Friday, July 11, 2008
No, I'm not iPhone crazy, so hop over to Engadget for their play by play of today's launch.I'm more interested in the happenings over at Techdirt. Today they have an article about the whole privacy debacle in regards to internet realms.
Does Comcast believe the FCC has authority over its traffic shaping efforts? Well, it may just depend on who's asking. When the FCC asserted that it did have a say in regulating Comcast's traffic shaping efforts, Comcast emphatically stated that the FCC's authority does not extend that far. And, technically, Comcast is probably correct that it would be an overreach of the FCC's mandate -- though the FCC clearly disagrees.
Still, when defending itself against a lawsuit in California over the very same traffic shaping, Comcast has convinced a judge to suspend the lawsuit by noting that the FCC has clear authority over these matters:
This issue "i.e., the reasonableness of a broadband provider's network management practices" has, however, been firmly placed within the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC"), an administrative agency whose authority to regulate internet broadband access companies' services is well-established.
And then of course there is a neat piece of software I recently stumbled upon which I thought I'd quickly brief. It's called "TrueCrypt" and it's software for the top secret agent identity in all of us. When you encrypt files on your hard disk, not only do you want to scramble the files, but sometimes you want to prevent others from discovering that the files even exist, a sleight-of-hand known as steganography.
Best thing about this...it's freeware. =o)
Labels: Comcast, FCC, internet, software, TrueCrypt
Thursday, April 3, 2008
What in the world are they yapping about?This morning on the radio the broadcasters were going on and on about in Internet service. They kept saying Comcast, but what's so special about them? I mean it's not new.
For the first time, Comcast is offering residents and businesses one of the fastest broadband services available in the U.S. today: up to 50 Megabits per second (Mbps) downloads and 5 Mbps uploads.
Apparently, you'll be able to upload photos faster and download media faster, for example, you'll be able to download a 4 GB HD movie in about 10 minutes. Not bad, not bad at all. That would have come in handy when uploading 600MB movies for my editing course in college.
This is said to be the first installment of Comcasts own fiber-optic cable network. Well good grief, it is about time, but now how much is it going to cost me and if I decide not to switch will I get the older, slower service for cheaper you money hungry corporate thieves! Probably not, but a girl can wish can't she?
Labels: internet
Monday, March 10, 2008
Since a Nintendo Wii is so hard to get when you see the chance to get one you all but throw yourself at it. Trust me, I know, but we finally got one for Christmas from my family. It is such a great family console system, it gets everyone involved which makes it wonderful.
Anyway, Charter High Speed Internet is giving one away. It's this site where you actually bid on how much you would pay for high speed internet. The starting bid has to be at least $10. Not only does registering with them put you in the pool to win the Wii but it also puts you in a pool to win high speed internet service FOR LIFE.
These are the things communication companies need to do to get customers since there are big monopolies out there sucking the life out of the smaller guys. Charter Communications, Inc., the third-largest publicly traded cable operator in the U.S., serves approximately 5.7 million customers in 29 states. You'd think being the 3rd in line would be good, but unfortunately in this realm of business, that being media and communications, third is rough. But that is good for us, because look, they came up with the idea of bidding your own price for their service. That's awesome, I don't know how they'll be able to keep track of it or how they can even do that, but it's a cool idea.
Click Here for a Chance to Win a Nintendo Wii!
The winner will receive a Nintendo Wii Console, Wii Stand, 5 Sports games ( Boxing, Baseball, Tennis, Golf and bowling), 1 Remote Controller, 1 Nunchuk Controller, 1 Sensor Bar, 1 Wii AC Adapter, 1 Wii AV Cable
This is a sponsored post.
Anyway, Charter High Speed Internet is giving one away. It's this site where you actually bid on how much you would pay for high speed internet. The starting bid has to be at least $10. Not only does registering with them put you in the pool to win the Wii but it also puts you in a pool to win high speed internet service FOR LIFE.
These are the things communication companies need to do to get customers since there are big monopolies out there sucking the life out of the smaller guys. Charter Communications, Inc., the third-largest publicly traded cable operator in the U.S., serves approximately 5.7 million customers in 29 states. You'd think being the 3rd in line would be good, but unfortunately in this realm of business, that being media and communications, third is rough. But that is good for us, because look, they came up with the idea of bidding your own price for their service. That's awesome, I don't know how they'll be able to keep track of it or how they can even do that, but it's a cool idea.
Click Here for a Chance to Win a Nintendo Wii!
The winner will receive a Nintendo Wii Console, Wii Stand, 5 Sports games ( Boxing, Baseball, Tennis, Golf and bowling), 1 Remote Controller, 1 Nunchuk Controller, 1 Sensor Bar, 1 Wii AC Adapter, 1 Wii AV Cable
Labels: communication, internet, wii
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Oh there is nothing like coming back to your office after a 3-day weekend only to find out that your PC has been attacked by spyware. I left my machine on, but I thought it had been locked. Needless to say there were 287 things picked up with the filter that catches ad-ware programs.Being a University, the machines around here all have virus security, but I have to say I put a spyware checked on my machine on my own, because the defense against those things is needed since they are so prevalent these days.
It's not my job to talk you into looking for ways to secure your own network or PC, but you definitely should. Check out places like Filterweb.com, because they have reviews and guides on everything from internet security to spam blockers to instant message chat protection. If you work on a computer all day and it's a means to your livelihood, why would you not want to protect it? Ya know?
