InformationWeek Daily Archives
05/24/2013 09:03:27 Daily, February 19Vista Revenue Forecasts Too Aggressive
In This Issue:
1. Editor's Note: Let's Be Careful Out There!
2. Today's Top Story
- Microsoft CEO: Vista Revenue Forecasts Too Aggressive
- Microsoft Offering Office 2007, Vista Certifications
3. Breaking News
- Novell Issues Daylight-Saving Time Warning And Update Utility
- Apple Posts Four Bug Fixes
- Law Professor Calls For End To Wireless Carrier Abuses
- Cisco Agrees To Extend Apple's Deadline Again In iPhone Suit
- Sun Plans Open XML-To-ODF Converter As Standards Battle Heats Up
- Google Fights For Right To Use Trademarked Search Keywords
- Princeton Professor Finds No Hardware Security In E-Voting Machine
- Scientists Develop Mind-Reading Brain Scans
- Palm Treo Vulnerability Leaves Data Unlocked
- IBM's eDRAM Helps AMD More Than It Hurts Intel
- Review: Pocket LOOX N100 GPS Offers Big Features In A Small Package
- TechPresident To Cover How Internet And Candidates Mix
- International Gang Nabbed In $300K Online Banking Heist
4. The Latest Windows Blog Posts
- Another Windows User Brainwashed Into The Apple Cult
- IBM Finally Has A Desktop Suite For This Century
- Tests Predict Your Old PC's Future: Vista Or Vanished?
- Windows Mobile 6 Details Revealed
5. White Papers
- Eight Ways On-Site Service Can Generate Revenue Now
6. Get More Out Of InformationWeek
7. Manage Your Newsletter Subscription
Quotes Of The Day: Presidents Day
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." -- Abraham Lincoln
"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." -- Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." -- George Washington
"I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man." -- George Washington
Is nothing safe anymore? Not according to this week's news. Not peanut butter, the all-American iconic backbone of many a youngster's diet, and not our desks, that spot where we spend way too much of our time. Better break out the hazmat gloves: New research has found that office desks are just writhing with bacteria and germs. How gross is that?
And before you point the finger at the sloppy guy in the cube down the hall, let it be known, ladies, that woman have the most germ-laden desks, three times dirtier on the surface than their male co-workers, and seven times grimier on the inside. This is attributed primarily to the makeup and food women keep on and in their desks. But the top item for guys on the overall germ-o-meter is their wallets. Consider where you keep it. First men were cautioned against setting laptops on their laps -- now it looks like you might want find another cooler spot for that wallet. (Heat is just not turning out to be a guy's best friend.) And besides, money is germy enough as it is.
Sometimes we are just our own worst enemies, I guess. Like when it comes to the safety of your home network, which might not be so safe either, according to Symantec and researchers at Indiana University, which recently published the results of a test that show how miscreants can hijack your home router. Basically, they need you to practice bad router password security and then go to a malicious Web site that will install malicious JavaScript on your PC. It in turn leaves your router open to various attacks. So change the password already.
This next bit of safety news is not your fault, and you probably aren't even aware of it. The latest addition to the growing pile of credit data security concerns involves RFID chips that are embedded in some credit cards that could expose consumers to the risk of data theft. Here's how, according to another study -- this one from the University of Massachusetts, RSA, and Innealta. RFID chips are read by scanners, and as it turns out, bad guys equipped with the right tools can collect names, credit card numbers, and expiration dates off nearby unsuspecting card holders.
Credit card makers have varying levels of security for these so-called "contactless cards," and first-generation cards seem more at risk than newer models. You can find out for certain if you hold one of these cards, and how secure it is, by calling your card company. Meantime, there are ways to protect your card information from bogus scanners. Just what we need, drive-by scanning crimes.
And just in time for Presidents Day (month really) is our last story, and the last university report on this week's safety tour. According to Princeton University computer science professor Andrew Appel, a test of several Sequoia electronic voting machines he bought off the Internet revealed no hardware security measures whatsoever to stop him from reaching the read-only memory chips that hold the program instructions for counting votes. In a nutshell, Appel says the security breach he found would enable someone capable of reverse engineering a program to write his own instructions on a ROM chip and swap it into the machine. But Sequoia dismisses the test as bogus, saying real voting machines sit
in
a voting station, monitored with appropriate security measures.
Is voting safe in an electronic age or not? Read Antone Gonsalves' story, decide for yourself, and join in the still-raging debate. In the meantime, do yourself a favor, for safety's sake: Ditch the Peter Pan, disinfect your office, change your router passwords, and double-check the privacy of your credit card.
