The Byting Edge by LASA Ezine

The

Byting Edge

Win d s ow

letter To the editor Back when we designed this magazine, we decided to make it based around somthing nerdy. The class last year had done a magazine called “The High Geek” and there wasn’t much room for the “Byting Edge.” After studying the magazine carefully, we determined that the “The High Geek” lacked coverage in software and programs. We decided to make our magazine here. A few months in to development, our magazine is going strong and the team dynamic is improving. We are going to interview several programmers including an audio-programmer, an ARM designer, and an HTML5 author. We hope this will bring you the latest news about software.

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About the Authors My name is Sam G. I am a software developer in Texas. First I learned web development 3 years ago. I learned HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and PHP from W3schools. Around that time I got a distribution of Linux. I also use other open source tools like Eclispe and Chromium. Later I learned more low level programs like C, C++, and Java. Now I am working on designing my own programming language and learning assembly. I really depend on the community for support. I would not be able to program without things like Stack Overflow, Ubuntu, and Chromium. Someday I can contribute to the communtiy like the community has contributed to me.

My name is Marek Travnikar, I am a young programmer and designer with a love for computers and technology. In addition to being one of the authors of The Byting Edge, also run my own website and web apps. I attend the Liberal Arts and Science Academy in Austin Texas, so in his free time he does home work.

My name is Daniel Maldonado. I am a Junior with a passion for gaming. I enjoy both PC and Console gaming. I like to chill and hand out most of the time and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m very interested in the field of physical sciences. I grew up with software and electronic developement. My dad worked for fisher and would pass on knowledge whenever he could. My normal schedual for the day is wake up, school, HW, then sleep. I like to keep things simple and cooool.

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Wiindows 8 cover picture: istockphoto.com/mbortolino

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Contents

• (6-7) From Static To Sound: The Workings Of Computer Audio - Daniel Maldonado

• (14-15) All For And Windows For All -Marek Travnikar

• (7-8) The Eyes of Google Are Upon You Marek Travnikar

• (16-17) Closing Windows -Sam Grayson

• (12-13) Couches And Rolling Chairs - Daniel Maldonado

• (18-19) A New Page In The History Of The Web: HTML 5 - Sam Grayson

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That was then...

This is now.

Windows 8 ®

SOLID * SIMPLE ◆* SWIFT * SUCCESS The Byting Edge

From Static To The Workings of Computer audio

Picture of semiconductor board: Wikipedia.com

t home, inside of a dimly lit twelve-by-twelve office with 6 desktops, 5 laptops, 5 unplugged monitors and scattered pieces of motherboard, works an audio software engineer. In a big white shirt and blue shorts with big uncombed hair with a relaxing smile on her face sits Vicki Mitchell. Most people don’t know exactly what an Audio Software Programmer does. If you just think about it without any before hand information, an audio software engineer might sound strange to you. A software engineer is the one who creates and writes software and an audio engineer is one who mixes, creates, and works with audio, but an audio software engineer is the person that writes the software for the mixed signal semiconductor inside of the computer on the motherboard. Vicki began to take interest in audio software when she was working for an engineering services firm “what that

Sound

means is that they do everything having to do with high-tech and product development or some form or another.” Here Vicki was able to sample most types of software and hardware development and found that audio software was interesting to her. “After you’ve been working in it for a while you start to get so comfortable with it or familiar with it that you tend to find more things to do in that area.” Said Vicki. “Today’s day and age you don’t normally have add-on audio cards inside of PCs” Said Vicki. “If you wanted to use your PC to generate audio you used to always add a soft card in there because the primary audio that came out of the computer was generally pretty crappy” In modern day computers, on the motherboard you will find a chip called a mixed signal semi-conductor. This chip allows the user of the computer to do much more with audio than in

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the time explained by Vicki. By sending commands to the computer via a device driver, this chip is basically an extension to what the computer can do with audio. It controls things that we take for granted in a computer. It can control bass, treble, and pretty much every function the computer has having to do with audio some of which you can find in the control panel, as Vicki had shown. “What I’m responsible for is all the software that will control that chip inside the PC” Said Vicki Mitchell. “I specify the software design and I engage the contractors or team members to do the work.”

