While many of the apps in Apple's (AAPL) iPhone App Store are useful, some are utter crap. And the latest, spotted by John Gruber, is an insult to all the well-meaning developers that Apple made wait/are still waiting to get into the iPhone developer program.

Behold: "I Am Rich," a $999.99 app from Armin Heinrich, which just displays a red gem on the phone's screen -- nothing else.

"The red icon on your iPhone or iPod touch always reminds you (and others when you show it to them) that you were rich enough to afford this," the app's information page says in iTunes. "It's a work of art with no hidden function at all."

The upside for Apple: $300, or 30%, of all purchases. The downside: Good luck enforcing that "all sales final" policy on this scam.

Read a full article here don't miss the comments they are always top notch.

Today, we're flooded with information. It's an information overload and we're not capable of handling it," said Eran Belinsky, an IBM project leader. "This would relieve us from the anxiousness or need to try to remember everything. And there's the issue of trouble with recollection. [It's like] your index is broken. You know you know something, but you can't get there. This could help people having trouble with their memory reconstruct their memories.

This week, the company unveiled software that uses images, sounds and text recorded on everyday mobile devices to help people recall names, faces, conversations and events. Dubbed Pensieve, the software organizes bits of collected information, stores them and then helps the user extract them later on.

IBM's project is akin to one that Gordon Bell and other scientists at Microsoft Research have been working on for the past nine years. Bell, a longtime veteran of the IT industry and now principal researcher at Microsoft's research arm, is developing a way for people to remember different aspects of their lives.

Bell's project, called MyLifeBits, has him supplementing his own memory by collecting as much information as he can about his life. He's trying to store a lifetime on his Dell laptop. Collecting telephone conversations, music, lectures, books he's written and read and photographs he's incessantly taken, Bell is amassing a great database of his life.

Microsoft announced that it intends to acquire DATAllegro, provider of breakthrough data warehouse appliances. The acquisition will extend the capabilities of Microsoft’s mission-critical data platform, making it easier and more cost effective for customers of all sizes to manage and glean insight from the ever expanding amount of data generated by and for businesses, employees and consumers.

“DATAllegro is a tremendously innovative company that has started to redefine the data warehouse market,” said Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Data and Storage Platform Division at Microsoft. “Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers enterprise-class capabilities in business intelligence and data warehousing and the addition of the DATAllegro team and their technology will take our data platform to the highest scale of data warehousing.”

“Integrating DATAllegro’s non-proprietary hardware platform and flexible software architecture into Microsoft SQL Server will provide customers with the strongest offering in the market,” said Stuart Frost, CEO of DATAllegro. “We are excited to join forces with Microsoft and continue the innovation this company was founded on.”

Unlike most data warehouse appliance vendors targeting the 1-25 terabyte range, DATAllegro has specialized in large volume, high performance data warehouses.  DATAllegro’s data warehouse appliance installations boast some of the largest data volume capacities in the industry – up to hundreds of terabytes on a single system. DATAllegro clients span such markets as retail, telecommunications and manufacturing. 

In addition to offering large capacities, DATAllegro’s patent-pending technology is designed for complex workloads including high concurrency and mixed queries. DATAllegro is one of the few data warehouse appliances built on a non-proprietary hardware platform including Dell and Bull servers and EMC storage. This flexible architecture makes it ideally suited to integrate with SQL Server.

This will no doubt position Microsoft to leapfrog Oracle at the high end of the database market.

I admit I personally have never been a huge fan of Opera. However, Opera 9.5 is the best I have seen.

New Features:

New browser engine
Quick Find
Download Manager with BitTorrent
Opera Link
Mouse Gestures
Tabs and Sessions
Zoom and Fit to width
Content blocking
Quick and customizable Web search
Stay safe with new Fraud Protection and EV
Opera Dragonfly

Get it Now

E-mail Marketing is fast becoming an essential channel for all website owners, and the tool that powers this channel can make or break your efforts. Choosing a reliable autoresponder software that has all features such as sequential autoresponse, timed mailings, bounced management, etc. is usually found in subscription-based service or expensive software.

The Omnistar Mailer email mailing list manager is a serious contender that meets (and exceeds) all of that for a very good price. Based on the popular PHP and MySQL combo, this web-based mailing list software is flexible and customizable. Follow me as I take you step by step to install and test it.

The Omnistar Mailer can be purchased online at www.omnistarmailer.com and can downloaded instantly. It comes with a 30-day money back guarantee and free installation. Being the propeller head that I am, I decided to get my hands dirty.

The download, unzipping and uploading was fairly fast and simple, and soon, I'm greeted with the install screen. Here's where you might benefit from using their install service. Theres' some file permissions which needed to be sorted out before you can proceed with the install. After filling in all the necessary details (don't worry if you don't know some of them, just give the nice support people there your hosting signup details) and the installation took care of itself. Note: Omnistar is careful here to warn you to use a NEW MySQL database.

Symantec Corp. yesterday released a free tool that wipes spurious entries from Windows' registry that had crippled some PCs running the company's security software after they were upgraded to Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) or Vista SP1.

The tool, SymRegFix, had been promised by Symantec two weeks ago when users reported that upgrading to XP SP3 emptied Windows' Device Manager, deleted network connections and packed the registry with thousands of bogus entries.

Symantec initially blamed Microsoft for the snafu, but later accepted some responsibility. Last week, the company said the combination of a Microsoft process and the SymProtect feature of its Norton-branded consumer security software had added the errant registry entries, and it told users to turn off that feature before upgrading.

SymProtect, designed to protect Symantec's security software from being hacked by malware, guards against unauthorized changes to the registry. When some users on that same thread noted that the tool had not deleted all the spurious registry keys, another Symantec employee stepped in. "The other garbage entries may have been created by Microsoft's Fixccs.exe outside of the Symantec registry keys," said Steve Dang.

Earlier, Symantec had identified the Fixccs.exe executable as the Microsoft side of the problem; it had also contended that other security software that monitors registry changes can cause registry pollution, although few incidents have been logged to Microsoft's support forums.

"If you have any other security applications, especially any that monitors/protects the registry, please disable those," said Dang. "Then, open a command prompt and type 'symregfix /override.' This will attempt to delete the garbage registry keys under the entire HKLMSystemCurrentControlSet hive, not just those under the Symantec registry keys."

Symantec has also issued a patch via its LiveUpdate service that prevents the registry corruption from occurring, although users must run LiveUpdate from within their security software, then reboot the PC before attempting an upgrade to Windows XP SP3 or Vista SP1.

That the problem could also affect users updating to Vista SP1 was new information last week; before then, only Windows XP SP3 upgrades had been fingered as causing trouble. In a message posted to the Symantec support forum last Friday, Anschultz downplayed the threat posed to Vista users. "Given how long Vista SP1 has been available relative to the XP SP3 upgrade and the rarity of this issue on Vista, it appears that the FixCCS.exe program doesn't need to 'fix' stuff as often on Vista, but it may on occasion," he said.

Symantec's SymRegFix clean-up tool can be downloaded from the company's site.

A very tired little birdie who flew all the way from Seattle to Australia has chirped to me Windows 7 will be publically disclosed for the first time at the D6: All Things Digital Conference hosted by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher next week on May 27. The same conference where last year Bill Gates and Steve Jobs made a historical appearance together on-stage interviewed by Walt and Kara. Whilst my chirp-to-English translation is a little flaky, it makes sense because the D Conference has been used in the past for Microsoft to make rather grand announcements such as the introduction of the Surface computer. This time round, both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer will appear together at the keynote so it’s a perfect opportunity to discuss about the future of the company.

In addition to just discussing their ideas and vision, it’s rumored the event will actually involve a demonstration of Windows 7 in some fashion. Whether or not we’ll actually see a live build of Windows 7 or purely a technology demo of a specific feature remains a mystery, but it’s sure exciting./p> In the past the conference organizers did not put up a live stream of the keynote so I doubt they will this year, however the event is thoroughly covered by bloggers and mainstream press so just keep an eye out on the morning of May 27. Learn More here

Are you overwhelmed by your own inbox?
Do you use outlook as your mail client?

Then there is a must have plugin application for you. There simply is not much more to say accept get it now. Xobni is inbox spelled backward.

Dear Rob,

Why does PC Pitstop keep bashing Vista? Isn't it like biting the hand that feeds you?

Your Pal,

While I found many of the issues simply quarks I can say that there are some valid points. Though there is one which no one mentioned which personally I find quite annoying. I know how to shut it off but that is not the point. If I have to approve an execute then don't throw the machine in a tail spin to display a dialog asking my approval.

Honestly the truth is that none of this is necessary in a MAC as there is no need to protect system32 or the OS to this degree from the operator. While a .dll and cab files gain speed the trade off is questionable more every year. It does take a bit longer to execute a process in NIX, but with machines running faster all the time the trade off becomes less important.

I do not care for an operating system wants me to change my behavior, rather than being flexible to mine. Honestly I cannot believe the people inside are ignoring the same things everyone else sees they see. It is simply a case of denial on many fronts, while XP is near its end of life, people are faced with a couple of good choices. This should have MS being aggressive and this is clearly not the case. This too should indicate to those on top there is a problem.

Things to know before you download Windows Vista SP1

• Windows Vista SP1 is available in English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. Other languages will be made available soon.
• Microsoft strongly recommends using Windows Update to download and install Windows Vista SP1 on single PCs:
  • The download size from Windows Update of Windows Vista SP1 for x86 is 65 MB (compared to 450 MB from the Microsoft Download Center).
  • The download size from Windows Update of Windows Vista SP1 for x64 is 125 MB (compared to 745 MB from the Microsoft Download Center).
  • Windows Update will recognize PCs with known problematic drivers and postpone downloading Windows Vista SP1 until the PC has updated drivers or other applicable updates. Using Windows Update will help ensure you have the most trouble-free update experience possible.
  • Some Windows Vista users may encounter an issue with a small set of hardware devices that may not function properly after updating a Windows Vista PC to Windows Vista SP1.   This is an issue with the way the device drivers were re-installed during the Windows Vista SP1 update process, not with the drivers themselves—these drivers worked on Windows Vista RTM and they work on Windows Vista SP1.  This problem is typically corrected by simply uninstalling and reinstalling the driver. We are working with the manufacturers of these devices to get the known problematic drivers and their install programs updated, and also on other solutions we can use to ensure a smooth customer experience when updating to Windows Vista SP1 using Windows Update. For new PCs provisioned with Windows Vista SP1, this is not an issue.
• If you choose to install Windows Vista SP1 via the standalone installer available on the Microsoft Download Center, Microsoft advises that you first visit Windows Update and install all optional drivers. Read Knowledge Base Articles 948187 and 948343 for more information.
• If you have a prior version of the Windows Vista SP1 beta installed, you must uninstall it prior to installing the final version. Use the Control Panel applet "Programs and Features" and select "View installed updates" from the top left of the task pane. Under Windows, look for "Service Pack for Windows (KB936330).

The Cost-effective Alternative to Microsoft Exchange™

SmarterMail 5.x is a feature-rich Windows mail server that brings the power of enterprise-level functionality to small businesses and hosting environments. SmarterMail 5.x builds upon a solid reputation of stability, performance, and value to bring industry-leading features and security to customers at a competitive price. SmarterMail is designed to be effective in small businesses with a handful of email accounts and within large ISP/hosting environments managing thousands of domains and tens of thousands of users per server.

Learn more.

Smartertools Changing prices for New Major versions !

SmarterTools announced Major version changes. SmarterMail will be changed to version 5. SmarterStats 3 has a pricing change. These are due to take effect on March 13 2008 for SmarterStats and SmarterMail. SmarterTicket will have not only a version change but a name change to SmarterTrack 3.This product is set launch on April 23 2008. We will be releasing our pricing for these products on March 10 2008.

Sun Microsystems purchase of MySQL for $1 billion is not only the largest open-source deal yet, it's almost bigger than all previous open-source deals combined, including RedHat's $326 million buy of JBoss, Citrix's $500 million purchase of XenSource and Yahoo's $350 million acquisition of Zimbra.

But the deal raises a number of questions for Sun. Was that $1 billion well spent? What will Sun do with its new database? And will the purchase improve its standing in the enterprise? More important than the $1 billion price tag, however, is whether Sun can execute its strategy of taking a database that's popular in certain circles and successfully move it into the enterprise accounts, where they are a well-respected vendor.

Whatever technical issues Sun may face in integrating MySQL into its current stack pale in comparison with the marketing challenge.In the scheme of things, the most important IT issue for large businesses is reliability. For databases, companies need to know product is solid, can scale and won't go down if they make severe demands on it.

Barracuda Networks, a maker of e-mail and Web security hardware, has sent out a distress call to the open source community to save it from patent litigation at the hands of Trend Micro, a competing security company. On Tuesday it asked for help from anyone who can provide information that can invalidate Trend Micro's patent on gateway antivirus scanning.

Barracuda Networks has framed the dispute as an attack not only on itself but on the open source community and the free Clam AntiVirus software by "commercial patent holders attempting to unjustly hinder the free and open source community," as Dean Drako, president and CEO of Barracuda Networks, put it in a statement issued on Tuesday.

Trend Micro spokesperson Mike Sweeny said the litigation isn't an attack on the open source community. "This case is really about two companies, Barracuda Networks and Panda Security, that are selling products in the U.S. that we feel infringe on our time-tested patent," he said. Drako disagrees with this assessment. "If you read the legal documents from Trend Micro, all of the infringement claims they make are about Clam AV," he said in a phone interview. "They may be legally suing us but ... it's pretty clearly an attack on Clam AV."

It may also be an attack on the disruptive price points of products based on open source software. Drako pointed to a recent article that he said found Barracuda's hardware to be a tenth the cost of competing boxes. Trend Micro in early 2006. Sweeny from Trend Micro confirmed that both Symantec and McAfee have licensed the patent as well.

Following demands from Trend Micro in 2006 to pay a royalty that Drako characterized as onerous, Barracuda Networks sued Trend Micro in March 2007 seeking a declaratory judgment that it was not infringing upon the '600 patent. Toward the end of 2007, Trend Micro countered by filing a claim with the International Trade Commission (ITC) seeking to block the importation and inclusion of Clam AntiVirus software in Barracuda's security appliances.

"Trend Micro is seeking an interpretation of its '600 patent such that would give it exclusive control of gateway antivirus scanning," Barracuda states on a Web page it has posted about the case. "Scanning for viruses at the gateway is an obvious and common technique that is utilized by most businesses worldwide. Such an interpretation would mean that anyone, including the owners of the more than one million active ClamAV installations, could potentially be sued by Trend Micro."

