That story was somewhat misleading. That connection is 50% owned by New Zealand's largest ISP Xtra, with the Aussies owning 40% and MSI WorldCom in the US getting the other 10%. I'm getting to a point - trust me =)
With the ownership like that, the bandwidth is also spread something like that, and the owners of each particular portion are able to sell it to whoever wants it. So my guess for the slowdown, is that the Aussie ISP is not the 40% owner and hence can't use the new Sothern Cross bandwidth.
As I recall, it was a Mac that gave the alien mothership the virus in Independance Day. Surprising really - I would've thought Windows would be the best for passing on virii - maybe running Outlook =)
(but then again, a 128kb/s MP3 wacks out music's treble and bass pretty badly too and that hasn't slowed down its acceptance).
Call me pedantic but if you remove any low freq components (particularly dc components) from a video signal you will seriously degrade it's performance. In a video signal, any colours that doesn't change much(eg. backgrounds etc...) are reproduced with lf. So this is a little like apples to oranges.
In my final year Electronic Engineering project we are building a microprocessor based webserver to control/monitor devices over a simple 1-Wire network (from Dallas Semiconductor) network. The micro is the TINI also from Dallas Semi and one of it's interfaces is a standard RS-232 serial port.
My point is this - I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to build a small (and cheap - thats why we're using it:-) system that allows device control using the computer and the TINI as a bridge to the 1-Wire network.
The 1-Wire network consists of a dasiy chain of devices using standard RJ11 networking gear. So this would be relatively cheap and easy to instal. And devices can talk to it using cheap 1-Wire interface modules (2 way for approx $10-$15 US) from Point Six Inc.
The TINI can also be used to send email - so maybe even some sort of alarm. If a button is pressed an email goes out asking for help.
Here's a copy of Palm's response to the PocketPC sent out to the Palm Delevepers Group. Basically they're not worried. They've had the Palm is dead line before .
Dear Palm Solution Providers:
We've received some questions from the Palm economy regarding what we think about the new version of Windows CE, which Microsoft calls Pocket PC. We expect that Microsoft will make a very big launch event and advertising campaign starting April 19, just as they did with the last version of Windows CE.
Just like last time, some industry analysts will announce that Palm is dead, because Microsoft's handheld has more PC features than Palm handhelds. And just like last time, when the smoke clears we think Palm will still be on top.
We don't ever underestimate a competitor, though. The market is too competitive and changes too fast. Besides, there's no question that Windows CE is less unpleasant than it used to be. So we'll continue to work hard to tell Palm's story, including the amazing array of great software and hardware products that you bring to the Palm platform.
Now that we're a public company, we have very aggressive plans to drive the long-term growth of the Palm platform. We'll be revealing more about those plans in the next several months. And in the meantime, we think we have a great story to tell about Palm and our partners today. Here's some of the information we'll be distributing. You'll see this reflected in new and more aggressive marketing campaigns this summer. If you get questions about Palm's competitiveness, we encourage you to pass this information along. And we'd like to hear from you if you have comments on this memo, or ideas on things that we could do better.
Please email your comments and suggestions to devinfo@palm.com with "Pocket PC feedback" in the subject title.
Thanks very much for your support of the Palm family.
And this from the reliable news source that gave us the pirest that baptises with a car battery - not to mention the woman with the 5 foot tongue.
Damn I hope McAfee have updated their algorithms - and ported to Linux!!!
Should we be celebrating hoax's?
on
Hoax-a-go-go!
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· Score: 3
I don't really think we should be celebrating hoax's as funny points of amusement. While they are for us (assuming your average/. reader can tell a hoax from a real prize of $1000 if you forward this on =)
It is precisely these hoax's that are worrying some folks and giving those people that want to regulate the internet some ammunition. I'm not saying we should dismiss them entirely but lauding them as wonderful forms of humour seems to just be asking for more trouble to me.
During the privatisation in the early 80's (where it seemed the entire world was watching our small country suddenly turn from the most socialist "western country" to the most free-market) our own State Owned Telephone company was sold off to Ameritech and one of the Bells (can never remember which;-).