Vicki is the director of her team. They program these mixed signal semi-conductors and write the device drivers that relay the information to the computer. “When Windows starts booting and says ‘Hey! I found this audio chip on my motherboard. What am I supposed to do with it?’ you come back and go ‘oh, I’m the device driver for that’ and that basically allows you to control the hardware.” Said Vicki. In simple terms this is how the mixed signal semi-conductor and the device driver work hand-in-hand. Vicki and her team write the software for both of these things. A job such as a software engineer, while being “kind of a cool thing to do”, can also have “some frustrating moments”. “Most of the frustration I’d say is probably based on the current economic situation.” Said Vicki. Software development only works well if economic development works as well. Vicki explains that “companies might be laying off some people” Software itself is very inexpensive and can last forever, but making the software is expensive and can rely on the economic situation of the

time. But the nice thing about being in the software business is the ever-changing design and programs in which to work with. “There are other software engineers where they end up like getting sort of pigeon-holed where they go work for one company their entire life and they do the same thing over and over and over again. I would think that that would be pretty boring…” Said Vicki.

“Working With software is a learning Experience”

Vicki uses car assembly to demonstrate and to show how “pigeon-hole” jobs can be the same thing over and over again no matter what you use to do it. “…if you were doing car assembly for example, we still put cars together the same way, yea we use more robots than

we used to but its still you know put a shell on a frame, attach the wheel and stick the engine in there type of a thing” “I think the thing I like most about software is the fact that it’s always evolving over time.” Working with software is a learning experience. New ways to write software and new programs to write come every year. With a growing knowledge in the field of electronics, for mankind, comes faster software and shorter spans of time in which they are released. Audio software engineering is at the core of most things we do on a computer. While you’re listening to music or playing your favorite game with cool sound effects, the mixed signal semi-conductor allows you to hear all of these things with high definition audio with advanced settings based on your listener’s preference. This, according to Vicki is amazing because it’s “where you send the 1’s and 0’s down to the chip, and you interact at the very bottom layers of the operating system.”

- Daniel Maldonado

Motherboard With semiconductor: IXTB Labs.com

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The Eyes of are Upon You S

ay, one afternoon, you decide you need information on Firestone tires. You sit down in front of your web browser and type “Firestone” into the Google search bar. Most times, you get back a couple of featured links for the local auto superstores, service centers, and the corporate web pages for Firestone. Sometimes, however, you may get links to historical reports on the issues with 1990’s Ford Explorers, as well as some data on Pinot Noirs. Huh? How can a search for tires give you information on SUVs and California wineries? Well, that all depends.

In late 2009, Google announced that it was collecting and utilizing the web search history of all its users in order to populate search results. This is an example of search engine optimization, where what you have searched for in the past will influence what you find in the future. Some people may find this feature convenient; but we shouldn’t blindly accept it, as it is not without consequences. When search engines “optimize” results, they manipulate and interpret what should be a scientific inquiry. Filtering results based on previous searches will prove inconsistent over time. What you find today,

you may not find tomorrow. Google is taking it upon itself to interpret what you want. This would be fine, except that they are doing it with your private information: your web search history. In my opinion, the ends do not justify the means. This invasion of privacy is not worth it. Sure, you get optimized search results, but with this optimization, Google potentially eliminates data and exposes your information without your permission. I can think of a few cases where filtering search results may be acceptable. For example, when starting your research,

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Google FILTER BUBBLE: Marek Travnikar

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“Filtering results... will prove inconsistent over time.” you may begin by searching on a few basic words, like “Firestone” and “California”, and thus benefit by not having to sort through hundreds of pages of results. But beware! Critical information could be dropped from the search results, either because it does not appear until many pages later, after you think you’ve found what you needed, or by being omitted

from the results because the search engine deems it irrelevant. Consider my initial example. What if you were indeed researching vineyards in the Santa Ynez Valley, and all that Google returned was where to buy tires because earlier you’d investigated how to replace a water pump? To overcome the possibility of missing important data, you will have to change how you interact with Google to get all the information, or else try to disable this feature. However in some cases, it’s more than Google you’ll have to deal with. There are third parties, or even entire countries such as China, that force Google to filter its search results in order to be allowed to offer its services to their people, according to a study in 2002

by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School.

