Top USA Breaking News

The truth about oil

If you watched the markets today, it’s a big ol’ QED with regard to arguments that oil prices are being driven by speculative activity and hedge funds.

Last week, we could have immediately slashed the price of oil by releasing the Strategic Oil Reserves, hence killing the speculators. In the meantime, there is this argument that allowing offshore drilling will do anything to help prices, a ridiculous idea (all that will happen is oil companies will have leases they can use at their will, changing supply at their whim). Meanwhile, it’s a surprise to some that the biggest single exporter of oil to the US is Canada — almost double that of Saudi Arabia. The American public is the victim of a superb con job.

Whatever, I’ll go back to security now.

Webroot founder goes missing

Steven Thomas, co-founder of Webroot, has gone missing, and it looks very serious.

Our prayers are with the family during this extremely difficult time, and we sincerely hope that Steven is found soon.

(Steven Thomas and Kristen Talley founded Webroot many years ago, originally marketing a windows clean-up utility, WindowWasher. After Dave Moll joined them, they moved into the spyware category with SpySweeper and the rest is history. Thomas and Talley then cashed out after a large investment/buyout by a group of VCs several years ago. They are no longer part of the management of the company.)

New version of Sunbelt Personal Firewall posted

This new version has been in development and beta testing for quite some time, and is probably one of the most solid releases of this product ever, going back to its beginning as the Kerio Personal Firewall.

The biggest addition is support for Vista 32 bit (with 64 bit native support on the roadmap).

However, there’s been a lot of under-the-hood improvements in many areas. These include:

• Significant improvement in network performance
• Significant improvement in packet filtering
• Enhanced Process Injection prevention to prevent code injection attempts into Windows system DLLs.
• Numerous stability issues corrected in the firewall service.
• Significant improvement in overall product stability.
• Updated Intrusion Detection rules
• Updated translation files for multiple languages

The new version can be download here, and it will also be available through the “Update” function inside SPF toward the end of the week.

The completion of this major development exercise lays the foundation for SPF’s inclusion into a future release of VIPRE, our upcoming antivirus+antispyware product.

Weird ad for wireless

This ad, which is impossible to read (white text on black background being one of the Bad Things in advertising), is a poking-fun, sarcastic kind of thing ad to sell HP notebooks with an AT&T broadband wireless card.

But if you can actually read it (doubtful), you might find some oddness in it, like this:

"Of course, we don’t recommend this, but you could drive through residential neighborhoods to look for homes with Wi-Fi that isn’t encrypted. Tip: sometimes the password is “password”. Be sure to have all your important files on your hard drive. Don’t count on somebody to send you files."

I get the point, but…

Alex Eckelberry

OneCare suite is available online for download

This is a really good product. Microsoft did their homework on this one. I had downloaded and tested this product and it really does help people keep their systems safe and up to date. The features include anti-virus, a decent firewall, anti-spyware, PC tune-up, back-up, restore, and even email, phone and chat tech support, yup, included in the same package at the same price. The OneCare suite is available online for download, and also in most Best Buy stores and a bunch of other retailers as well. A quick Google search (sorry Microsoft) yielded that both CompUSA and MicroCenter have OneCare available for around $50 for a year's subscription. OfficeMax and OfficeDepot did not seem to have it in their search at least, as of this writing.

Veteran security expert Michael St. Neitzel joins Sunbelt Software

Today, I’m really pleased to announce that Michael St. Neitzel, one of the industry’s leading antimalware researchers, has joined Sunbelt Software in the newly created position of vice president, threat research.

Mike is widely regarded as one of the foremost experts on malware and its malicious mechanisms, and has authored a number of technical papers and publications, as well as being a noted speaker at industry conferences.

Mike comes to us from FRISK Software, makers of F-Prot Antivirus, where he was a senior antivirus architect and spokesperson on behalf of the company. Prior to FRISK Software, he was a senior virus researcher with ESET s.r.o., where he worked on the Nod32 antivirus product. Previously, he was with Comodo Security, where he managed the team responsible for the Comodo firewall and antivirus products as executive director in Chennai, India.

Michael will be working on our upcoming VIPRE antivirus+antispyware product, where his work will be essential in developing proprietary heuristics and behavioral detection that is so critical in today’s complex malware environment.

Welcome, Michael. We’re thrilled to have you as part of the Sunbelt team.

Office 2007 may be just ducky

Over at ZDnet, Marc Orchant writes about the "Office UI retraining canard." The catchy title aside, Marc states that the new user interface for Office 2007, including the "ribbon" and the newly grouped sections will eventually win users over. Marc goes on to write that the new interface was designed with a non-existent learning curve in mind. Apparently most users will take to the new UI like a flock of (your favorite waterfowl here). I suppose he is right by saying that "the biggest pushback will come from the most knowledgeable users. They have developed habits that will require some adjustment with the new UI." I certainly fall in that category, and I think a lot of people do. All I want is the option to use the new format or that old one. Though I favor the old way (who doesn't) I am starting to see some advantages to the new UI. I may come around. Stay tuned.

Microsoft Corp say to share revenue with Game developers

Microsoft Corp. says it will share with amateur game developers up to 70 percent of the gross revenue generated by games they sell online through the company's upcoming Xbox Live Community Games section.

The company disclosed the financial terms Tuesday at its Gamefest game-technology conference in Seattle. Microsoft had outlined plans for the Community Games initiative earlier this year, without financial details.

When the system launches later this year, people who develop games through Microsoft's XNA Creators Club ($99 annual subscription) will be able to sell them on the Xbox Live Marketplace, after going through a process of peer review.

Microsoft says it will take an additional slice of revenue -- an extra 10 percent to 30 percent -- from games featured at the front of the Community Games store. The company calls it a marketing charge. The idea, according to Microsoft officials, is that the choice placement will result in a higher volume of sales that will more than make up for the extra cut taken by the company.

In terms of pricing, game developers will be able to choose among three levels for their games -- 200, 400 or 800 Microsoft points. (That translates into $2.50, $5 and $10.) Games also will be available for free trial.

The initiative is meant to open a new distribution channel for small game developers and broaden the library of games available for download on Xbox Live beyond the more highly produced games distributed through Xbox Live Arcade.

At a briefing, Microsoft showed content including a coliseum-fighting title, a Japanese dancing game and a word puzzle

Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer says he plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars

July 23 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer says he plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fix the company's unprofitable Internet business. His investors say they want proof he knows what to do with the money.

After walking away from six months of on-again, off-again talks about buying all or part of Yahoo! Inc., owner of the No. 2 Web search engine, Ballmer has left shareholders wondering if he has a plan B.

Microsoft, the biggest software maker, has lost about $90 billion in market value this year as Ballmer vacillated on Yahoo and failed to show how he would crack Google Inc.'s dominance of Internet advertising. Shareholders will look for ideas at a meeting with Ballmer tomorrow, said Kim Caughey, a Fort Pitt Capital Group Inc. analyst in Pittsburgh.

