Software Stacks
The OS is comprised of several important stacks that provide the functionality required by the device. Some of the prominent stacks are

1. Phone: support for phone bands, phone technologies (GSM, CDMA, etc)
2. Networking: TCP/IP, Ethernet, data networks (EDGE/3G, WiMax), Bluetooth
3. Applications (Browser, media player, database, etc)
4. Audio/Video processing

One interesting note is that most of these stacks operate autonomously and serve mostly self-contained functions. For example, the phone stack is utilized when you are making a call but not otherwise. The Bluetooth stack will be used only when you are transferring data via Bluetooth. Improving performance for any of these stacks will only improve responsiveness for that particular function set, but will not affect the performance of other functions. Hence, investing in optimization stack by stack offers limited return on investment from a user perspective. This is not to say it’s not a good idea to invest in these areas, just that you need to have realistic expectations for the results.

Digital plague

These chips may be small, but just one infected RFID tag is capable of disrupting an entire system with disastrous consequences. Take, for example, the airport at Las Vegas, which handles two million items of luggage per month. As from May 2006, RFID tags will be attached to cases to speed up the baggage handling process. If someone intentionally attaches an infected RFID tag to his case, the entire system will be thrown into disarray. As soon as the case is scanned, the infected tag will be able to invade the airport’s central baggage database and all cases subsequently checked in will also become infected. On arrival at other airports, these cases will be scanned again and within 24 hours, hundreds of airports throughout the world could be infected. The perfect solution for smugglers and terrorists wanting to send suspicious luggage across the world without being noticed.

It’s hard to believe that the first IBM personal computer (PC) was introduced in August, 1981. In the beginning they were used by a small group of people. Today, however, we can’t imagine life without them, both at work and at home. Look around your office when the electricity goes out, and you’ll see people standing around talking because they feel they can’t get any work done without their computers.

We have become dependent on these machines and the information stored within. As the importance of a “thing” rises, it becomes equally as important, if not more, to secure it. (How many of you have alarm systems in your cars?)

Abstract

A secure environment in which to work with computer viruses and other malware is not created through technical means alone, yet published virus laboratory specifications very seldom venture into the nontechnical. Our secure computer virus laboratory has five categories of safeguards: legal, ethical, social, behavioral, and technical. These safeguards have been subject to an external, independent security review, and parts have been reviewed by anti-virus researchers. Commissioning, operation, and decommissioning of the virus laboratory is also discussed. Our goal is to establish a computer security standard for secure laboratories analogous to that of biohazard laboratories.

Descriptors
computer viruses, computer security, malware analysis, anti-virus research, virus laboratories, secure laboratories, computer security education

Introduction
It is not news to anyone in the anti-virus community that the University of Calgary is offering a course on computer viruses and malware. This course was controversial because of the teaching method we used, where students would – among other things – learn about viruses by creating one themselves. The issue of teaching methods is outside the scope of this paper, however.

Introduction
The Maya® Software Development Kit (SDK) contains a rich set of facilities that can help you add new functionality to the Maya software. The SDK includes a C++ API called the Maya API that provides functionality for querying and changing the Maya model along with the ability to add new Maya objects to the Maya model. In addition, the SDK contains Python® bindings to the Maya API. These bindings allow a developer to call the Maya API from Python. We refer to this as the Maya Python API. Using either API, you can add new elements to Maya such as: commands( accessible from MEL [Maya Embedded Language] or Python script), file translators, shaders, animation nodes, 3D graphical manipulators, geometry shapes, types of deformations, dynamic fields, particle emitters, inverse-kinematic solvers and any type of custom node.

Introduction
MySQL is a popular database with more than 4 million users. It is one of the fastest relational databases in the market. Many companies are using it to support their websites, data warehouses, and business applications. MySQL was developed by a Swedish company named MySQL AB. The product is distributed under GNU General Public License (GPL). It can support multiple users concurrently on the network. Students can connect to a MySQL database server standalone on their own computer or from the network. You can download it free from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/4.1.html. MySQL runs on Windows, Linux and Solaris. This tutorial demonstrates using MySQL from the Windows operating system.

Starting and Stopping MySQL Server
If your database server is not started, you can start it by typing “net start mysql” from the MySQL bin directory as shown in Figure 1.1. You can stop it by typing the command net stop mysql.