Forex Trading


AvaTrader is a multi-faceted trading platform that is easily adaptable to the trader's individual preferences and tastes. Foremost, AvaTrader is a trading platform that gives the user the opportunity to trade in FX quickly, seamlessly and easily via the live streaming prices that are constantly generated. All of the advanced functionality is apparent within the platform and the Main page gives the trader a one-page full-featured advanced trading platform.

AvaTrader allows the user to open up multiple worksheets and save the information and the layout as it appeals to him. However the windows on the Main page display all the necessary information for trade:

Dealing Rates
Dealing Rates Table
Open Positions
Orders
Account Information
Chart

NJ bans sex offenders from the Internet

When politicians can come out against sex offenders in some way, that’s always a good thing for the press officer. The latest nice-idea-in-concept-but-how-do-you-enforce-it law comes from New Jersey, which joins Nevada and Florida in barring certain sex offenders from using the Internet, AP reports.

Offenders who contacted their victims via email or through social networking sites will have to let the State Parole Board know about their access to computers; submit to periodic, unannounced examinations of their computer equipment; and install equipment on their computer so its use can be monitored.

Failure to comply is punishable by a $10K fine or 18 months in jail. There is an exception for job searches and work use.

But if the parole board will be monitoring offenders’ use, what is the point in the blanket prohibition against net use? The ban could be limited to social networks and other sites that allow interaction with kids and teens. Shouldn’t offenders seek out online support groups, learn about sex addicts anonymous meetings, be able to rent a movie or buy a jacket? Since Megan’s Law tends to limit offenders’ movements around a community, it it fair to say an offender shouldn’t use the Internet to attend an online class or edit a Wikipedia article or do legal research on his case?

“When Megan’s Law was enacted, few could envision a day when a sex offender hiding behind a fake screen name would be a mouse-click away from new and unwitting victims,” Assemblywoman Linda D. Greenstein said. “Sex offenders cannot be given an opportunity to abuse the anonymity the Internet can provide as a means of opening a door to countless new potential victims.”

But if anonymity is the issue, and the state can take away anonymity by requiring use of monitoring equipment, what is the purpose of the ban?

Microsoft Office 2007 SP1 Keluar 11 Desember

Microsoft tengah menyelesaikan Office 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) dan berharap untuk mendebutkan update ini sekitar tanggal 10 Desember, menurut sumber yang mengenal rencana - rencana Microsoft.

Beberapa karyawan Microsoft mengatakan di konferensi TechEd Barcelona bulan lalu bahwa Office 2007 SP1 akan dikeluarkan di kuartal pertama 2008. Akan tetapi, dengan tim SharePoint Server 2007 Microsoft yang minggu lalu mengatakan bahwa SP1 untuk SharePoint 2007 akan datang dalam waktu dekat ini, beberapa analis mulai berspekulasi apakah Office 2007 SP1 juga akan datang lebih awal.

Arpan Shah, direktur divisi "Technical Product Management" untuk SharePoint mengatakan pada tanggal 2 Desember bahwa "kami menulis sebuah artikel blog di akhir minggu lalu yang menjelaskan isi SP1. Walaupun kami telah memberikan preview SP1, satu - satunya pengumuman kami tentang kedatangan SP1 hanyalah bahwa SP1 akan dirilis di awal tahun 2008. Ini berarti peluncuran produk ini dapat berkisar di antara sekarang dan kuartal pertama 2008."

Microsoft terdengan ingin merilis update SP1 untuk Office 2007, SharePoint Server 2007 dan Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 ini lebih awal.

Setelah ditanyakan pada tanggal 4 Desember, Microsoft akhirnya mengkonfirmasikan bahwa mereka akan merilis Office 2007 SP1 pada tanggal 11 Desember, atau hari Selasa minggu depan. Mereka menolak untuk berkomentar apa yang diikutkan ke dalam paket ini secara spesifik, akan tetapi mengatakan bahwa SP1 akan menambahkan kinerja, sekuriti dan stabilitas yang lebih baik.

YM 9 Untuk Vista Dikeluarkan

Saat pertama kali Yahoo merilis Yahoo Messenger untuk Windows 9.0, salah seorang komentator mengatakan bahwa sangatlah disesalkan versi untuk Vista belum dikeluarkan. Sebagian orang kecewa karena versi 9 tidak memiliki fitur tab.



Dan sekarang, kedua - duanya telah tiba. Yahoo telah merilis sebuah versi YM untuk Vista yang memiliki fitur tabbed windows. Versi terbaru ini juga telah memiliki tampilan yang disesuaikan untuk Vista dan dapat di-integrasikan ke dalam gadget bar Vista. Fitur - fitur lainnya termasuk opsi untuk mengubah tampilan contact list dan automatic filtering untuk contact anda saat mengetikkan pencarian nama.

Pengirim: Sushi: Internet Explorer 8 Dapat Nama Baru

Tahun lalu Microsoft merilis Internet Explorer 7 dan tahun depan Microsoft akan merilis Internet Explorer 8. Walaupun kita tidak dapat memberi tahu anda seperti apa tampilan IE8 atau fitur baru apa yang ada di browser baru ini, Bill Gates ternyata memutuskan untuk memberi IE8 nama baru. Menurut blog tim pengembang IE, beberapa nama alternatif yang pernah dipertimbangkan adalah:
IE 7+1
IE VIII
IE 1000 (8 dalam bilangan biner)
IE Eight!
iIE
IE for Web 2.0 (Service Pack 2)
IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet (tim marketing Microsoft benar - benar mendorong nama ini)
Ie2.079 (masih mungkin digunakan untuk Math Major Edition)

Source: Blog

Part One of a Three-Part Series


Gary Warner, UAB Director of Research in Computer Forensics (Photo credit: UAB staff photo)Until just a few months ago, Gary Warner did not have the kind of day job you'd expect from an anti-phishing crusader. He didn't work for a security vendor or a bank, or any kind of company you'd expect to care about phishing.

Warner's career as a cyber-sleuth began on Halloween 2000. That's when his company's Web site was defaced by a hacker named Pimpshiz as part of a pro-Napster Internet graffiti campaign.

"My boss came to me and said, 'Find out who did this and put them in jail,'" said Warner, who was at the time an IT staffer with Energen, a Birmingham, Alabama oil and gas company.

It was an eye-opening experience. "I called the police and they were like, 'What do you want us to do?'" he said.

Months later, when Pimpshiz struck servers at NASA, Warner reached out, calling staff there and saying "Hey, we know who this guy is. Here's his name and address."

Since then, Warner has quietly become one of the most-respected authorities on phishing in the U.S. -- the kind of guy that federal agents and banking IT staff call when they want to know how to catch the bad guys and shut down their credit-card-stealing Web sites.

With Warner's help, authorities eventually arrested Pimpshiz, whose real name is Robert Lyttle, in connection with the hacks.

Fishing for Phishers
Warner said that the Pimpshiz case was formative, underlining how hard it is for law enforcement to catch the bad guys on the Internet.

"The experience showed me that it's not that they don't care," Warner said. "Their hands are tied by the legal process."

Soon, Warner found himself spending dozens of hours each week compiling data on spammers and phishing attacks. "I would sit for a couple of hours every morning and find all the new phishing sites that I could," he said.

He'd take screenshots of the sites, email the Webmasters who were hosting them and ask them for Web logs, and eventually he started making connections -- he'd connect one phishing group with several different attacks -- and learn who he needed to call to get Web sites removed, no matter where in the world they were hosted.

He'd get calls from IT staff at small credit unions asking for help taking down fraudulent sites, every day, all day long.

It was cutting in on his work. Late last year, he decided to make a change. "I went to my boss and told him that I'm going to look for a way to do this full time."

I Made Wiryana: Apakah itu LINUX?

Secara teknis dan singkat dapat dikatakan, Linux adalah suatu sistem operasi yang bersifat multi user dan multitasking, yang dapat berjalan di berbagai platform, termasuk prosesor INTEL 386 dan yang lebih tinggi. Sistem operasi ini mengimplementasikan standard POSIX. Linux dapat berinteroperasi secara baik dengan sistem operasi yang lain, termasuk Apple, Microsoft dan Novell.
Nama Linux sendiri diturunkan dari pencipta awalnya, LINUS TORVALDS, yang sebetulnya mengacu pada kernel dari suatu sistem operasi, suatu penamaan yang biasa digunakan untuk mengacu ke pada suatu kumpulan lengkap software, yang bersama-sama dengan kernel menyusun suatu sistem operasi yang lengkap.

