digiblade

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Morning Roundup

Personal Technology: The Best Spots to Post Your Pix

Personal Technology: The Best Spots to Post Your Pix The best thing about digital photos is the same thing that was great about analog photos: sharing them. Now we can share them in person, or as is more common these days, online. There are a lot of photo-sharing sites to choose from. If you don't want your precious images to get stuck in some sort of second-rate purgatory, read these reviews of new and classic digital image-sharing sites.

Google Desktop tips
Over at To-Done guest author Bob Walsh has contributed a few good articles on Getting Things Done with Google Desktop.
With this latest version of Google Desktop (GD):

  1. Most of the pain of using Microsoft Outlook goes away,

  2. You can quickly find the information you need right now from a variety of sources,

  3. You can stop worrying about where your information resides.
In an ongoing series, Bob introduces Google Desktop and talks about how to deal with and keep track of e-mail, reduce interruptions and get the most out of GD's sidebar search.
Part One and Part Two [To-Done]

How to deploy VOIP
From Information Week, a 10 minute guide to everything you need to know before deploying VOIP. Evaluate why you need VOIP rather than a traditional TelCo solution and then do a full network inventory. Author Matthew Friedman suggests you put together an RFP and outsource the work.
It can be a great test of faith to entrust something as mission critical as your telephone system to an outside provider, of course, and whether you have the confidence in outsiders to manage the phones is an important part of the process. The bottom line, says Pierce, is that VoIP is new enough technology that there is a real benefit to being open to new ways of doing things.
Deploying VOIP [Information Week


Spellcheck in any application

Light Windows software tinySpell checks your spelling on the fly no matter what software you’re working in.
While you type into any application - email, text editor, web page - tinySpell, which runs in the Windows system tray, checks the spelling of each word and emits a little beep and turns its icon yellow if the word is mispelled. TinySpell’s dictionary is customizable and a hotkey enables or disables the program. Freeware, donations encouraged. tinySpell

Chip Helps Electric Outlet Go Broadband
TOKYO - The common electric socket will serve as your home's connection to broadband with a new chip developed by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. — doing away with all the Ethernet cables or the hassle of hooking up to a wireless network device. Products are still being developed, but gadgets embedded with the chip from the Japanese manufacturer of Panasonic products can hook up to a broadband network by plugging into the common electrical outlet, company officials said Thursday.

That's because the Osaka-based company has come up with technology to use electric wiring in the home to relay not just electricity but also data.
The technology has been around for some time — including in the United States — but Matsushita's system is unique in that it delivers fast-speed broadband information at up to 170 megabits per second, which is faster than Ethernet.
The advantage is that the lowly electric socket is everywhere. Right now, a broadband outlet still isn't usually available in every room, even in homes that have broadband connections.

In the future home envisioned by Matsushita, people will be able to download and watch high-definition movies in any room of the house that has an outlet.
Attach a special device made by Matsushita into a socket and all you have to do is plug your TV or other gadgets into a socket for instant connection to broadband, which allows for faster transmission of online information than dial-up telephone connections.
Matsushita hopes to eventually sell refrigerators, TVs and other products with the chip already installed.

A network-connected refrigerator may allow users to connect from a mobile phone or laptop to check whether you're low on eggs, for example. Or you may want to turn gadgets off or on, such as your washing machine or air-conditioner, from outside the home.

But for now, an adaptor when plugged into an outlet will allow gadgets with Ethernet connections — even those without the Matsushita chip — to receive broadband.
Matsushita official Tomiya Miyazaki said that even homes with optical fiber connections don't have broadband outlets in every room, and people are tired of setting up gadgets with their home wireless LAN device."Our goal is to have every gadget plugged in this way so that people don't have to even think about connecting it to broadband," he said.

Samples of the technology are being made available to companies, including other Japanese electronics makers, that may wish to use it for their products, Matsushita officials said. A demonstration of the technology will be on show at the CEATEC exhibition that showcases electronic technology, opening near Tokyo next month.

Acceptance of the technology is more likely in Europe and the United States because of stricter regulations over power line use in Japan, according to Matsushita. The company is in talks with the Japanese government to have regulations eased. (AP)

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Today's Roundup

Sun Launches StarOffice 8

Looking for an alternative to pricey Microsoft Office? The new version of StarOffice has just been released, and it offers a compelling alternative. MS Office users should be comfortable with the look and feel, as will existing StarOffice users. What else is new in the office suite?
Check out this story detailing the new product's features and where to download it for free. Plus, article explores the new OpenDocument format and why it is so important.

Next-Generation Blogging Platform Debuts

It's called Project Comet, and popular blogging vendor Six Apart hopes that it will help just about anyone put together a blog integrating text, photos and video. It's designed for more personal blogs, those connecting just a few folks, rather than the bigger blogs intended to serve millions.
Check out this story for product details, shipping time frames and more.

And

PubSub Ranks Blogosphere Differently

How do you rank importance in the blogosphere? A new startup has the answer -- and it involves discounting big links of the moment in favor of more lasting content. It's a new way of looking at what's important, and what isn't, on the Web.
If you read blogs -- and wonder who is just like you -- check out
this story on this new service. It's a fascinating way to try to measure the multiheaded hydra of the Web.



Corrupt BitTorrent Files Spread Dismay

The BitTorrent method for distributing files around the Internet works pretty well -- and has a wide range of legitimate uses. Alas, a few bad apples are spoiling it for everyone. Intentionally corrupted files that fail only at the end of a download have been seeded across the network.
Who's behind it? What types of files are corrupt? This story has the details on this novel way to try to curtail illegal file sharing.


Make Mine a Lite, a MEPISLite

Do you hate to see an old computer go to waste? If you do, you should check out MEPISLite, a fine light-weight distribution for older PCs.
Article

What Google's Latest Wi-Fi and VOIP Moves Really Mean

Now we know why eBay bought Skype. It was a defensive move, to counter Google's upcoming telecommunications network.
That's right, Google's building out a free Wi-Fi network that will enable it to take on telcos and wireless phone providers. Will Google take it to T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon and Orange worldwide? Or is this just a series of "experiments" that Google will eventually back away from?
This analysis goes behind the headlines to help you figure out what the search giant is really up to. Required reading for anyone concerned about the digital world.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Monday Roundup 9/26/2005

Worlds 1st WiFi VOIP Phone

Yeah, it's ugly as hell, but this is just the start. See it!

Free 411 (kinda)

Here's a free 411 service (800-free-411) instead of paying your cell carrier (92 percent of the $8 billion the carriers earn annually on directory assistance calls is profit) you get the same 411 information plus a location based audio ad. I'm going to try it and see how it goes. [via] Link. And, it’s a free call on Skype !

Nice Pocket PC\SmartPhone Radio:

Resco Pocket Radio has just been updated to v1.30 and includes a host of new features and tweaks designed to enhance the user experience. What's new? A brand new skin, better GPRS connection handling, variable buffer length support, two additional connection speeds to improve performance, an optimised volume control, two additional interface controls, and Resco Update technology. And just to add my two cents, this version feels a lot faster than previous versions, so it's worth the update if you already own the product. If you're new to Pocket Radio, you can download a free trial version of v1.30 from Handango. If it's what you've been looking for, then the full version can be purchased for $19.95. (Note: if you order from Resco from now until September 30, you can get it at 25% off - that brings it down to $14.96).

Google Moves Into WiFi Arena

The little search engine that could continues evolving into a Hydra-like monster. It's newest head will chew its way into the wireless internet world, making Google a direct competitor of ISPs and telecom companies. I love it ! Online search leader Google is preparing to launch a wireless internet service, Google WiFi, according to several pages found on the company's website Tuesday. The Google website has several references to Google WiFi but provides few details. One page refers to a product called Google Secure Access, which is designed to "establish a more secure connection while using Google WiFi." A separate page offers a free download of Google Secure Access, carrying the headline: "Your wireless connection is almost ready to use." Google declined to comment. The company launched a sponsored Wi-Fi hot spot in San Francisco's Union Square district in April with a startup called Feeva.

