MCS-760 Spring 2007

Here's a great example of going GREEN

2007-05-17T10:49:00.000-06:00

Microsoft, Clinton group form green partnership
By Reutershttp://news.com.com/Microsoft%2C+Clinton+group+form+green+partnership/2100-11392_3-6184543.html Story last modified Thu May 17 06:40:35 PDT 2007
The William J. Clinton Foundation and Microsoft on Thursday announced a partnership to develop new technology tools to help large cities create, track and share strategies to reduce carbon emissions.
The new software and Web applications are part of broader set of programs being introduced by the foundation led by former President Bill Clinton, who is speaking at the C40 climate summit this week for the mayors of the world's largest cities.
The software tools aim to create a standardized way for cities all around world to measure their greenhouse gas emissions. With a common standard, cities would be able track the effectiveness of carbon-reduction programs.
The C40 summit of leaders from the world's major cities, which first met in London in 2005, was started with the aim of helping cities share ideas and band together to force down the price of technology to combat global warming.
Urban areas consume 75 percent of the world's energy and produce 80 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions.
"This new software tool will be an important resource in our work with cities around the world to fight global warming in practical, measurable and significant ways," Bruce Lindsey, chief executive of the Clinton Foundation, said in a statement.
Now on News.com
Will labels sing along with DRM-free music? Protecting children from online food ads Extra: Russia accused of starting cyberwar against Estonia Video: Band jams on hacked 'Guitar Hero' controllers
Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, said it will provide the software and services for free and aims to have a product in place by the end of 2007.
Most of the technical details have not been finalized, but many of the tools would be Web-based and accessed through an Internet browser. They would incorporate features allowing cities to share data and effective policies.
Based on a formula developed by environmental groups, a city using the software would add up various factors like commercial space, residential buildings and transportation usage to gauge how much carbon dioxide a city produces.
Story Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

MS is Moving to Telecommunication Business!!!

2007-05-15T05:39:00.000-06:00

According to recently news, "Microsoft is planning to launch around 15 phones and devices to attach with its unified communications beta program. The new devices will be usable with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. They will connect the workplace phone to e-mail, instant messaging, real-time presence information, conferencing, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and mobile communications. The companies involved in this project include: Asus, LG-Nortel, NEC, Plantronics, Polycom, Sansung, Tatung, ViTELiX, etc.
These new generation devices will include Internet Protocol (IP) phones, Universal Serial Bus (USB) phones, conferencing phones, wired and wireless headsets, laptops, and LCD monitors.

Furthermore, Microsoft and SanDisk plan memory-storage devices that hold the contents of an entire computer on a card the size of a pack of gum, allowing users to take the data anywhere.”

In my viewpoint, telecommunication could be the trend for involving from several firms in order to expand its market share. As Microsoft is not the only one extending to this business, in the future, so many technology companies will do the same thing? The communication will be unpredictable growth that could be over supply? Or it will be the generation of communication!

Another look at Green IT

2007-05-14T13:42:00.000-06:00

The “greening” of the IT departments nationwide is has now become not only an environmentally conscious movement, but a way to increase profitability in a time of rising energy costs. Centralized data center energy management will allow improvement in efficiencies as well as overall sustainability of hardware by better managing times of use and inactivity. The same is true on the client side, where domain controllers can not only manage enterprise level systems networks, but also power configurations and monitor usage. In optimizing power consumption only in times of need, IT departments worldwide can help fight global warming by being smart about IT. In this position paper I’d like to focus on Green policies in terms of energy consumption and not recycling or waste issues which were covered in class.

Although PCs account for less than one percent of the total global Carbon Dioxide emissions, it is the combined consumption of all sectors of IT including the telecommunications industry that makes it comparable to airline industry emissions. Now that the government has awoken from a seven year slumber and announced it will some regulate automobile emissions, it will not be long before other government agencies will follow suit to monitor businesses corporate responsibilities in being a sustainable partner in the fight against global warming. The correlation between green IT practices and intelligent business owners is probably very high and can be viewed likewise by customers looking in. Seeing that the US is the largest contributor to CO2 emissions and global warming, what can we do to make up for the accelerated deterioration of our planet? Will business strategies trump the environment if businesses struggle to survive through weather oddities and increasing natural disasters?

One way in which IT managers can efficiently make use of hardware and software is by using data to promote centralized data centers to be used universally accessed allowing many companies to have employees to work from home and collect data on customers remotely as well. The energy savings in providing home based employment and services to customers would greatly reduce travel costs and CO2 emissions for each company that employs it. Data can also improve a company’s performance by monitoring segments of the company that may be underperforming due to inefficiencies or monitoring for defects and quality issues that result in wasteful spending and energy consumption.

Data is power, and how IT can influence positive “green” policies within organizations is by using knowledge to the advantage of the environment. For example, an IT person who is building an Intranet for an company can ad a place for a rideshare bulletin board within the organization, or even provide links to resources on environmentally friendly practices for companies wanted to GO Green.

I took this “Green IT” poll below and I think its amazing, but realisitic to think the majority of IT professionals aren’t thinking green, yet… I truly believe regulation and a huge wake up call by the environment is right around the corner and these results will flip flop 5 years from now.
.
http://quizzes.cio.com/green_it_quiz/index.php

Motorola's iPhone

2007-05-11T19:53:00.000-06:00

Motorola CEO Ed Zander announced that Motorola is introducing a media-centric iPhone on Tuesday. Unlike the Apple iPhone, the Motorola phone will have 3G capability for fast Internet and it will also come with an SD slot which Motorola plans to fill with preloaded video and audio. Lets see what happens this Tuesday and if Motorola can keep its word.

Internet Security Follow-up

2007-05-10T21:04:00.000-06:00

Rokeshia Robinson
Follow up Paper #2
Internet Security & Security Issues
May 9, 2006

Too often, some businesses just do not take security seriously. Common statements range from “We don’t have data of any value”, “Nothing will happen to us”. The problem seems to stem from a misunderstanding of how organizations’ resources could be violated and used. A common misconception is that hackers only go after the “big fish”. Not much thought is given to the idea that their resources may be used for things other than a DOS (denail of service) attack. Organizations cannot afford to lose time, money, or integrity due to security incidents. Businesses can suffer immeasurable security incidents, such as, losses because a data center has a production outage as a result of a worm or virus, or from a hacker who defaces a website.

To avoid becoming a victim of misguided pranksters or cyber-crime, organizations should take the time to examine the security of their customers and personal data. In our security presentation we talked about some devices and solutions that organziations use to decrease vulnerabilities within their organization.

read more......

IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force 2006 Trend Statistics

2007-05-09T09:59:00.000-06:00

I addition to the “Top Attack and Internet Security” report that Nancy provided, I also came across another report by IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force® research and development team, which also observed and recorded new vulnerabilities and the status of varying threats from the year 1999 to 2006. This data has been compiled in this report. Click Here

The above link takes us to the full report and also takes us to the images of each section of the report like Vulnerabilities, Spam and Pishing, Web Content, Malcode, and Web browser Exploitation.

Open Source Java finally ready

2007-05-08T22:00:00.000-06:00

Its about a year now when Sun Microsystems promised to release Java to Open source. It seems that its time now and open source Java is coming out within next couple of weeks. Read more here

The US is still number one

2007-05-08T20:02:00.000-06:00

Have you ever wonder how it looks like to work at Symantec? You might think this is a scene from sci-fi movies, but it actually is a picture took from a Symantec's facility security center in Virginia.

A large electronic world map screen is used for showing the number of Internet threats around the world. As always, USA was the top target of all computer attacks. Within a day, North America was attacked by Malware more than 59 million times.

From the link Nancy provided, the US accounted for 37 percent of all attacks in 2002. Something just never changes. Today, five years later, the percentage slightly decreases to 33 percent, but still the first rank of the worldwide attack (Source: Symantec's Internet Security Threat report released March 19, 2007). Besides, 52 percent of DoS(denial of service) attacks was in the US.

The red dots in the second picture show the attempt to break into enterprise or home computer in different location in North American. This might give you a vivid picture of how unsafe the Internet is, especially in the US. If you have not updated you anti-virus software recently, now it might be a good time to do so.

For more information:
Cyber insecurity: You're more vulnerable than you think

Internet Security

2007-05-08T18:55:00.000-06:00

Rokeshia Robinson
4th Position paper
Internet Security & Security Issues
May 4, 2007

What is Internet Security? I believe to understand this question we would first have to look at the history of the “Internet”. Now we all may have heard the rumor that the “Internet” was created by Al Gore. Well in my quest to find the real creator of the internet, I stumbled across some interested information that would argue that Al Gore wasn’t the creator, but was a true activism for the concept that eventually turned into a reality.

According to wikipedia, the history of the internet goes all the way back to the fifies and early sixties, prior to the widespread inter-networking that led to the internet. Most communication networks were limited by nature to only allow communciations between the stations on the network. These networks only had bridges and gateways between them, and they were often limited or built solely for a single use. It wasn’t until the late 1980s when the Internet system was developed and ready, but was held up due to The Cold War. J.C.R. Licklider, Larry Roberts, and Robert Taylor were the three who engaged in the interconnected networking systems that envoled into the core of what the Internet would become.So now that we have a brief overview of “Internet”, I will like to talk about internet vulnerabilities, threats, and security around the world.

read more at........

Google Apps

2007-05-08T16:34:00.000-06:00

Since there is much talk going about Google Apps, will the release of Google Apps premier edition knock out the desktop software like Microsoft office. The article http://http://www.wired.com/software/softwarereviews/news/2007/02/72781 gives various reasons to switch to Google apps or stay with Desktops. Will you switch to Google apps?

Top Attack and Internet Security

2007-05-08T14:44:00.000-06:00

Regarding to the last night presentation, here is the trend of a risk from the internet attacks by Internet Security Systems Inc. Resaerch was observed 21,982,672 alarms during this reporting period (March 26 - June 24, 2002). The attack activities summary would be shown as the following picture.

For more detail about the report please click here.

FYI: McAfee's SiteAdvisor

2007-05-07T22:46:00.000-06:00

"We (McAfee) test the Web to help keep you safe from spyware, spam, viruses and online scams."

If you use Firefox, you can use SiteAdvisor for free by going to http://www.siteadvisor.com/ and download it as a Add-On to your Firefox.

From my experience, it works pretty good. We can get alerts from any search result before click to that link at any search engine website (I've tried: google.com, msn.com, and yahoo.com).

Moreover, this website (at http://www.siteadvisor.com/analysis/) can analyze any particular website that you want. The result also shows additional useful information about security related issues, such as the diagram link from that website (that we want to be analyzed ) to another which might have to be aware.

Enjoy your searching & surfing the internet safely,

U.S. Critical Infrastructure in Serious Jeopardy

2007-05-07T13:38:00.000-06:00

By Aaron Turner, Idaho National Labs

May 04, 2007 — CSO — Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads, where millions of infrastructure components are connected to networks, allowing hackers access to systems that were never designed to be exposed to network attacks.

http://www.cio.com/article/107904/U.S._Critical_Infrastructure_in_Serious_Jeopardy

Internet trust and security issues

2007-05-07T11:38:00.000-06:00

While doing business in the real world having and building trust among the customers is very important for the business. Merchants, consumers and financial institutions all need to be confident of the identity with whom they conduct business. Only when all of the above parties are truly able to trust who they are dealing with online, then only will the online business model be successful. Computer based crimes are increasing day by day. For example if we take the case of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls and other off-price retailers, hackers stole data of at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards of shoppers. This case is believed to be the largest breach of consumer information and is considered to be a major security concern.

Hence,Government and industries should work together towards better internet security. This way the industry can influence the type of safeguards that are put into practice. If there is resistance to cooperation with government agencies towards internet fraud, crime and privacy, legislative and other political solutions will atomically become more involved. Therefore, internet offers great potential for both consumers and businesses, but proper measures should be taken to protect the internet trust and security. This way both the industry and consumers will be benefited in the long run.

Read more in my paper...........

Have You Kept Your Epassport Tightly Closed in Your Pocket?

2007-05-06T23:54:00.000-06:00

Epassport is one of the RFID application uses. For some people who don't have to travel aboard this seems to be the far beyond interested stories. Anyway, this story might be related to other RFID application that generally people uses in their routine.