"They're accusing us of importing open source software," said Drako. "How can you accuse someone of importing open source software? It's written everywhere." Nonetheless, Trend Micro appears to be doing just that it. If it prevails, Drako predicts trouble for companies that rely on open source software. "If Trend Micro is successful in claiming that we import Clam AV, and therefore that the ITC is the appropriate court, I could go claim that Linux is imported by IBM ... I could start suing them in the ITC. It could reinvent how patent litigation is done for open source software. It's a pretty bold move."

SWsoft announced it has acquired WebHost Automation Ltd., maker of the Helm control panel and billing software for Windows with nearly 1.5 million end users worldwide. WebHost Automation is based in Bristol, U.K.

The acquisition adds more Windows platform expertise to SWsoft, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, and strengthens its position as a provider of Windows-based automation software solutions.

"By integrating Helm into the SWsoft family of automation and virtualization solutions and partners through our Open Fusion initiative, Helm customers will be able to take advantage of a wider array of solutions and new business opportunities such as software as a service (SaaS)," said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of SWsoft.

For SWsoft, the acquisition adds a significant worldwide customer base, including strong positions in the U.K. and South America. It also extends the reach of independent software vendors (ISVs) who package their software using the Application Packaging Standard (APS) to more end users who can take advantage of their software solutions. Helm customers benefit from an increased range of automation solutions from SWsoft.  Full Article

Microsoft Corp. posted a tool to its download site today that will block automatic installations of several upcoming service packs, including Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP SP3.

The download includes three versions of the tool -- an executable, a script and a group policy template -- that prevents the service packs from reaching PCs via Windows Update, Microsoft's default update service.

The tool blocks Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3 and Windows Server 2003 SP2 for varying lengths of time. Vista SP1 and XP SP3 can be blocked for as long as 12 months after the service packs are released in final form, while the Server 2003 SP2 blocker bars the download only through March 2008.

The Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit can be downloaded from the Microsoft Web site.

One of several new features in Windows Live Messenger 9.0 will have a new security feature to report users who send unsolicited messages, known as SPIM (spam over IM).

After compiling a list of IM contacts, hackers try to trick users into clicking links. Those links can often launch an unwanted installation of spyware or other malware via a browser vulnerability or other security hole.

Liveside published other new details of Messenger 9.0 on Wednesday but then deleted the post on Thursday. It wasn't entirely clear why the site decided to delete the post, but it could be retrieved via Google's cache.

Microsoft's emphasis on improvements to security features in Windows Vista may have undermined business adoption of the OS, as many business and enterprise customers are still holding off on upgrading to the OS nearly a year after its release to them.

Microsoft spent a good deal of time and money to ensure Vista's security after Windows XP and applications running on it proved susceptible to devastating worms like Blaster, Slammer and MyDoom. Though Microsoft released Windows XP Service Pack 2 to remedy some vulnerabilities, the company decided that security would be a top priority for the next major Windows release, said George Stathakopoulos, general manager of Microsoft's Response and Product Centers.

Microsoft made a crucial mistake in pushing and marketing something that many feel should be an inherent part of an operating system. Seems to be telling customers a feature of the OS was not right in a previous version and promoting that it's been improved in the new one. Full article

Since antivirus software must open and inspect data in hundreds, if not thousands, of file formats. One bug in the software that does this can lead to a serious security breach.The flaws found affect every major antivirus vendor, and many of them could allow attackers to run unauthorized code on a victim's system.

People think that putting one AV engine after another is somehow defense in depth. They think that if one engine doesn't catch the worm, the other will catch it! Actually you haven't decreased your attack surface; you've increased it because every AV engine has bugs.

Between 2002 and 2005, nearly half of the vulnerabilities that were discovered in antivirus software were remotely exploitable, meaning that attackers could launch their attacks from anywhere on the Internet. Today that percentage maybe closer to 80 percent.

Full Article

A distributor of online video content has filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, asking the agency to stop broadband providers from blocking or slowing P-to-P traffic.

The petition filed by Vuze, which uses the BitTorrent P-to-P (peer-to-peer) protocol to distribute Web content, asks the FCC to set rules for network management by ISPs (Internet service providers). Vuze's filing late Wednesday follows reports last month that cable broadband provider Comcast slows some P-to-P traffic, including BitTorrent.

Earlier this week, a Comcast customer in California filed a lawsuit against the company, saying the provider has caused several Web-based programs to suffer performance problems. In late October, Public Knowledge and other members of the Open Internet Coalition filed a complaint about the alleged Comcast blocking with the FCC.

Vuze, based in Palo Alto, California, distributes video in partnership with movie studios and television networks including the BBC, Showtime and PBS. It also distributes PC games, music videos, and audio files. Company officials say the Vuze client has been installed by customers more than 12 million times since the company, formerly called Azureus, rebranded itself in January.

SYMPTOMS
In Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and in Microsoft Windows XP, a program that uses the QueryPerformanceCounter function to query system time may perform poorly. For example, if you run the ping command at the command prompt, you may receive low or incorrect latency values.

Note This problem occurs on computers that are running an x64-based version of Windows or an x86-based (32-bit) version of Windows.

RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem, update the BIOS on the computer. Or, modify the Boot.ini file to use the /usepmtimer switch. To do this, follow these steps: 1. Log on to the computer by using an account that has administrative credentials.
2. Click Start, click Run, type notepad c:\boot.ini, and then click OK. 
3. In the Boot.ini file, a line that starts with "default" is located in the "[boot loader]" section. This line specifies the location of the default operating system. The line may appear as follows:
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
In the "[operating systems]" section, locate the line for the operating system that corresponds to the "default" line. For example, if the computer is running Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition, the line should resemble the following:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
4. At the end of the line, add a space, and then type /usepmtimer. The line should now resemble the following.
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer
5. Save the file, and then exit Notepad.
6. Restart the computer.

The following is a sample Boot.ini file for a system that contains the /usepmtimer switch.
[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer

MS KB articles

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833721    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/895980/

We've always been a fan of alternative operating systems. Though honestly most have simply been too clunky or difficult for the novice user. So we decided to give PC-BSD a shot and came away very pleasantly surprised.

Here are some highlights from the PC-BSD site discussing PC-BSD and its requirements. For a comprehensive look at what's in this release, see the changelog and the release notes on the PC-BSD site.

Highlights of this release:

• Moving the FreeBSD base version to 6-STABLE
• Xorg 7.2
• KDE 3.5.7
• Compiz-Fusion 0.5.2
• Support for Flash7 in native BSD browsers. (Konq, Opera, Firefox)
• Official NVIDIA drivers to simplify activating Hardware acceleration.

Minimum system requirements:

• Pentium II or higher
• 256MB Ram
• 4GB of free Hard Drive space (Either partition, or entire disk)
• Network card
• Sound card

Now we know that some of you are probably very skeptical about the idea of using BSD as your desktop operating system. Maybe you've never heard of it. Maybe you have heard of it but have heard that it's not very user-friendly or that the software is hard to install or manage. Put aside whatever preconceptions you have about PC-BSD because you're in for a real treat—if you're in the market for a new operating system.

ESET, the leader in proactive threat protection, has been named to Deloitte’s prestigious Technology Fast 50 Program for San Diego, a ranking of the 50 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications and life sciences companies in the area by Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, one of the nation’s leading professional services organizations. Rankings are based on the percentage revenue growth over five years from 2002 to 2006.
   
   “We are proud to be included in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 for the fifth consecutive year,” said Anton Zajac, CEO of ESET. “Recent high-profile rankings have continued to showcase ESET's rapid growth and underscore the dedication of our employees and partners, who continue to produce the types of premium products that customers expect.”
   
   ESET’s increase in revenues of 3,900 percent from 2002 to 2006 resulted in a number two ranking in the Technology Fast 50 for San Diego. The average increase in revenues among companies who made the Technology Fast 50 for this region was 179.3 percent. “To rank in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50, companies must have phenomenal revenue growth over five years. ESET has proven to be one of the fast-growth success stories in San Diego, and we applaud their dedication to making their vision a reality,” said Theresa Drew, managing partner, San Diego Practice, Deloitte & Touche LLP.

The launch of Microsoft Surface marks the beginning of a new technology category and a user-interface revolution. Surface, Microsoft’s first surface computer, provides effortless interaction with digital content through natural hand gestures, touch and physical objects. Surface computing breaks down traditional barriers between people and technology, changing the way people interact with all kinds of everyday information — from photos to maps to menus.

We will offer on this site regularly updated versions of the media kit, which includes press releases, background material and images. Please visit frequently to receive the latest news and information about Microsoft Surface.

Internet Explorer 7 has been available for over a year now, and yet its marketshare continues to struggle, relative to the dominance IE 6 enjoyed. Microsoft's own IE Blog paints a rosier picture, but more importantly, it informs us about some new changes to MS's latest browser.

For starters, IE 7 will no longer require a Windows Genuine Advantage validation check for download or install. You can just download away from the Microsoft's Internet Explorer page or use Automatic Updates.

The Windows XP version of IE7 has been tweaked a bit, too. The menu bar defaults to being visible instead of hidden, the "first run" and online tours have been updated, and the MSI installer has streamlined installation for network admins and enterprise customers.

These aren't big changes, to be sure. The biggest deal is clearly the removal of the WGA check. It certainly begs the question: Where is the next Internet Explorer? When is it coming, and what features should we expect? Microsoft has been especially quiet on the subject.

The 8.0.2 update fixes the following two issues on both the Macintosh and Windows platforms.

SQL injections in web applications

The update updates server-side code generated by Dreamweaver to protect databases against SQL Injection.

Active content

The update fixes a problem with the code generated by Dreamweaver when it inserts active content such as a Flash file in a web page. In the latest versions of Internet Explorer, the generated code by Dreamweaver does not allow users to interact with the active content unless they click it. The update fixes the code generated by Dreamweaver so that users don’t have to click the active content. The update also provides a way to repair the code of existing pages with active content.

Learn More

ActiveServers, Inc. to Distribute SmarterTools Software

Almost 36 hours after a software problem caused widespread outages in eBay Inc.'s Skype service, engineers continue to work to fully restore this extremely popular Internet telephony and instant messaging service, while many business users deal with work disruptions.

Although steady progress was made throughout the day Friday, the problem, which has affected millions of Skype users, hasn't been fully fixed,

At midnight GMT Friday, an official provided the latest update on Skype's Heartbeat blog, saying that the sign-on problems have been resolved, but that the instant messaging presence and chat may take a few more hours to be fully operational for all.

"If you are one of the minority who may still be experiencing problems, please be patient. You do not need to adjust or restart your computer. Skype will start working for you very soon," wrote Villu Arak [cq]. "We will issue a further update when we know that Skype is functioning normally, or if there is further material news."

"The outage has had quite a profound effect on my working day, and has meant spending time setting up other chat clients and networking with colleagues via alternative means," Michael Pick, a freelance blogger and social media consultant, wrote in an e-mail interview Friday.

Ok Backup just sucks in Vista so let's get a method to get a handle on things for free.

SyncToy 1.4 for Windows Vista is available as a free download from the Microsoft Download Center. The easy to use, customizable application helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers.

There are files from all kinds of sources that we want to store and manage. Files are created by our digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops. Increasingly, computer users are using different folders, drives, and even different computers (such as a laptop and a desktop) to store, manage, retrieve and view files. Yet managing hundreds or thousands of files is still largely a manual operation. In some cases it is necessary to regularly get copies of files from another location to add to primary location; in other cases there is a need to keep two storage locations exactly in sync. Some users manage files manually, dragging and dropping from one place to another and keeping track of whether the locations are synchronized in their heads. Other users may use two or more applications to provide this functionality.

Now there is an easier way. SyncToy, a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows Vista, is an easy to use, highly customizable program that helps users to do the heavy lifting involved with the copying, moving, and synchronization of different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without additional complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of folders at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another case. Unlike other applications, SyncToy actually keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.

Get it Here:

IBM Corp. will stop selling the BlackIce PC Protection security suite, a product that came under its wing after buying Internet Security Systems (ISS) a year ago for US$1.3 billion.

The company will stop selling BlackIce on Sept. 19, and end technical support for the product, which is just for PCs running Windows, on Sept. 29, 2008, according to ISS.

IBM said its ISS division would no longer offer desktop or server protection software for the consumer market, but also noted that the company still has security software suitable for small businesses.

After the ISS acquisition users expressed concern about how IBM would continue to sell the company's stand-alone products. ISS focuses on network security products and managed security services, selling intrusion prevention and detection systems and security appliances.

To enable the viewing of Hidden files follow these steps:

1. Close all programs so that you are at your desktop.
2. Click on the Start button. This is the small round button with the Windows flag in the lower left corner.
3. Click on the Control Panel menu option.
4. When the control panel opens you can either be in Classic View or Control Panel Home view:
   
   If you are in the Classic View do the following:
   1. Double-click on the Folder Options icon.
   2. Click on the View tab.
   3. Go to step 5.
   
   If you are in the Control Panel Home view do the following:
   1. Click on the Appearance and Personalization link .
   2. Click on Show Hidden Files or Folders.
   3. Go to step 5.
      
      
5. Under the Hidden files and folders section select the radio button labeled Show hidden files and folders.
6. Remove the checkmark from the checkbox labeled Hide extensions for known file types.
7. Remove the checkmark from the checkbox labeled Hide protected operating system files.
8. Press the Apply button and then the OK button and shutdown My Computer.
9. Now Windows Vista is configured to show all hidden files.

Microsoft fended off Google's antitrust complaints by agreeing to make it easier for computer users to choose competitors' programs, an increasingly common response from a company long accused of using its operating system's dominance to choke competition.

Microsoft's compromise with the U.S. Justice Department, detailed in a report released late Tuesday, allows Windows Vista users to set a non-Microsoft program as the default search engine on hard drives. Microsoft will also add a link to that alternate program in the Windows Start menu, but will not change the way Vista "Instant Search" technology works.

Recent concessions by Microsoft are part of a broader battle between the two companies. While Windows continues to dominate the desktop operating system market, Google's ability to make money from search advertising has left Microsoft scrambling to catch up. Google has also stepped into traditional Microsoft territory in the past year with a set of free, Web-based programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations.

"Windows Security Center (in Vista) was sort of biased toward Microsoft products," Heron said. But after talks with the security community, Heron said Microsoft opened Vista up more to competing software. Microsoft is also expected to release code that restores security programs' access to the Vista kernel.

