doopoo!

Windows Vista Launches to Consumers

2007-02-01T04:09:00.000-08:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
January 30, 2007, 4:00 PM

Monday night marked the public launch of Windows Vista, and both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were on hand in New York City to officiate the festivities. A number of stores held "midnight madness" events, but did consumers bite?

Not yet. Unlike the launches of Sony's PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii, those interested in being the first to install Vista were few and far between. A handful of stores around the country reported late-night lines, but most customers said they showed up for the other discounts being offered alongside Vista. Low temperatures on the East coast likely didn't help either.

Still, the success of Windows Vista is almost a foregone conclusion at this point, and Gates himself said Microsoft didn't expect a mad rush by consumers. Retail outlets believe sales will ramp up slowly, especially as consumers begin to upgrade their PCs. Most computer manufacturers have fully transitioned to Vista at this point.

In addition, using Windows whether for work or play has practically become a necessity these days, which means the operating system doesn't hold the same intrigue it did back in 1995 or 1998. Instead, Microsoft focused on Vista's more useful features and mundane when showing off the upgrade: new parental controls, enhanced security, and better search functionality.

Windows Vista Launch But that doesn't mean Microsoft gave up on fanfare for the Vista launch Monday. The company rented out a theater at 1515 Broadway in Times Square and tapped Angels and Airwaves to provide the musical entertainment. Although the crowd of journalists, beta testers and other invitees largely ignored former Blink 182 front-man Tom DeLonge's new band, the vibe was positive (an open bar surely didn't hurt).

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer touted different advantages of Vista, covering the consumer-oriented features and offerings from the company's many hardware partners. Executives from Dell, Intel, AMD, Toshiba and HP were invited on stage to receive special Windows Vista plaques signed by the Microsoft co-founders.

"Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 will transform the way people work and play,” said Gates. “Personal computers have become a key part of the daily lives of almost a billion people worldwide. Millions of consumers had a hand in helping us design, test and create the most exciting versions of Windows and Office we’ve ever released. Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 squarely address the needs and aspirations of people around the globe."

What was notably missing from the Vista Launch, however, was any discussion of the software available for the operating system from partners. While the Windows XP launch in 2001 largely centered around third party software, Microsoft only talked up Vista's built-in capabilities. The company once again mentioned the New York Times Reader it developed with the paper as if it were the only application that actually takes advantage of Vista's new capabilities.

While Vista was the center of attention Monday, Microsoft did make a number of references to Office 2007, which also went on sale today. Corporate Vice President Mike Sievert demonstrated the new Ribbon capabilities in Word, although most attendees were already quite familiar with the suite. Billboards around New York City rotated between images of Vista and Office 2007, noting, "The Wow Starts Now."

Perhaps most importantly Monday, Bill Gates thanked the over 5 million beta testers who helped the company make sure Windows Vista was up to snuff. He said that with the help of testers, Microsoft accomplished 60 years worth of performance testing. A number of those testers and MVPs were on hand at the event to receive the verbal pat on the back.

Windows Vista is available now in 70 countries and 19 languages, with 99 languages expected by the end of 2007. Microsoft says 1.5 million devices are on the market that currently work with Vista, and 2,500 of those are Vista Certified. But availability only means so much, and the rate of consumer adoption and enthusiasm for Vista remains to be seen.

Now that Windows Vista and Office 2007 are finally out, are you saying "Wow"?

µTorrent's WebUI is now released for public beta testing!

2006-09-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

Installation:

1) Get and extract files http://download.utorrent.com/webui_v0.300_beta_1.zip

2) Copy webui.zip to %AppData%/utorrent (click on start->run then type that and click ok)

3) Startup the new utorrent.exe (make sure its build 475, the one you dnlded with the webui)

4) Hit Ctrl-P (NOTE: It HAS to be Ctrl-P, otherwise you won't see the option)

5) Navigate to Advanced->Web UI

6) Setup a username/password

7) Navigate to http://127.0.0.1:utorrentport/gui/index.html . Done!

Debian Etch - A minimal setup with X

2006-08-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

As a not completely new Linux user I have been frustrated over and over again at all the extra bloat and apps that I will never use that gets loaded onto my system when I do an install. Debian was the second distro that I tried and have used many others since, but I keep coming back.

With Etch I finally decided to get my system MY WAY(tm). No excess junk and no excess apps. After I had played for a little while I came up with the way to do it, and since I had found very little in the way of easily human understandable documentation I thought I would share the process.

Now understand that what we are going to do is start from where I changed the installation.

1: netinst CD and an internet connection.

2: start the normal install process and proceed all the way to where it asks if you want to use a network mirror.

3: select NO for network mirror (we will change this in a minute)

4: reboot and log in root

5: edit the sources.list

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

add these lines

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free

Then make sure to comment out the line with the CD in it with a # otherwise it will drive you nuts asking for that blasted CD that has nothing of anymore use on it.

Close and save the file (double check your spelling and make sure you didnt fat finger any keys like I constantly do)

6: type in the command

apt-get update

7: type in

apt-get install xserver-xorg-core xorg

There will be a few questions at the end, for now just go with the defaults.

8: while apt is doing its thing we need to make a decision.
Which login manager do you want to use? Unless you want to run as root all the time ( #1 bad idea by the way) we need a login manager. Here are the 3 I have used and comments on them.

xdm:

smallest and works well to get you going on your way. Highly configurable.

gdm:

easily configurable and adds libraries you need if you want to use the synaptic package manager. (also contains alot of the extra functions of xdm)

kdm:

largest and bloated, I list it only because I know a few people who like it. (my opinion)

It honestly makes no differance to us which you pick. For ease of configuration I’d suggest gdm, if your just setting up a single user machine and will never change your desktop interface xdm might be the way to go. Your choice (thats what Linux is about right?)It doesnt matter which desktop environment you are going to use, any of them will fire up what ever you happen to have

So we

apt-get install xdm/gdm/kdm

9: Next decision, what desktop package to put in?

GNOME:

If you want Gnome you have just wasted time reading this, thats what you would have gotten if you had continued on with the installation normally.

KDE:

very much like the operating system that comes from redmond, and nearly as bloated with worthless junk. I have this installed only because my wife likes it.

Fluxbox:

This is the one I use. Very small, fast, and configurable. Its a low frills let our programs use system resources instead of having the desktop environment hog it approach. Nor will this one load your system up with oddbits like Gnome or KDE, however both are integrated with it. So if you install your favorite Gnome app or KDE app it automagicly appears in your menu in fluxbox.

There are others you can use as well, if you have one you like instead, use it.

So we

apt-get install fluxbox/gnome/kde

9A: If you went with fluxbox because like me you wanted to control what apps are on your system instead of letting someone else decide what is right for you. Remember this, fluxbox doesnt ship with proggies AT ALL. so at the very least you will want to add a web browser.

apt-get install firefox

(my choice, again use what you like)

10: reboot and poof you should be up and running.

For those who are wondering this worked equally well on my desktop as it did my laptop. I hope this helps someone else who like me is still learning all the wonderful things that can be done with Linux, but needs a few pointers because face it, we arent all programmers and everyone has to start the process of understanding somewhere.

Mozilla Delays Firefox 2.0 Until Oct.

2006-08-16T20:34:00.000-07:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
August 16, 2006, 1:50 PM

Microsoft isn't the only one running into snags getting new releases out the door. Mozilla said this week it is pushing back the launch of Firefox 2.0 until mid-to-late October, with Beta 2 now slated to debut August 23.

New features in Firefox 2.0 include enhancements in security, tabbed browsing, performance, and extensions. The browser update also includes a built-in spell checking and an anti-phishing feature, much like Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7. JavaScript 1.7 and improved subscribing of RSS feeds are also among the additions.

Firefox 2.0 was originally slated to debut this month, but last-minute bugs and security issues have led to a variety of delays. Mozilla is currently working on resolving 40 bugs in preparation for Beta 2. The company then wants to take in about three weeks of feedback following that release.

Mozilla expects to issue three release candidates of Firefox 2.0 before it goes gold in October. Visual tweaks and new graphics will be introduced during that timeframe. In the meantime, Mozilla plans to release Firefox 1.5.0.7 around September 5.

Despite the delays, Firefox is making considerable strides competing against Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Firefox has passed 15 percent usage in the United States, and recently topped 200 million total downloads since the browser's 1.0 launch in November 2004.

New Google Talk update: File Transfer + Voicemail + Music Status

2006-07-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

New Google Talk beta version (1.0.0.95) launched!
Download here!

with 3 new features in this great update:

File Transfer

With this top requested new feature, you can send unlimited files and folders to your friends through Google Talk. There is no restriction on the file type or size and the peer-to-peer transfer is fast and reliable.

Voicemail

If a friend isn't around to answer your call, now you can leave a voicemail. You can even leave voicemail messages for your friends who don't use Google Talk--they'll receive an email with the message attached as an audio file.

Music Status

Listening to music while on Google Talk? Now you can let your friends see what you're listening to by selecting "Show current music track" in your status menu. Your status message will change when your song does!

AMD, ATI Merge in $5.4 Billion Deal

2006-07-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
July 24, 2006, 12:06 PM

AMD confirmed rumors Monday and said it was merging with graphics chipmaker ATI in a transaction worth $5.4 billion. The first computer systems that would take advantage of the strengths of the combined company will begin appearing in 2007, the company said.

The merger will allow AMD to offer integrated processor and graphics solutions to its customers. By 2008, AMD plans to introduce new processor configurations that would integrate the CPU and graphics processor into a single unit. The end result will be smaller, more powerful computers.

"ATI shares our passion and complements our strengths: technology leadership and customer centric innovation," AMD Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz said. "Bringing these two great companies together will allow us to transcend what we have accomplished as individual businesses and reinvent our industry as the technology leader and partner of choice."

A combined company also gives AMD more ammunition in its continued battle with Intel for dominance in the processor industry. The company has made great strides in recent months in catching up with the No. 1 processor maker, however it still remains quite far behind in terms of overall volume.

The transaction also carries financial benefit: while positive impact would be limited next year, by 2008 AMD expects it to have a noticeable impact on its bottom line. Combining the two companies would save as much as $75 million in operating expenses.

ATI CEO Dave Orton will now serve as executive vice president of the ATI division. Two ATI directors would join AMD's board of directors after the merger closes.

Microsoft Buys Winternals, Sysinternals

2006-07-18T22:00:00.000-07:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
July 18, 2006, 1:23 PM

Microsoft on Tuesday announced it had acquired Winternals Software and its Sysinternals Web site, appointing founder and Windows kernel expert Mark Russinovich as a Technical Fellow. Winternals has long had a close relationship with Microsoft, even presenting at the company's recent TechEd conference.

Founded by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell in 1996, Winternals has been a stalwart provider of systems recovery and data protection solutions, while Sysinternals has become known for its free Windows system utilities. Russinovich, a Windows kernel expert, used the site to expose and detail a rootkit discovered in Sony BMG CDs last year.

Cogswell will become a software architect in Microsoft's Windows Component Platform Team, while Russinovich will join the Microsoft Platforms & Services Division.

"I've had my eye on Mark for some time," said Jim Allchin, co-president of the Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft. "The work he and Bryce have completed in system recovery and data protection illustrates the depth of thinking and skill they will bring to future versions of Windows."

In a blog posting, Russinovich says he will remain committed to Sysinternals, but Microsoft is expected to integrate the site into its own offerings. "The site will remain for the time being while Microsoft determines the best way to integrate it into its own community efforts, and the tools will continue to be free to download," he said.

Microsoft is also looking into how it can leverage the technology solutions developed by Winternals with its own products, Russinovich says. "Some will find their ways into existing Microsoft products or Windows itself and others will continue on as Microsoft-branded products."

Terms of the acquisition were not announced.

Microsoft to Support OpenDocument

2006-07-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
July 6, 2006, 2:19 AM

In a surprise move, Microsoft is bending to pressure from governments and will sponsor an open source project to build tools that enable conversion between its Open XML formats in Office 2007 and OpenDocument (ODF). The forthcoming Office suite will also support an add-in for saving directly to ODF.

The Open XML Translator project will be hosted on SourceForge.net, and is available under the BSD open source license. Microsoft says anyone can submit bugs and contribute to the project. A beta of the Open XML translator for Word 2007 will be made available Thursday, which can convert .docx Word documents to .odf and vice versa.

That final Word 2007 translation tool will ship by the end of 2006, with converters for Excel and PowerPoint slated to follow early next year. Each will be made available free of charge. Microsoft is expected to ship Office 2007 sometime in the first quarter, after announcing a slight delay last week.

Microsoft has tapped France-based partner Clever Age to create the OpenDocument tools, along with independent software vendors Aztecsoft in India and Dialogika in Germany. The translation software will be made available to older versions of Microsoft Office as well through a compatibility pack that adds support for Open XML.

Although it was reported in May that the OpenDocument Foundation was working on a compatibility plug-in, Microsoft's decision to spearhead the effort is quite an about-face for the Redmond company. OpenDocument has become a thorn in Microsoft's side, with a number of governments looking to move to standardized document formats.

The release of OpenOffice.org 2.0 finally provided a viable and free alternative to Microsoft's ubiquitous Office suite, as well as bringing OpenDocument into the limelight. ODF is backed by the OASIS standards body and was certified by the International Standards Organization (ISO). The state of Massachusetts turned up the heat last September, announcing plans to switch to ODF and OpenOffice.org by January 1, 2007.

Microsoft responded to the public pressure by developing its own Open XML formats, which it has submitted to European standards body Ecma for certification. The company has long said it would not support OpenDocument, claiming a lack of interest from customers and noting the necessity for backwards compatibility with older Microsoft Office versions.

However, Microsoft is now acknowledging the importance of interoperability and says it wants to make choice an option for its customers.

"We believe that Open XML meets the needs of millions of organizations for a new approach to file formats, so we are sharing it with the industry by submitting it, with others, to become a worldwide standard," said Microsoft XML architect Jean Paoli. "Yet it is very important that customers have the freedom to choose from a range of technologies to meet their diverse needs."

By providing a downloadable add-in that enables customers to import OpenDocument files and export to the format, Microsoft is also making Office 2007 a possibility for businesses and governments like Massachusetts that do opt to switch to ODF. But the translation will not be seamless, the company concedes.

Microsoft notes that OpenDocument still has gaps that are being worked out by OASIS, such as spreadsheet formulas, macro support and support for accessibility options. Citing Open XML's accessibility features for disabled workers, file performance and support for integrating external XML data, Microsoft says ODF "focuses on more limited requirements."

OpenDocument won't be the only third party file format supported by Office 2007. The new suite will also support saving to Adobe's PDF format through a downloadable add-in. Menu options built into the software will direct customers to a page with the free add-ins.

Windows Live Messenger Launches

2006-06-20T00:19:00.000-07:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
June 19, 2006, 5:05 PM

Microsoft on Monday rolled out the final version of Windows Live Messenger to 240 million users, marking the official launch of its Windows Live family of services. New features include built-in calling and shared folders.

Like many other instant messaging clients, Microsoft has made calling features a centerpiece of Windows Live Messenger. Users will be able to place free PC-to-PC calls, and even call traditional phone numbers for a small fee through a partnership with Verizon.

The Windows Live Call service will additionally integrate with telephone handsets from Uniden in the United States and Philips in Europe. Motorola also announced plans to offer a cordless handset with support for Windows Live services later this year.

Video calling is made possible through audio and video technology provided by Logitech. Microsoft says over 20 million video chats take place across its network each month, and the company has developed its own line of webcams dubbed LifeCams that are optimized for the service.

Other new functionality in Windows Live Messenger is Sharing Folders, which enables consumers to send a file to their contacts by simply dragging it into a folder. Contacts are kept up to date through Windows Live Contacts, a new Plaxo-like service that is also used by Windows Live Mail and MSN Spaces. Microsoft says over 25 million individuals are already using Live Contacts.

“The launch of Windows Live Messenger represents a significant down payment on the Windows Live vision and an important milestone for the business," Martin Taylor, corporate vice president of Windows Live, said in a statement. "We’re proud and excited to release this product to consumers, who have helped shape the service during our beta process.”

Microsoft is readying more than 20 new Windows Live services to follow Messenger. "This evening marks the launch of Windows Live Messenger and the launch of Windows Live in general," Karin Muskopf, Windows Live product manager, told BetaNews. While Windows Live OneCare launched first, Messenger is the "first major Windows Live Service that customers are familiar with."

The final release of Windows Live Messenger will be a mandatory upgrade for all beta testers, but MSN Messenger users can choose to stay on the older client. Microsoft says it will notify MSN Messenger users of the available upgrade through a pop-up dialog box in the coming weeks. Users do not need to uninstall MSN Messenger before upgrading.

Windows Live Messenger -- available in 26 languages -- is specifically designed for Windows XP Service Pack 2, although the software should run on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista Beta 2. Microsoft will likely only officially support Vista when the next-generation operating system is released early next year.

To help promote the launch of the service, Microsoft has teamed up with Disney to offer exclusive access to an online game called "Dead Man's Tale." The game is based on the upcoming film "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest," and will offer peeks into the sequel's storyline and clips from the movie.

"There are very few discernable differences between this version and the beta because, as I said, we’ve been doing clean up," the Windows Live Messenger team commented on its blog. "But if you’re upgrading from MSN Messenger to Windows Live Messenger, then you’ll be seeing A LOT of changes."

Microsoft did, however, have one piece of bad news for users. Muskopf told BetaNews that @live.com and @windowslive.com addresses will not be available for registration starting June 20 as initially planned. The company is working out some last minute tweaks and the new domains for Windows Live ID will debut at a later date.

Bill Gates to Leave Microsoft in 2 Years

2006-06-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
June 15, 2006, 4:49 PM

Gates and BallmerMicrosoft chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announced in a press conference Thursday afternoon that he would be shifting priorities, leaving his full-time position at Microsoft in two years to focus his efforts on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie will take over Gates' role as Chief Software Architect starting immediately. "Over the next two years, Ray and I will work side by side to ensure a smooth transition," Gates said. "Over time, he'll take on the central role for architectual leadership at Microsoft.'

Gates reitered that he is not retiring from the software business, calling the change a re-ordering of priorities. "With greath wealth comes great responsibility," he said. "A responsibility to give back to society."

Gates will retain his position as company chairman, and plans to spend some of his time at Microsoft.

"I want to spend more time on foundation efforts in the future," Gates explained. "After careful consideration, Steve and I have agreed to announce a two year transition plan...We have a great team of people and I believe we can make this transition."

Microsoft's Craig Mundie will become Chief Research and Strategy Officer, and will assume Gates' role with Microsoft Research. "Craig will also manage Microsoft's intellectual property and policy issues," Gates said.

"Obviously this decision was very hard for me to make....Even as I prepare to shift my focus in July 2008, I know Microsoft is well positioned for success in the years ahead." Gates said that he will "miss working for Steve every day as I have over the past 26 years."

"Bill may reduce his time here but his imprint on the company will never diminish," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "We will continue his tradition of thinking big and executing even bigger."

In the near term, Gates will be taking a 7 week vacation -- the longest he says he has been away from Microsoft -- in Africa and "enjoying the Seattle summer." Ballmer noted the vacation was earned long ago, and is unrelated to the career transition announcement.

MS, NVidia Team on Mobile Graphics

2006-06-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
June 7, 2006, 1:00 PM

NVidia released a development kit Wednesday that will allow handheld manufacturers to add support for various multimedia functions, including digital television and 3D graphics, to Windows Media 5.0 devices. Dubbed the MobileMedia platform, the kit includes both hardware and software components.

"Handheld phones today offer great promise as digital, media-rich devices, however the broad range of platforms and standards available to manufacturers has made the development of advanced handsets that deliver compelling content, a daunting and time-prohibitive task," said Philip Carmack, senior vice president of handheld GPUs at NVidia.

Both Microsoft and NVidia say this would speed the development time of advanced handsets using Windows Mobile 5.0.

Jason Lim, Microsoft's Asia Pacific and Japan regional director for Windows Mobile acknowledged that customers had been asking for more robust combinations of lifestyle and productivity applications. Lim said the partnership would help make those requests a reality.

Several devices based on the MobileMedia platform are already in the works, including devices from Samsung, HTC / Modeo, and ReignComm. NVidia is also working with Intel and Freescale on reference designs for devices to be announced later in the year.

"This new product represents a complete solution for device manufacturers, delivering an easy-to-integrate, high-performing multimedia platform for handhelds using the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system," Carmack said.

Google to Test Web-Based Spreadsheet

2006-06-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
June 5, 2006, 11:20 PM

Google plans to release a Web-based spreadsheet application Tuesday, which, when combined with its recent purchase of online word processor Writely, seems to indicate the company is about to mount a challenge to Microsoft's Office productivity suite.

However, Google is playing down the idea that the new beta project -- first reported by the Wall Street Journal -- is somehow a threat to Office's dominance, saying the two applications would be "complementary."

The Web based spreadsheet will not require any application to be installed on the user's computer, and documents created would be saved on Google's servers. Thus, a user could access the document from any computer with a Web browser. Up to 50 spreadsheets could be saved at one time, Google says.

Additionally, the application would allow multiple people to edit the spreadsheet simultaneously. All users would see changes as they were made, with an area available to chat if needed.

When saving, the user would have the option of either saving to an Excel-compatible or comma separated value (CSV) file. While the initial beta release is said to be quite rudimentary and only a few select users would gain access initially, Google will both refine the product and invite more testers in the coming months.

Google Spreadsheet will be accessible through Google Labs.

Microsoft to Drop PDF Support in Office

2006-06-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
June 2, 2006, 5:40 PM

Amid threats of a lawsuit from Adobe, Microsoft acknowledged Friday that it would remove support for saving files in PDF from Office 2007, as well as dropping its own rival format XPS from the productivity suite and Windows Vista.

The changes follow a breakdown of talks between the two technology giants after Microsoft announced last year it would include native PDF publishing with the release of Office 2007. The feature has long been a top request from customers, the company said at the time, and other office suites have the capability.

But Adobe was unhappy with the move and a dispute has been brewing for four months, Microsoft's lead counsel Brad Smith said Friday. Although PDF claims to be an open format and is integrated into OpenOffice and Apple's Mac OS X operating system, Adobe apparently sees Office 2007 as a real threat to its business.

Adobe wants Microsoft to charge for the feature, which the Redmond company has refused to do. Smith said Adobe threatened to file an antitrust suit in Europe, and his company was preparing for that eventuality. Now, however, Microsoft says it will make the feature available through a downloadable add-on.

"PDF is usually viewed as an open standard and there are other office suites out there that already support PDF output. I don't see us providing functionality that's any different from what others are doing," remarked Microsoft's Office Open XML format lead Brian Jones in a blog posting.

"This really is one of those cases where you just have to shake your head. Adobe got a lot of goodwill with customers, particularly in government circles, for making PDF available as an open standard. It’s amazing that they would go back on the openness pledge."

In addition, Microsoft will drop support for its own fixed-layout format known as XPS from Office and offer an XPS-free version of Windows Vista to OEMs that request it. Windows Vista includes XPS -- formerly code-named "Metro" -- as part of the Windows Presentation Foundation. The company will host a session on using Vista as a document platform at TechEd 2006 in Boston on June 12.

However, it is unlikely many computer makers will opt for the XPS-free option. European computer makers have balked at Windows XP N, a special version of Microsoft's flagship operating system that strips out Windows Media Player. When running a standard Vista install, Office 2007 will have the "Save as XPS" feature.

Some analysts have remained skeptical that Microsoft's side is the full story. Adobe has yet to comment on the matter, and may not publicly if it indeed intends to file a lawsuit.

"I had no idea that Adobe carried such swath it could force Microsoft to raise Office prices," chided Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox. He noted that Microsoft is clearly using the media to push its position that if it cannot use PDF freely, then Adobe's format must not be open.

"Whatever occurred in private between the two companies, Microsoft is aggressively taking a very public PR position. I see Microsoft as trying to make this a debate about formats and the openness of PDF. Microsoft claims new Office formats are open, but some governments--Massachusetts, for example--disagree."

Already, industry groups have come out in support of Microsoft, and customers have expressed their dismay at Adobe's actions.

“If recent reports are accurate, Adobe is turning PDF from an open standard into a double standard. It seems their new position is that the PDF standard is now open for some to implement, but not all,” commented Jonathan Zuck, President of the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT).

"The Commonwealth did pick PDF as an open standard. Microsoft could gain favorable position with Massachusetts or other governments by launching a FUD campaign that portrays Adobe as exacting a double standard with respect to PDF openness," added Jupiter's Wilcox.

Microsoft's Jones said he hopes Adobe realizes it has made a mistake and, "that they probably shouldn't try to sue people for using an open file format." Microsoft has pledged not to go after anyone that implements its Office Open XML formats, which are currently being certified as a standard by Ecma.

"If you're like me and think this is just a bad thing all around, you should let them know," Jones wrote. With no lawsuit filed just yet, Adobe could still give into the public pressure and forge an agreement with Microsoft.

"The worst thing Adobe could do is not respond," said Wilcox. "The company needs to tell its side of the story, before Microsoft's version is seared in the public consciousness."

Microsoft Unveils JPEG Alternative

2006-05-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
May 25, 2006, 6:18 PM

Fresh off taking on PDF with its Metro specification at last year's WinHEC, Microsoft now has plans to take on JPEG with Windows Media Photo. Microsoft Watch reported from Seattle Thursday that the company is advertising the new format as a higher-quality alternative to the aging JPEG standard.

In half the size, a WMP file would produce higher quality images when printed and even when sent through e-mail, the company said in a Wednesday session at the WinHEC conference in Seattle. As a result, images saved in the format would require significantly less space to store.

On Wednesday, version 0.9 of the specification was shipped with the second beta of the Windows Vista and WinFX component. The Microsoft Web site listing the specification says that the format provides a multitude of benefits, including multiple color formats for display or print; lossless or high quality compression; efficient decoding, and minimal overhead when converting from other formats.

As of Thursday afternoon Microsoft had updated page, slapping a version number of 1.0 on it, possibly indicating the company was satisfied with the reliability of the code, as it was no longer referred to as a "draft specification."

Nathan Weinberg of the Inside Microsoft Web log had high praise for Microsoft's foray into digital imaging. "I'm delighted to see Microsoft do this," he wrote on Thursday. "Microsoft pushing a new format invites development and improvement, and hopefully everyone will win in the end."

Weinberg further recommended that Microsoft not attempt to make money off the format, and rather freely license it to its competitors. He also suggested such a plan could help adoption of other Windows Media-based multimedia formats in the end.

Early analysis from those in attendance indicated that the format could pose a threat to the dominance of JPEG. However, since WinHEC is a technical conference, the format was looked at from that standpoint, rather than looking at practical applications of the technology.

WMP will be integrated into Microsoft's XPS ("Metro") document standard, the company said. While the technology will be supported natively by WIndows Vista, Microsoft plans to release an add-on for Windows XP as well.

WinFS Beta 2 to Appear at TechEd

2006-05-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
May 23, 2006, 3:51 PM

Microsoft has been busy working on its next-generation storage technology known as WinFS and will be showing off new features next month at TechEd 2006 in Boston. WinFS Beta 1 debuted last September and Beta 2 is slated for release later this year.

