The few minutes that it takes for the computer to boot up are called the “black hole” of the digital age. During that time, there is nothing to do but wait and wait before one can log on. Have users become impatient or are the computers slow?

What do people do when waiting for the computer to boot up? While some people stare at the screen, others walk up and down or grab a hot cuppa. If it is time for brushing, then people do that too!

With all the complaints there have been of computer boot up time, the computer industry is forced to look into it and try and give back those precious seconds lost. Several of the major PC makers in the world are soon introducing “quick-start” computers. A few months back, we have mentioned that Hewlett-Packard is onto something in this arena in one of our articles titled, “Computers With Instant Start.” You can read that for more information and to understand how it works.

According to a senior executive of a company that makes quick-boot program from PC makers, it is ridiculous to expect people to wait patiently for a couple of minutes, in this day and age when people want instant-on. (more…)

If you went to this music show and shot a video of your favorite rock star, and wish to share it with the world, you would obviously head over to YouTube. Why are people not considering the several alternatives?

When we think of video on the internet, the first thing that comes to mind is the Mogul of video, YouTube. No doubt YouTube’s popularity is unparalleled. There is certainly nothing wrong with YouTube and they have the distinction of spearheading the video sharing revolution. However, it is not necessarily the only site that can be used for posting videos on the Web.

Even if you decide to check out different video sharing sites, where would you go? Different people have different needs; while some have memories to store, others may wish to make a quick buck.

Here is a list of some video sharing sites which allow sharing of the videos and much more.

Tubemogul.com: This is a service that is provided by an online distribution and video analytics company. It helps marketers measure the impact their online marketing campaigns have. It allows uploading of video to all the main video sharing websites at one go. Users are also provided stats of when, where and how often their videos are watched. The most beautiful feature is the ability to track viewer demographics and geographics. With 100 MB being the upload limit, the major sites that are supported by this service are YouTube, MySpace video, AOL video, Google video, Yahoo video , Revver and Metacafe. (more…)

If you have been on the web for any amount of time, you would have heard of Zong, a division of Echovox, which is the leader in Mobile Media Solutions in Europe and provides services to many of the world’s largest media groups.

Zong is the only web service that enables creating and launching of mobile services in about ten countries. It is the first open mobile platform provider that allows companies, developers, web enterprises and social networks to launch mobile services for revenue generation.
With Zong, mobile services and applications can be launched to more than 500 million subscribers worldwide in just a few minutes.

To get a better idea of what Zong’s all about, let’s take a look at how it works.

Once the Zong services are created and a person becomes the developer, all users will be able to access their services from their mobiles. When the user sends a message with the keyword pertaining to the developer, the message is routed through the user’s mobile operator, which whom Zong has contractual obligation. That mobile operator, in turn, sends the request to Zong, and Zong manages this request using the service provider’s application and sends a response back to the user.

How does the developer benefit? When users use the service, they will be billed based on how the billing is set up. They can be billed monthly on their monthly mobile bill or users can also set up an account with Zong, and pay for the services by direct debit into the Zong account. The mobile operator used by the user takes a small fee and Zong takes a small transaction fee, and the rest of the amount is given to the developer in the form of revenue. (more…)

Adobe Media Player (AMP 1.0) launched by Adobe, allows streaming of video and downloading from their partners. It is the latest player to enter the online video space, which offers great software that not only rivals Windows Media Player, but also provides a wide variety of video content, including music videos. Adobe announced this move about a year ago.

Adobe has gone into partnership with major content publishers and broadcasters, such as MyToons, Comedy Central, Blip.tv, MTV, Universal Music Group, Style.com, PBS, CBS and a few others, to provide video material. With so many top media companies and networks in its groove, Adobe aims at providing wholesome entertainment in the form of reality TV shows, sports, educational videos, classic feature films amongst others.

CBS is providing its CSI shows and lots of archived videos. MTV is showing “The Hills.” The others also have some good stuff for viewing. Adobe said that since it has just started, more content will be coming soon from the other broadcasters.

Just as it is with the other Adobe products, installation of the Adobe Media Player is easy, especially if one is used to running an AIR application.

With the AMP, all the entertainment is available offline too, which means the videos can either be streamed from the partner’s website or downloaded, depending on what the producer of the content allows. The content producer has total control over that and there are easy to understand icons, letting you know what you can do with the content you are watching. (more…)

Today we see hundreds of people earning a living, working on the computer, from the “sweatshop” of the digital era – Home. Is working from home any easier? Researchers investigate to find out what goes on behind closed doors.

Home office workers armed with computers and latest gadgets, and robotically wired to the hilt, are working under severe pressure and stress created by the internet economy, that is looking for information constantly, in the form of comments and news.

