TUTORIAL: QR code generator for Firefox browser (VIDEO)

Have you ever been in a situation when you had to leave your PC while reading an on-line article or watching a video on YouTube and wanted to carry on using a mobile device?

I have. And I was a bit frustrated because I either had to search for the content again or type in the whole URL on my mobile or tablet.

But there is a simple solution, especially if you use Firefox as your PC web browser. 

TECHNOLOGY: Contemporary operating systems. The horror.

Where lays the thin line that separates pursuit for innovation from nonsense? Most people would agree that competition propels development and in most cases is good for the human race. Competition usually means that one has to provide better “something” than someone else provides. But there are cases in which we see more cons than pros. And fragmentation of computer / mobile devices operating systems is one of those bad things. 

The PC sector is actually not that terrible. We have the Windows family, the Mac OS family, and a vast breed of Linux choices. Those are the basics and the rest is a real niche. Up to the latest version (8 / 8.1) Windows was pretty much a well-integrated OS, with evolutionary rather that revolutionary approach. While there were many changes “under the bonnet”, Windows since the 98 edition was looking and behaving more or less the same. Same GUI, installation methods and event handling, meant that, while certain features were being added, a user could use the same programs (renamed to “applications”) over all those years. 

That was all the beauty of Windows – simplicity. We were clicking icons, ticking boxes, pressing buttons. With the new era of tablets (especially with capacitive touch screens) Windows changed a bit – it gained the “Metro” GUI which is supposed to make the whole system more tablet / touch friendly. And in some cases it does, but in many other it is just a broken promise. A promise that you can have the usability of the good old Windows and the super trendy touch experience of modern mobile devices. Well, so far you cannot really. The Metro GUI requires applications to be specially optimized and a great deal of them just isn’t, and never will. Imagine Photoshop, AutoCAD or any other engineering / development software to be optimized for “touch”. The screen would need to be 32 inches in diagonal – try to fit that in your hand bag! 

TECHNOLOGY: Productivity – the final frontier

Those of you who try (used deliberately) to stay up-to-date with the modern technologies, know that the current pace in the “mobile” segment is really fast. This is mostly reflected by the mobile phones and tablets sectors, where each month there is a premiere of yet another super device, powered by the latest CPU/GPU aka SoC (system-on-chip).

And sometimes it begins to look quite trivial. Like the recent announcement by Mediatek (microchip maker) that they are working on a 8-core SoC unit for mobile applications.

You see, most modern PCs and laptops (which actually are PCs but some people think they’re not) are equipped with 4-core (aka quadcore) processors, while 8-core units find their way in more professional machines like servers and graphic workstations.