UC-Berkeley invites international journalists

Applications are being accepted through March 14 for a unique program providing mid-career journalists from outside the U.S. with an opportunity to pursue advanced professional training and academic study at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.In the non-degree Visiting Scholar program, participants can audit courses offered at the journalism school and

The Digital Economy Act – a technical point

As BT and TalkTalk Broadband prepare for the judicial review of the Digital Economy Act, the Act itself continues quietly to prepare itself for life post-JR. The statutory instrument that apportions costs for the Initial Obligations (right owners pay 75% and ISPs the rest) has now been laid before Parliament. The cost split needs to be approved for inclusion in the Code for Initial Obligations, which has a completion deadline, I think, of 8 March.

The consultation over costs took place in Spring last year and the Government published a draft SI in the autumn, which then disappeared for three months. The Government had decided the SI had better be notified to the European Commission under the Technical Standards Directive separately from the Code. The Directive requires Member States to send the Commission ‘draft technical regulation’ (including requirements relating to the provision of electronic services) in case it presents barriers to trade.

Compliance with the Directive is one of the key grounds for JR – the ISPs say the Government should have notified the Digibill itself to the Commission (JR grounds here). Is the Government’s notification too little, too late?

I wonder what readers think? The Technical Standards Directive doesn’t apply to rules relating to matters covered by EU telecoms legislation – Art 1(5). Doesn’t telecoms law cover the DEA’s areas? The Authorization Directive allows governments to impose conditions on ISPs in accordance with the E-Commerce Directive (Art 15 covers requiring service providers to inform about illegal activities) and the Framework Directive covers measures restricting end users’ access to the internet.

Ethernet over Copper vs Bonded T1

T1 lines have been the gold standard for small and medium business connectivity. Their popularity has grown as pricing has plunged in recent years. Now there’s a newer technology service that gives you even more bandwidth for less money and is even easier to interface. That service is Ethernet over Copper.

Ethernet over Copper, or EoC, leverages one of the primary attributes of T1 lines. That’s their ability to be provisioned over ordinary twisted pair telephone wiring. A T1 lines comes into your facility in the same bundle of installed telephone wire that brings in multi-line telephone service. Because it is ordinary telco wire, most every business location in the country is already wired for service and enabled for T1.

T1 lines use two twisted pair versus one pair for an analog telephone line. One pair is used for the upstream connection. The other is used for the downstream connection. This gives you 1.5 Mbps in both directions at the same time, also called full duplex operation. T1 line prices have come down to several hundred dollars per month, although that number varies with location.

For about the same money you can get Ethernet over Copper bandwidth. But your Ethernet link will be running at 3 Mbps rather than 1.5 Mbps. Why the difference? It’s a matter of more efficient modulation technology. T1 was designed by the phone companies right after WWII to transport telephone calls digitally. Thus, it was designed as a synchronized system subdivided into 24 precise channels. It’s a great match for loading phone lines onto a digital trunk, but bears no resemblance to today’s network protocols. Ethernet is based on packets, not channels, and doesn’t need the T1 system for transport. In fact, it takes a protocol conversion to go back and forth from T1 to Ethernet.

T1 lines can compete with Ethernet over Copper by using more lines to increase bandwidth. Add another 2 pair for an additional T1 line and you can double your bandwidth from 1.5 Mbps to 3 Mbps. The process used to couple multiple T1 lines to create one effectively larger line is called bonding. As you might expect, Ethernet over Copper lines can also be bonded to create a larger bandwidth connection. T1 line bonding is practical up to 10 or 12 Mbps. EoC bonding can deliver bandwidths as high as 100 Mbps over very short distances. Standard Ethernet network speed of 10 Mbps is readily available. You can also get 15 or 20 Mbps service without too much trouble. Once bandwidth gets above 45 to 50 Mbps, it generally makes sense to move up to fiber optic connections.

The one rub with Ethernet over Copper technology is that it is distance limited. That’s why EoC is often called a Metro Ethernet service. You’ll find it readily available in major metropolitan areas, but not farther out in sparsely populated areas. EoC delivery is generally limited to a few miles from the central office where the termination equipment is installed. For higher bandwidths, it’s only a matter of blocks away from the nearest point of presence. Downtown that’s no concern because of the concentration of both users and service provider facilities.