“This invasion of privacy is not worth it.” In scientific theory, deterministic behavior means that the future is fully predictable by the initial conditions. search results are not deterministic

,because the exact same search terms do not yield the same results, according to a 1999 publication of International Journal of Scientometrics, Infometrics, and Bibliometrics, which examined the performance of search engines over time. This is worrisome, because Google, along with other search engines, is an important tool of research and discovery. Google was even used to research evidence for this article. As technical thinkers, we expect scientific methods to be repeatable. Another scientific concept is that of “metadata”. Webster’s Dictionary defines metadata as “data about the data” – a form of digital evidence. Examples of metadata could include when the data was collected and where it was collected

Binary Search: ©iStockphoto.com

from. In Google’s U.S. patent 6,546,388 B1, they describe how they use metadata to optimize their search results. The question is: who owns the metadata: the user who generates it, or the web application that stores and uses it? I believe it’s my metadata, and Google can only have it if I say it’s OK. In Google’s own privacy practices, they list over 40 terms and conditions – and let’s be honest here, nobody reads them. Further, a diligent search of Google’s support pages will eventually turn up a help page that informs you they’re using your search history in your search results. This metadata, they claim, may also be attached to your Google account. Perhaps Google believes this is convenient, but I view it as an invasion

of privacy, at least, not to mention what happens if this data ever got out into the world. Think of it: everything you’ve ever searched for on the internet would be viewable to the rest of the world. A Chicago Tribune article by David Greising and John McCormick from late 2006 describes the time when AOL released search histories of 657,426 users, causing the public to realize that virtually everything done on the Internet is tracked and/ or logged in some way. Google’s competitors, like Ixquick and Startpage, may capitalize on users not wanting to give up that privacy. Google’s position is that they are using your history to provide provide optimal search results – both for you and for the Internet community as a whole.

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They even go as far as to publish an API (application programming interface) that allows web services to control search results or turn off filtering. This is a good first step, assuming developers of these web services take it. Even better, Google should expand their API to allow you, the end user, more control. Ideally, you should be able to say if you want your search results filtered, and if so, by what means, including the option to set whether your data is tracked and preserved to support the manipulation of searches.

- Marek Travnikar 9

<: ) 10

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Verizon Wireless introducing the new Palm Pre 2 Organize your calender Send messages Make a phone call And this And this And this And this And this And this And even look at this advertisement!

all at the same time The Byting Edge

Couches and Rolling Chairs Wireless mouse and Xbox 360 controller: DiTii.com and Wikipedia.com

VS. P

anting after just escaping plasma fire, the worn out Spartan takes cover behind a rock with his friend, Ultra1337gam3r1571. “Dude how the hell are we gonna’ get these guys?” says the Spartan. “I-D-K” says Ultra1337gam3r1571. “Okay dude, you go left, I’ll go right. Throw a ‘nade as soon as you get out of cover or else they’re gonna pwn you.” “Got it” Says the Spartan. Crouch-jumping out of cover, the Spartan makes a dash to the left when the message, “Do you want to turn on Sticky Keys?” appears on Jim’s computer screen. “Arrgh!” Jim yells in frustration as his Spartan character is killed by a giant ball of plasma energy shot by the alien wraith he was about to attack. Don’t you hate when you’re playing an exciting PC (Personal Computer) game and you’re alien killing fun is interrupted with error messages, scan results, and mistakes by pushing one of the 104 keyboard keys incorrectly? I do. That’s why console gaming trumps PC gaming because of its interaction, design, price and innovation. Gaming consoles were made to run and perform video games while a PC only has a side feature that allows it to run games.

PC gaming has some perks, I’ll admit, like graphics, online features and game options, but in the end it comes down to design. Consoles are very unique and are made to be a gaming enhancing device. The controllers of a gaming console allow more interaction and ease while playing a video game. Console controllers fit your hands by design, which mean that you may reach every button on the controller with little effort. most controllers that go to some consoles today, are made wireless which allows for more freedom of movement while playing a game. The average size of a console controller comes out to be the size of both of your fists put together, while the average keyboard is the size of five fists. This small controller frees the user of thinking about where to move their hands and where to push a certain key and lets the user think about the game and not the instruments used to play it. The Wii console took this idea of the wireless controller as interactive to the next level by creating a console that allows the gamer to interact with the game by using their posture and movements to control what happens in the game.

