Technology Buff Cafe ;)

2008-07-30T06:26:00.000-07:00

10 Reasons Why the InternetIs No Substitute for a Library
By Mark Y. Herring

Dean of library servicesDacus LibraryWinthrop UniversityRock Hill, South Carolina
Reading, said the great English essayist Matthew Arnold, “is culture.” Given the condition of reading test scores among school children nationwide, it isn’t surprising to find both our nation and our culture in trouble. Further, the rush to Internetize all schools, particularly K–12, adds to our downward spiral. If it were not for the Harry Potter books one might lose all hope who languishes here. Then, suddenly, you realize libraries really are in trouble, grave danger, when important higher-education officials opine, “Don’t you know the Internet has made libraries obsolete?” Gadzooks! as Harry himself might say.

In an effort to save our culture, strike a blow for reading, and, above all, correct the well-intentioned but horribly misguided notions about what is fast becoming Intertopia among many nonlibrarian bean counters, here are 10 reasons why the Internet is no substitute for a library.

Not Everything Is on the Internet
With over one billion Web pages you couldn’t tell it by looking. Nevertheless, very few substantive materials are on the Internet for free. For example, only about 8% of all journals are on the Web, and an even smaller fraction of books are there. Both are costly! If you want the Journal of Biochemistry, Physics Today, Journal of American History, you’ll pay, and to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Needle (Your Search) in the Haystack (the Web)
The Internet is like a vast uncataloged library. Whether you’re using Hotbot, Lycos, Dogpile, Infoseek, or any one of a dozen other search or metasearch engines, you’re not searching the entire Web. Sites often promise to search everything but they can’t deliver. Moreover, what they do search is not updated daily, weekly, or even monthly, regardless of what’s advertised. If a librarian told you, “Here are 10 articles on Native Americans. We have 40 others but we’re not going to let you see them, not now, not yet, not until you’ve tried another search in another library,” you’d throw a fit. The Internet does this routinely and no one seems to mind.

Quality Control Doesn’t Exist
Yes, we need the Internet, but in addition to all the scientific, medical, and historical information (when accurate), there is also a cesspool of waste. When young people aren’t getting their sex education off XXX-rated sites, they’re learning politics from the Freeman Web page, or race relations from Klan sites. There is no quality control on the Web, and there isn’t likely to be any. Unlike libraries where vanity press publications are rarely, if ever, collected, vanity is often what drives the Internet. Any fool can put up anything on the Web, and, to my accounting, all have.

What You Don’t Know Really Does Hurt You
The great boon to libraries has been the digitization of journals. But full-text sites, while grand, aren’t always full.

What you don’t know can hurt you:
articles on these sites are often missing, among other things, footnotes;
tables, graphs, and formulae do not often show up in a readable fashion (especially when printed); and journal titles in a digitized package change regularly, often without warning.
A library may begin with X number of journals in September and end with Y number in May. Trouble is, those titles aren’t the same from September to May. Although the library may have paid $100,000 for the access, it’s rarely notified of any changes. I would not trade access to digitized journals for anything in the world, but their use must be a judicious, planned, and measured one, not full, total, and exclusive reliance.

States Can Now Buy One Book and Distribute to Every Library on the Web—NOT!
Yes, and we could have one national high school, a national university, and a small cadre of faculty teaching everybody over streaming video. Let’s take this one step further and have only digitized sports teams for real savings! (Okay, I know, I’ve insulted the national religion.) Since 1970 about 50,000 academic titles have been published every year. Of these 1.5 million titles, fewer than a couple thousand are available. What is on the Net are about 20,000 titles published before 1925.

Why? No copyright restrictions that cause prices to soar to two or three times their printed costs. Finally, vendors delivering e-books allow only one digitized copy per library. If you check out an e-book over the Web, I can’t have it until you return it. Go figure, as they say. And if you’re late getting the book back, there is no dog-ate-my-homework argument. It’s charged to your credit card automatically.

Hey, Bud, You Forgot about E-book Readers
Most of us have forgotten what we said about microfilm (“It would shrink libraries to shoebox size”), or when educational television was invented (“We’ll need fewer teachers in the future”). Try reading an e-book reader for more than a half-hour. Headaches and eyestrain are the best results. Besides, if what you’re reading is more than two pages long, what do you do? Print it. Where’s a tree hugger when you really need one? Moreover, the cost of readers runs from $200 to $2,000, the cheaper ones being harder on the eyes. Will this change? Doubtless, but right now there’s no market forces making it change. Will it change in less than 75 years? Unlikely!

Aren’t There Library-less Universities Now?
No. The newest state university in California at Monterey opened without a library building a few years ago. For the last two years, they’ve been buying books by the tens of thousands because—surprise, surprise—they couldn’t find what they needed on the Internet. California Polytechnic State University, home of the world’s highest concentration of engineers and computer geeks, explored the possibility of a virtual (fully electronic) library for two years. Their solution was a $42-million traditional library with, of course, a strong electronic component. In other words, a fully virtualized library just can’t be done. Not yet, not now, not in our lifetimes.

