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.