Kiltak at Geeks are Sexy points to this iPhone advertisement and asks if the iPhone is the ultimate blogging tool. The girl in the video explains that the iPhone can be used to take pictures and blog them directly from the phone:
But is it the ultimate blogging device? No.
The Palm Treo is a better device for the hardcore blogger. Take a look at the dancer's situation to understand why.
If she had a Treo, she could take much higher resolution photos using a typical point & shoot camera like the Canon SD line, then swap her SD card into the Treo to share a much higher resolution photo of an event. This would also allow her to take better low-light photos than the iPhone could handle. I have a hard time believing she captures great photos of ballet considering the light conditions and speed involves.
She could also use the point & shoot camera to take video clips of dancing rather than just stills. The clips could be blogged by emailing them to Blip.tv and posted directly to her blog from Blip. The iPhone can't do video, and it wouldn't be as high of resolution as what you could get from the point & shoot.
The Treo, on Sprint or Verizon, has faster data speeds than the iPhone which makes it possible to upload large photos in relatively tolerable times.
The keyboard on Treos makes it easier to type more descriptive blog posts to accompany your photos or videos in less time than one could type on an iPhone.
Will this always be the case? Probably not. Networks will get faster, future iPhones will have better cameras, and they'll surely add video support at some point. But for now, I don't think the iPhone is the ultimate blogging device.
Decide for yourself. Here are links to two ballet related posts I found on Kristin's blog in the past 5 months. Capturing indoor photos of people moving would be nearly imp
Selasa, 18 Maret 2008
iPhone the Ultimate Blogging Device
Senin, 17 Maret 2008
Protecting Children Online With Internet Parental Controls
The World Wide Web is a fascinating place. It has obliterated geography in terms of education and business. It facilitates learning by allowing kids to see things and experiences aspects of different places they may never get the chance to see in the non-virtual world. The Internet can bring people together who otherwise would never know each other and create a virtual universe that is totally cohesive, with every kind of information imaginable literally available at your fingertips. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, the Internet has a dark side. It is full of material that is inappropriate for children and all kinds of predators. Leaving your kids alone to fend for themselves on the Web is exactly as dangerous at leaving them in a crowed airport or shopping mall. You don’t know where they’re going or who with. The news is filled with horror stories about kids who have been taken advantage of on the Internet, but you don’t want yours to miss out on all the positive aspects of the technology. The first line of defense in keeping your kids save on the Web is to teach them how to use it safely.
A lot of online dangers can be dodged simply by reminding kids of one of their earliest learned lessons: don’t talk to strangers. The kinds of people who want to harm kids have all kinds of tricks up their sleeves. They may try to lull your child into a false sense of security by pretending to be someone she knows. Make sure your child understands that it isn’t a good idea to give out personal information such as their address, phone number or the name of their school. The less information a potential predator has, the harder it will be for him to actually locate a victim. It might be a good idea to establish a secret password and share it only with friends and family so your kid has a way to identify people who are safe to chat with.
Chat interfaces and instant messaging are great tools for keeping in touch with friends and conduct business, but they are also direct connections between your child and possible pedophiles and other predators. Most instant messengers have settings that will only allow people on a pre-approved list to approach your child. That way you can let the kids chat with family and friends while keeping the bad guys out. You can visit http://www.internet-parental-control.org to find more information on online child safety measures.
You can’t watch your kids every minute they are online, and you can’t always count on them to do what you have taught them to do. Parental control software is a great back up. Most browsers will allow you to customize age-appropriate settings for each child in your house. You can choose what kinds of Web sites you want your kids to access and block them out of the ones you don’t. It’s a great way to provide a virtual safety net for your family. If the parental controls supplied by your Internet Service Provider, check into installing additional software that will evaluate each site your child attempts to access. You set criteria by which the software judges each Web page and assigns a rating, much like a movie rating. Your kids will only be able to look at sites with ratings you have deemed appropriate.
Web Accessibility a Universal Goal!
Over the last decay, an increase number of research were conducted to determine ways Information Technology can assist in meeting special needs to ensure universal accessibility. Findings to date suggest that by being more knowledgeable about accessibility issues, Web designers and developers are able to accommodate end users with special needs.
As we enter the knowledge age, it is no longer acceptable that people with limited or no vision are on their own when it comes to accessing the web, nor those with mobility problems are on their own when it comes to use a hardware. To ignore
website accessibility raises moral, business, and legal issues. It is morally wrong to discriminate
against disabled people on the web simply through lack of thought, consideration, or awareness. Many business web sites designed without considering accessibility issues result in loss of revenue. Some countries, such as the US, UK, and Australia has introduced legislation that requires organizations to adhere to accessibility issues.
In June 1999, the Disability Discrimination Act (1999) has been used to fight for access rights in
Australia. The 2000 Olympic Site Games, jointly developed by Sydney Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (SOCOG) and IBM was found inaccessible to the blind users, and SOCOG was fined A$ 20,000 [1].
The purpose of this paper is raising awareness among web designers and developers, to achieve universal web accessibility goal. The paper looks at the disability issues and the existing assistive technologies or methods used by disabled users to assist them in accessing the web.
Afterwards, the paper reviews guidelines for good web site design, and provides analysis for designing an accessible website. Furthermore, the paper highlights on the challenges and gaps in the web accessibility area.
Literature Review:
Two years ago, a Conference was held in ‘London’ and attended by representatives of commerce, industry, government, and the IT Sector aiming to raise awareness of the potential benefits of assistive technology to disabled users. The outstanding number of speakers highlighted through number of cases how technology can transfer lives. ‘Sue Bassoon’ a Business Development Manager at IBM said: “IBM’s goal is to have a speech recognition system as good as the human ear by 2010” [2].
