Newsgab - Tech News http://www.newsgab.com/forum/ The latest news from the world of technology en Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:44:33 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.newsgab.com/forum/curves/misc/rss.jpg Newsgab - Tech News http://www.newsgab.com/forum/ Air Force To Expand PlayStation-Based Supercomputer http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80716-air-force-expand-playstation-based-supercomputer.html Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:49:06 GMT Air Force To Expand PlayStation-Based Supercomputer The cluster of PlayStation 3 consoles is already being used for research into high-def video... Air Force To Expand PlayStation-Based Supercomputer

The cluster of PlayStation 3 consoles is already being used for research into high-def video processing and systems with brain-like properties.

The U.S. Air Force is looking to buy 2,200 Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles to built out a research supercomputer, according to an document posted on the federal government's procurement Web site.

The PlayStation 3s will be used at the Air Force Research Laboratory's information directorate in Rome, N.Y., where they will be added to an existing cluster of 336 PlayStation 3s being used to conduct supercomputing research.

The Air Force will use the system to "to determine the best fit for implementation of various applications," including commercial and internally developed software specific to the PS3's Cell Broadband Engine processor architecture. The research will help the Air Force decide where Cell Broadband Engine processor-derived hardware and software could be used in military systems.

The Air Force has used the cluster to test a method of processing multiple radar images into higher resolution composite images (known as synthetic aperture radar image formation), high-def video processing, and "neuromorphic computing," or building computers with brain-like properties.

The PlayStation 3's eight-processor Cell powers other supercomputers, including the world's second-fastest, IBM's RoadRunner, at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

In June, the Department of Defense awarded $2 million for this research under its High Performance Computing Modernization Program, the DOD's arm for supercomputing research, development, test, and evaluation. That follows an initial investment of $118,000 on the original cluster.

Before it won the research award in 2008, the information directorate's advanced computing architectures team considered alternative configurations and the possibility of a hybrid system, but found multicore Xeon servers slower and more expensive than PS3s, and GPGPUs to be slower in some important types of calculations.

The Air Force Research Laboratory's information directorate spends about $700 million annually on R&D, in areas such as collaboration, networking, cybersecurity, and computer modeling.

By J. Nicholas Hoover, InformationWeek ]]> Tech News tjw61 http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80716-air-force-expand-playstation-based-supercomputer.html <![CDATA[Increse ur internet Speed [very simple way],]]> http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80531-increse-ur-internet-speed-very-simple-way.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:18:51 GMT My computer-(right click on)->properties-> then go HARDWARE...]]> ncrease ur internet Speed by another tricks

Follow the step:-

Go to desktop->
My computer-(right click on)->properties->
then go HARDWARE tab->
Device manager->
Now u see a window of Device manager then
go to Ports->
Communication Port(double click on it and Open).
After open u can see a Communication Port properties.
Go the Port Setting:----and now increase ur "Bits per second" to 128000 and "Flow control" change to Hardware.
Apply and see the result..... ...... ....... ENJOY

Don't Forget to Say Thank's if u like my post ]]> Tech News minarstud http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80531-increse-ur-internet-speed-very-simple-way.html 7 Cloud Computing Myths Busted http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80461-7-cloud-computing-myths-busted.html Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:57:43 GMT 7 Cloud Computing Myths Busted Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others are investing aggressively in the cloud, even as critics point to security,... 7 Cloud Computing Myths Busted

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others are investing aggressively in the cloud, even as critics point to security, reliability, and compatibility issues. We cut through the fog.

What is it about "the cloud" that has people, well, getting their heads up in the clouds over it? Almost no other IT innovation in recent memory has engendered this much enthusiasm -- and furor, and confusion, and outright misunderstanding.

The cloud isn't exclusively a cure-all or a calamity in progress; neither is it a savior or sinner. It's a new tool for solving emergent problems, and like every new hammer in someone's hands it can make everything look like a nail.

In this piece we'll examine many of the current myths -- good, bad, and bogus -- about cloud computing. Many are borne by simple ignorance or inexperience. Others are legitimate criticisms in the guise of gripes. And some are entirely too on target, and need to be nipped in the bud by prospective cloud-creators before they get bitten by them.

