Google Wave A Real Time Collaboration

A month ago I visited to my friend and while we were discussing some great online entrepreneurial ideas, I told him how a couple of friends and I have been trying to arrange social media marketing and strategy workshops but we never get time to be at one place, brainstorm our ideas and plan the entire project.


When I was done narrating my predicament, he told me that we don’t necessarily have to be present psychically at one place to brainstorm and collaborate. He told me to try Google Wave which is an amazing tool to collaborate in real time with team on a project and so far he had found it very useful.

So I gave Google Wave a try.

The first thing I liked when I logged in was the mail in my inbox with embedded Google Wave tutorial video (it was great help to understand what the tool is all about). Then as I started exploring Google Wave, I saw options to create a new Wave for a meeting or a brainstorm session or a new document or task tracking.

I created a new Wave by clicking on the brainstorm icon. A new sub window popped in the main window and then I added my 3 friends who I had to work with on our workshops project.

I decided that until all 3 invitees find their invitation to join Google Wave, I should write a welcome note for them and type down my ideas about the project so I started typing. The first line typed became the name/title of the wave and then after typing a rather funny welcome note to greet my friends I wrote a brief intro of our workshops project and what was to be done next.

While I was just typing my thoughts away, I saw that one of my friends had just logged in on Wave and began to write something too in the same wave. He had started sharing his thoughts and both of us began working on the plan. In the meanwhile third friend of ours logged in and all 3 of us were typing and throwing our ideas at each other at the same time from the comforts of our homes.

The best way to describe Google Wave experience is that it is a combo of email and online chatting yet in a more visually pleasant and rich media format.

You can drop images, videos, attachments in the wave, use rich text, add links to the discussion, edit documents and what not but the best part is that it gets saved as one big mail message so you don’t have to worry about losing all the million dollar brainstorming you have done with your team on any project.

My experience with Google Wave is still underway as I am happily working on my project with my friends by collaborating with all of them in real time from the comforts of our own homes.

If you haven’t tried this fun and such an effective communication and collaboration tool by Google yet then you must give it a shot at least once. I bet you won’t be able to keep yourself off of it and you will be planning all your events and projects on Google Wave from then on.

The Holidays Computing....!!!

I have written extensively about the best ways to speed up your computer and the perils of “online hoarding.” Once upon a time homes and offices were cluttered with stacks of papers, photos, video tapes and record albums and cassettes. As the digital revolution evolved, documents were then stored on computers, video tapes gave way to DVDs and records albums and cassettes were replaced with CDs. Fast forward to the new century, and most users began storing music and video files and digital photos on their computers.

The current trend gaining steam is ‘cloud computing,’ which allows you to store all your documents and files in a web storage service, eliminating the problem of a cluttered hard drive that is ready to burst at the seams. Especially during the holiday season when you're busy amassing hundreds of photos and numerous short videos of family and friends, you need a safe haven to store, organize and share all these files with your loved ones.

Problem of computer ‘overcrowding’
All those documents, files and photos that have been sitting in your documents folders for months or years and all the family photos and music downloads you have stored on your PC not only take up valuable disk space, but also slow down your system. If your computer is working at a much slower pace than usual, a likely culprit could be the overwhelming amount of files and photos you have saved on your hard drive. Simply deleting these will help speed up your PC. Computer crashes, which can happen at any time, can also eradicate all your stored content as well.

Cloud computing to the rescue
As the Guardian explains, “The ‘cloud’ is the Internet, and the term is fitting -- it's large, out there somewhere, and fuzzy at the edges. Cloud computing is about putting more of your material out there and less on PCs or servers that a business runs for itself.”

A number of tech experts predict that in the next few years, more users will move their content into the ‘cloud,’ and subscribe to web storage services instead.

Web storage services are cropping up everywhere, and they offer users the ability to store their photos, videos, documents and files safely on the web, which can be accessed from anywhere as long as you are connected to the Web.

Storing holiday photos and memories
Think of web storage services as a type of bank. Would you ever store your valuables under the mattress or in a drawer where they might run the risk of getting lost or stolen? No. The same rule applies to valuable photos, files and documents, which can live more securely on the web, free of your home computer's potential crashes and hard drive malfunctions.

According to the Pew Research Center, "By 2020 most people will access software applications online and share and access information through the use of remote server networks, rather than depending primarily on tools and information housed on their individual, personal computers.” A good place to carve a niche in the great ‘cloud’ therefore, is to begin by storing your own personal digital valuables online. 

Windows 7 and Windows XP Mode

It’s probably inevitable that at some point during your organization’s transition to Windows 7, you’re going to
encounter an application that doesn’t run properly with the new operating system, no matter what hoops you
jump through. If you discover that such an application is considered essential by management, then you are in
the same boat with many other IT pros.
For such situations, Microsoft has provided a way for Windows 7 users to run a Windows XP virtual machine in
which the recalcitrant program can be executed, alongside native Windows 7 applications. This virtual machine
(VM) is also handy for running legacy device drivers that you may need for specific hardware. (I use Windows XP
Mode at home to talk to old scanners and cameras that still work but that don’t have Windows 7 drivers.)
This solution goes by the name “Windows XP Mode” and it’s an evolution of the special VM that Microsoft
made available for Windows Vista that was basically an XP virtual machine outfitted with Internet Explorer 6.
(That special VM is no longer freely available.)
Understand that while Windows XP Mode is fine for business users (it’s not supported on Windows 7 Home
editions) who have occasional needs to run a legacy OS in a virtual machine, it’s not a “managed” solution. For
that, you may want to take a look at MED-V (Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization), part of the MDOP
(Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack)—if, that is, you’re a Software Assurance customer.
Here are some introductions of Windows XP Mode and includes the following topics.
• Do You NeedWindows XP Mode?
• How Can You GetWindows XP Mode?
• Requirements
• Core Features
• ImplementingWindows XP Mode
• ManagingWindows XP Mode
• Challenges


Do You Need Windows XP Mode?
Before you decide that you need Windows XP Mode, always spend time trying other ways to get your apps to
run under Windows 7: haranguing the vendor to provide updates, tweaking the EXE’s compatibility settings,
and/or spending some quality time with the (free) Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT). Also, try
running your problematic applications with different User Account Control (UAC) settings; sometimes that can
help.
If you do decide to use virtualization to solve short-term compatibility problems, Windows XP Mode isn’t the
only virtualization technology that can help. You can have users remote in to centrally hosted VMs, instead of
running VMs on their own local workstations, in a strategy Microsoft calls VDI, for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.
The VDI approach relies on Hyper-V and Remote Desktop Services.

