eWEEK Labs looks back at the technology miscues that marked the past year. – At the end of each year, eWEEK Labs turns its gaze not only upon the
products we tested that most impressed us by their quality, innovation
or overall importance, but on the technology gaffes
that left us scratching our heads. With that, we present our Stupid Tech
Tricks of 2010.
More IP Follie…
With AT&T unable to make the iPhone usable in parts of San Francisco, eWEEK Labs checks out Wilson’s cell phone boosters as a last resort. – During CTIA, I invited Wilson Electronics to come by our San
Francisco offices so it could try to solve our ongoing
iPhone problem. Even though our office is in the heart of downtown San
Francisco, our employees can’t connect to AT amp;T for
calls or data usage unless they stand right by the win…
With AT&T unable to make the iPhone usable in parts of San Francisco, eWEEK Labs checks out Wilson’s cell phone boosters as a last resort. – During CTIA, I invited Wilson Electronics to come by our San
Francisco offices so it could try to solve our ongoing
iPhone problem. Even though our office is in the heart of downtown San
Francisco, our employees can’t connect to AT amp;T for
calls or data usage unless they stand right by the win…
In a first look at Office for Mac 2011, eWEEK Labs finds a lot to like and no significant cause for complaint. Office for Mac 2011 marks the return of Outlook for Mac and Visual Basic for Applications to the Apple desktop platform. The office suite, which is only available for Intel-based Macs running Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later, is scheduled to launch on Oct. 26. It includes new versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, which have been updated with new image browsing and template creation capabilities. Also available as part of the suite is access to the SkyDrive file sharing service from Microsoft or, for Office for Mac 2011 volume license customers, document sharing features via SharePoint Foundation 2010. Office Web App versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote are now available for Mac users, and document compatibility issues between Office for Mac 2011 and Office 2010 for Windows simply don’t exist. – Some people claim that I don’t readily embrace change, but they’re wrong. I
rush to embrace change when I see a benefit in doing so, but absent a clear
incentive, I stay with what I know works. That attitude explains much of why I
never cozied up to the 2008 release of Microsoft’s Office suite fo…
Apple’s iPad with WiFi + 3G requires the use of AT&T’s network, but in field tests around downtown San Francisco, eWEEK Labs found a noticeable hole in coverage. – One downside to the iPad is that
the only mobile carrier it can be used with in the United States is AT amp;T;
although Apple has a perfect right to partner with the carrier of its choice,
users who spend a lot of time in locations that dont have very good 3G
coverage from AT amp;T may want to s…
The Plantronics Voyager Pro UC provides heavy callers with an excellent way to use the same Bluetooth headset for both cell phone- and PC-based unified communications systems. eWEEK Labs tested the Voyager Pro UC WG200/B, which comes with an earpiece and a pre-paired Bluetooth dongle. The system is designed to work jointly with a Bluetooth 2.0-enabled cell phone or smartphone plus a Windows-based PC softphone via the dongle.
– The Plantronics Voyager Pro UC provides heavy callers with an excellent way
to utilize the same Bluetooth headset for both cell phone- and PC-based unified
communications systems. This can free mobile users from juggling multiple
headsets, while delivering excellent voice quality and distance per…
eWEEK Labs’ Jason Brooks and Andrew Garcia discuss Novell’s latest community-oriented Linux OS, OpenSUSE 11.2, which is packed with official OpenSUSE versions of the latest and greatest of what the open-source software world has to offer. Where OpenSUSE 11.2 sets itself apart from its Linux rivals is its focus on highlighting community software contributions alongside the official distribution-provided packages. This community software focus, combined with the long time power user orientation of SUSE distributions, makes OpenSUSE 11.2 a very configurable–but potentially confusing–Linux-based operating system option.
– Video Content….
Some of the biggest events of 2009 served mostly to set the stage for bigger things in 2010. Poised to make a big bang in the new year are the fallout from Oracle’s acquisition of Sun; Microsoft’s new Azure operating system for the cloud, which will go from beta to service mode; Microsoft Office 2010, which will go from beta to full release; and two Windows alternatives, Ubuntu and Google Chrome OS.
– When eWEEK Labs looked back at 2009 to come up with lists of the stand-out products and technology goofs of the year, I was struck by what a relatively quiet year this has been.
In fact, most of the product activity that jumped to mind from this
year served mainly to set the stage for 2010, which…
It’s become a tradition at the end of each year for eWEEK Labs to select not only the products that stood out in testing for their innovation and value-add, but also what we have come to define as stupid technology tricks. We like to think that some year in the near future we will be hard-pressed to come up with enough items for this list, but, alas, this was not that year.
