Categories
Operating System

Why Macs have taken over College Campuses

If you ever visit a college campus you will notice the plethora of Apple laptops. Apple seems to supply a huge percentage of college students’ laptops, but why?

To start off with, Apple has a brand image that few other companies can match. From my experience in IT many people think that Apple machines “last longer” and “won’t break as easily” when compared to their PC rivals. And from my experience that isn’t necessarily false. Certainly in terms of build quality the average Mac will beat the average PC, but it’s not really a fair comparison. Macs cost far more than the average PC, and this higher build quality is priced-in. That said, even some higher-end PCs have build qualities that seem to degrade over time in a way that Macs don’t. My guess for why this happens is that PCs are constantly trying new things to differentiate themselves from the pack of similarly specced competitors which leads to constant experimentation. Trying new things isn’t bad, but with this throw-everything-at-the-wall mentality there will certainly be a few products that weren’t truly tested and that may have been pushed out to quickly. Apple on the other hand has a handful of laptops which for the most part have been around for years. They have mastered the art of consistently making reliable laptops. It’s that consistency that is really important. In all likelihood every major laptop manufacturer has made a very reliable computer, but very few have the track record that Apple has. It’s this track recorded that makes people trust that their new computer will last all four years.

To add to their reliability Apple also has the upper hand in its physical locations. Every urban area in the U.S. has an Apple store, somewhere to take your device if it’s acting up or check out a new laptop before you buy it. I think this plays a big role in Apples success. Being able to try out a product before buying it is a clear advantage. People get to know what the product will be like in person, which might make them more likely to buy it.  Secondly, knowing that if anything happens to your device there is a physical location where you can bring it can be very reassuring. If you buy an Apple laptop no longer will you have to wait on the phone for 3 hours trying to get ahold of someone helpful.  Just walk into the store and you’ll get the assistance you need.

I am not the only one to notice that stores are a big part of Apple’s success, as Microsoft has been building more and more stores to help compete. They realized that Apple would always have better customer service if they didn’t make there own stores. This has become even more important for Microsoft as they built up there hardware.

Finally one of the biggest reasons in my mind is that people buy Apple laptops, because they have Apple phones. It’s seems logical that one would buy more products from a company if they are satisfied with the one they have. I think this is what is happening with Apple computers. iPhones are incredibly popular with college-aged kids, so naturally they will gravitate towards the laptop manufacturer that makes their phones. Furthermore iPhones and Apple laptops work together in a way that a PC and an iPhone can’t. Apple devices can send iMessages, they integrate with iCloud seamlessly, and they share similar programs which can make picking either one up faster.

 

Categories
Android Apps Software

Making a Simple App in Android Studio

The last time we talked about Android Studio, we learned about the layout of an Android app, and how different parts of the app are organized. You can find our previous discussion of Android Studio here. Now that we are familiar with using Android Studio and navigating around the guts of an Android app, let’s get started with making our first app.

Categories
Google Microsoft Software

NEWS FLASH: GM Buys Self-Driving Startup

The era of self driving cars is coming soon, as we all know, and GM accordingly bought a small startup called, Strobe, Inc. which now has a very large influence and is considered a dominant force in the movement towards autonomous driving. Strobe is a very youthful startup that has recently sold ‘Lider’ (laser radar), a piece of technology that is crucial to the autonomy of the self-driving car to General Motors for an undisclosed amount. As the article says, “…technology is according to many in the incipient self-driving world critical to vehicles that will someday achieve full autonomy and be able to drive themselves with no human input…” We can see that many different companies such as Tesla Autopilot, Cadillac Super Cruise and Google’s Waymo are involved in the process of developing self driving cars. The race to autonomy is on and we will soon see the result!

Categories
Operating System

What is Statcast?

The Technological Marvel that is Statcast

Next time you go to a baseball game look towards the press boxes; you may just spot a black box that looks inconspicuous. That black box is the reason Disney paid 1.1 Billion for a third of MLB Advanced Media. That black box collects data for a program called Statcast.

statcast blackbox

For those of you that aren’t aware of Statcast, you can think of it as a way to track everything that goes on in the baseball stadium. For those of you who are paranoid that you are always being watched, don’t worry: MLB didn’t spend millions of dollars to see how far and how fast you spill your drink. The Statcast tracking system is a combination of two other systems, one a system developed by Trackman that is based on the Doppler radar (flight paths of baseballs are infinitely easier to track than storms) and a few cameras that help with the three-dimensional aspect of the game. Statcast provides a better fan experience by helping the common view to see the subtleties that allow each player to make a catch, hit a home run, or fool a batter. This isn’t just for the viewer though, it is also for the player and other personnel actively part of the game. The players can use this data to determine where to play, to either side or further back or forward,

statcast

or can help a smaller batter to realize that at the launch angle they usually hit the ball all they have to do is hit the ball just a bit harder and their home run numbers would increase

.Stat cast

For those front office executives that build teams it helps them determine which pitcher throws pitches with a higher spin rate (the spin of the ball that goes from a pitcher’s hand to the glove of the catcher in a matter of milliseconds), which regardless of the prior results should trend to more strikeouts.

