1.) 2001 Apple introduces the OS X 10.1 . The first version of the OS X was indeed for the enthusiasts and it was a way to get Apple out of the OS 9 era. But 10.1 truly established Apple’s operating system as the highest quality OS on any Personal Computer. It also pushed Microsoft to excel and produce higher quality product.
2.) 2001 Apple introduces The First Gen iPod (needs no explanation, I guess)

3.) 2001 Apple opens the first two Apple Stores : This store was a great experiment, but strange enough Apple decided to open it in Tyson Corner, Va. and Glendale, Ca. Now apple has more than 270 stores around the world and none of them have been closed! Talk about success.

4.) 2002 Apple introduces iPhoto the initial component to the iLife package. It actually made digital photography manageable and its concept was widely copied by every OEM software developer.

5.) 2003 Apple introduces Aluminum PowerBook G4 – iTunes Store Opens it’s doors.

6.) Apple Annouces it’s transsion to Intel processor Hell has Frozen over, says Steve Jobs!
7.) 2006 BootCamp enables Macs to run Windows directly : PC-Mag chose MacBook Pro as the fastest PC running Vista.
8.) 2007 Apple brings out iPodTouch and iPhone (needs no explanation, rest is history!).
9.) 2008 Apple opens iPod Touch and iPhone to third party developers. SDK and Extension for XCode is released for free.

The contrast between Apple and Microsoft is so huge that one can get lost, just trying to outline the corporate differences that exist between the two them. Case and Point: Surface Computing. Apple has had the Tech community claiming trees for the past two years to discover if a 10” Apple Tablet exist or not. The hype has risen to such degree that if Apple announces the iSlate in the January ’10 event, I am sure that they will sell 10M+ in the first year. Just by the power of Hype and marketing, since Tablet PCs have existing for a long time now and guess who brought them to the market? Yes you are right – it was Microsoft. The opposite of this would be Microsoft’s Surface Computing that has been around for the past 2 years. This technology can drive any size screen – from a “Tablet” to a 50” desk-display. It is fast – powerful and totally compatible with Windows 7 and all the applications that you can think of. In contrast with the Apple corporate policy, what does Microsoft do? The hide the damn technology in a deep cellar somewhere in Redmond Campus and throw the key away! Why? What are they waiting for? As a software developer, specializing in GUI and MMI, I’d say that type of approach should be the next logical step in our computing evolution and Man-Machine-Interface. Why hide it? Why not bring it to the main-stream market? Why? This is the clear reason as to why Microsoft seems to be failing in all the fields of computing even though they might have the upper hand in timeline and technology and Apple has the upper hand in every field, even they might not be ahead of anyone in timeline or the technology that they are using (e.g. iPhone). I really hope that Microsoft changes its policies and bring the surface computing to the forefront as the next UI for the next decade and get their Hardware & Software developers to embrace the technology. It’s time to wake up Microsoft and Smell the GUI…

Well this is a kinda note to self: I have decided that starting this Monday, I will have a new post to my Web-Log 5 days a week, 20 times a month and that is a solid promise. Good subjects and techie all! that is starts in less that 48 hours.

Testing to see if RSS feed goes thru my WordPress Blog directly to PING.FM and get published! Crossing fingers!

802.11n been in production for 2 years now & it has been selling nearly 18 months. IEEE 802.15 is about to finalize the specs by Sept! Can you believe this? This pure stupidity! How are they going to to change all those ‘N” Wireless Routers that has been sold for the past 2 years? They might get the firmware updated, true, but what will they do will all that hardware that is in use right now? No wonder WiFi is not advancing fast enough!

This is really getting out of hand! We know about free trade and rules of capitalism, sure, but don’t you feel that this lack of regulation is truly getting out of hand? Microsoft is thinking of selling Office in China for $29! Is this not fair, it’s for sure a great idea, but the execution of it stinks. As I have always said: Leave it to Microsoft to shoot itself ion the foot! Shouldn’t they first sell Office in North America at that price and then they move these type of pricing for China? It is understood that Piracy is rampant in China, but the patience of the North America, the number one backer of Office, has a limit too. Enough is Enough Microsoft!

Will MSFT distribute Win 7 in Europe with no Internet Explorer? If so, why not in N. America? Why not remove IE from ‘ALL’ versions of Windows? Just like any other browser, you can go and download it from multiple sources – including Microsoft. But this rule should also include Apple as well as all flavors of Linux. Apple should also agree or be forced (just like Microsoft was forced in Europe by the penalties & fines) to remove Safari from all version of OS X. In case of Linux, they can not include Firefox in all their distros. This might balance the uses of browsers across the board. May be at that time, we can really get a clear picture of how these browsers are selected and used by the netizens. I am sure we will have a completely different picture than we have right now.

How can Ballmer of MSFT laugh the threat of Chrome OS off and dismiss it? How can he be so sure? Inside Info, or pure stupidity? I see Chrome to be a direct competitor to Microsoft Windows and to a certain point Apple’s OS-X. If this a logical deduction, then how could Ballmer laugh the threat off? Makes no sense to me. What is sad to me, if the fact that Linux could be a true target of Chrome OS, especially if Chrome would run well older hardware.

I just updated to 2.7.1. of the Word Press and I am not sure if this upate would work with BLOGO! This is a Great Application for Blogging form the Mac and I hope I don’t loose the use of it – just because I updated the 2.7.1. I wonder if you can go back to the old version!

Mozzila released FireFox 3.0.8 and it seems they have fixed several security problems and added a few improvements.  But the two biggest problems that FireFox has had, since it’s inception still remains.

