Razvi Blog Space

• Bruce Schneier: Applied Cryptography, second edition, John Wiley & Sons, 1996. An excellent, practically oriented presentation of cryptographic algorithms, protocols, and methods. Definitely recommended reading. The homepage contains a table of contents, errata and other information.
  
  
• Douglas Stinson: Cryptography: Theory and Practice, CRC Press, second edition, 1996. An excellent, self-contained introduction to cryptography. Used widely as lecture material for university undergraduates. Has been translated to several languages. [homepage]
  
  
• Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot, and Scott A. Vanstone: Handbook of Applied Cryptography, CRC Press, 1996. An excellent reference book on cryptography. It is more mathematical than for example, Schneier’s book. Contains pseudo-code descriptions of a large number of algorithms and cryptosystems, as well as free samples of all the chapters of the book. [homepage]
  
  
• Neil Koblitz: A Course in Number Theory and Cryptography, second edition, Springer, 1994. An introduction to cryptography through number theory. Very thorough in explaining the number theoretic basis of algorithms needed in cryptography and in particular public key cryptosystems. Gives also a chapter on elliptic curves, which is in fact one of the best introductions to the topic.
  
  
• Eli Biham, Adi Shamir: Differential Cryptanalysis of the Data Encryption Standard, Springer-Verlag, 1993. A comprehensible account of the ground breaking differential cryptanalysis method. The authors explain the differential attack on DES in several stages of increasing complexity. The book also describes differential attacks against several other ciphers and hash functions.
  
  
• Charlie Kaufman, Radia Perlman, and Mike Speciner: Network Security - PRIVATE Communication in a PUBLIC World, Prentice-Hall, 1995. Covers areas of cryptography with practical relevance in an understandable way.
  
  
• Jennifer Seberry and Josed Pieprzyk: Cryptography: An Introduction to Computer Security, Prentice-Hall, 1989. Somewhat more theoretically oriented than the above.
  
  
• Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen: The Design of Rijndael, AES - The Advanced Encryption Standard, Springer, 2002. The authoritative guide to the Rijndael cipher, which was chosen to be the AES standard in 2000. This is a well written book by the designers of Rijndael. It contains the mathematical preliminaries, the detailed description of the algorithm, design principles, implementation and optimization issues, and a security analysis, with an introduction to the basics of differential and linear cryptanalysis.
  
  
• Rudolf Lidl and Harold Niederreiter: Introduction to Finite Fields and Their Applications, Revised Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1994. A comprehensive introduction to the mathematical theory of finite fields and some of its most important applications including cryptology.
  
  
• Alfred J. Menezes: Elliptic curve public key cryptosystems, Kluwer academic publishers, 1993. This book is now somewhat dated, but is still a good introduction text to elliptic curve cryptosystems.
  
  
• Ian Blake, Gadien Seroussi, and Nigel Smart: Elliptic Curves in Cryptography, Cambridge University Press, 1999. Almost up-to-date book about the cryptographical use of elliptic curves. Contains a complete explanation of the Schoof-Elkies-Atkin algorithm for point counting. Most of the book can be followed with very little background in algebra.
  
  
• Scott A. Vanstone, Darrell R. Hankerson, and Alfred J. Menezes: Guide to Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Springer, 2004.
  
  
• Advances In Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Ian Blake, Nigel Smart, and Gadien Seroussi eds., Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  
  
• Electronic Frontier Foundation: Cracking DES, 1998. This book describes the breaking of DES by exhaustive search on a real special purpose machine. Contains full design details and some hardware analysis for cryptanalytical attacks.
  
  
• Man Young Rhee: Cryptography and Secure Data Communications, McGraw-Hill, 1994. This book is oriented towards the hardware aspects of cryptography. Contains thorough explanations about cryptosystems such as DES and RSA.
  
  
• Hans Riesel: Prime Numbers and Computer Methods for Factorization, Birkhauser, 1994. Concentrates on prime numbers and factoring large integers, and discusses their application to RSA and other public key methods.
  
  
• Xuejia Lai: On the Design and Security of Block Ciphers, ETH Series in Information Processing, vol. 1, Hartung-Gorre Verlag, Konstanz, Switzerland, 1992. This book contains the description and analysis of the IDEA cipher. It explains Lai’s idea of mixing incompatible algebraic operations together and gives the theoretical basis for such constructions. Further, the book contains material about the differential cryptanalysis of IDEA and why IDEA should be resistant to it. Contains also an implementation of IDEA in C language.
  
