Category: Computers, Science & Technology

The Senate does the right thing? AMAZING!

Senate Passes Moratorium on Internet Taxes Until 2014

“After an amendment offered by Sen. John Sununu (R – N.H.) made it feasible to extend a four-year extension on the existing ban on Internet-related taxes to seven years, the US Senate yesterday passed the Internet Tax Freedom Act Amendments Act of 2007, reportedly by another overwhelmingly positive vote. The existing federal moratorium on any state or federal tax on Internet use was set to expire next Thursday, after which time legislators were worried that states could be gearing up to create new broadband usage taxes that could be applied to users’ ISP bills. Revenue from those taxes would have conceivably been earmarked to fund the municipal side of the cost of renovating existing infrastructure for increasing broadband coverage, especially for DSL. But states won’t be able to raise funds through those means until at least November 2014, after the President signs the Amendments Act into law as he is expected to do. From here, the measure goes to conference committee to reconcile minimal language differences between the House and Senate versions, and then proceed to the President’s desk.”

Folks are coming around to common sense! Linux is free, solid, and more powerful than Windows on servers… and Dell sales are reflecting the trend!

Dell CEO: Linux server sales increasing

Claims made by Microsoft that Linux violates its software patent have not affected sales of Linux-based hardware, according to Dell’s CEO Michael Dell. Speaking at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, Dell said his company has seen Linux uptake for servers increase faster than Windows server products, despite Microsoft’s claims. He said: ‘On the server side Linux continues to grow nicely, a bit faster than Windows. We’re seeing a move to Linux in critical applications, and Linux migration has not slowed down.’ However, for those customers who might be concerned about whether Microsoft’s claims of patent violation could result in legal action, Dell added that there were ‘certainly mechanisms if customers are concerned about patents.’ In May, Microsoft claimed free and open source software violated more than 230 of its patents but hasn’t provided more detailed information following the statement. Dell’s chief marketing officer, Mark Jarvis, claimed that though the two vendors have had a close relationship in the past, Microsoft had not given Dell any more information about the issue of patent infringement, despite Dell supporting Linux on its server range and more recently on its desktops and laptops.”

Microsoft is sweating… and if their new Windows Server 2008 doesn’t pick up sales, expect them to ruthlessly attack Linux. But then, look what happened to SCO. Fighting Open Source is a sure way to watch your market share go down the tubes!

That’s a lot of money for a small percentage in a social networking site… Facebook is supposed to be worth $15 Billion! Uh huh. It doesn’t seem reasonable to me… but then, I don’t “get it.”

Microsoft Takes $240 M Stake in Facebook

“This afternoon, Microsoft won the apparent battle for an equity stake in social networking applications provider Facebook, making a $240 million equity investment in the company. In exchange, Microsoft will become the exclusive third-party supplier of Facebook’s advertising platform. During a conference call Wednesday afternoon, Facebook Chief Revenue Officer Owen van Natta and Microsoft platforms division president Kevin Johnson revealed few specific details. In fact, they worked hard to draw a clear line around those items they would not reveal any details about. For instance, would the partnership enable new forms of Microsoft applications on the Facebook platform? Won’t say. Will Facebook branded applications appear on Microsoft properties? Won’t say. Will other advertising partners become involved in the agreement? Although Kevin Johnson repeatedly called the agreement a ‘win/win/win situation,’ he and his new partners refused to disclose just who the third ‘win’ belongs to. He did say that if you’re a financial analyst, you should be able to take a look at the future evaluation of the advertising market over the next few years, and validate Microsoft’s belief that its equity stake will eventually (though the number of years is indefinite) be evaluated at $15 billion.”

Halo 3 pretty much pushed the Xbox 360 to top seller in terms of console gaming systems for the month of September 2007. But, the Wii is coming up close behind!