1.) FireFox remains THE SLOWEST loading Browser in the world.

2.) Firefox has a habit of spinning your CPU, if you leave it idle and unattended!

Why can’t FireFox do something about these 2 everlasting problems?  No matter how good the Browser is, most people are staying away from FireFox, so they just don’t have to deal with these problems, to the point that they don’t even admit it and recognize the problem!  This will not go away, and makes people to use other browsers instead of FireFox!

For some strange reason, Godaddy has changed the name of the Databases that all the customers have made in the past!  Question is why.  In their email, they don’t bother to explain the reason behind this modification!  We have to wait and see if it actually works!

I have been thinking about buying another Mac MINI and set it up as my ‘Media Center” in my Home office and I was waiting for the release of the ‘new’ Mac MINI. As soon I decided to get the machine, new rumors surfaced that Apple is about to discontinue Mac MINI (and shoot itself in the foot). This could be a grave mistake on the Apple’s part! Why? Well, Mac MINI has been single handedly responsible for the renewed interest in the Macintosh line of computers in general and specifically the sales of all in one iMac. It all started with release of Apple iPod, of course, and then came Mac MINI – the first Apple low priced Mac ever. A large percentage of iPod owners decided they will have the low priced Mac as the perfect companion to their iPod. Most of these Mac MINI Owners have gone to upgrade their systems to iMac and or completely switched to Apple systems. So, in my judgement, discontinuing the Mac MINI will be a gargantuan mistake and Apple will suffer the consequences of it very quickly. Unless Apple has a replacement for MINI in the similar price bracket, otherwise they should keep MINI around. I guess I will wait for another week or two and then buy the existing one. Will let you know again. What do you know about this? Do you own a MINI? Did you switching to iMac because if your MINI?

Google – MSFT – Yahoo have brought down their new “Code of Conduct Commandments” from the Mountain (Written on stone, no doubt) for operating in China! Is this not too little – damn too late? After all the cooperation that they all have offered to the RED COMMUNIST CHINESE government to track down normal people and collect information on them! Here they are – all three of them – talking about Code of Conduct for operating in China? Damn too late in my book. Do no Evil? Yea – right!

Google – MSFT – Yahoo have brought down their new “Code of Conduct Commandments” from the Mountain (Written on stone, no doubt) for operating in China! Is this not too little – damn too late?  After all the cooperation that they all have offered to the RED COMMUNIST CHINESE government to track down normal people and collect information on them!  Here they are – all three of them – talking about Code of Conduct for operating in China?  Damn too late in my book.  Do no Evil? Yea – right!

MSFT is encouraging Chinese people to buy Genuine Windows by turning screen background to Black 60 mins. Pirating Chinese Users are up in arms. Will this tactic work? I tell ya – These tactics will never work and All the software Developers MUST realize this – Sooner or later! Get the message – read the signs! Piracy will never go away and copy protection ONLY hurts the paying customers, since pirates will get around it – Every time. The only thing that can work is this: Lower the price of the Operating Systems (windows and OS X) and bring it a point that it won’t be worth for anyone to pirate it. Imagine, Microsoft lowers the price of Vista to $39, stating 1 Nov, 2008! They make Billions more than what they are making now. Users don’t have to copy – pirate or perform any other illegal act to run their machine with the latest and the greatest Operating System. Lower the price of Office to $59, so every user can equip their system with Vista & Office for less than $100. Sounds good, doesn’t it? It will never happen and that can directly be attributed to lack of vision on the part of Microsoft – Apple and Adobe.

Well I just got my first complement on the site.  I am sure he don’t really mean it, but hey!  LOL!

Hey all!  Well, at last, I got around to setting up my WordPress Site on GoDaddy!  It is not totally finished.  I am planning to add a few more interesting Plug-ins and also may be build my own Theme, by modifying an existing theme (much less work that way).    I have to admit, setting up one of these babies are not as easy that the WordPress Site leads you to believe.  Once you finished installing the base, you have a lot of tweaking ahead of you.  But it is doable, so fear not.  With a littkle reading you can do it too.  Given the time I will write a small

The nerve of these damn people! Unbelievable! Google included ‘Kill Switch’ in Android so they can kill Apps remotely on ‘YOUR’ phone! Just like Apple’s remote erase switch! We pay for the Phone & rightly so we expect to be totally in control of our property and they control it remotely and at their discretion? What makes Google and Apple to be in charge of our property that we paid for? How can this be justified? We should never buy and item that we will not have total control of it. This is disgusting! We DESU Apple iPhone and Google Android totally!

MSFT released security update for Office 2008 & 2004. So if you use any, then update. 2008 version weights at 154MB opening to 450MB! Why MSFT released Office:mac 2008 update of 12.1.13 (154MB) for manual update? If you check for updates thru Apps, you get no updates! This sounds very suspicious to me! Why would Microsoft do that? Why not make it available thru the normal update system? Does any of you know anything about this? Please let me know.

Windows Strata is the name that could describes the new version of Windows to be released soon! Strata will be Core OS – Mesh as Application Control Layer? Microsoft? What will be the GUI? Will Mesh be also used as the MMI and GUI? Will Microsoft get a lesson from Apple and Create a great GUI like AQUA and run it over the STRATA? Remains to be seen. What have you heard? Share with the rest of us.

It is confirmed now! Apple is sending invitation for a “town hall meeting” in SF on 14 Oct for the release of the new Macbook and MacBook Pro notebooks! Looking at how long ago the MacBook and MacBook Pro were introduced, its about time! This will boost Apple’s over sales high. Talk about waiting for the last min! Now what do we do? Buy a new set of MacBook Pros? hmmm! LOL! I guess so! How about you? Are you going to get a brand new MacBook or even a Pro? Are you due for an upgrade? Sound off!

