Opera 10 browser have you seen that......it`s amazing

The Opera 10 browser is now ready to download for and three months after the beta first emerged (hands-on , the browser's much-publicized compression engine for slow-poke connections, remains a feature highlight. Opera claims that Opera Turbo runs the browser up to eight times faster on suffering connections than do competing browsers.

The refreshed user interface is also noteworthy. Joining the new default skin (changed from version 9.6), are changes to tab bar behavior. The conventional tabs double as thumbnail images. Double-click the thin gray bar below the tabs (indicated by dots) or click and drag to expand open tabs into preview windows that you can navigate by clicking among them.

Other enhancements include an expanded Speed Dial (a feature that has later been adopted and adapted in Google's that shows more commonly visited Web pages than in previous Opera browsers. You're also able to customize it with a background picture. You'll see that spell check will be applicable to any text field (for 51 languages), and that Opera's incorporated e-mail client takes a page from Google's books by threading e-mail conversations.

Developers get access to a newer version of Opera Dragonfly, the publisher's online development tools, but everyone can benefit from the speedier rendering engine that, according to Opera, makes version 10 up to 40 percent faster than version 9.6--before switching on Turbo's compression.

Despite all the additions that Opera hopes will keep Opera 10 competitive, there are still two notable omissions for this final release. The first is , which uses your browser as a Web server for sharing your content with others. The second is the Carakan JavaScript engine that promises to process JavaScript about 2.5 times as fast as the engine used in Opera 10 alpha.

Five reasons for Microsoft`s struggle with innovation

When I think of Exchange 2010 and its hybrid approach to cloud computing, it reminds me that can be innovative. With Exchange 2010, users can keep some e-mail accounts on premises while sending others to the cloud. It strikes a good balance between maintaining what customers want in an e-mail server product while gently leading them into next-generation cloud e-mail.

Exchange's hybrid approach is the exception, however. Overall, Microsoft struggles mightily with innovation for these six hard-to-fix reasons.

No. 1: Me-too thinking. The company and while it does have a whole,it focuses heavily on bringing me-too wares to market. It then tries to peel away customers who are basically happy with the original. Here is a list: MP3 players, video game consoles, Webcams, mobile platforms/devices, cloud-based Office applications, multimedia Web development, and Internet search and advertising. Arguably, Hyper-V can also be added to this list although Hyper-V is a good hypervisor at a great price that has a shot of overturning VMware's market-leading position.

What should Microsoft be doing instead the me-too game? Solving problems that others cannot. For instance, no other company knows more about developing operating systems than Microsoft. How about using that knowledge to help the world get off the hack/patch/fix/test/hack/patch cycle with say an entirely new operating system concept? We've heard snippets of such an operating system, (formerly code-named Midori). It's reportedly been in development since 2003. 'Nuf said.

No. 2: Microsoft's customers don't like change: Microsoft is hamstrung by its own success. So says Microsoft Subnet's newest blogger, Surkan discussed with me the Windows Filtering Platform in Vista, and the complete overhaul of the network stack. He spent months reaching out to third parties that could be affected by the change, such as firewall makers. But with as many ISVs as Microsoft has, changes always tends to break something, somewhere, and Microsoft gets blamed, even if it did all it could to prevent such situations. Microsoft learned its lessons with the Windows 7 process of releasing many beta versions. Application incompatibility will be kept to a minimum, but so, too, is innovation. Enterprises shoulder some responsibility. They stay with Microsoft because they know the technology. Change too many things and Microsoft opens the door for competitors. The enterprise that pays high prices and signs long-term contracts does so with the demand that Microsoft keep changes to a minimal. (Some enterprises are , for goodness sake.) Microsoft is trapped by a circumstance where innovation is at odds with stability.

No. 3: An inability to partner for great technology. Microsoft has a "built-it-here" mentality that does not serve it well. Why did Microsoft choose to create its own hypervisor instead of buying VMware when it was a start-up, or partner to embed VMware in with Windows Server? Why did Microsoft spend what some estimate to be a $1 billion developing the Xbox? It could have sold plenty of high-profit games on other wildly popular hardware platforms. When it comes to the server/PC and mobile market, Microsoft has put itself in another no-win situation. On the other hand, it doesn't own the hardware. Yet, it dictates hardware requirements so severely, its partners are eager to bring their innovative ideas to alternative platforms ... such as Acer's Android netbook. To be fair, no large-scale technology company does partnering especially well.