Starting October 2006, new U.S. passports will contain RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips which hold an individual's picture and personal information. These chips can be “read” wirelessly from a distance of several feet. In order to prevent thieves from stealing sensitive personal data, the State Department has included several security measures in the proposed passport standard.

Reading a passport's RFID chip requires a password generated by scanning the machine readable data on the inside front cover. Additionally, a small shield in the front cover is supposed to only allow wireless passport reading when the booklet is open.

The current system prevents attackers from accessing the onboard RFID tag when a passport is fully closed; however, when in a pocket, purse, or briefcase, a passport has a very high probability of being slightly open. One of researchs has shown that, even when open only a fraction of an inch, the current proposed passport will fail to prevent unwanted RFID communications.

Picture from Flexilis

Based on the current standard, only 16 degree opened, you information and identity would be stolen in the range of one foot. Moreover, the power of the reader, the noise level of the environment, and tag antenna detuning may increase any read ability distances pertaining to RFID tags.

The following is the related links and references about this concern:

Warning over ePassport microchips

RFID Passport and Demo Clip

A Concern of Network Sharing Since When Music Industry Wins UW-Madison in File-Sharing Case:

2007-05-06T23:01:00.000-06:00

Since we discuss about Mesh Networking a few week ago, I agree that Mesh Networking could be the next upcoming wave of global network sharing soon in the future. The idea is great; however, there is still a concern about letting people use your networks perhaps putting ourselves into the responsibility of illegal activity from sharing user hands?

A week ago I received the newsletter from UW-Madison: Division of University housing that residents should be aware of using some file sharing programs that would break the illegal right of digital media. Based on Wisconsin State Journal Apr 26, 2007, 16 record companies filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeking the names associated with 53 Internet connections from IP address of UW-Madison Networks for copyright infringement. The lawsuit and decision came as no surprise to the university. Music Industry wins UW Ids a federal judge has ordered UW-Madison to identify addresses allegedly used to Copy Digital Music Files. As many as 53 UW-Madison students could be slapped with lawsuits by the music recording industry.

Of course, if we let someone get in our networks using our resources, the responsibility would fall to the host of the networks like us. How could we prevent this situation to maintain the goodwill uses of Mesh Networking?

National ID a knee jerk reaction to 9/11

2007-05-06T17:29:00.000-06:00

When I consider the reasoning behind the implementation of the National ID program, it seems that fighting terrorism has become an excuse to be used to railroad anything past our legislators and into existence. My concerns with this rest with the fact that a National ID does not do anything to prevent terrorism. Law abiding citizens will get the required identification and the terrorists simply won't. Would they really even need it?

It will make it impossible for a terrorist to board a plane or take a train, but what if the terrorists know that? Won't they change their tactics and shift their targets to something with less security like our nuclear facilities or chemical plants?

Here is a few sites that makes a some good points about the whole National ID controversy.

http://www.epic.org/privacy/id_cards/

http://news.com.com/FAQ+How+Real+ID+will+affect+you+-+page+3/2100-1028_3-5697111-3.html?tag=st.num

http://www.unrealid.com/

"those who sacrifice liberty in the name of security deserve neither liberty nor security." - Ben Franklin

iPhone News

2007-05-06T01:36:00.000-06:00

I recently read an article that iPhone really doesn’t qualify as a smartphone because it wouldn't support custom applications. Even though open development is a requirement for a smartphone, but iPhone is closed to developers. Read more http://weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisemac/archives/2007/05/developers_cant.html

USES OF RFID

2007-05-06T00:14:00.000-06:00

Check out the World's smallest flash drive - i-Disk RFID from Pretec. http://www.rfid-weblog.com/50226711/worlds_smallest_flash_drive_idisk_rfid_from_pretec.php
It's an innovation of sorts since it uses RFID and USB together and what makes it a thing to watch for is its size - 45.7×12.2×2.2mm which will help it in earning a spot among some of the smallest devices in the world. It can be used in case of systems requiring digital mass storage and easy identification.

Check this out how RFID and Nanotechnology is used to fight earthquake.
http://www.rfid-weblog.com/50226711/rfid_and_nanotechnology_to_fight_earthquake.php

Also check out the 51 Futuristic Uses for RFID at http://www.rfidlowdown.com/2006/12/cool_surprising.html

Microsoft makes its biggest RFID splash

2007-05-05T23:07:00.000-06:00

On Tuesday, May 1^st, 2007, Microsoft took a closer step towards RFID platform by shipping its first public beta of BizTalk Server 2006 R2. This is a biggest splash ever into the RFID market. The server, Microsoft’s business process and application integration platform, includes a number of RFID-specific features, such as plug-n-play services for RFID devices, that Microsoft hopes will make it easier for companies to roll out the technology and simpler for vendors to build products on top of it.

Return to Green

2007-05-03T13:46:00.000-06:00

Besides "Dell Earth" (http://www.dell.com/html/global/topics/pure_earth/index.html), now, we can find Apple in Green. (A Greener Apple, http://www.apple.com/hotnews/agreenerapple/) This campaign has been emphasized just for a couple days ago.

Obviously, there are many big companies in IT business have considered about our environment which might come up with several new innovate products. For example, Apple eliminated CRT monitor last year.
However, many criticisms from both customers and environmental organizations could be the source of several policies from manufactures. As we can see from the news as the following:

http://www.computing.co.uk/itweek/news/2189109/apple-green-jobs

http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/7585/8609/Apple-iPod-Green-Environment-LCD.phtml

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39286945,00.htm

Even though many firms have been involved to aid our environment by demonstrating several programs, this problem is still increasing. Every part in our society, not only business, but also government and people has to help and cure our environment as much as we can together.

RFID virus buster builds wireless firewall

2007-05-02T12:53:00.000-06:00

Here is a great story that i came across while writing my montly security report for our clients.....

"SPYCHIPS," some privacy campaigners call RFID. Two years ago, when Melanie Rieback in 2005 was hunting for a research topic for her PhD, she settled on RFID security because "It was obvious there was a lot of work to be done."

Based at the department of computer science at Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands, Rieback, an American, caused a storm last year when she published a paper on RFID viruses. "I wrote a completely scientifically and factually neutral paper about how to use RFID to perpetuate common exploits like the ones on the Internet today," she says.

The paper didn't talk about the possible consequences. But, "The reality is that RFID is a new technology like anything else, and you have to do a proper cost-risk analysis in deciding when to deploy it." Using RFID to tag cows in a field clearly carries much less risk than putting them in passports and credit cards.

"I think you need to be as worried about RFID malware as any other kind of enterprise software. With big RIFD installations you're going to have big databases, Internet connections in the mix, a lot of bloated source code, and statistically they say there are 16 bugs per thousand line of code."

Rieback's latest project, RFIDGuardian, aims to create a personal firewall for RFID tags. That is, a portable, battery-powered device that anyone can use to see and selectively block the tags around them.

read more @ http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39170

National ID's

2007-05-01T15:38:00.000-06:00

So it came up last night during the RFID discussion. I was visiting Digg.com today and this was one of the first stories that I noticed...

If your unhappy about the situation, I guess we have until next week to voice our opinion's.

http://www.privacycoalition.org/stoprealid/

Tanner

RFID the good and the bad

2007-04-30T17:14:00.000-06:00

Summary of my fourth paper

by Nancy

Privacy and security issues are one of the most important concerns in RFID implementation. How well one’s individual information including medical, financial, personal records are maintained and properly used is still in a lot of arguments. For business applications, better management in terms of data analysis plans for such high amount of data in real-time manners and integration strategies to better suit the company’s organizational structure are needed for future RFID business demands......

RFID

2007-04-30T16:18:00.000-06:00

The use of RFID in inventory management is interesting (Walmart is moving to having their products carrying RFID tags), but I really am interested in the addition of an RFID tag into the US passport. The tag will carry the information that is on the first page with an individuals picture, and it will also hold a digital copy of the passport photo. They intend to use the digital image in facial recognition technology and it also will provide the government with a large image database of their population.

here is a link:

http://travel.state.gov/passport/eppt/eppt_2498.html

2007-04-30T15:49:00.000-06:00

Tanner Dabel

4^th Opinion paper

RFID

RFID What?!?

Radio Frequency Identification (aka RFID) actually isn’t a new concept. It’s been around its been around as RFID for at least the last two – three decades and even more if you look at its predecessor technology from as far back as the 1920’s and 30’s. What you might have noticed however, is that RFID technology is currently in the state of rapid devolvement and has become the latest technology trend. What is RFID? Well it’s the fairly simple idea of having a RFID tag in or on something and will respond to radio waves sent by a near by transponder or antenna. In the most general sense, RFID is used to tag and track something. RFID can be coupled with other type of sensors so that it can gather readings of humidity, shock, temperature, light and vibration (among other things). This allows for RFID tagging to be very flexible in its use.

Current uses of RFID technology include; passports, transportation payment, product tracking, animal tracking, authentication, record keeping among many other tasks. RFID has proven to be a cheap and cost efficient way to record information about a certain item or thing. So, now that we’ve had a brief review of what RFID is, let’s get into the nitty gritty of how a business might use leverage RFID to gain a competitive advantage and a few potential pitfalls to RFID technology.

Read More Here...

Will you implant it?

2007-04-30T13:06:00.000-06:00

4/30/2007

By Nancy

Regarding to shopping clips on YouTube, there might be two or more types of RFID applications involving to that process.

One is the RFID clip tags by IBM that will be put on most of the products allow the RFID active tracker to read many tags at the same time. Click here for more information about IBM clip tags

Another might be your RFID card in you pocket or Verichip implanted to your body.

There are so many current issues talking about benefits versus vulnerabilities about a little bit bigger than twice of rice grain size chips implanting. Here is a VDO Clip that may give you some idea about Verichip implanted in human body and how it looks like.

Enjoy!!!

Radio-frequency identification (RFID)

2007-04-30T12:05:00.000-06:00

In my opinion, RFID is at the very outset of its evolution and diffusion. The technology will surely witness many exciting and interesting developments over the next few years. But the future of RFID is still uncertain. The privacy issues will still persist even though the cost of RFID system decreases. If privacy issues are not watched closely, people will become tagged and there will always be someone watching and analyzing every person’s decisions. Therefore, in order to be successful in their business, the companies must work with privacy advocate groups in order to develop a fair way of using RFID system without making their customers hostile.

Read more in my paper....................

For every plus there is a minus.

2007-04-29T21:43:00.000-06:00

I just read this short but interesting article over at Slashdot.com that explains what retailers should be aware of before adopting RFID technology. It seems that for every new technology like RFID there is also the potential to exploit it.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/29/0321219&tid=158&tid=172

This might be how we shop in the future.

2007-04-29T11:22:00.000-06:00

Here are the links to two ads from IBM about RFID. Both ads show how RFID can decrease a substantial time for checking out at grocery store. No more line. No more waiting. The ads show that RFID not only benefits the company, but it also benefits customer as well. It is such a very cool way to shopping. I really hope the grocery around my house will use it soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob532iEpqk&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDyqhcy1L-0

Mesh Network Powerpoint

2007-04-29T09:43:00.000-06:00

Here is the powerpoint from the last class in case anyone wanted to see it. I'd like to empasize that the mesh network presentation was given from two perspectives, one being community based and the other being business oriented.

www.customcreative.com/media/mesh.ppt

Here is a link to an interesting video about Self-Organizing Neighborhood Wireless Mesh Networks

Watch - video on mesh networking (4 min. 6 sec.)

2007-04-23T14:53:00.000-06:00

Rokeshia Robinson
3rd Position paper
Mesh Networks

Wikipedia states that Mesh networking is a way to route data, voice and instructions between nodes. It allows for continuous connections and reconfiguration around broken or blocked paths by “hopping” from node to node until the destination is reached. A mesh network whose nodes are all connected to each other is a fully connected network. Mesh networks differ from other networks in that the component parts can all connect to each other via multiple hops, and they generally are not mobile.