Tuesday's regularly scheduled status report came after Google filed a 49-page document with the Justice Department in April, claiming that Vista's desktop search tool slowed competing programs, including Google's own free offering. Google also said it's too difficult for users to figure out how to turn off the Microsoft program.

Google's claims were intended to show that the world's largest software maker is not complying with a 2002 settlement in which the government concluded Microsoft used its near-ubiquitous Windows operating system to throttle competition. Microsoft is now bound by a consent decree that requires it to help rivals build software that runs smoothly on Windows.

Microsoft Corp. is posting the final beta and first publicly available and feature-complete version of Windows Server "Longhorn," marking the final time the product will be available for testing and feedback before the long-awaited server update is available later this year.

Microsoft is making downloads of Longhorn Beta 3 available from the company's Web site, said Ward Ralston, senior technical product manager for the software. It's the first time that anyone who is interested can get their hands on the product, which has been in private beta release only until now.

It is also the first time users can get a look at the new scripting and command-line technology, Microsoft PowerShell, in the Longhorn server, he said. The technology, which allows administrators to more easily automate tasks across Windows servers on a network, was previously available as a separate add-on, but it will be built directly into Longhorn and is making its first appearance in a test version of the product.

Customers also can get a first look in Beta 3 at two new Longhorn features -- a new always-on firewall in Server Manager and an installation option called Server Core.

Server Manager in Longhorn is designed to keep the server firewall up 100% of the time, which means server administrators will have to unlock the firewall using the Server Manager console when they want to install components, he said. This allows administrators to install components needed for certain server roles, leaving anything extraneous out of the system.

The server also will intelligently know what dependencies and restraints the roles will have once installed, and it will configure the server automatically to run most effectively in those scenarios, Ralston added.

Server Core is a minimal installation option for Windows Server that installs only components for eight server roles -- out of a possible 18 -- on the server and automatically configures them for the most reliable performance. This limits the amount of code that needs to run on the server and should decrease the time needed for and the number of updates because the server will only need to be rebooted for updates related only to those roles, Ralston said.

Longhorn is due for final release sometime in the second half of the year, a time frame that was revised several times.

Mozilla has issued another minor update to its Firefox 2.0 web browser. New for Firefox 2.0.0.3 is a single security fix that patches up a hole in the browser’s FTP PASV functionality. A malicious web page hosted on a specially-coded FTP server could use this feature to perform a rudimentary port-scan of machines inside the firewall of the victim.

Mozilla says that by itself this causes no harm, but information about an internal network may be useful to an attacker should there be other vulnerabilities present on the network. Also new in 2.0.0.3 are fixes to improve Web site compatibility.

The last time the Firefox was updated was less than a month ago when 2.0.0.2 was released to address issues with AutoComplete, how the "Save" dialog box displays for known file extensions, a bug where a mouse's scroll wheel would stop working, two memory leaks and a number of security-related concerns.

Firefox users can download 2.0.0.3 from Mozilla's homepage or use the auto update function within the browser.

AV-Comparatives, a project in Austria overseen by security researcher Andreas Clementi, published the antivirus comparison report, which also looked at products from Symantec Corp., McAfee Inc., Kaspersky Lab Ltd., BitDefender, Fortinet Inc., F-Secure Corp. and several other antivirus products from smaller vendors.

In detecting Windows viruses, worms, macros, scripts and other OS threats, Microsoft ranked last out of the 15 vendors tested, detecting them 91 percent of the time. G Data Software AG's Anti-Virus Kit (AVK) ranked first with 99.6 percent detection, while products from three vendors-- Kaspersky Anti-Virus, MicroWorld Technologies Inc.'s eScan and F-Secure Anti-Virus-- tied for second with 99 percent detection. TrustPort Antivirus Workstation from AED Ltd. came in third with 98.9 percent detection.

In preventing intrusion through backdoors, Trojans and in other malware detection, Windows OneCare also ranked last out of 13 vendors, with 79.6 percent detection. TrustPort came in first at 99.5 percent detection; AVK came in second with 99.4 percent detection; and AVIRA GmbH's AntiVir Personal Edition Premium came in third with 98.9 percent detection.

If ranking low in its rates of malware and virus detection isn't enough to irk users, a recent update to the product has been quarantining the Outlook.PST file, which stores mail in Outlook and Outlook Express, users reported recently on a Microsoft Windows user form.

"This is the most unacceptable act Microsoft has ever committed," groused one user, with the log-in TG4752, on the forum. "I run a small business and I am screwed. I have no way to respond to e-mails because I made the mistake of trusting Microsoft... and all of my e-mails and contacts are gone."

Microsoft confirmed the problem and has patched it.

While I have been waiting to buy a new box and get off and running with Vista I have been reading. I admit I have always been a windows fan. If you started in DOS and windows 3.1 how could you resist. XP has proven to be a good OS and though right now I am reading many of switch to MAC comments, with more questions.

It is a difficult thought when one considers the things they would be missing. Provided they actually use their computer as a serious user. I admit even I am a bit torn over the single issue of how much work I am willing to give toward setting every perm on a daily basis. I have enough experience just with I.E. 7.0 to know I really do not care for labors of trusting sites and while the granularity is great, and security is improved no doubt about that fact.  

It has been my observeration that many people do not even have a firm grip of controlling security settings in their browsers. Which leads one to wonder is there a better way? It appears there is clearly no shortage of debate surrounding the OS.

Here are some articles on the topic.  <Bit-Net> <Uninspired> <Toms>

I have no idea about these things accept what I have been told. Certainly nothing like those of you in the newly formed EU, state of insanity! It appears they have volume control restrictions on their Ipods. What the heck is that about? I know the UK has big brother watching everywhere but really volume control restrictions.

This little software program called goPod will allow you to uncap your iPod's volume so the sound comes out louder. Apart from the iPod Shuffle, every (recent) iPod is now compatible with this software version (1.3), including the nano. Reminder, the prolonged use of an MP3 player at a high sound volume damages your hearing Get it Here!

The dramatic headlines appear to have been sparked by confusion in a Reuters story published on Saturday morning that snowballed out of control. The story quoted the FSF's general counsel, Eben Moglen, as stating that the FSF was making changes to the GPL that would not allow similar deals.

As previously reported, Moglen initiated a review of the deal shortly after Novell and Microsoft promised not to sue each other's customers for patent infringement to see whether the agreement ran afoul of the GNU General Public License, by which Linux is distributed.

Some open source advocates had feared that the agreement might split the Linux market, and concerns were realized when Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, used the deal to suggest that there might be patent issues related to other Linux distributions.

While Moglen is yet to report his findings, FSF chairman Richard Stallman announced in November that while the agreement was not in violation of the current version 2 of the GPL, the forthcoming GPL v3 would include provisions that would block such an arrangement.

If the GPL v3 does include such provisions when it is finalized in the spring, Novell might well find itself in a difficult position. While Linux creator Linus Torvalds has decided that the Linux kernel will stick with GPL v3, many of the GNU tools that go to make up a full Linux distribution will move to GPL v3.

It seems likely that Novell will be forced to maintain support for older version of these tools or rethink its Microsoft agreement if the FSF does succeed in its aims, but Novell maintained that it is not going to respond to ifs and buts at this stage.

Novell has just launched a Vista/Linux comparison site, in anticipation of the Jan. 31 arrival of the retail version of Windows Vista. Unsurprisingly, Novell's site reminds users that SLED 10 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) is already here, and promotes it as the better upgrade for Windows business users.

While Microsoft and Novell may be partners now when it comes to Windows and Linux interoperability, don't think for a second that they've become bosom buddies. In this Web site, Novell bashes Vista both on TCO (total cost of ownership) and on usability grounds.

Novell claims that "With SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, you receive over 90 percent of the functionality of Vista and Office for less than 10 percent of the price." In the pricing section, Novell walks you through the cost differences between SLED and Vista and Vista/Office 2007.

When it comes to dollars and bytes, SLED is the clear winner. It only costs $50 and it comes bundled with a full-function office suite, OpenOffice.org 2.x. IN contrast, the Windows Vista Business upgrade price is $179. If you buy straight retail, it's a cool $299. Vista, of course, doesn't come with an office suite. Microsoft Office Professional 2007 for Windows Vista costs $499 per user at list. The upgrade price isn't cheap either, at $329.

Of course, all this pricing information presumes you can run Vista on your existing PCs. SLED 10 will run on any recent PC. Vista, for all practical purposes, requires a system with at least a 1GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor, 1GB of system RAM, a graphics card that is DirectX 9-capable with WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) drivers, and at least 128MB of graphics memory.

Microsoft Windows Vista is designed to dramatically improve the computing experience of every kind of PC user—from people at home who use their PCs for simple web browsing, to business people. To make sure that everyone has an offering tailored to meet their specific needs, Microsoft will deliver five different editions of Windows Vista. Each edition is focused on the needs of a specific type of person. Large, global organizations with complex IT infrastructures should consider Windows Vista Enterprise Edition.

Version Comparison

Microsoft has backed down on its previously-disclosed licensing terms for Vista and will now allow for unlimited installations on a single device. The previous license for Vista marked a change from past operating systems, in that it tied the copy of Vista to the hardware.

The license would allow for one license transfer, from an old computer to a new one, and after that, the customer would have to buy a new copy of Vista. This did not set well among the home PC builder community, who constantly upgrade their computers piece by piece over the years.

"We heard that users wanted more flexibility, and this change should give hardware enthusiasts in particular more latitude to upgrade their PCs or reassign their license to a new PC, while still making clear our intentions to protect our software from piracy," said a Microsoft spokesperson.

The new license agreement now reads "You may uninstall the software and install it on another device for your use. You may not do so to share this license between devices."

Also, Microsoft changed transfer rights to other users, so that a Vista licensee may transfer their license of Windows Vista to another user, provided that they uninstall the original copy and do not keep the original installation.

This was all clarified in a blog posting by Vista product manager Nick White.

"Our intention behind the original terms was genuinely geared toward combating piracy; however, it's become clear to us that those original terms were perceived as adversely affecting an important group of customers: PC and hardware enthusiasts," he wrote.

San Diego's Qualcomm has announced that the next version of its Eudora email client is going to be released as a free, open source application built upon the same code as Mozilla Thunderbird. Programmers from both Qualcomm and the Mozilla Foundation will work together to develop future versions of the client.

The company hopes that the Mozilla open source community will extend the feature set of Eudora (which is currently commercial software) much in the same way that they have done for Thunderbird. It's a great development for the open source productivity space. Will it kill Microsoft Outlook? No, but it's going to make millions of users who prefer alternative email clients very happy.

When the open source version of Eudora is released in the first half of 2007, Qualcomm will discontinue selling the commercial version of the client. Right now, Eudora costs $19.95 per license, and that price also buys you six months of tech support. The new, open source version of the client most likely won't come with tech support, but users will be able to turn to community resources for support. Qualcomm says it plans to honor all paid technical support commitments for Eudora until the paid licenses run out.

It appears that Microsoft wants to make sure that its customers feel as if they are being treated with contempt - just in case they didn't already feel that way. Customers who pay up to US$400 for a copy of Vista Ultimate will for their investment be able to transfer their software to another machine just once instead of as many times as they like as is the case with XP.

If your machine packs it in, Microsoft in its benevolence will allow you to transfer the software to another machine. However, if after a year or so you decide to upgrade and pass your old machine on to another family member who only needs a copy of Vista Home Edition, it's just too bad because you'll have to fork out another US$400 because your license is no longer transferrable. This is not piracy prevention. This is pure greed.

Microsoft claims that it is has a huge piracy problem. It has to tighten its rules with measures such as the Software Protection Program that has the power to disable computers deemed to house pirated software. It has to restrict users to the number of times they can re-install their software.

However, one has to ask then how was Microsoft able to build a global monopoly where Windows is installed on 90% or more of desktops despite this so-called piracy? Are they really implying that 50% of these people are priates? Given the numbers it would seem that the 2 + billion people of china and india which could buy microsoft software, why then does the price of the product not drop as the numbers go up. Production of any other material goods are expected to drop as the numbers rise. But at MS they have a sweet deal already by them maintaining high prices throughout the life cycle of a product. One which they define the life cycle as 5 years from day one.

In spite of piracy, how was Microsoft able to achieve revenues of nearly $25 billion and a profit of almost $18.5 billion on its Windows and Office products alone in the fiscal year ended 2006? Already forums are abuzz with outraged users advising to install one of the popular free Linux distributions on their computers. users are advising each other to buy Macs - anything to get away from the restrictions Microsoft intends to impose on the use of its software.

Microsoft's Vista will not make it more difficult for anti-virus systems to work, Russian computer security group and potential IPO candidate Kaspersky Lab said on Friday, contradicting rivals.

In an open letter this week, U.S. anti-virus provider McAfee accused Microsoft of weakening users protection by no longer co-operating with computer security groups and denying them access to the core of the Vista system.

"From what we have seen of Vista we cannot tell that Microsoft is blocking access to the core," Kaspersky Lab Chief Executive and co-founder Natalya Kaspersky told Reuters in an interview in Paris.  "It would not make any sense for them (Microsoft) to stop working with other computer security companies because it would make their system more vulnerable to attacks," Kaspersky added.

Microsoft, the world's largest software group, entered the computer security market in June with OneCare, a software that aims to protect computers from viruses, spyware and other ailments. The U.S. software giant fired back on Monday, saying that it had worked closely with computer security companies throughout the development of Vista and planned to continue to do so.

"Microsoft would have to change their business completely if what McAfee says was true," Kaspersky said, explaining that Microsoft's business model was based on working with other providers. Kaspersky said Microsoft had held its traditional annual meeting with computer security companies this summer and she had not noticed co-operation was weakening.

In its open letter on Monday McAfee alleged that Microsoft had firmly embedded in Vista its own security system which could not be disabled even when users purchased an alternative security product.  "Microsoft seems to envision a world in which one giant company not only controls the systems that drive most computers around the world but also the security that protects those computers from viruses and other online threats," McAfee said in its letter. Symantec and other computer security companies have backed McAfee's criticism of the Microsoft Vista system.

Microsoft has rejected their allegations and said it wished to deliver a secure version of Windows Vista that would be compliant with EU law.

It’s been a good year for great technologies.  This one is an MIT tool called ASSIST - It will at very least open the creative minds of those who are interested in design. 

