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| The competitor to Windows says its browser is the most stable browser on the market. |
| Monday, March 24, 2008 |
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A new version of Mozilla's popular Firefox Web browser is ready for download with improved security and memory use as the tiny company takes a stab at Microsoft Corp's dominant Internet Explorer. The program's creators told Reuters on Thursday that the privately-held company's trial version of Firefox 3 browser is ready for the masses to use after months of development. Until now, the company has discouraged average Internet users from moving on from Firefox 2, which was launched in October 2006. "In many ways it (Firefox 3) is much more stable than anything else out there," Mozilla Corp Vice President of Engineering Mike Schroepfer said in an interview. Key rivals to Firefox are market leader Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Apple Inc's Safari browser. Engineers at Mozilla are still putting the finishing touches on the software and hope to release the final version of Firefox 3 by the end of June, Schroepfer said. Mozilla is in a battle with Microsoft, which unveiled an experimental version of its Internet Explorer 8 in Las Vegas earlier this month and is looking to expand its presence on the Web through its bid to acquire Yahoo Inc. Additions boost security and allow users to run Web sites when they are not connected to the Internet. Mozilla also says Firefox 3 uses less computer memory than Firefox 2. Until now Mozilla has discouraged the typical computer user from exploring these new features. But its developers said on Thursday that the situation has changed and that they will be revising their Web site. As of Thursday afternoon, the Web site still stated: "We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 beta 4 milestone release. It is intended for testing purposes only." But they said that as they concluded their fourth round of tweaking their software, they determined it was ready for prime time. A fifth round of changes, due to begin within the next few weeks, will involve "tuning the visual look and feel of the program" and further improving its stability," Schroepfer said. Source: eWeek
Labels: Firefox, Industry News, Mozilla |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 9:30 PM |
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| Google Calendar Sync |
| Friday, March 7, 2008 |
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I've suffered major headaches trying to sync all my calendars. I used the Microsoft Outlook calendar on my desktop computer at home, but since I wanted to be able to access my schedule from anywhere, I also kept a copy of it on Google Calendar. When I traveled, I'd import my Google Calendar data into my laptop's Outlook calendar so I could access it offline. This was not only annoying to maintain, but also quite error-prone. If I made updates on any of the copies of my calendar, I had to make sure to make those same exact changes to the other copies, too.
This was my life for a whole year before we started working on Google Calendar Sync, a 2-way synching application between Google Calendar and the calendar in Microsoft Outlook. I was probably the most excited person on the team when we started developing it, because now I can access my calendar at home or on my laptop, on Google Calendar or in Outlook. When I add an event to the Outlook calendar on my laptop, Google Calendar Sync syncs it to my Google Calendar -- and since I also have Google Calendar Sync running on my desktop, the event then syncs from Google Calendar to Outlook calendar on my desktop. All of my calendar views are always up to date, and I can choose whichever one I want to use.
Source: GoogleLabels: Google, Industry News |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 12:38 AM |
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| Shifting Google Gears to mobile |
| Thursday, March 6, 2008 |
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Ever use a mobile web application and suddenly lose your cell connection? That's happened to me many times. If you've shared my pain, you'll be excited to know that we've launched Google Gears for mobile, which lets users access Gears-enabled mobile web apps offline. Initially available for Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices, mobile web app developers have already started integrating Gears for mobile into their online services.
Take Zoho and Buxfer, for example: Zoho is a powerful suite of web-based productivity applications, while Buxfer is an innovative personal finance web application that helps you track your money. With Google Gears for mobile integrated into mobile Zoho and Buxfer, you can now access these web applications even when your phone is disconnected from the mobile web. Stuck on a plane? No problem — you can still read your docs on your mobile with Zoho Writer Mobile offline. Want to buy that new plasma TV, but can't remember how much is in your account? Check your balance with Buxfer's mobile web application, even if there is no cell phone signal. Try them out on your Windows Mobile 6 device by going to m.buxfer.com or mobile.zoho.com.