What is it these people do? They blog and they do it till they drop. They get paid per piece and they are of course happy doing it. Most bloggers profess a love for what they do and of the excitement the internet provides with its nonstop action.

Through blogging, they have the means of setting up a global outlet, reaching millions of people without a huge investment.

In spite of all the benefits and passion for the internet and blogging, some people are starting to wonder if something has gone wrong. The last few months have seen the sudden death of two of these internet aficionados.

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger, who blogs on technology related information, died of a heart attack at age 60. Another technology blogger, Marc Orchant died at 50, due to a massive coronary, in December. The third person, Om Malik who is 41 survived a heart attack in December. (more…)

Whenever a company wishes to run a new application or run a new operating system, they end up buying a new server to go with it, although they are aware that servers usually run at 20-30% their actual capacity.

They ensure that each application has a dedicated server. The reason they do this is because there are times when all the resources of a server are required to run an application; and they avoid using multiple operating systems or applications on one server, keeping this need in mind.

People realize that this system of maintaining servers is inefficient due to the need for huge data centers and also because of the heavy power consumption.

There seems to be an answer to this problem in “virtualization.” This hot new technology is seeing exponential growth throughout the world. Factually speaking, this technology is not new and has been used for mainframes for a long time now, thanks to IBM. This is the reason why in mainframes, the utilization of capacity is almost 90% when compared to just 20 to 30% in other servers. (more…)

The Chinese manufacturer Lenovo will be manufacturing IBM xServers now that IBM has licensed the xServer technology to the company. Lenovo will be making its own Intel-based servers, but there is much speculation by resellers over the move.

IBM Moving Away from Hardware?

One of the most commonly voiced questions regards the future of IBM manufacturing. In 2005 IBM licensed out laptop and PC technology while still creating their own line as well. Now, in 2008, IBM is once again licensing out hardware development prompting many to wonder if IBM is moving away from hardware all together. Manufacturing is an expensive business, and IBM might find that development and concepts are more profitable than actually creating the end products.

But for now, IBM is keeping speculators guessing by continuing to manufacture their own xServers. Lenovo will be making one and two processor servers for the upper echelon of small business clients. IBM, on the other hand will focus their manufacturing interests on sets of servers that range from the most basic to the zSeries mainframes. (more…)

In mid-January, Sun Microsystems surprised the high-tech communities by announcing its intent to purchase MySQL AB for one billion dollars. The original announcement was an informal blog post, but it was almost immediately followed by a formal press release the following day. Regardless, the end result is the same. MySQL, one of the most popular platforms for building networks will soon be owned by Sun, and the MySQL developers are thrilled.

On January 14, 2008, My SQL’s Vice President for Community Kaj Arno posted on the company’s blog that Sun was in the process of buying the company. Arno went on to explain his feeling on the acquisition which were overwhelmingly positive despite apparently also feeling anxious.

It appears that his high regard for Sun Microsystems was well founded. In continuing entries on his blog, Arno has explained in great detail what is happening with the acquisition and tries hard to put the anxious minds of employees, customers and investors at ease. In his latest entry dated January 31, Arno expounds on what will happen to MySQL as closure to the sale is negotiated by the heads of the commercial firm noted for selling enterprise database products. (more…)

There isn’t much that’s sacred from spam and commercials these days, and it looks as though there is one less safe zone in the works. Internet phone and wireless calls are now considering selling in call advertising. This means that you’ll now be able to listen to a brief advertisement while waiting for the company to connect your call.

Opt-in?
The service will allegedly be opt-in with credits offered for participating callers that will help to offset phone bills. But even if the service is opt-in initially, it is highly likely that these short ads are a vision of what is to come. Internet phones are getting more popular and advertisers are working every way they can to reach customers. If it means annoying you while making you wait to talk to Grandma just to get a line of marketing in, that’s what they’ll do. After all, there is a great deal of money involved for companies and advertisers.

Targeted Ads
The best part, of the worst depending on how you look at it, is that the ads you’re likely to be hearing will be targeted directly to you. Much in the way Google targets ads to related content, your phone advertisements will be targeted to the types of phone calls you make. For example, if you frequently call New York, you may be privileged to enjoy commercials for new flights to New York or New York accommodations.

A Cutting Edge Industry
In call advertising is a relatively new field, but it is already being used by at least one internet phone service and has been a standard practice on calling cards for some time. When a calling card user uses a card to call friends or family in another country, they are subjected to advertisements through a company called VoodooVox.

VoodooVox runs on approximately thirty percent of calling cards and had revenues of $4 million dollars in 2007. While that number may not be overwhelming, the revenues from in call advertising in 2008 are expected to grow ten times over. VoodooVox and others already working to establish the in call advertising practices are well situated to take home a substantial part of the revenue from their brainstorm. (more…)