tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33506411823564840182024-03-13T17:26:42.640-04:00Castle Point MortgageBringing You the Bestcastlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-17070496643527350962008-03-06T16:37:00.001-05:002008-03-06T16:39:48.164-05:00Cable Telephony Tops 13 Million SubscribersLast we checked, cable controlled roughly 70% of the VoIP market, a number we're sure has risen since the stellar fourth quarter VoIP additions most cable providers reported. AT&T, Verizon, Qwest and Embarq are collectively losing roughly 2.6 <a href="http://www.ipdemocracy.com/archives/002897top_telcos_lose_a_steady_23_to_26_million_linesqtr.php">million landline customers per quarter</a>, and about half of those users are converting over to cable VoIP. All told, cable operators now report more than <a href="http://www.ipdemocracy.com/archives/002899cable_telephony_tops_the_13million_mark.php">13 million phone customers</a>. While the price of cable VoIP is steep compared to indie VoIP, customers say they're <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/85643">more satisfied</a> with phone service from their cable provider than from their phone company.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com49tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-314799987045925972008-02-06T15:33:00.000-05:002008-02-06T15:38:53.168-05:00US Army struggles with Windows to Linux overhaulIn multiple media reports over the past two weeks, the US Army has professed its love for the penguin. The Army eventually intends to move from a Windows-based infrastructure over to Linux for its new, roughly $200bn weapons program.<br /><br />But the Army has largely been prepping new Linux-friendly weapons, vehicles, and devices before the completion of a software network to connect them to its existing Windows-based infrastructure — or blithely, putting the chariot before the warhorse.<br /><br />When the Army began development of its next-gen hardware (dubbed Future Combat Systems, or FCS), they turned to Boeing and SAIC to develop the operating system rather than basing the software on its established Blue Force Tracking.<br /><br />Blue Force is a Windows-based satellite tracking system designed by Boeing rival Northrop Grumman. It was used in combat in Afghanistan in 2002 and later in Iraq. Both the development of the FCS project and Blue Force are currently being funded at the same time. In 2008 the Army budgeted $3.1bn to the FCS program and $624m for Blue Force Tracking.<br />And while it seems both systems are being embraced by the Army, Boeing's OS and Blue Force may not share the sentiments with each other. FCS is going Linux.<br /><br />"Boeing and the Army said they chose not to use Microsoft's proprietary software because they didn't want to be beholden to the company," reports <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/23/AR2008012303695.html" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>. "Instead, they chose to develop a Linux-based operating system based on publicly available code."<br /><br />That potentially presents a major problem for the first brigade of Linux-based FCS vehicles expected to be introduced in 2015. Linux-based systems have a limited ability to communicate with Microsoft-based systems. And interoperability issues aren't something you want to deal with in a war zone.<br /><br />According to the US Army online pub, <a href="http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=3329623&C=america" target="_blank">Defense News</a>, they'll first try to patch things up using Red Hat Enterprise Linux.<br /><br />"Red Hat 5 will link Linux with Microsoft and allow FCS forces to link with other brigade combat teams," an Army official told Defense News. "This will be an interim solution because over the long haul, eventually all of the Army's networks will be Linux-based."<br /><br />For a long-haul migration from Microsoft to Linux — the Army doesn't seem to be so sure what it will do. So they're bringing some 70 programmers, engineers and other IT professionals to Washington to brainstorm in four "Battle Command" summits.<br /><br />The first two summits were held in September and November, with two upcoming sessions in February and April. According to Defense News, the Army says there has been "progress" in outlining time lines for the integration.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-40401435205038880782007-09-18T11:33:00.000-04:002007-09-18T11:35:01.930-04:00Are Double Digit Rates Coming?Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in an interview published on Monday the Fed would have to raise interest rates to double-digit levels in coming years to thwart inflation.<br /><br />But double-digit rates, which have not been seen since the 1980s, would not be a long-term fixture, Greenspan said in an interview with USA Today conducted on Friday.<br /><br />"Double digit is something that is likely to happen for a short period of time," he said, adding it was hard to predict when such a big rate increase would be needed.<br /><br />The U.S. central bank meets on Tuesday and is widely expected to cut the benchmark federal funds rate by at least a quarter-percentage point to help the economy weather a housing downturn and credit crunch.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-47473918166623003722007-07-24T07:57:00.000-04:002007-07-24T08:10:38.520-04:00On antitrust, is Google the next Microsoft?Not too long ago, nearly every move that Microsoft made seemed to draw complaints that the company was abusing its market dominance.<br /><br />Now another market-leading technology company is under fire in Washington as well. An unlikely combination of onetime antitrust defendants like Microsoft and AT&T and liberal consumer groups that have been their traditional antagonists are taking aim at Google.<br />Interviews by CNET News.com last week show that Microsoft and its occasional allies have met separately with key congressional committees that deal with consumer protection and antitrust issues--both of which announced last week that they will hold hearings on Google's plan to spend <a title="Google buys ad firm DoubleClick for $3.1 billion -- Friday, Apr 13, 2007" href="http://news.com.com/Google+buys+ad+firm+DoubleClick+for+3.1+billion/2100-1024_3-6176079.html">$3.1 billion to buy DoubleClick</a>.