C'mon Kids, Let's Play Programmer

The creator of a board game says computer programming can be fun. A few rolls of the die later you, too, could become a programmer. By David Cohn. More here. Can Bloggers Strike It Rich? Blog network pioneers keep their finances close to the chest, but salary information for scribes behind hit sites like Gizmodo, Fleshbot and Gawker is starting to trickle out. Time to quit your day job and blog for a living? More here.



Thursday, September 22, 2005

South Korea: Leading the Way to Web 2.0?

South Korea, which leads the world in broadband penetration and delivers much faster average data rates than typically found in the U.S., is also a leader in the growth of online communities and grassroots journalism.

According to Business Week, less than four months after its launch, Cyworld, an online community service owned by SK Telecom, Korea’s largest wireless service provider, has attracted nearly a third of South Korea’s population and 90% of those in their late teens and early twenties. Though the service is free, it is already profitable, thanks in part to users’ purchases of “digital currency” with real money. SK plans to launch customized versions in Japan, China, Taiwan and the U.S. by yearend.

In the arena of grassroots journalism, South Korea’s five-year-old OhmyNews, whose motto is “every citizen is a reporter,” has, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “engaged its audience in ways that U.S. print and television news outlets, faced with a steep decline in readers and viewers, only dream of…The site has a cultlike following, among both writers thrilled to see their views spread widely and readers who say they like getting an uncensored, if uneven, version of the news.”

The site gets 1.7 million to 2 million page views each day, a number that shot up to 25 million during the December 2002 presidential election…When reformer Roh Moo Hyun won the tight presidential race, he granted his first domestic interview to OhmyNews — a slap to the conservative corporate daily papers that supported his rival.

The success of OhmyNews can be attributed in part to the high level of public engagement in this heavily wired, young democracy, where less than two decades have passed since military rule ended. Street protests are common, and citizens are eager to speak out online.

The privately held Web site has been profitable since September 2003 and is projected to pull in $10 million this year, [Jean Min, director of the international news division] said.

The site began an English-language edition in May, at english.ohmynews.com, and now has its sights set overseas. Several hundred citizen reporters have already signed up. So far, about 36 percent of English-language edition readers are from North America, 38.5 percent from Europe, and 16.7 percent from Asia outside South Korea.

List your SkypeIn number for directory assistance

Everyone I know, knows that I am a big fan of VOIP and Skype in particular. Here are a few things you can do to add ‘ligitimatcy’ to your SkypeIn numbers:
Publish your SkypeIn numbers though List Yourself. It lists your number in databases used by directory assistance operators in 23 countries. To the operators, this will be just another number for you.
While you're at it, be sure to add your SkypeIn numbers to the US National Do Not Call Registry. (foil those telemarketers).

Improve Image Quality by Upsampling

My cell phone camera is usually the only camera I carry and I’m not ready to give up my 2 megapixel camara\corder just yet!
Galen Fott of PC Magazine has written up a guide to improve your low quality images. Via a process called "upsampling" you can greatly increase the quality of images you've captured with your camera phone, for example:
Upsampling is an image-editing process that enlarges your original photo, making up (or interpolating) additional pixels to fill in the gaps. There are several upsampling techniques, and professionals are divided as to when and how the method should be used. In truth, the best technique for one image might not be ideal for another.
Galen covers a few techniques that you can try out with most image editing software. As well he talks briefly about third-party applications that can do the heavy lifting for you. The techniques are pretty easy to follow and while he asserts that they can't work miracles, they should help.
Upsample Your Images [PC Magazine]

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Swipe here to steal ID...

If Peter Wallace’s recent experience with hotel access cards is an indicator, leaving your electronic hotel room key behind when you check out could leave you open to identity theft...here

Download Opera for Free

According to an announcement just posted on their site, Opera is now free. Opera offers all the standard next-wave features you new expect from a browser: integrated RSS, e-Mail, tabbed browsing and adds a few nice extras like integrated IRC chats. If you've always wanted to try it out, but were put off by the price ($39), now you should.
Opera: Free.

PPC Activesync 4.1 (build4807) Leaked and Stable !

Thanks ! http://en.pdamobiz.com/en/

Feature: Improved USB support Benefit: ActiveSync 4.1 provides the fastest USB transport between your desktop PC and your mobile device to date.

Feature: View Exchange Server Synchronization status on your PC Benefit:

You can now view server synchronization status while synchronizing with a Microsoft Exchange server through your desktop PC's internet connection.

Feature: Synchronization of pictures in Contacts on your mobile device with Outlook Benefit: If an Outlook contact is associated with a picture, ActiveSync now synchronizes the associated picture from Outlook on your desktop PC to your mobile device.

Note: Microsoft Outlook XP or Microsoft Outlook 2003 is required to use this feature.

Feature: Easier to identify friendly device names Benefit: ActiveSync now supports friendly names for devices, making it easier to identify the device that you want to sync with over a Bluetooth or an infrared (IR) connection.

Note: ActiveSync uses your Windows login name to generate an unique device partnership ID. This login name may be broadcast to other users such as with Bluetooth discovery broadcasts.

Feature: Synchronization over a Bluetooth connection with your PC Benefit: ActiveSync 4.1 now enables you to synchronize data with your PC over a Bluetooth connection.

Feature: Integration with Windows Media Player 10 Benefit: Easier to discover, configure, and access Windows Media Player 10 music, video and photo from ActiveSync. Also facilitates automatic synchronization of media even when Windows Media Player 10 is not currently running on a desktop PC.

Feature: Enhanced user interface and enhanced new partnership wizard Benefit: Easier to locate key features, access the most important configuration settings, and configure the device upon first synchronization.

Feature: Synchronize Internet Explorer Mobile favorites to a Windows Mobile-based Smartphone Benefit: Already available on Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC devices, this feature syncs Internet Explorer Mobile favorites on a desktop PC with a Windows Mobile-based Smartphone.

Feature: More robust synchronization with Outlook Benefit: Synchronization with Outlook is now more reliable and robust than before.

Feature: Configure synchronization settings prior to first synchronization, including custom synchronization settings Benefit: Configure all the ActiveSync options you need in a single step.

I'm not sure where it came from. I already checked from micrsoft web site. but the result is not found. It may from somewhere in developer group of microsoft. and here is download link. Ativesync4.1(build4807)

Two billion mobile phones and internet statistics

Some interesting statistics at the links. Society passed a significant milestone earlier this week when the total number of mobile phone connections worldwide passed the 2 billion mark according to Wireless Intelligence, a venture between the GSM Association and reseach company Ovum. The mobile phone entered society less than a quarter of a century ago – it took two decades to pass the one billion connections mark, and just over three years to make it to two billion. Given the world has approximately 6.42 billion people, the mobile phone has now reached approximately 30% penetration of the global population. With the mobile phone increasingly becoming the centre of convergence, it is interesting to note that the Internet is now approaching the one billion user mark, and although it is actually older than the mobile phone, it only began commercialisation just over a decade ago. Logically, as mobile handset functionality grows and includes internet connectivity, there will be a point in the next decade where internet connectivity will begin to catch mobile connections again, though at present the growth of mobile is outsripping all other mediums.

Qwest and Microsoft to Deliver VoIP Services via the Desktop to Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

Business customers to benefit from combined voice, e-mail, collaboration, instant messaging and desktop services.
BOSTON — Sept. 20, 2005 — Today at Fall 2005 VON, Qwest Communications International Inc. and Microsoft Corp. announced that they are working together to provide small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers with a converged communications solution. By integrating the Microsoft® Solution for Enhanced VoIP services with Qwest’s OneFlex™ Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services, Qwest will offer SMB subscribers a comprehensive managed suite of services that combines VoIP, e-mail, Internet access, collaboration, presence, instant messaging and desktop services. More at source
Well, this is interesting and I believe doomed to failure. However, this just adds more legitimacy to VOIP.

