News, Pakistani News Daily Jung, Ummat, Khabrain, Jazba, Geo. BBC Urdu, Cnn

General Defination of Virus, Trojan, Malware, Rookit, Exploits, Wabbit, Backdoor

2008-11-17T11:47:00.000-08:00

Some general definations are here to better understand the differance between some harmful n unwanted names in any PC. Reed to better understand them

Do you have a Virus?

Are you infested with pop-up ads, new toolbars in your browser, is your home page changed or are you bombarded with irritating spam? Perhaps your computer is running very slow or worst, you can't get on the internet. If so, your PC is most likely infected with adware, anti adware, spyware, spybot, trojans, viruses or another internet parasite. Viruses won't go away anytime soon! More than 60,000 viruses have been identified, and new viruses are created every day, according to the International Computer Security Association.

What is a Trojan?

A Trojan is malware that performs unexpected or unauthorized, often malicious,
actions. The main difference between a Trojan and a virus is the inability to
replicate. Trojans cause damage, unexpected system behavior, and compromise the security of systems, but do not replicate. If it replicates, then it should be
classified as a virus. A Trojan, coined from Greek mythology's Trojan horse,
typically comes in good packaging but has some hidden malicious intent within its code. When a Trojan is executed users will likely experience unwanted system problems in operation, and sometimes loss of valuable data.

What is Malware?

Malware, short for malicious software, refers to any malicious or unexpected program or code such as viruses, and trojans. What is Spyware? Spyware is short for advertising supported software (Adware). Software that sends information about your internet habits back to the computer from which it's launched. Spyware is often built into free downloads and works in the background without a user's knowledge .Since it doesn't record an individual's personal information, it's often used to create marketing profiles based on surfing habits. Why is it called "Spyware"? While this may be a great concept, the downside is that the advertising companies also install additional tracking software on your system, which is continuously sending your tracking information over the internet. While according to the privacy policies of the companies, there will be no sensitive or identifying data collected from your system and you shall remain anonymous, it still remains the fact, that you have a "live" server sitting on your PC that is sending information about you and your surfing habits to a remote location.

What is a Rootkit?

A Rootkit is the hardest virus to detect. It is designed to hide in the computers
core processes making it difficult to detect. It often requires a complete wiping of
the hard drive and reinstalling the original operating system. What is a Dialer?
Dialers can be costly. A black hat hacker can use a dialer to dial those expensive
telephone numbers in small countries or to transmit stolen data.

What are Exploits?

Exploits are what keeps Bill Gates and Microsoft up late at night. Hackers try to
find flaws in Windows to bypass security so they can get access to your computer.

Service Pact 2 is an example of a patch that is used to correct a flaw in Windows. Is

Spyware illegal? Even though the name may indicate so, spyware is not an illegal type of software in any way. However there are certain issues that a privacy oriented user may object to and therefore prefer not to use the product. This usually involves the tracking and sending of data and statistics via a server installed on the user's PC and the use of your Internet connection in the background. These tools are perfectly legal in most places, but, just like an ordinary tape recorder, if they are abused, they can seriously violate your privacy.

What's the hype about?

While legitimate adware companies will disclose the nature of data that is collected and transmitted in their privacy statement, there is almost no way for the user to actually control what data is being sent. The fact is that the technology is in theory capable of sending much more than just banner statistics - and this is why many people feel uncomfortable with the idea. When was the last time you read a privacy statement on a web site? Millions of people are using advertising supported "spyware" products and could not care less about the privacy hype, in fact some "Spyware" programs are among the most popular downloads on the Internet. Spyware is often bundled with free software and games. There are also many PC surveillance tools that allow the user to monitor all kinds of activity on a computer, ranging from keystroke capture, keyloggers, snapshots, email logging, chat logging and just about everything else. These tools are often designed for parents, businesses and similar environments, but can be easily abused if they are installed on your computer without your knowledge.

What is a Virus?

A computer virus is a program of executable code that has the ability to replicate.
Like biological viruses, computer viruses can spread quickly and are often difficult
to eradicate. They can attach themselves to just about any type of file and are
spread as files that are copied and sent from individual to individual. Some computer viruses can also destroy files, reformat your hard drive, or cause other damage. If the virus does not contain a damage routine, it can cause trouble by consuming storage space and memory, and degrading the overall performance and resources of your computer. Several years ago most viruses spread primarily via floppy disk, but the Internet has introduced new virus distribution mechanisms. With email now used as an essential business communication tool, viruses are spreading faster than ever. Viruses attached to email messages can infect an network or your computer in minutes, costing companies millions of dollars annually in lost productivity and virus extraction expenses.

What is a Wabbit?

Wabbit's are rare. Oddly enough they don't do much unless it's on your computer. They don't try to spread to other computers, but they can be devastating to your computer.

What is a Backdoor?

Backdoors are a lot like Trojans and worms, except they open a backdoor to your
computer allowing hackers into your computer to load viruses or to send spam through your computer.

The Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing (CRULP)

2008-10-11T02:31:00.001-07:00

	The Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing (CRULP) is first of its kind in Pakistan. The Center’s main objective is to conduct research for the evolution of computational models of Urdu and Pakistan’s other regional languages. The research at CRULP is carried within the context of projects, each having a well defined list of deliverables. Current projects being conducted at CRULP are: PAN Localization Project PAN Localization Pakistan Component Microsoft Vista Urdu Language Interface Pack Lexicon for Urdu Language Urdu Localization Project Urdu Component Development
	PAN Localization Project
	This project is an initiative of International Development Research Center (IDRC), Canada and the Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing (CRULP). The Objective of this project is to build local language computing capacity in regional institutions of Asia. Phase II of PAN Localization project will research into challenges associated with digital literacy of end-users using the localized technology for communication and to produce local language content. The project will also continue to further mature the language technology in the target languages. This project is led by researchers at CRULP, NUCES. CRULP will be coordinating efforts across Asia through ICT researchers, practitioners, linguists and policymakers from government agencies, universities and the private sector. The countries (and languages) included in the second phase of the project are Afghanistan (Pashto), Bangladesh (Bangla), Bhutan (Dzongkha), Cambodia (Khmer), China (Tibetan), Laos (Lao), Mongolia (Mongolian), Nepal (Nepali), Pakistan (Urdu) and Sri Lanka (Sinhala, Tamil). http://www.panl10n.net

	PAN Localization Pakistan Component
	This is the Pakistan Country Component of the PAN Localization Project. This project consists of three main activities: 1. Urdu localization of open source software 2. Developing training material and imparting ICT literacy training for using selected localized open source software and 3. Evaluation of the imparted ICT literacy training. PAN Localization Pakistan Component

	Microsoft Vista Urdu Language Interface Pack
	The main objective of this project is to develop a Language Interface Package (LIP) for Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office . This language pack will provide Urdu language interface for Microsoft's upcoming Vista operating system. It will also enable the general masses to use Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office in Urdu language, who cannot understand English. For this purpose, the scope of the project includes translation of 300,000 English words in Urdu. Microsoft provides the translation tools (i.e. LocStudio) and translation files (i.e. *.edb). The translation is done at CRULP end. This project is sponsored by Microsoft Corporation, USA.

	Lexicon for Urdu Language
	This project aims to develop a lexicon for Urdu language for Nokia. This lexicon will be used for future development of speech and language technology. This project includes the development of a lexicon of commonly used words in Urdu, some domain specific words and proper nouns. The lexicon will also contain basic grammatical and pronunciation information of these words, and will provide almost complete corpus (and language) coverage. The lexicon will be the fundamental building block for other applications in script, speech and language technologies, to be developed in the future, including basic user services (e.g., SMS support, address book) to more advanced user assistance applications (e.g., text-to-speech, speech recognition, spoken language translation and handwriting recognition technologies). Nokia has already indicated that follow-up work on Urdu speech synthesis will be undertaken using this lexicon (based on unit selection technique, which CRULP has not yet done). This project is sponsored by Nokia Research, Beijing, China.

	Urdu Localization Project
	The Urdu localization project envisages bringing the benefits of information age to vast majority of Pakistan which are not literate in English, the lingua franca of Internet, and thus are deprived of the immense possibilities offered by this revolution. It will also usher the Urdu language, the national language of Pakistan spoken and understood by masses, to the information age. Urdu Localization Project

	Urdu Component Development
	SpellChecker, Collation and Normalization are basic language utilities. The purpose of this project is to provide APIs for these utilities for Urdu language. SpellChecker utility will check words for spelling errors and will suggest a ranked list of words if a spelling error is found. Collation utility will provide a language sensitive comparison of two strings with respect to sorting. Normalization is a process to convert multiple equivalent representations of data to consistent underlying normal forms.

Urdu Components

2008-10-11T02:29:00.000-07:00

Urdu Components

Text to Speech

Urdu Spell Checker Utility v1.0

Urdu Text to Speech System

Urdu Collation Utility v1.0

Urdu Normalization Utility v1.0

Urdu POS Tagger

Machine Translation

Annotator

English to Urdu Machine Translation System

Urdu Part of Speech Tagset

Statistical Part of Speech Tagger for Urdu v1.0

IPA to SAMPA

Morphological Analyzer

Urdu Letters to IPA and IPA to SAMPA

Urdu Finite-State Morphological Analyzer

Transliteration

Hindi to Urdu Transliterator

Urdu Localization Terminology Glossary

2008-10-11T02:28:00.000-07:00

	Urdu Localization Terminology Glossary

	The Urdu Localization Terminology Glossary is the glossary being developed and used at CRULP by the Pan Localization Project Pakistan Country Component team for the localization of open source software. It is based on the Electronic Dictionary of Localization of Computer Applications (English-Urdu), 2005 by the Center of Excellence for Urdu Informatics, National Language Authority, Islamabad (Pakistan) . Other resources used in the development of this glossary include: Existing localized open source software: Mozilla Urdu Language Pack OpenOffice, FireFox & Thunderbird (for Urdu-India) Online technical terminology translations: Urdu Word Bank Urdu Dictionary Dictionaries: All major English to Urdu translation dictionaries have also been consulted in the process, e.g. Qaumi English-Urdu Dictionary published by National Language Authority of Pakistan. For more details about the glossary, please see the localization process report. The glossary is available online and also in the form of a tab delimited, utf-8 encoded text file. This glossary is updated regularly.

	Online Urdu Localization Terminology Glossary

	Download
	Urdu Localization Terminology Glossary (tab delimited, utf-8 encoded text file)

	Updated: February 07, 2008.

	License Details:
	A major portion of this glossary is based on the Electronic Dictionary of Localization of Computer Applications (English-Urdu) developed by the National Language Authority. The complete glossary is available here but the part of the glossary that is derived from the NLA is under NLA copyrights, and terminology translations that have been added by our team are released under the Creative Commons License. The tags "NLA" and "EXT" are used in both the released forms to differentiate between translations taken from the NLA (NLA) dictionary and those added by the team (EXT).

Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing

2008-10-11T02:27:00.001-07:00

Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing (CRULP) is pleased to release Urdu-Nepali-English Parallel Corpus. 29/09/2008

Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing is pleased to announce workshop on First Internationalized Domain Name for Pakistani Languages. 19/04/2008

Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing is pleased to release the source code (VOLT project) of Nafees Tahreer Naskh. 18/03/2008

Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing is pleased to release Urdu Games . 04/03/2008

Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing carried out the identification of Urdu Closed Class Words List to support further localised researches. 02/03/2008

Open Source Software Urdu Localization: Urdu Localization Terminology Glossary updated. 07/02/2008

Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing is pleased to release the source code (VOLT project) of Nafees Fonts. 08/11/2007

Urdu Components Development: Applications and Source Code of Urdu Collation, Urdu Normalization and Urdu SpellChecker Utilities are released. 01/11/2007

Open Source Software Urdu Localization: Windows Installer for Urdu NVu released. 01/11/2007

Urdu Localization: Updated version of Phonetic Keyboard released. 23/10/2007

Open Source Software Urdu Localization: SeaMonkey Urdu Language Pack released. 10/10/2007

Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing is pleased to announce beta release of character based Nafees Riqa OpenType font. 05/09/2007

Conference on Language and Technology (CLT07) held at Bara Gali Campus, University of Peshawar, from 7-11 August, 2007. CRULP collaborated for the organization of workshop.

Sony Ericsson G705 is now official

2008-10-02T07:12:00.001-07:00

Sony Ericsson G705 - another cellphone in Sony’s G series, which was initially set to be released on the Sept 8, but it got delayed for a day. At least it’s come now a day later.

The SE G705 is a good looking slider which is loaded with nice mid-end features. Since it’s also a member in the G-series, it’s meant to be used as a personal assistant in your overly busy daily life. The SE G705 doesn’t run on Symbian UIQ and neither on any other mobile OS. In fact, it’s on a Java platform.

The phone sports a 2.4 inch TFT display with 262K colors, and supports auto-rotation. You’ll find A-GPS, DLNA, Bluetooth 2.0, FM radio, 120MB of internal memory, 1GB M2 card and 3.2-megapixel camera with flash on this cellphone. The camera is also capable of geotagging and video recording.

The phone is to ride on quad-band GSM cellular networks. It’s been loaded with some Google features, equipped with a full HTML browser, with a shortcut key to have quick access to Google Maps and also video viewing and direct uploading on YouTube. It also supports Exchange ActiveSync for your email.

Since the phone is ready with the nice browser and functions with Google Maps, YouTube and email etc, it must come ready with high-speed Internet connectivity. Yes, it works on Tri-band HSDPA, which Sony claims that it’s the “turbo 3G speeds”.

The US version is made available in early 2009, whereas the G705u, which is the first SE’s UMA-enabled phone will be made available for the UK. The price tag still remains unknown.

RIM Blackberry Pearl Flip phone aka Kickstart gets official

2008-10-02T07:09:00.001-07:00

BlackBerry Pearl Flip, also known as Kickstart Clamshell, had come to our attention early in May. And now it’s got official. But disappointingly, it’s got no 3G high-speed data support. But you’ll find WiFi, a 2-megapixel camera and a full-on document editor on this first flip phone of RIM.

This flip phone will debut on T-mobile sometime in spring this year but the pricing details is still unknown. The Pearl Flip measures 3.9 x 1.9 x 0.7-inch, which is thinker than the original Pearl that measures only 0.57 inches in thickness. But the Pearl Flip presents a relatively compact look.

The Pearl flip carries an external display and an internal display that has a resolution of 240 x 320-pixel. And the SureType keypad lies exactly beneath the internal screen. As mentioned this flip phone can reach EDGE which has no 3G support, so you can only do simple emailing and Internet browsing on this phone. Heavy download tasks and streaming video will need you for a long wait.

The Pearl flip’s WiFi comes with UMA support, which might mean the phone is compatible with T-mobile’s HotSpot @Home Wi-Fi voice calling. GPS support seems to have no luck on the Pearl Flip, as the press release says that the Pearl lets you connect to a GPS receiver via Bluetooth. Meaning that it’ll have no built-in GPS module.

