Friday, January 07, 2005
Pocket PC Magazine > The Emergence of True Convergence, and Is Speed-Boosting Firefox Wrong?
The Emergence of True Convergence, and Is Speed-Boosting Firefox Wrong?
ARTICLE DATE: 01.06.05
By Alice Hill and Bill O'Brien
Not wishing to disillusion any of those who believe pundits typically talk for their own benefit, we decided the first column of the new year deserved some forward-looking guesstimation. See that PC you're sitting in front of? Don't get too accustomed to it. You won't have it for very long.
Maybe we should begin at the beginningÂ….
For several years now, IBM and Microsoft have been hard at work in back rooms, redefining personal computing. Actually, they've been trying to erase it. Personal computing is a "masses" approach that promotes hardcore consumerism, which in turn enforces competition, discounting, and low profit margins. (Trust us, IBM isn't selling its PC business because it's making money with it.) Can we prove this? Only by inference.
IBM has been making a massive push to promote grid computing. By its nature, grid computing removes the restriction of individual system performance, relying on the aggregate resources of a grid, or network, of computers to achieve ultimate processing power. There is no larger grid than the entire population of computers.
Microsoft, slowly but surely, has been redefining Windows from an operating system for single PCs to an OS capable of embracing the Internet. You have Web views for your desktop; you can carry your desktop with you, and if it's properly configured, sit at any PC, making it look like your own. The automatic operations a PC can perform in the background—software updates and e-mail transfers to mention just two—make user intervention less than essential. And the Internet is just a huge grid of computers.
Convergence ad infinitum
For the idea to work, the current PC must become an essential item, in a closed loop, but also disappear as an "item." Why not imbed a "mainboard" in each house and apartment, then use something like Wi-Fi to connect televisions, e-mail and game stations, refrigerators, telephones, lighting, environmental controls, even cars.
Don't laugh. Using technology like RFID to help your car identify you will surely cut down on theft. And if reprogrammed for multiple IDs, the settings of a car's equipment—from radios to seats to mirrors—will automatically adjust for each individual. Travel directions? Forget traditional GPS. Your car can download them. If you need a "computer" in the traditional sense, you just pick up a keyboard and sit down in front of any screen in your house or apartment. Naturally, the keyboard will have an imbedded trackball or mouse for navigation.
The mainboard (or mainboards, depending on how large a spread you have) handles everything, and its dual-core processors will give it immensely expanded capacity. When your domicile's asleep or running at lower-than-peak levels, its unused capability is added to the grid. (The system is a lot like the one used for distributing electricity, but not quite.) That, in fact, is one of the ways this technology makes a profit. You're charged for your usage, and you and others are charged additionally for "shared" processing. Better still, once your place is built and configured, you're not going to upgrade via mail order. You'll have a contract and a service fee, and all those other good revenue producing items.
Continue reading...
Is Speed-Boosting Firefox Wrong?
When you live on the tech edge, especially in the online world, you take chances. Last column, for example, we discussed what happened when we accidentally violated Google's AdSense policy by asking users to click on our blog's ads. (Short answer: it made Google very, very angry and got a lot of our readers here up in arms as well.)
SoÂ…what if we told you that this week we found a way to boost browser performance in Firefox (and Mozilla) to a level you literally won't believe? The update takes two minutes, requires no add-ins or purchases, and blows your hair back when you surf even the most dog-slow Web sites.
The instructions are being posted as we speak on blogs all over the Internet. I saw them on ForeverGeek.com, but the exact text is posted on blog after blog, so my apologies to the original author. Here's the bottom line. To boost Firefox, simply do the following after launching your browser.
1. Type "about:config" into the address bar (no spaces) and hit Return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:
--network.http .pipelining
--network.http.proxy .pipelining
--network.http .pipelining.maxrequests
Normally the browser will make one request at a time to a Web page. When you enable pipelining, the browser will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.
2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set "network.http.pipelining " to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy .pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.pipelining .maxrequests" to some number like 30. (This tells the browser to make 30 requests at once.)
3. Lastly, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint .delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before acting on received information.
Okay. That's all it takes. But now let's dig into the controversy that is foaming up discussion boards across the land. The term the hard core use for opening 30 server calls at one time is not pretty, but says it all: server raping. Taking up 30 simultaneous sessions is a major don't, since most servers bomb out at around 100. If four people using this tweak hit a page at the exact same time, they would crash everything, warned many a geek.
But not so, according to the other camp, who explain that pipelining is not about opening multiple sessions but simply changing how a single session pulls down information. The irony is that most developers gave up on pipelining after broadband became more widespread, and browsers today ship with this default set to "Off" or "False" to protect servers from throwing up bugs during a rapid pipeline burst.
We have to say that we have been using our jacked-up Firefox and have not crashed sites or been denied access because our browser's action was confused for a flood attack. We did see some bad code, though in third-party ads, mostly. Not in Google ads—and whatever you do, don't think we just told you to click on them!
So, give this a try, and report back in the discussion areas. We would love to hear from some hardcore pipeline guys and gals and figure this out once and for all. Is the hysteria just hype as we suspect, or is boosting Firefox technically bad for the Internet?
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Wall Street Journal > Security, Cool Features Of Firefox Web Browser Beat Microsoft's IE
December 30, 2004
By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser is one of the most important, and most often used, programs on the world's personal computers, relied upon by more than 90% of Windows users. But Microsoft hasn't made any important functional improvements in Internet Explorer for years.
The software giant has folded IE into the Windows operating system, and the browser only receives updates as part of the "Windows update" process. In recent years, most upgrades to IE have been under-the-hood patches to plug the many security holes that have made IE a major conduit for hackers, virus writers and spyware purveyors. The only visible feature added to IE recently: a pop-up ad blocker, which arrived long after other browsers had one.
Meanwhile, other people have been building much better browsers, just as Microsoft itself did in the 1990s, when it challenged and eventually bested the then-dominant browser, Netscape Navigator. The most significant of these challengers is Firefox, a free product of an open-source organization called Mozilla, available for download at www.mozilla.org. Firefox is both more secure and more modern than IE, and it comes packed with user-friendly features the Microsoft browser can't touch.
Firefox still has a tiny market share. But millions of people have downloaded it recently. I've been using it for months, and I recommended back in September that users switch to it from IE as a security measure. It's available in nearly identical versions for Windows, the Apple Macintosh, and the Linux operating system.
There are some other browsers that put IE to shame. Apple's elegant Safari browser, included free on every Mac, is one. But it isn't available for Windows. The Opera browser is loaded with bells and whistles, but I find it pretty complicated. And NetCaptor, my former favorite, is very nice. But since it's based on the IE Web-browsing engine, it's vulnerable to most of IE's security problems.
Firefox, which uses a different underlying browsing engine called "Gecko," also has a couple of close cousins based on the same engine. One is Netscape, now owned by America Online. The other is a browser called Mozilla, from the same group that created Firefox. But Firefox is smaller, sleeker and newer than either of its relatives, although a new Netscape version is in the works.
Firefox isn't totally secure -- no browser can be, especially if it runs on Windows, which has major security problems and is the world's top digital target. But Firefox has better security and privacy than IE. One big reason is that it won't run programs called "ActiveX controls," a Microsoft technology used in IE. These programs are used for many good things, but they have become such powerful tools for criminals and hackers that their potential for harm outweighs their benefits.
Firefox also has easier, quicker and clearer methods than IE does for covering your online tracks, if you so choose. And it has a better built-in pop-up ad blocker than IE.
But my favorite aspect of Firefox is tabbed browsing, a Web-surfing revolution that is shared by all the major new browsers but is absent from IE. With tabbed browsing, you can open many Web pages at once in the same browser window. Each is accessed by a tab.
The benefits of tabbed browsing hit home when you create folders of related bookmarks. For instance, on my computer I have a folder of a dozen technology-news bookmarks and another 20 or so bookmarks pointing to political Web sites. A third folder contains 15 or so bookmarks for sites devoted to the World Champion Boston Red Sox. With one click, I can open the entire contents of these folders in tabs, in the same single window, allowing me to survey entire fields of interest.
And Firefox can recognize and use Web sites that employ a new technology called "RSS" to create and update summaries of their contents. When Firefox encounters an RSS site, it displays a special icon that allows you to create a "live" bookmark to the site. These bookmarks then display updated headlines of stories on the sites.
Firefox also includes a permanent, handy search box that can be used to type in searches on Google, Yahoo, Amazon or other search sites without installing a special toolbar.
And it has a cool feature called "Extensions." These are small add-on modules, easy to download and install, that give the browser new features. Among the extensions I use are one that automatically fills out forms and another that tests the speed of my Web connection. You can also download "themes," which change the browser's looks.
There is only one significant downside to Firefox. Some Web sites, especially financial ones, have chosen to tailor themselves specifically for Internet Explorer. They rely on features only present in IE, and either won't work or work poorly in Firefox and other browsers.
Luckily, even if you switch to Firefox, you can still keep IE around to view just these incompatible sites. (In fact, Microsoft makes it impossible to fully uninstall IE.) There's even an extension for Firefox that adds an option called "View This Page in IE."
So Firefox is my current choice of a Windows Web browser. It is to IE in 2004 what IE was to Netscape in 1996 -- the upstart that does a better job.
Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com
By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser is one of the most important, and most often used, programs on the world's personal computers, relied upon by more than 90% of Windows users. But Microsoft hasn't made any important functional improvements in Internet Explorer for years.
The software giant has folded IE into the Windows operating system, and the browser only receives updates as part of the "Windows update" process. In recent years, most upgrades to IE have been under-the-hood patches to plug the many security holes that have made IE a major conduit for hackers, virus writers and spyware purveyors. The only visible feature added to IE recently: a pop-up ad blocker, which arrived long after other browsers had one.
Meanwhile, other people have been building much better browsers, just as Microsoft itself did in the 1990s, when it challenged and eventually bested the then-dominant browser, Netscape Navigator. The most significant of these challengers is Firefox, a free product of an open-source organization called Mozilla, available for download at www.mozilla.org. Firefox is both more secure and more modern than IE, and it comes packed with user-friendly features the Microsoft browser can't touch.
Firefox still has a tiny market share. But millions of people have downloaded it recently. I've been using it for months, and I recommended back in September that users switch to it from IE as a security measure. It's available in nearly identical versions for Windows, the Apple Macintosh, and the Linux operating system.
There are some other browsers that put IE to shame. Apple's elegant Safari browser, included free on every Mac, is one. But it isn't available for Windows. The Opera browser is loaded with bells and whistles, but I find it pretty complicated. And NetCaptor, my former favorite, is very nice. But since it's based on the IE Web-browsing engine, it's vulnerable to most of IE's security problems.
Firefox, which uses a different underlying browsing engine called "Gecko," also has a couple of close cousins based on the same engine. One is Netscape, now owned by America Online. The other is a browser called Mozilla, from the same group that created Firefox. But Firefox is smaller, sleeker and newer than either of its relatives, although a new Netscape version is in the works.
Firefox isn't totally secure -- no browser can be, especially if it runs on Windows, which has major security problems and is the world's top digital target. But Firefox has better security and privacy than IE. One big reason is that it won't run programs called "ActiveX controls," a Microsoft technology used in IE. These programs are used for many good things, but they have become such powerful tools for criminals and hackers that their potential for harm outweighs their benefits.
Firefox also has easier, quicker and clearer methods than IE does for covering your online tracks, if you so choose. And it has a better built-in pop-up ad blocker than IE.
