Monday, April 28, 2008

Sony Handycam DVD DCR 608E



Review

The Sony Handycam DVD DCR 608 E is a good camcorder for the DVD video junkies. Its ease of use will blow you over, even though the still photos it takes are nothing to write home about.


To begin with, in the DCR 608 E, the recording media is DVD. (Digital Versatile Disc). I am not familiar with the multitude of DVD formats and sizes, being more used to older DV cassette camcorders. My Sony DVD DCR 608E handycam records on to a mini-DVD rewritable disc of 1.4 GB. The shop owner in Vashi, Navi Mumbai where I purchased the handycam gave me a set of three such mini DVDs in a pack which should have five. So, I don't know if the freebies should have been five, or if whatever I got was just the shopowner's grace.

The DVDs which came with my camcorder are in the DVD-RW single-layer format. (Pronounced "minus RW" or "dash RW"). I am using this disc to record videos now, but the Sony DVD DCR 608E is also capable of recording on DVD-R, DVD+RW and DVD+R DL formats, says the Sony manual (More about the user-hostile manual later). A bit of research on the Net enlightened me to the fact that in all these formats, the DVD can be either single-layer or double-layer. Double-layer DVDs store more information than single layer ones. Don't relate this second layer business to the "B" side of an ordinary cassette - DON'T try turning the disc around to record on the second layer.

The Sony DVD DCR 608E can record only on mini DVDs of 8 cm (3 inches). This is because a large DVD will make the handycam unnecessarily cumbersome, defeating its very USP -- portability. The flip side is that the mini DVD stores less information than a full-size DVD. The mini-DVD that I use can record videos for half an hour in standard quality. In high-quality recording, the duration will be less and in low-quality recording, the duration will be longer. You can select your recording quality as standard, high-quality or long-playing from the touchscreen LCD menu.

The controls are a breeze. When you start up Sony DVD DCR 608E handycam, you will be asked to set the language, time and location. Before starting to record on the DVD, you should know that whatever rewritable DVD you have, the handycam can record in VIDEO format or VR format. The two formats have their own advantage and disadvantages. If you are unsure, go through the DISC SELECT GUIDE option in the touchscreen menu. In VIDEO recording format, you can delete only the last scene, while in VR, you can delete any of the scenes you have recorded. VIDEO-recorded discs can be played in most of the DVD players and TVs and computers, while VR-recorded discs may not be. Also, VR-recorded discs can be played without "FINALIZING" processin some cases, while VIDEO-recorded discs need to be finalized before playing. Finalizing a DVD is a process where the contents, tables and other information are written on to the DVD so that it can be played in other devices.

So, now I have the handycam, I have the rewritable DVDs and I have set the mode of recording to VIDEO. Like all other Sony handycam models, the DVD DCR 608 E is equipped with an LCD screen and a viewfinder. The LCD screen also incorporates the well-laid out touchscreen menu. The viewfinder can be pulled further towards you while shooting. The LCD screen can be turned sideways and can be rotated to face outward.

for more Visit: http://www.dancewithshadows.com

MOTO Z9



Dressed to thrill and packed with great features, MOTO Z9 delivers clear calls and a feature-rich experience in style. With its sleek, slider design and innovative features such as Motorola CrystalTalk™ audio-enhancing technology, AT&T Video Share and AT&T Navigator™, the 3G HSDPA MOTO Z9 is the complete package!

Dressed Up with Somewhere to Go

MOTO Z9 leads the way with AT&T Navigator, serving as an in-car or on-the-go GPS system using the large crystal clear display. Marking the path with turn-by-turn driving instructions, MOTO Z9 features automatic re-route and full-color moving maps. Find hotels, restaurants, gas stations and more and never have the need to stop and ask directions. Share the sights and sounds of the trip with Video Share, which allows friends to see live streaming video from MOTO Z9.1 2

Fully Loaded


Good looks are just the beginning. The MOTO Z9 comes fully loaded with innovative CrystalTalk technology to help tune out ambient noise and allow calls to come in loud and clear. Users can surf the Web1 using the lightning fast Opera 8 browser. A dedicated music key provides one touch access to digital tunes, Windows Media® Player 11 compatibility means music is easily managed and stored and an optional 8GB memory card3 provides storage for your favorite songs.


SPECIFICATIONS

Talk Time
Up to approximately 3 hours5

Standby Time
Up to approximately 12 days5

Operating System
Synergy

Weight
140g

Dimensions
114x53.6x13.99mm

Display
2.4 inch color display



Battery
Minimum capacity: 920 mAh; typically 950mAh


Band/Modes 3G HSDPA 3.6 Mbps, WCDMA 850/1900, GSM 850/900/1800/1900 EDGE/GPRS class


Bluetooth® Wireless Technology
V 2.0, Enhanced Data Rate

New Technology sends Blu-ray Movies direct to your iPhone



The new technology, BD Touch by NetBlender is now going to show you Blu-ray movies direct on your iPhone ready to play using Wifi connection. This technology will let you use your iPhone as like another new fancy remote for your player. This application can gather the data from Blu-ray player, which can create an iTunes like catalog of movies into the iPhone. The new Technology, BD Touch, can offer you title recommendations, you can also use your iPhone as a game controller by turning existing Blu-ray discs into games, easily manage and update rental queue, it can display extra information about the movie in sync with the movies playback, etc. Overall, it seems to having limitless possibilities.