USAF Cyber Command forming a force that will wage war online! It’s about time! The Red Communist China has such force for 15 years. It is widely known that the Red Communist Chinese has been using Cyber Warfare against US-Canada and a select list of European Countries including Russia) 24/7. So this is great news that USAF is taking these matters very seriously and is planing to counter it with force. Every country on that list, should join and help USAF Cyber Counter Intelligence efforts to stop the RED communist Chinese menace and their illegal intrusions in to our lives! Go USAF!

Historically speaking, Apple Mail.app hasn’t been able to handle long URL address that are directly paste in to the email body. If you are using Mail.app on a Mac and you want to paste a long URL address to an email, then don’t paste it directly to the email body. Follow these steps:

1.) Go to EDIT Menu–>Link–>Add (a text box opens up)
2.) Paste your long URL in the text box and click OK

You will see that the URL is inserted as a clickable link in your email and the link is not broken in multiple lines. Yes, this is a workaround, but it seems that Apple has no plans (even after 5 years) to fix this problem! Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

After Yahoo and Google helping China Spy, now Skype admits helping China spy on the calls to and from China via Skype! Do no Evil? My AZZ! This is disgusting to me, but what do you think about this? How do you feel about Skype knowing that they help China spy? If they help China to spy why not other countries? Now we know, even Skype with all the encryption build in their system, are EVIL too.

Will Open Document Format be taken over Microsoft. What is the strategy? Remember, MSFT just gave away Open Office Document format! What is the strategy? Will MSFT give away the Office Open XML Document format to open source and now they are eyeing this up and coming standard? Are they going to corner the market again and start using the Open Document format as the primary format for Office? Hmmm! As Mr. Spoke says: “The possibilities are endless!

After finding out about the huge hole in TCP that can sink any server with a rather low bandwidth with no need for Bot Fleets, now we hear about ClickJacking! A new attack that ‘ALL’ Browsers are vulnerable to! So, it makes absolutely no difference, which browser you are using. If yo get hit by ClickJacking – you won’t survive, regardless of what server you were using at the time!

Simply put, ClickJacking is: “The basic description of the attack is that it allows the attack to trick the user into clicking on something other than what they thought they were clicking on. The two researchers who discovered the technique say that it “…gives an attacker the ability to trick a user into clicking on something only barely or momentarily noticeable.” This click could be the gateway to many other kinds of exploits on your system.” When you hear all this about the web, don’t you feel sick? Don’t you want to stop surfing? May be this is the ultimate goal of these people! To stop you being on the net – learn and fin out about the things that ‘they’ cannot hide for you anymore! Could this be the ultimate goal? Web certainly creates a lot of headaches for those that run the whole show behind the closed doors – faceless – nationless people that run our lives for us. Now we have tools that we can track them and find out instantly what they are up to and this by no means is acceptable to them! May be they want to corrupt the well and stop us all from come to web and find out what they are up to! The thought is plausible! Think about it! What do you think? Plausible or Conspiracy Theory?

Well I guess this is the good luck week, knock on wood. Someone gave me an Acer Aspire 5050, which I promptly accepted, Since I don’t have a small Dev machine running on WinXp Sp-3. My Laptop is Vaio that runs Vista Ultimate + Visual Studio 2008 Team and a bunch of other 2007 based apps. Sot this small dual core machine is a blessing for me, since I can run Windows XP-SP3 and Visual Studio 2005 Pro with the older version of Office 2003 on this machine. A nice addition to my bag-o-tricks! LOL!

Got an Apple iPod Touch 2.0 yesterday. Got 32GB version & it is nice! Not just an iPod-a net device! Sync nicely with my MobileME. Email and everything that you can think that you need on the net! The interface is well thought of – intuitive and fast! Apple’s Man-Machine-Interface always has been great and they have maintained that tradition in iPod Touch as well. Now it’s time to move some music in to this apparatus and find out how much better it is than my version 5.5 iPod 80GB. How do you like the audio quality of the new Version 2.0 as oppose to the previous one? Are they the same? Your comments, please.

Apple’s 10.5.5 is giving headaches to some. Adobe Printing – Elgato Video rendering, et-al. We hear nothin!! Must be the teflon halo! Nothing seems to stick to it, even when Apple is totally in the wrong. If Microsoft did this, we would all scream for the head of those responsible! Won’t we? I use Mac and PCs at work and at home. I develop for both platforms, so I am not biased! But we all treat Apple like it can’t do any wrong and Microsoft totally as opposite! What do you think? Do you do that too? Do you hate Microsoft windows Vista and you have never every see it or run it? Do ya? Don’t we all? Unfair? Yes – but reality of life.

Well NebuAd mess is really hitting the fan now. To the point that the ISPs are calling “opt-in” Targeting Ad! When will they learn? I am really – when will they learn that they cannot force consumers to watch ads and worse than that, if they are able to force us, who would really appreciate what they are trying to sell us – much less than buying it! Why are the marketing and advertising companies that work on the net so dumb! Most of us are sophisticated enough to know if we are being ad-fed (what NebuAd tried to do in UK) and if it is forced upon us, then it is guaranteed that we won’t buy, even tho the product might have been good! DuH! This the same stupid disease that the Spammer are suffering from! Change your ways guys – Forget about Ad-feeding us and definitely stop forcing the spam and ads on us! You might even be able to make money the right way! Do you feel the same way? Would you buy the product that <b><u>they forced its advertising</u></b> on you?

