The world gets smaller and smaller everyday as social networking Web sites continue to gain more traction with users throughout the world. It seems only natural that the evolution of these sites is towards targeting specific interests.

Enter Indaba Music, a social networking site geared towards musicians with a collaborative bent. The name perhaps sums up the cloud-based Web site better than anything else, as Indaba is a Zulu word for collaboration and community.

Through Indaba, musicians anywhere in the world can create profiles in which they can share musical interests, influences, recordings (called sessions), photos and blogs as a means to connect to other musicians with similar interests and direction.

An intuitive search function, common interest groups and Indaba recommendations allows users who share something in common to find each other, from which collaborative sessions can begin. Sessions, hosted by Indaba’s Session Console 2.0 software, can be public, like an audition, or private, in which users can record, mix, edit, exchange tracks and even pay people.

Indaba’s most enticing feature is the ingenious Session Console 2.0. The console utilizes the cloud while engaging user’s processing power from their computers to record high quality, uncompressed audio straight to the session. In addition to high quality audio, the console features an offline mode that all but eliminates the need for GarageBand or Audacity, along with real-time hosted effects, non-destructive editing and a licensed loop library called the Creative Commons. The console also allows for commenting by showing tracks in waveform and allowing users to comment on specific moments in the wave, a much more effective method of notation than saying, "the third beat in the second bar of the bridge."

While this does not sound like much, anyone who has played music in a collaborative setting can attest to how invaluable the commenting tool is. The most impressive thing about the Session Console 2.0 is its simplicity, which allows any user, regardless of editing experience, to edit their creations within minutes of starting to use the console.

Indaba doesn’t stop here; they also engage their users by offering remix contests of popular songs, A.I.R. (Artists in Residence) who offer lessons and featured sessions that anyone can collaborate on, sometimes with established artists.

While the free membership is plenty useful, the site offers a "freemium" membership for $5 per month that provides users with more loops and effects, and a high-end membership for $25 per month that provides unlimited storage and private sessions, as well as all the "freemium" features.

A common interest and a strong sense of community have allowed Indaba to reach over 200,000 users in over 185 countries with no sign of slowing down. Indaba’s value, however, is not just in its social networking aspect but also in its extremely impressive software that makes it easier than ever before to record high quality and well-edited audio without ever spending a penny. The Web site also seems to be a model of what is possible when both the convenience of the cloud and the power of the personal computer are integrated into software. What’s more, Indaba genuinely seems to care about building a healthy community based around a common love, an admirable quality that more niche social networking sites will hopefully adopt. If you’re looking for the future of social networking, and maybe a new artist to check out, you need look no further than indabamusic.com.

We’re living in a broadband, super multimedia, HD video streaming world, and you need network architecture to back that up.

Network attached storage is all the rage now, too. With everyone buying notebooks and netbooks and streaming their Netflix to their Xbox, here are four routers we like that have the most modern security, wireless speed, storage and multimedia features for your 21st century digital life.

NETGEAR WNDR3700
$159.99
Pros: The WNDR3700 balances advanced features like the latest Wi-Fi standards and powerful security options with relative plug-and-play ease for the less technically minded.
Cons: Price may worry some. Quality is an investment.
The final word: It’s the best on the list. Plug it in, configure it, and it will always be there for you.

LINKSYS BY CISCO WRT610N
$179.99
Pros: The WRT610N is great for advanced users who want to customize their system.
Cons: The price is a concern, and novice users might get confused.
The final word: If this is your first time buying a router, pass.

D-LINK DIR-685 STORAGE ROUTER
$229.99
Pros: The D-Link has onboard storage and doubles as a digital photo frame.
Cons: Price. You’re paying for that digital photo frame.
The final word: It’s a great gadget, if you like gadgets.

BELKIN N+ ROUTER
$119.99
Pros: The Belkin is easy to use, relatively inexpensive, and powerful, with the ability to add a storage device.
Cons: None.
The final word: This is a fine choice for the 21st century multimedia family.

HP and Marlborough-based 3Com Corporation announced today that they entered into an agreement whereby HP will purchase networking giant 3Com for $2.7 billion, or $7.90 per share.

"Companies are looking for ways to break free from the business limitations imposed by a networking paradigm that has been dominated by a single vendor," said Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager for enterprise servers and networking at HP. "By acquiring 3Com, we are accelerating the execution of our converged infrastructure strategy and bringing disruptive change to the networking industry."

Buying 3Com heavily increases HP’s network product line overnight and aims to increase HP’s position in China, where demand for networking is growing rapidly.

Netgear announced September 1 that its new RangeMax Dual-band Wireless N gigabit router is now be available. The new device is packed with features relevant to those with high bandwidth needs “" which is really all of us.

