Fun Games to Play With the Family

By: Dave Roth

Many families today do not spend that much time together. Life seems to get in the way, and they end up going their separate ways and doing their own things. However, there are ways to bring the family closer, and one way is through the playing of games. With that in mind, however, it is important to find games that everyone can play, so that they can all have fun and enjoy what they are doing. Without the entire family being able to play, the people that are left out will be resentful and the goal of getting the entire family involved will be lost. Fortunately, there are many fun games available.

Some of the easiest ones to play are backyard games like horseshoes and beanbag toss. These are games that do not require a lot of set-up and preparation. In addition, they have simple rules and they are games that almost anyone of any age can play. Because of this, the entire family from very young children through to the elderly grandparents and even great-grandparents can play them. When games are available for such a large group of individuals, they can really help to keep families together. Sometimes, though, the weather is bad and games cannot be played outside. It may be too hot for everyone to enjoy it, or it may be raining or cold.

When outside games cannot be played, there are family games to play inside. Most people think of video and computer games, and those can be very enjoyable, but there are other games. Many people still like board games, and putting together a puzzle can be a fun family activity, as can doing an art project, making a scrapbook, or looking at family photos. For those that want a different kind of indoor game, though, there are many options that people used to play such as hide-and-seek or sardines. Searching the Internet for these kinds of games can provide parents with a list of many fun activities that the entire family can enjoy.

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_4040.shtml

Posted by admin | No Comments »

Touched By A Tablet - Choosing The Right Graphics Tablet For You

By: Annie Goss

There you are: you have finally decided to purchase a graphics tablet. Whatever your reasons may be for purchasing one, you are now faced with a very major decision: amongst all the numerous graphics tablets out there, which one would best suit your needs and your budget ?

Wacom is without any doubt, a genius when it comes to graphics tablet (also known as pen tablet) technology and is continually improving their products. Due to these frequent upgrades, this article will only touch the following Wacom models: Bamboo, Bamboo Fun (a successor and an improved model over the Graphire series), Intuos3 (the 3rd generation of Intuos) and Cintiq.

The basics

All Wacom graphics tablets are easy to install and use, thanks to Wacom’s Plug & Play technology. Every Wacom tablet is compatible with Macintosh and Windows, supports widescreen format, offers application and tool settings, provides a comfortable design and comes equipped with a detachable USB cable, and a programmable, cordless and battery free ergonomic pen. Therefore, your decision will be based on the main differences between these major models. Those include: pressure sensitivity, resolution and size.

• Pressure sensitivity of the pen tip and its eraser( when present) is measured in levels: 512 levels for the Bamboo line and 1024 levels, the highest thus far, for the Intuos3 and Cintiq models.

• Resolution, measured in lines per square inch, is marked at 2,540 for the Bamboo series and 5,080 for the Intuos3 and Cintiq models. Based on these two differences alone, if one needs or desires more precision and sharper results, the Intuos3 or the Cintiq are by far the better choices.

• Size relates to the active area of the graphics tablet, which is the drawing/writing area and not the actual size of the tablet. If space is really a tight issue, make sure you take into consideration the actual dimensions of the graphics tablet. Since the active area of a tablet matches your computer screen no matter what size it is, don’t let a smaller sized Wacom tablet fool you: the smaller sizes offer just as many features as the larger ones. Size becomes a concern when considering desk space, laptop use, portability, and user preferances. Bamboo, Bamboo Fun Small and Medium, Intuos3 4×6 and 6×8 are all wonderful options for small working environments.

Bringing pen to tablet: beginners

Let’s start by comparing the three Bamboo models.

• Bamboo standard (4×6 approx.) with its sleek black piano finish, is a wonderful improvement over the past Wacom models. It is perfect for any office, be it at home or at work and a perfect travelling companion. Specified mostly for office work rather than artistic tasks, it performs very well by working with your computer’s existing software for marking up documents, jotting down notes and writing your signature. So if you do not need any extra art related software, and the budget is as tight as your desk space, this is the perfect graphics tablet for you.

(Bamboo standard is the only Wacom tablet, of the newer models, which does not come with a matching mouse, or any software. The accompanying Bamboo pen does not have an eraser which could prove to be inconvenient.)

• Bamboo Fun (Small) (4×6 approx.) is terrific for children and beginners with creative minds. With four colors to choose from, (Blue, White, Black and Silver) you can personalize any office, home or at work, with your preferred color. However, despite the great Wacom quality and advantages, the active area might prove to be too small for elaborate projects.

• Bamboo Fun (Medium) (5×9 approx.) which also comes in the same 4 different colors as the Small version, is ideal for beginners and excellent for young students, digital photographers and more creative users. The new possibilities range from personalizing your work with your signature or other creations to touching-up photos.

Bringing pen to tablet: intermediate

The Intuos3 line, in its cool charcoal gray color and with an extra year warranty, replaces the Bamboo’s Touch Ring (at the top of the tablet) with a Touch Strip (at the side of the tablet for scrolling). The position of the ExpressKeys (for shortcuts) has also changed from the top (on the Bamboo) to the side (on the Intuos3). The Intuos3 also adds tilt control to the mix, an added bonus for any serious user. It even offers more pen tips for different writing and drawing results with the one accompanying cushioned Grip Pen which provides extra comfort and reduces tension. Extra accessories are available for the Intuos3 such as an array of different pen types ranging from the classic pen for a more natural, day-to-day work and feel to the sophisticated airbrush for unbelievably realistic paintings and other art designs. The whole Intuos3 series is specially designed for wide screens and multiple monitor work stations. If you are a serious graphic artist or you spend long hours using artistic software, an Intuos3 is certainly a worthwhile investment, and most graphics professionals would call it an essential tool. That said, there are still 6 different sizes to chose from !

• Intuos3 4×6 is easily portable with more features than the Bamboo series and perfect for small desk spaces yet affordable. However, this graphics tablet is not recommended for left-handed users because the single set of ExpressKeys and Touch Strip is on the left side of the drawing tablet. (All the other Intuos3 sizes have dual ExpressKeys and a Touch Strip on both the left and right sides of the tablet.)

• Intuos3 6×8 benefits more professional work yet is still an excellent size for cramped spaces and is a perfect travelling companion for the laptop and ideal for serious students on the go.

• Intuos3 6×11 targets the CAD users, and technical illustrators which may desire a larger surface area and artists who are used to drawing or painting with large sweeping motions. It is also optimized for work in single screen or for multiple monitor work stations and is ideal for editing HDTV videos. Remember, the larger your tablet surface, the more you will need to move your arms which may be viewed as a disadvantage to some users.

• Intuos3 9×12 greatly assists professional photo-retouching artists, illustrators and industrial designers with challenging endeavours, allowing for wider sweeping strokes.

• Intuos3 12×12, the only square tablet, caters to professionals with elaborate artistic ideas and highly detailed expectations like professional technicians and designers in any industry including automobile, textile and fashion.

• Intuos3 12×19 targets sophisticated and high-performance work involving precision and accurate results like professional digital imagery, audio-visual technicians, graphic artists, and architects. It offers optimal use of wide screen and double monitors and is excellent for creating HDTV videos.

Bringing pen to screen: intermediate and professional

Cintiq is the combination of the Intuos3 technology with an LCD monitor. The result: a state of the art monitor that allows you to write or draw directly on the screen with unparalleled accuracy! The fact that it is detachable and totally adjustable to any angle and for any purpose (on your desk or on your knees) makes it the holy grail of the Wacom graphics tablets and obviously, the most expensive. The Cintiq series (which comes with an Intuos3 Grip Pen for optimal comfort and fatigue prevention) will greatly improve workflow and efficiency while providing spectacular, detailed results in any professional field ranging from industrial designers, audio-editors and animators to doctors, educators and story-board creators requiring faster visual effects. This interactive pen display, with leading edge technology, literally becomes your canvas or your easel.

Yet again, there are 3 Cintiq’s to choose from. Size is measured diagonally, from the smaller 12.1”, and mid size 20.1” to the large 21.3”. The native resolution and the total number of pixels (1.0, 1.8 and 1.9 million pixels respectively) are what set them apart the most.