T1, on the other hand, has no distance limitation. It was designed from the beginning to have regenerators placed every mile or so in the line to restore the signal to a perfect wave shape. Longer spans require more engineering and construction effort, so cost goes up. Even so, you can get T1 service from coast to coast if you like. Actually, the T1 line is only carried by copper to the nearest telco central office. From there it rides on a fiber optic network to the central office nearest the far location and is then delivered on copper wiring.

Business bandwidth demands are increasing faster than fiber is being trenched to every business. That doesn’t mean you are stuck with a basic 1.5 Mbps of service when you really need 10 or 20 Mbps. Find out what’s available for your business location and compare prices for Ethernet over Copper vs Bonded T1 services now.

The Dreaded Stairs

This short video has nothing to do with the stock market or investments. But you should enjoy it if you like music and you like exercise.

ACS:Law seeks to end pursuit of alleged file sharers

The BBC and Which? both report that Andrew Crossley, the lawyer behind controversial law firm ACS:Law, has withdrawn from pursuing 26 alleged illegal filesharers, blaming “criminal attacks” and bomb threats as reasons. In a statement read out in court by Tim Ludbrook, barrister for MediaCAT, Crossley’s client, Mr Crossley says "I have ceased my work...I have been subject to criminal attack. My e-mails have been hacked. I have had death threats and bomb threats," adding "It has caused immense hassle to me and my family". This Blog previously reported (28/09/10) that in September, ACS: Law was the victim of a cyber attack which exposed thousands of its e-mails which provided personal details of the people ACS:Law were pursuing and the pornographic films they were accused of downloading for free. That data breach is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Information Commissioner. Which? had complained to the Solicitor's Regulation Authority over ACS: Law's 'bullying' and 'excessive' behaviour in 2009.

Colin Birss QC, Judge of the Patents County Court, seems rather unimpressed with ACS:Law and Mr Crossley, with the BBC reporting that Judge Birss described the twists and turns as "mind-boggling" and saying “I am getting the impression with every twist and turn since I started looking at these cases that there is a desire to avoid any judicial scrutiny”. But it was the detail that came out in court that was fascinating – and the court heard that when any revenues are generated from ACS:Law’s actions, the law firm received a 65% share with copyright owners getting 35%. The monies are primarily from members of the public who have settled after receiving letters threatening a court action unless a payment of £500 is made.

The BBC reports that in his statement Mr Crossley said of the 26 potential actions "It has always been my intention to litigate and, but for the fact that I have ceased this work, my intention was to litigate forcefully in these 26 cases”. The court was not going to automatically agree to that either and Judge Birss said granting permission to discontinue the cases was not a simple matter, due largely to the fact that the actual copyright holders were not in court. This meant that, in theory, these copyright holders could continue to pursue cases against the 26 defendants. The case seems to have been made even more complicated by the fact that a new firm, GCB Ltd, had begun sending similar letters, including one letter to one of the defendants who had been told just the day before that no further action would be taken, although Mr Crossley said in his statement that there were "no new letters pending" and that GCB Ltd had also halted its work. He then explained that he had no connection with GCB Ltd beyond the fact that the founders of the firm had previously been employed at ACS: Law.

http://www.bbc7.co.uk/news/technology-12253746

http://www.which.co.uk/news/2011/01/acs-law-stops-pursuing-file-sharers-243011/

Stocks Going Ex Dividend the First Week of February

Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends'. This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only in bull markets. In flat or choppy markets, you have to be extremely careful.

In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can't sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable Excel list of the stocks going ex dividend during the next week or two. The list contains many dividend paying companies, all with market caps over $500 million, and yields over 2%. Here are a few examples showing the stock symbol, the market capitalization, the ex-dividend date and the yield.

