digital lab researches

Linux set to make mobile splash

2008-07-22T09:21:00.002-07:00

It's emerging as a primary platform, says Linux Foundation exec
Linux is set to make a major impact in the mobile computing realm, the executive director of the Linux Foundation stressed at a conference Monday morning.

Speaking at the Open Mobile Exchange portion of the O'Reilly Open Source Conference (OSCON) in Portland, Ore., Jim Zemlin, executive director of the foundation, touted the trends and technologies pushing Linux into a leadership position in mobile systems. He was followed by Jason Grigsby, Web strategist at mobile and Web design firm Cloud Four, who emphasized the coming influence of the mobile Web but countered that developers are not ready for it.

Zemlin said Linux has emerged as a primary platform, even on the desktop, but it has also spread to devices such as gas pumps and medical equipment. It is also being deployed in Wall Street trading, consumer electronics and in space-based equipment.

"It's clear that Linux is going to be a leader in the mobile space," Zemlin said.

Linux, according to Zemlin, offers a unified product platform, flexibility, and a software stack. It also has experienced an increase in the volume of software content, with the lines of Linux handset code doubling every year.

"Really, what's happening in mobile is instead of having a hardware-up approach, you're starting to see a software-down approach," with the software experience driving the mobile marketplace, he said.

By supporting Linux, developers don't have to contend with compatibility issues of supporting different platforms. The industry wants to get away from that, he said.

"It's just a nightmare to support all these different OSes and try to maintain some degree of compatibilty," Zemlin said.

Different middleware packages and application development frameworks are available for Linux. "There's a huge freedom to mix the core Linux kernel," he said.

Business drivers for Linux include reduced deployment costs, room to differentiate, and an ecosystem of development around phone platforms. "It's obviously a royalty-free platform. That's a huge business driver, Zemlin said.

"Linux really allows device manufacturers and new people to come in and create their own brand," he said.

Symbian's move to open source has had a negative impact on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, leaving it the only royalty-based mobile platform, Zemlin said .

Linux application development is starting to coalesce around initiatives such as Google's Android and LiMo (Linux Mobile Foundation), he said. Other Linux efforts are afoot such as Openmmoko, to create a smart-phone platform, and Ubuntu Mobile, Zemlin said.

"There really isn't any major player from a corporate point of view who doesn't have their foot in some way in the Linux camp," other than Microsoft, Zemlin said.

Other efforts involve development of Linux mobile devices such as notebook systems. "You're going to see 50 of those companies launch next year," Zemlin said.

Grigsby, meanwhile, emphasized that the mobile Web is coming, but Web developers are not ready yet.

There are 3.3 billion mobile devices on the planet, he said. "That's one for every two people," and more than the number of PCs, cars, televisions and credit cards, he said.

He lauded the capabilities of Apple Inc.'s iPhone and what it has done for mobile computing. "The iPhone is really the Mosaic of the mobile Web," opening people's eyes to opportunities on the mobile side the way Mosaic did with browsers, Grigsby said.

But the mobile Web is being held back by UI issues and access to the device characteristics on the phone. Standards and performance also are issues.
Grigsby predicted more fracturing, proprietary extensions, and a return to the browsers wars on the device side. There are many different browsers, he said. A lot of mobile browsers are designed around WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) rather than featuring full desktop rendering technology such as JavaScript, Grigsby said.

Web developers, he added, have become bandwidth gluttons, spoiled by high-speed broadband connections they won't have on mobile devices.

In other developments at OSCON:

Microsoft later this week plans to discuss plans for the upcoming IronRuby 1.0, which is a version of the Ruby programming language compatible with the .Net software development platform.

Canonical officials said they would introduce version 2.0 of the Launchpad hosting platform for software development projects. The 2.0 version includes a beta Internet services API enabling external applications to authenticate, query and modify data stored in the Launchpad database programmatically. The Bazaar distributed version control system featured in Launchpad has been enhanced to improve handling of larger code bases.

The makers of Icecore, an open source collaboration platform, are changing the name of the technology to Kablink and adding functionality for workflow. The name change was inspired by the addition of workflow and also is intended to avoid confusion with first-generation technologies, the company said in a statement.

Critical Week for Canonical and Ubuntu Linux

2008-07-22T09:21:00.001-07:00

Canonical CEO and Ubuntu Linux backer Mark Shuttleworth will step into the spotlight July 22, when he keynotes OSCON (Open Source Convention) in Portland, Oregon. It will be a critical moment for Shuttleworth and the Ubuntu movement. Here’s why.

Canonical was originally scheduled to host Ubuntu Live — a mini convention — as part of the broader OSCON this week. Instead, Canonical canceled the mini-event and promised to introduce smaller regional and online events over the next few months.

When Canonical canceled Ubuntu Live, however, The VAR Guy wondered if Canonical was conceding that it had bitten off more than it could chew this year. Just look at all the projects on Canonical’s plate:

1. Ubuntu Desktop Edition: Any new preload deals coming, Mark?

Ubuntu got a big mainstream win in mid-2007 when Dell agreed to pre-install Ubuntu on selected Desktops. The VAR Guy and other Ubuntu followers expected (perhaps foolishly) that Dell rivals like Hewlett-Packard would quickly jump on the Ubuntu desktop bandwago. HP has won some Ubuntu-related customer deals, but has said little about its Ubuntu plans.

When Ubuntu’s latest release arrived in April 2008, we expected the upgrade (version 8.04) to generate more pre-load news from big PC makers. But even Dell took extra time before starting 8.04 preloads.

2. Ubuntu Server Edition: Ubuntu on the server is going to be a very long, slow-moving initiative that will require more software developers, hardware makers and integrators to climb on the bandwagon.

The VAR Guy is starting to hear from folks who are successfully deploying or running Ubuntu Server Edition. But Ubuntu on the server remains in its infancy.

The VAR Guy on April 24, 2008, stated that The Ubuntu Server Revolution Starts Today. But companies like Dell took a wait-and-see approach to Ubuntu on the server, and Sun is the only major server maker to truly endorse Ubuntu.

3. Ubuntu Netbooks: This is one of Canonical’s more promising strategies. Netbooks — or sub-notebooks with Ubuntu pre-installed — have drawn interest from customers and hardware makers alike.

But Microsoft will surely pressure sub-notebook makers to stick with Windows Vista by steeply discounting Windows, especially in emerging markets.

4. Ubuntu Mobile Internet Device Release: Canonical has to do a better job communicating how Ubuntu for Netbooks and the Ubuntu Mobile Internet Device (MID) release are related — if at all.

It sounds like Ubuntu for Netbooks is purely for sub-notebooks, but Ubuntu MID is for touchscreen devices like smart phones or iPhone-sized devices that have WiFi but no cell service. Also, how will Ubuntu MID compete with Google Android — or is there little overlap between the platforms?

So many questions for such a small company like Canonical. The VAR Guy wonders if Shuttleworth should simplify Canonical and simply focus like a laser on desktop Linux.

Or does Canonical really have the developer backing, financial resources and patience to compete on desktops, mobile devices, smart phones and servers?

Hopefully, Shuttleworth will provide some answers July 22.

Oh, and by the way, this is just the start of Canonical’s summer blitz for Ubuntu. Expect to hear more about Ubuntu and server software partners at LinuxWorld in August.

Why replace that gadget? An upgrade may be better

2008-07-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

Obsoleting obsolescence: One of the holy grails for parsimonious gadget lovers is a device that can be perennially upgraded - instead of buying a new one, just swap out the software. Joshua Martin, an analyst at Yankee Group in Boston, thinks the consumer electronics industry may finally be waking up to the importance of this, citing Microsoft's plan to overhaul the software interface of its Xbox 360 game console.

The industry is recognizing the need for an upgrade path to keep older devices relevant. There was a time that you needed a new iPod every year. Now the devices are small enough, store enough, offer ample features, and have their capabilities upgraded often enough that keeping a device longer is not unreasonable. The emergence of upgradeable software presents a number of possibilities that consumer electronics manufacturers must consider: selling less hardware, becoming part of a new revenue stream, and requiring CE companies to become software experts.

Ultimately, the lesson to be garnered from the change is that the experience matters most and the device is becoming secondary. blogs.yankeegroup.com

YouTube slippage: Venture capitalist David Beisel pulled apart some recent data hinting that YouTube's dominant market share of online video-viewing may be waning.

I believe we're entering a second phase of the online video space in which the discovery mechanisms for (semi-)professional content, coupled with the increase of professional content available online in a distributed fashion, will facilitate a willingness of users to venture beyond YouTube to consume video across the net. But it won't happen overnight. Especially when I hear that the dirty little secret from many independent video producers who maintain their own destination sites is that an overwhelming number of their views come via YouTube and not on their own distribution. While Google's universal search in theory should facilitate this transition, given that in this case Google owns the both content (YouTube) and the discovery mechanisms (Google search), their incentive to push the latter is in conflict with their other own interest. Herein lies the problem - how do you find good video without going to YouTube?

This open question has inhibited the shift in video consumption past its original portal through to the distributed net - where the rest of web content consumption occurs. Perhaps the results of the past two ComScore surveys have signaled a change in consumers habits in which they're finding video content wherever they just happen to be surfing anyway. The best (or at least a better) discovery mechanism will come in time, perhaps via a startup which eclipses Google while it's conflicted . . . but regardless, eventually measuring "video sites traffic" will be redundant given that video will proliferate to all corners of the web on a predominant number of pages.

There's a good chance we'll look back at this summer then and point to it as when it all really began to happen.
genuinevc.com

Embracing dissimilarity: Are Americans sorting themselves into homogeneous bins? Michael Feinstein, managing director of the Waltham investment firm Sempre Management, posted some reflections on an NPR interview that featured the author of a new book called "The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart."

When I think about entrepreneurship, I always associate it with new ideas, high energy, and commitment. This is exactly what you get with new immigrants who come to the U.S. to make their lives better. My grandparents were immigrants, and my paternal grandfather was an entrepreneur. He built up a pretty big wholesale and retail grocery business after coming to the country with very little. While there is nothing stopping native-born Americans from being just as entrepreneurial, our privileged upbringing probably removes some of the inner hunger that an immigrant who has to overcome large obstacles probably has.

But, even more important than making sure we continue to have a steady stream of immigrants coming into the U.S. with new ideas and new energy, we all need to continue to expose ourselves to new people and new ideas to avoid complacency. We tend to settle into our comfort zones where life is predictable and less challenging. That's a recipe for stagnation. Instead, we need to force ourselves to meet new people, from different backgrounds, and embrace new ideas.
thefeinline.com

Face off: Windows vs Linux real world RAM and disk tests

2008-07-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

Forget fear, uncertainty and doubt. How do Windows Vista and Linux really compare against each other? It’s one thing to talk about the familiar applications available to Windows users contrasted with the rich suite of free open source apps for Linux, but something totally different to actually compare the loads of the two operating systems as they perform functionally identical tasks.

Related stories

* Critical security fixes arrive for Firefox 2 and 3
* Linux based virtualisation – the way to save money and go green
* Write your own iPhone apps for fun and profit
* Developing for Linux netbooks
* Browser minefield: 637 million potential disasters waiting to blow up

StatCounter - Free Web Tracker and Counter
For this test I have two laptops. Unfortunately they’re not strictly equal, in fact the Windows Vista system has an edge. It is an ASUS VX2 Lamborghini with 4GB RAM, an Intel Core 2 T7400 CPU running at 2.16GHz and a windows experience index of 4.7. The version of Windows is Windows Vista Ultimate with service pack 1 – and all other updates applied as at the time of writing. The hard drive is a Seagate Momentus 5400 RPM disk and the video card is an nVidia GeForce Go 7700.

I’m also running Red Hat Fedora 9 on a Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop. Both are 15” models, and the Dell also has 4GB RAM. It is less powerful with an Intel Core 2 T5600 CPU running at 1.83GHz (and a cache of 2MB, half that of the T7400.) The Dell contains a Toshiba MK1234GSX hard drive which also runs at 5,400 RPM but contains only onboard video, specifically an Intel 945GM chipset with 8MB of “stolen” memory. Fedora has been updated to include all the patches available as at the time of writing.

Let’s first compare the two systems at rest. This is the load the computers are under straight after a reboot and login. Vista is running the Aero theme and Fedora Linux is running Compiz with desktop effects enabled. The Windows Sidebar is enabled; I considered disabling it but this test ought to reasonably reflect actual usage, not any ideal settings tuned for best results. Consequently, I also haven’t disabled the WiFi or Bluetooth drivers on either machine, along with the various programs that run on startup. This includes Symantec Antivirus on the Windows machine as well as OneNote (Windows) and Tomboy (Linux) used for making quick notes.

Windows sits at 1.12GB RAM in use and 98 running processes. The CPU usage fluctuates between 4% and 24%; most of this is taskmgr.exe – the task manager – and a small contribution comes from the Sidebar and dwm.exe, the desktop window manager. By contrast, Linux is using 1.06GB of RAM although with 141 running processes, and a CPU load sitting dead still at 1%. If I click the Resources tab of the System Monitor the CPU load ramps up to over 20%. This is most likely due to the lack of a dedicated video card and the processor being required to draw the graphs which appear on this page. This problem doesn’t occur when using top within a console window.

One thing which is especially interesting is the different approaches the two operating systems take towards swapping main memory out to disk. While Windows shows many hundreds of page faults occurring Linux has a clear zero kilobytes of swap space being used. Let me tell you what this means, and then let’s fire up a web browser and word processor.

Study: IT jobs will drop in 2009

2008-07-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

Sharp reductions likely in contract staff, professional services and hardware, and almost no investment in cloud computing
IT staff jobs are at increasing risk -- both for contractors and in-house workers -- according to a survey of top CIOs by Goldman Sachs & Co. released last week. Global services companies will also feel the pinch because of the slowing economy.

A second survey showed that basic PC and network hardware, as well as professional services providers, would bear the largest proportion of spending cuts. It also showed that CIOs planned to emphasize economizing measures over investments in new technologies, with cloud computing emerging as the last item on their priority lists, despite the hype around it.
IT contractors to bear the brunt of cuts

"Demand for discretionary IT projects dropped to its lowest point" in the 41-study history of the Goldman Sachs staffing survey, which asked 100 managers with strategic decision-making authority (mainly CIOs at multinational Fortune 1,000 companies) about their IT staffing plans for 2009.

The Sachs report states that "in a cost-constrained IT budget scenario, CIOs will most likely look to cut their resources first from lower-value augmented [contract] IT staff." The company also describes its survey as "an early warning flag" for service providers' 2009 bookings of new projects.

These intended cutbacks are a change from last fall. When the managers were asked in October which area of IT service delivery resources they would cut for application-related development or maintenance work, the answer was 0% for in-house employees. However, with a declining economy, 8% of respondents in a February survey said in-house IT programming staffers would be cut. In April, 15% of respondents said in-house staffers would be cut. That dropped to 11% in the June survey (the most recent).

But contract employees fare much worse. In the survey, 48% of the respondents said that those staffers would be cut. And 30% of the responders said on-site third-party service provider staffers would also be cut for application-related development or maintenance work. Twelve percent of the managers said they would cut employees from offshore third-party service providers.
Consultants, hardware targets of spending cuts

The second survey by Goldman Sachs looked at 2009 spending plans based on type of IT projects. This survey also showed cuts are in the offing.

"ROI is the name of the game. CIOs have emphasized to us that they are buying on a need vs. want basis, are often downsizing deals to fit with current budget constraints, and are searching for solutions with a high and fast ROI," the survey authors wrote.

The spending survey indicated CIOs see the "greatest potential for cost reduction in IT in the area of networking equipment." A full 47% of the respondents said the most likely area where spending would be slowed would be on purchases of personal computer systems, servers and storage.

Spending cuts won't be limited to equipment: 42% of the CIOs indicated that "they are reluctant to spend money on third-party professional services." This is in keeping with the decline in interest for discretionary IT projects and could indicate more of a reliance on in-house IT employees.
Cloud computing may get buzz, but it won't get spend

The CIOs indicated that server virtualization and server consolidation are their No. 1 and No. 2 priorities. Following these two are cost-cutting, application integration, and data center consolidation. At the bottom of the list of IT priorities are grid computing, open-source software, content management and cloud computing (called on-demand/utility computing in the survey) -- less than 2% of the respondents said cloud computing was a priority.

Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT Inc., said that such hot-button technologies as cloud computing deployments may slow down. "The message here is CIOs are looking primarily to tested, well-understood technologies that can result in savings or increased business efficiencies whose support can be argued from a financial point of view," he said.

One reason for the low priorities of grid computing, open-source software and cloud computing may be that CIOs and business executives don't understand their value. "They require a technical understanding to get to their importance. I don't think C-level executives and managers have that understanding," King said.

Intel snubs Microsoft; offers Linux certification

2008-07-22T09:14:00.000-07:00

Intel's enthusiasm for open source is gathering speed: now it is endorsing professional Linux certifications, snubbing the old Microsoft certification program.

It’s a sure thing that you can sit for a range of Microsoft certifications at almost any event where two or more ‘Softies are gathered together in Bill’s name. Now Intel is leveraging its own developer muscle by organising Linux certification exams for attendees of the Intel Developer Forum held late August in San Francisco.

Attendees at the annual techfest can land a substantial discount sitting for any of three open-source exams held by the Linux Professional Institute, the world’s premier Linux certification organisation. However, there’s been no word on any similar arrangement for Microsoft certification, despite Redmond once again paying top dollar to be listed among IDF’s Gold Sponsors.

Several tracks of the San Francisco IDF are predictably dedicated to mini-notes, which Intel calls ‘netbooks’, and their desktop equivalents, clumsily tagged as ‘net-tops’, along with mobile Internet devices and the Atom processor family which runs all three types of devices.

Intel has been steadily ramping up its support of Linux for several years. It’s partly a recognition of the open source wave sweeping through governments and commercial organisations alike. More crucial, however, is the nascent market that Intel calls “the next billion computers”, which comprises the classrooms and homes, village centres and even business of third-world countries.

Intel makes its living by selling processors, and with the established worldwide market for desktops and laptops having almost reached saturation, tapping into new markets is a matter of survival. And the operating system that will power those next billion computers is increasingly seen as Linux: an OS that’s free, open, extensible and has lesser hardware requirements than Windows.

The most noticeable nod towards Linux, which was simultaneously a backhand slap at Microsoft, took place at the Beijing IDF in April 2007, when Intel embraced Linux as the OS of choice for its new class of ‘mobile Internet devices’ as well as an equal partner in a category of larger-screen UMPCs which later morphed into mini-notes. At last year’s San Francisco IDF, a prestigious walk-on spot during the keynote was bestowed upon Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth.

Intel also sponsors the Moblin project for developing a standardised open source platform for MID products, which in turn has fed into two bespoke builds of Ubuntu: Ubuntu Mobile Internet Device Edition for MIDs and Ubuntu Netbook Remix for mini-notes.

And Intel has worked on fine-tuning the Linux kernel for reduced power consumption right across the board from servers to handheld MIDs. Its ‘LessWatts.org’ initiative has already demonstrated power-optimisations, which Intel developers have been working on and feeding back into the open source community, can boost the battery life of a Linux laptop by almost a third and add a full hour to its uptime when away from an AC outlet.

Apple Now Third Largest PC Vendor in the US, Survey Says

2008-07-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

Apple is moving up the charts, toppling Acer to become the third largest PC vendor in the U.S., according to a survey from Gartner.

Apple defied a weakening economy to record a 38.1 percent growth rate in U.S. PC shipments, according to Gartner. Overall PC shipments in the U.S. grew just 4.2 percent to 16.5 million units during the quarter.

The company shipped 1.4 million units compared to Acer's 1.33 million, according to Gartner's survey. Dell held the top spot, shipping 5.25 million units and growing 11.9 percent year-over-year, followed by HP.

IDC also released a survey on Wednesday that had Apple and Acer running neck and neck.

Apple is witnessing unit growth across the board with both desktops and laptops doing well, said David Daoud, research manager at IDC. "They seem to have a good balance of products."

The second quarter is typically big for Apple, Daoud said. "That's when they are inking relationships and selling to educational institutions ahead of the back-to-school season," Daoud said.

In a mass market dominated by sensitive budgets and buyers, Apple is catering to specific buyers who are immune from the economic slowdown.

"The mindshare that company is significant. Not only among consumers, but small-to-medium businesses and even enterprises are looking at Apple hardware."

At the same token, budgetary constraints may make it hard for consumers to switch to high-priced Apple PCs, Daoud said.

The company is expected to sustain its growth in the U.S. in the upcoming quarters, Daoud said. Its PC shipments among students going back to school is expected to be strong in the third quarter. Apple may also find PC buyers who are unhappy with the "lack of innovation" in the PC market, Daoud said.

"[Windows] Vista may be helpful, but it is not resonating with consumers at the moment," he said.

Apple has a small market worldwide compared to HP and Dell, but it represents an opportunity to grow. The company is showing good growth in Japan, where it shipped 130,000 PC units in the first quarter of 2008, according to Daoud.

How to reveal blocked caller ID info: a video guide to risky behavior

2008-07-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

by Joshua Fruhlinger
Revealing caller ID
Let's say for some reason someone has his or her caller ID blocked and is calling you all the time. Let's then say you really want to know who that person is for, you know, whatever reason -- not that we'd know anything about that. Some crafty phreaker types have come up with a way to do this using an enterprise-spec asterisk box and a SIP trunk provider. In a demonstration video, a hacker tweaks said asterisk box with some new configurations to strip out privacy flags, forward the call to another number, and ultimately reveal caller ID information which, surprisingly, is still available. This isn't meant to be easy, but if the terms "prepend," "SIP trunk," and "asterisk box" don't scare you away, go ahead and watch the video after the break. Big disclaimer: we're not responsible for your broken gear, jail time, or restraining orders.

