Tuesday, November 25, 2008

12 myths about how the Internet works - Network World

12 myths about how the Internet works - Network World

MINNEAPOLIS – Thirty years have passed since the Internet Protocol was first described in a series of technical documents written by early experimenters. Since then, countless engineers have created systems and applications that rely on IP as the communications link between people and their computers.

Here's the rub: IP has continued to evolve, but no one has been carefully documenting all of the changes.

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Friday, November 14, 2008

Soundsnap.com: Find and Share Free Sound Effects and Loops

Soundsnap.com: Find and Share Free Sound Effects and Loops

Spice up your videos, games, applications or just make system alerts a little more hilarious by downloading sound effects from Soundsnap. Whether you're an electronic musician using Ableton Live or a budding YouTube auteur looking to flesh out the audio on a Final Cut Pro project, libraries of free sound effects, loops and samples are like manna (I'm a longtime fan of The Freesound Project). All the sound effects at Soundsnap are uploaded by creators, so if you've already done some foley work or futzed around with a Moog to produce sci-fi ambience, help out others by contributing. There are already many thousands of audio clips already available. If you're a multimedia maker, what sound effects sources do you use? Sphere: Related Content

Thursday, November 13, 2008

USB 3.0 to be Formally Unveiled Next Monday

USB 3.0 to be Formally Unveiled Next Monday

Almost 14 months after Intel announced USB 3.0, the final protocol specification will be formally announced next Monday at the first SuperSpeed USB Developer Conference in San Jose, CA. The specs will then be handed over to early adopters that plan to design products around USB 3.0. The third generation of Universal Serial Bus has been hit by delay after delay, and it's been a very long, difficult and challenging three-year effort. Only several months ago, nVidia, AMD and a few others threatened to create its own USB 3.0 if Intel doesn't share the controller specs with them on time. This fortunately didn't sidetrack the effort to deliver USB 3.0 on time as both sides quickly reached an agreement.

While not formally unveiled, the SuperSpeed USB logo was shown at WinHEC 2008 last week where Redmond engineers held discussions on which OS will support the new USB. Windows 7 RTM unfortunately won't ship with native USB 3.0 support; that is, if the next Windows doesn't encounter delays. Hopefully, USB 3.0 is worth the wait with speed boost to 4.8Gbps, the use of optical cabling, and new power management. WinHEC 2008 has a a brief performance comparison sample for data transfer of 25GB HD movie:

  • USB 1.0: 9.3 hours
  • USB 2.0: 13.9 minutes
  • USB 3.0: 70 seconds
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Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Tax website shut down as memory stick with secret personal data of 12million is found in a pub car park | Mail Online

Tax website shut down as memory stick with secret personal data of 12million is found in a pub car park Mail Online

Ministers have been forced to order an emergency shutdown of a key Government computer system to protect millions of people's private details.
The action was taken after a memory stick was found in a pub car park containing confidential passcodes to the online Government Gateway system, which covers everything from tax returns to parking tickets. Sphere: Related Content