console view::westofeast.com

Microsoft confirms stealth WU update mucks up XP restore

2007-09-28T15:53:00.000-04:00

"Microsoft Corp. today confirmed that Windows XP users who repair the operating system cannot update their PCs with the latest patches because of a file included with the stealth update pushed out to machines this summer.

'When an XP repair CD is used, it replaces all system files (including Windows Update) on your machine with older versions of those files and restores the registry,' said Nate Clinton, program manager for Windows Update (WU), in a post to the Microsoft company blog dedicated to the update service. 'However, the latest version of Windows Update includes 'wups2.dll' that was not originally present in Windows XP. Therefore, after the repair install of the OS, wups2.dll remains on the system, but its registry entries are missing. This mismatch causes updates to fail installation.'

The Windows Secrets newsletter reported the patch installation failures after tests on Windows XP machines that had been restored by an in-place reinstall. The root of the problem, said the publication, is that seven DLLs from the latest revision to WU -- not just one -- failed to register themselves with XP. Microsoft could not provide an explanation for the discrepancy between the claims. "

And THAT'S why I make my OWN images on a nightly basis using Acronis Disk Imager. It's bakup for the lazy man - just attach a nice big USB drive, set up the images to be created overnight while you sleep and build yourself a Acronis Rescue Bootable CD. Idiot proof, and saves me time money and heartbreak!

10 Future Web Trends

2007-09-12T13:07:00.000-04:00

We're well into the current era of the Web, commonly referred to as Web
2.0. Features of this phase of the Web include search, social networks, online
media (music, video, etc), content aggregation and syndication (RSS), mashups
(APIs), and much more. Currently the Web is still mostly accessed via a PC, but
we're starting to see more Web excitement from mobile devices (e.g. iPhone) and
television sets (e.g. XBox Live 360).

What then can we expect from the next 10 or so years on the Web? As NatC
commented in this week's poll, the biggest impact of the Web in 10 years
time won't necessarily be via a computer screen - "your online activity will be
mixed with your presence, travels, objects you buy or act with." Also a lot of
crossover will occur among the 10 trends below (and more) and there will be Web
technologies that become enormously popular that we can't predict now.

Bearing all that in mind, here are 10 Web trends to look out for over
the next 10 years...

A great article on "Web 2.5" technologies...

� IRS employees successfully social engineered | IT News Digest | TechRepublic.com

2007-08-06T10:30:00.000-04:00

"In an audit of IRS security rules by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, it appears that they were able to successfully social engineer IRS employees into improperly disclosing their user names and passwords � a staggering 61% of the time.
According to the report, a caller posed as a technical support person and contacted 102 employees. On the pretext of solving a computer problem, he attempted to persuade them to temporarily change his or her password to one based on his suggestion.

Excerpt from SignOnDiego.com:
Sixty-one of the 102 people who got the test calls, including managers and a contractor, complied with a request� Only eight of the 102 employees contacted either the inspector general�s office or IRS security offices to validate the legitimacy of the caller.

The IRS agreed with recommendations from the inspector general that it should take steps to make employees more aware of hacker tactics such as posing as an internal employee and to remind people to report such incidents to security officials.

The especially disturbing part here is the revelation that IRS actually took many measures to improve their security awareness after two similar test telephone calls in 2001 and 2004. The report sums the efforts: �� the corrective actions have not been effective.�

It is needless to say that the employees were putting the IRS at risk of providing unauthorized people access to taxpayer data. Still, is this case simply a sign of the impossibility of educating end-users, especially in a large corporation or organization spanning multiple locations, or is it due to the lack of a proper system?"

Social networking quickly taking global hold

2007-08-02T13:10:00.000-04:00

The use of social networking sites worldwide has grown substantially in the past year, with some sites seeing total visits increase as much as sevenfold, according to a study released Tuesday by Internet measurement company comScore Inc.

MySpace, for example, drew more than 114 million global visitors in June 2007, a 72% increase over the past year, comScore noted. Facebook, which in September stopped limiting access to only college or university students or workers, experienced a 270% increase in worldwide visitors over the past year, according to the study.

Bebo, a popular social networking site in the U.K., experienced 172% growth, with 18 million visitors in June. Tagged, a social networking site aimed at teenagers, grew 774% over the past year, attracting 13 million visitors in June.

