Posts by EddieC

Microsoft it was disclosed today will become a sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation, forking over US$100,000 a year for theprivilege . In return, Redmond will gain access to the Apache POI project, a Java port of file formats of Microsoft's Office suite of applications.

Based on Microsoft's history, I have my suspicions about the company's motives. Yes, it's been exhibiting a more open stance of late, but the sting of its exclusionary practices and once-closed file formats remains. But Microsoft has been moving toward opening its formats recently, and I'm willing to believe the move is yet another effort at interoperability. Besides, I hear that Apache's governance model is pretty tight.

To help explain the strategy, Sam Ramji, director of Microsoft's open source software lab, described an entry on his blog, what the move is to the company and what it is not.

"It is not a move away from IIS as Microsoft’s strategic web server technology. We have invested significantly in refactoring and adding new, state-of-the-art features to IIS, including support for PHP. We will continue to invest in IIS for the long term and are currently under way with development of IIS 8.

"It is a strong endorsement of The Apache Way, and opens a new chapter in our relationship with the ASF. We have worked with Apache POI, Apache Axis2, Jakarta, and other projects in the last year, and we will continue our technical support and interoperability testing …

"The great thing about standards is that every company gets to have one." The first time I heard that expression was around 1995. Proclaimed by Joel Shore, a former-boss-now-friend, it was one of the many truisms at the time. A good many standards bodies and arbiters have cropped up since the mid-1990s, the latest of which was today.

The Open Web Foundation "is an independent non-profit dedicated to the development and protection of open, non-proprietary specifications for Web technologies," according to a purpose statement on its Web site. The organization currently includes about two dozen individuals and companies the likes of Facebook, Google, MySpace, O'Reilly, Sourceforge and Yahoo.

The Open Web Foundation hopes to become a home for community-driven specifications in the tradition of the Apache Software Foundation. The organization will build "a lightweight framework to help communities deal with the legal requirements necessary to create successful and widely adopted specification."

Though it doesn't appear to be governed or steered by any single company, the OWF sounds similar in some ways to the Java Community Process. "The details regarding membership, governance, sponsorship, and intellectual property rights will be posted for public review and feedback in the following weeks," its Web site proclaims. "As we work out the fine details of the foundation, we invite and encourage individuals to come and join the discussion...You are also invited to join the community and discuss ideas and specifications you would like to see developed within the foundation."

…

Two years after selling off its Xscale operations, Intel is once again turning its attention to building microprocessors for small devices. But rather than designing Xscale-like chips to form the foundation of devices such as the Palm Treo and RIM Blackberry, the strategy announced today will focus instead on system-on-chips, multifunction circuits that perform a variety of functions from a single piece of silicon.

Intel, which dominates the PC processor market despite inroads by its main rival AMD, stunned many in the industry in June, 2006, when it sold the Xscale communication and application processor business to Marvell, which makes storage and communication chips for consumer devices. The deal was valued at US$600 million.

The idea now is to leverage its existing integrated processors and manufacturing facilities and expertise "to usher in a new category of highly integrated, purpose-built and Web-savvy System on Chip (SoC) designs and products," according to an Intel news release.

The company is today introducing eight such processors targeted at security, storage, communications, and industrial robotics based on its Pentium M platform. It plans to release 15 more embedded processors by the end of next year. One such new model, intended for consumer electronics, is code-named "Canmore" and will be released later this year.

Longer term, Intel is working on its "next-generation platform for Mobile Internet Devices" code-named "Moorestown," scheduled for 2009/2010. Many will be based on Atom, Intel's 45 nm processor core. Pricing was not disclosed.

I came across this article on CNet a day after my entry about Knol. This guy really nails it.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9999282-93.html

The Wall Street Journal and others are reporting today about Knol, a Google service now in beta that's being compared to Wikipedia, a comparison that I believe is incorrect.

While Wikipedia attempts to accumulate all the world's knowledge and information as a sort of user-made encyclopedia, Knol seems more like a collection of knowledge based on the experiences of its contributors. Also unlike Wikipedia, Knol contributors are clearly identified.

I respect the Journal for its fair and objective news reporting, which is usually free of opinion (except where noted, of course). This particular piece, however, injects the writer's opinion as the article's main premise. For example, Jessica E. Vascelarro's article in its second and third paragraphs, reads:

Google on Wednesday took the wrappings off its previously announced publishing-and-reference service called Knol, which allows users to write articles on specific topics and to make money from them.

By trying to provide such content, the service is likely to compete with online encyclopedia Wikipedia...

Says who? Granted, the promise of monetary compensation will surely attract contributors, but I contend that content could become suspect for that very reason. Wikipedia's 75,000 active contributors do it purely for the glory (or something like that). And as the writer herself also points out, Wikipedia allows just one article on any given subject, and rejects those that it deems too much like marketing or not otherwise in keeping with its factual nature.

Google, which refers to …

Thanks for the kind words. Technology continues to surprise.

When I first saw animated photos on newspapers in the Harry Potter movies, I thought it looked interesting, but never imagined it could be made cost-effective. It looks like time has once again proven me wrong. (When the 386SX processor came out, I wondered why anyone would ever need a "server" on their desk.") Esquire magazine has reported today that it will use so-called electronic ink in its October issue celebrating its 75th anniversary.

According to publisher Hearst, the issue's cover will feature moving words and images. "We've spent 16 months making this happen," said Esquire editor David Granger in a statement. The cover will use use technology developed by a team at Amazon for its Kindle e-book reader working with manufacturer E Ink Corp., in Cambridge, Mass. Introduced in the United States in November, 2007, the Kindle stand-alone reader now sells for US$359 including access to content over Amazon's Whispernet free wireless download service. Its monochromatic "segmented display cells" exhibit simple images and alphanumeric characters on a thin film. The cover will operate on a small battery that's estimated to last about three months.

More vexing than embedding the display film onto the cover was how to make a battery small enough to hide within. Esquire reportedly had to contract a Chinese engineering firm to design such a battery. It will ship 100,000 active-cover magazines to its circulation of 720,000.

The move will surely get Esquire lots of, ahem, coverage, but at …

Halvar Flake is a researcher. Here's how he describes himself on his blog: "I like simple things. And complex things. And drinking beer with people like Fyodor Yarochkin. I like South America. And some parts of Asia, specifically Kuala Lumpur. I like French. I like Spanish. I'd like to like more languages."

Yesterday, based on some of his research, maybe after drinking a bunch of beer, perhaps with someone like Fyodor Yarochkin, he posted a hypothesis on how to exploit a security vulnerability of the Domain Name Server system, which governs the millions of server names on the Internet. He had to be drunk, right? His post suggests otherwise, and maybe he's not wrong for posting it.

