Microsoft to buy Red Hat? Say it ain’t so

In Paris, Ontario, there’s a large plaza sign advertising both The Paris Sleep Laboratory and the Canadian Post Office. The synergy there, of course, should be obvious –at least from the point of view of the humorist. Recent revivals of the idea that Microsoft might want to take over Red Hat have a similar quality to them.

As David Berlind recently pointed out in his piece Is Microsoft considering acquisition of Red Hat? Microsoft could see Red Hat’s acquisition as a nice way to undermine IBM, but might not consider that a sufficient reason to do it. That, of course, is Microsoft’s perspective, but what about Red Hat’s? This is a company, remember, that wants to be Microsoft and, like Microsoft, makes its living packaging and selling other people’s ideas.

From Red Hat’s perspective this could be a marriage made in heaven — offering both a defense against the two greatest strategic threats it faces and a graceful way for key players to fold their tents and steal away into the night.

The biggest threat Red Hat faces right now is that IBM could settle with SCO and then release its own Linux along with workstations and servers based on the Cell processor. With SuSe essentially out of the picture, Linspire in a world by itself, and Debian not getting the press it deserves, such a move by IBM would leave Red Hat with nowhere to go except a suicidal head-to-head competition with Microsoft in the x86 marketplace. Given that Cell outperforms x86 by an order of magnitude and doesn’t have the security weaknesses built into the x86, this would leave them fighting to hold an ever decreasing share of a shrinking market.

The second most important threat facing them is that an IBM Linux on Cell offering gives the Linux and general open source communities an opportunity to rebel against Red Hat’s pretense of selling support with free licenses rather than licenses with free support. Since that’s the fundamental underpinning for Red Hat’s business model, taking it away would obliterate the company.

Original Post: FlexBeta

Microsoft about to debut antivirus tools?

Speculation among security industry sources suggests that Microsoft may be preparing to introduce its standalone antivirus software next week.

Industry watchers said Thursday that the software giant very well could take the wraps off its emerging security product plans in a scheduled announcement on Monday, although the sources indicated their belief that the applications themselves may not reach the market for several more months. Microsoft representatives did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the rumor.

At least one security expert said that Microsoft is readying a shrink-wrapped antivirus package that it will offer through retail channels for 'significantly less' than $25. Based on the level of sophistication of the product, or whether it includes tools for fighting different types of malicious programs--including spam and adware--the Microsoft offering could undercut pricing of similar products sold by security specialists such as Symantec and McAfee.

Researchers at Gartner estimate that only 13 percent of consumer-operated desktop computers connected to the Internet have third-party antivirus tools. By offering low-cost security applications branded to sell alongside its dominant Windows operating system and Office desktop software, experts have said that Microsoft could persuade many people who have yet to buy antivirus products to fork over their money

Original Post: Bink.nu

Microsoft Buys Alert Firm MessageCast

"Further bringing its alert service in-house, Microsoft announced late Wednesday it had acquired MessageCast, a company that had been providing MSN Alert capabilities to Web sites and blogs. MSN had been working with MessageCast since 2003 to provide both free and fee-based services to its customers."

Original Post: BetaNews.com

Microsoft Developing XP Client for Old PCs

Thursday, Microsoft announced a slimmed down version of Windows XP for PCs with older hardware code-named 'Eiger.' Eiger blends together Windows XP and Windows Embedded to offer a thin client for terminal servers that provides the manageability and security enhancements of Windows XP.

Original Post: BetaNews.com

Apache to Create Open Source Java

"In the absence of an offering from Sun, the Apache Foundation will begin a project to create open source Java for desktop computers called 'Project Harmony.' Citing broad community interest, the project will create a version of the Java 2, Standard Edition (J2SE) runtime platform that is compatible with Sun's Java."