The video for demo showed on site is quite funny because they showed transfer, which took only seconds, most of us know how much time it takes converting a regular DVD for use on an iPhone, but still imagine if it is real then it is amazing.

Now I guess the next thing they must make a universal remote for full home automation, which can controlled by iPhone.

Chinese Phone having 2 years Standby time





You might have heard of one-year standby phone Solomobi from China, but now they have returned with another discovery, ZJ268 phone. This phone is a Dual SIM, supporting GSM900 / DSC1800, with eye-catching a 3-inch display. The device said to achieve this much through a 32,800mAh battery, calling it a "Super Battery".

This phone costs $128. In addition, you can see a picture of the 87 x 51 x 10-mm / 0.12-kg lithium battery and the devils own credit card after the break.

Surprisingly good and a must have for anyone who usually forgets to recharge their phone and found themselves with a dead battery. Well if you doubt about its performance then you have to wait 666 days until we get its results.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

103" PLASMA

The world's Largest TV


Have a look at this video


Monday, April 21, 2008

Sony Vaio FZ2 series laptops



Sony has released its Vaio FZ2 series laptops. These new laptops will come with a 15.4-inch WXGA displays and you can choose from two processors, the Core 2 Duo T7250 or T7500. They will be 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and your choice of Blu-ray or DVD combo drives. The Sony FZ2 laptops will be price $1,299 or $1,399 depending on your configuration.

for more visit: http://www.2dayblog.com

Sony PC-TV combo





Sony unveiled its latest PC-TV combo, Windows XP Media Center Edition machine with a 19 inch Vaio LS1 1680 x 1050 resolution display. This all-in-one PC/TV features an Intel Core Duo processor, 2GB of memory, 250GB HDD, analog TV tuner, DVR capabilities, 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi, and a DVD burner. It is due to ship out in US mid-September for $2,100.

for more visit: http://www.2dayblog.com

HP Deskjet 5740 Inkjet Printer Review




The HP Deskjet 5740 has the ability to switch out the black ink cartridge for a photo ink cartridge in order to produce high quality photographic prints, something many of the new photo prints are doing.

Output quality is the Deskjet 5740's strongpoint, text printing quality is clear and continues with a deep black consistency. In addition, the graphics quality is excellent, the output was only marred by a slight posterization on one of the images, where by the colors were a little too punchy.

for more visit: http://www.inkjetcartridges.com/_hp-reviews.html

NetBeans IDE 6.1 Released



The NetBeans IDE is a modular, standards-based, integrated development environment (IDE) written in the Java programming language. The NetBeans project consists of an open source IDE and an application platform, which can be used as a generic framework to build any kind of application.

Release Overview

The NetBeans IDE 6.1 release provides several new features and enhancements, such as rich JavaScript editing features, support for using the Spring web framework, tighter MySQL integration, and an improved way of sharing libraries among dependent projects. The acclaimed support for Ruby/JRuby has been enhanced with new editor quick fixes, a Ruby platform manager, fast debug support for JRuby, and many other new features and fixes.

By popular demand, the bean pattern and JSF CRUD generation features that were missing in the 6.0 release have returned. In addition, early versions of new modules, such as ClearCase support, are available as plugins.

This release also provides improved performance, especially faster startup (up to 40%), lower memory consumption and improved responsiveness while working with large projects. See below for a list of features in this release.


Feature Highlights

  • JavaScript Support
    • Semantic Highlighting
    • Code Completion and Type Analysis
    • Quick Fixes and Semantic Checks
    • Refactoring


  • Performance Enhancements
    • Up to 40% faster startup
    • Smarter parsing so that code completion is faster
    • Less memory consumption


  • Spring Framework Support
    • Bundled Spring Framework 2.5 library
    • Wizards for XML configuration files and Spring Web MVC controllers
    • Code completion of bean names and Java classes and properties
    • Spring Web MVC framework support in web project


  • New MySQL Support in Database Explorer
    • Register MySQL servers
    • View, create, and delete databases
    • Easy launch of the administration tool for MySQL


for more visit: http://www.netbeans.org/community/releases/61/

NetBeans IDE 6.0 Features


NetBeans - The Only IDE You Need

The NetBeans IDE is a free, open-source Integrated Development Environment for software developers. You get all the tools you need to create professional desktop, enterprise, web and mobile applications, in Java, C/C++ and even Ruby. The IDE runs on many platforms including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris; it is easy to install and use straight out of the box.

The 6.0 release includes significant enhancements and new features, including a completely rewritten editor infrastructure, support for additional languages, new productivity features, and a simplified installation process that allows you to easily install and configure the IDE to meet your exact needs.


