April 2006 Archives

Having already stated my long affinity for Symantec's Norton Internet Security (NIS), I wanted to point out the excellent dashboard called Norton Protection Center that comes with NIS 2006.

You can't miss the yellow icon that sits in the System Tray.  If everything is working fine, you see a check mark in a green circle; if not, you get an indication that something needs to be fixed and NIS fixes it. Want is also really neat is that clicking on the icon opens up a larger screen that lists coverage in five key areas:

• Security Basics
• Email & Messaging
• Web Browsing
• Data Recovery
• Performance

Each of these areas then has a circle (and text) that let you know your coverage status:

• Full coverage
• Limited coverage
• No coverage

NIS give you:

• Security Basics -- Full coverage
• Email & Messaging -- Full coverage
• Web Browsing -- Limited coverage
• Data Recovery -- No coverage
• Performance -- Limited coverage

To supersize this to total coverage, you need to add Symantec's SystemWorks. We'll get under the hood of that program in a blog coming your way soon ...

www.symantec.com

Forget American Idol! -- now here’s something really important.

Interactive Television Networks, a leader in Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), recently announced the launch of The Karaoke Channel -- the first IPTV karaoke channel. A product of a three-year agreement between ITVN and Sound Choice, the leading karaoke music producer in the U.S., the 24/7 channel will feature thousands of individual song titles from Sound Choice, with titles spanning more than 100 years of music and including the biggest hits from every genre.

Get your vocal chords warmed up – it will be available in June.

Having spent the week at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention in Las Vegas, it's very clear that the future of the what we see and hear on the airwaves is here -- and that that future keeps evolving ever faster.

The NAB used to be called a "broadcasters'" convention, but now it's called "the world's largest electronic media show." And for good reason -- it used to be all about content, but now it's all about how that content can be delivered to consumers. GToday, it's all; about "screens"; we've now got TV, radio, satellite radio, podcasts, VOD, music and video downloads to MP3 and video players, delivery to mobile phones ...

If you were there, would be interested to see what your pick hits of the show. The phone lines are open ...

The SWISSMEMORY USB cirrusWHITE is a powerful, little, white high-speed USB (2.0) stick that offers a read and write performance class of up to 28MB/s and storage capacities ranging from 128MB to 2GB.

The optically integrated protective cap with a round eyelet allows the stick to be attached to key-rings and lanyards with only minimal weight – only eight grams.

As a bonus, the integrated software provides users with a wide range of additional features. Outlook Express settings, personal Internet favorites and data from My Documents can be synchronized with ease, while the "no trace surfing" function deletes all traces of Internet surfing. All data is compressed to save space and protected by a password. The only part not to be protected is the Lost&Found file, which provides information on the stick's owner in case of loss.

http://www.swissbit.com

Interesting survey from Infonetics that I thought I'd share regarding Triple Play expenditures. Service providers are really starting to ramp up their spending. Service providers around the globe see triple play services not merely as a means of increasing top-line revenue, but as a means of self-preservation, says a new study by Infonetics Research. Network operators are redefining and realigning themselves to be the one-stop shop for all things digital for residential and enterprise subscribers, and they believe triple play services will give them the competitive edge they need to succeed.

Take as evidence the fact that North American, European, and Asia Pacific service providers participating in the study ("Service Provider Plans for IP Triple Play") report that on average nearly 40% of their capital expenditures were spent on triple play network equipment in 2005.

The majority of service providers in the study plan to further increase capex spending in the next 12 months on IPTV equipment, broadband CPE, broadband aggregation equipment, and voice over broadband equipment, and they expect revenue growth in all areas of triple play services in the next 12 months.

And a big chunk of revenue it is: The average percent of total company revenue from triple play services ranges from 43% to 48% between 2005 and 2007. (Infonetics interviewed a mix of large incumbent providers and smaller, more focused providers; for the large providers triple play revenue represents a much lower percentage of total revenue.)

