1. Supercomputer
This type of computer usually costs hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Although some supercomputers are single computer systems, most are comprised of multiple high performance computers working in parallel as a single system. The best known supercomputers are built by Cray Supercomputers.

2. Minicomputer
Another term rarely used anymore, minicomputers fall in between microcomputers (PCs) and mainframes (enterprise servers). Minicomputers are normally referred to as mid-range servers now.

3. Personal Computer PC
The personal computer (PC) defines a computer designed for general use by a single person. While a Macis a PC, most people relate the term with systems that run the Windows operating system. PCs were first known as microcomputers because they were a complete computer but built on a smaller scale than the huge systems in use by most businesses.

4. Desktop
A PC that is not designed for portability is a desktop computer. The expectation with desktop systems are that you will set the computer up in a permanent location. Most desktops offer more power, storage and versatility for less cost than their portable brethren.

5. Laptop
Also called notebooks, laptops are portable computers that integrate the display, keyboard, a pointing device or trackball, processor, memoryand hard drive all in a battery-operated package slightly larger than an average hardcover book.

6. PDA
Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) are tightly integrated computers that often use flash memory instead of a hard drive for storage. These computers usually do not have keyboards but rely on touchscreen technology for user input. PDAs are typically smaller than a paperback novel, very lightweight with a reasonable battery life. A slightly larger and heavier version of the PDA is the handheld computer.

7. Workstation
The fifth type of computer is a workstation. A workstation is simply a desktop computer that has a more powerful processor, additional memory and enhanced capabilities for performing a special group of task, such as 3D Graphics or game development.

8. Server
A computer that has been optimized to provide services to other computers over a network. Servers usually have powerful processors, lots of memory and large hard drives. The next type of computer can fill an entire room.

9. Wearable Computer
The latest trend in computing is wearable computers. Essentially, common computer applications (e-mail, database, multimedia, calendar/scheduler) are integrated into watches, cell phones, visors and even clothing! For more information see these articles on computer clothing, smart watches and fabric PCs.

10. Mainframe
In the early days of computing, mainframes were huge computers that could fill an entire room or even a whole floor! As the size of computers has diminished while the power has increased, the term mainframe has fallen out of use in favor of enterprise server. You'll still hear the term used, particularly in large companies to describe the huge machines processing millions of transactions every day.

Google has extended its Earth Outreach Programme, which partly helps increase the visibility of tourist and cultural sites of countries to millions of people across the globe, to Uganda.

The programme, which is largely coordinated via the internet with input from thousands of volunteers, will exploit interactive media tools like; Google Maps, Map Maker, Google Earth Pro and SketchUp, to promote the co-existence of people and wildlife to the benefit the tourism industry in Uganda.

Ms Rebecca Moore, the manager Google Earth Outreach - who launched the programme and services at in Kampala on Monday, told Daily Monitor that the interactive tools will be used by communities in Uganda to market their culture in the world. She said some of the tools enable people share pictures, routes, videos and stories about places, through the Google Earth interface.

“This makes it possible for people to observe, record, and post what’s happening in their societies and it is also a chance to tell first hand stories about themselves to the rest of the world,” she said. “Google Geo tools enable people to be virtual tourists, go to a country and see heritage sites, famous architectural monuments and learn about the place, get excited about it and decide visit.”

via:The Monitor

The body said it that it was finalising plans to introduce web addresses using non-Latin characters.
The proposalinitially approved in 2008 - would allow domain names written in Asian, Arabic or other scripts.

The body said if the final plans were approved on 30 October, it would accept the first applications by 16 November.

The first Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) could be up and running by "mid 2010" said the president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).

"Of the 1.6 billion internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based," said Rod Beckstrom at the opening of Icann's conference in Seoul, South Korea.

"So this change is very much necessary for not only half the world's internet users today but more than half, probably, of the future users as the internet continues to spread."

Relaxed rules
Plans for IDNs were approved at a meeting in June 2008. However, testing of the system has been going on for much longer, said Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the board in charge of reviewing the change.

"You have to appreciate what a fantastically complicated technical feature this is," he said.

"What we have created is a different translation system."

The changes will be applied to the net's Domain Name System. This acts like a phone book, translating easily understood domain names such as bbc.co.uk into strings of computer readable numbers known as IP addresses.

The tweaks will allow this system to recognise and translate the non-Latin characters.