The objectives of this literature is two folds: (1) explain how a particular disability (e.g.
visual impairment, mobility restriction, hearing impairment) can impede the use of the web, and what can be done to accommodate special needs; and (2) show how web designers and developers can construct accessible web sites to end users with disabilities, such as visual or hearing impairment.
(1) Disability Issues
The section begins with a descriptive part concerning disabled user functional limitation
and dependence on assistive technologies.
A- Vision Issues:
A web user who has no sight (totally blind) is likely to use the screen reader technology to reads a load the content of the web page. Other web users, with partial or poor sight need to be able to enlarge the text on web page using a screen magnifier.
B- Mobility Issues:
A web user may have mobility problems as a result of an accident or disease such as:(loss of limb, Injury, or aging process). The technologies used by users with mobility problems are:
- Sticky Keys: For users with one finger typing.
- Filter Keys: Ignores repeated strokes for people with hand tremors.
- Mouse Keys: Permits moving pointer with numeric keypad.
- Serial Key: Permits access to alternatives for mouse and keyboard functions such as Foot Mouse.
- Eye gaze: A video camera that racks eye movement as the user look at an on screen keyboard. It is customizable as how long a key must be looked at to be recorded. When system has identified the key looked at the symbol appears and the user look at next key.
C- Hearing Issues:
A web user may be deaf or experiencing problems with hearing due to the natural aging process. To assist those users the audio or video need to be translated to the ASL (American Sign Language) language of the deaf, in which certain signs represent words.
(2) Design for Accessibility
In the above section, the paper provided readers with a general knowledge about disability issues, disabled users, and the existing assistive technologies. This section is intended for web designers and developers, because it provides them with tips and guidelines on ways to design a good and accessible website. There are two main aspects
to take into account:
I- Look and Feel
Web designers need to present a user friendly interface that addresses specific ability needs. The designer should be able to describe ways disabled users interact with a website, and how they move through the pages and how they achieve their goals. Below, are helpful tips that designers need to consider when designing an accessible website.
- Web Designers & Developers; should follow the four principles of visual organization in the process of designing a website which are: Proximity, Alignment, Consistency, and Contrast.
- Web Designers & Developers; must avoid using HTML tables to control the layout, instead use style sheets.
- Web Designers & Developers; should use legible fonts, and font size to allow disabled users to easily change them from the browser interface.
- Avoid poor color contrast in your design, and do not use color for meaningful description.
- Avoid the use of animation, and flash which may affect users with photosensitive epilepsy.
- Avoid using Frames because it can pose problems for technology used by some disabled users.
- Try not to use graphics for menu and button forms.
- Avoid hiding menu items (using DHTML or applets)
II- Content
Web designers should organize content in a way that can provide ease of use and simplicity. Below, are helpful tips that designers need to consider when designing an accessible website:
- Use a clear language, and write short sentences.
For example, a web page should provide blind users with a short summary of what they can find. A Search Functionality is important because a blind person can’t scan the page, and will generally trust first result he/she receives.
- Add Accessible tags and attributes by using rich set of tags to enhance accessibility. For instance, an ALT tag is used to provide a text equivalent for images within a website. The
ALT text description is what the screen reader or talking browser will read to the blind users .
- Use clear link descriptions, and include links that a user can click to skip repetitive regions of the page.
- Ensure the pages are usable when scripts, applets, or style sheets are turned off or not
supported.
- All audio and video content should contain captions, transcription, and descriptive information.
Analysis:
It is estimated that 20% of the population has some kind of disability. The internet opens
a new window of opportunity and independence to disabled users from reading news to banking to conducting business. For example, by using the screen reader technology a blind user can listen to the latest newspaper published electronically. Similarly, a user with mobility problem who can not go out shopping to buy a newspaper, nor use a
keyboard or mouse independently, can rather use the eye tracking software that allow people to use a computer with nothing more than eye movement.
Nowadays, organizations are asking designers to make their web sites accessible and for
good reasons. First of all, the more people who can use a site, the more potential it can
generate. Online stores, in particular have a great deal to gain, since many people with
functional limitation problems, find it much easier to shop online. Most Web designers
are not personally opposed to the concept of making web sites accessible to people with
disabilities. In fact most accessibility errors on web sites are the result of ignorance. A large proportion of web designers and developers have simply never thought about accessibility issues. A small proportion of web designers (4%) do not understand the needs of users with disabilities; another (46%) understand some of the needs of users with disabilities. While only (26%) of designers understand most of the needs of users
with disabilities and can accommodate them [3].
The Challenges and Gaps of Web Accessibility:
In this section, we highlight the challenges and the requirements posed by user needs, to
access the web. We argue the need for a new approach to address accessibility issues, and
include it in each and every web project life cycle.We recognize that the vast majority of disabled users face challenges when accessing the web. Why is this? Is it the lack of technical solutions to meet their needs – absolutely not! You will hear today that there are new technological solutions to address even most extreme form of disability. Is it cost?
Again it is not! Some technical solutions, cost nothing at all, and already exist in software. So, What then? Is it that web applications are being developed that present challenges to accessible design? Is it lack of knowledge and skills to meet their needs?
There does seem a general lack of awareness of web accessibility issues. Web Designers and Developers, need to have a better approach to tackle the problem in each phase of the web development process. For example, during the requirement analysis phase a web developer must define the target audience of the site, and should take into account people with a combination of disabilities. In addition to this, during prototyping phase a web designer must have the knowledge to accommodate end users with special needs, and also the skills to meet their expectations.
Moreover, testing the web site using different
technologies is critical for a successful web site, to ensure it meets the accessibility
standards and user requirements [4].
