Courtesy QSS



The Former IT leader of IBM, American Express, Honeywell, and AMD has developed an effective and direct new approach to IT management. Fred Mapp's “Seven Initiatives” is an good outline of some of the fundamental principles for extracting more value from IT organizations and positioning IT as a true enabler of business success.

You can order the book through his website:

Link to Mapping IT to Your Business

With Microsoft CRM, you can create a centralized repository of customer data that sits neatly alongside Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office Outlook.

From Outlook, employees access Microsoft CRM sales, marketing, and customer service modules to make sales decisions, market products, solve problems, and get strategic views of the business.

Link to Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Looking for an open source alternative for developing Java applications? Take a look at Tomcat.

From the website:

"Apache Tomcat is the servlet container that is used in the official Reference Implementation for the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies. The Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages specifications are developed by Sun under the Java Community Process. "

This open source product is reaching further into the mainstream everyday:

Link to Apache Tomcat

From the Adobe Macromedia website:

"Websites might occasionally want to store information, such as your high score from a Flash game or what products you have purchased, to your computer. On the Global Storage Settings panel, you can control how much disk space websites may use to store information and can also prohibit websites from storing any information at all. If you prohibit websites from storing information, the website might or might not function as intended. "

To turn off this feature (in Flash Player 8), go to this web page, select "Global Privacy Settings Panel", and then remove the check mark on "Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer".

Flash Player Help - Global Storage Settings Panel

After four years, today the trial finally begins for Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling - the top two executives who oversaw one of the biggest corporate deceptions ever.

Back in 2002 we published Sherron Watkins now famous email to Kenneth Lay in which she questions what was going on within the company.

The email is still just as amazing to read today as it was back then (if you can get through the technical accounting details):

01/20/02 - Sherron Watkins eMail to Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay

Wow here is a really interesting twist on the Tor application we posted earlier:

Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system

Download TorPark for your language, and put it on a USB Flash keychain. Plug it into any internet terminal whether at home, school, or public. Run Torpark.exe and it will launch a Tor circuit connection, which creates an encrypted tunnel from your computer indirectly to a Tor exit computer, giving the appearance of having the Tor exit computer's IP.

Link to the TorPark download page

Tom Hogan, current Vignette CEO, will step down in February but still remain on Vignette's board of directors. He worked at IBM and Siebel Systems prior to Vignette. In his new role he will lead the software side of HP's technology solutions group.

Link to Vignette thriving; CEO departing in the Austin Statesman

Linus Torvalds, the creator of LINUX, has made his concerns known regarding the planned update to the GPL v2 open-source license due to its proposed new DRM provisions.

Link to Torvalds: No GPL 3 for Linux - ZDNet

Link to the GPL v3 Draft Document

The Java Web Services Developer Pack (Java WSDP) components include implementations of the core WS and XML Java technologies that are fully tested against a number of different containers.



The Java 2 Enterprise Edition 1.4 SDK adds support for EJBs, JSPs, XML, and Web Services APIs in a single bundle.



This distribution of the J2SE Development Kit (JDK) includes NetBeans IDE, which is a powerful integrated development environment for developing applications on the Java platform.

Link to Downloads for Java Web Services Developer Pack

This award-winning gadget is a breakthrough device that enables you to watch and control your living room television programming from anywhere by turning any Internet-connected laptop or PC into a personal television.

Link to Sling Media

Courtesy Intel



Intel Corp. said this week that it had produced working silicon on its next-generation 45-nanometer manufacturing process, and is on schedule to move the technology into production in the second half of 2007.

Link to Intel Proves 45-nm Process With Test Chips - PC Magazine

Courtesy Airgo Networks

By allowing for the simultaneous transmission of multiple data streams, MIMO multiplies wireless data capacity without using additional frequency spectrum. Peak throughput in MIMO systems increases by a factor that is equal to the number of signal streams transmitted in the radio channel. Because there are multiple signals each being transmitted from a different radio and antenna, MIMO signals are sometimes called "multi-dimensional" signals.