But my favorite aspect of Firefox is tabbed browsing, a Web-surfing revolution that is shared by all the major new browsers but is absent from IE. With tabbed browsing, you can open many Web pages at once in the same browser window. Each is accessed by a tab.
The benefits of tabbed browsing hit home when you create folders of related bookmarks. For instance, on my computer I have a folder of a dozen technology-news bookmarks and another 20 or so bookmarks pointing to political Web sites. A third folder contains 15 or so bookmarks for sites devoted to the World Champion Boston Red Sox. With one click, I can open the entire contents of these folders in tabs, in the same single window, allowing me to survey entire fields of interest.
And Firefox can recognize and use Web sites that employ a new technology called "RSS" to create and update summaries of their contents. When Firefox encounters an RSS site, it displays a special icon that allows you to create a "live" bookmark to the site. These bookmarks then display updated headlines of stories on the sites.
Firefox also includes a permanent, handy search box that can be used to type in searches on Google, Yahoo, Amazon or other search sites without installing a special toolbar.
And it has a cool feature called "Extensions." These are small add-on modules, easy to download and install, that give the browser new features. Among the extensions I use are one that automatically fills out forms and another that tests the speed of my Web connection. You can also download "themes," which change the browser's looks.
There is only one significant downside to Firefox. Some Web sites, especially financial ones, have chosen to tailor themselves specifically for Internet Explorer. They rely on features only present in IE, and either won't work or work poorly in Firefox and other browsers.
Luckily, even if you switch to Firefox, you can still keep IE around to view just these incompatible sites. (In fact, Microsoft makes it impossible to fully uninstall IE.) There's even an extension for Firefox that adds an option called "View This Page in IE."
So Firefox is my current choice of a Windows Web browser. It is to IE in 2004 what IE was to Netscape in 1996 -- the upstart that does a better job.
Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com
Saturday, December 25, 2004
New York Times > Chinese Buyer of PC Unit Is Moving to I.B.M.'s Hometown
By DAVID BARBOZA
BEIJING - Inside the shimmeringheadquarters of the Lenovo Group,China's largest computer maker,workers are carting birthday cakes overto three office cubicles.These days, every employee here getsa birthday gift, something amultinational company might beexpected to do in this age of feel-goodcorporate management.The problem is that people in China donot traditionally celebrate birthdays.But that is changing. And so is Lenovo.It is trying to become a global companywith its purchase of I.B.M's personalcomputer business for $1.75 billion,and handing out birthday cakes is justpart of the process of evolving into amultinational corporation.To further globalize the company,however, Lenovo will do somethingeven bolder: it will move itsheadquarters to Armonk, N.Y., whereI.B.M. is based, and essentially handover management of what will becomethe world's third-largest computermaker, after Dell and Hewlett-Packard,to a group of senior I.B.M. executives.American multinational companiesoutsource manufacturing to China. Whycan't a Chinese company outsourcemanagement to the United States?Executives at Lenovo - which getsabout 98 percent of its $3 billion inrevenue from China - are, in effect,acknowledging that they do not havethe necessary global experience to runthe new company."The most valuable asset we haveacquired through I.B.M.'s PC businessis its world-class management teamand their extensive internationalexperience," says Liu Chuanzhi,chairman of Lenovo and one of thecompany's founders.Indeed, few executives at Lenovo seemdisappointed by the move. In fact,many seem pleased to be buying into ablue-chip American corporation.After all, Lenovo - formerly known asLegend - may be the biggest computermaker in China, but the company is stillvirtually unknown outside of Asia.And top executives at Lenovo say theyare eager to learn how to run a globalcompany from their new colleagues atthe PC unit of I.B.M., which operates inmore than 150 countries and had $9billion in revenue in 2003.Preparations are already under way inBeijing. For the last few months, allvice presidents have been required tostudy English for at least one hour aday. The chairman says he has readbooks about Bill Gates and AndrewGrove. And the chief executive ofLenovo has agreed to give upday-to-day management of thecompany to assume the role ofchairman.His task will be to fly back and forthfrom Beijing to New York to consultwith Lenovo's newly named chiefexecutive, Stephen M. Ward Jr., thesenior vice president and generalmanager of I.B.M.'s Personal SystemsGroup.Many analysts were surprised byLenovo's decision to outsource itsmanagement to New York."I admire what Lenovo is doing," saidJoe Zhang, a UBS analyst who followsLenovo. "Many Lenovo executives havedecided to do this at the expense oftheir careers. They're putting personalego behind for the greater good of thecompany."People involved in the negotiations withI.B.M. said that Lenovo officials saw noother choice. They recognized thatLenovo could not simply take over amuch bigger I.B.M. PC unit and run itfrom Beijing.That is why a major theme of the talkswas how to keep business as usualafter the deal was completed, thosepeople say.While I.B.M. is full of M.B.A.'s, Lenovo -which is still partly government owned- has only two members of the seniormanagement team with an M.B.A. Andnone of the top executives have everworked for a multinational corporation.But analysts also say that Lenovo is nopushover. The company is consideredone of China's most successfulcorporations. For years, for example,Lenovo's brand has outsold Dell,Hewlett-Packard and I.B.M. computersin China.And even though it began as astate-owned enterprise, Lenovo hasalways been entrepreneurial, analystssay. It was one of the first companieshere to list its shares in Hong Kong. Itwas among the first to reward itsemployees with stock options, whichhave turned some of its top executivesinto millionaires.The company's identity was shaped, inpart, by its visionary chairman, Mr. Liu,who in 1984 helped found Lenovo witha group of scientists from the ChineseAcademy of Sciences.Early on, it was the hard-charging Mr.Liu who persuaded the Chinesegovernment to give the companygreater control over its hiring andsalary decisions, allowing thestate-owned company to raise capitalfrom outside investors and essentiallyoperate like a private company.Later, Mr. Liu won governmentapproval to list the company's stock inHong Kong and for Lenovo to startproducing its own computers, ratherthan simply marketing Western brands.By 1997, with its own brand of low-costChinese-character-friendly computers,Lenovo was suddenly China's biggestcomputer maker.Mr. Liu, a military academy graduatewho suffered through China's brutalCultural Revolution, said he often ranthe company with an iron fist, scoldingworkers who showed up late formeetings and pushing scientists andexecutives to deliver on their promises."All the people were scientists in thosedays," Mr. Liu recalled. "They werevery casual. They'd always be late formeetings and they'd make theirpromises. So we decided that if anyonewas late they'd stand up for oneminute."Along the way, Mr. Liu also groomed acadre of loyal and fierce executives,including Yang Yuanqing, 42, who isnow the company's chief executive, andMary Ma, 52, Lenovo's highly respectedchief financial officer.But just how the new company'smanagement will take shape in Beijingand New York is still unclear.Though he will step down after themerger, Mr. Liu, 60, will continue toserve as a member of the board.Mr. Yang, a serious-minded executivewho helped fire up the company's salesforce, will become chairman. Ms. Ma,who led the talks to acquire I.B.M.'s PCunit, is expected to remain as chieffinancial officer.Lenovo's challenge will be to meldradically different corporate cultures."Neither culture should be the de factoculture," said Martin Gilliland, ananalyst at Gartner Research. "Theyhave to start a new one. Can theydevelop a new Lenovo businessculture? That's one of the keys tosuccess."In recent years, Lenovo officials say thecompany's corporate culture hasevolved from what some companyofficials called the "semimilitary"culture that prevailed in the early days,to a more easy-going and hip high-techculture.These days, Lenovo's new corporateheadquarters in Beijing's "SiliconSuburb" is teaming with young 20- and30-somethings, casually dressed,chattering into mobile phones andlooking confident.The halls are decked with employeerecognition plaques, business schooltheorems and New Age philosophy:"Happiness," reads one workplaceposter. "Work hard and live art," readsanother.Newcomers to Lenovo are even trainedin the same kind of teamworkprograms that can be found atAmerican business schools, right downto the leaps of faith - the backwardfalling employee who is caught by ateam of supportive co-workers.And for those who need a jolt, eachmorning at 8:30 the Lenovo themesong is broadcast on loudspeakersthroughout the headquarters, urgingworkers to guide the corporate shipthrough perilous waters."Lenovo, Lenovo, Lenovo," one linegoes, "we are sailing through thewaves to lands far away. Lenovo,Lenovo, Lenovo. We are building a newsplendor."Lenovo is also seeking the best outsideadvice it can get, hiring a client rosterthat includes Goldman, Sachs;McKinsey & Company, the consultingfirm; Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the NewYork law firm; and Ogilvy, the publicrelations firm.And the new language for the companyis English, company officials say.Lenovo officials say they are studyingAmerican business history, and thechief executive lists The HarvardBusiness Review as part of his regularreading.In fact, like other computer andsoftware giants, Lenovo is even fanningits own myths. In 1984, the companywas formed in a small, concretesecurity guard's booth that became itsfirst laboratory and headquarters.The booth - part of the ChineseAcademy of Sciences - was torn downin 2001 to make way for a newbuilding. But it was soon rebuilt andnow sits like an empty artifactalongside the headquarters of Lenovo'sparent company, Legend Holdings.Critics now worry that Lenovo must finda way to preserve I.B.M.'s traditions ina PC industry of increasing competitionand commodity manufacturing.But Mr. Yang, Lenovo's current chiefexecutive, says not to worry."We are going to stick to the principlesof I.B.M. as a high-premium, high-valueimage, " he said. "We're not going tomake any compromises on this."www.nytimes.comChinese Buyer of PC Unit Is Movingto I.B.M.'s HometownBy DAVID BARBOZABEIJING - Inside the shimmeringheadquarters of the Lenovo Group,China's largest computer maker,workers are carting birthday cakes overto three office cubicles.These days, every employee here getsa birthday gift, something amultinational company might beexpected to do in this age of feel-goodcorporate management.The problem is that people in China donot traditionally celebrate birthdays.But that is changing. And so is Lenovo.It is trying to become a global companywith its purchase of I.B.M's personalcomputer business for $1.75 billion,and handing out birthday cakes is justpart of the process of evolving into amultinational corporation.To further globalize the company,however, Lenovo will do somethingeven bolder: it will move itsheadquarters to Armonk, N.Y., whereI.B.M. is based, and essentially handover management of what will becomethe world's third-largest computermaker, after Dell and Hewlett-Packard,to a group of senior I.B.M. executives.American multinational companiesoutsource manufacturing to China. Whycan't a Chinese company outsourcemanagement to the United States?Executives at Lenovo - which getsabout 98 percent of its $3 billion inrevenue from China - are, in effect,acknowledging that they do not havethe necessary global experience to runthe new company."The most valuable asset we haveacquired through I.B.M.'s PC businessis its world-class management teamand their extensive internationalexperience," says Liu Chuanzhi,chairman of Lenovo and one of thecompany's founders.Indeed, few executives at Lenovo seemdisappointed by the move. In fact,many seem pleased to be buying into ablue-chip American corporation.After all, Lenovo - formerly known asLegend - may be the biggest computermaker in China, but the company is stillvirtually unknown outside of Asia.And top executives at Lenovo say theyare eager to learn how to run a globalcompany from their new colleagues atthe PC unit of I.B.M., which operates inmore than 150 countries and had $9billion in revenue in 2003.Preparations are already under way inBeijing. For the last few months, allvice