WinFS, or Windows File Store, is Microsoft's new SQL-based file system technology that will be released as an add-on shortly after Windows Vista. The idea of WinFS is to create a "sea of data" that abolishes the need for the standard file and folder hierarchy.

For example, no longer would documents need to be stored in My Documents or images in My Pictures; instead, Windows would simply display the files associated with a particular request on demand. In addition, WinFS could store structured data such as contacts, calendars and more.

Asked whether WinFS is an individual file system or simply an extension of NTFS, Microsoft previously explained to BetaNews: "It's both. It's built on NTFS and it is a file system."

Items can be standard file-backed objects such as images and documents, or objects not backed by tangle files including contacts and e-mail. For file-backed items, WinFS leverages NTFS to store the data and ensure compatibility with current Win32 applications. When a file is changed, the system re-syncs the necessary metadata with WinFS.

Associations play an important role in establishing relationships between different types of data and allow users to organize information based how it's used.

"Imagine a world where data storage and retrieval just work the way they should- no need to create clumsy mappings between objects, relational tables, and byte streams being stored in files," said WinFS program manager Shan Sinha. "We finally can realize a world that simplifies the persistence, manipulation and retrieval of data, giving us an opportunity to create unique new applications based on those new capabilities."

"Since we announced the availability of Beta 1 last September, we have been busy incorporating all of the feedback you gave to us and preparing Beta 2," Sinha added. "Well at Tech Ed, we will be demonstrating why we continue to be so excited about WinFS, showing off features from our Beta 2 release."

Microsoft Details Vista Requirements

2006-05-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
May 18, 2006, 1:31 PM

With Windows Vista Beta 2 set to make its public debut at WinHEC next week, Microsoft on Thursday finally detailed the hardware specifications required to run the new operating system. The Redmond company also launched a "Get Ready" program to help consumers prepare for the upgrade.

Claiming that Windows Vista is the first operating system to scale based on the capabilities of the computer it's running on, Microsoft has broken down hardware requirements into two categories: Vista Capable PCs and Vista Premium Ready PCs.

"Capable" systems will largely cover current systems running Windows XP, and serve as the bare minimum for upgrading to Windows Vista. PCs that fall under this category must have an 800MHz or faster processor and 512MB of RAM. A DirectX 9 capable video card is also required, and a 20GB hard drive.

But consumers looking to take full advantage of Windows Vista, including its new advanced user interface called Aero, will need more powerful hardware. A 1GHz processor, 40GB hard drive and 1GB of RAM are required at the base level, as well as a modern DirectX 9 graphics card with at least 128MB of video RAM. 256MB of video memory is required for higher resolutions.

These "Premium Ready" PCs must also include a DVD drive, audio output and Internet access. Microsoft recommends that any user currently planning to purchase a new PC make sure it has the Premium Ready designation. Manufacturers such as Dell, Gateway, Lenovo and Toshiba plan to add the Vista Ready branding to their systems.

“Customers have many options and choices to make when it comes to buying a PC today. A wide range of form factors, price points and new technologies figure into their decisions,” said Mike Sievert, corporate vice president of Windows Product Management and Marketing. “With that in mind, Microsoft and OEMs are making it easier to prepare for the arrival of Windows Vista."

Microsoft also rolled out a new "Get Ready" Web site to aid customers interested in running Windows Vista. There, users can download a beta of the Vista Upgrade Advisor that helps determine which edition of Vista is needed and whether any hardware upgrades will be required.

Microsoft plans to enhance the Upgrade Advisor tool with additional functionality before the official launch of Windows Vista in January.

Google Notebook launched

2006-05-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

Google Notebook launched...

click this link to the browser extension that makes creating notes

Firefox Continues to Make Gains

2006-05-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
May 15, 2006, 11:59 AM

Firefox continues to make slow gains globally, with the market share of Internet Explorer beginning to stabilize, Web analytics firm OneStat.com reported on Friday.

Worldwide, market share of Internet Explorer fell slightly to 85.17 percent from 85.82 percent in January, while usage of Firefox rose slightly from 11.23 percent to 11.79 percent in May. Apple's Safari browser also made modest gains, at 2.02 percent from 1.88 percent in January.

"It is interesting to see that global usage share of Mozilla is higher in the USA and Canada as in other countries in the world and that the global usage share of Apple's Safari is still growing," said Niels Brinkman, co-founder of OneStat.com.

In the US, Firefox has a 12.81 percent share, and in Canada, 16 percent. However, in both cases Internet Explorer registered about a 2 percent gain, and in the case of Canada, at Firefox's expense.

In all cases, Safari was the third most popular browser, followed by Opera and Netscape. Except for Canada, where Opera has a 2.15 percent share, both browsers accounted for less than one percent each of used browsers in the surveyed countries.

The browser race is expected to heat up again later this year. Both Mozilla and Microsoft hope to have new versions of their browsers released to the public by the end of 2006. In the past, Mozilla has been able to successfully use its new browser releases as opportunities to expand market share.

Google: Fuzzy maths

2006-05-14T05:49:00.000-07:00

May 11th 2006 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist

In a few short years, Google has turned from a simple and popular company into a complicated and controversial one

MATHEMATICALLY confident drivers stuck in the usual jam on highway 101 through Silicon Valley were recently able to pass time contemplating a billboard that read: “{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com.” The number in question, 7427466391, is a sequence that starts at the 101st digit of e, a constant that is the base of the natural logarithm. The select few who worked this out and made it to the right website then encountered a “harder” riddle. Solving it led to another web page where they were finally invited to submit their curriculum vitae.

If a billboard can capture the soul of a company, this one did, because the anonymous advertiser was Google, whose main product is the world's most popular internet search engine. With its presumptuous humour, its mathematical obsessions, its easy, arrogant belief that it is the natural home for geniuses, the billboard spoke of a company that thinks it has taken its rightful place as the leader of the technology industry, a position occupied for the past 15 years by Microsoft.

In tone, the billboard was “googley”, as the firm's employees like to say. That adjective, says one spokeswoman, evokes a “humble, cosmopolitan, different, toned-down” classiness. A good demonstration of googley-ness came in the speeches at a conference in Las Vegas this year. Whereas the bosses of other technology companies welcomed the audience into the auditorium with flashing lights and blasting rock music, Google played Bach's Brandenburg Concerto Number Three and had a thought puzzle waiting on every seat. The billboard was also googley in that, like Google's home page, it had visual simplicity that belied the sophistication of its content. To outsiders, however, googley-ness often implies audacious ambition, a missionary calling to improve the world and the equation of nerdiness with virtue.

The main symptom of this, prominently displayed on the billboard, is a deification of mathematics. Google constantly leaves numerical puns and riddles for those who care to look in the right places. When it filed the regulatory documents for its stockmarket listing in 2004, it said that it planned to raise $2,718,281,828, which is $e billion to the nearest dollar. A year later, it filed again to sell another batch of shares—precisely 14,159,265, which represents the first eight digits after the decimal in the number pi (3.14159265).

The mathematics comes from the founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The Russian-born Mr Brin is the son of a professor of statistics and probability and a mother who works at NASA; Mr Page is the son of two computer-science teachers. The breakthrough that made their search engine so popular was the realisation that the chaos of the internet had an implicit mathematical order. By counting, weighting and calculating the link structures between web pages, Messrs Page and Brin were able to return search results more relevant than those of any other search engine.

So far, they have maintained this superiority. Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Watch, an online industry newsletter, ranks Google as the best search engine, Yahoo! as second-best, Ask (the re-named Ask Jeeves) third, and Microsoft's MSN last among the big four. Google's share of searches has gone up almost every month of the past year. Including those on AOL, an internet portal that uses Google's search technology, Google had half of all searches in March. Excluding AOL, the figure was 43%. This is why people “google”—rather than, say, “yahoo”—their driving directions, dates and recipes.

Mathematical prowess is also behind the other half of Google's success: its ability to turn all those searches into money. Unlike software companies such as Microsoft which get most of their revenues from licence fees, Google is primarily an advertising agency. It does not sell the usual sort of advertising, in which an advertiser places a display on a page and pays per thousand visitor “impressions” (views): it has perfected the more efficient genre of “pay-per-click” advertising. It places little text advertisements (“sponsored links”) on a page in an order determined by auction among the advertisers. But these advertisers pay only once an internet user actually clicks on their links (thereby expressing an interest in buying). This works best on the pages of search results, which account for over half of the firm's revenues, because the users' keywords allow Google to place relevant advertisements on the page. But it also works on other web pages, such as blogs or newspaper articles, that sign up to be part of Google's “network”.

The world brain

These two interlocking “engines”—the search algorithms coupled with the advertising algorithms—are the motor that powers Google's growth in revenues ($6.1 billion last year) and profits ($1.5 billion), as well as its $117 billion market capitalisation. Its horsepower is the reason why Andy Bechtolsheim, Google's first investor (as well as a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, a big computer-maker) still holds on to all his shares in the firm. It's all about advertisers “bidding up the keywords” in Google's auctions, he says. “How far this thing could go, nobody can say.”

Since its stockmarket debut, however, Google has been adding new and often quite different products to this twin engine. It now owns Picasa, which makes software to edit digital photos on computers; Orkut, a social-networking site popular mainly in Brazil; and Blogger, which lets people start an online journal. It also offers free software for instant-messaging and internet telephony, for searching on the desktop computers of users, for (virtually) flying around the Earth, for keeping computers free of viruses, for uploading and sharing videos, and for creating web pages. It has a free e-mail program and calendar. It recently bought a firm called Writely, which lets people create and save text documents (much as Microsoft's Word does) online rather than on their own computers. Google is also scanning books in several large libraries to make them searchable. It is preparing to offer free wireless internet access in San Francisco and perhaps other cities, and dabbling in radio advertising. And that is only the start of a long list.

Whether these are arbitrary distractions or not depends on one's point of view. For Messrs Brin and Page, they make mathematical sense. Mr Brin (“the strategy guy”) has calculated that Google's engineers should spend 70% of their time on core products (ie, the search and advertising engines), 20% on relevant but tangential products, and 10% on wild fun that might or might not lead to a product. The result is that lots of tiny teams are working on all sorts of projects, the most promising ones of which end up on the prestigious “top 100” list that Mr Page (“the product guy”) spends a lot of his time on. Most of the items on that list in theory have something to do with Google's mission, which is “to organise the world's information”. Scanning and indexing books, for instance, brings offline information online.

The outside world increasingly sees it differently. Among Google fans, the company has come to epitomise the more mature (ie, post-bust) internet generation, which goes by the marketing cliché “Web 2.0” (see article). In this context, it is assumed to be working on absolutely everything simultaneously, and every new product announcement, no matter how trivial, is greeted as a tiny step toward an eventual world-changing transformation.

At a minimum, this hypothetical transformation would consist of moving computation and data off people's personal computers and on to the network—ie, Google's servers. Other names for this scenario are the “GDrive” or the “Google grid” that the company is allegedly working on, meaning free (but ultimately advertising-supported) copious online storage and possibly free internet access. Free storage threatens Microsoft, because its software dominates personal computers rather than the internet; free access threatens other internet-access providers.

At a maximum, the transformation goes quite a bit further. George Dyson, a futurist who has spent time at Google, thinks that the company ultimately intends to link all these digital synapses created by its users into what H.G. Wells, a British science-fiction writer, once called the “world brain”. Google, Mr Dyson thinks, wants to fulfil the geeks' dream of creating “artificial intelligence”. Passing the so-called “Turing test”, created by Alan Turing, a British mathematician, to determine whether a machine can be said to be able to think, would be the ultimate reward.
From primes to share prices

But many who deal with Google in their daily lives are getting fed up with such grandiose notions. Google's shares, after nearly quintupling since they began trading, have fallen in recent months. Pip Coburn, an investment strategist, says that “Google was a simple story at one point: online ads on top of the most popular search mechanism on the planet. Simple. But now it is pretty much a mess and to get the stock going again, the company may need to work on its own simplicity so as to match the simplicity of the Google home page itself.”

Mr Sullivan of Search Engine Watch says Google has become distracted. “Oh, give me a break,” he wrote in his blog after yet another product announcement. “A break from Google going in yet another direction when there is so much stuff they haven't finished, gotten right or need to fix.” He points to a rule in Google's corporate philosophy that “it's best to do one thing really, really well,” and suggests that the company is “doing 100 different things rather than one thing really, really well.”

Google is thus starting to look a bit as Microsoft did a decade ago, with one strength (Windows for Microsoft, search for Google) and a string of mediocre “me-too” products. Google Video, for instance, was supposed to become an online marketplace for video clips, both personal and business, but has been overtaken by YouTube, a start-up that is a few months old but already has four times as much video traffic. Google News, where the stories are, characteristically, chosen by mathematical algorithms rather than by editors, perennially lags behind Yahoo! News, with its old-fashioned human touch. Google's instant-messaging software is tiny compared with AOL's, Yahoo!'s and MSN's.

Google is beginning to resemble the old Microsoft in another way, too. A decade ago, Microsoft stood accused of stifling innovation, because entrepreneurs would stay away from any area of technology in which it showed any interest. Google, whose slogan is “Don't be evil”, hates this comparison and wants to think of itself as ventilating rather than stifling the ecosystem of developers and entrepreneurs. “I don't see how they can say that,” says an entrepreneur and competitor who is too afraid of unspecified consequences to speak on the record. Like most of Silicon Valley these days, he finds Google's slogan ridiculous, because “we're not evil either, we just don't go around saying it.”

Entrepreneurs like him are getting annoyed by Google's seemingly endless “betas”, also known as “technical previews”, when new products are not yet officially launched but available, ostensibly for testing and review. Traditionally, beta reviews were meant to last weeks or months and were targeted at testers who would find and report bugs. Google seems to use betas as dogs sprinkle trees—so that rivals know where it is. Google News recently graduated out of its beta after about four years.

In fairness, Google's role today is more complex than Microsoft's was in the 1990s, when start-ups often hoped to “exit” by listing their shares on the stockmarket, and were occasionally expunged by Microsoft before they got there. Today, start-ups (such as Writely, Picasa, Orkut and Urchin) often use Google (or the other internet titans) as the exit, selling themselves to the big guy. It works for individuals too. Paul Rademacher is a software engineer who last year came up with a clever way of combining Google's interactive maps with other websites. Google hired him.

To Google's initial surprise and subsequent chagrin (is it not enough to vow never to be evil?), it alienates more groups of people as it enters more areas of modern life. It appeared to be genuinely taken aback that some book publishers oppose its plan to scan their books and make them searchable. Google also seemed surprised when privacy advocates voiced concerns over its practice of placing advertisements in contextually related e-mail messages on its webmail service, and again this year when it announced a Chinese version that censors the search results.

Slowly, the company is realising that it is so important that it may not be able to control the ramifications of its own actions. “As more and more data builds up in the company's disk farms,” says Edward Felten, an expert on computer privacy at Princeton University, “the temptation to be evil only increases. Even if the company itself stays non-evil, its data trove will be a massive temptation for others to do evil.” In a world of rogue employees, intruders and accidents, he says, Google could be “one or two privacy disasters away from becoming just another internet company”.

Such concerns are forcing Messrs Brin and Page, still in their early 30s, and Eric Schmidt, whom they hired as chief executive and who is in his early 50s, to behave increasingly like a “normal” company. Google recently sent its first lobbyists to Washington, DC. Its decision to build an “evil scale” to help it devise its China strategy was more unusual, but its hiring of Al Gore, a former American vice-president, to aid the process, was just the kind of thing that old-fashioned empire-building firms do all the time.

Other companies are reacting in traditional ways to Google's dominance. Former rivals, such as eBay, Yahoo! and Microsoft, are exploring alliances to counter its influence. When Microsoft tried to buy AOL from its parent, Time Warner, Google's Mr Schmidt flew in for talks that led to Google taking a defensive stake in AOL, thus keeping it out of Microsoft's and Yahoo!'s reach. In response, Microsoft has contemplated buying all or part of Yahoo!, and has recently announced a vague but large increase in research spending which amounts to an arms race. Google is now alleging that Microsoft is unfairly steering users of its web browser to MSN for searches, and is preparing to dispatch lawyers to keep Microsoft in check.

Google thus finds itself at a defining moment. There are plenty of people within the company who want it to play the power game. “The folks who are closest to Larry and Sergey are very, very worried about Microsoft, as well they should be,” says John Battelle, the author of a blog and a book on Google. Yet the company's founders themselves may not be prepared to drop their idealism and their faith in their own mathematical genius. They have always wanted to succeed by being good and doing good. “Never once did we consider buying a big company,” says David Krane, Google's 84th employee, by way of example. It would not be googley. It would, he says, be “yuck”.

Microsoft scientists pushing keyboard into the past

2006-05-04T00:08:00.000-07:00

By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: May 3, 2006

That is if you have a copy of a prototype program from Microsoft Research currently named The Wild Thing. The application, for cell phones and handhelds, essentially lets consumers conduct queries with abbreviations and truncated spellings of words, said its developer Bo Thiesson.

The query TR SF turns up Thai restaurants in San Francisco, complete with search results grouped under a header for local Thai restaurants. It also turns up Tower Records and The Stinking Rose, a local restaurant, but punching in those four letters took less time on a handheld keyboard that the full formal query on a cell phone keypad.
Photo: Rethinking the keyboard

The Condi Rice query was conducted by using the telenumeric pad on the phone, where numbers represent three sequential letters (i.e. 2 equals A, B or C while 3 is D, E or F etc.) and punctuation marks represent word spaces or other grammatical rules. The query turned up grouped search results for Brown Rice, Anne Rice and Cellular Shades, but the Condi Rice group of results was listed first.

"The more popular an item is, the less letters I can get away with," he said. The application, he hopes, will be included in phones within a year. The company is currently in talks with device makers and carriers.

Cell phones are one of the dominant themes of the Microsoft Research road show, a traveling exhibition of technologies and prototypes from its labs. Naturally, one of the primary concerns is how to make it easier to input data or navigate the Web with a device that can't accommodate a traditional keyboard.

Xnav is another stab at the problem. It is a software interface where users input letters through sweeping motions and gestures. The letters (see photo) are arranged around the perimeter of a square screen divided into 10 blocks. To spell an "h" a user starts in the neutral space (the center, or block No. 5), sweeps his or her finger or a stylus to block No. 3 (for letters g, h, i, j and k) and then to block No. 2 (because h is the second letter in previously selected group No. 3). Double-clutching and hovering over certain spaces will activate the shift key and give access to punctuation marks.

"It depends on age. Millenniums (kids aged 10 to 21) are wicked fast," said John SanGiovanni, a Microsoft engineer who is developing the program in conjunction with researchers at NYU. "The goal is to get to 45 words per minute. Right now, I'm at just south of 30."

IBM has developed a similar prototype called Shark, while Hewlett-Packard has created one for the Indian market that accommodates Hindi and other languages.

Microsoft also showed off Pinpoint, an application that lets one person track another person's geographical whereabouts with GPS or triangulation with Wi-Fi or cellular. With Pinpoint, for instance, parents can tell if their kids have made it to the movies, or gone to a part of town they aren't supposed to go to. If you are running late for a dinner party, the system sends your geographic location to the host.

"It is all based on permission," said Rick Hughes, who is developing the system. Trials will begin soon. As far as accuracy goes, GPS is tough to beat, he said. Nonetheless, because GPS doesn't track indoors, Pinpoint will look at data from Wi-Fi or cellular.

Of the two, Wi-Fi triangulation works better. A cellular signal emanating from one spot will often rapidly switch from transmitting from one tower to another, which makes it look like the person is moving, he said.

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Released

2006-04-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
April 25, 2006, 3:33 AM

Microsoft early Tuesday put live the Beta 2 release of Internet Explorer 7, the company's new standalone browser for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. A new IE Web site is promoting the beta, which Microsoft is targeting at both enthusiasts and the general public.

IE7 Beta 2 follows a preview release in January and a layout-complete build that debuted at MIX 06 in March. Margaret Cobb, IE Group Product Manger, told BetaNews that although there have been many noticeable changes since MIX, Beta 2 brings improved compatibility and a far more reliable browsing experience.

"We feel like we've done a lot of work under the covers," Cobb said. "We're hoping that tech enthusiasts will all take a look at it and try it out."

IE7 notably adds a tabbed interface and improves on browser security. Microsoft has also built into the browser an RSS platform that provides a framework for downloading, storing and accessing RSS feeds across the Windows operating system.

Security features such as ActiveX controls being disabled by default and a phishing filter promise to keep Web surfers safe at a time when attacks are becoming more commonplace. IE7 also locks down cross site scripting and international domain names to prevent malicious use.

On the interface side, Microsoft says it has endeavored to make IE7 simpler, more streamlined and less cluttered. A customizable search box enables users to make quick queries to the engine of their choice, and a Favorites Center clusters favorites, tab groups, history and RSS feeds into a single panel.

A page zoom feature has also been added to aid those with vision disabilities. When a page is zoomed, images are also enlarged along with text. IE7 additionally will shrink a Web page for printing, with an option for printing only selected text.

Under the covers, Microsoft has beefed up IE7's technical capabilities. CSS improvements and transparent PNG support catch the browser up to rivals such as Firefox, and native support for XMLHTTP means AJAX-based Web applications will no longer require an ActiveX control to function.

Although Cobb warns that the new release is still beta, she is encouraging all Internet Explorer users to give it a try and provide feedback through newsgroups, blogs and a special support phone number. Highlighting Microsoft's confidence in Beta 2, those customers having problems with IE7 can receive free technical support over the phone.

Microsoft has rolled out a new add-on site to go along with Beta 2, which is located at ieaddons.com. Cobb told BetaNews the previous offering was "not a good way to promote our partners," and says the new site sports a simpler user interface and categories organized with tabs.

IE7 Beta 2 installs atop IE6, but users can remove the test release and revert back if necessary. Cobb notes that because IE6 is "part of the operating system" unlike IE7, it can never be fully replaced. Users of the IE7 Beta 2 Preview and MIX 06 interim build must uninstall those versions before installing Beta 2.

Microsoft has, however, designed a seamless upgrade path for Beta 2. The final IE7 release -- due out late this year -- will install directly over the beta.

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 is available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 in both 32-bit and 64-bit variants. Although English is the only language currently offered, Arabic, Finnish, German and Japanese versions will follow early next month.

Filesystems (ext3, reiser, xfs, jfs) comparison on Debian Etch

2006-04-21T10:22:00.000-07:00

Posted by hansivers on Fri 21 Apr 2006

There are a lot of Linux filesystems comparisons available but most of them are anecdotal, based on artificial tasks or completed under older kernels. This benchmark essay is based on 11 real-world tasks appropriate for a file server with older generation hardware (Pentium II/III, EIDE hard-drive).

Why another benchmark test?

I found two quantitative and reproductible benchmark testing studies using the 2.6.x kernel (see References). Benoit (2003) implemented 12 tests using large files (1+ Gb) on a Pentium II 500 server with 512 MB RAM. This test was quite informative but results are beginning to aged (kernel 2.6.0) and mostly applied to settings which manipulate exclusively large files (e.g., multimedia, scientific, databases).

Piszcz (2006) implemented 21 tasks simulating a variety of file operations on a PIII-500 with 768Mb RAM and a 400 Gb EIDE-133 hard disk. To date, this testing appears to be the most comprehensive work on the 2.6 kernel. However, since many tasks were "artificial" (e.g., copying and removing 10 000 empty directories, touching 10 000 files, splitting files recursively), it may be difficult to transfer some conclusions to real-world settings.

Thus, the objective of the present benchmark testing is to complete some Piszcz (2006) conclusions, by focusing exclusively on real-world operations found in small-business file servers (see Tasks description).

Test settings

* Hardware Processor : Intel Celeron 533
* RAM : 512Mb RAM PC100
* Motherboard : ASUS P2B
* Hard drive : WD Caviar SE 160Gb (EIDE 100, 7200 RPM, 8 MB Cache)
* Controller : ATA/133 PCI (Silicon Image)

* OS Debian Etch (kernel 2.6.15), distribution upgraded on April 18, 2006
* All optional daemons killed (cron,ssh,samba,etc.)

* Filesystems Ext3 (e2fsprogs 1.38)
* ReiserFS (reiserfsprogs 1.3.6.19)
* JFS (jfsutils 1.1.8)
* XFS (xfsprogs 2.7.14)

Description of selected tasks

* Operations on a large file (ISO image, 700Mb) Copy ISO from a second disk to the test disk
* Recopy ISO in another location on the test disk
* Remove both copies of ISO

* Operations on a file tree (7500 files, 900 directories, 1.9Gb) Copy file tree from a second disk to the test disk
* Recopy file tree in another location on the test disk
* Remove both copies of file tree

* Operations into the file tree List recursively all contents of the file tree and save it on the test disk
* Find files matching a specific wildcard into the file tree

* Operations on the file system Creation of the filesystem (mkfs) (all FS were created with default values)
* Mount filesystem
* Umount filesystem

The sequence of 11 tasks (from creation of FS to umounting FS) was run as a Bash script which was completed three times (the average is reported). Each sequence takes about 7 min. Time to complete task (in secs), percentage of CPU dedicated to task and number of major/minor page faults during task were computed by the GNU time utility (version 1.7).

RESULTS

Partition capacity

Initial (after filesystem creation) and residual (after removal of all files) partition capacity was computed as the ratio of number of available blocks by number of blocks on the partition. Ext3 has the worst inital capacity (92.77%), while others FS preserve almost full partition capacity (ReiserFS = 99.83%, JFS = 99.82%, XFS = 99.95%). Interestingly, the residual capacity of Ext3 and ReiserFS was identical to the initial, while JFS and XFS lost about 0.02% of their partition capacity, suggesting that these FS can dynamically grow but do not completely return to their inital state (and size) after file removal.
Conclusion : To use the maximum of your partition capacity, choose ReiserFS, JFS or XFS.

File system creation, mounting and unmounting

The creation of FS on the 20Gb test partition took 14.7 secs for Ext3, compared to 2 secs or less for other FS (ReiserFS = 2.2, JFS = 1.3, XFS = 0.7). However, the ReiserFS took 5 to 15 times longer to mount the FS (2.3 secs) when compared to other FS (Ext3 = 0.2, JFS = 0.2, XFS = 0.5), and also 2 times longer to umount the FS (0.4 sec). All FS took comparable amounts of CPU to create FS (between 59% - ReiserFS and 74% - JFS) and to mount FS (between 6 and 9%). However, Ex3 and XFS took about 2 times more CPU to umount (37% and 45%), compared to ReiserFS and JFS (14% and 27%).
Conclusion : For quick FS creation and mounting/unmounting, choose JFS or XFS.

Operations on a large file (ISO image, 700Mb)

The initial copy of the large file took longer on Ext3 (38.2 secs) and ReiserFS (41.8) when compared to JFS and XFS (35.1 and 34.8). The recopy on the same disk advantaged the XFS (33.1 secs), when compared to other FS (Ext3 = 37.3, JFS = 39.4, ReiserFS = 43.9). The ISO removal was about 100 times faster on JFS and XFS (0.02 sec for both), compared to 1.5 sec for ReiserFS and 2.5 sec for Ext3! All FS took comparable amounts of CPU to copy (between 46 and 51%) and to recopy ISO (between 38% to 50%). The ReiserFS used 49% of CPU to remove ISO, when other FS used about 10%. There was a clear trend of JFS to use less CPU than any other FS (about 5 to 10% less). The number of minor page faults was quite similar between FS (ranging from 600 - XFS to 661 - ReiserFS).
Conclusion : For quick operations on large files, choose JFS or XFS. If you need to minimize CPU usage, prefer JFS.

