Ha Ha Ha! Ho Ho HO!
The SCO Group, Inc. ("SCO") , a leading provider of UNIX(R) software technology and mobile services, today announced that it received a Nasdaq Staff Determination letter on December 21, 2007 indicating that as a result of having filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel has determined to delist the company's securities from the Nasdaq Stock Market and will suspend trading of the securities effective at the open of business on Thursday, December 27, 2007.
But there is more to this. I hope they finish those court cases before going under completely. PJ at Groklaw posted a really grim picture of SCO financials! You can also Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Thursday, December 27, 2007
SCO Delisted From Nasdaq!
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Sony Flogs Marketing with a Fake Blog and FTC about Being "a little too clever."
NEW YORK, Dec 23, 2006 (AFP) - The curtain has been pulled on a deceptive new advertising tactic in which companies camouflage ads as product praise in online postings masquerading as independent blogs.
Several companies have been exposed for launching fake blogs -- known as "flogs" -- in a practice that coincides with an increase in the number of real bloggers secretly paid to endorse products.
Blogs, a term derived from "Web logs," are rampant on the Internet and are considered online journals in which people post personal opinions, musings, rants and more.
Online firm Technorati reported on Thursday it was tracking more than 63 suspicious blogs.
Wily marketers have infiltrated the blogging world, paying for favorable commentary on products.
However posting product commentary without alerting readers that bloggers were compensated for their opinions is unethical and potential illegal, according to US Federal Trade Commission rules.
Sony Computer Entertainment America, a subsidiary of Japan-based Sony, admitted last week that it created a bogus blog baptized "All I want for Christmas is a PlayStation Portable."
The blog was passed off as the work of an amateur hip-hop musician named "Charlie," who enthusiastically praised the PlayStation.
In a short message on the Charlie blog, Sony apologized for being "a little too clever."
The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, came under fire in October for a blog portrayed as an online journal kept by a typical US couple, named Laura and Jim, as they traveled across the country in a motor home.
The couple's blog praised Wal-Mart for letting them park their hulking recreational vehicle overnight in store parking lots and told of encountering Wal-Mart workers nationwide that praised their jobs and their employer.
Business Week magazine revealed that the couple's cross-country trip was sponsored by Wal-Mart -- a fact unmentioned in the online postings.
Companies such as PayPerPost and ReviewMe, which link bloggers and advertisers, are fueling the phenomenon.
PayPerPost, a five-month-old pioneer in the practice, is true to its name regarding favorable online blog postings.
On ReviewMe, bloggers in any language can offer to post their thoughts on products for 500 dollars a review.
ReviewMe explains on its site that it cannot guarantee favorable reviews, but that most of the posted opinions are positive.
"We do not allow advertisers to require a positive review," the company said in a statement. "The vast majority of reviews are measurably positive, although many do contain constructive criticism."
Blog-for-hire publicity campaigns can be comprised of thousands of postings, according to a PayPerPost spokesman that wished not to be identified.
Fake "independent" blogs by companies or secretly manipulated by advertisers break US law by misleading consumers, according to federal regulators.
The FTC warned this month that "such connection must be fully disclosed" and that its staff "will determine on a case by case basis whether to recommend law enforcement actions to the commission."
Faced with the FTC threat, PayPerPost announced this week it would change it service agreement to require bloggers who were being paid to say so in their postings.
Previously they had left it to the blogger's discretion.
Many PayPerPost competitors have yet to adopt such a rule, and the torrent of user-generated videos, images, and text flooding the Internet has aspiring advertisers navigating uncharted waters.
Attention seekers from fledgling music bands to major corporations have seen clever online content "go viral" -- lingo for being spread for free worldwide by people using e-mail and online links.
Both video-sharing website YouTube and teen-oriented social networking MySpace, for example, have become venues for companies to establish promotional pages.
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Monday, December 24, 2007
Have A wonderful XMAS!
And You may Track Santa Here!
VOIP IP Telephony: Track Santa OnLine As NORAD Follows Santa,!
