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Showing posts from January, 2012

Digital Fortress - By Dan Brown

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With all the records broken by ‘Da Vinci Code’, expectations on Digital Fortress were soaring. ‘Digital Fortress’, though a fiction, actually deserves a place in a technology review. Having said that, it helps in demystifying IT Jargon's, as this book opens the often ‘thought to be complicated’ world of IT Security, to the non tech savvy reader, in plain, simple, easily understandable language. This is woven into an intricate plot, which has the makings of a thriller all the way. The plot sounds a bit geeky for the want of a better word. The National Security Agency is the USA’s finest secret agency. They are responsible for the security of the entire country, hence their ability to gather intelligence is key to their task. As all terrorist communications and other threats tend to be in code format they have a super computer called TRANSLTR which has the capacity to break every code on earth. TRANSLTR does this by using the Borgofsky theory which revolves around t

Book(E)d

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I love my Pad but hate the E-Book. Being in love with the Pad and the Tab is normal, what else can you expect from an eccentric gadget freak like me and so, the E-Book should have been the greatest thing since sliced bread. But when it comes to Books, there seems to be a paradox of sorts getting me. I hardly accept anything that I don’t see reason with and obviously set about pondering for reasons. As a hardcore gadget freak I suppose I should have applauded the rise of the e-book in all its amazing avathar, but somehow, I am in love with the ‘Touch & Feel’ of the paperback, the awesome smell of fresh, crisp paper. I like the fact that I can snooze off at night, leaving the open pages on my chest and pick it up from where I left when I wake up. I love the fact that there’s no charging the real book (more important, not carry an assortment of chargers on even a short travel) and if preserved well, will last a few centuries – think of something like that on an e-book or a Kindle. .