Central Vermont Public Service Corp (CV) market cap: $284.5M ex div date: 2/2/2011 yield: 4.3%

Hudson City Bancorp, Inc. (HCBK) market cap: $5.8B ex div date: 2/2/2011 yield: 5.3%

Northstar Realty Finance Corp. (NRF) market cap: $373.5M ex div date: 2/2/2011 yield: 8.3%

FirstEnergy Corp. (FE) market cap: $12.0B ex div date: 2/3/2011 yield: 5.6%

IDACORP, Inc. (IDA) market cap: $1.9B ex div date: 2/3/2011 yield: 3.2%

Intel Corporation (INTC) market cap: $118.5B ex div date: 2/3/2011 yield: 3.5%

The Southern Company (SO) market cap: $32.2B ex div date: 2/3/2011 yield: 4.8%

The additional ex-dividend stocks can be found at wsnn.com. (If you have been to the website before, and the latest link doesn't show up, you may have to empty your cache.) If you like dividend stocks, you should check out the high yield utility stocks and the Monthly Dividend Stocks at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com or WSNN.com.

Dividend definitions:

Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.

Ex-dividend date: the day on which if you buy the stock, you would not be entitled to that particular dividend; or the first day on which a shareholder can sell the shares and still be entitled to the dividend.

Record date: the day when you must be on the company's books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks two business days before the record date.

Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.

Don't forget to reconfirm the ex-dividend date with the company before implementing this technique.

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Content Delivery Networks Transformed

It’s no secret that bandwidth requirements are increasing across the board. Much of this has resulted from the move to IP video streaming and downloads. It’s also a function of more sophisticated websites than what were envisioned in the early days of HTML. Now graphics are huge and sites are interactive, with all sorts of browser and server based application code. The issue has been how to deal with network bandwidth requirements that are accelerating with no end in site. One answer is to transform the network and the sites that use it.

Why isn’t simply increasing WAN bandwidth sufficient? Indeed, WAN bandwidth is increasing by leaps and bounds. In fact, the flood of packets on the Internet has resulted in such traffic jams that CDNs or Content Delivery Networks have arisen to create fast bypass lanes around the Internet superhighway.

Bandwidth is expensive. Both copper and fiber based network bandwidth prices have plunged in recent years. Even so, the demand to transport more and more data per user is causing many companies to increase their telecom services budgets to keep up. The end user has also increased their DSL, Cable and wireless broadband service speeds, but there is a limit to what they will pay and what is even available in many areas.

Two companies have teamed up to deal with this dilemma head-on. Level 3 is a global connectivity and content delivery network services provider. Strangeloop is a company that specializes in network and website acceleration. Combine a CDN with advanced acceleration techniques and you create a much faster network. How much faster? Up to a 30% performance improvement compared with what’s been available previously.

Note that this 30% performance boost is not a simple cranking up of network bandwidth. What these techniques do is actively manage three aspects of the process: network, delivery and code. Both Level 3 and Strangeloop actively manage how Web content is delivered to an end user without that user being aware that anything other than a simple file transfer is going on.

For instance, multiple copies of website files are hosted on Level 3’s Content Delivery Network and sent to the user from the most optimal cache server for that user location. Level 3 has 35 strategically placed caching locations. They also offer a streaming service for real-time content such as video.

Strangeloop goes further by actively managing how each page is rendered. They do things like compressing images for mobile viewers, increasing parallel data download from server to browser, reducing roundtrips by consolidating similar resources into single files, and delaying execution of non-critical scripts until the rest of the page has loaded and been rendered on the browser. Their process also lets the browser start downloading page resources while the server is busy generating the HTML page. Normally this is a serial process that takes longer than necessary.

Human nature dictates that the longer it takes for a page to load, the more people bail out due to impatience or mistakenly thinking that the site is broken and will never load. By speeding up the site rendering process so that users see the result in a second or two can dramatically improve the stickiness of the site and desired actions they take while visiting.

Are you frustrated with the sluggish performance of your site or streaming content because of too much information taking too long to reach your users? Perhaps you can benefit from the Level 3 CDN Site Transformer for enterprise users or other network improvements. Explain your need and get pricing and availability on high performance bandwidth services now.