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The common perception is that VoIP is so cheap because most things are cheap on the net. There’s fierce competition, and much lower costs etc. However you need to take into account the history of the telcos and how they relate to computer networks, and the way data actually travels around the Internet. An knowledge of this is necessary to fully comprehend the confusion behind the VoIP vs. POTS pricing riddle.

Long before computer networks became important telephone companies were using digital communication. In the beginning the very first digital voice circuit was used in Chicago in 1962 however ARPANET, the forerunner to today’s Internet, wasn’t up and running until 1969. The telecommunication companies used these digital circuits to make lots of voice connections over long distances something that analogue circuits were unable to do and to this day still use them for this purpose.

Voice communication has a few unique characteristics. For one thing, it’s inherently real-time. You’d get frustrated if phone calls consisted of long periods of silence followed by several seconds of high-speed playback to catch up with the conversation on the other end. To keep this from happening digital voice circuits provide guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS). Once a connection is provisioned, you’ll always get exactly the amount of bandwidth you need. It’s not just bandwidth though; jitter is also carefully controlled by using small, fixed sized data packets. The point is these networks were specially designed for voice communication.

When computer networks began emerging in the 1980s companies wanted in. They already had a lot of infrastructure in place so they began looking at how they could send data over their existing phone lines. They came up with quite a few different technologies with varying levels of success. But there was (and still is) a problem: data networks are fundamentally different from voice networks.

Data is transferred in packets, which can arrive in any order a long time after they have been requested, without causing problems. Internet Protocol (IP) was created to provide best effort delivery. Telecoms companies had an expensive network in place, so there was a lot of incentive to use it. After a few misses Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) was created as a compromise technology that could carry both voice and data. However it’s much less efficient than a pure data network. The overhead for data transfers on ATM is more than 10link, compared to about one percent for an Ethernet running full-throttle.

Are you able to think back to the era when laptops for gaming were not so widespread? The sales were not very amazing but they did bring in great cash on each notebook than others. Everybody desired this type of notebook computer, however at the price point they were going for it was basically unaffordable. They were basically desktop computer rivals and the highest performing, best laptop computer you could get. Laptops for gaming would get people thrilled about what’s to become standard in a couple of years however I don’t believe they would buy laptops like this whilst being aware the price is going to go down fast. As bigger companies see the opening in the gaming laptop sector, stuff appears to have changed.

These laptops have a certain price point and these companies know they don’t have to be price competitive in this sector. It is surely a good alternative to higher gross profits. In my opinion established manufacturers can utilize leverage to get potential purchasers to buy laptops regardless of the expense. Do the little guys even have a chance with this kinda competition? Plainly what I see taking place here is that the bigger companies reducing prices initially to remove the competition from smaller system builders. Obviously the power of an established brand name comes into use here.

The laptops being released by branded manufacturers are all competing for the best laptop computer title. This is in fact the prime unique edge remaining for the littler system builders. Most of the time the pre built units are good performers however not fast enough and a couple of customers don’t like that. Usually many comparisons of the tech specs will be done and the techies can tell what the superior system really is. For this market niche, the tech specs are generally more valued than the looks.

This will be viewed as a beneficial thing for the customer. As this forces down the prices even more, premium technology will get even more attainable to the customer. I say that with a large amount of uncertainty however. New innovations are constantly being introduced and that should hold prices relatively high. As the gaming laptop sector gets packed up with global manufacturers, many will utilise a wait and see tactic.

I think this company (http://www.rizeon.com) are quite good value for the computers they are selling.

Blu-Ray technology is the next generation of optical disc format developed by the Blu-Ray Disc Association(BDA) and major developers of consumer electronics, computers, and media manufacturers around the globe. The technology will enable consumers to store large amount of data (5 to 6 times more than DVD), record/rewrite digital content, and watch high definition videos via Blu-Ray devices. The Blu-Ray disc comes in two types: Single layer disc which will be introduced first in the market and dual layer disc which will follow near future. The single layer can hold up to 25 GB of data which equates to about 2 hours of recording/playing time of digital content on HDTV and 13 hours of non-digital content from a regular television. The dual layer disc will hold data up to 50 GB and it will be mainly utilized for gaming (PS3) and entertainment purpose.

Red Vs Blue

The current optical disc technology such as DVD utilizes red laser to read and write data however, the Blu-Ray technology uses blue- violate laser to read and write and thus the name “Blu-Ray” was born. The difference between the red laser and blue laser is quite distinctive: First, the wavelength of a blue-violate laser is shorter (405nm) than the red laser (650nm). Second, the numerical aperture has been improved to 0.85. The shorter length of a blue-violate laser leads to focus of a laser spot with tremendous accuracy which makes it possible to pack more data into a disc size of DVD and CD. Moreover, the numerical aperture represents a unit-less measure of the ability of a lens to gather and focus light and the higher number closer to 1, the greater the focusing power and the smaller the laser spot. The current optical disc DVD’s numerical aperture ranges from .50 to .65 compared to the Blu-Ray’s numerical aperture of .85 making it a huge improvement over the existing optical disc technology.

