HERE IS THE REAL WORLD: 04/06/08

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Microsoft Sets Three Week Deadline for Yahoo! In Public Letter

An anonymous reader writes "In a letter sent today, Microsoft writes to Yahoo's board of directors to tell them that they would like to 'negotiate a definitive agreement on a combination of our companies.' Their message is a combination of friend and foe: 'If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders.'"

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Vista is Slower, But XP Is Still Dying

An anonymous reader writes "Though the Redmond software giant may be extending the lifetime of XP on low-end laptops, the end is nigh for the aging OS. That extension makes perfect sense, as recent studies have shown XP is far faster than Vista across a number of platforms. Still, Microsoft is 'sticking to its guns' when it comes to drop-dates for most other uses of the XP operating system. 'There are several dates that apply, but the one you're probably thinking of is the June 30 deadline that Dix referred to. That's the last day when large computer makers -- the Dells, HPs and Lenovos of the world -- will be allowed to preinstall Windows XP on new PCs. It also marks the official end of XP as a retail product.'"

How Microsoft Can Fix Their "Stodgy" Image

Recently, brandchannel.com asked about 2,000 people a set of questions regarding popular brands. Questions like "What brand do you think is truly 'green'?" and "What brand can you not live without?" Presented on their Web page are the top five answers for each question, with percentages and some choice quotes. Apple came out on top in many of the categories, with many lavish quotes about how wonderful the company and its products are. Microsoft didn't fare so well, "winning" only those questions that have a negative connotation, such as "If you could rebrand any brand, what brand would it be?"

Of course, this is about as poorly constructed a poll as you can get. It's an online survey of site readers with a relatively small sample group, which means fans (or employees) of any company could easily flood the system and skew results. Still, it holds some merit. If Apple fans flooded the online polling, the results might not be accurate, but it then begs the question: Why doesn't Microsoft (or Ford, or Coca-Cola) have the kinds of fans that will flood online surveys in its favor? In truth, I think Microsoft's brand power certainly has languished in recent years, and the trend is probably continuing to sour as its competitors in multiple areas (Apple, Firefox, Sony, etc.) continue to pressure the company with market-share gains.

All hope is not lost, though. Microsoft is a powerful brand that is certainly known by a huge percentage of the populace, and making sure the brand conjures good thoughts and feelings can have a big payoff. Here are five ways Microsoft can turn their brand around.

Five Ways to Fix Microsoft's Brand Image

1. Cooler advertising: Microsoft shows all the time with their internal corporate videos that they have a sense of humor. Their ads in magazines and on TV are the very definition of boring, though. I can just see a room full of marketing executives analyzing ads, making sure there's nothing that would offend anyone even a little, scouring ads to make sure every ethnic and racial group is represented, going over a "bullet point list" of product features that need to be mentioned, etc.

There are too many cooks in the kitchen. Let one creative type make an "image" ad that doesn't discuss any product features, with a single goal in mind: Make people smile (or even laugh) and associate that feeling with a Microsoft product usually not tied to such feelings like Office or Vista. Here's a hint for the marketing people: Showing other people smiling and laughing in your commercial is not the same thing

2. Put the old guys away: Never trot out Steve Ballmer or Ray Ozzie at a press conference, convention keynote, or product demo where there are going to be lots of users and press in attendance. Save those guys for the corporate meetings and business briefings. I know they're high-ups in the company, but they're not great public presenters for an age where thousands of potential customers are going to watch streaming video online of their pitch. The company has more dynamic, youthful execs (lower-level execs). Train them to be good presenters and have a little fun on stage. Conference presentations are no longer seen by just the few hundred people in the room, they're seen by your customers. You'd think a company that keeps trying to launch a YouTube competitor would get that.

3. Xbox marks the spot: Hey, the Xbox brand is great. People love their Xbox 360s. People all over the country camped out overnight in the November cold to get 'em—how many other Microsoft products got that kind of reception? Not Vista, that's for sure. The Xbox brand resonates better with its customers than the Microsoft brand not only because it's an entertainment device, but because the experience is totally different from other Microsoft products.

4. Open the Kimono: Isn't it odd that Apple, one of the most closed, hostile, and secretive computer companies around, is so well-loved? How do you combat that? By going the other way! Actually, Microsoft has opened up a lot in the last several years, letting its employees blog about what they like (within reason) and demoing cool new technologies like Worldwide Telescope. But Microsoft works on a ton of cool things that it never shows anyone. And it works on them too long, letting more nimble companies beat them to the punch.

5. Make Windows 7 the First Non-Windows OS: Your marketing execs will never let this fly, but you shouldn't listen to them. The next Windows after Vista should not be called "Microsoft Windows ______." Drop the Windows moniker from your next OS. Seriously! Sure, your marketing guys will jump up and argue about all the "brand equity" in Windows. Bullcrap. A past history of zillions of sales does not automatically equal future success.

What "equity" there is in the Windows brand is not positive, it's baggage. The expectation is that a "Windows" OS is not secure (even though that's not entirely true), hard to use (again not true), buggy (okay, sort of), crashes a lot (that can certainly happen), and so on. Yes, everyone knows "Windows." And they hate it. It's time to re-brand the most valuable part of your business. Nothing will tell the public, and corporations, that Microsoft is "moving on to something better" and that "maybe this time will be different" more than moving to what would be the company's first non-Windows OS since the days of DOS.

It gives you an automatic excuse for any incompatibilities that pop up, and you get to claim "compatible with most of your Windows applications!" like it's some sort of novel thing. It gives you license (and imperative) to drop decade-old Windows UI conventions in favor of something better. But most importantly, it gives every potential customer in the world hope. Hope that the next operating system won't do any of the bad things they don't like about their current one. It's going to be ten times harder to convince people of that if the next OS, regardless of what it is, carries the Windows name.

Intel to Release Anti-Theft Technology for Laptops

The technology, which appears to render both the processor and storage inaccessible, aims to ease concerns over loss of valuable corporate or personal data.

Intel plans to release an anti-theft technology for laptops during the fourth quarter of this year, but the company isn't offering many details yet.

Called Intel Anti-Theft Technology, the new capability will be added to Intel's Active Management Technology, which is part of Centrino vPro and allows IT managers to remotely access and configure computers.

In the event of theft, the technology will "basically lock the system, lock the disk, so people cannot be maliciously using and getting the data," said Dadi Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's Mobility Group, according to a transcript of his presentation at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Shanghai.

The technology, which appears to render both the processor and storage inaccessible, aims to ease concerns over valuable corporate or personal data falling into the wrong hands when laptops are lost or stolen, according to Perlmutter.

The problem of lost data on stolen and missing laptops is a long-standing problem and a growing concern, particular for its impact on personal data.

In December 2006, Boeing reported the theft of a laptop that contained Social Security numbers, names and home addresses of 382,000 current and former employees. The laptop was stolen from an employee's car, the company said. The incident was particularly noteworthy because it pushed the number of U.S. data breach victims past the 100 million mark -- nearly one-third of the population at that time.