Features removed from Windows Vista

2008-07-22T09:02:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While Windows Vista contains many new features, a number of capabilities and certain programs that were a part of Windows XP are no longer present or changed, resulting in the removal of certain functionality. The following is a list of features which were present in Windows XP but which have been removed in Windows Vista.
Contents

Windows Shell

* Active Desktop functionality has been removed. As a result, animated GIF files can no longer be set as the desktop background. No other dynamic web content such as HTML or HTA files can run on the desktop, although Windows DreamScene (only released for the Windows Vista Ultimate) allows using videos as the background.
* The File Types tab has been removed from Folder Options. This feature was available from Windows 95 up to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. The File Types tab allowed users to change the file associations for various types of files. It allowed configuring which application would open when a user clicked on a certain type of file, or allowed manually defining a new file extension, defining/editing custom secondary actions, showing extensions only for specific file types, or customizing the file icon. While there is a more simplified option to change the file associations, called Default Programs in the Windows Vista Control Panel, this option only allows users to change the default action that occurs when they double click a file. It does not allow users to choose which application would load if the user were to right click on a file and then choose a secondary option such as Edit. The Open With dialog box in Windows Vista also uses the corresponding Default Programs API which limits only one registered application to be set as the default program. It is also not possible to navigate/jump to a particular extension using the alphanumeric keys on a keyboard; scrolling is required.
* The configuration tab to quickly associate with media file types has also been removed from Windows Media Player 11 options in Windows Vista.
* It is not possible to override AutoPlay by pressing the SHIFT key as was possible in previous versions, though it can still be disabled through Control Panel.
* AutoPlay settings cannot be configured per-device; they are set globally. * It is not possible to list fonts by similarity based on PANOSE information or hide font variations such as Bold, Italic etc in the Fonts folder.
* Menus cannot be set to slide anymore using the user interface. Only the fade effect is available.
* The taskbar cannot be dragged to the bottom of the screen to hide it manually.
* Toolbars such as "Quick Launch" can no longer be "dragged off" the taskbar as floating minibars or docked to another edge of the screen, though physical folders can be dragged onto the desktop edge in a similar manner. The Language Bar is the only toolbar that can float on the desktop.
* Some functions and name exports have been removed from shell32.dll.

Windows Explorer

* It is not possible to display the full path in the Title bar when Aero Glass is enabled. When Aero Glass is disabled, the full path can be displayed in the title bar. (Note that the full path can be shown in the address bar regardless of the status of Aero, by clicking to the right of the breadcrumbs or pressing Alt+D).
* The Toolbar button in Explorer to go up one folder from the current folder has been removed. This is now accomplished by selecting a folder in the breadcrumbs bar or by pressing together Alt + Up keys.
* The ability to customize the standard toolbar's layout and buttons was removed.
* Users can no longer make the menu above all other toolbars.
* Ability to add a password to a zip file (compressed folder) has been removed. (This has no effect on third-party compression tools, such as WinZip or 7Zip.)
* The Common Tasks pane (renamed 'Favorite Links') and the Details pane can be removed only through the 'Organize' button.
* Filmstrip view is replaced by the icon view feature which supports multiple sizes, and a new full-screen slideshow mode.
* The ability to view and edit metadata stored in a file's secondary stream through the "Summary" tab of the file's "Property" dialog was removed.
* The Web Publishing Wizard is no longer available.
* Support for enabling a folder for web sharing with Internet Information Services via the Windows Explorer interface was removed.
* The Desktop Cleanup Wizard is no longer available.
* The "Computer Description" field is no longer shown on the Explorer view of a workgroup.
* The IColumnProvider shell extension interface has been removed. Shell extensions that display information in Explorer's columns will therefore fail to work.
* The "Status" bar no longer shows the total space used by a folder when displaying a folder's contents or free space remaining on the disk.
* The drive mapping dialog box no longer allows a network path to be mapped without assigning a local drive letter to it.

Internet Explorer

* The ability to customize the toolbar layout is removed. The position of the address bar and the 'command bar' cannot be readjusted.
* Internet Explorer is no longer integrated with Windows Explorer. This can also be seen in Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
* Several old and little-used technologies have been removed: DirectAnimation support, XBM images (removed from IE 6), CDF, view-source protocol handlers and 40-bit SSL ciphers.
* Image toolbar has been removed. Most of the commands that were on this floating toolbar—Save Picture, E-mail Picture, Set as Background, etc—are now in the context menu that appears when an image is right-clicked.
* Offline Favorites, a feature that automatically synchronized and stored web pages for later perusal when not online, was removed in favor of using RSS feeds.
* The maximum size for the "Temporary Internet Files" folder (downloaded files cache) is limited to 1024 MB in Internet Explorer 7. This is also true for Internet Explorer 7 on other Windows versions.

User account rights and logon

* 16-bit applications launched with administrator-level privileges run in their own memory space; 16-bit inter-process communication therefore only works for non-elevated processes, as these can still be configured to run in the same memory space.
* The RunAs feature in the shell has been replaced with "Run as administrator", and no longer allows alternate credentials to be entered if the interactively logged on user is an Administrator-equivalent on the local machine (only the interactively logged on account can be used to elevate the process in this scenario). However if the interactive user is not a local Administrator, then any credentials can be used to start the process. The RunAs commandline feature does not allow a local administrator-equivalent command shell to be started.
* Internet Explorer can no longer be launched from a command prompt started with alternate credentials using RunAs. This is also true for Internet Explorer 7 running under Windows XP.
* When User Account Control is enabled, a command prompt started with Administrator-level privileges does not inherit the drive mappings of the interactively logged on user, despite the same account being used.
* The GINA library and support for GINA-based authentication has been replaced with Credential Providers so that authentication plug-ins are moved out of the Winlogon process space to the fullest extent possible in order to provide more reliability and consistency. Consequently, third-party GINA modules do not work. However, the Credential Provider model is also pluggable.
* The logon screen does not show the number of running programs or unread email messages, when using Fast User Switching.
* The All Users wallpaper can no longer be changed. All Windows Vista machines now show the same wallpaper at the logon screen.
* Due to security concerns, the All Users screen saver can no longer be changed. (Replacing the screen saver was a common method of unauthorized privilege escalation in earlier versions of Windows.)
* Due to security concerns, system services can no longer natively interact with the user's desktop in Windows Vista. This is a change from all previous NT releases.
* Cached roaming profiles cannot be deleted directly from the filesystem as this renders the account unable to logon to the workstation again, even if the account is also removed from "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList". The legacy commandline profile deletion utility (DelProf.exe) is also no longer supported under Vista. The only supported method of manually deleting a roaming profile is via the System applet of the Control Panel.

Win32 console

* The Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) does not support all DOS video modes and therefore DOS-based and Win32 console programs cannot run in full screen mode.
* In previous versions of Windows, it was possible to save different settings for each console window. Windows would ask the user whether to apply settings for the current window or the shortcut that started the window. Windows Vista however saves settings for all console windows without asking the user.
* Dragging and dropping a folder or file into a Win32 console window no longer pastes the path of the folder or file. The functionality has been disabled due to privilege escalation concerns.

Networking

* Windows Vista uses the strong host model for networking, instead of the weak host model used by all previous Windows versions. A weak host model can accept locally destined unicast packets from any network and transfer them to other interfaces on that network. In a multihomed network setup, a strong host model can considerably limit connectivity although it improves security against multihome-based network attacks.
* A single icon in the notification area (system tray) represents network connectivity through all network adapters, whether wired or wireless and for all different types of connections. It is not possible to set individual connection status icons on the taskbar or hide some or all network icons altogether.
* Changing the KeepRasConnections registry key to remain connected after logging off from a RAS client is not supported in Windows Vista.
* The Direct cable connection feature is not supported in Windows Vista.
* Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and POP3 servers have been removed from the IIS component in Windows Vista.
* The Gopher protocol is no longer supported.
* Rarely used protocols such as Bandwidth Allocation Protocol and X.25 support for SLIP have been removed. SLIP connections are automatically upgraded to use PPP.
* The SPAP, EAP-MD5-CHAP, and MS-CHAP v1 protocols are no longer supported for PPP-based connections, in favor of MS-CHAP v2.
* Unlike Outlook Express, Windows Mail has no support for HTTP mail via the WebDAV protocol (used by older Hotmail accounts and Yahoo! Mail); the addition of Windows Live Mail is likely to be required for similar functionality and there is a link to this from the Welcome Center. Also, unlike Outlook Express, Windows Mail does not allow users to switch Identities or manage multiple identities within one running instance of the program. Instead, identities are now tied to the user account and to create additional users or identities, a new user account has to be created.
* The NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible Transport Protocol is no longer supported.
* rexec, rsh, finger, and some other command-line tools primarily used to communicate with UNIX-based systems have been removed from the default installation. The Subsystem for Unix-based applications (SUA) (previously known as Windows Services for Unix) still provides them as an optional component.
* Windows Messenger has been removed in favor of a link to Windows Live Messenger. Windows Messenger support has also been dropped from Windows Media Center.
* The RTC Client API 1.3 is not included in Windows Vista.
* Support for built-in H.323 Voice Over IP (VOIP) capabilities has been removed. NetMeeting, H.323 and IPConf TSPs, and HyperTerminal all are no longer included. Windows Meeting Space is the replacement for NetMeeting, however, features like microphone support, and ability to set up audio or video conferences, are now removed.
* IP over 1394 (FireWire networking) support has been removed.
* Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) has been removed.
* The NetBEUI protocol is no longer supported.
* The Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing protocol component in Routing and Remote Access was removed.
* Services for Macintosh, which provided file and print sharing via the now deprecated AppleTalk protocol, has been removed.
* NetDDE, a technology that allows applications using the DDE transport to transparently exchange data over a network, is no longer supported.
* The NT LAN Manager Security Support Provider service has been removed in favor of the newer Kerberos authentication protocol.
* Users can no longer browse a domain structure. All computers on the network are displayed in a unified list. The list can be "filtered" to display only computers from the desired domain, but the list is still populated with all computers on the network, slowing the process.

Multimedia

* In Windows XP, essentially, audio would be "broadcast" to all the audio endpoints at once. However, the new audio engine in Windows Vista changes this behaviour. Basically, audio can be sent only to the specific endpoint that the system has set by default, or which the user has configured via the Control Panel setting. Although this new audio behavior provides more flexibility and separate Digital Signal Processing (DSP) capabilities, it is limiting in cases where audio has to be streamed locally or across the network to multiple devices (analog to one and digital to another).
* Since Windows Vista features a rewritten audio stack and does not inherit the Hardware Abstraction Layer for audio that was present under prior versions of Windows, there is no hardware acceleration of DirectSound and DirectSound3D APIs. DirectSound is emulated entirely in software. As a result, hardware acceleration and 3D spatialization utilizing DirectSound3D is no longer supported.
* The ability to choose a different hardware or software MIDI synthesizer other than the default Microsoft GS Wavetable Software synth has been removed from the user interface for audio configuration in Windows Vista. A different output MIDI synth or output device port can be selected only by editing the registry.
* Windows Media Player 10, which is downloadable for Windows XP and part of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 includes the Fraunhofer MP3 ACM codec. Because of licensing restrictions, Windows Vista only includes an MP3 decoder, not an ACM encoder.
* It is not possible to back up and restore licenses in Windows Media Player 11.
* The ability to customize the Windows startup sound has been removed, although the logon and logoff sounds can still be customized.
* Windows Media Center drops support for the Caller ID and Windows Messenger features.
* In the Sound Control Panel applet, the ability to preview a sound from the Browse dialog box has been removed.
* While playing a VCD in Windows Media Player, it is no longer possible to choose the left or right audio channel alone, which is sometimes used for "bilingual" function (stereo audio where the left and right channels contain different audio tracks).
* While previewing GIF's in the Windows File Preview, animated GIF's are not played (Only the first frame is shown). Under XP, the entire animation was shown.

File system, drivers and memory

* Executable images created for the DOS/Windows environment, using any compiler and language which does not link to the Win32 API, are subject to failure or performance degradation when executed in Windows Vista, because Vista arbitrarily restricts the memory space for the executable to 32 MB (33,554,432 bytes). The limitation applies to any compiler, linker, or executable not conforming to the Win32 API. The same is not true for previous versions of Windows.
* Installing Windows Vista on a volume with a FAT32 file system is no longer supported. Windows Vista can be installed only on an NTFS volume. Reading from and writing to FAT and FAT32 volumes is still supported.
* In the Windows Vista implementation of EFS, apparently there is no longer support for the WebDAV protocol.[citation needed] In Windows XP, encrypted files copied from or to WebDAV shares would remain encrypted "on the wire" (which contrasts with the decryption that occurs when copying from or to SMB aka CIFS shares). In Windows Vista, encrypted files copied from or to WebDAV shares would be decrypted "on the wire".
* For Plug-and-play hardware, it is not possible to choose from a list of available device drivers in the Found new hardware wizard which starts automatically. Only the Update Driver wizard which can be invoked from Device Manager allows manually choosing a driver from a list.
* Windows Management Instrumentation Driver Extensions to WDM are no longer supported.
* Unsigned 64-bit kernel-mode device drivers can no longer be installed.

Boot, shutdown, power management

* There is no progress bar indicating the hibernation status on Windows Vista. After users choose to hibernate, Windows Vista simply turns off the screen before saving the data to disk and turning off the computer. Also, when resuming, Windows Vista displays an indeterminate progress bar instead of the determinate progress bar used in previous versions of Windows.
* Although it is possible to customize the action Windows takes when the hardware Power button is pressed, it is no longer possible to set power options to ask the user every time what action to take upon pressing it. Therefore, selecting a different power action in each case is not possible.
* Motherboard support for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is required for Windows Vista; as a result, older motherboards supporting only Advanced Power Management do not work. ACPI 2.0 or later is preferred, as Windows Vista's support of technologies like AMD's Cool'n'Quiet power-saving technology is disabled on ACPI 1.0 enabled motherboards. Other "legacy" hardware technologies no longer supported include: EISA buses, game ports, MPU-401, AMD K6/2+ Mobile Processors, Mobile Pentium II and Mobile Pentium III SpeedStep; ISAPnP is disabled by default.
* The Shutdown menu has been removed from Windows Task Manager.
* The NTLDR boot loader, NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI boot files used in previous versions of the NT kernel have been replaced by the BOOTMGR boot loader and BOOT folder.

Windows applications and features

* The graphical representation and progress indicator of the defragmentation process or its analysis have been removed from Windows Disk Defragmenter. It is also not possible in the RTM release to manually specify which drives to defragment from the GUI without using the command line defrag.exe utility. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 includes the ability to control which volumes the disk defragmenter runs on. The ability to view any volume-related information such as its file system, capacity, free space, percentage of free space, cluster size, contiguous files, file and volume fragmentation information in the analysis report of a volume is also absent. It is also impossible to save or print the analysis report or pause and resume the defragmentation mid-way.
* In the Windows Vista version of the Backup application, it is not possible to specify what files and folders to back up and what files and folders are to be excluded. Users can select only document categories to back up. Files from a specific path or over the network also cannot be backed up due to this reason. Backup also does not present a list of files that will be backed up. Also, Encrypting File System (EFS) files are skipped over and not backed up. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 adds support for backing up EFS-encrypted files. Also, Vista's Backup application cannot use tape drives.
* Sound Recorder in Windows Vista can no longer open audio files. Moreover, it cannot save in lossless (uncompressed) WAV format when run without using any switches; instead, it saves in lossy 96 kbit/s WMA format. Only the version of Sound Recorder from the N editions of Windows Vista saves audio in WAV format by default. Also, all the basic audio processing features such as format conversion, sample rate conversion, adding echo, reversing the audio, changing volume and playback speed, splitting, inserting and mixing audio have been removed. The graphical viewing of the sound wave spectrum has been replaced with a level meter.
* Version 6.4 of Windows Media Player (mplayer2.exe) is no longer included. It was also dropped previously from Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 but was present in other Windows XP editions.
* Support for Microsoft Office Word documents (*.DOC) has been removed from WordPad. Microsoft recommends the freely downloadable Word Viewer for viewing these documents.
* The wizard for transferring photos from the camera had some of its functionality removed in Windows Photo Gallery such as the ability to choose which images to transfer from the camera; users had to copy all images even if they had been previously downloaded. However, the previous behavior with options to choose and automatically organize photos into folders is available in Windows Live Photo Gallery. Also, users can still manually copy specific images from the camera by exploring the connected camera from Windows Explorer.
* Support for animated .GIF files has been removed in Windows Photo Gallery which replaced the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. Animated GIF files display properly in Internet Explorer. Support for WMF and EMF formats has also been removed from Windows Photo Gallery.
* It is not possible to share Microsoft Office Outlook contacts with Windows Contacts, whereas in Windows XP, configuring the "UseOutlook" value in the registry allowed sharing Outlook contacts with the Windows Address Book.
* The ability to send email as plain text (without HTML) only to a specific contact is not available in Windows Contacts.

Legacy applications and features

* ClipBook Viewer is not included.[citation needed]
* Object Packager, a legacy tool for packaging non-OLE objects and embedding/linking them inside OLE objects, is not included.[citation needed]
* Built-in support for the 32-bit .HLP (WinHelp) help format has been removed to discourage software developers from using the obsolete format and encourage use of newer 32-bit help formats such as Compiled HTML Help. When starting an application which uses the 32-bit .HLP format, Windows will display a warning saying that the format is not supported any more. The viewer for viewing .HLP files is available from the Microsoft Download Center, though features present in previous versions are disabled. Support for the 16-bit .HLP format remains.
* Context-sensitive help is not available in Windows Vista as it was dependent on WinHelp. Although the HTML Help technology also supports context-sensitive help, Windows Vista dialogs remove the "What's this" button and context sensitive help functionality.
* SerialKeys, an accessibility feature for augmentative communicative devices is no longer supported.
* The Dr. Watson application debugger and crash analysis tool has been removed. It is intended to be replaced by the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel. However, its functionality is different.
* The DirectX Diagnostic tool (DxDiag) only shows information; it is no longer possible to test the hardware and the various DirectX components.
* Desktop versions of Backgammon, Reversi, Spades, Pinball, and Checkers have been removed.(Many of these games are now freely playable online on MSN Games).
* Program Manager has been removed altogether. Previously, in Windows XP Service Pack 2, running the executable did not launch it, however it stored several old icons.[citation needed]
* Many of the screen savers introduced in earlier versions of Windows are not included with Windows Vista, this includes most of the OpenGL screen savers introduced since Windows 95b and classics such as the Flying Windows screen saver.

Graphics, DirectX and video

* When using Windows Aero, all GDI and GDI+ applications run in the new Compositing window manager known as Desktop Window Manager. In that case the GDI render path is redirected through DWM; however GDI is not hardware-accelerated when it is redirected. But, due to the nature of desktop composition (internal management of moving bitmaps and transparency and anti-aliasing of GDI+ being handled at the DWM core), operations like window moves and resizes can be faster or more responsive because underlying content need not be re-rendered.
* Many popular video codecs are no longer available to the Video for Windows (VfW) interface, thereby breaking most applications which use the VfW API to work with AVI files. The missing codecs are available under Direct Media, but VfW applications will need to be redesigned to use the entirely different API.
* Direct3D Retained Mode (D3DRM) has been removed.
* DirectPlay Voice and DirectPlay's NAT Helper have been removed.
* Some DirectInput functionality (action-mapper UI) has been removed as well.
* DirectPlay has been deprecated.
* The DirectMusic kernel mode synthesizer that supplies the DirectMusic components with a high-resolution timer has been removed.
* Support for the DirectX 7 and DirectX 8 interfaces for Visual Basic 6.0 is not available on Windows Vista.
* Video content support is removed from Windows Image Acquisition for Windows Vista in favor of the newer Windows Portable Devices API. As a result, the Windows Vista version of Windows Movie Maker no longer supports importing video from an analog video source such as a VCR, an analog camcorder or from a Web camera.

Installation and servicing

* Because of setup design changes for faster installation, it is not possible to slipstream service packs or hotfixes into the core operating system files as was possible with Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000. Microsoft released an updated Windows Vista disc media that integrates Service Pack 1, however the updated media is only available to certain enterprise customers, MSDN subscribers and new customers who buy the operating system after the release of SP1; it is not available to pre-SP1 end-users of Windows Vista. As an alternative Windows Automated Install Kit can be used to alter the image though it is rather more complicated.
* Windows Vista uses Package Manager (Pkgmgr.exe) and Windows Update Standalone Installer (Wusa.exe) to install software updates and hotfixes. However, these do not support the various command-line switches like Windows XP's Package Installer (Update.exe) did. Much of the functionality from Update.exe is missing. For example, there is no way to skip backing up uninstall information for hotfixes using the /nobackup or /n switch. Windows Vista backs up files before installing hotfixes to the %Windir%\WinSxS folder. Since the backing up of files cannot be skipped, this folder can get considerably large and take up a lot of disk space.
* It is not possible to backup the activation state for the same computer in Windows Vista. In retail or OEM versions of Windows XP, upon reinstallation, it was not necessary to activate Windows on the same computer without making hardware changes, if the WPA.DBL file was backed up and later restored.

Other minor changes

* The Startup Hardware Profiles feature in System Changes has been removed.
* The Windows Classic theme colors (Brick, Eggplant, Rainy Day, Wheat, Pumpkin, etc.) have been removed.
* The graphical world map has been removed from the Date and Time control panel setting in Windows Vista.
* The program list in the Vista Start Menu cannot be set to anything other than the "scroll programs" option seen in previous versions of Windows. However, if the Start Menu is changed to Classic, the option can be changed.
* The Vista Start Menu does not allow expanding Connect To and Printers for quick access to network connections or print/fax devices.