When you first access mobile Buxfer or Zoho Writer on your Windows Mobile device and go offline, you will be asked to install Google Gears for mobile. Once installed, Gears sits happily on your phone helping you stay connected to your data -- even when you lose your network connection.
If you're a developer who's interested in creating mobile web applications using Google Gears for mobile you can find out more information on our developer site. Finally, if you're not a Windows Mobile user, stay tuned -- we're working to roll out Google Gears for other platforms with capable web browsers, including Android.
Source: GoogleLabels: Google, Industry News, Mobile |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 11:47 AM |
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| Database Survey Gives Oracle The Lead In All 13 Categories |
| Wednesday, March 5, 2008 |
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The survey compared Oracle with DB2, MySQL, Informix Dynamic Server, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Sybase Advanced Server Enterprise.
In its first survey of database preferences, market research firm Evans Data found that Oracle leads in user satisfaction in performance, security, and 11 other categories. At the same time, it found IBM's DB2 tied with Oracle for one top score and ranked number two in several of the remaining categories. Microsoft's SQL Server showed high user satisfaction in ease of database management and modeling tools, but fell behind in scalability and performance. "The most glaring item that we took away from this research is that in 23 years we've never had one vendor come out number one in all categories," Evans Data CEO John Andrews said of Oracle's ranking in an interview. The report becomes public Tuesday. In a few categories, the open source system, MySQL, trailed most of the five commercial systems with which it was compared. But high user satisfaction in several categories indicates that Sun Microsystems may have gotten its money's worth when it paid $1 billion for the database's parent company, MySQL AB, last month. MySQL was second only to Oracle in multiplatform support, an important factor in hosting Web applications. When it came to the all important "performance" category, it ranked higher than Microsoft SQL Server, Informix, and Sybase. The results, however, are measures of user expectations for each system, not frequency of use or a neutral metric of actual performance, Andrews cautioned. "Sun has publicly stated they will do very little to change the open source database or its business model. The two companies have a good match in culture and offerings, and we predict Sun will successfully integrate MySQL and the union will be a benefit to both companies," the report predicted. In most cases, the 1,470 respondents to the survey were users of several database systems and were comparing systems as they rated each in 13 categories as excellent, very good, adequate, or needs improvement. Evans Data then assigned a numerical value to the ratings and plotted the results. The complete survey results may be downloaded from http://www.evansdata.com/reports/free-report.php. The survey was conducted in December 2007. Oracle lead in performance ratings, followed by DB2 Universal Database, MySQL, Informix Dynamic Server, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Sybase Advanced Server Enterprise. In scalability, Oracle lead, followed by DB2, then PostgreSQL took over the commanding position of the open source systems, followed by SQL Server, Informix, Sybase, and MySQL. Andrews said MySQL's adoption is predominantly among workgroups and smaller businesses with less expectation of scaling up to very large databases. When it was pointed out that Google, Facebook, and Slashdot were all MySQL users, Andrews said: "Some of these giant Internet entities have demonstrated that MySQL can scale, if you have the know-how." Oracle lead the security category, with its ability to automatically store data in encrypted form and to maintain an Audit Vault of information drawn from the operating system, database, and any other auditing source. DB2 was number two followed in the third position by PostgreSQL, with its "robust security layer," said Andrews. Number four was SQL Server, followed by Sybase, MySQL and Informix. Atomicity is the quality of "all or nothing" when it comes to capturing a transaction. It's important for the integrity of the database to confirm that