How Can You Get Windows XP Mode?
This is fairly easy. Although Windows XP Mode doesn’t come “in the box” with Windows 7, it’s a free download
from microsoft.com. Actually you’ll get three files, as follows.
• KB 958559, which is the main Virtual PC program
• KB977206, a Virtual PC update, which removes the requirement that the hosting PC supports hardware assisted
virtualization (but not everyone should install it; see caveat in the next section)
• WindowsXPMode_en-us, theWindows XP Mode software, including virtual machine preconfigured with
XP Service Pack 3 (note that this file is approximately half a gigabyte in size)

Requirements
Windows XP Mode is only available withWindows 7 Ultimate, Professional, and Enterprise (either 32-bit or 64-
bit versions). Sorry, Windows 7 home users, you’re left out in the cold on this one. More seriously, Windows Vista
users are, too. That seems a little strange to me, given the many architectural similarities between Windows 7
and Vista. There are, after all, lots of Vista shops out there, and they have the same issues with legacy XP applications
that Windows 7 shops have. Sure, a Vista shop could use Virtual PC 2007 to host applications in an XP
VM, but you lose a lot of the nice integration features offered by Virtual PC 2007.
As noted in the previous section, Virtual PC no longer requires hardware-assisted virtualization (HAV) although
HAV does have a significant positive effect on performance. If you’re not sure whether a given machine supports
HAV, Microsoft offers an HAV detection tool you can download (havdetectiontool.exe) that will tell you (see
Figure 1). The tool will also tell you if your PC supports HAV, but it is not enabled in the BIOS.
Why should you care?Well, Microsoft actually recommends that you do not install the KB977206 update to
Virtual PC if the hosting PC does provide HAV.


What about licensing? Good news here: you don’t need a separate license forWindows XP, to runWindows XP
Mode. (That’s not true, by the way, for MED-V, the managed version of Windows XP Mode.)

Core Features
Virtualization Engine. Windows XP Mode uses the Virtual PC engine, also known as “Virtual PC 7,” a freshening
of the Virtual PC 2007 product that Microsoft acquired back in 2003 from Connectix
Note that this is not Hyper-V, the server-based virtualization software Microsoft is trying to position as a viable
alternative to VMWare. Virtual PC is slower than Hyper-V, largely because it sits on top of a host operating system
(that is, Virtual PC is a “type 2 hypervisor”). Also, Virtual PC doesn’t emulate multiple processors or 64-bit
guest environments, and it doesn’t do snapshots. However, Virtual PC doesn’t require 64-bit host hardware as
Hyper-V does, and it doesn’t turn off hibernation and sleep capabilities as Hyper-V does. Virtual PC also isn’t
Virtual Server, Microsoft’s older IIS-based virtualization platform.
User Interface. You can run “Windows XP Mode” applications in so-called “seamless” mode (that is, just the
application window) or in a full virtual machine desktop. To perform the latter, just choose Start > Windows
Virtual PC > Windows XP Mode (see Figure 2). To perform the former, navigate to
Start > Windows Virtual PC > Windows XP Mode Applications  (see Figure 3)

One of the best features of Windows XP Mode is that when you choose to run an application without the entire 

desktop, the legacy app looks just like any other application window on theWindows 7 desktop (see Figure 4)

albeit without the Windows 7 “chrome” around the edges, and the user doesn’t have to interact with the XP 

desktop. (This technology, embodied in the vmsal.exe process, derives from the RemoteApp capabilities 

of Terminal Services. “VMSAL” stands for Virtual Machine Seamless Application Launcher.)

When you run the “full desktop” Windows XP Mode, you’ll see a special toolbar that you can use to perform
functions such as popping into a full-screen view, putting the VM to sleep, restarting, changing VM
settings, performing a true system shutdown, managing USB devices, and so forth .


It’s also possible for users to access theirWindows 7 profile folders from within a VM; this can be performed,
for example, by assigning the host system’s Documents folder as a drive letter on the Windows 7 host, so that it
appears as a host-based drive in the XP virtual machine’s “My Computer” window.
Windows XP Mode users can also use the clipboard between the virtualized app and host apps, and print from
the virtualized app to a host-based printer (although the user has to install the printer driver from within the
XP VM). And, as with earlier iterations of Virtual PC, users can access host-based optical drives. Finally, audio
support exists, and you can choose whether to redirect audio output to Windows 7’s audio drivers or use an
emulated soundcard.
Mouse integration and time synchronization are provided automatically between host and guest operating
systems. Users can enable or disable specific integration features via the VM’s “Tools” menu (see Figure 6).

Implementing Windows XP Mode
Windows XP Mode was designed to be configured on a machine-by-machine basis. You can mitigate that disadvantage
to some degree by installing Virtual PC andWindows XP Mode on your standard corporate desktop
image (if you have one), or by deploying these pieces through System Center, Group Policy, or other software
distribution mechanisms.

Choosing a password. The built-in user account for Windows XP Mode, XPMUser, needs a password, and, of
course, the temptation is to use the same credentials that the user uses to log onto Windows 7. That, however,
would be a mistake! Host applications, including evil ones, can access the credentials stored for Windows XP
Mode. This makes it important to choose a different password for XPMUser. You can haveWindows XP Mode
remember it, but even that’s better than using host credentials.
Installing applications. Applications that you’d like to run in Windows XP Mode need to be installed while
running Windows XP Mode. Once that’s done, the application will show up on the Windows 7 Start menu, and
can be run directly without the intervening XP desktop. The application will also show up within the VM if you
run the full XP desktop.
Configuring networking. Virtual PC inWindows 7 supports three types of networking for VMs: “internal
network,” which means that VMs can see each other but not the host; “bridged mode,” named after the specific
network adapter, in which the VM connects through the host network adapter and appears on the network as
if it were a non-virtual machine; and “shared networking (NAT)” in which the VM shares one TCP/IP connection
with the host and can, for example, access the Internet without appearing on the internal network as a separate
machine.Windows XP Mode uses the “shared networking (NAT)” method by default.
User training. Organizations should plan for some user training if Windows XP Mode is going to be used with
any frequency. In order to make things work without annoying error messages, users need to be disciplined
about exiting their virtualized apps and closing their VMs before relaunching applications.