``I'm a little concerned; I'll be honest,'' said Caughey, whose firm manages $1.2 billion and owns Microsoft shares. Ballmer needs to ``put a hot, bright light of clarity on where's all the money going.''

Ballmer, along with Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell and the presidents of Microsoft's three businesses, will address analysts and investors tomorrow at company headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Spokesman Frank Shaw declined to comment because the information is scheduled for release at the meeting.

Drag on Earnings

The company has spent about $9 billion in the past 2 1/2 years building its Internet business, according to Directions on Microsoft, a research firm in Kirkland, Washington. Microsoft doesn't provide figures.

Liddell said on a conference call after last week's earnings release that spending on the online business, which includes the MSN Web site and Live search engine, will rise by ``several hundreds of millions of dollars'' in the fiscal year that began July 1.

The online business is in a ``period of significant investment'' and will ``be a drag on an otherwise exceptionally good performance'' this year, Liddell said on the July 17 call. Net income rose 42 percent last quarter to $4.3 billion on an 18 percent sales increase.

Microsoft also lowered its full-year earnings forecast. The stock sank 6 percent the next day. It rose 16 cents to $25.80 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading yesterday, and is down 28 percent this year.

The online division is Microsoft's smallest with $3.21 billion in sales last year, or 5 percent of the total of $60.4 billion. The business lost $1.23 billion last year, double the previous year's loss, as it hired more people, built computer data centers, and made acquisitions including $6 billion spent on Seattle-based ad company AQuantive Inc.

`Backup Plans'

In May, Ballmer abandoned his bid for all of Yahoo. The acquisition would have tripled Microsoft's share of U.S. online queries. Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo rejected a bid of $47.5 billion.

He then attempted to persuade Yahoo to sell its search business. Instead, Yahoo struck a deal to carry ads from Mountain View, California-based Google.

Ballmer next may look at Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit, said Laura Martin, an analyst at Soleil Securities Group Inc. in Los Angeles. ``AOL is more valuable to Microsoft in a world where Yahoo is aligned with Google,'' Martin said in an e-mail.

``It seems like somewhere there's just a whole bunch of backup plans and he's working through all of them,'' said analyst Tony Ursillo at Loomis Sayles & Co. in Boston, which manages more than $135 billion and owns Microsoft shares.

Not Chasing Microsoft

Ballmer should fund a startup company within Microsoft that would have a relatively small budget but creative freedom, Ursillo said.

``It would be nice if they could somehow create a group from scratch there that could tackle this space with some new ingenuity and someone could chase Microsoft for once,'' he said. ``The consistent element throughout that series of `me too' investments has been heavy investment of capital.''

Advertisers in the U.S. will spend $51 billion by 2012 on Internet promotions, according to technology researcher EMarketer Inc. in New York.

Microsoft had 9.2 percent of U.S. searches last month, up from 8.5 percent in May, Internet site tracker ComScore Inc. in Reston, Virginia, said. Google's share fell to 61.5 percent from 61.8 percent, while Yahoo's grew to 20.9 percent from 20.6 percent.

Yahoo Possibility

A deal with Yahoo may still be possible. Yahoo gave billionaire investor Carl Icahn three seats on its 11-member board this week to end a proxy fight before its Aug. 1 annual meeting. Icahn had pressed to replace the Yahoo board and make the sale to Microsoft.

Yahoo's value may be declining, Fort Pitt's Caughey said. Yahoo yesterday said its second-quarter profit fell 18 percent to $131.2 million, or 9 cents a share, as the Internet company spent more to develop new technology.

Some usefull Custom Excel Formulas

I just discovered that if you add a description to a custom excel formula (i.e. a user-defined function, VBA function, or whatever you want to call it) and then cut and paste the VBA code (so as to move it to a different spot in the VBA module for example), the description gets erased!. This can be frustrating if you have a lot of custom formulas created and documented.

By the way, what I mean by a "description" is that after you create the UDF, you go to Tools > Macros > Macros, then enter the name of the formula in the Macro Name: text box. The Options button will magically be enabled, allowing you to edit the description (which of course shows up when you use the Insert > Function feature in Excel - the whole point to wanting to add a description in this manner).

Take Off E-books Information

"The DRM and client issues seem clearly to be Adobe's: atlhough they might arguably exist with alternative eReading systems, that's immaterial to this poor guy's particular experience. But the first three issues are really more with Amazon and its suppliers' etailing infrastructure and DRM rights-offering choices. In fact therein lies a dilemma for infrastructure vendors like Adobe. Apple's vertically-integrated iTunes Store in many ways provides a better end to end experience to users. For example Apple FairPlay [sic] DRM rights are consistent and reasonably simple to understand. Yet, Apple's ecosystem is completely closed and proprietary, and gives users and publishers no choices. In order to create a compelling eBook user experience, must we abandon an open ecosystem, where publishers and users have choices of different kinds of rights and different channels for acquiring content?"

Microsoft practices predatory pricing

I don’t often write pieces lambasting Microsoft. I have close friends who work for the company (incidentally, some of the brightest people I know), my company is a Gold Partner and we’re also in business with Microsoft. And, I am one of those who believe that the computing world has actually been made a better place by Microsoft.

My beef is never with the people. My beef is with a number of strategic decisions that have been made by the company that should scare a lot of people. So please, to my friends at Microsoft, don’t take this personally. This stuff just needs to be said.

It’s bad enough that Microsoft is getting in to all aspects of security. But now they are going to kill their competition through predatory pricing.

What is predatory pricing? From Wikipedia:

Predatory pricing is the practice of a dominant firm selling a product at a loss in order to drive some or all competitors out of the market, or create a barrier to entry into the market for potential new competitors. The other firms must lower their prices in order to compete with the predatory pricer, which causes them to lose money, eventually driving them from the market. The predatory pricer then has fewer competitors or even a monopoly, allowing it to raise prices above what the market would otherwise bear.

We already know that Microsoft loses money on most of its business (it primarily makes money on the operating system). But now we see that Microsoft is endangering the entire security ecosystem with ruthless, Standard Oil-style pricing.

Start with OneCare: It is arguably a security suite, but just for the sake of simplicity, let’s just consider it an antivirus product. OneCare costs $49.95 for three PCs, an average of $16.65 per machine. (I’m going to ignore the fact that Amazon.com is blowing out OneCare at $19.95, or an average of $6.65 per machine—which is even worse — and Microsoft’s offer to its millions of OneCare beta testers all getting it for $19.95 as well.).

Let’s look at their price, versus the market leaders: Symantec and McAfee. Both of these companies have AV products that retail for $39.99. But they also have three-user offerings, at $69.99 (McAfee) and $89.99 (Symantec). Here’s what that looks like on a per-user basis:

	Norton Antivirus	VirusScan
	$30.00	$23.33
OneCare price advantage ($16.66 per user)	-44%	-29%

Incredibly, Microsoft has priced themselves almost 50% below the market leader, and no one has said a peep.

