Indika’s Web Log

People have wondered for years what Google might be up to with all that dark fiber it had bought up around the country. Now, we may have an answer: delivery of open-access, fiber-to-the-home Internet service at speeds of 1Gbps. That’s right: 1Gbps.

Google has just announced a trial run of its new scheme, and it’s asking city, county, or state officials to let it know if they’re interested in a pilot project. In its initial phase, the fiber optic network will serve anywhere from 50,000 to 500,000 people.

As for the speeds, they make cable’s DOCSIS 3.0 and Verizon’s FiOS look like also-rans. Google promises 1Gbps home connections, which have previously been the province of boutique builders like Paxio in San Francisco.

The goal is to use the system as a high-speed testbed for next generation apps and deployment techniques. “We want to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it’s creating new bandwidth-intensive ‘killer apps’ and services, or other uses we can’t yet imagine,” said Google’s announcement. “We’ll test new ways to build fiber networks; to help inform, and support deployments elsewhere, we’ll share key lessons learned with the world.”

Perhaps the best part of the announcement was the “open access” bit. Other countries like the UK (through OpenReach) and Australia are working on fiber networks that will be maintained by one entity, but open to all ISPs. “We’ll operate an ‘open access’ network,” said Google, “giving users the choice of multiple service providers. And consistent with our past advocacy, we’ll manage our network in an open, nondiscriminatory, and transparent way.”

It’s hard to know how far the company plans to take this. Running a national fiber backbone is one thing; getting out in the streets, digging trenches, and wiring homes is another. As Verizon’s FiOS project has shown, stringing fiber to the home can be hugely expensive.

Google stresses that this is an experiment, and it may simply be used as a proof-of-concept and a data-gathering project. Still, it can’t help but put at least mild pressure on other ISPs. Once people recognize that 1Gbps are available in the real world today at a “competitive price” (Google’s words), they’re going to take a look at their own speed/price tier and start asking some hard questions.

Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation praised the plan, and said that Google’s actions showed the soon-to-be-released National Broadband Plan needs to think big.

“The Recovery Act committed $7.2 billion in broadband investment defining high-speed access at most 5Mbps, while Australia is investing $31 billion in an 100Mbps effort. When you break it down per capita, Australia is outspending the US 60 to 1. Google is sending a shot across the bow—we need to set far higher standards here in the United States. Our national broadband plan must take this into account and our leadership needs to stop shying away from the challenge.”

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Yahoo released a “final notice” on Wednesday reminding GeoCities users that the free site creation service will be closing up shop later this month.

Yahoo is closing its GeoCities personal home page service, and with it will go an era of self-expression on the Web that’s largely been replaced by social networks and blogs.

GeoCities rose to power during an era when publishing on the Internet meant setting up your own Web site. GeoCities simplified the process by helping people sidestep the complications of registering a domain and learning how to program HTML, the language that describes Web pages.

“On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and file,” Yahoo wrote in a statement to GeoCities users.

The company said any GeoCities user that wants to maintain the site will be able to port it to Yahoo’s Web Hosting service, which would cost $4.99 per month for a year and $9.95 per month afterward. GeoCities Plus customers can port their sites to Yahoo Web Hosting at no additional charge.

Yahoo first announced that it would be closing GeoCities in April. At the time, the company didn’t divulge when the service would finally close.

Yahoo wrote on its GeoCities Help page that its decision to close the site was rooted in its desire to help its “customers explore and build relationships online in other ways.”

GeoCities’ closure marks an end of an era for the Web. The free site-building service, which Yahoo bought in 1999 for $2.9 billion, was a precursor to many of the self-publishing and social-media tools Web users employ today.

As someone who used GeoCities to create his first personal site, I find it a bit sad to say good-bye. That said, it’s about time.

