MSNBC reports that US Robotics has ratified the V9.2 modem standard, which should improve dial-up connectivity speeds.

PC World reports that tens of thousands of laptops running Windows lost the use of their modems at the stroke of midnight February 21st, as a result of a time glitch in the operating system. The fix, for now, is setting the computers dates back to before Ferbuary 21st, so users can get the patches available on line.

TechWeb reports on Opera’s fight to grow in the browser market. Opera is now offering a free browser paid for by advertising, while its non-free version has to be purchased for $39.

ZDNet reports on what it calls the most significant announcement to come out of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote address at MacWorld Expo in Tokyo: Apple computer’s G4 will soon come with the GeForge 3 video chip.

Sensei writes
“Fly swapping or as it should be called, Swap on-the-Fly allows the addition of swap space as and when needed. This is very handy if you have just ran out of Memory while trying to do a big compile or, more often, you mis-configured your swap at installation and ran out of memory before even X starts.

Though this process is by no means a solution to the problem (there are speed implications) it is non the less a nice quick fix, and I have used this method on many Unix variants.”

Check it out at linuxnewbie.org“

O’Reilly reports that first ever peer-to-peer conference unites 1,026 programmers. Over 1,000 programmers, developers, and investors gathered at the first ever conference on Peer-to-Peer technology–the O’Reilly Peer-to-Peer Conference (February 14-16, 2001, Westin St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco). Deemed a success by attendees and press alike, 22 countries were represented, as well as hundreds of companies worldwide.
O’REILLY RESEARCH ANNOUNCES THE 2001 PEER-TO-PEER INDUSTRY OVERVIEW, a comprehensive report on peer-to-peer from both business and technical perspectives. The report, available in Spring 2001, describes the state of this nascent industry and predicts where it’s going to go next–with hard data to back it up. The report contains:

– Company profiles
– In-depth explanations of underlying technologies
– P2P services: present and future
– Analysis of the hype: what’s the real P2P story
– Estimates of mindshare and community size
– Our forecasts for the field

Until March 31, 2001, the report is available at the introductory price of $895; after that date the cost is $1295. See research.oreilly.com for more information.

P2P GOES EAST: From September 17-20, 2001, O’Reilly hosts an East Coast version of its Peer-to-Peer Conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. The P2P East Call-for-Papers is open at http://conferences.oreilly.com/p2p/call_fall.html until March 19, 2001.

FOR A REVIEW COPY OF “PEER-TO-PEER: HARNESSING THE POWER OF DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES,” (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/peertopeer/), contact Marsee Henon at marsee@oreilly.com. All registered reporters who attended the P2P conference will automatically receive a copy in the next few weeks.

VISIT www.openp2p.com, for all topics Peer-to-Peer–the definitive source for P2P content.

P2P AUDIO TAPES AVAILABLE. Twenty-three session of the O’Reilly Peer-to-Peer Conference, February 14-16, 2001, were chronicled via audio. To purchase P2P audio tapes, contact Ron Vierra at 510.859.2639 or conaudio2@aol.com.

DR. DOBB’S TECHNETCAST WEBCASTS THE O’REILLY P2P CONFERENCE. The coverage features exclusive O’Reilly P2P keynote sessions and interviews with leaders of the P2P community. See for yourself–go to:

http://www.technetcast.com/tnc_catalog.html?item_id=1167.

Download P2P Conference session slides at

http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/p2p/sessions.html

P2P AND ENTERPRISE JAVA? Java is crucial to tomorrow’s most important technologies, notably the collaborative and distributed computing technologies that are changing the way we define networks. Whether you’re developing large-scale Enterprise Java applications or wondering how to incorporate wireless and peer-to-peer networking into current applications, the Second Annual O’Reilly Conference on Enterprise Java will provide the focused training and perspective needed to stay in the forefront of Java technology. For a detailed list of speakers, go to:

http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/java2001/pub/w/90.

To register for a press pass to O’Reilly’s Enterprise Java Conference, Westin Hotel, Santa Clara, CA. March 26-29, 2001, go to:

http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/java2001/register?x-t=java2001.press.

PUT IT ON YOUR PERSONAL RADAR: Watch for the release of Brian McConnell’s book, “Beyond Contact: A Guide to SETI and Communicating with Alien Civilizations.” To make contact with a free review copy when it lands in April, email Marsee Henon at marsee@oreilly.com.

IMPORTANT URLS: Use the following addresses for all of your “press”-ing details:

Session slides:

http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/p2p/sessions.html.

P2P Conference Photos:
http://www.openp2p.com/conference

Dr. Dobb’s WebCast:
http://www.technetcast.com/tnc_catalog.html?item_id=1167

Announcements:

http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/p2p/announce.html

Web Logs by the Editors:
http://www.openp2p.com/conference

P2P Background Material:
http://www.openp2p.com/conference

Vendor Press Release Summaries:
http://www.openp2p.com/conference

P2P LYRICS–courtesy of JoeydeVilla-joey@opencola.com

Director of Developer Relations and Accordion Guy:

Sing aloud to the tune of “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”:

I’d like to teach the world to crunch
Data with P2P
Trade MP3s and cure disease
And go search for E.T.s

To the tune of “Fight for Your Right to Party”:

You went out and bought a CD by GWAR
You want to make a copy for your car
Look out, here comes the RIAA
You want an MP3, but they say “no way!”

You gotta fight
For your right
To faaaaair use!

ABOUT O’REILLY & ASSOCIATES
O’Reilly & Associates is the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies. We communicate the knowledge of experts through our books, conferences, and web sites. Our books, known for their animals on the covers, occupy a treasured place on the shelves of the developers building the next generation of software. Our conferences and summits bring innovators together to shape the revolutionary ideas that spark new industries. From the Internet to the web, Linux, Open Source, and now peer-to-peer networking, we put technologies on the map. www.oreilly.com.

# # #

O’Reilly is a registered trademark of O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

“Want to know how fast yor hard drive writes, rewrites, reads, and re-reads? Iozone is a tool that Linux users can run to perform benchmarks of your HDD’s performance.” Read the review at LinuxPlanet.

LinuxWorld reviews the Linux-based NetMAX FireWall, saying “As long as you have some experience with the technology, this product will make your life as a network administrator a lot easier.”

Anonymous Reader writes “OnWOW, Inc., a maker of software products for end-to-end wireless integration, announced its PagerFeed gateway for paging and wireless carriers. PagerFeed implements the Wireless Communications Transfer Protocol (WCTP) standard, and allows application data to be pulled from or pushed to a wireless device.

Paging and wireless carriers use PagerFeed to allow their customers to use inexpensive wireless devices as mobile terminals for their applications. Today wireless devices such as mobile phones, or two-way pagers are widely available, inexpensive, and provide extensive functionality. An example is a Motorola T-900 two-way pager. With a full keyboard, two-way messaging, and a price of $99 this device is an optimal choice for a mobile terminal. However, to actually build support for this kind of device in an application requires that the wireless carrier offer gateway access to their wireless network.

With PagerFeed, either a client application or a wireless device can initiate a transaction. A client’s transaction in the form of an XML contract is translated and delivered to the wireless device. A wireless device’s request is translated into an XML contract and delivered to a client’s application. Client and host applications can be developed with OnWOW’s other products, or by using third-party tools.”

John Gowin writes “In Part 1 of this series, we took a look at AIM clients available for GNU/Linux. In Part 2, it was ICQ’s turn in the spotlight . In our third installment, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger take the stage as we see how these fast growing IM services measure up on the GNU/Linux platform.”
Read the article