"We are confident that it works because we have been testing it for a couple of years," said Mr Dengate Thrush. "We're really ready to start rolling it out."

Some countries, such as China and Thailand, have already introduced workarounds that allow computer users to enter web addresses in their own language. However, these were not internationally approved and do not necessarily work on all computers.

The meeting in South Korea will also discuss its plans to introduce generic Top Level Domains (TLDs), such as .uk or .com.

Last year, the body voted to relax rules on TLDs meaning companies could turn brands into web addresses, while individuals could use their names.

Icann, set up by the US government, was founded in 1998 to oversee the development of the net.

Last month, after years of criticism, the US government eased its control over the non-profit body.

It signed a new agreement that gave Icann autonomy for the first time. The agreement came into effect on 1 October and puts it under the scrutiny of the global "internet community".

Via BBC

Since we are in the information age, one thing you can never run away from is the term bandwidth, as long as you use the internet you cannot hide away from this bandwidth guy.
So what do you understand by the term bandwidth, most of us are confused by this and sometimes we miss interpret the whole circus about it. And here are some of the terms that come with it (Dedicated, managed/shared, broadband etc).

To understand bandwidth, it's best to think of the Internet as a series of highways and information as cars. If there's only one car on the highway, that car will travel quickly and easily (Known as Dedicated link). If there are many cars, however (also known as Shared/managed), traffic can build up and slow things down. The Internet works the same way -- if only one person is downloading one file, the transfer should happen fairly quickly. If several people are trying to download the same file, though, the transfer can be much slower.

In this analogy, bandwidth is the number of lanes on the highway. If a Web site's bandwidth is too low, traffic will become congested. If the Web site increases its bandwidth, information will be able to travel back and forth without much of a hassle. Bandwidth is important for Internet, because sending large amounts of video and audio data over the Internet requires large bandwidths.

• In computer networks, bandwidth is often used as a synonym for data transfer rate - the amount of data that can be carried from one point to another in a given time period (usually a second). This kind of bandwidth is usually expressed in bits (of data) per second (bps). Occasionally, it's expressed as bytes per second (Bps). Now this is where always get it wrong between the small “b” and “B”.  A modem that works at 57,600 bps approximately 57 kbps has twice the bandwidth of a modem that works at 28,800 bps ~ 28 kbps. In general, a link with a high bandwidth is one that may be able to carry enough information to sustain the succession of images in a video presentation.
• In electronic communication, bandwidth is the width of the range (or band) of frequencies that an electronic signal uses on a given transmission medium. In this usage, bandwidth is expressed in terms of the difference between the highest-frequency signal component and the lowest-frequency signal component. Since the frequency of a signal is measured in hertz (the number of cycles of change per second), a given bandwidth is the difference in hertz between the highest frequency the signal uses and the lowest frequency it uses. A typical voice signal has a bandwidth of approximately three kilohertz (3 kHz); an analog television (TV) broadcast video signal has a bandwidth of six megahertz (6 MHz) -- some 2,000 times as wide as the voice signal.

Units of measure are as follows:
8 bits always represent one character let me say like a single latter “a” or “A” or it can be a Number “2”. Each key you type on your keyboard is 8 bits = 1 byte example (00111001) that’s a binary way of representing a byte or a single character.
1 byte = 8 bits
1,000 bytes = 1kb (kilobyte – actually 1,024 bytes but usually written as 1,000)
1,000,000 bytes = 1mb (megabyte)
1,000,000,000 = 1 GB (gigabyte)
1,000,000,000,000 = 1 TB (Terabyte)
Etc .

HOW MUCH DO YOU NEED?
The question of how much bandwidth you need depends on what you use the internet for, what traffic (Video, audio, images or just mail and normal internet use), how many users, applications, and scalability.  For many ISPs they usually give less than what you actually pay for unless you are keen to monitor it using some bandwidth monitoring tools.
One single user will be satisfied with 56kps for his/her normal surfing and emails but that will not be enough for a small office of more than two Pc’s because that’s when you start complaining of slow terrible speeds, but one should also mind about the applications running on the computer too.
For a small office 128kbps is what I would recommend for 3-5 computers but depending on what type of work or traffic moving on the network.

