H-K

How to Find Other “Earths”

Revolving around a Sun-like star; it's the most likely place to find life as we know it. But the technologies used to find such planets, which work by analyzing starlight, haven't been up to the task. Now researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have adapted a relatively young laser technology to discern the once undetectably faint gravitational influence such planets exert on their home stars' light output.

Their system increases the precision of spectrographs--optics used to analyze light from distant stars--by a hundred times, and it should make it possible to detect Earth-like planets. This May, Harvard senior lecturer Ronald Walsworth and postdoc Chih-Hao Li will be installing the system at the Multiple Mirror Telescope on Mount Hopkins, in Arizona. If the Harvard technique holds up in use on actual telescopes, it could be “a huge breakthrough” in the search for Earth-like planets, which will help scientists "understand how our own Earth came to be" and search for life beyond our planet, says Sara Seager, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at MIT.

Details Here: www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20509/

first published week of:   03/31/2008

How to Speed Up Windows XP

Despite Microsoft’s best marketing efforts, you haven’t yet upgraded to Vista. You still prefer your trusty old copy of Windows XP. And, despite your diligence in protecting your beloved XP machine from viruses and sneaky trojan horses, Windows is noticeably slower than when you first installed it. Don’t panic -- there are a number of things you can do to get your XP system running faster.

Keep in mind though, that, while these tips listed below can help you speed up Windows and recover hard drive space, you aren’t going to see the sort of speed boost you’d get from upgrading your key hardware components. If you’re unhappy, for instance, with the write speed of your hard drive, a few of these tips may help, but not nearly as much as upgrading to an ultra-fast Serial ATA (SATA) drive capable of 10,000 RPM. Also, adding more RAM almost always brings life to an older, slower system.

Details Here: howto.wired.com/wiki/Speed_Up_Windows_XP

first published week of:   03/10/2008

Inside Google's data centers

Google hosted an event for developers last week: Google I/O. Many of the talks were, frankly, beyond us, but there were some high-level discussions that provided very interesting peeks into how Google does its thing. We heard about the the software and hardware architecture of the machines in its data centers, for one. And how even the most ordinary Google search result is actually a test--and it’s Google’s users who are getting tested.

Details Here: www.webware.com/8300-1_109-2-0.html?keyword=Google+I%2FO&tag=nl.e776

first published week of:   06/02/2008

iPhone: What to Expect Now that it is “open”

With its easy-to-use touch screen and slick software--including Apple’s iTunes--the iPhone is the darling of the cell-phone industry. And last week, Apple made an announcement that only enhances the phone’s appeal. The Cupertino, CA, company unveiled a set of new features for the phone that allow it to work well with business software, including e-mail and data-synching software. And crucially, the company released the instructions for the iPhone’s hardware, offering a software development kit (SDK) that lets programmers outside Apple peek inside the gadget and write their own applications for it.

Anyone who uses an iPhone will soon reap the benefits of the phone’s new capabilities--from accessing business e-mail, to running familiar desktop programs, to exploiting the built-in accelerometer for new gesture-based interfaces.

Details Here: www.tamilstar.com/news/publish/article_6325.shtml

first published week of:   04/07/2008

IT pros: future of desktops

IT experts … said it is possible that many of the problems plaguing alternative desktop computing models will be resolved within two to three years.

At BriForum 2008 there was plenty of evidence of how these technologies are grabbing IT managers’ interest. Problems with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) technologies, such as outdated protocols, and graphics transfers could be addressed by companies such as Microsoft through its acquisition of Calista Technologies. Qumranet Inc. has the combination of its kernel-based, virtual machine open source software and its SPICE connection protocol. With all that, end users are closer to getting a graphics–laden experience, akin to what they would get with a physical PC on a LAN.

Details Here: searchwinit.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid1_gci1318528,00.html?
track=sy192&asrc=RSS_RSS-22_192

first published week of:   06/30/2008

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