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Carlsberg launches Web-TV

2008-11-03T23:55:00.000+07:00

Kemarin ketika sedang Blog Walking di google. Gw ngeliat ketemu sebuah Web TV yang sangt menarik web ini adalah www.partofthegame.tv
Kenapa Gw katakan menarik?? Web yang tampilannya Full Flash ini pertama sangat enak dipandang. Design Web yang bagus, yang tidak kalah menarik adalah sebuah acara Web TV yang ada diweb ini. Video yang ada pada web ini adalah video mengenai FootBall. Tentu bukan sembarang FootBall, Video yang disajikan semuanya lucu-lucu ato klo bahasa Inggrisnya Funny banget lah. Dari sekedar Gol tangan Tuhan yang terkenal itu sampai ke Tendangan Bebas yang akhirnya bolanya kena Kelamin. Hahah....

Sudah bukan rahasia umum bahwa Carlsberg Web-Tv adalah sebuah produsen bir terkemuka didunia. Tak kalah penting situs ini menyediakan banyak sekali video-video klasik. Coba langsung di cek deh ke ~~TKP~~ partofthegame.tv

PPC Or SEO - Which Should You Choose?

2008-06-11T16:33:00.000+07:00

The number of consumers making purchases online continues to rise, many companies now use Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to try and drive more visitors to their web site so they can take advantage of this growing market.

There are two main forms of SEM that can be used, they are Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). It seems that people are often unsure as to which type of SEM to choose when promoting their business.

PPC - This form of advertising brings traffic to a web site through visitors clicking on an advert, every time the advert is clicked a charge is made to the advertiser. The advertiser bids on certain keywords to bring only relevant traffic to their web site. Through this process they can control the total level of their advertising budget.

SEO - A number of different factors relating to a web site can be altered to make it appear higher in search engine rankings and therefore attract more visitors. The factors that can be changed include the site content, the actual coding of a site and the external links which point to it.

The best type of SEM to use in order to promote a business online depends on the specifics of the market and the goals of the company.

Benefits Of PPC

In most cases the web site does not need to be changed at all.

It is very quick, you can often start seeing results within hours of activating a campaign.

You only pay when your advert is clicked.

You can pick which keywords to bid on.

The results can be tracked allowing continual improvements.

You can choose the page that users are sent to.

It is possible to target specific countries and regions.

You can rank highly for any keyword if your budget is large enough.

PPC can be a very effective way to promote a web site. However the main drawback is that once you stop spending your adverts stop showing, there is no long term return for the expense.

Benefits Of SEO

Visitors from search engine results do not cost you a penny.

The rankings a web site achieves through SEO can continue for a long time after the work has been done.

Over the long term SEO can be more cost effective than PPC.

Visitors are more likely to trust a site they find in the rankings, they feel it has been ’approved’ by the search engine

The main problem with attracting visitors to a site using SEO is the time it takes to achieve results. You can expect to wait at least a month, and sometimes longer, before you see any real increase in traffic.

TILA TEQUILA TO LINDSAY LOHAN, SAMANTHA RONSON: DO IT!

2008-06-11T16:32:00.000+07:00

If playwright Lohan and Samantha Ronson are afeard to go open with their relationship, an proficient on grilled up, same-sex romance has whatever advice for the rumored couple:

“I conceive that the fact that everyone knows most it makes it fine,” Tila Tequila said at the MTV Movie Awards terminal night. “Just go every discover with it! If youâ€™re feat to do something, do it every out.”

Look, playwright and Samantha, if you don’t study the good of a actuality TY grapheme who says her saint brute is “someone who crapper support me circularize my contract and my lip gloss,” then who are you gonna center to?

When playwright Lohan is finished with Samantha Ronson, maybe she should provide Tila Tequila a call.

Fly Phishing

2008-04-30T21:09:00.000+07:00

Some phishing gangs have a new technique. They’re using trojan-spy applications.

Last week we received the following e-mail message:

Notice that the message doesn’t mention anything about providing an account-name or password.

Instead, it attempts to convince the recipient that they need to install a Digital Certificate for enhanced safety.
(Anybody want to buy a bridge?)

The message links to a site with the following:

It’s basically a page full of jargon designed to overwhelm the potential victim. What happens if the victim falls for the bait and installs the "certificate"? A trojan-spy will be installed.

So now the phishers don’t need to ask for passwords anymore, they can just take them.

This technique keeps the classic element of phishing by mimicking the trusted institution - the bank. What they’ve adjusted is the part that people have become skeptical of, which is giving away their password when requested by e-mail.

Update: Here’s a brief video that we captured last week when the site was online. You’ll find it on the Lab’s YouTube Channel.

On 25/04/08 At 06:12 PM

Surveillance: Local Authorities in UK Spying on Residents

2008-04-30T21:07:00.000+07:00

It seems having CCTV cameras popping up on every street corner is not enough, now councils are being granted permission to spy on people at the individual level. They are being given permission, upon approval, to spy on residents who they believe are causing them problems.

The local authorities involved are taking advantage of legislation that allows, at least in some cases, for individuals and households to be monitored over what seems pretty trivial issues such as whether dog owners are picking up waste. They are using a variety of techniques such as spy cameras and binoculars, depending on the situation. (more…)

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Mass SQL Injection

2008-04-30T21:06:00.000+07:00

There’s another round of mass SQL injections going on which has infected hundreds of thousands of websites.

Performing a Google search results in over 510,000 modified pages.

As more and more websites are using database back-ends to make them faster and more dynamic, it also means that it’s crucial to verify what information gets stored in or requested from those databases - especially if you allow users to upload content themselves which happens all the time in discussion forums, blogs, feedback forms, et cetera.

Unless that data is sanitized before it gets saved you can’t control what the website will show to the users. This is what SQL injection is all about, exploiting weaknesses in these controls. In this case the injection code starts off like this (note, this is not the complete code):

DECLARE%20@S%20NVARCHAR(4000);SET%20@S=CAST(0x440045004300
4C00410052004500200040005400200076006100720063006800610072
00280032003500350029002C0040004300200076006100720063006800
610072002800320035003500290020004400450043004C004100520045
0020005400610062006C0065005F0043007500720073006F0072002000
43005500520053004F005200200046004F0052002000730065006C0065
0063007400200061002E006E0061006D0065002C0062002E006E006100
6D0065002000660072006F006D0020007300790073006F0062006A0065
00630074007300200061002C0073007900730063006F006C0075006D00
6E00730020006200200077006800650072006500200061002E00690064
003D0062002E0069006400200061006E006400200061002E0078007400
7900700065003D00270075002700200061006E0064002000280062002E
00780074007900700065003D003900390020006F007200200062002E00
780074007900700065003D003300350020006…

Which when decoded becomes:

DECLARE @T varchar(255)’@C varchar(255) DECLARE Table_Cursor
CURSOR FOR select a.name’b.name from sysobjects a’syscolumns b
where a.id=b.id and a.xtype=’u’ and (b.xtype=99 or b.xtype=35
or b…

What happens as a result? It finds all text fields in the database and adds a link to malicious javascript to each and every one of them which will make your website display them automatically. So essentially what happened was that the attackers looked for ASP or ASPX pages containing any type of querystring (a dynamic value such as an article ID, product ID, et cetera) parameter and tried to use that to upload their SQL injection code.

So far three different domains have been used to host the malicious content - nmidahena.com, aspder.com and nihaorr1.com. There’s a set of files that gets loaded from these sites that attempts to use different exploits to install an online gaming trojan. Right now the initial exploit page on all domains are unaccessible but that could change. So if you’re a firewall administrator we recommend you to block access to them.

So what should you do?

First of all, search your website logs for the code above and see if you’ve been hit. If so, clean up your database to prevent your website visitors from becoming infected. Second, make sure that all the data you pass to your database is sanitized and that no code elements can be stored there. Third, block access to the sites above. Fourth, make sure the software you use is patched, F-Secure Health Check is an easy way to do this. Fifth, keep your antivirus solution up-to-date.

UPDATE: We’ve received some questions on the platform and operating systems affected by this attack. So far we’ve only seen websites using Microsoft IIS Web Server and Microsoft SQL Server being hit. Do note that this attack doesn’t use vulnerabilities in any of those two applications. What makes this attack possible is poorly written ASP and ASPX (.net) code.

On 24/04/08 At 03:59 AM

Tutorial Pengunaan Component Datso Gallery pada Joomla

2008-03-09T10:50:00.000+07:00

Website yang dibangun menggunakan Joomla terdapat 2 bagian penting:

Front End (halaman yang dilihat oleh pengunjung)
Back-End / Administrator Area (halaman yang dipergunakan untuk mengatur konfigurasi website pada front-end.)
Halaman Front-End

Halaman Back-End
Pada halaman Back-End Anda akan menemuai halaman login isikan username dan password default sebagai berikut :

Berikut sedikit tutorial dari saya tentang cara penggunaan Component Datso Gallery pada Joomla

1.Menambahkan gambar produk pada halaman GALLERY

a.Buka halaman Back-End masukkan username dan password

b.Arahkan mouse pada menu Components à DatsoGallery

c.Klik pada submenu DatsoGallery yang berjudul Pictures

d.Anda akan diarahkan pada menu Images Manager. Klik tombol bertulisakan New pada kanan atas layer.

e.Anda akan diarahkan pada menu Standart Upload. Silahkan isikan:
Titleà Nama Produk
Category àPilih lah category gambar yang akan dimasukkan dengan menekan Drop down Menu yang bergambar panah. Misal Collection-Denpasar-Bali Indonesia
Description à isikan dengan spesifikasi produk. Misal :
Height : 45 cm
Diameter : 35 cm
*sebaiknya dibuat terlebih dahulu pada notepad. Baru di copy paste pada text box description.
Author à dikosongkan saja.
Picture à tekan tombol browse. Akan ada tampilan baru. Pilihlan gambar yang akan di Upload.Setelah ketemu gambar yang akan di upload tekan tmbol open. Tampilan yang baru tadi otomatis menutup.

f.Tekan tombol Upload.

2.Mengedit gambar produk yang telah di Upload

a.Buka halaman Back-End masukkan username dan password.

b.Masuk ke Menu Component à DatsoGallery à Picture

c.Pada menu Images Manager akan tampil gambar-gambar yang telah di tayangkan pada menu Gallery.

d.Klik Judul (bertuliskan Title) gambar produk yang akan di Edit

e.Edit Deskripsi produk yang telah kita beri tadi. Hanya perlu menambahkan tombol Shift+Entel pada bagian yang ingin dipisahkan. Dalam hal ini kita akan memisahkan
Height : 45 cm Diameter : 35 cm
menjadi:
Height : 45 cm
Diameter : 35 cm

f.Klik Tombol save

3.Menghapus gambar produk yang telah di Upload

a.Buka halaman Back-End masukkan username dan password.

b.Masuk ke Menu Component à DatsoGallery à Picture

c.Pada menu Images Manager akan tampil gambar-gambar yang telah di tayangkan pada menu Gallery.

d.Beri tanda centang untuk gambar yang ingin dihapus pada Check Box menu

e.Klik Tombol Delete pada kanan atas layer. Akan muncul Pop Up menu yang akan menyakan “Are you Sure you want to delete selected items?” Tekan saja OK

Isi Comment yach kalau Artikel ini telah membantu Anda :)

JARINGAN LAN FIBER OPTIC

2008-02-09T00:29:00.000+07:00

Jaringan akses merupakan hal yang vital dalam bidang pertelekomunikasian. Ia adalah perangkat dasar yang digunakan sebagai media penghubung antara transceiver dan receiver. Dalam perusahaan telekomunikasi, jaringan akses ini terbagi menjadi dua bagian, yaitu jaringan akses metal dan jaringan akses non metal.Jaringan akses metal yaitu sebuah jaringan yang media penghubung antar client adalah tembaga, biasanya digunakan pada arah primer dan sekunder. Sedangkan jaringan non metal adalah berupa radio dan akses fiber optik.

Dalam perkembangan ke depan, akses fiber akan sangat dibutuhkan, karena akses ini mempunyai kelebihan dalam proses pengiriman data baik berupa suara maupun teks. Namun, bagi Bangsa Indonesia, fiber optik masih terasa asing karena sebagian besar dari mereka belum mengetahuinya. Dengan problematika tersebut tentu saja ini akan menghambat perkembangan teknologi informasi di negara kita.

Oleh karena itu, perlu sekali kiranya setiap media menjelaskan tentang perkembangan teknologi informasi kepada publik, supaya dengan adanya sikap “understand” akan dapat membangkitkan kita dari keterpurukan teknologi.

Kemudian apa hubungan selanjutnya akses fiber terhadap jaringan pertelekomunikasian Indonesia? Tentu saja sangat berelasi. Fiber optik memang mempunyai harga yang relatif mahal. Namun untuk sebuah komunikasi yang kompleks, ini memungkinkan akan lebih efisien dalam menggunakannya.

SEKILAS TENTANG SERAT OPTIK

Fiber optik merupakan jaringan yang dapat mentransmisi cahaya. Dibandingkan dengan jenis lainnya, ini relatif mahal. Namun, fiber optik memiliki jangkauan yang lebih jauh dari 550 meter sampai ratusan kilometer, tahan terhadap interferensi elektromagnetik dan dapat mengirim data pada kecepatan yang lebih tinggi dari jenis lainnya. Fiber optik tidak membawa sinyal elektrik, seperti lainnya yang menggunakan tembaga. Sebagai gantinya, sinyal yang mewakili bit tersebut diubah ke bentuk cahaya.

Fiber optik terdiri dari dua jenis, yang dikenal sebagai single mode dan multi mode. Single mode dapat menjangkau jarak yang lebih jauh dan hanya mengirim satu sinyal pada satu waktu. Multimode mengirim sinyal yang berbeda pada saat yang bersamaan, mengirim data pada sudut refraksi yang berbeda pada saat yang bersamaan, mengirim data pada susut refraksi yang berbeda. Single mode dapat menjangkau ratusan kilometer sedangkan multimode biasanya hanya mencapai 550 meter atau kurang.

Konektor fiber optik terdiri dari dua jenis-konektor model ST yang berbentuk lingkaran dan konektor SC yang berbentuk persegi. Penggunaan ini harus disesuaikan dengan jenis perangkat yang digunakan karena mereka mungkin berbeda.

Perkembangan dan penerapan teknologi telekomunikasi dunia yang berkembang dengan cepat, secara langsung ataupun tidak langsung akan mempengaruhi perkembangan sistem telekomunikasi Indonesia. Beroperasinya satelit telekomunikasi Palapa dan kemudian pemakaian SKSO (Sistem Komunikasi Serat Optik) di Indonesia merupakan bukti bahwa Indonesia juga mengikuti dan mempergunakan teknologi ini di bidang telekomunikasi.

Tidak disangkal lagi bahwa serat optik akan memberikan kemungkinan yang lebih baik bagi jaringan telekomunikasi. Serat optik adalah salah satu media transmisi yang dapat menyalurkan informasi dengan kapasitas besar dengan keandalan yang tinggi. Berlainan dengan media transmisi lainnya, maka pada serat optik gelombang pembawanya tidak merupakan gelombang elektromagnet atau listrik, akan tetapi merupakan sinar/cahaya laser.

Sistem telekomunikasi ini sebenarnya sudah diteliti sejak lama, tetapi karena banyaknya kesulitan atau hambatan yang timbul terutama di dalam usaha menghilangkan kotoran dalam pembuatan serat optik. Kotoran di dalam serat optik dapat mengakibatkan rugi-rugi transmisi dan dispersi yang tidak sempurna.

Sebagaimana namanya maka serat optik dibuat dari gelas silika dengan penampang berbentuk lingkaran atau bentuk-bentuk lainnya. Pembuatan serat optik dilakukan dengan cara menarik bahan gelas kental-cair sehingga dapat diperoleh serabut/serat gelas dengan penampang tertentu. Proses ini dikerjakan dalam keadaan bahan gelas yang panas. Yang terpenting dalam pembuatan fiber optik adalah menjaga agar perbandingan relatif antara bermacam lapisan tidak berubah sebagai akibat tarikan.

PEMASANGAN SERAT OPTIK
Sebelum dilakukan penarikan optik melalui polongan pada system duct, polongan tersebut harus dipasang sub duct terlebih dahulu.

Dalam satu polongan duct dipasang sub duct. Sub duct ini perlu karena digunakan untuk memudahkan penarikan optik.

Sesuatu yang perlu diperhatikan dalam pemasangan sub duct yaitu :

Tegangan penarikan dan kelengkungan sub duct harus sesuai dengan spesifikasi teknis yang berlaku.

Pemasangan maupun penarikan seub duct ada baiknya dilakukan oleh tenaga manusia. Bila menggunakan winch, tegangan tarik harus terus diawasi melalui pengukur tegangan yang umumnya terpasang pada winch truck.

Tegangan dan speed tarik sub duct harus lebih rendah dari spesifikasi teknis yang berlaku.

Hindari penarikan yang dapat menyebabkan sub duct cacat atau rusak, missal yaitu penarikan yang dilakukan secara paksa, karena dapat merusak serat bagian dalam.

Tegangan dan kecepatan tarik yang diizinkan pada waktu pemasangan adalah sbb:

· Tegangan tarik maksimal : 200 kg
· Pull Speed maksimal : 20 m/min

Material dan Peralatan

Material dan peralatan yang digunakan terlihat pada tabel berikut :

Material

Tools / Peralatan

Diagram Urutan Kerja

Tahapan inti dari pemasangan sub duct ke dalam polongan duct akan terlihat pada diagram berikut:

Penarikan Sub Duct

Persiapan Material dan Peralatan. Sebelum pekerjaan dimulai material dan peralatan yang dibutuhkan dipersiapkan terlebih dahulu.

Pemerikasaan & Pembersihan Man Hole
a) Buka tutup Man Hole, periksa kondisi Man Hole tersebut, bila berisi air, gunakan pompa air untuk mengeringkannya.
b) Lalu, pipa duct yang akan digunakan dengan tujuan untuk mempermudah penarikan sub duct berikutnya dan perbaikan/penyambungan .
c) Beri tanda pada pipa duct tersebut

Rodding
Rodding merupakan pekerjaan pemasangan tali yang digunakan untuk membantu pemasangan tali penarikan .
Caranya dapat menggunakan mesin penyedot atau pipa PVC
(ф = 1 inchi) yang disambung.
Meskipun rodding duct sudah dilakukan pada waktu uji terima duct, pekerjaan me-rodding kembali masih tetap diperlukan.

Pengetesan & Pembersihan Pipa Duct
Pengetesan dan pembersihan pipa duct ini dilaksanakan dengan menggunakan peralatan yang telah disebutkan dalam di bawah.

Tali dalam pipa duct hasil rodding diikat kuat pada rangkaian mandril dan sikat. Bagian belakang rangkaian mandril dan sikat tadi diikat lagi dengan tali pengulur.
Kemudian tali penarik ditarik sampai rangkaian mandril dan peralatan keluar dari pipa pipa duct.

Prosedur Penarikan dan Penguluran

Tali bekas rodding diganti dengan tali penarik . Tempatkan haspel sub duct pada tempat yang tepat dan tambatkan ujung tali penarik ke setiap sub duct.
Bila tiga buah sub duct sekaligus dipasang, maka putaran haspel harus sama. Penguluran diatur sedemikian rupa sehingga arah tarikan dapat dirubah dan sub duct dapat ditarik kembali.