Like every other topic that we have discussed in class, there are several advantages and disadvantages with mesh networking. Advantages of mesh networking can allow organizations to revolutionize the way they communicate, helping them to cut costs, boost employee productivity, improve community service, and increase public safety. Mesh networks allow organizations to extend the reach of their wired infrastructure to deliver affordable managed wireless broadband services..........................

Mesh Network

2007-04-23T07:15:00.001-06:00

Bank
My third position paper

Many public safety organizations, fire and police departments, and city networks are using wireless mesh networks to improve productivity and efficiency of their operations. In January 2006, as mush as 186 cities in the United States used mesh networks as their municipal wireless networks or had definite plans to build one. An increasing number of deployments today depicts how promising this technology is.

Mesh network frees a user from the wired network. Mesh devices can be installed in many locations over the area. Every device can work as a receiver and a transmitter. The information passed from one node to another will finally end up at an access point or router that has a wired connection to the internet. Routing path is not static and calculated on the fly. Each packet for the same destination may go to a different sequence of nodes. The more nodes a mesh network has, the larger the size, range and reliability are.

A mesh network can provide Internet connectivity far from the actual access point. The range of network can be extended as long as intermediate nodes are there. And because many nodes are available in the network, if one node is blocked due to the failure or any line-of-sight obstacles, the traffic will be routed to a different path. The routing will be automatically adjusted when news node are added, existing node drop of, or transmission conditions change. The multiple paths of mesh network reduce the risk and increase reliable of the system, which is the main advantage over the point-based wireless networks.

Mesh networks is also agile and easy to realign. More nodes can be added to the network to increase capacity in high usage areas. It is perfect for an event, such as the conference, where considerable traffic is temporarily generated. The devices will automatically connect to each other as they move within the range. Therefore, the user can access to the system by using a laptop from anywhere within the coverage area.

However, the packets in the network are duplicated many times while hopping to multiple paths in the wireless mesh network. Every redundant transmission reduces the efficiency of channel and consumes electricity, unless it uses alternative power like solar cell. More often than not, only one or a few wired backhaul nodes, the node that act as the gateway to the Internet or other fixed-network resources. The performance of system may be degraded due to the bottleneck problem at those wired backhaul nodes. In a very large network there would be a lot of routing information moving from one node to the others, which can takes up much of bandwidth and significantly reduce the network's capacity and throughput. The capacity of wireless mesh networks still cannot compare to the capacity of fiber optic or copper wire. Mesh network is typically used to broaden availability of wired routers and access points, or cover areas that are hard to wire.

Many enterprise-grade vendors provide wireless range extenders or wireless repeaters as a solution to create a small mesh network for a small office, where the critical issue is coverage rather than capacity. These repeaters work as the backhaul to main wireless router. However, the wireless extender technology is not enough for heavy traffic of large wireless mesh network. As a result, large mesh networks often divide the traffic into two wireless channels, and include the options like self-forming and centralized configuration management to better transmissions. To reach the optimal performance, the large mesh network requires a lot of access points, and usually be mapped out and installed by consultancy. Therefore mesh approach can cost more than equipment based on the more common wireless network standard.

In short, the application of mesh technology might not be the best design in every case. The degraded performance due to the flood of routing information in large network is one of the reasons why wireless mesh network will not be able to replace wired network. It is best suited to dynamic situations, and those where fixed network are not practical. Installation large mesh network is more complex and required more nodes than point-to-point or point-to-multiple point wireless network. Therefore, the company may have to pay extra money for the experts to install and optimize the network.

Mobile Computing

2007-04-16T17:48:00.000-06:00

John Landowski
Topics 760
4/16/2007

Mobile Computing Devices

Not only does mobile computing affect the everyday life of businesses nationwide, it transcends social and economic barriers and opens doors across the digital divide. Mobile computing has now reached a point of infrastructure saturation and maturity, that now affordable and used hardware is available on a global market. Mobile computing can let even the most remote locations transmit data wirelessly using multiple avenues of connectivity.

Looking at the array of devices and the affordability of wireless LAN routers, the growth of wireless LANS is expected to grow from 4.2M users to 41 Million in 2007. At that rate of growth, adoption rates will pick up, as early adopters become seasoned veterans. The benefits of mobile computing fill the following needs in today’s business environment:

1. Supporting flexible/remote working

2. Reducing ‘deadtime’ for travelling employees

3. Increasing workforce productivity

4. Enabling more effective collaboration between

5. Reducing infrastructure costs

6. Reducing operational costs

In providing businesses with a multitude of communication options and data transfer, there is now an environment for better collaboration and project management than ever before. Looking at the developments in VPN technologies and web based systems have also enabled core business processes to extend to laptops, PDAs, tablets and even multi-use devices like cell phones.

Although one of the primary concerns in using wireless technology in business was a lack of security and poor business practices in using mobile devices, many of those issues have been resolved with advancements in programming and hardware in a natural evolution. In fact, advances in mobile computing will be critical in keeping people safe into the future. Advancements in mobile emergency communications and even the hardware and software of the emergency industry are now able to communicate in harsh environments and transmit critical data that can mean life or death. For instance, GPS technologies and telemetry and accountability software can determine the location, health and direction on emergency service workers. This is relatively new in the emergency service fields and is no longer science fiction.

In conclusion, mobile communications can create value added functions in many facets of life in and outside of the business world. How the technologies develop will determine the way we communicate and transfer information. At any rate, wireless mobile devices will span the globe and bring new markets and opportunities to many people regardless of nationality or location.

Mobile Computing devices

2007-04-16T11:29:00.000-06:00

Second Position Paper

By Kamakshi Samala

Mobile computing devices is an emerging technology and has made computing a reality. Among the applications that are finding their way to the mobile computing devices, it’s seen that market for these devices is growing rapidly and is predicted that it may grow to over $550 billion by 2008. But the growth of the mobile-device market is limited by problems related to cost, speed, security, privacy, usability, and trust. Lack of consumer trust is considered to be the most significant long-term barrier for mobile commerce. Therefore, ultimately it depends on the end user (for example, organization or an individual) to carefully compare their computing needs with the advantages and disadvantages and the chances are that whichever device they choose, it will prove to be an effective tool in day to day life and in successful running of business in future.

Time to start over?

2007-04-14T13:09:00.000-06:00

About a month ago we discussed Web-TV and Prof Sargent was fairly doom and gloom on the idea about the internet taking on to much media that it would come to a grinding holt. Well, it seems other are worried about the future of the internet as well. So much so, they are looking and the idea of scraping what we currently have and starting over...

Don't believe me? Read on....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070413/ap_on_hi_te/rebuilding_the_internet

-Tanner

Distance Learning/Training (thoughts)

2007-04-10T11:00:00.000-06:00

Although I missed majority of this presentation, I found the discussion that followed interesting. The main issues addressed in the discussion were the potential negative impact from lack of interaction and retained knowledge. I have taken several online classes and all of them seem to give me a since of interaction with my professor and group members. My in-class courses seem to be very dull and barely anyone participate, which comes off as no real interaction. My online classes appear to ease the shyness of students, which allows them to give opinions and such w/o the fear of looking stupid.

Retention of information received is an area that I struggle with. It appears that I really don’t retain a lot of the information that is presented to me online. I tend to do enough and remember enough to complete the projects and assignments at hand. After the class is over, I can barley recall anything that I did or supposedly learned. I do retain more information that is presented to me in a traditional setting. However, I believe that this is a personal issue, not a distance learning issue.

Let's make the world just a little smaller....

2007-04-09T15:53:00.000-06:00

Tanner Dabel

3^nd Opinion paper

Distance Training/Education/Conferencing

Years ago, if one wanted to watch TV, make a phone call, read a book or listen to music, they would have needed a TV, telephone, some books and a stereo system. Now all you need is a laptop and some internet access. The internet seems to be the place to be. Whether it is VoIP, Bit Torrent or Web-based TV, everything seems to be shifting to the internet. The computer is a one stop shopping for daily activities (very much like a Super Wal-mart). As one wonders what else can get digitized, three more business oriented activities are quickly adapting to meet the trend. Distance training, education and conferencing are all going digital. A company employee can now do all three from, well, anywhere!

Read the rest of the paper here.

Distance Learning

2007-04-09T15:33:00.000-06:00

Bank

My second position paper

At the university of Maryland, students are encouraged to take at least 12 credits online to overcome limitation of campus’ space. This is one of many examples that distance learning is used as a solution in education for both students and the institutions. Nowadays distance leaning is gaining its popularity nationwide. Approximately 2 million of college and university students enrolled for online course by 2007. Not only in university level, many American high school students are signing up for online tutorials in mathematics and science of an educational service in India. Distance learning is a phenomenon that becomes pervasive in American society.

Distance learning is not a new topic. The history of distance learning in the U.S. is longer than 126 years since the day the Chautauqua Correspondence College was found in 1881. The Chautauqua College, which emphasized on home schooling, liberal education, and vocational training, was authorized by the State of New York as the college of Liberal Arts that offered collegiate diplomas and degrees.

The increasing of education costs, the change in social life, and the emergence of new technologies fueled the spread of distance learning. The technology, such as internet, video conferencing, webcasting, and instance message enable the idea of distance learning to make more sense. With these technologies, the issue of isolation seems to disappear. Students can participate in virtual class and establish study groups easily. As ubiquity of the internet and computer becomes a part of people’s daily life, people seems to be busier. Commuting problems, time conflict with, and higher competition in job market are main driver of growing consumer demand in education alternatives that can adapt to the new pace of contemporary life.

Advantage

More and more students search for flexibility in their education. And distance learning is such a quick and easy way for them to get a degree, not because it requires less work, but because students can learn at their own paces. Since online students are likely to learn independently, they actually read more, write more and do more research than a classroom student. Besides, many online learning classes try their best to facilitate students in learning. They aware that students are from different levels of knowledge, and learn at different rates. Therefore, many technologies are provided to adapts to the knowledge and learning style of the student.

Now students in different age, ethnicities, degree levels, and geographies are taking the class online. The distance learning students are more likely to get a benefit from this diversity. They have a better chance to prepare themselves to multiculture in globalization era. Online class sometimes benefit passive learner more than the traditional one. In traditional classroom, especially in a very large class, passive students may hide themselves in the back of the class and avoid participation. In contrast, online instructors expect all students to contribute meaningful comments to the class discussion on a regular basis. This forces passive students to step up to share their idea. In addition, some passive students may feel more comfortable with the anonymity of an online classroom.

The distance learning is not only used for classroom online, it is also used for educating employees. The research of Eduventures shows that 62% of employers believe online learning is equal to or better than classroom–based learning. More and more corporations turn to online learning for their own internal training.

When people talked about the drawback of distance learning, the first idea that usually comes to their mind is the lack of interaction. However, when we look at a very large class on campus, it also has little of interaction. In fact, a well-designed online learning actually encourages more of collaboration and interaction than campus courses. Although some distance learning courses allow student to study independently without any interactions, but there are many distance courses that require interaction application, such as instant message and video conference, for team projects, study groups, and discussion groups. Online students expect more responsiveness and interaction via e–mail. Therefore, teachers have to spend more time to interact personally with students, to mentor, advise, review individual work, and answer questions. Many professors admitted that they have more interaction with online students via e–mail and telephone.

Disadvantage

Although the ability to access “anytime, anywhere” is the main advantage of distance learning, it is also one of the reason that causes students to underestimate demands of online learning and finally end up to unable to manage their schedules. Students may prioritize online class less than other activities simply because they can do it later which often cause them falling behind the schedule. Therefore, self–discipline is the main factors of successful online learning.

Distance learning does not fit perfectly with the subject like laboratory, science or engineering that require expensive equipment. However, the advance in technology enables science and engineering class conduct via computer simulation. However, majority of computer simulation applications are used in training the workers rather than educating students.

In order to create high quality online programs, the costs of course development, maintenance, and student services and support system are significant. In most cases, distance education costs is higher than traditional classroom instruction because it self-sustaining on tuition fee, while traditional public education is supported by state funds. Requiring significant up–front investments is one of the reasons many universities hesitate to establish distance learning programs.

