Time Is Money

Microsoft's own speed tests show IE beating Chrome, Firefox

2009-03-16T04:52:00.000-07:00

Just before announcing that Internet Explorer 8 has been finalized, Microsoft has released a new report titled "Measuring Browser Performance: Understanding issues in benchmarking and performance analysis." The document explains the various browser and network components and how each piece can impact performance when benchmarking, capabilities and limitations of various benchmarking tools, as well as ways to design tests to avoid these issues. What makes this report extremely dubious is the chart that is buried at the bottom. It shows IE8 outperforming Firefox 3.05 and Chrome 1.0, something that no other test on the Internet has ever shown before.

Before I start to rant and rave, I want to explain that I am an IE8 user (in fact this post was written using IE8 on Windows 7), though I do use other browsers from time to time. IE8 is a vast improvement over IE7, especially in performance, but I will be the first to admit that it still does not compete with third-party browsers when it comes to speed. However, the table Microsoft provides shows the load times for the top 25 websites according to comScore, and IE8 does quite well. The report notes that Microsoft "used the browser 'Done' indicator for timing when the page when the page is completely loaded at that point. For pages which continue to load and change after the 'one' indication we have used common visual cues to generate the timings. Timing is started when the Go button is pressed. These timings were captured in January 2009; because Internet content is always changing you may get different timings when you run these tests."

As you can see, IE8 outperforms Firefox 3.05 and Chrome 1.0 in loading 12 websites, Chrome 1.0 places second by loading nine sites first, and Firefox brings up the rear by loading four sites faster than the other two browsers. Also, in case you missed it, IE loads mozilla.com faster than Firefox, and Firefox loads microsoft.com faster than IE, just for kicks. This report is bound to stir up a lot of controversy, especially since Microsoft outlines its exact methodology. The report is available publicly at the Microsoft Download Center in PDF and XPS formats, so check it out if you have the time for reading through 14 pages. Microsoft chooses approximately 25 websites for daily testing, and tens of thousands on a monthly basis. If you're going to do your own tests, Microsoft emphasizes that "any list of websites to be used for benchmarking must contain a variety of websites, including international websites, to help ensure a complete picture of performance as users would experience on the Internet."

Microsoft obviously wants to get users who are using alternative browser to come and try out IE8, which is why this report is quietly being released just before the new browser becomes available this month. Is this the best way to go about it? The fact that this is the first test (at least that I'm aware of) to show IE8 loading multiple websites faster than Firefox and Chrome, and the top 25 websites no less, is very supicious. What do you think?

Happy 20th Birthday, World Wide Web

2009-03-16T04:44:00.000-07:00

On March 13th, 2009 the World Wide Web will turn 20 years old. Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented this world-changing layer on top of the Internet on this day in 1989. It's hard to overstate the impact this young technology has had already and it's even more exciting to think about where it's going in the future.

Berners-Lee has some great ideas about where the web should go next. His vision is of a major advance that could serve as the foundation for innovations that we can't even imagine today.

One year ago Berners-Lee said that all the pieces needed to build a new Semantic Web are now in place. Last month he gave an impassioned talk at the high-profile TED conference about a related concept called Linked Data, a set of ideas he outlined in 2006. The gist of the idea is that we need every institution that can do so to put raw data in a standardized format up on the web.

What's so exciting about raw data? We'll defer to Berners-Lee's 15 minute explanation at this year's TED conference. The video of his talk will be posted on the TED website early Friday morning, but ReadWriteWeb readers can check it out now.

HP netbooks for consumers

2009-03-16T04:39:00.000-07:00

We did not have the chance to test-drive the HP Mini Note 2133, but by now you must have heard about it.

It was launched around a year ago. If we follow Intel's arbitrary rule on what can or cannot be called a netbook, then the 2133 might not fit the netbook category. It did not run on an Intel Atom processor. Instead, it ran on the CM-7 processor from Via Technology.

Although the processor was not as fast as Intel Atom, the 2133 received fairly positive reviews from the editors and users alike. One of the models that spearheaded the Internet-focused mini notebooks revolution, it had a metal chassis and, most importantly, a great keyboard. It was also a business-oriented mini notebook, and I will talk more about it later.

HP filled the consumer segment with a new line of netbooks, called HP Mini.

Early last January, HP Indonesia started the new year by inviting the press for the launching the new line in Jakarta. The HP Mini is a netbook because now it runs on an Intel Atom processor. It is also intended to be a consumer product, and therefore it has a more stylish look with the currently in-vogue imprinted patterns on the top cover.

Specifically, the model announced at the press event earlier this year was the HP Mini 1000. My demo unit has 1 GB of RAM and a 60 GB Toshiba hard disk. There is not much to say about the performance, especially if we are to compare it with the netbooks offered by Asus, Dell, Lenovo and others.

All the components are more or less the same. In fact, the 4200 RPM hard disk inside the Mini Note 1000 is its weakest link. That is no surprise, as every netbook maker strives to achieve the best affordability and therefore has to cut some corners. The good news is, I think, that the overall performance is more than enough for the types of task it is intended to help us to perform.