Spinrate

Even though this was introduced in 2013 teams are still figuring out how to take full advantage of the new data. At a sabermetric seminar (a gathering of some of the brightest minds in baseball) some teams’ executives were actively trying to find the best uses of the hitting portion of the Statcast.

Categories
Android Apps Operating System

Android Auto

Most cars these days offer some form of phone syncing capabilities. Usually, though, they don’t offer much support beyond hands free phone and text. Any app support is often native to the software and doesn’t interface with the app on your phone. Map support is either a separate navigation system in the car or limited to direction readout from the phone, with no accompanying visual.

Android Auto give you all these capabilities and more. Although initial native support was small, currently almost 87 2015 cars come with it built in and there are plans to expand that number to almost 150 for the 2017 models. Many major aftermarket headunit brands include Android Auto as well, including Pioneer, Kenwood and Alpine.

Google developed Android Auto to comply with common safety standards including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). In order to do this, all apps supported by Android Auto must be checked by Google to ensure that they comply with those standards. They currently list 53 compatible apps on their play store which can be found here. A great example of this safety focus is text messages: no texts are displayed on the screen, instead they are read back to you. In addition voice commands , including “OK, Google” commands, are heavily relied on to maximize its hands free capabilities.

Right now in order to use Android Auto you have to plug it into your car via USB cable. When this happens all interaction is either through your car’s stereo or via voice commands (it’s unclear whether the phone’s microphone can be used for this or if the car has to have one). Google recognized this convenience and announced in May that they would be working providing Android Auto just through the phone. The interface would still look relatively similar, and all the voice commands would remain.

Although the platform is still relatively young, it looks like a promising app for drivers. At a time when distract

Categories
Operating System Software

Datamoshing What it is and How it works

Modern video formats have been designed in such a way as to minimize the storage they take up while maximizing things like resolution and frame rate. To achieve this goal they have developed some clever techniques that can look very cool when they don’t work as they should.

Let’s start with frames. Each frame of a video is like a picture. Most videos very between 24 and 60 frames per second and as you can imagine having 60 pictures for only one second of a video would take up a huge amount of space. So what the developers of modern video formats did was only have full pictures when absolutely necessary. If you think about it a lot of the frames in a video are just a very similar picture with slight differences. So what many formats do is simply tell the old pixels on the screen where to go to make the new picture instead of creating a whole new picture. This process allows for much smaller file sizes for videos as well as allowing datamoshing.

What datamoshing does is it gets rid of the new full picture frames and instead only keeps the frames that tell the pixels where to go. What results is a new video moving based on another videos directions or an image from the same video where the pixels go in directions they’re not suppose to. This process can lead to some very cool and unique glitch effects that have been used to various degrees within different mediums to create an interesting and unique effect.

Here are some examples:

Categories
Operating System

Top Ten Most Useful Keyboard Shortcuts for Mac

Keyboard shortcuts can be a great way to save small bits of time and to optimize the time you do spend on the computer. In this blog article, I will talk about the top ten most useful keyboard shortcuts for mac. In the spirit of the old OS X naming scheme, the editor is adding cat pictures.

#1 Hide
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/04/e7/6d/04e76d767beabda529ef9977d5d81d79.jpg

Hide completely hides the program you are currently on. It doesn’t minimize it or close it, instead, it is hidden. To use hide just hit Command+H.

#2 Minimize
http://ecdn.funzypics.com/grumpycatmemes/pics/16/Very-Small-Kitty-Cat-In-Some-Human-Hands-----So-Cute-And-Precious---Take-Good-Care-Of-It.jpg

Minimize does what it says. It will minimize whatever program you are currently using. To use minimize hit Command+M.

 

#3 Spotlight
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8363/8342361183_6ecd247d07_b.jpg

Spotlight allows you to instantly open up a search bar to check through all your files and applications, which can be extremely useful when looking for a file or application on the fly. To access spotlight hit Spacebar+Command

 

#4 Adjust Levels More Precisely
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/530e8d24e4b04fb5b2cdcbf1/t/59c98412edaed8350d8af8e5/1506378778161/Blue-15wks-Proof-up-to-6x4-inch-7120.jpg

When you adjust volume and brightness on your mac you see 16 little rectangles that represent the brightness/volume level. You might think that there are only 16 levels of adjustability, that’s where this shortcut comes in. It allows you to get far more precise with your levels. Just hold down Option+Shift; then use the volume/brightness keys as you usually would.

