Technology Glossary T - Z
TermsUbiquitous Computing (Nanotechnology) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm
Ultimedia Video= Is IBM Corporation's OS/2 equivalent of Video for Windows. Ultimedia Video IN/2 is priced at under $200 and supports video capture and editing in IBM Ultimation and Indeo compression formats. It can deliver up to 30 fps at 320 by 240 window size if the user's hardware can handle the upper-end capabilities. (See also OS/2 and Video for Windows)
UML = Uniform Modeling Language
"UML Hits the Street," by Jack Vaughan, Application Development Trends, September 2001, pp. 18-23 --- http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=4805
When people initially get down to work with the Unified Modeling Language (UML), it is typically the first time they take up the practice of use cases. These are an important element of UML, intended to help gather functional requirements, as well as to provide a means of communication among development team members.
But use cases are not without controversy. And for long-time industry observers, the controversy may be somewhat familiar.
Many of the brickbats loosed years ago upon Case tools and structural analysis are now aimed at UML and use cases. Use cases lead to "analysis paralysis." Use cases are "shelfware." These are just some of the criticisms unloaded by influential software consultants and authors, many of whom are counted among the ranks of eXtreme Programming (XP) advocates.
At times, the XP squad, although it includes a number of individuals who see some merit in use cases, seems to echo the arguments of Rapid Application Development (RAD) advocates of the client/server era. These earlier RAD advocates challenged development orthodoxy of the day, which centered on "waterfall" processes. The RAD folk also took some arrows for creating a few allegedly non-scalable and non-repeatable systems.
On one level, the battle—and "battle" is probably too powerful a word—between UML and XP is new evidence of the timeless divide between designers who want just a little more time to do a little more analysis of system needs, and developers who just want to start coding.
This situation is natural. UML had something of a honeymoon. It arose in the late 1990s out of the combined efforts of notable software methodologists Grady Booch, James Rumbaugh and Ivar Jacobson, who came to work at Rational Software Corp. and who came to be known in a series of road shows as "The Three Amigos." The battle of the object methodologies was effectively ended as UML standardization responsibility was eventually ceded to the Object Management Group (OMG). Now, as UML is increasingly used, developers have had some mixed experiences, so there is a higher likelihood that UML will take a few shots.
While the recent UML World 2001 conference held in New York City featured sessions that considered new UML extensions and studied best practices in UML use case gathering, the conference was just as notable for a use case panel at which UML and XP proponents traded verbal barbs.
In technology, such battles are common. But if you are getting ready to sit down to a slug fest between UML and XP, I'm sorry—this is not that article. Rather than focus on the guerre du jour, this effort will instead uncover some user experiences with use cases. This will hopefully provide a useful backdrop for development managers trying to visualize their next steps in design and development.
Unencod/undecode = (See Internet Messaging).
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) = (See RDF.)
Uninterruptible power supply= A device that keeps computers running after a power failure, providing power from batteries for a short period of time.
Unix= An operating system developed by Bell Laboratories for use on large workstations. Latest information on Copeland and other operating systems can be obtained at
News from Microsoft --- http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/migrate/unix/default.asp
As the Windows platform continues to evolve to address changing business computing needs, many organizations currently on UNIX platforms are turning to Windows to run their new client and server business applications. They're discovering that moving to the Windows platform does not require abandoning existing investments in UNIX applications and infrastructure.
This section explains why customers should consider migrating to Windows from UNIX. It also provides detailed information for IT professionals and developers on how to move from UNIX systems to Windows XP, Windows 2000, and the upcoming Windows .NET Server and Microsoft .NET Web services platforms.
Why Migrate to Windows from UNIX and Linux
How to Migrate to Windows from UNIX and Linux
Migration Tools and Resources
Upgrade= (See Multimedia upgrade)
Urban Legend =
Urban legends are lies about what somebody said or wrote and are circulated wildly across the Web or some other network, including mouth-to-mouth dissemination. . The best way that I found to check on something before I forward it is to select an identifying phrase such as part of the title of a story. Then I go to http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
I enter the selected phrase into the "exact phrase" box and then in the "all of the words" box above I enter the word "urban" and the word "legend" without quote marks. Then I hit the Google Search button.
There are hundreds of sites that explain and/or archive supposed urban legends, some of which are as follows:
A great article on how urban legends work ---
http://science.howstuffworks.com/urban-legend.htm
http://www.snopes.com
http://www.urbanlegends.com/
http://www.urbanlegends.com/
http://www.ulrc.com.au/
We should always check to see if something is an urban legend before we pass it along. However, once something is claimed to be an urban legend, there is a tendency to immediately conclude the claim that it is urban legend is a true claim.
What about claims that may be false? Is there any site devoted to setting the record straight about urban legends that are not urban legends?
Proving a legend to be true is often a scholarship question, such as when a writer claims that "X did not say yyyy." A scholar may then search among the archives of the world for proof that X really did say "yyyy." What is more difficult, however, is when claims cannot be researched in any archives. For example, one might claim that President Lincoln had an affair during his presidency. To my knowledge, there is no archived record of such a claim. And people who might know first hand are no longer living. All we can do is criticize all unsupported claims for not being supported by any credible evidence.
After my Google search finds a site that boldly asserts that something is an urban legend, like most people I immediately concluded that it is an urban legend. Proving it to be otherwise may be impossible or impractical relative to the time and money available to prove it otherwise.
What about claims that may be false? Is there any site devoted to setting the record straight about urban legends that are not urban legends?
Urban legends have urban legends about urban legends that claim not to be urban legends but really are urban legends that may in fact not be urban legends and so on infinitum. Some are blatantly false from the beginning; others are embellished over time. One definition is as follows from http://support.airmail.net/faq/glossary_mz.php
Urban legend - A story, which may have started with a grain of truth, that has been embroidered and retold until it has passed into the realm of myth. Some legends that periodically make their rounds include "The Infamous Modem Tax," "Craig Shergold/Brain Tumor/Get Well Cards," and "The $250 Cookie Recipe."
One thing not to be believed is the typical claim that "This is not an urban legend." That's generally a signal that what follows is all or mostly bull.
One thing I do know! When one urban legend site claims something is an urban legend, the other urban legend sites follow the leader blindly like lemmings. Is there any site devoted to false claims about urban legends?
Bob Jensen
February 27, 2004 reply from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU]
Bob, one of the modules in my AIS class is devoted to what I call “identification of trustworthy sources”.
While not a foolproof methodology, it is better than the “no methodology at all” approach used by the general population.
In a nutshell: use your own experience (supplemented by the experience of actual acquaintances whom you trust based on your own experience with them) to accumulate a repertoire (or harem, or collection, or …) of websites run by organizations which you trust to tell you the truth. Examples from my own collection include snopes, Symantec, McAfee, DataFellows, etc. I then rely on these “trustworthy” sites to tell me what is “the truth” vs. what is fiction.
Google searches return everything, and it is very easy to Spoof a legitimate site, even to Google. My experience has been thus: when someone tells me of a strange story, I check it out with one of my “trustworthy” sites, and 999 times out of 1000, I am surprised to learn that the trustworthy site not only tells me the story is a hoax, but that the hoax has been around since 1998, where it originated, why it is still circulating (e.g., the grains of truth which tend to bring the story to present consciousness, etc.), and other information which I didn’t know. Further, these sites often are “up to the minute” on new stuff, too.
There is no substitute for determining “who ya gonna call?”
I really like that quote, although I don’t know who to attribute it to: “The trouble with keeping an open mind is that people are always dropping their garbage in it.” Perhaps this was Pogo, too?
David R. Fordham
PBGH Faculty Fellow
James Madison University
URL= This is the abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator, the addressing system used in the World Wide Web and other Internet resources. The URL contains information about the method of access, the server to be accessed and the path of any file to be accessed.
USB = (See Bus.)
USENet or Usenet= USEr's Network of machines that exchange information tagged with labels called "newsgroups" which are transmitted between individuals at universities, secondary schools, government agencies, home computers, etc. Databases are available on many topics, from foreign hotels to kite flying. USENet traffic can be carried on the Internet, but is not restricted to the Internet. Internet users can exchange papers and lengthy data files. Anyone putting up a USENet newsgroup will discover that it is somewhat tedious.
Probably the least understood and least used resources on the Internet is Usenet (as opposed to the popular www). A nice article appears in "A Network for the World" by Richard Koreto in the Journal of Accountancy, August 1998, 33-35.
There are a variety of search engines that specialize in newsgroup searching, but few offer original content - most pull information from the DejaNews index. Tile.net at http://www.tile.net , however, provides special functions you won’t find in standard search engines and that can prove very useful in resear ching newsgroup information. Tile.net is a Web site designed to make USENET newsgroups easy to find. Tile.net’s advantage over other newsgroup indexes is that it helps you search for newsgroups rather than individual messages. Tile.net also provides statistics and other information about newsgroups and provides a link directly to each newsgroup, which will launch your Web browser newsreaders. Newsgroups in Tile.net are organized by index, description, and newsgroup hierarchy. Tile.net also provides information about listservs, FTP sites, and computer product vendors.
One of the more frequently posted questions is "How can I create a new newsgroup?" Briefly, creating a new newsgroup in the comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc or talk hierarchies involves first proposing the newsgroup in news.announce.newgroups, then conducting a "vote" among those Usenet readers who have an opinion on the proposed group. The entire process can take up to three months. For additional details see http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/8211/newgroup.html See Chat Lines and IRC.
User= Under NetWare, the definition of a set of access rights for an individual.
User app= (See Plug-in)
UUCP= Unix-to-Unix Copy Protocol that can be used for transferring files between Unix computers on network. (See also FTP)
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V-Terms
VAP= A Value-Added Process to the NetWare operation system provided by a third party vendor.
Variable= A named container that holds values, either numeric or text.
VB = (See Visual Basic.)
VBE/AI= (See Sound board)
VBX = (See Visual Basic and CORBA )
V-CD= (See CD-Karaoke)
VCR= A videotape player designed to connect to television sets or computer video capture boards. Videotapes are recorded in video format (e.g., NTSC or PAL) in half, three quarter, or one inch formats. The most common tape is the half-inch VHS tape, but for professional video materials and videodisc mastering one-inch tape is preferred. (See also VHS, Video, and Videodisc)
Veronica= This is a search utility that helps find information on gopher servers. Veronica allows users to enter keywords to locate the gopher site holding the desired information. The name is an acronym for "very easy rodent oriented net-wide index of computerized archives."
VESA= Video Electronics Standards Association that set such standards as the 1992 VL-Bus standards for local buses. A highly critical discussion of the VESA/BIOS Extension/Audio Interfase (VBE/A1) that is not backwards compatible with the Sound Blaster standard appears in New Media, June 1994, p. 18. (See also Sound board, Bus, ISO 9000, and VL-Bus)
VESA/BIOS= (See VESA)
VGA= (See Graphics adapter)
VHS= Videotape having 240-325 lines of horizontal resolution. Super VHS (S-VHS) and videodiscs contain up to 425 lines of resolution. S-VHS tape decks can also play VHS formats. (See also Video)
Video= A term that was once used to refer almost exclusively to analog recordings of images on tape that can be replayed at 30 or more frames per second (fps) depicting "full motion video." Since the age of digitization, the term now refers to analog or digital recordings (e.g., digitized video in computer files and HDTV) that can be replayed at 30 fps or a reasonably close approximation of full motion video. The term differs somewhat from "animation" in that animations are successions of still frames not necessarily intended to be "full-motion" at speeds comparable to video full motion. The highest quality video connectors are termed S-video connectors, whereas the lowest quality connector is the RF connector. Because of the tremendous bandwidth required for network transmission of video between computers, it is not yet common to watch a movie on the Internet. The wave of the future isMPEG compression. However, until there are millions of computer users with enough computer hardware capacity to run MPEG digitized video, Microsoft Video for Windows and Apple QuickTime will probably remain more common in CD-ROM authoring of education materials. Video options for the PC with particular stress upon Intel's Indeo Video amd Smart Video Recorder are analyzed by Liebman (1994). (See also Internet audio and video, Active video, Video server, HDTV, IDTV, PIP, POP, Videodisc-digital, Apple AV, Amiga, Ultimedia Video, Video for Windows, fps, MPEG, VHS, NTSC, PAL, and SECAM
Video adapter= The video hardware that determines the resolution and color depth of screen images. A k-bit adapter can display 2 to the kth power colors. For example, an 8-bit adapter displays up to 256 colors whereas a 24-bit adapter can display over 16 millions colors in a single screen. In hypermedia authoring, problems are created when the color depth of the authored image is higher than the color depth of the user (customer, student, reader) computer. Mac and PowerPC computers will usually dither to make the image reasonably good for users, whereas PC users may have terrible images if their video adapters are too low in color depth. The same thing can happen if the user's PC screen resolution adapter is lower than the authored PC screen. These are terribly frustrating problems for authors and users. For this reason, most of the commercial PC graphics and video CD-ROM files are authored for lower video adapters than the author's video adapter. For example, the author may be capable of presenting a graphics image in 30 million colors in a resolution of 1024 by 768. The author may elect, however, to only use no more than 256 colors in standard VGA resolution in order to have better images on user computers with lower powered video adapters.
