Archive for January, 2008

Microsoft has just made virtualization much more affordable. Of course, I think that also means they just made virtual blue screens of death much more noticeable too.

Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced several moves it says will help its business customers take advantage of a technology called virtualization, and in the process help the software maker catch up with VMware Inc., the frontrunner in that area.

Virtualization allows one physical computer to house multiple “virtual machines,” each one acting like a separate computer with an operating system and all the software that runs on top of it.

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To help move the virtual desktop scenario forward, Microsoft said Monday it plans to acquire Calista Technologies Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based start-up founded in 2006. Calista’s technology makes logging on to a virtual desktop feel more like working on a physical Windows computer, Microsoft said. No financial details of the agreement were disclosed.

Microsoft also said it will expand an alliance with another virtual desktop computing company, Citrix Systems Inc., that will help their respective products work well together.

Redmond-based Microsoft also announced it will cut the cost of licensing Windows for use on virtual machines to $23 from $78 per year for its big business customers.

Don’t get me wrong, this really is good news for some users. Just think, some of you will have absolutely no control over your machine, because it won’t be real, but that’s okay because you weren’t sure what I meant by the word virtualization anyway.

Whoa. Several months ago I was getting slammed by some “friends” in Turkey, who were hellbent on taking down my site. Why? I have no idea, but they really, really, liked visiting my site for some reason.

A Turkish court has again blocked access to the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube because of clips allegedly insulting the country’s founding father, according to reports Sunday.

It was the second time Turkey banned the site because of clips deemed disrespectful to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It is illegal in Turkey to insult the revered figure, whose portrait still hangs in nearly all government offices nearly 70 years after his death.

Users trying to access the Web site from Turkey were met with notices in English and Turkish saying it was banned under an Ankara court order issued Jan. 17.

If I had only known that all I had to do was insult their country’s founding father, I might have done it months ago and saved myself the grief of having to fight to keep the server running during their attack. Funny though, they offended me and I ended up banning Turkey. Ha! Take that Turkey.

I’m all for making things easier for managing your logins and all, but is placing one site in the center of all your logins really a good idea? What happens when Yahoo! decides to make money from their advertisers by sending you targeted ads based on the sites you have been visiting?

The announcement this week by Yahoo that it is planning to test a beta version of its Yahoo ID that supports the OpenID 2.0 protocol has thrown a bright spotlight on the quickly growing online identity-management system.

As of Jan. 30, any of Yahoo’s 248 million users will be able to log in to OpenID-compatible sites using a special version of their Yahoo log-in. When Yahoo users go to a site using the OpenID protocol, they will either see a special Yahoo log-in field, or they can type “yahoo.com” into an OpenID field to start the log-in process. The Web site will redirect the user to Yahoo to log in, and then Yahoo will forward the user’s identifying information back to the Web site.

The net effect is that Yahoo users will only have to enter identifying information once — on Yahoo — rather than on multiple sites across the Web.

What happens when all of this “central” information is breached? What happens if… you get the point.

Like I said at the beginning, I am all for making things easier, but the question is, do you really trust Yahoo! to do it for you?

Microsoft doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to listening to its customers, what makes this group think they’ll pay attention this time? What’s the plan if the powers that be in Redmond don’t blink?

Thirty thousand people have now signed InfoWorld’s “Save XP” petition, which was launched four days ago. Roughly half were from the U.S. and the rest from other countries.

The petition asks Microsoft not to discontinue Windows XP as planned on June 30, but to instead keep it available alongside the newer Windows Vista indefinitely. InfoWorld will deliver the petitions to Microsoft later this spring

And what’s with the comparisons toward the end of the article? Comparing Windows XP to Coca-Cola? That’s just sick man. I’ve seen Coke cans more stable than some installs of Windows.

If you’re interested in signing the petition, visit InfoWorld’s Save XP Petition.