Take a peek at Firefox 3's new download manager

2007-08-13T15:01:00.002-07:00

Mozilla Links has posted details and a few screenshots of how Firefox 3's new download manager will look and function. In general, users will gain more control over their downloads, actions such as opening a file have been changed from text links to icons to comply with the rest of Firefox's design paradigm of buttons for actions, words for website links. Users will also be able to click an (i) icon on completed downloads to view details such as the website the download came from, the location of the downloaded file on local computer and when the download finished. Chronic downloaders will also appreciate a new search box, and an option to show the download manager in the status bar or sidebar is also being considered.

Overall these look like some strong features for a much-needed upgrade to the download manager, but we would still like to see a little more innovation here. For example: the download manager in Camino, a Mac OS X browser that uses the same Gecko rendering engine as Firefox, can not only clear the download manager's list of files, but also move those files to the trash. And what about actual download file management features, such as moving files to specified folders or importing into apps based on file type (ZIP, audio, video, etc.)?

If you're itching to try out these new features, Mozilla Links says this new download manager should be available in tonight's nightly build.

Google selleth then taketh away, proving the need for DRM circumvention

2007-08-13T15:01:00.001-07:00

It's not often that Google kills off one of its services, especially one which was announced with much fanfare at a big mainstream event like CES 2006. Yet Google Video's commercial aspirations have indeed been terminated: the company has announced that it will no longer be selling video content on the site. The news isn't all that surprising, given that Google's commercial video efforts were launched in rather poor shape and never managed to take off. The service seemed to only make the news when embarrassing things happened.
Related Stories

Yet now Google Video has given us a gift—a "proof of concept" in the form of yet another argument against DRM—and an argument for more reasonable laws governing copyright controls. How could Google's failure be our gain? Simple. By picking up its marbles and going home, Google just demonstrated how completely bizarre and anti-consumer DRM technology can be. Most importantly, by pulling the plug on the service, Google proved why consumers have to be allowed to circumvent copy controls.
A consolation prize

Google contacted customers late last week to tell them that the video store was closing. The e-mail declared, "In an effort to improve all Google services, we will no longer offer the ability to buy or rent videos for download from Google Video, ending the DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program. This change will be effective August 15, 2007."

The message also announced that Google Checkout would issue credits in an amount equal to what those customers had spent at the Google Video store. Why the quasi-refunds? The kicker: "After August 15, 2007, you will no longer be able to view your purchased or rented videos."

See, after Google takes its video store down, its Internet-based DRM system will no longer function. This means that customers who have built video collections with Google Video offerings will find that their purchases no longer work. This is one of the major flaws in any DRM system based on secrets and centralized authorities: when these DRM data warehouses shut down, the DRM stops working, and consumers are left with useless junk.

Furthermore, Google is not refunding the total cost of the videos. To take advantage of the credit Google is offering, you have to spend more money, and furthermore, you have to spend it with a merchant that supports Google Checkout. Meanwhile, the purchases you made are now worthless. To do it right, Google should either provide users with non-DRMed copies of the videos they bought, or they should refund the money entirely. The current option is hardly acceptable, however. Would you buy a TV, a car, a book, or anything if the guy who sold it to you could take it back at any moment so long as he offered you a coupon?

Did you buy Kobe Bryant's 81-point game to commemorate that bit of NBA history? Enjoy staring at an unplayable file come Wednesday. But hey, at least you get $2 back to go buy underwear!
Copyright Office, here we come

Since the death of the commercial part of Google Video will render thousands and thousands of purchases useless, the Library of Congress will have no choice but to consider the matter when they return to their triennial review of the DMCA. To date, the Library of Congress has granted exceptions to the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA in instances where DRM has rendered something completely unusable, such as eBook DRM which can render eBooks useless for handicapped people. Recent exceptions from the last review are detailed here. Of note: the right to bypass DRM on products that no longer work properly was considered but rejected last time around.

Now, thanks to Google, we have a case study, a real-world example we can point to and say: "Hey, this isn't right." It features one of the world's most innovative and financially powerful technology companies bagging out on users. It features thousands of consumers buying DRMed goods in earnest, and it ends with a bang; Google decides to exit the market, leaving consumers with a load of useless goods.

Needless to say, this could happen with any player. Google could float its store if it wanted to, but it is exiting the business. What happens when Amazon does the same? Or Apple, or the next guy?

If this isn't further proof that parts of the DMCA should be gutted, at the very least it is a strong sign that the Library of Congress needs to address this issue. Congress should be thinking about this brave new world of "unproperty" where you're charged good money to "buy" products that, in reality, you're only renting until AverageCorp gets bored of the business.

Suprnova: What Will Change and What Will Remain The Same?

2007-08-13T15:00:00.003-07:00

The new and improved SuprNova will be launched very soon. Sweet revenge, according to the title of Suprnova’s “coming soon” page. In anticipation of the (re)launch we will list some of the new features, and some things that will remain the same.
Direct downloads

Suprnova will be extremely friendly to BitTorrent illiterates. One of the new features is a Java applet that allows you to download .torrent files without having a BitTorrent client installed. This is not only useful for newbies, but also if you’re working on a PC that doesn’t allow you to install a BitTorrent client like some workplaces or Universities have. The Java applet that will be integrated into SuprNova will be similar to BitLet.
Torrents and Trackers

SuprNova’s aim was and is to index more content than any other site. Unlike The Pirate Bay, SuprNova will also index torrents from other sources. Upon its release it will crawl more than 25.000 trackers and have a database of more than 1.000.000 torrents. This will make SuprNova one of the biggest BitTorrent indexing sites right from the start.
Search

Suprnova wasn’t perfect, but the really annoying thing was that there was no search feature. In the early days this wasn’t really a problem, only a couple of torrents were added every day. But as the site grew bigger and bigger it became nearly impossible to find what you want without spending minutes digging through the categories. The new Suprnova will therefore have a search function, a significant change, but a good one.
Design

Suprnova: What Will Change and What Will Remain The SameSloncek, the former owner of SuprNova donated the domain to TPB under the condition that they would keep the nostalgic design more or less intact. There will be some changes design wise, but most people will still see that it’s inspired by the old Suprnova look. Brokep, one of the TPB admins told TorrentFreak: “The idea was to bring SuprNova to what it would have been today it if never closed. So, it’s supposed to be an updated version of the old beloved site! We hope that people still get the SuprNova-feeling and that it also feels like a modern website.”
Community

The new Suprnova will have its own IRC channel, just like in the old days. In fact, it is already up and running, so if people want to chat about Suprnova (or other things), go to #suprnova at freequest. As mentioned in our previous post, Suprbay.org will be the new forum for the Suprnova and TPB community, over 5000 people signed up already, and SuprNova hasn’t even been launched yet.

Another new feature related to the community is the comments system. Similar to other BitTorrent sites people are now allowed to post comments on every torrent. Apart from the usual rants the comments are useful to get an indication of the quality of the files.
Front Page

Like in the good old days the frontpage will show all the latest torrents by category. The categories will be on top of the page, and they will be the same as before: Games, Movies, TV-Shows, Anime, Music, Apps, Mac & Misc.

This was only a sneak peek at some of the changes on the new Suprnova. I guess you have to wait for the launch if you want to check out all of the changes and new features, the wait will soon be over.

Google, Microsoft and Apple building online storage havens: you win

2007-08-13T15:00:00.001-07:00

Cloud computing is still far off, but Microsoft and Google are both eagerly working on "cloud storage" solutions in the hopes that you'll start keeping more and more of your data on their servers, keeping you coming back to their services (and the occasional advertisement). Apple has even awoke from its slumber to improve .Mac's storage options. Last week was a big one for these three behemoths, so let's take a look at what they've done.

First up, Google squashed any hopes that the company would keep on adding endless, free storage for its users when it formally rolled out paid storage upgrades that can be used across both Picasa Web Albums and Gmail (and coming soon, Google Docs & Spreadsheets). For $20 per year, Gmail users can add another 6GB of storage on top of the 2.8GB already offered (for free) through Gmail as well as the additional 1GB offered for Picasa. There are more storage options available, going up as high as 250GB for $500 per year. "When you reach the limit of free storage," writes Google Software QA engineer lead Ryan Aquino, "consider this your overflow solution."

At the same time, Microsoft announced that Windows Live SkyDrive—previously known as Windows Live Folders—has opened to the public. The free beta service offers up to 500MB of online storage for nearly anything, not just e-mail and web albums like Google's offering. With a revamped UI that integrates into Windows, users can drag and drop files and browse the public directories on the SkyDrives of other users. Brandon LeBlanc of the Windows Live Blog describes it as a personal hard drive on the Internet.

Finally, just this week, Apple also bumped the storage offered through its own service, .Mac, from 1GB to 10GB. The price of .Mac's overall subscription remained the same at $99 per year, but the service comes with a number of other tools such as Mac training, web hosting, and heavy desktop software integration.

All of these moves reflect a growing battle over online storage geared toward more average users. While storage services like Amazon S3 might seem simple to many of us, setting it up still seems like a daunting—or at least inconvenient—challenge to many less savvy users. Google, Apple, and Microsoft are all hoping that their own approaches to integration will also seem like no-brainers to end users.

Indeed, they all offer something slightly different than the next: Google's storage doesn't (currently) allow the user to just upload files from his or her hard drive like Windows Live SkyDrive, while Microsoft's offering provides only a fifth of the storage offered by Google for free. Apple's .Mac provides the most default amount of storage out of the three but does so for the highest price, as there is no true "free" option for .Mac. If only we could combine them into one super-service that would provide Google-levels of storage with the ease of use found in SkyDrive or .Mac. Let the gDrive rumors commence (again!).

As competition heats up, it won't be surprising to see these services gain functionality and drop in price in order to compete more fiercely with each other, and we still believe that the gDrive is coming. For Microsoft and Google, the competition will be wide open, while Apple will continue to focus solely on Mac users, hoping they don't bail on .Mac for different pastures (especially Google's green, cozy Gmail). All of this pressure means that these companies will have to keep upping the ante, which only leads to better services for all of us.

In closing, don't forget about the all of the online backup tools that are also available. Joel reviewed the best online backup options recently and found a keeper.

2007-08-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

irst up, here's a brief transcript of the open source exchange during the Q&A with John Carmack:

Q: I wanted to say thank you for open-sourcing the Quake 3 engine, it's made a huge difference to the community. I wanted to ask your opinion about the future of Linux and open source gaming.

A: I do take a great deal of personal pride and satisfaction with what I've been able to do with getting so much of the stuff out. Sometimes I think about it, and while I know it's not something I'm generally considered for, I may be one of the most prolific open source authors considering all the code that I've written over the last 15 years that I've made open source, or have made open source there. I do think it's very valuable. I'm very happy when I see both user gaming community stuff, or research universities, or people doing simulation tests, or bringing up things. Every new piece of hardware ends up having Doom or Quake titles used as an early form of test application. So I'm very happy to have done that. It's certainly going to continue. I mean I won't commit to a date, but the Doom 3 stuff will be open source. We still make those decisions even today when we're doing the Rage code when we have decisions about "do we want to integrate some other vendor's solution, some proprietary code into this". And the answer's usually no, because eventually id Tech 5 is going to be open source also. This is still the law of the land at id, that the policy is that we're not going to integrate stuff that's going to make it impossible for us to do an eventual open source release. We can argue the exact pros and cons from a pure business standpoint on it, and I can at least make some, perhaps somewhat, contrived cases that I think it's good for the business, but as a personal conviction it's still pretty important to me and I'm standing by that.

Next, as I mentioned briefly earlier, a beta test release of the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Linux dedicated server was made available at the event to the BYOC LAN; of note is this passage in the README:

You need a low latency kernel for good performance (this applies to both client and server installs). Mostly, make sure your kernel configuration has CONFIG_HZ_1000=y. You should also enable other low latency desktop settings, such as the various preemption capabilities.

You've been warned; get your kernels ready! ;)

It was announced at the convention that ET: Quake Wars for Windows will ship on October 2. There's a new preview of the game at Atomic Gamer and a few new screenshots at Shacknews.

Game Informer has a lengthy interview with John Carmack where some additional detail was provided regarding their newly announced projects:

* "[Rage is] about 50/50 racing and first person action. [...] I think there’s going to be some neat stuff in it. We’ve got the whole outdoor wasteland – big areas, going between lots of different areas. We’re doing some of the sandbox play there. [...] Then you’ve got the run and gun internal shooter stuff, id’s always done well, and we’re going to do a good job on that. Then you have the sort of RPG-ish elements, pimping out your ride, getting money to buy accessories and building it up."
* "There will be a Doom 4, we don’t have it scheduled or a team assigned to it, but there will be a Doom 4. There’s going to be a Quake Arena sequel. There’s a Wolfenstein thing in production. We’re following along with all those. This game [Rage] doesn’t have to be Doom. It’s going to be something different."
* "We have a kernel team and we’ve seeded it with people from our main team and moved them over, and the plan is right now to do a bridge project that we’re calling Quake Zero. This is experimental and this is one of my pet ideas. We’re taking the Quake Arena code base data sets and repackaging it for incremental web downloads and make it a free game and we’re going to try a sponsored advertising supported free version of the game. I want to try this. Where the website is the hub for everything, most of the menus are gutted out of the game. The game is something that launches instantly. You set up everything on the web page, all of your community stuff there. You get sponsors and advertisers on there to see if we can support this. We have a unique opportunity for this because we own all the stuff on there – it’s still a good game. We can do this with the kernel of the first six developers on here."
* "The goal is here to make – after Quake Zero – then we’ll probably take all of the lessons we learn from that interaction and make an id Tech 5 Quake Arena sequel with all the bells and whistles."

There's a lot of discussion about what's changed in id Tech 5 at:

* An AtomicGamer interview with id's Steve Nix.
* GameTrailers.com's three-part technology walkthrough hosted by Carmack.
* Shacknews, where they've posted video of the id Studio tools presentation conducted by id's Matt Hooper at QuakeCon.

Speaking of, high resolution video of the Rage trailer is also up at the Shack. The id Studio tools themselves are Windows widget-based; such utilities have been problematic to port in the past, but maybe something akin to GtkRadiant will come together over the next several years.

Besides our audio recording of the Carmack keynote, QuakeUnity.com has posted a video recording of the talk's first hour. There's also video of the presentation's initial announcements.

Finally, QuakeCon is also a tournament, and the winners were announced at the event's conclusion:

Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars 6V6 Championship

* 1st Place: Team-Dignitas -- $22,000
* 2nd Place: Team HOT -- $16,000
* 3rd Place: Check-Six -- $8,000
* 4th Place: DEMISE -- $4,000

QUAKE Quad-Damage Tournament

* 1st Place: Johan “toxjq” Quick -- $20,000
* 2nd Place: Magnus “fojjji” Olsson -- $12,500
* 3rd Place: Timothy “DaHanG” Fogarty -- $7,500
* 4th Place: Mikael “purri” Tarainen -- $5,000
* 5th Place: Tim “naymlis” Bowes -- $1,250
* 6th Place: Chance “EG/chance” Lacina -- $1,250
* 7th Place: Rafik “LoSt-CaUsE” Bryant -- $1,250
* 8th Place: Tom “griffin” Wall -- $1,250

The Quad-Damage tournament spanned all four Quake titles; you can see videos of the matches at GGL, or download the Quad Damage demos from the QuakeCon site.

Skype on iPhone. No, seriously.

2007-08-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

OK, this has to be the coolest news this morning. SHAPE Services, a Stuttgart, Germany-based company, well-known for making mobile IM clients, has just announced Skype for iPhone, an iPhone-optimized Web site that allows you to access Skype via the browser on the iPhone. You can try out this for free for a limited time.

It took me less than two minutes to get up and running. Sending messages was as simple as typing SMS messages. I am guessing that, since they ask you for your mobile number when you log in, there is some kind of call-back service built into the app. After all, the company says you don’t need WiFi.

IM+ for Skype works with BlackBerry RIM, Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Palm OS, Symbian and J2ME devices. The application works in any network and doesn’t require WiFi, the company says.

PHP 101: PHP For the Absolute Beginner

2007-08-13T14:50:00.000-07:00

Novice PHP101 PHP5 Tutorials

This area is intended for everyone new to PHP. It opens with a series of informal, entertaining tutorials written by Vikram Vaswani, founder and CEO of Melonfire. These tutorials build on a previously-published 5-part series which has now been updated and extended to embrace PHP 5, making parts of it suitable for those of you who already have worked with PHP 4 in the past.

If you came here to learn about elementary PHP 4 or basic PHP 5, this is for you. Enjoy!

See the whole instructions on the source: devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/627

Apple Beats Microsoft at its Own Open XML Game

2007-08-13T14:45:00.001-07:00

Mac support for Microsoft's Open XML document standard has arrived, but it's Apple's iWork '08, not Microsoft's Office, delivering the goods.

Apple Inc.'s release of iWork '08 this week is "embarrassing," an analyst said Friday, not for its maker, but for Apple's rival, Microsoft Corp.

Tuesday, Apple rolled out a refreshed iWork that added a spreadsheet, dubbed Numbers, to the earlier mix of a word processor/page layout Pages and presentation maker Keynote. But it was iWork's ability to handle the Open XML file format -- the new native format for Microsoft's own Office 2007 application suite -- that Michael Gartenberg of JupiterResearch talked about.

"This was the ultimate insult to injury," Gartenberg said. "Not only has Microsoft not delivered the ability to read and write Open XML in its Mac Office, but at the end of the day, Apple was the one who delivered."

Gartenberg referred to Microsoft's problems developing Office 2008 for Mac, which the company announced last week would be delayed until mid-January. Among the roadblocks, said Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (MBU), is the shift to Open XML as Office 2008's native file format. The company has also been slow in releasing conversion tools that let earlier editions of its Mac suite work with Office 2007's Open XML documents.

"This is embarrassing for MBU," Gartenberg said. "It has said that the shift to Intel has caused [its] problems, and changes in development tools, and the file format, too. But every other major vendor has pretty much managed to get their apps over to Intel [on the Mac]. Microsoft is one of the oldest Mac developers out there, so it's not like it doesn't have experience [on the platform]."

IWork '08 applications can open the OpenXML formats churned out by their Office 2007 counterparts -- Pages with Word, Numbers with Excel, Keynote with PowerPoint -- but cannot save in those formats. Currently, Office 2004 and Office v. X users can both open Word and PowerPoint Open XML files and save in those formats using beta converters MBU has issued. No such converter has been released that handles Excel 2007's Open XML files, however.

Ironically, one of those who praised iWork's handling of the Microsoft file format was a program manager for Office 2007. "[iWork '08] reads the Office Open XML files with very high fidelity," said Brian Jones on his company blog.

At the same time, Jones defended his fellow developers at Microsoft in MBU. "The Mac Office folks have a ton of stuff they are working on for the next version, so it's not surprising that you aren't seeing full Open XML support until they reach that point," Jones said in response to a question asking how Microsoft lost the race to Apple's iWork.

"Office for the Mac is just not a real priority for Microsoft," said Gartenberg as he spelled out his take for Microsoft's tardiness creating software on the Mac that can handle what are, after all, its own file formats. "And that's not likely to change anytime soon."

Asked to explain why Microsoft hasn't been able to match Apple, MBU's marketing manager, Amanda Lefebvre, ticked off the development issues that have delayed Office 2008.

"The transition to the new file format is one of several reasons the development cycle is longer with Office 2008," she said. "Office 2008 [for Mac] will run natively on Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs with a Universal Binary [and] this transition necessitated a switch to a new set of development tools as well. The combination of these two technology shifts definitely impacted our schedule."

Not quite, Gartenberg said. "What this really shows is Microsoft's inability to ship software on time these days," he said.

Apple, meanwhile, is doing the smart thing. "They're making sure that they're not dependent on Microsoft for any of the important software [for the Mac]," said Gartenberg.

That strategy, along with the US$79 price of iWork and the window of opportunity because of Office 2008's delay, puts Cupertino in the cat bird seat. "It's going to be hard for Microsoft to get those people who try and buy iWork back," he said. "Microsoft's let down its Mac customers."

LEAKED: Vista SP1 analysed in-depth

2007-08-13T14:40:00.001-07:00

It's no secret that there's a leaked beta of Vista SP1 floating around, but no-one yet has really taken the time to analyse it in detail to find out what it really does.

I made it my mission this weekend to trawl through the registry and file changes in SP1 to find out as best I could exactly what SP1 does.

First up, I can say that there is a very noticeable performance increase. It is obvious that since Microsoft released Vista to manufacturing, it has been optimising the code ever since. (I suspect this revelation will fuel the fires of the people who say Vista was released before it was ready for prime-time.) There’s far less hard drive thrashing and in general the system seems much smoother and more responsive.

Amusingly, the build of SP1 we saw (which in this beta comes fully integrated into a 3.2GB Vista install DVD, rather than as a standalone update) still has Microsoft's internal network shares embedded as the source of the updates. For example:

\\\\winbuilds3\\longhorn_SP1Beta1\\longhorn_SP1Beta1
\\6001.16549.070628-1825\\x86fre\\packages\\ServicePack"

Not that that info is really useful to anyone, but it mildly tickled our curiosity bone (next to the funny bone) to see the file layout of Microsoft's internal distribution shares.

Vista SP1Vista SP1

The first noticable change is obviously the version number. Windows Vista has a build number of 6.0.6000, whereas this build is 6.0.6001 (full version number is 6001.16549). This is quite interesting as one of the much-anticipated (and officially acknowledged) changes in SP1 was to bring the Vista kernel up to the same kernel as that used in Windows 2008 (version 6.1). It's possible that this aspect of the service pack is still in development, and not included in this version of the private beta.