  
• Donald Davies and Wyn Price: Security for Computer Networks, John Wiley, 1989. The first edition appeared in 1984, its material on standards and protocols is now fairly dated, but the main sections about DES (including modes, triple DES etc.) and public key cryptography are often very much appreciated by those who are neither mathematicians nor C wizards, but still want to understand what is going on in the algorithms.
  
  
• Handbook of Theoretical Computer Science Volume A: Algorithms and Complexity, J. van Leeuwen ed., Elsevier, 1994. This is a very large collection of survey articles. There is an article by Ron Rivest on cryptography, also an article by Arjen Lenstra and Hendrik Lenstra on algorithms in number theory. All articles have extensive references.
  
  
• Algorithms and Theory of Computation Handbook, Mikhail J. Atallah ed., CRC Press, 1999. A collection of survey papers. Contains many papers on cryptography: mathematical background, basic algorithms, pseudo-random sequences, cryptanalysis and electronic cash.
  
  
• David Kahn: Seizing the Enigma, Arrow Books, 1996. This is a thorough book by David Kahn, the author of The Codebreakers and a well-known historian of cryptography. This book gives an almost complete picture of the Enigma story from the early years to its use in World War II. Highly interesting (to a cryptographer) is the description of the early analysis by Poles (basically by Rejewski) and the later developments in Bletchley Park.
  
  
• Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park, F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp eds., Oxford University Press, 1993. This book is a series of recollections by a variety of people that worked in Bletchley Park during World War II. It contains several articles about the actual cryptosystems such as versions of Enigma, Fish, and some codes. Some articles are event based and others very personal. Overall a very good book about Bletchley Park during World War II.
  
  
• Simon Singh: Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography, Anchor Books, 2000. Includes a history of how cryptography has affected the world, from the World Wars to the death of Mary, Queen of Scots. Also takes a look at the future of cryptography.

Wi-Fi is one of the hottest technologies in enterprise networking, but actual adoption has not been as pervasive as one might believe. A number of issues have combined to make IT managers cautious about rolling out Wi-Fi ubiquitously. Many are still concerned about security, and even where security is implemented, such implementation can be highly complex. Tools are still being developed to assist enterprises in largescale deployment, management and monitoring of Wi-Fi systems.

Companies must also tackle the issue of how to scale Wi-Fi networks from today’s broad-but-shallow deployments to corporate campuses where wireless access is ubiquitous. Standards are continuing to evolve in these and other areas, creating a moving target for investment in Wi-Fi hardware and software.

The bottom line: wireless LAN deployment may not yet be simple, but a wide variety of products and techniques is available today or will be available to address the concerns that trouble most IT administrators.

AirDefense (www.airdefense.net)

Airespace (www.airespace.com)

AirMagnet (www.airmagnet.com)

Airwave (www.airwave.com)

Aruba Networks (www.arubanetworks.com)

Atheros (www.atheros.com)

Berkeley Varitronics (www.bvsystems.com)

CA (www.ca.com)

Cisco (www.cisco.com)

D-Link (www.dlink.com)

Fortress Technologies (www.fortresstech.com)

Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com)

IBM (www.ibm.com)

Interlink Networks (www.interlinknetworks.com)

KoolSpan (www.koolspan.com)

Network Chemistry (www.networkchemistry.com)

Network Instruments (www.networkinstruments.com)

Newbury Networks (www.newburynetworks.com)

Perfigo (www.perfigo.com)

Proxim (www.proxim.com)

Sniffer (www.sniffer.com)

Trapeze Networks (www.trapezenetworks.com)

Wavelink (www.wavelink.com)

Wi-Fi Alliance (www.wi-fi.org)

WildPackets (www.wildpackets.com)

Wireless Security Corp (www.wirelesssecuritycorp.com)

Craigslist is a relatively new network of websites that deal with a number of topics from buying and selling items to employment and even personal ads. It is one of the new steps in the natural evolution of the web according to many online analysts and while it started off from humble beginnings as a single Craigslist San Francisco website it has now built up into a large network of websites spanning not only all the major cities in the United States (i.e. there is a craigslist Dallas, craigslist New York etc.) but also many of the major cities around the world like craigslist Toronto, craigslist Tokyo and craigslist Melbourne.