Hello, My Blog! I have been away far too long! But we started this new Project and it has been taking all my time. But this weekened I have a few new Blog entires that I will be publishing. Not to worry!

Well, this was the header a few days ago on most RSS feeds that I picked up! Now Microsoft is saying that all the offline validation has been fixed and there are not problems any more. The question for the users are this: Why, after all this time after the release of these apps, we still have problems with their validation, be it onLine of off?

Been having problems with your broadband router rebooting unexpectedly? Windows XP SP3 has been named as the culprit?

Broadband modem/router maker Billion says XP SP3 has been causing its BiPAC 5200-series routers to go into a constant crash and reboot cycle.

The company has produced firmware upgrades that solve the problem. Although Windows XP SP3 has been available for manual download from Microsoft since May 6, it has just hit Windows Update as an automatic upgrade, which will cause unexpected problems for owners of “unpatched” Billion BiPAC 5200 routers, and possibly other brands or models of router. No this is a load of crap if I have ever heard one! How the hell SP3 of the XP causes the crash of a Router! This is the best example of: “BLAME IT ON MICROSOFT! This is really going overboard! Billion clean up your act and stop blaming your tech problems! the best part is: Billion doesn’t even bother to explain how they have come to this conclusion as to why SP-3 has caused the problem or show any proof! Not bad, just point Microsoft and scream!

The D-Link Coax Ethernet Adapter Kit (DXN-221) is targeted at the home network. This isn’t a router though, and it’s not meant for everyone. D-Link is targeting home users that already have coaxial wiring in their home, promising to put it to good use in their existing network. In a way, the move makes perfect business sense for D-Link since most new homes and apartments come wired with coaxial. Homeowners want their satellite and cable signals everywhere throughout the domicile, and the same goes for their home network and Internet connection.

MY QUESTION IS THIS: At this time that Cable & DSL companies and trying to ‘cap’ the amount of bandwidth that consumers can use per month (First and worse Videotron Cable company), is this not a true contradiction in term? We give you a modem that can run at 175Mb/s and at the same time we will cap your usage to a minimum. So bad, that at that high speed, you can burn thru your Monthly quota in matter of few days. So this shows that ISPs want to kill Net Neutrality one – and two start metering and over charging the North American consumers. The business model that the European ISPs were using for nearly 10 years and now they have given it all up and took metering out of the big pictures, since the European Government forced them to do so.

Some pity for the North American Consumer, since we do not have governments that would get involved on the side of the Consumer battling the evil intentions of large and monopolizing corporations. In Canada our last hope hangs with CRTC. May be they would challenge the ISPs on the mater of Net Neutrality and Metering and over charging Data Related Services.

Testifying before Congress, Bill Gates warned that the United States risked falling behind in high-tech innovation unless it revamped its education and immigration systems.

It may be not be the only bot on the block for long but, for now at least, the Canadian-built Dextre robot has the spotlight to itself, with it set to blast off Tuesday on board the shuttle Endeavor for delivery to its new home on the International Space Station. What is mrnoe important is the fact that it is THE first one – just Like Canada Arm was. Go Canada Go!

Well here we go: Apple has released the latest software release for iPhone and that truly has pushed it on the top and we are THIS close to iPhone Version 2.0 (and that is the time that I will buy mine and not sooner. Here is the outline of the additional functionality with the application of this update from Apple:

Well I have been away much too long and been neglecting my Web-log – but with good reason! We are going through integration of our software system and I – unfortunately – been responsible as the integration specialist! We are nearly done, so I will be back to full Web-Logging soon!

The next step towards iPhone 2.0 and a new iPOd. A 32GB iPod and a 16GB iPhone. The new iPhone will have more memory than my 10GB Nokia N95-8G. This also can be the next step to the resurrection of a new version of Newton. Could it be? Hard to believe Jobs will change his mind about Newton. After all it was Steve Jobs that killed Newton. But even in his case, Hell Froze over and he used INTEL chips in his beloved Macs. Can this hell Also freeze over? Anything is possible…

Remembering an Old
Computer

Office for Mac 2008 offers a security headache for many users, Microsoft has confirmed.

Office for Mac 2008 incorrectly assigns ownership of some files, Microsoft has confirmed, creating a potential security problem for businesses installing the new application suite.
[Microsoft] moved to Apple’s Package Maker (.pkg) installer files, good news for the enterprise, [but] unfortunately they’ve created all the packages to install nearly all the files with the owner set to 502.” Office 2008’s ownership assignment means that a user who wasn’t supposed to have complete control over those files actually does. In other words, whoever is assigned user ID 502 has full read/write access to Office’s files.

Well this is an installation problem and your ID 502 will not kill the system just because it is has access to some files! LOL! Not to worry to much!

Well some of the Early results are in and it seems that you the Slow 1.6GHz Processor of the MacBook Air and the 4200rpm drive makes this machine THE slowest MacBook Out there. The Standard MacBook seem to be at least 20% faster than the Air and MacBook Pro proves to be closer to 30%-40% faster. So it seems that this is a thinest Mac ever – granted – but no match for it’s siblings. As I said in my last post – this is a machine for executives – students and some Mac heads that buy an Apple product that comes to the market, no matter what it is. But damn it! Is it ever sexy. Now that is a laptop that gets you laid. In other words; if Air can’t get you laid – you are hopeless! J/K

Macworld
Conference & Expo

After 3 years absence from the Apple’s Macworld & Expo, this year I had the opportunity to be there and see the whole thing first hand for myself. It was a huge gathering much larger than the years past and it was extremely vibrant! You could feel the electricity in the ‘Air’. Expectations were high and every one was looking forward to the fact that their prediction and or wishes might come true.
At the end of the Keynote event, I must admit that not everyone was satisfied, which is the normal thing. Seems that people expect a Product of the caliber of iPod – iPhone or migration to INTEL, every time that Steve jobs takes the podium! Well no one can do that – not even Steve “the magician” Jobs! So it’s time for a reality check. Products like iPod and iPhone comes once in a career and Steve jobs has had many of them – but we can not expect a new and better one every time that he takes the podium!

