Software and Hardware

Facebook's Big Announcement

2012-01-20T03:14:00.000-08:00

Facebook's Big Announcement

The time has come for another Facebook launch event, and we're here to cover it live. Rumor has it that the social network will be launching more apps based on the Open Graph and Gestures

-- that is, apps that let you "verb" any "noun" (read a book, hike a trail, ride a bike and so on.)

For more details visit,
http://news.yahoo.com/facebooks-big-announcement-liveblog-192258371.html

windows 8 release date - Windows 8 Beta to Launch In Early 2012

2012-01-20T02:44:00.001-08:00

Windows 8 Beta to Launch In Early 2012

According to sources close to Microsoft, the first beta edition of Windows 8 is to be expected to be released in February of 2012. The Next Web claims to have received information to that effect. Microsoft released the developer preview edition of Windows 8 this September so it would make sense to see the first beta of Windows 8 around February next year.

For more details visit,
http://www.windows8news.com/2011/12/02/windows-8-beta-launch-early-2012/

Make Your Own Barcode Reader

2009-10-10T22:49:00.000-07:00

Why is Google a barcode? As you have noticed Google has replaced their usual front page with a giant barcode in celebration of the 57th anniversary of the first bar code patent.

Barcodesinc which is under a lot of traffic today,permits you to create miniature barcode in five formats to share ,stick on your wall, or to put on your T-shirts.

Make Your Own Barcode Reader – Make your own barcode (bar code reader ) by visiting the following website
http://www.barcodesinc.com/generator/index.php

Giorgio Armani-Samsung Smartphone

2009-10-10T22:45:00.001-07:00

Giorgio Armani-Samsung Smartphone – If you are a fashionista/geek well your dream has come true.

Giorgio Armani and Windows Mobile have teamed up to unveil the new Giorgio Armani-Samsung Smartphone which will be available for €700 or $1030.The cool fashionable device features.

*Full touchscreen and slide-out
*Landscape QWERTY keyboard
*5 megapixel camera
*8GB of internal storage
*GPS chip and microSD slot.

T-Mobile/Sidekick

2009-10-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

T-Mobile/Sidekick:Www.t mobile.com/sidekick – T mobile.com/sidekick can be found at the following
http://www.t-mobile.com/sidekick
T-Mobile Sidekick users are trying to figure out why they have been suffering from a major outage all week, and the company has issued the following explanation:
T-MOBILE AND MICROSOFT/DANGER STATUS UPDATE ON SIDEKICK DATA DISRUPTION
Dear valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers:

T-Mobile and the Sidekick data services provider, Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft, are reaching out to express our apologies regarding the recent Sidekick data service disruption. We appreciate your patience as Microsoft/Danger continues to work on maintaining platform stability, and restoring all services for our Sidekick customers.

For more information click here

WoW Patch 3.2.2: Download Now

2009-09-23T06:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we told you that the incoming World of Warcraft Patch 3.2.2 would be coming very soon, but now we’re please to report that the patch is now available to download.

As reported from Walyou, the 3.2.2 update is pretty much essential for everyone, due to the vast amount of features and bug fixes it brings.

One of the main changes players will be pleased to hear, is that Onyxia has returned, offering new challenges to level 80 players. This mode is now available for testing in 10- and 25-player modes.

As expected, there are significant changes to the list of different classes. You’ll find detailed information on each of them in the link above.

The WoW patch 3.2.2 update is available to download now, you can grab it here. Let us know how you get on.
For more info visit
http://www.product-reviews.net/2009/09/23/
wow-patch-322-download-now/

Smart Bro USB Speed Test

2009-08-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

Smart Bro USB Speed Test
Here are the results of the speed test of Smart Bro Prepaid Kit (USB via speedtest.net) conducted August 24, 2009 in Alabang, Muntinlupa City, Philippines:

Smart Bro USB Speed Test

Recommended Server: Makati City

Ping: 78 ms

Download: 0.81 Mb/s

0.81 Mbps
= 101.25 KB/s
= 810.00 Kbps

Upload: 0.11 Mb/s

0.11 Mbps
= 13.75 KB/s
= 110.00 Kbps

Source-http://www.mukamo.com/smart-bro-usb-speed-test/

WWDC 2009 Keynote Video

2009-06-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

WWDC 2009 Keynote Video
Full video of WWDC 2009 Keynote with Phil Schiller now available
Full video of today's Phil Schiller hosted Keynote from Apple's World Wide Developer Conference is now available online.
Related company news:
Apple

Related devices and services:
Apple iPhone 3G, Apple iPhone 3GS, Apple MacBook Pro 2009 (15-inch), Apple MacBook Pro 2009 (13-inch), Apple MacBook Air 2009

Related event news:
WWDC 2009

For more info about WWDC 2009 Keynote Video visit

http://www.obsessable.com/news/2009/06/08/full-video-
of-wwdc-2009-keynote-with-phil-schiller-now-available/

Avast AntiVirus Download

2009-04-09T08:32:00.000-07:00

Avast AntiVirus Download
Avast AntiVirus Download Requires: Windows XP, Windows Vista,windows 2000, WIndows 98, ME
Category:
avast! 4 Professional Edition includes the following components... On Demand Scanner - with two user interfaces.. Windows like or Skinnable Simple Interface - just select what do you want to scan in which way and press the Play button Enhanced User Interface - Outlook like UI allows user to set any feature of avast!, prepare and run tasks, store and check task s results On Access Scanner - resident scanning of all files being opened, read and written and behavior blocker monitoring dangerous actions of viruses or even users.
avast! 4 scans and protects your computers against viruses, worms and Trojans on.
Download Avast AntiVirus on
http://www.software-dungeon.co.uk/software.php?id=105278

New Xbox Experience (NXE) Release Time

2008-11-19T06:23:00.000-08:00

New Xbox Experience (NXE) Release Time
Everyone knows that the new Xbox Experience (NXE) is coming today and even some people got it yesterday who signed up for the Xbox 360 preview. Now what gamers want to know is what the New Xbox Experience release time is?

According to the source the United States release time for NXE is going to be 2:00AM Pacific time and that would make the UK time around 10:00AM. Looking at the time now, this means it’s there for download right now.

So Xbox 360 owners go get the New Xbox Experience and enjoy
source-http://www.product-reviews.net/2008/11/19/new-xbox-experience-release-time-us-and-uk/

New PS3 Firmware Update 2.43 for download

2008-09-17T06:40:00.000-07:00

New PS3 Firmware Update 2.43 for download
PS3 Daily are reporting that there is a brand new firmware update called “firmware update 2.43″ which is ready for download, don’t get too excited though if you live outside of Japan.

This new update v2.43 is only for those who live in Japan, it has been specifically designed for Japan and you can now install the new update.

If you live in other regions you will not be asked to download this new update; however you can manually install if you please, just go to “System Update” under the XMB’s Settings icon and start installing. Nothing new will happen for you though because if you already have v2.41 or later you are ok.
source-http://www.product-reviews.net/2008/09/17/new-ps3-firmware-update-243-for-download/

PS3 Firmware Update 2.43

2008-09-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

PS3 Update 2.43
PS3 Firmware Update 2.43
Just so everyone knows there is a brand new update, the PS3 firmware update v2.43 is not like other updates because this one is specifically for Japan.

PS3 users in Japan will be required to install the new PS3 Firmware Update 2.43, PS3 gamers in all other regions will not be asked to download the new update.

Get this though, does not matter what region you are from, you can manually initiate a firmware update by clicking on “System Update” under the XMB’s Settings icon, you will then see the v2.43 update. Personally if you are outside Japan we would say there is no need to perform an update especially if your system is already on v2.41 or later.
source-http://www.ps3daily.co.uk/20080917/ps3-firmware-update-243/

PS3 Update 2.43

2008-09-17T06:36:00.000-07:00

Free Download Avg Antivirus

2008-09-12T00:57:00.000-07:00

Free Download Avg Antivirus
AVG Free - Download AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition for Windows XP and ...
Basic antivirus and antispyware protection for Windows available to download for free. Limited features, no support, for private and non-commercial use only.

The most downloaded software on CNET's Download.com
Quality proven by 70 millions of users
Easy to download, install and use
Protection against viruses and spyware
Compatible with Windows Vista and Windows XP
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is only available for single computer use for home and non commercial use.
Free Download Avg Antivirus on
http://free.avg.com/ww.download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition

Advanced WindowsCare 2 Personal free download

2008-09-06T06:48:00.001-07:00

Advanced WindowsCare 2 Personal
Advanced WindowsCare 2 Personal free download.
Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal is a comprehensive PC care utility that takes an one-click approach to help protect, repair and optimize your computer. It provides an all-in-one and super convenient solution for PC maintenance and protection. This fantastic program is available free of charge. Compared with its nearest competitor, Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal provides the more essential and practical formula for Windows maintenance: Removing Spyware and Adware Preventing Security Threats Privacy Protection Fixing Registry Errors Temporary Files Cleanup Startup Cleanup Repairing Windows Speeding up System One-click Per Day Benefits Super Easy to Use Finishes all Work with one click. Scans and cures your whole system within one minute. Protects Your PC Scans and removes spyware and adware with the latest definition. Prevents spyware, hijackers and bad websites from being installed. Erases the history of all activities in your computer. Repairs and Maintains Your PC Scans and fixes invalid and improper registry entries. Detects and removes invalid startup items. Repairs system configurations, eliminates system bottlenecks and prevents crashes. Improves Your PC Performance Searches and cleans up unused Windows garbage. Tunes up Windows to improve both system and Internet performance, unleashes the power of your Windows. More... Provides with extra useful system tools. Analyzes and shows detailed information of hardware and Windows.
Advanced WindowsCare 2 Personal free download on
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Utilities/System_Maintenance_and_Repair_Utilities/Advanced_WindowsCare_2_Personal.html

Advanced WindowsCare 2 Personal

2008-09-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

Computer Models For Hurricane Ike

2008-09-06T06:38:00.000-07:00

Computer Models For Hurricane Ike
Computer Models For Hurricane Ike, Trayectoria Ike, Weather Hurricane Ike, Weather.com.
Computer Models For Hurricane Ike Articles
In these articles you got more information about Computer Models For Hurricane Ike.
Get all information about Computer Models For Hurricane Ike on
www.encyclocentral.com/Computer_Models_For_Hurricane_Ike-wiki.html

Download Google Chrome

2008-09-02T06:39:00.000-07:00

Download Google Chrome
Google Chrome Browser Download
Google Chrome : Download Google Chrome Browser

Google Inc is releasing its own Web browser in a long-anticipated move aimed at countering the dominance of Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer and ensuring easy access to its market-leading search engine.
The free browser, called "Chrome," is supposed to be available for downloading Tuesday in more than 100 countries for computers running on Microsoft's Windows operating system. Google said it's still working on versions compatible with Apple Inc's Mac computer and the Linux operating system.

Google's browser is expected to hit the market a week after Microsoft's unveiling of a test version of its latest browser update, Internet Explorer 8.

The tweaks include more tools for Web surfers to cloak their online preferences, creating a shield that could make it more difficult for Google and other marketing networks to figure out which ads are most likely to appeal to which individuals.

visit http://www.Birlaa.com for chrome browser download link

for more information visit
http://www.prlog.org/10112509-google-chrome-browser-download.html

Google Chrome Browser Download

2008-09-02T06:24:00.000-07:00

Google Chrome Browser Download
Google Chrome , Download Google Chrome Browser , launch date.
Google Chrome : Download Google Chrome Browser

Google Inc is releasing its own Web browser in a long-anticipated move aimed at countering the dominance of Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer and ensuring easy access to its market-leading search engine.
The free browser, called "Chrome," is supposed to be available for downloading Tuesday in more than 100 countries for computers running on Microsoft's Windows operating system. Google said it's still working on versions compatible with Apple Inc's Mac computer and the Linux operating system.

Google's browser is expected to hit the market a week after Microsoft's unveiling of a test version of its latest browser update, Internet Explorer 8.

The tweaks include more tools for Web surfers to cloak their online preferences, creating a shield that could make it more difficult for Google and other marketing networks to figure out which ads are most likely to appeal to which individuals.

visit http://www.Birlaa.com for chrome browser download link

for more information visit
http://www.prlog.org/10112509-google-chrome-browser-download.html

playstation 3 update 2.42

2008-07-30T04:23:00.001-07:00

ps3 update 2.42
Firmware update 2.42 now available
An unexpected treat for PS3 owners appeared on the PSN tonight. Firmware 2.42 is now available for download. We're currently in the process of downloading and installing the update, but rest assured that we'll have full details soon. (We're guessing it'll be Life With PlayStation, promised to arrive by the end of the month.)

Update: Looks like our guess was wrong. There doesn't appear to be anything new on the XMB. Perhaps this is just another "stability" or "security" update. We'll update again if we find out more.

Update #2: The official word: "This update improves the playback quality of some PLAYSTATION 3 and PlayStation format software." A bit underwhelming? Perhaps.
source-http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/07/29/firmware-update-2-42-now-available/

Firmware update 2.42 now available

2008-07-30T04:22:00.001-07:00

ps3 update 2.42

2008-07-30T04:21:00.000-07:00

Windows Home Server update released

2008-07-22T05:04:00.000-07:00

Windows Home Server update released
Microsoft said on Monday that it has released the first update to its Windows Home Server product. Power Pack 1, as the release is called, adds some minor new features as well as fixes a months-old bug that can lead to data corruption in some cases.

The software, which is available now from Microsoft's Web site, also allows the home servers to share data with PCs running the 64-bit version of Windows Vista. Although most Vista machines use the 32-bit version, the 64-bit is used by the same kinds of hard-core enthusiasts who have been the likeliest to give Windows Home Server a try.

Announced by Bill Gates at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2007, Windows Home Server is designed to act as a central repository and backup point for files and media, such as music, movies, and photos. I'll have a post up by Tuesday that takes a broader look at the product and how it is doing in the marketplace.
source-http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9995865-56.html?part=rss&subj=news

Download iTunes 7.7

2008-07-11T06:15:00.000-07:00

Download iTunes 7.7
Download iTunes 7.7 and App Store
Apple has just released iTunes 7.7 which is now available over software update and through direct download.

This new version of iTunes introduces the App Store where you can download all apps for iPhone or iPod Touch.
According to Apple, a whole lot of 500 applications have been pushed to App Store in which 25% of the apps are free while 90% of the rest cost no more than $9.99.
iTunes 7.7 includes compatibility with the new iPhone 3G and includes a new version of iTunes Store from where apps can be downloaded to iPhone and iPod Touch on the new 2.0 firmware.
Download iTunes 7.7 on http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

iPhone 2.0 Software Update Download: Forget the 3G Model

2008-07-11T05:28:00.000-07:00

iPhone 2.0 Software Update Download: Forget the 3G Model
This is good news because it seems that you do not need the Apple iPhone 3G to benefit what the 3G has but obviously without 3G and GPS.

The Apple iPhone 2.0 software update download is all yours baby as of today, as far as we can see it is not yet available but it will be today. The new update has many features which we have listed below.

If you want this new update you must download the latest version of iTunes which is iTunes 7.7.

The current iPhone has always been good and the still has just as much as the new iPhone 3G other than 3G and GPS and better speaker sound, but other than that with this new software update the current iPhone will perform brilliantly.

Check out what the iPhone 2.0 software Update Download will get you, when it comes to the application development area the iPhone shines big time and with this iPhone 2.0 Software update you will get so much back thanks to new App Store.

All the new features will be free, the current iPhone will get much better capabilities, so stuff the queues and wait for the update first, you never know you might not need the iPhone 3G.

What Apple’s Site says about the iPhone 2.0 software Update:

Applications for iPhone
iPhone applications are unlike anything you’ve ever seen on a mobile phone. That’s because they leverage all the groundbreaking technologies in iPhone — like the accelerometer, Multi-Touch, 3D positional sound, and GPS. And they’re only a tap away at the App Store.

iPhone in Enterprise
With support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, iPhone 3G delivers push email, calendar, and contacts. And it uses enterprise-grade networking with Cisco IPSec VPN and WPA2 Enterprise support. So now the most revolutionary mobile device ever is also the ideal phone for business. Learn more

MobileMe Support
With a MobileMe subscription, all your information stays up to date everywhere. Get push email, calendar, and contacts on your iPhone and any computer. Changes you make on one device are pushed to the MobileMe “cloud,” then back to every device you use — automatically. Learn more

Better Email Management
Now it’s even easier to keep your inbox organized. The latest iPhone update adds support for mass email move and delete. So you can delete many messages at once and organize groups of messages by moving them into different mail folders.

Contacts Search
Have a lot of names in your address book? Type a name into the new Contacts search field and iPhone shows you matching names. If you use iPhone with Microsoft Exchange, you can even look up contacts in your company’s Global Address List (GAL).

Additional Languages
iPhone now offers complete language and dictionary support for English (U.S.), English (UK), French (France), French (Canada), German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean (no dictionary), Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and Polish.

Email Attachment Support
iPhone — which already reads more than a dozen file formats — now displays iWork and Microsoft PowerPoint files. Open them in email and view them on your iPhone.

Scientific Calculator
The iPhone 2.0 Software Update adds new features to the calculator. Rotate iPhone for a sophisticated scientific calculator with functions for solving complex scientific and mathematic problems.
source-http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2008/07/11/iphone-20-software-update-download-forget-the-3g-model/

ipod touch 2.0 update

2008-07-11T04:51:00.001-07:00

ipod touch 2.0 update
iPhone 2.0 and iPod Touch 2.0 Software Update Details

On July 11, 2008, Apple will release the iPhone 2.0 Software update for iPhone users. This upgrade will also be available to the iPod Touch users, but they will have to pay a fee to access it. Below are some features of the new iPhone 2.0 software. The main feature is the applications store.

1. New Applications
There are a lot of new iPhone applications that can be purchased or even downloaded for free from the App Store. Free application include AOL's instant messaging program, Tap Tap Revenge, TypePad, eBay, and a lot more.

2. Enterprise Applications
The iPhone 2.0 software has support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, and Cisco IPSec VPN and WPA2 Enterprise support. So it's great for businesses and it also allows you to deliver push email, calendar, and contacts.

3. Support for MobileMe
The new iPhone 2.0 software has support for MobileMe which allows you to push your information to any device. Changes from one device are distributed to your other devices. For example, if you update calender on your computer it also gets updated on your iPhone and your laptop.

4. iWork and Microsoft PowerPoint support
The iPhone now supports viewing Microsoft PowerPoint and iWork files in your e-mails.

5. Scientific Calculator
Instead of having a standard 4-function calculator, the iPhone 2.0 has a scientific calculator for solving complex math problems.