• Cintiq 12WX (1280×800 native resolution) is very light (4.4lbs) and portable thanks to an extra cable and a convertor box to keep it small and lightweight. It’s half the price of the other Cintiq models. However, due to its small size, you may want to add this to a multi-monitor set-up. If you are a very serious artist or technical designer, it is recommended that you save for the next model up.

• Cintiq 20WSX (1680×1050 native res.) is every professional’s dream. This 20 lb unit is the preferred choice by many due to its price and size. Less costly than its larger brother, it basically offers the same features.

• Cintiq 21UX (1600×1200 native res.) is the top of the line for pixel perfect results. Weighing in at 22.4 lbs, it’s the only Cintiq with an aspect ratio of 4:3 (standard resolution). All the others have 16:10. See it in action by going to YouTube.com and searching for Cintiq … it is absolutely incredible !

When trying to choose between all of these great Wacom contenders, wallet and desk size will always be an issue. Everyday users for home and basic office duties will delight in Bamboo, Bamboo Fun and Intuos3 4×6. Professionals at home or at the office in all fields will require and thoroughly enjoy Intuos3 6×8 and up. (Academic specials for students and schools do exist for the Bamboo and the Intuos3.) Serious illustrators, educators, technical designers and artists demanding elaborate detail and high pixel perfection will absolutely love the freedom, comfort, efficiency and convenience of drawing directly on the screen … and for many users - that is priceless.

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_4062.shtml

Posted by admin | No Comments »

The Battle of the Browsers – The History and the Future of Internet Browsers

By: Nicholas C Smith

With Internet Explorer 8 now available, can Microsoft hope to retain market dominance over fierce open source rivals such as Mozilla's Firefox or the feature packed Opera web browser. Can history give us a clue to what the future of web browsers/browsing might hold? How did Netscape Navigator go from having a dominant 89.36% market share of all web browsers in 1996 and yet only 3.76% by mid 1999?

Let us take a journey that will begin long before even the intellectual conception of Internet Explorer, that will glance at its long defeated rivals, examine the current browsers available and will end with a prediction of what the future of browsing will offer us – and which browser(s) will still be around to offer it.

People often think that Internet Explorer has been the dominant web browser since the golden age of the internet began. Well for a very long time now it has indeed been the most popular browser and at times been almost totally unrivalled. This was mainly a result of it being packaged free with Microsoft Windows, in what some would later call a brutal monopolisation attempt by Microsoft. The last few years however have heralded the arrival of new, possibly superior browsers. Mozilla's Firefox has been particularly successful at chipping away at Explorers market dominance. So where did it all begin, and why were Microsoft ever allowed to have a hundred percent market dominance?

Origins

The truth is they never did have total dominance, but at times they have come very close. Microsoft actually entered the Browser Battle quite late on. Infact a man named Neil Larson is credited to be one of the originators of internet browsers, when in 1977 he created a program – The TRS-80 - that allowed browsing between “sites” via hypertext jumps. This was a DOS program and the basis of much to come. Slowly other browsers powered by DOS and inspired by the TRS 80 were developed. Unfortunately they were often constricted by the limitations of the still fairly young internet itself.

In 1988, Peter Scott and Earle Fogel created a simple, fast browser called Hytelnet, which by 1990 offered users instant logon and access to the online catalogues of over five thousand libraries around the world – an exhilarating taste of what the internet, and web browsers, would soon be able to offer.

In 1989 the original World Wide Web was born. Using a NeXTcube computer, Tim Berners-Lee created a web browser that would change how people used the internet forever. He called his browser the WorldWideWeb(http://www., which is still likely to sound familiar to internet users today. It was a windowed browser capable of displaying simple style sheet, capable of editing sites and able to download and open any file type supported by the NeXTcube.

In 1993 the first popular graphical browser was released. Its name was Mosaic and it was created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. Mosaic could be run on both Unix, and very importantly, on the highly popular Microsoft Windows operating system (incidentally it could also be used on Amiga and Apple computers). It was the first browser on Windows that could display graphics/pictures on a page where there was also textual content. It is often cited as being responsible for triggering the internet boom due to it making the internet bearable for the masses. (It should be noted that the web browser Cello was the first browser to be used on Windows – but it was non graphical and made very little impact compared to Mosaic).

The Browser Wars - Netscape Navigator versus Internet Explorer

Mosaic's decline began almost as soon as Netscape Navigator was released (1994). Netscape Navigator was a browser created by Marc Andreessen, one of the men behind Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was unrivalled in terms of features and usability at the time. For example, one major change from previous browsers was that it allowed surfers to see parts of a website before the whole site was downloaded. This meant that people did not have to wait for minutes simply to see if the site they were loading was the actual one the were after, whilst also allowing them to read information on the site as the rest of it downloaded. By 1996 Netscape had almost 90% market dominance, as shown below.

Market Share Comparisons of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer from 1996 to 1998

………………..Netscape…….IE

October 1998……….64%………32.2%

April 1998…………70%………22.7%

October 1997……….59.67%……15.13%

April 1997…………81.13%……12.13%

October 1996……….80.45%……12.18%

April 1996…………89.36%…….3.76%

In these two years Netscape clearly dominated the internet browser market, but a new browser named Internet Explorer was quickly gaining ground on it.

Microsoft released their own browser (ironically based on the earlier Mosaic browser which was created by one of the men now running Netscape), clearly worried about Netscape's dominance. It was not so much the worry that it would have a 100% market share of internet browsers on their Windows operating system, but more the worry that browsers would soon be capable of running all types programs on them. That would mean foregoing the need for an actual operating system, or at the most only a very basic one would be needed. This in turn would mean Netscape would soon be able to dictate terms to Microsoft, and Microsoft were not going to let that happen easily. Thus in August 1995, Internet Explorer was released.

By 1999 Internet explorer had captured an 89.03% market share, whilst Netscape was down to 10.47%. How could Internet Explorer make this much ground in just two years? Well this was down to two things really. The first, and by far the most important was that Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer in with every new copy of Windows, and as Windows was used by about 90% of the computer using population it clearly gave them a huge advantage. Internet Explorer had one other ace it held over Netscape – it was much better. Netscape Navigator was stagnant and had been for some time. The only new features it ever seemed to introduce were often perceived by the public as beneficial for Netscape's parent company rather than Netscape's user base. (i.e., features that would help it monopolise the market). Explorer, on the other hand, was given much attention by Microsoft. Regular updates and excellent usability plus a hundred million dollar investment would prove too much for Netscape Explorer.

2000 – 2005

These years were fairly quiet in the Battle of the Browsers. It seemed as if Internet Explorer had won the war and that nobody could even hope to compete with it. In 2002/2003 it had attained about 95% of the market share – about the time of IE 5/6. With over 1000 people working on it and millions of dollars being poured in, few people had the resources to compete. Then again, who wanted to compete? It was clearly a volatile market, and besides that everybody was content with Internet Explorer. Or were they? Some people saw faults with IE – security issues, incompatibility issues or simply bad programming. Not only that, it was being shoved down peoples throats. There was almost no competition to keep it in line or to turn to as an alternative. Something had to change. The only people with the ability and the power to compete with Microsoft took matters into their own hands.

Netscape was now supported by AOL. A few years prior, just after they had lost the Browser Wars to Microsoft, they had released the coding for Netscape into the public domain. This meant anybody could develop their own browser using the Netscape skeleton. And people did. Epiphany, Galeon and Camino, amongst others, were born out of Netscape's ashes. However the two most popular newcomers were called Mozilla and Firefox.

Mozilla was originally an open sourced project aimed to improve the Netscape browser. Eventually it was released as Netscape Navigator 7 and then 8. Later it was released as Mozilla 1.0.

Mozilla was almost an early version on another open source browser, Firefox. With it being an open source the public were able to contribute to it - adding in what features it needed, the programming it required and the support it deserved. The problems people saw in Internet Explorer were being fixed by members of the open sourced browser community via Firefox. For instance, the many security issues IE 6 had were almost entirely fixed in the very first release of Firefox. Microsoft had another fight on their hands.