Since then, there have been many other incidents of stolen laptops carrying sensitive data, such as the December 2007 theft of a laptop containing sensitive information on 268,000 Minnesota-region blood donors.

The anti-theft technology being developed by Intel would presumably give IT managers a way of protecting this data once a machine has gone missing.

Besides Intel, several other companies are working on the anti-theft technology, including Lenovo Group, McAfee, Fujitsu Siemens Computers and Phoenix Technologies.

More details of the technology will be made available when it is closer to being released, Intel said.

Google Brings Offline Access to Docs and Apps

Google is rolling out a much-awaited feature for its hosted applications: the ability for people to use them even when they aren't connected to the Internet.

The first application to get this offline access will be the word processor, said Ken Norton, Google Docs product manager. "The design goal is to create a seamless experience, with or without an Internet connection," he said.

Over the next three weeks or so, Google will turn on the feature for all word processor users, giving them the ability to view and edit documents while offline. During the same time period, Google Docs' spreadsheet will gain offline ability for viewing, but not editing, documents.

Google Docs' third component, an application to make slide presentations, will remain for now without offline access. However, Google has plans to extend the offline access to it and to other hosted services in the Google Apps suite, of which Docs is part. Apps also includes Gmail, Calendar, Talk and others.

"Offline access of [hosted] apps is the next step in making the Web as a whole a lot more reliable," Norton said.

Solving Objections to Web-Based Apps

Expectation for offline access in Docs and Apps had been building since Google introduced its Gears open-source technology in May of last year. Until now, Google had only built Gears offline functionality for its Reader RSS feed manager.

By allowing Docs and Apps users to work offline, Google is addressing one of the biggest objections to Web-hosted applications. So far, offline access has required that users export their Docs files to third-party file formats, like Microsoft Office.

Google Docs, a free software suite available to anyone with a Google account, is aimed primarily at consumers, while Google Apps, designed mainly for workplace use, has been adopted mostly by small organizations.

However, Google has lofty aspirations that Apps -- with Docs in tow -- will extend its reach into medium-size and large companies, and to that end has been boosting its security and administration features, particularly in its fee-based Premier version.

Offline access to documents is "one of the big things they need to be competitive in the enterprise. It's a critical step in gaining that appeal," said Rebecca Wettemann, a Nucleus Research analyst.

As Google extends offline access to more of its applications and services, it should help organizations understand how this capability can be useful in the real world, Wettemann said. It's important that the introduction of offline access doesn't remain in the realm of a cool novelty, she said.

"Google should take the opportunity to talk about what are the best practices and use cases in which this approach makes sense and delivers greater value than traditional desktop applications," Wettemann said.

A Conceptual Shift

With Docs and Apps, Google is pushing a conceptual shift in productivity and collaboration software that so far has been at odds with Microsoft's. Google's view is that software should be hosted by the vendor in order to reduce the customers' cost and the complexity of installing and maintaining it.

Google and other hosted-software proponents also point out that their applications make it easier for users to share documents and collaborate on them, because the files are hosted on a central server and not locked in users' PCs.

Microsoft has been criticized for being slow to adapt its software for this Web-hosted model. However, the company lately has been taking steps to recover lost ground with an approach that tries to mix the best of both worlds, with enhancements to Office Live Workspace, which is still in beta, or test, mode. Along the way, Microsoft wants to make sure it retains the dominance it has had in the office productivity market with its ubiquitous Office suite.

Gears is a browser plug-in that can store files and data locally, as well as run JavaScript applications without a server connection. It's this architecture that will allow Docs users to work on their word processing documents if their Internet connection drops or if they're somewhere without one, such as an airplane.

To access their Docs files offline, users need only install the Gears plug-in and type in the regular Google Docs URL: docs.google.com.

Work done offline will be automatically synchronized with the Google Docs servers when users connect to the Internet.

As an open-source technology, Gears can be used by developers outside of Google.

The offline access will be turned on "in batches" over the coming weeks in consumer Docs accounts and in the administrator consoles of Apps.

Gears is currently supported in Internet Explorer 6 and above and Firefox 1.5 and above for Windows XP and Vista, according to Google. Firefox 1.5 and above is also supported on Mac OS X 10.2 and above and Linux. Gears also runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile 5 and above in Internet Explorer 4.01 and above.

Google isn't the only provider of productivity and collaboration software to provide offline access for its applications. Players in this market like Zoho and Yahoo's Zimbra also have offline capabilities in their suites.

Programming for Multicore Chips a Challenge, Intel Says

Adding cores could create challenges for programmers writing code that lets applications work effectively with multicore chips.

Adding more cores is desirable to meet growing computing demands, but it could create more challenges for programmers writing code that enables applications to work effectively with multicore chips.

As technology develops at a fast rate, a challenge for developers is to adapt to programming for multicore systems, said Doug Davis, vice president of the digital enterprise group at Intel, during a speech Tuesday at the Multicore Expo in Santa Clara, California. Programmers will have to transition from programming for single-core processors to multiple cores, while future-proofing the code to keep up-to-date in case additional cores are added to a computing system.

Programming models can be designed that take advantage of hyperthreading, which enables parallel processing capabilities of multiple cores to boost application performance in a cost-effective way, Davis said. Intel is working with universities and funding programs that will train programmers to develop applications that solve those problems, Davis said.

Intel, along with Microsoft, has donated $20 million to the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, to train students and conduct research on multicore programming and parallel computing. The centers will tackle the challenges of programming for multicore processors to carry out more than one set of program instructions at a time, a scenario known as parallel computing.

Beyond future-proofing code for parallelism, adapting legacy applications to work in new computing environments that take advantage of multicore processing is a challenge coders face, Davis said. Writing code from scratch is the ideal option, but it can be expensive.

"The world we live in today has millions of lines of legacy code ... how do we take legacy of software and take advantage of legacy technology?" Coders could need to deliver what's best for their system, Davis said.

Every major processor architecture has undergone quick changes because of the rapid rate of change as described by Moore's Law, which calls for better application and processor performance every two years, but now the challenge is to deliver performance within a defined power envelope. Power consumption is driving multicore chip development, and programmers need to write code that works within that power envelope, Davis said.

Adding cores to a chip to boost performance is a better power-saving option than cranking up clock frequency of a single-core processor, Davis said. Adding cores increases performance, but cuts down on power consumption.

In 2007, about 40 percent of desktops, laptops and servers shipped with multicore processors. By 2011, about 90 percent of PCs shipping will be multicore systems. Almost all of Microsoft Windows Vista PCs shipping today are multicore, Davis said.

Intel is also working on an 80-core Polaris chip, which brings teraflops of performance.

"We're not only talking about terabit computing, but the terabyte sets [of data] we can manage." Davis said. Users are consuming and storing tremendous amounts of data now, and in a few years, the amount of data should reach zettabytes, Davis said.

The next "killer" application for multicore computing could be tools that enable the real-time collection, mining and analysis of data, Davis said. For example, military personnel using wearable multicore computers are able to simulate, analyze and synthesize data in real time to show how a situation will unfold. Doing so is viable and doesn't create risk for military personnel, Davis said.