Original Post: BetaNews.com

Microsoft: Παρουσιάζει τα Magneto μέσα στη βδομάδα

Οι φήμες μπορεί έχουν οργιάσει στο Internet, σχετικά με την πολυαναμενόμενη παρουσίαση του νέου λειτουργικού συστήματος της Microsoft για mobile συσκευές, με την ονομασία Windows Mobile 2005 ή (Magneto), φαίνεται όμως οτι ο καιρός έφτασε πλέον για να τα γνωρίσουμε και επίσημα. Ετσι σύμφωνα με φήμες, η αμερικανική εταιρία αναμένεται να παρουσιάσει το νέο της λειτουργικό σύστημα στα πλαίσια της έκθεσης Mobile and Embedded DevCon 2005, που θα γίνει την βδομάδα που διανύουμε στο Λας Βέγκας των Η.Π.Α. Το πρόγραμμα της έκθεσης πάντως, αναφέρει πως την Τρίτη το πρωί, ο Bill Gates αναμένεται να δώσει την δική του ομιλία. Ίσως τότε να γίνει και η παρουσίαση...

Original Post: myPhone.gr

CherryOS is no more

In possibly the least surprising piece of news to come out of the software world for quite some time, the 'developers' of the CherryOS emulator have given up. The system claimed to emulate Mac OS X on a PC - but those who investigated it found it was simply a loader and mild repackaging of the open-source PearPC project.

CherryOS' website has disappeared, and there's no mention of the project on the site of Maui X-Stream, the Hawaii-based company behind it. They had previously claimed it was going to go open source, having initially been launched as s $50 paid-for product.

According to Engadget, co-founder Arben Kryeziu said it simply 'was not ready' for release. However, it looks like possibly the saddest chapter in Mac emulation on the PC is now over - now perhaps the PearPC team can concentrate on getting the emulator to run faster instead of having time taken up by the CherryOS saga.

View: PearPC | Maui X-Stream
View: PearPCEngadget coverage
Original Post: Neowin.net

Longhorn on Virtual PC 2004

Longhorn on Virtual PC 2004: "

Well, I had a few idle moments today, so I thought I would try to do what a ton of Beta sites would be doing as soon as Beta 1 of Longhorn hit the streets. Install it on a Virtual PC image.

These days, the smart beta testers are always using products like Virtual PC for their betas -- better to keep one's own machines clean, right.

...
Original Post: Sorting It All Out

SQL 2000 Service Pack 4 Released

Since lots of VB application access SQL Server for their data store I thought it was worth wild to point out the SP4 was release for SQL Server today.  You can download it here.

Original Link: Brad McCabe's WebLog

Windows Server 2003 R2 Beta is now available for download/preview

First - what is R2?

Think of it as an 'storage enhancement pack' for Windows Server 2003 SP1. It comes as an additional CD with a set of optional Windows components for storage management: DFS/FRS, Storage and SAN management, a better NFS implementation, and tons of other improvements.

Where I can read more about it?

This is the starting point: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/r2/default.mspx

There are also a number of newly-released documents around features and upgrade scenarios in Windows Server 2003 R2. Read them early - be prepared!

...

Original Post: Antimail

Security Fears Over Google Accelerator

A new tool released by Google to speed up web surfing has been hit by privacy concerns. It emerged that users visiting sites where they can log in - including Neowin - are being logged in as other users of the service.

Google Web Accelerator is currently in beta and automatically stores and updates the content of pages accessed through it. However, ZDNet reports at least one user having problems as he suddenly discovered he was logged in as someone else - a problem replicated here.

"I went to the Futuremark forums and noticed that I'm logged in as someone I don't know," the user said on a Google discussion group. "I've used Google's Web Accelerator for a couple of hours, visited lots of sites where I'm logged in. Now I wonder how many people used my cache. I understand it's a beta, sure, but something like that is totally unacceptable."

No comment yet from the search engine giant on the issue. However, it did warn that information sent through cookies would be "temporarily cached" - it's not clear yet if that is where the problem lies.

View: Google Web Accelerator
View: ZDNet Coverage | Neowin forum thread

Read full story...

Original Link: NeoWin.net

CodeSmith 3.0 Release Candidate 1

Eric Smith has just released CodeSmith 3.0 Release Candidate 1 for testing and preview! You can learn more at: http://www.codesmithtools.com/

We use CodeSmith extensively here at Telligent and it's just a phenomenal tool. One of my favorite new features with this release is statement completion (aka, IntelliSense) in the CodeSmith Studio. It make writing and working with templates super easy.

CodeSmith is one of those tools that once you start using it ... you can't work without it.

CodeSmith 3.0 is also being offered under a special, but not heavily advertised promotion too: if you purchase CodeSmith Professional version 2.6 within the past 90 days (once version 3.0 goes gold) you get the 3.0 upgrade (a $399 value) for FREE!!!