<br /><br />The Federal Trade Commission, which must review the merger on antitrust grounds, has also been meeting with Google, Microsoft and those nonprofit consumer groups, according to sources familiar with the meetings. The European Union, egged on by American consumer groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the pro-regulation Center for Digital Democracy, is reviewing the merger too.<br /><br />All this amounts to the first serious political threat to a company that has grown to a market capitalization of $162 billion by worrying more about serving customers than catering to the whims of bureaucrats and politicians. Longtime Washington observers believe that even if the DoubleClick acquisition is eventually permitted, federal scrutiny will only increase.<br /><br />In addition to its full-time staff lobbyists, also involved in Google's efforts to fend off antitrust bureaucrats are four newly hired lobbyists in the Washington office of the law firm Brownstein Hyatt & Farber (including Makan Delrahim, a former top Justice Department antitrust official). Google's earlier hires include the now-renamed PodestaMattoon, which draws its name from longtime Democratic dealmaker Tony Podesta, and King and Spalding, home to former Republican Sens. Connie Mack and Dan Coats.<br /><br />A Google representative said there had not, however, been any personal visits to Washington in support of the DoubleClick deal by top executives like CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/06/AR2006060601723.html">famously showed up in blue jeans and sneakers</a> when he arrived on Capitol Hill for meetings with politicians last summer.<br /><br />Citing confidentiality concerns, an FTC representative declined to comment on anything beyond the fact that the investigation is continuing. AT&T, which has made public statements in opposition to the merger before, would not comment. Time Warner, which reportedly has voiced concerns about the deal, also would not comment.<br /><br />Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans declined to offer details about his employer's attempts to sink the DoubleClick deal. "As a general rule, we don't comment on specific lobbying efforts," he said Friday. "Microsoft continues to believe the Google-DoubleClick acquisition raises a number of serious questions about the effects it will have on advertisers, publishers and consumers, and we believe it warrants closer scrutiny."<br /><br />By any measure, Google is seriously outgunned in Washington. Its spending on lobbyists in 2006 amounted to a mere $720,000--a fraction of what the Google co-founders <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05308/600836.stm">spent on their personal jet</a>. By comparison, last year AT&T wrote checks for at least $27 million to buy political influence and Microsoft spent $8.9 million.<br /><br />The disparity is even greater over a longer period. Starting in the late 1990s, when Google was moving into its first office, AT&T and Microsoft spent a combined $179 million while Google spent a mere $540,000. (That's counting lobbying and political contributions through 2005, as calculated in News.com's special report last year.)<br /><br />It's no surprise that Google has paid little attention to Washington and hired a government<br />relations director just over two years ago: it's not in a heavily regulated industry like AT&T. Microsoft, of course, began writing fat checks to lobbyists--including Rick Rule, a former top Justice Department antitrust official--only after its antitrust headaches began in 1997.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-4547160139910776772007-07-09T08:15:00.000-04:002007-07-09T08:25:55.189-04:00Why is yawning contagious?<strong>Rather than being a precursor to sleep, yawning is designed to keep us awake, say US researchers. But why does seeing someone else yawn make you to do the same?<br />Yawning is an involuntary action that everyone does. We start before we are born and most creatures on the planet do it - even snakes and fish.</strong><br /><br />New research suggests rather than being a precursor to sleep, the purpose of yawning is to cool the brain so it operates more efficiently and keeps you awake.<br /><br />The theory could explain a puzzling question about subconscious human behaviour - why many of us yawn when we see or hear another person doing it, or even read about it or even just think about it?<br /><br />The brain cooling theory says that when we contagiously yawn we are participating in an ancient, hardwired ritual that evolved to help groups stay alert and detect danger.<br /><br /><strong>'Herding behaviour'</strong><br /><br />It's not copying another person's sleepiness, say scientists at the University of Albany in New York, who are behind the latest research.<br /><br />"We think contagious yawning is triggered by empathic mechanisms which function to maintain group vigilance," says Dr Gordon Gallup, a leading researcher at the university.<br /><br />The belief is further supported by the observation of University of Maryland's Robert Provine that paratroopers report yawning before jumping.<br /><br />But there are other theories. It's been suggested contagious yawning could be a result of an unconscious herding behaviour - a subtle way to communicate to those around us, similar to when flocks of birds take flight at the same time.<br /><br />Another theory suggests contagious yawning might have helped early humans communicate their alertness levels and co-ordinate sleeping times.<br /><br />Basically, if one decided it was time to sleep they would tell the others by yawning and they would do it in return to show they agreed.<br /><br />Chimpanzees also suffer from contagious yawning, according to researchers at Kyoto University in Japan. They are thought to be the only other creatures, apart from humans, who do so.<br />The rest of the animal kingdom - including birds, snakes and hippos - yawn for other reasons. Dogs yawn to stay calm in certain situations, says Turid Rugaas, author of On talking Terms with Dogs.<br /><br />Anyone who gets to the end of this article without yawning may wish to think of themselves as a medical apparition. In fact, only about half of adult humans are prone to contagious yawning.