Vista SP1 Build NumberVista SP1 Build Number

Normally, service packs don’t include new features – Windows XP SP2 being the standout exception. By and large this seems to be true of Vista SP1, although there is a new maintenance application called “Create a Recovery Disc”. This isn’t the same thing as creating a backup of the system to DVD – instead this process creates a recovery DVD which you can use with system recovery options if you don’t have an original Windows DVD or you can’t access OEM recovery tools.

Create Your Own Recovery DiscCreate Your Own Recovery Disc

At this point in its development, SP1 comes installed with four updates:

* Service Pack for Microsoft Windows (KB936330)
* Service Pack for Microsoft Windows (KB937286)
* Hotfix for Microsoft Windows (KB937287)
* Update for Microsoft Windows (KB938371)

There is a full list of suspected hotfixes that were to be included with Vista SP1 (check them out at www.vistasp1.net), but these four are not on the list. Unfortunately as the beta is not yet public, there’s no publicly-accessible information out there about these updates.

However, some hours of digging around in the registry did uncover quite a bit of information, mostly to do with the package load of each update and the Windows components it influences (bear in mind that this information is current for this particular version of SP1 – it may change in the public beta and in the final release).

Poking around in the registry: reveals a surprising amount about the private life of an OS updatePoking around in the registry: reveals a surprising amount about the private life of an OS update
Service Pack for Microsoft Windows (KB936330) contains 133 individual packages and is by far the biggest of the updates, so will probably be the service pack as we think of it. It is applied to the following Vista components:

* AxInstallService
* Backup
* BLB Client
* Branding Ultimate Client
* BRCpl Basic/Premium/Pro & BRCpl Basic/Premium/Pro Language Pack
* Capture Wizard
* Client Features
* ClipsInTheLibrary
* CodecPack Basic Encoder/Package
* Desktop Manager
* DFSR Client Edition
* Disk Diagnosis
* Fax Client (for all versions of Vista)
* Foundation
* Group Policy Client Extensions / Client Tools
* Help Core Client
* IIS WebServer AddOn (38 packages are devoted to this component)
* IIS WebServer (another 18 packages for this component)
* Indexing Service
* Media Center / Media Format / Media Player
* MobilePC Basic/Premium/SideShow
* MovieMaker
* MSMQ Client
* NetFx3 OC
* NFS Client
* Offline Files
* Optical Media
* Parental Controls
* Peer-to-Peer AdHoc Meetings / Full
* Photo Basic/Premium
* Previous Versions
* Printing Foundation / Printing Premium Tools / Printing XP Services
* RDC (Remote Desktop Connection)
* RecDisc
* Remote Assistance
* Removable Storage Management
* Secure Startup
* ServicingBaseline (for all versions of Windows)
* Shell Inbox Games / Premium Inbox Games
* Simple TCP
* SNMP Package
* SUA (Subsystem for UNIX Applications)
* System Restore
* TabletPC OC
* Telnet Client / Telnet Server
* Terminal Services Command Line Tools / Misc Redirection / USB Redirector / WM Provider
* Windows Foundation Language Packs
* WMI SNMP Provider
* WMP Network Sharing Service
* MSSSVC Rules (for all versions of Vista)
* Server Help (for all versions of Vista)

Service Pack for Microsoft Windows (KB937286) contains 28 packages. The bulk of the updates are applied to the Windows Help Core Client, but it also affects client packages for:

* Windows MobilePC (Basic, Premium, SideShow and Help)
* Windows ServicingBaseline (for all versions of Windows Vista)
* Server Help (for all versions of Windows Vista).

Hotfix for Microsoft Windows (KB937287) contains just one package, which is applied to the Servicing Stack, a component used in Vista imaging.

Update for Microsoft Windows (KB938371) contains three packages, which are applied to:

* OS loader
* Windows Task Scheduler Service
* Windows Update Standalone Installer (WUSA)
* Foundation Package
* Common Log
* Delta Package Expander
* OLE Automation
* All Windows Foundation and WindowsPE Language Packs

The services packs are very clearly directed towards backend services rather than frontend features. I pointed the SP1 system to Windows Update to see whether it needed any Vista updates, and it didn’t. So as expected, all Vista updates since Vista was released (and there haven’t been many) have been bundled into SP1.

The Vista SP1 packages: you can uninstall them from the SP1 build if you so desire, and return to bog standard Vista RTM.The Vista SP1 packages: you can uninstall them from the SP1 build if you so desire, and return to bog standard Vista RTM.
Performance and Compatibility

This service pack isn’t to be confused with two enhancement packs which were leaked to the public a few weeks ago, and then officially released by Microsoft with virtually no fanfare on the 8th and the 9th. These two updates address compatibility and performance features in Vista.

The “compatibility” update (KB938194), “improves the compatibility and reliability of Windows Vista” in the following scenarios:

* The screen may go blank when you try to upgrade the video driver. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
* 932539 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932539/) The screen may go blank when you try to upgrade the video driver on a Windows Vista-based computer
* The computer stops responding, and you receive a "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" error message. You can restart the computer only by pressing the computer's power button.
* The computer stops responding or restarts unexpectedly when you play video games or perform desktop operations.
* The Diagnostic Policy Service (DPS) stops responding when the computer is under heavy load or when very little memory is available. This problem prevents diagnostics from working.
* The screen goes blank after an external display device that is connected to the computer is turned off. For example, this problem may occur when a projector is turned off during a presentation.
* There are stability issues with some graphics processing units (GPUs). These issues could cause GPUs to stop responding (hang).
* Visual appearance issues occur when you play graphics-intensive games.
* You experience poor playback quality when you play HD DVD disks or Blu-ray disks on a large monitor.
* Applications that load the Netcfgx.dll component exit unexpectedly.
* Windows Calendar exits unexpectedly after you create a new appointment, create a new task, and then restart the computer.
* Internet Connection Sharing stops responding after you upgrade a computer that is running Microsoft Windows XP to Windows Vista and then restart the computer.
* The Printer Spooler service stops unexpectedly.
* You receive a "Stop 0x0000009F" error when you put the computer to sleep while a Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) connection is active. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
* 931671 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931671/) Error message when you put a Windows Vista-based computer to sleep while a PPP connection is active: "STOP 0x0000009F"

The “performance” update (KB938979), “improves the performance and reliability of Windows Vista” in the following scenarios:

* You experience a long delay when you try to exit the Photos screen saver.
* A memory leak occurs when you use the Windows Energy screen saver.
* If User Account Control is disabled on the computer, you cannot install a network printer successfully. This problem occurs if the network printer is hosted by a Windows XP-based or a Windows Server 2003-based computer.
* When you write data to an AVI file by using the AVIStreamWrite function, the file header of the AVI file is corrupted.
* When you copy or move a large file, the "estimated time remaining" takes a long time to be calculated and displayed.
* After you resume the computer from hibernation, it takes a long time to display the logon screen.
* When you synchronize an offline file to a server, the offline file is corrupted.
* If you edit an image file that uses the RAW image format, data loss occurs in the image file. This problem occurs if the RAW image is from any of the following digital SLR camera models:
o Canon EOS 1D
o Canon EOS 1DS
* After you resume the computer from hibernation, the computer loses its default gateway address.
* Poor memory management performance occurs.

That last one is wonderfully vague. And I’ve certainly experienced the “estimated time remaining” problem, so I’ll be applying that particular update.

Both updates are available for 32- and 64-bit versions of Vista.

Because the packages bundled into the service pack aren’t labelled by their KB number, it’s hard to say with certainty whether these updates have been incorporated.

There are many rumours flying around as to when SP1 will be released, but there's nothing really concrete. The best that can be said is that the public beta is due later in the year, with the final release happening sometime in 2008.

The big question is whether the hint of a service pack on the horizon will encourage businesses to hold off deploying Vista, especially if they're contemplating Windows Server 2008 as well. This isn't a situation Microsoft wants, but if it's generally known that Vista SP1 has substantial advantages of non-SP1, it's difficult to make a business case for early adoption.

Personally, I haven't had too many problems with Vista to speak of, but if this private beta is anything like the final release, it can’t come soon enough. I want those performance improvements on my main desktop machines!

Linus explains why open source works

2007-08-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

Linus Torvalds is often described as an open source champion, interested in licensing only insofar as it affects his ability to share code and improve software more quickly. However, his real position is more complicated -- and to some, perhaps surprising.

Asked point-blank which is more important, sharing code or empowering users -- the declared goal of the free software champions whom Torvalds is routinely depicted as being in opposition with -- and his first response in what he calls "the usual Linus polite words" is "That's a really stupid question. Why do you put it as an 'either or' kind of concept?" He then goes on to explain that, because open source operates in the same manner as scientific query, and is a matter of enlightened self-interest, sharing code and empowering users "are not at odds at all" -- a view that, in the end, places him closer to the free software position than either free software or open source followers might care to admit.

Torvalds has been quoted many times about his emphasis on sharing code, especially during the debates about the recently released third version of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Most famously, in an interview with Forbes magazine in March 2006, Torvalds explained his preference for the second version of the license by saying, "The GPLv2 in no way limits your use of the software. If you're a mad scientist, you can use GPLv2'd software for your evil plans to take over the world ('Sharks with lasers on their heads!!'), and the GPLv2 just says that you have to give source code back. And that's OK by me. I like sharks with lasers. I just want the mad scientists of the world to pay me back in kind. I made source code available to them, they have to make their changes to it available to me. After that, they can fry me with their shark-mounted lasers all they want."

However, responding recently to the question of whether code sharing or user empowerment was more important, Torvalds makes clear that such quotes are only half the story.

Torvalds begins his explanation by talking about science, implying that free and open source software development falls into that category. The dichotomy in the question, he says, "makes no sense. Science clearly does empower humans, but, the fact is, it does so because it has hit on a working model of the universe, and the reason it has done that is because it has a process in place for getting there that works. Sharing information is a small part of that model.

"Human inquisitiveness is an even bigger part. The fact is, what's most important is people. How they are inquisitive, and want to figure out and control the world. How they all have that selfish interest in improving their own lot in life, and almost by mistake they then end up improving other people's lot in life, too, by uncovering some small detail that explains a bit more about the universe.

"The same is true of open source. It's not about 'sharing information' per se: that's just a small part of it -- it's a part of the tools to create better software."

Nor is open source about altruism in Torvalds' view. Instead, he sees it as a matter of enlightened self-interest. "That is worth celebrating: the constant individual struggle to improve your own standing. That little selfish person who tries to take advantage of everybody else by making the minimal possible outlay (preferably by using mostly the source code that somebody else has done) and incrementally improving it with relatively small effort."

The short-term result of this attitude, Torvalds says, is that "for a while, that person gains an advantage, because now the tool did what he wanted. And in the longer term, we all gain that knowledge. One small and meaningless advantage at a time, and it just builds up and up.

"That is where it's at. It's about 'empowering everybody' by letting some enterprising users empower themselves, and then taking advantage of it for everybody else."

The worldview that Torvalds expresses here helps to explain why he has been so vocal in his opposition to the latest version of the GPL, and plans to stay with the second version. No doubt past clashes with the Free Software Foundation color his outlook, but the conflict is more fundamental than one of different personalities.

For Torvalds, the problem with the provisions for patent-sharing and for restricting the use of lockdown technologies -- what the Free Software Foundation prefers to call TiVoization -- is that they keep some people out of the free exchange of ideas that characterizes open source. "That's the whole point of open source -- different people and entities have different goals, and the very differences are what makes it work well for everybody," he says. "Anybody who tries to hobble science by saying that they won't share information with people they dislike (the military, for example) is seen as an obvious crackpot and idiot. The same, to me, is true of open source."

However, amid the echoes of ongoing conflicts, what is even more important is the often overlooked fact that the distinction between free software and open source philosophies is not as great as it is frequently made out to be.

Torvalds is understandably cautious about journalists' uses of his words. He points out that they often use quotes to say what they don't have the courage to say for themselves, and that how people represent him tells a lot "about the opinions they hold." Yet, even so, Torvalds' denial of the dichotomy between the supposed aims of the two camps suggests that the differences between free software and open source are not so much a matter of philosophy, but a matter of tactics to realize that philosophy. While the Free Software Foundation tries to reach those goals by legal means, open source advocates like Torvalds suggest that all that is needed is for people to act as people normally do.

From this perspective, Torvalds' views highlight a fact that has often been overlooked in the recent GPL debates: free software and open source supporters are allies. They may be uneasy allies, blowing raspberries at each other and slinging mud at each other at every opportunity, but they are allies all the same. It's a fact worth mentioning, simply because it hasn't been repeated much recently.

Top Five (5) Best Criminal Computer Hackers of All Time

2007-08-05T16:06:00.000-07:00

The Black Hat Hackers - Criminals

These hackers are the ones that you've seen in shackles arrested for cybercrimes when they were just getting out of puberty. Some have done it for financial gain others just for fun.

1. Kevin Mitnick.

Mitnick is perhaps synonymous with Hacker. The Department of Justice still refers to him as "the most wanted computer criminal in United States history." His accomplishments were memorialized into two Hollywood movies: Takedown and Freedom Downtime.

Mitnick got his start by exploiting the Los Angeles bus punch card system and getting free rides. Then similar to Steve Wozniak, of Apple, Mitnick tried Phone Phreaking. Mitnick was first convicted for hacking into the Digital Equipment Corporation's computer network and stealing software.

Mitnick then embarked on a two and a half year coast to coast hacking spree. He has stated that he hacked into computers, scrambled phone networks, stole corporate secrets and hacked into the national defense warning system. His fall came when he hacked into fellow computer expert and hacker Tsutomu Shimomura's home computer.

Mitnick is now a productive member of society. After serving 5 years and 8 months in solitary confinement, he is now a computer security author, consultant and speaker.

2. Adrian Lamo

Lamo hit major organizations hard, hacking into Microsoft and The New York Times. Lamo would use Internet connections at coffee shops, Kinko's and libraries to achieve his feats earning him the nickname "The Homeless Hacker". Lamo frequently found security flaws and exploited them. He would often inform the companies of the flaw.

Lamo's hit list includes Yahoo!, Citigroup, Bank of America and Cingular. Of course White Hat Hackers do this legally because they are hired by the company to such, Lamo however was breaking the law.

Lamo's intrusion into The New York Times intranet placed him squarely into the eyes of the top cyber crime offenders. For this crime, Lamo was ordered to pay $65,000 in restitution. Additionally, he was sentenced to six months home confinement and 2 years probation. Probation expired January of 2007. Lamo now is a notable public speaker and award winning journalist.

3. Jonathan James

At 16 years old, James gained enormous notoriety when he was the first minor to be sent to prison for hacking. He later admitted that he was just having fun and looking around and enjoyed the challenge.

James hit high profile organizations including the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is an agency of the Department of the Defense. With this hack he was able to capture usernames and passwords and view highly confidential emails.

High on James list, James also hacked in NASA computers and stole software valued at over $1.7 million. The Justice Department was quoted as saying: "The software stolen by James supported the International Space Station's physical environment, including control of the temperature and humidity within the living space." Upon discovering this hack, NASA had to shut dow its entire computer system costing taxpayers $41,000. Today James aspires to start a computer security company.

4. Robert Tappan Morris

Morris is the son of a former National Security Agency scientist named Robert Morris. Robert is the creator of the Morris worm. This worm was credited as the first computer worm spread through the Internet. Because of his actions, he was the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Morris created the worm while at Cornell as a student claiming that he intended to use the worm to see how large the Internet was at the time. The worm, however, reproduced itself uncontrollably, shutting down many computers until they had completely malfunctioned. Experts claim 6,000 machines were destroyed. Morris was ultimately sentenced to three years' probation, 400 hours of community service and assessed a $10,500 fine.

Morris is now a tenured professor at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His focus is computer network architecture.

5. Kevin Poulsen

Frequently referred to as Dark Dante, Poulsen gained national recognition for his hack into Los Angeles radio's KIIS-FM phone lines. These actions earned him a Porsche among many other items.

The FBI began to search for Poulson, when he hacked into the FBI database and federal computers for sensitive wiretap information. Poulsen's specialty was hacking into phone lines and he frequently took over all of a station's phone lines. Poulson also reactivated old Yellow Page escort telephone numbers for a partner who operated a virtual escort agency. Poulson was featured on Unsolved Mysteries and then captured in a supermarket. He was assessed a sentence of five years.

Since his time in prison, Poulsen has worked as a journalist and was promoted to senior editor for Wired News. His most popular article details his work on identifying 744 sex offenders with Myspace profiles.

Best Web Conferencing Services

2007-08-05T16:05:00.001-07:00

Web-based conferencing systems use Internet browsers and servers, specific software selections, and other equipment to allow home-based individuals and businesses to interact with one another.

On the market, a multitude of web conferencing companies offer a wide range of services.

When it comes to the best, a careful analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of top products is necessary to come to a conclusion based upon individual or corporate needs.

In helping consumers locate best web conferencing software and services that cater best to their requirements, a few factors help make the decision much easier to accomplish.

In no apparent order, you will find some of the best web conferencing software options on the market, offering a variety of pricing options and convenient features to consider:

One of the best web conferencing options is GoToMeeting, where potential buyers may try out services over a free trial period lasting 14 days.

A wide range of features is offered, accompanied by a high level of user friendliness, effortless meeting setups, easy installation of software, and a decent cost.

The latest version of the software also gives Macintosh users a chance to participate, but not organize meetings. GoToMeeting allows consumers to purchase a monthly plan of $49.00 (annual cost of $588) or an annual plan with a savings of 20% ($468).

With one flat fee, the hosting of unlimited online meetings is made possible with up to 10 attendees per meeting. Integrated voice conferencing services are also included.

WebEx produces the MeetMeNow web conferencing software, which is quite user-friendly, with easy software installation and meeting setup capabilities.

WebEx is quite accommodating, as it caters to individual needs, small-to-medium business ventures, and large companies and enterprises. Consumers are often satisfied with the price of the software.

For example, individuals are able to enjoy unlimited meetings with up to 10 participants for $39 per month with an annual commitment or $49 per month without a commitment. This service also provides access to document sharing, presentations, and decent customer collaboration.

Live Meeting offers a number of convenient, wide-ranging features with an exceptional range of system requirements, including Mac OS X 10.3 or higher, Windows 98 2nd Edition, Netscape 7.2, Solaris 9 with Netscape 7 (or Mozilla 1.4), and Sun JVM 1.4.2.

Since there are so many features associated with the software, this option may appear difficult for some users, although it is quite easy to set up a meeting.

The price attached to Microsoft Office Live Meeting is often seen as undesirable because it is centered on a "per use" basis. Beneficial features include anytime-meeting scheduling, satisfying interactivity, and an overall increase in productivity.

The e/pop Web Conferencing offers high-quality sharing of PowerPoint, documents, desktops, and applications.

Buyers also receive audio and video conferencing capabilities, where consumers may enjoy quick access to web meetings with a full line of features that makes the overall process fast and easy.

The server software installs in under five minutes with clear interactivity. Additional features include enhanced video quality, real-time Powerpoint sharing, and convenient records/playbacks.

Fixed pricing supplies two different purchase plans: hosted services with monthly fees ($350 to $900 on the average) and annual installable software with licenses ($3,000 to $9,600 on the average).

Acrobat offers many different features with their web conferencing software, which accommodates a wide range of operating systems, as well as provides a high–level of security.

Many consumers enjoy the ability of customizing and elevating their functions through the Collaboration Builder SDK. The software quickly helps buyers generate, establish, and track online meetings, trainings, and on-the-spot presentations.

Convenient pay options include software licenses, annual subscriptions, monthly payments, or pay-per-use arrangements.

Customers are blown away with the effective visual presentation, audience involvement, and live feedback associated with PGi Netspoke web conferencing software and services.

Handling anything from small member meetings to large Web debates involving up to 125 participants, PGi Netspoke is ready to offer a wide-range of features including application sharing, Q&A, chat, polling features, rapid agenda transmission, and satisfying demonstration software.

Additionally, a flexible pricing schedule is set to accommodate the varying needs of consumers.

When using MegaMeeting, the ease of services is seen through the many different companies and individuals who benefit from the software.

The effective marketing tools allow small, medium, and large businesses to thrive across the Internet. Face-to-face web conferencing, video conferencing services, and VoIP capabilities are just some of the things offered with MegaMeeting.

The price is also decent, as unlimited meetings are supplied for $75 per month. Additional features include the allowance of up to 16 simultaneous video participants, free integrated toll conference calling, unlimited logins, and the ease of not having to deal with contracts.

When scanning the benefits and setbacks associated with a particular web conferencing company, you may base your final decision on budget, while another will spare no expense for decent operating system support. Each decision is based upon individual expectations and limitations.

To date, web conferencing companies may offer their services for free, while some costs thousands of dollars to acquire. The operating system often becomes a concern of buyers, as numerous selections cater to Unix servers and most Windows servers, while Macintosh users face limited choices.

A buyer may analyze the compatibility of web conferencing options with other environments, as well as the level of administrative capabilities.

Browser support, search and filter tools, access control, speed, host tools, overall level of performance, and the ability to customize are also additional elements and factors that influence a final web conferencing selection.

Overall, what makes a decent conferencing system for one does not necessarily translate into the same for another. It is important to remember that there is no one single solution that effectively satisfies the demands of all.

Google Mashup Editor

2007-08-05T16:04:00.002-07:00

I just got in to the shiny new beta for the Google Mashup Editor and I wanted to share my thoughts on it with you. Like Yahoo! Pipes before it (our review here), the Google Mashup Editor provides a simple interface that enables developers to make basic web applications and mashups quickly. And again, like Yahoo! Pipes, it is very definitely aimed at developers.