Kegiatan Penarikan.
Pasanglah dua buah katrol pada man hole pada sisi penarikan untuk tali penarik dan kemudian tali penarik tersebut dihubungkan ke winch (bila menggunakan mesin penarik).
Walky Talky dapat digunakan untuk komunikasi antara dua man hole ketika kegiatan penarikan sedang dilaksanakan. Bila penarikan mengalami kemacetan, mesin winch cepat dihentikan agar tidak merusak sub duct. Pemasangan tanda lalu-lintas, bendera merah atau putih dan petugas pengatur lalu-lintas (bila diperlukan) agar dilakukan selama kegiatan penarikan berlangsung.

Penarikan Sub Duct

Tenaga penarik bisa menggunakan wich atau beberapa tenaga manusia. Tarik tiga sub duct secara bersamaan ke dalam pipa duct.
Ketika penarikan, jagalah agar kecepatan penarikan harus berada di bawah standart yang ditentukan dan penambahan kecepatan harus konsta.

Pemasangan Klem Sub Duct

Ujung-ujung sub duct diperkuat ke dalam pipa duct dengan klem seperti tersebut dalam gambar di bawah.

PEMASANGAN DAN PENARIKAN OPTIK

Hal-Hal Penting Berkaitan dengan Penarikan:

Tegangan tarikan dan kelengkungan harusa sesuai dengan spesifikasi teknik yang berlaku.

Penarikan dapat menggunakan tenaga manusia. Bila menggunakan winch, tegangan tarik harus terus dimonitor melalui pengukur tegangan yang biasanya terpasang pada winch truck.

Penempatan haspel dengan arah putaran sesuai dengan tanda panah pada haspel luar. Perhatikan gambar di bawah.

Menurunkan dan menaikkan haspel dari atau ke kendaraan harus hati-hati dan menggunakan papan peluncur.
Haspel harus dalam kedudukan diam dan harus diganjal. Penempatan haspel harus benar-benar aman dan memudahkan pekerjaan penarikan.
Tegangan dan kecepatan tarik dan radiun lengkungan harus lebih rendah dari spesifikasi yang ditentukan.
Kecepatan tarik diupayakan konstan. Kecepatan dan tegangan tarik yang diijinkan diupayakan sesuai tabel di bawah ini :

Material dan Peralatan

Diagram Urutan Pekerjaan
Sebelum memulai setiap tahapan pekerjaan, semua harus diperiksa apakahpersiapan peralatan/material telah sesuai dengan spesifikasi instalasi. Berikut urutan pekerjaan yang dilakukan.

Penarikan Optik

Persiapan Material dan Peralatan.

Sebelum memulai pekerjaan pastikan bahwa semua persiapan material dan peralatan yang diperlukan sudah lengkap. Penempatan haspel harus sesuai dengan lokasi yang telah direncanakan.
Pemeriksaan dan Pemasangan bearer/tension member.
Biasanya dalam satu haspel sudah dilengkapi dengan cable cap untuk membantu penarikan.

Bila menggunakan bekas atau sisa pemasangan, maka tension member dibuat untuk penarikan harus dubuat agar tidak rusak.
Secara berurutan, lihat cara pada gambar di bawah (3.7, 3.8, 3.9)

Roodding Sub Duct

Setelah semua selesai, sub duct di roodding dengan menggunakan mesin hisap/dorong dengan menggunakan tali raffia/plastic. Kemudian tali plastic diganti dengan tali penarik .

Prosedur Penarikan dan Penguluran

a. Untuk penguluran , posisi haspel harus benar-benar kuat supaya tidak rusak oleh sudut pemasukan duct. Lalu cable cap disambung swivel dan tali penarik.

Pasang dua buah rol shingga arah tarikan dapat dirubah. dapat ditarik dengan menggunakan tenaga manusia atau winch. Posisi dari katrol di dalam man hole dapat diatur dengan mata rantai atau tali kawat untuk memudahkan pemasukan ke dalam duct.
b. Sebelum memulai penarikan , hubungan komunikasi diantara man hole yang satu dengan yang lainnya harus lancer. Di saat penarikan, kecepatan penarikan harus konstan (tidak boleh tersentak-sentak).
Bila ada route tikungan, maka pada man hole tersebut harus dipasang katrol untuk memudahkan beloknya.

Penempatan pada Manhole

Pekerjaan yang harus dilakukan adalah pengaturan/pengikatan di dalam manhole dan penentuan titik sambungan. diletakkan di atas rak dan diikat pada dinding manhole serta dilindungi dengan selongsong spiral Polytheline (PE).

TERMINASI SERAT OPTIK

PENGATURAN
a. Haspel ditempatkan pada IDF sesuai transmisi optik.
b. Ujung ditarik melalui rak yang telah direncanakan menuju
manhole kantor telepon lewat MDF.
Perlu diperhatikan hal-hal yang sama pada penarikan .

PENYAMBUNGAN URAT

a. Penyambungan pada manhole akan dijelaskan dalam diktat teknik sambungan serat optik.

b. Penyambungan pada rak/tempat pembagian serat optik pada prinsipnya adalah semua sama.
Di sini serat optik diganti dengan serat optik yang lebih besar diameter/isolasinya serta dilengkapi dengan optik CTF.

PENGIKAT PADA RAK
a. Pengikat pada rak.

b. Pengikat bagian terminasi pada rak.

SELESAI

Artikel ini ialah hasil dari laporan kerja praktek penulis (Darwis Suryantoro) pada 31 Desember 2004. Semoga bermanfaat.

Jalan Panjang Karier Politik Pak Harto

2008-02-02T23:45:00.000+07:00

Soeharto adalah tokoh dengan banyak pro kontra. Bagi pendukungnya, Pak Harto adalah pahlawan yang membangun ekonomi Indonesia. Tapi bagi penentangnya, pria kelahiran Kemusuk ini dinilai sebagai pemimpin antidemokrasi. Dia dipuja sekaligus dihujat. Namun demikian nama Soeharto tetap merupakan magnet bagi kawan dan lawan. Bahkan saat ia menghabiskan sisa waktunya di rumah sakit hingga ajal menjemput pada Ahad, 27 Januari 2008.

Tahun 1967 merupakan momen penting dalam sejarah bangsa Indonesia dan hidup seorang jenderal bernama Soeharto. Sesuai Surat Perintah Sebelas Maret, Pak Harto mulai menggantikan Bung Karno sebagai pejabat presiden. Setahun kemudian tepatnya Maret 1968, Pak Harto disahkan sebagai presiden kedua Indonesia oleh Majelis Permusyarawatan Rakyat Sementara.

Kontroversi mewarnai perjalanan karier Pak Harto. Dia disanjung, ditakuti, dan dihormati saat berkuasa. Namun segera setelah lengser, hujatan bahkan cacian mendera Pak Harto. Terlepas dari perasaan atau emosi, sejarahlah yang paling jujur berbicara akan sosok tokoh yang paling lama memimpin negeri ini.

Berbeda dengan kepemimpinan Bung Karno yang penuh konfrontasi dan ketidakstabilan, Pak Harto mengusung era baru. Visi bernama Orde Baru. Segera setelah menjabat presiden, Soeharto langsung membenahi kekacauan ekonomi yang ditinggalkan Soekarno. Untuk membereskannya, Pak Harto berpaling pada tim ekonom didikan Barat.

Pembangunan ekonomi menjadi target utama. Bila sebelumnya negatif, pertumbuhan ekonomi Indonesia menjadi positif bahkan naik pesat. Sampai-sampai pada dekade 1980-an, dia dijuluki Bapak Pembangunan karena berhasil mewujudkan swasembada pangan.

Di bidang kesehatan, Soeharto memulai kampanye Keluarga Berencana untuk mengendalikan jumlah penduduk. Program yang dinilai sukses secara internasional ini menjadikan Indonesia sebagai negara percontohan dan mendapat penghargaan dari Perserikatan Bangsa Bangsa. Tahun 80-an hingga 90-an, Indonesia mengalami kejayaan ekonomi. Indonesia nenjadi negara yang disegani di Asia.

Dalam upayanya menyederhanakan kehidupan berpolitik di Indonesia, Soeharto melakukan penyatuan partai-partai politik. Kontras dengan hingar-bingar masa Bung Karno. Dalam proses itu, Golongan Karya berkembang menjadi golongan penguasa yang selalu memenangkan Pemilihan Umum semasa Orde Baru. Oposisi hilang dan kekuatan masyarakat melemah.

Tekanan atas kebebasan politik belakangan menjadi salah satu sumber keluhan masyarakat terhadap Soeharto. Kalangan aktivis menilai almarhum sebagai sosok antidemokrasi dan cenderung otoriter. Jauh sebelum reformasi 1998, protes masyarakat muncul. Peristiwa Malapetaka 15 Januari 1974 atau Malari, contohnya. Massa turun ke jalan menentang modal asing yang selama ini menjadi salah satu pilar program ekonomi Soeharto.

Petaka datang di tahun 1997. Krisis monoter dan ekonomi menghantam negara-negara Asia. Demostrasi mahasiswa yang berlangsung dalam waktu lama membuat situasi Tanah Air begitu genting dan tegang. Namun aksi massa disambut kekerasan aparat. Massa mengamuk. Jakarta membara. Inilah salah satu demonstrasi jalanan terbesar sebelum reformasi 1998.

Posisi Soeharto semakin terpojok. Orang-orang kepercayaan justru berbalik mendukung mahasiswa dan meninggalkannya. Bahkan Ketua MPR/DPR Harmoko yang sebelumnya paling lantang meminta Soeharto melanjutkan lagi jabatannya sebagai Presiden tiba-tiba berubah. Saat itu, Harmoko dengan tegas meminta Soeharto turun.

Sebuah keputusan tak terduga datang. Tanggal 21 Mei 1998, Soeharto memutuskan mengundurkan diri sebagai Presiden. Dari saat itulah hingga kini, Indonesia memasuki babak baru bernama Reformasi

liputan6

Perjalanan menuju pemakaman Astana Giribangun yang terletak di Desa Karang Bangun, Kecamatan Metesih, Kabupaten Karanganyar, Jawa Tengah, terasa menyenangkan. Ini disebabkan pohon pinus yang rindang di kedua sisi jalan beraspal yang berkelok-kelok dan mendaki serta udara yang cukup sejuk.

2008-02-02T23:44:00.000+07:00

Perjalanan menuju pemakaman Astana Giribangun yang terletak di Desa Karang Bangun, Kecamatan Metesih, Kabupaten Karanganyar, Jawa Tengah, terasa menyenangkan. Ini disebabkan pohon pinus yang rindang di kedua sisi jalan beraspal yang berkelok-kelok dan mendaki serta udara yang cukup sejuk.

Pemakaman yang didirikan pada 1974 ini dibangun di atas lahan seluas 729 meter persegi. Pemakaman ini terbuka untuk umum dengan jam berkunjung dari pukul 09.00 WIB hingga 17.00 WIB. Untuk merawat dan menjaga pemakaman ini, sebanyak 22 pegawai bertugas secara bergantian.

Saat Soeharto masih menjadi presiden, pemakaman Astana Giribangun ramai dikunjungi peziarah. Namun sejak datangnya era reformasi, di masa kejatuhan Presiden Soeharto, pemakaman ini sepi pengunjung.

Begitu memasuki kompleks pemakaman, motif arsitektur makam yang berbentuk semi Joglo terlihat sangat bernuansa Jawa. Pemakaman ini terdiri dari beberapa bangunan dan Cungkup Argo Sari yang merupakan bangunan utama pemakaman Astana Giribangun. Di sinilah jasad Siti Hartinah Soeharto atau Ibu Tien Soeharto disemayamkan.

Bangunan dengan konstruksi beton bertulang ini seluruhnya dilapisi kayu jati dan tembaga. Sementara lantai makam dan batu nisan keseluruhannya terbuat dari marmer yang didatangkan langsung dari Tulungagung. Sedangkan kayu ukir-ukiran yang menghiasi makam didatangkan dari Serenan Sukoharjo.

Selain makam Ibu Tien, masih ada tiga makam lainnya yang ada di bangunan utama ini. Yaitu makam orang tua Ibu Tien, KPH Sumoharyomo, Raden Ayu Kanjeng Sumanthi Sumoharyomo, dan juga kakak kandung Ibu Tien, Raden Ayu Siti Hartini Oudang. Selain itu ada satu makam yang disiapkan di samping makam Ibu Tien yaitu makam Pak Harto.

Nampaknya Pak Harto sudah merencanakan dengan matang. Sehingga peristirahatan terakhir untuknya sudah dibangun jauh sebelum ia wafat

liputan6

Dalam Sepekan Peluang Hujan Masih Tinggi

2008-02-02T23:26:00.000+07:00

Badan Meteorologi dan Geofisika menyatakan peluang hujan di pekan depan masih tinggi. "Hujan masih akan turun dengan intensitas ringan dan sedang," kata Kepala Sub-direktorat Informasi Meteorologi Badan Meteorologi dan geofisika Kukuh Ribudiyanto kepada Tempo, Sabtu (2/2).

Kalaupun ada hujan lebat, ujar dia, tidak akan turun seharian. "Lebat ada tapi durasinya sebentar," kata Kukuh. Intensitas itu dibawah hujan yang membanjiri Jakarta kemarin. Hujan itu turun jauh melebihi perkiraan BMG.

"Kami perkirakan turun hujan lebat, ternyata turun sangat lebat," kata Kukuh. Pantauan BMG mendapati hujan kemarin turun dengan intensitas mencapai 300 milimeter per hari di Cengkareng dan 171 milimeter per hari di Jakarta Pusat. Padahal hujan lebat berintensitas 50 sampai 100 milimeter per hari.

Menurut Kukuh, hujan sangat lebat seperti kemarin dapat dipantau warga dengan mengamati langit. "Seluruh penjuru tertutup awan sangat tebal dan hitam," kata dia. Awan seperti itu mengandung banyak uap air yang siap mengguyur daratan.

BMG mencatat terdapat 11 kecamatan yang berpotensi banjir tinggi, yaitu Cengkareng, Cipayung, Ciracas, Grogol Petamburan, Kalideres, Kebayoran Baru, Kramat Jati, Makasar, Mampang Prapatan, Pasar Minggu dan Tebet. Sementara ada 13 kecamatan yang terancam banjir dengan potensi sedang, yaitu Jatinegara, Kalideres, Kebon Jeruk, Kelapa Gading, Kemayoran, Koja, Menteng, Pademangan, Penjaringan, Sawah Besar, Senen, Tanah Abang dan Tanjung Priok.

Menurut Kukuh, perkiraan daerah rawan banjir itu masih bisa berkembang. "Kami hanya melihat dari prakiraan hujan," kata dia. Sementara, lanjut Kukuh, penyebab banjir juga ditentukan oleh banyak faktor lain seperti kontur tanah dan drainase.

Reza Maulana

Akibat Banjir Jakarta, PLN Rugi 3,5 Miliar

2008-02-02T23:23:00.000+07:00

Hujan deras dan banjir di Jakarta menyebabkan PLN Distribusi Jakarta dan Tangerang diperkirakan mengalami kerugian Rp 3,5 Miliar.

General Manager PLN Jakarta dan Tangerang, Fachmi Mochtar mengatakan kerugian itu merupakan potensi kehilangan energi yang disalurkan kepada pelanggan, belum termasuk perkiraan kerusakan infrastruktur.

"Kehilangan kesempatan menjual listrik diperkirakan Rp 3,5 miliar," kata Fachmi kepada Tempo dalam pesan pendeknya, Jumat (1/2).

Menurut Fachmi, 999 gardu distribusi harus dipadamkan untuk keamanan dan keselamatan masyarakat serta instalasi listrik karena banjir tersebut. Pemadaman listrik akan berlangsung sampai air banjir surut dan situasi dinilai aman.

General Manager PLN P3B Jawa Bali Muljo Adji mengatakan, sampai sore ini, keadaan sistem tegangan tinggi di gardu induk dan transmisi masih aman. "Tapi di sisi sistem tegangan rendah, memang ada gardu distribusi yang sudah dipadamkan," katanya.

Sampai pukul 16.00 sore ini, lanjut Muljo, total jumlah gardu distribusi yang padam akibat banjir sebanyak 978 buah. Dengan perincian, Area Jaringan Gambir 198 unit, Kebayoran 102 unit, Tangerang 676 unit dan Kramat Jati 2 unit.

Nieke Indrietta

Pemanasan Global OR Global Warming

2007-12-29T18:15:00.000+07:00

Akhir-akhir ini pembicaraan mengenai pemanasan global aka Global Warming semakin ramai dibicarakan. Apa sih sebenarnya pemanasan global itu? Ada satu artikel yang menarik dapat Anda baca berikut ini :

Pemanasan global bisa diartikan sebagai menghangatnya permukaan Bumi selama beberapa kurun waktu. Ini adalah gejala alam yang normal sebenarnya. Kalau tidak mendapat pemanasan maka suhu di Bumi bisa menjadi dingin membeku seperti pada jaman es yang pernah terjadi 15.000 tahun lalu.

Pemanasan pada permukaan Bumi dikenal dengan istilah ‘Efek Rumah Kaca’ atau Greenhouse Effect. Proses ini berawal dari sinar Matahari yang menembus lapisan udara (atmosfer) dan memanasi permukaan Bumi.

Permukaan Bumi yang menjadi panas menghangatkan udara yang berada tepat di atasnya. Karena menjadi ringan, udara panas tersebut naik dan posisinya digantikan oleh udara sejuk.

Sebagian dari udara panas yang naik ke atas ditahan dan dipantulkan kembali ke permukaan oleh lapisan gas di atmosfer Bumi yang terdiri dari Karbon Dioksida, Metan dan Natrium Oksida. Udara panas yang dipantulkan tersebut berfungsi untuk menjaga temperatur Bumi supaya tidak menjadi beku. Proses pemantulan udara panas untuk menghangatkan Bumi inilah yang disebut dengan efek rumah kaca.

Tapi proses alam yang normal tersebut menjadi tidak sehat sejak manusia memasuki proses industri. Pada masa ini manusia mulai melakukan pembakaran batu bara, minyak dan gas bumi untuk menghasilkan bahan bakar dan listrik. Proses pembakaran energi dari Bumi ini ternyata menghasilkan gas buangan yang berupa karbon dioksida. Otomatis, kadar lapisan gas rumah kaca yang menahan dan memantulkan kembali udara panas ke Bumi menjadi semakin banyak.

Kalau Bumi terus menerus terkena pemanasan ini, bahaya besar lainnya akan muncul, atau bahkan sudah terjadi dan sedang kita rasakan saat ini. Efek pertama yang terjadi adalah tingginya temperatur udara. Masyarakat di Eropa Barat pada bulan-bulan kemarin sudah merasakan bagaimana tersiksanya hidup ketika suhu menjadi luar biasa panas. Jumlah korban yang meninggal akibat ‘kepanasan’ mencapai ratusan, belum terhitung yang harus mengalami rawat inap karena dehidrasi. Sungguh bukan masalah yang sepele.