Just as there is good and bad classroom on campus, there is also good and bad distance learning. Nevertheless, with the emerging of new technology, distance learning has the potential to provide higher quality of instruction. However, the instructor cannot simply throw the traditional program to online class because the model for distance learning is totally different from the traditional pedagogic model. The instructor should facilitate learning by providing well designed and delivered content, such as compelling video, audio, and graphics, that fit with style of distance learning which sometimes requires better in quality and creativity than traditional one.

Although distance learning benefits students in many aspects, it will never be able to replace traditional colleges and universities, which play an important role in research, service, and even medical services to the societies. Also many social activities, such as residential living, university athletics and social events, are irreplaceable by virtual experience.

Distance training / Conferencing Position Paper

2007-04-09T10:42:00.000-06:00

Past
The emergence of distance learning can be traced back to snail mail methods of the 19th century that allowed teacher and student to communicate on a one to one level. The concept hasn’t changed in terms of the importance of one to one training, however the technology has evolved over the years to increase not only the range of the distance, but the complexity and usefulness of distance learning programs.

With the emergence of the radio in the 1920’s and the Television in the 1940’s, technology entered the distance learning mix in a multifaceted broadcasting method. In launching the learning programs in a broadcast format, it was inevitable the attention would come back to focusing on the one to one interactivity. Though several experiments in the 1970’s allowed educational institutions to come up with more innovative ways to enhance distance education via television, it wasn’t until the emergence of the Internet that the tools were available to entice an explosion.

Present
What tools became available via the Internet that created the distance learning explosion? Now, like never before, text, images, audio and video are available in many two way communication formats that allows a more complete interactive learning environment. Moving beyond one way communication and delayed feedback to an almost instantaneous one to one educational environment, has actually enhanced the possibilities of learning for students that would not fair well in a live classroom. Students who are normally to shy to actively participate in a live classroom, may flourish in a non-intimidating environment and prove to be a much better student as a result. The downside, however, is lack of intimate social interaction, and could contribute to non-social behavior. In any case, my experience with distance learning through the online classes at UWW has been varied depending on the instructor’s style and scheduling.

This transition has also allowed the Instructor to become more of a manager and focus on the interactivity with each student rather than the presentation of class material in a linear time limited format. The primary reason for this change in instructional tasks is because the design for distance learning now allows multiple media such as video, interactive text, audio and chat to be accessed anytime, and multiple times. At any rate, the instructional design process is still in its infancy and requires input from both sides to accurately accommodate issues and needs. Now learners and employers are more directly involved in defining learning goals and strategies to successfully achieve these. Thus, instructors are faced with continual blending of past, present, and future.

Future
What does the future hold for distance learning in the new millennium? That will depend, I believe, on the continued mind-boggling pace of development of new technologies, such as WebTV, and the retirement of old world teaching methods. My bet is on continued evolution of hybrid systems that draw from the advantages of several different formats in providing what students need to succeed. Cyberinfrastructure" is an evolving effort to make massive digital information available for integration into the learning/teaching process. New forms of distance education pedagogy will emerge enabling instructors and learners to review and interpret this wealth of digital data. Statistics show that this varied approach will ultimately lead to better adoption by learners and employers.
_____________________________________-
1 My Generation, Your Generation: We're All in this Together, Mark David Milliron, http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/
2 Emerging Models of Learning/Teaching via 'Cyberinfrastructure', Christopher Dede, Harvard Graduate School of Education, http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/
3 Distance Learning Statistics, http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/peqis/publications/98062/

“Going Green Revisited: The Green Revolution… And the Giant Machine”

2007-04-08T21:59:00.000-06:00

“Going Green Revisited: The Green Revolution… And the Giant Machine”

My second of two follow papers for MSC 760

By Tanner Dabel

April 6^th, 2007

So, have we finally wakened up from our long slumber of just throwing stuff away? Is it time for the world to act? Are we really doing everything we can recycling wise? Or, is it too late, did we let the deadline come and go? Did we wait too long, has the damage been done? Did we ruin Earth beyond repair? If you’re asking yourself any of the above questions, you’ve already entered the world of “Going Green”. If you haven’t, welcome to a new revolution… The Green Revolution. A war fought not with guns, tanks or ammo, but with research, campaigns and policy.

What is this Green Revolution? It is the recent response to electronic waste (aka e-waste). What is e-waste? Simply put, it’s the bad guy. This is the evil doer we must combat against (the enemy). Ironically, we are our own enemy! We as human beings are the only ones on this Earth who generate e-waste. E-waste can be defined as any number if things ranging from ipods, to TV’s, to computer servers. Basically anything that’s an electronic, or runs off electricity can at some point be considered e-waste. It becomes e-waste when the item has reached the end of its life cycle and we throw it out. It could have been because new technology replaced it or it no longer works because it’s broken. Up until roughly a decade ago, this e-waste was simply dumped and forgotten. Often these dumpings would happen at sea or in 3^rd world countries.

Read the rest of the paper here...

Why Life Cycle Thinking!!!

2007-04-08T07:39:00.000-06:00

Picture form United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

I found some interesting statistical from UNEP website about the yearly energy consumption of the popular SUV JEEP compared to the average car is equivelent to:

- Leave the refrigerator door open for 6 years, or:

- Leave the light on in your bath room for 30 years, or:

- Leave your TV on for 28 years!

WOW!!!

The Economist Magazine (August-September 2005) has predicted some consequences of the energy comsumptions in East Asia as:

- 200 million tons hazardous waste per year
- Solid waste increase from 2.7 to 5.2 million cubic meters per day in 2025
- Bangkok, Manila, Beijing, Chennai and Shanghai: already 10-50 meter drops in water tables
- Average life time of urban dwellers 10 years shorter due to air pollution
- Energy consumption and related CO2 emissions to rise 50% between now and 2030

It is time to reduce environmental impacts by "Life Cycle Thinking".

This chart from UNEP green guideline would provide some ideas about "Green Procument Policy" for business :

For more information about green movement in business and industry visit here

Going Green - Links Primer

2007-04-01T12:40:00.000-06:00

Here are some of the sites we'll be visiting in our presentation tomorrow:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=a0xpRk7MYNg

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/weee/index_en.htm

http://www.computertakeback.com/

http://www.ban.org/

http://www.greenpeace.org

http://www.epeat.net

www.apple.com/environment/recycling/program

http://www.ibm.com/ibm/environment

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/environment/recycle/index.html

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/corp/environment/en/recycling_main?c=us&l=en&s=cor p

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/ebtext.to?page=reuse

http://rethink.ebay.com/

http://www.greendisk.com

http://www.crc.org

http://sharetechnology.org/

http://www.weeeman.org/

http://action.computertakeback.com/action/index.asp?step=2&item=10205

http://www.computertakeback.com/docUploads/Using_Takeback_Programs_v9.pdf

http://madison.craigslist.org/

http://www.freecycle.org/

http://www.epeat.net/Search.aspx

http://www.grrn.org/

http://www.ban.org/main/join.html

Webcasting

2007-03-28T23:30:00.001-06:00

My first follow papers
Bank

“Webcasting” is derived from words “web” and “broadcasting.” It was first described as the technology for transferring audio and video files over the Internet, but later on, it is often referred as a broadcast of live audio or video over network. However, in this article, I would like to use webcasting in term of broadcasting over the Internet regardless whether it is live or not. Webcasting uses streaming media technology in distributing media files. Back in the time when there was no streaming technology, all files needed to be transferred entirety to user’s hard drive before user could watch it. This method do not satisfy users’ need in instant receiving or downloading because most media files are very large, hence take long time for downloading. Before finishing downloading, users cannot check whether or not they download the right files. Due to this inconvenience, streaming is developed. Streaming technique will send a continuous stream of packets of compressed media file over the Internet. The media can be watched or listened as the time it arrives to user computer by using a player, a special program for uncompressing video data. Therefore, the users no longer need to keep the media file in their hard drive.

Webcasting can be both unicast and multicast. In unicast mode, every time that the new user connects to the video server, a new stream will be created. Hence, each user can get different media content at the same time. However, unicast can take up a lot of network’s resources when the number of clients is increasing. In contrast, multicast will send out a single stream that can be picked by any number of users. It uses the same bandwidth for any number of clients. Unicast and multicast are used in different purposes. Multicast is used for live broadcasting where many users access the same contents at the same time, while unicast is mostly used for video on demand. Unicast application can be either one or two directions. The example of one-direction unicast is video on demand, while the example for two-direction unicast is video conference.

Webcasting gains its popularity not only in entertainment industry but also almost every types of organization. Many companies use webcasting in order to improve their customer service such as providing the video clip illustrating the installation of their product so the users can follow the direction step by step. Church uses webcasting to spread the word across the globe. Even Hamilton police posted a clip of security camera on YouTube which later on led to the arrest of the murder. Although Webcasting can benefit the company in many ways, the company should be conscious when they decided to adopt this technology. The following are some issues that should be considered.

Cost-efficiency

Webcasting is not free of charge. Starting from multiple microphones and cameras, the high-end computer for software to compress signal and convert it from analog to digital, to the bandwidth cost in distribution, it is all the cost that the company has to pay. In addition, the company also has to pay for special servers called streaming server because normal web server cannot handle live Webcasting. Although small scale webcasting is relatively easy to do, it can burn many hours that could have better spent on the key area of the enterprise. Therefore, many companies also pay for the experts in webcasting.

Among other cost, bandwidth cost accounts for the highest cost in streaming data and webcasting. The company that use multicast for webcasting may not worry much about bandwidth cost. In contrast, most companies that offer video on demand service heavily invest in their bandwidth. Some critics said that YouTube, which is streaming 40 million videos and 200 terabytes of data per day, may have to pay about $1 million a month for level 3 communication that provide YouTube data centers a multiple 10 gigabits per second (10GigE) ports across a nationwide.

However, not all investment in bandwidth is rewarding. With the formula that we all know, Profit = Revenue – Expense, the more expense that company has, the less likely it will make a profit. One of the examples is MovieLink.com, an online movies shop owned by many big names in movie industry. It uses direct server in distribution. Although the number of downloads is very impressive, almost 70,000 downloads a month, it is nothing when compare to $150 million that the company has to pay over the last four years. MovieLink.com will have a hard time to compete with the new competitor like BitTorrent.com which use BitTorrent technology that cost a lot less than unicasting. Like every investment, ROI is the key that the company should pay attention to. If the company uses unicast, chances are the investment might be high and a profit will be harder to see.

Quality of Video Service and Quality of experience

Uncompressed video files are too large for most computers to transfer. A few minutes of video files may be as large as gigabyte while audio may take up only one or two megabyte. This is the reason why most of video files transferred over the Internet are compressed into as less resolution as possible, and heavily rely on audio quality. The disabled and elderly who have problem in listening are almost cut out of the target market. The delivery of high-end media that satisfied user’s need in both speed and quality is not easy to happen soon. It takes almost two hours to download the high quality video from iTune via broadband connection, and the price is cheaper than local store, which is five minutes away, just one or two dollars. There is no incentive for users to waste their times, bandwidth, and CPU to do so. The situation gets even worse when broadcasting live events. The more objects are moving, the larger files are after compression, and the higher chance that user will watch jumpy and jerky video.

Although the ubiquity of broadband enables fast development of webcasting technology, not every parts of this world connect to broadband network. Latency is expected especially when transferring media data across the continents. From my own experience, although I pay for the service that allows me to watch a sitcom from my home country in Southeast Asia with the low resolution that I barely recognized people who played in the scene, I am still used to the picture of my monitor displaying the same scene with the word “loading” for couple seconds before moving on. The same situation also happened to me when I tried to watch YouTube clips from my home country. The company needs to check the available speed of the connection before deciding to use Webcasting in the conference among branches in other countries.

Control and Copyright Legislation

Podcasting is one of technologies that are developed from webcasting. It allows users download audio or video files to listen later on at their convenience which is the main difference between a podcast and real-time streaming. Podcasting distributes media file over the internet by using RSS syndication that allows podcatching programs like iTune to automatically download new contents. Despite the widely use of podcasting, there is no control over the content of podcasts. It is free for everyone to use and share their ideas. There is no such a warning or rating about how violent the content in the podcast is. Therefore, it increases a chance that children may expose to inappropriate contents. Although iTune offered parental control option in its player, it is not effective enough. It forces parents to either allow or block podcasts as a whole. The parents cannot allow only some podcasts, while blocking the others. This hinders the users from making the most of podcasting.

