How does one protect networks?
What is the reason for an IP address beginning with 169.254 appearing on boot up of a computer?A DHCP server cannot be found.
What common language is used by all directories using directory-based networks? LDAP
Which type of database is used by Novell NetWare v3?Bindery
Windows 3.1 was a resource-based operating system that did not require a login.True statement The introduction of which operating system changed the problem of no security or power within a workgroup?Windows NT
Google Calendar outages anger users
Google says it's working to resolve the problems
By Linda Rosencrance
March 28, 2008 (Computerworld) Users of Google Calendar are angry and frustrated that they have been unable to access the Web-based application at various times over the past two weeks.
Google Inc., in a note on its Calendar help page, said Google Calendar was "experiencing temporary performance issues" that were affecting users of Google Account and Google Apps. It gave no indication of when the problem would be fixed.
Google Calendar users who are unable to access their calendars are venting their frustrations on the Google Calendar Troubleshooting Group.
Most of the users trying to access their calendars said they get an error message that reads, "One or more of your selected calendars could not be loaded at this time. You can try to reselect the hidden calendars in a few moments."
"I am really sick of this," one user said today. "When are they going to fix this piece of garbage? I rely on this all the time and now I cannot even sync my BlackBerry to my calendars. What's going on? When are they going to fix this problem?"
Another user who received this error message, "Oops, we couldn't load details for your calendar, please try again," said, "I'm also angry. ... Anyone know what the deal is?"
One user who's been testing Google Calendar from a work environment for the past two weeks said he's experiencing intermittent problems with the application.
And another said, "Please, this is painful. No calendars for our 'Google Apps Premier Edition' users since 8:30 a.m. Eastern (today). Can we get some kind of update?"
A Google spokesman today acknowledged that some users were having problems accessing Google Calendar and that the company was working quickly to fix the problem. "We know how important Calendar is to our users, so we take issues like this very seriously, the spokesman said in an e-mail. "We encourage anyone having technical difficulty to contact the Google Calendar support team through the Google Calendar Help Center."
Recently google calender has been experiencing many problem. Users of this program are very frustrated; they are unble to properly use the program or sync it to thier black berrys. Many users rely heavly on this program and it will be a huge burden to them. A google spokesperson said that the google team is working tirelessly to fix the problem. There is no word on when the problem will be fixed.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Software News
How do you share resources in windows?
From which tab in the DNS Properties window can DNS root servers and their IP addresses be viewed? Root Hints
Which command is used from the command prompt to view the DNS cache? ipconfig /displaydns
What is the reason for an IP address beginning with 169.254 appearing on boot up of a computer?A DHCP server cannot be found
What common language is used by all directories using directory-based networks? LDAP
Which type of database is used by Novell NetWare v3? Bindery
From which tab in the DNS Properties window can DNS root servers and their IP addresses be viewed? Root Hints
Which command is used from the command prompt to view the DNS cache? ipconfig /displaydns
What is the reason for an IP address beginning with 169.254 appearing on boot up of a computer?A DHCP server cannot be found
What common language is used by all directories using directory-based networks? LDAP
Which type of database is used by Novell NetWare v3? Bindery
Microsoft prepares 'Albany' to compete with Google
It wants to get into market for low-priced hosted services
March 27, 2008 (IDG News Service) Facing pressure from hosted productivity suites such as Google Docs and Google Apps, Microsoft Corp. is developing a new package of low-end productivity software and hosted services through a secretive project code-named Albany.
Project Albany includes a combination of Office, Office Live Workspaces, Windows Live OneCare and the Windows Live suite of services in one package. It is expected to be available in retail outlets such as Best Buy, sources familiar with the company's plans said yesterday.
The sources, who asked not to be named, said Microsoft is asking select testers to try out the Project Albany beta, but it is requiring them to sign a nondisclosure agreement in order to participate in the trial. The main focus of the initial beta is to test the unified installer for the package, they said.
Office is Microsoft's enormously successful productivity suite, and it's unclear how much of that product will make it into Albany. Because of its price range and functionality, Office Home and Student 2007, which includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint, is the most likely candidate for inclusion in the new suite, which is expected to be fairly inexpensive. Office Home and Student 2007 retails for $149.95, about $250 less than Office Standard 2007, which lists for $399.95 and includes Outlook in addition to Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Other products that are expected to be a part of Project Albany are hosted services Microsoft has developed over the past few years. Office Live Workspaces is Microsoft's hosted service for storing and sharing documents online, and Windows Live OneCare is a security service that includes firewall and antivirus protection. Windows Live services include hosted e-mail, search, photo-sharing and other services. It also uncertain at this time which of these services will be a part of Albany. However, one source said that the Windows Live products included in Albany will be client-side applications such as the desktop version of OneCare, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Writer, not hosted services.
Through its public relations firm, Microsoft confirmed that it sent out beta invitations for a product code-named Albany, but it declined to share additional details.
Because of its history of selling packaged software, Microsoft is adopting a software-plus-services approach to providing applications online to compete with free and low-cost hosted services from Google Inc., such as Google Docs and Apps, which are beginning to encroach on Microsoft's packaged-software turf. Other companies such as IBM also offer free productivity applications, although IBM's Symphony suite is not a hosted service.
Microsoft executives have said that the company eventually will offer a hosted version of Office, even as the various packaged versions of the suite continue to be successful in the consumer and business markets. With Albany, the company could be trying to create a hybrid product that wouldn't cannibalize its software business even as it moves Microsoft's services strategy forward.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Software News
What is the history of network OS?
What is the classification given to IP addresses beginning with 172.16 through 172.31?Class B private.
What is used by a router to prevent a hacker from obtaining a specific IP address?NAT
Which components must a router have in order to be on a network?IP address, Subnet mask, MAC address.
What is a private TCP/IP network called? Intranet
Which are functions in which a proxy server can be used? Caching Web sites, Changing port numbers.
Which options should be used for passwords? Case-sensitive letters, Punctuation,Passwords that are frequently changed.
Review: SeaMonkey 1.1.8 for the Mac
A project that traces its lineage to the classic Netscape Communicator suite shows its roots.
By Nathan Alderman
"February 29, 2008 (MacWorld) SeaMonkey 1.1.8, the Mozilla Foundation's all-in-one Internet application, combines browsing, e-mail, HTML editing, and IRC chat. The project traces its lineage to the classic Netscape Communicator suite--but unfortunately, those roots show a little too clearly.
SeaMonkey's browser is by far its best component, boasting the most accurate rendering of any Gecko-based browser I tested. It flawlessly displayed tricky code that foiled its siblings, including all the browser-busting examples at CSS Edge. The worst glitch I saw in my testing involved some slight flickering in the QuickLook windows at Gap.com. On average, SeaMonkey also rendered pages slightly faster than Firefox. It even offers drag-and-drop tabs, though it can't open multiple tabs from a folder of bookmarks.
SeaMonkey's mail program borrows code from Mozilla's Thunderbird, including junk-mail filtering. Sending and receiving messages worked fine for the mail account provided by my ISP, but SeaMonkey wouldn't accept the SMTP data necessary to work with Gmail. SeaMonkey's mail has no OS X integration, relying on its own address book instead of OS X's built-in Address Book. And if you want to import mail into SeaMonkey from another application, you're limited to Outlook, Outlook Express, or Eudora. A complicated, outdated interface makes SeaMonkey feel like a bad trip back in time.
The application's Composer HTML-editing module for writing Web pages seems similarly archaic. A Layers button offers limited support for some aspects of CSS style and positioning, but if you want to edit CSS stylesheets, you'll have to code them by hand. ChatZilla, the included Internet Relay Chat client, handles IRC chats well, but it's also available as an add-on for Firefox.
SeaMonkey's two default themes regrettably imitate browsers five to ten years behind the times. In the resulting gray, boxy confines, even its excellent browser feels like a chore to use. Mozilla's site offers a few other themes, but most wouldn't install, due to problems with their installation scripts. Several add-ons for SeaMonkey installed successfully, but none seemed to work, even after the program restarted.
Instead of cooperating in a clean, one-window interface, each SeaMonkey tool opens in a separate window. The Preferences pane is a dense mess of hierarchical menus, and the Help window is oddly buggy. You can't open Preferences while the Help window is open, and attempts to click on the browser window behind it caused the browser to snap to the Help window's position--or, in some cases, partly vanish off the top of the screen.
Buying advice
SeaMonkey's project coordinator says that the program's volunteer coders are working on a host of improvements for version 2, scheduled for release later this year. Until those improvements materialize, SeaMonkey 1.1.8 feels like a great browser saddled with so-so add-ons, and trapped beneath an oppressive interface."