6. More Language Support

7. Contacts Search
Basically you can search through your contacts in your address book
source-http://www.freeappleipodtouch.com/2008/07/iphone-20-and-ipod-touch-20-software.html

iPhone 2.0 Software Update Unofficially Available

2008-07-10T23:21:00.000-07:00

iPhone 2.0 Software Update Unofficially Available
MacRumors unearthed a link to the iPhone 2.0 Software Update which we've confirmed does indeed work, if you can't wait for Apple's official push. Download the update, sync your device, then hold down Option on the Mac (Shift on Windows) when you hit the "Check for Update" button inside iTunes and choose the file you downloaded. The update takes several minutes and will wipe your device and re-sync it. From our tests it only worked on iPhones, not the iPod touch.
source-http://lifehacker.com/398280/iphone-20-software-update-unofficially-available

iPhone 2.0 update

2008-07-10T23:09:00.000-07:00

iPhone 2.0 update
iPhone 2.0 update now available
Once again, digging through Apple's XML files has revealed the url to the iPhone 2.0 Firmware that is presently available on Apple's servers.
For more information visit http://www.kottke.org/08/07/iphone-20-update-now-available

Ghostbusters Video Game

2008-07-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

Ghostbusters Video Game
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Official site for the 2008 video game version of Ghostbusters. Harold Ramis, Dan Akroyd, and Bill Murray reprise their famous ghost-busting roles in this game co ...
www.ghostbustersgame.com

Download Free Ebooks

2008-07-09T07:05:00.001-07:00

Download Free Ebooks
Getfreeebooks.com is a free ebooks site where you can download free books totally free. The ebooks which you find within this site are collected from all ...
Download Free Ebooks here
http://www.getfreeebooks.com/

Java Interview Questions

2008-07-09T05:18:00.000-07:00

Java Interview Questions
Java Interview Questions site attempts to discuss core java IT technical interview questions in detail. These are some of the java job interview questions that were asked in various java interviews. Questions from different people and communities are consolidated in place for your convenience.

Java Interview Questions

Question: What is the difference between an Interface and an Abstract class?
Question: What is the purpose of garbage collection in Java, and when is it used?
Question: Describe synchronization in respect to multithreading.
Question: Explain different way of using thread?
Question: What are pass by reference and passby value?
Question: What is HashMap and Map?
Question: Difference between HashMap and HashTable?
Question: Difference between Vector and ArrayList?
Question: Difference between Swing and Awt?
Question: What is the difference between a constructor and a method?
Question: What is an Iterator?
Question: State the significance of public, private, protected, default modifiers both singly and in combination and state the effect of package relationships on declared items qualified by these modifiers.
Question: What is an abstract class?
Question: What is static in java?
Question:
What is final?

for more Java Interview Questions goto
http://www.interview-questions-java.com/
http://www.allapplabs.com/interview_questions/java_interview_questions.htm

Lively: Google Launches Virtual World

2008-07-09T04:44:00.000-07:00

Lively: Google Launches Virtual World
While IBM and Linden Labs are cozying up to each other, Google has just released its own virtual world: Lively. Lively is available through a browser plugin for Firefox and Internet Explorer. It is Windows only for now. Lively does not feature one coherent world like Second Life but splits worlds up into different rooms. Lively was originally developed as a 20% project my Niniane Wang.

Lively runs completely in the browser and you use your Google account to log in and create your own avatars. Within the world, you can interact with other users, very much like you would do in Second Life. You can also watch YouTube clips on virtual TVs and share your own photos.

Users can chose from a number of preset animations for their characters, ranging from shaking hands with others, to applauding, crying, etc. By double clicking on certain items in the virtual world, users can also often activate some preset animations such as sitting down on a chair or jumping off a dive board.

Setting the plugin up and creating an avatar is a very simple process. Creating rooms, too, seems quite easy, as you can quickly import a number of templates to get started. Currently, all virtual items for Lively are for free, but chances are that Google will start charging for premium items in the future.

For now, the content in Lively is being created only by Google, though over time, they are planning to allow users to start creating their own content as well.

Rooms can be easily embedded into any webpage and worlds often launch with a basic skeleton of the room within just a few seconds.

Graphically, Lively runs very smooth on our test machine here and the visuals, while not comparable to a modern game, are not too bad either. Interestingly, there is no first-person view available, instead, the world is always seen from a camera perspective the user can control.

One area where Lively could definitely needs some improvement is in how users move their avatars around the rooms. To move an avatar, users basically have to drag them through the room, while most people we have met in Lively have commented that they expected to see a more game-like approach where users use the keyboard to move avatars through the rooms.

Second Life users might find the Lively rooms and the amount of customization they can do to them rather restricted - however, Google's idea seems to be less to create one large virtual world, but to give publishers an opportunity to create their own small virtual world for their readers and visitors.

It's interesting to see Google moving into this space. There have always been rumors that Google might be working on a similar product for Google Earth. As of now, the rooms in Lively are compartmentalized and there is no way to move or communicate from one room to another, but given that this is only a first release, this might (hopefully) change over time.
source-http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/lively_google_launches_virtual.php

Lively Google not ready for Apple Mac OS X

2008-07-09T04:37:00.000-07:00

Lively Google not ready for Apple Mac OS X
When you have a look at Lively by Google you cannot help but get excited about the possibilities with being able to create your own virtual space almost anywhere, its like taking MySpace and Second Life with you.

Then as an Apple Mac OS X user you get hit with a message that says “Lively is not ready for your platform” and “Lively requires Windows Vista or XP with Internet Explorer or Firefox”.

Now while I understand why this would be, you must also understand there are thousands of web designers and developers that use the Mac Operating System, you would have thought Google could have added this support on launch as well.

Its not only Lively, you have to get a third party application to use Google Talk as well. While that’s not a problem, it’s still nice to use the dedicated application.

With Lively you will be able to chat and interact with your friends in rooms you design, these can be expanded with a catalog of rooms, furniture, outfits and avatars to build up.

You can easily add your room to your site and then invite friends and family to chat and even decorate. Another cool feature is the ability to stream videos and photos with Lively.

We know Lively is a work in progress and only 20 percent done, but should it not also support Mac today?
source-http://www.product-reviews.net/2008/07/09/lively-google-not-ready-for-apple-mac-os-x/

Sony Ericsson Experia X1

2008-07-09T00:37:00.000-07:00

Sony Ericsson Experia X1
Sony Ericsson Experia X1 Runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Leaked!
Terminal.hu has just posted pictures of the Sony Ericsson Experia X1. What’s so special about this? The fact that it runs on the yet to be announced Windows Mobile 6.1.

Bloggers and Journalists alike were frustrated with the team showcasing the Experia X1 at Mobile World Congress, the team were very “hush hush” about it all. Well the reason was because Microsoft probably didn’t want them showcasing the unannounced Windows Mobile 6.1 Operating System.
Apart from the OS exposed, there are some other features to be found; the Qualcomm 7200 a running @ 528 Mhz for one, 128MB of RAM and a 1500mAh battery (that’s right Nokia, common sense).
source-http://www.latest-mobile.com/articles/camera/sony-ericsson-experia-x1-runs-on-windows-mobile-61-leaked_4744

Reiser file system

2008-07-08T08:29:00.000-07:00

Reiser file system
The Reiser file system was created by Hans Reiser. The design objectives were to increase performance over the ext2 file system, offer a space efficient file system, and to improve handling of large directories compared to existing file systems. Reiserfs uses balanced trees to store files and directories and it also offers journaling.

This document describes the on-disk structure of the Reiser file system version 3.6. This document does not describe how the file system tree is balanced, how the journaling is performed, or how files and directories are managed within an implementation of the file system.

Blocks
The reiserfs partition is divided into blocks of a fixed size. The blocks are numbered sequentially starting with block 0. There is a maximum number of 2^32 possible blocks in one partition.
The partition starts with the first 64k unused to leave enough room for partition labels or boot loaders. After that follows the superblock. The superblock contains important information about the partition such as the block size and the block numbers of the root and journal nodes. The superblock block number differs depending on the block size, but always starts at byte 65536 of the partition. The default block size for reiserfs under Linux is 4096 bytes. This makes the superblock block number 16. There is only one instance of the superblock for the entire partition.

Directly following the superblock is a block containing a bitmap of free blocks. The number of blocks mapped in the bitmap depends directly on the block size. If a bitmap can map k blocks, then every k-th block will be a new bitmap block
For more information about Reiser file system goto http://homes.cerias.purdue.edu/~florian/reiser/reiserfs.php

PlayStation 3 2.41 firmware

2008-07-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

PlayStation 3 2.41 firmware
PlayStation 3 2.41 firmware this week
After Sony's release of PlayStation's 3 2.40 firmware being taken out from the servers and for download due to causing some errors on some systems, now they will release firmware 2.41 later this week.

PS3 update 2.41

2008-07-08T04:38:00.000-07:00

PS3 update 2.41 coming Wednesday - has Sony got it right this time?
Yet another firmware release for Sony's PlayStation 3 is expected in the next few days. According to gossip, the 2.41 update will overcome the problems with 2.40 that caused some PS3s to stop working, and will arrive in the middle of this week.
The recently released - though short-lived - 2.40 firmware for Sony's flagship games console allowed the in-game use of the XMB and provided support for trophies, the PS3's answer to Xbox 360 achievements.

2.40 was withdrawn shortly after its release on July 2 when it became clear that it effectively 'bricked' some consoles.

Not all PS3s were affected by the problems with 2.40, and it is not clear exactly where the root cause (or causes) of the issues lay as examples of all major configurations appear to have been hit by the bug(s).

Nor do we know how affected owners will be able to recover from the situation.

People with a working PS3 will probably be less keen than usual to be among the first to install the new update when it does appear. But that could lead to a chicken-and-egg situation.

It's likely that many people will take a conservative approach, and wait for plenty of reports of successful updates to 2.41. But in that case, there will be few potential sources for such reports.

One thing that could break the cycle is a definitive statement from Sony that its engineering staff have got to the bottom of the 2.40 problem, accompanied by a categorical assurance that 2.41 overcomes those issues.

Of course, there's always a risk that any update will lead to problems, but consoles have so few configurations compared with PCs that companies have little excuse for getting things wrong.
source-http://www.itwire.com/content/view/19284/532/

Navigon 2100 Portable 3.5” GPS with Text to Speech

2008-07-07T09:02:00.000-07:00

Navigon 2100 Portable 3.5” GPS with Text to Speech

Just a small-town girl, guess she musta missed her turn
Fashion Bug’s gotta be around here somewhere
Just a city boy, still two hours south of Detroit
Pulled off the highway to get a burrito somewhere

Fender-bender in a parking lot, the strip-mall asphalt is hot
For a smile, he shows her the way on his Navigon and on and on

GPS directions, up and down the boulevard
Text-to-Speech ringing out in the night
Street maps in 3D, easy just to find your route
When driving, somewhere in the night

Ultra-slender and portable, everybody wants a thrill
Paying a little to touch that screen, that 3.5” screen
So many points of interest, some more interesting than the rest
Oh, the maps they never end, they go on and on and on and on

GPS directions, up and down the boulevard
Text-to-Speech ringing out in the night
Street maps in 3D, easy just to find your route
When driving, somewhere in the night

Don’t stop for directions
Get the Navigon 2100
Street maps in 3D

Don’t stop for directions
Get the Navigon 2100
Street maps in 3D

(more high-pitched wailing, fade out)

Warranty: 90 Day Navigon

Features:

Ultra-slender, portable design with an easy-to-read 3.5" screen
Extra guidance with exclusive 3D Reality View that shows photo-realistic junction views
Text-to-Speech technology offers spoken turn-by-turn directions and street names so you can keep your eyes on the road
Intuitive touch-screen menus and stunning 2D and 3D maps
1.6 million points of interest display hotels, restaurants and other attractions along your travel routes
Complimentary map updates available from Navigon
Optional real-time traffic information, updates and alternate route advisories (with Navigon traffic service subscription, not included)
Optional ZAGAT Survey Guide service with ratings and review information on restaurants, entertainment and more (requires optional ZAGAT Survey Guide software, not included)
High-sensitivity, 20-channel SiRF Star III GPS receiver with Samsung 400MHz processor for enhanced GPS reception and performance
3.5" backlit color touch-screen display with intuitive, easy-to-use menus for easy viewing of settings and functions
Built-in Secure Digital slot; 2GB Secure Digital card with preloaded base maps of the U.S. (excluding Alaska and Hawaii)
64MB RAM and 64MB Flash ROM
3.5 hour 1100 mAh lithium ion battery
Measures 4.0” x 3.1” x 0.8”
Microsoft Windows CE Net 5.0 operating system
source-http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=5285

ASP.NET Interview Questions

2008-07-07T04:09:00.000-07:00

ASP.NET Interview Questions
1. What is the name of the property of ASP.NET page that you can query to determine that a ASP.NET page is being requested not data being submitted to web server?
A. FirstGet
B. Initialized
C. IncludesData
D. IsPostBack

IsPostBack

2. While creating a Web site with the help of Visual Studio 2005 on a remote computer that does not have Front Page Server Extensions installed, which Web site type will you create in Visual Studio 2005?
A. Remote HTTP
B. File
C. FTP
D. Local HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

3. If you want to create a new Web site with the help of Visual Studio 2005 on a Web server that is hosted by your ISP (Internet Services provider) and the Web server has Front Page Server Extensions installed, what type of Web site type would you create in Visual Studio 2005?
A. Local HTTP
B. File
C. FTP
D. Remote HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

4. For separating server-side code from client-side code on a ASP.NET page, what programming model should you use?
A. Separation model
B. Code-Behind model
C. In-Line model
D. ClientServer model

5. Amit created a new Web site using Visual Studio 2005 in programming language C#. Later, Amit received an existing Web page from his boss, which consisted of the Contact.aspx file with the Contact.aspx.vb code-behind page. What must Amit do to use these files?
A. Amit can simply add the files Contact.aspx, Contact.aspx.vb into the existing Web site, because ASP.NET 2.0 supports Web sites that have Web pages that were programmed with different languages.
B. The Contact.aspx file will work, but Amit must rewrite the code-behind page using C#.
C. Both files Contact.aspx and Contact.aspx.vb must be rewritten in C#.
D. Amit must create a new Web site that contains these files Contact.aspx and Contact.aspx.vb. Set a Web reference to the new site.

6. If you want to make a configuration setting change in your server that will affect to all Web and Windows applications on the current machine. Where you will make the changes?
A. Global.asax
B. Web.config
C. Machine.config
D. Global.asax

7. If you want to make a configuration setting change that will affect only the current Web application. Which file will you change?
A. Web.config that is in the same folder as the Machine.config file
B. Web.config in the root of the Web application
C. Machine.config
D. Global.asax

8. For making a configuration setting change that will affect only the current Web application. Is there any tool that has a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI)?
A. The Microsoft Management Utility
B. Microsoft Word
C. Visual Studio, using the Tools > Options path
D. Web Site Administration Tool

ASP.NET 2.0 Interview Questions
9. How will you identify which event in the ASP.NET Web page life cycle takes the longest time to execute?
A. Turn on ASP.NET trace and run the Web application.
B. Add a few code to each of the page life-cycle events that will print the current time.
C. In the Web.config file, add the monitorTimings attribute and set it to True.
D. In the Web site properties, turn on the performance monitor and run the Web application. After that, open performance monitor to see the timings.

11. You are interested in examining the data that is posted to the Web server. What trace result section can you use to see this information?
A. Control Tree
B. Headers Collection
C. Form Collection
D. Server Variables

12. While creating web site you need to add an HTML Web server control to the Web page, you need to drag an HTML element from the ToolBox of Visual Studio 2005 to the Web page and then which of the following tasks you will perform?
A. Right-click the HTML element and click Run=Server.
B. Double-click the HTML element to convert it to an HTML server control.
C. Right-click the HTML element and click Run As Server Control.
D. Click the HTML element and set ServerControl to true in the Properties window.

13. While testing your ASP.NET web application you noticed that while clicking on CheckBox of one of the web page it does not cause a PostBack; you required that the CheckBox should make PostBack so Web page can be update on the server-side code. How can you make the CheckBox to cause a PostBack?
A. Set the AutoPostBack property to true.
B. Add JavaScript code to call the ForcePostBack method.
C. Set the PostBackAll property of the Web page to true.
D. Add server-side code to listen for the click event from the client.

14. While writing code in Visual Studio 2005 you creates a new instance of a ASP.NET TextBox server control, what do you need to do to get the TextBox to display on the Web page?
A. Call the ShowControl method on the TextBox.
B. Set the VisibleControl to true on the TextBox.
C. Add the TextBox instance to the form1.Controls collection.
D. Execute the AddControl method on the Web page.

15. While creating your ASP.NET web based application you want to create multiple RadioButton server controls which should be mutually exclusive, what property of RadioButton server controls you must set?
A. Exclusive
B. MutuallyExclusive
C. Grouped
D. GroupName

16. While creating an ASP.NET web application with the help of Visual Studio 2005 you are creates a Web page that has several related buttons, such as fast-forward, reverse, play, stop, and pause. There should be one event handler that handles the processes of PostBack from these Button server controls. Other than the normal Submit button, what type of button can you create?
A. OneToMany
B. Command
C. Reset
D. ManyToOne

ASP.NET 2.0 Interview Questions
17. In the Design view in Visual Studio 2005 of an ASP.NET web page, what is the easiest way to create an event handler for the default event of a ASP.NET server control?
A. Open the code-behind page and write the code.
B. Right-click the control and select Create Handler.
C. Drag an event handler from the ToolBox to the desired control.
D. Double-click the control.

18. Which of the following represents the best use of the Table, TableRow, and Table-Cell controls?
A. To create and populate a Table in Design view
B. To create a customized control that needs to display data in a tabular fashion
C. To create and populate a Table with images
D. To display a tabular result set

19. For your ASP.NET web application your graphics designer created elaborate images that show the product lines of your company. Some of graphics of the product line are rectangular, circular, and others are having complex shapes. You need to use these images as a menu on your Web site. What is the best way of incorporating these images into your Web site?
A. Use ImageButton and use the x- and y-coordinates that are returned when the user clicks to figure out what product line the user clicked.
B. Use the Table, TableRow, and TableCell controls, break the image into pieces that are displayed in the cells, and use the TableCell control’s Click event to identify the product line that was clicked.
C. Use the MultiView control and break up the image into pieces that can be displayed in each View control for each product line. Use the Click event of the View to identify the product line that was clicked.
D. Use an ImageMap control and define hot spot areas for each of the product lines. Use the PostBackValue to identify the product line that was clicked.