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“PC games can become better than console games.” PC games cannot move to a higher level of entertainment. PC game developers can only improve a game by increasing the levels of graphics it has compared to an older one. The Wii video game console inspires gamers to get off the couch and to be active by introducing this new software in movement interaction gaming, while still having fun. PCs are not equipped with the correct devices and technology to do the same. PC games can become better than console games in some small ways. Users on the PC can customize games with modifications and graphics. This usually involves destroying the games original plan that designs how the game should be played or if the developers released the modification, it’s only because the game was not entertaining

Wii controller and console: Scoop.co.nz Independant News

enough for users to still become interested with it even after defeating the campaign. Video game graphics on a PC can increase with the type of video card you have. You can update your computer with the latest video cards and mods for your games to give it an appealing look. PC games have online multiplayer interfaces that can be more advanced than consoles, but not by much. With the ability to optimize online settings that most computers have, PCs have a small feature that consoles do not. One last thing that PC games have that consoles do not could be the ability to alter the game or to create maps and levels for the games you have. This option only exists because when you download a game on to your computer, it takes up significantly more space than a console game does on a console, therefore allowing it to download more crap on to your computer. The average gaming console costs, today, around $200. This allows most people, with an average income, to be able to own a console. The low price of a gaming console is low enough so that most people should be able to afford it. A game and controller for the console comes already included in the low price of the console while the PC remains to be most of the cost with games and equipment adding on. Gaming PCs can cost anywhere from $400 - $1000. ”The majority of consoles sell for well under $500, often with a couple games in the bundle. A PC adequate for running the latest games can easily cost twice that much.” says Dave Spohn experienced writer and gamer for about.com. These are PCs that have been designed to have the best setup to play video games on your computer. In 2010, a survey, done by Overclockers.com showed the

expenses of updating your video card every 1-2 years on your computer for video games. 179 people were interviewed. 48 people say they update their cards for less that $200, 85 people say they update their video cards for between $200-$300, 23 people update for $300-$400 and 23 people update their video cards for more than $400. This major price difference affects the appeal of a gaming computer by limiting its users to people that are willing to spend an extraordinary amount of money for entertainment.

“people update their video cards for more than $400” Another thing to think about, in this war of PC vs. console, is ease of use. If you buy a video game console from a store, all you have to do is take it home, read the small pocketsized manual, plug the power cord into the wall and plug the video cables into any TV and you’re ready to go. Computers are a different story. When you buy a computer, you have to deal with the hassle of setup which could take around an hour if you are a first time user reading the manual. You have to install software and Anti-virus into your computer which can cost you more money.

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Gamer power computer: JustCampus.com

Video game consoles are multiplayer friendly. Using video game consoles, you can connect to the Internet and play your favorite games online. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know what you’re thinking. PC computers are also connected to the internet and most of the games are online multiplayer, but if you want a real social life, console gaming is the way to go. Most video game consoles come with four controller ports where you can play video games with other people in the same room. If you wish to play a game with someone on a PC you would most likely have to either connect to their computer via internet or you could set up a LAN (Local Area Network) that allows you to connect your computers locally, and can take a lot of room and time. A local area network involves multiple computers either in the same room or close enough to be reached via connecter cables. It takes a long time to go through the steps of connecting each computer to the other not to mention the space for desks, tables and wires. Consoles are a simple setup consisting of only a power cord and TV cables. Video game consoles will always evolve with new physical interactions, new console and controller designs, new innovative and interactive games and new varieties of people who play console games. There will always be new controllers and new consoles for more fun and enjoyment, while the computer has one design with one way to play most of its games. Ultimately, the console is the supreme ruler of gaming with its low costs, simple setup, innovative games, and humanfit designs.

