Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850

The Core 2 Extreme QX6850 is now the new flagship of Intel CPUs with four cores and not only enjoy an increased bus, but the core rate was slightly increased. In direct comparison to the QX6800, based on the current B3-stepping Kentsfield-based, the QX6850 now works with 3.0 GHz (333 MHz x 9) and relies on the refurbished G0-stepping. At the previous architecture, the caches and the features it has not changed and is based on proven technology.

Intel turned in its quad-core series Turbo: The commercially available today in the Model Core 2 Extreme QX6850 Intel operates with a higher front side bus. Instead, the 266 system clock is now 333 (effective 1333) MHz. At the same time, Intel underlines the working frequency slightly to 3 GHz now - the strongest yet tactful quad-core model, the Core 2 Extreme QX6800, runs at 2.93 GHz. Otherwise, everything remains the same: The Core 2 Extreme QX6850 consists of two de facto Core 2 Duo E6850, the semiconductor giant in a processor has packed housing. Overall, the QX6850 8 MB of L2 cache available.

The maximum power dissipation (Thermal Design Power) is, according to manufacturer’s specifications at 130 watts - for a four-core CPU is a good value. In addition, the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 all important functions spendiert that a modern processor should dominate. These include hardware virtualization, the 64-bit support and various additional instruction sets to SSE3. And in an Extreme variant may also not arbitrary multiplier of the missing - who for better cooling provides, can the 3-GHz processor so very easily elicit more power.

Tyler on August 25th, 2008 | File Under Intel | No Comments -

Information Technology in Indian Railways

We can observe if we analyze the semi-automated Indian Railways system, that it is still lacking the independence from manual work by human being.

The Indian Railway is the largest government organization having more than half million employees working into it with on an average only 6 pure working hours. Now these details indicate waste of resources by not utilizing all of them in a best way they could have been used.

Indian Railways still use FoxPro and some other ancestors’ time soft wares which can be replaced with current bunch of efficient soft wares with some strategic planning toward it.

Indian Railways is having great management for even a single component of their system with maintaining this much amount of employees. Now if they are having certain great level of management then making whole system fully automated is no more challenging task for India. Though India is a one of the leading nation contributing in Information Technology, a system like Railways is very much easy to implement.

With proper technical support in India the traditional old system can easily be converted to current updated one. For instance, if we want to change from FoxPro to Oracle then we may think for proper gateways to be put and convert all data to Oracle database format.

Though thinking seems to be much easier than implementation because if we will implement a new system then we need to train all those employees who has been working on old system. This training may be seen as overhead or long time benefit to the system by the government of India is another issue.

With this article I hereby want to inspire young guns from India to make there country from developing to developed country.
Tyler on July 20th, 2008 | File Under Technology | No Comments -

Bond Must Die, Spy Surveillance Gadgets Bond Villains Need to Get

So Bond bounded back this week in the new Quantum Solace movie with a villain which many are calling not as exciting as the villains past. The critics might be saying that Dominic Greene isn’t the most memorable Bond villain that 007 has ever faced, which is not saying much considering the average intelligence of Bond’s usual villains.

Let’s face it, your average Hollywood evil overlord may be considered a genius by other characters in the movie but for most clear-thinking movie goers with an ounce of common sense they’re one step away from the people who ran Enron into the ground. Hell, there was even a sketch on Saturday Night Live in the 1990’s, where several Bond villains were promoting a book “What Not To Do If You Capture James Bond”, the inspiration and result of which can be seen in the online list ” The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord”

In fact, just a cursory look back at the James Bond movie series throws up several instances where common sense and just a simple series of electronics would have helped out the bad guy. In their field of operation some spy surveillance equipment like GPS jammers, pinhole cameras, cell phone blocking bags and faraday cages must have been available so the question remains to be asked…

Why didn’t the villain use them? So how could have those valiant and hard-working supervillains snuffed out 007’s life, ending the plans of nefarious media companies like MGM and 20th Century Fox? The ongoing plan to steal money from our pockets while distracting us with unlikely action sequences and unnecessary gadget and cleavage shots.

Goldfinger Needed Security Cameras. Very few people would need a plot synopsis of Goldfinger, the movie which resulted not only in the now-famous quote ‘no Mr Bond I expect you to die’ but in one of the most disturbing joke names of the franchise. In fact it’s better if you don’t think too hard about the name of the main love interest ‘Pussy Galore’ without some serious medication sitting close by… yeesh.