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-38873445550237977182007-07-03T08:40:00.000-04:002007-07-03T08:43:55.443-04:00Internet Error CodesSometime you are browsing the internet and trying to open any website, your e-mail and any FTP sites , but you see different error codes there. You should be familiar with these error codes. You can solve these problems if you are well-known with the meaning of error codes.<br /><br /><strong>400</strong><br />This is bad request error, First check you may be typing wrong URL name and server could not understand your request.<br /><br /><strong>401</strong><br />You are trying to open any unauthorized access site or page. Check your username and password if you are trying to open any webpage.<br /><br /><strong>402</strong><br />Payment Required Error<br /><br /><strong>403</strong><br />You are trying to open any forbidden page and you are blocked by that domain.<br /><br /><strong>404</strong><br />Here you are trying to open the webpage that was removed or re-named, also check the URL spelling.<br /><br /><strong>408</strong><br />This is time out error. you should send the request with in time that the server set for you.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-20370778039549693952007-07-03T08:08:00.000-04:002007-07-03T08:11:38.013-04:00Study Reveals Why We Learn From MistakesResearchers have pinpointed an area in the brain that alerts us in less than a second of an impending mistake so we don’t repeat it.<br /><br />Scientists have long known that mistakes are conducive to <a href="http://www.livescience.com/health/050727_learning_habit.html">learning</a>, suggesting the reason lies in the element of surprise upon finding out we are wrong. But how the <a href="http://www.livescience.com/mind/">brain</a> manages to learn from mistakes and how quickly it does so have been unknowns.<br /><br />“It's a bit of a cliché to say that we learn more from our mistakes than our successes,” said lead author of the study Andy Wills, a psychologist at the University of Exeter, “but for the first time we’ve established just how quickly the brain works to help us avoid repeating errors.”<br /><br />The scientists monitored the brain activity of a group of volunteers as they made predictions based on information each read on a computer screen. Then, they were given new information that made many of the predictions incorrect. The participants had to learn from the mistake in order to repeat the error next time around.<br /><br />The researchers measured activity in the lower temporal region of the brain, near the temples, which is responsible for processing visual information. “By monitoring activity in the brain as it occurs, we were able to identify the moment at which this mechanism kicks in,” Wills said.<br /><br />Activity increased immediately after the individual saw the new information flash onto the computer screen—within 0.1 seconds—before there was time for any <a href="http://www.livescience.com/health/050808_human_consciousness.html">conscious</a> consideration.<br />Most previous research had focused on the brain’s frontal lobes, which are associated with complex thought processes, such as planning and conscious decision-making. This study, announced today and published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, indicates the brain reacts to mistakes before information even gets processed consciously. The scientists call it an "early warning signal" from a lower region of the brain.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-75573178727915933952007-06-26T11:54:00.000-04:002007-06-26T11:56:48.648-04:00Go Daddy Assumes 850,000 DomainsEmbattled registrar RegisterFly will transfer 850,000 domain names to <a href="http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/transfers/welcome_registerfly.asp">GoDaddy.com</a>, the world's largest domain registrar under an agreement brokered by ICANN, the parties announced today. The move will be welcome news to domain owners who have been unable to manage their names since RegisterFly collapsed into financial and management turmoil in February.<br /><br />"We worked with ICANN to effect a migration of the RegisterFly domains to GoDaddy.com and help those customers left in limbo,” said GoDaddy.com CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. “It’s what many RegisterFly customers asked us to do. After they are moved over to GoDaddy.com, all RegisterFly customers will once again be able to manage and renew their domain names with confidence and will also enjoy the world-class support we provide all our customers. We expect the move to be completed over the next week."<br /><br />"The RegisterFly situation has been extremely difficult -- first and foremost for registrants, as well as for the entire registry and registrar community," said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN's President and CEO. "The GoDaddy.com agreement is the best possible solution for RegisterFly customers since it’s a direct and automatic transfer to a competent and experienced customer service oriented organization."<br /><br />Go Daddy says it now manages more than 20 million domain names, and more than 4 million customers using its domain name registration, Web site hosting, SSL certificates and related products.<br /><br />RegisterFly's web site management system stopped working properly in February during a business dispute between company founder Kevin Medina and business partner John Naruzewicz, who claimed that he owned 50 percent of RegisterFly and said the company's board had fired Medina. At the direction of "new CEO" Naruzewicz, the company filed a lawsuit accusing Medina of mismanagement and misuse of company funds. Medina denied all charges, saying he remained the sole owner of RegisterFly. A Newark, N.J. court agreed, awarding sole control of the company to Medina.<br /><br />The resolution of RegisterFly's ownership issues didn't resolve its operational problems. ICANN stripped RegisterFly of its accreditation, but had to resort to court action to force Medina to accept a transfer to another registrar. On Friday United States District Court Judge Manuel L. Real issued a <a href="http://blog.icann.org/?p=131">permanent injunction</a> against RegisterFly, clearing the way for today's transfer.