Therefore, in each phase of the web development process, accessibility plays an important role. Accessibility and Usability should be completely embedded in web design and development cycles from beginning to end.
The future looks bright for web accessibility. It promises to educate web designers and developers about accessibility issues, through training courses offered at universities.
Conclusion:
The Internet offers independence and freedom. But, this independence and freedom is limited to certain users. Many websites are not created with accessibility issues in mind.
Whether it is the Web Designer lack of knowledge or ignorance, they exclude a segment of users that in many ways benefit from the internet [5].
In short, designing accessible websites does not require an enormous effort or time. It simply, requires commitment, and accountability, to achieve a universal goal.
Kamis, 13 Maret 2008
The great Internet search engine
Few Web sites generated as much media buzz in 2005 as Wikipedia, the collectively authored online encyclopedia. The attention is well deserved because there is no more compelling example of the Web's collaborative potential. What makes Wikipedia interesting is how it gets made: Ordinary people submit entries for different topics and then revise them over time. That is a truly radical break from the traditional closed-door, credentialed method of producing Encyclopædia Britannica and its ilk. While there have been substantive critiques of Wikipedia's accuracy and comprehensiveness, the idea that a free encyclopedia written entirely by volunteers could give the venerable Britannica a run for its money would have sounded preposterous even 10 years ago. Now it is a fact.
But the Wikipedia miracle is a story of means, not ends. And I worry that we've lost sight of the ends by focusing so much on the idea of collective authorship. The end products created by all those swarming amateurs are encyclopedia entries, supplemented by hyperlinks—no different from what you would find on any of the traditional online encyclopedias, including Britannica. The information presented by Wikipedia can be more timely—hurricane Katrina had an entry before the storm swept through New Orleans—but the form that information takes is a throwback to dead-tree media.
Luckily, there are innovative alternatives to the encyclopedia model out there. They are not the highest profile sites online. But as vehicles for conveying complex information, they may well make up one of the most successful species in the entire Web ecosystem.
A few years ago, I began researching a project about cholera in the 19th century, and I stumbled across a Web site (www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow.html) devoted to the legendary doctor and epidemiologist John Snow. When cholera spread through London's Soho district in 1854, Snow plotted a map of the deadly outbreak and found that everyone who fell ill had used water from a centrally placed public well that was contaminated by nearby sewers and cesspools. The discovery not only helped prevent the further spread of the disease but also constituted a major medical breakthrough—until then the scientific establishment had wrongly assumed that cholera was transmitted by air, not water. Snow's cartographic detective work made him a founding figure in several fields of research: epidemiology, public health, even information design.
The easiest way to describe the John Snow site is by starting with what it is not. It is not an encyclopedia entry; it is not a biography or a biographical article; it is not a collection of links. The traditional scholarly word that might be used to describe it is archive. The site is a potpourri of useful material: audio files telling the story of Snow's investigations; an exhaustive collection of Snow's original writing; a vast library of articles written about Snow's legacy; annotated maps of London, including Snow's famous map of the Soho outbreak; short biographies of the major figures in Snow's life; excerpts from books that mention him; dozens of photographs, including images of Snow and landmarks in London related to his life; modern-day scientific explanations of the cholera bacteria; and much more.
The Snow site is hosted by the department of epidemiology at UCLA's School of Public Health. It was the brainchild of a professor there named Ralph Frerichs, who began putting the site together in the late 1990s, mostly as a hobby. "When we talk about notable figures in any field, you have to bring in a little more information about who they are, their character," he says. "In public health, we didn't have that many notable individuals who had been brought out to the general public. I figured I could write an article about Snow, but it's hard to get wide circulation for an article that appears in a newspaper or magazine that comes and goes. The Web opened up the opportunity for having something out there for much longer."
Frerichs could have summarized some of the information on the site had he chosen to showcase the life and work of John Snow through an encyclopedia entry. Or he could have captured Snow's life in more of a narrative form had he chosen to write a traditional biography. But neither of those forms would have produced the same open-ended, exploratory wonder that the Web site conjures. "It's a little like a library," Frerichs says. "Someone can come there and they can just wander through it, in whatever direction they want to take."
Unlike a traditional library, the site is open for anyone to explore at any hour of the day or night. A typical visitor might find her way there via a Google search on "epidemiology" or "cholera" and then sample various versions of the outbreak map that Snow tinkered with over the years, or download a handful of PDF files that offer a comprehensive account of his public-health legacy. Someone interested in urban history might spend more time on the larger annotated map of 1859 London that Frerichs digitized. Or a browser interested in Snow the person could spend an entire afternoon sifting through the biographical materials.
There's nothing technically innovative about Frerichs's archival tribute to Snow—no state-of-the-art user forums, no recommendation algorithms, no blogging whatsoever, as shocking as that might sound. Indeed, the site reminds me most of a great, unfinished study of 19th-century urbanism called Passagenwerk, an elaborate collection of photos, quotes, advertisements, clippings, and short aphorisms compiled by the German cultural critic Walter Benjamin during the 1930s. Benjamin's premise was that an archive of connected documents could convey the riches of a subject more powerfully than a traditional linear book; it was an idea about 50 years ahead of its time.
In some ways, the Snow site is also a throwback to the early days of multimedia when CD-ROMs—and not Web pages—were the primary vehicles of interactivity. Its structure brings to mind a number of early influential projects from the early 1990s: the multimedia CDs published by the Voyager Company, an annotated archive of the writings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti produced by the University of Virginia, and an early Web portrait of 19th-century British culture called the Victorian Web, created at Brown University.
What I find most surprising is that the Snow site is something of a rarity these days. Pretty much every university department on the planet has its own page on the Web, with course listings, faculty bios, and recent publications listed in endless detail.
