Archives for November 2008

For telecommuting, keeping in touch with clientele, calling home from a business trip, or just checking in with out-of-state relatives, you're never more than a smile away if you have a Webcam and some free software.

Although you obviously can't do videoconferencing without a camera, what sort of camera you use doesn't actually matter much. Since your Internet connection will likely throttle the performance of any videoconference, a high-resolution camera can actually be a waste of money.

Nevertheless, keeping in mind some important differences between camera models can help you find the best hardware for your setup.Resolution and frame rate allow for the clearest distinctions between models.

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Basler Vision Technologies is now offering the full pylon Software Development Kit (SDK) for free. It can be downloaded from the Basler Website. "Free download via the web will replace all distribution methods we used in the past," explains Werner Borchert, Product Manager at Basler Components.

"We have constantly increased the speed and efficiency of our development cycle without losing any of pylon's well-known high quality. By making the pylon SDK freely available, everyone can now immediately benefit from new developments and improvements in the driver as soon as they are released."

The pylon Driver operates with all Basler GigE Vision and IEEE 1394 area scan and line scan cameras. The driver's full compatibility with the GenICam standard provides the benefit of a unified C++ camera API for both area and line scan cameras.

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Forecasting Yahoo's future. Shortly after Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang said he would relinquish the title of chief executive once the company's board could find a replacement, Forrester Research analyst Shar VanBoskirk blogged about a visit to the company's California headquarters. She found herself impressed by its strategic direction.

Actually spent the day at Yahoo the last week of October and I came away refreshingly impressed by the ailing portal's outlook. I see Yang's departure as progress: a recognition that Yahoo has faltered of late and needs an aggressive new approach to right itself and take advantage of the still growing opportunity in online advertising.

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Residents will not have any problem in accessing application forms for identity card registration henceforth, a senior offcial told Gulf News. A free Pre Application Registration software replaces online application and is available on Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA)said.

Thamer Rashed Al Qasimi, Planning Director and Project Management Director at EIDA.
We will also send it to organisations that offered to host it on their websites," following a Gulf News report on Monday, he said.

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The Small Charities Coalition has teamed up with Google UK to offer free basic websites to all small charities.The Coalition is launching its own website at an event at Google’s London headquarters on 1 December, and at the same time it will launch one of its first services for charities – free websites for those that don’t already have one, hosted by Google.

Two weeks later, another service will launch - a student matching service for those charities that already have a basic website but want a better one. This is a volunteer service whereby budding young website design students are matched up with a charity to revamp the charity’s website as part of their coursework. This service will be promoted via posters and leaflets in universities and colleges.

Coalition chief executive Patrick Cox (pictured) said the Coalition website would act as an “online dating agency for small charities – matching their needs to the best resources”.For the purposes of the Coalition, small charities are defined as those with incomes of less than £1m.

Sun Microsystems is partnering with cloud services provider Joyent to give Bebo developers one year of free Web hosting for their applications.

Bebo is a social media network, featuring user-generated content. The hosting arrangement offered via the Sun Startup Essentials program gives Sun an opportunity to promote its OpenSolaris open source OS, which the developers can use to develop, debug, and deploy Bebo social applications. Developers can build applications using Java, PHP, and Ruby on Rails and host them on the Joyent cloud computing environment.Sun made the announcement at a Bebo's DevNite developer event in Mountain View, Calif. on Tuesday evening.

Developers also can use Sun's Web 2.0 Scalable Performance Toolkit, featuring an open source workload generator and Apache Olio technology for evaluating the suitability, functionality, and performance of Web technologies. Still in development, the toolkit also features reference implementations, performance tools, and best practices. It supports Ruby on Rails and PHP.

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Microsoft is offering fledgling web companies a helping hand for the first three years MICROSOFT is giving away free software to internet start-ups under the BizSpark programme for thirty countries, which includes Ireland. BizSpark will provide ‘free’ licences and technical support for several Microsoft products. The licences will be free for the first three years, says Microsoft.

Microsoft is eyeing the likes of rivals within Google and Salesforce who are upping their promotion of web applications for business and hoping this new offer will bring in new customers that will retain the Microsoft packages when the free time runs out. Irish companies participating in BizSpark will be given technology support and a network of partners to help support their growth and development.

BizSpark provides entrepreneurs with fast and easy access to Microsoft software including development tools and server products with no upfront costs, it provides discounts on the purchase of Dell hardware and preferential rates from internet hosters, enabling companies to get their products and services online faster and more cost effectively.

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According to Google, Gmail is the first leading webmail service to include video chat. All that's needed is a webcam, a microphone/headset and a browser plugin, rather than a program download like Skype.

While the service is browsers based, the world's 1% of Linux desktop users will unfortunately find they have been once again given short shrift as Google Voice & Video Chat requires at least Windows XP or an Intel-Based Mac with Mac OS X v10.4 or later to work. It seems to be a familiar story that mainstream software and services producers are ignoring the Linux desktop platform while continuing to roll out products for Windows and the Mac.

However, the wide variety of browsers on the market are covered by the new Google service. It works in all browsers that support the latest version of Gmail (Google Chrome, Firefox 2.0+, Internet Explorer 7.0, and Safari 3.0). Linux desktop users take note that Konqueror is not mentioned.

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Music sites just keep on coming on strong, and the latest resource to come along goes by the name of Moshable. In this particular case, you can have access to free music files, lyrics and assorted media. These can be browsed through using the provided navigation menu, which also gives you access to the latest news appertaining to the world of music.

A band search is likewise part of the site, and new artists that have been added to the online database are prominently showcased on the main page. This way, you can always know what is going on at a mere glance, and put names and faces to new tunes that are doing the rounds.

The site also has a strong community aspect, as fans and bands can connect through it. Sections that cater both to bands and supporters are consequently provided, and artists and punters can log in easily through the main page.

There is already a large number of music sites to choose from, but I think it is always good to have new sites coming along so that you can compare the existing ones and pick these that reflect your music tastes more faithfully. Head to Moshable.com if you want to try this one for yourself.

A San Diego-based telecom provider has launched the public beta of a web-based service VoxOx, which it is calling the first universal communicator providing free VoIP, video chat, SMS, file sharing, fax and IM/social network/e-mail aggregation for both Macs ad PCs.

The design is very much like the homepage of an iPhone, and coincidentally, while a mobile web-based version already exists, an iPhone app is set to be released in the next 60 days.

The IM/e-mail/social network functionality is nothing new as programs like Digsby, Pidgin, or Adium have been offering this for a while.  But VoxOx is one of the first to combine this service with free voice, and also to give out free phone numbers.

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