Temperatur yang terus meningkat dapat melelehkan banyak salju di kedua kutub bumi dan gunung-gunung tertinggi dunia. Para ahli lingkungan sudah membuat laporan baru kalau saat ini salju dunia secara keseluruhan sudah berkurang 10%. Hasilnya adalah volume air yang mengalir ke lautan akan semakin tinggi yang otomatis menaikkan permukaan laut.

Pemanasan global, suhu udara meningkat, melelehnya salju dunia, serta naiknya permukaan laut pada akhirnya dapat menyebabkan perubahan iklim. Kita sekarang merasakan datangnya musim kemarau yang lebih lama dari seharusnya. Akibatnya air tanah menjadi langka karena belum mendapat pasokan baru dari hujan.

Pemerintah Indonesia sendiri tidak mau ketinggalan untuk menghadapi isu pemanasan global tersebut. Pemerintah Indonesia sedang mematangkan gagasan pembentukan Forum Delapan Negara yang memiliki Hutan Hujan Tropis (Forestry Eight), sebagai salah satu upaya mengatasi pemasanan global. Sejak tanggal 22 September 2007, Presiden SBY telah berada di New York untuk mengikuti rangkaian sidang umum PBB dan DK umum PBB. Dalam kesempatan tersebut SBY akan menyampaikan pidato mengenai perubahan iklim global. Kita berharap semoga apa yang sedang dibahas saat ini bisa memberikan hasil yang baik sehingga bisa dirasakan oleh masyarakat dunia.

Kiamat mungkin masih jauh, tapi neraka makin dekat

2007-12-29T18:13:00.000+07:00

Banyak kempen kerajaan sebelum ini membuatkan saya endah tak endah. Iyalah, ia kan lebih kepada propoganda dan retorika, lebih-lebih lagi ketika pilihan raya mendekat. Tetapi ada sebuah kempen baru-baru ini membuatkan saya ingin turut serta, berpatisipasi: Tabiat Tak-Pa Bumi Binasa.

Ini bagi saya sebuah slogan yang sangat cathchy, tak macam kempen (anti-rokok) Tak Nak tidak lama dulu. Saya sedar dan naif, rupa-rupanya bumi kita memang makin panas. Sungguh. Setiap kali saya balik rumah untuk berehat, saya tidak dapat menikmati pembaringan yang enak dan empuk. Memang, saya merasakan panas yang luar biasa sehingga saat hendak tidur malam pun.

Beberapa minggu lepas saya buka tingkap rumah saya (risikonya bukan pencuri, tetapi bunyi bising dari lebuh raya LDP), angin sejuk pelan-pelan masuk membuatkan saya nyaman. Mungkin inilah yang dinamakan angin sepoi-sepoi bahasa. Tetapi hari ini, sekarang ini, jika saya membuka tingkap, angin pun sama seperti wab dari periuk nasi yang panas.

Di kalangan orang ‘beragama’, ada yang menyatakan bala. Ada yang mengatakan ujian. Itu tandanya kiamat sudah dekat. Kita semua harus bertaubat. Namun, tiada siapa yang tahu bilakah kiamat akan tiba. Cuma kita diberitahi, di saat itu matahari akan terbit di sebelah Barat dan taubat pun telah terlambat.

Sekarang cuba kita renung, matahari itu bukan di Barat. Ia macam ada di tepi tingkap bilik tidur kita. Manusia yang celaka ini telah merosakkan bumi damai ciptaan Allah Azzawajalla ini. Manusia telah mencipta neraka di dunia. Lama-kelamaan orang jahat tidak lagi perlu menunggu mati untuk masuk neraka kerana neraka telah pun tiba sebelum saat kematian mereka.

Mungkin juga inilah yang para malaikat jangkakan dulu sehingga membuatkan mereka merasa keanehan dan menyoal, kepada Tuhan, “kenapakah Kamu mahu menciptakan manusia yang akan melakukan kerosakan di bumi-Mu?”

Maka jawab Allah, “Aku tahu apa yang tidak kamu tahu.”

Mungkin kita patut berdoa dan berfikir, sebenarnya apakah yang Allah tahu itu? Mungkin itulah jawapan dan penyelesaian kepada masalah kita zaman ini.

Oh, saya sebenarnya mamalia yang sangat tipikal, berdarah panas. Cuma tubuh saya selalu panas. Selalu saja. Oleh itu fenomena sekarang terlalu menyiksa saya. Siapa lagi yang senasib ya?

ATP findings in gambling probe of Starace, Bracciali confirmed

2007-12-28T18:31:00.000+07:00

LONDON (AP) -- The governing body of men’s tennis confirmed Thursday that Italians Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali bet on tennis matches, and the players had no excuse for not knowing this was a rules violation.

The ATP said it began investigating in August and found that Starace wagered on matches in 2006 from Feb. 21 to May 23. Bracciali’s bets were from May 17, 2004 through Jan. 24, 2005.

Starace made five bets totaling $130 and Bracciali made about 50 bets of $7, the Italian tennis federation said. The federation said both players bet on matches involving others and were unaware the wagers violated ATP regulations.

"Not knowing the rules is not an excuse," Gayle David Bradshaw, the ATP’s executive vice president for rules and competition, said Thursday. "Everyone connected to the ATP Tour has a duty to understand and respect the rules, especially those designed to protect the integrity of our sport."

Starace, ranked 31st, was suspended for six weeks and fined $30,000. Bracciali, ranked 258th, was banned for three months and fined $20,000. Both suspensions begin Monday. The Italian federation last week called the penalties an "injustice."

Basic Business Knowledge

2007-12-27T11:57:00.000+07:00

Are you sure that planning a home business starts with basic business knowledge and starts any profitable online business?

Odds are that seven out of ten have entertained the idea of starting their own online home business but either they do not know how to start one or if they do they do not know how to make it profitable.

The first steps in building a business is to begin by setting the necessary home business priorities in order and begin the action steps necessary to implement a solid business mission statement action plan.

First things first, we need to state our intentions for building this business, what is our vision? What are the resources we will need to implement our business plan and decide who will be included in our target market?

We will need to know is there money in that market. We also need to know whether that market has demonstrated a willingness to purchase similar products and services like ours in the recent past.

By organizing and implementing these original planning priorities, we are leveraging our time and efforts to maximize our overall effectiveness to minimize online business mistakes. Leveraging your business’ daily business affairs from budget optimization, business market planning, home business time management and online business support services.

There is a large body of basic business knowledge in building our business and should include home business essentials such as business knowledge and training, funding, budgeting, administration, communications, marketing/advertising, sales forecasting,

cash flow management, asset building & management, product development, security & bonding, business development online & off-line, supervision, health, customer service, community goodwill and other business set up issues that we may have overlooked in preparing this list for you.

The foregoing list of business essentials is not critically important in all businesses or for them to entertain all issues. This list was generated to give you a small capsule of business issues that you may include or not include in building your business.

All businesses are not the same. Here is an example, if your business is all about transporting money from point `a’ to point ’b’ you would certainly want to be bonded in case of a theft or other catastrophes.

But if you are a swimming instructor, being bonded will not be a serious consideration. This is a prime time to address these kinds of contingencies.

In the beginning stages of setting up a business and setting its foundation is the time to consider many of the options above that may become business policy. Many of these options will not become policies but many of them will become routine.

Basic business knowledge will provide the content that will be needed in building online web pages and other advertising/marketing. If content is king, then traffic is queen for sure.

Are you a skilled communicator? Here is a little tip. The ones that communicate best are the ones that make more money in business. Are you good at getting your point across to your audience?

If you are not skilled in communications, your business will surely suffer. Business is a people business and communication is the way business gets its messages to their market.

Business correspondence, advertising and marketing pieces, web site content and verbal communication along with your body language are the heart of your business and it all stems from your knowledge or lack of it. Business communication must put your audience at ease and consider the feelings of the other party.

Speaking of getting your message across, when you communicate well, it has a tendency to draw your market into you; it makes your market more responsive. It makes you more attractive and makes them want to associate with you.

That is what I call traction action. When you become well skilled at business communication it is like standing on a heavy traveled road handing out free money, driving traffic to you.

LiveJournal Tags: Business, Basic, Business, Knowledge

Paper PhotoCube 1.1 SE

2007-12-22T12:28:00.000+07:00

Paper PhotoCube 1.1 SE

With Paper PhotoCube 1.1, making photo cubes is fun and easy. Using the visual, single-screen interface - just drag selected images onto the template and click print! Or, save a JPEG version for emailing or publishing on the Web.

In the SE version the top face of the cube is locked to a branding image that we provide. If your Website meets the requirements described above we would be willing to replace the locked image with one you provide, allowing you to distribute a fun, useful product to your members or customers for free and promote your brand at the same time.

StickyGold - Programming

2007-12-22T12:25:00.000+07:00

StickyGold - Programming
CodeProject Latest

The CodeProject is a developers dream. Each week, developers from all over the globe contribute source code, ideas and help each other with programming issues.

Now you can increase the stickiness of your programming or shareware site by listing the very latest entries from this very popular library of valuable information on your web site.

The output of the CodeProject Latest is completely customisable. You can modify the colors and fonts to fit the look and feel of your website.

The CodeProject Latest is automatically updateable, you only have to paste the code below once and then when the CodeProject updates its entries, the entries on your website update as well.

No registration is required, it is completely FREE with no strings attached. Just grab the code and customise the look and feel for yourself.

The example below changes when the CodeProject latest changes.

The CodeProject Latest Code

Just copy the below code and paste it to the place on your page you want the CodeProject latest to appear. By using the code below you agree to these terms and conditions.

Whilst there is no requirement to register to use this code, you may wish to stay informed of developments and changes to the code that may affect your website by subscribing to our newsletter.

<br /><script language=Javascript><br />var CP_table_headercolor = "#FFFFCC";<br />var CP_header_fontface = "Verdana, Tahoma, ’Trebuchet MS’, Arial";<br />var CP_header_fontcolor = "Black";<br />var CP_header_fontsize = "2";<br />var CP_link_fontface = "Verdana, Tahoma, ’Trebuchet MS’, Arial";<br />var CP_link_fontsize = "2";<br />var CP_link_target = "_blank";<br /></script><br /><script language=Javascript src=’http://www.codeproject.com/info/codeprojectfs.js’><br /></script><br /><NOSCRIPT><br /><a href="http://www.codeproject.com/" target="_blank">The Code Project</a> is a place where developers can contribute their own ideas, share their own code, and just hang out and help each other learn. Click <a href=’http://www.codeproject.com/info/latest.asp’ target=_blank>here</a> to view the latest updates.<br /></NOSCRIPT><br />

The CodeProject latest Terms and Conditions of Use

Before using the CodeProject Latest code above please read this.

This code cannot be placed on any warez, adult, illegal mp3 sites or sites that promote other unlawful activities.

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Satellite TV and Local Stations - Setting the Record Straight

2007-12-22T11:47:00.000+07:00

For viewers considering their television programming options, satellite TV and cable television are their primary choices. Both services offer their customers hundreds of premium channels that provide quality entertainment in the home. For some consumers however, there still exists a misconception that they are not able to receive local channels with satellite TV services. Although this might have been true several years ago the situation began to change back in 1999 and is now merely a myth in most situations.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) provides oversight for the rules and policies related to satellite stations in the US. In 1999, the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act was introduced and then revised in 2004. One of the primary results of the act was that it allowed satellite TV companies to provide local broadcast signals to subscribers residing in the market area for such stations as described by Nielsen Media Research. Consumers wishing to seek out additional detail about the SHVIA can visit www.fcc.gov for more information.
For viewers hoping to benefit from the programming offered by satellite TV providers and yet also receive programming from their local television stations, this was welcomed news. The previous inability to obtain local news and sports was a significant drawback for many viewers. Luckily, satellite TV providers were also motivated to offer this service as it would allow them to compete better with cable companies. Although the response of satellite TV in making local programming available was fairly rapid the need to enhance bandwidth to accommodate the programming resulted in a process that phased in the addition of local programming over a period of years. Now, nearly a decade later, the availability of local stations via satellite TV is prevalent.
At this time Dish Network for instance, is offering local channels in a few hundred of their service areas. The satellite TV provider routinely offers ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, Fox, CW, and My Network TV as well as other area specific stations. UPN and WB super stations are also available rounding out their offerings to meet the viewing needs of most customers.
Where available local stations can be added on to any satellite programming package for around $5 per month. Determining the availability of local stations in any given area is simple. The Dish Network website for example allows users to search by address or zip code to check the availability of local channel services on the spot.
The days of missing all local broadcasts or erecting a large over-the-air antenna on the rooftop to receive the local signals are fading into myth. Most satellite TV customers are able to enjoy their local stations with the same satellite service that can provide the most diverse programming and largest volume of HD broadcasts in the industry.

Content 0 Day

2007-12-22T11:22:00.000+07:00

What's in Your Blind Spot?

2007-12-21T16:25:00.000+07:00

What’s in Your Blind Spot?

We frantically search for our "lost" keys that are lying in plain
sight on the kitchen counter. We don’t we see the keys. Why not?
Because we already decided "the keys are not there." And once we make
that decision, we create a blind spot in our awareness. The result is
that we don’t see the keys where we don’t expect them to be.

If we miss seeing keys out in the open because we decide the keys
aren’t there, what else could we be missing because we decide it’s
not there? Could we be "blind" to other possibilities and
opportunities that are right under our nose?

What’s New, Pussycat?

A mind-blowing scientific experiment reveals how the early physical
environment of kittens determines what they are able to see-and not
see-as they grow up. Two-week-old kittens are placed in a room with
walls painted with vertical stripes and kept there as they mature.
Almost from the moment they are able to see, the kittens live in an
environment of vertical stripes. Later, the cats’ world changes. They’
re removed from their vertically striped surroundings and placed in a
room painted with horizontal stripes. Surprisingly, our furry felines
don’t see the horizontal stripes. Bang! They run right smack into the
walls painted with horizontal stripes, time and time again. Why?
Scientists discovered that because the cats don’t have horizontal
stripes in their environment as they grow up, the brains of the cats
don’t develop the neurons that recognize horizontal stripes. So when
elements they’ve never been exposed to appear in the cats’ world,
their brains don’t register the new elements in their environment.
Yikes! Could we be unable to recognize elements in our current
environment because those elements were missing when we grew up? Yes,
we could! But before we look for aspects of life we might not be
seeing, let’s look for aspects we might not be hearing as well.

What’d You Say?

Studies with babies reveal how the early auditory environment of
babies determines what they are able to hear-and not hear-as they
grow up. Research shows that young babies have the ability to hear
the full range of vocal sounds produced by the speech of all the
human languages in the world. But then, babies are raised hearing
only the narrow range of speech sounds within their social
environment. Eventually, because they hear solely the speech sounds
found within one culture, babies lose their ability to distinguish
the full range of vocal sounds found in all human cultures.

This explains why Japanese children are unable to pronounce the
English "r" sound that does not exist in their native language. "The
common result," according to a researcher at the University of
California, "is essentially that if perceptual experience is limited,
one will not be able to perceive things outside that experience."
This is why, in everyday life, we’re not able to recognize-or "hear"-
concepts that we weren’t exposed to in our upbringing.

Casting a Spell of Limitations

We all grow up in families and societies where we are only exposed to
a limited view of life-like kittens only viewing vertical stripes and
babies only hearing speech sounds from their social environment. Our "
stripes" consist of a limited range of cultural patterns of sights
and sounds. These cultural patterns give signals to the brain that
tell us "the way life is" within that limited environment. And the
brain mistakenly "thinks" it knows "the way life is" outside of that
narrow-minded environment.

Growing up in a limited environment has a comparable effect to being
hypnotized. For example, when people are hypnotized, they can be told
that certain elements exist or don’t exist in their environment. With
hypnotic suggestion, a person can be told that there are no red books
in a bookstore. And, even though many of the books are red, the
person won’t see any red books. The hypnotic suggestion creates a

Give Them a KISS Ad, or Traffic Exchange Programs - Ideas, T

2007-12-21T16:24:00.000+07:00

Give Them a KISS Ad, or Traffic Exchange Programs - Ideas, T

I like traffic exchange programs! But you probably already knew that if you read my first article about this theme: Traffic Exchange Programs � Are they worth your time?.

�Why do you like them?�, you might ask. They are not the most effective way of advertising, they are not all quite cheat proof and they sure are not very targeted; 3 mayor flaws they share with most other types of free advertising. And yes, that�s all very true, BUT traffic exchange programs are free (mostly), you can do things to make them more effective and what if your target group is prone to use traffic exchange programs as well and it fits your business strategy? What if you are a beginner and you just need to start somewhere? What if you have a new site that just needs some initial traffic?

Of course your strategy should not be entirely build upon the use of traffic exchange programs, but if you have the time, why not take some advantage of them? Use a multi page browser, take heed of the following advise and if you enjoy surfing, these programs are right for you!

Strategic considerations

Questions you should ask yourself are: What is your business strategy? What is your target group?

A good strategy for beginners is to try to sell high ticket products in a niche market. The efforts and costs of selling a high ticket product are quite the same as trying to sell a low ticket, cheap product, so why not start with high ticket products? If this is your strategy, you would be wasting your time with traffic exchange programs.

I believe that most people that are surfing these programs are not interested in this kind of products. They are more likely interested in low ticket products and free offers. They are most likely interested in marketing tools (auto responders and such), free traffic, downline builders, new opportunities and programs.

My business strategy is largely build around getting downlines and targeted at people with lots of time but who are not willing to invest a lot of money. This is a very slow and long term strategy and does not involve a lot of actual selling. Traffic exchange programs are a good place to start recruiting. People who surf these programs expect to see ads for new opportunities and programs, downline builders, free ebooks, tools etc.

Normally I do not promote the idea of using your home page for traffic exchange programs or to use auto surf programs, but there are exceptions. When you have a new site and want some initial traffic, sign up for a few programs and benefit from the start bonuses. When you have a new page (offer) or site and you are not interested in Page Rank, you could use auto surf programs to get your ticker starting and get some traffic (but never do this with your main site!).

How long do you need to surf?
How much do you need to surf for credits? Well, there are people saying that you need to surf at least one hour per day! That would be the people who are in your upline I suppose. Actually, I do not have a recommendation for the time you should spend, that’s totally up to you, but can I tell you how I do it? At this very moment, writing this article, I have 4 programs running and I am playing a bit of solitaire. Point is that I am running a special offer at this moment and I need some extra credits, so when I stop writing for a while, I continue surfing for credits.
Mostly I surf when I feel like it and have no other urgent matters at hand. Or when I am doing something and need something else to distract me for a little while or when I need some fresh ideas. I surf in bursts, only with a few programs at the time and try to get the credit ticker running to get some of the bigger bonuses. surfing too many programs at the same time isn�t that effect

Who Are The Fastest Broadband ISPs??

2007-12-21T16:22:00.000+07:00

Who Are The Fastest Broadband ISPs??

It can be very frustrating when you want to find out just how well your ISP really performs....or prospective ISP if you’re shopping around. You really don’t want to take their word for it (the usual marketing drivel). But how do you become the educated consumer.... so you can operate from a position of knowledge (sic strength) rather than ignorance (sic weakness)?

Well ... to start you can look over the speed test review table at BroadbandReports.com. The table lists over 100 ISPs with number of tests that week, domain (DNS look-up), type, down kpbs, upload kpbs, other details....and rates them in order of performance (based on average over last 7 days). The table is updated daily so check back as often as you need to.