2005 – Present

Firefox was the browser that grew and grew in these years. Every year capturing an even larger market share percentage than before. More user friendly than most of its rivals along with high security levels and arguably more intelligent programming helped its popularity. With such a large programming community behind it, updates have always been regular and add on programs/features are often released. It prides itself on being the peoples browser. It currently has a 28.38% market share.

Apple computers have had their own browser since the mid 1990's – Safari - complete with its own problems, such as (until recently) the inability to run Java scripts. However most Apple users seemed happy with it and a version capable of running on Windows has been released. It has had no major competitor on Apple Macs, and as such has largely been out of the Browser Wars. It currently holds a 2.54% market share and is slowly increasing.

Internet Explorer's market share has dropped from over 90% to around 75%, and is falling. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft will attempt to regain such a high market share.

Opera currently holds 1.07%.

Mozilla itself only has a 0.6% market share these days.

The Future of Web Browsing

Web browsers come and go. It is the nature of technology (if such a term can be used), to supplant inferior software in very short periods of time. It is almost impossible for a single company to stay ahead of the competition for long. Microsoft have the advantage of being able to release IE with any Windows using PC. That covers over 90% of the market. They also have the advantage of unprecedented resources. They can compete how they wish for as long as they wish. So there is no counting IE out of the future of web browsing.

Safari is in a similar position, being easily the most popular Mac web browser. Its long term survival is dependant upon Apple and the sale of their computers.

These are the only two browsers that are almost guaranteed another five years of life, at least. Firefox may seem like another candidate, but the public is fickle, and one bad release, or if it seriously lags behind the new Internet Explorer 8 for long, could easily see its popularity quickly descend into virtual oblivion.

However, it seems likely community driven browsers, such as Mozilla and Firefox, will be the only types of browser capable of competing with the wealthy internet arm of Microsoft in the near future.

As for web browsing itself, will it change any time soon? Well it already has for some online communities. For example, if you want to buy clothes you could try entering an online 'world' creating an online virtual You to go from 'shop to shop' with, looking at products and trying/buying what you see. Some 'worlds' allow you to recreate yourself accurately including weight and height and then try on things apparel such as jeans to give you an idea of how you would look in that particular item.

Will 'worlds' like this destroy normal web browsers such as IE ? - It seems unlikely. Traditional web browsers provide such freedom and ease of access that it is hard to see any other alternative taking over. However they are part of the new, 'thinking out of the box' wave of alternatives that some people will find attractive, and really who knows what the future will bring.

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_4137.shtml

Posted by admin | No Comments »

Creating A Software Library

By: Jane Smith

Every business uses computer software. But not every business realises the importance of having a user friendly software library for cataloging all their software.

While sharing software and using it on more than one computer is against the law, making a copy to keep in your software library in case it is ever needed is not only allowed, it is strongly advised.

In this sense a company’s software library is the computer equivalent of the box that says ‘break glass in emergency’; it grants you access to the vital software your company uses to run its day to day business. If anything goes wrong or the original software is corrupted in any way, you have the back up you need to get you out of trouble.

It’s obvious then that the library needs to be properly catalogued and kept fully up to date, to ensure that everything is where it should be in the event that it’s ever needed. Consider it as a fire extinguisher to help put out the flames caused by malfunctioning computer equipment. If you don’t know where that extinguisher is – or even worse, you haven’t got one at all – the flames could spread out and affect your whole business. Use the fire extinguisher however and everything is back to normal in no time.

The process of creating a software library can ironically be made much easier by purchasing software that is designed to make the task easy to perform and control. The companies that specialise in this kind of software also offer support services to help you get your own library up and running.

The most important aspect is to consider your needs and the best way of organising your own business software library. It needs to be easy to access and update, while remaining secure at all times.

For this reason it’s advisable to make sure that only a few key members of staff can access the software library. It’s not necessary for everyone to have access to it, and the more people are able to do so, the more likely it is that it will be compromised.

Once the library has been created it will be necessary to update it every time a new piece of software is integrated into the current computer system. Making a particular person responsible for seeing that this is done will ensure the integrity of the software library remains secure.

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_4099.shtml

Posted by admin | No Comments »

Technology and Market Structure of Virtual Network Games

By: David ZHENG

We cannot see the future, of course, but there are a number of technological innovations that are relevant to gaming, that are also fairly easy to see coming. Currently, access to gaming involves some sort of access to computing technology, and access to gaming that can earn money involves access to a shared, persistent, physical computing environment, specifically a virtual world . The technology supporting virtual worlds is advancing so quickly that it would be foolish to describe the next generation in any detail. Suffice it to say that there are large, lucrative industries working energetically on different dimensions of the environment that virtual worlds thrive in.

These industries produce three items of interest, namely, connections, interface and content. Developments in connections include the internet and, increasingly, wireless communications. Development of interfaces includes voice command, head-up displays and body motion detection (computer-controlling gloves, gaze readers). Developments in content include the supply side of the market for games, where annual revenues have grown beyond Hollywood box office revenues. All three industries are expanding at a rapid rate. Whatever emotional experiences people seek, it may become possible, in the near future, to effortlessly connect to a virtual world that provides that experience at fairly low cost. Kurzweil argues that the explosion of computing power alone may be sufficient to change the daily course of life.

Since these developments all involve networks, they may seem to suggest a monopolistic market structure. If economic life online involves getting your email and hanging around with friends, there will be positive externalities with respect to the sheer size of the virtual world one visits. If I spend my time on Rubi-Ka, while you spend your time in Albion, we cannot talk to one another, and we cannot do things together. Thus, our time in virtual worlds is more valuable if everyone we know is in the same world. Moreover, if two worlds compete and one has more players than another, wouldn't everyone have an incentive to join the larger world, so as to enjoy the larger network of society, communication and entertainment that it affords? Might such network externalities lead to a domination of this market by one player?For example,some network games such as lotro gold,runescape gold,guild wars gold etc.

There are reasons to expect, however, that this market is not likely to be monopolized. First, there seems to be a great diversity of tastes for the different features of a world. Mr. Bird may want to be on Pluto, while Mr. Castronova prefers medieval Britain. One of the major attractions of life mediated by avatars is the anonymity it affords, and anonymity requires a person to have exit options: other worlds to escape to if one's reputation in this one gets unpleasant. Perhaps a savvy game developer could make a world so large and varied as to provide the essential minimum level of entertainment and anonymity to a sufficiently large number of people, so that membership in that one world becomes optimal for all. This seems unlikely, however, given that there is a marginal cost to creating and maintaining game content. Moreover, there are no economies of scale on the supply side to match the increasing returns on the demand side (Liebowitz and Margolis, 1994). Production of game content and its maintenance are both labour-intensive activities. One could perhaps increase production of content by allowing other producers (say, by opening game code to the public), but continued control of the world being created would be problematic. On the whole, it seems very unlikely that one developer could produce a world big enough to monopolize the market.

A second reason involves congestion. Virtual worlds are virtual because they are online, but they are worlds because there is some physicality to them. Avatars take up space. If a world has a certain amount of entertaining content in it, that content will almost always be subject to some kind of congestion effect. The cool monsters are in the Dungeon of Befallen, but if tens of thousands of us go there to hunt them, none of us will have a good time. Sometimes the only way to reduce congestion is to add content, but this, again, is labour intensive. There will also be congestion effects related to connection speeds and bandwidth.