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-54540338427339170782007-06-20T08:11:00.000-04:002007-06-20T08:17:29.032-04:00FAT vs NTFSTo NTFS or not to NTFS—that is the question. But unlike the deeper questions of life, this one isn't really all that hard to answer. For most users running Windows XP, NTFS is the obvious choice. It's more powerful and offers security advantages not found in the other file systems. But let's go over the differences among the files systems so we're all clear about the choice. There are essentially three different file systems available in Windows XP: FAT16, short for File Allocation Table, FAT32, and NTFS, short for NT File System.<br /><br /><u><strong>FAT16</strong></u><br />The FAT16 file system was introduced way back with MS–DOS in 1981, and it's showing its age. It was designed originally to handle files on a floppy drive, and has had minor modifications over the years so it can handle hard disks, and even file names longer than the original limitation of 8.3 characters, but it's still the lowest common denominator. The biggest advantage of FAT16 is that it is compatible across a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows 95/98/Me, OS/2, Linux, and some versions of UNIX. The biggest problem of FAT16 is that it has a fixed maximum number of clusters per partition, so as hard disks get bigger and bigger, the size of each cluster has to get larger. In a 2–GB partition, each cluster is 32 kilobytes, meaning that even the smallest file on the partition will take up 32 KB of space. FAT16 also doesn't support compression, encryption, or advanced security using access control lists.<br /><br /><u><strong>FAT32</strong></u><br />The FAT32 file system, originally introduced in Windows 95 Service Pack 2, is really just an extension of the original FAT16 file system that provides for a much larger number of clusters per partition. As such, it greatly improves the overall disk utilization when compared to a FAT16 file system. However, FAT32 shares all of the other limitations of FAT16, and adds an important additional limitation—many operating systems that can recognize FAT16 will not work with FAT32—most notably Windows NT, but also Linux and UNIX as well. Now this isn't a problem if you're running FAT32 on a Windows XP computer and sharing your drive out to other computers on your network—they don't need to know (and generally don't really care) what your underlying file system is.<br /><br /><strong><u>The Advantages of NTFS</u></strong><br />The NTFS file system, introduced with first version of Windows NT, is a completely different file system from FAT. It provides for greatly increased security, file–by–file compression, quotas, and even encryption. It is the default file system for new installations of Windows XP, and if you're doing an upgrade from a previous version of Windows, you'll be asked if you want to convert your existing file systems to NTFS. Don't worry. If you've already upgraded to Windows XP and didn't do the conversion then, it's not a problem. You can convert FAT16 or FAT32 volumes to NTFS at any point. Just remember that you can't easily go back to FAT or FAT32 (without reformatting the drive or partition), not that I think you'll want to.<br /><br />The NTFS file system is generally not compatible with other operating systems installed on the same computer, nor is it available when you've booted a computer from a floppy disk. For this reason, many system administrators, myself included, used to recommend that users format at least a small partition at the beginning of their main hard disk as FAT. This partition provided a place to store emergency recovery tools or special drivers needed for reinstallation, and was a mechanism for digging yourself out of the hole you'd just dug into. But with the enhanced recovery abilities built into Windows XP (more on that in a future column), I don't think it's necessary or desirable to create that initial FAT partition.<br /><br /><u><strong>When to Use FAT or FAT32</strong></u><br />If you're running more than one operating system on a single computer (<a href="http://freepctech.com/pc/001/dual_boot_guide.shtml">see Dual booting in Guides</a>), you will definitely need to format some of your volumes as FAT. Any programs or data that need to be accessed by more than one operating system on that computer should be stored on a FAT16 or possibly FAT32 volume. But keep in mind that you have no security for data on a FAT16 or FAT32 volume—any one with access to the computer can read, change, or even delete any file that is stored on a FAT16 or FAT32 partition. In many cases, this is even possible over a network. So do not store sensitive files on drives or partitions formatted with FAT file systems.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-10712979533702528512007-06-11T10:05:00.000-04:002007-06-11T10:16:20.603-04:00Google PageRank Explained<strong><em>What is PageRank?</em></strong><br /><br />PageRank was developed at Stanford University by Larry Page (hence the name Page-Rank) and Sergey Brin as part of a research project about a new kind of search engine. The project started in 1995 and led to a functional prototype, named Google, in 1998. Shortly after, Page and Brin founded <a title="Google Inc." href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Inc.">Google Inc.</a>, the company behind the Google search engine. While just one of many factors which determine the ranking of Google search results, PageRank continues to provide the basis for all of Google's web search tools<br /><br />PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself is. Google calculates a page's importance from the votes cast for it. How important each vote is is taken into account when a page's PageRank is calculated. PageRank is Google's way of deciding a page's importance. It matters because it is one of the factors that determines a page's ranking in the search results. It isn't the only factor that Google uses to rank pages, but it is an important one.