Deathmatch review: Windows 8.1 vs. OS X Mavericks

With Windows 8.1 Professional and OS X 10.9 Mavericks both now shipping, how do the two flagship PC operating systems compare? Does Windows 8.1 fix enough of Windows 8's usability flaws to be worth adoption? Does Mavericks add enough value to get your attention?

Windows 8.1 lets users avoid most of the Windows 8 experience, so they can return to a Windows 7-like state of bliss, whereas Mavericks simply makes the Mac that much easier to use, especially if you work with iPads and iPhones, too. In short, the two updates keep the relative balance between Windows and OS X the same. Windows 8.1 does reduce PC users' frustration enough that they may be less likely to switch to a different OS like OS X, but it does so by retreating into Windows 7, making Windows feel more dated than ever.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Learn how Cisco manages 35,000 Macs. | The desktop lover's guide to supercharging Windows 8.1. | For quick, smart takes on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. ]

My colleague Woody Leonhard has reviewed the final version of Windows 8.1, and I encourage you to read his take to understand the nuances of Microsoft's tablet/desktop hybrid OS. I've detailed the best new capabilities in OS X Mavericks, which I also urge you to check out. Here, I highlight the key differences, strengths, and weaknesses of the two OSes, both of which I've been using since their first betas were released, organized by the InfoWorld Test Center's key scoring categories for desktop operating systems.

Scores:
Windows 8.1: 7
OS X Mavericks: 9

Apple defined the graphical user interface as we know it today, and despite nearly 30 years of changes, the core metaphors remain unchanged. That consistency makes it easy to use each new version of OS X, and Mavericks is no exception.

Yet the OS has expanded to support touch gestures in a very natural way, via touch mice and touchpads. Also, Apple's slew of helper utilities -- such as the Quick Look preview facility, the Notification Center, the embedded sharing capabilities, and the Spotlight search tool -- do what Apple does best: offer sophisticated capabilities that users can discover as needed, rather than face a steep learning curve to get started. The Dock and the persistent menu bar also simplify app access, while the full-screen mode introduced in OS X Lion lets users stay focused when they want to be, yet have quick access to the rest of the OS as desired.

Mavericks makes a few small enhancements to that UI: Finder windows now support tabs, like a browser, which reduces screen clutter and adopts a widely used organizing principle. You can also tag files with your own keywords, to aid in searches. Neither requires you to relearn anything fundamental. And thanks to the inclusion of iOS's Maps and iBooks app, using the two platforms is even easier -- especially with the new ability to send driving directions from Maps straight to your iOS device and the new ability in Calendar to estimate driving times to your appointments.

However, OS X Mavericks has a few UI flaws that undercut its superb ease-of-use. Apple has been monkeying with its application file services since OS X Lion, so there are now three distinct UIs and services for saving files: one for traditional apps, one for Versions-enabled apps, and one for iCloud Documents-compatible apps. It's confusing. OS X Mavericks doesn't do anything to rationalize these differences.

Also, though Apple encourages broad usage of the iCloud service, it doesn't work with Apple's Mail program. Adding or saving attachments becomes a rigmarole as you transfer the files from iCloud to your Mac's local drive or vice versa. (iCloud is available only in apps obtained from the Mac App Store, so most Mac apps can't use it.) SkyDrive's deeper integration allows for much more straightforward use, though many IT managers won't like that fact. To manage access to SkyDrive, IT can go with a separate SkyDrive Pro client available for Windows 8.1.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/microsoft-windows/deathmatch-review-windows-81-vs-os-x-mavericks-228631?source=rss_infoworld_test_center_articles
Category: grandparents day   neil armstrong   Will Smith Miley Cyrus   VMA 2013   tesla model s  

Microsoft keeps the Azure hits coming

While most everyone this week has been yawning at the release of new Surface Pro tablets, over in another corner Microsoft has been hard at work on getting new Windows Azure features out the door.

The list of this week's updates to Azure is wide-ranging, although some of it will be familiar to anyone who's followed the news of what Redmond's been planning for Azure.

The general availability of Windows Azure Backup
As the name implies, this uses Azure's blob storage to provide cloud-based backup and restore for Windows Server or for System Center Data Protection Manager. In a nod to those uneasy about cloud storage, Microsoft has affirmed that not only is data encrypted before transmission, but the user -- not Microsoft -- keeps the encryption key.

Active Directory
Microsoft's plans for Active Directory in Azure have been getting more ambitious of late, with its most recent big add being single sign-on for all the SaaS offerings integrated into Azure, as well as a single place to access those apps if you're an end-user. Among the less-publicized additions this time around: auditing reports that include things like automatically flagging suspicious log-in behaviors (such as logging in from multiple locations at once) and sign-in integration within Visual Studio.