Lingkungan sistem operasi ini termasuk
Ratusan program termasuk, kompiler, interpreter, editor dan utilitas
Perangkat bantu yang mendukung konektifitas, Ethernet, SLIP dan PPP, dan interoperabilitas.
Produk perangkat lunak yang reliabel, termasuk versi pengembangan terakhir
Kelompok pengembang yang tersebar di seluruh dunia yang telah bekerja dan menjadikan Linux portabel ke suatu platform baru, begitu juga mendukung komunitas pengguna yang beragam kebutuhan dan lokasinya dan juga bertindak sebagai team pengembang sendiri.
Perbedaan mendasar Linux
Satu hal yang membedakan Linux terhadap sistem operasi lainnya adalah, harga. Linux ini GRATIS. Berarti dapat diperbanyak, dan didistribusikan kembali tanpa harus membayar fee atau royalti kepada seseorang. Tetapi banyak isue lainya dengan bersifat free, selain dari pertimbangan harga. Source code Linux tersedia bagi setiap orang. Perkembangan Linux menunjukkan pentingnya perananan kebebasan ini. Hal ini telah menghasilkan suatu tingkat keterlibatan yang menakjugkan dari ribuan atau bahkan ratusan ribu orang di seluruh dunia.
Kebebasan ini telah memungkinkan para vendor perangkat keras membuat driver untuk divais tertentu tanpa harus mendapatkan lisensi source code yang mahal, atau menandatangani non descructive agreement. Dan itu juga telah menyediakan kemungkinan bagi mahasiswa ilmu komputer di seluruh dunia untuk melihat ke dalam suatu sistem operasi yang nyata dan berkualitas komersial.

Karena Linux itu tersedia secara bebas di Internet, berbagai vendor telah membuat suatu paket distribusi, yang dapat dianggap sebagai berbagai versi kemasan Linux. paket ini termasuk lingkungan Linux lengkap, perangkat lunak untuk instalasi, dan mungkin termasuk perangkat lunak khusus, dan dukungan khusus.


Perbandingan Linux terhadap sistem operasi lainnya
Linux disusun berdasarkan standard sistem operasi POSIX, yang sebenarnya diturunkan berdasarkan fungsi kerja UNIX. UNIX kompatibel dengan Linux pada level system call, ini berarti sebagian besar program yang ditulis untuk UNIX atau Linux dapat direkompilasi dan dijalankan pada sistem lain dengan perubahan yang minimal. Secara umum dapat dikatakan Linux berjalan lebih cepat dibanding Unix lain pada hardware yang sama. Dan lagi UNIX memiliki kelemahan, yaitu tidak bersifat free .
MS-DOS memiliki kemiripan dengan Linux, yaitu file sistem yang bersifat hirarkis. Tetapi MS-DOS hanya dapat dijalankan pada prosesor x86, dan tidak mendukung multi-user dan multi-tasking, serta tak bersifat free. Juga MS-DOS tidak memiliki dukungan yang baik agar dapat berinteroperasi dengan sistem operasi lainnya, termasuk tidak tersedianya perangkat lunak network, program pengembang, dan program utilitas yang ada dalam Linux.

Microsoft Windows menawarkan beberapa kemampuan grafis yang ada pada Linux termasuk kemampuan networking, tetapi tetap memiliki kekurangan yang telah ada pada MS-DOS.

Windows NT yang juga tersedia untuk Digital Alpha dan juga prosesor x86 juga memiliki beberapa kekurangan yang telah ada pada MS-DOS. Waktu untuk menemukan suatu bug dalam suatu sistem operasi ini tak sebanding dengan harga yang harus dibayar.

Sistem operasi Apple untuk Macintosh hanya dapat berjalan di sistem Mac. Juga memiliki kekurangan dari sisi ketersediaan perangkangkat bantu pengembang (development tool), dan juga kurang dapat secara mudah untuk berinteroperasi dengan sistem operasi lainnya. Apple juga telah memungkinkan Linux dapat dijalankan pada PowerMac.


Asal Linux
Pertama dan yang paling penting adalah, Linux memiliki akar perkembangannya dari Internet. Jadi Linux dikembangkan oleh beragam kelompok orang. Keragaman ini termasuk tingkat pengetahuan dan pengalaman serta geografis. Agar kelompok ini dapat berkomunikasi dengan cara cepat dan efisien, Internet menjadi pilihan alat bantu. Begitu juga dengan pilihannya pada Linux, ini menjadikan beragam perangkat bantu untuk mengakses Internet, telah tersedia pada Linux sejak awal perkembangannya.
Karena kernel Linux dikembangkan dengan usaha yang independent, banyak aplikasi yang berasal dari perangkat lunak terbaik yang tersedia. Sebagai contoh, C Compiler mengunakan gcc dari Free Software Foundation GNU's Project. Compiler ini banyak digunakan pada lingkungan Hewlett-Packaard dan Sun.

Apakah Linux menyediakan setiap aplikasi untuk keperluan kantor agar dapat menjalankan bisnis. Tidak, tetapi banyak aplikasi yang serupa tersedia misal untuk spreadsheet, word processor, database dan program editor grafis yang tersedia untuk Linux. Beberepa aplikasi seperti Aplixware, Corel, dan Empress memberikan kemampuan serupa.


Pengguna Linux
Linux populer digunakan di lingkungan pemerintahan (khususnya di USA) dan industri. Pada banyak kasus pilihan terutama disebabkan pertimbangan harga. Tetapi kemudian dibuktikan bahwa ini merupakan pilihan yang tepat berdasarkan aspek yang lainnya pula.
Linux telah menunjukkan penetrasinya di bidang yang lainnya pula yaitu web server dan merupakan sistem operasi pilihan di lingkungan universitas. Juga bagi para pengguna yang menginginkan mempelajari UNIX untuk perkembangan karirnya. Sehingga Linux banyak digunakan untuk perangkat bantu pelatihan.

Linux juga populer dalam penggunanaan sistem embedded dan aplikasi turnkey (siap pakai) termasuk firewall Interwall, router, Point of Sale (POS). Juga ada beberapa penerbit yang menggunakan Linux pada sistem Raster Image Processor (RIP).

Sosialisasi HAKI Bagi Teknologi di Indonesia

Linux saat ini bagaikan senjata kebebasan dan kekuatan teknologi tanpa batas. Tanpa kita sadari linux telah berkembang begitu cepat dan telah mendapat perhatian yang cukup serius pada masyarakat dunia. Banyak perusahaan-perusahaan besar yang mulai mencoba dan mendapatkan manfaat dari Linux.

Disamping dapat menghemat anggaran perusahaan dan organisasi, linux juga telah terbukti handal dalam menjalankan berbagai aplikasi baik sekelas desktop maupun server. Masyarakat dunia sangat puas akan kinerja yang telah terbukti kehandalannya baik dari aspek keberadaannya, dapat diatur sesuai kebutuhan, dan biaya paling rendah yang mampu berjalan pada perangkat keras standard dengan stabil.

Sejak diproklamirkan OS Linux oleh Linus Trovald, berbagai kalangan hacker dunia berpartisipasi dalam keterbatasan mereka mengembangkan dan menyempurnakan Linux, sehingga sehingga menambah kwalitas system operasi bebas Linux begitu mudah dalam menjalankannya. Bagi angggaran minimal dari sebuah perusahaan, linux merupakan solusi ideal yang handal suatu system operasi, hingga perusahaan dapat menikmati manfaat nyata perkembangan teknologi dewasa ini.

Bermigrasi pada suatu tempat berbeda memang tidaklah mudah, hal ini membutuhkan sosialisasi dalam penggunaannya, baik dengan pelatihan, kursus, maupun kampanye manfaat linux pada seluruh aspek masyarakat. Sehingga dunia masyarakat, baik pelajar dan mahasiswa, serta pelaku bisnis mampu mengadopsi teknologi bebas ini dengan mudah.

Juli 2003 Menteri Kehakiman dan HAM beserta KAPOLRI bekerja sama dalam pemberlakuan Undang-Undang Hak Cipta No. 19 tahun 2002, departemen terkait ikut mensosialisasikan undang-undang ini kepada bangsa Indonesia dengan kerja nyata dan misi mulianya. HAKI bagi masyarakat Indonesia, yang baru-baru ini telah berlaku, banyak masyarakat mempertanyakan, atas ketidak siapan mereka menerima regulasi baru pemerintah. Sementara pemerintah mau tidak mau harus menjunjung tinggi hukum atas HAKI yang merupakan harga mati dan konsekwensi serius bagi negara-negara yang melanggarnya. Tanpa terasa pembajakan CD, VCD, DVD, CD software sudah menjadi bagian dari bangsa ini, sehingga masyarakat dari berbagai kalangan dapat menikmati aneka ragam manfaat dari pembajakan ini dari hulu sampai hilir. Bagaimana tidak, masyarakat tidak memiliki daya beli yang cukup tinggi untuk menikmati informasi dan infotainmen actual yang beredar saat ini. Untuk kalangan pelajar-mahasiswa, pengusaha kecil menengah, maupun pemerintahan sudah mendarah daging dengan software bajakan. Kita senang dengan teknologi terbaru dan terus mengikuti perkembangan TI di Indonesia, dengan modal hanya dua puluh ribu perak sudah mendapatkan berbagai macam versi operating system versi Microsoft termasuk aplikasi nya. Sehingga kita terpaku dengan begitu gemerlapnya teknologi microsoft yang tidak terasa telah memonopoli dan mengebiri kebebasan berkarya.