Matt

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Quote of the day:

"Experts agree that the best type of computer for your individual needs is one that comes on the market about two days after you actually purchase some other computer." -- Dave Barry

Volunteers rebuild Gulf Coast communications with wireless nets

By John Cox, Network World, 09/16/05 In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a volunteer group of network and wireless experts has moved from outfitting small northeastern Louisiana shelters with wireless Internet access and VoIP phones to preparing a desperately needed 45M bit/sec wireless pipe for the entire relief effort in devastated Bay Saint Louis, Miss. "I've never witnessed destruction like this," says Paul Smith, technology director with the Center for Neighborhood Technology , a Chicago non-profit devoted to making cities more livable. He's one of scores of network volunteers from all over the country who are creating one of the few success stories to emerge from Katrina's demolition of the Gulf Coast's technology infrastructure. As of this week, the emergency management staff of this town of about 8,000 people, plus National Guardsmen; Red Cross workers; and local police, fire and government are relying on a couple of satellite connections, each supporting a 2M bit/sec downlink and just a 512K bit/sec uplink. One of the links had been set up at the Hancock County Medical Center by local U.S. Navy staff. The second was at Stennis International Airport, where the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) is based, coordinating all local, state and federal relief efforts in the area. Outbound GSM cellular voice calls could be made fairly reliably, but inbound calls were overwhelming the battered cell networks, Smith says. By the end of this coming weekend, volunteers are expected to have up and running a 45M bit/sec broadband wireless connection hopping from a Bay Saint Louis water tower west some 76 miles to Hammond, La. "We've been given access by the EOC to pretty much the city's entire infrastructure," Smith says. That means the volunteer team can commandeer one of the water towers outside town for the main backhaul connection, essentially a commercialized, high-powered 802.11a 54M bit/sec radio. These devices, running in the unlicensed spectrum, require line-of-sight alignment. The link will probably make two intermediate hops before terminating in Hammond, La. Spoking out from the water tower, other wireless links on 2.4- and 5.8-GHz bands will carry throughput to 25 shelters around the town, the medical center and most importantly to the EOC. In some cases, Smith expects to deploy a wireless LAN mesh, using open source software from the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network project , and hardware from Metrix Communications: single-board computers in a weatherproof housing, 802.11a/b/g radio cards, and Power over Ethernet to simplify deployment. At each of these sites, PCs, laptops, and a combination of VoIP phones and VoIP-enabled analog phones will be able to access the radio bandwidth through a router or a switch. Local action This basic technology pattern and the entire volunteer wireless effort grew out of the decision by a former Mississippi river towboat captain turned wireless broadband provider to set up a similar arrangement at the Mangham Baptist Church in neaby Mangham, La., about 240 miles northwest of New Orleans. Mac Dearman is CEO of Maximum Access, a wireless ISP (WISP) serving a large rural area around Rayville. The day after Katrina struck, he stopped at the church because it was crowded with cars, which was highly unusual given it was a Tuesday. He found scores of evacuees and realized everyone was trying to use the one phone in the church office. With one of his wireless towers visible nearby, Mac and his brother Jay, a local pastor, set up a premises radio, a couple of spare PCs and a couple of VoIP phones. Evacuees were able to start registering on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Web site, entering their names in the missing people databases, searching for relatives and calling them, at a time when government officials and emergency management crews could hardly communicate with each other. Dearman started getting calls from other area churches, all of them sheltering evacuees and all with the same pressing need for communications. After about four days, Dearman e-mailed colleagues about what he was doing via a listserv at the Wireless ISP Association (WISPA ), which by then was working with another industry group of WISPs, Part-15.org , on ways to use wireless gear and expertise to restore communications. Almost at once donations started flowing in, $1,100 within 30 minutes of Dearman's first e-mail. The next day, Jim Patient, president of Jeffco SOHO, a WISP in House Springs, Mo., showed up with a van loaded with relief supplies and time to spend working alongside Dearman. People kept arriving, from Seattle to Buffalo and everywhere in between, bringing still more supplies, equipment, money and unflagging energy despite the clinging, wet heat and fire ants. After a conference call organized by the FCC on Friday, Sept. 9, Part-15 was given the job of coordinating volunteer efforts, and WISPA's officers threw their support behind that. Both groups used their e-mail lists and Web sites to promote the cause and provide channels for contributions of money and gear. Part-15 members were also streaming into the Gulf Coast area, working with local WISPs to restore their networks and creating new ones. "We can create voice and data services, of any magnitude, within 48 hours of arrival," says Michael Anderson, chairman of Part-15. Two miles of Cat 5 In days, the growing volunteer crew based at Dearman's home had equipped over a dozen shelters in the Rayville area, stringing nearly two miles of Category 5 cable, giving hundreds of evacuees data and voice communications. By Monday, Sept. 13, less than a week after starting, the open source Asterisk IP PBX server being used had handled over 10,000 outbound calls, according to Jeffco's Patient. "And we don't tax the public phone network," he says. "On the public net, you have to call 15 times to get a connection. With our stuff, you get dial tone and you make the call." When Patient returned to one shelter with another PC, one evacuee threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. "She said 'God bless you, I found my brother,' " Patient says. By the middle of last week, about 30 volunteers had moved south to Ponchatoula to work on outfitting additional shelters as well as addressing the Louisiana side of the wireless pipe for Bay Saint Louis. "The move came at the behest of two non-profits working in the Mississippi town: Inveneo, which designs affordable technology for developing countries, and CityTeam Ministries , which works with the homeless and poor in seven U.S. cities." Frustrations There have been plenty of frustrations, too. Local Red Cross chapters repeatedly refused to let WISPA volunteers set up wireless connections to their facilities, according to Dearman, relying instead on a single DSL line in some cases, and in one case on pay phones. The Center for Neighborhood Technology's Smith brought down a batch of Pentium 3 PCs donated to the center, which reloaded them with the Linux operating system and a batch of open source software applications, including the Firefox browser. The computers worked fine for everything except what is arguably the most important application: the registration forms on the FEMA Web site. After hours of troubleshooting, Smith found that FEMA requires the use of Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, and no other. "And it's just a simple HTML form," Smith says. "It doesn't need the use of some special IE-only feature." Valuable hours were spent tracking down, and paying for, Windows licenses. After going 72 hours without a shower, Smith says his odor started frustrating co-workers. They dragged him downtown where something perhaps even more valuable at that moment than wireless broadband had been set up: a semi-trailer rigged up with shower cubicles, a changing area and pressurized hot water. UPDATE: VoIP's Role In Katrina Aftermath UnderstatedText messaging, E-mail, video blogs, and other IP-based applications were instrumental in keeping people connected in the wake of the storm, enthusiasts say.

Cell Phones For Grandpa and Grandma

ASIA : KDDI and Okinawa Cellular are pleased to announce two new au CDMA 1X 3G "Simple Cell-phones", expanding the line-up of au handsets that offer simplicity and convenience for older customers and other people who find cell-phones difficult to use.
The Simple Cell-Phone A101K from Kyocera Corporation is a voice-only handset that can be used with ease by older customers to make and receive calls, while the Simple Cell-Phone A5517T from Toshiba Corporation, which has a large screen and keys, enables e-mail and EZweb to be used with ease, as well as Safe Navi capability.
More HERE

Monday, September 19, 2005

eBay's Mobile Madness Has Method ?

