Wednesday, May 9, 2007

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Sign up for the FREE, Oracle Database Insider newsletter; Press release: Oracle Introduces Oracle Information Lifecycle Management Assistant; Gartner Report: Findings from Oracle OpenWorld 2006: Users Are Investing in Oracle's DBMS Infrastructure

Oracle Database: Oracle Database 10g delivers record-breaking performance and scalability on Windows, Linux, and UNIX servers and provides fast ROI by moving from a single server to Grid Computing without changing a single line of code.; Oracle Database 10g delivers better results by automating administrative tasks, providing industry-leading security and regulatory compliance features, and enabling the highest availability with Real Application Clusters (RAC).

Leading Analyst: "RAC Should be a Part of Your Oracle DBMS Strategy": Over the past year, Forrester Research interviewed 35 Oracle customers using Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC). In their subsequent report, "Oracle RAC Gains Momentum," September 2005, Forrester describes how most customers affirmed that RAC meets or exceeds their high-availability requirements to support mission-critical database applications.; Forrester notes that Oracle RAC delivers the most innovative and superior solution in the industry. It supports all kinds of applications, such as data warehouses, OLTP, or mixed environments.

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We are no 'Frankenstein'

By Munir Kotadia, and Scott Mckenzie, ZDNet Australia

The Mozilla Foundation is no "Frankenstein," haphazardly thrown together in open-source development, CEO Mitchell Baker said this week.

Baker, speaking at CeBit Australia 2007 in Sydney, also challenged the perception that open-source vendors are just ad hoc organizations and took the chance to bang the security message home, claiming that Microsoft's Internet Explorer was vulnerable to attack for 285 days last year, compared with just 9 days for Firefox.

In a separate interview with ZDNet Australia, Baker took a swipe at Microsoft and the software giant's definition of collaboration.

"I don't think you should let a word or concept as important as 'collaboration' be defined by Microsoft to mean calendar and e-mail integration. Collaboration, especially for millions of people on the Web is about many other things," she said.

Baker said she believes that the creation of the Mozilla Foundation and the Firefox Web browser are living examples of what collaboration can produce.

While she wasn't dismissive of e-mail and calendar integration, Baker said the level of collaboration that Mozilla and other open-source projects demonstrate dwarf the interaction between those two pieces of software.

The Mozilla CEO also acknowledged that competition is heating up in the browser space. According to Baker, Microsoft is taking notice of Firefox and "is back investing in the browser".

"It is very clear that IE will have a least one nice feature that we don't. That I think we should take as a given," she said. "Most people like Firefox and they trust Firefox, and that is because of the way we build it. We don't have anything to hide behind. We can't hide behind our mistakes because they are all out there in the public," she added.

Munir Kotadia and Scott Mckenzie of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.

Ultra-cheap cell phones

By Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com

Sun Microsystems' answer to One Laptop Per Child.

The server and software company hopes to sell a version of Java to phone companies that will bring network access to the world's computers, executives said here at the JavaOne trade show.

"Java will play a central role in bringing the Internet to the planet," Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz said during a news conference. "It will be the software to build the devices to bridge the digital divide." In a brief speech at the show, Schwartz indicated he believed the Java-powered mobile phones could be sold for $30 to $50 apiece.

That's a notch cheaper than the $100 price the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative hopes to reach in 2008. OLPC began at the MIT Media Lab but now is a separate initiative to build easy-to-use, Linux-powered wirelessly networked devices.

Sun isn't building its own phone, Schwartz said. Instead, the company expects partnerships with manufacturers that will have the direct relationships with customers. "We're not there to disintermediate them from their audience," Schwartz said.

Key to the vision is Java FX Mobile, based largely on technology Sun acquired when it purchased a small company called SavaJe in April. Sun has worked for years to develop Java as a technology that it licenses to others, but the Java FX Mobile software is a product that the company will sell.

Java FX Mobile is geared for small devices, but its Java interface is most similar to the Java Standard Edition (SE) software that runs on standard PCs, said James Gosling, often called the father of Java. However, the software also can run the host of Java applications that have been written for the prevailing incarnation of Java for mobile phones, called Mobile Internet Device Platform (MIDP). MIDP is based on the more compact Java Micro Edition (ME).

Java FX Mobile will usher in a new, more direct phase of Sun's years-long attempt to profit from the millions of dollars it has invested in Java software since its public debut in 1995. Sun has arguably benefited indirectly from Java--for example, by holding Microsoft at bay in some domains, by keeping programmers interested in Sun, and by gaining an entree at customers that need to buy servers--but it's been companies such as IBM, Oracle and BEA Systems that have made the most money selling companies Java products to run software on servers.