1. Compatibility Issues


Myth: Cloud computing is too proprietary.


At present, no two clouds are alike -- both in nature and in IT. Amazon's cloud platform is nothing like Google's, which is nothing like Microsoft's, which is nothing like and you can insert the name of any other up-and-coming cloud provider here.

And yet "proprietary" has not proved to mean "useless" -- not by a long shot.

Think back to the early days of the personal computer. The first wave of PCs were all from different makers, used different hardware, and weren't remotely cross-compatible. Programs written for the Apple II weren't assumed to have any interchangeability with the Atari, the Amiga, or even the IBM PC itself.

What few common platforms that existed -- e.g., CP/M -- were largely for the sake of porting and running existing applications to those platforms, rather than for creating a crossbar of compatibility among them. None of this stopped a remarkable amount of development from taking place -- and the various platforms were able to compete heavily based on their differences.

Granted, the situation today is totally unlike that. People expect a great deal more cross-compatibility as a matter of course -- between devices, between applications, between platforms and environments. What's most proprietary about the platforms isn't so much the way they work on the inside as the fact that talking to each cloud, getting data into and out of each cloud, and managing functionality within each cloud are all done differently.

The proprietary nature of the first wave of cloud computing platforms is, for lack of a better way to put it, a necessary evil. And maybe even not all that evil in the first place, when it grants you access to platforms like Linux (Amazon.com) and languages like Python (Google), which on their own terms are as open as they get. Things could be made less proprietary outside clouds and among clouds, although odds are the standards that will exist between clouds will develop more as a consequence of what people are actually using (e.g., EC2) rather than something drafted in the abstract.

2. Privacy Concerns


Myth: Cloud computing is the end of privacy as we know it.


Privacy fears over cloud computing can be seen as an outgrowth of privacy concerns in general, with cloud computing just being the bogeyman / whipping boy of the moment. That said, there's solid reasons to be skeptical -- or, if you're a creator of cloud-based services, to be cautious.

What makes cloud computing such a fierce target for privacy advocates is not only the newness of the technology, since every freshly minted technology is a possible privacy suspect. It's also the fact that cloud computing, on the face of it, can cause a huge degree of aggregation across multiple IT spheres. When you have many disparate things suddenly all under one roof, it translates into "single point of failure" and "all your eggs in one basket." It's not your data anymore, either; it's someone else's, and whatever happens will happen on his watch. There's a chance that provisions about your data security aren't even in the contract you signed.

It's difficult to write off such concerns as mere paranoia -- not when most data leaks and theft happen from within organizations as inside jobs, rather than from outside attacks. Worse, people who store their data on other people's systems might not have the law on their side when expectations of privacy become a legal issue.

Cloud providers need to be proactive about this, early in the lifecycle of their services. They should spare no expense to make it clear to their customers -- and, by extension, their customers' customers -- that data and process security can be protected from outside attacks and internal theft, and where they stand vis-à-vis the law whenever possible (if only by making their terms of service as explicit as possible).

Providing security for user data actually isn't the hard part; there are plenty of examples of how this could be implemented. Mozy, the online backup service provider, addresses questions of privacy by allowing the customer to provide his own high-grade encryption key for his data. The backed-up data cannot be read by anyone else, Mozy included. If you leave the service, you take the key with you; the data becomes unreadable by default.

What's going to prove more difficult is crafting a forward-looking policy for privacy -- figuring out how much you can guarantee, or expect, in the cloud. The more explicit you can be, the more usage cases you can cover, and the more proactive you can be about everything you didn't think of the first time, the better.

3. Reliability


Myth: Cloud computing is not reliable.


File this one under "guilty until proven innocent." The cloud's been acquiring a leaden lining as of late -- a bad reputation for being questionably reliable. When T-Mobile's Sidekick service crashed recently and lost a ton of user data, criticism flew in all directions -- much of it aimed at clouds-in-the-abstract. The story has a happy ending -- everyone's data appears to have been recovered -- but does anyone want to sit through an experience like that again?

Because no two clouds are built the same way, people are quickly discovering "cloud" does not automatically equal "dependable," "redundant," or "safe." What's more, no customer cares why the data is missing -- and people remember your one failure far more than they do your five hundred days of flawless uptime.

