Welcome to Gahtan’s Technology and Internet Law Blog

A number of personal VPN services are available to protect users of public wi-fi hotspots or even wired hotel networks where data can also be intercepted:

- AnchorFree’s HotspotShield (free)
- HotspotVPN ($8.88-$13.88/month) - PPTP or IPSec
- JWire’s SpotLock ($39/year) being replaced with Hotspot Helper ($25/year or 30 minutes free per day)
- PublicVPN ($59/year)
- Witopia’s PersonalVPN ($39/year) - IPSec

As TechDirt again reminds us all, just because a carrier says their service is UNLIMITED in large letters doesn’t mean it isn’t subject to bandwidth and usage caps that can result in the service being cut off for unsuspecting users. Wireless Broadband services are not really a substitute for DSL.

According to the Business 2.0 Blog, the people who brought us Napster and Skype now want to bring us a peer-to-peer television service. While there are already a number of TV over-the-internet services already available, a P2P based service would save on the huge bandwidth costs.

Some time back, I purchased a copy of BeyondTV (made by Snapstream), software that turns any capable computer with a TV tuner card into a Personal Video Record (PVR).

Recently, I downloaded a demo copy of one of their other products, Beyond Media and am impressed with what it can do. This product turns a normal computer running XP into a very capable media center. When combined with a remote control (such as Snapstream’s Firefly remote) and a video-to-TV converter that allows the monitor output to be displayed on a television screen, Beyond Media lets you do the following on your television set:

- view photos and videos, and listen to music and podcasts, stored on the local PC
- listen to Internet radio stations through Live365 or which can otherwise play through Windows Media Player
- read blogs configured in Newsgator
- watch live or recorded TV through BeyondTV
- display local weather forecasts

I particularly like the ability to read blogs on my television set. However, the content is limited to what is included in the RSS feeds which typically only includes a portion of the total blog entry.

Yes its true. I’m back after a long summer vacation and hope to start blogging again soon.