Xbox 360 Top Console in September

“Sales of the Xbox 360 nearly doubled in September in the United States thanks to Halo 3, while the Nintendo Wii continues to post impressive sales numbers. Research firm NPD said that Microsoft sold about 528,000 Xbox 360 consoles during the month of September, up 91 percent from the previous month. Much of this success could be pinned on sales of Halo 3, which sold 3.3 million copies during the month. ‘True to its name, the game rubbed off on hardware sales too–the Xbox 360 realized its best month ever in unit hardware sales outside last holiday season,’ NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in a statement. The game sold twice as many as the next nine titles combined. And the Halo effect may last into October as well. Sources tell BetaNews that internal Microsoft numbers show Xbox 360 sales continued to be brisk well into the current month as well. What is even more surprising is the Wii’s success during what should have been Microsoft’s month. Sales rose to 501,000 units, up 24 percent from the previous month and a new all-time monthly high for Wii sales within the US.”

And so… it is now official!

Ubuntu 7.10 Announcement

“Canonical Ltd. announced today the upcoming availability of version 7.10 of the Ubuntu Server, Desktop, Kubuntu and Edubuntu Editions. All will be available for free download on Thursday 18 October. Canonical is the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu. Ubuntu makes no distinction between community and enterprise editions, Ubuntu 7.10 is our best work and is available freely to all. Ubuntu has consistently ranked #1 in reviews of security update responsiveness and effectiveness. The Ubuntu platform is fully certified and supported, making it a secure choice for users looking to explore, deploy and enjoy Linux. Ubuntu 7.10 brings together the best open source and free software available in a stable, robust environment that ‘just works’. ‘We are privileged to have millions of users running Ubuntu every day”. commented Jane Silber, COO of Canonical UK. ‘This gives us great insight into what they want from a free, Linux-based platform. Ubuntu 7.10 is another milestone in delivering on these requirements on the desktop and server.’ ”

I am downloading Kubuntu now as I type this!

As the widget in our sidebar at the lower right shows, it is only a few days until Ubuntu 7.10! And, the buzz is starting about the next Ubuntu server release as well!

Canonical’s new Ubuntu paves way for server push

“Canonical plans on Thursday to release ‘Gutsy Gibbon,’ the Ubuntu Linux version 7.10 that the company hopes will lay the foundation for a serious push into the server and other markets six months from now. That’s when Gutsy Gibbon’s sequel, ‘Hardy Heron,’ is scheduled to arrive. Gutsy Gibbon will have the usual Ubuntu support life span–18 months–but Hardy Heron will be the company’s second version to feature long-term support, which lasts three years for the desktop product and five years for the server. Some of the Gutsy Gibbon work involved introducing new features Canonical hopes to stabilize for Hardy Heron, said Canonical’s chief executive and founder, Mark Shuttleworth. Take, for example, the ‘tickless’ kernel, which is designed to reduce power consumption and improve server virtualization performance by letting the processor enter a somnolent state more often. ‘I’m quite glad we’re not trying to make the decision between tickless and long-term support. This is a fairly radical piece of surgery on the kernel,’ Shuttleworth said. Among other Gutsy Gibbon developments are snazzy 3D graphics for the desktop version, desktop search called Tracker and the first incarnation of a Ubuntu Mobile version for portable gadgets.”

You may know that I use WordPress software for this Blog. It is Open Source, and therefore free, so that is cool! But, it is also very powerful! And the list of themes, plugins, and add-ons for it are awesome! I have noticed that more and more, as I design sites for clients of my web hosting business, that I am recommending that they go with a WordPress Blog as the site’s underlying base. It just makes it easy for a person to customize the site and make it do what they want. Here’s link to an article that discusses some of the opportunities for customization:

WordPress Theme Hacks

“WordPress was originally created as a weblog or blog platform. But now WordPress has grown so powerful that you can use it to create any type of website and use it as a Content Management System (CMS). In this article, I’m going to share some of my WordPress tricks with you on how to make a better WordPress theme. I’m not a programmer nor developer, so I will focus more on the frontend development. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that WordPress has made it so easy that even a non-programmer (designer like me) can build a wonderful website.”

