Tech News – Page 13

Adios Internet Explorer

By: Shayan Gaziani

In August of 1995 Microsoft released their first version of Internet Explorer (IE). A revolutionary feat at the time, eleven generations later IE has fallen behind rivals (such as Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox) in terms of speed, ingenuity, and modernism.

A solemn farewell.

Twenty years later, Microsoft is pulling the plug. As noted by The Verge, the company revealed IE’s fate this past January. While the browser will still exist, function, and be available for download, maintenance will soon cease. Earlier this month at Microsoft Convergence, the company’s marketing chief Chris Capossela revealed plans for the future.

“We’re right now researching what the new brand, or the new name, for our browser should be in Windows 10,” said Capossela. “We’ll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we’ll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed Project Spartan. We have to name the thing.”

Moving on.

Project Spartan is set to be officially released along with Windows 10 later this year. According to a blog post by the IE team, “Spartan provides a more interoperable, reliable, and discoverable experience with advanced features including the ability to annotate on web pages, a distraction-free reading experience, and integration of Cortana for finding and doing things online faster.”

Information for this post was provided by The Verge here and here.

Take Advantage of Free Technology Training at SMU

IT Training here at SMU has a number of resources available for Faculty, Staff and Students, and it’s all for free! The place to begin is on the OIT webpage, SMU.edu/OIT. You can navigate to the IT Training homepage through the blue navigation bar at the top of the screen. Once you arrive, you’ll see a number of different tabs.

my.SMU: this tab has links to dozens of tutorials for the SMU community for both administrative and self-service purposes. But remember, if you need security access to a page, your manager will need to request it. For more detailed instructions, click here.

Other Systems: This tab contains links to online trainings for SMU Financials. These are available anytime for a refresher; however, if you need job related security, your Financial Officer will need to open a Help Desk ticket. Instructions can be found on this tab.

IT Workshops: Each semester IT Training offers a variety of webinar and in-person workshops. On this tab, we keep all of our past training guides, as well as recordings of past webinars. Make sure to check this page out if you’re looking for help with Adobe, Microsoft Office, or Sitecore.

Additional Resources: This tab contains a link to a number of online training resources outside of the University, including: Blackboard/Courses.SMU; Inside.SMU; Lynda.com; Mactopia; Microsoft; and statistical training.

Finally, under the IT Training dropdown, you can find links to information about the Fondren Library West computer classrooms and semester workshops. All IT Training workshops are reserved on a first-come-first-served basis. They usually send out a newsletter announcement at the beginning of each semester. So, keep an eye out for emails coming from ittraining@smu.edu!

These spring webinars still have room for you!

Outlook Productivity Webinar, Wednesday, Feb 4, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, Register

Up and Running with Microsoft OneDrive Webinar, Thursday, April 9, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm, Register

MediaArchive.SMU Webinar, Thursday, April 16, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, Register

Adobe Makes Lightroom Available for Android

“This is not just a way to get photos from place to place. It lets you maintain your workflow on the mobile device. It can be a tremendous time saver and productivity tool for making edits on the go.”

-Shared Mangalick, senior product manager for photography at Adobe

According to TechNewsWorld, Adobe is expanding their market by now offering a mobile version of Lightroom for Android devices. Last year they released the app for iOS mobile devices. It does not provide the full functionality of the desktop version; however, it allows users to save changes to their photos and sync them back to their desktop.

For more information Lightroom for mobile devices, visit Adobe’s website.

Tech Day 2014

Tech Day is free for SMU Faculty, Staff and Students. Topics range from Adobe to LinkedIn with subject matter experts from various departments at SMU as well as special guest speakers from Adobe and Apple. As there are a limited number of seats, all sessions will be on a first come first served basis. We look forward to seeing you there!

For the full schedule, please visit our webpage.

The First 48: iOS 8

by Moez Janmohammad

iOS 8 was announced Monday, and the beta for developers went out that day. I’ve had it now for about 48 hours, and I’m pleased to say that it’s a pretty solid update, especially for the first beta seed. It’s robust, surprisingly stable, and very fast. iOS 7 was plagued with crashes and glitches in its beta stages, iOS 8 is a different animal. Of course, there are a few issues, but again, it’s the first beta and those will be ironed out.

Users who feared a complete UI overhaul like the transition from iOS 6 to iOS 7 need not worry. iOS 8 looks and feels exactly like its predecessor, albeit with a few functional changes. It was more of an “adding features” update as opposed to a “let’s make everything new” update.

Here’s a rundown of some of the biggest updates:

Quick Reply: You can now reply to text messages directly from the lock screen, or even in the notifications drawer. Just slide to the left, hit “Reply” and type away! Note that if your screen locks while you’re idly staring at the message you typed, iOS will not save a draft of it, although I’m sure that may be added in a future beta update.

The Keyboard: Since 2007, the iOS keyboard has remained largely unchanged. In iOS 7, it was given a different skin, but the same software laid underneath. Now, you get a “Quick type” bar at the top of your keyboard. It guesses, based on context, your next word and learns as you use it. It understands that the formal way you talk to your boss is different from the informal slang you may use with your friends, and suggests words depending on who you’re texting, and any previous messages you may have sent to that contact. Also, support for 3rd party keyboards is now available. Once companies like Swype and Swiftkey build their iOS version, you’ll be able to use those too.

Spotlight: Until now, Spotlight search was just a way to search documents, music, contacts, and other local files. Now, Spotlight has been revamped to include internet searches, restaurants near you, apps in the App Store, Wikipedia snippets, movie showtimes and even location based data in your own photos.

All in all, iOS 8 seems to be a fantastic step in the right direction for Apple, but the big test will come when all of the paired features in OS X Yosemite start working. Continuity, phone calls on your Mac, and Airdrop from OS X to iOS will push both platforms to the next level.

As with any upgrade, we strongly suggest when iOS8 becomes available in the fall that you delay upgrading for a short time. This allows OIT time to navigate any bugs that may conflict with SMU applications or services. We’ll make sure to give you the green light when our testing is complete.