With the advent of MIMO technology, a wireless LAN can accommodate latency-sensitive, bandwidth intensive multimedia applications such as HDTV streaming, provide the throughput-at-range for reliable coverage throughout a business or residence, and fully take advantage of increasing high-speed Internet connections. Users no longer have to be frustrated by slow connection speeds, spotty coverage or unreliable links.

MIMO has been adopted as the foundation for defining the new IEEE 802.11n standard for next generation Wi-Fi. In the near future, MIMO will be found in a wide array of Wi-Fi enabled devices from entertainment systems and multimedia servers in the home, to handheld computers and VoIP phones. Additionally, the spectral efficiency and significant performance benefits of MIMO can be applied to, and are ideal for, wide area and cellular wireless markets and applications.

Link to Airgo Networks

Courtesy Skype

You might as well go ahead and join the other 242,262,704 people from all over the world who have downloaded this program.

Skype is a program for making free calls over the internet to anyone else who also has Skype. It’s free and it works with most computers.

Link to Skype

Images from Russian TV

Russia's intelligence service said yesterday that it has uncovered a British spy ring that used a James Bond-style communications device hidden in a hollowed-out rock to gather secret information.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) confirmed a report on state television that four British Embassy employees had used the device, hidden in a park on the outskirts of Moscow, as a high-tech version of the traditional dead drop in which agents can anonymously deliver and retrieve information.

Link to Russia discovers British spy ring - The Washington Times

Repliee Q1

The appearance is that of an adult woman. The face is is shaped to be an average Japanese woman. The actuator is an air-servo motor. It has thirty-one DoF in the upper body. The actuator can realize soft servo control without compliance control. An air compressor to drive the actuators can be placed apart from the android, so that the machinery noise is quiet. Silicon skin, which is same as Repliee R1's covers her hands and the part of the upper breast. There are eleven high-sensitivity tactile sensors in the upper body.

Link to Intelligent Robotics Laboratory - Osaka University

Looking for good on-line computer reference sites? Try some of these extensive help databases:

Link to Microsoft Help and Support

Link to ExtremeTech

Link to Tech Support Guy

Link to PC Mechanic

Technorati Profile

Courtesy RIM

The US Supreme Court turned down a request to review a major patent infringement ruling against it. This action paves the way for the lower district court to possibly impose an injunction depending on the next steps take by the two parties involved.

Link to Setback for BlackBerry maker at CNN Money

This is a live view of the Stardust Cleanroom at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The Stardust Sample Return Capsule arrived here on January 17, 2006. The time listed is in Central Standard Time (UTC - 6 hours). Image is updated every 60 seconds.

The PowerFilm Foldable Solar Battery Chargers are the worlds lightest and most compact solar chargers. Weighing only 9 ounces, these foldable solar chargers were originally designed for the military but are now available to the general public.

Perfect for users who need lightweight portable and remote power for laptops, cellphones, satellite phones, GPS devices and other portable electronics products. These chargers can easily be stored in a backpack or laptop bag.

These foldable solar chargers can be used in 3 ways:

Charge portable electronic devices via included female lighter adapter (cellphones, sat phones, iPod, etc.).

Charge or power 12V systems.

Charge most NiMh, NiCd or Lithium ion batteries via accessory charger.

Link to PowerFilm 10 Watt Foldable Solar Battery Charger F15-600

Image courtesy of Sloan Digital Sky Survey

The Sky Survey will systematically map one-quarter of the entire sky, producing a detailed image of it and determining the positions and absolute brightnesses of more than 100 million celestial objects. It will also measure the distance to a million of the nearest galaxies, giving us a three-dimensional picture of the universe through a volume one hundred times larger than that explored to date. The Sky Survey will also record the distances to 100,000 quasars, the most distant objects known, giving us an unprecedented hint at the distribution of matter to the edge of the visible universe.