Windows Azure SDK 2.2
Speaking of Visual Studio, the 2013 version just got support for the new revision of the Windows Azure SDK, version 2.2. Also among the features in 2.2 is Remote Debugging Cloud Services, which lets you plug Visual Studio into a debugger running in Azure as if you were debugging an application locally. Many of the other additions to Azure's development features -- for example, the PowerShell cmdlets -- have been in roughly the same vein, that of closing the gap between what's done in the cloud and what's done locally.

The public preview of Hyper-V Recovery Manager
This new feature allows System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 and R2 private clouds to be replicated to and recovered from a secondary location. Again, in another nod to those paranoid about the cloud, application data is kept local and everything to, from, and in Azure is encrypted.

From the outside these may seem like little pieces, but they're adding up. InfoWorld's Eric Knorr has described Microsoft as "the sleeping giant of the cloud," with "the resources to crush it." Microsoft is in the middle of a difficult but fruitful transition away from the low-hanging fruit of commodity computing and toward the high-margin, far-reaching innovations possible as a services company.

Actually, Microsoft has had a decently large slice of its pie coming from most everything but the Windows division for some time now. Back in 2012, ZDNet's Ed Bott noted how large chunks of Microsoft's revenue were not from Windows at all, but from the company's business division, the entertainment and devices division (read: Xbox), and the server division. It wouldn't be surprising at all if from now on the biggest news out of Redmond had nothing to do with Windows per se, and everything to do with Azure.

This story, "Microsoft keeps the Azure hits coming," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/t/cloud-computing/microsoft-keeps-the-azure-hits-coming-229342?source=rss_infoworld_blogs
Similar Articles: Ed Lauter   vikings   Mayweather vs Canelo   Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them   usain bolt  

Underwood will star on live TV in 'Sound of Music'

NEW YORK (AP) — The end of the year looks busy for Carrie Underwood, and she couldn't be happier.

The six-time Grammy-winning singer will host the Country Music Association Awards for the sixth time. You can see her singing the opening on NBC's "Sunday Night Football." And for one night in December, she'll star in a live television version of "The Sound of Music."

The 30-year-old star told the Associated Press on the red carpet Tuesday night at the TJ Martell Foundation gala, where she was one of the night's honorees, that she nervous doing something she's never done before. But then she realized, "None of us have. This is a live show on TV. So this is definitely a challenge for all of us."

She said the live singing and acting was like "going to a Broadway show, but you're in your living room."

"The Sound of Music" airs Dec. 5 on NBC with Underwood playing Maria alongside "True Blood" vampire Stephen Moyer. He portrays Captain von Trapp. Broadway veterans — and Tony winners — Audra McDonald, Laura Benanti and Christian Borle round out the cast as Mother Abbess, Elsa and Max.

While the Nashville, Tenn.-based Underwood is no stranger to performing before millions of people on live television — she won the fourth season of "American Idol" — she felt she needed more preparation, so she showed up in New York three weeks early.

"I wanted to be here and have all my lines memorized and everything and be ready for it. It's been really wonderful," Underwood said. "Audra and Laura are incredible. Stephen's great. It's nice to be surrounded by that much talent."

Before doing that show, the multiplatinum-selling artist returns to her hosting duties on the CMAs. She's nominated for three awards, including album of the year and song of the year. While she and co-host Brad Paisley have it down to a science, she doesn't see the experience as old hat.

"You never know what's going to happen with us hosting," Underwood joked.

She added: "I think being nominated — especially when hosting the CMAs — you just never know."

The CMAs take place Nov. 6 in Nashville.

Underwood also spoke about recording the opening number this season for "Sunday Night Football." She claims doing it was a no-brainer.

"It's a lot of fun. I grew up watching football. I'm from Oklahoma, it's what we do," she said with a big smile.

The conversation then turned to hockey and her husband Mike Fisher's team, the Nashville Predators.

"They got off to a little bit of rocky start, but definitely getting some momentum. I feel like my husband right now. I know what he feels like now. I feel there's some really great, new young talent," Underwood said.

And what about the team's star center?

"My hubby, he's been out for the past couple of games with a foot fracture thing. But he'll be back on the ice, ASAP. I hope he does, because that's the only way I get to see him, other than iChat."

