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My family has used Comcast for internet for the past several years, and have had our fare share of problems with their internet service ever since we have had it.

I am forced to call Comcast on a semi-regular basis because of some kind of connection problems with my high-speed internet. In all of those times, only maybe twice, was the problem actually on my end. I may be on my sixth Motorola Surfboard cable modem, but despite the insistence of Comcast, my connection problem is rarely on my end. This leads me to my latest encounter with Comcast’s technical support.

Sunday afternoon, my internet connection slowed to a rate that made me envious of any dial-up user. With rare bursts of speed, my average browsing speed was around half that of dial-up internet. The strangest thing about the whole event was that doing speed tests through my browser was showing that I was getting record speeds, typically between 9-14mbps down. Despite this wonderful statistic, it took forever to load web pages and playing games was out of the question. Finally I figured enough was enough and started troubleshooting possible issues on my end, powercycling the modem and router several times, as well as clearing out the internet settings (this didnt make much since considering the problem was happening on all my computers, but I figured it cant hurt since it needed done anyway).

After about 30 minutes of troubleshooting and making sure that everything on my end was as it should be, I decided to run a trace route to see what kind of results I could get out of it. By trace routing sites such as Google and Yahoo, I was able to track down that the problem was not on my end, but extremely long lags between hops, mostly dealing with Comcast and AT&T. After realizing this, I gave in and called Comcast to figure out what was going on.

When I called Comcast, after I wormed my way through their answering machine, I finally spoke to a woman, who’s name I don’t remember. This lady began by asking the standard questions as to who I was, although this time I was asked the account number and the last 4 digits of the social security number on the account. Considering how many times I have called there, including one other time in the past week for modem issues, I know these arent standard questions unless you are altering your service. I told the Comcast employee about my problems, for which she insisted that I do everything I had just completed, such as powercycling the modem and router and clearing out my internet settings. She said that there were no issues in my area, which I knew was a complete lie. After I did all of the recommended tests to the satisfaction of the representative, the problem continued, to which the ignorant employee blamed me for my problems and said that the problem was on my end, despite myself proving otherwise.

At this point, the Comcast representative attempted to fix me up with a technician to come out to my house, which is not possible during the day as I work during the day and cannot be home for this. After my refusal, I hung up in frustration. While I understand that with inexperienced internet users, problems such as this could be on the users end, I knew the problem was not on my end despite the fact that the Comcast representative did everything she could to convince me that it was on my end. The company was not even willing to entertain the idea that the problem could be on their end. For those of you who are curious how things turned out, by 10pm that night, the problem was magically cured.

I would consider overlooking this problem if this was the first time it had happened, but this seams to happen nearly every time I call Comcast. For the price that they require customers to pay for internet access, it would be nice to be shown some respect and kindness instead of rude arrogance. I hope by publishing this story, it will encourage others to come forward and cause changes in Comcast’s policy when dealing with customers with problems. Also, a public apology to myself and every other customer that has been treated this way would also go along way, because as it stands, my family plans on getting rid of Comcast before the end of the year.

The Croatian government has decided to adopt and open source policy by which it plans to migrate entirely to the free software movement.

In a document titled “Directions for Development and Use of Open Source Code Computer Programmes in Bodies and Institutions of State Administration,” The Croatian Government states the need to develop, prepare, and obtain open-source software.

The Government feels that proprietary software makes it too dependent on suppliers which can damage competition.

The movment will also make the government more transparent and will allow for the easier access of information.

The adoption of open source software is expected to strengthen the domestic information science industry. It is also expected to save tax payers a huge amount of money.

This is just the latest movement by a government to adopt open source software as a means of saving money while allowing for a more transparent government. One reason for the sudden acceptance of open source software among the governments of the world is the amount of customization that it allows for software and the ability to change the software to meet the needs of the end user. This latest adoption is further proof that the open source philosophy is gaining momentum in areas where software customization is a must.

With consumers constantly demanding greater amounts of storage, technology developers such as Samsung are continuing to provide the technology that allows for more portability data and larger amounts of storage.

Samsung, the worlds largest memory chip manufacturer announced a new 8Gbit NAND flash memory chip today that should enter the market in the next few months. Consumers should see a large increase in data storage within the next six months for portable devices such as Ipods and USB storage devices.