Managing Windows XP Mode
Managing Windows XP Mode is largely a manual affair. What responsibilities IT departments might shoulder will
be a decision every organization has to face. Virtual XP machines need backing up, patching, anti-virus, antimalware, etc.
just like any workstation OS. And software running in Windows XP Mode may also be subject to
license management.
To take backing up as an example, you can take at least three different approaches.
• Use an XP-based backup program from within the VM
• After shutting down (not just hibernating) the virtual machine, back up theWindows XP Mode VM files,
including “undo” files, fromWindows 7 (these are normally in C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines; 
you probably won’t need to worry about the parent VHD file
in the C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode area because it doesn’t usually change)
• Make sure all data gets saved to the user’sWindows 7 profile and don’t worry about backing up any
data on the VM
As for the anti-virus situation, you may not need to purchase an additional license to protect your Windows XP
Mode applications if you are licensing anti-virus software on a per-user basis rather than a per-device basis.
But do understand that anti-virus protection for the host Windows 7 system does not typically protect your XP
virtual machines!

Management, and Control of IT Infrastructures

Networks are wonderful things. They connect servers, resources, applications, and
users together, all to drive your business forward. But as application complexity goes
up, as the need for more and more servers goes up, as more and more virtual servers
are deployed, and as the need for more and more bandwidth increases, networking
complexity increases as well.
There are routers and switches, NICs and more NICs, and cables and cables, and more
cables. Oh, the cables! Hundreds, even thousands of wires are running all over your
data center. And if you want to change a server or reconfigure an application, the time
and effort involved in juggling cables is almost ridiculous.
Cables and networks should help your business flow. Instead, as your business grows,
they become complex and challenging bottlenecks to productivity.
Fortunately, all that is about to change.
 
The Network Nightmare
The modern data center is a networked data center. Virtual servers live in physical
servers and blades. Blades live in racks. And all those virtual servers, all those physical
servers and blades, and all those racks need to talk to each other:

NICs, Switches, and Cables
When data leaves a server, it does so through a network interface card 
(NIC), then travels across a cable to a switch, which acts like a 
switchboard, then travels to and across other switches, and eventually 
travels through another NIC back into another server. Each server uses 
one or more NICs. As more servers are added, more NICs are added. As 
more NICs are added, more switches are needed. Connecting them all are 
cables. 
Virtualization Magnifies the Problem 
Virtualization reduced the number of physical boxes required for certain 
applications, but it didn’t reduce the network load. In fact, virtual servers 
have substantially increased the network load. It’s now almost absurdly 
easy to add a new server, but terribly difficult to add the network and cable 
infrastructure to support the new server. 
LANs vs. SANs 
Data center data and storage traffic  both travel across cables. Ethernet 
(and most IP-based applications) can  survive having some packets lost 
and then re-sent during  operation. But storage networking must be 
lossless, and must maintain throughput.

These separate levels of required performance have given rise to two completely divergent 

network infrastructures, one based mostly on Ethernet, and the other based mostly 

on Fiber Channel.  

The result is once again more cables, more connections, less flexibility, 

and increased complexity. 

Cable Aggregation  

Racks often contain many more servers today than they did even a few 

years ago. Virtualization has made  that possible. Unfortunately, the 

virtualization trend didn’t reduce the need for more wires. Instead it made 

it worse. 

Wiring and provisioning racks require many complex connections be made 

at top-of-rack, and then all of those connections are often bundled 

together at another set of switches at end-of-row. Always, the complexity 

increases.

It’s reached the point where the task of adding a completely new server application can
take far less time than simply wiring up the connections.  Gartner's Cameron Haight
reports that setting up a virtual machine is relatively fast (a matter of hours), but
provisioning all the networking changes required to support that  virtual machine can
take as long as six weeks.
Networking, a technology designed to help businesses grow, is instead getting in the
way of growth. IT organizations are change-adverse because a simple change, like
adding one new application, could have a complex ripple effect throughout the entire
data center.
The number of connections, switches, and cables keeps going up.  IT staff is spending
more and more time on maintenance and wires. The technical wizards who should be
driving innovation across the organization are, instead, being driven to distraction simply
attempting to keep up.
The Network as a Service 
The solution is turning the network into  a service, creating a virtualized network
infrastructure. What makes all this work  is a network topology known as a switched
fabric. Rather than using a lot of point-to-point connections, a fabric-based network
allows many nodes to connect to each other like threads in a tapestry, often dynamically
changing to compensate for changing load requirements.
Once you’re able to dynamically reallocate your network resources, you’re able to begin
serving network resources on-demand, both when and where they’re needed.

Here’s how:
Virtualize Connections 
Typically, one NIC supports one connection. Each new connection 
requires more NICs. It’s now possible, however, to virtualize your network 
connections, so each NIC can support multiple connections. You can 
dynamically add more connections and change the purpose of those 
connections on-the-fly.
Wire Once 
Once you virtualize your connections, you can build out your physical 
wiring infrastructure once. When applications and server requirements 
change, you can make changes in your virtualized connections through 
management software, eliminating the need to pull wires for each change 
in application or server requirements.
Repurpose Without Tears 
Once you embrace the concept of wiring once, you can repurpose 
network, storage, and compute resources on the fly. Your IT department is 
no longer subject to waiting days or weeks for a re-provisioned network. 
Instead, the network can be modified  to meet line-of-business needs 
quickly, and without drastic and complex changes to the physical data 
center facilities.
Increase Performance 
Complexity breeds bottlenecks. The more connections, wires, and 
switches you have, the more overhead you have running across your 
network, and the slower everything gets. 
Once you can virtualize your network infrastructure, you can cut 90% or 
more of your physical wiring, which will substantially drop the network 
housekeeping overhead. The result is increased performance, often by as 
much as 50%.

