US Advanced Technology

From blogging to podcasting to creating online videos, 4-H youth are leading the way, using new media and communication tools to share breaking news, event coverage and educational information with their community.

For example, the 4-H News technology club in Jefferson County, Wash., provides on-the-spot reports through video clips and podcasts posted to their 4-H Network News Web site. Club members have covered a fire in an historic hotel and a Red Cross disaster training exercise and conducted interviews with local business leaders.

The youth are hands-on in every step of putting together the one-to-two-minute news segments. “We get ideas about what we’ll do and who we’ll interview, then we take the camera, tape footage, put it on the computers and edit it,” 15-year-old Sophie Gilbert said.

Gilbert first created a video about a school reunion but quickly saw the educational value for her community. She has produced segments about avoiding drugs and alcohol and a beach restoration project. “There is a need for us to talk about some of the important things going on in our county and in the world,” she said.

The club came together as a collaboration among the local 4-H club, the Washington State University Extension office and the local newspaper. Jack Olmsted, 4-H leader for the club, Pamela Roberts, 4-H coordinator for the Jefferson County 4-H office, and the newspaper’s publisher work closely with the youth.

“Online media can be a priceless resource to capture not only the value of the 4-H experience, but also for our community, country and the world,” said Olmsted. “The youth are getting the process down and planning segments while making them enjoyable but also informative.”

The 4-H reporters publish their stories to an international audience using tools that are readily available in homes and offices-a video camera, computer linked to the Internet and telephone. “It is important to show the world that this can be done and it’s easy for anyone to do,” said 13-year-old Daniel Bryant.

Club members see themselves as a resource to others who want to start using online media. They also improve their public speaking skills and build self-esteem as they teach adults how to create and post news segments.

4-H is a community of young people across America who are learning leadership, citizenship and life skills.

Why Go Prepaid? Benefits Of Using Prepaid Cards For International Calls

People connect and converge lives through several means and ways. The fast-paced technology and the people rolling with the times have made connecting and keeping in touch a lot easier and convenient. With ease and convenience in mind, phone calls are even among, if not the top of the list.

Phone calls, which are known for magnifying personal touch, have been made to be of practical use through the use of prepaid phone cards. With telephone companies realizing the phone service needs, they provided prepaid cards that are geared to cut the usual call costs into reasonable amounts. Prepaid cards are card systems that are used by callers to pay for the calling services a telephone company provides. They come in different denominations, reproduced in varied designs and are made available to very accessible buying centers like 24-hour stores and the general market, to name a few. True to its name, prepaid phone cards allow a caller to pay for the cost of the call time prior to placing the call.

Prepaid phone cards are made to cater to the pressing needs of people who want convenient means of handling their calls. Since these phone cards allow for international calls, it has become very apt and useful for traveling people, tourists or even relatives trying to cross the distance. Prepaid cards have appeared to be advantageous also as far as call rates are concerned, as most prepaid cards offer the lowest rates most especially with international calls.

Prepaid international phone cards are said to be way cheaper than the standard international rates that are billed and charged on a regular telephone bill that is on a monthly subscription. This is possibly true because of the surcharge rates such as tax, monthly fee and others that are billed together with the phone call made using a regular monthly-billed telephone.

Moreover, prepaid cards can vouch for both mobility and flexibility. Prepaid cards can be used basically at any part of the globe and is especially helpful to people who transport from one place to another. These cards come handy and portable and are as flexible as using any phone medium available and still charging the call to yourself.

The best thing about prepaid services is that it helps callers avoid the huge long distance telephone services come billing time at the end of the month. It is because with prepaid phone cards, a particular prepaid phone card denomination allows for a specified call time that corresponds to the prepaid phone card value or amount. Callers pay as they go with phone cards and therefore eliminate the hassle of uncontrolled telephone bills.

Lastly, prepaid phone cards has become an immediate response to telephony needs but it is important to note that the will to max out the benefits of prepaid phone cards will be dependent on the choice of prepaid phone card to use, as there are a wide array of telephone service providers competing for the best service.

Electricity is a naturally occurring form of energy found in nature, and human beings did not invent it. Natural forms of electricity are found in lightning and in all electro-chemical impulses within living beings. For instance, the heartbeat is controlled by a micro-impulse of electricity. All forms of thought are electro-chemical impulses traveling within the neural network in the brain.

Human beings only discovered the existence of electricity and found ways and means of using it for constructive purposes. Westerners seemed to know around 600 B.C that amber can be charged with static electricity by rubbing it. But it was not until William Gilbert, the father of modern electricity appeared on the scene in 1600 A.D that much progress was made. He discovered the electrical properties of many substances, and it was he who coined the term electricity from the Greek word for amber.

