Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon
Join Dr. Bill as he examines the wild and wacky world of the web, computers, and all things geeky! Hot Tech Tips, Tech News, and Geek Culture are examined… with plenty of good humor as well!
The Techpodcasts Network Team is at CES 2014! And, you can get live feeds and interactive news right here on Dr. Bill.TV all week! Just click on the image at the top right column of our site! Or, click the image at the end of this very post! Enjoy the geekery!
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It was a Linux-y Christmas this year! Windows 8.x passes 10% market share, Windows XP falls below 30%, AOL sells Winamp and Shoutcast to Radionomy, Two Thumbs Up Media a great podcast directory! NC city councilman resigns in Klingon! GSotW:TinyTask!
Links that pertain to this Netcast:
International Association of Internet Broadcasters
TinyTask – A Freeware Task Automation Tool
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:14 — 18.2MB) | Embed
Subscribe: RSS
It was a Linux-y Christmas this year! Windows 8.x passes 10% market share, Windows XP falls below 30%, AOL sells Winamp and Shoutcast to Radionomy, Two Thumbs Up Media a great podcast directory! NC city councilman resigns in Klingon! GSotW:TinyTask!
Links that pertain to this Netcast:
International Association of Internet Broadcasters
TinyTask – A Freeware Task Automation Tool
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|
|
|
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| Download M4V | Download WebM | Download MP3 | Download Ogg |
Have you ever had to do mindless, repetive things over and pover on your computer? Have you ever wanted to just turn on a piece of software, have it record all your keystokes, then play them back quickly? Well now you can!
This super tiny, no-install piece of software does just that, for FREE!
TinyTask – A Freeware Task Automation Tool
“Our most popular freeware, TinyTask provides quick & easy automation by recording/playback. It is a case study in minimalist programming: the entire program is only 33k — and over 14k are graphics, which means the executable portion is very small and efficient. It is used as the test harness for the “Recording” feature of vTask Studio.
New: now includes an EXE compiler! Turn your recordings into standalone programs. If you were stranded on a deserted island, this is the one program you would want.
There’s no installer, required files, or anything unnecessary; just a tiny program, which doesn’t touch your registry or system folders. Enjoy!”
Uh huh. A Klingon City Councilman… hummmm… I think we need more, not less!
NC City councilman pens resignation letter in Klingon
Cnet – “It takes a special kind of politician to end his term by signing a resignation letter ‘chaq DaHjaj QaQ jaj paj.’ That’s ‘maybe today is a good day (to) resign.’ In Klingon.
David Waddell, a city councilman for Indian Trail, N.C., decided to send his resignation letter to Mayor Michael Alvarez written in Klingon as an inside joke. ‘Folks don’t know what to think of me half the time,’ Waddell told The Charlotte Observer. ‘So I might as well have one last laugh.’
The politician used the Klingon translator on Bing.com in case the mayor wasn’t fluent in the well-known ‘Star Trek’ language. In fact, Waddell didn’t just write his resignation using standard Klingon, he chose the beautiful, pointy-looking written Klingon language of Kronos.
As a ‘Star Trek’ fan, Waddell must have known that Klingons are more about action and less about talk. So it makes sense that he’d resign from a position that undoubtedly required having to endure endless council meetings. After all, SuvmeH ‘ej charghmeH bogh tlhInganpu — ‘Klingons are born to fight and conquer,’ not debate.
Waddell is resigning from his first term on the board as of January 31. Originally, his four-year seat would have expired in December 2015. According to The Charlotte Observer, Waddell left his post early because he was frustrated with how citizens’ requests for public information were addressed.”
Most folks looking for podcasts go to iTunes. And, don’t get me wrong, you can find a good selection there. But, other than that, most podcast directories are clunky, out of date, and generally not easy to use. Not so with this one! It is called “Two Thumbs Up Media” and it is available at this URL:
It was created by fellow TechPodcasts Network podcasters at Waves of Tech. Check it out for great podcasts!
We have been watching and waiting, but it seems that Shoutcast and Winamp won’t go to Microsoft. They are headed to Radionomy.
AOL Sells Winamp And Shoutcast Music Services To Online Radio Aggregator Radionomy
TechCrunch – “Some more detail on the fate of Winamp and Shoutcast, the legacy digital music services that owner AOL (which also owns TechCrunch) originally planned to shut down but then halted pending a sale. They are not being bought by Microsoft, as we had heard when we first reported news of a sale. The properties are instead being acquired by Radionomy — an international aggregator of online radio stations headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.
The Radionomy connection was first noticed by a couple of people, including one Bryon Stout on the Winamp forums and Carsten Knobloch, who saw that Winamp’s nameservers, but not Shoutcast’s, had been transferred to Radionomy. We have since learned from a reliable source that the deal is for both properties and should be finalised by Friday, if not sooner.
Radionomy has some 6,000 stations in its catalog already, with an emphasis on a do-it-yourself platform that anyone can use to create a channel. Shoutcast’s 50,000-strong catalog of radio stations will be a major boost on that front. Winamp’s media playing software could be used to help program those radio stations and offer additional services.
The acquisition may also see the two products and platforms put to work in more commercial settings. One of Radionomy’s strategic investors is MusicMatic, which develops audio and video experiences for stores and other venues.”
Folks are finally moving off the old Windows XP environment and moving to newer, fresher OS’s!
Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 pass 10% market share, Windows XP falls below 30% (Updated)
The Next Web – “With the release of Windows 8.1 to the world in October, Microsoft ended 2013 with two full months of availability for its latest operating system version. While Windows 8.1 is certainly growing quickly and eating into Windows 8?s share, the duo has only now been able to pass 10 percent market share, while Windows 7 seems to be plowing forward unaffected.
The latest market share data from Net Applications shows that Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 made steady progression in December 2013, gaining a combined 1.19 percentage points (from 9.30 percent to 10.49 percent). More specifically, Windows 8 gained 0.23 percentage points (from 6.66 percent to 6.89 percent), while Windows 8.1 jumped 0.96 percentage points (from 2.64 percent to 3.60 percent).
Meanwhile, Windows 7 gained 0.88 percentage points (from 46.64 percent to 47.52 percent). Unlike in November, Windows 7 didn’t gain more share in December than Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 combined, but it is still growing.
Windows 8, which saw its biggest gain in August at 2.01 percentage points and its biggest loss in November at 0.87 percentage points, may not have lost share last month, but it will likely continue to slip overall. All Windows users are being encouraged to get the latest and greatest, and Microsoft is making the upgrade path to Windows 8.1 just a free download away for Windows 8 users.
Going back to earlier versions, Windows Vista gained 0.04 percentage points (from 3.57 percent to 3.61 percent). Yet the biggest mover was Windows XP: it dropped a huge 2.24 percentage points (from 31.22 percent to 28.98 percent). We didn’t think it would fall below the 30 percent mark before 2014 was over, and yet here we are.
In 2013, Windows lost share every month except for March, July, and November. In December, Windows slipped 0.15 percentage points (from 90.88 percent to 90.73 percent). OS X dipped 0.02 percentage points (to 7.54 percent), while Linux gained 0.17 percentage points (to 1.73 percent).
Net Applications uses data captured from 160 million unique visitors each month by monitoring some 40,000 websites for its clients. StatCounter is another popular service for watching market share moves; the company looks at 15 billion page views. To us, it makes more sense to keep track of users than of page views, but if you prefer the latter, the corresponding data is available here (Windows 8 is at 7.57 percent).
Update: Net Applications tweaked its numbers for December a few hours after its original report was released, and this article has been adjusted accordingly.”