Currently there are only 2 main ways of getting broadband into your home or business in the UK, the first is to hope that your phone line is in a broadband enabled area and the second is to use the expensive satellite services.
Very soon there could be a third, it involves air balloons floating 1.5 kms in the air tied down with a fiber optic cable. Users then point a modified satellite dish at the balloon and can access the Internet at up to 2MBs per second.
The company developing the technology is called Skylinc and has done a range of tests with the baloons in York and has had very pleasing results. Skylinc say that just 18 balloons could cover the whole of the UK for broadband meaning that even very remote places could have access to a fast net connection.
The service would be offered cheaper that most line based broadband and wouldn't have the slow uploading speeds associated with satellite connections. The company say that bad weather is also not a problem as the balloons can be kept still with special systems.
The service is hoped to be launched as soon as next year in some areas of the UK and Skylinc are applying for licenses to float balloons in other parts of the country.
Broadband in the UK is becoming increasingly popular and it was announced this week that 2 million people now have it and this is increasing at over 35,000 people a week. Skylinc certainly have a big audience awaiting them if they can get their service in before satellites become cheaper for net access.
AOL the owners of Netscape have decided that there will be no more releases of the Netscape Browser. Netscape 7 ended the line of development of the Netscape Browser that has been recently based on the Mozilla project.
Mozilla
In 1998 the Netscape Browser became open source and the Mozilla foundation was born with funding from AOL. Since then the foundation has produced a browser known as Mozilla. Netscape was first founded in 1994 and released its first browser in October of that year.
The Browser was released freely and soon took off helping to make the Internet what it is today. Netscape soon faced hard competition from Microsoft when it started to release its own web browser (Internet Explorer) with its operating system.
This has caused various court cases with Microsoft which have only recently been settled. AOL has its own web browser however this is not based on Mozilla.
AOL said it will keep the Netscape brand alive and still support old editions of the software but it will not produce any new releases.
[Last edited on July 19, 2003 at 6:41:28pm by pwhite]
With over 90% of web pages viewed in Microsoft's Internet Explorer could Mozilla Firebird (here) be the best competition yet for the tech giants browser? Mozilla Firebird is a stand alone browser based on the Mozilla (here) application suite. It boasts to be fast, stylish and easy to use. Thunderbird (here) on the other hand is a mail client similar to Outlook, likewise with Firebird it is also derived from the Mozilla suite. Both Thunderbird and Firebird are ?Technology previews? so are not complete but are still mostly usable.
Firebird and Thunderbird are both open source software and are released under the Mozilla and Netscape Public Licenses (here). This means that you can freely download and install Firebird or Thunderbird as many times are you want.
Unlike some similar programs such as Internet Explorer and Outlook, Firebird and Thunderbird are available for a number of different operating systems including Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Both programs were easy to install in Windows and Linux, both requiring the user to simply download the software, unzip it then double click on the executable file. This may be nothing new for Windows Users but not having to type in a complicated command into the console in Linux is a handy advantage.
Firebird
ImAFish in the Firebird Browser.
Large copyhere
Large copyhere
In a way its unfair to review ?unfinished? software but Firebird and Thunderbird are both good programs which work well in Windows and Linux. I would like to see Thunderbird's Junk mail filter improved slightly but this may happen in future releases. Do I think that Firebird can break Microsoft's dominance in the Browser world? Well maybe but unless it can get wide spread take up from either Linux distributions or being distributed by PC manufacturers selling Windows its will be a long and hard road.
Internet Explorers integration with Windows does make it hard for many rivals but I do think that Firebird is the best yet in the terms of a good alternative and I think it may be enough to woo people away from Internet Explorer.
Key Links
Mozilla (here)
Firebird (here)
Thunderbird (here)
Related ImAFish Articles
The End of Netscape Navigator (here)
Reviews PC Spec:
Pentium 4 ? 2gig
1024 DDR
ATI Radeon 9600.
Windows XP Home and SuSE 9 Professional.
In this article I will be looking at the basics behind the Linux Directory Structure and what you should expect to find behind each directory. You will notice that the Linux directory structure is very different to that of a Windows PC. This is because the Linux directory structure comes from Unix and is built logically rather then simplistic. However once you know what is behind each directory then it is easy to know where to look for things. I will start with a couple of terms that you maybe unaware about. Source code -The code behind a program before it has been compiled.
In order to edit or modify a program you need its source code. While Windows you cannot get the source code for most programs in Linux most programs come with the source code so that you can modify the program to suit your needs if you want to. Executable program - Sometimes called executable, program, or binary. Once the source code has been compiled it becomes an executable, in windows they often have the extension .exe after them.
In Linux you will find a number of executable program types try to look for .rpm files as they are normally the simplest to Install. Linux executables often have the extension .bin. Process - Sometimes called task. A program that is executing may need additional information about how to run it. Kernel -A program that forms a bridge between applications and the hardware they run on. /bin - stores essential binaries (programs) needed when booting the system or working in single user mode to maintain the system. /boot - stores kernel images and boot configuration files. /dev - stores device special files used to access hardware devices. /etc - stores system configuration files. /home - stores the home directories for the individual users. /lib - stores library modules used by the commands. /lost+found ?
If your computer isn't shut down properly when it reboots the Kernel may find something that is corrupt, if so it will be put in this directory. /mnt - a mount point for other storage devices. /opt - This directory contains all the software and add-on packages that are not part of the default installation. Generally you will find KDE and StarOffice here. /proc - This is a special directory on your system.
It has special processes used by executables. /sbin - stores commands required to administer the system such as shutdown. /tmp - used for temporary files /usr - used for programs, libraries, documentation, etc used by normal users /var - stored system data that varies or changes frequently such as system logs, mail and print spool files, etc Not all distributions will have all these directories and don't worry if when you install a certain distribution one of these directories isn?t here. Most of the time you wont have to worry what is in any of these directories but it is good to know what the directory contains.
It's been quiet here at ImAFish for the past week because we have been working on our new website!
The site features some of the best cars in the world and lets you review and score each one of them. We have found some stunning pictures, the top statistics and some mind blowing videos giving you a great overview of each car.
Check it out today and start reviewing cars!