Operations on a file tree (7500 files, 900 directories, 1.9Gb)

The initial copy of the tree was quicker for Ext3 (158.3 secs) and XFS (166.1) when compared to ReiserFS and JFS (172.1 and 180.1). Similar results were observed during the recopy on the same disk, which advantaged the Ext3 (120 secs) compared to other FS (XFS = 135.2, ReiserFS = 136.9 and JFS = 151). However, the tree removal was about 2 times longer for Ext3 (22 secs) when compared to ReiserFS (8.2 secs), XFS (10.5 secs) and JFS (12.5 secs)! All FS took comparable amounts of CPU to copy (between 27 and 36%) and to recopy the file tree (between 29% - JFS and 45% - ReiserFS). Surprisingly, the ReiserFS and the XFS used significantly more CPU to remove file tree (86% and 65%) when other FS used about 15% (Ext3 and JFS). Again, there was a clear trend of JFS to use less CPU than any other FS. The number of minor page faults was significantly higher for ReiserFS (total = 5843) when compared to other FS (1400 to 1490). This difference appears to come from a higher rate (5 to 20 times) of page faults for ReiserFS in recopy and removal of file tree.
Conclusion : For quick operations on large file tree, choose Ext3 or XFS. Benchmarks from other authors have supported the use of ReiserFS for operations on large number of small files. However, the present results on a tree comprising thousands of files of various size (10kb to 5Mb) suggest than Ext3 or XFS may be more appropriate for real-world file server operations. Even if JFS minimize CPU usage, it should be noted that this FS comes with significantly higher latency for large file tree operations.

Directory listing and file search into the previous file tree

The complete (recursive) directory listing of the tree was quicker for ReiserFS (1.4 secs) and XFS (1.8) when compared to Ext3 and JFS (2.5 and 3.1). Similar results were observed during the file search, where ReiserFS (0.8 sec) and XFS (2.8) yielded quicker results compared to Ext3 (4.6 secs) and JFS (5 secs). Ext3 and JFS took comparable amounts of CPU for directory listing (35%) and file search (6%). XFS took more CPU for directory listing (70%) but comparable amount for file search (10%). ReiserFS appears to be the most CPU-intensive FS, with 71% for directory listing and 36% for file search. Again, the number of minor page faults was 3 times higher for ReiserFS (total = 1991) when compared to other FS (704 to 712).
Conclusion : Results suggest that, for these tasks, filesystems can be regrouped as (a) quick and more CPU-intensive (ReiserFS and XFS) or (b) slower but less CPU-intensive (ext3 and JFS). XFS appears as a good compromise, with relatively quick results, moderate usage of CPU and acceptable rate of page faults.

OVERALL CONCLUSION

These results replicate previous observations from Piszcz (2006) about reduced disk capacity of Ext3, longer mount time of ReiserFS and longer FS creation of Ext3. Moreover, like this report, both reviews have observed that JFS is the lowest CPU-usage FS. Finally, this report appeared to be the first to show the high page faults activity of ReiserFS on most usual file operations.

While recognizing the relative merits of each filesystem, an system administrator has no choice but to install only one filesystem on his servers. Based on all testing done for this benchmark essay, XFS appears to be the most appropriate filesystem to install on a file server for home or small-business needs :

* It uses the maximum capacity of your server hard disk(s)
* It is the quickest FS to create, mount and unmount
* It is the quickest FS for operations on large files (>500Mb)
* This FS gets a good second place for operations on a large number of small to moderate-size files and directories
* It constitutes a good CPU vs time compromise for large directory listing or file search
* It is not the least CPU demanding FS but its use of system ressources is quite acceptable for older generation hardware

While Piszcz (2006) did not explicitly recommand XFS, he concludes that "Personally, I still choose XFS for filesystem performance and scalability". I can only support this conclusion.

Google Opens Calendar Beta

2006-04-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
April 13, 2006, 12:36 AM

Google late Wednesday opened up its much-anticipated Calendar service to the public in beta form, complete with Gmail integration and SMS notifications. Code-named CL2, the free service enables users to quickly add events and reminders, send invitations and share their calendar with others.

Google Calendar can import events directly from Microsoft Outlook and Yahoo! Calendar, in addition to supporting calendar standards to view schedules on any device supporting iCal or XML files. Gmail will also recognize events mentioned in an e-mail to quickly add them to Google Calendar.

Sharing also plays a central role in the new service. Users can search their own agenda and even public calendars to find new events. Invitations can be sent to those even without a Google account, enabling them to post responses directly into the calendar.

For protection of sensitive data, limits can be placed on what events are shared, and organizations can even open their events to the world by integrating a Google Calendar button on their Web sites. The search giant also discusses potential privacy concerns, noting that it won't share personal information with anyone.

"Google's computers process the information in your calendars to offer you the best possible service, including formatting and displaying the information to you and backing up your calendars' contents. Google employees will not read your private calendar information," the company says.

Google Calendar works in IE 6 and Firefox on Windows, Mac and Linux. Safari support is still in the works, according to the company.

MSN Messenger Most Used IM Client

2006-04-12T00:45:00.000-07:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
April 11, 2006, 2:06 PM

Analytics firm comScore Networks announced Monday the results of its February measurement of instant messenger usage around the world, with Europe surpassing the United States in IM users for the first time. MSN Messenger was also ranked as the most used client, garnering 61 percent of the worldwide market.

According to the survey, 82 million people in Europe use instant messaging software, amounting to 49 percent of the online population. In the United States only 69 million of people use IM, or 37 percent of the online population. Latin America had the highest IM penetration covering 64 percent of Web users.

MSN Messenger has a strong hold over the market thanks to 90 percent reach in Latin America and 70 percent in Europe and Asian Pacific markets. Microsoft's IM client is still neck and neck with AOL Instant Messenger in the United States, however, with Yahoo! Messenger trailing closely behind.

comScore also noted that new IM clients are beginning to gain a foothold outside of the U.S., with voice calling software Skype leading the charge. Skype is used by 14 percent of all instant messenger users worldwide, although that includes only three percent of the online population in the United States.

Asia Pacific has the most voice chatters, says comScore, with Skype being used by 26 percent of that region's active IM population.

Apple Software Adds Windows to Mac

2006-04-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

By Ed Oswald and Nate Mook, BetaNews
April 5, 2006

In a stunning move, Apple on Wednesday officially sanctioned the running of the Windows XP operating system on Intel-based Macs through the release of a software package. Called Boot Camp, the 86MB beta product provides a dual-boot sequence and the drivers necessary to run Windows.

"Apple has no desire or plan to sell or support Windows, but many customers have expressed their interest to run Windows on Apple's superior hardware now that we use Intel processors," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.

"We think Boot Camp makes the Mac even more appealing to Windows users considering making the switch."

Rumors that Apple may have been considering native support of Windows began to circulate after the company joined Windows benchmarking group BAPco last week. Several insiders speculated that the move foreshadowed the release of Windows drivers and confirmation that virtualization would appear in the next version of Mac OS X, code-named "Leopard."

The technologies within Boot Camp would be included in that release, Apple confirmed in a statement.

Boot Camp provides an official solution for what hackers managed to accomplish in March, with one major difference: it does not destroy the existing Mac OS X data to install Windows. Users must provide their own Windows XP SP2 Home or Professional CD, and have at least 10GB of free disk space. Apple has included drivers, most importantly for the ATI video chipsets used within the Intel Macs.

Some features, such as Bluetooth Wireless keyboards and mice from Apple and the built-in remote control, will not work in Windows. The MacBook Pro's iSight camera and ambient light sensor will also not function.

"This is a win-win for Apple and Microsoft," Creative Strategies analysts Tim Bajarin said. "Apple should clearly be able to attract more "switchers" and on-the fence buyers to the Mac platform while Microsoft gets to sell full versions of Windows XP to Mac users."

"The obvious benefactor would be MacBook Pro, which could appeal to people interested in the sleek laptop but needing to run Windows," added Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox.

"For example, JupiterResearh surveys show pretty good uptake of Mac OS X on the desktop, mainly as a Unix replacement. Those same businesses, many of which already have rights to Windows licenses through their enterprise agreements, could install Windows XP on Intel-based Macs. For that exec long lusting for an Apple laptop, Windows XP could make the difference."

Firefox Past 10 Percent Share

2006-04-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
April 4, 2006, 4:54 PM

Web analytics firm Net Applications announced Monday that the open source Firefox browser has finally passed 10 percent market share, according to the firm's statistics for March. The 10.05 percent usage was up from 9.75 percent in February. Microsoft's Internet Explorer still holds a commanding lead with 84.7 percent of the market, Net Applications said.

However, according to another analytics firm, Firefox had already surpassed 10 percent market share last November. OneStat.com reported at the time that Mozilla browsers had reached 11.51 percent usage globally based on a sample of two million users from 100 companies.

Despite the conflicting numbers, it's clear that Firefox continues to gain a foothold -- especially overseas. Internet Explorer, meanwhile, is continuing its slow slide. The ubiquitous browser held 86 percent of the market last November, and its market share of the browser has fallen every month except one since December 2004, when it controlled 90.31 percent of the market.

"With a strong feature set, aggressive product development cycle, open source platform and by offering the browser for free, Firefox has the strategy in place to maintain its growth," said Vincent Vizzaccaro, executive vice president of marketing and strategic relationships at Net Applications. "But Microsoft has the much easier task of defending an entrenched position rather than attacking one."

Over the last year, Firefox has gained an additional 3.34 percent of the market.

Apple's Safari Web browser also continues to be on the rise, clocking in a 3.19 percent usage share in March, according to Net Applications. Netscape was listed in the fourth spot with 1.05 percent of the market, followed by Opera with 0.54 percent. A small number of users -- 0.34 percent -- continue to use the Mozilla Suite.

MS Virtual Server Free, Supports Linux

2006-04-04T07:43:00.000-07:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
April 3, 2006, 1:49 PM

While most of the buzz at this week's LinuxWorld in Boston is intended to revolve around the open-source operating system, Microsoft on Monday decided to use a backdrop of the semi-annual Linux confab to make some waves of its own.

The company has announced that it would support those customers who decide to run Linux under Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2. Installations of Red Hat and SUSE Linux have been made simpler through software created by the Redmond company. Additionally, Microsoft would provide technical support for those who decide to run both through virtualization.

Microsoft will build virtualization directly into Windows Server "Longhorn". Through the "hypervisor technology," users of Longhorn will be able to host multiple operating systems on a single machine.

Additionally, Microsoft will now make Windows Virtual Server 2005 R2 a free download from its Web site. Previously, the application cost $99 USD for up to four processors and $199 USD for an unlimited number. The company said the move was made in response to customer requests.

Analysts speculate that the company's announcements have a lot to do with the recent activity in the virtualization sector.

VMware has made moves to solidify its position by offering a free version of its software called VMware Player. Additionally, the Xen virtualizaton project would be built into upcoming versions of Red and SUSE Linux.

"We see virtualization technology as a key stepping stone toward the vision of self-managing dynamic systems," Windows Server product marketing director Zane Adam said in a statement.

"Toward that end, we want to make virtualization more broadly accessible and affordable so our customers can realize benefits in areas like server consolidation, disaster recovery, application re-hosting, and software test and development," Adam continued.

Microsoft says that about 5,000 customers are currently using the Virtual Server product.

Scan for Viruses use Knoppix

2006-03-29T07:47:00.000-08:00

Ridding a network of Windows computers of a virus or worm can seem impossible. Viruses may cause computers to reboot and infect new machines while you are in the process of removing them. Through the use of the live-software installer, Knoppix provides a solution to this catch-22

Viruses and worms are a common problem in the computing world today. It seems every other day a new virus or worm comes out, and anti-virus vendors must quickly update their signatures to block the new outbreak. Unfortunately not everyone has a virus scanner installed on his system, or if he does, it might not be kept up to date. When the worst happens, you must make sure that the virus doesn't spread to other computers on the network or damage your files. If you install a virus scanner, you must be sure that the virus can't find a way to infect, disable, or hide from it.

There are several advantages to using Knoppix as a virus scanner over the alternatives:

* You are booting off of read-only media.
* While the home directory in Knoppix is writable from a ramdisk, all the system files are on read-only media. Even if a virus can somehow infect Knoppix, it isn't able to modify any of the system files, and any files it can infect are deleted at the next reboot. Also, all the underlying partitions are mounted read-only by default. Unless you purposely mount a partition read/write, it is not possible for an infection to spread to your partitions.
* The possibly infected system is not running.
* Knoppix is running outside of your underlying system, so any viruses that might have been loaded into memory have been erased, and the hard drive itself is, in effect, frozen in time, so you don't have to worry about a virus evading deletion. This also means you don't have to worry about the virus spreading, so you can connect the machine to the network while it is running Knoppix to read any advisories or download any files you might need.
* You are booting off of a completely different operating system.
* While viruses have been written for Linux in the past and more will be written in the future, it is still rather uncommon. Let's face it; you are probably scanning a Windows system for a virus or worm that runs only on Windows, and Knoppix runs off of a completely different operating system, so even if you accidentally click on a virus-infected file, it doesn't launch the virus. If the virus has infected other machines on the network and is scanning systems to infect, you don't have to worry about reinfection while you are running off of Knoppix.
* It's free.
* While it is still advisable to have virus protection running on a Windows system at all times, virus protection can be expensive—not only due to the initial cost, but also to the annual subscription fees to get virus-definition updates. If you can't afford virus-protection software, you can at least scan your system periodically with Knoppix for free.

F-Prot is a free virus scanner that you can run under Linux. You can install F-Prot with Knoppix's live-software installer, covered in . The live installer needs a working Internet connection to download the program, and the program itself needs to be able to download updates as well.

Click K Menu→KNOPPIX→Utilities→Install software, select f-prot, and click OK to start the installation. Once the installation finishes, click K Menu→KNOPPIX→Extra Software→f-prot to start the F-Prot GUI.

After you launch F-Prot, immediately select option 4, "Do Online Update," to make sure that you have the latest list of virus definitions (see ). Once the update is finished, choose "Select partition(s)" from the F-Prot GUI, or if you have already mounted the partition, you can choose "Select a directory/file" to pick the directory to scan. Once you choose a directory, you are dropped back to the main menu where you can then choose Scan to start the scanning process. A progress meter appears, and the length of the virus scan varies, depending on the size of the directory you are scanning.

Figure 1. The F-Prot GUI

Once the process is finished, F-Prot displays a report that lists the different files it has scanned. The information you are probably most interested in, whether you are infected or not, is listed at the very bottom of the file. There, you should see how many files F-Prot has scanned, and under that, you should see whether F-Prot has found any viruses. If you are clean, you should see "No viruses or suspicious files/boot sectors were found."

TIP

If you do have an infection, it can be time-consuming to filter through the output to find which files are infected. To make this easier, run grep to search for the word Infection on the F-Prot output file that is in your home directory by typing the following command in a terminal: grep Infection ~/report-2004-05-17-0.txt.

Once you have a list of suspicious or infected files, you can mount the partition read/write and delete or rename the files. If you are a Windows expert who is comfortable with registry edits, you can follow the steps in Hack #76 to remove any registry keys the virus might have left behind. You might also want to view advisories on the viruses that F-Prot finds on http://www.cert.org or other security sites, and see if perhaps there is a patch you can download to protect your system from this virus or worm in the future. Now is a good time to save any patches you might need to your hard drive, so you can boot back to your computer without having to connect to the network, and install the patch.

MS: Windows More Reliable Than Linux

2006-03-24T00:29:00.000-08:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
March 23, 2006, 11:48 AM

Microsoft made a statement on Thursday that is sure to rile its detractors: the Windows Server operating system is being chosen in greater numbers by corporations over UNIX and Linux for its reliability.

To support the claim, Microsoft said companies such as Altera, Rayovac, and CompUSA cited that fact in their decisions to choose the Windows platform.

Additionally, the company citied data from research firm IDC that showed Windows Server was the most popular platform for those migrating from legacy UNIX systems, with 45 percent turning to Windows.

It should be mentioned, however, that over half in the study did not choose Microsoft's products -- with 37 percent moving to Linux, and 16 percent choosing another UNIX variant.

'According to IDC, the UNIX market is not defaulting to Linux. In fact, Windows Server is the No. 1 platform targeted by UNIX customers,' platform strategy director Ryan Gavin said. 'We expect the migration trend to Windows Server to accelerate.'

Microsoft and partner Intel recently completed a national tour in the second half of last year highlighting the benefits of switching from UNIX to Windows Server on Intel's 64-bit chips. Microsoft said it understood that most were moving from 64-bit RISC systems, thus they expected the same support within the Windows platform.

The company has invested heavily in 64-bit computing, making its Windows Server 2003, SQL Server 2005, and the upcoming version of Exchange Server all 64-bit compatible.

'We needed performance, security and reliability at a reasonable price, and Linux would have presented greater risk in all those areas,' Rayovac CIO Rick Dempsey said in support of the announcement. 'I need a proven IT environment that I'm sure we can support.'

Mozilla Offers Alpha of Firefox 2.0

2006-03-22T21:57:00.000-08:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
March 22, 2006, 12:35 PM

Mozilla late Tuesday began the push towards Firefox 2.0 with the release of Bon Echo Alpha 1, designed to give a preview of the company's upcoming revision to its popular alternative web browser. One of the most notable new features of Firefox 2 will be its improved bookmark functionality, called Places.

Changes have also been made to tabbed browsing, support for SVG, and numerous bug fixes. While the release is not recommended for daily use, Mozilla is asking users to download, test, and provide feedback on the build. "The BonEcho Alpha 1 milestone is the first of many developer milestones on the path to Firefox 2," Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering for Mozilla, said in a statement.

Microsoft Delays Vista Until 2007

2006-03-22T04:35:00.000-08:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
March 21, 2006, 5:49 PM

Microsoft revealed Tuesday afternoon what many had expected for months -- consumer availability of Windows Vista has been delayed until 2007.

While businesses would be able to get their hands on the finished product in November, consumers would not find the operating system on new machines until January. The delay also throws a wrench into the holiday marketing plans of many PC manufacturers this season.

Vista chief Jim Allchin said that the delay resulted from both quality issues as well as requests from some of its partners. "We're trying to do the responsible thing here," Allchin told reporters in a hastily arranged teleconference.

Rumors had been circulating of a possible 2007 launch since the lackluster public appearance of the current incarnation of Vista, then Longhorn, at WinHEC 2005.

It was the opinion of many, including some notable Windows enthusiasts, that Microsoft was not making considerable progress at the time in Vista development. Some speculated that the company's Holiday 2006 timeframe for launch was optimistic if Microsoft wanted to deliver a quality product.

Allchin's comments seemed to reflect those early concerns. "Product quality and a great out-of-box experience have been two of our key drivers for Windows Vista, and we are on track to deliver on both," he assured. "We must optimize for the industry, so we've decided to separate business and consumer availability."

He said the delay had to do with usability issues as well as ensuring Vista was up to par with Microsoft's security standards.

Allchin would not specify a date for when it would ship code to install on new PCs -- called a "release to manufacturing" -- instead pointing to the January date for consumer availability. Volume licensing customers, however, would get their hands on the code in November.

"We just needed a few more weeks," Allchin said. He said that put their partners in a "bubble" where some would be put at a disadvantage by a later release.

Microsoft's partners did not unanimously welcome the decision for a delay, Allchin admitted. Some said that Microsoft's tight holiday schedule left little room for error.

However, Microsoft said it did not expect it to affect PC sales during the holiday quarter. "You can ask the partners what they think," he quipped.

foobar2000 v0.9 released

2006-03-19T07:51:00.000-08:00

Foobar2000 0.9 + Columns UI 0.1.3 pre-alpha 17v5 (download)

Foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include full unicode support, ReplayGain support and native support for several popular audio formats.

Download version 0.9 -- Installer [1.53MB]

Features

* Audio formats supported: MP1, MP2, MP3, MP4, MPC, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC / Ogg FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, AU, SND, CDDA.
* Full unicode support.
* Advanced tagging capabilities.
* Support for transcoding all supported audio formats using the Converter component (requires external commandline encoder executables for different output formats).
* ReplayGain support - both playback and calculation.
* Customizable keyboard shortcuts.
* Open component architecture allowing third-party developers to extend functionality of the player.

Change log:

- Reworked UI structure, removed various redundant / rarely used features.
- New: Media Library, replacing old “database” functionality.
- Improved playlist management - better handling of multiple playlists, native multilevel undo and more.
- Changes in title formatting script (field remappings) to make common operations easier.
- New: Converter, replacing old “Diskwriter” component. Includes album image writing (cuesheet creation, direct encoding to MP4 with chapters), preview generation and multi-CPU optimizations. Most popular encoders are supported out-of-the-box; more encoders can be added using generic commandline encoder setup.
- Improved support for specific file formats: faster tag updates with MP3 and FLAC, new native ID3v2 support, rewritten MP4 support now including chapters, rewritten cuesheet handling with improved handling of embedded cuesheets, improved AAC streaming support, and more.
- Various speed optimizations, improved UI responsivity during time-consuming operations; better handling of overkill playlist scripts.
- New: file type associations page in preferences.
- New and improved ReplayGain scanner with proper multichannel support and multi-CPU optimizations; now with option to apply RG adjustment directly to audio data in MP3 files.
- Improved audio CD support, with simple secure ripping functionality.
- Rewritten network code.
- Improved security by replacing various third party libraries with own implementations.
- Various usability improvements.
- Dropped Windows 95/98/ME/NT4 OS support. Windows 2000, XP or newer is now required.

Writely Buy Hints at Google Office

2006-03-13T04:07:00.000-08:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
March 9, 2006, 5:07 PM

Google on Thursday confirmed what many have been speculating since Monday: the search giant has purchased yet another Web 2.0 darling by the name of Writely. Writely serves as a Web based word processor with sharing and collaboration features. But does this really mean Google Office is near?

Writely was launched into beta in August 2005 by start Upstartle. The service quickly gained attention for its ability to bring advanced editing features directly into the Web browser through the use of advanced scripting and AJAX.

Features of the service include the ability for multiple people to work on a document in real time, secure storage that saves a document every 10 seconds, and an easy to use interface that mimics a desktop client without the hassle of a download.

Writely's developers commented on the Google purchase in a blog posting Thursday, promising to keep the service reliable and secure. There are no plans to add Google advertising to the site, the team says.

"Coming to Google will eventually give us a leg up on getting things done that we just haven't been able to with our tiny team. But this will take time - our team isn't going to grow exponentially overnight - so please don't hound us with feature requests any more than you have been already!"

The acquisition has already sparked talk of Google planning to build a Web-based office suite. In addition, screenshots of a calendar service, currently in closed testing at Google, surfaced earlier this week.

"I've been blogging for a long time that Google will have an office suite by the end of 2006, and today they added a word processor to their email and calendar offerings," commented AOL executive Jason Calacanis. "After the Office-killer is completed they will launch the OS."

Venture capitalist Michael Arrington seemed to agree with that assessment in a posting to the TechCrunch Web log.

"This signals two things: a confirmation of Google's desire to hit Microsoft hard and attack their largest revenue product, and that they will do this at least partially through acquisition rather than building the office suite entirely in-house," he commented. "When, if ever, will Microsoft respond with their own online versions of the Office products?"

While Writely is transitioning to Google's servers the company is not accepting any new registrations. However, users can sign up to be notified when the Writely beta becomes publicly available once again.

Microsoft Building New Free Mail Client

2006-03-13T04:04:00.000-08:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
March 10, 2006, 2:35 PM

Internet Explorer isn't the only application to enjoy a resurgence in Windows Vista -- Microsoft is readying a new desktop e-mail client that will be integrated into Windows Live and eventually replace Outlook Express. Dubbed Windows Live Mail Desktop, the product is currently in beta testing.

As IE development stagnated following the release of Windows XP, Outlook Express -- Microsoft's free e-mail client -- suffered a similar fate. But the OE team returned to update the product for Vista under the name Windows Mail, and is now expanding that work with a completely separate application.

Windows Mail in Vista brings to the table evolutionary improvements to Outlook Express 6, including an integrated spam and phishing filter, community features for Microsoft newsgroups and built-in spell checking. The client has also been linked up with Vista's contact database and search functionality.

However, much has changed in the Internet landscape since OE6 debuted in 2001. RSS and blogging have begun to spread, and users are spending more time utilizing Web based services now that broadband has reached ubiquity. Microsoft unveiled Windows Live last year to help usher in this new era.

Windows Live Mail Desktop will fill the role of connecting the operating system with a number of Live services. The client directly connects with Windows Live Mail without configuration, and integrates Live Messenger contacts directly into the interface.

A "Photo Mail" feature takes pictures from a digital camera and resizes them for e-mails, while uploading a larger version to MSN. For those not using Live Mail, the desktop client supports any POP or IMAP e-mail account, with support for multiple inboxes.

Aside from e-mail, RSS also plays a major role in Windows Live Mail Desktop. The software can serve as a complete RSS reader, enabling users to organize subscriptions using folders, instantly see unread items, and view items in a built-in preview pane.

Users can also click on an RSS item and immediately blog about it using the new "Blog It!" feature.

"Blogging and RSS looks like they're here to stay and phishing is more dangerous than ever. Now is the time to add life back into my favorite free email client and we're injecting a large dose of adrenaline to kick things back up," says Live Mail Desktop developer Lei Gong.

Other improvements being added to the client according to Gong include a redesigned user interface, emoticon and inline spell checking, and automatic syncing with Hotmail contacts.

Microsoft has not yet said how it plans to position Windows Live Mail Desktop or when the new client will be completed. Windows Mail in Vista will not be replaced before the new operating ships later this year, indicating that Live Mail Desktop will be offered as a free download for users seeking out added functionality.

A beta version of the software will be made available through ideas.live.com in the coming weeks, according to the Live Mail Desktop team.

IBM Builds Super Fast File System

2006-03-09T17:38:00.000-08:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
March 9, 2006, 5:44 PM

IBM on Thursday announced that it had scored a breakthrough in file system technology that increases the speed of data access by seven times. Researchers were able to attain a 102-gigabyte per second transfer rate on the ASC Purple supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in a recent test.

The file system was an astonishing 1.6 petabytes in size, the largest ever in the world, and performance was maintained even as 1,000 clients pushed workloads into the file. The project used 104 Power-based eServer p575 nodes and 416 storage controllers, IBM said in a statement.

The development permits a whole new class of applications, says the company. "Computing capability has been growing very fast, but the file system capacity has not kept up," IBM distinguished engineer Dr. Rama Govindaraju told BetaNews in an interview earlier this week.

Called the General Parallel File System (GPFS), the technology allows for high-speed access to files across multiple nodes of a Linux or AIX cluster. The file system could be used in a variety of fields, including engineering design, digital media and entertainment, data mining, financial analysis, seismic data processing and scientific research.