Now, let’s move to the enterprise side, specifically virus protection for Microsoft Exchange. Remember that enterprise sales are the bread and butter of companies like Symantec and Trend. This is where the money is made.

Examine the latest pricing for Microsoft Antigen, the old Sybari product re-branded under Microsoft’s new Foreforont line of security products. We see a per-user pricing for Antigen for Exchange of $.90 per month, per user, for a five-user shop.

The pricing in this case is obfuscated because Microsoft has gone away from the traditional industry model of charging a perpetual license fee and then annual maintenance. Instead, they charge a monthly price per seat. So you would need to multiply the number of months against an expected period of ownership (I’ve used two years for my examples) to do a comparison.

Let’s look at the prices of Antigen against three leading antivirus products for Exchange: Trend ScanMail for Microsoft Exchange, Symantec Mail Security for Exchange and McAfee GroupShield (these are the current market leaders in securing Exchange).

Here is how Antigen costs compared to the other security products, over a two-year period:

	Year 1	Year 2	Total
Trend ScanMail for Microsoft Exchange	$33.0	$13.2	$46.2
Symantec Mail Security for Exchange	$37.0	$20.8	$57.8
McAfee GroupShield	$38.0	$15.2	$53.2
Microsoft Antigen	$10.8	$10.8	$21.6

Or, looking at it another way:

	Trend	Symantec	McAfee
Year 1	$33.0	$37.0	$38.0
Year 2	$13.2	$20.8	$15.2
Total	$46.2	$57.8	$53.2
Antigen price advantage	-53%	-63%	-59%

As we can see here, Microsoft has priced themselves over 60% less than Symantec, an astonishing difference in price. Microsoft has effectively low-balled the entire antivirus industry in one fell swoop. And their product includes five antivirus engines, not just one. This is even a price drop from Antigen’s former pricing (even several years ago, Antigen for Exchange prices started at $27.50 per user for the first year and then went down in volume).

But incredibly, it gets worse! Antigen for Gateways, which is designed to run off the Exchange box, is even less — a mere $.65 per user per month, or $15.60 over two years!

We don’t know what Microsoft plans to price Forefront Client Security, but one can assume from their pricing here, it’s going to be ruthless.

What should be disturbing about of this all is that we very well might see Microsoft owning a majority in the security space. Despite what their PR flacks tell us, they are hell-bent on getting your business. Look at the Forefront website for yourself. These people mean business. Maybe I’m jaded, as I’ve spent most of my career working for companies that got pummeled by Microsoft (Borland, Quarterdeck, etc.).

Stifling innovation? You bet. What venture capitalist will invest in the next great security idea or product? What entrepreneur will start a new company in the security space, given the risks of competing with Microsoft?

And it’s not just startups. For example, after Microsoft announced the acquisition of Giant Company, a senior executive at a major security company told me that they weren’t going to bother coming out with antispyware functionality, since Microsoft had already made that product free. While that company has since changed their mind, it was a chilling conversation.

It’s one thing that Microsoft has destroyed competition in browsers, languages, word processors, spreadsheets, presentation packages, and all the rest. In some cases, the competitors practically asked to be killed (for example, WordPerfect and Lotus both were laughably late in coming out with Windows support).

But it’s another thing to kill competition in the security space. Because the security landscape has changed. There is now a tremendous incentive to hack Windows, because there’s just so much money to be made by the bad guys. It’s free market economics — energy goes where there is a profit. So Vista will get hacked, there will be zero-day attacks, there will be evolving forms of viruses and malware. And Microsoft security products will be targeted. In a world where Microsoft has a hegemony on security, the implications may be far reaching, possibly to our own national security.

So what does the security industry need to do? Well, stopping Redmond in its march for world domination is for Microsoft’s own good. Destroying their own developer ecosystem is the worst possible thing they could do. After all, there’s always someone waiting in the wings to take over. I won’t suggest what I think should be done. But something does need to happen.

Alex Eckelberry

Source - http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com

Windows Vista includes several new fonts

Windows Vista includes several new fonts based on ClearType that can be used on Windows XP as well as Macs. These beautiful typefaces were created especially for improving the on-screen reading experience in Vista.

Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't provide a direct way to download these fonts without buying Windows Vista

Microsoft snafu blocks enterprise patching

Microsoft Corp. confirmed late Friday that enterprise administrators using one of its patch-distribution tools have not been able to install last week's security updates.

The company offered a work-around and said it is working on a fix.

"We're aware of an issue that is affecting the deployment of the June 2008 security updates," acknowledged Christopher Budd, spokesman for the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), in a post to the group's blog Friday night.

Only corporate administrators using System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) 2007, which itself was just updated to Service Pack 1 (SP1), are affected, and only those systems running System Management Server (SMS) 2003 client software refuse to update. "The impact of this issue is that customers in this configuration cannot deploy the June 2008 security updates to their SMS 2003 clients," said Budd.

Last Tuesday, Microsoft published its usual monthly batch of security updates, which for June patched 10 vulnerabilities in Windows and Internet Explorer.

The successor to SMS 2003, System Center Configuration Manager assesses, deploys and updates server and client systems.

The MSRC also posted a security advisory on Friday, even though Microsoft doesn't strictly consider the problem security-related. "This issue is not a security vulnerability in System Center Configuration Manager 2007," the advisory stated. "[But] in this case, we are communicating the availability of an update that affects your ability to perform subsequent updates, including security updates. Therefore, this advisory does not address a specific security vulnerability; rather, it addresses your overall security."

According to an entry added to another company blog last Thursday, the glitch stems from "an issue with updated content published for the Office 2003 Service Pack 1 update, " said J.C. Hornbeck, an engineer at Microsoft's manageability group. "The June 10, 2008, release of the WSUS Offline Scan Catalog (wsusscn2.cb) fails to synchronize on a ConfigMgr 2007 or ConfigMgr 2007 SP1 site server using the Inventory Tool for Microsoft Updates (ITMU)."

No other information was provided about the source of the problem or why the Office 2003 SP1 update caused the trouble now. Office 2003 SP1 was first released in mid-2004.

And although Office 2007 SP1 was updated last Tuesday to fix a problem on Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) that caused some language-specific content to fail to download, Microsoft said there was no connection between that fix and the ConfigMrg problem caused by Office 2003 SP1.

Administrators can determine if the June 10 updates were deployed by examining the Wsyncmgr.log on the ConfigMgr 2007 site server, added Hornbeck.

Budd said that Microsoft is working on a patch. In the meantime, he recommended that administrators use the Software Distribution feature within ConfigMgr 2007 to roll out the June security updates.

Microsoft site leak hints at 2009 release for Office 14

A leak on a Microsoft Corp. Web site referring to a product in the Office suite hints at a 2009 release for the next version of the productivity suite, currently code-named Office 14.

On Monday, Microsoft revealed a podcasting kit for Office SharePoint Server, the portal product in the Office family, with an accompanying question-and-answer article on its CodePlex site for developers that includes information about the product.

