Microsoft says it knows how to compete with Google

At the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, Fla., Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer explains to Gartner analysts Dave Cearley and Tom Pittman that the software giant plans to compete with Google in the search market by delivering more value and relevance to users.

http://www.zdnetasia.com/itlibrary/webcasts/0,39044504,39283307,00.htm

The Best Ajax-Based Apps

Hi all

Today I was reading an article on top AJAX applications and I found it very interested.

Check the below link to browse the article

http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/dailyarchives.jhtml?articleId=196603519

Sijith

Mozilla puts up alpha version of Firefox 3.0

Mozilla fans still starry-eyed from the recent release of Firefox 2.0 can already get a glimpse at what the next version of the browser will look like, as an alpha version of Firefox 3.0 has recently been uploaded to Mozilla's public FTP server.

According to the Mozilla Wiki entry about Firefox 3, several enhancements are in developmentfor the successor to Firefox, which was released less than two months ago. One new feature planned to be in the new browser is called "places", which takes a new approach to bookmarks and page history. Reportedly, these items will be transitioned to the left side of the browser, sort of like Internet Explorer 7.

Microsoft Betas Book Search ready by tomorrow

The Redmond, Wash.-based company announced that it will release the beta version of its Live Search Books application tomorrow.

This is an important part of the company's strategy to turn its Windows Live platform, which it just took out of beta in the last few days, into a hub of experiences that create customer loyalty, thereby driving incremental advertising revenue gains.

Currently, Live Book Search returns queries on books that are no longer protected by copyright.

Next year, it will include books that are currently under copyright protection as well.

That, Microsoft hopes, will make its users come back more often.

Leopard OS from Apple

Apple is working on to release MAC OS X leopard operating system.

To know more on this OS, please visit the below web link

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html

I am sure you all will enjoy the snapshots of this OS.

Google to end fee service for answering questions

Hi all

Google is shutting down Google Answers, a service that lets users pose questions to a panel of researchers and pay for useful answers.

The service, about four years old, failed to gain much traction with users, especially when compared with a rival service offered by Yahoo, which is free.

Google Answers never generated much traffic or revenue for Google, said Danny Sullivan, editor of the online publication Search Engine Watch.

"Yahoo has an answers product that works," he said. Because Google Answers required users to pay, he said, it "could not have been that product." Sullivan noted that unlike Yahoo, Google had not promoted its service very much.

Microsoft Launches Vista

Hi all

Today microsoft launched their much awaited operated system. Windows Vista .
It is since 5 years that microsoft has come up with another operating. Windows XP was their previous desktop OS.

Microsoft will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to market its new versions of windows and Office and plans to release more than 30 additional business products in the next year that piggyback on their technology, CEO Steve Ballmer said todayin New York.

For more details,

http://www.informationweek.com/industries/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196600601

Symantec Vista security advances despite Patchguard

Symantec has released a public beta of its Norton Internet Security 2007 and Norton AntiVirus 2007 suites for Microsoft's forthcoming Windows Vista operating system.

While the software supports both 32 and 64-bit versions of the operating system, Symantec stressed that it still requires access to Microsoft's Patchguard security technology that is built into the 64-bit version of the operating system.

Security vendors including McAfee and Symantec have been pressing Microsoft to cooperate and have lobbied the European Commission and Korean government to force the Redmond firm to open up its kernel.

The PatchGuard technology blocks access to the Vista kernel, blocking security technologies that rely on behavioural profiling as well as anti-tampering features that verify a system is running anti-virus software and a firewall.

Google sued by French moviemaker

Hi all....

Google is being sued by French movemaker for copyright infrinchment.

Flach Film says that Google acted as a fully responsible publisher (rather than a passive host) when Google Video users streamed or downloaded the filmmaker’s documentary, "Le monde selon Bush" ("The World According to Bush").
The film, which is no longer available on the French Google Video site, had more than 43,000 views in a short period of time, Flach said. Google Video displays a tally of how many people have viewed each clip.

Sijith

Microsoft Unfazed by Google Office Threat

One of the two new heads of Microsoft Corp.'s Office software team downplayed the threat from Google Inc.'s Web-based word processing and spreadsheet applications, saying they are unlikely to appeal to corporate customers.

Antoine Leblond, who became co-leader of the Office group in June, said Google was the latest in a long line of challengers to the Office software suite, which includes Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Outlook e-mail and PowerPoint presentations.

Microsoft will release the long-awaited Office upgrade to business customers next week along with its new Windows Vista operating system, which has been more than five years in the making. These products are the core of a broad product upgrade cycle aimed at restoring the software giant's growth.

Microsoft believes new web services will work in tandem with PC-installed software, a vision that differs from that of "software as a service" advocates, such as Salesforce.com and Google, who expect services delivered over the Web to eventually replace software that resides on local PCs.

Safari web browser

Hi all..

Any one heard about safari web browser ? It is a web browser from apple which is available for download since a long time. Even though this was in the market for some times, I dont think this browser has taken the market, which is being dominated by Mozilla and IE.

You could download this for free and have a try on the software.. It could be downloaded from the url.