A patch for the flaw discovered by security researcher Dan Kaminsky was posted two weeks ago, along with a warning not to discuss the flaw publicly for fear that the information might fall into the wrong hands. Was Halvar was too drunk to notice that part?

Not according to Flake, who states right up front that he disagreed with Kaminsky's position on secrecy to buy vendors time to patch the flaw. "This is a commendable goal," he wrote. "I respect Dans viewpoint, but I disagree that this buys anyone time (more on this below). I am fully in agreement with the entire way he handled the vulnerability (e.g. getting the vendors on board, getting the patches made and released, and I understand his decision not to …

Thanks for the kind words. Sorry I scooped you! -Eddie

A new service coming online soon may have us hearing the phrase "Quick, take out your cell phone!" a little more often. I suppose it was just a matter of time before somebody came up with a way to stream cell-phone video to the Web and store it there. That company, Qik, Inc., yesterday opened for beta testing its Web service to allow camera-equipped phone users to "share moments of your life with your friends, family and the world." The service was introduced in a private alpha program late last year, and now includes numerous usability improvements to what is a slick and handsome Website.

Pronounced "quick," the company puts on its front page stats on the number of live "Qiks" currently being streamed, how many were added recently and shows one along with a Google-Map with a pointer to its country of origin. They've also added thumbnails of videos a la YouTube which can launch a redesigned player with chat capability.

The Qik beta has also expanded its list of supported handsets to about 30, adding more Symbian and Windows Mobile devices and as well as models from Motorola and Samsung. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon are all on board. Also, you can now sign up without a compatible phone, but some phone is required to receive confirmation. Also new is support for distributing Qik videos via Facebook, MySpace, and Orkut. Other improvements include decreased lag time-- to as little as half a …

Apple's doesn't make too many missteps, but the company continues to stumble implementing its MobileMe e-mail service. Apple issued a second apology over the weekend for service outages which left users without e-mail; the first came last week for similar reasons. The service was launched on July 9 along with the new iPhone 3G, which itself suffered from product shortages and network overload, according to reports I've seen.

Since the launch, the company has been migrating users of its .Mac e-mail and cloud storage service to MobileMe, which costs US$99 per year. Initially given 90 days of the service free, .Mac users will now get another free month for their trouble, which in some cases has been loss of access to data and e-mail for days at a time. Also, the company will stop using "push" to describe the synchronization capability it offers for keeping a user's devices in data parity. the operation can take about 15 minutes to complete, the company said in explaining the change of language.

I've also seen reports of Outlook users having appointments disappear or show up only in certain modes. Though as an Outlook user myself, Microsoft could just as likely be the culprit here. And buyers of the original iPhone, in addition to being angered by a US$200 price cur just months later, experienced trouble when upgrading to version 2.0 of the device software. In a letter to the MobileMe user community, Apple apologized for the rocky start, saying …

Here's some news that's sure to please the greens, while not costing much of it. A Linux-based desktop computer released today is reported to consume just two watts of power, and can save about US$35 a year in energy costs, according to company claims. The CherryPal C100, which its namesake company says is so-named because it's "sweeter than an Apple," is built around a Freescale 400 MHz processor, runs Debian Linux and includes 50GB of cloud storage. The sticker price with 256MB DDR DRAM and 4 GB internal NAND storage is $249.

At first sight the C100 reminded me of a Mac Mini, Apple's own paperback book-sized computer. But similarities are skin deep, to be sure; Apple's is far better equipped (but also costs more than twice as much). Still, CherryPal packs a tri-core MPC5121e mobile GT processor capable of performing 800 MIPS "while only consuming as much power as a clock radio," said the company on its Web site. This results in "performance you would expect from a full-size desktop computer." CherryPal uses 80 percent fewer components than a traditional PC, CherryPal says; the unit includes no hard drive. "And because it has no moving parts, it operates without making a sound and will last 10 years or more."

And it's cherry where it counts. There's hi-speed WiFi (802.11b/g) plus a 10/100 Ethernet port, two USB 2.0 ports, VGA headphone-level stereo audio out and a 9vDC 2.5mm 10 watt AC-DC adapter power supply. …

I laughed out loud when I saw this headline on the ars technica Web site: “Monkey see, monkey do: Microsoft launches mobile app site.” It’s so typical of Microsoft in recent years to desperately emulate companies it perceives as its competitors, even at the expense of its own embarrassment.

The move was in response, the article surmised, to Apple’s launch of App Store, a site for downloading iPhone apps through iTunes. It’s beautiful, polished, intuitive and complete—classically Apple.

Microsoft’s site, on the other hand, “brought Mr. Flashy along for the ride, and left Mr. Usability behind,” wrote Emil Protalinski in his article. I wasn’t able to navigate the Microsoft site myself because I don’t have (nor do I want) Silverlight installed. The template I saw looked OK, but how useful can such a site be without the ability to search?

Available applications, of which there are an estimated 18,000 reports the article, can be broken into these categories: all applications, industry, sales force enablement, field force enablement, GPS navigation, and other. Huh? Where are “business, education, entertainment, finance, games, news, productivity, sports, travel and utilities?” (Those are some of App Store's categories.)

Why does Microsoft continue to build applications that are hard to use? In Protalinski’s opinion it’s the rush to compete. But I have another view. I believe that the folks at Microsoft have forgotten how to design applications with the user in mind. When an application is conceived …

The Advanced Research Team of security tools vendor Ounce Labs has identified two vulnerabilities in the Spring framework for Java. The vulnerabilities have the potential, the team says, to allow an attacker to “subvert the expected application logic and behavior,” and gain control of an application and access any personal data, credentials or keys held therein.

The vulnerabilities, called “ModelView Injection” and “Data Submission to Non-Editable Fields,” are unlike common flaws such as cross site scripting and SQL injection attacks. “These newly discovered class[es] of vulnerabilities are not security flaws in the framework, but are actually design issues that if not implemented properly expose…applications to attacks,” according to the alert.

SpringSource, sponsor and lead developer of the Spring framework, acknowledges the problem and published a page explaining how to eliminate the threats. In a nutshell, the data submission threat can be prevented by configuring the DataBinder explicitly with the set of fields that are allowed for binding. To do this, SpringSource says to “set the ‘allowedFields’ property on each DataBinder instance you work with in your application.” It also provides examples of how to do this with major Controller implementations.

To determine whether your code has this problem, SpringSource instructs you to review any controller implementations that bind to domain model data. If you’re not setting the allowedFields property, you’re vulnerable depending on context.

