Know Your Type: Five Mechanical Keyboards Compared

MojoKid writes As a power user, you notice certain things that the average person might not. One of those is the difference between typing on a sweet mechanical keyboard with luxurious key action, versus pounding away on a run-of-the-mill squishy plank that relies on membrane switches to register your keystrokes. The difference may seem subtle to the uninitiated, though even casual typists can recognize that there’s something inherently superior about a mechanical keyboard. Of course, it’s the mechanical key switches that are responsible for elevating the typing experience. These are better than the rubber domes found in membrane keyboards in a number of ways, including feel, responsiveness, and durability. Mechanical keyboards are growing in popularity, as word is spreading about how good they are. In turn, keyboard manufacturers have responded by feeding more mechanical models into what was once a niche market. If you go out in search of a mechanical keyboard, you’ll now find a mountain of options. This roundup further reinforced something we’ve known for a long time, which is that mechanical keyboards are the superior choice for both gaming and daily typing chores. That doesn’t mean they’re all created equal — there are different key switches to choose from, and features vary from one plank to the next. The choice of key switch type is highly subjective but we can say that Cherry MX key switches are indeed of higher quality than knock-offs like the Kailh switch. That’s not to say Kailh switches are bad, just that you can discern a difference when going from one to the other. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Know Your Type: Five Mechanical Keyboards Compared

This Start-to-Finish Tutorial Helps You Build Your First iPhone App

When you’re learning to code, it’s best to start with small projects. This tutorial, for example, will get you started with a simple to-do list app, and it walks you through the whole process, from start to finish. Read more…

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This Start-to-Finish Tutorial Helps You Build Your First iPhone App

These App Development Jobs Don’t Require Programming

Coding isn’t for everyone , but there are plenty of other tech and even development jobs that don’t require you to be an actual developer. If you love technology, but aren’t sure programming is right for you, explore some of these options too. Read more…

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These App Development Jobs Don’t Require Programming

FreeNAS 9.3 Released

An anonymous reader writes This FreeNAS update is a significant evolutionary step from previous FreeNAS releases featuring: a simplified and reorganized Web User Interface, support for Microsoft ODX and Windows 2012 clustering, better VMWare integration, including VAAI support, a new and more secure update system with roll-back functionality, and hundreds of other technology enhancements. You can get it here and the list of changes are here. Existing 9.2.x users and 9.3 beta testers are encouraged to upgrade. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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FreeNAS 9.3 Released

The Tech Skills and Courses Google Recommends for Software Engineers

Software engineering is one of the most in-demand and best paying careers, but learning computer science can also pay off even if you don’t do it professionally. Google has a guide on the courses and experiences future software engineers should consider. Read more…

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The Tech Skills and Courses Google Recommends for Software Engineers

Android 5.0 ‘Lollipop’ vs. iOS 8: More Similar Than Ever

Nerval’s Lobster writes With the debut of Android 5.0 (also known as Lollipop, in keeping with Google’s habit of naming each major OS upgrade after a dessert), it’s worth taking a moment to break down how the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system matches up against Apple’s iOS 8. After years of battle, the two are remarkably similar. So while nobody would ever confuse Android and iOS, both Google and Apple seem determined to go “flatter” (and more brightly colored) than ever. Whether or not you agree with their choices, they’re the cutting edge of mobile UX design. The perpetual tit-for-tat over features has reached a climax of sorts with Lollipop and iOS 8: both offer their own version of an NFC-powered e-wallet (Apple Pay vs. Google Wallet), a health app (Apple’s Health app vs. Google Fit), car-dashboard control (Android Auto vs. CarPlay), and home automation. That’s not to say that the operating systems are mirror images of one another, but in terms of aesthetics and functionality, they’ll be at near-parity for most users, albeit not for those users who enjoy customizing Android and hate Apple’s “walled garden.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Android 5.0 ‘Lollipop’ vs. iOS 8: More Similar Than Ever

Emma Watson Leaked Photo Threat Was a Plot To Attack 4chan

ideonexus writes: After Emma Watson gave a speech on the need for feminism (video) to the United Nations, 4chan users threatened to release nude photos of the Harry Potter star in retaliation, setting up the emmayouarenext.com website with a countdown clock. Now it has been revealed that the site was an elaborate hoax intended publicize a movement to shut down 4chan. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Emma Watson Leaked Photo Threat Was a Plot To Attack 4chan

Micron Releases 16nm-Process SSDs With Dynamic Flash Programming

Lucas123 writes: Micron’s newest client flash drive line, the M600, uses its first 16nm process technology and dynamic write acceleration firmware that allows the flash to be programmed as SLC or MLC instead of using overprovisioning or reserving a permanent pool of flash cache to accelerate writes. The ability to dynamically program the flash reduces power use and improves write performance as much as 2.8 times over models without the feature, according to Jon Tanguy, Micron’s senior technical marketing engineer. The new lithography process technology also allowed Micron to reduce the price of the flash drive to 45 cents a gigabyte. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Micron Releases 16nm-Process SSDs With Dynamic Flash Programming

Tripping through IBM’s astonishingly insane 1937 corporate songbook

The songbook of the damned—or at least of the employed. “For thirty-seven years,” reads the opening passage in the book, “the gatherings and conventions of our IBM workers have expressed in happy songs the fine spirit of loyal cooperation and good fellowship which has promoted the signal success of our great IBM Corporation in its truly International Service for the betterment of business and benefit to mankind.” That’s a hell of a mouthful, but it’s only the opening volley in the war on self-respect and decency that is the 1937 edition of Songs of the IBM , a booklet of corporate ditties first published in 1927 on the order of IBM company founder Thomas Watson, Sr. The 1937 edition of the songbook is a 54-page monument to glassey-eyed corporate inhumanity, with every page overflowing with trite praise to The Company and Its Men. The booklet reads like a terribly parody of a hymnal—one that praises not the traditional Christian trinity but the new corporate triumvirate of IBM the father, Watson the son, and American entrepreneurship as the holy spirit: Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Tripping through IBM’s astonishingly insane 1937 corporate songbook

PHP 5.6.0 Released

An anonymous reader writes “The PHP team has announced the release of PHP 5.6.0. New features include constant scalar expressions, exponentiation using the ** operator, function and constant importing with the use keyword, support for file uploads larger than 2 GB, and phpdbg as an interactive integrated debugger SAPI. The team also notes important changes affecting compatibility. For example: “Array keys won’t be overwritten when defining an array as a property of a class via an array literal, ” json_decode() is now more strict at parsing JSON syntax, and GMP resources are now objects. Here is the migration guide, the full change log, and the downloads page.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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PHP 5.6.0 Released