Friday, April 15, 2011

The origin of CTRL-ALT-DELETE

The origin of CTRL-ALT-DELETE: "


You may not have ever thought about it, but the far-too-often-used keyboard combination of Control + Alt + Delete had to have been brought into existence by some random coder at some point in technological history. But wait, it wasn’t just a random coder. The keystroke combo is attributed to [David Bradley]. He was one of the original designers of the IBM Personal Computer. You can even hear his own recount of the story in the video after the break.


He came up with the idea after growing weary of waiting for the Power-On Self Test (POST) routine to finish during each reboot of his software testing regiment. We remember the old days of slow hardware and can understand his frustration at the lost time. He decided to throw in a shortcut that allowed the software to reboot without power cycling the hardware. The original implementation used CTRL-ALT-ESC, but was later changed so that one frustrated keyboard mash couldn’t accidentally reboot the system.



[via Gizmodo]


[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons]



Filed under: pcs hacks



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Monday, February 28, 2011

iOS 4.3 Features Walkthrough

iOS 4.3 Features Walkthrough: "Apple is expected to release iOS 4.3 this week so we thought it might be a good idea to go through the new features and changes that have been discovered in iOS 4.3 beta 1, beta 2 and beta 3 that Apple has seeded to developers of iOS developer program so you know what to [...]



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Thursday, February 24, 2011

Hands-on with FaceTime for Mac

Hands-on with FaceTime for Mac: "Hands-on impressions and video of FaceTime on the new MacBook Pro."

All About the New Macbook Pros 2011 [Apple]

All About the New Macbook Pros 2011 [Apple]: "
Today, on Steve Jobs' birthday, Apple updated its MacBook Pro line with much faster models. But you probably already guessed that. Unsurprisingly, they've now got an Intel Light Peak port (renamed as Thunderbolt), which can transfer data at 10Gb/s. Plus, a new HD camera for FaceTime, which costs $1 from the Mac App Store. More »






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Google Apps plug-in injects the cloud into Office

Google Apps plug-in injects the cloud into Office: "Release of Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office is more than a plug-in that syncs legacy Office apps with modern cloud-based apps; it's also another chess move for Google in ongoing competition with Microsoft."

Thursday, February 17, 2011

This Map Shows You Just How Good (Or Bad) Your Area's Internet Is [Factoid]

This Map Shows You Just How Good (Or Bad) Your Area's Internet Is [Factoid]: "
An important first step in the FCC's National Broadband Plan has been taken. After lots of testing and research, they've released a map that shows you just how connected the internet is in your zip code, city, county—even your own personal address. Go see just how pokey your browsing is here: [National Broadband Map] More »






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Wednesday, February 16, 2011