sábado, 17 de setembro de 2011

Google loads up on IP again, buys 1,000 more patents from IBM

Google loads up on IP again, buys 1,000 more patents from IBM:


Seems like we've heard this story before -- Google buys a bunch of patents to protect its cute little green baby from all the big, bad patent lawsuits. Only this time, instead of buying a hardware manufacturer to expand its patent warchest, team Mountain View merely purchased 1,023 bits of IP from IBM. Covering everything from a method for filling holes in printed wiring boards to a method for file system management, Google seems to have grabbed quite the eclectic collection -- one we're sure Big G will put to work for itself and its buddies in no time. Those looking to see the full results of this latest patent shopping spree can hit the source link below.

Google loads up on IP again, buys 1,000 more patents from IBM originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Sep 2011 03:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CSI: Seems Legit

CSI: Seems Legit:

4koma comic strip - CSI: Seems Legit



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sexta-feira, 16 de setembro de 2011

Google Buys 1K Patents From IBM To Help Defend Android

Google Buys 1K Patents From IBM To Help Defend Android:


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It has just been made known that Google recently bought 1,023 patents from IBM in a move that will no doubt help the internet search giant defend the Android OS from rivals like Apple and Microsoft (boo — hiss). The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s show that Google acquired these patents back in August 17th but the information was just released today on their website. A Google spokesman would not comment as to further details or the financial terms of the transaction.


Add this thousand to the 1,030 they acquired from IBM back in July and the some 17,000 patents Google recently acquired when they bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion last month and Googorola is a force to be reckoned with. Google has mentioned that these patents would only be used to defend themselves against the forces of evil. To help fight the good fight, Google was generous enough to transfer 9 of their patents to HTC who was able to use those in their lawsuit against Apple. And that’s how you play the patent game, folks.


[Via Bloomberg]

Guide to Installing and Booting Windows 8 Developer Preview off a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk)

Guide to Installing and Booting Windows 8 Developer Preview off a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk):

New Windows 8 Boot Manager?I've posted before about my intense love for Booting off a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk). It's lovely. Of course, once Hyper-V on the client happens, it will matter less, but for now, here I am, a guy with a perfectly good, working Windows 7 machine who wants to also run the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

I could do a few things to play with Windows 8. I could:

  • Try a virtualization solution, but it might not work, I may not have the drivers I need and it won't be as shiny as running "on the metal."
  • Sacrifice a machine I have lying around. I'll probably do that at some point, but I'd like to try it out on my actual hardware that I use all day long.
  • Swap out my C: drive and use my main machine. I don't have a tool-less case, and I'm also very lazy, so, um, ya.
  • Dual boot. Dual booting may feel ninja but it ALWAYS ends on tears. And sometimes blood.
  • Boot on real hardware from a Virtual Hard Disk.

Booting off a VHD is my current preferred solution for trying crazy stuff because the only speed hit I'll take is on the virtualized hard drive. Everything else is real hardware. I do this all the time with presentation VHDs and one-off daily builds of stuff.

Warranty

Of course, this is just some dude's blog. I puzzled this out and while booting to VHD is supported, messing with your boot manager - especially with Preview (that means, NOT RELEASE QUALITY) Software is a recipe for losing your job and a messy divorce. There's no warranty, express or implied. If you quake in fear from the following instructions, you need to STOP. It may be the case that you are actually a Non-Technical Friend and you don't realize it. Well, someone just told you. Please don't destroy your hard drive. I don't know you and I don't how how you got here. Stop calling. Jimmy no live here, you no call back!

Booting a Windows 8 VHD off a Windows 7 Primary System

These instructions come with the WORKS ON MY MACHINE seal of approvalWhew, now that's out of the way, let's void a few warranties, shall we?

Please note that there are a half dozen ways to do this. You can do it all from the command line using tools like ImageX, DISM, etc, or you can do a lot of it graphically with tools like BellaVista. This is just the way I did it. It's not gospel. I'm sure the folks in the comments will have much nicer ways. Take them all with a nice grain of sea salt. You can also SYSPREP the VHD directly from the ISO's WIM with IMAGEX if you know what that stuff means. It's a little subtle and requires you go get some tools. While my process  is a little baroque, it just needs the one ISO->USB tool.

Step 0 - Have a lot of Disk Space

I like to have a roomy VHD. You can make one that expands or you can make a fixed size. 40 gigs is usually enough, but I like 60 gigs as a nice round number, plus this is the Windows 8 Developer Preview with Developer Tools. If you don't have enough space when an expandable disk "bloats" itself to the fixed size on boot, it'll blue screen, so expandable or not, have the slack space.

Step 1 - Make a USB stick or DVD from the ISO

Go get the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool and get yourself a USB stick that will hold at LEAST 10 gigs. I used a 16 gig one. Go through the process by pointing at the ISO you downloaded and then preparing your USB key. You can also use the resulting USB key to boot and install Windows 8 from your sacrificial hardware if you like.

Choose ISOChoose Media TypeInsert USB deviceCreating Bootable USB device

Step 2 - Make a Virtual Hard Drive

You can do this later in the process by pressing Shift-F10 while in the Setup Tool, but I like to prep things up front. You can do it from the Disk Management GUI or from DISKPART at the Administrator command line.

Be aware that your VHD needs to be on an internal drive or SATA drive. USB won't work as the drivers are initialized too late in the boot process.

Also, if your machine is BitLockered, your VHD needs to be on a non-BitLockered partition and you need to suspend BitLocker during this process. Also, know your recovery key because I don't know it.

2a. Start up an Administrator Console and run DISKPART. Execute the lines after DISKPART> below, changing them for your own system.

