Dive into HTML5: What Does It All Mean is a good overview to new HTML5 techologies and how to use them already today for making normal web pages. I saw this article mentioned at Kenneth Falck’s Blog.
Archive for October, 2009
Dive into HTML5
Friday, October 30th, 2009Higher Speed Ethernet
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009Advances in data center technology and Internet usage have pushed enterprises to 10 Gigabit Ethernet (Gbps) links. Services like search engines, carriers, ISPs need even higher speeds. Lacking alternatives to 10-Gbps connections, carriers and enterprises have resorted to using multiple 10 Gbps connection (expensive solution).
Projected Internet traffic growth mandates the need for higher speed Ethernet (HSE) connections sooner or later. The amount of backbone Internet bandwidth maintained by major Internet carriers has been expanding at 75 to125% per year. While 10 Gbps appears to be sufficient for most data centers today, 40 Gbps is expected to meet data center needs through 2014. 100 Gbps rate has been identified as the next high-speed network operator interface.
An IEEE Task Force has been established with the objective of standardizing 40 Gbps within the data center and 100 Gbps between major Internet nodes. Ensuring the success of High Speed Ethernet (HSE) tells you more about those new 100 GbE and 40 GbE Ethernet technologies around the corner.
What If They Turned Off the Internet?
Monday, October 26th, 2009What would happen if they’ve turned off the Internet. After the riots have settled down and the withdrawal symptoms have faded, how would you cope? Cracked.com asked you to Photoshop what life would be like in an Internet-addicted society learning to cope without it. The World of Tomorrow (If The Internet Disappeared Today) picture collection shows you the best 20 pictures.
Linux for netbooks
Monday, October 19th, 2009Some users believe that Windows is the best netbook OS. You might have read countless Microsoft-funded “studies” trying to persuade that Windows is already dominating the netbook space.
Linux is not going anywhere but up in the netbook market. 10 reasons Linux should be your netbook operating system article lists reasons why Linux is a much better fit for netbooks than Windows.
Broadband Access Becomes Legal Right In Finland
Thursday, October 15th, 2009Starting next July 2010, every person in Finland will have the right to a one-megabit broadband connection. Finland’s Ministry of Transport and Communications has made 1-megabit broadband Web access a legal right, YLE, the country’s national broadcasting company, reported on Wednesday.The government had already decided to make a 100 Mb broadband connection a legal right by the end of 2015. According to the Helsinki Times when it reported the 100Mb target last year, the Finnish government said that no household “would be farther than 2 kilometers from a connection capable of delivering broadband Internet with a capacity of at least 100 megabits of data a second). Some variation will be allowed, if connectivity to some remote locations can only be arranged through mobile phone networks.
Finland is the world’s first country to create laws guaranteeing broadband access. Earlier this year France has made Internet access a human right.
I live and write this blog in Finland. Finland is the home country for me, Nokia and ePanorama.net web site.
Survival Between Microphone and Voice Coil
Monday, October 12th, 2009An EE’s Guide to Survival Between Microphone and Voice Coil is an interesting slide set amde by Netherlands´ well known audio engineer Bruno Putzeys and put to web by Hypex Electronics and Grimm Audio. It was presented in AES convention at 2007. It is a very good presentation of the whole audio electronics path from microphone to speaker. If you are into audio electronics, read this slide set.
Goodbye to CRT technology
Friday, October 9th, 2009Prosessori magazine reports that traditional CRT display technology is dying much sooner than expected earlier. The sales of CRT based displays has practically ended in Western Europe, Japan and North America. And the sales of traditional CRT based TVs is also dropping very quickly on developing markets as well. According to Displaysearch research center people in China do not want anymore to buy old fashioned TVs with picture tubes. The change to flat screen displays is so quick, that the manufacturers of LCD TVs have hard time to produce as markets need. It is expected that 130 million LCD displays will be sold this year. And the prices will continue dropping.
Use right ground symbol
Thursday, October 8th, 2009Use right ground symbol in your electronics schematics and other drawings.
Earth-ground symbol represents a real connection to earth. That connection could be for example 10-foot-high copper-clad steel bar driven into the earth (at your premises or nearby provided by power company) or metal water lines. That earth ground is wired to the neutral of your house wiring at the breaker panel. You can reasonably use the earth-ground symbol for the ground pin on the electrical outlet. Your electronics equipment schematic should use the earth-ground symbol to indicate connection to the electrical outlet ground pin on equipment plugged to wall outlet.
It is bad practice to use earth-ground symbols for chassis common. You an use the chassis common wherever a power supply or circuit card connects to the chassis. In a circuit board schematic you can use chassis symbol when a standoff screws the PCB to the chassis.
Signal-ground symbols are most suitable for most circuitry on a PCB. A design can have several of these symbols, with notations to identify them.
Information source: EDN magazine article Draw the line: Isolation shields systems from shocking surprises
Nokia N900
Monday, October 5th, 2009I had yesterday change to play a little bit with Nokia N900 mobile communicator at at Expert Expo in Helsinki. This brand new Nokia smartphone that you can’t yet buy anywhere, just pre-order. This device runs on Maemo Linux operating system and worked well. This device felt much better than Nokia N97. The tough screen seemed to work better and overall feeling was that the system was considerably more responsive. Linux will rock on mobile devices. There was even a X Terminal on that device available, so Linux hacker can do different things on traditional command line.
Digital audio isolation
Friday, October 2nd, 2009Isolator for digital audio is needed in cases where coaxial S/PDIF digital audio link forms a ground loop in your audio system. Typically in coaxial S/PDIF connections the coaxial cable shield is connected to equipment cases. This arrangement easily creates ground loops which can cause noise problems in various places in audio system. A suitable transformer can be used to isolate the coaxial S/PDIF signal and avoid ground loop problems (other option is to use optical connection instead of coax). Here is the circuit of the S/PDIF signal isolator I have used:
ELFA catalogue product 56-550-55 “PE65612 Trafo dig.siirt.” is a tranformer suitable for isolating S/PDIF digital audio signal. The manufacturer for this product is Pulse Engineering and their product code is PE-65612.
Ratio: 1:1
Bandwidth: 100 kHz-55 MHz ±3 dB
Here is a picture of the S/PDIF signal isoltor I built (box open):
More information on S/PDIF and related circuits can be found on my SPDIF document.
