Friday, June 27, 2008
cable cut
Telstra is again angry after its fibre at Kempsey was slashed in the third such vandal attack on the lines in two years. According to ABC Online, up to 10,000 people lost broadband, landline and mobile phone services when a fibre-optic cable under the Kempsey railway bridge was slashed. The issue is that these senseless acts put many peoples lives at risk as telecommunications such as a basic phone can mean the difference between life and death if its not working correctly. Telstra were going to put the cable underground after the last attack but it appears not an option because the of the make up of the river bed. The issue is that this cable feeds most of the coast from the tweed to Kempsey, if they loose it due to vandalism many businesses are effected. Whilst there is some back up bandwidth available it cannot carry everything TELSTRA needs to carry so some services miss out. These vandals as far as I am concerned are no better than hackers, virus producers and any other sort of vandal. Heavy fines and gaol terms apply to those found guilty of damaging telecommunications infrastructure. I'm afraid IP based CCTV may the best way of protecting this cable in the future.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Stories for ABC tasmania
Wild parties the google earth way!!!
Google Earth is apparently a hit with British teenagers looking for an impromptu party. According to the British Telegraph, teenagers in Britain are using google earth to locate outdoor swimming and meet up with their friends and other people for late-night dips and parties.
The news internet craze, known as "dipping", involves the teenagers and other people using pictures from Google Earth to identify homes that have large outdoor pools then using social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Bebo to spread the word and meet up for impromptu swims and parties.
Apparently, some british residents have arrived home after holidays to find their back yards absolutely trashed. According to police the youngsters are so game that residents had been woken up to find them using their pools.
This behavior is very similar to the internet social craze known as flash mobbing.
New web browser here with a bang
The New browser from Mozilla, Firefox 3, was launched with a world record attempt called "Download day" hhitting the14 million download mark. The company hoped for 5 million downloads in a World Record attempt however it ended up with over 8 million downloads in a 24 hour window. But less than 72 hours after Firefox 3 downloads are over 14 million.
Time to get with video conferencing happening.
More skype users now using video than ever before it seems, with the price of a basic webcam dropping to around 50 dollars Australian people are taking the options to video conference for both business and domestic reasons. With the average household now connected to the Internet on a 512k connection or higher video conferencing has never been a more affordable option.
So what do you need? A webcam will generally set you back about 50 to 100 dollars. Remember the better the resolution the better the picture quality. You need a microphone or a headset. I tend to recommend a headset as it will pick up the sound better than a conventional microphone.
Then finally a piece of software, skype would probably be the best at this stage, it nice and clear and has its own codecs that provide superior compression for video and audio.
Then of course you need a decent Internet connection, we are talking broadband of some sort, 256 is ok but it will be jerky and may break up you need atleast 512k if not faster.
Google Earth is apparently a hit with British teenagers looking for an impromptu party. According to the British Telegraph, teenagers in Britain are using google earth to locate outdoor swimming and meet up with their friends and other people for late-night dips and parties.
The news internet craze, known as "dipping", involves the teenagers and other people using pictures from Google Earth to identify homes that have large outdoor pools then using social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Bebo to spread the word and meet up for impromptu swims and parties.
Apparently, some british residents have arrived home after holidays to find their back yards absolutely trashed. According to police the youngsters are so game that residents had been woken up to find them using their pools.
This behavior is very similar to the internet social craze known as flash mobbing.
New web browser here with a bang
The New browser from Mozilla, Firefox 3, was launched with a world record attempt called "Download day" hhitting the14 million download mark. The company hoped for 5 million downloads in a World Record attempt however it ended up with over 8 million downloads in a 24 hour window. But less than 72 hours after Firefox 3 downloads are over 14 million.
Time to get with video conferencing happening.
More skype users now using video than ever before it seems, with the price of a basic webcam dropping to around 50 dollars Australian people are taking the options to video conference for both business and domestic reasons. With the average household now connected to the Internet on a 512k connection or higher video conferencing has never been a more affordable option.
So what do you need? A webcam will generally set you back about 50 to 100 dollars. Remember the better the resolution the better the picture quality. You need a microphone or a headset. I tend to recommend a headset as it will pick up the sound better than a conventional microphone.
Then finally a piece of software, skype would probably be the best at this stage, it nice and clear and has its own codecs that provide superior compression for video and audio.
Then of course you need a decent Internet connection, we are talking broadband of some sort, 256 is ok but it will be jerky and may break up you need atleast 512k if not faster.