"These types of applications have taken weeks to do ... now these types of applications are literally running in minutes," Davis said.

As cores are added, the performance boost may also enable more applications, Davis said. The oil and gas industry will demand one petaflop of computing capacity in 2010, compared to 400 teraflops in 2008, to cost-effectively collect seismic data, compare it to historical data and analyze the data. Compared to the past, oil and gas explorers can collect and analyze data much faster now, Davis said.

Biometric Hacking Tool Debuts

Attacks on data protected by biometrics could accelerate if encryption isn't added to the scheme, researcher warns.

A British security researcher has demonstrated a "biologging" system for intercepting biometric authentication data, warning that attacks on biometric systems could become relatively straightforward if current practices don't change.

Matthew Lewis, of London-based Information Risk Management, demonstrated a proof-of-concept biologger last week at Black Hat Amsterdam and released the tool's source code.

Biologger is designed to highlight what Lewis considers a defect in the design of many current biometric systems: the biometric data isn't encrypted between the biometric scanner and the processing server.

The tool identifies and captures such data, opening the way to exploits such as man-in-the-middle attacks, Lewis said.

A number of difficulties remain in carrying out an attack, not the least of which would be inserting the biologger into the network, Lewis said. However, Lewis' point was to highlight that such dangers exist.

"Organisations across a number of different sectors are beginning to implement biometric systems as part of their physical and logical access controls, while a number of these systems and devices are configured to integrate with existing infrastructures for ease of deployment, such as through the use of IP protocols," Lewis said in a recent white paper on biologging. "It is properties such as this that we seek to explore and exploit as part of a proof of concept construction of a biologger."

The tool can be configured for sniffing biometric devices in a domain, as an inline wire tap or proxy device, for ARP poisoning, or as a memory-resident keylogger on a host, according to Lewis' presentation.

While Lewis' current research focuses on fingerprint systems, he said the same techniques could be carried out against biometric modes such as face and iris recognition access control systems.

Lewis said his aim was not to discourage the use of biometric access control systems, but to encourage their secure design.

"Biometric device manufacturers and system integrators cannot rely on security through obscurity alone for the overall security of their devices and systems," he said in the white paper.

He said that where IP networks are involved, particularly, those deploying biometric systems should identify network traffic routing and the accessibility of biometric-related data on those networks.

Encryption of all biometric, user and control data between devices and management servers could mitigate most of the issues identified in the presentation, Lewis said.

Robust authenticated sessions between devices and servers would also improve the systems, he said.

Microsoft's OOXML Win: Just the First Step to Adoption

Analysis: ISO has ratified OOXML as a standard, but the spec needs "scrubbing" before it can even be put to use.

The International Organization for Standardization's approval of Microsoft's OOXML as an international standard is just the beginning of what could be a lengthy process before the file format can be widely and successfully implemented for exchanging documents, according to critics and supporters of OOXML.

For some, who have criticized Microsoft's now-successful attempt to fast-track Office Open XML as an ISO standard from the start, it seemed appropriate that the company confirmed OOXML's ratification on April Fools' Day.

But to others -- including Microsoft -- the approval of OOXML was a win for giving software developers and business users, particularly those in government agencies, choice about which standard file format they want to use for exchanging electronic documents.

Though official results about the vote from the ISO were announced today, Microsoft and a number of other sources confirmed Tuesday that 86 percent of the countries voting on OOXML had said "yes."

Validation and Controversy

To Tom Robertson, general manager of Microsoft interoperability and standards, this proves that "the global community has now embraced Open XML." He said the approval means that OOXML "will be widely used for years to come in every country in the world" as a standard for document exchange.

To some others, however, including open-standards advocates and supporters of Open Document Format for XML (ODF), a rival document format that preceded OOXML to ISO approval, the global community is still not ready to envelop OOXML in a warm and fuzzy hug. The final vote had barely been tallied before there were reports of irregularities and the possibility of national bodies changing "yes" votes due to protests from committee members unhappy with the outcome.

Protests over the ISO voting process and outcomes are not uncommon, said Jan van den Beld, ISO-process consultant for CompTIA and former secretary general of Ecma, who encouraged Microsoft to fast-track OOXML through Ecma to the ISO. This is particularly true because the ISO does not oversee each country's individual standards body and lets the national standards agencies set their own rules for voting on standards. "There's no general set of rules that each country is using," he said.

Still, even by standards voting, the OOXML vote has been particularly contentious, with both sides slinging mud for the better part of two years over first the Ecma, and then the ISO processes.

For example, not even two days after the final voting ended over the weekend, members of the Norwegian committee, which officially changed a previous "no, with comments" vote to "yes," asked that country's Ministry of Trade and Industry to investigate the voting process, claiming that 80 percent of committee members were opposed to a "yes" vote. For the record, the Norwegian standards body Standard Norge defended its vote online Tuesday, a defense Microsoft translated to English and posted at an employee blog.

Next: Implementation

No matter which side you're on or whom you believe, OOXML is now on par with ODF as an international standard. The practical question for business, government and consumer users of Office and other productivity suites remains: What comes next, and how will they be affected?

Proper implementation of the standard in Office 2007 seems to be a likely next step. Office 2007 is the suite that sparked the war when Microsoft decided to create its own XML-based document format for it and not include the existing ODF technology as a native file format.

Robertson said now that the format has been ratified, Microsoft will begin working on a road map for implementation, although he could not say when that would happen. That's probably because the ISO, which will oversee the standard going forward, still has work to do before the first OOXML specification will be finalized, which most expect will happen sometime before the end of the year.

Some, both privately and publicly, said the standards group will have its work cut out because the spec as it is now cannot legitimately be implemented, and there will need to be serious revision -- a thorough "scrubbing," as one critic put it -- before that can happen broadly.

"No one can actually implement this standard. Not even Microsoft," said Pamela Jones, author of the popular Groklaw blog and an outspoken critic of the OOXML process. "But even if they did, only Microsoft can really do so, because the format references proprietary stuff from the past. Stuff that is patented, no doubt, but mainly just unknown and unknowable, at least at the level Microsoft knows it."

Robertson said that the work being done in the ISO to finalize OOXML should rectify any problems of complexity, and the spec as it is now is far less complex than it was upon submission.

Moreover, CompTIA's van den Beld said it's "not true" that the OOXML spec can't be implemented, because companies such as IBM and others already have done so.

However, IBM said that it has not actually implemented OOXML, but its productivity applications merely "recognize" OOXML as a file format.

"It's kind of like when you encounter a "read-only" file on your computer, where it knows enough to give you a sense of what the file is and its characteristics," said IBM spokesman Ari Fishkind. "But it won't allow you to actually work with the file. So, it's misleading to suggest that a vendor has adopted, embraced or implemented that particular file format."

Issues Remain

All of this quibbling proves there are still issues to resolve over how OOXML will be implemented in real-world scenarios.

It also does not solve the problem Office 2007 users still have: while files that are written in previous versions of Office can be opened as OOXML .docx files in Office 2007, files saved to the .docx file format can't be read by people using older versions of Office unless they have installed an OOXML converter.

