extremis by Steven Mautone

Android 2.2 – Froyo

Tone — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 12:25:41 +0000

Google announced, on June 28th, 2010, that the Nexus One would begin to get Android 2.2 as an over-the-air update. Well, this morning I finally got the update!

Android 2.2 fixes everything that was becoming a bit frustrating on my Nexus One. The home screen has been slightly redesigned… now, instead of only one permanent icon (to open the application launcher), there are three permanent shortcuts to the Phone application, Application Launcher, and Browser application. The AM/PM marker on the notification bar clock has been slightly shrunk, and the home screen pages are much more responsive and have a slight bounce to them. This increased home screen speed is extremely welcomed and makes the Nexus One much more competitive with the iPhone 4 processing speed.

Of course, the long awaited Adobe Flash is now available. It does not come as an automatic install with 2.2, but instead must be installed separately through the Market. I loaded up www.2advanced.com (a full Flash site) and everything worked perfectly, just as I would expect on my desktop. The concerns about interacting with Flash hover-states opposed to clicks was not at all a problem; tap to interact. I then loaded the www.sho.com video page. This page utilizes a standard Brightcove Video Player. I was able to watch the video in page; the same as my desktop experience. Multitouch still functions properly in the browser window, and double-clicking the video player area instantly zoomed in to the page to watch the video at the full width of my Nexus One screen.

Now, with all the Flash discussion aside, the main reason I was waiting for this 2.2 update was the feature to move applications to my SD card. This feature has to be enabled by the application developers, rather than simply on the core OS itself, and so out of the 70 + apps that I have on my Nexus One, it was only available on a few. A simple time-waster game called Toss It can be moved to the SD card, but most others that I have installed can not. I’m really surprised that Google hasn’t updated all of their apps before releasing 2.2, but it seems that only Google Sky Map and Places Directory have the new feature. Google Browser, Calendar, Earth, Finance, Gesture Search, Gmail, Googles, Listen, Maps, My Maps Editor, Panoramio Uploader, Search, Shopper, Translate, Voice, and the Market itself still do not. This isn’t a full list of Google’s applications, but definitely more can not yet use the feature than those that can.

There are a few other updates on Android 2.2, Froyo. The Phone application has been slightly tweaked. The Call log now groups consecutive calls with the same contact. The Messaging app has a very nice facelift, changing to a more readable white background for the message list as well as a few new settings. The Gmail application also has a slight facelift; I don’t notice any significant new features, but the design and menu system are slightly updated, and now there is a button in the upper left that allows for much easier switching between multiple accounts (but still no way to change the ‘send as’ address; a feature that is very useful for productivity in Gmail). The Keyboard has also been updated with an easier way to add words to the user dictionary.

Overall, Android 2.2 is an excellent update, mainly for the speed and responsiveness of the operating system. It’s nice to see Google releasing this update just after the iPhone 4 hit the streets (and after the EVO and new Droids have been released).

This changes everything?

Tone — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 18:00:28 +0000

Today Apple launched the iPhone 4 and marked the day where Android officially took over as the leader in mobile devices… I’m sure we all remember Apple throwing a bunch of patents around, saying that HTC has been copying their iPhone, but now Apple is following HTC.

On June 4th, Sprint officially launched their new phone, the Sprint EVO 4G by HTC with Google, which immediately broke Sprint’s one-day sales record. The EVO is the newest and best Android on the market. It has a 4.3 inch, 800×480 pixel display, 1 Ghz Snapdragon processor, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for video conferencing and an 8.0 megapixel primary camera, support for a micro SD card of up to 32 GB of space, stereo Bluetooth, as well as the ability to share its Internet connection through Sprint 4G and Wi-Fi; not to mention GPS Navigation and other Google services.

Flash forward three days… and Apple is launching their iPhone 4 on AT&T with a slogan of “This changes everything. Again.” What does it change? This is three days after everything’s already been changed! Front-facing camera for video conferencing? We’ve already seen that, Apple. Multitasking? We have definitely seen that for a while now.

So what new technology did Apple actually announce with the iPhone 4? Retina Display… FaceTime… hardly valid reasons to upgrade your 3GS. Retina Display is definitely an advancement that we can give to Apple’s credit. The iPhone 4 will have a display that has a higher pixel density than the human eye can perceive (although with a little bit of controversy); 960×640 resolution that makes “text and graphics look unbelievably crisp and sharp.” FaceTime, a new Apple video conferencing app that borrows a lot from iChat Video Calls, is a great new Apple app. But we’ve had video conferencing apps for a long time… Skype is still the leader in that market and Verizon’s Droids have had Skype for months. Is a nice, new screen and clean, new video conferencing app enough of a reason to upgrade your iPhone? Is it a valid enough reason to stick to Apple instead of moving to the open source Google Android?

I think the most shocking part of Apple’s launch today is that they have finally integrated ‘Categories‘ and some of the other “Bests of Cydia.” So not only is Apple falling behind in hardware, they are officially copying the coders who they have shunned from their AppStore. How does this follow the company slogan “Think Different”? It looks more like Apple is playing catch up, rather than leading the pack. But this should be expected… we’ve seen the release of at least three powerhouse Androids this year and only this one new iPhone.

UPDATE: just wanted to include a few links and images.

Are you kidding me, Apple?

Even your marketing is ripping off Android now?