If Auric Goldfinger had put just a little bit of faith into training up his lower-level underlings or installing some basic security the Bond franchise might have ended there. We all know what spy surveillance cameras are, they’re the little device which sits at the top of the cell and let people know what’s going on in a cell without putting them through the inconvenience of actually going in there.

Tyler on June 18th, 2008 | File Under Gadgets | No Comments -

How to Make Your Website More Google Friendly

Many people tend to forget how important making your website SEO friendly is. Ok we all know how important of-site optimisation is and without it your website is very likely to fail. However many website owners forget that your on-site optimisation is very important as well. If you website is well optimised for the search engines this will go a long way to help your site rank better.

There are many, many factors that you need to get right onsite and this should be considered when building your website. Below I will discuss some of the basic things you should have on your website.

Text navigation

Flash and JavaScript navigation is all well and good but sadly the engines have a hard time reading them. (Although Google has made public that it’s beginning to index Flash far more effectively). Therefore it is a good idea to also display a text version of your navigation somewhere else on your website. This is usually at the bottom. This will help the search engines spider your website more effectively.

Sitemaps

Sitemaps are good two fold, on one hand a search engine spider can enter your sitemap and easily navigate throughout you whole website. I would also recommend you submit a sitemap.xml to Google. The other good use for sitemaps is for visitors to easily find the information they are looking for within one webpage. Your sitemap will give a bird’s eye view of you website. That is if you have structured it correctly.

Orphan Pages

If you have orphan pages within your website then search engines are going to have a very hard time finding them, furthermore, once they do find it then they will have a hard job exiting from it, if you don’t have proper navigation on the page. So for this reason you should make sure that all your pages are interlinked to make then easy to spider.

Tyler on May 15th, 2008 | File Under Google | No Comments -

European Commission Again Fines Microsoft For Anti-Trust Violations - Microsoft’s Appeals

The European Commission fined Microsoft a record €899 in February, 2008, for failure to comply with earlier rulings related to its commercial conduct in Europe. Microsoft has appealed the fine. The punitive fine is based on the conclusion that Microsoft did not provide reasonable access to information on the interoperability of Windows and software written by rival companies between 2004 and 2007, and unlawfully tied Windows Media Player to the operating environment over the same period.

The latest fine is in addition to a fine of €497m levied in 2004 for the same conduct, which Microsoft unsuccessfully appealed.

Microsoft was investigated by the Commission following complaints lodged as early as 1993. Novell, Sun Microsystems and other firms have insisted that Microsoft was exploiting its position of dominance, as the purveyor of Windows, by refusing to share information critical to ensuring that software written by other companies would operate in tandem with Windows.

The Commission announced its first Statement of Objections against Microsoft in August, 2000. It stated that Microsoft’s failure to provide a full disclosure of how Windows can interface with software written by rival vendors was deliberately anti-competitive and contrary to European law. A second Statement of Objections was filed in August, 2001, which, besides confirming and expanding the previous Statement, documented that Microsoft interwove its Media Player within the operating system so as to make competing software uncompetitive. A third Statement of Objections was issued in August, 2003, which confirmed the earlier allegations with additional evidence.

The Commission made a decision in 2004 after hearing from relevant parties. Its ruling upheld the Statements of Objection, and concluded that Microsoft’s behavior in Europe was in violation of Article 82 of the European Commission Treaty. Specifically, it stated that Microsoft did not accurately and adequately disclose interface documentation, which it is required to do in return for a reasonable price, and that it must begin to within 120 days. The ruling also required Microsoft to begin producing a version of Windows that did not include Windows Media Player within 90 days.

The Commission’s intent was to benefit consumers by stimulating a competitive environment which includes meaningful competition.

Microsoft appealed the March 2004 ruling by filing an action for annulment with the European Court of First Instance in June, 2004. The firm claimed that it should not have to implement the remedies prior to the conclusion of the appellate process. The same day, the Commission voluntarily postponed the time-line for implementation of the remedies until a determination was made whether or not such a course could result in serious damages to Microsoft. The Court came back with a decision in December, 2004, stating that Microsoft failed to demonstrate the potential harm necessary to stay implementation.

