Microsoft's shares rise

Industry expects a good Quaterly report from the world's  largest company and  this has increased it's share by over 1.6%. Any shareholders would see this as a good opportunity to sell and make good money.
Much of it is contributed to it's  Kinect sales in the holiday's. With Kinect receiving accolades as one of the best

The Internet Printing Protocol: What is it ?

Internet Printing Protocol, or IPP, is a standardised network printing protocol that can be utilised to print documents over a network. This allows users to print in the same building to the same printer, or to the printer at the home office from a thousand miles away. The standardized IPP is also capable of allowing user interfaces to manage printer resolution, media, print job queue, pause and cancel functions as if they were directly attached to the printer. The IPP is able to run locally, in the same building or city, or remotely over the internet, allowing several users to share the same printer to reduce office costs.

The Internet Printing Protocol was originally the brainchild of Novell, who presented the idea to several printer manufacturers. Xerox and others joined in on the project in 1996, with Xerox and Novell presenting the initial project information. The project began with the coalition of the Printer Working Group, PWG, which included representatives from printer manufacturers and printer server program developers. At the conclusion of the December 1996 meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force, it was determined there was industry-wide interest in the Internet Printing Protocol Project. The IETF is a collaboration to develop and promote best practices and standards for internet utilities. The IETF is organised into a number of working groups dedicated to completing work on a specific topic and then disbanding once the work is completed. The work group designated to work on the IPP, refining and clarifying best standards and processes, is the Printer Working Group, PWG.

The PWG is still working on refining the standardized portions of the IPP for use across all networks around the world. As of July 2009, the newest version of IPP was in development for universal release. Part of the functionality of IPP is using existing internet protocols, such as HTTP, as a backdrop to programming. By utilising existing protocols, greater security can be provided for users across internet and local networks.

IPP allows users access to several options when printing over a network including identifying the printer’s capability, submit printing project to a specific printer, identify the availability of a printer and cancel a job that was submitted to a specific printer. There are several specific operating programs that utilise IPP as a printer function. Among the available products are the CUPS, or Common UNIX Printing System, which operates on the Mac OS X and Linux systems. Novell iPrint and Microsoft Windows, beginning with Windows 2000 also utilise IPP for printers.

As it relates to UNIX, the IPP CUPS, or Common UNIX Printing System, allows a computer to act as a server host for client computers. A computer running CUPS utilizes a printing spooler and scheduler and can accept print jobs from other computers, filter the jobs and convert the print data into printer language and utilize a backend system to send the jobs to a designated printer. CUPS is freeware that is distributed under a general public license program. It also uses a built-in web based interface for administrative user platforms.

Novell’s iPrint allows users to interact via IPP and install print drivers from a web browser. Users can also submit print projects over the internet or through a local network. iPrint servers use a combination of utilities including an IPP server, a printer agent, a print manager, the i-Print Gateway and a device driver store.

For computer systems running Windows, IPP is available with several Windows platforms via HTTPS including Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Computers running the platforms for Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2 support IPP printing via the integrated Remote Procedure Call utility in the medium-low security zone.

The Internet Printing Protocol can save businesses thousands of dollars in printing equipment purchases. All users who have access to the home network can utilize the IPP to print documents from anywhere in the world that provides internet access. This also allows users to travel extensively without portable printing equipment or using other business’ equipment. Utilization of the IPP through a server can also allow administrators to monitor employee printer activity through a common source. With any of the operating programs utilizing IPP, users around the world can interface with the home office network to print anything that can be created on a computer. This greatly reduces the needed time in office for employees, especially sales forces in the field, and can lead to greater productivity and profits for all businesses.

Story behind the Verizon iPhone

The Verizon-iPhone has been  featured in the media at times. This is the story, Once upon a time, Apple was criticized to have been stuck on the AT&T network, famous for their crazy 3G plans and call drops.Though this did not stop the sales of the Apple iPhone, it indeed put a pause to it, at some stage which wasn’t seen in the graphs. Sales were high that this considerable amount of guys on Verizon who actually wanted to own iPhones but couldn’t make it to the statistics curves.

But Apple has moved on, well further and will be launching the iPhone on Verizon this week. It still is unknown if the Verizon iPhone will be just an AT&T iPhone 4 with a different band for 3G or an LTE device. Considering Verizon’s fast rollout of LTE in a phased manner in the USA presently, Apple wouldn’t want to not implement a newer technology to fish in buyers.

However, the Verizon iPhone will not have any new features, over the iPhone 4 on AT&T as this might lead to a lot of confusions. Apple, still has its customer base on AT&T and just ’cause they’re launching on Verizon can’t let their old customers with the 4 and give Verizon users something entirely new. This is not happening.

Apple has never taken part in shows like CES or MWC and is always known for their sweet lil’ conferences, termed Keynotes in their headquarters, Cupertino. Every product you see today from Apple was launched there, with Steve Jobs walking up the stage and using his presentations along with marketing catchy words. Apple sets up everything for them in a way that the audience is with them, right from the launch. They never let anyone else announce their product, too.

So far, yes. But, it looks like Verizon will be launching their iPhone this Tuesday in one of their events instead of an keynote event by Apple. Apple certainly knows what they’re doing, Verizon is known for their slap-on-the-face marketing strategy with AT&T where they openly criticize, contrast and compare, proving theirs is the better one. On the other side, Apple has a very good relationship with AT&T and its customers, so Apple wouldn’t want to let this happen. Jobs got this right and he might just be attending the Verizon event, whatever happens there isn’t under Apple’s control, aye? It’s Verizon’s event!

Apple’s keynotes have always had some new and big announcement for the people, the very presence of a keynote excites people worldwide and live streams go up in minutes. This time, Jobs really doesn’t have much to say/launch, except the Verizon iPhone. Considering their standard keynote format, a couple of new products and new services/updates always come out then. With the launch of the iPad2 nearing closer, Jobs decided to save this keynote for that.

The Verizon iPhone, if on LTE, might be an instant hit. Considering the number of LTE phones that are coming up, running on Android, the iPhone might just hit the right target. Pricing might more or less be on par with AT&T, while data plans and other details are a major factor in its success.

With a ton of Android devices getting launched every month, half of the population using smart-phones are already in the process of shifting to an Android device, considering its openness, usability, features and their own choice of network operator/SIM card in most of the phones.

Apple certainly needs to buckle up and get back on their tracks. A well gained image in the industry is slowly fading, Apple wouldn’t let this happen. The Verizon iPhone will indeed be a game changer for Apple, at least for the near future.