Patricia Keefe
Microsoft CEO: Vista Revenue Forecasts Too Aggressive
Related Story:
Microsoft Offering Office 2007, Vista Certifications
Novell Issues Daylight-Saving Time Warning And Update Utility
Apple Posts Four Bug Fixes
Law Professor Calls For End To Wireless Carrier Abuses
Cisco Agrees To Extend Apple's Deadline Again In iPhone Suit
Sun Plans Open XML-To-ODF Converter As Standards Battle Heats Up
Google Fights For Right To Use Trademarked Search Keywords
Princeton Professor Finds No Hardware Security In E-Voting Machine
Scientists Develop Mind-Reading Brain Scans
Palm Treo Vulnerability Leaves Data Unlocked
IBM's eDRAM Helps AMD More Than It Hurts Intel
Review: Pocket LOOX N100 GPS Offers Big Features In A Small Package
TechPresident To Cover How Internet And Candidates Mix
International Gang Nabbed In $300K Online Banking Heist
The New Data Center
VoiceCon Spring 2007: The Essential Conference On Enterprise Voice
Managing A Windows Vista Migration
-----------------------------------------
Another Windows User Brainwashed Into The Apple Cult
IBM Finally Has A Desktop Suite For This Century
Tests Predict Your Old PC's Future: Vista Or Vanished?
Windows Mobile 6 Details Revealed
Eight Ways On-Site Service Can Generate Revenue Now
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InformationWeek Daily Newsletter
1. Editor's Note: Let's Be Careful Out There!
pkeefe@cmp.com
www.informationweek.com
Steve Ballmer says analysts' forecasts for revenue from Windows Vista in fiscal 2008 were "overly aggressive."
Microsoft has unveiled two new certifications aimed at getting information workers and end users up to speed with Office 2007 and Windows Vista.
ZenWorks patch management tool will automatically flag computers on a network that are vulnerable to the March 11 clock change.
The vulnerabilities were identified by the Month of Apple Bugs project.
Columbia law professor Tim Wu says consumers are fed up with misguided, and in some cases, outrageous and perhaps illegal policies.
Odds are still in favor of an out-of-court settlement rather than a full-blown trial.
"We've done what Microsoft could and should have done in the first place instead of FUD-ing and fighting," a Sun executive wrote in a blog posting.
The search engine company makes its best case to sell trademarked search keywords as ad triggers, even against a competitor such as Rescuecom.
A professor says there was nothing in the five Sequoia AVC Advantage machines that would stop him from reaching the read-only memory chips that hold the program instructions for counting votes.
Clinical studies from a think tank in Berlin could lead to specific thoughts being picked up by brain scans and turned into the appropriate actions.
The Palm OS Treos have a flaw in the feature that allows users to access data, so information can be called up even when the smartphones are locked down with a password.
While the next-generation DRAM will boost gaming and embedded systems, don't expect Big Blue to burst market leader Intel's sales bubble any time soon.
This pocket-sized unit is just about as small as a GPS can get and still be big enough to get you where you want to go.
The daily news digest includes photos, reviews, links to ads and Web sites, and charts showing candidates' popularity on social networking sites.
Turkish police arrested 17 gang members who allegedly worked with three Russian hackers to break into and raid online bank accounts.
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4. The Latest Windows Blog Posts
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/windows/
You wouldn't know it from all my kvetching, but I'm actually happy about making the switch from Windows to the Mac. However, if you're thinking about making the jump yourself, you should know that it's an enormous pain in the neck at first.
IBM has tried repeatedly to weaken the market dominance of Microsoft's Office Suite. A decade ago it was the Lotus SmartSuite, and more recently the ill-conceived IBM Workplace. It recently killed off Workplace, which just may save the life of Lotus Notes/Domino. But now it's trying again with something called the Open Client offering. It's the wrong package for the wrong market, but with some changes it just might work.
In "Which PC Is A Vista PC?" I write about the pitfalls of picking PC hardware that will run all the features of Vista you expect. For new, out-of-the-box PCs, that shouldn't be as hard as it seems to be, as that article points out. But what about old PCs you might want to upgrade? Actually, that might be a little easier, because there are some tests you can run to help you decide whether an existing PC is up to running Vista.
I was eating dinner when my colleague, Eric Zeman, pinged me with a text message: Get to a PC and post something about Windows Mobile 6. The news just broke. As an always-on tech blogger, I ran from my plate of tacos to my laptop to check it out. Lo and behold, he was right. The curtain has finally opened on Microsoft's newest mobile operating system. Let's check out the upgrades.
Today, innovative service delivery models are creating new revenue opportunity for solution providers. This paper explores the tangible and immediate ways solution providers can leverage on-site service to expand their businesses, enter new markets, lower costs, and better serve customers.
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