But few academics go to the trouble of creating public archives. It's true that most people who use the Internet for research end up bouncing from site to site with Google as their guide, collecting quotes and images and documents as they explore the wider Web. What's lost in the process is the individual, expert wisdom of intelligent curators, assembling the crucial materials that Google might overlook.
Frerichs designed the Snow site as a way of sharing the character and wisdom of a great man, but what I sense more than anything as I move through the space is the animating presence of Frerichs himself. I trust him as a guide, and even more so after listening to him talk about the site with the sort of fondness someone might use to describe a garden he's been cultivating for years. "Oh, I've been ignoring the site a little recently because I'm working on a book," he says. "But when any new Snow item comes out—a new article, say—I'm usually pretty fast about getting it up. It's kind of therapeutic, actually. When I get tired of other things, it's always fun to go back to."
IBM Debuts Web 2.0, Collaborative Technologies
IBM has unveiled several new collaboration tools and Web 2.0 technologies, including IBM Lotus Mashups, a forthcoming commercial mashup maker designed to allow "non-technical users to easily create enterprise mashups." At the Lotusphere conference in Florida last Wednesday, the company also introduced new versions of Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr, a rich collaboration tool.
IBM Lotus Mashups, which is expected to be released later this year (although no firm date has been set), provides a browser-based tool for assembling mashups blending enterprise and Web-based data. It includes a set of pre-defined widgets, a "catalog" for locating usable widgets and mashups, and a tool that allows users to build widgets that access enterprise data.
IBM also said it plans to release Lotus Connections 2.0 in the first half of this year. Lotus Connections 2.0 is the next version of IBM's social networking tool that includes several new features, including a new homepage that filters Lotus Connections services, aggregates content, and provides support for drag and drop widgets. The software's community component is also expected to receive an overhaul in the areas of discussion forums, unified communications via integration with Lotus Sametime, and linking to wiki services through Lotus Quickr, SocialText, and Atlassian.
Finally, IBM also announced a planned update to Lotus Quickr, a Web- and desktop-based collaboration environment. The next release, version 8.1, will include "content libraries, team discussion forums, blogs, wikis, and other connectors that make sharing information easier," according to IBM. The company said it also plans to add features to Quickr that will allow it to integrate with IBM FileNet P8 and IBM Content Manager. It will also launch a companion application, Lotus Quickr Entry, that will include personal file sharing capabilities.
Lotus Quickr 8.1 is expected to be released in March.
BT calls for action on net speeds
The UK's largest broadband supplier has called for the industry to be clearer about how it advertises net speeds.
BT Wholesale, which supplies eight million people, said many customers were disappointed by the mismatch between advertised and actual speeds.
An independent survey found that 15% of people who bought eight megabit per second packages actually got the speed.
The firm said regulators needed to agree rules about how broadband speeds could be sold to the public.
"The reality is we are all trying to push the technology," Guy Bradshaw of BT Wholesale told BBC News.
"The industry needs to join together with Ofcom to agree a set of principles as to how these messages should be communicated and advertised so that the understanding with the consumer is as accurate as it can be."
Traffic problems
BT said that, while its DSL Max product offers a range of speeds up to eight megabits per second (mbps), it tells its customers - the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) - that actual speeds will vary from user to user.
Cameron Rejali, Managing Director of Products at BT Wholesale, said it is up to the ISPs how they market broadband, "but if they are marketing it badly, the market will punish them."
BT said users need to know that there is a difference between the line speed - what the line between their home and the exchange can support - and what it describes as "throughput", a measure of the data coming down the line during an activity such as the downloading of a video.
Only 35% of BT's DSL Max customers are achieving an eight mbps line speed - the rest will see their speed cut by factors such as distance from the exchange, poor equipment, and interference from electrical appliances.
But none of these five million users will achieve eight mbps "throughput" because of internet congestion and other network issues.
"The reality is if you are very far from an exchange or there are environmental factors then your speed will come down and there is not much we can do in the short-term to address that problem," said Mr Bradshaw.
Ofcom is currently reviewing the way broadband is marketed to consumers.
A spokeswoman said: "Whilst there are technical reasons why a consumer may not get the full speed of the package to which they have signed up the key point is that consumers should be able to make an informed decision about what broadband package is best for them at the point of purchase.
Chumby and the Ambient Web
Feeling overwhelmed by information overload? Wait, there's more coming. A lot more.
Chumby is a pretty goofy device with a silly name and a weird shape. And nobody needs one. But it's worth checking out because we're going to be seeing a lot more devices like this, smart little machines constantly fetching information from the Internet, spreading the Web beyond the realm of PCs.
"We're already living in a Blade Runner world, where we're surrounded by connected information screens," says Stephen L. Tomlin, chief executive and cofounder of Chumby Industries in San Diego, Calif.
Sci-fi movies never anticipated that the future would be so, well, cute. Chumby weighs 13 ounces and looks like a little leather beanbag with a screen. Plug it in, let it find your Wi-Fi network and, boom, you're on the Chumby Network, pulling weather, music, news, photos and trivia from the Web.
You can choose from more than 400 streaming widgets on the Chumby Web site. Keep track of your friends on MySpace and Facebook, see photos from Flickr, check in on your Ebay bids, read right-wing blogs or left-wing newspapers, watch sports videos or a videoclip of David Letterman's Top Ten List, listen to podcasts or check out your daily horoscope. If your friend has a Chumby you can become online "chums" and send widgets to each other over the Chumby Network.