In its 2007 ruling, the Court upheld the Commission’s initial decision on both claims of interoperability and Windows Media Player. It also upheld the €497m fine.

Tyler on April 12th, 2008 | File Under Microsoft | No Comments -

What is Computer Hardware - Understanding Computers and How They Work

If you are new to computers, you may have wondered what is computer hardware and how is it different from computer software? Put simply, the hardware is physical equipment, everything that allows the software to function. Aside from the cover components such as case and keyboard, the mouse, the program disks and books, hardware would include all “mechanical, magnetic, electronic and electrical components that make up your system”. (Ref: wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn). Power supplies, floppy disks, digital video drives, flash drives, joysticks, cables, wires and audio components are considered to be “hardware” for computer use.

Computer hardware includes all assorted devices that allow capturing and storage of data, that carry out operations or any series of operations on that data, or that produce control outputs. Computer software, on the other hand, is any of your computer’s self-contained or external programs and databases. Computers normally come pre-loaded with operational and some functional software when you purchase them.

Within hardware, there is a lot of variety from which to choose. For example, keyboards can be standard, with or without accessory numeric keypads, they can be split or otherwise ergonomically designed. The mouse also has been modernized from a two click to a wheel style scroll button mouse. External accessory drives are available in many capacities and sizes. Flash drives are available with a range of storage capacity.

What is computer hardware? It is anything you are able to see and touch (from the outside), and interior physical components like the motherboard or drive mechanisms. Software, although you may see and touch the actual disks data is contained on, is neither visible nor touchable. Compare it to your thoughts versus your brain.

Easily visible hardware includes your central processing unit (CPU), speakers, monitor, mouse, screen, cords, and mouse pad. These make up the actual unit. Peripheral devices (hardware) would be your floppy disks, hard drive, floppy drive, CDs, CD drive, and random access memory (RAM) boards. Some of these are removable and/or can be shared and mailed. USB connectors, motherboards, routers and modems are also considered computer hardware.

Computer hardware and software are highly developed and protected materials. Operating systems have evolved along with the computers to be used with ease by most operators. What used to fill entire buildings can now sit on your lap! Larger systems are created for commercial, business, and government use.

There is one more situation to acknowledge, and that is the use of external hardware not located at your computer. This is where you have purchased, for example, a website from a host company, and you are using their equipment accessed remotely from your computer via the internet. You rent space on their computer, benefit from using their equipment, hardware and software far more expensive and intricate than you would have at home. It works well as needed, for website design, back up data storage, and off site data storage.

Tyler on March 10th, 2008 | File Under Hardware | No Comments -

Mobile Advertising - Different Forms

Over the past few years, Mobile phones are becoming popular channel for marketing and advertisements. Being an essential part of daily life, mobile phone facilitates advertisement to reach his target audiences almost anytime, anywhere. Another advantage is that each marketing advertisement can be target to individual’s profile. Depending on market and consumers requirement, shape of mobile marketing also changes. Here we will see what different types of mobile advertisements are available.

Text Messages:This is the simple and most popular form of mobile marketing. Mobile advertisement reaches to his audience in form of a simple text message using SMS (Short Message Service) or CBS (Cell Broadcast Service).

I still remember a message from leading book store, “Want latest Harry potter book? Subscribe now by replying yes”. Another example you must have seen during cricket/sports tournaments,” send CKRT for news on “. This form of advertising is equivalent to e-mail marketing and have the same issue of SPAM.

Multimedia Messaging Services: Limitation of SMS is that it only supports text. MMS advertisement can also contain Image/Audio/video and these contents can be arranged in a timed slideshow. Nearly all phones come with MMS capability of sending/receiving MMS. Apple’s iPhone is an exception for MMS, as it doesn’t support MMS functionality. These messages can be targeted to individual audience as well as group of similar interest people. Again messaging advertisement comes with size limitation.

On-demand Multimedia content: Demand of multimedia content such as images/video/games/ring tones is increasing with availability of powerful multimedia capability enables phone. And thus enabling vendors to use this opportunity to penetrate the market and connect to his audiences. Example of these advertisement are ‘messages before or after any video’, ‘Ads strip below/top of Image/video/games ‘, ‘logos, service info integrated into game content’, ‘Full-page ad image between game phases’. Nowadays promotion of movies and albums are also happening on mobiles.