Why are people making up conspiracy theories about eBay buying Skype? I suppose it's the absurd price—but it just may be worth it.
It's all about "presence"—that magic trick of the Web, now reaching into the mobile arena, which allows people to know when to leave you a voice mail, and when to try talking.
And there really isn't anybody better than Skype at this. Except, of course, on mobile phones. Which is exactly where both Skype and eBay want to be.
The tie-in with eBay is on many levels, and, at first sight, presence isn't worth the money.
What we don't have, it seems, is a reliable way of knowing if you're bidding. It's called "sniping" in eBay circles: You start off by bidding $5 for a $50 item, and gradually over the next two days, it creeps up to $30—and then, in the last thirty seconds, people with sniper software pop up and make the winning bid—ping!—just like that, with two seconds to go.
What sniping doesn't do, however, is help the bidding go higher, and that's where Skype presence can come in. If you want to get a feel for how it works, check out Jyve. It's not hard to understand: It takes the Skype API, pulls out the "status" information of a subscriber and shows it somewhere else.
The logical place to put this function is on a Web site. For example, suppose you have sales people online; this lets you accept calls, free, over Skype, simply by putting the little tag on the Web page. Take a call and mark yourself "busy," and nobody else will waste time trying to talk.  Surely, I hear you say, this doesn't justify eBay spending over $2 billion to buy Skype? Actually, I hear a lot of people say it, so you aren't alone. I've been told it's madness on the same scale as the AOL takeover of Time-Warner—and that's another story. It's all too easy to look at AOL-TW financials and say "Cor, blimey, what a cockup!" but unless you can show me that you know what they'd have been without the merger, it doesn't indicate a lot... but that's a digression. Here's the thing... for the last few weeks, Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström has been un-Skype-able. "Where has he gone?" He's been in Taiwan, and his reason for being there is that he wants to get into mobile phones.  We've seen part of his ploy with deals like the European tie-in with ISPs like Broadreach Networks—in which if you show up at Paddington railway station in London, you can pull out your Pocket PC and log onto the Wi-Fi hotspot there. Normally, that costs money. But if all you're doing is Skype, it's free. And you may have noticed that there are rival Skype clients for the Pocket PC that Niklas himself was using when a few months back.
You can now get a soft phone from Cicero (details available here in PDF format), which, reviewers say, is better than the official one that Skype itself will give you. The obvious problem with Skype—or any mobile message service—is finding a way to call people. Presence on your desktop is fine, excellent, even. But it's not so darned easy when you're walking along with your phone in your pocket.  Ordinary mobile SMS (Short Message Service) texts are simple: They beep. You pull the phone out, say: "Ah, the boss..." and switch the thing off so you can pretend you went out of coverage at that moment.
On a Microsoft smart phone, you find yourself automatically signed in to MSN Messenger as soon as you switch it on, which means you can initiate "texts" to other MSN users. If they're in front of a PC screen, they'll see the Messenger flash and will click on it. But if they're buying a hamburger, the screen is likely to flash for ages without their noticing.
You're impressed, I can tell. But let me guess: You still don't think that's a trick worth over two billion bucks.  OK, let's admit here that eBay and Skype are both playing this one close to their chests.  Let's admit that yes, it's perfectly possible for a rich company to do things with its own stock which wouldn't make much sense if it were spending real dollars.
But just for fun, let's assume that Skype and eBay know something we don't. What might that be? The value of a property, said the real estate agent, is "what someone will pay for it." If you want to buy it, you have to make sure someone else doesn't buy it. Who else might have been thinking of buying Skype?
Heck, we went through this some weeks back, and nothing has changed: It's all about location-based marketing. To sell you bagels before you reach the bagel shop, the advertiser needs to know when you step out of the train, off the bus or out of the car park. By the time you're at your desk, it's too late.
It remains to be seen whether LBS (location-based services) are going to be a commercial success. But if they are, a head start of 45 million PC owners, including an awful lot of early adopters in the comms business, could be worth a lot of revenue.
Here's one possible business plan. Suppose you have a targeted advertising system that senses when people are interested in something by reading their e-mail or watching over their shoulders when they go Web surfing. Suppose you called it Advert Sensing, and charged people a small slice of monetary salami each time someone clicked on their adverts.
And suppose you controlled the only version of Advert Sensing that also knew when people were about to walk past the bagel shop ... would you be able to sell that service to someone like eBay, do you think?
Would eBay be happy to pay you a regular stipend for this service, or would they prefer to buy the only version of Advert Sensing that worked on mobile devices?
Yes, I do think Google was interested in buying Skype, and I do think Skype was worth far more to eBay as a purchase than as a service. And where do we go from there?

What do you think ?




How to Google Efficiently

I recently stumbled across a great page on Google search techniques. If you're looking to search Google more efficiently and more flexibly, this site will help. It covers all the basic boolean search operations as well as the more arcane special syntaxes. For example, did you know how to search specifically within the text that describes links? Use inanchor:. Want to filter out older pages? Use daterange:. It's a great and exhaustive overview, well worth a look. HERE

------------------------------------------------------------------Get Ready for Wireless Cable Broadband

Ireland-based Digiweb has started using a Wireless DOCSIS 2.0 technology, that allows consumers to get broadband at 3Mbps download and 512Kbps upload. The company is also bundling free (VoIP) phone number and a phone line with this package that is available in Dublin, Galway, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Dundalk.
Metro technology effectively addresses what has been missing in Ireland to date – genuine telecommunications platform competition. Digiweb has been engaged in research and development of Metro for over a year, combining leading technologies and protocols from the Wireless and Cable Modem industries. Metro is Ireland’s most extensive DOCSIS 2.0 cable modem system delivered on one of the most advanced licensed wireless platforms available today.
Consumers can opt for higher speeds - 4Mbps service with 1Mbps upload or 6Mbps download, 2Mbps upload - if they are willing to pay a premium. The company is also planning to launch a full Digital TV service and home security range using the same platform during 2006. This is one of the first large scale commercial wireless DOCSIS deployment. Several smaller US cable operators are also experimenting with this technology. Arris, a Cable-equipment maker, for instance has been conducting trials with Sterling Cable in San Angelo, Texas. They are using the 700 MHz and 2.5 GHz licensed frequency bands.
Last week, Scientific-Atlanta, announced that it is partnering with Tropos Networks to develop cable-specific equipment for Wi-Fi metro mesh networks. Using wireless DOCSIS to back-haul and using Tropos/SA equipment, the cable guys can become players in the wireless hotspot business, and also get into the municipal wireless broadband business. Of course there is the $20-billion a year cellular back-haul business, which could be another area of focus for cable guys.
It’s not hard to spot why cable operators are attracted to the cellular backhaul market. Estimates from several sources, including CTIA-The Wireless Association, put the total market north of $2 billion this year, and that number is expected to grow to as much as $16 billion by 2009. Between now and 2010, the number of cell towers is expected to grow from 175,000 to 260,000, and the average number of T-1 lines feeding these sites will rise from three or four to 10 or 12, notes Chuck Kaplan, Narad Networks’ chief operating officer. About 99 percent of the existing cell towers are served by T-1s, and cost on average about $400 per month, depending on the market. CED Magazine
Right now they are limited to locations where they can take their wires. However, Wireless DOCSIS can make it easier for cable guys to offer cheap T-1 replacements. I wonder by partnering with cable guys, Sprint-Nextel can use their fixed wireless spectrum, lower their back-haul costs, and help improve Sprint’s 3G coverage. Just wondering out aloud.

Friday, September 16, 2005

Why did eBay pay so much for Skype ?