C:\Users\Scott\Desktop>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.1.7601
Copyright (C) 1999-2008 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: HEXPOWER7

DISKPART> create vdisk file=d:\VMs\Win8.vhd type=expandable maximum=60000

100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully created the virtual disk file.

DISKPART> select vdisk file=d:\VMs\Win8.vhd

DiskPart successfully selected the virtual disk file.

DISKPART> attach vdisk

100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully attached the virtual disk file.

DISKPART> create partition primary

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.


2b. OR do it from the Disk Management GUI:



Create and Attach Virtual Hard Disk



At this point, you've got a VHD that's empty, but ready to have Windows installed to it. The VHD and your system are NOT ready to be booted from. That will come in a minute.



Step 3 - Boot off the Windows 8 USB Key



Now, restart your computer with your new USB key plugged in and startup your BOOT MENU. The hotkey is usually F12 to bring it up. You want to boot off the Windows 8 USB key.




Side Note: Folks with Gigabyte Motherboards. These motherboards are notoriously hard to figure out a USB boot. You need to make sure that you USB key is only plugged into the board directly in the back. Then, don't use the Boot Menu, it never works. Instead, enter the BIOS with the DEL key and manually put your USB Key (it'll be detected by brand, so be prepared to recognize the string) at the top of the Hard Drive boot order.




Boot of your USB key



Step 4 - Attach the VHD while still inside SETUP



Pay attention here. Actually, hell, pay attention to the whole thing, it's subtle.



Start the SETUP process, click Install Not but DO NOT PICK A HARD DRIVE. As shown in this screenshot, instead hit SHIFT-F10 to get to a console. We want to attach our VHD and install to THAT instead.



Shift-F10 from within Windows 8 Setup



In the screenshot above I haven't touched anything, yet.



Below, I've run DISKPART and selected and attached the VHD with these now familiar commands:



DISKPART> select vdisk file=d:\VMs\Win8.vhd
DISKPART> attach vdisk


That will look like this screenshot.



DISKPART commands have been issued, but the drives aren't refreshed yet



Next, ALT-TAB back over to the list of disks and hit REFRESH. You'll see your VHD show up. Mine is the 60 gig one. That's the blank we are going to install to.



Now the 60 gig VHD is visible



Note that installation will warn you that this VHD can't be booted to. Yet. That's cool, go ahead and install to that empty VHD.



photo 4



At some point it'll ask you to restart the computer. The setup process isn't done yet, but go ahead and reboot and remove the USB key.



Your system should reboot and setup will continue, this time off the VHD.




NOTE: I had expected at this point to go and manually create a BCD entry using BCDEDIT.EXE from an Administrator command line as I did in my first post on booting to VHD but it seems that is all done for us now!




The Windows 8 Developer Preview build automatically noticed that I was trying to boot off a VHD and added a Windows Bootloader option and put the description in as "Windows Developer Preview," saving me a half dozen tedious steps. I was very pleasantly surprised! I'd like to hear if you had the same experiences, Dear Reader.





I could tell it was working because my C: drive is a totally silent SSD and my D: drive is spinning rust. When the setup continued I could totally hear the hard drive that holds the VHD spinning. The installation completed happily at this point with me having to manually create an entry with BCDEDIT.



I confirmed it with bcdedit.exe /v while running Windows 8 Developer Preview.




Setup completed, and I rebooted again to make sure I could get back into Windows 7.



In fact, I was shocked to find a completely new bootloader had come into play. I was literally open-mouthed staring at it. It's not text, it's graphical and friendly! It actually and literally "did the right thing." Awesome.



This seems to be the Windows 8 boot manager that you'll see if Windows 8 Developer Preview is the default. Otherwise you'll see the Windows 7 text-mode one first. Very cool. I hope it stays past the Developer Preview.



New Windows 8 Boot Manager?



Here's what you get if you click Other Options.



New Windows 8 Boot Manager?



That's it. To recap:




  1. Make an empty VHD


  2. Attach to the VHD just before installing Windows 8 Developer Preview


  3. Install to the VHD


  4. Rejoice



Hope this works for you, Dear Reader. I'm happily booting Windows 8 Developer Preview to VHD today.



One final disclaimer to be CRYSTAL CLEAR. I puzzled this process out with the same bits given out at http://dev.windows.com. I don't work for the Windows team and I don't know anyone over there. I have no idea if this will work in the future. I only know it worked on my home machine, tonight, once.



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© 2011 Scott Hanselman. All rights reserved.



terça-feira, 13 de setembro de 2011

CheapStat: An Open-Source, DIY Potentiostat

CheapStat: An Open-Source, DIY Potentiostat:


Although potentiostats are the foundation of modern electrochemical research, they have seen relatively little application in resource poor settings, such as undergraduate laboratory courses and the developing world. One reason for the low penetration of potentiostats is their cost, as even the least expensive commercially available laboratory potentiostats sell for more than one thousand dollars. An inexpensive electrochemical workstation could thus prove useful in educational labs, and increase access to electrochemistry-based analytical techniques for food, drug and environmental monitoring.


The CheapStat [is] an inexpensive (<$80), open-source (software and hardware), hand-held potentiostat that can be constructed by anyone who is proficient at assembling circuits. This device supports a number of potential waveforms necessary to perform cyclic, square wave, linear sweep and anodic stripping voltammetry. As we demonstrate, it is suitable for a wide range of applications ranging from food- and drug-quality testing to environmental monitoring, rapid DNA detection, and educational exercises. The device’s schematics, parts lists, circuit board layout files, sample experiments, and detailed assembly instructions are available in the supporting information and are released under an open hardware license.


[Thanks, Aaron!]




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