AVG turns off Defender

 TechMaam was using the XP machine last night and noticed that Windows Defender had been turned off. A little Net research turned up a number of complaints about the new AVG antivirus version 9, which we recently downloaded, turning off Windows Defender. It's easy to turn it back on, but be aware. You would think that Microsoft is breathing down AVG's neck to put out a fix for this one.

New Apple PCs

 Apple has announced upgrades to its laptops and desktops and a new mouse.

Data exchange with your computer getting faster

Three speedier new ways to exchange data with your computer have been in the news lately.

One is here already, another is just emerging and the third is in the future: A new, faster WiFi standard was approved in September. The first USB 3.0 certified devices have begun to emerge. And Intel announced this month that it is working on a new connection scheme that could download a Blu-Ray movie in 30 seconds.

First, the present.

The new 802.11n WiFi standard, now available on routers and other wireless devices, is designed to make data move faster and give networks more reach.

How much?

Although both range and speed involve a number of variables, a real-world estimate would be up to five times as fast and twice as far or more than before. Actual mileage may vary.

The new standard also should be better able to deal with interference since it can send and receive on at least two different spots on the radio spectrum. You'll need a dual-band router to take advantage of this.

By the way, 802.11n may sound familiar -- you have been able to buy 802.11 draft n routers for quite a while, waiting final approval by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Board. N and draft n are compatible with the older a, b and g standards, although a slower component can put a drag on the whole network and defeat some of the purpose of an n router. Prices of n routers range from $50 to $250.

If the device you are communicating with is not n compatible, you will need a receiver card, which is an additional $50 to $100. Apple laptops have been n-friendly for a while.

So is switching to n worth it? Yes, if you have a big house and your current WiFi doesn't cover the whole area, or if you want to transfer large files faster.

No, if you are happy with the range and speed of your current network or if you think you will get faster Internet speeds. The bottleneck is your Internet connection, not your WiFi network.

You are no doubt familiar with the term USB (Universal Serial Bus). It is that squarish connector that hooks your computer up to a growing number of devices, including cameras, external hard drives and music players.

USB also hews to a standard, a blueprint for how these connectors function. And a new standard, USB 3.0, is emerging.

Although the standard has been out for almost a year, devices capable of using it are just now appearing. Several companies have announced hard drives using 3.0, and more products, probably hard drives, video cameras and flash drives at first, will be appearing.

Again, speed is the difference. USB 3.0 is capable of data transfer 10 times as fast as its predecessor. It is compatible with USB 2.0 but at the slower speed. So if you buy a USB 3.0 device and plug it into a USB 2.0 port, you are wasting your time and money.

It will take awhile for USB 3.0 to become mainstream. At this point none of the major operating systems support it, although Windows 7 plans to add support in a future service pack. So hold on to your USB 2.0 devices. They will be good for quite awhile.

Now for the future.

Monster chipmaker Intel recently announced that it is working on a technology that would use fiber optic cable to move data between your computer and other devices. This is the same stuff that brings high-speed Internet and TV into your home and carries phone calls under the ocean.

Called Light Peak, Intel's technology will have speeds of about 20 times current USB 2.0. Intel estimates that, in the next decade, Light Peak speeds will increase by a factor of 10.

But the biggest advantage may not be the speed. If everyone would switch to Light Speed, all devices could have the same cables and connectors. Just think, one cable to rule them all.

But don't hold your breath. Hardware manufacturers cooperating for the good of the consumer? Right.

CMU graduate called father of computer graphics

A slide shown at last week's dedication of CMU's Gates computer science school and Hillman future technology building caught TechMan's eye.

The slide said that eight past or present members of CMU's faculty and two alumni have received the A.M. Turing Award, often called the Nobel Prize of computer science.

The award's namesake, the late Alan M. Turing, was in the news recently when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown formally apologized on behalf of his country for Mr. Turing's treatment.

Mr. Turing, a computer pioneer who helped win WWII with his work on cracking the Nazis' Enigma code, was sentenced to chemical castration in 1952 after being convicted of a charge of gross indecency for being an admitted homosexual. Mr. Turing committed suicide two years later. I'd say it's a bit late for an apology.

Looking at the CMU list, TechMan noted the name of Ivan Sutherland, who received his undergraduate degree from CMU and undoubtedly qualifies for TechMan's infrequent series, "Giants of Technology You've Probably Never Heard Of."

Mr. Sutherland often is called the father of computer graphics.

Back in the early '60s, before personal computers, the only way you could communicate with computers was with numbers or arcane commands on punch cards.

Mr. Sutherland believed there were other ways, so he devised a computer program called SketchPad. It was the first crude computer drawing program and an important precursor of the graphical user interface that debuted to the world in the Apple Macintosh.

But Mr. Sutherland's interest in how we communicate with computers didn't stop there. He spent some time running ARPA, the military agency that is widely credited with devising the Internet. There he explored how we could communicate with computers using other computers.

At Harvard University in 1968, he created the first virtual reality head-mounted display system. The head-mounted display, worn by the user, was so heavy it had to be suspended from the ceiling. Because of its formidable appearance, it was named The Sword of Damocles.

From 1968 to 1974, Mr. Sutherland was a professor at the University of Utah, where he shepherded a number of students who would become influential in the field of computers.

In 1968, he and colleague David Evans co-founded Evans and Sutherland, a company that did pioneering work in accelerated three-dimensional computer graphics and printer languages.

At Evans and Sutherland, he employed John Warnock, future founder of Adobe Inc., and Jim Clark, who founded Silicon Graphics and later a little company called Netscape.

In the 1970s, Mr. Sutherland taught at the California Institute of Technology where he founded the computer science department. He formed another company that was bought by Sun Microsystems, where he is now.

Always on the cutting edge, he now is working on asynchronous systems -- systems that do not have a central clock.

A few readers took TechMan's suggestion and sent me their favorite Web sites. John recommended aldaily.com -- news and links about the arts and letters.

Mike recommended khanacademy.org. A site I had never heard of, it is a vast catalogue of short, educational YouTube videos. Mike said he and his kids are on this site all the time.

And another Mike plugged TED.com, videos of short lectures by all kinds of distinguished thinkers. TechMan had written a column about TED a while ago, but it is well worth another mention.

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