Hardware Vs Software

Bug found in Debian Linux.

2008-05-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

DEBIAN LINUX got a bit of a black eye Tuesday with the announcement that a nasty cryptographic vulnerability exists in its version of the OpenSSL package.

Debian, especially its stable branch, is widely regarded as perhaps the most bulletproof Linux distribution. Legend has it that wizened European Debian gnomes painstakingly fit together each version using well polished hand tools inherited from their watchmaking and marquetry woodcrafting forefathers.

Debian also has the not undeserved reputation of being difficult for those new to Linux to install and manage.

The Debian maintainers apparently created the vulnerability by deleting code that seeded the random number generation used to calculate encryption keys.

The result was that the random number generator used in Debian's OpenSSL package was predictable, leading to cryptographic keys that might guessable.

Debian Security Advisory DSA-1571-1 states: "Affected keys include SSH keys, OpenVPN keys, DNSSEC keys, and key material for use in X.509 certificates and session keys used in SSL/TLS connections. Keys generated with GnuPG or GNUTLS are not affected, though."

The advisory also publishes the URLs for a detector of weak encryption keys, as well as the location of instructions about how to implement key rollover.

The vulnerability only exists in Debian and Debian derived Linux systems, but those also include the Ubuntu versions of Linux that have lately become quite popular among casual desktop Linux users.

The problematic OpenSSL code appeared in the Debian unstable distribution on September 17, 2006 and has since been propagated into the current stable and testing distributions named Etch. The previous stable Debian distribution named Sarge is not affected.

Many Debian Linux desktop users shouldn't be affected by this Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) bug unless they've generated cryptographic keys for Secure Shell (SSH) access between systems or digital signing or authentication certificates.

However, techies who administrate Debian based Linux systems that traffic in certificates might be scurrying about somewhat in coming days as they apt-get the upgraded OpenSSL package and regenerate and roll over cryptographic keys and certificates.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/05/14/openssl-bug-found-debian-linux

Linux mobile wins award

2008-05-02T07:04:00.001-07:00

MontaVista's Mobilinux 5.0 Linux distribution for mobile phones won an EDN Magazine
2008 "Innovation Award" under the software category. The award for
"Innovator of the Year," meanwhile, went to Intel's 45nm semiconductor
process technology team.

The
EDN Innovation Awards honor significant people, products, and
technologies that have shaped the semiconductor industry over the past
year, says EDN. Based on MontaVista Linux Professional Edition,
Mobilinux was released last year in version 5.0, and powers "90 percent of Linux smartphones," according to MontaVista.

In February, MontaVista announced that Mobilinux was a finalist in EDN's software category along with National Instruments Labview 8.5, and Microchip Technology's Graphics Library. Mobilinux also beat out Microsoft's recently renamed Robotics Studio platform, currently available in a free public beta.

Intel's 45nm process innovation team
beat out Innovator of the Year finalists Stream Processors and Linear
Technologies. The 45nm technology, which is used in Intel's new Atom processors, uses new materials that reduce transistor leakage while increasing performance.

Meanwhile, in the development kit category, TI's tiny eZ430-RF2500 ultra-low-power RF development kit, based on a 16-bit microcontroller, edged out the Linux-friendly Xilinx EDK 9.2 and the Altera Nios II kits.

Stated
Jim Ready, CTO and founder of MontaVista Software. "We are pleased for
the recognition of the 'innovation' and the 'significant advance' that
Mobilinux 5.0 has delivered to mobile device designers and their
customers."

7 Interesting and Useful Things to do with your USB Pen Drive 4

2008-02-25T09:51:00.001-08:00

If you've got a USB Pen Drive, you can use it for a variety of things, that includes adding portable apps and lots more.

But, your Pen Drive can serve for some interesting purposes as well - some you wouldn't have imagined about. Put it to some good use, here's a quick list of what you can do with it:

1. Install a Linux Distro

Pen Drive Linux guides you through procedures on loading your USB Drive with a Linux Distro. If you're a geek, you'll love this setup. If you're just a normal user, this may come to your use in a variety of situations - you go to a friend's computer, which is infected with pesky viruses. You need not worry, boot with your Linux-loaded pen drive and do your job, safe and secure.

2. Install MojoPac

I usually don't recommend software that you'll have to pay for using, but this one is something I can't resist myself from recommending to you dear readers. Yes, this is a wonderful app that'll install itself into a pen drive, and run on top of Windows. You can run your favourite Windows apps, most of them run perfect on this MojoPac layer. The advantage is that none of the modified settings affect the original Windows over which your MojoPac is running on. Quite cool, isn't it?

3. Automatic Backups

You're probably using your USB Pen Drive as a backup device to hold your important documents, but why not make the process easier? Install Allway Sync or Microsoft SyncToy. Both can let you sync files on your computer with your USB Pen Drive with ease. You don't have to do manual copy & paste files - just insert, click and you're done.

4. Additional Memory

Vista can use your USB Flash Drive just like your RAM - such a capability is integrated into the OS. Windows XP just can't use it as additional memory - your flash drive is just a flash drive. Not anymore if you have eBoostr installed. This software program aids XP in using your Flash Drive as a memory device. You might want to give this a try if your computer is hungry on resources and needs some speed boost.

5. Perfect for Gifts

Indeed, these funky USB Drives are perfect for gifts. There are lots of creative things you could do with it, and then present it to your loved one. If your friend is a businessman/freelancer who has to work with multiple computers, a USB Pen Drive can serve as a perfect gift for the person will have files to carry around. In case your close friend is just a casual user, you could load it with some photos and gift it to that person. Get a pen drive, put your photos in, let them autorun as a surprise when the thumb drive is put in.

6. Exhibit your Skills

Are you a computer/web based worker? Chances are you want to exhibit your skills - what you've done in the past. Why not load them on to your USB Drive? For instance, if you're a graphic designer - you could use it to present your skills, stuff that you've worked on in the past and show it off to your clients. Probably, they might hire you right away (Thanks Skellie)

7. Enjoy Music, hassle free

If you're a serious audiophile, and still got to work in multiple computers, accessing your music collection can be painful. But there's Winamp to the rescue. You can use Winamp to put your music collection in your USB thumb drive, all still organized and easily accessible. Winamp Portable Edition makes your media library portable, yet organized for hassle free listening.

http://www.killertechtips.com/2008/02/25/cool-usb-pen-drives-software/

Ten Tips To Improve System Speed

2008-01-12T11:58:00.000-08:00

1.Let your PC boot up completely before opening any applications.

2.Refresh the desktop after closing any application. This will remove any unused files from the RAM.

3.Do not set very large file size images as your wallpaper. Do not keep a wallpaper at all if your PC is low on RAM (less than 64 MB).

4.Do not clutter your Desktop with a lot of shortcuts. Each shortcut on the desktop uses up to 500 bytes of RAM

5.Empty the recycle bin regularly. The files are not really deleted from your hard drive until you empty the recycle bin.

6.Delete the temporary internet files regularly.

7.Defragment your hard drive once every two months. This will free up a lot of space on your hard drive and rearrange the files so that your applications run faster.

8.Always make two partitions in your hard drive. Install all large Softwares (like PSP, Photoshop, 3DS Max etc) in the second partition. Windows uses all the available empty space in C drive as virtual memory when your Computer RAM is full. Keep the C Drive as empty as possible.

9.When installing new Softwares disable the option of having a tray icon. The tray icons use up available RAM, and also slow down the booting of your PC. Also disable the option of starting the application automatically when the PC boots. You can disable these options later on also from the Tools or preferences menu in your application.