all parts of a transaction have been committed to the system, not just a fraction of them. Oracle was tops in atomicity, followed by DB2, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Sybase, MySQL and Informix. In multiplatform support, Oracle once again lead the category, followed by MySQL. Informix was tied with MySQL, with PostgreSQL holding down the fourth spot. DB2 landed in the fifth slot. Sybase was sixth and SQL Server seventh. "This is where Microsoft SQL Server really falls down and that's becoming more and more of a problem as the frequency of Microsoft-only shops declines," said the report. An increasingly important category for databases that are intended to serve Web applications is XML data handling. Again, Oracle and SQL Server lead the category, followed by DB2. But the open source systems, MySQL and PostgreSQL made up the sixth and seventh ranks, respectively. Informix and Sybase occupied the fourth and fifth positions. When it comes to management tools that come with the database, Oracle lead, followed by SQL Server, DB2, MySQL, Sybase, and Informix. Bringing up the rear was PostgreSQL. "PostgreSQL, which has a large community of open source developers to create tools for it, does not provide them with the database," the report noted. In another category, the ability of a system to maintain the integrity of the data through system failures, incomplete backups, or storage failures, is known as durability. Oracle once again lead, followed by DB2, SQL Server, Informix, PostgreSQL and Sybase, with MySQL holding the bottom rank. In quality of data modeling tools, Oracle lead, followed by SQL Server, DB2, Sybase, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Informix. Oracle offers both the Designer modeling tool and JDeveloper with design tool elements. Microsoft offers Visio modeling from its acquisition of Visio tools several years ago. Under Microsoft ownership,"the Visio technology has evolved until Microsoft has some of the world's best modeling tools." In a bar graph showing how the seven systems compared on a point basis after including all categories, Oracle lead with a rounded off score of 2,500; DB2, roughly 2,200; SQL Server, 2,000; MySQL, 1,800; Informix, 1,775; PostgreSQL, 1,750; Sybase, 1,600. The survey sought responses from 1,470 developers and IT managers in North America (420), Asia Pacific (500), Europe/Middle East/Africa (400), and South America (150). About one third were enterprise database users; one third were database consultants, value added resellers, and system integrators; and a third were other types of organizations, including academic institutions, OEMs and ISVs.
Source: InformationWeekLabels: Database, Industry News, Oracle |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 10:03 PM |
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| Intel's ultramobile chips get a step closer with Atom branding |
| Tuesday, March 4, 2008 |
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Intel's Silverthorne and Diamondville chips will be called Atom and the company's Menlow platform for ultramobile computers will be renamed Centrino Atom when these products hit the market, according to a company spokesman.
The creation of the new processor brand sets the stage for the tiny, low-power chips' upcoming release, and marks the opening salvo in a concerted push by Intel to make ultramobile computers a mainstream product segment.
Several versions of the Atom processor are on track to be delivered to during the first half of this year, according to Danny Cheung, an Intel spokesman in Singapore.
The processors are made using Intel's 45-nanometer process, and will run at clock speeds up to 1.8GHz. Slower versions will also be available, but Intel isn't saying what the slowest clock speed will be. Pricing for the chips has yet to be announced.
The chips, which measure less than 25 square millimeters, have a thermal design power (TDP) of between 0.6 watts to 2.5 watts. That number refers to the maximum sustained power that users are likely to see with the chips, not the maximum amount of power the chips can consume.
The small size of the Atom means 2,500 of them can be produced on a single 300-millimeter silicon wafer, allowing Intel to sell them at a low price while maintaining high margins.
While Intel hasn't announced a specific date for Atom's release, Mobile Internet devices based on Centrino Atom will hit the market in the beginning of the second quarter, Cheung said.