Govindaraju says that the biggest bottleneck to prevent more feature-rich applications were the file system's capacity and size. "More and more, computers are transitioning from numbers and strings-based to media-based analytics," he added.

With the enhanced capacity of GPFS, entirely new applications have been made possible. For example, the system is already seeing use in medical imaging, and is allowing for doctors to search and compare through thousands of images sometimes hundreds of megabytes in size each.

Uses in the medical field could go beyond just imaging, to enable more intelligent medicine, better medicine design, and for use in educational purposes as well.

The system could also have use in homeland security applications. Govindaraju offered a hypothetical situation where cameras at an airport could be connected to a GPFS-enabled computer allowing for pictures to be taken of passengers at multiple angles and compared to databases of known terror suspects.

"These pictures would have scanned and analyzed before the passenger gets to the immigration officer," he said.

IBM will push GPFS on several fronts, including an effort to even promote its use on non-IBM hardware. The source code behind the file system will be released to eligible clients who can develop upon the technology and share their work with others.

However, the impetus behind the development of GPFS is the user's changing computer needs, says Govidaraju. "The kind of data people are operating on is completely different from even ten years back," he said.

Google’s new CL2 Calendar

2006-03-09T17:28:00.000-08:00

Here is the default view of Google’s new CL2 Calendar:

About CL2

CL2 makes it easy — even effortless — to keep track of all the events in your life and compare them to what your friends and family have going on in theirs. We’ve designed a calendar that works for you — helping you add events from email, friends, and other public calendars — so you don’t have to spend all your time maintaining your schedule. CL2 even helps you discover new events you might be interested in. We think it’s a great tool for managing your daily schedule, keeping track of what everyone in your family is doing, organizing events for a club or team, or creating public events that you can promote to the world.

CL2 is closely, very closely, integrated with Gmail. It includes now-standard web 2.0 features - Ajax, subscription feeds for integration with iCal and other desktop calendars, event creation, search, sharing, notifications (including SMS) and more.

It’s also clear from the event creation functionality that Google is is going to attempt to aggregate events like eventful and zvents do now. If they combine their event creation feature with a web crawl and parsing of event data (exactly what zvents does), they will be able to create a very large events database.

Firefox 2 to Include Anti-Phishing Tech

2006-03-09T17:08:00.000-08:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
March 9, 2006, 2:51 PM

Google's anti-phishing technology will make it to the trunk Mozilla code for the popular Firefox browser, and the company has confirmed some type of anti-phishing technology would be included with Firefox 2.0, according to press reports Thursday.

The second version of the alternative browser is scheduled for the third quarter of this year, close to the expected release of Internet Explorer 7. Microsoft has also added its own anti-phishing technology to IE 7, promoting it as one of the most significant additions to the market leading browser.

Technologies to combat phishing are already included in Netscape and Opera 8. Building such capabilities into Web browsers is both an effort to curb the rapidly increasing number of attacks, as well as a natural extension of the fight itself.

Most phishing attacks, which involve the stealing of usernames, passwords and confidential information, occur on the Web. Thus, building technology into Web browsers makes sense, say experts.

Mozilla has not yet committed on how it would incorporate Google's technology, or if it would use the Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine's implementation at all.

Currently, Google offers the Safe Browsing plug-in for Firefox, which its Google Labs division released in December of last year. The decision to possibly include Google technology into the browser likely has a lot to do with the two companies' close ties -- especially with several former Firefox developers now working for the search giant.

While an alpha release of Firefox 2 will likely be released later this month, the anti-phishing technology would not be included initially. However, Mozilla said it could appear in later builds on an experimental basis.

Confirmation of Mozilla's anti-phishing plans first appeared in an article on CNET News.com Thursday.

New Firefox Extention: Viamatic foXpose

2006-03-04T22:22:00.000-08:00

Extend Firefox Contest Winners: Best in Class: Most Innovative New Extension

Quick Description:
Click on the icon in the status bar or Press F8 to activate foXpose to view all the browser windows with a single click..

This extension requires 1.5.0 or higher.
Latest Version: Viamatic foXpose 0.3

Definitely one of my top ten favorite extensions!

Wikipedia Posts 1 Millionth Article

2006-03-02T17:14:00.001-08:00

By BetaNews Staff, BetaNews
March 2, 2006, 12:16 PM

The online user-created encyclopedia Wikipedia racked up its 1 millionth English language article on Wednesday, marking a significant milestone for a service that has faced much controversy over the years. The article covered the Jordanhill railway station in Scotland and was authored by Ewan Macdonald.

Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind the project, says a total of 3.3 million articles are under development in more than 125 languages. 'Although its method of editing is new and controversial, Wikipedia has already won acclaim and awards for its detailed coverage of current events, popular culture, and scientific topics; its usability; and its international community of contributors,' the Foundation said in a statement.

ICANN: China Not Forming New Internet

2006-03-02T17:14:00.000-08:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
March 2, 2006, 3:34 PM

Initial reports that China may have been attempting to split off the Internet by creating its own Chinese-language top level domains now appear to be untrue. A spokeperson for China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said that the country has no intention of creating its own root servers, or breaking away from the global Internet.

The misunderstanding was caused by an inaccurate report in the English version of the state run People's Daily Online. The report, which was somewhat ambigious, gave the impression that pre-existing work being done under the .cn domain name was being done as a top-level domain to replace .com and .net.

China has had a system of Chinese character domain names under their approved top-level domain for the past four years, the CNNIC said. According to both ICANN and the CNNIC, the only change was the addition of a Chinese-language ".mil" domain under the ".cn" root.

The adjustments were made to bring the country's domain names into agreement with an article in a government decree known as the China Internet Domain Names Regulations.

The reason why the incorrect report may have been picked up so quickly by Western journalists was rather simple. After the Bush administration was successful in keeping control of the ICANN last year, rumors began to circulate of plans by disenchanted countries to break away from the global network.

China was one of those countries that objected to continued United States rule over the ICANN body that governs the Internet, instead supporting a plan to have the United Nations assume control of the organization.

Cairo-based version enabled in Firefox trunk builds

2006-02-28T19:47:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Cairo graphics library logo.

Cairo is a free software graphics library with multiple backends, that provides a vector-based device-independent API for software developers. Currently it has backends that support output to the X Window System, Win32, the BeOS API, OpenGL contexts (via glitz), local image buffers and PNG files. Future backends are planned that will support output to PDF, PostScript and SVG files. Cairo is designed to use hardware-acceleration when available.

Although written in C, there are bindings for using the cairo graphics library from many other programming languages, including C , Haskell, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, and several others.

Cairo was started by Keith Packard and Carl Worth for use in the X Window System. It was originally called Xr or Xr/Xc. The name was changed to emphasize the idea that it was a cross-platform library and not tied to the X server. The name cairo was actually derived from the original name Xr. The first syllable was based on the visual similarity between the letter X and the Greek letter Chi, and the second syllable was based on the similarity in pronunciation between the letter r and the Greek letter Rho.

Cairo is intended to compete with similar technologies like WPF from Microsoft and Quartz from Apple Computer.

High-profile usage

Gecko 1.8, the layout engine for Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and SeaMonkey 1.0 web browsers, uses cairo to render SVG and

Windows Live ID to Replace Passport

2006-02-28T07:34:00.000-08:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
February 27, 2006, 6:56 PM

EXCLUSIVE Microsoft plans to roll its Passport authentication service into the Windows Live family of Web services by 2007, renaming it to Windows Live ID, BetaNews has learned. While the company is keeping mum on specifics, the service would make use of Microsoft's new InfoCard technology.

Sources familiar with the situation say Windows Live ID is part of up to three-dozen "Live" services currently in development. Some of these products would piggyback on top of preexisting services -- like Windows Live Local Search Free Call, which enables users to call businesses directly from search results.

Standalone offerings, meanwhile, would include products like the Windows Live Toolbar and the recently announced Windows Live Family Safety Settings.

While most of these services will not be released by April, when the core Windows Live family is said to be exiting beta, the revelation of a whole host of new Live products in the pipeline indicates Microsoft is placing a major bet on the Web services concept.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the existence of Windows Live ID to BetaNews late Monday, calling it the authentication service for Windows Live. "You may consider it a major upgrade to Passport technology," he said. According to Microsoft, Windows Live ID would play a large part in making upcoming services possible.

"We do plan for Windows Live ID to work with InfoCards in the future," he continued, although declined to say whether the feature would make it into the service's initial launch.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates provided the first clues to the existence of Windows Live ID at the RSA Conference earlier this month, when he said InfoCard was intended to replace Passport and would make password-based authentication obsolete.

With over 30 services potentially taking on the "Live" moniker, industry watchers are warning that the Redmond company risks diluting the brand like it did with the .NET concept.

"Within a matter of months [after .NET's initial release], Microsoft marketers began attaching the .Net moniker to all kinds of products, from Windows .Net Servers, to MapPoint.Net," said Mary Jo Foley, author of the Microsoft Watch newsletter. ".Net became a meaningless term that even Redmond's own couldn't explain concisely."

According to Foley, Microsoft risks the same result with Windows Live if it isn't careful. "It seems like Microsoft, its partners and its customers could benefit from some kind of clearly articulated policy as to what will and won't be considered a Live property."

The Microsoft spokesperson could not confirm public release dates or the number of Windows Live projects in development, but acknowledged, "you'll see many more new products in the coming months."

Google admits Desktop security risk

2006-02-20T19:50:00.000-08:00

By Tom Espiner
Special to CNET News.com
Published: February 20, 2006, 9:50 AM PST

Businesses have been warned by research company Gartner that the latest Google Desktop Beta has an "unacceptable security risk," and Google agrees.

On Feb. 9, Google unveiled Google Desktop 3, a free, downloadable program that includes an option to let users search across multiple computers for files. To do that, the application automatically stores copies of files, for up to a month, on Google servers. From there, copies are transferred to the user's other computers for archiving. The data is encrypted in transmission and while stored on Google servers.

The risk to enterprises, according to Gartner, lies in how this shared information is pooled by Google. The data is transferred to a remote server, where it is stored and can then be shared between users for up to 30 days.

Gartner said in a report on Thursday that the "mere transport (of data) outside the enterprise will represent an unacceptable security risk to many enterprises," as intellectual property could be transported out of the business.

Google told ZDNet UK on Monday that it recognized the risk, and recommended that companies take action. "We recognize that this is a big issue for enterprise. Yes, it's a risk, and we understand that businesses may be concerned," said Andy Ku, European marketing manager for Google.

Google confirmed to ZDNet UK that data was temporarily transported outside of businesses when the Search Across Computers feature was used, and that this represented "as much of a security risk as e-mail does."

"Theoretically any intellectual property can be transferred outside of a company," Ku said. "We understand that there are a lot of security concerns about the Search Across Computers feature, but Google won't hold information unless the user or enterprise opts in (to the feature)."

Google said that security was the concern of individual businesses. "The burden falls on enterprises to look after security issues," Ku said. "Companies can disable the Search Across Computers facility."

Gartner said that sensitive documents may be inadvertently shared by workers, who may not have specialist knowledge of regulatory or security restrictions.

Google said it was unable to comment on the risks posed when individuals share sensitive information. "Some users may, and some users may not be able to," said Ku, adding that companies should follow their own policies.

"At the end of the day, each company should make its own decision. If they are uncomfortable, they shouldn't enable the feature," Ku said. "It's about what a company deems to be best corporate policy."

Gartner has recommended that businesses use Google Desktop for Enterprise, as this allows systems administrators to centrally turn off the Search Across Computers feature, which it said should be "immediately disabled."

Companies "must also evaluate what they are allowing to be indexed, and whether they are comfortable that they can adequately bar the sharing of data with Google's servers," said Gartner.

Google agreed that Google Desktop Enterprise would better mitigate security risks. "If you're given a choice, choose Enterprise," said Ku.

Firefox Users Quarrel Over Memory 'Leak'

2006-02-19T00:31:00.000-08:00

By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb News
February 16, 2006 (4:17 PM EST)

Firefox's memory appetite has some users up in arms, but according to one of the open-source browser's developers, that's part of the plan.

Complaints about Firefox's memory use, particularly charges that it "leaks" memory -- that it doesn't release memory once it's done using it -- had been circulating for some time before Ben Goodger, now employed by Google, but still a lead engineer on the browser project, posted an explanation on his blog Tuesday.

"What I think many people are talking about however with Firefox 1.5 is not really a memory leak at all. It is in fact a feature," wrote Goodger.

Goodger went on to describe how Firefox 1.5's Back-Forward feature caches recently-viewed pages so that they're immediately available when users click the Back or Forward navigational buttons.

"This can be a lot of data," Goodger said. "It's a trade-off. What you get out of it is faster performance as you navigate."

Firefox, said, Goodger, will cache up to 8 previous pages, depending on how much memory the machine has. A PC with 1GB or more will cache as many as 8 pages, while a computer with just 256MB or memory will cache only 3.

Goodger's explanation didn't sit well with every Firefox user. As of Thursday morning, more than 200 comments had been left on this blog, while at Slashdot, twice as many have opined.

Most of those complaints centered on Firefox's refusal to free up memory once tabs had been closed. "I have closed tabs down to a single tab and seen no improvement in memory usage," said one example comment to Goodger's blog.

As other writers rose to Firefox's defense, tempers flared. "Users don't want to hear it's because of a 'poorly coded webpage' or 'it's your flash plugin'. They just want to use a browser that doesn't leak memory like there is no tomorrow," wrote another user.

"In general, Firefox should release memory when tabs are closed," said Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's director of engineering, on Thursday. "There are actually several different caches, which makes this a complicated issue.

"But there are cases where they're leaks," he acknowledged.

Goodger had admitted the same in his post. "All versions of Firefox no doubt leak memory -- it is a common problem with software this complicated."

Although the issue is unresolved -- commentators continued to argue over such practices as garbage collection and memory compaction -- Schroepfer said that Mozilla's goal was to "balance memory usage and performance."

"It's hard to set an exact target" for memory usage, he continued, which is why Firefox employs techniques like that used by the Back-Forward cache, where more memory is available to the browser when the PC has more system RAM.

Users can also manually tweak the Back-Forward cache setting, said Schroepfer, to reduce the amount of memory the feature consumes.

Within Firefox, enter "about:config" (minus the quotation marks) in the address bar to access the program's configuration file. Scroll down to the entry "browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers" (again, minus quotes), and double-click it.

In the ensuing "Enter integer value" field, type:

"0" to disable the cache "1" through "8" to set the maximum cache as 1 through 8 previously-viewed pages "-1" to return the cache to its default.

Firefox 2.0 To Stress Tab, Bookmark, Extension Changes

2006-02-18T07:35:00.000-08:00

By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb News
February 17, 2006 (3:38 PM EST)

Mozilla Corp.'s lead engineer isn't worried about Microsoft's upcoming Internet Explorer 7, but instead is focusing on getting the next version of Firefox out the door.

"IE 7 is a pretty good catch-up," said Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering. "But it does some funny things with tabs and the UI that I don't understand why they did it."

Mozilla, which plans to ship the next major update, Firefox 2.0, by early in the third quarter, is concentrating on adding features and improvements to make sure that its browser stays ahead of Microsoft. "Firefox 1.5 was focused on the platform, but 2.0 will be about the UI, a smaller set of platform things, and more features that the user will see," Schroepfer said.

Development of Firefox 2.0 has been stalled as of late. "Open-source development leverages so many different people that it's ultimately less predictable because of that, and because you're dealing with volunteers," admitted Schroepfer. "Essentially, we trade predictability for quality and the total amount of work we can do on a project," he said, compared to commercial, proprietary development.

The Firefox 2.0 first alpha was to release Feb. 10, but now, said Schroepfer, "is a couple of weeks out."

Firefox 2.0's development roadmap lists the main feature updates and additions, and their priorities. Among those at the top are redesigns of the browser's bookmark and history system, security enhancements to extensions, the popular plug-ins, search engine improvements, and changes to the tab-based user interface.

"We're still testing 'Places,'" said Schroepfer, referring to the 2.0 feature that will combine bookmarks and browsing history. "You'll be able to very quickly search through History and bookmarks, and we're moving a bit more toward a tagging metaphor, where a bookmark can exist in multiple folders."

Also in the works for 2.0 are changes to tabs, which is one of the most popular features in Firefox. Developers are sifting through a number of options to improve tab browsing, and the user interface in general, said Schroepfer. "We'll probably end up with a lot of [new] small features," he said. Among the changes under consideration are placing a close button on each tab, a close undo, and perhaps a session saver-style feature that would return the browser to pre-shut down or pre-cash status.

Many of these features are already available in multiple extensions to Firefox. "That's one of the beauties of extensions," said Schroepfer. "They're like an advanced R&D lab, and an indication of what users may want in the browser."

Mozilla regularly surveys all existing extensions to see what types of additions people have dreamed up, and monitors those with the most downloads. "We'd like to distill the extensions to those that attract the largest audience, the ones that 90 percent of the users use," Schroepfer said, then consider them for roll-up into the browser itself.

Speaking of extensions, Firefox 2.0 will take a step toward extension security by adding a blacklist feature that will allow Mozilla to disable an extension in everyone's copy of the browser.

"The idea would be to disable an extension, by us, from a central location so that we can immediately remedy a problem," Schroepfer said. "We need an easy way to disable an extension [for everyone]."

Although Schroepfer thought that blacklisting is aimed at non-malicious extensions that cause browser instability accidentally, it's also a partial answer to Firefox critics who have pointed to loose extension security. Unlike Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which blocks unsigned ActiveX controls, Firefox doesn't require that extensions be digitally signed.

"All a signature would prove is that the person who wrote [an extension] is who they say they are," downplayed Schroepfer. He went on to say that Mozilla has no plans to require extensions to be signed, and added that the current review process before plug-ins are posted to the Firefox Add-ons site are sufficient to protect users.

Firefox 2.0 will also add a search engine removal tool, said Schroepfer, to make it easier for users to dump unwanted engines from the Search Bar. (Currently, the only way to remove an engine is with extensions such as SeachPluginHacks.)

Google Acquires Blog Stats Company

2006-02-15T18:06:00.000-08:00

By BetaNews Staff, BetaNews
February 15, 2006, 10:43 AM

Still not out of private beta testing, Measure Map announced Tuesday it had been acquired by Google. Measure Map's software offers detailed visitor statistics to blog owners, and Google is expected to integrate the technology into its Blogger service. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Today, as the Measure Map team joins Google, our mission remains the same: to build the best possible user experience so people can understand and appreciate the effect their blogs - their words and ideas - can have," said Measure Map developer Jeffrey Veen. "By opening up the app to more bloggers through Google, we hope to help even more people become passionate about their blogs."

Microsoft Launches Office Live Beta

2006-02-15T10:41:00.000-08:00

Microsoft announced today the immediate availability of Microsoft Office Live.

Microsoft Office Live is Microsoft's corporate version of Internet based services. The company plans to offer different Office Live versions which will be free during beta and have fees attached thereafter.

* Microsoft Office Live Basics. A collection of free services (advertising-supported) will provide a small business with the core requirements for establishing an online identity. Services include a company domain name; five e-mail accounts using that company domain name, each with 2 GB of storage; a Web site with 30 MB of file storage space; an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop design tool for creating a compelling, professional-quality Web site; and the Microsoft Office Live Site Reports tool for monitoring and analyzing Web site traffic.

* Microsoft Office Live Collaboration. Designed for small businesses that may already have a Web site, this subscription offering provides a rich, versatile set of Internet-based business management tools that are managed and maintained by Microsoft. Based on Microsoft Windows® SharePoint® Services technology, the Microsoft Office Live Collaboration service offers small businesses password-protected online workspaces (intranets and extranets). Capabilities include customer management, project management, sales and marketing management, employee management, and company administration, as well as password-protected internal shared sites to facilitate collaboration among employees, customers, suppliers and other business partners.

* Microsoft Office Live Essentials. A comprehensive set of business services, this subscription offering will provide customers with the resources and collaboration tools they need to establish and manage a small business online. Services include a company domain name; 50 e-mail accounts using that company domain name, each with 2 GB of storage; a Web site with 50 MB of file storage space; the same Web design tool as Microsoft Office Live Basics, plus Microsoft Office FrontPage® support for advanced Web design; more advanced Web site analytics; and a rich set of Internet-based applications to help small-business owners streamline and automate daily business tasks, such as management of customers, projects and documents.

If you're interested in the Office Live program then register at http://www.officelive.com/ today. You will require a key in order to gain access to the beta.

Apple Ships First Intel-Based Laptops

2006-02-14T21:46:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Millard, newsfactor.com Tue Feb 14, 4:50 PM ET

This week, Apple Computer will begin shipping a new notebook that represents the company's first laptop that takes advantage of the planned shift to Intel processors.

The MacBook Pro sports the Intel Core Duo processor, which the company claims will deliver up to four times the performance of the PowerBook G4. All models of the notebook will ship with faster processors than previously announced, at no additional cost, Apple stated.

The top-of-the-line MacBook Pro, with a 2.0-GHz processor, will ship first with a price tag of $2,499. It will be followed a week later by a $1,999 model powered by a 1.83-GHz Intel Core Duo chip.

The aluminum-encased machines will come with built-in iSight video cameras for video conferencing.

They also will include Apple Remote and Front Row software, and will use a patent-pending magnetic power connector designed to detach if somebody trips on the cord. The notebooks will ship with Mac
OS X 10.4 and iLife '06.

Power Station

To facilitate the shift that consumers will make from older machines to the newer Intel lines, Apple has included software-translation technology, called Rosetta, that lets the new machines run most of the older Mac OS X PowerPC applications seamlessly.

Customers using the new Intel-based Macs also will have more than 700 universal applications from which to choose, Apple has noted, with the list growing daily. The universal applications can run natively on Intel Macs.

The company has stated that developers are increasingly announcing support for Mac OS X Intel-based applications, with new software coming from heavy hitters like Adobe, Quark, and IBM's Lotus division.

Both the Rosetta technology and the new application support will be important for Apple's Intel-based push, analysts have noted. It is expected that with the release of first MacBook Pro laptops, Apple will begin, in earnest, its transition from the PowerPC era.

Playing Out

Apple made the switch to Intel chips for two reasons, noted Forrester analyst Ted Schadler. The company wanted a better product for entertainment, and equally important was that Apple wanted to give users faster, longer-lasting laptops.

The release of the MacBook Pro is the first in what likely will be many developments toward refining its notebook line, Schadler added. "This is just the first step," he said. "This first notebook will be followed by many that underscore how switching to Intel changes Apple's play."

Although Apple's laptops from this point forward will be different, it is expected that purchasing by consumers likely will follow the same, historic pattern, with early adopters buying the notebooks because they look cool and offer better performance.

"Apple's strategy is to create a personal product that people can show off, and they succeed in that more than any other PC manufacturer," said Schadler. "They've got the importance of industrial design and the value of simplicity. Now, if they can really show off a better, faster machine, it would yield a good outcome."

Google Windows apps coming to Linux

2006-02-14T06:48:00.000-08:00

Feb. 13, 2006

Google and CodeWeavers Inc. are working together to bring Google's popular Windows Picasa photo editing and sharing program to Linux. The program is now in a limited beta test. If this program is successful, other Google applications will be following it to the Linux desktop, sources say.

The Linux Picasa implementation includes the full feature set of the Windows Picasa 2.x software. It is not, strictly speaking, a port of Picasa to Linux. Instead, Linux Picasa combines Windows Picasa code and Wine technology to run Windows Picasa on Linux. This, however, will be transparent to Linux users, when they download, install, and run the free program on their systems.

Wine is an open-source implementation of the Windows API (application programming interface). It runs, in turn, on top of the X Window System and Linux (or Unix). Wine is not, as has sometimes been said, a Windows emulator. Wine provides a Windows API middleware layer that enables Windows programs, such as Office 2003, to run on Linux without the slowing effects of an operating system emulation or a virtual machine. Indeed, in some respects, Wine on Linux is faster than XP on the same hardware.

The new program is reportedly re-tooled to work perfectly under CodeWeaver's CrossOver Office Wine emulation. This may mean that Linux Picasa is using the program's own native Windows DLLs (dynamic link libraries). Wine enables developers to use Windows DLLs for greater speed when they're available.

The free Linux Picasa download will include a runtime version of CodeWeavers's modified Wine, so that users can simply download the package from Google and run it on their Linux system. Users will not need to download and install Wine, or to purchase CodeWeavers's commercial version of Wine, CrossOver Office.

Sources close to the project said that the Linux version of Picasa is meant to be as easy to install as the Windows version.

Officially, CodeWeavers had no comment about this project. Google public relations replied that "We don't have any information to share at this time," on the project or any business relationship with CodeWeavers.

Sources close to CodeWeavers, though, said that CodeWeavers has been tasked with the job of making sure that Picasa will work well with Wine and Linux. If successful, future versions of Picasa will be written to the Wine APIs so that the program can easily run on both Windows and Linux with Wine.

Sources also said that Picasa for Linux will be out shortly. Further, if the Linux Picasa project is successful, you can expect to see other Google Windows programs migrating to Linux via Wine and CodeWeavers.

According to sources close to Google, another popular Google Windows program is also coming over to Linux: the Google Talk client.

This project, however, is not going through CodeWeavers. Instead, sources indicate that a beta version of Google Talk for Linux has been created within Google.

While no further information was forthcoming on this project, it is worth noting that Google hired Sean Egan, the lead developer of the popular open-source IM client GAIM in October 2005. GAIM, itself, already supports the Jabber protocol, which Google Talk uses, and can be configured to work with Google Talk.

Motorola: WMA Music Phones This Year

2006-02-13T19:56:00.000-08:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
February 13, 2006, 12:34 PM

Microsoft and Motorola announced on Monday that the two companies were collaborating to bring to market several handsets equipped with Windows Media technology. The new phones would be PlaysForSure compatible, allowing consumers to use them with a wide variety of music services.

Users would be able to connect their phones to a PC through a USB 2.0 cable, which would use the Media Transfer Protocol to "seamlessly" copy music from Windows Media Player to the phone.

Along with handset development, the companies also said they were working together on solutions to enable devices to download music over a 3G network. Microsoft's WMA Pro codec would be used for these services, allowing for high quality and efficient downloads, the company said.

"Combining Motorola's wireless handsets with Windows Media technologies will significantly advance the mobile music experience," Windows Media Division vice president Amir Majidimehr said. "Motorola's upcoming handsets with Windows Media will offer consumers and operators worldwide the widest range of high-fidelity, no-compromise music choices."

The enabling of WMA on Motorola devices is not exactly new, as some handsets have been capable of playing back the format since last year. However, Motorola said devices with tigher integration of Windows Media technologies would launch in the second half of the year, with over-the-air music service support in 2007.

Motorola highlighted the agreement as a way to give choice to its customers. "Our relationship with Microsoft is about making the mobile world seamless with the desktop world and allowing consumers to experience music wherever and whenever they want," Motorola marketing vice president Richard Chin said.

The new phones would mean Motorola would be producing music phones in three different types: one based on iTunes, which the company first launched in September of last year; models based on its iRadio Music Service; and now those based on Windows Media.

uBrowser: 3D Web Browser

2006-02-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

uBrowser is an simple Web Browser that illustrates one way of embedding the Mozilla® Gecko rendering engine into a standalone application using LibXUL. In this case, the contents of the page is grabbed as it's being rendered and displayed as a texture on some geometry using OpenGL™. You are able to interact with the page (mostly) normally and visit (almost) any site that works correctly with Firefox® 1.5.