<br /><br />First, let me explain in more detail why the values shown in the Google toolbar are not the actual PageRank figures. According to the equation, and to the creators of Google, the billions of pages on the web average out to a PageRank of 1.0 per page. So the total PageRank on the web is equal to the number of pages on the web * 1, which equals a lot of PageRank spread around the web.<br /><br />The Google toolbar range is from 1 to 10. (They sometimes show 0, but that figure isn't believed to be a PageRank calculation result). What Google does is divide the full range of actual PageRanks on the web into 10 parts - each part is represented by a value as shown in the toolbar. So the toolbar values only show what part of the overall range a page's PageRank is in, and not the actual PageRank itself. The numbers in the toolbar are just labels.<br /><br />Whether or not the overall range is divided into 10 equal parts is a matter for debate - Google aren't saying. But because it is much harder to move up a toolbar point at the higher end than it is at the lower end, many people (including me) believe that the divisions are based on a logarithmic scale, or something very similar, rather than the equal divisions of a linear scale.<br />Let's assume that it is a logarithmic, base 10 scale, and that it takes 10 properly linked new pages to move a site's important page up 1 toolbar point. It will take 100 new pages to move it up another point, 1000 new pages to move it up one more, 10,000 to the next, and so on. That's why moving up at the lower end is much easier that at the higher end.<br /><br />In reality, the base is unlikely to be 10. Some people think it is around the 5 or 6 mark, and maybe even less. Even so, it still gets progressively harder to move up a toolbar point at the higher end of the scale.<br /><br />Note that as the number of pages on the web increases, so does the total PageRank on the web, and as the total PageRank increases, the positions of the divisions in the overall scale must change. As a result, some pages drop a toolbar point for no 'apparent' reason. If the page's actual PageRank was only just above a division in the scale, the addition of new pages to the web would cause the division to move up slightly and the page would end up just below the division. Google's index is always increasing and they re-evaluate each of the pages on more or less a monthly basis. It's known as the "Google dance". When the dance is over, some pages will have dropped a toolbar point. A number of new pages might be all that is needed to get the point back after the next dance.<br /><br />The toolbar value is a good indicator of a page's PageRank but it only indicates that a page is in a certain range of the overall scale. One PR5 page could be just above the PR5 division and another PR5 page could be just below the PR6 division - almost a whole division (toolbar point) between them.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-11998431270498595312007-05-30T08:32:00.001-04:002007-05-30T11:10:59.924-04:00Have an online "Box" for your files<a href="http://www.box.net"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.box.net/img/info_file_manager.jpg" border="0" /></a> Box makes it easy to get your files from anywhere you have an internet connection. Access important documents <a href="http://www.box.net">from your desktop</a>, laptop, or even mobile phone on the go. Once you've uploaded your files to Box, you can also share them with anyone, or just keep them safe for as long as you want.<br /><br />Send large documents, presentations, and zip files to contacts and clients. Forget the hassle of emailing attachments - just send them a link to download! Best of all, you can be notified when they download the file.<br /><br />Upload files to your Box by sending an email to upload@box.net. The next time you receive an attachment you'd like to save or work on later, forward it to us and it will be sent to your account!<br /><br />If you have a website or eBay auctions, you can host your photos on Box. Best of all, there are no bandwidth limits and it's as easy as uploading your files to Box! Next time you're on the road, try accessing "m.box.net". It's a quick, lightweight version of Box that lets you access your files from any internet-compatible phone or PDA.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-31379741963754809882007-05-30T07:55:00.000-04:002007-05-30T07:59:09.528-04:00Castle Point Mortgage Achieves Implementation of Cadence Lending PlatformEight-Month Implementation Accomplished at Hands of Mortgage Company's IT Experts Utilizing Implementation Methodology of Implementation Contractor.<br /><br />DENVER -- Mortgage Cadence, a leading provider of enterprise lending solutions (ELS) for the mortgage industry, and Castle Point Mortgage, Inc. are pleased to announce the implementation of the Mortgage Cadence Orchestrator[TM] ELS application. Headquartered in Elkridge, Md., Castle Point is a retail lender, operating in multiple states and handling a variety of product types.<br /><br />Following an extensive due diligence process, Castle Point chose the Mortgage Cadence Orchestrator application as their lending platform. We are pleased to have chosen a software system that is easily customizable to our needs, commented Gerald Infantino, president of Castle Point Mortgage. There was no other system that we found during our selection process that provided the breadth of functionality while offering us the ability to cost effectively implement ourselves. The Mortgage Cadence system will help bring Castle Point Mortgage to the next level and assist us in achieving our long term strategic goals.<br /><br />Castle Point has seen a substantial amount of growth over the past three years. As of October 2006, Castle Point has increased its loan origination by over 300% compared to its 2003 year-end loan volume. Due to this substantial growth, the Castle Point executives began their search for a new software system in early 2006. The Castle Point team was looking for an application that would handle all of the company's product lines, increase process times and efficiency, as well as a lending platform that would is scalable to meet their future needs. Their decision on the application also needed to be supported by the software company's proven staying power in the market.