To prevent the ModelView issue, which can pop up when data in a client view is …

Here’s a footnote for the current chapter of the Microsoft-Yahoo acquisition saga. Microsoft this week issued a statement to “set the record straight” about Yahoo’s July 12 rejection of the latest acquisition offer from Redmond.

Rather than trying to paraphrase, here’s Microsoft in its own words, including references to “activist investor” Carl Icahn:

"Among other things, the enhanced proposal for an alternate search transaction that we submitted late Friday was submitted at the request of Yahoo! Chairman Roy Bostock as a result of apparent attempts by Mr. Icahn to have Microsoft and Yahoo! engage on a search transaction on terms Mr. Icahn believed Microsoft would be willing to accept and which Microsoft understands Mr. Icahn had discussed with Yahoo!"

Well that certainly clears things up. That has to be the longest sentence without punctuation in history. Are Microsoft’s comma and period keys in the repair shop? Take a breath, will ya?

The statement prattles on about the back-and-forth between Steve Ballmer and Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock that led to Microsoft’s “enhanced search transaction” proposal, which it said included “significant revenue guarantees, an equity investment and an option for Yahoo to extend the agreement over a 10-year period.” What it left out, according to Yahoo, was that it gave the search company a non-negotiable 24 hours to think about it. Microsoft’s statement was silent on Yahoo’s rebuff, dwelling instead on irrelevant minutia.

Microsoft is clearly a different company without Bill Gates at …

One of my very first blog entries here at DaniWeb was titled “Mac-Cloner Psystar: Hero or Hoax?” Well it was either no hoax at all or Apple was the latest to get sucked in. It was revealed today that Apple on July 3 filed a law suit in San Jose, Calif., against Psystar Corp. for copyright and software licensing violations.

Psystar has for several months been advertising the availability of the Psystar Open Computer and OpenServ, Intel-based machines with the option of preinstalled Mac OS X software; prices started at around US$600. Apple’s licensing agreement forbids inclusion of its software in any machine not carrying the Apple brand.

The 16-page suit calls not only for the awarding to Apple of “actual damages and/or any profits gained by [Psystar],” but also a permanent injunction against further sales and a recall of all products previously sold! Good luck with that one Apple.

Still, it’s perfectly within reason to force Psystar to cease and desist operations, even though their he seemed a great deal. Perhaps too good to be true. On April 21, I wrote that the whole Psystar nirvana was apparently a scam, one that countless news media and bloggers bought hook, line and sinker.

What piqued by skepticism was the low prices of everything. Psystar was offering an “OSx86 compatible hardware platform that is capable of running ‘vanilla’ OS X Leopard kernels,” for US$399.99, its Web site read. And for purchasers …

Here's an idea for an iPhone app project with a guaranteed user base: Build a tool for adjusting the display's color temperature. It's not officially possible, according to Apple, but don't let that stop you-- there's evidence that it can in fact be done.

Because the day you purchased your new iPhone 3G, you were running an outdated version of the operating system. And after updating (to v.5A347), you might notice that the screen color will be slightly less yellow, but still not as starkly white as the original iPhone. That is actually by design, marketing director Bob Borchers was reported to have said. Apple "moved the white point in order to make [the display] feel more natural," was the quote.

I don't have an iPhone myself, but from what I've read, the update is performed by plugging your iPhone into your computer, running a backup and then restoring again. You'll lose all your contacts in the proces--according to iPhoneAtlas.com--along with calendar items, photos and other data, as well as any third-party apps you may have installed. So it's probably best to do this right away. However, data such as notes, messages, call history and settings you may have backed up prior to this operation will be restored, the article said.

Even though I'm a devout Treo user, I'm tempted to make iPhone my next communicator. There are two main facts holding me back. One is the lack of a keyboard. I suppose I could get used …

A built-in profiler, a new attributes language and enhanced project analyzer are among the features in RealBasic 3, the cross-platform integrated development environment from Real Software. The IDE for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows began shipping today.

RealBasic 3 now supports attributes—which the company characterizes as compile-time properties—for project items and code items. Attribute names can take the form of either an identifier (which for now are limited to “reserved” or “hidden”) or a string, and can optionally carry a value. An attributes editor retrieves attributes at runtime though the Introspection.TypeInfo class. For class declarations, attributed are inherited from the parent class, but can be overridden by a subclass.

The latest version reportedly also includes numerous bug fixes and enhancements to stability. According to the release notes, RealBasic 3 now lets developers add structures, enumerations a delegates to classes, export modules with classes and interfaces, and save pictures as BMP, PNG and JPEG file formats. A bug also was fixed that caused a crash when trying to compile a project containing a picture if the pic could not be converted to a platform-native type.

On Mac OS X, “the compiler no longer duplicated the extension of Mac bundle names if the name already ends with ‘.app’” read the build notes. Fast performance has been restored on the platform’s FolderItem functions of Count, Item and TrueItem. Folders that contain more than 32,766 items are now supported. However, the notes warn that …

Code search company Krugle on July 8 will begin shipping Krugle Enterprise 2.3, an update to its code repository appliance that it claims now allows more fine-tuned searching, increased storage and search capacity and the ability to search using custom data fields.

Krugle positions its enterprise search appliance as a means to maximize reuse of source code and related resources with little change to development practices. It also maintains Krugle.org, a two-billion line central repository amassed from more than 500 open source repositories. Krugle.org, which is free, is a way to help your team avoid having to reinvent the wheel whenever they need a common function.

“When all working parts of the development eam can see the whole pitcure, the cost benefits are amazing,” said Mel Badgett, vice president of product management at Krugle. “These updates to Krugle Entrerprise enhance functionality our clients are already using to derive the most value from their code.” Krugle’s clients include IBM DeveloperWorks, CollabNet, SourceForge.net and the Yahoo Developer Network.

Enhanced search functions include the ability to scan for multiple lines of code, resulting in “ranked lists of exact and approximate matches,” which Krugle says permits developers to identify similar code across multiple branches or releases. Also new is the ability to add custom data fields against which to search code files in the index. “This allows users to extend the code file search capabilities with custom qualifiers, like file identifiers and links …

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is not only an apish buffoon, but he also apparently lacks a backbone. It was revealed today in a letter to Yahoo shareholders written by “activist investor” Carl Icahn that Ballmer expressed fears that the current Yahoo board—hostile to a takeover by Microsoft—could put the huge bounty needed for the acquisition into question.

“If and when a transaction is consummated,” Icahn’s letter states of Ballmer’s acquisition logic, “Microsoft would be guaranteeing a great deal of capital at closing. However, a transaction could take at least nine months and perhaps longer to obtain regulatory clearance in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.” During that period, his thinking goes, if the current board and Yahoo management team “mismanage the company (and their recent track record is far from reassuring), Microsoft would be putting its money a risk and a great deal could be lost.”