One of the things that has made this website so popular is the fact that all of the services were free and it really served to provide a way for two people in same community to liaise with each other. Other online websites like ebay really do most of the work themselves and the two people doing the actual transaction don’t get a lot of opportunity to speak directly with the other person. Craigslist websites on the other hand are all about direct communication; one person posts something and another person replies to it, it’s just that simple.

So what exactly can a person do with craigslist? Well, let us take a quick look at a few of the features offered by all craigslist websites:

Employment Ads: Companies have the ability to post ads for free on craigslist regarding opportunities available for jobs with them and potential employees have the ability to search those jobs. Many people have found great employment opportunities through craigslist and for this reason many craigslist network websites have really started to have regular job opportunities posted on them.

Buy/Sell Ads: These are like normal classified ads except the difference is that you don’t have to pay for them. Posting ads on most craigslist websites is free and because of that many people are now using craigslist to advertise things that they have for sale. If you are looking for a used bike or an old video game then it is definitely worth giving craigslist a try because you just might be able to surprise yourself with what you can find on craigslist.

Personal Ads: Another great aspect of craigslist is the fact that you can search personal ads in your own city right away. Every single online dating website will force you to go through a search field to narrow down the results; with craigslist that is already done for you.

These are just a few of the great things about craigslist. Additionally it is worth mentioning again that most craigslist websites offer all their services for free. This is likely to make the craigslist website in your city very popular amongst the locals and therefore a good starting point for any activity you want to carry out. Whether you are looking to buy something or in the mood to sell, craigslist can help you with both.

A dissertation or final year project report is a kind of academic paper/book that provides an opportunity to get a BSc or Master’s degree. So, if a student decides to write a dissertation/project report, he/she aims to become a Bachelor of Science or Master of Science. Dissertation writing is nearly impossible without consulting a supervisor.

Once you are to write your dissertation report, you should choose a supervisor, a person who will be available to support you during your project dissertation writing and who has a certain expertise in the area of your topic chosen.

The duties of your supervisor can be presented as follows:

• To give you advice on the relevant sources for writing your project report dissertation;
• To guide you in drawing up a proposal of your project dissertations and making proper focuses in writing and research procedure;
• To assist you in planning your project dissertations as well as in planning your work itself;
• To assist you in drawing up an outline for your  project dissertation and advise on subsequent revisions;
• To read and provide you with the comments on a complete draft of your project dissertation.

In the process of writing the thesis it is very important to pay attention to each part of it as the role of each element is rather specific. The structure of the thesis contains several issues: the title page, the thesis abstract, the introduction, the main body, and the conclusion.

Well, after the title follows the thesis abstract. The task of this article is to illustrate the main points of the abstract thesis. The size of thesis abstract is not very long, about 200-400 words . It should not be very complicated in order the reader to make it comprehensible to readers with different theses degrees of knowledge.

Abstract thesis presents the necessity of the work, highlights the important information and in some way predicts the results of the research.

It is very important to avoid repetition of information in the abstract thesis.

Also, the abstract thesis should give the explanation to your writing process, the reasons for your research, the methods of you work, the results and their importance.

LITERATURE REVIEW

What is the purpose of writing literature reviews in your academic works? So, we can enlighten this topic in order to clear up some misunderstandings, which take place when you start writing your literature review.

First of all, it is necessary to point out what a literature review is. Well, a literature review is a chapter of your academic work, which describes literature sources used by an author and presents a kind of criticism of some particular topics from the text.

Your literature review should be logically connected. It is important to present information in a certain order.

