May 23, 2007
Be a Verizon Action Hero
By Carolyn Mathas

Week after week, I have fun reading Max's

Go to Verizon's Action Hero site and star in your own movie. No kidding! Just upload your face, pick your plot and important sequence info and then even add music. Cool.

Let me know how you did. Me.I looked coolBut what you'll really get is one of the best examples of the power of broadband yet. Enjoy!

May 09, 2007
Wow, that's fast
By Carolyn Mathas

Today, Comcast unveiled a cable technology called channel bonding that allows a data download speed of 150 megabits pre second--25x faster than today's cable modems.

A couple of years before it's on the shelf, the technology lessens the gap between speeds the network can provide compared with the limitations of modem technology--currently 50 megabits/sec.

Developed by Cable Television Laboratories, the technology, DOCSIS 3.0, bonds four cable lines together. How fast is it? Well, the 32-volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 and Merriam-Webster's visual dictionary took less than four minutes. On a dial-up, it would have taken two weeks. Yep, pretty fast.

April 16, 2007
RAD Contest
By Carolyn Mathas

Hear ye, hear ye! Yes, I know you all are engineers, but you must know a ton of communications, computer science, and engineering students (worldwide) that are up for a contest. It seems RAD Data Communications is launching an international prize competition. Here's the scoop:

If you want to participate, submit a tutorial project covering one of six different topics:

• ICMP (including both IPv4 and IPv6)
• IPv6 auto-configuration
• BGP (including updates for IPv6)
• OSPF (including updates for IPv6)
• WiMAX
• SSH

Gift certificates for winners and runners-up will be awarded in each of those topics, as well as the best-animated tutorial, the best interactive tutorial, and the best HTML tutorial. Submissions will be judged on technical accuracy, depth and scope of coverage of the topic, creativity in presentation, educational value, and entertainment level.

Projects must be submitted in HTML and in English no later than July 31. While each student may submit only one project, each project may be able to win more than one prize. Details are posted at RAD Contest.

Important: Because the competition is open only to students registered at accredited institutions of higher education, RAD requests that a representative of an appropriate academic department assume responsibility for submissions from that institution and contact Dr. Koren at radu_compet @rad.com for submission instructions.

April 11, 2007
Heroes
By Carolyn Mathas

I have a new hero. She lives fairly nearby in Chico, CA. Elsie McLean made a hole-in-one on a regulation golf course--Bidwell Park. So, you might say why would that make her a hero? She happens to be 102.

I'm not a golfer. The one time I signed up for lessons there weren't enough of us in the class so I got a call that morning saying it was cancelled. I did take tennis lessons 3x and still don't like the game--playing that is. I have been known to watch Wimbledon matches at the edge of my seat.

Why are heroes important? Ages ago, it was common to have them. They weren't one more super-hero in a new spin on the same movie; these were actual people who did something special. John Glenn when he went to space the second time around, or the first time the astronauts touched the face of the moon, or even more recently when I met the scientist Steve Squires in charge of Spirit and Opportunity--the Mars Rovers, or way back, Mrs. Kennedy who taught me high school English, or my grandfather who planted his garden by the phases of the moon and made me feel very special.

I asked my children who are their heroes? Oh no, she's asking "one of those" questions again are the look I receive in return. For me, it's in the doing, going well beyond what's called for, and what one is being paid for. It's the getting out of bed, dusting off the problems, and performing no matter what, and giving 110% to whatever the task at hand is--golf, science, or teaching.

Science and engineering are no longer subjects to be studied in U.S. schools--and that's said to be based on the concern of youth about their eventual employability. Maybe. Instead, however, it might be because students no longer have heroes that they look up to that make them reach, stretch, and want to mimic, and accomplish something real. Maybe it's time we brought that hero concept back.