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Free Calls For Holidays From Jajah
Do not forget to take
advantage of generous offer from Jajah to make local and international calls free up to 60 minutes. Follow the link for instructions. Free Calls For Holidays From Jajah
VOIP IP Telephony: Free Calls, Free International Calls, From Jajah For The Holiday Season
tags: jajah,free calls, Free international calls, christmas,hanukka, kwanza, holiday, jajah direct, voip, voice 2.0
Sunday, December 23, 2007
GNU Octave Version 3.0 released.
11 Years in the making since previous version, GNU Octave 3.0 has been released to public. Unlike other free mathematical programs, Octave make strides in making Matlab compatibility. Matlab is a commercial Mathematical software package popular among academics. I have used it together with Mathematica for decades.
Octave has extensive tools for solving common numerical linear algebra problems, finding the roots of nonlinear equations, integrating ordinary functions, manipulating polynomials, and integrating ordinary differential and differential-algebraic equations. It is easily extensible and customizable via user-defined functions written in Octave's own language, or using dynamically loaded modules written in C++, C, Fortran, or other languages.
You can get details about the release in this news post.
octave.sourceforge.net
octaviz.sourceforge.net
octplot.sourceforge.net
The above sites have supporting scripts, plotting and graphing information and more. Individual sites have their own specialties.
Octave Forge, the first link above also carries the windows binaries, Mac OS X versions of Octave.
If Octave is your your call, read, learn more and download from GNU Octave site.
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Saturday, December 22, 2007
New XMAS Villian Comes From Apple, Is It Jobs Or Is It The Fake One?
These damn lawyers are making a bunch of money out of morons in Cupertino. Guess it is ok to get paranoid in old age. Who is going to start Fake Ellison Blog?
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: First carrot, now stick
RIAA Gets opposition From Student Lawyers
According to this slashdot discussion and the original post, RIAA seems to be getting opposition to it's boilerplate lawsuits.
"A student law clinic is about to cause a revolution in the P2P filesharing war launched by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG.
In what’s probably a world’s first, not lawyers, but student attorneys at the University of Maine School of Law’s Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic have themselves taken up the fight on behalf of fellow students.
Hannah Ames and Lisa Chmelecki from the Cumberland clinic are now officially representing two Maine students.
Ames and Chmelecki are being guided by clinic director and U of M assistant professor Deirdre Smith."Tags:
Friday, December 21, 2007
RIAA Sues USENET!
Wired is reporting that RIAA is stalking again. This time it has targeted a service provider. But I think this time RIAA has made a mistake. To most regular users, usenet is not a regular place to hang out. There are thousands of news groups that provide whole plethora of news services. But it is not very popular and mostly academics use the service. Usenet is one of the oldest Internet service. Usenet (User Network) is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name. It existed since 1979! As the description goes, no body runs it. So who is RIAA sueing? Usenet.com, of Fargo, North Dakota, is one company that redistributes the usenet feed for a subscription fee.
But what will happen is, this suit will give publicity to USENET and millions more will learn about it. So even if RIAA wins the suit, it might have already lost the game.
"The suit comes two weeks after the RIAA won its first pirating jury trial targeting an individual. A Duluth, Minnesota jury ordered Jammie Thomas to pay the RIAA $222,000 for pirating 24 songs on the Kazaa system in 2005.
The usenet.com case marks a dramatic shift in the RIAA's recent litigation strategy -- targeting an alleged facilitator of copyright theft instead of an individual pirate. The RIAA has sued more than 20,000 people on allegations of copyright theft."
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Yahoo China Violates Chinese Copyright Laws, Court Rules.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A Beijing court has upheld a ruling that Yahoo China violates Chinese law by facilitating mass copyright infringement through music downloads, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said.
"The ruling against Yahoo China is extremely significant in clarifying copyright rules for Internet music services in China," said the IFPI, which aims to combat piracy and promote copyright laws.
Officials at Yahoo China could not be immediately reached for comments.