10. Protect your PC from dust. Dust causes the CPU cooling fan to jam and slow down thereby gradually heating your CPU and affecting the processing speed. Use compressed air to blow out any dust from the CPU. Never use vacuum. RAM IS THE WORKING AREA (DESKTOP) OF THE CPU, KEEP IT AS EMPTY AND UNCLUTTERED AS POSSIBLE!

Top 20 Tips To Keep Your System Faster

2008-01-12T11:26:00.000-08:00

Follow these tips and you will definitely have a much faster and more reliable PC! Most of the below tips works for windows 98

1. Wallpapers: They slow your whole system down, so if you're willing to compromise, have a basic plain one instead!

2. Drivers: Update your hardware drivers as frequently as possible. New drivers tend to increase system speed especially in the case of graphics cards, their drivers are updated by the manufacturer very frequently!

3. Minimizing: If you want to use several programs at the same time then minimize those you are not using. This helps reduce the overload on RAM.

4. Boot Faster: The 'starting Windows 95/98' message on startup can delay your booting for a couple of seconds. To get rid of this message go to c:\ and find the file Msdos.sys. Remove the Read-Only option. Next, open it in Notepad or any other text editor. Finally, go to the text 'Options' within the file and make the following changes: Add BootDelay=0. To make your booting even faster, set add Logo=0 to remove the Windows logo at startup.

5. Restart only Windows: When restarting your PC, hold down Shift to only restart Windows rather than the whole system which will only take a fraction of the time.

6. Turn Off Animations: Go to Display Settings from the Control Panel and switch to the Effects Tab. Now turn off Show Windows Content While Dragging and Smooth Edges on Screen Fonts. This tip is also helpful with Windows XP because of the various fade/scroll effects.

7. Faster Start-Menu Access: Go to the Start menu and select Run. Now type Regedit and hit Enter. The Registry Editor will appear on the screen. Now, open the folder HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. You should see a MenuShowDelay value. If you don't then do the following: right click on a blank space in the right pane and select New\String. Change the name in the new value to MenuShowDelay. Now that we have the MenuShowDelay value, double click on it and enter 0 in the value data field. This sets the start menu delay to 0 milliseconds.

8. Resolutions: If you are willing to do anything for faster performance from your PC, then try lowering your display resolution. The lower it is, the faster your PC.

9. Turn off Active Desktop: Go to your Display Properties and switch to the Web tab. Uncheck View My Active Desktop As a Web Page. Since the Active Desktop option under Windows 98 uses a lot of system resources, this option can have a dramatic effect on the speed of the whole system.

10. Defragment Often: Windows 98's Defrag tool uses Application Acceleration from Intel which means that when you defragment your drive, data is physically arranged on the drive so that applications will load faster.

11. Take your PC to Bed: Using the Advanced Power Management feature under Windows 98 gives you the option to use the sleep command. That way, you can send your PC to sleep instead of shutting it down and then restarting it. It's as simple as pressing a button and then pressing the same button to wake it up. You can tell Windows after how many minutes/hours of inactivity to automatically sleep the machine in the Advanced Power Management section of the Control Panel.

12. Faster Internet Access: If you use the internet for reference and the sites you visit are rarely updated then try the following. In IE (the same can be done in Netscape) go to Tools, Internet Options. Next, click on Settings... in the Temporary Internet Files section. Finally, select Never for the first option and double the amount of storage space to use, click OK!

13. Benchmarking: Benchmarking can be very useful when run frequently. It can tell you how your PC's components are performing and then compare them to other machines like yours. For example, when you overclock your PC, you want to know how much more speed you have and whether it is stable. All this and more can be discovered using benchmarking. An excellent piece of software for doing this job is SiSoft Sandra which can be found in the Downloads File Archive!

14. Refresh the Taskbar without restarting: If you in some way change the taskbar, either in Regedit or elsewhere, you can refresh the task bar without restarting. Hold down Ctrl Alt Del, and double click on Explorer. Say Yes to close Explorer, but no to closing Windows. This will refresh the Taskbar and system tray.

15. Quick CD Eject: Instead of pushing the button on your drive, right-click your CD drive letter in My Computer and click on Eject. This will also remove any icons that have become associated with the CD drive.

16. Start Up Programs: Windows can be slowed down when programs run on start up. To eliminate this, check your Start up folder. You can access it from the start menu: Start, Programs, Start Up. Another way to eliminate programs from loading even before Windows actually starts is by doing the following: Click on Start, then Run. Type msconfig. It will take quite a long time for this program to load, but when you finally see it on your screen, explore the different tabs. They all have to do with how quickly your PC boots, so select what you want, and uncheck what you don't want!

17. Fonts: When Windows starts, it loads every single font in the Fonts folder. Therefore, the more fonts you have, the slower the booting process. To get rid of unwanted fonts, simply go to the Fonts folder under c:\windows and remove whatever you don't want. Fonts that have a red letter 'A' as their icon are system fonts, so don't delete them.

18. Stretching Wallpapers: Don't "stretch" your wallpaper in Windows 98 since it actually slows Windows down when you drag icons around on the desktop.

19. RAM Matters: If you have less than 32MB then you should seriously think of upgrading it to at least 64MB. Windows runs much more smoothly with 64MB or higher and tends to use less hard disk space for virtual memory.

20. Partitioning: A very nice little thing you can do to boost system performance. By partitioning your hard drive, splitting one physical drive into several logical ones, you can gain several advantages.
1. If you get a virus or you accidentally format a drive, not all will be lost.
2. By placing the swap file (Win386.swp) on a separate drive, The swap file will be less fragmented and thus, faster.
3. Place Windows on a separate drive and whenever you need to reinstall it, you rest assured that your data is safe on a separate drive. Partitioning can be done using a few programs such as FDisk which comes with DOS. However, FDisk formats everything on the hard disk before partitioning. Alternatively, you can use Partition Magic from Power Quest to partition your hard disk without losing your data.

13 reasons why Linux should be on your desktop

2007-10-17T10:57:00.000-07:00

1. Cost -- Linux is free, and that includes all the apps. Microsoft is greedy. Vista Home Premium and Ultimate cost hundreds of dollars, even when upgrading from Windows XP. Moving up to Office 2007 involves handing over another bundle of dollars.

2. Resources -- Even the most lavishly equipped Linux distros demand no more resources than Windows XP. Vista is greedy: a single-user PC operating system that needs 2GB of RAM to run at acceptable speed, and 15GB of hard disk space, is grossly obese.

3. Performance -- Linux worked faster on my Dell Inspiron Core Duo than XP, at least the way XP worked out of the box. After cleaning out the bloatware and trading McAfee's Abrams Tank for the lightweight NOD32, XP and Linux (with Guarddog and Clam-AV) perform at similar speed.

4. No bloatware -- Linux is free from adware, trialware, shovelware, and bloatware. Running Linux is like watching the public TV network.

5. Security -- Last year, 48,000 new virus signatures were documented for Windows, compared to 40 for Linux. Still, most distros come with firewalls and antivirus (AV) software. Programs like Guarddog and Clam-AV are free, of course.

6. Dual booting -- The best Linux distros make dual booting a simple affair, along with the required disk partitioning (so you don't need to buy partitioning software). Windows on my Dell laptop is still intact after installing and uninstalling a dozen distros.

7. Installation -- Anyone who's done it once knows that installing Windows from scratch takes hours or even days by the time you get all your apps up and running. With Linux, it can take as little as half an hour to install the operating system, utilities, and a full set of applications. No registration or activation is required, no paperwork, and no excruciating pack drill.