To elaborate more about the full-on document editor - it’s an editor that allows you to edit Office documents (Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc) on the go. Other goodies are a video/music player, an “enhanced” HTML browser, 2 MP camera that’s capable of video, voice commands and microSD memory expansion up to 16GB.

Download Google Chrome Web Browser

2008-09-03T01:56:00.000-07:00

DOWNLOAD GOOGLE CHROME WEB BROWSER

Google Chrome is a new web browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.
HAVE FUN!!! ENJOY!!!
NEW WEB LEFE

http://www.google.com/chrome

Google Chrome - Google new Web Browser - Web Browser Race in begin...

2008-09-03T01:54:00.000-07:00

Google Browser

2008-09-03T01:46:00.000-07:00

Google is launching an open source web browser to compete with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

The browser is designed to be fast, and to cope with the next generation of web applications that rely on graphics and multimedia.

Called Chrome, it is launching as a beta for Windows machines in 100 countries, with Mac and Linux versions to come.

For more detail visit:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7594808.stm

Technology & Science News

2008-08-23T04:11:00.000-07:00

Sellers squawk as eBay evolves to combat rivals

Jacques Demarthon

Flocks of eBay sellers were squawking as the pioneering online auction website continued "bold changes" aimed at wrenching market share from Internet retail giant Amazon. more

Low cost Internet phone revolution beckons for India

Noah Seelam

Battle lines are being drawn after India's telecoms regulator called for full-blown telephone services via the Internet, paving the way for another fall in the nation's already cheap call rates.
more

China keeps pro-Tibet websites blocked

Pascal Guyot

Pro-Tibet websites remained blocked in the Olympic press centre and elsewhere on Friday, amid reports that Chinese troops had opened fire on protesters in a remote area of southwest China.more

Apple investigating after iTunes blocked in China

Robert Sullivan

Apple said Friday they were investigating why access to iTunes appeared to be blocked for users in China after a pro-Tibet album became a hit on the online music store. more

Tiny nation of Niue gets laptop for every child

Ernesto Benavides

The tiny South Pacific nation of Niue Thursday became the first nation in the world to issue laptop computers to all its children, officials said.more

Sony Japan Ties Up New PSP Wi-Fi Partnership

2008-08-22T06:12:00.001-07:00

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan has partnered with leading wi-fi community FON to grant PSP users free internet access from designated hotspots across the country.

According to Kotaku, the PSPxFON service is now available from approximately 44,000 FON hotspots across the country, including 2,200 in Tokyo.

Aside from internet browsing, users can access the service to download game demos, clips and wallpapers.

Bionic Commando Rearmed [XBLA]

2008-08-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

Before gamers became addicted to detailed textures and motion capture, they were used to games of the 80's and early 90's. These were games that used 5 colors and as much space as a mp3 song. The reason gamers were satisfied was because games made in those days were heavy on creativity. I have no intention of demeaning modern day game developers; they did give us Bioshock, MGS4 and World of Warcraft, but one has to agree that games on the 8-bit console had a certain charm to them.

A very popular side-scroller game of yesteryears was Bionic Commando, this game came out 20 years ago. I remember playing Bionic Commando a few years back using an emulation software for the PC, since I had heard so much about the original. The one thing that I noticed about BC was that the game was quite difficult, the puzzles, the level design were fairly challenging. Fortunately, developers have maintained the difficulty in the modern day version as well; let's get into the finer details of this amazing game.

Intel’s new Core i7 processor

2008-08-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

If you imagined that after Core 2 Duo the processor name would be like Core 3 Trio, or Core 3, but NO the new name convention sounds totally different, Core i7. Statements have come over what i7 really means and whether it’s an iApple inspiration, but Intel has promised all will become clear soon enough.

The Core 2 Duo processor architecture is being upgraded to a new processor. Previously codename "Nehalem", Intel has decided to stick with the "Core" branding for its processors, but is giving its processor the new designation "i7".

There will be several "Intel Core i7 processors", including an "Extreme Edition" version (which some UK tech sites like to call the "Extremely Expensive" edition), but there will, according to Intel, be "several new identifiers to come" throughout 2009.

Intel is promising "high performance and energy efficiency" in a "best of both worlds" approach, which Intel says "is expected to extend Intel's processor leadership in future mobile, desktop and server market segments."

Of course Intel would say that – no-one would want to upgrade otherwise, but apparently there are 8 core and even 16 core models to come, taking us all into the true multi-core era at last.

We’ll see i7 processors come into sight at the end of this year, 2009 will be the year that i7 processors really take centre stage.

Even though i7 is not a number that exactly flows on from the current "Core 2 Duo" designation, Intel says to "believe it or not, this new naming scheme should make it easier for PC buyers to decide which technology is right for them."

Intel also says that "the Intel Core processor will become the foundation, the primary client brand going forward, with individual identifiers distinguishing different features and capabilities with the family of processors."

System Restore Tip

2008-08-14T08:56:00.001-07:00

After reading through my e-mails the last couple of weeks,

it seems like there's a great need for this tip again.

So, here's a refresher for all of you on the system restore process.

Check it out!

Have you ever made a change to your computer

that messed everything up?

You know, maybe you downloaded something you shouldn't have

or you installed a new program that just doesn't agree with your computer.

Either way, a great feature to use in those types of situations

is the Windows XP System Restore.

With the System Restore, you can go back to a previous time on your computer,

without losing any of your documents, pictures, e-mails or anything!

The System Restore is able to keep track of any changes you may make

to your system and it automatically creates what are called "restore points" for you.

These points allow you to travel back to a time when your system was

in a more stable condition.

To bring up the System Restore feature, all you have to do is

go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools

and then click System Restore.

You must be logged in as the Administrator as well.

Also, make sure you close down any other open programs and

save all your files before you begin.

When you're ready, select the button that says

"Restore my computer to an earlier time."

Then click Next.

The days you see in bold type are days that have restore points.

Select the day you want to go back to and click Next.

Windows will then shut down and restart, with the settings from the date chosen.

Pretty slick, huh?!

Even though the System Restore feature automatically creates restore points,

it is also a good idea to manually create some when you are making any

major changes to your computer.

To do this, select the button marked "Create a Restore Point"

on the first screen and then click Next.

Give the restore point a name and then click Create.

The new point will be stamped with the current date and time.

So, as you can see, if you ever run into any problems with your computer,

you have a safety net thanks to this little feature.

I can't even remember how many times it has saved me.

It's surely not something you want to forget about any time soon!

Microsoft's big bid for Yahoo

2008-07-31T02:26:00.000-07:00

In Yahoo, Microsoft saw a way to make gains in the online realm. But after all the entreaties and ultimatums, the software giant wasn't able to get its way, and Yahoo remains an independent company. Tune in here for the latest.

Latest coverage: What Yahoo has, Microsoft wants, but Yahoo continues to play hard to get. Even as talks start, stop, and sputter, the two companies still face a formidable foe in Google--and many questions about what they'll do next.

Google spotlights customized search differences

2008-07-31T02:22:00.003-07:00

Google has begun showing details about how it customizes search results for location and search history.
(Credit: Google)

Google's search engine gives different responses depending on the location of a person and various other factors. On Wednesday, the company said, it will show searchers exactly what those differences are.

"Today, we're rolling out a new feature in Google Web Search that will help you better understand how your search results are already customized," said Rachel Garb, a Google product manager, in the blog post. A message will appear above the search results telling how searches were customized and offering a link to share more details.

Specifically, the message will show how search changed from three customization possibilities:

• Location, as judged by an approximate real-world city based on a user's Internet Protocol address or by address information stored in a user's Google account.

• Recent searches. Google pays attention to previous search queries because they can provide context Google can use to interpret the search. "We keep the most recent query on your browser for a limited time. After that, the information is removed from your browser and disappears immediately if you close your browser," Garb said.

• Search history. For users who have Web History enabled (users must explicitly enable it), Google also factors in a longer history of searches. "One important note about Web History: it belongs to you and you have complete control over it," Garb said. "You can remove specific items or pause the service at any time. And if there's a particular search that you'd rather not have personalized based on your Web History, you can also just temporarily sign out of your Google Account."

Google developing VC arm

2008-07-31T02:17:00.000-07:00

Google is revisiting efforts to create a venture capital arm, according to a report on The Wall Street Journal's Web site Wednesday night.

Google senior VP David Drummond is expected to lead the effort, according to people who were briefed on the discussions. The group has also hired former entrepreneur William Maris, 33, to help set up the venture, the newspaper reported.

The search engine has played with the idea before, and the plans could still fall through.

If successful, the new venture would put Google--a company better known for buying companies than investing in them--in the more-formal role of helping get start-ups off the ground. Other Silicon Valley companies with extensive VC track records include Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola, among others.

The move comes at a tough time for overall venture capital investing. A report from Dow Jones VentureSource earlier this month stated that VC investments dropped 12 percent in the second quarter compared with the same period a year ago, with $6.64 billion put into 602 deals--the lowest quarterly deal count in three years.

More venture firms found themselves funneling money to support later-stage companies at the expense of companies seeking first-time funding. The amount of money sunk into start-ups seeking first-round funds dropped by 12 percent to $1.6 billion in the second quarter. Meanwhile, later-stage deals grew by 14 percent to $3.1 billion because those companies in particular had fewer opportunities to go public. No venture-backed company went public in the second quarter.

How to Increase Your Google Rank in 5 Simple Steps

2008-06-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

Throughout this article I'm going to use some terminology you may not be familiar with.

Inbound link - Theses are one way links coming into your website

Outbound link - There's are one way links that are leaving your website

Cross Links - These are link exchanges, eg you link to site A and site A links back to you

Page Rank/PR - This is on a scale of 1-10 and is how Google measures how important your website is

SEO or Search engine optimization is key to driving traffic to your website from search engines. People often wonder how to get those coveted 1-10 ranks for your keywords, but struggle in doing so. The first and most important step in obtaining those rankings is to target specific key phrases. Its better to target a specific phrase than an individual word, as competition for the individual words is very high and usually dominated by massive businesses.

1) Check out your competitors

For example, lets assume your business sells computers. It would be an impossible task to optimize your site for the keyword 'computer' or 'computers'. If you do a Google search for 'computer' you will see there are 1,330,000,000 results and the top ranking sites include apple and dell to name a few. You will never get into that top 10 list, there is simply to much competition.

2) So, what do I do?

Have a look at your website and ask yourself what do you sell? Is it computers specifically built to play games? If so you should try 'custom gaming pcs. This search term returns 413,000 results much easier to beat than the previous 1,330,000,000 results and the #1 spot only has 53 inbound links. This should be fairly easy to beat and take their precious #1 spot.

Before we start looking at how to build links, you need to make sure that your website has being optimized for your chosen keywords. I recommend a piece of software called http://www.seoelitedirect.com

3) Checking out competitors inbound links

If you haven't purchased SEO Elite (http://www.seoelitedirect.com) which has this superb feature built in. I will show you how to check out your competitors links, the long way...

Access toolbar.google.com and install the toolbar on your browser. Type your keyword into the search (in this example 'custom gaming pcs') and then click on options > more tab and tick the page info box. Simply click on the blue circle icon with an I in it and then choose 'Backwards links'. This will show you a sample of the incoming links a page has, as you can see the #1 spot has 53 inbound links.

4) Make friends with other websites

Look at each inbound link the #1 spot has, see if each page is relevant to your website, it probably is! Browse around the site and find a way to contact the webmaster, there is usually an email address somewhere. Simply contact the webmaster and ask if they would like to trade links with you. Take not of the green bar on Google tool bar, this tells you the Page rank of the page. Links from sites with higher PR are better than links from sites with low PR.

Do this for every site that is linking to the #1 site for your keyword. Then do it for spot #2, #3, #4 and so on. Some webmasters will just ignore your email, don't get disheartened, there are plenty more links out there waiting for you! If a webmaster refuses to trade links, thank him gracefully.

5) Results

After doing the above for a couple of weeks, Google will re-index their rankings and you will jump up the search rankings. It can take a few months for your page rank to be updated though so don't worry about that. The more links you build, the higher you will rank. The more you put in the more you get out of it.

I strongly suggest you invest in some SEO software. Personally I swear by SEO elite (there are others out there) and it gives you a serious edge over your competition, perfectly optimizing your website for your chosen keywords! Not to mention the amount of time it will save you with its automated features, it will automatically find webmasters to email and do all of the hard work for you, consider it as link building on auto pilot. For $167 its an absolute steal, get it at http://www.moneyonline.zxq.net

Online Money Making Tools- Keyword Tool

2008-06-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

Among the online money making tools you've got for your online business I'm sure a keyword tool is the king and queen! A keyword tool is, in other words, the way to tell how your potential customers are looking into their need. After all, it takes a need and its satisfaction to bring a salesman and a customer together!

There are some available online money making tools that include a keyword tool, others that sell separately and some keyword tools that are free. Although snubbed by certain people these latter ones can be of huge assistance and if used properly do not have anything to miss compared to the more sophisticated tools that sell for a considerable amount of money. Here are some sources for you to explore:

1)The free wordtracker tool. This tool lets you know how many times a certain term has been searched for in the search engines. You can find valuable information here and if you look closely to the related searches that this tool provide you can see certain trends that potential customers develop when searching to buy. Some disadvantages are the not so accurate search volume that comes up with, not in terms of relevancy but in terms of volume and the fact that it does not provide you with some competition information that other tools give you. Nevertheless, it is really effective especially for people that know to read between the lines!

2)The keyword tool from Google adwords. This is again a fine keyword tool that has the main advantage to provide data straight from the source: Big Google itself! It gives you info on the search volume of keywords, competition lookout and other statistical data. Among the online money making tools that you may encounter this should become a daily habit! It also has a really powerful feature of keyword research that is similar to reverse engineering!

3) The Google trends. While this is not the typical keyword tool it is free and can be used to spot search terms over the period of time. You can learn for instance that the keyword you were thinking to promote declines during the winter and spikes during summer in terms of volume search. So going after it just before summer would give you something to anticipate.

Of course there are other online money making tools out there but the above ones are really well tested and they are free! They do have some weaknesses and only the combined use of them can help you get over these obstacles.

Check now where you can find one of the best keyword tools along with many other different tools at

http://www.moneyonline.zxq.net

Google does NOT consider CPC while paying you! So why do you?

2008-06-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

Yes! While paying you for a click, Google doesn't consider the CPC an advertiser is willing to pay. So, why do you put so much emphasis on CPC? Google considers many other factors while deciding your payout. Predict your AdSense earnings by studying the behavior of keywords. Start thinking beyond CPC, and choose the right keywords for your Adsense websites.

The Top Paying and Searching Keywords

2008-06-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

Top 11 Paying and Most Searched Keywords on Google and Yahoo

If you have a website, write articles, or want to profit through an affiliate program than this is gold to you! These keywords are the actual top 11 on the internet. Use them and you are on your way to increased traffic, profits and results. Here they are and a little about each to help you on your way.

