P1: KTX WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 P ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ AL IG But there is more than one way to get broadband to your computer. You might think you don’t have a choice, but you do. Everyone in the continental United States has at least one broadband service provider available. If you live near a city, you may have a half-dozen broadband service provider options. PY R T Chapter 1 Why You Need Broadband Internet Access RI HT ED his is going to be great fun.
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P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 Why You Need Broadband Internet Access 1 C H A P T E R ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ In This Chapter Diving into computing Streaming audio Streaming video Gaming at high speeds B ack when sneakers were shoes kids wore to play in rather than $200 foot-borne status symbols, one company distilled its advantages into the clearest advertising slogan ever. If you wore its shoes, you could “run faster and jump higher.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 4 Part I ✦ Determining Which Broadband Is Right for You Computing Without Interruption A friend of mine helped a taskforce at Texas Instruments (TI) in the mid-1980s to study the balance between system response time and user productivity. The taskforce studied mainframe applications, but the idea remains the same.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 Chapter 1 ✦ Why You Need Broadband Internet Access 5 constantly, but Microsoft can’t be blamed for all the interruptions.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 6 Part I ✦ Determining Which Broadband Is Right for You If you get one of those annoying “download this update now” windows when you have broadband, it’s no big deal. It will never be pleasant, but with broadband the aggravation speeds by quickly. Applications arrive in a blink Patches and updates arrive on their schedule and not yours, but the applications you find and download also take time.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 Chapter 1 ✦ Why You Need Broadband Internet Access 7 Table 1-1 Size and Download Times Size of file Time for dial-up (minutes) Time for broadband (minutes) 1MB 2:40 :09 3MB 8:00 :27 5MB 13:30 :45 32MB 85:45 4:45 Do not take these numbers as absolutes or performance guarantees. Many variables across the Internet influence download times, just like congested roads influence drive times (yes, the Internet has rush hours).
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 8 Part I ✦ Determining Which Broadband Is Right for You Know how you almost never use your floppy drive for anything anymore? Before long, you may use your CD-ROM drive to play music CDs rather than load new applications. That means downloading rather than installing off a local drive, and that means you need faster downloading. Immersive Experiences Computing without interruption enables you to get more work done.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 Chapter 1 ✦ Why You Need Broadband Internet Access 9 stations but not more choices because corporate radio conglomerates now own multiple stations in every metropolitan area. One owner and one program manager means mainstream radio plays the same few tunes over and over. Internet radio and online music sites will change your world if you’re a music fanatic.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 10 Part I ✦ Determining Which Broadband Is Right for You first; then the benefits will slow down for a couple of years until broadband speeds make downloaded video streams (as in movies) worthwhile. Although video fans have a strong push underway to liberate the TiVO and make it a broadband downloading tool rather than a second generation VCR.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 Chapter 1 ✦ Why You Need Broadband Internet Access 11 Figure 1-3: One of the best sites to find new groups and their music. GarageBand.com does a good job showing the most popular tracks in each main genre with its Charts pages. For many songs, you can download an MP3 file for personal use.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 12 Part I ✦ Determining Which Broadband Is Right for You Continued ✦ Ogg Vorbis: An open source, royalty free file format similar to MP3 but not as popular for downloadable music files. ✦ .wma: Windows Media Audio file format, the default to Windows Media Player. Often used by music services because of embedded digital rights controls in the file format. www.SoundClick.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 Chapter 1 ✦ Why You Need Broadband Internet Access 13 Not just another music product vendor, BeSonic offers a ton of European groups. (TerraTec is a German company.) Its excellent Mood Radio page, shown in Figure 1-2, is at the beginning of this section. The site also provides a visually cool artists “cube” to help locate groups playing the type of music you want.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 14 Part I ✦ Determining Which Broadband Is Right for You system from Microsoft (Windows), Apple (OS X), or Linux needs certain minimum requirements to support streaming video. These aren’t absolutes, but good guidelines. Streaming video over the Internet suffers terribly when compared to the streaming video appliance everyone watches for several hours per day: the TV.