No. 4: Running counter to where everyone else is going. The folks at Microsoft do generate some great ideas, some of which land in products. But sometimes those ideas never take off because Microsoft's vision is out-of-sync with the rest of the technology world's direction. notes that Microsoft spent a lot of time implementing innovative uses of IPSec. In Microsoft products, you can create and manage IPsec tunnels, set policies and so on. A company with a Microsoft-centric network can, with relative ease, set up a network so that traffic is authenticated and encrypted and the edge firewall is all-but-unnecessary. Unfortunately, this didn't fit with Cisco's business plans. Microsoft's IPsec encrypted traffic can't be easily managed with traffic management tools. Microsoft has a feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 called that might be more of the same. It is a cool concept, as it acts as a VPN between the server and client. But it requires Windows 7. Organizations that aren't operating exclusively on R2/W7 (and that's all of them) will have to keep their VPNs for a while longer, and could have little reason to add DirectAccess support to the mix.

No. 5: Tying new ideas too tightly with its established wares. Microsoft has done some amazingly innovative work in identity management and cloud operating systems. But it typically attaches its best innovations to its Microsoft-centric world. If you want to use some of its more innovative technology, you've got to be running Windows or .Net, etc. It historically relies on third parties to sell products and services that will link its wares to others. That works fine for the Microsoft shop, but gives few reasons for non-Microsoft shops to buy its wares, no matter how innovative they are. It creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads back to reason No. 2.

No. 6: Offering too many versions of the same basic product: Microsoft's strategy to make money is all about upselling. That's fine until the many versions it has created has zapped its resources dry. Each version offers more features than the last, which should lead to increased innovation. But if you have one product team working on multiple releases, with multiple feature sets on each, you have spread yourself pretty thin. A tiny company with three engineers working on one product can be more innovative than a 20-member team working on six versions and 1,000 features.

Taking a closer look at the VDI Functionality in Windows Server 2008 R2

The changes in Windows Server 2008 to Terminal Services as a platform were the most significant changes in Terminal Services since its integration into the Windows (Server) products. Windows Server 2008 R2 marks a similar start of the inclusion another functionality into the base Windows Server OS: VDI. In this article we will be looking at exactly how the “VDI functionality” in Window Server 2008 R2 works and what it exactly offers you (and what it doesn’t).

What do you need?

The VDI functionality in Windows Server 2008 R2 is tightly integrated with the existing RDS (the new name for Terminal Services is Remote Desktop Services) functionality from Windows Server 2008. Let’s take a look at all of the components that are needed in Windows Server 2008 R2 to use the VDI functionality:

RD Virtualization Host

The Remote Desktop Virtualization Host (RD Virtualization Host) is a Remote Desktop Services role included with Windows Server 2008 R2. RD Virtualization Host integrates with Hyper-V R2 to provide virtual machines by using RemoteApp and Desktop. In Windows Server 2008 R2 you can only use the VDI functionality by using the Microsoft Virtualization platform, Hyper-V R2. To use Hyper-V R2 for VDI, you need to enable a role service called “Remote Desktop Virtualization Host”.

This is what Server Manager looks like on a RD Virtualization Host:

RD Virtualization Host can be configured so that:

• each user in your organization is assigned a unique virtual machine and/or
• users are redirected to a shared virtual machine pool where a virtual machine is dynamically assigned (not to be confused with provisioned). An exact explanation of how virtual machines are dynamically assigned is located further on this article.

Note that this configuration actually takes place on the RD Connection Broker. The RD Virtualization Host uses Remote Desktop Connection Broker (RD Connection Broker) to determine where the user is redirected. A high-level overview of what the RD Connection broker does looks like this:

• If a user is assigned and requests a personal virtual desktop, RD Connection Broker redirects the user to this virtual machine.
• If the virtual machine is not turned on, RD Virtualization Host turns on the virtual machine and then connects the user.
• If the user is connecting to a shared virtual machine pool, RD Connection Broker first checks to see if the user has a disconnected session in the pool.
• If the user has a disconnected session, they are reconnected to that virtual machine.
• If the user does not have a disconnected session, a virtual machine in that pool is dynamically assigned to the user, if one is available.

As you can see, the RD Connection Broker does a lot of the lifting here. It’s even stronger than that. More details about what the RD Connection Broker does is listed further down in this article.

RD Session Host in Redirection Mode

A RD Session Host is what we used to call a Terminal Server (in application mode). In Windows 2008 R2 the RD Session Host role can be configured in 4 modes (as depicted below):

To be able to deliver virtual desktops to users in Windows 2008 R2 you will need to configure a RD Session Host to provide virtual machine redirection. When you configure a RD Session Host server to provide virtual machine redirection, the following changes are made to the RD Session Host server:

• The user logon mode is changed to allow reconnections, but prevent new logons.
• All programs are removed from the RemoteApp Programs list in RemoteApp Manager.
• The Authenticated Users group is added to the Remote Desktop Users group.

So yes, this means that you lose this machine as a RD Session Host, since it just redirects. You would not want to use your 128 GB, 16 core box for this (think virtual machine here). If you ever need to connect to this machine for administrative tasks, be sure to use the /admin parameters or you will not be able to connect.

