Archive for October, 2005

F-250 with a Mobile Office

Just read about a new Ford F-250 Super Duty truck that will have a mobile office option, a $3000 dollar option that would have add-ons like a digital camera or a credit card scanner. From Yahoo,

The system uses a flat Stargate Mobile computer, powered by the truck’s battery and mounted on a stand between the driver’s seat and passenger seat. The computer has a touch-screen option ? eliminating the need for a keyboard or mouse ? and is designed to be removed from the stand and taken to a work site. It stays connected to the Internet via a broadband wireless cellular card and even has a screen that is visible in direct sunlight.

“It’s super rugged. You can drop it in the dirt, pick it up, brush it off and you’re good to go,” said Patty Dilger, director of North American automotive and industrial equipment for Microsoft Corp., which worked with Ford to develop the mobile office and provides the Windows XP Professional operating system.

Sounds pretty good so far, it says it can play music, I hope this means playing mp3′s thru the truck’s sound system. Read more…

Microsoft Could Pull Windows out of South Korea

Responding to a statement from South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission, Microsoft has stated that if they are required to remove code, such as MSN Messenger or Windows Media Player, and create a special edition for the Korean market, that they may have to withdraw Windows or delay the offering of new versions of Windows. From News.com,

The KFTC began its probe in 2001, when South Korean Internet portal Daum Communications alleged that Microsoft’s bundling of the operating system with other services broke antitrust rules. It widened the probe, following a similar complaint from RealNetworks in late 2003.

A ruling could come as soon as Wednesday, a KFTC spokesman said.

“No matter what Microsoft does, we will proceed with our deliberation and discuss it again at a plenary session on Wednesday,” Lee Tae Hwi said by telephone. “There is no change in our stance to fight unfair business practices.”

In a recent settlement with Realnetworks, Microsoft agreed to pay them 761 million to settle a suit that claimed Microsoft was using it’s dominance to push Windows Media Player.

As a part of the agreement, RealNetworks said it would drop similar suits in South Korea and Europe.

But the Korean commission has said its investigation would not be affected by the settlement.

An article on Yahoo from the AP, adds,

Microsoft’s competitive practices have been under investigation by the Korean Fair Trade Commission, which is looking into the company’s inclusion into Windows of streaming media and instant messenger technology.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant has faced legal and regulatory antitrust actions worldwide because of its decisions to include various services in its operating system.

In its quarterly report filed Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft said the Korean commission could require the company to remove code or redesign Windows uniquely for the Korean market.

In other news, Microsoft reported their first quarter earnings, which were just ahead of Wall Street estimates, but, even so, sales and current quarter forecasts fell short of their expectations.

The company said it earned $3.14 billion or 29 cents per share, on revenue of $9.74 billion for the three months ended Sept. 30, including the earnings hit caused by a settlement with RealNetworks. The results compare with earnings of $2.52 billion, or 23 cents per share, on revenue of $9.19 billion for the same quarter a year ago. The year-ago figures include a charge for Microsoft’s settlement with Novell.

Excluding the cost of the RealNetworks pact, Microsoft would have had earnings of 31 cents per share. Analysts were expecting the company to post earnings of 30 cents per share, excluding the legal costs, but including stock-based compensation charges, on revenue of $9.78 billion, according to First Call. In July, Microsoft had forecast earnings of between 29 and 31 cents per share on revenue of $9.7 billion to $9.8 billion.

There’s always bad news with the good news, right folks?

Shares of Microsoft slipped in after-hours trading following the report, changing hands recently at $24.16, down more than 2 percent from their $24.85 closing price.

For the full fiscal year, which stretches through June 30, Microsoft said it expects revenue in the range of $43.7 billion to $44.5 billion and per-share earnings in the range of $1.26 to $1.30, including the two-cent charge for the RealNetworks settlement. That’s roughly similar to the full-year outlook given by Microsoft three months ago.

They have announced a “big bang” of products coming, pointing to the release of SQL Server 2005, Windows Vista, Visual Studio and other products.

Microsoft is “at the beginning of 12 months of the greatest innovation pipeline we have ever had,” Ballmer said.

Ebay Killer?

The big news this morning is everyone is saying Google is taking on ebay with their new Google base, where users post and make searchable any type of content. Google says they are just making it easier for users to give Google access to their content, just like the recently released Google sitemaps and their webcrawler, a bot who has been crawling the web continuously for years.

