» 2.5 TERABYTE hot-swap storage for $730! | George Ou | ZDNet.com

» 2.5 TERABYTE hot-swap storage for $730! | George Ou | ZDNet.com: "2.5 terabytes of hot-swappable SATA-300 storage"

Need to understand capabilities of storagecontroller, though. See comment:

...using highpoint rocketraid 2320 card, hot swap capability is a function of the controller, not the caddy

SMS Your Flight Status

Business Hacks » SMS Your Flight Status on BNET: "I've long since stopped using 411 as a resource when I'm on the go. It's pretty expensive, and Google's free text message service is almost as fast and doesn't require me to wait on the line. (I just SMS my request to 466453.) Recently, Google integrated this service with flightstats.com such that it allows you to check out your flight on the go. For example, I typed in 'swa 1582' to check the status of an Oakland-Reno flight, and I got a message with the flight details and status (on time!) right away.

By David Goldenberg"

Yamaha takes 24-hour lead in A/V receiver war | Crave : The gadget blog

Yamaha takes 24-hour lead in A/V receiver war | Crave : The gadget blog: "the RX-V861 is no slouch: in addition to the usual assortment of high-end audio goodies (

• auto speaker calibration,
• multizone operation,
• built-in XM satellite capability,
• 105 watts per channel), it's got
• two Simplay HD-certified 1080p-capable HDMI inputs, and--just as important--
• it can upscale analog video sources to HD resolutions.

What it's missing, of course, is a few of the keystone features we're expecting in the true 'next-gen' receivers due later this year: namely,

• HDMI 1.3 and
• built-in support for
  
• Dolby True HD,
  
• Dolby Digital Plus, and
  
• DTS HD Master Audio (the super-high-def soundtracks found on HD DVD and Blu-ray discs)."

Mowser mobilizes any Web page | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone

Mowser mobilizes any Web page | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone: "bookmark Mowser and use it as the front-end to the Web on your mobile. Mowser transcodes any page into a Web-friendly format, stripping out large graphics and splitting a Web page up into smaller pages that a phone can handle. It's also RSS-aware: If there's an RSS feed on a page you visit, it will provide a link for it, and transcode the feed into a format your phone can easily display.

The service has built-in bookmarks for major sites that are already mobile-friendly (which it does not transcode) and it has keywords for popular searches. For example, if you type 'wi' followed by a search term, you'll get the Mowser-compacted version of the Wikipedia page for that term"

CableCard goes mainstream on July 1 | Crave : The gadget blog

CableCard goes mainstream on July 1 | Crave : The gadget blog: "CableCard may be going mainstream just as its successor technology is ready to leave the lab. Downloadable Conditional Access System is essentially a software version of the CableCard technology that promises to correct all of the current standard's shortcomings. But it won't be ready for deployment until 2008 at the earliest."

FTP clients

Choosing between FileZilla and FireFTP.

Wikipedia Comparison of FTP Clients

Documentation:

• FileZilla
• FireFTP
  

Vietnam Revisited - WSJ.com

Vietnam Revisited - WSJ.com: "...The author might want to improve his own grasp of Vietnamese culture: He tells us that the Citadel is 'ancient,' but in fact construction on it started in 1804. Besotted with the setting's beauty and supposed antiquity, he finds himself envying the simple pride shown by Hien, their guide. 'Soon Hien was no longer leading us. Instead he seemed pleased simply to stand amid the astonishments of such a storied place.' Mr. Bissell himself, he confesses, has never felt a similar awe at any of his own country's cultural monuments -- the Lincoln Memorial, say. He asks his father: 'Why is that?'

'Because you're an ungrateful little prick,' replies John (Nice Guy) Bissell."

Garmin Nuvi 680 Full Review

...it has the ability to pull down information about weather, movies, traffic and gas prices.

The MSN Direct system will retrieve movie theater locations and what's playing at those theaters too, allowing you to search by movie or theater.

When you tap on the weather button you get a forecast for a city or town close to you. As the unit pulls down more weather information, the display will show you the opportunity for a weather forecast at most cities and the option to browse other cities.

You get a list of towns and cities near you and then as you continue to scroll you start to get a list of major cities near you.

MSN Direct covers about 100,000 gas stations across the country, and after doing a little research I found that the US has 121,000 gas stations, making for about 83% coverage of major gas stations (there are about another 10,000 outlets with no employees, making them, in my mind, so small they may not be worth considering; even if you add those, that's still an impressive coverage number - 75%)

MSN Direct Traffic on the Nuvi 680
This gets a little messy, and to fully understand the traffic area, you need to understand the suppliers of traffic data. The Nuvi 680 uses MSN Direct Traffic. MSN Direct uses Traffic.com's data (being acquired by NAVTEQ), which relies on road sensors for the most part to gather information about traffic flow and incidents.