Having said that, here is my assessment of the Apple’s Macworld Expo:

Here is a list of new stuff that was announced at the Expo:

• iPhone / iPod touch Software
• Microsoft Office 2008 Universal
• Time Capsule / Airport Extreme 802.1N
• iTunes Movie Rentals
• MacBook Air

1. iPhone / Pod software upgrades:
• iPhone is one step close to the version 2.0. when it will truly ready for “human consumption”. Home screen now can be customized and show what you really use every day and not what Apple thinks that you will be using. Come to think of it, we had this option released with Motorola’s revolutionary T720 nearly 6 years ago which you could customize the menus and screens and from there on, you could find this functionality on just about every phone. Other improvement and bug fixes were also made to the iPhone software. Steve Jobs did mention that the SDK for iPhone will be released very soon – so we can all rest that Jobs Demons are not at work anymore – if they were we would never get an SDK to develop any type of applications for iPhone.
• iPod Touch software upgrade was every more significant, adding 4 new Apps to it’s general functionality. Mail.app was a great new addition to the iPod Touch, especially for those that use WiFi function of the iPod. I feel that is a better idea than owing an iPhone and use it as PDA / iPod and endanger loss of communication due to lack of power, since we know that we can not change the battery. So it would be great if you have your phone and an iPod Touch 16GB. A good enough PDA – a great iPod and in worse case scenario if it runs out of your battery, your phone is there safe and functioning. I am using a Nokia N95-8G and I am planning to add an iPod-Touch to my arsenal. Like this; I have a PDA – iPod and my Smartphone. A thought that might benefit many of you out there.
• The new software for both iPhone and iPod-Touch will be released with every new iPhone and iPod that is sold from today. The fortunate thing is this the update for the existing iPhones are available free of charge. The owners of the iPod-Touch can download all the updates and the new Apps from Apple for $20.
• Recommended (especially for the iPod-Touch, since the iPhone update will be Automatic)

2. Microsoft Office 2008:
• Microsoft Released Office 2008 with no fanfare and that we very surprising for me. I was really looking forward from some remarks from Mac-BU of MS. Bit no one was there. I have ordered a copy of the Office at the show and I received it this morning and I just installed and it looks good. Same components of the 2004 (I think Microsoft will never port the Access Database to OS-x), but the most important thing is the fact that the entire office now runs in Universal mode and no more Rosetta emulation to run on my MacBook Pro! I am planning to install it on an old PowerBook Titanium and see how it works there. One thing is for sure: It runs much faster now that is running x86 native code on my machine. I think the Standard Edition will be enough for most of us and the Students / Teachers have the opportunity to enjoy their traditional discount. The top package is about $100 more expensive and facilitates Media environments. The update is $299.
• It still remain a mystery as to why Microsoft Mac-BU VP was not present at the MacWorld Expo for the kick off of such an important product.
• Recommended (if you have to use it because of your work, it is a worth update)

3. Time Capsule / Airport Extreme 802.1N:
• Time capsule is basically an update to the software only TimeMachine that was introduced with the release of Leopard (OS X 10.5). Time Capsule makes sense because of a few reasons:
o Set it and forget it back up
o Wireless and now computer necessary to handle the backups
o An upgrade to your existing 802.1 B-A-G.
o Large hard drive backing up DATA only from all your systems
• I certainly am considering one for my home system, as soon as it will be clear if it can back up PCs as well as Macs, since I am using both and a backup solution must cover both.
• Recommended

4. iTune Movie Rentals:
• Well this has been in the pipes for a long time now and Apple tried to get all the partners on-board, before announcing it. Well it seems they have been successful and it is a great idea on the part of Apple. Now if Apple could do what they did with music with movies then they stand to make a lot of money.
• But there is pricing problem. Apple announced the following prices:
o $2.99 for Library titles
o $3.99 for New Titles
o $4.99 for HD
• I’d say this steep and Apple might not sell as much as they think. I suggest that prices should have been:
o $1.99 for Library titles
o $2.99 for New Titles
o $3.99 for HD
• There is also a timeline problem. You have 30 days to start watching the movie that you downloaded – which is great. But when you start watching the movie, you have 24 hours to finish it and after that, just like Mission Impossible, the movie will self destruct. Of course this is the same as Dish Network and Bell Express view as well as old DVD / VHS rentals. But if Apple would have priced it lower and instead of 1 day they would have giver their clients a maximum of 3 days, they it would have brought them much more business than the present setup. I know that most of this has been dictated to Apple by the RIAA and Movie companies. But still…