While many people are still struggling to figure out exactly why online auctioneer eBay Inc. was ready to shell out billions of dollars to buy Internet telephony provider Skype, the company, and many industry watchers, see a wealth of potential in the deal. According to eBay officials, the addition of Skype's technology and its 54 million subscribers was an easy way for the auction provider to create a catalog of new revenue opportunities. In framing the $2.6 billion deal on Monday, eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman said the acquisition will help drive larger numbers of transactions through the auctioneer's core businesses and will immediately add Skype's $60 million in projected 2005 revenue to her company's bottom line. Beyond the immediate opportunities for the two companies to integrate their products, allowing eBay's auction customers to communicate via phone, experts say that the e-commerce specialist also joined the ranks of powerful online firms that will use VOIP (voice over IP) technology to launch a new generation of consumer services. If those experts' theories prove correct, the auctioneer will follow market leaders such as Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., who have all made significant investments in VOIP and entertain similar long-term aspirations.  "What we're seeing here is that voice has grown from a discrete service into an application that can be embedded as part of anything people do online," said Maribel Lopez, analyst with Forrester Research. "If you're using an auction site, playing games, shopping or looking for customer care, voice will be a part of that, and it will also play an increasingly larger role in other emerging services."
According to Lopez, eBay and other online companies that already lay claim to ranks of loyal users will increasingly use VOIP-enabled applications to place themselves at the center of a consumer's online universe. Much like the portal approach favored by Yahoo and others, she said, eBay will use VOIP to extend the reach of its existing services and make itself the focal point of people's Web-based interactions. Further, the analyst predicts that by adding the ability for people to make low-cost phone calls via VOIP, a variety of Web sites will someday become even more important to their users.
"With all these online companies supplying voice, people could move toward more affinity-based Web access," Lopez said. "It might be ESPN or Apple or a music download site or whatever sites you use and identify with the most that will become the center of your online world; VOIP is just something that will be a part of all those services."
Other experts agreed that a more portallike business model could very well lie in eBay's future, based on the Skype deal. Will Stofega, an analyst with IDC, said VOIP opens up so many opportunities for companies like eBay to expand their range of services that it will be hard for business leaders to resist the urge to branch out.
"There really are a limitless number of applications that can be imagined by combining VOIP with other tools, and we are really just at the beginning," he said. "The idea of having some virtual portal in cyber-space where you go to access many valuable services is finally becoming a viable model, and things will get even more interesting once we get past this nascent stage with voice and instant messaging."
Among the applications that experts consider will likely benefit from the addition of voice technology are everything from the VOIP-enabled instant messaging technologies already being developed by companies such as Google and Yahoo to new online gaming forums, customer service systems and e-commerce tools.
According to Yahoo representatives, VOIP is the glue that will help link many of its online tools together to make them even more useful to consumers. For instance, someone using Yahoo's local search engine will someday be able to make a dinner reservation simply by clicking on a VOIP link in a restaurant listing on its site, said Terrell Karsten, a spokesman for the company.
"Yahoo views voice as a platform, an omnipresent capability across all experiences we offer," Karsten said. "By integrating voice with all our other services, things like search, games or music—essentially any place where there are communities that want to be connected—the services we already offer will become more valuable."
eBay spokesman Hani Durzy denied that his firm has portal aspirations, and pointed out that some industry watchers once incorrectly assumed that the company's buyout of PayPal, its successful online payment processing division, was proof that it wanted to become a banking firm. He said that Skype will primarily serve as a catalyst to increasing business on sections of eBay that have struggled to generate volume, such as with auctions for new cars, industrial equipment and real estate.
Durzy said that eBay believes VOIP will have a "huge and rapidly accelerating" impact on its growth, allowing the site's members to communicate more effectively than ever before. For auctions of unique items such as valuable art pieces or vintage automobiles, eBay traders will be able to fill in the blanks that e-mail correspondence could never address, he said.
"This is not about us moving into the Internet telephony space just like PayPal wasn't about moving into banking. It's about doing something that our community wants and needs to further e-commerce," said Durzy. "Our goal is not to become a portal; we're focused on e-commerce and community building."
Despite eBay's ardent claims, a majority of industry watchers appear to remain convinced that there is more at play with the Skype deal than simply facilitating more online auctions. Joe Laszlo, analyst with Jupiter Research, pointed out that it will take a massive number of auction deals to rationalize Skype's $2.6 billion asking price.
The analyst said that one of the most important aspects of adding VOIP technology to existing products and services will be that it helps move eBay and other companies closer to providing video capabilities to users, along with offering the new calling options. He believes that all the major online players will continue to build out their VOIP capabilities in order to push their future services offerings.
"It's an unsurprising trend," said Laszlo. "What this deal helps illustrate is the renaissance of voice efforts from the major portal providers, and it's interesting to see that some new entrants like eBay are trying to get into the market."



Estonia could be the most "wirelessly wired" country in the world !


(image placeholder)

With a growing network of wireless Internet access points across a small country with 1.4 million inhabitants, Estonia could be the most "wirelessly wired" country in the world, according to Ivar Tallo, head of the Estonian e-Governance Academy. Tallo is one of the figures behind the country's rapid move to the forefront of Internet and e-government use in Europe and among the new European Union member states.  The former Estonian parliamentarian and academic is more often seen outside Estonia as an international spokesman arguing that countries don't have to be large, wealthy, or have a long history of freedom and stability to move to the higher ranks of Internet and IT usage. The IDG News Service recently met Tallo on the sidelines of a series of round-table discussions in Brussels to mark the re-launch of the European Parliament's Web site. More here

Thursday, September 15, 2005

For Windows Users: What's running on YOUR PC

Question: With over 30 processes running on your PC at any one time, how do you distinguish between legitimate tasks being performed for the stability of your system and malicious code aiming to compromise security?
Lsass.exe, cideamon.exe: Invisible Threats or Legitimate Processes?While you are reading this article, your computer is most definitely running lsass.exe, several instances of svchost.exe, and alg.exe. Are these invisible threats or legitimate processes? They're legitimate all right but, in some instances, there are serious security breaches that disguise themselves as legitimate processes. Well, here goes our top ten - you'll find the full descriptions on processlibrary.com:
10 Most Common Processes Running on PCs

  1. LSASS.EXE:Process Name: Local Security Authority ServiceProcess Description: lsass.exe is a system process of the Microsoft Windows security mechanisms. It specifically deals with local security and login policies. Read More...

  2. ALG.EXE:Process Name: Application Layer Gateway ServiceProcess Description: alg.exe is a part of the Microsoft Windows operating system. It is a core process for Microsoft Windows Internet Connection sharing and Internet connection firewall. Read More...

  3. SVCHOST.EXE: Process Name: Microsoft Service Host ProcessProcess Description: svchost.exe is a system process belonging to the Microsoft Windows Operating System which handles processes executed from DLLs. Read More...

  4. CSRSS.EXE:Process Name: Microsoft Client/Server Runtime Server SubsystemProcess Description: csrss.exe is the main executable for the Microsoft Client/Server Runtime Server Subsystem. This process manages most graphical commands in Windows. Read More...

  5. SMSS.EXE:Process Name: Session Manager SubsystemProcess Description: smss.exe is a process which is a part of the Microsoft Windows Operating System. It is called the Session Manager SubSystem and is responsible for handling sessions on your system. Read More...

  6. SCVHOST.EXEProcess Name: W32/Agobot-S virusProcess Description: scvhost.exe is a process which is registered as the W32/Agobot-S virus. This Trojan allows attackers to access your computer, stealing passwords and personal data. Read More...

  7. WDFMGR.EXE:Process Name: Windows Driver Foundation ManagerProcess Description: wdfmgr.exe is part of Microsoft Windows media player 10 and above. This process decreases compatibility problems whilst the product is in use. Read More...

  8. CTFMON.EXE:Process Name: Alternative User Input ServicesProcess Description: ctfmon.exe is a part of the Microsoft Office suite. It activates the Alternative User Input Text Input Processor (TIP) and the Microsoft Office XP Language Bar. Read More...

  9. SERVICES.EXE:Process Name: Windows Service ControllerProcess Description: services.exe is a part of the Microsoft Windows Operating System and manages the operation of starting and stopping services. Read More...

  10. SPOOLSV.EXE:Process Name: Microsoft Printer Spooler ServiceProcess Description: spoolsv.exe is a Microsoft Windows system executable which handles the printing process to your local printers. Read More...
Related Article: Do You Really Know What's Running on Your PC?

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Keyboard Shortcuts to Save Time

I try to use keyboard shortcuts rather than the mouse as much as possible to speed things up— so ctrl-W for closing windows, ctrl-O for opening, ctrl-P for printing, etc. Well here are some more windows keyboard shortcuts you may not be aware of:

  1. Use alt-space to open up the contextual menu for the open window. From there, you can not only minimize, but also maximize and close the window.

  2. Use Windows-Key-F to find files.

  3. If you need to step out for some coffee, in XP Windows-Key-L locks the screen and asks for a password.

  4. Use Alt-ESC to cycle through all your open windows.

  5. More : Windows Keyboard Shortcuts [Microsoft]
Hat tip to the entire Lifehacker reader community. Thanks, guys!

New Tech Items

I want one !