It’s astonishing how much IT time and effort is bottled up in cabling bottlenecks. By
virtualizing the network and turning your network into a service, most of that time can be
freed up and put to far better use.

Organizational Benefits 
When you transition to the network as a service, you’ll be taking complexity out of your
network. This will make it easier for you to manage not just basic networking elements,
but your entire IT infrastructure.
You’ll be able to turn your IT operation into an agile, responsive, innovative contributor
to your organization’s mission. You’ll also able to do more, even while spending less on
expensive networking gear. You can allocate what spending you do to support line-ofbusiness
objectives rather than for basic, repetitive, and inefficient operations.
You’ll be able to maximize your data center space, reduce your overall power costs, and
even free up strategic IT personnel for more bottom-line oriented tasks.
Future Innovations 
Today, network fabrics still have one substantial limitation: LAN vs. SAN. Local Area
Networks are usually Ethernet-based, while Storage Area Networks run on Fiber
Channel. Even though virtualized networks remove most of the cabling overhead,
there’s still the need for these two types of cables.
That’s changing. Standards bodies are working on encapsulating Fiber Channel frames
into Ethernet frames, so that all of the SAN traffic can run across Ethernet. This
technology is called Fiber Channel over Ethernet, or FCoE.
But encapsulating frames won’t solve the bigger issue, the need for a lossless Ethernet
mechanism, especially across a congested data center network. The Data Center
Bridging (DCB) Task Group of the IEEE 802.1 Working Group is working on adding
performance capabilities to Ethernet called Converged, Enhanced Ethernet.
Some venders are currently offering solutions they claim will be compliant with these
future standards. If you decide to implement these solutions now, make sure your
performance agreements include upgrades for  pre-standard revisions and eventually,
final standards compliance.
In the very near future, you’ll be able to  transition your network to a policy-based
approach for managing your infrastructure. You’ll be able to control it as a resource,
reallocating workloads dynamically depending on your needs at the time, whether
across the data center or even between data centers.

Optimize Computer Security Through Windows Settings

There are a number of steps you can take to make your computer and online experience more secure. Your computer comes equipped with certain settings that allow you to optimize security.

Security engineer and tech expert “Sam,” who wishes to remain anonymous because of his job, offers examples of security settings options:

--Enabling/disabling Windows firewalls
--Turn on/off UAC (User Account Control)
--Internet security settings (e.g., Internet Explorer)

“These settings allow a user to control how much security they wish to have on their computer. As a security professional, I would recommend keeping the Windows firewall and UAC on,” he explains.

Enabling Windows firewalls: A firewall allows certain communications to get through while preventing others. As Sam explains, “A firewall is like a doorman who stands outside your home (computer). It prevents unwanted users from just walking in to your home, and (with Windows 7 and Vista) checks that strangers that snuck into your home are allowed to leave.”

To make sure your firewall is on in Windows XP, for example: Go to Start, then click the Control Panel and Security Center. Click on the firewall button and if the box is checked, then it’s on.

Turn on UAC: The good thing about Windows is that while you’re busy installing certain software or making changes to your system, the UAC will ask you for permission before it carries out the task you intended. The User Account Control basically serves as a cautionary reminder when you are making changes to your system.

 If you are performing a particular activity such as installing a program, for example, it may first ask for an administrator password before it completes the application. According to Microsoft.com, UAC does not make “unauthorized changes”. As a result, “UAC can help prevent malicious software (malware) and spyware from installing or making changes to your computer without permission,” Microsoft explains.

For maximum security, apply the “always notify” setting. Windows.Microsoft.com offers instructions for turning on UAC in Vista, for example: Go to the Start button, Control Panel, User Accounts, Turn User Accounts on or off, then make sure the box is checked in User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer.

According to Sam, however, “With the advent of Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft has enhanced security and made it an integral part of Windows. As such, as long as a user keeps the default settings for UAC and the Firewall…the settings shouldn't have to be changed.”

Internet Explorer settings: Internet Explorer already comes equipped with various security features, such as pop-up blockers and phishing filters. In Windows XP, for example, you can view security settings in IE by clicking Tools, then Internet Options, and Security. This then shows you the various security zones – Internet, Local Intranet, Trusted Sites, and Restricted Sites, which you can adjust accordingly. By clicking on Tools in Internet Explorer, you also have the option to delete browsing history, set up your pop-up blocker or manage add-ons.

Another security tip for keeping Windows system secure is to create a separate, non-administrator account for daily use. A non-administrator account cannot install software, so viruses and malware cannot easily be installed.

Programs like Computer Checkup also scan and fix various security flaws, remove spyware, and help identify system settings that can boost system security.

The Power of Sharing in Social Media!

I just wakeup and checked my blackberry my facebook page ohhhh so many more updates from friends family and pages for which I subscribed, as I go thourgh from almost all updates while I sleep last night, Is this happens with you everyday? are you also really in the charm of social media or it just me? I’d say this without any hesitation or guilt that I am obsessed with social media. Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or even MSN messenger or Gtalk, I am there, I’m online and I am always ALWAYS connected. Hence my family and friends call me the ultimate social media freak. The pride is all mine!

While I was scrolling down the different posts, I came across a wonderful video. I watched it and instantly ‘Liked’ it so much that I decided to ‘Share’ with my friends, leaving a comment that this is a must watch video!

Just the other day, as I opened Facebook on my BlackBerry, my Homepage updated itself with the most recent posts including links, videos, photos, blog posts and status updates. While some of these updates were simply hilarious, others were quite informative and yet quite a few gave me an update on my friend’s activities.

In almost an hour 25 of my friends had ‘Shared’ the same video in their friend’s network. I wondered how this video had suddenly spread the message among so many people via sharing on Facebook.

Let’s hypothesize. If I have 200 friends on Facebook and I shared that video with all of  them, out of which 25 people ended up sharing that video among their friends, (let’s keep 150 as average number of friends each one of them might have) then the same video that I shared in my friends’ circle managed to get 3,750 views in about an hour.