While one is available online from Microsoft -- and according to Robertson, is one of the company's most popular downloads-- it's still an extra step users have to go through to read .docx documents, so many still choose to save Office 2007 documents in the old .doc file format, or Word 97-2003, instead of OOXML as it's been implemented in Office 2007.

Another issue at hand is whether Microsoft will ever include native support for ODF in Office 2007 now that the company expects the world to adopt OOXML as a file format. To date, the company has no plans to do so, and is encouraging people to use the OOXML converter for using ODF files in Office.

Microsoft Set to Announce Next-Gen Security Software

Microsoft is unveiling next-generation security software, code-named Stirling, at the huge RSA Conference next week.

The world's largest security conference will kick off next week in San Francisco with the public unveiling of Microsoft's next-generation of security software, code-named Stirling.

Over the past few months, Microsoft has quietly shown the software to a select group of users, but sources familiar with the company's plans said that it will release a beta version of the code to users during the RSA Conference next Tuesday. Microsoft will allow attendees to "see new technologies," including Stirling and the company's next-generation Windows Server 2008 software, according to the conference agenda.

Microsoft's Forefront product line has been playing with more established security products over the past few years, but with Stirling the company will finally be able to offer administrators a single product that manages all of its security offerings.

"Stirling will touch many different areas of network protection, server protection and client protection," said Ronald Beekelaar, an independent IT consultant based in Amsterdam, who is familiar with the Forefront products. "So Microsoft has to coordinate that between different products. But that also means that beta testers should really look at Stirling at all those levels, and not just test the client protection, or only the firewall protection," he wrote in an e-mail interview.

Stirling's management and reporting capabilities, and its tight integration with Microsoft's other products will give enterprise users new tools for tracking malware and staying on top of the "health" of the computers on their network, he added.

After running the product through beta testing phase, Microsoft expects to ship Stirling by the end of June 2009.

Although Microsoft's security announcements are always closely watched, it will not be the only company making news at the conference. IBM plans to introduce new security projects, software and services products, and storage vendor EMC is expected to shed some more light on how it plans to tie together recent acquisitions such as Tablus, Network Intelligence and Documentum.

"EMC is determined to show its value in the information lifecycle," said Nick Selby, research director with the 451 Group, an industry analyst firm.

Symantec CEO John Thompson will keynote at the show Tuesday, the same day his company is set to release its semi-annual Internet Security Threat Report.

Hard drive vendor Seagate Technology will provide an update on the data center hard-drive encryption products it is developing in conjunction with IBM and storage component maker LSI. The companies have been working since last year to bring Seagate's Full Disk Encryption (FDE) technology to enterprise-class storage systems.

Show attendees who find the vendor pitches a bit much can walk down Howard Street at lunchtime Wednesday to catch open-source security vendor Untangle's DeepThroat Fight Club, which will pit rival Web filtering products against each other to see how well they do at blocking pornographic Web sites. The gloves come off at 12:15 at the Thirsty Bear Restaurant and Brewery.

Although RSA got its start as a small-scale conference for cryptographers, it's now the largest security event in the world, with an expanding agenda to match.

For the first time ever, the show will have talks from security researchers, who have traditionally stayed away from RSA in favor of the Black Hat conference, which is held each August in Las Vegas. In all, there will be more than 220 sessions at RSA this year, covering tracks such as legal issues, technical features, and, of course, cryptography.

"It obviously has grown in terms of the number of constituencies that it tries to satisfy," said Tim Mather, chief security strategist with RSA Conferences.

RSA runs from Tuesday to Friday next week at San Francisco's Moscone Center. More than 17,000 attendees are expected.

Adobe Announces Creative Suite 4

Adobe is introducing a 64-bit version of Creative Suite 4 for Windows Vista; Mac users will have to wait.

Adobe will introduce a 64-bit enabled version of Creative Suite 4, but initially only Windows Vista users will get 64-bit versions across the board. Mac users have to wait for 64-bit versions of some aps, including Photoshop, and Carbon is the culprit, the company explains.

This is because many of the applications which make up CS4 (including Photoshop) are written in the Carbon development language rather than Cocoa. When at WWDC 2007 Apple revealed that it would not support 64-bit in Carbon, Adobe realized it would need to rewrite some of its applications in Cocoa, Apple's collection of frameworks, APIs, and accompanying runtimes that make up the development layer of Mac OS X, before the applications would be able to take advantage of 64-bit computing power.

"We have to rewrite from scratch," said Adobe Photoshop product manager John Nack. "This makes the cost of the move considerably greater than for Windows. So we will ship 64-bit Windows version first," he added.

When Carbon-64 was cancelled Adobe "took resources from the CS4 effort" to focus on the switch to Cocoa. "But we didn't think we should sacrifice the whole CS4 feature set for 64-bit on the Mac," revealed Nack.

Luckily the company wrote its relatively new Lightroom application in Cocoa so the transition to 64-bit can be immediate in that case, which is why the company introduced a 64-bit beta version of Lightroom to Mac users this morning.

When asked whether Adobe should have recognized the transition to Cocoa from Carbon sooner, Nack explained that while some might think that if software wants to be taken seriously as a Mac application it should be written in Cocoa, but "Apple's Finder is written in Carbon."

Nack would reveal no details of a shipping date for the new version of Creative Suite, saying that: "There is no time scale for CS4," and that it is: "Too early to say when we can deliver 64-bit for Mac."

He added that the next version of Photoshop will ship in 32- and 64-bit versions for Windows, with a simultaneous release of the software for the Mac, though the 64-bit version for Mac will be a subsequent release.

64-bit hype?

The delay may not matter too much. Nack doesn't appear convinced that being able to exploit 64-bit computing immediately would be a great benefit to all Photoshop users.

"The real strength of 64-bit's is letting you address a large amount of memory. You'll see the biggest difference when working with large images or moving around a lot of data," he explained. To take advantage of 64-bit you need "more than 4GB Ram allocated to Photoshop," he added.

"If you are a web user moving files around then you won't see much difference. Where you will see a substantial performance increase is with large files -- for example it could cut the time it takes to open a large image from 200 to 70 seconds.

"For pros it matters, for normal people it is more of a marginal performance difference.

"We don't want to overhype 64-bit with expectations that aren't going to be matched," he added.

But regardless of the status of 64-bit right now, Nack believes that getting set-up with 64-bit now is good because it will future-proof the Creative Suite applications for a time when all PCs and Macs support 64-bit and feature adequate RAM as standard.

Microsoft Surface Coming To AT&T Stores

Microsoft’s Surface computer will make its commercial debut April 17 in AT&T stores in New York City, Atlanta, San Antonio and San Francisco.

Microsoft first unveiled the Surface back in May 2007; the coffee-table like computer allows touch screen interaction with various surfaces, can recognize objects places on it and even interact with things like mobile phones.

AT&T said it planned to use the Surface to allow customers “to learn about the growing universe of mobile applications and devices.”