Highlights

* Easy-To-Use Java GUI Builder

Create professional-looking Java GUIs by placing and aligning components on a canvas.

* Visual Web and Java EE Development

Build standards-based web applications visually using Ajax, CSS, and JSF. Full set of tools for EJB development.

* Visual Mobile Development

Create, test and debug GUI applications that run on mobile phones, set-top boxes, and PDAs.

* Visual UML Modeling

Separate software design from implementation with UML Modeling.

* Ruby and Rails Support

Powerful Ruby editor (with code completion), debugger, and full support for Rails. Includes the JRuby runtime.

* C and C++ Development

Full-featured C/C++ editor, debugger, project templates, and support for multiple project configurations

for more visit: http://www.netbeans.org/

Monday, April 14, 2008

Install Xp From Dos




If XP will not install from the CD or if you have a new drive with no operating system on
it yet try these:

Install Windows XP from the hard drive with Windows 98 already installed:

Boot Windows 98
Insert the XP CD into your CD reader
Explore Windows XP through My Computer
Copy i386 folder to C:\
Go into C:\i386 folder and double click on winnt32.exe to launch the setup from the hard drive

Install Windows XP from DOS (ie. no OS on a new hard drive):

Boot with a Windows 98 Start Up disk
Insert the Windows 98 CD into the CD reader
Run smartdrv.exe from the Win98 directory on the windows 98 CD (file caching)
Type cd.. to back up to the root directory
Insert Windows XP CD into the CD reader
Copy the i386 folder to C:\
Go into C:\i386 folder on C: and type winnt.exe to launch the setup from the hard drive.

Nokia N96 Comming Soon




General


Operating Frequency
  • WCDMA2100/900 (HSDPA) / EGSM900, GSM850/1800/1900 MHz (EGPRS)
  • Automatic switching between bands and modes
  • DVB-H Class C, 470-750 MHz

Dimensions

  • Volume: 92 cc
  • Weight: 125 g
  • Length: 103 mm
  • Width: 55 mm
  • Depth:18 mm, locally up to 20 mm

Memory Functions*

  • 16GB internal flash memory, plus microSD memory card slot (hot swappable) for expandability and flexibility
  • Approximate dynamic memory capacity indication with 16GB storage:
    -Video: 40 hours**
    -Music: 12,000 tracks***
  • 128MB RAM, 256MB system memory (operating system plus dynamic user data area)

* Changes to product details are possible without prior notice. Application offering may vary. Dynamic memory means that the available memory is shared between dynamic memory functions. When any of these functions is used, there is less available memory for other functions which are also dependent on dynamic memory.
** Video capacity is based on H.264 768-kbps video at 320-by-240 resolution, combined with 96-kbps AAC audio. Music capacity is based on 3:45 min per track and 48 kbps eAAC+ encoding.
*** Capacity based on 3:45 per song with 48 kbps eAAC+ (M4A) encoding on the Nokia Audio Manager. Capacity with 128 kbps AAC encoding is up to [12,000] songs.


Power Management

  • Battery: Nokia Battery BL-5F, 950 mAh
  • Talk time: up to 150 / 220 minutes (WCDMA / GSM)
  • Stand-by time: up to 200 / 220 hours (WCDMA / GSM)
  • Video playback: up to 5 hours (offline mode)
  • Music playback: up to 14 hours (offline mode)
  • TV playback: up to 4 hours (DVB-H)

*Operation times may vary depending on radio access technology used, operator network configuration and usage.


Display and User Interface

  • 2.8” QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) LCD TFT display with up to 16 million colors
  • User Interface: S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2
  • Active standby screen, Multimedia menu

Data Transfer*

  • WCDMA HSDPA 900/2100 MHz with simultaneous voice and packet data (PS max speed DL/UL= 3.6Mbps/384kbps, CS max speed 64kbps)
  • Dual Transfer Mode (DTM) support for simultaneous voice and packet data connection in GSM/EDGE networks. Simple class A, multi slot class 11, max speed DL/UL: 177.6/118.4kbps
  • EGPRS class B, multi slot class 32, max speed DL/UL= 296/177.6kbps
  • GPRS class B, multi slot class 32, max speed DL/UL= 107/64.2kbps

* Actual achieved speeds may vary depending on network support.

O2 Xda IIi







The O2 Xda IIi is the latest offering from O2 which is an upgrade to the hugely popular O2

Xda II. The Xda IIi features a faster processor (520 MHz instead of the 400 MHz in the Xda

II), and more memory (128 MD SDRAM).You can even control the processor speed to run eihter

in 'Standard' or 'Turbo' mode. This means you now have more power and memory to run

demanding multimedia applications. In addition there is the option to slide in a MMC or

SDIO card at the top. One up by O2 here!

The O2 Xda IIi features a huge 3.5 inch , 65,000 color Active Screen. The Xda IIi has

Windows Media Player 10 pre-installed and it also has shortcuts to popular applications on

the screen so that you do not need to to fumble with the Windows Mobile Edition.