Not only will this new development allow devices to have 8GB NAND flash capacity, but the chips are 25% smaller, which allows for the production of even smaller devices. Samsung stated that the new chips will allow for storage of 2,000 MP3 files, or 225 minutes of DVD-quality video.

This latest development poses a challenge to device makers because the new chips require them to use four controller chips instead of two when they begin manufacturing 16GB devices. While this presents a new challenge for device manufacturers, they expect to have the issue resolved by the end of the year, allowing for consumers to see 16GB USB drives in stores around Christmas.

Samsung is utilizing 60-nanometer manufacturing technology to reduce the size of the chips while making them faster and more energy efficient.

As long as these chips continue to decrease in size, device makers will be able to make their products smaller and more portable.

Starting this summer, the Hong Kong government intends to have approximately 200,000 young people scouring the Internet discussion sites linking to or containing illegal copies of copyrighted movies and music and then report the findings to law enforcement. While the entertainment industry is doing cartwheels at this news, civil liberties advocates are crying foul.

The ‘Youth Ambassadors’ campaign will begin on Wednesday with approximately 1,600 young people pledging to participate at a stadium with movie and music stars as well as government ministers.

Hong Kong is relying on youths to keep order on the Internet by enlisting the help of all of the members of the Boy Scouts, Girl Guides as well as nine other groups with ages ranging from 9 to 25.

Tam Yiu-keung, Hong Kong’s Excise and Customs Department’s senior superintendent of customs for intellectual property investigations states the program should not cause any worries about privacy or using children in law enforcement because the government program is searching public discussion sites that would be no different from reporting a crime while walking down the street.

Despite local news reports, Tam added “We are not trying to manipulate youths and get them into the spy profession. What we are just trying to do is arouse a civic conscience to report crimes to authorities.”

While mainland China has periodic crackdowns on bootleg movies because of the pressure coming from Western countries, Hong Kong maintains a good reputation for banning fake and bootlegged products ranging from clothing to movies and music. Despite this claim from Tam, the program is making people like Emily Lau, a pro-democracy lawmaker nervous because she believes that more details should be released and open to public debate before going ahead with such a program.

“Public education I support, but to get young kids to do the reporting?” she said. “I feel uneasy about it.”

A policy research group called Civic Exchange states that the program would have to be handled carefully because of its faint echoes of the Cultural Revolution in mainland China where youths were encouraged to spy on and report crimes of their parents.

Many teens view the action as uncool. The government is responding by having a ceremony that will include Stephen Fung, a movie director and actor as well as popular singers Gigi Leung, Niki Chow, Wilfred Lau and Alex Fong.

Authorities are taking the tips from youngsters and verifying them before relaying the information to trade groups like the Motion Picture Association or the International Federation of Phonographic Industry. These groups will then send warning letters to the web masters of the message boards requesting them to delete the offending posts while keeping the identity of the youths secret.

The pilot program for this movement took place in the spring with 700 young people who found 800 cases of copyrighted material that were being traded using the popular P2P technology BitTorrent. Authorities would then identify the sources, most of which were located in Australia, Eruope, and the United States, which are beyond the easy reach of Hong Kong.

Tam states that more than three-fifths of the illegal posts have been deleted without signs of replacement.

According to Tam, they are not going after downloaders at this point because there is no major movement to do so among the general public on how to handle the cases.

Hong Kong has criminal penalties for those making copies of copyrighted materials without permission and civil penalties to those who accept the copies, but with the use of BitTorrent, the distinction between the two is no longer clear because down loaders often unintentionally upload segments of the file to other BitTorrent users. Although at this point, enforcement is focused primarily on the seeders of such files.

This program is drawing international interest. Customs officials in Hong Kong have already contacted their counterparts in the United States, Macao and mainland China, they are ready to help others set up similar programs according to Tam.

Dean Boyd, a Homeland Security Department spokesperson in Washington stated that the U.S. Has no plans to introduce such a program because of liability concerns.

In addition, Deron Smith, a spokesperson for the Boy Scouts of America, stated that the group has no plans to ask scouts to report infringements to law enforcement.

The Scout Association of Hong Kong has seized this opportunity as a way to teach good citizenship. Boy Scouts ages 11-20 are expected to use the system which reports infringements to a website. The goal of the program is to teach youths to respect copyrighted material.