And this late-arriving consumer notebook has some strong points that may put it on top of the long list of netbooks currently on the market. HP has replicated the 2133's great keyboard in the Mini Note. It has almost full-sized keys, making error-free touch-typing almost a norm. The keyboard is really a star.

Next are the speakers that are placed inside the hinge. They simply sound too good to be true, considering the size. Keep in mind that many other netbooks sound just a little louder than your PDAs. The size is right for a lady's handbag, and it will not be too heavy for her shoulder, either.

The 10.2-inch screen is very bright when you plug in the AC adapter or set the brightness to the max. Unfortunately, the otherwise attractive glass plate that covers the entire screen and its frame makes the display too glossy. For some people, the glare can be a nuisance, especially when working outside under the sunlight.

One decision that I wish HP designers had not made is the use of proprietary connection for the VGA Out and the external optical drive. The HP Mini Drive is optional, and anything optional means more limited-use investment may be required. Fortunately, we can still use a generic, USB-based DVD-RAM drive. In my test, my external LG Super DVD Multi Rewriter works flawlessly with the Mini Note 1000.

Some people have also complained about the touchpad with the buttons flanking the pad instead of being placed below it. The repositioning of the buttons is necessary to keep the keyboard in its ideal size. This is also the approach taken by Acer in the Acer One netbook. Personally, I rarely use these buttons, so I have no problem with the placement of the buttons. Besides, don't we usually use a mouse whenever we can?

The HP Mini Note 1000 is just the starter in the new consumer netbook lineup from HP. In other countries, the company has also launched the premium-class HP Mini Note 2140, which has the aluminum body of the 2133 instead of the plastic casing of the Mini Note 1000.

The battery life is reportedly slightly above average, which can be a strong reason for choosing the Mini Note 1000 over the others. Another unique feature, which is neither good nor bad but certainly saves some space on the housing side, is the combination of the microphone and line-out in a single audio port.

One thing that people are sometimes unaware of is, as I touched on earlier, that the 2133 is designed for business users. That is why the 2133 and its successors are designed differently and have different sets of features. The HP Mini Notes, on the other hand, are targeted for consumers who really want a netbook that they can carry around to check their email and maintain their Facebook.

Before you choose which one to buy, you really need to consider your requirements, because, according to HP, both of these netbook lines will continue to exist.

Antivirus provider strengthening local presence

2009-02-28T23:06:00.000-08:00

In 1989, the Russian-born Eugene Kaspersky found his PC infected by "Cascade", a computer virus that was spreading widely during that time.

If you are old enough, you will remember that in those days we were still using the character-based DOS as our operating system. This particular virus made the characters on the screen fall down like dead leaves tumbling to the ground.

It was Eugene's first encounter with the computer viruses. He used an antivirus utility to delete the virus. He also saved a copy of the infected files. He later analyzed it and figured out how the computer viruses worked and then created an antidote for it. Subsequently, his friends came to him with different computer viruses and he developed the cures for each of them.

That was how it began, and I guess Eugene Kaspersky is one of the luckiest people in the world in that he has been able to successfully turn his hobby into a flourishing business. In 1991, he worked on the Anti Virus Project (AVP). In 1997, he co-founded Kaspersky Lab. In 2007, he became the CEO and today the company is gaining a reputation as a major information security solutions provider - along with big names such as McAfee, Norton and TrendMicro. In our email interview, Eugene claimed that "some of the core technologies used in the global antivirus industry today were developed by our company".

For users of the newer version of the Windows operating system, Microsoft has provided Microsoft Defender and Windows Live OneCare. These seem to be a very secure defense against attacks. They also seem to put a death knell on independent antivirus providers. However, Eugene believes that one has "to focus on antivirus technologies to develop a truly effective antivirus solution". I agree with him, especially because the techniques used by virus makers get more and more sophisticated by the hour. The creativity of the antivirus makers makes it also impossible to embed the antivirus protection in hardware.

Headquartered in Moscow, Kaspersky now has labs in a number of countries around the world, including five European countries, China, Korea, Japan and the United States. Since last year, it has also been increasingly present in Indonesia.

In fact, last week Kaspersky launched its e-store, which allowed computer users in Indonesia, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries to purchase their antivirus and Internet security products using local currencies. Based in Malaysia, the e-store, which was called Antivirus365.net, offers products such as Kaspersky Internet Security, Kaspersky Anti-Virus, Kaspersky Mobile Security and Kaspersky Small Office Security (KSOS). The last one is specifically targeted at the SMB market. Using the services found on Kaspersky's web, we can also scan our computer free of charge or download a 30-day trial version.

One of the complaints that we often lodge against antivirus makers is the unavailability of quick response. Antivirus365.net tries to address this issue by providing forum.antivirus365.net. We can chat with the technical support staff or get help from the users community. At the moment the forum is still in its early infancy, and so far it has hardly any useful information to offer. Over time, I hope it will improve and become truly useful.