But a Virtual State Library Would Do It, Right?
Do what, bankrupt the state? Yes, it would. The cost of having everything digitized is incredibly high, costing tens of millions of dollars just in copyright releases. And this buys only one virtual library at one university. Questia Media, the biggest such outfit, just spent $125 million digitizing 50,000 books released (but not to libraries!) in January. At this rate, to virtualize a medium-sized library of 400,000 volumes would cost a mere $1,000,000,000! Then you need to make sure students have equitable access everywhere they need it, when they need it. Finally, what do you do with rare and valuable primary sources once they are digitized? Take them to the dump? And you must hope the power never, ever goes out. Sure, students could still read by candlelight, but what would they be reading?

The Internet: A Mile Wide, an Inch (or Less) Deep
Looking into the abyss of the Internet is like vertigo over a void. But the void has to do not only with what’s there, but also with what isn’t. Not much on the Internet is more than 15 years old. Vendors offering magazine access routinely add a new year while dropping an earlier one. Access to older material is very expensive. It’ll be useful, in coming years, for students to know (and have access to) more than just the scholarly materials written in the last 10 to15 years.
The Internet Is Ubiquitous but Books Are Portable

In a recent survey of those who buy electronic books, more than 80% said they like buying paper books over the Internet, not reading them on the Web. We have nearly 1,000 years of reading print in our bloodstream and that’s not likely to change in the next 75. Granted, there will be changes in the delivery of electronic materials now, and those changes, most of them anyway, will be hugely beneficial. But humankind, being what it is, will always want to curl up with a good book—not a laptop—at least for the foreseeable future.

The Web is great; but it’s a woefully poor substitute for a full-service library. It is mad idolatry to make it more than a tool. Libraries are icons of our cultural intellect, totems to the totality of knowledge. If we make them obsolete, we’ve signed the death warrant to our collective national conscience, not to mention sentencing what’s left of our culture to the waste bin of history. No one knows better than librarians just how much it costs to run a library. We’re always looking for ways to trim expenses while not contracting service. The Internet is marvelous, but to claim, as some now do, that it’s making libraries obsolete is as silly as saying shoes have made feet unnecessary.

This article originally appeared in American Libraries, April 2001, p. 76–78.

No extension: Windows XP D-Day arrives Monday, June 30

2008-06-27T12:44:00.000-07:00

No extension: Windows XP D-Day arrives Monday, June 30

After delays, delays, and rumors of more delays, the era of Windows XP has finally reached its final hours. Microsoft has made it official: Monday, June 30 will be the last day Microsoft sells XP to the masses. In fact, some companies have already stopped offering XP as an option on new machines as they prep for the switchover.

Earlier rumors that Microsoft might extend the sales date have proven untrue, as Microsoft has reiterated that, indeed, June 30 will be the final sales date cut-off for the product. That's it. It's a Vista world now.
Loopholes will remain for some PC makers for some months to come, namely those who are building ultra-low-cost computers that aren't powerful enough for Vista. (Though some machines in this class, like HP's Mini-Note, actually come with Vista anyway.) For at least the rest of the year, downgrades remain an option for many PC purchasers too, though you'll have to jump through some hoops, and possibly pay extra, in order to get XP.

As I've written several times (and reassured many of you in email responses), XP fans needn't panic about the loss of XP. Even if you don't have a copy on hand, the product will be available through many channels for years to come (and likely forever), through both retail outlets and the aftermarket. As I type this, nearly 1,000 copies of XP are on sale on eBay, where they usually sell for less than $100.

In other news, Microsoft has recently pledged to keep supporting XP, including the release of security updates, all the way through 2014. So XP users needn't fret that you'll suddenly be victimized by hackers due to unpatched security flaws. Updates should work exactly as you're used to them currently through the Windows Update system.

source : yahoo news

Toshiba takes on MacBook Air, gamer laptops

2008-06-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

Latest Photo Galleries:

Toshiba is updating its notebook lineup with four new models including the Portege R500-S5007V, which is 0.77 inches thick and weighs 2.4 pounds. That's .01 inches thicker and 0.6 pounds lighter than the MacBook Air--although Portege's screen is 12.1 inches as compared to Air's 13.3 inches.

Toshiba claims the Portege R500-S5007V contains the world's first widescreen 12.1-inch indoor/outdoor transreflective LED?backlit display. The company says the Portege R500 battery will last for eight hours.

The Portege R500 series ships with a 7mm-DVD SuperMulti drive. Plus, the new Portege R500-S5007V contains what Toshiba says is the industry's largest solid-state drive capacity of 128GB.

The Portege R500-S5007V contains advanced encryption, multiple levels of passwords, and a fingerprint reader.

GAMING ZONE LAPTOP

Toshiba's Qosmio X305 is a powerful gaming laptop that uses a 17.1-inch diagonal widescreen monitor.

Qosmio X305 contains an Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX GPU, up to 1GB VRAM graphics memory, dual 400GB hard drives, and DDR3 RAM.

A flaming red cover makes the Qosmio X305 stand out.

Here's what the X305 looks like from the side.