So it’s the board’s fault—not Ballmer’s own ineptitude—that caused the original negotiations to go south. “Microsoft would be willing to enter into discussion immediately if the new board that has been nominated is elected,” a board that just happens to include the name Carl C. Icahn. “I do not as yet represent the Yahoo board,” Icahn wrote, but strongly believes that the new board would “be presenting shareholders either a purchase offer for the whole company or a very attractive offer to purchase ‘Search’ with large guarantees.” He added that the current board “botched up” negotiations by not immediately taking Microsoft’s …

Here's a story that didn't get much play on the wire services. Microsoft on June 30 published format specifications for Office binary files as well as protocol documentation for Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, Outlook 2007, Office SharePoint Server 2007 and SQL Server 2005. According to the company, the move is intended to permit "software developers, business partners and competitors [to] better interact with these Microsoft products or invent new solutions for customers."

Redmond's so-called open connections version 1.0 is posted as thousands of pages of new technical documentation, the binary file formats cover those for Word, Excel and PowerPoint (.doc, .xls, .xlsb and .ppt) files and resources to build products that interoperate with its own.

“Microsoft’s cumulative posting of approximately 50,000 pages of technical documentation on MSDN provides consistent, open access for all developers, which enhances the ease and opportunities for working with Microsoft’s high-volume products," said Craig Shank, general manager of Interoperability at Microsoft. It's all part of Microsoft's Protocol Programs.

The company also published a list of patented protocols that might be subject to licensing restrictions and fees. In its June 30 news release, Microsoft also stated thatopen source developers, "whether commercial or non-commercial, will not need a patent license for the development of implementations of these protocols or for the non-commercial distribution of these implementations, according to Microsoft’s Patent Pledge for Open Source Developers."

Microsoft is betting that people would rather fork over $US20 a year for the legal right to use its Office application suite than install an old or pirated copy or use one of a growing number of free alternatives. Having been faced with that exact decision myself this week, I think that's a pretty safe bet.

This week the company unveiled Equipt, a subscription service for its Office apps that will initially be available later this month through about 700 CircuitCity electronics retailers; the deal is not exclusive. Formerly code-named Albany, the service provides Office Home and Student 2007 for just $20 over the $49.99 annual cost of its Windows Live OneCare security package, when the two are purchased together. At retail, Office Home and Student costs $149.

Equipt will include 2007 editions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, Microsoft's notetaking and collaboration tool. OneCare delivers anti-malware with automatic definition updates, firewall, centralized file backup, performance tune-ups and other services. The Equipt subscription can be installed on as many as three PCs and also includes updates for the Office apps. Use of Windows Live ID, Microsoft's single sign-on (formerly .NET Passport) technology, is required.

The service offers the option of saving documents "in the cloud," using Microsoft's Office Live Workspace service, also included. Microsoft is positioning Equipt at consumers, students and anyone buying a new PC. But for such budget-conscious buyers, minimum system requirements for Equipt seem a …

Taiwanese device maker OpenMoko chose Independence Day in the United States to announce the launch of Neo FreeRunner, its latest Linux-based open smartphone platform. Delivered with minimal functionality, owners are encouraged to develop and/or install their own applications and functionality.

The unit is well equipped, sporting a 400Mhz processor, 640x480 pixel touch-sensitive display, BlueTooth, GPS, WiFi and either a 850 MHz or 900 MHz tri-band GSM radio. Other ecoutraments include a pair of 3D accelerometers for understanding its orientation, 128 MB SDRAM and 256MB of storage.

On the outside, the FreeRunner is remarkably free of controls. There's really nothing on its face; sides are home to illuminated power and auxiliary buttons, a phone jack, USB and a connector for an external GPS antenna. Though the device comes with software preinstalled, the company invites people to download the latest build from its Web site.

For US$399, the handsome black FreeRunner is accompanied by a power supply/charger, plug adapters, removable battery, stylus, microSD 512MB SD card and USB sync cable. On power up, FreeRunner offers no fewer than six boot options: boot from memory, boot from the SD card, set the console to USB, set the consule to serial, reset, power off. OpenMoko on its Web site offers pretty good documentation, including specifics about all hardware and where to find drivers.

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning (and thousands of others since then) in a front-page story that Microsoft is seeking new channels of opportunity for acquiring the search business of Yahoo. Redmond has reportedly been in talks with Time Warner and WSJ parent company News Corp., cooking up a deal that would see Yahoo’s constituent pieces scattered about like orphaned mice.

But such a scenario, which the Journal story characterized as cherry-picking Yahoo’s most valued asset, was not something Yahoo wanted, but was apparently what Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had wanted all along.

It seems that during the period between April 15, when the original negotiations collapsed, and May 17, Yahoo executives—under pressure from shareholders—met with Ballmer at a law office in Palo Alto, Calif. It was there that the three discussed Yahoo’s readiness to be acquired for $33 per share, and where Ballmer’s true intentions were revealed. In a single stroke, Ballmer laid waste to four months of talks.

The story exposes Microsoft’s ridiculous cloak-and-dagger efforts to keep secret a meeting four weeks earlier, by sending Yang and other Yahoo executives to a back-alley rendezvous with a woman holding a red umbrella.

Has it occurred to anyone that this deal may never take place because Ballmer—a.k.a. Monkey Boy—is a complete buffoon? Since this fiasco began, Yahoo execs have taken to referring to Ballmer’s pursuit as a “crude solution to quell his obsessions with Google,” and that Ballmer’s plan was nothing more …

The International Organization for Standardization today announced that Adobe’s Portable Document Format is now an ISO standard. Well it’s about time! The PDF has only been around for 15 years!

This is great news for all areas of publishing, for Web developers and Web site admins, even operating system makers have reason to rejoice. While Adobe has been a great custodian of its portable format, starting with the introduction of PostScript in 1990, passing the torch to a standards body seems a logical next step toward its long-term preservation, which is chief among the ISO’s stated goals.

The OSI standardized PDF version 1.7, which Adobe published in Oct. 2006. As part of the standardization agreement, Adobe has turned over the copyright and control of the format as well as responsibility for advancing it. Future versions will be published as subsequent parts of the standard.

Published as ISO-32000-1:2008, the PDF standard “specifies a digital form for representing electronic documents to enable users to exchange and view electronic documents independent of the environment in which they were created or the environment in which they are viewed or printed,” according to the standard’s Web page. “It is intended for the developer of software that creates PDF files (conforming writers), software that reads existing PDF files and interprets their contents for display and interaction (conforming readers) and PDF products that read and/or write PDF files for a variety of other …

Epic Tissue: Did you read my post? :) I copped to not having used it myself, but from what I've read, I never want to. I'm writing this on my MacBook Pro and have no plans to look back! Thanks websurfer!