I had the opportunity to have a quick play with a Surface earlier this year and it’s one of the cooler things to come out of Redmond in the last 12 months, but I can’t help but wonder: isn’t putting a Surface in an AT&T store like driving an Aston Martin into a Ghetto? To be fair, interacting with a Surface at an AT&T store will be better than trying to interact with AT&T staff; not only will it be quicker (even if you queue for an hour to use it), it will actually be more polite and be able to explain the product its offering competently.

A demo video from May as follows:

http://www.youtube.com/v/FlZxuqjJDgk&hl=en

Download Firefox 3 Beta 5 for Testing

Mozilla has released its next generation browser, Firefox 3 Beta 5, yesterday. This public preview version was released intended for developers to try out and give their feedback. Users or developers can download the Firefox 3 Beta 5 version from Mozilla for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It is available in 45 languages. The full and final version of Firefox 3 will only be released then the product is fully tested and ready.
There are more than 750 enhancements or changes in Beta 5 compare to previous beta version. Mozilla has improved Firefox 3’s stability, compatibility, interface and speed. Firefox users or supporters can view the summary of the added features as extracted from Mozilla release note for this latest version:

More Secure

• One-click site info: Click the site favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if your connection is protected from eavesdropping. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company you’re connected to. (Try it here!)

• Malware Protection: malware protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware. (Try it here!)

• New Web Forgery Protection page: the content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown. (Try it here!)

• New SSL error pages: clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate. (Try it here!)

• Add-ons and Plugin version check: Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions.

• Secure add-on updates: to improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled.

• Anti-virus integration: Firefox will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.

• Vista Parental Controls: Firefox now respects the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

• Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service better restricts cookies and other restricted content to a single domain.

• Better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks.

Easier to Use

• Easier password management: an information bar replaces the old password dialog so you can now save passwords after a successful login.

• Simplified add-on installation: the add-ons whitelist has been removed making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks.

• New Download Manager: the revised download manager makes it much easier to locate downloaded files, and you can see and search on the name of the website where a file came from. Your active downloads and time remaining are always shown in the status bar as your files download.

• Resumable downloading: users can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.

• Full page zoom: from the View menu and via keyboard shortcuts, the new zooming feature lets you zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the layout, text and images, or optionally only the text size. Your settings will be remembered whenever you return to the site.

• Podcasts and Videocasts can be associated with your media playback tools.

• Tab scrolling and quickmenu: tabs are easier to locate with the new tab scrolling and tab quickmenu.

• Save what you were doing: Firefox will prompt users to save tabs on exit.

• Optimized Open in Tabs behavior: opening a folder of bookmarks in tabs now appends the new tabs rather than overwriting.

• Location and Search bar size can now be customized with a simple resizer item.

• Text selection improvements: multiple text selections can be made with Ctrl/Cmd; double-click drag selects in “word-by-word” mode; triple-clicking selects a paragraph.

• Find toolbar: the Find toolbar now opens with the current selection.

• Plugin management: users can disable individual plugins in the Add-on Manager.

• [Improved in Beta 5!] Integration with Windows: Firefox now has improved Windows icons, and uses native user interface widgets in the browser and in web forms.

• [Improved in Beta 5!] Integration with the Mac: the new Firefox theme makes toolbars, icons, and other user interface elements look like a native OS X application. Firefox also uses OS X widgets and supports Growl for notifications of completed downloads and available updates. A combined back and forward control make it even easier to move between web pages.

• [Improved in Beta 5!] Integration with Linux: Firefox’s default icons, buttons, and menu styles now use the native GTK theme.

More Personal

• Star button: quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click; a second click lets you file and tag them.

• Tags: associate keywords with your bookmarks to sort them by topic.

• Location bar & auto-complete: type in all or part of the title, tag or address of a page to see a list of matches from your history and bookmarks; a new display makes it easier to scan through the matching results and find that page you’re looking for. Results are returned according to their frecency (a combination of frequency and recency of visits to that page) ensuring that you’re seeing the most relevant matches. An adaptive learning algorithm further tunes the results to your patterns!

• Smart Bookmarks Folder: quickly access your recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as your more frequently visited pages with the new smart bookmarks folder on your bookmark toolbar.

• [Improved in Beta 5!] Places Organizer: view, organize and search through all of your bookmarks, tags, and browsing history with multiple views and smart folders to store your frequent searches. Create and restore full backups whenever you want.

• Web-based protocol handlers: web applications, such as your favorite webmail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications for handling mailto: links from other sites. Similar support is available for other protocols (Web applications will have to first enable this by registering as handlers with Firefox).

• Download & Install Add-ons: the Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of Add-ons available from our community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended

Add-ons is shown

• Easy to use Download Actions: a new Applications preferences pane provides a better UI for configuring handlers for various file types and protocol schemes.

Improved Platform for Developers

• New graphics and font handling: new graphics and text rendering architectures in Gecko 1.9 provides rendering improvements in CSS, SVG as well as improved display of fonts with ligatures and complex scripts.

• Color management: (set gfx.color_management.enabled on in about:config and restart the browser to enable.) Firefox can now adjust images with embedded color profiles.

• Offline support: enables web applications to provide offline functionality (website authors must add support for offline browsing to their site for this feature to be available to users).

• A more complete overview of Firefox 3 for developers is available for website and add-on developers.

Improved Performance

• [Improved in Beta 5!] Speed: improvements to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in continued improvements in performance. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3 Beta 5, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.

• Memory usage: Several new technologies work together to reduce the amount of memory used by Firefox 3 over a web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.

• Reliability: A user’s bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences are now stored in a transactionally secure database format which will prevent data loss even if their system crashes.

Download Firefox 3.0b5 from beta page.

How to Use SFC.EXE Resource Checker to Fix and Recover Incorrect or Corrupted System Files

SFC.EXE is a Windows system files resource checker that scans the integrity of all protected system files and replaces incorrect versions with correct Microsoft versions. SFC comes packaged and built-in since Windows XP era, and is also included in Windows Vista.

However, not many users seem to ever use the the useful utility when the Windows operating system is in trouble or running into problem. Some may not even aware of SFC existence, probably because that the program is not listed in Start Menu’s All Programs listing. Beside, most advanced users prefer to use Ghost imaging or cloning software to backup a clone copy of entire disk, which can then be restored when there is system failure. Most users simply wipe off the hard disk and reinstall a fresh and clean copy of Windows.

However, sometimes, some problems and errors can be fixed immediately without much trouble and hassle by using SFC.EXE. It’s especially the case when user has using Windows for a period of time, and has made considerable changes to system settings and has lots of user files.

To us SFC.EXE, open an elevated privilege command prompt as administrator by type Cmd in Start Search box, and right click on Cmd appear in search result and then select Run as Administrator. Entering sfc /? will display help and usage guide of the Microsoft Windows Resource Checker, as shown in figure below.

Generally, the only command that needs to be run and most effective is:

sfc /scannow

The command will scan integrity of all protected system files, and if problem is detected, the program will attempt to repair the files automatically. After running “sfc /scannow” command, wait for the progress to reach 100% completed, and then restart the computer. After restart, all system files will be exactly the same as if when Windows Vista or XP is just installed.