_____

Follow John Carucci at —http://www.twitter.com/jacarucci

• Television
• Arts & Entertainment
• Carrie Underwood
• Stephen Moyer

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/underwood-star-live-tv-sound-music-060356556.html
Related Topics: elizabeth smart   Talk Like a Pirate Day   beyonce   Harry Styles   Jason Dufner  

SAP bets on HTML5, open source for its mobile app platform

SAP is planning to rely heavily on HTML5 and open standards within its products for building mobile applications, and is embracing the concept of BYOT (bring your own tools) in order to draw interest from developers.

Version 3.0 of SAP Mobile Platform, which was announced Tuesday during the Tech Ed conference in Las Vegas, will combine SAP's NetWeaver Gateway, Sybase Mobiliser and Syclo Agentry products "to meet current and future mobile app use cases," according to the announcement.

[ InfoWorld presents the Bossies 2013, the best open source software for data centers, clouds, mobile, and more. | Get the latest insight on the tech news that matters from InfoWorld's Tech Watch blog. ]

SAP's mobility tools will support open-source standards such as OSGi, OData and Apache Cordova. Developers can also expect "extensive use of HTML5," SAP said.

Under the BYOT approach, developers can use their desired tools alongside those from SAP's platform. SAP is also planning to offer a cloud version of the mobile platform, according to the announcement.

The company announced updates to its Mobile Secure product portfolio on Tuesday as well.

An upcoming cloud-based version of SAP Mobile App Protection will help companies apply "fine-grained" security to applications running on iOS and Android devices, SAP said. The company has also upgraded its Mobile Documents product, adding iPhone and Android support, and has created a new secure mobile browser.

SAP gained a set of mobility products through the 2010 acquisition of Sybase.

It has been emphasizing mobile-friendly software development heavily of late, and earlier this year launched Fiori, a set of lightweight mobile applications that tie into its core Business Suite ERP (enterprise resource planning) system.

The Mobile Platform 3.0 release also represents a fresh start of sorts for SAP, according to one observer.

"When SAP assumed Sybase's mobile assets, they basically did not have a complete or stable product," said analyst Ray Wang of Constellation Research. "This new release is a major overhaul which allows them to write once, deploy everywhere."

SAP did make tweaks to the Sybase technology as part of the 3.0 upgrade, said executive board member Vishal Sikka, who heads all development, during a press conference on Tuesday at Tech Ed.

SAP has also had some time to rethink what is truly important for mobile developers, Wang added.

"Embedded security, mobile apps stores, and community are key to their potential success this time around," he said. "The challenge will be the price points as IBM is also aggressively competing in this space."

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobile-technology/sap-bets-html5-open-source-its-mobile-app-platform-229266?source=rss_mobile_technology
Related Topics: TLC Movie   chicago bears   aapl  

The hitchhiker antigen: Cause for concern?

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

23-Oct-2013

[


| E-mail

]


Share

Contact: Jenny Ryan
jenny.ryan@nrcresearchpress.com
Canadian Science Publishing (NRC Research Press)

Since antibodies first attained prominence as research reagents in modern biological science labs, researchers have been perplexed as to why one production lot can differ significantly from the next, in terms of performance. Poor antibody performance has caused the loss of countless hours of research, to say nothing of the mental anguish of the researchers themselves. An antigen is a substance that stimulates the production of antibodies.

Now that antibodies are being widely exploited for clinical purposes, the problem of poor antibody performance goes beyond inconvenience to researchers and may threaten patients in a number of ways, including misdiagnosis of disease by pathologists using antibodies to characterize tissue biopsies; disposal of antibody production lots by manufacturers because of the apparent lack of potency; and misinterpretation of research results leading to incorrect conclusions about mechanisms of action for some diseases, which can be costly to pharmaceutical companies pursuing the wrong leads during drug development.

A new article just published in the journal Biochemistry and Cell Biology titled: "Hitchhiker antigens: Inconsistent ChIP results, questionable immunohistology data, and poor antibody performance may have a common factor" describes the problem. It claims that antibodies being manufactured today in large biological systems, whether it is a bioreactor filled with mammalian cells or a living organism, such as a rabbit or a goat, may often have a significant proportion of the lot "contaminated" with the very antigens they are designed to target. The antigens contaminating the antibodies can be thought of as "hitchhikers". This is only a problem if the antibody is designed to target a cellular protein or structure that is already present in the biological system in which it is being made, but such antibodies are increasingly common and are used for research and in medicine.

In this article, the author, Dr. Missag Parseghian, who develops clinical antibodies at Rubicon Biotechnology, introduces readers to a recent survey by the ENCODE consortium of commercial histone-targeting antibodies and how their data highlights the detrimental effects of hitchhiker antigens. His observations may have researchers thinking about the purity of the commercial antibodies sitting in their lab refrigerators. The problem, he says, may be prevalent in a wide array of research areas, not just the areas of chromatin, auto-immune and histone research highlighted here.