20. You are writing ASP.NET 2.0 Web site that collects lots of data from users, and the data collection forms spreads over multiple ASP.NET Web pages. When the user reaches the last page, you need to gather all of data, validate the data, and save the data to the SQL Server database. You have noticed that it can be rather difficult to gather the data that is spread over multiple pages and you want to simplify this application. What is the easiest control to implement that can be used to collect the data on a single Web page?
A. The View control
B. The TextBox control
C. The Wizard control
D. The DataCollection control

21. In your ASP.NET 2.0 web application you want to display an image that is selected from a collection of images. What approach will you use to implementing this?
A. Use the ImageMap control and randomly select a HotSpot to show or hide.
B. Use the Image control to hold the image and a Calendar control to randomly select a date for each image to be displayed.
C. Use the AdServer control and create an XML file with configuration of the control.
D. Use an ImageButton control to predict randomness of the image to be loaded based on the clicks of the control.

22. In your ASP.NET web application you want to display a list of clients on a Web page. The client list displays 10 clients at a time, and you require the ability to edit the clients. Which Web control is the best choice for this scenario?
A. The DetailsView control
B. The Table control
C. The GridView control
D. The FormView control

23. While developing ASP.NET 2.0 web application you want to display a list of parts in a master/detail scenario where the user can select a part number using a list that takes a minimum amount of space on the Web page. When the part is selected, a DetailsView control displays all the information about the part and allows the user to edit the part. Which Web control is the best choice to display the part number list for this scenario?
A. The DropDownList control
B. The RadioButtonList control
C. The FormView control
D. The TextBox control

ASP.NET 2.0 Interview Questions
24. While developing ASP.NET 2.0 web application you have a DataSet containing a Customer DataTable and an Order DataTable. You want to easily navigate from an Order DataRow to the Customer who placed the order. What object will allow you to easily navigate from the Order to the Customer?
A. The DataColumn object
B. The DataTable object
C. The DataRow object
D. The DataRelation object

25. Which of the following is a requirement when merging modified data into a DataSet?
A. A primary key must be defined on the DataTable objects.
B. The DataSet schemas must match in order to merge.
C. The destination DataSet must be empty prior to merging.
D. A DataSet must be merged into the same DataSet that created it.

26. You are working with a DataSet and want to be able to display data, sorted different ways. How do you do so?
A. Use the Sort method on the DataTable object.
B. Use the DataSet object’s Sort method.
C. Use a DataView object for each sort.
D. Create a DataTable for each sort, using the DataTable object’s Copy method, and then Sort the result.

27. Which of the following ways can you proactively clean up a database connection’s resources?
A. Execute the DbConnection object’s Cleanup method.
B. Execute the DbConnection object’s Close method.
C. Assign Nothing (C# null) to the variable that references the DbConnection object.
D. Create a using block for the DbConnection object.

29. What event can you subscribe to if you want to display information from SQL Print statements?
A. InfoMessage
B. MessageReceived
C. PostedMessage
D. NewInfo

30. To perform asynchronous data access, what must be added to the connection string?
A. BeginExecute=true
B. MultiThreaded=true
C. MultipleActiveResultSets=true
D. Asynchronous=true

31. Which class can be used to create an XML document from scratch?
A. XmlConvert
B. XmlDocument
C. XmlNew
D. XmlSettings

32. Which class can be used to perform data type conversion between .NET data types and XML types?
A. XmlType
B. XmlCast
C. XmlConvert
D. XmlSettings

What is an interface and what is an abstract class?
In an interface, all methods must be abstract (must not be defined). In an abstract class, some methods can be defined. In an interface, no accessibility modifiers are allowed, whereas it is allowed in abstract classes.

Session state vs. View state:
In some cases, using view state is not feasible. The alternative for view state is session state. Session state is employed under the following situations:

Large amounts of data - View state tends to increase the size of both the HTML page sent to the browser and the size of form posted back. Hence session state is used.
Secure data - Though the view state data is encoded and may be encrypted, it is better and secure if no sensitive data is sent to the client. Thus, session state is a more secure option.
Problems in serializing of objects into view state - View state is efficient for a small set of data. Other types like DataSet are slower and can generate a very large view state.
Can two different programming languages be mixed in a single ASPX file?
ASP.NET’s built-in parsers are used to remove code from ASPX files and create temporary files. Each parser understands only one language. Therefore mixing of languages in a single ASPX file is not possible.

Is it possible to see the code that ASP.NET generates from an ASPX file?
By enabling debugging using a <%@ Page Debug="true" %> directive in the ASPX file or a statement in Web.config, the generated code can be viewed. The code is stored in a CS or VB file (usually in the \%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.0.nnnn\Temporary ASP.NET Files).

Can a custom .NET data type be used in a Web form?
This can be achieved by placing the DLL containing the custom data type in the application root's bin directory and ASP.NET will automatically load the DLL when the type is referenced.

List the event handlers that can be included in Global.asax?
Application start and end event handlers
Session start and end event handlers
Per-request event handlers
Non-deterministic event handlers
Can the view state be protected from tampering?
This can be achieved by including an @ Page directive with an EnableViewStateMac="true" attribute in each ASPX file that has to be protected. Another way is to include the statement in the Web.config file.

When during the page processing cycle is ViewState available?
The view state is available after the Init() and before the Render() methods are called during Page load.

Do Web controls support Cascading Style Sheets?
All Web controls inherit a property named CssClass from the base class System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebControl which can be used to control the properties of the web control.

What namespaces are imported by default in ASPX files?
The following namespaces are imported by default. Other namespaces must be imported manually using @ Import directives.

System
System.Collections
System.Collections.Specialized
System.Configuration
System.Text
System.Text.RegularExpressions
System.Web
System.Web.Caching
System.Web.Security
System.Web.SessionState
System.Web.UI
System.Web.UI.HtmlControls
System.Web.UI.WebControls
What classes are needed to send e-mail from an ASP.NET application?
The classes MailMessage and SmtpMail have to be used to send email from an ASP.NET application. MailMessage and SmtpMail are classes defined in the .NET Framework Class Library's System.Web.Mail namespace.

Why do some web service classes derive from System.Web.WebServices while others do not?
Those Web Service classes which employ objects like Application, Session, Context, Server, and User have to derive from System.Web.WebServices. If it does not use these objects, it is not necessary to be derived from it.

What are VSDISCO files?
VSDISCO files are DISCO files that enable dynamic discovery of Web Services. ASP.NET links the VSDISCO to a HTTP handler that scans the host directory and subdirectories for ASMX and DISCO files and returns a dynamically generated DISCO document. A client who requests a VSDISCO file gets back what appears to be a static DISCO document.

How can files be uploaded to Web pages in ASP.NET?
This can be done by using the HtmlInputFile class to declare an instance of an tag. Then, a byte[] can be declared to read in the data from the input file. This can then be sent to the server.

How do I create an ASPX page that periodically refreshes itself?
The following META tag can be used as a trigger to automatically refresh the page every n seconds:

How can the focus be set to a specific control when a Web form loads?
This can be achieved by using client-side script:

document.forms[0].TextBox1.focus ()
The above code will set the focus to a TextBox named TextBox1 when the page loads.

How does System.Web.UI.Page's IsPostBack property work?
IsPostBack checks to see whether the HTTP request is accompanied by postback data containing a __VIEWSTATE or __EVENTTARGET parameter. If there are none, then it is not a postback.

What is WSDL?
WSDL is an XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are described abstractly, and then bound to a concrete network protocol and message format to define an endpoint. Related concrete endpoints are combined into abstract endpoints (services). (Source: www.w3.org)

What is UDDI?
UDDI stands for Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration. It is like an "Yellow Pages" for Web Services. It is maintained by Microsoft, IBM, and Ariba, and is designed to provide detailed information regarding registered Web Services for all vendors. The UDDI can be queried for specific Web Services.

Is it possible to generate the source code for an ASP.NET Web service from a WSDL?
The Wsdl.exe tool (.NET Framework SDK) can be used to generate source code for an ASP.NET web service with its WSDL link.

Example: wsdl /server http://api.google.com/GoogleSearch.wsdl.

Why do uploads fail while using an ASP.NET file upload control to upload large files?
ASP.NET limits the size of file uploads for security purposes. The default size is 4 MB. This can be changed by modifying the maxRequestLength attribute of Machine.config's element.

Describe the difference between inline and code behind.
Inline code is written along side the HTML in a page. Code-behind is code written in a separate file and referenced by the .aspx page.

Download Total Video Converter

2008-07-02T01:52:00.000-07:00

Download Total Video Converter 3.12
Total Video Converter 3.12
Total Video Converter

Convert all video files to 3gp,mp4,psp,iPod,iPhone,flv,dvd,vcd,...Total Video Converter is a complete solution for video conversion which supports reading, playing all kinds of video and audio formats and converting them to the popular video formats. Total Video Converter includes a powerful media conversion engine internally so that you can convert media files with very fast speed.

Download is available on
http://www.topshareware.com/Total-Video-Converter-download-38197.htm

ps3 2.40 update

2008-07-02T01:44:00.000-07:00

ps3 2.40 update
PS3 Firmware (v.2.40) update walkthrough and FAQ
Eric Lempel, Director of PlayStation Network Operations, has put up three fun-filled posts to the official PlayStation blog. The first post is about XMB access in-game and features a video of how it will look. It should make it easier to check messages from friends without having to leave the game. The second post also had a video but this one was less exciting, since it was about the Trophy system. ..
For more information visit
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/06/30/ps3-firmware-v240-update-walkthrough-and-faq/

PS3 firmware 2.40 update coming tomorrow

2008-07-02T01:34:00.000-07:00

PS3 firmware 2.40 update coming tomorrow
It's been a long time coming, but in-game XMB will arrive on your PS3 tomorrow. That's right, Wednesday July 2nd and likely kicking off as a rolling, firmware 2.40, network update just as soon as the clock ticks over the top in Japan. You know, for those of you looking to get a jump on your Trophy collection

source-http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/01/ps3-firmware-2-40-update-on-wednesday/

playstation 3 update 2.36

2008-06-18T05:48:00.001-07:00

playstation 3 update 2.36
Sony PS3 Update 2.36: Playstation 3 getting ready for in-game XMB
Earlier this week, the guys over at PS3 daily informed us that rumours were surfacing that a new Playstation 3 firmware was imminent. It turns out that the speculation was true, as firmware v.2.36 has now been officially released and is available for download.

The current update is a minor one, only designed to improve system security and improve stability for a range of titles. More importantly though, it appears that firmware 2.40 is on the horizon and finally news that the Playstation 3 is getting ready for in-game XMB, a feature that many of you gamers out there have been waiting to get your hands on. It is unclear yet what stability issues have been fixed yet, as I know a lot of you have been having a few problems with bugs in GTA IV, and we are unaware yet, as to if this update has made any changes to MGS4, most notably interaction with the in-game iPod perhaps. Feel free to leave a comment if you have found any changes to your games as a result of this firmware update.

Also announced on the official PS3 blog, is the addition of ‘trophies’ which will be come on the 2.40 update. Little information is known on this but Sony have stated, “The update will also include “trophies,” an exciting new feature that we’ll be providing more details on soon, as well as some other new enhancements.”

I can imagine these trophies to be some sort of award system as compared to the Xbox 360’s gamer points. It certainly does look very positive for the PS3 over the next few weeks, it will be interesting to find out just how the in-game XMB functions, and how smoothly it will interact with it’s games, stay tuned to find out more news on this
source-http://www.product-reviews.net/2008/06/18/sony-ps3-update-236-playstation-3-getting-ready-for-in-game-xmb/

ps3 update 2.36

2008-06-18T05:37:00.000-07:00

ps3 update 2.36
PS3 update 2.36 has just been released by Sony today.

This firmware update 2.36 will improve “system stability when playing select PlayStation format software titles.”
Sony Confirms PS3 Firmware 2.40 Bringing In-Game XMB and Trophies
The hot and heavy rumors that an imminent PS3 firmware update would finally bring in-game access to the XMB (cross media bar, the PS3's menu) are true: Sony's official PlayStation blog confirms that firmware update 2.40 will include the long-awaited menu access, along with trophies—the PS3's version of achievements—and "some other new enhancements." We'll have to sit through firmware update 2.36 first, though—it's pretty boring, just adding some system stability for certain games. No word on the date, but we're still crossing our fingers for this month.

Sony Announces In-Game XMB, 'Trophies' Bar For PS3
In a weblog post on the company's PlayStation.Blog service, Sony Computer Entertainment has announced that at an unspecified future date, the version 2.40 firmware upgrade for the PlayStation 3 will offer in-game XMB functionality, and a "trophies" reward system.

The post, by Eric Lempel, SCEA's director, PlayStation Network operations, offers few details beyond a promise to include this functionality in the version 2.40 firmware update, which does not have an announced release date.

The next firmware upgrade will be version 2.36, which will improve compatibility with some PlayStation titles, and which will be released "soon" according to Lempel.

The exact functionality that the in-game XMB will provide is unclear, and Lempel did not go into specifics. Trophies are widely seen as the answer to Microsoft's popular Achivements on the Xbox 360, and were expected to be integrated as part of Sony's delayed virtual world Home. Lempel promises more details on trophies "soon".

Home's release has been repeatedly pushed back; the open beta will now not begin till this fall. SCEI CEO Kaz Hirai recently asked PS3 users to "wait a bit longer" for Home, promising that the delays would help ensure the company would be able to provide "new gaming experiences that are available only on PlayStation Home."

Quick Heal Appoints Esys for Guardian Anti Virus

2008-06-15T00:21:00.000-07:00

Quick Heal Appoints Esys for Guardian Anti Virus

eSys Information Technologies announced its sign up with Quick Heal for the national distribution of its Guardian Anti Virus Software in India.

Quick Heal will leverage on the network of eSys Technologies in India to make its Guardian Anti Virus Software widely available across all major cities and towns in the country. The tie-up is aimed at providing faster access to supplies and continuous availability of its products to channels and customers across India.

Sumit Chadha, Business Manager, Esys Technologies, said, "It is an opportunity to expand our product portfolio and we will be optimizing the entire distribution channel to market Quick Heal's software in the country."

Guardian anti virus (a three-in-one protection for PC user) is powered by an antivirus and antispyware engine. Quick Heal engine gives the software an advantage of using user friendly yet world class product.

The software offers protection at an affordable price. It provides protection against viruses, root kits and spy wares and also aims to create awareness amongst all home users about the usage of genuine and licensed products.
source-http://www.crn.in/SoftwareJun10-08QuickHealAppointsEsysforGuardianAntiVirus.aspx

History of Computer

2008-06-11T07:19:00.000-07:00

History of Computer
The History of Computers

"Who invented the computer?" is not a question with a simple answer. The real answer is that many inventors contributed to the history of computers and that a computer is a complex piece of machinery made up of many parts, each of which can be considered a separate invention.

This series covers many of the major milestones in computer history (but not all of them) with a concentration on the history of personal home computers.

Computer History
Year/Enter Computer History
Inventors/Inventions Computer History
Description of Event
1936 Konrad Zuse - Z1 Computer First freely programmable computer.
1942 John Atanasoff & Clifford Berry
ABC Computer Who was first in the computing biz is not always as easy as ABC.
1944 Howard Aiken & Grace Hopper
Harvard Mark I Computer The Harvard Mark 1 computer.
1946 John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly
ENIAC 1 Computer 20,000 vacuum tubes later...
1948 Frederic Williams & Tom Kilburn
Manchester Baby Computer & The Williams Tube Baby and the Williams Tube turn on the memories.
1947/48 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain & Wiliam Shockley
The Transistor No, a transistor is not a computer, but this invention greatly affected the history of computers.
1951 John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly
UNIVAC Computer First commercial computer & able to pick presidential winners.
1953 International Business Machines
IBM 701 EDPM Computer IBM enters into 'The History of Computers'.
1954 John Backus & IBM
FORTRAN Computer Programming Language The first successful high level programming language.
1955
(In Use 1959)
Stanford Research Institute, Bank of America, and General Electric
ERMA and MICR The first bank industry computer - also MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) for reading checks.
1958 Jack Kilby & Robert Noyce
The Integrated Circuit Otherwise known as 'The Chip'
1962 Steve Russell & MIT
Spacewar Computer Game The first computer game invented.
1964 Douglas Engelbart
Computer Mouse & Windows Nicknamed the mouse because the tail came out the end.
1969 ARPAnet The original Internet.
1970 Intel 1103 Computer Memory The world's first available dynamic RAM chip.
1971 Faggin, Hoff & Mazor
Intel 4004 Computer Microprocessor The first microprocessor.
1971 Alan Shugart &IBM
The "Floppy" Disk Nicknamed the "Floppy" for its flexibility.
1973 Robert Metcalfe & Xerox
The Ethernet Computer Networking Networking.
1974/75 Scelbi & Mark-8 Altair & IBM 5100 Computers The first consumer computers.
1976/77 Apple I, II & TRS-80 & Commodore Pet Computers More first consumer computers.
1978 Dan Bricklin & Bob Frankston
VisiCalc Spreadsheet Software Any product that pays for itself in two weeks is a surefire winner.
1979 Seymour Rubenstein & Rob Barnaby
WordStar Software Word Processors.
1981 IBM
The IBM PC - Home Computer From an "Acorn" grows a personal computer revolution
1981 Microsoft
MS-DOS Computer Operating System From "Quick And Dirty" comes the operating system of the century.
1983 Apple Lisa Computer The first home computer with a GUI, graphical user interface.
1984 Apple Macintosh Computer The more affordable home computer with a GUI.
1985 Microsoft Windows Microsoft begins the friendly war with Apple.
SERIES TO BE CONTINUED
source-http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm

The Sony Ericsson C905 8.1 megapixel camera

2008-06-11T05:11:00.000-07:00

The Sony Ericsson C905 8.1 megapixel camera
After the Nokia N82 was launched, Sony Ericsson practically lost the camera phone war, if there was one. The current Cyber-shot devices produce photos of lower quality than Nokia phones. But, that's about to change, or we hope it will…

The Sony Ericsson C905 aka Shino is the next step in the Cyber-shot camera phone evolution, sporting a 8.1 megapixel camera! And while we're not sure we actually need that many pixels — better colors and faster photo taking is all we require — it's good to see the Swedish-Japanese company making further steps to advance its Cyber-shot line.

Anyway, let's go through specs, shall we:

First, the C902 Shino is a feature phone. It runs no mobile OS.
Camera: 8.1 megapixels with auto-focus, face recognition, "Smart Contrast," image stabilization, BestPic, red-eye reduction, xenon flash.
Navigation: built-in GPS with further support for A-GPS.
Display: 2.4-inch QVGA scratch-resistant mineral glass TFT display.
Wireless connectivity: WiFi with DLNA-support, Bluetooth, HSDPA.
Other: TV-Out, Memory Stick Micro (M2) expansion slot.
Dimensions: 104×49x18 (19.5) mm, weight: 136 grams.
Color options: Copper Gold, Ice Silver, and Night Black.
Availability: Early Q4.

source-http://www.intomobile.com/2008/06/11/sony-ericsson-c905-shiho-leaked-thats-81-megapixels-baby.html

The Sony Ericsson C905

2008-06-11T04:53:00.000-07:00

Sony Ericsson C905: 8.1-megapixel camera and U.S. HSDPA support?
The Sony Ericsson C905 could be exactly what Sony Ericsson needs right now; a Cyber-shot phone that doesn't remind us of 2006.