The Nuvi 660 and most of the Garmin line uses TMC traffic also supplied over the FM band by ClearChannel communications. The data is fed by Inrix. I have written a lot about Inrix, and their miles of road covered is superior to Traffic.com's from what I can tell. Check out how Inrix collects more information about roads that don't have expensive installed sensors; it's called the Dust Network, and it's pretty innovative.

Don't walk away from the Traffic.com fed MSN traffic yet. The data feed coming from Traffic.com tells you anticipated delays along your route, where speed data is given. So something like: "2 incidents on your route. 15 minute delay." I like this, as it informs me about what is going on and how much trouble I am in for. The trade-off here is coverage, for what is a pretty useful feature in my mind.

You can compare the coverage for your area at Inrix or at Traffic.com. At Inrix, just click on your city to see a what roads are covered in your area. At Traffic.com, click on your city and then on the Map tab to show the coverage graphically.

Asterix thread on FlyerTalk

Includes information on compatible providers .

Asterix projects

Good source for Asterix implementation information.

Funny, Informative Blog on Western China

While looking for information on Tibet Travel Permits, I came across this interesting blog.

WSJ on Microsoft Vista Requirements

• Memory: Microsoft suggests 512 megabytes of memory, or RAM, for stripped-down Vista, and it will probably recommend one gigabyte of memory for full Vista. But based on experience with the company's guidelines, I strongly suggest doubling those amounts. Even on a cheap machine, I'd get one gigabyte of memory, and if you want to run Vista with all its features, I suggest two gigabytes.

• Video: Stripped-down Vista can run on any graphics hardware that can support what's called SVGA, or a resolution of 800 by 600. The hardware should also support a Microsoft technology called DirectX 9. This includes many integrated graphics systems, which do away with a separate video card in favor of graphics chips bolted to the mother board.

Full Vista will be best with a separate, or "discrete," graphics card that has at least 128 megabytes of dedicated video memory. These cards also need support for DirectX 9. In addition, however, they must also support Microsoft software called "WDDM" and "Pixel Shader 2." If your eyes are rolling right now, don't fret. Microsoft officials say nearly all discrete graphics cards on the market today meet these specs, as will the latest integrated graphics systems, such as Intel chip sets labeled 945 or higher.

• Processor: For stripped-down Vista, a processor running at 800 megahertz or faster should be sufficient, according to Microsoft. For full Vista, the speed rises to one gigahertz. I'd edge higher if your budget allows, but you don't need the fastest processor.

• Hard disk: Disk storage is already copious enough for Vista, and buying large amounts is cheap. For stripped-down Vista, I'd go for at least 60 gigabytes of hard-disk space. For full Vista, I'd boost that to 160 gigabytes, to accommodate lots of music and video.
--Mossberg, 13 Apr 06

Meebo Icons

If you have a picture that you’ve created that’s 96×96 pixels, and you would like it to potentially be one of the default buddy icons in meebo, send it to buddyicon@meebo.com.

Hong Kong Automated Passenger Clearance

Since 16 December 2004, the Immigration Department has introduced the automated passenger clearance system (e-channels) to members of the public. Currently, Hong Kong permanent residents (except those under the age of 11) or Hong Kong residents holding Document of Identity for Visa Purposes (DI) can use their smart identity cards to perform self-service immigration clearance. Since 12 September 2006, e-Channel service has been extended to people who have the right to land or are on unconditional stay in Hong Kong, and non-permanent residents who have been issued with a notification label. Meanwhile, please note that Hong Kong residents must bring along with them their valid travel documents when travelling.

To enter the e-channel is simple. People just have to insert their smart identity cards with the side bearing the arrow and chip into the card reader. The system will take a while to perform mutual authentication with the smart identity card key. People can enter the e-channel when the gate doors open. After entering the e-channel, people just need to place their thumbs flat on the centre of scanners. After fingerprint verification they can leave the e-channel.

Halfway to Hawaii Time Calculation

"I've always come within a minute of the half-way point on the Hawaii game. I ignore everything except flight plan time and the time we took off. We have pretty sophisticated flight planning software used by Dispatch, and the flight plan time already takes all of the other variables into account.

From experience, I know that we generally run about 2-5 minutes ahead of flight plan (although we can certainly be behind), so I subtract out a couple of minutes and divide by half, guessing a number for the seconds. I've never been very far off."
--Mark Rogers

SOX Revisions in Prospect

The Securities and Exchange Commission conceded earlier this year that the provision [Section 404] wasn't working as intended. In May, it said it would rework the rule so that companies -- and their auditors -- aren't engaging in "overly conservative" audits and are instead focused on areas that present a risk to the company and its investors. The agency also said it hoped to tailor the rule to companies of all sizes, so that small businesses, in particular, weren't overburdened.