MacBook Air:
• Well it is “impossibly thin and light”, yet it has a full size screen and Keyboard! It is a huge achievement on part of Apple Computer Inc. No other company have achieved this – at least up to now. Amazing screen – Good speed. But IT IS NOT FOR EVERYONE! The biggest problems that I see with it are as follows:
o No Ethernet connection. So if you are stuck in an environment that has not Wireless connection, then you have no connection. Of course, Apple will sell you a $30 Dongle thaqt gives you Ethernet capabilities via USB. But as we know, USB take 5%-15% of the CPU time and that in a small Laptop like is indeed a lot. But at least it can prove to be a life saver.
o No Replaceable Batteries. So if you use your laptop a lot, and on the battery, then this is not the laptop for you. The battery is internal and can not be swapped. It reminds you of iPhone / iPod. Foot prints of Mr. Jobs of closed is better mentality all over this machine.
o No Internal Optical Drive. So if you are not close to home base, so you can share their optical drive to Wirelessly installing software from it, then you are up a creek-without-a-paddle! So install ‘everything-that-you-ever-need’ on this machine before leaving your home base. But you have the option to buy an external Optical drive for it (I am not sure if it actually burns CD/DVD) but certainly reads both formats and it’s a USB Device that you can use on a one and only USB port that this machine comes with! Not that great. If you plan to use an external Mouse and Keyboard, make sure that you get them with Bluetooth option, so you can leave this single USB port alone. If not, then think of investing in a Powered USB Hub (4-Port, at least).
• Having said all that – I can also add that the machine is amazingly sexy and unique. Of course, on the first glance, it reminds you of executive machines. But consider this idea: if you are a college student that you run around your campus and need to have a small machine to carry around for your notes and references and class materials, then the small size of this laptop will be a blessing to you. Also Perfect for executives and people that do a lot of presentations.
• All in All a very impressive package that you need to improve with a few essential / optional additions:
o Get a small, but powered USB Dongle (essential)
o Get an USB -> Ethernet dongle (essential)
o Get an Apple USB Modem for Dialup internet and FAX (Optional)
o Get the Apple External SuperDrive that for $99 is a great bargain. Cheapest External DVD burner could be as much as $149. (Essential)
o More to say about the performance of the Air, as soon as we get one in the office. I am sure it will be soon. People want to test the software that we produced on such system too.  Wink wink!

Well I have been away for the past couple of weeks in Tinsel Town (A.K.A. Los Angeles) and been working hard on the integration of Software Package that we are putting together. I am also working on a Long and detailed report of the Apple’s Macworld and Expo which I will shortly post here. Be back soon.

In late 2006, Microsoft released its first generation Zune, a digital media platform comprised of a portable digital media player, Windows-based software, and an online service. But at least the company had a reason for this inactivity: It was prepping a revolutionary Zune 2.0 release comprised of new players, new software, new online services, and new capabilities all around.

I see it this way: No matter what MS might or might not do about Zune, until this Social thing is there Zune is a dead product! Get rid of the stupid “Social” (as Microsoft should get rid of WOW in Vista) and then allow people to put anything in their Zune – MP3 – AAC, etc. and then may be something would come off of this prodcut! Until then NADA!

Hackers have created Trojan horse malware targeted at Apple’s much-hyped iPhone device.
The package – more of a prank than a threat – poses as an “important system” upgrade supposedly needed prior to upgrading to version 1.1.3 of Apple’s firmware. The “iPhone firmware 1.1.3 prep” seems to lack malicious purpose. Problems kick in when users try to uninstall the package.
Well we were waiting for it and now it is here! Is is a right thing to provide a device like a phone or PDA with a complete and powerful OS like OS X or Windows Mobile? Can you imagine what damage that can be brought about to corporate and governmental Information Systems by a compromised Smartphones and/or PDAs? Is it time to think about Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware on Smartphones – PDAs and Tablets? I can hear more ‘cha-chink’ in Norton pockets!

Hitachi had to hack it to produce a 500GB 2.5-inch laptop drive, adding another platter (and a few millimeters thickness) that make their new 5K500 impossible to install in most standard laptops and enclosures — but not Samsung. The Spinpoint M6 500GB drive brings a half terabyte at the standard 9.5mm height, and should land some time in March, meaning your current laptop — and not just those new Asus machines — should be able to accommodate one or two of these massive mothers.
This is amazing! 500GB in a 2.5″ laptop drive! Are these new advancement in memory and hard drive leaving the desktop in the dust? Is it time to buy Laptops only? The jury is still out on that one. But you can use another 500GB external drive with your laptop and have a cool Tera Byte carrying it in your laptop case. Is anyone thinking about how these huge storage devices has to be backed up? If I owned a hard drive company, I would assign 30% of my workforce to work on the backup devices. Like this, the hard drives are sold and everyone would also buy my backup devices. Does not make sense? If it does – why we don’t hear of such devices being developed in conjunction with large hard drives.

Just because media shifting is totally last year doesn’t mean D-Link’s MediaLounge PC-on-TV DPG-1200 isn’t welcome, even if that model number is a bit of a mouthful. The product can ship YouTube, Google Video, Veoh content and plenty more that the internet has to offer over a wired or wireless connection to your regular ol’ TV. There’s no special player involved, the product just mirrors your PC display, so virtually anything you can see on you PC you can see on your TV, including all sorts of media and even DVDs. The remote includes a trackball for controlling your PC remotely, and the 1280 x 720 resolution and 30 frames per second should offer enough fidelity to keep up with the action. No word on price or availability yet, but we should be finding out more next week when PC-on-TV hits CES.
This is a long time coming! Will they be able to pull it off this time? No one knows! For some reason people do nto accept the intrusion of Web – or internet for that matter – into their TV. If DLink pull this off it will be a miracle!

