We like to throw the terms SAS and cloud computing around often on this blog. For good reason, these are the technologies that will define how the connected world will work and interact going forward. Here’s one related term we have unintentionally overlooked: utility computing. Confused yet? Here’s an excerpt from a great piece on the subject that may help clear things up:

What is Utility Computing?

While utility computing often requires a cloud-like infrastructure, its focus is on the business model on which providing the computing services are based. Simply put, a utility computing service is one in which customers receive computing resources from a service provider (hardware and/or software) and “pay by the drink,” much as you do for your electric service at home – an analogy that Nicholas Carr discusses extensively in “The Big Switch.”

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is a broader concept than utility computing and relates to the underlying architecture in which the services are designed. It may be applied equally to utility services and internal corporate data centers, as George Gilder reported in a story for Wired Magazine titled The Information Factories. Wall Street firms have been implementing internal clouds for years. They call it “grid computing,” but the concepts are the same. (from GigaOm)

I won’t go so far as to claim that the Third Pipe team agrees 100% with the ideas presented. We do however find the entire article a worthy read.

[Dog here. Couldn't agree more. For industry IT types the distinction is critical to how they keep systems running. But from the average compute user I don't think they will know or care. Their view will be somewhat more simplistic.]

Network Solutions, the domain registration provider, is being sued by Chris McElroy. McElroy is seeking class action status in the case. The suit alleges that Network Solutions is domain tasting for the sole purpose of profiteering during the 4 wait period by filing for registration itself and then offering said domain for a fee to in the inquirer. –

According to the suit, as well as Network Solutions’ stated policies, customers searching for a .com domain on Network Solutions’ web site would find it held “on reserve” for a period of four days, after which it would be released back into the pool of available names. During this time, potential customers are unable to register the domain with a competing registrar – forcing them to pay Network Solutions’ higher-than-average registration fees or wait until the hold expires.

Network Solution calls its policy a “consumer protection measure,” and claims it is necessary to prevent customers from losing prospective domains to “front-runners,” who monitor domain search logs and quickly buy up searched domain names for themselves, hoping to sell them back to their original searchers.

Network Solutions’ reservation strategy, implemented early this year, makes use of an ICANN grace period that gives domain purchasers five days to seek a refund if they mistakenly register the wrong domain, like in the event of a typo. Unfortunately, the refund policy sees far more use in the hands of profiteers and domain poachers, who “taste” domains by buying them in bulk, sometimes millions at a time, gauging their ability to generate advertising revenue and then jettisoning the unprofitable ones for a refund.

Critics and industry observers were quick to blast Network Solutions’ “customer protection measure,” accusing the registrar of front-running and creating a temporary monopoly for itself. One such critic happened to no other than ICANN itself, who recently grilled Network Solutions at a meeting in New Delhi.

Its trick marketing and should be discouraged of course. But being smarter than the average bear I personally would use this knowledge in my favor. If I wanted to hold onto a domain I could write a script that triggers Network Solutions to register it. Then I would keep running that script as a cron job on a 5 day cycle. Most folks would pass on the domain thinking it was parked. Then when I was ready, stop the script wait 5 days then register it with my intended agent. Enough people do that and the value to Network Solutions would diminish. Sometime you just have to be a bit of a revolutionary to get change.

Linky.

Well it was bound to happen. With tools like audacity to do sound mixing and harware soundboards to manage inputs; it was just a matter of time before somebody figured out how to combine the two systems in one device. Well now someone has in a laptop format none the less.

For somebody that is a serious podcaster or a professional onsite audio engineer this might just be the ticket. For the videographer the 4 channels of video input might be a bit limiting but hey it probably better than schleping around that 500# graphics deck you are using now.

No information available on pricing.

Linky.
HT: Cool Gadgets.

Our buddies in Redmond have admitted to a problem. They don’t know what is causing data corruption with the Windows Home Server that users are complaining about. Remember these are the ‘experts’ on all things OS —

Microsoft has admitted it still has no fix for a data corruption issue Windows Home Server users are encountering.