Like many technologies that always outpace copyright legislation, many pirated videos can be found on video portals. The lack of filtering technology in many video portals printed the bad image of webcasting on media companies’ mind. Recently, Viacom, the parent company of MTV, sued YouTube and demanded it to remove unauthorized clips of the company. It was the first time that YouTube was sued by the major media company for copyright infringement. However, there is no guarantee that there will be no more unauthorized video uploading to video servers because of the difficulty in scanning and the lack of the organization to deal with copyright infringement over the Internet. Copyright holders need to police the video portals by themselves.

In contrast, the radio webcasting has a strict legislation on copyright. The webcasters that would like to play a record over the Internet must pay a royalty to a musician or a record label while the traditional radio stations do not have to for this type of royalty. It is somehow acceptable to many webcasters. However, the issue arose when Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has announced new royalty rates for Internet radio this year, against all arguments of webcasters. The royalty rates changed from charging per song to charging per song per listener, which means the more listeners the stations have, the higher royalty they must pay per song. Besides, the rates will keep increasing annually. In 2010, the rate will be twice as much as the rate last year. This not only puts a lot of pressure on already thin profit stations, but also big stations such as Pandora, Live365, and Yahoo. According to calculations made by the Radio and Internet Newsletter, the AOL Radio Network is expected to pay a royalty of $1.65 million for its broadcasting in November 2006 alone. This new rate will definitely force many Internet radio stations to be out of the business and leave online music fans with less in variety and quality Internet radio.

Secondary Effect

Webcasting is rapidly moving into the business area. Many businesses are using it to market their products, train workers, educate customers, and deliver company news. Webcasting seems to benefit almost any types of business, especially the virtual one. Nevertheless, the company should also consider the secondary effect of replacing original operation with webcasting technology. For example, video conference technology may enable the company to cut transportation cost, and increase flexibility in collaboration. However, the trust among group member, which is very important for critical decision, may be difficult to build because of lacking physical meeting and social contact. Without working at the same physical boundary, managers may have a hard time observing and monitoring their staff. Hence, the company needs staff who have high self-discipline. The company should keep in mind that all of these negative results might happen, and evaluate their effect on the health of the company before deciding to jump into more virtual company.

Podcasting is also an alternative way of learning. Students can download lecture to their MP3 player and listen to it whenever they want. It helps students, especially international students, catching up the materials in the class. However, podcasting also repeated the same problems as online learning. It has less in interaction between instructors and students. Students may decide not to attend the class because they have all the class materials in hand. As a result, they might not develop skills such as sharing idea and working as a group.

In short, webcasting will become even more popular in the future because people tend to spent more time on their computer. However, webcasting does not guarantee the success of the company. The company should pay more attention on ROI of implementing this technology. Webcasting might fit to some types of business, while may not be useful for the other types. The company should acknowledge all the possible change that might happen to the business process after the adoption of webcasting as well. As far as the problem of bandwidth shortage has not been addressed, the company will have to pay for the high bandwidth cost, and the users still have to wait for better quality of webcasting service.

BitTorrent: Give and ye shall receive!

2007-03-28T23:17:00.000-06:00

“First Position Paper”
By Bank

With higher speed in transferring without compromising the quality of data, peer to peer (P2P) applications will definitely play an important role in transferring large file like audio and video data in upcoming Web 2.0 era. Among those P2P protocols, BitTorrent is the most outstanding. It is necessary to understand this technology in term of technology, deployment of this technology, and good and bad impacts toward each industry to find a new opportunity in this market.

Before P2P, the most common protocols used in file transferring are FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). Both protocols are based on client and server topology – this means a client will connects and downloads files directly from the server. The main drawback of these protocols is bottleneck especially when the number of clients is increasing, or when large files are downloaded. To deal with an increasing demand of user, some companies invest substantial budget in enlarging their bandwidths or using faster CPU, while others address the problem by using many mirror servers to share the load. However, the system still heavily relies on the server. If the servers crash or go down, the service will get a direct impact.

Therefore, peer to peer for file sharing is developed to distribute work of the server. The server is used only for giving the information about the computer that client can download files from. Please notice that the server does not need to keep the actual file. It is mostly used as an index only. Therefore, the resource of the server is not severely exploited. Emule, Kazaa and Edonkey are examples of program that use P2P protocol. One disadvantage of P2P protocol is the speed because speed of home-user broadband is not as fast as the server, and most of the time users often limit speed in uploading. Moreover, each file has only 2 statuses: download and upload. Therefore the users cannot upload while they are downloading.

BitTorrent is developed by Beam Cohen, the programmer who suffers from autism, to counteract this problem. It is based on the idea that users can upload and download simultaneously. File is divided into many pieces (typically 1,000 pieces.) Users will download each piece separately from many computers. The transferring is complete when all pieces are collected. While users are downloading, they can also upload the piece that they just got to another user.

In order to download by using BitTorrent protocol, the program called Torrent Client is needed. one of the most popular program is Azureus which is programmed by Java language. Hence, it can run on many platform. A program Torrent Client links to the a tracker website which contains a list of all files and tracker of each files. http:///www.supernova.org is one of the most popular tracker websites. After users choose file that they want, the torrent clients will connect to tracker website of the file, which keeps file information such as name, size, and number of pieces. Besides, tracker website will monitor who are currently downloading or uploading the file as well. A User who has all pieces of file is called seeder. As you might see, the more user in the system, the faster the speed is in downloading since the users can download pieces of file from more users. Torrent Client will display how many seeder the user download file from, and connect to tracker to update a list of seeder for better performance.

A good user of BitTorrent always open a port after finish downloading to allow other people download file from them. Some programs enforce this rule by assigning ratio in uploading and downloading to each user. The higher the ratio is, the faster the user can download.

Unlike downloading file from trust servers, downloading from peer may stir some security issue. Some users may concern about Malware that might come with downloaded file. However, using BT in downloading is quite safe because the program will collect each piece of file from many places, and specify particular computer as sender and receiver is not allowed. The malware must be small enough to be in only one piece of the file. Moreover, BT uses Hash function in downloading. The torrent client will be able to detect the modified piece due to the change of hash value. However, users are recommended to scan file with anti-virus program after downloading.

BitTorrent proved itself many times as the most effective way in distributing data via Internet. It appears to be the most popular peer-to-peer protocol adopted for legal uses such as for easing bandwidth strain on software developer. The most significant event that proved its efficiency occurred in 2003, when Red Hat released Red Hat Linux 9 operating system. Since Red Hat’s server cannot support a strong demand of downloader, BitTorrent is used as an alternative solution. Within only three days, the copy was traded more than 21.15 terabytes. At the peak time, 4,500 computers were swapping pieces of the files at any given time, uploading and downloading 1.4 terabytes each second. BitTorrent decreased cost in handles the traffic from $20,000 - $60,000 to the usual server costing bill, $99. Gamemaker Blizzard Entertainment also used BitTorrent to distribute the two-gigabyte of Warcraft game (nearly 3 cds’ capacity) and its entire patch. Hundred of thousands gamers was able to download it through BitTorrent. In addition, Sun Microsoft is using BT to offer its entire Open Solaris system and also plan to use BitTorrent for all of its software within next two years.

Just like many innovation that have both good and bad points, BitTorrent is beloved by illegal downloader and file sharers. Most participants use BitTorrent to illegally download games, movies and programs. Approximately, 1.7 million copies of Hollywood movies are downloaded at any given time. In 2004, the MPAA launched a campaign against BitTorrent sites in the United States and Britain. However entertainment industry cannot sue BitTorrent as they did with Napster and Kazaa because BitTorrent is an open source, there is no one behind it to be accountable for. Besides, it is a very general purpose tool, not application for copyright infringement as Napster. Therefore, the entertainment industry has to go after the users who misused it. According to Cohen, BitTorrent is a bad way to do piracy because it does not guarantee anonymity.

In October 2005, 38-year-old Hong Kong resident Chan Naiming was sentenced to a three-year prison team after he had uploaded illegal copies of many films. A year later, 23-year-old American Grant Stanley was sentenced to five month in prison, followed by five months of house arrest, and a $3,000 fine for his role as a leading participant in the BitTorrent tracker site, “Ellitetorrents”.

Recently, BitTorrent inventor changes his direction. He filtered illegal contents from his website and did a contact with many entertainment companies to help them convert illegal users into paying customers. The revenue is generated either by selling ads within the content or charging a fee for the files. Not only BitTorrent has to motivate user to download the file legally, but it has to find some incentive for user to share those files as well. Giving a discount for sharing bandwidth and acting as a seeder sounds like an interesting idea. There is no doubt about power in distributing file of BitTorrent. However, how much illegal user BitTorrent can convert remained unclear. Is micro payment for legal files interesting enough for the users who used to get it for free? This is all we have to wait and see.

Google Phone Genius

2007-03-28T13:12:00.000-06:00

I read a blog recently about the Google phone (Computerworld) and it sounds like Mike Elgan, the writer, may be right on. Google doesn't want to sell hardware, rather it wants to provide mobile services that use location, time, and past history to make its query results 'indispensable'. This will encourage phone companies to offer it and make advertisers willing to pay substantially for it. Google then will make its money from advertising, not the users or by selling hardware.

VoIP Followup

2007-03-22T12:24:00.000-06:00

John Landowski
Topics 760
3/20/07

Follow-up on VoIP in Business

The discussion we had in class was primarily an overview of the VoIP technology. What I would like to present in this follow up is a business strategy view of implementing VoIP.

When a company decides to combine its data, voice and video on the same network there is a potential for huge telecom savings, but also a threat of competing network traffic. In creating a Quality of Service(QoS) that parallels that of the old POTs standards, it is mission critical that the IT staff carefully consider all aspects of implementation, and, possibly hire a consultant. In some cases legacy systems may need to be tossed and years of working with the same old system may give way to learning new IP standards.

Besides the many advantages of implementing VoIP, there may be cases in which only part of a company uses VoIP and another part remains on a traditional trunk line till the QoS is proven to not be a liability to the company. Customer service in some cases can benefit from VoIP such as in the “click to connect scenario”- a real-time IP based service that allows the end user to talk with a representative over the internet. On the other hand, what happens if the quality of the communications is choppy and a customer calling in cannot even understand the service representative. Both scenarios can have drastically different results. This is why it is critical to fully research any implementation and run testing for an extended period of time before dumping any carriers.

VoIP and the Market

VoIP has had its ups and downs, but currently the market is hot. After a slow start in a skeptical business market that didn’t see much advantage over existing systems, many carriers decided to tackle to more cost conscious home markets. Although adoption has been relatively steady, four factors will form the basis of a mass market adoption of VoIP. These four are:
1. Evolving Standards
2. New Applications
3. Reliability and Security
4. New Services - VoIP consulting and support

VoIP and Implementation - Conclusion

When it comes time to look at VoIP as a possible value add in addition to cost savings, IT managers and CIOs may consider rolling this technology out in stages to only parts of the company. By getting the hands on experience of dealing with VoIP in a rollout situation, a company IT manager will feel much more comfortable working with the technology in the future. With high expectations in quality, even the slightest technical problems could cause a move to VoIP to create massive headaches.
Service provider rollouts can also be very costly and even hazardous if the technical support is less reliable than the technology used.

Is VoIP a Silver Bullet for the Global Business World?

2007-03-19T17:01:00.000-06:00

Tanner Dabel

2^nd Opinion paper

VoIP

When I say Gizmo Project, Skype and Vonage, what’s the first thing to pop into your head? No, we’re not talking about the furry creature from that creepy 80’s movie called Gremlins. Yes, Skype is a real word (seriously, it’s a company!) No I’m not talking about the retro van in the Vonage commercials, or the “w-hoo hoo” theme song of theirs. I’m talking about VoIP (Voice over IP). The concept had been around for a couple years, buts it’s quickly taking shape on the global level.

VoIP basically is the means in which you can use an internet connection or company T1 line to make or take phone calls. Rather then using the traditional phone lines, the call actually is run through an existing network with access to an internet connection (e.g. WiFi and broadband) or private company T1 lines. What use to be a cheap way for exchange students and US troops overseas to make calls back to home, has turned into a new global business solution.