The Sky Survey is the latest in an ancient and honorable tradition of surveying the sky. Many of humanity's earliest permanent records describe the attempts to frame the universe. The Sky Survey will advance this tradition in a number of ways. As the first large-area survey to use electronic light detectors, the image it produces will be substantially more sensitive and accurate than earlier surveys, which relied on photographic techniques. The results of the Sky Survey will be available to the scientific community electronically, both as images and as precise catalogs of all the objects discovered. The Sky Survey also represents a significant increase in scale. The total quantity of information produced, about 15 terabytes (trillion bytes), rivals the information content of the Library of Congress.

By systematically and sensitively observing such a large fraction of the sky, the Sky Survey will have a significant impact on astronomical studies as diverse as the large-scale structure of the universe, the origin and evolution of galaxies, the relation between dark and luminous matter, the structure of our own Milky Way, and the properties and distribution of the dust from which stars like our sun were created. It will represent a new reference point, a field guide to the universe at the millenium, which will be used by scientists for decades to come.

Link to Sloan Digital Sky Survey

alphaWorks is well known as a web launching point for emerging technologies. The site offers technology downloads, demos, articles, and resources all available to help build awareness and understanding about an emerging technology topic or product.

Current downloads include:

Autonomic computing
Collaboration
Data management
Eclipse technology
Grid computing
Java™ technology
Privacy and security
SOA and Web services
Systems management
Wireless technology
XML

Link to IBM alphaWorks

Dr. Peter S. Temes, past full-time member of the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences and a well known scholar, has created a new research entity known as the I L O Institute.

The I L O Institute is a membership organization providing research, community, and access to critically important ideas for upper-level executives leading innovation inside multi-billion-dollar corporations.

Members hold titles including CIO, CTO, CMO, Head of Strategy, Head of Product or Service Development, and Head of R & D.

The I L O Institute delivers member-directed research executed by a dedicated staff of analysts and research professionals, and offers highest-level dialogue on the real-world challenges of planning and executing innovation in large organizations.

Small-group meetings are at the center of I L O Institute experience. Groups of members, never larger than 25, meet three times a year to direct their research agenda, share information, and interact with Institute resources including Nobel prize winning economists and scientists, senior government leaders, and path-breaking academics.

Link to the I L O Institute

These products are of unknown, questionable, or dubious value as anti-spyware protection. Some of the products listed simply do not provide proven, reliable anti-spyware protection or may be prone to ridiculous false positives. Others may use unfair, deceptive, high pressure sales tactics to scare up sales from gullible, confused users. A very few of these products are either associated with known distributors of spyware/adware or have been known to install spyware/adware themselves.

Link to Spyware Warrior then click "Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware"

Google Earth puts a planet's worth of imagery and other geographic information right on your desktop. View exotic locales like Maui and Paris as well as points of interest such as local restaurants, hospitals, schools, and more.

Fly from space to your neighborhood. Type in an address and zoom right in. Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions. Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings.

Link to Google Earth Download Page

Tor is a toolset for a wide range of organizations and people that want to improve their safety and security on the Internet. Using Tor can help you anonymize web browsing and publishing, instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and other applications that use the TCP protocol. Tor also provides a platform on which software developers can build new applications with built-in anonymity, safety, and privacy features.

Link to Tor on the EFF website

WCF is a set of .NET technologies for building and running connected systems. Windows Communication Foundation unifies a broad array of distributed systems capabilities in a composable and extensible architecture, spanning transports, security systems, messaging patterns, encodings, network topologies, and hosting models. Windows Communication Foundation will be available for Windows Vista as well as for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

Link to Microsoft's Windows Communication Foundation

Remember Nathan Myhrvold, the eccentric CTO who ran Microsoft Research in the 90's? The guy who not only lead one of the most well funded R&D operations on the planet, but who was also a French chef, a BBQ cook, a photographer, and paleontologist? A scholar who has a doctorate in theoretical and mathematical physics from Princeton University? What is he doing today?

He is running a company, Intellectual Ventures, which is buying patents - and he is doing it with money from companies like Microsoft, Intel, and Google.

The strategy according to the Intellectual Ventures website is to "conceive and patent our own inventions in-house through a world-renowned staff of internal and external scientists and engineers. We also acquire and license patented inventions from other inventors around the world."