Design rationale is often not recorded in mechanical engineering designs because it is not convenient to stop the design process to record every design decision that is made. Designing directly on the computer could assist the process of design rationale capture. At the very least a computer design tool could record all the changes made to a design over its lifetime.

Unfortunately, current computer-based design tools for mechanical engineers are not tailored to early stages of design. Most designers use pencil and paper at first, and input their design into CAD systems only after it is nearly complete. The tradeoff between the ease of drawing and the precision of a CAD tool is too great for engineers who are just sketching out rough designs.

We aim to create a tool that allows the engineer to sketch a mechanical system as she would on paper, and then allows her to interact with the design as a mechanical system, for example by seeing a simulation of her drawing. We have built an early incarnation of such a tool, called ASSIST, which allows a user to sketch simple mechanical systems and see simulations of her drawings in a two-dimensional kinematic simulator.

Video Presentation:

Futuremark ® Corporation is the leading provider of performance analysis software products for PCs and smartphones, and professional services including technology demos, performance analysis services and data research projects. Futuremark® is known around the world for its benchmark products, including the 3DMark® and PCMark® Series and SPMark™ (with more than 30 million copies distributed worldwide) and value-added services powered by a database of over 13 million real life benchmarking results from over 3 million registered users. Futuremark® maintains offices in Saratoga, California and Helsinki, Finland. For more information, please visit http://www.futuremark.com

AGEIA™ Technologies, Inc., is the pioneer of hardware-accelerated physics for PC games and has developed the world's first dedicated physics processor, the AGEIA PhysX™ processor. The AGEIA PhysX processor powers massive and pervasive real-time interactive worlds that for the first time obey the laws of classical physics. AGEIA provides a world-class cross platform software development kit to simplify advanced physics programming for the PhysX processor, as well next-generation gaming consoles. AGEIA is changing the face of gaming by working with more than sixty leading developers and publishers to deliver the next generation of physically immersive entertainment. The company, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is privately-held. For more information visit http://www.ageia.com

Firefox 2.0 Release Candidate 1 show that the new browser will be a worthwhile upgrade, with welcome usability enhancements and improved security controls, but anyone hoping that it would set the Web on fire with innovative new features will probably be a little disappointed.

Firefox 2.0 RC1 changes the way that the browser handles large numbers of open tabbed windows. In previous versions, the browser would squeeze all the tabs onto the screen. Now, the browser leaves the tabs sized normally and adds arrows to the left and right of the tabbed window bar; users can click on these arrows to see tabs that have moved off the screen. This model is much better when it comes to actually seeing what's in the tab, although we kind of miss being able to easily tell how many tabs we have open.

A smaller change in this release provides additional options when clicking on RSS feed links within the browser. Firefox 2.0 RC1 launches an informational screen about the feed and provides subscription options, allowing users to choose among adding the feed to a feed-reading service or a feed-reader application, or adding it as a Live Bookmark in Firefox.

Protection against fraudulent phishing Web sites has been enhanced in Firefox 2.0 RC1. The browser can now subscribe to a Google-based service that checks a site against a known list of phishing sites. Firefox 2.0 RC1 also can use a periodically updated list that is downloaded to the browser. We liked that the latter method is the default because the live Google service involves sending surfing information to Google—something that the browser smartly warns users about when the Google-based anti-phishing features are turned on.

While Firefox 2.0 RC1 is most likely very close to what will be the final version of the browser, it is still intended mainly for those testing the browser and is not considered suitable for everyday use. Those interested in testing out the browser can download it at developer.mozilla.org.

Microsoft's maiden entry into the anti-phishing space outperforms similar technologies offered by more established security applications providers, according to a new report commissioned by the software company and conducted by researchers 3Sharp.

Based on a comparative study sponsored by Microsoft that tested anti-phishing applications from eight different software vendors and online specialists, the malicious Web site-blocking capabilities built into the latest beta version of Internet Explorer, specifically when used with the Microsoft Phishing Filter, catch a higher percentage of phishing attempts than rival technologies. Phishing attempts most frequently involve the use of spam e-mail to direct traffic to Web sites built to appear as the online operations of a legitimate business in the name of stealing users' private information.

Common iterations of the attacks have sought to trick people to hand over their password information to sites tailored to look like those of large financial institutions, or popular online businesses such as eBay. According to the APWG (Anti-Phishing Working Group) industry consortium, the number of phishing sites operating online is growing at a rate of 400 percent per year.

3Sharp, which is based in Redmond, Wash., and focuses its research primarily around Microsoft products, said that the IE 7 Beta 3 RC3 browser beat out similar products from anti-phishing technology makers Netcraft, Google, eBay, EarthLink, GeoTrust, Netscape and McAfee, whose product finished in that order in the test.

On the subject of our previous rant about Xigla and their restrictive copyright policies. They sent us some updated .dlls which corrected the problem of even letting someone remove their company images from the login.aspx page. Honestly when a company reconsiders their approach and corrects it to me at least, it gives that company high marks for customer service. It is refreshing to see that sometimes companies can still just do the right thing.

The complaint we had of simply removing the company images broke the application has been corrected. Otherwise the two applications we tested get high marks on the features functioning as advertised. Seems if they had been less concerned about someone trying to steal or rebrand their software this would have never happened at all. They stated that all that was required was the two lines which include their copyright. Since they handed back the recompiled .dlls this means they knew all this, and there is no secret that the problem was created by them.

We have recommended xigla asp applications for several years, the apps were good and functioned much as advertised. We recently purchased two applications to promote their .Net products. We purchased the Form processor and the Newsletter application. We thought these would be really great products for the end user and even though the company could have gained alot of positive free advertising from us promoting their products, we regret, this will not be the case.

We have reseller agreements with SmarterTools and other application providers as well. We feel that promoting and supporting applications is in the best interest of both our clients and the companies who create the applications. Our agreement with Smartertools has clearly proven to be one of the best promotional agreements on the web. It is true that Smartertools puts the version and their name in the page which has proven to help with keeping your application current. We have no intention on trying to hide the fact that we did not write the third party application in the first place.

Many companies on the web produce freeware versions that put their link in the footer of each page and if you purchase the product this can be removed. Community Server is a prime example of that as with many products. This has been the accepted norm with most companies. It is clear, if you want to change even the images of one of these .Net versions of Xigla applications you will be opening a can of worms. We were told by Juan D. Arbelaez of Xigla that the two lines at the bottom of the login.aspx must remain in tact and visible or the copyright would be violated. So fine, we can live with that.

The fact is that when someone buys an application for their web site it seems that making it look like their site or keeping a consistant look should not break the application. I have tried just deleting only the Xigla images from the login.aspx page and that by itself has stopped the application, which in turn throws the error stating that you violated the copyright. So as long as you do not touch anything related to their branding all over the application (we will say) it is a good application; though personally we find this level of control well beyond what many clients would view as acceptable.

We are finding, more and more everyday, that many .Net application providers are more concerned with their business model than they are about promoting products that are priced fairly and work well. Another prime example of this is with BVCommerce. We purchased their 2004 server version of the product which was sold for $1000.00 per server and more than fair. Now however, if clients wanted to upgrade to the BV5 version of the product it will be $999.00 per website. One should ask the question as to how many shopping carts are actually going to be sold at this price. There are many PHP applications which are free and can do many of the same things. The question is real, with imposed restrictions left up to the policy of a specific company and prices that only rise, what then does this do to the long term viability and growth of the platform?

A few years ago another company Ipswitch released their ICS product at $8,499.00 for an unlimited version. We had been paying $2,100.00 per server. We simply said see you later, SmarterMail was a fraction of the cost with a much better interface. They then released a version called Imail 2006 and is $5995.00. I know everyone should be saying what a deal. SmarterMail Enterprise edition costs $899.00 per server and proves that some .Net applications can be priced right and delivered without enough strings attached to hang yourself on.

A number of people have been having trouble with MS FTP server and finally discovered that their firewall is blocking the ports. They had thought that FTP used only ports 20 and 21 which were opened in the firewall. But they have discovered that FTP uses other ports as well, specifically if they required passive mode. The problem is about the port range which have been blocked by the firewall.

Seems they can find no way to set the range of ports that IIS FTP server will use to assign to passive FTP so that I can open that range in the firewall. Is there a way to assign a range of ports for passive FTP in IIS FTP server other than a huge block?

Yes it is possible to configure the passive port range in IIS so here it is.

To do this in IIS5 you need to be running SP4 :
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=810639

In IIS6 you can also do this :
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=555022

Microsoft has issued a recall for Small Business Server 2003 R2 (SBS 2003 R2). Microsoft had only released the update to OEMs, system builders and distributors -- consumer availability was limited so the affect on them is minimal.

“Recently, and during a regular audit as part of our software production process, Microsoft became aware of an issue with the final SBS 2003 R2 software containing non-final versions of a few core components to SBS,” said Eric Ligman on Microsoft's Small Business Community Blog.

Microsoft is in the process re-releasing the SBS 2003 R2 update with final-spec components which will cause a minor delay in general availability of the software.  Microsoft had stated earlier this month at the Worldwide Partner Conference that the update would be available in August.

A core server of the popular Debian GNU/Linux distribution was compromised recently, prompting swift response from the developer team.

A mailing list post alerted users about the compromise, which affected a number of services available to developers. A followup message on debian.org indicated the compromised server has already been restored, and that a local root vulnerability in the Linux kernel was used from a compromised developer's account. The local exploit, BID 18874 (CVE-2006-2451) allows a local user to cause a DoS (denial of service) and gain privilege escalation to root.

The report indicated that even with root access, the attacker was not able to reach restricted Debian servers containing its regular and security archives. In response to the server compromise, a password audit performed by the Debian team has apparently revealed various developer accounts with weak passwords (without public key authentication) that have since been locked.

A California man has filed a class action lawsuit against Microsoft that charges the company with violating spyware laws with its Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy features.

Filed in the U.S. District Court in Seattle by Los Angeles resident Brian Johnson on June 26, the suit claims that Microsoft failed to properly disclose all the details of WGA when the technology, meant to help stop the widespread pirating of Microsoft's Windows operating system, was upgraded in April.

While WGA was first introduced in 2004, the suit alleges that the feature became akin to a form of spyware when it was expanded to include a system that made contact with Microsoft's servers to help the company identify people who may be using pirated versions of its market-leading operating system.

The updated version of the WGA tool included two separate components, WGA Validation and WGA Notifications, which, respectively, promised to determine whether a copy of Windows is pirated or not and alert users who Microsoft believes are running illegal copies of its software. However, WGA's notification aspect was discovered to have been "phoning home" to Microsoft's servers on a daily basis, touching off a wave of controversy among those who believe the feature could be used by Microsoft to keep tabs on people using its software.

What is most interesting about this case are the dates surely they are not important. Filing June 26, removal of phone home June 27.

Microsoft has removed the "phone home" notifications component from its WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) anti-piracy tool. The software maker June 27 announced the release of an updated WGA Notifications package that will be delivered to millions of Windows XP users via Automatic Updates with one major change.

In the pilot phase, a PC that had installed WGA Notifications checked a server-side configuration setting upon each login, to determine if WGA Notifications should run or not. This daily configuration file check has been removed in the updated WGA Notifications package released June 27, according to a Microsoft statement.

The company said that the Validation component of the tool will still check periodically to determine whether the version of Windows is genuine.

5. LocoRoco

We're not too thrilled with some of LocoRoco's music, but we can't ignore its luscious candy-coated visuals. Nothing about this game is 3D, yet its 2D characters appear to be 3D characters moving within a 2D space (Still with us?), and we're going to bet that that's just not easy to do. The way the locoroco blobs bounce all over the place is just extremely entertaining to watch, and by and large, the environments are quite soothing. Titles such as Marvel Vs Capcom, Day of the Tentacle, Gunstar Heroes, and Alien Soldier look great, but LocoRoco's incomparable appearance elevates it to being one of the best 2D games ever made.

4. Lumines

Tetsuya Mizuguchi's acid trip may not have the nostalgic appeal of Rayman or Final Fantasy III, but when it comes to 2D, Lumines rises above the competition to deliver an electric experience that dazzles the senses. Bursts of light, lasers, and other gorgeous special effects enhance what is at its core a pretty basic puzzle game. But the graphics truly make the game unique, as it is without question one of the most gorgeous looking puzzle games ever made.

3. Yoshi's Island and Yoshi's Story

This one was tough because the office was split right down the middle. Some prefer Yoshi's Island's sketchbook design while others think Yoshi's Story is drop dead gorgeous, and at the end of the work day, instead of power bombing one another through cacti, we decided that we were all 100% right. Yoshi's Island is definitely one of the most stylish games on the market, but Yoshi's Story cannot be ignored. We'd make a choice, but we know that in doing so, we'd suffer like G did.

2. Metal Slug franchise (Metal Slug 3, 4, and 5)

In creating this feature, we spent a lot of time just staring at one another, waiting for someone to come up with a game that we'd previously overlooked, and sure enough, when Gary, our image dude, said Metal Slug it all just clicked. SNK's excellent 2D shooting series has been around for ages and each new installment looks more amazing than the last. The fabulously-drawn environments, character models, and vehicles are superb, and the animation, including explosions and smoke effects has earned these games a coveted spot on the list.

1. Guilty Gear franchise (console games)

Although Capcom has flooded the market with plenty of good looking 2D fighters, Sammy's Guilty Gear franchise has always been visually superior. The high resolution characters as well as the backgrounds merge to create glorious displays of color, blood, smoke, and various particle effects. Plus, the animations are downright stellar. The games aren't exactly graphical powerhouses on the Game Boy Advance, but the console versions are shining displays of 2D at its finest.

Borland software announced it has strengthened its application lifecycle management support for the Microsoft .Net environment at the Microsoft TechEd conference here.

Borland, of Cupertino, Calif., announced June 13 that it is delivering new versions of its ALM products supporting Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 in such areas as UML (Unified Modeling Language), requirements definition and management, and requirements-driven testing. Borland has enhanced support for Microsoft's VSTS (Visual Studio Team System) product.

Borland officials said Borland is working with Microsoft on things such as joint sales, marketing and engineering integration initiatives around VSTS and Borland's RDM (Requirements Definition and Management) products, including Borland Caliber Analyst.

Meanwhile, Borland officials said Borland's Together 2006 for Visual Studio is integrated with Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition and provides modeling support including UML 2.0 diagramming, patterns and Borland LiveSource capabilities.

In addition, Borland offers testing support through its SilkTest and SilkCentral Test Manager products.