The corporate lie detector!!!!
Judging from a recent patent application, Microsoft hopes to build some sort of “activity monitoring system” that keeps an eye on worker productivity using various “physiological or environmental sensors.” These sensors would track everything from heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature, facial expressions, and blood pressure to brain signals and galvanic skin response.Redmond sees this system as a way for companies and, um, governments to monitor “group activities.” “In particular, the system can monitor user activity, detect when users need assistance with their specific activities, and identify at least one other user that can assist them,” the patent application reads, in classic patent speak. “Assistance can be in the form of answering questions, providing guidance to the user as the user completes the activity, or completing the activity such as in the case of taking on an assigned activity.”

Microsoft – all the Billions that you make, is not enough and now you have to get on screwing the masses? Stop already! This is another tool that you are providing the Corps to get enough excuses and outsource more and more of their work with the pretense of low productivity and high salaries! NOW YOU REALLY are showing your colors! You are already the most hated Corp out there an now you are getting in worse situation with the Hal-9000?

Rumor has it that Apple is working on a iMac Shell that works as a docking station for a Pen based Mac that transforms to a Desktop! Now could this be the hand held device that we were all waiting for? Is this the Son of Newton?what do you think about the concept. You can carry it around, and when you get back to your Home?office you just shove it in a dock station that closely resembles the iMac with a larger HD as well as faster 1Gb networking and also ability to connect external devices (i.e. External Drives – Printers, et al. the Optical drive also is stationed in the Doc. But here is the twist: what if this was a intelligent Dock and the portable unit could be in touch with it’s docking stating (hence all devices that are connected to the Doc). WOW! I am just speculating – but would you not love an Mac like that? For that matter – ‘A’ computer like that?

In what sounds like a dream for millions of tired coffee drinkers, Darpa-funded scientists might have found a drug that will eliminate sleepiness.
A nasal spray containing a naturally occurring brain hormone called orexin A reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in monkeys, allowing them to perform like well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests. The discovery’s first application will probably be in treatment of the severe sleep disorder narcolepsy.
The treatment is “a totally new route for increasing arousal, and the new study shows it to be relatively benign,” said Jerome Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA and a co-author of the paper. “It reduces sleepiness without causing edginess.”
Orexin A is a promising candidate to become a “sleep replacement” drug. For decades, stimulants have been used to combat sleepiness, but they can be addictive and often have side effects, including raising blood pressure or causing mood swings. The military, for example, administers amphetamines to pilots flying long distances, and has funded research into new drugs like the stimulant modafinil (.pdf) and orexin A in an effort to help troops stay awake with the fewest side effects.

AOL LLC today pulled the plug on Netscape Navigator, the Web browser that once owned the lion’s share of the market and that was the focus of a landmark federal antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. In an announcement posted to AOL’s blog for the browser, Tom Drapeau, the director of the company’s Netscape brand, said the team is ending development and would cease issuing security updates as of Feb. 1, 2008. “Given AOL’s current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it’s the right time to end development of Netscape-branded browsers, hand the reigns [sic] fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox,” Drapeau said. I guess beating of a dead horse is finished -At last! A moment of silence please!

The SCO Group has been removed from the Nasdaq Stock Market because the company declared bankruptcy in September. The stock market delisted SCO and suspended trading of its shares (SCOX) at the beginning of trading on Thursday, SCO said in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Nasdaq had told the company in September that it would be delisted, and SCO’s subsequent appeal of that determination was turned down.
WOW! The have been out since Sept 2007 and it took the Commission nearly 4 month to bump the off of the stock market? Talk about red tape! They should have thrown this evil company with all these wrong doing a long time ago! SCO is a complete ‘fail’ and not it is dead! Whoohooo!

Researchers from Google and a well-known security firm have documented serious vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash content which leave tens of thousands of websites susceptible to attacks that steal the personal details of visitors.
The security bugs reside in Flash applets, the ubiquitous building blocks for movies and graphics that animate sites across the web. Also known as SWF files, they are vulnerable to attacks in which malicious strings are injected into the legitimate code through a technique known as cross-site scripting, or XSS. Currently there are no patches for the vulnerabilities, which are found in sites operated by financial institutions, government agencies and other organizations.

Its amazing that with all this vulnerabilities, how does insecure sites like USTREAM.TV and STCKAM.TV actually still functioning? If so are they infected too? If they are, then how many clients machines have they infected? It is getting scary out there, even for protected systems. in fact, the question is: Who is ‘really’ protected? No one?

If you figure that preliminary design is all about object discovery, then detailed design is, by contrast, about behavior allocation – that is, allocating the software functions you’ve identified into the set of classes you discovered during preliminary design.
When you draw sequence diagrams, you’re taking another sweep through the preliminary design, adding in detail. You use sequence diagrams to drive the detailed design. We advocate drawing your sequence diagrams in a minimal style.

Case Driven Object Modeling – This is what I have beens saying for the past 5 years to my Colleagues and co-working Engineers: ‘Visually define Behavior and Allocation of your Objects and Classes so the next person who looks at your Design / Procedures and Code can easily and quickly understand what you are trying to do and what were “your” state of mind when you designed what you did.’ But I guess, at least most of us, are either too lazy to add this one extra step to our software cycle or we are looking for job security. The harder the code is to understand the more job security we have with the company that we work for.

A security company has identified a Trojan horse program that replaces Google text advertisements on Web pages with ads from another source, depriving Google of revenue and potentially causing problems for end users.

Is this a orchestrated effort on part of other advertising companies to take Google out of the dominant position? Yes yes yes! I know…This is a conspiracy theory – but what if someone – somewhere in the world that had enough money and power and decided to knock off Google off it’s dominant throne of online advertising! It is possible…. nahhhh! Google is too big for anyone to fool around with, or is it?