Viruses, Trojans, worms, spam, hacks, adware, etc. are a fact of life in the digital world. They will attack our enterprise servers, our PCs and notebooks, our cellphones and soon perhaps our cars.

Even Kaspersky's own servers in the United States were recently hacked. The company quickly assured the public that no customer data was stolen and that they had fixed the vulnerability problem.

Nothing can give us 100 percent protection against what has become known as malware, however. The best that we can do to protect our computers and servers is to install effective antivirus software, keep its virus data updated and adopt computing best practice.

When it comes to virus definition data, Kaspersky is known as one of the fastest to respond to the latest virus outbreak, and that is why it is gaining ground among home and small office users.

Which countries are the most productive in churning out viruses? According to Eugene, the three most active "virus-writing" regions are China, Latin America (Brazil in particular) and Russian-speaking countries. Indonesia is also suspected to produce a lot of viruses with devastating impacts, and a good example is the infamous brontok virus. "You have to remember that there are criminals everywhere, and cybercriminals are not an exception," Eugene reminded us.

HP releases netbook interface for Ubuntu

2009-02-10T22:37:00.001-08:00

Hewlett Packard has released a custom version of Ubuntu Linux designed for netbooks. For the HP Mini 1000 Mi Edition, to be exact. Under the hood, the operating system is based on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. That means it can run pretty much any application that runs on Ubuntu including OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird and Pidgin. In fact, it comes preloaded with all of those applications plus a few more. It's also fairly easy to install other Linux staples like image editor GIMP.

But what makes the Mi Edition software stand out is the graphical user interface which looks nothing like Ubuntu or even Ubuntu Netbook Remix. When you first boot up the Mi Edition software you're greeted with a screen with a web search engine, a list of favorite web sites, and shortcuts to your music and photos. If you click the Start New Program button, a program launcher will open that separates your applications into Internet, Media, Utilities, Work, Play, and All tabs. The settings manager shows you everything you'd find in the typical Ubuntu settings screens, but it's arranged in a new way that makes it easier to find what you're looking for with fewer clicks.

HP has also added a custom media player called HP MediaStyle that looks a lot like Apple's FrontRow. MediaStyle provides you with a simple full screen interface for navigating music, videos, and photos.

Overall, HP has created one of the best thought out Linux interfaces for netbooks. The software is designed so that users who have never used Linux should have no trouble performing basic tasks. But experienced Linux users can always fire up a terminal window by hitting Alt+F2 and entering "gnome-terminal."

The software comes preloaded on some HP netbooks. But HP also plans to post a utility on its web site in the next few days that will allow you to create a system restore USB flash disk from Windows. You can already create one if you're running Linux. You can use this utility to either restore a Mi Edition netbook to factory default settings or to turn a Windows XP HP Mini 1000 into a Mi Edition device. I would not advise anyone to try using this install disk on unsupported hardware as you'll probably end up with an operating system that doesn't support your WiFi card or other hardware.

It's not clear whether HP plans to offer the software for non-netbooks. But if you want to try adding installing the user interface over a normal Ubuntu installation, you can try adding the HP repositories and using the Synaptic package manager to install a package called glassy-bleu-theme.

Windows 7: Is it so hard to say "we're sorry"?

2009-02-10T22:28:00.000-08:00

What Microsoft's decision to not offer XP upgrade support from Windows 7 says about its attitude toward IT

Should Microsoft include an "in-place" Windows XP upgrade mechanism with Windows 7 so that users keep their settings and apps? That's the question burning its way through the blogosphere this week.

Some have argued that such a feature is unnecessary: Most IT shops will start with a fresh image of the Windows 7 bits, while consumers will receive the product via new PC purchases. Only a handful of enthusiasts will bother trying to upgrade their aging XP boxes. And in any case, some say that users shouldn't upgrade XP to Windows 7 but instead do a clean install to avoid carrying over the old OS's potential performance and security baggage.

[ Find out whether Windows 7 improves on Vista's performance in the InfoWorld Test Center's benchmarks | Check whether your PC can run Windows 7. ]

Skipping the XP upgrade option would seem like an obvious choice, a way to free up resources that could be better spent elsewhere in Windows 7. But just as a certain former U.S. president learned the hard way during the early months of an unpopular foreign conflict, forward-looking decisions, based on what should be true in a particular context, are rarely a slam dunk.

The fact of the matter is that Microsoft needs to provide an in-place XP upgrade mechanism in Windows 7, if for no other reason than to demonstrate contrition for its myriad Vista sins.

And what might those sins be?

The disingenuousness of denying that Vista was too bloated for many "Vista-capable" PCs.
The arrogance of ignoring IT's pleas for less consumer focus and more attention to enterprise wants and needs.
The smugness of delivering yet another glitzy, frilly release -- Windows 7 -- while tying what little IT red meat it contains to the company's next-generation server OS, Windows Server 2008 R2.

