Convert File Format through E-mail

There exist quite a few online services that let you convert from one format to another. You upload the source file, specify the output format and within seconds, the converted file in the desired format becomes available for download. That’s easy but there are somes limitations with this approach:

1. When you want to convert a file, you have to upload it to the file conversion service. This is not an issue when you are converting files from the desktop but how do you upload files from iPhone, Android or any other mobile browser.
2. Sometimes clients will send you files in obscure formats as email attachments. In order to convert those files in a format that your apps can understand, you will download the attachments to your desktop and then upload them to the file conversion service. That’s work.

Zamzar, a popular tool for converting files online, has added a new option that lets you convert files by email itself. You can forward your email attachments directly to Zamzar, without downloading them to the desktop, and they’ll be converted in no time.

Convert Email attachment into Different File Formats

To get started, you need to forward the input (source) files to a specific email address like format@zamzar.com where format represents the file type of the desired output format.

For instance, if you have a Word document that you want to convert to PDF, you can send the file as an email attachment to pdf@zamzar.com. If you have a PDF file that you want to convert into an ebook, the corresponding conversion address would be epub@zamzar.com or mobi@zamzar.com depending on your ebook reader.

Here’s a complete list of input-output file formats that are currently supported by Zamzar. You can convert documents, presentations, ebooks, videos, audio files, archives and more.

The converted files were delivered quickly and the quality of the converted files was impressive. There’s no need to create any account at Zamzar and you can convert files up to 1 MB in a single batch. You may go for a pro account to convert bigger files that starts from $7 per month.

One more thing. You can only upload files by email and initiate the conversion process but you’ll still have to visit the Zamzar website to download the converted file. It stays on Zamzar servers for about a day and their download page is actually very confusing when accessed on a mobile phone.

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What is Cluster Computing

Cluster Computing, or simply Cluster Computer is a collection of computers connected by a communication network. The purpose of Cluster Computing is to distribute a very complex process between the various components of the cluster computers. In essence, a problem that requires a lot of processing power to be solved is decomposed into separate subproblems which are solved in parallel. This obviously increases the computing power of the system. You can also compare to see the difference of Cluster Computing with Fabric Computing.

Types of Cluster Computing

There are three types of cluster computing system 

Fail-over, load balancing and high performance computing, the first two which are probably the most common:

1. Fail-over Cluster Computing : The machines’ work is continuously monitored and when one of the two host stops working the other machine takes over. The aim is to ensure a continuous service.

2. Cluster with load balancing : It is a system where work requests are sent to the machine with less load.

3. HPC Cluster Computing : The computers are configured to provide extremely high performance. The machines break down the processes of a job on multiple machines in order to gain in performance.

Characteristics of Cluster Computing:

Cluster Computing system makes multiple computers to act as a single computational resource and the various components of Cluster Computing are resources dedicated to the operation of the whole, then the server cluster is a high performance server, instead of putting the burden on a single system, divides the workload (ie functions, for example – mail servers, web servers, database servers and file servers) on multiple machines. In fact, Cluster Computing is a form of distributed system.

To create a Cluster Computing system one must :

• Have an operating system able to operate computers as a cluster (Like Linux)
• Hardware for high-performance network in Cluster Computing
• Ability of Cluster Computing to run systems in parallel

 Advantages of Cluster Computing

The advantages of this Cluster Computing system are:

• Economical : In fact these Cluster Computing systems are up to 15 times cheaper than traditional supercomputers with respect to which, for the same performance.
• Scalability : Since the resources are distributed in case of Cluster Computing.
  Easy to upgrade and maintain.
• Reliability : As the Cluster Computing system continues to operate even in case of failures in parts of it, obviously with lower performance.

Disadvantages of Cluster Computing

The main disadvantages of Cluster Computing are:

• Difficult to manage and organize a large number of computers
• Poor performance in the case of non-parallelizable applications
  Physical space needed is considerably greater than that of a single server
• Increased power consumption compared to a single server

Usage of cluster computing for high performance

Using Cluster Computing can provide significant performance gain. System X, the supercomputer of Virginia Tech was the twenty-eighth most powerful supercomputer on Earth. It is a cluster from 12.25 TeraFLOPS consists of 1100 Apple XServe G5 dual processor 2.3 GHz ( RAM from 4 GB , HD SATA 80- GB ) running Mac OS X and interconnected via InfiniBand (Information provided by TOP500 Supercomputing Sites.)

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How Virtualization Works and What it Does

Virtualization is now offered not only bigger companies, but also by small or medium sized companies. But how this Virtualization works and what it does. We have published various articles on Virtualization, this article explains two basic questions :

• How Virtualization Works
• What Virtualization Does

 How Virtualization Works

 The reduction in hardware prices and the presence of open source software making this technology increasingly affordable and if it is properly used, it can offer us more choices of operating systems ,while lowering the costs and bringing a greater control over our infrastructure. The major need to deploy the technology is dependent on type of processor. – the deployment of Virtualization is dependent on processor core – deployment differs from x86 and x64 processor.A hypervisor or Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) is a virtualization software , which provides an environment for virtual machines created. Quite obviously, in order to manage the whole system, a specialized software is needed.

What Virtualization Does

The most common used application of Virtualization technology is in the field of hosting – Virtual Private Server or Virtual Dedicated Server. As one physical dedicated server is split in to virtually existing 3-4 dedicated servers, the cost – both the one time investment and running costs are reduced, which translates to reduced cost of web hosting.

Although web hosting appears to be the most important practical usage of Virtualization, there are various other usage of Virtualization technology and most importantly, Cloud Computing is nothing but a product of Virtualization technology.

To summarize

• This technology makes one physical computer to behave as if like multiple computers.
• Among the various advantages, the technology reduces both the short and long term costs.
• It helps to avoid the under usage of resources.
• Desktop virtualization, Virtual Private Server / Virtual Dedicated Server, Database Virtualization and Storage virtualization, Cloud Computing are either direct or indirect benefits of the technology.

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iWatch Concept

Sometimes I want to play the role of fairy god mother who can do anything in few simple stroke of her magical wand in the air. And guess what, you’re right I will surely make Apple throw this iWatch concept into production, right away.

Thanks to guys at the ADR Studios for this concept, the iWatch2 is a new generation wrist-wear that is iOS-compatible and full of exciting features.

And as we sees it, this concept watch boast some of the features we wanted to have on the final design of iWatch. The concept can be wirelessly connected to iDevices and it’s capable of  FaceTime, front-facing camera along with a mini LCD projector, a 32 GB hard drive to store all your pictures, music tracks and video files.

And if you’re thinking why Apple should have the iWatch? Think of Siri and iCloud as a perfect medium on how iPad, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV and Macs communicates on each other, then all of them was virtually controlled conveniently over your wrist. For example, you can just say or touch something on the iWatch and the Apple TV will play something for you. Interesting?

As of the moment, we don’t know if Apple is brewing something like this on their design lab but we’re very optimistic that Cupertino-giant will surprise us with their own iWatch soon.

Gallery

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