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Archive for the ‘Technology News’ Category

Use of Internet has been changing the way people do nearly everything from consuming media to performing research to maintaining relationships to communicating. Along with its effect on business has also been similarly wide ranging. And today, for critical data, Internet based computing, or cloud computing is introducing major changes to the way work is done. Cloud computing is a general term for things over the internet delivering hosted services. These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platformas a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service.

Cloud integration provides with significant benefits. Regardless where you are, you may have access to data in the cloud through your PC or smartphones. All you require for that is an internet connection and a web browser. With the right tools, you can have access to your data in the cloud in no time and it will still remain with your desktop, laptop, or smartphone.

Cloud computing comes into mind only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing is based on subscription based or pay per use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT’s existing capabilities.

Cloud computing is further laid into three segments- Infrastructure, Platform and Software.

(IaaS)

Infrastructure as a Service. Just like Amazon Web Services that provide virtual server instances with unique IP addresses and blocks of storage on demand. Customers use the provider’s application program interface (API) to start or stop or get access and configure their virtual servers and storage. It is sometimes referred to as utility computing.

PaaS

Platform as a service in the cloud is a platform of the software and development tools provider’s infrastructure. Developers create applications on the platform of the providers over the Internet. PaaS providers use APIs, gateway software installed on the customer’s or computer website portals. Currently there are no standards for interoperability or data portability in the cloud.

SaaS

In the software as a service cloud model, the vendor supplies the software product and hardware infrastructure and interacts with the user through a front-end portal. SaaS provides with very broad market for services. Services can be anything from Web based email to database processing and inventory control. The end user is free to use the service from anywhere because the service provider hosts both the application and the data.

The idea is not new, but this form of cloud computing is getting new life from Amazon, Sun, IBM, and others who at this instant offer for storage and virtual servers that IT can access on demand. Enterprise’s may replace parts of the data centre influenced by utility computing.

A lot of attention has been paid to the dangers of concussions in football since the death of former NFL defensive back Andre Waters and the release of a report that indicated concussions were tied to depression in ex-NFL players. Those incidents have led the NFL to undertake several new initiatives and, across the nation, football programs from the high-school to professional levels are taking a more proactive approach to preventing head injuries. A former Harvard quarterback and his innovative company are also contributing to the cause with their newest invention – the X1 football helmet.

The X1 is the product of Xenith LLC, a company established in 2004 by Vincent Ferrara – a Harvard quarterback in the mid-90s and a graduate of Columbia’s business and medical schools. Ferrara founded Xenith with the mission of advancing safety and activity through innovation and education, and the company is currently focusing most of its attention on finding ways to reduce concussions through new technology. Much of the technology Xenith has developed so far is featured in the X1, which incorporates an innovative head protection system not currently seen in any other helmet. The system is called Xenith Adaptive Head Protection(TM), and it’s comprised of patent pending “Aware-Flow(TM) Shock Absorbers” and a new fitting method known as “Fit Seeker(TM)”. According to Xenith, the combined effect of these two technologies is designed to reduce the risk and severity of concussions and other traumatic brain injuries.

Here’s how the system works: the X1 is equipped with 18 Aware-Flow Shock Absorbers embedded between the outer shell of the helmet and a flexible interior head piece. Each shock absorber is a lightweight, hollow disk made from thermoplastic urethane, with a small hole in the center that allows air to flow in and out. Unlike the foam in standard football helmets, the shock absorbers respond differently to high, medium and low impacts. The disks absorb a low-impact hit by slowly letting air out and compressing. But with a more forceful (high-impact) hit, air pressure inside the disk creates greater resistance – slowing down the speed at which the disks compress even further. The overall purpose of the X1′s shock absorption system is to reduce the sudden movements of the head that often cause concussions. Meanwhile, the “Fit Seeker” component assures that the helmet doesn’t go flying off during impact.

Recently, the X1 football helmet received approval from the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) – a nonprofit organization that commissions research and attempts to establish standards for athletic equipment. No word yet on whether the NFL is looking into this new technology, or when the X1 will be available for retail purchase.

Technology has linked its way into just about every facet of human lifestyles. For your edification, this continuing discussion, as well as an addition to previous study formats. In offering this informational passage, the legal system is just one more profession that has been conquered by technology.