(we all know the number in reality might have been far greater). This is the power of sharing in social media – the fastest and the least expensive (sometimes absolutely free) way to reach a large number of audience. I have to admit, it does get scary at times too.

The biggest concern of social media sharing is that anything and everything can be shared via social networks. However, the content (images, photos, videos, reviews) shared by people or companies will only spread if it appeals to either people at large aka the masses or a certain pseudo community who will spread the content within their own circle of friends having the same interest.

This is extremely tricky especially for big brands, celebrities or even well known people in their respective fields because if the ‘good word’ can spread like fire among their consumers, fans or followers, the ‘bad word’ will equally spread like a conflagration totally out of control.

Hence, social media sharing is no less than the ultimate power in the hands of the users/consumers to make or break a brand’s reputation in the online world. As the famous saying goes; “With great power comes great responsibility” hence, a word of advice for all the online users of this power, think twice before sharing anything in social media!

While yes, we are entitled to share our opinion, our likes and our dislikes with the rest of the world, let’s not forget that misuse of this power can lead to great damages to people and companies that sometimes can be irreparable.

Nokia C7

Nokia C7 is highly conventional, polished stainless steel and glass handset with an integrated slim and sleek touch screen. It is basically an impressive Smartphone that has a full touch glass display and integrated social networks that add to the handset’s multiple benefits.

Backed by thousands of applications through Ovi Store and customizable home screens, the users are bound to give in to this tempting sensation by Nokia Mobiles. With an integrated 8 megapixels camera and a High Definition (HD) video, this Smartphone is expected to make a profound impact on the market with its launch.

Following is the first image of C7, which ever went live.

Display and Design:

The new Nokia C7 is integrated with a new Symbian^3 operating technology and is packed with high end system and features that make the handset all the more tempting. The display of the handset is a 3.5 inches high resolution touch screen. This smartphone measures only 10.5mm thickness and with a form factor of sleek and slim design, the overall design with multiple options along with social networking sites makes the handset highly beneficial and all the more alluring for its consumers.

Memory and memory cards:

Nokia C7 has an internal storage area of 8GB, 256 RAM, 1GD ROM and a MicroSD memory card slot as well that supports up to 32GB storage data and a maximum of 40GB, but for the memory fan lovers, you should check out Nokia X6 Review, that phone contains 32 GB of internal memory, however, when compared to C7, it has an older version of operating system.

The handset supports practically unlimited phonebook entries and fields and provides with Photocall featured service as well. Nokia C7 entails call records with complete information over max 30 days duration.

Battery:

This Nokia C7 mobile is supported with an external hardware battery of BL-5K 1200 mAH Li-ion battery that provides with a maximum talk time duration of 576 minutes on GSM and up to 318 minutes on WCDMA. On the other hand, it supports with a maximum stand-by time duration of up to 555hours on GSM and up to 656hours on WCDMA. Further, Nokia C7 supports with video playback duration of 6.5hours, video recording time of up to 3.8hours, and music playback duration of 54 hours on offline mode.

USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi:

With complete support network of Class 32 on both GPRS and EDGE, Nokia C7 provides with various connectivity options. On a 3G handset, the user can benefit with HSDPA, 10.2 Mbps, and HSUPA, 2 Mbps along with WLAN support of Wi-Fi 802.11 b,g,n. The handset provides with Bluetooth support as well with v3.0 with A2DP while the USB support is based on a scale of microUSB v2.0 and USB on-the-go support.

Camera:

Nokia C7 is integrated with an impressive feature of 8 megapixel camera that seems to be highly beneficial for any user who wouldn’t even need a digital camera with this Smartphone, this is huge step up from nokia previous c series phone nokia c6 which had only 5 megapixel camera. The camera in this handset provides with full screen support and 16:9 viewfinder assistance along with touch screen controls. Also, it has an in-built Dual LED flash of the 3^rd generation and provides with full focus feature as well. The camera in Nokia C7 has full recognition software and a focal length of 4.3mm. It can zoom up to 2x for any captured still images and 3x for video. There is a secondary camera as well that is a VGA and has a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. It is primarily used for video calls.

Software:

Nokia C7 is integrated with advanced software applications and features that are inclusive of detailed contact information, to-do list, notes, calculator, notes, recorder, clock, online browsing with touch control and full web browsing of online web pages.

Nokia C7 Video Review:

Not every one wants to go through the chunks fo text and find the relevant information, but worry not, you can still have the indepth detail on the phone by going through this in detailed video review for c7.

Performance Price and Conclusion:

Nokia C7 is an ultimate extravagance for all Smartphone lovers with enhanced features and serves with high end technology in all its applications. Certainly an impressive Smartphone and a must-try since it is expected to inaugurate new dimensions to the existing Smartphone realm. As far as rate is concerned, the earlier speculations have come true, Nokia C7 Price as of now is in range of 31,000 to 38,000 pkr. Price varies from retailer to retailer, a lot depends upon what region you are from.

Getting up to Speed on VLANs

IT managers are always looking for ways to do their jobs more efficiently, while still providing the quality of service that their clients expect. Virtual LAN technology (VLAN) can help them on both fronts, by easing administrative chores and improving enterprise network performance. VLANs allow IT managers to group users and resources in any way they like, regardless of the physical LAN segment to which those resources are attached. An organization may want to group all users in the marketing department on the same

VLAN with the servers that host the applications and data they use most often, for example. The users who belong to that marketing group may be spread throughout a building, or even the country, but they can still belong to the same VLAN. This type of flexibility in grouping users and resources stands in stark contrast to the days when IT managers were restricted to grouping resources solely by the port to which they were connected. Any changes to the network configuration required a visit to one or more wiring closets to physically move the user or resource from one port to another.With VLANs, such changes can be performed in software, from a central administrative console, thus greatly improving efficiency. At the same time, VLANs can be used to improve network performance in a number of ways – by grouping users that communicate often with one another on the same VLAN, for example, or by creating a VLAN for use by “power users” that tend to consume a lot of network bandwidth. VLANs are most suitable for mid- to large size companies, but even smaller companies with highly demanding users may benefit. Essentially, any organization with a network large enough that it needs to be segmented in some fashion can benefit.