Video board= A somewhat misleading term that can apply to video capture and/or video playback hardware inside a computer. Video can be played back on computers without having video capture hardware. This enables CD-ROM users to view video and animations without having to install MPC or other standard video capture boards. However, if video capture boards are installed, users can also connect their computers to video sources (video recorders, video cameras, and television signals) in order to either view incoming video "on the fly" and/or capture segments of the video into digitized formats such as quicktime, avi, MPEG, or JPEG video formats. . Video board options for PCs are compared in NewMedia 1996 Tool Guide. In particular, Windows users should not purchase or install a video capture board before reading Doyle (1994b). He provides excellent advice on things to do before installing a Windows video board along with comparisons of alternative hardware options. Price is not currently a good indicator of quality and features. He also provides important advice for capturing and storing video files. For example, video files should not be saved using disk compression utilities like Doublespace or Stacker. For capturing and playback of digitized video into and out of computer files, a full-motion video frame grabber (digitizer) of some type allows authors to capture selected full-motion video (camcorder, videotape, videodisc, cable TV, satellite dish, etc.) images and convert those analog frames into digital graphics files on the computer. Video boards (cards) and frame grabbers start at around $200, but prices vary a great deal with vendors and options, including options under Microsoft Windows Video MCI standards, Apple QuickTime standards, IBM M-Motion (MM) standards, MPEG standards, and Intel Indeo standards. Virtually every major computer brand on the market has multiple options for video (multimedia) devices. Many of those devices also have accompanying frame grabber software. For example, readers may consider Pioneer's LaserActive system (213-746-6337). Compression boards for PCs come in a variety of prices and features. MPEG compression requires MPEG playback boards and/or MPEG authoring boards such as the Optibase MPG-1000 digital video code compression/decompression) board (800-451-5101).. Other alternatives such as XingIt from Xing Technology (800-294-6448) for video capturing software on ReelMagic MPEG playback hardware from Sigma designs (800-845-8086) are listed in Appendix 6. MPEG encoding compression boards are now available for under $1,000. Most computer vendors are now offering MPEG playback (decoding) options, but these differ from recording (encoding) options. However, until there are millions of computer users with newer computer hardware capacity to run MPEG digitized video, Microsoft Video for Windows under MCI standards and Apple QuickTime will probably remain more common in CD-ROM authoring of education materials until the market sorts out its preferences for MPEG, DVI, and the Intel Indeo. The term "video overlay" is used to depict a video board option to view live video "on the fly" in a monitor screen without burdening the CPU until the user elects to capture video. Not all video cards have video overlay options. (See also Active video, QuickTime, and Video capture)
Video camera = A camcorder camera that records full-motion images and audio directly to videotape. Video cameras exist for filming tapes of varying widths. Usually the wider the tape (e.g. one inch versus half inch), the better the picture quality. However, other factors such as High 8 versus Regular 8 come into play. High 8 cameras are especially popular among hand-held cameras, because of the professional quality for the size and price of the camera. Users who, for example, purchase an 8 mm video camera can play the tape into a videotape recorder and record VHS tapes or videotapes of other widths. (See also Hi-8, VHS, and Dry camera)
Video camera= A camera that captures video to tape or tape cassettes. These are typically called camcorders with popular models being analog camcorders in Regular8 or Hi8 quality. (See also Dry camera and Video from digital (DV) camcorders)
Video camera still= (See Dry camera)
Video capture= a process of transforming a video (e.g., NTSC) image into a computer (digitized) image. Video capturing options are reviewed in New Media, March 24, 1997, pp. 58-70. The process entails adding hardware and software designed to transform an analog (TV) image, say from a videotape, into a digital computer image. Usually a video capture board must be installed that is compatible with the bus of the computer. For example, a PC generally has an ISA, EISA, or MCA bus that in turn requires a compatible video capture board inside the computer. Video boards also enable computer users to view videotape or television images "on-the-fly" without necessarily capturing the images into computer files. Video capture boards vary greatly in price and quality. What is best for a given computer depends a great deal upon the amount of RAM, video RAM, graphics adapter, screen resolution, color depth, and speed of the computer. More recent comparisons are provided by Doyle (1994a) and (1994b). In particular, Windows users should not purchase or install a video capture board before reading Doyle (1994b). He provides excellent advice on things to do before installing a Windows video board along with comparisons of alternative hardware options. Price is not currently a good indicator of quality and features. (See also Video board, Active video, and QuickTime)
Video card= (See Video board)
Video digital (DV) camcorders= (See Video from digital (DV) camcorders)
Video/audio networking (streaming) = refers to audio and video on network that commences to play before files are fully downloaded. The terms "real" and "streaming" are synomyms in terms of network video and audio. For example, see http://www.tvontheweb.com/ and http://www.intrastream.com/ for an examples of streaming video players. An example of a daily news application is the Nightly Business Report delivered over real video at http://www.nightlybusiness.org/. Examples of real audio are provided at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob.htm#Real1 For more detail see Web streaming.
Videoconferencing= Remote communication in which two-way video images are transmitted with audio. Although this can be accomplished with video cameras on special telephone connections, it is now possible to become much more sophisticated with videoconferencing using computers. A review of available systems is provided by Sherman (1995). Many colleges have videoconferencing systems in place (e.g., see T H E. Technology Horizons in Education, September 1993, pp. 38-40). Purportedly, the highest proportion of videoconferencing worldwide is for education and training. A review of videoconferencing options for the Internet is provided in New Media, March 24, 1997. (See also IRC, Internet phones and videoconferencing, Teleconference, and DSS)
Videodisc= An antiquated "large" (more than 12 cm or 4.72 inches) injection-molded optical disc containing digitized information that has been recorded with a laser device and must be read on a laser device known as a videodisc player. See CD-DVD for a discussion of why videodisc technology is in the sunset of its use in the world. The most common sizes are eight and 12-inch discs. A 12-inch disc will hold 54,000 video frames of super VHS quality. Full-length movies usually require more than one disc since only 30 minutes of video with audio can be stored on each side of a 12-inch CAV disc. A CLV disc can hold up to 60 minutes per side of a 12-inch disc. CLV holds more video but is more limited than CAV in terms of searching for individual frames. Two audio tracks can accompany a video track, thereby enabling educational audio to accompany entertainment audio. Although a videodisc resembles a CD-ROM in appearance, there are major differences. Relative to a CD-ROM disc, the laser disc is "large" in varying sizes of eight or more inches. Whereas a CD-ROM player can hold computer files and computer graphics images in common file extensions (e.g., GIF, BMP, PCX, TIF, JPG, etc.) and can be treated as a computer storage disc somewhat analogous to a high-capacity floppy disc, a videodisc cannot hold computer files. Videodiscs are more like videotape in that they are recorded in video formats such as NTSC or PAL or SECAM. Videodisc players are generally connected to television sets and will play on-the-fly in a computer only if that computer has a video board for any video source such as television inputs and VCR inputs. Videodisc and videotape images can be "captured" and transformed into computer files only if the computer has video capture hardware and software. Videodiscs are currently used in some multimedia presentations but their future in hypermedia is uncertain. Videodisc players cannot be made portable as CD-ROM players. Recently options became available for desktop recording of videodiscs. For example, Panasonic (201-348-7837) offers the LQ-3031T model starting at $12,500. However, most videodiscs mastered in professional labs require inputs of professional-quality videotape (usually one-inch videotape) produced in a video workstation. A second drawback of videodiscs is that, unlike CD-ROM discs, videodiscs cannot be previewed prior to being mastered. There are two types of videodiscs known as CAV and CLV. The most common entertainment and educational videodiscs are CLV discs. There are currently four levels of interactivity for videodisc players. Level "one" is controlled with an inferred or wired remote control or bar code reader. Level "two" players have programmable memory. Level "three" is controlled by an external computer which greatly improves interactive controls with hypermedia software. Level "four" is a high speed computer interface videodisc player that accesses each side of the videodisc. Level four is more useful for using a videodisc as an external storage device for computer data. For a short discussion of levels of interactivity see Lynch (1994), p. 19. Sources of educational videodiscs are given in Appendix 6. Applications in accounting education and training are listed in Appendix 1. Alternative videodisc players are discussed by Waring (1994a). Most hypermedia authoring software packages allow for interactive random access of videodiscs. NeXt users can control videodiscs from the Xanthus Craftman. One of the best buys for less than $1,000 is the MDP-1700R Multi Disc Player from Sony that plays different size discs and has an auto reverse feature that allows viewing and searching on both sides of the disc without having to turn the disc over in the playback machine. Videodiscs are likely to be overtaken by CD-DVD discs that will hold both video and data files. (See also CD-DVD, Bar codes, CAV, CLV, Delta Project, Videodisc-digital, CD, Titles, and CD-I)
Videodisc levels= (See Videodisc)
Videodisc-digital= A videodisc in digital format. For example, the DDV-7100 8-bit, 4.5 MHz bandwidth model was unveiled in October 1993 by Optical Disc Corporation (800-350-3500). The DDV-7100 will hold four hours of compressed digital video on one side of a 12-inch videodisc. Later systems will hold up to 10 gigabytes of data or one hour of HDTV. This technology is intended for interactive television of the future and for satellite uplinks and mass storage video servers. Playback units start at under $5,000 but recording units are likely to be found only in professional videodisc recording and reproduction laboratories since the disc recorder sells for almost $100,000 and requires other workstation hardware and software. This technology will probably be overtaken by newer CD-DVD technology. (See also CD-DVD)
Video Editing (Digital)
"Digital Video Editing" by Reno Marioni, Webmonkey, April 24, 2002 --- http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/15/index4a.html
In the pages that follow, I'll be taking a look at the basics of digital video editing and production using Apple's iMovie and Final Cut Pro 3, both of which run on the Macintosh (under either OS 9 or OS X).
iMovie is a free digital video editing program that comes bundled with every new Apple computer. It’s geared towards the novice, so it's incredibly intuitive and easy to learn. Final Cut Pro 3 is a more complex and professional level program with lots of features and a price tag of US$999. That may seem like a lot of cash, but it’s spare change compared to the costs of traditional video editing.
So the time has come for mere mortals — even poor, starving artists — to produce fine-tuned documentaries, commercials, music videos, and other works of video artistic expression. It just takes equal parts desire, dedication, and creative talent.
Continued at http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/15/index4a.html
Video for Windows= Animation and video files that originally were developed by Microsoft Corporation for PCs running under Windows. This has become a widely popular option for PCs operating under MCI standards. Like QuickTime, Video for Windows is a low cost and low fps option that will be common in CD-ROM authoring of education materials until MPEG compression options and video networking become more widespread. Although Microsoft's Video for Windows and Apple's QuickTime captured early market share leads in digital video, newer and better compression alternatives such as Indeo and MPEG probably will take over this market. (See also DVI, QuickTime, Indeo, MPEG, Video, AVI, MCI, and Ultimedia Video)
Video from digital (DV) camcorders= Camcorders that capture video directly into digital formats that offer many advantages for multimedia computer files. The captured video can be copied indefinitely with higher resolution, digitized audio, and no loss of frames. The mini-DV cassettes are smaller and have at least double the capacity of the Regular 8 and Hi8 analog cassettes. Vendors and products are reviewed by Doyle (1996). (See also Dry camera)
Video on the Internet= (See Internet audio and video)
Video overlay= (See Video capture)
Video scan conversion= (See Scan converter)
Video server= The combination of hardware and software that allows for storage and transmission of continuous animation and video in real time. The core of a video server is a continuous media operating system that allows animation, audio, and real-time video to be processed and transmitted across networks or over digital television satellites. Major players are rushing to develop video servers, including the over $100 million dollar per year effort by the Advanced Technology Group (ATG) and Microsoft Corporation to develop the Tiger video server as part of the overall information highway architecture development code named Mimosa by Microsoft managers. For a review see Soat (1994). Microsoft's Tiger Video Server competes head on with rival video servers from IBM, Digital Equipment, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Silicon Graphics Corporation, and others. What is unique about Tiger is that it can save about 90% on costs and can network the video directly into PC computers. For comparisons of video servers, see The Wall Street Journal, February 18, 1994, p. B1. (Also see Switched network and Set-top box)
Islip Media Inc. in Pittsburgh offers a speech recognition search engine for video libraries. It is costly, howver, at $50,000 for a 50 user license. The Islip web site is at http://www.islip.com/
Video streaming= (See Web streaming)
Video toaster = (See Amiga)
Virtual = a seeming reality that lacks some elements of total reality. Since the early days of computing, simulation has become the most common form of achieving virtual worlds for learning and research. The term "virtual" is now loosely applied in many contexts. At one extreme it is applied to most anything connected with a computer or networks. For example, network chat lines may be viewed as "virtual communities." Interactive creation (by multiple persons) of artificial worlds (e.g., MUDs, MOOs, MUSHes, simulations, etc.) has become a major component in creating virtual communities. At the other extreme there is virtual reality in its most advanced stages with headgear, wired body suits, simulated odors, simulated tactle sensations, surrounding 3-D worlds, interactions of multiple people and machines in a shared cyberspace, etc. Entire courses are either using or devoting the course to "virtual communities." For example, students in a sociology course at Northern Arizona University create virtual communities in a simulation of the colonization of mars. A Harvard University course is entitiled "Virtual Communities" with a web site at http://icg.harvard.edu/~cscie10/course-intro.html. See CMC, The term "virtual community" has evolved to where it usually refers to "conversations" that are not face-to-face and are often anonymous to at least the point where speakers cannot be identified (although groups to which they belong might be known). The key element is anonymity. Corporate boards of directors and other groups often pay to rent "silent meeting rooms" that are available in some universities such as the University of Arizona, Syracuse University, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and other campuses. In a "silent meeting," participants can be face-to-face and still communicate anonymously. This is because the "conversations" are taking place within the computers in front of all participants. When a participant makes a point, none of the other participants can detect which person in the room made the comment. See IRC, Simulation, USENet, MUDs, MOOs,and Virtual Realtiy.
Virtual Reality= Computer and video "VR" simulations that entail wearing headgear, electronic gloves, and possibly electronic body suits such that users are immersed in a cyberspace of simulated reality that gives the sensation of being in a three-dimensional world where objects can be moved about with hand movements and sensations of walking and touching are simulated using super computing power. The origins of virtual reality are in flight simulators of the military. There are now VR game arcades and laboratories where wide varieties of applications in entertainment, training, medical research, architectural design, data research, etc. are taking place. Virtual reality programs require massive computer power. Usually, the closer authors attempt to simulate the real world, the greater the computing power needed to achieve sensations of reality. Although most of virtual reality applications to date have been in training and entertainment, there are some applications in data analysis such as the use of VR to analyze international portfolio data in the TIAA/CREF Pension Funds. Winn (1994) contends VR will become a major part of university curricula. He cites evidence that VR is especially successful for learning in disadvantaged and physically handicapped students. In June 1994, Apple Corporation unveiled a new desktop computing software option (with a CD-ROM recorder) called QuickTime VR that takes a collection of photographs (e.g., photographs of numerous angles of the inside of a room) and assembles them into motion scenes that resemble more expensive virtual reality generated on super computers. Viacom Inc. sells a QuickTime VR entertainment CD-ROM called "Star Trek: The Next Generation Interactive Technical Manual" that provides VR tours of the Starship USS Enterprise. For a review of some initial applications of QuickTime VR in anatomy education see Carlton (1994b). (See also Simulation and VRML.)
Virtual-image file= A set of pointers to the files on your hard disk to be sent to the CD-R drive, rather than a duplicate physical-image of those files. Usually employed for on-the-fly recording. (See also CD-R)
Virtual Private Network (VPN) = (See intranet.)
Virus = See Security.
For more about virus risks and email attachment risks, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/assurance.htm
More information can be found on the vendors' security pages:
Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/
Netscape
http://www.netscape.com/products/security/
Qualcomm
http://eudora.qualcomm.com/security.html
Finally, don't forget that some documents do carry viruses. For example, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint all support macro languages that have been used to write viruses. Naturally enough, if you use any of these programs and receive an e-mail message that contains one of these documents as an enclosure, your system may be infected when you open that enclosure. An up-to-date virus checking program will usually catch these viruses before they can attack. Some virus checkers that recognize macro viruses include:
McAfee VirusScan
http://www.mcafee.com/
Symantec AntiVirus
http://www.symantec.com/
Norton AntiVirus
http://www.symantec.com/
Virex
http://www.datawatch.com/virex.shtml
IBM AntiVirus
http://www.av.ibm.com/
Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus
http://www.drsolomon.com/
Visual Basic (VB) = an extension of Microsoft Basic that allows for GUI controls, animations, and drag-and-drop features. Its main competitors are Borland's Delphi and Sun's Java. VB is used in many Microsoft products and in numerous applications by third parties. The main web site for Visual Basic at Microsoft is http://www.microsoft.com/vbasic/ . Many links are provided at http://www.pcwebopaedia.com/VB.htm . VBX is a Visual Basic custom control used in may sofrtware components. VBX components allow developers to more quickly write Visual Basic components. When used in conjunction with Windows Scripting Host utilities, Visual Basic adds great risks for viruses when using email and web browsing software from Microsoft. For more discussion of such matters, see ActiveX.