Di bagian dunia infotainmen lain lagi ceritanya, pembajakan CD lagu sudah merupakan momok menakutkan bagi artis-artis di Indonesia. Mereka bersama-sama menkampanyekan umbul-umbul bendera HAKI yang mereka percayai sebagai bagian dari proses preventif pembajakan. Sementara masyarakat kita butuh sesuatu yang fleksibel, customize, murah, dan mudah dinikmati. Mereka tidak membutuhkan seluruh album lagu yang dimiliki oleh seorang atau suatu grup musik, karena mungkin lagu yang mereka nikmati tidak semuanya enak didengar dan hit pada saat itu. Mungkin hanya 1 atau 3 buah judul lagu saja dalam satu album, sisanya mereka ingin mendengar dan mendapatkan lagu-lagu lain dari artis atau grup musik lainnya. Menurut kawan saya, di Jerman, gerai CD dan VCD lagu, sudah membidik cara efektif untuk menghindari pembajakan lagu, calon pembeli boleh memilih lagu yang mereka minati kemudian pemilik gerai toko siap dengan perangkat teknologi sederhananya membakar CD, kemudian pembeli sudah mendapatkan CD yang mereka customize kandengan harga murah. Teknologi lainnya dengan fasilitas internet, suatu grup musik atau artis, dapat mempromosikan lagu dan profilenya pada suatu website. Dalam website tersebut penggemar dan pembeli dapat membeli dengan cara memilih lagu yang diminati dan kemudian membayar dengan beberapa rupiah atau dollar lagu yang telah dipilih kemudian langsung di download melalui internet tadi. Hal ini merupakan bagian dan cara lain yang dapat menghindari pembajakan yang telah ada di Indonesia.

Sosialisasi pemerintah dalam pemberlakuan HAKI di Indonesia memerlukan waktu lama dan goodwill dari berbagai pihak dalam mendukung implementasi nya. Terima Kasih kepada teknologi open source yang telah membuka jalan bagi para pengguna komputer untuk memakai perangkat lunak secara bebas dan murah. Beberapa saat lalu telah hadir sistem operasi PC Linux Sehat, yang dibidani oleh anak-anak bangsa yang cemerlang seperti I Made Wiryana, Sindu Irawan beserta team pemerhati TI Indonesia nirlaba. Dengan dukungan minimal dan berbekal pas-pasan akhirnya lahirlah software sistem operasi baru berbahasa Indonesia yang lengkap dengan aplikasi-aplikasi mudahnya semudah produk microsoft dengan dukungan dokumentasi dan pendukung teknis. Sangat disayangkan pemerintah kurang tanggap mendukung anak-anak bangsa cemerlang ini dalam mencerdaskan kehidupan bangsa madani. Padahal pemerintah dituntut mengembangkan sistem yang telah ada dan memanfaatkan sumber daya cemerlang anak bangsa tersebut.

Setelah exist-nya keberadaan mereka, hendaknya pemerintah perduli dan mendukung langkah konkret dalam sosialisasi karya nyata yang telah dipersembahkan bagi bangsa ini dengan melakukan sosialisa, baik dengan cara pelatihan masal gratis bagi seluruh kalangan yang ada. Saya sangat haru sekali pada suatu tulian yang di muat detik.com belum lama ini tentang perkembangan TI di China, pemerintahnya telah menggunakan dan mendukung pembuatan software buatan negara dan anak bangsanya sendiri. Apa perbedaannya China dengan Indonesia? Sama-sama perpenduduk padat, dan kaya akan pembajakan. Dari sinilah dimulai, pemerintah harus memberikan panutan yang baik bagi bangsanya sendiri dengan memberikan contoh dan karya nyatanya kepada masyarakat.

China Technology Announces New Chief Financial Officer

HONG KONG, Aug. 27 /Xinhua-PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- China Technology Development Group Corporation (Nasdaq: CTDC; "CTDC" or the "Company") today announced the appointment of Charlene Hua as the Company's new Chief Financial Officer, effective August 20, 2007, pursuant to a board resolution passed on the same date. This successful candidate was nominated by the Nominating Committee of the Company.

As Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Hua will be responsible for the development strategy of the Company's Finance department, financial planning, implementation of internal controls and integration of CTDC's subsidiaries operations.

Ms. Hua brings over 10 years of diverse experience in banking, consulting, finance and business development to the Company. Prior to joining the Company, Ms. Hua worked as a Vice President at Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. since 2005. In addition, she held senior positions at other major corporations such as JP Morgan Chase, Arthur Andersen, Electronic Data System, etc.

"We are very pleased that our management team is joined by a highly experienced professional from a Wall Street firm. We believe that her expertise and competence in financial markets will be a tremendous asset to the Company, which will allow the Company to successfully implement our business strategy and to further strengthen our market position, as well as to improve the effective communications with our global investors," Mr. Alan Li, Chairman of the Board of the Company, commented on the appointment.

"I am excited that I have the opportunity to work in such a dynamic company, which is the first Nasdaq-listed subsidiary of China Merchants Group and is poised for promising growth. I hope that my work will enable CTDC to reach new heights in the future," said Ms. Hua.

About CTDC:

CTDC is engaged in information network security and nutraceutical business in the People's Republic of China. CTDC's ultimate principal shareholder is China Merch

Male & Female In India

Today’s the last day of my 3-week trip to India, so here are some observations on gender and male-female relations.

* First, it really matters which India we’re talking about—Muslim, Sikh, Kerala, tribal, etc.. For example, most women here in the south are so liberated, even Catholics use birth control; in Orissa, by contrast, a friendly adolescent girl said I couldn’t take her photo because “my husband wouldn’t like it.”

* Regardless of location, though, India remains a sexually conservative country. Clothes don’t reveal women’s bodies. This seems normal after just a short while here, and then any Western woman wearing a revealing top or exposing her legs looks dramatically provocative.

* Couples simply do not hold hands in public. This is made even more obvious by the fact that women hold hands with their girl pals/cousins, and men hold hands with their male chums/cousins. One never sees couples of any age kissing or even nuzzling.

* In America, all women wear jewelry, although real gold is reserved for the well-off. Here, even the poorest woman wears gold earrings &/or bracelet every day of her life. Her home may lack hot water, her village may lack reliable electricity, she may be washing her few clothes in the river, but she wears gold while she’s doing it. It’s a matter of family honor. In some areas the custom is silver rather than gold, but it’s real, beautiful silver jewelry.

* The families of girls and young women still pay dowries to the family of the man she is marrying. Sometimes dowries have to be borrowed, which can set back a girl’s family for years. And sometimes, the groom’s family demands a second dowry payment a year after the couple is already married. Imagine the problems that creates for everyone.

* Most marriages here are arranged or semi-arranged. Newspapers are full of ads looking for suitable marriage partners. Unlike in the U.S., the looks and social class of both parties are explicitly discussed.

* Little moments: it’s funny (albeit sensible) to see able-bodied men walking with open umbrellas in the blazing sun; it’s amazing to see women, young and old, working road construction (shoveling gravel, carrying bricks, etc.)—while wearing full-length saris.

* The saris are, in fact, beautiful—colorful, flowing, absolutely nothing like western clothes. And young women wear them as much as their mothers and grandmothers–they’re not in any way considered “old-fashioned.”

But they certainly limit mobility and a whole range of physical movements. You simply cannot effectively run in one. In this respect saris are like the bustles, corsets, and other complex dress of Western women until just a few decades ago. In America’s wild west films, the primary symbol of independence for women is pants.

* As in Islam, Christianity, and Orthodox Judaism, Hindu religious duties—which is to say, Hindu religious privileges–are segregated by gender.

* Aborting female fetuses because they will become girls is actually increasing here, as gender identification technology becomes cheaper and more available. This has enormous ramifications for many parts of society, including marriage, economics, and arrangements for the aging. Everyone decries it, and it’s even against the law. But how do you criminalize technology in a capitalist, democratic country?

In America, religious people have criminalized technologies like stem-cell research and abortion in an attempt to impose their moral vision on others, or to create “a more moral society”—both clearly unacceptable in a democracy.

But in India, criminalizing gender testing and gender-oriented abortion is based on avoiding a scientifically demonstrable problem—which makes it a more complicated issue. Still, it’s troubling to criminalize technology for any reason. And it opens the door to banning other troublesome technologies, including, say, chemical food preservatives, the distilling of alcohol, and of course boom boxes that play any music that I don’t like.

What I Want for the Holidays

No, no ties or socks or chocolate (OK, chocolate’s always great).

What I’d like is for everyone to receive their basic sexual rights. Then, of course, I can have mine. This isn’t a complete list, but it’s a start:

* Free condoms
Every time someone uses a condom it benefits everyone, so let’s make them free. They should be available everywhere: gas stations, ATMs, the place you rent skis. In fact, there should be a dispenser in the wine/beer/booze section of every supermarket and 7-11. Government should supply the condoms, and require a dispenser if you want a license to sell alcohol.

While we’re at it, could we please start packaging condoms in non-slippery containers?

* Encourage the study of child porn & pedophilia
“Everyone” knows child porn is increasing, it’s horrible, it ruins lives, etc.—except that no one knows anything.

The government won’t let anyone study child porn. All we know is what “morality” groups scream at us, and phony numbers like “X number of children exploited and abused” (what does that mean?) and “Y number of children sexually solicited on the internet” (most of whom are teens, contacted by other teens).

People who make or use child porn can’t be studied because anyone who listens to them can be forced to disclose their identity and activities. So society is stuck with stereotypes like “all molesters look at child porn” and “everyone who looks at child porn is a molester”—both of which are obviously untrue.

