Oxford Prospect

is a current affairs, lifestyle, geopolitical, policy and business news magazine based in Oxford.

 

Oxford Brookes University

As the new term approaches, mydeposits.co.uk, a Government-authorisedtenancy deposit protection scheme, has compiled top tips for students heading off to university and renting a property for the first time.

Oxford Property

 Following the recent publicity given to companies offering consumers ‘free’ solar panels that will save them money on their home electricity bills, a Midlands-based solar energy expert has warned that homeowners will lose out on tens of thousands of pounds under the generous-sounding deals.

European Science News

Astronomers have captured a spectacular new image in a region of our neighbouring galaxy known to have an abnormally high rate of star formation that reveals yet more details about its history and development.

Greek Cookery Class

Greek Cookery Class is back with a daytime class on Sunday 22 August 3pm-7pm with a Dolma masterclass!

New Theatre Oxford

1. Claire Sweeney stars in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black’s masterpiece of musical theatre, Tell Me On A Sunday.
2. Join us for the international touring stage show celebrating the music of Robbie Williams.

European Transport

Europeans call for more action on road safety in survey

NorthWall Theatre

TWO TOP COMEDY HEROINES AT THE NORTH WALL: SHAZ N’ SARAH! (AKA SHAZIA MIRZA AND SARAH MILLICAN)

Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet reinvents the guidebook for iPad with the launch of Discover e-books

Oxford Outdoors

Camping offers the perfect opportunity to gather together and enjoy the great outdoors with your nearest and dearest. What better way to do that than with Vango’s extensive range of large capacity tents.

Oxford Motoring

Visitors to the Heritage Motor Centre will be able to admire the legendary Batmobile and Batmans & Robins Batcycle as part of the exciting new exhibition “Star Cars” until 5 September.

European Public Transport

Stagecoach Confirms £50m Orders For New Vehicles

Europe Energy Report

SheffieldForgemasters records unprecedented demand for offshore products

BP

Update On Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill

Washington DC

Best holiday for the boys has to be cruising along the Skyline Drive on the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, with the eagles riding the thermals next to you, then dropping down to the valley floor as the green fields and vineyards flash by.

Travel News

 ‘Train a Grande Vexation’

The Bulletin Broadgate Mainland’s media update

1. Combination of agriculture commodities with equities offers promising perspectives launches new website 
2. Creative Benefit Solutions, has launched its new updated website .
3. The Scottish American Investment Company P.L.C. 
4. Mid Wynd International Investment Trust PLC – Results for the year to 30 June 2010

Cruises

Discover your next holiday afloat at The Cruise Show at the   NEC, Birmingham

Oxford Music

We Are The Ocean & Brides, Academy 2, Oxford, 4th October   

European Union News

European economic governance: What does the future hold? A synopsis of the current proposals

Oxford News

A civic reception will be held to mark Oxford City Council receiving a 108 year old ceremonial truncheon. The wooden truncheon, once belonged to a Mayor of Oxford, and following an auction earlier this year, the new owner is now bestowing it on the city.

Oxford Property

Localism must not miss the bigger picture on planning - A uniquely wide-ranging group of 29 national bodies have written to the Communities and Local Government Secretary, Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, to urge national and local government to work with them to ensure that strategic planning – planning at the ‘larger-than-local level’ – is embedded in any reform of the planning system under the new agenda for localism.

 Technology News

O2 today announces that Research In Motion’s BlackBerry^® has launched on Pay & Go from O2 and a whole new audience can now send each other messages on BlackBerry^® Messenger (BBM^TM), use RIM’s powerful multitasking software and keep up to date with their email and favourite social networks on the go.

Oxford Media News

The European Journalism Centre is organising a series of information briefings for journalists on various EU policy areas in 2010

 British Museum

Playwright, broadcaster and British Museum Trustee Bonnie Greer will co-curate a unique display which centres around one of the British Museum’s most fascinating objects, the Akan drum.

Oxford Museum News

CBBC’s Relic: Guardians of the Museum becomes a reality at the Vale and  DownlandMuseum this summer 

Oxford Books and Publishing News

A look at new books about slow travel and polar tourism.

Oxford Theatre Review

William Shakespeare’s The Tempest performed by the Oxford Shakespeare Company in Wadham College Gardens, with music by Nick Lloyd Webber.

Oxford News

Is it not time the boundaries of Oxford City council were changed?

Burton Taylor Studio

UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY FOR DEVELOPING ARTISTS  TO SHOWCASE WORK-IN-DEVELOPMENT at the BURTON TAYLOR STUDIO 

European Rail News

DB Schenker Logistics to construct new terminal at Klagenfurt airport

Oxford Playhouse

WORLD PREMIERE OF VON RIBBENTROP’S WATCH at OXFORD PLAYHOUSE

Oxford Media Social

A case of strangers passing in the night!

Oxford Motoring

Auto Express awards the Mercedes-Benz S-Class as Best Luxury Car

 

For subscription only content:

Indonesia Investment Special:

• The gold mine that is Indonesia’s coal mining industry.   
• The problems of powering Indonesia’s booming economy   
• Why European business is flocking to Jakarta.    
• Indoneisia oil and gas sector  

The new dash for oil in Africa!