The Garmin nuvi is a Personal Digital Travel Assistant that combines a GPS navigator, language translator and travel guide capability, an MP3 player, an audio book player, a currency and measurement converter, a world clock, and a digital photo organizer -- all in one device the size of a pack of cards . One day, no doubt all the functionality we could ever wish for will be available in one device, but until then, companies such as Garmin will continue to recognise market opportunities for suites of functionality that are very compelling to a thin, vertical market – in this case travellers. More here

Consumer Personal Heads Up Displays (HUD) here

Make all sorts of calls : "Cicero Networks Ltd., a leading developer of wireless Voice over IP (wVoIP) solutions and a pulver 2005 company, today announced the launch of CiceroPhone – a converged softphone which supports both VoWi-Fi and Cellular calls. Optimised to run on a range of wireless devices including Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones and PDAs, CiceroPhone enables fixed-line operators and alternative service providers to offer their enterprise and residential customers cost-effective wireless VoIP services." More here

My next cell phone (maybe). Asian phone wizard Pantech and Curitel is throwing in its PT-K1500 as more competition to the ubiquitous RAZR. Pretty, 16.9mm slim and weighing only 80 grams, it’s got MP3 capabilities and sadly for the Asians, only a 1.2 megapixel camera (c’mon, you can do better than that). But the slideout keyboard is totally cool looking and as a whole, it does catch the eye nicely. Comes in black and silver right off the bat though no pricing is out just yet. More pix here

Anonymity Should Be Protected, And Unnecessary

Last week Tony Kontzer expressed concerns over a presentation he heard about the Stealth Surfer drive:
"... a pocket USB storage device that's commercially available, highly affordable, and undoubtedly one of the biggest pains in the rear end ever to hit cybercrime-fighting. Pre-loaded with a Mozilla Firefox browser and an assortment of clever little applications, including one called the Anonymizer that uses SSL encryption to hide all IP activity, the Stealth Surfer allows a PC to be used for browsing, E-mail, and God-knows-what-other online activities with nary a shred of evidence left behind. That's because all the caching, history, cookies, keystrokes, and data is stored on the device. Even the applications run entirely on the device, making them invisible to network administrators. (As you can see, this would also be an extremely handy device for anyone wanting to job hunt on company time.)
"A few cops, images of evidence walking away dancing in their heads as they listened, let out sighs and whews and sheeshes and any other low-key indicator of shock and dismay they could muster."
I'm sufficiently mistrustful of authority that I'm glad that gadgets like the Stealth Surfer exist.
By definition, anonymity is used to hide behavior that the user doesn't want other people to know about. In a free society, those activities are usually immoral and sometimes illegal. They can include criminal activities such as child pornography, terrorism, and drug trafficking. They also include activities that are legal but that many people would like to eliminate, such as viewing porn involving adults.
So it's easy to see why some people would view anonymity as a threat.
But even in a free society, anonymity is often used to protect beneficial activities. People go online to learn about addictions, sexual problems, diseases they fear they might have. We might prefer that they learn about these things through more open channels--we might prefer that the teenager who feels unwholesome sexual longings go to a parent, guardian, clergyman, or teacher to discuss the issues--but sometimes people are afraid. And anonymity can help a person feel less afraid, less alone, and get the courage to step forward and face a problem head-on.
So far, I've been talking about anonymity in free societies. Totalitarianism brings another layer of complication into the discussion. Anonymity is essential to dissent and planning political change in totalitarian regimes. Here in America, we take for granted the right to go on the Internet, denounce powerful people as thieves, liars, and cowards, and proceed on with our day without fear of any recrimination at all (except for nastygrams from people who like the leadership, of course). But in other countries, you can get thrown into prison for engaging in political speech the government doesn't like. In those nations, anonymity is an essential tool for political change.
Moreover, the ability to be anonymous, if we so choose, is what helps keep free societies like America free.
So I for one am glad to know that there are tools out there like Stealth Surfer. Like the earthquake survival kit in the garage, I have no plans to ever use the thing, but it's comforting to know it's there if I ever need it.

Monday, September 12, 2005

Copyright and eMail (or another way how you and\or your company can get sued for big Buck$

Have you ever read an article on-line, liked it and forwarded it to a few friends or colleagues? You may be committing copyright infringement. From the Star Tribune, a timely caution about sending copyrighted material through e-mail.
Ask Legg Mason, the investment management firm, which was hit with a nearly $20 million judgment for repeatedly violating the copyright of a newsletter publisher. The company systematically forwarded electronic copies of the newsletter, without permission, to employees...For every Legg Mason whose case goes to trial, there are many more companies, large and small, that might have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, more or less, when they are caught redistributing newsletters or articles, by e-mail or otherwise, without the publishers' permission.
Don't you wish those darned "caring angel" e-mails were copyrighted, now?
More below:
The Next Gotcha [Star Tribune]

Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization

September 12, 2005 The Professional Inventors Alliance USA has awarded the "American Innovation & Invention Book of the Year" for 2005 to "Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization" by author Pat Choate. A strong advocate of tight intellectual-property protections, Choate, an economist and Ross Perot's 1996 vice presidential running mate, says that international forums and domestic laws are already in place to stop intellectual property crimes. However, American policymakers are lacking the willpower to stem an impending economic, scientific, and technological decline. September 12, 2005 The Professional Inventors Alliance USA has awarded the "American Innovation & Invention Book of the Year" for 2005 to "Hot Property: The Stealing of.....

Windows Vista End User Features

An examination of Microsoft internal documentation this weekend reveals that the software giant is prepping a number of major end-user features for Windows Vista (codenamed Longhorn), many of which had not yet previously been revealed. Here's a rundown of many of the features we can expect in the various Windows Vista product editions.As noted in that previous article, Microsoft is created 7 versions of Windows Vista for end users (9 if you count the N Editions that will target European markets). To differentiate these products, the company is carefully matching feature sets to the expected markets that will adopt each product version.Two low-end versions of Windows Vista, Starter Edition and Home Basic Edition, will not feature the much-vaunted Aero user interface that will adorn all other Vista versions. Instead, these versions will utilize a lower quality, XP-like user interface that is more appropriate for the low-end hardware that infrequent PC users and those emerging markets might utilize. Starter Edition and Home Basic Edition will also lack the rolodex, tab previews, and task bar previews features that other Vista editions will offer.A new version of Internet Information Services (IIS), now called Microsoft Windows Web Server, will be included with the business oriented versions of Windows Vista only (Professional, Professional N, Small Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions). These versions will also include other unique features, such as a Windows Fax client, and the ability to join an Active Directory domain. However, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition will be able to join new home-oriented domains offered by a new Longhorn Server version codenamed Quattro. Thanks Bink. More at source.

VOIP Company Vonage Reaches a Million Subscribers

Although I prefer  Skype, This is worthy news:
Internet phone operator Vonage said Tuesday it now has more than a million customers, marking another milestone for the nascent industry of selling phone calls over Internet connections.
The 4-year-old firm, based in Edison, N.J., smashed the million mark on the strength of its present advertising campaign, which Jupiter Research analyst Joe Laszlo said he considers to be among the top two currently on the Internet.
Vonage Holdings Corp. is the largest of the new breed of phone operators selling VOIP (voice over IP), which is software that digitizes phone calls so they can travel over the Internet just like e-mail.
Calls to other VOIP users are typically free, while calls to and from traditional land line phones or cell phones cost a few pennies a minute.
Typically, VOIP plans cost $25 a month for unlimited dialing, about half of what local phone operators charge to make calls over their own networks, which use more expensive circuit-switched technology invented more than 130 years ago.
There are other VOIP operators with more than one million subscribers, but none have reached the milestone the way Vonage has.
One notable member of the million subscriber club is Skype Technologies SA, a Luxembourg-based VOIP operator founded by the creators of Kazaa, the peer-to-peer software for swapping files.
But Skype's achievement is literally only half of Vonage's. About 1.2 million people subscribe to SkypeOut, which allows Skype users to make phone calls from their PCs to any phone for a few cents a minute. SkypeIn, a tandem service for receiving calls, is sold separately.
Vonage has also managed to grow—it has doubled subscribers during the last six months—despite serious challenges from major U.S. cable operators Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp. and Comcast Corp.
In the past two years, all of these cable operators have embraced VOIP technology as a way to sell phone service to their broadband or cable TV customers.
But once again Vonage stands out. Both Cox and Comcast said they each have more than 1 million phone subscribers, but the vast majority still use a network of circuit switches rather than VOIP technology. Time Warner Cable, which uses VOIP exclusively, has about 614,000 subscribers. Cablevision has about 250,000 VOIP subscribers.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Invention of the Century !