8. Reinstalling the OS -- You can't just download an updated version of Windows. You have to use the CD that came with your PC and download all the patches Microsoft has issued since the CD was made. With Linux, you simply download the latest version of your distro (no questions asked) and, assuming your data files live in a separate disk partition, there's no need to reinstall them. You only need to re-install the extra programs you added to the ones that came with the distro.

9. Keeping track of software -- Like most Windows users, I have a shelf full of software CDs and keep a little book with serial numbers under my bed in case I have to reinstall the lot. With Linux, there are no serial numbers or passwords to lose or worry about. Not a single one.

10. Updating software -- Linux updates all the software on your system whenever updates are available online, including all applications programs. Microsoft does that for Windows software but you have to update each program you've added from other sources. That's about 60 on each of my PCs. More icing on the Linux cake is that it doesn't ask you to reboot after updates. XP nags you every ten minutes until you curse and reboot your machine. If you choose "custom install" to select only the updates you want, XP hounds you like a mangy neighborhood dog until you give in.

11. More security -- These days, operating systems are less vulnerable than the applications that run on them. Therefore a vital aspect of PC security is keeping your apps up-to-date with the latest security patches. That's hard manual labor in Windows, but with Linux it's automatic.

12. No need to defrag disks -- Linux uses different file systems that don't need defragging. NTFS was going to be replaced in Vista, but Microsoft's new file system didn't make the final cut. Instead, Vista does scheduled disk defragging by default, but the defrag utility is a sad affair.

13. A wealth of built-in utilities -- The utilities supplied with Windows are pretty ordinary on the whole, that's why so many small software firms have made a nice living writing better ones. Linux programs are comparable with the best Windows freeware, from CD burners to photo managers, memory monitors and disk utilities. PDF conversion is built-in, both into OpenOffice Writer and into the DTP application Scribus. All you do is click a button on the task bar.

Intel open-source project to make Linux better

2007-09-20T13:20:00.001-07:00

Power management in Linux has been difficult to do. On Sept. 20, Intel announced the launch of an open-source community project, LessWatts.org, which is designed to meet the demands for increased energy efficiency from data center servers to personal mobile devices.

LessWatts was unveiled at IDF (Intel Developer Forum) in San Francisco by Renee James, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel's software and solutions group. The LessWatts.org initiative brings together the community of Linux developers, ISVs and users to facilitate technology development, deployment, and tuning and sharing of information around Linux power management.

Linux's core developers agree that there is a pressing need for making Linux greener. At the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit held at the Googleplex in June, leading Linux kernel programmer Andrew Morton said that "power management is no longer on or off." The problem, as always, the developers agreed, is that "Linux needs specifications for devices."

Jesse Barnes, a Linux developer from Intel, added that while Intel has been putting resources into power management, "We don't have enough, and we need other vendors to step up."

James Bottomley, vice president and chief technology officer of Steeleye Technology, a high-availability Linux vendor, said: "We're getting everyone to look at power management strategies." He feels that while power management "will never be perfect, at least we will have the instrumentation and a lot of knobs to twiddle."

Much of the concern for improved power management comes not so much from an interest in green computing as from vendors wanting to use Linux in their mobile devices. Greg Kroah-Hartman, a SUSE Linux developer added: "Mobile is asking for power management. I think the servers want it too, but they don't know it."

Theodore 'Ted' T'so, an IBM Linux developer, said: "A lot of the low-hanging fruit has been plucked on the kernel side" when it comes to power management. For example, many power management problems can be solved by improving Linux ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) support, because most of the power control is currently hidden away in devices' proprietary firmware, where Linux developers can't get to it.

Now, with LessWatts, Intel is seeking to open up power management from large data centers, where server power consumption imposes limits on a center's growth and has significant financial and environmental costs to mobile users who are constrained by power consumption limits, as battery space is continually squeezed with the overall reduction in size of mobile devices.

"We created LessWatts.org to accelerate technology development and simplify information sharing for effective power management across a broad spectrum of devices and industry segments that are utilizing Linux," said James. "A focused initiative that aggregates the disparate efforts into a holistic system and builds on our existing efforts with the industry in the Climate Savers Computing Initiative will serve as a strong catalyst to get energy-efficient solutions into the market segment faster, thereby benefiting the customers who purchase Intel-based products."

The LessWatts.org initiative encompasses several key projects including Linux kernel enhancements (such as the Linux 2.6.21 "tickless idle" feature that takes better advantage of power saving hardware technologies), the PowerTOP tool that helps tune Linux applications to be power aware and the Linux Battery Life Toolkit to measure and instrument the impact of Linux code changes on power savings.

Additionally, LessWatts.org provides Linux support for hardware power saving features being implemented in current and upcoming Intel platforms.

Intel is not making this move on its own. Other vendors have joined in the LessWatts initiative. "Community contributions are a fundamental part of Oracle's long-standing commitment to Linux and our collaboration with Intel in projects such as LessWatts.org is another proof point," said Wim Coekaerts, Oracle's vice president of Linux engineering.

"LessWatts.org can help customers reduce data center power consumption and make use of the latest hardware technologies, while further advancing the development, adoption and deployment of enterprise Linux solutions."

The leading corporate Linux vendors are also on board. "In response to customer demand for power savings across their entire IT environment, we've implemented significant features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 that allow our customers to minimize their carbon footprint," said Paul Cormier, executive vice president of engineering at Red Hat, in a statement. Red Hat continues to work closely with Intel to provide customers with ecologically sensitive solutions, and we look forward to actively contributing to the LessWatts.org project."

Jeff Jaffe, Novell executive vice president and chief technology officer, said: "Novell is working hard to be eco-friendly and customer-friendly at the same time by providing better power management technologies as part of SUSE Linux Enterprise. We are committed to helping drive the technology forward as part of LessWatts.org and providing value to our customers by incorporating that technology into upcoming SUSE Linux Enterprise releases."

3D Mouse

2007-09-20T09:08:00.001-07:00

Here is an inexpensive way to create a three dimensional pointing device. Take a working mechanical wheel mouse (the type with a scrolling wheel). Remove the ball. Drill some holes in the sides and run a string into the mouse, around the horizontal roller, and out the other side. Reroute the sensors for the vertical roller and the scroll wheel to a pair of external sensors. The easiest way to do this is to take a couple of dead mechanical mice and simply wire their horizontal rollers to the master mouse's vertical roller and scroll wheel. Run strings around these two rollers as well. Attach small weights to one end of each string and tie the other ends together. The result is a computer peripheral which can be used to indicate a point in three dimensions.

My implementation was mostly built out of surplus parts. The board was the sign for the Inverness office of Digital Routes (made obsolete when the company moved to Elgin). The mouse is a Genius NetScroll+ PS2/Serial mouse. This type of mouse uses a four-byte protocol which may be unique to Genius (it is somewhat simpler than the more common Microsoft Intellimouse protocol). The front two rollers were extracted from a long-dead Microsoft bus mouse. They are mounted to the board using brackets cut from the plastic housing for some old telephone equipment. The string was purchased at a local knitting store. The central ring is my key ring. The three weights are built from a stack of washers attached to an alligator clip by a large bolt.

The biggest problem is friction -- or lack thereof. There isn't much friction between the strings and the rollers which means tacking is very poor quality (especially on downward movements when the string loop loosens). Looping the string around the rollers more than once solves the problem, but causes the roller to jam when the string runs over itself. Increasing the mass of the weights also solves the problem, but causes operator fatigue due to having to constantly pull against the weights. The solution was to use hot melt glue to build crude pulleys on the shafts. Hot melt glue has an extremely high coefficient of friction and works very well. Even so, the mouse quickly drifts out of sync with reality and has to be recentred regularly.

