Show of 1-10-2004

  • Email of the Week
    • WiFi for the Road ? Phil Scarbrough
      • A number of paid WiFi hotspots are available (T-mobile is one of the largest)
    • USB versus Firewire ? Jean Jolkovski
  • Digital Experiences this week
    • Being screened for ?terrorist? check-in line at airport
      • Must have triggered the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System
      • Perhaps getting ticket at airport and making last minute reservations contributed
    • Burning digital photos to CD at family event
    • Paying Virginia pre-payable traffic tickets online (ww.courts.state.va.us)
      • Server is IBM HTTP Server running Apache Web Services
  • Virus and Spam Report 2003
    • Based on MessageLabs Threat Analysis
    • Spam Month Volume for 2003
      • Feb (35 Million), Mar (45 Million), April (60 Million, May (85 Million)
      • June (60 Million), July (80 Million), August (80 Million), Sept (120 Million)
      • Oct (170 Million), Nov (225 Million, Dec (295 Million)
    • Spam Infection Ratio for 2001/2002/2003is 1/1.63
      • Jan 2001 (1/9000), July 2001 (1/1500), Dec 2001 (1/187)
      • Jan 2002 (1/125), June 2002 (1/42.8), Dec 2002 (1/4.7)
      • Jan 2003 (1/4.1), April 2003 (1/2.05), Dec 2003 (1/1.63)
      • Infection Ratio Definition: 1/9000 means one virus for every 9000 emails
    • Virus Threat for All Time
      • W32/Sobig.F-mm (33 M), W32/Klez.H-mm (8 M)
      • W32/Swen.A-mm (4.5 M), W32/Yaha.E-mm (3.5 M)
      • W32/Dumaru.A-mm (2 M), W32/Mimail.A-mm (1.8 M)
      • W32/SirCam.A-mm (1.5 M), W32/Klez.E-mm (1 M)
      • W32/BugBear-mm (1 M), W32/BugBear.B-mm (1 M)
    • Virus Infection Ratio for 2003
      • Feb (1/310), Mar (1/340), April (1/350), May (1/205)
      • June (1/205), July (1/275), August (1/40), Sept (1/17)
      • Oct (1/160), Nov (1/210), Dec (1/255)
      • Infection Ratio Definition: 1/310 means one virus for every 310 emails
      • August/September dip caused by SoBig Virus
  • Spam Protection Techniques (pdf)
    • A MessageLabs whitepaper
    • DNS Blacklisting
    • Fingerprints or Signatures (used for virus detection)
    • Whitelisting (Identifying who to accept mail from)
    • Collaborative Filtering (Collective reporting of spam)
    • Heuristics (Complex set of rules with parameters, used for virus detection)
    • Bayesian Probability (Mathematical learning algorithm using Bayesian probability models. This has been found to be the most effective single spam solution)
    • Most systems use a combination (blacklisting, heuristics, Bayesian)
  • Spam Protection Client Software
  • Virus and Spam Prognosis

    Consumer Electronics Reporter: Doug Mohney

    • Reporter for The Inquirer
    • Reporter for Mobile Radio Technology
  • Consumer Electronics Show (CES)
    • January 8-11th, 2003 in Las Vegas, NV
    • 2,300 exhibitors occupying 1.35 million square feet of floor space
    • Audio, Digital Imaging, Gaming, Home Networking, Home Theater, Mobile Electronics, Video, Wireless Communications
    • Digital Entertainment Is the Big and Very Competitive
      • Consumer electronics giants like Sony, Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba are facing an intensifying challenge.
      • Microsoft, Intel, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, the stalwarts of computing, have entered the living room.
      • Dell and Gateway’s entry into the flat-screen TV market
      • HP’s plan to sell television sets, big-screen projectors and an HP-branded version of Apple’s popular iPod music player.
        • Carly Fiorina, HP CEO, said. “Most living rooms are in desperate need of a digital makeover.
      • Microsoft’s foray into portable media players and Windows Media Center platform (brains of the digital living room).
      • Intel announced new chip for digital television
      • The greater intelligence and Internet connectivity being added to such gadgets as watches, digital cameras and DVD players favors the PC companies
    • Networking Technologies
  • CES Product: Microsoft?s Windows Media Center
    • Allows users to link digital photos, music, video stored on their PCs to the living room entertainment systems.
    • Size of a paperback book
    • Features hard drive and 4-inch color screen
    • Connects to PC hard drive
    • Plays digital video and audio
  • CES Product: Intel Liquid Crystal on Silicon
    • Will produce ?film-like? HDTV.
    • Predicted $1800 LCOS HDTV displays by mid-2004
    • Will compete with TI?s Digital Light Processor (DLP) micro-mirror technology
  • CSE Product: Toshiba Miniature Hard drive
    • 0.8 inches on a side
    • 1 to 4 GB capacity.
    • May replace flash memory in digital cameras.
  • CES Product: SPOT Watches
    • Uses Smart Personal Object Technology (SPOT)
    • Uses FM radio subcarrier frequencies to wirelessly deliver weather, news, stock quotes to a variety of devices including watches
    • ?Smart watch? that does not need to be set
    • MSN messenger can send messages to your watch
    • Outlook with sync you calendar
    • SPOT services costs $59/year
  • Website of the Week: www.googlism.com
    • Googlism.com will find out what Google.com thinks of you
    • It searches for the opinions of your friends (or anyone) about you!
    • Check out WJFK, Microsoft, Linux, Apple
  • Technology Career Trends
    • Digital Design and Animation Moves to the Web
      • Linking the front and back end of web technology is key
      • Graphic designers who can script are golden
      • ASP, PHP, JSP, SQL, Flash
    • Secure Networking Is Talk Number One
      • Secure internetworking technologies (Cisco, VPN, etc)
      • Security best practices essential
    • Voice-over-IP Invades Telecommunications
      • Power moves to the edge of the network
      • IPv6 is unstoppable
    • Programming has become e-Business
      • Database driving website technology
      • Linked databases using interface standards
      • Designed to get the ?right information to the right people?
    • Business and IT have morphed together both at the graduate and undergraduate levels
  • Graphic Card Basics
    • Video card has a dedicated video processor to off-load tasks from the CPU
    • Video processor supports graphic commands (DirectX, Direct3D, OpenGL)
    • Buss basics of video (PCI versus AGP)
    • Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP)
      • Dedicated to the video card
      • AGP4x (1066 MB per second)
      • AGP8x (2132 MB per second)
    • Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)
      • Connects all components to the CPU (Drives, RAM, Nics)
      • PCI100 (100 MB per second
      • PCI133 (133 MB per second)
    • Graphic Card Ram (32MB minimum, 256 MB maximum)
    • Video Output (S-video output for connection to TV)
    • Dominant Chip Sets (ATI Radeon versus NVidia GeForce)
      • Get last year?s models for around $100
      • Get the two year old model for $50
      • These two companies keep getting better
      • Competition is lowering prices and raising performance
    • If you get a new PC with graphics integrated on the motherboard, make certain to get an AGP plug for expansion
  • Stratford News
    • Next Start February
    • Masters Degrees e-Business, Telecommunications
    • Bachelor Degrees in IT, Business Administration, and Hospitality
    • Associated Degrees in Digital Design and Animation, Web Services and e-Business, Networking and Security, Culinary Arts, Hospitality, and Business Administration
    • Website: www.stratford.edu
    • Phone number: 800-444-0804