The Xda IIi is now equipped with a 1.3 megapixel camera which is activated by a touch of a

button on the side. The camera can now shoot stills upto 960x1280 pixels and videos upto

240x320 pixels which is great. As far as connectivity goes, the IIi comes equipped with all

possible options. It boasts of a Triband phone, GPRS, Bluetooth, MMS, SMS, Wi-Fi and

Infrared. It has a smart feature which alerts you evertime you enter a new Wi-Fi node

though it can become irritating at times.

In terms of weight and size, there is little difference as compared to the earlier Xda II.

The Xda IIi weighs only 10 gms more than its predecesser and is the same 69mm wide x 130mm

tall x 19.9mm high as Xda II. The claimed battery life is 4 hours of talktime and 168 hours

of standby time and approximately 15 hours of use in handheld mode.

All in all, the O2 Xda IIi is an excellent business tool, packed with every imaginable

feature you would need. The Windows Mobile Edition takes some time getting used to and a

more intelligent and user-friendly version will be welcome for this Xda. It looks much

better than its darker siblings and will definitely make corporate heads turn at your work

place!

Acer-Aspire Gemstone Blue


Acer today launched its new "Aspire Gemstone Blue" series of notebooks comprising the Aspire 6920 and the Aspire 8920 notebooks that claim to fuse design and texture elements of the original 'Aspire Gemstone' series with a signature element, namely Blue, both the color and light. Apart from this, the notebooks claim to feature key multimedia innovations, superior displays, and second-generation Dolby home theater.

Speaking at the launch, S Rajendran, chief marketing officer of Acer India, said, "Acer is once again setting a new design trend, with the Acer Aspire 6920 and 8920 notebooks that are built on a unique 16-inches and 18-inches footprint, full HD LCD screens, and native 16:9 resolution."

In the looks department, the 6920 and 8920 notebooks come with a chic blue, black, and silver color scheme and lighting effects. The holographic 3D cover radiates elegance, and the starlit back-light shines beneath the floating Acer logo to make it sparkle with varying gradations of black and blue when viewed from different angles. The DiamondBlack Empowering Key draws upon the original Gemstone design while the CineDash media console, a touch-sensitive interface, helps users launch Acer Arcade in seconds and navigate menus, adjust volume, and control media on the fly. New surfaces like the NeoWeave palm rest provide a comfortable area for placing your hands.

Internally, the Aspire 6920 and 8920 deploy Intel Centrino technology featuring Intel Core 2 Duo processors, mobile Intel T5550 and T7300 Express Chipset on 2GB RAM and 3GB RAM respectively; and integrated module for wireless connection that supports Acer SignalUp with InviLink Nplify wireless technologies. Acer claims it is the first to go to market with 16-inches (6920) and 18-inches (8920) notebooks that feature a full-HD CineCrystal LCD, 8ms response time, and native 16:9 wide-screen aspect ratio -- for enjoying HDTV content. The wide color gamut displays, Acer claims, are capable of delivering more intense colors than typical notebook panels. The notebooks come with an HDMI port with HDCP support.

Both notebooks integrate second-generation Dolby Home Theater technology featuring powerful audio technologies such as CineSurround, Tuba CineBass booster, and True5.1 output. According to Acer, its Tuba CineBass sub-woofer exceeds 10Watts, blasting the clearest low tones imaginable through Dolby Natural Bass technology. Besides, the 6920 and 8920 offer 250GB and 320GB storage respectively. They also have a 6-in-1 card reader that supports most common card formats. Some models integrate a TV Tuner for digital television.

The 6920 is immediately available for Rs 69,999, while the 8920 will be available within a week or two for Rs 79,999.

Satellite TV for PC


Satellite TV for PC is the product of more than 7 years of dedicated research and development to create an easy-to-use computer program
that legally accesses thousands of television channels from all over the world and sends them to your computer through the internet! .


As a result now you can watch hundreds of LIVE worldwide channels on your PC, free* of charge:



* Sports



* Kids Channels



* Shopping



* NewsMusic



* Movies



* Radio Stations



* Weather



* Educational



* And much, much more!

for more visit: http://www.satellitetvtopc.com/

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Windows XP Service Pack 3




Windows® XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system, in addition to a small number of new functionalities that will not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system. This white paper summarizes what is new in Windows XP SP3, and how to deploy the service pack.

Introduction:

Microsoft works to continually improve the performance, security, and stability of the Windows operating system. As part of this effort, Microsoft develops updates, fixes, and other improvements that address issues reported by the company’s customers and partners. To make it easier for customers to get these updates and enhancements, Microsoft periodically combines them into a single package, and makes that package available for all Windows customers. These packages are called service packs.
Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes previously released Windows XP updates, including security updates and hotfixes. It also includes select out-of-band releases, and a small number of new enhancements, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system. Windows XP SP3 provides a new baseline for customers still deploying Windows XP. For customers with existing Windows XP installations, Windows XP SP3 fills gaps in the updates they might have missed—for example, by declining individual updates when using Automatic Updates, and updates not available through Windows Update. Developing service packs for operating systems like Windows XP, which is nearing its end-of-sales period, is a standard practice, and Microsoft does this for the convenience of its customers and partners. Users no longer need to install three to four years worth of updates when installing Windows XP, and partners have a new, updated baseline on which to test their applications and hardware. This white paper describes what is new in Windows XP SP3 and provides an overview of how customers can deploy the service pack.