presidents have been required tostudy English for at least one hour aday. The chairman says he has readbooks about Bill Gates and AndrewGrove. And the chief executive ofLenovo has agreed to give upday-to-day management of thecompany to assume the role ofchairman.His task will be to fly back and forthfrom Beijing to New York to consultwith Lenovo's newly named chiefexecutive, Stephen M. Ward Jr., thesenior vice president and generalmanager of I.B.M.'s Personal SystemsGroup.Many analysts were surprised byLenovo's decision to outsource itsmanagement to New York."I admire what Lenovo is doing," saidJoe Zhang, a UBS analyst who followsLenovo. "Many Lenovo executives havedecided to do this at the expense oftheir careers. They're putting personalego behind for the greater good of thecompany."People involved in the negotiations withI.B.M. said that Lenovo officials saw noother choice. They recognized thatLenovo could not simply take over amuch bigger I.B.M. PC unit and run itfrom Beijing.That is why a major theme of the talkswas how to keep business as usualafter the deal was completed, thosepeople say.While I.B.M. is full of M.B.A.'s, Lenovo -which is still partly government owned- has only two members of the seniormanagement team with an M.B.A. Andnone of the top executives have everworked for a multinational corporation.But analysts also say that Lenovo is nopushover. The company is consideredone of China's most successfulcorporations. For years, for example,Lenovo's brand has outsold Dell,Hewlett-Packard and I.B.M. computersin China.And even though it began as astate-owned enterprise, Lenovo hasalways been entrepreneurial, analystssay. It was one of the first companieshere to list its shares in Hong Kong. Itwas among the first to reward itsemployees with stock options, whichhave turned some of its top executivesinto millionaires.The company's identity was shaped, inpart, by its visionary chairman, Mr. Liu,who in 1984 helped found Lenovo witha group of scientists from the ChineseAcademy of Sciences.Early on, it was the hard-charging Mr.Liu who persuaded the Chinesegovernment to give the companygreater control over its hiring andsalary decisions, allowing thestate-owned company to raise capitalfrom outside investors and essentiallyoperate like a private company.Later, Mr. Liu won governmentapproval to list the company's stock inHong Kong and for Lenovo to startproducing its own computers, ratherthan simply marketing Western brands.By 1997, with its own brand of low-costChinese-character-friendly computers,Lenovo was suddenly China's biggestcomputer maker.Mr. Liu, a military academy graduatewho suffered through China's brutalCultural Revolution, said he often ranthe company with an iron fist, scoldingworkers who showed up late formeetings and pushing scientists andexecutives to deliver on their promises."All the people were scientists in thosedays," Mr. Liu recalled. "They werevery casual. They'd always be late formeetings and they'd make theirpromises. So we decided that if anyonewas late they'd stand up for oneminute."Along the way, Mr. Liu also groomed acadre of loyal and fierce executives,including Yang Yuanqing, 42, who isnow the company's chief executive, andMary Ma, 52, Lenovo's highly respectedchief financial officer.But just how the new company'smanagement will take shape in Beijingand New York is still unclear.Though he will step down after themerger, Mr. Liu, 60, will continue toserve as a member of the board.Mr. Yang, a serious-minded executivewho helped fire up the company's salesforce, will become chairman. Ms. Ma,who led the talks to acquire I.B.M.'s PCunit, is expected to remain as chieffinancial officer.Lenovo's challenge will be to meldradically different corporate cultures."Neither culture should be the de factoculture," said Martin Gilliland, ananalyst at Gartner Research. "Theyhave to start a new one. Can theydevelop a new Lenovo businessculture? That's one of the keys tosuccess."In recent years, Lenovo officials say thecompany's corporate culture hasevolved from what some companyofficials called the "semimilitary"culture that prevailed in the early days,to a more easy-going and hip high-techculture.These days, Lenovo's new corporateheadquarters in Beijing's "SiliconSuburb" is teaming with young 20- and30-somethings, casually dressed,chattering into mobile phones andlooking confident.The halls are decked with employeerecognition plaques, business schooltheorems and New Age philosophy:"Happiness," reads one workplaceposter. "Work hard and live art," readsanother.Newcomers to Lenovo are even trainedin the same kind of teamworkprograms that can be found atAmerican business schools, right downto the leaps of faith - the backwardfalling employee who is caught by ateam of supportive co-workers.And for those who need a jolt, eachmorning at 8:30 the Lenovo themesong is broadcast on loudspeakersthroughout the headquarters, urgingworkers to guide the corporate shipthrough perilous waters."Lenovo, Lenovo, Lenovo," one linegoes, "we are sailing through thewaves to lands far away. Lenovo,Lenovo, Lenovo. We are building a newsplendor."Lenovo is also seeking the best outsideadvice it can get, hiring a client rosterthat includes Goldman, Sachs;McKinsey & Company, the consultingfirm; Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the NewYork law firm; and Ogilvy, the publicrelations firm.And the new language for the companyis English, company officials say.Lenovo officials say they are studyingAmerican business history, and thechief executive lists The HarvardBusiness Review as part of his regularreading.In fact, like other computer andsoftware giants, Lenovo is even fanningits own myths. In 1984, the companywas formed in a small, concretesecurity guard's booth that became itsfirst laboratory and headquarters.The booth - part of the ChineseAcademy of Sciences - was torn downin 2001 to make way for a newbuilding. But it was soon rebuilt andnow sits like an empty artifactalongside the headquarters of Lenovo'sparent company, Legend Holdings.Critics now worry that Lenovo must finda way to preserve I.B.M.'s traditions ina PC industry of increasing competitionand commodity manufacturing.But Mr. Yang, Lenovo's current chiefexecutive, says not to worry."We are going to stick to the principlesof I.B.M. as a high-premium, high-valueimage, " he said. "We're not going tomake any compromises on this."
BEIJING - Inside the shimmeringheadquarters of the Lenovo Group,China's largest computer maker,workers are carting birthday cakes overto three office cubicles.These days, every employee here getsa birthday gift, something amultinational company might beexpected to do in this age of feel-goodcorporate management.The problem is that people in China donot traditionally celebrate birthdays.But that is changing. And so is Lenovo.It is trying to become a global companywith its purchase of I.B.M's personalcomputer business for $1.75 billion,and handing out birthday cakes is justpart of the process of evolving into amultinational corporation.To further globalize the company,however, Lenovo will do somethingeven bolder: it will move itsheadquarters to Armonk, N.Y., whereI.B.M. is based, and essentially handover management of what will becomethe world's third-largest computermaker, after Dell and Hewlett-Packard,to a group of senior I.B.M. executives.American multinational companiesoutsource manufacturing to China. Whycan't a Chinese company outsourcemanagement to the United States?Executives at Lenovo - which getsabout 98 percent of its $3 billion inrevenue from China - are, in effect,acknowledging that they do not havethe necessary global experience to runthe new company."The most valuable asset we haveacquired through I.B.M.'s PC businessis its world-class management teamand their extensive internationalexperience," says Liu Chuanzhi,chairman of Lenovo and one of thecompany's founders.Indeed, few executives at Lenovo seemdisappointed by the move. In fact,many seem pleased to be buying into ablue-chip American corporation.After all, Lenovo - formerly known asLegend - may be the biggest computermaker in China, but the company is stillvirtually unknown outside of Asia.And top executives at Lenovo say theyare eager to learn how to run a globalcompany from their new colleagues atthe PC unit of I.B.M., which operates inmore than 150 countries and had $9billion in revenue in 2003.Preparations are already under way inBeijing. For the last few months, allvice presidents have been required tostudy English for at least one hour aday. The chairman says he has readbooks about Bill Gates and AndrewGrove. And the chief executive ofLenovo has agreed to give upday-to-day management of thecompany to assume the role ofchairman.His task will be to fly back and forthfrom Beijing to New York to consultwith Lenovo's newly named chiefexecutive, Stephen M. Ward Jr., thesenior vice president and generalmanager of I.B.M.'s Personal SystemsGroup.Many analysts were surprised byLenovo's decision to outsource itsmanagement to New York."I admire what Lenovo is doing," saidJoe Zhang, a UBS analyst who followsLenovo. "Many Lenovo executives havedecided to do this at the expense oftheir careers. They're putting personalego behind for the greater good of thecompany."People involved in the negotiations withI.B.M. said that Lenovo officials saw noother choice. They recognized thatLenovo could not simply take over amuch bigger I.B.M. PC unit and run itfrom Beijing.That is why a major theme of the talkswas how to keep business as usualafter the deal was completed, thosepeople say.While I.B.M. is full of M.B.A.'s, Lenovo -which is still partly government owned- has only two members of the seniormanagement team with an M.B.A. Andnone of the top executives have everworked for a multinational corporation.But analysts also say that Lenovo is nopushover. The company is consideredone of China's most successfulcorporations. For years, for example,Lenovo's brand has outsold Dell,Hewlett-Packard and I.B.M. computersin China.And even though it began as astate-owned enterprise, Lenovo hasalways been entrepreneurial, analystssay. It was one of the first companieshere to list its shares in Hong Kong. Itwas among the first to reward itsemployees with stock options, whichhave turned some of its top executivesinto millionaires.The company's identity was shaped, inpart, by its visionary chairman, Mr. Liu,who in 1984 helped found Lenovo witha group of scientists from the ChineseAcademy of Sciences.Early on, it was the hard-charging Mr.Liu who persuaded the Chinesegovernment to give the companygreater control over its hiring andsalary decisions, allowing thestate-owned company to raise capitalfrom outside investors and essentiallyoperate like a private company.Later, Mr. Liu won governmentapproval to list the company's stock inHong Kong and for Lenovo to startproducing its own computers, ratherthan simply marketing Western brands.By 1997, with its own brand of low-costChinese-character-friendly computers,Lenovo was suddenly China's biggestcomputer maker.Mr. Liu, a military academy graduatewho suffered through China's brutalCultural Revolution, said he often ranthe company with an iron fist, scoldingworkers who showed up late formeetings and pushing scientists andexecutives to deliver on their promises."All the people were scientists in thosedays," Mr. Liu recalled. "They werevery casual. They'd always be late formeetings and they'd make theirpromises. So we decided that if anyonewas late they'd stand up for oneminute."Along the way, Mr. Liu also groomed acadre of loyal and fierce executives,including Yang Yuanqing, 42, who isnow the company's chief executive, andMary Ma, 52, Lenovo's highly respectedchief financial officer.But just how the new company'smanagement will take shape in Beijingand New York is still unclear.Though he will step down after themerger, Mr. Liu, 60, will continue toserve as a member of the board.Mr. Yang, a serious-minded executivewho helped fire up the company's salesforce, will become chairman. Ms. Ma,who led the talks to acquire I.B.M.'s PCunit, is expected to remain as chieffinancial officer.Lenovo's challenge will be to meldradically different corporate cultures."Neither culture should be the de factoculture," said Martin Gilliland, ananalyst at Gartner Research. "Theyhave to start a new one. Can theydevelop a new Lenovo businessculture? That's one of the keys tosuccess."In recent years, Lenovo officials say thecompany's corporate culture hasevolved from what some companyofficials called the "semimilitary"culture that prevailed in the early days,to a more easy-going and hip high-techculture.These days, Lenovo's new corporateheadquarters in Beijing's "SiliconSuburb" is teaming with young 20- and30-somethings, casually dressed,chattering into mobile phones andlooking confident.The halls are decked with employeerecognition plaques, business schooltheorems and New Age philosophy:"Happiness," reads one workplaceposter. "Work hard and live art," readsanother.Newcomers to Lenovo are even trainedin