- Daniel Maldonado 13

All for windows and windows for all

n a dark room, a soft blue glow escapes from the cracks of a metallic black box. Dust is caked on one side from the intake fans that hum quietly into the night. On the bright display next to it, “live” tiles consistently update, bringing one the latest news, weather, tweets, and pictures that they wish to see. But with the simple swipe of a finger, they fly off the screen bringing back the classic New face of Windows: Marek Travnikar look. Computers like this are not some touted Windows 8 as “fast and fluid” strange creation never to be seen by the when they described the whole new user eyes of the world. Rather they demoninterface, Metro. To Tellman, fast and strate the next operating system in a long fluid means instant feedback. line of Microsoft products. Microsoft has “It is designed so that when you a clear goal with the introduction of the touch something, there’s an immediate Windows 8 OS: make one operating sysresponse. It may not be what you necestem for all mobile computing devices, be sarily want at the moment, but you see they notebooks, tablets, or smart phones. something working.” Are they on target to succeed? We asked He goes on to describe that the exindustry experts, power wusers, and mo- pectations when using a keyboard and mouse may be more forgiving, as if there bile device developers all over the world is a built in latency when waiting for the what they think. Is this futuristic OS the OS of the future? Their answers surprised computer to respond to a click. And Tellman thinks this slow response might have us – and they might surprise you. carried over into the behavior of other The New Metro UI mobile OS’s. So the speed of Windows Steven Tellman, a self-described MiMetro UI will definitely be something crosoft Evangelist, recently attended the new and noticeable. Windows Build conference in Ana Tellman also describes the look heim, CA. There, Microsoft experts

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and feel that Metro conveys. “I heard the idea was based off of road signs. Road signs are also very simple. They use simple fonts. They’re usually only one or two colors. They’re easy to read, clean lines, bold typefaces. What it’s turned into is a design language for Microsoft. This is what they’re talking about. The new Microsoft.” Not everyone shares this view, however. “Windows 8 Metro UI will certainly cause an initial bump in the road,” says Martin McKenzie an IS Helpdesk Analyst in the UK. “There may be a lot of bloat just to make it look/act nice.” Trenton Henry, a long-time Mac “fanboy” and iOS developer, also thinks the jury is out on the Metro UI. “What does Metro mean to me? I

and a bad hair cut,” Henry says. Perhaps that’s not quite what Microsoft had in mind. “So, in the context of Windows,” he says, “it’s the same old crap but they put a new shirt on it.” Works on x86 Intel and ARM Processors Microsoft is leveraging their work in Windows Phone 7 in the development of their Metro UI. WP7, as it is commonly abbreviated, introduced the concept of the Start Screen and Live Tiles. It runs on the most common mobile phone processors, including those with the ARM core. Windows 8 is said to provide the same experience for desktop processors as well as the ARM. Rob Gowin, Principle Design Engineer at ARM Holdings, Inc. thinks “it is easy to have good performance when your device can be plugged into the wall, like a desktop. When you are running on batteries, the story is different.” He believes ARM is working hard to increase the performance while keeping the power consumption low. Regarding these two types of processors, “There is a difference in what they were designed for,” says Doug Peeler, who works in the CTO Group for Dell Computer. “You have Intel saying ‘let me do as many types of computing functions as possible’ and a lot of the ARM cores are based on ‘let me do some very limited number of things very efficiently.’ They are both converging toward something. Something slightly common.” The processors and their purpose may be converging, but the OS and its applications might not be quite there yet. Tellman warns that Windows 8 on ARM processors won’t run legacy applications, and people may not realize that. He thinks “There’s a little bit of a learning curve that’s gonna have to happen” before people whole-heartedly adopt Windows 8 OS. Same Experience on Your Phone, Notebook, Desktop, TV, Xbox, … Moving to include ARM is one way Microsoft hopes to deliver the same user experience across a wide spectrum of consumer electronics, regardless of processor. Peeler thinks that’s a bad idea. If it’s a touch device, like a small screen

portable or phone, it should have one user experience. The desktop PC experience should be another. “Now you’re trying to optimize for two complete difference experiences, and they were not designed to be the same, ” Peeler says. But Tellman argues otherwise. “Once an end user becomes familiar with a certain way to control things, consistency is key.” More than just consistency, Tellman believes the same interface across multiple devices actually expands the experience. “For a business user, that’s gonna, like, blow their mind. They go to work, they dock it, and their Metro Office comes up on their 23inch monitor and they can do everything. There’s a lot of flexibility in traveling. For a normal user, it’s the idea that, if they have an Xbox, their PC will have the same interface as that and their Windows phone.” And the applications will seem to move from device to device as seamlessly as the interface. Tellman expands, “The users go on to the Windows Store, they download Bejeweled or some game like that, and it comes up on their Start Screen, and it just runs. They have it all there in one system, that they put in the kitchen, or use on the Xbox” or when they travel with their tablet. “That’s what Microsoft wants: TV, portable, phone. It’ll all be on the same ecosystem,” says Tellman. “They’re really integrating everything, because, like, Apple’s done a good job of that. If you buy an iPhone, and you buy an Apple TV, and you buy a Mac, it all works really well together.” You might say Microsoft is playing catch-up. The OS Wars While they are focusing on the idea that Windows 8 will serve the needs of all users, Microsoft is also making subtle changes to improve their OS and address some issues from previous versions.

