GPRS was a real hit in the cell phone industry. Almost all the telecom service provider now offers GPRS services. Internet access via GPRS on the mobile phones is common these days. I used it with Airtel. All you need is a GPRS enabled mobile phone. But now it is the age of 3G driven by EDGE technology. EDGE or Enhanced Data rate for GSM Evolution, I heard a year ago that this technology was introduced in Europe and mostly used with iphones for global internet connectivity. Also that it allows global roaming facility. Its high data transfer rate of 384 kbps is 3 times the data transfer rate as compared to GPRS. It consists of the 8 pattern time slot, and the speed of 384 kbps could be achieved when all the 8 time slots were used. Based on an 8 PSK modulation, it allows higher bit rate across the aerial Interface. 3 bits represents one symbol. And EDGE Rate = 3x GPRS Rate. (Got this from tripod.com).

EDGE is nothing but EGPRS. GPRS uses various radio channel coding schemes allow bitrates from 9 to over 171.2 kbit/s (if device were to use all 8 channels without error correction) per user. And one more thing, EDGE is not related directly to 3G, rather EDGE belongs to 2.5 G category. GPRS belongs to 2G.

There are two kinds of hosting – free hosting and premium hosting i.e. paid hosting. You can either opt for free hosting that is usually supported with banners and pop ups put by the web hosting company on your website, or may opt to get paid web hosting, which gives you complete control over your site contents. There are certain key things which you should consider before you select paid web hosting server on which you want to host your website data.

These key points includes following:

1. Hosting space: You should choose the webhosting server which provides unlimited web space for your website.

2. Site Bandwidth and Uptime assurance: Before you go for any web hosting site you should check the available site bandwidth. This is very crucial since high site bandwidth means site will not slow down in case of heavy traffic. Moreover your web hosting company should assure you of atleast 99.9% Network Uptime.

3. Number of Domains: You should select the web hosting server which allows you to host maximum websites. Many web hosting sites such as JustHost.com and HostMonster.com provide unlimited domain hosting. These hosting sites have been rated as the top two hosting servers by web hosting choice. WebHostingChoice.com is a well known guide to popular web hosting sites.

4. Databases: Usually now days hosting companies offer unlimited MySql databases.

5. Email Accounts: If you want to have Pop/Imap Email Accounts in your websites for eg. email@yourdomain.com, you should opt the server providing unlimited email accounts.

6. Price and support: Price of the hosting server is also crucial. However you should not compromise with quality of service for saving few bucks. There are lucrative offers if are willing to pay for few years in advance. Websites set time and support is very important. Some popular sites such as JustHost.com offers anytime money back guarantee.

7. Miscellaneous: There are various miscellaneous features offered by the web hosting companies such as free domain name with the hosting account which you can use for your purpose, Free Site Promotion, Site building templates etc.

You can do detaied comparison of the services offered by top 10 webhosting servers at WebHostingChoice.com. You can also read the user reviews for each hosting companies. I used GoDaddy.com to purchase my domain Proxy Lib though not hosted on it. But it is rated under top 10 hosting companies. I would suggest you to go through the user reviews and ratings of hosting servers and then choose. Best of luck !

Anonymous surfing has not only become the need of today’s internet users but it has emerged as pretty good business also. Confused? Don’t be, let me explain. Proxy servers are mainly used by the college students and organization staff to bypass the network filter and surf freely the social networking websites such as Facebook, Orkut etc. Secondly and most importantly, proxy servers play a vital role in securing the organizational network by intercepting the client requests and forwarding it to the target server. You can search and find thousands of proxy servers which can cater your needs. But it would be hectic if you search proxy servers one by one and that too of different types. Now you can get the list of robust and most secure proxy servers at Proxy Library. As the name says, Proxy Library has enlisted in it the huge list of proxy servers which are updated and rated on daily basis. They also provide the section where regular visitors can rate the proxy servers they already used. They also provide the list of PHP proxies, ASP proxies and many more. Choose whichever you feel reliable. If you have your own proxy servers then you can submit you proxy server for free.

I have many websites which I use for blogging on different topics. Usually people think that owning and maintaining a website is tedious task. Trust me, even if you are not a web developer or programmer i.e. even if you are just an internet user or surfer, you can create a website. However, maintaining a website for an enterprise may need some computer language expertise. But if you need just a personal website like blog, it is as easy as making tea.
Let me tell you simple steps to buy and create your website -

1. Purchase a Domain Name: Domain Name is the name of website you want to create, like alc2005.com. You can buy a desired domain name from any authorized domain seller or agent such as Namecheap. At Namecheap.com you can enter your desired domain name to check whether it has been taken or not. For instance you can not buy domain “google.com” as it is already taken. Usually 8$ to 10 $ are charged per purchase of domain name.

2. Choose a Web Hosting Company: In this step you need to find a Web Hosting company which will store all the contents of your website ensuring that it is available on internet 24X7. There are two kinds of hosting – Free Hosting and Premium Hosting or paid hosting. In Premium Hosting you pay some amount to the Web Hosting Company. There are also some company which provide Free Hosting services such as Byet.com. Premium hosting is preferred for professional use of website i.e. you want only your contents on your website and no ad from Hosting Company should appear on your website. Moreover in premium hosting you have more bandwidth to handle the traffic and large space. However, for blog purpose people usually prefer free hosting as they do not have to store any large database. For hosting you just need to create account on hosting sites such as Byet.com which provides both types of hosting. But you should select only that company whose hosting server supports the language you have used to create the web page. For example, your website is to be in PHP then your Hosting server should support PHP. Don’t worry if you do not know any web script to develop a web page. You can use free software such WordPress, Joomla etc. So choose a hosting server which supports say WordPress, used for blogs.