"Literally hundreds of millions of people around the world are visiting social networking sites each month, and many are doing so on a daily basis," said Bob Ivins, comScore executive vice president of international markets, in a statement. "It would appear that social networking is not a fad but rather an activity that is being woven into the very fabric of the global Internet."

The study also showed that some resonate more strongly in particular regions. MySpace.com and Facebook, for example, both pull in about two-thirds of their audiences from North America, while 63% of Bebo users hail from Europe.

Orkut, Google Inc.'s social networking site, draws 49% of its audience from Latin America, while 89% of Friendster visitors come from the Asia-Pacific region.

New Trojans: give us $300, or the data gets it!

2007-07-20T11:37:00.000-04:00

"There's a new breed of ransomware in town, and it raises the stakes compared to previous viruses of this sort. Both Sinowal.FY and Gpcode.ai have been identified by security companies PandaLabs and Kaspersky Lab as malicious strains of older Trojans that encrypt users' files so that they can no longer be accessed. The Trojan then plants a readme.txt where users will find it, and inside, demands $300 in order to decrypt the files.

The ransom note tells the user in broken English that the files have been encrypted using RSA-4096 and that unless cold, hard cash is forked over within a period of time, the content of the files will be shared with the world and then deleted. However, PandaLabs says that these are empty threats�the files merely remain encrypted on the user's computer. Not only that, but Kaspersky Lab analyst Aleks Gostev claims that the Trojan actually has a limited shelf life of between July 10 to July 15 (for reasons only the Trojan-writers understand). He also points out on his personal blog that the Trojan-writers' claim of having used an RSA-based algorithm is false: '[T]here's no sign of RSA-4096,' Gostev writes. "

In short - don't panic and DON'T PAY ANYTHING! Agencies are working on finding a way to decrypt the files and the decryption solution will be available soon.

Beware Fake Domain Renewal Notices

2007-07-20T11:23:00.000-04:00

Sometimes the goal is to steal your domain, sometimes just to steal money from you. But be very careful when you get a domain renewal notice; if it's not from your registrar, it's not to be trusted. Thanks to the folks at Domain Name Wire for blogging about a serious scam designed to steal money from domain name owners. You could say it's a new sort of phish.

Domain renewal scams are not a new thing. Because whois information is public, unscrupulous registrars have, for years, harvested the information in it and sent renewal notices to unwitting customers of other domains. If you "renew" you actually end up transferring the domain name and perhaps incurring additional charges.

IE7 uptake stalls

2007-05-07T16:21:00.000-04:00

Within weeks of its October 2006 launch, IE7 accounted for nearly 10% of all browsers used on the Web, reported Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based Net Applications in its latest look at browser use. Over the next three months, IE7 posted month-to-month gains that ranged from 4% to almost 10%, so that by the end of February, it owned 29.1% of the market. Since then, however, it's taken two months to grow another point and a half.

The plateauing of IE7 is both striking and no surprise, said Geoff Johnston, an analyst at rival metrics firm WebSideStory. "In the last three months, IE7's growth has slowed to a trickle," said Johnston. "IE7 has a decent enough number -- 31% as of last week -- but IE6 is still higher, at 46%-47%."
Net Applications' numbers match those of WebSideStory.

Microsoft began feeding IE6 users automatic update offers to IE7 in early December 2006. Users, however, were allowed to decline the upgrade to IE7, and enterprises were given tools to block the move to the new browser. Microsoft also committed to supporting the older browser until 2014.

"Consumer apathy, or laziness, is extremely difficult to overcome," said Johnston. "Lots of people are obviously quite happy with IE6 and don't see any reason to upgrade as long as it's working for them."
Even the introduction of Windows Vista, which runs only IE7, hasn't made a difference of late. After a 4% jump in IE7 use from the end of January to the end of February -- Vista was released to consumers on Jan. 30 -- adoption slowed to 0.9% the next month and just 0.6% in March.

The stalled uptake of IE7 contrasts with a steadier migration of Firefox users from the older Version 1.5 to Version 2.0. In the seven months since Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox 2.0 debuted, it has essentially swapped places with 1.5; by the end of April, said Net Applications, Version 2.0 accounted for 10.2% of all browsers, close to the 10.5% that Firefox 1.5 controlled last November. It has only been in the past month that Firefox 2.0's uptake slowed to less than half the earlier month-to-month average.