Chumby has a virtual keyboard that pops up in some applications--for example, when you search for music on Shoutcast--but this isn't a device for typing and sending messages. It's for reading and viewing. The touch screen handles mostly simple commands like "play" and "stop" for music streams. You might think of Chumby as a souped-up clock radio and digital photo screen with a toylike exterior hiding a full-blown (albeit tiny) computer running the Linux operating system on a chip typically used in portable devices.
You pay $180 for the device, and there's no subscription fee for the data streams. Chumby hopes to make money from ads injected into the stream. Tomlin describes his target customers as "people with rich Internet lives," meaning people who can't bear to be untethered. I have to admit I'm one of these people. The idea of having a Chumby sitting on my desk sending me news feeds and Chuck Norris jokes while I'm working makes perfect sense to me.
Apparently I'm not alone, because these so-called ambient Internet devices are springing up everywhere. A firm with that very name, Ambient (otcbb: ABTG.OB - news - people ) Devices, sells wireless desktop baseball and football tickers ($125 each), a seven-day weather forecaster ($200), a stock market ticker ($125) and an umbrella with a handle that pulses with blue light if rain or snow is in the forecast ($125). Another company sells a cute plastic bunny called Nabaztag ($165), which, like Chumby, picks up the Internet from your Wi-Fi router and feeds you a wealth of information, with the added (and superannoying) feature of being able to speak.
My Nokia (nyse: NOK - news - people ) N800 tablet computer mostly serves as a fancy touch-screen remote control for a music server but also feeds me news headlines, runs photo slide shows and plays Internet radio. (I also use it to Web-browse, e-mail and make phone calls via Skype. That's a lot of gadget goodness for under $300.) In my living room another ambient device, Logitech's Squeezebox music player, pulls music from the Internet and scrolls news feeds.
The biggest ambient device may end up being the digital picture frame. These things were a hit over the holidays with sales up fivefold from the year before, according to NPD Group. While most frames just display pictures stored on memory cards, some high-end models now can connect to the Internet. Currently all most of them do is zip photos back and forth, but once this thing can attach to the Net why not add all the fun stuff that you can get on a Chumby?
In fact, that's Phase 2 of Tomlin's master plan. He aims to let people attach non-Chumby devices like picture frames and Net-connected LCD TVs to the Chumby Network. He's trying to persuade hardware makers to use the Chumby Network rather than build their own online services.
One way or another, Chumby-like streams will soon be coursing through things all around us: our TVs, photo frames, clock radios, portable music players, GPS navigation screens in the car. One of China's hottest advertising plays is Focus Media (nasdaq: FMCN - news - people ), which has 140,000 networked LCD billboards and TV screens throughout the teeming country. Information overload is about to go into overdrive.
Rabu, 12 Maret 2008
Download Full Length Movies For Free
It might sound too good to be true, but you actually can download full length movies for free from the Internet. But you have to be a little persistent and determined to find them. After all, you will want good quality prints, good technical support and a good database to choose from.
Of course, the statement that you can download full length movies for free prompts an obvious question. Why do so many people still pay good money for DVDs, if they can get movies for free online? After all, DVD shops still do brisk business.
This is because you have to search to find these sites, and not everyone knows about the alternative. There are two options, and you can choose according to your requirement. The first is P2P file sharing networks, where you can download and share whole movies. The second option is completely legal, though rather more difficult to find. There are websites that let you download full length movies for free and legally. The catch is that the choice is very limited. If the movie you are looking for is not a classic, you will not find it in these sites.
People prefer the P2P file sharing networks because this is the only option for watching new movies and the latest blockbusters completely free of charge. The trouble is that the quality will very often be quite poor, and there is the added chance of getting incomplete movies and infected files. Also, the legal status of these networks is disputed. You could choose the second option, but not if you want any new movies.
These are the only truly free options. There might be a lot of other sites that claim to provide whole movies for free, but they never do. Take a look at the terms and conditions. Some of them will mention payment; some others will wait till you have downloaded your movie before asking for payment in order for you to proceed.
The catch is that though the actual movies might be free, you will need to download some software that you can only get from these sites to be able to download these movies. And, of course, you will have to pay for this. The other possibility is that you might have to pay a certain sum as monthly subscription fee, after which you can download movies. And sometimes you are asked to pay additionally, if you want to transfer your movies to a disk.
But you might have to make some sort of a compromise even if you want to download full length movies for free. Some of these paid sites will charge only a one time fee, and will give you access to good quality prints of a huge collection of movies. This fee is never too high, and when you consider the alternative - buying DVDs - you will see that this is worth it. So, you can download full length movies for free - well, almost.
Find out from my entertainment blog where movie enthusiasts are going to download full length movies for free or rather for peanuts.
Get your unlimited movie downloads - newly released movies and more for pennies. Also read another juicy article on unlimited movie downloads.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Davion_Wong
Crackdown On Illegal Downloads-Broadband
Since the introduction of file-sharing and peer-to-peer networking, there have been constantly reported high profile legal struggles between the music industry and internet providers.
And now internet providers face potential changes to procedure due to a government green paper which would require them to take action over users who access pirated material.
It is estimated that around six million UK broadband users downloaded files illegally last year, with music and film industries claiming that such practices cost billions of pounds in lost revenue.
And with the government coming under increased pressure from those in the music and film industries to penalise piracy, users could find themselves paying the price for free downloads.
Negotiations between some of the biggest ISPs and some of Hollywood's biggest studios regarding a voluntary scheme for policing illegal downloads have been in progress for several years, however no deal has yet been reached.
Users suspected of illegally downloading music and films face the prospect of a 'three strikes and you're out' system, which could ultimately lead to the disconnection of their broadband service if no steps are taken to cease illegal activity.