VL-Bus= A local bus standard set by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) that requires direct-to-CPU connections that limit the number of expansion slots in computers. The VL-Bus is faster than EISA and less expensive to manufacture. For a time it was the bus of choice for PCs until the newer PCI bus was introduced by Intel. (See also Bus)
VM-Channel= (See Bus)
voc= (See Sound board)
Voice recognition= (See Speech recognition)
VPN = (See intranet.)
VR= (See Virtual Reality)
VRAM= Video Random Access Memory chips that determine the performance capacity of video adapter hardware in computers. In particular, they allow for reading and writing of graphics images to take place simultaneously. At the time of this writing, authors of hypermedia are advised to purchase a computer with at least 2Mb of VRAM. (See also RAM)
VRML = an Internet standard for 3-D animations called Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML). By going to most any WWW search engine, it is possible to use a combination of search terms for web sites on this topic. For example, using http://www.altavista.digital.com/ with the search term "VRML" resulted in 80,073 hits on December 22, 1996 and 359,660 hits on September 19, 1997. VRML is designed to be a dynamic extension of the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) standard that became the main component in the invention of the WWW in 1990 by particle physicists. In other words, VRML is intended for the WWW. Secondly, VRML is intended to be somewhat like VR in the ability to immerse participants into simulated 3-D worlds for education and entertainment. Thirdly, VRML can bring animation, audio, and 3-D reality to a MUD-type creation of imagined worlds and avatars in those worlds. However, VRML can also be used in a more mundane commercialization of the technology such as entering a simulation about being inside and operating a product such as a new model of automobile or a kitchen in an apartment complex that is still under construction. My favorite VRML repository is at the San Diego Super Computing Center at http://www.sdsc.edu/vrml/. (See also Virtual Reality)
W-terms
WAIS= The abbreviation for Wide Area Information Service, WAIS is a Net-wide system for looking up specific information in Internet databases.
WAIS Gateway= This term refers to a computer that is used to translate WAIS data so it can be made available to an otherwise incompatible network or application. Mosaic must use a WAIS gateway.
WAN= Wide Area Network of computers spanning hundreds or thousands of miles. Unlike intranets and virtual private networks, WANs do not use public Internet arteries and are totally isolated from the public domain. (See also LAN, Intranet, Extranet, and Virtual Private Networks (VPN))
WAP= (Wireless Glossary of Terms)
WARP= (See OS/2)
Waterloo MAPLE= (See MAPLE)
Watermark= a background image in HTML documents that does not scroll like larger images that are not watermarks. For example, in the Microsoft FrontPage Editor, if you click on Page Properties and Background, one of the options is to import a watermark image for your web page.
Wav= (See AIF, AU, Sound board, and Wave file)
Wave File= A wav file format used by Microsoft Windows for storing digitized audio. All information necessary to generate voice and music is stored in the file. (See also AIF, AU, Sound board, and MIDI)
The Web is Alive With the Sound of MP3," Newsweek, February 22, 1999, Page 16.
http://www.MP3.com (hours of free downloads, including the New York Times MP3s.)
http://www.audiogalaxy.com (lots of samples and free downloads.)
Go to the Frequently Asked Questions at http://www.MP3.com . MP3 is a file format which stores audio files on a computer in such a way that the file size is relatively small, but the song sounds near perfect. You can identify MP3 files because they will end in MP3. Typically 1 MB is equal to one minute of music or several minutes for spoken work/audiobooks. This is about a 90% reduction in hard drive space and bandwidth vis-a-vis uncompressed high quality wav files, but the actual savings depends upon the recording quality of your wav files. If you think about a CD-ROM holding 650 Mb, this translates to over 11 hours of high quality audio in MP3 format. More importantly, MP3 audio does not require as much Internet bandwidth as previous audio alternatives
WebBob = (See Bot.)
Web browsers = Interfaces to the World Wide Web that simplify locating web pages, downloading files, playing of audio, playing of video, etc. Gopher was the first to become a great hit, but it was limited mainly to text. Mosaic followed, but it was Netscape that hit the market with enormous success. Netscape Navigator can be downloaded from
Windows users mostly prefer Internet Explorer that comes bundled in Microsoft Office. A key advantage of Internet Explorer is that it supports DHTML dynamic Webpages. Another advantage is that it now supports XML and XBRL --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm
Apple's entry into the browser market is both sleek and unique. But is Safari the Mac user's best bet on the Web?
"Surfin' Safari," by Michael Calore, Webmonkey, January 8, 2003 --- http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/03/02/index3a.html
Those kooky minds over at Apple, I tell ya.
Apparently, they are not content with producing the industry's most celebrated hardware, the sleekest operating system, and the sexiest portable audio device since the boombox. Now, Apple Computer is setting its sights on the crowded browser market.
At the Macworld 2003 conference (which took place the week of January 6th, 2003), Apple head honcho Steve Jobs announced the development of a lightweight Web browser that's especially tailored for Apple's Jaguar operating system.
The new browser, named Safari, is available for download as a public beta from Apple's website. Our expectations are especially high on this one, partly because we've been handed a brand new standards-compliant browser based on an open-source engine. But we're really wringing our hands in anticipation because it's Apple, and Apple has consistently produced some fantastic software — iTunes, iMovie, and the whole OS X family of server and desktop work environments rank among the best — so its take on the seemingly perfected arena of the Web browser is a welcome and exciting event.
At the heart of Safari is the KHTML engine. Originally developed for the KDE Konqueror browser, Apple selected the open-source rendering engine for its speed, its compliance with current standards, and its relatively small code base. Also Safari's JavaScript handler, called JavaScriptCore, is based on Konqueror's KJS engine. Apple isn't just scamming open-source technology by building it into Safari, it's continuing to contribute to the community by tracking the development of the browser engine alongside the KDE development team.
Apple's commitment to the open-source movement is praised by many, decried by some. But if it means more engineers working on the improvement of Web browsers, making them better and more consistent, then why knock it? It should also be noted that many of the members of Apple's Safari development team have past experience with open-source browser technology: Don Melton, the Safari Engineering Manager, was one of the key people on the first Mozilla team, and David Hyatt, also on the Safari development team and from the Mozilla crew, was one of the originators of Chimera, an open-source browser for OS X.
Eager to try out the first public beta, I downloaded Safari, installed it on my 600MHz iBook (OS X 10.2 or later is required), and used it to complete a series of tasks. I wanted to see if Safari could handle the usual day-to-day stuff: browse my favorite news sites, pay my credit card bill, and update my weblog. I also played with all of the fancy features and gave the controls a few tweaks to see what the range of capabilities were.
So let's take Safari on a ride, shall we?
Continued at http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/03/02/index3a.html
Mike's bottom line conclusion:
The general assumption of those in the pundit business is that Safari is intended as a replacement for the sluggish and standards-defiant Internet Explorer for the Macintosh. And it does serve as an excellent alternative. But is it the best candidate for the job? No.
In my opinion, the best browser for Mac OS X, or at least the most promising one, is Chimera. Also in the beta stage (release 0.6 as of this writing), Chimera is part of the Mozilla open-source browser project, so it runs on the Gecko engine. It's a lovely piece of software for many of the same reasons as Safari: it's fast and lightweight, it loads pages properly, and the major plugins work correctly.
Webcasting = use of World Wide Web to broadcast information. Unlike typical surfing, which relies on a pull method of transferring web pages, webcasting uses a "push" combination of technologies to send information to users' computers. This is also referred to as "broadcasting, channel surfing, or "netcasting." Users get steady updates of streams of information in requested categories. Users can subscribe to a "channel," download software to a local computer, and then streams of automatic updates follow. The most popular webcasting service to date is PointCast, but several major companies, including Microsoft and Netscape, have announced their own webcasting products and services. For example Netscape announced it "Netscape Netcaster" as follows:
Netscape Netcaster, the newest component of Netscape Communicator, enables push delivery of information and offline browsing. Netcaster seamlessly integrates with Channel Finder, the source for the best channels on the Internet. Users can subscribe to the information they want and have it delivered automatically. Offline browsing allows users to take the valuable resources of the Web offline with them - wherever they go. Developed entirely using the open Internet standards of HTML, Java, and JavaScript, Netscape Netcaster is an example of the powerful applications that can be built on the Netscape ONE platform.
See also Listserv and Chat Lines.
One of the latest webcasting options is the Java-based Castanet that can be downloaded from http://www.marimba.com. When users subscribe to a channel with Castanet Tuner, it requests the download of the corresponding application from an Internet-based Castanet Transmitter server. Castanet Tuner then saves the Java application onto your hard disk. When launched, channels can either operate locally without a live Internet connection or (where appropriate for the channel's type of content) communicate across the Internet. In the past, web casting was free of virus risks. With the advent of Windows Scripting Host utilities, this is no longer the case. Precautionary advice is given under ActiveX. See also Intercast.
The next generation of metadata webcasting will probably be in Resource Description Format (RDF). There were various metadata processes before RDF was on the drawing boards. Microsoft's Channel Definition Format (CDF) used in "Web Push Channels" and Netscape's Meta Content Framework (MCF) preceeded RDF. These technologies describe information resources in a manner somewhat similar to RDF and can be used to filter web sites and web documents such as filtering pornography and violence. They can be used to channel inflows of desired or undesired web information. CDF, for example, carries information not read on computer screens that perform metadata tasks. See Resource Description Format (RDF) and Search engine.
Web document= An HTML document, Gopher document, a PDF document, or some other document that is browsable on the Internet.
WebLedger= An online accounting system in which a vendor of accounting services (e.g., bookkeeping, receivables management, bill paying, inventory management, financial statement preparation, and tax services) are provided to multiple firms by a WebLedger vendor. The CEO of Oracle was a pioneer in this area when he formed NetLedger that has since changed its name to NetSuite. You can read more about WebLedgers and alternative vendors at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/webledger.htm
Weblog (Blog)
Weblog = Blog = What?
Answer from Whatis.com ---
A Weblog (which is sometimes written as "web log" or "weblog") is a Web site of personal or non-commercial origin that uses a dated log format that is updated on a daily or very frequent basis with new information about a particular subject or range of subjects. The information can be written by the site owner, gleaned from other Web sites or other sources, or contributed by users. A
Web log often has the quality of being a kind of "log of our times" from a particular point-of-view. Generally, Weblogs are devoted to one or several subjects or themes, usually of topical interest, and, in general, can be thought of as developing commentaries, individual or collective on their particular themes. A Weblog may consist of the recorded ideas of an individual (a sort of diary) or be a complex collaboration open to anyone. Most of the latter are moderated discussions.
Weblog software use grows daily -- but bloggers abandon sites and launch new ones as frequently as J.Lo goes through boyfriends. Which makes taking an accurate blog count tricky --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,54740,00.html
Want to start your own blog? BlogBridge --- http://www.blogbridge.com/
It's been said that newspapers write the first draft of history, but now there are blogs. These days, online scribes often get the news before it's fit to print --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56978,00.html
Blogs Help You Cope With Data Overload -- If You Manage Them," by Thomas E. Weber, The Wall Street Journal, July 8, 2004, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,personal_technology,00.html
If you're an information junkie, you've probably discovered the appeal of reading weblogs, those online journals that mix commentary with links to related sites. Obsessive blog creators scour the Internet for interesting tidbits in news stories, announcements and even other blogs, culling the best and posting links. A good blog is like the friend who always points out the best stories in the newspaper.
More and more, though, the growth of blogs is increasing rather than reducing information overload. By some estimates, the number of blogs out there is nearing three million. It isn't just amateurs either: Start-up media companies are creating blogs, too. Gawker, for example, publishes the gadgets journal Gizmodo ( www.gizmodo.com ) and Wonkette ( www.wonkette.com ), devoted to inside-the-Beltway gossip.
To help juggle all those blogs, I've started playing around with a relatively new phenomenon called a newsreader. Rather than forcing you to jump from one blog to another to keep up with new entries, newsreaders bring together the latest postings from your favorite blogs in a single place.
That's possible because many blogs now publish their entries as news "feeds." These are Web formats that make it easy for a newsreader program (or another Web site) to grab and manipulate individual postings. For a blog publisher, it's like sending out entries on a news wire service. To tell whether a site offers a news feed, look for a small icon labeled "RSS" or "Atom."
I've tested a number of popular newsreaders. At their best, they give you a customized online newspaper that tracks the blogs you're interested in. But using them is only worthwhile if you're willing to invest some time upfront getting organized.
Newsreaders come in several varieties. One is a stand-alone software program you install on your PC. In that category, FeedDemon ($29.95 from Bradbury Software) is especially powerful, with extensive options for customizing the way news feeds appear on your screen.
Other newsreaders integrate news feeds into your e-mail on the theory that mail has become the catchall information center for many users. NewsGator ($29 from NewsGator Technologies) pulls feeds into Microsoft Outlook, while Oddpost (www.oddpost.com) combines blog feeds with an excellent Web-based e-mail service for $30 a year. For Mac users, Apple just announced it will include newsreader functions in the next version of its Safari Web browser -- a sign of how important the news-feed approach is becoming.
Overall, I had the best experience with a service called Bloglines, and I recommend it, especially for beginners. Bloglines (www.bloglines.com) works as a Web service, which means there's no software to install and you can catch up with your blogs from any Web browser. You're no longer tied to the bookmarks on a particular PC, so you can check postings from home, work or on the road. The service is also free. Mark Fletcher, CEO of Trustic Inc., which operates Bloglines, tells me the site will use unobtrusive Google-style ads to bring in revenue.
After starting an account, you enter the blogs you want to track. When you visit Bloglines, your blog list will appear on the left side of the screen, along with a notation telling the number of new postings since your last visit; clicking on a blog pulls the new postings into a right-side window. The beauty of this is that you don't waste time visiting blogs that haven't posted new entries.
Of course, it's all pointless without interesting blogs to read. The best way to find great blogs is to follow your curiosity, tracking back links on blogs you visit. Here are a few to get you started:
GENERAL INTEREST: Boing Boing (www.boingboing.net) is one of the Web's most established blogs, and one of its most popular, too. By "general interest," I mean of general interest to your average Internet-obsessed technophile. The focus isn't explicitly on technology, but expect it to skew in that direction -- over a recent week, posting topics included robots, comic books and a cool-looking electric plug.