For stable video streaming, 512kbs would be ok but more than 700kbps would be a very good recommendation but also depending on how many users are on that particular network and what they are doing.
Most people always complain to ISPs of poor bandwidth but sometimes it’s the applications that are running on their computers, doing updates and peer-to-peer applications like Live wire and torrents, that always consume a lot of bandwidth, always completely close them unless you need them.
There is so much about Bandwidth but that would be a simple explanation for it and so many other factors that affect it e.g. the medium used, weather, distance etc

By Ken
Blazing Joints

There is so much about the internet that most Ugandan do not know about? Did you know that u can actually make free phone calls online?....actually without spending any penny! And guess what...the calls can reduce your phone bills when calling the loved ones abroad? These services use a voip technology to transfer voice over the internet in short terms referred to VOIP.

Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice calls over the Internet. Calls to other users of the service and to free-of-charge numbers, are free, in some countries like United States, UK, chile, Canada etc, calls to other landlines and mobile phones can be made for a fee. I’ve used the service  a few times calling my sisters in UK  and am glad to say no more international mobile calls charges for me I really  save a lot  now days and for you to hook up onto the service is through a simple process.
-    Log onto www.skype.com
-    Sign up for the service’s link containing your logon and download details will be sent to your inbox 
-    Download the software from the link provided in your inbox
-    After the download. Run install
-    Now Your ready to make free calls  
Skype allows you to have local numbers in some countries like Brazil, Poland, United Kingdom with calls to the number charged at the same rate as calls to fixed lines in the country.
Additional features include instant messaging, file transfer and video conferencing.

Google talk
Google Talk (GTalk) is a free calling service on Windows and web-based application developed by Google Inc it can be used for instant messaging and voice over internet protocol (VOIP), the first beta version of the program was released on August 24, 2005.
The Google Talk client is only available for Microsoft Windows (2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista and Windows). The beauty of this service is the ability to use it on mobile clients like the Blackberry, iPhone and some nokia phones with internet connection. This gives you the ability to make free calls from your mobile.
In some countries like the states you can actually get a number for the service. The best thing about all this. Is that you don’t need to be at one physical location to make a call all you need to have is internet.
The service is accessed through the Google website or just log onto www.google.com/gtalk
Additional services include offline messaging, Gmail and voice mailing with the release of the Google Talk gadget it allows you to have all these services in the palm of your hand.

Yahoo Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger is one of the most used chating or messaging client on the internet though it allows free calls and sms online most people know it for the latter. The one thing that makes it different is it mostly advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo
Messenger is provided free of charge and can be downloaded and used with a generic "Yahoo! ID" which also allows access to other Yahoo! services, such as Yahoo mail, news, weather, shopping etc  
For you to use the services you need to have a microphone and a headphone  with this u can make  PC-PC,for free but  PC-Phone and Phone-to-PC service there’ll be a small charge ,
The client bands all the yahoo services in one package that incase you receive emails it’ll automatically notify the user
Additional services include file transfers, webcam hosting, text messaging service. All it takes to enjoy this free service is to log onto site below and download the free software and install it on your machine.
Website: www.yahoomessenger.com

VoipBuster
VoipBuster is a free program that uses the latest technology to bring free and high-quality voice communications to people all over the world. When you use the free VoipBuster software, you can call regular phones in various popular destinations for free or call at an incredible low rate to any other phone on the planet.
You can also call all your online friends (pc-to-pc calls) as long as you like, for free. Just  the download should take only a few moments depending on your connection speed.
Website: www.voipbuster.com

Ekiga
Ekiga.net provides free call using internet telephony commonly known as VoIP; this service provider stands out from the rest because of his ability to allow the user a choice of different software to make the calls.
I like the VoIP and mails it is like using electronic mails though you’re making a call: before you can start making calls  a few things are needed I’ve tried to list them down below
•    You need an address. That's mainly what Ekiga.net is for: giving free SIP (soft internet phones)-Addresses.
•    You need a software to use this address. Any SIP aware software will do and you can download them off the internet they’re several, but we recommend the  free Ekiga soft phone, which has Instant-Messaging, Audio and Video so that you don’t get any issues installing and setting it
If you want to call other users and to be callable, you are best off with a 'human readable address' (SIP-Address), which in essence, looks just like an email address. The SIP-Address can be used by other users to call you. Similarly, you can use the SIP address of your friends and family to call them. For example, sip:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. is the protocol (SIP) and address (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) used to call the author of Ekiga.
For more details on how to use the service please log onto
Website: www.ekiga.net

By Joe
Intrusecurity