Borland also announced an agreement with Avanade, a joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture, under which Avanade will use the Borland RDM products both internally and for engagements where customers use VSTS, a company spokesperson said.

The wikiCalc program is a web authoring tool for pages that include data that is more than just unformatted prose. It combines some of the ease of authoring and multi-person editing of a wiki with the familiar visual formatting and data organizing metaphor of a spreadsheet. It can be easily set up to publish to basic web server space accessed by FTP and there is no need to set up server-side programs like CGI. It can, though, run on a server and be used with nothing more than a browser on the client. Blog Here

There is a 10 minute screencast with audio showing a demo of wikiCalc that you can watch. It is posted on the SocialText website. (SocialText will be doing the commercial distribution of wikiCalc and providing the resources for me to run an Open Source development project derived from wikiCalc.) See "Screencast: wikiCalc".

DeepMetrix Corporation is pleased to announce that we have recently been acquired by Microsoft Corporation. We are excited about being part of the Microsoft family and the potential it brings to positively impact product feature capability and overall value for our customers.
 
As part of the transition the DeepMetrix Sales office is now closed. We are looking forward to delivering the next generation of web analytics to you as a part of Microsoft.

DeepMetrix has been acquired by Microsoft Corporation May 15, 2006 -

DeepMetrix has been acquired by Microsoft Corporation. Your information will continue to be protected by Microsoft in accordance with our privacy statement.

In response to widespread criticisms that the implementation of the UAC (User Account Control) feature triggers too many privilege elevation prompt pop-ups, the software maker will make changes in Windows Vista RC1 (Release Candidate 1).

By default, current versions of Windows configure most user accounts as a member of the administrator group, giving users all system privileges and capabilities. This allows users to install and configure applications and make system changes, but it presents a serious security risk because malware writers could take complete control of an exploited system.

With the UAC feature, formerly known as LUA (Limited User Account), Vista separates standard user privileges and activities from those that require administrator access, reducing vulnerability to hacker attacks. However, in its current form, the feature requires that users click on multiple security prompts before carrying out some basic computer tasks.

"There are simply too many elevations," said Steve Hiskey, lead program manager for User Account Control in Microsoft's Windows Security Core group, in a blog entry announcing the plans.

In Windows Vista RC1, Hiskey said, Microsoft will make changes in the operating system to create safe scenarios for the Standard User account to accomplish tasks that used to require a privilege elevation prompt. It will also apply application compatibility fixes, called "shims," for applications that need help running as Standard User.

In Windows Vista RC1, Microsoft is going through the operating system 'point by point on each elevation' to make a determination if the elevation is a 'bad' elevation where we think the Standard User can safely accomplish the task. You should see significant improvement in RC1 in the number of elevations that you see.

Hotlink Blocker is an IIS plug-in that will protect your web site from bad people stealing your traffic by directly linking to the content on your server. If you have an image collection, video or document archives, Flash games or any other downloadable content HotlinkBlocker is a right product for you. After installing HotlinkBlocker your site will continue working as before, all search engines and backward links will still be valid, all user’s favorites will remain working. But if someone tries to embed your stuff directly on their site, they will only see an error message or your site’s logo. You can save tons of traffic and thus the money. You can even turn these hotlinks into real visitors by redirecting hotlink request to your site’s homepage.

LINK: This is a most comprehensive and powerful protection method. In this mode HotlinkBlocker will change all links to the protected content on your site by adding special cryptographic signature to every link. You set an expiration timeout so every link will become invalid for instance in 30 minutes after it was requested. LINK method is not sensitive to HTTP Referer modifications, disabled cookies or JavaScripts in user’s browsers and it is absolutely reliable. Any type of files can be protected, including streaming media and embedded content. REFERER: Simply checks HTTP Referer header and reject all requests to the protected content from unknown sites. Support white and black lists based on Referer and User-Agent values to allow friendly sites requests and protect against some ugly hacks. This method does not require any configuration or modification to your site and it is a convenient way to protect image archives. REDIRECT: Checks Referer header value, but issue a redirect to a temporary signed link instead of returning content. It may be hard to understand the theory of this method, but the only thing you need to know that it provide moderate protection level to protect some embedded content that cannot be protected by a REFERER method - content like PDF files, Flash and Media Player movies, sounds and so on. Just as method above you don’t have to change anything, only enable HotlinkBlocker and specify a protection folder.

The Software and Information Industry Association disclosed May 16 that it filed three separate lawsuits in federal district court in Los Angeles that week against individuals who were allegedly using the eBay auction site to sell pirated copies of popular software.

SIIA brought the copyright and trademark infringement suits on behalf of Symantec and McAfee after nine months of investigation that showed that people are apparently using auction sites such as eBay, Yahoo and others to sell pirated copies of many different kinds of commercial software, said Keith Kupferschmid, vice president, Intellectual Property Policy and Enforcement, with the SIIA in Washington, D.C.

The lawsuits filed May 15 are the first of a series of lawsuits that the SIAA plans on filing in the coming months against alleged illegal software dealers who are active on various auction sites. The SIIA hopes "that by year's end, software piracy over auction sites will be greatly reduced," said Kupferschmid.

"We conservatively estimate that over 90 percent of software sold on eBay is being sold illegally," based on a recent study by one of SIIA's member companies, Kupferschmid said May 16 at a news conference convened during the SIIA's Software Strategy Summit.

Users of Sun Microsystems' supported Solaris 10 operating system will finally get the new 128-bit ZFS (zettabyte file system), which brings virtually unlimited data capacity.

Each one of the new components has been put through stringent testing—more than 1,000 tests every day of its development life—to ensure compatibility with previous versions of Solaris, Chris Ratcliffe, the director of Solaris software marketing, told eWEEK in an interview in Santa Clara, Calif. But users do not have to automatically change all of their file systems to be ZFS, he said.

While no one needs 128-bit file systems today, and probably will not any time soon, Ratcliffe said, he argued that at the rate storage is growing it was clear that people would come to need more than 64-bit file systems, and the easiest way to deliver this was by giving them a 128-bit file system.

Sun is also adding more predictive self-healing functionality to Solaris 10 for AMD platforms, he said, meaning that any supported AMD platform will have full predictive self-healing. "So that's CPU, memory and I/O predictive self-healing, where Solaris 10 will automatically monitor your system and do what it can to mitigate any potential failure," he said.

This feature has only been available on Sun's SPARC platform until now. Asked if Sun was going to limit this to the SPARC and Advanced Micro Devices architectures, Ratcliffe said Sun had to know very specific things about the underlying chip architecture to make this feature happen.

Infrastructure Provider for Florist Network Selects Microsoft over UNIX and Linux Targeting the solution for use ultimately by tens of thousands of shops in the Teleflora network spanning the United States and Canada, company executives have chosen Microsoft® technologies for development and deployment even though the larger and more influential florists in the network are operating in a SCO UNIX or Linux environment. Watch the video 750 KB or 1.5Mb. Tommy Hilfiger Delivers Full-Scale Online Retail Presence in Less Than Six Months (December 2005) Read how Tommy Hilfiger migrated from Red Hat Linux to Windows Server launching its new website in just six months while gaining new business capabilities and saving an estimated 25–30 percent in IT operating costs. Read the case study. Watch the video 750 KB or 2Mb. Rayovac Chooses Windows over Linux for Lower Cost of Ownership, Less Risk (September 2005) Read how Rayovac chose Microsoft Windows Server 2003 over Red Hat Linux to run its SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO) solution, not only saving Rayovac just under $1 Million but also minimizing risk and ensuring reliability by utilizing existing processes, skill sets, and technology partners. Read the case study. Watch the video 750 KB or 1.5Mb.

Discover the most cost-effective server virtualization technology engineered for the Windows Server System platform, now available as a free download. A key part of any server consolidation strategy, Virtual Server increases hardware utilization and enables organizations to rapidly configure and deploy new servers.

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While all the news today is touting how great virtualization will be for a MAC I have so many questions. If MAC users want XP running on their systems why not buy a PC to start with? I doubt seriously this will ralley many XP users to the MAC camp contrary to all the news people saying how this will make MAC the standard. Please... Article Here or Movie Here

Personally I am not a MAC basher. I think people will use what ever they want and that is that. Seems foolish to spend ones time picking reasons one is better than another really. The facts are the MAC OS has many neat features but I will not die without it. Seems a bit like Dell refusing to do AMD until recently through the alienware purchase.

I have written several articles questioning the logic behind not letting someone who purchases your OS (e.g.) MAC to install it on any machine the person wants to. The logic is simply so tanted, I wonder if the things created at PIXAR have not warped Steve Jobs perspective. While this virtualization software might be a neat toy for the MAC user, I do not think it will suddenly make people run out and buy a MAC. Though it certainly might get those loyal MAC zealouts to understand that XP is not the evil empire. Who knows they might even understand more about a computer.

What is impossible to understand since MAC is now using the Intel platform, why not open the OS to the PC. Why do they work so hard to close the one door that could give millions of computer users, specifically those PC users an option for their OS. Even if they refuse to support anything but the MAC hardware with their OS, it seems one could seriously shakeup the PC world if they did.

Perhaps it is simply a no compete agreement with MS and Apple that is not advertised and they simply will never allow such a thing. Seems to average people as a one way street. I do not think XP users would race to switch, but many would like the same options that are available now to a MAC.

After too many patches to IE 6.0 to remember. Why did MS wait so long to even start to mention IE 7.0? After all what do they have to gain with a browser anyway? In the early days when Netscape was serious competition to the browser wars MS was all over them with new toys and a browser that laced to their OS. Perhaps that was a mistake?

With their press for security of the OS and touting how hard they are working on making Vista the last word in security. I have to ask what about all the customers you are leaving exposed now?

MS has known for sometime the weaknesses in IE 6.0 then why not race to replace it with IE 7.0. You have spent years now patching it. I have to ask, with the fact that FireFox is a browser that is better in so many ways the biggest being security, why have you waited?

With Vista it appears they are taking the position, that we will not deliver anything until we are certain it is secure. You better not be wrong! Making a statement like this, sets yourself up for the hard questions later. The truth is that no system is perfect though it likely will be better.

What happened to the day's when the company actually raced to get something done? Firefox came from no where to the ruling browser on the web in no time. They have proven that security can be done well and they do not even own the API's.

AjaxWrite is a powerful word processor that can read and write Microsoft Word formatted documents. Anytime you need a word processor, need to open a .doc file or edit a .doc file, simply point your Firefox browser at ajaxWrite.com and in seconds a full-featured program will be loaded. For 90 percent of the people in the world, the need to buy Microsoft Word just vanished. This won't make Microsoft happy, but software users should be very excited that software just got cheaper, immediate and modern.

But ajaxWrite is just the start. We have a library of applications we have been working on to replace most of the standard PC software titles. Every week we will launch a new sophisticated program on Wednesday at 12:00 PST on ajaxlaunch.com. These programs will push the boundaries of what people believe is possible today with web-delivered software. These programs look and operate much like their traditional software cousins, but are cross-platform, loaded dynamically, and are available to users at no charge. I'm convinced if you try a few of these products you will understand how the software business will fundamentally change.

Do you trust the "Microsoft insider" that apparently spoke to Australia's Smarthome News? The site claims that the source told them that up to 60% of the delayed Windows Vista's code will have to be rewritten over the next several months. Additionally, the company has apparently pulled developers from the Xbox team in order to meet an internal deadline to launch the operating system at next year's CES in early January. Smarthome also claims that Microsoft will also offer Media Center as an "optional package" with Vista, though we suspect that this isn't a new development, but rather refers to the Vista Home Premium version of the program, which will include Media Center and other goodies. We certainly hope that Smarthome's source is wrong about the 60% rewrite; although Microsoft has reorganized its Vista team, bringing in Steven Sinofsky from the Office group, rewriting that much code would take a lot longer than the nine months between now and CES (unless they're talking about CES 2009, that is). Then again, the company could always hire narf and blanka; they seem to work pretty quickly, and certainly know their way around Windows.

Update: Microsoft's Robert Scoble has checked in with the company's PR people, and says that the Smarthome article is "hogwash." Microsoft's PR agency, according to Scoble, says the article is "absolutely not true," and that, in addition to Vista not requiring a major rewrite, none of the Xbox developers are moving over to the Vista team. Separately, Microsoft said that, although the next version of Office will be done in October, and will be made available to corporate customers before the end of the year, retail versions will ship in January to coincide with the Vista release.

Record and watch TV with your PC. Gain control over your entertainment experience. With Beyond TV, you determine what you want to watch and when you want to watch it. With incredible features and extensive setting options, TV is under your control.

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Features

The unthinkable has happened: Microsoft has delayed Windows Vista yet again.

Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's Platforms & Services Division, announced on March 21 during a conference call that Microsoft is now planning to roll out Windows Vista in two stages. The business, volume-licensed versions of Vista will now ship in November 2006, as many expected. But the consumer, retail versions of Vista won't be ready until January 2007.

Until March 21, Microsoft officials had said Vista would be ready to ship in time for the holiday 2006 selling season. The delay will likely impact PC makers who had been counting on preloading Vista on new PCs this fall.

Allchin attributed the decision to delay the retail versions of Vista to quality concerns. "Product quality is the first priority. We won't compromise on that," Allchin said, reiterating his oft-repeated statement that product quality trumps all else when it comes to Windows.

When asked for further details, Allchin cited performance, drivers, testing and security as areas where Microsoft and some of its partners had concerns.

Microsoft is still planning to release the next test build of Vista, its "consumer Community Technology Preview" build, to an estimated 2 million testers sometime in the next quarter, Allchin said. Microsoft had been telling testers to expect that CTP build in April. Lately, however, some partners said they heard Microsoft might not make that April date.

Microsoft is still on track to release the Vista code to manufacturing in 2006, however, Allchin said. "We expect some to say that this [the next CTP build] was fine and why didn't they just ship this," Allchin said.

Carnegie Mellon University plans to incorporate characters and animation from the popular video game "The Sims" in its free educational software that strives to make computer programming more appealing to students.

The university will use the animation to enliven the next version of Alice, a teaching program developed over the past decade and used at more than 60 colleges and universities and about 100 high schools, said Randy Pausch, a computer science professor and director of the Alice Project.

"This is not some little crumb that got tossed. This is the most valuable intellectual property owned by the largest video game maker in the world," Pausch said Friday. "For the intended demographic we're trying to teach, 'The Sims' are more valuable than the Disney library."

The Alice programming language is designed to make abstract concepts concrete for first-time programmers, using three-dimensional images of things such as people or animals that can be controlled by clicking and dragging words with a computer mouse. Those words form a program.