The software giant first acknowledged the problem on December 21 last year, providing a list of programs that could cause data on a Windows Home Server to become corrupted, including Windows Vista Photo Gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery, OneNote 2007, OneNote 2003, Outlook 2007, Money 2007, SyncToy 2.0 beta, QuickBooks and uTorrent.

It says customers have also reported problems with the following software (though Microsoft has not yet been able to replicate the problem first-hand): Photoshop Elements, Zune Software, Apple iTunes, TagScanner, Mozilla Thunderbird, Adobe Lightroom, Intuit Quicken, MS Digital Image Library, MP3BookHelper, ACDSee, WinAmp, Windows Media Player 11, Microsoft Office Excel and Visual DataFlex.

Heh. I figure eventually they will find the cause and fix it. That is MS strength, they never say die unless they know it is hopeless.

But I have to ask, why not consider something else? A product I find very appealing in this same market niche is ClarkConnect. There he goes again talking about Linux again. Yeah. But hold your thought and consider I have had version 3 of that software running at home for 430 days straight. Try that with a windows box. Ain’t happening.

Clarkconnect is the name of the product and the company. It has its feet in both both FOSS and commerical interests. Its a VPN box, its a NAT, its a storage server, its a mail caching server, its got intrusion firewalls. It can do bandwidth throttling. It can protect the kiddies from bad sites you find. It supports wireless wifi. And to top it off you can manage the box with a web front end. You can buy the commerical product that has even more bells and whistles. And you can subscribe to their internet protection service an they will keep your server up to date automatically against most known viruses/spyware/etc.

Its a good thing.

APC article.
ClarkConnect website

Sun has not exactly been a model growth company in recent years. I have a new understanding of why. It’s called living in your own world, removed from the real world. Telcos have been all to focused in delivery of content for far too long and it has distracted them from their primary business of access. It’s put the long their long term viability in peril, and could cripple the US economy. So what does Sun’s McNeely recommend for them?

“I have explained to every telco that either you become a destination site, or the destination site will become a telco,” McNealy said at a news conference at Sun Microsystems’ Worldwide Education and Research Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.

Internet destination sites are already gaining on telecommunication companies, McNealy said, giving as examples eBay integrating Skype’s VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) technology and Google trying to buy wireless spectrum and help build cables across the Pacific Ocean. Microsoft’s attempted acquisition of Yahoo would create another behemoth that could compete with carriers, such as by combining Microsoft’s technology with Yahoo’s existing VoIP and messaging services.

“I think the telcos have to make sure they don’t get marginalized to being just bit providers and bandwidth providers,” he said. On the other hand, carriers may be able to head off Internet sites by limiting the bandwidth available to them, so destination sites may need to affiliate with the carriers, he added. (from Yahoo News)

Telcos have never been good at content. Companies like Google create their own infrastructure to insure that the end user has access to their content in the face of telcos demanding surcharges or giving preference to their own substandard content. The only reason a content company builds their own network is to insure distribution. McNealy is smart enough to understand this if he wants to. Then again, Sun is not doing well. Maybe he thinks he can sell more servers to the telcos is he can convince them they need to do more content.

Sprint reacted a bit slowly to the beginning of a wireless price war initiated by Verizon and quickly followed by AT&T and T-Mobile. Announcing a plan that includes unlimited voice, and just about every other service Sprint offers.

The company announced the new plan called “Simply Everything,” which will give customers unlimited voice as well as unlimited data, text, e-mail, Web-surfing, Sprint TV, Sprint Music, GPS Navigation, and push-to-talk service for $99.99 a month. The company made the announcement during its fourth quarter earnings call, in which the company also announced heavy financial and customer losses.

The new pricing plan is available to existing and new customers on both Sprint’s CDMA network as well as its Nextel iDEN network starting on Friday. Current customers will not have to renew or extend their contract to switch to the service.