A third reason that the market will probably not be dominated by a few companies can be found in the many competitive strategies that are available even now, but have not yet been exploited by new entrants. For example, the current set of developers have managed to impose huge switching costs on players by structuring gameplay around the time-intensive development of avatar capital. A player starts the game with a weak avatar, but gameplay gives the avatar ever-increasing powers. As power increases, the avatar is able to take more advantage of the game world, to travel farther, do more things, see more people. A person with a high-level avatar then faces a high hurdle in switching games, because in the new game he will start out poor, defenceless and alone again. This situation definitely locks in the game's player base, but it is also open to defeat by any number of schemes to reduce the switching costs. Surprisingly, no competitor to a current game has offered new players the opportunity to start their avatars at a higher level of wealth and ability if they can provide evidence of a high level avatar in another game. On the other hand, two games (Ultima Online and Dark Ages of Camelot) now offer methods to effectively start out ahead: in Ultima, you can directly buy your levels; in Camelot, you can start a new avatar at level 20 if you have already gotten one to level 50. These strategies help companies discourage the buying and selling of avatars outside the game, perhaps at a cost to the atmosphere within the world. In sum, what appear to be strong lock-ins and switching costs in the game market today may not be as strong as they seem; when savvy competitors appear, the player bases will generally be at risk. For example,some network games such as lotro gold,runescape gold,guild wars gold etc.

A final argument against a monopolization tendency comes from the nature of the content itself. Games are art, for the most part, and markets for artistic output exhibit a great deal of churn due to herding effects and the star phenomenon (MacDonald, 1988). If a company designs a better game, it will attract players. And while it is true that development costs can be significant, it will always be possible to produce a fun virtual world for a tiny amount of money and then scale it up as it becomes more popular.Whatever network externalities, supply-side returns to scale, and barriers to entry may exist in the market for virtual worlds, they seem insufficient to produce domination by a single company. The distribution of populations in virtual worlds is perhaps less like a natural monopoly market than a club goods market. Populations will sort according to the services, ambience, and fees of the various worlds. Virtual worlds will compete, as clubs do, but their size will be limited by congestion effects and by the marginal cost of increasing the scale of the world.

This analysis allows a tentative answer to the first question of the study: in the medium-term future, the online multiplayer gaming market will probably consist of a number of large, densely populated worlds, with varying degrees of portability between them. The worlds will generate large revenue streams and will occupy many hours of human time, some of it considered play, some of it considered work. The hours that people devote to games will result in the accumulation of stocks of digital capital goods. These objects will have considerable economic value. Given the expected growth in connectivity, interface technologies and content, there is reason to believe that this digital capital stock may eventually become quite large.

These considerations then lead to the next set of questions: If virtual worlds do become more important, how will this affect the real Earth economy?

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_4064.shtml

Posted by admin | No Comments »

Firefox Just Got Better

By: Burk Pendergrass

The safest most secure app for browsing the internet currently available just got better and has more improvements on the way. Are you ready for the latest Mozilla release? Firefox 3 Beta 4 is available for download, but before you go running off like some half cocked Microsoft groupie notice the "beta" tag.

Hello!! The internet is a dangerous place. The Remote Helpdesk 1 Team continues to be amused (we can no longer say amazed) at people who would not dare to venture into certain parts of a city but who seemingly rush into the internet's dark corners and dimly lighted streets ill prepared.

Before you sail into a storm baton down the hatches, and before you cruise into hacker, virus, trojan, and criminally infested areas of the world wide web at least darken the windows and arm yourself. Not to take appropriate precautions will assure your computer a visit to the infectious disease controls center if not the hard drive morgue.

Firefox developers have thus far proven themselves to the best at incorporating necessary safety features into their browser while preserving user options and cruise speeds. Online PC Repair folks feel they owe a lot of their success to getting their loyal users involved in the development and testing process. These folks, like The Tennessee Mountain Man, have helped keep the programs on track and the applications minimal. For instance, if a client wants twenty-five cents - give him a quarter like Mozilla tends to do rather that twenty-five pennies as Microsoft is famous for.

It takes a lot less resources to process one coin than it does to count twenty-five. Mozilla recognizing this has given the new "beta" release a lot of new features and improved compatibility while freeing up resources. The end result being a more nimble and faster overall browsing experience. At the same time they have enhanced Firefox's security.

Released to the public via the Mozilla website Monday, 10 March 2008, Firefox 3 Beta 4 is in the beta stage of any software's life cycle. Firefox 3 Beta 4 loudly proclaims that it is "for testing purposes only" therefore it is not for everyone. It you are a newbie or maybe even an intermediate internet user, the suggestion of the Computer Man would be that you use Firefox 2.0.0.12, the latest most stable full release until Firefox 3 is out of beta.

If you just can't wait for a better browsing experience Mozilla reports "the new release includes more than 900 enhancements from beta 3, including drastic improvements to performance and memory usage, as well as fixes for stability, platform enhancements and user interface".

But that is not the half of it… not by a long shot. "Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 31 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 12,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers improvements.", according to Mozilla.

Enhancements like these reported on the Mozilla website:

"More Secure

* One-click site info: Click the site favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if your connection is protected from eavesdropping. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company you're connected to. (Try it here!)

* Malware Protection: malware protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware. (Try it here!)

* New Web Forgery Protection page: the content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown. (Try it here!)

* New SSL error pages: clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate. (Try it here!)

* Add-ons and Plugin version check: Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions.

* Secure add-on updates: to improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled.

* Anti-virus integration: Firefox will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.

* Vista Parental Controls: Firefox now respects the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

* Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service better restricts cookies and other restricted content to a single domain.

* Better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks.

Easier to Use

* Easier password management: an information bar replaces the old password dialog so you can now save passwords after a successful login.

* Simplified add-on installation: the add-ons whitelist has been removed making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks.

* [Improved in Beta 4!] New Download Manager: the revised download manager makes it much easier to locate downloaded files, and you can see and search on the name of the website where a file came from. Your active downloads and time remaining are always shown in the status bar as your files download.

* Resumable downloading: users can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.

* [Improved in Beta 4!] Full page zoom: from the View menu and via keyboard shortcuts, the new zooming feature lets you zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the layout, text and images, or optionally only the text size. Your settings will be remembered whenever you return to the site.

* Podcasts and Videocasts can be associated with your media playback tools.

* Tab scrolling and quickmenu: tabs are easier to locate with the new tab scrolling and tab quickmenu.

* Save what you were doing: Firefox will prompt users to save tabs on exit.

* Optimized Open in Tabs behavior: opening a folder of bookmarks in tabs now appends the new tabs rather than overwriting.

* Location and Search bar size can now be customized with a simple resizer item.

* Text selection improvements: multiple text selections can be made with Ctrl/Cmd; double-click drag selects in "word-by-word" mode; triple-clicking selects a paragraph.

* Find toolbar: the Find toolbar now opens with the current selection.

* Plugin management: users can disable individual plugins in the Add-on Manager.

* [Improved in Beta 4!] Integration with Vista: Firefox now has Vista-specific icons, and uses native user interface widgets in the browser and in web forms.

* [Improved in Beta 4!] Integration with the Mac: the new Firefox theme makes toolbars, icons, and other user interface elements look like a native OS X application. Firefox also uses OS X widgets and spell-checker in web forms and supports Growl for notifications of completed downloads and available updates. A combined back and forward control make it even easier to move between web pages.

* [Improved in Beta 4!] Integration with Linux: Firefox's default icons, buttons, and menu styles now use the native GTK theme.

More Personal

* Star button: quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click; a second click lets you file and tag them.

* Tags: associate keywords with your bookmarks to sort them by topic.

* [Improved in Beta 4!] Location bar & auto-complete: type in all or part of the title, tag or address of a page to see a list of matches from your history and bookmarks; a new display makes it easier to scan through the matching results and find that page you're looking for. Results are returned according to their frecency (a combination of frequency and recency of visits to that page) ensuring that you're seeing the most relevant matches. An adaptive learning algorithm further tunes the results to your patterns!

* Smart Bookmarks Folder: quickly access your recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as your more frequently visited pages with the new smart bookmarks folder on your bookmark toolbar.

* Places Organizer: view, organize and search through all of your bookmarks, tags, and browsing history with multiple views and smart folders to store your frequent searches.

* Web-based protocol handlers: web applications, such as your favorite webmail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications for handling mailto: links from other sites. Similar support is available for other protocols (Web applications will have to first enable this by registering as handlers with Firefox).

* Download & Install Add-ons: the Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of Add-ons available from our community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended Add-ons is shown.