1) Paris Hilton. Whether we like it or not Paris and her wild lifestyle are here to stay as she is now considered one of the biggest stars. She is sought after by almost every fashion designer and her keywords will do well with any fashion or clothing content.

2) Google. Well, this one is obvious as Google is the largest search engine (regardless what Yahoo says). Being that Google is a search engine it can be used in any content, but works best with relation to websites, search engines, computers and software.

3) Yahoo. The second largest search engine and distant second on Pay per Click campaigns - very, very distant at that. The same will work for Yahoo. Stick with computer related material and you will do well.

4) Ebay. The worlds largest marketplace and auction. Ebay, for the most part is a wholesale marketplace. It is ruled by feedback and can give you a good idea as to the real value of a car (check Ebay motors). On Ebay anything goes including people selling tattoo advertising on themselves. In other words, anything can be linked to Ebay in one way or another. Yes, there is even porn on Ebay.

5)Eminem. Yes, the real slim shady is back. According to R and B and rap he never left as he is the number one rapper currently. If you need content on current music or teen and young adult topics Eminem is sure to bring you visitors.

6) Britney Spears. She was the hottest pinup for teens and preteens, but now she is probably pregnant again. I wonder why Kevin Federline didn't make the list - is it that he isn't a good singer? Britney is great for adolescent or music related
content.

7) mapquest. Want to know where something is or how to get there. Being that we are getting closer to summer people are plotting out there vacations. Or, maybe, due to increasing gas prices thanks to George Bush, maybe they are figuring that its too far and will cost too much in gas. I bet if Hillary Clinton were President these gas prices wouldn't be any higher than $1.60 per gallon. These high gas prices have to do with the Bush family and their ties to big oil and energy. See, Mapquest can be linked to just about any content you want if you just try a little.

8) Tsunami. Even though the big one is over. Relief efforts are still in effect and so are the relief efforts for Katrina. Hint - these people still need lots of help. Tsunami is probably a big keyword due to the recent specials on TV about the next possible tsunami that might hit America. People are concerned and interested over these large scale natural disasters. When is the next earthquake going to hit California, will atsunami hit New York, and what will this hurricane season bring?

9) Girls. Yes, of course. There are millions of perverts and closet perverts out there that are a little over-fascinated with girls. As Donald Trump once said, "sex sells." Yes it does and nothing sells better than women or girls. They can sell anything including the worst items in infomercials and complete scams. A beautiful girl just needs to show a little cleavage and TV ratings soar. Just think what girls can do for your content.

10) American Idol. This is the top rated TV show and its in its 5th or 6th season. It has launched one star - Kelly Clarkson and a bunch of duds. Randy, Paula and simon have now become household names along with Ryan Seacrest. Any content you can tie into the current cast will do well. The previous casts should be avoided as they will soon go back to karaoke and such at local bars.

11) Skin care and skin treatment. This has always been a big one with women. It has been rumored that women will go without food before they will go without makeup and such. Just ask any department store how important skin care and skin treatment products are to their bottem line. Watch Shop NBC - almost every product on there has something to do with skin care and skin treatment for women. There are a wide variety of topics you can easily talk about here from the latest in laser therapy at dermatology offices and at home TCA skin peels for treating acne and wrinkles. Acne is and always will be a big topic as will wrinkles and their respective treatments. For more info on at home TCA skin peels please see the link below.

There you have it the top 11 keywords on the internet from Paris Hilton to skin care and skin treatment to Google and American Idol. All with tips on how to use them to make your content have more impact and drive more traffic.

David Maillie is an alumni of Cornell University and specializes in biochemical synthesis for public, private, and governmental interests and manufactures various skin peels and other for doctors offices and medispas. He can be reached at M.D. Wholesale:

Toshiba's Release new 1.8-inch HDD

2008-06-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

Toshiba's New 1.8-inch HDD Achieves 160GB, the Industry's Largest^*1Storage Capacity for Drive with a Serial ATA Interface

TOKYO—Toshiba Corporation today announced a new line-up of 1.8-inch hard disk drives (HDD) adopting a serial ATA interface, including the industry's first*1 drive of this type with a capacity of 160 gigabytes. The new 160GB drive, MK1617GSG, and an 80GB drive, MK8017GSG, will enter mass production in August.

Toshiba's new 1.8-inch HDDs boost interface speed to 1.5Gbps and offer a rotation speed of 5,400 rpm, faster than the current generation of Toshiba 1.8-inch HDD (MK1214GAH, parallel ATA, 120GB). By realizing the industry's first 160GB 1.8-inch drive with a serial ATA interface, Toshiba assures that mobile PCs will be able to meet the most demanding user needs.

The new MK1617GSG drive is more environmentally efficient than Toshiba's current MK1216GSG (120GB) model, and raises energy consumption efficiency, as defined under the Japanese legal standard, to 0.00281W/GB, a 25% improvement. The drive improves the maximum internal data transfer rate by approximately 17%, and supports faster data access in reading and writing that enhances overall performance.

Alongside Toshiba's 1.8-inch HDD of 80GB and 120GB serial ATA interface drives already in the market, the new drives will provide product manufacturers with a broad line-up that supports diverse applications. The new drives will also contribute to achievement of environmentally conscious products in full compliance with the EU's RoHS directive^*2.

Outline of New Models

Model name	Formatted　Capacity	Dimensions	Weight
MK1617GSG	160GB	54.0 x 78.5 x 8.0mm	62g
MK8017GSG	80GB	54.0 x 78.5 x 8.0mm	60g

Background

Hard disk drives for mobile PCs must be small, light and able to withstand vibration and shock. While Toshiba's 1.8-inch HDD are more robust than 2.5-inch HDD, they have not matched the larger drives in data transfer rates. However, the company's new 1.8-inch HDD combine a serial ATA interface with a faster rotational speed to realize a high speed transfer rate. Building on the achievements of providing a 1.8- inch HDD that employs industry's largest capacity with a serial ATA interface, and expanding its product line-up, Toshiba will continue efforts to provide innovative products that meet market needs for HDD integrated mobile PCs.

Key Features of New Products

1. Industry's largest storage capacity:160GB（MK1617GSG）
The new MK 1617GSG brings the industry's largest capacity of 160GB to a 1.8-inch HDD with a serial ATA interface.

2. Improved energy consumption efficiency (MK1617GSG)
Compared to the MK1216GSG (Serial ATA, 120GB, 1.8-inch HDD), the new MK1617GSG raises energy consumption efficiency, as defined under the Japanese legal standard, to 0.00281W/GB, a 25% improvement.

3. Lighter weight (MK8017GSG)
The new 80GB drive weighs only 60g, 3% lighter than the MK8016GSG (serial ATA, 80GB, 1.8-inch HDD).

4. Higher rotational speed (MK1617GSG and MK8017GSG)
The serial ATA interface supports an interface speed of 1.5Gbps, surpassing the performance of drives with a parallel ATA interface. The drives also operate at a maximum rotation speed of 5,400 rpm, 29% faster than Toshiba's current MK1214GAH (parallel ATA, 120GB, 1.8-inch HDD), supporting much faster data transfers. The disk's higher areal density improves the maximum internal data transfer rate by approximately 17%, and supports faster data access in reading and writing that enhances overall performance.

5. High vibration and shock resistance (MK1617GSG and MK8017GSG)
Compared to current 2.5-inch HDD (MK1652GSX), the new drives offer the higher levels of vibration and shock resistance needed in mobile PCs.

6. Environmentally conscious products offering efficient power consumption (MK1617GSG and MK8017GSG)
Alongside capacity improvement, Toshiba has also achieved a power consumption efficiency of 0.00281W/GB for the MK1617GSG, and 0.00563W/GB for MK8017GSG, as defined in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Energy Conservation Law, assuring a more environmentally friendly design. The new drives also comply with the EU's RoHS directive.

*1	The industry's largest commercially available capacity in a serial ATA interface 1.8-inch hard disk drive, as of June 11, 2008 (source: Toshiba)
*2	The RoHS Directive, which came into effect in July 2006, is a European Union directive that eliminates the use of six hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment.

Toshiba Group, a Corporate Citizen of the Planet Earth, is committed to realizing a better environment. Guided by Toshiba Group Environmental Vision 2050 Toshiba Group is implementing measures to boost environmental efficiency by 10 times in FY2050, against the benchmark of FY2000. Toshiba Group is seeking to reduce CO₂ emissions by a total equivalent to 57.6 million tons by FY2025, through the development and sales of high efficiency power supply equipment and systems, and the manufacture of environmentally conscious home appliances and office equipment. By working to mitigate global warming, make efficient use of resources and control management of chemicals, Toshiba creates value for people and promotes lifestyles in harmony with earth.

Main Specifications

Model name	MK1617GSG	MK8017GSG
Formatted capacity	160GB	80GB
Number of platters	2	1
Number of heads	4	2
Average seek time	15msec
Rotational speed	5,400rpm
Interface	Serial-ATA
Interface speed	1.5Gbps
Dimensions (W x D x H, mm)	54.0 (W) x 78.5 (D) x 8.0 (H)
Weight	62g (max)	60g (max)
Energy consumption efficiency	0.00281W/GB	0.00563W/GB
Shock resistance	Operating: 4,900 m/s² (500G, 2msec)
Shock resistance	Non-operating: 14,700m/s² (1,500G, 1msec)

Note: Hard disk capacity is calculated on the basis of 1MB = 1-million bytes, and 1GB = 1-billion bytes.

HP 2nd-Generations TouchSmart Released

2008-06-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

HP has launched the 2nd generation of its touchscreen PC range, boasting bigger screens and double the RAM of their predecessor.

The second-generation Touchsmart models, dubbed the IQ504 and IQ506,
feature a thinner chassis, 22in widescreen display and 4GB of RAM, supported by Windows Vista 64-bit.

The announcement increases the momentum of PC touch technology, coming just weeks after Microsoft announced the new multitouch interface for the forthcoming Windows 7

The two models will feature an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and 320GB or 500GB hard drive, depending on whether you go for the IQ504 and IQ506.

Alongside this you'll also get an integrated Wireless LAN, Bluetooth, DVD burner and 5-in-1 memory card reader. Customers opting for the IQ506 will also get a dual-format ATSC TV tuner.

The new TouchSmart PCs will launch in 17 countries in July, including the US and UK.

PC Gaming is in Good shape- Nvidia

2008-06-11T08:03:00.000-07:00

Despite dire predictions from other corners, "the PC is "extremely healthy" and has a strong future as a gaming platform." said Roy Taylor, the vice president of content and developer relations at Nvidia.

"PC gaming is in really, really good shape, but traditional retail sales data measured by ChartTrack and NPD is lackluster, there's no question about it," he said. "By and large, PC games don't go into stores. If you look at the success of Steam, it's clear that many PC gamers prefer to download."

Taylor also pointed to the popularity of MMOGs, a heavily PC-dominated genre, saying that game subscriptions are a major source of revenue not accounted for in sales charts. "World of Warcraft is the most notable success, but there are at least half a dozen other MMOGs that are very successful," he said.

"On top of that, we have online advertising, and if you add all these revenue streams you can see that PC retail is extremely healthy," he continued. "If you were only to read NPD or ChartTrack, you would not get that impression."

His comments pointing the sales figures from Europe revealed that Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, the recently-released fantasy MMOG from Funcom, is competing strongly with Grand Theft Auto IV. The PC-exclusive title moved past Grand Theft Auto to claim the top of the charts in both Sweden and Germany, and came in second behind GTA IV, and ahead of the major PlayStation 3 release Haze in the U.K.

Age of Conan

2008-06-11T08:02:00.001-07:00

Humanity, it seems, loves barbarism. Funcom has announced today that their recently released MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is at or near the top of the charts in at least seven countries and has over half a million subscribers so far.

In Germany, Age of Conan is No. 1 on all-format and PC, while the console-orientated UK market has Conan as No. 2 on the all-format charts, only beaten by the GTA 4 juggernaut. The game is the biggest launch for a PC title this year in the UK with a firm No. 1 placement on the PC charts, and the game had the biggest ever MMO launch - outside of the World of Warcraft franchise. In Sweden and Norway, Age of Conan storms in as No. 1 on both PC and all-formats, while contributing to making it the biggest week for PC games in 2008.

“The current momentum and sales are simply awe-inspiring, and it’s great that so many gamers and retailers are helping us to make Age of Conan the MMO sensation of the year,” said Morten Larssen, VP of Sales and Marketing at Funcom. “As more charts and figures come in from additional markets, we expect to see a similar trend there too,” he adds.

As Microsoft’s DirectX 10 is undoubtedly the future of PC gaming, Funcom has decided to ship only the DirectX 9 version at launch, giving the team more time to focus on building a DirectX 10 version worthy of Microsoft’s great vision for the future of PC gaming. This postponement will let Funcom include even more features in the DirectX 10 version of Age of Conan than originally planned.

"The current momentum and sales are simply awe-inspiring, and it's great that so many gamers and retailers are helping us to make Age of Conan the MMO sensation of the year," said Morten Larssen, vice president of sales and marketing at Funcom. "As more charts and figures come in from additional markets, we expect to see a similar trend there too."

Low-Power PCs research by CAI (Computer Aid International)

2008-06-11T07:44:00.000-07:00

Rural Africa's unreliable energy sources for PCs has led Computer Aid International to investigate low-power computing alternatives and experiment with the new wave of low-cost machines targeted developing countries.

Computer Aid International (CAI) collects and refurbishes unwanted PCs from U.K. businesses then ships them for reuse in education, health and not-for-profit organizations in developing countries.

"The power supply in Africa's rural areas is unreliable, leaving little choice for steady energy beyond environmentally questionable diesel generators or expensive solar panels and power-generation technologies," said Tony Roberts, CAI's founder and director of development.

"In the past all of the computers that we provided to Zambia and other countries were desktops PC with standard CRT monitors [averaging 200 watts]," said CAI's London Workshop Production Manager Kenfe Tekle.

"Tekle manages a team of 12 technicians who refurbish about 100 PCs per day.
Not all CAI PC recipients have energy issues." said Gertjan Van Stam, (technical director of LinkNet in Zambia) a recipient of Pentium III and IV computers from CAI , he added that he does not have power problems because LinkNet taps main lines from the national electricity grid.

But Roberts explained that in rural areas without main electricity (or no reliable main electricity), CAI has experimented by providing PCs with flat TFT (thin-film-transistor) screens to schools using solar power in order to reduce power consumption.

"We also piloted the use of laptops in preference to desktops for the same reason," Roberts said. "Although these power savings were very useful to those schools reliant upon solar power we decided to conduct research into a range of new computers that claimed much lower power requirements. he said.

"CAI has been looking at low power computing using the traditional desktop power sources of electricity, solar panels and diesel generators," Roberts said.

CAI Technical Officer Ugo Vallauri explained that when they looked at solar energy they realized that many solar panels were not created to power computers. When solar panels are used to power PCs, often one panel powers only one PC.

"The research also showed that the capital of setting up a solar panel system proved very expensive at first because solar panels also needed batteries to help power the computers. One incurs costs in setting up, and in the long run it becomes less and less expensive," said Vallauri.