As a side note, they aren’t making it easier for this webmaster, as my site is no longer searchable in Google because of their recent update, you can, however, find references to my site on thousands of sites still in Google.

From the News.com article,

A screenshot of a page for “Google Base” gives as examples of items that can be posted to Google’s server: “description of your party planning service,” “articles on current events from your Web site,” “listing of your used car for sale,” and “database of protein structures.”

“This is an early stage test of a product that enables content owners to easily send their content to Google,” a Google spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail. “Like our Web crawl and the recently released Google Sitemaps program, we are working to provide content owners an easy way to give us access to their content. We’re continually exploring new opportunities to expand our offerings, but we don’t have anything to announce at this time.”

It certainly appears to be a step in the ebay and craigslist direction, as items will only be listed for 31 days I think one blog said, but, if they allow links to other websites, such as ebay, then this could provide a lot of traffic to ebay users, imagine being able to post your items on ebay, and then directly link to them from google. Not even sure if this will be possible or even allowed, but if that would be the case, then it would help ebay more than hurt it. But, it doesn’t sound like it will be allowed, from a screenshot on the main login page it said,

Google Base is a database to which you can add all types of content. We’ll host your content and make it searchable online for free. You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base.

Sounds like this could become very large and unwieldy, hope they have the manpower and the ability to manage it. As I can see from my logs they have trouble with the stuff they are supposed to do very well already.

Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2005 Videos Online

Microsoft has uploaded the videos and powerpoint presentations from the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2005. These are only going to be available for 6 months, after that you will have to order the DVD’s which will cost around $500. Check it out Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2005 Videos. The Windows Presentation Foundation PDC Hands-On Labs Now Online have been posted on the MSDN blog, it also has links to the ASP.NET Atlas labs, Windows Workflow Foundation labs and the LINQ / DLinq / XLinq.

System Mechanic 5 & 6

From a Yahoo press release,
Computer Shopper named System Mechanic Professional 5 as the best utility suite in its special November 2005 annual awards issue. Computer Shopper said the System Mechanic version 5 Professional set of tools delivers an incredible array of utilities for fine-tuning, repairing, and maintaining your PC.

The new System Mechanic dashboard reports on PC overall health and security, with recommendations for improvement. Power Tools repair, accelerate, clean, repair, and secure the PC, or run the PC TotalCare to accomplish it all. Powerful wizards now have different modes for first time, intermediate, and advanced users.

The Bottom Line: No utility package is perfect, but Iolo System Mechanic 5.0 Professional is the current leader. If you’re looking for one utility suite to fine-tune your hard drive and protect its contents, this is the one to get. The most important things to remember, take a snapshot of your system before you do anything, and make sure to buy the Pro version!

System Mechanic Pro 5 is only $69.99 at Amazon. But, you can get Version 6 Pro for the same price at CompUsa.

Version 6 was just released in early October, the new version 6 security tools find and repair dangerous Windows security flaws, by reviewing the more than 20 locations where programs can hide and automatically startup in Windows. Spython tools integrate new proactive “always on” protection from dangerous spyware, malware, adware, and unauthorized surveillance software.

The already high-speed disk defragmentation tool defragments hard drives up to 200 percent faster than previous System Mechanic versions and up to 10 times faster than the Windows defrag tool. Enhanced Registry optimization technology will find and fix many more Registry problems that can cripple systems. The new Drive Medic finds and fixes hard drive problems before they can cause data loss and or system failure.

System MechanicVersion 6 is available for only $49.99 from Compusa. A 3 User Pack is only $74.99! System Mechanic 6 Pro is available for only $69.99, a 3 user pack is only $99.99!

Click here for the review on Computer Shoppers website, where you can read some good user reviews, pro and con.

Xbox Processor Revealed

Today, IBM released info on the new processor they created for the new Xbox 360 gaming console. They are expected to release more info today at the Fall Processor Forum in San Jose. The implemented some new instrcutions and created high speed connection between the processor and the graphic’s processor so that the graphics hardware can read directly from what’s stored on the primary processor’s onboard memory. From Yahoo.com,

The IBM-built chip features three customized PowerPC computing engines that can each handle two simultaneous tasks at clock speeds greater than 3 gigahertz. It was customized for Microsoft in less than 24 months from the original contract.