Interested in testing the packet loss of your line, comparing your ping time with other users, modifying your TCP stack, checking for bad routers, scanning for open ports and windows exploit points, testing if your computer is setup correctly for broadband TCP connectivity, tracking your connectivity with weekly reports, and much more? You’ll find more tools to help you do all that at BroadbandReports.com. They’re a great resource and I strongly suggest you take advantage of everything they make available to the public....for no charge.

About the Author

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications ....delivering choices to business consumers for voice and data broadband services. Michael also authors BroadBand Nation Broadband Nation where you’re always welcome to drop in and catch up on the latest BroadBand news, tips, and ramblings for the masses.

International Real Estate: What You Should Know Before Buyin

2007-12-21T16:19:00.000+07:00

International Real Estate: What You Should Know Before Buyin

1. Do your homework. Familiarize yourself with the laws and customs of the country. Research the tax codes, currency restrictions, and the qualifications for residency. Having a local attorney is a must. Ask your real estate agent or a fellow expatriate to recommend an attorney. The local American embassy can also provide a list of referrals. If you plan of purchasing property in a place where English is not the official language, you should insist on a bilingual lawyer who is able to translate all relevant legal documents.

2. Research. Find out the specifics about your new home-to-be: from the local political and economic situation to the daily cost-of-living. The last thing you want is to sink money into a place that’s unstable. Check out the U.S. State Department’s site, www.state.gov, for up-to-date assessments of virtually every country.

3. Finding a realtor. Once you’re ready to look at property, you’ll need to find a competent local real estate professional. There are many horror stories of people who have either dealt with either unscrupulous or misinformed parties, costing them thousands of dollars (and in a few cases, their entire investment). Don’t be one of those who learn the hard way. Some U.S., UK and Australian firms have representatives or prescreened affiliates abroad. In some countries (Mexico, Honduras and Bali, for example), real estate agents are not required to be licensed and con artists abound, waiting to prey on cash-rich foreigners. A good resource for competent real estate professionals is the International Real Estate Contacts list, which is available at: www.thegloballife.net. 4. The process. While every place has it own set of rules and nuances, the process of buying abroad generally works like this: First, the buyer and the seller to agree on a price, a security deposit (generally, 10 to 25 percent) will probably be required to take the house off the market. Your attorney should then receive a copy of the title and verify that the property is free from any liens or claims against the property. They should also advise you of any strange archaic laws, like those in parts of Canada that allow anyone to fish on your land, those in England and France that allow sheep to pass through your property, those in rural Italy that give your neighbors first-refusal rights on any land used for agricultural purposes (which could leave someone else with the fruit in the vineyard or olive grove on "your" property), or historic construction bans that prevent you from making any external changes to a property (even installing a pool). Also, if you are buying anything in need of restoration (or more than a hundred years old), have a structural survey done.

5. Mortgages? Financing your dream home may not be possible abroad. Your U.S. bank will only lend you the money for your foreign abode if you’re willing to use other assets for collateral, like your existing home or automobile, CDs or brokerage account. Some foreign banks will extend a mortgage once you’ve opened an account, but most likely, you will have to pay cash. If you decide to open a foreign bank account, you must report its existence to the U.S. Treasury Department. The IRS recently warned U.S. expatriates that they risk up to a $10,000 fine or 50 per cent of the value of the account if they fail to report overseas bank and financial accounts. For details, get IRS Publication 54, Tax Guide for U.S. Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad online at www.irs.gov/publications/p54/index.html.

6. A word of caution about renting. You may be considering offsetting costs by renting out your foreign home while you’re not there or setting it up as a short-term vacation rental. While the extra income can be a big bonus, countries such as Mexico and France have strict eviction laws (in France it can take up to 3 years to evict tenants who decide to stay without paying, unless you demonstrate to the courts that you’ve found your tenant a suitable similar rental to move into). 7. About taxes. If you make a decision to rent out your

The Unbelievable Majesty of Savannah, GA Real Estate

2007-12-21T16:17:00.000+07:00

The Unbelievable Majesty of Savannah, GA Real Estate

Daily life in Savannah, Georgia is hip and stylish, but it’s old Southern tradition sees to it that it will always maintain its serenity. Savannah, this modest city that happily welcomes a entire world, gets its name from the Native American word for �grassy plain�. Savannah has come quite a long distance from its original existence as the quiet plain.

Living up to the complementary reputation of being known as the �hostess city of the South�, Savannah, Georgia treats both local people and visitors to charming squares, beautiful garden paths, culture, a large selection of entertainment, and delectable food. The city of Savannah takes on the qualities of the southern belle: fascinating, benevolent, lively and impressive.

The twenty-four squares which are cleverly arranged here and there throughout the historical vicinity lay out the spirit of the downtown area. General James Ogelthorpe , between creating the colony of Georgia, fighting off the Spanish threat and working toward peaceful cohabitation with the Creek Indians, is to be credited with laying the city plan for Savannah, much of which remains intact today. These well-known squares form the cultural, historical and literal heart of the city. The many activities that help make Savannah great spread outward from there. Each unique square weaves a story of local and world history, having survived both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

Art and culture are to be observed on every single corner of Savannah�s energetic streets , all throughout the year. Savannah�s Music Festival in March and the Jazz Festival in September fill the air with cool melodies. African Americans, Greeks, Irish, Scots and Asians, among others, share their culture with festivals and celebrations spread out during different days of the year. Meanwhile, students of the Savannah College of Art and Design captivate the public by bringing the pavement of Forsyth Park to life with their drawings during the annual Sidewalk Art Festival. Savannah�s indoor cultural scene is packed with over eighty art galleries, museums, and theaters.

The outskirts of the city of Savannah offer the security of a small town for households who like quietness and space, while the city center offers a metropolitan feel with three universities , great shopping, and a nightlife that seems to start in and expand out from CityMarket.

Those fortunate people who live in Savannah can be seen spending their leisure time the way most people spend vacations -- year round moderate temperatures allow for for endless outdoor activities, nearby beaches, plenty of golf courses, and the occasional blues bar. Outdoor activities are one of the many reasons why Savannah is such a hot spot. Even the public transport system is stress-free. The Chatham Area Transit (CAT) operates an efficient system of buses, trolleys, and a ferry for those crossing the Savannah River.

It should be no surprise that Savannah is regularly listed as one of The United States top 10 most beautiful cities. Savannah�s tremendous draw extends to a extremely large variety of tastes. These diverse interests and lifestyles coexist in a complimentary way, which helps to add to Savannah�s growth. Artists add its culture, small businesses welcome tourists and grow as a result of them, and big industry pushes the economy forward. Therefore, this humble city, with her big city mindset, knows how to attract the world�s attention without even having to try. Pete Sampson is a freelance author and historian. He has relished the beauty of Savannah for over 25 years

Real Estate Professionals Need You to Write for Them!

2007-12-21T16:15:00.000+07:00

Real Estate Professionals Need You to Write for Them!

Ask yourself these questions:

Are you an experienced writer?

Do you want to stay at home to write?

Do you want to work for yourself?

Do you learn new things quickly?

Are you interested in a broad number of subjects?

Do you feel like you?re being pigeonholed with your current writing and you want to branch out?

Do you have a flair for marketing?

If you answered �yes� to any of these questions � or even better � several, you may have found a new career!

It�s more important than ever for real estate professionals to market themselves legally considering the laws regarding email and telephone sales seem to change daily - depending on which court is hearing the case. Many experts speculate though that eventually some sort of anti-telemarketing law will be enforced and while it�s much more difficult to regulate email, it�s still being made more and more difficult to use this form of marketing and sales. So basically it comes down to the fact that real estate professionals need an effective way to market themselves without breaking the law.

If you�ve ever done business with a Realtor or Mortgage Broker they probably still send you newsletters, recipe cards, sport�s schedules, notepads, etc. If they don�t they aren�t marketing themselves very effectively and you may have found your first client!

The majority of a real estate professional�s business comes from word of mouth - whether it�s repeat business from people who are refinancing their mortgage, applying for a home equity loan, selling their house, renting their house, or from clients who recommend �their guy� to friends and relatives. Whatever it is, it�s in the professional�s best interest to keep their name on your mind.

The frequency with which real estate professionals send out these marketing materials varies. My own Realtor usually sends me a quarterly newsletter along with goodies like flower seeds and notepads throughout the year. Some of the more industrious professionals actually send out newsletters on a weekly basis!

The key is for the professional to get his/her name and phone number in front of as many sets of eyes as possible. When the professional sends you a newsletter, that includes several interesting articles, such as how to increase the value of your home or budget decorating tips or how to clean up your credit before you apply for a mortgage, etc. you find these articles so fascinating you hang on to the newsletter. Or you know that your next-door neighbor is particularly interested in decorating on a budget so you pass it along to her and so on.

Next thing you know, many set of eyes have seen the real estate professional�s name and they decide to call him/her when they need the services of a real estate professional.

When your cousin Vinney calls you up out of the blue to tell you he�s moving to Arlington and �do you have a Realtor you can recommend� you do of course because the sport�s schedule/newsletter/recipe card your Realtor recently sent you is hanging on your refrigerator.

So what does all of this mean for you the freelance writer? It means more assignments and more money! After all, the real estate professional is either too busy or simply doesn�t have the desire or skills to write their own newsletters and other materials. What they need is a freelance writer to handle this crucial aspect of their business.

To be certain, like any business you�ll need to get out there and hustle and market yourself before you can expect to market for your clients. You�ll need to prepare professional looking samples to start out with and hawk these to as many real estate professionals as you can think of. You can find these professionals by looking in the phone book for addresses, pulling fliers from yard signs and introducing yourself to Realtors conducting open houses to begin with.

Writing for real estate

Fixing Financial Affliction

2007-12-21T16:10:00.000+07:00

Fixing Financial Affliction

Article Entitled: Fixing Financial Affliction

FIXING FINANCIAL AFFLICTION

By Dr. John E. Russell

Failing finances are a common problem now-a-days. How does one extricate himself from a heavy debt load? There are ads that offer to do that ... for a price. It may be the answer for some. However, there are things one can do for himself.

The first step to relieve debt is not to make any more. There are very creative ways to save money. Ben Franklin said, ’A penny saved is a penny earned.’ Bill Gothard said several years ago, ’A dollar saved is a dollar sixty earned!’ In other words, taking into account the multitude of revealed and hidden taxes, working expenses, etc., one then needed to earn $1.60 in order to have $1.00 to spend! How much do we have left today?! One of the best and most practical resources for saving money is Dr. Alfred W. Munzert’s book Poor Richard’s Economic Survival Manual (Franklinville, NY: Hemisphere Publications, 1982). Dr. Munzert raised a large family on a teacher’s salary and his children received a college education. I am still amazed by many of the strategies he used. Buy the book, or request it at your library.

Making arrangements for a reduced payment to each creditor is one alternative to get rid of debt. If you need help, call the National Foundation for Consumer Credit at 1-800-388-2227.

Bankruptcy is another alternative. In their anguish, some have chosen to use this law that provides protection from creditors. You can file for bankruptcy yourself, but it is probably best to hire a competent bankruptcy lawyer. I went through a chapter 7 bankruptcy and did the filing myself, since I could not afford a lawyer at the time. The best resource that I found was Kenneth J. Doran’s book, Personal Bankruptcy and Debt Adjustment (New York: Random House, 1991). It is written in plain English, with legal terms explained. Be sure to use up-to- date-forms (I had to re-submit some forms because of this). The new forms were expensive, so I copied them from Clark, Boardman and Callaghan, Bankruptcy Code, Rules and Official Forms (New York: The Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company, 1991). A friend paid my filing fee. I made it with God’s help and you can, too! Avoid bankruptcy if possible by solving financial problems early on. Financial stress will make you sick--I know from firsthand experience.

For a copy of my new book, essays exposing the myths of political correctness, send me two dollars. Read it. Then, if you want to keep it for reference, send an additional three dollars. You will not see much of this documented material in the media. This is IBM shareware written in ASCII and on 5 1/4 inch computer disk. Please refer to the name of this publication. Your comments are welcome.

Best wishes in your mailorder endeavor!

66 Ways To Save Money

2007-12-21T16:08:00.000+07:00

66 Ways To Save Money

Article Entitled: 66 Ways To Save Money

66 Ways to Save Money

TRANSPORTATION

Airline Fares

1. You can lower the price of a round-trip air fare by as much as two-thirds by making certain your trip includes a Saturday evening stayover, and by purchasing the ticket in advance.

2. To make certain you have a cheap fare, even if you use a travel agent, call all the airlines that fly where you want to go and ask what the lowest fare to your destination is.

3. Keep an eye out for fare wars. Be prepared to act quickly.

Car Rental

1. Since car rental rates can vary greatly, shop around for the best basic rates and special offers.

2. Rental car companies offer various insurance and waiver options. Check with your insurance agent and credit card company in advance to avoid duplicating any coverage you may already have.

New Cars

1. You can save thousands of dollars over the lifetime of a car by selecting a model that combines a low purchase price with low financing, insurance, gasoline, maintenance, and repair costs. Ask your local librarian for new car guides that contain this information.

2. Having selected a model, you can save hundreds of dollars by comparison shopping. Call at least five dealers for price quotes and let each know that you are calling others.

3. Remember there is no ’cooling off’ period on new car sales. Once you have signed a contract, you are obligated to buy the car.

Used Cars

1. Before buying any used car:

a. Compare the seller’s asking price with the average retail price in a ’bluebook’ or other guide to car prices found at many libraries, banks, and credit unions.

b. Have a mechanic you trust check the car, especially if the car is sold ’as is.’

2. Consider purchasing a used car from an individual you know and trust. They are more likely than other sellers to charge a lower price and point out any problems with the car.

Auto Leasing

1. Don’t decide to lease a car just because the payments are lower than on a traditional auto loan. The leasing payments may be lower because you don’t own the car at the end of the lease.

2. Leasing a car is very complicated. When shopping, consider the price of the car (known as the capitalized cost), your trade- in allowance, any down payment, monthly payments, various fees (excess mileage, excess ’wear and tear,’ end-of-lease), and the cost of buying the car at the end of the lease.

Gasoline

1. You can save hundreds of dollars a year by pumping gas yourself and using the lowest-octane called for in your owner’s manual.

2. You can save up to $100 a year on gas by keeping your engine tuned and your tires inflated to their proper pressure.

Car Repairs

1. Consumers lose billions of dollars each year on unneeded or poorly done car repairs. The most important step that you can take to save money on these repairs is to find a skilled, honest mechanic. Before you need repairs, look for a mechanic who: * is certified and well established; * has done good work for someone you know; and * communicates well about repair options and costs.

INSURANCE

Auto Insurance

1. You can save several hundred dollars a year by purchasing auto insurance from a licensed, low-price insurer. Call your state insurance department for a publication showing typical prices charged by different companies. Then call at least four of the lowest-priced, licensed insurers to learn what they would charge you for the same coverage.

2. Talk to your agent or insurer about raising your deductibles on collision and comprehensive coverages to at least $500 or, if you have an old car, dropping these coverages altogether. Taking these steps can save you hundreds of dollars a year.

3. Make certain that your new policy is in effect before dropping your old one.

Homeowner Insurance

1. You can save $100 or more a year by purchasing homeowner insurance from a low-price, licensed insurer. Ask your state insurance department for a publication showing typical prices charged by different licensed companies. Then call at least four of the lowest priced insurers to learn what they would charge you. If such a publication is not available, it is even more important to call at least four insurers for price quotes.

2. Make certain you purchase enough coverage to replace the house and its contents.

3. Make certain your new policy is in effect before dropping your old one.

Life Insurance

1. If you want insurance protection only, buy a term life insurance policy.

2. If you want to buy a whole life, universal life, or other cash value policy, plan to hold it for at least 15 years. Canceling these policies after only a few years can more than double your life insurance costs.

3. Check your public library for information about the financial soundness of insurance companies and the prices they charge. The July, August, and September 1993 issues of Consumer Reports are a valuable source of information about a number of insurers.

BANKING/CREDIT

Checking

1. You can save more than $100 a year in fees by selecting a checking account with a minimum balance requirement that you can, and do, meet.

2. Banking institutions often will drop or lower checking fees if paychecks are directly deposited by your employer. Direct deposit offers the additional advantages of convenience, security, and immediate access to your money.

Savings and Investment Products

1. Before opening a savings or investment account with a bank or other financial institution, find out whether the account is insured by the federal government. An increasing number of products offered by these institutions, including mutual stock funds and annuities, are not insured.

2. To earn the highest return on savings (annual percentage yield) with little or no risk, consider certificates of deposit (CDs) and treasury bills or notes.

3. Once you select a type of savings or investment product, compare rates offered by different institutions. These rates can vary a lot and, over time, can significantly affect interest earnings.

Credit Cards

1. You can save as much as several hundred dollars each year in lower credit card interest charges by paying off your entire bill each month.

2. If you are unable to pay off a large balance, switch to a credit card with a low annual percentage rate (APR). For a modest fee, Bankcard Holders of America (703-389-5445) and RAM Research Corp. (800-344-7714) will send you a list of low-rate cards.

3. You can reduce credit card fees, which may add up to more than $100 a year, by getting rid of all but one or two cards, and by avoiding late payment and over-the-credit limit fees.

Auto Loans

1. If you have significant savings earning a low interest rate, consider making a large down payment or even paying for the car in cash. This could save you as much as several thousand dollars in finance charges.

2. You can save as much as hundreds of dollars in finance charges by shopping for the cheapest loan. Contact several banks, your credit union, and the auto manufacturer’s own finance company.

First Mortgage Loans

1. You may save tens of thousands of dollars in interest charges by shopping for the shortest-term mortgage you can afford. On a $100,000 fixed-rate loan at 8% annual percentage rate (APR), for example, you will pay $90,000 less in interest on a 15-year mortgage than on a 30-year mortgage.

2. You can save thousands of dollars in interest charges by shopping for the lowest-rate mortgage with the fewest points. On a 15-year, $100,000 fixed-rate mortgage, just lowering the APR from 8.5% to 8.0% can save you more than $5,000 in interest charges. On this mortgage, paying two points instead of three would save you an additional $1,000.

3. If your local newspaper does not periodically run mortgage rate surveys, call at least six lenders for information about their rates (APRs), points, and fees. Then ask an accountant to compute precisely how much each mortgage option will cost and its tax implications.

4. Be aware that the interest rate on most adjustable rate mortgage loans (ARMs) can vary a great deal over the lifetime of the mortgage. An increase of several percentage points might raise payments by hundreds of dollars per month.

Mortgage Refinancing

1. Consider refinancing your mortgage if you can get a rate that is at least one percentage point lower than your existing mortgage rate and plan to keep the new mortgage for several years or more. Ask an accountant to calculate precisely how much your new mortgage (including upfront fees) will cost and whether, in the long run, it will cost less than your current mortgage.

Home Equity Loans

1. Be cautious in taking out home equity loans. These loans reduce the equity that you have built up in your home. If you are unable to make payments, you could lose your home.

2. Compare home equity loans offered by at least four banking institutions. In comparing these loans, consider not only the annual percentage rate (APR) but also points, closing costs, other fees, and the index for any variable rate changes.