Vallauri said using generators "was very expensive because rural communities in Africa do not have access to loans or micro-credit to keep running an oil energy source as the prices of fuel in Africa keep on rising."

Vallauri added that research also shows that the use of generators is low cost at first but proved to be very expensive in the long run.

This is why CAI has decided to test new products, Roberts said. He said universities in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nigeria will field-test the power consumption of the Intel Classmate, OLPC's XO, the EEE PC, NComputing's X300 and Inveneo's Communication machine.

The research will be done by the universities' IT personnel, who are expected to form teams to look at issues specific to the African environment.

Microsoft linking Silverlight, Ruby on Rails

2008-05-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

Microsoft plans to demonstrate integration Friday between its new Silveright browser plug-in technology for rich Internet applications and the Ruby on Rails Web framework.
Free IT resource

The integration will be done via a plug-in, according to a Microsoft representative. Microsoft officials will detail Ruby on Rails efforts at the RailsConf 2008 conference in Portland, Ore., which is happening now through the weekend. The plug-in will be free to conference attendees.

Silverlight is Microsoft's entry into the rich Internet application space, where the company will battle Adobe's Flash technology.

Also at the event, Microsoft officials will demonstrate IronRuby, a version of the Ruby programming language for Microsoft's .Net platform, running a Ruby on Rails application.

"Running Rails shows that we are serious when we say that we are going to create a Ruby that runs real Ruby programs. And there isn’t a more real Ruby program than Rails," said a blog entry on Friday from Microsoft's John Lam, a program manager in the Dynamic Language Runtime team, who will present at the conference.

The company, though, still needs to improve performance on Rails, he said. Currently, too much memory is being consumed.

"IronRuby doesn’t just let you run Rails; it lets you interact with the rich set of libraries provided by .Net," Lam said. "You’ll be able to use IronRuby to build server-based applications that run on top of ASP.Net or ASP.Net MVC. You’ll be able to use IronRuby to build client applications that run on top of WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) or Silverlight."

The IronRuby project in general has featured processes that make it easier for Microsoft to develop open source projects, said Lam.

"What we learn from building IronRuby will be applied in other product groups to help us become more open and transparent than we have been in the past," Lam said.

Meanwhile, FiveRuns is unveiling Friday tools to profile and monitor Ruby on Rails application performance.
Free IT resource

The public beta of the company's TuneUp product is being released. TuneUp is a free application profiling tool profiling performance analysis. Also offered, in its general release form, is Manage 2.0, a subscription-based application performance management product for applications in production.

The company also plans to contribute open source components to the Rails community, beginning with an instrumentation library, called FiveRuns Instrument, offered at FiveRuns.org, RubyForge, and Github. The software provides an API for instrumenting Ruby method invocations.

TuneUp was described by the company as a tool that provides visibility into application performance during the development phase. Developers learn of performance trouble spots and bottlenecks prior to production, FiveRuns said. A TuneUp plugin can be installed for access to performance metrics.

Developers can collaborate with others, browse application profiles, and look for similar configuration and performance problems.

"FiveRuns TuneUp gives developers deep visibility and relevant information to debug and improve the performance of their application and a community setting to collaborate with others to solve tough performance problems," said Steve Sanderson, FiveRuns vice president of development and technology, in a statement released by the company.

Manage 2.0 is a lighter upgrade to the initial product, adding monitoring support for more subsystems and other new features. Featured are enhanced rails metrics, monitoring for the entire Rails stack, and customizable contextual Triggers and Notification Chains that alert users to problems.

A light Ruby client for Manage 2.0 consumes minimal resources and is optimized for virtual environments, the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud service, and other server environments.

Microsoft: Apple Safari users on Windows beware

2008-05-30T22:09:00.000-07:00

Microsoft: Apple Safari users on Windows beware

Software giant Microsoft has warned the users of Apple Safari web browser on the Windows OS.

The company said that they are currently investigating a security threat that allows remote code execution on all supported versions of Windows XP and Windows Vista when Apple’s Safari Web browser has been installed.

Microsoft added: “Safari is not installed with Windows XP or Windows Vista by default: It must be installed independently or through the Apple Software Update application.”

Apple has been facing criticism since sometime after they started delivering the Safari web browser through their Apple Software Update utility. The users of Apple iTunes and QuickTime were delivered the browser even if they had not installed it previously.

Microsoft said that the users who installed Safari at non-default location are safe from this latest issue.

Apple Safari comes to Windows XP and Vista

Apple has done an impressive job with the Leopard OS which is currently scheduled for launch later this year.

Steve Jobs displayed some of the new features of the Leopard at the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference.

But one of the most important announcement to come at the event was that the company is now launching their Safari web browser on the Windows platform.

Apple already has iTunes and QuickTime application available on Windows and now Safari would join the bandwagon.

Jobs confirmed that Safari would be made available on both Windows XP and Windows Vista platform and the company has also released a public beta which is available on their website.

He even went on to show some statistics and ended up claiming that Apple Safari is now the fastest browser available on the Windows platform. Incidentally, Jobs compared the Safari with Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox but ignored Opera.

It would be interesting to see comparisons between Opera for Windows and Safari for Windows!

Apple Safari for Windows has seen more than 1 million downloads

If it is an Apple product, you can be sure that their would be a lot of interest in it. Even if the product is released for the Windows platform.

Apple Inc. recently launched the beta version of their Safari web browser for the Windows platform.

And the company has now confirmed that the beta has already seen more than 1 million downloads.

But that does not exactly mean that there are around 1 million active Safari web browser users on Windows.

Most web users would have downloaded the browser just to check out how it is. Life we did. But a majority of them would have moved back to their primary web browser (like Firefox or Opera) within a matter of minutes or hours.

However, it is a nice start as Apple aims to make Safari an alternative browser to both Internet Explorer and Firefox on the Windows platform.

Incidentally, Apple iTunes remains the most popular Apple application on the Windows platform. It has seen over 500 million times by Windows users.

CARLSBAD, Calif. - Microsoft and Yahoo seem to hang out in all the same places, but somehow keep missing each other.

That's turned speculation over what it will take to get the two of them together into something of a CEO parlor game.

Media magnate Rupert Murdoch said this week he is "mystified" the two have not come to terms. E-commerce mogul Barry Diller said Microsoft should never have fired a hostile shot at Yahoo if they didn't plan to stick it out.

Yahoo board member Bobby Kotick joked that he had tried to get top executives from Microsoft and Yahoo together to play Guitar Hero 4, the hit video game from the company he runs, Activision.

In separate appearances at the D: Conference this week, the top executives of Microsoft and Yahoo said no progress had been made on a merger, though they were discussing lesser deals.

The two had held abortive takeover talks over a three-month period that ended May 3, Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock has said.

Microsoft walked away from a proposal to buy Yahoo for $47.5 billion, or $33 a share, after Yahoo rebuffed it, saying it wanted $37 a share. Then in mid-May, the companies said they had begun talks on an unspecified deal short of a merger.

On Wednesday, Yahoo's co-founder and chief executive, Jerry Yang, threw cold water on speculation that they might be edging back into merger discussions.

"Microsoft is no longer interested in buying the company, and we are talking about other things. We definitely have to understand what they're proposing ... they clearly have an interest in Yahoo, and we need to understand more," he said.

In an on-stage interview at the conference, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said talks had broken down largely over price. Appearing with Yang, Yahoo President Susan Decker agreed price had always been the biggest barrier to reaching a deal.

Diller, who runs the company behind rival Ask.com, believes a merger of Microsoft and Yahoo is necessary to gain the scale to take on Google in Web search and advertising.

Diller expressed surprise at Microsoft's decision to withdraw its offer and "move on" after pursuing Yahoo at regular intervals over the past two years.

"It seems to me if you fire a gun in a hostile offer, the bullet has to land in the heart," he said in his own on-stage appearance at the conference on Wednesday. "Otherwise, I can't imagining firing at all."

Murdoch agreed, saying that given the original 62 percent premium Microsoft was willing to pay for Yahoo, Ballmer should be more patient.

"You aim the gun and you fire," Murdoch said, echoing Diller. "They are not used to big deals, so they backed off."

Murdoch's News Corp. has gotten nowhere in its own efforts to talk to both sides in recent months about alternative deal arrangements involving his MySpace Web business.

The wily 77-year-old deal-maker ruled out prospects for an alternative deal between Yahoo and Google to succeed, saying regulatory issues would likely derail it.

And he dismissed activist investor Carl Icahn's campaign to replace the Yahoo board in a proxy fight at the company's July annual shareholder meeting as "helpful noise" to Microsoft and a threat that Yahoo shouldn't bother worrying about.

"That is not serious," Murdoch said of Icahn. "Look, he wants to make a few hundred-million dollars for himself."

Murdoch's conclusion is that Microsoft and Yahoo need to lock themselves in a room and put their last respective offers on the table and settle on a deal.

Speaking as if he were one of the negotiators, Murdoch said "Look, if it is complicated, we will clean it up afterward."

Anticipating the flood of free advice from other executives, Yahoo made up its own joke video in which Yang and Decker are seen being inundated with unsolicited advice from top technology industry CEOs, investors and media pundits.

Warren Buffett's advice to Yang? "Buy low, sell high." (Editing by Braden Reddall)

Samsung Electronics Drawing Restructuring Plan

2008-05-29T01:10:00.002-07:00

Samsung Electronics is considering merging or selling some of its operations in an upcoming corporate restructuring program.

A company insider said Thursday that the firm is to merge its MP3 player division with its cell phone division, and its DVD production division with its TV division.

''The MP3 business has a limited growth potential because Apple is dominating the field, he said, requesting anonymity. The situation is similar with the DVD sector.''

The alleged plan is part of Samsung's massive reorganization scheme, which is being shaped at its top management. The company's public relation office said it will have to wait to confirm the report. It said it will soon announce the reorganization plan.

''The scale of restructuring will be bigger this year than before,'' said spokesman Lee Seung-han. ''There was a reshuffling of chiefs of our sub-divisions and promotions of executives. Their new roles will be defined later on.''

U.K. news sites reported that Samsung could possibly pull out of the laptop market if it fails to gain over three times its current share of the worldwide laptop market.

The company promptly denied the report, saying ``Samsung has no intention of closing its Notebook division in 2011. We do however expect the market to become increasingly saturated and there to be increased price competitiveness,'' according to Techradar.com. The goal for the laptop division is to attain 5.7 percent of the global market, it said.

The share value has been inclining since its chairman and CEO Lee Kun-hee announced his resignation late last month and even after another CEO Yun Jong-yong's announcement of retirement on Thursday.

AMD sees benefits from Nvidia and Intel argument

2008-05-29T01:10:00.001-07:00

Vendor happy for war of words between two rivals to continue AMD's EMEA technical director of sales and marketing has said that AMD is quite happy for Intel and Nvidia to continue the war of words that recently broke out between the two companies as his company.

Speaking to The Inquirer's Paul Hales, Giuseppe Amato said: "One says the CPU is not important, the other says the GPU is not important. The beauty of AMD is that we provide a balance with a strong CPU and a strong GPU - the company best tailored to provided a balanced PC."

"We hope we see some gain from the fight these two are having together."

He was speaking to the website as the vendor detailed its channel plans to selected partners at an event at its Dresden fabrication plant. "This specifically channel-focused event is to enable the channel provide better value to customers."

"What we told analysts is what we're telling the channel," Amato said. "From AMD you can expect focus. The focus to deliver platforms that solve the problems the end user is facing."

He admitted the firm had been slightly "erratic" with the channel in 2007, something the firm was keen to rectify this year with it planning a major investment in the UK channel.

IBM introduces new hybrid blade

2008-05-29T01:09:00.003-07:00

IBM has launched a new blade centre for companies looking to do High Performance Computing (HPC).

The IBM QS22 blade has at its heart a new processor, the PowerXCell 8i, which, according to IBM, "offers five times the speed of the original Cell/BE processor". The chip has 16 times more memory than its predecessors, at up to 32GB , and is aimed at much more challenging operations than the previous processor, says IBM.

"These blades have a wide variety of applications from real-time analysts through digital media," said Jim Comfort, IBM's vice president for worldwide application systems. "They are very efficient at digital trans-coding, for example."

As Comfort explained, the key component of the QS22 was the ability for it to run as a standard type of system and then be optimised when used in environments requiring high-compute power. "Intel and AMD are talking about this at some point in the future," Comfort told ZDNet.co.uk. "But with the QS22 we are doing it now."

Platform Computing, a reseller of HPC systems, has one customer trialling the QS22 for pre- and post-trade analysis, where time-to-results has been cut up to 80 percent, the QS22 should be available "some time next month". said IBM.

IBM takes top honour as employer of the year

2008-05-29T01:09:00.001-07:00

The annual TARGET jobs awards celebrated the cream of graduate recruiting in its annual awards ceremony this week at the Hilton Park Lane in London. As well as naming the best student marketing campaign, undergraduate internship and graduate recruitment website, the overall graduate employer of the year was announced with organisations such as Marks & Spencer, Barclays and GlaxoSmithKine all fighting it out. However, it was last year's winner, IBM, who eventually took home the honours.

"We were really keen to build an award that recognises the effort an employer puts into graduate recruitment," says Cathy Hyde, head of future talent at Bernard Hodes and sponsors of the graduate employer of the year award. "Employers actually have to show why they are a good employer and the panel has checked whether they are living up to the promises they make to graduates."

Six categories were judged by an expert panel of graduate recruiters, agencies and careers advisers, and included two new awards showcasing excellent diversity recruitment practices, which was picked up by DLA Piper UK and innovation on campus - won by npower.

"It is becoming more difficult to target the best graduates and employers are having to be increasingly creative," says Paul Sissons, UK chief executive of specialist careers publisher GTI, which organised the awards, now in their fourth year. "One of the main motivations behind these awards was to showcase this creative work and bring all the different elements of graduate recruitment - employers, publishers and careers advisers - together."

Goldman Sachs was again voted the most popular employer in the banking sector, while Google and Atkins won in the IT and communications and construction categories respectively.

WiMax Promises to Shake up Wireless Data Market

2008-05-29T01:07:00.000-07:00

WiMax offers high-speed Internet access over a wide area and comes in two versions, a fixed-wireless version and another for mobile. The technology, often likened to Wi-Fi on steroids, has two advantages over LTE (Long-Term Evolution) it's available today and is free from the hefty royalty charges required for 3G (third-generation) mobile devices and equipment. By comparison, LTE has another two to three years to go before it can be deployed and, because the radio uplink uses CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), device makers will have to pay substantial royalties to Qualcomm.

"They charge a 5 percent royalty on the handset or devices, and that's on the retail side...Behind the door, they're charging anywhere from 15 to 30 percent on the chipsets," said Bill Rojas, director of communications research at IDC Asia-Pacific, adding that WiMax backers have agreed to a much lower royalty for using the technology.