"With nearly 40% of their capex budgets going to triple play service infrastructure, service providers are sending a clear message that the combination of voice, data, and video services is a long-term differentiator for them," said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst at Infonetics Research. "Carriers are demanding complete interoperability, full standards compliance, and an open and flexible architecture from their suppliers to ensure the content and services they provide will work right out of the box and far into the future."

IP voice is a big draw for triple play providers, but it's video that's really the newest, most exciting, and most technically challenging part of triple play services, and IPTV is where all the action is. In fact, all but one of Infonetics' service provider respondents already offer IPTV, and that one offers it by 2007.

Sample Findings
   -  The top 2 drivers for respondent service providers deploying triple play services are 1) increased broadband revenue per user and 2) new revenue streams
   -  58% of respondent service providers rate vendor interoperability a key technical challenge when rolling out triple play services
   -  The most pressing business challenge triple play service providers face is securing broadcast and on-demand video content; acquiring content is also a challenge
   -  iTV (interactive TV) is the fastest growing video service offered by service providers, bringing Internet capabilities directly to the TV screen, including instant messaging, shop at home, click to call and click to purchase capabilities, and, most significantly, online gaming services.
   -  2/3 will deploy IP/Ethernet DSLAMs by 2007
   -  67% rate low cost very important when considering IP set top box features
   -  Though more respondents currently use Cisco for their triple play aggregation, when it comes to unaided brand awareness for triple play infrastructure providers, Alcatel leads Cisco, and Microsoft is third

Infonetics' triple play study examines the trends, drivers, barriers, strategies, and implementation plans of North American, European, and Asian services providers offering triple play services, and includes their product expenditures, preferred manufacturers and products, services offered, technology choices, and more.

Infonetics also offers an IPTV Equipment forecast, including subscriber, revenue, and capex projections through 2009.

Download sample data at www.info.infonetics.com.

Skype tomorrow will reach a major milestone when it passes the 100 million registered users mark. Still a long way to go to catch up to McDonalds' "Billions Served", but Skype certainly is the fastest growing VoIP company. The company achieved this milestone in just two-and-a-half year’s time, and has nearly doubled in size from September 2005 when it had 54 million registered users.

"Skype has grown in leaps and bounds by making it simple for anyone across the world with an Internet connection to do something they could not do before – talk for as long as they like, to whoever they like for no cost. Passing 100 million registered users within such a short time reinforces how much people love how easy Skype makes it to call friends, family and colleagues all over the world for free,"said Niklas Zennström, CEO and co-founder of Skype. “We owe the Skype community a debt of gratitude for helping us realize this exciting milestone and look forward to keep growing together."

I went to Danbury Hospital's website to look at the "professional" photo taken by the hospital staff and uploaded to a website called GrowingFamily.com. My wife and I haven't yet decided whether or not to use the "professional" photo for the baby announcements, nor have we decided if we are going to order a set of baby pictures from their website. Regardless, I wanted to save a digital copy of this photo to my own PC. When I clicked on the thumbnail image on GrowingFamily.com to enlarge it, I received a popup window with the image. I then tried to do a right-click, Properties to figure out the image file location. But when I right-clicked, a popup said "Please Contact Growing Family at 1-800-325-3550 if you would like to purchase a First Foto Package". The image isn't even high-res enough for printing it myself - it's only 316x474 so I'm not sure why they're preventing parents from downloading a fairly low-res digital photo.

So I had two options - go to my browser's cache and look for the most recent .jpg file or go to my History folder and view the last web page visited. I went to my History and noticing it was an .asp file with a simple parameter, i.e. babypicture.asp?path=/images/customers/1365/ 2006/04/2A0T0C7B9H_1lg.jpg

So I simply copied /images/customers/1365/ 2006/04/2A0T0C7B9H_1lg.jpg appended it to http://www.growingfamily.com/ and voila! I could now save the photo locally. A simple hack for sure.

Anyway, here's the professional photo. Notice the pouty lips and the hand under the chin? Looks like an actress or diva-in-training to me.