By the way… does eyeOS break a trademark on iOS? Uh Oh… but wait, does Apple iOS break a trademark on Cisco iOS? (apparently Cisco has given the OK). Has the tech world run out of creativity and reverted to just stealing each others project names?

Google throws PAC-MAN a 30th birthday!

Tone — Fri, 21 May 2010 15:23:14 +0000

Google continues to bring things to the next level. Today’s Google Doodle is a great example…

The Mobile Browser Wars

Tone — Fri, 07 May 2010 15:15:29 +0000

Last week, Mozilla launched their plan of attack as one of the newest armies fighting in the mobile browser war. With application marketplaces such as Apple’s iTunes App Store and Google’s Android Market, there seems to be quite a bit of visibility for a large number of browsers in the mobile space. There are several big players and I wanted to compile a list, so that we can understand the scope of this new browser war:

Google Android Browser
RIM Blackberry Browser
Dolphin Browser HD
Mozilla Fennec
Microsoft Mobile Internet Explorer
Apple Mobile Safari
Opera Mini
Skyfire

(More to be added soon…)

Fennec on Android

Tone — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:39:21 +0000

I’ve been anxiously awaiting this app for quite some time and finally yesterday I was able to install Fennec, Firefox Mobile, on my Nexus One. A mobile browser built with ingenuity… it is clear that Mozilla will extend their vision of making the Internet public, open, and accessible onto the mobile, touch platform. With Fennec, they took their time and built an intuitive and well thought out mobile browser that is true to the Mozilla ideals.

Fennec on Android is instantly the best mobile browser on the market today. It came with some pretty specific “warnings and caveats,” but overall, it is a great explanation of what’s to come in the more mature releases. The interface is clean and simple, yet the browser has incredible capabilities. When you first open Fennec, you’ll see the standard interface for mobile browsers: location bar and homepage. The fennec location bar also acts as a quicksearch bar, utilizing default search engines: Google, Amazon, Twitter, and Wikipedia. Just as Firefox normally defaults to the Firefox Start page, Fennec defaults to the Fennec Start page. This page seems very similar in design and in function to the Firefox Start page, providing information about the browser, such as recently closed tabs as well as add-ons preferences.

The way Fennec handles tabs is where I see its true power. Simply swipe the current page to the right to reveal the tabs pane, which utilizes page thumbnails for each of your opened tabs. This method of tab selection allows Fennec to switch tabs with just one tap (swipe), rather than two or three taps to switch tabs through the menu systems of the Google Android Browser or Apple Mobile Safari, or even Opera Mini. (UPDATE: Dolphin Browser HD on Android has decided to copy this tab management system). Of course, the added bonus of Fennec’s excellent tab management is that Mozilla’s Weave project allows the syncing of open tabs between computers. I installed the Weave addon-on without any trouble (even on this very early beta) and it’s great to be able to pass my Web work from my PC to my Android, so that I can continue my train of thought from the office to home.

Bottom line, Fennec is a great mobile browser, but without the ability to set it as the default browser it just can’t compete with the default Android browser (or Dolphin HD or Skyfire). Im sure this will be resolved in the first non-beta, public release… so until then…

define:extremis

Tone — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:00:34 +0000

There are two main definitions for the word “extremis.” The first is its reference in pop culture, and the second is the translation from its Latin roots:

Extremis (comics)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Extremis” is a six-issue Iron Man story arc written by Warren Ellis with art by Adi Granov and published by Marvel Comics. The Extremis Armor is Iron Man’s most advanced technology.
Main Entry: extremis
- see IN EXTREMIS
From Dictionary.com

in ex·tre·mis [in eks-tre-mees; in ik-stree-mis]

Latin.
1. in extremity.
2. near death.
Function: adverb
1. At the point of death.
2. In grave or extreme circumstances.

Security in Dynamic Web Content Management Systems Applications

Tone — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:00:41 +0000

The processes behind corporate efforts to create, manage, publish, and archive Web information has also evolved using Web Content Management Systems (WCMS). WCMS allow teams to maintain Web content in a dynamic fashion through a user friendly interface and a modular application approach. This dynamic “on-the-fly” content creation provides Web site authors several advantages including access to information stored in databases, ability to personalize Web pages according to individual user preferences, and the opportunity to deliver a much more interactive user experience than static Web pages alone.^(reference) However, there are distinct disadvantages as well. Dynamically generating Web content can significantly impact Web server performance, reduce the scalability of the Web site and create security vulnerabilities or denial of service.^(reference) Organizations are adopting information technology without understanding such security concerns.^(reference) Moreover, as Mostefaoui points out, even though many attempts have been made to understand the security architecture, a generic security framework is needed. Recent research amplifies the concerns and benefits of security in open source systems.^(reference) However, there is a need for organizations to understand how to evaluate these open source systems and this paper highlights how an evaluation technique in terms of security may be used in an organization to assess a short list of possible WMCS systems. This article focuses on security issues in WCMS and the objective is to understand the security issues as well as to provide a generic security framework.

The contributions of this paper are to:

Integrate the goals of security with eight dimensions of WCMS,
Specify how to secure the eight dimensions of WCMS,
Formulate a framework of security using this integrated view of security goals and security dimensions,
Address the security of the Web architecture at WCMS software application level using the framework and evaluate security features in popular WCMS used in the industry.

Communications of the ACM: Volume 52, Issue 12