However there is growing concern about how disputed allegations would be policed. With an increasing number of cases of 'piggybacking' and 'wi-fi hijacking' as the numbers of wireless broadband networks around the UK continues to grow, there could be difficulties in determining blame in some cases.
The green paper also outlines plans for schemes that would promote creative arts in the UK in a bid to encourage children to visit galleries and museums, attend theatre productions and take up study of a musical instrument.
Looking for better broadband? Perform a broadband speed test and compare broadband providers to find a deal that suits you.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Collins
The Advantages of A Satellite Broadband Service
Satellite Broadband is another form of wireless broadband that is most useful for remote areas. It is available anywhere even those areas where cable internet and DSL are not available. It is available worldwide which includes ships at sea and always on the go mobile land automobiles. This kind of broadband, offers connectivity to the home, office, business or even government agency. Satellites are not just there orbiting earth for telephone and television service - they also provide links for broadband.
The following factors affect broadband through satellite means: provider and service package purchased, consumer's line of sight to the orbiting satellite and the weather. The speed may be slower than that of a DSL or cable modem, but download speed is much faster about 10 times faster. Of course, this can change depending on the weather conditions.
So the advantages of using satellite broadband are faster surfing, downloads and instant email access All these without tying up the phone line. No need to dial or wait for internet access, satellite broadband give an instant online connection.
At this moment, satellite broadband has already partnered with phone companies to keep it alive since they are no match for the cable companies now. That would mean a troubled future if they can't increase their patrons. However, even if it has limited market for now, investments today could lead to improvements that may keep satellite services existing in the future. Satellite companies will reintroduce broadband services this summer. Their target consumers are rural customers that are being ignored by cable and DSL providers.
Satellite Broadband still has a long way to go to be at par with cable and DSL pioneers. With their plan to start in areas where there are no competitors specifically the rural market, they still have a chance to survive and to be able to succeed in the broadband business.
Russell Clark owns and operates the popular website BroadBandGuru.net
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Routers And Wireless Access, Network Hell
I would like to start of by saying I am sorry for not posting as much as I should have last week. I have been going through a few headaches this past week that have diverted my thoughts away from putting up anything that would mean anything meaningful to anyone. If your interested here is a highlight.
I have been going through a little of network hell in the past 2 to 3 days. You see I have always had a wired network for my computers but my wife and I decided to get a refrigerator this week that has a wireless access point to upload pictures. But come to find out every time I configure the refrig to my netword my router got blown away. Which blew away my whole home network.
Next I went to program my XBOX 360 system with wireless access. Come to find out that I did not have my media server configured on my system. I still have not figured out how to do that. So, thinking that my router was not able to handle the broadband needed to connect to the refrig and my XBOX I went out today to purchase another router. I almost purchased the same router as I had before. Come to find out, the router that I had, which was on sale the cheapoo guy in me, was not a very good router. If your in the market for a new router I would not recommend the Linksys WRT54G model. For a wired network it is great. But, for a wireless network it has issues. I switched over to the Linksys WRT54Gs. I have not had any problems as of yet. My wife has hooked up the refrig already and when the kids go to bed I will hook up the XBOX. I still need to figure out the media center junk. Vista headache next..
Anyways, I wish I could show you all the other linksys devices that I have gone through in the last 4 years. In front of me now I have the linksys router BEFSR41. This tropper last for a while. I was able to get 3 years out of that one. But it finally burned out on last year. Then there is the wireless b router BEFW11S4. This baby did not work out of the box. I never got any time on this one. Last but not least the Wireless G router WRT54G. It still works but has a sucky wireless network. It is also on sale at this present time at bestbuy. Don't get it... Spend a little more money and get a better router that will last a little longer than that one.
Learn how to make money online with the latest tips and tricks.
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Internet Speed Test
The Internet has changed our life entirely. This new technology has become a major element which influences all that we do at work and at home. Hence we can say that our entire activity depends on the Internet speed, because according to this we can spend more or less time to accomplish what we intended to do. Since we live in a speedy century, we all are looking for a very high Internet speed, but this is not always an easy deal.
The first step is to learn how to find out what your Internet speed is. The Internet speed is determined by 2 components: the download rate and the upload rate of data which are usually measured in Kilobits per second. The download speed is the most important because we usually transfer files from Internet to our computer, but there are cases when we need a high upload speed.
We may test our internet speed in the manual way, by calculating the time our computer needs to transfer a file of a known size, but this is the old method.
The new way to determine our internet speed is to access a service that allows us to run a test through their servers by sending our computer an information packet which our computer will send it back to them. In this way the site measures the time our computer needed to download and upload the information packet and informs us the internet speed of our bandwidth.
By this test we measure the actual speed of the Internet and in the same time the real internet speedof our access to the internet. The actual speed limit is the amount of useful data that your internet connection can transmit and receive in a second. On the other side, the real internet speed includes also non-significant information. But when we make the test, only the actual speed is measured, the real internet speed is not important in this calculation.
Now that we know what our internet speed is, let's see what we can do to improve it. The first solution is to install optimization software. If you have a Dial-Up connection and use Windows 98 or Me, click Start, Settings, and then Control Panel. Right click on the Modems icon and from Properties tab choose the General tab. Use the Maximum Speed Drop-Down menu to select 115200. If this setting causes your Modem to no longer connect, change it to 57600. Windows XP users should click Start, Control Panel and switch to classic view. Double-click the Phone and Modem options and choose the Modem tab. Change the maximum settings port speed to 115200 and if the Modem responds badly or not at all, change the speed to 57600.
Broadband users should think of using a tweak utility such as TCP Optimizer. After downloading the software we must run it and make a backup of our current settings. Save the backup, and follow the instructions in the software to optimize our broadband speed. Don't forget to click apply changes and click Yes if the software ask you to re-boot the computer.Now our computer should run faster. If the new settings do not satisfy you, return to the program and restore your back up settings. If you failed to make a backup, restore Windows default settings.