According to Net Applications, Firefox now holds 15.4% of the browser market, while Internet Explorer has 78%. Apple Inc.'s Safari also posted an increase in April and now stands at 4.6%; Opera Software ASA's Opera browser slipped slightly and remains under 1%.

The Controversy Over GPL 3 - Software Technology News by InformationWeek

2007-03-19T12:46:00.000-04:00

A little more about the controversy over GPL3 and why you should care...and you SHOULD care, especially if, like myself and many of my clients, you use open source and/or free software.

"There's a rift developing between camps within the free software movement over the next version of the most popular open source license, known as the General Public License, or GPL. And while that infighting might appear to be little more than a family squabble, its ramifications could be significant for how companies use open source software in the future.
A new version of the GPL, the third overall and the first revision since 1991, was supposed to be released this month. But controversy over several new provisions--and the authors' ambitions to thwart Microsoft's Linux pact with Novell--have delayed it until later this year.
Unless there's a radical reworking of GPL version 3 (GPLv3, in the programmer lexicon), a significant portion of the open source community will reject it, chief among them Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. 'I will not sign on to GPLv3 if it limits how the code is used,' Torvalds says in a lengthy E-mail exchange with InformationWeek. "

InformationWeek Weblog: New GPL License Is Coming; Linus Torvalds Wishes It Weren't

2007-03-15T10:49:00.000-04:00

"I was surprised in an e-mail exchange with Linus Torvalds at the depth of his criticism of the next version of the General Public License. I thought his differences with the Free Software Foundation would just fade away. Now I believe that it's not a simple issue to resolve.

InformationWeek is querying knowledgeable parties on the nature of the upcoming 3.0 revision of the GPL, the software license that has played such an important role in changing our computing landscape.
We are all indebted to Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation for its willingness to stand the defensive rights of copyright on their head. The GPL creates a more open, shared software environment. To not recognize the beneficence of this stroke is to have been asleep for the past decade, or longer.

Having said that, I am struck by the contrast between the lofty ambitions that Stallman and the Free Software Foundation are now placing behind GPL 3.0 versus Torvalds' common sense. "

Charles Babcock checks in with Linus "Is YOUR name in an OS?" Torvalds and finds out what irks him so much about GPLv3. Not just a GOOD read, but an important one as well.

The slow but steady march of open-source

2006-10-12T13:57:00.001-04:00

"It may not be taking the world by storm, but open-source still has a growing and determined group of adherents. Technology executives at two Canadian users of the technology, Pioneer Petroleum and Vancouver Community College, talk about why they chose it, what it was like to implement and some of the advantages of moving to an open platform. Money isn't everything. People love finding good deals, like stumbling across an inexpensive but delightful wine. And then they will buy it again -- not because it's cheap but because it's good.

That's the pattern that's emerging with many open-source implementations. Driven by cost containment pressures, many cash-strapped organizations are turning to open-source applications for relief. But once they've implemented a system component and found it is good, they come back for more. Pioneer Petroleum in Burlington, Ontario, is one such example.

The company is the largest independent gasoline retailer in Ontario, with 150 retail locations, many in remote rural locations. Thanks to rocketing gas prices, Pioneer is feeling the pinch. "It's a strange scenario. We have to buy our product from the companies we compete with," explained Dale Sinstead, director of IT at Pioneer. To pump up revenue sources, the company recently revamped its business model, retrofitting its locations with general stores, fast food and car wash outlets. But Pioneer now had a mass of new data requirements to manage at each site and collaboration with new vendors and suppliers to contend with. "We needed something we could manage from a centralized location that was robust, so we wouldn't have to worry about the midnight guy playing with the computer," said Sinstead.

Pioneer had already done some toe-dipping into Linux for a few years at the server end, and decided to take the plunge last year and implement Red Hat workstations at the client end, with IBM's Lotus Notes for Linux as the collaboration glue binding the system. "We couldn't possibly put Windows machines out there without having to hire a whack of people to manage them," said Sinstead, who estimates he avoided spending about $89,500 per year, net of licensing fees, in extra support costs. Better still, the system is so robust that current resources can be painlessly stretched further. "Our administrative costs have gone down because we found we could do more without hiring anyone."