Original Post: Rob Howard's Blog

Pssst... I'll let you in on a little secret.

The days of walking up to an event and expecting to be able to buy a ticket are over... think back to when you missed out on that Big Day Out ticket because you left it to the last minute and thought "hey BDO never sells out"... or tonight when you were planning on walking up to buy a ticket to the Blues - Hurricanes match but half of Wellington had flown up and beaten you to it... the score 22-10 to the canes, just as well Carlos wasn't playing! ... Well the same goes for Tech-Ed tickets this year! That's right they will become the next hot item on Trademe ... so if you're not doing anything (or even if you are) on August 29-31 buy you ticket and come along to the biggest conference of the year!

TechEd this year grabs the bull by the horns and delivers you the content that you most want to learn about (even if you don't know it just yet :)... with the RTM of

- Visual Studio 2005
- SQL Server 2005
- Visual Studio Team System
- BizTalk 2006

Just around the corner I implore you to buy your ticket to tech-ed so that you can learn about this before your competitors do!


...

Original Post: Nigel Parker's Outside Line

Enterprise Library V2 Roadmap - Follow up

First of all, thanks for everyones feedback on my last post.  As edjez points out in his post, we really want to get the community involved in our process.  What I am still mulling over is how to do this in a controlled manner, but also post back the results of this community involvement for everyone to comment on.  I mean, if we only invite a few people, how is that community?  I think if we invite a few active members of the community and then post back our directions / transcripts, that would be way cool.

Here is my idea :  I want to setup a Live Meeting event that occurs every week / two weeks and let people join in an open and respectful forum.  The cool thing about Live Meeting is we can save transcripts etc and then (drum roll) post this to a wiki for more feedback comments.  Now the reason the wiki comment is funny is because I am not a big fan of them, but now that I need one, maybe they are not so bad .  Go ask peter.

Things I have to do:

• Learn how to use / setup Live Meeting
• Create a wiki
• Find time to do it (maybe I should not sleep anymore)
• Ask you guys what you think…..

Updates:

• We are working hard on getting a new version of the Everett version of Enterprise Library (V1.1) out for you guys to address a lot of the concerns with V1.  I know that we are not as transparent as we could be about the fact that we are doing this, and I hate to sound like a broken  record, but it will get better.
• We are working on a new forum / site that will allow for bug tracking / searchable / hierarchy message boards etc.  This will help you get up to speed on bugs / suggestions etc. and allow for this transparency.
• We know that working with V1 is hard for some because of the pre-reqs and dependency on config. We will not be able to fix this in V1.1 but it is a priority 1 in V2.  Look for more on this. Think some form of IOC (Inversion of Control).

Original Post: Being Scott Densmore

Solving my Whidbey TFS Beta 2/Sharepoint Issue

God bless Rob Caron. I swear if it were not for him, I would never get any Microsoft stuff installed, well Whidbey stuff anyway! This guy is a one man solution machine. I have been struggling for weeks with a problem with Whidbey Beta 2 TFS on Win2K3/SP1. The problem was with Sharepoint install. It would complete the install but have this weird error with Web Parts trying to display the main page. There it sat for weeks in the forums with all sorts of good people both inside and out the small software company in the Pacific Northwest offering suggestions that didn't work. Rob finally nailed it with this. This kind of stuff makes you just fume at Microsoft's (lack of) security. It turns out if you install AD after installing IIS, you will have problems. You must install AD before installing anything else or your permissions will be hosed. See here. So I had to actually un-install IIS and re-install it to get the right security (sic) permissions!!! Can you say b-o-g-u-s? Anyhow, if you find yourself with this issue or during even a Sharepoint on Win2K3 install, now you know what to do.....

Original Post: Sam Gentile's Blog

Last Developer Standing... Get Game!

Well, it's on! Last Developer Standing. The coolest thing we've ever done here in Canada! Check it out at http://www.lastdeveloper.com.

One thing that I get asked is if you need to have sharply honed .NET Kung Fu skills to be in the game, and the answer is NO! The benefits rock... Check this out:

-Prizes ($25K cash grand prize, plus random drawings)

-Tons of free training material (Blogs like mine, Last Developer Standing Microsoft Press Book Section, Labs, Hands on Exercises)

- Esteem

GET IN THE GAME!