the same kind of teamworkprograms that can be found atAmerican business schools, right downto the leaps of faith - the backwardfalling employee who is caught by ateam of supportive co-workers.And for those who need a jolt, eachmorning at 8:30 the Lenovo themesong is broadcast on loudspeakersthroughout the headquarters, urgingworkers to guide the corporate shipthrough perilous waters."Lenovo, Lenovo, Lenovo," one linegoes, "we are sailing through thewaves to lands far away. Lenovo,Lenovo, Lenovo. We are building a newsplendor."Lenovo is also seeking the best outsideadvice it can get, hiring a client rosterthat includes Goldman, Sachs;McKinsey & Company, the consultingfirm; Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the NewYork law firm; and Ogilvy, the publicrelations firm.And the new language for the companyis English, company officials say.Lenovo officials say they are studyingAmerican business history, and thechief executive lists The HarvardBusiness Review as part of his regularreading.In fact, like other computer andsoftware giants, Lenovo is even fanningits own myths. In 1984, the companywas formed in a small, concretesecurity guard's booth that became itsfirst laboratory and headquarters.The booth - part of the ChineseAcademy of Sciences - was torn downin 2001 to make way for a newbuilding. But it was soon rebuilt andnow sits like an empty artifactalongside the headquarters of Lenovo'sparent company, Legend Holdings.Critics now worry that Lenovo must finda way to preserve I.B.M.'s traditions ina PC industry of increasing competitionand commodity manufacturing.But Mr. Yang, Lenovo's current chiefexecutive, says not to worry."We are going to stick to the principlesof I.B.M. as a high-premium, high-valueimage, " he said. "We're not going tomake any compromises on this."www.nytimes.comChinese Buyer of PC Unit Is Movingto I.B.M.'s HometownBy DAVID BARBOZABEIJING - Inside the shimmeringheadquarters of the Lenovo Group,China's largest computer maker,workers are carting birthday cakes overto three office cubicles.These days, every employee here getsa birthday gift, something amultinational company might beexpected to do in this age of feel-goodcorporate management.The problem is that people in China donot traditionally celebrate birthdays.But that is changing. And so is Lenovo.It is trying to become a global companywith its purchase of I.B.M's personalcomputer business for $1.75 billion,and handing out birthday cakes is justpart of the process of evolving into amultinational corporation.To further globalize the company,however, Lenovo will do somethingeven bolder: it will move itsheadquarters to Armonk, N.Y., whereI.B.M. is based, and essentially handover management of what will becomethe world's third-largest computermaker, after Dell and Hewlett-Packard,to a group of senior I.B.M. executives.American multinational companiesoutsource manufacturing to China. Whycan't a Chinese company outsourcemanagement to the United States?Executives at Lenovo - which getsabout 98 percent of its $3 billion inrevenue from China - are, in effect,acknowledging that they do not havethe necessary global experience to runthe new company."The most valuable asset we haveacquired through I.B.M.'s PC businessis its world-class management teamand their extensive internationalexperience," says Liu Chuanzhi,chairman of Lenovo and one of thecompany's founders.Indeed, few executives at Lenovo seemdisappointed by the move. In fact,many seem pleased to be buying into ablue-chip American corporation.After all, Lenovo - formerly known asLegend - may be the biggest computermaker in China, but the company is stillvirtually unknown outside of Asia.And top executives at Lenovo say theyare eager to learn how to run a globalcompany from their new colleagues atthe PC unit of I.B.M., which operates inmore than 150 countries and had $9billion in revenue in 2003.Preparations are already under way inBeijing. For the last few months, allvice presidents have been required tostudy English for at least one hour aday. The chairman says he has readbooks about Bill Gates and AndrewGrove. And the chief executive ofLenovo has agreed to give upday-to-day management of thecompany to assume the role ofchairman.His task will be to fly back and forthfrom Beijing to New York to consultwith Lenovo's newly named chiefexecutive, Stephen M. Ward Jr., thesenior vice president and generalmanager of I.B.M.'s Personal SystemsGroup.Many analysts were surprised byLenovo's decision to outsource itsmanagement to New York."I admire what Lenovo is doing," saidJoe Zhang, a UBS analyst who followsLenovo. "Many Lenovo executives havedecided to do this at the expense oftheir careers. They're putting personalego behind for the greater good of thecompany."People involved in the negotiations withI.B.M. said that Lenovo officials saw noother choice. They recognized thatLenovo could not simply take over amuch bigger I.B.M. PC unit and run itfrom Beijing.That is why a major theme of the talkswas how to keep business as usualafter the deal was completed, thosepeople say.While I.B.M. is full of M.B.A.'s, Lenovo -which is still partly government owned- has only two members of the seniormanagement team with an M.B.A. Andnone of the top executives have everworked for a multinational corporation.But analysts also say that Lenovo is nopushover. The company is consideredone of China's most successfulcorporations. For years, for example,Lenovo's brand has outsold Dell,Hewlett-Packard and I.B.M. computersin China.And even though it began as astate-owned enterprise, Lenovo hasalways been entrepreneurial, analystssay. It was one of the first companieshere to list its shares in Hong Kong. Itwas among the first to reward itsemployees with stock options, whichhave turned some of its top executivesinto millionaires.The company's identity was shaped, inpart, by its visionary chairman, Mr. Liu,who in 1984 helped found Lenovo witha group of scientists from the ChineseAcademy of Sciences.Early on, it was the hard-charging Mr.Liu who persuaded the Chinesegovernment to give the companygreater control over its hiring andsalary decisions, allowing thestate-owned company to raise capitalfrom outside investors and essentiallyoperate like a private company.Later, Mr. Liu won governmentapproval to list the company's stock inHong Kong and for Lenovo to startproducing its own computers, ratherthan simply marketing Western brands.By 1997, with its own brand of low-costChinese-character-friendly computers,Lenovo was suddenly China's biggestcomputer maker.Mr. Liu, a military academy graduatewho suffered through China's brutalCultural Revolution, said he often ranthe company with an iron fist, scoldingworkers who showed up late formeetings and pushing scientists andexecutives to deliver on their promises."All the people were scientists in thosedays," Mr. Liu recalled. "They werevery casual. They'd always be late formeetings and they'd make theirpromises. So we decided that if anyonewas late they'd stand up for oneminute."Along the way, Mr. Liu also groomed acadre of loyal and fierce executives,including Yang Yuanqing, 42, who isnow the company's chief executive, andMary Ma, 52, Lenovo's highly respectedchief financial officer.But just how the new company'smanagement will take shape in Beijingand New York is still unclear.Though he will step down after themerger, Mr. Liu, 60, will continue toserve as a member of the board.Mr. Yang, a serious-minded executivewho helped fire up the company's salesforce, will become chairman. Ms. Ma,who led the talks to acquire I.B.M.'s PCunit, is expected to remain as chieffinancial officer.Lenovo's challenge will be to meldradically different corporate cultures."Neither culture should be the de factoculture," said Martin Gilliland, ananalyst at Gartner Research. "Theyhave to start a new one. Can theydevelop a new Lenovo businessculture? That's one of the keys tosuccess."In recent years, Lenovo officials say thecompany's corporate culture hasevolved from what some companyofficials called the "semimilitary"culture that prevailed in the early days,to a more easy-going and hip high-techculture.These days, Lenovo's new corporateheadquarters in Beijing's "SiliconSuburb" is teaming with young 20- and30-somethings, casually dressed,chattering into mobile phones andlooking confident.The halls are decked with employeerecognition plaques, business schooltheorems and New Age philosophy:"Happiness," reads one workplaceposter. "Work hard and live art," readsanother.Newcomers to Lenovo are even trainedin the same kind of teamworkprograms that can be found atAmerican business schools, right downto the leaps of faith - the backwardfalling employee who is caught by ateam of supportive co-workers.And for those who need a jolt, eachmorning at 8:30 the Lenovo themesong is broadcast on loudspeakersthroughout the headquarters, urgingworkers to guide the corporate shipthrough perilous waters."Lenovo, Lenovo, Lenovo," one linegoes, "we are sailing through thewaves to lands far away. Lenovo,Lenovo, Lenovo. We are building a newsplendor."Lenovo is also seeking the best outsideadvice it can get, hiring a client rosterthat includes Goldman, Sachs;McKinsey & Company, the consultingfirm; Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the NewYork law firm; and Ogilvy, the publicrelations firm.And the new language for the companyis English, company officials say.Lenovo officials say they are studyingAmerican business history, and thechief executive lists The HarvardBusiness Review as part of his regularreading.In fact, like other computer andsoftware giants, Lenovo is even fanningits own myths. In 1984, the companywas formed in a small, concretesecurity guard's booth that became itsfirst laboratory and headquarters.The booth - part of the ChineseAcademy of Sciences - was torn downin 2001 to make way for a newbuilding. But it was soon rebuilt andnow sits like an empty artifactalongside the headquarters of Lenovo'sparent company, Legend Holdings.Critics now worry that Lenovo must finda way to preserve I.B.M.'s traditions ina PC industry of increasing competitionand commodity manufacturing.But Mr. Yang, Lenovo's current chiefexecutive, says not to worry."We are going to stick to the principlesof I.B.M. as a high-premium, high-valueimage, " he said. "We're not going tomake any compromises on this."
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Opinion from PC Magazine: Panic Over Spyware
Opinion from PC Magazine: Panic Over Spyware: "Panic Over Spyware
ARTICLE DATE: 12.20.04
By John C. Dvorak
Panic Over Spyware
ARTICLE DATE: 12.20.04
By John C. Dvorak
I'm chatting with the CEO of a spyware company and he tells me that he knows for a fact that Dell support lines have been getting 70,000 calls a week regarding machine performance and anomalies. Dell has been referring the callers to Web sites discussing spyware. It's spyware causing the problems. I'm thinking to myself that if Dell is getting 70,000 calls, then Microsoft must be getting 700,000 calls, since the smart money would always assume that it's a software problem. Whatever the call volume, this situation with spyware is now officially out of control.
ADVERTISEMENT
This subject is near and dear to me, since my laptop was infected via a hotel network connection recently. The culprit is the webrebates.exe Trojan horse. Like many of these pests, once it gets on your machine it starts installing loaders all over the place. These are essentially spyware spies. They all look to make sure that the spyware stays in place. If you manage to erase it one of the little drones will reinstall it. You cannot erase the drones and the spyware fast enough to prevent this simple process from continuing unless you use special software to ferret out all the drones first. Many of these pests also contaminate the Registry, and many of the drones are in subdirectories that cannot be seen using any normal process.
As an aside I should mention that I've always wondered why Microsoft Windows has weird deeply rooted directories that cannot be seen in Internet Explorer, DOS, or any tool. They are scattered all over the place. The nasty spyware drones often end up buried so deep that finding them requires lengthy deep searches by antispyware tools.
Now, if you think that the free antispyware programs are going to help with the nastiest of infections, you are kidding yourself. I've chatted with four spyware vendors over the past couple of weeks and they all agree that it's gotten so bad that the public is only partially aware of the problem. Few users know that their machines are infected.
There is now a firm belief that organized crime, including the Russian mafia, is behind much of this activity. The scene is no longer dominated by kids out for fun.
So what is the spyware used for? There appear to be four primary uses.
Continue Reading >
Market research. Yes, it's true. A lot of spyware is used just to track browsing and other online behavior for market-research companies. This was one of the two initial uses.