Converting the mouse's data into height-width-depth co-ordinates involves rather a lot of math. 3dmouse.py is a Python program which reads the data from the mouse, decodes it and computes the co-ordinates. This program can be used as the basis of more advanced applications such as the 3D Pong game pictured on the left. The 3D Mouse could also be used to manipulate objects in a CAD program, set up planets in an orbital simulator, or control a robotic arm.

Remote Rebooter

2007-09-07T12:30:00.001-07:00

Every system administrator knows the joy of crashing a server remotely, then having to phone someone on-site to get them to hit the reset button. After doing this a few times, the people on-site start to get annoyed. Remote rebooters are devices which allow you to power-cycle a crashed server without annoying anyone.

Commercial remote reboot devices are usually miniature computers which sit on the network. You point a web browser at its IP address, enter your password, and then press a button. This trips a relay which cuts the power to your (crashed) server for a few seconds. If all goes well, the offending server will reboot normally and reappear on the network a few minutes later. This solution usually costs around $300.

Here's a simple alternative which cost about $30 to build. Our setup has two servers sitting side by side. The rebooter attaches to each server's parallel port. And each server's power plug runs through the rebooter. The device is wired such that either computer can cut the power to the other computer. As long as both computers don't crash simultaneously, one can always bring a system back from the dead.

The biggest headache was trying to avoid a vicious reboot cycle. Imagine A is commanded to reboot B. As the power is restored to B, B accidentally happens to issue the command to reboot A. As A is power-cycled, it accidentally issues the command to reboot B. Rinse. Repeat.

The first method of avoiding this was to make the command an unlikely one to appear accidentally. Since all-bits-high and all-bits-low both happen naturally during a PC's reboot, CMOS logic was added so that a specific pattern of four-bits-high and one-bit-low was required to issue a reboot command. The second method was to make sure the trigger pattern would be ignored if it was just a transient spasm. This was done using some analog electronics that required the valid input to be held for five seconds before it would activate the relays.

One quirk of our servers was that merely cutting and restoring power wasn't sufficient, we needed to press the power button as well. So there's a second pair of relay circuits which hooks up to the power button's pins on each server's motherboard. First the server opens the 120v power relay for 15 seconds. Then it closes the power button's reed relay for 5 seconds.

The resulting gadget can be controlled with a parallel port monitor.

Nokia recalls 46m phone batteries

2007-08-15T12:08:00.000-07:00

Nokia, the world's leading maker of mobile phones, said Tuesday it would offer free-of-charge replacements for some of its Nokia BL-5C batteries after around 100 incidents of overheating were reported globally.

No serious property damage or injuries were reported as a result of the incidents, the Finnish company said in a statement.

The batteries were manufactured by Japan's Matsushita Battery Industrial.

Nokia has several suppliers for BL-5C batteries who have collectively produced more than 300 million such products.

The product advisory issued Tuesday applied only to the 46 million batteries manufactured by Matsushita between December 2005 and November 2006.

"There have been approximately 100 incidents of overheating reported globally. No serious injuries or property damage have been reported," Nokia said, adding that the overheating occurred while the batteries were being charged.

Nokia mobile phone users were asked to check the 26-character serial number on the back of their phones to compare it with the identification numbers on the Nokia website, or contact a local Nokia call centre.

Blu-ray outruns HD-DVD in United States

2007-08-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

Blu-ray high-definition movie discs outsold films on the rival HD-DVD format by 2-to-1 in the United States in the first half of 2007, Home Media Research said on Tuesday.

The division of Home Media Magazine said total sales of Blu-ray discs, using a Sony Corp-backed technology, totaled 1.6 million units from Jan. 1 through July 1, compared with 795,000 HD-DVD discs sold in that period.

HD-DVD was developed by Toshiba Corp and backed by Microsoft Corp and film studios such as Warner Bros.

Both formats were launched in spring of 2006. An estimated 3.7 million high-definition discs have been sold, including 2.2 million in Blu-ray and 1.5 million in HD-DVD through the end of July, according to Home Media.

A Home Media spokeswoman said Blu-ray got a further boost in August from strong sales of the "300" title. Stephen Nickerson, senior vice president, market management at Warner Home Video, reported sales of about 190,000 Blu-ray units of the film, versus 97,000 in HD-DVD since July 31.

The industry-wide standards war is reminiscent of the VHS and Betamax battle.

Blockbuster Inc, the largest U.S. provider of home movie entertainment, in June set out plans to line its shelves with Blu-ray DVDs, saying Blu-ray rentals were "significantly outpacing" HD-DVD rentals.

Vatican, CIA edit online entries on Wikipedia.

2007-08-15T11:30:00.000-07:00

Editing your own entry on Wikipedia is usually the province of celebrities keen for some good PR. But a new website has uncovered dozens of companies that have been editing the site in order to improve their public image.

The Wikipedia Scanner, which trawls the backwaters of the popular online encyclopedia, has unearthed a catalogue of organisations massaging entries, including the US Central Intelligence Agency and the British Labour Party.

Workers operating on CIA computers have been spotted editing entries including the biographies of the former presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, while unnamed individuals inside the Vatican have worked on entries about Catholic saints - and the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.

And somebody from a computer traced to Democrat headquarters edited a page on the conservative American radio host Rush Limbaugh, calling him "idiotic", "ridiculous" and labelling his 20 million listeners as "legally retarded".

The Scanner says Diebold, a supplier of voting machines, has made huge alterations to entries about its involvement in the controversial "hanging chad" election in the US in 2000. The company was criticised in the wake of the disputed results, but edits made by its employees on Wikipedia have included the removal of 15 paragraphs detailing the allegations.

"In August 2003 Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold, announced that he had been a top fund-raiser for George Bush," the deleted text read. "When assailed by critics for the conflict of interest … he vowed to lower his political profile."

Last year some US congressional staff were found to be removing information from the profiles of the politicians they worked for and this year the computer group Microsoft back-pedalled after it was revealed to have offered money to experts to "correct" entries about it.

The Scanner, built by Virgil Griffith, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, compares 5.3 million edits on the encyclopedia against the internet addresses of more than 2 million companies or individuals.

The ultimate way to bring your linux to life.

2007-08-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

Linux Live is a set of shell scripts which allows you to create own Live Linux from your installed Linux distribution. The Live system you create will be bootable from CD-ROM or a disk device, for example USB Flash Drive, USB Pen Drive, Camera connected to USB port, and so on. People use Linux Live scripts to boot Linux from iPod as well.

How to build a Live distro:

1. Install your favourite distro to disk partition, or into a folder on your existing system.

Slackware is recommended but not required.

2. Build aufs kernel module and squashfs kernel module (optionally patched to support LZMA)

The step above is not required if you use precompiled Linux Kernel from this website

Install kernel modules to the newly installed distro to /lib/modules/`uname -r`/fs/.

Make sure you are running the same kernel you used to compile modules

3. Remove all unnecessary files (for example man pages and all other files you don't need),

to make your Live Linux system as small as possible (this step is optional).

4. Download Linux Live scripts from this website and unpack it in /tmp

Read ./DOC/requirements.txt to find out what linux-live scripts need

Edit .config file if you need to modify some variables

5. Finally login as root and run ./build

Live distribution's 'directory tree' will be created in /tmp/live_data_1234

where 1234 is a random number

6. To make ISO image, run make_iso.sh

To make a bootable (usb) disk, run bootinst.sh

Working example

If you're just looking for a working Linux Live system, visit www.slax.org

Linux Live scripts version 6 are the most innovative scripts available. AuFS provides better stability compared to old unionfs, squashfs with LZMA support provides great compression ratio and amazing decompression speed. What's new compared to old Linux Live scripts v 5?