The idea behind it is to provide a rapid development framework for mashing feeds into Google services, using common technologies such as XML, JavaScript, CSS and HTML. It also offers a JavaScript API for more advanced behavioral interactions. Google describes the Mashup Editor as "a great tool for grabbing information from feeds and letting users see and manipulate it."

Google Mashups Editor, showing code for a 'Hello, World' application.

Documentation

For keen developers who haven't yet received access to the beta, there is a strong set of resources you can use to start learning the GME application functionality, structure, code and controls that don't require a login. Ample documentation is available, including a diagram of the application structure and a comprehensive tag reference. Typical of Google, the documentation is the bare necessities, without even a index of the listed tags at the top of the reference page. Also, there is currently a short list of articles & tutorials, a FAQ, the official project blog, and, of course, a Google Group.

Components

The application itself is divided into 3 main parts: the Editor, Feed Browser and Sandbox. A screenshot of each is included in this article.

The Editor is for building projects. Each project can have multiple GML files (I'd guess that stands for Google Markup Language, but it's not documented), and you can also upload resource files such as JavaScript or images. Each GML file can contain a mix of XML, HTML, JS, CSS and the GME tags. The examples don't encourage good coding practices, but at least you have a lot of flexibility with how you code the applications.

The GME Feed Browser, browsing the Read/WriteWeb feed.

The GME Feed Browser is a convenient tool for checking your source feeds. You can use Google Base, or external feeds that you source yourself. The documentation frequently suggests using Yahoo! Pipes to clean up feeds before bringing them into GME. It offers some simple options for choosing the maximum number of results and pages you want returned.

The Sandbox is the simplest of the GME components. It's a running version of your applications. Just hit 'Test' in the Editor and, after a sluggish pause, you're automatically delivered to the Sandbox where your application begins running. You can test all functionality and see how your app will look. It also offers a simple option for viewing it as a Google Gadget.

The GME Sandbox, displaying a quick basic app I wrote for reading Read/WriteWeb feeds.

Publication

Publishing is as simple as pressing a button and choosing a name for your application. That name becomes the subdomain at googlemashups.com, such as this sample application at http://mapwiki.googlemashups.com/. Google curates a full gallery of other mashups. Getting your mashup live and into that gallery as quickly as possible will result in massive exposure - the balance will be making sure it's good enough to stand out.

Conclusion

The Google Mashup Editor is an incredibly powerful tool for rapid testing and deployment of mashup concepts, particularly those that utilize Google services or products. This opens the space to all those developers who don't have their own servers to play on and gives them a framework to kickstart development. It's simple easy and fun to produce something very quickly, but it will be much harder to produce fantastic products. Nonetheless, the cost-savings in development time are going to make this a popular testbed for all sorts of concepts. Google Mashup Editor is a name you will hear a lot in future.

Hackers Extract Main Key to iPhone Unlocking, Freedom Closer than Ever

2007-08-05T16:04:00.001-07:00

After uncovering its communications core's secrets, today hackers have reached a big milestone towards freeing the iPhone from the AT&T network: they extracted the full content of the radio memory. In other words: now they have the plans for the fucking Death Star —"the main key to achieve true unlock." Want to help the iPhone Dev Team but you are no expert? Keep reading.

We hope you'll all enjoy this important step and we of course welcome any donations to encourage or to help us achieving the final goal. Please be assured that any donations are wisely spent, otherwise you can slap us.

iPhone Dev Team, we like. If you do too, please send them your donations using PayPal. I don't care if they spend mine on pizza as soon as they unlock the phone. Their PayPal address is iphone.donations(at)gmail.com.

If you are a programming expert you can also help them. They have released the tool to get your own NOR memory dump, called NORDumper.tar.bz2. Get it from here. And to to the iPhone IRC channel to learn more about it.

We are pleased to announce that another big milestone toward the unlocking has been reached.
Just a couple of days ago we managed to extract the full content of the NOR memory (from the S-Gold2), which is the main key to achieving a true unlock. Releasing this dump would be of course illegal and risky, as it contains personal information and copyrighted code. That said, we're going to release the NOR Dumper binary to enable everyone else to continue working on the iPhone's unlocking. We'll release the source code at a later date when we feel it is mature enough to do so.
We hope you'll all enjoy this important step and we of course welcome any donations to encourage or to help us achieving the final goal. Please be assured that any donations are wisely spent, otherwise you can slap us :P

DOWNLOAD: http://www.deadbeef.cn/NORDumper.tar.bz2

To run this, copy it to /usr/bin and set the executable flag with chmod.
add Disabled to /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.CommCenter.plist and reboot.
run: NORDumper dump.bin

Stay tuned, -- the dev team

Rooting

2007-08-05T16:03:00.000-07:00


Published by: paranoiahax, on hackthissite.org
An article on gaining root to a remote system: Too often have I seen articles that claim to teach how to hack into a server, but all they do is just show you how to scan open ports, and many many people have no idea what to do with an open port. So I am going to show you pretty much all the basics, to get you well on your way to your first ever successful hack of a server, giving you root privileges. First tool that you will need is a good port scanner. Nmap and SuperScan are my favourites by far, and Nmap is by far the most popular port scanner in the world because of its many features. You can download both at: http://www.hackinglibrary.ws/dl/downloads/superscan4.zip and http://insecure.org/nmap/ SuperScan: If you have a website that you mainly want to target, then just copy and paste the URL into the box and click lookup. It will automatically determine the IP address, and with this you can simply scan away. Nmap: Nmap is all used through CLI (Command Line Interface). Now to determine the IP address of a website, just run a WHOIS on it, http://whois.domaintools.com is the best one I know of and has many features, also check out http://www.dnsstuff.com/ which is also very useful and has many features. So now if you just simply typed "nmap 192.168.1.1" (changing the IP you see here to the target's IP address) it will scan the target for open ports and using -O will fingerprint the OS the remote system is using. Once you have your port list at hand, now you will need to find out what programs each port are running, and the best manual way to do this is to connect to each port through telnet. When you are connected, you will be welcomed by a screen with some information, if you now copy and paste all this information into a .txt file, and do this for each port, it will become clear which programs run on which ports, and also the you will be able to see if it has the latest versions of the software (remember that new versions come out, securing the program more, so if the program has an extremely old version of the software, it will more likely be exploitable). Once you have done this and got a list of all the programs running on the open ports, now is the time to search for an exploit. There are many ways to do this: Milw0rm is an old favourite of mine http://www.milw0rm.com if you go to http://www.milw0rm.com/port.php it will give you a drop down menu of ports, just look through each one, and check if the exploits for the programs there match any of the programs you have in your .txt file, and finally check the versions. If you see an exploit there, then click on it, if it's a Perl exploit (will start with #!/usr/bin/perl) this is even better because it means that you don't have to mess about compiling the exploit. If not, then you will have to compile the exploit yourself, look up on another article for this, but you will need cygwin if you are running Windows. All you have to do is run this command "pl exploit.pl [target]" and if you're lucky it will be successful and all you need do now is either connect through netcat (the hacker's best friend, an alternative to telnet) and you will have root priviladges. Or if the payload is a reverse bind, then your computer may open another terminal automatically with root rights. Now you may go to the directory that the site is stored in (usually /home/site here) and you can do whatever you feel to the site in question. Metasploit is another great method. You can download metasploit from: http://framework.metasploit.com/msf/download Now once you have this, run it (msfconsole) and type "show exploits" this will give you a list of all the exploits in metasploit's library. Look for one that exploits one of the port's programs you found, and when you find it, type "use [exploit here]" Now, "show targets" this will give you a list of targets, just set it to the OS you found while fingerprinting it with Nmap, type "set target x" now, "show payloads" will show you the payloads available, using a reverse bind will give you the prompt, others you will have to connect yourself through netcat. Also, note that it has FreeBSD, win32, and Linux payloads, depending on the system. Right, now type "show options" and it will give you a list of options, which will show you the various parameters for the specific exploit you're working with. Set RHOST to the IP of your target by "set RHOST 192.168.1.1" and set LPORT as the listening port you want, port 4444 is the default. If you want to reset it all, just type "back" into your console. If all is well, then all you need to type is "exploit" and metasploit will do it all for you, and once again you have just owned another system. The final method is writing the exploit yourself. This is a more advanced level, and there are many places that teach you the basics, phrack.org has some good tutorials. But there is no tutorial that will teach you how to write your own exploits all the time, because after all, programming is about learning yourself through experience and practice. If you have any further questions, then please please use google, google really is a hacker's best friend, and it has all the answers to life's problems ;-) If all else fails, then please feel free to mail me at paranoiahax@live.com. This article was intended for the newbies out there who are still unsure about what the elite call "real hacking" and I apologise if it isn't very well structured, as I am not too good at writing articles. Once final note is that using these methods illegally and improperly will probably land you a one way ticket to jail, you will not pass go, will not collect £200 and will get raped by a big white man called Bubba. Use the skills taught here for ethical reasons only, and HackThisSite nor myself are responsible for any actions that you do, or any damage that you cause. You have been warned.

TorrentSpam: Report Fake and Malware Ridden Torrents

2007-08-05T16:02:00.001-07:00

The popularity of BitTorrent also has its downsides. Over the past months we reported about fake torrents, torrents that force you to download malware, and torrents that spy on your download behavior. TorrentSpam is a new service that allows you to report such scams, and clean up BitTorrent sites, bit by bit.

Unfortunately there still is a lot of torrent spam on most BitTorrent sites. Some torrents are uploaded by anti-piracy outfits that try to trace your IP. Others are from people that force you to download some shady video player to play the file you just downloaded. This video player (e.g. 3wPlayer) is of course filled with malware that infects your computer.

A good way to check whether a torrent is legit or not is by looking at the comments. If people found the torrent to be fake, it will probably reported there. But up until now there was no central database for checking fake and spam torrents - TorrentSpam is trying to fill this gap. A search for the torrent name on TorrentSpam will return a list of torrents, and the score each torrent has indicates how likely it is that this torrent is actually SPAM.

Some administrators of BitTorrent sites (not all of them) already spend hours every day removing and blocking these fake or malware ridden torrents, but it is nearly impossible to have a 100% clean site at all times.

TorrentSpam will be really useful if admins of BitTorrent sites have access to their database, something that will happen in the near future. The site is currently working on an API section so all torrent sites can utilize TorrentSpam. In the meantime they obviously need you to fill (and check) the database.

Or as the admin of TorrentSpam puts it: “The more reported torrents the better the P2P experience! By letting people know of invalid torrents, the less data will be jamming the networks.”

Old Mac Keyboards No Longer Shipping, New iMacs Probably Coming

2007-08-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

The plot is thickening: it has yet to be confirmed, but it seems that Apple and Best Buy stores are no longer going to receive old Apple keyboards shipments. What could this mean?

The reader is claiming he discovered this while inquiring at the Apple Stores in Oakbrook and Michigan, He points out that they are still receiving iMacs, however. Likewise, the same reader reports that Best Buy is not receiving any old keyboards either.

Since we doubt Apple will be releasing just new keyboards this week, our money is in new iMacs and new Mac minis.

Microsoft Censoring .info domains in MSN Messenger

2007-08-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

Sun, 5 August 2007, posted in Other

As most regular readers know, I own CSS3.info, and because of that, I talk quite a bit about it on MSN messenger. Recently, I started getting problems when I was sending links with css3.info in it to my contacts. Tonight, after doing a bit more research, I found out that ALL .info domains are being censored in Messenger. For some silly reason, Microsoft seems to think that all .info domains are bad. .biz domains don’t get censored though...

Now it has been known for quite a while that MSN censors URL’s, as covered here for instance, but I had not ever heard of them censoring out complete TLD’s… This is, IMHO, insane… Come on Microsoft, stop doing this sort of nonsense!

Some offtopic news! Sochi, Russia, wins 2014 Olympic Games

2007-07-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

By STEPHEN WILSON, AP Sports Writer
July 4, 2007

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) -- Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi was awarded the 2014 Olympics on Wednesday, rewarding President Vladimir Putin and taking the Winter Games to his country for the first time.

Sochi defeated the South Korean city of Pyeongchang in the final round of a vote by the International Olympic Committee.

The Austrian resort of Salzburg was eliminated in the first round of the secret ballot, setting up the decisive head-to-head contest between Sochi and Pyeongchang. The vote totals were not immediately released.

The result was a triumph for Putin, who put his international prestige on the line by coming to Guatemala to lobby IOC members and lead Sochi's final formal presentation to the assembly. Putin had left by the time the result was announced.

Ninety-seven IOC members were eligible to vote in the first round. Members from bidding countries are ineligible to vote as long as their cities remain in contention. With Salzburg out, 100 delegates were eligible in the second round.

Russia, an Olympic power which has won 293 Winter Games medals, has never hosted the Winter Games. That was a strong point in Sochi's favor with the IOC, which likes to spread the Olympics to new host countries. Moscow hosted the 1980 Summer Games, which were hit by the U.S.-led boycott following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The Sochi bid won out over the appeals of its rivals -- Salzburg, presenting itself as a safe, no-risk winter sports mecca at the heart of Europe with world-class venues already in place; and Pyeongchang, offering the potential for peace and reconciliation on the divided Korean peninsula and promoting winter sports in Asia.

Putin's government has pledged $12 billion to develop Sochi into a world-class winter sports complex linking the palm-lined Black Sea coast -- the so-called "Russian Riviera" -- to the soaring Caucasus mountains nearby.

Putin, one of the world's most powerful figures, emphasized his commitment by making a rare formal presentation in English to the IOC. He praised Sochi's natural setting, saying, "On the seashore you can enjoy a fine spring day, but up in the mountains, it's winter ... a real snow is guaranteed."

Although the site would have to be built largely from scratch, Putin assured, "We guarantee the Olympic cluster in Sochi will be completed on time."

"No traffic jams, I promise," he said with a smile.

Noting that athletes would have a short walk to their venues, Putin said, "Five minutes' walking distance, not bad."

It was the second straight first-round defeat for Salzburg, which also mounted a failed bid for the 2010 Winter Games, which went to Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Austrians were squeezed out by the political and economic might of the Russian and Korean bids.

Updated on Wednesday, Jul 4, 2007 7:29 pm EDT

Internet Radio "Day of Silence" hushes thousands of stations

2007-06-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

Today is June 26, and that means that it's the Internet radio Day of Silence. The Day of Silence was organized by Radio Internet Newsletter publisher Kurt Hanson in order to protest against retroactive royalty rate increases that could end up putting many Internet radio stations out of business. The rates are due to go into effect in less than a month, and with no significant help from Congress as of yet, Internet broadcasters are resorting to silence to demonstrate what will happen if the proposed increases go into effect.

In March, the Copyright Royalty Board said that it planned to change the method by which Internet broadcasters would pay for royalties from a per-song to a per-listener rate. This, combined with new base fees of $500 for each separate station that a broadcaster managed, would require many Internet radio stations to pay crippling fees to the Copyright Royalty Board that would essentially put them out of business.

National Public Radio attempted to get a rehearing with the CRB, arguing that the decision was an "abuse of discretion," but their appeal was denied less than a month later. Still, the CRB offered a small reprieve from the threat of retroactive fees in May by extending the deadline for retroactive rates from May 15 to July 15. A couple of weeks later, SoundExchange tweaked its requirements so that smaller broadcasters won't have to pay increased royalties until 2010—a decision that was unpopular with SaveNetRadio, which argued that SoundExchange's offer would still punish larger webcasters while ensuring that smaller ones would never see any growth.

Hmm, where does Yahoo want me to go?

In response, thousands of Internet radio stations today are broadcasting static, silence, a message explaining the Day of Silence, or are simply not accessible at all. Yahoo! Music agreed to shut down its roughly 200 Internet broadcast stations in honor of the Day of Silence and only offers links to savenetradio.org. Real Rhapsody displays a message on its site when anyone tries to access its channels, urging readers to visit SaveNetRadio as well. Pandora went so far as to take down its entire web site to offer a message about the Day of Silence, and Live365.com shut down some 10,000 of its Internet radio channels today with a message on its web site asking listeners to contact their senators and representatives about the Internet Radio Equality Act.

Smaller-name broadcasters are participating in the Day of Silence too. LoudCity shut down 500 of its own stations today, and one of my personal favorites, .977 Music, is broadcasting silence as well. There are no 80s hits for me today. Noticeably absent from today's protest is popular Internet broadcaster Last.FM, however, despite the fact that the CBS-owned broadcaster will be required to pay the same fees as the others.

"This 'Day of Silence' is an encore of a successful media event that small webcasters organized on May 1, 2002 in response to a similarly royalty rate ruling from a Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) five years ago," wrote Hanson on his web site. "That event garnered national attention and was subsequently followed by a rate cut by the Librarian of Congress and the passage of the Small Webcaster Settlement Act for the period 1998-2005."

He and other broadcasters hope that the outcome of today's Day of Silence will be just as favorable. The Internet Radio Equality Act was introduced to both the Senate and the House earlier this year, which would overturn the CRB's royalty hikes and instead introduce a more palatable rate of 7.5 percent of total revenues. However, neither entity has yet to vote on the legislation, leaving Internet broadcasters anxious as the July 15 deadline looms.

Finally Confirmed: What the iPhone Doesn't Have

2007-06-27T12:59:00.000-07:00

• Songs as Ringtones
• Games
• Any flash support
• Instant Messaging
• Picture messages (MMS)
• Video recording
• Voice recognition or voice dialing
• Wireless Bluetooth Stereo Streaming (A2DP)
• One-size-fits-all headset jack (May have to buy an adapter for certain headphones)

Stuff we already knew it didn't have
• 3G (EV-DO/HSDPA)
• GPS
• A real keyboard
• Removable battery
• Expandable Storage
• Direct iTunes Music Store Access (Over Wi-Fi or EDGE)

U.S. Net access not all that speedy

2007-06-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

The USA trails other industrialized nations in high-speed Internet access and may never catch up unless quick action is taken by public-policymakers, a report commissioned by the Communications Workers of America warns.

The median U.S. download speed now is 1.97 megabits per second — a fraction of the 61 megabits per second enjoyed by consumers in Japan, says the report released Monday. Other speedy countries include South Korea (median 45 megabits), France (17 megabits) and Canada (7 megabits).

"We have pathetic speeds compared to the rest of the world," CWA President Larry Cohen says. "People don't pay attention to the fact that the country that started the commercial Internet is falling woefully behind."

Speed matters on the Internet. A 10-megabyte file takes about 15 seconds to download with a 5-megabit connection — fast for the USA. Download time with a 545-kilobit connection, about the entry-level speed in many areas: almost 2½ minutes.

Broadband speed is a function of network capacity: The more capacity you have, the more speed you can deliver. Speed, in turn, allows more and better Internet applications, such as photo sharing and video streaming. Superfast speeds are imperative for critical applications such as telemedicine.

In recent years, communities also have found that good broadband is essential to draw businesses and jobs.

For all those reasons, Cohen says, it is important for policymakers to act now: "In order to maintain our place in today's global economy — and to create the jobs we need — our government must act."

The CWA report is based on input from 80,000 broadband users (less than 5% of respondents used dial-up). In addition to drawing comparisons with other countries, the report ranks U.S. states on median download speeds. (Upload speeds are also rated.)

The Federal Communications Commission, which has broad sway over the emerging broadband market, defines "high speed" as 200 kilobits per second. The benchmark was adopted more than a dozen years ago when still-slower dial-up was the rule. Cohen says 200 kilobits is not even recognized as broadband in most countries today. "There is nothing speedy about it."

The FCC in April opened a proceeding that could result in the redefinition of what can be advertised as "broadband Internet service" in this country. "We're asking the question if the definition should be changed," spokeswoman Tamara Lipper says.

The comment period ended May 31, and a report from the FCC is likely in the fall.

Internet on-ramp speeds by state
Median broadband Internet access speed for each state in testing by the Communications Workers of America. Test your speed at http://www.speedmatters.org.

State	Median download speed (mbps)	Speed rank

USA	1.973

Alaska	0.545	51

Alabama	1.777	25

Arkansas	1.326	42

Arizona	1.635	29

California	1.520	36

Colorado	1.354	41

Connecticut	2.244	15

District of Columbia	1.372	39

Delaware	2.657	9

Florida	2.368	13

Georgia	2.714	7

Hawaii	1.965	23

Iowa	1.262	47

Idaho	1.323	43

Illinois	2.184	17

Indiana	1.955	24

Kansas	4.167	2

Kentucky	1.607	32

Louisiana	2.751	6

Massachusetts	3.004	5

Maryland	2.589	10

Maine	1.534	35

Michigan	2.042	19

Minnesota	1.771	26

Missouri	1.432	38

Mississippi	1.620	30

Montana	1.312	45

North Carolina	2.225	16

North Dakota	1.308	46

Nebraska	1.994	22

New Hampshire	2.700	8

New Jersey	3.680	3

New Mexico	1.716	27

Nevada	1.617	31

New York	3.436	4

Ohio	1.359	40

Oklahoma	1.689	28

Oregon	2.390	12

Pennsylvania	1.567	33

Rhode Island	5.011	1

South Carolina	2.338	14

South Dakota	0.825	50

Tennessee	2.035	20

Texas	1.509	37

Utah	1.323	43

Virginia	2.394	11

Vermont	2.005	21

Washington	2.176	18

Wisconsin	1.551	34

West Virginia	1.117	49

Wyoming	1.246	48

Speed tests results for Sept. 2006 through May 2007; most participants had DSL or cable modem connections Source: CWA Communications

6 Ways To Cancel Any Cellphone So You Can Get An iPhone

2007-06-27T12:56:00.000-07:00

If you want to get an iPhone but you're stuck in a contract, here's six ways to escape your service plan without paying a $175 early termination fee:

1. Sell your cellphone contract.

2. Complain that service isn't up to par, file complaints with PUC, FTC, BBB, AG and cc them to the company.

3. Wait for the company to change its rates (like text-messaging), then call to cancel based on the material change of contract. These are usually for the default rates and you won't be able to cancel if you have a package that takes care of it... hint: so get rid of the package and call back.... Here's some recent rate changes and cancellation success stories:
Sprint
AT&T/Cingular
Verizon
T-Mobile
US Cellular

4. Move to an area outside the plan's coverage area.

5. Join the armed forces - you'll need to fax in a copy of your orders.

6. Die - someone will need to fax in your death certificate on your behalf. You'll be dead, but at least you're in heaven. iPhone heaven.