Employee and spousal monitoring. This is the second initial use for this stuff. Key loggers and other systems that are usually installed directly onto machines by the person or institution doing the spying. The FBI has been known to capture passwords using such software.
Spambots. The more recent use of spyware has been to create legions of spambots for spammers to rack up big numbers without taxing their own servers. There are probably millions of drone machines, sometimes called zombie PCs. At night they are brought to life to serve spam all over the world. Yet another reason why the 24/7 always-on Internet is a complete disaster.
Identity and credit-card theft. This is the latest twist and the fastest-growing trend. Last week, a new combination scam somehow got through my spam-filtering mechanism and tried to install a Trojan horse loader onto my system through the preview window of Microsoft Outlook Express. (Wasn't this supposed to be fixed?) My Kaspersky antivirus software saw the loader and stopped it cold. But what I found interesting was that this was one of those "Your account is temporarily closed" scams designed to collect personal information.
The notable thing about spyware is that because it isn't virulent like a virus and seldom spreads from your machine to another, it manages to stay out of the spotlight. The national media pay little attention to the problem, and many mainstream media tech writers are Mac users, so they don't get it. Who knows what will happen when the Mac community gets hit? They feel immune, and are for now. But when they get hit, there will be few resources to help them, since the antispyware community is busy with all the PC-related problems.
Since spyware has not spread quickly and tends to be installed via browsers one computer at a time, we are seeing slow—but relentless—growth. We can expect it to continue. I'm looking at all the spyware packages and I'll have a few to recommend in the months ahead. For now you'll probably need multiple systems to get rid of this stuff. This will be the number-one topic in the year 2005, guaranteed.
ARTICLE DATE: 12.20.04
By John C. Dvorak
Panic Over Spyware
ARTICLE DATE: 12.20.04
By John C. Dvorak
I'm chatting with the CEO of a spyware company and he tells me that he knows for a fact that Dell support lines have been getting 70,000 calls a week regarding machine performance and anomalies. Dell has been referring the callers to Web sites discussing spyware. It's spyware causing the problems. I'm thinking to myself that if Dell is getting 70,000 calls, then Microsoft must be getting 700,000 calls, since the smart money would always assume that it's a software problem. Whatever the call volume, this situation with spyware is now officially out of control.
ADVERTISEMENT
This subject is near and dear to me, since my laptop was infected via a hotel network connection recently. The culprit is the webrebates.exe Trojan horse. Like many of these pests, once it gets on your machine it starts installing loaders all over the place. These are essentially spyware spies. They all look to make sure that the spyware stays in place. If you manage to erase it one of the little drones will reinstall it. You cannot erase the drones and the spyware fast enough to prevent this simple process from continuing unless you use special software to ferret out all the drones first. Many of these pests also contaminate the Registry, and many of the drones are in subdirectories that cannot be seen using any normal process.
As an aside I should mention that I've always wondered why Microsoft Windows has weird deeply rooted directories that cannot be seen in Internet Explorer, DOS, or any tool. They are scattered all over the place. The nasty spyware drones often end up buried so deep that finding them requires lengthy deep searches by antispyware tools.
Now, if you think that the free antispyware programs are going to help with the nastiest of infections, you are kidding yourself. I've chatted with four spyware vendors over the past couple of weeks and they all agree that it's gotten so bad that the public is only partially aware of the problem. Few users know that their machines are infected.
There is now a firm belief that organized crime, including the Russian mafia, is behind much of this activity. The scene is no longer dominated by kids out for fun.
So what is the spyware used for? There appear to be four primary uses.
Continue Reading >
Market research. Yes, it's true. A lot of spyware is used just to track browsing and other online behavior for market-research companies. This was one of the two initial uses.
Employee and spousal monitoring. This is the second initial use for this stuff. Key loggers and other systems that are usually installed directly onto machines by the person or institution doing the spying. The FBI has been known to capture passwords using such software.
Spambots. The more recent use of spyware has been to create legions of spambots for spammers to rack up big numbers without taxing their own servers. There are probably millions of drone machines, sometimes called zombie PCs. At night they are brought to life to serve spam all over the world. Yet another reason why the 24/7 always-on Internet is a complete disaster.
Identity and credit-card theft. This is the latest twist and the fastest-growing trend. Last week, a new combination scam somehow got through my spam-filtering mechanism and tried to install a Trojan horse loader onto my system through the preview window of Microsoft Outlook Express. (Wasn't this supposed to be fixed?) My Kaspersky antivirus software saw the loader and stopped it cold. But what I found interesting was that this was one of those "Your account is temporarily closed" scams designed to collect personal information.
The notable thing about spyware is that because it isn't virulent like a virus and seldom spreads from your machine to another, it manages to stay out of the spotlight. The national media pay little attention to the problem, and many mainstream media tech writers are Mac users, so they don't get it. Who knows what will happen when the Mac community gets hit? They feel immune, and are for now. But when they get hit, there will be few resources to help them, since the antispyware community is busy with all the PC-related problems.
Since spyware has not spread quickly and tends to be installed via browsers one computer at a time, we are seeing slow—but relentless—growth. We can expect it to continue. I'm looking at all the spyware packages and I'll have a few to recommend in the months ahead. For now you'll probably need multiple systems to get rid of this stuff. This will be the number-one topic in the year 2005, guaranteed.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Mozilla Firefox 1.0 review - Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Intro - Security & Utility Services - CNET Reviews
Mozilla Firefox 1.0 is the dream Internet browser you've been looking for. Featuring a host of small technical improvements, including tabbed browsing, built-in and customizable search bars, and a built-in RSS reader, Mozilla's Firefox browser is the one that should finally put a dent in Microsoft Internet Explorer's unrivaled market dominance. While its lack of ActiveX support might prevent some sites from working properly, after more than three weeks of use in our tests, Firefox 1.0 remained fast and stable and displayed an impressive range of cutting-edge browsing options. We were able to view every Web site just fine, thank you. If you're fed up with the latest Internet Explorer security patch issued from Microsoft or with the latest virus to capitalize on some flaw in IE, you should switch to Firefox--now.
Next: Mozilla Firefox 1.0
Next: Mozilla Firefox 1.0
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
The New York Times > Technology > Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database
The New York Times > Technology > Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database: "The New York Times
December 14, 2004
Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database
By JOHN MARKOFF and EDWARD WYATT
Google, the operator of the world's most popular Internet search service, plans to announce an agreement today with some of the nation's leading research libraries and Oxford University to begin converting their holdings into digital files that would be freely searchable over the Web.
It may be only a step on a long road toward the long-predicted global virtual library. But the collaboration of Google and research institutions that also include Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford and the New York Public Library is a major stride in an ambitious Internet effort by various parties. The goal is to expand the Web beyond its current valuable, if eclectic, body of material and create a digital card catalog and searchable library for the world's books, scholarly papers and special collections.
Google - newly wealthy from its stock offering last summer - has agreed to underwrite the projects being announced today while also adding its own technical abilities to the task of scanning and digitizing tens of thousands of pages a day at each library.
Although Google executives declined to comment on its technology or the cost of the undertaking, others involved estimate the figure at $10 for each of the more than 15 million books and other documents covered in the agreements. Librarians involved predict the project could take at least a decade.
Because the Google agreements are not exclusive, the pacts are almost certain to touch off a race with other major Internet search providers like Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo. Like Google, they might seek the right to offer online access to library materials in return for selling advertising, while libraries would receive corporate help in digitizing their collections for their own institutional uses.
"Within two decades, most of the world's knowledge will be digitized and available, one hopes for free reading on the Internet, just as there is free reading in libraries today," said Michael A. Keller, Stanford University's head librarian.
The Google effort and others like it that are already under way, including projects by the Library of Congress to put selections of its best holdings online, are part of a trend to potentially democratize access to information that has long been available to only small, select groups of students and scholars.
Last night the Library of Congress and a group of international libraries from the United States, Canada, Egypt, China and the Netherlands announced a plan to create a publicly available digital archive of one million books on the Internet. The group said it planned to have 70,000 volumes online by next April.
"Having the great libraries at your fingertips allows us to build on and create great works based on the work of others," said Brewster Kahle, founder and president of the Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based digital library that is also trying to digitize existing print information.
The agreements to be announced today will allow Google to publish the full text of only those library books old enough to no longer be under copyright. For copyrighted works, Google would scan in the entire text, but make only short excerpts available online.
Each agreement with a library is slightly different. Google plans to digitize nearly all the eight million books in Stanford's collection and the seven million at Michigan. The Harvard project will initially be limited to only about 40,000 volumes. The scanning at Bodleian Library at Oxford will be limited to an unspecified number of books published before 1900, while the New York Public Library project will involve fragile material not under copyright that library officials said would be of interest primarily to scholars.
The trend toward online libraries and virtual card catalogs is one that already has book publishers scrambling to respond.
At least a dozen major publishing companies, including some of the country's biggest producers of nonfiction books - the primary target for the online text-search efforts - have already entered ventures with Google and Amazon that allow users to search the text of copyrighted books online and read excerpts.
Publishers including HarperCollins, the Penguin Group, Houghton Mifflin and Scholastic have signed up for both the Google and Amazon programs. The largest American trade publisher, Random House, participates in Amazon's program but is still negotiating with Google, which calls its program Google Print.
The Amazon and Google programs work by restricting the access of users to only a few pages of a copyrighted book during each search, offering enough to help them decide whether the book meets their requirements enough to justify ordering the print version. Those features restrict a user's ability to copy, cut or print the copyrighted material, while limiting on-screen reading to a few pages at a time. Books still under copyright at the libraries involved in Google's new project are likely to be protected by similar restrictions.
The challenge for publishers in coming years will be to continue to have libraries serve as major influential buyers of their books, without letting the newly vast digital public reading rooms undermine the companies' ability to make money commissioning and publishing authors' work.
From the earliest days of the printing press, book publishers were wary of the development of libraries at all. In many instances, they opposed the idea of a central facility offering free access to books that people would otherwise be compelled to buy.
But as libraries developed and publishers became aware that they could be among their best customers, that opposition faded. Now publishers aggressively court librarians with advance copies of books, seeking positive reviews of books in library journals and otherwise trying to influence the opinion of the people who influence the reading habits of millions. Some of that promotional impulse may translate to the online world, publishing executives say.
But at least initially, the search services are likely to be most useful to publishers whose nonfiction backlists, or catalogs of previously published titles, are of interest to scholars but do not sell regularly enough to be carried in large quantities in retail stores, said David Steinberger, the president and chief executive the Perseus Books Group, which publishes mostly nonfiction books under the Basic Books, PublicAffairs, Da Capo and other imprints.
Based on his experiences with Amazon's and Google's commercial search services so far, Mr. Steinberger said, "I think there is minimal risk, or virtually no risk, of copyrighted material being misused." But he said he would object to a library's providing copyrighted material online without a license. "If you're talking about the instantaneous, free distribution of books, I think that would represent a problem," Mr. Steinberger said.
For their part, libraries themselves will have to rethink their central missions as storehouses of printed, indexed material.
"Our world is about to change in a big, big way," said Daniel Greenstein, university librarian for the California Digital Library of the University of California, which is a project to organize and retain existing digital materials.
Instead of expending considerable time and money to managing their collections of printed materials, Mr. Greenstein said, libraries in the future can devote more energy to gathering information and making it accessible - and more easily manageable - online.