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-23457705415890639832007-05-25T08:09:00.000-04:002007-05-25T08:12:55.401-04:00Dude their getting LinuxAs of 5 pm (Eastern Time), you'll be able to order two new Dell desktop systems and one Dell laptop configuration with <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/products/WhatIsUbuntu/desktopedition">Ubuntu Linux 7.04</a> installed instead of Windows. Dell product manager Lionel Menchaca <a href="http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/05/24/15994.aspx">has the details</a> in his post on Dell's corporate blog this morning. (A posting earlier in the week has <a href="http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/05/21/15563.aspx">more technical details</a> about these new configurations.)<br /><br />This is a fairly amazing event. I can't remember any big-name vendor of Windows machines ever offering individual consumers the option of buying its hardware with the free, open-source Linux operating system preinstalled.<br /><br />Two quick thoughts about the news:<br /><br />* Microsoft has lost its power to intimidate everybody else in the PC industry. Remember when this company would <a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm#vf">threaten to yank a computer manufacturer's Windows license</a> if it had the temerity to remove desktop shortcuts to Internet Explorer? Now think about how that version of Microsoft would have reacted to Dell's latest move.<br /><br />* Good things happen when companies make it easy for their customers to suggest ideas and are prepared to act on them. Dell's <a href="http://www.dellideastorm.com/">IdeaStorm</a> Web site allowed Linux users to document their long-standing wishes; it's to Dell's credit that it's making this major revision to its consumer product line in response. Now let's see how the company responds to other popular IdeaStorm suggestions, like <a href="http://www.dellideastorm.com/article/show/62245">making Firefox the default Web browser</a> or letting customers opt out of having their new Dell machine loaded up with <a href="http://www.dellideastorm.com/article/show/62715">the usual trialware junk</a>.<br /><br />I plan on trying out one of Dell's Linux models in the next month or so. Do you plan on buying one yourself? (I'm especially interested in hearing from people who haven't put Linux on one of their own personal computers before.)castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-80409477687204403802007-05-24T07:51:00.000-04:002007-05-24T07:57:22.482-04:00Dynamic Partitioning: Windows Server 2008<a href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9019641&pageNumber=1">Computerworld</a> has an interesting article about a new feature of Windows Server 2008: Dynamic Partitioning. A hardware partitionable server can have isolated hardware partitions comprising CPU, memory and I/O. Each of these segments runs its own Windows instance. It allows you to add, replace and remove hardware without rebooting Windows. This not only improves fault tolerance, but also scalability. In a way, it is RAID for CPU, memory and I/O. This certainly important feature is not a new revolutionary technology, though. Mainframe systems always had similar capabilities. Therefore, it will be one further step for Microsoft in pushing Windows into the datacenter. Unfortunately, this feature will only be supported by the Datacenter and the Itanium editions of Windows Server 2008. By the way, Windows Server 2003 already supports hot-add memory. It is interesting to note, that the white paper about the new features of Windows Server 2008, I linked to earlier, doesn’t mention this new capability. If you want to know more technical details about Dynamic Partitioning, or about the “hot swap feature” as some call it.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-7413945062033070092007-05-22T11:51:00.000-04:002007-05-22T11:54:11.817-04:00Dell Joins Microsoft and Novell CollaborationMicrosoft Corp. and Novell Inc. have announced that Dell Inc. is the first major systems provider to join the business collaboration that was formed by Microsoft and Novell in response to customer demand for greater interoperability and intellectual property (IP) assurance. As part of the agreement, Dell will purchase SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft and establish a services and marketing program to migrate existing Linux users who are not Dell Linux customers to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. <a href="http://opseast.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/dell-joins-microsoft-and-novell-collaboration/">Read more</a>castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-10463239065965683482007-05-22T07:56:00.000-04:002007-05-22T08:01:22.661-04:00Windows 2003 Access-based Enumeration (ABE)ABE filters shared folders visible to a user based on that individual user's access rights, preventing the display of folders or other shared resources that the user does not have rights to access. ABE can be accessed via graphical user interface (GUI), command-line executable tool, and a robust advanced programming interface (API). After download and installation of the MSI on the desired Windows Server 2003 server, you just need to go to the shares where you want to enable ABE. Each share controls whether ABE will be used for the files and folders contained under it. To control if ABE is enabled, you only need to access the Properties sheet for the shared folder. There you will find a new tab named Access-based Enumeration. As seen below.<br /><br /><a href="http://media.techtarget.com/digitalguide/images/Misc/software_props.gif"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://media.techtarget.com/digitalguide/images/Misc/software_props.gif" border="0" /></a> Access-based Enumeration is a welcome addition to any network. For the longest time, administrators and security professionals have created elaborate workarounds to hide resources from users. Now ABE solves this problem by hiding resources that users don't have explicit access to. It works great for networks that have Windows Server 2003 SP1 servers with any client viewing the resource.