Service Pack

Stability Updates
Performance Updates
Security Updates

For More Visit: http://www.microsoft.com

Motherboard

A motherboard is the central or primary circuit board making up a complex electronic system, such as a modern computer. It is also known as a mainboard, baseboard, system board, planar board or, on Apple computers, a logic board, and is sometimes abbreviated as mobo.

Most motherboards produced today are designed for so-called IBM-compatible computers, which held over 96% of the global personal computer market in 2005.[2] Motherboards for IBM-compatible computers are specifically covered in the PC motherboard article.

A motherboard, like a backplane, provides the electrical connections by which the other components of the system communicate, but unlike a backplane also contains the central processing unit and other subsystems such as real time clock, and some peripheral interfaces.

A typical desktop computer is built with the microprocessor, main memory, and other essential components on the motherboard. Other components such as external storage, controllers for video display and sound, and peripheral devices are typically attached to the motherboard via edge connectors and cables, although in modern computers it is increasingly common to integrate these "peripherals" into the motherboard

Friday, April 4, 2008

G Phone






Have a look at the Google G Phones

Blu-ray Disc



Blu-ray Disc (also known as Blu-ray or BD) is an optical disc storage media format. Its main uses are high-definition video and data storage. The disc has the same dimensions as a standard DVD or CD.

The name Blu-ray Disc is derived from the blue-violet laser used to read and write this type of disc. Because of its shorter wavelength (405 nm), substantially more data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than on the DVD format, which uses a red (650 nm) laser. A dual layer Blu-ray Disc can store 50 GB, almost six times the capacity of a dual layer DVD.

Blu-ray Disc was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, a group of companies representing consumer electronics, computer hardware, and motion picture production. The standard is covered by several patents belonging to different companies. As of March 2007, a joint licensing agreement for all the relevant patents had not yet been finalized.

As of February 19, 2008, more than 450 Blu-ray Disc titles have been released in the United States, and more than 250 in Japan.

During the high definition optical disc format war, Blu-ray Disc competed with the HD DVD format. On February 19, 2008, Toshiba — the main company supporting HD DVD — announced it would no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders, leading almost all other HD DVD supporters to follow suit.

Blu-ray Disc format finalized

The Blu-ray Disc physical specifications were finished in 2004. In January 2005, TDK announced that they had developed a hard coating polymer for Blu-ray Discs. The cartridges, no longer necessary, were scrapped. The BD-ROM specifications were finalized in early 2006. AACS LA, a consortium founded in 2004, had been developing the DRM platform that could be used to securely distribute movies to consumers. However, the final AACS standard was delayed, and then delayed again when an important member of the Blu-ray Disc group voiced concerns. At the request of the initial hardware manufacturers, including Toshiba, Pioneer and Samsung, an interim standard was published which did not include some features, like managed copy.

For more Visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc

IPTV Technology



Recent press coverage has highlighted speculation that broadband video sites could severely affect Internet performance. Reports suggest that peer to peer and video broadcasting could double net traffic within two years and that video and consumer traffic will surpass business traffic by next year.

This is a real concern for Service Providers who may have to limit the bandwidth available to these services.

Exterity offers an alternative approach for TV and Video distribution throughout organisations using the existing network infrastructure and bypassing the internet.

By installing Exterity “head-end” equipment network managers can take Digital Terrestrial and Satellite TV straight from the broadcaster via the aerial or satellite dish and distribute it over the local area network, (usually existing cat 5 cable), to any network point. Users can then view the channel on a LCD or plasma screen using an Exterity set-top box, or directly to a network connected PC using an Exterity software application.

This solution has the advantage of guaranteed performance and scalability (one head-end can service as many users as there are network points (given that LAN bandwidth is pretty ubiquitous these days. Similarly non-digital video sources (e.g. DVD’s) can be distributed over the LAN by using an Exterity encoder at the head-end.

Exterity also offers server based applications that allow Video on Demand and Scheduled Broadcasting to be viewed over the network with the content available presented to the viewer as an Electronic Program Guide, (EPG).

Hitachi Introduces 1-Terabyte Hard Drive GenNext



Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is first to the mat with an announcement of a 1-terabyte hard disk drive. Industry analysts widely expected a 1TB drive to ship sometime in 2007; Hitachi grabbed a head start on the competition by announcing its drive today, just before the largest U.S. consumer electronics show starts next week.

According to Hitachi, the drive ships in the first quarter of 2007, and will cost $399--less than the price of two individual 500GB hard drives today. The drive, called the Deskstar 7K1000, will be shown this weekend in Las Vegas at the 2007 International CES, also known as the Consumer Electronics Show, as well as at the Storage Visions storage conference.