The reason why Microsoft chose to require this RD Session Host in virtual machine redirection mode (a separate server) instead of just having the RD Connection Broker telling the client what virtual machine to connect to is very simple: backwards compatibility. By making a user connect to a RD Session Host in virtual machine redirection mode, clients down to version 5.2 of the RDP client can use this new functionality in Windows Server 2008 R2.

RD Web Access

Remote Desktop Web Access (RD Web Access), formerly Terminal Services Web Access (TS Web Access), in R2 has gotten a much more prominent role. The reason for this is that:

• RD Web Access services Windows7 clients by means of a RemoteApp and Desktop Connections feed (it uses RSS-like technology). This gives Windows7 users an integrated a list of all RD Session Host-hosted RemoteApp programs and desktops and RD Virtualization Host-hosted virtual desktops that they are permitted to use right in their Start Menu (Windows7 only).
• Provides the only way to non-Windows7 clients to access Windows 2008 R2 brokered virtual desktops (since they can’t use the RemoteApp and Desktop Connections feed.

So RD Web Access now provides you with a list all RD Session Host-hosted RemoteApp programs and desktops and RD Virtualization Host-hosted virtual desktops you are permitted to use. Of course (but this is not new) RD Web Access also includes Remote Desktop Web Connection, which enables users to connect remotely from a Web browser to the desktop of any computer where they have Remote Desktop access.

This screenshot shows how a virtual desktop pool is presented to a user in RD Web Access (ignore the certificate error ):

For RD Web Access to be able to provide the list of all RD Session Host-hosted RemoteApp programs and desktops and RD Virtualization Host hosted virtual desktops, you need to configure RD Web Access with the source that will provide this information. There are basically two options. Either you provide a RD Session Host or Host as a source or a RD Connection Broker. To be able to show virtual desktops in RD Web Access you need to provide the RD Connection Broker as the source.

This is what that confguration looks like:

RD Connection Broker

The Connection Broker role in Windows 2008 R2 has also undergone some significant changes. First, as all the components, it was renamed. From the Terminal Services Session Broker (TS Session Broker) to the Remote Desktop Connection Broker (RD Connection Broker). Just to quickly recap, these are the features it already had:

• Allows users to reconnect to their existing sessions in a load-balanced RD Session Host server farm. This prevents a user with a disconnected session from being connected to a different RD Session Host server in the farm and starting a new session.
• Enables you to evenly distribute the session load among RD Session Host servers in a load-balanced RD Session Host server farm.

In addition, in Windows Server 2008 R2 it can now also provide users access to virtual desktops hosted on RD Virtualization Host servers. While this may not sound like a whole lot, the way that this feature has been implemented has created the foundation for the RD Connection Broker to be a true connection broker that can broker access to all kinds of applications and desktops, regardless whether this is a virtual desktop running on a Hyper-V host or a RemoteApp program running on a RD Session Host.

Here’s how part of the new RD Connection Broker configuration looks:

How It Works

Even though the scope of this article is limited to just the VDI functionality in R2, I am going to expand a little bit on the bigger RDS picture in R2. The reason for this is that Microsoft in R2 has really started to deliver a pretty comprehensive way to deliver applications and desktops using RDS technology. Instead of making the mistake as viewing VDI and Terminal Services as two separate entities, they view and present the two as an option to deliver applications and desktops to users. It really is very nicely integrated. For example, the VDI and TS sessions share several components, such as the RD Connection Broker, the RD Web Access server, and (not mandatory) the RD Gateway.

Let’s take a look at how these components work together to present the user with a list of all RD Session Host-hosted RemoteApp programs and desktops and RD Virtualization Host-hosted virtual desktops that they are permitted to use (courtesy of the Microsoft RDS team):

The way this works as you go the through the steps in the diagram:

1. The client queries RD Web Access via HTTP(S), either via the new RemoteApp&Desktop Connections feed or via the Web Interface.
2. RD Web Access then takes the user credentials and queries the connection broker for the list of applications and virtual desktops.
3. The Connection Broker authenticates the user and retrieves the list all RD Session Host-hosted RemoteApp programs and desktops and RD Virtualization Host-hosted virtual desktops and presents it to the RD Web Access. The user can then click an icon to connect. If the client is using Windows 7 then the RemoteApp&Desktop Connections feed will update the list of available RD Session Host-hosted RemoteApp programs and desktops and RD Virtualization Host-hosted virtual desktops in the Start Menu of Windows 7 clients.

So now that we have a list of all RD Session Host-hosted RemoteApp programs and desktops and RD Virtualization Host-hosted virtual desktops that we are permitted to use, what happens if we want to connect to one? Let’s take a look at the example where a user connects to his or her personal virtual desktop (the other option being connecting to a pooled virtual desktop).