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/safari.html

Ok then..bye for now

Sijith

Google file system

Hi all...google has come up with a new file system called google file system. This is capable of
handling large 64 megablocks of data. Significantly, the file system was designed to assume that a failure, such as a failed disk or unplugged network cable, can happen at any time.

Google's PC servers, which number in the thousands, run a stripped-down version of Linux, which is based on the Red Hat distribution but is really just the operating system kernel modified for Google, he added.
Urs HoelzleVP of operationsand of engineering,Google

The company has also devised a system for handling massive amounts of data and returning rapid responses to queries. Google splits the Web into millions of pieces, or "shards" in Google tech speak, which are replicated in case of failure.

Microsoft to release Vista and office 2007 on Novemeber 30

After years of development work and a last flurry of testing, Microsoft finalized windows vista last week.

On Thursday, Microsoft made the code for Vista available to subscribers of the MSDN and TechNet developer programs, a milestone that was noted on a number of Windows enthusiast sites.

The software maker plans to offer Vista and Office 2007 to volume license customers on November 30, while consumers will have to wait until Januaryfor the latest versions of Microsoft's flagship products.

Meanwhile, the company is giving free copies of Windows Vista to members of its technical beta program who filed at least one bug report during the testing of the operating system. The offer does not apply to technology enthusiasts who downloaded Vista as part of the broader Customer Preview Program.

Microsoft buys Firefox ?????

Hi all

Did nt you people visit the below site. It is a parady site set up by some guys telling microsoft purchased firefix and now mozilla is under microsoft. (I think Redmond lawyers will be on its way to sue this web site designers.

http://www.msfirefox.com/

Anyway they have put it up in a nice way..

Really funny. Enjoy

Sijith

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft partner to help webmasters

This was a surprise news. The competetors working together. That too Google,microsoft and yahoo. But it is true. They have decided to be partnered to simplify how webmasters and online publishers submit their sites' content for indexing in the companies' search engines.

A site map is a file that webmasters and publishers put on their sites to guide the search engines' automated Web crawlers in properly indexing their Web pages.
Site maps are particularly useful in highlighting to crawlers the dynamic Web content that is served up on the fly.

Crawlers generally index content contained in static Web pages without problems, but often they have difficulty with dynamic content, such as the one that is generated as a result of a search query.

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo will encourage other search engine operators, as well as makers of related software, like content management systems vendors, to support the protocol, they said.

The two sides of Bill Gates

There were two Bill Gateses on stage Wednesday at Stanford University: the philanthropist, and the hypercompetitive Microsoft co-founder and chairman.

While he spoke of prosperity not being a zero-sum game, he also espoused the need for Microsoft to outmaneuver rivals like Apple Computer, Google and Sony.

"We want to either be No. 1 or on our way to being number one," Gates said while speaking at the third annual TechNet Innovation Summit, hosted by a membership of technology CEOs.

Gates, whose comments came during a taped interview with TV host Charlie Rose, showed he hasn't lost any gusto for Microsoft's leadership in technology, despite having announced plans to relinquish his day-to-day role with the company by 2008 to concentrate on philanthropy.

For more on this, visit the site
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6135997.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed

Will Sun release OpenSolaris also under the GPL?

After releasing Java under the open source GPL license yesterday, Sun's senior vice president of software, Rich Green, hinted that the company might make the source code of the company's UNIX operating system available under the GPL license as well.

The availability of OpenSolaris under the GPL license would facilitate the inclusion of Solaris source code in the Linux kernel, something that can't be done with the CDDL license currently used by OpenSolaris.

Although many were skeptical last time Schwartz expressed an interest in licensing Solaris under the GPL, Sun has earned back credibility with the recent release of Java, and I think that the community will probably give them the benefit of the doubt this time.

By releasing Solaris under the GPL, Sun could finally eliminate the barriers that currently prevent interchange of source code between Linux and Solaris.

Java to be released under the GPL

Hi all..

There is a new from Sun today. They have agreed to release Java language under GPL licence. This means programmers would be able to use java language for free in their application.
The announcement just came after the much talked about Microsoft-Novel pact .

One point to note here is, Sun is releasing java under "classpath exception" license, which means
the developers are free to choose the licensing type of the programs developed by Java. Which means, they can use java for free, but can sell products developed using java, under any other license.

Sun said that this move is to increase the popularity of java among the developers community.

Sijith

Top 10 Ajax security holes (Things to look out before implementing Web2.0 apps with AJAX)

Hi all...

So we are all interested to make web applications like gmail and google maps. We all know that the idea behind these sites is AJAX . But we have to consider some security issues while working on this and if the developer is not knowing them, itwould be difficult to maintain the secured site. Here is an article which talked about the security things to be considered when you design an AJAX enabled application.

This is a must read for all developers who will be working on AJAX enabled web development modules.

http://www.net-security.org/article.php?id=956

Ok then...bye for now..
sijith

Yahoo to offer instant messaging inside yahoo mail

That is a good news for yahoo messenger users. When the new version is completed, we would be able to do chatting using the browser right inside our mail windows (Similar to the way google does this). This is a major leap by them to keep with the innovation pace and to fight against their arch rival, Mr Google, who by any ways are attracting users to their email and other services.

I think this is a good move by yahoo in order for them to be in business.

For more details, read the below link

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=76924

Sijith