"I have been working with antibodies for over 25 years, both as a consumer who uses them in my research and as a scientist working for companies that manufacture them as therapeutics, and what has always struck me about antibodies is the variation in their performance from one lot to the next. Especially when working with antibodies generated from a small research lab and later from a commercial supplier," explained Dr. Parseghian. "Not that one or the other group produces a superior product, rather the same antibody produced by two different groups can show tremendous variation. Understanding and eliminating this variation is critical for successful development of antibody-based biologic agents as drugs."

###

The article is published online today in Biochemistry and Cell Biology.

Direct link to article: http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/bcb-2013-0059

---

[


| E-mail


Share

]

 

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

23-Oct-2013

[


| E-mail

]


Share

Contact: Jenny Ryan
jenny.ryan@nrcresearchpress.com
Canadian Science Publishing (NRC Research Press)

Since antibodies first attained prominence as research reagents in modern biological science labs, researchers have been perplexed as to why one production lot can differ significantly from the next, in terms of performance. Poor antibody performance has caused the loss of countless hours of research, to say nothing of the mental anguish of the researchers themselves. An antigen is a substance that stimulates the production of antibodies.

Now that antibodies are being widely exploited for clinical purposes, the problem of poor antibody performance goes beyond inconvenience to researchers and may threaten patients in a number of ways, including misdiagnosis of disease by pathologists using antibodies to characterize tissue biopsies; disposal of antibody production lots by manufacturers because of the apparent lack of potency; and misinterpretation of research results leading to incorrect conclusions about mechanisms of action for some diseases, which can be costly to pharmaceutical companies pursuing the wrong leads during drug development.

A new article just published in the journal Biochemistry and Cell Biology titled: "Hitchhiker antigens: Inconsistent ChIP results, questionable immunohistology data, and poor antibody performance may have a common factor" describes the problem. It claims that antibodies being manufactured today in large biological systems, whether it is a bioreactor filled with mammalian cells or a living organism, such as a rabbit or a goat, may often have a significant proportion of the lot "contaminated" with the very antigens they are designed to target. The antigens contaminating the antibodies can be thought of as "hitchhikers". This is only a problem if the antibody is designed to target a cellular protein or structure that is already present in the biological system in which it is being made, but such antibodies are increasingly common and are used for research and in medicine.

In this article, the author, Dr. Missag Parseghian, who develops clinical antibodies at Rubicon Biotechnology, introduces readers to a recent survey by the ENCODE consortium of commercial histone-targeting antibodies and how their data highlights the detrimental effects of hitchhiker antigens. His observations may have researchers thinking about the purity of the commercial antibodies sitting in their lab refrigerators. The problem, he says, may be prevalent in a wide array of research areas, not just the areas of chromatin, auto-immune and histone research highlighted here.

"I have been working with antibodies for over 25 years, both as a consumer who uses them in my research and as a scientist working for companies that manufacture them as therapeutics, and what has always struck me about antibodies is the variation in their performance from one lot to the next. Especially when working with antibodies generated from a small research lab and later from a commercial supplier," explained Dr. Parseghian. "Not that one or the other group produces a superior product, rather the same antibody produced by two different groups can show tremendous variation. Understanding and eliminating this variation is critical for successful development of antibody-based biologic agents as drugs."

###

The article is published online today in Biochemistry and Cell Biology.

Direct link to article: http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/bcb-2013-0059

---

[


| E-mail


Share

]

 

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/csp-tha102113.php
Similar Articles: kelly clarkson   dolly parton   big brother   Espn.com   twerk  

“Were You the One Who Did the Entry for Cunnilingus?”

Courtesy Grand Central Publishing

When Gawker Media launched Jezebel in May 2007, it was the first big bid at reimagining popular women’s media for an online audience. Now, Jezebel is going analog. Released today, The Book of Jezebel: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Lady Things, edited by Jezebel’s founding editor Anna Holmes with contributions from a group of female writers, include Slate contributors Jessica Grose, Amanda Marcotte, and yours truly, is both an earnest celebration of the historical and pop cultural figures that have shaped women’s lives in the 21^st century and a compendium of elaborate menstruation jokes. (I wrote many of them.) Critics are divided on how seriously to take the thing: Fresh Air’s Maureen Corrigan found it a “jolly feminist cultural commentary”; the Daily Caller’s Mark Judge counters that “the rage of the Jezebels is indicative of a serious cultural problem that is potentially fatal for the United States.” (Spoiler alert: The cultural problem is daddy issues). I am biased and think it’s great.