The site made reference to Office SharePoint 2009, which hints that the next version of Office will be named Office 2009 and released that year. Microsoft has not officially revealed a timeline for Office 14.

The site no longer has a reference to SharePoint 2009, however. Once the reference was reported on, Microsoft changed the wording on the site to erase it. In addition, the author of the post tacked on a note to the blogger who first reported the information, saying the Q&A was a transcript from a conversation with customers and was inaccurate about the name of the next version of Office.

"I honestly have no idea how the next release of SharePoint will be named, I promise," said the note, which was signed "Ludo" for Ludo Fourrage, a Microsoft group product manager. "Thanks for your interest in PKS." PKS, or Podcasting Kit for SharePoint, is an open-source initiative that helps customers develop and deploy podcasts using SharePoint.

Microsoft has released scant details about Office 14, the follow-up to the current Office 2007 software, and its release date was not included.

Last month, the company said it would support the latest specification for the XML-based file format Open Office XML in Office 14. OOXML is a rival to Open Document Format; both have been approved as international standards by the ISO, although OOXML's approval is being contested by some countries' standards bodies.

What's up with Microsoft India?

MICROSOFT & INDIA

(The following post about Microsoft India is a long read and is admittedly one big long comment stream paste job. But I've gone through about two months worth of comments on a theme that emerged on its own and kept going and going, post to post, even amidst all the Yahoo!-acquisition foolishness. I promised a follow-up post on the specific topic - here you go. I find great irony that while these comments were brewing here, InsideMS wrote up an internal story: "Is Hyderabad the New Redmond?" Hmmmmm.)

A long time ago, in a blog post weeks ago, a commenter made the following small post:

How bad is things in Microsoft India? The GM Neelam Dhawan is fired and going back to HP. She is taking Rajiv Srivastava with her.

Well, this was first met with an anti-India "why should I care" comment response that grew a thread about racial-preference and other grudges folks hold towards their Indian peers. Which in turn was countered with enthusiastic backlash-backlash, and grumbles about racism. In the meantime, comment after comment started a far more interesting series of insight that spanned all the recent posts that came up during our ill-conceived stock-busting Yahoo! gambit:

Since there is no India blog for Microsoft I am forced to write here.

My friends and fellow Microsoft people, let me tell you that the situation in SMSG India is horrible. People are leaving and the leadership never meets the employees. We have box manufacturers trying to sell software. We have Chairman who I have not seen in 6 months in person. I have seen him on TV and the newspaper a few times. We have MD Neelam Dhawan who interviewed at Cisco 2 times and did not get a job there and is now going back to HP. The Country Manager for Xbox has left. BMO has almost 100% churn.

We now spend so much time reporting and having conference calls that I cannot meet my customer.

Does the Redmond people care about what is happening in MS India? Who can I complain to if I have a problem? Will Kevin Turner and Jean Philipe Courtois have an all hands meeting with the staff but without the India management present? You know we cannot speak the truth with our management because we will lose our jobs. And I want to keep my job till I get another offer. Like all the employees around me.

..and...

India Dev Center (IDC) is a pure empire building exercise. It is all about creating more partners as the VP mentioned in his Redmond recruitment visits. It is a good tour for a few Redmond folks who find a "sugar daddy", go to India for 2-3 years, get two promotions and come back to a different job in Redmond.

Meanwhile, a few exceptions aside, the quality of the work is abysmal. Components that came back to Redmond had to be completely rewritten.

Or, maybe not:

I work for WinSE in IDC (India Development Center). The situation is much better there.

We work in tandem with our counter parts in Redmond/China and have been making on-time and good-quality deliverables. The GDRs/Hotfixes/Service Packs which get shipped periodically are a result of good team work between the three huge teams.

However, our org, does not report to the India DC VP (we report to the Redmond VP), which probably is why we have a better coordination with the Redmond and ATC teams.

A tick for your tock, perhaps pointing an organizational leadership problem:

[...] the so called innovative ideas emerging out of IDC are so stale that they just don't get qualified to be called as innovative product ideas. The VP heading IDC is under tremendous pressure to show that there is some great innovation happening here. But, unfortunately his team is just not capable of delivering anything that will be worth talking about.

IDC is still not capable of standing on its feet. It is completely remote controlled by Redmond. The teams here are just puppets that play into the whims of the Redmond GMs. The senior dev/test managers here lack depth and confidence to deliver independently.

Interestingly enough, engagement started to happen within the Mini-Microsoft comment stream. A comment signed by Sudeep Bharati engages discussion around mobile app development at IDC:

There are few comments & assertions that have been made in this thread about “Mobile Developer” team at IDC. As the PUM for this org, I would like to make sure that the readers have the perspective from the other side too. IDC team has owned the Visual Studio for Devices charter for around 2 years now and has delivered a full release of this product with VS 2008. In this release, we added significant value to the product enabling test driven development for device projects with unit testing, programmable security configuration, managed API model to access and manipulate devices from the desktop as well as numerous enhancements to device emulator. Each one of these features are high value components for mobile developers and have been widely appreciated.

Following up on that:

We mastered the art of writing specs, converting that to code and testing it. But where is the innovation?

There is a serious lack of thought leadership in this group. Show me one senior member of the team who understands the big picture of the mobile developer story. We now have a lot of responsibility to deliver the complete platform and I do not see the maturity to do that.

Our focus is too narrow and we wear the colored glasses that only show us what we want to see! The mobile innovation is happening else where. Is there someone in the team who can confidently articulate what the competition is up to? Do we know anything about J2ME Midlet story? Do we know how Symbian stacks against us? Are we clear about Adobe's Flash story on mobile? Do we have a strategy for mobile web authoring? How do we counter the iPhone SDK? What will Google do with Android? What will IBM do with Eclipse in this space?

No! We have no time to figure this out.

A comment signed by David D'Souza responds:

The Mobile Developer Group intends to make products customers will love. We know the mobile field is broad and difficult. The strategies of the past won’t work again; as they say, people have seen that movie. Dynamics change and competitors are just as likely partners of the future - Windows Mobile includes Adobe Flash and Silverlight is porting to Nokia. [...]

As a partner at Microsoft, I’m engaged and passionate about the mobility area and equally passionate about ensuring IDC is a great place to work. If you are inside MSFT, you can browse my/site and watch our IDC Mobility Days presentations. As much as Windows 3 changed the PC experience, we need to achieve similar transformations in the mobile experience. We have breadth for multiple partner level people in this organization and we’re continually growing and enhancing our engineering capacity to deal with the challenges we face. Our products will be second to none. We will have fun, innovate, and work in new ways.

A demonstration of the As hiring Bs that end up with Cs and Ds:

The other huge concern is about quality of hires at IDC. I see pathetic hires walking into the product teams. The PUM/GM put a lot of pressure on HR and they end up fast tracking the hiring process. On top of that, you always have internal poaching which is very unhealthy.

