"Computer experts brace for "Conficker" worm"

Again the topic of stealing information through the Internet comes out. This time the thing is about malicious software called “conficker” worm. “Conficker, believed to reside on 2 milion to 12 milion computers worldwide, is deigned to turn an infected PC into slave that responds to commands sent from a remote server that controls an army of slave computers known as a botnet.”So it goes with steling identities, log sensitive corporate information, credit card numbers, online banking passwords and other. In other words, people are under threat. Even FBI is trying to solve the problem. This is a really bad situation called no more a cyber crime but “criminal attack” (according to Microsoft).

I remember once I got that mail from my bank that my personal data is under threat of being stolen. I wonder what they exactly had in mind? Maybe they were talking about “Conficker” computer virus…hmmm…I just hope it is not as serious as it seems.

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Web Vocabulary #5

Spider – A program that automatically fetches Web pages. Spiders are used to feed pages to search engines. It's called a spider because it crawls over the Web. Another term for these programs is webcrawler. Because most Web pages contain links to other pages, a spider can start almost anywhere. As soon as it sees a link to another page, it goes off and fetches it. Large search engines, like Alta Vista, have many spiders working in parallel.  Click here for source

Bandwidth – The amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time. For digital devices, the bandwidth is usually expressed in bits per second(bps) or bytes per second. For analog devices, the bandwidth is expressed in cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz).  Click here for source

Baseband – A type of data transmission in which digital or analog data is sent over a single unmultiplexed channel, such as an Ethernet LAN. Baseband transmission use TDM to send simultaneous bits of data along the full bandwidth of the transmission channel.  Click here for source

Metaverse – The Metaverse is a virtual world, described in Neal Stephenson's 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, where humans, as avatars, interact with each other and software agents, in athree-dimensional space that uses the metaphor of the real world. The word metaverse is a portmanteau of the words "meta" and "universe."  Click here for source

Shareware –  Software distributed on the basis of an honor system. Most shareware is delivered free of charge, but the author usually requests that you pay a small fee if you like the program and use it regularly. By sending the small fee, you become registered with the producer so that you can receive service assistance and updates. You can copy shareware and pass it along to friends and colleagues, but they too are expected to pay a fee if they use the product.  Click here for source

"Unafraid" China apparently fears YouTube"

The article is about blocking You Tube by the Chinese government.

China is definitely a country with a government which is controlling every aspect of its people’s lives. And then there is the Web that is being controlled too. I think It’s sad that some people in the world are unable to access a particular website, like YouTube, just because someone said that you can’t. Well, the Communist Party in China has everything in their hands and they determine the rules. Even though Foreign Minister spokesman Qin Gandg said that “Many people have a false impression that the Chinese government fears the Internet. In fact it is just the opposite,” from my point of view this statement may be untrue. This is not the first time when blocking a site happened; moreover, sites were being closed due to “inappropriate” content, meaning that someone expressed his opinion (probably negative about the government). Finally I truly believe that the Web is a means of opening people’s eyes to the problems around and that is why the Chinese government is so afraid of (because he may loose absolute control over its people.)

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Web Vocabulary #4

ANSI – Acronym for the American National Standards Institute. Founded in 1918, ANSI is a voluntary organization composed of over 1,300 members (including all the large computer companies) that creates standards for the computer industry. For example, ANSI C is a version of the C language that has been approved by the ANSI committee. To a large degree, all ANSI C compliers, regardless of which company produces them, should behave similarly. Click here for source

Amaya – An open source Web browser editor that authors can use to create and update documents on the Web. Amaya offers integration between browsing and editing features in a single environment. Amaya started at W3C in 1996 as HTML plus CSS style sheets editor. Currently, it supports XML and a number of XML applications, such as MathML. Amaya also includes a collaborative annotation application based on Resource Description Framework (RDF), XLink, and XPointer. Amaya is hosted by W3C and is available for Windows, Unix and MacOS X platforms. Click here for source

DBA – Short for database administrator is is the title given to the person responsible for managing many aspects of a database including archiving, performance, security, testing, and other tasks. Click here for source

Cookie – A message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The browser stores the message in a text file. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Click here for source

IRC – Short for Internet Relay Chat, a chat system developed by Jarkko Oikarinen in Finland in the late 1980s. IRC has become very popular as more people get connected to the Internet because it enables people connected anywhere on the Internet to join in live discussions. Unlike older chat systems, IRC is not limited to just two participants. Click here for source

"IBM develops 3D patient record software"

Although the article is not directly related to the Web I think it’s valuable  to mention such as technology development as 3D software for medical records. Mainly, ” Physicians at Thy-Mors hospital in Denmark and IBM have developed patient record software that uses a three-dimensional computer model of the human anatomy to visualize a patient's medical information.” It emphasizes the importance of technology in our everyday lives – the better it is, the more dependant on it we become. Immediately, it made me think of the future. Maybe we will not need any appointment in a doctor’s office to evaluate our illness. And medical examination will be conducted through the Web and you’ll be able to see, on a 3D model, what’s wrong with you. The only thing you’ll have to buy will be medication, but …you can do it online and have it delivered straight to your door. Well, the future is intriguing.

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