ECONOMICS: EconLog (econlog.econlib.org) offers a thoughtful and eclectic diary of economics, tackling both newsy developments (the real-estate market, taxes) and theory. It also includes a list of other good economics blogs -- there are more than you might think.
GADGETS: Engadget (www.engadget.com) can be counted on for a good half-dozen or more news morsels each day on digital cameras, MP3 players, cellphones and more. When it isn't the first to stumble across something good, it isn't shy about linking to another blog with an interesting post, so it's usually pretty up to date.
POLITICS: WatchBlog (www.watchblog.com) has stuck with an interesting concept for more than a year now. It's actually three blogs in one: separate side-by-side journals tracking news on the 2004 elections from the perspective of Democrats, Republicans and independents.
TECHNOLOGY: Lessig Blog (www.lessig.org/blog). OK, this one's about politics too. More specifically, it covers the intersection between regulation and technology. Its author, Stanford law professor and author Lawrence Lessig, weighs in on copyright, privacy and other challenging topics in high-tech society.
Top Executives Are Finding Great Advantages to Using and Running Blogs
"It's Hard to Manage if You Don't Blog Business embraces the new medium as executives read—and write—blogs," by David Kirkpatrick, Fortune Magazine, October 4, 2004 --- http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles
/0,15114,699971,00.html
Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO of Sun Microsystems, has recently criticized statements by Intel executives, mused that IBM might buy Novell, and complained about a CNET.com article—all by writing a blog on a Sun website.
Yep, blogs—which are a way to post text to a website—have found their way into business. Schwartz is the highest-ranking executive yet to embrace the new medium, which is burgeoning globally. About 35,000 people read his blog (http://blogs.sun.com) in a typical month, including customers, employees, and
competitors. Schwartz encourages all Sun's 32,000 employees to blog, though only about 100 are doing it so far. But they include at least three senior managers other than Schwartz as well as development engineers and marketers.
The company's most popular blogger is a marketer known as MaryMaryQuiteContrary. Her blog ranges from rhapsodies about "proxy-based aspect-oriented programming" to musings about her desire to become a first-grade class mother. Says Schwartz: "I don't have the advertising budget to get our message to, for instance, Java developers working on handset applications for the medical industry. But one of our developers, just by taking time to write a blog, can do a great job getting our message out to a fanatic readership." He adds, "Blogs are no more mandated at Sun than e-mail. But I have a hard time seeing how a manager can be effective without both."
Over at Microsoft, some 1,000 employees blog, says a spokesman, though no top executives do. Robert Scoble, Microsoft's most prominent blogger, says via e-mail that "I often link to bloggers who are not friendly to Microsoft. They know I'm listening, and that alone improves relationships." Other tech companies with company blogs include Yahoo, Google, Intuit, and Monster.com. Even Maytag has a blog.
But businesses are learning—sometimes the hard way—that this new medium has pitfalls. David Farrell, Sun's chief compliance officer, notes that the company will soon require employees to agree to specific guidelines before starting blogs. Companies are also worried about unflattering portrayals and leaks. Last year a Microsoft contract employee posted a photo of the company receiving a dockful of Apple computers; he was promptly fired. A Harvard administrator and a software developer at Friendster were also recently fired after personal blog postings. (Microsoft, Harvard, and Friendster declined to comment.)
But some managers find that even more important than writing blogs is reading them. During a recent conference for Microsoft software developers, top company executives huddled backstage reading up-to-the-minute blogs written by the audience to get a sense of how their messages were being received.
While most people agree on Web logs' value for promoting student expression and critical thinking in schools, there's no consensus on the amount of control over access and content that educators should exercise. Blogs may become more of an issue in college courses when and if students begin to keep Weblogs of day to day classes, teacher evaluations, and course content.
"Classroom Blogs Raise Issues of Access and Privacy," by Kevin J. Delaney, The Wall Street Journal, October 27, 2004 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109882944704656461,00.html?mod=technology%5Ffeatured%5Fstories%5Fhs
First graders at Magnolia Elementary School used a Web log earlier this year to describe their dream playgrounds. Monkey bars were heartily endorsed, and live animals and bumper cars also made the cut.
Students in a handful of other classes at the Joppa, Md., school also used blogs, some trading riddles about book characters with peers at a school in Michigan.
Now, county administrators have frozen the use of blogs in the classroom amid concerns about oversight of what students might post online. Michael Lackner, a teacher who jump-started blog use at Magnolia last year, is optimistic that a technological fix will be found.
But the school's experience highlights some of the issues that educators and parents face as blogs -- simple Web sites that follow a diary-like format -- gain entry into the nation's classrooms. While most agree on blogs' value for promoting student expression, critical thinking and exchange, there's no consensus on the amount of control over access and content that educators should exercise. As blogging spreads, it could revive debates over student expression similar to those that have cropped up around school newspapers.
The issues surrounding blogging and related technology in the classroom are "pretty much uncharted," says Will Richardson, an educational-blogging advocate and supervisor of instructional technology and communications at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, N.J.
The use of blogs in schools remains limited but is growing, as scattered programs piloted by tech-savvy educators generate buzz and followers. Teachers are attracted to blogging for some of the same reasons blog use has exploded among techies, political commentators and would-be pundits. Blogs are cheap, thanks to free or inexpensive software packages and services -- Hunterdon, for example, pays just $499 a year for software to run hundreds of student blogs. And their simple format makes them easy to set up. Using tools from Six Apart Ltd., Google Inc. and others, consumers can create a blog in less than 10 minutes and post messages to it over the Web or by e-mail. By some estimates, five million or more Americans already have created their own blogs, with some prominent bloggers even influencing the news and political agendas.
Students in Mr. Richardson's high-school journalism classes, for example, never turn in hard copies of their homework. They post all assignments to individual blogs. Their blogs also notify them when other students complete writing assignments, so they can read and comment on them.
Meredith Fear, 17 years old, has created two blogs for classes taught by Mr. Richardson. The 12th grader says posting her work online for others to see motivated her to do better and increased her parents' involvement in her education. "I don't often get a chance to talk with her about school, so having the opportunity to check her blog and see what she was up to was a great way for me to keep up on things," says Jonathan Fear, Meredith's father. He adds that was one factor in overcoming his wife's original concerns that ill-intentioned outsiders could see Meredith's writings through the blog.
Recognizing such worries, some teachers at Hunterdon protect blogs with passwords so only they and their students can see them, particularly for creative-writing classes for which the subject matter is more likely to be personal. There are other blogging precautions: Parents have to sign releases giving permission, and only students' first names are used online. Mr. Richardson says the school has hosted more than 500 student blogs in the past three years without incident.
Mr. Richardson is planning a session with parents later this fall to teach them about the technology and set up blogs and Web-text feeds so they can gain access to a broader range of information from teachers and see what their children are up to. "Kids like it. And I can see more enhanced learning on their part," Mr. Richardson says.
At Magnolia, teachers were happy with their classroom blogging and had plans to expand it this school year. But Harford County public school officials notified them this summer that such projects appeared to fall afoul of policies regulating student communication. In particular, they were concerned that students and others could post comments to the blogs before they were reviewed by a teacher.
"What we want to see is a Web log where a teacher has final control, acts as a filter for any postings or comments," says Janey Mayo, technology coordinator for Harford County Public Schools. "We're trying to be very cautious with this because we're working with kids." School administrators also want to see further research on whether blogging has educational value at the elementary-school level, but so far haven't found any.
Mr. Lackner believes there is potentially a quick technical fix to the problem: A blogging service could add a function that would forward any online comments to a teacher for review before posting them.
Continued in the article
July 1, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu]
THE EDUCATED BLOGGER
According to David Huffaker (in "The Educated Blogger: Using Weblogs to Promote Literacy in the Classroom," FIRST MONDAY, vol. 9, no. 6, June 2004), "blogs can be an important addition to educational technology initiatives because they promote literacy through storytelling, allow collaborative learning, provide anytime–anywhere access, and remain fungible across academic disciplines." In support of his position, Huffaker provides several examples of blogs being used in classroom settings. The paper is available online at http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_6/huffaker/index.html.
First Monday [ISSN 1396-0466] is an online, peer-reviewed journal whose aim is to publish original articles about the Internet and the global information infrastructure. It is published in cooperation with the University Library, University of Illinois at Chicago. For more information, contact: First Monday, c/o Edward Valauskas, Chief Editor, PO Box 87636, Chicago IL 60680-0636 USA; email: ejv@uic.edu; Web: http://firstmonday.dk/.
-----
Suzanne Cadwell and Chuck Gray of the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill's Center for Instructional Technology have compiled two feature comparison tables that describe three blogging services and four blogging applications.
Blogging Services Feature Comparison
Using a blogging service generally doesn't require any software other than a web browser. Users have no administrative control over the software itself, but have some control over a blog's organization and appearance. Depending on the particular service, blogs can be hosted either on the service’s servers or on the server of one’s choice (e.g., www.unc.edu). Users purchasing a paid account with a service typically will have no banner ads on their blogs, more features at their disposal, and better customer support from the service. The Blogging Services Feature Comparison chart is available http://www.unc.edu/cit/blogs/blogcomparison/services/.
Blogging Applications Comparison
Downloadable blogging applications require the user to have access to server space (e.g., www.unc.edu). Most of these applications are comprised of CGI scripts that must be installed and configured in a user’s cgi-bin folder. Although they are packaged with detailed instructions, applications can be difficult to install, prohibitively so for the novice. Blogging applications afford users fine-grained control over their blogs, and most applications are open-source or freeware. The Blogging Applications Comparison chart is available at http://www.unc.edu/cit/blogs/blogcomparison/applications/.
Question
What services are available to help you create a blog?
Answer from Kevin Delaney
"Blogs Can Tie Families, And These Services Will Get You Started," by Kevin J. Delaney, The Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2004, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,personal_technology,00.html
Online Web logs, or blogs, have long been a bastion of techy types, those prone to political rants, and assorted gossips. But now they're making inroads among families who want to keep up on each other's doings.
Blogs are personal Web sites where you can post things, including photos, stories and links to other cool stuff online. They resemble a journal, with information arranged chronologically based on when you post it. The simple form is a major virtue -- you don't have to think too hard about how to organize your blog.
I've used a variety of Web sites in recent years to share photos of my children with their grandparents and other family far way. Lately, I've wondered if it wouldn't be better to put photos, digital videos and other links I want to share with my family on one Web site, making it easier to manage and access them from afar.
With this in mind, I've been testing three of the most popular blogging services, which are available free or for a small monthly fee.
Blogger, a free service from Google at www.blogger.com, promises you can create a blog in "three easy steps." After selecting a user name and password, I chose a name and a custom Web address. Then I selected a graphic look -- "Dots," a simple design with a touch of fun that seemed right for a family site -- from 12 attractive templates. After that, Blogger created my blog. Within a few minutes, I was able to put a short text message on the site and have Blogger send e-mails to alert my wife and father of the blog's existence.
Blogger, like the other services, lets you further customize the organization and look of your site and put several types of information on it. Sending text to the blog is as easy as sending an e-mail. (In fact, Blogger and the other services I tested even let me post text to my blog using standard e-mail.) A Blogger button on Google's toolbar software, which must be downloaded and activated separately, offers the useful option of posting links to other Web sites on your blog as you surf the Web. Another nice feature lets you designate friends or family members who can post to the main blog.
To put photos on any blog hosted by Blogger, you have to download another free software package from Picasa called Hello. Hello blocks connections to computers operating behind what's known as a proxy server, which is a pretty typical corporate configuration. As a result, I couldn't upload photos from my work PC, though I was able to do so from home.
Blogger lacks some advanced features other services offer. But its main shortcoming is that it doesn't let you protect your site by requiring visitors to use a password to enter. I don't want strangers to look at photos of my kids or search notes I'm writing for family members. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on any plans for such a feature, citing restrictions related to the company's planned initial public offering.
TypePad from Six Apart, at www.typepad.com, provides a higher-powered service for creating blogs that does let you password protect your site. You can also upload a broader range of files, including video clips. But the tradeoff is a level of complexity that is unnecessarily frustrating.
The company offers three monthly subscription rates starting at $4.95. It costs $8.95 a month for the version that allows you to create photo albums, a feature that I consider essential for a family blog. Albums allow you to avoid filling up the main blog site with strings of photos. If you choose to password protect your blog, though, TypePad won't let you link your blog directly to photo albums. It's a surprising shortcoming, and Six Apart doesn't disclose it on its site. Its support staff gave me complicated instructions for another way to make such a link, but they never worked for me.
Six Apart Chief Executive Mena Trott says the photo-album-linking problem is a bug the company is working to fix. She acknowledges that parts of the service could be easier to use, and says improvements will be made. She also says that in practice Six Apart lets most users exceed the company's miserly limits on blog storage space, which are 100 megabytes for the $8.95-a-month plan.
AOL's Journals service, which requires an AOL subscription, is about as simple to use as Blogger. It allows you to restrict public access to your blog and provides nice albums for grouping photos. If you do decide to restrict access, your visitors will have to register with AOL. That registration is free, though, and many people already have an AOL "screen name" because they use the company's instant messaging service.
But other advanced features, such as the button in Blogger for easy linking to Web sites, are missing. In addition, the layout templates aren't nearly as attractive graphically as Blogger's and TypePad's. AOL says it's working on all of these issues, and expects to add a Web linking button and phase out the registration requirement later this year.
I'm not completely satisfied with Journals, and I would be happy to use Blogger or TypePad if they manage to work out their issues with photo albums and passwords. In the meantime, though, I've chosen AOL's Journals to create my family blog.
"WEBLOGS COME TO THE CLASSROOM," by Scott Carlson, The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 28, 2003, Page 33
They get used to supplement courses in writing, marketing, economics, and other subjects
Increasingly, private life is a public matter. That seems especially true in the phenomenon known as blogging. Weblogs, or blogs, are used by scores of online memoirists, editorialists, exhibitionists, and navel gazers, who post their daily thoughts on Web sites for all to read.
Now professors are starting to incorporate blogs into courses. The potential for reaching an audience, they say, reshapes the way students approach writing assignments, journal entries, and online discussions.
Valerie M. Smith, an assistant professor of English at Quinnipiac University, is among the first faculty members there to use blogs. She sets one up for each of her creative-writing students at the beginning of the semester. The students are to add a new entry every Sunday at noon. Then they read their peers' blogs and comment on them. Parents or friends also occasionally read the blogs.
Blogging "raises issues with audience," Ms. Smith says, adding that the innovation has raised the quality of students' writing;
"They aren't just writing for me, which makes them think in terms of crafting their work for a bigger audience. It gives them a bigger stake in what they are writing."