Web based Advertisement: The internet is reaching into the phone through WAP. Our phones are becoming an active node of internet and soon it will outnumber the internet users who use PC. Advertising on web pages specifically meant for access by mobile devices and it is becoming a popular trend in mobile marketing. These ads are exposed to user on a web page in form of images, links, banners etc.

Google, Yahoo, and other major mobile content providers have been selling advertising placement on their properties. These web pages and ads are compatible to mobile web browsers and thus provide advertisers a way to reach mobile customers easily. Now media brands are deploying portals which are not only for browsing but also gives engaging experience. Example ‘preview before buy’ feature.

Advertisement using Bluetooth/Infrared: Bluetooth and infrared are cost free wireless communication technologies. Using Bluetooth different vendors send their mobile content to buyers. These technologies have limitation with distance, so vendors normally installed Bluetooth/Infrared enabled devices and contact users for mobile contents. Here these technologies require user’s permission so this advertisement cannot be targeted for broadcast. Games/images/audio/videos are transfer to audience with their permission. Although this is not very popular way of advertisement but it is very effective. ValueFirst Connect conducted Bluetooth marketing for Tata Sumo Grande in India.

Location Based Services:Location Based service (LBS) are offered by operators as a way to send the information requested by user based on their current location. With greater data rates and better data services, subscribers are increasingly using LBS applications.

Think about the scenario; LBS subscriber requested information about all food joints in a particular locality. Operator will provide details or all restaurants/cafes near to that place. This is nothing but a custom advertising. Customer will get information and Brands will get a medium to attract a customer. This advertisement can be text based, banner based or icon based depending upon user subscription.

Miscellaneous: Mobile coupons, short codes, keywords are other different types of advertisement to target consumers. Mobile coupons are just like normal coupons expect available on phone. They are targeted by individual preferences and locations, thus producing a greater return.

Gartner predicts that the mobile advertising market will grow from £535 million last year to surpass $2.7 billion in 2008 and $12.8 billion by 2011. Such promising growth attracts more and more marketers towards mobile marketing and making way for more and more advertisements. Mobiles phones enable a two way communication advertising between marketer and customers. Let’s wait what other types of interactive advertisement are coming up for customers.
Tyler on February 2nd, 2008 | File Under Mobile | No Comments -

Offshore Software Outsourcing

Offshore software application development outsourcing has led to vegetative industry growth around the globe. Software needs to undergo a step-by-step process before it is available for general use to leverage best industry practices at minimum cost, meeting international standards and industry norms. Nowadays, everyone of us, an individual or an enterprise wants to be at the top, but just gaining the top positioning won’t do; retaining and maintaining that position is of utmost consideration. Outsourcing software applications to offshore companies has strong impulse to monetize spending of business players.

Software outsourcing gathered strength with increasing number of sources available in present IT-edge, requirements delivery in possible least time, less skilled personnel available, discrete communication and inefficient management of various modules within a large enterprise. These corporate players started looking and relying on third party for better management at lesser cost and remain competitive in the global marketplace. These are the few factors that led big companies to outsource their software application development to offshore companies where they find time zone difference from eastern countries most attractive, cheaper human capital, rich resources, and skilled professional and low processes cost. Market analysis shows gradual penetration of investors in Indian market and other developing countries. We find increased productive, managed easy solutions where full control remains in the hand of outsourcing companies.

40% of the Fortune 500 companies including GE, Lucent, Oracle, Microsoft, Motorola are leveraging the outsourcing model. The list is growing depending upon the onsite and the outsource resources available. Offshore Software Outsourcing is the most leading area of outsourcing. Cost saving by adopting this model can vary from 40% to 70%.

Manipulating overall strategy (considering failure and success) we find overall the offshore outsourcing campaign is a success. Objective is to maximize the ROI, remain competitive and reduce upbringing cost.

Remember offshoring software outsourcing is not always the solution, so before moving to it, the best approach is to find the niche requirement and then find solution to the root problem. Proper synchronization between onshore and offshore team members, improved processes, and better time management and growth opportunities for both developed and developing countries are among few benefits that offshore software outsourcing companies are enjoying.

Tyler on January 2nd, 2008 | File Under Software | No Comments -