Today, Sun licenses Java to mobile phone companies such as Motorola or Nokia, which get access to working "reference implementation" software and typically assemble their own collections of Java components.

But Sun expects to directly charge for Java FX Mobile. It's realistic to expect phone makers to begin using it in the first half of 2008, said Rich Green, Sun's executive vice president of software.

Sun will ship phone manufacturers a pre-built "binary" that sidesteps some of the issues of compatibility that have dogged Java in mobile phones. Sun long has billed Java's advantage as "write once, run anywhere," but because phone makers enabled different modules of Java, software written for one phone might not run on another.

"Java FX is a binary product. You can't have fragmentation if it's a binary implementation," Green said. "That business model saves time and energy on the part of licensees who don't have to spend time mucking with source code."

Sun showed Java FX Mobile applications, including Yahoo Go mobile Internet services, running on a mobile phone. The phone, a model from First International Computer, ran the Java FX Mobile software on a stripped-down version of Linux, Gosling said.

Sun has been trying to bring today's unconnected billions onto the Internet for years, in part because it hopes to sell back-end equipment to the banks, governments and others who will provide Internet-based services.

To further this effort, Schwartz described an initiative he termed "engineers without borders" to try to marshal the energy of technologists to improve the lot of humanity.

"There's a lot of passion about people trying to bring technology to the developing world," Schwartz said.

1.8 Million Species in Internet Encyclopedia list

from : Reuters

From apples to zebras, all 1.8 million known plant and animal species will be listed in an Internet-based "Encyclopedia of Life" under a $100 million project, scientists said on Tuesday.

The 10-year scheme, launched with initial grants of $12.5 million from two U.S.-based foundations, could aid everyone from children with biology homework to governments planning how to protect endangered species.

"The Encyclopedia of Life plans to create an entry for every named species," James Edwards, executive director of the project which is backed by many leading research institutions, told Reuters. "At the moment that's 1.8 million."

The free Encyclopedia would focus mainly on animals, plants and fungi with microbes to follow, blending text, photographs, maps and videos in a common format for each. Expansion of the Internet in recent years made the multi-media project possible.

Demonstration pages at http://www.eol.org include entries about polar bears, rice, death cap mushrooms and a "yeti crab" with hairy claws recently found in the South Pacific.

"This is about giving access to information to everyone," Jesse Ausubel, chairman of the project who works at the Rockefeller University in New York City, told Reuters.

The Encyclopedia would draw on existing databases such as for mammals, fishes, birds, amphibians and plants. English would be used at the start with translations to other languages.

Edwards said the project would give an overview of life on earth via what he termed a "macroscope" -- the opposite of a microscope through which scientists usually peer.

Species would be added as they were identified. Edwards said there might be 8-10 million on earth, adding that estimates ranged from 5-100 million. Fossil species may also be added.

The encyclopedia, to be run by a team of about 25-35 people, could help chart threats to species from pollution, habitat destruction and global warming.

The project would be led by the U.S. Field Museum, Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory, Missouri Botanical Garden, Smithsonian Institution, and Biodiversity Heritage Library -- a group that includes London's Natural History Museum, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Royal Botanic Garden in Kew, England.

Initial funding comes from a $10 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and $2.5 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Extra funds would be raised in coming years.

Ausubel noted that 2007 was the 300th anniversary of the birth of Sweden's Carl Linnaeus, influential in working out ways to classify species. "If he were alive today we think he'd be jumping up and down celebrating," he said.

Children in the United States watch about four hours of television every day

Despite warnings, most U.S. babies watch TV

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - About 90 percent of U.S. children under age 2 and as many as 40 percent of infants under three months are regular watchers of television, DVDs and videos, researchers

They said the number of young kids watching TV is much greater than expected.

"We don't know from the study whether it is good or bad. What we know is that it is big," said Frederick Zimmerman of the University of Washington, whose research appears in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

A second study suggested excessive TV viewing can lead to attention and learning problems down the road.

The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that children in the United States watch about four hours of television every day. They recommend that children under age 2 should not watch any and older children should watch no more than 2 hours a day of quality programming.

But 29 percent of parents surveyed by Zimmerman and colleagues believe baby-oriented TV and DVD programs offer educational benefits.

"Parents are getting the message loud and clear from marketers of TV and videos that this is good for their kids. That it will help their brain development ... None of this stuff has ever been proven," Zimmerman said in a telephone interview.

For their study, Zimmerman's team conducted random telephone surveys of more than 1,000 families with young children in Minnesota and Washington.

They found 90 percent of children under age 2 and 40 percent of infants under three months watched TV regularly.

At 3 months, children watched less than an hour per day, but by 24 months, they watched more than 1.5 hours per day.