The government should establish a license permitting individuals and institutions to possess and study “child porn.” A background check and project proposal would be required, along with a description of what will be accessed and for how long. Similarly, legitimate investigators should have immunity to study specified populations for specific projects.

Of course, fewer and fewer Americans actually believe, much less understand, science. But science is the only way to get the facts about this supposedly widespread phenomenon that frightens and angers so many people.

* Publish the criteria used in internet filtering software
The makers of filtering software claim the criteria for blocking sites is proprietary, like the formula for Coke.

But this blocking software is now a quasi-public utility, as libraries, schools, and government offices are increasingly required to use it. Corporate lawyers are seeing the software as good insurance, too.

So the public has a right to know—how does the software decide what to block? If it blocks breast cancer sites, youth soccer league sites (“boys under 14”), Middlesex County, and my blog, can we really say these sites “block porn”? More importantly, the media should stop saying that people against mandatory filters are “against protecting kids from porn.”

* End the legal concepts of “obscenity” and “indecency.”
Sex is not dangerous. Sexual words and images are not dangerous. Limiting access to these words and images doesn’t necessarily increase a community’s “morality,” just as expanding people’s access doesn’t necessarily decrease “morality.”

The idea that our local, state, and federal governments can actually prevent us from reading, hearing, or seeing certain words or pictures for any reason is actually staggering. Here are just some of the governmental agencies screening your life for “obscenity” or “indecency”:

~ Federal Communications Commission
~ Justice Department
~ Commerce Department
~ Customs Service
~ Department of Homeland Security
~ FBI
~ Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms
~ state alcohol control commissions
~ city & county zoning commissions

I’ll tell you what’s obscene: people who would rather prevent me from watching South Park than use the “off” button on their TV remote. Darn those people.

* Sexual rights as human rights
Being able to take that for granted would be a wonderful, life-affirming gift. I hope you—and all of us—get this very, very soon. Happy Holidays.

BenQ: Joybook R43


The city at night presents many faces. By turns, it can be mysterious or glamorous, serene or dazzling. The Joybook R43 is designed to capture the spirit of a great metropolis. Drawing inspiration from the nighttime city's special grace and beauty, the deep black lid with its shimmering finish is accented by a unique ornamental band.

This band, imprinted with novel Inscribed Laminar Film technology, evokes a great metropolis' skyline in pop art style. Interspersed among this skyline's geometrically arranged rounded corners and bold lines, points of illumination appear—most spectacularly when ambient light is low—suggesting nothing so much as the lighted windows in the city's teeming buildings.

The nocturnal urban feel is continued when you open up the lid, with a luminous blue-lit power button and indicator lights. You're further treated to the sleek look and feel of a brushed texture hairline finish palm rest and a subtly dappled touchpad. For those who appreciate the beauty of the city after hours, as well as a beautifully designed laptop, BenQ presents the Joybook R43.

Get a great view
The Joybook R43's gorgeous 14.1" widescreen panel benefits from BenQ's exclusive UltraVivid technology, with DBEF™ (Display Brilliance Enhancement Film) increasing screen brightness and sharpening details. The result is a scintillating viewing experience whatever is on screen.

Tested tough


The Joybook R43 is subjected to 25 tests—including a scratch resistance test, pressure test, hinge test, compatibility test, high and low temperature tests, drop test, and vibration test, etc. to ensure its quality. Even the keyboard is thoroughly tested, passing a series of more than 20 tests designed to check that it can withstand 8 million keystrokes.

Way to wireless
The Joybook R43 sets you free from cabled connections. Easily access the Internet over high-speed Wi-fi* networks, and connect to Bluetooth*-capable phones and peripherals like mice and keyboards. Whether at work or at play, enjoy the freedom of going online, listening to music, and linking your laptop with other devices without the constraints and hassles of cables. Wireless is truly the way to go!
*Selected models only.

Keep it safe
Your time is as valuable as your data, and that's why BenQ's QData Trove makes it so quick and easy to ensure information on the Joybook R43 is secure. Just a single press of Alt and F10 keys initiates a backup of the entire system drive into a single designated image file. To recover your system back either from the backup image or from the factory default setting is just as simple.


Made to perform
BenQ Joybook R43 features Intel® Core™2 Duo processor and SiS Mirage™ 3+ chipset. And whether in multimedia applications or digital home features, performance or data security, Windows Vista® provides more information in a more intuitive and useful manner on your computer desktop.

Technology News: Adobe 4th Quarter Profit Climbs 21 Pct

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- After a year of record revenue and the departure of a longtime CEO, executives at Adobe Systems Inc. say 2008 will bring additional product releases and the completion of an aggressive stock buyback program.

The maker of popular consumer and corporate software such as Photoshop and Acrobat reported Monday that its fourth-quarter profit climbed 21 percent, beating Wall Street expectations.

Executives credited record revenue, from Adobe's biggest-ever software launch. Net income for the three months that ended Nov. 30 was $222.2 million, or 38 cents a share, compared with $183.2 million, or 30 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Sales were a record $911.2 million, up 34 percent and easily exceeding the company's own estimates of $860 million to $890 million.

In 2008, the San Jose-based software company plans to repurchase another 30 million shares for a total buyback of 50 million shares, executives announced Monday. Since announcing the original buyback in April, Adobe had repurchased 17.7 million shares through November -- out of about 587.9 million shares outstanding.

Companies often buy back stock in an effort to bolster their shares' value. Adobe's stock fell $1.21 -- nearly 3 percent -- Monday to close at $40.90, and it lost another 30 cents in after-hours trading after the earnings report came out.

Excluding certain expenses, such as stock-based compensation and restructuring charges related to the December 2005 acquisition of Macromedia Inc., Adobe's fourth-quarter profit was $289.6 million, or 49 cents per share, compared with $198.9 million or 33 cents per share in the year-ago period.

On that basis, which does not comply with generally accepted accounting principles, analysts had expected the software company to earn $281.15 million, or 37 cents per share, on sales of $887.33 million, according to a Thomson Financial survey.

''It was a strong quarter all around,'' Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, who replaced Bruce Chizen on Dec. 1, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Chizen -- beloved by employees and Wall Street during his seven-year stint at the top of the world's fifth-largest software company -- shocked Silicon Valley last month when he said he was quitting. He'll serve part-time as a strategic adviser to the company through the end of 2008 and be on Adobe's board through the spring.

For the 2007 fiscal year, Adobe earned $723.8 million, or $1.21 per share, up 43.1 percent from fiscal 2006. The company reported record revenue of $3.16 billion, up 22.6 percent from fiscal 2006.

The company expects fiscal 2008 revenue to increase 13 percent, to $3.57 billion. It expects first-quarter revenue of $855 million to $885 million and first-quarter earnings per share of 34 cents to 36 cents.

Adobe is widely expected to unveil an update to its popular Creative Suite software package late next year, but executives refused to provide details during a conference call Monday.

Another big push in 2008 will be the launch of Adobe Integrated Runtime, or AIR. The software -- for desktop computers and mobile devices -- helps people create multimedia Internet content using Flash, Flex, HTML and Ajax programming languages.

Adobe, which updated its AIR beta this month, will likely launch the official application next year. It is expected to be a hit with programmers but not a massive revenue generator.

Martin Pyykkonen, analyst at Global Crown Capital LLC, compared AIR to Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java programming language -- a product that improved consumers' awareness of the company but didn't contribute significantly to Sun's profits.

''It will sell a lot more software -- it's a tool,'' Pyykkonen said of AIR.

Adobe, which had $946.4 million in cash at the end of the quarter, employs about 6,800 workers -- nearly 12 percent more than it did a year ago.

This June brought the most significant product launch in Adobe's 25-year history, when it unveiled Visual Communicator 3 software, designed to create video broadcasts. Also this year, Adobe released its LiveCycle Enterprise Suite, which contains applications for automating processes.

In July came Production Premium and Master Collection versions of its Creative Suite 3, which launched in April. Besides Photoshop and Illustrator, the suite includes OnLocation CS3 and Ultra CS3 for direct-to-disk recording and monitoring and chroma keying, respectively.

Technology News: Start-Up Sells Solar Panels at Lower-Than-Usual Cost

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Nanosolar, a heavily financed Silicon Valley start-up whose backers include Google’s co-founders, plans to announce Tuesday that it has begun selling its innovative solar panels, which are made using a technique that is being held out as the future of solar power manufacturing.

The company, which has raised $150 million and built a 200,000-square-foot factory here, is developing a new manufacturing process that “prints” photovoltaic material on aluminum backing, a process the company says will reduce the manufacturing cost of the basic photovoltaic module by more than 80 percent.

Nanosolar, which recently hired a top manufacturing executive from I.B.M., said that it had orders for its first 18 months of manufacturing capacity. The photovoltaic panels will be made in Silicon Valley and in a second plant in Germany.

While many photovoltaic start-up companies are concentrating on increasing the efficiency with which their systems convert sunlight, Nanosolar has focused on lowering the manufacturing cost. Its process is akin to a large printing press, rather than the usual semiconductor manufacturing techniques that deposit thin films on silicon wafers.