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“You know that program list that shows up on the Start Menu?” Tellman asks, when referring to Windows XP and similar versions. “If you have a lot of applications installed, it’s a big, frickin’ list. It just keeps on going, going, going, and it’s in alphabetical order. It doesn’t make any sense.” Windows 8 addresses this with grouping similar or related applications into Live Tiles. Tellman thinks Live Tiles rock: “Power users will start to use their Start Screen as a notification center.” Your start screen: It’s not just for starting applications anymore. Henry admires the notification methods that Mac OS X ad iOS provide, but says you need to be wary of “animation overload.” He also complains of the Windows Control Panel, how it’s impossible to find what you want. iOS simplifies the Settings, in his opinion. With its touch interface, “iOS introduced the concept of touch an icon to launch it,” Tellman also notes. This feature, too, is being adopted in Windows OS. In addition to the start methods, Mac, Android, and Windows OS will all soon have a similar model for acquiring applications: Mac has iTunes, Android has Market, now Microsoft has added the Windows store. “Microsoft doesn’t innovate, they optimize based on what their competitors introduce,” Steve Jobs is quoted as saying in his biography by Walter Isaacson. Windows 8 provides the same interface for all devices, and incorporates features similar to iOS and Android. Is this what the users want? Power users, evangelists, or PC architects want the fixes to the OS. But as for the idea of one OS for all: we might have to wait and see. Tellman says, “I think there are a lot of things that aren’t intuitive now, that will be in the future. And the future is only a year away.”

- Marek Travnikar

Closing Windows “So you use Linux?” said the man at the store. “Yeah, I use Linux.” I said. “Sorry, we don’t serve your kind here.” “But –“ I said. “Nobody has used Linux for over 25 years. Nobody will ever use Linux except for useless nerds like you! Go away.” Today, Linux is an unknown operating system. According to HitLinks, a commercial web analytics company, less than 2.5% of people use Linux. Many of us consumers will say that Linux is more usable than windows, which dominates with 76% of the market share. But why? And if it is more usable, why is Linux not succeeding?

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ers will give you the source code and some help so you can fix it. Windows developers will tell you to restart your computer and hope that it fixes the problem. Linux is open source so people can develop extra desktop environments and other tools (interfaces, back-ends, protocols). Windows is less stable than Linux. Even with the so-called “stability alarm” Windows just can’t stay running for more then a few weeks. Linux on the other hand is not nearly as errorGraph: Picture by Wikimedia on “sage share of operating prone as Windows. “47 of systems.” the top 50 web sites with the n investor creates a business longest running uptime (times between and charges money so that that reboots) run Apache. None of the top investor can get something back. 50 web sites runs Windows or Microsoft A noncompetitive investor won’t focus IIS. ” The Linux Foundation says 70% of on the money as much as the product, web-servers and 95% of supercomputers but an overcompetitive investor will do whatever possible to increase the value of use Linux, because of its reliability. Linux the company. Linux is based on noncom- does not have as many bugs because it is open source. Open source code has .434 peitive ideals like open source technolerror for every 1000 lines of code and ogy, software freedom, and other GNU closed source has 3 errors for every 1000 principles. Windows and Microsoft is lines of code on average based on a study based on overcompetitiveness and faces done by Stanford University, because law suits all the time for stealing other more people look at and fix the open peoples research, abusing monopoly, source code. Patches (bug fixes) made by and other antitrust business.(search up third party developers like you and me “microsoft law suit” on Google). The EU can go upstream to the main update and says that it handed out its biggest fine on then everybody will have access to that record to Microsoft for an abuse of mopatch. nopoly suit. Linux is a free open source Linux is more secure then windows. operating system that listens to its users. Microsoft is a company that doesn’t really Windows began as a single-user system care about the product as long as it makes and then expanded into a multi-user money. Open source means anybody can system. Linux was multi-user all along. view the code and comment on it. Closed TheRegister online newsletter says: “Windows was originally designed to allow source licenses don’t offer the source or both users and applications [programs] let you make patches for bugs. This is why Linux is inherently better then Win- free access to the entire system, which means viruses, Trojans and other maldows in product design. ware could tamper with any critical sys Linux is more usable then windows because it is flexible. Linux can adapt itself to fit a problem better. The liscence for Windows that all users have to agree to requires that you may not “work around any technical limitations in the software” even if it has become a detriment. Linux not only lets you adapt it, Linux encourages it. If you are running Linux and find a better way to communicate with your hard drive, Linux develop- Screen shot of Linux: Picture by Sam Grayson on