...additionally...

While quality of hiring at Microsoft India IDC may be bad, the new hires in MS SMSG India is even worse. The interview process does not even exist, exit interviews dont exist, people get into jobs that are way above their abilities or interest and we have Neelam Dhawan to inspire people to join Microsoft.

On leadership:

I have been with EPG at MS India (SMSG) for a long time. I have seen the ups and downs and saw many leaders come and go. But, let me tell you that the current HP imports are horrible leaders to work with. Someone said it right - They raped the Microsoft culture.

My request to the CVP is to spend more time with the employees and hear their version.

...and leadership choosing the wrong carrot:

Everything is wrong at Microsoft India. There is now a reward of some cheap notebook if we get to the revenue target. Does Neelam (GM) not realise that we work for pride and challenge and whether or not she offers us a Rs,13000 HCL notebook we will do our best. I am insulted by this offer of a gift if the subsidiary meets the revenue goal. Last year, everyone got xbox and Neelam thought that people worked harder for the chance at winning xbox. Her cheap thinking about what motivates people at Microsoft is one of the reasons we are suffering in India today.

Go back to HP Neelam. You have no idea about Microsoft culture and how to motivate people.

...the gloves slip off:

[T]he underlying fact is that 70% of MS India is stinking with corrupt leaders. EPG has no moral values and ethics in selling. No one even understands why DPE should be paid in the first place. Public Sector has a new country lead for every 12 months and no one has a clue on handling the government accounts. HR is non existent and has the maximum attrition than any group. PR is busy bribing the media and publications to print positive stories.

:

The DPE lead is great at dancing at internal events and no one knows what else he is good at. Even if everyone in DPE are fired right away, it wouldn't make any difference to us. It's a well known fact that they will be the first to go out if there is a lay off at MS. This team is more of a liability than an asset. The earlier we fire them, the better for us.

An outside perspective starts with:

Well, let me share my view from outside. MS India has completely forgotten the community initiative. They are too busy impressing their hierarchy. There were times when the MVP/RD community was really valued and we were respected for what we are! Things are very different now. The MVP lead is in a deep slumber and does nothing for the community. I haven't met anyone from DPE India for ages. We only hear sugar coated statements from the GMs or senior executives when we bump into them.

Sending out an S O S:

An open letter to Mr. Jean-Philippe Courtois & Mr. Kevin Turner -

Can you please visit India once and listen to the feedback from the field?

The CVP, MD and all her direct reports made this company a miserable place to work for! They created a feudal fiefdom for themselves.

Please don't fall for things like the 'Best Place to Work For' recognition by a reputed publication. These can be bought in India for a price. It is a well known fact that the One India PR head spent a fraction of her budget to buy this! It's an irony that we got that award when we are experiencing the opposite of that - 'worst place to work for!'

You might be rewriting the corporate history and also doing something like this for the first time at Microsoft- Can you please fire the CVP and everyone who is two levels below him? Only that can save the Indian subsidiary.

Don't let the door knob hit you where the dog should have bit you:

With 4 key departures in SMSG in Microsoft India in the past 2 days, it looks like the attrition rate is worse than that of a call center. The only problem is that the CVP and the country GM are not leaving. Ravi is in denial that he is singularly responsible for the fuck up that is called Microsoft India SMSG. And Neelam is unable to find a job anywhere else.

Wrapping back to the very first comment:

Breaking News From MS India - The MD, Neelam Dhawan has put up her papers and will be leaving anytime now! Few of her direct reports would be following her.

So, Good things started to happen for Microsoft India.

...plus...

The really breaking news from Microsoft India is that the MD has been fired for the same transaction that various Microsoft people in Delhi have already been fired. She will not be a Microsoft employee by the time this fiscal year ends. Finally the good news is here. I hope she takes all her HP people with her with the EPG head being the first one.

Moorthy Uppaluri is also the new DPE head.

Final comment:

Mini - can you please reopen a seperate thread on Microsoft India SMSG and R&D? There are lots of stories of nepotism, poor OHI, bad quality work and a possible financial impropriety doing the rounds in India.

Well, okay. To quote a farm boy, "As you wish." Not... that... you're my Buttercup or anything. But here's an open door and open area to discuss Microsoft India: what the problems are, how to get management to accept that there are problems, where the right place to be is, and how to get there.

---

Rock the CashbackMicrosoft's new advertising scheme

If there's one thing that the Microsoft-Yahoo off-again, on-again love affair has laid bare, it's how badly Microsoft blundered its mid-'90s search and advertising advantage. Feeling the need to prove its competence with search, Microsoft tried to convince investors that they can do better, with or without Yahoo, through a big announcement on Wednesday. They unveiled a clever new advertising innovation that, at a minimum, shows they're committed to thinking creatively about monetizing search. Of course, that matters only if the feature actually works.

The new program is called Live Search cashback, and it's built upon a clever business model. (No, the C in cashback is not capitalized. That's how Microsoft is insisting on writing it. Blame e.e. cummings.) Search for a product through LSc to compare prices on any item you can imagine—everything from obscure hiking socks to under-the-radar fiction. On top of a routine price comparison, though, is an extra goodie: cashback savings, usually between 4 percent and 8 percent of the pretax price.

Once you find a price and item to your liking, you click through to the retailer, enter your e-mail address for Microsoft to track your discount earnings, and buy the item from the retailer's Web site. Microsoft then credits your cashback account, and once you accumulate at least $5 of savings, you can cash out. Microsoft says it has partnered with 700 different merchants, all of whom are eager to capitalize on the estimated 68 percent of online

Microsoft's interoperability drive

Microsoft will support open document format next year, In a drive to improve interoperability, Microsoft has said it will offer greater choice and flexibility among its document formats.

The release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2, scheduled for the first half of 2009, will expand the list to include support for XML Paper Specification, Portable Document Format and Open Document Format (ODF).

The announcement is in line with the company's principles around interoperability, said Chris Capossela, senior vice president for the Microsoft Business Division.

“We are committed to providing Office users with greater choice among document formats and enhanced interoperability between those formats and the applications that implement them,” he said.

“By increasing the openness of our products and participating actively in the development and maintenance of document format standards, we believe we can help create opportunities for developers and competitors, including members of the open source communities, to innovate and deliver new value for customers.”

However, sceptics are concerned about the extent to which Microsoft will be open about how far its policy of openness will stretch.

Marino Marcich, managing director of the ODF Alliance, said: "The proof will be whether and when Microsoft's promised support for ODF is on par with its support for its own formats. Microsoft has a long history of broken promises, so no one should celebrate this news until we see what is actually done and how quickly it is put in place.

"Governments will be looking for actual results, not promises in press releases."

Radiohead isn't a very popular

So, Radiohead isn't a very popular band, in fact, I bet most people haven't even heard of them. Wait, that's not true at all, Radiohead is HUGE! I love them, you love them, we all love Radiohead. From Pablo Honey to Kid A, they're eclectic crazy, sexy, modern and interesting.

