We wrap up our multiplexing series with a quick look at wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). In today's episode, Michel and Mark noodle on the concept a bit. Over the next few days we will begin a series of PodSnacks based on requests from listeners. We'll start looking at a few security and Internet issues, among other things.

You can listen to (or download) the PodSnack by clicking here, or you can use the Flash player below.

If you have an idea or request for a PodSnack topic, send it to podsnacks@hill.com! You can get a complete list of our PodSnacks here. You can register for our PodSnack series by RSS feed by adding this link to your podcast aggregator: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HillAssociates-LivingInAConnectedWorldPodsnacks.

Thanks to Ken from ipadventures who sent me an invitation, I have been trying out an add on to outlook called Xobni, which is Inbox back wards and apparently pronounced Zob-Nee. What Xobni does is provide you with an additional information about the email you are currently looking at based on the analysis of all of the emails you have, irrespective of what private folders you may have filed them away in. The analysis of your emails uncovers the vast social network that exists within these stored documents and I am finding it provides a different and easy way to find things that my nested folder structure is supposed to help with but never seems to. It provides quick access to other people who are currently or have been in emails that have been send by the person. It displays previous conversations, linking emails threads together, it provides a list of attachments, extracts phone numbers from within emails and even gives a graph of the time of day for conversations. The down side of it is that outlook takes longer to start up which is not too much of a concern as I have that running most of the time anyway. It also takes more storage for index files which is currently less the 100MB for me at the moment.

I note that yesterday the Xobni folks have opened up the beta to anyone so there is no need for an invitation anymore. I think this is an add on that is worth looking into if your filing system of archived emails gives you trouble or if you just like to see what your email social network looks like.

Continuing with our multiplexing theme, today Trevor talks to you a bit about transmuxing.

You can listen to (or download) the PodSnack by clicking here, or you can use the Flash player below.

If you have an idea or request for a PodSnack topic, send it to podsnacks@hill.com! You can get a complete list of our PodSnacks here. You can register for our PodSnack series by RSS feed by adding this link to your podcast aggregator: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HillAssociates-LivingInAConnectedWorldPodsnacks.

In this weeks episode we have Paul, Michel and myself discussing a range of topics. The bovine theme was enhanced due to a recording a well respected instructor once did for us relating SONET in terms of cows and trucks, which we have resurrected some time ago on our wiki. At one point in the discussion, Michel and I bat around some ideas to enhance the femtocell scenario, I really want a cell phone cordless base station if anyone knows of one. Later, Paul also gets a bit upset with us talking too much about carrier Ethernet services, I apologize if this is not what you want to listen too, but we had fun anyway. Below are the links to the stories that we discussed.

The Yahoo Microsoft fight continues

Our SONET wiki page with the bovine podsnack at the bottom

Bovine tagging

Cows, planes and trains

WiFi hotspot and WiMAX bodies merge

Tapioca phones, and other interesting developments amke sure you check out the slide show

Cisco to aquire a femtocell company?

Ethernet handoff between carriers

Tech startups are not just for the young

To play the podcast, you can click here or use the Flash player below.

You can visit our tHAWT archive here. You can register for our tHAWT podcast series via RSS feed by adding this link to your podcast aggregater: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HillAssociates-LivingInAConnectedWorldThawt

And if you want to participate in identifying items for our discussion use the key word tHAWT to tag in del.icio.us You can look at what has been tagged by going to del.icio.us/tag/thawt

Our multiplexing theme continues. Recently, we talked about a multiplexing scheme found in wireless systems, called code division multiple access (CDMA). Today, Paul explains another multiplexing approach that is found in both wireless and wireline systems: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM).

You can listen to (or download) the PodSnack by clicking here, or you can use the Flash player below.

If you have an idea or request for a PodSnack topic, send it to podsnacks@hill.com! You can get a complete list of our PodSnacks here. You can register for our PodSnack series by RSS feed by adding this link to your podcast aggregator: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HillAssociates-LivingInAConnectedWorldPodsnacks.

