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ozy writes "With all the fuss about searching and Spotlight and WinFS, check out the Database File System a completely different interface for your files, implemented in KDE. There is actually a request for developers to join a project to implement this under GNOME and leave how we use the desktop today behind."

TheBadger writes "Thanks to the success of Firefox, Mozilla now appears to have 14.9% of the browser share, double that of 9 months ago. Let this be a lesson in complacency."

cperciva asks: "For people without fast internet connections, it is often impractical to download large security patches. In order to avoid to reduce patch sizes, some operating systems -- starting with FreeBSD over a year ago, and recently followed by Mac OS X and Windows XP SP2 -- have started to use delta compression (also known as binary diffs, which constitutes a portion of my doctoral thesis), and can often reduce patch sizes by over a factor of 50. In light of the obvious benefits, I have to ask: When will Linux vendors follow suit?"

neile writes "I stumbled across a fascinating paper over at the Microsoft Typography site today that provides a really nice overview of the different theories on how humans read. If you thought we read by recognizing word shapes, think again! With the assistance of fancy eye-tracking cameras researchers have been able to devise several clever experiments to give us new insight into how reading works." We've linked to some of Larson's work previously.

neile writes "I stumbled across a fascinating paper over at the Microsoft Typography site today that provides a really nice overview of the different theories on how humans read. If you thought we read by recognizing word shapes, think again! With the assistance of fancy eye-tracking cameras researchers have been able to devise several clever experiments to give us new insight into how reading works." We've linked to some of Larson's work previously.

jeckil writes "Today Microsoft unveiled the new Starck mouse; a new shiny mouse designed to take the 'cool' from other mice such as Logitech or Apple. Microsoft is calling it the 'first museum-quality mouse.' Looks shiny enough to be on a museum display along with other succesful Microsoft products."

Lansdowne writes "Stan Lippman, one of the founding fathers of C++ and currently a language architect at Microsoft, has prepared an exhaustive translation guide, comparing old Managed C++ to the revised CLI/.NET version of C++. According to Lippman, "There are a number of significant weaknesses in the original language design (Version 1), which we feel are corrected in the revised language design (Version 2).""

AbyssLeaper writes "Microsoft is closing its Xbox sports game studio in Redmond and laying off 76 employees. In a Seattle Times article, Robbie Bach, Microsoft's Xbox chief, cites the difficulty of competing in the game development space and the expansion of 3rd party support - this move wasn't surprising based on their focus on making the Xbox profitable. MSNBC/Seattle Post-Intelligencer speculates that it might also be due to an increased partnership with EA Sports." We previously reported on many XSN Sports titles skipping 2004.

prostoalex writes "Eric Sink from SourceGear shares his experience on software pricing. Whether you're developing open-source or proprietary software, the money has to come into the business in some form, and the article suggests several strategies as well as the pitfalls for managing software pricing. Sink claims it's tough to compete on price, dangerous to run seasonal promotions and almost impossible to avoid criticism on being over-priced."

Xformer writes "It seems that SP2 for Windows XP isn't as secure as Microsoft touts it to be. Heise Security has uncovered two flaws in SP2's bolstered security measures, both of which may be used to get around the new trusted/untrusted executable origin checks. Of course, who would be surprised by this?" Reader EtherNetFreak writes "Well it appears that at least one hotfix is already available to fix yet another bug in Windows XP, post SP2 application." Reader Finalnight writes "'Microsoft Corp. yesterday delayed yet again its oft-delayed Windows XP Service Pack 2, this time postponing the patch's distribution through the company's Automatic Update service.'"

callipygian-showsyst writes "Microsoft has published the complete list of bugs fixed in Service Pack 2. They range from the obscure like: 'File Appears to Be Deleted Although You Do Not Have Permissions on the OS/2 Warp4-Based Server' to the serious-sounding: ' Stop error message on a blue screen when you transfer data to a USB device in Windows XP'"

thejuggler writes "ZDNET has a story about how the new XP SP2 causes conflicts with over 50 applications and causes problems with others including some of Microsoft's own products. The 'glitch' as they are calling it seems to be that the Windows firewall system is turned on by default and blocks unsolicited connections to your computer. You have to unblock certain ports as your applications require to make the apps work again. They are calling this a glitch, but I thought we wanted everything blocked by default so we would have to choose what was unblocked?" The BBC has a story as well.