To be sure, the company is paying the price for its misbehavior: Revenues are down, in no small part because Vista has failed to make inroads with the enterprise (roughly 10 percent penetration at last count).

But instead of courting IT with a list of new, enterprise-focused selling points, Microsoft is slathering on even more glitz while warning us against resisting the Windows 7 wave. "You'll face a backlash from your users," says Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, because these users are already using Vista at home today and, thus, expect to see a similar environment at their workplace.

Basically, Microsoft's actions reek of disrespect for IT. Not only is the company furious at us for bypassing Vista, it thinks us fools for fawning over what are essentially the same OS bits warmed over. To the Remondians, Windows 7 is the ultimate sight gag, sort of a second-generation "Windows Mojave" experiment, but on a global scale.

No wonder those Windows Core Team guys, like Dave Probert and Mark Russinovich, are always smiling in their Channel9.com videos. They can't believe we're actually buying into the whole "new Windows OS" spiel. I can almost see them straining against their polo shirts as they try not to blurt out, "But it's really just Vista! We merely polished it up a bit, gave it a new name, and suddenly everyone loves us! We really can't lose with this one! It's like selling sand to the Saudis!"

All of which brings me back to my original point: That Microsoft really needs to provide a compelling migration story for the millions of XP holdouts. And while not offering the direct upgrade option may have minimal impact from a technical standpoint, the underlying symbolism speaks volumes about the company's attitude toward IT. Simply put, the Microsofties think we were wrong to bypass Vista, and they'll be damned if they're going to make it any easier for us now that the Windows 7 bandwagon has left the stadium.

So there you have it. The world's largest software company, reduced to a seething, spiteful shadow of its former self. And to think, all we really wanted was a simple apology: A mea culpa. Maybe a bone or two thrown our way to tell us they've learned their lesson. Changed course. Turned over a new leaf.

Is it really so hard to say, "We're sorry"?

Boy, 8, becomes youngest IT professional

2009-01-19T22:01:00.000-08:00

Marko Calasan, from Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, has become the world's youngest certified computer system administrator.
"I'd like to be a computer scientist when I grow up and create a new operational system," he said.
Marko, whose favourite subject at school is mathematics, learnt to read and write at the age of two, which was when his interest in computers began.
The news of his achievement has turned him into a celebrity in Macedonia.
His mother Radica, 37, said that her son displayed "exceptional learning abilities at a very early age" and that she and her husband, who run a computer school, call on Marko to help solve technical problems when they crop up.
"He is obviously extraordinary gifted, but children above the age of six could learn much more about computers than generally assumed," she said.
Marko is also fascinated by physics and astronomy and struggled to sleep the night before the launch of the Big Bang experiment at the underground facility of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Switzerland.
Marko said: "The media said it could cause the end of the world, but there was never any danger of that."

Yahoo names tech veteran Carol Bartz as new CEO

2009-01-14T03:14:00.000-08:00

Yahoo Inc. named technology veteran Carol Bartz as its new chief executive Tuesday, bringing in a no-nonsense leader known for developing a clear focus — something that has eluded the struggling Internet company during a three-year slump.

The decision to lure Bartz, 60, from software maker Autodesk Inc. ends Yahoo's two-month search to replace co-founder Jerry Yang, who surrendered the CEO reins after potentially lucrative deals with rivals Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. both collapsed.

After describing herself as a straight shooter, Bartz told analysts in a conference call that she intended to ensure Yahoo gets "some friggin' breathing room" so the company can "kick some butt." She said it would be presumptuous to share her vision for Yahoo on her first day on the job.

"I wouldn't have taken the job if I didn't believe there was a huge opportunity here," Bartz said before she had to hustle off to her first meeting with Yahoo's top managers.

After a tepid early reaction, investors seemed to warm up to Bartz's appointment. Yahoo shares fell 12 cents Tuesday to close at $12.10, then recovered 47 cents, almost 4 percent, in extended trading.

Bartz's appointment could set the stage for Microsoft to renew its efforts to buy Yahoo's Internet search operations as a way of mounting a more serious threat to Google, the market leader. Microsoft had been reluctant to deal with Yang because he rebuffed several previous overtures, including a $47.5 billion offer to buy Yahoo in its entirety last May.

Microsoft subsequently withdrew that bid, valued at $33 per share. Yang had hoped to placate shareholders by using Google's superior technology to sell some of the ads alongside Yahoo's search results, but that idea unraveled in November after antitrust regulators threatened to block the deal.

Yahoo's decision to bring in an outsider apparently irked its president, Susan Decker, who also was a candidate for the CEO job. She now plans to resign after a transitional period. Both Decker and Bartz are on Intel Corp.'s board of directors.

"We are very confident (Bartz) is the right leader to get Yahoo back on track and help the company achieve its full potential," Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock said.

Bartz's track record indicates she will move quickly to build upon Yahoo's strengths while doing her best to shed the weaknesses.