A Weblog can be public or available only to people selected by the blogger. Many blogs serve as virtual loudspeakers or soapboxes. Howard Dean, a Democratic presidential contender, has used a blog to debate and discuss issues with voters. Some blogs have even earned their authors minor fame. An Iraqi man--known only by a pseudonym, Salaam Pax--captured attention around the world when he used his blog to document daily life in Baghdad as American troops advanced on the city.
Continued in the article.
"Weblogs: a history and perspective," Rebecca Blood, Rebecca's Pocket, September 7, 2000 --- http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html
In 1998 there were just a handful of sites of the type that are now identified as weblogs (so named by Jorn Barger in December 1997). Jesse James Garrett, editor of Infosift, began compiling a list of "other sites like his" as he found them in his travels around the web. In November of that year, he sent that list to Cameron Barrett. Cameron published the list on Camworld, and others maintaining similar sites began sending their URLs to him for inclusion on the list. Jesse's 'page of only weblogs' lists the 23 known to be in existence at the beginning of 1999.
Suddenly a community sprang up. It was easy to read all of the weblogs on Cameron's list, and most interested people did. Peter Merholz announced in early 1999 that he was going to pronounce it 'wee-blog' and inevitably this was shortened to 'blog' with the weblog editor referred to as a 'blogger.'
At this point, the bandwagon jumping began. More and more people began publishing their own weblogs. I began mine in April of 1999. Suddenly it became difficult to read every weblog every day, or even to keep track of all the new ones that were appearing. Cameron's list grew so large that he began including only weblogs he actually followed himself. Other webloggers did the same. In early 1999 Brigitte Eaton compiled a list of every weblog she knew about and created the Eatonweb Portal. Brig evaluated all submissions by a simple criterion: that the site consist of dated entries. Webloggers debated what was and what was not a weblog, but since the Eatonweb Portal was the most complete listing of weblogs available, Brig's inclusive definition prevailed.
This rapid growth continued steadily until July 1999 when Pitas, the first free build-your-own-weblog tool launched, and suddenly there were hundreds. In August, Pyra released Blogger, and Groksoup launched, and with the ease that these web-based tools provided, the bandwagon-jumping turned into an explosion. Late in 1999 software developer Dave Winer introduced Edit This Page, and Jeff A. Campbell launched Velocinews. All of these services are free, and all of them are designed to enable individuals to publish their own weblogs quickly and easily.
The original weblogs were link-driven sites. Each was a mixture in unique proportions of links, commentary, and personal thoughts and essays. Weblogs could only be created by people who already knew how to make a website. A weblog editor had either taught herself to code HTML for fun, or, after working all day creating commercial websites, spent several off-work hours every day surfing the web and posting to her site. These were web enthusiasts.
Many current weblogs follow this original style. Their editors present links both to little-known corners of the web and to current news articles they feel are worthy of note. Such links are nearly always accompanied by the editor's commentary. An editor with some expertise in a field might demonstrate the accuracy or inaccuracy of a highlighted article or certain facts therein; provide additional facts he feels are pertinent to the issue at hand; or simply add an opinion or differing viewpoint from the one in the piece he has linked. Typically this commentary is characterized by an irreverent, sometimes sarcastic tone. More skillful editors manage to convey all of these things in the sentence or two with which they introduce the link (making them, as Halcyon pointed out to me, pioneers in the art and craft of microcontent). Indeed, the format of the typical weblog, providing only a very short space in which to write an entry, encourages pithiness on the part of the writer; longer commentary is often given its own space as a separate essay.
These weblogs provide a valuable filtering function for their readers. The web has been, in effect, pre-surfed for them. Out of the myriad web pages slung through cyberspace, weblog editors pick out the most mind-boggling, the most stupid, the most compelling.
But this type of weblog is important for another reason, I think. In Douglas Rushkoff's Media Virus, Greg Ruggerio of the Immediast Underground is quoted as saying, "Media is a corporate possession...You cannot participate in the media. Bringing that into the foreground is the first step. The second step is to define the difference between public and audience. An audience is passive; a public is participatory. We need a definition of media that is public in its orientation."
By highlighting articles that may easily be passed over by the typical web user too busy to do more than scan corporate news sites, by searching out articles from lesser-known sources, and by providing additional facts, alternative views, and thoughtful commentary, weblog editors participate in the dissemination and interpretation of the news that is fed to us every day. Their sarcasm and fearless commentary reminds us to question the vested interests of our sources of information and the expertise of individual reporters as they file news stories about subjects they may not fully understand.
Weblog editors sometimes contextualize an article by juxtaposing it with an article on a related subject; each article, considered in the light of the other, may take on additional meaning, or even draw the reader to conclusions contrary to the implicit aim of each. It would be too much to call this type of weblog "independent media," but clearly their editors, engaged in seeking out and evaluating the "facts" that are presented to us each day, resemble the public that Ruggerio speaks of. By writing a few lines each day, weblog editors begin to redefine media as a public, participatory endeavor
Continued at http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html
The Weblog Tool Roundup, by Joshual Allen, Webmonkey, May 2, 2002 --- http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/18/index3a.html
But then personal sites went from being static collections of bad poetry and award banners to constantly updated snippets of commentary, photography, sounds, bad poetry, and links. The popularity of this format grew (for a good primer on where weblogs came from and how they evolved, try Rebecca Blood's Weblogs: A History and Perspective), and people started building applications to simplify the process of maintaining a content-heavy personal site.
These applications have grown in number and sophistication over the years, and with some major upgrades appearing over the past few months (Blogger Pro, Movable Type 2.0, Radio UserLand 8.0), I thought the time was nigh to talk about what they do, why you might care, which one would best suit your needs, and how they can keep you company on those long, lonely nights, so empty since you were abandoned for someone who could write Perl scripts.
Continued at http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/18/index3a.html
"Will the Blogs Kill Old Media?" by Steven Levy, Newsweek, May 20, 2002, Page 52
From Yahoo Picks of the Week on December 3, 2002
blo.gs http://www.blo.gs/
Weblogs continue to grow in popularity, no doubt in part to their immediacy. Denizens of the Internet enjoy the opportunity to drop by and catch an up-to-the-minute account on their favorite blog. However, nothing is more frustrating than encountering a cobwebbed blog that hasn't been updated in weeks. To remedy such situations, this site offers a minute-by-minute account of over 50,000 weblogs. It doesn't get fresher than this! For utility's sake, the site offers a tiny java applet that sits on your desktop and continually refreshes, keeping the weblogs whirring. You can also stop by the most popular blogs to see what kind of content is piquing the interest of others. Whether you're a neophyte or veteran blogger, you're sure to find an intriguing site or two to scour.
Some time ago, Glenn Reynolds hardly qualified as plankton on the punditry food chain. The 41-year-old law professor at the University of Tennessee would pen the occasional op-ed for the L.A. Times, but his name was unfamiliar to even the most fanatical news junkie. All that began to change on Aug. 5 of last year, when Reynolds acquired the software to create a "Weblog," or "blog." A blog is an easily updated Web site that works as an online daybook, consisting of links to interesting items on the Web, spur-of-the-moment observations and real-time reports on whatever captures the blogger's attention. Reynold's original goal was to post witty observations on news events, but after September 11, he began providing links to fascinating articles and accounts of the crisis, and soon his site, called InstaPundit, drew thousands of readers--and kept growing. He now gets more than 70,000 page views a day (he figures this means 23,000 real people). Working at his two-year-old $400 computer, he posts dozens of items and links a day, and answers hundreds of e-mails. PR flacks call him to cadge coverage. And he's living a pundit's dream by being frequently cited--not just by fellow bloggers, but by media bigfeet. He's blogged his way into the game.
Some say the game itself has changed. InstaPundit is a pivotal site in what is known as the Blogosphere, a burgeoning samizdat of self-starters who attempt to provide in the aggregate an alternate media universe. The putative advantage is that this one is run not by editors paid by corporate giants, but unbespoken outsiders--impassioned lefties and righties, fine-print-reading wonks, indignant cranks and salt-'o-the-earth eyewitnesses to the "real" life that the self-absorbed media often miss. Hard-core bloggers, with a giddy fever not heard of since the Internet bubble popped, are even predicting that the Blogosphere is on a trajectory to eclipse the death-star-like dome of Big Media. One blog avatar, Dave Winer (who probably would be saying this even if he didn't run a company that sold blogging software), has formally wagered that by 2007, more readers will get news from blogs than from The New York Times. Taking him up on the bet is Martin Nisenholtz, head of the Time's digital operations.
My guess is that Nisenholtz wins. Blogs are a terrific addition to the media universe. But they pose no threat to the established order.
Mobile weblogging, or moblogging, is the latest trend in the world of blogs. New software allows users to update their weblogs remotely with cell phones and other handheld devices --- http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,57431,00.html
The meteoric rise of weblogging is one of the most unexpected technology stories of the past year, and much like the commentary that populates these ever-changing digital diaries, the story of blogging keeps evolving.
One recent trend is "moblogging," or mobile weblogging. New tools like Manywhere Moblogger, Wapblog and FoneBlog allow bloggers to post information about the minutiae of their lives from anywhere, not just from a PC.
The newest of these tools, Kablog, lets users update their weblogs remotely with cell phones and other handheld devices like wireless PDAs.
Kablog works on any device running Java 2 Platform Micro Edition, or J2ME, a version of Java for mobile devices. Those devices include cell phones running the Symbian operating system, many Sprint PCS phones, the Blackberry from RIM, and many Palm handhelds running OS 3.5, such as Handspring's Treo.
Todd Courtois, creator of Kablog, offers the program for free as shareware and says that word-of-mouth has already generated several thousand downloads in the short time it has been available.
What distinguishes Kablog from other moblogging software is that it does not use e-mail or text messaging for updating weblogs. Other programs such as FoneBlog enable users to e-mail posts from a cell phone or PDA to a server, which uploads the entry onto a site. Kablog lets those who use Movable Type as their weblogging software log directly onto their sites for updating.
Continued in the article.
September 2, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu]
RHETORIC, COMMUNITY, AND CULTURE OF WEBLOGS
The Department of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota has created "Into the Blogsphere," a website to explore the "discursive, visual, social, and other communicative features of weblogs." Educators and faculty can post, comment upon, and critique essays covering such areas as mass communication, pedagogy, and virtual community. The website is located at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/
For more information on weblogs in academe, see also:
"Educational Blogging" By Stephen Downes EDUCAUSE REVIEW, vol. 9, no. 5, September/October 2004, pp. 14-16, 18, 20-22, 24, 26 http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0450.asp
"The Educated Blogger" CIT INFOBITS, June 2004 http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/bitjun04.html#1
Bob Jensen's threads at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245glosf.htm#Weblog
Webmaster= This term refers to the person in charge of administrating a World Wide Web site.
Web node= This term is synonymous with Web site or Web server.
Web page= An HTML document that is accessible on the Web.
Webspace= This term refers to the space created by the World Wide Web.
Web streaming= Live playback of media files on the web. The most common way to execute media files (audio and video) is to download those files into a local computer and then launch a plug-in or applications program to execute the media file in question. Users have an option of saving the files, although the usual default condition is only to store the file temporarily. Web streaming is quite different. In that case, audio or video files play in real time without having to wait for full downloads of the files. In general, web streaming playback is of lower quality than download playback, but streaming avoids downloading interruptions and the need for storage space in a local computer. However, these are not mutually exclusive options. Streaming can actually be in real time or in "pseudo" web streams. Pseudo streaming downloads a portion of a file sufficient to play it back in somewhat better quality than real time streaming on the fly. Some pseudo streaming software require beginning at the start of the file while others allow starting at various points in the file. MIDI technology is on the rise for audio web streaming. For more on MIDI solutions, see http://www.liveupdate.com from LiveUpdate. Two video pseudo streaming alternatives are Apple Corporation's QuickTime and Microsoft's ActiveX, both of which can be launched as plug-ins to browsers. ActiveX facilitates pseudo streaming of ActiveMovies embedded in AVI, QuickTime, or MPEG video files. Even 3D movies can be streamed back using OLiVR Corporation's interactive 3D movies from a QuickTime VR source. Two good software downloading web sites are http://www.microsoft.com/activex/controls/ and http://www.netscape.com/comprod/mirror/navcomponents_download.html from Netscape. High end video streaming alternatives are reviewed in NewMedia, September 22, 1997, 47-56. The NewMedia web site is at http://www.newmedia.com/ The top ranking "Awesome" alternative in terms of "overall value" was RealVideo from Progressive Networks at http://www.real.com/ The price is free at the time of this writing. Others reviewed include Microsoft's NetShow, Motorola's TrueStream, VSOnet's VDOLive, Viv's VivoActive, Vosaic's MediaServer, and VStreme's Web Theatre. Prices range from free to over $3,000. In the past, media playback was relatively free of virus risks. With the advent of Windows Scripting Host utilities, this is no longer the case. Precautionary advice is given under ActiveX.
For an example of streaming media, see http://www.streamingmediaworld.com/
The Web is Alive With the Sound of MP3," Newsweek, February 22, 1999, Page 16.
http://www.MP3.com (hours of free downloads, including the New York Times MP3s.)
http://www.audiogalaxy.com (lots of samples and free downloads.)
Go to the Frequently Asked Questions at http://www.MP3.com . MP3 is a file format which stores audio files on a computer in such a way that the file size is relatively small, but the song sounds near perfect. You can identify MP3 files because they will end in MP3. Typically 1 MB is equal to one minute of music or several minutes for spoken work/audiobooks. This is about a 90% reduction in hard drive space and bandwidth vis-a-vis uncompressed high quality wav files, but the actual savings depends upon the recording quality of your wav files. If you think about a CD-ROM holding 650 Mb, this translates to over 11 hours of high quality audio in MP3 format. More importantly, MP3 audio does not require as much Internet bandwidth as previous audio alternatives.
Web surfing= Browsing the WWW using a Web browser. Users search for information, chat lines, business transactions, and many other purposes. Surfing generally refers to the "pull" approach where the user pulls in the fish. Casting (webcasting, netcasting, Castanet, etc.) generally refers to the "push" approach where the user selects channels for preferred types of information and then lets the channel push updates automatically into the user's computer. In the past, web surfing was free of virus risks. With the advent of Windows Scripting Host utilities, this is no longer the case. Precautionary advice is given under ActiveX. (See also Internet, Search engine, Webcasting (Netcasting, Castanet), World Wide Web, and Web surfing backwards)
Web surfing backwards= Once you have your web documents up and running, you may want to learn more about who is using these documents. A free service is available from http://www.webcrawler.com/WebCrawler/Links.html from Webcrawler. One of the most popular commercial software options for building professional databases regarding facts about who uses corporate web documents is called Hit List Pro. You can learn more about it from "PCMagazine," November 19, 1996, p. NE19 and from http://www.marketwavecom/ (See also Internet, Search engine, World Wide Web, and Web surfing)
WebTV = a way of accessing Internet and email service via a set-top box, a television set, a standard phone line, and a subscription-based online service called WebTV Network. WebTV is a failure is the opinion of one professional who writes in Information Week, July 15, pg. 12.