Intel sees 2008 as the year when WiMax will start to appear in computers, such as a WiMax-equipped Asustek Computer Eee PC that Sriram Viswanathan, vice president of Intel Capital, the chip maker's investment arm, and general manager of the company's WiMax Program Office, showed off in Singapore. "We have a variety of these devices. Not all of them will be launched on the first day, but the fact is during the second half (of 2008) you will see a plethora of devices," Viswanathan said.

"Intel doesn't expect shipments of WiMax-equipped computers to hit high volumes during 2008, largely due to the limited availability of WiMax services. As more networks come online in 2009, shipment volumes will rise but the technology will not become a standard feature on computers for some time, " Viswanathan said.

WiMax will also find a foothold in emerging markets, where broadband Internet penetration remains low. In these markets, the technology will be used as a fixed-wireless service, providing wireless Internet access to a fixed location, such as a home or office, rather than a service designed for mobile users.

Windows 7

2008-05-21T23:26:00.001-07:00

(formerly known as Blackcomb and Vienna) is the successor of Windows Vista. Windows 7 is expected to be released sometime in 2010

Windows VS Mac

2008-05-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

AMD Graphics Technology For Embedded Systems

2008-05-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

AMD introduced the ATI Radeon E2400, a high-performance graphic processing unit that delivers the latest 2D, 3D and multimedia graphics performance to the embedded market in a solution that reduces footprint, reduces design complexity, and helps speed time to market. The benefits of the ATI Radeon E2400 make it ideal for demanding embedded graphics applications such as test and instrumentation, human machine interfaces (such as Kiosks, Point-of-Sale, and Automated Teller Machines), display walls, patient monitoring, casino and arcade gaming, and various multi-display applications. The new graphics technology is backed by a planned five-year availability and long-term support offering reliability for a variety of applications on operating systems featuring Microsoft DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.0.

"Embedded designers donâ€™t have to be satisfied with the performance of low-end graphics devices just because their designs are space constrained or require extended availability and support," said Richard Jaenicke, Director of Embedded Graphics for AMD. "With the input of major original equipment manufacturers and platform developers, we have designed the ATI Radeon E2400 from the start to deliver high graphics performance while meeting the unique requirements of the embedded market."

ATI Radeon E2400 offers exceptional performance and flexibility in a compact package size for a wide variety of high quality graphics applications. Built on 65nm process technology, the ATI Radeon E2400 includes AMDâ€™s revolutionary Unified Shader Architecture with support for Microsoft DirectX 10 allowing customers to develop advanced content for many applications. The device package incorporates 128MB of on-chip GDDR3 memory for graphic-intensive applications, eliminating the space, effort, and cost of external memory designs.

For designs that require a low profile solution in space-constrained environments, AMD offers the ATI Radeon E2400 MXM-II module based on the open standard MXM-II specifications. This compact graphics subsystem provides a documented upgrade path while enabling a plug-in solution for fast time-to-market. ATI Radeon E2400 MXM-II uses the ATI Radeon E2400 core and 256MB GDDR3 memory.

The ATI Radeon E2400 is scheduled to ship this month in production quantities. AMD will showcase the product both at Embedded World 2008 in Hall 9 Stand 9-231, February 26-28, 2008 in Nuremberg, Germany, and at Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley in booth 1036, April 14-18, 2008 in San Jose, California.

-Microsoft Publicly Posts Additional Protocol Doc-

Microsoft Corp. took another step toward fulfilling its interoperability principle of ensuring open connections to its high-volume products and driving greater interoperability, opportunity and choice across the IT community of developers, partners, customers and competitors.

Microsoft posted on MSDN more than 14,000 pages of preliminary versions of technical documentation for Microsoft protocols built into Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. With this action, Microsoft will have posted a cumulative total of more than 44,000 pages of protocol documentation that it committed in its interoperability principles.

As a result of today's posting, all types of developers including independent software vendors, open source developers and developers in customer IT departments will have consistent, open access to this protocol documentation that defines how these high-volume Microsoft products communicate with other Microsoft products. This consistent, open access to information will promote more interoperability options for developers of all types and will help foster improved real-world interoperability solutions in the marketplace.

"Microsoft is pleased to announce today another step toward putting our interoperability principles into action with the public availability of these protocol specifications for Microsoft Office, Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Exchange Server," said Tom Robertson, general manager of Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft. "We believe that providing open, consistent access to these protocols will further unleash the creativity of all developers to work on real-world interoperability solutions. The implementation of Microsoft's interoperability principles is an important component of our overall efforts to promote interoperability in the marketplace."

In another example, developers working with Exchange Server protocols will have additional resources to build applications that directly communicate and store information with either Exchange Server or Microsoft Office Outlook related to e-mail, calendars, contacts, voice mail and task tracking.

"Today we are posting preliminary versions of protocol documentation for Microsoft Office, Office SharePoint Server and Exchange Server," said Jean Paoli, general manager of Interoperability and XML Architecture at Microsoft. "We are very eager to receive feedback from members of the developer community as they access this documentation over the next several weeks and months so we can use that feedback to improve our final documentation to be released in June."

The preliminary versions of the material posted today represent the first of a three-phased approach Microsoft is taking to make the protocol information available and accessible to all developers. The second phase, which will run until June, will be the collection of input from the community as developers review the documentation and provide feedback. The third phase, which will occur by the end of June, will be the posting of the final versions of the documentation along with final patent licensing terms. Microsoft will also announce additional documentation and disclosure schedules in the future.

~Philips To Acquire TOMCAT Systems~

Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Belfast, Northern Ireland â€“ Royal Philips Electronics announced it will acquire TOMCAT Systems Ltd., based in Northern Ireland. Terms of this acquisition were not disclosed. TOMCAT offers a software solution to collect and aggregate data relative to the cardiac care of patients, and allows for a comprehensive, patient-centric presentation of this data to care givers such as doctors and nurses.

Through this acquisition, Philips will expand the use of information technology in healthcare â€“ and specifically in its cardiology business â€“ to improve patient outcomes and help hospitals work more efficiently. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2008, upon which TOMCAT will become part of the Healthcare Informatics business group within the Philips Healthcare sector.

Oran Muduroglu, General Manager of the Healthcare Informatics business group within Philips Healthcare, explains: "TOMCATâ€™s solution is a great match with our current cardiology information systems, and as such already implemented as a total solution in various hospitals. Philips will now accelerate introduction of this integrated cardiology information solution in North America and in other selected markets."

TOMCAT's software addresses both the clinical and operational needs of a cardiovascular service line. It connects with different clinical information systems like cath lab workflow management systems, and picture archiving and communications systems (PACS). TOMCAT is able to seamlessly connect to Philips' Xcelera and Philips Xper Information Management, and also with systems from other vendors. TOMCATâ€™s software also provides scheduling, staff and resource management, cost capturing, and the generation of reports and statistical information, thereby supporting the management of a cardiovascular service line.

-Yahoo tells Icahn that its own board knows best-

Yahoo has responded to investor Carl Icahn's threat to take control of Yahoo's board and force it back to the negotiating table with Microsoft. The search company said Icahn's proposal shows "a significant misunderstanding" of how it handled Microsoft's offer, and argued that Yahoo's current board remains "the best and most qualified group" to handle its affairs.
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» Back to special report: Microsoft makes $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo

Yahoo released its response to Icahn later Thursday, signed by board Chairman Roy Bostock.

"Unfortunately, your letter reflects a significant misunderstanding of the facts about the Microsoft proposal and the diligence with which our board evaluated and responded to that proposal," the company wrote. "A fair-minded review of the factual record leads to one conclusion: that Yahoo!'s ten-member board, comprised of nine independent directors along with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, remains the best and most qualified group to maximize value for all Yahoo stockholders."

The letter describes the negotiations with Microsoft in detail, in a bid to show that Yahoo took the offer seriously. It says it would not be in the best interests of Yahoo's shareholders for Icahn to nominate a slate of directors "for the express purpose of trying to force a sale of Yahoo to a formerly interested buyer who has publicly stated that they have moved on.

"Please may I remind you that there is currently no acquisition offer on the table from that company or any other party," the letter states. "That said, we have been crystal clear in our stance that we have been and remain willing to consider any proposal from any party including Microsoft if it offers our stockholders full and certain value."

Microsoft announced its $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo on Feb. 1, but it walked away from the deal on May 3 after the two companies failed to agree on a price. Microsoft eventually raised its offer to $33 per share, or by about $5 billion, but Yahoo's board wanted $37 per share.

Icahn, a billionaire investor who last year pressured Motorola to spin off its mobile-phone division, has bought up 59 million Yahoo shares since Microsoft walked away from the deal and hopes to buy a further $2.5 billion of Yahoo stock. He argued Thursday that Microsoft's offer of $33 per share is "obviously" superior to Yahoo's prospects as a stand-alone company, and said "a number of shareholders" have asked him to launch the battle for Yahoo's board.

"I am perplexed by the board's actions," he wrote. "It is irresponsible to hide behind management's more than overly optimistic financial forecasts."

Yahoo stuck to its guns and insisted again that Microsoft's offer undervalues the company. It said its board has met more than 20 times to discuss Microsoft's offer and other alternatives. It said it solicited input from shareholders, and that "the senior-most management" from both companies met seven times in person to discuss the deal.

On May 2, Yahoo's board instructed Yang to tell Microsoft that Yahoo was prepared to be sold for $37 per share, provided that Microsoft could show it was reasonably certain it could close the deal without running into regulatory issues.

"This was communicated to Microsoft in-person at a meeting in Seattle on May 3rd. With Microsoft's offer at $33 and Yahoo's counter-proposal at $37, Microsoft elected, within hours, to walk away from the negotiating table and informed us that they were 'moving on,' having never engaged further on price or any of the key non-price deal terms."

The letter concludes that Yahoo is open to a deal "with Microsoft or any other party" for the right price, and that its own board can best steer the company moving forward.

"We look forward to a productive dialogue," it concludes, anticipating a response from Icahn.

~More then 200,000 demand Microsoft save XP~

--Yahoo Search Monkey opens to all developers--
Yahoo has opened up its Search Monkey platform as part of its broader Open Strategy of opening up its platforms, sites, and services to outside developers

Yahoo will make its Search Monkey platform available to all developers on Thursday, another step in its wide-ranging effort to open up its sites and services.

Search Monkey is Yahoo's initiative to let external developers create applications to enhance its Web search results and, in theory, make them more appealing and useful.

"We're responding to people's demands to be able to complete tasks in search results," said Amit Kumar, Director of Product Management for Yahoo Search. "We're focused on creating a better search experience for our users and want to let developers with an understanding of structured data jump start the system with their apps."

It is the first component of Yahoo's broad Open Strategy, announced last month and described as a long-range plan to open all Yahoo sites, online services, and Web applications to outside developers, and give users a "social profile" dashboard to unify and manage their Yahoo services.

With Open Strategy, Yahoo wants to improve its position in key areas like search and social networking, and compete better against Google, MySpace, and Facebook.

IDC analyst Susan Feldman called Search Monkey a "really important" initiative that can differentiate Yahoo from Google. "From a market point of view, that's a great idea," she said.

From a technology perspective, if users can let Yahoo factor into search what it knows about them, "the experience will be quite different and it should also improve relevance," Feldman said.

The Search Monkey development platform, which has been in a closed beta test for the past several weeks, can be used by any outside developer and doesn't require Yahoo approval.

At the moment, developers can create two types of Search Monkey applications. One type, called Enhanced Results, acts as a richer, more useful replacement for standard search results, and can only link to the site in question. The other type, Infobar, opens up below a search result and can include complementary data and links to other related sites.

Kumar said that for now, Search Monkey will be specifically for applications for Yahoo's general Web search engine and not for its specialty engines for specific results like images and news.

In a few weeks, Yahoo expects to launch a gallery of Search Monkey applications that users of its Web search engine can install, he said.

Although there is no revenue-generating potential for Search Monkey applications, Yahoo is holding a contest called the Search Monkey Developer Challenge with $20,000 in prizes. Developers have until June 14 to submit their applications for consideration. Prizes will be awarded in several categories, including Best Enhanced Result, Best Infobar and Best Data Service.

Cisco: Networking Is Hot Again

2008-05-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

NAC, Trustsec, PCI, Linux and more are all on the table as Cisco VP outlines the network giant's strategy moving forward.

LAS VEGAS -- While the economy may be cool, the world of networking is anything but, according to Marie Hattar, VP of Network Systems and Security Solutions for Cisco. There are a lot of reasons why Hattar is so upbeat including new product initiatives, compliance drivers and overall customer sentiment.

Since Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) is an important bell weather for the technology industry as a whole, what Cisco sees as the current and future state of the networking business has wide implications.

As a simple proof point of the renewed interest in networking Hattar who spoke to InternetNews.com at the Interop trade show, cited the enthusiasm of Interop .

"Despite the split personality of Interop this year we're excited because we're seeing so many customers," Hattar said. (Interop added a separate software conference to the event). "A few years ago all we'd see was vendors."

Hattar's area of responsibility includes routing and switching as well as security. Under her auspices lies the big area of Cisco's Self Defending Network portfolio of which Network Access Control (NAC) is a constituent.

"We see NAC as something that crosses between network security and endpoint security and we do see it as an area of growth," Hattar said.

Hattar noted there has been a lot of hype about NAC and it's taken longer for the technology to prove itself in terms of deployments than some might have expected.

A trough of disillusionment

"What happened with NAC is it went through great hype and then it went through the trough of disillusionment," Hattar said. "I think now what you're seeing are customers getting to the steady state of deploying it into their networks."

Hattar also was quick to point out that security is much more than the concept of admission control. Cisco's broader vision involves its new Trustsec initiative which was announced at the end of 2007.

"Trustsec secures things across the LAN and brings policy, identity and ties it all together so you have a whole trusted security entity," Hattar explained. "That to me is a more interesting topic than just purely 'knock knock who is there?' That doesn't necessarily protect your overall network."

While NAC has perhaps been a driver for networking, there is no question that the PCI compliance requirements have also been a boost.

"Many enterprises deploy security products to deal with compliance issue so PCI has been huge as a driver to put security into the network," Hattar said. "But just because you're PCI compliant doesn't mean you have a secure network."

Apple's iTunes sells movies on DVD release date

2008-05-04T10:27:00.001-07:00

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Apple Inc said on Thursday it reached deals with top Hollywood studios to sell movies on its iTunes download service on the same day as the titles are released in DVD form, bringing its clout to a nascent market for video entertainment.

Microsoft abandons Yahoo bid, rebuffing higher sale price

2008-05-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft Corp. withdrew its $42.3 billion bid to buy Yahoo Inc. on Saturday, scrapping an attempt to snap up the tarnished Internet icon in hopes of toppling online search and advertising leader Google Inc.