The SEC says it will unveil its changes next month. The agency, along with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the auditing industry's overseer, said it will propose a revision to the auditing standard known as AS2 that auditors follow when testing management's assessment of company controls.

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox wrote to the oversight board this week, urging it to include in its changes some of the recommendations made by the SEC's small-business advisory group, including one that the auditing rule be adapted to companies based on their size. In his Nov. 6 letter, Mr. Cox said the SEC agreed that the standard needed to be focused on matters that are material, or relevant, to a company's financial results.

It isn't clear how far the SEC might be willing to go in making it easier and less costly for businesses to comply with Section 404. And some observers are skeptical that the problems can be fixed.

"This may be a bell that can't be un-rung," says Joe Grundfest, a former SEC commissioner and co-director of the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University. "The audit firms have already incorporated a lot of the inefficient 404 process into their integrated audits, and once audit firms have processes in place, it's very hard to persuade them to back off and ease up on those processes."

1080p

David Carnoy, CNET:
we agree with the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF), a group that consults for home-theater manufacturers and trains professional video calibrators, when it says that the most important aspect of picture quality is contrast ratio, the second-most important is color saturation, and the third is color accuracy. Though resolution may be the most talked-about spec these days, it comes in fourth on the ISF list,

TrixBox - VoIP Asterix PBX

The asterisk-based solution, TrixBox, enables the home or small business user to quickly set up a VOIP Asterisk PBX. A web GUI makes configuration and operation easy. We also provide an xPL (home automation) interface for easy interaction with other devices in the home.

Mobile phone roaming opinion

Extracted from a post on the FlyerTalk Travel Technology forum:
I have a Nokia E61 sect-band (800/900/1800/1900/2100mhz) phone with wifi. On the wifi side, I signed up for a free account with truphone.com which has free calls to the US until the end of the year. Where I am on wifi, I'll call free. Where I am off wifi, I can pretty much roam anywhere. Underneath the dashes is a solution I am using when I am in Europe or most of Asia. I originally posted it to a different thread so it might seem a little non-responsive.

=============================

I have skimmed through the past eleven pages of the forum post, but if I am hitting things previously covered please excuse me. I travel a great deal and just wanted to share my solutions.

I have a Cingular with their Global Blackberry plan which gives me unlimited Blackberry data access all around the world. I also pay Cingular $2.99 a month for a feature called fast forward which gives me unlimited domestic call forwarding. When I jump on a plane, I literally forward my calls just before the cabin doors shut.

When I get on a European bound plane, I pack a second phone which is basic quad band unlocked phone. I have a Riiing SIM like the prior posters. I purchased for $1 a month a US 800 number from callbackworld.com that forwards to my Riiing SIM at US$0.14 a minute. I also normally use their callback service. I trigger their callback service using my Cingular phone. This permits me to make outgoing calls to the States at $0.14 a minute.

Something prior posters have not focused on is the cost of voicemail when abroad. There is a little covered “gotcha” here. When you are standing in Europe and miss a call or are on the phone, the call gets routed back to the US on a conditional call divert. This means that you are billed for a call to Europe and back again or double the roaming rates. Most people don’t want to turn off their voicemail which means that the carrier charges you at least double for these calls. When I was in Africa, I once got nailed with $15 voicemails -- $5 to call Africa, $5 to forward the call back to the States, and $5 to retrieve the message. I was hit with these charges even when my phone was shut off because I had registered on the Tanzania network and carriers generally hold on to your registration.

Riiing coupled with callbackworld has changed my roaming rates hugely. I used to buy prepaid SIMs for the major countries I visited. I found that despite the slight inconvenience of the callback, this approach is worth it.

I also use a Nokia E61 (not an E62) as my Blackberry (connect) device. It has built in wifi and a voip client. Where I am in a wifi zone, I can make free calls. It is also possible to receive free calls, but that requires more tinkering if you want to always be reached at one number.

By the way, checkout prepaidgsm.net. It is a forum which specializes in roaming on the cheap. Prepaidgsm was favorably cited in a recent EU report criticizing the rates charged for international roaming.
--Dubai Stu

CNET: Top 6 phones for business users

» What are the top 6 phones for business users? | The Mobile Gadgeteer | ZDNet.com: "CNET.com the editors posted their Top 6 phones for business users. The top 6 candidates are the Palm Treo 700p, Cingular 8525, T-Mobile Dash, Nextel i930 by Motorola, Sprint PPC-6700, and the Nokia E62."