Mobile Internet device, or MID, is the term Intel uses to describe some, but not all, devices that are generally referred to as ultramobile PCs. Prototype MIDs shown by Intel typically include touchscreens or slide-out keypads and the company envisions these devices running Linux instead of Windows. Centrino Atom will include a single-core Atom processor, formerly called Silverthorne, as well as the Poulsbo chipset and a wireless chipset. Intel has yet to announce the formal name of Poulsbo, which packs a Northbridge and Southbridge chipset into a single package to reduce size and lower power consumption. Not all Atom processors will ship with Poulsbo. Some versions of the chip, known by the code name Diamondville, will ship with two-chip chipsets. These processors, which will be available in single-core and dual-core versions, are intended for low-cost notebooks, like Asustek Computers' Eee PC, and inexpensive desktops, respectively. Intel refers to these devices as netbooks and nettops to differentiate them from mainstream desktops and notebooks. To further separate these product segments, Intel has set guidelines for device makers that limit the features of Atom-based devices, preventing the chips from being used in notebooks with a 15-inch screen instead of a Core 2 Duo processor, for example. Low-cost notebooks and desktops based on Atom will hit the market sometime during the third quarter, Cheung said, adding Intel also expects to see demand for Atom processors in consumer electronics and embedded applications. Intel expects low-cost computers will appeal to first-time computer buyers in emerging markets as well as users in more mature markets looking for a second computer. Source: Infoworld
Labels: Industry News, Mobile |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 5:31 PM |
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| Over 50 percent of companies fire workers for e-mail, Net abuse |
| Friday, February 29, 2008 |
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Managers cite accessing porn, using offensive language in e-mail, and breaching confidentiality rules as grounds for firing, according to survey
Think you can get away with using e-mail and the Internet in violation of company policy? Think again.
A new survey found that more than a quarter of employers have fired workers for misusing e-mail, and one third have fired workers for misusing the Internet on the job. The study, conducted by the American Management Association (AMA) and The ePolicy Institute, surveyed 304 U.S. companies of all sizes.
The vast majority of bosses who fired workers for Internet misuse, 84 percent, said the employee was accessing porn or other inappropriate content. While looking at inappropriate content is an obvious no-no on company time, simply surfing the Web led to a surprising number of firings. As many as 34 percent of managers in the study said they let go of workers for excessive personal use of the Internet, according to the survey.
Among managers who fired workers for e-mail misuse, 64 percent did so because the employee violated company policy and 62 percent said the workers' e-mail contained inappropriate or offensive language. More than a quarter of bosses said they fired workers for excessive personal use of e-mail and 22 percent said their workers were fired for breaching confidentiality rules in e-mail.
Companies are worried about the inappropriate use of the Internet, and so 66 percent of those in the study said they monitor Internet connections. As many as 65 percent of them use software to block inappropriate Web sites. Eighteen percent of the companies block URLs to prevent workers from visiting external blogs.
Companies use different methods to monitor workers' computers, with 45 percent of those participating in the survey tracking content, keystrokes, and time spent at the keyboard. An additional 43 percent store and review computer files. Twelve percent monitor blogs to track content about the company, and 10 percent monitor social-networking sites.
Companies are keen to track employee e-mail and Internet behavior in part due to legal fears. According to research done by the AMA and ePolicy in 2006, 24 percent of companies in the study had e-mail subpoenaed by courts, and another 15 percent have faced lawsuits based on employee e-mails.
The researchers found that even though only two states require companies to notify their workers that they're monitoring them, most tell employees of their monitoring activities. Of the companies that monitor workers in the survey, 83 percent said they tell employees that they are monitoring content, keystrokes, and time spent at the keyboard. As many as 84 percent tell employees that they review computer activity, and 71 percent alert workers that they monitor their e-mails.
