What is Bluetooth
If you have recently purchased a cellphone you may have been told whether or not your device was Bluetooth capable. Bluetooth technology enables a completely wireless headset that attaches onto the ear of the user. It allows the user to communicate hands free with no additional wires. Bluetooth technology prides itself on being very secure and having privacy as one of its main focuses. The device looks almost space age like something out of Star Wars since it fits directly on the ear and is very small like most advanced technology.

Why Own a Bluetooth?
The most obvious reason to own a Bluetooth is for the ability to talk hands free while moving around or driving. Many state are beginning to implement traffic laws that forbid the usage of cellphones without a hands free device. Bluetooth technology will become all important for people that are on the go that need to reach the home or office while driving. Not to mention they are very convenient while shopping at the supermarket and one forgets what they were supposed to purchase. It allows the user to call home to find out what needed to be purchased.

About Bluetooth Technology
Bluetooth comes equipped with a 2.45 GHz which is a tranceiver that sends and receives in an unused frequency. It is able to be accessed around the world. Also, each bluetooth has its own 48 bit address. The connections are in the format of point to point or multipoint in nature. The furthest range allowed is ten meters at this time, so it is a short range wireless device. Data travels at a speed of one megabit a second.

How Bluetooth Can be Used
Bluetooth is by far not just to be used as a hands free device for a cellphone. In addition, Bluetooth can allow for the exchange of information between multiple devices such as: digital cameras, GPS receivers, laptops, mobile phones, PC’s, printers, and video game consoles. The communication passes through a secure, short-range radio frequency. It is licensed on a global level.

Alchemy Eye, is a premiere Windows server network monitor software. This plug-in supported network analyzer tool continuously detects server availability and will alert the Network Administrator by cell phone, pager, ICQ or e-mail BEFORE a server goes down, preventing costly repairs.

Alchemy Eye  monitors servers, file servers, services, devices, accesses and processes in networks of all sizes from small LAN to large scale WAN, and contains a DNS server monitor, file monitor, file server monitor and a bandwidth monitor. It writes monitoring logs, allows the Network Administrator to build network performance reports and can be configured to send various alerts to the Network Administrator whenever it detects specified conditions.

Although this computer monitoring software works on Windows machines, it can monitor all types of servers, including NT, Apache, Netscape, Solaris and IBM. It does this by tracking the standard protocols and services such as, TCP/IP, ICMP (ping), IPX/SPX,  NetBIOS, SMTP, POP3, HTTP(S), FTP, etc.

With Alchemy Eye network monitor, you can supervise the outputs from Oracle Servers, MS SQL Server, RAS Server and practically any other type of database server. Among the many factors it logs are: free disk space, file creation, NT Events, NT service states and SQL query results.

It can execute external applications, run custom VBScript programs and make use of various third-party plug-ins and add-ons.

In the event of server failure, Alchemy Eye automatically notifies the network administrator and logs a fully detailed report that makes debugging a cinch.

All Windows operating systems are supported: Windows 95,98,ME,NT,2000 and XP. Disk space needed is 2MB with additional space for the log files. Download file size is 3 MB.

The current aim of blu-ray and HD-DVD is to get as much public support quickly as ultimately it is the consumer who will decide which format comes out on top. With the unification talks failing it is up to you to make the decision of which format to adopt. To help you with this tough decision is the lowdown on how each format matches below.

History

The blu-ray format’s head companies are Sony and Philips with Toshiba and Hitachi heading up the HD-DVD format. This situation isn’t the first time where these two sides have gone at each other with opposing formats. The DVD format was born from the co-operation of the Multimedia Compact Disc from Sony/Philips (MMCD) and the Super Density Disc (SD) from Toshiba. Though it ended well for the consumer with the DVD format being widely adopted and becoming the new standard, it was Toshiba’s camp who came out on top in regards to royalties.
This led to the work on new formats by both sides with Sony aiming to regain some of its lost market. The two projects though had been in production but not really going anywhere at the time. Sony’s Professional Disc for Data (PDD) became the blu-ray format while Toshiba’s Advanced Optical Disc becoming HD-DVD. This leads us back to the original situation where there are two competing formats with a unification looking a lot less likely.

Technical

Both blu-ray and HD-DVD use a wavelength of 405nm however the smaller track pitch on blu-ray (see Blu-ray Disc) allows more information to be squeezed on and so gives the larger capacity. However it is the differing track pitch that makes these two formats incompatible. The surface layer of the two is different also as HD-DVD uses a 0.6mm layer similar to DVD whereas blu-ray uses a 0.1mm clear plastic layer.
This difference is the main reason why costs are higher with blu-ray. Costly production methods are needed to be able to make the discs and a hard coating must be applied to make the discs suitably resilient to dust and fingerprints.

Capacity

Blu-ray currently offers discs in 25gb for single layer and 50gb for dual layer. However TDK has started work on a 200gb disc which is 6×33gb layers.
HD-DVD comes in 15gb for the single layer and 30gb for the dual layer. Best tests so far have achieved 45gb but 60gb is the theoretical limit. This shows that the maximum for HD-DVD is only 10gb more than what blu-ray can already offer.

Codecs

Both formats use the same codecs to play video as they are both able to play standard and high-definition. This means that MPEG-2, Microsoft Video Codec 1 (aka VC1, WMV HD, etc.) and H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC are all supported on both formats.

Security

Both blu-ray and HD-DVD have to make use of HDCP encrypted output and the Advanced Access Content System (AACS). Both HDCP and AACS are mandatory for any discs with HD video.
Blu-ray also incorporates ROM-Mark watermarking technology and BD dynamic crypto which generates special keys for batches of discs.
HD-DVD uses a similar system in the Volume Identifying technology.

Support

Both formats are heavily supported in both the Consumer Electronics (CE) and Information Technology (IT) industries. However blu-ray has a better portion of the big name movie and game studios supporting it which is essential for there to be a ready amount of content at launch. See below for the list of Supporting studios:

Blu-ray

20th Century Fox
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Electronic Arts
MGM Studios
Paramount Pictures
Sony Pictures Entertainment
The Walt Disney Company
Vivendi Universal Games
Warner Bros.

HD-DVD

Buena Vista Home Entertainment
New Line Cinema
Paramount Pictures
The Walt Disney Company
Universal Studios
Warner Bros.

Josh Biggs is the founder of Blu-ray-review.co.uk which gives the visitor a resource for all the latest blu-ray news and product reviews with community discussion.