Types of VLANs

When they first came on the scene in the mid 1990s, there were three basic ways to build a VLAN on any given switch or router. The port-based model called for assigning each router or switch port to a specific VLAN. Ports 1-5, for example, might be the engineering VLAN, while ports 6-10 belong to the marketing

VLAN. Some ports may be assigned to more than one VLAN, such as a port that connects a server used by multiple groups. Administrators could make changes to port and VLAN assignments from a central console, rather than physically pulling and rearranging wires. If a repeater was attached to any port, however, all the devices connected to that repeater must belong to the same VLAN.

Another approach was to assign resources to VLANs based on their unique media access control (MAC) address. The switch or router supporting the VLAN maintained a list detailing which MAC addresses belong to which VLAN, and routed traffic accordingly based on the source or destination MAC address. The drawbacks to this method included the time required to assign each MAC address to a given VLAN.

Assigning the same MAC address to multiple VLANs could also wreak havoc with bridges and routers, making it difficult to share server resources among separate VLANs.

Layer 3-based VLANs group resources according to the protocol and Layer 3 address they employ. In this fashion, all IP or IPX traffic can be assigned to its own VLAN, or perhaps all wireless LAN and Voice over IP (VoIP) traffic. The Layer 3 approach also enables all non-routable protocols to share a VLAN, thus limiting the effect of broadcasts on the rest of the network, improving performance for all users.

To promote interoperability between devices from different vendors that may be used to support a VLAN, such as switches and network interface cards, the IEEE developed a couple of key VLAN standards.Most VLANs today employ these standards, perhaps in conjunction with one of the above approaches.

The first standard, 802.1q, defines the format of a tag that is added to each Ethernet frame to detail the VLAN it belongs to. This is especially important in creating large VLANs that span multiple network switches. Enterprises identify their VLANs by giving each one a VLAN identifier (VID), which is a number

between 1 and 4,094. That VID is carried within the 802.1q tag, thus defining what VLAN the frame belongs to. The other key standard, 802.1p, provides a way to preserve quality of service levels for different VLANs, even as they traverse multiple switches. The standard defines three bits that indicate the level of priority for each packet, enabling each switch to reorder packets, if necessary, to ensure that higher-priority packets get through first. That is especially important for VLANs that support delay-sensitive traffic such

as video or VoIP.

Putting it all together

The ability to segment different traffic types is one of the key benefits behind VLANs. Even as organizations strive to create all-IP networks, they will want to give different levels of priority to different types of traffic.

Additionally, many organizations still have other protocols at work, including some “chatty” protocols such as DEC net that generate broadcast packets. The ability to segment those broadcast packets, keeping them from flooding the larger network, will benefit the enterprise as a whole. Similarly, some organizations are now assigning all wireless LAN users to their own VLAN, in an effort to help ensure they stay connected to the network even as they roam about. Security is another concern. VLANs are one way to ensure that

users have access only to the resources they need to do their jobs. If there is no reason that users in the sales group should have access to potentially sensitive engineering documents, a VLAN can be created that ensures the sales team has no visibility into engineering servers. Put another way, VLANs can be used to keep all but authorized users from getting at any given set of enterprise resources. If a client that is not an authorized member tries to connect to any resource on a given VLAN, it will be denied.

At the same time, VLANs promote maximum mobility. Since a client machine can be identified irrespective of the port to which it is attached, users are free to connect from anywhere in the enterprise that their VLAN is supported, and still maintain access to all their usual resources. It should be noted that these benefits are not limited to a single building or campus location, but can also accommodate an enterprise that spans the country or even the globe. Because VLANs are “virtual”, there are no real boundaries. Administrators can configure any given VLAN to support users who may work anywhere the enterprise network reaches, thus improving performance for those users. Add to all these benefits the fact that VLANs dramatically improve the productivity of IT administrators, enabling configuration changes to be made from a central console instead of

from the wiring closet where the device is physically located.

For more detailed info about VLANs visit Cisco.com

Nokia N8

The Nokia N8 is a highly anticipated device here in Pakistan. It’s jam packed with features and we were one of the few lucky ones who got our hands on the Nokia N8 way before it officially hits the shelves.

Having spent a lot of time with the device here’s a review of the phone just like we promised in the Unboxing of the N8 post.

I tested the phone out vigorously these days, putting it to extreme tests, lots of text messages, tons of calls, endless internet usage, pointless use of Google Maps, constantly using the camera and after all this I came up with this review, in which we tried our best to cover all the major aspects of the Nokia N8.

External Hardware

I was pleased with the build quality of the phone, but along with the build quality brought few disappointments. 

First up, the Nokia N8 is constructed completely out of anodized Aluminum therefore it feels really smooth in your hand. N8 is made from a single piece of Aluminum, which means that there aren’t any funky joints or anything that gets in the way.

This unibody construction might be awesome for some people but I found it as a huge con, why? Because the battery is not user replaceable due to the unibody construction. If the battery dies out on you, you can’t change it on your own.

The volume rocker is on the right hand side of the phone and it’s fairly placed for easy access. I didn’t find any problem while using it. Just underneath that is the lock/unlock spring loaded switch to lock or unlock your phone.

And the last button on the right is the camera button – I was really pleased with what Nokia has done with the camera button this time, it’s really comfortable to press and I didn’t have any issues using it whatsoever.

On the left hand side of the phone is the micro-USB port through which you can copy content onto your N8 and it double-acts as a charging port too; unlike many other previous generation Nokia smartphones – I really welcome this new feature.

On the top of the micro-USB port (on right side of Nokia N8) is the SIM and memory card loading slot. I’m going to be straight forward at this point that I had a hard time getting the latch for the SIM to open up. It felt that if I give it too much strength it might just break off.

We would’ve loved the fact if Nokia had made this easy for us but since slipping in a SIM is not a job which you’ll do on a regular basis then of course we can live with this for now. But we severely believe that this could have been made better.

On the top of the Nokia N8 is the microHDMI port. This is a really awesome feature. I’ve been using this feature a lot lately to view my photos and videos, which I shot from the camera and the result is just great. Some people are going to find this feature really fun and intuitive but it wouldn’t really that matter if you’re always on the go.