Whois Gateway= A source listing of email addresses around the world on the Internet. (See also Mosaic)
Wide area network= A network that encompasses a large geographical area.
Wide-screen TV= Television sets with a 16:9 movie theater aspect ratio for home theater systems. Standard broadcast aspect ratios are 4:3. The W-VHS is a wide-screen HDTV recorder and tape deck introduced by JVC in Japan that will record the Japanese version of HDTV as well as standard TV signals.
Wiki =
Question
What is a wiki and why is it becoming more important?
Answer
A wiki allows readers on a browser such as Internet Explorer to interact with and easily make changes in Websites provided the Webmasters agree to Wiki revisions. One of the best known sites is Wikipedia that allows readers to add to, correct, and insert new entries into the free multilingual multilingual online Wikipedia encyclopedia --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
For a short while some of my definitions in the accounting theory were in Wikipedia, but then the Webmaster decided that I was hogging too much space with hundreds of pages of detail so he shut me off. I'm not angry, however, because I understand that Wikipedia cannot simply provide free gigabites of storage for each kook like me.
You can still look up my definition of "accounting reform" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_reform
I will perhaps update this someday if I can just find the time. Any of you can update this definition from Internet Explorer or some other Web browser. Simply click on the tab "Edit this Page" and type away.
"'Wiki' May Alter How Employees Work Together," by Kara Swisher, The Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2004, Page
B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109105974578777189,00.html?mod=technology_main_promo_left
Wiki is a Hawaiian word for "quick," and some say it has the potential to change how the Web is used.
A wiki is a type of Web site that many people can revise, update and append with new information. It's sort of like a giant bulletin board on an office wall to which employees can pin photos, articles, comments and other things.
A wiki can gather, in one place, the data, knowledge, insight and customer input that's floating around a company or other organization. And it's a living document, since workers who are given access to it can make changes constantly.
No elaborate programming skills are needed. Users can simply click an "edit" button to add comments or make changes.
Despite its speedy name, the wiki is not a new idea. It was pioneered in the mid-1990s by a programmer named Ward Cunningham, who wanted to create a platform for freewheeling collaboration in software development. He named his effort WikiWikiWeb. The idea first caught on among other techies, who used wikis to collectively work on engineering projects.
Now, venture capitalists are funding several startups that are attempting to take the idea to a bigger and more lucrative general-business audience. Their goal is to try to solve one of the workplace's most vexing problems: how to have employees collaborate and communicate better electronically.
Coming up with a good solution to this problem long has been a quest of the tech industry. Big tech companies have responded with heavy-duty collaborative software packages, such as Lotus Notes and Workplace from International Business Machines Corp. These products usually are expensive, controlled from the top and difficult to implement and use. And e-mail -- the most common way workers share information -- is hard to search, leaves important data deeply buried within it and is highly vulnerable to viruses. Some analysts have dubbed collaboration via e-mail "occupational spam" -- endless, time-consuming and often pointless.
Enter the wiki, which has aims to revive the idea of the "writable Web," which was how the medium itself was originally conceived by many of its earliest proponents. Using simple software, it allows anyone with Web access to post a page of information that is accessible to anyone else in the same group or organization. Others in the group can then modify, enhance or update it. To keep track of changes, old versions are retained. A wiki has been likened by some to a giant digital white board in a constant state of movement and creation.
Until now, most of the development of wiki software has been led by noncommercial, open-source efforts such as TWiki (www.twiki.org), whose free software has been downloaded by tens of thousands of people, who then typically unleash it within companies on their own. "Of course it comes from the bottom, since information technology departments in companies don't naturally embrace things they perceive they can't control," says Peter Thoeny, Twiki's founder.
But they should, say entrepreneurs who are now trying to improve and streamline wiki software so they can sell it to companies as the collaboration silver bullet.
Continued in the article
"Not Your Father's Encyclopedia," by Kendra Mayfield, Wired News, January 28, 2003 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,57364,00.html
One of the Web's first open-source encyclopedias has reached a milestone, just two years since its inception.
Last week, the English-language version of Wikipedia, a free multilingual encyclopedia created entirely by volunteers on the Internet, published its 100,000th article. More than 37,000 articles populate the non-English editions.
Unlike traditional encyclopedias, which are written and edited by professionals, Wikipedia is the result of work by thousands of volunteers. Anyone can contribute an article -- or edit an existing one -- at any time.
The site runs on Wiki software, a collaborative application that allows users to collectively author Web documents without having to register first.
"People from very diverse backgrounds can agree on what can be in an encyclopedia article, even if they can't agree on something else," said Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales.
Wikipedia topics range from Internet terms, such as spamming and trolling, to more mundane subjects, such as unicycling.
Each page on the site contains an "Edit this page" link, which users can click on to edit, reposition and revise passages created by other writers. Once a user has made an edit, those changes are posted immediately.
Users can also view older versions of a page, discuss the page, view links on a page or see related changes. These options allow contributors to constantly refine and comment upon entries.
All articles are covered by the Free Software Foundation's GNU Free Documentation License, which allows anyone to reuse the entries for any purpose, including commercially, as long as they preserve that same right to others and provide proper credit to Wikipedia. This open-content license ensures that Wikipedia's content will always remain free.
"It's a guarantee to contributors that their work is non-proprietary," Wales said. "It's not something that any one person or organization can take and restrict in any way. It really encourages people to contribute."
The project employs a Neutral Point of View policy, which encourages contributors to write articles without bias, represent all views fairly and to attribute controversial opinions, rather than stating them as fact.
"This makes it possible for political and philosophical foes to work together, often with excellent results," agreed Larry Sanger, co-founder and former chief organizer of Wikipedia.
But since neutrality is hard to maintain, "it's understandable if a sizeable number of articles have noticeable biases," said Sanger, who is also editor in chief of the free online, peer-reviewed encyclopedia Nupedia.
Ensuring accuracy is also difficult. A core group of regular contributors help monitor the site's recent changes page to quickly correct any errors and ensure that entries aren't vandalized.
Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,57364,00.html
The Wikipeda homepage is at http://www.wikipedia.org/
Wikipedia is a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia. We started on January 15, 2001 and are already working on 101702 articles in the English version. Visit the help page and experiment in the sandbox to learn how you can edit any article right now.
Note that Wikipedia also has news documents and biographies of people currently in the news.
Windows= A windowing (Mac-like) extended DOS operating system from Microsoft Corporation that allows users to have more than one application running at the same time. Because Windows ran on lower-capacity 386 and 486 chips, it captured huge market shares and had over 40 million adopters by the end of 1993. This has severely clouded the future of Apple Corporation whose graphical operating system lost its uniqueness and popularity as Windows operating systems spread across the world. Windows applications can be stacked in succeeding "windows" that have menu lines and, unlike Mac processors, have an ability to "minimize" multiple operating programs. Users can then dart back and forth between windows (applications) without having to reload. Popular windows programs include those on Macintosh computers and on PCs using Microsoft Windows, Works, and Enable. Finder is another windows program. It has become common for the word "Windows" in computer lore to refer to Microsoft Windows built upon the DOS foundation. Newer OS/2 and Windows 2000 (New Technology) shed the DOS foundation but require considerably greater hardware capacity than the older Microsoft Windows. (See also Operating system, OS/2, Windows Chicago, and Windows 2000)
Windows 95/98= (See Windows Chicago)
Windows Longhorn =
"First look at future of Windows," BBC News, October 28, 2003 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3220017.stm
Microsoft has given programmers a peek at the next version of Windows. Codenamed "Longhorn", the software was shown to developers by Bill Gates, the technology giant's chairman and chief software architect.
Microsoft said the new version will have better security, make it easier to organise and find files and need to be restarted much less often.
Although programmers are getting an early look at Longhorn, it is unlikely to go on sale before 2006.
Microsoft said the new version will have better security, make it easier to organise and find files and need to be restarted much less often.
Although programmers are getting an early look at Longhorn, it is unlikely to go on sale before 2006.
Programming peep
Longhorn was shown off on Monday at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.
The audience for the demonstration was made up of 7,000 programmers many of whom will be writing applications that take advantage of the new technologies in Longhorn.
Some of the gloss was taken off the unveiling because early versions of Longhorn were leaked on to the net the day before the conference began.
Bill Gates said the release of Longhorn would be Microsoft's largest software launch this decade and would mean big changes to the way Windows works.
He said the creation of Longhorn had been conducted around four key areas:
Security and scalability Graphics File storage Web services The security changes aim to make Windows less vulnerable to malicious viruses and worms and will give system administrators features for limiting what machines can do and what users can do with particular files or documents.
Also included are technologies that speed up the installation of software and make programs launch quicker.
Longhorn will also have a completely re-written presentation system, called Avalon, that removes many of the memory and graphics limitations that remain from earlier, less powerful generations of machines.
Bill Gates said that Longhorn will have a unified storage system called WinFS. This will use web-derived technology to make it possible to search for and categorise any type of file with just one system instead of separate ones for every application.
Such a flexible system would be needed, said Mr Gates, because in the future people are likely to generate 'oceans' of information that they will need to search through quickly.
Finally, Longhorn will have built in many of the technologies needed to make it easy to set up sophisticated web services.
As well as outlining the new technologies in Longhorn, Microsoft also demonstrated how it would look.
One of the key features of the new desktop is a smart panel that sits at the side of the screen and can be configured to hold essential information such as instant messenger buddy lists, time, links to favourite websites as well as news and stock tickers.
Continued in the article.
Windows 2000 = the updated name for the Windows NT operating system from Microsoft Corporation that looks and feels somewhat like Microsoft Windows but is far more powerful in multitasking and computing speed of a 32-bit architecture memory access. NT has extensive networking capabilities as well as being a full 32-bit processor. Most present Windows users, however, will not be able to use NT without buying more powerful computers and becoming accustomed to its lack of object-oriented features. Many experts see Windows 2000 as the operating system of choice in future networks, although networking and efforts of Sun, Novell, to stay in the market have do not make it a sure thing. McGee (1994) reports that, although Hewlett-Packard would rather stay entirely in its popular UNIX networking operating system, the company recognizes Windows 2000 as such a threat to UNIX that Hewlett-Packard is also expanding its operating system to include Windows 2000. According the HP's CEO, "...three or four years down the road, NT-related systems could become significant revenue generators." (As quoted in McGee (1994), p. 22.) (See also Windows DNA, Windows Cairo, Windows Chicago, Operating system, Alpha processor, and OS/2)
Windows Alternatives= See Operating Systems and Scopeware
Windows Cairo= A planned upgrade (scheduled for 1996) of Windows 2000 from Microsoft Corporation that will have many of the Windows Chicago object-oriented features. Cairo was originally scheduled to ship in early 1995, but in May 1994, Microsoft Corporation announced that it would be delayed due to efforts to complete Daytona, the second release on Windows 2000.
Windows Chicago= The significant Version 4.0 upgrade of Windows to Windows 95 in year 1995. This was later upgraded to Windows 98 in 1998. Windows Chicago, Windows 95, and Windows Version 4.0 are synonyms for the first version of Windows attempting to free itself from the constrains of Microsoft DOS. Latest information on Copeland and other operating systems can be obtained at
Windows Daytona = (See Windows 2000)
Windows DNA = Windows Distributed interNet Applications bundling of Windows 2000, Host Integration Server 2000, Application Center 2000, BizTalk Server 2000, Commerce Server 2000, SQL Server 2000, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000, and Visual Studio 2000. Microsoft hopes that many companies will soon tire of integrating best-of-breed products and will opt for an integrated solution. That's why the software vendor is preparing to release the components that make up its Windows DNA 2000 product group. See Windows 2000.
Windows File System (WFS)
February 14, 2003 Exclusive: A Chat with Bill Gates --- http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,889423,00.asp
MM: What's WFS?
BG: It's the Windows File System. The new Windows file system is much, much, more than a file system. It's not just a database, and it's not just a file system. It's a new thing.
So, anyway, Tablet PC and SPOT—I love those. These are special projects of mine because they bring in some new concepts—new approaches that I am very excited about. Xbox Live has also been very neat to work on.
But the biggest thing has been building this one standard way of doing the plumbing that I've described. The centralized architectural approach I've described is something that requires an R&D budget on the scale of Microsoft's. It requires thinking about transactions, messaging, databases, the Office software suite, and management plumbing. The new architecture requires that you have all those things lined up.
Workflow, security, and even just keeping software up to date have been so hard to do well because there isn't one architecture to tie all those things together. People in computer science might look at the architecture I've described and say, "Isn't it very ambitious to take on these new protocols, a new messaging layer, managed code, new schemas, and then go to build everything around these?"
The answer to that is yes, it is ambitious, but even if you just gave me the challenge of building management software so that it's really good, or the challenge of doing e-commerce well, I would make all these architectural moves I've described. You need self-description, scalability, and auditability to do e-commerce well, for example.
Windows Scripting Host (WSH) = (See ActiveX.)
Windows XP= A significant revision (code named Whistler) of the entire Windows operating system from Microsoft Corporation. Windows XP is built on the Windows 2000 kernel but brings a nee look to the desktop that will also make it easier for users to scan or import images and to acquire music files on the Web and transfer them to portable devices. The new Windows will allow different users to have their own private sets of files. The Start Menu has been redesigned to make the most-used programs easiest to find. Windows XP will come in a Professional version and a Home Edition version.. More importantly, Windows XP is more stable than Windows 2000 and Windows NT. See http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/default.asp
News from Microsoft --- http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/migrate/unix/default.asp
As the Windows platform continues to evolve to address changing business computing needs, many organizations currently on UNIX platforms are turning to Windows to run their new client and server business applications. They're discovering that moving to the Windows platform does not require abandoning existing investments in UNIX applications and infrastructure.
This section explains why customers should consider migrating to Windows from UNIX. It also provides detailed information for IT professionals and developers on how to move from UNIX systems to Windows XP, Windows 2000, and the upcoming Windows .NET Server and Microsoft .NET Web services platforms.
Why Migrate to Windows from UNIX and Linux
How to Migrate to Windows from UNIX and Linux
Migration Tools and Resources
Wintel = a combination of a Microsoft Windows operating system in an Intel CPU microprocessor. For years, Intel CPUs would only run on Windows 3.x and Windows 95 processors. Now they run on Windows 2000 as well. Only when Linux came about did Intel CPUs have some alternative other than Microsoft Corporation operating systems.