"Over time, we intend to market our portfolio on a broad and non-exclusive basis through a variety of channels including spin-out companies."

If Nathan's crystal ball is clear enough to see the future, and if his company can amass the intellectual property to back the vision, could Intellectual Ventures become another force like IBM in the patent licensing arena?

Link to MSNBC - Microsoft alum Nathan Myhrvold runs a firm that doesn't make anything, but it's hoarding the key to a new business age: intellectual property

Companies can make smarter choices about IT when a member of the senior-management team defines technology's role within the company and manages IT in cooperation with business leaders. Too many companies rely on IT governance structures and processes to do the work that a single IT leader could do more effectively.

Click this link then click "Information Technology"

Another bit of technology from a 60's Bond flick. The US Air Force is testing a satellite which can rendezous with objects in space and examine them close-up. Then it can move on to look at something else.





The artist's drawing above shows the dishwasher shaped XSS-11 taking a look at the upper stage of a launch vehicle. The lower photograph is a declassified photo actually taken from the XSS-11.

Link to the Air Force XSS-11 Fact Sheet

Project Raptor is a new, free graphical tool that enhances productivity and simplifies database development tasks. With Project Raptor, you can browse database objects, run SQL statements and SQL scripts, and edit and debug PL/SQL statements. You can also run any number of provided reports, as well as create and save your own. An Early Adopter release is now available for download for Windows and Linux. Project Raptor can connect to any Oracle Database version 9.2.0.1 and later.

Project Raptor Early Adopter Release

GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Discussion Draft

THIS IS A DRAFT, NOT A PUBLISHED VERSION OF THE GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

Link to the GPL v3 Draft Document

Wow - how about a keyboard whose individual keys light up depending on the language of the software as well as the application you are running?

That's exactly what the Optimus keyboard out of Russia will do.

Take a look at this here:

Link to Art Lebedev Optimus Keyboard

The Software for Starving Students CD provides an easy way to install free software titles via a user-friendly interface. It includes open source programs like Firefox and OpenOffice, Azureus, Juice, DeepBurner Free, Inkscape, Paint.Net, VUPlayer, winLame, NVU, EAC (Exact Audio Copy), Spybot Search & Destroy, and Wink.

(To our editors this CD looks similar to the Google Bundle but with a few other programs tossed in that every starving student needs)

Link to Software for Starving Students (SSS)

Adding displays and buttons provides the ability to interact with your card in new, meaningful ways - such as logging into your card with a PIN to look-up balance, limit, and charge information.

Other uses limited only by one's imagination.

Link to Aveso

"Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between TWO to FIVE years, depending on the quality of the CD," says Kurt Gerecke, a physicist and storage expert at IBM Deutschland.

Magnetic tapes are still the best technology for long term digital storage (30-100 years).

Link to PCWorld article with more details

Burst techology - the company that has developed video technology which delivers the images "faster than real time" (in other words, at a variable rate depending on network conditions which keeps the cache as full as possible - "bursts") - is now moving into the mainstream. Its patents are holding strong as evidenced by the $ 60,000,000 payment made by Microsoft and the current actions with Apple. It looks like burst's patents are going to cover the newest generation of internet video delivery technology.

Link to Burst.com's homepage

Link to Santa Rosa streaming media company Burst.com battles the Microsoft octopus and comes out on top

The website of Alex Tew, a 21-year-old entrepreneur, who hopes to pay his way through university by selling 1 million pixels of internet ad space for $1 each.

Janauary update: He did it, all pixels are sold with the last group selling on eBay for about $ 38,000.

Bottom line: Alex went from his idea to $ 1,000,000 in only four months using a single web page!

Link to the Million Dollar Homepage

If you are a Gartner client, and you want to quickly get product/vendor analysis, jump online and pull down a magic quadrant - Gartner's analysis of either a product's or a company's "vision and ability to execute". If you are not a client - be prepared to pay a heavy toll, Gartner reports are expensive, but all the reports are available for purchase if you need an independent opinion to make a difficult selection decision.