Ubuntu 11.10

Microsoft flag and tux: Facing page, Tux by the Linux Foundation, Windows logo by Microsoft.

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tem program or file [which could potentially destroy your computer].” This is like a bank who assumes that anybody with a gun is a policeman. Malware can access anything. Old programs could not operate without this structure, so in Windows XP there exists a compatibility mode in which programs can modify just as much stuff as before. Freshmeat.com claims that Windows is monolithic which means all of the functions are integrated into a single unit. So many parts of a Windows computer depend on other parts. If one goes wrong, the entire system fails. Linux is modular which means you can take out one part and put in another and it will still work. Windows uses to many Remote Procedure Call (RPC). RPCs are designed to let foreign computers tell your computer to do something. This is good for applications like Skype, but if an OS uses it too much, then it becomes a security flaw and people can use RPCs to your computer. Linux doesn’t run programs like Adobe CS5, Microsoft Office. Windows can run these programs, but that is because Windows has a greater market share; Not because Windows has a better design structure. But there are plenty of Free Open Source alternatives to these programs that run just fine or better on Linux. Most popular programs like Google Chrome, iTunes, and Spotify run on Linux. So why is Linux becoming something that only nerds use? Why don’t people use Linux? People used to think Linux was hard to use. This is outdated. Most Linux distributions adopted UI changes to be much more user friendly. The most important reason is that Linux doesn’t market itself much aside from a few ads here and there. Windows has plenty of ads and publicity. Linux is more usable than windows, because it is open source and Linux listens to its users. The future of Linux lies at the hands of the ignorance of the populace. If the majority of consumers realise that there is more than just mac and windows, then more people will use Linux. As a result, more people will sell Linux. Its up to you and me now. For instructions on how to try out Linux try going to: http://www.psychocats.net/ ubuntu/virtualbox.

- Sam Grayson 17

A new page in the story of the Internet: HTMl 5 that certain information is a navbar, it is better able to render this to the user. If you zoom in the browsers might not resize the navbar because it knows the user probably still wants this to be small

“HTML had to be redesigned. ” hasn’t really caught on the bandwagon is HTML 5 HTML is a markup language that allows developers to display their information through web browsers. HTML was designed when web browsers read single column paragraphs on paragraphs of text. A lot has changed since then and now we read web pages with rich text formatting, advanced paragraph layout, images, videos, and complex web apps. HTML had to be redesigned. That is what happened in May 2011 and they named it HTML 5. “I think that HTML5 implementation is the future for web applications.” Lachlan Hunt, the author of the popular A List A part, says. So what is so important in HTML 5? HTML 5 has new tags, more JavaScript API, advanced CSS3, and advanced support for video and audio. HTML 5 added new structural semantics like <nav>, <header>, <section>, <article>, and <footer>. The new HTML 5 tags are fighting against generic <div> and <span> tags. Now that many web sites have multiple pages and have a navigation bar, this became a tag just like a paragraph. If the browser knows

HTML semantics: Smashing code magazine

and wants to read the actual content. The semantics will look something like the picture on the left. HTML 5 added some marvel new non-semantic tags like a speech input, a progress bar, a menu-command, and a summary-detail. These tags are really important to add because now websites are much more interactive with users and the UI must reflect that. And now these tags can be fully styled with CSS3 Micheal Deal, a prominent web developer says, in reference to making web-

“HTML 5... is the future for web applications” sites easier to design, “CSS3 is definitely helping with that”