Screenshots:

Remove Windows Live Messenger side tabs

2006-02-09T03:10:00.000-08:00

After installed Windows Live Messenger, the following step is to remove the side tabs...

1. Open Registry Editor...
2. Nevigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger\PerPassportSettings\random_number.
3. Change the value of “DisableTabs” to 1 (default is 0).

done!

Note: the random_number is a series of numeric. You may get a few differet numbers under “PerPasswordSettings”, change all “DisableTabs” value under them.

Google merges Gmail with chat

2006-02-06T23:23:00.000-08:00

By Elinor Mills
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: February 6, 2006, 9:00 PM PST

Google on Monday was set to launch Gmail Chat, which will let users send instant messages with one click from their e-mail account, see when contacts are online and save the chat history like an e-mail message.

The application's Quick Contacts list is synchronized with a user's Google Talk friends list and automatically displays the people a user communicates with most frequently and shows their online status. Clicking on a contact listed as being online opens a chat window in the browsers.

The application lets users save their chat history for easy searching later and click an "off the record" option so that no conversation with that person going forward is saved by either party until they choose to go back on the record.

Gmail Chat is available on Internet Explorer 6.0 and higher and Firefox 1.0 and higher and in the U.S. English interface only.

While the chat functions of Google Talk are integrated into Gmail, users must download the Google Talk client application to make voice calls.

In the United States, Gmail is the fourth most popular Web-based e-mail program, and Google Talk is ranked seventh among instant messaging programs, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

Yahoo Mail indicates to users when their Yahoo Messenger contacts are online and allows them to launch a dialog with them instantly, as well as letting them make voice calls. It also allows users to check their voice mail and launch voice calling from Yahoo Mail. America Online's AIM Triton offers integrated e-mail, instant messaging, SMS text messaging and voice and video chat.

MS: Forget OPML, Use Windows RSS

2006-02-03T19:38:00.000-08:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
February 2, 2006, 1:40 PM

With the first public preview release of Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft has outlined its plans to bring RSS into the core of Windows, opening up APIs and a "Common Feed List" for all applications to access. The advantage, the company says, is an end to bothering with OPML thanks to a unified storage for feed data.

OPML, or Outline Processor Markup Language, is an XML format for outlines that has been popularized for use in exchanging lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregators. For example, a user can export a list of feeds from one location into OPML and easily import them into another application or Web based service.

Microsoft is hoping to do away with that process by creating a full-featured "platform" for RSS directly in Windows. While RSS will be natively supported in Windows Vista, Microsoft is also extending the same support to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 through Internet Explorer 7.

Although some may be wary of Microsoft controlling the central repository for RSS feed lists, the company says there are a number of advantages to such integration. The company also thinks the features will help transition RSS from a niche technology into mainstream use.

"When you discover and subscribe to feeds in IE7, it adds them to the Common Feed List and the new subscription is available to other applications. Not only can the user benefit from multiple applications using the Common Feed List, but we expect that over time, online services will provide tools that synchronize the Common Feed List with their services," explained one IE program Manager.

Such compatibility would allow for users to access their subscription list not only between applications, but also when roaming on other computers. Some online RSS aggregators have offered such functionality, but require a Web browser be used to browse feeds.

"So far, Microsoft doesn't appear to be trying to hijack RSS but more provide a platform for extending subscription capabilities to other applications. How Microsoft proceeds will be telling and demonstrate the extent of commitment to standards, particularly with IE 7," Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox commented to BetaNews.

In addition to the Common Feed List, the Windows RSS Platform is comprised of two other components: Feed Synchronization Engine and Feed Store.

These components will provide support for every major RSS and Atom format, along with a number of extensions, directly through Windows APIs. Applications can take advantage of bandwidth-friendly downloads of things like podcasts through Windows' Background Intelligent Transfer Service, and access feed data as objects or a raw XML stream.

Microsoft says it plans to announce further details on the API, features and implementation of the Windows RSS Platform over the coming weeks. A special RSS team blog has been setup specifically for this purpose.

"RSS potential looks promising, but, buttom line, there needs to be revenue opportunity, whether making or saving money. Microsoft's RSS platform is a step towards making that opportunity real," added Jupiter's Wilcox.

Mozilla Updates Firefox To Address Security, Stability

2006-02-03T19:28:00.000-08:00

Jay Wrolstad, newsfactor.com Fri Feb 3, 5:12 PM ET

Mozilla this week delivered an update to its Firefox browser to address several software vulnerabilities and improve the product's overall stability.

"This is part of our regular, two-month upgrade cycle, and deals in part with eight vulnerabilities identified by us and our users," said Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering at Mozilla.

Bugs Squashed

Among the bugs fixed in Firefox 1.5.0.1 are flaws in the JavaScript engine that could cause buffer-overflow problems for users.

These flaws, which were disclosed late last year, concerned Web pages with long titles that could cause Firefox to operate sluggishly or crash, Schroepfer explained.

"We also are providing fixes for several memory leaks in an effort to improve the stability of Firefox and address crashes reported by our users," he said.

In issuing the update, Mozilla noted that some firewall software might block the updated version of Firefox from running.

Most firewalls ask users to allow a program to connect to the Internet. In these cases, users should grant Firefox access. Otherwise they must go to the firewall's configuration settings and grant access there.

Automatic Upgrades

In addition to providing better stability on Windows and Linux machines, the update also provides better support for Mac OS X. Those who have Intel-based Macs may run Firefox 1.5.0.1 under Rosetta. Mozilla plans to support Intel Macs natively starting with Firefox 1.5.0.2.

Firefox 1.5 users can obtain the upgrade through Mozilla's automatic-update service or download it from the Mozilla site directly. Schroepfer said that the company has recorded some 15 million downloads of the update through the automated system.

The latest version of the open-source browser was launched in late November, a year after the initial product was introduced. Mozilla said version 1.5 has exceeded the 100 million download mark already.

The ranks of Firefox users have grown substantially since its inception, indicating that it is nibbling away at Internet Explorer's formidable market share.

NetApplications recently reported that Firefox holds 8.59 percent of the browser market, up from 2.69 percent a year ago. In contrast, Microsoft's Internet Explorer currently enjoys an 86 percent market share.

VMware to Give Away Server Software

2006-02-03T19:05:00.000-08:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
February 3, 2006, 11:16 AM

VMware, a company that specializes in products that allow users to run more than one operating system on their machines, is expected to announce next week that it will give away its GSX Server software for free. The company also offers ESX Server, however that will remain a for-pay product.

Users were previously able to purchase GSX Server for $1,400 USD for dual-processor and $2,800 USD for multi-processor machines. VMware ESX is more expensive based on the user's need, and can performed more advanced functions.

For example, GSX Server requires it be run under another operating system, such as Windows. However, the ESX Server can function on its own without an OS.

While some may question the company's move, VMware would likely benefit bringin in more users. Free access to the company's basic program would make it an attractive option for those looking for virtualization, and would likely put it at the forefront of an increasingly competitive market.

Virtualization software will become part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server in an upcoming version of those products. Microsoft is also planning to add the technology to Longhorn Server as well.

Additionally, VMware could benefit from users wishing to upgrade to the more powerful ESX Server after trying out the free version of the GSX software.

CNET News.com first reported details of VMware's plans on Friday.

Microsoft Releases Public IE7 Preview

2006-02-01T07:16:00.000-08:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
January 31, 2006, 12:53 PM

Microsoft on Tuesday made available for public download a pre-Beta 2 release of Internet Explorer 7, which is designed to showcase features the new browser will bring and give developers time to play with the latest technology. IE7 notably adds a tabbed interface and improves browser security.

Although the release is not yet Beta 2, because it "requires additional fit and finish work," Microsoft sees the preview as a major milestone over Beta 1. A key addition is the integration of the Windows RSS platform that provides a framework for downloading, storing and accessing RSS feeds across the operating system.

For example, a user can subscribe to a feed in one application and have that feed data available to any other application.

"Microsoft is making the Windows RSS platform available to Windows XP users for the first time," a company spokesperson told BetaNews. "This is big news for developers and is really exciting for Microsoft and the community we've been working with."

Security features such as ActiveX controls being disabled by default and a phishing filter promise to keep Web surfers safe at a time when attacks are becoming more commonplace. IE7 also locks down cross site scripting and international domain names to prevent malicious use.

On the interface side, Microsoft says it has endeavored to make IE7 simpler, more streamlined and less cluttered. A customizable search box enables users to make quick queries to the engine of their choice, and a Favorites Center clusters favorites, tab groups, history and RSS feeds into a single panel.

"Microsoft definitely is making progress," noted Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox. "The UI is more refined, but by no means finished. Microsoft has finally reached the point where IE feels like a modern browser."

A page zoom feature has also been added to aid those with vision disabilities. When a page is zoomed, images are also enlarged along with text. IE7 additionally will shrink a Web page for printing, with an option for printing only selected text.

Multiple homepages are now supported through the use of multiple tabs. "I see that as potential boon for Microsoft or PC partners, depending on which is setting the home pages," said Wilcox. "So, say, Alienware could ship a PC with default home page tabs for its main Website, support page and downloads page."

Under the covers, Microsoft has beefed up IE7's technical capabilities. CSS improvements and transparent PNG support catch the browser up to rivals such as Firefox, and native support for XMLHTTP means AJAX-based Web applications will no longer require an ActiveX control to function.

"Microsoft is encouraging Web and application developers and technology early adopters to install the Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview to test compatibility, become familiar with the new capabilities, and provide feedback to Microsoft," the company said.

The Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 preview works only with Windows XP SP2.

Microsoft's OneCare firewall draws fire

2006-01-31T19:24:00.000-08:00

By Joris Evers
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: January 31, 2006, 5:35 PM PST

The firewall component in Microsoft's Windows OneCare security bundle has holes, experts have warned.

The security software, available in a public beta version, by default allows applications that use the Java Virtual Machine or have a digital signature to connect to the Internet.

Like any blanket security-bypass rule, these default settings are a bad idea, said Mark Curphey, vice president at vulnerability management specialist Foundstone, a part of McAfee.

"Any firewall, any security device should have a default deny," Curphey said in an interview Tuesday. "Any door should always be closed."

Curphey discovered the issue when running software on his wife's computer, on which he had installed OneCare. He informed Foundstone security consultant Roger Grimes, who subsequently blogged about it on the InfoWorld Web site. Grimes also blasted the default bypass settings.

"It just invites malicious hackers and other malware goons to exploit it," Grimes wrote.

OneCare team on Tuesday responded to the Foundstone experts in its own blog, and a Microsoft representative confirmed the blog's content. Yes, the OneCare firewall does allow any signed application and the Java Virtual Machine to pass through without alerting the user, but this should not be a security risk, according to the posting. The team invites readers to discuss the topic.

"It is highly unusual for malware to be signed," according to the Microsoft blog posting. Furthermore, if an application is signed, it can be traced to its author, it said.

Blocking Java would result in many applications being disabled, Microsoft, the posting added. And asking users to allow applications to pass through each time they are invoked would be too confusing. If a malicious program that uses the Java Virtual Machine does land on a user's PC, the antivirus component of OneCare should catch it, the OneCare team wrote.

According to Grimes's blog, however, that adware and spyware makers often sign their applications. Such a signature is meant to make their software look more reliable. "They already routinely use signed controls to install themselves onto users PCs, and certainly they will continue to use them to bypass this (OneCare) service," Grimes wrote.

Spyware expert Ben Edelman agreed. "Most malware is signed," he said. "Getting these signatures is remarkably easy. And the resulting user experience is far better: reassuring-looking dialog boxes that make users think software is safe."

A public test version of OneCare has been available since November. OneCare is meant for consumers and will combine anti-spyware software with antivirus software, firewall software and several tune-up tools for Windows PCs. The final package is expected sometime this year and will be offered as a subscription service.

Google in China

2006-01-27T17:44:00.000-08:00

1/27/2006 11:58:00 AM
Posted by Andrew McLaughlin, senior policy counsel

Google users in China today struggle with a service that, to be blunt, isn't very good. Google.com appears to be down around 10% of the time. Even when users can reach it, the website is slow, and sometimes produces results that when clicked on, stall out the user's browser. Our Google News service is never available; Google Images is accessible only half the time. At Google we work hard to create a great experience for our users, and the level of service we've been able to provide in China is not something we're proud of.

This problem could only be resolved by creating a local presence, and this week we did so, by launching Google.cn, our website for the People's Republic of China. In order to do so, we have agreed to remove certain sensitive information from our search results. We know that many people are upset about this decision, and frankly, we understand their point of view. This wasn't an easy choice, but in the end, we believe the course of action we've chosen will prove to be the right one.

Launching a Google domain that restricts information in any way isn't a step we took lightly. For several years, we've debated whether entering the Chinese market at this point in history could be consistent with our mission and values. Our executives have spent a lot of time in recent months talking with many people, ranging from those who applaud the Chinese government for its embrace of a market economy and its lifting of 400 million people out of poverty to those who disagree with many of the Chinese government's policies, but who wish the best for China and its people. We ultimately reached our decision by asking ourselves which course would most effectively further Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally useful and accessible. Or, put simply: how can we provide the greatest access to information to the greatest number of people?

Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world's population, however, does so far more severely. Whether our critics agree with our decision or not, due to the severe quality problems faced by users trying to access Google.com from within China, this is precisely the choice we believe we faced. By launching Google.cn and making a major ongoing investment in people and infrastructure within China, we intend to change that.

No, we're not going to offer some Google products, such as Gmail or Blogger, on Google.cn until we're comfortable that we can do so in a manner that respects our users' interests in the privacy of their personal communications. And yes, Chinese regulations will require us to remove some sensitive information from our search results. When we do so, we'll disclose this to users, just as we already do in those rare instances where we alter results in order to comply with local laws in France, Germany and the U.S.

Obviously, the situation in China is far different than it is in those other countries; while China has made great strides in the past decades, it remains in many ways closed. We aren't happy about what we had to do this week, and we hope that over time everyone in the world will come to enjoy full access to information. But how is that full access most likely to be achieved? We are convinced that the Internet, and its continued development through the efforts of companies like Google, will effectively contribute to openness and prosperity in the world. Our continued engagement with China is the best (perhaps only) way for Google to help bring the tremendous benefits of universal information access to all our users there.

We're in this for the long haul. In the years to come, we'll be making significant and growing investments in China. Our launch of google.cn, though filtered, is a necessary first step toward achieving a productive presence in a rapidly changing country that will be one of the world's most important and dynamic for decades to come. To some people, a hard compromise may not feel as satisfying as a withdrawal on principle, but we believe it's the best way to work toward the results we all desire.

Torvalds says no to GPLv3

2006-01-26T23:58:00.000-08:00

Linux kernel not likely to adopt new license
By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
January 26, 2006 E-mailE-mail

The digital rights management provisions proposed for the new version of the GNU General Public License (GPL v3) used by many open-source projects have earned a thumbs down from Linux kernel developer Linus Torvalds. In a posting to the Linux kernel mailing list made late Wednesday, Torvalds said that he did not expect the kernel -- a key component of the Linux operating system -- to adopt the new license.

The GPL is used by a large number of open-source projects including the Samba file and print software and the MySQL database. The new draft version of the license -- its first revision in 15 years -- has been promoted as a way to better protect users and developers from some of the dangers posed by software patents and digital rights management (DRM) systems. And while the license received generally favorable reviews following its unveiling last week, Torvalds' public criticism is a blow to its author, the Free Software Foundation (FSF).

The Linux kernel is currently unlikely to adopt GPLv3 because its proposed DRM provisions are too burdensome, Torvalds said in his newsgroup posting. (http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/1/25/273) "I think it's insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example. I wouldn't do it," he wrote. "So I don't think the GPL v3 conversion is going to happen for the kernel."

Torvalds' post appears to indicate that he believes that the DRM provisions will hurt Linux adoption, said Karen Copenhaver, general counsel with intellectual property management vendor Black Duck Software. "Linus has a different agenda than the FSF," she said. "He's trying to keep Linux commercially viable."

The GPL v3's provision prevents GPL-licensed software from being used in DRM copy-protection software, called "digital restrictions management" software by the FSF.

One of the authors of the GPL v3 draft, FSF Board Member Eben Moglen said Thursday that he planned to wait a day before discussing Torvalds' comments. "I've been around too long to think that what people say on mailing lists represents the whole of what they think," he said. "I do not think I know the substance of what Linus had to say there and that's part of why I don't want to comment."

"I think there are going to be a lot more comments later on and i think my job in this process is to hear everybody respectfully and help views get clarified," he added.

Moglen said he had not directly discussed GPL v3 with Torvalds and he declined to elaborate on how the FSF planned to discuss the matter with Torvalds.

Torvalds did not respond to a request to comment for this story.

Microsoft launches MSN research labs to battle Google

2006-01-26T21:42:00.000-08:00

News Story by Elizabeth Montalbano
JANUARY 26, 2006

Microsoft Corp. has launched new MSN research labs aimed at rapidly developing and deploying Internet technologies. The effort is part of the software company's strategy to be more agile in its creation of Web-based services to compete with rivals such as Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

Microsoft introduced the efforts Live Labs and Search Labs on Wednesday at its Search Champs meeting in Redmond, Wash., according to Adam Sohn, a spokesman for Microsoft's MSN division. Search Champs is an event to solicit feedback from industry experts and pundits, including prominent bloggers, on some of Microsoft's newest technology.

Live Labs will fall under the jurisdiction of Gary Flake, a Microsoft technical fellow who joined the company from Yahoo in June 2005. Search Labs will be run by Ashok Chandra, an industry researcher and academic who joined Microsoft a few weeks ago.

Live Labs, which will be a group effort of researchers around the world, will focus on applied research of technologies, such as multimedia search, distributed computing and data mining, Sohn said. The point of Live Labs is to get prototypes and new products developed as quickly as possible if the research reveals they will give the company or customers a competitive advantage, he said.

"If someone comes up with a super-hot idea ... we'll have a bunch of researchers/developers who can take those ideas, get them prototyped and see if there's a real, healthy business there," he said.

Search Labs, which will be stationed on Microsoft's campuses in Redmond and Mountain View, Calif., will focus exclusively on developing and incubating new search technologies, Sohn said. Focus areas for this team will be personalization and socialization, improved user experience and user privacy, among others.

Microsoft currently is battling Internet service companies such as Google and Yahoo to win over online users with Web-based content and services that can be accessed by myriad devices. These services generate ad revenue and other revenue opportunities through deals with major content providers.

Google in particular has been churning out new Internet-based services in rapid succession, with a host of new offerings such as Google Video and Google Pack, as well as its search service in China, all introduced in just the last month.

Sohn said that while Microsoft's MSN has not been "sitting around twiddling our thumbs" when it comes to developing Internet-based services, the company does want to speed up the development and deployment of cutting-edge services on the Web. "It makes absolute sense for us to deeply focus research efforts in this area to be more agile and accelerate the development work we're doing," he said.

While Google and Yahoo both started as Internet-based companies, Microsoft comes from a tradition of packaged software, which is by its nature a slower business than the Web. Even in that realm, Microsoft has never been known as particularly speedy; the company typically has anywhere from two- to five-year product cycles for its packaged software.

To ensure that Live Labs research is in line with company product and strategy goals, a group of Microsoft's chief technologists will serve as the advisory board for the effort, Sohn said. Those executives include Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief technical officer; Craig Mundie, CTO of advanced strategies and policy; and David Vaskevitch, CTO of business platforms.

Through Live Labs, Microsoft is also supporting the academic research community at large, Sohn said. The company expects to do much of the labs' work in the open and will present papers on research at academic conferences, he said.

In addition, the company has set up opportunities for grants through Live Labs. Microsoft will make $500,000 in research money available through the effort, and interested parties can submit proposals to Microsoft for grants, which will be allocated in $35,000 to $50,000 increments, through March 24. Microsoft will announce the awards on May 17.

Google admits online stumble

2006-01-26T09:21:00.000-08:00

Google Inc., trying to extend its dominance of Internet search into the market for videos, said it made a mistake with the design of an online store.

Shows for sale weren't well promoted on the home page of Google Video, which was introduced earlier this month, Vice President Marissa Mayer said in an interview in Munich, Germany. That left customers unable to tap easily into hits such as CBS' top-rated "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and reality show "Survivor."

"We made a big mistake," Mayer, who oversees all of Google's search products, said Tuesday. "You can't come out and launch a product like Google Video and say 'CSI' and 'Survivor' are there if they're not on the home page."

The video service has "fallen far short" of competitors such as Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes music and video offering, said Allen Weiner, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc. "What Apple has done with the iTunes store sets the bar really high."

New York Times technology reviewer David Pogue said Jan. 19 that Google's video store was "appallingly half-baked" and that the site "doesn't live up to Google's usual standards of excellence."

Google video won't let consumers play copy-protected shows on portable video devices, including the iPod or laptops that aren't connected to the Internet, Pogue said. That means they can't be viewed on long plane or car journeys. He also said the site's design is "incredibly bare-bones and empty-looking."

Google changed the home page Tuesday to make it easier to find clips, Mayer said. The response to Google Video has been "absolutely fantastic," she said.

In other Google developments, the company started a search engine in China on Wednesday that censors material about human rights, Tibet and other topics sensitive to Beijing -- defending the move as a trade-off granting Chinese greater access to other information.

Within minutes of the launch of the new site, bearing China's Web suffix ".cn," searches for the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement showed scores of sites omitted and users directed to articles condemning the group posted on Chinese government Web sites.

The move has been criticized by the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which also has chided Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.com for submitting to China's censorship regime.

"When a search engine collaborates with the government like this, it makes it much easier for the Chinese government to control what is being said on the Internet," said Julien Pain, head of the group's Internet desk.

MSN Admits to Sharing Search Data

2006-01-24T22:26:00.000-08:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
January 23, 2006, 1:20 PM

Following news that Google refused to comply with a subpoena requiring the company to turn over search records from its database, much speculation swirled about the response from rivals MSN and Yahoo. MSN has broken its silence and now acknowledges that it did share search data, but no personal information.

The subpoena was handed down by the U.S. Department of Justice last summer, and was reportedly issued to gather data to support a child protection law that was struck down two years ago by the Supreme Court. Under that law, the government could punish pornography sites that made content easily accessible to minors.

Microsoft's MSN division says it worked hard to limit the request to data that followed its principals of protecting customer privacy.

'The applicable parties to the case received this data, and the parties agreed that the information specific to this case would remain confidential. Specifically, we produced a random sample of pages from our index and some aggregated query logs that listed queries and how often they occurred,' explained MSN Search general manager Ken Moss.

Moss added that, 'Absolutely no personal data was involved,' and said the government was only able to see how frequently a query term occurred. The data did not allow officials to look up IP address or see if a user who searched one term also searched another.

In its own response, Google contends that supplying the information would violate the privacy of its users, as well as divulge trade secrets that could help its competitors. Company officials said they plan to fight the request, calling it 'overreaching.'

'We tried to strike the right balance in a very sensitive matter. Now that you have more information, you can be the judge,' MSN's Moss said. But some users disagreed with that assessment.

'What if on the basis of the results you have given them, they subpoena you to produce IP details of specific queries that they find questionable?' wrote one MSN user. 'This is a cop out and our privacy has been thrown out of the door and a window opened on our searches for all to see.'

Microsoft Leverages IPv6 With Vista

2006-01-23T21:10:00.000-08:00

By Laurie Sullivan, TechWeb News
January 23, 2006 (8:26 PM EST)

Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) promises to deliver connectivity features in Windows Vista not possible with today's Internet protocol version 4 (IPv4).

Microsoft Corp.'s "community technology preview" was issued in December. The second version ships in February. Both versions already support IPv6-enabled file-sharing and remote-access features.

Driving Microsoft to adopt the IPv6 protocol in Vista is the ability to enable "new application experiences." It meant being able to incorporate "richer collaboration," multiplayer gaming, or voice and video into applications. Sinead O'Donovan, product unit manger for networking at Microsoft, said "When we looked at key applications such as MSN Messenger, we learned that developers needed to do too many tricks to get them to work over NAT."

Network Address Translation, or NAT, is a technology commonly used in the United States in which several devises can connect to the Internet on one IP address. It was developed as a temporary patch for the lack of IP connection points as more devices link to the Web.

As for the cost, software developers who are designing these applications for Windows in IPv4 were finding it too expensive. "If you had to route all the file-sharing traffic in MSN Messenger through your server it's very expensive to build that application because they must have a lot of servers to support the application," O'Donovan said. "IPv6 allows them take advantage of end-to-end connectivity, so if it makes sense for the traffic to go between two piers they can."

O'Donovan said it's important for applications with both voice and video traffic to travel directly between two piers because latency is an issue and users will notice any delay.

O'Donovan believes IPv6 offers securer data transmissions through longer IP addresses. The header length for IPv6 is 40-bytes and address 128-bits, compared with IPv4's 20-byte to 24-byte header and 32-bit address, Dale Geesey, vice president of consulting, v6 transition at UPIPv6 Summit Inc, confirmed in an e-mail.

IPv6 has inherent security features. Risks, such as worms, that quickly scan a range of addresses to find a vulnerable machine for an attack will need to scan more address, which requires increased computing power. Alex Lightman, chief executive officer and president of IPv6 Summit Inc., said "IPv6 has 2128 addresses," a number so large it's incomprehensible, "compared with IPv4, 232 addresses, or roughly 4 billion addresses."

Other security features exist, too. There is IPsec encryption, and a new technology called Secure Neighbor Discovery (SEND) protocol, a way to prevent IP address spoofing through cryptographically generating addresses.

For Microsoft, it meant finding the best way to enable businesses to deliver emerging applications, such as messaging, Internet-protocol television ((IPTV), collaboration, secure-remote access to in-home networks, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and multiplayer video games. And have customers enjoy the experience without getting frustrated.

When Vista is released it will offer new search, security and digital entertainment features. A new version of Windows Media Center will ship in the Windows Vista timeframe that adds support for CableCard technology, enabling viewing and recording high-definition programming without a set-top box.

Internet Explorer also promises improved security protection, better graphics and new user interface with collaborative features.

NAT also presented hurdles for Vista's connectivity features that were resolved with IPv6. The connectivity features in Vista must have a reachable IP address from remote locations, O'Donovan said. "If the connection is initiated from outside the home the NAT locks up and you don't have a way of addressing the PC," she said. "Reaching the devices isn't possible unless you custom configure an application."

Google News out of beta

2006-01-23T19:28:00.000-08:00

January 23, 2006 5:55 PM PST

More than three years after introducing Google News, Google announced Monday it has taken the site out of beta. The news site has grown to 22 regional editions in 10 languages and has new features, including recommendations and a Most Popular section.

Users who are signed up for Personalized Search and logged into a Google account can receive headlines that Google News thinks will be of interest to the reader based on news searches conducted and articles read. The Most Popular section shows the top stories published by editors across the Web, other stories popular with readers and topics that a reader tracks or is interested in.

More information is at the Google blog.