You should mention the following in the literature reviews:

• A bit of criticism makes your literature review more exciting;
• Your ideas about the topic you have chosen is just what you need;
• Problems, which are described in your work, should be mentioned in the literature review as well;
• A certain style should be taken into consideration when writing your literature review;
• All primary and secondary sources are to be mentioned in the literature review. It is important to cite all used sources properly and completely (according to the style chosen);

Having been involved in project supervision and project examination for quite a few years, I have seen several mistakes that undergraduate and postgraduate students repeat every year in their dissertation or project reports. Some mistakes are due to carelessness, lack of professional attitude in writing their work …. or just copying or imitating other reports that are not necessary good to refer as moidel. I have a number of selected sample reports of past year projects reports (http://cse.uom.ac.mu/node/316) that I have supervised/examined that can be provided to computer science students upon request as model for their own report writing. These sample projects can help students to have a idea on the content and structure of a good BSc or MSc project dissertation/report.

http://cse.uom.ac.mu/node/251

A bachelor’s degree is like a black belt in karate - it doesn’t mean you’ve mastered the subject, merely that you’re ready to start learning it. Unfortunately, as freshly graduated students are expected to get jobs after your graduation. We always hear of chicken-egg problem; nobody wants to hire a new graduate because the graduate has no experience, but how should the graduate get experience? There’s no answer to this, yet people have been surpassing this hurdle since people existed.

A BSc in Computer science or BSc Information system is not to be a pure in-depth exposure to Oracle database, Windows or Dot NET programming etc, but It has been an opportunity for you to hone critical thinking skills from a computer science or IT perspective. Many graduates are confused about who they are later on, and end up quitting the field of IT after realizing that they have spend years chasing an illusive goal called “Computer Scientist”, “Software Engineer” …. Because software engineering is so complex and creative, It’s more important to learn how to juggle information and people and produce something good enough in the time given, with the ability to adapt to changing requirements. That’s exactly what experiential learning provides when you embark on your first ‘low salary’ job.

First year students in computer science at UoM, will see some new changes in the programming modules. A better programming language will be used, so that it is easier to learn the programming paradigms. One of the programming language ‘en vogue’ is PYTHON. So, let’s dive into python now… I am sure students will find it easy to understand important programming concepts. You’ll find lots of online documentation and tutorial/notes about python and one interesting book that I came across is Dive Into Python by Mark Pilgrim. Hope you have lots of FUN learning Python and your comments/feedbacks are welcomed

Dive Into Python is a Python book for experienced programmers. You can buy a printed copy, read it online, or download it in a variety of formats. It is also available in multiple languages.

If You came here from www.google.mu searching for free video lectures. You might be also interest in these posts:

• Learning Python Programming Language Through Video Lectures
• Learning Python Design Patterns Through Video Lectures
• Converting YouTube FLVs (Flash Videos) to a Better Format with ffmpeg
• http://www.catonmat.net/blog/learning-python-programming-language-through-video-lectures/

Universities: Which Programming Language Is Best For Teaching

Programming as a profession requires a great deal of learning on one’s own. Whether you think Universities should or should not be in the business of providing job training for software development, the fact is that the industry moves far too rapidly for Universities to teach more than a small portion of the knowledge required to be competent on the job, even at an entry level.

- what base language Computer Science departments use for teaching programming?

- what platform and programming environment is taught?

What makes programming languages suitable or unsuitable as introductory languages? Which languages are better learnt first and at which order? And why what the masses think is the most suitable introductory programming language is not in fact that.

Rabbi Hanina used to say “I learned a lot from my teachers, and from my friends more than my teachers, and from my pupils the most.” It is believed this means that there are in fact three levels of learning:

1. Level 1 - Learning - this is a passive learning of the material, where one inputs the material.

2. Level 2 - Experiencing - in this level you work with the material you learned, and try to implement what you’ve learned and integrate it. This requires more understanding, because you have to work with the material.

3. Level 3 - Teaching - in this level you teach the material to someone else. This requires the most understanding because you need to organise it properly and convey it to someone else.

Perhaps there’s a fourth level - Science in which the knowledge is expanded. However, this implies that to truly understand the material, one needs to experiment with it (preferably in production) and better yet teach it to someone else.

The old adage “He who can - does. He who cannot - teaches.” which was said by George Bernard Shaw is amusing, but simply not true. Being a great teacher is much more difficult than being a great doer, and is much more enlightening.

This is a new site I have come across and which I wish to share with you and students following courses at University of Mauritius. You will find a huge number of academic resources, video lectures, free books and materials I have tried to download some of the video lectures (average size over 100 MB / lecture session), it’s of good quality and although the download time will depend on your internet connection speed.