Along with many other technologies, VoIP has both pros and cons. For as many pros that come with using VoIP, there are close to the same amount of cons (which actually aren’t against VoIP itself, but have to do more with its limitations.) Some people are ready to give up the traditional phone to go entirely VoIP (usually this occurs more on a personal level and not a company), while others refuse to have anything to do with VoIP. Ideally a business should look for that magic compromise somewhere in the middle. This strongly is determined by what the company does and how it uses the many forms of communication....

Continued Here...

VoIP in Corporate View

2007-03-19T16:00:00.000-06:00

Summary of my 3rd paper

Posted by Nancy

March 19, 2007

By looking at the ultimate goal of having VoIP: treating voice calls as just another form of data to be moved around the IP network to reduce the cost of calls and making call handling more flexible and intelligent, will it worth to upgrade from conventional phone line to this more advance technology? Will VoIP live up to the expectations set by vendors? What is the impact of this technology on end users like a corporation?

In my opinion, maybe not within these upcoming years, however, these problems will eventually be fixed. Many grounds will be made up and there is a possibility that this technology will be the future audio signal transfer. For now, I think, home users will gain most benefit out of VoIP service. They can use their own computer and give VoIP a try before fully adopt it.

If a CIO in a corporation would like to do so, he/she needed to check with the VoIP service providers he/she choose to confirm any advantages and limitations to their services. Underestimating the impact of VoIP on the IT infrastructure can lead to poor quality of service and worse, can impair a company’s ability to serve its customers.

Summary Webcasting

2007-03-19T15:57:00.000-06:00

Posted by Nancy

March 19, 2007

Based on the discussion of strength and weakness of webcasting, it is more likely that it has a potential to be the leading convergence technology in the future. Webcasting can provide live and/or video-on-demand services, reach a vast area of the world instantly through the Internet, and also provide seamless interactive service such as e-commerce business.

However, a more important factor that will determine the future of webcasting for a business organization lies in emphasizing the importance of implementation instead of mere adoption of new innovation. I found that the technology is suitable to convey live broadcasting events such as breaking news and sports. Some business may found it useful for training, showcase events, or updating real-time information. Even though consuming large bandwidth is the current major concern of webcasting technology, however, with more advanced technology in transmission line and reduction of bandwidth cost in the future, this may help webcasting being more attractive technology.

Joost is Coming

2007-03-19T14:51:00.000-06:00

Wired magazine recently had a really interesting article on the coming of a new project called the "Venice Project", to be renamed "Joost". Their goal is to reinvent television with the best that the broadcast media has to offer combined with the Internet. Don't underestimate them! The geniuses behind this are Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, the creators of Kazaa and Skype! (Skype was sold to eBay for $2.6 billion.)

They are using 80% open source technology combined with their own proprietary technologies from Skype and new technologies their team is now developing. It uses Peer-To-Peer networking technologies that borrow very heavily from BitTorrent but with very strong security and legitimacy aspects. (They intend to avoid lawsuits.) We have been discussing many of the technologies they are using in class.

The Wired article is titled "Here comes Trouble, by Spencer Reiss in the Februrary 2007 issue."

Viacom sues 'GooTube' for $1 billion

2007-03-13T13:40:00.000-06:00

Parent of MTV, Comedy Central hits Google with first major copyright infringement suit. Will other media firms follow?

http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/13/news/companies/youtube_viacom_reaction/index.htm?cnn=yes

Interesting sequence of events happening in the streaming media arena. I think that certain alliances between "Infomediaries" and the media conglomerates will take shape to capitalize on the distribution of the media. The idea of charging for streaming the media may be sooner that we think in terms of how this "out of court" settlement shakes out.

Add up comments on Security of Webcasting

2007-03-13T08:49:00.000-06:00

by Nancy

March 13, 2007

Tanner led up a good point about security issue on webcasting tonight. I started searching around about "are there any way to solve security vulnerabilities on webcasting?".

I found some research article working on the security issue of private networks streaming. Basically, they have focused on security issues around implementation and use of the Direct Data Placement Protocol (DDP) and Remote Direct Memory Access Protocol (RDMAP). It is not directly related to webcasting. However, some part of their idea may be able to use for further developing on webcasting security issue on any organization networks.

Here is the ideas:
At the beginning, every incoming traffic of data streaming type should be verified on the IP address whether from trusted sources or not (idea of IPSec, secure communication protocol). After that the receiving server will check on the packets which were sent by non-recognized IP address by putting on testdrive section (simulation of use) and test any possible risks before the connection of streamline would be fully established to any peers.

On the other hand, these ideas also create the consequence on other issues such as consuming of resources and traffic congestion.

Seem like the best answer right now is “choosing trusted sources”. What about some sources like youTube? Since youTube also uses the pseudo streaming to download the whole clip and put it in our local drive, how can we prevent this risks?

Finally, these are links to the clips that I plan to show on the class but didn't.

Example of the brand recognition advertising by NIKE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aRn9e1ApUU

Example of a production team who like to make movies...webcasting make their dream come true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CiW838wNiM

Example of the new products launching, iRack...don't miss this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM_MkWgbt3k

Have fun....

The growing trend to watch TV online...

2007-03-11T22:48:00.000-06:00

I'm not going to write a paper on the Web-episodes topic, but I did want to weigh in a little before the presentation/debate in tomorrows class.

I've noticed over the last year that web-episodes have become very prevalent and are very much in the forefront of today's online communities. I can speak first hand on this as I watch 90% of my own television online now and only use my actual TV for sporting events, daily news and to watch DVD's from my collection. If you go to any of the major networks, they have all created systems and interfaces in which we as the viewer can now go to their website and watch full length episodes of what they normally would have also as tv programming on their stations.

I currently watch the following online on a weekly basis rather then through my TV; LOST (ABC), Studio 60 (NBC) and Prison Break (FOX). In addition, this up coming week, I'll be watching most of the NCAA College Basketball Games online through CBS's agreement to show all games from the first three rounds online. Oh and the above fore mentioned is completely free and 100% legal/legitimate straight from the TV networks websites.

I feel that the networks offerings to be a great benefit to those like myself whom do not want to be chained to a TV at night and plan around the programming schedule. What I like most about being able to watch online is that often episodes stay up for at least one week if not more. Hence, very much like TiVo (minus the cost), I am able to watch TV online on demand.

Second Position Paper Summary.

2007-03-11T18:59:00.000-06:00

The term webcast is generally accepted as meaning “the transmitting of audio or video content over the Internet.” Webcasting is not a new technology; it has been around since the mid to late nineteen-nineties. As of late, webcasting has become far more prevalent due to the fact that broadband internet connections are becoming the norm. This increased prevalence, combined with an increasingly savvy user, is changing the way businesses are able to communicate both internally and externally. Specifically I discuss how YouTube, Podcasting and Webisodes are changing and impacting business.

BitTorrent to Industry and Digital Right

2007-03-05T12:41:00.000-06:00

Posted by Nancy

03/05/2007

BitTorrent’s popularity has grown exponentially in the past couple years. The advantage of this Peer-to-Peer protocol allow people to freely use for sharing and downloading material including the copyrighted music, movies and TV shows illegally. This has caused complaints from the producers of TV shows and film industry. The risk of being sued or even arrested is a big disadvantage on being BitTorrent's seeds and distributers. The copyright conflict came up and led to legal issue of Digital Right and Piracy.

I believe that problems of the legal aspects and illegal file sharing can be resolved soon like another situation. For example, we wouldn’t stop using computers because of virus but we invented the anti-virus program. My side is that how can we use the advantages of the BitTorrent technology to find new opportunity and make it even better. Today it is just the beginning of a minor revolution regarding data sharing. In the future, I believe that it will probably find new areas where the BitTorrent technique can be used with a great success.

Open Source Software for Business

2007-03-05T12:28:00.000-06:00

Posted by Nancy

03/05/2007

Summary of the Follow-Up Paper

Many debates surrounding what is best to a company, open source software or closed source commercial software continue to rage. I am also a fan of open source software and has experienced on many of them for a long time. I saw the incremental numbers of new applications, their development, and each community’s growth. Until now I have found that the open source software is all around, and many of them make a best deal.

Open Source software should be remained in the software community as an alternative choice for computer users as long as there are rooms for software development in the market. Even though it offers benefits including availability with less cost than most of commercial software and allows users to study, change, and improve the software for their personal interest, many issues such as higher hidden cost, higher degree of proficient users required to install and operate the software, and security/legal issues still linger when it is considered for business application. However, by adopting proprietary/commercial software and stop using Open Source software may not be a final answer.

If Open Source software is well matured and the nature of the company is suitable for some specific applications with availability of the experienced employee support, using Open Source will be effective and liable. For typical business that time consuming and practicalities are more important, commercial software may be good enough. In some cases, combining both of the proprietary and good quality open source software is also a good choice. Whatever it is, the final decision could be given by main criteria and policy of each company and its benefit.

Read More...

History of BiTorrent

2007-03-05T09:21:00.001-06:00

History of BitTorrent with EXCLUSIVE video interview about the creation of BitTorrent

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnet

http://archive.salon.com/tech/view/2000/10/09/mojo_nation/index.html

1999 Interview with Jim McCoy - by John Landowski

http://www.customcreative.com/media/mojo-nation.wmv

Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow

BitTorrent Outline...

2007-03-05T00:36:00.000-06:00

Just a few informal notes prior to the BitTorrent Debate tomorrow...

Areas I plan to cover:
- How BitTorrent Works
- Intended Usage
- Unintended Usage
- Legal Issues involving BitTorrent (Directly & Indirectly)
- Security Vulnerabilities
- Limitations

Here are links to sources I plan to use:
General Information
Drawbacks to its use & nifty demo
Spyware Article

Free Open Source Webinar

2007-03-01T14:34:00.000-06:00

Madison Firm can help you create a website using DotNet Nuke

http://www.yaharasoftware.com/Default.aspx?tabid=126

Its all about marketshare

2007-02-27T15:41:00.000-06:00

http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/marketshare/

MySQL is not only the world's most popular open source database, it's also the fastest growing database in the industry. With more than 10 million active installations and over 50,000 downloads per day, MySQL continues to be the choice for a broad range of developers, database administrators and IT managers who want a high performance database that is reliable and easy to use.

Open Source Software

2007-02-25T23:29:00.000-06:00

I've been searching for the magic behind open source software and think I have found something. Of course its been around a long time and I just now stumbled into it. I'm referring to the story of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric Raymond. In this widely read piece, he cites reasons for the success of Linux and his own open source project fetchmail but more importantly, he generates rules explaining their ecosystem behaviors.

The "cathedral" represents those projects "carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation". On the other hand, the "bazaar" represents those projects "who'd take submissions from anyone out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles." Needless to say, the success of the bazaar was surprising.

Raymond claimed that people participate in open source projects because of the principle of "egoboo". That is, the recognition of their contributions to the project boosts their self-esteem. He goes on to say that large numbers of developers, wisely handled, is efficient in an engineering sense and that:

"the future of open-source software will increasingly belong to people who know how to play Linus' game, people who leave behind the cathedral and embrace the bazaar. This is not to say that individual vision and brilliance will no longer matter; rather, I think that the cutting edge of open-source software will belong to people who start from individual vision and brilliance, then amplify it through the effective construction of voluntary communities of interest.

Perhaps in the end the open-source culture will triumph not because cooperation is morally right or software "hoarding" is morally wrong, but simply because the commercial world cannot win an evolutionary arms race with open-source communities that can put orders of magnitude more skilled time into a problem.

Perhaps we will have a vibrant community of Open Source developers for a long time to come. :)

Is Vista worth it?

2007-02-19T17:20:00.000-06:00

David Stevens
Windows Vista

Corporations will eventually be forced to adopt Windows Vista or whatever operating system comes after Windows Vista becasue of Microsofts policy of not offering updates for out-dated systems. The question of should a company upgrade to Windows Vista right away is hard to answer. Corporations are concerned with the costs and benefits of changing, and they are not going to be compelled to change if the only prominent benefit is a more graphical user interface. Very few companies are going to be attracted to Windows Vista because of the new visual experience it offers its users. Companies are not concerned with providing their workers a better visual experience unless it will give them some benefit (ex. higher productivity levels). Small companies may be the first to upgrade to Vista because they would feel that they are improving their own work environment, and they are more likely to be dependent upon Window's automatic updates for maintaining their computers. Additionally, small companies that rely on Microsoft Office for providing their workplace software will not have to worry about their personalized software not being compatable with Vista.

