Sierra Corporation, IT Services and Support

July 2006

Net Neutrality Proposals Fail

A bill has been approved by the U.S. Senate that will allow Internet Service Providers to give faster Internet access to higher-paying customers. Many interest groups espousing “Net Neutrality” have opposed the bill on the grounds that the ISPs would be enabled to show preferential treatment to certain Web sites and Internet services as suits their interests, like radio and TV stations do.

Since its inception, the Internet has always passed data along to requestors on a neutral basis, and Net Neutrality backers argue that the very essence of the Internet’s potential could be lost.

Internet Service Providers contend that Net Neutrality prevents them from developing faster services for those that wish to have them, thus hampering the progress of Internet Technology and the speed at which they can provide more capacity for everyone. In any case, while this bill will not necessarily mean the end of the Net Neutrality movement, which is backed by many major industry players such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, it is widely seen as a major defeat to Net Neutrality and a major victory for the telecoms.

Microsoft Vista

Microsoft released Beta 2 of Windows Vista in May, however, it was not made available to the general public until the beginning of June. Microsoft is nearing its self-imposed cutoff point and plans to stop allowing new downloads after Friday, limiting the number of testers.

For those who are not familiar with Microsoft Vista: Windows Vista (formerly code named Longhorn) is the next evolution of Microsoft's operating system.

Vista offers advancement in reliability, security, ease of deployment, performance and manageability over Windows XP. Other features include:

Detects hardware problems before they occur, which is designed to reduce the frequency of incidents in which applications stop responding or the PC needs to be restarted.

Windows Vista security features protect against the latest generation of threats, such as worms, viruses and spyware. If an attacker manages to compromise a computer, Windows Vista limits the damage.

It offers a faster start-up time and low power consumption of the new sleep state. In many cases, Windows Vista is noticeably more responsive than Windows XP on identical hardware.

Windows Vista simplifies and centralizes desktop configuration management, reducing the cost of keeping systems updated.

According to the latest schedule, the oft-delayed operating system is due to be finished and available to large corporate customers late this year, with a mainstream launch in January. As for the current beta, a Microsoft blogger said that people who start their download before the cutoff will be able to finish getting the software, even if it takes them slightly past the deadline.

The Future of Computing

IBM has successfully developed a transistor that runs over 50 times faster than most processors available today; it is manufactured out of a combination of silicon and the extremely rare element germanium. In theory, it can actually obtain speeds of up to 500GHz (meaning it would process data half a trillion times per second), but you would need a very sophisticated refrigeration system to run it that fast; it would have to operate at –452.11 Fahrenheit to avoid being destroyed by its own heat.

According to Bernie Meyerson, IBM’s head of semiconductor research, we can expect microchips featuring these semiconductors to appear on the market within a couple of years.

Sharing your Calendar in Outlook 2003

You can share your calendar if you are on a Microsoft Exchange 2003 server and using Microsoft Outlook 2003.

For step by step instruction please click on the link below:

How to Share your Calendar in Outlook 2003

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