Early this year, music industry leaders including Warner Music Group Corp sued Yahoo China for alleged copyright infringement involving more than 200 unlicensed songs, seeking damages of 5.5 million yuan ($747,100).
Beijing's No. 2 Intermediate Court said in April that Yahoo China, part-owned by Yahoo Inc, one of the world's biggest Internet companies, should bear some responsibility for the copyright infringement, although the music was downloaded from servers of third-party Web sites.
The court ordered Yahoo China to delete links to free Web sites offering music downloads and to pay about 200,000 yuan for facilitating distribution of unlicensed songs by other sites. Yahoo China then said it would appeal against the verdict.
The Beijing Higher People's Court upheld the April ruling on Thursday, under new Chinese copyright laws which entered into force in 2006, the IFPI said in an e-mailed statement dated December 20.
Despite enormous market potential, music sales in China totaled $76 million in 2006, less than 1 per cent of the global recorded music market, the IFPI statement said.
The IFPI, which represents the world's music companies, estimates that about 85 percent of all music consumed in China is pirated.Tags:
Google Can DoubleClick FTC Agrees.
According to the following San Jose Mercury news article Google has won the FTC approval to purchase DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion. FTC wondered about the combination of two largest advertising and the impact on consumer privacy. But agreed that those concerns go well beyond this deal. Google is yet to get a ruling from European regulators, expected sometime in the next three months. The European Commission has said it will complete its investigation by April 2. Consumer advocates and Google rivals, such as Microsoft and AT&T, strongly oppose the deal, which was announced in April 2007, on the grounds that it would give Google sweeping insight into individuals' behavior on the Internet and allow the Mountain View company to dominate Internet ad sales and ad serving tools. If I were FTC then I would look into the practices of AT&T and Microsoft on the same issues. The concerns about this knowledge of user behavior could be gleamed from other sources easily, whether Double click is there or not. Google makes money primarily from selling advertising based on specific words users type into its famous search engine, as well as from ads that are matched with the content of Web pages. DoubleClick makes money by providing software to advertisers and publishers that helps them place and track display ads. Both companies are considered leaders in their areas. SJM Article. Tags:
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
"Leopard" Was The Best Mac OS X To Date
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The launch of Apple Inc's (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) latest operating system, Leopard, was its best ever, a research group said on Monday.
When comparing the first full month of sales of Apple Mac OS 10.5 "Leopard" (November 2007) to the first full month of sales for Mac OS 10.4 "Tiger" (May 2005), dollar volume for Leopard was up 32.8 percent and unit volume up 20.5 percent, NPD Group Inc said in a statement.
Apple, maker of the Macintosh computer, the iPod digital music player and the iPhone smartphone, started selling Leopard on October 25, after a four-month delay due to the company's work on the iPhone.
The new version of Apple's OS X software costs $129 for a single user and $199 for a "family pack" that can be installed on as many as five computers in a single household.
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Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Mac OS X, Safari Beta Fixed, In New Update From Apple
Apple has released year-end security patches Monday, issuing 31 updates for the Apple operating system, Mac OS X, and the beta version of its Safari browser.
The Mac OS X patches fix components ranging from the Address Book and iChat software to under-the-covers operating system components such as ColorSync, the IO Storage Family, and the Perl, Python and Ruby programming languages.
If you have not done so, do the update.
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Sonic The Hedgehog Blasts You Into The Past On iPod
Sega announced the release of Sonic The Hedgehog for iPod today. ArsTechnica says that this implementation of Sonic isn't bad, either. You can use the traditional Sonic music in the background, or your own iPod music if you prefer (for posterity's sake, I'd stick with the original). You can jump with the center button and apparently the scroll wheel just isn't as annoying as it is on, say, Solitaire.