HOUSING

Home Purchase

1. You can often negotiate a lower sale price by employing a buyer broker who works for you, not the seller. If the buyer broker or the broker’s firm also lists properties, there may be a conflict of interest, so ask them to tell you if they are showing you a property that they have listed.

2. Do not purchase any house until it has been examined by a home inspector that you selected.

Renting a Place to Live

1. Do not limit your rental housing search to classified ads or referrals from friends and acquaintances. Select buildings where you would like to live and contact their building manager or owner to see if anything is available.

2. Remember that signing a lease probably obligates you to make all monthly payments for the term of the agreement.

Home Improvement

1. Home repairs often cost thousands of dollars and are the subject of frequent complaints. Select from among several well established, licensed contractors who have submitted written, fixed-price bids for the work.

2. Do not sign any contract that requires full payment before satisfactory completion of the work.

Major Appliances

1. Consult Consumer Reports, available in most public libraries, for information about specific brands and how to evaluate them, including energy use. There are often great price and quality differences among brands.

2. Once you’ve selected a brand, check the phone book to learn what stores carry this brand, then call at least four of these stores for the prices of specific models. After each store has given you a quote, ask if that’s the lowest price they can offer you. This comparison shopping can save you as much as $100 or more.

UTILITIES

Electricity

1. To save as much as hundreds of dollars a year on electricity, make certain that any new appliances you purchase, especially air conditioners and furnaces, are energy-efficient. Information on the energy efficiency of major appliances is found on Energy Guide Labels required by federal law. Check with your electric utility to learn if it has a program to help reduce the costs of any appliance purchases.

2. Enrolling in load management programs and off-hour rate programs offered by your electric utility may save you up to $100 a year in electricity costs. Call your electric utility for information about these cost-saving programs.

Home Heating

1. A home energy audit can identify ways to save up to hundreds of dollars a year on home heating (and air conditioning). Ask your electric or gas utility if they can do this audit for free or for a reasonable charge. If they cannot, ask them to refer you to a qualified professional.

Local Telephone Service

1. Check with your phone company to see whether a flat rate or measured service plan will save you the most money.

2. You will usually save money by buying your phones instead of leasing them.

3. Check your local phone bill to see if you have optional services that you don’t really need or use. Each option you drop could save you $40 or more each year.

Long Distance Telephone Service

1. Long distance calls made during evenings, at night, or on weekends can cost significantly less than weekday calls.

2. If you make more than a few long distance calls each month, consider subscribing to a calling plan. Call several long distance companies to see which one has the least expensive plan for the calls you make.

3. Whenever possible, dial your long distance calls directly. Using the operator to complete a call can cost you an extra $1 to $3.

OTHER

Food Purchased at Markets

1. You can save hundreds of dollars a year by shopping at the lower-priced food stores. Convenience stores often charge the highest prices.

2. You will spend less on food if you shop with a list.

3. You can save hundreds of dollars a year by comparing price- per-ounce or other unit prices on shelf labels. Stock up on those items with low per-unit costs.

Prescription Drugs

1. Since brand name drugs are usually much more expensive than their generic equivalents, ask your physician and pharmacist for generic drugs whenever appropriate.

2. Since pharmacies may charge widely different prices for the same medicine, call several. When taking a drug for a long time, also consider calling mail-order pharmacies, which often charge lower prices. See the October 1993 issue of Consumer Reports (available in most public libraries) for a list of several of these pharmacies and their toll-free phone numbers.

Funeral Arrangements

1. Make your wishes known about your funeral, memorial, or burial arrangements in writing. Be cautious about prepaying because there may be risks involved.

2. For information about the least costly options, which could save you several thousand dollars, contact a local memorial society, which is usually listed in the Yellow Pages under funeral services.

3. Before selecting a funeral home, call several and ask for prices of specific goods and services, or visit them to obtain an itemized price list. You are entitled to this information by law and, by using it to comparison shop, you can save hundreds of dollars.

The Consumer Literacy Consortium is a working group of representatives from federal and state government agencies, consumer groups, business organizations, and educational institutions that seeks to develop and disseminate essential messages to inform and educate consumers. Membership in the Consortium does not imply endorsement of all of its messages or the products and services of other members.

Cooperative Extension System Federal Trade Commission Federal Reserve Board Minnesota Attorney General’s Office National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators U.S. Consumer Information Center U.S. Food and Drug Administration U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs

American Council on Consumer Interests American Association of Retired Persons Center for the Study of Services - Checkbook Magazine Consumer Action Consumer Federation of America National Coalition for Consumer Education National Institute for Consumer Education TARP, Inc.

Alamo Rent A Car, Inc. American Insurance Association Direct Selling Education Foundation MCI Consumer Markets NYNEX Corporation Sprint

Content FREE

2007-12-21T16:05:00.000+07:00

Free sudoku by SudokuPuzz

Rebecca West, Writer

2007-12-21T15:52:00.000+07:00

]Born: 21 December 1892

Birthplace: London, England

Died: 15 March 1983

Best Known As: Critic, journalist, novelist and literary celebrity

Name at birth: Cicily Isabel Fairfield

Rebecca West published her first novel in 1918, The Return of the Soldier. She is perhaps best known for her journalistic studies of the Nazi war crimes trials in Nuremberg: The Meaning of Treason (1947) and A Train of Powder (1955). In 1959 West was made a Dame of the British Empire, and in the late 1970s she gained new popularity, thanks largely to the feminist movement.

West famously had love affairs with movie star Charlie Chaplin, author H.G. Wells and businessman and politician Lord Beaverbrook (William Aitken).

Dame Rebecca West

(born Dec. 21, 1892, London, Eng. — died March 15, 1983, London) British journalist, novelist, and critic. Trained as an actress, from 1911 West contributed to the left-wing press and made a name as a fighter for woman suffrage. She had a 10-year love affair (1913 – 23) with the novelist H.G. Wells. Her novels, including The Judge (1922), The Thinking Reed (1936), and The Birds Fall Down (1966), attracted less attention than her social and cultural writings. Her admired reports on the Nürnberg trials were collected in A Train of Powder (1955). Her history of Yugoslavia, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1942), is regarded as one of the century’s finest nonfiction works. In 1946 she reported on the trial for treason of William Joyce, articles that were later published as The Meaning of Treason (1949).

Yahoo Test blog search in Korea

2007-12-21T15:48:00.000+07:00

Yahoo has quietly begun testing blog-search technology in Korea, a sign of coming tools for the U.S. market that will take on existing players such as Technorati.

In recent days, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company has introduced new search technology on its Korean blog site, which is designed to let people sign up to publish personalized Web journals.

The various search tools, which are available from a pull-down menu next to the search bar, let visitors retrieve content and photos within all Web logs, or just within most recent blog postings or favorite-tagged pages.

Yahoo is planning to begin testing the same capabilities for its U.S. blog-publishing service in the coming weeks, according to a source familiar with the plan. Yahoo search engineer Jeremy Zawodny also hinted at work the company is doing in the area at a recent conference in London, according to an attendee who runs the Cubicgarde.com blog.

Yahoo declined to comment on the Korean site or upcoming technology.

Web portals often try out new technologies in foreign markets. For example, Microsoft’s MSN began experimenting with personalized news search in Europe before it launched in the United States in the last year.

Blogs are of particular interest to industry players like Yahoo because they are a powerful and multiplying form of content online, yet there are few tools to sift through all the material in real time. Chief Yahoo rivals Google and MSN have yet to introduce blog-specific search tools. Google, however, includes some blogs in general Web results.

The leading blog-search site, Technorati, reported this week that the number of blogs online is doubling every five and a half months. By the end of July, it was tracking 14.2 million blogs, with an addition of 80,000 new sites a day. (About 55 percent of the total number of blogs are considered active.)

Yahoo’s coming blog-search will complement the company’s social-networking and blog-publishing service, Yahoo 360, which was introduced earlier this year and is still in test mode.

Blog search will also tie into Yahoo’s newly introduced advertising service for small publishers. The company said Wednesday that it started testing an ad network that lets bloggers and other small publishers place text ads on their sites to make extra money. Search tools can only help people find the blogs--and ads.

Writen : Stefanie Olsen

What is Global Warming?

2007-12-21T15:47:00.000+07:00

The Earth as an ecosystem is changing, attributable in great part to the effects of globalization and man. More carbon dioxide is now in the atmosphere than has been in the past 650,000 years. This carbon stays in the atmosphere, acts like a warm blanket, and holds in the heat — hence the name ‘global warming.’

The reason we exist on this planet is because the earth naturally traps just enough heat in the atmosphere to keep the temperature within a very narrow range - this creates the conditions that give us breathable air, clean water, and the weather we depend on to survive. Human beings have begun to tip that balance. We’ve overloaded the atmosphere with heat-trapping gasses from our cars and factories and power plants. If we don’t start fixing the problem now, we’re in for devastating changes to our environment. We will experience extreme temperatures, rises in sea levels, and storms of unimaginable destructive fury. Recently, alarming events that are consistent with scientific predictions about the effects of climate change have become more and more commonplace.

Web Server

2007-12-21T15:46:00.000+07:00

Common Features

Although web server programs differ in detail, they all share some basic common features.

HTTP: every web server program operates by accepting HTTP requests from the client, and providing an HTTP response to the client. The HTTP response usually consists of an HTML document, but can also be a raw file, an image, or some other type of document (defined by MIME-types); if some error is found in client request or while trying to serve the request, a web server has to send an error response which may include some custom HTML or text messages to better explain the problem to end users.
Logging: usually web servers have also the capability of logging some detailed information, about client requests and server responses, to log files; this allows the webmaster to collect statistics by running log analyzers on log files.

In practice many web servers implement the following features also:

Authentication, optional authorization request (request of user name and password) before allowing access to some or all kind of resources.
Handling of not only static content (file content recorded in server’s filesystem(s)) but of dynamic content too by supporting one or more related interfaces (SSI, CGI, SCGI, FastCGI, JSP, PHP, ASP, ASP .NET, Server API such as NSAPI, ISAPI, etc.).
HTTPS support (by SSL or TLS) to allow secure (encrypted) connections to the server on the standard port 443 instead of usual port 80.
Content compression (i.e. by gzip encoding) to reduce the size of the responses (to lower bandwidth usage, etc.).
Virtual hosting to serve many web sites using one IP address.
Large file support to be able to serve files whose size is greater than 2 GB on 32 bit OS.
Bandwidth throttling to limit the speed of responses in order to not saturate the network and to be able to serve more clients

Origin Of Returned Content

The origin of the content sent by server is called:

static if it comes from an existing file lying on a filesystem

dynamic if it is dynamically generated by some other program or script or Application Programming Interface called by the web server.

Serving static content is usually much faster (from 2 to 100 times) than serving dynamic content, especially if the latter involves data pulled from a database.

Path Translation

Web servers are able to map the path component of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) into:

a local file system resource (for static requests);
an internal or external program name (for dynamic requests).

For a static request the URL path specified by the client is relative to the Web server’s root directory.

Consider the following URL as it would be requested by a client:

http://www.example.com/path/file.html

The client’s web browser will translate it into a connection to www.example.com with the following HTTP 1.1 request:

GET /path/file.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com

The web server on www.example.com will append the given path to the path of its root directory. On Unix machines, this is commonly /var/www/htdocs. The result is the local file system resource:

/var/www/htdocs/path/file.html

The web server will then read the file, if it exists, and send a response to the client’s web browser. The response will describe the content of the file and contain the file itself.

Performances

Web servers (programs) are supposed to serve requests quickly from more than one TCP/IP connection at a time.

Main key performance parameters (measured under a varying load of clients and requests per client), are:

number of requests per second (depending on the type of request, etc.);
latency response time in milliseconds for each new connection or request;
throughput in bytes per second (depending on file size, cached or not cached content, available network bandwidth, etc.).

Above three parameters vary noticeably depending on the number of active connections, so a fourth parameter is the concurrency level supported by a web server under a specific configuration.

Last but not least, the specific server model used to implement a web server program can bias the performance and scalability level that can be reached under heavy load or when using high end hardware (many CPUs, disks, etc.).

Performance of a web server is typically measured using one of automated load testing tools.

Load Limits

A web server (program) has defined load limits, because it can handle only a limited number of concurrent client connections (usually between 2 and 60,000, by default between 500 and 1,000) per IP address (and IP port) and it can serve only a certain maximum number of requests per second depending on:

its own settings;
the HTTP request type;
content origin (static or dynamic);
the fact that the served content is or is not cached;
the hardware and software limits of the OS where it is working.

When a web server is near to or over its limits, it becomes overloaded and thus unresponsive.

Overload Causes

At any time web servers can be overloaded because of:

Too much legitimate web traffic (i.e. thousands or even millions of clients hitting the web site in a short interval of time. e.g. Slashdot effect);
DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks;
Computer worms that sometimes cause abnormal traffic because of millions of infected computers (not coordinated among them);
XSS viruses can cause high traffic because of millions of infected browsers and/or web servers;
Internet web robots traffic not filtered / limited on large web sites with very few resources (bandwidth, etc.);
Internet (network) slowdowns, so that client requests are served more slowly and the number of connections increases so much that server limits are reached;
Web servers (computers) partial unavailability, this can happen because of required / urgent maintenance or upgrade, HW or SW failures, back-end (i.e. DB) failures, etc.; in these cases the remaining web servers get too much traffic and become overloaded.

Overload symptoms

The symptoms of an overloaded web server are:

requests are served with (possibly long) delays (from 1 second to a few hundred seconds);
500, 502, 503, 504 HTTP errors are returned to clients (sometimes also unrelated 404 error or even 408 error may be returned);
TCP connections are refused or reset (interrupted) before any content is sent to clients;
in very rare cases, only partial contents are sent (but this behavior may well be considered a bug, even if it usually depends on unavailable system resources).

Anti-overload Techniques

To partially overcome above load limits and to prevent overload, most popular web sites use common techniques like:

managing network traffic, by using:
- Firewalls to block unwanted traffic coming from bad IP sources or having bad patterns;
- HTTP traffic managers to drop, redirect or rewrite requests having bad HTTP patterns;
- Bandwidth management and traffic shaping, in order to smooth down peaks in network usage;
deploying web cache techniques;
using different domain names to serve different (static and dynamic) content by separate Web servers, i.e.:
- ```
http://images.example.com
```
- ```
http://www.example.com
```
using different domain names and/or computers to separate big files from small and medium sized files; the idea is to be able to fully cache small and medium sized files and to efficiently serve big or huge (over 10 - 1000 MB) files by using different settings;
using many Web servers (programs) per computer, each one bound to its own network card and IP address;
using many Web servers (computers) that are grouped together so that they act or are seen as one big Web server, see also: Load balancer;
adding more hardware resources (i.e. RAM, disks) to each computer;
tuning OS parameters for hardware capabilities and usage;
using more efficient computer programs for web servers, etc.;
using other workarounds, especially if dynamic content is involved.

Historical Notes

In 1989 Tim Berner-Lee proposed to his employer CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) a new project, which had the goal of easing the exchange of information between scientists by using a hypertext system. As a result of the implementation of this project, in 1990 Berners-Lee wrote two programs:

a browser called WorldWideWeb;
the world’s first web server, which ran on NeXTSTEP.

Between 1991 and 1994 the simplicity and effectiveness of early technologies used to surf and exchange data through the World Wide Web helped to port them to many different operating systems and spread their use among lots of different social groups of people, first in scientific organizations, then in universities and finally in industry.

In 1994 Tim Berners-Lee decided to constitute the World Wide Web Consortium to regulate the further development of the many technologies involved (HTTP, HTML, etc.) through a standardization process.

The following years are recent history which has seen an exponential growth of the number of web sites and servers.

U.S. antimissile launch may provoke counterattack - army chief

2007-12-21T15:45:00.000+07:00

MOSCOW, December 15 (RIA Novosti) - A possible U.S. launch of an interceptor missile from Central Europe may provoke a counterattack by intercontinental ballistic missiles, Russia’s top military commander said.

"If we suppose that Iran wants to strike the United States, than interceptor missiles, which would be launched from Poland, will fly towards Russia," the Chief of the Russian General Staff, Gen. Yury Baluyevsky said, adding that the shape of interceptor missiles and their flight trajectory are very similar with IBMs.

Washington wants to place a radar in the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors in Poland, purportedly to counter a missile threat from Iran and other "rogue" states. Moscow has responded angrily to the plans, saying the European shield would destroy the strategic balance of forces and threaten Russia’s national interests.

The top Russian military official said Russia operates automated missile warning systems, which could respond automatically in case the U.S. fires an antimissile across Russia against a possible ballistic missile form Iran.

He added that the U.S. also still keeps high on the agenda an issue of a possible global confrontation with Russia.

"The issue of, to put it mildly, a confrontation with Russia, including a direct confrontation, is unfortunately still regarded by my counterparts from the Pentagon as relevant," he said adding that the U.S. missile shield plans in Central Europe are aimed to change the current security system in Europe and not against possible strikes from "rogue states."

He said the formation of the Third Site in Poland and the Czech Republic is a destabilizing factor in Europe and Russia will do everything possible to prevent a decrease in its national defense capability.

"Depending on the situation we [Russia] plan to take adequate and asymmetrical measures aimed to prevent a drop in national defense capabilities," Baluyevsky said adding that the U.S. proposals on the missile shield are unacceptable for Russia.

"We believe that Russia’s opinion should be heard and taken into account concerning such important issue as the missile shield in Europe," he said. "We speak for the dialogue, but under the condition that the problem will not be complicated by unilateral steps in this sphere."

Russia has offered the U.S. use of radar stations at Gabala in Azerbaijan, and Armavir in south Russia, as alternatives to missile shield deployment in Central Europe. Washington said, though, it could use these radars only as additional components of the European shield.

Speaking about the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, Baluyevsky said that European states have turned the treaty into a tool of political pressure.

"Western countries have deliberately turned a regime of arms control into a tool for achieving political aims," he said.

The law to freeze Russia’s participation in the CFE treaty was unanimously approved by parliament and signed on November 30 by President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s unilateral moratorium came into force immediately after midnight on Wednesday.

Moscow considers the original CFE treaty, signed in December 1990 by 16 NATO countries and six Warsaw Pact members, to be discriminatory and outdated since it does not reflect the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the breakup of the Soviet Union, or recent NATO expansion.

Baluyevsky said that after the moratorium came into force Russia has the full right to move its military units across the country the way it prefers, but the country does not plan to increase weapons stock.

NATO said in a statement Wednesday that it regretted Russia’s decision to impose a moratorium on the arms reductions treaty, which the West regards as a cornerstone of Euro-Atlantic security, and urged Moscow to reverse its decision.

Russia has urged NATO countries to ratify the adapted version of the treaty, signed on November 19, 1999 and so far ratified only by Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Russian Army Chief Accuses West of Corroding Arms Control

2007-12-21T15:44:00.000+07:00

Russia’s top general has accused the West of turning the arms control system into a political tool, warning that a launch of a U.S. interceptor missile in Europe could trigger a Russian ballistic missile strike.

Army Chief of Staff Yuri Baluyevsky Saturday sharply criticized U.S. plans to build an anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe. He also accused NATO of boosting its military potential in the Baltic countries.