Credit : toshiba

2008-06-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

iPhone 3G Unveiled at a Stellar Price Point

July 11 can't come soon enough. We now know that as the day when the oft-rumored iPhone 3G will land in US stores. Revealed earlier today during Steve Jobs' keynote address at the Apple WWDC, the iPhone 3G could very well turn the mobile phone market on its head with its laundry list of features and incredible price point. Here's a breakdown of the new device:

• 3G cellular network resulting in much faster download speeds compared to EDGE.

• GPS integrated with maps. Location-based software will redefine how we interact on the go, and Apple wants to be at the forefront.

• Enterprise support for push email, calendar, and contacts with Microsoft Exchange.

• MobileMe replaces Apple's .mac service as a personal version of Exchange, supporting push email, calendar, and contacts.

• Other miscellaneous details: iPhone 2.0 firmware, 300 hours of standby battery life, 8-10 hours of 2G talk battery life, 5 hours of 3G talk battery life, 7 hours of video battery life, 24 hours of audio battery life, all plastic back.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the new iPhone is its price: the 8GB model will cost only $199 with a contract, while a 16GB model will be available for $299. Having just picked up a Nokia N82 last week for almost double the price of an 8GB iPhone 3G, you'd better believe that sucker is getting returned for Apple's new hotness. Sure the camera is a downgrade, but at that price who cares? It makes you wonder how Nokia and other premium handset makers will adapt their pricing model, now that Apple is packing most of their features into a phone that generally costs about half the price. In the end, no one but the consumer benefits the most.

(Source: Apple iPhone)

Time for AMD to Take Their Ball and Go Home

Poor AMD. Two years ago, Intel's Core architecture was unveiled and it absolutely decimated AMD's offerings. They've been playing catch-up ever since. Though their latest release, Phenom, didn't go as smoothly as possible, they at least have a somewhat competitive offering for mid-range and low-end builds. Unfortunately, most users would still be better off going with an Intel branded processor. It seems that AMD's only hope would be for Intel to severely drop the ball with its new architecture, Nehalem, giving AMD time to release their own new architecture and become competitive.

Unfortunately for AMD, it appears that those hopes have been dashed. Intel has done it again if the latest numbers coming in from Computex in Taipei are any indicator. Anandtech got there hands on two samples, and their site is currently being hammered by all of the benchmark-hungry nerds. Here are Anand's conclusions:

First keep in mind that these performance numbers are early, and they were run on a partly crippled, very early platform. With that preface, the fact that Nehalem is still able to post these 20 - 50% performance gains says only one thing about Intel's tick-tock cadence: they did it.

We've been told to expect a 20 - 30% overall advantage over Penryn and it looks like Intel is on track to delivering just that in Q4. At 2.66GHz, Nehalem is already faster than the fastest 3.2GHz Penryns on the market today. At 3.2GHz, I'd feel comfortable calling it baby Skulltrail in all but the most heavily threaded benchmarks. This thing is fast and this is on a very early platform, keep in mind that Nehalem doesn't launch until Q4 of this year.

The fact that we're able to see these sorts of performance improvements despite being faced with a dormant AMD says a lot. In many ways Intel is doing more to improve performance today than when AMD was on top during the Pentium 4 days.

AMD never really caught up to the performance of Conroe, through some aggressive pricing we got competition in the low end but it could never touch the upper echelon of Core 2 performance. With Penryn, Intel widened the gap. And now with Nehalem it's going to be even tougher to envision a competitive high-end AMD CPU at the end of this year. 2009 should hold a new architecture for AMD, which is the only thing that could possibly come close to achieving competition here. It's months before Nehalem's launch and there's already no equal in sight, it will take far more than Phenom to make this thing sweat.

Time to pack up and head home, AMD. 2009 is going to be 2007 all over again, with consumers being foolish to buy anything running on AMD processors.

(Source: AnandTech)

GE to Introduce Holographic Storage by 2012, Stores 110 DVDs on Single Disc

Discovery Magazine has some juicy details about General Electric's plans to introduce a consumer-level holographic storage medium by 2012. A single CD-sized disc will be able to contain 1 terabyte of data, or the equivalent of 110 DVDs.

To store data holographically, a laser beam (1) is split in two (2). One half of the beam passes through an array of hundreds of thousands of gates (3). Each gate can be opened or closed to represent a binary 1 or 0. The gates either block or pass the beam, filtering it into a coded pattern, or signal. The other half of the beam, known as the reference beam, is bounced off a mirror (4), so that the reference beam and the signal beam encoded with digital information intersect somewhere within the plastic storage medium (5). Light waves from the two beams interfere with each other, imprinting into the plastic a hologram—a three-dimensional pattern. By varying the angle of the mirror, millions of holograms can be created in the same piece of plastic. To read data from storage, the reference beam alone is used to illuminate the hologram. The resulting image can be read by a sensor and converted back into 1s and 0s.

(Source: Discovery Magazine)

Spring cleaning for gadgets

2008-03-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

Spring cleaning for gadgets

In addition to doing those other things you ought to take care of twice a year (like changing your toothbrush and replacing your furnace air filter), spring is a good time to clean your gadgets and computers to ensure they keep running well and looking good.
It doesn't have to take hours and hours. Here are some tips for cleaning your gear efficiently.