thejuggler writes "ZDNET has a story about how the new XP SP2 causes conflicts with over 50 applications and causes problems with others including some of Microsoft's own products. The 'glitch' as they are calling it seems to be that the Windows firewall system is turned on by default and blocks unsolicited connections to your computer. You have to unblock certain ports as your applications require to make the apps work again. They are calling this a glitch, but I thought we wanted everything blocked by default so we would have to choose what was unblocked?" The BBC has a story as well.

thejuggler writes "ZDNET has a story about how the new XP SP2 causes conflicts with over 50 applications and causes problems with others including some of Microsoft's own products. The 'glitch' as they are calling it seems to be that the Windows firewall system is turned on by default and blocks unsolicited connections to your computer. You have to unblock certain ports as your applications require to make the apps work again. They are calling this a glitch, but I thought we wanted everything blocked by default so we would have to choose what was unblocked?" The BBC has a story as well.

Saige writes "Ever wanted to see yourself in a cartoon? Before now, there were means to turn a single image into something cartoon-like, but some folks at Microsoft Research have come up with a method to turn a video into an animated cartoon. It's not up to doing it fully automated, as you have to hand-mark various parts of the video every 10 to 15 frames, but the video of the results is quite impressive."

prostoalex writes "Wireless LANs seem to be enjoying the tremendous amount of interest lately, if you judge by the number of book covers and articles written on the topic. It's no wonder that this year the sales of WLAN equipment will grow 20% and generate $2.1 billion - everyone seems to be installing a wireless network in their office, their apartment complex or their own backyard. With extending the network into the radio world one is always extending the opportunities for unwelcome visitors to become part of the network. This book is a hands-on guide on hacking wireless networks followed by the recipes and principles to protect WLANs." Read on for the rest of prostoalex's review of Wi-Foo . Wi-Foo: The Secrets of Wireless Hacking author Andrew Vladimirov, Konstantin V. Gavrilenko, Andrei A. Mikhailovsky pages 608 publisher Addison-Wesley rating 9 reviewer Alex Moskalyuk ISBN 0321202171 summary Complete guide to wireless attack and defense

Wi-Foo requires a certain level of expertise, and it's unlikely that the book will be sold left and right or that everyone will want a copy. First of all, to do anything substantial you need to have Linux or FreeBSD operating system installed and know your way around it. Second of all, some knowledge of Perl is required to go through the script source code and enjoy occasional tools that appear on the Internet. The third required bit of knowledge is some familiarity with how wireless networks work and how one can gain advantage of those radio waves that seem to contain pieces of data.

The authors claim that one has little knowledge of wireless security unless he's done some war-driving. So, skipping the first two chapters (which talk about security in general), chapters 3, 4 and 5 take the reader through the hassle of setting up the Linux laptop with all the hardware and software needed to do successful war-driving. The last time I reviewed a book on getting wireless to work with Linux, you guys kept asking what card would work the best with a Linux laptop. To quote p. 28 of Wi-Foo, "if you're serious about 802.11 penetration testing, you should get a decent Prism chipset card. If you plan to base your security audit effort around the BSD platform, you probably cannot do without it. Prism chipset CF and PCMCIA cards are known to be produced by Addtron, Asante, Asus, Belkin, Buffalo, Compaq, Demark, D-Link, Linksys, Netgate, Netgear, Proxim, Senao, SMC, Teletronics, US Robotics, Zcomax and ZoomAir."

What follows could essentially be condensed into a single Web site with links to various Linux tools for network discovery, traffic analysis, encryption cracking, 802.1x cracking, frame generation and traffic injection. Kudos to the authors for providing sometimes detailed instructions on setting up the utility and getting the successful results out of it -- it's obvious that they did not just peruse the Web in search of what's available and provided a list of URLs; they installed, tested and reviewed all the Linux network security utilities listed in the table of contents. As much as many of the products and tools listed complement one another, it was useful for me to see the professionals' take on advantages and disadvantages of free tools out there. Wherever possible, the authors try to stick with free software, which makes the book a pretty useful guide for most enthusiasts out there.