WinGopher= (See Gopher)
Wireless communications=
"No Wires, No Rules," by Heather Green, Business Week, April 28, 2004 --- http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_17/b3880601.htm?c=bwwireless_051304&n=link1&t=email
High-speed Internet access has been as rare as sunshine in winter in Campsie, a tiny village on the northern coast of Northern Ireland. The town is located in a sparsely populated rural area, which makes it too expensive to install traditional broadband technology. And the town is too far from larger cities like Londonderry to use their Internet facilities.
The people of Campsie shouldn't give up hope, though. Earlier this year, British telephone giant BT Group PLC (BT ) invited about 100 Web surfers in the village and three other rural areas to sign up for a promising new wireless Internet service. BT has installed a series of radio towers that beam signals across the countryside to small antennas on the sides of customers' homes. The system is about as fast as traditional broadband but much cheaper to set up. Why? BT is using less-expensive equipment and a free, unlicensed part of the radio spectrum, avoiding billions of dollars in fees. If the test in Campsie goes well, BT may roll out the service to consumers across Britain by next year. "This will revolutionize society, just as mobile telephony revolutionized society in the 1980s," says Mike Galvin, director of Internet operations at BT.
It's just one example of how the unlicensed portion of the radio spectrum is turning into a hothouse of technological innovation. For years, these radio frequencies were neglected, the lonely domain of cordless phones and microwave ovens. In the past few years, however, engineers at institutions from Massachusetts Institute of Technology to Dutch giant Royal Philips Electronics (PHG ) have been hard at work on a grander vision for the unlicensed radio frontier. That tinkering is what sparked the creation of Wi-Fi, the wildly popular wireless Net technology that took off last year with the support of chip giant Intel Corp. (INTC ).
Wi-Fi is just the first step, though. Hard on its heels are four equally innovative technologies -- WiMax, Mobile-Fi, ZigBee, and Ultrawideband -- that will push wireless networking into every facet of life, from cars and homes to office buildings and factories. These technologies have attracted $4.5 billion in venture investments over the past five years, according to estimates from San Francisco-based investment bank Rutberg & Co. Products based on them will start hitting the market this year and become widely available in 2005. As they do, they will expand the reach of the Internet for miles and create a mesh of Web technologies that will provide connections anywhere, anytime. "Now you have a toolbox full of wireless tools that can help with each problem, whether it's reaching a couple of inches or a couple of miles," says Ian McPherson, president of Wireless Data Research Group, a market research firm in San Mateo, Calif.
These technologies will usher in a new era for the wireless Web. They'll work with each other and with traditional telephone networks to let people and machines communicate like never before. People in what have been isolated towns, be it in Ireland or Idaho, will find themselves with blazingly fast Net connections. Zooming down the highway, you'll be able to use a laptop or PDA to check the weather or the traffic a few miles ahead. Back at home, couch potatoes will be able to dish up movies from their PC and transfer them to the flat screen in the living room -- without any wires at all. And tiny wireless sensors will control the lights in skyscrapers, monitor utility meters in suburban neighborhoods, even track toxicity levels in wastewater. This will give rise to the Internet of Things, networks of smart machines that communicate with each other.
What are the technologies behind this vision of the future? ZigBee, along with its radio standard, is the technology that coordinates communication among thousands of tiny sensors. These sensors can be scattered throughout offices, farms, or factories, picking up bits of information about temperature, chemicals, water, or even motion. They're designed to use little energy because they'll be left in place for five or 10 years and their batteries need to last. So they communicate very efficiently, passing data over radio waves from one to the other like a bucket brigade. At the end of the line, the data can be dropped into a computer for analysis or picked up by another wireless technology like WiMax. Products based on ZigBee, which has been nurtured by giants Philips and Motorola, are expected to start hitting the market later this year.
HUGE HOT SPOTS
WiMax is similar to Wi-Fi. Both create "hot spots," or areas around a central antenna in which people can wirelessly share information or tap the Net with a properly equipped laptop. While Wi-Fi can cover several hundred feet, WiMax has a range of 25 to 30 miles. That means it can be used as an alternative to traditional broadband technologies, which use telephone and cable pipes. It's an early version of WiMax that's bringing the Net to Campsie. WiMax can't be used right now if you're moving, say in a car. But backers of the technology, including Intel and Alcatel (ALA ), plan to have a mobile version out within a few years. A similar standard, known as Mobile-Fi, will be available two or three years from now. It will let people surf the Net at speeds even faster than their home broadband links today -- while they're racing along on a train or in a car.
Ultrawideband serves a very different purpose. The technology lets people move massive files quickly over short distances. In the home, that will allow users to zap, say, an hourlong Sopranos show from a PC to the TV without any messy cords. On the road, a driver who has his laptop in the trunk receiving data over Mobile-Fi could use Ultrawideband to pull that information up to the handheld computer in the front seat. Although the standard hasn't been finished yet, Motorola already is selling chips based on an early version of the technology.
One reason for this flurry of innovation now is the nature of unlicensed spectrum. Traditionally, a big company like AT&T Wireless (AWE ) paid billions of dollars to the federal government for an exclusive license to use a swath of the radio waves. That allowed the company to provide mobile-phone service to its customers without any interference, but it blocked other players from using the same radio frequencies. By contrast, most of these technologies use unlicensed spectrum. That means that anyone -- really, anyone -- can try out any idea they can imagine on those frequencies. Think of it as open-mike night at the local pub. "The licensed world tends to move in this fairly ponderous way, but with unlicensed spectrum people can try out other things and learn there is a whole market sitting out there," says Kevin Werbach, an independent technology strategy consultant.
Wi-Fi set the pattern for stardom that these emerging technologies hope to emulate. A group of companies got together to establish a standard for the technology, touching off a virtuous cycle. High volumes brought the cost of Wi-Fi gear down, low costs boosted demand, and strong demand led to even higher volumes. Now, Intel, which stoked the frenzy with a $400 million marketing push last year, sells its Wi-Fi chips to computer makers for $20 each, down from $45 a year ago. Some 54 million laptops, PDAs, and other devices with Wi-Fi are expected to be sold this year, according to researcher In-Stat/MDR, four times as many as in 2002.
For all their promise, these new technologies face steep challenges. Giants are battling over the exact standards for Mobile-Fi and Ultrawideband, and a final resolution may not come before 2006. Until that happens, equipment makers won't be able to start mass production, meaning costs won't be driven down by economies of scale. Mobile-Fi, which is planned for licensed spectrum, may be subsumed by WiMax once it adds mobile capabilities.
What's more, these innovations aren't emerging in a vacuum. Cellular companies already are rolling out technology that will let their customers get speedy Net connections on their mobile phones or laptops. This third-generation, or 3G, gear will compete directly with WiMax and Mobile-Fi. Verizon Wireless installed its 3G networks in Washington, D.C., and San Diego last year, and it plans to add 98 more markets by the end of 2005. Other cellular companies are providing similar service in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The 3G technology may be slower than WiMax, but it has the benefit of being reliable -- and available. "WiMax, all of a sudden, has caught a lot of attention, but we have been commercial for two years," says John Hambidge, senior director of marketing at IPWireless Inc., which makes 3G equipment. "We have a huge time-to-market advantage."
Even if WiMax and its brethren can compete with 3G, another challenge looms: a spectrum shortage. As all these devices begin chattering away over the same radio frequencies, they may begin to bump into each other. To avoid such a shortage, Intel (INTC ), Microsoft (MSFT ), and other tech companies are lobbying the Federal Communications Commission for more spectrum. Their target? The major TV broadcasters, including ABC (DIS ), NBC (GE ), and CBS (VIA ), which are sitting on vast amounts of spectrum for transmitting TV programs. The FCC long has supported the development of technologies for unlicensed spectrum, but it's unclear whether the commission wants to take on the powerful broadcasters, especially in an election year. "The broadcasters hate it, but as demand just keeps going up, it gets harder and harder to defend policies that are restricting supply," says Michael Calabrese, program director at the New America Foundation, a public policy institute in Washington that advocates providing more spectrum for these new technologies. "Over the long haul, I am optimistic."
AUTOMATION ACCELERATION
One reason for such optimism is that these technologies offer benefits that could ripple through the economy. The wireless Internet promises to spur productivity by collecting data that could never be tracked before and by making information available exactly when it's needed. It will speed automation, allowing people stuck behind, say, a cash register to do more productive work. Already, J.C. Penney salespeople use Wi-Fi to check inventory and prices. Now the technology is moving into construction, rescue services, health care, and other markets. Combined, these technologies are expected to reach $17.3 billion in sales by 2007, up from $3.3 billion in 2003. "The next wave of personal productivity at work is about mobility, people wanting to get access anywhere," says Sean M. Maloney, executive vice-president and general manager of Intel's communications group.
Continued in the article
New wireless and mobile technologies --- http://www.thinkmobile.com/
The Future of the E-Wireless Revolution Watch out, Asia and North America! Europe is defining message-delivery models for the years to come and quite possibly could become the e-wireless leader. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3580
Many web marketers are looking at the wireless web frenzy, wondering how they can jump aboard the hype train. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3586
From Information Week Newsletter on March 6, 2001
The future is wireless, or so we're told. While vendors work out the formula for devices and services that will put wireless clients into every consumer's hands, at least one wireless networking technology has moved out of the early-adopter stage. Wireless Ethernet, defined by the 802.11b standard, is coming into its own as a common technique to connect clients to networks. It is this genuine maturity that new technologies are pushed to achieve. This is the magic place on the product life curve when companies can begin ordering and installing the technology as a solution rather than as an experiment.
We took five separate 802.11b systems to the Review Bunker at the University of Hawaii's Advanced Network Computing Lab to see whether these products truly are as mature as they seem. We wanted to see whether the wireless networking systems would be easy to integrate into an existing network and easy to forget once they were installed. In short, we wanted to find out whether wireless networking systems can replace standard 10Base-T with no performance or management penalties for users and administrators.
Five companies accepted our invitation to this lab test. Cisco, Enterasys Networks, Intel, Proxim and Symbol Technologies brought network access devices, management software and wireless PC cards to the Review Bunker and helped us put the systems through their paces. In the end, we found that there's a lot of good news in wireless networking, along with one little detail that will cause you some trouble. --Curtis Franklin
Read on to find out how they performed: http://update.internetweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eCoW0Bdl6n0V30LWBN
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Providers Overcome Bluetooth Blues
Bluetooth--a technology that backers in the wireless and computer industry promise will enable cheap, short-range wireless networking--is set to become a reality after more than two years of development.
By this summer, wireless operators will be selling phones with Bluetooth transceivers, small chips that can communicate at distances up to 30 feet and wirelessly connect to PCs and PDAs.
Wireless service providers are excited about the prospects. They expect gadget fans and road warriors to use their cellular networks to connect Bluetooth-enabled devices to the Internet and corporate LANs.
The coming of age of Bluetooth means more traffic over the network and more demand for wireless services, say wireless operators. --Jonathan Collins, tele.com
Read on: http://update.internetweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eCoW0Bdl6n0V30LWCO
The Long Wait for Bluetooth --- http://www.msnbc.com/news/568898.asp
BLUETOOTH IS a short-range radio technology that allows wireless devices to communicate over distances of about 30 feet. It was a seductive idea when the Swedish telecommunications gearmaker Ericsson first came up with it. The idea was that it would be indifferent to the devices’ underlying operating systems—hence the name (Harald Bluetooth was a 10th-century Danish king who overcame his country’s religious differences). It would be a major technical advance over infrared transmission, the dominant technology for wireless communication between devices. Think of the Palm family of personal digital assistants. Not only must they be pointed directly at each other for the infrared connection to work, they must also be no more than about three feet apart. Bluetooth is designed to work at about 10 times that distance, and doesn’t require that the devices be within line of sight. A Bluetooth-enabled TV remote control could change channels from two rooms away. For all digital devices, the elimination of wiring is “similar to the way in which the mouse was eventually integrated [directly] into the laptop,” says a Motorola official. “Pretty soon you won’t even know it’s there.” The growing popularity of wireless has attracted rivals. A competing technology, commonly known by the exasperating alphanumeric monicker of 802.11b (pronounced eight-oh-two-dot-eleven-bee ), is capturing the corporate market. Designed as a wireless local-area-network (LAN) technology, 802.11b allows, for example, salespeople to log on to corporate intranets without using conventional telephone lines. Bluetooth is more of a consumer technology. But 802.11b may already be getting in its way. Last month Microsoft announced that it would not support Bluetooth in the initial release of Windows XP, planned for the end of summer, though last week the company hinted that the date may slip all the way to 2002. The Redmond, Wash., software giant will, on the other hand, support 802.11b, for one simple reason: it exists. Networks using 802.11b are up and running at places like Stanford University and the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport.
What’s the difference between the two? Bluetooth is slower. It moves data at about 720 kilobits per second (Kbps), almost 13 times faster than the fastest dial-up modem speed today. But 802.11b is 14 times faster than that, at 11Mbps (megabits per second). On the other hand, 802.11b requires a network infrastructure. It does not allow individual devices to talk to each other. In geekspeak, 802.11b has a client-server architecture, while Bluetooth resembles peer-to-peer. This alone will make Bluetooth attractive to people who seek “personal area networks” in which all their devices communicate. One major problem: Bluetooth and 802.11b use the same slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, the unlicensed 2.4GHz portion used also by common devices like microwave ovens. There have been reports of interference when the two technologies operate in proximity. And as if the picture weren’t murky enough, a third wireless standard waits in the wings: 802.11a. The Sunnyvale, Calif., chipmaker Atheros says it will ship an 802.11a wireless kit this summer. And while full implementation of the technology won’t happen any time soon, it is a threat to both Bluetooth and 802.11b because it’s much faster—up to 54 megabits per second—and operates in a less crowded part of the spectrum.
(See PDA)
Forwarded by Scott Bonacker, CPA [scottbonacker@moccpa.com]
1. ==== IN FOCUS ====
(contributed by Mark Joseph Edwards, News Editor,
mark@ntsecurity.net)
* CAN OTHERS STUMBLE INTO YOUR WIRELESS NETWORK?