Ubuntu popularity rising

2007-06-27T12:55:00.000-07:00

Slow but steady, the popularity of Ubuntu (a Debian derived Linux-based operating system) is rising. Ubuntu is one of the best Linux distributions, a version for people that can be used on your desktop, laptop or workstation. For a quick preview you can download the Live Cd version and boot this OS in less then a few minutes.

~~In the popularity by region we can see Norway on the top probably because of the Norwegian version of the Dapper release and the Brown t-shirts you can buy from them.~~

A nice comment from Karianne Fog Heen , the Ubuntu Norway contact person told us that : “there are more European communities that sells the brown t-shirts, the French is one of them” and as a detail the Ubuntu shop link has white t-shirts for sale. The Norwegian version of Dapper is just a vision but we hope they will make it a reality.

Popularity By Country :

Norway
Finland
Czech Republic
South Africa
Spain
Slovenia
Italy
Portugal
Greece
France

We can see in the graph below the search volume for the term “ubuntu”. The increase was steady over the last two years.

Sync your Firefox extensions and profiles across computers

2007-06-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

Since the dawn of time, humanity has longed for a simple way to sync Firefox extensions, themes, bookmarks, and saved passwords between computers so that no matter where you're working, your browser is customized in the exact same way—the way you always intended it.

Verily I say unto you, I have seen the road to synchronization! The solution comes in the form of the Microsoft-owned folder syncing and sharing tool, FolderShare. It requires a small sacrifice, but in exchange you'll receive the complete automated extension sync we've all been dying for for. Hit the jump to find out how.

The great thing about this method is that not only does it sync all of your extensions, but it also syncs almost all of your profile data. That means that your browsing session, bookmarks, themes, saved passwords, about:config settings, search engines, Greasemonkey scripts, etc. will all sync as well. What's more, this method works across both Windows and Mac (sorry Linux users). Sounds pretty good, right? Let's dive in.

Sync your Firefox extensions to any computer

Lifehacker photo gallery thumbnails require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click here to see the Sync Firefox extensions step-by-step photo gallery in a Javascript-enabled web browser.

In a nutshell, each time you install a new extension on one machine (or add a bookmark, etc.), FolderShare will distribute those changes across every computer that's running FolderShare. Once you've set up Firefox synchronization with FolderShare, whenever you run Firefox on Computer A, all of the application data that Firefox uses during that browsing session will be synced to Computer B, C, etc. When you fire up Firefox on one of those computers, it'll be using the most recent application data, including the latest extensions you've installed.

Limitations

There are a few limitations to syncing your Firefox profile and extensions in this way, including (but not necessarily limited to:

As I said in the step-by-step, you can't use your browser history. The history.dat file buried deep in your profile folder isn't keen on being messed with, and FolderShare will complain and throw errors if your history is enabled. This may be a dealbreaker for some, but with Session Restore and prolific keyword bookmarking, I find my history surprisingly dispensable.
As far as I can tell, the browsers can be run simultaneously under normal conditions, but don't be surprised to see a few FolderShare copying errors if you're running them simultaneously and installing extensions at the same time. I've had few such problems so far, which is very promising.
Any platform-dependent extensions, of course, won't magically start working everywhere. Likewise, there will certainly be some extensions that have trouble. I've tested this method with several extensions, including the Lifehacker Code Firefox extensions, and everything worked like a charm.
In order for FolderShare to sync, at least 2 computers need to be on with FolderShare running. FolderShare does not log changes made and then push the sync whenever the devices are available. That means you can't turn off your home computer, install a few extensions at work, and expect them to have synced to your home computer if neither computer was powered on at the same time.

Alternatives

If full profile syncing isn't your goal, there are a lot good tools available for other forms of Firefox synchronization (though none boast extension syncing). We've always liked Foxmarks for bookmark syncing. On the other hand, the popular Google Sync extension syncs bookmarks, passwords, history, and browsing sessions, but stops short of extensions.

FolderShare is Windows and Mac only, but there are other Linux-friendly sync tools available, like Unison, that would likely work, as well. I haven't spend a lot of time using this sync method, either, so there may be a few hiccups here and there that I'm not aware of. Additionally, there may very well be a better option for tackling this whole process, so if you've got a streamlined method for keeping your extensions and more synced across computers, let's hear how you do it in the comments.

Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About RAM for Macs

2007-06-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

RAM upgrades are the best way to get a performance boost from your computer. Mac OS X loves to hog up all the RAM you've got, so the more you have, the better! Here are a few often asked questions and their answers regarding RAM and Macs.

How much RAM do I need?
Put simply:

1GB for your average web surfer/email jockey.
2GB for those who like to use iPhoto/iMovie/iDVD all at once.
4GB for anyone using the pro apps (Final Cut, Aperture, Logic etc).

But really, it comes down to what you can afford and justify. If you can justify 8GB and afford it, then damn them all and buy it, you'll love it. But if you're strapped for cash 1GB will be enough to get you by.

What type of RAM do I need? Do I need special "MAC" RAM
First of all, there's no such thing as specific Apple RAM. Apple computers use industry standard memory. The RAM you need for your computer depends on the type of computer you have! If you don't know what computer you have, find out by clicking the Apple logo in the top left hand corner, then choosing "About This Mac", a screen will pop up telling you how much RAM you've already got. Click on "More Info" and a new window will appear going into further detail as to what is in your computer. In the right section of that window, there should be a line "Serial Number". Remember that serial number as we'll need it in a minute.

Apple has a website that lists the specs of all their computers. Visit http://support.apple.com/specs/ and on the right sidebar, there is a space where you can enter the serial number of your computer and it's specifications will appear.

A section for memory will be listed in the specs. Something similar to: 1GB (single SO-DIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300).

That phrase might be a bit cryptic, so let me break it down for you. The first bit, 1GB - simply refers to the size of the RAM. So by default, this computer came with 1GB. (single S0-DIMM) explains to us that the category of the physical size (i.e: if it will fit in the slot on your computer) of this RAM is SO-DIMM. Memory comes in different sizes for laptops (SO-DIMM) and desktops (DIMM). 667MHz refers to the speed of the memory. It is fine to buy memory faster than the number specified (as faster RAM will simply slow down to match your computer), but slower RAM, will try to keep up to go faster, overheat, and fail. DDR2 SDRAM means that this memory uses the DDR2 standard, and that it's SDRAM. Virtually all RAM is like this, so there's no need to be too concerned about it (unless you have a Mac Pro or XServe, which takes DDR2 FB-DIMM memory). The last section PC2-5300 is a good way to identify the memory you require. This PC2-5300 is a specification that means it will be DDR2 SD-RAM and will operate at the 667MHz frequency.

If you want to get into even finer details about your computer's memory specifications, Apple publishes documents called Developer Notes, that go into high detail about all the hardware specs a machine has. A list of the developer notes can be found via this link: http://developer.apple.com/documenta...hardware2.html

Where is the best place to buy RAM from?
Once you know which RAM you need, where is the best place to buy it? An Apple reseller? The local PC store? An online shop? Overseas? Apple themselves? It depends what kind of memory you are after.

Older memory that isn't commonly in stock anymore, you may be best off going to an Apple reseller, who can track down the specific type of memory for your Mac, as the latest computers probably don't use it anymore and the local PC store/online shop doesn't stock it. That said, there are a few online stores that specialise in RAM with deep inventories that probably have it.

If you've got a more modern machine, you're in luck. Chances are the local PC store sells the correct memory for your computer. BUT, it may not be the cheapest place. This is where StaticIce comes into play. StaticIce is a website that searches almost every Australian based online computer store and can give you a list of the cheapest places to purchase an item from. So if you head over to StaticIce, type in the kind of RAM you are after, the cheapest store will reveal itself.

Sometimes going by the cheapest price alone can be a bit iffy - there can be hidden credit card charges and shipping may be expensive. Apple resellers are often decently priced (not as cheap as your local box mover though), but with the added bonus of actually knowing Macs and what RAM will go in what.

Overseas is a good place to get high quantities, or larger sizes of RAM (e.g Mac Pro RAM). Use a US based price engine, like Froogle to see who has it for less, as well as store ratings to make sure your money doesn't get transferred to some criminals.

Just don't buy the RAM from Apple themselves. If you purchase a Mac from the online store and you want more memory, Apple will totally gouge you on the price. For example: a MacBook Pro has 2GB of RAM standard, and you want to bump it up to 4GB. Apple will slug you an extra AU$1,090 for that privilege. However, if you were to buy two, 2GB chips yourself, it will only set you back $400 from somewhere like Streetwise. Then you can sell (or put in other computers) the two 1GB chips that come with the MacBook Pro (valued at around $50 ea). So buying the RAM yourself = $400. Buying it from Apple = $1090. Why spend the extra $700?

We recommend a few online stores when wanting to purchase RAM for your Mac:

Is there special official or certified Apple memory?
There is no such thing. Often this is said by Apple resellers that they sell only Apple certified memory. This is false. Apple does not go around certifying memory, or testing it in their lab. What Apple does do is produce a strict set of guidelines (those developer notes I was talking about earlier) as to what sort of memory is needed to work in a particular machine. Any memory that fits within those guidelines will work in the Mac.

Is generic RAM okay, or should I get the more expensive one? Why does it cost more if it's the same type of RAM?
This is a bit of a tough question to answer. Some people believe that as long as the RAM has a life-time warranty, that it's as good as anything else out there. Some people think that RAM is RAM, you pop it in, if it works, it works. Others wouldn't be caught dead with a non-name brand manufacturer like Kingston or Corsair of RAM in their computer.

Memory is only manufactured by a few companies in the world (typically Chinese, Korean or Taiwanese), and there are different grades of RAM. A plant may make a batch of say, 2 million chips, out of those 2 million, perhaps, 500,000 are tested to just meet the specifications set out, which could still contain a high amount of chips that didn't meet the spec. These are sold at a lower price, due to the fact there could be more duds. These would go to the cheaper brand. 1,000,000 may pass the test well, but still may contain a handful of not quite right chips. This would make the middle-rung of the RAM dealers. The rest passed with flying colours, and are sold at the highest price, virtually promised not to contain a dud. These would go to the brand name sellers.

Now, all the RAM will work fine, but by buying a more expensive brand, the chances of you getting a dud chip are greatly reduced It doesn't mean it won't happen, but there's less defects in the batch. If you have RAM with a life-time warranty or have cheapo RAM with only a 1 year or 3 year warranty, but isn't a name brand, your chances of getting a dud are slightly increased. But don't worry, if it does go pear-shaped, the manufacturer will swap it over for a new one (forever with a life-time warranty, or within a time frame with other RAM). This could go on and on as you might get 3 or more duds in a row, but eventually you'll hit a solid one. The main reason people purchase the name brand RAM is to reduce the hassle of the RAM being a dud and going through that process of returning the RAM, installing it again, etc. Depending on the price-difference, it's worth it more often than not.

Can I install the RAM myself, or does an Apple technician need to do it?
Yep! On virtually every Apple computer, the process of installing memory is termed as "user accessible". Doing it yourself means that it will not void your warranty.

As to actually doing it yourself, if you've ever opened up a computer before, installing RAM into a Mac is pretty easy. If you've never done it before, RAM is the perfect thing to try first. Be sure to follow the instructions that come with your Mac (the paper manual that came with it - do you remember where you put that?).

If you aren't comfortable with doing that - an Apple reseller can pop in the RAM for you for a small charge (normally $30-$50, maybe free if you're a good customer for them).

Fake iPhones: a retrospective

2007-06-27T12:49:00.000-07:00

As the zero day quickly approaches, we thought only a retrospective detailing some of the highlights -- and lowlights -- to come out of the always-colorful knockoff industry could encapsulate this whole new level of buzz the iPhone has brought to the mobile industry. Love 'em or hate 'em, credit has to be given to these guys for busting out an endless array of not-quite-iPhones in mere weeks after the world finally got a look at the real deal.

As it turns out, there are just so many real iPhone knockoffs we had to skip over most pre-iPhone photoshops / mockups, as well as those ubiquitous iPhone skins; if imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, the clownfish on the iPhone's wallpaper should be turning from orange to bright red right about now. Let's get started, shall we?

It's pretty rare -- nay, unprecedented -- for a phone to be so hotly anticipated that the knockoff industry is in full swing before the real thing's existence is even confirmed. This little gem showed up on our radar last December, looking like some sort of brokedown iPod mini prototype (that's pre-iPod nano for the kiddies out there). The so-called "I-MOBILE i-phone" features a tiny 1.8 inch touchscreen with handwriting recognition (i-phone 1, iPhone 0!) and a 2 megapixel camera, but the GSM 900 / 1800 radio leaves us wanting. We're glad we held out for the real deal.

Mere days before Apple's announcement we spotted this one. Reader reaction was actually quite positive -- and hey, what's there not to like? The screen's big, it appears to faithfully rip the iPod nano's styling, and with both Apple and Windows keys, you can think of this phone as the Switzerland of the tech world.

January 9, 2007; you know the rest. Tens upon tens of Chinese manufacturers set to work at producing The Next Insanely Great Knockoff. Boom.

It seems the knockoffs didn't come quite fast enough for some impatient souls. This, folks, is what you call desperation. Desperation to feel the joy of unwrapping years of Apple's deepest secrets; some might say desperation for human affection. We'll let you be the judge.

The fakes got worse before they got better. Though we saw this one in March, we suspect R&D (all eighteen hours of it) kicked off before Apple's announcement since there's absolutely zero resemblance to the real thing. In fact, we'd venture to say we see a little Sony Ericsson inspiration in the nav key layout. The makers undoubtedly walked away lawsuit-free on account of the modified Apple logo that looks only vaguely like the original.

Perhaps the company most brazenly and openly mimicking the iPhone's industrial design, Meizu appears to have every intention of going global with its miniOne line. After making a series of mid-course corrections (an effort to minimize attention from Apple, we'd wager), the miniOne M8 and M8 w could make a serious splash in the high-end market with a 667MHz core, 720 x 480 touchscreen, 3 megapixel cam, 3G data (on the M8 w model), and internal storage options ranging from 4GB to 16GB atop Windows Mobile 6. Is Meizu taking the Microsoft rivalry to Apple in a way that traditional current gen Windows Mobile devices can't? If all goes according to plan, we'll know before the year's out.

Deeda is an American company that swears up and down that its "Pi" phone is completely original and that it started development long before the iPhone was announced. Even if that's true, we sure can't be blamed for noticing a few rather glaring similarities. The 3.6-inch WVGA touchscreen and impossibly thin looking shell should keep this one out of production for a while -- if Apple's legal juggernaut doesn't do the job first.

At a glance, the CECT P168 (though we've heard the exact same device go by several names) may be the truest reproduction, and having made the rounds back in April in retail packaging, it's hard to not be impressed by the turnaround time. The software is another matter altogether -- but if you want something you can whip out of your pocket, wave around quickly, and have at least a few folks in the vicinity think you're sporting an iPhone, this is probably your ticket. The microSD slot and touchscreen are cool, but multi-touch? Not so much.

iPhone mania's so pervasive that it spread all the way to marooned crash survivors on some remote island. Come on, tell us you don't see some inspiration here.

You may not like the iPhone's lack of a numeric keypad, but we don't think adding a nonstandard array of tiny buttons at the phone's bottom edge was the answer. Alas, the CECT IP2000 came into existence around the same time as the aforementioned P168, sporting what appears to be the same bogus software and a fairly similar shell. Again, there's obviously no similarity between the shiny logo on the rear and Apple's actual logo, so no harm, no foul! This one can actually be snagged over on M8COOL; the 3 megapixel cam is nice, but the lack of any US GSM bands is a bit of a wet blanket on that dream.

Yet one more from CECT, the IP9300, which you can also apparently grab from M8COOL. The innards appear to be identical to the IP2000 -- 3 megapixel cam, touchscreen, dual-band GSM radio. Like the real deal, CECT's wares lack 3G data, but these ones take another giant leap back in time by foregoing EDGE, too. (Hooray for 90s mobile data!) Our favorite part of the IP9300 might be the official-looking FCC certification and "2007 All Rights Reserved" -- right below the backwards Apple logo, of course.

Steve may not be ready to grace the world with an iPod that shares the iPhone's more notable attributes, but far be it from that to stop anyone else. ONDA and Ainol have thrown their hats into the phoneless-iPhone-clone ring with the Honey VX858 and V2000, respectively. These guys are taking full advantage of the screen real estate, too, offering up game console emulators, support for pretty much every video format imaginable, and in the case of the VX858, some sort of dual-core processor. Phone calls, though? Consider this one set to ignore.

And there you have it, a wondrous look at the inner workings of the ever-industrious knockoff community. Maybe the best part about it, though, is that we've got a feeling that we've only scratched the surface. Does Apple need to worry about lost market share? Nah, we doubt it. Oh, and a word to the gadget cloners out there: don't change a thing.

So, are we forgetting any?

Google’s next stop: $600 a share?

2007-06-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

Happy days at the Googleplex. Shares of Google (GOOG) hit a new 52-week - and all-time - trading high of about $535 on Monday afternoon. The stock is now up 15 percent so far this year and has gained a stunning 529 percent since its initial public offering in August, 2004.

Last week came news that Google (GOOG) increased its market share lead in search over Yahoo! (YHOO), Microsoft’s (MSFT) MSN, IAC’s (IAC) Ask.com and AOL - which, like this site, is owned by Time Warner (TWX).

And of course, Google, unlike Yahoo, doesn’t have to worry about pesky distractions, such as, say, an overhaul of the management team. Instead, Google can simply focus on staying on top in search and bolstering its presence in the so-called display advertising or rich media market, selling things like banners, videos and other non-text based ads.

A desire to become a bigger player in graphical ads was a prime motivation behind Google’s purchase of YouTube last year and agreement to buy ad serving network DoubleClick in April.

So where does Google go from here? Several analysts see another 20 percent upside in the near-term. William Morrison, an analyst with JMP Securities, raised his price target on Google’s stock Monday from $580 to $625.

Morrison wrote in a report Monday that he thinks Wall Street is actually underestimating Google’s growth potential. He currently expects Google to generate revenues, excluding ad sales it shares with affiliates, of $11.8 billion this year, compared to an average forecast of $11.4 billion. What’s more, he is predicting that Google’s sales will hit $16.1 billion in 2008 while the consensus of his fellow Street analysts is just $15.4 billion.

“The general thinking here is that Google’s already large size will likely pose a significant impediment to future growth. A converse perspective, which we hold, is that Google possesses significant competitive advantages that are directly attributable to its size, in particular its computing infrastructure, and that these advantages are likely to drive a higher growth rate for a longer period of time than most investors currently anticipate,” Morrison wrote.

And he’s not alone in this view. On Friday, two analysts at Wall Street firm Bernstein launched coverage on Google, as well as other big Net stocks Yahoo, IAC, eBay (EBAY) and Amazon (AMZN), with a $635 price target. The Bernstein analysts also said current Wall Street estimates on Google, for both sales and earnings, are too low.

It’s a dangerous game to expect Google to keep blowing away Wall Street’s estimates. But remember, this is a company that does not give guidance. And so far, analysts have proven to be fairly conservative in their assessment of Google’s growth potential.

For the past four quarters, Google has surpassed consensus earnings estimates by an average of 10 percent. Google has only missed forecasts once in eleven reported quarters as a public company.

With that in mind, as scary as it may seem to predict ever higher prices for Google, the stock still looks like a reasonable bargain. Shares trade at 27 times 2008 earnings estimates, not too frothy for a company that is expected to post a profit increase of 27 percent next year and 30 percent a year, on average, for the next few years.

In fact, Google trades at the lowest price-to-earnings growth (PEG) ratio, which is often used to measure rapidly growing companies, among the big five Internet stocks. Google’s PEG is 0.9. Only eBay is as reasonably valued on this basis, trading at a PEG of 1 on the nose. IAC has a PEG of 1.5 while the troubled Yahoo trades at a PEG of 1.7 And Amazon trades at 2.2 times its projected growth rate.

So say what you want about how new price targets for Google are reminiscent of the late 1990s bubble. But Google hasn’t shown any signs of stumbling. And until it does, the stock is going to keep heading up. Heck, it might not be long before more analysts start slapping a $700, or even higher target, on Google.

Judge rejects Google's anti-Microsoft antitrust bid

2007-06-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

by Anne Broache

WASHINGTON--A federal judge refused on Tuesday to rule on a last-minute Google antitrust complaint about Windows Vista's desktop search, saying she trusted government attorneys who said they were already satisfied with Microsoft's planned changes.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said she would rely on the U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys to alert her if any further action is needed to address antitrust allegations lodged on Monday by Google that the search function still won't allow for adequate "user choice."

"The plaintiffs, as far as I'm concerned, stand in the shoes of the consumer," Kollar-Kotelly said at a periodic status conference here. She added that Google "is not a party to the case."

