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Rebble: The Pebble Lives On

By Timothy R. Butler | Nov 26, 2019 at 5:32 PM

Not many modern, web-connected devices live on for years after their maker goes out of business and shuts down its servers. Fewer still have not only an active repair and support community, but a forward-looking mission. Rebble is a welcoming, open-source, community-minded effort, with a responsible financial model behind it. It’s hard to believe it exists, and feels like some still-raw chunk of 2013 tech optimism that can’t possibly survive into the future.

Except, it might.

I was a Kickstart supporter for the Pebble Time in 2015. While the Apple Watch is superior in most ways, there was a definite charm to the Pebble’s design, its battery life was incredible and it did what most people want most from a smart watch — notifications — nearly as well as watchOS until some of the improvements in watchOS 6. The idea that there might eventually be a full on Rebble Watch, to continue Pebble’s efforts, excites me.

Pixelmator Photo for Free

By Timothy R. Butler | Nov 26, 2019 at 4:43 PM

In addition, Pixelmator Photo, our incredible photo editor for iPad, is completely free for 24 hours until 9am ET, November 27th. Spread the word!

While I had higher hopes for the “machine learning” of Pixelmator Photo, it’s still a decently powerful tool for making adjustments to photos. For free, you really ought to give it a try.

Tesla Introduces the Cybertruck

By Timothy R. Butler | Nov 22, 2019 at 5:06 PM

Now entering a new class of strength, speed and versatility””only possible with an all-electric design. The powerful drivetrain and low center of gravity provides extraordinary traction control and torque””enabling acceleration from 0-60 mph in as little as 2.9 seconds and up to 500 miles of range.

I find myself fascinated by Elon Musk. After reflecting all day, I am still not entirely sure what I think of the appearance of Tesla’s long promised truck, but if they are able to produce it with the features and price points they are claiming, this could be huge. A base 4-door Ford F-150 with an AM/FM radio is only $3,000 short of a truck with Autopilot that accelerates 0-60 in six seconds (or an incredible 2.9 seconds if you care to upgrade to the high end model).

User Abuse

By Ed Hurst | Jan 26, 2013 at 3:48 AM

I remember my first encounter with a computer was in high school calculus, an Olivetti Programma 101. It was part of our curriculum to program the arithmetic steps for summation equations. A decade later, I was learning DOS on a military computer. Not the underlying technology, I became the training guru for our Enable office suite. I also wrote all the automation scripts in Enable for the forms we had to process. I still use a copy of Enable O/A in my XP Mode emulator on Windows 7.

The Procrastinator's Guide to Gift Giving: Cell Phones

By Timothy R. Butler | Dec 22, 2012 at 5:03 PM

So, Christmas has snuck up on you and you find yourself heading out to the stores this weekend for one of the most popular electronic gifts of recent years: the smart phone. Cell phones have been a perennial favorite Christmas gift, but with so many good phones that are now “free” with contract, what makes for a good gift cell phone? If you aren't planning on giving the cellular service too, the best choices are the phone upgrades that, for a bit more than the free phones, will prove far more enjoyable for your recipient. We have two such phones that will be sure to please almost anyone.

A Little Bargain Hunting Allows Computer New Lease on Life

By Timothy R. Butler | Oct 06, 2012 at 4:54 AM

Over the last few decades, we have become accustomed to something rather unfortunate: we buy significant pieces of technology that we then discard as essentially useless after only a short time. I decided to set out to revive a nearly ten-year-old computer and see if this (relatively speaking) prehistoric computer could be brought up to a state of usefulness in the modern era.

The View from Mudsock Heights: Once Upon a Time There were Libraries...

By Dennis E. Powell | May 16, 2012 at 5:36 AM

The sun rose gloriously over the hill. A few wisps of fog floated down by the creek and there was just the tiniest bit of frost on the tulips. What a good day, I thought, to consider Google. I don't know for certain that Google is now evil, but I bet that if it isn't it soon will be. No one has ever survived possession of that much power without slipping over to the dark side.

The View from Mudsock Heights: Let Us One Final Time Pay Homage to the Great Yellow God

By Dennis E. Powell | Feb 02, 2012 at 5:58 AM

Let us have a moment of silence for the Eastman Kodak Company. I'm serious. “The Great Yellow Father,” as it used to be called in the photography press (when there was a photography press), has filed for bankruptcy.

RHEL 6 for the Clueless: the Mail Server

By Ed Hurst | Jan 20, 2012 at 6:38 AM

If you are running RHEL, you are already running a mail server. It's installed by default and setup to run. Of course, it only delivers mail locally, and only from sources within your own machine. Right now, there are no sources, so there is no mail. But the server is running.

The Gifts of Christmas: the Procrastinator's Guide to Android Smartphones

By Timothy R. Butler | Dec 22, 2011 at 4:55 AM

In our general smartphone guide, we laid out the basic smartphone situation and then looked at Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and Apple’s iOS. In this piece we move on to a sampling of Android phones available this holiday season. Whether you are looking to give someone an Android handset for Christmas, or are thinking about picking one up for yourself, these contenders cover a good deal of the Android landscape this season, ranging from the impressively affordable AT&T Impulse 4G to Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S II.

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