CompTIA creating VoIP certification

CompTIA creating VoIP certification

If your company is jumping into VoIP in a big way or seriously evaluating it, or if you're looking to add a new dimension to your career, you'd be interested to know that CompTIA is planning to introduce a VoIP skills certification.
Although the discussions are at the very early stages, CompTIA executives say the VoIP or convergence certification will be a "foundational," rather than entry-level certification, aimed at IT professionals with two to three years experience of installing network systems.


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"The certification will be complementary to our existing network certifications [Network+, Server+, and A+] and will most likely be a separate certification," says Brian McCarthy, COO at CompTIA. However, the certification likely won't be available for another 12 months, although training and education institutes will be able to put together coursework before then.

The idea for such a certification was first discussed in December after convergence technology OEMs, which CompTIA declined to name, asked CompTIA to identity training and skills levels for VoIP practitioners. Some 33 organizations from the manufacturing, distribution, systems integration and training sectors of the industry attended the first meeting. A second meeting is scheduled to take place this month, when participants will discuss certification prerequisites and the skills required to achieve such a designation.

McCarthy acknowledges creating a convergence certification is challenging because it's targeted at professionals from two different sides of the house: networking and telecoms. He says the key is to determine the skills level required to successfully install a VoIP network, find the common foundation experience of the two types of professionals, and figure out what the gaps are to include in the certification.

It typically takes CompTIA between nine and 12 months to get from the first meeting to launching a certification. During that time, objectives of the certification are posted, exams are created and beta tested. Because of the particularly challenging nature of creating a VoIP certification, McCarthy anticipates the process will take 12 months.

We will be following the progress of this certification and bring you details as they unfold. In the meantime, you can find out more about CompTIA's convergence interests at http://www.comptia.org/sections/convergence.aspx

Here is a press release of a CompTIA/IDC study that showed IT departments are playing a bigger role in running enterprise voice networks: http://www.comptia.org/pressroom/get_pr.aspx?prid=512

For specific info, you can contact Edward Migut, director of CompTIA's Convergence Group at CompTIA (630-678-8300 or mailto:emigut@comptia.org).

Read more about voip & convergence in Network World's VoIP & Convergence section.

VIA Artigo A1100: A Tiny Tyke for a Tiny Niche

VIA Artigo A1100: A Tiny Tyke for a Tiny Niche

We generally don't review do-it-yourself kits here at PCWorld. Our reviews process is comprehensive, and weighing competing machines requires taking the entire package into account. Kits such as the VIA Artigo A1100 throw a wrench into the works. This bare-bones package offers a bit of VIA silicon tucked into a Pico-ITX chassis and a power supply, leaving it up to enterprising users to cobble together a proper PC.

Chances are you aren't especially familiar with VIA Technologies. In a market dominated by juggernauts Intel and AMD, VIA places a distant third. While Intel and AMD make products that cover a wide range of markets, VIA has historically stuck to the embedded-devices market, selling the chipsets that run in-store displays and the like.
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The Artigo A1100 is powered by a 1.2GHz VIA Nano processor, a single-core x86 chip without too much muscle. VIA's Chrome9 integrated graphics offer hardware-accelerated video decoding (I'll get to performance results in a bit). You can buy the A1100 kit directly from VIA for $243 (as of August 6, 2010), though shopping around can net you a unit for about $200. Measuring a tiny 5.7 by 3.9 by 2.0 inches, the little tyke will disappear wherever you decide to put it.

On the A1100's face you'll find a pair of USB ports, audio and microphone jacks, and a USB-mini port. On the rear are a pair of USB ports, a gigabit ethernet port, a VGA port, and an HDMI port. Optional add-ons include an SD Card reader ($25) and an 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi module ($45).

You'll need to supply the operating system, a 2.5-inch hard drive, and laptop RAM. A 320GB 2.5-inch hard drive can be had for as little as $50. The A1100 will support a single stick of DDR2 notebook RAM; you can find 2GB for about $45. Finally, tack on an operating system (in our case, Windows XP), and in the end you're looking at spending close to $500 for an A1100 with all of the trimmings.

Caveats abound. Once you've purchased the components, you'll need to crack the Artigo open to install them. Initially you'll have seven screws to remove, and all are rather small. Once you've made it inside, you'll find still more screws to contend with, and very little room to maneuver. Installation isn't difficult, as evinced in VIA's demonstration videos, but the compact space is still something to consider.

