Archive for January, 2009

Google Enters the Offline Client Game

Google has finally entered the ranks of its email competitors Yahoo! and Microsoft in offering an offline version of its interface. Yahoo! and Microsoft have both offered offline clients for their mail, calendar, and contact information with Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop and Windows Live Mail for some time now and Google has joined in with Offline Gmail. The product is still in Google Labs so it is still experimental, but it is in essense a broser plugin that allows the broser to cache a user’s mailbox and later will allow the user to cache the calendar and update while offline.

What makes this different from a local mail client such as Outlook or Thunderbird? Well, two things really. The first is a consistent interface. Windows Live Mail (the local client) looks just like Hotmail in the browser. The same goes for Zimbra Desktop and so on. A local mail client is not going to have a consistent interface which can be a pain should users be forced into using the client offline. The second benefit is the lack of a need for a third-party plugin. Mail certainly doesn’t need to have a plugin since it will go over POP or IMAP, but not the other data in your account. Even Microsoft Outlook cannot interface directly with Hotmail for contacts and calendars. If one wanted to sync their contacts from Gmail to say Thunderbird, they would have to install a third-party plugin to do so. The offline clients allow users to have the “syncing” ability without needing to worry about compatibility with the services.

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Jan 29th, 2009

European Union Heads Down Slippery Slope with Microsoft

Microsoft has been battling monopoly charges from the European Union for some time now and might find itself distributing Windows with alternative browsers than Internet Explorer. Microsoft has been found by the EU to be harming the browser competition by bundling its own browser with its operating system. The question becomes now, how are they to be punished? One possible answer that the EU has come up with is to force Microsoft to bundle other browsers with its OS. This answer really doesn’t help anything at all.

The court battle came to the right conclusion: by bundling IE with Windows, Microsoft gave its browser an advantage in the marketplace. Unfortunately, it runs much deeper than that. It’s not the fact that the browser is included with the OS that makes it anti-competitive. If I go to HP’s website and order a new computer from them should I expect to be able to choose the brand of CD drive that comes in it? Of course not, it’ll have HP’s logo on it. The problem lies in the inability to remove the browser from the OS. Uninstalling IE from a Windows computer is like ripping the heart out of a human. If I brought that same HP computer home and replaced the CD drive with another brand drive, the computer would continue to function. Other operating systems allow you to remove the default browser without consequence, but not Windows.

Whether or not they missed the point on why IE has an unfair advantage in the marketplace, they’re heading down a very slippery slope. Where would this bundling of software stop? Do they need to include a copy of OpenOffice.org and Wordperfect with every copy of Office that’s sold? What browsers are included and what aren’t included in the bundle? Couldn’t one argue that the ones not included are being monopolized upon by the others that are? Should other operating system makers be forced to do the same? Or is having some sort of repository (similar to the way Linux package management works) be good enough (it seems to be plenty for Linux..)? The EU is trying to create a more level playing field for browser makers to compete in and hopefully keep web standards alive, but in doing so they seem to have just brought in more politics which will slow the innovation game down which is what will keep the competition healthy in the long run.

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (3) : Jan 28th, 2009

Trojan Hits Macs Through Pirated Software

Appleinsider reports that tens of thousands of Mac users have been infected with a trojan horse when installing pirated software. A hacked copy of Apple iWork ‘09 and Adobe CS4 have been floating around through bit torrents and P2P softwares that installs some extra software that checks in with a server which then allows the attacker to run commands on the user’s computer. So far the trojan is only being reported as being sent through those two applications, though it would be easy to place the trojan into any pirated application circling the web.

The differences between the official version and infected, pirated version of iWork is the inclusion of a package called iWorkServices.pkg in the pirated version which then runs at startup as (I’m assuming) the root user (since the user had to put in a password for sudo to install). The CS4 trojan uses malicious code in the cracking utility used to disable the licensing features of CS4 which also installs itself as a startup item with a root backdoor.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Jan 27th, 2009

Obama’s “Secure” Blackberry

Okay, I guess I was behind the 8 ball yesterday when I talked about Microsoft wanting Obama to be on the Microsoft platform due to “security risks” with the Blackberry. It’s official, they’re going to let him use a standard Blackberry with an upgraded encryption package. The device will be available to Obama to communicate with keep in touch with personal friends and his senior staff. The device has an upgraded encryption package of some sort that allows him to send encrypted emails from his device to the mail client on the other end (I imagine PGP or something similar) so the mail is encrypted while traveling throught he wireless carrier’s network as well as through RIM’s network. This is all standard stuff in terms of securing communications, but it brings to light another perspective.

The device that the President is allowed to use is a standard-issue Blackberry (which model, I’m not sure) with an upgraded encryption software to meet the satisfaction of the security-conscious within his administration. Yet, the device proposed by Microsoft that is certified by the NSA costs around $3,300. Certainly Obama didn’t pay $3,300 for his Blackberry + encryption software! Perhaps Steve Ballmer would like to retract his statement of a few years ago about the iPhone being the most expensive phone in the world..

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Jan 27th, 2009

President Obama to Switch to Windows Mobile?

Obama’s addiction to his Blackberry has been a point of interest to a lot of tech blogs during the election season as well as so far in his Presidency. Obama has made it clear in the past that he would really like to keep his Blackberry, but has not been allowed to thus far. Randy Siegel of Microsoft has cited the fact that data going from the email or PIM server has to pass through RIM’s network as a reason to not choose the Blackberry platform. The reason is that RIM is based out of Canada and the President’s data would have to cross to foreign soil and can’t be trusted. Microsoft is suggesting that Obama use a Sectéra Edge, a Windows Mobile based device that has been certified by the NSA, something that RIM can’t say about their devices.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Jan 26th, 2009

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