On the top is also a 3.5 mm headphone jack for connecting any type of headphones, which you might have lying around. Although the ones shipped with the N8 are quite satisfactory as well, and besides the headphone jack is the power button. It’s small but yet it’s easy to press.

Underneath the phone is the standard Nokia charging port.

Flipping the phone over you’ll see an enormous 12MP camera sticking out with a dual Xenon flash. I think the camera-sticking-out part is somewhat annoying, whenever you attend a call you just happen to poke the lens all the time, at least this happened to me, some of you might find this thing irritating too.

The speaker is also placed at the back of the N8 and I have to admit with my whole heart that it’s one of the loudest speaker I’ve heard on a mobile device. I was quite impressed with it and its fun to listen to music on it believe me!

A front facing VGA camera for video calling and snapping photos and a dedicated menu button.

The menu button is placed quite badly though, it’s way off where it really should be. And using it gets really frustrating at times – you have to go all the way to the corner of the device just to access the menu button. We would’ve loved it if the menu key was more towards the center and near the display for easier access. At times the phone nearly fell off from my hands just to reach the menu key.

Internal Hardware

Moving on the internals of the device, the N8 is a perfect example that how much features you can fit inside such a small place.

The phone is loaded with almost everything you can think of. But packing everything doesn’t mean that it’s the best smartphone out there – for instance N8 is shipped with 680MHz processor when every other phone in the market is boasting a 1GHz processor sounds a bit off.

I was quite disappointed at the slow clock speed of the processor, Nokia could have easily bumped up the N8 with a faster processor but they chose not to for some reason.

The N8 has an onboard RAM of 256 megs only, which is quite fair enough but if you’re running a lot of apps in the background, then you will feel the need for the extra RAM. I did feel, at times, that extra RAM in the N8 would have been a huge treat but I wasn’t bothered too much about it.

Applications were snappy thanks to the dedicated graphics accelerator chip which takes the extra load off from the processor.

The N8 has built-in 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi which was quite pleasing to use, it works flawlessly but I did find one thing annoying, it’s hard to tell on which data connection the N8 will connect to, it’s somewhat unpredictable, sometimes it connects to EDGE and sometimes on WiFi.

Nokia N8 has a built-in GPS receiver as well, and hands down I admit it is the best GPS receiver I’ve seen, it locates your position almost instantly, so no issues here.

The phone has a built-in storage of 16GB, yes you read that right! And in addition to that, you can add an extra microSD card of up to 32GB. This is a huge plus point especially over direct competition smartphones such as the iPhone.

The battery has a capacity of 1,200 MAh which will give you a good solid day of battery time, depending on the way you use it, you can go all the way to two days if you use it wisely.

The phone also features a built-in FM transmitter, which is a great way of saying goodbye to wires if you’re on the go and want to stream your songs on the radio instead of plugging in wire, it works fine and has no issues.

Also let me take a second to tell you that the phone’s hardware is capable enough to play a full 720p video without any problem, even with the HDMI output, I didn’t get a lot of time to play with the video aspect of the phone but the amount of time I spent with it, I was impressed with it overall.

Display

I’m not gonna brag about the display of the Nokia N8, but this is indeed the best display you’ll ever see on a Nokia device.

It’s an AMOLED display, which is really bright and images look stunning on it, the colors have high saturation and content on it looks just amazing. It has a resolution of 360 by 640 pixels with a size of 3.5 inches (diagonal).

It’s a capacitive display, therefore it’s really sensitive to touch and it’s really comfortable to use.

It supports Multitouch gestures, which is really a welcome feature, and it works great in the photo gallery but holds up quite bad in the internet browser. Whenever I tried to pinch to zoom into a page, the page seemed to break and text looked all gibberish. I really wish a software update fixes this issue.

The screen adjusts its brightness accordingly to your environment and it works quite well, but I hate the fact that there’s no way to turn off the auto-brightness feature.

The screen uses a technology called Gorilla Glass, which is darn tough! Stab it with a pen and you can’t scratch it or break it, but we highly wouldn’t recommend that and we didn’t do it either.

The phone has a built-in accelerometer for auto rotating the screen when going from portrait mode to landscape, and it works just fine, not the fastest auto rotate feature we’ve ever seen but still does what it’s supposed to.

Software

Ok I am going to be very straight forward and little hard in this part. I was expecting tons of new features from Symbian^3, but it turned out to be a disappointment.

Think of it as the older versions of Symbian Series 60 5^th edition but with smoother animations and more colorful icons. Although the software performs well on the N8’s hardware but we believe that Nokia could have done a better job at this.

If you’re taking a leap from a phone like the Nokia N97 or the Nokia 5800 then you won’t feel a lot of difference in software, but if you haven’t ever used Symbian before and this is your first time getting your hands on it, then you’ll find the whole experience quite good.

Symbian^3 is more of a touch friendly version of the previous offerings of Symbian, it’s comfortable to use on a touchscreen device like the N8, thanks to the large display.

After having used Symbian^3 for quite some time now, I got the hang of it and found that it’s a great OS to use if you’re doing normal day to day tasks – although it doesn’t compare to Android and iPhone’s iOS in any case.

The homescreen of Symbian^3 features widgets which you can customize in any way you like, and you now even have different homescreens which you can swipe through and all of them can have different widgets.

You can have different social widgets which will display your Facebook and Twitter streams and that too in real-time, you can also have a radio widget, your RSS feeds and tons of other stuff which comes in handy.

I did notice some lag in different menus from time to time, maybe it was due to the lack of RAM? I am not sure what it was but the lag is always there and pops up from time to time.

The best thing I liked about Symbian^3 was the way it lets you multitask, just hold down the menu key for a couple of seconds and it will give you a preview of all the windows you have currently running in the background, it’s a real eye candy and spotting the app on which you were working on is a snap!

The whole user interface is pretty much the same as the previous version of Symbian but a few things have been updated, most noticeable changes lie in the sub menus and options.

The theme animations are much better now and they are quite smooth! And they are pleasing to have too.

Messaging has been updated, it’s now threaded, in other words you see in the same window what the other person sent you and what you replied back, it’s an awesome and welcome feature to have but Nokia adopted the tradition of threaded messaging quite late, but better late than never right?

