Blog archives for January, 2005

Distributed music via high-speed Internet

While listening to a Frank Sinatra recording, Craig Volosing, a local professional musician and a founder of the Spokane Jazz Orchestra, read the liner notes. From these, he learned that several of the session musicians backing Sinatra on that album had not been in the studio, but had “phoned in” their tracks. From this information, an idea formed for Volosing – a super fast network could be a major boon to musicians performing “live”. “I had heard about VPnet, and thought that with its super fast networking, musicians could do more than that — they could perform in real time with other musicians to contribute their parts ‘live’ from far away – just as if they were really together,” says Volosing. “There would be many practical values from this,” Volosing continued, “from saving money via holding the first set of rehearsals to holding master classes from one location to several sites.” Imagine being able to participate in the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival from any local university campus. Volosing also envisions applications in the areas of theater and especially musical theater.

Volosing’s concept became the new distributed music project for VPnet that was announced on Thursday, January 20. Project participants will include Volosing, Kyle Gosselin-Harris, an Eastern Washington University (EWU) computer science graduate student and network engineer at XN Technologies, and Steve Simmons, professor of computer science, EWU.

Initial research of the literature by Gosselin-Harris discovered that experiments and measurements of distributed music performance had been carried out. His research indicated that success depended on the quality of service of the network, especially network delay. For very fast music, such as up-tempo jazz, the delay needed was measured at a level of 10 milliseconds. That is much faster than the everyday Internet, but not VPnet, which is a highly controlled gigabit network with very few routers along the connection pathways. Thus, a very challenging network problem – ideal for research - could come together with a project that could improve opportunities in music production and music education throughout in Inland Northwest. It could also create substantial savings and economies of scale in various music endeavors. For example, a master musician visiting EWU could perform with students at Whitworth, Gonzaga, and North Idaho College in a single master class setting.

A group of several graduate students, including Gosselin-Harris, will approach the project from opposite ends of the technology spectrum. Gosselin-Harris will work the technical end, designing and building a pair of embedded test systems to accurately measure delay over the network. His project will make use of signals that can synchronize clocks to within one microsecond, and he will use other equipment including oscilloscopes and signal generators.

The other group will set up a live performance test to try out the idea using existing microphones, cameras, and linking technologies. Simmons explains that “the on hand equipment is not now optimized for minimal delay, because this equipment has some signal processors in the pipeline, but this will be a good way to try a network path within VPnet that cuts through a couple of routers.” The VPnet link from SIRTI to EWU in Cheney is targeted for this initial test which is expected within the new two months.

Billie Moreland

Colasoft Capsa 4.06 is out for $200

Colasoft announced the release of Colasoft Capsa, the latest version of an innovative TCP/IP Network Monitor and Analyzer for the Windows-based platforms. The application allows the administrator to manage and supervise the corporate network by real time monitoring all traffic flowing around the local network and to/from the Internet.

In producing version 4.06, the Colasoft team has improved the Web access log, Content-Length, and long-term traffic analysis features. The upgraded program also supports multi-subnet Intranet configuration and allows customizing subnet address/mask. Additionally, Resolve and Change Host Name options are now available in several views including Scope Explorer, Node List, and IP List.

Colasoft Capsa features the Packet Analysis Module that enables the administrator to capture all network data stream in real time, decode packets and display analyzed data in HEX, ASCII or EBCDIC accurately by millisecond. By restructuring packets, the application can restore original data received and sent by the Client and/or the Server and display them in the TCP Stream View.

Mercora P2P reviewed by PC Magazine

PC Magazine reviews Mercora peer-to-peer streaming radio. It’s not a service which would allow someone to download songs, more likely you can listen to any of the top 20 million plus songs available on the network from more than 2000 private radiostations. Mercora supports keyword search by genre, song name or artist name, but does not allow to listen to more than four songs from the same artist to avoid copyright issues. Any Mercora user automatically becomes a broadcaster, when the app scans the drive for digital music and then suggests creating an ad-hoc Internet radiostation.

Tech mags we’d like to see

Wayne Cotter on ZDNet loves it when mainstream magazines open up technology sections and dedicate special issues, or even start off new magazines, to please the techie crowd. Women magazines have not been the forerunners of this movement, he admits, so in an urge to help Cotter comes up with new techie magazines that would spin off popular women magazines. See the covers of CMOSPolitan, Delle, open-source-related The Cathedral and the Bazarr and others.

Open source in 2005

An article on ZDNet DataPoint points to several key predictions in Open Enterprise Trends. Execs are about to discover that in open source world libraries matter more than apps, that the corporate IT uses much more open source technology than initially thought, that there are plenty of opportunities of introducing open source in the organization, and that there should be a surge of B2B open source activity in 2005.

NYT on TV in the digital age

The New York Times looks at television studios dealing with the challenges of the digital age and how software is changing the way people view and interact with TV. They talk about MythTV, BitTorrent, DVRs and KnoppMyth. Looks like TV studios are experimenting more with more frequent DVD releases and possibility of charging consumers for television shows when viewed on-demand and commercial-free.

Rio Rancho, NM becomes nation’s largest WiFi hotspot

Rio Rancho, New Mexico, Mayor Jim Owen today announced that the much anticipated city-wide Wi-Fi service is now operating in several areas of the city, and initial customers are online. Customers can now sign up for the Wi-Fi service, which spans downtown Rio Rancho and the Enchanted Hills neighborhood. All homes and businesses within the 103 square mile city are expected to have service coverage within the next 60 days.

Mayor Owen was joined by Azulstar Networks and Intel Corp. to herald in the new service, which already is in use by several local residents and businesses. “Rio Rancho is on the air, and we’re grateful to Azulstar and Intel for helping us deliver this valuable new service.” Owen said. “Homeowners, businesses and mobile users are very pleased with the service and the ability to connect to the Internet at broadband speeds from virtually anywhere in the
city.”

The high performance mobile Wi-Fi network is the second successful metro- wide deployment for Azulstar, which completed the nation’s first Wi-Fi “hot city” with parent company Ottawa Wireless Inc. in July 2004. This first-of- its-kind mobile Wi-Fi service in Grand Haven, Mich., recently surpassed 1,000 customers.

According to Azulstar General Manager Scott Brown, “Rio Rancho is a good example of how the public and private sectors can work together to deliver valuable and affordable Internet service. The benefits of everywhere connectivity can now extend across nearly every facet of this community. The insights gained through our large-scale Wi-Fi projects will allow us to extend services quickly to many other areas in the region and across the county.”

High-speed Internet access begins at $19.95 per month for a 256k residential connection that can be accessed anywhere in the city. Per-day pricing and enterprise-class connections up to 4Mbps also are available, surpassing the top speed of competing DSL connections. Laptops with Wi-Fi adaptors can connect directly to the “Azulstar” signal for instant high- speed access.

In addition to wireless Internet access, Azulstar announced that it is in final testing of its metro-wide mobile Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) service and expects to launch this in Rio Rancho within the next 90 days. Azulstar also has begun working with state public safety and transportation agencies to test a variety of mission critical services using its highly powerful network architecture.

Azulstar secured a 25-year lease agreement with the city in November 2004. The network uses several hundred Wi-Fi (802.11a, b, g) and pre-WiMAX radios strategically located throughout the city. Wi-Fi, short for wireless fidelity, is a technology that gives users the freedom to receive and transmit data at high speeds from anywhere within the broadcast signal range.