This program is more likely to work better in Hong Kong because their teenagers are obedient, mainly because of Confucian tradition and social pressures to study and serve the community.

The effectiveness of the program will depend on the efficiency of the participants.

While I am personally opposed to this program, I do respect their goal.

What are your thoughts on the program?

I have been playing video games for about 2 weeks shy of 17 years. My gaming addiction began at the age of 2 and while I’m about to turn 19, I see no sign of stopping anytime soon. In the past 17 years of my life as a gamer, until last night, I never pondered the question, ‘How old is too old for gaming?’ I came across the question of gamers over the age of 21 when browsing one of the message boards I visit.

This question made me wonder why anybody would allow age to dictate their gaming? Gaming is definitely one of the most expensive hobbies a person could have, with thousands of available games, new consoles and the constant development of high performance computer hardware. Despite the impact your financial situation may be on your gaming, should age dictate what games you play, if any?

After pondering this question for a while, I determined that the idea of no longer playing video games because of a persons age is ludicrous. The average age of the first generation of gamers that grew up on systems like the Atari and NES is now 28-31. I personally know many people 30+ who still play video games on a regular basis. I have met many people at LAN events, both men and women that play video games at an age older than 21.

In todays society, game developers have to create games for all ages. While there are many core gaming ideas, developers have to be able to make games that enjoyed by gamers across multiple generations. Games such as The Sims and Madden are two of the best examples of games that can bring generations together no matter what the age difference.

Although people outgrow many parts of life, gaming isn’t one of them. With the game market being larger than ever, it is clear that gaming spans all ages without alienating the hardcore gamers. The broad appeal of modern games caters to both hardcore and casual gamers of all ages with no sign of slowing down.

For many years, computers have evolved and changed with the demands of consumers. Hard drives are no exception. Although for the past several years, hard drives are virtually the same, storage capacities have greatly increased.

I have owned a small handful of computers in my nearly 19 year existence, as well as have worked on hundreds more. The one thing that I have noticed with the usage of each computer is the size of the hard drive.

For at least eight years I have been using a computer that has a hard drive of 4GB. Back when I was younger and this was my primary computer, this huge amount of storage seemed nearly impossible to completely use. I was very wrong.

It didn’t take long for games to begin requiring nearly the same amount of space as was contained on this single hard drive. I finally decided that more space was required for more computing, so a 40 GB hard drive was purchased, which it wasn’t long before that proved to be a small drive.

Now I am running multiple desktops and laptops with hard drives of over 100GB, which many days still seems small. As games, business applications and other programs have come to take up more resources, the hard drive industry has been forced to evolve its technology to meet the demands of modern society.

The top storage capacities of consumer hard drives are currently toping out at around 500GB. While this may be more than enough for many computer users, there are many like myself who see this as small because of the dozens of games, thousands of songs, and hundreds of hours of video we keep stored on our computers.

Later this year, consumers will have access to 750GB drives and 1 Tera byte drives for their desktops by the end of next year. Notebook storage is expected to hit 200GB by the end of next year. Even with these evolutionary leaps in technology, storage prices continue to remain affordable with the availability of newer, bigger hard drives.

Flash Memory

With the sales of traditional hard drives expected to hit $41.5 billion by 2010, up from today’s $27.9 billion in sales, the flash memory industry is also expected to grow in size and sales. In 2005, flash memory sales totaled a record $10.6 billion, a figure which is expected to grow to $18.7 billion by 2010.

Flash memory is gaining in favor because its lack of moving parts which makes for greater reliability as well as portability. With current flash memory, the 4GB hard drive in my old computer could easily be worn around me neck and taken anywhere. Flash memory, often smaller than a tube of Chapstick allows for the fast transfer of large amounts of data.

SanDisk Corp., the world’s largest supplier of flash memory storage cards predicts the ability to carry 32GB of data on flash memory cards in portable gadgets within five years. Bill Healy, the Senior V.P. of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc. recently unveiled his concept of the future, 1TB of storage on a flash storage medium slightly larger than a quarter. However, this concept is still several years down the road.

With the rapid changes in the data storage industry, the constant remains that as long as consumers need greater storage capacity, companies such as SanDisk, Seagate and Hitachi will continue to develop even smaller drives with greater storage capacity.

-Jeremy Bray

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