Original Post: adamga's WebLog

.NET Compact Framework version 2.0 Performance and Working Set FAQ

.NET Compact Framework CLR performance

This document contains answers to the most frequently asked questions about building well performing applications with the .NET Compact Framework.

This is a live document, so please send us your feedback, new questions and answers.

Original Post: .NET Compact Framework Team

Mono 1.1.7 has been released

Mono 1.1.7 has been released, the major highlights of thisrelease are:

• Revamped IO layer and http stack, this will give up to three times performance boost on networking applications.
• Significant Windows.Forms progress, lots of newwidgets and improved widgets.
• 2.0 progress: compiler bug fixes, eight new ASP.NET 2.x controls (including databound widgets).
• New working assemblies: Configuration.Install and ServiceProcess.
• Upgrades to JScript and VB Alpha compilers.

For a detailed list, see the Mono 1.1.7 release notes.

Original Post: Mono Project News

ASP.NET 2.0 Personalization & Management Component (Backport) to ASP.NET Re-Released!

Need a user roles, personalization & membership logic in your ASP.NET 1.1 applciation, but can't use Whidbey v2.0? Then consider the backport of the ASP.NET 2.0 Personalization & Membership Framework functionality that runs on v1.1, which was re-released today! This package is unsupported by Microsoft, but offers a solid framework for user & role management included in v2.0, available today for your v1.1 websites!

Evaluate thisif you plan to migrate your ASP.NET 1.1 application to 2.0 in the near future, and don't plan on doing a complete rewrite. This should definately ease your transition.

http://www.asp.net/memberroles/memberroles.htm

This was available previously, but was pulled for the time being, probably during the internal Beta 2 push.

Original Post: Scooter's Musings

Είκοσι νέα κενά ασφαλείας στο MacOS X

Η Apple ανακοίνωσε ότι εντόπισε 20 νέα κενά ασφαλείας στο MacOS X 10.3.9, μερικά εκ των οποίων επιτρέπουν τη μη εξουσιοδοτημένη εκτέλεση κώδικα δίνοντας τη δυνατότητα σε επίδοξους εισβολείς να αποκτήσουν τον έλεγχο του συστήματος. Η πλειοψηφία αυτών των προβλημάτων αφορά τόσο τη desktop όσο και τη server έκδοση του MacOS X 10.3.9, ενώ όλα τα κενά αντιμετωπίζονται με ένα security patch που κυκλοφόρησε η εταιρεία.

Original Post: Ελληνικό PC Magazine

ASP.NET 2.0 Starter Kits

http://www.ineta.org/
If you had the chance to work with the starter kits in ASP.NET 1.0/1.1, you know that they are good frameworks for quickly getting up and running for particular scenarios, as well as being good learning tools.

It should come as no surprise that there will be a set of starter kits for ASP.NET 2.0 as well, and Bill Evjen, an all-around smart guy and the man who brought us INETA, has an article on one of them, the Personal Web Site Starter Kit.

Oroginal Post: .net DElirium

Unit testing with Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers 2005

A Unit Testing Walkthrough with Visual Studio Team Test:
Learn about the unit testing features of Team Test from a TDD, test-then-code approach with this walkthrough.

Original Post: .net DElirium

Visual Studio 2005 beta cleanup tool

Wow, did you know that there is a Visual Studio 2005 cleanup tool that is suppossed to help cleanup any types of leftover 'stuff' from a previous install of a beta or CTP of Visual Studio 2005?  I just ran across this on Aaron Stebner's blog.  Thank you Aaron!

Link to the download.

Link to instructions.

Original Post: Wallace B. McClure

Longhorn Evangelism 'Team 99' Resurfaces

It looks like the Longhorn information floodgates are officially open again. Microsoft employee and Longhorn evangelist Robert Scoble announced on his blog this weekend that he has been authorized to restart the 'Team 99' Longhorn evangelism effort. On Microsoft's Channel 9 Web site, Scoble is soliciting member nominations for the third-party evangelism team, which initially is expected to include about 20 individuals. 'All (Team 99 members) will need to sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) cause there are things in Longhorn that we don't want to leak out, but they'll be your proxies,' Scoble blogged. 'They'll tell us where we're screwing up, what we're doing well, and will be world's top authorities on Longhorn.'