USB flash drives are failing

2006-09-18T12:59:00.000-04:00

A must read for those of you using those USB flash drives; consider running a defrag now and then...

"USB flash memory drives are experiencing an increase in product failures as a result of quality-control problems, and the wildly popular replacements for floppy disks could be facing other problems related to fragmentation, according to industry experts.
Recent Gartner Inc. numbers indicate that 88.2 million USB flash drives were shipped in 2005, and 115.7 million will be shipped in 2006. While these portable nonvolatile storage units don't last forever, single-level cell NAND flash drives are commonly acknowledged to last for an average of 100,000 read-write cycles, which is an infinite amount for most users.
However, according to Alan Niebel, a semiconductor analyst at Web-Feet Research Inc. in Monterey, Calif., fragmentation is becoming more of a threat, especially as USB flash memory sizes grow. 'Flash disks will soon encounter fragmentation problems and a need to arrange the data in order to prevent problems,' Niebel said.
'Like mechanical disks, flash disks have their own technical limitations, so it will be wise to measure the fragmentation level on flash disks in order to avoid unnecessary writes on the media,' he added."

Princeton report slams Diebold touch-screen systems

2006-09-15T13:10:00.000-04:00

"A recently released report by researchers at Princeton University alleges more security flaws in Diebold Election Systems Inc.'s touch-screen voting systems.
The school's Center for Information Technology Policy, which studies computer technology's effect on society, posted the report online yesterday. Computer science researchers at the university said they were able to create vote-stealing code that can be installed in a minute on Diebold hardware and change vote counts undetected, according to a statement from Princeton. 'We have created and analyzed the code in the spirit of helping to guide public officials so that they can make wise decisions about how to secure elections,' Edward Felton, the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy, said in the statement. 'We found that the machine is vulnerable to a number of extremely serious attacks that undermine the accuracy and credibility of the vote counts it produces.'
The devices are also susceptible to computer viruses 'that can spread themselves automatically and invisibly from machine to machine during normal pre- and postelection activity,' he claimed.
For its part, Diebold hotly disputed the report. According to David Byrd, president of Diebold Election Systems, the TS machine used by the Princeton researchers had security software that was two generations old and is no longer even in use.
'Normal security procedures were ignored,' he said in a statement yesterday. 'Numbered security tape, 18 enclosure screws and numbered security tags were destroyed or missing so that the researchers could get inside the unit. A virus was introduced to a machine that is never attached to a network.'
Byrd said the TS has advanced security features,including Advanced Encryption Standard 128-bit data encryption, digitally signed memory card data, Secure Sockets Layer data encryption for transmitted results and dynamic passwords.
He added that "by any standard -- academic or common sense -- the study is unrealistic and inaccurate."
The study was made public at the same time Maryland elections officials are struggling to count votes in the wake of problems related to touch-screen systems in the state's Tuesday primary. Those problems arose when voter access cards needed for the machines were not distributed to polling places, casuing delays in voting."

This item, hot on the heels of the Maryland debacle (which wasw more a HUMAN error condition than anything else) really worries me regarding the upcoming elections in my area, where we will be using the electronic voting machines for the first time...

Wired News: Protect Yourself From Pretexting

2006-09-15T13:01:00.000-04:00

"Pretexting has long been a tactic used by private investigators and others to obtain personal information and records about people. Also known as 'social engineering' in the hacker realm, it involves using ploys to obtain data and documents.
The ploys range from the creative to the straightforward. In the Hewlett-Packard case, outside investigators hired by the company simply posed as the victims -- HP board members and journalists -- to obtain their phone records from phone companies.
On the more inventive side, Verizon Wireless last year accused online data brokers of making hundreds of thousands of calls to the company's customer service lines posing as fellow Verizon employees with the company's 'special needs group,' a nonexistent department. The callers obtained customer account information by claiming to be making the requests on behalf of voice-impaired customers.
Against that kind of initiative, it seems like there's little an ordinary consumer, Silicon Valley director or tech journalist can do. But there are some options."

eSchool News online - Data security breach hits student-loan holders

2006-08-28T18:10:00.000-04:00

"The Education Department became the latest federal agency to fall victim to a series of data security breaches in recent months, when users of its federal student-loan web site had their personal information appear during a routine software upgrade from Aug. 21 to Aug. 23. Federal officials say the vendor responsible will offer free credit monitoring for those affected by the breach. "

So now you have the perfect excuse for not paying back your student loans; "But Mr. Bank Manager, that wasn't ME - someone ELSE must have stolen my identity and borrowed all that money for college..."