- aufs is used instead of unionfs, brings great stability and features
- squashfs is patched with LZMA compression, so compressed filesystems are up to 30% smaller
- no need to patch your distro's startup scripts in order to remove remount of root rw
- no need for udev as the devices are created during live startup
- CD tree is simplified, you may call your distro as you like, eg. slax, knoppix, etc.
- support for booting from USB and PCMCIA/CardBus device
- added a script to create bootable disk (including USB) in Linux and Windows

LINUTOP

2007-07-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

Linutop is a small computer running from a USB key.

Without internal hard drive, linutop is more robust.
It offers a completely silent, low-power operation in an extremely small package.

It comes with a "Plug & Surf" USB key based on Linux for an easy web access.
Linutop is ideal for everyday Internet usage in:

- Libraries, Schools and Universities, Museums...
- Business and Government offices, Factories...
- Hotels, Hospitals, Internet cafés, Living rooms...
Beyond Internet surfing,

Linutop is a developer-friendly platform that can be easily adapted to other uses:
- Public Information Displays, Point-of-Sale Terminal...
- Embedded PC (car, boat, plane)...
Linutop Benefits

Small
Simple
Silent
Light
Low energy consumption
Low-cost deployment and service

Plug & Surf
Linutop is shipped with a 'Plug and Surf' USB key designed for an easy and reliable Internet access.

Linutop can be used in a waiting room; bedroom, office, factory, ... an always open web access.
Easy
The 'Plug and Surf' USB key contains all the necessary software for surfing and chatting.
Nothing to install, just plug the key and surf.
Reliable
The 'Plug and Surf' USB key cannot be altered by a virus or a mishap.
At each restart you will recover the initial state.
Flexible
If you master linux, it will be easy for you to create your own distribution or customized version on a USB key or a USB hard drive.

Porn Industry in Japan Embraces Blu-Ray Disc

2007-07-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

Japanese adult film makers have turned decisively to Blu-ray Disc, breathing new life into its bid to replace DVDs as the disc of choice for home movies.

The HD DVD high-definition movie format may have the lead in the U.S. porn industry, but Japanese adult film makers have turned decisively to Blu-ray Disc, breathing new life into its bid to replace DVDs as the disc of choice for home movies.

Sony Corp. has started offering more technical support to the adult film industry in Japan, movie makers said at the Adult Treasure Expo 2007 in Chiba, Japan, and the problem of finding companies to mass produce their movies appears to be over.

It's an important step for Blu-ray Disc. HD DVD has already won over the U.S. adult film industry through its lower costs and ease-of-use. People in the industry say they've received plenty of help from backers of the format, including Microsoft Corp. and Toshiba Corp. But Blu-ray is different. Sony and one of the biggest movie makers in the world, the Walt Disney Co., object to pornography, and Disney maintains a policy against having its own movies replicated by any company working with adult movie titles.

Until now, only a handful of companies operated the stampers needed to copy thousands of Blu-ray Disc movies at a time. But the Japanese company handling most of the early Blu-ray Disc adult film releases in Japan says it has partnered with a Taiwanese company able to secure the necessary equipment from Sony.

"In Japan, there are some problems. Companies cannot press Blu-ray discs because they cannot touch adult-related contracts," said Kiyotaka Konno, director of administration at Assist Corp., a Japanese company that authors and replicates DVDs for the adult industry in Japan. "So we asked some makers in Taiwan to do the work, and then we import the discs back to Japan. The Taiwanese company was able to obtain a pressing machine from Sony and will start mass production in August."

Sony says its policy of not allowing its disc replicating subsidiary, Sony DADC, to copy adult films has not changed. But the company is offering technical support to any film makers looking for help, no matter what industry, a spokeswoman said Monday.

The adoption of Blu-ray Disc by the Japanese porn industry could make all the difference in the format war. The adult film industry has long been a first mover in using new technologies, and many analysts say the industry played a key role in making VHS the winner in the video cassette fight against Sony's Betamax video tape standard years ago. Blu-ray Disc, also a Sony technology, is now vying with HD DVD to be the high-definition disc of choice in the 21st century.

Japan's adult film industry already has ten movies out on Blu-ray Disc (BD DVD), including "JK," "Sex Vacation in Guam" and "Eroist." More are on the way, said Yoshimasa Nozu, a producer at Total Media Agency Inc. His company plans to release at least one more movie per month on Blu-ray for the rest of this year.

By contrast, only one HD DVD adult film has been made in Japan so far, "Perfect Slave Rin," by Glay'z productions.

"HD DVD is popular overseas, but it faces a tough market in Japan," said Takeshi Kobayashi, head of operations at Taisei Co. Ltd., which distributes films under the trade name Glay'z in Japan. "Sony is really pushing the industry to adopt BD DVD."

Price is one issue. HD DVD movies sell for %6,090 (US$51.37) each in Japan, while BD DVD movies cost less, %4,935. The main difference is that every HD DVD comes with a DVD as well, so users who want to buy the new format but don't yet have an HD DVD player can watch the DVD until they buy a new player.

Sony's PlayStation 3 also presents a challenge for HD DVD. The game console comes with a built in BD DVD player, giving adult film producers an incentive to put their movies on Blu-ray. Japan has long been a stronghold for Sony in the game console arena, and despite stiff competition from Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Wii, it has sold 4.3 million players worldwide. That puts at least the same number of Blu-ray Disc players in people's homes.

Microsoft, which is part of the HD DVD consortium, has tried to counter Blu-ray in game consoles by offering an add-on HD DVD player for the Xbox 360. But since the players aren't built in, users can opt to forego them, unlike PlayStation 3 users.

HD DVD does have an advantage in the cost of its stand-alone players. Toshiba Corp.'s HD-A2 costs just US$234.99 and comes with five free mainstream HD DVD movies, according to Amazon.com. A similar machine by Sony, the BDP-S300, costs US$499, the same as a PlayStation 3 with a 60G-byte hard drive. The two devices also include five free movies.

Several U.S. porn studios have also come out as strong supporters of HD DVD. Wicked Pictures released the first U.S. feature-length adult movie in HD DVD in January, "Camp Cuddly Pines: Powertool Massacre," while the first Blu-ray Disc title in the U.S., Vivid Entertainment Group's "Debbie Does Dallas...Again," didn't follow until nearly four months later.

Still, despite the head start, HD DVD isn't exactly taking the porn industry by storm. Several U.S. companies interviewed earlier this year have not made good on their plans to release titles in HD DVD, while Blu-ray Disc appears to be gaining ground with its new initiative to work with Japanese adult film makers. The result could be a shift in Blu-ray's favor. U.S. adult film makers said they would use whatever makes sense, and only favored HD DVD early on because the format is less expensive to make movies with and they received extensive help from HD DVD backers.

A friendlier face from the Blu-ray Disc camp appears to be working with Japan's porn industry. Perhaps it could work in the U.S. as well.

Dell starts Eliminating trialware from its PCs.

2007-07-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

At the launch event for Dell’s new line of Vostro PCs and laptops today in New York City, Michael Dell admitted that “customers really hated trialware” and that Dell is making a major move toward removing trialware (what we call “crapware“) from the desktop and laptop systems that it sells to small businesses.

Of course, this is not just an altruistic move on Dell’s part. Dell makes a lot of money from companies that place their trialware on Dell systems, so Dell loses money by removing that crapware. However, Michael Dell explained that Dell also saves a lot of money in customer support by removing it. “Trialware is a support issue. You click on it, it’s not working and you call. Just take it all away and you don’t have those problems.”