We are aware of the court stenographers and PC’s that record and track our legal system, but what about the C.G.A. System? The Computer Generated Animation Presentation can be admitted into our American Court System. Admissible Evidence in criminal trial(s) has been recorded as a precedent case ruled on by the Supreme Court. As reported by Asher Hawkins, of the Legal Intelligencer, differing arguments by six Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justices concluded that a Lackawana Common Pleas Judge properly admitted the use of CGA during a first-degree murder case in 2002. CGA has been portrayed on various television shows such as CSI Investigation(s) and Crime 360.

Justice Sandra Schultz Newman wrote, “Society has become increasingly dependent upon computers in business and our personal lives…” She went on the say, “With each technological advancement, the practice of law becomes more sophisticated and commensurate with the need to shed any techno phobia and become more willing to embrace the advances that have the ability to enhance the efficiency of the legal system.”

Prosecutorial teams, including Forensic Pathologists and Crime Scene Reconstructionists presented a murder case to the jury; the prosecutor’s version…the defendant did not possess and/or have access to this tool. One argument against this procedure in court is of a defendant, a poor person, is able to commission an equivalent production. In other words, would the defense be able to match the expenses associated with the prosecutions presentation to the court? Another justice suggested it would be wiser to exclude CGA evidence if an indigent or poor defendant could not afford the costs of “equivalent production.” The basic cost could be upwards of $20,000.00. Another legal professional commented on whether the cost(s) of CGA was worth the expenditure. The justices also took note on the fact that CGA’s are becoming increasingly less expensive to produce and could be a vital tool in the rapid expedition of court cases. In any case, pre-trial motions that include CGA evidence should be treated with respect. Jury instructions and indigent (lacking food, clothing, and other necessities of life because of poverty; needy; poor; impoverished, destitute) defendants are needed with the court’s permission for the presenting of such evidence.

The judges position was to make certain that Computer Generated Animation was fair and accurate while permitting defendants an opportunity to challenge its foundation. It has also been noted by the justices, to make clear to the jury that it was not meant as a re-enactment or simulation, but merely an expression of opinions formulated by expert witnesses. Another justice stated his position…”I think it’s a valuable tool, but a tool that needs to be used sparingly. I don’t think it’s necessary in every case.” Newman also wrote, “The difference is one of mode, the law does not, and should not; prohibit proficient professional employment of new technology in the court-room. This is, after all, the 21st century.”

Each state has its own court system. There’s also a system of federal courts. Decisions made during adjudication by federal administration agencies may be appealed to a federal court. Similarly, decisions made by state administrative agencies may be appealed to a state court. The definition for adjudication (adjudicate) is to render a judicial decision. In the administrative process, the proceeding in which and administrative law judge hears and decides on issues that arise when an administrative agency charges a person or a firm with violating the law or regulations enforced by the agency. An administrative agency is a state or federal government agency established to perform a specific function. Administrative agencies are authorized by legislative acts to make and enforce rules to administer and enforce the acts.

Typically, a state court system will include several levels, or tiers, of courts – (a) trial courts of limited jurisdiction, (b) trail courts of general jurisdiction, (c) appellate courts, and (d) the states highest court (often referred to as the State Supreme Court). Anyone who is party to a lawsuit has the opportunity, and/or right, to plead his/her case before a trial court and then if he/she loses, before at least one level of appellate court. Furthermore, if a federal statute of federal constitutional issue is involved in the decision of the State Supreme Court, that decision may be further appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Have you ever wondered, with all the juris prudence (the science or philosophy of law, a body or system of laws, a department of law, Civil Law. decisions of courts, esp. of reviewing tribunals) activities flooding the land, how could the legal system function without technology?

Monica Bay, of Law Technology News, reported of lawyers at small firms, especially solo practioners, have resisted adopting practice/case management (CMS) software – even though there’s no doubt that it can help firms deliver faster, better, and cheaper services to their clients. Several observers suggest that the initial threshold of setting up a management system intimidates firms. A software consultant, Tom O’Connor said, “Everybody loves technology but hates installing it.”

Project Management has not been a topic stressed in many schools, according to an independent IT consultant from Minneapolis. A successful project management is dependent upon a large network of personnel. An effective Electronic Data Discovery (EDD) Project Network includes: clients, partners, legal IT staff, associates, paralegals, inside counsel, service providers, and technical experts. Without a doubt, the use of (PM) Project Management to mitigate risk while delivering consistent, quality results that represents significant benchmark(s) in the maturing process of the EDD environment.