Blast it outAnything you can physically open (primarily your desktop PCs) should be cleared of dust. Unplug your computer, remove the case, and take it outside. Get a can of compressed air and blow out all the dust bunnies, paying special attention to any fans in the case. Use quick, short bursts to avoid condensation.

Cleaning your laptop is especially important, as laptops have far less room for airflow and can overheat if they aren't kept free from dust. Use the compressed air's straw attachment to blow out the laptop's vents. Use it on your keyboard as well, to keep crumb buildup to a minimum.
Shine it upI hate it when people touch my laptop screen or TV, because of the smudges their filthy fingerprints leave. Fingerprints can quickly turn from a mere annoyance to a permanent problem if they're left there for long, as the oils have an uncanny habit of setting in and eventually becoming impossible to remove. (Nothing will ruin your HDTV experience faster than a bunch of kids' handprints overlaying your video, forever.)

I've yet to find anything better than Purosol, which I've recommended in the past, for cleaning off LCD screens, but any store-bought LCD screen cleaner should work, as long as it's alcohol-free.

Don't forget to clean your camera displays and cell phone screen, too. Those touchscreens (like the iPhone's) can get especially nasty, riding around in your pocket all day.
Repair your mediaScratched CDs and DVDs can be mended. A variety of solutions are available on the market, but the cleaning-paste-and-towel method has always provided the best results for me.

Clean the surface of your CD with dish detergent and water. If scratches remain, use a commercial scratch repair kit that includes a thick paste that you rub into the media, and a microfiber cloth to wipe it clean.

I've never tried the motorized solutions that spin your disc around electronically while cleaning it, but users have reported mixed results on how well these really work. More expensive units seem to get better reviews, but maybe readers can offer feedback on their experiences with these devices in the comments below.

Japanese study clears mobiles of brain cancer risk

2008-02-06T15:28:00.000-08:00

LONDON (Reuters) - Using a mobile phone does not increase your risk of brain cancer, according to a new Japanese study that is the first to consider the effects of radiation on different parts of the brain.

The finding adds to the growing body of evidence that mobile phones are safe.

Scientists at Tokyo Women's Medical University compared phone use in 322 brain cancer patients with 683 healthy people and found that regularly using a mobile did not significantly affect the likelihood of getting brain cancer.

They also studied the radiation emitted from different types of phones to assess the affect on different areas of the brain.

"Using our newly developed and more accurate techniques, we found no association between mobile phone use and cancer, providing more evidence to suggest they don't cause brain cancer," Naohito Yamaguchi, who led the research, said.

His team's findings were published in the British Journal of Cancer.

Scientists around the world have been monitoring the effects of radio-frequency fields on human health for around 60 years.

Public concern over the safety of mobile phones has grown as more and more adults and children rely on them for everyday communication, although the evidence to date has given the technology a clean bill of health.

Despite an explosion in mobile phone use around the world since the 1980s, the number of cases of brain cancer has hardly changed.

A few studies have shown an association between mobile phones and cancer but the majority have found no link. The largest study to date, involving 420,000 people, showed no association with any type of cancer, even after 10 years of use.

"So far, studies have shown no evidence that mobile use is harmful, but we can't be completely sure about their long-term effects. Research is still ongoing," said Lesley Walker, Cancer Research UK's director of cancer information.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Paul Bolding)

Microsoft's Yahoo Offer is The Biggest Tech Bid Ever !

2008-02-06T15:08:00.000-08:00

Microsoft offering to buy Yahoo

Yep you read right. The big M is offering to buy Yahoo in order to challenge (who else but) Google's dominance in the Internet search services and advertising. According to Bloomberg, Microsoft made a made an unsolicited USD44.6 billion offer for Yahoo! Inc and Yahoo has actually responded that they are evaluating the offer 'promptly'.

A screenshot of the news on Yahoo News

Considering that Google has dominated the Internet search and advertising market in the last few years, it isn't actually surprising that Microsoft would take action to stem their dominance. This offer for Yahoo however, is a bigger action taken than Microsoft than I expected.

We'll keep things updated here on this ongoing development so stay tuned for more.

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UPDATE 2 : about the planned merger

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=i2VYv3fh5vG4

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Microsoft-Yahoo Linkup May Shut Google Out of Display (Update2)

By Ari Levy and Elliot Blair Smith

Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- For the first time in four years, Google Inc. is feeling the heat of potential competition in the proposed combination of Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo! Inc.

Microsoft's $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo may slam another door in Google's so far unsuccessful attempt to expand beyond the four- line text advertisements that run alongside Internet search results. That's because Microsoft and Yahoo would control more than a quarter of the market for animated ads and colorful display banners at the top of Web pages.

With growth slowing in the market for text ads, Google set its sights on display and multimedia ads, where total U.S. sales will jump 60 percent by 2011 to $13.7 billion, according to researcher EMarketer Inc. Google has relied on search-linked ads for almost all of its $16.5 billion in annual sales and the sixfold increase in its stock since August 2004.

