Usenet – The Pioneer of the Internet
by admin on Sep.29, 2011, under Featured
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.
SWYP: The Future of Printers (And Maybe Toasters, Too)
by admin on Sep.25, 2011, under Featured
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.
Facebook Chat Instant Messenger for Blackberry
by admin on Aug.27, 2011, under Reviews
Mobile communications have become an integral part of everyday life. Gone are the days where surfing the internet was associated with noisy dial-up modems and corpulent desktop computers. This technological era is all about the mobility and portability of the internet into gadgets rightfully dubbed as smartphones. Among different models with different possibilities, one name will always stand out: the BlackBerry phone.
If you own one of these marvelous pieces of technology, we have some more good news for you: Facebook (FB), one of the world’s most beloved social networks, is easier to use than ever before with the help of a tiny and inexpensive application named Chit Chat. To put it simply, Chit Chat will aid you greatly in checking online contacts, checking the unread message list and conducting online conversations with your friends through its nifty interface. All that and you only have to pay 1.99 dollars for it! Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well, let’s review a few of its features and you can be the judge of that.
Setting up Chit Chat and running it
Chit Chat is really easy to install on your Blackberry phone. In fact, all you will be required to do once you have downloaded it is to specify the language (the default one is English). Next, you will need to enter your Facebook account and password and opt whether you want Chit Chat to remember them and whether you want to be signed in automatically whenever you start the app. Obviously, in order to use Chit Chat, you will be required to have an active Facebook account. Therefore, if you are not yet part of this amazing social network, then it’s high-time you create an account.
The buddy list: What is that?
The buddy list of the Chit Chat Blackberry FB application is in fact nothing more and nothing less than Facebook’s own friend list. With one exception: the Chit Chat Buddy system is a bit more intuitive and spotting your online, offline and idle contacts is easier than ever before. If you own a Facebook account, you are probably among those who are annoyed with the recent attempts of the developers to enhance the chat features which, let’s face it, has had sub-optimal results to say the least. On the other hand, Chit Chat has numerous ways to sort out the Buddy list, in order of names, whether the contacts are online or off and so on. Moreover, this feature enables you to hide or display the contacts that are offline.
The IM system: How does it score against the default Facebook chat?
The highlight of Chit Chat’s instant messaging system resides in the ability to perform several conversations at once, without fear of mixing them up. To put it simply, you can easily select any online contact from the Buddy list screen, click ‘Select’ and choose ‘Start IM’ with the said contact. In addition, the application also provides a time-stamp and emotion display/hide option under the preferences menu. Mind you, not even the Windows based Facebook can do that! And if you were worried that the Chit Chat will not allow you to use your favorite emoticons, you can put your mind at ease as you have full access to all your favorite Facebook emoticons which you can use to emphasize your points or turn the meaning of a sentence right around.
Is the checking and going through the unread messages as proficient as the IM?
Checking out your current unread messages is as easy as it gets with Chit Chat. In the Buddy list tab, the third sub-tab allows you to find out whether you have new emails by displaying their number on top of the bubble-like icon. In addition, since the app also enables you to segregate them and show the time-stamp, what can be easier than staying up to date with what your friends or family send you via Facebook, even when you are not at home?
Is there anything Chit Chat can’t do?
As a matter of fact, there is one thing that the developers should consider implementing and that is the news feed and the ability to update your status. However, as Henrik Larsson, one of the people in charge has stated, the application was created with simplicity in mind. So, the development team has eliminated most functions that were not vital to the proper functioning of the chat system. If you think about it, using Facebook on your mobile phone is rarely related to checking the news feed or looking at your friend’s status updates. More often than not, you will want to use the social network in order to communicate effectively, and this is exactly what Chit Chat will help you achieve.
Final word
Chit Chat is essentially an instant messaging (IM) application designed to bridge the gap between the BlackBerry smartphones and the Facebook. So far, it seems to have achieved this a lot better than the default Facebook one, which in my opinion is not nearly as intuitive or simple to use. By eliminating a great deal of scrolling through seemingly endless lists of messages, contacts and allowing you to communicate with several of your friends simultaneously, Chit Chat for Facebook Blackberry has earned the reputation of being a top app in this regard. It’s no wonder that the Chit Chat version for Windows which preceded this one was so successful!
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