Baluyevsky told a news conference in Moscow that Russia’s moratorium on the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty enables him to move Russian military forces as necessary within the country. But he added that Russia has no plans of massing troops along its borders.

The U.S. says the proposed missile shield in Europe is designed to protect NATO countries from possible attacks by Iran.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday expressed his support for Moscow. He held two days of talks with President Vladimir Putin in Minsk.

Mr. Putin earlier said Russia could counter U.S. plans to deploy its missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic by deploying missiles in Belarus. The former Soviet Republic is located between Russia and Poland.

The Soviet Union and NATO signed the treaty limiting conventional weapons deployment in 1990. It was updated in 1999 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia ratified the renewed document in 2004, but NATO has refused to ratify it until Russia fulfills its commitment to withdraw forces from former Soviet bases in Georgia and Moldova.

Moscow calls those deployments peacekeeping missions and refuses to withdraw its troops.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.

VOA News

How to Be A Hacker

2007-12-21T15:43:00.000+07:00

Hacker dengan keahliannya dapat melihat & memperbaiki kelemahan perangkat lunak di komputer; biasanya kemudian di publikasikan secara terbuka di Internet agar sistem menjadi lebih baik. Sialnya, segelintir manusia berhati jahat menggunakan informasi tersebut untuk kejahatan - mereka biasanya disebut cracker. Pada dasarnya dunia hacker & cracker tidak berbeda dengan dunia seni, disini kita berbicara seni keamanan jaringan Internet.

Saya berharap ilmu keamanan jaringan di tulisan ini digunakan untuk hal-hal yang baik - jadilah Hacker bukan Cracker. Jangan sampai anda terkena karma karena menggunakan ilmu untuk merusak milik orang lain. Apalagi, pada saat ini kebutuhan akan hacker semakin bertambah di Indonesia dengan semakin banyak dotcommers yang ingin IPO di berbagai bursa saham. Nama baik & nilai sebuah dotcom bisa jatuh bahkan menjadi tidak berharga jika dotcom di bobol. Dalam kondisi ini, para hacker di harapkan bisa menjadi konsultan keamanan bagi para dotcommers tersebut - karena SDM pihak kepolisian & aparat keamanan Indonesia amat sangat lemah & menyedihkan di bidang Teknologi Informasi & Internet. Apa boleh buat cybersquad, cyberpatrol swasta barangkali perlu di budayakan untuk survival dotcommers Indonesia di Internet.

Berbagai teknik keamanan jaringan Internet dapat di peroleh secara mudah di Internet antara lain di http://www.sans.org, http://www.rootshell.com, http://www.linuxfirewall.org/, http://www.linuxdoc.org,http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/coast/firewalls/, http://www.redhat.com/mirrors/LDP/HOWTO/. Sebagian dari teknik ini berupa buku-buku yang jumlah-nya beberapa ratus halaman yang dapat di ambil secara cuma-cuma (gratis). Beberapa Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) tentang keamanan jaringan bisa diperoleh di http://www.iss.net/vd/mail.html,http://www.v-one.com/documents/fw-faq.htm. Dan bagi para experimenter beberapa script / program yang sudah jadi dapat diperoleh antara lain di http://bastille-linux.sourceforge.net/, http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/tips/firewall/firewallservice.html.

Bagi pembaca yang ingin memperoleh ilmu tentang jaringan dapat di download secara cuma-cuma dari http://pandu.dhs.org, http://www.bogor.net/idkf/, http://louis.idaman.com/idkf. Beberapa buku berbentuk softcopy yang dapat di ambil gratis dapat di ambil dari http://pandu.dhs.org/Buku-Online/. Kita harus berterima kasih terutama kepada team Pandu yang dimotori oleh I Made Wiryana untuk ini. Pada saat ini, saya tidak terlalu tahu adanya tempat diskusi Indonesia yang aktif membahas teknik-teknik hacking ini - tetapi mungkin bisa sebagian di diskusikan di mailing list lanjut seperti kursus-linux@yahoogroups.com & linux-admin@linux.or.id yang di operasikan oleh Kelompok Pengguna Linux Indonesia (KPLI) http://www.kpli.or.id.

Cara paling sederhana untuk melihat kelemahan sistem adalah dengan cara mencari informasi dari berbagai vendor misalnya di http://www.sans.org/newlook/publications/roadmap.htm#3b tentang kelemahan dari sistem yang mereka buat sendiri. Di samping, memonitoring berbagai mailing list di Internet yang berkaitan dengan keamanan jaringan seperti dalam daftar http://www.sans.org/newlook/publications/roadmap.htm#3e.
Dijelaskan oleh Front-line Information Security Team, “Techniques Adopted By ‘System Crackers’ When Attempting To Break Into Corporate or Sensitive Private Networks,” fist@ns2.co.uk http://www.ns2.co.uk. Seorang Cracker umumnya pria usia 16-25 tahun. Berdasarkan statistik pengguna Internet di Indonesia maka sebetulnya mayoritas pengguna Internet di Indonesia adalah anak-anak muda pada usia ini juga. Memang usia ini adalah usia yang sangat ideal dalam menimba ilmu baru termasuk ilmu Internet, sangat disayangkan jika kita tidak berhasil menginternetkan ke 25000 sekolah Indonesia s/d tahun 2002 - karena tumpuan hari depan bangsa Indonesia berada di tangan anak-anak muda kita ini.

Nah, para cracker muda ini umumnya melakukan cracking untuk meningkatkan kemampuan / menggunakan sumber daya di jaringan untuk kepentingan sendiri. Umumnya para cracker adalah opportunis. Melihat kelemahan sistem dengan mejalankan program scanner. Setelah memperoleh akses root, cracker akan menginstall pintu belakang (backdoor) dan menutup semua kelemahan umum yang ada.

Seperti kita tahu, umumnya berbagai perusahaan / dotcommers akan menggunakan Internet untuk (1) hosting web server mereka, (2) komunikasi e-mail dan (3) memberikan akses web / internet kepada karyawan-nya. Pemisahan jaringan Internet dan IntraNet umumnya dilakukan dengan menggunakan teknik / software Firewall dan Proxy server. Melihat kondisi penggunaan di atas, kelemahan sistem umumnya dapat di tembus misalnya dengan menembus mailserver external / luar yang digunakan untuk memudahkan akses ke mail keluar dari perusahaan. Selain itu, dengan menggunakan agressive-SNMP scanner & program yang memaksa SNMP community string dapat mengubah sebuah router menjadi bridge (jembatan) yang kemudian dapat digunakan untuk batu loncatan untuk masuk ke dalam jaringan internal perusahaan (IntraNet).

Agar cracker terlindungi pada saat melakukan serangan, teknik cloacking (penyamaran) dilakukan dengan cara melompat dari mesin yang sebelumnya telah di compromised (ditaklukan) melalui program telnet atau rsh. Pada mesin perantara yang menggunakan Windows serangan dapat dilakukan dengan melompat dari program Wingate. Selain itu, melompat dapat dilakukan melalui perangkat proxy yang konfigurasinya kurang baik.

Setelah berhasil melompat dan memasuki sistem lain, cracker biasanya melakukan probing terhadap jaringan dan mengumpulkan informasi yang dibutuhkan. Hal ini dilakukan dengan beberapa cara, misalnya (1) menggunakan nslookup untuk menjalankan perintah ‘ls <domain or network>’ , (2) melihat file HTML di webserver anda untuk mengidentifikasi mesin lainnya, (3) melihat berbagai dokumen di FTP server, (4) menghubungkan diri ke mail server dan menggunakan perintah ‘expn <user>’, dan (5) mem-finger user di mesin-mesin eksternal lainnya.

Langkah selanjutnya, cracker akan mengidentifikasi komponen jaringan yang dipercaya oleh system apa saja. Komponen jaringan tersebut biasanya mesin administrator dan server yang biasanya di anggap paling aman di jaringan. Start dengan check akses & eksport NFS ke berbagai direktori yang kritis seperti /usr/bin, /etc dan /home. Eksploitasi mesin melalui kelemahan Common Gateway Interface (CGI), dengan akses ke file /etc/hosts.allow.

Selanjutnya cracker harus mengidentifikasi komponen jaringan yang lemah dan bisa di taklukan. Cracker bisa mengunakan program di Linux seperti ADMhack, mscan, nmap dan banyak scanner kecil lainnya. Program seperti ‘ps’ & ‘netstat’ di buat trojan (ingat cerita kuda troya? dalam cerita klasik yunani kuno) untuk menyembunyikan proses scanning. Bagi cracker yang cukup advanced dapat mengunakan aggressive-SNMP scanning untuk men-scan peralatan dengan SNMP.
Setelah cracker berhasil mengidentifikasi komponen jaringan yang lemah dan bisa di taklukan, maka cracker akan menjalan program untuk menaklukan program daemon yang lemah di server. Program daemon adalah program di server yang biasanya berjalan di belakang layar (sebagai daemon / setan). Keberhasilan menaklukan program daemon ini akan memungkinkan seorang Cracker untuk memperoleh akses sebagai ‘root’ (administrator tertinggi di server).

Untuk menghilangkan jejak, seorang cracker biasanya melakukan operasi pembersihan ‘clean-up’ operation dengan cara membersihkan berbagai log file. Dan menambahkan program untuk masuk dari pintu belakang ‘backdooring’. Mengganti file .rhosts di /usr/bin untuk memudahkan akses ke mesin yang di taklukan melalui rsh & csh.

Selanjutnya seorang cracker dapat menggunakan mesin yang sudah ditaklukan untuk kepentingannya sendiri, misalnya mengambil informasi sensitif yang seharusnya tidak dibacanya; mengcracking mesin lain dengan melompat dari mesin yang di taklukan; memasang sniffer untuk melihat / mencatat berbagai trafik / komunikasi yang lewat; bahkan bisa mematikan sistem / jaringan dengan cara menjalankan perintah ‘rm -rf / &’. Yang terakhir akan sangat fatal akibatnya karena sistem akan hancur sama sekali, terutama jika semua software di letakan di harddisk. Proses re-install seluruh sistem harus di lakukan, akan memusingkan jika hal ini dilakukan di mesin-mesin yang menjalankan misi kritis.

Oleh karena itu semua mesin & router yang menjalankan misi kritis sebaiknya selalu di periksa keamanannya & di patch oleh software yang lebih baru. Backup menjadi penting sekali terutama pada mesin-mesin yang menjalankan misi kritis supaya terselamatkan dari ulah cracker yang men-disable sistem dengan ‘rm -rf / &’.

Bagi kita yang sehari-hari bergelut di Internet biasanya justru akan sangat menghargai keberadaan para hacker (bukan Cracker). Karena berkat para hacker-lah Internet ada dan dapat kita nikmati seperti sekarang ini, bahkan terus di perbaiki untuk menjadi sistem yang lebih baik lagi. Berbagai kelemahan sistem di perbaiki karena kepandaian rekan-rekan hacker yang sering kali mengerjakan perbaikan tsb. secara sukarela karena hobby-nya. Apalagi seringkali hasil hacking-nya di sebarkan secara cuma-cuma di Internet untuk keperluan masyarakat Internet. Sebuah nilai & budaya gotong royong yang mulia justru tumbuh di dunia maya Internet yang biasanya terkesan futuristik dan jauh dari rasa sosial.

Pengembangan para hobbiest hacker ini menjadi penting sekali untuk keberlangsungan / survival dotcommers di wahana Internet Indonesia. Sebagai salah satu bentuk nyatanya, dalam waktu dekat Insya Allah sekitar pertengahan April 2001 akan di adakan hacking competition di Internet untuk membobol sebuah server yang telah di tentukan terlebih dahulu. Hacking competition tersebut di motori oleh anak-anak muda di Kelompok Pengguna Linux Indonesia (KPLI) Semarang yang digerakan oleh anak muda seperti Kresno Aji (masaji@telkom.net), Agus Hartanto (hartx@writeme.com) & Lekso Budi Handoko (handoko@riset.dinus.ac.id). Seperti umumnya anak-anak muda lainnya, mereka umumnya bermodal cekak - bantuan & sponsor tentunya akan sangat bermanfaat dan dinantikan oleh rekan-rekan muda ini.

Mudah-mudahan semua ini akan menambah semangat pembaca, khususnya pembaca muda, untuk bergerak di dunia hacker yang mengasyikan dan menantang. Kalau kata Captain Jean Luc Picard di Film Startrek Next Generation, “To boldly go where no one has gone before”.

Hard Disk Drive

2007-12-21T15:42:00.000+07:00

Technology

A hard disk drive (HDD), commonly referred to as a hard drive, hard disk or fixed disk drive, is a non-volatile storage device which stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces. Strictly speaking, "drive" refers to a device distinct from its medium, such as a tape drive and its tape, or a floppy disk drive and its floppy disk. Early HDDs had removable media; however, an HDD today is typically a sealed unit with fixed media.HDDs were originally developed for use with computers. In the 21st century, applications for HDDs have expanded beyond computers to include digital vid recorders, digital audio players, personal digital assistants, digital cameras and video game consoles. In 2005 the first mobile phones to include HDDs were introduced by Samsung and Nokia. The need for large-scale, reliable storage, independent of a particular device, led to the introduction of configurations such as RAID arrays, network attached storage (NAS) systems and storage area network (SAN) systems that provide efficient and reliable access to large volumes of data.

HDDs record data by magnetizing a ferromagnetic material directionally, to represent either a 0 or a 1 binary digit. They read the data back by detecting the magnetization of the material. A typical HDD design consists of a spindle which holds one or more flat circular disks called platters, onto which the data is recorded. The platters are made from a non-magnetic material, usually glass or aluminum, and are coated with a thin layer of magnetic material. Older disks used iron(III) oxide as the magnetic material, but current disks use a cobalt-based alloy.

The platters are spun at very high speeds. Information is written to a platter as it rotates past mechanisms called read-and-write heads that operate very close over the magnetic surface. The read-and-write head is used to detect and modify the magnetization of the material immediately under it. There is one head for each magnetic platter surface on the spindle, mounted on a common arm. An actuator arm (or access arm) moves the heads on an arc (roughly radially) across the platters as they spin, allowing each head to access almost the entire surface of the platter as it spins. The arm is moved using a voice coil actuator or (in older designs) a stepper motor.

The magnetic surface of each platter is divided into many small sub-micrometre-sized magnetic regions, each of which is used to encode a single binary unit of information. In today’s HDDs each of these magnetic regions is composed of a few hundred magnetic grains. Each magnetic region forms a magnetic dipole which generates a highly localized magnetic field nearby. The write head magnetizes a magnetic region by generating a strong local magnetic field nearby. Early HDDs used an electromagnet both to generate this field and to read the data by using electromagnetic induction. Later versions of inductive heads included metal in Gap (MIG) heads and thin film heads. In today’s heads, the read and write elements are separate but in close proximity on the head portion of an actuator arm. The read element is typically magneto-resistive while the write element is typically thin-film inductive.

In modern drives, the small size of the magnetic regions creates the danger that their magnetic state be lost because of thermal effects. To counter this, the platters are coated with two parallel magnetic layers, separated by a 3-atom-thick layer of the non-magnetic element ruthenium, and the two layers are magnetized in opposite orientation, thus reinforcing each other.Another technology used to overcome thermal effects to allow greater recording densities is perpendicular recording, which has been used in some hard drives as of 2006.

Hard disk drives are sealed to prevent dust and other sources of contamination from interfering with the operation of the hard disks heads. The hard drives are not air tight, but rather utilize an extremely fine air filter, to allow for air inside the hard drive enclosure. The spinning of the disks causes the air to circulate forcing any particulates to become trapped on the filter. The same air currents also act as a gas bearing which enables the heads to float on a cushion of air above the surfaces of the disks.

Hard drives are precise devices, moving at very high speed, and a number of analogies have been made to try to describe this. One states:

" As an analogy, a magnetic head slider flying over a disk surface with a flying height of 25 nm with a relative speed of 20 meters/second is equivalent to an
aircraft flying at a physical spacing of 0.2 µm at 900 kilometers/hour. This is what a disk drive experiences during its operation. "
Magnetic Storage Systems Beyond 2000, George C. Hadjipanayis, p. 487

Capacity and Access Speed

Using rigid disks and sealing the unit allows much tighter tolerances than in a floppy disk drive. Consequently, hard disk drives can store much more data than floppy disk drives and can access and transmit it faster. In 2007, a typical enterprise, i.e. workstation HDD, might store between 160 GB and 1 TB of data (as of local US market by July 2007), rotate at 7,200 or 10,000 revolutions per minute (RPM) and have a sequential media transfer rate of over 80 MB/s. The fastest enterprise HDDs spin at 15,000 rpm, and can achieve sequential media transfer speeds above 110 MB/s. Mobile, i.e., Laptop HDDs, which are physically smaller than their desktop and enterprise counterparts, tend to be slower and have less capacity. In the 1990s, most spun at 4,200 rpm. In 2007, a typical mobile HDD spins at 5,400 rpm, with 7,200 rpm models available for a slight price premium.

The exponential increases in disk space and data access speeds of HDDs have enabled the commercial viability of consumer products that require large storage capacities, such as the TiVo personal video recorder and digital music players. In addition, the availability of vast amounts of cheap storage has made viable a variety of web-based systems with extraordinary capacity requirements, such as the search and email systems offered by companies like Google.

The main way to decrease access time is to increase rotational speed, while the main way to increase throughput and storage capacity is to increase areal density. A vice president of Seagate Technology projects a future growth in disk density of 40% per year. Access times have not kept up with throughput increases, which themselves have not kept up with growth in storage capacity.

As of 2006, disk drives include perpendicular recording technology, in an attempt to increase recording density and throughput.

The first 3.5" HDD marketed as able to store 1 TB is the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000. It contains five platters at approximately 200 GB each, providing 935.5 GiB of usable space. Hitachi has since been joined by Samsung (Samsung SpinPoint F1, which has 3x334GB platters) , Seagate and Western Digital in the 1 TB drive market.

Capacity Measurements

The capacity of an HDD can be calculated by multiplying the number of cylinders by the number of heads by the number of sectors by the number of bytes/sector (most commonly 512). On ATA drives bigger than eight gigabytes, the values are set to 16383 cylinder, 16 heads, 63 sectors for compatibility with older operating systems. It should be noted that the values for cylinder, head & sector reported by a modern drive are not the actual physical parameters since, amongst other things, with zone bit recording the number of sectors varies by zone.

Hard disk drive manufacturers specify disk capacity using the SI prefixes mega, giga and tera, and their abbreviations M, G and T. Byte is typically abbreviated B.

Operating systems frequently report capacity using the same abbreviations but in reference to binary-based units. For instance, the prefix mega in the context of data storage can mean 2²⁰ (1,048,576), which is approximately equal to the actual value of the SI prefix mega, 10⁶ (1,000,000). Similar usage has been applied to prefixes of greater magnitude. This results in a discrepancy between the disk manufacturer’s stated capacity and the apparent capacity of the drive when examined through the operating system. The difference becomes much more noticeable in the multi-gigabyte range. For example, Microsoft Windows reports disk capacity both in decimal-based units to 12 or more significant digits and with binary-based units to three significant digits. Thus a disk specified by a disk manufacturer as a 30 GB disk might have its capacity reported by Windows 2000 both as "30,065,098,568 bytes" and "28.0 GB". The disk manufacturer used the SI definition of "giga", 10⁹ to arrive at 30 GB; however, because the utilities provided by Windows define a gigabyte as 1,073,741,824 bytes (2³⁰ bytes, often referred to as a gibibyte, or GiB), the operating system reports capacity of the disk drive as (only) 28.0 GB.