That’s it. I’ve had enough. Today I draw a line in the sand with me and Windows XP on one side and Microsoft and any of its new operating systems—including Vista—on the other, for ever more.

What got me started on this—the reason for this pledge—is simple: Yesterday Microsoft said again (but I believe it this time,) that it will stop selling Windows XP in January, 2009. WHAT? Why on Earth would a company discontinue its most stable release yet? Simple. Because it wants to sell more copies of Vista, which in my (admittedly inexperienced but reasonably well-read) opinion is inferior.

Hey Microsoft, since you won’t be using Windows XP any more, why not contribute it the open source community? There’s obviously lots of people who still want to use it. But does that matter? Of course not.

For a company as successful as Microsoft, they sure act like they don’t know what they’re doing a lot of the time. And that’s especially true when it comes to user interface design. This fact was brought to the attention of Microsoft leaders by Gates in a letter to Jim Allchin (et. al.) dated January 15, 2003, proof the company has known that Windows was “an absolute mess” as were (and are) its Web sites for more than five years.

Now I’m no huge fan of Windows XP, but at least it’s relatively stable compared with prior versions. But the …

Interesting. Thanks for the fix. I must admit I'm a bit of a Mac outsider, but not for long. I'm expecting my shiny new MacBook Pro today, and I'll be sure to lock down ARDAgent!

It’s been more than 10 days since the latest AppleScript.THT Trojan horse for Mac OS X reared its ugly head, yet still no word or fix from Apple. The new threat to versions 10.4 and 10.5 is classified as critical by the SecureMac security site, exploits a hole in the Apple Remote Desktop Agent to completely overtake an infected Mac and delete files and wreak other kinds of havoc. This threat, discovered on June 19, was made public on the SecureMac site a week ago today.

There have been a few rumblings on Apple’s discussion forums, but to date, no official advice from the company. Two others Trojans were reported earlier in June involving an ARDAgent executing code as a root user. In all cases, the offending file must be downloaded and executed.

The threat “is distributed as either a compiled AppleScript, called ASthtv05 (60 KB in size), or as an application bundle called AStht_v06 (3.1 MB in size),” according to the warning. Moving itself to the /Library/Caches folder, it runs hidden, and unless renamed, can be found there as “AStht_06.app.” It also adds itself to the System Login Items, and turns on file sharing, Web sharing and remote login.

The latest version of SecureMac’s US$29.95 MacScan tool can remove this Trojan, earlier versions of the threat, the PokerStealer 1.0 virus and numerous other malware. You can also get a free trial of …

For three years running, the Eclipse Foundation and its development community have successfully released—in full synchronicity—dozens of interoperable projects consisting of millions of lines of code. Impressive feat. Perhaps some of those developers might consider running for public office here in the U.S., where with energy prices approaching the stratosphere, the Congress can’t even agree on whether to drill for their country’s own oil resources.

This year’s Eclipse “release train” is Ganymede, and contains not only updates to numerous existing projects, but also some exciting advancements in their own right. Chief among these is Equinox p2, a new provisioning system that simplifies deployment and installation of Eclipse software and related plug-ins and keeps them up to date. P2 replaces Update Manager, the mechanism used in Eclipse releases prior to Ganymede (Eclipse v3.4). There’s more on the p2 wiki pages.

Ganymede also beefs up security of Equinox, the OSGi-based modular framework underlying Eclipse. It implements encrypted storage of passwords and login credentials and the option of using the Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS).

Helping to more easily build applications running on Equinox is RAP 1.1, an update to the Rich Ajax Platform. It now includes the ability to use CSS and Presentation Factories to change the look and feel of Web apps and store state information “on a peer user basis,” according to the Web site.

Portions of …

OpenMake Software today began shipping Meister 7.2. The update to its build management system adds support for cross-platform builds within Microsoft’s Visual Studio, can “mash up” such builds with those performed in Eclipse and other IDEs, and offers features to simplify the processing of continuous integration used in many agile processes, the company said yesterday.

The release also enhances Meister’s the Management Control Console, a Web-based portal that the company says permits QA engineers, production control staff other non-developers to have control and oversight of builds. The tool now includes extended reporting using the PostgresSQL. “Simplifying build complexity is the number one requirement we hear from developers,” said OpenMake CTP Steve Taylor. “Our Management Console [provides] a push-button process for executing and viewing build results from anywhere in the world.”

The news comes on the heels of the May 1 release of Meister 7.0, which allowed testers to expose the build “forensics” and links to production binaries, which in turn permit root cause analysis back to the offending source code. Beginning with version 7, the tool now links with a central knowledgebase containing build-to-release information, connecting developers with production results, and giving test teams better traceability of failed builds.

“By minimizing redundant scripting tasks and supporting a self-documented build-to-release process that is community developed… agile developers will find that Meister’s Build Methods will enable them to develop builds that are as adaptable as their development processes,” Taylor said, referring to Meister’s extensible build best-practices. Pricing …

Heads up users of Yahoo Mail. A cross-site scripting vulnerability has been discovered that could allow hackers to steal a user’s session IDs and ultimately private information, according to a report yesterday from security risk assessment firm Cenzic.

In an excerpt from the Cenzic blog post, the company reports:

“If the attacker is using the Yahoo! Messenger desktop application 8.1.0.209 to chat with the victim, and the victim is using the Messenger support in the new Yahoo! Mail Web application, it will cause a new chat tab to open in the victim’s browser. While chatting, the attacker can change their status to ‘invisible,’ causing a message of ‘offline’ in the chat tab of the victim. The vulnerability occurred when the attacker then changed status, and sent a custom message containing a malicious string in the form of a status message of ‘online,’ with the script executed in the context of Yahoo! Mail on the victim’s machine. This allowed an attacker to get active access to the victim’s session ID, and in turn steal their Yahoo! identity, exposing sensitive personal information stored in their Yahoo! account.”

Cenzic immediately reports such vulnerabilities, when discovered, to at-risk vendors that subscribe to its services. Yahoo was alerted to the flaw in May, according to Cenzic, and reports that as of June 13 the vulnerability has been eliminated.

This vulnerability was reported by Mandeep Khera, Cenzic’s vice president of marketing. Khera serviced in similar roles …

Add one to the list of static analysis tools available for scanning source code for bugs, errors and departures from programming best practices. And this one’s for Mac OS X.

GrammaTech yesterday began shipping CodeSonar 3.1 Enterprise, a version of its GUI-based analysis tool that it claims finds defects others often miss. CodeSonar “performs a whole-program, interprocedural analysis on code and identifies complex programming bugs that can result in system crashes, memory corruption” and other anomalies, according to the company.

