Archive for January, 2009

I’m not so sure I would want to store my stuff in a cloud.

A Google source code file has given a clear indication that Google is indeed working on its rumored GDrive cloud storage service, and what the company has in mind for the service.

GDrive is reported to be Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) foray into a providing an online storage service. The rumors of its existence date back to 2006, but it has yet to surface officially. This is hardly a green field; in fact, it’s probably fairer to say the online storage market is cluttered with many products, from Carbonite to Mozy to Backblaze to Sugar Sync and many more.

Clouds (and some jobs in jobs in finance) dissipate you know.

I didn’t know anyone who used this when it was new, let alone now. It’s time to cut back, like you were taking Leptovox. If you’re one of those people, you better get your stuff. All 30 mb of it.

Yahoo’s Briefcase online storage service, which soldiered on for almost 10 years with a distinctly Web 1.0 capacity of 30MB, is finally being shut down.

Users of the free service, which lets people upload files as big as 5MB and organize them in folders, are being greeted by a message that says they have to download or delete their files by March 30. After that, the accounts will be closed and files deleted.

By now, plenty of educated guesses have been offered about what the next-generation Kindle e-reader will look like and do, and fans expect to find out for sure when Amazon.com holds a news conference in New York on Feb. 9.

But even if Kindle’s design changes are dramatic, some handheld analysts question how much the e-reader market can grow — especially when it and other e-reader handhelds can cost more than $359.

If these rumors are true, I know what I am adding to my wishlist in addition to the TW Steel watches I have been wishing for.

It looks like Monster finally decided to tell everyone what was going on.

Monster Worldwide Inc, the popular global website for job hunters, said Tuesday that hackers have broken into its databases and stolen personal data.

Monster spokeswoman Nikki Richardson confirmed that sites around the world had been targeted, but said some regions, notably Asia Pacific and eastern Europe, were spared.

She said Monster was working with the “appropriate law enforcement agencies” but declined to say in which countries. In the United States, where the company is based, “an investigation is in progress.”

Monster operates in 36 countries with millions of users, including 4.5 million in Britain.

If you’re the one that stole my data, can you let me know if I have had any offers? Ha! Just kidding.

They turned down $500 million from Facebook but they want someone else to pony up $250 million with no guarantee of any return on their investment and no plan for monetization.

Twitter, which just recently turned down a half billion dollar acquisition offer from Facebook (albeit to be paid mostly with Facebook stock), is dipping back into the venture capital market, we’ve heard from a source with knowledge of the deal. They’ve signed a term sheet with at least one venture fund to raise a new round at a $250 million valuation.

Hey. I can do that. I have a rock I can sell them, including term life insurance, for far less than $250 million too.

Internet security firm Intego said on Thursday that it has discovered a new Trojan horse in pirated copies of Apple’s iWork ‘09 productivity software that could allow an attacker to take control of the infected computer.

The Trojan horse, OSX.Trojan.iServices.A, discovered circulating in copies of the software on BitTorrent trackers and other pirate sites, is rated serious, according to Intego’s security alert.

That’s what you get when you download pirated software. Sometimes you get the treasure chest, sometimes you get the booby prize.

Good news! There’s still time to download crap!

It looks like we may have been a bit hasty in announcing the end of the Windows 7 public beta downloads. Although Microsoft had originally pegged today as the finale, they’ve decided to extend the deadline until February 10th, 2009.

Users with slow connections will be glad to know that there’s a two day period. As long as your download starts on the 10th, you’ll have until the 12th to finish it. Product keys will “continue to be available after February 12th,” though the announcement doesn’t say what the final date will be.

Wow. Two days to download something. Do people really do that anymore?

This amazes me.

Microsoft Corp posted quarterly results that missed Wall Street expectations, announced it would cut up to 5,000 jobs and said it could no longer offer profit forecasts for the rest of the fiscal year.

Shares of Microsoft fell 8.5 percent in pre-market trading.

Microsoft posted a $4.17 billion profit, but they still felt the need to cut 5,000 jobs. Absolutely insane.

World-leading mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. on Thursday said profits plunged 69 percent in the fourth quarter and warned the economic downturn would batter the handset industry harder than previously thought.

As it released quarterly results below expectations, Nokia said it was losing market share, but promised sharp cost cuts and insisted it was still best equipped to ride out the recession.

“A market leader like Nokia has a better opportunity to face the challenging conditions than weaker competitors,” Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told reporters in Helsinki.

Net profit was euro576 million ($743.62 million), down from euro1.84 billion in the same period in 2007.

They still made a profit. $743 million in fact. A profit people. How bad is the economy if your company is still making a profit?

Did anyone actually believe that the state of Kentucky could seize internet domain names because of the content running on those domains?

Kentucky may not seize 141 online casinos’ Internet domain names in an attempt to block them from operating within the state’s borders, a three-judge appeals panel ruled.

In a 2-1 opinion Tuesday, the Kentucky Court of Appeals panel said an Internet domain name is not a gambling device. That left the Franklin County Circuit Court without jurisdiction in the matter.

Crazy.