Archive for June, 2009

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Web 2.0 and Internet Speed

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Web 2.0 is the second generation of web design and development, and it offers internet surfers a lot of new possibilities. Web 2.0 incorporates blogs, free networking sites, forums, folksonomies, and social networking to give internet users a more diverse web experience. To navigate a website that is based on Web 2.0 technology, you need to have fast computer speed.

The name Web 2.0 was coined by Darcy DiNucci in one of her articles in 1999.  Presently, more and more people are discovering the benefits of conducting their e-business through the Web 2.0 platform. Web 2.0 offers rich graphics and multimedia, and this automatically necessitates a faster broadband internet speed. Lately, the growing popularity of Web 2.0 has prompted Internet Service Providers and application service providers to upgrade their services to allow customers to surf the feature-rich Web 2.0 internet sites.

Web 2.0’s technology infrastructure integrates messaging-protocols, content-syndication, server-software, and also a plethora of extensions and plug-ins. One of Web 2.0’s key features is the “Network as a Platform”. This form of computing allows web-browsers to run a wide variety of software applications. However, you need a fast computer speed to use the “Network as a Platform” feature.

The web experience is now transforming from being pages full of static texts and graphics to pages that are more dynamic and interactive. This transformation is brought about by Web 2.0. And as the popularity of Web 2.0 increases, there will be a greater need for faster broadband internet speed. Hence, it is clear that Web 2.0 is indirectly causing the global internet speed to rise.

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Free and Legal Music Downloads Keep You Out of Court

Monday, June 29th, 2009

If you don’t want to take the risk of using P2P to download your music, but the economy has got you looking for ways to acquire music for free, here are a few tips to make use your internet speed, wisely.

MPFree touts itself as a completely free service that gives you the opportunity to earn free and totally legal music downloads from your favorite artists. How do you earn them? By giving your info to advertisers–every offer you complete gets you more free song downloads. Because advertisers are paying for it, MPFree is a legal music download site, in compliance with all copyright laws and artist and record-label royalty agreements.

A search for ARTISTdirect comes up with a link promising free music downloads. Once I clicked on “songs,” their free downloads link offers a list of songs that goes on for 22 pages, but I don’t recognize that many artists. So I clicked “Help”. “ARTISTdirect, Inc. is a digital media entertainment company that is home to an online music network and, through its acquisition of MediaDefender, is a leader in anti-piracy solutions in the Internet piracy protection industry.” This doesn’t really answer my questions, so I click on the Play/DL button next to an artist I’ve heard of to see what happens. It goes to that artist’s page, and opens a player, but also has a download button. I’m still not sure exactly how the site works, but downloading free music from this site shouldn’t get you into trouble.

A search for “free legal music downloads” also came up with several other options, so check em’ out.

We’ll look into more next time.

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Download Music Without Going to Court - Part One

Friday, June 26th, 2009

A search for “free music downloads” listed MTV as the number one result. Their site promises:

“all the hottest downloads from your favorite artists. From pop star powerhouses to up-and-coming emo bands and everything in between, we have all the hottest music for your iPod or MP3 player. And you can keep coming back for more kick-ass freebies whenever you want!”

I didn’t see anything I wanted to hear, so I did a search for a band I like. That’s when I found this offer: 

“You can listen to 25 full songs each month for free on MTV.com with audio streams provided by Rhapsody. No strings attached. Just click on the play icon and start listening. After you hear 25 songs within your 30-day period, Rhapsody will continue to deliver music to you in 30-second preview clips.

When your month is up, the counter resets and you get a fresh 25 free full song plays on MTV.com. And so on … If 25 songs is not enough for you, consider a Rhapsody membership. Rhapsody members have access to more than 2 million unlimited full songs on MTV.com, VH1.com, Rhapsody.com and many other sites.”

So I went to see what Rhapsody is about. 

“Download the latest Rhapsody Music Software and manage all your music in one place. When you register, you can play 25 full-length songs each month, purchase and burn the tracks you want, and tune in to 25 Rhapsody Channels for non-stop music. This is the only music software you’ll ever need.”

Sounds like a couple of decent options, especially considering it won’t end you up in court. But we’ll continue to examine other ways to deliver your music with internet speed in future posts.

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Broadband Speed in the US

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

When it comes to fast broadband speed, the US is still lagging behind other countries. In one of the reports commissioned by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a request was made to the public policy-makers to take serious note of the slow average broadband speed of the United States. Truly, some of the cable speed surveys have painted an abysmal picture of the current median download speed of the US.