The biggest frailty with clouds isn't uptime, but data protection. If nothing else, it's a sign that having only one kind of data protection -- either as an end user or as a provider of backup services -- isn't enough. The cloud needs to have multiple, concentric levels of data protection, from individual disk mirroring to robust file systems, to differential remote backups (whether to tape or another disk somewhere), all working in concert -- and to allow for data portability as another escape route, which is the perfect lead-in for the next point.

4. Migration


Myth: Cloud computing is a one-way street.


Sadly, there's more than a grain of truth to the complaint that once you get things into the cloud, it's a chore and a half to get them out again. This gripe mostly comes from the mouths of those who trust their data to a cloud-based service, only to find they have very limited options when it comes to migrating back out later -- a totally justified complaint. Anyone in the business of building a cloud-based system should start thinking now about how customer data is going to be migrated in -- and back out -- of the cloud.

Said outwards migration isn't just about data formats, but also the possibility that a customer may need to have his data exported to some physical carrier -- tapes, hard drives, what have you. It's open for debate as to whether the cost of such an outwards migration should be assumed by the customer, the provider, or split between them. But the debate itself should exist, as a way to make it clear to all that the customer's choice of cloud shouldn't ever be a dead end; it should serve its customers and not oppress them.

By Serdar Yegulalp, InformationWeek
Nov. 14, 2009

Article Source: http://www.informationweek.com/story...leID=221601431 ]]> Tech News tjw61 http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80461-7-cloud-computing-myths-busted.html AP IMPACT: Framed for child porn — by a PC virus http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80237-ap-impact-framed-child-porn-pc-virus.html Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:05:24 GMT AP IMPACT: Framed for child porn — by a PC virus By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer - Sun Nov 8, 2009 12:17PM EST Of all the sinister... AP IMPACT: Framed for child porn — by a PC virus
By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer - Sun Nov 8, 2009 12:17PM EST

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.

Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses — the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen.

Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they'll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites.

Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on your computer — and might not realize it until police knock at your door.

An Associated Press investigation found cases in which innocent people have been branded as pedophiles after their co-workers or loved ones stumbled upon child porn placed on a PC through a virus. It can cost victims hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove their innocence.

Their situations are complicated by the fact that actual pedophiles often blame viruses — a defense rightfully viewed with skepticism by law enforcement.

"It's an example of the old `dog ate my homework' excuse," says Phil Malone, director of the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. "The problem is, sometimes the dog does eat your homework."

The AP's investigation included interviewing people who had been found with child porn on their computers. The AP reviewed court records and spoke to prosecutors, police and computer examiners.

One case involved Michael Fiola, a former investigator with the Massachusetts agency that oversees workers' compensation.

In 2007, Fiola's bosses became suspicious after the Internet bill for his state-issued laptop showed that he used 4 1/2 times more data than his colleagues. A technician found child porn in the PC folder that stores images viewed online.

Fiola was fired and charged with possession of child pornography, which carries up to five years in prison. He endured death threats, his car tires were slashed and he was shunned by friends.

Fiola and his wife fought the case, spending $250,000 on legal fees. They liquidated their savings, took a second mortgage and sold their car.

An inspection for his defense revealed the laptop was severely infected. It was programmed to visit as many as 40 child porn sites per minute — an inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife were out to dinner one night, someone logged on to the computer and porn flowed in for an hour and a half.

Prosecutors performed another test and confirmed the defense findings. The charge was dropped — 11 months after it was filed.

The Fiolas say they have health problems from the stress of the case. They say they've talked to dozens of lawyers but can't get one to sue the state, because of a cap on the amount they can recover.

"It ruined my life, my wife's life and my family's life," he says.

The Massachusetts attorney general's office, which charged Fiola, declined interview requests.

At any moment, about 20 million of the estimated 1 billion Internet-connected PCs worldwide are infected with viruses that could give hackers full control, according to security software maker F-Secure Corp. Computers often get infected when people open e-mail attachments from unknown sources or visit a malicious Web page.