SeaMonkey 1.1.8 is an operating system for Mac. The reviewer saya this new operating system seems more like an outdated OS. Email is outdated and complicated to use, and Gmail can also not be used. The broswer windows open seperatly but one can use the drag-and-drop feature. SeaMonkey's Composer HTML-editing module for writing Web pages is extremly outdated. Most things about this program is old and complicated to use. The reviewer suggest that if one want's this OS it would be better to wait for the updates.
What is the classification given to IP addresses beginning with 172.16 through 172.31?Class B private.
What is used by a router to prevent a hacker from obtaining a specific IP address?NAT
Which components must a router have in order to be on a network?IP address, Subnet mask, MAC address.
What is a private TCP/IP network called? Intranet
Which are functions in which a proxy server can be used? Caching Web sites, Changing port numbers.
Which options should be used for passwords? Case-sensitive letters, Punctuation,Passwords that are frequently changed.
Review: SeaMonkey 1.1.8 for the Mac
A project that traces its lineage to the classic Netscape Communicator suite shows its roots.
By Nathan Alderman
"February 29, 2008 (MacWorld) SeaMonkey 1.1.8, the Mozilla Foundation's all-in-one Internet application, combines browsing, e-mail, HTML editing, and IRC chat. The project traces its lineage to the classic Netscape Communicator suite--but unfortunately, those roots show a little too clearly.
SeaMonkey's browser is by far its best component, boasting the most accurate rendering of any Gecko-based browser I tested. It flawlessly displayed tricky code that foiled its siblings, including all the browser-busting examples at CSS Edge. The worst glitch I saw in my testing involved some slight flickering in the QuickLook windows at Gap.com. On average, SeaMonkey also rendered pages slightly faster than Firefox. It even offers drag-and-drop tabs, though it can't open multiple tabs from a folder of bookmarks.
SeaMonkey's mail program borrows code from Mozilla's Thunderbird, including junk-mail filtering. Sending and receiving messages worked fine for the mail account provided by my ISP, but SeaMonkey wouldn't accept the SMTP data necessary to work with Gmail. SeaMonkey's mail has no OS X integration, relying on its own address book instead of OS X's built-in Address Book. And if you want to import mail into SeaMonkey from another application, you're limited to Outlook, Outlook Express, or Eudora. A complicated, outdated interface makes SeaMonkey feel like a bad trip back in time.
The application's Composer HTML-editing module for writing Web pages seems similarly archaic. A Layers button offers limited support for some aspects of CSS style and positioning, but if you want to edit CSS stylesheets, you'll have to code them by hand. ChatZilla, the included Internet Relay Chat client, handles IRC chats well, but it's also available as an add-on for Firefox.
SeaMonkey's two default themes regrettably imitate browsers five to ten years behind the times. In the resulting gray, boxy confines, even its excellent browser feels like a chore to use. Mozilla's site offers a few other themes, but most wouldn't install, due to problems with their installation scripts. Several add-ons for SeaMonkey installed successfully, but none seemed to work, even after the program restarted.
Instead of cooperating in a clean, one-window interface, each SeaMonkey tool opens in a separate window. The Preferences pane is a dense mess of hierarchical menus, and the Help window is oddly buggy. You can't open Preferences while the Help window is open, and attempts to click on the browser window behind it caused the browser to snap to the Help window's position--or, in some cases, partly vanish off the top of the screen.
Buying advice
SeaMonkey's project coordinator says that the program's volunteer coders are working on a host of improvements for version 2, scheduled for release later this year. Until those improvements materialize, SeaMonkey 1.1.8 feels like a great browser saddled with so-so add-ons, and trapped beneath an oppressive interface."
SeaMonkey 1.1.8 is an operating system for Mac. The reviewer saya this new operating system seems more like an outdated OS. Email is outdated and complicated to use, and Gmail can also not be used. The broswer windows open seperatly but one can use the drag-and-drop feature. SeaMonkey's Composer HTML-editing module for writing Web pages is extremly outdated. Most things about this program is old and complicated to use. The reviewer suggest that if one want's this OS it would be better to wait for the updates.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Software News
What are protocol concepts?
The introduction of which operating system changed the problem of no security or power within a workgroup?Windows NT
What is the name of the super account on all Windows machines?Administrator
Windows NT Workstation is directory-based, while Windows NT Server is server-based.False
Of the domain controllers on the network shown, which has the most control?They are all equal
In a UNIX environment, which is used to perform printing on an individual machine?LPR
What allows Apple computers to function as Web or e-mail servers?AppleShare IP
Outage shuts Netflix Web site for 12 hours
Company mum on cause of outage; site restored
By Agam Shah
March 25, 2008 (IDG News Service) The Web site of popular online movie rental company Netflix Inc. suffered an outage early yesterday, but the site was back up this morning.
The Web site went down at 7 a.m. Pacific time, said Steve Swasey, a company spokesman. Netflix declined to comment on reasons for the outage. The site was down for about 12 hours, and Netflix missed its deadline for mailing a shipment of movie rentals, which will instead be mailed today, CNET reported.
It was an unplanned outage and "very rare," Swasey said. An outage like this hasn't happened to Netflix in a long time, he noted.
The outage is especially frustrating because Netflix prides itself on providing good customer service to users, Swasey said. About 90% of its customers said they were satisfied with the company's service in a Nielsen survey conducted in December 2007.
Netflix offers DVDs and streaming movies to about 8 million customers. The company recently added a movie-streaming service for game consoles.
Netflix, a popular online video rental site, was unexpectantly shutdown yeaster from an outage. Because of the outage, Netflix missed it's deadline to mail orders to its costumers. Though it was out for about 12 hours, it is now back up today and will mail the orders today. Netflix is becoming excreasing popular especialy for users who are too busy to shop at video stores such as Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. Unlike those companies, Netflixs knows that our society is getting closer to a more digtal world. Soon, everything may be bought online and there may not be a need for physical stores and physical employees.
The introduction of which operating system changed the problem of no security or power within a workgroup?Windows NT
What is the name of the super account on all Windows machines?Administrator
Windows NT Workstation is directory-based, while Windows NT Server is server-based.False
Of the domain controllers on the network shown, which has the most control?They are all equal
In a UNIX environment, which is used to perform printing on an individual machine?LPR
What allows Apple computers to function as Web or e-mail servers?AppleShare IP
Outage shuts Netflix Web site for 12 hours
Company mum on cause of outage; site restored
By Agam Shah
March 25, 2008 (IDG News Service) The Web site of popular online movie rental company Netflix Inc. suffered an outage early yesterday, but the site was back up this morning.
The Web site went down at 7 a.m. Pacific time, said Steve Swasey, a company spokesman. Netflix declined to comment on reasons for the outage. The site was down for about 12 hours, and Netflix missed its deadline for mailing a shipment of movie rentals, which will instead be mailed today, CNET reported.
It was an unplanned outage and "very rare," Swasey said. An outage like this hasn't happened to Netflix in a long time, he noted.
The outage is especially frustrating because Netflix prides itself on providing good customer service to users, Swasey said. About 90% of its customers said they were satisfied with the company's service in a Nielsen survey conducted in December 2007.
Netflix offers DVDs and streaming movies to about 8 million customers. The company recently added a movie-streaming service for game consoles.
Netflix, a popular online video rental site, was unexpectantly shutdown yeaster from an outage. Because of the outage, Netflix missed it's deadline to mail orders to its costumers. Though it was out for about 12 hours, it is now back up today and will mail the orders today. Netflix is becoming excreasing popular especialy for users who are too busy to shop at video stores such as Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. Unlike those companies, Netflixs knows that our society is getting closer to a more digtal world. Soon, everything may be bought online and there may not be a need for physical stores and physical employees.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Software News
What are Network OS concepts?
What are the correct steps that would be taken in the command prompt to view whether the computer with the IP address 192.168.2.200 is the DNS server? NSLookup, Server 192.168.2.200.
Which command is used from the command prompt to view the DNS cache? ipconfig /displaydns.
What are the correct steps that would be taken in the command prompt to view the computer's IP information, release its lease, and then renew its lease? ipconfig, ipconfig/release, ipconfig/renew.
What is the reason for an IP address beginning with 169.254 appearing on boot up of a computer? A DHCP server cannot be found.
Which are features of a peer-to-peer network? Weak computers and Any computer could be a server.
In Windows 3.1 operating systems, what methods were used to access a computer that had been shared files or folders? Typing net use from the command prompt and Locating the computer through Network Neighborhood.
Tales from the crypt: Our first computers
Computerworld editors share stories of their first PCs, from classics to clunkers.
By Computerworld staff
March 25, 2008 (Computerworld) Quick -- what was the first personal computer you ever owned? You don't have to think about it for even a second, do you? No matter how many machines you've had over the years, you always remember your first -- usually with great fondness.