* Easy to use Download Actions: a new Applications preferences pane provides a better UI for configuring handlers for various file types and protocol schemes.

Improved Platform for Developers

* New graphics and font handling: new graphics and text rendering architectures in Gecko 1.9 provides rendering improvements in CSS, SVG as well as improved display of fonts with ligatures and complex scripts.

* Color management: (set gfx.color_management.enabled on in about:config and restart the browser to enable.) Firefox can now adjust images with embedded color profiles.

* Offline support: enables web applications to provide offline functionality (website authors must add support for offline

browsing to their site for this feature to be available to users).

* A more complete overview of Firefox 3 for developers is available for website and add-on developers.

Improved Performance

* [Improved in Beta 4!] Speed: improvements to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in significant improvements in performance. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3 Beta 4, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.

* [Improved in Beta 4!] Memory usage: Several new technologies work together to reduce the amount of memory used by Firefox 3 Beta 4 over a web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.

* Reliability: A user's bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences are now stored in a transactionally secure database format which will prevent data loss even if their system crashes."

Mozilla provides Firefox 3 Beta 4 for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in forty different languages, and reports it can be removed without losing your bookmarks, web browsing history, extensions and other add-ons. Best of all - it is FREE ! Just download, install, and enjoy a whole new faster browsing experience if your computer meets one of the following system requirements.

Windows

Operating Systems

* Windows 2000

* Windows XP

* Windows Server 2003

* Windows Vista

Minimum Hardware

* Pentium 233 MHz (Recommended: Pentium 500MHz or greater)

* 64 MB RAM (Recommended: 128 MB RAM or greater)

* 52 MB hard drive space

Mac

Operating Systems

* Mac OS X 10.4 and later

Minimum Hardware

* Macintosh computer with an Intel x86 or PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor

* 128 MB RAM (Recommended: 256 MB RAM or greater)

* 200 MB hard drive space

Linux

Software Requirements

Please note that Linux distributors may provide packages for your distribution which have different requirements.

* Linux kernel - 2.2.14 or higher with the following libraries or packages:

o glibc 2.3.2 or higher

o XFree86-3.3.6 or higher

o gtk+2.0 or higher

o fontconfig (also known as xft)

o libstdc++5

Minimum Hardware

* Intel Pentium II or AMD K6-III+ 233 MHz CPU (Recommended: 500MHz or greater)

* 64 MB RAM (Recommended: 128 MB RAM or greater)

* 52 MB hard drive space

And, if you still have not tried Mozilla Thunderbird,

get ready to kick Outlook Express to the curb!

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_4048.shtml

Posted by admin | No Comments »

What The Heck Is Podcasting? And How Can It Help My Business?

By: Ted Cantu

from the desk of Ted Cantu, Ex- Advertising Exec turned Defector

Just in case you’ve been living in a cave the last 18 months I’ll fill you in on Podcasting. In short it is an online radio show. You can come on week after week and get your marketing messages out to the millions at any time you like. That is TOTAL FREEDOM.

But what many people do not realize is that podcasting can be used to get incredible search engine rankings. This is a very powerful thing to keep in mind. That is what this mini course is about to show you.

Currently as I write this I have the number 10th popular show on Podomatic in the business section. Its been like that for quite a while. I didn’t have to buy my way to the top. I just plugged in a microphone and went for it. I blurted out tips and secrets and kept the format into a neat 40 minute segment.

More to the point I never asked for permission to do any of this. I just took action.

The truth was I actually hated my voice when I first started. But because I have done this so many times and have listened to myself over and over again I adjusted. Now I am not self conscious about any of this and I have grown accustomed to the way I sound.

GETTING STARTED:

If you're considering podcasting, you're probably wondering both, a) what it is, and b) why you'd want to get involved. Suffice to say (as you begin your journey) that podcasting is an amazing way to get audio material heard by an audience where and when they want. In terms of why you should podcast, however, the reasons are as varied, unique, lovely, controversial and fascinating as there are voices to be heard in the world. Just turn on a microphone and join the conversation.

It's really fun. Yup, let's start with the basics. If I were to say, "podcasting allows you to convert audio material via an RSS feed through an uploaded host…" the sound of your yawning would drown out the click of your mouse as you ventured to a different website.

Podcasting is about creation. It's about taking your ideas, dreams, ambitions, business goals, or any other reason that you'd use your voice for to create a lasting record of said content and making it available to others. And one of the reasons it's so fun is because it's easy. Get a microphone, press a couple of buttons, and start talking.

And if you're thinking, "but what would I say? I'm not funny or interesting and nobody would care about my show." In short, I disagree.

You may not get an audience of 10,000 listeners, but the audience you do get will be utterly interested in what you have to say.

That's why they call podcasting the ultimate niche marketing medium. If you're not in marketing all that means is, you can speak directly and specifically to the people who are listening versus trying to speak in general terms to broadcast to a larger audience.

Think of it like when you were a kid and strung two cans together with string or used walkie-talkies; what did you say to your buddy when you pushed the button to speak? In some ways, did it matter? The joy was in communicating the joy of talking to one another using a fun medium. Podcasting is just like that.

RADIO DAYS – MY LIFE AS A STRUGGLING RADIO HOST

Long before my days as a Rebel Marketer, ( a soon to be popular online show! Fall 07) I had a radio show in the Metro Detroit Market. To say that Detroit is struggling is a minor statement. This market has seen its many sides of downfalls. I somehow managed to get a radio show on a small AM station in the winter months of 2003.

Our wattage didn’t get past the city limits. The ride to the station was cold, dark and dangerous. It was in the worst neighborhood you can imagine and I had to pay for this experience out of pocket.

The amount of people I would reach every week numbered in the tens. Not tens of thousands but TENS. In fact, I would get the same ten people calling me every week and none of them would ever buy any of my health products that I was selling at the time. Most guests would call into the show because they were lonely people and wanted someone to talk to.

This was pretty depressing as you can imagine.

The only one who had any money in this “ACT” was yours truly. I had to literally deal with this type of nonsense week after week. The bleeding only stopped when I quit the show a few short months later. We could never get sponsors to put this show on the air. Detroit is a political place despite all the cheery hype. Pulling the plug on the entire thing was the smartest thing I’d ever done.

Needless to say I don’t miss those days too much.

A CRACK IN THE CLOUDS

I first heard of podcasting and I raced to it. I had a show put together in a matter of hours. I didn’t like the first ones I put together but I kept at it every week. Today I got about 20 episodes and I continue to appear with a new show once a week. You can find them here…..

http://911copywriter.podomatic.com/

Here is a bio of the show….

”I am an ex-art director, I spent my time in five major metropolitan markets including New York City and Chicago. I worked my way through five generations of interactive online marketing. I get my paycheck by cutting through the fluff and delivering cash pumping results into businesses. I am not one of those guys who will write online love letters to Macromedia Flash or hide behind the CEO's back pocket. I create mountains of online customers.

I put you in front of your audience and create a 2.220 percent increase of OPT IN customers. That may be a little much for most of you. But believe me when I say it that what I do is totally possible. I create foundations through niche markets and create the bridge to huge online profits.

I’ve studied with Dan Kennedy, Orange Beetle, Brett McFall, Seth Godin, and most recently Derek Gehl just to name a few. What we do on this show is very simple. We stay on top of the curve and share with you our perspectives on Online Marketing “ Direct Marketing and show you how to get your fair share of traffic online for your business.”

I pay literally pennies to put my shows on every week. I got a steady listening base too thanks to Itunes and I don’t have to worry about spending a ton of money out of my pocket for sponsors. I just talk and send it to the masses. My listening audience is around 6,000 people on a good week and it is growing all the time.

I have taken a complete 360 degrees with this experience. You should do it for your business too. All you need is a microphone, some imagination and some free software called Audacity. You can download it on the web just type the name into Google.

This is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field.

Happy Podcasting!

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_4072.shtml

Posted by admin | No Comments »

Complete Overview of Linux

By: Matthew Gebhardt

This article will discuss the differences between the Linux and Windows operating software’s; we discuss some of the pro’s and con’s of each system.