And the last solution would be to change your internet provider with a better and reliable one. We may choose from a large scale of opportunities. There is no reason to waste our time with a lazy internet speed when we can spend our precious time with a high-speed internet connection.
Article by Mary Prysler, visit his web site on internet speed test for more information on internet services, internet speed test, broadband internet and other high speed internet services http://theinternetspeed.blogspot.com
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Usage & Technology-Broadband
According to statistics released by the BBC during the summer of last year, nine out of ten users connect to the internet using a broadband connection.
The simple reason for this is that over the year's broadband has gotten cheaper and faster. Exactly how fast and how cheap your broadband package will be is influenced by a number of factors.
Availability and how exactly the broadband reaches your home will play a large role, with ADSL and cable being the most established methods of connection within the UK.
ADSL has proven considerably popular for home users and small businesses as it allows for far faster download speeds when compared to traditional dial-up services; ADSL is also "always on", meaning users don't need to dial in.
As its popularity has grown, so has the demand for faster download speeds, in response to this various new technologies are emerging such as ADSL2 and ADSL2+. These technological advancements will allow providers to offer download speeds of up to 24Mbps.
The other gripe users have with ADSL is the slow uploading speed, which is where SDSL comes in; as this allows for much faster upload speeds. This is particularly useful for businesses or those hosting websites; however, it does require a separate line.
The second major broadband technology is cable, with an estimated 45% of broadband users connecting to the internet this way. Its popularity is likely to be linked with its convenience, as providers often bundle broadband, TV and telephone services into one package.
The difference with cable is that it does not make use of your telephone line, but a cable and modem that is provided as part of package. Also, availability depends on whether or not a provider has cabled your street.
For the more remote user requiring broadband access, there is satellite broadband This broadband technology however, often works out considerably more expensive than ADSL and cable.
The Digital Utility
In the end, as the story of the emperor's new clothes reminds us, somebody has to break the spell. In May 2003, Nicholas Carr cast himself in the naysayer's role by publishing an article titled "IT Doesn't Matter" in the Harvard Business Review. In 2004 he followed that with a book, Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage. Thereby, he aroused the ire of the good and the great in Silicon Valley and Redmond, WA.
For that, he won a little fame. Now he has a new book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, which will almost certainly influence a large audience. Carr persuasively argues that we're moving from the era of the personal computer to an age of utility computing--by which he means the expansion of grid computing, the distribution of computing and storage over the Internet, until it accounts for the bulk of what the human race does digitally. And he nicely marshals his historical analogies, detailing how electricity delivered over a grid supplanted the various power sources used during most of the 19th century. Many readers may find his conclusions unconvincingly dark. I think he could have borne in mind the old joke: predicting is hard, especially about the future. That said, I also suspect he's right to suggest that in a decade or so, many things we now believe permanent will have disappeared.
Given that Carr's conclusions are controversial, it's helpful to trace his thesis in full. In "IT Doesn't Matter," he argued that as industries mature, the products or services they supply become commodities that compete on price alone. The information technology industry, he continued, had arrived at that phase: for most companies that did not themselves develop and sell IT, information technology offered no competitive advantage and was just another cost of doing business. It wasn't hard to find evidence for Carr's contention. A business school truism since Clayton Christensen's 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail is that you can tell a sector has been commodified when competition has created a "performance oversupply," where almost any product differentiation is unwanted. And indeed, by sometime before the 20th century's end, the vast majority of PCs had far more processing and storage capacity than their users needed for the most common tasks: e-mail, Web browsing, word processing. In fact, Carr pointed out, 70 percent of a typical Windows network's storage capacity went unused.
By 2000, Carr claimed, close to 50 percent of American companies' annual capital expenditures went to IT: every year, U.S. businesses acquired more than 100 million new PCs. The biggest IT-associated business risk that companies faced, he concluded, was overspending. It was time for businesses to "explore cheaper solutions, including open-source applications and bare-bones network PCs," he argued. "If a company needs evidence of the kind of money that might be saved, it need only look at Microsoft's profit margin."
Offline Web Applications
Web-based computer programs, unlike their desktop counterparts, are always up to date and are instantly available, no matter where the user is or what operating system she's running. That's why cloud computing--so called because it involves software that resides in the "clouds" of the Internet--has caused a "tidal shift in how people are actually creating software," says Kevin Lynch, chief software architect at Adobe Systems. (For a review of Nicholas Carr's new book on cloud computing, see "The Digital Utility.") But cloud computing has drawbacks: users give up the ability to save data to their own hard drives, to drag and drop items between applications, and to receive notifications, such as appointment reminders, when the browser window is closed.
So while many companies have rushed to send users to the clouds, Lynch and his team have been planning the return trip. With the system they're developing, the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), programmers can use Web technologies to build desktop applications that people can run online or off.
The project is rooted in Lynch's recognition of both the benefits and the limitations of the move from desktop to Web. He envisioned hybrid applications that would allow users to take simultaneous advantage of the Internet and their own machines' capabilities. Lynch's team started work on the concept in 2002 and launched AIR in beta last June.
AIR is a "runtime environment," an extra layer of software that allows the same program to run on different operating systems and hardware. (Java is another example.) With AIR, developers can use Web technologies such as HTML and Flash to write software for the desktop. Users won't have to seek out AIR to enjoy its benefits; they'll be prompted to download it along with the first AIR applications they want to use.
