When we think of adware, what comes to mind are those annoying and pesky ads that pop up out of nowhere whenever we are surfing the net. Anybody who has surfed through the net has encountered those irritating pop-up adwares advertising everything from computer software down to Viagra. Adwares are some of the most derided objects in the web alongside viruses, spyware and other malicious softwares and programs. Although adwares are alleged to be the most benign form of spyware, most web users hate the blatant and bothersome way of advertising. Most are often tricked into clicking on such adwares and end up unintentionally downloading something far more serious.

What are adwares, anyway? Adware or advertising-supported software is defined as any computer program or software package in which advertising and other marketing material are included with or automatically loaded by the software. Adwares are usually played back after installation. Some malicious adwares upload information about the computer or its user’s activities even without the consent of its user. Adwares most often take the form of banner ads that appear on pop up windows or anywhere on the computer screen.

Software applications display these advertising banners whenever a program is opened or through some other triggering mechanism. Most adwares are integrated into a free application. This is a way for the developers to recover the costs of creating such software. A prominent example of this is the Opera browser software, which is a free application but comes with a banner ad. The adware can only be removed once the user purchases and registers his copy of the software. It is also a revenue-generating mechanism. A company can sponsor adwares to capture more visitors and potential customers. Adware as a marketing strategy is just one of the many techniques used by websites to attract more traffic.

However, some adwares are more than just pesky and garish ads. In many cases, adwares accompany a more malicious program, which uploads information about the user collected without permission. The users surfing habits are then tracked; in some cases, the browser home page is altered or redirected to the adware company’s sponsoring site. These types of adwares are dangerous since they may jeopardize the computer system’s health. Aside from installing malicious software, they may also become an avenue for viruses to invade the system.

Adwares have come under fire not only because of their annoying presence in the form of pop ups and banners but also in the way they invade the privacy of the user. Trackware and Spyware are just two of the “evil” forms that adware can take. That is why most computer users make an effort to get rid of these adwares. Because of the annoying nature of pop-up adware, most browsers now employ an adware blocking system through the form of a pop-up blocker or adware blocker. Browsers such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox all use pop-up blockers, which instantly block or close any window that is triggered by adware in the sites that the user visits. These steps have significantly reduced the number of irritating adware that pop up every time a site is opened.

Most antivirus programs and utilities now feature an adware search and removal system. These programs indexes known adwares and spywares in the internet universe and searches for it in the user’s computers system then subsequently quarantines or deletes the malicious files. Nevertheless, despite the numerous efforts against adwares, they continue to plague web surfers with their showy ads and banners as well as the nasty programs they introduce into the computer system. As the sage of the annoying adware continues, web surfers are also equipped with the best tools and utilities to combat them.

www.planecrashinfo.com

Starting in May, many will have the opportunity to see for themselves how they did computing the old-fashioned way: with lots of gears, a big crank and some muscle.

The Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, Calif., will unveil a new construction, the first in the United States, of the 19th century British mathematician Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine No. 2, an improved version of his earlier mechanical digital calculator.

Babbage finalized the design in the late 1840’s but it was not built during his lifetime, or for a long time afterward. Finally, in the late 1980’s, London’s Science Museum launched the first and until now only full-blown construction project, based on Babbage’s original detailed drawings, and in 1991 unveiled the completed calculator, 11 feet long, 7 feet high, with 8,000 parts in bronze, cast iron and steel, weighing about 3 tons.

In operation, it looks rather like an industrial version of a street organ.

In 2000, the museum added the calculator’s complex printer, almost as big and at 2.5 tons nearly as heavy.

The American model is the second built from Babbage’s plans. This one was commissioned and paid for by Microsoft millionaire Nathan Myhrvold, and built by the Science Museum.

Myrhvold and Guest Curator Doron Swade, an authority on Babbage and the man who led the Science Museum’s first construction effort, will speak on Babbage’s creation Thursday, May 1 at the Computer History Museum (the event is sold out). The exhibit itself opens Saturday, May 10, with demonstrations of the Difference Engine.

The Difference Engine is not the only geared calculation marvel in the world. In late 2006, an international team of scientists revealed new details of a 2,100-year-old astronomical calculator, the Antikythera, which used a complex system of 37 finely cut bronze gears to accurately show the changing positions of the sun and moon, with its phases, and possibly predict solar and lunar eclipses.