Let us first start out with a general overview of the Linux operating system. Linux at its most basic form is a computer kernel. The Kernel is the underlying computer code, used to communicate with hardware, and other system software, it also runs all of the basic functions of the computer.

The Linux Kernel is an operating system, which runs on a wide variety of hardware and for a variety of purposes. Linux is capable of running on devices as simple as a wrist watch, or a cell phone, but it can also run on a home computer using, for example Intel, or AMD processors, and its even capable of running on high end servers using Sun Sparc CPU’s or IBM power PC processors. Some Linux distro’s can only run one processor, while others can run many at once.

Common uses for Linux include that of a home desktop computing system, or more commonly for a server application, such as use as a web server, or mail server. You can even use Linux as a dedicated firewall to help protect other machines that are on the same network.

A programmer student named Linus Torvalds first made Linux as a variant of the Unix operating system in 1991. Linus Torvalds made Linux open source with the GNU (GPL) (General Public License), so other programmers could download the source code free of charge and alter it any way they see fit. Thousands of coders throughout the world began downloading and altering the source code of Linux, applying patches, and bug fixes, and other improvements, to make the OS better and better. Over the years Linux has gone from a simple text based clone of Unix, to a powerful operating software, with full-featured desktop environments, and unprecedented portability, and a variety of uses. Most of the original Unix code has also been gradually written out of Linux over the years.

As a result of Linux being open source software, there is no one version of Linux; instead there are many different versions or distributions of Linux, that are suited for a variety of different users and task. Some Distributions of Linux include Gentoo, and Slackware, which due to the lack of a complete graphical environment is best, suited for Linux experts, programmers, and other users that know their way around a command prompt. Distributions that lack a graphical environment are best suited for older computers lacking the processing power necessary to process graphics, or for computers performing processor intensive task, where it is desirable to have all of the system resources focused on the task at hand, rather than wasting resources by processing graphics. Other Linux distributions aim at making the computing experience as easy as possible. Distributions such as Ubuntu, or Linspire make Linux far easier to use, by offering full-featured graphical environments that help eliminate the need for a command prompt. Of course the downside of ease of use is less configurability, and wasted system resources on graphics processing. Other distributions such as Suse try to find a common ground between ease of use and configurability.

“Linux has two parts, they include the Kernel mentioned previously, and in most circumstances it will also include a graphical user interface, which runs atop the Kernel” reference #3. In most cases the user will communicate with the computer via the graphical user interface.

(ref #6) Some of the more common graphical environments that can run on Linux include the following. The KDE GUI (Graphical user interface). Matthias Ettrich developed KDE in 1996. He wanted a GUI for the Unix desktop that would make all of the applications look and feel alike. He also wanted a desktop environment for Unix that would be easier to use than the ones available at the time. KDE is a free open source project, with millions of coders working on it throughout the world, but it also has some commercial support from companies such as Novell, Troltech, and Mandriva. KDE aims to make an easy to use desktop environment without sacrificing configurability. Windows users might note that KDE has a similar look to Windows. Another popular GUI is (ref #7) GNOME. GNOME puts a heavy emphasis on simplicity, and user ability. Much like KDE GNOME is open source and is free to download. One notable feature of GNOME is the fact that it supports many different languages; GNOME supports over 100 different languages. Gnome is license under the LGPL license (lesser general public license). The license allows applications written for GNOME to use a much wider set of licenses, including some commercial applications. The name GNOME stands for GNU Network object model environment. GNOME’s look and feel is similar to that of other desktop environments. Fluxbox is another example of a Linux GUI. With less of an emphasis on ease of use and eye candy, Fluxbox aims to be a very lightweight, and a more efficient user of system resources. The interface has only a taskbar and a menu bar, which is accessed by right clicking over the desktop. Fluxbox is most popular for use with older computers that have a limited abundance of system resources.

Although most Linux distributions offer a graphical environment, to simplify the user experience, they all also offer a way for more technically involved users to directly communicate with the Kernel via a shell or command line. The command line allows you to run the computer without a GUI, by executing commands from a text-based interface. An advantage of using the command prompt is it uses less system resources and enables your computer to focus more of its energy on the task at hand. Examples of commands include the cd command for changing your directory, or the halt command for shutting down your system, or the reboot command for restarting the computer ect.

Now that we are more familiar with the Linux operating system, we can note the many ways in which Linux differs from the worlds most popular OS, Microsoft Windows. From this point forward we will discuss some of the more prominent ways in which Linux deferrers from Windows.

For starters there is only one company that releases a Windows operating system, and that company is Microsoft. All versions of Windows, weather Windows XP Home, Business, or Vista, all updates, security patches, and service patches for Windows comes from Microsoft. With Linux on the other hand there is not one company that releases it. Linux has millions of coders and companies throughout the world, volunteering their time to work on patches, updates, newer versions, and software applications. Although some companies, charge for TECH support, and others charge for their distribution of Linux, by packaging it with non-free software, you will always be able to get the Linux Kernel for free, and you can get full-featured Linux desktops with all the necessary applications for general use, for free as well. The vendors that charge money for their distribution of Linux are also required to release a free version in order to comply with the GPL License agreement. With Microsoft Windows on the other hand you have to pay Microsoft for the software, and you will also have to pay for most of the applications that you will use.

Windows and Linux also differ on TECH support issues. Windows is backed by the Microsoft Corporation, which means that if you have an issue with any of their products the company should resolve it. For example if Microsoft Windows is not working right, then you should be able to call Microsoft and make use of their TECH support to fix the issue. TECH support is usually included with the purchase of the product for a certain amount of time, maybe a two year period, and from there on you may be charged for the service. Although IBM backs their Linux products, for the most part if you use Linux you are on your own. If you have a problem with Ubuntu Linux you cannot call Ubuntu and expect any help. Despite the lack of professional help, you can however receive good TECH advice, from the thousands or millions of Linux forums that are on the web. You ca also get great help from social networking sites such as Myspace, by posting questions in the many Linux groups. You can usually receive responses for your questions in a matter of hours form many qualified people.

Configurability is another key difference between the two operating software’s. Although Windows offers its control panel to help users configure the computer to their liking, it does not match the configuring options that Linux provides especially if you are a real TECH savvy user. In Linux the Kernel is open source, so if you have the know how, you can modify it in virtually any way that you see fit. Also Linux offers a variety of Graphical environments to further suit your needs. As mentioned earlier Linux is capable of running full-featured graphical environments like KDE, or more lightweight and resource friendly GUI’s like Fluxbox, or Blackbox, to suit users with older computers. There are also versions of Linux that are designed to emulate the Windows look and feel as closely as possible. Distributions such as Linspire are best suited for users that are migrating over from the Windows world. There are also distributions that include no graphical environment at all to better suit users that need to squeeze out all of the computing power that they can get for various computing activities, and for users that are more advanced than others. All of this configurability can be problematic sometimes, as you will have to make a decision on which desktop is right for you, and to make things easier on yourself you will need to only install applications that are native to your distribution and graphical environment.