"She is able to see the essence of things because she doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about how people are going to feel," said Nilofer Merchant, a former Autodesk manager who now heads technology consultant Rubicon. "She is driven by doing the best thing for the business."

Forrester Research analyst David Card said Yahoo desperately needs someone to crack the whip after years of drifting aimlessly despite having a vast online audience, which it touts as 500 million people worldwide.

"It's a salvageable company," Card said. "They just need to get their act in gear and make some tough decisions. (Bartz) is also going to have to restore employee morale in the company and make sure everyone is singing from the same handbook."

Bartz spent nearly 17 years at Autodesk, which specializes in making design software for architects and engineers. She was the San Rafael-based company's CEO from 1992 until 2006, when she stepped aside to become executive chairman — a job that paid her a $500,000 salary. Yahoo didn't immediately disclose her new compensation package.

While Bartz was CEO, Autodesk's annual revenue ballooned from nearly $300 million to $1.5 billion. Perhaps more importantly to Yahoo's long-suffering shareholders, Autodesk's stock price rose by an annual average of nearly 20 percent during Bartz's reign, beating the 10.6 percent annual average for the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

Bartz had established her management chops in nine years at Sun Microsystems Inc., where she eventually became the No. 2 executive behind the server maker's then-CEO, Scott McNealy. She also has worked at Digital Equipment Corp. and 3M.

Despite Bartz's resume, she will likely face questions about whether she is a good fit at Yahoo because she lacks any background in advertising — the primary source of Yahoo's income.

Bartz brushed aside that concern. "I suspect I have the brainpower to understand media," she said. "I also suspect there are people here that can help jump-start my education."

Yahoo also is far larger than Autodesk, with annual revenue of more than $7 billion and roughly 13,000 employees, nearly twice the size of Autodesk's work force.

As one of the first women to run a technology company, Bartz is used to being underestimated. Even after she had been Autodesk's CEO for years, some of her male counterparts occasionally mistook her for an administrative assistant while she was attending industry conferences.

Before graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1971 with a degree in computer science, Bartz was a cheerleader, homecoming queen and a cocktail waitress — a job that helped pay her college tuition.

In her corporate life, Bartz talks more like a sailor, said Merchant, who recalls Bartz starting days with profanity-laced phone calls demanding to know why a sale hadn't been closed. After dressing down a worker, Bartz usually found a way to end the conversation on an encouraging note. "She always wanted to make sure the job got done," Merchant said.

Bartz hasn't hesitated to get rid of employees incapable of executing her strategy. Within six months of taking over at Autodesk, she had purged its management ranks.

If Yahoo turns its search operations over to Microsoft, many analysts expect the company to lay off thousands of workers to save money. As it is, Yahoo just dumped 1,500 workers to help shore up its profits during the recession. The company also has lost many top managers during the past two years as Yahoo's malaise worsened.

Bartz also will have to coexist with Yang, who will revert to his titular role of "chief Yahoo" while remaining on the company's board. Those two also share a boardroom together as directors at Internet gear maker Cisco Systems Inc.

"I believe Carol is the ideal person to take Yahoo forward and I will be honored to assist her in any way she finds helpful," Yang said.

This won't be Bartz's first daunting challenge. When Autodesk hired her in CEO in 1992, the company was facing a shareholder revolt amid concerns that it was overly dependent on a single software product that accounted for nearly all its revenue. Now, Autodesk offers an array of design software and computer programs that help add special effects to movies and TV shows.

To compound her initial problems at Autodesk, Bartz was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after taking the job. She had a mastectomy and was back in the office in four weeks.

2008-12-26T03:12:00.000-08:00

Free Press called on the U.S. Congress and President-elect Barack Obama to move quickly to approve new programs to roll out broadband. Earlier this month, Obama included broadband in his announcement of a plan for the largest government-funded infrastructure program since the interstate highway system in the 1950s. The new spending is necessary to stimulate the struggling U.S. economy, Obama said.

Free Press, one of several advocacy groups in Washington, D.C., calling for a new national broadband policy, recommended about a dozen new government programs to address broadband rollout in a report released Wednesday. The programs, costing $44 billion over three years, would "immediately create tens of thousands of new jobs in the telecommunications, manufacturing and high-tech sectors," the report said.

Representative Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, has predicted an infrastructure stimulus package costing about $600 billion. Asked if Congress might balk at $44 billion for broadband, Ben Scott, Free Press' policy director, noted that the group's proposal would make up a small fraction of the infrastructure stimulus package. "We think that would be money well spent," Scott said.

Members of Congress have talked about passing the infrastructure package in January, and Free Press would support quick action. While Free Press sees all of its recommendations as important, the priority should be to bring broadband to areas in the U.S. that don't yet have it, Scott said.

Among the Free Press recommendations:

-- $15 billion over three years for a Universal Service Broadband Infrastructure Fund, which would subsidize companies rolling out broadband in areas that do not now have it. Funding should only go to services providing at least 5 Mbits per second of broadband, with priority given to companies rolling out 50Mbps service, Free Press said.