About half of the shows watched were in the educational category, with the remainder split evenly among noneducational children's content, baby DVDs/videos and adult TV.

TV IN THE BEDROOM

In a separate survey of 1,051 parents published in the journal Pediatrics, 75 percent of children aged 0 to 6 were found to watch TV every day, often in their own bedrooms.

"We don't know that it is bad but we don't know that it is harmless," Zimmerman said.

A second study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that teens who watch three to four hours of television a day are more likely to have attention or learning problems and are less likely to get a college degree.

"Even watching more than an hour of TV per day had some adverse consequences, but three hours was much worse than one hour, and two was worse than one," Jeffrey Johnson of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute said in a telephone interview.

Johnson and colleagues studied 678 families in New York state over more than 20 years.

"Kids who watched less than one hour of TV per day were twice as likely to go to college as those who watched three or more hours per day," he said.

Just 12 percent of the parents whose children watched less than an hour of television a day said their child "hardly ever does homework," compared to 21 percent of those who watched one to three hours a day and 27 percent of those who watched more than three hours a day.

Parents said 22 percent of teens who watched less than an hour a day were often bored at school, compared to 35 percent of the moderate watchers and 42 percent of those who watched three hours or more.

The result was the same regardless of socioeconomic status.

Johnson said he believes TV may be shortening teens' attention spans. "Over time, it could really dumb down society," he said.

Java at Mobile Phone

By Henry Kingman

Sun will ship a "pre-integrated," GPL-licensable, Linux- and Java-based operating system software reference design for mobile phone...more

Roxio Crunches Video for Apple TV, iPod, iPhone

by : Peter Cohen, Macworld

Roxio on Tuesday introduced Crunch, a new US$39.99 application designed especially for users of the Apple TV, video iPod or the forthcoming iPhone who... more

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Design of Decission Supporting System for Agroindustry Development Base on Superior Commodity in Gorontalo)

Design of Decission Supporting System for Agroindustry Development Base on Superior Commodity in Gorontalo¹)

By : Zainudin AK. Antuli², Machfud³, Muhammad Romli³

ABSTRACT

The aim of this research is to find the system formulation of agroindustry development based superior commodity. There are seven phase, there were : analysis strategic of agroindustry using ISM and AHP method, analysis of superior commodity using AHP method, analysis of prospective agroindustry product with AHP method, analysis of potential location in developing superior commodity with MPE method, determining of optimum agreement price with Fibonacci method, financial analysis with NPV, IRR, NBCR and PP.

The models were integrated in Model Based Management System (MBMS) and the data were integrated in Data Based Management System (DBMS). The MBMS and DBMS are integrated with Dialog Management System and then all components are integrated and implemented into a computer softwere name SPABKU program.

The result of the verification showed that strategy of agroindustry` development based superior commodity was priotrizing in creating business atmosphere which supporting the growth of new agroindustry that focusing in providing facility, superior commodity was corn, agroindustry product was animal feed, potential location in development agroindustry was Gorontalo Regency, financial analysis of animal feed agroindustry is suitable and optimum agreement price Rp 1.484,01

Keywords : agroindustry, superior commodity, agroindustrial product, development strategy.

¹A Part of Master Degree Thesis in Master Degree School of Technology Agroindustry of IPB-Indonesia
² A Master Degree Student of IPB's Technology Agroindustry Program - Indonesia
³Lecturers in IPB's Technology Agroindustry Program - Indonesia

Download Link
Filename: ZAINUDIN A.K. ANTULI (F351040011).pdf
Size: 1 MB
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How-to: Not get viruses and not slow your PC to a crawl

by : Liz in
In a popular article “How-to: Get viruses and slow your PC to a crawl,” Jeff explained exactly what to do in order to catch viruses and otherwise debilitate your machine. We recognize that there are some of you out there who just won’t listen. Maybe your desire for those little animated icons is too great or you’ve got to have the latest Nickelback song but you just can’t bring yourself to pay for it (we don’t blame you for the latter).

Here, Liz suggests a few ways to have your cake and eat it too. For the record, we don’t recommend putting your computer at risk. As Jeff’s article shows, one wrong click could land your computer in some pretty dire straits.

1. Go to porn websites

Everyone has their dirty little secret, but only the most learned of us know how to do this safely. Most porn on the internet IS corrupted, evil, and just an excuse to steal your information or blackmail you. Any site that asks for verification that you are 18 in any way other than an “agree” link (this must be HTML, not a button) is trying to trick you. Any website that asks you to download anything is trying to trick you. Most good popup blockers (like Google toolbar or Stopzilla) can stop the popups, leaving you free to surf one-handed. And never try to save pictures or movies to the desktop; just bookmark it secretly and come back later.