I have mixed feelings about this acquisition. First of all, I have to ask the same question the journalist asks. Was it really worth it? $1 billion?!? Wow. If I was in charge of Sun Microsystems I could probably think of a number of things worth more to my company than MySQL.

Sun Microsystems’ purchase of MySQL for $1 billion is not only the largest open-source deal yet, it’s almost bigger than all previous open-source deals combined, including RedHat’s $326 million buy of JBoss, Citrix’s $500 million purchase of XenSource and Yahoo’s $350 million acquisition of Zimbra.

But the deal raises a number of questions for Sun. Was that $1 billion well spent? What will Sun do with its new database? And will the purchase improve its standing in the enterprise?

While it will take several years to see the ultimate value of the acquisition, Sun may well have overpaid, Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT, said in a telephone interview. “To paraphrase Sen. Edward Dirkson, a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money,” he quipped.

Don’t get me wrong, I love MySQL, and use it on a daily basis, so as long as they don’t muck with it too much I will be happy. But I can’t help but wonder what their true motive is. I know they are trying to expand into more of a software market, and this acquisition is definitely going to take time to prove it was really worth it.

I love articles that mention “the company unveiled” something from Apple. When has “the company” unveiled anything recently? Steve Jobs unveils things, but the company doesn’t. Steve Jobs is a genius. It’s that simple. He’s so smart that people attribute his ideas to a whole company rather than mentioning him by name.

Anyway, the whole reason I made this post, is I want a Mac now. I’ve toyed with the idea for a few months, but now I really, really, want one. I am not sure if I want an Air, but I do know I want a Mac either way.

Apple has pulled an ultrathin notebook out of its innovation hat. The company unveiled the wireless MacBook Airat the Macworld Expo on Tuesday.

MacBook Air measures 0.16 inches at its thinnest point, while its maximum thickness of 0.76 inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks. MacBook Air boasts a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, a full-size and backlit keyboard, a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing, and a trackpad with multi-touch gesture support so users can pinch, rotate and swipe.

The only thing I find wrong with the MacBook Air is the fact that you can’t replace the battery, well, and the fact that it only has one USB port and no firewire. But I could live with those last two items, it’s the battery that concerns me. Heck they could be selling it housed in a top of the line Chrysler 300 accessory and I would probably still be interested.

I know everyone is posting about the MacBook Air, and if it wasn’t for the battery issue, I would be getting one as soon as I could. I haven’t seen one in person yet, but I know the moment I do, I will want one even more.

While I do not own a mac (yet), I always get excited when Steve Jobs delivers the keynote speech at MacWorld. Wow. Am I jazzed this year. Movie rentals. Okay, so a lot of us suspected he was going to announce it. To see it in action, today, right now. A.W.E.S.O.M.E.

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) unveiled a lightweight laptop about three-quarters of an inch thick on Tuesday and said it would start renting movies over the Internet, moving the iPhone and iPod maker into a very competitive market.

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With Web movie rentals, Apple takes on DVD-by-mail rental service Netflix, which also allows online viewing, as well as a host of others eager to make it possible to watch movies easily and instantly over the Web.

According to Jobs, movies will be $2.99 or $3.99 depending on the film, and that rocks, cuz sometimes I just wanna sit and watch a movie, and I don’t want to deal with Netflix, or Blockbuster, or any of that crap. I just want to choose it, and have it on my iPod to watch. Apple does that for me.

Thanks Steve!

At first glance, this new shopping cart idea looks pretty good. You can enter your list at home, head to the store, and bring up your list on the shopping cart itself. Then, as you add items to the cart you scan them and it keeps a running total so you know exactly how much you have spent. Pretty convenient huh?

Microsoft Corp. is bringing digital advertising to the grocery cart.

The software maker spent four years working with Plano, Texas-based MediaCart Holdings Inc. on a grocery cart-mounted console that helps shoppers find products in the store, then scan and pay for their items without waiting in the checkout line. Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive, an online advertising company, last year for $6 billion shored up the company’s capacity to serve video ads onto these grocery cart screens.