The Unofficial Sony Ericsson Blog has dug up a press image and a specifications sheet for the upcoming Sony Ericsson C905. The Sony Ericsson C905 is expected to be announced later this month, meaning it'll likely go on sale around November/December 2008.

The Sony Ericsson C905 features a 8.1-megapixel camera with autofocus, face recognition, image stabilization, BestPic, red-eye reduction, Xenon flash and a new feature called Smart Contrast.

A few other key features to the Sony Ericsson C905 are built-in GPS and geo-tagging of photos, as well as an accelerometer that will automatically flip to landscape mode when tilting it. The Sony Ericsson C905 is expected to sport a 2.4-inch QVGA display, and will also offer an optional TV-Out Cable ITC-60 for connection to TVs.

Measuring 104 by 49 by 18 mm and weighing 136 grams, the Sony Ericsson C905 is claimed to be announced with support for North American HSDPA. The Sony Ericsson C905 should also offer Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Exchange ActiveSync support.

source-http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/9469.html

T-Mobile inks exclusive new 3G iPhone deal-sources

2008-06-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

T-Mobile inks exclusive new 3G iPhone deal-sources
COLOGNE, June 9 (Reuters) - German mobile operator T-Mobile will sell a new version of Apple's APPL.O coveted iPhone exclusively in Germany and the Netherlands, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.

One of the sources also said the new version would be available in Germany next month.

T-Mobile declined to comment.

Analysts expect Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs to present an improved iPhone running on a so-called third-generation (3G) network for faster data speeds at Apple's developers conference on Monday.

T-Mobile, the mobile communication business of Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), has been selling Apple's original iPhone in Germany exclusively since November 2007.

The new iPhone will be accompanied by support for corporate e-mail and a slate of new programs that could help boost sales of the devices, which sport a touch-sensitive screen, wireless Internet access and iPod-style media functions.

Apple has declined to comment on what Jobs will announce.

T-Mobile Chief Executive Hamid Akhavan told Reuters last month he expected the company to remain the only seller of the iPhone in Germany and added at the time: "If and when there is a 3G iPhone we expect to have it exclusively in Germany as well."

In April, T-Mobile began offering the iPhone for 99 euros ($156.5) in combination with the most expensive T-Mobile contract of 89 euros per month, giving rise to speculation it was trying to clear the shelves for a new version of the iPhone.
source-http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSWEA904720080609

New Iphone Comes With A D-List Celeb

2008-06-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

New Iphone Comes With A D-List Celeb
NEW YORK, NY - The long-awaited 2nd generation iphone will come with its very own celebrity, states an SCNN source close to Steve Jobs. When the Apple CEO reached his limit in iphone programming, he reportedly decided to go one gimmick further by giving away out-of-work actors, singers, and heiresses with the purchase of the new device.

“It’s the best marketing strategy since Buy One Get One Free,” said the source. “I just hope that Soleil Moon Frye isn’t taken when I buy my iphone. Love that Punky Brewster!”

Other celebrities rumored to be part of the new deal include Mario Lopez, Tara Reid, Blanche from Golden Girls, Ben Affleck, and Drea de Matteo. The way it will work is when a customer purchases a new iphone, they can scan a list of celebrities ..

source-http://www.seriouscelebritynewsnetwork.com/2008/06/new-iphone-comes-with-a-d-list-celeb.html

iSkin lights the Fuze on a new iPhone case

2008-06-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

iSkin lights the Fuze on a new iPhone case
Love it or hate it there is no denying that the Apple iPhone has made a big impact in the mobile phone market. Since the introduction of the iPhone most every major cell phone maker has come to market with touch enabled phones and devices. Some of the devices are good and some of them not so good.

Despite the fact that Apple is widely expected to announce the new iPhone today at the Apple WWDC, iSkin is announcing a new case for the first generation iPhone. The case is called the Fuze and despite the fact that first generation iPhone’s are hard to come by in most parts iSkin promises the Fuze is the best case around for the iPhone.

The case has a soft interior to prevent scratching of the iPhone and an impact resistant polycarbonate exterior covered by rubberized material for better grip. The Fuze is also compatible with the optional belt clip from iSkin. iSkin also notes that a version for the iPhone 2 will be available soon. Soon will likely mean today since as soon as the new iPhone is announced hoards of accessories will be announced as well.
source-http://www.slipperybrick.com/2008/06/iskin-lights-the-fuze-on-a-new-iphone-case/

iPhone 2.0 Worldwide Launch on June 9th

2008-06-09T09:34:00.000-07:00

iPhone 2.0 Worldwide Launch on June 9th
A June 9 launch date for the iPhone 2? No surprises there, and now it looks like inside sources are confirming the June 9 date, which is also when Steve Jobs' keynote at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is scheduled.

But Gizmodo's Jesus Diaz has got wind of the details of the launch, and his source tells him that the Second Coming will be a worldwide event -- not just in the United States. He also claims that his snitch, "someone very, very close to the 3-G iPhone launch", says that the current fixed pricing model will be discontinued in favor of a more Euro-friendly flexible price point, one that can shift subject to the markets and the whims of the telcos.

The last point concerns Spain. As we reported this morning, Telefónica will indeed carry the iPhone, and will be launching it along with its brand new Madrid megastore on June 18.

This seems plausible enough. Despite the odd delay, all of Apple's hardware ships worldwide immediately upon launch. And the evidence coming in from around the world corroborates Jesus' story: The million and one one-line press releases from cellphone carriers announcing deals with Apple, for one, and the iPhone drought in the UK, Germany and even the online Apple store, for another. What is amazing is that Apple kept things quiet for so long, considering the amount of people involved.

So far, we count over 40 countries with iPhone deals, and in some of these there will be multiple carriers offering the iPhone. Here's what I believe to be a comprehensive list, not including the countries where the iPhone is already on sale, in no particular order (actually, the order I found them on Google):

Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, Italy, India, Austria, Philippines, Argentina,  Brazil,  Chile,  Colombia,  Dominican Republic,  Ecuador,  El Salvador,  Guatemala,  Honduras,  Jamaica,  Mexico, Nicaragua,  Paraguay,  Peru,  Puerto Rico,  Uruguay, Canada, Singapore, Belgium, Jordan, Romania, Switzerland and Slovakia.

British readers might note an eerie similarity to the old map of the British Empire, with the controlled territories colored pink.

If Jesus' tipoff is right, it looks like Apple is poised to conquer the world with the iPhone, much as it has done with the iPod, only a lot quicker. Piper Jaffray consultant Gene Munster put the numbers into his calculator and totted up the potential market for the iPhone now that these deals are in place. The number is 575 million. If Apple does nothing more than keep its existing 3 percent market penetration, that means it could sell 17.25 million iPhones. Muster doesn't stop there, though. He reckons that Apple could shift 45 million units by the end of 2009. Truly, the iPhone could be the phone on which the sun never sets.

source-http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/05/iphone-20-world.html

Apple 3G iPhone release coincides with AT&T HSUPA completion

2008-06-09T09:30:00.001-07:00

Apple 3G iPhone release coincides with AT&T HSUPA completion
The second half of June 2008 will mark a new era for AT&T. Will the Apple 3G iPhone show up on AT&T with HSUPA support around the 18th of June?

AT&T today announced that, in the next month, the company will deploy High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) technology in the six remaining markets across AT&T's entire 3G wireless broadband network. When done, AT&T will have completed its deployment of HSUPA technology, which complements existing HSDPA technology, making AT&T the only U.S. carrier to have fully deployed HSPA technology in its 3G network. Today the turbo-3G AT&T network is available in more than 275 markets, but another 75 markets will get such coverage by the end of the year.

With the new addition of HSUPA technology, AT&T 3G users are promised upload speeds between 500 and 800 Kbps, complementing the maximum 1.4 Mbps download speeds. However, while a couple of HSUPA data cards have already been added to AT&T's portfolio, the HSUPA multimedia smartphones are still missing.

The grin on Steve Jobs' face during his upcoming keynote on June 9th, if he pulls AT&T's and America's first HSUPA multimedia smartphone out of his pocket, will probably make all of us think how simple that must have been to come up with. However, even giants like Nokia had their initial struggle with implementing HSPA technology, so has Apple moved from EDGE to HSPA in less than a year, it's quite an accomplishment.

Too good to be true some may say, and we honestly have no proof of what exactly the Apple 3G iPhone will and will not offer. The only thing we do know, is that the Apple 3G iPhone will likely be announced on the 9th and released by AT&T on the 18th or 19th of June 2008, perhaps to coincide with a real "AT&T HSPA party". Because, AT&T has yet to make a big mainstream deal out of its latest network upgrade.

The carrier simply admits that equally as important as the network is the device through with a customer experiences it; thus more 3G-enabled smartphones will be released in the summer and fall of 2008. So, what AT&T is really saying without actually saying it, is that they are waiting for Apple, HTC and perhaps Sony Ericsson to start shipping their HSUPA smartphones, and then first, the real action begins. We agree with AT&T; the carrier would get some serious action on its network by being host to the Apple 3G iPhone, HTC Diamond and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 when the holiday season arrives.

Between 2005 and 2008, AT&T will have invested more than $20 billion in network improvements and upgrades - an average of $5 billion a year. AT&T recently turned down its older TDMA network, and that will allow the company to reuse valuable 850 MHz spectrum to expand and enhance 3G markets. AT&T plans to adopt LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology to reach even higher speeds in the long term. But before we start wishing for a LTE iPhone, let's get this 3G iPhone launch over with.
source-http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/9387.html

Apple 3G iPhone release coincides with AT&T HSUPA completion

2008-06-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

3G iPhone to release in early 2008

2008-06-09T09:16:00.000-07:00

3G iPhone to release in early 2008

According to Apple Insider, they have it on good authority that a Swedish firm has been assured that they'll get their hands on a 3G version of the iPhone as early as January 2008.

Whether it will be the first model that those outside the US get their hands on, or not, remains to be seen. Will there be two iPhones, one with and one without 3G? After all, not everyone (so I've heard) is so bothered about 3G if they have decent wi-fi, and are more concerned about the entertainment potential of their mobile.

Apple Insider reports:

Apple's choice of cellphone networks would obligate it to use a particular form of 3G known as High-Speed Download Packet Access (HSDPA) [which] happens to represent Apple's best shot at selling the iPhone beyond American borders. In Europe, cheaper data rates and widespread 3G networks encourage Internet access from smartphones to the extent that many cellphone giants lavish more attention on their phone lineups for that continent than anywhere else. Nokia's range toppers, for example, are often badged as "multimedia computers" rather than cellphones.

source-http://www.3gnewsroom.com/3g_news/mar_07/news_7701.shtml

Could the new iPhone change music?

2008-06-09T08:13:00.001-07:00

Could the new iPhone change music?
The new iPhone's web connectivity pushes the possibilities for buying and storing music - it could prove to be a musical milestone

Of course it'll be one among many music phones but the iPhone will still lead the way. Photograph: AP

The biggest US music retailer is expected to introduce a new mobile phone tonight, so, is it time to dump your iPod? Possibly.

We're talking about Apple's much-hyped iPhone launch, of course. And it doesn't take a dose of Geek Potion Number Nine to make a few guesses at its impact on music sales, because it will support a fast mobile data transfer standard called 3G, which, twinned with the iTunes Music Store, raises lots of possibilities. Here are five of them...

· Unlimited music. The number of tracks in your iPod is limited by how many it holds. The iPhone is the same, but because it's internet-connected, there's already ways to stream music you don't have with you using the internet (Remote Buddy, for example). All your music, all the time.

· While other mobile stores exist, they suffer dropped connections, failed downloads and aren't as flexible; iPhones can carry music from your existing collection and will eventually let you buy music over-the-air. You'll be watching an act at one of this summer's festivals, buying their music on your phone as soon as they leave the stage. All your new tracks jump straight into your computer when you connect (sync) your iPhone. And work with your iPod also.

· All the latest info says Apple plans to introduce its mobile internationally this year, so it's pretty clear part of the plan includes launching iTunes in more countries to boost that launch. iTunes only sells music in 22 countries right now.

· Under the banner of access, not ownership, subscription is the great future music hope. The iPod was the most successful portable music player. Now it's internet-savvy, what's to stop Apple launching a subscription service using its iPod phone? U2 manager Paul McGuinness tipped us off about this at Midem this year, when he predicted "a wireless iPod that connects to an iTunes 'all of the music, wherever you are' subscription service".

· It's not just about music consumption. 1999's iMac computer had less processing power and capacity than the iPhone does now. Add a dose of wireless connectivity, and you have a band - albeit a virtual one - in your pocket. Take a look at the iBand video for an idea of what this could mean.

I don't expect all these things to happen now, but it will soon be easier to find, share and listen to the music you want when and where you want it than ever. Some would say that's as important a moment in musical history as the invention of the gramophone.
source-http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/06/could_the_new_iphone_change_mu.html

New iPhone to stake out new turf

2008-06-09T08:06:00.002-07:00

New iPhone to stake out new turf
In what could be the worst-kept technology secret of the year, Apple Inc. chief executive officer Steve Jobs is expected to unveil the next evolution of the company's game-changing iPhone today.

The updated iPhone will almost certainly run on the most advanced wireless networks yet available, and will promise customers the ability to surf the Web and stream video at speeds comparable to home broadband connections.

Analysts say the “3G” iPhone will give Apple the technology it needs to become a global cellphone powerhouse, and for Rogers Wireless Communications Inc., the Canadian carrier of the device, iPhone version 2.0 represents a potential windfall of new revenue.

Although most analysts expect Mr. Jobs will show off the new iPhone when he delivers the keynote address at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference today, what new features will be included in the updated version of the touch-screen device, whether the company will continue to sell its older 2G models, and when it will arrive in Canada all remain unknown.

“Apple plays their cards very close to the vest,” said Van Baker, a senior analyst with market research firm Gartner Inc. “Those are all open questions.”

Since going on sale in the United States on June 29 last year, the iPhone has captured 20 per cent of the U.S. smart phone market, and is a rising global star, accounting for more than 5 per cent of the worldwide market for Internet-enabled cellphones in the first three months of 2008, says market research firm IDC.

Mr. Jobs' stated goal is to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. Most observers say the company is on pace to sell 13 million to 15 million iPhones by the end of the year.

In addition to a new high-end model, Apple could also be prepping a smaller, less expensive iPhone, similar to the way the company produces both the iPod Touch music player as well as lower-cost Nano and Shuffle devices, said Kasper Jade, publisher of AppleInsider.com.

Canada is among a group of nearly 50 new markets the iPhone is expected to reach this year, a list that includes Japan, Spain, Australia and Egypt.

A 3G device is critical to Apple's global strategy since customers in many Asian and European markets are accustomed to faster Web browsing speeds than the existing iPhone offers.

Those limitations have disappointed some of the first phone companies to sell the iPhone, said Mark Goldberg, of telecom consulting firm Mark H. Goldberg and Associates.

The new iPhone is built with chip sets capable of handling data at faster speeds and batteries with greater longevity, he said.

That's good news for Rogers, which announced in April that it had an exclusive deal with Apple to sell iPhones in Canada.

Rogers has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in building a 3G wireless network, a process that began in 2006, but so far the company hasn't pumped much of its marketing might into the upgrade.

That means most customers on the 3G connection are not even aware of the upgrade, save perhaps for a different icon on their screens.

Rogers declined to say anything about Apple, the iPhone or the product's launch in Canada. But in a recent interview about the state of the company's next-generation network, Jim Smith, vice president of network engineering, said its 3G technology now covers 60 per cent of the country.

The upgrade runs eight to ten times faster than the previous technology and in many cases the speed is the same as fixed broadband over home connections, he said.

To truly capitalize on the investment, Rogers needs popular devices that entice customers to use the new services available, which include video-calling, streaming video-on-demand, mobile television and satellite radio-on-demand.

At the moment, Rogers sells more than a dozen models of handsets capable of tapping these features, including products from LG Electronics Inc., Nokia Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Motorola and HTC.

But it is still waiting for the world's two most popular smart phones to arrive in 3G form: the iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry Bold, which is expected this summer.

“Rogers will use the iPhone as a pivot point to explain what the new 3G technology can really do, said Kaan Yigit, president of consulting firm Solutions Research Group Inc.. “People need a visual clue to believe that this is not so crazy.”

Rogers mobile television service, for example, includes access to Fox Sports, BBC World Service and the Weather Network These kind of features take the transmission of data far beyond just email, and analysts look at them as potential cash cows for the industry.

Rogers is testing the waters with different pricing plans for each of these services, including some fixed-rate packages.

The company reported growth in its data business of 47 per cent in the first three months of the year compared with the same period in 2007, to $206-million, or 15 per cent of total wireless revenue.

With the iPhone, Rogers is going to benefit from the spill-over effect of marketing in the U.S. and the media hype around the latest product release, analysts predict.

“Christmas will come early for Rogers this year,” Mr. Yigit said. He estimates that on average iPhone customers in Canada will incur charges of $80 a month on their monthly bill. That's a 10 per cent premium to the average revenue per user that Rogers reported from all its wireless customers in the first quarter of the year.

Mr. Yigit also expects that more than half of all people buying the new iPhone will be new wireless customers to Rogers.

“The iPhone could be a switching magnet, especially for the fashion-forward group in their twenties,” he said.

He forecasts that Rogers will sell about 500,000 iPhones in the first 12 months, the product launches by mid-July and comes with a reasonable monthly charge.

source-http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080609.wiphonerogers0609/BNStory/Technology/home

New iPhone unveiled today?

2008-06-09T08:06:00.001-07:00

New iPhone unveiled today?
APPLE DEVICE SEEN AS A WORK IN PROGRESS

It's not even a year old, but Apple's iPhone is captivating consumers and competitors in a way no other cell phone has.

It has raised the bar on what callers demand from their smart-phones and inspired a host of copycats.

But the widely praised and wildly publicized gadget is still a work in progress, and most experts say it has far to go before it really transforms the wireless industry. Nokia, for instance, sells more phones in a week than Apple sold in 10 months, and experts say the iPhone's high price limits its appeal.

"The publicity and hype around Apple and the iPhone is hugely out of proportion to their impact on the industry," said Edward Snyder, a cell phone expert at Charter Equity Research.

That may change. Apple is all but certain to announce an upgraded version soon, perhaps as early as today, when Steve Jobs addresses a gathering of Apple software developers in San Francisco.

Apple watchers expect the new version to take advantage of a faster wireless network, dubbed 3G for "third generation," improving what many consider to be the current version's key flaw - its slow Web access.