Link to Gartner

Amazingly, Symantec has revealed that they also install hidden files and directories on computers similar to the techniques employed by the Sony Rootkit.

Here are more details about the issue:

Symantec Norton Protected Recycle Bin Exposure

Norton SystemWorks contains a feature called the Norton Protected Recycle Bin, which resides within the Microsoft Windows Recycler directory.



The Norton Protected Recycle Bin includes a directory called NProtect, which is hidden from Windows APIs. Files in the directory might not be scanned during scheduled or manual virus scans. This could potentially provide a location for an attacker to hide a malicious file on a computer.

Symantec has released a product update that will now display the previously hidden NProtect directory in the Windows interface.

Link to instructions on Symantec's site explaining how to fix this problem (SYM06-001)

The technologies of Software development and deployment have changed dramatically since 1991 while the GNU General Public License ("the GPL'') has remained unmodified, at version level 2. This is extraordinary longevity for any widely-employed legal instrument. The durability of the GPL is even more surprising when one takes into account the differences between the free software community at the time of version 2's release and the situation prevailing in 2005.

Today, the GPL is employed by tens of thousands of software projects around the world and while the Free Software Foundation's body of GPL licensed works is vital, it consists of no more than a tiny fraction of them. GPL'd software runs on or is embedded in devices ranging from cellphones, PDAs, and home networking appliances to mainframes and supercomputing clusters. Independent software developers around the world, as well as every large corporate IT buyer and seller, and a surprisingly large number of individuals, interact with the GPL. Moreover, free software transcends national boundaries. The GPL's use is global.

Richard M. Stallman, who founded the free software movement and who was the author of the GNU GPL, released version 2 in 1991 after taking legal advice and collecting developer's opinions concerning version 1 of the license, which had been in use since 1989. Given that the Free Software Foundation directly controlled the licensing of the GNU project, which comprised the largest then-existing collection of copylefted software assets, no public comment process and no significant interim transition period seemed necessary. The Free Software Foundation immediately relicensed the components of the GNU Project and in Finland Linus Torvalds adopted GPL Version 2 for his operating system kernel, called Linux.

Many provisions of the GPL could benefit from modification to fit today's circumstances and to reflect what we have learned from experience with version 2. Given the scale of revision it seems proper to approach the work through public discussion in a transparent and accessible manner.

The Free Software Foundation plans to decide the contents of version 3 of the GPL through the fullest possible discussion with the most diverse possible community of drafters and users. A major goal is to identify every issue affecting every user, and to resolve those issues.

While the GPL is the most popular Free Software License, followed by the LGPL, a significant set of free software is licensed under other terms which are not compatible with version 2 of the GPL. Version 3 of the GPL will provide compatibility with more non-GPL free licenses.

Key Goals:

A Global License - The current license was written mainly with U.S. law in mind.

Backward compatibility - to protect current freedoms in Version 2.0 to see and change code.

Have no unintended consequences - do no harm to existing rightsholders.

Consult the community so everyone knows they were heard.

Link to the full process explaination at the Free Software Foundation

Thunderbird is a full-featured email application. It supports IMAP and POP mail protocols, as well as HTML mail formatting. Easily import your existing email accounts and messages. Built-in RSS capabilities, powerful quick search, spell check as you type, global inbox, deleting attachments and advanced message filtering round out Thunderbird's modern feature set.

Other key features:

Junk Mail Filters
Anti-Phishing Protection
Advanced Security
Automatic Updates
Customizations

Link to the Thunderbird Homepage

The SafeScout line of Security Portals by SafeView is a state-of-the-art security screening system that detects objects hidden on a person. SafeView's technology detects objects composed of metal, ceramic, plastic, wood, or other materials that may be concealed. Using SafeScout, security personnel can safely and efficiently determine whether visitors, employees, residents, guests or passengers are transporting unwanted objects into or out of the premises.