Last week, Microsoft and its government antitrust overseers outlined a number of steps Redmond had agreed to take to address Google's ongoing concerns. Those moves included, among other things, adding a mechanism that would allow both computer makers and individuals to choose a default desktop search program--much as they can choose a rival browser or media player.

But Google argued in a filing on the eve of the already scheduled court hearing that it wasn't convinced those tweaks went far enough. The search giant also asked the judge to consider extending the November 12 expiration date for certain parts of the consent decree to ensure Microsoft was truly complying with an antitrust agreement dating back to 2002.

Kollar-Kotelly said she plans to rule on whether Google was allowed to file the seven-page brief it submitted to the court on Monday (Microsoft has opposed the filing as procedurally out-of-bounds). But she said she was "not going to take any position on it or comment on" the brief's content.

The judge did suggest, however, that perhaps Google lacks complete information about the proposed Vista changes. She said she expected the government attorneys and Microsoft to supply a fuller description than that revealed in their most joint recent court filing.

Google said after Tuesday's hearing that it was encouraged by what it viewed as the judge's sensitivity to its request for more information.

"As a result of our raising concerns about Vista desktop search, the Department of Justice and the states secured remedies from Microsoft that will provide consumers more choices than existed before," senior policy counsel Alan Davidson, who attended the hearing, said through a spokesman. "We are pleased that the authorities have provided important oversight here, and hope they will closely monitor the implementation to ensure that consumers' interests are served."

In their appearances before the judge, attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice and state plaintiffs continued to emphasize they were satisfied the Google complaint had been fully resolved. They also said they expected to receive the beta version of the code in time to test it for compliance before the November expiration date. "Certainly if we don't, we will be back here" in court, said Justice Department attorney Aaron Hoag.

Microsoft attorney Charles Rule told the judge that he believed much "misinformation" has been circulating about the way Vista's desktop search works. Using a print-out of a desktop screenshot as a prop, he walked the courtroom audience through the planned changes and existing features.

For instance, contrary to what some have said, Vista's search indexer has been "designed to back off" when other applications are running, which should assuage any fears about third-party desktop search applications encountering problems, Rule said. He also said users can already set up their machines so that third-party desktop search options appear in the left-hand side of the Start menu and in menus that appear when the desktop is right-clicked--and said that wouldn't change.

Kollar-Kotelly indicated she was also pleased with the progress that Microsoft and antitrust authorities had reported in other areas, such as its communications protocol program, a required licensing regime aimed at helping third-party developers to create software that works with Windows.

"This has been a productive report and a productive hearing," she said near the event's close.

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said in a statement afterward that the company is "going to work hard to implement the resolution we reached with all the governments involved and presented to the court today."

The parties are currently due back in Kollar-Kotelly's courtroom on September 11, with a status report to be filed a few weeks beforehand.

10 Digger Commandments

2007-06-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

Building your digger integrity : 10 ways to help you develop a deeper understanding of the social news site - digg.

1. Thou shalt not double vote from the same computer IP address

Even if your friend is visiting you and is insisting on logging in to his user profile in order to digg your fantastic article, don't let him because your item will soon just vanish from the list of upcoming stories.

2. Thou shalt not post all of thy submissions to Offbeat News

digg seems to like it when your stories fit into one of the supplied categories. Dumping all of your items into Offbeat News just because they seem quirky to you is a great way to get yourself into trouble.

3. Thou shalt understand that thy Friends have less weight in the digger algorithm than non-friends

There are a lot of ways that the famously secret digg algorithm influences your upcoming stories and affects their placement within the Upcoming Stories pages or on the pages in the category listings. Higher rated diggs may be seen more often in the page listings, and even more so if they aren't all from your same group of friends, but actually have been dugg by a user who voted for it because they liked it.

4. Thou shalt not post too many links with thy digg article in the comments section

Posting a link with a digg article in the comments section of someone's digg may be fine once, if It is relevant. Try it more than once, and you may watch that same article that you had wanted so badly to promote, vanish before your eyes in the Upcoming Story pages and Cloud View.

5. Thou shalt be a valuable and relevant member of thy digger community

If you browse through digg, opening articles and digging them, commenting here and there on interesting articles that move you, adding friends that you like and respect, occasionally burying a story for a real reason - everything is rosy. If however, you start posting low quality content on your user page and begin to post lots of comments everywhere just to see your rants and raves get plastered all over the comments section of someone else's digg rather than actually responding to what you've read- don't plan on hitting the homepage any time soon. Your digger style will be working against you.

6. Thou shalt not digg an item without opening the link and reading the article first

Don't try to run through the page listings, digging everything as you go without opening up the articles and reading them first. The digg computers know you haven't really opened the article, and they may at some point react to your digg vote as an attempt at spamming.

7. Thou shalt not submit duplicate content

When you submit an item, you will see a list asking you to double check to see if this content has been posted. If it has, don't submit your item. If the article or photo has been on digg previously but you think that there is a relevance to showing other readers who may not have seen it, that may be fine. If you are posting a news item from Reuters and it has already been submitted under a Yahoo listing, but with the Reuters syndicated logo on the front page, don't submit, or plan on getting buried and removed from the front page if you somehow get there.

8. Thou shalt not digg only thyself and thy friends

In order to be a relevant community member, you will need to respond to more content other than just your own or your friends stories. If other users don't see you voting, even on the good articles, and you never write quality comments to others, no one will get to know you and it will be hard to get the digger community to digg your stories.

9. Thou shalt not digg too fast

If you open the articles one after the other, and immediately digg them and move on, the digg computers won't like it. There are stories of users who were given the boot because they were told no one could possibly have read so much, so fast. You don't have to read every word, but don't turn into an assembly line without pausing to check the article before you digg it. If the link doesn't work, or there if is a mistake or problem with the item, don't digg it.

10. Thou shalt not use the multiple digg ID approach.

If you are thinking about opening multiple user ID's and using them to vote for each other, save yourself the time, it won't work. You may be able to fool the digger man once, but he will soon catch on to your sins.

Building your digger integrity

Thou will never make the home page like this using these types of dubious strategies. The digg computers sniff this stuff out, and it smells to them like spam. It won't matter if you have 140 votes; you won't hit the coveted digg homepage with any of these methods.

In order to be a successful digger, you had better sit down right now and understand a few things:

If you want to be a front page digger, you have to sit and digg a lot.
If you want to be a front page digger, you have to need to submit a lot of stories.
If you want to be a front page digger, you have to submit and digg even more stories if you want the stories you submitted two hours ago to make another algorithmic trip through the various pages of digg make their way through the ranks, and hit the top of the digg.com Homepage.

Google Apps to Launch Mail Migration

2007-06-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

Google will be adding mail migration to Google Apps this week, along with some new features for Google Apps.

This is being promoted as especially helpful for organizations looking to better organize their emails, and migrating them to Google Apps is a great way to start. Mail will be migrated to a user’s GMail account, organized into conversation threads (Google style) and made searchable (also Google style). Mail migration currently supports only those email servers with an IMAP interface. The emphasize on documents being made fully searchable is important to note in this case of mail migration to Google, as you’ll probably want to first be well versed in the act of searching for emails, since you will no longer have folders to organize your documents.

Other features announced or upcoming with this release include a shared address book, bigger GMail attachment size, and multi-user chats, among other things. The biggest benefit of this is of course the integration with the full suite of tools offered in Google Apps.

Human-to-Human Design

2007-06-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

It’s not new to say that we now live in an age in which survival in business depends on your ability to communicate effectively through the internet.

What is new is the realization that just having any old website isn’t enough. The quality of your site and the nature of its content are paramount and your ability to communicate with your audience is the key.

A good website is built on two basic truths—that the internet is an interactive medium and that the end user is in fact human. In other words, it is meant to be an experience. As with any adventure, a little strategic thought is needed to ensure that the experience is enjoyable.

Respect me

Remember that the person on the other side of the computer screen is a human being. They want to know that your business understands them.

Take the time to find out who they are and what they like. Then tailor your message and design to suit them. A real-life analogy is the approach you would take to initiate a conversation with a stranger at a party (a person with whom you hope to become better acquainted). You would do well to listen intently to what interests them and then craft your conversation to suit. You wouldn’t bore them with a lengthy extolment of CSS or Ajax on a Saturday night, would you?

Try to think beyond the demographic and envisage the individual. Many web briefs contain a far-reaching description of the audience. During the briefing session, try to narrow the focus. A brief may begin at:

Intranet Audience: 20–50 year old real estate agents

This can be divided into a primary and secondary audience, as follows:

Intranet Primary Audience: 20–35 (sales agents)

Intranet Secondary Audience: 35–50 (middle and senior managers)

From that point, it helps to imagine yourself as the agent, logging onto the intranet with a cup of coffee in hand half an hour before tackling early open houses. Do you see your desire for flash animation disappear in a puff of smoke? Do you see how “get to the point fast and be obvious” becomes a distinct directive? How about the need for personalization, so the agent can see what they require immediately, for example, appointments for the day, contacts, and their sales pipeline?

Closing the gap between yourself and your audience will help you to make the right decisions and tailor the design to their needs.

Tell me a story

Harness one of the oldest and most effective ways of communicating knowledge on your site.

Storytelling is a rich and compelling way to involve the user in a design, evoke an emotional response, or enhance a user’s learning experience. The question to ask is:

Is there a more creative way to present the required information to increase the user’s involvement?

News websites are increasingly rising to the challenge. In the past a breaking story would have been a single page of written text. Now it may be enhanced with multimedia to offer alternate ways to view the story including interactive timelines, streaming web-cam, animation, sound, and video. These elements can give the audience a broader and deeper understanding of the topic and the issues, which surround it.

The most wonderful thing about using the internet to tell a story is that it can be non-linear—the user can click to view fragments of information that interest them, rather than viewing the entire story from beginning to end. By telling a story through user interaction, you enable users to choose their own path according to their preferences or needs.

Engage me

As broadband becomes prevalent, web designers have increasingly begun to combine visual design with interaction and motion. Their role has become less that of a designer and more that of a director of experiences. To illustrate the difference between those roles, let’s look at the way the creative direction of a design might be described:

To promote your strength, which is the local content of the entertainment news, we will include the cityscape of each state within your brand.

The direction of an experience, on the other hand, would require more documentation in the conceptualization stage. An experience director must pull together content, formulate an interactive approach and style, and orchestrate the creative elements in which to propel the story. The web designers of the future may even be required to write a treatment, melding the design process with that of film direction.

By attending to the entire user experience, designers can create a rich, sensory experience, which helps to immerse users and encourage them to become fully involved in the site and its message. When a site is intended to educate, immersion is particularly important, as it can increase learning speed and overall understanding—especially when a site’s main users are children.

Through immersion, the user experiences joy and satisfaction: positive qualities that will be transferred to your brand.

Inspire me

Some people believe that web design starts and stops with branding. Their view is the visual identity of the brand is easily applicable to the web through the transference of common elements such as logo, colours and typography.

Indeed a lot of the traffic that will come to your website will be people who know or chose your brand in the real world. So when they arrive at your virtual world it is an ideal opportunity to reinforce it.

However, your site can do much more than mimic your identity. It can encapsulate the brand personality, whether that is inspirational, trustworthy, or authoritative. These traits were part of the reason why they chose your brand in the first place.

During the filming of Withnail and I, the director told lead actor Richard E. Grant to “stamp the celluloid”, meaning to go full pelt, not half-measure. It’s timely advice for when you want to inspire your audience and make them take action—don’t be polite, grab them by the throat—and bring your brand to life!

Enchant me

A beautiful design will give the user the impression that the site is easy to use, whether it is or not. Also, it is more probable that the design will be used because the human psyche is inexorably drawn towards beauty.

Transactional sites often fail miserably in the aesthetic stakes. The reigning thought is that it is the domain of the usability consultant—that design is secondary and often confined to the “coloring in” of table cells.

Yet highly complicated processes and pages can look deceptively simple with the right styling. Spacing becomes increasingly important as it allows the user’s eyes to rest before taking on the next batch of information. Design can create order and instill a feeling of peace and serenity—positive attributes when you are asking your user to complete a lengthy and profit-creating form. Professional design can also increase user trust levels, the single most important trait to attain for any transactional site.

If you’re not a professional visual designer, you can engender trust and loyalty and foster attraction by consulting a high-level designer for business-critical or transactional sites.

The principles of good human-to-computer interface design are simplicity, support, clarity, encouragement, satisfaction, accessibility, versatility, and personalization. While it’s essential to heed these, it’s also important to empathize with and inspire your audience so they feel you’re treating them less like a faceless user and more like a human being. In doing so, you will extend their affinity with the design and foster positive attitudes towards your brand, company, or product.

Illustration by Kevin Cornell

What We Think Of Bill Gates

2007-06-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

Posted by John Foley

He's analytical, driven, calculating, irritable, confident, inquisitive, opportunistic, boyish, wealthy, generous, smart, and competitive. Microsoft's cofounder and chairman has been called many things, some flattering, others unprintable.

I've interviewed Gates a half dozen times and found him to be engaging and likeable, though more distant than friendly. He once sat patiently for more than an hour in one of those interviews, well beyond the time allotted, until I finally ran out of questions. He can be testy and evasive, too.

While reporting InformationWeek's cover story, "The Legacy Of Bill Gates," my colleague John Soat and I interviewed people who have known Gates over the years, some personally, others from a distance. Following are some of their observations. Share your thoughts on how Mr. Microsoft will be remembered, or should be remembered, as he shifts gears from management to full-time philanthropy.

"Bill has made a number of contributions to the software industry. The biggest one: the insight that made computing personal. More than anybody else, Bill recognized that there was an enormous amount of computing that could be done on the desktop on industry standard hardware and software, and by playing off that standardization, deliver an incredible level of functionality to the user."
John Swainson, CEO of CA

"Bill Gates is the proxy for how Microsoft will be remembered. First and foremost, he's a businessman. He's not an inventor or technologist, per se, and I don't think he would claim to be. He's fundamentally a geek."
Greg Papadopoulos, CTO of Sun Microsystems

"Pound for pound, he's the most controversial figure in IT."
Rich Powers, director of advanced technologies with FMC

"He has this ability to know if somebody is shooting him a pile of malarchy. He could drill right into the weakness in a presentation. Sometimes it would be on an arcane piece of technology. Almost immediately he would pick up on where to drill in with questions."
Michael Cherry, analyst with Directions On Microsoft and former Microsoft employee

"I'm a huge, huge admirer of Gates as a person and his philanthropy. Even though I was an outspoken critic of Microsoft, it's stunningly admirable behavior. That's his legacy."
Mitchell Kertzman, partner with Hummer, Winblad and former CEO of Powersoft, Sybase, and Liberate Technologies

"Bill Gates breaks very complex things into simple, easy-to-understand form. He understands the end result of what innovation and breakthroughs can do."
Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP America

"I think of him as the father of the software business. He's multifaceted. He's interested in how all this gets put together, and an unbelievable businessman. In the IT industry, he's a close friend to all of us."
Ralph Szygenda, CIO of GM

"He will go down in technology history as one of the great businessmen of the era. While Gates could be called a fierce competitor, or even unfair depending on your perspective, it's hard to ignore the benefits that Microsoft brought to corporate productivity or the returns to shareholders."
Jason Maynard, software analyst with Credit Suisse

"Gates built the first software company in the industry, and I think he built the first software company before anybody in our industry knew what a software company was. And that was huge."
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, speaking at the All Things Digital conference

"He impeded the growth of the independent software industry. People in the industry don’t think of Microsoft as a company with innovations, they think of them as powerful and successful."
Marty Goetz, co-founder and former CEO of Applied Data Research, one of the first independent software companies

"There are still lessons from what Microsoft has done that, as an entrepreneur, I can’t ignore. Gates proved in consumer software that the best product doesn’t always win—that still holds true in consumer Web apps."
Sean Ammirati, VP of business development and product management for mSpoke Inc.

BBC's use of Windows DRM attacked by open source advocates

2007-06-24T05:50:00.001-07:00

The BBC's decision to use Microsoft DRM for its new iPlayer "catch-up" service has come under fire from an open-source group that objects to the UK's apparent endorsement of Windows. The UK's Open Source Consortium has written a letter to regulators asking that open solutions be used instead.

The iPlayer in question is a BBC service that will allow viewers to watch any show that they have missed for up to a week after it airs on television. The service is poised to launch soon, but it has generated controversy over the BBC Trust's (which controls the Beeb) decision to require DRM on the downloads. The idea is that the shows will expire after a few days so that content owners can continue to make money on secondary licensing rights, DVD compilations, etc. The Beeb is also not keen on shows being downloaded and e-mailed to friends and family outside the UK.

The BBC chose Microsoft DRM to protect the downloads, which means that Mac and Linux users are left out in the cold. This didn't sit well with the Open Source Consortium, which has just written a letter to the BBC.

"This action from the BBC effectively promotes one operating system vendor at the expense of others," said the group's CEO, Ian Roberts. "It is very disturbing that the BBC should be using the license payers' money to affect the operating system market in this way. Imagine if the BBC were to launch new digital channels, but only make them available on a certain make of television—there would be uproar."

The BBC has already expressed its support for the Mac and claims that something will be done as soon as possible (which will probably involve a RealPlayer system).

The Open Source Consortium has also written to regulators like Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading and points out that Microsoft (and specifically its media player) was cited as anticompetitive by the EU. Making the iPlayer Windows-only—and using Microsoft DRM to do so—could be against the spirit of the EU ruling, said the group.

Google threatens to close gmail germany over privacy concerns

2007-06-24T05:49:00.000-07:00

According to spiegel.de (german), Google is threatening to close down the german version of it’s popular gmail service if the german Bundestag passes it’s new internet surveillance law. According to googles german privacy representative, Peter Fleischer, the new law would be a severe blow against privacy and would go against Googles practice of also offering anonymous e-mail accounts.

If the Bundesregierung has it’s way, then starting 2008, any connection data concerning the internet, phone calls (With position data when cell phones are used), SMS etc. of any german citizen will be saved for 6 months, anonymizing services like Tor will be made illegal.

Personally, I applaud google for joining the protest against this absurd piece of fear-inspired legislation. A big corporation standing up against this might get some politicians to actually have a look at and think about the issue instead of just passing it through, “Cause it’s to defeat the terrorists!”.

Take action now: http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/ (german) | http://www.dataretentionisnosolution.com/ (english)

Please be aware that this is currently a static page, to prevent sudden, flaming death. Comments will not appear until when there aren't a lot of people viewing anymore.

Drawing made of HTML

2007-06-24T05:48:00.000-07:00

Using HTML tables and background color this guy did a great Drawing, if you know HTML you can see how amazing is this drawing

Our New Home Page: There's No Place Like It

2007-06-24T05:47:00.000-07:00

We've talked quite a bit lately about all the great stuff inside Ask3D. Now we're going to take a look at its outside, i.e. our home page.

Yep, we've got a whole new look, with new icons painstakingly designed to represent the various Ask.com search tools.

And there's plenty of function that goes with it, like search suggestions that automatically reveal themselves as you type.

And check this out: you can re-skin your Ask.com home page whenever you feel like it. Here are a few of the options you can choose from:

Of course, once you get past this page, you'll get our three-panel results page, our various in-line content functions , and all the other great new Ask3D features. Check 'em out!

--The Ask.com Team

Rock On: 12 of the Best Music Social Networks

2007-06-24T05:46:00.000-07:00

Internet radio may be facing uncertain times, but many musical social networks continue to thrive. If you’re in a band, these sites are essential for promoting your music: take note, and sign up for as many as possible to maximize your reach. For fans, meanwhile, we’ve included some great places to just listen to music. We won’t mention the obvious one, of course: MySpace remains the hub for music on the web.

Flotones

Flotones is a monetized social network for artists and their fans. The most interesting feature is the possibility to promote and distribute artist’s content via mobile phones (such as ringtones and mobile wallpapers). After you register and add your content, you’ll be able to promote your mobile content at your shows, on your website and on your MySpace profile. You’ll be asked to sign a contract before getting paid.

Mercora Radio 2.0

Radio 2.0 from Mercora is a social network with an integrated free music listening service (that sustains itself through contextual music-centered ads), as well as a personal-webcasting platform. Mercora Radio 2.0 will search your hard disk for all the music tracks you have legally acquired and then you are ready to broadcast your own music library to the world. Each radio station has multiple channels and each DJ can also create his own playlists.

MOG

MOG is a social network that helps you “discover people through music and discover music through people”. Basically MOG makes it easy for you to find new music to listen to by using custom filters and personalized suggestions. The site also provides users with news, reviews and streaming audio. MOG also features a music TV that continuously broadcasts videos taken from YouTube.

Last.fm

Last.fm, which you’ve no doubt used already, is a service that keeps track of what music you listen to, and then helps you discover new music based on your preferences. You can use Last.fm to listen to music, find out about artists you may like, get in touch with other people with similar music taste, discover gigs in your local area, as well as create charts that you can publish on your personal site. Last.fm also allows artists and labels to upload their own music and videos and promote them for free.

iLike

iLike, another familiar one, is a service to help you organize your music, share your music tastes, and discover new artists through your friends. iLike basically helps you discover new music based on what you’re already listening to. It lets you share music libraries with your friends, browse and sample their most played songs, and compare your compatibility scores. iLike will also send you music recommendations directly in iTunes.

JamNow

JamNow is a social network aimed at musicians that allows them to create audio content online in real-time. JamNow isn’t a site that simply makes you “post and listen” to audio content: its platform enables real-time music collaboration and lets you schedule live jam sessions and listen to musicians that are playing right in that moment.