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Ok. So google is working hard developing its new Crome OS. And according to the latest google announcement they will start with a browser based OS for netbooks and likes then expand from there to larger notebooks, desktops and even to servers. They plan to make this a Open source project and relies the souce for developers.The key determinants of this OS is

• It will be designed for speed, simplicity and security.
• The user experience is Web-centric.
• The OS will be based on Linux, with the Google Chrome browser running in a new windowing system.
• Apps will run inside Google Chrome–the Web is the platform.
• It will run on x86 and ARM CPUs.
• Data will live in “the cloud,” so that it’s accessible anywhere.
• Chrome OS will be free, which means advertising.

It’s too early to say what impact this will have on the other well established OS’s. However I’m skeptical about this as googles Android OS targeted towards the mobile devices did not get the broad acceptance I thought that it would  and also I believe Linux has much to offer when it comes to operating systems If the computer manufactures can embed a powerfull brower on the boards frimware (Like Asus Has)  then thats what we really need. However the webservers will still be powered by Linux and Windows Servers.Dont get me wrong. I love google and google has reliesed so many great tools for developers and users. Google Search is simply the best. Microsoft’s bing will have a very very hard time even to come closer to google. (Can’t google with bing can you )But I would go with linux for now.

Also if anyone is interested in starting a Crome OS blog or something the the CromeOS.net is available as of today (07/09/2009).

More on the Subject

• Why we need to chill about ChromeOS

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If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse.

For example, if your pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321.

The ATM system recognizes that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine.

The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location.

This information was recently broadcast on CTV by Crime Stoppers however it is seldom used because people just don’t know about it. Please pass this along to everyone.

This is the kind of information people don’t mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends

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The open source-based VMware View Open Client enables IT managers to host all of their companies’ user desktops in the data center with the ability to provision computing power and storage space as needed. Virtual desktops also bring green IT benefits, since they use far less electrical draw — in some cases nearly half as much — as a typical desktop machine.VMware, which would dearly love to take over as many of the world’s desktop screens as it can, on Feb. 3 unveiled a freely downloadable virtual desktop client for enterprises that allows users to access and use their company machines remotely from any mobile device.The Linux-based VMware View Open Client enables IT managers to host all of their companies’ user desktops in the data center with the ability to provision computing power and storage space as needed.

Thin clients are one kind of device that can be used to connect to a company’s VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure). Cell phones, laptops, notebooks and other handheld devices also can connect to the virtual desktop using this new client.

VMware is providing VMware View Open Client to its enterprise partners, so they can use the open source code to optimize their own personalized virtual desktops for users.

A major reason for using an open-source model is that the View Open Client can be more easily optimized to run with numerous operating systems that thin clients use, such as Windows CE, Windows XP Embedded, Linux, Solaris and BSD, VMware Senior Director of Desktop Virtualization Jerry Chen told eWEEK.

“Quite frankly, we have no idea what the future devices could look like,” Chen said. “We want to enable our mobile ecosystem to take the software, to customize it for their device, innovate on their timetable, yet have the confidence that it’s going to work with our software and take advantage of our features, such as security and encryption.”

VMware is in the same market with Citrix, which makes the XenDesktop; Wyse, a long-established thin-client producer; Sun Microsystems, with its SunRay thin-client workstations; Dell, which came out last October with its first thin-client desktop; Hewlett-Packard; and nComputing.

IT researcher Gartner has projected that about 50 million user licenses for hosted virtual desktops will be purchased in the next four years, and that the thin-client terminal will account for about 40 percent of user devices for hosted virtual desktop deployment.“As this market continues to emerge, new technology must more adequately address user experience, and provide the ability to scale beyond a few hundred users,” analyst Michael Rose of researcher IDC told eWEEK. “An effective desktop must merge scalability, life cycle management and superior user experience in order to be broadly applicable in the enterprise.”

Virtual Desktops Enable Substantial Capital Savings

Industry estimates say that managing a typical end-user enterprise desktop computer can now cost more than $5,000 a year per employee. In contrast, the cost for licensing virtual desktops running in a central data center can begin as low as $75 per concurrent user per year.

In the current recessionary climate, it is easy to see that this can make a major difference on a company’s bottom line.