Starting in the second half of 2008, the companies plan to test MediaCart in Wakefern Food Corp.’s ShopRite supermarkets on the East Coast. Customers with a ShopRite loyalty card will be able to log into a Web site at home and type in their grocery lists; when they get to the store and swipe their card on the MediaCart console, the list will appear. As shoppers scan their items and place them in their cart, the console gives a running price tally and checks items off the shopping list.

Well, that convenience comes with a price. That’s right, there is always price.

The system also uses radio-frequency identification to sense where the shopper’s cart is in the store. The RFID data can help ShopRite and food makers understand shopping patterns, and the technology can also be used to send certain advertisements to people at certain points — an ad for 50 cents off Oreos, for example, when a shopper enters the cookie aisle. Microsoft said it is still working on how it will present commercials and coupons.

Microsoft is also working with MediaCart and ShopRite to help advertisers reach potential consumers based on past grocery purchases, which are logged when they swipe their loyalty cards.

I wonder how long it will be before some Vegas hotel decides to tap into the shopping carts and allow you to play slot machines while you shop too? You know it’s coming.

In exchange for this great new feature, you will have to use one of their shopper loyalty cards and allow them to track exactly what you do and do not purchase while you are at the store. In addition to tracking your purchases, they will also be able to send data directly to the cart when you enter specific aisles. If I already have my list, I don’t need a commercial telling me about products in the store. Why do they need to know what brands of cereal I buy anyway?

Oh, and I’m not so sure I need to see a commercial for feminine hygeine products when I enter the aisle to pick up deodorant.

I stopped using Netflix a long time ago, because the service just wasn’t worth it, as far as I was concerned. With their new $16.99 per month for unlimited movies I may just have to take another look.

Girding for a potential threat from Apple Inc., online DVD rental service Netflix Inc. is lifting its limits on how long most subscribers can watch movies and television shows over high-speed Internet connections.

The Associated Press has learned the change will become effective Monday, on the eve of Apple’s widely anticipated move into the movie rental industry. Although Apple hasn’t confirmed anything yet, Chief Executive Steve Jobs is expected to make it official during a presentation Tuesday in San Francisco.

I am more interested, however, in Apple’s announcement that should come this week. Why? Because, there is nothing more simple than downloading my movies in iTunes and watching them on my iPod. Duh. If Steve makes it easier, it will be worth more for the service, IMHO.

I wonder how long Netflix will offer the unlimited service at that price. I bet it doesn’t last six months. Even shorter if they can find a good real estate agent to get them out of the building that houses their corporate offices.

What a concept. Helping poor children no matter where there are in the world. Revolutionary, I tell you.

The One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC) plans to launch OLPC America in 2008 to distribute the low-cost laptop computers originally aimed at developing nations to needy students in the United States.

The group, which was formed in the U.S. by teachers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), came under criticism shortly after forming because its original mission did not include the U.S.

Originally, the aim of OLPC was to develop a $100 laptop for kids in poor nations to ensure they don’t miss out on the benefits of computing, and to make sure developing countries don’t fall further and further behind modern nations due to their inability to buy computers, a conundrum commonly referred to as the digital divide.

Part of their decision had to do with being patriotic. Yes, they actually said that. Read the whole article. What part of making low-cost laptop computers to kids in poor nations, but excluding the poor kids in the United States have to do with patriotism? Sure, it’s great they are “expanding” to the United States, but charity begins at home. If they were being “patriotic” they never would have excluded kids in the United States in the first place.

One of their other reasons is expanding the horizons of poor kids in the United States, so they can communicate with the poor kids in othe rcountries. Are they starting the “One Internet Connection Per Child Project (OICPC) now too? If not, how are they going to use these computers to expand their horizons? Just wondering.

What about the One popup blocker Per Child program? You know, with all the crap out there, they really should be blocking those.