Networking & Internet

FCC Raises $19 Billion auctioning off wireless spectrum licenses

Miscellaneous, Networking & Internet / By /

Wow, that’s a nice chunk of change. Included in the list of big names bidding for some of the spectrum that comes up for grabs once broadcasters give it up as they go digital, are Google, AT&T and Verizon. In case you forgot about this, last year Google influenced (in a good way) the auction rules convincing the FCC that winners of the spectrum open up their networks to a wider range of equipment, apps and in particular, standards.

China Now #1 Internet Market

Networking & Internet / By /

The United States is no longer the nation with the largest number of internet users. China overtook the US last month in users for the first time, according to the state-run China Internet Network Information Center.

Researcher BDA China Ltd. estimates there are now over 220 million internet users in China, compared with 217.1 million in the U.S. Online ad revenue continues to lag in China, however, totaling $1.3 billion in 2007 compared to e-Marketer estimates of $21.4 billion in America.

Maybe it’s time for me to start promoting the Chinesse translation of my blog.

methodshop

Facebook launching IM service

Networking & Internet / By /

I suppose this is not a surprise given how many users Facebook has, but will it be successful? Will the millions of IM users currently on Yahoo!, AIM, MSN and even ICQ and GTalk also use the Facebook platform for Instant Messaging? I say Facebook needs to ensure that they’re Jabber compatible so that we can plug yet another IM service into one of the all-in-one IM clients (like Trillian, Pidgin, etc.). Once upon a time, I only had Yahoo Messenger, then once my IM friend space grew to more than just YIM, I simply had to throw away the model of having a separate application for each service. Enter Trillian (BTW, I can’t wait for the new version).

Now a lot of people already use Facebook’s messaging as if it were e-mail, and if they’re addicts, you could even say it’s a bit like IM. The only benefit to me is that perhaps this will encourage my Facebook buddies who are not IM-aficionados to get on the IM train.

Technology week in view: 11th March 2008

2 Comments / Miscellaneous, Networking & Internet / By /

Microsoft are busy bees at the moment with numerous announcements including Windows Server 2008 is go … which version will you get?, Windows XP SP3 is on the way, Office Live Small Business for free? and Microsoft Office Live Workspace BETA. It looks like Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 may soon be released following on from Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is out on release whilst Microsoft and Apple come to some agreement about push email on the iPhone in Apple iPhone and Microsoft Exchange have a cuddle. Basically speaking, pull email is where you configure your device to check for email at regular intervals whereas push email is where you make an initial connection then the server maintains the connection path and informs your device when new mails are ready.

I have been having my own drama trying to change hosting accounts (Web Hosting with Globat) but have finally settled into my new home with Webfusion. I have now consolidated my various activities onto one VPS which should make backing up and general maintenance much simpler – the sites seem a little quicker too.

At the office, progress is being made in our virtualisation project which is trying to consolidate twelve servers down to just four. We already marked another server down having finally decommissioned the print server and we are making huge progress with the decommissioning of the web server in Virtualisation Update … Web Server. We just have one last piece of software to migrate then we can crack on with the project at full speed.

Finally, Monk and Norris have been out for a picnic in the wireless woods whilst reeling from Monks extremely bad Ethernet joke in Monk102: Token Ring vs Ethernet Networks.

6 Botnets send 85% of Spam

Computers, Networking & Internet / By /

The silver lining in this statistic is obviously that it’s not hundreds of thousands of spammers responsible for all of those unwanted e-mails. The question now is why aren’t any governments going after these guys and shutting them down. Of course, another method would be to get computers cleaned up and protected from becoming zombies. To me, that’s a much more difficult proposition.

This report was generated by Marshal Security.

The technology week in view: 22nd February 2008

Networking & Internet / By /

Have you changed the channel? The default channel that is? What channel? The channel on your wireless broadband router! We have and it’s improved our performance in Wireless woes – change the channel. I also changed my default channel at home when it turned out that many of the neighbours routers seem to be invisibly battling out for the default channel on their equipment. There are a number of useful tools out there to help you so check out the Jasonslater.co.uk essential application list where you will see NetStumbler listed – this tool will give you valuable information about your wireless access points. Lets face it – as we run our media streaming we need all the performance we can get out of our networks – which reminds me about something I was thinking about recently – is Video killing the Internet star?.
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The technology week in view: 22nd February 2008Read More »

Wi-Fi Detecting Watch

Computers, Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet / By /

WiFi Detecting WatchThese days, whether you are an actual businessman or simply a technology geek, checking for Wi-Fi can be like checking the temperature before deciding whether you need to bring a jacket to work or not.

The watch will let you know the signal strength of the wi-fi with a simple press on a button. The signal strength is displayed in a number value, from 0 to 8. this will let you know what to expect and you may need to move to an area that has a bit higher strength. Not only this, but this wrist watch is stylish and you would not need to be worried about wearing this around town, regardless of the nerdy capabilities it might offer.

If wearing a watch isn’t your thing, then you may want to check out some of the other WiFi Detector devices out there.

Gimme!

Suggested Price: $29.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

The technology week in view: 8th February 2008

Miscellaneous, Networking & Internet / By /

I have been busy sorting out several nagging little problems recently. Firstly, I was battling with my own Blog hosting at Jason Slater Weblog after an unfortunate incident with the virtual server which caused the hosting platform to stop working. Fortunately, after a great deal of digging around in search engines (and an awful lot of Goggling, see Are you Goofling, Goggling or Gooping?) I managed to get it working again and it’s always surprising when the problem turns out to be something quite simple as I explain in How my Linux network unreachable problem got fixed. Secondly, our first proper VISTA machine went into operation recently, in our graphic design studio, and trying to get fonts transferred from the old XP platform posed a bigger challenge than it should. Have you ever had trouble installing fonts under Vista from a network share? There is a relatively straightforward work around to cure this problem but I’m sure there will be many more VISTA adventures in the months to come especially with SP1 on the horizon. Then of course there was Wireless woes – change the channel where our wireless access point has been misbehaving but a small configuration change kicked the problem into touch.
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The technology week in view: 8th February 2008Read More »

The Technology Week in view: 28th January 2008

Networking & Internet, Phones, Software / By /

This week Microsoft Powershell gets put under the spotlight in Power Shell. If you’ve heard of PowerShell (it used to be called Monad) or you haven’t but you are using Microsoft server systems then you really should be reading more about it so pop it onto your radar now. Powershell is an interesting technology that on the face of it doesn’t indicate much but lift the lid and it really is a revelation. The power of the thing and extensibility is surprising – you’ll soon be loving cmdlets. Here is a little tip if you have been receiving the Event 400 Powershell message in the event logs.
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The Technology Week in view: 28th January 2008Read More »

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