2003 October

Microsoft is offering free eBooks when you download Microsoft Reader. Now through November, you can download free eBooks every week.

“A significant extension of our groundbreaking Look Inside the Book feature, Search Inside the Book allows you to search millions of pages to find exactly the book you want to buy. Now instead of just displaying books whose title, author, or publisher-provided keywords match your search terms, your search results will surface titles based on [...]

“Sun Microsystems Inc. is in negotiations with Fujitsu Ltd. to transfer the production of its high-end servers and microprocessors to the Japanese company, according to a report in Thursday morning’s edition of the Japanese business newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun.
The agreement, which was discussed during a meeting this week between Sun Chief Executive Officer Scott McNealy [...]

“Red Hat Inc. on Wednesday introduced Red Hat Linux 3.0, the newest addition to its Open Source Architecture platform, and according to one analyst, its improved support for Java and threads will have many Red Hat users making an upgrade.
According to Raleigh, N.C.-based Red Hat, one of the key features of its new Red Hat [...]

“For the past 8 years E-Data has been terrorizing just about who ever it can with a single broad patent claim that it owns the rights to virtually any technology that allows a product to be downloaded to a kiosk and copied.
After various false starts from 1995 onwards it won an appeal case against [...]

“Despite previous issues with the product, Symantec Corp. on Monday released version 8.0 of its Ghost PC management software, which the company said will save IT administrators a load of time and bandwidth.
To do so, Ghost 8.0 features inventory and local cloning enhancements as well as a new hardware and software inventory capability. The offering [...]

“Trying to cut deeper into the market share of Microsoft Corp.’s Exchange Server e-mail system, SuSE Inc.’s Linux on Wednesday is rolling out a version of Openexchange that features improved server support for Windows Outlook users.
For the first time, Version 4.1 of the product allows Outlook users to access calendar and contact information as well [...]

“Security managers may soon have a standard to identify how many computers
are connected to the corporate LAN–and then flag potential breaches when
that count is off.
A consortium of seven vendors, including Hewlett-Packard and Foundry
Networks, have submitted an IETF draft standard known as sFlow (RFC 3176),
a packet-based sampling technology that watches for denial-of-service
attacks and misconfigured computers without [...]

“Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer effectively closed the door on any Microsoft involvement in open-source initiatives, saying that the commercial approach to software development and sales provides the best security and value to enterprise customers.
In addition, Ballmer branded open source as often a channel of last resort for software products that failed in the commercial marketplace. [...]

“On Monday Apple announced that more than a million copies of the ITunes for Windows software had been downloaded in the first three days following the software’s release. The company also said that more than a million songs were purchased in the same period. By comparison, when the ITunes Music Store first launched in late [...]

“Download or order a 60-day evaluation copy of OneNote 2003 trial software and learn how to capture, organize, and reuse your notes on laptop computers, desktop computers, or Tablet PCs.”
Long time readers (well, long in Internet time, anyway) will recall that I’ve mentioned this software from time to time. One of my biggest peeves was [...]

“Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC), the world leader in Internet security, today announced the acquisition of SafeWeb, Inc., a leading provider of SSL VPN appliances, for $26 million in cash. The acquisition brings to Symantec SafeWeb’s Secure Extranet Appliance technology designed to reduce the cost and complexity of deploying, managing, and maintaining secure access to remote [...]

“Logitech (NASDAQ:LOGI) (Switzerland:LOGN) today announced a new ultra-portable digital camera, the Logitech® Pocket Digital™ 130. This camera features a simple, polished design that fits easily in any pocket with its credit card like design, so people will never have to miss a photo opportunity. It includes true 1.3-megapixel resolution and a strobe flash [...]

“New York Attorney General Eliot Sptizer has sorted through Victoria [sic] Secret’s dirty undies and is set to doll out a $50,000 fine to the company for online privacy violations.
Spitzer has spent several months looking into charges that Victoria’s Secret Web site allowed shoppers to take a peek at other customers’ orders. An apparent [...]

“Intel Corp. CEO Craig Barrett is not happy with government’s role in high technology investing—in the state of California specifically.
In his Gartner Symposium keynote talk here this morning, Barrett condemned the California’s high business taxes and said Intel is not making any new investments in the state. “We’re investing outside California. Its workers comp system [...]

“Sun Microsystems’ new Software Express program is alive and kicking with the company delivering a rewritten TCP/IP stack for Solaris that is meant to prepare customers for faster networking technology.
The new TCP/IP stack - code-named Fire Engine - has 10 gigabit and 100 gigabit Ethernet networks in mind. Instead of using a ‘brute force algorithm’ [...]

Hometown boys make good “One day, if a discovery by two University of Alberta engineering professors bears fruit, cellphones could be powered by a pressurized water system that would eliminate the need to recharge batteries.
With the help of two graduate students, engineering professors Daniel Kwok and Larry Kostiuk were able to light a small [...]

Three leading E-Security organizations in Geneva are
joining forces to deploy what will be the first ever integrated Quantum Key Infrastructure.
Today, Public Key cryptography uses a combination of public and private keys to secure, sign and authenticate data on the Internet. In this system, a private key is used together with a public key which in [...]

“Sun Microsystems of Canada Inc. says it’s helping the da Vinci Project in an effort to send a manned, reusable spacecraft into sub-orbit and win a US$10-million prize.
The Markham, Ont.-based arm of computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. earlier this month said it’s providing hardware and network clustering tools to the da Vinci Project, a team [...]

“The SCO Group has decided not to send invoices to Linux users, despite the company’s claim that the operating system (OS) is unlawfully employing its intellectual property.
‘A couple of months ago, we as a company suggested that one of the things we were willing to do was send out invoices,’ said Blake Stowell, spokesperson for [...]