Are you tired of answering the phone only to find a telemarketer on the other end and wish you could make them as angry as you feel? Now you can build your own answering system that carries on a virtual conversation with the telemarketer and drives them nuts. The Telecrapper 2000 (TC2K) is a computerized system designed to both intercept incoming Telemarketing calls on the first ring, and then carry on a virtual conversation with the telemarketer. The site also features phone calls the device has carried out with telemarketers.

the disposable organizer

Need to go beyond just a simple sheet to jot some notes down ?
Create a little organizer just from a printed sheet of paper.” Pop over to the PocketMod site here to build an 8-page organizer out of a number of pre-built templates including daily, weekly and monthly calendars, to-do and shopping lists, lined sheets and grids. You’ll need a Flash player to run the interactive but easy-to-use design program. Print out your sheet and follow the instructions to assemble your organizer. It’s basically a fold, fold, snip, fold and you’re done. A sweet solution for people who are looking for simple lists that go beyond the standard blank sheet of paper. Oh, and it’s free and easy to use…

Thursday, September 08, 2005

For the uninitiated (or What the hell is RSS)


RSS is Really Simple Syndication, a name for content feeds to which Internet uses can subscribe through various content "readers" and track updates at a wide range of Web sites.
Some in the industry are complaining that Microsoft and Google should exert their considerable influence elsewhere and leave this technology alone. The hue and cry, to some degree, is understandable, given concerns about the ever-expanding influence of these two companies.
Yet, the complaints are short-sighted, given the positive impact these moves can have.
Proponents can talk all they want about the benefits and value of RSS, yet the technology to many, many Web users remains mysterious and dense (and that's why I felt the need to define it above); subscription pages have to spell out in excruciating detail what RSS is, how it works, how to subscribe, and so on. One of the reasons RSS isn't used more widely -- an assertion based on our internal knowledge of the clicks we get from RSS feeds -- is that it's currently too difficult to figure out and too difficult to use.
Indeed, market researcher Nielsen/NetRatings found in a survey of blog readers released this week that 66% either didn't understand RSS or had never heard of it. An additional 23% understood the technology, but didn't use it.
To the nonfaithful, it's all but impossible to look at icons or links that say "RSS" or "XML" and have any clue what a given Web site is offering them. I suspect strongly that if InformationWeek, for example, were to buck the common industry practice of posting icons that say "RSS" or "XML" and instead used "Our content feeds" or "Subscribe to our content," our readers would be much more likely to at least check out our page that explains our feeds. As Web publishers, we should use concrete, simple terms to explain our services to readers. Then, in turn, readers would be less intimidated by an RSS sign-up page and more likely to try out our feeds.
The more simple RSS is -- right down to giving it a label that means something to all manner of Web users -- the more its value can be unlocked for a broader audience. In the end, the RSS die-hards may not like seeing this technology morph into something with a different name, but even they should recognize it would lead to more widespread acceptance.

End of day Bits of News

States Expanding Push For Internet TaxesThirteen states plan to start encouraging online businesses to collect sales taxes. Right now, it's the customer's responsibility to pay.

Brits Pack Laptops To Beat Vacation BoredomBrits with time on their hands turn to their laptops to watch DVDs, listen to music, surf the Web, and E-mail their pals. When that gets dull, they have a blazing fight with their partner, according to a study.

10-Minute Guide To Network SecurityKeeping your network secure is a time-consuming job. But it needn't be that tough--for help, follow our 10-minute guide to get you started on keeping your network safe.

China Eyes 'Creative' Industries In IP PushA recent influx of technology-related funding provides a look into where the country is trying to go, miles away from its reputation for low-cost manufacturing.

China Confirms Plan To Create $6 Billion Electronics VentureThe country will merge China Electronics Corp. and the China Great Wall Computer Group Co., which make integrated circuits, hard drives, monitors, power supplies, cell phones, and radar systems. CEC also owns chip foundry Shanghai Huahong-NEC Corp. The combined assets will total $6 billion.
How To Protect Yourself Against Domain-Name HijackersCompanies overlook the threat of getting their domain names stolen from under them. Here's how to protect yourself.

Banks Abandoning SSL On Home Page Log-InsSome of the biggest banks have abandoned the practice of posting their online account login screens on SSL-protected pages in an effort to boost page response time.

Battle of the Titans !

An intriguing but eventually vicious three-way battle is emerging between Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google for net supremacy. How each is dealing with the competitive threat says a lot about their individual company culture, management and DNA. (If you're wondering why I didn't include AOL, it's because their business seems to be moving in the wrong direction, rapidly atrophying with nearly 900,000 fewer subscribers last quarter.)Microsoft:Microsoft has recently made a concerted effort to hire even-keeled, friendly liaisons within the community, giving them the authority to speak for the company and the authorization to pay off those that might speak negatively of Microsoft. Behind the scenes, however, it's still the same team running the show - management that has been twice convicted of illegal actions against competitors, and that sports a stunning lack of ethical boundaries. Recent court documents from a fresh legal battle over an employee jumping ship to Google report Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer throwing chairs and screaming many unprintable words, capped off with, ″I'm going to %$#@ kill Google!″The only way Microsoft knows how to operate is with an enemy in their crosshairs. A few years back, Linspire (then Lindows) was the recipient of Ballmer's profanity-laden tirades. But Microsoft's attention has since been somewhat diverted from the ambiguous threat of Linux - which doesn't present a singular target - to Google, whose O's make convenient bull's eyes. Look for Microsoft to employ the same approach they have used historically to fight competitors. First they will use technology barriers within new versions of their operating system to dramatically favor their own products and discredit competitors. With previous competitor DR DOS, they embedded intentional incompatibilities, spurious error messages and bogus issues of compatibility. With Netscape, they deeply embedded their own products and falsely claimed they could not be removed. Expect much of the same with Vista, their newest OS.In addition, look for exclusionary contracts that preclude computer manufacturers from pre-installing links and software from Yahoo! and Google on PCs they sell. With the same unethical management in place, a legal process that takes years to litigate, and inevitable legal penalties only representing a tiny fraction of profits, you'd be crazy not to expect Microsoft to extend the same behavior you've seen over the last two decades into the next.Yahoo!: Boxed in by the brainiacs at Google and the massive distribution and questionable ethics of Microsoft, Yahoo! would seem to be at a slight disadvantage in the net supremacy game. However, Yahoo!'s management has matured at a remarkable rate and has an acute awareness of the behemoths they must operate against. Yahoo! has taken a unique strategy to track movements of competitors. Employees are asked to submit tidbits of information they hear to management, and the company coalesces these nuggets of knowledge into a more comprehensive documents, which are then circulated more widely to help employees understand possible moves Microsoft and Google might make. Because they are often competing for the same talent, working with same suppliers, and receiving visits from the same companies, this ″due diligence″ is remarkably accurate. Yahoo! often takes meetings with companies they have no interest in doing business with just to scrape them for data about the industry and what Google or Microsoft might be up to. It's rare when Yahoo! isn't aware well in advance of moves made by Microsoft, or especially those made by their Bay Area neighbor Google.Just knowing where your competitors are going isn't enough, of course: you still need to compete. Yahoo! is combining Internet-based services and media like nobody else. (Watch for an amazing rich web interface for Yahoo! mail that has Silicon Valley buzzing.) They've even rented the massive MGM office in Los Angeles, which gives them several hundred thousand square feet of office space to house executives moving down the coast to be close to Hollywood. Google: The youngest company of the bunch lacks the ferocity of Microsoft and the process of Yahoo!, but is maturing quickly. Astonishingly, three years ago some at Google believed Microsoft wouldn't be interested in their business. That naiveté was undoubtedly erased when Microsoft announced intentions to directly compete with their MSN search engine. Google is much more focused on continuing to innovate rather than religiously tracking Yahoo! and Microsoft and countering their moves. They do have an internal ″industry″ mailing list where noteworthy news articles are distributed internally, but nothing as formal as Yahoo! or Microsoft has. Screenshots of the early versions of Vista were circulated on this list, heightening the awareness of the power Microsoft has to impede Google on the desktop. What Google has done is open a local office right in Microsoft's backyard of Kirkland, Washington, to recruit talent. To date, they have convinced more than 100 employees to leave Microsoft and jump to Google, and virtually none have migrated in the other direction. Microsoft is fighting back and sued Google over one of those recruits. It is that lawsuit that revealed Ballmer's tantrum towards Google. Summary:It's impossible to predict who will ultimately prevail in the battle for the net. You can expect some nasty-but-effective tactics from Microsoft (with legal apologies and payouts years in the future). I expect Yahoo! to continue to forge media relations, which they will then leverage to build some exclusive products and services to offer their subscribers. And from Google, look for loads of experimentation and innovation in a wide range of areas seeking that next major profitable opportunity beyond the search engine.