-- $5 billion for a new Universal Service Mobility Infrastructure Fund, which would fund the deployment of wireless broadband networks to rural areas and along highway corridors.

-- $3 billion for a new E-Rate at home program. This program would be modeled after the E-Rate program providing Internet service for schools and libraries in poor areas, but would fund the purchase of laptops that can go home with students. The program would also fund the expansion of school and library WiFi networks out into the surrounding community.

-- $1.5 billion for accelerated tax depreciation of infrastructure purchased by broadband providers, and another $1.5 billion for tax credits to companies rolling out broadband to unserved and underserved areas.

"These policies will provide substantial economic relief to rural areas of America hit hardest by the current recession," the Free Press report said. "Increased broadband adoption ... will also substantially increase short-term consumer spending. And it will ensure long-term economic growth by bringing those on the wrong side of the digital divide into the digital economy."

Microsoft kicks fake security software off 400,000 PCs

2008-12-26T02:59:00.000-08:00

December's version of the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), a free utility that Microsoft pushes to Windows users as part of Patch Tuesday , targeted one of the most popular phony security app, Antivirus 2009. According to Microsoft, the MSRT erased the fake from over 394,000 PCs in the first nine days after it released this month's edition on Dec. 9

Last month, Microsoft trumpeted a similar cleaning operation against another family of bogus security software that it said had purged nearly a million machines of programs like "Advanced Antivirus," "Ultimate Antivirus 2008," and "XPert Antivirus."

December's campaign targeted a different family -- dubbed "W32/FakeXPA" by Microsoft -- that includes fake security software going by names such as "Antivirus XP," "AntivirusXP 2008" and "Antivirus 2009."

Windows users increasingly have been plagued with worthless security software as criminals bundle the money makers with other malware or seed significant users with waves of spam touting the programs. According to one researcher, cybercrooks can pull in as much as $5 million a year by installing the rogue programs on PCs, then dunning users with infection claims and constant pop-ups until the victims pay $40 or $50 to purchase the useless applications.
Microsoft also aimed the December version of MSRT at an affiliated piece of malware, called "W32/Yektel," that works alongside W32FakeXPA and is often bundled with the phony security software.

Classified by Microsoft as a Trojan horse, Yektel takes advantage of users' worries about browser security by inserting false warnings into Internet Explorer . Those warnings, explained Microsoft researcher Hamish O'Dea in a post to the company's malware protection center blog two weeks ago, appear at random and mimic IE's own legitimate drop-down alerts.

Newer variations of the Yektel Trojan go a step further, and insert phony warnings into Google search results, said O'Dea. Whenever these even-sneakier versions detect IE rendering a URL that includes "google," it inserts a fake message that reads "Google has detected unregistered Antivirus 2009 copy on your computer. Google recommends you activate Antivirus 2009 to protect your PC from malicious intrusions from the Internet."
The links from Yektel's IE and Google warnings, of course, take users to a Web site where users are urged to pay $50 to register Antivirus 2009.
Windows users can download the MSRT manually from Microsoft's Web site or via the Windows Update service.

Nokia heralds N97 as most powerful mobile yet

2008-12-26T02:46:00.000-08:00

The N97, launched on Tuesday, comes equipped with a 3.5-inch,16:9 touchscreen (the resolution is 640 by 360) and up to 48GB of storage; including 32GB of internal storage and another 16GB via a microSD card slot.

It also has a Qwerty keyboard that slides out from beneath the screen. The phone is expected to retail for €550 ($690) before taxes or subsidies and ship during the first half of next year.
It is "the most powerful, multisensory mobile computer in existence," said Jonas Geust, vice president for Nokia's N series.

Included on the long list of features is a 5-megapixel camera with a dual LED flash, A-GPS (Assisted Global Positioning System), HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), and Wi-Fi.
The Finnish phone giant also promises DVD-quality video capture.

The growing interest for mobile social networking isn't lost on Nokia and is an important part of the phone. Nokia is introducing a concept called social location, which uses A-GPS sensors and an electronic compass to let users know exactly where they are.

Users also have fast access to social networks through the device's home screen, which makes it easy to update those networks with real-time information, Nokia said.
The phone will also be integrated with a number of services, including the gaming platform N-gage, Share on Ovi, and the Nokia Music Store.

But the phone, announced during Nokia World 08 in Barcelona, has some drawbacks, said Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight.
The N97 lacks support for fast upload speeds using HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access), the camera doesn't offer the highest resolution on the market, and the materials used to build the device aren't the best quality, according to Wood.

"The N95 was a market changer, and the N97 is more an evolution of that," he said.
Still, Wood thinks the phone will attract advanced users and sell well. But it also leaves the door open to competitors, since the N97 probably won't ship until around June 2009.
Nokia has basically given its Korean competitors a blueprint of what an advanced phone will look like by the middle of next year. Korean companies develop new phones fast, according to Wood.
Apple also won't sit idle, Wood said. An iPhone with a Qwerty keyboard that borrows some of its design from the MacBook Air would also be a special entry to the market, he said.