Friday, December 14, 2007
First Bittorrent Pirate In Russia Sentensed
According to torrentfreak, first person in Russia has been convicted for using BitTorrent to infringe copyright or distribute software. Sergei Avramov appeared in court in the city of Rostov-on-Don, accused of the illegal distribution of pirated software. Despite his actions being strictly not-for-profit, he was found guilty and received a 12 month suspended sentence. I think the copyright mafia is strong enough any where that it is silly to distribute or seek such software. I am sometimes wondering why people have to pirate software, when there are equally good or better software available for free in the OSS world.
Take for instance, Open Office. This piece of software can out beat Microsoft Office without any trouble. Yet people still go looking for pirated copies of those software. I wonder why.
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Google Knol, A Cleaner Wikipedia?
Encouraging people to contribute knowledge and to Google's own version of Wikipedia, Knol seem to be very appealing. The project Knol is by invitation only at the moment but from what I have seen sports a clean wordpress like interface.
It is almost like a group blog, wikipedia but giving prominance to people who create articles or books, not the article it self. So Geemodo will thrive to make a gee more and will have prominent place in the knol for Grid, VoIP, Medical, and social information. Perhaps I will make a knol feed at Feedotopia. Here is an excerpt from Official Google Blog post;
"The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors' names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors -- but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word "knol" as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we'll do the rest."
That explains a lot. My question is why not Gnol?
Official Google Blog: Encouraging people to contribute knowledge
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Thursday, December 13, 2007
Opera Goes At Microsoft For Unfair Integration Of IE to the Windows
Oslo, Norway and Brussels, Belgium — 13 December 2007
Opera Software ASA, the only company that can put the Web on any device, filed a complaint with the European Commission yesterday which is aimed at giving consumers a genuine choice of Web browsers.
The complaint describes how Microsoft is abusing its dominant position by tying its browser, Internet Explorer, to the Windows operating system and by hindering interoperability by not following accepted Web standards. Opera has requested the Commission to take the necessary actions to compel Microsoft to give consumers a real choice and to support open Web standards in Internet Explorer.
"We are filing this complaint on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera. "In addition to promoting the free choice of individual consumers, we are a champion of open Web standards and cross-platform innovation. We cannot rest until we've brought fair and equitable options to consumers worldwide."
Opera requests the Commission to implement two remedies to Microsoft’s abusive actions. First, it requests the Commission to obligate Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows and/or carry alternative browsers pre-installed on the desktop. Second, it asks the European Commission to require Microsoft to follow fundamental and open Web standards accepted by the Web-authoring communities. The complaint calls on Microsoft to adhere to its own public pronouncements to support these standards, instead of stifling them with its notorious "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish" strategy. Microsoft's unilateral control over standards in some markets creates a de facto standard that is more costly to support, harder to maintain, and technologically inferior and that can even expose users to security risks.
"Our complaint is necessary to get Microsoft to amend its practices," said Jason Hoida, Deputy General Counsel, Opera."The European Court of First Instance confirmed in September that Microsoft has illegally tied Windows Media Player to Windows. We are simply asking the Commission to apply these same, clear principles to the Internet Explorer tie, a tie that has even more profound effects on consumers and innovation. We are confident that the Commission understands the significance of the Internet Explorer tie and will take the necessary actions to restore competition and consumer choice in the browser market."
Opera has long held the position of innovator in the Web browser market, having introduced and pioneered features like tabbed browsing, Speed Dial, integrated search bar, mouse gestures, Opera Link™ and many others. Absent Microsoft’s abuse, Microsoft would have been forced to compete on a level playing field with Opera and other browsers. Instead of innovating, Microsoft has locked consumers to its own browser and only recently begun to offer some of the innovative features that other browsers have offered for years.
Both of Opera’s requested remedies are intended to give consumers greater freedom and flexibility while at the same time ensuring that the Web further develops into a platform for innovation. Opera believes that the remedies will help promote consumer rights worldwide and force Microsoft to begin competing with Opera and others on the merits of its browser.