With its analysis tools for C, C++ and Ada programming languages, the company has historically addressed avionics, satellite, industrial and medical control devices and other industries developing mission- and safety-critical applications. Now GrammaTech is positioning its flagship product for other high-performance applications such as those in wireless devices, networking equipment and consumer electronics.

CodeSonar works by performing a build of source code. But unlike a compiler, which would create object code, CodeSonar creates “an abstract representation of the program,” explained on the company’s Web site. “After the individual files are built, a synthesis phase combines the results into a whole-program model. The model is symbolically executed and the analysis keeps track of variables and how they are related. Warnings are generated when anomalies are encountered.”

According to claims, CodeSonar does not require test cases, and works with a company’s existing build system. Available now, CodeSonar pricing starts at US$4,000 per seat for small projects; volume pricing is available. GrammaTech also offers …

If you’re looking for low-cost GUI-test automation for Java, Qt, Mac OS X and Web applications, here’s a product you might find useful. Have you heard of Squish? It’s an automated function-testing tool from Froglogic. Released today was Squish 3.4, adding support for the May release of Trolltech’s Qt 4.4 GUI framework, the June release of Eclipse 3.4 Ganymede, and for testing applications using varying GUI technologies from within a single test case.

Also new in 3.4 is integration with Apache’s Ant build system and the CruiseControl framework for continuous build and integration process. Qt 4.4 now supports Qt, Java Swing/AWT, Java SWT/Eclipse RCP, Mac OS X Carbon and Cocoa, Tk or XView and HTML/Ajax-based Web applications. For scripting in Squish, take your pick of using JavaScript, Perl, Python or Tcl.

This past March Froglogic released Squish 3.3, which included an improved object map editor, generic script APIs, better synchronization of item-view widgets and the ability to automatically save a screenshot for every test failure. Squish 3.3 also added integration with the Eclipse Test & Performance Tools Platform and support for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and its native Carbon and Cocoa apps.

Added to the Qt version of Squish 3.3 was support for record and playback of native Win32 controls in Qt apps and improved recording of several widgets. The Java edition got the ability to test apps mixed with AWT/Swing and SWT/RCP. Enhancements to its …

Two’s not a crowd according to Salesforce.com. The company today unveiled Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs, a set of tools it says enable developers to link applications built for its Web-based customer relationship management platform with data yielded by Google services, including Google Spreadsheet and other and Google Apps.

As Salesforce.com chairman and CEO Marc Benioff puts it, the alliance will “enable the creation of powerful new applications delivered completely in the cloud.” The deal builds on a relationship forged about a year ago when Google paired its AdWords program with the popular CRM SaaS provider.

In a news release announcing the product, Salesforce described a prototype financial application developed by a European VAR that extracts and processes data from Google Spreadsheets. “Users can apportion the values by editing the cells used by formulas in the spreadsheet; the results are then posted in the form of a journal” back into the application from the spreadsheet UI via a Visualforce Google Gadget.

The new APIs work with Google’s own, permitting read and write access to Google data and content, and gaining direct access to Force.com’s database, Apex programming language, integration logic and Visualforce user interface capabilities, the company said. Applications created in this way can be published in the AppExchange marketplace as well as Google’s own Solutions Marketplace.

Right off the bat, I can think of a number of avenues of collaboration paved by the new APIs. For example, pricing …

You’re about to begin a project that will tap into or integrate data from a database. You’ve been looking for low-cost ways to clear that data of duplicates, near-dupes, and obsolete or garbage data. But cleansing tools are expensive.

As of today, there’s a free solution for you to think about. Integration tools maker Talend today announced general availability of Open Profiler, a GUI-based tool for Linux, Unix and Windows that lets developers peek inside data sources to evaluate the quality of the data they’re about to work with to verify it adheres to project goals or metrics.

Open Profiler 1.0.0RC1 includes a metadata repository, which stores results of its introspections of files and data stores. The metadata can then be used by developers and data analysts to create metrics and indicators. These indicators are statistics such as groups of data with certain numbers of rows, null values, distinct or unique values, and duplicates or blank fields. Other indicators include minimum, maximum and average length of text in fields; computation of numerical summary values such as for mean, average, inner quartile and range definitions; and advanced statistic such as mode and frequency tables. The tool also can render the statistics as tables and graphs.

“Companies in every business face significant losses and inefficiencies that are caused by poor data quality,” said Talend CEO Bertrand Diard. Open Profiler, he continued, “helps companies understand and regain control of the quality of their data.”

…

I couldn't find the McCain-Obama thread. how about a link?

Easier installation, 3D desktop effects, digital music and video management and an up-to-date OpenOffice are among the enhancements in openSUSE 11.0, which became generally available this week. Designed for the novice as well the advanced, installation options include a choice of Gnome 2.22 or KDE 4 desktop environments and the ability to boot from disc rather than the hard drive.

Available now for download , openSUSE 11.0 adds Compiz Fusion (version 0.7.4), a windowing system that resulted in the marriage of the Beryl composite window manager with the community-built Compiz Extras. The software has been considered stable since version 0.6.0, released in October.

Management of digital sound and video are provided via Banshee, Aaron Bockover’s C#-based open-source media player that reached version 1.0 on June 5. Features introduced in version 1.0 were video playback, a media queue, artist/album browser, faster searching and drag-and-drop support for iPod and other “mass storage” devices. There’s also a mini-mode, automatic CD reading and importing, CD burning, cover art grab and tons of other new features.

The distro also gives you OpenOffice 2.4, which adds numerous enhancements to its charting capabilities, support for ODF and additional Microsoft file formats, native support for Mac OS X’s QuickTime player, better 3D charts in Calc, 3D transitions in Impress, and better support for Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). More enhancements introduced with version 2.4 on May 28 are …

Linux developer Red Hat yesterday said it will open the source code of its Network Satellite Server, which powers the Red Hat Network system management platform. Dubbed Project Spacewalk, the software will be licensed under the GPL 2.

Spacewalk performs system inventory, software installations and updates, can manage and deploy configuration files and can kickstart systems. The software also can monitor systems, manage virtual guests and distribute custom packages by managed group. Spacewalk works with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Solaris as well as Fedora, CentOS, Scientific Linux and other Red Hat off-shoots. Spacewalk is the upstream project for the source of the Red Hat Network Satellite.

Spacewalk’s graphical interface starts out by presenting an overview of network-attached devices, which by default include the most out-of-date systems, monitored systems with the most critical status, recently registered systems and those displaying errata. This at-a-glance view is customizable. Systems can be grouped together so that actions may be performed on all systems at once. Systems may belong to more than one group, and be recipients of some actions and not others. For example, you might have a group of “marketing systems,” some of which also below to the group “Web servers.” The latest marketing application might be deployed to all marketing systems, but only the Web servers would receive the latest patch for Apache.