In that spirit, we asked several Computerworld editors to share stories of their first PCs. While most of us joined the ranks of PC owners during the '80s, one editor didn't buy his first computer until 1995, and one "personal" computing tale dates back to 1970. Some of us were lucky enough to own some of history's great PCs, while others got stuck with turkeys.
We got a kick out of remembering the days of CP/M and DOS -- when programs ran off a cartridge or floppy disk, when a 6-MHz CPU was plenty fast, and when just owning a computer was the mark of a technology geek.
We invite you to reminisce along with us, then share your own tales in this article's comments area. We know you've got great stories to tell!
1982: Programming in BASIC, playing TI Invaders
My first home computer was a Texas Instruments 99/4A. We didn't have a monitor (we hooked it up to our television set) and there was no disk drive. Applications came on cartridges, and when I wrote my own programs in BASIC, I stored them on, yes, an audio cassette tape.
But it was a 16-bit system, which was fairly impressive for the time (I believe it was the first 16-bit home computer). One of the applications was rudimentary speech synthesis, which seemed exceedingly cool 25-plus years ago. Having unlimited access to my very own machine was quite a treat. Back in high school, we used terminals connected to a time-shared mainframe, and the school had to pay for computer time used. My computer classes were cautioned not to waste that expensive time playing games (a warning that let's just say wasn't entirely effective).
I could play chess against my very own computer as often as I wanted, as well as games like Munchman and TI Invaders (quite a step up from Pong).
We eventually bought an acoustic coupler for it so we could dial into local text-based bulletin boards run by hobbyists. I've been hooked on online information ever since.
-- Sharon Machli
My first computer was the ones we are still cerently using: Window XP. My mother bought the family computer in around 2001. It had a very small moniter, but with the standard black dell ball-mouse, keyboard, and harddriver. We still cerently have this computer in our new home, in my mothers office though she is normally the only person who uses it. i myself use my laptop that is about two years old. it has a wide screen and tree dvd players. My first computer was not an older one like the staff at acomputer world though some of the computers/ operating systems they mention i may have used in the past either in elementary school or at my aunts house.
What are the correct steps that would be taken in the command prompt to view whether the computer with the IP address 192.168.2.200 is the DNS server? NSLookup, Server 192.168.2.200.
Which command is used from the command prompt to view the DNS cache? ipconfig /displaydns.
What are the correct steps that would be taken in the command prompt to view the computer's IP information, release its lease, and then renew its lease? ipconfig, ipconfig/release, ipconfig/renew.
What is the reason for an IP address beginning with 169.254 appearing on boot up of a computer? A DHCP server cannot be found.
Which are features of a peer-to-peer network? Weak computers and Any computer could be a server.
In Windows 3.1 operating systems, what methods were used to access a computer that had been shared files or folders? Typing net use from the command prompt and Locating the computer through Network Neighborhood.
Tales from the crypt: Our first computers
Computerworld editors share stories of their first PCs, from classics to clunkers.
By Computerworld staff
March 25, 2008 (Computerworld) Quick -- what was the first personal computer you ever owned? You don't have to think about it for even a second, do you? No matter how many machines you've had over the years, you always remember your first -- usually with great fondness.
In that spirit, we asked several Computerworld editors to share stories of their first PCs. While most of us joined the ranks of PC owners during the '80s, one editor didn't buy his first computer until 1995, and one "personal" computing tale dates back to 1970. Some of us were lucky enough to own some of history's great PCs, while others got stuck with turkeys.
We got a kick out of remembering the days of CP/M and DOS -- when programs ran off a cartridge or floppy disk, when a 6-MHz CPU was plenty fast, and when just owning a computer was the mark of a technology geek.
We invite you to reminisce along with us, then share your own tales in this article's comments area. We know you've got great stories to tell!
1982: Programming in BASIC, playing TI Invaders
My first home computer was a Texas Instruments 99/4A. We didn't have a monitor (we hooked it up to our television set) and there was no disk drive. Applications came on cartridges, and when I wrote my own programs in BASIC, I stored them on, yes, an audio cassette tape.
But it was a 16-bit system, which was fairly impressive for the time (I believe it was the first 16-bit home computer). One of the applications was rudimentary speech synthesis, which seemed exceedingly cool 25-plus years ago. Having unlimited access to my very own machine was quite a treat. Back in high school, we used terminals connected to a time-shared mainframe, and the school had to pay for computer time used. My computer classes were cautioned not to waste that expensive time playing games (a warning that let's just say wasn't entirely effective).
I could play chess against my very own computer as often as I wanted, as well as games like Munchman and TI Invaders (quite a step up from Pong).
We eventually bought an acoustic coupler for it so we could dial into local text-based bulletin boards run by hobbyists. I've been hooked on online information ever since.
-- Sharon Machli
My first computer was the ones we are still cerently using: Window XP. My mother bought the family computer in around 2001. It had a very small moniter, but with the standard black dell ball-mouse, keyboard, and harddriver. We still cerently have this computer in our new home, in my mothers office though she is normally the only person who uses it. i myself use my laptop that is about two years old. it has a wide screen and tree dvd players. My first computer was not an older one like the staff at acomputer world though some of the computers/ operating systems they mention i may have used in the past either in elementary school or at my aunts house.
Monday, March 24, 2008
SoftWare News
QUESTION
What is DNS with Windows?
NOTES
TCP- is most common and used for HTTP. UDP is used for connections, whois, and is mainly for utilities. ICMP is used for ping and is very simple with simple frame; is uses most basic services.
DNS means Domain Name Sevice. Samuels is the fully qualified domain name that represents the uppermost domain.
SoftWare News
Review: Safari 3.0.4
Apple's new browser strikes a balance between increased functionality and new functions
By Jason Cranford Teague
March 4, 2008 (MacWorld) Increasingly, Web browsers have become the conduit through which we interact with the world around us. It's not just about reading Web pages any more--browsers now act as multi-functional tools for watching video, listening to audio, and chatting with our friends. Because of these greater demands, browsers are not only becoming more sophisticated but also more complex.
In this increasingly demanding atmosphere, Apple's Safari 3.0.4 strikes an excellent balance between the need for increased functionality and the need to add new functions.
The best browsers support the current Web standards for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (the technologies that make Web pages), so that pages load consistently regardless of your chosen technology. Apple constantly releases Safari updates so that the browser always has the latest features, including some cutting-edge Web standards that haven't been officially released.
Safari already displays the toughest Web pages like greased lightening. Add to that its intuitive interface, with tabs and an easy-to-use bookmarking system, as well as seamless integration with OS X's built-in Address Book so that URLs stored in address cards are in an easy to use drop-down menu. Subscribers to the $100-a-year .Mac service enjoy even more functionality, thanks to a feature that lets them keep bookmarks in sync among multiple computers.
Safari keeps its interface clean and lean so that you can focus on the Web page.
Safari 3 adds to this solid foundation by refining existing features and adding new functionality that enhances how you use the Web. Refinements include the browser's new inline searching, which highlights all matching search terms as you type, and new PDF controls, which allow you to display and control this popular document format directly in the browser window without having to open a new application.
Safari's most striking new feature is Web Clip, an OS X 10.5-only addition. Web Clip allows you to select part of a Web page and instantly turn it into a Dashboard widget. For example, let's say your favorite organization has a news headline section on its homepage. With Web Clip, all you have to do is "clip" the news box from that Web page by clicking the Web Clip button next to Safari's address field, selecting the relevant section, and clicking on the Add button. Whenever you want to check headlines, all you have to do is switch to Dashboard to see your clipping. This may well be the future of how we interact with the Web.
One common complaint I hear about Safari is that the browser lacks customization beyond basic adjustments such as security, fonts, and which buttons show up in the Toolbar. Unlike Firefox and many other browsers, Safari does not allow users to use third-party add-ons to increase functionality or change the interface appearance, nor does it allow you to specify the default search engine in the toolbar, so you are stuck with Google.
These are fair complaints. Still, browsers that offer more add-ons and customization are also prone to crashing and interface clutter. Safari's approach seems a fair trade off for simplicity and reliability.
Buying advice
Mac users who need a streamlined Web browser for simply browsing the Web should use Safari 3. (So should their Windows counterparts, since Safari runs on both platforms.) Safari has all of the features that most Web surfers will ever need, it's extremely fast, and it integrates seamlessly with other Mac applications. However, heavy-duty users like Web designers will likely want to explore alternatives that allow them to enhance the Web development capabilities of their browser with add-ons.
[Jason Cranford Teague is the Director of Web Design Standards for AOL Programming and the author of several books about computer design. Jason regularly rants about technology and culture on his blog.]