Opera's product range includes its flagship desktop browser, a fast and free Web browser for mobile phones called Opera Mini, and Opera Mobile, a version of the browser designed for today's advanced smartphones. All Opera’s products support open Web standards which make the Web a home for innovation. Available completely free, Opera's desktop browser or Opera Mini can be downloaded at www.opera.com.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Modified Google by Your ISP
Canadian ISP Rogers modifies your Internet access and put it's own stuff on the page. A post on matt cutts lead me to the original but after seeing the screen capture, It could easily have been your Grand Ma's blog page. It was a warning injected to inform that the user is reaching his/her limit for the month.
Yes Rogers could have used the email to inform. And in fact it is also evident that Rogers is spying, sort of, on it's users.
Well it is what we voted for, let big brothers watch and analyze you.
Askeraser Turns On Privacy Swithch For ASK.COM
Ask.com is betting that privacy concerns will sell their wares.. The fourth-largest search engine company will introduce a new and novel service today called AskEraser, which allows users to make their searches more private, once the AskEraser is turned on. Best part of Askeraser is the easy way that one could use it. People will be able to turn AskEraser on or off with two clicks.
NY Times Bits says that it is not much that Ask erases. Even if ask erases, there are more who hordes user data. It is like swimming among thousands of sharks, and one of them being a vegetarian. So exercise care, where you roam. How you ask, well I am yet to find.Ask.com and other major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft typically keep track of search terms typed by users and link them to a computer’s Internet address, and sometimes to the user. However, Google and Microsoft make search logs largely anonymous or discard them after 18 months. Yahoo does the same after 13 months.
Microsoft releases Office 2007 Service Pack Early.
Or is it an early Xmas gift to itself?
A service pack is usually to correct bugs, bad code, broken features, exploits, etc, or in MBut M$ service packs have been getting bigger and bigger all the time. I have seen Office 2007 in action as my girlfriend needed it for one of here classes.
But I already told her not to upgrade as there were already complains about the service pack breaking some stuff, like scanning but as I have not tested it I cannot vouch for it.
So go help M$ by downloading and installing the Office 2007 service pack so that M$ can get it all other applications working well with the other M$ suites, like exchange server, sharepoint server and all those new live products!
Monday, December 10, 2007
Microsoft releases public beta of Office Live Workspace
REDMOND, Wash., Dec. 10. 2007 - Microsoft today is beginning roll-out of the public beta of Office Live Workspace, a secure online workspace to which Office users can post Word, PowerPoint, Excel or PDF files directly from Office applications to work on remotely from virtually any web-connected PC and collaborate on with others.
To learn more about Office Live Workspace, PressPass spoke with Kirk Gregersen, Office Director of Consumer and Small Business Product Management.
PressPass: So, what are you announcing today?
Gregersen: We’re announcing that the public beta of Microsoft Office Live Workspace is going live for the first set of people in the United States who pre-registered for the service at www.officelive.com.
We’re also introducing community discussion forums on the Office Live Workspace Community site, which should provide a great way for our early beta users to share their experiences, tell us what we can improve and ask any questions they might have.
PressPass: What is Office Live Workspace and how does it try to help Office users?
Gregersen: Office Live Workspace is the first Office Live service for all Office users. It provides an easy way for people to save their Office documents and other files to the web, and then to share their work and collaborate with others. We think that Office Live Workspace will be important for our 500 million Office customers because it’s one of the first tightly integrated web-based sharing and collaboration services designed to give a seamless experience for Office users.
The service also responds to some of the top requests that we’ve gotten from Office customers, which require a combination of the web and great integration with Office on the desktop to really solve. The way that Office Live Workspace extends Office on the desktop is a good example of what Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie refer to as our “software plus services” approach.
PressPass: How will people be able to use Office Live Workspace and what will it mean for their everyday work and personal lives?
Gregersen: Customers have asked for an easy way to save their documents from Office to the web, so that they can get to their information or projects if they’re away from their PC. People also get frustrated with the confusing free-for-all that can result when multiple versions of documents circulate in e-mail attachments that then have to be manually pulled together by the original author. We’re hopeful that Office Live Workspace helps solve these challenges by providing a place online to keep a single version of a document that everyone can work on – so you’ll always know if you’re working on the latest draft.