The original Xbox, released in the fall of 2001, used an Intel Corp. 733-megahertz Pentium III microprocessor. In 2003, Microsoft decided to switch to a different vendor for the next-generation system.

The company best known for its market-dominating Windows operating system instead turned to IBM the same company Sony Corp worked with to jointly develop the upcoming PlayStation 3′s Cell microprocessor.

But the Cell processor, which is expected to be deployed in devices beyond the PlayStation, is fundamentally different from the Xbox chip, said Ilan Spillinger, director of the IBM Design Center for Xbox 360.

From News.com,

IBM on Tuesday said it has begun production of a new microprocessor for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming console, due later this fall.

The company said the custom designed microprocessor is in production at the company’s East Fishkill, N.Y., fab and at Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing in Singapore.

IBM said the chip features a customized version of IBM’s 64-bit PowerPC core. The chip includes three of these cores, each with two simultaneous threads and clock speeds greater than 3GHz.

The chip features 165 million transistors and is fabricated using IBM’s 90 nanometer technology to reduce heat and improve performance. The chip’s 21.6GB-per-second front side bus architecture was customized to meet the demanding throughput and latency requirements of the Xbox 360 gaming platform software, IBM said.

Recently read an article from TG Daily, from Tom’s Hardware Guide about the Xbox and how most people will not have the video hardware to take advantage of the system yet.

The system will not be able to convince a 20-inch standard television in a 15 year-old’s bedroom to create the same breathtaking output of audiovisuals. Microsoft is calling this the high-definition (HD) era, but few people have upgraded to an HD television. Not to blame Microsoft for using the best equipment money can rent for their demonstrations, but realistically, not every gamer will have the equipment Microsoft uses in its pre-laucnh demonstrations.

I know my kid won’t in his room, but we will have it connected to my Hitachi widescreen HDTV and surround sound first I’m sure.

Another problem that Microsoft may face with the launch of Xbox 360 is the simple lack of the “killer app”. There is no must-have game for Xbox 360 scheduled for release day. Project Gotham Racing 3, Perfect Dark Zero, and Dead or Alive 4 are all great games in their own right, but there is a feeling of “been there done that” with each title. The Xbox 360 will need a blockbuster game such as Halo to make the system fly off the shelves. As it stands right now, there won’t be such a game on launch day.

I think I will jump in on the Project Gotham Racing as we have never played that game, yet, but I certainly would like to see the next Halo, anyone seen or head anything yet?

When it is released, the Xbox 360 will be the most powerful videogame console on the market, there is no question about it. It just may not have the impact that gamers have come to expect from a new console. Sony’s Playstation 3 looms on the horizon of next year, but word is that its release may slip into 2007. If delayed, Microsoft has an opportunity to secure a strong install base. With a release title list bordering on average, gamers may do well to wait for things to shake out a bit before plunking down $700 or even $1000 for a package on day 1.

Good advice and bad luck for Sony. It certainly will be interesting to see the market share of both companies in a year.

On a related note, they just brought the first Xbox 360 online at Xbox Live, Click here to see the online image at Major Nelson’s blog. Major Nelson is the Xbox Live gamertag of Larry Hryb. He works at Microsoft under the title of ?Xbox Live Director of Programming? in the Xbox Live product group.

Do Your Kids Spend Too Much Time Online?

Read this article on News.com about kids and their online time, Parents fret that dialing up interferes with growing up, it mostly talked about how much more time kids are spending online, chatting, playing games, etc.

A report on teenagers and technology released this summer by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that teenagers’ use of computers has increased significantly. More than half of teenage Internet users go online daily, up from 42 percent in 2000, the report said; 81 percent of those users play video games, up from 52 percent.

Instant messaging has become “the digital communication backbone of teens’ daily lives,” used by 75 percent of online teenagers, according to the Pew report. “Parents are really struggling with this,” said David Walsh, the president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, a nonprofit educational organization in Minneapolis that began a program this year to help families reduce screen time and increase physical activity. “As the gadgets keep evolving, they keep consuming more and more of our kids’ time. Our kids need a balanced diet of activity, and the problem is that it’s getting out of balance. I don’t think as a society we’re dealing with it yet.”

Parents are mostly worried about their kids spending too much time in front of the computer and not getting enough activity and contact with the real world.