Used in many corporations to increase productivity, quality control programs such as Sigma Six, have been generating interest. Understanding why and where problems occur has a great impact on the decrease in mistakes. The application of these principles and practices on Electronic Data Discovery processes improve a lawyer(s) result(s) with increased quality and decreased costs. Reasons for rising interest in Project Management are recognition in the success depends on effective management.

Mitigating risk and lowering cost by applying “Electronic Discovery Techniques” offered a myriad of considerations, for example, matching time tables, securing outside IT experts, propose and follow “E-Discovery” protocol, engagement of a special master to monitor compliance and resolvement of disputes, use of checklist(s) containing critical steps and reminders for every step in and of a project, working service providers, working with attorneys to find answers to the right questions, as managing vendors require special attention to service level agreements (SLA’a).

Meanwhile, discover these definitions/terms of legal jargon that may help you in your administration, business, everyday life, and tech studies:

Subrogation – any right a creditor has against a debtor now becomes the right of surety. Inclusive are creditor rights in bankruptcy, rights to collateral possession by the creditor, and rights to judgments secured by the creditor – the surety now stands in the shoes of the creditor against the debtor.

Indemnification – The right to pursue guaranteed reimbursement/payment to a director for legal costs, fees, and/or judgments involved in defending corporations – (clients) related law suits. Simply put the right to compensation for services as directors (representatives/attorneys).

Habeas Corpus – held against your will – against your constitutional right(s), a writ requiring a person to be brought before a judge or court, esp. for investigation of a restraint of the person’s liberty, used as a protection against illegal imprisonment, one of a variety of writs that may be issued to bring a party before a court or judge, having as its function the release of the party from unlawful restraint.

Writ – a legal order, a document of the court.

Tort – personal injury, a civil wrong not arising from a breach of contract…a breach of a legal duty that proximately causes harm or injury to another.

Posterity – the offspring of one progenitor to the furthest generation; descendants; all future generations; succeeding or future generations collectively; Judgment of this age must be left to posterity; all descendants of one person.

HIPPA – The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was enacted to ensure that personal information stored, accessed or processed adheres to a set of guidelines or “security rules.” These rules outline security measures that should be implemented to adequately secure all electronic protected health information (EPHI). LogRhythm directly meets some HIPAA requirements, reduces the cost of complying with others, and it features out-of-the box HIPAA reporting packages.

SOX - require public companies to create, monitor, and manage controls over many aspects of their financial reporting. Some companies have found that such transparency doesn’t come easily. The rules require not only new processes, but also fresh tools that can determine whether systems and reporting standards are up to snuff. In general, SOX applications can be classified into three main market segments, according to Forrester Research. Those in the enterprise-application space include Oracle and SAP; IBM and Stellent fall under the enterprise-content management (ECM) heading; and OpenPages and Paisley Consulting are considered specialists, competing with Certus, HandySoft, and other pure-play vendors.

Where is it that technology hasn’t reached? Are the courtrooms truly behind in technology? Are they out of the loop as are many “non-techie” or poor people are? The “Great Technical Divide”…go figure!

After all, this is the 21st century.

Til next time…

by

Gregory V. Boulware

3.16.10

Identifying/Changing Your MagicJack Proxy to fix call quality problems

MagicJack is selling like hotcakes all around the country. This is great for the parent company, but can present challenges for the consumers that purchase the device, particularly if you live in one of their crowded markets (i.e. for me in Atlanta). I’ve been working on several tips and tricks to optimize MagicJack and fix some common problems, and this one solves the issue mentioned above. After experiencing some pops and cracks in my calls, I started wondering if maybe the MagicJack server was slightly overloaded, and if so, was there a way to change the server. After scouring through every program option, I realized that there wasn’t a way to specify a different server from within the MagicJack application, but having a good understanding of networking, I was sure I could find some tricks.

After experimentation, I found that if a MagicJack server wasn’t available, it automatically routed to the next available server, so in my case, if the Atlanta server was down for some reason, I would be automatically routed to the next closest server, or Memphis, TN. To make MagicJack think that Atlanta was down, I created a fake route on my computer that pointed to a non-existant server, and once MagicJack determined it couldn’t connect to Atlanta, as expected, I was routed to Memphis. I jumped out of excitement upon realizing that the quality was now PERFECT. There were no more pops or cracks, and none of my call recipients were complaining of static. This tip to optimize MagicJack and fix some common problems is the one I needed to throw away my home phone bill. Just a warning, these next few steps are pretty technical, so please be careful, or ask a techie friend to help you out!

