Internet news May 26, 2006

A bill that seeks to prevent broadband providers from offering an exclusive high-speed lane for video and other services has taken a step closer to becoming law.

By a 20-13 vote Thursday that partially followed party lines, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would require broadband providers to abide by strict Net neutrality principles, meaning that their networks must be operated in a “nondiscriminatory” manner. (more…)

Internet news

Last week, a few of our readers expressed their frustration over the music streaming services outlined in Michael Calore’s article, “The New (Free) Napster.” The article outlined the music company’s new strategy of helping customers generate direct links to streaming songs from the Napster library. (more…)

Multimedia May 25, 2006

When Microsoft released the first beta of Office 12 in November, many features were promised but not ready. With 2007 Office Beta 2 released today, most of those promises are fulfilled. One thing is clear: Office’s big push is for collaboration, and SharePoint is at the core of this movement.

There are plenty of changes to the Office applications. Let’s start by looking at what an application user will see, then we’ll explain the move to SharePoint. Finally, we’ll consider several important issues IT managers need to weigh when deciding whether to upgrade. (more…)

Internet news

Skype and Skype watchers have been saying for some time now that a surprising proportion of users of the low-or-no-cost VoIP service are using it for business. This is probably truer in Europe and the Far East where phone companies often charge for local calls and long distance typically costs more than it does in North America. But the idea of using Skype for business is evidently starting to catch on here as well. (more…)

Internet news

When is a storage network not a storage network? Some SAN specialists quibble that NAS isn’t really storage networking as it is just another box plugged in to the existing IT infrastructure. No separate storage network, they say, has actually been established. And there is some truth to this. Now another vendor is arguing that both Fibre Channel (FC) and IP SANs are not true SANs as they require dedicated hardware whereas Storage over IP (SoIP) does not.

SoIP can be used to access storage devices over TCP/IP networks. As the storage becomes accessible to users directly across the network, much of the overhead imposed by server and operating system intervention is removed. (more…)

Multimedia May 23, 2006

The many features that are available with this product make it a great option for copying your DVD movies if you want to retain the original quality and split up a large DVD. Some features that are not found in many products include; the ability to retain or change the region codes, the ability to remove the CSS encryption, episodic DVD support (e.g. Simpsons) and the ability to restore scratched or damaged DVDs. You can also choose to copy the whole DVD including menus and bonus material or just copy the movie. (more…)

Security news

Security vendor ScanSafe on Tuesday launched a beta search service that analyzes links listed by Google and MSN for spyware, adware, malicious code, and other offensive or illegal content.

Dubbed “Scandoo,” the service lets users search using either Google’s or MSN’s engine, but as the results are displayed, Scandoo posts color-coded icons — green, yellow, and a red-and-black bug — to note safe, questionable, and hazardous sites before they’re clicked. (more…)

Internet news

Time is running out for the “punks” who disrupt game play and the virtual economies of the online world, experts say.

Increasingly, game developers and publishers of first-person-shooter and massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are turning to third parties to combat cheaters. (more…)

Multimedia

Feature set:
When it comes to organizing your photos, Digital Image 2006 takes a back seat to no one. The Digital Image Library can group photos in an amazing 16 categories: Auto, Date Taken, Month Taken, Year Taken, Occasion, File Size, Image Size, File Type, Rating, Folder, Label, Flag, Camera, None, Ascending or Descending. You can even organize your video files and change the size and type of multiple files at once, batch processing. Photos can be viewed by folder, date or label. (more…)

Multimedia

Skype and Skype watchers have been saying for some time now that a surprising proportion of users of the low-or-no-cost VoIP service are using it for business. This is probably truer in Europe and the Far East where phone companies often charge for local calls and long distance typically costs more than it does in North America. But the idea of using Skype for business is evidently starting to catch on here as well. (more…)