Safari 3 is a new operating system form apple. form the reviewm it seems as though it has much better features than what windows offers. Many people have allready had the oppertunity of using windows vista and many have much complaints, while safari 3 has less complaints. The issues include not being able to use 3rd party applications to costomize ones browsing experience; though with out those enhancements safari runs much smoother than any other operating system. i myself have been using windows for many years and only had the oppertunity to use safari once. it was difficult to get use to but i'm sure that id i had more time with it i would have learned to like it. One way that i will have more oppertunities to use safari is when i get apple's new Ipod Touch with wifi. this will allow me to use the internet on my ipod anywhere with a wifi connection (Such as Starbucks).
What is DNS with Windows?
NOTES
TCP- is most common and used for HTTP. UDP is used for connections, whois, and is mainly for utilities. ICMP is used for ping and is very simple with simple frame; is uses most basic services.
DNS means Domain Name Sevice. Samuels is the fully qualified domain name that represents the uppermost domain.
SoftWare News
Review: Safari 3.0.4
Apple's new browser strikes a balance between increased functionality and new functions
By Jason Cranford Teague
March 4, 2008 (MacWorld) Increasingly, Web browsers have become the conduit through which we interact with the world around us. It's not just about reading Web pages any more--browsers now act as multi-functional tools for watching video, listening to audio, and chatting with our friends. Because of these greater demands, browsers are not only becoming more sophisticated but also more complex.
In this increasingly demanding atmosphere, Apple's Safari 3.0.4 strikes an excellent balance between the need for increased functionality and the need to add new functions.
The best browsers support the current Web standards for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (the technologies that make Web pages), so that pages load consistently regardless of your chosen technology. Apple constantly releases Safari updates so that the browser always has the latest features, including some cutting-edge Web standards that haven't been officially released.
Safari already displays the toughest Web pages like greased lightening. Add to that its intuitive interface, with tabs and an easy-to-use bookmarking system, as well as seamless integration with OS X's built-in Address Book so that URLs stored in address cards are in an easy to use drop-down menu. Subscribers to the $100-a-year .Mac service enjoy even more functionality, thanks to a feature that lets them keep bookmarks in sync among multiple computers.
Safari keeps its interface clean and lean so that you can focus on the Web page.
Safari 3 adds to this solid foundation by refining existing features and adding new functionality that enhances how you use the Web. Refinements include the browser's new inline searching, which highlights all matching search terms as you type, and new PDF controls, which allow you to display and control this popular document format directly in the browser window without having to open a new application.
Safari's most striking new feature is Web Clip, an OS X 10.5-only addition. Web Clip allows you to select part of a Web page and instantly turn it into a Dashboard widget. For example, let's say your favorite organization has a news headline section on its homepage. With Web Clip, all you have to do is "clip" the news box from that Web page by clicking the Web Clip button next to Safari's address field, selecting the relevant section, and clicking on the Add button. Whenever you want to check headlines, all you have to do is switch to Dashboard to see your clipping. This may well be the future of how we interact with the Web.
One common complaint I hear about Safari is that the browser lacks customization beyond basic adjustments such as security, fonts, and which buttons show up in the Toolbar. Unlike Firefox and many other browsers, Safari does not allow users to use third-party add-ons to increase functionality or change the interface appearance, nor does it allow you to specify the default search engine in the toolbar, so you are stuck with Google.
These are fair complaints. Still, browsers that offer more add-ons and customization are also prone to crashing and interface clutter. Safari's approach seems a fair trade off for simplicity and reliability.
Buying advice
Mac users who need a streamlined Web browser for simply browsing the Web should use Safari 3. (So should their Windows counterparts, since Safari runs on both platforms.) Safari has all of the features that most Web surfers will ever need, it's extremely fast, and it integrates seamlessly with other Mac applications. However, heavy-duty users like Web designers will likely want to explore alternatives that allow them to enhance the Web development capabilities of their browser with add-ons.
[Jason Cranford Teague is the Director of Web Design Standards for AOL Programming and the author of several books about computer design. Jason regularly rants about technology and culture on his blog.]
Safari 3 is a new operating system form apple. form the reviewm it seems as though it has much better features than what windows offers. Many people have allready had the oppertunity of using windows vista and many have much complaints, while safari 3 has less complaints. The issues include not being able to use 3rd party applications to costomize ones browsing experience; though with out those enhancements safari runs much smoother than any other operating system. i myself have been using windows for many years and only had the oppertunity to use safari once. it was difficult to get use to but i'm sure that id i had more time with it i would have learned to like it. One way that i will have more oppertunities to use safari is when i get apple's new Ipod Touch with wifi. this will allow me to use the internet on my ipod anywhere with a wifi connection (Such as Starbucks).
Friday, March 21, 2008
SoftWare News
What is Network Protocols?
Which session is used mainly for utilities ans is connectionless? Network Protocols/DNS Trnasport/ Session Protocols.
Ports 20 and 21 are used by which services or portocol? Network Protocols/ DNS port numbers.
When using SFTP, what happens to files as they are transferred? Network Protocols/ DNS port numbers.
Which command can be used from the command pormpt to flush the local DNS Cache on individual systems? DNS within a Windows Environment DNS Cache.
Which network types defined a dedicated servinf system? Network OS Concepts Network Types.
Which security model introduced individual user accounts? Network OS concepts Server-Based Model.
What type of account was created in Novell Netware v3 to handle network adminstration? History of Network operating systems Novell Netware v3.
Finally! INCITS finalizes U.S. 'yes' vote on Open XML standards bid
Sources say tech standards committee will again vote in favor of Microsoft's file format
After several rounds of voting and internal debate, the committee that represents U.S. interests on technology issues within the ISO standards body reaffirmed on Tuesday its support for approving Microsoft Corp.'s Office Open XML document format as an open standard, according to sources close to the process.
The sources said that in the end, the executive board of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) decided not to change its position from last summer, when it also voted in favor of approving the Open XML standards proposal during an initial round of balloting within ISO.
At that time, the INCITS board voted 12-3, with one abstention, to back Open XML as a standard. But the Microsoft format wasn't ratified in the ISO-wide balloting, getting a majority of the votes that were cast by national standards bodies but not enough to meet the requirements for approval.
The shortfall prompted Ecma International, the Geneva-based standards body that nominated Open XML within ISO, to edit the file format's specification in response to thousands of comments and criticisms submitted by vendors and members of national standards bodies. Those changes were approved at a so-called ballot resolution meeting held by ISO in Geneva last month, despite complaints that there wasn't enough time to fully discuss the amendments.
That was followed earlier this month by a favorable recommendation on the Open XML proposal by the V1 Technical Committee, which advises the INCITS executive board on text-processing standards issues.
Then, several days after Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates did some lobbying for Open XML in Washington, the INCITS board last Friday voted via a mail ballot in favor of maintaining the "yes" vote on the standards proposal.
The vote count on Friday was 11-4, with one abstention. Voting against Open XML were IBM, Oracle Corp., Adobe Systems Inc. and IT consulting firm Farance Inc. Because that vote wasn't unanimous, more debate and discussion was required this week.
"Attendees were asked if anyone would be willing to change their vote based on the submitted comments, and no one responded," said one of the sources familiar with the situation at INCITS.
A spokeswoman for the American National Standards Institute, of which INCITS is a subsidiary organization, said that ANSI is unable to release information about the official U.S. position on Open XML until ISO concludes the second round of balloting.
National standards bodies have until March 29 to submit their ballots on the Open XML proposal.
Which session is used mainly for utilities ans is connectionless? Network Protocols/DNS Trnasport/ Session Protocols.
Ports 20 and 21 are used by which services or portocol? Network Protocols/ DNS port numbers.
When using SFTP, what happens to files as they are transferred? Network Protocols/ DNS port numbers.
Which command can be used from the command pormpt to flush the local DNS Cache on individual systems? DNS within a Windows Environment DNS Cache.
Which network types defined a dedicated servinf system? Network OS Concepts Network Types.
Which security model introduced individual user accounts? Network OS concepts Server-Based Model.
What type of account was created in Novell Netware v3 to handle network adminstration? History of Network operating systems Novell Netware v3.
Finally! INCITS finalizes U.S. 'yes' vote on Open XML standards bid
Sources say tech standards committee will again vote in favor of Microsoft's file format
After several rounds of voting and internal debate, the committee that represents U.S. interests on technology issues within the ISO standards body reaffirmed on Tuesday its support for approving Microsoft Corp.'s Office Open XML document format as an open standard, according to sources close to the process.
The sources said that in the end, the executive board of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) decided not to change its position from last summer, when it also voted in favor of approving the Open XML standards proposal during an initial round of balloting within ISO.