Spacewalk includes extensive developer documentation, including its architecture and how to build and use the system, and

Less than a year after launching its high performance computing strategy, Microsoft finds its HPC Server 2008 near the top of the heap. The Windows Server 2008 derivative placed 23rd on a list of the 500 top-performing supercomputers in the world, as measured by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). And it’s which is still in beta; general availability is set for the end of this month.

Running on a Dell PowerEdge Cluster equipped with 9,474 processor cores and 9600 GB of memory, HPC Server 2008 performed 68.5 trillion floating point operations (teraflops) per second, according to a Microsoft report. The company was apparently being modest. The NCSA itself in showed on the Top 500 Web site, that “Abe” performed at a peak of 88.3 teraflops.

The International Supercomputing Conference publishes a list twice a year at www.top500.org. The news was reported by Microsoft yesterday from the
International Supercomputing Conference in Dresden, Germany this week. The conference ended today.

All the giants were there: Cray, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, NEC, SGI and Sun, to name just a few. And of course Intel, which in April teamed up with supercomputer maker Cray, and whose Threading Building Blocks form the basis for high performance computing applications the world over.

HPC Server 2008 is based on Windows Server 2008, with the special sauce of failover protection, cluster management, and the …

Apple has done it again. This time with SproutCore, a JavaScript framework that simplifies development of native-looking Web-based applications without the need for Flash or any other specialized runtime. Apple has reportedly contributed loads of resources to the project, which was originally developed by SproutIt creator Charles Jolley. He now works for Apple’s MobileMe service (formerly known as .Mac).

Though most of the reports I’ve read about SproutCore are calling it a Flash killer, the SproutCore demo applications I’ve seen make it look more like an Ajax than Flash. And comparing it with Microsoft’s SilverLight makes even less sense; Flash at least uses ActionScript, which is based on JavaScript. There are other parallels.

Like Flash, JavaScript is ubiquitous, perhaps ever more so than Adobe’s plug-in. With Apple developers no longer dependent on the Flash runtime, they are free to build apps intended for both Mac OS X and iPhone, for which only Flash Lite is available. And like Flash apps, those built for SproutCore will run just about anywhere, provided there’s a browser with JavaScript.

According to the SproutCore help page, “SproutCore is a framework for building applications in JavaScript with remarkably little amounts of code. It can help you build full 'thick' client applications in the web browser that can create and modify data, often completely independent of your web server, communicating with your server via Ajax only when they need to save or load …

As portable computing devices advance in power and complexity, development-tool makers must keep up or die. Claiming strides this week are simulation-tools maker Virtutech and chip-maker Freescale Semiconductor, which are showing a version of Virtutech’s Simics virtualized software development environment with hybrid simulation capability. The initial release supports Freescale’s eight-core QorIQ P4080 communications platform processor. The tool is on display at the Freescale Technology Forum in Orlando, Fla., through Thursday.

The benefit of its hybrid capability, according to Virtutech, is the capacity to “mix detailed and fast models both temporally and spatially,” allowing developers in a single simulation session to mix and switch between models at various levels of abstraction depending on the areas in need of attention. “Using a hybrid solution also enables developers to run a full operating system on the cycle-accurate model without having to model the all peripheral devices in full clock cycle-accurate detail.”

Simics simulation environments are fully reversible and deterministic, for “easy experimentation with partitioning, parallelizing and optimizing systems and applications,” the company says. Sessions allow engineers to analyze, debug, profile and execute their applications in a fast, functionally accurate transmission-line matrix (TLM)-based model, “then switch to the cycle-accurate model for performance analysis. The tool also allows developers to build and test applications in advance of target silicon and to add fast models of other machines and networks to their hybrid sessions.

Markus Levy, president of the Multicore Association vendor consortium praised and highlighted the importance of the alliance. …

Web developers everywhere might be breathing a collective sigh of relief today as eBay opened its APIs, which it says will simplify the job of creating add-ons for the online auction site and integrate it with enterprise applications. But perhaps more valuable to some is the access gained to the large community of sellers—currently at about 700,000—many of whom themselves have to purchase their wares from somewhere.

The news of the so-called Project Echo came at the eBay Developers Conference in Chicago, which runs through Wednesday. An open beta program is set for early next year.

Major retailers such as Sears and others have for years used eBay as an outlet for new, irregular, discontinued or refurbished goods, attracting buyers in search of bargains. APIs published through the eBay Web Services program permit the merchants to tie eBay.com to their own back-end systems, in essence using the Web-based auction software as a retail front-end.

Such applications account for more than a quarter of eBay’s listings, according to the company. EBay’s auction software, known collectively as the Selling Manager, has until now been proprietary. What’s new is that sellers that have developed their own tools will now be able to offer those customizations to other sellers through Selling Manager, in theory creating new revenue opportunities for sellers and developers.

The company also announced that it will revamp and renew the Developer Portal for PayPal, its online payment system. Set …

It’s like TiVo for Java EE apps. At least, that’s what Replay Solutions says about ReplayDirector for Java EE, which began shipping today. According to claims, it’s unlike other software playback/record products because it virtualizes the execution environment and records not only code, but also program inputs, database transactions and all other server interactions.

No changes to source code are required, the company says, and on playback, everything executes as it did during the original execution, recreating precisely any bugs, faults or issues, simplifying root-cause analysis. The tool adds just a little overhead during recording, and plays back execution faster than the application alone, without the need to recreate the original execution environment, according to claims.

ReplayDirector for Java EE records and replays “Servlet and JSP code execution, database transactions request and results, transactions involving other app servers” such those employing representational state architecture (REST) and other Web servers, authentication systems and complex production environments, read a company white paper. The result is a recreation of application execution that includes the GUI and all its interactions, “not just a log file that needs to be parsed for root cause,” as offered by competitive solutions.

Here’s how it works. ReplayDirector isolates, captures and records the non-deterministic inputs and events that affect the application under test during execution. The tool employs “light-weight byte-code instrumentation” as it records running AUT code, ensuring that actual code is executed during replay, the company says. Recorded sessions can be played back …

Last month I wrote about Xenocode’s Virtual Application Studio, which lets you package and launch apps in a portable runtime regardless of what’s installed underneath. But if doing business with an unknown company leaves you feeling faklempt, you might kvell over news this week from VMware.

The company best known for its server and operating system virtualization tools has unveiled ThinApp 4.0, the latest version of its application virtualization tool that now allows communications between virtual apps, and can stream byte-level application updates over the Internet. ThinApp 4 is slated to begin shipping on July 10.