"It's clear they have to do 3G," said Rob Enderle, founder and principal analyst at the Enderle Group, a technology consulting firm.

But even if that doesn't happen today, Apple's chief executive is sure to talk about new programs that will make the iPhone more like a computer for your pocket than merely a communications device.

And most analysts expect it to eventually become a culture-shifting product like the iPod, which helped change how the masses get and listen to music.
"They've done what they've always done - come up with something radically different," said Ken Dulaney, an analyst with Gartner, a research firm.

IPhone's influence

Even with plenty of room for improvement, the iPhone has also changed the way people use smart-phones, said wireless industry

analyst Chetan Sharma. T-Mobile, for instance, reported that its German iPhone users devour 30 times more data than its other wireless subscribers.
"Every major carrier in the world has been trying to figure out how to launch an iPhone on their network," he said.

For some, it has become much more than a communications device.

"It almost feels like you are looking at the world through this device - the sense of being able to reach through this device and touch all these things," said John Seely Brown, former chief scientist and director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.

"Think when this thing becomes blindingly fast - think what it will do," he said.

Upgrades on display

The iPhone remodeling effort will be on full view this week as Jobs kicks off Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference at San Francisco's Moscone West. The five-day gathering for the first time features iPhone sessions for mobile-device software developers.

The iPhone's future success will depend on these programs, said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a tech research firm.

"We did not see a real breakthrough with the PC until we saw products like Office, word processing, games - consumer-based software," he said.

There is also plenty of speculation on other new features. Many users would welcome some sort of global positioning system and an upgraded camera.

But the iPhone, at this point, is more promise than market-dominating power. As of the end of March, Apple said it had shipped 5.5 million since its release last June. The company, which sold 1.7 million during the first three months of 2008, said it will sell 10 million iPhones this year.

But Apple faces a struggle to meet that goal, which is still just a small slice of the overall mobile phone market, said Snyder.

Still, Apple's iPhone had captured 28 percent of the smart-phone market in the United States by the fourth quarter of 2007 - just six months into its launch - behind Research in Motion's BlackBerry, which had 41 percent of sales, and significantly ahead of Palm's 9 percent, according to research firm Canalys.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle the iPhone faces now is its cost. It comes in two models, an 8-gigabyte version for $399 and a 16GB version for $499.

AT&T, Apple's exclusive U.S. carrier partner, reportedly plans to subsidize $200 of the cost of the next-generation iPhone for consumers who sign up for a two-year service contract.

"The iPhone is too high-priced to be mainstream," Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said. "We think in 2009 the price will be more mainstream. The iPhone is going to be huge. It's just taking time."

source-http://www.mercurynews.com/apple/ci_9527319

New iPhone price will rock

2008-06-09T07:53:00.000-07:00

New iPhone price will rock
Get ready for iPhone 2.0: Today Apple is widely expected to introduce a zippier version that will operate on both a faster AT&T network, and speedier networks internationally, USA Today reports.

The price also will rock: $199, according to people with knowledge of the matter, down from the current $399 and $499, the newspaper reports.

According to sources, the new Apple device will be available in Apple and AT&T stores, including Indianapolis, beginning this summer.

For consumers, the shift to 3G will be akin to going "from dial-up to broadband," says Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray.

Consumers and reviewers alike gushed about its compact, futuristic design and sensitive touch-screen. But even its biggest fans have had one persistent chief complaint: The iPhone's Internet network from partner AT&T was too slow.

Consumers and reviewers alike have gushed about the iPhone's compact, futuristic design and sensitive touch-screen, released last year. But even its biggest fans have had one persistent chief complaint: The iPhone's Internet network from partner AT&T was too slow. Today's expected upgrade should change that.
source-http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080609/BUSINESS/80609008/1003

Rogers to Bring 3G iPhone 2 to Canada

2008-06-09T07:42:00.000-07:00

Rogers to Bring 3G iPhone 2 to Canada
Today is the big day – Apple’s WWDC, the day Steve Jobs takes the stage in another sure to be historic keynote. Wearing his cooler than thou without trying trademark black pullover and jeans, he’ll present a new toy that’ll bring Apple-nistas into one global nerdgasm. And this time it might even apply to Canadians.

Rogers has promised it’ll bring the iPhone to Canada. Rogers has a 3G network so it can support the new iPhone. Industry Canada is currently in the process of its bandwidth auction which, as far as I am aware based on the Canadian govt. website, will go on for about a month. But once new wireless telecom spectrum is sold new players will enter the wireless game. This may not mean an immediate drop in price but it will almost certainly mean more creative billing and more flexible options – possibly including an unlimited data package.

It’s predicted by industry analysts that competition will be the high fiber diet needed to bring flow to the current state of mobile network constipation suffered by all Canadians. Our Telecoms are full of it and we’re paying more for less than other industrialized nation. An unlimited data plan from Rogers might be a reaction to that inevitable competition.

No Canadian Telecom offers a pure unlimited data plan and that had prevented iPhone from coming here. Rogers doesn’t want you to have one and Apple demands one is sold with iPhone because Apple wants to make lots of money selling content through iTunes. When a 3G iPhone hits the market it’ll likely have the ability to download music and video directly from a mobile network thus overcoming iPhone’s current wi-fi only limitation.

It looks to me like a stellar conjunction is about to align over Canada. This could be the day it’s realized, but it’s more likely to trickle out over the summer. iPhone 3G in the Canadian market with an affordable unlimited data plan. Step one is to find out exactly what the new iPhone can do and Mr. Jobs is expected to take care of that later today.
source-http://www.gizmorepublic.com/portable/rogers-may-bring-3g-iphone-2-canada-5810

Rogers to Bring 3G iPhone 2 to Canada

2008-06-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

BakBone Software - Products

2008-06-08T07:01:00.000-07:00

BakBone Software - Products
NetVault®: Backup

“NetVault: Backup is easily the best data preservation tool I have ever used. I am happy to say this is one software platform that gave us an immediate return on investment the day it was installed.”

— Frank Migliaccio, Director of Network Operations, Money Mailer

The NetVault: Backup product line helps you meet your data protection challenges by providing enterprise class data protection for complex, heterogeneous IT environments, regardless of size. The key is NetVault: Backup’s flexible modular architecture, which delivers proven reliability and high performance with an unmatched combination of features. This design provides a unique capabilities that reduce deployment costs and TCO by enabling you to implement a solution designed to meet current as well as future needs. NetVault: Backup offers a number of business critical benefits:

Supports business growth and management of complex environments
Reduces implementation costs and TCO with flexible configuration options
Supports application investment and growth with cost-effective scaling
Optimizes data availability by maximizing existing resources
Enhances business continuity by reducing system downtime.

NetVault: Backup provides advanced Reporting options, User Level Access, extensive Event Notification features, and Policy Management - making NetVault: Backup the most advanced data protection offering now available!

NetVault: Backup Core

For data protection, disaster recovery and business continuity, NetVault: Backup provides enterprise-class data protection for complex heterogeneous environments, regardless of size.

Application Data Protection

When combined with NetVault: Backup, Application Plugin Modules (APM) ensure continuous availability of many of today's business-critical applications.

Virtualization Protection

NetVault: Backup VMware Plugin protects an individual single ESX server or a full VirtualCenter while empowering users to create comprehensive, flexible backup policies without the need to either understand VCB internals nor create complex scripting.

Disk-To-Disk Backup and VTL

NetVault: Backup’s Virtual Tape Library (VTL) and Shared Virtual Tape Library (SVTL) options provide high speed, disk-to-disk backup and recovery performance by creating a virtual tape library on disk.

Network Attached Storage

BakBone was the pioneer of many of today’s NDMP-based backup solutions. Our expertise continues with our NAS solutions that enhance the benefits of NDMP-based network backup performance and manageability.

Value Added Plug-ins

Ranging from disaster recovery to device integration to open file protection, NetVault: Backup’s value added plug-ins enhance and extend data protection capabilities.

source-http://www.bakbone.com/product.aspx?id=1304

BakBone Announces New Try It, Buy It Program

2008-06-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

BakBone Announces New Try It, Buy It Program
BakBone Software® (Pink Sheets:BKBO), the leading provider of heterogeneous integrated data protection solutions, today announced Try It, Buy It, the only program that allows users to download and evaluate a full version of an enterprise data protection solution in mere minutes. Unlike competitors’ solutions, the NetVault: Backup evaluation is simple to install and free; it does not require any credit card or purchase order information.
NetVault®: Backup, BakBone’s flagship enterprise data protection solution, is leading the market in ease of use, illustrating BakBone’s motto, The Power of Simplicity. Not only is BakBone’s NetVault: Backup easy to download and evaluate, it delivers data protection software that is easy to deploy, use and manage. BakBone also offers interactive online demonstrations that give attendees an intimate look at the software’s capabilities and how effortless it is to install it.

“I work with a unique environment that includes Solaris, Linux and Windows and 2 TB of data and was looking for a consolidated solution that would pull all of our data protection needs together,” said Susan Cowen, network administrator, Wabash Valley Power. “BakBone’s online demo was a perfect opportunity to experience the software and see if it meets my specific requirements. The demo was informative and easy to follow and showed that the software is intuitive and seamlessly integrates into an environment. It was very easy and fast to download the server software, clients and support documentation.”

Download NetVault: Backup http://www.bakbone.com/products/downloads/

Within minutes, NetVault: Backup can be downloaded and evaluated in any storage environment. During the evaluation period, BakBone provides support to help customers set up the product to meet their specifications.

Attend a Live, Interactive Demo of NetVault: Backup http://www.bakbone.com/webinars

BakBone holds interactive demos of NetVault: Backup every Friday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time. Attendees will see how quickly the product deploys, how simple it is to manage with any operating system, how it scales and how this cost-effective solution cuts back on administration time.

BakBone recently introduced support for SharePoint, full VMware support and enhanced Oracle database protection. Customers can download and evaluate these features during their trial.

“Managing and protecting company data, the backbone of any corporate activity, has become a time-consuming and cumbersome task, but it doesn’t have to be,” said Ken Horner, senior vice president of Corporate Development and Strategy, BakBone. “Not only should your backup solution be hassle-free but doing business with your vendor, including evaluation of these offerings, should be seamless and easy as well. Users can have this power of simplicity with BakBone’s NetVault: Backup; we’ve built it from the ground up to be flexible and scalable, allowing all levels of customers, from start-ups to enterprises, to see immediate results from a comprehensive data protection solution. Our Try It, Buy It program will allow users to see how quick and easy solid data protection can be.”

source-http://vmblog.com/archive/2008/06/07/bakbone-announces-new-try-it-buy-it-program.aspx

Norton Antivirus Free Download

2008-06-08T04:51:00.000-07:00

Norton Antivirus Free Download
This software is one of the most popular antirus programs in the World . Will defend your PC while you are surfing or chatting, emailing or file swapping. Norton AntiVirus fight against a host of Internet threats. It automatically detects and removes viruses, rids your computer of unwanted spyware, and scans email and IM attachments for threats. Detects and removes viruses and spyware Blocks spyware and worms automatically.Prevents emails who are infectedchecking them before downloading on your email client.
A very popular antivirus software;protect your computer. Has a long time for setup because is pretty huge (around 40 mb) than other antiviruses(Kaspersky have 23 mb and McAfee 9 mb)
Norton AntiVirus options:
- Account
- Help
- Technical Support
- Live Update
- Scan now
- View History
Account will send you to the login page (www.mynortonaccount.com/amsweb). Pressing Live Update you can choose what components you need to be updated : crimeware definitions,firewall,worm internet protection definitions,virus definitions,protection center,security software,shared components and trusted application list. This basic security program include virus protection,anti spyware,inbound firewall and full system scan.Offers you real time protection for instant messengers , scan outgoing emails and all the emails who you receive.
Symantec provide online technical support for this program at http://www.symantec.com/norton/support/index.jsp. You can run a quick scan or a full system control against viruses,adware,trojans etc.Also,view the status of protection categories and manage files dropped in quarantine.The author recommend to run updates regularly because new virus definitions are discovered every day. A plus for this program is the help center:very good organized and cover all the possible problems .Control Center offer you support for phishing,crimeware and pharming issues .

Advantages of Norton Antivirus

- very good protection
- good design

http://www.freedownloadsplace.com/Download-Norton-Antivirus-Free-15917.htm

Internet Movie Database

2008-06-06T22:56:00.000-07:00

Internet Movie Database to acquire indie-film service
Amazon.com is delving even deeper into the film industry, with subsidiary Internet Movie Database signing a deal to acquire Withoutabox.

Withoutabox develops online tools and operates a service to aid independent filmmakers in submitting their work to festivals worldwide and in promoting their films.

Withoutabox, based in Los Angeles, said it has worked with 150,000 filmmakers since its founding in 2000. The Internet Movie Database draws more than 50 million unique visitors each month with its searchable database of movies, TV, and entertainment programs.

The definitive agreement, announced Thursday, is designed to offer a wider selection of films to Internet Movie Database users and to vastly broaden the audience for filmmakers that use Withoutabox.

"For eight years, Withoutabox has enabled filmmakers and festivals to reach the widest audience possible," David Straus, Withoutabox's CEO, said in a statement. "Now, they will be able to connect directly with the 50 million film lovers who visit (IMDB.com) each month."

Amazon itself has been dabbling with Hollywood content for years, including selling and renting downloads of movies and TV shows via Unbox.

Under the agreement, the Internet Movie Database will operate Withoutabox as a standalone entity.

The terms and timing of when the deal might close were not disclosed. As the saying in Hollywood goes, it's "hush, hush."

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information related to movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. IMDb launched on October 17, 1990, and in 1998 was acquired by Amazon.com.

The IMDb website consists of the largest accumulation of data about films, television programs, direct-to-video products, and video games, reaching back to each medium's respective beginning. In many cases, the information goes beyond simple title or press credits to include complete cast and crew credits, uncredited personnel, production and distribution companies, plot summaries, memorable quotes, awards, reviews, box office performance, filming locations, technical specs, promotional content, trivia, and links to official and other websites. Furthermore, the IMDb tracks titles in production, including major announced projects still in development. The database also houses filmographies for all persons, cast and crew, identified in listed titles. Filmographies include biographical details, awards listings, external links, and information about other professional work not covered by title entries in the database such as theatrical and commercial advertising appearances. The IMDb also offers ancillary material such as daily movie and TV news, weekly box office reports, TV listings, cinema showtimes, user polls and ratings, and special features about various movie events such as the Academy Awards. The website also has an active message board system. There are message boards for each database entry, found at the bottom of each respective page, as well as general discussion boards on various topics.

The IMDb website is essentially a free site. All of the basic database information is available without registration and without providing any personal information. However, to submit information or to use the message boards or some other features the IMDb requires registration. Some advanced features require verification which can sometimes require some personal financial information such as credit card details. Any person with an e-mail account and a web browser that accepts cookies can set up an account with IMDb that allows them to submit information and engage in many other site activities. IMDb has 57 million visitors, 17 million of which are registered users, as of October 10, 2007.

Site visitors wishing only to view information without accessing interactive features are able to do so without registration and without providing any personal information. Database content is largely provided and updated by a cadre of volunteer contributors; although 20 members of the IMDb staff are dedicated to monitoring received data.For automated queries, most of the database can be downloaded as compressed plain text files and the information can be extracted using the tools provided, typically using a command line interface.

In 2002, the IMDb spun off a private, subscription-funded for profit site, IMDbPro, offering the entire content of the database plus additional information for business professionals, such as personnel contact details, titles in development, movie event calendars, and a greater range of industry news.

In 2006, IMDb introduced its "Resume subscription service", where actors and crew can post their own resume and upload photos of themselves for a yearly fee. IMDb resume pages are kept separately from the regular entry about that person, but a regular entry is automatically created for each resume subscriber who does not already have one

Verizon Wireless to Acquire Alltel

2008-06-06T11:13:00.000-07:00

Verizon Wireless to Acquire Alltel

Verizon Wireless announced Thursday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Alltel for US$5.9 billion, plus the assumption of debt, in a deal that will create the biggest mobile phone company in the U.S.

Based on Alltel's projected net debt at closing of $22.2 billion, the aggregate value of the deal is $28.1 billion, Verizon said. The merger should be complete by the end of the year, pending regulatory approvals, Verizon said.

Verizon said the acquisition will give users access to an expanded range of products and services.

Alltel has more than 13 million mobile phone customers in 34 states, including 57 primarily rural markets that Verizon Wireless does not serve. The merger will give Alltel customers access to next-generation wireless services that Verizon is rolling out, the companies said in a news release.

Alltel's customers will also be able to take advantage of Verizon Wireless' Open Development initiative, which will allow customers to bring outside wireless devices and applications onto the Verizon network, Verizon said.

"This move will create an enhanced platform of network coverage, spectrum and customer care to better serve the growing needs of both Alltel and Verizon Wireless customers for reliable basic and advanced broadband wireless services," Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless' president and CEO, said in a statement.

Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon Communication's CEO and chairman, called the merger a "perfect fit."

Verizon Wireless expects to cut costs by more than $9 billion through the merger, the company said in a news release. The cost savings are expected to reach $1 billion in the second year after closing, Verizon said.

Public Knowledge, a consumer rights group that's a frequent critic of large telecom companies, suggested the deal could be bad for consumers.

The merger "raises serious questions for consumer that will have to be addressed through antitrust analysis," Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge's president, said in an e-mail.

If the deal goes through, Verizon and AT&T will have 150 million of the nation's 260 million mobile customers, Sohn said. "With Sprint in a weakened condition, this deal will speed the unfortunate trend of giving consumers fewer, rather than more, choices in telecommunications services, while giving a few companies more control over the lives of consumers," she added.

Sohn called on the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to closely examine the deal.

Jeff Kagan, an independent telecom analyst, said the deal may make sense, especially for Alltel, which has struggled in recent years to attract customers.

"This deal would help Verizon Wireless grow by acquiring a new customer base," Kagan said in an e-mail. "Not that it matters much anymore, because they are all so big, but this deal would give Verizon Wireless the number one spot in the rankings."

source-http://news.yahoo.com/

Verizon Wireless To Buy Rival Alltel For $28.1 Billion

2008-06-06T11:09:00.002-07:00

Verizon Wireless To Buy Rival Alltel For $28.1 Billion

Verizon Wireless leapfrogged AT&T (NYSE:T - News) as the nation's top wireless operator by agreeing on Thursday to buy privately held No. 5 Alltel, for $28.1 billion.

It won't have to pony up much cash: $5.9 billion, and that includes cash from Alltel's books. The bulk of the price comes from assuming $22.2 billion in debt.

If regulators approve the deal, Verizon Wireless would serve 80.4 million customers, including Alltel's 13.2 million. AT&T has 71.4 million mobile subscribers.