``Even though Google may be looking forward and seeing this world where they own online advertising, at this point they're really only owning one flavor,'' said Jon Gibs, vice president at the research firm Nielsen Online in New York. ``They really are going to be facing quite a giant in the other part of the display ad universe.''

Google shares have tumbled 11 percent since Microsoft's unsolicited bid for Yahoo Feb. 1, to the lowest since August, on concern the combination will curb growth. Quarterly profit for the Mountain View, California-based company also trailed analysts' estimates.

Microsoft said it is pursuing Yahoo to challenge Google for online ad sales, a market that may double to $80 billion worldwide by 2011. In the U.S., search ads will account for 40 percent of online promotions, compared with 33 percent for display and media spots. Analysts predict display revenue will become at least as profitable as search ads and say it's growing faster.

Failed Efforts

Google has been the most-used site for Web searches since January 2004, based on Nielsen data. Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt has failed to parlay that dominance into new markets. He tried selling ads for radio and TV commercials, and newspaper classified spots.

With Yahoo slumping and Microsoft unable to jumpstart Web ad sales, it started to look as if Google might have an easy shot at up-and-coming parts of the Web: ads dished out to Internet pages shown on mobile phones and video promotions.

In addition to its popular homepage, Yahoo owns the Flickr photo-sharing site and HotJobs employment site. It attracts millions of users to its finance and sports pages. Those are locations for marketers to showcase their brands.

As of November, Yahoo had the biggest share of the U.S. display market with 19 percent, according to Reston, Virginia- based ComScore Inc. Microsoft was third with 6.7 percent, behind News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media. Google had 1 percent.

New Leader

``When you put Yahoo and Microsoft together, what you get is a leader in display and branded advertising,'' said Jeffrey Donlon, who helps manage $18 billion at Manning & Napier Advisors Inc. in Fairport, New York, including Microsoft and Google shares. ``Yahoo brings some interesting content assets to the table that Google does not have.''

Yahoo hasn't responded to Microsoft's offer. Stanford Group Co. analyst Clayton Moran in Boca Raton, Florida, said Yahoo may seek a partnership with Google or a media company like News Corp. Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang told staff in an e-mail today that the board is still examining the Microsoft bid and other ``strategic alternatives.''

Yahoo's board is carefully evaluating the Microsoft proposal, spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said. Spokespeople Matt Furman at Google and Colleen Lacter at Microsoft declined to comment.

Yahoo, in Sunnyvale, California, fell 41 cents to $28.57 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft dropped 55 cents to $28.52. Google slid $5.09 to $501.71.

`Troubling Questions'

With display ads, Google can target Web users by placing banners and videos on other companies' sites. In some cases, marketers pay for placement and in others they pay when an ad is clicked.

Google has made moves into display and multimedia ads, with the $1.65 billion acquisition of the video site YouTube Inc. in 2006. Almost a third of all U.S. online video clips are viewed on YouTube, and Google sells ads in some videos. Companies including retailer Neiman Marcus Group Inc. and TV maker Royal Philips Electronics NV have rented out the YouTube homepage for a day.

Google followed by offering $3.1 billion for the display ad company DoubleClick Inc. in April, and has introduced ads with multimedia clips that show movie trailers and live news. The DoubleClick transaction is under review by European regulators. Microsoft opposes the deal, arguing it would give Google too much control of the Internet ad market.

No Oxygen

Microsoft's online revenue, mostly display ads, rose 38 percent to $863 million last quarter. More than 80 percent of Yahoo's $7 billion in annual sales come from online ads, and its display revenue rose 20 percent last quarter.

Google doesn't give figures for the search and display ad businesses. Credit Suisse analyst Heath Terry in New York says display and YouTube will contribute a combined $323 million in sales this year, or 2 percent of revenue, and will rise to $705 million, or 3 percent, in 2009.

``They're going to steal the oxygen from where Google is trying to grow,'' said Bill Gossman, CEO of Revenue Science Inc., a New York-based provider of targeted advertising.

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Microsoft may borrow money for Yahoo deal

Microsoft said Monday it may borrow money for the first time in its history to fund a portion of its $44.6 billion unsolicited offer for Yahoo.

Microsoft also said it expects Yahoo's board to agree to the proposed deal quickly, but Yahoo said over the weekend that it expects to take "quite a bit of time " to weigh all of its strategic options including remaining independent.

A source familiar with Yahoo's strategy said it is considering a business alliance with Google to fend off Microsoft's offer.

Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said the software company may issue some debt to finance the cash portion of its 50-50 stock and cash offer for Yahoo, instead of drawing down its entire $21 billion cash pile.

"It's likely we're actually going to borrow for the first time," Liddell said in an annual strategy meeting with analysts. "It's going to be a mixture of the cash we have on hand plus debt."

Liddell declined to say whether Microsoft was already buying Yahoo stock on the open market. He also did not give any information on what form of debt Microsoft will seek in the capital markets.

Microsoft made public on Friday its offer to pay Yahoo shareholders either $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. The deal aims to create a formidable No. 2 to challenge Google's dominance in Web search and digital advertising.

Analysts applauded Microsoft's decision to take on debt.