The average download speed was recorded at 1.9 megabits per second, which is far lower than countries such as Japan (61 Mbps), South Korea (45 Mbps), France (17 Mbps), and even Canada (7 Mbps). Furthermore, it has been discovered that the average broadband speed varies in the US from state to state. The state of Illinois clocks an average of 2.1 Mbps, whereas New York and California’s speeds are 3.4 and 1.5 megabits per second respectively. The state of Rhode Island comes first at 5 Mbps, followed closely by Kansas at 4.1 Mbps.

There are a lot of advantages of having a faster cable speed, some of which include a multimedia rich distance learning experience, more efficient video conferencing, better streaming of movies, and faster downloading of email attachments. Unfortunately, research shows that the American people’s interest in fast broadband speed is in fact plummeting. So, it seems that the American people needs to be convinced about the benefits of a fast cable speed before another significant broadband national program is rolled out.

A fast broadband speed not only enhances the internet surfing experience for people in the US; it helps to promote businesses and create jobs as well.

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Downloading Music via P2P

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

With the recent judgment against a woman who shared 24 songs on the Kazaa peer-to-peer (or P2P) network to the tune of $1.92 million, we thought it was time to look a little closer at music downloading. 

In October of 2007, Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay the record industry a mere $222,000, which comes to $9,250 per song shared. At the time, many said it was excessive.

But now, after a retrial, the price has gone up to $80,000 per song. She says getting their money would be like “squeezing blood from a turnip,” but an article from Ars Technica (Latin for “the art of technology”) tells us about her options from here.

We suppose the point is to make an example of her to stop people from so willingly sharing music freely. 

She used Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file sharing application commonly used to exchange MP3 music files over the Internet, though it can also be used to exchange other file types, such as videos, applications, and documents. Peer-to-peer allows internet users to transfer files directly, rather than through the use of a website or directory. So even though Jammie only shared 24 songs, any number of people could have downloaded them to their computers for free, making the cost of a 99-cent song rise exponentially, which may be why Kazaa has been the target of many copyright-related lawsuits.

Other P2P networks include Bit Torrent, Gnutella, and Napster, and since none of them go through official channels sanctioned by the music industry, there is no way to properly pay the companies for their products—which they don’t like.

In future posts, we’ll look at other ways to utilize internet speed for music downloading in ways that are less dangerous.

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Internet Speed in the Workplace

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Nowadays, the internet has become an indispensable part of the workplace. As the pace of work gets more accelerated, high internet speed is required to perform computer-related tasks.

Reading e-mails, holding a teleconferencing session, downloading materials for presentations, and sending files to colleagues through the instant messenger are just some of the typical tasks that employees have to handle everyday. These tasks are internet speed dependent, and they can be performed more efficiently if the company has a faster broadband speed. In most cases, internet speed has a direct effect on a company’s work output.

A fast broadband speed is now considered a necessity in most companies. The global marketplace has become completely technology-dependent, and having a faster broadband speed will help companies stay afloat in this fiercely competitive business environment. Also, fast broadband speed has thrown open a brand new avenue in the workplace, which is called “telecommuting”. Working from home or “telecommuting” does not only help you make more money, but it enables you to plan your own work schedule as well. Instead of going through the grind of a 9-to-5 work day, employees who have fast internet speed can interact with their companies and send in their work over the internet.

If you are planning to setup an office or you already have one, it is a good idea to check the internet speed of your computers. There are a number of accurate internet speed test websites that can help you evaluate the true internet speed in your workplace.

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More People Choose Greater Internet Speed

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

According to the Yahoo tech blog,  a new study by The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project has found that 63 percent of adult Americans have broadband Internet at their homes. That’s a whopping 15 percent increase in the number of broadband subscribers since the same time period in 2008.  Imagine if there weren’t a recession!

Broadband penetration in the U.S. had been sitting still around the mid-50% range since 2007, so this large jump in subscribers is a sudden phenomenon. But it seems that times are changing with internet speed, and internet access has become a must-have utility instead of a luxury. Seniors, low-income Americans, non-college-educated users, and even rural Americans are installing broadband with record speed. In the case of low-income households, high-speed internet penetration jumped 40 percent in the last year.

It’s not necessarily that prices have come down either, if that’s what you’re thinking. Actually, Americans are paying more for their Internet access. In May 2008 the average net connection cost $34.50 a month. As of April 2009, the average monthly rate paid is $39. Not a huge increase, but still not getting cheaper.