Verizon Wireless, 55%-owned by local phone giant Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ - News) and 45%-owned by U.K.-based Vodafone (NYSE:VOD - News), said its debt will more than double to $38 billion with the Alltel deal.

Verizon Wireless increased debt will delay the resumption of dividend payments to its co-owners until 2012, at least two years longer than projected. That may reignite calls from Vodafone shareholders for the world's top wireless firm by revenue to sell its stake in the joint venture, some analysts said.

Verizon Communications stock jumped 5% Thursday to 38.96 after falling 1% Wednesday on talk of a deal. Vodafone's N.Y.-listed shares gained nearly 5% to 31.51.

Despite losing the top U.S. wireless spot, AT&T rose 2.5% to 39.46. AT&T could benefit from industry consolidation, analysts say.

Verizon Wireless pounced on a chance to buy Alltel from private equity groups that bought the mobile firm last year at the height of the credit bubble. TPG, formerly Texas Pacific Group, and Goldman Sachs' (NYSE:GS - News) equity arm bought Alltel in an auction for $27.5 billion.

Verizon Wireless, viewed as a possible Alltel buyer for years because the companies use the same network technology, bowed out of the 2007 auction.

Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg said in a conference call that he jumped at this opportunity to buy Alltel after walking away from others.

"We passed on (Alltel) not once, not twice, but three times," he said. "We've always believed we were a natural partner (for Alltel) but we took a risk -- rather than overpay -- that there would be a better day. As it turns out, there's been a better day."

Seidenberg added that Alltel has been well-managed. Alltel has continued to grow customers and cash flow, making the rural mobile firm an attractive target, he says.

"Their EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) is 10% higher than a year ago. This asset was sold for an EBITDA multiple of 9.2 and today, all-in, it's at 8.2 times."

Analysts say that while TPG and GS Capital Partners weren't distressed sellers -- TPG recently led a $7 billion injection of capital into Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM - News) -- banks that had financed the buyout deal wanted to get debt off their books.

Despite solid subscriber growth, Alltel's interest costs had jumped due to buyout-related debt, says Gimmiecredit.com. Verizon says it plans to refinance much of the Alltel debt at lower interest rates.

Of Verizon's $5.9 billion payment, roughly $1.4 billion will come from cash on Alltel's balance sheet.

The Verizon Wireless/Alltel deal comes just as Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin plans to leave. Sarin, who has expanded Vodafone into India, Turkey and other emerging markets, will step down in July.

Because of the structure of the joint venture, Verizon Wireless did not need Vodafone's approval to pursue the Alltel deal.

Sarin praised the Alltel deal on a conference call.

"The company has performed really well, with double-digit revenue and profit growth," he said. "The opportunity came up during the last few weeks for us to look at this asset again. There is a credit crunch aspect to this valuation which helps us compared to where values were nine months ago."

Vodafone received its last dividend payment, $585 million, from its U.S. venture in 2005.

Vodafone's U.S. Issue

Sarin's successor, Vittorio Colao, could face tough choices on its U.S. strategy, analysts say. Before the Alltel deal, analysts pegged the value of Vodafone's 45% stake at $60 billion to $70 billion.

Vodafone could launch an all-out bid for Verizon Communications. But it's not clear Vodafone holders "could stomach" a takeover, said one analyst who asked not to be identified. Vodafone's market valuation is $166.6 billion vs. Verizon's $111.1 billion.

Alltel added a record 385,000 subscribers in the first quarter, up from 237,000 a year earlier. "Alltel had been taking share for the past few quarters with aggressive pricing plans," said UBS analyst John Hodulik, adding that competitive pressure will ease with Alltel taken out.

More deals may be coming, analysts say. Germany's Deutsche Telekom (NYSE:DT - News), which owns T-Mobile, is eyeing Sprint-Nextel (NYSE:S - News). But Sprint's shares fell 5 cents to 9.20.

Sweden's TeliaSonera, meanwhile, rebuffed a $42 billion offer from France Telecom on Thursday.

Regulators may require Verizon Wireless to divest 20% to 30% of Alltel's properties because their networks overlap in many markets, Hodulik says.

Verizon Wireless is strongest in the Northeast and West Coast. Alltel is focused in the Southeast and Midwest.

With Verizon Wireless' size comes the ability to hammer out better deals for mobile phones and network gear, says Craig Moffett, analyst at Bernstein Research. "Verizon will be able to run Alltel cheaper than Alltel," he said.
source-http://news.yahoo.com/

Verizon Wireless To Buy Rival Alltel For $28.1 Billion

2008-06-06T11:06:00.000-07:00

Verizon Wireless To Buy Rival Alltel For $28.1 Billion

Verizon Wireless leapfrogged AT&T (NYSE:T - News) as the nation's top wireless operator by agreeing on Thursday to buy privately held No. 5 Alltel, for $28.1 billion.

It won't have to pony up much cash: $5.9 billion, and that includes cash from Alltel's books. The bulk of the price comes from assuming $22.2 billion in debt.

If regulators approve the deal, Verizon Wireless would serve 80.4 million customers, including Alltel's 13.2 million. AT&T has 71.4 million mobile subscribers.

Verizon Wireless, 55%-owned by local phone giant Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ - News) and 45%-owned by U.K.-based Vodafone (NYSE:VOD - News), said its debt will more than double to $38 billion with the Alltel deal.

Verizon Wireless' increased debt will delay the resumption of dividend payments to its co-owners until 2012, at least two years longer than projected. That may reignite calls from Vodafone shareholders for the world's top wireless firm by revenue to sell its stake in the joint venture, some analysts said.

Verizon Communications' stock jumped 5% Thursday to 38.96 after falling 1% Wednesday on talk of a deal. Vodafone's N.Y.-listed shares gained nearly 5% to 31.51.

Despite losing the top U.S. wireless spot, AT&T rose 2.5% to 39.46. AT&T could benefit from industry consolidation, analysts say.

Verizon Wireless pounced on a chance to buy Alltel from private equity groups that bought the mobile firm last year at the height of the credit bubble. TPG, formerly Texas Pacific Group, and Goldman Sachs' (NYSE:GS - News) equity arm bought Alltel in an auction for $27.5 billion.

Verizon Wireless, viewed as a possible Alltel buyer for years because the companies use the same network technology, bowed out of the 2007 auction.

Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg said in a conference call that he jumped at this opportunity to buy Alltel after walking away from others.

"We passed on (Alltel) not once, not twice, but three times," he said. "We've always believed we were a natural partner (for Alltel) but we took a risk -- rather than overpay -- that there would be a better day. As it turns out, there's been a better day."

Seidenberg added that Alltel has been well-managed. Alltel has continued to grow customers and cash flow, making the rural mobile firm an attractive target, he says.

"Their EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) is 10% higher than a year ago. This asset was sold for an EBITDA multiple of 9.2 and today, all-in, it's at 8.2 times."

Analysts say that while TPG and GS Capital Partners weren't distressed sellers -- TPG recently led a $7 billion injection of capital into Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM - News) -- banks that had financed the buyout deal wanted to get debt off their books.

Despite solid subscriber growth, Alltel's interest costs had jumped due to buyout-related debt, says Gimmiecredit.com. Verizon says it plans to refinance much of the Alltel debt at lower interest rates.

Of Verizon's $5.9 billion payment, roughly $1.4 billion will come from cash on Alltel's balance sheet.

The Verizon Wireless/Alltel deal comes just as Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin plans to leave. Sarin, who has expanded Vodafone into India, Turkey and other emerging markets, will step down in July.

Because of the structure of the joint venture, Verizon Wireless did not need Vodafone's approval to pursue the Alltel deal.

Sarin praised the Alltel deal on a conference call.

"The company has performed really well, with double-digit revenue and profit growth," he said. "The opportunity came up during the last few weeks for us to look at this asset again. There is a credit crunch aspect to this valuation which helps us compared to where values were nine months ago."

Vodafone received its last dividend payment, $585 million, from its U.S. venture in 2005.

Vodafone's U.S. Issue

Sarin's successor, Vittorio Colao, could face tough choices on its U.S. strategy, analysts say. Before the Alltel deal, analysts pegged the value of Vodafone's 45% stake at $60 billion to $70 billion.

Vodafone could launch an all-out bid for Verizon Communications. But it's not clear Vodafone holders "could stomach" a takeover, said one analyst who asked not to be identified. Vodafone's market valuation is $166.6 billion vs. Verizon's $111.1 billion.

Alltel added a record 385,000 subscribers in the first quarter, up from 237,000 a year earlier. "Alltel had been taking share for the past few quarters with aggressive pricing plans," said UBS analyst John Hodulik, adding that competitive pressure will ease with Alltel taken out.

More deals may be coming, analysts say. Germany's Deutsche Telekom (NYSE:DT - News), which owns T-Mobile, is eyeing Sprint-Nextel (NYSE:S - News). But Sprint's shares fell 5 cents to 9.20.

Sweden's TeliaSonera, meanwhile, rebuffed a $42 billion offer from France Telecom on Thursday.

Regulators may require Verizon Wireless to divest 20% to 30% of Alltel's properties because their networks overlap in many markets, Hodulik says.

Verizon Wireless is strongest in the Northeast and West Coast. Alltel is focused in the Southeast and Midwest.

With Verizon Wireless' size comes the ability to hammer out better deals for mobile phones and network gear, says Craig Moffett, analyst at Bernstein Research. "Verizon will be able to run Alltel cheaper than Alltel," he said.
source-http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20080605/bs_ibd_ibd/20080605general01

Soundcast Audiocast Wireless Audio System

2008-06-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

Soundcast Audiocast Wireless Audio System
Soundcast Audiocast Wireless Audio System - Worth It?
there are several options that will allow you to wirelessly broadcast your music around your home, one such option being the Soundcast Audiocast Wireless Audio System. Are these systems all that great or are they a barely acceptable way to broadcast your music from your iPod, PC or other audio source? Let’s take a look at some of these units and what they do…
First of all, you need both a receiver station, such as the ACR212 Audiocast Wireless Audio Receiver, and a transmitter station, like the ACT211 Audiocast Wireless Audio Transmitter. These units, and others like them, connect using a 2.4 GHz Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS). This helps insure a better quality of sound than FM transmitters but it also means having the slightly bulky unit at both ends. Quality products in this frequency range should not get interference from microwaves, portable phones or baby monitors but poor quality ones are susceptible to radio frequency interference.

The range on these units is typically 100-150 feet (30-45 meters) through walls. This can be a stretching it in some houses or where there is exceptional interference. Connection to a sound source is through a standard mini-plug for most units although there are some that are proprietary or designed around a particular sound source like the Apple iPod. Another thing that you must bear in mind is that the receiving end will need a powered sound system too, such as a stereo system or boom box with an AUX or MP3 plug-in. Headphones generally won’t cut it. Controlling them is also a problem since you will have to go back to the transmitter base station to adjust the player that’s plugged into it.

All in all these units are a good way to transmit your tunes throughout your house but they do have their limitations. So, do you think a wireless system like the Soundcast Audiocast Wireless Audio System is in your future?
source-http://optempo.com/

Live Android Demo Video

2008-05-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

Live Android Demo - Featured Video on BuzzFeedLive Android Demo: The first full video demo of Google's mobile platform, Android...More Images of the First Fullscreen Live Android Demo.
The first full video demo of Google’s mobile platform, Android. It’s much like the iPhone interface, but more useful and much easier to customize — plus it has Pacman and an awesome compass feature!
Live Android Demo Video On
http://buzzfeed.com/scott/live-android-demo

VTech 5.8Ghz 4 Handset Phone with Digital Answering Machine

2008-05-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

VTech 5.8Ghz 4 Handset Phone with Digital Answering Machine
You’re alone. It’s late. You’re up on the roof looking at the stars. Suddenly you want a pizza. But you don’t want to tip the driver, so it has to be a pizza delivered by your well-meaning but gullible best friend. What’s the way to make this happen?

If you’ve got a VTech mi6895/mi6896 5.8Ghz 4 Handset with Caller ID and Answering Machine, it’s easy as a large pie with pepperoni and onions. The 5.8 GHz Digital Spread Spectrum technology will let you use VTech mi6895/mi6896 5.8Ghz 4 Handset with Caller ID and Answering Machine handset #3, which you usually keep in the rain gutter, just in case. Use handset #3 to call the pizza place. Each handset from the VTech mi6895/mi6896 5.8Ghz 4 Handset with Caller ID and Answering Machine has a superior range with excellent security and clarity. As soon as the order is placed (for pickup) it’s time to climb back in the window. Bring that telescope, because you know your neighborhood isn’t safe at night. And maybe bring that handset as well.

Now you’re inside, so you’ll want to stop at the little table you keep at the top of the stairs. Here you can grab VTech mi6895/mi6896 5.8Ghz 4 Handset with Caller ID and Answering Machine handset #2. Remember, each handset can go anywhere in home or office and does not require a phone line. Use the 50 Name And Number Phonebook Directory to get ahold of your buddy. Tell him to swing by and grab the pizza and maybe a movie or two. He’ll say no, but you can talk him into it. He’s well-meaining but gullible, remember.

Then it’s down the stairs to the main floor. Here’s where the VTech mi6895/mi6896 5.8Ghz 4 Handset with Caller ID and Answering Machine handset #1 is. Because you’re a slow walker, it’s been about twenty minutes since the roof and the phone is ringing. Caller ID says that it’s the pizza place, calling to let you know your pizza is ready. That’s service! No wonder you eat there all the time! Let it go to the Digital Answering System. You’ve got up to fifteen minutes of recording time, you can afford to let them talk. You’re on your way to the basement anyway.

Set up the big screen tv and fluff up the couch, because in about ten minutes handset #4 is gonna ring. Sure enough, it’s your buddy, right on time! He’s upstairs with the pizza, a two liter, and a copy of The Magnificent Seven. And as you let him in, you find your order from shirt.woot waiting on the doorstep. What a perfect end to the night!

So don’t be the idiot waving a dishrag in front of his smoke detector because he fell off the roof and burned his frozen pizza. Use the VTech mi6895/mi6896 5.8Ghz 4 Handset with Caller ID and Answering Machine and the good nature of a hungry pal to make sure that you’re the one eating like Mayor Pizza of Pizzaopolis City!

Warranty: 1 Year VTech

Features:

Digital Answering System—Digital answering system will answer the call when you can’t. With a total recording time of up to 15 minutes and instant playback.
5.8 GHz Digital Spread Spectrum technology, providing you with superior security, clarity and range
Caller ID/Call Waiting—Know who’s calling when the phone rings or the call waiting tone alerts with caller ID/call waiting capability delivering name, number, time and day information at a glance.
Handset Speakerphone—With just the touch of a button, hands-free conversations are made easy with the handset speakerphone.
Four handset system – includes 4 handsests and only requires one phone jack
The additional handsets can be placed anywhere in your home or office and does not require a phone line
50 Name and number phonebook directory
Remote message retrieval capability
15 minutes of recording time
Trilingual prompts – choose between English, Spanish or French
Backlit keypad and display
Intercom, transfer and conference calls between handsets
Headset compatible (2.5 mm)
In the box:

Home Base with Answering Machine
4 Handsets
3 Handset Chargers
4 Power Adapters
4 Clips
1 Wall Mount
1 Phone Cable
source-woot.com

UK developers favour open source

2008-05-30T05:13:00.001-07:00

UK developers favour open source
The majority of UK developers working with proprietary platforms would prefer to work in an open source environment if given the choice, according to a report from Kingpin Intelligence.

A survey of 400 developers from Kingpin's database revealed that 62 per cent of those who do not use open source for professional purposes prefer to use it when outside work.

More than two fifths of respondents also believe that the 'Lamp' software stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) threatens established proprietary platforms.

"This research confirms increasing interest in open source technologies in the UK developer community," said Claire Roy, head of research at Kingpin Intelligence.

"The cost and flexibility benefits of using open source technologies are appealing for developers and organisations in the current financial climate."

However, the report also concluded that existing licences and client requirements are hampering migration.

Quality control is also an issue. Fewer than a third of respondents believe that the open source development process produces higher quality software than Windows-type environments.
source-http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2217905/uk-developers-favour-open

Comcast webmail down because Comcast.net was hacked

2008-05-29T07:28:00.001-07:00

Comcast webmail down because Comcast.net was hacked
This was the hacker’s message on the Comcast website before its administrators removed it.

There were rumors about Comcast.net being hacked. Comcast was the largest cable operator in the US. There seemed to be conflicting information since there was confusion about Comcast websites. There were at least 2 websites with similar names. Only the secondary domain names were different.

The Comcast.net webpage had a notice that said its website was under construction and it was coming soon. The Comcast.com webpage looked fine but when you click on the link to check email, you would see that it was linked to Comcast.net and email was inaccessible.

The email site was hacked and its hacker posted a cryptic message to announce its supremacy over Comcast. That would be one of the biggest security breaches in a long time. Besides email user passwords, other confidential information like user account details were at risk. It was not known if data theft had occurred.
source-http://stupidcelebrities.net/

Comcast Email Hacked: Webmail security issues, comcast.net site is back up

2008-05-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

Comcast Email Hacked: Webmail security issues, comcast.net site is back up
It seems the importance of using a very strong password for emails is a must because the hacking of Comcast email service shows security issues. Many users do not understand obviously how important it can be, even though internet service providers (ISPs) like Comcast using some of the most advanced email security solutions, wonders never cease to amaze because hackers can and will get through.

I have visited www.comcast.net this morning and it seems the site is down with a message on the homepage saying This Site Is Under Construction and Coming Soon but thankfully it is back up and running again, oops so no chance for you to go to Comcast net sign in to login. We all when going to a service like Comcast and other email providers that they use cutting edge email security appliances, but the whole truth of the matter is that much of the Web’s infrastructure is hacked together legacy equipment. In simple terms it is fair to say users should protect themselves from having their online identity compromised, the bottom line is that users should change their passwords frequently and then maybe this hacking problem may ease a little.

Let me say now that anyone using this service that has had the same password for some time now should really consider changing it, the current problems with Comcast web email security solutions proves that it’s vital for us to protect ourselves with effective online caution. Word of warning for those wanting to change passwords, DO NOT use birthdates, pet names or even family names, USE mixed up letters and numbers even down to using uppercase and lowercase characters. I would recommend you changing passwords once a month to be on the safe side,

You should be changing passwords weekly, but even security freaks don’t do it that often. Once or twice each month is really not sufficient, but it’s a lot better than nothing. It’s a simple email security solution that will help you avoid the problems that Comcast email users are having right now.

www.comcast.net is all up and running again.
source-http://www.product-reviews.net/

Google releases Google Earth API, browser plugin

2008-05-29T06:55:00.000-07:00

Google releases Google Earth API, browser plugin
Google has released a browser plugin that lets you access most of the key features of Google Earth in your web browser. No need to download and install the standalone Google Earth application. Google Earth provides more detailed imagery and navigational controls than Google Maps. You can also see 3D models of buildings and view KML files in Google Earth.