Source: InfoworldLabels: Industry News, IT News |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 7:34 PM |
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| Yahoo set to open its search engine to third parties |
| Wednesday, February 27, 2008 |
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February 26, 2008 (Computerworld) Yahoo Inc. is planning to open its Yahoo Search engine to allow third parties to add a wide variety of data to search results. Code-named "Search Monkey," the new open-source application programming interfaces (API) that Yahoo is slated to detail today will allow Web site owners to add information such as ratings and reviews, images, deep links and other data directly to the Yahoo Search results Web page. "Our intent is clear -- present users with richer, more useful search results so that they can complete their tasks more efficiently and get from 'to-do' to 'done,'" noted Vish Makhijani, senior vice president and general manager of Yahoo Search. "So instead of a simple title, abstract and URL, for the first time, users will see rich results that incorporate the massive amount of data buried in Web sites." Web site owners can supply Yahoo with data, and the company's Machined Learned Ranking technology will ensure that the results are presented to users at the correct time, he added. "We believe that combining a free, open platform with structured, semantic content from across the Web is a clear win for all parties involved -- site owners, Yahoo and, most importantly, our users," Makhijani said. "And by the way, users will be in complete control of the experience and will be able to turn off anything related to open search if they so desire." In an example provided by Yahoo, a search result for a Japanese restaurant in California that previously would have included the URL, an abstract and an address would provide ratings, price information and links for reviews and photos with the new tools. Yahoo plans to provide additional details on how the open search tool will work over the next few months. Not to be outdone, Google Inc. posted a reminder Monday that its similar effort, called Subscribed Links, allows users to create custom search results that users can add to their own Google search pages. Matt Cutts, a Google software engineer and head of Google's Webspam team, noted that Subscribed Links, which Google debuted in 2006, allows users to "display links to your services, answer questions, and calculate useful quantities and more." Source:Computerworld
Labels: Industry News, Search Engine, Yahoo |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 11:08 AM |
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| Computer Programmer's Attorneys Use 'Geek Defense' |
| Monday, February 25, 2008 |
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On Trial for Murder, Man Being Portrayed As Eccentric, Difficult
OAKLAND, Calif. -- When Nina Reiser disappeared in September 2006, investigators suspecting foul play looked long and hard at her estranged husband, the computer genius Hans. Eccentric, awkward and notoriously difficult as a human being, Hans Reiser proved quite accommodating when it came to providing clues.
After taking no part in the massive public effort to search for the mother of his two children, he listed the reasons he was happy that Nina was gone in a phone call monitored by police. He discreetly purchased copies of "Masterpieces of Murder" and "Homicide" from a local bookstore. Police discovered his passport in his fanny pack along with $8,000 in cash and a cellphone that could not be tracked electronically because its battery was removed, just like the phone found inside Nina's minivan, which was found abandoned on a side street smelling of rotting groceries; she had been to the store before dropping the kids at Hans's house.
Police also found soaked floorboards in his car and an empty space where the passenger seat should have been.
In the courtroom where Hans Reiser is on trial for murder, all this might appear to indicate guilty knowledge. But his attorneys cast it as evidence of an innocence peculiar to Hans, a computer programmer so immersed in the folds of his own intellect that he had no idea how complicit he was making himself appear.
"Being too intelligent can be a sort of curse," defense counsel William Du Bois said. "All this weird conduct can be explained by him, but he's the only one who can do it. People who are commonly known as computer geeks are so into the field."
And so this week, after a prosecution case that took almost three months, Du Bois launched what Wired magazine dubbed "the Geek Defense." In court, Du Bois has taken pains to portray his client as an irritating nebbish. He has repeatedly asked Alameda County Circuit Court Judge Larry Goodman to order his client to stop distracting him by talking in his ear at the defense table. He called Reiser "an inconsiderate slob" in front of the jury.
"We're leaving the right message," Du Bois said outside court. "He's a very difficult person. It's very difficult to represent a genius."
The effort will be watched and appreciated down the breadth of Silicon Valley, perhaps the only place a computer genius might find a jury of peers.
There, Hans Reiser's actions appear fairly reasonable, at least to people who spend much more time with computer code than with other humans.
"It strikes me that a lot of coders have a somewhat detached view of the world, and it's reasonable to assume that Hans might not even have stopped to think about how things looked," said Rick Moen, a local area network consultant in Menlo Park.
"I remove my cellphone battery periodically, and I've taught many people to do the same," noted John Gilmore, a founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is challenging the Bush administration in court on wiretaps. "What can you do when the FCC mandates tracking capability to every cellphone? On the lame excuse that once in a while someone calls 911 and can't give the address."
On his LinuxMafia site, Moen maintains a timeline of the case culled from the posts filed from correspondents in the courthouse gallery 35 miles north, live-blogging the trial for the San Francisco Chronicle and Wired's Threat Level blog.
