I Love MIS

At the beginning, when I learn subject Information Technology Management (MIS750) at MBA Class for a first time I felt so boring and dont's understand the important of this subject. I always think that this subject need me to understand the computer system theory and this so bored. But, I'm started to think that this subject is quick interesting when my lecturer, Prof Dr. Norzaidi Mohd Daud explained in details about this subject and the important of MIS toward the organization.

Now, I understand the importance of MIS for the organization since the technology and information application will help the organization achieve the strategy and help in decision making. I really love this subject right now and I changed my mind by say "I Love MIS".

My lecturer and classmate was very supportive and always make cheer at class. Dr. Norzaidi always create a conducive class by making a joke but at the same time bring input to us. I think this also one of the factor that change my mind to love MIS so much.

Tq to Dr Norzaidi and all my friends in MBA Group A...I luv all of you....

For a Richer Visual Experience

WHAT if you are a gamer or photographer who has a huge amount of files and want to work smoothly without having to install any graphics card on your PC? Chip maker Intel is making this possible with Intel HD Graphics, one of the new features with Intel’s second generation Core processor family — the Core i7, i5 and i3.

Intel Malaysia country manager of sales and marketing Prakash Mallya says the processors combine visual and 3-D graphics technology on a single chip, using a “visibly smart” micro architecture. With this, consumers can enjoy significant graphics performance for both HD media processing and mainstream gaming. The new processor graphics technology focuses on the main areas of computing such as HD video, photos, gaming, multi-tasking, online socialising and multimedia.

Another interesting feature is a new technology called WiDi 2.0, where users can beam HD content to their HDTV from their PCs or notebooks, wirelessly. With Intel Quick Sync Video meanwhile, one can create and edit videos faster — at home and online — without the need for additional hardware. For example, a four-minute HD video that used to take four minutes to convert to play on an iPod, will now just take 16 seconds to process.

Intel Southeast Asia’s director Debjani Ghosh says the second generation Core processor family is aimed at giving users more speed and power to enjoy a richer media experience. Compared to the previous generation processors, the new chips allow consumers to create content up to 42 per cent larger and play games up to 50 per cent faster.

For those who are into HD, 3-D entertainment, features like Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX), Intel InTru 3-D and Intel Clear Video technology allow for better picture and sound quality. Intel has also enhanced the chips processing capability with Turbo Boost 2.0 technology to enable users to accomplish tasks faster.

“This feature automatically reallocates the processor core and graphics resources to accelerate performance to give users immediate performance boost when and where it’s needed,” says Prakash. The new processor is already available in more than 500 desktop and notebook PCs from major brands.

(Source:http://www.nst.com.my)

Flood of Royal Wedding Smartphone Apps Hits Market

LONDON: Not feeling the royal wedding spirit yet? It may be time to download a countdown clock to your smartphone. More than a dozen smartphone apps are offering to bring fans everything royal wedding-related wherever they are - so they can check the days and minutes until Prince William and Kate Middleton's April 29 wedding, hoard news and pictures about them and instantly share their favourite royal wedding tidbits on social media networks.

Most of the apps are tailored for iPhones or iPads. Some are fairly informative: There are apps that feature live coverage of the wedding on the day, a weather forecast for London's Westminster Abbey up to 10 days in advance, and royal protocol in case, for whatever reason, you need to greet the queen. Hello! Magazine, a popular source of celebrity news, promises exclusive commentary, while an app developed by mobile games company Neon Play has teamed up with Ian Jones, a photographer who has snapped William's portrait in the past, to dish up 100 exclusive images of the royal family.

If that isn't enough, one iPhone app - Alarm Royale - even lets people set their phone alarm clock to a wedding march or royal-themed music like God Save the Queen and Rule Britannia. Once a person wakes up, the app also shows them a new fact about the royal couple every day, said developer Mark Riley. "It's fairly lighthearted," he said. "There are more modern elements in it as well, like social networking - you can share the facts on Facebook and Twitter."