As part of this, certain agreements were made in regards to future activities of the company:
Under the Kiwishare agreement, local calls would all be free - this has now been broken with Telecom NZ charging 2c per minute for local calls if they are Data to an ISP which is not a problem if you use Telecom as your ISP (incidently New Zealand's largest ISP). This is getting some major attention from the New Zealand Commerce Commission at the moment.
The toll's system would be open to competition. This has in fact happened and Clear Communications have been running as competition for some years now. Albeit as the biggest Telecom customer as they rent the lines of Telecom.
To get a little more on topic:-) Telecom also offer a DSL service - but they are not the only business to do so. Paradise Net also offer it. I'm not sure how their arrangement works with Telecom but they have managed to get it for their customers.
For my final year project (Bachelor in Electronic Engineering at Auckland University) I am constructing a microprocessor based webserver for exactly this sort of application. The remote control of home apliances etc...
One of the main goals of this project is the implementation of security - the system has to be accessed remotely from cell-phones and/or laptops over wireless internet links so that is why I chose the native java TINI micro from Dallas Semi. The java lets us specify some pretty strong security at the server level - and since it is server side and the processor is native java it isn't even too slow =)
As an aside - the java also makes the implementation of basic webpages that are readible by cellphones/pda's using WML, WAP or HDML quite easy to do. This is another goal for the project - so the yuppies *grin* that can afford to fit out their house with this system can access it in the Mercedes over their cellphone and open the door/turn off the alarm etc...
It's all well and good to talk about how good the system is, or how old the database or how good the search algorithm is - but the main point is that they are not tracing you. They don't want to know where you are from so they can target you with advertising or sell your info off to some mass marketers. With the internet becoming more commercial this is becoming rarer - especially now that the gov't is also trying to take our liberty away as well. Good on you TopClick.
Well it's good to see this part of the hemisphere get some international coverage. In New Zealand Linux is certainly becoming popular - for example it's the main OS on the servers in the Electrical Engineering Dept at Auckland University (where I am a student.) Yes we still have Windows installed - gotta play Minesweeper on something:-) Hopefully this exposure will waken the world to the IT going's on downunder. Films like the Matrix have helped to the extent that the gov'ts here are realising the potential. Many in New Zealand are wanting to promote NZ as an IT rich country, to try and get mainstream IT companies down here as a lifestyle choice. Better weather, lower crime rates etc... I for one would like to see that.
With New Zealand's relatively small supply of IT personnal - companies are offering stock options to encourage both company loyalty and to entice new staff. If in fact this IT stock bubble bursts I think the entire industry will be severly damaged. Many people are leaving for the US as it is.
I for one like the competition to Intel's domination of the high-end processor market. In a relatively short space of time (since the Athlon release) wehave seen "fast" processor's come out at a rapid rate and at a quickly reducing price. And this leads me to a couple of questions...
1) Assuming AMD can maintain their product releases to leapfrog Intel, I am wondering how long Moore's Law will last.
2) Intel keep showcasing exceptionally fast processor's dipped in oil and outside of a working case - so will these start coming to market quicker than usual.
Hmmm I think this whole caught before the act thing is kind of odd. How can you be guilty before you have actually done anything. And the article itself does state there are exceptions to the patterns that the computer is looking for. Sounds like a breach of personal liberties to me - being presumed guilty before committing any act.
As a site builder I have a variety of different browsers that i use to check my code (I use real HTML, none of this WYSIWYG for me:-). And one of the biggest problems is the varying amount tags that any one browser understands.
I am now trying to strictly use style sheets and none of the deprecated tags, but with IE and Communicator still not accepting all of them it is hard, and these are the browsers that most of the public are using.
eg.a problems with Communicator - obscure method of embedding tags (non-W3C) and a problem with IE - still doesn't understand blink.
So thats first on my wishlist, certainly would make my job easier.
Is Microsoft really as bad as everyone makes out. Sure it is fun to bag them for money hungry, heartless bean counters that make crap products. But it must be remembered that a lot of there products have brought the masses (for better or worse) easy *sic* to operate computers with easy to use software.