3. Link your Web Hosting server to your Domain : Your web hosting company will give you addresses of your server which you need to link to your domain. For this, just go to the account you created in Namecheap. There you can fill these addresses.

4. Install you web program to the hosting server: Now you just need to go to you admin panel of hosting account and upload your webpage code, if any, to the server.If you want just a static website then just write HTML codes for it and upload to the server. Usually start page must have name such as index.html, index.jsp,index.php etc. For non programmers, you just need to upload wordpress or Joomla etc and install it to your server which is as easy as running a setup wizard on desktop. You just have to follow the instructions. These software provide an easy interface for you to maintain and update the website as if you are working on MS Word.

Once you did all above, your website is ready. You just need to go to your control panel of your website as provided by the wordpress or joomla as admin and start updating you website or blog. I have not mentioned the various data which would be sent to you by domain seller or web hosting company during registration as it varies from company to company. But believe me, if you are desperate to create your own domain then these are not at all the problems. Once you start the procedure, you will get full support by the hosting company, domain seller firm and of course on infinite Online forums.

Best of luck!!

IPTV stands for Internet Protocol Television. But how many of you know what exactly is it? In this post I will explain to you about this new technology in very simple words. IPTV is spreading world wide and very soon it will replace cable connections used for viewing your favorite channels. Since it is expected that nearly every house will have their fast broadband connection hence this technology will enable us to view the television content through technologies used for computer networks. This technology is not possible with slow download speeds. But now with high speed broadband connections IPTV is emerging very rapidly. It will make your experience with TV very interactive and personalized. Imagine that you would be able to reply to the game shows with your TV remote. This is all possible through IPTV. You can watch movies and TV soaps and chat or share files with distant friends at a time. It is believed that IPTV could be integrated with very popular protocol VoIP i.e. Voice Over Internet Protocol.

IPTV uses a two-way broadcast signal sent through the service provider’s backbone network and servers. This allows the viewer to select content on demand, time shift i.e. you can watch any program when you want to watch. IP i.e. internet protocol refers to a method of sending information over a secure, tightly managed network. Building IPTV capability into a network allows a service provider to deliver voice and data as well. That fulfils the promise at last of a single, secure network over which all services can be delivered. Many of the world’s major telecom providers are exploring IPTV as a new revenue opportunity from their existing markets. It will change TV viewing not only for residential viewers but also create a whole new market of customized content delivery. Recent news related to application of IPTV is linked with India where BSNL, the largest service provider, has announced to launch IPTV services in 10 major cities including the metropolitan cities.

As an engineering student or computer science enthusiast you might be curious to know about how the IP addresses are allocated and managed inside any network. You would definitely want to know the reason why sometimes your Host part of IP address changes within a network. We all know that each machine that can connect to the Internet must have a unique IP address. This IP address is assigned when an Internet connection is created for a specific computer. Now, for every computer in the organization either you have to enter the IP addresses manually or it can be done automatically and managed dynamically. But manual configuration would be tedious task for even medium or large size network. This is where DHCP’s role comes into play. DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is a communications protocol. DHCP lets network administrator to centrally manage and automate the assignment of IP addresses in an network. This protocol lets to supervise and distribute IP addresses from a central point. whenever a computer is plugged into a different place in the network it automatically sends a new IP address. DHCP leases the IP addresses for some fix amount of time. The default lease time is one week. This lease time may vary also. For those computers which need permanent IP addresses like Web servers etc static addresses are allotted.

The protocol has been designed so that it can it can dynamically reconfigure networks in which there are more computers than there are available IP addresses and where the users change frequently. Actually, DHCP is an extended protocol from BOOTP i.e. Bootstrap Protocol. Though the working of both the protocols are similar but BOOTP is not dynamic. Both the protocols are based on server – client architecture. BOOTP and DHCP clients sends requests to their respective BOOTP and DHCP servers. Both DHCP and BOOTP uses Relay machine which knows the address of DHCP or BOOTP servers. Hence they forward the request from DHCP or BOOTP clients to their respective servers.

You might have used or being using POP3 mail service through which you can access contents of your email even when you are offline. You can download your messages from the mail servers to your PC whenever you are connected to the internet. Software like Microsoft Outlook Express, Apple Mail, Microsoft Office Outlook etc are quite popular which lets you access your mail while offline. POP3 stands for Post Office Protocol. There is a similar service known as IMAP i.e. Internet Message Access Protocol which lets you download messages from mail servers onto your computer with the same software as in case POP3. But then the question arises that “Which is better, POP3 or IMAP? And how do they differ?”.

Let me answer it in simple way. IMAP creates a constant connection between mail server and mail clients which can be your PC or devices such as mobile. IMAP establishes 2-way communication between your email client and your web mail. Unlike in case of POP3 when you log into your email account i.e. through a browser on PC or mobile and perform some activities such as moving messages etc, it will automatically be shown in your email account. For example you move a massage to folder “Friends”, and then if you sign in next time via browser you will see the same change there also. Moreover, IMAP provides an efficient method to access your mail from multiple devices. In POP mail there is a risk of loosing messages. I have sometimes faced problems like downloading the same messages multiple times. If you have not used any of them then I would suggest IMAP whenever you would use in future.

One more issue with POP3 and IMAP is that most of the mail servers like Yahoomail charge for these services. But no need to panic as there are some mail servers like Gmail, Zapakmail etc which offer POP3 for free. Gmail also offers IMAP for free. So if you have a Gmail account you can use these services.