Anyway, now that I got that out, let me tell you about Radiohead's Free Album! Their newest album, "In Rainbows" is available absolutely free on their website. As a downlaod of course, the actual box set will cost you $40. What's so interesting about this, is the recent activity and media surrounding copyright holders, record labels, and our dear old friends (Napster, Limwire, etc.)

Radiohead has slapped them in the face by offering their entire album, as a free download, available on the website In Rainbows

I know, you go to the website and it doesn't look like it's free. But add the album download to your shopping cart, go to check out and be surprised by the witty little form you're asked to fill out.

I'd tell you about it, but I don't want to spoil the fun! btw: click on the question mark link when you're in the shopping cart to get some cute dialogue going :)

Why Myspace is suck

They have a crappy layout and the add placements are obsurd but the real reson MySpace sucks is because of spam.

I've been reading about how they have 200 million members, but I know for a fact that about 20 of those profiles have the same girls picture and now her name is Bob.

It is really, really stupid. Can MySpace do something about this, of course. But they won't until they have to.

MySpace is that girl in school that sleeps with everybody. Easily accessible, everybody likes her but she obviously has no self respect.

MySpace Sucks.

Why Google Page rank Drop Down?

On November 1 (Thursday) very popular websites, including Washington Post, TechCrunch, etc. saw that their Page Rank Drops according to Google. The Google Page Rank is a number scaled from 1-10 that essentially ranks a website importance in the Google Search Engines. But, if you have been following SEO over the years and Google Page Rank you probably already know that the Page Rank system is becoming less and less important. During this recent Page Rank drop, the big sites who saw their rank plummit proved this fact in that their rank did drop, while their traffic stayed the same.

Why Did Google Drop Page Ranks?

Google said that the drop in page ranks was a direct result of websites who use paid linking systems and back links in order to get a better Page Rank effectively getting better search results. Google has adamantly resisted the paid linking system and says that it is unethical according to the search engine's ranking and result system.

On the Other Side...

What if sponsors pay for links, but the links are similar to your website and act as any other advertisement would.
Are we not supposed to put advertisements on our website?
Only Google is allowed to earn a profit from the entire internet?

Brendon Sinclair from SitePoint said it best

"But the fact that Google took action on these sites shouldn't come as a great shock to anyone. The point is this: if your site relies totally on Google for revenue, you're nuts. Google isn't here to help you. What comes first for it is making as much profit as possible"

Buy Printer INK For very Cheep

Personally, I think that going to the store and purchasing ink every time I am low on it is absolutely time consuming, expensive and frustrating...Frustrating?

YES. Because there have many times when the type of ink that I needed was not available at the store I went to. Requiring me to go to another store, waste gas and waste even more time. Wouldn't it be nice if you could have your printer ink delivered to your door step, free of shipping charge? Yes it would, and it CAN!

If you need inkjet cartridges, no matter what type of printer, copier, multifunction or fax machine you own, you can find it on Inkers.biz. You can also find the latest toner cartridges and multiple generic and cost effective options for purchasing brands that are cheaper and just as good quality.

Inkers is dedicated to providing efficient, simple, time efficient and cost effective solutions for purchasing the ink you need and getting the ink you need when you need it. They have a huge database of types of inks that you can choose from, ranging from simple printer ink cartridges to sophisticated toner cartridges.

They also offer high class customer service and satisfaction guaranteed, as all their ink cartridges and toners are 100% covered for any defects for an entire year. They also have a 30 day, no questions asked money back policy.

The best part about inkers.biz? Free ground shipping and usually ships the day you order it arriving within 2-3 days. Can't beat that! This qualifies for the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

So, next time you're out of ink and have a graphic project you need to print for, no worries. Order online and get your ink cartridges delivered same day and for free.

Microsoft IT

Last year, Microsoft IT said it was the target of more than 100,000 intrusion attempts per month. They are under constant scrutiny as to how they will protect themselves against hackers and intrusion attempts into their network. Microsoft holds very important information within it's internal network, like source code for it's operating systems and the Microsoft applications. Some security measure that Microsoft takes to defend itself by being behind firewalls and on networks segmented with IPsec. The Microsoft network is also monitored for suspicious activity, scanned for malware and much more.

Microsoft's in-house blogger

Nick White, Microsoft's in-house blogger who wrote about all things related to the Windows Vista operating system, has resigned. It's the latest in a series of key departures from the software maker.

White revealed the news in -- what else? -- a blog post. "I want to share with you the bittersweet news that I am moving on to a role outside Microsoft," White said in a post Monday.

"It's deflating to know that this constitutes my last post to the Windows Vista team blog," said White, a Vista product manager.

White is leaving Microsoft to join the blog-centric marketing and public relations firm BuzzCorps. He'll be replaced as Microsoft's lead Vista blogger by Windows communications director Christopher Flores.

Over the past several months, White's Vista blog has been a significant primary source for journalists, analysts, and other Microsoft watchers. Microsoft in many instances used the blog to announce major initiatives or product milestones.

Most recently, White trumpeted the arrival of Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

White did not provide a reason for his decision. To be sure, his position could not have been an easy one. White's posts often elicited hundreds of responses from Vista users complaining about the operating system's numerous glitches and quirks.

His departure also raises questions about Microsoft's ability to retain talent in the Web 2.0 world.

Though not a senior executive, White is the sort of young, blogosphere-savvy manager that the company needs more of if it hopes to outrun Google in the race for Web dominance. Such talent would also be required for Microsoft to successfully integrate takeover target Yahoo into its operations.

White's resignation is the latest in a string of key departures at Microsoft.

Joanne Bradford, who was chief media officer for the company's MSN Media Network, resigned last month to join advertising startup Spot Runner. Bradford had also previously served as Microsoft's VP for sales and marketing and as chief media revenue officer.

The company in January confirmed that Rob Short, corporate VP for Windows Core Technology, had quit. Short, a 19-year Microsoft veteran, led the team responsible for designing, developing, and testing core components of the Windows operating system.

Earlier this year, Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes said he would retire in September, to be replaced by former Juniper Networks chief operating officer Stephen Elop.

Microsoft's merger and acquisitions chief Bruce Jaffe stepped down at the end of February.

To boot, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates will give up full-time duties at the company in July.

The departures highlight one of Microsoft's biggest challenges as a mature company: attracting and retaining Silicon Valley's top talent. In its early days, Microsoft could entice recruits with an entrepreneurial environment and stock options that eventually turned secretaries into millionaires.

In 2008, however, it's hot Web 2.0 startups like Flickr and MySpace that can offer those kinds of perks and incentives.

100% laptop, cheapest laptop

When I was an 8th grader my parents gave me a choice. I could either get a computer or I could get braces. Looking back, this is an interesting delimma to have faced, especially today when I'd be willing to sacrifice a meal for time on the internet.

I chose a computer. The internet sounded pretty sweet and while it took us many failed attempts through our old dial up service, eventually I was online and enjoying every adventurous second of it.