While Alice has proven effective, its characters and animation remain rudimentary, Pausch said. The animation is expected to transform Alice from a crude three-dimensional programming tool into a more compelling programming environment.

The effort to revamp Alice is intended to boost interest in computer programming among students, who have historically found the skill frustrating to learn.

A 2005 University of California, Los Angeles study found there had been a 50 percent drop in computer science majors over the previous four years. The proportion of women who were considering majoring in computer science fell to levels not seen since the early 1970s, according to the study.

Electronic Arts Inc., which publishes "The Sims," wants "more women in computer science, they want more minorities in computer science ... any underrepresented group. "The Sims" is a wildly popular game that lets players control virtual humans from birth until death.

Reports that Apple Computer Inc. has taken legal action against so called hacker who has been working on OS X for Intel to make it work on other processors appear misplaced. The OSx86 Project yesterday speculated at Apple action against the hacker.

It was posts and downloads from Maxxuss that spurred Apple to take legal action against the site, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force it to remove certain links and posts from its forums.  When Maxxuss' own site disappeared it made it seem like Apple may have extended its action.

However, this morning the site reports that the hacker -- Maxxuss -- has simply launched a new Web site and blog to share what he find out with others who want to run Mac software on their Intel-based PCs.

What I simply do not understand is Apple's strong approach. If a person buy's their OS and finds a way to run it on a clone, what has apple lost really? In fact they stand to gain a large following. If they simply do not support running this on a non apple machine and people are left out in the cold where then is the problem. It seems that making it clear that anyone who sells such a machine would then be violating the law as they are then cloning for resale.

I really think that flooding the market with MAC OS on many or any Intel platforms would not be a bad thing. If they state they would never support such a beast should be clear. If people are paying for the OS where then is the problem? Personally I have refused to buy a MAC over this position. I personally would not want a clone but I think that all forms of dictatorships aren't the type of people I do business with.

I would simply like to ask Steve and WAZ did you guys forget your days in college? Seems that everyone else remembers your bout with the phone companies but you! Selling an OS without support could in no way harm Apple in fact it would only place the OS in places it was never seen before. Who knows you might even find out as many PC people that it runs faster on AMD than it ever did on Intel.

The at-large open-source community of MySQL users is panicking over Oracle's second buy of the database's two transactional storage engines, Berkeley DB, although enterprise users are far more sanguine.

"God*it"—that's a polite rendering of the very first public reaction of the MySQL community to Oracle's purchase of both of the open-source database's crucial transactional back-end engines, InnoDB in October and Berkeley DB from Sleepycat Software on Feb. 14.

The fear is based on the vision of Oracle forcing its tiny competitor out of business, thus leaving the MySQL user community in the lurch, forced to fork the source code.  "The reason MySQL DB users are concerned, even though the source is GPL, is because MySQL DB is heavily dependent on MySQL AB. If MySQL is forced out by Oracle, what's left, aside from some source code?" one Slashdot poster asked.

"First they bought Innobase, giving them the ability to cut MySQL's transaction [capabilities] off, then they buy another open-source-friendly DBMS which has transaction capability," another Slashdot reader posted.

"Now, if you were the largest commercial DBMS vendor in the world and you were worried about the OSS people moving into your space, what would you buy in order to stop them cold? Me? I'd keep them out of atomic transaction space."

At any rate, MySQL's April user conference is fast approaching—a time when the company has promised a full rollout of its product roadmap and storage engine architectures.

Until then, MySQL is sticking by the premise that trying to kill open-source products by buying companies that make open-source products is like trying to kill a dolphin by drinking the ocean.

Microsoft has finalized the members of its next-generation desktop line-up. As expected, standalone Tablet and Media Center Editions are no more.
After months of maintaining that it had not yet finalized its Windows Vista line up, Microsoft seems finally to have decided upon a half dozen core Vista versions. Plus two additional releases customized for the European Union that won't bundle in Windows Media Player, as ordered by European antitrust regulators.

The Windows Vista SKUs, officially, are: Windows Starter 2007, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Home Basic N, and Windows Vista Business N.

However, as some Web commentators have noted, there is no Windows Vista Small Business Edition on the current list. Such a SKU was supposedly part of Microsoft's Vista plans, as of quite recently. There also is no mention of any 64-bit-specific Windows Vista editions on the Microsoft Web site.

Microsoft currently offers six different versions of Windows XP. The line up includes XP Home, Professional, Media Center, Tablet PC, and Professional x64, and the Windows XP N editions.

Ever since beating down Netscape & Co however IE has been quite stagnant in terms of innovation, and has been one of the biggest security holes in an increasingly wild internet full of malicious code. A lack of competition imbued Microsoft with a sense of security in their dominant market position and so nobody saw any sense in spending money improving something with no realistic competition.

Internet Explorer 7 interface

That has been changing of late with the introduction of fresh-faced upstarts in the form of Mozilla Firefox and Opera among others. The introduction of new features such as tabbed browsing, the integration of the likes of RSS; and, arguably most importantly overall, the plugging of security holes has seen these browsers steal a fair enough chunk of IE's market share to make the industry sit up and take notice.

In response to this Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced that along with Windows Vista the world is to see a new version of Internet Explorer. This new and improved IE appeared then and seems now, as we have the second beta in our hands, to mainly be concerned with playing catch-up on the young pretenders.

New features

Introducing native support for tabbed browsing and RSS feeds are just two of the modernising steps Microsoft is taking with Internet Explorer (IE7). Ironing out bugs and plugging security holes, such as the always-open ActiveX controls which have caused so much headache in previous versions of the browser, are two of the other main concerns.

When you first fire up the beta it may take you somewhat aback to see the navigation bar ripped to shreds and the classic File, Edit, View toolbar missing from sight. Microsoft has taken the top of the browser window and treated it to a complete makeover. The navigation bar has the Back and Forewords buttons on the left hand side, and the Refresh, Stop and search bar to the right.

In default mode you have another bar beneath this. The first new icon is the star which, when clicked, opens a sidebar containing the favourites menu, RSS feeds and history. Integrated RSS is the feature everyone is hopping around with IE7. The prediction is that RSS will become substantially more mainstream as millions of Joe Windows Users discover its delights through IE7.

Moving right from the star one comes to the add/subscribe plus sign, which allows you to add individual pages or groups of tabs to your favourites, as well as allowing you to import/export favourites. Moving right again with multiple tabs open there is the Quick Tabs button, which allows you to quickly switch between images of all your open tabs. This can be handiest when you have a lot of tabs open in the one window and need to be able to distinguish them by more than simply name.

MySQL Chief Executive Marten Mickos confirmed the acquisition attempt in an interview at the Open Source Business Conference here but wouldn't provide details such as when the approach was made or how much money Oracle offered.

He did, however, say why he turned down Oracle's offer: the desire to keep his company's independence. "We will be part of a larger company, but it will be called MySQL! Oracle didn't immediately comment on the acquisition offer.

Though it is increasingly diversified, Oracle's primary business is selling its own proprietary database software. MySQL, in contrast, is a leader among several companies trying to commercialize rival open-source products.

Oracle already has bought two small open-source database companies--Sleepycat on Tuesday and InnoDB in 2005. But its open-source ambitions clearly are larger; for example, BusinessWeek reported that Oracle is expected to acquire open-source application server maker JBoss.

E-mail remains the dominant method of communication within organizations and on the web -- an essential collaborative mechanism for groups large and small. We focus on ways to realize the potential of this resource and the underlying messaging infrastructure.

When it comes to e-mail, small (and fast) is beautiful. That is the principle behind ZipOut, our flagship product. The release of ZipOut 2003 continues its evolution from a simple compression utility to an attachment management suite. Now with attachment indexing, quick search, and scheduled compression and indexing tasks, ZipOut 2003 is fully compatible with Outlook 2003. For more information see What's New in ZipOut 2003.

Beta testers are receiving invitations for the next version of Microsoft's consumer instant-messaging service. It's still unclear whether this version supplants Windows Messenger, but it is certain that it will provide additional VOIP support.

According to sources, Microsoft will offer Windows Live Messenger users the capability to place calls from PCs to any phone. Microsoft will deliver that capability in conjunction with MCI, sources said, whereby MCI will sell Live Messenger users blocks of VOIP time.

The new Live Messenger release "has a fresh new look and feel, and lets you do things you've never done with Messenger before, like: Make domestic and international PC-to-telephone calls at incredibly low rates (you'll need to sign up with a Microsoft Partner, but you can do this in seconds, right in the Messenger interface.)," the invitation continues. "Drop documents into special folders that you and your contact can access even when one of you is off-line."

Mess.be is identifying the forthcoming release as 8.0. Earlier this month, Microsoft made available for download the final version of MSN Messenger 7.5.

To date, Microsoft officials have been reticent to say publicly that Windows Live Messenger is simply the new name for the next version of MSN Messenger. But that is, in fact, what it is, sources close to the company confirmed.

Microsoft officials also will not discuss whether it plans to whittle down the number of instant messaging (IM) clients it supports. Microsoft currently offers three different but somewhat overlapping IM clients: Windows Messenger, MSN Messenger and Office Communicator. Officials declined to say which of these Windows Live Messenger will supplant.

When it rolled out its Windows Live strategy in early November, Microsoft identified Windows Live Messenger as a service that will help "individuals deepen their connections with the people they care about through instant messaging, file and photo sharing, PC-based calling, and more."

Beyond new replication capabilities are a host of rich new features and services that Microsoft has been touting for a long time, including identity and access management, storage management, and better application development inside and outside an organization's traditional boundaries. Robust File Replication:  R2 includes a completely rewritten replication engine for the Distributed File System (DFS). DFS Replication (DFS-R) provides a robust multimaster file replication service, which is significantly more scalable and efficient in synchronizing file servers than its predecessor, File Replication Services (FRS). DFS-R schedules and throttles replication schemes, supports multiple replication topologies, and utilizes  (RDC) to increase WAN efficiency. If WAN connections fail, data can be stored and forwarded when WAN connections become available.

Windows Server 2003 R2 provides underlying technology that you can use to simplify integration of branch office servers into your larger enterprise IT environment. With Windows Server 2003 R2, you can maintain the performance, availability, and productivity benefits of a local branch office server while avoiding the negative issues that are typically associated with branch office environments, such as limited connectivity and management overhead.

   AOL Releases Standalone Security App

This should give any knowledgable person a warm fuzzy feeling. As I was reading the news feed on this one today I was so excited I wanted to get some of this. NOT! Here is the article. This group of people actually astound me with their approach. A company which until recently did not offer anything but their proprietary mail server. They have never followed the RFC's with their own mail servers with omitting the abuse and postmaster mail accounts which is a requirement clearly defined.  Yet they think they can dictate to the world how everyone else should run their mail servers. Requiring a reverse look up is absolutely stupid. Most mail servers put a weight associated to reverse lookup and goes against determining what is spam. To do this simply blocks huge numbers of valid emails and honestly they have no easy way for their users to get the problem corrected.

Here is just what any rejected sender has to do to be whitelisted. AOL sender needs to do for a whitelist. AOL® Postmaster Hotline at 1-888-212-5537 I offer this number so everyone can give them a call with how stupid they really are to do this.

However, it seems to me if they had a proper mail server their users could have white list access themself. After all we are certainly familar with third level mail server software. We have to make sure these features are there for our clients. The artilce I refer to in this post has some great comments from other people about AOL and honestly is one of the many you can find world wide. I am focusing this post on email. I know how stupidly they do that! Heaven only knows what will be broken letting these people control your machines security. Given the vast number of unexperienced users they have, I am sure it is better than nothing. Afterall if they were knowledgable would they even consider AOL an option? I think that anyone who hires a company who thinks they can dictate standards to the world, gets exactly what they are paying for. Hopefully their clients will become so isolated on that island called AOL, that they decide rightly to simply leave.

FXP T@gging is a method for taking over a piece of a Windows server that is open to the Internet. Hackers create a directory on the drive whose name has characters that confuse the Windows operating system. James R. Twine discovered the problem in the most unpleasant way, but the discovery led to a solution, which is now available as shareware or enterprise software.

If you try to delete the directory or files in the normal manner, the OS will tell you you're trying to delete a file that cannot exist because its file name is illegal. You have to work against the OS to delete the hackers' files.

The point to remember here is that this illegal traffic can gobble up a lot of bandwidth. If a hacker put these files on your server, you want to get rid of them. Twine has produced a piece of software to make deleting them easier.

He says he became interested in the problem by accident. He was testing an unrelated piece of software on a friend's server. He had the friend open FTP access, and it was tagged in less than a week.

Deleting the files is time consuming and frustrating. Sometimes, after working against the OS to delete the files, you have to reboot it frequently. In any case, Twine says that the process requires using several different methods.

In order to avoid this time consuming process, he wrote software that goes directly into the OS. He calls it Delete FXP Files because the people who tag servers call themselves FXP groups.

fxp = File eXchange Protocol it's sending files from one ftp to the other, because usually it's a lot faster than upping it manual, with your own connection. It can be used also to make a server send files to another server (hint hint).

Google Inc. took a step toward challenging Microsoft Corp.'s dominance of computer software with the announcement Tuesday of a collaboration agreement with Sun Microsystems Inc.

The move could lead to Google offering next-generation word processing, spreadsheet and collaboration tools that would take on Microsoft's industry-leading Office suite of software.

But for now its significance may be mostly as a symbolic shot across Microsoft's bow, signaling Google's intention of attacking the world's biggest software company head on.

This does not seem to be enough to be a Microsoft Killer. I still feel the company in the best position to take on MS, as if we have to kill the giant would certainly be Apple. I still like windows XP it is a fair priced OS. It does everything I like to do very well. It is for the most part very stable in light of the fact that the entire world is trying to beat it up.

If Apple tomorrow said, we have tested Tiger and you can now install it to any Intel based computer. This would be a serious change in the game.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected two key Microsoft patent applications relating to its File Allocation Table file system. But Microsoft officials still hold out hope that the company ultimately will succeed in the quest to patent FAT.

Microsoft officials said their reaction was upbeat because the USPTO did not reject the patent applications on the basis of prior art claims. In fact, according to David Kaefer, Microsoft's director of business development, the USPTO ruled in Microsoft's favor on all of the FAT prior art claims, including the prior art submitted by Pubpat.