Like Riley, many app developers aim to connect users to a digital community of royalists all over the world. While the United States and Britain are the largest markets, people are downloading the apps from as far away as the Philippines and Saudi Arabia. "It's one big party," said Diane Hall, president of Toronto-based 2 For Life Media Inc, which launched an iPad royal wedding app that lets users share marriage advice and wedding tips to the royal couple through a virtual guestbook. Wills and Kate - as they are known in the British tabloids - most likely will never read the entries, but part of the fun is reading up on what other "guests" want to tell them, she said. "You get an interactive experience. You can be informed but also share with others and have a good laugh," Hall said.

With online social media and digital technology, more people than ever can "participate" in the historic event in real time. Palace officials are putting all their official royal wedding photos up on the photo-share site Flickr, and a royal wedding website is in place to spread the word for the latest announcements. An official Twitter account ensures that those messages travel far and wide. And the millions of fans who won't get a chance to line London's streets for the royal wedding procession can still get a feel for the route with a 3D map introduced by Google maps earlier this month. All that is probably too much information for most men, though.

(Source:http://techcentral.my)

Notebook Series 9

Weighing only 1.21 kilograms, measuring 16.3 mm in depth and with a screen size of 13 inches, the Samsung Notebook Series 9 combines elegant design, performance and durability, and promises to provide a new dimension in mobile computing.

Crafted from duralumin, a lightweight material that is twice as strong as aluminum, the notebook underwent an exhaustive testing process to ensure that it would be durable enough for use at home and on the go.

The flowing line on the side of the Notebook Series 9 gives the device an aerodynamic look, which the company likened to a premium sports car.

Its SuperBright Plus display with 400nit brightness is two times brighter than conventional displays. Its vibrant color reproduction and super contrast ratio further set the Samsung Notebook Series 9 apart from the rest in its class.

(Source: http://nexus404.com)

WiFi-only Xoom coming out

NEW YORK: Motorola Mobility will start selling a WiFi-only version of its Xoom Tablet computer for US$599 (RM1,920) in the United States on March 27.

The Xoom is a prominent competitor to Apple Inc's iPad. A version with cellular broadband access went on sale last month for US$800 (RM2,600), or US$600 (RM1,920) with a two-year contract in that country. The WiFi-only iPad 2 model with 32GB of Flash memory, the same amount as in the Xoom, also costs US$599. Manufacturers trying to take on the iPad have otherwise had a hard time matching the iPad's price.

The iPad 2 and Xoom both have fast dual-core processors and two cameras. But Motorola Mobility's Tablet runs Google Inc's Android software, while the iPad runs a version of the iPhone's software.

(Source: http://thestar.com.my/)

Rise of The Next-Generation Firewall

Social networks and other Web 2.0 technologies are ways for hackers to penetrate enterprise systems because Facebook pages, instant messaging and the such are closely intertwined with business networks.

Many corporations have recognised and are moving quickly into social networks to help them push their products and services, as well as to conduct market research and headhunt new employees. And with so many new avenues opening up, hackers are turning social media and web applications into launch pads for spreading malware (malicious software) or for stealing confidential data from organisations.

Traditional firewalls are not able to effectively detect such threats, said network security company Palo Alto Networks. "The reality is that policies which IT departments now employ to block (intrusions that come through) Web 2.0 technologies aren't working," said Yuming Mao, co-founder and chief software architect at Palo Alto Networks. "Simply blocking Facebook from your network isn't the solution because employees will still find ways to work around the system."Organisations need to determine the appropriate balance  between blocking and blindly allowing such applications," he said.

Palo Alto Networks is one the first security companies to introduce a next-generation firewall (NGFW) solution. "Our NGFW enables organisations to monitor users, applications and other content over their networks," Mao said. "With applications, it looks at each one that passes through the network, monitors their behaviour, checks known vulnerabilities and assesses the potential for misuse." Palo Alto Networks said its security solution is also able to identify and control user-access to Facebook over a network. IT managers can allow employees access to a read-only version of Facebook - allowing them to view updates but not to post messages or comments, which reduces network security risks.

