PageRank’s back!

Amazing! PageRank is finally back!

Geekie.org - PR2

PersonalLog - PR2

StudyNucleus (.org and .info) - PR1

RHHS-RASA.ca - PR2

Amazingly, a very new blog on PersonalLog, Smash.Weblog, also now has PR2. How did they get there without any attempts at SEO? Well, I’ll answer it for you: PersonalLog is always being optimized for Google!

(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

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Ubuntu 8.04

A few days ago, Canonical released a new version of their leading Linux products: 8.04. Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Long Term Service) has been released, improving the desktop experience and targeting Mac and Windows users by adding enhanced multimedia solutions for pictures, music, videos, and more.

You can find out more about Ubuntu 8.04 from their official page.

I do want to point out a related project, called Kubuntu (essentially Ubuntu but with a KDE desktop). Kubuntu 8.04 was also released recently with updated components, such as KDE 4 with support for 3D effects, new simplified codec installation for Kaffeine, and Read/Write support for NTFS!

Personally, though, my preferred Linux distribution is still OpenSuSE. Maybe that will change, but likely not if I can get KDE4 on SuSE.

(4 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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Use H.264 for videos

I’m going to categorize this under “Technology”, since I don’t have a section on Geekie.org dedicated exclusively to multimedia.

H.264 is a really good video compression standard. It’s also known as MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding. You can read more about the technical details on Wikipedia.

The benefit of H.264 is that the resulting output files are substantially smaller as a result of significantly reduced (low) bitrates. Yet, H.264 is able to do so without sacrificing image quality; the output video quality is often comparable to an uncompressed AVI. Trials have shown that H.264 outperforms DivX and Xvid, in terms of quality, thanks to the new features in MPEG-4 Part 10.

Apple QuickTime is one of the major video players (and encoders) which supports H.264 and is proud of it. Their page about H.264 has the following description:

H.264 uses the latest innovations in video compression technology to provide incredible video quality from the smallest amount of video data. This means you see crisp, clear video in much smaller files, saving you bandwidth and storage costs over previous generations of video codecs. H.264 delivers the same quality as MPEG-2 at a third to half the data rate and up to four times the frame size of MPEG-4 Part 2 at the same data rate. H.264 is truly a sight to behold.

Standard definition video (ie. 640×480) is imperceptibly encoded to only 1 to 2 mbps, while maintaining the same degree of quality. HD support also exists, at amazingly low bitrates (comparatively).

Unfortunately, Microsoft isn’t embracing H.264 in the same way, and neither Windows Media Player nor Microsoft Silverlight (at the time of writing) support H.264 or MPEG-4 Video. They have chosen, instead, to create “Microsoft MPEG-4″, a semi-proprietary implementation of an open standard. Shame!

If you want to distribute H.264 media, the best containers are MP4 (MPEG-4 Video), MOV (Apple QuickTime Movie), and very recently, FLV (Adobe Flash Video). Each of them can carry a H.264 stream. For instance, here is a QuickTime Movie encoded with H.264.

Software that can be used to create H.264-encoded video include:

• Apple QuickTime Pro and other programs like Camtasia which use the QuickTime toolkit
  
• MediaCoder (free and open source!), using the x264 library (also free and open source!)

You, too, can create high quality H.264 videos. Read Apple’s instructions (for QuickTime Pro) or blip.tv’s how-to. (Did I recommend blip.tv as a place to upload your videos? It’s really good.)

(2 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)

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5 blogs to see

These are five blogs you would probably be interested in. Click on the thumbnail to visit the site.

And, of course, my personal blog:

(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)

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ESET NOD32 Antivirus

I just thought that I should recommend this product to fellow tech enthusiasts.

Although I am affiliated with Symantec and Trend Micro, the only product that I feel is truly worth recommending is ESET NOD32.

This is an award-winning antivirus program known for its reliability, performance, and security.

Reliability

A lot of business use NOD32 as part of their defence against viruses and malware. The York Region District School Board, for instance, has it installed on most imaged systems. It provides a trustworthy line of defence, and is suitable for use in the business or education environment.

A “home edition” without the server OS support and remote administration is available for a lesser price.

Performance

There’s a great reason that ESET NOD32 is frequently used by businesses. It’s amazingly fast and lightweight. On typical installations (eg. Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP), ESET NOD32 takes up about 30 MB memory, less than half of which is actually in the physical RAM. Compared to the 50-60 MB used by products like Norton Internet Security, NOD32 offers a significant advantage to people running older hardware or older operating systems.

But don’t be fooled. NOD32 isn’t just for old computers. It’s for new computers, too.

On a Windows Vista Business Edition (32-bit) computer, ESET NOD32 scans programs and applications at 43.17 MB/s, as compared to 14.54 MB/s by Symantec and 12.12 MB/s for Kaspersky.

Security

NOD32 provides amazing security for a computer. Very few viruses or malware get through its real-time protection or filesystem scanning, all while maintaining the lowest memory footprint of all the consumer antivirus programs. It is also able to identify potential (previously unknown) threats through its ThreatSense and Early Warning features.

The real-time protection protects you from downloading viruses before you even access them, protects you from opening or saving files containing malware, and will also protect you from spyware. Excellent daily (often several times per day) updates keep your protection at its peak.

Even better, NOD32 was recognized with multiple awards for NO FALSE POSITIVES. In the most recent test of its kind by AV Comparatives, ESET NOD32 Antivirus had its real-time protection put to the test, among other competitors such as Kaspersky, Symantec, and McAfee products. NOD32 did not mistakenly detect any legitimate applications as harmful programs, and was also noted as “fast”. It defeated Kaspersky’s AV program on two regards: Kaspersky had “few” but some false positives and was considered “slow”.

Conclusion

Given these factors, I highly recommend that you take a look at ESET’s award-winning NOD32 Antivirus for your home, home office, small business, or even large-scale enterprise. The flexible options let you pick the best antivirus on the market, at competitive prices.

Don’t settle for less. Download NOD32 Home Edition and Save Up to 25% now!

(4 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)

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Rejected!

Apparently, Yahoo! has once again rejected Microsoft’s $40+ billion bid. They feel that it underestimates their company’s value.

Don’t forget, there are predictions that this deal will never go through on account of the European Union.

(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)

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