I agree… check out some of the cool things he has done on his own site… it is a mite “gaudy” for my taste, but then, that is the beauty of the platform… being able to express yourself and YOUR specific tastes!

Recently Microsoft was “called on the carpet” because it was installing updates on your computer even when you said that you didn’t want them. Now, they are “ba-ack!”

s Microsoft Re-updating Auto Update, and Does It Need Updating Again?

Just when it seemed Microsoft had averted a PR debacle after an update to its Automatic Updates service in Windows installed itself into users’ computers even when they thought it was turned off, now it appears something is turning back on many users’ Automatic Updates. Late Friday night, Microsoft Update Program Manager Nate Clinton denied having discovered anything in his company’s software that could be causing the problem. ‘We have received some logs from customers, and have so far been able to determine that their AU settings were not changed by any changes to the AU client itself and also not changed by any updates installed by AU.’ But last weekend, multiple members of the AeroXperience Forum reported having their update service turned back on. Some noted the update forced their systems to reboot, which in the case of servers can cause outages for the services they provide. Clinton said his team is still looking into whether another Microsoft application could be making this change without users’ consent.”

Come on M$! “Personal Computer” means it is MY computer… don’t assume that you can come in and just install something without my knowledge and consent!

Is Wikipedia just a passing fad?

Was Wikipedia Just a Fad?

“Recent data compiled by one of Wikipedia’s larger contributors seems to indicate that after a long history of rapid growth, interest in contributing to the effort seems to be waning. Unfortunately, a truer idea of how Wikipedia is doing is not possible because the statistics page has not been updated in over a year. However, one Wikipedia contributor has taken it upon himself to analyze the data to gain some perspective on the state of the project. Robert Rohde — known as “Dragons_flight” — found the results surprising. Out of a sample of 100,000 articles, he found an overall decline in just about every aspect of the service. For example, new account registrations are down a quarter since earlier this year. This decline in new editors has also resulted in a decline in the editing of articles — some 17 percent — and article deletions, down about 25 percent. Also down were user blocks, down 30 percent, and uploads, down 10 percent. There were some exceptions to the rule. The article creation rate was up 25 percent and image deletions rose some 80 percent. But as a whole, the user base of Wikipedia seems to be less active. Rohde said little of why he thought the user base of the popular social encyclopedia site seemed to be less involved, although he did note that the switch seemed to coincide with the discovery that a user known as ‘Essjay’ was found out to have falsified information about himself and his credentials, which was widely covered in the tech media.”

Personally, I really like wikipedia… particularly when I want to find out really geeky detailed stuff on things like comic book characters origins, etc. Stuff of no actual consequence, but that I want to know. (I am a veritable fountain of useless information!)

NewEgg is now selling Microsoft’s Windows Home Server for $190.00.

Windows Home Server OS Now on Sale

“Microsoft quietly began offering its Windows Home Server in the US this week, with the operating system appearing on electronics retailer Newegg.com for $190 USD. Microsoft released the OS to manufacturing back in July of this year, but the Windows Home Server code wasn’t intended to be sold individually. Instead, devices are built around the OS, and that is how the end consumer would get their hands on the product. With Windows Home Server’s appearance on Newegg, it now appears that Microsoft has given its blessing to allow enterprising computer builders to create their own devices based on the OS. The platform is being marketed as a way to centralize frequently accessed data such as photos, videos, and music, and provide backup to homes that have multiple computers. Add-ins provide additional functionality: for example, a TiVo add in allows users to stream videos from their computers to the set-top box. Additionally, system can act as a Web server, allowing a user to share multimedia and files outside of their immediate home network, and the devices built around the platform are expandable as a user’s need warrants additional functionality, space and so forth.”