Hitachi will have three flavors of the 1TB drive; however, only the Deskstar version will be available at launch. The company also plans to offer a CinemaStar version of the drive, for use in DVR and set-top boxes, as well as an enterprise version with a certified mean time between failure rating. Both of those versions are expected in the second quarter of this year.

Industry Milestone

"No question, it's a milestone for the industry," says John Rydning, research manager for hard disk drives and components at IDC. "It's interesting that the industry is delivering a 1TB drive in the 51st year of the industry." The first hard drive, manufactured by IBM, shipped in 1956.

Hitachi notes it took the industry 35 years to reach 1GB (in 1991), 14 years more to reach 500GB (in 2005), and just two more years to reach 1TB.

The company hopes to be the first to market with a 1TB drive. The company is locked in competition with Seagate for those honors; Seagate reconfirmed its intentions to ship a 1TB drive in the first half of 2007, but it has not offered any further details.

Drive Details

Although the jump to 1TB was not unexpected, Hitachi is taking a cautious tactic to achieving 1TB. According to Doug Pickford, director of market and product strategy, "The approach we've taken with the design of this product, and with previous generation products, is that we've purposely relaxed the areal density. The previous generation [500GB] drive was 100GB per platter; and, it was possible to have up to 160GB per platter. About 250GB per platter is the next bump on the areal density curve, but we've backed off from doing that in order to achieve higher reliability at this time."

The Deskstar 7K1000 will be a five-platter drive, each platter capable of storing 200GB apiece. Like Seagate's Barracuda 7200.10 750GB drive, Hitachi's 1TB model uses perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) to achieve its high capacity point. The 7K1000 is Hitachi's first 3.5-inch hard drive to use PMR technology; last year, the company released 2.5-inch PMR-based hard drives.

Pickford says the drive will be intended for gaming and high-performance PCs, external storage devices, and PC upgrades. "The drive will be shipping in the first quarter to retail stores," says Pickford. "And we're expecting to ship some to external storage device makers as well."

The 7200 rpm Serial-ATA drive will have 32MB data buffer, larger than the typical 8MB or 16MB buffer seen on drives. It will be available in SATA 3.0Gb/s and Parallel-ATA 133 interfaces.

750GB Model Also Coming

In addition to the 1TB model, Hitachi is introducing and shipping a 750GB version of the drive as well. But the company focused its energies on achieving 1TB before its competitors. "We did that by design," says Pickford. "The feedback we got from the market was that if we could get to 1TB sooner, there would be a lot of value for our customers. We already knew that the mechanical platform was mature enough and able to handle the areal density that 1TB needed. So we decided to accelerate our efforts and get to a TB."

Getting to 1TB, adds Pickford, was more about finessing existing processes than inventing new ones. "It was very much in the execution, so you can have the right yields, the right stability, and right quality levels, and make sure it's achievable in the lab as well as in mass production."

Attractive Pricing

With a price of $399, the Deskstar 7K1000 comes in at an attractive price for consumers. That works out to $0.40 per GB--a competitive per-gigabyte cost for a hard drive today, and not much of a premium over previous models. By comparison, a 500GB hard drive today costs about $0.45 per gigabyte, as does Seagate's 750GB Barracuda drive (down from the $0.79 per gigabyte it cost when it launched last spring).

Don't expect to see hard drive prices enter a freefall, though. Says Pickford, "I don't think it will affect the market in a disruptive way. When we set this, we did try to take into account the price of other, lower-capacity drive products. Based on where the market was, we felt $399 was an appropriate price point to set for this technology, so it could achieve good market acceptance."

Although 1TB of storage on a single drive will be alluring to some users, IDC's Rydning sees only very specific demand for that much storage. "For consumers, we still think the big hard drives are mainly for niche applications," says Rydning. "There's going to be a certain minority of PC users and video recorder enthusiasts who will want to have the highest capacity available. And in those markets, a high-capacity drive is valued. However, the vast majority of PC users are still serviced by a one-platter, 160GB hard drive."

Consumers' increasing accumulation of digital personal data is, not surprisingly, driving the need for high-capacity storage. "As people amass their own personal memories, either in photographs or video, hard disk drive storage is one of the best, lowest cost ways to store and retrieve that type of data," says Rydning.

About TERABYTE

A terabyte (derived from the prefix tera- and commonly abbreviated TB) is a measurement term for data storage capacity. The value of a terabyte is based upon a decimal radix (base 10) and is defined as one trillion (short scale) bytes, or 1000 gigabytes.