The authors are serious about getting the reader to war-drive at some point, and chapter 8 specifically talks about generating wireless denial-of-service attacks as a last resort for a cracker, who seems to be in the bad mood when other methods of wireless penetration do not work. The books talks about antenna amplifiers and some hardware you might buy to be more successful in wireless hacking. They also discuss the possibilities of war-biking, war-walking and riding a hot air balloon.

By the time you're finished with the chapter 9, if your title includes words like "security" or "administrator," you will probably find yourself quite perplexed. That's where Part 3 (Defense) kicks in, as the authors discuss counter-measures against wireless cracking and possible steps one can take to secure the wireless network. It's not a typical don't-use-WEP-don't-broadcast-your-ID-don't-rely-o n-MAC-filtering preaching one can find in security manuals created for the home user (I am not saying those are bad -- for a home user they do provide necessary guidance in securing a WLAN). This is mostly industrial-level security, which might include multiple levels of protection, such as 802.11i implementation, implementing encryption around the wireless networks, creating hardware Linux-based gateways, deploying VPNs and intrusion detection systems. Setting up honeypots is missing from this list, although one can debate whether this could be considered a worthwhile project outside of academic world.

The book uses clear language and is easy to read. At the same time it takes a while to go through it, as you keep trying out the presented solution on your Linux laptop. The chapters that talk about the philosophical decisions when securing wireless LANs are helpful as well -- the authors occasionally get away from hands-on approach and talk about general principles to consider. Code examples are easy to follow, and every tool that's presented in the title is accompanied by the URL (for some reason Addison-Wesley did not include a CD with Wi-Foo); a large number of them point to sourceforge.net. All the links are available on the book's Web site; see the attack and defense sections.

If you should decide to take up a career as a wireless security consultant, Appendix G includes a variety of checklists and templates that the authors recommend for the corporate environment. Chapter 8 -- Breaking Through is available for free in PDF format. Overall I liked this book a lot. It seemed to concentrate on what's necessary without going into fluff and chapters like "History of radio" or "Linux on laptops for beginners." It's informative and easy to read; if you're an enthusiast, try out the free chapter and see if you like the authors' style, but if you're network admin or security professional, this book is almost a must. It's a combo of Exploiting Software and Hacking Exposed with specialization on wireless LANs.

You can purchase Wi-Foo from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

A roundup of concerns and problems with Windows XP SP2 from the early adopters: Many, many users are reporting problems with SP2 limiting outbound TCP/IP connections. This appears to be nailing anyone who makes heavy network use of their machine, including especially users running P2P applications. A Microsoft blog rounds up some reports, as does SANS. Microsoft has objected to people helping them distribute SP2.

News for nerds writes "The head of Microsoft Corp.'s Japan unit, Michael Rawding, acknowledged that the battle with Japanese anti-monopoly authorities over a controversial licensing clause has hurt its corporate image. But he said the company will continue to oppose a Fair Trade Commission ruling ordering Microsoft to retroactively remove the clause from its licensing agreements, as similar investigations in the United States and Europe found it 'lawful and appropriate' according to him, though Longhorn faces another delay. Commission officials are not certain any patents have been violated by Microsoft. But several Japanese electronics makers have complained about suspected patent infringements since December 2000, especially regarding multimedia technologies (VC-9 and H.264/AVC, anyone?). Major Japanese CE companies that are partners with Microsoft include Sony, Toshiba, and Matsushita."

News for nerds writes "The head of Microsoft Corp.'s Japan unit, Michael Rawding, acknowledged that the battle with Japanese anti-monopoly authorities over a controversial licensing clause has hurt its corporate image. But he said the company will continue to oppose a Fair Trade Commission ruling ordering Microsoft to retroactively remove the clause from its licensing agreements, as similar investigations in the United States and Europe found it 'lawful and appropriate' according to him, though Longhorn faces another delay. Commission officials are not certain any patents have been violated by Microsoft. But several Japanese electronics makers have complained about suspected patent infringements since December 2000, especially regarding multimedia technologies (VC-9 and H.264/AVC, anyone?). Major Japanese CE companies that are partners with Microsoft include Sony, Toshiba, and Matsushita."