However, because the process is effectively restore and revert system files back to original factory state, thus all changes, personalizations and customization to the system, such as theme crack, logon screen, startup screen will be reset to original Microsoft style. If you facing problem after changing the display language options in registry with new MUI language packs, this utility can fix the problem too.

SFC can restore a lot of system files and fix a lot of errors and problems instantly, so when encountering any issues, try “sfc /scannow” command first, and it may solves the problem. Note that some restoration may require users to insert Windows XP installation CD or Windows Vista installation DVD. And don’t worry that updates or hotfixes have to be downloaded and applied again, as SFC is not complete system restore, it just replaces corrupted or problematic system files, if it detects one.

Shooting Net for Catching Thieves

This Net Shooter reminds me of something Spiderman would use to apprehend suspects. The Net Shooter gun is powered by air and can be fired at a distance of 15 meters with coverage space up to 16 meters in size.

With the gun being powered by air it requires no government approval for usage (although I have not confirmed that myself). Various uses of such a device are for security in your home, catching animals safely, apprehending suspects with out harming them to name a few.

The Shooting Net does look quite fun to use though and I am not sure I could resist the temptation to capture a random friend walking around.

Continue Reading Here.

New iPhone to Feature Case Redesign ?

Rumors that Apple's 3G iPhone is on the way are coming faster by the day, and now images of the alleged next generation iPhone are beginning to surface, too. Apparently the new iPhone will also sport a glossy black back, replacing the satin nickel look found on the current model.
If iPodOberver.com's source is correct, the redesigned iPhone back also drops the black plastic end piece that covers the antenna, and it appears that Apple will continue to offer an 8GB model.

Of course, rumors are just rumors until Steve Jobs pulls a new iPhone out of his pocket. If the image proves to be legit, however, the glossy black finish will make a nice addition to the up-and-coming executive's tech stash.

iPhone OS 2.0 includes live location tracking

A pre-release build of iPhone OS 2.0, currently in the hands of select developers and beta testers, includes a new live location tracking feature that will automatically track the user’s current location in the Maps application on a persistently updating basis. So, for instance, driving down Broadway in New York with an iPhone would result in a constantly moving blue, pulsing ball indicating your current location. This makes the iPhone’s “Locate Me” function feel much more like a real GPS.

At this point the function (along with the entirety of iPhone OS 2.0) is somewhat flaky and slow, but promising.

iGo Mobile Charger for Mobile Devices

Considering that every mobile device needs to be charged, it would be nice to have something that you can use just in case you get into a pinch. After all, I can’t begin to count the times where my cell phone is about to die, and there isn’t an outlet handy that I can use for the next hour.

Enter the iGo, a mobile device charger that is mobile. The kit comes with two Duracell AA batteries that allow a user to plug into a mobile device in order to recharge and/or power it.

That is, it can charge any mobile device provided you have the proper tip for it. I have seen the tip, and it looks like a mini-USB, but I can’t confirm that. However, the iGo has a lot of tips sold separately, such as the A61 for the iPod.

The iGo also has other accessories, including the wall charger, a $20 dollar device that works like the iGo, but you just plug it into the wall and then to your mobile device. There is also the power splitter, which allows for charging two devices at the same time, such as your cellular phone or iPod, two very often used devices.

Although the iGo is about $16, you might spend more on accessories. You might want to figure that in your budget if you want to purchase it.

iGo Mobile Charger for Mobile Devices

Plasma displays coming to cell phones

Panasonic will be bringing together its two divisions in new product initiatives, with plasma video displays for cell phones being one of them while AT&T’s recently unveiled Mobile TV service being the other. Today, we shall look at the former, as the very word ‘plasma’ evokes a sense of wonder among buyers as they know this technology is superior to LCD displays in many aspects, albeit taxing the pockets a whole lot more. With Pioneer and Fujitsu already bowing out of the plasma business, it makes perfect sense for Panasonic to strive even harder to capture customers from those companies. It seems that Panasonic’s latest plan would be to include miniature plasma displays in future cell phones - something I look forward to with great anticipation.

It seems that Panasonic engineers have long been working on this new thin, lightweight low-voltage compact plasma display in secret for nearly a decade, and the time is almost ripe to introduce this technology to the masses. Panasonic’s plan is to incorporate miniature plasma displays into both consumer and business telephone products from this fall onwards, going one up against rival OLED displays where brightness, contrast, thinness and cost are concerned. According to Mark Balsama, “Many of our new phones will have vibrant color plasma screens that can run on just 1.5 volts and won’t require any additional wiring or special power supplies. We’ll be able to put plasma in cell phones, business phones, consumer phones, corded phones, cordless phones, and even door intercom monitors and fax machines. We will revolutionize the consumer electronics business, as Panasonic has done many times before.”
I guess mobile TV services had better buck up is plasma display cell phones become the norm in the near future. How much are you willing to fork out for one of these handsets anyways?
Press Release

Intel Showcased Cliffside Technology with Seamless Connectivity in Shanghai IDF

Intel has just unveiled a new technology that can enable two independent network connectivity through a single WiFi network adapter during recent IDF (Intel Developer Forum) held in Shanghai. Within a single network module, there will be an additional functionality being added in which it will be able to link normal PC at home to wireless router and at the same time setting up another network link that can be used to create a PAN (Personal Area Network) to link both together for seamless connectivity at home.

You can think of the second link as a replacement of Bluetooth or some other wireless technology for LAN (Local Area Network) on your PC. The major advantage here is the technology doesn’t need additional standalone module to cater for PAN coverage which could further reduce the board design space and cost. At the same time, it will able to boost up the available bandwidth even higher as compared to existing technology. Not to be lack of, it will still feature some security and encryption methods such as WEP and WPA for secure channels among network devices. It is claimed that the technology can support up to eight network devices simultaneously.

Currently it is still too early to disclose on when the technology will be commercialized as it is still in research and exploration stage. However, we should foresee the new usage to be adopted soonest as it is driven by the giant chipset maker.

Quick and Direct Access To Favourite Files or Folders With ‘Direct Folders’

Opening, closing, maximizing or minimizing Windows folders might be time consuming, troublesome and laborious. Sometimes when you are in a hurry, the process to locate some files in particular folders can be very irritating. If this problem annoys you most of the time, you can actually try a Freeware application, Direct Folders, which can smoothen your navigation steps to locate folders or files in your Windows System.

With Direct Folders, you will have direct and quick access to your favourite folders and recent documents with just a single mouse click. This application is also able to resize every standard file dialog automatically so that users can see a larger number of files in one go. Another useful feature of this application is its ability to automatically switch the folder view of open dialogs to thumbnails, list or details depending on the application you are working with. You can select your preference of file sort order to be the default as well.

How does Direct Folders work? There are several ways to access Direct Folders. One of the easiest is to simply double click in the empty area of the desktop, Explorer or File Open/Save dialog box, which brings up a menu. Select a favorite or recent folder from this menu and the file dialog immediately jumps to that folder. If you activate this menu from the Desktop or tray icon, this folder will be opened in Windows Explorer or another file manager. Users can see the Demo via here.