Pedophiles can tap viruses in several ways. The simplest is to force someone else's computer to surf child porn sites, collecting images along the way. Or a computer can be made into a warehouse for pictures and videos that can be viewed remotely when the PC is online.

"They're kind of like locusts that descend on a cornfield: They eat up everything in sight and they move on to the next cornfield," says Eric Goldman, academic director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. Goldman has represented Web companies that discovered child pornographers were abusing their legitimate services.

But pedophiles need not be involved: Child porn can land on a computer in a sick prank or an attempt to frame the PC's owner.

In the first publicly known cases of individuals being victimized, two men in the United Kingdom were cleared in 2003 after viruses were shown to have been responsible for the child porn on their PCs.

In one case, an infected e-mail or pop-up ad poisoned a defense contractor's PC and downloaded the offensive pictures.

In the other, a virus changed the home page on a man's Web browser to display child porn, a discovery made by his 7-year-old daughter. The man spent more than a week in jail and three months in a halfway house, and lost custody of his daughter.

Chris Watts, a computer examiner in Britain, says he helped clear a hotel manager whose co-workers found child porn on the PC they shared with him.

Watts found that while surfing the Internet for ways to play computer games without paying for them, the manager had visited a site for pirated software. It redirected visitors to child porn sites if they were inactive for a certain period.

In all these cases, the central evidence wasn't in dispute: Pornography was on a computer. But proving how it got there was difficult.

Tami Loehrs, who inspected Fiola's computer, recalls a case in Arizona in which a computer was so "extensively infected" that it would be "virtually impossible" to prove what an indictment alleged: that a 16-year-old who used the PC had uploaded child pornography to a Yahoo group.

Prosecutors dropped the charge and let the boy plead guilty to a separate crime that kept him out of jail, though they say they did it only because of his age and lack of a criminal record.

Many prosecutors say blaming a computer virus for child porn is a new version of an old ploy.

"We call it the SODDI defense: Some Other Dude Did It," says James Anderson, a federal prosecutor in Wyoming.

However, forensic examiners say it would be hard for a pedophile to get away with his crime by using a bogus virus defense.

"I personally would feel more comfortable investing my retirement in the lottery before trying to defend myself with that," says forensics specialist Jeff Fischbach.

Even careful child porn collectors tend to leave incriminating e-mails, DVDs or other clues. Virus defenses are no match for such evidence, says Damon King, trial attorney for the U.S. Justice Department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

But while the virus defense does not appear to be letting real pedophiles out of trouble, there have been cases in which forensic examiners insist that legitimate claims did not get completely aired.

Loehrs points to Ned Solon of Casper, Wyo., who is serving six years for child porn found in a folder used by a file-sharing program on his computer.

Solon admits he used the program to download video games and adult porn — but not child porn. So what could explain that material?

Loehrs testified that Solon's antivirus software wasn't working properly and appeared to have shut off for long stretches, a sign of an infection. She found no evidence the five child porn videos on Solon's computer had been viewed or downloaded fully. The porn was in a folder the file-sharing program labeled as "incomplete" because the downloads were canceled or generated an error.

This defense was curtailed, however, when Loehrs ended her investigation in a dispute with the judge over her fees. Computer exams can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Defendants can ask the courts to pay, but sometimes judges balk at the price. Although Loehrs stopped working for Solon, she argues he is innocent.

"I don't think it was him, I really don't," Loehrs says. "There was too much evidence that it wasn't him."

The prosecution's forensics expert, Randy Huff, maintains that Solon's antivirus software was working properly. And he says he ran other antivirus programs on the computer and didn't find an infection — although security experts say antivirus scans frequently miss things.

"He actually had a very clean computer compared to some of the other cases I do," Huff says.

The jury took two hours to convict Solon.

"Everybody feels they're innocent in prison. Nobody believes me because that's what everybody says," says Solon, whose case is being appealed. "All I know is I did not do it. I never put the stuff on there. I never saw the stuff on there. I can only hope that someday the truth will come out."

But can it? It can be impossible to tell with certainty how a file got onto a PC.

"Computers are not to be trusted," says Jeremiah Grossman, founder of WhiteHat Security Inc. He describes it as "painfully simple" to get a computer to download something the owner doesn't want — whether it's a program that displays ads or one that stores illegal pictures.