Nanosolar’s founder and chief executive, Martin Roscheisen, claims to be the first solar panel manufacturer to be able to profitably sell solar panels for less than $1 a watt. That is the price at which solar energy becomes less expensive than coal.

“With a $1-per-watt panel,” he said, “it is possible to build $2-per-watt systems.”

According to the Energy Department, building a new coal plant costs about $2.1 a watt, plus the cost of fuel and emissions, he said.

The first Nanosolar panels are destined for a one-megawatt solar plant to be installed in Germany on a former landfill owned by a waste management company. The plant, being developed by Beck Energy, is expected to initially supply electrical power for about 400 homes.

The company chose to build its plant in southern San Jose, news that was cheered by local development officials. Much of the microelectronics industry created here has moved to Asia and new factories are a rare commodity in Silicon Valley.

Technology News: Going Public Caps Dream for a Maker of Software

SAN MATEO, Calif. — If the initial public offering for NetSuite shares goes as planned later this week, Evan Goldberg will have come a long way from the overcrowded Silicon Valley apartment that served as the company’s first office nearly 10 years ago.

At that time, Mr. Goldberg, a former programmer at Oracle, was struggling with the business model for his first start-up, a stalled multimedia software company. Then came a game-changing phone call from the chief executive of Oracle, Larry Ellison, his financial backer. Mr. Ellison suggested that the future of Mr. Goldberg’s company might just be in a new approach to accounting software. Luckily for Mr. Goldberg, he took the advice.

NetSuite plans to start selling shares to the public this week, most likely Thursday, in hopes of raising close to $100 million. It is one of the most anticipated public offerings coming out of Silicon Valley, and its Dutch auction method and year-end timing shows just how confident the company is.

NetSuite, which employs about 600 people and is based here, produces accounting software to help companies manage their operations — from making a sale to delivering the goods. But rather than sell the software outright, NetSuite distributes its software via subscription, a model known as on-demand software. Companies using on-demand software manage their business functions over the Internet using a Web browser rather than running programs on their own servers.

On-demand is a growing trend among business software makers. It was popularized by Salesforce.com, which went public in 2004, but more recently it has been embraced by the software giants SAP and Microsoft.

Demand for “software as a service,” as this approach is also known, is growing rapidly because it can reduce the cost and trouble of maintaining a company’s own information technology.

On-demand software generated revenues of about $3.7 billion in 2006, with sales projected to rise about 32 percent annually for the next few years, according to the research firm IDC. NetSuite brings the on-demand approach to small and midsize businesses whose needs are too demanding for simple accounting programs and spreadsheets, but who are still too small for the corporate software made by SAP and Oracle.

“For all the noise in this space, NetSuite is actually addressing a unique problem,” said Peter Goldmacher, an analyst with Cowen and Company. “Once a small company has outgrown QuickBooks it’s a big leap to enterprise-level programs. NetSuite fills that gap.”

NetSuite has said it hopes to sell up to 6.2 million shares for $13 to $16 each, and use the proceeds to start paying down its $8 million line of credit with Mr. Ellison’s investment company, Tako Ventures. It plans to use a Dutch auction process similar to that used by Google in 2004.

In a Dutch auction, investors are invited to submit individual bids, but in the end all the winners end up paying the same amount for the stock. That share price is based on the highest bid that ensures all 6.2 million shares will be sold. The system enables more individual investors to participate, in contrast to traditional public offerings.

NetSuite’s bankers — Credit Suisse Securities and W.R. Hambrecht & Co., the father of the Dutch auction I.P.O. — began collecting bids Dec. 10.

Although December is typically considered the worst month for I.P.O.’s, NetSuite is clearly hoping that the strong year in the I.P.O. market will hold out through the end of the year. The total number of I.P.O.’s is up 25 percent over last year, according to Renaissance Capital. Of the total, 49 have been technology companies, the most in any industry this year.

Mr. Ellison, NetSuite’s largest shareholder with 74 percent of shares, has remained a close adviser to Mr. Goldberg and Zachary Nelson, the company’s president and chief executive, and is expected to continue in that role after the I.P.O. Mr. Ellison has said he plans to transfer all of the 32 million NetSuite shares he holds to a “lockbox” limited liability company that will be managed by an unrelated third party to avoid conflicts with a potential competitor.

NetSuite has yet to turn its first profit. But the company has enjoyed a steady rise in sales the past few years and today has more than 5,400 customers. In the first nine months of 2007, revenue rose 63 percent to $76.8 million over the first nine months of 2006, and the company’s net loss narrowed to $20.6 million from $26.9 million.

One of NetSuite’s greatest challenges has been the need to reduce the length of the sales cycle, given the high upfront costs of its subscription model. For that, the company recognized early on that it would need more marketing know-how, and in 2000 it brought on Mr. Nelson, a Nebraska native who once ran Oracle’s marketing operations.

Since Mr. Nelson’s arrival, Mr. Goldberg has been able to focus entirely on technology development. The match appears to have been a good one, with Mr. Nelson’s farm-boy demeanor a counterpoint to Mr. Goldberg’s high-strung California intensity.

“It’s not your typical Silicon Valley company,” said Bruce Richardson, chief research officer with AMR Research. “Part of the charm of the company has always been the personalities. Zach has enough of the Oracle bravado, but with a Midwest sensibility.”

The Beautiful: Hitech H38 TV Phone

PT Tirta Citra Nusantara memperkenalkan ponsel Hi-Tech H38 yang merupakan “The slimmest TV Phone” di Indonesia. Ponsel ini telah didukung kemampuan multimedia yang lengkap seperti MP3/MP4 player, kamera 1.3 MP, Radio, PC kamera dan 3D Sound Speaker. Plus fitur layar sentuh (Touch Screen) dan handswriting recognation.


Image. Ponsel Hi-Tech H38

Ponsel Unik dan Terjangkau
Ponsel bukan hanya merupakan alat komunikasi. Perkembangannya kini telah menyatukan berbagai perangkat dalam satu alat mungil. Ini sesuai dengan kebutuhan masyarakat, khususnya di perkotaan, yang menginginkan perangkat kecil yang serba canggih. Namun demikian, pada kenyataannya penambahan berbagai fasilitas dalam ponsel biasanya berakibat pada makin mahalnya harga ponsel. Hi-Tech mencoba memberikan solusi dengan menghadirkan ponsel-ponsel dengan kemampuan prima dan mengintegrasikan berbagai perangkat tambahan di dalamnya namun tetap dengan harga sangat terjangkau.Untuk tahap awal, Hi-Tech memperkenalkan seri ponsel multimedia yang juga dilengkapi dengan fasilitas TV tuner, Hi-Tech H38. Dengan perangkat ini selain dapat menikmati berbagai hiburan multimedia, pengguna juga dapat menonton siaran TV di manapun, tanpa harus mengularkan pulsa. Dengan desain unik, layar yang lebar, dan dukungan kualitas speaker 3D sound, Anda akan membawa sebuah pesawat TV dalam kantong.

“TV merupakan sumber informasi dan hiburan bagi masyarakat Indonesia. Dengan Hi-Tech H38 ini Anda tidak akan ketinggalan siaran favorit di manapun berada,” jelas Herman Janto, General Manager PT Tirta Citra Nusantara, distributor ponsel-ponsel Hi-Tech di Indonesia. “Pada intinya ponsel ini merupakan refleksi dari seluruh kebutuhan informasi dan komunikasi masyarakat,” tambahnya.

Bila dibandingkan dengan ponsel-ponsel lain yang memiliki fitur TV tuner, Hi-Tech adalah ponsel dengan desain paling tipis. Tampilannya yang mewah dan desain yang menarik membuat produk ini enak di genggam. Disediakan juga dudukan untuk meletakan ponsel ketika Anda hendak menyaksikan siaran TV dalam paket penjualan.

Setelah peluncuran seri Hi-Tech H38 akan segera diikuti oleh seri Hitech H31. Keunikan dari Hi-Tech H31 adalah memiliki dual slot GSM SIM card. Jadi bagi Anda yang memiliki lebih dari satu kartu GSM tak perlu repot lagi menenteng dua buah ponsel. Cukup satu saja lewat Hi-Tech H31. Ponsel ini juga memiliki kemampuan multimedia lengkap plus teknologi layar sentuh.

Setelah itu akan segera diluncurkan Hi-Tech H51 yang berkemampuan dual mode GSM/CDMA. Dua teknologi (GSM dan CDMA) dapat digabung sekaligus dalam satu ponsel. Juga telah didukung kemampuan multimedia lengkap plus teknologi layar sentuh.

“Dalam satu tahun kedepan kita akan meluncurkan sekitar 12 type ponsel,” jelas Herman Janto. “Kesemuanya akan memiliki keunikan tersendiri yang akan memberikan sentuhan baru dalam menggunakan perangkat komunikasi. Keunikan ini yang akan menempatkan ponsel-ponsel Hi-Tech berbeda dari merek-merek lainnya.”

Jaringan Layanan Purna Jual
Untuk membuktikan keseriusan mereka dalam bisnis ponsel, PT Tirta Citra Nusantara menggandeng PT Dian Graha Elektrika (DGE) sebagai partner layanan purna jual dan service center. Seperti telah diketahui jaringan DGE telah menjangkau berbagai lokasi di Nusantara. “Dengan jaringan DGE yang sangat luas, dukungan dari tenaga professional dan terlatih, serta perangkat service center yang lengkap akan memberikan kenyamanan pada konsumen kami,” jelas Herman.