Adobe Acrobat enters third dimension

2006-01-22T23:26:00.000-08:00

By Martin LaMonica
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: January 22, 2006, 9:01 PM PST

Adobe Systems has created a high-end version of Acrobat--aimed at boosting sales in the manufacturing industry--that displays three-dimensional images within PDF documents.

On Monday, the company is expected to release Acrobat 3D, which allows a person to create a PDF (Portable Document Format) with embedded images from computer-aided design (CAD) applications. Recipients of Acrobat 3D files need a point upgrade to the current Acrobat reader version 7 to view the documents, the company said.

Adobe developed the 3D product specifically for manufacturing customers who regularly exchange CAD files in the design process, said Rak Bhalla, senior marketing manager. Car manufacturers, for example, share their product descriptions and designs with their suppliers to get bids for component parts.

Typically, design engineers today create a two-dimensional image and send them via e-mail, Bhalla said. Having an embedded 3D image, which people can rotate to view and append with notes, will speed up the design collaboration process and reduce errors, he said.

'Acrobat 3D is the first vertical product in the family that is catering to a specific market,' he said.

Acrobat 3D has security features that allow users to restrict copying of potentially valuable designs. It can display images from major CAD programs, he said.

Bhalla said that documents created with Acrobat 3D--which costs $995 per copy--will be used by many people other than than the design engineers who use CAD programs. He estimated that about 30 other people in supporting functions, such as product documentation or maintenance, will use each 3D document.

Other potential markets for Arobat 3D are the architectural, engineering and construction fields, which regularly use blueprints and CAD software, he said."

Internet Explorer 7 Will Flush Its History

2006-01-19T17:59:00.000-08:00

New feature will make it easier for users to clear browser history and all associated files.

Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service
Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Microsoft's forthcoming Internet Explorer (IE) 7 browser will have a thorough flush feature that clears its history and all associated files stored after a Web site is accessed.

In IE 6, a user has to spend lots of time trying to expunge the information stored after a Web site has been visited, wrote Uche Enuha, a program manager on the IE user experience team, on the company's browser blog.

The new "delete browsing history" feature under the "tools" menu will be able to wipe out five major data categories, including temporary Internet files, cookies, history, form data, and passwords, Enuha wrote.

A user can delete all of those at once or can individually choose which ones to wipe through the "delete browsing history" panel, Enuha wrote.

Deeper Cleaning

The feature goes deeper than a novice user would likely pursue. For example, deleting files from the temporary Internet files folder will also clean out attachments stored by the Outlook e-mail program in that folder, Enuha wrote.

A beta version of IE 7 has been out for Windows XP Service Pack 2 and an enhanced beta version is available for the beta 1 version of Windows Vista, according to Microsoft's Web site.

Google opens up instant messaging

2006-01-18T17:02:00.000-08:00

January 18, 2006 12:41 PM PST

Google Talk users can now talk to people using other instant messaging systems that support the XMPP open communications protocol. Those systems include Jabber.org, Earthlink, Sipphone's Gizmo Project, Chikka in the Philippines, MediaRing in Singapore, Tiscali in Italy and China's Netease, Google said in a statement.

Unfortunately, the list does not include Yahoo Instant Messenger or MSN Messenger, which are among the most popular chat programs. Yahoo and MSN announced in October that they would enable their systems to interoperate beginning in the second quarter of this year.

Meanwhile, as part of Google's $1 billion investment in AOL for a 5 percent stake of the Time Warner Internet unit, Google and AOL said they will eventually make AOL Instant Messenger and Google Talk interoperable. A Google spokeswoman said on Wednesday that there was no information on when that might happen.

In announcing the Google Talk "federation," Google Talk Product Manager Mike Jazayeri likened the situation to the e-mail and telephone systems, which have numerous service providers who allow their users to contact each other. "Unfortunately, this is not the case with many IM and Internet voice calling services today," he wrote in his Google Talk blog. "You can only talk to people on the particular service you have an account on (so you need an account on every service to talk to everybody, which is pretty cumbersome). With open federation, you get to choose your service provider and you can talk to people on any other federated service (and vice versa)."

Firefox 2.0 alpha due next month

2006-01-18T07:33:00.000-08:00

An alpha version of Firefox 2.0 should be released as a public beta next month. Although part of the long standing roadmap for the open source browser, the timetable was confirmed by the publication of the minutes of the Mozilla.org staff meeting held earlier this month.

While the team say that the alpha will not be feature complete, among the improvements slated to appear are better access to History and Bookmark pages, improvements to the tabbed browsing and other user interface enhancements.

The team also hopes to fully integrate RSS functionality so that adding feeds is a smoother process than the current rather hit or miss method.

As many of the engineers involved in the Firefox project are now also working for Google, it comes as no surprise to discover that improvements are planned for the integration with search. The objective is for the browser to adapt to the user's search needs, rather than forcing a particular view of search on them.

Version 2.0 is expected to create a simple, flexible system that unifies all search back ends, make adding keywords easy and more obvious, allow for engines to be added and removed easily when upgrading and allow for simple configuration for business needs.

There also plans for enhanced security, blacklisting and anti-phishing measures to be fitted to the new version. However, no details of what they might be have been released yet.

The minutes note that this will be a 'big year' for Firefox with both version 2.0 due for release and version 3.0 already on the drawing board. They also know that Windows Vista is due later this year with Microsoft planning to release Internet Explorer 7.0 alongside it. Little is known about IE 7.0. It is known, however, to feature tabbed browsing and enhanced security, which have been the two biggest selling points for Firefox.

Firefox 2.0 Alpha, MacTel Version Soon

2006-01-17T23:08:00.000-08:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
January 16, 2006, 1:24 PM

Mozilla plans to have an early alpha version of Firefox 2.0 in users hands by February, with builds of Firefox, Camino and Thunderbird for Macs running on Intel processors available the following month, recent statements from company developers indicate.

Details of a release date for Firefox 2.0 Alpha 1 appeared in the January 4 mozilla.org staff meeting minutes released late last week. It also noted that a security and stability update would be coming to Firefox 1.5 by the end of this month.

Although the first alpha release of the next version of the popular alternative browser will not be feature complete, it should give users an idea of where the company plans to take Firefox in 2006. The year is expected to be a busy one; work on Firefox 3 is already underway with a release possible late this year or early in 2007.

The company also plans to have universal binaries of its products available for users of Intel based Macs by March. Up until now, a single developer, Josh Aas, headed the project and the releases were unofficial. However, the company is expected to accelerate development and soon deliver official bulds.

Aas told CNET News.com that two issues remain before the releases could be certified for public use, and that they run 'very well on Intel Macs.' The two problems relate to Macromedia Flash and Java plugins, he said.

The unofficial builds currently have these features disabled and should work fine, although Aas recommends using the official non-universal builds for the time being under the Rosetta emulation layer that comes with Apple's new machines.

Public debate on GPL 3 draft begins

2006-01-16T19:10:00.000-08:00

By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: January 16, 2006, 11:30 AM PST

The Free Software Foundation on Monday released the first public discussion draft of the General Public License version 3, shedding light on proposed reforms to the document's patent and digital rights management provisions.

The GPL version 3 draft can be downloaded from the FSF's Web site, which also includes an explanation of the changes and an online commentary section. The revised GPL is the subject of a conference this week at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The foundation is revising the GPL for the first time in 15 years, and this time the organization is accepting suggestions from the broad base of people and organizations now involved in the free software and open-source software movements. Over the last decade and a half, the GPL grew from an academic curiosity created by programmer and FSF founder Richard Stallman into a critical foundation of much of the software realm.

The GPL governs countless open-source projects, including the Linux kernel, the Samba file server software and the MySQL database. "It's tremendously important," Tom Carey, an intellectual property attorney at Boston-based Bromberg & Sunstein, said in an earlier interview. "Probably most lawyers who have an active practice in the software area have read the GPL and committed its essence to memory, which is something you can't say about any other license."

The proposed GPL revisions include changes in several expected areas:

• Provisions to make sure digital rights management mechanisms don't curtail software freedoms;

• An explicit grant of patent rights by anyone redistributing GPL-governed software;

• A retaliation clause that prohibits an organization from using privately modified GPL software if it files a patent infringement lawsuit relating to that software.

• And new terms describing how copyright holders may add additional licensing terms, such as more severe patent retaliation provisions, to GPL software.

Regarding the new patent provisions, Aberdeen Group analyst Stacey Quandt said, "GPL 3 is an improvement over its predecessor." But she also predicted the issue "will likely spark debate." In addition, in the GPL 3 draft, it's "not necessarily clear what constitutes a derivative work," a central concept that describes modified versions of a program, she said.

The FSF hopes to complete GPL version 3 by Jan. 15, 2007, but is giving itself until March 2007. A second discussion draft is planned to be released June, with a possible third in October.

GPL-governed software is widely used in the technology industry. However, there are many other open-source licenses in use. Sun Microsystems, for example, is touting its Community Development and Distribution License as an alternative.

New XiTi study reports: Firefox 20% marketshare in europe

2006-01-16T18:47:00.000-08:00

New XiTi study reports: Firefox 20% marketshare in europe
Posted by testboy on Mon, 01/16/2006 - 15:31

A new Xiti Study shows that Firefox has now more than 20% marketshare in Europe and more than 15% in the U.S.

Firefox for Intel Macs planned for March

2006-01-16T01:22:00.000-08:00

By Renai LeMay
Special to CNET News.com
Published: January 15, 2006, 11:10 PM PST

The Mozilla Foundation has set a March launch date for a version of its Firefox Web browser that will run on Apple Computer's Intel version of Mac OS X.

"We are targeting the official release of Firefox for Intel Mac OS X in late March with the Firefox 1.5.0.2 update," said Mozilla software engineer Josh Aas told.

Demand for the browser on Apple's new CPU platform is expected to rocket as the PC vendor last week started selling the first Macs based on CPUs from Intel. Previously Apple had used IBM's PowerPC chips.

While an unofficial version of the software is now available on Aas' personal Web site, until Mozilla approves it, the developer recommends those with Intel Macs use Apple's Rosetta technology to run the normal PowerPC Mac OS X version of Firefox.

Rosetta is a transcoding tool that allows programs written for PowerPC to run on Intel machines.

Similar Intel Mac OS X versions of Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client and the third-party Camino browser are available from the same site. Camino utilises Mozilla's Gecko Web rendering engine--as does Firefox--and is specifically aimed at full integration with Mac OS X, in the same way as Apple's own Safari browser.

Aas is already satisfied with the quality of the new version, despite some minor bugs that need to be worked out.

"The port has been very successful and we have native versions running very well on Intel Macs," he said. "There are two minor issues to resolve before we can do an official release."

"The first issue is some compatibility issues between the (Macromedia) Flash plugin shipped with Mac OS X 10.4.4 and Firefox. We have been working closely with Macromedia to resolve the issues."

The other issue relates to the need to update to an Intel version of the 'Java Embedding Plugin' (JEP), which handles all Java applets in Mozilla's Mac OS X products.

Aas said his unofficial builds "should work just fine with the exceptions of Java and Flash, which will both be entirely disabled for now."

The unofficial version is to be used at users' own risk, and is "not recommended by the Mozilla Corporation or Foundation," he warned.

The developer added he was grateful to Apple for assistance in the development process, as well as JEP's developer Steven Michaud, and another developer Mark Mentovai.

The first development versions of Firefox for the Intel version of Mac OS X were first made available in July last year.

25 Reasons to Convert to Linux

2006-01-11T18:20:00.000-08:00

Businesses, educational institutions, governmental agencies and other organizations around the world are converting1 their computer operating systems from Microsoft Windows to Linux at an increasing pace. They are likewise converting their application programs from commercial software to free software (also referred to as open source software). There are at least 25 reasons for this situation, including:

(1) Because it is licensed under a free software license2, Linux (as well as other free software) is available at no cost. It can be downloaded from the Internet for free, and it can be purchased in disk or box form at trivial cost. One copy can be used on as many computers as desired with no restrictions. This is in sharp contrast to Microsoft Windows, which can easily cost US$100 or more per computer.

(2) Because it is free software, Linux is also free in the sense that anybody is permitted to modify it, including its source code, in any way desired. If modified versions are not redistributed (i.e., given away or sold outside of an organization), they can be kept secret. This is also in sharp contrast to Microsoft Windows, for which modification of the software is generally not permitted. Source code is the original version of a program as it is written by a programmer using a programming language and before being converted by a compiler into a form such that its instructions can be understood directly by a computer's CPU (central processing unit); it is generally necessary to have the source code in order to be able to make changes to a program. This ability to freely experiment with and modify the source code, and to do so without disclosing the modifications to outsiders, has been a very important consideration for a number of large organizations3.

(3) High quality support for Linux is available for free on the Internet, including in newsgroups and other forums. Some people claim that this support is at least as good as that provided for proprietary (i.e., commercial) operating systems for a fee. Linux support can also be purchased on a commercial basis if desired. Among the types of support that can be required for operating systems are help with customization, assistance in installing new programs, patches to cope with new security threats and patches to fix newly discovered bugs (i.e., defects). Fortunately, the need for the last two types is relatively infrequent for Linux.

(4) There is little possibility that support for Linux will be discontinued at some future date due to planned obsolescence or for any other reason. This is because the source code will always be available to anyone who wants it, including individuals who provide support for free over the Internet and businesses which provide it for a fee. In contrast, with Microsoft Windows and other proprietary software for which the source code is usually kept secret, obtaining support becomes difficult (from both a technical and a legal point of view) if the developer decides to withdraw it (for example in order to try to force users to pay for upgrades to newer versions).

(5) There is little or no fear of major obsolescence, planned or otherwise, with Linux. This is because the UNIX architecture on which it is based has been exhaustively tested and refined for more than 35 years and has proven to be extremely efficient, robust and secure. Improvements continue at a rapid pace, but new versions remain basically compatible with the underlying UNIX architecture.

(6) There are no forced upgrades4 for Linux users. This because older versions continue to be supported (e.g., with the development of new security patches and device drivers) and because newer versions, if desired, are available for free (as is all free software) and are typically highly compatible with older versions. The developers of proprietary software, however, have strong financial incentives to engage in planned obsolescence, namely, in order to induce users of earlier versions to spend money to buy or lease new versions.

(7) Should a user decide to upgrade to a newer version of Linux, there are no licensing fees or other software costs if the user selects a free distribution (i.e., version). Moreover, the training, program modification/conversion, hardware acquisition and other costs associated with upgrading to a new version are also relatively low due to the compatibility with earlier versions.

(8) Linux has no onerous requirements for keeping track of licenses. In a company with hundreds or thousands of computers, a number of full time personnel can be required just to make sure that all of the computers in use are in compliance with the complex licensing terms of the EULAs (end user license agreements) for Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office and other proprietary software. And for Linux users there is no fear of surprise audits by the BSA (Business Software Alliance)5, with possible severe penalties for minor license violations.

(9) Linux features superior security, including a very low rate of infection by viruses, trojans, worms, spyware and other malware. This is because UNIX and all of its descendants (including Linux) been designed from the ground up with security in mind, rather than having attempts at security tacked on as an afterthought. For example, users do not routinely use the system as the root (i.e., administrative) user, thereby protecting key system files even in the event of a break-in by a malicious intruder. Also, a robust firewall is included in major distributions and it is enabled by default. Another important factor is the free availability of the source code, which allows thousands of people around the globe to search for security vulnerabilities in it6.

(10) Linux is highly resistant to system crashes and rarely needs rebooting (i.e., restarting). This can be very important for large organizations for which even a few minutes of down time can result in a substantial cost. The reason is that Linux has been designed from the ground up to be an extremely stable and robust operating system, incorporating all that has been learned about attaining these goals from the more than 35 years of history of Unix-like operating systems.

(11) An extensive selection of high quality application programs is available for use with Linux, most of which are also free software (including nearly all of the most popular ones). Many of them have features and performance equal or superior to those of comparable applications for use with Microsoft Windows. In fact, users often find that all the applications that they want are available freely on the Internet and that it is no longer necessary to purchase any commercial software.

(12) There is a choice of numerous distributions (several hundred) of Linux, each with its own unique set of characteristics but all basically compatible with each other. This allows users to select the versions which best meet their specific requirements. It also means that if one provider of Linux were to go out of business, there would still be many others from which to choose. Moreover, it fosters a healthy competition among them, thereby contributing to the continuous improvements in Linux's quality and performance. If the choice seems overwhelming, it is usually difficult to make a mistake by selecting one of the most popular distributions, such as Red Hat or SuSE.

(13) Linux features a high degree of flexibility of configuration, and a great deal of customization can be accomplished very easily and without having to modify the source code. For example, it is a simple matter to configure Linux during installation so that it will be optimized for use as a workstation, desktop computer, notebook computer, web server, database server or a router. Likewise, the appearance and behavior of the desktop, including icons and menus, can be configured in an almost infinite number of ways, according to user tastes or requirements. They can even be made to resemble Microsoft Windows. Should this not be enough, the ability to freely access, revise and recompile the source code allows virtually unlimited flexibility of configuration.

(14) Linux and other free software uses open format file formats. These are formats for word processing, spreadsheet and other file types that conform to industry-wide standards and which can be used by any developer of software to create compatible programs, in contrast to the closed formats commonly used by some proprietary software. This eliminates the problem of lock-in to proprietary standards, with the consequent difficulty and expense of switching to other software in the future. It allows the user to have complete control of its data, particularly in the event that at some future date the developer who originally created the software goes out of business or stops supporting its earlier software.

(15) Linux is generally faster for a given set of hardware specifications. This is due to greater optimization of the source code, including far less code bloat.

(16) Linux features a high degree of compatibility with other operating systems. For example, it can read, write, copy, erase and otherwise manipulate data that resides on Microsoft Windows partitions on the same hard disk drive (HDD), act as a Windows server for a network containing Windows clients, format disks for use with Windows, and even run Windows programs directly if necessary. In contrast, the Microsoft Windows operating systems cannot access HDD partitions that contain other operating systems, cannot format disks for other operating systems, etc.

(17) Very high ethical standards are maintained for Linux and other free software, in large part due to the very openness of their development process and the free availability of the source code. Linux has never been convicted in a Federal court of violation of U.S. antitrust laws or other crimes, nor has it had to pay penalties for the unauthorized copying of technology developed by other companies.

(18) Linux reduces the need to upgrade or replace hardware when upgrading to newer versions. This is because its code is very efficient and compact, thus allowing it to work effectively on older computers that are not suitable for the newest versions of Microsoft Windows.

(19) Linux is capable of operating on a wide variety of platforms (i.e., processor and system types), rather than just being limited to Intel-compatible processors and computers. It scales well and is well suited for use on a diverse array of equipment ranging from supercomputers to industrial robots to electronic medical equipment to cell phones (and can even run on a wristwatch).

(20) Linux is a superior choice for use in academic institutions for a number of reasons. Among them is the fact that there are no secrets (in sharp contrast to proprietary software), thereby providing students the opportunity to study how computers really work rather than to just learn how to use them. Many educators are convinced that it is far more important for students to study computer science fundamentals than to practice specific applications (such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint). One reason is that computer science fundamentals will still be valid many years from now, whereas the specific application programs, especially the proprietary ones that do not conform to industry-wide standards, are constantly changing and those currently in use will likely become obsolete in a few years7.

(21) For governmental agencies, Linux and other free software allows for transparency of data because it stores the data in formats consistent with industry-wide standards. This is in contrast to the proprietary, closed formats characteristic of commercial software. Such transparency is important for maintaining an effective democracy. Keeping non-secret data in standards-compliant formats allows anyone to access it without having to purchase expensive proprietary software. Also, storing secret data in standards-compliant formats is widely regarding as being more secure than keeping it in proprietary formats.

(22) With Linux and other free software there is little reason to fear the existence of backdoors, in large part because all of the source code is available for inspection. A backdoor is a secret method for obtaining remote access to a computer. There is a (not unjustified) concern by many foreign governments and corporations that back doors have been covertly inserted into proprietary software that could allow the software developer and agencies of other governments to snoop into their most confidential data.

(23) Using and advocating Linux helps foster a healthy diversity and increased competition throughout the software industry. Such competition can promote technological advance, improve performance and lower costs for open source software and proprietary software alike. Both economic theory and hundreds of years of real-world experience clearly show that monopolies have little incentive to innovate, tend to produce shoddy products, charge inflated prices and tend to corrupt the political system.

(24) Linux and other free software have not only caught up with, or some cases surpassed, their proprietary counterparts, but they are also developing at a faster pace8. This trend will accelerate as demand for such software continues to grow and more and more individuals and organizations become actively involved it its development.

(25) Linux and other free software provide the opportunity for users to contribute to the advance of software technology because the source code is freely available to study, improve, extend and redistribute. This has been fairly common, and the most notable corporate example has been IBM. In addition to giving back to the software community and being a virtue in itself, such contributions can have great public relations value.

There are also several situations in which businesses and other organizations might benefit from converting their operating systems from Linux to Microsoft Windows:

(1) An organization that is downsizing its operation and already has valid but unused licenses for Microsoft Windows might be able to reduce personnel costs by replacing its Linux experts with Windows administrators, as the latter can generally be hired for significantly less than Linux administrators.

(2) Were Microsoft to offer an organization an extremely low cost incentive package, including providing long-term licenses (and upgrades) at nominal cost, paying for new hardware and providing free training and support, this could be a very attractive proposition. In fact, it could be a win-win situation because of the great publicity value that could accrue to Microsoft from a company or other organization converting from Linux to Windows.

________
1 For links to articles about some recent conversions to Linux, see Linux Success Stories, The Linux Information Project, December 2005.

2 Linux and most other free software is licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL). This highly successful license has been specifically designed to provide as much freedom as possible for users, both in a monetary sense and with regard to use. The GPL allows anyone to freely access the source code for software licensed under it in order to study, use, modify, extend and redistribute it as desired with only the very minimal requirements of always making the source code for redistributions of modified versions freely available and including a copy of the GPL text with the software.

It should be pointed out in this context that there are also compiled versions of Linux that are not free in a monetary sense, which is also permitted by the GPL. However, they are not necessarily any better than the free versions. Businesses and other organizations have the option of selecting whether they want a free or non-free version, and if they select the former, they have many distributions from which to choose.

3 This is a major reason that Google selected Linux, according to industry sources.

4 Forced upgrades occur when the developer stops supporting an earlier version of its software, and thus security patches for the newest viruses and other malware become unavailable and drivers are no longer developed for new hardware. Thus, many users have little choice but to purchase or lease the newest version. This can be very costly because of the licensing fees or other payments that must be made to the software developer or vendor. Further adding to the cost is the frequent need to purchase new hardware to accommodate the bloated code in the new versions of the software. In addition, installing the new software and troubleshooting it can be very time-consuming for system administrators and disruptive for business operations.

5 The highly controversial BSA is an international organization that was set up by major developers of proprietary software. It is empowered by the mandatory EULAs accompanying such software to make surprise audits on users and to levy heavy fines in the event of violation.

6 The is the same principle that is employed by public key cryptography (PKC), which is the most secure form of data encryption. And it is the opposite of the approach used with proprietary software, for which an attempt is made to keep the source code secret as a means of hiding security vulnerabilities.

7 For a more detailed look at the reasons that Linux is the best choice for use in educational institutions, see Linux and Education, The Linux Information Project, March 2004.

8 Numerous examples could be cited. For example, Apache is the dominant web server, hosting far more web sites than any of its proprietary counterparts. Likewise, it is widely agreed that the free Firefox and Opera web browsers are far more advanced (in terms of security, usability, etc.) than Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer is free in a monetary sense, but it is not free software because the source code is not made available and users are prohibited from modifying it.

Chinese ban on Wikipedia prevents research, users say

2006-01-10T22:19:00.000-08:00

By GEOFFREY YORK
Tuesday, January 10, 2006 Posted at 4:43 AM EST
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

Beijing — Chinese students and intellectuals are expressing outrage at Beijing's decision to prohibit access to Wikipedia, the fast-growing on-line encyclopedia that has become a basic resource for many in China.

Wikipedia, which offers more than 2.2 million articles in 100 languages, has emerged as an important source of scholarly knowledge in China and many other countries. But its stubborn neutrality and independence on political issues such as Tibet and Taiwan has repeatedly drawn the wrath of the Communist authorities.

The latest blocking of the website, the third shutdown of the site in China in the past two years, has now continued for more than 10 weeks without any explanation and without any indication whether the ban is temporary or permanent.

"What idiots these officials are!" said one message on a Chinese site. "They are killing our culture with censorship."

Others said the blocking of Wikipedia has been a major blow to their research projects and even to their prospects of passing civil-service exams. "How can I do my thesis now?" a university student asked on another Chinese website.

With some 225 million words of information and 13 million users in the United States alone, Wikipedia has grown at a phenomenal rate in just five years of existence. Last year, it tripled its U.S. readership, and it now ranks No. 35 in popularity among all websites.

Chinese authorities twice blocked the Wikipedia website for several weeks in 2004, apparently because it included articles on banned subjects such as the Taiwanese independence movement, the Tibetan autonomy issue and the Tiananmen Square student protests that were crushed by the Chinese military in 1989.

But those incidents were mere rehearsals for the latest blocking of the website, which began on Oct. 19 and has shown no signs of relenting.

In an appeal to the Chinese authorities, a Wikipedia volunteer in China said the blocking of the website will allow Beijing's enemies to control the flow of information on Wikipedia. (Wikipedia is open to any contributor to create, edit or change an article.) "Such an act is no different from cutting away our own voice and tongue, or shutting our own eyes and ears," the appeal said. "It is isolationism in the age of the Internet."

The Chinese government has gone to extreme lengths to control the Chinese Internet, with thousands of agents employed to monitor it and delete sensitive comments.

At the request of the Chinese government last month, Microsoft Corp. agreed to shut down the journal of a Chinese blogger who was writing about subjects such as a strike by employees of a Beijing newspaper.

IPv6: World's Largest Technology Upgrade On Deck

2006-01-10T09:44:00.000-08:00

By Laurie Sullivan, TechWeb News
January 09, 2006 (1:59 PM EST)

Bugs, spam, viruses, software security issues, quality of service and more have spurred experts to push for commercial deployment and government reform on Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

A panel battled the topic of when companies should deploy IPv6 and where the technology will make the greatest impact. The discussion took place at the 2006 International Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas last week. In the end, the four panelists agreed to disagree. But all said companies should examine methods to ease future deployments, such as planning a transition and making certain future hardware and software purchases are IPv6 ready.

IPv6, the latest version of Internet Protocol, provides more IP addresses than today's version 4. It supports auto-configuration to help correct most shortcomings in the current version, and has security, quality of service, digital rights management and mobile communications features.

The debate has heated up in the U.S. now that Asian countries are mandating adoption where IP addresses are in short supply. "Let me reiterate how pathetic we are in the U.S.," said Alex Lightman, chief executive and president for IPv6 Summit Inc. "In the U.S., we have between 1,000 to 2,000 IPv6 users, whereas Japan has between 200,000 and 500,000."

The Japanese government estimates the move to IPv6 will create a $1.55 trillion technology market by 2010. Lightman said the U.S. Department of Defense has mandated IPv6, but they've yet to build a network. Rex Wong, chief executive at DAVETV, which delivers Internet-protocol television (IPTV) content to mobile devices, PCs and televisions, believes there are "too many regulations and competitors in the U.S.," slowing adoption.