"I met Hans a couple of times socially, and he did not strike me as being all that peculiar for a technical person," Moen said. "A little bit intense, a bit highly focused. Quite bright."
Now 44, Reiser was accepted at the University of California at Berkeley at age 14. He wrote a role-playing game to compete with Dungeons & Dragons and dabbled in science fiction. His signal adult achievement was ReiserFS, a file system he named for himself, unusual in the programming world. The system organizes data on Linux, the "open source" operating system.
After opening a company in Russia, he met Nina Sharanova, a striking obstetrician-gynecologist using a dating service to meet foreigners. They married when she became pregnant, but after the second child was born in 2001, Nina began an affair with Hans's best friend, Sean Sturgeon. The cross-dressing bondage and discipline enthusiast had been "maid of honor" at their wedding.
The ensuing divorce was ugly. Hans accused Nina of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, saying she made their son ill for her own gratification. Nina complained of Hans's avowed enthusiasm for violent video games, which he encouraged the boy to play as a rite of passage. Relations were so brittle that a police officer seeing them exchange the children one day advised Nina to "get a gun."
She was last seen at Hans's house, where she was dropping off the children for Labor Day weekend 2006. She was 31 then.
"His undergraduate thesis is on how if you change the perspective, the reality is different," said Ramon Reiser, the defendant's mathematician father, folding a pair of pants in the courtroom hallway as he waited to testify.
The thesis might apply to the evidence, which the judge in the preliminary hearing termed thin. Ramon Reiser argued that it's likelier that Nina is back in her native Russia with funds embezzled from her husband's business than in an unmarked grave she was carried to in the soaked, seatless Honda CR-X. The children are with Nina's mother in St. Petersburg.
"When you look at it, would Hans Reiser turn a hose on a car to wash it? Absolutely, his mother told him to get that car cleaned up," the elder Reiser said.
"I and my brother -- maybe it's genetic -- have driven our cars without the front seat. It's really convenient."
If Hans Reiser testifies in his own defense, his attorney said the risk is that "this guy is so weird, it's a little tricky to wrap yourself around it if you're a juror." He described his client as borderline for Asperger's Syndrome, a condition that self-described geeks call unusually common in the computer industry, combining as it does an exceptional ability to focus with an inability to read social cues.
Gilmore added that the unforgiving nature of computers demands of coders "a perfectionism that makes it hard sometimes in social situations. When I see something that's a little bit wrong, and I ought to just shut up and roll with it, but I comment and it causes trouble with the people around me. Back-seat driving and that sort of thing."
Yet not all the strangeness in the case arises from computers. Du Bois takes every opportunity to mention Sturgeon, who in addition to his role as Hans's friend and Nina's lover, told investigators that he killed eight people years ago. It's unclear whether the claim is true: Sturgeon remains free. But the judge forbade attorneys from mentioning the claim in court.
In any event, Sturgeon reportedly has insisted that whatever his crimes, he had nothing to do with Nina's disappearance. Wired quoted him as saying that, in the Reiser case, he is red herring, or rather, he said, "a red Sturgeon."
Source:Washington PostLabels: Industry News |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 7:37 PM |
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| Microsoft Releases List of Programs that Won't Work with Vista SP1 |
| Saturday, February 23, 2008 |
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| Microsoft Corp. released a list of known programs that experience some sort of "loss of functionality" with Windows Vista SP1. The list of 11 products -- divided into categories of "blocked from starting," "do not run" and "loss of functionality (minor or major)" -- is based on reported issues and is "not comprehensive," the company said. Many of the affected programs offer newer versions or upgrades that will make the software compatible (linked below where applicable). As of press time, the products are: Blocked from Starting Do Not Run Loss of Functionality As Vista SP1 was released to manufacturing and IT professionals this month, the list may grow -- especially after the update goes live for consumers in March.
Source:Redmond Developer NewsLabels: Industry News |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 3:42 AM |
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