Many of undergrad students struggle with mastering programming skills at university, and this website offers lots of good programming videos and free e-books in C++, JAVA and advanced Java, ASP.NET, AJAX, Python, Ruby , SQL, Linux and others.

Besides computing stuffs, you also have biotechnology, physics, maths, medicine, philosophy, electronics, economics…. Etc. I believe the content of the web site is updated regularly, hence you could bookmark it for future access. Below are the main courses available in 2008:

Software Engineering for Web Applications

Instructor: Philip Greenspun   submitted on 18 April, 2008

Teaches basics of designing a dynamic web site with a database back end, including scripting languages, cookies, SQL, and HTML with the goal of building such a site as the main (group) project Emphasizes computer-human interface and the graphical display of information.

Introduction to Web Security

by Neil Daswani at google.com Summer 2007  submitted on 16 April, 2008

Topics: How to Break Web Software, What Every Engineer Needs to Know About Security and Where to Learn It.

40 Java Video Tutorials on youtube

YouTube  submitted on 2 April, 2008

Some of these teach basics with getting starting programming using Java, and some are more advanced, showing you how to code loops, arrays, exceptions, Netbeans, Web services, Event handing, JDBC, and Inheritance.

Web 2.0 AJAX Programming

google.com  submitted on 27 March, 2008

Web 2.0 - AJAX - Creating a Rich User Experience, WebGuild, Creating Tools for AJAX Development etc…

Operating Systems

New Jersey Institute of Technology   submitted on 26 March, 2008

Computer Engineering

McGill University, Winter 2008  submitted on 15 March, 2008

Data structures (arrays, lists, stacks, queues, dequeues and trees) and their machine representation and simple algorithms. Peripheral devices: printers, keyboards, magnetic type drives, magnetic disc drives. Peripheral interfacing and busses. Introduction to operating systems. System integration. Computer systems and networks.

Advanced Javascript

Douglas Crockford   submitted on 14 March, 2008, 7:57 am

Comprehensive introduction to the JavaScript Programming Language; Theory of the DOM;

Naval Postgraduate School

Naval Postgraduate School  submitted on 11 March, 2008, 11:41 am

The Lecture Series injects commercial and military relevance into the CISR activities. Lectures are from leading experts in the field of computer science and Information Systems Security.

Graduate Computer Architecture

UC Berkeley Spring 2006

Overview of computer architecture, caches, memory systems, Instruction level parallelism, simultaneous multithreading, vector computers, Processors, Introduction to Multiprocessors, Advanced Memory Hierarchy, storage, Queuing theory etc…

Freshman Computer Science Seminar

Prof. Jason Cong, University of California, Fall Quarter 2006 webcast podcast

Intermediate Software Design

Vanderbilt University 2006

Introduction, C++ overview, Inheritance: Specialization, Extension, Access Specifier and Multiple Inheritance. Dynamic Binding: virtual methods, Methods calling Mechanism. Standard Template Library: Iterator, Generic Algorithm and Function Object. Design Pattern: Bridge, Adapter, strategy, Composite, Decorator, Command, Iterator, visitor, Observer, Proxy and Factory method. Builder, Fa�ade, Flyweight and Sort etc…

Introduction to Copyright Law

MIT OCW, Jan 2006

Introduction; Basics of Legal Research; Legal Citations; 1976 Copyright Act; Copyright applied to Music, Computers; Napster®; Peer-to-Peer File Sharing; Software Licensing; DVDs and Encryption etc…

Computer Language Engineering

MIT Fall 2006 video and audio

Introduction to Computers

Berkeley, Spring 2007 video and audio

Introduction. Interview of Jean-Pierre Protzen, John Coate, Steve Peterson. Phenomenology and virtual reality. Social Search. Plato’s Cave & Nature of Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom. Discussion of Holding on to Reality. Interview of Andrew Keen. Ivan Tam on Disruptive Technologies and Open Source Development etc…

Computer Systems Engineering

MIT Spring’05 Streaming and Downloadable

Introduction to Computers; Naming; Virtualization. Virtual memory, Virtual Processors, Networks: Link layer, Network Layer: Congestion Control; Distributed Naming; Reliability; Atomicity Concepts; Recoverability, Isolation, Security : Authenticity, Advanced Authentication etc….