We recently talked about multiplexing in general. Today we focus on a specific form of multiplexing that is primarily found in wireless systems (although it can be (and is) also used in the HFC cable plant of a cable company. The technique is known as code division multiple access (CDMA). Today, Paul explains it to Michel, and to you.

You can listen to (or download) the PodSnack by clicking here, or you can use the Flash player below.

If you have an idea or request for a PodSnack topic, send it to podsnacks@hill.com! You can get a complete list of our PodSnacks here. You can register for our PodSnack series by RSS feed by adding this link to your podcast aggregator: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HillAssociates-LivingInAConnectedWorldPodsnacks.

Let's go back to basics, at least at first. In today's PodSnack we're going to talk about multiplexing in general and in it's most basic forms. Then, in the coming days, we're going to explore other multiplexing-related issues.

You can listen to (or download) the PodSnack by clicking here, or you can use the Flash player below.

If you have an idea or request for a PodSnack topic, send it to podsnacks@hill.com! You can get a complete list of our PodSnacks here. You can register for our PodSnack series by RSS feed by adding this link to your podcast aggregator: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HillAssociates-LivingInAConnectedWorldPodsnacks.

In this episode of tHAWT we are back to our more usual session of two or three of us over a Skype call. This week we have Paul, Mark, and myself. As usual we discussed various items that came up in the telecom world this week, indicated by the links below. However when Paul observed that we Aussies are strange because of an ad that encourages Australians to send their mums a bouquet of lamb chops, I couldn't resist adding the classic Sam Kekovich ads, which probably speak more to our sense of humor than to our love of lamb.

Qwest launches 20 Mbps DSL FTTN

Reinventing the telco from heavy reading

AT&T says Internet to hit capacity by 2010

Burlington Telecom progress

Microsoft's live mesh

A series of clasic Sam Kekovich lamb ads 1 2 3

T-Mobile will have Android

Fighting Botnets with Botnets

To play the podcast, you can click here or use the Flash player below.

You can visit our tHAWT archive here. You can register for our tHAWT podcast series via RSS feed by adding this link to your podcast aggregater: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HillAssociates-LivingInAConnectedWorldThawt

And if you want to participate in identifying items for our discussion use the key word tHAWT to tag in del.icio.us You can look at what has been tagged by going to del.icio.us/tag/thawt

We've had a few podcasts on IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), but Paul and I thought a brief podsnack to give a high-level definition might be a good idea. Then, if you are curious, you can go listen to some of the other podcasts we've done on this topic. The entire set of IMS podcasts and related blogs can be found here.

You can listen to (or download) the PodSnack by clicking here, or you can use the Flash player below.

If you have an idea or request for a PodSnack topic, send it to podsnacks@hill.com! You can get a complete list of our PodSnacks here. You can register for our PodSnack series by RSS feed by adding this link to your podcast aggregator: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HillAssociates-LivingInAConnectedWorldPodsnacks.

If you are connected to the Internet (and if you aren't, how on earth are you reading this blog?), then you might be in trouble. The Internet is a packet network that works on the datagram model: each packet is routed independently and all of the routers within the network know (implicitly or explicitly) how to get to any possible destination. It is this magic that makes it possible for you to reach any web server across a single connection. But if you can reach anywhere, then anywhere can reach you.

If you are at work, there's a good chance that sitting between you and the Internet is a firewall. If you are at home, you should have a firewall there as well. You might even have a firewall on your computer. Today, Dave and Mark talk a bit about firewalls, what they are, and what they do.

You can listen to (or download) the PodSnack by clicking here, or you can use the Flash player below.

If you have an idea or request for a PodSnack topic, send it to podsnacks@hill.com! You can get a complete list of our PodSnacks here. You can register for our PodSnack series by RSS feed by adding this link to your podcast aggregator: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HillAssociates-LivingInAConnectedWorldPodsnacks.