Direct Folders only works under the Windows Operating System. The latest version Direct Folder 3.3 has been released lately and it is available free for home users. Users can download it for home use via the link here.

Compiled List of Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1 MSDN/TechNet DVD ISO Images Released by Microsoft

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Windows Vista SP1) and Windows Server 2008 have been officially released, and Microsoft has published the complete set of DVDs for the operating systems in ISO image format to MSDN and TechNet subscribers for online download. As a reference, here’s the official filename for the DVD ISO image files for both Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 that has been released. Both operating system has the same build version number of 6001.18000.080118-1840, and there may be more language versions available, but only English and Russian versions are listed.

Windows Vista SP1 Retail DVD Image (Retail version disk contains Ultimate, Home Basic and Home Premium editions)

32-bit (x86)

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_en-us-FRMCFRE_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_ru-ru-FRMCFRE_RU_DVD.iso

64-bit (x64)

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_en-us-FRMCXFRE_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_ru-ru-FRMCxFRE_RU_DVD.iso

Windows Vista SP1 Business edition for Corporate (Volume Licensing)

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Business_en-us_VL-FRMBVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Business_ru-ru_VL-FRMBVOL_RU_DVD.iso

Windows Vista SP1 Enterprise edition for Corporate (Volume Licensing)

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Enterprise_en-us_VL-FRMEVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Enterprise_ru-ru_VL-FRMEVOL_RU_DVD.iso

Windows Server 2008 Final (RTM)

32-bit (x86)

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_en-us_VL-KRMSVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_ru-ru_VL-KRMSVOL_RU_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_ServerStorage_en-us-KRMSSTO_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_ServerV_en-us_vl-KRMSWOHVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_ServerWeb_en-us_VL-KRMWVOL_EN_DVD.iso

64-bit (x64)

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerHPC_en-us_VL-SRVHPCVL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerHyper_en-us-KRHVXFRE_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerStorage_en-us-KRMSXSTO_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerV_en-us_vl-KRMSxWOHVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerWeb_en-us_VL-KRMWXVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_ia64fre_ServerEnterpriseIA64_en-us_VL-KRMIAIVOL_EN_DVD.iso

Multilingual Language Interface Pack (MUI) for Microsoft Windows Server 2008

x86fre

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_1-KRMSLP1_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_2-KRMSLP2_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_3-KRMSLP3_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_4-KRMSLP4_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_5-KRMSLP5_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_6-KRMSLP6_DVD.iso

amd64fre

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_1-KRMSLPX1_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_2-KRMSLPX2_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_3-KRMSLPX3_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_4-KRMSLPX4_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_5-KRMSLPX5_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_6-KRMSLPX6_DVD.iso

Note:

DVD1: de-de, en-us, es-es, fr-fr, ja-jp

DVD2: ko-kr, pt-br, zh-cn, zh-hk

DVD3: zh-tw

DVD4: it-it, nl-nl, pt-pt, ru-ru, sv-se

lDVD5: cs-cz, hu-hu, pl-pl, tr-tr

DVD6: ar-sa, bg-bg, da-dk, el-gr, et-ee, fi-fi, he-il, hr-hr, lt-lt, lv-lv, nb-no, ro-ro, sk-sk, sl-si, sr-latn-cs, th-th, uk-ua

Multilingual Language Interface Pack (MUI) for Microsoft Windows Vista SP1

x86fre

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_1-FRMCLP1_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_2-FRMCLP2_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_3-FRMCLP3_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_4-FRMCLP4_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_5-FRMCLP5_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_6-FRMCLP6_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_7-FRMCLP7_DVD.iso

amd64fre

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_1-FRMCLPX1_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_2-FRMCLPX2_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_3-FRMCLPX3_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_4-FRMCLPX4_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_5-FRMCLPX5_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_6-FRMCLPX6_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_7-FRMCLPX7_DVD.iso

Note:

DVD1: de-de, en-us, es-es, fr-fr

DVD2: ja-jp

DVD3: zh-tw

DVD4: ko-kr

DVD5: bg-bg, cs-cz, da-dk, el-gr, et-ee, fi-fi, hu-hu, it-it, lt-lt, lv-lv, nb-no, nl-nl, pl-pl, pt-pt, ro-ro, sk-sk, sl-si, sv-se

DVD6: ar-sa, he-il, hr-hr, pt-br, sr-latn-cs, th-th, tr-tr, uk-ua, zh-cn, zh-hk

DVD7: ru-ru

Some of the ISO disc images have been leaked on P2P torrent sites. For example, Windows Vista SP1 Enterprise Edition and MUI language packs for Windows Vista SP1.

How to beat spyware and viruses, 2008 edition

The last time I wrote a piece on how to remove spyware from your computer was in 2006. Time for an update, I think. Here's my perennial "How to Beat Spyware" howto, revised and updated for 2008 (and combined into a single file instead of two parts).

Here's what to do if you suspect an infection on your Windows PC. (Please note these steps apply to both Windows XP and Vista.)

1) Are you sure it's spyware or a virus? Windows pop-ups and alerts can often seem invasive enough to be viruses, especially with Vista. Try searching the web for the exact text you see on the screen to make sure you aren't dealing with an aggressive Windows message. (Many of these can be turned off, so try whatever instructions you find.) On the other hand, some viruses masquerade as Windows alerts, so tread lightly.

2) Boot in safe mode.
If you have a virus, first step is to try booting in safe mode. You can get to safe mode (a simplified version of Windows that disables
a lot of extra gunk, possibly including some spyware apps) by
restarting your PC and tapping F8 during boot. Soon you'll get a menu
of options. Select "Safe Mode" (it's at the top of the menu) and wait
for the machine to fully boot. The system will look funny (with a black
background and larger icons, probably), but don't worry about it. This
is only temporary. (Also note that many spyware applications
can disable safe mode, so if you find this doesn't work, just boot
normally.)

3) Run your antivirus application. This is of
course assuming you have an antivirus application. (Need one? Check here.) You're in safe mode
now, so run a full scan of your PC at maximum security levels (include
the option to scan within compressed files, for example). This will
probably take an hour or more, so be patient. Fix any problems the
virus scan turns up. Then reboot into safe mode again using the procedure in
step 2.

4) Run one or two anti-spyware applications. I used to recommend running multiple anti-spyware apps, but virtually all antivirus apps now do a pretty good job at getting rid of spyware too, so you don't need an army of additional applications just for spyware. Also, I now recommend starting with AdAware

(which is free) and moving on to Spyware Doctor (free as part of the Google Pack) if you feel you need additional help. (Please note that recent versions of Spyware Doctor and Norton Antivirus have some trouble with each other.) You can try other apps too, but the once-recommended SpyBot Search & Destroy is no longer very effective, sadly. (Neither is Microsoft's own Windows Defender.) Of course, fix anything and everything
these apps find.

5) Reboot normally. (Not in safe mode.) Now
take stock. Still got spyware? It's time to move along to my more
advanced techniques for removing the nasties.