The phonebook is as good as ever, pick up any Nokia and you’ll see a phonebook which is very detailed so no issues here.

The Nokia N8 handles Emails really well, I’ve been using the N8 as my primary handset for a couple of days now and I’m pleased with the Email client it has.

 

Apps

The Nokia Ovi Store has been revamped and has a brand new look on the Nokia N8. It has a whole new interface, easy to navigate through but what I don’t like about the Ovi Store is that it doesn’t filter out apps and games which are tailored specifically for your device. Would’ve been a great feature but won’t give anyone a heart attack if it’s not there.

The Ovi Store has a wide variety of apps to choose from, and I’ve noticed the apps which I used to have on my old Nokia 5530 look darn good on the N8 and they even perform better.

Social apps are great, if you’re a bigger Twitter fan then give “Gravity” a shot, no other app even comes near to Gravity in terms of what it has to offer, probably the best Symbian Twitter client out there.

Good news is, Symbian^3 can run Symbian S60 5^th edition apps without any hitch, if you have an app which you like a lot on the older platform then you will have no issues running it on the N8. There aren’t a lot of apps to choose from quite frankly but all the necessary apps are there to get you going. A few apps which I highly recommend are as follows:

Angry Birds- It’s an awesome game and will keep you entertained for hours trust me. But it’s not free and is for RS 139.99 but the lite version is absolutely free but it’s limited.

Opera Mobile 10- The perfect browser replacement for the native browser.

Fring Mobile- Make video calls from your phone, need I say more?

Qibla Touch- A great app for finding Qibla direction. Uses the built-in GPS to calculate.

Geo News- Self Explanatory what it is.

Google Maps- The best free maps app out there and works great in every major city of Pakistan. Can be downloaded from m.google.com/maps

  

There are tons of apps to go through, but the ones above are a few which I loved a lot, and are handy to have. I would recommend that you give websites like www.NokiaMobile9.com a shot if you’re looking for apps, wallpapers and other content, they have almost everything. Or you can just Google around for content, your choice.

Multimedia

This is the place where the Nokia N8 rules out its shortcomings, it is a feature packed phone and is guaranteed to keep you entertained.

  

The music player is quite fun to use, you turn the phone over to landscape mode and you see an amazing iPhone like cover flow mode in which you can slide through your albums along with the album art.

It works like a snap and we didn’t see anything wrong with the music player and it performed up to our expectations. It’s even more fun to use if you’re using the stock Nokia headphones which come with the N8, thanks to its dedicated music control keys.

The audio quality is just like any other mp3 player, and with the audio equalizer in the music player, you can set up the audio according to your liking for that perfect sound you crave.

The N8 features a Video and Photo editor and its self explanatory what it does and it does the job well and is simple to use.

You can edit videos on your phone and come up with pretty decent stuff for sharing with other people, we’ll leave this part for the more creative minds to explore.

As we mentioned before that the N8’s speaker is really loud and the quality of the audio is quite good, but it won’t double as your car horn trust us on that. The radio works great too and uses your headphone’s cable as the antenna.

Connectivity

The Nokia N8 keeps you connected in every way possible, it has WiFi, it supports 3G and EDGE, since we’re in Pakistan so cover the 3G part with water for now.

EDGE works great with the N8, I was using Warid as my soul operator while testing out the N8, where I live, the reception is good so I didn’t get a chance to see the N8 struggle for some signal bars.

Bluetooth 3.0 is there, it supports stereo Bluetooth headsets and supports sending data over the air too and works just great. It has a USB 2.0 3.0 port for fast data transfers between your computer and your phone and as we mentioned earlier, it doubles as a charging port too.

Internet Browser

This is probably the only part in the Nokia N8 which didn’t get any sort of update over the previous handsets, the web browser is slow, it handles data in a very choppy manner and Multitouch gestures are quite bad.

This might outrage a few Nokia lovers out there but that’s how things are, the browser isn’t just that good, I was expecting the Symbian^3 web browser to be completely overhauled over the previous offerings and I had to make a switch to Opera Mobile, it’s a far better browser and it’s free.

Camera

Think of this section of the review as the teaser, why? Face it, the camera is so damn good that we have a separate post for it!

12MP camera on a mobile device, it’s not a joke. And It’s able to pull off 720P videos without any problem.

You’re gonna love the camera believe me! If I’ve used this phone for let’s say 24 hours, then I easily spent more than 12 hours playing with the camera.

Stay tuned we will be back with a detailed post just related to the camera with picture samples and hopefully video too.

Conclusion

At this point you must be wondering where’s the price right? Well, there’s no official price for the N8 yet. Different retailers are giving it off from a price range of 42,000 and beyond, while some are saying it to be priced at 38,000 – so we can’t say for sure how much the price will be.

I’ll wrap up the whole review by saying that the N8 has its shortcomings and it’s good points at the same time. It’s a big upgrade over previous Symbian smartphones, which Nokia has been offering for a long time now. But at the same time some design and hardware aspects really kill the whole mood for the N8.

Symbian^3 in my opinion is rather disappointing to use, there’s nothing brand new over here, everything has just been polished a little, the platform is the same except it’s been pushed up a bit cosmetically.

Would I recommend the Nokia N8? Well, if I had that much money to spare, 40,000 plus that is, I would go for an HTC or any Android phone or probably a Samsung. I already know that I wouldn’t get that much value out of the N8 but at the same time there are features in the N8 which I really did love, especially the camera, it’s just amazing!

I’m not bragging about the camera but it’s the best I’ve ever seen on a mobile device. Although the iPhone 4 also has a good camera and also pulls off 720P video recording without any issues but the image sensor size of the iPhone 4 is limited to 5MP’s only, so still photos on the N8 definitely have an edge over the iPhone 4.

If you’ve been loyal to Nokia and planning to get an N8 then here’s a good recommendation, hold off from buying it right now. Wait for the software updates to come out, there are a lot of bugs here and there, maybe you will not even notice them but trust me if you’re using the N8 for a prolonged period of time, they will get annoying. The browser for instance, not well at all! Nokia should come up with an update to improve its functionality.