But Paul LeClerc, the president and chief executive of the New York Public Library, sees Web access as an expansion of libraries' reach, not a replacement for physical collections. "Librarians will add a new dimension to their work," Mr. LeClerc said. "They will not abandon their mission of collecting printed material and keeping them for decades and even centuries."
Google's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, have long vowed to make all of the world's information accessible to anyone with a Web browser. The agreements to be announced today will put them a few steps closer to that goal - at least in terms of the English-language portion of the world's information. Mr. Page said yesterday that the project traced to the roots of Google, which he and Mr. Brin founded in 1998 after taking a leave from a graduate computer science program at Stanford where they worked on a "digital libraries" project. "What we first discussed at Stanford is now becoming practical," Mr. Page said.
At Stanford, Google hopes to be able to scan 50,000 pages a day within the month, eventually doubling that rate, according to a person involved in the project.
The Google plan calls for making the library materials available as part of Google's regular Web service, which currently has an estimated eight billion Web pages in its database and tens of millions of users a day. As with the other information on its service, Google will sell advertising to generate revenue from its library material. (In it existing Google Print program, the company shares advertising revenue with the participating book publishers.)
Each library, meanwhile, will receive its own copy of the digital database created from that institution's holdings, which the library can make available through its own Web site if it chooses.
Harvard officials said they would be happy to use the Internet to share their collections widely. "We have always thought of our libraries at Harvard as being a global resource," said Lawrence H. Summers, president of Harvard.
At least initially, Google's digitizing task will be labor intensive, with people placing the books and documents on sophisticated scanners whose high-resolution cameras capture an image of each page and convert it to a digital file.
Google, whose corporate campus in Mountain View, Calif., is just a few miles from Stanford, plans to transport books to a copying center it has established at its headquarters. There the books will be scanned and then returned to the Stanford libraries. Google plans to set up remote scanning operations at both Michigan and Harvard.
The company refused to comment on the technology that it was using to digitize books, except to say that it was nondestructive. But according to a person who has been briefed on the project, Google's technology is more labor-intensive than systems that are already commercially available.
Two small start-up companies, 4DigitalBooks of St. Aubin, Switzerland, and Kirtas Technologies of Victor, N.Y., are selling systems that automatically turn pages to capture images.
December 14, 2004
Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database
By JOHN MARKOFF and EDWARD WYATT
Google, the operator of the world's most popular Internet search service, plans to announce an agreement today with some of the nation's leading research libraries and Oxford University to begin converting their holdings into digital files that would be freely searchable over the Web.
It may be only a step on a long road toward the long-predicted global virtual library. But the collaboration of Google and research institutions that also include Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford and the New York Public Library is a major stride in an ambitious Internet effort by various parties. The goal is to expand the Web beyond its current valuable, if eclectic, body of material and create a digital card catalog and searchable library for the world's books, scholarly papers and special collections.
Google - newly wealthy from its stock offering last summer - has agreed to underwrite the projects being announced today while also adding its own technical abilities to the task of scanning and digitizing tens of thousands of pages a day at each library.
Although Google executives declined to comment on its technology or the cost of the undertaking, others involved estimate the figure at $10 for each of the more than 15 million books and other documents covered in the agreements. Librarians involved predict the project could take at least a decade.
Because the Google agreements are not exclusive, the pacts are almost certain to touch off a race with other major Internet search providers like Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo. Like Google, they might seek the right to offer online access to library materials in return for selling advertising, while libraries would receive corporate help in digitizing their collections for their own institutional uses.
"Within two decades, most of the world's knowledge will be digitized and available, one hopes for free reading on the Internet, just as there is free reading in libraries today," said Michael A. Keller, Stanford University's head librarian.
The Google effort and others like it that are already under way, including projects by the Library of Congress to put selections of its best holdings online, are part of a trend to potentially democratize access to information that has long been available to only small, select groups of students and scholars.
Last night the Library of Congress and a group of international libraries from the United States, Canada, Egypt, China and the Netherlands announced a plan to create a publicly available digital archive of one million books on the Internet. The group said it planned to have 70,000 volumes online by next April.
"Having the great libraries at your fingertips allows us to build on and create great works based on the work of others," said Brewster Kahle, founder and president of the Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based digital library that is also trying to digitize existing print information.
The agreements to be announced today will allow Google to publish the full text of only those library books old enough to no longer be under copyright. For copyrighted works, Google would scan in the entire text, but make only short excerpts available online.
Each agreement with a library is slightly different. Google plans to digitize nearly all the eight million books in Stanford's collection and the seven million at Michigan. The Harvard project will initially be limited to only about 40,000 volumes. The scanning at Bodleian Library at Oxford will be limited to an unspecified number of books published before 1900, while the New York Public Library project will involve fragile material not under copyright that library officials said would be of interest primarily to scholars.
The trend toward online libraries and virtual card catalogs is one that already has book publishers scrambling to respond.
At least a dozen major publishing companies, including some of the country's biggest producers of nonfiction books - the primary target for the online text-search efforts - have already entered ventures with Google and Amazon that allow users to search the text of copyrighted books online and read excerpts.
Publishers including HarperCollins, the Penguin Group, Houghton Mifflin and Scholastic have signed up for both the Google and Amazon programs. The largest American trade publisher, Random House, participates in Amazon's program but is still negotiating with Google, which calls its program Google Print.
The Amazon and Google programs work by restricting the access of users to only a few pages of a copyrighted book during each search, offering enough to help them decide whether the book meets their requirements enough to justify ordering the print version. Those features restrict a user's ability to copy, cut or print the copyrighted material, while limiting on-screen reading to a few pages at a time. Books still under copyright at the libraries involved in Google's new project are likely to be protected by similar restrictions.
The challenge for publishers in coming years will be to continue to have libraries serve as major influential buyers of their books, without letting the newly vast digital public reading rooms undermine the companies' ability to make money commissioning and publishing authors' work.
From the earliest days of the printing press, book publishers were wary of the development of libraries at all. In many instances, they opposed the idea of a central facility offering free access to books that people would otherwise be compelled to buy.
But as libraries developed and publishers became aware that they could be among their best customers, that opposition faded. Now publishers aggressively court librarians with advance copies of books, seeking positive reviews of books in library journals and otherwise trying to influence the opinion of the people who influence the reading habits of millions. Some of that promotional impulse may translate to the online world, publishing executives say.
But at least initially, the search services are likely to be most useful to publishers whose nonfiction backlists, or catalogs of previously published titles, are of interest to scholars but do not sell regularly enough to be carried in large quantities in retail stores, said David Steinberger, the president and chief executive the Perseus Books Group, which publishes mostly nonfiction books under the Basic Books, PublicAffairs, Da Capo and other imprints.
Based on his experiences with Amazon's and Google's commercial search services so far, Mr. Steinberger said, "I think there is minimal risk, or virtually no risk, of copyrighted material being misused." But he said he would object to a library's providing copyrighted material online without a license. "If you're talking about the instantaneous, free distribution of books, I think that would represent a problem," Mr. Steinberger said.
For their part, libraries themselves will have to rethink their central missions as storehouses of printed, indexed material.
"Our world is about to change in a big, big way," said Daniel Greenstein, university librarian for the California Digital Library of the University of California, which is a project to organize and retain existing digital materials.
Instead of expending considerable time and money to managing their collections of printed materials, Mr. Greenstein said, libraries in the future can devote more energy to gathering information and making it accessible - and more easily manageable - online.
But Paul LeClerc, the president and chief executive of the New York Public Library, sees Web access as an expansion of libraries' reach, not a replacement for physical collections. "Librarians will add a new dimension to their work," Mr. LeClerc said. "They will not abandon their mission of collecting printed material and keeping them for decades and even centuries."
Google's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, have long vowed to make all of the world's information accessible to anyone with a Web browser. The agreements to be announced today will put them a few steps closer to that goal - at least in terms of the English-language portion of the world's information. Mr. Page said yesterday that the project traced to the roots of Google, which he and Mr. Brin founded in 1998 after taking a leave from a graduate computer science program at Stanford where they worked on a "digital libraries" project. "What we first discussed at Stanford is now becoming practical," Mr. Page said.
At Stanford, Google hopes to be able to scan 50,000 pages a day within the month, eventually doubling that rate, according to a person involved in the project.
The Google plan calls for making the library materials available as part of Google's regular Web service, which currently has an estimated eight billion Web pages in its database and tens of millions of users a day. As with the other information on its service, Google will sell advertising to generate revenue from its library material. (In it existing Google Print program, the company shares advertising revenue with the participating book publishers.)
Each library, meanwhile, will receive its own copy of the digital database created from that institution's holdings, which the library can make available through its own Web site if it chooses.
Harvard officials said they would be happy to use the Internet to share their collections widely. "We have always thought of our libraries at Harvard as being a global resource," said Lawrence H. Summers, president of Harvard.
At least initially, Google's digitizing task will be labor intensive, with people placing the books and documents on sophisticated scanners whose high-resolution cameras capture an image of each page and convert it to a digital file.
Google, whose corporate campus in Mountain View, Calif., is just a few miles from Stanford, plans to transport books to a copying center it has established at its headquarters. There the books will be scanned and then returned to the Stanford libraries. Google plans to set up remote scanning operations at both Michigan and Harvard.
The company refused to comment on the technology that it was using to digitize books, except to say that it was nondestructive. But according to a person who has been briefed on the project, Google's technology is more labor-intensive than systems that are already commercially available.
Two small start-up companies, 4DigitalBooks of St. Aubin, Switzerland, and Kirtas Technologies of Victor, N.Y., are selling systems that automatically turn pages to capture images.
Friday, October 15, 2004
BBC > Intel shift over need for speed
The world's largest chip maker, Intel, is changing its approach to making faster computer microprocessors.
It has dropped plans to release a four gigahertz version of its flagship Pentium 4 chip.
Intel's shift reflects a change for the chip industry, which is moving away from boosts in megahertz and gigahertz.
Instead it is looking to boost chip performance in ways other than simply increasing computational brainpower, also known as clock speed.
Dual power
In the past, chip makers have been involved in a speed race, looking at ways of increasing a microprocessors clock speed.
This is a measure of how fast a chip can crunch numbers
Intel's current fastest chip processes computer instructions at speeds of up to 3.6GHz.
The promised 4GHz chip was supposed to power the fastest-ever generation of Intel-based PCs early next year.
But Intel has cancelled those plans to focus on other ways of getting more out of chips, such as its dual-core project.
This involves putting the power of two microprocessors in a single package, thus offering faster computing.
Engineers are also working on ways of tweaking chip design to squeeze more power out of them.
Intel has pushed the clock speed of its PC chips since the launch of the 5MHz 8088 processor in 1979.
Its decision marks a shift in the quest for speed. Rivals like AMD have also adopted a similar approach, looking at other ways of making chips that can handle more than one task at once, such as playing music and making a home video.
The latest change in Intel's strategy follows a series of other miscalculations by the company.
It delayed a new line of laptop chips in January, recalled a desktop chip in June and pushed back another laptop chip in July.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go /pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology /3746640.stm
Published: 2004/10/15 12:20:22 GMT
? BBC MMIV
It has dropped plans to release a four gigahertz version of its flagship Pentium 4 chip.
Intel's shift reflects a change for the chip industry, which is moving away from boosts in megahertz and gigahertz.
Instead it is looking to boost chip performance in ways other than simply increasing computational brainpower, also known as clock speed.
Dual power
In the past, chip makers have been involved in a speed race, looking at ways of increasing a microprocessors clock speed.