A survey of 8- to 18-year-olds by the Kaiser Family Foundation this year found that the total amount of media content young people are exposed to each day has gone up by more than one hour over the past five years, to eight and a half hours.

But because they are multitasking, young people are packing that content into an average of six and a half hours a day, including three hours watching television, nearly two hours listening to music, more than an hour on the computer outside of homework (more than double the average of 27 minutes in 1999) and just under an hour playing video games.

I have the best solution in the world to help parents regulate their kids online time. Little League sports. Baseball, football, basketball, softball, soccer, flag football, there are any number of little league sports and every area has some local little leagues you can join with things to do for both boys and girls. Little League will make sure your kids are getting exercise, they will help your kids develop character, they will help your kids realize things like not everyone can be quarterback, not everyone can be CEO of an organization. It will help teach your kids about life, about teamwork, about sharing and giving, and it will reward them with experiences they will cherish forever. Sure, there are up and downs, in every game there is one loser and one winner, but these experiences will prepare them for the real world, and it will help them get the exercise every child needs, as well as shorten the amount of time they have to sit around and chat with their friends online.

Plus, you have the added benefit of strengthening the local little leagues who are losing kids every year, there are so many different things kids can be doing nowadays, like playing games on their Xbox or PS2, watching movies, chatting on the computer, browsing sites online, etc. I’m President of our local baseball little league and it’s a lot of work, it’s not for everyone, but I can tell you, I would love to have lots more kids show up this baseball season, to help make our league stronger, help our kids get stronger and healthier, plus, they get exposed to lots more kids when they start playing the other teams from other leagues, kids they will end up in high school or college with one day.

Many parents say they are limiting screen time, checking their children’s Web-surfing histories and using filters to block objectionable material. Another strategy is to keep only one computer in the house and to place it in a common area, like the family room, better to monitor children’s online habits.

Another strategy is to take your kids to little league, stregthen their bodies and minds at the same time. I didn’t play any sports when I was little, my dad was a gear head, but you don’t have to coach if you don’t want to, their is always someone willing to take that task on, plus, it will enable your kids to be able to coach their kids or their grand kids. I can’t wait to see what my boys and girl can do with their kids when they grow up, and I can’t wait to be sitting in the stands watching my grand kids play baseball and football just like my kids. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Here is a link where you can search for your local little league baseball teams, Click here.

Do you have Blackberry Thumb?

All of us have had a repetitive motion injuries and probably never even thought about it, if you are playing a video game and your thumb get’s sore, referred to as “Gamer’s thumb”, you can take a break and come back and play again later until it get’s sore again. But some blackberry users are having the same kind of injuries using their little keyboards to stay in contact with customers, family, etc, and now it’s called “Blackberry Thumb”. These quotes from an article at Yahoo.com.

Chris Claypool was addicted to his BlackBerry wireless handheld. Like many users, he never thought twice about pecking away at lightning speed, replying to a wave of e-mails from clients around the globe. Last year, the 37-year-old agricultural sales director from Post Falls, Idaho, noticed a throbbing sensation in this thumbs whenever he typed.

He switched to tapping with his index finger, then his middle digit and finally his pinky. But his thumbs pained him to the point where he can’t even press the buttons on his TV remote control.

After months of aching, Claypool took a break. Now he only uses his BlackBerry to send short messages ? typing with the tip of a pencil eraser whenever his thumbs get sore.

These types of injuries are showing up more and more in the handheld world, as users get used to using their new little communication devices, such as the Blackberry, they type faster and use them more and more. But what do you do once your thumb is to sore to stay in touch like you are used to?

“If you’re trying to type ‘War and Peace’ with your thumbs, then you’re going to have a problem,” warned Alan Hedge, director of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

No national statistics exist on how many people suffer from this type of thumb ailment, but some doctors say they are seeing an upswing in related cases, said Dr. Stuart Hirsch, an orthopedist at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Paterson, N.J.

“It’s mostly the road warrior who prefers to answer e-mails on a thumb keyboard,” said Hirsch. “If all you did was just answer with a simple yes and no, it would not be a dilemma.”

So let this be a lesson to you, don’t get to wrapped using these little devices, keep the answers short and try to do most of your emailing from your desktop or laptop, because, once these injuries start it seems they come back quicker and quicker all of the time.