While advances by early pioneers were mainly experimental in nature, Henry Cavendish and Charles Coulomb began quantifying the results through mathematical equations. By the mid 1700s a crude form of battery was invented. This enabled to standardize all forms of electrical experiments. Later Ohm and Kirchhoff used batteries to power various electric circuits and discovered the Ohms Law and Kirchhoffs Law of electric currents respectively.

It was Hans Christian Oersted who discovered that a wire carrying an electric current was surrounded by a magnetic field. D.F. Arago developed on it and invented the electro-magnet. Andr Marie Ampre developed mathematical equations for electromagnetic laws. Michael Faraday invented the electric motor as well as the generator. Within half a century, engineers were able to construct power plants that could supply electricity to the consumer. All of these inventors and other unnamed ones contributed towards the discovery of the laws of electricity and electromagnetism and invented ingenious means of using it for the benefit of mankind.

PHProxy is a type of proxy website that allows one to gain access to websites that would otherwise be blocked. These PHProxy websites allow for the free and unchallenged entry on to websites such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com without a user name or a registered computer. These PHProxy websites also allow for access into government websites and corporate websites which can cause serious harm or danger to the business and security of the nation and its corporations. These PHProxy websites can come in handy for those who fear security problems with the different websites, but these PHProxy websites are most often used by hackers and those who have been previously denied access to a website.

PHProxy sites are designed to allow the uninterrupted access to other websites. This access can help one in accessing websites that are governmentally blocked in some countries, although America does not have that problem. PHProxy websites are primarily used in hacking or for those who are too young to have access to an adult website. These PHProxy websites are also used to glean information from larger companies to their competitors or smaller companies and vice versa.

The PHProxy websites are great for those who are in foreign countries where the government controls their internet access and servers. For them, the use of a PHProxy website allows for the free viewing of items their government wishes to hide from them. This could be the news from other countries, news from their own country, or views that are differing from what the government wishes to have the public hear and follow. In these countries, control of the media translates into control of the people.

In America, PHProxy websites are typically only used by those individuals who have been banded from a website or who wish to hack into a website with a limited chance of being followed or traced back to their home or computer. This can pose serious problems to those websites that are doing their best to provide adult information while excluding children and for other companies who are seeking to keep their information private. Not many Americans use the PHProxy websites to limit their chances of obtaining a virus or for privacy.

ISAKMP stands for Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol. ISAKMP is a protocol used for establishing the security associations and the cryptographic keys. A security association is used to support secure communication and it refers to the establishment of the shared security information between two networks.

Security Associations contain all the information required for various security services and ISAKMP defines the required procedures and the packet formats so as to establish, modify and delete Security Associations.

ISAKMP is different from the key exchange protocols as ISAKMP clearly separates the details of the security association management from the details of the key exchange. ISAKMP defines packet formats which provide a framework for transferring the authentication and the key data.

It is possible to implement Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol over any transport protocol but the implementation must include the send and receive capability for ISAKMP using User Datagram Protocol on port 500.

A Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) is a group of hosts that feature a like set of requirements and can communicate as though they were all connected via the same wires. However, unlike a traditional LAN, a VLAN is not necessarily all in the same place, and the hosts involved in the network can be located practically anywhere. All VLANs have the exact same attributes as a traditional physical local area network, though they can be configured via software instead of having to actually relocate the hosts.

Many VLANs are designed as replacements to the services that are traditionally provided by routers on physical LANs. VLANs are able to tackle issues like network management, security, and scalability with ease.

VLANs are known as Layer 2, or Data Link layer, constructs which transfer data between network nodes. Because they are Layer 2 constructs, they can interface with Layer 3 IP subnets with a one to one relationship.

How are VLANs designed?

The IEEE assigned IEEE 802.1Q as the protocol by which to configure virtual LANs. IEEE 802.1Q provides for a header with a 2-byte protocol identifier and another 2-byte tag control information. These are known as TPID and TCI, respectively. The TPID is fixed at 0×8100 while the TCI contains information pertaining to the user priority, canonical format indicator, and VLAN identifier.

What are the two types of VLAN memberships?

VLAN membership can be assigned in one of two ways. Static or Dynamic.

A Static VLAN is also known as a port based VLAN. These types of VLANs are created by assigning specific ports to a VLAN. As new devices enter into the VLAN network, the device assumes a specific port. If end users change ports but require access to the same VLAN, network administrators are required to assign new port to VLAN assignments for the new port.

A Dynamic VLAN is designed to be easily configured using software. The most common software for designing dynamic VLANs is CiscoWorks, a program developed by Cisco. A VLAN Management Policy Server (VMPS) must be set up first for a dynamic VLAN. This server will allow the VLAN to automatically switch ports whenever new devices connect to the VLAN. It uses information such as the devices ports, unique usernames, and MAC addresses to determine whether or not to change ports to fit the needs of the incoming device.