2.Try to go to Warez or Crack websites.

Any crack or warez website that has a .com address is probably bogus. The real ones use .ws, which is unregulated and is hosted in all of those loverly places that support filesharing or whatever you may have. If you want the software and you’re not going to pay for it, first off admit to yourself that that is illegal, you’re a naughty person, and you could be asking for a free stay at your local penitentiary. If you’re ok with that, note that stealing software is bad, but what’s worse is trying to make money off of it. On a side note, if you want cheap software, go OPEN SOURCE.

3. Use music sharing software.

If you want to share your music with other people, and perhaps peruse their collections at will, do it the right way. Use Bearshare, or if you must use Limewire, use it while thinking critically. Check filename extensions. Only download .mp3s; the other extensions can hide code and bring scripts along with them (and it goes without saying, don’t download executables (.exe)). Also, don’t download obvious search hooks. “Dr. Dre feat Incubus feat Shari Lewis” is obviously fake, not just a twisted perversion of all that is right and good. Only download the songs with the most copies, but avoid the ones that are directly at the top of the list. Also, the sponsored downloads are sponsored by the RIAA and usually contain trackers. Share nice now.

4. Download “free” screensavers, toolbars, browser helpers, unknown “cleaners” and that type of thing - especially software offered from pop-up ads.

While perspectives differ on what toolbars etc, are malicious or spyware (consider the debate over the popular Alexa toolbar) the key here is make to sure it’s a recognizable company. Screensavers offered from reputable companies are fine, as are toolbars and browser helpers. Even pop-up ads are fine as long as you recognize the brand. To get a sense of how reputable a program is, Google the company, see if anything about “how to remove” comes up, and if not click away.

5. Put on the Webshots screen saver or any other screen saver that updates daily.

These types of screensavers will rob you of processor cycles and slow your computer down, but if you care more about that “kitties and puppies” screensaver then those cycles it probably doesn’t really matter. Plus when you’ve got the screensaver running, it doesn’t really matter does it? Note that the number of running processes I have is 20 and I’m writing this on a 5-year-old laptop. If you want it to last, keep the things your computer has to do to a minimum and it will be able to handle it. As new products come out, they assume the highest level of computing power is available to them, and that the entire purpose of the machine is to run them. Every so often, go to Start > Run, type msconfig, and slide over to the “Startup” tab. Make sure not to disable your antimalware protection, but disable everything else. You don’t need anything running every time you start your computer, you can startup aim or myspace or daemon tools yourself. If you want to find out what all those programs in your Startup tab are, check out a list like this one here.

6. Run as many things in the background as possible; even for software you use only once in a while.

Jeff has a point here. If you have to have these things maybe it’s time for a leeter computer. Really, background tasks are fine, as long as they are not startup tasks and you actually need then to be running when they are. This includes daemon tools, BitTorrent, and Quicktime - just shut them down when you are done using them.

7. Don’t delete drivers from printers you threw away 5 years ago.

Since Windows Service Pack 2, the drivers are only initiated if you hook up the device. So make sure your Windows Updates are running and that there is nothing running when you start your computer and you should be fine.

8. Download animated cursors

Indeed they are annoying to others, and indeed they come with spyware, but that can easily be disabled with HijackThis, a free antimalware tool that lets you delete any customizations to the shell of your operating system. Even works with Linux!

9. Use the automatic viewer pane in your email program.

The answer to this conundrum lies in avoiding email programs altogether by using web-based email that’s reliable and has good storage, as well as a convenient user interface, and nice spam blockage. I recommend Gmail. Windows Mail now also has fantastic spam filtering. If you must use a program with the automatic viewer, set up some spam filters and be careful not to accidentally click on your junk mail folder while the viewer is on.

10. Blindly click on things without reading them.

This one rings true, too. You must always read the popups your firewall presents to you and always consider every flashing popup. Unless you use Stopzilla and adblock software. This removes all ads from websites, including annoying flashing ones, and Stopzilla has a global black/white list that’s tested by millions of users online, so chances are you won’t encounter a new piece of software.

11. Use Windows

If you’re in a position where using a non-Windows operating system is an option, switching operating systems is a drastic but very effective way to help reduce the number of viruses you’ll potentially have to deal with. Linux and other *nix versions have fewer users and thus are less often targets for virus writers. Add to that the fact that all of these OSs hold a special place in many virus writers hearts, and it’s not surprising they are frequently spared. If you’d like to look into Linux but don’t know where to start, you should consider installing a very popular version called Ubuntu. It has a simple setup and a user interface that is similar to Windows. As these OSs are not nearly as vulnerable to viruses, you can do many of the things above without worrying about the tips and tricks.

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