About a decade ago I read news stories (on the internet of course) that yes, eventually the internet will simply run out of IP addresses. This is because the internet primarily assigns IPv4 addresses. You know them as four numbers separated by periods, such as 192.168.1.100.
The solution to the problem is the assignment of IPv6 addresses. More on that in a moment.
Google says in somewhere in the year 2011 (which is not that far away) IPv4 space exhaustion will occur according to current predictions. As such, the Google search engine is available right now over IPv6 at ipv6.google.com. If you’re actually on an IPv6 connection you can connect there now. If not (which counts for the vast majority of us at the present time,) it won’t work.
Some quick notes on IPv6 support
Q: Does Windows XP support IPv6?
A: Yes, but it’s not installed as a default protocol. However installing it is relatively painless.
Q: Does Mac OS X support IPv6?
A: Yes.
Q: Does Linux support IPv6?
A: Yes. In fact, Linux was first to support it way before anyone else.
Will you have to buy a new router when IPv6 becomes mainstream?
Most likely. Granted, some routers have IPv6-enabling abilities in them but yours most likely doesn’t.
Are there any write-ups on how IPv6 would work in the home?
Yes. Microsoft has a detailed write-up explaining in-home network setups using IPv6.
Blogoscoped featured a video (see below) showing what Matt Cutts thinks about spam. This is VERY insightful information for anyone who runs a web site, be it a blog, regular web site, business or what-have-you.
It has been a dream for quite some time that Mobile phones become a true extension to our computer. That dream hasn’t been a reality. Even when you do have a smart phone that can get online, the interface was clunky and you couldn’t just add/remove apps as you wanted. The cell phone carrier dictates what you can and cannot do with your phone. And if you want to change it before your contract is expired, they’ll charge you a penalty for your troubles.
Google Earth is obviously one of the coolest (and useful) mapping programs on the planet. To this day when I use it I think to myself “Y’know, the Boston Museum of Science said we’d have stuff like this in the future when I was a kid.” And yeah they were right, but I bet even they didn’t think we’d have stuff as good as Google Earth is.
So.. what’s the next step for Google Earth? Land? Check. Sky? Check? Space? Check?
Install the Garmin Communicator Plugin (this is so your web browser can “talk” to Google Maps correctly). Remember to restart your web browser after installing the plugin (just like any other plugin after installation).
Plug in your Garmin GPS to your computer via USB.
Step 2.
Go to maps.google.com, map a location first, then click Send.
Step 3.
Select GPS, select brand as Garmin and click the Send button at the bottom.
Step 4.
You will then be taken to the Garmin web site. If all goes well, your GPS is detected and an orange “Send to GPS” button is present. Click that button.
Important note: If the GPS is not found by your computer, confirm it’s plugged in via USB and that it is detected properly.
Once after sending to your Garmin GPS, you should see this under the map:
Click the “here” link will take you back to Google Maps.
Step 5.
Check to see if the Favorite was sent to your Garmin GPS and…
I do use Google Earth from time to time (which by the way they’re supposed to release v4.3 today with more Mac support and Street Views included), and find that memorizing the keystrokes in the software does make it faster to use. I mention this because said honestly, the interface is a bit clunky at best. Then again there’s really no other software (for free anyway) like it.
Panning the map
ALT+Arrow keys
(Using mouse: Click/drag)
Zooming in/out
CTRL+Up/Down arrow keys
(Using mouse: Scroll wheel up/down)
Tilting the map
SHIFT+Up/Down keys (if the map is “flat”, press SHIFT+Down arrow first)
Save an image of what you see on the map at the moment
CTRL+SHIFT+S
Reverting the map to “flat” 2D mode (i.e. the original mode on start)
R (yes, just the R key)
Switching to decimal degrees format
(Reason for doing this: Makes for easier copying/pasting to Google Maps if necessary)
Google is at it again. This time, they have released what is called Google App Engine. In short, this is a web application platform to allow developers and businesses to host web apps in the cloud (meaning online). Google launched the product in it’s own new blog yesterday.
Google’s blog post describes the service quite well:
Google App Engine gives you access to the same building blocks that Google uses for its own applications, making it easier to build an application that runs reliably, even under heavy load and with large amounts of data. The development environment includes the following features:
Dynamic webserving, with full support of common web technologies
Persistent storage (powered by Bigtable and GFS with queries, sorting, and transactions
Automatic scaling and load balancing
Google APIs for authenticating users and sending email
Fully featured local development environment
Google App Engine packages these building blocks and takes care of the infrastructure stack, leaving you more time to focus on writing code and improving your application.
This is a poke in the eye of Amazon. Amazon Web Services is also a platform for developers to run their web applications. Amazon offers S3 (for mass storage), EC2 (for virtual servers) and SimpleDB (database). So, Google App Engine is basically taking on Amazon. But, as Techcrunch is reporting, the Amazon package is more loosely coupled than the Google setup. Amazon allows developers to pick and choose what they need whereas the Google setup is pretty much all-or-nothing. In other words, Google App Engine is designed for people who want to run their apps entirely on Google.
Profy.com says that Google has “jumped the shark“, though. While Google is offering free service up to a certain point (500 MB storage, 10 GB bandwidth daily), Profy points out that Google made a mistake by using Python as the programming language rather than Ruby. They also point out that this is just another “me too” move by Google. They saw Amazon making money and decided to try to “one up” them and give some of it away for free (in classic Google style).
So, has Google really jumped the shark? Is Google App Engine really the next big thing, or is this just another temporary excitement designed to get bloggers excited over nothing?
I can tell you one thing Profy is right on: Python? Yuck. Google, for their part, says they will soon be supporting other languages, but I wouldn’t be interested in this until I see some Ruby or PHP support.
Many of you out there probably noticed that Google went black in an effort to raise people’s awareness about energy conservation.
One of the absolute easiest ways in the world to use less electricity with a computer is with laptop use for three reasons:
Laptops are by very nature designed to use less power.
Obviously when you’re using a laptop on battery power you’re not drawing from wall current.
Power supplies for laptops are far less electricity hungry. For example, I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 built back in 2005. Its power supply is only 65-watt. The one in my desktop PC is far greater.
If using wall current, with a laptop you’re plugging in one less item to said wall (no LCD monitor to plug in since it’s built-in to the laptop itself).
All modern laptops (about since wi-fi cards became standard items) should have a low-wattage power brick that only uses the bare minimum to power/charge the unit when using wall current.
If you currently have a laptop and want to know what the wattage rating is, look at the power brick (the thing you use to charge the laptop / plug it into the wall); it’s printed directly on it in plain sight.
Rich Menga, a native New Englander residing in Tampa Bay Florida, 
