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My Favorite
Buzzword:
Get ready for the Wireless MAN, baby. Or short for Wireless Metropolitan Area Network.
> All About The MAN

Spam Overload Dept:
According to a recent survey, about 65 percent of Net users spend 10 minutes or more a day dealing with spam. About 37 percent of respondents get 100 junk messages a day, and 63 percent get 50 or more.
Source: Symantec and Insightexpress

Alice Hill's Technology Watch

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Microsoft Drops Wi-Fi Product Line
In an interesting move-- considering that the entire world is jumping on WiFi, Microsoft announced it was dropping its wireless networking products. The company gave no comment on why.

Hmmmmm.......
# Posted at 12:03 AM

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Petabox: One Million Gigabytes

Mine's Bigger Dept: The Internet Archive has a machine called the Petabox which can handle a petabyte or one million gigabytes.

Here are some highlights:

* Low power-- 6kWatts per rack, and 60kWatts for the whole system
* High density-- 100 Terabytes per rack
* Local computing to process the data-- 800 low-end PC's
* Multi-OS possible, Llinux standard
* Colocation friendly-- requires our own rack to get 100TB/rack, or 50TB in a standard rack
* Shipping container friendly-- Able to be run in a 20' by 8' by 8' shipping container
* Easy Maintainance-- one system administrator per petabyte
* Software to automate mirroring with itself
* Inexpensive design
* Inexpensive storage

# Posted at 11:57 PM

Single-Use Credit Cards Fight Fraud

A credit card that expires after just one use? Sounds annoying, but for merchants you don't know, or shady-looking online places, it sure beats getting ripped off. One word of caution, "Online buyers need to be careful of paying for hotels or plane tickets with these one-use numbers, since some merchants require the actual credit card to be presented to claim purchases."
# Posted at 11:51 PM

Hybrid Car Mileage Comes Up Short
Don't buy an SUV yet, but it looks like hybrid cars are no gas-sipping maidens when it comes to fuel efficiency. According to Wired News, "Data from independent product-testing organization Consumer Reports indicates that hybrid cars get less than 60 percent of EPA estimates while navigating city streets. In Consumer Reports' real-world driving test, the Civic Hybrid averaged 26 mpg in the city, while the Toyota Prius averaged 35 mpg, much less than their respective EPA estimates of 47 and 60 mpg. Hybrid cars performed much closer to EPA estimates in Consumer Reports' highway tests."
# Posted at 11:50 PM

Monday, May 10, 2004

Blogger Re-Launches

Blogger (the publishing platform used to build this site) has just re-launched a with a great new look and even easier ways to get info onto your blog with minimal pain and suffering.

Nice!

# Posted at 10:05 AM

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