Saat ini jaringan DGE tersebar mulai mulai dari Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, Yogyakarta. Solo, Bali, Medan ,Palembang, Pekanbaru, Banjarmasin, Samarinda dan Makasar. “Melihat dari kualitas, keunikan produk dan luasnya jaringan purna jual yang kami miliki, kami optimis akan dapat melayani masyarakat dengan baik.”

Untuk ukuran produk baru PT Tirta Citra Nusantara dapat disebut sebagai perusahaan yang paling siap dalam layanan purna jualnya. “Konsumen ponsel Hi-Tech tak perlu khawatir lagi dengan after sales services. Semuanya dapat dilakukan dengan mudah, cepat dan nyaman,” jelas Herman Janto.

Part 3. The Case for Energy-Proportional Computing

Wide dynamic power range
Current desktop and server processors can consume less than one-third of their peak power at very-low activity modes, creating a dynamic range of more than 70 percent of peak power. CPUs targeted at the mobile or embedded markets can do even better, with idle power often reaching one-tenth or less of peak power. 10 They achieve this even when not using any performance-impacting—or software-visible—energy-saving modes.

In our experience, the dynamic power range of all other components is much narrower: less than 50 percent for DRAM, 25 percent for disk drives, and 15 percent for networking switches.

Active low-power modes
A processor running at a lower voltage-frequency mode can still execute instructions without requiring a performance-impacting mode transition. It is still active. There are no other components in the system with active low-power modes. Networking equipment rarely offers any low-power modes, and the only low-power modes currently available in mainstream DRAM and disks are fully inactive. That is, using the device requires paying a latency and energy penalty for an inactive-to-active mode transition. Such penalties can significantly degrade the performance of systems idle only at submillisecond time scales.


Figure 4. Power usage and energy efficiency in a more energy-proportional server. This server has a power efficiency of more than 80 percent of its peak value for utilizations of 30 percent and above, with efficiency remaining above 50 percent for utilization levels as low as 10 percent.

Compared to today's machines, servers with a dynamic power range of 90 percent, shown in Figure 4, could cut by one-half the energy used in data center operations. 5 They would also lower peak power at the facility level by more than 30 percent, based on simulations of real-world data center workloads. These are dramatic improvements, especially considering that they arise from optimizations that leave peak server power unchanged. The power efficiency curve in Figure 4 fundamentally explains these gains. This server has a power efficiency of more than 80 percent of its peak value for utilizations of 30 percent and above, with efficiency remaining above 50 percent for utilization levels as low as 10 percent.

In addition to its energy-savings potential, energy-proportional hardware could obviate the need for power management software, or at least simplify it substantially, reducing power management to managing utilization.

Fundamentally, the latency and energy penalties incurred to transition to the active state when starting an operation make an inactive energy-savings mode less useful for servers. For example, a disk drive in a spun-down, deep-sleep state might use almost no energy, but a transition to active mode incurs a latency penalty 1,000 times higher than a regular access latency. Spinning up the platters also carriers a large energy penalty. Such a huge activation penalty restricts spin-down modes to situations in which the device will be idle for several minutes; this rarely occurs in servers. On the other hand, inactive energy-savings modes with wake-up penalties of only a small fraction of the regular operations' latency are more likely to benefit the server space, even if their low-energy state operates at relatively higher energy levels than would be possible in deep-sleep modes.

Active energy-savings schemes, by contrast, are useful even when the latency and energy penalties to transition to a high-performance mode are significant. Since active modes are operational, systems can remain in low-energy states for as long as they remain below certain load thresholds. Given that periods of low activity are more common and longer than periods of full idleness, the overheads of transitioning between active energy-savings modes amortize more effectively.

Servers and desktop computers benefit from much of the energy-efficiency research and development that was initially driven by mobile devices' needs. However, unlike mobile devices, which idle for long periods, servers spend most of their time at moderate utilizations of 10 to 50 percent and exhibit poor efficiency at these levels. Energy-proportional computers would enable large additional energy savings, potentially doubling the efficiency of a typical server. Some CPUs already exhibit reasonably energy-proportional profiles, but most other server components do not.

We need significant improvements in memory and disk subsystems, as these components are responsible for an increasing fraction of the system energy usage. Developers should make better energy proportionality a primary design objective for future components and systems. To this end, we urge energy-efficiency benchmark developers to report measurements at nonpeak activity levels for a more complete characterization of a system's energy behavior.

Acknowledgments

We thank Xiaobo Fan and Wolf-Dietrich Weber for coauthoring the power provisioning study that motivated this work, and Catherine Warner for her comments on the manuscript.

References

US Environmental Protection Agency, "Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency: Public Law 109-431"; www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/prod_development/downloads/EPA_Datacenter_Report_Congress_Final1.pdf.
J.G. Koomey, "Estimating Total Power Consumption by Servers in the U.S. and the World"; http://enterprise.amd.com/Downloads/svrpwrusecompletefinal.pdf.
L.A. Barroso, "The Price of Performance: An Economic Case for Chip Multiprocessing," ACM Queue, Sept. 2005, pp. 48-53.
J. Hill et al., "System Architecture Directions for Networked Sensors," Proc. SIGOPS Oper. Syst. Rev., ACM Press, vol. 34, no. 5, 2000, pp. 93-104.
X. Fan, W.-D. Weber, and L.A. Barroso, "Power Provisioning for a Warehouse-Sized Computer"; http://research.google.com/archive/power_provisioning.pdf.
S. Ghemawat, H. Gobioff and S.-T. Leung, "The Google File System"; www.cs.rochester.edu/meetings/sosp2003/papers/p125-ghemawat.pdf.
S. Siddha, V. Pallipadi, and A. Van De Ven, "Getting Maximum Mileage Out of Tickless," Proc. 2007 Linux Symp., 2007, pp. 201-208.
E. Ravussin et al., "Determinants of 24-Hour Energy Expenditure in Man: Methods and Results Using a Respiratory Chamber"; http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=423919&blobtype=pdf.
E.F. Coyle, "Improved Muscular Efficiency Displayed as Tour de France Champion Matures"; http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/reprint/98/6/2191.
Z. Chen et al., "A 25W(max) SoC with Dual 2GHz Power Cores and Integrated Memory and I/O Subsystems"; www.pasemi.com/downloads/PA_Semi_ISSCC_2007.pdf.
Source: computer

Part 2. The Case for Energy-Proportional Computing

Energy Efficiency At Varying Utilization Levels
Server power consumption responds differently to varying utilization levels. We loosely define utilization as a measure of the application performance—such as requests per second on a Web server—normalized to the performance at peak load levels. Figure 2 shows the power usage of a typical energy-efficient server, normalized to its maximum power, as a function of utilization. Essentially, even an energy-efficient server still consumes about half its full power when doing virtually no work. Servers designed with less attention to energy efficiency often idle at even higher power levels.


Figure 2. Server power usage and energy efficiency at varying utilization levels, from idle to peak performance. Even an energy-efficient server still consumes about half its full power when doing virtually no work.

Seeing the effect this narrow dynamic power range has on such a system's energy efficiency—represented by the red curve in Figure 2—is both enlightening and discouraging. To derive power efficiency, we simply divide utilization by its corresponding power value. We see that peak energy efficiency occurs at peak utilization and drops quickly as utilization decreases. Notably, energy efficiency in the 20 to 30 percent utilization range—the point at which servers spend most of their time—has dropped to less thanhalf the energy efficiency at peak performance. Clearly, such a profile matches poorly with the usage characteristics of server-class applications.

Toward Energy-Proportional Machines
Addressing the mismatch between the servers' energy-efficiency characteristics and the behavior of server-class workloads is primarily the responsibility of component and system designers. They should aim to develop machines that consume energy in proportion to the amount of work performed. Such energy-proportional machines would ideally consume no power when idle (easy with inactive power modes), nearly no power when very little work is performed (harder), and gradually more power as the activity level increases (also harder).

Energy-proportional machines would exhibit a wide dynamic power range—a property that might be rare today in computing equipment but is not unprecedented in other domains. Humans, for example, have an average daily energy consumption approaching that of an old personal computer: about 120 W. However, humans at rest can consume as little as 70 W, 8 while being able to sustain peaks of well over 1 kW for tens of minutes, with elite athletes reportedly approaching 2 kW. 9

Breaking down server power consumption into its main components can be useful in helping to better understand the key challenges for achieving energy proportionality. Figure 3 shows the fraction of total server power consumed by the CPU in two generations of Google servers built in 2005 and 2007.


Figure 3. CPU contribution to total server power for two generations of Google servers at peak performance (the first two bars) and for the later generation at idle (the rightmost bar).

The CPU no longer dominates platform power at peak usage in modern servers, and since processors are adopting energy-efficiency techniques more aggressively than other system components, we would expect CPUs to contribute an even smaller fraction of peak power in future systems. Comparing the second and third bars in Figure 3 provides useful insights. In the same platform, the 2007 server, the CPU represents an even smaller fraction of total power when the system is idle, suggesting that processors are closer to exhibiting the energy-proportional behavior we seek.

