June 2007 - Kitchener Waterloo Aquarium Society

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June 2007 fins & tales Fish & Chips by Phil Maznyk KWAS webmaster@kwas.ca Hi everyone and welcome to the summer issue of Fish N Chips. This will be my last article until our regular meetings start again in September. I thought I’d spend some time this month going over a few of the more common or shall I say popular technologies related to computers and how we use them today. O perating System Most of you know that Microsoft’s new flagship operating system Windows Vista is now a full 5 months old and no longer fresh out of the gate. As of the writing of this article Microsoft claim to have sold more than 60 million copies of the successor to Windows XP. Some love it, some hate it and some users are neutral tending to take a wait and see approach. Make no mistake though, if you’re a Windows user and you are thinking of purchasing a new PC in the next year you too will be using Windows Vista. What’s the big deal with Vista? Better communication, easier to use, much safer than any previous version of Windows, more entertaining to name just a few. The visual appeal with the new GUI (short for graphical user interface) is really quite remarkable. Certainly nobody that has ever used Windows in the past has ever seen anything like this except on the Apple’s OSx. Windows Vista coupled with Direct X 10 is finally poised to bring PC Gaming back into line with the big console players Sony PlayStation and Xbox 360 as far as visual appeal and playability are concerned. Music Apple and its ever popular I- Tunes still rule in this ever so hotly contested market. Why? It’s all about the music. Music rules our lives. From your car stereo to your home CD library, music enriches our daily life. It inspires and energizes us, even when we are feeling the weight of the world on our shoulders. Just plug in your headphones, fire up your playlist and lose yourself in the music. And having the ability to access a massive library with thousands of audio tracks from various artists’ right at your fingertips is simply put musicopia. Everybody wants to get in on the act, however Apple has got the user experience and ease of use down to a science. Finding a song in iTunes couldn’t be simpler. Apple even offers a free download of the week and highlighting of celebrity playlists. This is why so many iTunes wannabe’s are copying Apple’s formula. All those 99 cent songs are adding up to a major revenue stream for whoever can grab the most customers. My kids each have one and it seems every which way I look I see a new I- Pod. What a cool little device. Where were these when I was a youngster! Search Engine Google the über popular search engine that I think almost the entire wired and wireless world use is now butting heads again with Microsoft over both internet search engine technology and desktop searching. Make no mistake; Google has become a huge company. Do you Google? Or have you ever Googled for something. These are 2 of the most used phrases in the computer world today. Google began as a simple research project in early 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brian, two Ph.D. students at Leland Stanford University, USA. They made it into a company, Google Inc., on September 7, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. Conservative estimates say that by the end of 2006 Google’s servers will have indexed and archived almost 6 billion webpage’s and close to a billion images. That’s billion folks. What else makes Google the leader it is? Well how about Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps and Google News to name a few. Now that Google owns the ever popular You Tube we have access to millions of online videos instantly. I’m not sure what it is about Technology, backyard garages and young nerdy types but make no mistake these guys are wealthy beyond what you and I can comprehend. (Continued on page 11) 10 Kitchener-Waterloo Aquarium Society
fins & tales June 2007 (Continued from page 10) Instant Messaging Instant Messaging or IM for short. MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, and MIRC to name just a few are so very popular today with not only the younger crowd but people of all ages. Instant messaging offers us real-time communication and allows easy collaboration within groups, which might be considered more akin to a genuine conversation than email’s more formal “letter” format. Unlike e-mail though, people know whether the other person or is actually online and available for a chat. Most systems allow the user to set an online status or away message so people are notified when the user is available, busy, or away from the computer. On the other hand, people are not forced to reply immediately to incoming messages. For this reason, some people consider communication via instant messaging to be less intrusive than communication via phone. However, not all popular systems allow the sending of messages to people not currently logged on (offline messages), thus removing much of the difference between IM and email. Allowing for instantaneous communication between any number of people at the same time, instant messaging can thus transmit information quickly and efficiently, as well as receive an immediate acknowledgement or reply. With the benefit of being able to see the other party using webcams, and even talking directly for free over the internet, this form of digital communication has been widely accepted by individuals of all ages and cultures. Many businesses even use this form of communication internally and amongst other divisions which may be spread around a city block or even the country. Today I’ve shown you just a few of the technologies that are at the top of their game. Many of us are already using them and if you aren’t I suspect you know someone who is. Enjoy the summer everyone and I hope to see you all at the club picnic in July. KWAS Annual Summer Picnic July 29th 1 - 7 pm Waterloo Park - Picnic Shelter Westmount Entrance KWAS supplies Burgers/Dogs and the trimmings Along with the cold drinks Please bring a dish for sharing Games/Chairs/What ever & Who ever you want Everyone welcome!!!! Kitchener-Waterloo Aquarium Society 11
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June 2007 - Kitchener Waterloo Aquarium Society

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