Microsoft Releases Open Source Blogging Platform

2008-12-09T21:47:00.000-08:00

Microsoft released an alpha version of its own open source content management system, Oxite. The source code for the software is available under the Microsoft Public License. While Microsoft mostly describes Oxite as a blogging platform, the Oxite team also points out that you could use it as a content management system to develop more or less any type of site. Oxite currently powers Microsoft's own Mix Online and also uses some recycled parts from Channel 9 .

Some of the major features of the software include support for Gravatars, pingbacks, trackbacks, RSS feeds, commenting, and the MetaWebLog API (so you can use your favorite blogging client to post to your Oxite blog directly).

ASP.NET

The major roadblock for a lot of potential users, however, is that Oxite is an ASP.NET application, and most standard hosting services run Linux servers, which can not run ASP.NET. This, of course, makes sense, given that Oxite is also meant to be a demo for the ASP.NET MVC framework, but it will surely disappoint a lot of users.

Channel 9 has a short interview with the developers that describes some more of the software's features and the history of its development.

Given that Microsoft uses Oxite to run its own Mix Online site on top of Oxite, it must surely be a stable and powerful platform, especially for sites with multiple blogs.

However, it definitely would be too early to say that Microsoft is competing with Wordpress, Typepad, Drupal, or Joomla. There still seem to be a lot of missing pieces and we are not even sure yet if Oxite features an extension architecture that third-party developers would be able to develop for. However, it's nice to see Microsoft release this project under an open source license, even if it is at least partly for self-serving reasons.

Google Book Search: now with magazines

2008-12-09T21:45:00.001-08:00

Google announced today that its Book Search engine is now home to magazine archives. Partnerships with publishers such as Hearst mean you can read magazine articles in full-color, from page-to-page, in their original context. And you don’t have to be afraid of papercuts.

Searches now bring up results from magazines like Popular Science, New York Magazine and Ebony, plus niche publications such as Vegetarian Times and the admittedly obscure Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Oddly enough, some big names such as Newsweek and Time are not yet available, but hopefully Google will expand its offerings soon.

You can browse issues through the decades, in an experience similar to Google’s digital newspaper archives. Use the advanced book search options to restrict search results to only magazines. These magazine search results will eventually be integrated into Google.com search results, which may lead to serendipitous discoveries such as this piece on canine eyewear. One of the neatest features of the magazine search is a world map that pinpoints locations mentioned in the issue (teleportation device not included, sadly).

Google has also been busy digitizing other content, such as LIFE Magazine’s photo archives last month. How much longer before Google digitizes my college essays? Only time will tell.

I’m loath to part with my copies of Gourmet, Dwell Magazine and The New Yorker, but once Google adds more magazines to its archives, this digitization will hopefully ease my separation anxiety. Hoarding magazines is a heavy habit.

CNN Web site targeted

2008-12-09T21:27:00.001-08:00

CNN was targeted Thursday by attempts to interrupt its news Web site, resulting in countermeasures that caused the service to be slow or unavailable to some users in limited areas of Asia.

CNN took preventative measures to filter traffic in response to attempts to disrupt its Web site.

"CNN took preventative measures to filter traffic in response to attempts to disrupt our Web site. A small percentage of CNN.com users in Asia are impacted," the network said in a statement.

"We do not know who is responsible, nor can we confirm where it came from," the statement continued.

A CNN spokesman said the Web site began to notice problems around midday Thursday and took measures to isolate the trouble by limiting the number of users who could access it from specific geographic areas.

As a result, he said, some users in those areas experienced temporary slowdowns or problems accessing the site.

The spokesman could not offer an estimate of how many users were affected. However, he said that the impact on daily usage was "imperceptible" and that the site "at no time" went down.

Service had returned to normal by mid-morning Friday, he said.

The attempt came as tech-oriented Web sites in Asia were reporting calls from hacker groups in China for denial-of-service attacks to be launched against the CNN Web site on Saturday over the network's coverage of unrest in Tibet.

Angry Chinese bloggers have accused CNN and several other Western news organizations of being unfair in covering recent pro-independence protests in Tibet, which is controlled by China.

In response, the network released a statement noting that "CNN's reputation is based on reporting global news accurately and impartially, while our coverage through the use of words, images or video always reflects a wide range of opinions and points of view on every story."