Find your proxy to fix common MagicJack problems

To effectively optimize MagicJack and fix call quality problems, you need to first identify the proxy server that you are using. The steps below outline how to identify the proxy and vms servers that MagicJack is currently using to complete calls:

Step 1) Download the application pmdump from http://www.ntsecurity.nu/toolbox/pmdump/ – pmdump lets you dump the memory from a particular process; this is how we will get the proxy server
Step 2) Start MagicJack
Step 3) Identify MagicJack’s process ID (PID)

a) Open a command prompt (start->run->cmd).
b) Execute pmdump -list
c) Find “magicjack.exe” in the output. Note the number associated with it (usually 3 to 4 digits).

Step 4) Make at least one call
Step 5) Using the command prompt and PID as described above, execute: pmdump [pid] magicjack.txt
Step 6) Open magicjack.txt using a text editor and search for the string: s=ENSResip

For example, if you connect to the Atlanta proxy, you should see:

o=- 390440284 390440284 IN IP4 216.234.78.8
s=ENSResip
c=IN IP4 216.234.78.20

Note the IP addresses for both the proxy and the vms servers (216.234.78.8 for proxy and 216.234.78.20 for vms).

So you’ve found your proxy, now it is time to change it

Windows has a great built in function for establishing “routes” for servers. As I mentioned earlier in the article, the next trick to optimize MagicJack and fix call quality problems is making MagicJack think that the Atlanta server is down, so it will default to the next available server. Using the “route” command, you can set the Atlanta proxy and vms servers to a non-existant IP address on your local network (if your computer is 192.168.1.2, you could use anything in that range, so 192.168.1.39). To do this, run the following command from the command prompt:

route add [ip of proxy] mask 255.255.255.255 192.168.1.39 -p
route add [ip of vms] mask 255.255.255.255 192.168.1.39 -p

The command above will tell your computer that the MagicJack proxy server is actually at 192.168.1.39, which is a bad address, so MagicJack will try the next available, and hopefully less busy, server. The -p option tells your computer to keep the route persistent, or remember it after a reboot. If you want to use a specific proxy server (i.e. you decide that the Austin, Texas server is the absolute best), you basically repeat the process above, but block EVERY proxy server, except for the one you want to use.

With the amount of information that is available, people can become experts on just about anything. A perfect example is interior designing. With the internet and television, a person with no experience can go and find the perfect shower curtain for their bathroom. You may think shower curtains aren’t important, but it is the fact that it used to be a designer that got paid to do all of that work. Someone can go online and find a how to site that tells them all the steps to installing a sink or new countertops. The increased amount of available information can have both its advantages and disadvantages.

Technology has seeped into every aspect of our lives today. And to keep pace with the latest emerging technology is becoming more and more important in today’s scenario. If you are in the information technology field, you have have to be aware of the latest trends in technology. To be in the mainstream means to keep an eye on the each and every news related to technology. Whether it is Linux, Solaris or Windows operating system, or it is a complex technology like virtualization, you have to have a clear understanding of every emerging technology. Articles on new technology and news about latest technology can help one to make his way into the complex maze of new computer technology. Every other day an IT giant releases a new patch of software and every new fortnight a new software is released based on a radically new technology. The latest technology buzz like Microsoft Lucidtouch, Sun Solaris have become must know technology terms.

Some of the latest technologies that are going to revolutionize their respective field are

1.) Taptu: Looking for a search engine for your iPhone that is touch friendly and allows to search the web with ease? Taptu may be the answer. Taptu is a mobile search engine that just released its iPhone version that can be downloaded from Apple App Store for free.The new search engine is user friendly and quick. According to Taptu blog, it has more than 3 million webpages currently in its index.

2.) Opera Unite: Opera has launched a new technology that can turn your PC into a personal web server running inside Opera web browser. That server can be used to share everything from files to music with other computers on the web without the need of 3rd party applications. Named Opera Unite, the technology has just been released and promises to make your computer more that just a dumb terminal.

These are just two of the numerous technologies coming our way at the speed of light.