Al Bsharah

Business Minded, Technically Inclined

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Microsoft and Apple – Still Playing Nice After All These Years

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Microsoft and Apple on the same chip!

I happened to be digging through my garage somewhat recently, and ran across my Apple ][+ (of the Apple ][ Series) computer (and it’s green monitor, and dual floppy drives, and joystick, etc).  I’ll do an update to that experience later…  But for now, I want to share something for all the people out there who believe there’s some sort of cold war between Microsoft and Apple </sarchasm> I...

Doing it Right: Wells Fargo Envelope-less ATM Deposits

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ATM Machine

While I’m not overly thrilled with my long-term bank Wells Fargo, mainly because of their recent assault of unexpected monthly fees across all of my accounts (I do all of my personal and business banking with them, including my mortgage), there are some things they’re doing very well…and that’s what the focus of this article is about. Today I deposited a number of checks into both my personal and...

Doing it Right: USOpen.org Video Stream

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USOpen Live Broadcast Features

For the 2009 series, the USOpen has launched an on-line video stream for all of their broadcasts that is magnitudes better than any other I’ve seen to date.  I’m sure there are some good ones I may have missed, but this one has fantastic features that can’t be overlooked. This is a game-changing way to watch tennis.  First, I’m not the type of person who will go out of my way to watch the game...

Security, Your On-Line Identity, and ZipRealty’s Poor Example

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Security Camera Fail

The purpose of this post is two-fold: First:  To stress the importance of preserving the security of your on-line identity Second:  Exposing a company who’s doing an inexcusably poor job of protecting your on-line identity Most of us don’t realize how insecure the on-line world can be.  You create an account on a website, give it a username and the password of your choosing.  That password is...

It’s the End of the World – Twitter is Down!

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Fail Whale

UPDATE 8/6 8.04am: It appears to be a Denial of Service attack that Twitter is currently combating. Back when Twitter was still just a method for geeks to spout off about whatever, seeing the Fail Whale was quite commonplace.  Multiple times per day, Twitter would get overloaded and the system simply couldn’t keep up.  Post venture capital, it’s finally come around that everyone from...

How to Organize Your Garage in Three Steps

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Clutter

I recently had the pleasure gutting and organizing my garage a couple weeks back, and thought I would share my story.  In speaking with friends, family, and strangers about my adventure, I know I’m not the only one out there who’s collected far too much stuff to keep organized. When I started, I had waist-to-chest high stuff all over the place and had to jump over items to get from one end of the...

Layar – Augmented Reality using a Cell Phone

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Layar

This amazing new technology called Layar is currently available on Android devices, but is supposedly being developed for the iPhone 3G S as well.  What is it?  Point your phone at a location and see what it’s all about.  For example, you’re on a city street and you want information about the 4 restaurants in front of you…point your phone at ’em and check out the info as...

Video Game Controllers, or Lack Thereof

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A while back, I posted about some Amazing Human-Computer Interfaces.  Today, I’m adding a couple of big-name entries into this space. Microsoft and Sony both announced some new controller technologies at E3 a couple weeks back, and I’ve included promotional videos from both.  The PS3 motion controller solution appears to be a little closer to prime time and uses a hand-held device...

Nothing to See Here… #6

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Nothing To See Here

Yet another installment of links that are hopefully not indicative of the title… Google announced a few new search features last week, allowing you to further drill-down into your search results based on type (Video, Forums, Reviews), time (recent, 24 hours, week, year), style (standard, with images, more text), and view (related searches, timeline, and the “wonder wheel”).  Give it a shot by...

Wolfram | Alpha – What? Wolfram Research is Launching a Search Engine

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WolframAlpha

Wolfram|Alpha – Could it be the next “Google Killer”? Every so often, a new technology comes about that changes the way we do things.  Electricity, Television, the Refrigerator, the Dishwasher, the Internet, Google, Personal Computing, Microsoft, the iPhone…these are all fair examples of world-changing inventions. Looking at what Google has done to the many industries they’ve touched (Internet...

Al Bsharah Business Minded, Technically Inclined