In a denial-of-service attack, hackers use automated programs to try to jam a site with bogus requests for service to the point that service is slowed or interrupted for legitimate users

The DDoS Attack Against CNN.com

2008-12-09T21:17:00.000-08:00

The DDoS attack against CNN.com, whether successful or not in terms of the perspective of complete knock-out, which didn't happen, is a perfect and perhaps the most recent example of a full scale people's information warfare in action. Utilizing the bandwidth of the over 200 million nationalism minded Chinese Internet users, can greatly outpace any botnet's capacity if coordinated, or though the use of automated DIY tools, like the ones we've seen released for the purpose of attacking CNN.com

CNN.com was indeed inacessible for a period of three hours according to NetCraft, and literally any web site performance monitoring too with a historical perspective for a host can prove the same :

"The CNN News website has twice been affected since an earlier distributed denial of service attack last Thursday. CNN fixed Thursday's attack by limiting the number of users who could access the site from specific geographical areas. Subsequently, an attack was purportedly organised to start on Saturday 19th April, but cancelled. However, our performance monitoring graph shows CNN's website suffered downtime within a 3 hour period on Sunday morning, followed by other anomalous activity on Monday morning, where response times were greatly inflated. Netcraft is continuing to monitor the CNN News website. Live uptime graphs can be viewed here."

Unrestricted warfare is all about bypassing the most fortified engagement points, and achieving asymmetric dominance by excelling where there are no engagement points, in order for the attacker to enjoy the pioneer advantage. Now that CNN.com was indeed slowed down to a situation where it was unnacessible, what remains to be answered is how was CNN.com DDoS? Throught a botnet, or through the collective bandwidth of virtually recruited Chinese citizens? Despite that the common wisdom in terms of botnets used speaks for itself, this is China hacktivism and therefore common wisdom does not apply in an unrestricted warfare situation, and best of all data speaks for itself.

Denial of service attack

2008-12-09T21:13:00.000-08:00

A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted, malevolent efforts of a person or persons to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks, credit card payment gateways, and even DNS root servers.

One common method of attack involves saturating the target (victim) machine with external communications requests, such that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic, or responds so slowly as to be rendered effectively unavailable. In general terms, DoS attacks are implemented by either forcing the targeted computer(s) to reset, or consuming its resources so that it can no longer provide its intended service or obstructing the communication media between the intended users and the victim so that they can no longer communicate adequately.

What hackers do

2008-12-09T21:11:00.000-08:00

In theory, people who try to breach computer security should be called crackers rather than hackers. But the popular press has lost the distinction between the two, and I'm not going to make life difficult by trying to resurrect it.

So, hackers, as popularly defined, are computer experts who spend enormous amounts of time trying to breach the security of networks, Web servers and email servers. Usually they use a selection of specialist software to identify weaknesses, which are then exploited.

The majority do it for fun and as a challenge. They're not interested in attacking private individuals. It's the big companies and authorities they go for.

There are just two aspects of hacking that you have to worry about as a private individual. One is that your details are on various company databases, and when these are cracked, information about you can be stolen.

There's not a lot you can do about this, and it definitely happens from time to time. The good news is that you won't finish up with any financial liability if your credit card details are discovered. Your credit card company and the company that was cracked will sort it out between themselves. It's unlikely that you'll even know it happened.

The second problem is that serious hackers need to protect their anonymity. This means they can't mount their attacks on organisations like the FBI directly through their own computers and telephone lines. They need first to create an intermediary, like a kind of base camp for a mountain expedition.

To get their intermediate base they use purpose built programs called trojans and backdoors. A trojan is a program that looks innocent but carries a dangerous payload, like the Trojan Horse of Greek mythology. It may be disguised as a game or some other kind of executable program, in the same way that viruses are often disguised.

The payload it carries is a backdoor program (or maybe just a few lines of code that create a security hole so a backdoor program to be installed later). A backdoor program allows the hacker access to your computer whenever it's on the Internet. It's a remote control, and usually a very thorough one with full access to every facility and file on your computer.

Again, in the popular press the distinction between a trojan and a backdoor (or more specifically the client element of a backdoor program) has been lost and the two are often used interchangeably. (Glossary).

It's obviously important to avoid getting a backdoor program inside your computer. The best way is to use a competent virus protection program. Most of these will stop trojans and backdoors getting through.

Don't rely on secure procedures as a method of stopping hackers. They sometimes fire programs over the Internet at a random IP addresses to see if they stick. You could be happily surfing Disneyland, and from nowhere (certainly not the Web site server) a hacking program can turn up at your machine trying to get in.

Once it's inside, it will send a message back to the hacker to say it's colonized your computer. It may also send a message each time you log on to the Internet, because it's likely you'll be given a different IP address by your ISP each time you log on.

If your machine behaves strangely and you think you've got a parasitic backdoor (it's a bit like somebody else having a remote keyboard for the same computer) manually unplug the phone line to break the connection and get yourself a top virus protection program. Don't reconnect that machine to the Internet (not even to collect email) until you're sure it's clean.

Don't worry unnecessarily about hacking programs. They're quite rare on personal computers. It's network managers who lose sleep over them.

The exception is if you run a permanent (always-on) Internet connection, especially a broadband cable connection or DSL. Hackers just love to colonise these connections because they're so useful. If you've got one of these you must install extra security. Your service provider will be aware of the risk and should offer you advice on what kind of security you need.

A good start is to install a firewall. There's a free one that's easy to use called ZoneAlarm, available from ZDNet. It's also recommended for users of regular modems who want to improve their security.