"Microsoft can probably get a lower price of debt than equity," said Kim Caughey, senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group. "I've often wondered why Microsoft sits on the pile of cash. It doesn't make a lot of financial sense."

Liddell, when asked why Microsoft chose to dilute its stock instead of making an all-cash offer, said analysts need to keep the offer in perspective with the $31 billion that Microsoft spent in share buybacks and dividends in fiscal 2007.

Microsoft shares fell 26 cents to $30.19 in Nasdaq trading, while Yahoo shares rose 95 cents to $29.33.

At the same meeting, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said the offer for Yahoo was generous and he expects Yahoo's board and shareholders to agree to the buyout quickly.

"We trust the Yahoo board and the Yahoo shareholders will join with us quickly in deciding to move down an integrated path," Ballmer said.

According to a source familiar with Yahoo's strategy, the company is mulling a business alliance with Google to rebuff Microsoft's proposal. It has also received preliminary contacts from media, technology, telecommunications and financial companies, another source close to Yahoo said.

Microsoft said combining with Yahoo would speed up the process of building a company capable of capturing 40 percent of the digital advertising market. Ballmer noted, however, that if the company was successful in its bid, it would continue to invest in building the business.

"We are on a path--we were on a path and we will stay on that path regardless," Ballmer said.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft emphasized that it expects to see strong growth from most of its business units. Liddell said he expects Microsoft's revenue to grow at a double-digit percentage in the coming fiscal year starting in July despite a potential U.S. economic slowdown.

Analysts, on average, forecast Microsoft's revenue to grow 10 percent to $66.4 billion in fiscal 2009 from an estimated $60.2 billion in the current year, according to Reuters Estimates.

Microsoft also said its first major update to Windows Vista was released to manufacturing. Usually, large organizations wait for the first major update before deploying a new operating system.

The release, known as Service Pack 1 (SP1), will contain improvements in security, reliability and performance. SP1 will be available in mid-March through Windows update in English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese.

source : CNET.com

Macbook Air - a new product from Macintosh

2008-02-02T17:09:00.000-08:00

Macbook Air Ad

MacBook Air - A guided Tour

2008-02-02T16:00:00.001-08:00

I wish i had this download speed ! ( drool ~~ )

Usenet Download World Record with UseNeXT - 674MB in 34s!

Microsoft Surface Parody ( sarcastic version of microsoft surface technology )

Vista install in 2 minutes

2007-10-24T18:39:00.001-07:00

Bill Gates Blue Screen of Death

2007-10-24T18:12:00.001-07:00

Bill Gates' Keynote on Windows Vista Launch

Bill Gates Introducing Microsoft Windows Vista on BBC News

Samsung Unveils 64GB Flash Memory Chip

2007-10-24T18:01:00.000-07:00

By combining a total of 16 separate 64Gb flash devices, businesses can create a 128GB flash storage device capable of holding up to 80 DVD movies or 32,000 MP3 music files. - Brian Fonseca, Computerworld

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Wednesday announced that it has built a 64Gbit NAND flash memory chip.

The new flash storage device utilizes 30-nanometer processing technology and was developed using Samsung's self-aligned double patterning technology (SaDPT), said Samsung officials.

The company said it plans to start manufacturing 30-nanometer 64Gb NAND flash devices during 2009. Samsung has already applied for as many as 30 patents for the new flash memory chip, officials said in a statement.

By combining a total of 16 separate 64Gb flash devices, businesses can create a 128GB flash storage device capable of holding up to 80 DVD movies or 32,000 MP3 music files, noted Samsung.

While some analysts have forecasted of somewhat sluggish NAND demand in 2007-2008, Gartner Inc has predicted that sales of 64Gb NAND flash and other higher density flash storage devices could reach US$20 billion by 2011.

Samsung said that its new double-pattern technology creates a wider-spaced circuit design of the target process in the first pattern transfer, and fills in the spaced area more closely with its second pattern transfer on the chip.

Samsung said it has also designed and constructed a 32Gb NAND flash storage chip using the same technology as its new 64Gb offering.

2007-09-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

Microsoft NEW Technology Microsoft Surface

Coolest Imaging and Social Technology EVER!

Discovery channel : Greatest Ever Motorcycle ,the legend of Honda super cub (after 47years)

ELECTRIC VEHICLE SURGE TECHNOLOGY NO BATTERIES NO GAS

stealth air fighting ( climax dog fight )

F-35 Lightning II Flight Testing as of May 4, 2007
DISCOVERY CHANNEL ( an all in one fighter - 40Mil price tag )

part1:

part 2:

part 3:

part 4 :

Tackling The Hackers face to face

2007-09-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

Tackling the hackers face-to-face
By Mark Ward Technology Correspondent, BBC News website