The case is small and light, but feels solid. Alas, it doesn't do much to dampen sound--the hard drive and case fan are clearly audible while the unit is powered up. You could mitigate the noise by opting for a solid-state drive, but that'll bump up your cost of entry. The aesthetic appeal is subject to taste: The unit is plain and boxy, but also kind of cute (as improbably small things often are).

Equipped with a 320GB hard drive and 2GB of DDR2-800 memory, the A1100 achieved a WorldBench 6 score of 35--a pretty poor score, but right in line with the marks of Intel Atom-equipped compact PCs that we've reviewed. The Acer AspireRevo, for instance, earned a score of 37, while the Asus EeeBox 1501 received a mark of 38. That leaves all three compact systems on a par with what you can expect out of Atom-equipped netbooks.

Though the A1100 ultimately scored a bit lower than the Acer and Asus, it remained fairly competitive. It completed the Microsoft MCTS Training Office productivity portion of our WorldBench 6 test 15 percent faster than the EeeBox 1501, and 17 percent faster than the AspireRevo. Its results on our Windows Media Encoder test were less impressive: The AspireRevo was 12 percent faster, while the EeeBox 1501 was 14 percent faster. These content-creation results aren't too surprising, though, given the capabilities of nVidia's Ion integrated graphics.

High-definition media playback is surprisingly good on the A1100--if you temper your expectations. When saddled with 720p media in our tests, the A1100 shone: Playback was smooth, and audio processing was equally crisp.

Once we switched to 1080p material, the results were relatively smooth, but the flaws begin to show. During complex scenes the audio and video would occasionally stutter--nothing too dramatic, but notable enough to dampen the experience. Though nVidia's Ion platform is the reigning champ in media, Intel's integrated graphics offerings generally fare worse--the A1100's decent showing is a mark in VIA's favor.

Power utilization was also noteworthy: At its peak, the Artigo A1100 pulled in 18.6 watts, dipping down to 12.4 when idle--about the same power draw as a smaller CFL bulb.

Since it's a do-it-yourself kit, the Artigo A1100 isn't suited for the average consumer. Generally you can pick up a fully equipped Acer AspireRevo or Dell Inspiron Zino HD for about the same total price.

That being said, you can cut costs on the A1100 tremendously if you skip the optional extras and choose a Linux distribution as your operating system. If you're especially keen on rolling up your sleeves, cannibalizing a defunct laptop could net you the RAM and hard drive you need to set up a tiny, inexpensive, HD-media streaming hub.

If you're interested in a fun side project, VIA's Artigo A1100 has enough muscle to perform as a fairly capable media machine, as well as to tackle light productivity tasks. Investing a bit more cash into the project will net you a more capable unit, but at that point you'll be edging into the realm of more robust, capable systems that are arguably a better buy Microsoft MCITP Certifictaion.

Touch Mouse Microsoft Mystery Product

Touch Mouse Microsoft Mystery Product

Microsoft's mystery product is a touch-based mouse, according to a scoop from Website Neowin. For the past week Microsoft's hardware division has been teasing us via Twitter with cropped thumbnails of the mystery product. And now thanks to "company insiders" who allegedly spilled the beans to Neowin it is believed to be Microsoft MCTS Training own version of Apple's recently announced Magic Trackpad.

The mouse from Microsoft will be called Arc Touch Mouse, according to Neowin's sources, and will arrive sometime in September. Listings of the new Arc Touch Mouse also appeared on two resellers' lists last night, one from Wisconsin, U.S.A., and one from Norway.
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The pricing for the Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse will be in line with Apple's Magic Trackpad, at just under $70, according to the two product listings. Microsoft also registered the arctouchmouse.com Web domain on March 30, making a solid case for the naming of the product.

Since Microsoft did not confirm the existence of the Arc Touch Mouse, there is still a possibility that the product teased on Twitter by the company is something else. My colleague JR Raphael had a run-down of the possible product in Microsoft MCITP Certification teaser shot, which includes a phone, a new Zune, or a tablet.

However, a touch-based Microsoft mouse would be a cheaper alternative to the more expensive touchscreen displays used in the latest range of Windows 7 computers, despite the fact that Neowin's report claims multi-touch won't be on the feature list of the Arc Touch Mouse