Link and Sync
The new capabilities are known as Application Link and Application Sync. App Link allows virtualized Java, .NET, IE and Office applications to intercommunicate and “eliminate conflicts, reduce application size and maintain continuity and tracking of software licenses,” according to a VMware document.

App Sync allows for remote virtualized applications to be updated via HTTP or HTTPS, facilitating management, upgrades and patches to be transmitted to deployed applications, regardless of whether the host machine itself is managed.

Xenocode says VMware is playing catch-up. “Through a feature we call jukeboxing, we allow multiple applications in a single virtualized environment to have access to the same shared resources,” said Xenocode founder and CEO Kenji Obata in a phone interview yesterday. “We also support Microsoft’s SXS.dll,” disputing a claim VMware’s ThinApp 4.0 FAQ (PDF) to be the only vendor to do so. The …

Lawyers for BusyBox, the open-source Unix utilities popular for use in embedded applications, filed two more copyright infringement lawsuits yesterday, claiming that Bell Microproducts and Super Micro Computer violated terms of the GNU General Public License that governs the software.

“Before filing these lawsuits, we contacted both companies and gave them opportunity to remedy their violations privately, but they were continually unresponsive,” said Aaron Williamson counsel for the Software Freedom Law Center. The SFLC represents BusyBox developers Erik Andersen and Rob Landley. “When companies are contacted by the SFLC or anyone else about a GPL violation, they need to respond by taking good faith steps toward compliance.”

BusyBox is licensed under GPL version 2. The GPL permits free and open reuse and redistribution of licensed source code, provided that all downstream recipients are provided access to the source code. And if they don’t? “ [L]awsuits like this are the predictable consequence,” he said. There have been previous such lawsuits, and all ended up with settlements out of court.

The complaints request that “an injunction be issued against each company and that damages and litigation costs be awarded to the plaintiffs,” the company said in a news release. The lawsuits were filed with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Bell Microproducts develops and markets high-tech hardware—with an emphasis on storage—for industry and the enterprise. Super Micro is a Silicon Valley maker …

Have you ever wanted to meet Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon? So have I, but we probably never will. However, if you’re free in mid-July and don’t mind traveling to Toronto, you can meet Gerald “Jerry” Weinberg, the man generally cited as the industry’s first software tester. He’ll be speaking at the Conference of the Association for Software Testing, aka CAST, a clunky name but a great learning opportunity for people in our business.

Conference organizers announced today that due to popular demand for his sold-out July 14 engagement, Jerry will host his full-day tutorial “The Tester’s Communication Clinic” again on July 17. In the talk, Jerry will assert that while working with hardware and software are indeed difficult parts of the tester’s job, “it’s not nearly as hard as the other half, working with people.”

The workshop will cover strategies for being more sensitive to the needs of managers, getting more effective results from developers and other strategies for communicating with peers and customers. The talk also delves into the Satir Interaction Model, Congruence Model, personality types and modality preferences. Jerry also will deliver a keynote titled “Lessons from the Past to Carry Into the Future,” for which he draws on his experiences over his 50-year career starting in 1958 with his work developing life-critical software as part of Project Mercury.

Other notable CAST keynotes include “Applied Testing Lessons from Delivery …

At the risk of sounding like just another Microsoft bashing session, I already trust Apple’s MobileMe more than
Microsoft’s Mesh. Apple today unveiled the new service which it says will be up and running in July.

MobileMe will replace the venerable .Mac online file storage service and compete with Microsoft’s yet-to-be released Mesh synchronization system, which Redmond claims will support “all” mobile devices, but will initially work only with those running its own operating systems (of course).

The news was announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, which also served as the launching ground for a new, lower-priced iPhone model. More on that later.

Thought neither system is yet available, the way I see it, Apple already has two huge advantages. First, it’s got a built-in user base of .Mac people. The service has been around for years anyone buying a Mac is hit over the head to sign up. Second, Apple says MobileMe will work not just with Macs and Apple devices, but with Windows PCs too. So for the millions of us using Exchange at work and something else at home and on the road, a vendor-neutral solution is the perfect thing. Changes to any data anywhere are replicated to all places instantly and automatically, the company says.

I can’t say I’m crazy about the name; MobileMe sounds a bit like the attitude of too many people today: “Me, …

Acer is the latest company to jump on the ultra-portable bandwagon with Aspire one, a 2.2-pound unit that sports a near-full size keyboard and can yield as much as six hours of battery life per charge, according to claims by the PC maker. Rival Asus last month began shipping the Eee PC 900, an enhanced version of the mighty little unit it introduced late last year.

Specs of the Aspire one read much like those of its rival Eee. Both units are built around an 8.9-inch backlit LCD with 1024 x 600 maximum resolution and both include a Web cam. The Aspire one is nearly an inch longer and about a quarter-inch wider—essentially a draw on overall dimensions. Asus includes 1GB DDR2 RAM but only 4GB NAND for non-volatile storage. That’s compared with Acer’s 512KB standard (expandable to 1GB) and 8GB NAND. In the Linux version of the Eee, Asus throws in 16GB more NAND for a total of 20GB. Not too shabby. Both have WiFi

Acer adds niceties like a five-in-one card reader (SD, MMC, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro and xD), software that merges storage from that port to its second SD slot, an 80 GB magnetic hard disk option and a keyboard it says is 95 percent of standard size. Asus counters with three USB 2.0 ports and an external VGA port.

Now to the processor. Asus delivers its unit with an Intel Celeron M. And while Celeron’s never been my …

People interested in shaping features for Gmail, Google’s free mail service in beta for about the last half-century, can now test their latest creations in a safe new environment. The company Friday launched Gmail Labs, a type of sandbox that people can use to test and provide feedback on Gmail features under development or consideration.

If you’re a Gmail user with Firefox 2 or Internet Explorer 7 and interested in trying it out, log into Gmail and go to Settings>Labs. You’ll see a list of available features that you can individually enable. You’re in the sandbox with all the new features from then on.

Among the new features is “Superstars,” which adds checks, exclamation points and colors beyond yellow for the stars next to messages. There's also pictures in chat, customizable keyboard mappings, and my favorite--mouse gestures-- which lets you easily navigate e-mail with right-click-drags left and right for next and previous messages and up to return to the inbox.

Before you begin, Google on its Gmail Labs about page offers these caveats:

• Features may break at any time
• Features may disappear temporarily or permanently
• Features may work so well that they graduate and become regular features

Feedback can be left at the Labs Google Group.

If things become unstable in the Lab, Google gives we brave souls a way to back out. Use this URL or simply put a “labs=0” at the …