The U.S. government and the Department of Defense, two of IPv6's strongest proponents, are estimated to spend billions to make the transition happen. The White House Office of Management and Budget has directed U.S. federal agencies to develop IPv6 transition plans by February and requires that agencies comply with the mandate by June 2008."I predict the U.S. government won't use or accept IPv4 packets after 2017," Lightman said.

Momentum is increasing in the U.S. Experts believe the lack of IPv4 addresses in an "always on" connected world has prompted concern. In some industries the deficiency has begun to show. "Telecommunication carriers periodically check to see if you're done using the dynamic address they loan you when making a call," Lightman asked. "The dirty little secret is carriers take the address back when they need it even if it ends the call, leaving you to think it’s a bad cell zone."

Approximately 200 companies have requested a block of IPv6 addresses. Lightman, who expected everything from electronics in apparel to radio frequency identification technology to become IPv6-enabled, said only a dozen devices from various vendors such as Cisco System Inc., Juniper Networks Inc. and Panasonic are IPv6-ready.

Two technologies that slowed the need for more IP addresses were Network Address Translation (NAT), which translates IP addresses and lets large companies use one IP address to connect many devices, and Name Based Virtual Hosting, which allows multiple DNS names to function off the same IP address.

Recent surges in the use of mobile IP, IP telephony, IPTV and related technologies are creating a strong demand for the next-generation protocol. The CES panelist agreed IPv6 will make the biggest impact in IPTV by delivering low cost video transmission and quality of service (QoS). Set-top box shipment will reach 56 million units by 2009, estimates Christine Arrington, principal and senior analyst at Acacia Research Group.

But a transition to IPv6 from IPv4 means rewriting applications and installing new hardware. It puts security into question, too, since few firewalls and intrusion detection systems are v6 compliant. IPv6 will enable several security features, such as authentication, encryption, and an inability to "spoof or pretend to be another IP address like you can in IPv4," not possible in IPv4, said Sinead O'Donovan, product unit manager for Windows Networking at Microsoft.

When Microsoft releases its Vista operating systems later this year it will be IPv6-enabled out of the box, O'Donovan said. "Windows Vista will support IPv6 throughout the product where there are 14,000 components from Web server to browser," she said. "About 180 million PCs are shipped annually with the Windows operating system."

Most operating systems are enabled. Windows requires a service pack II upgrade by manually installing the feature. Microsoft's OS for mobile devices won't ship for another year. But Lightman said Symbian OS and Palm 6.0 are ready.

Security experts believe there are no known vulnerabilities in IPv6 that aren't already possible in IPv4. "We expect vulnerabilities in transition and tunneling protocols during the migration from IPv4 to IPv6," said Cory Benninger, CISSP Security Consultant at Foundstone Professional Services, a Division of McAfee, in an e-mail to TechWeb. "The IPv6 platform's immaturity is the largest vulnerability."

Implementation flaws in IPv6 have already hit a number of software vendors. Benninger provided a sample list: Cisco IOS IPv6 denial-of-service vulnerability, Linux Kernel IPv6 Denial of Service Vulnerability and Windows (XP, 2k3, Longhorn) is vulnerable to IPv6 Land attack.

IPv6 isn't backward compatible with IPv4. Lightman said transition will require encapsulation, tunneling or duel-stack routing where both protocols run simultaneously for awhile. O'Donovan said Microsoft Vista will be duel-stack.

Yahoo buys WebJay

2006-01-09T19:30:00.000-08:00

January 9, 2006 5:26 PM PST

Yahoo is boosting its music holdings. The search giant has purchased WebJay, a Web site that lets people publish music playlists on the Internet. No details of the deal were disclosed.

A posting on the Yahoo Music Blog praised WebJay, its technology, and its founder Lucas Gonze.

"WebJay is visionary and fantastic, but we are also keenly interested in Lucas the individual. He's contributed a lot of great work to standards around music on the Internet, and has always pushed forward a refreshing perspective of openness and progress without turning a blind eye to infringement or the rights of copyright holders (likely because he's a musician himself)."

Microsoft: Aero Glass is the final UI for Windows Vista

2006-01-09T18:16:00.000-08:00

Posted by Brad Wardell on 10 January 2006

Back in 2001 Microsoft's early betas of Windows XP contained a user interface dubbed "Watercolor". But only months before the operating system shipped Microsoft completely replaced it with an entirely different look and feel called "Luna" which became known as "Windows XP Style".

That move has created speculation that current Windows Vista look and feel, called Aero glass, would be replaced by a different look and feel later in the beta process.

However, this week's PowerUser.TV podcast has an interview with Microsoft developers who have confirmed that there will be no major change to the look and feel of Windows Vista from what is being shown in build 5270. In other words, Aero-Glass is it.

Microsoft shuts down Chinese blogger's site

2006-01-08T23:36:00.000-08:00

By Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service
January 06, 2006
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Microsoft has blocked the site of a Chinese blogger critical of the government, raising sharp questions from its own employees over how far the company should go in abiding by restrictive laws used to curtail free speech and press in the communist country.

Zhao Jing's blog, formerly located on the MSN Spaces service, "has been blocked to help ensure the service complies with local laws in China," according to a statement issued in London by Waggener Edstrom, one of Microsoft's public relations agencies. The agency later said that the action was requested by the Chinese government. His blog was at http://spaces.msn.com/members/mranti/.

Zhao, who also goes by the name Michael Anti, has a reputation for writing posts questioning government policy and commentaries on current news events. The sacking of his blog around the end of last year was noted Jan. 3 in a blog posting by Rebecca MacKinnon, a research fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society and former CNN journalist.

Some Western companies with IT operations in China have been criticized for tailoring their own policies in line with Chinese government laws considered to violate widely-accepted human rights standards. The rise of the Internet has represented a leaky crack for festering discontent, and the Chinese government is believed to have advanced Internet monitoring mechanisms in place detecting such keywords as "democracy" in online content.

In an interview with IDG News Service Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer reiterated that the company is bound to respect local law.

"We have an obligation in all the countries where we do business to abide by the laws and the government decrees in those countries," Ballmer said. "We do here, we do in Europe; we also do in places like China. And anybody can choose not to do business in any country. We all have that option."

Yahoo Inc. was criticized last year after providing evidence that led to a 10-year prison sentence for a Chinese journalist. Shi Tao was convicted of divulging state secrets to foreigners after passing along an e-mail that contained a warning from the Chinese government urging its officials to watch out for dissident activity ahead of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

In response to an IDG News Service query last month, Microsoft said it moderates "limited but specific parts of Spaces" to ensure the content in publicly visible forums abide by the laws and norms of China.

MSN uses a filter for blog URLs (uniform resource locators), the MSN Space title, subtitle and blog headers but does not filter blog entries or comments, the company said. Microsoft said it has a joint venture with a Chinese company, the Shanghai MSN Network Communications Technology Company Ltd., to manage MSN Spaces.

Microsoft employees have weighed in debate, with some writing critical salvos on their blogs while others defended the company's policies in China. Robert Scoble, a Microsoft technical evangelist, wrote on his personal blog that the Zhao situation is "depressing."

"It's one thing to pull a list of words out of blogs using an algorithm," Scoble wrote. "It's another thing to become an agent of a government and censor an entire blogger's work. Yes, I know the consequences. Yes, there are thousands of jobs at stake. Billions of dollars. But the behavior of my company in this instance is not right."

Michael Connolly, a product unit manager for MSN Spaces, wrote on his personal blog that China is unique in that it regulates certain kinds of speech. If a blog is reported to MSN as offensive, Microsoft checks to see if it adheres to the code of conduct, a series of standards Microsoft has as a requirement for posting on the service, Connolly wrote.

"In many cases, the answer is 'Yes, this site is fine,' Connolly wrote. "But, in some cases, the answer is 'no.' And when an offense is found that actually breaks a national law, we have no choice but to take down the site."

Google to Launch Video Marketplace

2006-01-07T20:09:00.000-08:00

Google to Launch Video Marketplace

CBS Leads List of Video Providers with CSI, Survivor, NCIS, Amazing Race and Classics Including I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, Twilight Zone and Many Others

NBA Introduces Current Season Games for the First-Time on the Web

Google Video Store To Show News and Historical Videos from ITN, Charlie Rose Interviews; New Titles Will Be Added Everyday

LAS VEGAS, NV – Jan. 6, 2006 – Live from the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced the planned opening of the Google Video Store, the first open video marketplace enabling consumers to buy and rent a wide range of video content from a major television network, a professional sports league, cable programmers, independent producers and film makers. This fast growing collection of videos will include prime-time and classic hits from CBS, a full slate of NBA games from this season and outstanding performances from the past, music videos from SONY BMG, Charlie Rose interviews as well as news and historical content from ITN and new titles being added everyday.

"Google video will let you watch lots of high quality video on the web for the first time. You can search and browse, and we make it fast and easy for you to watch," said Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president, Products. "For video producers and anyone with a video camera, Google Video will give you a platform to publish to the entire Google audience in a fast, free and seamless way."

Available soon, people who visit the Google Video homepage at http://video.google.com will be able to browse listings of video by category from the store or search Google's entire collection of videos by simply entering keywords into the search box.

"This is yet another exciting platform in which CBS can leverage its market-leading content to a whole new audience," said Leslie Moonves, President and CEO, CBS Corporation. "Making our programming accessible to the Google Video Store guarantees our shows significant new exposure to millions of users who are likely to access this Web service and who may not be traditional TV viewers. As the industry's most prolific generator of popular TV content, it's only natural that CBS would partner with Google on this service, which is destined to become one of the web's most popular destinations."

CBS's current primetime hits will include CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, NCIS, Survivor and The Amazing Race. Library classics will include I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, The Twilight Zone, MacGyver, Have Gun Will Travel, Mannix, My Three Sons, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. All CBS programs will be presented commercial free.

Google Video will also feature NBA games from this season and some of the greatest individual performances in NBA history. Marking the first time NBA fans can purchase full NBA contests on the Web, each NBA game for the rest of this season, including the NBA Playoffs and The Finals, will be available to fans in its entirety 24 hours after the contest's conclusion. In addition, the highest scoring games of several of the NBA's best players will be available including Kobe Bryant's 62 point performance in three quarters vs. Dallas last month.

"Google's innovative presentation of information and content is revolutionizing the way people access media," said NBA Commissioner David Stern. "In the increasingly competitive and rapidly changing world of entertainment, Google Video provides us with a new way to deliver the NBA experience to our fans when and how they want it."

Additional highlights of Google's video collection will include:

* Music videos from SONY BMG. The line-up of launch videos includes offerings from some of SONY BMG's global superstar artists, including Christina Aguilera, Beyonce, Kenny Chesney, Destiny's Child, Kelly Clarkson, Alicia Keys, Lil' Flip, Jessica Simpson, Shakira, System of a Down, Switchfoot, Usher, and many more.

* Feature Length Independent Films from Greencine.com. Including works by legendary Polish director Andrzej Wajda (Zemsta), documentary filmmaker Ted Bonnitt (Mau Mau Sex Sex) and independent actor/director Caveh Zahedi (In the Bathtub of the World).
* Historic, news and educational footage from ITN. This material ranges from coverage of key events in 2005 such as the Pope John Paul II's death, back to a recording of the 1896 coronation of Tsar Nicholas II – one of the earliest known pieces of moving imagery.

* Charlie Rose interviews. Including interviews with Henry Kissinger, Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino, Martha Stewart, Martin Scorsese, Harrison Ford, Dan Rather, Charles M. Schulz, Steve Jobs, Jay Leno, Tom Brokaw, and others.

* Cartoon classics from Classic Media. Featuring many of the world's most famous animated series such as "Felix the Cat," "Casper The Friendly Ghost," and "Rocky and Bullwinkle."

* Children's educational programming from Clearvue. Educational video topics vary from teen education on tattoos to explanations about the workings of the human brain.

* Cartoon classics from Classic Media and children's educational programming from Clearvue. Google Video also offers many of the world's most famous animated series such as "Felix the Cat," "Casper The Friendly Ghost," and "Rocky and Bullwinkle." Educational video topics from Clearvue vary from teen education on tattoos to explanations about the workings of the human brain.

* Clips from Getty Images' Archive Films Collection. A diverse collection of short clips that capture personalities, moments and eras throughout history - selected from vintage newsreels and educational film, as well as contemporary news and events from around the world.

There will be thousands of titles for sale in the Google Video Store with more titles added everyday. The list of content producers will also include a broad range of entertainment and educational partners including among others, Blue Highways TV, CareTALK, Fashion TV, Here! TV, HDNet, Hilarious Picks, Image Entertainment, iWatchNow.com, Kantola Productions, MediaZone, Plum TV, Porchlight Entertainment, SOFA Entertainment, Teen Kids, Trinity Broadcasting Network, WGBH, Wheels TV, and Wilderness Film India Ltd.

Launched early last year, Google Video is the first open video marketplace where any video producer, large or small, can upload their content and distribute it for free or at a price. Video prices are set by the content provider with no minimum or maximum dollar-limit. Owners also have the choice to offer their content with or without copy protection – enabling them greater control over its distribution.

Additionally, content from Google Video can be viewed with a new player that can be downloaded for free from any playback page. It offers all the traditional playback options (play, pause, stop...) as well as a "thumbnail" navigation feature that enables users to browse through an entire video, or frames at a time, with a simple click of their mouse.

iPod and Sony Playstation Portable users will also be able to download and watch any non-copy-protected content from Google Video, and even get it specially optimized for playback on their devices. Google Video Store will be available throughout the world, however purchasing premium content in the Google Video Store will only be available in the U.S.

Google Goes for Web Video Gold

2006-01-07T20:07:00.000-08:00

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS -- Google is upping the ante in the online video gold rush, allowing content owners to set their own prices in a bid to create a more flexible alternative to Apple Computer's pioneering iTunes store.

The upcoming Google Video Store, announced Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show, already has lined up commitments to sell thousands of downloads, including recent television broadcasts of popular CBS shows and professional basketball games, as well as vintage episodes from series that went off the air decades ago. A launch date for the store has not been released.

"This is a historic meeting of established and new media," Google co-founder Larry Page said during a keynote speech. Page drew a sellout crowd, a turnout usually only drawn by technology luminaries such as Microsoft's Bill Gates, who has headlined the electronics show for 10 years.

"It's the biggest marketplace of content that was previously offline and is now brought online," said Jennifer Feikin, director of Google Video.

Since Apple began selling video downloads for its iconic iPod in October, a flurry of companies have joined forces to distribute TV programming or other video content. The company says it currently offers more than 3,000 music videos and 300 television shows for sale.

Google's flexible pricing model sets its service apart.

Apple dictates all the pricing in its iTunes store, charging $2 for each video download and $1 for each song downloaded. The restrictions already have caused considerable consternation in the music recording industry and eventually could trigger a backlash on the video side.

With Google's marketplace, content suppliers can name their own price, from zero on up. The content owners who charge for video downloads must share 30 percent of the revenue with Google.

The video providers have the option of offering content on a download-to-own or download-to-rent basis.

In a sign that content owners will likely pursue different approaches through Google Video, the National Basketball Association will sell broadcasts of its games one day after the event for $4. Meanwhile, public television staple Charlie Rose will post his interviews the day after a broadcast, allowing a free streaming for the first 24 hours then making it downloadable afterward for $1 each. Meanwhile, CBS is selling episodes of its popular CSI and Survivor series at the standard iTunes price of $2 per download.

Although Google's service allows content owners more pricing freedom, it isn't necessarily as liberating for users.

While all of videos downloaded through Apple can be transferred onto a portable player -- albeit only its own iPod -- for on-the-go viewing, that won't be true at Google's service. Google has developed its own copy protection technology that so far prevents content owners from moving their video downloads to a mobile playing device. In instances where the content provider adopts Google's copy protection scheme, watching a video sold through Google will require users to be online so they can log on and view it via the company's video player.

CBS and the NBA are among the content owners adopting Google's copy protections. However, if a content owner posts unrestricted video on Google, the user could move the video onto pretty much any portable device. Charlie Rose is among those offering unprotected video.

In another distinction from iTunes, Google Video so far works only on Microsoft's Windows-based PCs and not yet on Apple's Macintosh computers.

By relying on its own proprietary copy-protection technology, Google threatens to compound the frustration that some consumers feel when they buy songs from one online source like the iTunes store, only to discover the music can't be played on an incompatible gadget such as Creative Technologies' Zen player.

Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff offered a possible explanation for Google's decision: "It's arrogance."

Page told a group of reporters after his speech that Google felt other copy-protection schemes would not have worked as well as one made in-house. A majority of new media players and media centers, other than Apple's and Sony's devices, are built to work with Microsoft's copy-protection technology -- a setup that most entertainment companies have embraced.

"So now Google is telling Toshiba and others, 'No, you have to implement ours.' It's just crazy," Bernoff said.

Other than that potential weakness, Google appears to be laying the foundation to become a future entertainment hub along with rivals Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN, said Creative Strategies analyst Tim Bajarin.

Yahoo is widely expected to extend the range of its video offerings, although chief executive Terry Semel didn't announce any new initiative on that front during a Friday speech at CES.

"Yahoo and Google will both offer video, and I think at the end of the day, video is what the web wants," Semel said in an interview afterward. "The opportunities are quite large for all the internet players." At the show, Semel unveiled a software platform that he said would allow Yahoo users to view customized content, including video, on web-connected televisions and cell phones.

The Google Video Store, an expansion of a free-video service Google launched last year, marks the web search engine leader's first foray into a paid service.

If the online store proves popular, it could help the company lessen its dependence on Internet advertising, which accounted for virtually all of its estimated profit of $1.5 billion last year. Some industry analysts view Google's lack of financial diversity as its Achilles' heel.

Besides programming from CBS, the NBA and Charlie Rose, the list of other video material that will be sold through Google includes: old episodes from I Love Lucy, The Twilight Zone and The Brady Bunch; music videos from Sony BMG; and historic video from Getty Images.

MS Opens Live Messenger Beta to More

2006-01-05T18:08:00.000-08:00

By BetaNews Staff, BetaNews
January 5, 2006, 8:40 PM

Microsoft began sending out additional invitations for its Windows Live Messenger client on Thursday, BetaNews has learned. The company had previously closed the test to a few thousand users, who have received only a limited number of additional invites over the past several weeks for friends and family.

"We'd like you to be among the first to try a new beta version of Messenger," the invite reads. "We need your feedback if there's anything that doesn't seem to working right, or that you would like to see done differently." No information has been released as to how many invitations will be sent out during this second phase of the beta test.

Microsoft to Issue WMF Security Patch

2006-01-03T23:43:00.000-08:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
January 3, 2006, 2:21 PM

Microsoft announced early Tuesday that it had completed a patch for a widely publicized security vulnerability in Windows Media File (WMF) image processing that could lead to a full system compromise. But the fix won't be available until next week, the company said.

WMF, or Windows Metafile, is a vector based image format used by Microsoft's operating systems. SHIMGVW.DLL is loaded to render the images and contains a flaw that opens the door for a malformed WMF image to cause remote code execution and potentially allow for a full system compromise.

Within days, thousands of exploit variants were spreading to take advantage of the newly discovered flaw, prompting security vendors to rush out updates to protection software. Microsoft previously fixed a vulnerability affecting WMF and EMF files in November, which affected Windows 2000, XP and Windows Server 2003.

"When the MSRC learned of the attacks on December 27, 2005, we mobilized under what we call the Software Security Incident Response Process (SSIRP) to analyze the attack, assess its scope and determine and the appropriate guidance for customers, as well as to engage with anti-virus partners and law enforcement," explained Kevin Kean from the Microsoft Security Response Center.

"Based on that process, we have finished development of a security update to fix the vulnerability and are testing it to ensure quality and application compatibility."

However, the patch won't be available until next week's monthly Patch Tuesday release. The company says it needs time to test the fix and prepare it in 23 different languages for all affected versions of Windows.

"Our goal is to release the update on Tuesday, January 10, 2006, as part of the regular, monthly security update release cycle, although quality is the gating factor," Kean added.

Security experts from numerous companies including F-Secure, Sunbelt and Panda previously called on Microsoft to release an emergency patch as soon as possible, but Redmond officials downplayed claims of such a dire situation.

"Although the issue is serious and the attacks are being attempted, Microsoft's intelligence sources indicate that the scope of the attacks is limited," Microsoft said in a statement. "In addition, attacks exploiting the WMF vulnerability are being effectively mitigated by anti-virus companies with up-to-date signatures."

Google sued over Talk

2006-01-02T17:48:00.000-08:00

02 January 2006
Google sued over Talk
By Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG news service

A firm that holds patents for technology used in Internet voice calling is suing search giant Google for US$5 billion over its Google Talk instant-messaging client.

Rates Technology (RTI), a small, New York company that holds patents to telecommunications technologies but does not sell products, filed suit in October against Google, claiming the company is using two technologies RTI has patented but has not licensed.

The case was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York in October, but surfaced first in published reports this week.

Google uses the two technologies, which are for minimising the cost of long-distance telephone calls, in the VoIP service of its Google Talk VOIP client.

'Google's wrongful acts have damaged and will continue to damage RTI irreparably, and RTI has no adequate remedy at law for those wrongs and injuries,' the company said in court papers.

Google has been notified of its patent infringement and given a chance to remedy the situation by licensing technology from RTI, 'but has refused to do so,' the company said in its court filing.

RTI is demanding a trial by jury to settle the suit, according to court papers.

Rich Tehrani, VoIP industry watcher and president of Technology Marketing, has written about RTI in several entries his VoIP blog.

In an e-mail interview Friday, Tehrani said that RTI founder and President Jerry Weinberger invented least-cost routing technology that allows a phone system to find the cheapest carrier prior to placing a phone call. This technology is part of what enables VoIP calls to work. Other companies, such as Cisco Systems and Lucent Technologies, have already paid RTI to use its patented technology, he said.

Google spokesman Steve Langdon said the company believes the lawsuit is 'without merit' and plans to fight it.

RTI could not be reached for comment Friday."

Year in Review: Apple Continues to Wow

2006-01-02T17:39:00.000-08:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
December 31, 2005, 2:44 AM

Apple continued to build on its dominance of the digital music industry in 2005, and saw the successes slowly bleed into its personal computer business as industry analysts began to gauge the iPod's "halo effect."

The folks at Cupertino would also do the once unthinkable and admit that Apple was falling behind the rest of the industry by continuing with the PowerPC architecture, a decision that could shape the company in 2006 and beyond.

Apple started the year by opening an Irish version of the iTunes Music Store four days before Macworld. However, the biggest fireworks were yet to come.

At Macworld on January 11, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the company was joining the low-price PC industry by introducing an entry level Mac Mini at $499. Jobs also unveiled the iPod Shuffle, a diminutive flash player that would now serve as the entry point to Apple's iPod line.

The products would prove popular, and by mid-month both would be backordered by three to four weeks.

Apple also announced iWork in January, featuring a new word processing application called Pages that was intended replace the company's aging AppleWorks suite, as well as an update to the iLife suite of programs.

Enthusiast site Think Secret would become more aggressive against Apple in its defense of newsgathering practices late in the month, hiring attorney Terry Gross, formerly of the EFF. Apple had accused Think Secret of revealing trade secrets late in 2004. The company would later agree to put its case on hold pending arguments from the EFF.

A 2-for-1 stock split took place February 18, which analysts said was largely possible due to the success of the iPod. However, the good news wouldn't last for long, as Apple mourned the loss of Macintosh creator Jef Raskin, who died at the end of the month at the age of 61.

Apple won a crucial ruling in early March that ordered Macintosh enthusiast sites to disclose their sources to, after the court said journalistic protections did not cover Web sites. Think Secret would fire back days later, asking for the Apple lawsuit to be dismissed.

Away from legal issues, Apple announced its support for Blu-ray during the month.

April would bring news that the company would begin selling the Mac Mini at Best Buy, the first time Apple computers had made an appearance in the retailer's stores since 2003.

Apple released Final Cut Studio on April 18, followed by the launch of Mac OS X version 10.4 Tiger two weeks later.

At the end of the month, Apple announced another record quarter for the company, with 1 million Macs and an astounding 5.3 million iPods shipped.

A Georgia county would help strengthen Apple's position in the educational sector as the go ahead was given for 63,000 iBooks to be distributed to Cobb County schoolchildren and teachers in early May.

Improvements would also come to iTunes during the month, including the addition of music videos to the catalog and the opening of four new European stores: Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

Rumors of negotiations with Intel would first surface at the end of May, as the Wall Street Journal said the two sides were close to a deal. But neither company would confirm it at the time. Those rumors would be confirmed as Apple announced a switch to Intel chips on June 6 at the company's Worldwide Developer's Conference.

The first Intel Macs will arrive in 2006, with a goal of all Macs being Intel-based the following year.

At the end of June, Apple brought color to its iPod lines, axing the 30GB version and keeping 20GB and 60GB models. The company also added podcasts to iTunes with the release of version 4.9.

Apple would post yet another record quarter in mid-July, announcing a $320 million profit. During the quarter, Apple shipped 6.16 million iPods and 1.18 million Macintosh computers. The company said it had sold 500 million songs through the iTunes Music service a week later.

The turbulent relationship between HP and Apple came to a close late in July as the company called it quits on their 18-month partnership.

The two button Apple-manufactured Mighty Mouse would make its appearance in early August after years of consumer demand. The company also expanded the iTunes Music store to Japan, and would later announce the store had sold one million songs in four days.

Whether it was a symbol of Apple's rising power, or just a chance to get a cheap laptop, an old iBook giveaway in Virginia resulted in several injuries and a lot of unhappy customers as supplies ran out quickly in mid-August.

Also during August, a settlement was reached for owners of iPods with defective batteries, affecting some 1.3 million customers.

September 7 would be a big day for Apple, as it announced an all new version of iTunes, the much anticipated Motorola ROKR phone, and the iPod nano, which replaced the aging iPod mini line. The nano's "impossibly small" size captivated the crowd and took much of the publicity, much to the chagrin of Motorola.

Jobs would also stand firm against the music industry during the month, saying songs in Apple's iTunes store would remain at 99 cents.

First reports of problems with the iPod nano would become public late in September, with users complaining of screen defects and scratching issues across user groups and on the Apple support Web site.

The company reported yet another stellar quarter in October, however iPod sales were relatively flat. Figuring the news likely would not sit well with investors and the media, a press event the next day introduced a media center iMac, as well as the oft-rumored video iPod.

To support these new products, Apple released iTunes 6 with individual music videos for purchase, as well as downloadable TV shows from ABC and the Disney Channel. The company announced at the end of the month that it had sold 1 million videos.

Apple's nano problems would come back to bite the company later in the month when it became the target of a class-action lawsuit over the quality of the player. The suit would go international in early November, and is believed to be the reason why Apple began to include protective sleeves with the nano shortly thereafter.

New television shows from NBC Universal, including 11 TV shows from NBC, USA Network and the Sci-Fi Channel, and select classic shows would appear on iTunes in early December. Rumors swirled that Apple was also in negotiations with other media companies to add their programming as well.

While 2005 was a landmark year for Apple, 2006 will pave the company's future path. Macworld kicks off the week after CES in early January and speculation has pointed to the release of an Intel based iBook and revamped Mac Mini, complete with DVR functionality. While such rumors have proven wrong in the past, one fact is clear: Apple continues to wow the industry with new and innovative products.