Office Live Workspace also provides a seamless connection with Office on the desktop, which has been one of the most important customer requirements. For example, if I’m creating or editing a document in Word, I want to be able to save it to the web as if I’m saving to my own hard drive – no hunting around for URLs or saving and then uploading. We’ve seen that if people are working on a document and have to go to the browser to upload, many just can’t get over that hump. So we’ve learned you have to make it super easy for people to do things like get their documents from Office to the web, as well as to save work back to the web with one-click if they’re making edits.
We’re hopeful that focusing on solving this “last mile” problem – providing an on-ramp from Office on the desktop to the web and vice-versa – will make things a lot easier for people in their everyday work and personal lives.
PressPass: Do you expect enterprise customers to use the service as well?
Gregersen: There’s been significant interest from people who’d like to use Office Live Workspace at work, so we’re expecting a lot of use by people in companies who work with Office, collaborate frequently on teams and work with partners outside the corporate network.
That said, we also know that many business customers will require the added capabilities provided by products and services such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Office Groove 2007 and the new Microsoft Online services. These are collaboration platforms designed explicitly to meet the additional needs of businesses when it comes to things like regulatory compliance, extensibility, archiving and back-up, directory integration, auditing and much more.
PressPass: How does Office Live Workspace handle security and permissions issues?
Gregersen: We know that security is a key concern for our customers, so we’ve built in provisions to help keep customers documents secure and also support various sharing and collaboration scenarios. Office Live Workspace, uses Windows Live ID so only registered, trusted users will have access to a given document or set of documents. We’ve also built in virus protection for documents from Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint.
Customers have a lot of options around sharing and permissions. You can assign who can see your files so only a specific list of individuals have access. Or, the owner of the workspace can also specify that the documents are available to anyone.
PressPass: What are some of the ways you see this new service helping Office customers?
Gregersen: Today’s increasingly global and mobile workforce places a premium on the ability to manage projects across geographically-dispersed teams that often include colleagues, customers, suppliers and partners, many of whom may be outside the corporate network or behind a security firewall. At the same time, work life and home life are increasingly blurring for many people, so they want access to their home life at work and vice-versa. People are increasingly tele-working, participating in distance learning or moving from contract to contract with a variety of employers.
Office Live Workspace addresses growing demand among our customers for on-the-go access to projects and the ability to collaborate with others regardless of where they live or work.
PressPass: What has the response been to the service to date?
Gregersen: Based on feedback during initial testing and planning, we’ve received very positive feedback about Office Live Workspace. The product team worked hard to give Office users what they have been asking us for. We did a ton of usability and early alpha testing, during which people gave us great feedback that we’ve been able to incorporate into the beta you’ll see today. We’ll continue to evolve the service over the coming months, drawing heavily from things we’re hearing on the community forum and in our early adopter programs.
We’ve also been pleasantly surprised by the high level of interest and excitement we’re seeing from colleges and universities. We reached capacity almost immediately with our early adopter program, which now includes schools such as the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Washington and Vanderbilt University. Many students and faculty members use Office on the desktop every day, so people have been particularly excited about how Office and Office Live Workspace work together with features like the one-click save to their workspace, the Office Live Workspace add-in for Office, the high fidelity viewing experience and the Outlook and Excel synching capabilities.
PressPass: Isn’t Office Live Small Business also one of the offerings from your group? What is happening with that service?
Gregersen: Yes it is. We continue to be really excited about the customer response to Office Live Small Business, which provides everything you need to take, promote and manage a small business online. In fact, it’s become one of the fastest growing small business services online, with more than 500,000 subscribers to date. We’re committed to meeting the needs of small businesses so we’re going to continue to innovate and enhance this service. Stay tuned as we’ll have a bunch of news on this front in the coming months.
PressPass: Are there any special system requirements to use Office Live Workspace?