At that time, the INCITS board voted 12-3, with one abstention, to back Open XML as a standard. But the Microsoft format wasn't ratified in the ISO-wide balloting, getting a majority of the votes that were cast by national standards bodies but not enough to meet the requirements for approval.
The shortfall prompted Ecma International, the Geneva-based standards body that nominated Open XML within ISO, to edit the file format's specification in response to thousands of comments and criticisms submitted by vendors and members of national standards bodies. Those changes were approved at a so-called ballot resolution meeting held by ISO in Geneva last month, despite complaints that there wasn't enough time to fully discuss the amendments.
That was followed earlier this month by a favorable recommendation on the Open XML proposal by the V1 Technical Committee, which advises the INCITS executive board on text-processing standards issues.
Then, several days after Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates did some lobbying for Open XML in Washington, the INCITS board last Friday voted via a mail ballot in favor of maintaining the "yes" vote on the standards proposal.
The vote count on Friday was 11-4, with one abstention. Voting against Open XML were IBM, Oracle Corp., Adobe Systems Inc. and IT consulting firm Farance Inc. Because that vote wasn't unanimous, more debate and discussion was required this week.
"Attendees were asked if anyone would be willing to change their vote based on the submitted comments, and no one responded," said one of the sources familiar with the situation at INCITS.
A spokeswoman for the American National Standards Institute, of which INCITS is a subsidiary organization, said that ANSI is unable to release information about the official U.S. position on Open XML until ISO concludes the second round of balloting.
National standards bodies have until March 29 to submit their ballots on the Open XML proposal.
Monday, March 17, 2008
software News
March 14, 2008 (Computerworld) Microsoft Corp. yesterday told Excel users that one of the 12 patches issued Tuesday causes the spreadsheet to make mistakes in some calculations.
In a warning posted Thursday, Bill Sisk, security response communications manager, said that the fixes outlined in the MS08-014 bulletin "causes Microsoft Excel 2003 calculations to return an incorrect result when a Real Time Data source is used."
According to a more detailed addition to MS08-014, Excel 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Excel 2003 SP3 return an incorrect result -- usually "0" -- when a Real Time Data source is used in a Visual Basic for Applications function, or macro.
"If you have applications that leverage Real Time Data sources in Visual Basic for Applications functions, we recommend that you perform additional testing before initiating a wide deployment of the update," advised the new version of the bulletin.
Real Time Data was added to Excel in the 2002 version of the spreadsheet, and allows users to have data automatically pushed into a spreadsheet from a variety of sources, Web sites included.
"Our teams are testing a fix and will release it once it meets our quality bar for broad distribution," Sisk promised.
In the meantime, Microsoft suggested that users run any function containing a Visual Basic macro that refers to a Real Time Data source on each cell individually, rather than on an array of cells.
On Tuesday, Microsoft rolled out four security bulletins that patched a dozen vulnerabilities, all in Office, including seven critical bugs in Excel under the umbrella of MS08-014. Microsoft did not specify which of the seven fixes "broke" Excel 2003's calculations of Real Time Data.
One of the patches deployed Tuesday fixed an Excel flaw that had been exploited for at least two months in targeted attacks.
In a warning posted Thursday, Bill Sisk, security response communications manager, said that the fixes outlined in the MS08-014 bulletin "causes Microsoft Excel 2003 calculations to return an incorrect result when a Real Time Data source is used."
According to a more detailed addition to MS08-014, Excel 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Excel 2003 SP3 return an incorrect result -- usually "0" -- when a Real Time Data source is used in a Visual Basic for Applications function, or macro.
"If you have applications that leverage Real Time Data sources in Visual Basic for Applications functions, we recommend that you perform additional testing before initiating a wide deployment of the update," advised the new version of the bulletin.
Real Time Data was added to Excel in the 2002 version of the spreadsheet, and allows users to have data automatically pushed into a spreadsheet from a variety of sources, Web sites included.
"Our teams are testing a fix and will release it once it meets our quality bar for broad distribution," Sisk promised.
In the meantime, Microsoft suggested that users run any function containing a Visual Basic macro that refers to a Real Time Data source on each cell individually, rather than on an array of cells.
On Tuesday, Microsoft rolled out four security bulletins that patched a dozen vulnerabilities, all in Office, including seven critical bugs in Excel under the umbrella of MS08-014. Microsoft did not specify which of the seven fixes "broke" Excel 2003's calculations of Real Time Data.
One of the patches deployed Tuesday fixed an Excel flaw that had been exploited for at least two months in targeted attacks.
Monday, March 10, 2008
software News
this week said it would need to issue a fifth beta of Firefox 3.0 because of the number of unfixed bugs remaining in the browser.
The decision was the second time in the past 30 days that Mozilla added an extra build to the beta process of Firefox 3.0. It wasn't unexpected, however; last week, the head of Mozilla's development said a fifth beta might be necessary, and that a decision would be made by March 3.
"The development team decided that a fifth beta milestone would be required, based on the number of blockers remaining," Mozilla's chief interface designer, Mike Beltzner, said in a message posted Tuesday to the company's site. "Blockers" are Mozilla's term for bugs or changes that are serious enough to stymie the final release.
"This additional beta will ensure that changes which may affect Web site compatibility and changes which affect the user experience will get exposure to a wider audience for feedback and regression testing," Beltzner said.
Beta 5's schedule -- it's slated to enter "code freeze" stage on March 18 -- means that the preview will likely hit Mozilla's download servers sometime between April 1 and April 15 if past previews are any clue.
Meanwhile, the current in-the-works beta, Beta 4, went into code freeze Feb. 26 and may release as early as next week, according to its current status as noted on Mozilla's site. Today, in fact, Mozilla held its usual test day; it has posted a release candidate of Beta 4 and asked users to download and test the beta, then report any bugs they uncover.
But it's possible Mozilla will extend the beta process beyond the fifth build, added Mike Schroepfer, the company's chief engineer. "We'll evaluate whether Beta 5 is the last milestone before [Release Candidate 1] when Beta 5 ships," said Schroepfer in an e-mail Friday.
Beltzner today also clarified comments he made Tuesday that seemed to hint that Beta 5 would be the last in the line. Then, he told developers that Beta 5 would be the "final milestone for string changes." That, however, doesn't mean there might not be more betas. String changes, said Beltzner today in an e-mail, are those to the user interface text, and their earlier deadlines are meant to give programmers time to polish language-specific versions of the browser. "This gives our localizer teams time to do their translation work and allows us to ship betas in more languages than a lot of other products," Beltzner said.
He also said that the time between freezing Beta 5's code and moving to release would be brief. "After code freeze, we expect a shorter baking period before handing off to the build and QA teams for release."
Firefox currently accounts for 17.3% of the browser market, according to Net Applications. The most recent data available pegged Firefox 3.0's part of the browser market at 0.18%, nearly double the 0.1% of the month before. Firefox 2.0, by comparison, has a 16.3% share.
In other browser news this week, rival Microsoft Corp. unveiled the first beta of Internet Explorer 8. Neither Microsoft nor Mozilla, however, have set definitive ship dates for the final versions of their new browsers.
The decision was the second time in the past 30 days that Mozilla added an extra build to the beta process of Firefox 3.0. It wasn't unexpected, however; last week, the head of Mozilla's development said a fifth beta might be necessary, and that a decision would be made by March 3.
"The development team decided that a fifth beta milestone would be required, based on the number of blockers remaining," Mozilla's chief interface designer, Mike Beltzner, said in a message posted Tuesday to the company's site. "Blockers" are Mozilla's term for bugs or changes that are serious enough to stymie the final release.
"This additional beta will ensure that changes which may affect Web site compatibility and changes which affect the user experience will get exposure to a wider audience for feedback and regression testing," Beltzner said.
Beta 5's schedule -- it's slated to enter "code freeze" stage on March 18 -- means that the preview will likely hit Mozilla's download servers sometime between April 1 and April 15 if past previews are any clue.
Meanwhile, the current in-the-works beta, Beta 4, went into code freeze Feb. 26 and may release as early as next week, according to its current status as noted on Mozilla's site. Today, in fact, Mozilla held its usual test day; it has posted a release candidate of Beta 4 and asked users to download and test the beta, then report any bugs they uncover.
But it's possible Mozilla will extend the beta process beyond the fifth build, added Mike Schroepfer, the company's chief engineer. "We'll evaluate whether Beta 5 is the last milestone before [Release Candidate 1] when Beta 5 ships," said Schroepfer in an e-mail Friday.