Hard Disk Drive Characteristics

Capacity of a hard disk drive is usually quoted in gigabytes. Older HDDs quoted their smaller capacities in megabytes.

The data transfer rate at the inner zone ranges from 44.2 MB/s to 74.5 MB/s, while the transfer rate at the outer zone ranges from 74.0 MB/s to 111.4 MB/s. An HDD’s random access time ranges from 5 ms to 15 ms.

The physical size of a hard disk drive is quoted in inches. The majority of HDDs used in desktops today are 3.5 inches (9 cm) wide, while the majority of those used in laptops are 2.5 inches (6 cm) wide. As of early 2007, manufacturers have started selling SATA and SAS 2.5 inch drives for use in servers and desktops.

An increasingly common form factor is the 1.8 inches (5 cm) ATA-7 LIF form factor used inside digital audio players and subnotebooks, which provide up to 160GB storage capacity at low power consumption and are highly shock-resistant. A previous 1.8 inches (5 cm) HDD standard exists, for 2–5 GB sized disks that fit directly into a PC card expansion slot. From these, the smaller 1 inch (3 cm) form factor was evolved, which is designed to fit the dimensions of CF Type II, which is also usually used as storage for portable devices including digital cameras. 1 inch was a de facto form factor led by IBM’s Microdrive, but is now generically called 1 inch due to other manufacturers producing similar products. There is also a 0.85 inch form factor produced by Toshiba for use in mobile phones and similar applications, including SD/MMC slot compatible HDDs optimized for video storage on 4G handsets.

The size designations are more nomenclature than descriptive. The names refer to the width of the disk inserted into the drive rather than the actual width of the entire drive. A 5.25 inches (13 cm) drive has an actual width of 5.75 inches (15 cm), a 3.5 inches (9 cm) drive 4 inches (10 cm), a 2.5 inches (6 cm) drive 2.75 inches (7 cm). A 1.8 inches (5 cm) drive can have different widths, depending on its form factor. A PCMCIA drive has a width of 54 mm, while an ATA-7 LIF form factor drive has a width of 53.85 mm.

A hard disk is defined to be at "full height" if its height is 3.25 inches (8 cm). It is "half height" at a height of 1.625 inches (4 cm). A "slim height" or "low profile" HDD has a height of 1 inch (3 cm). "Ultra low profile" drives can have heights of 0.75 inches (19 mm), 0.67 inches (17 mm), 0.49 inches (12 mm) or 0.37 inches (9 mm).

Access and Interfaces

Hard disk drives are accessed over one of a number of bus types, including parallel ATA (also called IDE or EIDE), Serial ATA (SATA), SCSI, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), and Fibre Channel. Bridge circuitry is sometimes used to connect hard disk drives to buses that they cannot communicate with natively, such as IEEE 1394 and USB.

Back in the days of the ST-506 interface, the data encoding scheme was also important. The first ST-506 disks used Modified Frequency Modulation (MFM) encoding, and transferred data at a rate of 5 megabits per second. Later on, controllers using 2,7 RLL (or just "RLL") encoding increased the transfer rate by 50%, to 7.5 megabits per second; this also increased disk capacity by fifty percent.

Many ST-506 interface disk drives were only specified by the manufacturer to run at the lower MFM data rate, while other models (usually more expensive versions of the same basic disk drive) were specified to run at the higher RLL data rate. In some cases, a disk drive had sufficient margin to allow the MFM specified model to run at the faster RLL data rate; however, this was often unreliable and was not recommended. (An RLL-certified disk drive could run on a MFM controller, but with 1/3 less data capacity and speed.)

Enhanced Small Disk Interface (ESDI) also supported multiple data rates (ESDI disks always used 2,7 RLL, but at 10, 15 or 20 megabits per second), but this was usually negotiated automatically by the disk drive and controller; most of the time, however, 15 or 20 megabit ESDI disk drives weren’t downward compatible (i.e. a 15 or 20 megabit disk drive wouldn’t run on a 10 megabit controller). ESDI disk drives typically also had jumpers to set the number of sectors per track and (in some cases) sector size.

SCSI originally had just one speed, 5 MHz (for a maximum data rate of five megabytes per second), but later this was increased dramatically. The SCSI bus speed had no bearing on the disk’s internal speed because of buffering between the SCSI bus and the disk drive’s internal data bus; however, many early disk drives had very small buffers, and thus had to be reformatted to a different interleave (just like ST-506 disks) when used on slow computers, such as early IBM PC compatibles and early Apple Macintoshes.

ATA disks have typically had no problems with interleave or data rate, due to their controller design, but many early models were incompatible with each other and couldn’t run in a master/slave setup (two disks on the same cable). This was mostly remedied by the mid-1990s, when ATA’s specification was standardised and the details began to be cleaned up, but still causes problems occasionally (especially with CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks, and when mixing Ultra DMA and non-UDMA devices).

Serial ATA does away with master/slave setups entirely, placing each disk on its own channel (with its own set of I/O ports) instead.

FireWire/IEEE 1394 and USB(1.0/2.0) HDDs are external units containing generally ATA or SCSI disks with ports on the back allowing very simple and effective expansion and mobility. Most FireWire/IEEE 1394 models are able to daisy-chain in order to continue adding peripherals without requiring additional ports on the computer itself.

Disk Interface Families Used in Personal Computers

Notable families of disk interfaces include:

Historical bit serial interfaces — connected to a hard disk drive controller with three cables, one for data, one for control and one for power. The HDD controller provided significant functions such as serial to parallel conversion, data separation and track formatting, and required matching to the drive in order to assure reliability.

ST506 used MFM (Modified Frequency Modulation) for the data encoding method.

ST412 was available in either MFM or RLL (Run Length Limited) variants.

Enhanced Small Disk Interface (ESDI) was an interface developed by Maxtor to allow faster communication between the PC and the disk than MFM or RLL.

Word serial interfaces — connect to a host bus adapter (today typically integrated into the "south bridge") with two cables, one for data/control and one for power. The earliest versions of these interfaces typically had a 16 bit parallel data transfer to/from the drive and there are 8 and 32 bit variants. Modern versions have serial data transfer. The word nature of data transfer makes the design of a host bus adapter significantly simpler than that of the precursor HDD controller.
- Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE), later renamed to ATA, and then later to PATA ("parallel ATA", to distinguish it from the new Serial ATA). The original name reflected the innovative integration of HDD controller with HDD itself, which was not found in earlier disks. Moving the HDD controller from the interface card to the disk drive helped to standardize interfaces, including reducing the cost and complexity. The 40 pin IDE/ATA connection of PATA transfers 16 bits of data at a time on the data cable. The data cable was originally 40 conductor, but later higher speed requirements for data transfer to and from the hard drive led to an "ultra DMA" mode, known as UDMA, which required an 80 conductor variant of the same cable; the other conductors provided the grounding necessary for enhanced high-speed signal quality. The interface for 80 pin only has 39 pins, the missing pin acting as a key to prevent incorrect insertion of the connector to an incompatible socket, a common cause of disk and controller damage.
- EIDE was an unofficial update (by Western Digital) to the original IDE standard, with the key improvement being the use of direct memory access (DMA) to transfer data between the disk and the computer without the involvement of the CPU, an improvement later adopted by the official ATA standards. By directly transferring data between memory and disk, DMA does not require the CPU/program/operating system to leave other tasks idle while the data transfer occurs.
- Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), originally named SASI for Shugart Associates System Interface, was an early competitor of ESDI. SCSI disks were standard on servers, workstations, and Apple Macintosh computers through the mid-90s, by which time most models had been transitioned to IDE (and later, SATA) family disks. Only in 2005 did the capacity of SCSI disks fall behind IDE disk technology, though the highest-performance disks are still available in SCSI and Fibre Channel only. The length limitations of the data cable allows for external SCSI devices. Originally SCSI data cables used single ended data transmission, but server class SCSI could use differential transmission, either low voltage differential (LVD) or high voltage differential (HVD).
- Fibre Channel (FC), is a successor to parallel SCSI interface on enterprise market. It is a serial protocol. In disk drives usually the Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) connection topology is used. FC has much broader usage than mere disk interfaces, it is the cornerstone of storage area networks (SANs). Recently other protocols for this field, like iSCSI and ATA over Ethernet have been developed as well. Confusingly, drives usually use copper twisted-pair cables for Fibre Channel, not fibre optics. The latter are traditionally reserved for larger devices, such as servers or disk array controllers.
- Serial ATA (SATA). The SATA data cable has one data pair for differential transmission of data to the device, and one pair for differential receiving from the device, just like EIA-422. That requires that data be transmitted serially. The same differential signaling system is used in RS485, LocalTalk, USB, Firewire, and differential SCSI.
- Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). The SAS is a new generation serial communication protocol for devices designed to allow for much higher speed data transfers and is compatible with SATA. SAS uses serial communication instead of the parallel method found in traditional SCSI devices but still uses SCSI commands.

Integrity

Due to the extremely close spacing between the heads and the disk surface, any contamination of the read-write heads or platters can lead to a head crash — a failure of the disk in which the head scrapes across the platter surface, often grinding away the thin magnetic film and causing data loss. Head crashes can be caused by electronic failure, a sudden power failure, physical shock, wear and tear, corrosion, or poorly manufactured platters and heads.

The HDD’s spindle system relies on air pressure inside the enclosure to support the heads at their proper flying height while the disk rotates. An HDD requires a certain range of air pressures in order to operate properly. The connection to the external environment and pressure occurs through a small hole in the enclosure (about 0.5 mm in diameter), usually with a carbon filter on the inside (the breather filter, see below). If the air pressure is too low, then there is not enough lift for the flying head, so the head gets too close to the disk, and there is a risk of head crashes and data loss. Specially manufactured sealed and pressurized disks are needed for reliable high-altitude operation, above about 10,000 feet (3,000 m). This does not apply to pressurized enclosures, like an airplane pressurized cabin. Modern disks include temperature sensors and adjust their operation to the operating environment. Breather holes can be seen on all disks — they usually have a sticker next to them, warning the user not to cover the holes. The air inside the operating disk is constantly moving too, being swept in motion by friction with the spinning platters. This air passes through an internal recirculation (or "recirc") filter to remove any leftover contaminants from manufacture, any particles or chemicals that may have somehow entered the enclosure, and any particles or outgassing generated internally in normal operation. Very high humidity for extended periods can corrode the heads and platters.

For giant magnetoresistive (GMR) heads in particular, a minor head crash from contamination (that does not remove the magnetic surface of the disk) still results in the head temporarily overheating, due to friction with the disk surface, and can render the data unreadable for a short period until the head temperature stabilizes (so called "thermal asperity," a problem which can partially be dealt with by proper electronic filtering of the read signal).

The hard disk’s electronics control the movement of the actuator and the rotation of the disk, and perform reads and writes on demand from the disk controller. Modern disk firmware is capable of scheduling reads and writes efficiently on the platter surfaces and remapping sectors of the media which have failed.

Landing Zones and Load / Unload Technology

In old disk models, power interruptions could result in the device shutting down with the heads in the data zone, which greatly increased the risk of data loss. To minimise this risk, a manual procedure existed for parking the hard disk heads before shutting down the computer.

To prevent such situation, most modern HDDs move the heads to a landing zone when powering down: this is an area of the platter usually near its inner diameter (ID), where no data is stored. This area is called the Contact Start/Stop (CSS) zone. Disks are designed such that either a spring or, more recently, rotational inertia in the platters is used to park the heads in the case of unexpected power loss.

Spring tension from the head mounting constantly pushes the heads towards the platter. While the disk is spinning, the heads are supported by an air bearing and experience no physical contact or wear. In CSS drives the sliders carrying the head sensors (often also just called heads) are designed to survive a number of landings and takeoffs from the media surface, though wear and tear on these microscopic components eventually takes its toll. Most manufacturers design the sliders to survive 50,000 contact cycles before the chance of damage on startup rises above 50%. However, the decay rate is not linear: when a disk is younger and has had fewer start-stop cycles, it has a better chance of surviving the next startup than an older, higher-mileage disk (as the head literally drags along the disk’s surface until the air bearing is established). For example, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 series of desktop hard disks are rated to 50,000 start-stop cycles. This means that no failures attributed to the head-platter interface were seen before at least 50,000 start-stop cycles during testing.

Around 1995 IBM pioneered a technology where a landing zone on the disk is made by a precision laser process (Laser Zone Texture = LZT) producing an array of smooth nanometer-scale "bumps" in a landing zone, thus vastly improving stiction and wear performance. This technology is still largely in use today (2007), predominantly in desktop and enterprise (3.5 inch) drives. In general, CSS technology can be prone to increased stiction (the tendency for the heads to stick to the platter surface), e.g. as a consequence of increased humidity. Excessive stiction can cause physical damage to the platter and slider or spindle motor. This drawback, combined with the need of higher non-operating shock robustness in mobile applications has led to the introduction of load/unload technology for drives used in laptops, MP3 players, and other portable devices. Load/unload technology, also introduced by IBM around the same time frame as LZT, relies on the heads being lifted off the platters onto plastic "ramps" near the outer disk edge, thus eliminating the risks of wear and stiction altogether. All HDDs today still use one of these two technologies. Each has a list of advantages and drawbacks in terms of loss of storage area on the disk, relative difficulty of mechanical tolerance control, cost of implementation, etc.

Addressing shock robustness, IBM also created a technology for their ThinkPad line of laptop computers called the Active Protection System. When a sudden, sharp movement is detected by the built-in accelerometer in the Thinkpad, internal hard disk heads automatically unload themselves to reduce the risk of any potential data loss or scratch defects. Apple later also utilized this technology in their PowerBook, iBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook line, known as the Sudden Motion Sensor. Toshiba has released similar technology in their laptops.

Disk Failures and Their Metrics

Most major hard disk and motherboard vendors now support self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology (S.M.A.R.T.), which attempts to alert users to impending failures.

However, not all failures are predictable. Normal use eventually can lead to a breakdown in the inherently fragile device, which makes it essential for the user to periodically back up the data onto a separate storage device. Failure to do so can lead to the loss of data. While it may be possible to recover lost information, it is normally an extremely costly procedure, and it is not possible to guarantee success. A 2007 study published by Google suggested very little correlation between failure rates and either high temperature or activity level. While several S.M.A.R.T. parameters have an impact on failure probability, a large fraction of failed drives do not produce predictive S.M.A.R.T. parameters. S.M.A.R.T. parameters alone may not be useful for predicting individual drive failures.

SCSI, SAS and FC drives are typically more expensive and are traditionally used in servers and disk arrays, whereas inexpensive ATA and SATA drives evolved in the home computer market and were perceived to be less reliable. This distinction is now becoming blurred.

The mean time between failures (MTBF) of SATA drives is usually about 600,000 hours (some drives such as Western Digital Raptor have rated 1.2 million hours MTBF), while SCSI drives are rated for upwards of 1.5 million hours. However, independent research indicates that MTBF is not a reliable estimate of a drive’s longevity. MTBF is conducted in laboratory environments in test chambers and is an important metric to determine the quality of a disk drive before it enters high volume production. Once the drive product is in production, the more valid metric is annualized failure rate (AFR). AFR is the percentage of real-world drive failures after shipping.

SAS drives are comparable to SCSI drives, with high MTBF and high reliability.

Enterprise SATA drives designed and produced for enterprise markets, unlike standard SATA drives, have reliability comparable other enterprise class drives.

Typically enterprise drives (all enterprise drives, including SCSI, SAS, enterprise SATA and FC) experience between .70%-.78% annual failure rates from the total installed drives.

Manufacturers

The technological resources and know-how required for modern drive development and production mean that as of 2007, over 98% of the world’s HDDs are manufactured by just a handful of large firms: Seagate (which now owns Maxtor), Western Digital, Samsung, and Hitachi (which owns the former disk manufacturing division of IBM). Fujitsu continues to make mobile- and server-class disks but exited the desktop-class market in 2001. Toshiba is a major manufacturer of 2.5-inch and 1.8-inch notebook disks. ExcelStor is a small HDD manufacturer.

Dozens of former HDD manufacturers have gone out of business, merged, or closed their HDD divisions; as capacities and demand for products increased, profits became hard to find, and the market underwent significant consolidation in the late 1980s and late 1990s. The first notable casualty of the business in the PC era was Computer Memories Inc or CMI; after an incident with faulty 20 MB AT disks in 1985, CMI’s reputation never recovered, and they exited the HDD business in 1987. Another notable failure was MiniScribe, who went bankrupt in 1990 after it was found that they had engaged in accounting fraud and inflated sales numbers for several years. Many other smaller companies (like Kalok, Microscience, LaPine, Areal, Priam and PrairieTek) also did not survive the shakeout, and had disappeared by 1993; Micropolis was able to hold on until 1997, and JTS, a relative latecomer to the scene, lasted only a few years and was gone by 1999, after attempting to manufacture HDDs in India. Their claim to fame was creating a new 3" form factor drive for use in laptops. Quantum and Integral also invested in the 3" form factor; but eventually gave up as this form factor failed to catch on. Rodime was also an important manufacturer during the 1980s, but stopped making disks in the early 1990s amid the shakeout and now concentrates on technology licensing; they hold a number of patents related to 3.5-inch form factor HDDs.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it

1988: Tandem Computers sold its disk manufacturing division to Western Digital (WDC), which was then a well-known controller designer.
1989: Seagate Technology bought Control Data’s high-end disk business, as part of CDC’s exit from hardware manufacturing.
1990: Maxtor buys MiniScribe out of bankruptcy, making it the core of its low-end disk division.
1994: Quantum bought DEC’s storage division, giving it a high-end disk range to go with its more consumer-oriented ProDrive range, as well as the DLT tape drive range.
1995: Conner Peripherals, which was founded by one of Seagate Technology’s co-founders along with personnel from MiniScribe, announces a merger with Seagate, which was completed in early 1996.
1996: JTS merges with Atari, allowing JTS to bring its disk range into production. Atari was sold to Hasbro in 1998, while JTS itself went bankrupt in 1999.
2000: Quantum sells its disk division to Maxtor to concentrate on tape drives and backup equipment.
2003: Following the controversy over mass failures of its Deskstar 75GXP range, HDD pioneer IBM sold the majority of its disk division to Hitachi, who renamed it Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST).
December 21, 2005: Seagate and Maxtor announced an agreement under which Seagate would acquire Maxtor in an all stock transaction valued at $1.9 billion. The acquisition was approved by the appropriate regulatory bodies, and closed on May 19, 2006.
2007: Hitachi releases the 1 TB Hitachi Deskstar 7k100 (1TB = 1 trillion bytes, roughly 931.5 GB).
2007: Western Digital (WDC) acquires Komag U.S.A, a thin-film media manufacturer, for USD 1 Billion.