At this particular site you'll only be looking over the best. Every piece of hardware or software program discussed have all been highly rated by the various PC magazines that rate software. Give it a looksie. ;o)
Sponsored post.
Labels: Computers, internet, security, spyware
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
The Comcast bundles currently being offered are the only economical way to get more bang for your buck.One important thing to know about their high speed Internet is they allow great networking abilities. They let you connect up to five computers to your Internet connection. These computers can also communicate with each other, allowing you to share files and printers. You can go wireless making it even easier to add computers to your home network. Though Brian and I won't have five, we'll definitely end up networking our desktops and we will probably opt to go wireless so we can be complete nerds with our laptops. Hmm...finally WOW on a network!
Get Double Play and Pay Only $69.00 With Every Purchase of Two Services Bundled.
Or get Triple Play and Pay Only $99.00 With Every Purchase of Three Services Bundled. With the triple play Comcast bundle you will have the ability to check voice mail messages via email and download video, Cable Broadband High-speed Internet, Digital phone, and Cable Television service, when purchased together, can save the busy, cost-conscious consumer considerably over purchasing individual services from different service providers.
Disclosure: This post has been sponsored.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Aw man, it was only a matter of time before more digital phone services started popping up. Skype was and is still paving the way, but Packet8 is giving them some competition. They give you all sorts of enhancements and accessories to make their digital phone service quite enticing.When you subscribe to a Packet8 plan using our online store, you will be shipped a Broadband Phone Adapter , an all-in-one expandable VoIP phone system, a standalone VideoPhone or Video Terminal Adapter or a Virtual Office business-class speakerphone and Phone Adapter, depending on the plan you choose.
You make and receive calls as you always have, but they are routed more efficiently to save you money. There is NO EXTRA CHARGE for popular features like voicemail, caller ID with name, call waiting, three-way calling...um hello, everyone should want to take part in a service like this!
Packet8 has packages for residential peoples, but their business package is pretty cool. There is even Outlook integration to organize your calls and your e-mails. With both packages you get a free 1-800 fax number. You think I'm teasing, but I'm not, I promise. You can have Unlimited Calls US/Canada for under $25 with their basic residential digital phone service. And for under $15 you can get an office extension plan for your business. Very cool. I'm all about saving money!
Disclosure:
This post has been sponsored.
Labels: digital phone, internet, video phone
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
My parents have Comcast Internet. It works great.
They have Verizon phone service and I believe if they lived in a development; not out in the country...it would work great. However, it doesn't. And so the last time a service rep came out to look at the lines he told my Mom the only sure fire way to guarantee good service would be to get FIOS.
I don't know what will happen, but maybe leaving Comcast would save money in the end. Their rates are ridiculous (though I feel competitions will force a drop).
Verizon FIOS plans to add HD VOD... HD Video on Demand will definitely persuade some people to cross over.
Verizon labs already have an internal time line for launching the service -- that they aren't ready to share. Who knows what will happen next!
They have Verizon phone service and I believe if they lived in a development; not out in the country...it would work great. However, it doesn't. And so the last time a service rep came out to look at the lines he told my Mom the only sure fire way to guarantee good service would be to get FIOS.
I don't know what will happen, but maybe leaving Comcast would save money in the end. Their rates are ridiculous (though I feel competitions will force a drop).
Verizon FIOS plans to add HD VOD... HD Video on Demand will definitely persuade some people to cross over.
Verizon labs already have an internal time line for launching the service -- that they aren't ready to share. Who knows what will happen next!
Thursday, June 14, 2007
You don't have to play with MS Paint anymore. Go to www.thedollpalace.com where you can color in tons of images to choose from. It's quite fun.
Oh yeah, you are guaranteed to stay in the lines too. SO, you go to "The Doll Palace" to get your Free Coloring Pages and choose your image - it could be Tink, The Bratz, an animal or even lipstick. So now you've created a masterpiece. You can print it out; you can share it with friends (and challenge them to do better than you).
Oh! I also want to mention that you can upload your own fantasy to color. Draw something, scan it, upload it, color it, and share it. If you want to save your work, you will have to register, but that's free. It's a cool site - I think we all need to take a break and color again, it'll be good for you.
Why don't you check out my coloring skills here - and I challenge you to give this a try and link your beautiful work here!
Disclosure:
This post has been sponsored.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Everyday 150,000 hours are spent by people solving those jumpled text puzzles to register at websites or place orders online. This made Luis von Ahn say "hmm". Luis is an assitant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon. His idea to better use those 150,000 hours? Help digitize books, of course! Rather than figuring out which letters and numbers you are supposed to type, researchers have developed a way for people to type snippets of books. This will still confirm that we aren't robots, and also speed up the process of getting searchable texts online.
Usually books are scanned, using Optical character recognition to digitize the texts. But von Ahn said OCR doesn't always work on text that is older, faded or distorted. In those cases, often the only way to digitize the works is to manually type them into a computer.
So, the Ineternet Archive (which scans 12 thousand books every month) would send Luis hundreds of thousands of scans that the computer doesn't recognize. Those files are placed onto von Ahn's server and split up into single words that can be used as CAPTCHAs at sites all over the Internet.
Pretty cool right?
Read Story.
Related Links:
http://www.recaptcha.net
http://www.gutenberg.org
Labels: books, internet, technology
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