Introduction to Algorithms

MIT Spring’05 Streaming and Downloadable

Analysis of Algorithms; All Sorting techniques; Recurrences; Divide and Conquer: Strassen, Fibonacci, Polynomial Multiplication; Heaps and Hashing; Dynamic Programming; Graph Algorithms; number theoretic algorithms; amortized analysis;Shortest paths; Catching and parallel computing etc….

Data Structures

Berkeley Fall’06 Streaming

Objects and classes; Iteration and Arrays; Linked Lists; Stack frames; Inheritance; Abstract Classes; Java Packages; Exceptions; Encapsulation; Hash Tables; Stacks, Queues, trees and Traversals, Graphs and Sorting etc….

Data Structures, Algorithms, and Applications in Java

University of Florida

Machine Structures

Berkeley Fall’06 Streaming

Number Representation; Intro to C; C pointers, Arrays,Strings and Structures; Memory Management; MIPS; Floating point; Compilation, Assembly and Linking; Combinational logic Blocks; CPU Design etc…

Operating Systems and Systems Programming

Berkeley Fall’06 Streaming

Introduction to OS; Concurrency: Processes and Treads; Synchronization; Mutual exclusion; Semaphores, Monitors; Readers and Writers; Deadlock; Address Translation; Caching; Page Allocation and Replacement; File System and Disk Managenment, Naming, Directories, Distributed Systems etc….

Open Source Development and Distribution of Digital Information: Technical, Economic, Social, and Legal Perspectives

Berkeley Fall 2006

Introduction to Open Source. Production Processes. Economics and Business Models of Open Source, Open Source and Competition in the market Software Industry. Government Policy. Open Access Journals and Publications. Open Source biology. Wikipedia as open source project etc…

Introduction to Theory of Computation

Professor Neil Rhodes, UC San Diego Spring 2007 Audio Podcast

Introductory Progamming

University of Washington, Autumn 2000

Overview, Problems, Algorithms, Variables, Arithmetic Expressions, I/O, Conditionals, Functions, Iteration, Loops, Complex Conditionals, Arrays, Linear & Binary Search, Sorting, Structures, Strings, Nested data structures, File Input/Output, Style, Recursion, Recursive binary search etc….

Understanding Computers and the Internet

Harvard Extension School       Lectures Available on YouTube

An Excellent course for a beginner. It has videos on Software, Hardware, Multimedia, Programming, The Internet, Security, Web Developement etc….

How Computers Work

ADUni.org 2000

Algorithms

ADUni.org 2001

Algorithms: Sorting, Searching & data Structures, Red-Black Trees. Graph Algorithms: Topological Sorting, Prim’s algorithm, DFS, BFS, Kruskal’s algorithms, and shortest path. Geometric algorithms: Graham & Jarvis; Dynamic Programming. Parsing. Greedy algorithms, NP Completeness etc…

Practical Aspects of Modern Cryptography

University of Washington, Winter’06

The number of video-sharing sites has shot through the roof recently, as dozens of companies try to become the Flickr of the online video world.  To this end, many video services have started offering new features like editing and remixability in an attempt to snatch a piece of the ever-expanding online video pie.  But for the average user–who just wants to post a video on the ‘net and share it with some friends–there are already too many options out there.  All one really wants to know is, which site is going to work, with the least amount of hassle?

I took 10 of these sites out for a test drive, and picked some winners.  If you want to post, watch, share, or edit video online, this post’s for you.

To test each service, I uploaded my demo reel (a 15MB Sorenson 3-encoded Quicktime file) to each site and compared video quality, site interface, community features, and functionality.  Where applicable I also tried to embed the resulting video in a WordPress page.  Many of these sites are still in beta, and their functionality could change in the coming months, but if you’re looking to post and share video today, this is the current state of things.

Eyespot

Appeal: Easy-to-use video uploading and remixing.
Interface: Bright and colorful.  Tagging, forums, groups.  Not a lot of community features.
Editing: Trim beginning and end, reorder clips on a timeline, add music and photos.
Sharing: Post to a group, invite a friend to the service (but not directly to your clip).
Verdict: Uploading straightforward and painless.  But: 25MB filesize limit too small.  Mashup features fall short of Grouper’s “groovies,” and it’s not even in the same ballpark as Jumpcut when it comes to mixing and editing.  Not a lot of reason to use Eyespot, in its current incarnation.