Blu-Ray: Next Standard?

Lately, the technology industry has seen an explosive demand for the HDTV and consumer’s desire to record high definition content from HDTV is also rising fast. Furthermore, U.S government is also looking into standardization and convergence of digital television and eventually replacing non-digital television due to many benefits. The Blu-Ray technology was created out of necessity to meet the new demand and to set a new standard in the field of optical disc. This technology supports direct recording of the MPEG-2 TS (Transport Stream) which is used by many digital broadcasters globally. In other words, digital content from HDTV can be recorded directly to the disc without compromising quality and extraneous processing power. Also, the Blu-Ray uses ultra fast 36 Mbps data transfer rate to complement the large amount of data required for high definition content. This fast rate is more than sufficient to record and playback HDTV while maintaining the original picture quality. It is very possible to watch playback video and record HD video at the same time through the use of random access feature the Blu-Ray technology offers.

Time will tell

Many heated debate ensued over whether the Blu-Ray technology will replace DVD and prevail in the battle against arch nemesis HD-DVD. However, with the strong support of numerous industry leaders and positive outlooks from industry analysts, the Blu-Ray seem to be the next standard for delivering digital content to consumers around the world. In fact, Sony is going to debut the Blu-Ray technology on PS3 when it launches in the spring of 2006. Some stated that Xbox 360 will have HD-DVD capability but Microsoft has yet to confirm the speculation. The fierce battle will continue and when the dust settles consumer can decide which of the two will replace DVD and VHS and move onto HDTV era. Only time will tell.

Daniel is an author and webmaster of http://www.ps3vault.com
The website has comprehesive coverage on all PS3 (Playstation 3) related news and information.

What is Geocoding?

“Geocoding is the process of assigning geographic coordinates
(e.g. latitude-longitude) to street addresses, as well as other
points and features. With geographic coordinates, the features
can then be mapped and entered into Geographic Information
Systems.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocoding)

How do I Geocode an Address?

There are a number of ways to geocode an address. The
complicated way is to download the US Census data (Tiger/Line),
write some programming code and database code to interact with
the database, and go from there. The much easier way is to use
an existing geocoding provider. There are many on the net today.
Many have programming interfaces in Java, .NET, or even Ruby,
ready for you to plug into your application.

What are some uses of Geocodes?

Many people ask why addresses should be geocoded. Let me ask you
this: Have you ever wanted to generate a list of customers that
lived within a certain distance from a point? Or have you wanted
to display on a map where your customers are from? Both of these
questions require you to geocode your data in order to find the
answer. When you have an address geocoded, you can then use the
latitude and longitude to perform searches and mappings with it.

Virtual Private Networks (VPN) 101
As the VPN market approaches maturity at a brisk pace, vendors have been forced to rethink the tradition identity of their IP Security-based technology for letting users securely access enterprise resources via the Internet. Most large companies in need of linking their offices together have done so on frame relay networks. Although frame is still a useful product many users have found that the reduced cost of VPN gives them an attractive alternative.

During the last 18-24 months, vendors have pushed VPN technology into different devices, have lessened the distinction between VPN and firewall products, and have demonstrated a strong willingness to deviate from standardized technology to meet corporate remote access requirements. VPN services now come bundled with many dedicated services and several service providers are using VPN products as a loss leader so they can sell circuits. When investigating the use of VPN products make sure you speak with a professional who can guide you through the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the product. While it is a cost reduced alternative to frame….it is a different product and should be thoroughly researched.

One of the advantages of a VPN is that internet access is not based only on the hub and spoke layout. The users away from the hub are able to access the internet through their own connection rather than going through the hub and creating a bottleneck. Users will only need to connect through the hub if they need to access information from the central database. When researching alternatives such as VPN, like always, consult with a professional and not just a salesman for a VPN company. Make sure the individual you speak with is unbiased and will give you the strengths and weaknesses of each product.

About the Author

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications http://ld.net/mscprez and http://DS3-Bandwidth.com …….delivering choices to both residential and business consumers for voice and data broadband services. Michael also authors BroadBand Nation http://BroadBand-Nation.blogspot.com where you’re always welcome to to drop in and catch up on the latest BroadBand news, tips, and ramblings for the masses.

I’m so, so really bad at it. I mean, I’m purely awful. I receive so much e-mail a day that it’s basically just read, delete, read, file, read, delete, read, delete. I have e-mail from over a year ago that I should respond to. I usually wait so long that I just figure it’s been too long to reply now, and then I file it away.