Downhill Battle writes "With Congress debating new legislation that would ban p2p networks (along with other innovations and beloved products), we thought it was important to demonstrate the huge potential of p2p software to benefit the public. So now at SP2torrent.com you can get Windows XP SP2 via BitTorrent." Update: 08/09 21:10 GMT by S : As commenters note, you can also get XP SP2 from Microsoft's site, but it's explained: "DO NOT CLICK DOWNLOAD IF YOU ARE UPDATING JUST ONE COMPUTER: A smaller, more appropriate download will be available soon on Windows Update."

mr_tommy writes "Service Pack 2 for Windows XP has been released to manufacturers (RTM), is available to MSDN customers, and will soon be available to all via Windows Update and Microsoft sites. At ~ 250 megs, the download is big, and Microsoft will be offering the option of getting it on CDs. The much awaited Service Pack comes with many security updates (new NX and DEP protection), extra features (firewall, security center), and improvements for Windows. New versions of IE and OE come with the release, as well as improvements in the wireless networking field. So far, the service pack seems to be very stable (no known major issues) and does seem to speed up most systems. A review of SP2 Final with some limited download links is available at Neowin.net. I'd urge all users (pirate users too) to deploy the service pack and benefit from the genuine effort Microsoft have made with regards to security in this release." We did cover this recently but since this is a major deal, we figured people would want to know more.

DevDude writes "A strangely interesting article is running on MSDN, entitled: The Case for Software Factories. It suggests creating 'development environments configured to support the rapid development of a specific type of application.' As a developer thrust into many an unsavory situation, I am constantly stepping in the remnants of some development methodology or other. Will super-specialization of software development teams help the industry to push out better software faster? Or are we hassled enough without being treated as an assembly line?"

prostoalex writes "Longhorn libraries for UI will include Web-style UI widgets to be used in desktop applications. Michael Weinhardt talks about building inductive user interfaces and general UI guidelines in the MSDN article."

writertype writes "PC Magazine reports that Microsoft has released Windows XP SP2 to PC OEMs after a two-day delay. A package of stories, complete with an exploration of the new update, is here. The best way for users to get the update, according to Microsoft, is to have Windows Update turned on; a CD version will be made available." Reader Critical_ writes "With all the news of SP2 being delayed, it seems like Microsoft may have pulled a rabbit out of its hat by releasing RTM on its WindowsBeta site. Neowin has a screenshot of the download page and MSFN has the release information. The final build is 2180. For those who can't download it for whatever reason, Microsoft is giving away free CDs here. Happy installing."

writertype writes "PC Magazine reports that Microsoft has released Windows XP SP2 to PC OEMs after a two-day delay. A package of stories, complete with an exploration of the new update, is here. The best way for users to get the update, according to Microsoft, is to have Windows Update turned on; a CD version will be made available." Reader Critical_ writes "With all the news of SP2 being delayed, it seems like Microsoft may have pulled a rabbit out of its hat by releasing RTM on its WindowsBeta site. Neowin has a screenshot of the download page and MSFN has the release information. The final build is 2180. For those who can't download it for whatever reason, Microsoft is giving away free CDs here. Happy installing."

tshak writes "From Microsoft Research, 'Faculty and students at Cornell University have built an unmanned airplane with its own on-board, embedded control system. The large-scale model plane flies by accessing coordinates from an off-the-shelf GPS unit.' Not only does the plane run XP embedded, but the software is written in C# on the .NET Compact Framework. This is all powered by an 800mhz Crusoe processor with 1GB of total system storage."

News for nerds writes "At the tech talk as part of the forthcoming SIGGRAPH 2004 conference on August 11th, an open graphics file format for the interactive 3D [videogame] industry called COLLADA will be unveiled by Sony Computer Entertainment. COLLADA is supported by major 3D toolchain companies including Alias, Criterion, Discreet, Emdigo, Novodex, Softimage and Vicarious Visions. If you combine this with the recent news that Sony has joined Khronos Group to support OpenGL/ES, OpenMAX, OpenVG and OpenML, it seems evident that Sony is quietly fighting back against the loudly trumpeted Microsoft XNA (/. coverage) with its plan of an open game development platform."