Link to Safeview

The big three Indian information tecnology consulting/outsourcing firms continue their solid growth through 2005. Key statistics:

Tata TCS
Employees: 35,000
Revenues: $ 1.8 Billion

Infosys
Employees: 49,000
Revenues: $ 1.6 Billion

Wipro
Employees: 42,000
Revenues: 1.2 Billion

Link to Computerworld article - Infosys growth reflects outsourcing gains

For tech companies with technology to protect, going to China means getting Chinese patents. Although some observers have questioned China's willingness to enforce patents, Chinese courts are bolstering their enforcement of patents as Chinese companies start asking for more protection of their own inventions.

Link to a good case study on this issue in TechMonday

As knowledge workers become more and more mobile, and as the computing and knowledge management tools we all depend on become more powerful, increasing volumes of data are floating around, largely unprotected, on laptops. As that laptop travels well beyond the bounds of the traditional corporate security realm, this data becomes much less secure. Without adequately protecting the data on board your mobile computer, you are virtually inviting the public inside your corporation's networks.

Link to Microsoft 5-Minute Security Advisor with tips to secure your employees laptops

Iran has begun building platforms in two underground halls on which it could soon begin installing up to 5,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges it has produced, former National Council of Resistance of Iran chief spokesman Alireza Jafarzadeh.

“In addition to preparing the foundations for the centrifuge machines, Iran has already manufactured as many as 5,000 centrifuge machines ready to be installed in Natanz, which is a clear breach of its agreement with the IAEA and the European Union,” Jafarzadeh said, alluding to Iran’s promise to freeze enrichment activity while in talks on its controversial programs.

Construction should be completed in the underground halls by the middle of this year, and all “side tasks,” such as bringing water and gas lines to the facility, are expected to be finished by March 2007, Jafarzadeh said.

The allegations came as concerns about Iran’s activities reached new highs in Western capitals with the removal, under IAEA supervision, of seals on nuclear equipment at Natanz.



Link to more on the story from CNN

Apple unveiled the new iMac featuring Mac OS X running on the new Intel Core Duo processor, delivering performance that is up to twice that of its predecessor. The new iMac design now features dual-core processors, a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing out-of-the-box, and the media experience of Front Row with the Apple Remote for for consumers to enjoy their content from across the room.



Link to iMac Intel Core Duo

A couple of images from the Texas Advanced Computing Center located in Austin, Texas.

The TACC Cray-Dell PowerEdge Xeon Cluster contains 768 3.06GHz and 256 3.2GHz Xeon processors within 512 Dell dual-processor PowerEdge 1750 compute nodes, 13 Dell dual-processor PowerEdge 2650 compute-I/O server-nodes and 2 Dell dual-processor PowerEdge 2650 login/management nodes. Compute nodes have 2GB of memory; and the I/O nodes, as well as the login/development nodes, each have 4GB of memory. The system storage includes a 6.2TB parallel I/O file system on the I/O server nodes, 18TB of local compute-node disk space, and 3TB of common work space. A Myrinet-2000 switch fabric, employing PCI-X interfaces, interconnects the nodes (I/O and compute) with a point-to-point bandwidth of 250MB/sec (500MB/sec bidirectional).

Strong US economic performance has taken the DOW average back above the 11,000 point milestone - a level not seen since 2001. The tech heavy Nasdaq is looking stronger at 2,300.

US Market Indicators

Google has released a bundled version of its popular program offerings. The pack includes: Google Earth - 3D Earth browser, Picasa - Photo organizer, Google Pack Screensaver - Photo screensaver, Google Desktop - Desktop companion, and Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer - Search toolbar. Additional software includes: Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar - Web browser, Norton Antivirus 2005 Special Edition - Antivirus utility, Ad-Aware SE Personal - Antispyware utility, and Adobe Reader 7 - PDF reader. Optional software includes: Google Talk - Voice and IM application, GalleryPlayer HD Images - Images, RealPlayer - Media player, and Trillian - Instant messenger.

Get it all at the link below.

Google Pack Download Page

This is the update for the widely reported issue involving a vulnerability in the Graphics Rendering Engine which could allow remote code execution. Microsoft has released this patch early due to the increasing exploits appearing all last week.

Obtain the patch at this URL.

Security update for WMF vulnerability

Bulletin and patch.