The Byting Edge

CSS picture: By the author Sam Grayson

he computers probably changed a lot since you were a kid. Do you still remember DOS-osaurus rex, Y2K, Netscape, and (if your really old) Windows NT? Times have changed a lot. So has the internet, but one thing that

CSS3 added new selectors that make it much like the JQuery selectors. This means developers will have a more tools for trying to select only certain things. Here is an example: CSS3 also added auto columns support. The browser will sort your text into columns at run-time and the developer doesn’t have to worry about resizing. CSS2 was all about text and rectangles. That’s what HTML was. That was all there was to style. That is not the case now. CSS3 added new properties to correct this. You can style images with CSS3 and you can create things like rounded corners, transforms, rotations, dynamic resizing, and even 3D imaging. The next step is to include all of this in JavaScript to make animations feasible without external plugins like Flash or Silverlight. The last thing that W3C did in the new standard is that they defined a tons of new API for JavaScript. Since its

“What if Adobe decides to kill Flash?”

the things that HTML 5 was adding like making animations and getting client storage space. Flash has its own problems. It is a dialect of JavaScript, but it is not the ECMAScript dialect so it does not run nativly on browsers. It runs through a resource hogging, unstable, not integrated, plugin to most browsers. “Flash is a proprietary platform, so targetting Flash means you are at the mercy of a single vendor. That is not a healthy place to be in -- what if Adobe decides to kill Flash?” Says Ian Hickson, editor of the W3C documents on HTML. “The market is moving away from plugins to core HTML/JS/CSS. Adobe is also putting its lot into mobile HTML5 and dumping mobile Flash...The biggest thing is the emergence of the mobile

web and less of a reliance on Flash” says James Sparrow, author of the popular site HTML5 Rocks. HTML5 specifications had 3 significant new things it brought to the web. It changed HTML tags, CSS3 syntax, and JavaScript API. This will make webpages easier to design and give the average user more power. Although HTML 5 won’t be set standard for another 10 years, most of its features are usable today. HTML 5 will make web pages easier to design and will allow the average user to do more things with web development. Even though Flash can already handle some of the things HTML5 can do, HTML 5 will run faster because it is a core browser function as opposed to a plugin. “HTML 5 could bring more awesome and creative [things] to web design and developing.” says Ahmad Ali Web Designer/Front-End Developer. So the next time you see a really awesome website design, say, “Was this made in HTML 5”

- Dr. Grayson

HTML 5 Logo: By W3C

“Interenet explorer is still the bottleneck in progress”

“IE is still the bottleneck in progress mainly due to the inability to upgrade IE if the user hasn’t purchased an upgrade of windows.” says Micheal Deal. Your probably thinking ‘I have seen embedded videos before and styled images’ These things you are thinking of are probably Adobe Flash. Adobe Flash is a popular plugin that gives your browser more functionality. Adobe Flash can already do some of

Internet explorer 6 screenshot: By author Sam Grayson

creation, JavaScript (technically ECMAScript) has been the dominant clientside browser scripting language. A clientside browser scripting language is a set of tools and syntax for developers to use that executes on your computer instead of on the server. Client-side scripting would be ideal for games and animations because the server has no control over a web page after your browser has downloaded. Some new services that are in JavaScript in the new HTML5 specifications are API for a completely sandboxed, client-side, crash-safe, local storage file-system support. For the first time in history JavaScript will have file system capabilities. This is allows for more information to be stored on client-side. If an online document service kept your document on the client-side and then synced it to the server side, it be about three times faster. JavaScript also has SQL database capabilities. AJAX can now be done through TLS/SSL and with only 4 lines of code. New JavaScript protocols also allow things like geolocation and 3D imagery. Most of the changes keep the syntax the same which makes the new JavaScript backwards compatible with new JavaScript, but they add in new API here and there. API stands for Application Programming Interface. It basically lets your programs do more things. There is one problem with HTML5.

HTML 5 is set to be fully accepted by all browsers in 10 to 15 years. The standards are all ready and it is already accepted by most browsers. Internet Explorer is currently the only browser not already implementing most of the new standards. What makes things worse is you can’t upgrade to the latest version of IE without also putting down a hundred dollars for a windows upgrade.

The Byting Edge

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