It's possible, Grossman says, that more illicit material is waiting to be discovered.

"Just because it's there doesn't mean the person intended for it to be there — whatever it is, child porn included." ]]> Tech News tjw61 http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80237-ap-impact-framed-child-porn-pc-virus.html Google lets users see stored account data http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80181-google-lets-users-see-stored-account-data.html Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:12:03 GMT Google lets users see stored account data Posted on - Thu Nov 5, 2009 6:28PM EST SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Google on Thursday opened a window for... Google lets users see stored account data
Posted on - Thu Nov 5, 2009 6:28PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Google on Thursday opened a window for users to see what records the Internet giant keeps regarding their activities at YouTube, Gmail, Reader and other accounts.
Dashboard summarizes data kept about use of more than 20 of the California-based firm's services, according to a blog post by Google engineer Alma Whitten, product manager Yariv Adan, and vice president Marissa Mayer.

"The Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use and provides you direct links to control your personal settings," the message said.

"The scale and level of detail of the Dashboard is unprecedented, and we're delighted to be the first Internet company to offer this and we hope it will become the standard."

Only information shared with Google while logged into accounts at its Web properties is included in Dashboard summaries.

People can change settings or delete data, which is viewable by account owners online at
Code:
google.com/dashboard
"We are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data," Adan, Mayer, and Whitten said.

Dashboard does not include information Google records without identifying accounts of users. Data kept independent of accounts includes "server logs" with details of searches, Web browser types and computer IP addresses.

Also separated from accounts is information from snippets of code called "cookies" and search activity data used to target advertising, according to Google. ]]> Tech News tjw61 http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80181-google-lets-users-see-stored-account-data.html XP To Windows 7: Workaround Fixes Install Failure http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80105-xp-windows-7-workaround-fixes-install-failure.html Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:55:02 GMT XP To Windows 7: Workaround Fixes Install Failure

Windows XP users attempting upgrades to Microsoft's new OS are getting hit with an error message—here's the fix.

By Paul McDougall, InformationWeek
Nov. 3, 2009


Numerous would-be Windows 7 users are reportedly suffering through installation failures when attempting to upgrade their computers to Microsoft's newest operating system.

The problem appears to arise mostly when users attempt to perform a so-called clean installation of the software onto a hard drive that's been wiped clear of existing data.

The bug doesn't affect Vista users, who can perform an in place upgrade to Windows 7 without impacting the contents of their hard drives. Instead, it afflicts Windows XP users, who must perform a clean installation in order to jump to Windows 7.

The problem: a Microsoft security feature in some cases won't allow installation of an upgrade version of Windows 7 onto a clean hard drive, because such versions are meant to be used only on machines with existing copies of Windows installed.

XP users, though fully entitled to use the less expensive upgrade-ware, are as a result seeing an error message when they enter their Windows registration number that in part reads, "The Software Licensing Service determined that this specified product key can only be used for upgrading, not for clean installations."

Fortunately, tech support staffers at various organizations have found an unofficial workaround that appears to neatly solve the problem.

XP users who are performing a clean upgrade to Windows 7 are advised not to enter their product key when prompted during installation. Rather, they should move on to the next step and only enter the key once full installation is complete.

The method "works around this issue to activate Windows 7," notes a support bulletin published by the IT department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Code:
http://kb.wisc.edu/wiscsoftware/page.php?id=12496
where numerous students were apparently having trouble with the issue.

For its part, Microsoft has not published an official solution to the problem—possibly because any fix might allow a user to illegally install an upgrade version of Windows 7 onto a PC that's not eligible for an upgrade. The temptation is strong, given that the upgrade version of Windows 7 sells for $119, while the full version is priced at $199.