 

#5 Switching to Last Used Program
https://heavyeditorial.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/smartcat.jpg?quality=65&strip=all&strip=all

Sometimes when multitasking it is useful to be able to switch between two applications quickly.  To do so hold down Command+Tab.

 

#6 Switching Between Programs
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2d/a5/7a/2da57aff23540cc6d2e874a9cba5f575.jpg

Similar to #5 it can often be useful to move between programs that may not have been the last used. To do this hold down Command+Tab again, but keep holding Command down. Then use your arrow keys to move left and right

 

#7 Force Quit
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/images/categoryimages/highdef/9B-18408-61515C_803-cat.jpg

Sometimes a program will freeze up or stop functioning and oftentimes the best way to fix it is to force quit it and then reopen it. Unfortunately sometimes the program can make it hard or impossible to do on screen, so it’s useful to know the keyboard shortcut. To force quit an application hit Option+Command+Escape. To normally quit a program, hit Command+Q.

 

#8 Taking a Screenshot
https://www.walldevil.com/wallpapers/a94/cat-camera-wallpaper-funny-images.jpg

Taking a screenshot of your screen can often be very useful if you are having a technical problem as well as generally being a great way to show others things from your perspective. To take a Screenshot hit Command+Shift+3 or to capture only a certain area use Command+Shift+4

#9 Adding Emojis
http://clipart.info/images/ccovers/1496184261Smiling-Cat-Emoji-Png-apple-hd-high-resolution.png

If you ever felt like you needed more emojis this shortcut is for you. It allows you to open up the emoji window on your mac. Hold Command+Ctrl+Spacebar

 

#10 Open Preferences
http://www.catster.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/600px-computer-repair-cat.jpg

Each Application has its own preferences that let you make the application work how you want; to access them quickly hit Command key and the , key at the same time.

Categories
Apps email Software

5 Cloud-based Applications You Can Host at Home

Do you have an old laptop lying around that you don’t know what to do with? Are you concerned about your data given recent tech company security breaches? Or maybe you’re just bored and want to fiddle around on some computers. Either way here are five free applications that you can host yourself:

  1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Nextcloud_Logo.svg/1200px-Nextcloud_Logo.svg.pngNextcloud – For those who don’t have access to unlimited cloud storage, or those who aren’t comfortable not being in control of their files, you can host your own cloud storage. Nextcloud provides similar functionality to storage providers like Google Drive and Box allowing for file sharing and online editing. There are client apps for all major phones and computers and even provides the option to enable a calendar app. Although Nextcloud is relatively new, it is based on Owncloud which is relatively established, although not quite as modern.

  2. https://forum.gitlab.com/uploads/default/original/1X/277d9badcbd723e913b3a41e64e8d2f3d2c80598.pngGitlab
     – For the developers out there that don’t want to pay for private repositories there’s gitlab. This is a very mature product that is packed full of features like Gitlab Continuous Integration, code snippets, and project wikis. Gitlab can integrate with many external applications as well such as Visual Studio, Jenkins, KanBan and Eclipse. For those that don’t have a free computer to run it on, they also provide hosting for both repository storage and continuous integration runners, although those options do cost money.
  3. https://tr4.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2013/10/04/f874e321-e469-4527-be52-9a568fa20d8d/resize/770x/af17703c07c5ff25c9f4c64b36aba944/dokuwiki.logo.jpg
    Docuwiki
     – If you constantly find yourself looking up the same information or you just want a place to organize notes Docuwiki is the app for you. It supports a markup formatting style, multiple namespaces to organize your information, and diff report viewer to see view page changes. If the outdated UI doesn’t really appeal to you then Confluence is another option. It is geared more towards the enterprise environment, but for $10 (one time, not a subscription) you can host Confluence for up to ten users.

  4. Mail-in-a-Box
     – There are a lot of email providers out there, but if this is something you’re interested in hosting Mail-in-a-Box is a great solution. Although the setup of the the application itself is fairly easy, there isn’t much customization that can be done. For a more robust solution iRedMail might be the way to go. Note hosting email can be tricky, and generally is not possible from home internet connections.
  5. http://www.etny.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Subsonic_Logo_Large_v21.png
    Subsonic
     – All the audiophiles will appreciate Subsonic, an alternative to Google Play and iTunes. You can now store all your music yourself rather than being restricted to the Google or Apple music clients. With apps for all computers and phones you can listen to your music wherever you are. Subsonic includes support for playlists, most major music file formats, and customized themes.