Earlier this year, the American Society of Hand Therapists issued a consumer alert, warning users of small electronic gadgets that heavy thumb use could lead to painful swelling of the sheath around the tendons in the thumb.

The group recommended taking frequent breaks during e-mailing and resting one’s arms on a pillow for support.

A booklet that ships with the Nintendo DS handheld system advises a 10 to 15 minute break for each hour of play, and a break of at least several hours if gamers experience wrist or hand soreness.

Specialists say the thumb ? considered by many as an island because it is set apart from the other fingers ? is among the least dexterous digit and is not meant to be rigorously worked out.

For people who insist on typing more than a sentence with their thumbs, external keyboards that connect to the gadgets may be a less painful alternative, said Dr. Jennifer Weiss, assistant professor of orthopedics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

So there you go, avoid “Blackberry Thumb” to start with and you’ll be okay. Now, time to fire up the Xbox and see if I can make my thumb sore. Oh, and there are treatment options, as this user below has learned.

Treatment for BlackBerry thumb may include wearing a splint and applying ice to the affected area. If the pain persists, doctors may opt to inject the thumb area with a cortisone shot. Surgery may be required as a last resort.

John Orminski, a 44-year-old information technology manager from Pontiac, Mich., went to a doctor in the spring after feeling a strain in his right thumb.

He recently started physical therapy for this thumb ? receiving electrical stimulation and massage to relax the muscles.

Free Phone Calls For Everyone

According to eBay’s chief executive, we can all expect to make phone calls for free, with no per-minute charges. She says it will be free because of deals the carriers will make to sell advertising, or by getting a portion of transaction fees from users. From the AP via Yahoo.

“The percentage of users that you can actually charge for (phone services) will actually go down, so I actually agree with that and we understood that when we looked at Skype,” Whitman said in responding to the analyst’s question.

She said she expects the cost of all such calls to drop to zero and that by combining some of their electronic markets, eBay, with online payment systems, Paypal, and by using web based communications, skype, that they can emerge as THE leader in all such markets.

Skype, which allows free Web-based calls between members, ended September with more than 57 million registered users. EBay said it expects Skype to produce estimated revenues of $60 million in 2005, and more than $200 million in 2006.

Whitman said Skype’s explosive success, would — over the next several years — drive the cost of phone calls to nothing.

The chairman and chief executive of the world’s largest online auction site said the transition to completely free voice communications will not happen in the next year or two, but that could happen in the next three to six years.

She feels that the businesses with the largest number of users, will end up with the largest number of voice minutes and will end up with the best developers creating the best products that these users will actually want to pay for.

EBay said it had 168.1 registered users for its online auctions as of the end of September. It had 68.0 million active users who signed on to bid or sell in its electronic marketplace over the past 12 months. It had 86.6 million current accounts on its PayPal payment service

I’m up for free phone calls, now maybe they can buy Sprint and my cell phone can be free as well, hehe. I hope she’s right, but I somehow get the feeling that the phone companies might want to hang onto all of this revenue as long as they can.

Dutch Trio Hacked 1.5 Million Computers

According to an article on Yahoo.com from the Associated Press, 1.5 million computers were hacked and included in a zombie network that was used to gather paypal and ebay account info, credit card information, personal info, and were planning to use the computers in a denial of service attack against a US company to blackmail them into sending them money. Sounds like a busy little business they had going.

The three, who were arrested Oct. 6 and originally were estimated to have hacked 100,000 computers, have yet to enter a plea.

A court in the town of Breda extended the custody of the 19-year-old main suspect and a 22-year-old accomplice for a month Thursday, and ordered the release of the third, aged 27, pending trial, prosecution spokesman Wim de Bruin said. The suspects’ names have not been released.

The software the hackers used, a variation of the worm known as “W32.Toxbot,” was first detected this year. Antivirus software can remove it, but the hackers adjusted the program constantly to defeat protections.

The existence of the “zombie network” of infected computers was first detected by Dutch Internet provider XS4ALL. The company noticed unusual activity coming from a handful of its users’ infected computers, said the company’s chief technical officer, Simon Hania.

The company traced the network as far as it could, and then turned the matter over to prosecutors.

It’s amazing what people try to get away with, hope they get a nice cell with a very large roommate who is very interested in their personal hygiene.