We at Panache would like to wish you, everyone out there a very Happy Diwali. We hope the lights of the season and the festivities bring you and your family tons of joy and good luck.

Although the Usenet has gained in popularity within recent years, it still remains unknown to many. No wonder, because the birth of the Usenet was already thirty years ago, even before the spread of the World Wide Web. In 1979, the three students Tom Truscott, Steve Bellovin and Jim Ellis came up with the idea of connecting two university computers. In the following years the size of the network reached already several thousand computers and people all around the world discussed lively about any imaginable topic. From sports up to political debates, you can find thousands of discussions in the Usenet and you are free to join them if you want to.

But then the internet became popular and began to compete with the Usenet. Web forums offered a more user friendly environment for discussions than the newsgroups. While the beginning of the 90s brought with it a big rise of Usenet users, the end of the 90s saw a big drop. The number of news postings decreased drastically.

This changed with the advent of high speed internet connections. New users discovered the possibilities offered by the Usenet. Its decentralized network architecture ensures high download speeds and so binary newsgroups (newsgroups which include text-documents and files) gained popularity. Any type of file can be posted and downloaded from these newsgroups. Usually these files are fragmented and so only available in a compressed format (e. g. Rar-Files).

However, because of the enormous amount of topics discussed in the Usenet, structure could become an issue. Therefore the Usenet is structured hierarchically. The top hierarchies, the so called “Big Eight” are “comp.” (computer-related discussions), “humanities.” (humanities topics), “misc.“ (miscellaneous topics), “news.” (newsgroup-related matters), “rec.” (recreation and entertainment), “sci.“ (science-related discussions), “soc.“ (social discussions), “talk.” (general “off-topic discussions). Another big hierarchy is the “alt.”-category which includes the popular binaries mentioned above.

However, the posts inside the Usenet aren’t there forever, as they are subject to a so called “retention time”. Since each newsgroup is allocated a limited amount of storage every time a new post is made, an old one will be deleted in order to provide enough room for fresh content. The offered retention time varies among Usenet providers from 400 up to 1000 days.

Unfortunately, the access to the Usenet has been limited. Nowadays, it is recommendable to sign up with commercial Usenet-provider like UseNeXT. Additionally to providing access to Usenet, the providers offer their own special Usenet software. Without this software you aren’t able to download files from within the Usenet. Because of the quantity and the offers of providers differ significantly, you should carefully compare them and choose the one which is best for you. The providers distinguish themselves especially in price, download capacity, software and retention time.

When is the last time you looked at a printer and thought, “WOW!”; in fact, when was the last time you looked at a printer at all?  Chances are, if you looked at one, it was probably only while you were lifting your feet off it, since you stopped using it as a printer two years ago when you discovered it served a better purpose as a footrest.

Why is this?  Home printers used to be the neatest thing since home computers, but have slowly slipped into obscurity and obsoleteness. Until now.

The Seattle-based design firm Artefact recently released a concept product that is functionally somewhere between an iPad and a printer.  This concept, which Artefact brilliantly showcases in a very Apple-esque video, might be exactly what the printer industry needs to revitalize business.

At a first glance the machine doesn’t look so impressive, or so radically different from any printer you’ve ever seen, for that matter.  But once the printing tray flips down and reveals the enormous touch screen display, it’s a whole new world for printers.

A crystal clear menu appears on the screen, giving users a number of different options, such as connecting to a camera, memory card, Facebook, Flickr, and Photoshop (that’s right, Photoshop), to name a few.  A touch on the screen takes users to an image library where they can touch, drag, slide, and swipe photos with their fingers to edit and print them—you can even create collages on the printer and print them, all just by touching the screen.

And then, as if all of this weren’t awesome enough, when you’re satisfied with the image, you swipe downward toward the paper tray and watch as the machine prints exactly what you see on the screen, and at an impressive speed and quality.   The printer concept is called SWYP, for “See What You Print.”

You really have to see it to believe it.

The disappointing news is that Artifact’s concept printer is not one that they are going to try to produce.  The design of the printer is a wild departure from what we expect from a printer, but the machine, beautiful and amazing as it is, does not solve the cost problem of ink cartridges.

It is still exciting, though, to see a company putting such creative effort into rethinking a commonplace item to make it new, relevant, and useful again.  And possibly the best news is that other companies, after seeing this revolutionary new design, will probably start examining other items that have become the victim of boring design and functionality.

Does this mean that we will have touch-screen toasters?  Laser can-openers?  Perhaps.  But any time when companies are competing creatively to improve on old technologies is a great time to be on the receiving end.

About Author:

Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online colleges. She loves receiving reader feedback.