Biggest Discoveries of 2005

2005-12-29T08:03:00.000-08:00

By Leander Kahney | Also by this reporter

We live in a technological age, for sure, but 2005 will go down as a particularly abundant year for scientific discoveries.

The Year of the Rooster marked the discovery of the first dinosaur tissue, the solar system's 10th planet and a mechanical hand controlled by thought alone.

It was an especially big year for space scientists, who peered beneath the gloom of a Saturnian moon, detected the first Earthlike alien planet and smashed into a speeding comet.

Here, in reverse order, is Wired News' take on the biggest scientific and technical discoveries of 2005. Did we miss anything? Have your say in the comments sections below.

10. Moony probe: The European Space Agency successfully landed the Huygens probe on the surface of Titan -- a journey of 900 million miles that yielded a two-and-a-half-hour peek beneath the haze of Saturn's largest moon. Titan's surface is orange and spongy, and the moon emits a low whooshing sound.

9. It's not a lemur: Finding new animals these days is rare -- especially large mammals. In December, the World Wildlife Federation discovered a new mammal in the forests of Borneo. Snapped twice by remote camera, the critter is about the size of a cat and has a long, muscular tail. It's thought to be a meat eater.

8. Ten planets or eight?: In July, astronomers said every school kid in the world is wrong: The solar system doesn't have nine planets -- it has 10. About 9 billion miles from the sun is planet 2003 UB313, a cold, desolate rock about one-and-a-half times the size of Pluto. Others disagree: The new planet is a big asteroid, a Kuiper Belt object, and so is Pluto. The "planet" orbits the sun on a different plane -- which is why no one noticed it before -- even though it's bright enough to be seen by amateur astronomers.

7. Little fluffy comets: On July 4, NASA created a unique fireworks display far out in space between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists used the Deep Impact spacecraft to smash a 1,000-pound copper impactor into comet Tempel 1. The collision revealed that comets are fluffy, not hard and rocky. The mission was a masterpiece of technical coordination over a distance of nearly 270 million miles.

6. Big soft dinosaur: Paleontologists in March accidentally stumbled upon the first soft tissue from a dinosaur -- some cells and blood vessels from a 68 million-year-old female Tyrannosaurus rex. They had to split a thigh bone to remove it from a remote dig, and it's expected to be a goldmine of dino physiology. Previously, it had been assumed tissue couldn't survive longer than 100,000 years.

5. First neuro-cybernaut: Quadriplegic Matt Nagle became the first paralyzed person to control an artificial hand by brain power alone. A "Braingate" chip implanted in Nagle's motor cortex allows him to reach out and grasp objects by thinking about moving his own paralyzed hand. Nagle's neuro-cybernetic interface also allows him to control the lights, TV and a computer. "My mother was scared of what might happen, but what else can they do to me?" Nagle said. "I was in a corner, and I had to come out fighting."

4. Rocky exoplanet: Astronomers detected the smallest planet to date in another star system. About 7.5 times the size of the Earth, its relatively diminutive proportions mean it is likely made of rock. Previous exoplanets -- about 150 have been detected so far -- were all gas giants like Jupiter.

3. Microscopic microbots: After years of hype, nanotechnology finally yielded some of the teeny-weeny machines that nanotech scientists have long promised. Researchers accomplished several breakthrough molecular machines, including a car and a fridge -- in some cases using individual atoms. Other nanoscale devices built in 2005 include a motor and a microbot.

2. Dogs and chimps and rice, oh my!: Chimps and dogs joined the growing list of animals whose genomes have been cataloged end to end. In February, researchers decoded doggie DNA, and in August scientists unraveled the genetic mysteries of our closest evolutionary relative: the chimp. A human-to-chimp comparison reveals we share 96 percent to 99 percent of our genes, but, of course, it's the 40 million differences that count. The genome of rice was also decoded. Rice is the staple crop for more than half the world's population, and the DNA sequence could lead to hardier, higher-yield plants.

1. It's getting hot in here: Thanks to the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, global warming can no longer be ignored. There's no doubt about it: Earth's climate is heating up. But is it part of the planet's natural climate cycle, or man-made? That's the question. More than 150 nations are willing to do something about it and propose to reduce greenhouse gases. But China and the United States, two of the heaviest-polluting nations, refuse to participate. What will it take to engage the United States -- the drowning of another major city?

Year in Review: Google Sets the Pace

2005-12-29T07:14:00.000-08:00

By Ed Oswald and Nate Mook, BetaNews
December 29, 2005, 12:00 AM

For the folks at Google, 2005 will be remembered as the year which it transformed itself from a tech darling into an Internet powerhouse. Its moves were watched closely by the media and customers began to develop distrust in the search company. But will Google become the next Microsoft?

The year started out rocky for Google as researchers discovered a flaw in its popular Gmail service that could expose user data to attackers, including passwords. The search giant quickly responded, however, and the problem was fixed within days.

Later in January Google cozied up with upstart browser Firefox, hiring its lead engineer Ben Goodger. And it would surface several days later that fellow developer Darin Fisher had also joined the company. The news spurred rumors that Google might be working on a Web browser, or Gbrowser, but such a project has yet to materialize.

With February came the beta launch of Google's Local Search product, which had previously been relegated to the company's Labs. The new service would spark a "local" race with competitors, as AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo rushed similar services to market.

Google followed with the launch of Google Maps several days later, which arguably kick-started the AJAX movement that would eventually lead Microsoft to unveil Windows Live.

The month of February also brought the first inklings of problems with Google's book searching plans after the National Library of France took issue with the project. Library president Jean-Noel Jeanneney criticized the effort, claiming that Google would reflect an American-centric worldview.

March arrived with the first of two high-profile hirings of former Microsoft employees. Marc Lucovsky joined the company on March 3. Google Desktop Search went final shortly thereafter, but the AFP news wire sued the company over the use of its images on Google News.

Showing its competitors that being young and nimble has its advantages, Gmail storage was upped to 2GB on April 1, leading many to wonder if they were the fool. But Gmail storage continued to creep up beyond 2GB and rivals MSN and Yahoo would be forced to respond.

Making a great product even better, Google took advantage of its Keyhole purchase and satellite imagery was added to Google Maps several days later. MSN and Yahoo would eventually follow suit with satellite mapping services of their own.

Not all of Google's products would win such praise, however. In May, the company released Google Accelerator to speed up the loading of Web pages by loading them through its Web servers. But the program drew the ire of developers who said it could do more harm than good due to the way it follows links and caches pages. Google removed the download to work out the kinks.

Before long, Google announced that it would be officially expanding into China with a research and development center, a story that would later dominate the news coverage surrounding the company.

May ended with more controversy, as a group of academic publishers accused Google Print, the company's book indexing project, of "systematic copyright infringement on a massive scale." Google would soon take even more fire for the endeavor.

Summer began quietly at the GooglePlex, although in June Google CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed rumors that the company was working on an electronic payment system. However, he denied that the service -- later named Google Purchases -- was intended to compete with eBay-owned PayPal.

One of the biggest stories of the year began in the month of July, as Google attempted to hire former Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee. Microsoft immediately objected to the hiring, and filed suit in court to stop it. The move would set off a game of legal cat and mouse between the two rivals that would last until the end of the year.

August saw Google put its library project on hold, citing complaints from the publishing community. The company gave publishers until November to decide if they wanted to participate. Still, before the end of the year Google would expand the service by 10,000 titles.

Before Labor Day, the search giant changed clothes and debuted Google Talk, its own instant messaging client. The service received high marks from both users and pundits, and was hailed for its simplicity. Gmail was opened to the public the very next day -- at least to anyone with a mobile phone.

In September, Internet pioneer Vint Cerf joined Google to serve as its Chief Internet Evangelist. But Google Print again met troubles as the Author's Guild filed suit against the company, accusing it of massive copyright infringement.

At the end of the month, the company shook hands with NASA, leading some to wonder if Google was expanding too fast. The two agreed to collaborate on research projects, as well as build a new one million square foot office complex at the NASA Ames Research Center.

In what was likely the most hyped press conference beforehand and the most derided after, Google and Sun joined forces in early October, inking a deal to distribute each other's software. Analysts said that Sun is fighting a battle to stay relevant as the tech world passes it by. Another partnership proved much more promising: sources claimed Google was planning to make an investment in AOL with cable provider Comcast.

Lead Gaim developer Sean Egan also joined Google before the month was out, and said he would work on making other IM clients compatible with Google's voice calling feature and other Google Talk-related projects.

November may have brought chilly weather across the United States, but Google's share price would remain hot. The company's stock eclipsed $400 during the month, and would later surge past $430.

Expanding its search to more types of content, Google upped the ante with eBay and Craigslist by launching Google Base, a database that hosts all types of items, and renamed Google Print to Google Book Search. The company then donated $3 million to create digital copies of rare documents.

Taking the unusual step of becoming a follower rather than innovator, Google added widgets to its homepage in December. The move followed Microsoft's own "Gadget" technology being added to its Live.com homepage, the front door to Windows Live.

Music search was also added to Google's search pages during the month, making it easier for users to find information on artists, album titles and song lyrics. Google Music additionally provides links to download songs if they are available from the major digital music services like iTunes.

For Christmas, Google left a big present under America Online's tree. On December 16 it was announced that the search company would pay Time Warner's AOL subsidiary $1 billion in exchange for a 5 percent stake. The deal covered advertising and promotion of AOL content, leading to concern and speculation.

Closing out the year on a positive note, Google ended its five-month legal battle with Microsoft over Kai-Fu Lee's hiring. Although details of the deal were not disclosed, both companies said they were happy with the terms.

The ball may be dropping soon in Times Square, but 2006 could see Google's valuation soar even higher before investors get scared. Google has firmly established itself as a major player in the online space -- not just as a search engine, but also as a content provider and application developer. The only question is whether Google will keep the growth it has enjoyed so far, or lose ground to its rivals who have finally begun to mobilize on the Web.

Google Talk faces patent lawsuit

2005-12-28T18:51:00.000-08:00

December 28, 2005 4:09 PM PST

A New York company is suing Google for patent infringement over the voice-over-Internet portion of its Google Talk instant messaging and voice chat program.

As reported by Gary Price in Search Engine Watch.com, the lawsuit was filed by Rates Technology in October. It alleges infringement on two of its patents for minimizing the cost of long-distance calls using the Internet.

Price's blog posting also links to this blog posting from April by TMCnet Publisher Rich Tehrani that said Rates Technology makes money off filing patent infringement suits.

Neither Rates Technology nor its lawyers could not be reached for comment, but Google had a brief comment: "We believe the lawsuit is without merit and we will defend against it vigorously."

'Leaked' E-Mail About Windows Live Messenger Really A Trojan

2005-12-28T04:48:00.000-08:00

By Gregg Keizer
TechWeb News
AŒ 27, 2005 11:28 H

The message, which refers to an alternate name for the upcoming Live Messenger, includes a link. Users who click on the link, then download and run the executable, are installing the Virkel.f Trojan.

Helsinki-based F-Secure told users to ignore instant messages with the subject head "MSN Messenger 8 Working BETA" that go on to claim that "Messenger 8 BETA has been leaked!"

The message, which refers to an alternate name for the upcoming Live Messenger, also sports a link. Users who click on the link, then download and run the executable, are in reality installing the Virkel.f Trojan.

Virkel.f adds the compromised machine to a botnet, from which the hacker can update the Trojan with additional malicious code, to make the PC into a spam zombie or along with others, launch a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on Web sites. Virkel.f also shuts down anti-virus and security software, and blocks access to sites that belong to security vendors.

This bot worm spreads by hijacking IM contact names from an infected computer, then spimming those names with new messages about the "leaked" client.

Live Messenger, which is being tested by a limited number of users, recently made news when some began selling invitations to the beta test on eBay.

Dell: No plans for Firefox in Australia

2005-12-27T07:38:00.000-08:00

By Renai LeMay
Special to CNET News.com
Published: December 27, 2005, 5:49 AM PST

Dell's Australian operation has ruled out following the lead of its British counterpart in the near future and shipping the Mozilla Firefox Web browser on computers.

"There are currently no plans to ship Firefox on desktops or notebooks in Dell Asia Pacific at this time," a spokesperson for the PC manufacturer told ZDNet Australia last week.

The spokesperson was responding to a Firefox developer's confirmation of reports that Dell has started including Firefox with its desktop machines in the United Kingdom.

"It's true that Firefox is bundled with Dell in the UK," wrote Firefox co-creator Blake Ross on his blog.

Dell's move is a blow to Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, which until recently has been generally the only option shipped with Windows-based desktop PCs by the major desktop suppliers.

It follows Hewlett-Packard's October confirmation it would start shipping Netscape's Web browser--which is based on Firefox but can also use IE's page rendering engine--on new consumer PCs and notebooks starting early 2006.

Microsoft's IE is by far the most-used Web browser, but smaller players have been pecking at its market share. Firefox has a loyal following, and the recent release of version 1.5 was one of the most hotly anticipated software downloads this year.

Opera Software is also making noise, announcing earlier this year that it will strip the ads out of the free version of its browser.

France on track to legalize P2P downloading

2005-12-25T18:01:00.000-08:00

Fri Dec 23, 2005 5:10 AM ET15
By Shiraz Sidhva
PARIS (Hollywood Reporter)

France's lower house of parliament has voted to legalize peer-to-peer file-sharing of films and music on the Internet, unleashing a wave of protest from the country's film, audiovisual and music industry organizations.

If the measure passes in the upper house, France would become the first country to legalize peer-to-peer downloading at a time when most Western nations are battling to curb illegal downloading on the Internet.

Introduced as two amendments to a government bill aimed at toughening digital copyright laws, the measure was approved by a vote of 30-28 at about midnight Wednesday, with very few of the National Assembly's 577 members present. The amendments have recommended that Internet users pay a fixed-royalties fee of $8.50 per month -- in the form of a monthly subscription charge -- for unlimited downloading, thus legalizing all file-sharing deemed for personal use.

France's professional film, music and audiovisual organizations displayed a rare show of solidarity at a news conference late Thursday, resolving to do "everything in their power" to stall the measure, which would have to survive a vote in the Senate before it becomes law.

"This could be a catastrophe for French cinema, affecting present and future generations of creators and artists," said producer Alain Terzian, who heads leading French film producers' union UPF.

The country's top artists and entertainers have sworn to oppose the law that might affect their livelihood, threatening to "march to the National Assembly if need be" to stop the bill from becoming a law, according to a spokesperson for audiovisual production union USPA.

"If my music is going to be free, then I insist that the government's representatives who work for the public good also do it for free," popular French singer Michel Sardou said.

"It's a very bad idea (that) could spell disaster for French cinema and completely ruin the business model of pay TV companies like Canal Plus," said Nicholas Seydoux, chairman of French film company Gaumont and ALPA, France's main audiovisual anti-piracy body.

Pointing out that the vote could jeopardize the livelihoods of artists in the music and film industry, Seydoux said in an interview that he was certain that the lawmakers who voted for the measure were "not at all clear about the true implications of such a law and only used their votes to assert their independence from the government."

"We are not trying to ban anything, we just want to ensure that the work of others isn't stolen," Seydoux added, saying he approved of the government's move to warn pirates not to illegally download movies and music from the Internet before fining them. "We realize it's impossible to produce all offenders before a judge," he said. "But we have to take some measures to stop such a mass problem."

The government is in a position to overturn the amendments, either by calling for another debate (the bill was debated in the house Tuesday and Wednesday) or if the Senate votes down the bill.

French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres has asked that a parliamentary debate on the amendment be put off until a later date -- probably after the holiday season -- to ensure that more members are engaged in the issue, a spokesman in his office said late Thursday.

The amendment, which is attached to a bill on intellectual property rights, seeks to bring France in line with a 2001 European Union directive, which stipulates that "authors cannot forbid the reproduction of works that are made on any format from an online communications service when they are intended to be used privately" and not for commercial use.

Consumer groups, including the dominant UFC-Que Choisir, rejoiced at Wednesday night's vote. "We never expected this, but France has proved yet again that it stands for all kinds of freedom," a spokesman for the consumer group said Thursday. But judging from the furor the move has caused, "our happiness may be short-lived," he said.

Microsoft Not Acquiring Opera

2005-12-23T21:06:00.000-08:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
December 23, 2005, 11:48 AM

Despite a recommendation by infamous tech pundit John C. Dvorak and rumors of a near-complete deal, Opera Software on Friday said it was not being acquired by Microsoft. Opera also says a rumor last week that Google was an interested suitor is just as false. But that hasn't stopped a barrage of opinions.

"This is a good move for the folks at Opera. For Microsoft, it's a very good move," said Jupiter Research vice president Michael Gartenberg before the clarification from Opera. "It gives them some excellent technologies they can incorporate into IE and that can help serve them well in their battles with Firefox."

"It also boosts their mobile technologies a great deal. There's no doubt that Opera on WM 5 is a far better browser experience and it also allows Microsoft to push IE down to other phone platforms via the Java version of Opera Mini," Gartenberg added. "Finally, it keeps Opera away from Google, which might have had similar plans to use the technology in just that way."

However, even though Opera says it has received no offers, fellow Jupiter analyst Joe Wilcox notes the browser space is heating up quick.

"There is plenty of talk about Microsoft competing with Google or even AOL and Yahoo. But the real competitor is elsewhere. The big advertising spending goes into the offline bucket, such as television. But more of that money is beginning to trickle into the online bucket," explained Wilcox. "Microsoft and Google competition or even the AOL and Google deal really is about jockeying to get in front of the line with buckets outstretched to catch those dollars as they move online."

Opera, which turned freeware in September, has been struggling to get past a 1 percent market share. Its browsing technology has been touted as one of the best, but users continue to stick with Internet Explorer and newcomer Firefox, sparking rumors that Opera may be looking for an exit strategy.

And Wilcox says it wouldn't be surprising that Microsoft is interested. "The browser is one the major means by which online advertising will reach consumer. Where there's money to be made, there's fire. And browser competition is red hot."

Xorg6.9 and Xorg7.0 Released

2005-12-22T02:57:00.000-08:00

Posted by Roblimo on Wednesday December 21, @06:08PM
By Leon Shiman, X.org

X11R7.0 is the first release of the complete modularized and autotooled source code base for the X Window System. It is the first major version release of the X Window System in more than a decade. X11R6.9, its companion release, contains identical features and uses the exact same source code as X11R7.0, but uses the traditional imake build system.

These changes in source code management, which give openness and transparency to the source code base and employ current technology, invite a new generation of developers to contribute, building on the long tradition of the X Window System. The new modular format offers focused development and rapid, independent updates and distribution of tested modular components as they are ready, freed from the biennial maintenance release timetable.

X11R6.9 is comprised of many distinct components bonded in a single tree, based on imake. X11R7.0 splits that set of components into logically distinct modules, separately developed, built, and maintained by the community of X.Org developers. This simultaneous release gives a transition point for developers, builders, and vendors to adapt their practices to the new X.Org modular process.

X11R7.0 supports Linux and Solaris at this time, with other support pending. X11R7.1, the first modular roll-up release, is scheduled mid-2006. While the monolithic tree will continue to be fully supported and released, new feature development is expected to concentrate on the modular code base.

The X11R7.0 and X11R6.9 releases are the work of more than fifty volunteer contributors worldwide, working under the release management team of Kevin Martin (Head), Alan Coopersmith, and Adam Jackson, with the support of Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and the unsupported, generous contribution of effort by Adam Jackson.

All X Window System Releases are available from ftp.X.Org and mirror sites worldwide (see http://wiki.x.org/Mirrors). They are distributed under the MIT ('X') License by the X.Org Foundation LLC. Information concerning organization, activities, and mailing lists can be found at www.X.Org. Membership is free and open to contributors. Sponsorship is encouraged to support the global activities of the X.Org Foundation. Current X.Org Sponsors include Sun Microsystems, HP, IBM, StarNet Communications, AttachmateWRQ, Hummingbird, and Integrated Computer Solutions Incorporated [ICS].

In continuous use for over 20 years, the X Window System provides the only standard platform-independent networked graphical window system bridging the heterogeneous platforms in today's enterprise: from network servers to desktops, thin clients, laptops, and hand-helds, independent of operating system and hardware.

Google as a proxy in Firefox

2005-12-21T08:54:00.000-08:00

For better use in Firefox:

1. convert a favorite image to 16x16 png file name proxy.png
2. wrote a Firefox search-plugin name proxy.src, open notepad & copy the following words - change "()" to "<>", then save as proxy.src)

# Mozilla/Proxy Entry

(search name="Proxy" description="Proxy Entry" method="GET" action="http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=" querycharset="utf-8")

(input name="" user="")
(/search)

then copy 2 files into the dir: /Firefox/searchplugins/

^^ Enjoy a free proxy in Firefox by type the URL you like to visit, Go!!!

Google free proxy!

2005-12-21T08:20:00.000-08:00

Access restricted web sites using Google language tools service as a proxy.
Contributed by: bigthistle

A little tutorial found on the italian site www.manuali.net inspired me for this hack. That tutorial suggests to translate a webpage, using Google translator, to access it even if restricted.

It worked fine but something else was needed... why translate?!

Ok, let's start from the beginning. We all know that Google is more than a search engine; we do use it as provider for email, mapping, news and many other services. Google is now also a free proxy service. Proxy is a device that stands between a PC and the internet, providing all the connections to the world wide web. What a proxy does is to receive all data from a requested site, so when you access web pages all data come from proxy.

What's the purpose for Google as a proxy? We often use office/school/university connections, usually those services are set to provide more safety, blocking the access to undesidered web sites (the "black list"). What you can do now is use Google translator service (language tools) as a proxy to bypass the restrictions set for our connection!

You just need to type the following URL:

http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=www.forbiddensite.com
(www.forbiddensite.com stands for the URL you need to go to...)

What you'll get is the translation (english to english!) of the page you want to see... your connection is directed to a google.com page so this page won't be blocked (would be blocked only with google.com on the black list), no matter what's the content.

Notice that the URL has been a little hacked because the parameter "langpair"(1) is set to "en|en" (english/english) so the page is processed by Google but you can keep the original language of the page (no need to translate!). If you need another language (e.g. french) you just need to set the parameter langpair to "fr|fr" and you'll be able to read french pages in french!

A couple of examples:

english... http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=hacks.oreilly.com

Last but not least: if you use this trick, you're not sure to protect your privacy, this kind of connection lets you see blacklisted pages but doesn't hide your IP address. Just go to http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=www.whatismyip.com to see your IP is not hidden...

Firefox is streets ahead of IE on European computers

2005-12-19T19:17:00.000-08:00

Published on : Mon, 19 Dec 2005 02:05
By: Cedric Benson

LONDON - Mozilla's Firefox browser is now ahead of the Internet Explorer in terms of usage on European computers. A study by technology company AdTech says that the popularity of the open-source browser has grown by 40 percent over the last six months.

Plus Firefox has managed to increase its market share from 8.96 percent to 12.41 percent in the same six-month period between March and October this year. The main reason for users shunning Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the dodgy security in the latter. That is not to say that Firefox is not vulnerable to being attacked.

But the fact remains that IE supports the ActiveX controls, which remains the main channel for the entry of malicious codes as well as spyware. Firefox does not support these controls, but it has still made massive improvements in the 1.5 version. The tabbed browsing feature has always been its main attraction to many users and this feature continues to deliver in leaps and bounds in the new version as well.

The main feature that has rendered Firefox relatively safe against hackers has been its open-source origins, which means that programmers have been regularly updating this version as keeping it out of the reach of malware makers. The new version boasts of a better pop-up blocking feature, but initial feelings are that it remains pretty much similar to earlier versions. The "Clear Private Data" command is pretty useful in wiping out all your traces including that of saved passwords and usernames. Firefox scores heavily over Internet Explorer in this category.

The new version also presents two new web-design categories called Canvas and SVG and this makes surfing more interesting. A big plus is the RSS button, which is now displayed on top of the page rather than at the bottom. All said and done, Firefox is at the moment ahead of Internet Explorer in the stakes and this should serve as a wake-up call to the Redmond honchos. A IE 7.0 is in the works and it is a sure thing that all the popular features of Firefox will be taken into consideration before releasing it. Till then happy "tabbed" browsing!

Microsoft drops Mac IE

2005-12-19T09:35:00.000-08:00

By Colin Barker
Special to CNET News.com
Published: December 19, 2005, 6:33 AM PST

The minority of Mac users still browsing with Internet Explorer need to consider moving to another browser very quickly, as Microsoft plans to discontinue support for IE beginning Dec. 31.

The news, which came in a statement on Friday, may not have come as a complete surprise to Mac users: Microsoft announced back in June 2003 that it was ending Mac support for IE. Microsoft has not upgraded the software in three years, leaving IE 5--rather than version 6, which is available for Windows--as the most recent version available to Mac users.

While IE for Mac will continue to be available for another month after support ends, Microsoft is advising all users to move to "more recent browsing technology such as Apple's Safari."

The lack of support for IE is unlikely to be an issue for Apple users, most of whom already use alternatives. The only potential difficulty could lie with some sites that have been designed to work with IE only.

This affects a minority of sites, but the issue hasn't completely gone away. In June, for example, Web-testing company SciVisum said that one in 10 Web sites in the U.K. failed to work properly with Firefox, the popular open-source browser.

Firefox, Safari and other browsers such as Opera are available for Mac OS X.

Yahoo mail beta gets mostly rave reviews

2005-12-17T23:13:00.000-08:00

December 17, 2005 12:22 PM PST

Yahoo on Friday expanded its new mail beta to a broad group of both free and Mail Plus users around the globe, a spokeswoman confirmed.
yahoomail

The long-anticipated new service features a new interface more like that of a desktop e-mail application and faster response time. Among the features are e-mail caching; message preview; drag-and-drop filing, an integrated RSS feeder, and the ability to view multiple e-mails at the same time in separate windows and scroll through all message headers in a folder rather than one page at a time.

Bloggers who were chosen to participate in the beta seemed excited, and mostly had positive things to say about it. One complaint, however, is that it takes awhile every time you load.

Google Shrinks Gmail for Cell Phones

2005-12-15T23:32:00.000-08:00

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
December 15, 2005, 10:20 PM

Google late Thursday rolled out Gmail Mobile, a miniaturized version of its popular Web mail service for cell phones and mobile devices. It automatically adjusts the interface depending on the size of the screen, and can even open attachments including Word documents, PDF files and pictures.

If a contact's phone number is in the Gmail address book, users can also reply to a message with a call. Gmail Mobile can be accessed free of charge by visiting m.gmail.com, but carrier data fees may apply. Google on Thursday also added two other features to Gmail: a vacation auto-responder and the ability to create contact groups.

Torvalds: 'Use KDE'

2005-12-14T07:07:00.000-08:00

Without tip-toeing around the matter, Linus Torvalds made his preference in the GNOME vs. KDE matter quite clear on the GNOME-usability list: "I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE. This 'users are idiots, and are confused by functionality' mentality of Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do. Please, just tell people to use KDE." Also, "Gnome seems to be developed by interface nazis, where consistently the excuse for not doing something is not 'it's too complicated to do', but 'it would confuse users'."