Two key CPU features are particularly useful for achieving energy proportionality and are worthy of imitation by other components.(computer).

Part 1. The Case for Energy-Proportional Computing

by: Luiz André Barroso and Urs Hölzle
Google

Energy-proportional designs would enable large energy savings in servers, potentially doubling their efficiency in real-life use. Achieving energy proportionality will require significant improvements in the energy usage profile of every system component, particularly the memory and disk subsystems.

Energy efficiency, a new focus for general-purpose computing, has been a major technology driver in the mobile and embedded areas for some time. Earlier work emphasized extending battery life, but it has since expanded to include peak power reduction because thermal constraints began to limit further CPU performance improvements.

Energy management has now become a key issue for servers and data center operations, focusing on the reduction of all energy-related costs, including capital, operating expenses, and environmental impacts. Many energy-saving techniques developed for mobile devices became natural candidates for tackling this new problem space. Although servers clearly provide many parallels to the mobile space, we believe that they require additional energy-efficiency innovations.

In current servers, the lowest energy-efficiency region corresponds to their most common operating mode. Addressing this mismatch will require significant rethinking of components and systems. To that end, we propose that energy proportionality should become a primary design goal. Although our experience in the server space motivates these observations, we believe that energy-proportional computing also will benefit other types of computing devices.

Dollars & CO2
Recent reports 1,2 highlight a growing concern with computer-energy consumption and show how current trends could make energy a dominant factor in the total cost of ownership. 3 Besides the server electricity bill, TCO includes other energy-dependent components such as the cost of energy for the cooling infrastructure and provisioning costs, specifically the data center infrastructure's cost. To a first-order approximation, both cooling and provisioning costs are proportional to the average energy that servers consume, therefore energy efficiency improvements should benefit all energy-dependent TCO components.

Efforts such as the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (www.climatesaverscomputing.org) could help lower worldwide computer energy consumption by promoting widespread adoption of high-efficiency power supplies and encouraging the use of power-savings features already present in users' equipment. The introduction of more efficient CPUs based on chip multiprocessing has also contributed positively toward more energy-efficient servers. 3 However, long-term technology trends invariably indicate that higher performance means increased energy usage. As a result, energy efficiency must improve as fast as computing performance to avoid a significant growth in computers' energy footprint.

Servers versus Laptops
Many of the low-power techniques developed for mobile devices directly benefit general-purpose servers, including multiple voltage planes, an array of energy-efficient circuit techniques, clock gating, and dynamic voltage-frequency scaling. Mobile devices require high performance for short periods while the user awaits a response, followed by relatively long idle intervals of seconds or minutes. Many embedded computers, such as sensor network agents, present a similar bimodal usage model. 4

This kind of activity pattern steers designers to emphasize high energy efficiency at peak performance levels and in idle mode, supporting inactive low-energy states, such as sleep or standby, that consume near-zero energy. However, the usage model for servers, especially those used in large-scale Internet services, has very different characteristics.



Figure 1. Average CPU utilization of more than 5,000 servers during a six-month period. Servers are rarely completely idle and seldom operate near their maximum utilization, instead operating most of the time at between 10 and 50 percent of their maximum
utilization levels.

Figure 1 shows the distribution of CPU utilization levels for thousands of servers during a six-month interval. 5 Although the actual shape of the distribution varies significantly across services, two key observations from Figure 1 can be generalized: Servers are rarely completely idle and seldom operate near their maximum utilization. Instead, servers operate most of the time at between 10 and 50 percent of their maximum utilization levels. Such behavior is not accidental, but results from observing sound service provisioning and distributed systems design principles.

An Internet service provisioned such that the average load approaches 100 percent will likely have difficulty meeting throughput and latency service-level agreements because minor traffic fluctuations or any internal disruption, such as hardware or software faults, could tip it over the edge. Moreover, the lack of a reasonable amount of slack makes regular operations exceedingly complex because any maintenance task has the potential to cause serious service disruptions. Similarly, well-provisioned services are unlikely to spend significant amounts of time completely idle because doing so would represent a substantial waste of capital.

Even during periods of low service demand, servers are unlikely to be fully idle. Large-scale services usually require hundreds of servers and distribute the load over these machines. In some cases, it might be possible to completely idle a subset of servers during low-activity periods by, for example, shrinking the number of active front ends. Often, though, this is hard to accomplish because data, not just computation, is distributed among machines. For example, common practice calls for spreading user data across many databases to eliminate the bottleneck that a central database holding all users poses.

Spreading data across multiple machines improves data availability as well because it reduces the likelihood that a crash will cause data loss. It can also help hasten recovery from crashes by spreading the recovery load across a greater number of nodes, as is done in the Google File System. 6 As a result, all servers must be available, even during low-load periods. In addition, networked servers frequently perform many small back- ground tasks that make it impossible for them to enter a sleep state.

With few windows of complete idleness, servers cannot take advantage of the existing inactive energy-savings modes that mobile devices otherwise find so effective. Although developers can sometimes restructure applications to create useful idle intervals during periods of reduced load, in practice this is often difficult and even harder to maintain. The Tickless kernel 7 exemplifies some of the challenges involved in creating and maintaining idleness. Moreover, the most attractive inactive energy-savings modes tend to be those with the highest wake-up penalties, such as disk spin-up time, and thus their use complicates application deployment and greatly reduces their practicality.(computer).

In the December issue of Computer


Despite advances in power efficiency fueled largely by the mobile computing industry, computer-energy consumption continues to challenge both industry and the global economy. In the US, enterprise energy consumption doubled over the past five years and will continue to do so.

And this does not include the energy cost of manufacturing components—it is estimated that Japan’s semiconductor industry will consume 1.7 percent of that country’s energy budget by 2015. The articles in this issue propose strategies for mitigating these costs by designing systems that consume energy in proportion to the amount of work performed, establishing new benchmarks and accurate ways of modeling power consumption, and even recycling older processors over several computing generations.

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In the November issue of Computer

Service orientation is not a technology but an extremely wide-ranging philosophy or paradigm. It spans technical scenarios like back-end services, telecommunications, high-level business processes, and day-to-day Web services for everybody. Service orientation’s wide spectrum of maturity mirrors this range. The technological realization of this vision is still in its infancy and is dominated by effect-focused illustrative examples. The goal of this issue is to contribute to the convergence of the currently scattered service-oriented communities and foster the development of a common domain structure now stably adopted in mature technologies such as hardware design and telecommunications

Computer and Information Technology (CIT)

Computer and Information Technology (formerly Computer Technology - CPT) prepares students for existing and emerging jobs and careers in the application of information systems and technology to plan, analyze, design, construct, maintain, and manage

1. Software Development
2. Systems Integration
3. Data Management
4. Computer Networks

In addition, CIT is developing courses in the following signature areas:
1. Cyberforensics
2. Biomedical Informatics
3. High Performance Computing
4. Information Security
5. Wireless Networking

Samsung L830/L730

The ‘Samsung L830’ has 8.1 mega pixels, and the L730 has 7.2 mega pixels, and they both have a 3x optical zoom. The Samsung L series, the leader in the high quality digital camera market, has evolved to become more stylish, with its metal front cover and minimalist design concept.

With the Samsung exclusive Multi Charge system that has been adopted in the Samsung L830/L730, recharging and data transmission can be done at the same time by connecting a combined recharging and USB cable. Without a heavy charging unit or cradle, the Samsung L830/L730 claims to be the easiest digital camera to carry around with you.

- The L830/L730 is ideally suited for family gatherings such as picnics, school exhibitions or trips, with all its extra functions such as Face Recognition (AF & AE) and Red-eye fix. The Face Recognition (AF & AE) function recognizes individuals and takes the best portrait, while the Red-eye fix takes care of the red-eye phenomenon during and after shooting.

- The 2.5” Intelligent TFT LCD fitted to the camera automatically adjusts its brightness according to the surrounding levels and offers the optimum visibility. Also the camera is equipped with Samsung’s proprietary ASR (Advanced Shake Reduction) and high sensitivity ISO 1600, which ensures sharply-focused images without flash in an indoor environment

- The Mode Dial of the ‘Samsung L830/L730’ enhances ease of use when operating the camera with only one hand. Photo frames, cartoons and stickers add more fun to taking pictures.

- The ‘Samsung L830/L730’ has a powerful movie function using MPEG4, an SVGA level resolution (800ⅹ592), and is equipped with both an editing capability and a variety of image viewing functions.

The ‘Samsung L83T

No more boring, everyday pictures! The exclusive Samsung L83T digital camera allows you to express your creativity.


- The ‘Samsung L83T’ is a digital camera for the active young generation who live with their cameras, to capture the bright moments in their daily lives. Along with many functions for still picture taking, the ‘Samsung L83T’ is also equipped with several movie functions, which make it easy to create cartoons, artistic pictures and movies.

- The strengthened movie functionality of i-Movie enables shooting a long movie using a high compression MPEG4 type large screen, and a resolution of SVGA (800X592). Various other functions including a 3x optical zoom while shooting, successive recording, in which the user can pause while taking a movie and restart shooting later in the same file, and still image capture, and editing, meet the needs of the latest UCC (User Created Contents) trend.

