Monthly Archives: January 2009

IPTV: The future of Television

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The world of television is fast changing. With the advent of HDTV and digital cable, beginning of a new era has been marked where technology is getting advanced and penetrating deeper into the lifestyles of people. A new invention IPTV (Internet protocol TV) is another sign of advancement which is sure to move the world on its heels.

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is a digital TV service where the content instead of being delivered through cables, is transferred through technologies used for computer networks. It is a platform entirely based on interactive TV software and videoconferencing so the day is not far when you can actually respond to the game shows on your TV with your TV remote. IPTV can be bundled with web access and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).If you have ever watched a video on internet, in broader sense, it is the same technology. But for IPTV to work you need to have very high speed internet connection, a slow connection just won’t work. That’s why lots of telecommunication companies are eyeing this competitive market to make hay will the sun shines as they have their own local networks, a must for reliable IPTV, and all of them are getting ready to provide a triple play (IPTV, internet access and VoIP).Set top boxes are here to stay but with many modifications and advancements as it is not always possible to have a running PC beside your TV.

IPTV has many possibilites. Video on Demand is a reality with IPTV. You can browse online the movie catalogues and select a movie to playback. Interactivity, program guide, picture in picture are some of the other enviable features, which although is still possible with many satellite TVs but to a certain extent. Using wireless phones to schedule a recording of your favorite show, accessing photos, music from PC to TV are other features that can happen.

It comes with its own limitations as well. Since it uses Internet Protocol which transfers video stream in the form of packets, it is liable to loss of packets on the way and can cause delays, so is unreliable. Channel switching may take time because of the delay time in flow of packets. Internet connection has to be fast enough to prevent any breaks in the relay.

The deep pockets of telecommunication industry have already started pumping in the money to make it a success. Although many big challenges lie ahead for IPTV but with the way the technology is surging, high speed broadband reaching people and efforts being put into overcoming its limitations, IPTV is surely the next big thing in the league.

The Internet and your child

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Through the evolution of the Internet mankind has tapped into a wealth of knowledge that would otherwise take centuries if not years to acquire reading books and awaiting for them to be published. The Internet is a fast and efficient way of getting real time facts to quench our need for accurate information. The method is quite simple, a computer, a high speed Internet connection and money to pay the monthly bills and you are on your way to embark on a journey that takes you around the world just sitting in your favorite chair. Type it and with a bit of patience you will find it.Through instant messaging and e-mails a gap has been bridged between families, companies seeking skilled workers and list goes on and on.

There are however other sides to the Internet that many at times turn a blind eye. While information opens our horizons to think and to reason at a more advanced level than our ancestors, such information if not censured can dreadfully carve certain behavioural patterns that leave an indelible mark in our lives. The busy rush hours and constant deadlines to meet, have caused parents to unintentionally forget their parental duties towards their children.The result is a generation that grows craving for attention, affection and at times finding it through the wrong outlets. Parents should therefore take the time out to censure the information that their children are being exposed to.

Windows Vista comes equipped with certain gadgets that help curtail the exposure to risky information and people that children may encounter and also limits the possibility of them downloading files to the computer that may contain viruses,Trojans etc. The gadgets allow you to control the sites the children visit, the time they spend on these sites, which video games they can play etc. To turn on Parental Controls using Windows Vista go to Start, then Control Panel then User Accounts and finally Set Up Parental Controls from there you establish the controls you wants to set for your child.

For traditional users of Windows XP this comes through the web service Windows Live Family Safety at www.fss.live.com and from there you follow the given instructions. The Internet should be seen as a cyber library but care at all times must be taken to control the information that we take in and give out from our favorite chair.

The MVC programming pattern

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Modern programming is totally different from the way programming was just less than a decade ago.  Much of this is due to programmers preferring to move towards more organized and scalable programming paradigms and frameworks.  This are just some of the reasons why object-oriented programming and programming design patterns have become popular.  MVC is a programming design pattern that has become popular mainly because it allows for a more organized and scalable program.

MVC or Model-View-Controller is a design pattern that separates a program into three components, the View, the Model and the Controller. The View refers to the component that appears to the user.  It is the code that generates what is shown to the user and it also receives input from the user as needed.  The Controller on the other hand, refers on the code that determines what action should be taken when a request from the user is received.  Finally, the Model refers to the section of code that does the processing of the request and also saves or retrieves data for the user before handing it back to the View.

Now, let’s focus on this design pattern in the web application programming point of view. MVC is currently being implemented by two of the popular web programming languages.  It is used in J2EE through the Struts, Spring, and JSF frameworks while it is also implemented by Ruby through the Rails framework. Other languages also have similar frameworks available though not as popular as those mentioned.  Lately, Microsoft has also released an update for their .NET framework to support the MVC pattern.

What really makes this pattern so powerful is that it allows an application to be built independently from each other.  This means, changes made to the implementation of one component should not drastically affect the other sections.  This is especially beneficial for teams working on a program.  Some of them can be working on the View component; creating the HTML, JavaScript, and CSS code that allows for a more pleasing web interface for the user.  Others on the team could be working on the business logic of the program, focusing on how the data is processed and saved or retrieved from the database.  Most importantly, the controller can be used to direct where requests are sent and to what page will the information be displayed.

Let’s trace how a request is processed in an MVC pattern.  Let’s start with the request coming from the user.  The user usually makes their first request by invoking the initial page of a website by entering the website’s URL in the browser.  The controller catches the request for the initial page and invokes the proper action which makes the proper calls to the model components that accomplish the necessary processing.  Once all the required information are gathered, the page is rendered by the view and the page is shown to the user.

Volumes can be written about the MVC pattern and its intricacies so for more information, you may visit WikiPedia for more information and links to MVC frameworks for your programming language of choice.