In the August 7, 2002, edition of Security UPDATE, I wrote about a new trend called warchalking. As you know, warchalking is the act of marking buildings in the vicinity of wireless networks. The idea is to provide a visual clue indicating the presence of wireless networks so that people can obtain a free Internet connection. Warchalkers use distinctive markings and include information about bandwidth and various connection perimeters.
http://www.secadministrator.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=26207
The trend is catching on, so much so that, according to VNU Business Publications, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently issued an unofficial warning that businesses should check the security of their wireless LAN (WLAN) equipment to ensure that adequate security is in place.
http://www.vnunet.com/news/1134451
Recently, I learned about a new Internet site, NetStumbler.com, that aids users in identifying and locating WLANs around the country. Among other features, the site hosts a national map that shows cities that have open WLANs and a searchable database that helps users query for information about specific locations.
http://www.netstumbler.com
NetStumbler.com also hosts a downloadable program called NetStumbler that lets users investigate a given WLAN's security. Security administrators can use it to test their sites. Anyone can download a copy (291KB) at the first URL below. According to the Web site, "NetStumbler is a Windows tool that allows you to [scan for] 802.11b (and 802.11a, if using Windows XP) wireless LANs. It includes [global positioning satellite (GPS)] integration and a simple, intuitive user interface. Though primarily targeted at owners of wireless LANs, it has been the de facto tool for casual users such as war drivers for over a year." The tool apparently even won a "PC Magazine" award earlier this year (see the second URL below), which named the tool its favorite innovative networking technology in the wireless software category.
http://www.netstumbler.com/download.php?op=getit&lid=22
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,3666,00.asp
NetStumbler runs on Windows 2000, Windows 98, and Win95 but doesn't work yet on Windows XP, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows Me. To see what it was like, I downloaded a copy and installed the tool. NetStumbler has a typical GUI, lets you choose a wireless NIC to use for scanning, and has scripting capabilities. After you've scanned an area and discovered WLANs, you can save the NetStumbler output and upload it to the NetStumbler.com Web site, where an application on the Web site converts it to Microsoft MapPoint 2002-compatible output. The process helps you plot WLAN points on a graphical map.
http://www.microsoft.com/mappoint/overview.htm
With resources such as NetStumbler and NetStumbler.com freely available, you should definitely take time to ensure that your WLAN security is adjusted to permit only authorized users access--unless you want to intentionally leave it open and available to anyone. The bottom line is that if you run a wireless network, you must keep it secure. If you don't, expect that someone will identify your network, chalk it up, and possibly submit it to the NetStumbler.com Web site--where everyone can find it quickly. For information about securing your WLANs, read Allen Jones' article, "Securing 802.11 Wireless Networks" (see the first URL below) and Paul Thurrott's article "Securing Your Wireless Networks" (see the second URL below).
http://www.secadministrator.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=24873
http://www.secadministrator.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=24521
Also see iSync
Wireless Glossary of Terms
Tom Hicks brought me up to date on wireless home firewall computers. He recommends Linksys products such as the one at http://www.linksys.com/splash/wcg200_splash.asp
The Linksys Wireless-G Cable Gateway is the all-in-one solution for Internet connectivity in your home. The Cable Modem function gives you a blazing fast connection to the Internet, far faster than a dial-up, and without tying up your phone line.
Connect your computer to the Wireless-G Cable Gateway via USB, or take advantage of the built-in 4-port 10/100 Ethernet Switch to jump start your home network. You can share files, printers, hard drive space and other resources, or play head-to-head PC games. Connect four PCs directly, or daisy-chain out to more hubs and switches to create as big a network as you need. The built-in Wireless-G Access Point allows up to 32 wireless devices to connect to your network at a blazing 54Mbps, without running cables through the house. It's also compatible with Wireless-B devices, at 11Mbps. The Gateway's Router function ties it all together and lets your whole network share that high-speed Internet connection.
To protect your data and privacy, the Wireless-G Cable Gateway features an advanced firewall to keep Internet intruders and attackers out. Wireless transmissions can be protected by powerful data encryption. Safeguard your family with Parental Control features like Internet Access Time Limits and Key Word Blocking. Configuration is a snap with any web browser. With the Linksys Wireless-G Cable Gateway at the heart of your home network, you're connected to the future.
Glossary of Wireless LAN Terms
Access Point (AP): A device connected to the wired local area network that receives and transmits signals to wireless clients; this device must also be connected to the wired LAN if connections to external networks are required.
Authentication: A process that verifies that the user has permission to access the network; often associated with the process of joining a Bluetooth piconet or WLAN.
Channels: Another name for frequencies, especially within a defined band.
Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS): A spread spectrum technique that uses a "chip" (redundant bit pattern for each bit to be transmitted) to encode the signal to ensure more reliable delivery; the technology employed in IEEE 802.11 implementations.
Frequently Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS): A spread spectrum technique that uses a range of frequencies and changes frequencies during the transmission; the technology employed in HomeRF (SWAP) implementations.
Industry, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) Band: An unregulated radio frequency that uses the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz bands for communication; these bands were approved by the FCC in 1985.
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM): A multiplexing technique used in 802.11a WLANs; this technique minimizes the effect of multipath distortion encountered in 802.11b networks.
Spread Spectrum Transmission (SS): A technique that takes a narrow signal and spreads it over a broader portion of the radio frequency band.
Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) Band: An unregulated radio frequency that uses the 5 GHz band for communication; this band is divided into three sub-bands and are intended for use by short-range, high-speed wireless digital communication devices.
Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity): Another name for IEEE 802.11b standard; this trademark is owned by WECA and devices that comply with it assure interoperability among vendors.
Wired Equivalent Protocol (WEP): The IEEE specification for data encryption between wireless devices defined by the IEEE 802.1x standard.
Wireless Local Network (WLAN): A local area network that is not connected by wires but instead uses one of the wireless technologies.
Additional definitions from Network Computing July 10, 2000, p. 46
AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Service): This basic analog cellular service in the United States and South America typically operates at 800 MHz and uses FDMA transmission technology. With AMPS, when one person grabs a segment of frequency for a call, nobody else within the cell can use it. Digital cellular technologies offer ways for carriers to allow more calls in a cell, using the same amount of bandwidth.
CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access): The dominate PCS standard in the United States, this spread-spectrum technology, developed by Qualcomm, lets multiple callers share a segment of frequencies.
CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Data): This packet-based technology allows either 9.6-Kbps or 19.2-Kbps data rates over standard analog channels in the 800- to 900-MHz range, by finding and employing unused channels. AT&T's Wireless IP is an example of a CDPD-based service.
FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access): Used in the AMPS system, FDMA is a method of coordinating radio traffic to prevent interference between users sharing a set of frequencies. Only one subscriber can access a given frequency at one time.
GSM (Global System for Mobil Communications): A variant of TDMA, GSM is the closest to a worldwide standard for cellular service. A single-frequency GSM cellular handset may work compatibly in Europe, Asia, India and Africa--though not in the United States.
PCS (Personal Communications Service): PCS refers to the three predominant digital cellular technologies operating in the 1.9-GHz band in the United States: CDMA, GSM and TDMA, all of which can allow data to be sent over cellular networks.
TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access): TDMA is a method of dividing a single analog channel into a number of time slots and assigning each user a distinct time slot within a given channel. This lets more users (usually three) access a channel at one time without interference. TDMA is one of the standard digital cellular technologies, along with CDMA. GSM is a variant.
WAP (Wireless Application Protocol): This network-neutral protocol is used for sending data to and from WAP-capable devices, such as cellular phone handsets. You can read more about WQP in "The WAP Rap," Educause Review, January/February 2002, pp. 50-51 --- http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0206.pdf
For explanations of more wireless terms, see www.wirelessdata.org/primer/terms.asp .
Also see iSync
Workplace OS= (See OS/2)
Workstation= A networked personal computing device with more power than a traditional PC or Mac, although the term "workstation" is now used somewhat loosely to describe any site performing complex tasks such as an Amiga video workstation, a Mac AV workstation, a CD-ROM recording workstation, a videodisc recording workstation, a desktop publishing workstation, etc. Typically, a "workstation" has operating systems such as Unix, OS/2, or Windows 2000 that are capable of running several tasks (multitasking) at the same time. It has several megabytes of memory and a large, high-resolution display. Examples are SUN workstations and Digital DEC stations.
World of Boston= (See Networks)
World Wide Web= Hyperlinking system, also known as WWW or W3, that creates a point-and-click way of linking within documents, linking to other documents, and extremely popular searching of the Internet. Whereas the Internet commenced in 1969 with the linking of the Pentagon with four supercomputing centers at universities, the WWW was conceived in 1990 by particle physicists (notably Tim Berners-Lee) at CERN in Switzerland. The CERN group developed the HTML WWW coding language and the HTTP protocols for reading HTML at WWW sites. In 1993 there were only 50 WWW sites (mostly particle physicists) that exploded to nearly 10 million sites shortly after Mosaic and then Netscape added HTTP to browsers. Internet use has exploded in commerce, entertainment, and education since the advent of the WWW. Millions of individuals and organizations are setting up web sites (home pages). Web publishing is overtaking hard copy publishing. WWW shopping and education alternatives are exploding. Students can set up free web sites at
Tim Berners-Lee Honored With $1.2M Prize http://update.internetweek.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/egXI0GMPWZ0G4X0CTzR0A1
The inventor of the web has been awarded the first Millennium Technology Prize for creating the ubiquitous World Wide Web.
Three quarters of the American population now have Internet access, with women slightly more likely than men to spend time surfing, a new survey says.
Wired News, March 18, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,62712,00.html?tw=newsletter_topstories_html
How Web Pages Work --- http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-page3.htm
How Internet Infrastructure Works --- http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-infrastructure.htm
How Computer Things Work (including buying guides) --- http://computer.howstuffworks.com/
Personal technology reviews by Walter Mossberg --- http://ptech.wsj.com/
"Keeping the Web Royalty-Free: W3C unveils its formal policy for handling Web patents," by David Legard, PCworld.com, May 22, 2003 --- http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,110839,00.asp
The World Wide Web Consortium announced Wednesday its formal policy for ensuring that key Web technologies, even if patented, are made available on a royalty-free basis.
In a statement, the consortium said that the W3C Patent Policy is designed to reduce the threat that key components of Web infrastructure may be covered by patents which block further development.
The policy states that:
participants in the development of a W3C Recommendation must agree to license essential claims, such as those that block interoperability, on a royalty-free basis;
under certain circumstances, Working Group participants may exclude specifically identified patent claims from the royalty-free commitment, but these exclusions must be made known shortly after publication of the first public Working Draft to avoid later problems with surprise patents;
W3C members who have seen a technical draft of a standard must disclose their knowledge of any patents likely to be essential to the standard;
an exception-handling process will deal with any patent claims not available with terms consistent with the W3C Patent Policy.
Keeping Its Commitment
The policy formalizes a commitment to a royalty-free process which has driven the development of the Web since its beginning, according to W3C. The process has seen input from companies, researchers, and independent developers which have created technical interoperability standards upon which a worldwide information infrastructure has been built, W3C said in the statement.
"W3C members who joined in building the Web in its first decade made the business decision that they, and the entire world, would benefit most by contributing to standards that could be implemented ubiquitously, without royalty payments," Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director, said in the statement.
Some concern has been raised that companies seeking royalty payments for their patented work--particularly in the area of Web services--may choose to bypass the W3C approval process and use another standards body such as the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards.
An Internet/Web portal with 14 channels on marketing and e-Commerce --- http://www.internet.com/home-d.html
Internet Technology
Ecommerce/Marketing
Web Developer
Windows Internet Tech.
Linux/Open Source
Internet Resources
ISP Resources
Internet Lists
Download
International
International News
International Investing
ASP Resources
Wireless
Other examples of portals and vortals can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/portals.htm
Question
How can you download an entire Website?
One answer
HTTrack Website Copier 3.32-2 http://www.httrack.com/
HTTrack is a free (GPL, libre/free software) and easy-to-use offline browser utility.
It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has an integrated help system.
WinHTTrack is the Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP release of HTTrack, and WebHTTrack the Linux/Unix/BSD release.
See the download page.
WORM= Write Once Read Many depicts a write-once-read-many memory device that allows an author to store prepared files once into memory so that other users may read but not alter those files. Alternately WORM also depicts a computer program which replicates itself. The Internet worm was perhaps the most famous; it successfully duplicated itself on many of the systems across the Internet. More commonly, however, the term refers to WORM Drives such as CD-ROM recorders that will allow authors to record computer files one time on a compact disc but will not allow revisions or other materials to be added to the disc at a later time. Of course, it is often possible to download WORM files into hard drive discs and make revisions that can then be recorded on a new compact disc. The term WORM now has a somewhat bad connotation since so many destructive viruses transmitted over the email and the Internet are WORM viruses. (See also CD-ROM and Optical drive)
Also see Security.
Wrapper = a Java applette designed to display XML content embedded in traditional HTML documents.. The XML contents may either be authored into the HTML document explicitly (as when the XML is authored concurrently with the HTML document), or the XML content may be unknown implicit (as when the XML document is imported). In the first case it may be beneficial for the XML elements to inherit the style properties of the parent HTML document (e.g. via. Inheritance from the parent style properties or ID and CLASS attributes), in the second case the XML content should probably be "hidden" from the parent document. There may be multiple XML documents within the HTML document. A wrapper may use one or more "extracters" to extract data from unstructured XML files. Extractors utilize dictionaries to achieve sophisticated lingustic processing of unstructured text. Life is much easier for structured documents having XML markups. An illustration in terms of a web shopping guide is provided on Page 136 of The XML Handbook by Charles F. Goldfarb and Paul Prescod (ISBN 0130811521, Prentice-Hall Computer Books, 1998). Note that the issue of using an XML wrapper is quite different from using an XML compliant browser. One such wrapper uses
Related to a wrapper is the concept of an XML "extractor" for generating XML from HTML documents and databases having no XML markups. In building a XML markups, we need to provide a way for the tool to generate XML documents from existing data sources. XML markup assembly is a process of locating data (e.g., product attributes) in repositories and merging them into an XML structure that is consistent with the some predefined schema. Asset repositories can be of various types (databases, filesystems, etc.) and the details of how information is retrieved from them may differ considerably. Life is much easier if the data sources have a fixed document type definition (DTD). An illustration is provided in Chapter 9 of The XML Handbook by Charles F. Goldfarb and Paul Prescod (ISBN 0130811521, Prentice-Hall Computer Books, 1998). In that illustration, the Junglee Shopping Guide extracted XML markups from book seller web sites that did not have XML tags.
Also see HTML and Resource Description Format.
W-VHS= (See Wide-screen TV)
WWW= (See World Wide Web)
WYSIWYG= What You See Is What You Get. The term is used mainly for newer types of software that display on the screen exactly what will appear after being printed. It is frustrating when what appears on screen is in code and what appears in print differs from what is on the screen. It was common in the past for word processors and spreadsheet software to be able to print graphics inserts but not to be able to display these inserts on the screen. Word processor, spreadsheet, and graphics programs have tried to overcome these frustrations by adding WYSIWYG options (e.g., the Print Preview menu in Word for Windows).
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X-Terms
Click on a term or phrase below:
X.25 / X.509 / XBRL / XFRML / XHTML / XMETAL / XML / XSL / XT / XML /
Click here to view (in a new window) Bob Jensen's Listing of Other Technology and Networking Glossaries
X.25= A communication protocol used on public data networks.
X.509 = (See Internet Messaging).
XBRL = (See HTML.)
XFRML = (See HTML.)
XHTML = (See HTML).
XMETAL = (See HTML.)
XML = (See HTML).
XSL = (See HTML)
XT= (See PC)
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