Sprint is also offering discounts for families subscribing to the high-end rate plan. Families will get a discount of $5 per month on every “Simply Everything” service that is added to the same bill for up to five additional lines. This means that two lines would cost $194.98 or $99.99 plus $94.99. A third line would cost an additional $89.99.(from Cnet)

While Sprint did not dramatically change the pricing landscape, they did directly attack a range of nickel and dime services that are very cheap to deliver making them incredibly profitable for the wireless industry. If nothing else, this will be a good study on how much people really care about all of the add on services.

Google lauches the JotSpot acquisiton as Google Sites. Have not had the time to totally play with it but it looks promising. Here is a video –

We will post a review later.

PC World in an obvious sop to higher end PC MFR’s does a hatchet job on two low end PC’s from Sears and Wal-Mart. Now I want to be fair, no I would not compare either of these units to a Dell XPS device 10x more expensive. But rather I would expect more from the Dell for the money I spent. –

The PC World article is here.

On Sears.com and Wal-Mart.com — two sites that sell cheap Linux-based PCs — potential buyers post questions like, “Which version of Windows does this have?” and “Can I run Windows applications on this?” While either the Mirus SITLC420 or the Everex gPC TC2502 might be an option for technically savvy people who want to dabble in Linux, these machines are very poor choices for the folks the two stores usually cater to.

That’s because, despite the rock-bottom prices, neither PC qualifies as a bargain. They use lowest-of-the-low-end components–you’re essentially paying fair prices for inferior products.

But more important, while the gPC has a slightly easier-to-use version of Linux than the Mirus does, I found both Linuxes to be extremely cumbersome (and I’ve experimented with Linux distributions before). If you aren’t a die-hard Linux fan, these PCs aren’t for you.

That admission is a two edged sword. As a test case he is the perfect candidate to trial the devices. But as an evaluator of the systems or OS he is also unqualified to do so. Lets put it this way — he WOULD NOT be on the purchasing team of any major corporation.
More on PC World Doesn’t Get IT…

If AT&T and the cable guys weren’t so even in the most unlikeable company sweepstakes, I’d be calling foul on behalf the cable guys. AT&T may have a valid point that in some instances they will deliver better throughput even wih a slower local loop, be the fact remains, most subscribers get significantly less than either parties advertised “up to” speed. Before you can rightfully accuse your competitor of stretching the truth, you need to put your own house in order.

AT&T’s Group President John Stankey spoke at Merrill Lynch’s Communications Forum today in New York, in the process taking a shot at cable broadband networks (webcast here). Stankey says that AT&T went into one of their cities, purchased cable broadband service for some 150 users (from the speed tiers cited, they appear to be Comcast connections), and then tested network performance.

The company poked and prodded the network for a period of several months. AT&T claims they found that peak downstream speeds were between 3-4Mbps, while average downstream speeds for the users ranged between 300kbps and 400kbps, significantly less than the advertised rate of six to eight megabits per second. Some Stankey comments we transcribed from the webcast (hat tip to IP Democracy): (from Broadband Reports)

54mbps, fast? I think not! Not compared to 5Gbps. In the land down under they have developed a chip that can do exactly that.

The world’s first transceiver integrated on a single chip that operates at 60GHz on the CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) process, the most common semiconductor technology, was announced today by NICTA, Australia’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence.

The development will enable the truly wireless office and home of the future. As the integrated transceiver developed by NICTA is extremely small, it can be embedded into devices. The breakthrough will mean the networking of office and home equipment - without wires - will finally become a reality.

Researchers from NICTA’s Gigabit Wireless Project, which is based out of NICTA’s Victoria Research Laboratory, are the first in the world to have developed an integrated transceiver, a complete transmitter and receiver, on a single chip at 60GHz on CMOS.

This technology breakthrough will enable the wireless transfer of audio and video data at up to 5 gigabits per second, ten times the current maximum wireless transfer rate, at one-tenth the cost.

Oh Boss this chip is targeted at the 57-60Ghz band, unlicensed. That’s the plus. The downside is that at these bandwidths transport is strictly line of sight. You have to clearly see the transmitter. But at those speeds it would be worth it.

Linky.