Best cheap web hosting offers (PHP/MySQL)

2008-05-04T10:22:00.001-07:00

http://www.inmotionhosting.com/cheap_hosting.html
http://www.hostmonster.com/
http://www.webhostingpad.com/
http://www.lunarpages.com/b2evolution.php
http://hostpapa.com/b2e_offer.shtml
http://www.vistapages.com/
http://www.hostgator.com/
http://www.globat.com/globat-aff.htm
http://www.webhostingbuzz.com/
http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/hosting/landing.asp?isc=cjchst001b

Prototype Sequels to Have Co-op

2008-05-04T10:21:00.004-07:00

EuroGamer carries word that co-operative multiplayer may part of future installments in the Prototype series, if the series generates sequels beyond the first game’s release this Summer.

This comes from Radical Entertainment’s Chris Ansell, who explains why cooperative was cut from the game: “We were excited about the idea, and still are, but we decided to put all our effort into single-player. So far the forum reaction’s been to back up that idea. Games like Mass Effect and BioShock have had great success with a solid single-player, and we’d like to emulate that to make an amazing single-player game.”

Penny Arcade Game Goes Gold

2008-05-04T10:21:00.001-07:00

No GTA2 Re-release

2008-05-04T10:20:00.002-07:00

It’s nice when rumors are true, but unfortunately a good portion of them turn out to be wrong. An old countdown clock on Rockstar Games’ website had everyone talking about Grand Theft Auto 2 getting a re-release on the Playstation Network and/or Xbox Live. In a display of supreme irony, this clock has only popped up due to a fix for the Y2K problem which caused the code to act as if the 21st century didn’t exist. The clock is from 1999 and was the countdown clock to the release of Grand Theft Auto 2 on the original Playstation.

Haze demo May 6th

2008-05-04T10:20:00.001-07:00

Fans of Free Radical’s upcoming FPS, Haze, are in for quite the treat as Sony has officially confirmed that a game demo will be hitting the PSN next week, May 6th to be exact.

While the demo comes in the wake of one of the GTA 4’s release, perhaps the fact that Haze lets users safely abuse drugs will spur some interest.

Free Radical Design’s Haze will hit store shelves sometime in May of this year, that is if it doesn’t get delayed, again.

VMware Fusion 1.1.2

2008-05-04T09:51:00.001-07:00

his is the software publisher's description.

From the virtualization industry leader comes VMware Fusion. Simply the best way to run Windows, Linux, or Solaris at the same time as Mac OS X - without rebooting.

Built from the ground up for the Mac, VMware Fusion leverages nearly a decade of virtualization expertise to harness the full power of your Mac hardware, while still supporting Windows-only applications, USB 2.0 devices, 64-bit, and accelerated 3D graphics.

Say goodbye to the Windows desktop - seamlessly run Windows XP applications just like Mac applications; use Exposé to switch between any application, minimize to the Dock, bring forward only the application you care about, and use familiar Mac keyboard shortcuts. Use the VMware Fusion Launch Palette to easily access all your Windows applications, and keep your favourite Windows applications in the Dock.

VMware Fusion 1.1 contains a number of new features including experimental support for DirectX 9 and support for the iPhone under Windows. The Unity support has been enhanced and much more.

Sadly VMware have changed the way you have to download their software, so you need to be a registered VMware user to obtain access. This download points to the form where you can register or login to download.

Glossary for Web Developer

2008-05-04T01:48:00.000-07:00

Apache	Apache is a freely available Web server that is distributed under an "open source" license. Version 2.0 runs on most Unix-based operating systems (such as Linux, Solaris, Digital UNIX, and AIX), on other UNIX/POSIX-derived systems (such as Rhapsody, BeOS, and BS2000/OSD), on AmigaOS, and on Windows 2000.
Apple/Apple Computer	Apple Computer, Inc. is a prominent hardware and software company best known for its Macintosh series of personal computers. Introduced in 1984, the Macintosh was the first widely sold personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI). That feature and others -- such as an improved floppy drive design and a low-cost hard drive that made data retrieval faster and more reliable -- helped Apple cultivate a reputation for innovation, which the company still enjoys today.
Application	A software piece or module designed to fill the specific needs of a user; for example, software for project management, issue tracking, file sharing, etc. This contrasts with system software, e.g. operating systems like MS Windows or UNIX.
Backup	A copy of database and associated files set aside for security purposes. In case of data loss, backup is used to recover the working database or files.
Back end	Administrative mode of a shopping cart protected by administrator's login and password and not accessible for customers.
Bandwidth	In computer networks, bandwidth is often used as a synonym for data transfer rate - the amount of data that can be carried from one point to another in a given time period (usually a second). This kind of bandwidth is usually expressed in bits (of data) per second (bps). Occasionally, it's expressed as bytes per second (Bps). A modem that works at 57,600 bps has twice the bandwidth of a modem that works at 28,800 bps.
BSD	BSD (originally: Berkeley Software Distribution) refers to the particular version of the Unix operating system that was developed at and distributed from the University of California at Berkeley. "BSD" is customarily preceded by a number indicating the particular distribution level of the BSD system (for example, "4.3 BSD"). BSD UNIX has been popular and many commercial implementations of UNIX systems are based on or include some BSD code.
CD-ROM	CD-ROM (Compact Disc, read-only-memory) is an adaptation of the CD that is designed to store computer data in the form of text and graphics, as well as hi-fi stereo sound. The original data format standard was defined by Philips and Sony in the 1983 Yellow Book.
Cookie	A cookie is information that a website puts on your hard disk so that it can remember something about you at a later time. (More technically, it is information for future use that is stored by the server on the client side of a client/server communication.) Typically, a cookie records your preferences when using a particular site. Using the Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), each request for a Web page is independent of all other requests. For this reason, the Web page server has no memory of what pages it has sent to a user previously or anything about your previous visits. A cookie is a mechanism that allows the server to store its own information about a user on the user's own computer. You can view the cookies that have been stored on your hard disk (although the content stored in each cookie may not make much sense to you). The location of the cookies depends on the browser. Internet Explorer stores each cookie as a separate file under a Windows subdirectory. Netscape stores all cookies in a single cookies.txt fle.
C++	C++ is an object-oriented programming (OOP) language that is viewed by many as the best language for creating large-scale applications. C++ is a superset of the C language. A related programming language, Java, is based on C++ but optimized for the distribution of program objects in a network such as the Internet. Java is somewhat simpler and easier to learn than C++ and has characteristics that give it other advantages over C++. However, both languages require a considerable amount of study.
Document	When used in reference to the WebAsyst applications, a document is any file containing text, media or hyperlinks that can be transferred from/to a server.
DOM	Document Object Model (DOM), is a programming interface specification being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It lets a programmer create and modify HTML pages and XML documents as full-fledged program objects.
Download	A process of transferring to your computer a copy of a file that resides on another computer.
Ecommerce (electronic commerce)	The conducting of business communication and transactions over networks and through computers. Specifically, ecommerce is the buying and selling of goods and services, and the transfer of funds, through digital communications.
Front end	Also referred to as 'storefront'. A part of online store available for public use, where customers can navigate through products catalog and place orders.
Gigabyte	A gigabyte (pronounced GIG-a-bite with hard G's) is a measure of computer data storage capacity and is "roughly" a billion bytes. A gigabyte is two to the 30th power, or 1,073,741,824 in decimal points.
Groupware	Collaboration software, also known as groupware, is a software tool that integrates the work of multiple concurrent users located at separated workspaces. Usually a groupware package consists of several web based applications designed for the automation of your collaborative activities.
GUI interface	A GUI (usually pronounced GOO-ee) is a graphical (rather than purely textual) user interface to a computer. As you read this, you are looking at the GUI or graphical user interface of your particular Web browser. The term came into existence because the first interactive user interfaces to computers were not graphical; they were text-and-keyboard oriented and usually consisted of commands you had to remember and computer responses that were infamously brief.
Hardware	In information technology, hardware is the physical aspect of computers, telecommunications, and other devices. The term arose as a way to distinguish the "box" and the electronic circuitry and components of a computer from the program you put in it to make it do things. The program came to be known as the software.
HDD (Hard Disk Drive)	In a personal computer, a hard disk drive (HDD) is the mechanism that controls the positioning, reading, and writing of the hard disk, which furnishes the largest amount of data storage for the PC. Although the hard disk drive (often shortened to "hard drive") and the hard disk are not the same thing, they are packaged as a unit and so either term is sometimes used to refer to the whole unit.
Hosting	A way of using web based software. Does not require installation of any software pieces on your desktop computer. Instead, all your software applications, database and files are located on a computer in the Internet, which is maintained by your host provider for a certain monthly fee.
HTML	An acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. HTML codes are interpreted by the web browser to format documents in a particular way.
IIS	IIS (Internet Information Server) is a group of Internet servers (including a Web or Hypertext Transfer Protocol server and a File Transfer Protocol server) with additional capabilities for Microsoft's Windows NT and Windows 2000 Server operating systems.
Internet Explorer	Internet Explorer (IE) -- sometimes referred to as Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) -- is the most widely used World Wide Web browser. It comes with the Microsoft Windows operating system and can also be downloaded from Microsoft's website. The IE browser competes with an earlier browser, Netscape, now owned by AOL.
Issue	A bug or defect report, work order, problem description, task or any request, which needs someone’s attention and action to be fixed, implemented or processed in some other way. Usually an issue is added in a list and someone is assigned to implement it.
JAVA (JAVA Script)	Java is a programming language expressly designed for use in the distributed environment of the Internet. It was designed to have the "look and feel" of the C++ language, but it is simpler to use than C++ and enforces an object-oriented programming model. Java can be used to create complete applications that may run on a single computer or be distributed among servers and clients in a network. It can also be used to build a small application module or applet for use as part of a Web page. Applets make it possible for a Web page user to interact with the page.
Kernel	The kernel is the essential center of a computer operating system, the core that provides basic services for all other parts of the operating system. A synonym is nucleus. A kernel can be contrasted with a shell, the outermost part of an operating system that interacts with user commands. Kernel and shell are terms used more frequently in Unix operating systems than in IBM mainframe or Microsoft Windows systems.
Linux	Linux (often pronounced LIH-nuhks with a short "i") is a Unix-like operating system that was designed to provide personal computer users a free or very low-cost operating system comparable to traditional and usually more expensive Unix systems. Linux has a reputation as a very efficient and fast-performing system. Linux's kernel (the central part of the operating system) was developed by Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in Finland.
Megabyte (MB)	As a measure of computer processor storage and real and virtual memory, a megabyte (abbreviated MB) is 2 to the 20th power bytes, or 1,048,576 bytes in decimal notation. According to the IBM Dictionary of Computing, when used to describe disk storage capacity and transmission rates, a megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes in decimal notation.
Memory	Memory is the electronic holding place for instructions and data that your computer's microprocessor can reach quickly. When your computer is in normal operation, its memory usually contains the main parts of the operating system and some or all of the application programs and related data that are being used. Memory is often used as a shorter synonym for random access memory (RAM). This kind of memory is located on one or more microchips that are physically close to the microprocessor in your computer. Most desktop and notebook computers sold today include at least 16 megabytes of RAM, and are upgradeable to include more. The more RAM you have, the less frequently the computer has to access instructions and data from the more slowly accessed hard disk form of storage.
Merchant account	A written, commercial bank account established by contractual agreement between a merchant/business and a bank and/or a payment gateway. The agreement contains the respective rights, warranties, and duties with respect to accepting bankcards like Visa or MasterCard. You must apply for this account directly from your bank, or from the Payment Processor.
Mozilla	Mozilla was Netscape Communication's nickname for Navigator, its Web browser, and, more recently, the name of an open source public collaboration aimed at making improvements to Navigator. This public collaboration was essentially launched and is still substantially supported by Netscape (now owned by AOL); however, the Mozilla project is independent. Netscape can use its code but so can anyone else.
MySQL	MySQL (pronounced "my ess cue el") is an open source relational database management system (RDBMS) that uses Structured Query Language (SQL), the most popular language for adding, accessing, and processing data in a database. Because it is open source, anyone can download MySQL and tailor it to their needs in accordance with the general public license. MySQL is noted mainly for its speed, reliability, and flexibility. Most agree, however, that it works best when managing content and not executing transactions.
Netscape	Netscape, now part of America Online (AOL), is one of the two most popular Web browsers. Currently, almost all Internet users use either Microsoft's Internet Explorer (MSIE) browser or Netscape, and many users use both. Although Netscape was initially the predominant product in terms of usability and number of users, Microsoft's browser is generally considered superior by many users (although many other users see them as roughly equivalent) and has taken a significant lead in usage. Netscape's browser,called "Navigator," was developed in 1995.
Open Source	Open source is a philosophy of software distribution that allows anyone to read and modify the program's source code. Because anyone can modify the source code, bug fixes, improvements or implementation of new specific features occur rapidly.
Oracle	Oracle (in ancient Greece, someone in touch with the deities; from Latin, oraculum or divine announcement) says it is the world's leading supplier of software for information management but it is best known for its sophisticated relational database products (notably Oracle9i), which are used in Fortune 1000 corporations and by many of the largest websites. Oracle's relational database was the world's first to support the Structured Query Language (SQL), now an industry standard.
OS (Operating System)	An operating system (sometimes abbreviated as "OS") is the program that, after being initially loaded into the computer by a boot program, manages all the other programs in a computer. The other programs are called applications or application programs. The application programs make use of the operating system by making requests for services through a defined application program interface (API). In addition, users can interact directly with the operating system through a user interface such as a command language or a graphical user interface (GUI).
Payment gateway	A combination of software and hardware that provides an interface to the bank card processing network. Typically Payment gateway is a company that provides the transaction-processing network that receives encrypted transactions from a merchant’s website and sends them to the card issuing bank for approval.
PC (Personal Computer)	In its more general usage, a PC (personal computer) is a computer designed for use by one person at a time. Prior to the PC, computers were designed for (and only affordable by) companies who attached terminals for multiple users to a single large computer whose resources were shared among all users. Beginning in the late 1980s, technology advances made it feasible to build a small computer that an individual could own and use. The term "PC" is also commonly used to describe an "IBM-compatible" personal computer in contrast to an Apple Macintosh computer.
Pentium	The Pentium is a widely-used personal computer microprocessor from the Intel Corporation. First offered in 1993, the Pentium quickly replaced Intel's 486 microprocessor as the microchip-of-choice in manufacturing a personal computer. The original Pentium model includes two processors on one chip that contains 3.1 million transistors.
Plug-in	Plug-in applications are programs that can easily be installed and used as part of your Web browser. Initially, the Netscape browser allowed you to download, install, and define supplementary programs that played sound or motion video or performed other functions. These were called helper applications. However, these applications run as a separate application and require that a second window be opened. A plug-in application is recognized automatically by the browser and its function is integrated into the main HTML file that is being presented.
Project	An undertaking that encompasses a set of tasks or activities having a definable starting point and well defined objectives. Usually each task has a planned completion data (due date) and assigned resources.
PHP	The PHP Hypertext Preprocessor is a programming language that allows web developers to create dynamic content that interacts with databases. PHP is basically used for developing web based software applications.
Server	1) In information technology, a server is a computer program that provides services to other computer programs (and their users) in the same or other computers. 2) The computer that a server program runs in is also frequently referred to as a server (though it may be used for other purposes as well). 3) In the client/server programming model, a server is a program that awaits and fulfills requests from client programs in the same or other computers. A given application in a computer may function as a client with requests for services from other programs and also as a server of requests from other programs. Specific to the Web, a Web server is the computer program (housed in a computer) that serves requested HTML pages or files. A Web client is the requesting program associated with the user. The Web browser in your computer is a client that requests HTML files from Web servers.
Shopping cart	Software that operates on an online storefront. The "shopping cart" keeps track of all the items that a buyer wants to purchase, allowing the shopper to pay for the whole order at once.
SOAP	Simple Object Access Protocol. A protocol that describes a model for packing XML enquiries and responses. SOAP messaging is used to enable exchange of a variety of XML information between server and client computers.
SQL	SQL (Structured Query Language) is a standard interactive and programming language for getting information from and updating a database. Although SQL is both an ANSI and an ISO standard, many database products support SQL with proprietary extensions to the standard language. Queries take the form of a command language that lets you select, insert, update, find out the location of data, and so forth. There is also a programming interface.
Task	A piece of work that is part of the total work needed to accomplish a project. Also called an activity. A task usually has an expected duration and cost. A Project usually encompasses a number of tasks being implemented sequentially and/or simultaneously.
Trial	A period of free usage of a product or services. Usually provided by a vendor for evaluation purposes. The Customer usually does not pay for trial and makes the decision to purchase only if satisfied with a service or product during this trial period.
URL	This is the abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator, The addressing system used in the World Wide Web and other Internet resources. The URL contains information about the method of access, the server to be accessed and the path of any file to be accessed, e.g. http://www.servername.com/foldername/pagename.html
Visual Basic	Visual Basic (VB) is a programming environment from Microsoft in which a programmer uses a graphical user interface to choose and modify preselected sections of code written in the BASIC programming language. Since Visual Basic is easy to learn and fast to write code with, it's sometimes used to prototype an application that will later be written in a more difficult but efficient language. Visual Basic is also widely used to write working programs. Microsoft says that there are at least 3 million developers using Visual Basic.
Web Based Software	A specific and relatively new class of software. All software components usually reside on a web server. Access to the web based software application is through a web-browser, the web based software only needs to be installed on one web server machine. Users can gain quick and timely access to a wider variety of existing information, anytime, and from anywhere in the world.
Web server	A computer, including software package, that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers. More specifically, a server is a computer that manages and shares web based applications accessible anytime from any computer connected to the Internet.
XML	Acronym for Extensible Markup Language. An open standard for exchanging structured documents and data over the Internet that was introduced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in November 1996.