The internet seems to be the most resilient of all media and communication platforms: 22 percent of adults have cut back on cable TV, and 19 percent of adults have cut back or canceled cell phone service, but in comparison only 7 percent of adults have canceled or cut back on Internet access.

We at Speedplexer think they choose the internet over other media and communications because once you have good broadband speed, you can do almost anything online.  From watching TV shows or movies to downloading music, and from webcam chats to taking online courses, really all you need is a computer.

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Global Social Networking

Friday, June 19th, 2009

Earlier this month, a PR professional and former Microsoft employee in Italy, Vincenzo Cosenza posted an interactive world map showing the use of social networking  to his blog. It uses data from both Alexa and Google Trends, and shows some interesting patterns.

• Facebook dominates Australia, Canada, India, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK and the US, and it’s growing with internet speed.

• MySpace has lost its leadership everywhere, except apparently, in Guam. But they’ve held on to the second choice spot in Australia, Canada and the US. It’s the third choice in France, Germany and the UK.

• Twitter, for all its hype, is only in third place in Australia and the US.  They too are growing, though it’s difficult to get precise usage statistics.  

• Hi5, a San Francisco based Company, is the leader in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and other scattered countries such as Portugal, Mongolia, Romania. It’s the third choice in India.

• Bebo is the second choice for social networkers in the UK.

• Flickr is the third choice in Canada.

• QQ is the leader in China, making it the largest social network in the world with 300 million active accounts.  Facebook has over 200 million active users (those who have returned to the site in the last 30 days.)

• Maktoob is the most important Arab community/portal

• Others you may not have heard of yet include:

• Orkut, which is the number 2 preference in India and is also big in Brazil.

• Skyrock, the second choice in France.

• StudioVZ is the second choice for Germans.

• Netlog is Italy’s second choice, followed by Badoo.

• V Kontakte is the most popular in Russian territories, but Odnoklassniki is strong in some former territories of the Soviet Union.

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The Future of Bandwidth Connection Speed

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Scientists are researching on ways to push the data transmission capacity of fiberoptic internet cables to its limits, and you can expect bandwidth connection speed that is mind-boggling in the near future. If you thought that 100 Mbit/sec is an amazing speed, you may have to think again. It is now possible to send 3 terabits of data per second through fiberoptic internet cables. Interestingly, the internet transmits 1 terabit of data globally every day. So, you can well imagine what the future of the internet holds for us.

In Japan, bandwidth connection speed that facilitates high-definition teleconferencing for doctors is already available. And by the year 2010, it is expected that bandwidth connection speed will help to double the number of Japanese people who are working from home. According to the president of AT&T Labs, David Nagel, two predominant factors will transform the internet speed in the future, and they are the speed of lasers for the encoding of data and the number of lasers functioning at diverse wavelengths.

Moreover, experts in Bell Labs believe that the sky is the limit as far as data transmission through fiberoptic internet cables is concerned. Within one or two decades, computers with a bandwidth connection speed of 100 terabits per second will be a reality. Then, you may be asking, “What kind of application will require that kind of speed?” Well, your guess is as good as mine. But one thing you can be sure is that bandwidth connection speed will be greatly improved in the near future.

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Getting the Word Out from Iran

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

While post-election protests are underway in Iran, their government has reportedly blocked access to most media, including social networking sites such as YouTube and Facebook. They’ve also cut off mobile phone service.  But Twitter seems to have slipped through the cracks, and gotten the word out to the world with internet speed–at least for a time.

The L.A. Times tech blog tells us that people both inside and outside of Iran have been sending short text messages about the violence and civil disobedience that has engulfed the nation’s capital, Tehran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has defended his reelection last week, but the protests have grown more intense.

Twitter traffic about the situation in Iran has been dominating the service for the last several days, with topics such as IranElection, Tehran and Iranians among the most actively discussed on Twitter. News tidbits, photos and chatter about the protests have flowed around the world, becoming a key medium for news from the scene.
As the New York Times reports: Iranians are coordinating their protests on Twitter…. Their activity has increased, not decreased, since the presidential election on Friday and ensuing attempts by the government to restrict or censor their online communications.

Because of this, the company delayed a crucial maintenance operation, in order to accommodate the high volume of information flowing about the explosive election protests in Iran. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone noted that NTT America, the company that runs the servers that undergird the micromessaging site,  recognized “the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran” and was “taking a huge risk not just for Twitter but also the other services they support worldwide.” And according to Reuters, it was the U.S. State Department that encouraged them to do so.

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