In Depth: Google Discloses Plans For Long-Awaited Office Suite, First Components Due This Week - News by InformationWeek

2006-08-28T09:59:00.000-04:00

"Google this week will launch Google Apps for Your Domain, a software bundle aimed at small and midsize companies. The free, ad-supported package combines Google's E-mail, calendar, and instant messaging with Web site creation software. It will be hosted in Google's data center, branded with customers' domain names, and packaged with management tools for IT pros.

That's the first step. Later this year, Google plans to add its Writely word processor and Google Spreadsheets to the suite, build online collaboration features that work across its applications, and market the whole package to large companies for a fee. Google will include IT-friendly features such as APIs, directory-server integration, guaranteed performance levels, and telephone tech support.

Instead of trying to displace the hundreds of millions of copies of Office installed on business PCs, Google will try to snare users once they start sharing the Word and Excel files they've created. 'The right way to view Writely and Google Spreadsheets, especially in the context of a larger business, isn't necessarily as a replacement for Word or Excel,' says Matt Glotzbach, head of enterprise products at Google. 'They're the collaboration component of that.' "

And so the battle begins between the two behemoths. But the real question is why people would choose EITHER option (The high licensing fees of MS or the Ad-revenue supported Google) when a third option like OpenOffice is available? OpenOffice has the advantage of both being free and being compatible with the current MS Office suite, with a much lower learning curve than one might think. Find out for yourself at http://www.openoffice.org...

AOL's disturbing glimpse into users' lives

2006-08-09T12:30:00.000-04:00

"The 21 million search queries also have exposed an innumerable number of life stories ranging from the mundane to the illicit and bizarre.
For its part, AOL has apologized for a researcher's disclosure of the massive database and has yanked the file from its Web site. It was too late: The database already had been mirrored.
That database does not include names or user identities. Instead, it lists only a unique ID number for each user. What that means is that it's possible to view the search terms that users of a single account typed in while using AOL Search during a three-month period. (Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search aren't included.) "

Whoa, this article MUST be read in it's entirety...disturbing to see what some people are searching for!!

Update: Another VA computer missing

2006-08-09T10:24:00.000-04:00

"The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs yesterday announced that a desktop computer containing the personal information on 38,000 veterans is missing from the office of Unisys Corp., the subcontractor hired to assist in insurance collection for the VA's medical centers in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
'VA's inspector general, the FBI and local law enforcement are conducting a thorough investigation of this matter,' Secretary of Veterans Affairs R. James Nicholson said in a statement. Unisys told the VA on Aug. 3 that the computer was missing from its Reston, Va., offices. The VA immediately sent a team to Unisys to help search for the missing computer and to determine exactly what information it contained.
The VA said it believes the data involved is limited to veterans who received treatment at the two Pennsylvania medical centers during the past four years. According to the agency, the desktop computer may have contained patients' names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, the names of their insurance companies, billing information, dates of military service and claims data that may include some medical information.
The VA estimates that the computer contained information on approximately 5,000 patients treated at a center in Philadelphia, approximately 11,000 patients treated at a Pittsburgh facility and about 2,000 deceased patients. The VA is also investigating the possibility that the computer contained information on another 20,000 people who received care through the Pittsburgh medical center. "

Windows Genuine Advantage: What it is, how to ditch it

2006-07-31T14:16:00.000-04:00

"Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) software is installed on computers running Windows XP via Microsoft's online update services. For most XP users, that means Automatic Updates, which Microsoft has worked very hard since Windows XP SP2 to make us run in full-automatic mode. WGA has already appeared in several beta versions, with slightly different behaviors, and Microsoft appears to be still actively developing this tool. For many people, the fact that the software giant delivers WGA as a security update is another strong note of insincerity. Microsoft may kid itself into believing that WGA has some sort of security aspect, but many knowledgeable computer users aren't buying that. "

Open-source on Windows the next big thing?