Surely breaking up MS will have a detrimental eefect on the company. And if we want to advance technology wise into the future surely we want to encourage all technology companies. I realise that MS may have been malicious in the past but surely that can be reconciled without seriously harming a company that has brought the home PC to the masses.
PS. I wonder what word-processor this consult the DoJ have hired will use to type up his recommendation. $10 says its MSWord...
It seems odd to me that the locations of a lot of the new up and coming Special Effects firms are in areas not traditionally noted for their technology. Look at the Matrix FX, done in Sydney (Australia) and Hercules & Xena's FX are done in New Zealand.
IMHO I think this is because the governments of these smaller coutries are realising how to get ahead in the ever changing world and are promtoing technology and so there are a lot of talented people coming through with new ideas - and these are being noticed by film companies.
The name Crusoe could be a suggestion at what the developers think of their new chip. Being seperate from the rest of the manufacturers but close enough that it is still reminiscent of what users are comfortable with.
A new platform that runs native Linux and without all the flaws and inherited legacy hardware in the INTEL architecture, sounds good to me:-)
With the popularity of 'super'cooling your PC so it can be overclocked becoming more popular, I am wondering whether Intel/AMD etc... will have any response to it. With all this extra speed available at a low price, all these new, super quick processors are looking far too expensive. All we need now, is a major manufacturer to release an overclocked computer:-)
Slashdot Mirror
With the ownership like that, the bandwidth is also spread something like that, and the owners of each particular portion are able to sell it to whoever wants it. So my guess for the slowdown, is that the Aussie ISP is not the 40% owner and hence can't use the new Sothern Cross bandwidth.
As I recall, it was a Mac that gave the alien mothership the virus in Independance Day.
Surprising really - I would've thought Windows would be the best for passing on virii - maybe running Outlook =)
Call me pedantic but if you remove any low freq components (particularly dc components) from a video signal you will seriously degrade it's performance. In a video signal, any colours that doesn't change much(eg. backgrounds etc...) are reproduced with lf.
So this is a little like apples to oranges.
My point is this - I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to build a small (and cheap - thats why we're using it :-) system that allows device control using the computer and the TINI as a bridge to the 1-Wire network.
The 1-Wire network consists of a dasiy chain of devices using standard RJ11 networking gear. So this would be relatively cheap and easy to instal. And devices can talk to it using cheap 1-Wire interface modules (2 way for approx $10-$15 US) from Point Six Inc.
The TINI can also be used to send email - so maybe even some sort of alarm. If a button is pressed an email goes out asking for help.
I'm also seeing a decent soundtrack and a hot young starlet to keep us all interested - probably wouldn't hurt their funding either.
Maybe they should try something inert - like Helium =)
Damn I hope McAfee have updated their algorithms - and ported to Linux!!!
It is precisely these hoax's that are worrying some folks and giving those people that want to regulate the internet some ammunition. I'm not saying we should dismiss them entirely but lauding them as wonderful forms of humour seems to just be asking for more trouble to me.
As part of this, certain agreements were made in regards to future activities of the company:
To get a little more on topic :-) Telecom also offer a DSL service - but they are not the only business to do so. Paradise Net also offer it. I'm not sure how their arrangement works with Telecom but they have managed to get it for their customers.
One of the main goals of this project is the implementation of security - the system has to be accessed remotely from cell-phones and/or laptops over wireless internet links so that is why I chose the native java TINI micro from Dallas Semi.
The java lets us specify some pretty strong security at the server level - and since it is server side and the processor is native java it isn't even too slow =)
As an aside - the java also makes the implementation of basic webpages that are readible by cellphones/pda's using WML, WAP or HDML quite easy to do. This is another goal for the project - so the yuppies *grin* that can afford to fit out their house with this system can access it in the Mercedes over their cellphone and open the door/turn off the alarm etc...