"With our next-generation firewall, any IT department will be able to better control employee usage of social networks while protecting the organisation's confidential data," Mao said. Among its new products are GlobalProtect and PA-5000-series firewall solutions that implement NGFW features. GlobalProtect is a system-wide solution that protects users even when they are mobile, by installing a small application on each user's PC that applies an enterprise firewall policy on the devices. The PA-5000 series enables enterprises to extend protection to all types of traffic, applications and threats. It can sustain a traffic flow of up to 20Gbps (Gigabits per second) in data networks.


(Source:http://techcentral.my)

Japan Earthquake Disrupts Technology Companies

Technology firms are facing major disruption to supplies in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami which have devastated parts of Japan. The country is home to several of the world's major high tech manufacturers. Many of them have had to stop production to carry out safety checks and the prospect of rolling blackouts means further interruptions are likely over the coming weeks. Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and Canon are among the companies affected. Panasonic Corp said ongoing aftershocks had prevented it from inspecting two factories in northern Japan. Sony confirmed that it had voluntarily suspended operations at seven manufacturing plants, while the country assesses the state of its power grid. The company's Sendai Technology Centre in Tagajo, Miyagi Prefecture has also been closed due to earthquake damage.

Internet hub

While the Japanese high tech industry is struggling to get back on its feet, much of the fixed communications infrastructure has survived remarkably intact. The seas around Japan are a major hub for undersea telecoms cables, forming a critical part of the global internet.

According to Stephan Beckert, an analyst with telecoms research group TeleGeography, several sub sea cables have been damaged as a result of the earthquake. "All of the outages appear to be on cable segments that land in the Ajigaura or Kitaibaraki landing stations, approximately halfway between Tokyo and Sendai," he told BBC News. "Fortunately, most of Japan's cable landing stations are well to the South of Tokyo, or on other side of the sheltered inlet that becomes Tokyo Bay," he added.

That has meant that internet services have been largely unaffected by the disaster. "There is no significant impact on overall traffic volumes in or through the region," said Craig Labovitz, chief scientist at internet monitoring firm Arbor Networks. Nevertheless, other parts of Japan's communication infrastructure have been damaged. Telephone operator NTT East Japan said 879,000 telephony lines were out of service, as well as 475,400 fibre-optic lines.

(Source:http://thestar.com.my/)

HOW RFID WORKS....?????

How does RFID work?

 

 

 

 

A Radio-Frequency IDentification system has three parts:-

• A scanning antenna
• A transceiver with a decoder to interpret the data
• A transponder - the RFID tag - that has been programmed with information.

The scanning antenna puts out radio-frequency signals in a relatively short range. The RF radiation does two things:

• It provides a means of communicating with the transponder (the RFID tag) AND
• It provides the RFID tag with the energy to communicate (in the case of passive RFID tags).

This is an absolutely key part of the technology; RFID tags do not need to contain batteries, and can therefore remain usable for very long periods of time (maybe decades). The scanning antennas can be permanently affixed to a surface; handheld antennas are also available. They can take whatever shape you need; for example, you could build them into a door frame to accept data from persons or objects passing through.

 

When an RFID tag passes through the field of the scanning antenna, it detects the activation signal from the antenna. That "wakes up" the RFID chip, and it transmits the information on its microchip to be picked up by the scanning antenna.

 

In addition, the RFID tag may be of one of two types. Active RFID tags have their own power source; the advantage of these tags is that the reader can be much farther away and still get the signal. Even though some of these devices are built to have up to a 10 year life span, they have limited life spans. passive RFID tags, however, do not require batteries, and can be much smaller and have a virtually unlimited life span. RFID tags can be read in a wide variety of circumstances, where barcodes or other optically read technologies are useless.

 

• The tag need not be on the surface of the object (and is therefore not subject to wear)
• The read time is typically less than 100 milliseconds
• Large numbers of tags can be read at once rather than item by item.

In essence, that's how RFID works.

(Source:http://electronics.howstuffworks.com)