The intangible factor here is customer satisfaction. Removing crapware will undoubtedly be a popular move with small business IT pros, who typically have to remove it all manually after the systems arrive. Dell’s corporate desktops are already free of crapware. However, it doesn’t look like Dell will be removing crapware from consumer systems any time soon, according to ZDNet (TechRepublic’s sister site).

For more, read:

* Michael Dell: Anti-crapware poster CEO? (ZDNet)
* Dell rolls out SMB notebooks dubbed Vostro sans ‘Trialware’ (ZDNet)
* Dell Lets Small Business Users Decline PC ‘Crapware’ (PC World)

Could this be the beginning of the end for pre-loaded crapware? Will other vendors follow suite for small business systems? Will this soon spill over to consumer PCs? If you are a small business IT professional, how does this move affect your opinion of buying and deploying Dell machines? Join the discussion.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=521&tag=nl.e019

How to Install Linux with no CD-ROM drive or modem

2007-06-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

Most Linux distributions come on a CD-ROM. You can also download them from an FTP site, but that requires an Internet connection. What if you have a system with no CD-ROM drive or Internet connection, like an old 486 laptop? The trick here is to have another desktop system with a CD-ROM drive, and a
null-modem serial cable.

I will show you how to do it with Slackware. It is also possible with most other Linux distributions. Insert the Linux CD-ROM in the drive on the desktop and copy the A (base) and N (networking) packages on diskettes. You need at least those in order to use a serial cable to transfer the rest of the packages.

Now you need to enable NFS networking on the desktop, and allow the laptop to connect. You can give a temporary IP address to the laptop, like 192.168.1.11 that you need to add to your /etc/exports file on your desktop.

To link the two systems together, this is what you need to type on the laptop:

/usr/sbin/pppd -detach crtscts lock 192.168.1.11:192.168.1.10 /dev/ttyS1 115200

And this on the PC:

/usr/sbin/pppd -detach crtscts lock 192.168.1.10:192.168.1.11 /dev/ttyS1 115200

This is assuming the cable is linked to ttyS1 (COM2) on both systems.

With NFS, you can mount the CD-ROM drive remotely and tell the installation program to use a specific path to install the remaining packages. Mount the CD-ROM with a command like this:

mount -tnfs 192.168.1.10:/cdrom /mnt

Then run the installation program:

setup

and enter the new path for the packages files.

You can still run linux on your 286.

2007-06-20T04:05:00.000-07:00

Linux is a multi-user, multitasking operating system which requires a 386 processor or more to run. This is because the lower PC processors don't have what is needed for the Linux kernel.

Linux being open source, is being ported to many architectures. And one group decided to modify the kernel
so it would run on a 286 processor. The project page is http://www.uk.linux.org/ELKS-Home/index.html.

Using Windows special keys in Linux

2007-06-20T03:39:00.000-07:00

Why are all the new keyboards sold with Win95 keys on them? How about making them do real keyboard functions while in X Window? Here is how.

First you need to find out which key mapping you are using. Usually it will be US, it might also be en_US, ca
or else. Locate the file, usually in /usr/X11/lib/X11/xkb and edit it with your favorite editor. For me the file is called /usr/X11/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/ca.

The file lists all the key codes and what they do. The key codes for the Win95 special keys are LWIN, RWIN and MENU. All you need to do is add them to the list, with the functions for them. I decided to map the left WIN key to "@" and the right WIN key and MENU keys to "{" and "}". Here are the lines I added:

key (RWIN) { [ braceleft ] };
key (LWIN) { [ at ] };
key (MENU) { [ braceright ] };

By browsing the file you can find all the other symbols and what they do. You can also add multiple functions to a key, by using ALT and SHIFT.

The changes will take effect when you restart X Window. With the XKB extension (you do need to have it enabled in /etc/XF86Config btw) it's easy to change the mapping of any key.

How to find a Linux CD-ROM at low cost

2007-06-20T01:42:00.000-07:00

The Linux market started from a few distributions available only from FTP servers, to full feature commercial distributions available in stores and online including a printed manual and phone support.

Here are the main choices you have when looking for a Linux distribution:

You can download any Linux distribution from its FTP server. To take a few examples,
RedHat can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.redhat.com, Slackware from ftp://ftp.cdrom.com and Debian from ftp://ftp.debian.org. That method is free, but requires you to have a fast Internet connection. Downloading a full Linux distribution over a 56Kbps modem will take you quite a few hours.

An other way is to buy a full distribution. RedHat, for example, can be bought online for about
$50. This will include a box, a CD-ROM, a boot diskette, a manual and support from RedHat.

The last way is to buy only the CD-ROM. There are a few places selling CD-ROMs of various distributions for $2. One of them is http://www.cheapbytes.com. You will only get the
CD-ROM, but this is all you need to install Linux if you are comfortable with the fact that you don't get a printed manual or free support. You can find the manual and other documentation
on the CD-ROM.

Microsoft aims mothers with Xbox 360 price fall.

2007-06-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

Earlier this morning, Bloomberg first broke the news that Microsoft was planning to lower the price of the Xbox 360 by this holiday season. The reason for the lower price would be to target the growing market of consumers who are snapping up consoles based on price, and the leader of that pack is the Nintendo Wii. How exactly do they plan to do this? Target the person most likely to buy the console, dear old mom.

Microsoft is reported as planning to revamp in-store displays, add new family orientated titles to their already impressive lineup, and make the children’s titles easier to find. They are doing this with the goal to make the mothers of the world, who do most of the holiday shopping, customers. The lower price will allow them to compete with Nintendo in the family oriented vertical market, something that Nintendo is doing quite well, allowing it to maintain the lead in the console wars. The Xbox is a console for the serious gamer, ask any hard core gamer what they play and most will answer 360 with excitement and proceed to tell you why.

When the Wii was released last holiday season, Nintendo took aim at the casual gamer, women, kids, and according to some reports the elderly. This is a Market Microsoft wants to get into and the price drop is one way to do it. According to the Bloomberg article, “If we don't make that move, make it early and expand our demographic, we will wind up in the same place as with Xbox 1, a solid business with twenty-five million people,” said Peter Moore, a vice president who oversees the Xbox. “What I need is a solid business with ninety million people.” Adding that Microsoft is loosing money on each unit sold, which might be true, but it is nowhere near what rival Sony is reported to lose.

The other point for the price drop is the “sweet spot” price that Nintendo appears to have hit. “We are well aware that the sweet spot of the market is really 199 bucks,” said David Hufford, a director of Xbox product management. Bloomberg then added that Sony sold 75 million PlayStation 2s at or below that price. “Wii costs $250 and makes a “strong value proposition,” Hufford said. “When mom walks into the store and sees she can get a console with a game for $250, she sees it as a $300 value. They've done a good job.”

Now, Hufford refutes the quote as misleading and taken way out of context. “Some are getting really spun up about the Bloomberg story and inaccurately reading tea leaves that don’t exist. I spoke to Bloomberg nearly two months ago and we were talking about NPD data that had just been released, and chatting generally about price points of consoles in the market. The comment, which is accurately reported, unfortunately has now been taken way out of context and being reported as if I am signaling a price drop. I was not, I am not,” he said on the Gamerscore Blog. Adding, “With Xbox 360s selling well at their current price point, Elites selling out at $479, and an insanely great portfolio of games in the market, there’s no reason to announce any kind of price drop anytime soon.”

Just as the rumor and hype surrounding the release of the Xbox Elite, some call this more Microsoft spin, but until the price drops officially then the entire story, and related reports are just rumors. One comment on the Gamerscore Blog, a Microsoft approved blog ran by a Microsoft staffer, one person called it just that.