My favorite East Coast gadgets-fest in on its way again!

Showcasing the best new consumer technology products on the digital horizon, the 3rd Annual DigitalLife show will be held at the Jacob Javits Center in New York, October 12-15, 2006.

Some of the brands on tap so far include Toshiba, HP, Alienware, Altec Lansing, Logitech, One Voice Technologies, Seagate Technology, Sun Rocket and many more. Products will include home entertainment, TVs, consumer electronics, home networking, gaming hardware and software, PCs and laptops, mobile technologies, PDAs and MP3 players.

www.digitallife.com

Nicole and I had our baby on Friday evening at 8:48pm. She weighed 6 lbs. 15 oz, and was 19 inches long. She has lots of hair, just like Dad (well like Dad used to any way) Megan is doing fine, mommy is doing fine, and daddy is doing great. I couldn't be a more proud of Daddy's little girl. Updated - Monday - 3pm - Added 4th photo (bottom right). Doesn't she look like she's posing for the camera with the right hand under the chin?

Clean cars, now clean factories -- that is a good thing.

I hear that Volvo Trucks’ plant in Tuve, Sweden, will become the world’s first CO2-free automotive plant with five large wind power plants and a new biofuel plant generating electricity and heat that will eliminate the emission of carbon dioxide, the leading contributor to the greenhouse effect.

Volvo has also developed an environmentally friendly hybrid technology that uses electricity and a diesel engine to power its vehicles. The technology is designed to reduce fuel consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and noise pollution -- so why not apply the same principles to building the cars in the first place.

Can U.S. automakers be that far behind?

And maybe gadget makers will get on this bandwagon, too?

This week, Google launched its first movie industry cross-promotion ever, according to Adotas, around the release of The Da Vinci Code: The Movie.

Working with Sony Pictures, they have launched the Da Vinci Code Quest, an online puzzle game that challenges players with a dizzying 12,358 puzzles and no simple solutions. The Da Vinci Code: The Movie is distributed by Sony Pictures and is based, of course, on the mega-selling novel by Dan Brown.

According to a post on the Official Google Blog by Google software engineer/for-time world puzzle champion Wei-Hwa Huang, the puzzle game’s many twists and turns are “designed to honor both a fanatical puzzler’s sheer love of a mental challenge and the labyrinthine spirit of The Da Vinci Code itself.”

Huang developed the puzzles while Google and Sony developed the overall user experience. Those who successfully navigate the Da Vinci Quest will win one of several prizes, including the grand prize of a tour of Paris, London, Rome and New York, and a hefty grab bag of Sony electronics that includes a Bravia HDTV and a Vaio laptop. For 24 days, the Da Vinci Code Quest will feature one new puzzle or riddle per day spanning several levels of difficulty. The puzzles are organized into six categories, including Symbol, which is a version of the popular Su Doku number game.

Around the time of The Da Vinci Code’s original publishing, Random House released two "WebQuests" similar in concept to the current Quest, but they are less-elaborate online puzzle games than the ones Sony and Google are rolling out now. After the questions end on May 11, the first 10,000 players to correctly solve their daily puzzles will receive a replica of the "cryptex" –- a cylindrical decoder device that played a key role in Dan Brown’s story — they will move on to the final round. The finalists will then face off against five more puzzlers, with the last question being asked on May 19, which is, appropriately enough, the release date of the movie.

If you win, don't forget who turned you on the contest ...

Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Graduation Day, the days of summer -- this is the start of prime picture-taking time.

With that in mind (or maybe not), today's Wall Street Journal features the as always excellent "Buying a Digital Camera: Our Annual Guide" by Walt Mossberg.

I'll leave it up to the author to provide the details, but here are the key areas to consider:

• Megapixels
• Zoom -- optical matters
• Speed
• Bigger and better screens
• Stable images -- digital or optical?
• New ways of viewing
• In-camera editing
• Storing and transferring images
• Battery life

Snap away!