You do still need to download and install a small utility though. While the plugin works with Internet Explorer and Firefox (2.0 only, Firefox 3 is not yet supported), it's not available through the Mozilla Add-ons page. The plugin is also Windows-only.

The Google Earth browser plugin is powered by a JavaScript API, which Google has also released, allowing web publishers to embed a Google Earth widget in their web pages and build customizable applications around it. You can see some examples at the Google Earth plugin samples page.

Microsoft has been offering a web-based version of its Virtual Earth application for a while now. And Poly9's FreeEarth offers web publishers a similarly custimizable spinning globe that can be embedded in web sites
source-http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/05/28/google-releases-google-earth-api-browser-plugin/

Embed Google Earth In Your Site

2008-05-29T06:50:00.000-07:00

Embed Google Earth In Your Site

The Google Earth Plugin was just released this morning (Radar post) and there is already a handy third-party tool available. This is unsurprising considering the general buzz at Google I/O. If you want to embed a 3D Google Earth Map in your site simply follow the directions below.

Browse to the TakItWithMe.com Google Earth Embedded Map Tool

Paste in a Google Earth KML link or Google Maps MyMap link if you'd like to include an overlay
Click on the 'Load Preview' button. If you did not provide a KML link, you will get a warning before you continue
Use the Map Navigation Controls or your mouse to set the Google Earth viewpoint you’d like to be the default for your map
Click on the 'Set Center and Zoom' Button
Click on the 'Generate Embed Code'
Copy the resulting code and paste it into your webpage or blog where you'd like the map to appear
To create another map, simply refresh the page and start again

I am sure that embedding will be available as soon as Google integrates GE into their main site. While this is something Google hasn't committed to, I think we can assume it will happen. This release of the plugin is Windows only. Michael Jones, CTO of Google Earth, stated that Mac and Linux plugins will be available by August. I assume that Google will wait for those releases before the integration happens.

I met the developer via Frank Taylor at Google I/O. Frank actually has an embed in his post -- I don't have windows on this machine so I can't test before embedding a sample on Radar.
get more details-http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/05/embed-google-earth-in-your-sit.html

Google Earth plug-in for Firefox and Internet Explorer

2008-05-29T06:43:00.000-07:00

Google Earth plug-in for Firefox and Internet Explorer
License: Free Editor's Rating: Not rated Average User Rating: (out of 1 votes) Rate it! Downloads: Currently unavailable Requirements: Windows (all), Firefox 2.x or Internet Explorer 6+ Limitations: No limitations Date Added: May 28, 2008 Publisher's description of Google Earth plug-in for Firefox and Internet Explorer
From Google:
The Google Earth plug-in for Firefox and Internet Explorer allows users to view Google Earth content that is embedded directly on Web sites. Developers who want to include Google Earth content on their own sites must apply for a Google Maps API key.
http://www.download.com/Google-Earth-plug-in-for-Firefox-and-Internet-Explorer/3000-11745_4-10847504.html

Will Facebook Go Open Source to Spite Google's Open Social Platform?

2008-05-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

Will Facebook Go Open Source to Spite Google's Open Social Platform?
In what critics see as a response to Google's push to promote itsOpen Social platform, rumors have surfaced that Facebook will be making its application platform open source.

Google originally launched Open Social a couple months ago as a common platform for the creation of custom applications for social-networking Web sites. The platform uses common APIs or application programming interfaces to make applications adaptable to a variety of different services. Yahoo and MySpace have already expressed interest in Open Social.

Facebook's application platform is nearing its one-year anniversary. Over the past year the ability to create and use custom applications has proven as a big selling point of the social-networking service.

Turning the application platform open-source would allow developers to easily adapt applications for a wide variety of other social networks and other services without needing Facebook to intervene as a middle-man. Open source could also eliminate many of the complaints regarding Facebook's application platform.

Google's been in the business of proving and demonstrating that an open-source platform is always a good path, so now it's just time to wait and see how decision will affect the growing world of customized social-networking applications.
source-http://blogs.pcworld.com/

Google sets pricing for app hosting service

2008-05-28T07:07:00.003-07:00

Google sets pricing for app hosting service
Google is announcing pricing for its App Engine service for Web application hosting Wednesday, maintaining a free tier, then charging for storage of more than 500MB of data.

The company at its Google I/O conference in San Francisco also will expand access to the service and add APIs for caching and image manipulation. The service has been in a limited preview period since early April.

The pricing plan has developers still getting around 500MB of data and 5 million page views per month for free. After that, developers will pay 15 cents to 18 cents per GB of data stored monthly, according to Google.

Also, developers will be charged 10 cents to 12 cents per CPU core-hour consumed. On the bandwidth side, developers will pay 11 cents to 13 cents per month per GB of data transferred out of App Engine and 9 cents to 11 cents per month per GB transferred into App Engine, Google said. The pricing schedule is to be effective later this year.

Through its App Engine program, Google is looking to address the issue of it being too difficult to develop Web applications. "With App Engine, we hope to reduce that difficulty," by making the development experience easier and removing the startup costs, said Pete Koomen, product manager for App Engine at Google.

App Engine also will allow anyone to use the service, expanding beyond a list of 10,000 developers that gradually had grown to 60,000 developers. "We've decided to open the floodgates," Koomen said.

More than 150,000 developers have been on the product's waiting list.

With App Engine, developers do not need to concern themselves with such functions as provisioning of machines. "There's a lot there, and it's often very time-consuming," as well as costing money, Koomen said.

Google's caching API for App Engine will make it faster for developers to render applications. An image manipulation API allows developers to transform images like JEPG images in their applications, Koomen said. These images can be resized or rotated.

With App Engine, Google seeks to make the network the center of power in computing, shifting it away from the desktop, said analyst Al Hilwa, program director for application development programs at IDC. "That's their strategy, that they're moving the center of power," he said.

Google's price tags for its App Engine services sound reasonable, Hilwa said. Smaller companies and departments in established companies could be the primary benefactors of App Engine, but risks need to be assessed in farming out Web operations to another party.

"There's always risk, and I think the biggest risk is you've got infrastructure that is being run -- something strategic for you as a company -- that's being run by someone else," said Hilwa. Google's interest in the service might change over time, Hilwa said.
source-http://www.infoworld.com/article/

Google's open-source balancing act

2008-05-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

Google's open-source balancing act
Chris DiBona's job--manager of Google's open-source programs--is a balancing act.

Google consumes a lot of open-source software for its own highly profitable business. But as he oversees the search powerhouse's open-source work, DiBona has to ensure that the company reciprocates. It can't be all take and no give.

Chris DiBona, Google's manager of open-source programs

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News.com)
Free and open-source software advocates can be powerful allies--but also vocal critics. For example, some have critized Google for its lack of support for the Affero GPL license, which can require those using software for a publicly available network service to share modifications they've made to an AGPL software project.

DiBona thinks Google strikes the right balance, though, by offering its own modifications back to many open-source projects, advocating the philosophy in general, and trying to nurture the next generation of open-source programmers.

DiBona has been steeped in open-source software for more than a decade. Before his job at Google, he worked for Slashdot, still an influential virtual water cooler for open-source discussion. Slashdot was part of Linux server maker VA Linux Systems, which had a spectacular initial public offering in 1999 followed not long after by a drastic cutback.

DiBona will be preaching the open-source gospel at the Google I/O conference Wednesday--"open source is too good to be true and thus must be magic," according to the agenda--but I sat down with him beforehand to hear his view of open-source software at Google.

What's the view of open source within Google?
I asked myself, "Who am I trying to address?" The world of open-source business? No. The world of the open-source enthusiast? No. I'm really looking to work with open-source developers. We came up with these goals for our group: to support open-source development in general, which means to support open-source infrastructure; support the release of open-source code, from Google and in general; and to create more open-source developers, because especially when I started, there was a perception that Google took a lot of people from the open-source world and then went away. It was partly true, because people would come here and say, "Wow, I've been working on my open-source project forever, and I want a new problem," and we have a very good class of new problem. So they kind of went away.

That was too bad. The last thing we wanted as a company was to hurt the release of open-source software, because we consider it pretty important. We use a ton of it. Every engineer we bring on--how much open-source do they want to use? We have new packages and new libraries being brought into the company all the time. It's our group's job to track that. As we brought people in, we wanted to be sure more open-source developers were being created. So that's where we came up with the Google Summer of Code, and now we have a high-school flavor of that as well. I think we've made a very real impact in creating new people in the open-source world.

I'm curious about maintaining a balance between contributing back to upstream projects vs. maintaining your own internal forks. How do you go through that evaluation?
Google considers some projects more important than others. Obviously the Linux kernel is incredibly important. Every time you use Google, you're using a machine running the Linux kernel. We have a fairly large kernel team, and we employ people whose job is just to work on the external kernel. Andrew Morton is a good example of that. We try to make sure those guys patch out (submit their modifications to the main open-source project) whenever they can. It's usually more dictated by the engineer's time than it is any lack of desire on our part. I always wish we were able to release more, but it takes time for an engineer to do that. For the larger efforts, it's a little easier because there are more personnel on it.

The same thing goes for our compilers (software that translates programmers' code into instructions a computer understands). The great thing about our compiler team is they patch as a matter of their jobs. They're always patching out things from the compiler work we do internally to the outside world. We recently released the new linker, Gold--Ian Lance Taylor works for us on our compiler team. He's been on the GCC team forever. He used to be at Cygnus (a company that developed GCC). We have a lot of ex-Cygnus people.

Then there are Googlers who just want to patch into an existing projects. They found a bug, they want to add a feature. That takes no time at all. Our team looks at the first couple patches an engineer wants to send out, makes sure the engineer knows what they're doing with the outside world, then they're basically given free rein to do that. They keep us posted on what they're patching. We want to make sure our code gets out to the projects as fast as possible because projects keep on iterating. If you don't get your patches in, they won't get accepted, because they'll be too old or won't matter. If you've got a patch, getting it out there fast is better for us, because then as that project iterates and comes back into the company, we don't have to reapply a patch.

What are the most important open-source projects you ingest?
The kernel, compilers--GCC, the Python interpreter. Python is very important to us. Google App Engine--it's a Python hosting system, basically. Java is very important to us, and that's become open-source now. We have some very good Java people working for us--Josh Block, Neil Gafter--they've got a great handle on that technology.

Once you get past those three projects--the compilers, the languages, the kernel--then you go to the libraries. For us that's OpenSSL, zlib, PCRE. MySQL is hugely important to us. Past that, it starts tapering off pretty quick.

Has the open-sourcing of Java changed anything for you?
Not really. I think it had more impact on the outside world than for us. Java is a fairly mature language now. We've been using it for a long time. Before, it was the JCP (the Java Community Process to govern Java's future)--it had the rubric of openness around it. It was never really not so open. There are questions around what open source means now around Java, specifically J2ME (Java's mobile edition for gadgets such as cell phones) and the TCK (the technology compatibility kit).

Are you using a super-uber-customized Linux kernel, or are you guys pretty much vanilla?
I don't think there's such thing as a customized Linux kernel anymore. The kernel is incredibly flexible. It's got all these different architectures. I think the Linux kernel itself is this ubercustomized thing.

But do you have a lot of in-house customizations?
Not a lot. Google is exposed to some interesting hardware before the rest of the world. So internally we'll be sampling code for that hardware. So that's pretty custom stuff. But eventually that goes to the outside world. We funded some work with a group in Berkeley called Xorp to bring high-speed Broadcom networking chip functionality to Linux. It's not in our interest to keep control of it ourselves. So is it customized? Absolutely. But is it heavily customized? I don't think it is as heavily customized as you might think.

Is it true you still use 2.4 kernels?
In some places, sure.

How about for the core search product?
I don't know how it's partitioned out. When you think of Google, you think of search being on top of a kernel that's static. It's not always like that. It differs on data centers. I think 2.6 predominates, though.

There's been discussion about reciprocity. When General Public License (GPL) version 3 came out, the Free Software Foundation dumped the Affero clause out of GPLv3 and split it out into a separate license. Eben Moglen (co-founder of the Software Freedom Law Center and then counsel to the Free Software Foundation) said, to paraphrase, "If Google starts getting too parasitic, then we'll re-evaluate it." How worried are you of getting a negative perception of using more than you contribute?
I do worry about this. I think it is a largely incorrect perception. You can always give out more, and there are always people who will never be satisfied. Could we be giving back more? Sure. One of the ways I ameliorate that problem is (through) projects like the Summer of Code. Google is releasing every year, not counting Android or the really large open-source projects like GWT, a new project every two or three weeks. Or patching hundreds of projects a month. I conservatively estimate we're releasing about a million lines of code a year from the company.

If you talk to open-source developers--people who are working on projects--I think they understand that. It came back to who do we want to interact with. I always felt the enthusiast community would understand that eventually, and I think that's true. There are some people who are upset with us because we didn't embrace the Affero-style GPL, but it's not practical for us to do so. When they had an Affero-style clause in GPLv3, the thing I told Eben was, "Listen, you can adopt whatever you want. We'll still keep on backing up the FSF and the SFLC as much as we can, but it means we won't be able to use that license inside, because it won't be practical for us to do so." I think that's a very realistic response. The Affero GPL is out there. That's great for the people who use it. It's just not for us.

That's the thing about free software. You're not obligated to use it. We have enough fine-grained control within the company that we don't use things we don't want to use.

What are your preferred licenses?
We generally release under the Apache License--Apache 2. We think it has the fairest language of the licenses. And the GPL requires a lot of management--more than we have time for to run a project well under that license--patch flow and all that. Apache 2 encourages people to take the thing and run with it. That's what we're going for when we release code, whether it's to have people adopt technologies we really like, or for API examples. That said, we've released things under the GPL, LGPL, GPL version 3, BSD. We default to the Apache License.

To what extent to you subsidize gurus to sit around and work on important projects?
We've got people like Jeremy Allison and Andrew Morton and some of Guido (van Rossom)'s time. He's been working pretty heavily on Google App Engine and Mondrian. It's more common that we...try to make open source a part of their job, so they're patching out to the libraries they use. We think that's more healthy than having people whose job is just working on an open-source project.

You use open source a lot internally. Do you have some kind of intellectual property vetting or review before you use it?
We do. There are two ways we do this. When somebody wants to bring a piece of code in from the outside world--open-source or commercial--you need to put it inside a special directory we call "third party." They're required to put in a file called readme.google (that describes) where they got that software, how it's licensed, what category that license falls under. We look for things that are obvious. There are some projects that have dubious intellectual property provenance, and we know those, and we know the people who run them, and we tend not to use those ever.

Since Google doesn't distribute a lot of software, we have it easier than companies that ship hardware and software. We have a couple situations where that does happen--the Google Search Appliance, some of the downloadable applications. Those get a little extra attention. Similarly, when we have larger projects like Google Android, we have a higher ceremony--every two weeks we get together and see if the license picture has changed.

The tracking model works really well for us. We have tools written where a program manager or a release manager can turn on a certain level of warning within the build tool and it will tell them what open-source software they have and how they have to comply with it. At that point we set up a mirror for them as they get closer to release.

So that's the first way we track things. The second way is whenever a Googler puts in a changelist now--this is something we're just starting to do--we compare it against all known open-source code on the Internet using our Code Search product. We compare the changelist that comes from your average Google engineer against that database of code and we look for intersections. When we find an intersection, we take a look and see if it's truly a copy. And if it is, we make sure it's in the right directory and that it's properly labeled. And we call up the engineer if it isn't and make sure it gets tagged properly so we can do the right thing by these licenses.

That tool is kind of in its infancy. We're trying to figure out ways to automate what it does. But it's great because it scales programmatically. Our group's goal is not to break builds or stop development. It's to enable developers to use as much open-source as possible. We think it's healthy, because then they're not writing that code, they're writing other code.

Do you vet code for patent or copyright?
No. We have legal people on our lists. We have two main lists that track these things. Open-source licensing for incoming code and open-source releasing for outgoing code. Legal has a presence there. Patents are incredibly tricky.

Is it easier to get hired at Google if you have experience maintaining your own open-source product or patch?
If you have made a name for yourself in open source, clearly it helps. If you have a healthy project in open-source, I believe it helps. One thing I see on hiring committees is when somebody has an open-source history, it's really great. You can just look at that history. Interviews are great, but they're not very deep. They're only 45 minutes long. So how can you really get a feel for if a person is good at programming, at computer science?

Or at social relations, for that matter.
Open source really reveals that incredibly quickly. You can look at their code, at their activity on mailing lists, how they deal with bugs from real people, and real user problems. That's an incredible resource.

The Summer of Code isn't really a recruiting program. If it is, it's a really expensive one. Last year we created about 2 million lines of open-source code across the 900 students who took part. Of those probably a third are going to stick around with their projects, because the rest have to go back to college.

We have a couple students who have been in the program two or three years. The whole point is to support kids over the summer so they can go and program and not get some other job that has nothing to do with computer science. It's our fourth year doing it. This year we've go 1,109 students doing it across 95 countries.
source-http://news.cnet.com/

Security, Open Source Style

2008-05-27T10:29:00.000-07:00

Security, Open Source Style
Today we’re excited to announce another community initiative — the Open Source Software Security community (oss-security). This project is an ongoing effort to manage security information in open source software by building on the collaborative foundation of the open source model.

The purpose of oss-security is to encourage public discussion of security flaws, concepts and practices in the open source community. We don’t want to simply be an information clearinghouse, or to replace any of the current security lists and groups. The goal is to fill an existing vacuum by encouraging active participation of those interested in the ideas and unique challenges in securing open source software. This includes activities such as flaw discovery, understanding, reporting and overall best practices.

The oss-security community was initially founded by individuals from Foresight Linux, Mandriva, Openwall and Red Hat, and has since grown to include contributions from many other projects and individuals. The computing resources are currently graciously donated by the Openwall Project.

If you have an interest in the open source security space, we encourage you to participate in the oss-security community by adding content to the wiki, contributing to mailing-list discussions or joining us on IRC.
source-http://www.press.redhat.com/

Open Source Integrator, CIGNEX, Authors Book on Liferay - Leading Enterprise Portal Solution

2008-05-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

Open Source Integrator, CIGNEX, Authors Book on Liferay - Leading Enterprise Portal Solution
CIGNEX Technologies Inc., the leading systems integrator for open source content management solutions is proud to announce Dr. Jonas Yuan’s recent contribution to the community with the release of “Liferay – Portal Enterprise Intranets.” The first of its kind, this book covers a complete corporate intranet implementation based on the Liferay Portal Solution.

“This book is a great resource and tool for people interested in learning about Liferay and deploying Enterprise Open Source Portals. With the time and effort on this book, Jonas and CIGNEX have demonstrated their commitment to the Liferay community,” comments Brian Kim, COO of Liferay.