Now I'm a bit older, missing a chunk of my back right tooth that aches (nothing to do with braces, or lack of) and am reading about inexpensive laptops that are being marketing towards children. Get 'em while they are young.

Just don't put up billboards by schools!

The $100 laptop is now going for around $400 and is a superb ebook reader.

The Give On Get One (G1G1) program was suggested by Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos on a bisit to OLPC's Cambridge offices last year. During the week of November 12 you'll be abe to go to XOgiving.org and order one for yourself. In exchange, for the $400 buy you get a $200 tax writoff. Half of the money wil go to subsidize the donation of an XO to a poor child.

CNN.com writes...

While it does look like it was made for kids - with its bright colors and almost silly antennae "ears" and a semi-indestructible curved design - it is a masterpiece of industrial design. And that applies both inside and out. It's green because it uses an unprecedentedly low amount of power. The battery lasts six hours between charges, and longer if you turn off the light in the screen. You can still see the image because the XO has a breakthrough "paper" mode which works entirely with reflected light.

David Pogue of the New York Times on Thursday gave a rave review to the XO, calling it "absolutely amazing" and "a total kid magnet." This is a superb machine for getting kids anywhere excited about learning, and for helping them understand more about computing. Any country that aims to fully participate in the digitizing world needs millions of citizens conversant with digital tools. "It's going to be an entrepreneurial force in these kids' lives," says Bender. "It's not only about consuming but about creating information." For an enthusiastic endorsement from a development expert read this post by Ethan Zuckerman, of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

The XO is no replacement for your Dell. There are critical things it cannot do, like store lots of photographs and music. There's no certainty that it will print on whatever printer you happen to own. And don't expect lots of customer support: OLPC is not set up to provide it. But instead buy this machine for its unique charms - as a learning tool for a kid at home or as a web-surfing machine that seems to run forever on a battery at Starbucks.

Hey, that works for me. I have a feeling this is unit is going to sell like hot cakes. Most people don't want to deal with the clutter of a traditional CPU and even laptop. Most people like to think they are helping the poor become unpoor through innovative technoligies. Most people want their kids to start messing with technology as soon as possible.

Fuck braces.

Microsoft bears shield, as Salesforce and Google synch up

With the Salesforce.com-Google collaboration, Microsoft will face yet another competitor in the online enterprise software applications market, analysts say.

But make that enterprise with a little "e."

Google's online applications will be integrated with Salesforce's customer relationship management (CRM) applications, giving it an entry point into Salesforce's customer base of mainly small to midsize customers and department-level groups of large corporations, said Kevin Buttigieg, an analyst at the Stanford Group.

"It expands the distribution of Google Apps," Buttigieg said, noting that the search giant likely views it as a starting point to later drill into large corporate accounts, in which Microsoft is dominant. "I think it will have a significant impact on Microsoft over time, but how soon and how large is hard to say."

Google Apps has a price advantage, but its feature functionality is lagging behind Microsoft in such areas as the detail of its spreadsheets, analysts say. And Buttigieg notes that Google Apps lacks an offline version. This may factor into large enterprise customers' hesitancy to use it, for fear of losing the ability to operate critical parts of their business, should the servers that host the applications crash.

As part of the agreement, Google Apps, Gmail, Calendar, and Google Talk will be tightly integrated with Salesforce, marking a move by Salesforce to offer a wider package of Web-based applications and cutting ties to desktop versions.

Yahoo gears up to report its first quarter performance

As Yahoo gears up to report its first quarter performance next week, one analyst predicts the Internet search pioneer may clock in at the lower end of its revenue range, while other analysts predict a buyout deal with Microsoft may be in the mix this week.

UBS Securities analysts predict the Internet search pioneer will likely saddle up with Microsoft in a buyout deal valued in the range between $32 to $35 a share.

UBS analysts Benjamin Schachter and Heather Bellini noted they wouldn't be surprised if the two companies entered a deal this week, citing several drivers.

In part, the analysts, citing a discussion with litigation attorney Glenn Manishin of Duane Morris LLP, predict Yahoo's antitrust concerns in hooking up with Microsoft are largely unfounded, giving it a mere 15 to 25 percent chance regulators would block the deal.

Yahoo, in its response letter to Microsoft's three-week ultimatum to do a deal, noted it was deeply concerned about antitrust regulators' views on a merger between the two companies and was still awaiting word from Microsoft on some of its questions regarding the topic.

Yahoo's first quarter earnings report on April 22 may serve as another driver, given the Internet search pioneer is not likely to dish up any surprises of a stronger than expected performance

Microsoft closes Danger deal

"Combining Danger and Microsoft talents together in the Premium Mobile Experiences team is how we're going to deliver cool, new, fun mobile experiences to consumers," Roz Ho, corporate vice president of the Premium Mobile Experiences team, said in a statement.

Microsoft says it plans to use Danger's mobile Internet platform to connect users to their social networks and dish up other forms of rich content.

While that's the game plan Microsoft has in store for its mobile phone acquisition, the company faces several challenges with integrating the maker of the Sidekick device. Danger uses its own operating system, and its business model relied on generating revenue by grabbing a slice of monthly service fees from phone carriers, rather than selling software licenses

Some great Widgets for bloggers

Widgets are a handy, easy and simple way to add some flare to your blog. Whether you’d like to display the number of currently online visitors to your site or simply the weather report for Los Angeles, you can do it with widgets. We’ve assembled a list of 50 useful or simply cool widgets for your pleasure. And remember, the first rule of widgetizing your blog is - don’t overdo it!

MyBlogLog’s Recent Readers - this widget can easily be called a hit amongst blog owners; its popularity even managed to convince Yahoo into buying MyBlogLog. The widget lets you see the avatars of recent visitors to your blog, provided they’re also members of MyBlogLog.

Mashable - get the latest social networking news from this very site.

Flickr Flash Photo Stream Badge - display images from your Flickr profile with a handy Flash photo stream.

Preview Anywhere - see a live preview of outgoing links in a small popup which activates on mouseover. Some find this annoying, while others might find it useful.

Twitter Badge - if your life is so interesting that everyone must know what you’re up to all the time, then a Twitter badge is the ideal counterpart to your blog. It’ll proudly displays your recent tweets.

Digg News - display the latest Digg links on your blog. Themeable and fully customizable.

FEEDJIT - real time traffic data directly in your blog’s sidebar.

LineBuzz - inline comments for your blog. Very handy for blogs with frequent lively discussions.

Flixn - display a stream directly from your webcam, so your blog visitors can always see what you’re up to.

3Jam - lets your visitors send messages to your mobile phone, without them knowing your phone number.

Jaxtr - with Jaxtr, your visitors can actually call you to your mobile phone; again, your number stays private.

LinkedInABox - show off your LinkedIn profile. Perfect for personal blogs.

Box Widget - enable visitors to use box.net’s online storage directly on your web site.