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 Chapter 1 ✦ Why You Need Broadband Internet Access 15 ✦ Video: 800 × 600, at least 16-bit depth (more is better) ✦ Sound: Two powered speakers (the ones that came with your PC aren’t worth much) ✦ Broadband: At least 200 Kbps (faster is better) Of course, the fastest new computer in the world won’t give you decent streaming video if you use a dial-up connection.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 16 Part I ✦ Determining Which Broadband Is Right for You Figure 1-4: Broadband greatly improves AOLs video performance. Originally independent and pushing the Internet bubble, AtomFilms.com is now owned by Macromedia, the people who make Shockwave and Flash. Still edgy, because Macromedia appeals to many creative people, AtomFilms.com is a fun place to visit. www.iFilm.com Another edgy entry, iFilm.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 Chapter 1 ✦ Why You Need Broadband Internet Access 17 All major network television Web sites ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and even Fox offer plenty of streaming videos, although most are from the TV rerun closet. The news sides of the major networks often include video from other parts of the world not shown on network television often. Corporate sites www.Apple.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 18 Part I ✦ Determining Which Broadband Is Right for You This site offers music videos you won’t see on MTV.com, and short films you won’t see on the other film sites. www.Spongi.com Cable access meets the Web. No clue who is behind this, or what the site hosts are thinking (or smoking). That’s a joke, because some of these videos are hysterical. www.alldaybreakfast.ca/ Sketch humor translated successfully to the Internet.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 Chapter 1 ✦ Why You Need Broadband Internet Access 19 If you’re the cable company, adding VoIP services gives you a wonderful new feature to sell. Data networking companies like VoIP as well. since it gives them a wonderful new feature to sell. Guess who doesn’t like VoIP? The telephone companies. Does VoIP give them a new product? No, it replaces their most important product.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 20 Part I ✦ Determining Which Broadband Is Right for You Tech Bits If I remember correctly, the first networked webcam watched a coffee pot in a university in England. People got tired of walking upstairs to find an empty pot, so they rigged the camera. Some daycare providers advertise the placement of webcams in every classroom. Parents use these cameras to check on their children during the day. Figure 1-5 shows a playpen of a different sort.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 Chapter 1 ✦ Why You Need Broadband Internet Access 21 futuristic movie and television show, videophones have yet to fulfill even a small portion of their exciting promise. But once again, the availability of broadband will make videophones work much better because their big problem in the past has been the limited bandwidth over telephone lines.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 22 Part I ✦ Determining Which Broadband Is Right for You D-Link.com, one of the cost-leaders on the low end, priced this unit not much more than a video game console. For the first time, a usable videoconferencing product (I call it more than a videophone because several people can use it) costs far less than the computer it uses.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 Chapter 1 ✦ Why You Need Broadband Internet Access 23 This is the company that made the cameras for the check-cashing monitoring project. It also sells many of the traffic cameras and cameras used in other public places. www.vonage.com One of the first companies to offer VoIP products to the consumer and small business market. Broadband Gaming I remember Pong with great fondness. Two lines and a blip ate many of my quarters.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 24 Part I ✦ Determining Which Broadband Is Right for You Every connection between networks is a potential bottleneck. The good thing about broadband service providers is that they tend to be the large companies and their customer networks have direct connections to other large customer networks. The Internet backbone is the highest level of network where all the largest networks connect.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 Chapter 1 ✦ Why You Need Broadband Internet Access 25 cushions to reflect driving over rough ground. These expensive options don’t tend to stay on the market for long, but new ones always appear. Parents who are afraid that their gamer children exercise only their thumbs may check into some of the new interactive game additions.
P1: KTX WY024-01 WY024-Gaskin-v1.cls June 16, 2004 11:28 26 Part I ✦ Determining Which Broadband Is Right for You Quick hit: Example sites ID Software, the group that started it all, comes back with another winner in its long string of winners. You’ve heard of Doom and Quake, its two other big hit series of games, and now you can get into Castle Wolfenstein at http://games .activision.com/games/wolfenstein/. I just hope you get out alive.