Does this sound familiar? Thanks to a world-wide adoption of email by businesses and individuals, this is the sort of problem that ordinary people are facing everyday. Up until a few years ago, most of us did not have the added pressure of having to deal with incoming email on a continual basis during our work day, or of having to check it from home at least once a day. We could sit at our desks or computers and work on an urgent report with our phone taking voicemail or being redirected - and strangely enough the world didn’t collapse around our ears because we were not immediately responding to emails. I believe time management skills now need to also include managing email. While I am no expert in this area, I am able to keep my email under control using some of the following techniques, which I would like to share with you.

Schedule your email time: You could block off periods of time in your day that are ‘no email’ or reverse, block periods of time where email is acceptable. Personally I find that I can work better if I deliberately switch my email off while I have other work to handle, as I find that if I leave it running then email gets an automatic priority, often to the detriment of whatever task I was involved in at the time. I believe you must decide when to read email - this control should not rest with everyone out there who sends emails to you. For example, I will not log onto my email until I have completed one hour at my desk first thing in the morning; this means I can plan my day, deal with issues from the previous day, set up meetings and do necessary paperwork. Having set up the day to cater for my own needs, then I will log on and see what email awaits me.

I have found that if I log on first, hours can go by where I deal with often petty things, read and forward because the mail was not relevant to me, get engrossed in gossip, respond to personal greetings or jokes, or go off on a tangent with work I had no intention of dealing with on this particular day. If I have at least some chance to put my work priorities first, I find that I am not so tempted to spend great amounts of time with email that does not require my immediate attention.

Keep email quiet: If none of the above suggestions are possible, and you need to keep your email running while engrossed in other tasks, then at least consider muting the speaker on your computer so that you do not receive an audio notification of the email arriving.

Be realistic about answering your email: I allocate time when I need a break from a task to go and deal with my email, because even though you make think that it will only take five minutes to check your email, invariably something will require action from you - a reply, reading an attachment or supplying some information. This means you are then forced to work reactively, when perhaps you had other priorities over and above the 15 minutes you had allocated to email.

Sound the alarm: Employ an egg timer, a miniature clock alarm, a watch alarm or set a Microsoft Outlook Calendar reminder to jog your memory to when you have spent enough time with your email. If you have to leave your house or office at 10am for a meeting, set the alarm to buzz just prior to that time.

File it: Set up folders for your incoming work. I know this sounds obvious, but it is surprising how people many simply leave all their email in the Inbox. Go to File, choose New and then Folder. Make as many folders as you need, based on your work and the categories of emails you receive or based on who has sent them (you will know best how to categorise them). Making email folders is the same idea as labeling manila folders to put in a filing cabinet. When you need to keep an email drag and drop it with your mouse in the relevant folder.

Sent mail: Think about making folders for your outgoing emails - have a folder structure under the sent folder based on who you are sending email to, and move the important ones you need to keep into those folders. The sent folder can also end up with an unmanageable amount of email in it, so consider doing this and make sure you include the Sent folder when you do an email clean up and delete.

Deal with the email, don’t just leave it all in the Inbox: There is nothing like a bit of extra stress from looking at an email inbox containing 300 - 400 emails, some opened, some not; have you replied, did you forward it, it all becomes too hard. Try and make it a practice to read it and deal with it - respond, delete it, forward it or file or it, but don’t just leave it sitting there in your inbox thinking you will come back later. It is the same principle that is applied to stacks of paper of your desk, once you leave the email without dealing with it, the next time you come back you will need to waste time and re-read the emails to work out what you need to do with them.

Clean out regularly: Try and go through your inbox and sent box say once a month (e.g. nominate the first or last date in the month), give it a limit of 15 minutes and start cleaning out old emails. This also ensures your system runs more efficiently as well as making it easier for you to find things that are really important.

Email Rules: why not set up a couple of rules for your incoming email where your weekly joke, or daily inspirational message or emails from particular people are immediately filed in a particular folder, that way you check the folders when you a ready to read the messages. I suggest you read about rules in Outlook’s help menus, but just to get started, you create a rule for a message by right clicking the message, then choosing ‘create rule’, and specifying the criteria for the rule. For example, you keep getting spam from a particular person, so you could create a rule and specify that when mail comes from that email account it is to immediately be deleted (deletion being one of the rules you can choose).

Delete email before it gets to Outlook: Go to your e-mail’s server first thing via their website (e.g. Telstra.com or Optusnet.com.au) and delete all the spam and rubbish email before it even arrives in your email outbox.

Good Subjects: Ask your email contacts (personal and business where possible) to utilize the subject lines. This will help you to ascertain whether your incoming mail is urgent, a follow-up or trivial, because knowing the urgency of a message will help you to determine how soon you need to read and respond to the contents.

