structure

Did you know you could get a refund for your purchase of an iPhone app? I didn't until I watched a new CNET TV How-to with Brian Tong. In the video, Brian details the process for getting a refund on an app he wanted to buy for the iPad, but chose the iPhone version by mistake. It's a bit complicated to explain the process here, so you'll want to check out the video linked above to get a detailed visual how-to for getting an app refund.

As Brian points out, though you have the ability to get … Read more

HM WebCopy is a handy add-on for both Firefox and Internet Explorer that lets users save Web page content without all the ads and other clutter that often fills Web sites these days. Although the application didn't knock our socks off, we can see how it would be useful if you frequently need to save HTML files without the mess.

HM WebCopy is quite easy to use. Let's say, for example, that you find a news story online that you'd like to save as an HTML document, but you don't want all the ads and other … Read more

OrgChart Professional is a feature-packed program that allows users to create impressive organizational charts. Because of the number of features it contains, it's not the most intuitive program we've used, but a bit of time spent with the Help file will allow users to master the program's many functions.

The interface is a bit cluttered and can be overwhelming at first, with lots of menus and buttons everywhere. Although it's possible to create an organizational chart just by fooling around with the program, beginners should really start with the Help file, a 282-page PDF that contains … Read more

Teachers can test their reading and writing students' skills with Edit Prep. The program creates worksheets that students can proofread for correct punctuation and grammar usage, or read for contextual clues to test their reading comprehension skills.

We tried each of Edit Prep's three sections: Proofreading, Comprehension, and CLOZE Worksheet, which deals with finding contextual clues in passages of text. The program has a selection of sample text from well-known works of literature from which you can generate worksheets, or users can import passages from sources outside the program. We think teachers will enjoy this option, because they can … Read more

Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that will render people and other objects invisible.

Researchers say they can redirect light around 3D objects using metamaterials--artificially engineered structures created at a nano scale that contain optical properties not found in nature, according to an Associated Press report.

People see objects as a result of the light reflecting or scattering off them. This new mixture of materials has "negative refractive" properties that keep light from being absorbed or reflected by the object, allowing only the light from behind the object to be seen. Essentially, the material … Read more

After attending GigaOM's Structure 08, I came away with a cloud-computing hangover. Just trying to define cloud computing is daunting given all the hype and companies thunderclapping.

Today the research firm Gartner has jumped on the cloud computing bandwagon, proclaiming that it "heralds an evolution of business that is no less influential than e-business," and defining it as massively scalable IT-related capabilities provided as a service using Internet technologies to multiple external customers.

Yahoo just announced a Cloud Computing & Data Infrastructure Group, which will develop computing infrastructure that balances scalability with cost effectiveness. What was Yahoo … Read more

In the 1960s, Lawrence Roberts invented computer networking via data packets, which led directly to the development of ARPANet and the Internet . And now Roberts is trying to fix one of the Internet's biggest problems: network overload caused by peer-to-peer file transfers.

At Structure 08, he laid out the problem: 5 percent of the Net's users are running P2P transfers taking up 80 percent of its capacity, which is dramatically limiting the available bandwidth available to everyone else. Roberts' company, Anagran, is able to detect which "flows" are P2P traffic, and reduce the bandwidth available to … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Speaking at the Structure 08 conference here, Sun Microsystems CTO Greg Papadopoulos predicted that by the beginning of 2010 the majority of systems sold would be for Web, high performance computing and software-as-a-service applications. "We are going through this phase change in computing in a big way," he said. He made a similar prediction last year.

Papadopoulos also advocated a free market in which all interfaces and formats are based on open standards; customers own their data, relationships, and metadata; and customers can extract, synchronize or purge their data unilaterally. This echoes recent efforts to promote openness and data portability. … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--In consecutive talks here at Structure 08, we just heard from big brains at Salesforce.com and Microsoft on the topic of software vs. services. Surprisingly, these companies, which historically have espoused very different philosophies, are converging on a similar pitch: you can't build one with the other.

In Salesforce's case, co-founder and EVP Parker Harris said that early on, Salesforce's architects wanted to build a platform service for consumers, not just an application. But business logic prevailed: customers needed an application, not a platform.

"As a technologist, you want to build a platform, but … Read more