The number of bytes in a terabyte is sometimes stated to be approximately 1.0995 x 1012. This difference arises from a conflict between the long standing tradition of using binary prefixes and base 2 in the computer world, and the more popular decimal (SI) standard adopted widely both within and without the computer industry. Standards organizations such as IEC, IEEE and ISO recommend to use the alternative term tebibyte (TiB) to signify the traditional measure of 10244 bytes, or 1024 gibibytes, leading to the following definitions:

  • According to the SI standard and current usage, a terabyte (TB) contains 1,000,000,000,000 bytes = 10004 or 1012 bytes.
  • According to traditional and binary arithmetic, a terabyte contained 1,099,511,627,776 bytes = 10244 or 240 bytes. Ambiguity can be avoided by use of the standardized term for this quantity, the tebibyte.

The capacities of computer storage devices are traditionally advertised using their SI standard values.

Decimal
Value SI
10001 k kilo
10002 M mega
10003 G giga
10004 T tera
10005 P peta
10006 E exa
10007 Z zetta
10008 Y yotta
Binary
Value JEDEC IEC
10241 K kilo Ki kibi
10242 M mega Mi mebi
10243 G giga Gi gibi
10244 T tera Ti tebi
10245 P peta Pi pebi
10246 E exa Ei exbi
10247 Z zetta Zi zebi
10248 Y yotta Yi yobi

For more Visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabyte

Software Testing



Software testing is the process used to assess the quality of computer software. Software testing is an empirical technical investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of the product or service under tes, with respect to the context in which it is intended to operate. This includes, but is not limited to, the process of executing a program or application with the intent of finding software bugs. Quality is not an absolute; it is value to some person. With that in mind, testing can never completely establish the correctness of arbitrary computer software; testing furnishes a criticism or comparison that compares the state and behavior of the product against a specification. An important point is that software testing should be distinguished from the separate discipline of Software Quality Assurance (S.Q.A.), which encompasses all business process areas, not just testing.

Over its existence, computer software has continued to grow in complexity and size. Every software product has a target audience. For example, a video game software has its audience completely different from banking software. Therefore, when an organization develops or otherwise invests in a software product, it presumably must assess whether the software product will be acceptable to its end users, its target audience, its purchasers, and other stakeholders. Software testing is the process of attempting to make this assessment.

Software testing is used in association with verification and validation:

  • Verification: Have we built the software right (i.e., does it match the specification)?
  • Validation: Have we built the right software (i.e., is this what the customer wants)?
Testing methods

Software testing methods are traditionally divided into black box testing and white box testing. These two approaches are used to describe the point of view that a test engineer takes when designing test cases.

Black box testing treats the software as a black-box without any understanding as to how the internals behave. It aims to test the functionality according to the requirements.[14] Thus, the tester inputs data and only sees the output from the test object. This level of testing usually requires thorough test cases to be provided to the tester who then can simply verify that for a given input, the output value (or behavior), is the same as the expected value specified in the test case. Black box testing methods include: equivalence partitioning, boundary value analysis, all-pairs testing, fuzz testing, model-based testing etc.

White box testing, however, is when the tester has access to the internal data structures, code, and algorithms. White box testing methods include creating tests to satisfy some code coverage criteria. For example, the test designer can create tests to cause all statements in the program to be executed at least once. Other examples of white box testing are mutation testing and fault injection methods.

White box testing methods can also be used to evaluate the completeness of a test suite that was created with black box testing methods. This allows the software team to examine parts of a system that are rarely tested and ensures that the most important function points have been tested. Two common forms of code coverage are function coverage, which reports on functions executed and statement coverage, which reports on the number of lines executed to complete the test. They both return a coverage metric, measured as a percentage.

In recent years the term grey box testing has come into common usage. This involves having access to internal data structures and algorithms for purposes of designing the test cases, but testing at the user, or black-box level. Manipulating input data and formatting output do not qualify as grey-box because the input and output are clearly outside of the black-box we are calling the software under test. This is particularly important when conducting integration testing between two modules of code written by two different developers, where only the interfaces are exposed for test.

For more Visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_testing

Tally 9



Tally 9 is the world!s first concurrent multi-lingual business accounting and inventory management software. Tally has been designed specifically for Indian business owners like you, who have always wanted to maintain accounts in an Indian language of your choice.Tally 9 is so technologically advanced that it can operate in almost all Indian languages concurrently! That means, you can maintain accounts in any Indian language, view it in another and print it in yet another language of your choice... at the same time!

Tally 9 empowers business owners to manage business smoothly. Designed keeping in mind the needs of the Indian businessman, it has several key additions in terms of functionalities.
You can send separate documents to suppliers, business associates, customers etc., in their language, while maintaining accounts in your language. In effect, you can conveniently transact business across the length and breadth of India, and language will no longer be a barrier.

Freedom from dependence on accounting professionals is yet another clear benefit that Tally 9 enables… right from day one! You can let your accountant enter information in any Indian language that he is comfortable with and you can review it in your preferred language –at just the click of a button.

Backed by the heritage of incredible simplicity, Tally 9 takes one more significant step towards ensuring that concrete business advantages are realised from accounting on computers.

The advanced technology empowering Tally 9 allows you to:

What Does Tally 9 Offer?

  • Single-User Edition (TallySilver)
  • Multi-User Edition (TallyGold).
  • Best suited for small business at amazingly attractive prices!