Increasingly hackers use their skills to steal moneyI'm lurking on IRC - Internet Relay Chat - the place where lots of net users go to talk via typed text on any and every conceivable topic.
But instead of talking about games, last night's big match or MP3s, I'm on channels with names like cc-visa, ccfull, ccpower and trade-cc.
I'm in bandit country.
The "cc" stands for "credit cards" and these are the virtual markets where thousands of stolen numbers are bought and sold all day, every day.
Card games
In most busy IRC discussion rooms, or channels, the threads of conversations are hard to follow because the typed text flies by so fast. It's like going to a party and being told you can only chat to other people by texting them on your mobile phone.
But in the channels I've joined there is no idle banter, flaming or anyone passing the time of day. It's all business, all the time.
The channels are full of adverts touting stolen goods (credit card numbers), ways to launder the cash extracted from cards and accounts or offering the other services the dedicated cyber criminal needs.
There are 10.000 + users here, they trade the illegal stuff, NO ONE touches them
Beelze
Hi-tech crime: A glossary The adverts use jargon that is opaque to anyone who has not been hanging out here for some time.
The jargon reveals how the hi-tech crime world is divided. Typically those involved in net crime do one thing well. Some plunder web shop databases and steal credit card numbers. Some hack business networks so they can be used by spammers. Some are phishers who send out e-mail trying to fool people into handing over their banking details. Others have the bank accounts to help people move cash without being caught.
The hackers lack the skills to do anything with the data they steal and the old-time criminals lack the technical skills to get the data. This is where they meet.
I came across Ess4 hawking login data for the web shops he has hacked, the credit card numbers he has plundered from those sites and a how-to-guide that shows others how to do it.
He said: "i got many shops + tons of daily orders. i hack a shop in 3-4 hours and sell it for 100-500$."
He thanked "stupid admins" for making basic mistakes that let him break in.
Roze, one experienced hand and a spammer, said he exploited "human stupidity" rather than poor security.
He said: "That costs them money :)) i know is not fair .. but it`s the way we make money."

Hackers who gather data via spam or phish need somewhere to sell itAnd, he said, when he was not relying on stupidity, he had a cadre of smart hackers working for him to break into networks. Curiously, most of these people were from Romania - a country that comes up again and again on these channels.
He said: "romanian guys are very smart. All the time they come with something new ;) they are the best hackers on earth i think."
Arrest record
These channels on IRC, and in many other places much harder to find, are where the deals are struck. It is where the spammer meets the botmaster or the credit card thief meets the money launderer.
And no one here has any fear of being caught. As one person calling himself Beelze put it: "it is not illegal to be in on an irc server. As well the law does not seem to care about it."
"There are 10.000 + users here, they trade the illegal stuff, NO ONE touches them," he said. "These are bank robberies, prolly in the top 100 biggest ever."
Stano, who I met in one very busy channel, said: "It is very difficult for them to find us, and even if they do, they have no evidence. So ... they go away :)"
He got started as a criminal staging fake ebay auctions and now he's a spammer.
"now I have made some investments ... and I can live the rest of my life with the money I make without spamming and so on ..but now it is in my Blood," he said.
STAYING SAFE ONLINE
Use anti-spyware and anti-virus programs
On at least a weekly basis update anti-virus and spyware products
Install a firewall and make sure it is switched on
Make sure updates to your operating system are installed
Take time to educate yourself and family about the risks
Monitor your computer and stay alert to threatsIRC encourages people to use nicknames and in the card trade channels these change on a regular, often daily, basis. To further hide themselves users join the channel via a machine a long way from their physical location. Look up their net address and you find information about a PC sitting on the domestic network of one of the bigger ISPs - more than likely a bot.
Little communication is done in the channel itself - most happens via private messages sent directly between people.
The big problem that these criminals face is not the police but each other and they are in constant fear of being ripped off by their brethren. There is little honour among these thieves.
For instance, every now and again someone will supply links to software useful to criminals. Programs can be found that crack ebay accounts, that help plan a spam run or supply background information about credit cards if you only have the number.
The vast majority of these programs are booby-trapped with viruses that try to steal the information passing through them.
This lack of trust is widespread. Beelze, who rents networks to scammers, lamented the fact that he had no way to check the reputation of those buying services.
Many pay via cracked Paypal accounts and when the real owner of the account kicks up a fuss the money is taken back. Leaving people like Beelze out of pocket.
Beelze said: "The scammer will still have its service or at least, had, up to the time it got refunded." He said he was losing thousands of euros a month this way. Those with the cracked accounts do not care because they can just use another one. Some have many thousands of cracked accounts.
"Paypal is practicly the most used by criminals," he said.

The SMART TUNNNEL ( Malaysia )

2007-09-03T16:11:00.000-07:00

The SMART TUNNNEL ( Malaysia )

SMART tunnel preview (MALAYSIA) , passing through

iPhone vs. Windows Mobile

2007-09-03T16:09:00.000-07:00

iPhone vs. Windows Mobile

Fancy A PRADA Phone ? :)

2007-09-03T16:07:00.000-07:00

Preview Prada Phone LG KE850

Are telco towers a danger?

2007-08-31T04:16:00.000-07:00

Are telco towers a danger?

By CHRIS CHONG ,

The star

In.Tech examines the truth behind the alleged dangers posed by cellular telecommunications towers.

Are you worried that the telecommunication tower that's standing proud behind your house could be slowly frying your brains?

The good news is that you don't have to, according to Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik.