Extra email addresses: Consider setting up additional email addresses for personal use, or work-specific use. Most internet service providers provide you with 5 email addresses otherwise use a free one at Hotmail or Yahoo. This has the added benefit of stopping some unsolicited email or advertising arriving in your work email inbox and allows you to use that secondary account when you visit websites that require an email address before you can use them and you do not necessarily wish to give out your legitimate email details.

Good luck in using these strategies to work more effectively with your email.

Angela is a workplace IT Educator, counsellor and social researcher. Her area of interest is in how technology intersects with human relations. She has recently finished her PhD in Education and expects to be awarded in April. She can be found at http://angelalewis.com.au

Black holes are probably the most fascinating (theoretical) objects in astronomy. Such objects, which scientists believe must exist, would account for the spin-rate of our galaxy, which cannot be explained by the combined mass of the visible stars. But exactly what are black holes?

A paper, “Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in London,” written as early as 1783 by John Michell, a Cambridge don, pointed out how a star which was massive and compact enough could have such a strong gravitational force that light could not escape it. It took Einstein’s general theory of relativity in the 20th century and the work of an Indian graduate student, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, in 1928, to work out the mathematical details of how massive a star would have to be to spawn a black hole.

A black hole is believed to begin with a star. The sun, with a diameter of about 865,400 miles, is considered an average sized star, and is basically a huge thermonuclear “reactor” which has enough “fuel” to keep it burning for many, many generations. But what happens when a star’s fuel burns out?

There are various scenarios, depending on the size of the star. A cold (burned out) star about one and a half times the size of the sun (which is now known as the Chandrasekhar limit) will collapse under its own weight. A live star even many times the size of the sun does not collapse because of the outward force generated by its powerful nuclear explosions. When this nuclear force is gone, however, such massive bodies undergo dramatic changes.

A star less massive than the Chandrasekhar limit still has the ability to stop contracting at about a radius of just a few thousand miles. In such a state it is called a “white dwarf,” and one cubic inch of its mass weighs hundreds of tons.

Another scenario for a cold star about one or two times the mass of our sun is to contract into a “neutron star.” A neutron star can have a radius of roughly ten miles and weigh as much as hundreds of millions of tons per cubic inch.

Since gravitational pull increases in proportion to mass, when stars collapse, their surface gravity become stronger the more compact they become. That’s because with a neutron star, for example, you may have a body with a ten-mile radius exerting a gravitation pull equivalent to a star several times the size of the sun. And that’s massive (in the colloquial sense)!

But as spectacular as such transformations seem, they are nothing compared to the collapse of a star many times the size of the sun. In such a case, the collapse is not halted at a radius of thousands or even ten miles. The force of its massive weight ensures its continued collapse until it reaches a point, according to general relativity, where it has infinite density and space-time curvature. Its radius is a fraction of that of a neutron star. And, thus, a “black hole” comes into being.

A black hole has such a strong gravitational force that nothing, not even light, can escape its pull. This renders a black hole virtually “invisible” — if you shined the most powerful light at such a body, you couldn’t see it because the light would get trapped in the black hole and never reflect back to reach your eyes. Furthermore, inside a black hole, the laws of nature as we know them would break down completely, leaving no viable method of predicting any future events within the black hole.

But if we can’t see black holes, how do we know they exist? Although direct proof of their existence still alludes us, we have evidence which seem to support (not prove) their existence. We have cases of a star revolving around an invisible object, sometimes assumed to be a black hole. Occasionally we see spectacular “fireworks” in remote regions of space, which sometimes is assumed to be produced by matter spiraling into a black hole, creating powerful energy surges. (The reason this energy is capable of reaching us is because it has not yet entered the black hole’s “event horizon,” the point of no return, from where nothing can escape.)

So far, all of the above, even if not fully proven, are based on mathematical calculations, logical deductions and observations. However, some fanciful speculations that go beyond the basics, seem to border on the bizarre. One theory suggests that going through a black hole, if it were physically possible, might be like going through a “worm hole” in space. That is, you might come out in a completely different part of space.

As you can see, scientists sometimes go beyond the verifiable, and venture into the unknown and even into the downright bizarre. What I find even more bizarre is how some of the same scientists will not even venture into the concept of God, despite the fact that there is more than ample logical evidence to suggest that an intelligent creator must exit. Why? Because we can’t “prove” God’s existence? Like, we can really prove everything else that’s accepted as science.

Josh Greenberger: A computer consultant for over two decades, the author has developed software for such organizations as NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, AT&T, Charles Schwab, Bell Laboratories and Chase Manhattan Bank. Since 1984, the author’s literary works have appeared in such periodicals as The New York Post, The Daily News, The Village Voice, The Jewish Press, and others. His articles have ranged from humor to scientific to topical events.

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