Tally 9 - Best For Business Accounting

  • Complete Book-keeping
  • Books, Registers and Statements of Accounts
  • General Ledger
  • Outstandings Management, including Credit Limits
  • Accounts Receivables and Accounts Payables
  • Flexible Voucher Numbering
  • Flexible Classification of Account Heads
  • Drill Down Display
  • Date based Reporting
  • Voucher and Cheque Printing
  • Columnar Reports
  • Bank Reconciliation

Tally 9 - Best For Business Financial Management

  • Funds Flows
  • Receivables Turnover (Payment Performance of
    Debtors)
  • Branch Accounting
  • Flexible Period Accounting
  • Consolidation of Companies
  • Budgeting and Control
  • Cost Centres & Profit Centres, with Multiple Cost Categories
  • Variance Analysis
  • Ratio Analysis
  • Scenario Management including Reversing Journals and Optional Vouchers

Tally 9 - Best For Statutory Returns

  • VAT Statutory Returns
  • VAT Composition Returns
  • Service Tax
  • Tax Deducted at Source (TDS)
  • Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT)
  • Excise for Traders

What Makes Tally 9 The Best?

  • Simplicity in usage
  • Speed in navigation
  • Power of information management
  • Flexibility in adapting to your business
  • Concurrent multi-lingual capability
  • No codes for convenience
  • Real-time reporting
  • Online help for user friendly experience

Tally 9 - Best For Advanced Business Financial Management

  • Multiple Companies
  • Multi Currency Accounting
  • Multiple Financial Years
  • Comparison of Data using Multi-Columnar Reporting
  • Memo Vouchers
  • Post-dated Vouchers
  • User-defined Voucher Types
  • Sales and Purchase Extracts
  • Cash Flows
  • Daily Balances & Transaction Values
  • Interest Calculations
  • Percentage based Reporting

Tally 9 allows you to get the information you require in the format you need. Just create your format in any ODBC compliant software like MS-Word or MS-Excel, and pull data from Tally. To create any report you want. Like Audit Reports and Schedule VI forms. Or internal reports. You can even generate your export documentation by pulling data from Tally.

MailTally Harness the power of the Internet! Tally 9 uses the SMTP protocol for e-mail. Now, e-mail invoices to your customer. Or your purchase order. In fact, e-mail any Tally report or document as easily as you print! Even reminder letters and statement of accounts need not be printed and posted. Simply e-mail them. It is not only postage cost that you save, you save on so much of your valuable time.

E-Tally You can improve your company's efficiency by sharing information with your extended enterprise: your customers, your bankers, your business partners and other associates. Now publish all reports and documents from Tally 9 to a secure part of your website, using either FTP, HTTP or secure HTTP protocols, in HTML format. You can use this feature to inform customers the new price-range and stocks available for sale. Or publish reports that your CEO can access, while traveling, using any internet browser.

XML Tally Tally 9 enables you to exchange information with non-Tally systems, using XML. You can now share data across locations, amongst business associates and partners, and make your workflow seamless. You can now collaborate with others and share information like never before.

On-line Help Tally 9 has built in Context Sensitive Help. Press the Help button while in Tally, and it will bring up the relevant topic.

"Scenario" management The new "Scenario" Management capability allows you to plan, as well as analyse your business performance, under varying assumptions. You can get different views of your accounts and inventory information by selectively including Optional Vouchers and/or Reversing Journals and Memos. Use this feature for forecasting and planning. Prepare reports including provisional figures without affecting actual accounts using reversing journals that automatically reverse. This is useful for reporting interim statements.

Print Preview This facility helps you check printed report formats and layouts before actual printing takes place.

Direct Access to the Internet Tally 9 allows you direct access to Web Browsing from within Tally.

Tally 9 Cutting Edge technology

Tally 9 has achieved major technological breakthroughs to enable you to benefit from collaborative technology such as protocol support for HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SMTP, ODBC, and Raw Sockets with data interchange formats like XML, HTML, SOAP, SDF and related formats, rule-based collaboration supporting export, upload and synchronization.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

USB Drive



A USB Device is a NAND-type flash memory data storage device integrated with a USB (universal serial bus) connector. USB flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, much shorter than a floppy disk (1-4 inches or 25-102 mm), and weigh less than 2 ounces (56g). Storage capacities range from 64MB to 16GB[1] or more. Some allow 1 million write or erase cycles and have 10-year data retention,[3] connected by USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 or both. USB Memory card readers are also available, whereby rather than being built-in, the memory is a removable flash memory card housed in what is otherwise a regular USB flash drive, as described below.

USB flash drives offer potential advantages over other portable storage devices, particularly the floppy disk. They are more compact, faster, hold more data, are more reliable for lack of moving parts, and have a more durable design. Additionally, it has become increasingly common for computers to ship without floppy disk drives. USB ports, on the other hand, appear on almost every current mainstream PC and laptop. These types of drives use the USB mass storage standard, supported natively by modern operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other Unix-like systems.