It's all well and good to talk about how good the system is, or how old the database or how good the search algorithm is - but the main point is that they are not tracing you. They don't want to know where you are from so they can target you with advertising or sell your info off to some mass marketers. With the internet becoming more commercial this is becoming rarer - especially now that the gov't is also trying to take our liberty away as well. Good on you TopClick.
An exam I took last year - Stage Three Electrical Engineering :-)
Well it's good to see this part of the hemisphere get some international coverage. In New Zealand Linux is certainly becoming popular - for example it's the main OS on the servers in the Electrical Engineering Dept at Auckland University (where I am a student.) Yes we still have Windows installed - gotta play Minesweeper on something :-) Hopefully this exposure will waken the world to the IT going's on downunder. Films like the Matrix have helped to the extent that the gov'ts here are realising the potential. Many in New Zealand are wanting to promote NZ as an IT rich country, to try and get mainstream IT companies down here as a lifestyle choice. Better weather, lower crime rates etc... I for one would like to see that.
With New Zealand's relatively small supply of IT personnal - companies are offering stock options to encourage both company loyalty and to entice new staff. If in fact this IT stock bubble bursts I think the entire industry will be severly damaged. Many people are leaving for the US as it is.
I for one like the competition to Intel's domination of the high-end processor market. In a relatively short space of time (since the Athlon release) wehave seen "fast" processor's come out at a rapid rate and at a quickly reducing price.
And this leads me to a couple of questions...
1) Assuming AMD can maintain their product releases to leapfrog Intel, I am wondering how long Moore's Law will last.
2) Intel keep showcasing exceptionally fast processor's dipped in oil and outside of a working case - so will these start coming to market quicker than usual.
Hmmm I think this whole caught before the act thing is kind of odd. How can you be guilty before you have actually done anything. And the article itself does state there are exceptions to the patterns that the computer is looking for.
Sounds like a breach of personal liberties to me - being presumed guilty before committing any act.
As a site builder I have a variety of different browsers that i use to check my code (I use real HTML, none of this WYSIWYG for me :-). And one of the biggest problems is the varying amount tags that any one browser understands.
I am now trying to strictly use style sheets and none of the deprecated tags, but with IE and Communicator still not accepting all of them it is hard, and these are the browsers that most of the public are using.
eg.a problems with Communicator - obscure method of embedding tags (non-W3C) and a problem with IE - still doesn't understand blink.
So thats first on my wishlist, certainly would make my job easier.
Is Microsoft really as bad as everyone makes out. Sure it is fun to bag them for money hungry, heartless bean counters that make crap products.
But it must be remembered that a lot of there products have brought the masses (for better or worse) easy *sic* to operate computers with easy to use software.
Surely breaking up MS will have a detrimental eefect on the company.
And if we want to advance technology wise into the future surely we want to encourage all technology companies. I realise that MS may have been malicious in the past but surely that can be reconciled without seriously harming a company that has brought the home PC to the masses.
PS. I wonder what word-processor this consult the DoJ have hired will use to type up his recommendation. $10 says its MSWord...
It seems odd to me that the locations of a lot of the new up and coming Special Effects firms are in areas not traditionally noted for their technology. Look at the Matrix FX, done in Sydney (Australia) and Hercules & Xena's FX are done in New Zealand.
IMHO I think this is because the governments of these smaller coutries are realising how to get ahead in the ever changing world and are promtoing technology and so there are a lot of talented people coming through with new ideas - and these are being noticed by film companies.
The name Crusoe could be a suggestion at what the developers think of their new chip. Being seperate from the rest of the manufacturers but close enough that it is still reminiscent of what users are comfortable with.
:-)
A new platform that runs native Linux and without all the flaws and inherited legacy hardware in the INTEL architecture, sounds good to me
Like if Bill Gates had realised that 640k RAM wouldn't be enough for everyone.
With the popularity of 'super'cooling your PC so it can be overclocked becoming more popular, I am wondering whether Intel/AMD etc... will have any response to it. With all this extra speed available at a low price, all these new, super quick processors are looking far too expensive. :-)
All we need now, is a major manufacturer to release an overclocked computer