2006-07-28T11:01:00.000-04:00

"Faced with the allure of inexpensive open-source applications among its core customer base of small to midsize businesses, Microsoft has toned down its rhetoric. 'It's a myth that open-source and Windows can't work together. Customers just aren't religious about these things,' said Ryan Gavin, a director of platform strategy for Microsoft.
Users now have a variety of 12 WAMP packages they can download and install on Windows servers. Take the XAMPP installer, created by Berlin programmer Kai Seidler. Though XAMPP is available for operating systems such as Apple Computer Inc.'s Mac OS X, Sun Solaris and Linux, more than 80% of its 3 million downloads have come from Windows users. "

Stumbleupon picks up the pace

2006-07-14T11:47:00.000-04:00

"The 4-year-old company produces a browser plug-in that recommends popular Web sites to its users based on their stated preferences--such as photography, science or cool gadgets--and the endorsement of others in the Stumbleupon community within those categories. It's like channel surfing with a Web remote that knows what you might like.
The application now has 1 million registered users from Mozilla Firefox, the primary browser it supports, following improvements Stumbleupon made to it in May, according to the company. And next week, Stumbleupon will unveil a public version for Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which commands the majority of the browser market, in the hopes of expanding its membership by the millions.
That way, it will bolster its database of recommended sites, draw more members and sell more of its own highly targeted advertising, said Garrett Camp, chief architect and founder of Stumbleupon.
'We have a new ad system that introduces ads (via Web page) to people when they stumble,' said Camp, who compared it to television-style advertising but with a targeted approach to peoples' interests."

With a new influx of capital investment, Stumblers are spreading their wings. If you haven't yet used StumbleUpon, I highly advise youcheck it out. I have found some amazing things on the net due to Stumbler suggestions; not only for pleasure but for businsess as well. Important finds like code snippets, market research and statistics that I would never have found otherwise.

StumbleUpon uses a browser plugin (available for most of the popular browsers out there) and is a social networking referral site that works similar to Digg or Del.ic.ious in that people with similar interests as yours will tag a site with a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down, and highest rated sites will be shown to you in random fashion when you press the "Stumble!" button on the plugins toolbar. Check it out at http://www.stumbleupon.com...

InformationWeek | iMac | Apple Stops Selling $899 iMac To Students, Teachers | July 13, 2006

2006-07-14T11:39:00.001-04:00

"Just a week after Apple Computer Inc. introduced an $899 iMac for the education market, on Wednesday the company stopped selling the discounted computer to individual customers.
As of Wednesday, the 17-inch school-targeted iMac had been pulled from the Apple online store accessible by individuals. However, it remained as one of the three iMac options in the e-store for institutional sales.
The iMac was priced $300 under the next-most expensive model, also a system that boasted a 17-inch LCD screen. The $899 iMac, however, sported a smaller capacity hard drive, and omitted the optical Superdrive and support for Bluetooth.
When it launched the discount computer, Apple touted it in a press release as 'available immediately for education customers through the Apple Store for Education.' As late as Tuesday, TechWeb had verified that the iMac was for sale to individual K-12 and college teachers, students, and staff members.
Some Apple enthusiast Web sites theorized that the $899 iMac had been cannibalizing sales of the $1,299 and $1,699 17- and 20-inch systems ($1,119 and $1,599, respectively, to teachers and students).
An Apple spokesperson declined to directly reply to TechWeb's question of why the low-priced iMac was yanked from individual customer sales, and would only say that '[It] is not available to individual education customers, it is for institutions only.' "

Yeah, that makes sense...Apple once again bites the very hand that sustains it. Apple has a history of doing this however, I remember when I was working for an education reseller in NJ that pretty much owned the K-12 market at the time, and was responsible for putting more Macs in schools than any reseller in the area. How did Apple reward such hard working resellers? Well, they pulled the rug out from under us, that's how. Apple got it into their heads that they could make more money and have better control over the profit margins if they limited sales to regional fulfillment companies.

Our company's response? After a lot of panic and deep thought we moved to infrastructure, service and SELLING WINTEL CLONES. If you've ever wondered how Apple lost the K-12/Higher Ed market dominance they once enjoyed...well now you know. And it appears that they STILL haven't learned from their mistakes - because from my experience, K-12 is one of the few places (besides the graphic design/film industries) where Mac zealots defend their turf.