Most notable is ReadyShare, which allows high-speed access to a USB hard drive from any device on the network. The RangeMax also comes equipped with a 680Mhz MIPS processor, one of the latest processors on consumer routers today. The router is also capable of simultaneous dual band activity using both the 2.4Ghz and the 5Ghz bands. This allows for a real world throughput of 350mbps, which is faster than most competing products.

This device is also functional as a plug and play media server for an Xbox360 or PS3 using the integrated DLNA functionality. The RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router features Quality of Service algorithms that enable seamless streaming of HD video over Wi-Fi, usually a frustrating experience for anyone who’s ever tried. These algorithms also allow support for a number of simultaneous high bandwidth connections and also enable lag-free online gaming.

The router also comes with a built in broadband usage meter, useful for those dealing with those god-awful bandwidth caps. The built in gigabit Ethernet ports are capable of 500 mbps speeds “" more than twice the speed of competing routers.

The router also features three adjustable power and range settings capable of cutting its power consumption by up to 75 percent for those who like a bit of green in their electronic devices. There is also a dedicated wireless on-off switch which when used to deactivate the wireless can cut power consumption by up to 30 percent.

Netgear’s RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router is now available worldwide for $189.99 with 24/7 tech support and a one-year warranty. This appears to be the first relatively solid competitor to Apple’s Airport Extreme with a reasonable price tag.

In an era of taking your reusable shopping bags to Whole Foods and forgoing plastic water bottles for aluminum, consumers are constantly trying to find a way to “go green.” Of course, we often relegate these thoughts by the wayside in our offices of quad-core Xeon rigs with dual 30-inch cinema displays, but you can always start small, and the green Ethernet Switches from D-Link are a low cost, no-effort way to start.

An Ethernet switch is a simple solution to adding more devices”"be they computers, Xbox, or TiVo”"to a network internet connection. Set-up is simple: connect any port on the device to the network and then connect the switch and the device via an Ethernet cord. You’re all set”"no software input required. Connecting your computers via a switch not only shares your internet connection between devices, it also allows for ultra-fast transfers between networked computers, allowing gigabit speed transfers of large files.

Energy savings come from the devices’ ability to intelligently sense not only which ports have devices plugged in, but also their power state and the length of Ethernet cord connecting the switch and device. If the computer is off, the switch ramps power down to that port. Shorter Ethernet cords require less power, and the switch adjusts accordingly. D-Link even designed the packaging for the DGS-2205 to be eco-friendly, and the device is Energy Star compliant.

The router comes with a plethora of other features, including the ability to work with all existing 10, 100, or 1000 Mbps Ethernet devices as well as traffic sensing mechanisms that eliminate congestion to keep LAN games lag free and VoIP calls jitter-free.

D-Link currently offers four switches with these green features. The DGS-2205 and -2208 are aimed at home and small office users with the ability to connect 4 and 7 devices, respectively. The DGS-1016D and -1024D, which connect 15 and 23 devices, can be rack mounted. While only the DGS-2205 is available now, the other switches will be updated with the green features later this year.

Remember that if you connect to the internet via a cable or DSL modem, you’ll need a router that can assign multiple IP address to your devices; an Ethernet switch shares one IP address between your devices. Also, if you tend just to just put your computer to sleep instead of shutting it down, D-Link admits that you won’t see significant power savings.

Even still, the D-Link router series is an affordable, low-effort way to cut power costs and energy use. And since you’ll feel less guilt, maybe you can splurge for a bigger, brighter display too.

I’m pleased to announce a new component to Blast Magazine. For a bonafide nerd, there’s nothing exciting than a bunch of circuits, wires, boards, lights and plugs — especially when you have no idea what they do.

That’s just what we’re going to celebrate. Our new feature “Shiny Things” looks at all things in the realm of complicated technology and showcases them in photo and in easy-to-read words.

That brings us to our first contraption; 10-Gigabit enterprise-level fiber optic networking devices from CXtec.

“These are products that fit in the Data Center environment. This environment usually houses a company’s storage area network, mainframe, or other mission critical applications and devices,” said Lisa Belodoff, Director of Strategic Marketing for CXtec.

These types of products, branded under the CABLExpress name are used by large financial institutions, phone/cable companies and others that have the need for this type of thing. “Even smaller and mid-sized organizations are finding a need for these products, traditionally found in the larger data centers,” Belodoff said. If you’re really interested in learning more about the finer points of fiber optic networking, peruse this article.

Besides being shiny, these products don’t run cheap. A full-scale system runs $12,000 and up, while smaller units can run you $2,000.

“The unique thing is that we also have an asset recovery program where customers can trade in their old Cisco, Nortel, 3Com and HP gear for credit towards this type of product or other products we sell (network equipment, cables, etc.),” Belodoff said. “Typically we look for networking – switches, routers, etc. Or voice products – phones, line cards, pbx components, etc.”

Mmm…more shiny things.