The Great Geek Manual

1990
The Fall ’90 COMDEX trade show is held Monday, November 12 through Friday, November 16 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event features 1,850 exhibitors and attracts 126,000 visitors. IBM demonstrates the 486-based PS/2 90 and 95, Micropolis demonstrates SCSI hard drives, Microsoft demonstrates their Windows 3.0 operating system, Motorola debuts their 68040 microprocessor, Oracle Database demonstrates servers for OS/2 and UNIX, and SCO demonstrates their Open Graphics Operating System. The keynote speech entitled “Information at Your Fingertips” is given by Bill Gates.

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Future Imperfect” first airs. (No. 408) Riker finds himself sixteen years into the future, his memory of the intervening period erased by a dormant virus. Memory Alpha entry

With help from Robert Cailliau, Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web, “WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project.” The proposal is based on an earlier proposal, “Information Management: A Proposal,” written in March 1989. Read WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project.

1994
Version 1.0 of the 386BSD operating system is released. Visit the official 386BSD website.

1996
The website of Kriegsmans Fur is hacked by “The Ghost Shirt Society.” View an archived version of the defaced website.

1997
Iomega announces that it has sold ten million Zip drives.

1998
Be announces Release 4 of its BeOS operating system, for Intel and PowerPC computers. The new release better integrates with Windows, with the ability to better interface with files and a full set of keyboard shortcuts. The system is expected to be released in December. The company also announces that Hitachi will include the operating system on its computers. Price: US$69.95 (online) or US$99.95 (retail)

Diamond Multimedia Systems reveals plans to cut twenty percent of its work force, about one hundred eighty employees.

2000
At the Comdex trade show, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates demonstrates a proposed Tablet PC initiative, which would convert handwritten pen strokes into graphics.

2001
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announces the 950MHz mobile Duron processor. Price: US$160

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announces the 1.2GHz mobile Athlon 4 processor. Price: US$525

The first uncompressed real-time gigabit HDTV transmission over a wide-area IP network takes place on “Internet2.” Visit the official Internet2 website.

2002
A thirty-six year old unemployed London sysadmin named Gary McKinnon, also known by the handled “Solo,” is indicted for what U.S. authorities describe as the “biggest hack of military computers ever detected.” McKinnon allegedly exploited poorly-secured Windows systems to attack ninety-two networks run by NASA, the Pentagon, and twelve other military installation scattered over fourteen states from February 2001 through March 2002. Several private businesses are also affected by the attacks, causing an estimated US$900,000 in damages. Prosecutors said that McKinnon “stole passwords, deleted files, monitored traffic and shut down computer networks on military bases from Pearl Harbor to Connecticut.”

2003
Marek Jedlinski (Tranglos Software) releases version 1.6.5 of the freeware text editor Keynote for Windows. This is last version of the application released before development is discontinued in October 2005. Visit the application’s official website.

Nokia confirms that hackers have cracked the copy protection system of games designed for the N-Gage video game system.

The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “North Star” first airs. (No. 309) In it, Archer and the crew investigate why a 19th century-era Human settlement has been placed in the middle of the Expanse. Memory Alpha entry

2004
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “The Augments” first airs. (No. 406) In it, Dr. Soong’s Augments devise a plot to wage war on the Klingons. Memory Alpha entry

2006
Ang Chuang Yang, age 16, of Singapore breaks the Guinness World Record for the shortest time needed to type a 160-character SMS message at a competition organized by Singapore Telecommunications. The previous record of 42.22 was set by American Ben Cook in July. Yang’s new record is 41.52 seconds.

2007
The first system with 65536 processors, the JUGENE (Jülich Blue Gene) supercomputer, goes into service at the Jülich Research Centre in Germany. With a processing speed of 167 TFLOPS, it is the fastest supercomputer in Europe and the sixth fastest computer in the world. JUGENE operates on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.

IBM announces that it will acquire Canadian software developer Cognos, Inc. for US$5 billion, the company’s last remaining major competitor in the business intelligence software market.

2008
Google releases Chrome for Linux.

India’s first unmanned lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1, enters into orbit around the Moon, at an altitude of roughly 100km above the surface.

2009
Microsoft launches its Online mobile marketplace.

2010
Google discontinues its 1-800-GOOG-411 directory assistance service without announcing a reason.

The science fiction film Skyline, directed by Greg and Colin Strause, opens in 2,880 U.S. theaters the day afters its Australian release. Produced on a budget of US$10 million, it will gross US$11,692,415 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 1 hr 40 mins

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