Price of gas - displaying gas prices on your blog might seem unnecessary to some, but it’s cool if you have a traffic/travel related blog.

iBegin Weather Widget - Display weather information in your sidebar. Just like with Price of Gas, works great with travel-related blogs.

ClockLink - display time in various time zones with these nifty Flash clocks.

Film Loops - display the latest loops from your FilmLoops account.

Daily Painters - display paintings from famous painters on your blog.

WhoLinked - show your visitors which sites have recently linked to your web site. Works with all major blog platforms.

Criteo AutoRoll - displays links to blogs similar to your blog.

Bitty Browser - embed a cute, fully functional mini web browser to your blog.

Leafletter - create a mini website and embed it into your blog.

WikiSeek - search Wikipedia with this simple widget.

FeedCount - show off the number of visitors to your blog with this handy little button.

Technorati Link Count - display the number of links your website has from one of the biggest blog authorities - Technorati.

MyPageRank - another good way to show how “big” your blog is is to show off your Google PageRank.

CheckPageRank - in addition to showing your PageRank, this widget also shows your Alexa ranking.

BlinkxIt - embed a link to related videos directly into your website.

Skype button - display your Skype online/offline status on your blog.

RockYou Horoscope - not something I would personally use, but some people are into horoscope. Hell, most people are into horoscope. Anyway, this widget shows horoscope (doh!) and does it in a nicely designed colorful box.

del.icio.us Tagometer - display how many times have del.icio.us users saved your page.

del.icio.us Linkrolls - this badge shows your latest bookmarks from del.icio.us.

Timelines - need to create a timeline? Seek no further. This widget makes it really easy.

PollDaddy - PollDaddy lets you create beautiful polls in no time, and display them at your blog.

Vizu - another poll-making widget, compatible with all major blog platforms.

AnswerTips - display definitions from Answers.com for various terms on your blog. The definitions are shown in bubbles which are activated on doubleclick.

AnswerBoxes - give your visitors a chance to enter a term themselves, and get a definition from Answers.com

Now Playing - if you got to share your current playlist contents with the world, Sigamp will do the trick. Works with most popular music players, including Foobar, Winamp, iTunes and others.

BuzzBoost - display headlines from your RSS feed on any website.

LibraryThing - show off the latest books you’ve been reading.

Plaxo Address Book - let your most faithful visitors access their address books direclty from your site.

AuctionAds - a widget that displays auctioned items on eBay, and gives you a percentage of the price paid when sometimes buys an item.

aStore - similar to AuctionAds, only for Amazon. Create a mini-store on your site and receive profit when someone buys an item through your store.

Plazes - show your current location on a Plazes map.

Stockalicious - track your portfolio with this widget, and share it with others. Let everyone know how much money you’ve lost.

Google Map Widget - display a searchable Google Map on your website.

Google Video Search - add a video search form and selected videos to your web site.

Odeo player - display an Odeo player for and podcast right there in your sidebar.

Yahoo! For Good - create a charity badge and ask for donations for a worthy cause.

Giftspace - your friends never know what to buy you for birthday? Let them know what you really want with this nifty widget.

MixMap - see where are the visitors to your MySpace profile from on a map.

how Importance is Disk Data Recovery

Your hard drive or hard disk is one of the most important components of your computer. This is because it is the hard disk that stores all sorts of information, files, and data that you collect over time. You have to understand, in today's day and age, the secure storage of data is very important in both the home and business setting. Thus, it is very important to ensure that your hard disk is in proper running condition at all times. This should be done to avoid the corruption of the hard disk, thereby losing valuable information during the process. However, as hard as it is to admit, the hard disk is still prone to very damaging errors, such as system crashes. This is true in spite of the advancements in technology that these hard disks have incurred over time. Thus, aside from keeping your hard disks in proper running condition, it is also a must to delve into the topic of disk data recovery. Every computer user needs a backup plan, and the disk data recovery provides you just that.

Most of the time, data or system crashes happen when there are errors that have been introduced to your system. These errors can be logical or physical in nature. Either way, these errors can lead to failures for just about any system. Whether you are using hard disks, tape drives, CD-ROMS, and other storage media devices, all of these will eventually fail once the system has been laden with logical and/or physical errors. Now, just like any other computer problem, there are signs and symptoms to watch out for when you are dealing with these errors.

Most of the hard disks available right now actually croak before they crash completely. Croaking includes disk error messages occurring frequently, or the disk not in proper running order while the computer is starting up. Croaking can also include the occurrence of weird sounds, such as whirring or clicking sounds. These are the sounds coming from the CPU that are quite new to the ear. There are also times when garbled information comes up when the disk is undergoing analysis. However, there just might be times when you system would come crashing down without any croaking. Thus, it is better to be prepared at all times.

If your hard drive does crash, the fastest recovery option here would be to check your backups. However, there just might be the chance that not all of your data is backed up accordingly. You can then try to manually recover the data you need.

You need the help of certain software applications for this. There are a lot of software applications available in the market right now that can effectively recover your data for you. Most of them even come with the ability of making your hard disk reusable again.

Tips to get Linux Data Recovery

A unique new technology is being used in Linux data recovery. During a scan, IntelligentScan reads data directly from the disk to determine the extent of the damage. It analyses the data and attempts to sort it into different record categories. Some of the categories include: MBR records, FAT Boot sector records, MFT records, HFS/HFS+ Volume Header, and HFS/HFS+ Btree+ Node.

Each record type has a unique structure that is known to data recovery specialists. Specialists also have knowledge regarding the values of record fields and the relations between the fields for each record type. This knowledge allows them to determine a record type for the data. If data can't be assigned to a specific record type with any certainty, it can be assigned to the type that is the most likely option. If it's difficult to identify only one probable type, it's possible to assign data to several record types, all of which will generate possible files.

The standard practice for data recovery companies is to create a list for each record type. The list includes the records that have been assigned to a type, along with their assignment probability. Different lists can be created, many of which will contain the same data. The information on all of the lists will be analysed and used to generate a list of found partitions. The new list will include information regarding partition parameters such as probable size, cluster size, existence probability and file system type.

Recovery specialists use the file and partition lists to reconstruct file systems and files on the found partitions. It's possible to assign one file to several different partitions. On completion of the hard disk scan, the technicians are able to show all of the found partitions. The parameters can then be manually corrected, provided enough information is available to do so.

IntelligentScan technology enables the recovery of files on new and existing partitions. Data can also be recovered from partitions that have been deleted or reformatted.

n the biological world it can take thousands of years for a species to evolve and climb one rung up the evolutionary ladder. In the technological world, especially the world of computers, evolution seems to occur on a weekly basis. Technology advances at a rapid rate, which allows us to do more with it, which in turn leads to more advanced technology. As we continue to develop, and as data recovery methods evolve, it will soon be possible to reconstruct every move ever made on a computer, no matter how bad the damage. This is bad news for those who use their pcs for nefarious means, but for those of us trying to earn an honest living, it sounds like an outstanding safety net against data loss.