Google Video

Appeal: It’s Google.
Interface: Typically clean and sparse Google layout.  Uploading requires you download the Google Video Uploader.  Allows you to add plenty of metadata, including a transcript.  You can monetize your content by assigning a sale price to each clip (you can also give users a “day pass,” giving them access to the content for a limited time, but not ownership).
Editing: None.
Sharing: See below.
Verdict: Google Video requires a “video verification” process, where your submission is reviewed to ensure it conforms to Google’s technical standards and legal policies.  This process “may take several days,” so check back for an update.

Grouper

Appeal: YouTube with a file-sharing application built on top.
Interface: For full functionality, requires an application download. Windows Media Player-based (converts other formats).  Ratings, tagging, groups, RSS feeds.
Editing: Create mashups of your videos and photos, set to music (”groovies”).
Sharing: Post direct to myspace, friendster, eBay.  Download to hard drive, iPod.
Verdict: “Groovies” are easy to create and could be very popular.  But: File-sharing application seems half-baked (and is undifferentiated from existing options).  “Groovies” will prove much more popular if they can be built online without having to download the app.  E-mail registration system was a pain; had to do it twice to get confirmed.  After several hours, my file was still unavailable, as the service was still “upload processing.”

Jumpcut

Appeal: Create, edit, and remix video online.
Interface: Slick interface feels more like an application than a web page.  Scales all videos to a larger size than other sites, but videos don’t autoplay and there is no indication of what portion of the video has already been downloaded.
Editing: Bar-none the best editing options of the bunch.  Splice your footage, reorder the shots, add music, photos, transitions, even effects–think iMovie in an online interface.  Very, very slick.
Sharing: Email to a friend, embed in a web page (worked flawlessly in WordPress).
Verdict: Playing with Jumpcut’s features, you immediately understand that the future of online video is here.  No current competitor can touch it.  But: Get too effects crazy and your video slows down.  Jumpcut doesn’t re-render your files with every remix–which leaves the original video quality intact–but playback of edited files is not perfectly smooth. Don’t throw out iMovie just yet.

Ourmedia

Appeal:  “The Global Home for Grassroots Media.”
Interface: Slow, confusing, and messy.  Requires an Internet Archive account, and the integration of the two services is convoluted.  Keeps your content in its native format, which is both good and bad–it doesn’t recompress your video, but it requires its users to have several different players installed correctly.  Creative Commons licenses built-in.
Editing: None.
Sharing: RSS feeds, email to a friend, direct link to files from your own site.
Verdict: Going forward, a good place to upload your media if it is socially-conscious or activist by nature.  Also works as an online repository for video/audio storage.  But: One of the most difficult sites to upload video to.  Current “alpha” version falls far short of potential–wait for the next version.

Revver

Appeal: YouTube with monetization–if people watch your video (and the embedded ad), you get paid 20% of what the advertiser pays Revver.  If they click on the Revver link at the end, you split the proceeds 50/50.
Interace: Quicktime-based.  Requires you to download a client for uploading content.  Tagging, emailing, rating, playlisting.
Editing: None.
Sharing: See below.
Verdict: Offers a unique revenue-sharing model that may appeal to content owners and producers.  But: Uploading process is convoluted (the promised drag-and-drop functionality was nowhere to be found).  After trying to upload my file using the Revver client twice, my video was still listed as “unavailable.”  I later received an email from Revver stating that my submission may contain unauthorized material that requires clearances–which is true.  Because Revver and Google Video are the only sites in this roundup that let you monetize your content, we’ll be back with an update comparing the two.

Videoegg

Appeal: Lets you painlessly upload video of any format to the web and post it to other sites or share it with friends.
Interface: Requires you download an application in order to upload.  The download seamlessly embeds in your browser to give you drag-and-drop functionality.
Editing: Basic trimming of beginning and end points.
Sharing: Post direct to eBay, Blogger, and Typepad.  Creates a simple URL, lets you email the video, and gives you javascript and html code for embedding in your own pages.
Verdict: Painless experience.  If you only need to post and share video with friends, Videoegg just works.  Flash 8 video quality is pretty decent.  But: Video didn’t embed properly in other pages (WordPress).