This is a measure of how fast a chip can crunch numbers
Intel's current fastest chip processes computer instructions at speeds of up to 3.6GHz.
The promised 4GHz chip was supposed to power the fastest-ever generation of Intel-based PCs early next year.
But Intel has cancelled those plans to focus on other ways of getting more out of chips, such as its dual-core project.
This involves putting the power of two microprocessors in a single package, thus offering faster computing.
Engineers are also working on ways of tweaking chip design to squeeze more power out of them.
Intel has pushed the clock speed of its PC chips since the launch of the 5MHz 8088 processor in 1979.
Its decision marks a shift in the quest for speed. Rivals like AMD have also adopted a similar approach, looking at other ways of making chips that can handle more than one task at once, such as playing music and making a home video.
The latest change in Intel's strategy follows a series of other miscalculations by the company.
It delayed a new line of laptop chips in January, recalled a desktop chip in June and pushed back another laptop chip in July.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go /pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology /3746640.stm
Published: 2004/10/15 12:20:22 GMT
? BBC MMIV
Monday, October 11, 2004
Monday, October 04, 2004
Brighthand > New Version of Adobe Reader for Pocket PC Released
By Ed Hardy | Editor-in-Chief
Oct 4, 2004
Adobe has released Adobe Reader for Pocket PC 2.0, a free application that allows users to view Adobe PDF files.
The latest version allows users to enter data into forms and wirelessly submit it. When working offline, the data is temporarily stored, then submitted once a connection is established.
Forms can also be submitted by e-mail or directly to the destination server using a cradle or cable.
The new version of Adobe Reader for Pocket PC allows users to read ebooks in PDF format.
In addition, it can display slide shows generated by Adobe Photoshop Album software in portrait or landscape mode.
HP iPAQ users can print PDF files directly from a handheld device to a printer via Bluetooth.
Adobe Reader for Pocket PC 2.0 requires Windows Mobile 2003, but has limited support for Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition. It takes up about 7 MB of space on the handheld.
This free application can be downloaded from the Adobe web site.
Thanks to Pocket PC Thoughts for the tip.
Oct 4, 2004
Adobe has released Adobe Reader for Pocket PC 2.0, a free application that allows users to view Adobe PDF files.
The latest version allows users to enter data into forms and wirelessly submit it. When working offline, the data is temporarily stored, then submitted once a connection is established.
Forms can also be submitted by e-mail or directly to the destination server using a cradle or cable.
The new version of Adobe Reader for Pocket PC allows users to read ebooks in PDF format.
In addition, it can display slide shows generated by Adobe Photoshop Album software in portrait or landscape mode.
HP iPAQ users can print PDF files directly from a handheld device to a printer via Bluetooth.
Adobe Reader for Pocket PC 2.0 requires Windows Mobile 2003, but has limited support for Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition. It takes up about 7 MB of space on the handheld.
This free application can be downloaded from the Adobe web site.
Thanks to Pocket PC Thoughts for the tip.
Pocket PC Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves
Pocket PC Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves: "Sunday, October 3, 2004
T-Mobile Releases iPAQ 6315 Update
Posted by Janak Parekh @ 05:00 PM
If you're an iPAQ 6315 owner using T-Mobile service, and are having trouble sending email, check out this update.
Quote:
Get more from your HP iPAQ h6315
Installing this update will improve the wireless performance of your HP iPAQ h6315 Pocket PC. You should install this update if:
* You are experiencing difficulties sending e-mails over GPRS using Pocket Inbox.
* You are experiencing difficulties sending e-mails with attachments over GPRS using Pocket Inbox.
* You are experiencing difficulties sending large files over GPRS using other applications.
* Your iPAQ has an older software version. Click here for instructions on checking your software version."
___________________________________________________
I installed the update. I was having great difficulty blogging from my iPaq 6315. It seems to have cleared up the problem. John H. Armwood
T-Mobile Releases iPAQ 6315 Update
Posted by Janak Parekh @ 05:00 PM
If you're an iPAQ 6315 owner using T-Mobile service, and are having trouble sending email, check out this update.
Quote:
Get more from your HP iPAQ h6315
Installing this update will improve the wireless performance of your HP iPAQ h6315 Pocket PC. You should install this update if:
* You are experiencing difficulties sending e-mails over GPRS using Pocket Inbox.
* You are experiencing difficulties sending e-mails with attachments over GPRS using Pocket Inbox.
* You are experiencing difficulties sending large files over GPRS using other applications.
* Your iPAQ has an older software version. Click here for instructions on checking your software version."
___________________________________________________
I installed the update. I was having great difficulty blogging from my iPaq 6315. It seems to have cleared up the problem. John H. Armwood
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
BBC > $550,000 fine for Janet exposure
Federal regulators in the US have fined the CBS TV network a record $550,000 (£306,814) for pop star Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in February.
The singer exposed her right breast during a dance routine with Justin Timberlake at this year's Super Bowl.
Now the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has fined 20 CBS-owned TV stations the maximum penalty for indecency - $27,500 (£15,340) - each.
The fine is the largest ever levied against a US television broadcaster.
However, the agency's five commissioners decided not to fine CBS's affiliate stations - more than 200 in all - which also aired the show.
The breast-baring incident generated a record number of complaints - more than 500,000 - and CBS was quick to apologise.
Timberlake blamed the exposure on a "wardrobe malfunction", while Jackson said it had been an accident.
In March she told chat show host David Letterman a second piece of material had been in place to conceal her breast when Timberlake ripped off her bustier.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go /pr/fr/-/2/hi /entertainment/3681326 .stm
The singer exposed her right breast during a dance routine with Justin Timberlake at this year's Super Bowl.
Now the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has fined 20 CBS-owned TV stations the maximum penalty for indecency - $27,500 (£15,340) - each.
The fine is the largest ever levied against a US television broadcaster.
However, the agency's five commissioners decided not to fine CBS's affiliate stations - more than 200 in all - which also aired the show.
The breast-baring incident generated a record number of complaints - more than 500,000 - and CBS was quick to apologise.
Timberlake blamed the exposure on a "wardrobe malfunction", while Jackson said it had been an accident.
In March she told chat show host David Letterman a second piece of material had been in place to conceal her breast when Timberlake ripped off her bustier.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go /pr/fr/-/2/hi /entertainment/3681326 .stm
Thursday, September 02, 2004
PCWorld.com - Should Your Next PC Be a Workstation?
PCWorld.com - Should Your Next PC Be a Workstation?: "Should Your Next PC Be a Workstation?
Despite sub-$1000 prices, the answer still depends on what apps you run.
David Essex
From the October 2004 issue of PC World magazine
Posted Thursday, September 02, 2004
Until recently, workstation meant a pricey power system that graced the desk of an engineer, a graphics designer, or a professional video editor. But astute PC shoppers who see workstations following conventional desktop PCs down past the $1000 barrier are asking: Should I buy a workstation instead?
The answer: Get one only if you run industrial-strength programs that need high-end graphics and performance, and if you're willing to pay extra for fail-safe reliability. Workstations remain special-purpose systems that contain souped-up hardware and undergo extensive testing, which costs a premium. But with that premium down to a few hundred bucks, the choice really depends on your needs.
It's easy to find affordable, introductory workstations that run Windows. Both Dell and Hewlett-Packard market Windows XP-based workstations starting at under $1000 and stretching to about $3500; IBM's offerings cost only a few hundred dollars more. Midrange ($3000 to $10,000) and high-end units typically have bigger cases than PCs, more memory and PCI slots, and more drive bays, making frequent upgrades easy.
Power, Redundancy
Most workstations have error-checking and -correcting memory that won't drop the occasional bit--a flaw unnoticeable in fast-moving games but disastrous when calculating jet aircraft tolerances. These units have larger power supplies and better, quieter fans to avoid overheating.
Even some entry-level workstations support dual CPUs,"
Despite sub-$1000 prices, the answer still depends on what apps you run.
David Essex
From the October 2004 issue of PC World magazine
Posted Thursday, September 02, 2004
Until recently, workstation meant a pricey power system that graced the desk of an engineer, a graphics designer, or a professional video editor. But astute PC shoppers who see workstations following conventional desktop PCs down past the $1000 barrier are asking: Should I buy a workstation instead?
The answer: Get one only if you run industrial-strength programs that need high-end graphics and performance, and if you're willing to pay extra for fail-safe reliability. Workstations remain special-purpose systems that contain souped-up hardware and undergo extensive testing, which costs a premium. But with that premium down to a few hundred bucks, the choice really depends on your needs.
It's easy to find affordable, introductory workstations that run Windows. Both Dell and Hewlett-Packard market Windows XP-based workstations starting at under $1000 and stretching to about $3500; IBM's offerings cost only a few hundred dollars more. Midrange ($3000 to $10,000) and high-end units typically have bigger cases than PCs, more memory and PCI slots, and more drive bays, making frequent upgrades easy.
Power, Redundancy
Most workstations have error-checking and -correcting memory that won't drop the occasional bit--a flaw unnoticeable in fast-moving games but disastrous when calculating jet aircraft tolerances. These units have larger power supplies and better, quieter fans to avoid overheating.
Even some entry-level workstations support dual CPUs,"
PC Magazine Opinion: How Good is the Portable Media Center?
PC Magazine Opinion: How Good is the Portable Media Center?: "How Good is the Portable Media Center?
September 2, 2004
By Michael J. Miller
So how good is the Microsoft Portable Media Center (PMC)? Not bad, not bad at all, especially for a first-generation product. It has a good user interface and was pretty intuitive to use, despite a few glitches.
Effectively, the UI is a new version of Windows Media Player (version 10). I've never been a huge fan of WMP, despite its decent performance, preferring the UI in jukebox software like Musicmatch. But the new version is a lot cleaner, with the basic controls now on the top (instead of on the side), and with more intuitive controls such as Rip and Burn. And it finally lets you create MP3 files without a third-party add-on.
The new version adds a Sync screen, where you can select material to be copied to a PMC or a supported music player. From this screen, you can select music, recorded TV shows, video, or photographs to move to the device. You can also set it up to sync automatically, transferring the most recent content to the device.
The PMC devices, and other upcoming music players that support Microsoft's new Media Transfer Protocol (MTP), will also let you take music you are renting�say from Napster's streaming service�and put it on the devices using Microsoft's new 'Janus' DRM technology. This lets you play the music, but only if you sync often enough for the software to verify that you're still licensed to listen to the music. This is an interesting development, though I wonder how many people will pay extra for the ability to take their music with them on such a device.
In general, everything worked pretty well for me�transferring songs I ripped, renting songs, and downloading tracks I purchased. And I "
September 2, 2004
By Michael J. Miller
So how good is the Microsoft Portable Media Center (PMC)? Not bad, not bad at all, especially for a first-generation product. It has a good user interface and was pretty intuitive to use, despite a few glitches.
Effectively, the UI is a new version of Windows Media Player (version 10). I've never been a huge fan of WMP, despite its decent performance, preferring the UI in jukebox software like Musicmatch. But the new version is a lot cleaner, with the basic controls now on the top (instead of on the side), and with more intuitive controls such as Rip and Burn. And it finally lets you create MP3 files without a third-party add-on.
The new version adds a Sync screen, where you can select material to be copied to a PMC or a supported music player. From this screen, you can select music, recorded TV shows, video, or photographs to move to the device. You can also set it up to sync automatically, transferring the most recent content to the device.