2007-02-19T11:44:00.001-06:00

Microsoft Vista Operating System

After more than five years of intensive efforts, Windows Vista is finally complete. Vista is the successor to Windows XP, the PC operating system which is currently used by over 400 million people. This new operating system is a major Windows update with lots of new functionality and features. In the words of Microsoft, it’s a new operating system which is "Confident, Clear, Connected." It's the first Windows version which provides developers with a major new programming model in ten years.

The first difference of Vista from Windows XP is Windows Aero, an entirely reworked user interface with semi-transparent windows. Microsoft has put a great effort into Vista's appearance. Its new typeface gives the program a modern feeling and subtle animations make its even more attractive. New programs include the Sidebar, a floating layer of single-purpose programs called gadgets; flip 3D presents all open windows in all programs, and visual and feature upgrades are very nice. But the more important areas of improvement are security, stability, ease of implementation, support and improved performance. Intelligent navigation and more powerful file-manipulation tools improve its efficiency.

According to Microsoft, the system requirements for Vista don’t look too daunting: 800 MHz processor with 512 MB of memory, at least 15 GB of free space on a minimum 20 GB hard drive with SVGA graphics. This clearly indicates that Microsoft is referring to the minimum specifications. But migrating one’s PC to Vista means it will need updated drivers for one’s printer, Ethernet card, audio card and other hardware and one may also have to deal with incompatible programs. Microsoft offers six versions of Vista. In all editions of Windows Vista, there are new diagnostic tools and monitors to check and report on the current status of our PC. All editions of Windows Vista include Microsoft's free antispyware application, and Windows Defender. Despite all these features, users claim that Vista runs better in computers with plenty of computing horsepower.

There should be tangible reasons to make the upgrade to Vista. Microsoft offers several reasons starting with security. The security features which are standard with Windows Vista include an improved User Account Control system and built-in malware (spyware, adware, virus) protection. But are the new security features alone enough to compel a small business to upgrade to Vista? I would say probably not, unless the small business already experienced a security breakdown.

Other features like ReadyBoost allow a Windows Vista machine to be able to use a single USB flash memory drive as a caching tool. The Windows XP Standby and Hibernate features have been replaced with a new Sleep option. It works a little differently depending on whether the computer is a desktop or laptop. In the desktop version of Sleep, anything in use is stored to both system RAM and hard drive. This would allow the computer come out of Sleep mode in around 2 to 3 seconds. For laptops, Sleep works by storing data in RAM if battery power is sufficient. When the battery power level has diminished, the data is automatically transferred to disk for protection.

There are many other operating system improvements incorporated into Windows Vista such as improved backup, new explorer tools, simplified networking, search tools, and many more. Even though there are several different versions of Vista, most small businesses will likely focus on Vista Business.

With the launch of Windows XP, Microsoft promised users a more stable operating system which they delivered. For Windows Vista, Microsoft is pointing to a more secure platform. Recalling the service packs and continual updates for Windows XP, a more secure Windows in Vista would be a welcome situation for both users and small business IT support.

Windows Vista promises enhancements that will not only improve the computing experience, but also advance mobile communication. Such features of mobility combine common notebook-focused features, a suite of enhanced security tools, and a Network and Sharing Center. Although these mobility features might tempt organizations to migrate their notebook computers ahead of their desktop PCs, but this would be an ill-advised move. Firstly, migration to Vista or any new platform promises to be a complex process. Planning and validation for a migration should be based on business requirements. Second, even the best-planned Vista migration is likely to encounter unforeseen problems that are best worked out from a fixed location, that is, from the desktop. Third, Vista's security features, even though attractive, offer nothing specific to notebooks and are nearly all available from third parties on XP. Organizations requiring near-term mobile security should better use the third-party tools than to rush and compromise with Vista migration.

Microsoft promotes Vista as a remedy to a large number of mobility challenges like power management, network awareness, offline access to important data, multiple displays, readability, etc. and these new features do make headway in these areas. Although Vista's mobility features are useful, they are not essential. None of them constitute an immediate requirement for any organization. Considering all of the new features along with the concentration on security, will small businesses allocate the necessary resources to implement Windows Vista? Some will, some won’t. For the small companies whose systems are nearing the end of their lifecycle will consider Vista. Vista is a clear improvement over Windows XP, but small businesses who have recently upgraded their system would probably wait till Windows Vista is widely adopted. As a result, organizations should resist the idea of early migration ahead of desktop computers, unless specific business issues are being addressed.

From the economic impact point of view, analysts emphasized that while Microsoft will earn a great deal of money through Vista, even more will be generated by European companies within the Microsoft "ecosystem." Some researches say that Germany, U.K., France, Denmark, Poland and Spain, which collectively account for more than 65 percent of IT spending in the European economic zone (the EU, plus Croatia, Norway and Switzerland) are representative of Europe as a whole and, for that matter, they are much of the developed world. Therefore, the launch of Windows Vista in six large European countries will create more than 50,000 technology jobs and will lead economic benefits for companies there.

The International Data Corporation (IDC), commissioned by Microsoft Corp., has released a research study that reports how the Windows Vista operating system will drive significant economic growth in the United States in its first year of shipment.
It indicates that Windows Vista will provide a foundation for the information technology market moving forward, creating more than 100,000 new jobs and driving $70 billion or more in revenues for Microsoft's partners and the industry at large. The impact of Windows Vista on the U.S. market will drive substantial revenue and growth for many companies that are part of the Windows ecosystem i.e., companies that sell hardware, write software, provide IT services or serve as IT distribution channels. The study predicts that the release of Windows Vista will help more than 200,000 U.S. IT companies that will produce, sell or distribute products and services running on Windows Vista. This would also include many small and locally owned businesses. The study forecasts that each dollar of Windows Vista-related revenue earned by Microsoft in 2007 will generate more than $18 in revenue for the IT industry at large.

The IDC study also shows that the Microsoft ecosystem is making a sizable investment to roll out Windows Vista worldwide. IDC expects Microsoft partners to invest approximately $10 billion in Windows Vista- related products and services between now and the end of 2007. As these products and services gain mass-market adoption over the course of the next year, IDC expects Microsoft's partners and others in the IT industry to generate more than $70 billion in revenues directly tied to Windows Vista. This includes revenue from manufacturers that sell hardware for running the new operating system, revenues for non-Microsoft software packages built to run on Windows Vista, and other services supporting Windows Vista.

The major pros of this operating system are the beautiful user interface and security improvements. The cons are the significant hardware requirements and compatibility issues with current hardware and software. Despite Microsoft assertions about the improved reliability of Vista, I would wait and see its approach. Microsoft's previous operating system, Windows XP, required two "service packs" issued over a number of years to improve security and new flaws are still routinely discovered. Therefore, the decision to upgrade the system to Windows Vista now or wait depends on the firm and the age of its PCs. Like all new operating systems, it will take time for the major bug fixes to come out (say around six to 12 months). Most likely many existing hardware devices will not work without driver updates from their manufacturers. Vista includes thousands of drivers but most of them have been created directly by Microsoft. Many hardware manufacturers do not yet have drivers available for Vista. According to a leading market intelligence firm, IDC, more than a year after the release of Windows XP, only 10 percent of the world's business community was running it. Vista is a much bigger step taken forward than XP was, and from corporation point of view, I think we can expect it to be adopted at the same rate or slower than XP.

Lasting comments on new forms of communication within Business

2007-02-18T23:01:00.000-06:00

I believe Nacey recapped nicely what we covered in class...

Just a few last remarks I had on the topic as well.

It seems companies are racing to get a competitive edge over each other. In doing so many are adopting new forms of communication in hopes to streamline the communication processes within their company. With this, tech savvy companies are quick to latch on to whatever technology is available to get them to that streamlined process. I think companies sometimes act too quickly and don't fully investigate these technologies before they implement them. This leads to many types of risks to persons of the company and the company itself. Of the many things we've learned from Mondays class, I hope one of them is that the means in which we communicate with each other is fragile yet ever so powerful. To construct a process haphazardly is dangerous at best. Its important for companies to understand how to use the technology before using it. It equally as important if not more important to understand why the technology is being used within the company.

Conclusion and comments of Topic: New form of Business Communication.

2007-02-14T03:39:00.000-06:00

Posted by Nancy.
Happy Valentine Day!!!

Business communication is the communication used for many objectives to encourage success and good body of business. Communication can be in any forms, traditional or hi-technology, direct or indirect ways and make sure the correct message sent to receivers correctly and securely. These following lists could lead to fail communicating.

Misunderstanding of language or symbolic uses.
Wrong timely manner.
Miscommunication or Misconduct
Lack of communication components
Unclear definition or circular
Jargon
Risk of interception – wrong people get message but right people never got.

The current and future of business communication technology that can be found in general or specific purposes which I was gathering from discussions are listed below:

- Instance Messaging
- Web Presence
- Cell phones
- Email
- Text Messaging
- Electronic Billboard
- VoIP
- Digital Overlay for custom TV Ads placement
- RF Devices
- Webcasting / Podcasting
- E-Blasting
- GPS technology
- etc.,

Although, the technology may develop to allow faster and easier communication and access, there is no guarantee of successful business communication. In my opinion, the most important key is not just what technology, but what it is catching the receivers’ attention.

Is there room for IM in the corporate world?

2007-02-12T01:36:00.000-06:00

"My first position paper"

Posted by Tanner Dabel

Feb. 11^th, 2007

Surprisingly IM (instant messaging) systems were created in the 70’s, but went unnoticed until the mid 90’s. It was at this time that client systems like ICQ and AOL started to resonate with the mainstream population. Many attribute this to our mass awakening of the internet and its common day usage in the mid 90’s. This quickly became the age of the internet, email, chat rooms and instant messaging systems. Communication no longer was limited to verbal or print; it had transcended the boundaries of becoming digital.

Early on IM systems were adopted primarily by teenagers as a social and recreational tool. This was a means to communicate with friends and family through ones computer rather then on the phone or in person. Usage of IM systems often occurred outside of school and the workplace. Due to this informal usage; rules, laws and polices were loosely defined and rarely needed. One needn’t be concerned with the legal, financial or regulatory issues involved with using an IM system for private and personal use.

Slowly over the last decade though, this loosely defined form of digital communication has been seeping into the corporate world. Those users whom were teenagers just ten years ago are in their 20’s and now hitting the corporate world. As the saying goes, old habits die hard. For those who want to eradicate it from their already infected business, I have one phrase for you; “Good Luck!” For those who haven’t been infected yet, I have another phrase for you; “Start planning!” Like a virus with no cure, IM systems in the workplace are spreading faster than the corporate world can coupe with them.

As with an incurable virus, businesses only have one real choice, “acceptance”. But, instead of allowing IM to be an ongoing virus, businesses can morph it into an antivirus; viewed more as a solution, rather then a problem. Basically, you get what you make. You can’t make IM go away, so make it into something positive, rather then negative. IM may be young, but it’s stubborn. Its here and it isn’t going to go away. If a company is smart, it will use IM to its advantage, using all its features working it into the companies’ schema. If a company isn’t, it’ll either a.) bury its head and ignore it or b.) attempt to eradicate and fail.

Since its always fun to discuss the bad news first, I’ll quickly cover why it’s bad for a company to ignore IM as a potential problem and why it’s bad to try to eradicate it from you company. As with most problems, the issue isn’t going to go away. Most likely, the people whom work for you are more technically savvy than you, especially the younger ones. As stated above, old habits die hard. These people have been using IM for years and it’s now embedded in their day to day life. If nothing is done, these people will (if they haven’t already) take it upon themselves to install these IM systems and use them unchecked and uncontrolled. Starting to see how ignoring this could be very bad to your company? Imagine all the confidential leaks, intellectual property issues and privacy concerns that might be occurring and you’ve chosen to ignore it. Oh and this is just the outbound threats. Now imagine all the people your people are talking to. Think a few of them might have viruses, worms, spyware or malware? I bet so, and all it takes is one person to click “accept” for one peer to peer file transfer and now your dealing with a level 3 Symantec threat dancing around on your network. Sounds fun doesn’t it. Those are considered the inbound threats. Lastly, let’s not forget all the legal and financial ground that IM systems seem to tread on. Most of this ground hasn’t been covered yet and has the potential to be a powder keg of lawsuits waiting to happen.