Skype is on a roll

Skype Launches Its Voice Services Program, Creating New Revenue Opportunities for Content Providers Worldwide
(Luxembourg 8 September 2005) In a nutshell, Skype Voice Services Program lets you offer your services through Skype calls. They can be free to callers, or you can choose to charge any price you set. In case of chargeable services, the caller pays using his/her Skype Credit. For an example, try tellmeonskype.
You can build any kind of Voice Services that is in line with our terms. Just some examples:

  1. computer helpline

  2. news service

  3. horoscope of the day

  4. voice auctioning

  5. sports score announcements

  6. international delivery tracking

  7. translation

  8. Skype helpline — if you’re a old-time Skype user and expert, earn a little by helping novices!
Just imagine if you are calling a remote foreign hotel where they don’t speak particularly good English. However, you know that you can find a translator for that language in the Skype Voice Services Directory, so you just conference her in using Skype’s Conference Call feature, and get your thing done. You may pay just a few cents for the call, but for the translator, it is a convenient way to earn a decent buck if she gets many calls like this.
We have partnered with industry leaders who provide us and you their cutting-edge Voice Services platform. You can do lots of cool things there, like build your service using IVR, menus, voice recognition and many other features. Check out the Voice Services page on skype.com for more details.
It is interesting to note that while chargeable calls are nothing new, they have usually been limited to specific countries and regions. In Skype Voice Services, there are no such restrictions, so this is one step closer to truly global communications and services and building a comprehensive Skype services ecosystem.
For more info, see the page on skype.com and the Voice Services FAQ. You can expect more news as the project matures later this year.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Hilarious Domain Mispronouncings (or how Pen Island custom pens became Penis Land)

“Whether you’re looking for a long and skinny pen, a thick pen, a fountain pen that squirts ink, or even a black pen, we have just the one for you.” Is it just me? I’m on the floor laughing my ass off !
Hilarious Domain Name Mispronouncings
What do you check before you buy a domain name. Spelling of course. Trademarks. What else?
Sometimes a domain name phrase is intended to be pronounced in one way, but if you look at it differently, it can be pronounced in a another, often hilarious, way. The classic example that is often mentioned on the internet is a site called Experts Exchange, where techies gather to answer each others’ questions. The founder of the site picked out what seemed like the very nice domain name of ExpertsExchange.com, and it became very popular. But, early on, he found out that some were reading the the domain name differently, mispronuncing it as ExpertSexChange.com. LOL!
Seriously: Think before you register your domain !
More here

Google Numbers !

A terrific Google page that summarizes all the specialized number formats that Google automatically identifies.

  1. UPS tracking numbersexample search: "1Z9999W99999999999"

  2. FedEx tracking numbersexample search: "999999999999"

  3. USPS tracking numbersexample search: "9999 9999 9999 9999 9999 99"

  4. Vehicle ID (VIN) numbersexample search: "AAAAA999A9AA99999"

  5. UPC codesexample search: "073333531084"

  6. Telephone area codesexample search: "650"

  7. Patent numbersexample search: "patent 5123123" Remember to put the word "patent" before your patent number.

  8. FAA airplane registration numbersexample search: "n199ua". An airplane's FAA registration number is typically printed on its tail.

  9. FCC equipment IDsexample search: "fcc B4Z-34009-PIR". Remember to put the word "fcc" before the equipment ID.
Search By Number [Google]Google Fedex Doortags [Lifehacker]

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Your modem; what's it doing ?

No-one is above the threat posed by rogue diallers, it seems: Microsoft's top security man in the UK recently found himself with a whopping BT bill Rogue diallers have claimed a high-profile victim — Microsoft UK's chief security advisor Ed Gibson. Speaking to ZDNet UK on Tuesday, Gibson revealed that he has recently been hit by a £450 bill from BT after his computer was infected with a rogue dialler. Rogue diallers are malicious applications that hijack an Internet connection and redirect it to a premium rate number, often based abroad. They only affect dial-up connections, but some broadband users have been hit because they also have dial-up connections as a back-up.Gibson was speaking at the London "eConfidence — Spam and Scams" conference, at which he delivered a passionate attack on rogue diallers. "I'm so perturbed about the whole area of rogue diallers… If we don't make a concerted effort to make the Internet more secure, it will be a very different place in the future," Gibson told the conference. Gibson later revealed that he had attempted to contact ICSTIS which regulates the premium-rate number industry, but they had been unable to help him. BT has insisted that he pay the bill, Gibson said. In March BT launched a service to protect users against rogue diallers, after being besieged with complaints from users who had received massive phone bills. And last month, ICSTIS announced new powers to prevent the criminals who run rogue dialler scams from getting their money. Gibson was appointed as Microsoft's chief security advisor in the UK in May this year and took up his post in July. He has previously worked for the FBI as an assistant legal attaché for the UK.
More here Personally : I can't believe he's even got a modem plugged in to a phone line!!!!

Katrina I.T. Related News

Cell operators work to restore networks in New Orleans09/06/05 Mobile operators continue their efforts to restore service in the area hit by Hurricane Katrina. T-Mobile appears to be offering the most coverage in New Orleans, a city that is still underwater and dangerous to enter.
Text messaging and Katrina09/06/05 Prior to last week, we thought text messaging was the answer to a question no one asked and had no real value in the U.S. Why type at someone when...
Katrina aftermath IT news09/06/05 As with every big story, there's an IT angle to be had. Check out our Katrina Aftermath IT News page - updated daily - where we've gathered all the IT-related...
Fiber-optic research net gains steam09/05/05 Despite a setback caused by Hurricane Katrina, National Lambdarail, a nationwide fiber-optic network designed to facilitate advanced network technology research, is gaining support.
Katrina tests net service providers09/05/05 While most telecom facilities in the hardest-hit Gulf areas were wiped out during and after Hurricane Katrina, it wasn't for lack of some extraordinary efforts by skeleton carrier crews who remained behind to keep equipment online as windows shattered ar
Computers and water don't mix09/05/05 I have a friend who works for a builder of $1 million custom homes in the Dallas area. Her constant complaint: "I hate water." Leaks cause her more problems than any other service call.
Gulf Coast storm and floods challenge IT09/02/05 At 2 a.m. on Aug. 27, two days before Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Tim Babco grabbed a red binder containing the latest version of SCP Pool Corp.'s disaster recovery plan, put his dog and cat in the car, locked up his house and drove ...
Beware Katrina relief spam09/02/05 Just like after the tsunami disaster, 'Net experts are warning generous souls to be on the lookout for Hurricane Katrina relief spam that lead to phishing sites. USA Today reports...
AP offers NOLA satellite images09/02/05 News about the state of specific New Orleans neighborhoods is at a premium as family and friends try to determine if there's anything left of their homes or property. The...
IT staffers at Starwood hotels begin the road back after Katrina09/01/05 With its three hotels in New Orleans out of commission in the wake of deadly Hurricane Katrina, IT workers at Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc. are focusing on moving data systems elsewhere so they can get critical operations up and running ...
IT director lends a hand in Thailand08/30/05 Hurricane Katrina's devastation this week has brought home the power of Mother Nature to many in the U.S. Earlier this summer, Senior IT Director K.C. Tomsheck got a first-hand look at Mother Nature's force abroad. He and eight colleagues from ...
Cell phone service takes a big hit in hurricane states08/30/05 In the destructive aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of repair crews from Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless are on standby to get into ravaged parts Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to repair waterlogged cell phone systems and equipment.
Red Cross looks to IT for post-Katrina recovery08/30/05 Once Hurricane Katrina has taken a final swipe at Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, the American Red Cross will begin quickly deploying satellite communications and other IT systems in affected areas to help storm victims begin piecing their lives ...