The PMC devices, and other upcoming music players that support Microsoft's new Media Transfer Protocol (MTP), will also let you take music you are renting�say from Napster's streaming service�and put it on the devices using Microsoft's new 'Janus' DRM technology. This lets you play the music, but only if you sync often enough for the software to verify that you're still licensed to listen to the music. This is an interesting development, though I wonder how many people will pay extra for the ability to take their music with them on such a device.
In general, everything worked pretty well for me�transferring songs I ripped, renting songs, and downloading tracks I purchased. And I "
The New York Times > Opinion > Mr. Bush and the Truth About Terror
The New York Times > Opinion > Mr. Bush and the Truth About Terror: "September 2, 2004
Mr. Bush and the Truth About Terror
While Republican delegates have been meeting in New York City, terrorist bombs have been exploding in the rest of the world. The horrific pictures of victims on an Israeli bus and slain airplane and subway passengers, as well as of a school held hostage in Russia, are a stark reminder to Americans that terrorism is not all about us. It is the tactic of preference for the self-obsessed radical movements of our age.
President Bush was absolutely right when he said it was impossible to win a war against terrorism - it's like announcing we can win a war against violence. Terrorism can only be minimized and controlled, and that can be done only with a worldwide strategy, joined by all of the world's sensible and peaceful nations. We hope that when Mr. Bush accepts his party's nomination for re-election tonight, he makes that argument.
The chances of a serious dialogue about terror took a blow, of course, when Mr. Bush retracted his completely sensible statement about terrorism after the Kerry-Edwards campaign attacked it. So far, this has been an election season of monumental simple-mindedness, in which the candidates start each day by telling us this is the most important election in the history of the planet, then devote the rest of their waking hours to meaningless sniping. But it's certainly not too late to elevate the conversation.
Tonight we do not need Mr. Bush to remind us that he went to ground zero and spoke through a bullhorn. It was a fine gesture that any president would have made. As far as judging his leadership, it is as irrelevant as the famous extra minutes he spent in a classroom in Flori"
Mr. Bush and the Truth About Terror
While Republican delegates have been meeting in New York City, terrorist bombs have been exploding in the rest of the world. The horrific pictures of victims on an Israeli bus and slain airplane and subway passengers, as well as of a school held hostage in Russia, are a stark reminder to Americans that terrorism is not all about us. It is the tactic of preference for the self-obsessed radical movements of our age.
President Bush was absolutely right when he said it was impossible to win a war against terrorism - it's like announcing we can win a war against violence. Terrorism can only be minimized and controlled, and that can be done only with a worldwide strategy, joined by all of the world's sensible and peaceful nations. We hope that when Mr. Bush accepts his party's nomination for re-election tonight, he makes that argument.
The chances of a serious dialogue about terror took a blow, of course, when Mr. Bush retracted his completely sensible statement about terrorism after the Kerry-Edwards campaign attacked it. So far, this has been an election season of monumental simple-mindedness, in which the candidates start each day by telling us this is the most important election in the history of the planet, then devote the rest of their waking hours to meaningless sniping. But it's certainly not too late to elevate the conversation.
Tonight we do not need Mr. Bush to remind us that he went to ground zero and spoke through a bullhorn. It was a fine gesture that any president would have made. As far as judging his leadership, it is as irrelevant as the famous extra minutes he spent in a classroom in Flori"
Japan Today - News - Annan wants more troops in Sudan - Japan's Leading International News Network
Japan Today - News - Annan wants more troops in Sudan - Japan's Leading International News Network: "Annan wants more troops in Sudan
Thursday, September 2, 2004 at 07:50 JST
UNITED NATIONS - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Wednesday that Sudan's government has not stopped attacks on 'terrorized and traumatized' civilians in its Darfur region and urged the speedy deployment of an expanded international peacekeeping force.
Annan did not say how large a force he wanted, but U.N. diplomats said a U.N. plan presented to the African Union called for about 3,000 peacekeepers. The 53-nation African organization now has about 80 military observers in Darfur, protected by just over 300 soldiers"
Thursday, September 2, 2004 at 07:50 JST
UNITED NATIONS - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Wednesday that Sudan's government has not stopped attacks on 'terrorized and traumatized' civilians in its Darfur region and urged the speedy deployment of an expanded international peacekeeping force.
Annan did not say how large a force he wanted, but U.N. diplomats said a U.N. plan presented to the African Union called for about 3,000 peacekeepers. The 53-nation African organization now has about 80 military observers in Darfur, protected by just over 300 soldiers"
Microsoft announces Windows Portable Media Center devices and Microsoft Music beta
According to Microsoft, five years ago, less than 13 percent of Internet users had a digital-music file on their computer. Now, 70 percent of computer users listen to music on their PCs. Last year, more than 100 million digital photos were taken. More and more people are using PCs to view videos. By the end of this year, 9.5 million TV tuner cards will have shipped.
The company has announced a series of new products and services, along with services and devices from partners. The release today of Windows Media Player 10, Portable Media Center devices, and MSN Music preview will place Microsoft in direct competition with other companies betting on individual content, like Apple and HP with their iPod devices.
The company says the new Windows Media Player 10 is central to Microsoft's digital-media strategy. The new Media Player 10 offers a built-in online Digital Media Mall, which provides access to online stores and services, including the newly announced MSN Music, and others like CinemaNow, MusicMatch, MusicNow, Napster and Wal-Mart. Windows Media Player 10 also includes support for more than 70 portable devices, and it enables users to automatically copy music, video, pictures, and recorded TV to portable devices. The new version will be available 2 September 6AM PDT.
The Portable Media Center is an entirely new category of handheld devices to make digital music, TV, movies, and pictures stored on a PCs to be available on a mobile device.
The first Portable Media Center, built by Creative Labs (Creative Labs 20GB Zen pictured), includes a 3.75-inch screen (9.5 centimeters) and 20GB hard drive, enough storage for 80 hours of video, 5,000 songs, and tens of thousands of pictures. Samsung is also working to put its own Portable Media Center in the market.
The company has announced a series of new products and services, along with services and devices from partners. The release today of Windows Media Player 10, Portable Media Center devices, and MSN Music preview will place Microsoft in direct competition with other companies betting on individual content, like Apple and HP with their iPod devices.
The company says the new Windows Media Player 10 is central to Microsoft's digital-media strategy. The new Media Player 10 offers a built-in online Digital Media Mall, which provides access to online stores and services, including the newly announced MSN Music, and others like CinemaNow, MusicMatch, MusicNow, Napster and Wal-Mart. Windows Media Player 10 also includes support for more than 70 portable devices, and it enables users to automatically copy music, video, pictures, and recorded TV to portable devices. The new version will be available 2 September 6AM PDT.
The Portable Media Center is an entirely new category of handheld devices to make digital music, TV, movies, and pictures stored on a PCs to be available on a mobile device.
The first Portable Media Center, built by Creative Labs (Creative Labs 20GB Zen pictured), includes a 3.75-inch screen (9.5 centimeters) and 20GB hard drive, enough storage for 80 hours of video, 5,000 songs, and tens of thousands of pictures. Samsung is also working to put its own Portable Media Center in the market.
eHomeUpgrade | Engadget Reviews the Creative Zen Portable Media Center - September 2, 2004
eHomeUpgrade | Engadget Reviews the Creative Zen Portable Media Center - September 2, 2004: "Engadget Reviews the Creative Zen Portable Media Center
Category: Portable Media Players - September 2, 2004
By Alexander Grundner
Phillip Torrone at Engadget takes the the Creative Zen Portable Media Center for spin and finds that device has something for everyone, as long as you own Media Center or a PC with a TV tuner/recorder. Overall Phillip seems satisfied with the PMC's (Portable Media Center � Microsoft's portable media player OS) features, functionality, and battery life, but points out the player's limited digital media file format support and that Window Media Player 10 takes a very long to time to convert a PC's pre-recorded video to a format suitable for the player � 30 minute video takes about 30 minutes to encode.
Philip also points to some workarounds to make the product more useful like DVD-To-Pocket PC, a program that can shrink down a DVD to play well on a Pocket PC or handheld video device like the PMC. His final thoughts, �Personal video players are still fairly new, and it�s going to take some time to see if people start buying these. We think the biggest obstacle will be the frustrating copyright laws regarding movies and DVDs, so while you can copy DVDs you own onto these devices, it�s not exactly easy and the legality of doing so is still unclear."
Category: Portable Media Players - September 2, 2004
By Alexander Grundner
Phillip Torrone at Engadget takes the the Creative Zen Portable Media Center for spin and finds that device has something for everyone, as long as you own Media Center or a PC with a TV tuner/recorder. Overall Phillip seems satisfied with the PMC's (Portable Media Center � Microsoft's portable media player OS) features, functionality, and battery life, but points out the player's limited digital media file format support and that Window Media Player 10 takes a very long to time to convert a PC's pre-recorded video to a format suitable for the player � 30 minute video takes about 30 minutes to encode.
Philip also points to some workarounds to make the product more useful like DVD-To-Pocket PC, a program that can shrink down a DVD to play well on a Pocket PC or handheld video device like the PMC. His final thoughts, �Personal video players are still fairly new, and it�s going to take some time to see if people start buying these. We think the biggest obstacle will be the frustrating copyright laws regarding movies and DVDs, so while you can copy DVDs you own onto these devices, it�s not exactly easy and the legality of doing so is still unclear."
Monday, August 30, 2004
[print version] Ericsson pulls Bluetooth division | CNET News.com
[print version] Ericsson pulls Bluetooth division | CNET News.com: "Ericsson pulls Bluetooth division
By Richard Shim
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
http://news.com.com/2100-1039-5327431.html
Story last modified August 27, 2004, 1:42 PM PDT
One of the key developers of Bluetooth is shutting down the division that helped foster the personal area networking technology.
Ericsson has already started to shut down its 125-worker Technology Licensing group and will reshuffle employees into other divisions, a representative confirmed Friday. A majority of the workers affected will remain with the company. Ericsson did not make a formal announcement of the closure.
Bluetooth is a short-range radio technology that connects portable devices such as cell phones, handheld devices and notebook computers. The technology has a range of up to 10 meters and wirelessly transfers data at rates of up to 720 kilobits per second.
Ericsson doesn't plan to continue design and development around Bluetooth, but it will continue to support existing customers and include it in products, the company representative said. Bluetooth technology efforts will be incorporated into the work of Ericsson's Mobile Platforms group.
Further advancements in Bluetooth technology will be made by the Special Interest Group"
By Richard Shim
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
http://news.com.com/2100-1039-5327431.html
Story last modified August 27, 2004, 1:42 PM PDT
One of the key developers of Bluetooth is shutting down the division that helped foster the personal area networking technology.
Ericsson has already started to shut down its 125-worker Technology Licensing group and will reshuffle employees into other divisions, a representative confirmed Friday. A majority of the workers affected will remain with the company. Ericsson did not make a formal announcement of the closure.
Bluetooth is a short-range radio technology that connects portable devices such as cell phones, handheld devices and notebook computers. The technology has a range of up to 10 meters and wirelessly transfers data at rates of up to 720 kilobits per second.
Ericsson doesn't plan to continue design and development around Bluetooth, but it will continue to support existing customers and include it in products, the company representative said. Bluetooth technology efforts will be incorporated into the work of Ericsson's Mobile Platforms group.
Further advancements in Bluetooth technology will be made by the Special Interest Group"
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