If Microsoft successfully commercializes its six FAT patents—we attacked the oldest and narrowest of them—as it is trying to do with hardware manufacturers like those of flash cards and digital cameras that format such file systems manufacturers, then it could be possible for Microsoft to argue that anybody using a free software system that reads and writes to the MS DOS FAT file system also has to pay a royalty.

Microsoft claims it developed FAT in 1976. FAT has become a ubiquitous format, used for data storage and data interchange between computers and digital devices such as cameras and USB memory sticks.

Are your Internet costs rocketing? Is inappropriate use of your network having an adverse effect on your business-critical performance? Is Internet access bandwidth a major bottleneck in your network? If your network has any of these problems then SoftPerfect Bandwidth Manager will provide a cost effective solution. The software monitors your network traffic and limits bandwidth in whatever manner you specify. The result is an immediate increase in the efficiency of your network together with a reduction in your overall bandwidth requirements while allowing business-critical Internet applications to run at full speed.

SoftPerfect Bandwidth Manager is a full-featured traffic management tool for Windows that offers cost-effective bandwidth control and quality of service based on built-in prioritized rules. These rules can specify a bandwidth limit for each Internet user. This kind of software often called bandwidth shaper, bandwidth limiter or traffic shaper. With SoftPerfect Bandwidth Manager, you can apply speed-throttling rules to specified IP addresses, ports and even network interfaces with no changes to existing network infrastructure. The rich feature set of SoftPerfect Bandwidth Manager is easily managed via the intuitive Windows GUI.

Why should you use DU Meter? There are many reasons why you might want to monitor your network activity. Watching your data transfer rates can be very enlightening as you download a web page, email, or a software application. This will give you a much better idea of how long the operation will take. It will also let you know how efficient your Internet connection is. And it can alert you of dangerous or unexpected network activity. If you are trying to improve your performance over the Internet and you are going to spend some time optimizing your configuration for maximum download speeds, it's critical that you accurately monitor your download speeds or data transfer rates so you can compare them at various settings.

DU Meter can also come in very handy to monitor whether some dangerous unknown activity is occurring while you are online. How can you tell whether data is either being uploaded to or downloaded from your computer behind the scenes while you are online? You get some idea of data flow when using your browser, email or FTP program, but what happens if some unknown application has installed itself and is sending or receiving data without you knowing about it? Obviously this is NOT something you want to think about, but it happens to people every day. Also, if you are on a LAN or local network, you can immediately see if someone is accessing your computer and transferring information. The problem of Trojans, worms and other hidden files which can raid your system completely in the background is a serious one, one that is becoming more and more common. Don't let this happen to you! DU Meter can monitor this activity for you 100% of the time and let you know if data is flowing behind your back. You can then log off from your ISP immediately and terminate the activity.  Screen Shots

Web browser developer Opera Software has permanently removed the ad banner and licensing fee from its Web browser, focusing instead on creating revenue from integrated search functionality.

"It feels good to be able to do this, because we think it will give users a better experience," said Opera communications director Tor Odland. "For us, it will help us increase market share and make ourselves available to those outside the technological world."

"It's an excellent time for browsers that are an alternative to Internet Explorer," Odland noted. "We're joining Firefox in the crusade to win IE users."

"At one point, Opera had the room to eat away at IE's market, but it could be that now it's too late," he said. "Adoption with Firefox is slowing as the early adopter crowd is drying up. That means Opera and Firefox will have to compete for the mainstream, where there are fewer converts available for alternative browsers."

In addition to its model change, Opera also noted that two security vulnerabilities reported by Secunia on Tuesday have been patched in the most recent browser, Opera 8.50.

The Mozilla Foundation has released a new version of its Firefox browser that fixes two critical security bugs in the software that were reported over the past week.

The most widely reported flaw concerns the International Domain Name (IDN) feature that Mozilla products use to process Web pages that do not use the Latin alphabet (see "Security flaw targets Firefox, Linux users").

Links pointing to a host with a long name composed entirely of dashes could be crafted so that earlier versions of Firefox would execute arbitrary code of an attacker's choosing. That means an attacker theoretically could use the flaw to take control of a user's machine by launching a buffer overflow attack.

Firefox 1.0.7, released this morning, also fixes a critical flaw in the way the Mozilla software handles Unix and Linux shell commands that could allow attackers to run unauthorized software on some systems, said Chris Beard, head of products with Mozilla Corp.

All Firefox users are encouraged to download the new release, which also contains a number of minor changes designed to make the browser more stable and secure.

Keyword Crawler - analyze website keywords click for full size Keyword Crawler enables you to explore your website from the view of a search engine. It crawls your pages and generates a list of keywords that were found and list them in order of occurrence. In addition, it can count and display internal links and broken links, word density, and retrieve the Google page rank for each page. Keyword Crawler can also generate a Google XML sitemap for you. License: Freeware Price: Free Windows: 98/ME/NT/2000/XP Requires:  .NET Framework File size: 408 kb Author: Webkeysoft Version: 1.0 Added: Sep 06, 2005 Our Rating (Good) Popularity Overall Rank 5944 User Opinions Be the first to rate it!

I have personally used this software in real world datacenter environment. Though I typically only want the disk repaired long enough to ghost it to a new disk. I can say my success rate using this product is simply outstanding. In all honesty I have only had one disk so bad, that it simply was not worth the time.

Note: HDD Regenerator does not change the logical structure of a hard disk drive. Therefore the file system may contain logical bad sectors marked earlier, and other disk utilities such as Scandisk will detect bad sectors even if the hard drive is successfully regenerated by HDD Regenerator. To remove non-existent bad sectors from the file table, repartition your hard disk drive or use PowerQuest PartitionMagic (Bad Sector Retest option).
 

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Publisher:	Dmitriy Primochenko
Date added:	Nov 14, 2004
File size:	2095 Kb (2.04 Mb)
License:	Shareware, $59.95
OS:	Win95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP/2003
Keywords:	bad sectors, disk repair, data rescue, corrupted disk, damaged hard disk, repair bad sector, restoration tool, bad sector, Recovery software, regenerates hard disk drives, regenerate physically damaged hard disk drives

CUPERTINO, Calif. - August 16, 2005 - Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Sygate Technologies, a technology leader in endpoint compliance solutions. Sygate’s technology will complement Symantec’s presence on the endpoint to create a holistic solution to address the security, compliance, and remediation requirements of today’s large enterprises. The acquisition is expected to close shortly after receiving customary regulatory approvals.

"Securing the ‘endpoints’ of a corporate network is a challenge that affects all enterprises," said Chris Christiansen, vice president of security products and services, IDC. "Companies are looking for integrated offerings that can both protect the network and ensure that endpoints are compliant with security policies. This acquisition will give customers a complete endpoint compliance solution while helping to reduce complexity and cost."

Endpoint compliance solutions help enterprise organizations enforce security by guaranteeing that all devices connected to a network – desktops, laptops, servers, and mobile devices – are running the appropriate security solutions, are configured correctly, and possess up-to-date patches. Symantec will now be able to help businesses enforce business policies and automate security practices to regain control of network security, reduce costs, and ensure compliance across the organization.

“It is critical to have an endpoint compliance solution that will allow companies to leverage their existing IT infrastructure to control the myriad devices connecting to the network,” said Enrique Salem, senior vice president, Security Products and Solutions at Symantec. “A recognized leader in endpoint compliance, Sygate provides the first universal network access control system designed to protect the entire enterprise network – from mobile devices to servers to unmanaged devices. The fact that their technology is built on industry standards means that companies don’t have to implement expensive infrastructure changes to deploy this solution.”

Aqua Data Studio is a database query tool and administration tool that allows developers to easily create, edit, and execute SQL scripts, as well as browse and visually modify database structures. Aqua Data Studio provides an integrated database environment with a single consistent interface to all major relational databases. This allows the database administrator or developer to tackle multiple tasks simultaneously from one application.

Commercial Use (All use, other than Personal/Educational): Commercial License Required Personal/Educational Use: Free License (click here for more info)

Easy Outlook Express Repair is a utility for restoring damaged folders in Outlook Express. If Outlook Express cannot find your messages in its folders, you can use Easy Outlook Express Repair to get your messages back as well as to recover the damaged Outlook Express folders.
     If Outlook Express data files (dbx files) are somehow damaged and you cannot use Outlook Express to view the messages stored in its folders, Easy Outlook Express Repair will help you to extract messages from the damaged folders and save them to the disk. The saved messages can be viewed in Outlook Express and/or imported to any other mail client. Using the program does not require any special skills. You will recover your lost messages just in 2 steps.

 

More Details

Microsoft Corp. has announced the official name for its upcoming operating system, previously known under the code name Longhorn. The operating system, now due out in 2006, will be called Windows Vista, with the tag line "Bringing clarity to your world."

The software company also revealed that Beta 1 of Windows Vista will be available to developers and IT professionals in less than two weeks, by Aug. 3.

The first beta will include only some of Vista's promised functionality, such as virtual folders and a new desktop search engine, but will not include much of the graphical user interface (GUI) enhancements of the finished product, said Greg Sullivan, a group product manager with Windows Client for Microsoft.

Those features will be available in beta 2, Sullivan said. He did not disclose a time frame for that release, saying that depends on the feedback Microsoft receives about beta 1.

Microsoft is also widely expected to release more Vista bits to developers at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles in mid-September, but Sullivan said that has not been decided on yet. "There will certainly be more disclosure on features that will be added post beta 1 [at the PDC]," he said.

Microsoft first disclosed the official name for the next version of Windows yesterday at its annual sales meeting, Microsoft Global Business (MGB), in a presentation by Brian Valentine, senior vice president of the Windows Core Operating System Division. The company made the name change public in a Webcast today.

Microsoft has part of its Web site set up for Vista at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/

RSS feeds can significantly increase website traffic take a look at the graph to see the significant impact RSS feeds can have on website traffic.

Create, Edit and Publish RSS Feeds with Software

Existing RSS feeds can be repaired and enhanced with FeedForAll. RSS feeds generated by other means can be automatically repaired, so that they conform to the RSS 2.0 specification.   Existing feeds can be enhanced to contain advanced feed properties, and give them a more professional look. Day to day feed maintenance can be handled simply. Feeds can be exported to HTML, CSV or text files.

Cut Through Outlook Email Overload and Turbocharge Your Email Efficiency

An Essential Collection of Outlook Add-ins 15 indispensable Outlook Add-ins that cut through email overload and make Outlook work the way you want it to work. Increase your email efficiency, take control of your contacts and stay on top of your calendar. You Perform is a collection of 15 essential add-ins that integrate directly into Microsoft Outlook to make using Microsoft Outlook better, faster and easier. You Perform enhances and expands the capabilities of Outlook so your email, contact manager and calendar work harder and smarter, just like you.

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The speed of Mac OS X running on Intel hardware is impressing some developers who've been privy to one of Apple's first Intel-based developer transition systems.

The systems started shipping to Mac OS X developers three weeks ago, each equipped with a 3.6 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor with 2 MB L2 Cache, 800MHz front-side bus, 1GB of 533MHz DDR2 Dual Channel SDRAM, and an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900.

Developers are renting the $999 hardware from Apple for a period of 18 months in order to get a head start in porting their applications to run on the Intel version of Mac OS X.

"It's fast," said one developer source of Mac OS X running on Intel's Pentium processors. "Faster than [Mac OS X] on my Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5." In addition to booting Windows XP at blazing speeds, the included version of Mac OS X for Intel takes "as little as 10 seconds" to boot to the Desktop from when the Apple logo first displays on screen.

Included with the Mac OS X for Intel distribution is an Applications folder stocked with a mixture of PowerPC and Intel-native applications. Applications that are compiled only for PowerPC processors are of filetype "Application (PowerPC)" whereas Intel-native binaries are labeled of standard type "Application".

Developers sources say the early version of Rosetta, a dynamic binary translator that is designed to run unaltered PowerPC applications on Intel Macs, is also impressive. "Rosetta is completely 100 percent seamless and nothing like the Classic environment used to run older Mac OS 8 and 9 applications under Mac OS X," one source told AppleInsider.
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Stylus Studio® 6 XML Enterprise Edition, Release 3 is an advanced XML Integrated Development Environment (XML IDE). Stylus Studio® 6 adds powerful new features, again pushing the innovation envelope that helped establish Stylus Studio as the premier XML IDE. Stylus Studio's best-in-class features for working with XML, XQuery, XSLT, XML Schema/DTD, XPath, SQL/XML, XHTML, and Web services set a new benchmark for XML productivity. Download a free 30-day evaluation copy today!

Computer Associates International Inc. is considering changing its name.

A company spokeswoman confirmed a Reuters report that said the company is thinking about adopting "CA," commonly used as a company nickname, as its formal name.

Chief Marketing Officer Don Friedman characterized the possible name change as an attempt to alter the company's image, according to the story. A $2 billion accounting scandal enmeshed Computer Associates for several years and prompted a realignment of senior executives.

The company has hired advertising agency Draft New York to lead a "credibility marketing campaign," which begins today. The $7 million international campaign is aimed at C-level executives.

CA (NYSE: CA) also announced the all-cash acquisition of Tiny Software Inc. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company makes a personal firewall and other security technology for Windows personal computers and servers. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Tiny Software's products will be merged into CA's eTrust threat management portfolio.

 

avast! 4 Home Edition is a full-featured antivirus package designed exclusively for home users, non-commercial users. Both conditions should be met! Our company offers Home Edition free of charge, since in our opinion, it is possible to avoid global virus spreading by efficient prevention; however, many user are not able or do not want to pay for antivirus software. This page will show you the most important features of this program.

Institutions (even non-commercial ones) are not allowed to use avast! Home Edition. However, ALWIL Software provides the full line of avast! antivirus products at special discount prices for non-profit, charity, educational and government institutions. Please see our price lists for details.

The latest version of this program is 4.6. To find out what's new, please refer to this page.

My personal review is that this Free software like the server version I have used is outstanding. The first and best feature is that after reboot the software can and will by default do a low level complete drive scan. Of course if you do not want to wait, a simple hit of the Esc will let you move on.

Free web editor especially for beginners and non-web-technical people. It uses "content + template = a web site". No need to code HTML. What You See Is What You Get. No need to design. Get a nice looking by a ready-made or custom-made web template. No need to learn. It allows anyone to update, create and publish web content easily. No need to wait. Start to use Ewisoft Web Builder to control your web site and your budget now!