"As a doctor, I can tell you that there is no scientific proof that the (radio) airwaves are harmful," he said.

Lim was quoting a report by the WHO (World Health Organisation) about the health effects of electromagnetic waves on humans.

According to him, the country needs more communications towers to support wireless broadband technologies like 3G and for future ones such as WiMAX.

"The problem is that the elections are coming so you have politicians who want to appear as saviours.

"When people complain about towers being too close to their houses, these politicians do their best to help take them down," he said.

"But when we take down the towers, people then complain that they have poor reception.

"So stop taking down the towers. There's no evidence that they are harmful."

The WHO fact sheet

Following the Minister's comments, In.Tech visited the WHO's website and found a fact sheet that supports Lim's claims and provides some rather interesting information too (www.who.int/topics/electromagnetic_fields/en/).

For starters, a recent survey shows that the RF (radio frequency) exposures from base stations range between 0.002% and 2% of the levels of the international exposure guidelines, which is much lower than the RF exposure from radio and television broadcast transmitters.

The WHO fact sheet also states that RF exposures from base stations and wireless technologies in publicly accessible areas (including schools and hospitals) are normally thousands of times below international standards.

TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT?: If you find that the telco towers are too close to your house, you can always complain about it. Just don't expect your mobile phone reception to be as good as before.

This is because the RF fields are strongest at their source (their antennae) and quickly diminish with distance.

In fact, due to their lower frequencies, the human body absorbs five times more of the signal from FM radio and television transmitters than from telco towers.

The fact sheet then points out that although FM radio and television broadcast stations have been in service for more than 50 years, no adverse health consequences have been established.

So there you have it – there's no reason to worry about telco towers close to your home.

How about Housing Guidelines?

The Housing and Local Government Ministry has guidelines on the building of telecommunications towers which specifies the minimum distance of towers (of various heights) from industrial, commercial and residential buildings.

While it's easy to assume that the guidelines are to protect people from radiation or electromagnetic emissions, it is not the case.

The guidelines state clearly that these minimum distances are only for the sake of aesthetics and for the physical safety of the buildings' occupants (i.e. should something fall off the tower).

The guidelines then specifically state that the minimum distances have nothing to do with RF emission levels.

A PDF copy of the guidelines can be downloaded from the Ministry's website (www.kpkt.gov.my/kpkt_en), though it's only available in Bahasa Malaysia.

Do take note that the information from these guidelines and from the WHO fact sheet only apply to telecommunication towers and not other possible hazards such as high-tension electric cables.

If you find that the telco towers are too close to your house and are unsightly, you can always complain about it. Just don't expect your mobile phone reception to be as good as before.

Speed up shutdown times of WINDOWS

2007-08-31T04:10:00.001-07:00

It's not only start-up that you'd like to speed up; you can also make sure that your system shuts down faster. If shutting down XP takes what seems to be an inordinate amount of time, here are a couple of steps you can take to speed up the shutdown process:

Don't have XP clear your paging file at shutdown. For security reasons, you can have XP clear your paging file (pagefile.sys) of its contents whenever you shut down. Your paging file is used to store temporary files and data, but when your system shuts down, information stays in the file. Some people prefer to have the paging file cleared at shutdown because sensitive information such as unencrypted passwords sometimes ends up in the file. However, clearing the paging file can slow shutdown times significantly, so if extreme security isn't a high priority, you might not want to clear it. To shut down XP without clearing your paging file, run the Registry Editor (click Start > Run, then type regedit in the Run box) and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
Change the value of ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 0. Close the Registry, and restart your computer. Whenever you turn off XP from now on, the paging file won't be cleared, and you should be able to shut down more quickly.

Note: Please be careful when editing the Registry; you can do a lot of damage here. Don't change or delete anything unless you know exactly what it is.

Dropped, frozen and fried, 'Victum' survives

2007-08-31T03:51:00.001-07:00

Posted by Mark Rutherford

August 24, 2007 12:26 PM PDT

Thought Process

(Credit: Acturion Datasys)

From Bavaria here's a new, "ruggedized" military-spec notebook PC with a keyboard that converts to a touch-screen, tablet PC in seconds by flipping the display 180 degrees and pressing down.

The magnesium alloy housing (4.85 pounds with battery) is completely sealed making it splash-proof, according to Acturion Datasys. (Even the integrated speaker is waterproof.) Since there are no fans, processor heat is distributed directly to the housing, which doubles as radiator.

Two models are available--the Victum-Note V10 (10.4-inch XGA display) and the Victum-Note V12 (WXGA 12.1-inch). Both come with sunlight-readable displays and work off a Intel Core Dual Processor Yonah U2500.

Options include Bluetooth, built-in 1.3MP CCD camera, GPS receiver for satellite navigation and a couple of different modems. Windows XP Pro or Windows Vista comes pre-installed. Linux should be available soon, according to the company. To qualify for military standard certification a PC must undergo temperature testing (minus-4 Fahrenheit to 131 Fahrenheit), plus withstand a 3-foot drop onto a concrete slab and continue to drive on.

Is it too late to do something about that name? Who wants to Farfegnugen a Victum around the battlefield.