Gregersen: Office Live Workspace will work on most PCs and Macs with a Firefox or Internet Explorer web browser. People running Office on the desktop will be able to get the most out of the service, but you don’t need Office to access the basic parts of the service, such as roaming access to your documents and the web-based functionality like viewing, commenting, Web Lists and Web Notes. People can get more detail on www.officelive.com in the FAQ section of the site.
PressPass: How can someone get Office Live Workspace?
Gregersen: People today can sign up for the Office Live Workspace beta at www.officelive.com. As I mentioned earlier, to keep track of the latest exciting developments with Office Live Workspace, check out our community blog at www.officeliveworkspacecommunity.com.
PressPass: When will Office Live Workspace be made available to people outside the United States and in languages beyond English?
Gregersen: Office Live Workspace will be opened out to international users early next year, with additional languages - beyond the current English-language version - available later in 2008. Countries outside the U.S. are also excited about this online web service, so we are looking forward to offering this opportunity to them too.
PressPass: Where do you see Office Live Workspace going from here?
Gregersen: This is just the start of a wave of new products we’re rolling out to deliver on our vision of software plus services, bringing together the features and performance of software with the convenience and reach of services delivered over the internet. Today’s beta launch across the thousands of pre-registrants who signed up in advance for the service will enable us to gather customer feedback that we’ll use to optimize the customer experience before making it generally available next year. This is just the beginning. We’re going to continue to evolve Office Live rapidly and nothing’s off the table. Watch this space!
Friday, December 07, 2007
CompUSA Shuts Down
Wall Street Journal reports that one of my walk in computer shops, Compusa will be shutdown. Even though I did not like the sales people who did not know USB, from PSB, I could find what ever they offered easily on their racks, which were neatly arranged most of the time. I just got my Nokia N810 there.
"Mexican telephone and retail magnate Carlos Slim, in a rare defeat, will exit the U.S. consumer electronics market, shutting the last 100 CompUSA Inc. stores after sinking about $2 billion into the business.
Gordon Brothers Group, a Boston-based retail store liquidator, will oversee a piecemeal sale of the Dallas-based business, the company said in a statement. Financial terms were not disclosed. Stores will remain open through year-end under the supervision of Gordon Brothers, which will also negotiate the sale of real estate and other assets. Two law firms were hired to represent creditors, CompUSA said."
Western Digital Has A DRM Crippled Harddrive, Just For Your Safety
Register is reporting that Western Digital's 1TB My Book World Edition external hard drive has been crippled by DRM for your safety.
"Due to unverifiable media license authentication, the most common audio and video file types cannot be shared with different users using WD Anywhere Access."
WD's list of banned file types encompasses over 35 extensions. This includes AAC, MP3, AVI, DivX, WMV, and Quicktime files. And why not — Windows TMP files too.
So you know what drive I will not be buying, not that I have music to share, even in the house! I only listen to radio, in the car. I don't buy music anymore. WD stick to making harddrives, RIAA and MPAA is doing enough to protect Music and Media, every which way they can.
And if you are crippling the remotes access and sharing, do not call it a "Network Storage System for Remote Access and Sharing".
Register article.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
M$ To Drop Vista Kill Switch
Apparently M$ is dropping Vista kill switch that is currently hobbling Windows Vista installations that fail the company's validation processes. It will come with microsofts forthcoming Service Pack 1 update for Vista, scheduled for next year.
Looks like Vista is not selling like M$ expected to. Well make it attractive and take out useless restrictive home calls every time a pc boots. Once validates, validate again in six months or a year. I am willing to pay for software I use, but don't ask me to sell my soul.
Information week article
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Microsoft advises how to use Linux to rescue Windows
Although a good article and good advise, I had to laugh. Is it so hard to make a live windows CD or a USB Stick? I have Such, a live Windows XP for trouble shooting Windows crashes recovery and revivals.
The Microsoft Port 25 post and the actual directions made into a PDF could be found here. Viva La Users. But I think a visit to the Port25 is better because all comments.