PHP Definition

2008-05-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

The PHP Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP -- yes, the first "P" in the acronym does indeed stand for PHP!) allows web developers to create dynamic content that interacts with databases. PHP applications are normally found on Linux servers and in conjunction with MySQL databases. It provides those servers with functionality similar to that provided to the Windows platform by Active Server Pages technology.

.NET Definition

2008-05-04T01:44:00.000-07:00

.NET is both a business strategy from Microsoft and its collection of programming support for what are known as Web services, the ability to use the Web rather than your own computer for various services. Microsoft's goal is to provide individual and business users with a seamlessly interoperable and Web-enabled interface for applications and computing devices and to make computing activities increasingly Web browser-oriented. The .NET platform includes servers; building-block services, such as Web-based data storage; and device software. It also includes Passport, Microsoft's fill-in-the-form-only-once identity verification service. The .NET platform is expected to provide:

The ability to make the entire range of computing devices work together and to have user information automatically updated and synchronized on all of them
Increased interactive capability for Web sites, enabled by greater use of XML (Extensible Markup Language) rather than HTML
A premium online subscription service, that will feature customized access and delivery of products and services to the user from a central starting point for the management of various applications, such as e-mail, for example, or software, such as Office .NET
Centralized data storage, which will increase efficiency and ease of access to information, as well as synchronization of information among users and devices
The ability to integrate various communications media, such as e-mail, faxes, and telephones.
For developers, the ability to create reusable modules, which should increase productivity and reduce the number of programming errors

According to Bill Gates, Microsoft expects that .NET will have as significant an effect on the computing world as the introduction of Windows. One concern being voiced is that although .NET's services will be accessible through any browser, they are likely to function more fully on products designed to work with .NET code. The full release of .NET is expected to take several years to complete, with intermittent releases of products such as a personal security service and new versions of Windows and Office that implement the .NET strategy coming on the market separately. Visual Studio .NET is a development environment that is now available. Windows XP supports certain .NET capabilities.

Wireless Mesh Definition

2008-05-04T01:42:00.000-07:00

Wireless mesh technology was developed for the US Defense Department. Basically, it was a way for tanks on the battle field to communicate with one another and a central system. Each tank was an access point (AP). An AP would talk to its nearest AP who would relay the messages to another close AP, passing messages up and down the line. The network was smart in that you could take out one tank and it would heal itself, finding the shortest way back to the central command center.

Today, wireless mesh has evolved. Most mesh technologies still use a single radio for sending the information up and down the network as well as connect with a customer device like a phone or internet connection. In practical terms, this limits the speed (bandwidth) of the network, and also means that the system can go no further than 3 hops before it needs to find a connection into the internet fiber backbone as a single radio system loses, on an average, about two thirds of its speed over three hops.

WiMax and cellular technology systems are based on the single cell tower system. Mesh uses small radios or access points which are much cheaper to deploy and which connect to each other with many possible routes, passing information up and down the system.

WiMAX Definition

2008-05-04T01:41:00.001-07:00

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a communications technology that uses radio spectrum to transmit tens of megabits per second in bandwidth between digital devices such as laptop computers. Similar to WiFi, WiMAX brings with it the ability to transmit over far greater distances and to handle much more data. WiMAX was developed by equipment manufacturers, service providers, and software companies around the world all of who were motivated to ensure that equipment, regardless of who made it, would will interoperate. In practice, WiMax will likely be made available to consumers by companies such as Cingular and Verizon. These companies have purchased the necessary rights to the radio spectrum and are building nationwide networks. WiMAX will coexist as a radio capability on the mobile computer, along with other radio technologies such as wireless fidelity and third-generation (3G), for many years.

JPEG Definition

2008-05-04T01:40:00.000-07:00

JPEG (pronounced jay-peg) is a commonly used method of compressing photographic images. The compression algorithm is "lossy" in that information is removed from the image to assist with decreasing the file size. The greater the compression, the more information is discarded. Files that have undergone jpeg compression usually have extensions such as .jfif, .jpeg, or jpg.

The name stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG itself specifies only how an image is transformed into a stream of bytes, but not how those bytes are encapsulated in any particular storage medium. JPEG is the most common format used for storing and transmitting photographs on the World Wide Web. It is not as well suited for line drawings and other textual or iconic graphics because its compression method performs badly on these types of images (it is better to use the PNG and GIF formats for such purposes.

Most digital cameras also create files that are in JPEG format. A testament to the popularity of the standard.

Virus Definitions

2008-05-04T01:38:00.000-07:00

Antivirus programs use a handful of techniques to identify viruses. The oldest and most common method is through the use of virus definitions. When a virus is discovered, antivirus vendors examine and look for all the changes it makes to a system. These changes can include modifying files, creating new files, and updating the system registry. All of these changes together form a list that can be used to identify the virus on other computers. This list is called a virus definition. Because viruses are created and modified all of the time, new virus definitions are created. Thus, part of the routine of checking for viruses involves downloading the new list. Unfortunately for consumers, virus definitions aren't interchangeable between programs and so you need to visit the vendor's web site or use the built-in update feature.

iPod Definition

2008-05-04T01:34:00.001-07:00

An iPod is a palm-sized, electronic device primarily created to play music. Unlike a traditional walkman or portable CD-player, the iPod is capable of storing a large number of tracks and playing for many, many hours on a single battery charge. The iPod owes much of its success not in what it does, but in how it does it. Apple, the creator of the iPod, seems to have found the perfect combination of simplicity and functionality. Plus, a clever marketing campaign and Apple's ongoing efforts to remain relevant, resulted in the iPod striking a chord with the right demographic in a way that no other portable music player has in recent times.

Utility Computing Definition

2008-05-04T01:32:00.000-07:00

Utility computing refers to the ability of companies to access computing services, business processes, and applications from a utility-like service over a network. The idea being that if a company has to pay only for what it is using then it will be able to save money. While the company offering utility computing services can benefit from economies of scale by using the same infrastructure to service multiple clients. The alternative is to buy hardware that can handle peak loads, but is often using something along the lines of 15% of available resources. Utility computing is the evolutionary step up from Application Service Providers. The underlying technology for utility computing is grid computing -- the network of connected storage and CPUs from multiple systems into a centrally managed, but flexible computing environment.

TQM Definition

2008-05-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management approach that aims for long-term success by focussing on customer satisfaction. TQM is based on the participation of all members of an organization in improving processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work.

Definition of Software

2008-05-04T01:29:00.002-07:00

Software refers to something intangible. Although often of great value, software can't be picked up or weighed. However, software is the required to make hardware do anything. Likewise, software needs hardware to be of any value.

Typical examples of software include the web browser you're using to read this page, the web hosting software used to show you this page, and the operating system (Windows, Mac) that you interact with whenever you use your computer.

GIF Definition

2008-05-04T01:29:00.001-07:00

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is a bitmap image format for pictures with up to 256 distinct colours. The format was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web. GIFs are compressed files, and were adopted to reduce the amount of time it takes to transfer images over a network connection.

A GIF file employs lossless data compression so that the file size of an image may be reduced without degrading the visual quality. Contrast this to the JPEG file format which discards data to achieve file size reductions. The GIF format's 256-colour limitation makes it unsuitable for photographs. Therefore, GIF is normally used for diagrams, buttons, and drawings, that have a small number of colors, while the JPEG format is used for photographs.

Many software vendors were caught by surprise when it was revealed that the GIF format had been patented by Unisys and that they would have to pay royalties for writing programs that generated (or displayed) GIF files. The desire for a comparable format with fewer legal restrictions (as well as fewer technical restrictions such as the number of colours) led to the development of the PNG (Portable Network Graphics) standard. Although the GIF patents will expire in the near future, PNG is still touted as a technically superior alternative, and has become the third most common image format on the web.

Definition of Supply Chain Management

2008-05-04T01:27:00.000-07:00

Supply chain management (SCM) is the oversight of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Supply chain management involves coordinating and integrating these flows both within and among companies. It is said that the ultimate goal of any effective supply chain management system is to reduce inventory (with the assumption that products are available when needed). As a solution for successful supply chain management, sophisticated software systems with Web interfaces are competing with Web-based application service providers (ASP) who promise to provide part or all of the SCM service for companies who rent their service. Supply chain management flows can be divided into three main flows:

The product flow
The information flow
The finances flow

The product flow includes the movement of goods from a supplier to a customer, as well as any customer returns or service needs. The information flow involves transmitting orders and updating the status of delivery. The financial flow consists of credit terms, payment schedules, and consignment and title ownership arrangements. There are two main types of SCM software: planning applications and execution applications. Planning applications use advanced algorithms to determine the best way to fill an order. Execution applications track the physical status of goods, the management of materials, and financial information involving all parties. Some SCM applications are based on open data models that support the sharing of data both inside and outside the enterprise (this is called the extended enterprise, and includes key suppliers, manufacturers, and end customers of a specific company). This shared data may reside in diverse database systems, or data warehouses, at several different sites and companies. By sharing this data "upstream" (with a company's suppliers) and "downstream" (with a company's clients), SCM applications have the potential to improve the time-to-market of products, reduce costs, and allow all parties in the supply chain to better manage current resources and plan for future needs. Increasing numbers of companies are turning to Web sites and Web-based applications as part of the SCM solution. A number of major Web sites offer e-procurement marketplaces where manufacturers can trade and even make auction bids with suppliers.

Ethernet Definition

2008-05-04T01:26:00.000-07:00

Ethernet is a network standard for data transmission using either coaxial or twisted pair cable. In the LAN (local area network) world, ethernet is the most widely used standard. Until recently, ethernet ran at 10 megabits per second, but it is just as common now for ethernet-based systems to run at 100 megabits per second. Still newer systems have been developed to transfer data at 1000 megabits per second (equivalent to a gigabit). While ethernet isn't going away any time soon, the last few feet between users and the network is rapidly being serviced by wireless technologies. Wireless offers greater flexibility to the user, but is much slower than Ethernet.

Definition of Sarbanes Oxley

2008-05-04T01:24:00.000-07:00

The Sarbanes Oxley Act is a set of rules put together by the US government in an effort to improve a company's audit. These rules came about primarily due to the many corporate scandals that plagued the US not too long ago including some very high-profile cases such as Enron. Initially, Sarbanes Oxley was viewed as a finance issue, but it soon became apparent that IT systems were so integral to the storage and retrieval of financial data, that much of the burden for compliance shifted to the IT department. To make matters worse, companies found that instructions were vague and definitions of compliance could differ between companies. The July 1, 2005 issue of CIO Magazine identified these items as the top 5 IT control weaknesses as reported by auditors:

Failure to segregate duties within applications, and failure to set up new accounts and terminate old ones in a timely manner.
Lack of proper oversight for making application changes.
Inadequate review of audit logs.
Failure to identify abnormal transactions in a timely manner.
Lack of understanding of key system configurations.

Six Sigma Definition

2008-05-04T01:13:00.000-07:00

Six Sigma is a methodology developed by Motorola that describes how the management of product and service delivery should be implemented. The management processes emphasize setting extremely high objectives, collecting data, and analyzing results to a fine degree. Once you determine where the defects are in a process, you can work to reduce them. In order for a company to achieve Six Sigma, it cannot produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. The potential benefits of Six Sigma include up to 50% process cost reduction, cycle-time improvement, less waste of materials, a better understanding of customer requirements, increased customer satisfaction, and more reliable products and services. the largest drawback with Six Sigma is that it can be costly to implement and can take several years before results appear on a company's bottom-line Six Sigma is generally implemented in companies that manufacture products. For companies that are in the business of producing things that are less tangible such as software, the Capability Maturity Model is more often used.

Definition of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)

2008-05-04T01:08:00.001-07:00

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the industry term used to describe a broad set of activities supported by multi-module application software that helps a manufacturer or other business manage the important parts of its business. These parts can include product planning, parts purchasing, maintaining inventories, interacting with suppliers, providing customer service, and tracking orders. ERP can also include application modules for the finance and human resources aspects of a business. Some of the bigger players in the ERP outsourcing market are SAP, Peoplesoft, and J. D. Edwards. New comers include Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft.