“I thought MS doesn't comment on rumors and speculation? Anyway no one buys your load of crock. Of course MS would deny a price drop right now because it would stall sales until the price drop happens and that could be months away. Price drop is confirmed and I'm telling everyone to wait for it. You guys are getting stomped by the Wii and need to do something before you lose the console lead and price drop around the Holidays is exactly what MS plans to do,” said user Shamrock.

John Porcaro, a Sr. Group Manager in Microsoft's Global Games Marketing Team, responded to Shamrock and said future price drops were imminent, “Shamrock, the point is that he was being misquoted, and lots of sites were saying he said we were dropping the price this holiday. If you read the original article, that isn't the case. I/he was just clarifying that. Of course, [we will] drop price at some point in the future.”

Therefore, while the reports of a holiday price drop are somewhat misleading, according to a Microsoft source, another Microsoft source says they are coming “at some point in the future.” So where does that leave the consumer? Just maybe it leaves them inline to buy a Wii, or if they can afford it a $479 Elite.

New Arrival 64Gb SanDisk Drive

2007-06-06T08:32:00.000-07:00

SanDisk Launches 64 Gigabyte Solid State Drives for Notebook PCs, Meeting Needs for Higher Capacity

New Products on Display at Computex 2007, Taiwan's International Information Technology Show
Reaching for the "sweet spot" of memory storage for laptop computers, SanDisk(R) Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today expanded its line of solid state drive (SSD) products with the introduction of
a 64-gigabyte (GB)(1) SSD aimed at both enterprise users and early adopter consumers such as gamers. SanDisk 1.8-inch UATA 5000 and 2.5-inch SATA 5000 SSD products, which already are available in a 32GB capacity, are compatible as drop-in replacements for hard disk drives in most mainstream notebook computers.

The announcement was made at Computex Taipei 2007, where SanDisk is showcasing its comprehensive line of storage products for use in industrial and system-level embedded applications. SanDisk's new 64GB SSD will be on display in Hall 1 in Booths C1000, 1002 and C1004 along with other SanDisk OEM embedded flash storage products such as iNAND(TM) and mDOC H3.

"Laptop manufacturers have requested more memory capacity for systems that use the Microsoft Vista platform, which can require a number of preloaded accessories and security suites," said Doreet Oren, SanDisk director of SSD product marketing. "Also, there is interest in developing laptops for gaming, and the SSD is well-suited for the performance and memory requirements of those users. Thus, by offering greater capacities on our SSD products, we are making our products more appealing to a wider customer base."

Compared to conventional hard drives still found in most notebook computers, SanDisk SSDs offer key benefits to computer manufacturers and their customers:

-- Durability and reliability. SanDisk SSDs deliver 2 million hours mean time between failures (MTBF)(2), approximately six times more than notebook hard disks. With no moving parts, SanDisk SSDs are also much less likely to fail when a notebook computer is dropped or exposed to extreme temperatures.

-- High performance. With no moving parts, the flash-based SSD starts working almost immediately to achieve far better access speeds than a conventional hard disk drive. For example, in notebook computers, data moves to and from an SSD more than 100 times faster than data moving to and from a hard disk. SanDisk SSDs offer a sustained read rate of 67 megabytes (MB) per second(3) and a random read rate of 7,000 inputs/outputs per second (IOPS) for a 512-byte transfer(4). As a result, notebooks equipped with a 2.5-inch SanDisk SSD can boot Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Vista(TM) Enterprise in as little as 30 seconds(5) and access files at an average speed of 0.11 milliseconds(6).
A notebook using a hard disk requires an average 48 seconds to boot and an average 17 milliseconds to access files.

-- Low power consumption. Compared to a typical hard disk drive, which consumes 1.9 watts(7) during active operation, SanDisk SSDs consume 1.0 watt (0.5 watts for 1.8") while active and as little as 0.4 watts (0.2 watts for 1.8") while idle. This difference in power efficiency is particularly important in extending battery life for road warriors, enabling them to remain productive while in transit.

Gartner projects global consumption of SSDs in consumer and business notebooks to leap from about 4 million units in 2007 to 32 million units in 2010(8).

SanDisk SSD products are available now to manufacturers. The company plans to offer 64GB engineering samples in the third quarter, with mass production planned to commence prior to the end of the year. More information about SanDisk SSD products is available online at www.sandisk.com/ssd.

SanDisk is the original inventor of flash storage cards and is the world's largest supplier of flash data storage card products, using its patented, high-density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is headquartered in Milpitas, California, and has operations worldwide, with more than half its sales outside the U.S.

(1) 1 megabyte (MB) = 1 million bytes; 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes.

(2) MTBF is calculated based on Parts Stress Method of Telcordia SR-332

(3) H2BENCH 3.6: average access time = average seek time + average latency time

(4) IOMETER 2003.12.16

(5) Stopwatch test performed internally at SanDisk; notebook computer (Intel Core 2 Processor T7200, 2.00GHz, 997MHz, 1.0GB RAM DDR2-533 SDRAM); Microsoft Windows Vista

(6) H2BENCH 3.6: average access time = average seek time + average latency time

(7) MobileMark 2005; notebook computer (Intel Core Duo Processor ULV U2500), 1.20GHz, 533MHz, 1.0GB, DDR2-533 SDRAM

(8) According to "Dataquest Insight: Expect PCs to Impact the NAND Flash Market after 2008," 15 December 2006, page 21-22.

SanDisk's product and executive images can be downloaded from www.sandisk.com/corporate/media.asp

SanDisk's web site/home page address: www.sandisk.com

SanDisk and the SanDisk logo are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation, registered in the United States and other countries. Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holder(s).

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including expectations for new product introductions, applications, markets, and customers that are based on our current expectations and involve numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate. Risks that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate include among others: market demand for our products may grow more slowly than our expectations or there may be a slower adoption rate for these products in new markets that we are targeting, product introductions may be delayed, our products may not perform as expected, and the other risks
detailed from time-to-time in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports, including, but not limited to, Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We do not intend to update the information contained in this press release.

How Inkjet Printers Work.

2007-06-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

Origins

Although inkjet printers were first mass-produced in the 1980s, it was only in the 1990s that prices dropped low enough for that technology to be brought into the mass consumer market. Canon claims to have invented what it calls 'bubble jet' technology in 1977, when a researcher accidentally touched an ink-filled syringe with a hot soldering iron and the heat forced a drop of ink out of the needle. And so began the development of a new printing method.

Inkjet printers have made rapid technological advances in recent years. First, the three-color printer succeeded in making color inkjet printing an affordable option; but as the superior four-color models became cheaper to produce and sell, it wound up being the standard and users' choice.

Inkjet printing has two chief benefits over laser printers: lower printer cost and color-printing capabilities. But while inkjet printers are priced much less than laser printers, they are actually more expensive to use and maintain. Cartridges need to be changed more frequently and the special coated paper required to produce high-quality output is very expensive. At a cost per page level, inkjet printing costs about 10 times more than laser printing.

Operation
Inkjet printing, like laser printing, is a non-impact process. Ink is emitted from nozzles while they pass over media. The operation of an inkjet printer is easy to visualize: liquid ink in various colors being squirted onto paper and other media, like plastic film and canvas, to build an image. A print head scans the page in horizontal strips, using the printer's motor assembly to move it from left to right and back again, while the paper is rolled up in vertical steps, again by the printer. A strip (or row) of the image is printed, then the paper moves on, ready for the next strip. To speed things up, the print head doesn’t print just a single row of pixels in each pass, but a vertical row of pixels at a time.