MusoCity

MusoCity is a music-oriented social network. It provides accounts specifically designed for music fans, artists, musicians, music retailers and music venues. MusoCity is completely free to join and you can start browsing members profiles to make friends, discovering new artists, getting in touch with musicians in your area and finding events and music stores near you.

Haystack

Haystack is a social network centered around people who want to find music through friends and taste makers. You can browse music, pictures, videos and reviews of artists as well as build your own profile and personalize it with images and videos (you can even add them from YouTube). Artists are welcome to sign up directly or through their manager or their label.

Sonific

Sonific is a social network that offers a great way to promote your music, if you are an artist. It lets users put free music widgets with your music on their sites and promote it to their own audiences, for free. In exchange, Sonific users get free music to use and listen to (download is not permitted) and make their site look cooler - while you get free advertising for your music.

Midomi

Midomi is a network that makes it easy to discover new music and people. The cool thing is that you can search for music by singing or humming part of a song. All you need is a microphone and you will be able to connect to your favorite music, and to a community of people that share your musical interests. You can listen to other member’s voices, see pictures, rate singers, send messages and also buy music.

iJigg

iJigg is a online community that lets you comment on music and share songs. You can rate music and influence what becomes popular, as well as upload your own music to share it with the community and make new fans. You will need to decide whether to open a “listener” or “artist” account, which will give you access to different features (e.g. listeners can download free mp3 of their favorite music, while artists can upload their own music).

Sellaband

Sellaband is a music social network that turns the fans and listeners of bands into their producers, asking them to invest in a band or artist they support so that they will be able to get a recording opportunity. Every single investor that supports a successful band will take home a small cut of the profits made by them. Artists not only get financial support but also share 50% of the ad revenue coming from the free downloads of their music.

What did we miss? Leave more suggestions in the comments.

How Facebook could crush MySpace, Yahoo!, and Google.

2007-06-24T05:44:00.002-07:00

There comes a time in every young person's life—soon after teething, usually—when she must make a momentous decision: MySpace or Facebook? One's preference is a matter of taste. MySpace, if you ask me, is a spam-infested state of nature. The average user page comes with a crapload of embedded music and video players, some seizure-inducing wallpaper, and a bunch of friend requests from "models" who want to "get to know you." (It also happens to be nearly three times the size of Facebook.) Facebook, on the other hand, is much less customizable but also a lot more reassuring. The interface is comfy, sturdy, and attractive without being showy—the kind of social network you'd bring home to Mom. Think of it as the Volvo of social networking.

But a few weeks ago, Facebook pulled a MySpace-like maneuver. The site tore down its walls and opened its pages to outside developers. A new tool kit called Facebook Platform allows any programmer—a bored student or a multimillion-dollar corporation—to peel back the site's breastplate, poke around, and rearrange the innards. None of the nearly 900 (and counting) programs released so far are particularly life-changing—among the most popular add-ons are a "Graffiti" program (downloaded by more than 3.3 million people as of this writing) that lets you doodle other people's profiles and an "Honesty Box" that lets your friends say, anonymously, what they really think of you. Collectively, though, these programs are hugely significant. If the site figures out a smart way to deploy these mini applications, it will be more than just a social network. Facebook will turn into a do-everything site with the potential to devour the whole Internet.

For all the hype about Second Life, Facebook and MySpace are already the closest things we have to "virtual worlds." Sure, Facebook doesn't have large-breasted 3D avatars and a sky and buildings and its own currency. But the whole point of the Internet is that you don't need all that stuff. If I want to buy something, I go to Amazon, not some virtual store. Even before Facebook allowed outside applications, it had millions of users who basically lived inside their profile pages. The typical Facebooker spends hours each day sending messages, posting "notes" or blog entries, and uploading photos, along with trolling for freshmen girls who love the Decemberists. Facebook Platform simply expands this world. (According to the Wall Street Journal, the site's user base has jumped from 24 million to 27 million since Platform launched.) Now you can check the local weather, feed and nurture a virtual pet rabbit, and see what music your friends are listening to. With just a few more additions—e-mail, an instant-messaging program, RSS feeds—Facebook obsessives will become total shut-ins. Users wouldn't have to venture out into the Internet; the Internet would come to them.

If Facebook does decide to become an all-encompassing portal, it would be a bit late to the party. Customizable homepages like My Yahoo! and iGoogle already let you cram your favorite Web stuff onto a single page; there's also the trendy start-up NetVibes, which Slate's Reihan Salam called "the ultimate mashup." But a Facebook homepage would have a huge intrinsic advantage: The social network is already built in. Sure, the other portals incorporate Gmail and BBC headlines and YouTube searches and podcast directories. By adding a social context to all of this content, however, Facebook would immediately trump its main competition. With Facebook's News Feed, it's elementary to see when your friends sign up for a new product or service. That means the best add-ons become viral instantly—Platform's biggest success story so far, a music sharing app called iLike, started growing at the rate of 200,000 users a day.

It's a certainty, too, that outside developers will fall over themselves to deliver great content to Facebook users. The site's growing audience, sterling reputation, and clean look are catnip for corporations.

What kind of stuff will companies offer to Facebook users? Every major corporation, it seems, is trying to add social networking to their core services. Netflix, for example, allows you to keep tabs on what your "friends" are watching. But it makes much more sense to peddle your services on a huge, prebuilt network—no wonder Netflix users can now check their buddies' queues on Facebook. And we're not only talking about businesses: Just look at Barack Obama's campaign. Thousands of users have downloaded the Obama Facebook application since late May, and hundreds of thousands more have joined Obama-themed groups. Compare that to the relatively paltry 70,000 registered users on the candidate's custom-made social network, My.BarackObama.com. Using the Facebook network as a delivery system, it seems, is easier and more productive than creating the system yourself.

For me, an influx of outside content seems like the obvious path to a bigger, better Facebook. But the recent deluge of applications has created a big backlash. I count 15 groups started in the past month, all variations on a theme: "Enough with the @$#%! Facebook Applications Already!" Even my friends have started complaining. When I added a 12^th application to my lineup—I think it was "Pets"—one wall-poster labeled me an "applications slut." Some of this sentiment, dubbed by one developer as "app fatigue," is just a product of the site's growing pains. But it also reflects a real frustration with Facebook Platform, a sense that it hasn't reached its potential. Most of what we've seen so far looks like refuse from an airport gift shop—cutesy Tamagotchi imitations and fortune cookies and virtual presents.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I can doodle multicolored genitalia on my friends' Graffiti walls. But come on, Facebook, where's all the useful stuff? It's reassuring to hear that Facebook plans to add a "wallet" feature for processing online payments. But for the site to really take off, it needs to have an instant messaging system as easy to use as Google's, as well as an embeddable inbox that connects to Hotmail, Yahoo!, and the like. The fact that Facebook hasn't introduced some sort of RSS feed for news—real news, not News Feed news—also borders on inexcusable. It's not clear to me why Facebook hasn't incorporated these seemingly essential elements, and neither their press office nor CEO Mark Zuckerberg (or the guy he probably pays to handle his profile) responded to my inquiries. But I'd be confused and disappointed if these projects aren't in the pipeline, especially considering the rumors that Yahoo! wants to buy MySpace. A merger of that size would dwarf Facebook at the outset. But in the long run, if there's going to be a supernetwork, I'd much rather have it be clean and navigable like Facebook than spam-filled and occasionally creepy like MySpace. If Facebook adds e-mail, IM, and RSS, it's one step closer to becoming as comprehensive as Yahoo! and as p

Stress Testing the iPhone

2007-06-24T05:44:00.001-07:00

The USA Today article we had previously referenced also contains an interesting sidebar interviewing Balsu Thandu, one of the individuals who has been field testing the iPhone over the past two months.

Approximately 200 field technicians have been secretly testing the iPhone for 10 weeks, logging over 10,000 hours on the phone, including over 5,000 hours of voice calls and 5 gigabytes of data usage. This is reportedly twice as much testing as other phones.

Users worried about durability can rest easier that testing included dousing the iPhone in water, dropping it onto concrete and bouncing it off sidewalks. Real life usage testing was also a big focus:

"Many people don't realize it, but walking gives you the worst channel conditions," Thandu says. Cell signals tend to bounce off buildings, causing interference, and background noise is a constant problem in cities.

Apple reportedly made ongoing adjustments based on the feedback, including improving audio quality which was originally "not loud or clear enough".

According to the article, Thandu feels comfortable that the iPhone is ready for launch.

Facebook in 40 Years

2007-06-24T05:43:00.000-07:00

A hilarious idea: a mockup of how Facebook will look in 40 years, once the younger generation is playing bingo and having hip operations. Take a close look at the mini-feed.

Found on CreativeBinge

Dunning-Kruger effect

2007-06-24T05:41:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon whereby people who have little knowledge systematically think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge.

The phenomenon was demonstrated in a series of experiments performed by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, then both of Cornell University. Their results were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in December 1999.^[1]

Kruger and Dunning noted a number of previous studies which tend to suggest that in skills as diverse as reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis, that "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" (as Charles Darwin put it). They hypothesized that with a typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree,

incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill,
incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others,
incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy,
if they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

They set out to test these hypotheses on human subjects consisting of Cornell undergraduates who were registered in various psychology courses.

In a series of studies, Kruger and Dunning examined self-assessment of logical reasoning skills, grammatical skills and humor. After being shown their test score, the subjects were again asked to estimate their own rank whereupon the competent group accurately estimated their rank, while the incompetent group still overestimated their own rank. As Dunning and Kruger noted,

“

Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd.

”

Meanwhile, people with true knowledge tended to underestimate their competence.

A followup study suggests that grossly incompetent students improve both their skill level and their ability to estimate their class rank only after extensive tutoring in the skills they had previously lacked.

Daniel Ames and Lara Kammrath extended this work to sensitivity to others, and the subjects' perception of how sensitive they were.^[2]

Some more work by Burson Larrick and Joshua Klayman^[3] has suggested that the effect is not so obvious and may be due to noise and bias levels.

Dunning and Kruger won the 2000 Ig Nobel prize for their work.^[4]

^ Justin Kruger; David Dunning (1999). "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (6): 1121–34. PMID 10626367.
^ Daniel R. Ames; Lara K. Kammrath (Sep 2004). "Mind-Reading and Metacognition: Narcissism, not Actual Competence, Predicts Self-Estimated Ability". Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 28 (3): 187–209. DOI:10.1023/B:JONB.0000039649.20015.0e.
^ Katherine A. Burson (2006). "Skilled or Unskilled, but Still Unaware of It: How Perceptions of Difficulty Drive Miscalibration in Relative Comparisons". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90 (1): 60–77. DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.90.1.60.
^ The 2000 Ig Nobel Prize Winners. Improbable Research. Retrieved on 2007-06-23.

“There’s a problem. It’s called Net Neutrality”

2007-06-07T00:09:00.000-07:00

Save the Internet:

AT&T chief Ed Whitacre handed the keys over to his replacement Randall Stephenson yesterday, but not before giving a rousing pep talk to fellow executives in the company’s San Antonio board room. We just received exclusive video of the AT&T chairman’s parting speech.

“There’s a problem. It’s called Net Neutrality,” Whitacre told the heirs to AT&T’s telecommunications empire. “Well, frankly, we say to hell with that. We’re gonna put up some toll booths and start charging admission.”This statement echoes those made in the press by Whitacre and Stephenson over the last two years.

Despite claims of poverty whenever pressed to offer better services, these AT&T execs are privately gloating over more than $35 billion in gross profits over the last 12 months. Moreover, Whitacre (and now Stephenson) are pressuring Congress to allow them to provide privileged Web access to their customers to companies that pay them a special fee.

“Will Congress let us do it?” Whitacre asks his colleagues. “You bet they will - cuz we don’t call it cashin’ in. We call it ‘deregulation.’ “

JetBlue Adding Real-Time Google Maps In-Flight

2007-06-07T00:08:00.000-07:00

Low-cost American airline JetBlue announced yesterday they have struck a deal with search giant Google to provide the familiar Google Maps software on the seat-back screens to map the flight's route in real-time. Family and friends will also be able to pull up JetBlue.com and track any flight via the same Google Maps interface.

In celebration of the deal, JetBlue is running a contest called "JetBlue Point of View." All you have to do to enter is take a picture from the window of any JetBlue flight between June 4th and September 3rd and email it to jetbluecommunity@gmail.com. Winners will be selected based on "aesthetic presentation, creativity, design, and audience appeal" on September 10th, and the top ten photos selected will earn their taker two free round-trip tickets to and from anywhere JetBlue flies.

Top 10 “Single Purpose” OS X Programs

2007-06-07T00:07:00.000-07:00

Have you ever installed a large program only to use just one of its features? I’m a big fan of programs that only do one thing, but does it well. The following are my favorite “single purpose” OS X apps.

iWillQuit - a timer to put your Mac to sleep or shut it off
Namely - the fastest program launcher out there
Fob - a countdown program
Pic2Icon - convert pictures to icons
Burn - open source cd/dvd burning program
Address Book to CSV Exporter - export your address book to a gmail compatible CSV file
Think - limits your attention to one application at a time
webPM - a password manager
SetAlphaValue - an extension to set transparency in Cocoa apps - an alternative to Think (#6 above)
Finder Browser - quickly view images in a folder

iWillQuit

Download: http://djodjodesign.free.fr/rightEN.html
Description: a very simple and straight forward app that puts your Mac to sleep or shuts it down, after the time period you specify. Saving energy has never been this simple.

Namely

Download: http://amarsagoo.info/namely/
Description: Unlike Quicksilver - which is arguably the most popular program launcher for OS X, Namely only launches programs. If you don’t need the zillion bells and whistles of QS, this app is for you. Note: I do need and love the zillion bells and whistles.

Fob

Download: http://homepage.mac.com/tfinley/LeakyPuppy/fob.html
Description: Fob is a simple, straight forward countdown timer/reminder. Never forget to take a break, leave a soda in the freezer, or burn those nachos again.

Pic2Icon

Download: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13226
Description: Pic2Icon is a program that creates beautiful 128×128 Mac OS X icons for your pictures. Simply drop pictures or folders full of pictures onto the application and it will start creating icons. These icons will be applied to the pictures, so you can browse through them in the finder and you will be able to identify them without having to open them!

Burn

Download: http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net
Description: Burn doesn’t convert video files to DVD, create covers for your CD’s, or include ’smoke’ eye-candy. It burns CD’s and DVD’s. How novel. And as an added bonus, it’s open source.

Address Book to CSV Exporter

Download: http://www.antoniolore.net/ab2csv.php
Description: Allows you to export your Address Book in a CSV file (Comma Separated Value) that suits the “Import contacts” function on Gmail, by just following two steps.

Think

Download: http://www.freeverse.com/think/
Description: Think allows you to limit your attention to one application - any application - at any time. If you suffer from OS X A.D.D., this program will help you become way more productive. It has an added bonus of making your screen easier on your tired eyes.

click to enlarge

webPM

Download: http://www.daniele.ch/downloads.html
Description: webPM is a very straight forward, easy to use Password Manager. Set one “master password” and you can store all of your user names, passwords and web addresses in one place. And the database file is encrypted. Passwords are shown by hovering your mouse over the ‘reveal password’ icon.

SetAlphaValue

Download: http://www.mparrot.net/index.php?page=products&lang=en
Description: SetAlphaValue is a utility that allows you to alter the transparency OS X programs created using Cocoa (Safari, iCal, iChat, iTunes, Stickies etc). Its main intent, aside from being eye-candy, is to allow you to focus on one application at a time, without completely hiding the others.

click to enlarge

Finder Browser

Download: http://www.tekuris.com/products/finderbrowser
Description: The sole purpose of Finder Browser is to allow you to quickly and easily browse all of the images in a single folder. Just right-click (ctrl- click) a folder and select Browse Images.

simplehelp.net

McAfee: Yahoo search most 'risky'

2007-06-07T00:05:00.000-07:00

Search company has not sought to refute research from McAfee that claims Yahoo returns the riskiest results of the top five search engines

Out of the top five search engines, Yahoo returns the riskiest sites for users, according to security vendor McAfee.

In research published on Monday by McAfee SiteAdvisor, 5.4 percent of Yahoo searches returned links to "risky" internet sites. AOL was found to be the safest of the top five, with 2.9 percent of sites.

According to McAfee SiteAdvisor, Yahoo returned the most results rated "red" or "yellow". "Red" rated sites failed McAfee SiteAdvisor's safety tests. "Examples are sites that distribute adware, send a high volume of spam, or make unauthorised changes to a user's computer," said the report. Examples of "Yellow" rated sites are those which send a high volume of "non-spammy" email, display many pop-up ads, or prompt a user to change browser settings.

According to McAfee, overall, on Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com, Google, and AOL, sponsored searches returned more risky results than "organic" searches. Of sponsored searches, 6.9 percent returned risky content, compared with 2.9 percent of organic searches.

McAfee analyst Greg Day told ZDNet.co.uk that those wishing to make money from the spread of malicious code were willing to pay search companies, or try to trick them, to boost malicious ad rankings and increase the chance of click-throughs to malicious sites. "The simple reality is that, if you want to make money, you get to know how to trick search engines to get to the top [rankings], or you pay your way to get to the top," said Day. "On the straight figures, Yahoo is the highest level risky site."

McAfee stopped short of recommending that IT managers discourage company employees from using Yahoo search, but did say that the search company should employ more rigorous analysis of the content of sites returned by its search. "Google is starting to go away and do analysis of whether [site] content is what it claims to be. Yahoo really has to go down that road."

Yahoo said it already has a rigorous editorial policy on sites displayed by its search results, especially for sponsored results.

Reggie Davis, vice president of marketplace quality at Yahoo, told ZDNet.co.uk: "We have strict editorial policies in place, conduct ongoing editorial review and employ teams of product experts, engineers and analysts focused on ensuring and continually enhancing the relevancy of our sponsored search ads."

Davis did not seek to refute the McAfee SiteAdvisor research, or its ranking of Yahoo as the most risky search company of the top five. Instead, he stated: "Yahoo has been a strong proponent of helping fight malware, and is, in fact, the only major search vendor who makes free anti-spyware software available to its users. We support any efforts that help with the ongoing fight against unsafe sites."

Davis said that, according to the McAfee research, Yahoo's organic search results, "which represent the vast majority of clicked links for consumers, have the highest safety and quality rating of all major search vendors".

According to Davis, it is not in Yahoo's interest "to deliver experiences that would erode the trust of our users and advertisers, as we are committed to building the world's highest-quality online advertising marketplace and providing the safest and most relevant search experience possible for our users".

"We will continue to improve our performance in this area by investing in technology and work with third parties to make the internet safe for consumers," Davis added.

Story: news.zdnet.co.uk

XP vs. Vista - A Tale of Framerates: Redux

2007-06-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

We recently published an article comparing framerate performance in XP versus Vista on NVIDIA hardware. Our readership wanted to see what ATI could do with the same task so that we could see if Vista was really to blame for what we saw.

Introduction

We recently published an article that compared framerate performance between Vista and Windows XP in multiple current gaming titles. We wanted to do this because there were many claims that Vista was a poor gaming operating system, or at least that it didn’t perform as well as XP on the same hardware. Up to now, it’s been claimed that poor driver support has crippled Microsoft’s new operating system. We wanted to try to associate hard numbers to this issue and take an industry accounting of what users can expect from Vista. We even went so far as to test two different video cards and driver sets. Both were from NVIDIA, and included a 7600 GS and an 8800 GTS 320MB.

However, our scope was more limited than we realized. After the article, a consistent criticism was that we did not include ATI hardware in our evaluation, so any claims that we made were unqualified. Our readers were absolutely right. One of the reasons that our content is better than most publications is that because we have the best readership in the industry and we listen to them.

It wasn’t a conscious effort on our part to specifically exclude ATI hardware from the original article. It was merely the fact that we had NVIDIA hardware on hand at the time, so we used it. Given ATI’s track record lately, we simply did not have any ATI cards on hand in our former [H] Consumer offices in Austin. The original plan was to just use one video card, but later we thought that two would be better. Who knew that three was actually the right number? We also wanted to keep the experiment as simple as possible. We wanted the article to be about operating systems, not hardware. For this reason, including ATI wasn’t at the forefront of our minds.

Another criticism was that we used "old" drivers from NVIDIA. This was mostly very bad timing. The article was in its very last stages when the new drivers were released and had already been written and approved for publish (not a quick or easy process). That said, it would definitely have been best to include the latest drivers in the article. We simply didn’t know that new drivers would be coming out. As of late, NVIDIA has been of little help as they don’t know when their own drivers are pushing out. To address this issue in this ATI article, we contacted ATI to ask them when their next driver release would be. They did us one better – they gave us the beta drivers that were going to be released as WHQL on May 23rd, which are now known as Catalyst 7.5. In this instance, we’re dealing with the latest and greatest. And just for good measure, we took a few of the games that performed extra-poorly with our NVIDIA hardware in our last article, and gave them another run on the new 158.18/158.22 drivers to see if there was any effect.

Test Set-Up

The test will be conducted essentially exactly as before, except that we now have an ATI X1950XTX 512MB as our video card. The rest of the system is as before, provided by Puget Custom Computers.

Again, we will be using the former [H] Consumer gaming line-up, which is what was used in the previous article. As before, we will be mirroring our gaming experiences between the two operating systems as closely as humanly possible. Some titles are easier because of saved games and consistent bot behavior. Others are more difficult because of the complexity of the AI in the game.

Battlefield 2142

We had no problems with getting this title to run on the new hardware. This game was a bit difficult to test because there is no save game option and the AI behaves differently every time. We did our best to stay in the same area of the map between sessions…and not die.

Graphics Settings