TAG writes "TopCoder just announced rules for this year annual international programming tournament. The 2004 TopCoder Open, Sponsored by Microsoft will set as rivals some of the IT industry's top professionals and international collegiate coders. Software will be designed and developed. Seemingly unsolvable algorithmic problems will be solved. $150,000 will be awarded over the course of 14 weeks. 24 of the world's best programmers will be invited to compete live at the onsite finals in Santa Clara, CA, USA. This competition is 'Free'. Yep. Free as beer. Everybody over the age of 18 is eligible. So? What is your TopCoder rating today?"

vincecate writes "Although Windows XP on AMD64 was demoed at ComDex in 2002, Microsoft is now delaying the release till the first half of 2005. Given Microsoft's history on this product, it could be even more than a year before it is really released. At least one person at Intel says they did not ask Microsoft to delay the release. In any case, for the near future if you want to run a 64 bit operating system you will either be using one of the free Linux versions or the free download of Windows XP-64 beta. Though Sun started well after Microsoft, they are progressing well on their Solaris port to AMD64 and could well release earlier."

gwernol writes "Slate has a well-written article on 'white knight" worms like Nachi that attempt to automatically patch security holes; Nachi try to patch the hole that MyDoom exploits. The article calls for Google and others to incent White Hat programmers to create better White Knights. But are 'good viruses' really a good idea? Nachi created almost as much bandwidth congestion as MyDoom. Do we really want programs jumping onto our systems and 'fixing' them without permission? What about a socially engineered worm that claims to be doing good?"

no_demons writes "Some clever souls over at engadget.com have posted an excellent tutorial in turning your iPod into a IR remote control. You also need a Pocket PC, an IR gadget from Griffin and a bit of patience, but hey, it's still a cool hack."

Dr.Dubious DDQ asks: "With all the recent Microsoft(r) news, I see a lot of the usual complaining about Microsoft's unfair 'embrace and extend' practices. I do my own fair share of this, but I'd much rather actually *do* something about it.At the risk of prompting cries of 'No! That will only make them stronger!', I find myself asking: How possible is it to 'transparently' replace Microsoft-brand services with other (preferably, but not necessarily, Open Source) services (rather than flatly demanding migration away from all things MS)? Or put the other way around, what tweaks would have to be made to existing, standard services to make them 'bug-for-bug compatible' with MS versions, particularly OUTSIDE of the context of SMB/Samba, which is an already-obvious example?" While there are definite reasons why such an effort may be worthwhile, it is also possible that Microsoft could attempt to make legal attacks at such projects...even though they are designed with software interoperability in mind. Precedents in support of this idea do exist, such as: ReactOS and even standard Open Source openings like Gnumeric. "I've got two goals in mind here:

1. Ability to placate MS-platform applications that demand MS-brand services to connect to while ALSO allowing non-MS clients as close to 'full' functionality as possible with the same services
2. Naturally, ability to replace an MS-branded package would personally appeal to me as well for both technical and - yes, I'll admit it - philosophical reasons.

Ways of meeting either (or both) goal would be useful to me and, I suspect, a lot of other sysadmins.

For example:

• Is it possible (and feasible) to get OpenLDAP+Kerberos5 to fool Windows systems into believing they're talking to a "real" ActiveDirectory(r) server (without necessarily also having the entire Samba stack)?
• Can client programs that demand MS-SQL server generally use MySQL in MS SQL Compatibility mode instead, if MySQL is set to respond on the MS-SQL port (either directly or via ODBC?)
• How hard would it be to make a 'mod_dav_sharepoint type of module that spoofs Microsoft's special Sharepoint WebDAV behavior (which evidently also uses a 'special' non-standard SQL-like search mechanism - am I going to be kicked out of the club for thinking this looks, at least on the surface, like it might be a useful feature if usable by non-MS clients and implementable by non-MS servers)?
• Similarly, how feasible would it be to get non-MS DAV clients to be able to use Microsoft Sharepoint (or the hypothetical MS-alike drop-in replacement?)
• How good are the 'drop-in replacements' for MS Exchange?
• Are there issues with MS's implementation of IPP (are there any problems dropping Microsoft Printer Sharing entirely and using CUPS instead? It SEEMS that MS Windows 2000+ should support IPP directly, without resorting to Samba middleware - is this true?)
• Possibly risking heaps of derision for suggesting such an unlikely-sounding thing, but how about using mod_dav/Apache (as what Microsoft USED to refer to as 'Web Folders') as a replacement for SMB file sharing? Aside from possible performance issues, is this feasible, or are there too many incompatibilities in MS's DAV support for it to work?
• Are there any registry hacks or other tweaks that can be applied to Microsoft Windows-based systems to make them behave in more standards-compliant ways?
• ...etc?...

Are there other replacements people have investigated?"

neile writes "Microsoft just announced some of their plans for their large cash reserves. This includes moving to quarterly dividend payments of $0.08 a share (up from $0.16 annually), and a special one-time dividend of $3.00 a share in December. The Board of Directors also approved a four-year, $30 billion, stock buyback plan."

Rinisari writes "DesignTechnica, among some others , explains that Microsoft has once again delayed its release of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, though only until August. Microsoft has declined to comment on the reason for the delay. Windows Update v5, however, is online and operational (and works with Service Pack 1!), although not officially so. I know many smaller education institutions are chomping at the bit with the looming release, as they are worried about compatibility with some of the new features in Service Pack 2."

Rinisari writes "DesignTechnica, among some others , explains that Microsoft has once again delayed its release of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, though only until August. Microsoft has declined to comment on the reason for the delay. Windows Update v5, however, is online and operational (and works with Service Pack 1!), although not officially so. I know many smaller education institutions are chomping at the bit with the looming release, as they are worried about compatibility with some of the new features in Service Pack 2."

An anonymous reader writes "VNUnet has a story about Longhorn having the ability to run unix or linux code via SFU." Microsoft's site has a lot more information about SFU itself. Regardless of ideological bent, it's an interesting piece o' technology.

nazarijo writes "Found via Brian Chin's Weblog, it looks like scientists and researchers at Microsoft are working on ways to automatically discover game highlights. This article in the New Scientist discusses several research groups, some in Europe, working to make these ideas a reality. Microsoft research is doing this, too, with highlights from the Mariner's shown as examples. A choice quote from the end of the MSR piece: 'By hitting the highlights of baseball games, we get to view only the best parts of multimedia life. And who knows what's next? Maybe political speeches will become shorter, or the eleven o'clock news will last only 5 minutes, the witty banter between news anchors edited out.'"

darthcamaro writes "Looks like there was an online free-for-all on Microsoft's chat servers yesterday with Internet Explorer engineers. Several interesting things come out in the story including the fact that the IE big wig thinks that all of his engineers should have other browsers installed to see what they can do and, catch this...he thinks they're the underdog. 'I've worked at Microsoft for 14 years and I have always felt like the underdog,' said Hachamovitch. 'Maybe the road behind us looks easy, but at the time going it wasn't. I welcome the feedback today. Getting informed is the only way I know to get better. The day we don't get heated feedback I'll be concerned.'" Reader nkodengar notes that "Microsoft has posted an article on MSDN listing everything that will be affected by the the updates to Internet Explorer in Service Pack 2. This will be particularly important to developers who use ActiveX controls, pop-up windows and file download counters in their websites..."

tiny69 writes "According to Microsoft, a Person's hair turns grey if there are more than 500 users in a User Group. Supposedly, the grey hair does not affect the functionality of the User Group. Microsoft claims to have a solution to fix the problem. How many people do you know that have hair that has turned grey? This web site has a large collection of links to humorous Microsoft Knowledge Base articles."

tiny69 writes "According to Microsoft, a Person's hair turns grey if there are more than 500 users in a User Group. Supposedly, the grey hair does not affect the functionality of the User Group. Microsoft claims to have a solution to fix the problem. How many people do you know that have hair that has turned grey? This web site has a large collection of links to humorous Microsoft Knowledge Base articles."