For most inkjet printers, the print head takes about half a second to print the strip across a page. On a typical 8 1/2"-wide page, the print head operating at 300 dpi deposits at least 2,475 dots across the page. This translates into an average response time of about 1/5000th of a second. Quite a technological feat! In the future, however, advances will allow for larger print heads with more nozzles firing at faster frequencies, delivering native resolutions of up to 1200dpi and print speeds approaching those of current color laser printers (3 to 4 pages per minute in color, 12 to 14ppm in monochrome). In other words, declining costs for improving technology.

There are several types of inkjet printing. The most common is "drop on demand" (DOD), which means squirting small droplets of ink onto paper through tiny nozzles; like turning a water hose on and off 5,000 times a second. The amount of ink propelled onto the page is determined by the print driver software that dictates which nozzles shoot droplets, and when.

The nozzles used in inkjet printers are hairbreadth fine and on early models they became easily clogged. On modern inkjet printers this is rarely a problem, but changing cartridges can still be messy on some machines. Another problem with inkjet technology is a tendency for the ink to smudge immediately after printing, but this, too, has improved drastically during the past few years with the development of new ink compositions.

This is how Your Printer Work.

2007-06-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

Impact printers, as the very name implies means that the printing mechanism touches the paper for creating an image. Impact printers were used in early 70s and 80s. In Dot Matrix printers a series of small pins is used to strike on a ribbon coated with ink to transfer the image on the paper.

Other Impact Printers like Character printers are basically computerized typewriters. They have a series of bars or a ball with actual characters on them, which strike on the ink ribbon to transfer the characters on the paper. At a time only one character can be printed. Daisy Wheel printers use a plastic or metal wheel. These types of printers have limited usage though because they are limited to printing only characters or one type of font and not the graphics.

There are Line printers where a chain of characters or pins, print an entire line, which makes them pretty fast, but the print quality is not so good. Thermal printers are nothing but printers used in calculators and fax machines. They are inexpensive to use. Thermal printers work by pushing heated pins against special heat sensitive paper.

More efficient and advanced printers have come out now which use new Non-impact Technology.

Non-impact printers are those where the printing mechanism does not come into the contact of paper at all. This makes them quieter in operation in comparison to the impact printers.

In mid 1980s Inkjet printers were introduced. These have been the most widely used and popular printers so far. Colour printing got revolutionized after inkjet printers were invented. An Inkjet printer’s head has tiny nozzles, which place extremely tiny droplets of ink on the paper to create an image. These dots are so small that even the diameter of human hair is bigger. These dots are placed precisely and can be up to the resolution of 1440 x 720 per inch. Different combinations of ink cartridges can be used for these printers.

How an Inkjet printer works

The print head in this printer scans the page horizontally back and forth and another motor assembly rolls the paper vertically in strips and thus a strip is printed at a time. Only half a second is taken to print a strip. Inkjet printers were very popular because of their ability to colour print. Most inkjets use Thermal Technology. Plain copier paper can be used in these printers unlike thermal paper used for fax machines. Heat is used to fire ink onto the paper through the print head. Some print heads can have up to 300 nozzles. Heat resistant and water based ink is used for these printers.

The latest and fastest printers are Laser Printers. They use the principal of static electricity for printing it as in photocopiers. The principle of static electricity is that it can be built on an insulated object. Oppositely charged atoms of objects (positive and negative) are attracted to each other and cling together. For example, pieces of nylon material clinging to your body, or the static you get after brushing hair. A laser printer uses this same principle to glue ink on the paper.

How Laser Printer works:

Unlike the printers before, Laser printers use toner, static electricity and heat to create an image on the paper. Toner is dry ink. It contains colour and plastic particles. The toner passes through the fuser in the computer and the resulting heat binds it to any type of paper. Printing with laser printers is fast and non-smudge and the quality is excellent because of the high resolution that it can achieve with 300 dots per inch to almost 1200 dpi at the higher end.

Basic components of a laser printer are fuser, photoreceptor drum assembly, developer roller, laser scanning unit, toner hopper, corona wire and a discharge lamp. The laser beam creates an image on the drum and wherever it hits, it changes the electrical charge like positive or negative. The drum then is rolled on the toner. Toner is picked up by charged portion of the drum and gets transferred to the paper after passing through the fuser. Fuser heats up the paper to amalgamate ink and plastic in toner to create an image. Laser printers are called “page printers” because entire page is transferred to the drum before printing. Any type of paper can be used in these printers. Laser printers popularized DTP or Desk Top Publishing for it can print any number of fonts and any graphics..

This is how the computer and printer operate to print

When we want to print something we simply press the command “Print”. This information is sent to either RAM of the printer or the RAM of the computer depending upon the type of printer we have. The process of printing then starts. While the printing is going on, our computer can still perform a variety of operations. Jobs are put in a buffer or a special area in RAM or Random Access Memory and the printer pulls them off at its own pace. We can also line up our printing jobs this way. This way of simultaneously performing functions is called spooling. Our computer and the printer are thus in constant communication.

Configure Yahoo in Outlook Express

2007-06-04T00:02:00.000-07:00

Regarding Yahoo mail account download, Yahoo Mail disabled free access to its POP3 service sometimes in April 2002. So you have to install a third-party application to access Yahoo mail into your Outlook Express client.

YPOPs! is an application that provides POP3 access to Yahoo Mail.
This application emulates a POP3 server and enables popular e-mail clients such as Outlook, Netscape, Eudora, Mozilla, etc., to download e-mail from Yahoo accounts. This application is more like a gateway. It provides a POP3 server interface at one end to talk to e-mail clients and an HTTP client (browser) interface at the other that allows it to talk to Yahoo.

YahooPOPs is a freeware (GPL) application.
You can download YahooPOPs!/Windows version 0.6 (filesize 1.13MB) from the following URL: http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewsdownload&sid=2.

1. To download Yahoo mail into your Outlook Express, please follow these steps: First, you will have to install YahooPOPs application. Then start yahoopops by start - Programs - YahooPOPs - YahooPOPs.
This will sit on the system tray.
2. Next, you will have to configure Yahoo mail account into your Outlook Express e-mail client.
3. Open your Outlook Express e-mail client. Click on Tools - Accounts. Click the Add button, select Mail from the popup.
4. In the Display name text box, please type your full name or whatever you would like people to see in the `From' field and click Next.
5. Enter your Yahoo e-mail address and click Next. Select POP3 as `My incoming mail server.'
6. Please type `localhost' as your Incoming mail (POP3, IMAP or HTTP) server and type `localhost' as the Outgoing mail (SMTP) server and click Next.
7. In the Account name field, type your full Yahoo e-mail address (accountname@yahoo.co.in). In the Password field, enter your Yahoo password. If you do not wish to type in your password every time you check your mail, please tick the Remember password box and click Next. Then click Finish.

Now in the Internet Accounts window,
8. click on the new account named localhost and click Properties. Select `Servers' tab and in the bottom tick the checkbox of `My server requires authentication' and click Settings button.
9. Select `Log on using' and enter your Yahoo Mail address as the Account name and your Yahoo Mail password as the password. Next select the `Advanced' tab and increase the Server Timeout to `Long' (5 minutes).
10. Click OK and close. Now your configuration settings are ended.

Please note that when you check Yahoo mails on Outlook Express, you will have to make sure that the YahooPOPs stay on system tray. If you do not invoke YahooPOPs application, you will get an error message.

Now just by clicking the Send/Recv button of Outlook Express, you will receive Yahoo mails in your inbox folder.

If you would like to receive Yahoo mails separately, either use mail rule to move Yahoo mails to one folder or Add new Identity in Outlook Express and repeat the above procedure on the new Identity.