History

For many years, HDDs were large, cumbersome devices, more suited to use in the protected environment of a data center or large office than in a harsh industrial environment (due to their delicacy), or small office or home (due to their size and power consumption). Before the early 1980s, most HDDs had 8-inch (20 cm) or 14-inch (35 cm) platters, required an equipment rack or a large amount of floor space (especially the large removable-media disks, which were often referred to as "washing machines"), and in many cases needed high-current or even three-phase power hookups due to the large motors they used. Because of this, HDDs were not commonly used with microcomputers until after 1980, when Seagate Technology introduced the ST-506, the first 5.25-inch HDD, with a capacity of 5 megabytes. In fact, in its factory configuration, the original IBM PC (IBM 5150) was not equipped with a hard disk drive.

Most microcomputer HDDs in the early 1980s were not sold under their manufacturer’s names, but by OEMs as part of larger peripherals (such as the Corvus Disk System and the Apple ProFile). The IBM PC/XT had an internal HDD, however, and this started a trend toward buying "bare" disks (often by mail order) and installing them directly into a system. Hard disk drive makers started marketing to end users as well as OEMs, and by the mid-1990s, HDDs had become available on retail store shelves.

While internal disks became the system of choice on PCs, external HDDs remained popular for much longer on the Apple Macintosh and other platforms. The first Apple Macintosh built between 1984 and 1986 had a closed architecture that did not support an external or internal hard drive. In 1986, Apple added a SCSI port on the back, making external expansion easy. External SCSI drives were also popular with older microcomputers such as the Apple II series, and were also used extensively in servers, a usage which is still popular today. The appearance in the late 1990s of high-speed external interfaces such as USB and FireWire has made external disk systems popular among PC users once again, especially for laptop users, users that install Linux in the additional external unit and users who move large amounts of data between two or more areas. Most HDD makers now make their disks available in external cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org

Bush signs bill boosting fuel standards

2007-12-21T15:40:00.000+07:00

President Bush signed into law Wednesday legislation that will bring more fuel-efficient vehicles into auto showrooms and require wider use of ethanol, calling it "a major step" toward energy independence and easing global warming.

The legislation signed by Bush at a ceremony at the Energy Department requires automakers to increase fuel efficiency by 40 percent to an industry average 35 miles per gallon by 2020. It also ramps up production of ethanol use to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022.

Bush said the new requirements will help "address our vulnerabilities and dependency" on foreign oil by reducing demand for gasoline and diversifying the nation’s fuel supply.

"We make a major step ... toward reducing our dependence on oil, fighting global climate change, expanding the production of renewable fuels and giving future generations ... a nation that is stronger cleaner and more secure," said the president.

Bush was flanked by Democrat and Republican members of Congress who had ushered the legislation through.

The House passed the energy bill Tuesday by a 314-100 vote after the Senate cleared it last week following lengthy negotiations and sometimes testy confrontations. Bush had vowed to veto the original legislation passed by the House because it included $21 billion in taxes.

The tax provisions were dropped to get the bill approved.

Congress delivered the legislation to the White House late Tuesday in a gas-hybrid sedan.

Bush noted that earlier this year he had proposed a plan to cut gasoline use by 20 percent over the next 10 years. But the president has long opposed arbitrary numerical standards for vehicle fuel economy.

The legislation increases the federal standard automakers must meet to an industry wide 35 mpg for passengers cars, SUVs and small trucks. The standard for cars today is 27.5 mpg and for trucks and SUVs 22.2 mpg.

It requires refineries to increase the use of ethanol from about 6 billion gallons a year this year to 36 billion gallons by 2022 and mandates that by then at least 21 billion gallons are to come from feedstocks other than corn.

Bush praised that provision which would spur the development of ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks such as prairie grass and wood chips.

"We understand the hog growers are getting nervous. The price of corn is up," said the president.

Flanking Bush were Senate Majority Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California as well as Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., a longtime protector of the auto industry. Dingell played a key role in working out a compromise on the vehicle fuel economy measure.

Democrats have hailed the legislation as a turn to a new direction in U.S. energy policy.

"I firmly believe this country needs to have a comprehensive energy strategy," said Bush before signing the bill. He referred to the need for more nuclear energy and domestic oil production — issues that the new energy bill ignores.

Instead, the bill focuses largely on conservation, calling for more energy efficiency in "light bulbs to light trucks" as Dingell observed during the House debate on the legislation.

"This is a choice between yesterday and tomorrow" on energy policy, Pelosi said Tuesday shortly before the House passed the bill, sending it to the White House.

The bill also calls for improved energy efficiency of appliances such as refrigerators, freezers and dishwashers, and a 70 percent increase in the efficiency of light bulbs. It also calls for energy efficiency improvements in federal buildings and construction of commercial buildings.

The new lighting standards alone are projected to lower consumers’ annual electricity bills by $13 billion in 2020, remove the need for 60 mid-size power plants and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, by 100 million tons a year, said the advocacy group Alliance to Save Energy.

Democrats said the fuel economy requirements will save motorists $700 to $1,000 a year in fuel costs and reduce oil demand by 1.1 million barrels a day when the fuel-stingy vehicles are widely on the road.

The overall bill including more ethanol use and various efficiency requirements and incentives, will cut U.S. oil demand by 4 million barrels a day by 2030, more than twice the current daily imports from the volatile Persian Gulf, Democrats said.

Killer Marketing Schemes

2007-12-21T15:39:00.000+07:00

Killer Marketing Schemes

Chapter 1
1. Educate yourself with new strategies to increaseyour sales. You could take classes, subscribe toe-zines and magazines, read books or e-books, etc.Internet business and technology move at lightningspeed. You need to keep up so you don’t get leftbehind.
2. End your slow sales periods by planning ahead.Plan to add extra bonuses, hold a sale or packageyour product with other products. For example,you could say, "Buy one, get one free!" Anotherexample would be, "Buy over $20 worth ofproducts and get 5 free bonuses!”
3. Make more commissions from the affiliate©2005 Resale-Rights-Solution.com All right reservedprograms you join by giving your own endorsementsfor the products. They usually pull more sales thanads. For example, you could say, "This e-book sentchills up my spine! I highly recommend buying it!"Another example, "All I have to say is, ‘Wow! It’sthat good!’"
4. Speed up your Internet access. You can get youronline business tasks done faster, which will helpyou stay ahead of your competition. It can speed upyour research, online marketing tools, Internet utilities,software downloads, etc.
5. Allow people who do not have time to exploreyour site to download your web site in e-bookformat. This will allow them time to view it offline.Just compile it like you would a normal e-book.You could also turn it into a viral marketing tool byallowing people to give it away to others for free.

Chapter 2
6. Use a lot of headlines and sub-headlines on yourweb site. This will hold people’s attention and keepthem at your web site longer. Sometimes peopledon’t have time to read a whole sales letter. This’llallow you to sell to people who are skimmers. Plusit will get the reader’s full attention at the same time.
7. Take advantage of popular fads. If something is©2005 Resale-Rights-Solution.com All right reservedpopular at the current time, put up a web site aboutit. Just promote your main site on the fad web site.You could also send off a quick article or pressrelease about it to get free publicity. You could alsodo this with popular search engine keywords andphrases.
8. Allow your prospects to choose between a retailor wholesale price. Of course you need to make aprofit on the wholesale price. Just charge people amonthly or yearly membership fee to always get yourproducts at wholesale cost. Your business would belike the offline wholesale shopping clubs.
9. Allow other related web sites that don’t have achat room to link to yours. They’ll get use of a freechat room and you’ll draw extra traffic to your site.Just publish your ad right above the chat roomarea. Your ad will draw extra exposure from all theother web sites sending traffic to it.
10. Increase the perceived value of your free thingsor bonuses by including the retail dollar amount thefreebies would normally sell for. For example, youcould say, "Bonus 1# Marketing Tips Newsletter(a value of $120)." Another example, "Get 7Bonuses With A Retail Value Of $345! That morethan pays for your purchase!"

Chapter 3
11. Create your own web ring. You will gain highlytargeted traffic to your web site and others will linkto your site because they’ll want to join the ring. Forexample, if you were selling products to net marketers,you would want to start an online marketing web ring.You would then draw your target audience.
12. Tell people the point or focus of your web site.Explain to them what things they can do or whichgoals they can accomplish while visiting your site.For example, you could say, "Read 250 Free NetMarketing Tips So You Can Increase Your Sales!Plus Check Our Wide Selection Of OnlineMarketing E-books!"
13. Make your visitors feel comfortable at your website. Give them your main business address. Yourvisitors may not trust you if you’re using a P.O. Box.If you want to make them feel really comfortable,give them your business, home and cell phonenumber. Then they will know they can get hold ofyou if they need help.
14. Include a FAQ on your web site or via e-mailon an autoresponder. This will give your customersextra convenience without having to contact you.Of course there are some questions you can’tanswer by using Frequently Asked Questions. Youwill get questions that you never thought of, but youcan just keep adding them to your list.©2005 Resale-Rights-Solution.com All right reserved
15. Buy advertising space on discussion board websites. They are usually arranged by subject; thatmakes them highly targeted. For example, if you areselling gardening tools, you would want to advertiseon gardening, farm, tool and lawn-related discussionboards.

Chapter 4
16. Start a free e-mail newsletter to create your ownopt-in list. Create a title that grabs the reader’sattention. Submit it to free e-zine directories on theInternet. Advertise it on your web site. Offer a freebieor other incentive for people to subscribe. Give yourreaders mostly original and quality content.
17. Record all your new promotional ideas, good orbad, into an ‘ideas’ journal. Sometimes you cancombine ideas to create new ones to increase yoursales. You never know when you, or someone youknow, needs a new, profitable idea. Plus you couldalso sell your ideas to other business owners.
18. Convert your web site and free e-mail newsletterinto different languages. This will increase youroverall target market. You just won’t be targetingjust one language, you’ll be targeting most of the majorones. Plus it wouldn’t hurt to learn a few differentlanguages for this new global economy.©2005 Resale-Rights-Solution.com All right reserved
19. Make your classified ads stand out in a crowd.Use all capital letters in the headline, divide letterswith extra spaces, add in text symbols, etc. Forexample, you could write, "WIN a VACATION toLas Vegas!" Another example would be, "Win A ($)Trip To Las Vegas!"
20. Remember your customers are always right, evenif they are not. They are the lifeblood of yourbusiness. Resolve all conflicts quickly and painlessly.There are many businesses which are solely profitablefrom repeat business. You don’t want to always haveto rely on converting prospects into customers.

Chapter 5
21. Create a bond with your visitors by bringing uplikes or dislikes you have in common with them inyour ad copy. Just make sure you do your research.For example, you could say, "I hate it when you haveto wait in line for a long time at the drive-through."Another example, "I really like it when I have extramoney to spend."
22. Team up with your weaker competitors to beatyour stronger ones. You can create win/win jointventure and cross-promotion deals with them. Youcould share marketing and advertising costs, createnew products and services, share skills and strategies,trade leads, etc.©2005 Resale-Rights-Solution.com All right reserved
23. Design your site so it will be worth bookmarking.Your visitors will bookmark your web site if it’s fullof free, original content like articles, e-books, etc.You could survey your target audience to see whichweb sites or what type of sites they visit a lot. Thenyou could place those links all in one section of yourweb site. You could advertise it as a start page.
24. Offer your customers back-end products. It iseasier to sell to existing customers. If you do nothave a back-end product, join an affiliate program.You could offer that product as a back-end offer.Just make sure it’s the right product for your targetaudience.
25. Increase the perceived value of your product.You could offer an affiliate program, give away freebonuses or use famous endorsements on your ad.Another way is to offer a sample or trial of yourproduct or service. If people like it or it works, thatwill increase the perceived value because it givesthem 100% personal proof.

Chapter 6
26. Remind your visitors to promote your web site.Use phrases like: "Refer Our Web Site To AFriend" or "Link To Our Web Site". Offer themincentives for referrals. You could give them free©2005 Resale-Rights-Solution.com All right reservede-books, reports, software and other informationalproducts. You could also offer them discounts onother products you sell.
27. Make your testimonials more powerful. You canhave people include pictures, handwritten signaturesand normal net contact information with eachtestimonial. Other ideas would be to have peopleproduce an online audio sound bite or video clip ofthemselves, home or cell phone numbers, proof oftheir credibility or authority, etc.
28. Upsell to all your customers. You could sell addonproducts, deluxe products, extra parts, relatedproducts, add-on services, etc. You could offerthem add-on products before or after they reachyour order page. Just make sure the upsell productsare compatible with the main product you’re selling.
29. Place your ad in targeted e-zines. Ask the ownerif you could place your ad in a higher position inexchange for a percentage of the ad’s profits. Youcould also negotiate a lower ad price in exchangefor you giving them affiliate commissions or an adin your e-zine.30 Use permission marketing to increase your sales.You simply ask people to sign up to your e-mailinglist. They’ll already be interested in your messages orads because they’ve visited your related web site.You could also offer them incentives for signing up©2005 Resale-Rights-Solution.com All right reservedlike freebies, discounts, expertise, content, etc.

At software giant, pain gives rise to progress

2007-12-21T15:37:00.000+07:00

"I remember buses pulling up to the Microsoft campus to shuttle engineers away from their day jobs to go work the phones down at (product support)," said Thomlinson, who heads Microsoft’s security engineering efforts. "That was just heartbreaking."

The Blaster worm had just hit, swamping Microsoft’s support lines with calls from angry customers.

Andrew Cushman, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center, remembers standing in Muck boots and installing a catch basin in his front yard when he got a call from an account manager. It was just days after September 11, 2001, and one of Microsoft’s largest customers had just been hit with what turned out to be the Nimda worm.

George Stathakopoulos, Cushman’s boss, still hasn’t seen the end of the movie Master and Commander. In spring 2004, he was sitting on his couch watching the film when he got the call that Sasser had hit.

Indeed, much of Microsoft’s current security practices can be traced to painful lessons learned during the past decade by people whose job it is to secure Microsoft’s products.

Because of the experience of Mike Nash, a vice president at Microsoft, the company finally instituted calling trees as a way to quickly reach people in an emergency. When the Slammer worm hit in January 2003, Nash had to work feverishly to track down the vice president of SQL Server, Gordon Mangione, eventually locating him at his sister’s wedding in Canada. (Slammer used Microsoft’s SQL Server database to propagate a denial-of-service attack.) Nash first heard reports of Slammer on the local news radio station at 6 a.m. At first, he thought he was dreaming. But as the report played a second time, he knew it was real and headed into work. "I was the second one there," Nash recalls.

Slammer also taught the company that it was not enough to have a patch; the patch had to be easy enough to deploy so that most customers would do so, lessening the chances that outbreaks would propagate so quickly. And it was Blaster that taught the company that it wasn’t enough to patch a single flaw; it needed a systematic process for catching whole classes of vulnerabilities, a realization that paved the way for Microsoft’s current approach, known as the Security Development Lifecycle, or SDL.

"We’ve put a lot of our best people in these areas," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said in an interview with CNET News.com. "Still tons to be done, but you know, we’ve definitely made five years of progress in the last five years."

Much of the reason for that traumatic on-the-job training can be traced to Microsoft’s decade-long evolution in how it and its employees deal with security. Until 1997, security was seen mainly as a set of features that the company bolted onto its software long after product design and development. The idea of securing code as it was being developed had not been considered.

IE flaws send Microsoft scrambling
That all began to change in March 1997, when the first significant flaws were discovered in Internet Explorer. Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute found a vulnerability in browser shortcuts known as .LNK files. Even as Microsoft was scrambling to deal with the problem, word of the flaw hit cable television news. A few hours later, researchers at the University of Maryland found a second problem and reported it to Microsoft.

Simultaneously, the IE team, which Stathakopoulos was part of, was in the process of moving into a new building. The timing couldn’t have been worse: most of their equipment was in boxes. Someone had to run to a store to buy a power supply for one of the team’s laptops--the power cords had been packed away--before the battery went dead. Jason Garms, now a senior director for technical strategy, wrote the company’s first security bulletin in a Windows’ Notepad file and then copied it to a floppy so it could be distributed to customers.

At the time, the company didn’t even have a system in place where outsiders could report security bugs directly to Microsoft engineers. The IE flaw came to light because someone had called Microsoft’s support line and the matter had gradually escalated.

"We said ’This has to stop,’" Stathakopoulos recalls thinking of the disjointed system at the time. "It’s not working for us."

In the aftermath of that bug, Microsoft created the Microsoft Security Response Team as well as a separate Internet Explorer security group. The company also created an e-mail address where outsiders could report potential issues.

The Microsoft Security Response Team was made up of volunteers--employees who had other day jobs, but were interested in helping out when there was a security problem.

5 things about Betamax VOIP you didn't know

2007-12-21T15:26:00.000+07:00

We receive enormous comments for any post remotely related to Betamax and its Voip Services. Some of the post are targetted towards their voip minute billings issues or some with their voip service.

Today, we thought its about time we educate our readers about things you need to be cautious about while using Betamax.

We all know they had or still have issues with their system. Most of the time, the account gets blocked or credit disappear etc. Lets see how we can possibly protect ourselves to the max if not the fullest.

1) Making Calls Via Betamax product such as Voipcheap, voipraider, lowratevoip, nonoh, 12voip etc:

You need to be extremely cautious while using your own VOIP hardware while making calls via their SIP services.

Users like Ramesh from Bankok emailed us saying " The published rate to make a call to India using voipraider is 3.5 cents. But I’ve made a call using ATA, and it deducts about 14 cents per minute. Afterwards I’ve made a phone-to-phone call using voipraider. Same 14 cent again. But an additional 5 cents per call for connection.
Finally I’ve made a call thro’ softphone. Just 3.5 cents only getting deducted.

Now does that mean, if you call via their softphone its only 3.5 cents but if you use any other method like SIP Phone or VOIP Adapter, they will charge you more? Anyone else can confirm this?

2) Phone to Phone Calling Secret you possible didn’t know:

Lets take an example you are in India and want to call USA. You are jumping with joy looking at USA as free destination. You buy some credit and thought of making a call. You are obsessed with your landline phone so you make a Phone to Phone call. Had a great chat. Now its time to check the account balance, oops you got furious? They possibly deducted some money from your account. You run to VOIP Guide screaming over betamax that they are cheating you. That was a typical story.

However, you missed the whole point. When you are using Phone to Phone calls always remember that when you receive a callback from their service, it costs them some money. India is not a free country, so if you use phone to phone, the call you receive in India is charged. Hope that makes it clear for some who thought they lost their money.

3) Most Common Registration 32 error:

We suggest you try disabling your firewall or antivirus software which might be blocking certain ports. Besides that, another common pattern is if you have used their service in the past, the registry entries are created in your windows registry. Flush them out and try registering again. The registry hack is not recommended for the weak hearted means newbies :-)This can crash your PC, am serious.

4) Improving Voice Quality: While making calls, shut down all other resource hungry bandwidth eating apps in the background. Pause your downloads. The more bandwidth your voip service has the more clarity you should get. People often forget that your uploads matter than most than your downloads. You wouldn’t know this unless you are a gamer :-)

5)Fraud VOIP Resellers: There are apparently some people claiming to be resellers of Betamax. I am not saying all are fraud but beware of them who imitate betamax products or for that matter any other voip service and claim to provide you a free service. I suggest extreme caution while buying from such resellers.

We hope that this quick betamax usage guide should help you in dealing with Betamax services and improve your overall experience.

If anyone has any more tips to share with our readers, please drop them under comments.

Post : Vinay