LucasR asks: "I was testing out Microsoft's Windows Update v5 and read their latest privacy statement from April 15th of this year, and it appears they are collecting and storing more information than ever. Here is only some of what they are now collecting: computer make and model, version information for the operating system, browser, and any other Microsoft software for which updates might be available, Plug and Play ID numbers of hardware devices, and IP address (though only for aggregate statistics so they claim). Some of what they are collecting is really disturbing. I use Microsoft's products but I don't recall wanting them to know everything about my computer and what competing applications I might use. Check it out for yourself. Isn't this amount of collected information a bit much?"

Dozix007 writes "NewsForge carries an interesting article on how spoiled Linux users are. It sites examples such as the availability of wide ranging software packages that Microsoft can't hope to provide. Microsoft has to be careful about what kind of application software it ships with Windows. Microsoft reps sometimes point to Linux distributions and ask why they can get away with shipping stacks and stacks of applications without getting in trouble. The answer to that one, of course, is that the Linux distributions give you a choice. You aren't locked into one particular application. Most Linux distributions include several choices for most program classifications; even single-CD distros usually include several Web browsers and email clients."

prostoalex writes "The weblog entry 'Show me the money' is an interesting tale of Microsoft Money from a developer who now manages software development in the Tablet PC group at Microsoft. Having worked before with Money, which was assigned a task of beating Quicken, Philip describes the disasters that happen when marketing and advertising people rule the software development: 'Money's success or failure was judged using the same metrics as MSN's websites. Metrics like minutes viewed per month. Like ad revenue. Like click-through. Stickiness. I am not making this up.'"

Saint Aardvark writes "Just in time for the weekend, the Internet Storm Center is reporting that Microsoft is providing a fix for the Download.Ject vulnerability that hit IE late last month. The press statement says that it'll hit Windows Update later today..."

Saint Aardvark writes "Just in time for the weekend, the Internet Storm Center is reporting that Microsoft is providing a fix for the Download.Ject vulnerability that hit IE late last month. The press statement says that it'll hit Windows Update later today..."

Saint Aardvark writes "Just in time for the weekend, the Internet Storm Center is reporting that Microsoft is providing a fix for the Download.Ject vulnerability that hit IE late last month. The press statement says that it'll hit Windows Update later today..."

I_am_Rambi writes "According to the US Patent office, patent #6,756,999 belongs to Microsoft. The patent this time is grouping taskbar icons processes. This is included in Windows XP, and some prior art in X. Looks like it was accepted two days ago."

mbstone writes "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has upheld [pdf] the settlement reached between Microsoft and the U.S. Justice Department in the antitrust case filed in 1998, beating back a challenge by Massachusetts, the only state that didn't settle. Many critics, of course, believe that Attorney General John Ashcroft took a dive on the case which was originally filed by former Clinton Administration Attorney General Janet Reno."

An anonymous reader writes "At the TechEd Europe keynote today, Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1. With it, they also released a set of five 'Express Editions' of Visual Studio. These currently free applications offer a student and hobbyist-oriented version of Visual Studio, and are available in C#, C++, VB, Web Developer, and SQL flavors. Each download weighs in at right around 50MB and features tools, documentation, and starter kits. There's been multiple posts and more information on this announcement over at MSDN Blogs, too." Update: 06/29 13:57 GMT by S : A clarification from the Express FAQ: Although the Beta Express products are currently free to download: "We have not announced pricing and licensing and will not do so until next calendar year."

An anonymous reader writes "At the TechEd Europe keynote today, Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1. With it, they also released a set of five 'Express Editions' of Visual Studio. These currently free applications offer a student and hobbyist-oriented version of Visual Studio, and are available in C#, C++, VB, Web Developer, and SQL flavors. Each download weighs in at right around 50MB and features tools, documentation, and starter kits. There's been multiple posts and more information on this announcement over at MSDN Blogs, too." Update: 06/29 13:57 GMT by S : A clarification from the Express FAQ: Although the Beta Express products are currently free to download: "We have not announced pricing and licensing and will not do so until next calendar year."