<br /><div> </div><div> </div>castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-72454892199256201322007-05-21T17:53:00.000-04:002007-05-21T18:11:17.006-04:00Quick SAMBA tutorialI needed to setup SAMBA on one of my servers and i came across this quick tutorial which had information to what main parts i was looking for. Giving you a brief run through of the <a href="http://www.flatmtn.com/computer/Linux-Samba.html">samba.conf </a>file and how PAM works along with SAMBA. This was all in all definatly a good Tutorial.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-54167823933320909292007-05-17T10:17:00.000-04:002007-05-17T10:19:40.342-04:00Vulnerability in Microsoft OfficeA remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way Microsoft Office handles a specially crafted drawing object. This update resolves a privately reported vulnerability. The vulnerability is documented in its own subsection in the Vulnerability Details section of this bulletin.An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.When using vulnerable versions of Office, if a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of the system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with the same user rights as the logged-on user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-67714801349570698542007-05-17T10:09:00.000-04:002007-05-17T10:11:13.107-04:00New Top-Level DomainsICANN wants public input on its development of a new process for creating, approving, and adding new gTLDs (generic top-level domains like .com, .org etc) to the Internet.<br /><br />“This is all about choice. We want the diversity of the world’s people, geography and business to be able to be represented in the domain name system,” said Dr Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN. “That is why it’s so important for people to participate in the development of a new gTLD process. We will get input from businesses, governments, and the public at large in the coming months and at the ICANN meeting in Puerto Rico on 25-29 June 2007.”<br /><br />The new process will lay out how gTLDs are proposed and approved, and should allow for a much wider variety of them to be added in a timely, predictable, and efficient manner. ICANN expects that with the public input, the system for approving new gTLDs should be completed by the end of the year, and applications for new top-level domains could be accepted starting in early 2008.<br /><br />“If the new approval process comes on-line as planned, the global Internet could see new top-level domains added and available between June and August 2008,” Dr Twomey added. ICANN has overseen two previous extensions of the Internet space: first in 2000 when seven TLDs including .info and .name were added to the domain name system (DNS); the second started in 2004 leading to six more being approved, including .asia.<br /><br />“When ICANN was founded in 1998, only a few TLDs, including .com, were generally available to the public for registration of domain names. Our mission has been to expand the number of TLDs available to users – and we have made great progress,” Dr Twomey said. “When the new approval process is complete, Internet users around the globe will have more choice in the TLD market.”<br />Currently there are 120 million registered domain names (unique web addresses) in the world. Of these, 80 million are gTLDs (as opposed to country code top-level domains like .de for Germany or .ca for Canada). The most commonly used gTLD is “.com”, with 62 million domains. There are another 15 gTLDs in existence including .aero to .travel.<br /><br />Development of the new gTLD process began in December 2005. ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organisation (GNSO) has guided the policy development process and its work will be used as the basis for discussion on creating a new approval process. Materials used in meetings, plus minutes and audio recordings, are available on ICANN’s website at <a href="http://gnso.icann.org/calendar/">http://gnso.icann.org/calendar/</a>.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-15878024942703610732007-05-17T09:25:00.000-04:002007-05-17T09:27:23.367-04:00University of Missouri HackedCOLUMBIA, Mo. - A computer hacker accessed the Social Security numbers of more than 22,000 current or former students at the University of Missouri, the second such attack this year, school officials said Tuesday. The FBI is investigating. University officials said campus computer technicians confirmed a breach of a database last week by a user or users whose Internet accounts were traced to China and Australia. The hacker accessed personal information of 22,396 University of Missouri-Columbia students or alumni who also worked at one of the system's four campuses in St. Louis, Kansas City, Rolla or Columbia in 2004. The hacker obtained the information through a Web page used to make queries about the status of trouble reports to the university's computer help desk, which is based in Columbia. The information had been compiled for a report, but the data had not been removed from the computer system. In January, a hacker obtained the Social Security numbers of 1,220 university researchers, as well as personal passwords of as many as 2,500 people who used an online grant application system.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-16379337078991254952007-05-17T08:34:00.000-04:002007-05-17T08:40:32.707-04:00Linux: Sharp Zaurus SL-C3200The Zaurus is in a class by itself, being a cross between a PDA and a handheld computer. Rather than running a somewhat limited PDA operating system, it runs Linux which means the CPU and RAM are the only real limit for running Linux applications. Linux apps must be recompiled to run on the Zaurus but that's not a daunting task, and we've seen many useful ports and open source software for the Z emerge over the years. In fact, there are several ROMs available for the Z as well (modified versions of the OS and even different Linux distros).<br /><br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.mobiletechreview.com/image/zaurus_c3200_screentwist.jpg" border="0" /><br />It seems that we're in an evolutionary rather than revolutionary period when it comes to PDAs. Witness the Sharp Zaurus SL-C3200 which is basically the same as the Zaurus C3100 it replaces, and the C3100 was quite similar to the Zaurus C30000 it replaced. In fact all three are very, very similar to the now discontinued Zaurus C8600 but the C860 lacked the hard drive. And so from the C3100 to the 3200 we get a 6 gig rather than 4 gig hard drive. For upgraders, there's nothing terribly compelling save the additional hard drive space which is nice for those who want to carry a collection of MP3s or videos for playback on the go.castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-65417267742507648212007-05-16T11:07:00.000-04:002007-05-16T11:15:53.908-04:00Vertical Workstation??