I spoke with Anna about translating a blog to a dead-tree medium, the Jezebel definition of cunnilingus, and how to compete with other women without undermining women in general.

Amanda Hess: Now that the book has come out, people keep asking me which entries I wrote, and I honestly do not remember. It’s all a blur of badass historical ladies and uterus jokes at this point.

Anna Holmes: You’ve just described my life.

Hess: The book is a part of a trend in publishing that takes a Web outlet and reimagines it as a print product. As someone who writes primarily on the Internet, I’m of two minds about that: On the one hand, the immediacy and community provided by writing online can be really special, but there’s also a lot of great writing and argumentation that happens online that just quietly disappears. Is that why you’ve turned the website into a book?

Holmes: I don’t know that the trend toward turning Web products into books is that new—we’ve seen peoples Twitter feeds effectively spun into books. But I had some hesitation about doing it with this site, because I don’t think there are many books that have succeeded in translating Web content to print form.

Way, way back when we first started talking about the book, there was some discussion of turning the Best of Jezebel into book form, but I don’t think a book of previously published stuff is that interesting to consumers. But there was something compelling in taking a site that has a known sensibility and translating it into book form in a very explicit way—which is the way we see the world. And when I say “we,” it’s a very broad term, and it should be a broad term—no pun intended. The sensibility of the site has been crafted by the people who have run it, the people who write it, and the commenters and readers as well. There isn’t one party line, except that women should be taken seriously and are awesome and funny—I think everyone can agree on that—and that historically they have not been well-served by women’s media, which is part of why the site started in the first place.

Hess: One of the frustrations of writing in women’s spaces online is that we’re often defining ourselves in opposition to other coverage about women. In my writing on Double X—and in a lot of the writing that appears on Jezebel, too—the pace is so quick that our work is largely a response to an offensive story or the latest frat boy email. Part of the fun of writing the book was to celebrate female culture independently, in a way that’s not bogged down by the day-to-day call and response.

Holmes: A lot of Internet writing is reactionary—I don’t mean that in the revolutionary sense, but that a lot of blogging is about applying readings to things that exist elsewhere in the media. The book is more self-contained. It’s about the situations and concepts that are relevant to being female in the contemporary United States, and not in the granular way that a blog or website demands, which can be very exhausting. Sometimes, you need to explain things more in a blog post to put everything in context—some entries in the book are just a one-liner, because sometimes that’s all that needed to be said. I can’t think of that many posts on the site that were just one-liners. Were you the one who did the entry for cunnilingus?

Holmes: It was simply one word, which is: “Mandatory.”

Hess: You left Jezebel three years ago. What advice did you give to the current editor, Jessica Coen, when she took over?

Holmes: I had hired her five months prior, so she had five months to kind of get it. I don’t know I gave her any specific advice when I left—if I did, it was to not spend your every waking hour on the site so that you have no life. I’m a cautionary tale. I went so balls-out that it became an unhealthy thing for me. I didn’t read the site for six months after I left, because I didn’t want to get close to creating a situation where I would meddle. If I saw something I didn’t like, I didn’t want it to come out in some way, if I ran into someone on the street. It was like my baby. I had a baby, and I handed it off to someone else, and now that person is raising that child and I can’t be like, “No! You have to feed her at this time.” Maybe that’s a horrible analogy because I don’t have kids, but it felt like it was such a part of me that I had to just not engage with it.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/10/book_of_jezebel_a_conversation_with_jezebel_founding_editor_anna_holmes.html
Similar Articles: 12 Years a Slave   Kwame Kilpatrick   Dreamchasers 3   reggie bush   college football  

Man Goes Deer Hunting In Wal-Mart Parking Lot

When a man in Indiana, Pa., spotted a deer in the Wal-Mart parking lot, he shot it right there. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports he got six months' probation, even though it was, in fairness, the first day of hunting season.

Copyright © 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.

You how it is with deer hunting, you have to get the right gear. You think about the time and place. You might build a deer stand, a kind of treehouse to shoot from high ground. Or you can do like a man in Indiana, Pennsylvania. He spotted a deer in the Wal-Mart parking lot and he shot it right there. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review says he got six months' probation, even though it was, in all fairness, the first day of hunting season when he opened fire.

It's MORNING EDITION.

Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/22/239568794/man-goes-deer-hunting-in-wal-mart-parking-lot?ft=1&f=3
Similar Articles: Maria de Villota   torrie wilson   Manny Machado   2020 Olympics   Lady Gaga Vma