
Earlier in October, along with a great number of other people from my research group, I went out to the ISMIR 2012 conference in Porto. (I was helping to present a tutorial; you can watch a screencast of my segment of the tutorial here, though I warn you, in this format, it even sends me… Continue reading Porto
The Breakfast Post 