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With the help of a fully featured plug-in, developers can create Force.com software from within Eclipse. eWEEK Labs takes the plug-in for a spin.
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Microsoft’s “Windows is My Idea” billboard campaign reminds eWEEK Labs’ Andrew Garcia that annoying things about Windows are still present in Version 7–and that new annoyances been added to the list. Here’s what Garcia would add to the OS to make Windows truly his idea.
– Its been three months since I installed 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate on my primary work system. Windows 7 runs without crashing much, starts and shuts down faster than Vista did on the same machine, and has a lot of pretty slideshow backgrounds to stare at. However, I would not say the new OS has revol…
eWEEK Labs Chief Technology Analyst Andrew Garcia attended the Motorola Cliq launch party, where he got a first hand view of the newest smartphone. The Motorola Cliq is a social networkers best friend. It has a customizable home screen that’s as unique as you are. Your Facebook, MySpace and Twitter happenings are right there, along with your emails, messages, news and favorite apps and widgets. All just the way you like them. Your texts, emails and social network messages arrive together on MOTOBLUR’s unique Messages widget. All with your friends’ profile pics.
– Video Content….
Lenovo’s T400s touch-screen model is as solid a laptop as the non-touch-enabled T400s, but a dearth of touch-enabled apps as well as a premium for the touch-screen make the system less than compelling at this time. However, in eWEEK Labs’ tests, the system was responsive and even passed the post-lunch smudge test, and the future looks brighter for touch systems when Windows 7′s enhanced touch capabilities are considered.
– Lenovos T400s touch-screen model responds well to taps and gestures and
even passed eWEEK Labs dreaded post-lunch smudge test, but a dearth of
touch-enabled applications plus a premium of $400 for the touch-screen should
place the new Lenovo unit on IT managers “consider for the future” list. Tha…
T-Mobile, once devoid of many compelling 3G smartphones, is now awash with new alternatives: Mobile hardware maker HTC launched both the Android-based MyTouch 3G with Google and the Windows Mobile 6.1-based Touch Pro2 for the T-Mobile network in August. eWEEK Labs checks out both devices in this slide show.
By Andrew Garcia
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In its current, developer preview form, Google Wave doesn’t live up to the hype that has surrounded it since its announcement. But, based on eWEEK Labs’ tests, the collaboration platform could be leveraged by inventive developers to provide a new level of Web 2.0 engagement.
- Given the amount of hype around Google Wave since it was first announced, one would expect to be astonished and amazed by a radical new take on collaboration and Web development. Based on my initial tests, Google Wave has potential but isn’t a game-changer–at least not now.
eWEEK Labs finds Eclipse has greatly matured from its early, much slower days. Today, the application development platform can aptly be described as powerful and feature-rich.
– The recent 3.5 release of Eclipse, code-named Galileo, brings loads of new
features that will help developers become even more productive
In this review, I evaluate the new Eclipse IDE
(integrated development environment), but there have been changes made to the
entire Eclipse platform, as well….
Why would Apple deny customers the Google Voice functionality and risk the ire of the FCC? eWEEK Labs’ Andrew Garcia suspects it’s because Apple is building a similar service for MobileMe.
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The flap between Google and Apple over the latter’s rejection of the Google Voice application for the App Store has devolved to the point where the FCC has started poking around. I’ve been asking myself exactly why Apple or AT amp;T would stir up the hornet’s nest to deny the technology and risk t…
Join eWEEK Labs Executive Editor, Jason Brooks as he provides a review and analysis of Nokias N97. As a member of the companys N series, this smart-phone is very smart. But is it too smart for its own good? Jason discusses its features, such as the hand writing recognition option and FM radio and receiver. Also discussed is how this bad boy compares to Apples iPhone.
– Video Content….
Novell’s SUSE Studio 1.0 is a Web-based service for building Linux-based software appliances that outshines similar services, such as rPath’s rBuilder, with its ease of use and tight integration with the existing framework of SUSE software tools and services. Also impressive is the service’s Test Drive feature, which enabled eWEEK Labs to cycle quickly through the tweak-build-test process of honing a software appliance.
By Jason Brooks
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rPath’s rBuilder enables companies to build, maintain and deploy their own Linux-based software appliances. The 5.0 version of rBuilder adds support for multiple Linux distribution platforms, as well as a management console for launching software appliances on a handful of virtualization and cloud computing platforms. Check out these slides for a look at eWEEK Labs’ tests of the 5.2.1 rBuilder update.
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