Despite the installation glitch, Windows 7 appears to be faring well in the market. New figures released by Net Applications show that the OS's share of the computing market jumped to from 1.89% on Oct. 22nd, the day of its release, to 3.67% as of Sunday. ]]> Tech News tjw61 http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80105-xp-windows-7-workaround-fixes-install-failure.html Hooks hijacked? New research shows how to block stealthy malware attacks http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80104-hooks-hijacked-new-research-shows-how-block-stealthy-malware-attacks.html Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:31:14 GMT Hooks hijacked? New research shows how to block stealthy malware attacks
Published: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - 06:43 in Mathematics & Economics

The spread of malicious software, also known as malware or computer viruses, is a growing problem that can lead to crashed computer systems, stolen personal information, and billions of dollars in lost productivity every year. One of the most insidious types of malware is a "rootkit," which can effectively hide the presence of other spyware or viruses from the user – allowing third parties to steal information from your computer without your knowledge. But now researchers from North Carolina State University have devised a new way to block rootkits and prevent them from taking over your computer systems. To give some idea of the scale of the computer malware problem, a recent Internet security threat report showed a 1,000 percent increase in the number of new malware signatures extracted from the in-the-wild malware programs found from 2006 to 2008. Of these malware programs, "rootkits are one of the stealthiest," says Dr. Xuxian Jiang, assistant professor of computer science at NC State and a co-author of the research. "Hackers can use rootkits to install and hide spyware or other programs. When you start your machine, everything seems normal but, unfortunately, you've been compromised."

Rootkits typically work by hijacking a number of "hooks," or control data, in a computer's operating system. "By taking control of these hooks, the rootkit can intercept and manipulate the computer system's data at will," Jiang says, "essentially letting the user see only what it wants the user to see." As a result, the rootkit can make itself invisible to the computer user and any antivirus software. Furthermore, the rootkit can install additional malware, such as programs designed to steal personal information, and make them invisible as well.

In order to prevent a rootkit from insinuating itself into an operating system, Jiang and the other researchers determined that all of an operating system's hooks need to be protected. "The challenging part is that an operating system may have tens of thousands of hooks – any of which could potentially be exploited for a rootkit's purposes," Jiang says, "Worse, those hooks might be spread throughout a system. Our research leads to a new way that can protect all the hooks in an efficient way, by moving them to a centralized place and thus making them easier to manage and harder to subvert."

Jiang explains that by placing all of the hooks in one place, researchers were able to simply leverage hardware-based memory protection, which is now commonplace, to prevent hooks from being hijacked. Essentially, they were able to put hardware in place to ensure that a rootkit cannot modify any hooks without approval from the user. ]]> Tech News tjw61 http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/80104-hooks-hijacked-new-research-shows-how-block-stealthy-malware-attacks.html The Internet at 40: History Began With Its First Crash http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/79982-internet-40-history-began-its-first-crash.html Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:22:59 GMT The Internet at 40: History Began With Its First Crash Tech Inciter The tech world according to David Coursey Why do we today celebrate... The Internet at 40: History Began With Its First Crash
Tech Inciter
The tech world according to David Coursey

Why do we today celebrate today--October 29--as the Internet's 40's birthday? Because on this day in 1969, what would later became known as the Internet was used for the very first time--and crashed.

Here is what happened: The first network had four nodes, the first at UCLA, and the second at Stanford Research Institute. The other two--at the University of California-Santa Barbara and the University of Utah were not yet installed.

That network was funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, a program of the U.S. Department of Defense, created in the aftermath of the Soviets beating the U.S. into space.

On October 29, 1969, a graduate student named Charley Kline used a terminal at UCLA to contact SRI. When Kline typed the "G" in "login" the network crashed. And for some reason, we are today marking that as the "birth of the Internet."

Who says geeks don't have a sense of humor?

Fortunately, the connection was made on a later attempt and if you forget the crash, the proto-Internet was born. You can see the log of the test at the Computer History Museum's Internet timeline.

If the Internet does not seem like it can actually be 40-years-old today, that is because it is not. Sure, there was the proto-Internet, called ARPANET, in those early years. Nevertheless, for many of us, the modern Internet began in 1990 or later.

By then, many of us were experts at using CompuServe, The Source, America Online, and other dial-up services. Some of us had our own computer bulletin board systems, too.

However, the Internet was different. Where the earlier services were destinations, the Internet was, yes, "an information superhighway" that could connect all these services together, eventually bringing hundreds of millions of users and destinations online.

The reason I chose 1990 is because that was the year when you could buy a dial-up Internet connection for the first time and it was also when the first World Wide Web server came online.

