GuruNews, Volume 9 Number 36, 10-1-09

Thu Oct 1 18:09:23 PDT 2009

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Vol. 9, No. 36                           

10-1-09

1 Net neutrality 

2 The flu is everywhere!

3 Spyware market, BIOS/MS marriage, budgets on steroids, more Google gadgets

4 Deep hardware info

5 Converting to DVD

Net neutrality is a term that has been bandied about for several years and has many different definitions, depending on who you talk to.

These definitions call for more regulation, no regulation and all kinds of permutations but the simplest explanation is the best.  Leave the Internet alone.

Since the early days it has been nurtured by government grants to push its availability but never its content.  There have never been taxes on net-based sales and no ISP throttled access to anything.  It was a vast new frontier of information and commerce.

Over the years this has lead to all kinds of technological innovation.  Streaming video and radio, financial solutions like PayPal and electronic shopping carts, online wholesalers like Amazon, Voice over IP (VoIP) for phone calls etc.

Recently ISPs (I’m looking at you Comcast) have decided to start discriminating on speeds allowed for different content.  They are limiting the bandwidth for certain content, like peer-to-peer file sharing (often done completely legally for open source content), VoIP and other applications.

Some ISPs have gone so far as to propose different access speed tiers for different websites, which the websites would pay for.  In other words, if Amazon or Woot paid a fee to the ISP then the site would be opened up for faster access.  Sites that didn’t pay up… sorry.  Access will be much slower.

Allowing this sort of skullduggery on the part of the ISPs would be a huge impediment to new ideas, like the next Facebook or Twitter.  As a matter of fact, there would never be another breakthrough idea like that since small start-ups could ill afford an expensive upper tier “membership” and would be doomed to sink into obscurity.

Would you watch YouTube videos if they paused to buffer the stream every five seconds?  I’m guessing not, and if this plan were in place a few years ago YouTube would have died aborning.

To prevent this abomination FCC Chairman Genachowski proposes to force ISPs to keep their bandwidth open, or “neutral”, for any and all legal content.  In other words, regulating the Internet to remain exactly as it is.

Of course there are dissenters.  And as usual, we’re talking about a group of mostly lawyers and technology-challenged folks who don’t know a byte from a bagel.  As a matter of fact, they don’t even seem to understand simple logic.

The stupidity, introduced by Kay Bailey Hutchison as an amendment to an appropriations bill, seeks to block any funding to the FCC to enforce this neutrality.  I can only guess this amendment was helpfully written by a Telecom to save Ms. Bailey the trouble.

Hutchison goes so far as to say “America has experienced robust investment and innovation in network performance and online content and applications. For that innovation to continue, we must tread lightly when it comes to new regulations."

In Internet parlance I can only say “LOL, Wut?!?” 

One wonders if the good Senator is aware of the staggering amount of money, extended through grants and other government programs, that we the people have provided for that investment in the network, and the innovation has come from small groups or individuals with a unique idea, started on a shoe string and often run on a used server in a garage or basement.

For innovation to continue the Internet must remain open and neutral.  The only ones threatening to tread on anything are large Telecoms and other providers, which Ms. Hutchison would allow to tread away.

The lack of understanding of such a simple concept is stupefying.

It pales in comparison to another theory I’ve heard, however.  This theory, straight from the folks who brought you the “Grassy Knoll” and “Capricorn One”, think this new regulation is a power grab to allow the government to censor free speech on the Internet.

Umm, yeah.  What part of “open and neutral” pertains to censorship I can’t seem to grasp.  Obviously I lack the required level of crazy.

I’m so stunned by all this insanity I don’t even know how to proceed, so I’ll leave you with an appropriate quote:

“We have always been at war with Eurasia.”

Kevin Mefford, Editor

pcguru at microdome.net

Terry Wise

www.ratland.com

Tech News of the Week

Spyware is becoming a big business by getting script kiddies to infect computers on commission:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/30/thriving_malware_affiliate_biz/

Windows 7 coupled with a new version of a BIOS from computer
motherboard maker Phoenix lets the computer start booting Windows in
around a second, and a fully usable desktop in 20 seconds.  Boot times
are about to get lots better:

http://tinyurl.com/yemmpcw

BillShrink is a service that allows you to put in some basic
information about your current cell phone plan, credit cards, or bank
accounts to see if you can get a better deal using another service or
bank.

http://www.billshrink.com

Google Wave, Google's new online collaboration and chat application
launched to 100,000 beta testers on Wednesday.  Take a look at the
link for what you'll be able to do with Wave:

http://lifehacker.com/5370738/google-wave-first-look

Copy us in on the best of the web!

Daniel A. Williams 

daniel at thepcgurus.com

Download of the Week

We've recommended the Belarc Adviser as an application that will provide a comprehensive snapshot of your system's hardware and software configuration.  This week's download, HWINFO32, concentrates on your hardware.

If you want to know absolutely everything there is to know about your hardware, but you don't want to spend any money on software to do it for you, download the free HWiNFO32. This freebie provides an astonishing amount of information about every aspect of your hardware, and it's extremely easy to use. You'll get details about your CPU, including all cores if it's multiple core, your graphics card, BIOS, RAM, system cache, drives, and more.  Get it here:

 http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/HWiNFO.shtml 

Carlita Lupino

Cards57 at gmail.com

Email Question of the Week

Q:  We are trying to convert a family reunion video placed on a DVD+RW using windows media player to a DVD+R that can be used in a regular DVD player. Can you recommend a good free DVD conversion software? All the ones we have found with google require a purchase and many of them have security certificate problems. Thank you for your time and attention to this question.

A:  Was it burned as a .wmv file or actually converted to DVD?  You're existing burning software should be able to convert it and burn to DVD format if it's a computer video type file.  If it's already in DVD format just make a copy to DVD-R.

Email us if that doesn't answer your question and include the name of the burning software you have installed and we can try to help more...

Kevin Mefford

pcguru at microdome.net

Contact info and legal stuff

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