InformationWeek | iMac | Apple Stops Selling $899 iMac To Students, Teachers | July 13, 2006

2006-07-14T11:39:00.000-04:00

Navy probes data leak on 100,000 sailors, Marines

2006-07-10T10:22:00.000-04:00

"The Navy said on Friday that it is trying to determine how personal information on more than 100,000 Navy and Marine Corp aviators and air crew wound up on a publicly available Web site for more than six months.
In a fresh case of private information on military personnel being compromised, the full names and social security numbers of both active and reserve members appeared on the Naval Safety Center Web site last December.
Those affected are believed to include any Navy or Marine Corp aviator who has served during the past 20 years."

If this keeps up, I may have to do a separate blog on "This Week's Data Leaks"...

Negroponte says $100 laptop due out next year

2006-07-10T10:20:00.000-04:00

"MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte showed off the latest prototype of the $100 computer to a gathering of educators in San Diego yesterday.

Negroponte said he expects millions of the low-cost laptops to be distributed to children in developing countries starting next year, according to a statement issued at the National Educational Computing Conference.
The focal point of Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child initiative -- which aims to produce a $100 laptop computer for distribution to children in developing countries -- features a hand crank that generates the 2 watts of power the machine needs to operate. It uses a Wi-Fi mesh to connect to the Internet, and runs open-source software. All of the components are chosen for low power usage and low cost to make the portable computers as inexpensive as possible.

NECC members got an early look at one of the project's most innovative developments: a dual-mode display that can be easily viewed in natural and artificial light, which helps to reduce the machine's power consumption.

Despite these efforts, the price tag of each computer still comes in at $130 to $140, although Negroponte and others involved in the project believe the cost will drop as component prices decrease.

More information about this effort to reduce the digital divide can be found at http://laptop.org/."

This is a great idea that will likely be crippled by the same thing that cripples most educational laptop (and desktop, for that matter) deployments; namely that little thought is given to curriculum drivers - how the technology will fit into the curriculum - before spending the money on pretty boxes. Unless curriculum drives technology purchases then any computers, regardless of price, will be ineffective in raising test scores.

Novell to release updated SUSE Linux in July

2006-07-10T10:06:00.000-04:00

"Novell Inc. officials have confirmed a release later this month of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, just one month after the company unveiled a free public preview of the software. The preview was the first opportunity many users had to test Novell's commercial version of the openSUSE desktop environment.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10's upcoming release will include advanced Beagle search and numerous enterprise-level software packages, including OpenOffice 2.0, the Exchange-compatible mail client Evolution 2.6, the Firefox Web browser and the instant messaging client Gaim 1.5. But its biggest allure, according to longtime Novell product tester Brad Staupp, may be its graphical accessibility.
Staupp, senior support analyst at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kan., and a participant in Novell's annual BrainShare conference, praised SLED for its upgraded GNOME desktop. He compared its Xgl-powered interface to Windows Vista's Aero Glass look, although it requires less powerful hardware to run. "At BrainShare, there were many people running SUSE on machines that couldn't handle Vista," said Staupp. "They were P4 Lenovo ThinkPads running 512MB of RAM" -- not the latest hardware, but no slouches either, he said.
SLED 10 will be priced at $50 per license when released later this month. Susan Linton, a Linux software enthusiast and reviewer at Tuxmachines.org, echoed Staupp's praise: "If I was running a business or an office, or just working in one, I'd definitely love to have SLED 10 on my desktop."
With SLED 10 aimed at the desktop Linux user, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 is geared to corporate use. In addition to including server packages such as MySQL 5.0, PostgreSQL 8.1, PHP 5.1 and Apache 2.2, SLES will offer a fully featured and configured firewall, Novell's AppArmor -- a response to Red Hat Inc.'s SELinux application security software -- and integrated Xen 3.0 virtual servers."

Truly impressive upgrades, but if Novell doesn't reinvent their marketing department (and Q-U-I-C-K-L-Y!!!) this is doomed to break little market share. I still can't understand why a company that does things techincally so right, is soooooo far off the mark when it comes to letting the REST of the world know about it. Novell's NEVER been good at marketing but it seems they get worse instead of better as time goes on, and unless the new CEO starts listening to the resellers/partners (I've been complaining for years about the abyssmal marketing) many long time partners, like myself, are going to jump ship (like myself!)...