Site 1: Download Now

Size: 5.69MB

Publisher: Visit Website

Release Date: 04-02-04

Submit Date: 04-05-04

OS: Win 98/ME/2K/XP

Downloads: 3750

Many times people have asked me. How can I have shared calendar and features of Exchange without having to run our mail on a Exchange server?  The answer is that honestly Exchange has done a fine job of making a rich interface mail server. This is a nice bit of software which seems to do this pretty well.

WorkgroupShare lets the people in your organization share their Outlook data, such as calendars, contacts, email, tasks and notes, without the expense or expertise required by Microsoft Exchange Server.

Share Outlook folders

Share calendars, contacts, tasks, email and notes amongst selected members of staff, without Exchange.

Organize meetings

Find free/busy times for all users and organize meetings using Outlook in conjunction with WorkgroupShare but without Exchange.

Easy deployment

Effortlessly roll out to the entire organization with the remote client deployment feature.

I have a mixed review with regard to this 1.2 toolbar. I used the beta version of the product so I expected to be happy.

I do not like the tabs though, I do on FireFox. The interface seems very slow flipping between tabs. So I disabled it, hope that this may be corrected.

I like the search bar, and MSN honestly it is one reason I simply did not uninstall it and leave it be. This and the popup blocker are the features I like.

The desktop search is something I seriously do not care for in its current state. I like the concept care for the approach. Seems there is enough going on after a reboot. You do not start building a index here as a default setting. Also I would request a period of time to do indexing. Like when nothing is going on would be good.  The end user should not have to be told that the index will pause so you can work on their machine.

Now with Tabbed Browsing

Transitive Technologies confirmed Tuesday that it is providing Apple with technology that allows old Macintosh software programs to run on computers based on Intel rather than IBM chips. Transitive's technology will be part of software called Rosetta, which will work for current Macintosh OS X programs that run on PowerPC systems but not for older programs that run on OS 8 and OS 9 software, according to Apple.

Rosetta will be important for Apple to hang onto its loyal Macintosh customers at a time when it is making a major switch to new hardware. If Rosetta lives up to its promise, consumers won't have to throw away their old software when they buy a new computer from Apple with Intel chips.

Transitive's technology is the result of years of effort. In 2000, Transitive was formed by researchers at the University of Manchester in England. They had developed a way to do ``binary translation'' at high speeds. Transitive has raised $24 million to date.

The software consists of three parts. One part is a decoder, which takes the code of the older software and converts it into an intermediate format.

The second part is the core processing engine, which Wiederhold calls the ``secret sauce.'' The core takes the intermediate format and figures out how fast it can run the older software in its new form.

The third part is custom-tailored to convert the software into a form that runs on the target computer. This software sits on the computer, in this case an Apple computer that uses Intel chips. Whenever a consumer clicks on an old Apple program loaded onto the computer, the translation software starts. It translates and leaves the final code stored in the system's main memory chips. If the consumer uses that software again, the machine can run the translated code from memory.

CounterSpy 1.0.29 CounterSpy is a powerful anti-spyware tool that detects, deletes and protects your personal computer from a broad range of malicious software. It was chosen as PC WORLD 2005 BEST BUY, and is recommended by Dell. CounterSpy has the best spyware database in the industry and the fastest scan times. CounterSpy also has sophisticated protection against recurring spyware threats. You can think of it as a 'spy-wall' that protects you in real-time.

When Apple Computer announced Monday it was switching to Intel-based processors, one of the first to express support was Roz Ho, general manager of Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit.

The Mac BU has already started work on developing products to back up that attitude of support, according to a Microsoft spokesperson. Some of the primary projects are the next versions of Office for Mac and Virtual PC for Mac.

Microsoft's Mac team is also busy putting finishing touches on updates to current versions, the company spokesperson said. These include Entourage improvements for Exchange users, new Tiger functionality, and a fresh version of Messenger for Mac due to be released in a few months.

In order to create software that can accommodate the platform shift, the Mac BU has been collaborating with Apple engineers on Xcode to create universal binaries of future versions of Office, so that it will run natively on Apple's future hardware.

Xcode, now in version 2.0, was created as a way for developers to craft Mac OS X applications and take advantage of Apple technology as it got released. Xcode 2.0 puts the operating system together with Unix as well as with a number of development technologies.

Historically, the Mac BU hasn't been known to use Xcode, but the platform shift will give the unit more exposure to and experience with the development tool suite.

We seriously think MS knows exactly what will happen here and is trying to rally all the support they can. Who will be the winner here at the end of the day? This time hands down it is the consumer!

The battle between MS and Mac has clearly heated and this is one we personally enjoy.  These are the two operating systems which have been de-geeked enough for the average user to understand.

We personally set Linux aside here as it takes a completely different thought process. Linux geeks it does not make you smarter! You are just more willing to sit and read rims of nasty looking, poorly formatted Doc's.

In the operating system race thus far, Apple's incremental approach to system releases has paid off compared to Microsoft's strategy of giant leaps at long intervals.

Since Windows XP shipped in 2001, Apple has shipped five major versions of Mac OS X. Apple's Unix-based operating system started out far behind Windows XP, but is now out in front in terms of features, functionality and user interface.

Though MS is working hard at security it is clear that Apple has clearly gained users here with the clear edge. However it all turns out which we personally have no favorite. Though I am have been a PC person for years. We doubt any of this will change MS. Their corporate campus will grow and things will likely not change with LongHorn really anymore than they did with the release of Windows 2003.

If Apple makes a OS version that will run on generic PC hardware they will not be able to print the disks fast enough. The reason is simple everyone likes something different. Though both have their own view of the world. People will then have things they like about both, though at the end of the day I honestly think MAC has the edge and it is doubtful that MS even knows why.

"eWeek's View."

Microsoft Corp. plans to announce as early as next week that it is ready to ship a Windows 2000 Update Rollup, the final security patch for the 5-year-old operating system.

The Update Rollup, which replaces Windows 2000 SP5 (Service Pack 5), is a cumulative set of hot fixes, security patches and critical updates packaged together for easy deployment.

An announcement could coincide with the company's TechEd conference, scheduled for Orlando, Fla., next week.

The Update Rollup will contain all security-related updates produced for Windows 2000 between the time SP4 was released and the date the update ships. It will also feature a small number of important, non-security updates.

The Update Rollup comes just one month before mainstream support for Windows 2000 client and server releases expires on June 30. Microsoft divides its support lifecycle into two phases: mainstream and extended. Once a product enters the extended support period, Microsoft charges for support.

I find it amazing the way in which people think that making a software selection means you have to chose sides. Conspiracy theories about Microsoft's 'dirty tactics.' Here is the ZDNet article you decide. The real humor lies in the posts.

MS used a registry key value, Netscape 8 changed this when it was installed and MS created this problem. This is so sad it is amusing but honestly. It is clear ZDNets technical audience has all but disappeared over time based on these posts.

Got to love the people pointing out how insecure Windows is yet the facts to date do not back up this statement, if we are comparing it to Linux. Nor does the cost difference of keeping a Linux machine patched verses Windows. Though I am sure that Bill Gates hired someone to generate these facts. 

I personally saw this error after installing Netscape and corrected the problem. I may install netscape again after they get it right. But please if MS made this level of mistake they would be in court again. I have to give MAC people Kudo's for not even getting involved in these things.

Acting on detailed information provided by the motion picture industry, federal agents descended on administrators and users of a popular pirate-friendly file-sharing site Wednesday in what the government is calling the first criminal law enforcement action against BitTorrent users.

FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents executed 10 search warrants in nine states in a strike on Elitetorrents.org, a free, members-only BitTorrent aggregator hosted in the Netherlands. On Wednesday, visitors to the site were redirected to a new government-hosted page with a stern warning about the penalties for internet piracy: "Individuals involved in the operation and use of the Elite Torrents network are under investigation for criminal copyright infringement."

Meta Tag Expert

Version: v2.0

Price: Free

Platform: Win9x/2000/ME/XP

Size: 761 KB

Screenshots: 1 | 2 download

Meta Tag Expert is a Meta tag generator for your web pages. Meta tags include relevant information about the content of your pages. Meta Tag Expert makes the generation of these tags simple and easy.

Meta Tag Expert v2.0:

* Now supports 36 meta tags!
* Support for Dublin Core tags
* New HTML to JS Converter tool
* Help button linking to new HTML help
* Right-click on program for QuickMenu
* Statusbar added with Modified and Saved state
* More startup tips
* Beginner Wizard
* Import of text-based files
* Register free online
* Updated document on web promotion (v2.0)

America Online on Thursday confirmed that a bug in its new Netscape 8 Web browser was breaking certain XML configurations in Microsoft's IE.

The issue first surfaced on Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer Weblog, where chief IE developer Dave Massy recommended that users completely uninstall Netscape as a possible workaround.

According to Microsoft's Massy, Netscape 8 corrupts the XML rendering capabilities of Internet Explorer, meaning that an IE user navigating to an XML file, such as an RSS feed, is greeted with a blank page.

On message boards and newsgroups, users flocked to complain. "This is a pretty major bug and should be fixed ASAP," read one post on the Netscape Browser Review forum.

A Netscape administrator on the forum apologized to users and stressed that the registry key was not intentionally changed. "The development team is hard at work on a patch." The latest hiccup follows the embarrassing release of Netscape 8 with several publicly known security vulnerabilities.

FIX for the problem which there is no excuse, and Netscape looks really bad this time. Of course you can always blame MS.

1. Uninstall Netscape 8
2. START->RUN
   1. Type: regedit
   2. Hit ENTER
   3. Navigate to the following:
   4. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Plugins\Extension
   5. Highlight and right-click the node titled "xml" and select delete.
   6. Restart Internet Explorer

Unfortunately if Netscape 8 remains installed then the registry key is continually rewritten so this is an essential step if you are to be able to view XML content in IE.

SQLyog is an easy to use, compact and very fast graphical tool to manage your MySQL database anywhere in the world. SQLyog is FREE for personal and commercial use.

SQLyog contains ALL features of SQLyog Enterprise except the following Power Tools:

• HTTP / SSH Tunneling
• Data Synchronization
• Schema Synchronization
• Notification Services
• ODBC Import
• Scheduled Backups
  

You can install and use SQLyog on unlimited number of computers without any restrictions. SQLyog is well behaved - it does NOT contain any ADWARE or SPYWARE.

Click here to view the feature comparison between SQLyog and SQLyog Enterprise.

SQLyog was developed keep in mind the necessities of all who use MySQL as their preferred RDBMS. Whether you enjoy the control of handwritten SQL or prefer to work in a visual environment, SQLyog makes it easy for you get started and provides you with tools to enhance your MySQL experience.

Founded in 1994, based in Sydney, Australia, Westciv (Western Civilisation pty. ltd.) develops innovative cross platform web development software, and some of the most comprehensive web standards training available. A long time supporter of web standards, such as CSS and HTML/XHTML, our site features a broad range of free resources - tutorials, guides, articles and more, to help you start out, and keep growing as a standards based web developer.

Review:  "I have not found a better tool for experienced and inexperienced developers alike" "I never realized until I was forced to use Dream Weaver to create Stylesheets just how very inferior it is to Style Master for that specific purpose." New to CSS? Style Master CSS Editor has Wizards, over 30 standards based templates, built in help and an outstanding new CSS tutorial that will have you styling your own web standards sites in no time. Not so new? You'll find tools for upgrading legacy sites to web standards, for working with a CMS or blogging software and dealing with browser inconsistencies. And you'll love our new X-Ray feature that takes previewing and makes it interactive. CSS expert? Style Master is a customizable design environment with sophisticated hand coding tools, editors and powerful tools for understanding complex style sheets and how they style your pages.

ASP2ASPX is an assistant tool for migrating from ASP to ASP.NET. It can upgrade your ASP projects to ASP.NET in a minute. It will save your Time, save your Money and make your application faster, more secure, and easier to develop/maintain. ASP2ASPX migrates from ASP to ASP.NET framework and VBScript to C# and VB.NET.  ASP2ASPX features: Provides Code-Behind function Migrates from VBScript to VB.NET and C# Migrates from ASP Built-In object to ASP.NET Migrates from RegExp to nce.regex namespace Migrates from ADODB to nceADO.NET (optional) Migrates from File Access to nce.scripting namespace Migrates from Installable Components to nce.mswc namespace Migrates from CDONTS NewMail to nce.cdonts namespace Analyzes and re-defines the variables with VB.NET or C# Data Type Verifies that the parameters of subroutine is byRef or ByVal Adjusts the script block and command block Generates the default property of the objects Generates the .NET assembly for the ActiveX/COM Genetates the standard VB.NET/C# code, very maintainable and readable Generates the migration report

Netscape has released a security update to its Netscape 8.0 browser, fixing more than 40 security holes just hours after the browser's official launch. Version 8 of the browser is the first major update to it since 2002 and includes a number of new security features designed to protect users from remote attacks and malicious Web sites. It is based on the increasingly popular open-source Firefox browser, but it didn't include any of the security patches in the recently released Firefox 1.0.4.

"The browser is like a hybrid car that combines the usability of Internet Explorer with the security of Firefox," Andrew Weinstein, a spokesman for AOL/Netscape, told Reuters. Critics have pointed out that the initial release, however, combines the security flaws of both browsers.

The unpatched vulnerabilities -- which were fixed in Firefox in March -- include a bug in the handling of GIF images that could allow an attacker to run malicious code on a user's system. The vulnerability could be exploited by, for example, luring users to a site displaying specially crafted images.

The unpatched holes led to the release of Netscape 8.0.1 a few hours after the release of Version 8.0. The update includes the Firefox 1.0.4 security fixes, according to Netscape. The new version has been released only for users of Microsoft's Windows operating system.

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The newest Netscape browser combines the best features from Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer and the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox but no longer tries to commandeer all search traffic to its own engine. America Online Inc.'s Netscape 8.0 now uses Google as the default search engine. A test version of the free browser had used the Netscape engine. Out Thursday, Netscape 8.0 also lets users choose AskJeeves, and AOL says it is in talks with Yahoo as well.

Netscape also switches the placement of the boxes into which users type in search terms and Web addresses. Recognizing the growing use of search for navigation, the search box now has the more prominent spot on the left. IE remains the dominant browser, but many users complain of its numerous security vulnerabilities and lack of modern features like tabbed browsing, which lets you visit multiple Web sites without opening multiple browser windows. Firefox addresses those issues, but some sites won't work because they're tailored for IE. The new Netscape, which is only available for Windows PCs, addresses that quandary. It displays most sites using a Firefox engine that's embedded in Netscape's software. But, when it deems a site relatively safe, it uses the IE software engine that is built into Windows.