Beltzner today also clarified comments he made Tuesday that seemed to hint that Beta 5 would be the last in the line. Then, he told developers that Beta 5 would be the "final milestone for string changes." That, however, doesn't mean there might not be more betas. String changes, said Beltzner today in an e-mail, are those to the user interface text, and their earlier deadlines are meant to give programmers time to polish language-specific versions of the browser. "This gives our localizer teams time to do their translation work and allows us to ship betas in more languages than a lot of other products," Beltzner said.
He also said that the time between freezing Beta 5's code and moving to release would be brief. "After code freeze, we expect a shorter baking period before handing off to the build and QA teams for release."
Firefox currently accounts for 17.3% of the browser market, according to Net Applications. The most recent data available pegged Firefox 3.0's part of the browser market at 0.18%, nearly double the 0.1% of the month before. Firefox 2.0, by comparison, has a 16.3% share.
In other browser news this week, rival Microsoft Corp. unveiled the first beta of Internet Explorer 8. Neither Microsoft nor Mozilla, however, have set definitive ship dates for the final versions of their new browsers.
Friday, March 7, 2008
software News
SNW: New storage standard to include metadata search
The eXtensible Access Method is focused on searching fixed content Software
April 03, 2006 (Computerworld) -- SAN DIEGO -- The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) announced today that it is well on its way to developing an interface standard that would allow companies to perform internal searches for any data using Google-like tools, based on metadata associated with a file, image, audio file, database or even e-mail.
The proposed standard, called Extensible Access Method, or XAM, is focused on searching fixed content and is expected to allow users to find information across multivendor disk and tape systems to retrieve data requested by regulators or for legal discovery purposes.
“If you’ve got 19 days to provide information to someone, you can use these common API sets to access the data,” Matt Brisse, technology strategist and vice chairman of the board for SNIA, said at Storage Networking World here today.
The standard could also allow a hospital to retrieve a patient’s old X-rays, as well as any electronic documents associated with it, such as doctors’ notes.
Suzie Dahle, CIO of DXP Enterprises, Inc., said being able to search data and restore it piecemeal versus having to restore an entire database, would greatly reduce the labor involved with data restores.
Brisse said 36 of SNIA’s member companies are working on the XAM interface, “so this is a full-court press.” SNIA’s Fixed Content Aware Storage Technical Working Group expects to demonstrate the standard in early 2007.
Ray Dunn, a member of SNIA’s board of directors, said the group is working on three separate updated versions of the Storage Management Initiative Specification, or SMI-S, which defines the way multivendor systems communicate with each other. SNIA is currently working to get versions of SMI-S ratified as an international standard by the International Standards Organization.
Dunn said Version 1.02 is being reviewed by SNIA members, and Version 1.03 has just been ratified by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and is being pushed to the International Standards Organization for ratification. Version 1.1 is on track to be submitted to the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards for ratification as an ANSI standard.
Dunn said SNIA is particularly focused on Version 1.1 of SMI-S, which defines interfaces between network-attached storage and iSCSI-based devices. SMI-S v1.1 deals with device descriptions and the services associated with them, such as copying data from one array to another.
“It will have the capability of copying data from one host to another, regardless of the vendor,” Dunn said.
DXP Enterprises, which distributes maintenance, repair, and operating equipment and products to inudstries such as oil and gas companies, recently installed a disaster recovery architecture that includes NAS arrays that replicate data between two sites 200 miles apart.
Dahle said she's happy to hear the SNIA is developing replication standards "because while you can get the data over there, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s usable or it’s right. You have to be able to work on both sides of that."
The eXtensible Access Method is focused on searching fixed content Software
April 03, 2006 (Computerworld) -- SAN DIEGO -- The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) announced today that it is well on its way to developing an interface standard that would allow companies to perform internal searches for any data using Google-like tools, based on metadata associated with a file, image, audio file, database or even e-mail.
The proposed standard, called Extensible Access Method, or XAM, is focused on searching fixed content and is expected to allow users to find information across multivendor disk and tape systems to retrieve data requested by regulators or for legal discovery purposes.
“If you’ve got 19 days to provide information to someone, you can use these common API sets to access the data,” Matt Brisse, technology strategist and vice chairman of the board for SNIA, said at Storage Networking World here today.
The standard could also allow a hospital to retrieve a patient’s old X-rays, as well as any electronic documents associated with it, such as doctors’ notes.
Suzie Dahle, CIO of DXP Enterprises, Inc., said being able to search data and restore it piecemeal versus having to restore an entire database, would greatly reduce the labor involved with data restores.
Brisse said 36 of SNIA’s member companies are working on the XAM interface, “so this is a full-court press.” SNIA’s Fixed Content Aware Storage Technical Working Group expects to demonstrate the standard in early 2007.
Ray Dunn, a member of SNIA’s board of directors, said the group is working on three separate updated versions of the Storage Management Initiative Specification, or SMI-S, which defines the way multivendor systems communicate with each other. SNIA is currently working to get versions of SMI-S ratified as an international standard by the International Standards Organization.
Dunn said Version 1.02 is being reviewed by SNIA members, and Version 1.03 has just been ratified by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and is being pushed to the International Standards Organization for ratification. Version 1.1 is on track to be submitted to the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards for ratification as an ANSI standard.
Dunn said SNIA is particularly focused on Version 1.1 of SMI-S, which defines interfaces between network-attached storage and iSCSI-based devices. SMI-S v1.1 deals with device descriptions and the services associated with them, such as copying data from one array to another.
“It will have the capability of copying data from one host to another, regardless of the vendor,” Dunn said.
DXP Enterprises, which distributes maintenance, repair, and operating equipment and products to inudstries such as oil and gas companies, recently installed a disaster recovery architecture that includes NAS arrays that replicate data between two sites 200 miles apart.
Dahle said she's happy to hear the SNIA is developing replication standards "because while you can get the data over there, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s usable or it’s right. You have to be able to work on both sides of that."
Thursday, March 6, 2008
software News
Little demand yet for Silverlight programmers
Indirect comparisons with Flash skills market bear evidence of long adoption slog ahead
March 6, 2008 (Computerworld) Microsoft Corp.'s Silverlight rich Internet application platform has yet to gain traction among companies or programmers, according to two indirect measures of popularity.
Officially released just half a year ago, Silverlight is being downloaded and installed an average of 1.5 million times a day, Microsoft said during its Mix08 Web development conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
Microsoft is aiming for 200 million Silverlight downloads by the middle of this year.
But Adobe Systems Inc.'s incumbent Flash platform remains far more popular, at least judging by the number of job ads demanding either skill and sales of programming instructional books.
Letting the (job) market decideIn a Computerworld search of nine leading career sites on Tuesday, the ratio of jobs mentioning Flash or Silverlight heavily favored the former. Ratios ranged from a high of 67:1 in favor of Flash at Careerbuilder.com to a still weighty 24:1 at Dice.com (see chart below).
All told, averaging ratios from the nine sites found programming jobs requiring Flash skills to be 41 times more plentiful than ones asking for Silverlight.
Silverlight jobs are out there, albeit in small numbers. Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com, both free search engines that aggregate ads from other job Web sites, turned up 613 and 593 positions asking for Silverlight skills, respectively.
At the same time, Indeed.com listed 19,945 Flash jobs while SimplyHired had 20,704 — or about 35 times more than the Silverlight count.
SimplyHired also has a widget on its site that lets users easily graph job trends over time by entering keywords. However, the data runs only from July 2006 to the end of December 2007 when, a SimplyHired spokeswoman acknowledges, job postings tend to be lower because of the holiday season.
Silverlight jobs were downright paltry at sites such as Careerbuilder.com (29), Yahoo HotJobs (21) and LinkedIn.com (8). Other sites surveyed include:
Collegerecruiter.com: 250 for Silverlight, 10,199 for Flash, for a 41:1 ratio in favor of Flash
Monster.com: 116 for Silverlight, 3,922 for Flash, for a 34:1 ratio in favor of Flash
Jobster: 158 for Silverlight, 6,094 for Flash, for a 39:1 ratio in favor of FlashCaveats include the higher probability that the word flash is used in a job ad to describe something other than the programming language, compared with an esoteric term such as Silverlight — though a cursory skim of the results at various sites didn't turn up any examples of that.
Also, results at some sites, especially those at aggregators such as Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com, may count ads for the same job multiple times.
WHERE THE JOBS ARE: FLASH vs. SILVERLIGHT
Jobs site
Based on an Internet search conducted March 4, using the most basic keywords possible without any additional parameters.
Note: Some of the job sites aggregate listings from other sites, and employers themselves may post jobs at multiple sites. As a result, adding the individual totals would heavily overcount the number of available jobs.
Making books on market shareSales of programming books have also been tracked by market researchers, most notay O'Reilly Radar, to gauge interest in computer languages.