<a href="http://www.mayoclinic.org/spotlight/images/levine-01-lg.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 280px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 325px" height="333" alt="" src="http://www.mayoclinic.org/spotlight/images/levine-01-lg.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Did you know you could lose as much as 66 pounds by sweating on you PC? Well using the Mayo Clinic's vertical workstation, that just might be the weightloss wave of the future.<br /><br />The vertical workstation is basically a desk mounted over a treadmill that lets office workers to kill two birds with one stone - send emails, check invoices and write reports and burn calories at the same time, say Professors James Levine and Jennifer Miller of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who came up with the machine/desk.<br /><br />A study conducted at the Mayo Clinic and published in the British Journal of Sports medicine found the average obese person burned 100 calories an hour while walking about one mile an hour while working. The treadmill desks cost about $1,600.<br /><br />The desk isn't exactly a new idea. The Mayo Clinic has been working on such a prototype as part of its Office of the Future research.In fact in a Network World article from 2005 Levine said that instead of sitting on conventional desk chairs, workers in the Mayo Clinic's prototype environment stand at their desks with a moving treadmill surface underfoot. </div>castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-3013158273333933862007-05-16T08:54:00.000-04:002007-05-16T09:02:19.356-04:00MySQL reference guideRecently i needed a quick rundown of commands in MySQL to browse through some <strong>Databases</strong> that i needed to check for work. Only using MySQL a few times prior, i searched the net and came up with this quick <a href="http://www.pantz.org/database/mysql/mysqlcommands.shtml">command reference.</a>castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-51168431589352494122007-05-16T08:40:00.000-04:002007-05-16T08:43:01.517-04:00Talk about Stunt Driving!This might be one of the most crazy driving videos i have ever seen. Between the skill level of the drivers, Trust between the two, and flawless execution by both.<br /><center><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PhQ6mzzUsiM"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PhQ6mzzUsiM" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object></center>castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350641182356484018.post-49493228788203019822007-05-16T08:22:00.000-04:002007-05-16T08:27:16.800-04:00What is the Magnetosphere?<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/Magnetosphere_schematic.jpg/320px-Magnetosphere_schematic.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 295px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 227px" height="239" alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/Magnetosphere_schematic.jpg/320px-Magnetosphere_schematic.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>The Earth's magnetosphere was discovered in 1958 by Explorer I during the research performed for the International Geophysical Year. Before this, scientists knew that electric currents flowed in space, because solar eruptions sometimes led to "magnetic storm" disturbances. No one knew, however, where those currents flowed and why, or that the solar wind existed. In August and September of 1958, Project Argus was performed to test a theory about the formation of radiation belts that may have tactical use in war.<br /><br />The magnetosphere of Earth is a region in space whose shape is determined by the extent of Earth's internal magnetic field, the solar wind plasma, and the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). In the magnetosphere, a mix of free ions and electrons from both the solar wind and the Earth's ionosphere is confined by magnetic and electric forces that are much stronger than gravity and collisions. In spite of its name, the magnetosphere is distinctly non-spherical. On the side facing the Sun, the distance to its boundary (which varies with solar wind intensity) is about 70,000 km (10-12 Earth radii or RE, where 1 RE=6371 km; unless otherwise noted, all distances here are from the Earth's center). The boundary of the magnetosphere ("magnetopause") is roughly bullet shaped, about 15 RE abreast of Earth and on the night side (in the "magnetotail" or "geotail") approaching a cylinder with a radius 20-25 RE. The tail region stretches well past 200 RE, and the way it ends is not well-known.<br /><br />The outer neutral gas envelope of Earth, or geocorona, consists mostly of the lightest atoms, hydrogen and helium, and continues beyond 4-5 RE, with diminishing density. The hot plasma ions of the magnetosphere acquire electrons during collisions with these atoms and create an escaping "glow" of fast atoms that have been used to image the hot plasma clouds by the IMAGE mission. The upward extension of the ionosphere, known as the plasmasphere, also extends beyond 4-5 RE with diminishing density, beyond which it becomes a flow of light ions called the polar wind that escapes out of the magnetosphere into the solar wind. Energy deposited in the ionosphere by auroras strongly heats the heavier atmospheric components such as oxygen and molecules of oxygen and nitrogen, which would not otherwise escape from Earth's gravity. Owing to this highly variable heating, however, a heavy atmospheric or ionospheric outflow of plasma flows during disturbed periods from the auroral zones into the magnetosphere, extending the region dominated by terrestrial material, known as the fourth or plasma geosphere, at times out to the magnetopause. </div>castlepointmortgagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516054217605441187noreply@blogger.com0