Scoble's announcement follows by a few days Microsoft's first public preview of its latest Longhorn build, No. 5048. Build 5048, which Microsoft distributed to attendees of its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) last week in Seattle, is an alpha release. Microsoft is characterizing Build 5048 as one aimed primarily at PC makers and software developers, whom the company is hoping to entice to write third-party drivers and applications for the next-generation version of the Windows desktop.

View: The full story

Original Post: Neowin.net

Samsung: Μνήμη Flash 4GB για κινητά τηλέφωνα

Ο μαγικός συνδυασμός που ισχύει πάντα - σε ότι αφορά την εξέλιξη της τεχνολογίας τουλάχιστον - είναι το μικρό μέγεθος, το μικρό βάρος, η μεγάλη χωρητικότητα και η ελάχιστη κατανάλωση ενέργειας. Αυτό φαίνεται να το γνωρίζουν καλά οι τεχνικοί της κορεατικής εταιρίας, αφού μόλις ολοκλήρωσαν την κατασκευή ενός ακόμα τεχνολογικού θαύματος, της νέας μνήμης Flash, τεχνολογίας OneNAND. Με μέγεθος μόλις 11 x 13 x 1,4 χιλιοστά, κατανάλωση ενέργειας 1,8 V - δηλαδή περίπου το μισό από τα 3,3 V των συμβατικών καρτών μνήμης - και χωρητικότητα έως και 4GΒ, έρχεται να θέσει νέα πρότυπα και να οδηγήσει τις εξελίξεις στην ανάπτυξη των σύγχρονων κινητών συσκευών.

Original Post: MyPhone.gr

At Age 9, Girl in Pakistan Is a Microsoft Certified Professional

The Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) credential is for technology professionals who have the skills to successfully implement a Microsoft product or technology as part of a business solution. At just 9 years old, Arfa Karim Randhawa , of Faisal...

Original Post: MSFN

A Step-by-Step Guide To Using MySQL with ASP.NET - Part 2

In the second part of of his article on using MySQL with ASP.NET, Ziran Sun covers how to add a new MySQL user to the database server, assign the user the appropriate permissions, connect to the database, and build a simple ASP.NET page to perform a query.

Visit our new .NET 2.0 section!

Original Post: 15 Seconds.com

Microsoft Announces XNA Studio

"Today at the Game Developers Conference, Microsoft Corp. announced new XNA software that will enable enhanced collaboration between content creators, programmers, management and quality-assurance staff members to speed the game production process. Based on the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System, the latest innovation of the company's flagship development platform, XNA Studio is an integrated, team-based development environment tailored for game production.

Demand for high-definition content and richer, more involved game worlds will bring increased complexity to the process of creating next-generation games. Game teams are already wrestling with the challenges of growing content requirements, larger and more specialized teams, and globally distributed resources. "

Team X-Box - Microsoft Announces XNA Studio

Three New Internet Explorer Vulnerabilities

Security outfit Secunia has news of further exploits for Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer. Three new problems have come to light, all of them critical, and all of them having potential to do serious damage to Internet Explorer users.

The first problem relates to IE not checking items that are dragged and dropped from the Internet zone to the local zone; IE fails to check for images or media embedded in HTML code. A website could place HTML code on a users system, which could subsequently execute code in the local zone. The second issue relates to IE's HTML help control; a specially crafted help (.hhk) file can execute potentially malicious code and could also execute local programs; this vulnerability can also by-pass the "Local Computer" zone lock down security feature in SP2. Finally, a bug in the way IE handles the "Related Topics" command in an embedded HTML Help control can be exploited to allow the execution of malicious code. For a more detailed explanation of the problems, see Secunia's advisory.

One Neowin reader notes a particularly nasty example of the potential these exploits have. Microsoft have yet to offer a patch for the problems. Internet Explorer users (including v5.x+, v6.x+) and XP users with SP2 installed are affected. Until Microsoft takes the browser problems seriously, one can only suggest that users jump ship and try something else. An Internet Explorer re-vamp in 2006 with Longhorn is fast becoming too far away for ever tiring web users.

View: Secunia Advisory | CERT Response
View: Test vulnerability