(ref #1) The cost effectiveness of Linux is another way it separates itself from Windows. For home use Linux is cheap and in most cases completely free, while Windows varies in cost depending on which version you buy. With Linux most of the applications will also be free, however for Windows in the majority of cases you are suppose to pay for the applications. For most cases, with Linux there is no need to enter a product activation key when performing an installation, you are free to install it on as many computers as you’d like. With Windows you are only allowed to install it on one computer and Microsoft uses product activation software to enforce this rule. When installing Window’s you must enter a product activation key, which will expire after so many uses. If you wish too, you can purchase Linux from a variety of vendors, which will include a boxed set of CDs, Manuals, and TECH support for around 40-130$. Of course If you purchase a high-end version of Linux used for servers it may cost any where from 400$- 2000$. “In 2002 computer world magazine quoted the chief technology architect at Merrill Lynch in New York, as saying “the cost of running Linux is typically a tenth of the cost of running Unix or Windows alternatively.” (ref#1)

(ref #1) Installation of Windows is generally easier, than installing Linux. “With Windows XP there are three main ways to install. There is a clean install, in which you install Windows on a blank hard drive. There is also an upgrade install, in which you start with an older version of Windows and “upgrade” to a newer one. An advantage of upgrading is that all of the files on the older system should remain intact throughout the process. You can also perform a repair install, in which case you are installing the same version of Windows on top of itself in order to fix a damaged version of Windows. There is also a recovery, which Technically is not an install; it is used to restore a copy of Windows back to its factory settings. The disadvantage of recovering Windows is the fact that you will loose all of your data, which resides on the damaged copy of Windows.” (ref#1) Also with Windows you can rest assured that your hardware will most likely be supported by the operating software, although this is not much of a problem with Linux you cant be sure if Linux will support all of your hardware. With Linux installation varies greatly from Distro to Distro. You may be presented with a graphical installer or it may be a text-based installer, these variations make Linux a bit more difficult and unpredictable to install than is Windows, (although the difficulty is disappearing). You may perform a clean install of Linux or dual boot it, to co-exist with another operation software. With Linux rather than having to buy an upgrade Cd, you can install updates by downloading and then installing them while your desktop is running. With Linux it is also not necessary to reboot your computer after most upgrades, It is only necessary to reboot after an upgrade to the kernel. It is also possible to run Linux without ever needing to install it on a hard drive; there are many distributions of Linux that will allow you to run it straight off of a live cd. The advantage of this is that you do not need to alter your system in order to

try Linux. You can run Linux off of the CD so you do not have to damage your Windows partition. Other advantages include the ability to rescue a broken Linux system. If your Linux computer will not boot, then you may insert a live cd and boot off it, so you can repair the damaged version of Linux. Also you may use a Linux live cd to recover files from a damaged Windows computer that will no longer boot up. Since Linux is capable of reading NTFS files you may copy files form a Windows computer to a USB flash drive or floppy drive ect.

Another major difference between Linux and Windows is the applications that you will use with either OS. Windows includes a much wider abundance of commercially backed applications than does Linux. It is much easier to find the software that you are looking for with Windows than it is with Linux, because so many software vendors make their products compatible with Windows only. With Linux you will for the most part be forced to let go of the familiar applications that you have grown accustomed to with Windows, in favor of lesser-known open source apps that are made for Linux. Applications such as Microsoft office, Outlook, Internet Explorer, Adobe Creative suite, and chat clients such as MSN messenger, do not work natively with Linux. Although with Linux you can get Microsoft office and Adobe creative suite to work using software from codeWeavers called cross Over Office. Instead of using these applications you will need to use Linux apps such as open office, The Gimp Image Editor, The ThunderBird email client, Instead of the MSN messenger you can use the GAIM messenger, and you can use Firefox as your web browser. Also with Linux it can be difficult to install software even if it is made for Linux. This is due to the fact that Linux has so many different versions. Software that is made to install on one version probably will require some configuration in order to install on another version. An example would be if you were trying to install software that was made for the KDE graphical environment, on the GNOME GUI, This app would not easily install on the GNOME GUI, and would require some configuring on your part to successfully install it.

The type of hard ware that Linux and windows runs on also causes them to differ. Linux will run on many different hardware platforms, from Intel and AMD chips, to computers running IBM power Pc processors. Linux will run on the slowest 386 machines to the biggest mainframes on the planet, newer versions of Windows will not run on the same amount of hardware as Linux. Linux can even be configured to run on apples, Ipod’s, or smart phones. A disadvantage of Linux is when it comes to using hardware devices such as Printers, Scanners, or Digital camera’s. Where as the driver software for these devices will often be easily available for Windows, with Linux you are for the most part left on your own to find drivers for these devices. Most Linux users will find comfort in the fact that drivers for the latest hardware are constantly being written by coders throughout the world and are usually very quickly made available.

(ref #1) One of the most notable differences between the two operating software’s is Windows legendary problems with malicious code, known as Viruses and Spy ware. Viruses, Spy-ware and a general lack of security are the biggest problems facing the Windows community. Under Windows Viruses and Spy-ware have the ability to execute themselves with little or no input from the user. This makes guarding against them a constant concern for any Windows user. Windows users are forced to employ third party anti virus software to help limit the possibility of the computer being rendered useless by malicious code. Anti virus software often has the negative side effect of hogging system resources, thus slowing down your entire computer, also most anti virus software requires that you pay a subscription service, and that you constantly download updates in order to stay ahead of the intruders. With Linux on the other hand problems with viruses are practically non-existent, and in reality you do not even need virus protection for your Linux machine. One reason why Viruses and Spy-ware are not a problem for Linux is simply due to the fact that there are far fewer being made for Linux. A more important reason is that running a virus on a Linux machine is more difficult and requires a lot more input from the user. With Windows you may accidentally run and execute a virus, by opening an email attachment, or by double clicking on a file that contains malicious code. However with Linux a virus would need to run in the terminal, which requires the user to give the file execute permissions, and then open it in the terminal. And in order to cause any real damage to the system the user would have to log in as root, by typing a user name and password before running the virus. Foe example to run a virus that is embedded in an email attachment the user would have to, open the attachment, then save it, then right click the file and chose properties form the menu, in properties they can give it execute permissions, they would then be able to

open the file in the terminal to run the virus. And even then the user would only be able to damage his or her home folder, all other users data will be left untouched, and all root system files would also remain untouched, because Linux would require a root password to make changes to these files. The only way the user can damage the whole computer would be if he or she logged in as root user by providing the root user name and password to the terminal before running the virus. Unlike Windows in Linux an executable file cannot run automatically, It needs to be given execute permissions manually this significantly improves security. In Linux the only realistic reason you would need virus protection is if you share files with Windows users, and that is to protect them not you, so you are not to accidentally pass a virus to the Windows computer that you are sharing files with.

The above was a general over view of some differences between the Windows operating system, and Linux. To recap we started with the fact that Windows has only one vendor that releases the software, while Linux comes from millions of different coders throughout the world. We also commented on the fact that the Linux Kernel and much of the applications used with it are completely free of charge, where as with windows you are forced to pay for most of the software. Unlike Widows Linux is often lacking in professional Tech support, and Linux users are often left on their own to solve Technical issues. Linux users can either pay for Tech support or rely on the many Linux Forums and groups available on the Internet. Due to the fact that the kernel is open source, Linux has a huge advantage over Windows in configurability. You can configure Linux to run almost any way you see fit by manipulating the Kernel. Installing the Windows Operating software and applications is easier due to the fact that it has a universal installer. Also finding applications for Windows is easier because of its popularity most apps are available for Windows only, and are made easily available. Linux will run on a greater variety of hard ware than does Windows, from mainframe super computers running multiple IBM Power PC Chips, to a small laptop running an AMD processor. And of course the biggest difference in this writer’s opinion is the fact that Linux does not suffer from an onslaught of Viruses and other malicious code, unlike Windows which is plagued by countless number of malicious code that can easily destroy your system if not properly guarded against.

In conclusion we will conclude that the Linux OS really is the superior software. Other than a few minor nuisances, linux out performs Windows in most categories. The fact that Linux is more secure is the tipping point, that tilts the scales in the favor of Linux. Windows simply suffers from far to many security vulnerabilities for it to be considered the better over all desktop environment.

References

http://www.michaelhorowitz.com/Linux.vs.Windows.html Reference #1

http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2004/10/27/linux-more-secure-than-windows-says-study Reference #2

http://www.linux.com/whatislinux/ reference number 3

http://www.linux.org/info/

Reference #4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux%5Fkernel Reference #5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE Reference #6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME Reference #7

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_4093.shtml

Posted by admin | No Comments »

What Exactly Are Radar Detectors?

By: Alex Baumm

Do you know what radar detectors are? You have seen them used in your favorite movies. You have heard them used in sci-fi and spy television series and probably you have seen them in your favorite action sequels. But have you heard of radar detectors used in determining car speed?

The year was 1887 when Heinrich Hertz started studying radio waves. Hertz's experiments became the corner stones of radar technology as we know it today.