Now let’s discuss trying to eradicate it. How do you plan to do this? Block specific ports that IM systems use? Sorry try again, most current IM systems use port crawlers and can get around this. Tell your workers not to install or use them? Yeah, that’s like telling a kid “don’t touch this”, then walking away and hoping they listened. Block all ports from allowing IM system a way in, yeah, but its going to cost thousands in what I’d consider wasted funds. Oh and you know, as soon as its completely blocked, someone will start developing a “work-a-round” to enable it again. In addition, completely blocking it takes away all the positive uses IM systems have to over. Oh and it gives your workers just one more reason to be disgruntled with you.

Ok, enough dwelling on the negative reaction to IM systems, lets move on to the more logical and beneficial aspects to an IM system. If implement correctly, a lot of the cons to having an IM system quickly evaporate. First things first however, when deciding to implement an IM system you’ve got to round up the troops and get a plan in motion. The best course of action is to bring management, IT and legal together. Management needs to decide on what the IM policy will be. This is very important. The policy should cover how the IM system should be used, when to use it and with who and why it should be used. It should also cover who controls it, who monitors it, who installs and upgrades it. In addition, it should also be mentioned that the IM system is an extension of the company and all incoming and outgoing IMs are subject to being logged and on file for future record keeping, investigations and potential audits. Oh and lastly, the policy needs to cover enforcement and punishment if IM is abused (and it might be good to define what abusing it would entail). Basically, the policy needs to clearly explain all the aspects that could be considered when using IM in the workplace. As this is being done, the IT department should look into what clients are available, and need to start coming up with an implementation, monitoring and upgrading plans for the IM system. IT needs to understand how the system will be integrated into the company and its business function. Lastly, legal needs to be brought into the conversation so they can clearly explain to the company where IM might be abused and how it could impact the company when and if it is abused.

IM systems have plenty of reason as to why they shouldn’t be used. But most of those reasons are only there if the IM systems are not correctly implemented and have no policy or are not subject to any guidelines. If time is taken to correctly implement an IM system and a well thought out policy is developed, many great things can be done with IM. The key to running an IM system within your company successfully is to understand everything there is to know about that IM system and to communicate this information to your workers as well. Knowledge and awareness will go a long ways in turning this potential problem into a great solution.

So, let’s go back to that initial question: Is there room for IM in the corporate world? Simply put; I don’t think we have a choice. IM systems are working their way into businesses left and right. Weather we want them or not, they’re going to seep in. Now that they are here, let’s work at turning it into a positive situation, rather then allowing it to be a negative one.

M8 -- iPhone's Chinese version

2007-02-07T22:13:00.000-06:00

Have you guys seen this?

This is M8 which looks remarkably similar to computer maker Apple's latest product called "iPhone" .The M8 will be in the market around mid-2007 priced at about 3,000 yuan ($385).

-The M8 offers the feature of standard GSM, TD-SCDMA for 3G data.

-A 3.3-inch widescreen (720x480) display is a higher resolution into the slightly smaller screen space compared to the 320x480 on Apple's version.

-Bluetooth and an ARM11 CPU but no Wifi connection were offered and yet not mentioned about storage capacity.

Anyway, it looks pretty closed to iPhone. I'm not sure that would it be able to import to USA or not due to the patents and other legal issues? If these products could come up almost the same time, who is originally the first idea generator?

Smart Company toward Microsoft Vista.

2007-02-05T14:56:00.000-06:00

"My first position paper"

Posted by Nancy.

Feb 05, 2007.

At the public launch of Vista, a speech in New York by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates stated that Vista Operating System will this time be recognized as a leap past Windows XP and will be a key to the era we are approaching with tons of recognition features. The Vista improvement is not just far more security but most likely to cite the accumulating ability of the digital content uses. As the result, this effort take Microsoft to step up closer to being a digital hub along with handful partners and vendors-- AMD, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lenovo, etc. among others.

From the consumer point of views, Vista is the new way to do Windows’s jobs. Photos that were trapped on the hard drive could transmit wirelessly to places around your house through the digital frames and Wi-Fi network. Music and movies can be shot wirelessly to multiple devices without the same old problem of copy protection which has been fixed by Windows Media 11, the technology inside Vista. Up to this point, I found that many new Vista features are already in Mac OS X. However, does it really matter to PC users who came up with those features first as long as Windows operating system is more user friendly? In my opinion, the improvement of technology would reward users no matter who create or develop this technology. Unless PC users have joined the Apple camp, thereafter their new machines will be running Vista.

Nowadays there are more than 90 percent of world wide businesses that their computer networks are running on Microsoft Windows products. Trend of Vista will sooner or later be the next operating systems for most office workstations that have used the Windows platform. For companies, Vista adds new benefits and, in the long run, will make computing easier, faster, and a lot more fun. However, rushing to adopt Vista immediately may not seem likely to be a good choice at this time. In smart companies, IS/IT leaders should aware of those following issues before upgrading or changing their whole new systems.

The potential security hole is one of many issues that were just discovered in the online blogger discussion. The speech recognition flaw generated the new term “Shout Hacking”. Even though it might be easily resolved by disable this feature, this problem may discredit the new launched OS more or less. Microsoft did not consider this as a big problem and also recommended users who concern about this issue to turn off the speech recognition feature or shut down Window Media Player if they encounter a file that try to execute the voice command on their systems (refer to Shout Hacking, InfoWorld 02/01/2007).

Another issue is the incomplete support for Windows Vista in terms of both hardware and software from lead vendors. Many of them could not tell when they will complete new operating system drivers or update their old products. Unbelievably, not all manufacturers are ready for video and sound cards that support Vista highlighted features. In addition, Vista is costly in term of money and time investment. If your company really wants to go with this choice, you’d better ask yourself that “Are you ready to spend huge money to buy or upgrade you workstation and systems to optimize Vista?”, or “Have your teams been ready to configure everything including loading data, installing their applications and getting peripherals working?”

Despite Window XP after years of services, I believed that it will not be obsolete and still has an industry-wide support. According to Computer World Newsletter issued on January 25, 2007, it was reported that, by the end of this year, XP will be installed on 77.1% of all PCs worldwide and Vista on just 12.3%. Of course, these numbers will eventually be switched but it may take a certain period of time. That means the industry will make sure their computer networks still work great on XP platform. As the result, the organization would not have an impact within a few years. On the other hand, companies should take this opportunity to planning ahead on switching XP to new upcoming operating systems (if they want) including training and planning to upgrade new system since Windows Vista contains totally new functions and require an optimized station to run.

In summary, Vista is a cool operating system in the digital world that technology lovers individually should once give it a try. In corporate point of views, there are more than just how powerful this operating system is to be considered. The most important thing is whether this technology change will make an impact on how the company is run and how much benefit will be received. Vista not only requires user knowledge, powerful workstation, and compatible peripherals but also more money to upgrade the existing system that is currently performed. In addition, for now, this new launched OS does not stand in the solid position as XP does. Therefore Vista should be an eye catching OS that still need a period of time to prove how efficient it is and adapt toward the organization growth. The fact that Microsoft has still continue working on XP and will release the service package 3 next year is clearly evidenced to a company using XP that there should not be any problems causing from using XP soon. My perspective to a corporate level is that we should stay a little bit longer with what we have while use a plenty of time to plan on training your staff and managing an IT budget for this new system.

Security Concerns with the iPhone

2007-02-04T22:17:00.000-06:00

I was just thinking of ways to add value to our iPhone discussion. Things we hadn't discussed in class. The first thing to come to mind was security of the iPhones. Since the iPhone will be running a complete desktop OS, I was thinking, how prone might it be to virus'? The people I've discussed with about the iPhone, haven't really brought up security issues yet with it. Below are a handful of links that discuss what one might expect to see with the release of the iPhone. I thought it was pretty interesting and the diversity surprised me a little.

Symantec's take on the situation
MacWorld's discussion
ZDnet weighs in

PS: After thought on this topic, perhaps a second order issue that I came across in my readings... Perhaps we shouldn't be asking ourselves just what security might be needed for an iPhone, but also, now that the iPhone will be running a full blown desktop OS, will this move bring more attention to Mac OS stuff for hackers? More so, will the popularity of the iPhone draw hackers into the world of righting viruses that target stuff within the Mac world. Until now, the market share of Macs to PCs has been small, thus Mac OS' have been left for the most part untouched by hackers. But the iPhone will take Apple into a new realm. If the iPhone dominates the smart phone market, will hackers then shift their sights to Mac stuff, using the iPhone OS as their way in?

Windows Vista

2007-02-04T17:28:00.000-06:00

During the last week or so there has been quite a bit of hype surrounding the world wide release of Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system. Vista, or “Longhorn” as it was known as prior to July of 2005, is the product of five years of work on revamping and renovating Microsoft’s operating system. It is also Microsoft’s first major step towards reaching its stated “Trustworthy Computing” initiative. With internet security and trust issues making headlines almost daily, repairing security deficits and reassuring consumers that the internet is a safe place to conduct business would benefit online businesses. This new sense of security should also aid every individual who uses the new operating system.

However, after only a few days on the market, a new type of security risk came to light which exploits Vista’s speech recognition feature. A neat new feature like voice recognition quickly turned into a security problem. The security flaw allows hackers to send audio files that can execute commands on a PC if both speakers and a microphone are hooked up to it. The timing of the discovery of this security oversight will surely cause people to think about whether or not installing Vista on their machines is the right thing to do.

Nevertheless, the migration of users from XP or another operating system to Vista is sure to happen over time regardless of this security issue. But, I simply don’t believe that this migration will happen overnight or even in the very near future. Only the most die hard Microsoft aficionados needed to have Vista running on their machines the night it was released and that was mostly for bragging rights.

If you look around, companies and individuals are content running Windows XP on their machines because it meets their needs and they don’t require all the extra features. I can’t think of any circumstances that would make me need to install Vista tomorrow, next month, or even this year. It is simply too fresh off the truck and, while I hate to say it, Microsoft’s track record with product releases isn’t the greatest. Also, the cost associated with upgrading could be prohibitive for companies given that budgets for this year were more than likely approved months ago when Vista wasn’t on any IT manager’s radar. In addition, most companies won’t even bother with Vista until after the first service pack is released. And, the word on the street is that a service pack is already scheduled for later this year. In conclusion, it is my feeling that most individuals and companies will wait before adopting Vista as their operating system.

2007-02-02T10:55:00.000-06:00

Apple's iPhone stirs up rivals

POSTED: 10:17 a.m. EST, February 2, 2007

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/02/02/iphone.compete.ap/index.html

Interesting after thoughts - Is it worth $500 ... Depends on how much people are willing to pay to be "cool"?

Apple iPhone: discussion

2007-01-31T13:43:00.000-06:00

We decided some of the effects of the Apple iPhone may be:

Halo effect:

improved image,

other Apple products’ sales may increase

easier to recruit of IT employees

Cannibalism of other products, e.g. iPod
Increased support workload
Apple's reputation partially tied to Cingular*
Apple must fight to protect it's intellectual property rights

* In the Janurary 31, 2007 issue of the USAToday, Kevin Maney, a technology columnist, cites J. P. Auffret of George Mason University in saying that in 2007 the Federal Communications Commission may require "cellphones that work with any wireless carrier - the way any telephone works no matter what company you use for landline service." This could be a breakthrough for wireless innovation!

Apple iPhone

2007-01-29T16:48:00.000-06:00

I have established this page for the class to post comments, thoughts, research findings on the various topics. Your first objective is to register - if invited. Please do that ASAP.

The Monday Jan. 29 class will discuss the Apple iPhone.

As a start, see: http://www.apple.com/iphone/