It is also the year the first machine to be remotely controlled over the Internet appeared at Dan Lynch's Interop conference. It was the "Internet Toaster," created by the great John Romkey, who was kind enough to share a piece of toast with me. It was an exciting time.

While each development led to others, Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the Web is what made the modern Internet possible. That and e-mail that could move from one service to another, thus becoming capable of connecting everyone.

I am not among those who mark the end of civilization as the moment when "@aol.com" e-mail addresses started to appear, but it might be fair to consider that the beginning of the mass Internet we enjoy today.

That was 1995, I believe, at the same time the old online services began providing Internet access to their users (and Java was introduced).

If you would like to learn more about the history of the Internet, the Computer History Museum is a good place to start. It has many pictures and is written for a non-technical reader.

People who want to know the inside history--the technical history--go to "Hobbes' Internet Timeline v8.2" by Robert H. Zakon.

His site is rich with detail and links (but no pictures). There you will learn why people like Vint Cerf and Bob Metcalfe are so often called "fathers of the Internet." Maybe the Internet would have happened anyway, but they did the work that made things happen and get the credit.

Both are still with us, which is the cool thing about the 40th birthday of something mostly created by college students. Both remain active in the Internet today. I had the honor of working for Dr. Metcalfe during the time he was publisher of Infoworld, one of our sister IDG publications.

There is not a good way to end a post filled with fond memories of a time when the Internet was new. Nevertheless, I will try by closing with Danny Cohen's poem:

"In the Beginning, ARPA created the ARPANET.

And the ARPANET was without form and void.

And darkness was upon the deep.

And the spirit of ARPA moved upon the face of the network and ARPA said, 'Let there be a protocol,' and there was a protocol. And ARPA saw that it was good.

And ARPA said, 'Let there be more protocols,' and it was so. And ARPA saw that it was good.

And ARPA said, 'Let there be more networks,' and it was so." ]]> Tech News tjw61 http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/79982-internet-40-history-began-its-first-crash.html Mozilla Unveils Raindrop Messaging Dashboard http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/79830-mozilla-unveils-raindrop-messaging-dashboard.html Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:11:04 GMT Mozilla Unveils Raindrop Messaging Dashboard


E-mail used to be the Internet's killer app. Mozilla's forthcoming Raindrop software anticipates a world where e-mail has been reduced to one channel among many.

By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek
October 23, 2009 01:31 PM


Just as Google Wave represents an attempt to imagine what e-mail would look like if it were invented today, Mozilla's Raindrop represents an attempt to imagine a more modern communication client.
Developed by the team that created Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client -- good desktop software with the bad timing to emerge just as Web-based e-mail services were taking off -- Raindrop recognizes that the diverse range of communication channels -- Twitter, IM, Skype, Facebook, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Docs, E-mail -- would be more useful if presented in a unified interface.

Google Wave is, as Google puts it, "a product, platform, and protocol." Raindrop is simply a product and platform.
Available at this point only as development code from Mozilla Labs, Raindrop aims to help users manage the messaging they already receive. Once enough people begin sending and receiving Waves, the Raindrop team plans to look at ways to integrate Waves into Raindrop.

"Raindrop is an effort that starts by trying to understand today's Web of conversations, and aims to design an interface that helps people get a handle on their digital world," the development team explains in a blog post. "At the same time, it creates a programming interface (API) that helps designers and developers extend our work and create new systems on top of that data."

Google Wave also supports integration with other communications services, such as Twitter. So there may be some competition over which brand of water -- Wave or Raindrop -- better quenches users' thirst for easier communication management.

Much of Raindrop's filtering functionality is already available in e-mail clients like Apple Mail and Outlook, which allow for the creation of rules that file messages in different folders and can handle non-e-mail protocols like RSS.

But there's certainly an opportunity for the Raindrop team to make filtering easier to use and functional across a variety of channels.

As with other Mozilla open-source projects, the Raindrop team is encouraging interested developers to participate and contribute code to improve the project. ]]> Tech News tjw61 http://www.newsgab.com/forum/tech-news/79830-mozilla-unveils-raindrop-messaging-dashboard.html