So what is a “difference engine?” Not being a math wizard, I’ll give this my best shot, drawing in part on the online expertise of Andrew Carol, an Apple software engineer who built a simpler difference engine, entirely of plastic LEGO pieces.

Carol points out that calculating the trigonometric and logarithmic tables used for an array of navigation, engineering and scientific purposes was all done by hand, with a skilled mathematician directing the efforts of a room filled with less-skilled people, called “computers,” who could be trusted to do reliable arithmetic. Babbage was one of a number of people trying to automate this process with mechanical devices in the 19th Century.

In effect, the difference engine is a kind of shortcut to determine a series of successive mathematical values. It’s based on something called the method of differences, developed by Sir Isaac Newton. Carol gives the example of multiplying 5 by successive numbers, such as 6, 7, 8. “In simple terms, the method of differences is based on the observation that if the work has already been done to multiply 5 by 6, [then] that work can be reused to multiple 5 by 7 with the addition of another 5 into the previous total,” he writes.

Like this:
5 x 6 = 30
5 x 7 = 35 by adding 5 to the previous total
5 x 8 = 40 by adding 5 yet again to the previous total

As Carol puts it: “Successive multiplications have been reduced to an identical number of successive additions. As long as we are willing to calculate the table entries [remember this is all about tables of values] in order we can save an enormous amount of work.”

Babbage’s difference engine applies this same idea to solving polynomial equations, which are widely used in math and science. Polynomials are built from a combination of variables and constants; use only addition, subtraction and multiplication; and only exponents that are constant positive whole numbers.

Babbage later designed a more general Analytical Engine, but only part of it was completed when he died in 1871. This device was intended to evaluate any mathematical formula, but it was never successfully created. A Swedish printer, George Scheutz, in 1854 built a machine based on Babbage’s Difference Engine design, and versions were used by the British and American governments.

The Difference Engine is powered by a hand-turned crank and a complex system of gears.

The California museum will be missing a few of the more eccentric elements in the British museum’s permanent Babbage exhibit, notably one-half of the brain that created the Difference Engine. The Science Museum holds about 800 human remains, in varying quantities, including a lock of Napoleon’s hair, cut off by Dr. Barry O’Meara at St. Helena where the emperor died, “human skin from one half of a male body, probably French, 19th century” and a rather numerous collection of shrunken heads, from Ecuador’s Jivaro tribe.

The Victorian aesthetic exemplified in Babbage’s creations has fueled a literary genre called “steampunk.” It blends the hallmarks of a world running on steam power with elements of fantasy, science fiction or speculative fiction. Babbage’s work was the inspiration for “The Difference Engine,” a 1990 novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, one of the first steampunk hits. The novel creates an alternative Victorian world where a steam-powered version of Babbage’s difference engine is created, launching the “information age” in the 19th century.

-Nilavan- (www.networkworld.com)

British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke is to be buried at a private funeral in Sri Lanka. Sir Arthur, the author of science fiction classics such as 2001, died in his adopted home on Wednesday, aged 90. His body has been laid out in a casket at his home near the capital Colombo for mourners to pay respects. Sir Arthur will be buried at Colombo’s General Cemetery on Saturday at 1530 (1000 GMT) in a strictly secular ceremony, his spokesman said. Nalaka Gawardene said Sir Arthur’s last three wishes were for conclusive proof of extraterrestrial life, clean energy to halt global warming and peace in Sri Lanka during his lifetime. “Now unfortunately he didn’t live long enough to see any of these last wishes come true,” she said. “And I think the challenge for all his fans and all his admirers is to make these three wishes come true as early and as comprehensively as possible.” Since 1995, the author had been largely confined to a wheelchair by post-polio syndrome. He died of respiratory complications and heart failure, according to his aide, Rohan De Silva. Sir Arthur was quoted as saying religion was “a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species”, and he left written instructions that his funeral be completely secular. The Somerset-born author achieved his greatest fame in 1968 when his short story The Sentinel was turned into the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. His visions of space travel and computing sparked the imagination of readers and scientists alike. (BBC News)