Vimeo

Appeal: Flickr for video.
Interface: Nice and clean, uses a flash wrapper to play native formats.  No download required, simple and easy uploads.  Tagging, commenting, voting.  Nice player with a volume control and no burned-in logo.
Editing: None in the current version.
Sharing: Post to Flickr, send to del.icio.us, download original file, embed in your MySpace profile or blog, create an RSS feed.
Verdict: Good video quality. Embedding the video in WordPress worked flawlessly.  But: Light on community features, and weekly storage cap of 20 megs is too limiting.

vSocial

Appeal: “The fastest, easiest way to upload, watch and share your favorite video clips.”
Interface: All Web 2.0′d-out.  Big fonts, AJAX, tagging, rating, reviewing, RSS feeds, creative commons licenses.
Editing: Offers “edit this video” functionality, which I couldn’t test (see below).  Can also create “Video Rolls,” which are customized playlists generated from your selected criteria.
Sharing: Embed in your own page, MySpace, Typepad, Blogger, del.icio.us, Flickr, Blog It! (write a post on your own blog about a video without leaving vSocial).
Verdict: Lots of community features.  But: Didn’t live up to their “fastest” or “easiest” claim–I never successfully got a video uploaded (tried three times).  Quality of existing clips is less than stellar–everything’s resized to 320X240.  Your mileage may vary, but even with a Quicktime file that uploaded to other sites without a problem, I never got vSocial to work.

YouTube

Appeal: The video-sharing site everyone’s already heard of.  Mindshare-winner by a mile.
Interface: Tabbed pages feature ratings, favorites, flagging, tagging, and commenting.  Create playlists, subscribe to other’s uploads, subscribe to tags.  The player only features a mute button (rather than level control), and full-screening the video opens a new window and starts playback over.
Editing: None.
Sharing: Embed in other websites, including Friendster, eBay, Blogger, MySpace.
Verdict: Easy to use, no major issues.  Decent video quality, audio sounds compressed.  Video embedded in WordPress fine (but was off-center).  But: No progress bar for uploading.  Fairly lengthy “processing” delay before you (or anyone else) can watch your video.

AND THE WINNERS ARE…

For posting: If you just want to get a video clip online and share it with friends via email or on your own blog, Vimeo wins for its speed, ease-of-use, and simple playback functions.  It also lets users download the original file, and features some light community features (note that a new version is launching very soon).  One of the few sites I used that I never had a problem with.  Alternate choice: Videoegg.

For viewership: If you want to step up to more community features and get widespread viewership of your viral clip, YouTube gets the job done with a lot less hassle than vSocial or Grouper.

For editing: If you want to alter your video online in any way–through editing, remixing, or combining your clips with those from other users–then head on over to Jumpcut and don’t look back.  Jumpcut really offers the first leap forward in online video sharing, and is worth a look even if you have no use for editing features (its full-fledged community is launching “very soon”).  Alternate choice: none, yet, although Motionbox looks to be a potential competitor.

Purpose -

Information security is an integral part of all outsourcing activities and it is important for both the outsourcing company and the vendor to reach agreement as regards what type and what level of information security will be provided by the vendor in relation to the outsourced activities. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the potential risks and information system (IS) security needs when outsourcing takes place and analyse the different security level in outsourcing agreements.

Methodology /Approach -

This paper is primarily based on a review of the literature. International security standards and best security practices are analysed and discussed. A multiple level security framework as an effective approach in outsourcing domain is addressed.

Findings

Information system security risks can be effectively identified, monitored and evaluated by the concept of a layered security model that fits best in the complex outsourcing domain. There are three levels of security, first guidelines of technical security, second risk analysis and, third compliance and evaluation criteria, including managing information security.Originality/ValueThe approach could be used to integrate IS Security with Service Level Agreements. Outsourcing vendors with security certifications, strong security adherence systems and optimal disaster recover plans will have a competitive edge in the industry. Keywords: Information security, outsourcing, risk, compliance, outsourcing agreement.

Paper type: Conceptual

R.Doomun “Multi-level Information System Security in Outsourcing Domain”, 2nd International Business Process Outsourcing and Modelling (BPOM 2006) Conference, 28-30 June 2006, University of Technology, Mauritius. (To be published in Emerald Journal)