- Also, still pictures can be edited in unique styles. With the color filter function, the user can choose one person to keep in color, and make the others black and white. Cartoon shooting gives you the fun of creating a cartoon, and using composite shooting, several shots can be taken in one screen.
Images can be decorated with stickers in different and shapes, such as a heart, using the sticker function, and there are photo frames to help you make up a special album. Other functions, including the ability to change the colors, will help users to create unique and unforgettable pictures.

- The ‘Samsung L83T’ is equipped with a Face Recognition function (AF & AE) and Red-eye fix during and after taking a portrait, for best results. Samsung’s proprietary ARS (Advanced Shake Reduction) helps to take a sharply-focused picture without flash even in dimly lit conditions, and this feature makes the Samsung L83T especially
useful in museums.

- The ‘Samsung L83T’ also features a 1cm super macro for taking detailed pictures of a ring or a flower, and a motion capture facility whereby the camera can take 7 pictures a second. By selecting the motion timer, users can take pictures of themselves without a remote control. A wise shot function is also included, to provide a more exciting picture-taking experience.

NV Series ( NV20, NV15, NV8)


The NV series comes in two colours: royal black and iron silver. The NV design achieves an exquisite harmony, balancing respect for tradition with its retro look, and a modern feeling with its advanced technology.
- The fast Advanced Shake Reduction (ASR), combined with an Auto Contrast Balance (ACB) feature enables even more perfect image production.
- Smart Touch gives you an innovative method of operation with fingertip control
- The NV Series boasts the highest specification embodied in a compact, together with rich state-of-the-art features: 12.1 mega pixels, a Schneider lens, and Face Recognition AF & AE.

1. The NV Series are cutting-edge digital cameras featuring high resolution (12.1 mega, 10.1 mega, or 8.1 mega pixels) Schneider lenses. A further advance from the existing NV design which has enjoyed great popularity; royal black and iron silver colours have been added, and a high-gloss finish has been applied for a more elegant design.

2. The Auto Contrast Balance(ACB) feature, which automatically corrects the brightness of objects by analyzing differences in the intensity of the light, enables faithful representation of detail even in environments with high back-lighting or contrast.

3. Furthermore, Samsung’s proprietary Fast ASR (Advanced Shake Reduction) feature enables blur-free, sharp images at a fast speed of 0.7 seconds.

4. The innovative Smart Touch interface more conveniently aids the selection and adjustment of desired functions through various combinations of the L-shaped horizontal and vertical buttons.

5. The NV20, NV15, and NV8 offer Face Recognition AF & AE for optimal portrait photography, and a Red-eye Fix that automatically eliminates red-eye from your pictures, in addition to manual photography features. On top of this, high-quality videos and GIF animations can be created, and a variety of pictures can be taken using motion capture and high-speed continuous shooting at 2 shots per second.

Multimedia digital camera i85


Pictures, videos, music, movies, novels, travel information – all in the palm of your hand.

- Enjoy a variety of culture: PMP, MP3, world travel information, text books, and i-movies.
- A slim multimedia digital camera featuring 8.2 mega pixels and a 5x optical zoom.
- Body of four colours (silver, black, red, and gold) with a distinctive colour material finish (CMF)- Very useful for UCC (user-created contents) production, with powerful video editing features such as shot continuity and video section editing

□ The i85 supports a wide variety of media such as PMP, MP3, text books, and i-movies. It is a multi-media digital camera that plays music when you travel, shows a movie when you are waiting for a friend, and turns into a novel in the subway train on your way home. What’s more, it is your best travel companion - providing tour information on 30 countries around the world.

□ The i85 is a slim, high-resolution digital camera featuring 8.2 mega pixels, a 5x optical zoom, and a 3.0 inch LCD display that shows much larger and clearer images.

□ With the distinctive CMF (Colour Material Finish) of the stainless material, the i85 offers a wider selection of colours: silver, black, red, and gold.

□ The video feature, which is now more useful than ever thanks to the UCC (user-created contents) boom, supports the high-compression MPEG-4 format (SVGA class 800 X 592) for more vivid, sharper images. Moreover, shot continuity, which allows file continuity to be maintained when a video shot is paused, still image capturing, and video section editing are very useful features for the production of your own UCC.

□ Samsung’s proprietary ASR (Advanced Shake Reduction) and highly sensitive ISO 1600 enables you to take clear, blur-free indoor images even without a flash. Additional features include Face Recognition AF & AE for optimal portrait photography, and a Red-eye Fix that eliminates red-eye from your pictures.

□ The i85 has adopted a flash animation GUI (Graphic User Interface) and also offers an amusing BGM feature for you to enjoy a slide show of your pictures with background music.

Title Samsung Digital camera’s Samsung i70 Scoops Top “EISA AWARD”


- The i70 has won an EISA Award for European Design, the highest authority for technology awards
in Europe
- Its revolutionary design has caught the European eye


Samsung Techwin (represented by Lee Joonggoo, www. samsungcamera.co.kr) has announced that its Samsung i70 digital camera, released in the first half of the year, has taken top honours at the prestigious EISA (European Imaging and Sound Association) European Design Camera Awards 2007-2008.

The EISA Awards are also known as the Nobel Prizes of the camera industry, and the selection committee for the Awards consists of 50 experts chosen from over 20 European countries. EISA’s top honours are awarded after strict quality testing by these experts in a total of five sectors: Audio, Home Theatre, Video, Photo,and Mobile Devices.

According to EISA, the Samsung i70 - European Design Camera for 2007-2008 - offers “an innovative sliding cover” and “a 4-coloured full metal body”, and is “an attractive compact camera having lens decorated with cubic zircon, having a sensitive look and feel about its design”. EISA also said that the i70 is expected to have great appeal to younger customers because of its MPEG-4 movie display function and multi-media functions, which include an MP3 player.

The i70 provides features such as an innovative sliding cover, high quality with 7.2M pixels, a 3” wide LCD, an SRS surround audio system with MP3 player, a slim stainless body with a special finish, and a lens coated with cubic zircon. The camera is well-equipped with plenty of powerful functions, and its design is both sensitive and advanced.

A Samsung insider said “Samsung Techwin has developed real confidence in terms of its design, as well as its already proven quality & technical capability, as this EISA Award proves. Samsung will continue to develop new products that are able to satisfy the needs of European customers.”

As you probably remember, the Samsung NV10 also won the EISA Award for Compact Digital Camera last year.

Samsung Digital camera's i85 has been given the honor of the first CES2008 Innovation Award

Samsung Techwin announced that its Samsung i85 digital camera will receive the honor of the first CES Innovation Award at the 4 day CES2008 in Las Vegas, from January 7th until the 10th.

The CES Innovation Award is given to products exhibited at CES that show excellence in technology and design as judged by the ISDA (Industrial Designers Society of America)

CES announced that the Samsung Techwin digital camera which won the prize in the digital imaging category, the Samsung i85, was an innovative product capable of multitasking with picture, video, music, movie, text viewing, and world tour guide features.

The light and slim Samsung i85 provides excellent portability, an Inner Zoom Samsung lens for quick operation, and improved mobility and functionality. There is a choice of four different stainless colors: silver, black, red and gold.

It is also equipped with face recognition AF & AE features for taking portraits and ACB (Auto Contrast Balance) for automatically adjusting the brightness of a subject. It is possible to capture detailed images in a shooting environment that has backlighting or a high contrast between light and dark. In addition, its Red Eye Fix feature automatically corrects red eyes, and its video, motion capture, and other features allow the user to shoot a wider variety of pictures.

A Samsung Techwin representative said, “This award means that the product's quality is recognized by experts not just in Europe but also North America. We will continue to lead innovation in global digital camera products.”




Nokia 8800 Arte and 8800 Sapphire Arte


Nokia has rolled out their new 8800s. They are the Nokia 8800 Arte and Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte, featuring an elegant and sophisticated design theme that takes inspiration from nature and sets it apart from the crowd. By tapping the steel surface below the display, you will get an analogue clock appears. They have the 'turn-to-mute' feature which allows user to quiet their phone by simply turning the over the phone, the screen-side down.

Nokia Nokia 8800 Arte and Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte come with a 2.0-inch QVGA 240×320 pixels, OLED display with up to 16 million colors, 3.2-megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom, 3G capabilities, 1GB built-in memory storage, microUSB all-in-one connector and an anti-fingerprint coating on its glass and metal. The Nokia Nokia 8800 Arte will be available in the fourth quarter of 2007 with an estimated retail price of 1000 EURO while the Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte will follow in the first quarter of 2008 and retail for approximately 1150 EURO, both prices are excluding taxes and subsidies.

Nokia 8800 Arte/ Arte Sapphire at a glance
Available: Q4 2007 - Q1 2008
Network: GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900 UMTS 2100
Data: GPRS + EDGE + UMTS (3G)
Screen: 240x320 pixels, 16m colours
Camera: 3.2 megapixels
Size: Large slider 109 x 46 x 15mm / 150 grams
Bluetooth: Yes
Memory card: No
Infra-red: No
Polyphonic: No
Java: Yes
Battery life: 3 hours talk / 12 days stan