SOA

2008-05-04T01:06:00.000-07:00

SOA (service oriented architecture) is not a product, although several vendors offer products which can form the basis of a SOA. Rather, SOA is an architecture for building software whose goal is to achieve loose coupling among interacting software agents. In less technical terms, your DVD player is an example of SOA. If you want to play it, you put your DVD into the DVD player and the player plays it for you. The DVD player offers a DVD playing service. This is good, because you can replace one DVD player with another. You can also play the same DVD in a portable player or even in friend's DVD player. All of these players offer the same DVD playing service, but the quality of service is different. That's SOA. The interface definition encapsulates (hides) the vendor and language-specific implementation. A SOA is independent of development technology (such as Java and .NET). The software components become very reusable because the interface is defined in a standards-compliant manner. So, for example, a C# (C Sharp) service could be used by a Java application. The promise of SOA is that it should help businesses respond more quickly and cost-effectively to changing market conditions through the use of existing IT assets rather than more time consuming and costly new development.

Database Definition

2008-05-04T01:04:00.000-07:00

In the broadest sense, a database is anything that stores data. A phone book, for instance, could be considered a database as it stores related pieces of information such as name and phone number. However, in the world of computers, a database usually refers to a collection of related pieces of information stored electronically. Aside from the ability to store data, a database also provides a way for other computer programs to quickly retrieve and update desired pieces of data. The central concept of a database is that of a collection of records, or pieces of knowledge. Typically, for a given database, there is a structural description of the type of facts held in that database: this description is known as a schema. The schema describes the objects that are represented in the database, and the relationships among them. There are a number of different ways of organizing a schema, that is, of modelling the database structure: these are known as database models (or data models). The most common model for a database is a relational model. These databases are organized by fields, records, and tables. A field is a single piece of information; a record is one complete set of fields; and a table is a collection of records. With this simple model, just about any relationship between any collection of data can be represented.

CRM Definition

2008-05-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is an information industry term for methodologies, software, and usually Internet capabilities that help an enterprise manage customer relationships in an organized and efficient manner. In many cases, an enterprise builds a database about its customers. This database describes relationships in sufficient detail so that management, salespeople, and customer service reps can access information; match customer needs with product plans and offerings; remind customers of service requirements; know what other products a customer had purchased; etc. There are three parts of application architecture of CRM.

1. Operational CRM

Operational CRM means supporting the so-called "front office" business processes, which include customer contact (sales, marketing and service). Tasks resulting from these processes are forwarded to employees responsible for them, as well as the information necessary for carrying out the tasks and interfaces to back-end applications are being provided and activities with customers are being documented for further reference.

2. Analytical CRM

In analytical CRM, data gathered within operational CRM are analyzed to segment customers or to identify cross- and up-selling potential. Data collection and analysis is viewed as a continuing and iterative process. Ideally, business decisions are refined over time, based on feedback from earlier analysis and decisions. Business Intelligence offers some more functionality as separate application software.

3. Collaborative CRM

Collaborative CRM facilitates interactions with customers through all channels (personal, letter, fax, phone, web, e-mail) and supports co-ordination of employee teams and channels. It is a solution that brings people, processes and data together so companies can better serve and retain their customers. The data/activities can be structured, unstructured, conversational, and/or transactional in nature. Collaborative CRM provides the following benefits:

Enables efficient productive customer interactions across all communications channels.
Enables web collaboration to reduce customer service costs.
Integrates call centers enabling multi-channel personal customer interaction.
Integrates view of the customer while interaction at the transaction level.

CRM has to two typical implementation methods: on-premise and on-demand/hosted. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages as described below. On-premise CRM is appropriate for:

Companies seeking to implement highly customized customer-management practices
Companies that need specialized data structures
Companies with complex or real-time integration requirements
Companies with available in-house IT resources and support systems
Companies who can afford the up-front capital investment and fixed costs
Companies who deal with sensitive data that don't want other parties to see

On-demand/hosted CRM is appropriate for:

Customers seeking to implement standard processes from a variety of industries and companies
Companies that are able to use standard data structures
Companies with more basic integration requirements
Companies with limited technical resources and support personnel
Companies seeking variable pricing and lower up-front costs
Companies dealing with nonproprietary data

Definition of ROM

2008-05-04T01:02:00.001-07:00

Read-only memory (ROM) refers to a storage technology that allows you to write data only once. After the data has been written, you can read it an unlimited number of times. Contrast this with random-access memory (RAM) that allows you to read and write data as many times as needed. Originally, the term ROM referred to memory chips. However, with the creation of other stored devices, the term is being used more widely. In particular, CD-ROM is used to distinguish CDs that can only be read and not written too.

Definition of RAM

2008-05-04T00:59:00.000-07:00

Random-access memory (RAM) refers to a storage technology that allows you to read and write data as many times as needed. Contrast this to ROM which allows data to be written once after which it permits only reading. RAM is typically erased when a computer is shut down, though some RAM chips maintain data indefinitely without electrical power. Technically, RAM devices are not limited to memory chips, and random-access memory as a storage format is not limited to use as working memory. In a broad sense, modern storage devices for long-term or secondary storage, including magnetic media and laser-readable CDs and DVDs, are forms of random-access memory.

Definition of CPU

2008-05-04T00:58:00.000-07:00

The CPU (central processing unit) is the part of a computer controls the interpretation and execution of instructions. Generally, the CPU is a single microchip, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. In the consumer desktop and laptop market, the CPU market is dominated by Intel, AMD, and IBM. These manufacturers supply the computer makers such as Dell, HP, and Apple. Due to its importance to every computing task, the speed of the CPU, usually measured in gigahertz (GHz) is the number that most vendors use in their marketing campaigns. In the past, the larger the number, the faster the computer could be expected to be. However, in recent years, the speed of the CPU has had less impact as other components of a computer take on more and more of the workload. Also, differences in technology mean that a slower chip that performs more calculations per cycle can actually be faster than a higher rate chip doing fewer calculations per cycle.

Client/Server Definition

2008-05-04T00:55:00.000-07:00

The term client/server describes one possible relationship between two software applications in which the client makes a service request from the server. The client/server relationship can apply to two programs running on a single computer or two programs running over a network. In the case of a network, the client/server model provides a convenient way to interconnect programs that are distributed efficiently across different locations. Computer transactions using the client/server model are very common and it is likely you are involved with such transactions almost daily. For example, to check your e-mail from your computer, a client program on your computer forwards your request to a server program at your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Once the server program has retrieved your e-mail, it forwards them to the client on your computer, which then allows you to read the e-mail. The client/server model has become one of the central ideas of network computing. Most business applications being written today use the client/server model. A distinction used to be made between client/server applications and internet-based applications. However, that distinction is being blurred such that even internet-based applications are beginning to make use of the client/server model. Using Visual Basic and SQL Server (or Oracle), I've built complex and highly-scalable client/server based systems for well-known international companies. Read more about the software I wrote and my role as a COMPUTER PROGRAMMER for MASTER CARD INTERNATION....

MasterCard International: Phase I

The Challenge: Worry-Free Data Synchronization

As part of the cost saving initiatives of the merger between Master card and Europay, my team was responsible for consolidating the data in two different systems. Although the data seemed similar from a high-level perspective, the fact that each database was designed and maintained by two different teams meant that there were significant technical obstacles.

The Solution: Automated, Maintenance-Free Data Synchronizer

The first step in consolidating the data and eliminating redundancy was to identify the business need for every piece of data stored by both systems. Because the existing systems were used in a production environment for many years and used by many people, it was necessary to interview many business owners both in the US and Brussels (Europay).

Once the mapping was complete, it became my responsibility to architect an application that, without user intervention, could keep data synchronized in both systems on a nightly basis. This systems was completed at the end of 2002 and has been running error free since then.

What They're Saying

"Whatever you're doing keep doing it. I haven't heard a single complaint and that's good."
- J. Bean, Project Leader

Radio Frequency ID (RFID) Definition

2008-05-04T00:54:00.001-07:00

Radio frequency ID also known more commonly as RFID is a relatively new technology that promises to change the way inventories are managed. An RFID device can vary in size depending on what it is being attached to. Small, individual products would have small devices whereas large items such as shipping contains would likely have a larger RFID device attached to them. The RFID device transmits a signal when it is activated by an RFID receiver. Depending on the device, this signal can have a range as short as 6 feet or as great as 90 feet. The data transmitted can include various product identifiers of value to the manufacturer, shipper, or purchaser. The signal emitted by an RFID device can help companies track the location and quantity of their inventory. Here are some examples of RFID use:

One idea that has surface recently is to have cash registers pick up the price of goods as a consumer approaches and have the total calculated without the consumer having to remove a single item from his basket.
New York's Jacobi Medical Center tried a pilot where 200 patients were given an RFID device. Doctors and nurses were able to pick up the patients name, gender, and age with a handheld device. With this information, the medical staff could retrieve patient data from a central server.
U.K. retailer Marks & Spencer is using RFID technology to track inventory. Reports from management indicate that inventory tasks that once took 8 hours can now be accomplished in 1 hour simply by waving a scanner over a rack of clothes.

It is these sorts of ideas that indicate that RFID devices will one day replace barcodes. However, obstacles still remain. The industry hasn't agreed on a uniform frequency for the tags or on a specific type of hardware or equipment to read the tags. The next generation of tags known as Gen 2 were released in the fall of 2005.

Definition of BMP

2008-05-04T00:53:00.000-07:00

BMP (short for bitmap) is a graphic format used internally by the Microsoft Windows graphics subsystem, and used commonly as a simple graphics file format on that platform. BMP files are usually not compressed, so they are typically much larger than compressed image file formats such as JPEG or PNG. Despite its shortcomings, the simplicity of BMP and its widespread use in Microsoft Windows and elsewhere, as well as the fact that this format is well-documented and free of patents, makes it a very common format. As such, many image programs are likely to be able to read in BMP files.

Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Definition

2008-05-04T00:50:00.000-07:00

The manufacturer of equipment that is used by another vendor as part of a larger product being marketed and sold by that vendor. Typical examples include hard drives, CD-ROMs, and RAM that are each manufactured by different companies, but are bundled together by a company like Dell or HP and sold as a complete computer system. In this examples, Dell and HP would be called value added resellers (VARs). Some companies like IBM are both OEMs and VARs. Sometimes OEM parts are sold directly to consumers (especially via ecommerce sites). These are generally less expensive than the equivalent, but branded versions of the same part.

Business Process Outsourcing Definition

2008-05-04T00:44:00.000-07:00

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is the act of giving a third-party the responsibility of running what would otherwise be an internal system or service. For instance, an insurance company might outsource their claims processing program or a bank might outsource their loan processing system. Other common examples of BPO are call centres and payroll outsourcing. Typically, companies that are looking at business process outsourcing are hoping to achieve cost savings by handing the work to a third-party that can take advantage of economies of scale by doing the same work for many companies. Or perhaps the cost savings can be achieved because labor costs are lower due to different costs of living in different countries. In exchange for the potential cost savings, the company in question must relinquish control over an aspect of their business which explains why business process outsourcing is often reserved for non-critical, non-core type of work.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Definition

2008-05-04T00:42:00.000-07:00

Optical character recognition (OCR) refers to the software used to convert letters and numbers that are non-editable into a format that can be edited. For example, a magazine article is something that can't be edited. Using OCR software, you could convert this article into a Microsoft Word document and then be able to change any of the words. Before being able to use OCR software, you will need to get the document in to an electronic format if it isn't already in one. This can be accomplished by scanning it. The higher the quality of the scan and the higher the contrast there is between the characters and the background, the more likely the OCR software will recognize the text. However, even the best of the consumer-grade OCR software isn't perfect so expect a few mistakes. Typical uses of optical character recognition software include processing checks, archiving library material, and letter sorting by the postal office. Optical character recognition (OCR) refers to the software used to convert letters and numbers that are non-editable into a format that can be edited. For example, a magazine article is something that can't be edited. Using OCR software, you could convert this article into a Microsoft Word document and then be able to change any of the words.

Before being able to use OCR software, you will need to get the document in to an electronic format if it isn't already in one. This can be accomplished by scanning it. The higher the quality of the scan and the higher the contrast there is between the characters and the background, the more likely the OCR software will recognize the text. However, even the best of the consumer-grade OCR software isn't perfect so expect a few mistakes.

Typical uses of optical character recognition software include processing checks, archiving library material, and letter sorting by the postal office.

Definition of Modem

2008-05-04T00:41:00.000-07:00

Modem is actually an odd acronym for Modulator-Demodulator. A modem takes a digital signal from your computer and converts to an analog signal so that it can be transferred through a phone line. This conversion is necessary because modems make use of regular phone lines which are analog. Newer technologies don't require this conversion, but more often than not, the term modem is still used. Since modems use phonelines, their transfer speeds are limited. The best modems can transmit data at approximately 56KB/s or maybe 112KB/s on a good day. That might seem like a lot except when you compare it to a typical corporate network or to broadband where speeds can easily reach 1000 KB/s.

Bluetooth Definition

2008-05-04T00:39:00.000-07:00

Bluetooth is a transmission specification for digital data exchange between 2 or more devices over short-range. This data can be anything including documents, images, and voice and the devices include PDAs, phones and desktop devices. The specific is an open standard allowing any one to take advantage of the opportunities it presents. Unlike other wireless transmissions technologies, Bluetooth is intended to be used by devices that are close to each other. For instance, a PDA could transfer data such as a phone number to a cellphone. A laptop could transfer data such as e-mails to a PDA. With this technology, the need for wires and proprietary file transfer software could be eliminated. Some examples of bluetooth applications are:

Wireless networking between desktops and laptops.
Bluetooth peripherals such as printers, mice, and keyboards.
Bluetooth cell phones have been sold in large numbers, and are able to connect to computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and, specifically, to hands free devices.
Certain mp3 players and digital cameras to transfer files to and from computers.
Bluetooth headsets for mobile phones.
Bluetooth car kits that allow users with Bluetooth-equipped cell phones to make use of some of the phone's features, such as making calls, while the phone itself can be left in a suitcase or in the boot/trunk, for instance.
For remote controls where infrared was traditionally used.

Definition of Biotechnology

2008-05-04T00:37:00.000-07:00

Biotechnology refers to the use of microorganisms such as bacteria or biological substances such as enzymes, to perform industrial or manufacturing processes. Although biotechnology seems new, it has been around for quite some time and has been used to produce drugs and synthesize hormones. Biotechnology has also been used to genetically alter bacteria for use with the cleanup of oils spills.

One area of biotechnology uses organisms to manufacture organic products such as beer and milk products. Biotechnology is also used to recycle, treat waste, clean up sites contaminated by industrial activities (bioremediation).

Another area of biotechnology doesn't use living organisms at all. Examples include DNA microarrays used in genetics and radioactive tracers used in medicine.

Modern biotechnology is often associated with the use of genetically altered microorganisms such as E. coli or yeast for the production of substances like insulin or antibiotics. Another promising new biotechnology application is the development of plant-made pharmaceuticals.

Definition of Information Technology

2008-05-04T00:32:00.000-07:00

In the broadest sense, information technology refers to both the hardware and software that are used to store, retrieve, and manipulate information. At the lowest level you have the servers with an operating system. Installed on these servers are things like database and web serving software. The servers are connected to each other and to users via a network infrastructure. And the users accessing these servers have their own hardware, operating sytem, and software tools.