Jonas walks you through the process of installing and streamlining your organization’s intranet. This book is a complete guide to building an intranet with Liferay. It covers installation, use, and customization of Liferay in great detail. There are many step-by-step examples to provide the readers with a hands-on learning experience. A definitive guide to Liferay it (Liferay-Portal Enterprise Intranets) reflects the experience of over 80 Open Source CMS and Portal solutions that CIGNEX has successfully delivered.

“This book is the third in a series of books on Open Source ECM and Portals that CIGNEX has authored – in an effort to promote the adoption of these Open Source products,” says Navin Nagiah, CEO of CIGNEX. “With more than 50,000 downloads a month and the recent success with their 5.0 release, Liferay has clearly emerged as the leading Open Source Portal.”

A downloadable chapter of the book – An Introducion to Liferay – is available at CIGNEX (http://www.cignex.com/site/resources/offers/ dl_form.html?p_file=DL_liferay_sample_chapter.pdf).

The book is now available online at:

http://www.packtpub.com/building-liferay-portal-enterprise- intranets/book

source-http://www.businesswire.com/

Open source on the wire

2008-05-27T10:16:00.000-07:00

Open source on the wire

While it would be difficult to find any infrastructure component that does not leverage open source code, one spot where it has yet to leave its mark is the network.

But companies and projects are challenging that with full-fledged, open source routing platforms built on Linux or FreeBSD and running on standard x86 hardware, Paul Venezia explains in Open source on the wire.

"When all is said and done, there’s little argument against using open-source routing and firewalling tools in most any network, as long as your admins are comfortable with the technology."
source-http://weblog.infoworld.com/

Cisco proposes open-source alternative to Soap

2008-05-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

Cisco proposes open-source alternative to Soap
Cisco has announced an alternative to the web-services protocol Soap — and made it open source. Cisco says its Etch messaging protocol will be more efficient than the Soap standard and the company will release the source code.

A beta version of Etch will be launched this summer, as part of version 2.5 of the Cisco Unified Application Environment (CUAE). Within that environment, it will replace the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) standard, Soap, says Cisco, providing a more lightweight and faster interface, suitable for real-time interaction.

The Soap standard is not well supported across different platforms, with different vendors supporting different subsets, said Louis Marascio, director of engineering for the CUAE platform at Cisco, according to a report in CIO.com. Etch will be 100 percent compatible on all supported platforms, he said.

Soap interfaces are defined in a complex file in the W3C standard WSDL (web services description language), but Etch will use Cisco's own interface definition language. This makes it more efficient, claims Cisco, which quoted its own test bed for 900 Soap calls a second that could manage 50,000 Etch messages a second, or 15,000 full two-way transactions based on Etch.

Etch will initially support C# and Java, with Ruby, Python and C planned, and the software will be open source so developers can incorporate it into products. The licence will probably not be GPL, but a less restrictive licence such as the ones used by Apache or Mozilla, reports CIO. Cisco is also considering handing over Etch to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards body.

"Cisco's open sourcing of Etch probably has less to do with any corporate love for open source than with a realisation that the most viable way to take on an incumbent in an established software market is with open source," commented CNET News.com blogger Matt Asay. "Proprietary software is a way to guard one's position. Open source is a way to create a new position."

Others are sceptical. "Etch is really just adding more stuff to be developed, tested, deployed, managed, maintained and integrated, yet it doesn't actually solve any new problems or solve any old problems better than what already exists," said middleware expert and IEEE senior member, Steve Vinosk, in a blog post.

Vinoski said faster performance is not enough to recommend a new protocol, when the bottleneck in a distributed system probably lies elsewhere, and other issues beyond speed will affect the working of a system.

source-http://news.zdnet.co.uk/

Chip Company Unveils Open Source PC Design

2008-05-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

Chip Company Unveils Open Source PC Design
VIA Technologies, the self-proclaimed No. 3 maker of Intel-compatible processors, has unveiled a new "reference design" for ultra-portable computers based on the company's own low-power chips.

Making a reference design is common fare in the high-tech industry. Chipmakers like Intel have been doing it for years as a way of proving the technical viability of a product concept. What sets VIA's approach apart is that the company is posting the computer-aided design (CAD) files for its OpenBook PC under a Creative Commons license. Anyone with design skills and a burning desire to get into the PC business can download the files, modify the design and go into business selling ultra portables.

Taiwan-based VIA will even help aspiring Michael Dells find Asian manufacturers to do the hard work of turning those CAD files into real, plastic-and-silicon products.

VIA's design is on the commercial end of a growing spectrum of "open source" hardware. On the other, more noncommercial end are hackable hardware kits like the Arduino platform, which was used by many exhibitors at the recent Maker Faire in San Mateo, California. Open source aficionados were also buzzing last week about the release of the OGD1, a development kit that could be used to create open-source graphics cards.

If VIA's idea takes off, it could help add more juice to the already-humming market for ultra portables. That market, which had long foundered on the impractical aspirations of a tiny minority of mobility-obsessed hardware geeks, took off in earnest last year with the success of the Eee PC, Asus' $400, Linux-based ultra portable.

For industrial designer Scott Summit, VIA's move is part of a gradual shift toward more highly-customized manufacturing, in which small companies and even individuals are able to design and build their own products, thanks to the decreasing costs of fabrication.

"The idea of open source manufacture is taking shape, and we're going to see more of it because the barriers (to highly customized production) are really starting to evaporate," says Summit.

VIA's design calls for a 2.2-pound PC with an 8.9-inch screen, a webcam, up to 2GB of RAM, an 80GB or larger hard drive, and built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (or, optionally, WiMax or 3G cellular data). It's not wanting for ports, either, with an Ethernet jack, three USB ports and an SD card slot.

The design is aimed at smaller design-manufacturers and upstart PC companies rather than big PC manufacturers like HP or Dell, who create their own designs (like HP's new MiniNote) from scratch.

"When we look at reference designs, they're helpful, they're insightful, they give us an optimal layout from an engineering perspective -- but they don't target what we're aiming for," says Stacy Wolff, a notebook design director for HP.

VIA's hope is that its design will encourage new designers to make ultra portables that are a little less ugly than the usual fare. It's a bet that the PC market will soon follow in the footsteps of the cellphone market, where what's under the hood is less important than how it looks.

"It's not really about the components inside at all," says VIA vice president Richard Brown. "It's personal jewelry."

Almost makes the idea of starting your own computer brand sound a little sexy, doesn't it? And for the chipmaker, it's not far from the notion that if you want to get a fence painted, start painting it yourself and try to make it look fun.
source-http://www.wired.com/

Open-source graphics card available for pre-order

2008-05-27T09:52:00.001-07:00

Open-source graphics card available for pre-order
After four years of development, the Open Graphics Project last week made available for pre-order its first open-source graphics card.

The Open Graphics Project (OGP) and its commercial sponsor, Traversal Technology, aim to bring to market a graphics card with complete and fully open documentation and open-source drivers.

The project was inspired by the chronic difficulties experienced by open-source software suppliers in finding compatible hardware — in particular, compatible graphics hardware — according to the project's leaders.

"One of the major challenges for free software is finding compatible hardware," Traversal said on its website. "The OGP was started in response to poor support from graphics vendors." Graphics hardware generally uses proprietary designs, making it difficult for open-source developers to create compatible drivers.

The problem is greater for open-source operating systems with smaller user bases, and thus smaller development communities, such as some variants of the Unix-like operating system BSD, or with hardware architectures that are not normally supported by graphics companies.

"Open-hardware projects like the OGP ensure that no-one is left without the ability to make the hardware they purchased work — whenever, wherever, however they want it to," said Traversal on its website.

The initial product, OGD1, is intended as a prototyping tool, according to the project's co-ordinators. The board could be used to develop an initial version based on an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) board, the next step towards making a commercial product, according to Traversal.

The product is also to be used as a fund-raising venture, intended to help with the estimated $2m (£1m) cost of beginning ASIC production, Traversal said. "To bootstrap our other open-hardware efforts, we need a source of revenue. That revenue will be directly invested into more open-hardware products," Traversal stated.

The product is selling for $1,500, with a $100 discount for the first 100 orders. Traversal said the target of 100 orders must be met before production can begin. Traversal and the OGP said they are planning to release full documentation for the product under open-source licences, as well as open-source versions of all related software, such as drivers.

The OGD1 has two DVI connectors, S-Video, 256MB RAM and a 64-bit PCI-X connector. It is based on a Xilinx Spartan-3 XC3S4000 field-programmable gate array (FPGA). A FPGA is a reprogrammable architecture, meaning the developer can customise the hardware for a given type of workload. This means the card could be used for other purposes besides simply processing graphics, Traversal said, suggesting that computational workloads could be offloaded to the card.

Hardware designers could use OGD1 as the basis for an end product, while developers could repackage and resell OGD1 with custom software and other modifications, the project suggested. Traversal noted that graphics card maker ATI has begun releasing programming documentation for its graphics processing units (GPUs), but said that the documentation is still insufficient for certain types of uses or for writing drivers for hardware platforms that are not already supported.

Traversal said it has developed the logic and drivers needed for the card to function as a normal graphics card, but is not authorised to release all the software due to licensing restrictions. The company said it is finishing work on open-source versions of the needed drivers and logic.

The card was designed by Traversal engineers Timothy Miller, Andy Fong and Howard Parkin, who have experience developing graphics hardware used in air-traffic control systems and military installations, the company said.

source-http://news.zdnet.co.uk/

Will open-source Facebook accomplish anything?

2008-05-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

Will open-source Facebook accomplish anything?
The rumor mill is swirling that Facebook is set to announce the open sourcing of its application platform. While presumably a response to Google-led OpenSocial, the larger question is whether it will matter.

Open source is very good at some things, and not so good at others. For example, if Facebook wants to open source its application platform to make it easier to create and integrate applications into the Facebook platform, open source is good at that. Just look at Mozilla's Firefox or Drupal.

But is this Facebook's biggest problem? Ben Lorica hints at a bigger underlying problem that no code license can solve:

Actually, the more probable scenario is that (closed) social networks become less important over the long term. With more web applications incorporating social features, users will gradually "leave" closed social networks altogether. Already, I know less and less people who use Facebook regularly. Most people I know log in only when they receive a "friend" request - sadly hugs, gifts, zombies and pokes are losing their allure.
The primary problem with Facebook is not applications. The primary problem with Facebook is utility. When was the last time that Facebook enabled much of anything useful in your life?

It does happen, but not as often as it should. Dave Rosenberg and I spent some time the other day looking up old friends. I found someone from my fourth grade class in Virginia on Facebook on Friday. I had no idea what to do with that information, but there it was.

I use LinkedIn for recruiting. It provides tangible business value that I can expense. I've tried to use Facebook but it's such a bundle of obnoxious noise that I have no idea what to do with it. I've said before that Facebook's biggest opportunity is to enable real communication between real friends, and then monetize it, but it's going to have to abandon its "friendly" promiscuity first.

Open source is not going to save Facebook from itself. It may well turn the social networking space into a "race to openness," as Glyn suggests. This will be good.

It might make Facebook a more relevant development platform, but it's not going to resolve Facebook's core business problem, which is that today it offers precious little business value, by which I mean that its consumer data/interactions are too dirty and too random to yield substantive value that advertisers and others will pay to access.
source-http://news.cnet.com/

Bakbone extends NetVault support to VMware ESX

2008-05-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

Bakbone extends NetVault support to VMware ESX
Bakbone Software is the latest backup vendor which now supports VMware environment.
It's product, NetVault 8.1, supports both virtual machines deployment and Consolidated Backup (VCB) feature offered by VirtualCenter.
source-http://www.virtualization.info

China Announces Telecom Restructuring

2008-05-26T06:02:00.000-07:00

China announced a restructuring plan for the country's fixed-line and mobile operators on Saturday, a final step towards the long-awaited release of 3G (third-generation) mobile licenses.

The plan, long a focus of discussion among Chinese government organizations, will merge or split the operations of Chinese carriers, creating three new operators that will have both mobile and fixed-line services. At present, Chinese fixed-line operators-- which are split along geographical lines-- are not permitted to offer mobile services, while mobile operators may not offer fixed-line services.

When the restructuring is completed, China will issue 3G licenses, the government said in a statement (in Chinese) that was signed by the newly formed Ministry of Industry and Information, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Finance.

By restructuring the operators into companies that offer both types of services, the Chinese government hopes to enhance the competitiveness of local operators and clear the way for 3G licenses to be released. China has one of the world's biggest mobile markets, but will be one of the last to roll out commercial 3G services.

Under the restructuring plan, fixed-line carrier China Telecommunications (China Telecom) will acquire the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) mobile network from China United Telecommunications (China Unicom). China Telecom will also acquire China Satcom, which offers satellite-based communications services.

China Unicom will retain its GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) network and merge with fixed-line operator China Network Communications (China Netcom).

China Mobile Communications, China's largest mobile operator, will merge with China Tietong Telecommunication, which operates a national fixed-line network.

The statement that announced the plan did not offer a deadline for when the restructuring will be completed, but a report by the official Xinhua News Agency estimated the process could take 12 months to 18 months.

source-http://news.yahoo.com/

PS3 Update 2.35

2008-05-15T05:08:00.000-07:00

PS3 Firmware Update 2.35 Now Available

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today announced that the next system software update for PS3 will be released shortly. This is a relatively minor update to improve stability of some PS3 titles. Update - the firmware is now available for download.
PlayStation 3 Getting 2.35 Firmware "Shortly" (As In Right Now) Eric Lempell, Director of PlayStation Network Operations, writes on the official PlayStation blog that PS3 owners will be downloading new firmware revision any minute starting right now, a "relatively minor" update that will "improve stability of some PS3 titles." Officially, "this upcoming firmware update isn't related to GTA IV" so don't get your hopes up too high, folks!

BakBone Software to Announce Fourth Quarter FY 2008 Bookings

2008-04-11T03:15:00.000-07:00

BakBone Software to Announce Fourth Quarter FY 2008 Bookings

Asempra Inks Technology Partnership with BakBone
BakBone Customer, Latin School of Chicago, Teaches Data Protection Lessons at Storage Networking World
BakBone NetVault: Backup Proves Invaluable for Cancer Research UK
BakBone Partners with China's Leading Software Distributor as Exclusive Data Protection Vendor

Liz Allison Teams With AutoVantage: Shopping Smart for Used Cars on the Lot and Online With Tips From Leading Auto Club
SCA: Invitation To Press Conference Q1
Efforts to Encourage Competition Through Local Loop Unbundling Should Lead to Improved Access and Availability in the Irish Broadband Market
Government Tariff on Chinese Wire Hangers Leads to Increased Pricing at the Drycleaners
US Mid Sized Business IT Personnel Expenditures Report Includes Forecasts for 2007 Through 2012 and Includes Annual Growth Rates

BakBone Software, Incorporated (Pink Sheets: BKBO), a global provider of heterogeneous integrated data protection solutions, today announced that it plans to release its bookings and cash figures for the fourth quarter, ended March 31, and full fiscal year 2008 on May 7, 2008 after market close.

The company has scheduled a conference call for Wednesday May 7, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. PT to discuss the results. The call will be hosted by Jim Johnson, CEO of BakBone.

This call will be webcast and can be accessed at www.bakbone.com by clicking on "Company Info" and then "Investor Relations." The webcast is also being distributed through the Thomson StreetEvents Network. Individual investors can listen to the call at www.earnings.com, Thomson's individual investor portal, powered by StreetEvents. Institutional investors can access the call via Thomson StreetEvents (www.streetevents.com), a password-protected event management site.

About BakBone Software, Inc.

BakBone is committed to making data protection a simple, straightforward process while delivering its Integrated Data Protection (IDP) strategy through an award-winning product suite. This suite provides unprecedented capabilities not only to protect critical data - but more importantly, to ensure the availability of that data as well. BakBone's products offer a single point of control for managing resources across all platforms, providing improved operational efficiency, reduced system downtime, improved availability and enhanced security to support the business growth of enterprise environments. Thousands of users worldwide leverage BakBone's IDP approach to simplify the management of multi-platform environments with a portfolio of backup, disaster recovery, replication and storage reporting solutions for Linux, Windows, Unix and Mac OS environments. These scalable data protection solutions address the demands of Global 5000 organizations and are distributed through a worldwide network of select OEM partners, strategic partners, resellers and solution providers. BakBone is headquartered in San Diego, Calif. For more information about BakBone, visit www.bakbone.com or email info@bakbone.com.

Safe Harbor

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors, which, if they do not materialize or prove correct, could cause BakBone's results to differ materially from historical results, or those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The potential risks and uncertainties may include, but are not limited to: BakBone's ongoing review of its financial statements and efforts to become current in its reporting with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Canadian Securities Administrators; competition in our target markets; potential capital needs; management of future growth and expansion; the development, implementation and execution of the Company's Integrated Data Protection (IDP) strategic vision; risk of third-party claims of infringement; protection of proprietary information; customer acceptance of the Company's existing and newly introduced products and fee structures; and the success of BakBone's brand development efforts; risks associated with strategic alliances; reliance on distribution channels; product concentration; need to develop new and enhanced products; potential product defects; our ability to hire and retain qualified employees and key management personnel; and risks associated with changes in domestic and international market conditions and the entry into and development of international markets for the Company's products. Our forward-looking statements should be considered in the context of these and other risk factors disclosed in our most recent report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which may be found at www.sec.gov, as well as those risk factors disclosed in our current report filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators, which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. All future written and oral forward-looking statements made by us or on our behalf are also subject to these factors. BakBone assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances arising after the date on which it was made, other than as required under applicable securities laws.

The common shares of BakBone Software are currently subject to cease trade orders in the Canadian jurisdictions of Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario due to delays in the filing of the Company's financial statements. Although these cease trade orders do not prevent investors, who are not resident in or otherwise subject to the laws of Alberta, British Columbia or Ontario, from trading the common shares of BakBone on the Pink Sheets in the United States, investors are encouraged to obtain legal advice to ensure that these trades are not violating the cease trade orders. BakBone continues to work to resolve all outstanding issues which have prevented filing of its financial statements, however an exact date for filing of these financial statements cannot be determined at this time.

BakBone(R), BakBone Software(R), NetVault(R), Application Plugin Module(TM), BakBone logo(R), Integrated Data Protection(TM), Redefining Data Protection(TM), Constant Data(TM), Constant Data logo(TM), Constant Replicator(TM), OnDemand Replicator(TM), and Constant HA Cluster(TM), are all trademarks or registered trademarks of BakBone Software, Inc., in the United States and/or in other countries. All other brands, products or service names are or may be trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of, and used to identify, products or services of their respective owners.

Source: BakBone Software

Software and Hardware

2008-04-11T01:09:00.000-07:00

This blog is about Software and Hardware updates.