Planet i

Concept for the Day: Analog, Digital and HDTV:

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:54:00 +0000

¬For years, watching TV has involved analog signals and cathode ray tube (CRT) sets. The signal is made of continually varying radio waves that the TV translates into a picture and sound. An analog signal can reach a person's TV over the air, through a cable or via satellite. Digital signals, like the ones from DVD players, are converted to analog when played on traditional TVs.
This system has worked pretty well for a long time, but it has some limitations:
• Conventional CRT sets display around 480 visible lines of pixels. Broadcasters have been sending signals that work well with this resolution for years, and they can't fit enough resolution to fill a huge television into the analog signal.
• Analog pictures are interlaced -- a CRT's electron gun paints only half the lines for each pass down the screen. On some TVs, interlacing makes the picture flicker.
• Converting video to analog format lowers its quality.

Broadcasting is currently changing to digital television (DTV). A digital signal transmits the information for video and sound as ones and zeros instead of as a wave. For over-the-air broadcasting, DTV will generally use the UHF portion of the radio spectrum with a 6 MHz bandwidth, just like analog TV signals do.
DTV has several advantages:
• The picture, even when displayed on a small TV, is better quality.
• A digital signal can support a higher resolution, so the picture will still look good when shown on a larger TV screen.
• The video can be progressive rather than interlaced -- the screen shows the entire picture for every frame instead of every other line of pixels.
• TV stations can broadcast several signals using the same bandwidth. This is called multicasting.
• If broadcasters choose to, they can include interactive content or additional information with the DTV signal.

HDTV is simply the highest of all the DTV standards. The lowest quality digital format in HDTV is about the same as the highest quality an analog TV can display. But whether you see a high-definition picture and hear the accompanying Dolby Digital® sound depends on two things. First, the station has to be broadcasting a high-definition signal. Second, you have to have the right equipment to receive and view it.

System i5 New Generation Computing: Job Queue Monitoring and replication in RAP

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:17:05 +0000

We have created a new collection engine for Job Queue data which has been integrated into the next version of RAP. This will allow the users of RAP to start data collection on a source system for the job queues attached to a particular subsystem and see the job information on the target system. [...]

Search400: Free security assessment tool from Aberdeen and IBM

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:00:10 +0000

Businesses with 100 to 1,000 employees may want to take a look at a free security assessment tool that has been released by the Aberdeen Group and IBM. A sample report representing what you can expect to get after filling out the survey is provided. The report shows how your ...

Concept for the Day: Excel Tip – Reducing the used area:

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:42:00 +0000

The vertical scroll bar gets shorter as the used area of a sheet grows larger, making it inconvenient to use.

Reducing the size of the used area also reduces the size of the workbook.

To reduce the used area:

1. Find the last cell that contains data in the sheet.

2. Delete all rows after this cell, as well as the columns to the right of the cell that do not contain data.

3. Press Ctrl+S to save the file. The address of the last cell in the used area is updated when the file is saved.

IT Jungle -- Four Hundred Stuff: Four Hundred Stuff--SkyView Goes GUI with i OS Security Tool