The Adobe team chose to base the system on HTML and Flash for several reasons, Lynch says. First, it makes it easy for desktop applications to swap content with websites: for example, information from a website can be pulled into an AIR application with its formatting intact. Second, it should simplify development, encouraging a broader range of applications. Programmers can easily rebuild existing Web applications to work on the desktop. And in the same way that Web-based applications can be built once and will then run on any device with a browser, an application built on AIR will run on any machine that has AIR installed. (Adobe currently offers versions for Windows and Macintosh and is developing versions for Linux and mobile devices.)
Adobe is already working with partners to demonstrate AIR's capabilities. One example: the popular auction site eBay has released a beta AIR-based application called eBay Desktop. Designed to improve the customer's bidding experience, the application itself retrieves and displays content about eBay auctions rather than relying on a browser. It also takes advantage of the processing power of the user's computer to provide search tools more powerful than those on the website. For example, it can scan search results for related keywords--a process that product manager Alan Lewis says works better on the desktop because the application can store and quickly access lots of relevant information on the user's computer. The program also uses desktop alerts to notify users when someone bids on auctions they are following. AIR enabled the company to create a customized user interface, without constraints imposed by the browser's design and controls.
Lynch says that AIR was a response to the Web's evolution into a more interactive medium. The browser, he notes, was created for "the Web of pages"; while developers have stretched what can be done with it, Lynch sees the need for an interface more appropriate to the Web of software that people use today. AIR, he hopes, will be just that.
Download DVD Movies Online
Are you one of the thousands of people that are trying to find a way to save money when it comes to buying movies? There is good news, there are now places that will allow you to download dvd movies online. Not only can you download movies but you are also able to burn them to a disk and play them not only on your computer but any DVD player as well.
There are many ways to get dvd quality movies online...however, like with anything else that you download there are certain things that you need to keep in mind when choosing a movie download site. Here are the top three things to look for when looking for a great dvd download site.
1. Content - Does the site that your looking at have a large amount of content? Do they offer all of the new releases? The site you choose is only as good as its content. There are many sites online to get your movie downloads from but, few of them constantly update their database to include all of the newly released titles.
2. Legal - Is the site operating under the letter of the law? This is always an important factor to consider when downloading any type of media from the internet. While you might think that it doesn't matter, there are organizations that keep track of who is downloading what. If you are not careful you very well could end up on the wrong end of a lawsuit.
3. Virus Free - Listen, if the site even mentions the word TORRENT downloads...run, and run fast. It has been my experience that these sites are notorious for having more files infected with malicious code than anything that I've ever seen. If you have ever gotten a virus before you know exactly what I am talking about...hours of trying to clean your PC and lots of money out the window on the latest anti-virus software.
I have found it is a safe practice to download from sites that contain "contact us" information as well as a detailed frequently asked questions section. If they are willing to give you the information to contact them should there be any problems chances are they are legitimate. The same goes with the FAQ. It is very easy to find a great site to download dvd movies online from if you are careful when you make your selection and pay attention to the three things that I've outlines above.
Click the link for a complete list of the absolute best sites that I have found to DOWNLOAD MOVIES ONLINE
Do not download a single movie until you read my guide on THE BEST SITES TO DOWNLOAD DVD MOVIES ONLINE
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How To Save Time Online
One of the biggest problems anyone faces online involves too much to do and not enough time to get it done! I'm not talking about the casual Internet user who jumps online as a form of entertainment to check email, use Skype, or watch YouTube videos. I'm referring to the ever-growing number of people who use the Internet for much of their business activities. If you fall into that category, the following tips will easily help you save considerable time online.
Filter Email - Filtering email rates #1 on your time-saving list. In virtually every survey ever done on the subject, email wins hands-down as the #1 most time-consuming activity. To save time, you should separate your personal and business email with separate accounts and check the personal account once a day (saves 10 minutes per day). You should also use a commercial spam filter such as Spamarrest.com to cut down on the spam you must wade through to find messages that do need your attention (saves 15 to 30 minutes per day).
Password Organizers - Using a password manager like Roboform.com or KeePass.info (free) cuts down on time spent searching your desk or email program looking for usernames and passwords for accounts you don't use very often. Secure and immediate access to all your passwords will save you at least 10 to 15 minutes per day.
Unsubscribe - Get off the lists of publications you either don't read or don't get maximum value for time spent. Casual skimming of even one email newsletter or ezine eats up several minutes of your day each time you do it. Drop off 3 email lists and you'll save yourself at least 15 minutes per day.
Track Your Time - Flitting from task to task like a rabbit with ADD robs you of any real chance to get things done. Increase your focus on specific tasks by using an egg timer to get yourself 100% focused for a specific chunk of time. Google the phrase "free egg timer software" to find a timer that runs on your desktop. While the egg timer ticks, nothing else but the current task at hand matters. This technique will net you at least 30 extra minutes of wasted time saved each day.
Pen and Paper - Always operate with a list of prioritized tasks so you know what you should work on at any given moment. A simple, prioritized list on a piece of "real" paper will reclaim at least 10 minutes per day in wasted time.
Just Say "No" - Distractions abound on the Internet. New products, new services, new videos, new jokes, new distractions come at us on a minute-by-minute basis. Yet those distractions rob us of the precious time we desperately need to accomplish our own objectives. If something new comes along, let it sit for a day, or even just an hour, and then make a decision whether or not to give it your time. This will easily save you at least 15 to 20 minutes a day in lost time.
My best advice involves operating with a strong purpose when doing anything online. I've shown you simple strategies here to save massive amounts of time every day. If you operate with a strong purpose, you'll save even more. Why? Because a strong purpose helps you filter out any time-wasting activities that won't get you where you want to go.
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr^e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website, affiliate links, or blogs... Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? "Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com
Copyright (c) 2008 Jim Edwards
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