Looks like Asterisk's growth has resulted in the formation of the Asterisk Advisory Council. Somehow when I think of open-source I don't think of a "centralized" council. Isn't the whole point of the open-source model to allow for distributed input by your programming peers? Also, when I think of "Council", I think of the United Nations Security Council or a cabal of men and women plotting for worldwide domination. Didn't Dr. Evil also have a council of advisers - though he killed off a few.

Let's just hope Asterisk and the Asterisk Advisory Council doesn't have any plans on world domination.

Anyway, here's their news...

Digium, the creator of Asterisk and pioneer of open source telephony, today announced the formation of the Asterisk Advisory Council. The Council was developed to respond to the increased interest and participation in the Asterisk open source telephony project.

Composed of five experienced Asterisk community contributors, the Council will assist in the management of the Asterisk open source telephony project. Responsibilities of the council include the selection and supervision of community developers, management of release cycles, and maintenance of Asterisk contributions, among other duties.

"As the Asterisk market continues to grow rapidly on a daily basis, we saw the need to expand the team managing the open source project," said Kevin Fleming, co-maintainer of Asterisk and senior software engineer at Digium. "By identifying these key community members to participate in our council, we can ensure that the project continues to add innovations and improve without any delays."

The following members have been appointed to the council:

     Brian Capouch, Assistant Professor and Chair of the Computer Science Department at Saint Joseph's College: Capouch has integrated Asterisk with a number of other processors including home automation, network monitoring, camera-based security, and the openWRT distribution of Linux. He teaches a college course on VoIP, has presented at a number of industry conferences, and is working on a forthcoming book on Asterisk to be published by Addison-Wesley.

     Olle E. Johansson, Asterisk Developer, consultant and Evangelist, founder of Edvina AB, Sweden: Johansson has contributed to the SIP channel among other parts of Asterisk, worked as a bug marshal and has written documentation on the software and the Asterisk wiki. He is also one of the founders of Astricon - the Asterisk conference, and regularly performs Asterisk training sessions.

     Tilghman Lesher, Developer for VCCH, Inc., a leading provider of innovative solutions based on open source software: Lesher has contributed a large amount of code to the core of Asterisk and is the author of a number of applications and dialplan functions.  He has been programming for over twenty years, with eight years of professional experience.

     Jeremy McNamara, Founder of The NuFone Network, the first Asterisk-based Inter-Asterisk eXchange (IAX) provider: McNamara has been working in all aspects of the telecommunications industry for more than nine years and has extensive experience with the development, testing and deployment of Asterisk-based solutions.

     John Todd, Tello Corporation: Todd comes from an IP networking background, having worked in several large ISPs, ITSPs, and application service providers. He is currently developing next-generation network elements and systems, some of which involve integrating Asterisk with proprietary systems for customers and providers. Todd is also an active participant and speaker at various VoIP forums and conferences.

Details of the Council's organization, membership, management policies, decisions and current projects will be available on www.asterisk.org.

It's not a bad life when you're post-CEO.

Much ado yesterday about Michael Eisner, the former Walt Disney CEO, has joined the board of Veoh Networks, a Web-based distributor of video and TV programming. Eisner also teamed with Time Warner and venture-capital firm Spark Capital to invest $12.5 million in broadband TV startuo.

Check out the site at www.veoh.com and let me know if that looks like a smart investment ...

It may not be the second dawning of the Age of Aquarius, but the high-definition DVD era begins today with the official launch in the United States of HD-DVD movie players and discs.

The Contra Costa Times got it right -- don't expect much fanfare; only two players ($499 and $799 Toshiba models) and four movies are available. And the arrival of a competing format known as Blu-ray is a little over a month away. But there are hopeful signs for electronics makers and movie studios that HD-DVD or Blu-ray could eventually be a hit with consumers. The biggest boost for the new formats will be that sales of HD TVs -- a necessity to take full advantage of HD movies -- are booming.

Will you be the first on your block?