December 20, 2007 (Computerworld) — IBM rolled out new search software from its research labs today that’s aimed at allowing users to find information that may be buried in the vast amount of e-mail many people now store on the desktop.
The new IBM OmniFind Personal Email Search (IOPES), which can be downloaded for free, is a semantic search tool aimed at bringing the search mechanisms made famous on the Web by Google Inc. to the desktop, said Douglass Wilson, distinguished engineer and chief technology officer of IBM’s Lotus Development Corp. unit.

Call me old fashioned, but I still think that IBM, quietly, is the king of the computer world! Is there an aspect of computers that I BM is not involved in? FYI, IBM is the largest Software Vendor! I bet you thought that title belong to Microsoft, right? Seriously…Am I right?

48167 Days and 23 hours to create CD!!
t’s been almost nine months since we first reported on Windows Vista’s inability to copy, delete and move files without stalling indefinitely, and yet the problem continues.

What caught my eye in this story and when you read it, I am sure it will get your attention that MS has had nearly a year to fix such a basic problem as Copy & Move and they still refuse to fix it. Since if they fixed it, they have to admit to fact that developed such a dead duck that can’t perform even the basic OS operations like ‘copy’ and ‘move’! Unbelievable! Can someone measure the size of these Mircrosofties egos! Is it Ego, or is it marketing and damage control? Does Microsoft really think by ignoring these problems, they would really go away or the Users magically are hit by total and instantaneous dementia? How advises these people and why are they listening to their advise? Come on Microsoft! Grow up and take responsibility for your actions! Please copy the core code from XP and review it against vista! You will find many of your questions will be answered! But the dumb thing is the fact that you refuse to acknowledge the existence of these basic problems! Do we really have to wait for Service Pack 3 to to get a working Copy and Move functions? Seems so! But can you imagine if Microsoft decides not to acknowledge the existence of these problems and would refuse to fix them? Then we will all be sure that Vista is a DEAD Horse. As it is, Most people think that way and the best proof of it is the fact that people are staying with their existing Windows XP systems (hence not upgrading to newer hardware) – They down grade from Vista to Windows XP or they down right ask for a brand new machine to come with Windows XP on it (Dell decided to offer their systems with XP)!
Well there you have it, in a nut shell – Microsoft is too big to even care about such basic problems in their OS. Here we are expecting that complex matters like security and scalability be improved? Maybe we, as buyers of Microsoft’s products, should demand for basics, first…

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Pressured by a lawsuit, Internet social network Facebook Inc. will adopt new measures to prevent its 58 million members from sending text messages to recycled cell phone numbers. The settlement was announced Tuesday by attorneys for an Indiana woman who claimed Palo Alto-based Facebook had been profiting from text messages sent by its members after the intended recipients had given up the phone numbers. The lawsuit filed by Lindsey Abrams of Patriot, Ind., said she received text messages with explicit comments and other upsetting content — and had to pay 10 cents each time. Facebook received a share of the fee, according to the complaint.

Well that was quick – too quick for comfort, if you’d ask me! Does this mean that Facebook was profiting from this scheme somehow – hence the quick turn around? Nothing is proven of course, but isn’t this a very quick about face for FaceBook (no pun intended)?

Adobe Flash client / Shockwave server, both have made wonders for Internet and Internet content as we know it. But they are resource Hogs! CPU – Memory and Bandwidth! Does Adobe think that we all have unlimited resources and CPU powers and huge internet bandwidth at our finger tips? The answer is no and they know it! So how about some Optimization Adobe? Will help a lot. Who? Users of such contents (nearly all of us) – Producers of such content (all of them). makes a lot of sense to me. What would you say to Adobe if they had all your attention?

Google has launched Sitemaps for Video, an extension of their webmaster sitemaps program that will assist webmasters in having their videos indexed by Google.
To be indexed, webmasters must create a sitemap page that provides a list of videos on each site that is compliant with Googles sitemaps protocol, which since November 2006 is standardized with Yahoo and Microsoft as well. Webmasters then simply submit the URL of their video sitemap to Google for indexing.

“Do no Evil”! hmmmm! Is this not the motto of Google? But it seems that google has it’s hands in everything that we are doing. Google is now in the Alternative Fuel – and now they want to get their little grubby hands on the videos that you have ‘IN YOUR COMPUTER’! Question is: Why? Why does that interest Google and what is the long term profit that Google sees in it? Google is turning to a multi-tentecles monster, connected to more and more aspect of our lives! Is this not Evil in itself? I guess we have no choice, expect to wait and see! One thing is for sure: “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolytely!”

What does General Wesley Clark know about live Web video? Apparently enough to land him a seat on Ustream.TV’s board of advisors. Or maybe they just liked his shiny medals. The company also announced a funding round today from Band of Angels and Western Technology Investors, which specializes in debt financing for startups. The amount was not disclosed. Are these the same people that bellyache that they can’t hire a janitor to clean their offices but they get a 4 star retired general on the board of advisors? WOW! Who they kidding? They are ‘phishing’ for some credibility and they are willing to pay for it! What also is interesting that we found out they don’t have a “hiring Freeze” as they say they do. Ustream you getting so obvious. A bit of tact goes a long way!

Apple has released updates for two widely distributed products that harbored a raft of security vulnerabilities, some of which were actively being exploited by miscreants. Unbelievably, the company isn’t presenting either as a security fix to mainstream users despite the risk the bugs pose for its millions of users.

That statement in it self was hard to digest! Apple had the fixes for the holes that were being actively exploited, but did not distribute them? Is that what they are saying? i have a hard time believing this! Why would Apple – and for that matter – any company do that? Let’s make some sense!