According to a search of Amazon.com, there are currently 43 times more Flash than Silverlight programming books, with 21 books in the computers category related to Silverlight, but 693 Flash books.
The contrast in sales between the top five Amazon.com bestsellers with either Silverlight or Flash in the title was smaller.
According to Nielsen BookScan, each Flash book has generated about four to five times the sales of its Silverlight counterpart. (Of course, no title was likely to match anything in Oprah's Book Club — the most popular has sold only 9,000 copies.)
Christian Wenz, the author of two Silverlight books published by O'Reilly, said he didn't know how well those books are selling.
"Adobe Flash, which I have covered in several successful books for the German market, has an enormous market share and a large user base, so total book sales should be higher there," Wenz said in an e-mail. "I think twelve months from now we will know whether Silverlight will have a chance in the market or not."
Indirect comparisons with Flash skills market bear evidence of long adoption slog ahead
March 6, 2008 (Computerworld) Microsoft Corp.'s Silverlight rich Internet application platform has yet to gain traction among companies or programmers, according to two indirect measures of popularity.
Officially released just half a year ago, Silverlight is being downloaded and installed an average of 1.5 million times a day, Microsoft said during its Mix08 Web development conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
Microsoft is aiming for 200 million Silverlight downloads by the middle of this year.
But Adobe Systems Inc.'s incumbent Flash platform remains far more popular, at least judging by the number of job ads demanding either skill and sales of programming instructional books.
Letting the (job) market decideIn a Computerworld search of nine leading career sites on Tuesday, the ratio of jobs mentioning Flash or Silverlight heavily favored the former. Ratios ranged from a high of 67:1 in favor of Flash at Careerbuilder.com to a still weighty 24:1 at Dice.com (see chart below).
All told, averaging ratios from the nine sites found programming jobs requiring Flash skills to be 41 times more plentiful than ones asking for Silverlight.
Silverlight jobs are out there, albeit in small numbers. Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com, both free search engines that aggregate ads from other job Web sites, turned up 613 and 593 positions asking for Silverlight skills, respectively.
At the same time, Indeed.com listed 19,945 Flash jobs while SimplyHired had 20,704 — or about 35 times more than the Silverlight count.
SimplyHired also has a widget on its site that lets users easily graph job trends over time by entering keywords. However, the data runs only from July 2006 to the end of December 2007 when, a SimplyHired spokeswoman acknowledges, job postings tend to be lower because of the holiday season.
Silverlight jobs were downright paltry at sites such as Careerbuilder.com (29), Yahoo HotJobs (21) and LinkedIn.com (8). Other sites surveyed include:
Collegerecruiter.com: 250 for Silverlight, 10,199 for Flash, for a 41:1 ratio in favor of Flash
Monster.com: 116 for Silverlight, 3,922 for Flash, for a 34:1 ratio in favor of Flash
Jobster: 158 for Silverlight, 6,094 for Flash, for a 39:1 ratio in favor of FlashCaveats include the higher probability that the word flash is used in a job ad to describe something other than the programming language, compared with an esoteric term such as Silverlight — though a cursory skim of the results at various sites didn't turn up any examples of that.
Also, results at some sites, especially those at aggregators such as Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com, may count ads for the same job multiple times.
WHERE THE JOBS ARE: FLASH vs. SILVERLIGHT
Jobs site
Based on an Internet search conducted March 4, using the most basic keywords possible without any additional parameters.
Note: Some of the job sites aggregate listings from other sites, and employers themselves may post jobs at multiple sites. As a result, adding the individual totals would heavily overcount the number of available jobs.
Making books on market shareSales of programming books have also been tracked by market researchers, most notay O'Reilly Radar, to gauge interest in computer languages.
According to a search of Amazon.com, there are currently 43 times more Flash than Silverlight programming books, with 21 books in the computers category related to Silverlight, but 693 Flash books.
The contrast in sales between the top five Amazon.com bestsellers with either Silverlight or Flash in the title was smaller.
According to Nielsen BookScan, each Flash book has generated about four to five times the sales of its Silverlight counterpart. (Of course, no title was likely to match anything in Oprah's Book Club — the most popular has sold only 9,000 copies.)
Christian Wenz, the author of two Silverlight books published by O'Reilly, said he didn't know how well those books are selling.
"Adobe Flash, which I have covered in several successful books for the German market, has an enormous market share and a large user base, so total book sales should be higher there," Wenz said in an e-mail. "I think twelve months from now we will know whether Silverlight will have a chance in the market or not."
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
software News
Computer science graduating class of 2007 smallest this decade
But turnaround possible as new enrollments show signs of leveling off
March 5, 2008 (Computerworld) Enrollments in computer science programs, which plunged after the dot.com bust, may have leveled off, according to new data from the Computing Research Association (CRA). The group follows year-after-year enrollment and graduate trends at 170 PhD-granting institutions.
But this leveling is happening only after the number of bachelor degree graduates has, apparently, hit a trough. In the 2006-07 academic year, only 8,021 students graduated with computer science degrees from these schools -- the lowest number of graduates this decade.
By contrast, in 2003-04 -- the high point of this decade -- 14,185 students were awarded bachelors degrees in computer science, according to CRA data.
This sharp decline in graduates may be about to level off. In the fall of 2006, new computer science enrollments were at 7,840, and the CRA says new enrollments are now at 7,915 for the fall of 2007. The organization measures the numbers of students who have recently declared computer science as their major.
"It's too early to say if it's going to be a turnaround," said Jay Vegso, a CRA staff member who prepared the analysis and developed charts showing the trends, but he says the enrollment data over the last three years is showing a leveling off.
Interest in computer science soared during the late 1990s and in early 2000, but with the dot-com collapse and the increasing use of offshore outsourcing, it slumped back. Vegso said the enrollments in computer science may be affected by interest in IT programs that aren't part of a computer science program.
What lies ahead for those grads? The CRA doesn't look at how well computer science graduates are doing upon graduation, but the general enrollment trend is often cited as an argument for increasing the H-1B visa cap, which is used by skilled workers. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has cited declines in computer science enrollment as a reason for opening up the U.S. to more skilled workers, and will likely make that argument when he appears March 12 before the U.S. House Science and Technology Committee.
Vegso says students should be able to find job opportunities, based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics employment projections showing IT jobs increasing by double digits.
The CRA, founded in 1972, is focused on research policy. Its board members include academic membes from Indian University, Nortah Carolina State University, Darmouth College, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University and other institutions, as well as corporate members including Microsoft, Intel, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
But turnaround possible as new enrollments show signs of leveling off
March 5, 2008 (Computerworld) Enrollments in computer science programs, which plunged after the dot.com bust, may have leveled off, according to new data from the Computing Research Association (CRA). The group follows year-after-year enrollment and graduate trends at 170 PhD-granting institutions.
But this leveling is happening only after the number of bachelor degree graduates has, apparently, hit a trough. In the 2006-07 academic year, only 8,021 students graduated with computer science degrees from these schools -- the lowest number of graduates this decade.
By contrast, in 2003-04 -- the high point of this decade -- 14,185 students were awarded bachelors degrees in computer science, according to CRA data.
This sharp decline in graduates may be about to level off. In the fall of 2006, new computer science enrollments were at 7,840, and the CRA says new enrollments are now at 7,915 for the fall of 2007. The organization measures the numbers of students who have recently declared computer science as their major.
"It's too early to say if it's going to be a turnaround," said Jay Vegso, a CRA staff member who prepared the analysis and developed charts showing the trends, but he says the enrollment data over the last three years is showing a leveling off.
Interest in computer science soared during the late 1990s and in early 2000, but with the dot-com collapse and the increasing use of offshore outsourcing, it slumped back. Vegso said the enrollments in computer science may be affected by interest in IT programs that aren't part of a computer science program.
What lies ahead for those grads? The CRA doesn't look at how well computer science graduates are doing upon graduation, but the general enrollment trend is often cited as an argument for increasing the H-1B visa cap, which is used by skilled workers. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has cited declines in computer science enrollment as a reason for opening up the U.S. to more skilled workers, and will likely make that argument when he appears March 12 before the U.S. House Science and Technology Committee.
Vegso says students should be able to find job opportunities, based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics employment projections showing IT jobs increasing by double digits.
The CRA, founded in 1972, is focused on research policy. Its board members include academic membes from Indian University, Nortah Carolina State University, Darmouth College, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University and other institutions, as well as corporate members including Microsoft, Intel, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
software News
Ballmer: Yahoo still in Microsoft's sights
Software maker holding dialogs with various Yahoo 'constituencies'
March 3, 2008 (IDG News Service) HANNOVER, Germany -- Microsoft Corp. still has its eye on Yahoo Inc., but CEO Steve Ballmer today would not say whether the company plans to pursue a proxy fight to remove Yahoo's board.