Virtual desktop and thin clients are also attractive for their green IT benefits. These use far less electrical draw—in some cases nearly half as much—as a typical desktop machine, since they don’t utilize their own hard drive.

Latency between mouse movement and action on the screen—which often can be several seconds in length—has long been the biggest user issue for server-based workstations. However, all the vendors mentioned above continue to improve their systems regularly to make them act more like regular client-based PCs.

The VMware View Open Client is part of VMware’s vClient Initiative to deliver universal clients—desktops that “follow users to any endpoint while providing a personalized experience that is secure, cost-effective and easy for IT to manage,” the company said.

The VMware View Open Client is available under the GNU Lesser General Public License Version 2.1 (LGPL v 2.1). To download it free of charge, go here.

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If you thought hummer is big THINK AGAIN! Tree huggers please read through before cursing as this can also run on bio fuels.

The eco-conscious drug dealer in your family will be happy to know that the Knight XV is available for purchase at the famous Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Event, being held this week in Scottsdale, Arizona. Called the “most secure, luxurious” SUV in the world, the XV is completely covered in armor outside, comfortably seats six inside, and runs on biofuel.

Specialty armored-SUV maker Conquest Vehicles used ballistic hardened steel and ballistic fiberglass fenders and bumpers to make the Knight XV as impenetrable as possible. Windows and windscreens are made from a bulletproof 2.5-inch (64mm) thick transparent material. Armor can be added or subtracted depending on the customer’s need.

Drawing inspiration from the Gurkha military vehicle used by the U.S. Army, the Knight XV is aimed more towards the private sector. The Gurkha, made by Florida company Armet Armored Vehicles, is also used by the Russian Foreign Ministry and various SWAT teams. It is based on a Ford F550 chassis.

Conquest president William Maizlin said, “Since launching the KNIGHT XV at SEMA to the auto industry in November, the demand by auto enthusiasts and media to see and experience this vehicle has been so positively overwhelming that we decided to feature it at Barrett-Jackson so the public could see it in person for the very first time.”

Although built to run on bio-fuel, Maizlin says the car can also run on petrol or diesel. The Knight uses a 6.8-liter V10 getting 400 hp and 498 ft-lb of torque. Like its inspiration, it is also built on a “super duty Ford modified platform chassis.” It is a massive vehicle, at 240-inches long, 98-inches wide, and 100-inches tall. The Knight XV has a 14″ ground clearence, 141″ wheelbase, and weighs in at 12,000 pounds (5,443 kg). Custom designed, 20-inch forged aluminum wheels are wrapped in Mickey Thompson Baja Radial ATZ ballistic run-flat tires.

Inside the Knight you will find six individual six-way powered leather seats, Wilton Wool carpeting, and a sunroof. Each seat gets its own side-mounted lap top tray. Entertaining your passengers is easy, thanks to the Alpine entertainment unit, LCD monitors, and a Playstation 3. LED ambient lighting, and a night-vision capable rear camera are also included. There is plenty of room for everybody in this 283-cubic-foot cabin.

At a paltry $310,000, how can you not afford to protect your family with the Knight XV? Only 100 will be produced in its first run, each being handbuilt.

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Today on the 4th of November 2008, Barack Obama,47, has entered the history books and become the first African/American person to be elected as the 44th President Elect of the United States of America.

The atmosphere was electric in the great hall in Chicago as the crowd took in the enormity of this moment as they awaited their President. This was a monumental and defining moment in the history of America. 100,000 people lined the streets.

There was overwhelming sense of glory in the crowd as they praised and wept tears of joy and felt honoured to witness history in the making, as they awaited the first black president of the United States of America.

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You thought Uhuru Park was jammed? See this! Wow, a picture is truly worth a thousand words……………..

The following pictures really tell a story and they are befitting to the following song. There’s an old song that went like this.

“People get ready there’s a train a coming’, you don’t need no ticket you just get on board.’

Just in case you don`t know who sang that song, it was the late Curtis Mayfield.

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