Summer in Europe

3 Skypephone Delivers Free Skype to Skype Mobile Calls and Instant Messages at the Touch of a Button

On October 29, 2007.

LUXEMBOURG, 29th October 2007 – Skype, the global Internet communications company and 3, the mobile operator, have launched a new affordable handset that lets you make free Skype to Skype calls and send free Skype instant messages from your mobile phone to other Skype users no matter where they are.

The 3 Skypephone is a fully-featured 3G Internet phone with Skype built-in. In addition to Skype calls the phone makes conventional calls and can be used to access 3’s broad range of other internet services.

3 customers using the 3 Skypephone will be able to make Skype calls and send instant messages on the move with the push of a button. This is the first time an operator has offered a mass market device which is tailor-made for free calling over the internet from a mobile. Now, all of Skype’s 246 million registered can be reached for free with the 3 Skypephone.

According to Michael van Swaaij, acting CEO at Skype, “Skype is now truly mobile. This new handset is incredibly easy to use and lets you make free mobile Skype calls when you are on the move to other Skype users all over the world no matter where they are. It couldn’t be simpler – put Skype in your pocket and make free Skype mobile calls and send free Skype instant messages at the touch of a single Skype button.”

Continue reading “3 Skypephone Delivers Free Skype to Skype Mobile Calls and Instant Messages at the Touch of a Button”

MySpace and Skype Announce Partnership Bringing Free Internet Voice Communications to MySpace Global Community

On October 17, 2007.

Partnership Creates World’s Largest Online Voice-Connected CommunityBeta Version of ‘MySpaceIM with Skype’ Announced Today

LOS ANGELES/LUXEMBOURG, October 17, 2007 — MySpace, the world’s most popular social network, and Skype, the leading Internet communications company, today announced a partnership to empower the MySpace community with voice communications. With more than 110 million monthly active MySpace users and 220 million Skype™ registered users around the world, this partnership connects two of the most popular communications platforms on the Internet to create the world’s largest online, voice-connected community.

Continue reading “MySpace and Skype Announce Partnership Bringing Free Internet Voice Communications to MySpace Global Community”

The Microsoft connection clarified

On August 21, 2007.

Yesterday, we posted an explanation of what happened to Skype on August 16. Some reactions to the explanation, however, have reminded us of one of the basic tenets of communication: It’s not what you say. It’s what they hear. We’d therefore like to clear a few misunderstandings that emerged in yesterday’s reactions to our explanation of what transpired last week.

1. Are we blaming Microsoft for what happened?

We don’t blame anyone but ourselves. The Microsoft Update patches were merely a catalyst — a trigger — for a series of events that led to the disruption of Skype, not the root cause of it. And Microsoft has been very helpful and supportive throughout.

The high number of post-update reboots affected Skype’s network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources at the time, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact. The self-healing mechanisms of the P2P network upon which Skype’s software runs have worked well in the past. Simply put, every single time Skype has needed to recover from reboots that naturally accompany a routine Windows Update, there hasn’t been a problem.

Unfortunately, this time, for the first time, Skype was unable to rise to the challenge and the reasons for this were exceptional. In this instance, the day’s Skype traffic patterns, combined with the large number of reboots, revealed a previously unseen fault in the P2P network resource allocation algorithm Skype used. Consequently, the P2P network’s self-healing function didn’t work quickly enough. Skype’s peer-to-peer core was not properly tuned to cope with the load and core size changes that occurred on August 16. The reboots resulting from software patching merely served as a catalyst. This combination of factors created a situation where the self-healing needed outside intervention and assistance by our engineers.

2. What was different about this set of Microsoft update patches?

In short – there was nothing different about this set of Microsoft patches. During a joint call soon after problems were detected, Skype and Microsoft engineers went through the list of patches that had been pushed out. We ruled each one out as a possible cause for Skype’s problems. We also walked through the standard Windows Update process to understand it better and to ensure that nothing in the process had changed from the past (and nothing had). The Microsoft team was fantastic to work with, and after going through the potential causes, it appeared clearer than ever to us that our software’s P2P network management algorithm was not tuned to take into account a combination of high load and supernode rebooting.

3. How come previous Microsoft update patches didn’t cause disruption?

That’s because the update patches were not the cause of the disruption. In previous instances where a large number of supernodes in the P2P network were rebooted, other factors of a “perfect storm” had not been present. That is, there had not been such a combination of high usage load during supernode rebooting. As a result, P2P network resources were allocated efficiently and self-healing worked fast enough to overcome the challenge.

4. Has the bug been fixed? Should Skype users worry about future Microsoft Update patches and reboots?

Yes, the bug has been squashed. The parameters of the P2P network have been tuned to be smarter about how similar situations should be handled. Once we found the algorithmic fix to ensure continued operation in the face of high numbers of client reboots, the efforts focused squarely on stabilising the P2P core. The fix means that we’ve tuned Skype’s P2P core so that it can cope with simultaneous P2P network load and core size changes similar to those that occurred on August 16. We’d like to reassure our users across the globe that we’ve done everything we need to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again. We’ve already introduced a number of improvements to our software to ensure our users will not be similarly affected – in the unlikely possibility of this combination of events recurring.

Continue reading “The Microsoft connection clarified”