Ballmer confirmed "a range of dialog" and "alternatives" under discussion with Yahoo, whose executives spurned Microsoft's initial $44.6 billion cash-and-stock offer, posing the question of whether Microsoft would pursue a hostile takeover. The value of Microsoft's offer has declined by several billion dollars as the company's share price has dropped over the past few weeks.
"I think it's important for me not to get into the detail," said Ballmer, who gave a keynote speech at the CeBIT technology show here. "We still think the deal makes sense. We hope over time that becomes a reality."
Ballmer, whose company presented the unsolicited offer for Yahoo on Feb. 1, said the bid has merit for the companies' shareholders, advertisers, publishers and consumers.
Microsoft said it hopes that a deal will bring it the engineering resources and Web savvy that have made Yahoo one of the most recognizable Web brands and eventually allow Microsoft to better compete in the online advertising market with Google Inc.
Yahoo has also been struggling against Google and has been plagued by mediocre financial results in addition to turmoil in its management ranks. However, CEO Jerry Yang has told employees not to be distracted by the bid and to stay focused.
Ballmer said Microsoft remains "fully engaged" with Yahoo and maintained that the two companies together have the potential to create a lot of value.
"Ultimately, Yahoo's management's going to have a perspective on that, Yahoo's board will have a perspective on that, and Yahoo's shareholders [will have a perspective]," Ballmer said. "We are trying to have appropriate levels of engagement with all three of those constituencies as well as with other industry participants."
Software maker holding dialogs with various Yahoo 'constituencies'
March 3, 2008 (IDG News Service) HANNOVER, Germany -- Microsoft Corp. still has its eye on Yahoo Inc., but CEO Steve Ballmer today would not say whether the company plans to pursue a proxy fight to remove Yahoo's board.
Ballmer confirmed "a range of dialog" and "alternatives" under discussion with Yahoo, whose executives spurned Microsoft's initial $44.6 billion cash-and-stock offer, posing the question of whether Microsoft would pursue a hostile takeover. The value of Microsoft's offer has declined by several billion dollars as the company's share price has dropped over the past few weeks.
"I think it's important for me not to get into the detail," said Ballmer, who gave a keynote speech at the CeBIT technology show here. "We still think the deal makes sense. We hope over time that becomes a reality."
Ballmer, whose company presented the unsolicited offer for Yahoo on Feb. 1, said the bid has merit for the companies' shareholders, advertisers, publishers and consumers.
Microsoft said it hopes that a deal will bring it the engineering resources and Web savvy that have made Yahoo one of the most recognizable Web brands and eventually allow Microsoft to better compete in the online advertising market with Google Inc.
Yahoo has also been struggling against Google and has been plagued by mediocre financial results in addition to turmoil in its management ranks. However, CEO Jerry Yang has told employees not to be distracted by the bid and to stay focused.
Ballmer said Microsoft remains "fully engaged" with Yahoo and maintained that the two companies together have the potential to create a lot of value.
"Ultimately, Yahoo's management's going to have a perspective on that, Yahoo's board will have a perspective on that, and Yahoo's shareholders [will have a perspective]," Ballmer said. "We are trying to have appropriate levels of engagement with all three of those constituencies as well as with other industry participants."
Monday, March 3, 2008
software News
iPhone may get Exchange support, says analyst
'Big win for Apple' if it happens, says JupiterResearch's Gartenberg
March 2, 2008 (Computerworld) Apple Inc. may announce full Exchange support for the iPhone at an event scheduled for Thursday, an analyst said last week.
"If Apple were to announce Exchange support on the iPhone next week, it will be important news for the platform," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch LLC. "This would be a nice win for Apple and will likely lead to a greater adoption of the iPhone in corporate settings."
Although Gartenberg had no inside information on what Apple meant last week went it said there would be "some exciting new enterprise features" included in the March 6 iPhone event, he theorized that it might be related to Exchange, the market-leading mail server sold by Apple rival Microsoft Corp.
"If [as] part of the enterprise announcements next week, Apple announces it has licensed the ActiveSync/Exchange protocol from Microsoft, presumably this would mean that the iPhone would at some point sync directly with Exchange," said Gartenberg in a post to his blog last Thursday. "Bottom line if this happens? Big win for Apple."
At the moment, iPhone users can only pull mail from Exchange servers using the IMAP protocol and sync contacts and calendars with Outlook at the desktop via USB and iTunes. More importantly, corporate IT administrators can't centrally manage iPhones, as they can, for instance, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices.
Gartenberg noted that in his post. "Going through a tethered connection for calendar and contacts and using IMAP for e-mail [on the iPhone] is a step backward for anyone using a BlackBerry (with a BlackBerry Exchange server) or a Windows Mobile device."
Talk of Apple licensing the ActiveSync protocol from Microsoft goes back to before the iPhone's launch in June 2007, although some analysts dismissed the iPhone as a business tool even then. In fact, Gartner had advised enterprises to keep the iPhone out of their organizations, citing, among other things, lax security.
Gartenberg, however, thought that the climate may have changed. "There [have] been persistent calls for Apple to support Exchange directly on the iPhone, and this might be the time for them to do it," he said.
The current corporate smart phone of choice is Research In Motion Ltd.'s (RIM) BlackBerry. According to survey data released by ChangeWave last week, the BlackBerry holds a 73% share of the corporate smart-phone market; the iPhone, meanwhile, has only 5% of the business.
However, said ChangeWave, iPhones owners led all others in what they thought of their smart phones. "Nearly three in five (59%) of Apple's business customers say their company is very satisfied with the iPhone," said ChangeWave in a summary of the survey results posted to its Web site. Fewer say the same about RIM's smart phone: Only 47% said they were very satisfied with the BlackBerry.
An Exchange move by Apple could alter the smart-phone landscape, Gartenberg said. "This was an issue they've been dinged on since the initial announcement of the iPhone, and it changes the game for them in terms of potential corporate adoption."
'Big win for Apple' if it happens, says JupiterResearch's Gartenberg
March 2, 2008 (Computerworld) Apple Inc. may announce full Exchange support for the iPhone at an event scheduled for Thursday, an analyst said last week.
"If Apple were to announce Exchange support on the iPhone next week, it will be important news for the platform," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch LLC. "This would be a nice win for Apple and will likely lead to a greater adoption of the iPhone in corporate settings."
Although Gartenberg had no inside information on what Apple meant last week went it said there would be "some exciting new enterprise features" included in the March 6 iPhone event, he theorized that it might be related to Exchange, the market-leading mail server sold by Apple rival Microsoft Corp.
"If [as] part of the enterprise announcements next week, Apple announces it has licensed the ActiveSync/Exchange protocol from Microsoft, presumably this would mean that the iPhone would at some point sync directly with Exchange," said Gartenberg in a post to his blog last Thursday. "Bottom line if this happens? Big win for Apple."
At the moment, iPhone users can only pull mail from Exchange servers using the IMAP protocol and sync contacts and calendars with Outlook at the desktop via USB and iTunes. More importantly, corporate IT administrators can't centrally manage iPhones, as they can, for instance, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices.
Gartenberg noted that in his post. "Going through a tethered connection for calendar and contacts and using IMAP for e-mail [on the iPhone] is a step backward for anyone using a BlackBerry (with a BlackBerry Exchange server) or a Windows Mobile device."
Talk of Apple licensing the ActiveSync protocol from Microsoft goes back to before the iPhone's launch in June 2007, although some analysts dismissed the iPhone as a business tool even then. In fact, Gartner had advised enterprises to keep the iPhone out of their organizations, citing, among other things, lax security.
Gartenberg, however, thought that the climate may have changed. "There [have] been persistent calls for Apple to support Exchange directly on the iPhone, and this might be the time for them to do it," he said.
The current corporate smart phone of choice is Research In Motion Ltd.'s (RIM) BlackBerry. According to survey data released by ChangeWave last week, the BlackBerry holds a 73% share of the corporate smart-phone market; the iPhone, meanwhile, has only 5% of the business.
However, said ChangeWave, iPhones owners led all others in what they thought of their smart phones. "Nearly three in five (59%) of Apple's business customers say their company is very satisfied with the iPhone," said ChangeWave in a summary of the survey results posted to its Web site. Fewer say the same about RIM's smart phone: Only 47% said they were very satisfied with the BlackBerry.
An Exchange move by Apple could alter the smart-phone landscape, Gartenberg said. "This was an issue they've been dinged on since the initial announcement of the iPhone, and it changes the game for them in terms of potential corporate adoption."
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