THE CALIFORNIA ISDN USERS' GROUP gained participation by 40 companies in its recent ISDN Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) Interoperability Workshop, in testing work by the Internet Engineering Task Force for establishing high-speed Internet connections.

Specific testing was accomplished in the areas of ISDN PPP and tunneling, and attendees found that interoperable products that combine certain channels on an ISDN Basic Rate Interface will enable 128-kbit/second transmission speeds.

Some of the companies in attendance were 3Com, Bay Networks, Cisco Systems, Compaq, IBM, Lucent and Microsoft-all of which have agreed to research further related protocols such as compression control, and authentication and encryption.

The California ISDN Users' Group, formed in 1991, represents over 5,000 ISDN users in California and nationwide. More information can be found at their site.

EE TIMES EDITOR Alex Wolfe received a feisty phone call from Intel's Merced marketers over his online column, which focused on upcoming problems with the company's new 64-bit microprocessor. The results are worth a visit to the site.

MARCH 24-27: Sun Microsystems' JavaOne Developer Confe rence is at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The accompanying Web site has all the particulars, plus transcripts and technical information archived from past events.

"VIRUSES PLAGUE 40 percent of all PCs in a given year, and there's over 10,000 of them out there.

"Most virus writers are young-some as young as 13 years old. The reasons they give are curiosity, peer pressure and technical challenges. They may not intend to be malicious.

"They need to be educated to see that viruses are having a real impact, and that people get hurt. They need to know that self-replication is an interesting computer concept, but it's not a science, and it's not cool."

-Sarah Gordon, IBM computer-virus researcher

THE ELECTRONICS DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY NETWORK (EDTN) has put together an all-in-one search page, which allows for easy location of app notes and data sheets from the top 100 electronics sites. You can also search selected related news sites.

EMBEDDED CONCEPTS SOLUTIONS & INC. (Oak Brook, Ill.), a developer of real-time software for embedded platforms targeted at companies in the telecom and control systems industries, has a site.

THE ELECTRICAL ADVERTISER (Minneapolis), which is a monthly publication for the electrical surplus-equipment industry, has a site. Search from 2,000 vendors in 70 categories, and get requests for quotations .

SANDSTROM ENGINEERING (Manhattan Beach, Calif.), which develops EDA software, offers info on the company's hallmark PreSynth.vhd, a program that reads a non-synthesizable VHDL file and annotates a copy of it with synthesizable VHDL.

FRAZZLED ENGINEERS looking for a short spiritual respite during the day can find a quick-fix at Interlude-the Internet Retreat.

Brought to you by the mysterious Cybermonks (based out of Portland, Ore.), the site is not specific to any particular religion, denomination or dogma. Instead, it seeks to meld the best of them all, offering a "thought of the day" and a "meditation for the week" from an eclectic mixture of wisdom.

One recent exercise onsit e is adapted from Chi Kung, a Chinese system of exercises for working with the flow of energy in the body. This one, called "standing like a tree," involves training oneself to stand as still as a tree rooted in the earth and balanced between earth and sky. If you can't calm down after that, you might as well punch out for the day.

There's also a link to a more traditional form of mental health, an online counseling service with professional licensed practitioners, called Concerned Counseling.

Free Subscription to EE Times First Name Last Name Company Name Title Email address   Click here for your Free Subscription to EETimes Europe