6) Run HijackThis. HijackThis
is a free software tool that scans your computer to find malware that other apps might miss. Scroll down to "Official downloads" to download the
tool. Next, simply open the ZIP file you downloaded, extract the
application, and run the tool (you don't need to install it). Click the
"Do a system scan and save a logfile" button. You'll receive a large
text file as well as a dialog box which gives you a list of
active software processes, which you can then choose to delete.
Unfortunately, this list includes both helpful and unhelpful software,
so don't just start deleting items. Continue in step 7 to figure out
how to fix your spyware infection.

7) Post your log file online. Visit this page, which offers a list of forums staffed by volunteers who can help you interpret your HijackThis log. The SWI Forums are especially busy, but most of the forums on the list are equally
apt. Go to SWI and visit the "Malware Removal"
forum which has over 50,000 topics listed: Those are all people like
you who are seeking help getting rid of spyware. Register for an
account, read the FAQ, then visit that Malware Removal forum, and post
a new topic. Paste the content of the text file you created in step 5
into this topic and (politely) ask for help. You will get a response
from a volunteer helper, typically within 3 days. You'll be given
specific advice on what entries to remove with the HijackThis tool, and
you might be pointed to additional software to run to help remove
common spyware infections. Follow all the instructions and keep working
with the forum helpers until either you or they give up. (And no, don't

send your log file to me or post it here. I am not nearly the spyware
removal expert that these guys are.)

7a) Alternately: Paste your log file into an automated tool. Don't have three days? Try simply pasting your HijackThis log file into this form. It does a pretty good job at auto-analyzing what's wrong with your machine, with no waiting. As well, if that doesn't work, you can search for the items you find in the HijackThis log by name to see what they are and how to remove them, if they're spyware. This can be quite time consuming, though.

8) Try System Restore.
If that doesn't work, you might try running Windows System Restore to
roll back your OS to a time before the infection happened. This isn't
foolproof: You might not have System Restore turned on, or the spyware
might have shut System Restore off, as well. But it's worth a shot.
With either XP or Vista, System Restore can be found under Start > All Programs >
Accessories > System Tools > System Restore.

9) Give up and wipe your hard drive.

At this point, you've exhausted all the options I know of. You might
try again at steps 6/7 to make sure you've done everything you can to
salvage the PC. Forum helpers will often work with you for weeks to
help fight a spyware infection, but there are tens of thousands of
possible variants out there, with new ones cropping up every day. It's
just not possible to clean them all, every time. Sometimes the only
thing you can do is call it quits, reformat your hard drive, and
reinstall your OS. Again, make sure you have your backups ready and
verified. Once you're up and running, reinstall your antivirus and
anti-spyware applications, and stay vigilant against infection. Good

Five Myths About Drinking Water

Is bottled water better for you than tap? Or should you choose vitamin-enriched water over sparkling? Experts say, skip it all. None of these products are likely to make you any healthier. Below, we look at five major myths about the benefits of drinking water.

But first, how do you know if you're drinking enough water? Experts say there's an easy way to judge. If you're not thirsty, you're fluid intake is likely "just right."

Myth No. 1: Drink Eight Glasses Each Day

Scientists say there's no clear health benefit to chugging or even sipping water all day. So where does the standard advice of drinking eight glasses each day come from? "Nobody really knows," says Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a kidney expert at the University of Pennsylvania.

Myth No. 2: Drinking Lots of Water Helps Clear Out Toxins

The kidneys filter toxins from our bloodstreams. Then the toxins clear through the urine. The question is, does drinking extra water each day improve the function of the kidneys?

"No," says Goldfarb. "In fact, drinking large amounts of water surprisingly tends to reduce the kidney's ability to function as a filter. It's a subtle decline, but definite."

Myth No. 3: Lots of Water Equals Healthier Skin

The body is already 60 percent water. So, if you take a 200-pound man, he's 120 pounds of water.

Adding a few extra glasses of water each day has limited effect. "It's such a tiny part of what's in the body," says Goldfarb. "It's very unlikely that one's getting any benefit." His full editorial is published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

One study published in 2007 on the cosmetic benefit of drinking water suggests that 500 ml of water increases capillary blood flow in the skin. "But it's unclear whether these changes are clinically significant," says Goldfarb.

Myth No. 4: Drinking Extra Water Leads to Weight Loss

A more accurate statement may be: Drinking water is a helpful tool for dieters.

"Water is a great strategy for dieters because it has no calories," says Madeline Fernstrom of the University of Pittsburgh. "So you can keep your mouth busy without food and get the sense of satisfaction."

But water is not magical, she adds. Other zero-calorie options such as diet sodas are fine, too.

Myth No. 5: It's Easy to Get Dehydrated During a Workout

Dehydration sets in when a person has lost 2 percent of his or her body weight. So for a 200-pound man, this means losing 4 pounds of water.

Marathon runners, bikers and hikers all need to recognize the signs of dehydration. "It is also obvious that individuals in hot, dry climates have increased need for water," says Goldfarb.

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that athletes drink 16 ounces of fluids a couple of hours before starting sports practice.

But for a stroll in the park, no water bottle is necessary. Goldfarb's advice: Just drink when you're thirsty.

Google Turns Quoted Search Into Unquoted One If Nothing’s Found

This seems to be (at least relatively) new: now, when you do a quote search that doesn’t yield any results, Google will search for your words without the quotes. This will turn the phrase search into a search where the keywords can appear on the page in any order – including word stemming where appropriate – so that there’s more of a chance to find something. E.g. if you search for ["foo bar"] and there’s no results, Google will look for [foo bar]. In general, Google’s search syntax became more fuzzy over the years, and this is another step in the direction.

When I stumbled upon this earlier the feature was immediately useful, because I had mistyped a word in my phrase search, and Google still found the page I was looking for. I guess the only downside could be that you glance over the results so fast that you’d miss the fact Google turned phrase search into normal search (and normal keyword search may not always be what you want). But the warning that they changed the query for you is not easy to miss, so I guess this won’t be an issue. Scripts screenscraping Google results, though, may need to be adjusted now to look for an occurrence of the “Results for ... without quotes” bit.

Windows 7 may come 'in the next year'

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Friday indicated that Windows 7, the next major version of Windows, could come within the next year, far ahead of the development schedule previously indicated by the software maker.

In response to a question about Windows Vista, Gates, speaking before the Inter-American Development Bank here, said: "Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version." Referring to Windows 7, the code name for the next full release of Windows client software, Gates said: "I'm super-enthused about what it will do in lots of ways."

Antenna-Boosting Case for iPhone

Griffin has released ClearBoost a case that captures wireless signal and sends it to your iPhones internal antenna.

This clever case conceals a built-in booster antenna that captures more of the available wireless signal and sends it to your iPhone’s internal antenna. The result is a better signal for your iPhone, especially in border areas—which translates to fewer dropped calls, wider coverage areas, and faster downloads.

Nothing to plug in -- just snap iPhone in ClearBoost’s durable polycarbonate case. Your iPhone gets protection from real-world hazards, and its antenna gets a boost.

Features:
* Boosts the built-in antenna of your iPhone
* Fewer dropped calls, cleaner signal
* Wider service areas
* Physical protection against bumps and scratches