Through the years, we have witnessed the application of radar technology in a number of important fields. We have seen radar technology applied in many important parts of world history like that of World War I and World War II. Radar technology has saved so many lives ever since it first took breath.

Radar detectors are used in so many ways nowadays. They are used in military and research facilities and they are now used in apprehending drivers who are over speeding which is violation one of the important traffic regulations in all countries all over the world.

Monitoring car speed especially in superhighways and express highways or even town roads and streets is one great thing that traffic enforcers do because that lessens occurrence of accidents which are car-related.

So, how do radar detectors work?

Radar detectors or radar guns are forms of radio transmitter and receiver rolled into one. Radar detectors oscillate electrical energy into varying levels which generates electromagnetic energy.

This electromagnetic energy travels through the atmosphere in the form of electromagnetic waves. This electromagnetic wave is increased exponentially through the use of a especial kind of amplifier.

The receiver is merely a transmitter but is reverse form of it. This time it collects electromagnetic waves and transforms them into electrical current.

Radar detectors are used to monitor the distance of objects in relation to a reference point.

The reference point is obviously the radar detector. The electromagnetic waves are sent through the air and reflected back to the radar gun which then measures the distance of the object at a given time. This is then calculated by the machine to determine speed of the object.This manner of using radar detectors maximizes what is known as Doppler shift.

Radar detectors are must-haves for today's law enforcers to catch traffic violators. They are great things that Science made for the benefit of the people. But as of now, this technology is not yet used by many countries which make it difficult to accurately pinpoint car speed violators.

It's a good thing that they are now used in many countries that traffic officers and other law enforcers can have hard data that can be used as evidence in prosecuting violators through radar detectors.

Radar detectors are available from many shops and companies. You can gain access of these companies online or by other means.

Radar technology is a proof that we can benefit so much from the efforts of our scientists and other people who engineered and perfected the radar technology by investing so much effort, money and time to achieve the goal of developing a true life-saving device.

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_4055.shtml

Posted by admin | No Comments »

Technology and Market Structure of Virtual Network Games

By: David ZHENG

We cannot see the future, of course, but there are a number of technological innovations that are relevant to gaming, that are also fairly easy to see coming. Currently, access to gaming involves some sort of access to computing technology, and access to gaming that can earn money involves access to a shared, persistent, physical computing environment, specifically a virtual world . The technology supporting virtual worlds is advancing so quickly that it would be foolish to describe the next generation in any detail. Suffice it to say that there are large, lucrative industries working energetically on different dimensions of the environment that virtual worlds thrive in.

These industries produce three items of interest, namely, connections, interface and content. Developments in connections include the internet and, increasingly, wireless communications. Development of interfaces includes voice command, head-up displays and body motion detection (computer-controlling gloves, gaze readers). Developments in content include the supply side of the market for games, where annual revenues have grown beyond Hollywood box office revenues. All three industries are expanding at a rapid rate. Whatever emotional experiences people seek, it may become possible, in the near future, to effortlessly connect to a virtual world that provides that experience at fairly low cost. Kurzweil argues that the explosion of computing power alone may be sufficient to change the daily course of life.

Since these developments all involve networks, they may seem to suggest a monopolistic market structure. If economic life online involves getting your email and hanging around with friends, there will be positive externalities with respect to the sheer size of the virtual world one visits. If I spend my time on Rubi-Ka, while you spend your time in Albion, we cannot talk to one another, and we cannot do things together. Thus, our time in virtual worlds is more valuable if everyone we know is in the same world. Moreover, if two worlds compete and one has more players than another, wouldn't everyone have an incentive to join the larger world, so as to enjoy the larger network of society, communication and entertainment that it affords? Might such network externalities lead to a domination of this market by one player?For example,some network games such as lotro gold,runescape gold,guild wars gold etc.

There are reasons to expect, however, that this market is not likely to be monopolized. First, there seems to be a great diversity of tastes for the different features of a world. Mr. Bird may want to be on Pluto, while Mr. Castronova prefers medieval Britain. One of the major attractions of life mediated by avatars is the anonymity it affords, and anonymity requires a person to have exit options: other worlds to escape to if one's reputation in this one gets unpleasant. Perhaps a savvy game developer could make a world so large and varied as to provide the essential minimum level of entertainment and anonymity to a sufficiently large number of people, so that membership in that one world becomes optimal for all. This seems unlikely, however, given that there is a marginal cost to creating and maintaining game content. Moreover, there are no economies of scale on the supply side to match the increasing returns on the demand side (Liebowitz and Margolis, 1994). Production of game content and its maintenance are both labour-intensive activities. One could perhaps increase production of content by allowing other producers (say, by opening game code to the public), but continued control of the world being created would be problematic. On the whole, it seems very unlikely that one developer could produce a world big enough to monopolize the market.

A second reason involves congestion. Virtual worlds are virtual because they are online, but they are worlds because there is some physicality to them. Avatars take up space. If a world has a certain amount of entertaining content in it, that content will almost always be subject to some kind of congestion effect. The cool monsters are in the Dungeon of Befallen, but if tens of thousands of us go there to hunt them, none of us will have a good time. Sometimes the only way to reduce congestion is to add content, but this, again, is labour intensive. There will also be congestion effects related to connection speeds and bandwidth.

A third reason that the market will probably not be dominated by a few companies can be found in the many competitive strategies that are available even now, but have not yet been exploited by new entrants. For example, the current set of developers have managed to impose huge switching costs on players by structuring gameplay around the time-intensive development of avatar capital. A player starts the game with a weak avatar, but gameplay gives the avatar ever-increasing powers. As power increases, the avatar is able to take more advantage of the game world, to travel farther, do more things, see more people. A person with a high-level avatar then faces a high hurdle in switching games, because in the new game he will start out poor, defenceless and alone again. This situation definitely locks in the game's player base, but it is also open to defeat by any number of schemes to reduce the switching costs. Surprisingly, no competitor to a current game has offered new players the opportunity to start their avatars at a higher level of wealth and ability if they can provide evidence of a high level avatar in another game. On the other hand, two games (Ultima Online and Dark Ages of Camelot) now offer methods to effectively start out ahead: in Ultima, you can directly buy your levels; in Camelot, you can start a new avatar at level 20 if you have already gotten one to level 50. These strategies help companies discourage the buying and selling of avatars outside the game, perhaps at a cost to the atmosphere within the world. In sum, what appear to be strong lock-ins and switching costs in the game market today may not be as strong as they seem; when savvy competitors appear, the player bases will generally be at risk. For example,some network games such as lotro gold,runescape gold,guild wars gold etc.

A final argument against a monopolization tendency comes from the nature of the content itself. Games are art, for the most part, and markets for artistic output exhibit a great deal of churn due to herding effects and the star phenomenon (MacDonald, 1988). If a company designs a better game, it will attract players. And while it is true that development costs can be significant, it will always be possible to produce a fun virtual world for a tiny amount of money and then scale it up as it becomes more popular.Whatever network externalities, supply-side returns to scale, and barriers to entry may exist in the market for virtual worlds, they seem insufficient to produce domination by a single company. The distribution of populations in virtual worlds is perhaps less like a natural monopoly market than a club goods market. Populations will sort according to the services, ambience, and fees of the various worlds. Virtual worlds will compete, as clubs do, but their size will be limited by congestion effects and by the marginal cost of increasing the scale of the world.

This analysis allows a tentative answer to the first question of the study: in the medium-term future, the online multiplayer gaming market will probably consist of a number of large, densely populated worlds, with varying degrees of portability between them. The worlds will generate large revenue streams and will occupy many hours of human time, some of it considered play, some of it considered work. The hours that people devote to games will result in the accumulation of stocks of digital capital goods. These objects will have considerable economic value. Given the expected growth in connectivity, interface technologies and content, there is reason to believe that this digital capital stock may eventually become quite large.

These considerations then lead to the next set of questions: If virtual worlds do become more important, how will this affect the real Earth economy?

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_4064.shtml

Posted by admin | No Comments »