1. So first (after clicking the personal virtual desktop icon in RD Web Access) the client connects to the RD virtual machine redirector (aka the RD Session Host in Redirection Mode) This means that the .rdp file that is used to connect actually points to the redirector instead of the connection broker.
2. The RD virtual machine redirector then queries the connection broker to get the virtual machine name.
3. The RD Connection Broker in turn queries Active Directory to find out which virtual machine was assigned to the user (this is a user account property in Windows Server 2008 R2).
   
4. The RD Connection Broker then queries the RD Virtualization Host for the virtual machine and powers it on if necessary.
5. Once that has been done the virtual machine name (DNS name) is passed down to the RD virtual machine redirector.
6. The RD virtual machine redirector passes the virtual machine name (DNS name) on to the client.
7. The client connects directly to the virtual desktop.

This last part is rather important from an architectural perspective: the client connects directly to the virtual desktop. The connection is not maintained through the connection broker or the RD virtual machine redirector. Once the client has been provided with the virtual desktop (DNS) name the RD Connection Broker and the RD virtual machine redirector are complete out of the way. Doing it any other way would severely limit the scalability of this solution.

What’s cool?

So there you have it. You have just seen how you can implement VDI without a single third party piece of software. Is this the end of all the third party vendors in VDI land? To answer that question we need to take a closer look at the features. So what exactly can you do with this Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 only setup?

You can:

• Provide AD users with access to Personal Virtual Desktops
  This is where you associate a virtual machine running on RD Virtualization Host with an AD user account.
• Provide AD users with access to Pooled Virtual Desktops
  This is where you create a virtual desktop pool on the RD Connection Broker and add virtual machines running on a RD Virtualization Host to it. When users then click the icon for that virtual desktop pool automatically a virtual desktop is assigned to that user.
• Reset pooled virtual desktop to previous state after user logoff
  This feature is actually very cool. If you create snapshots of all virtual machines in a pool and make sure that the name of the snapshots contains the word “RDV_Rollback” then the virtual machines will be reverted to that snapshot every single time a user logs of from that virtual machine. Pretty cool!
• Connects you to disconnected Virtual Desktop Sessions
  The functionality that was already in the RD Connection Broker for disconnected sessions running on RD Session Hosts also applies to virtual desktops. If you are connecting to a virtual machine in a virtual desktop pool first it will be checked whether or not you have a disconnected session before you are assigned to another virtual machine.
• Powers up Virtual Machines if they are down
  The RD Virtualization Host can power on or resume virtual machines on behalf of the RD Connection Broker if a user connects to a virtual machine that is powered down or saved.
• Saves virtual machine state after users logoff
  It also works the other way around. The RD Connection Broker can be configured to save virtual machines whenever a users log off.

What’s not so cool?

Windows Server 2008 R2 does pack a pretty decent VDI feature set, but let’s take a look at what is not so cool about a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 only VDI setup?

• Non-Windows 7 clients are forced to use RD Web Access to get access to their virtual desktops
  Since the RemoteApp and Desktop Connection control panel applet is only available for Windows 7 clients you need to use RD Web Access if you are not running Windows 7 just to get a clickable icon for your virtual desktops.
• No support for other Hypervisors
  Even though Microsoft Hyper-V R2 is probably going to go places, fact of the matter is that most customers looking into VDI will run some form of VMware ESX. Keep in mind that this is when talking about a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 only VDI setup. SCVMM R2 might very well be able to manage ESX hosts in this scenario as well. Time will tell.
• No provisioning
  Windows Server 2008 R2 itself offers no way to automatically create virtual desktops. They need to be manually created in Hyper-V R2 or by means of other (SCVMM) and/or third party tools. For a decently sized VDI deployment this can quickly become an issue.
• Need for a dedicated redirection host
  For backwards compatibility reasons a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 only VDI setup requires a RD Session Host in virtual machine redirection mode. This does cost you an extra license and gives you another server to manage, although you could very well combine this role with the RD Connection Broker. It also makes the stack a little more complex and adds another potential SPOF. If you want to provide access to a Terminal Server farm as well you will need another, non-dedicated, RD Session Host in redirection mode only this time for a Terminal Servers farm This can be a normal RD Session Host.
• Not all RDP 7 features are available in R2 VDI
  One of the things that make a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 only VDI setup viable which we did not discuss at all in this article are all the enhancements to the RDP protocol that make RDP more suitable for use in a VDI environment. Features like: multimonitor support, multimedia redirection, aero remoting, etc… are not available if you are using anything else but Windows 7 as the virtual desktop. There is seamless “backwards compatibility” though--the RDP features of the appropriate Guest VMs will be available.
• Limited Out of the Box options
  The groundwork of a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 only VDI setup looks to be pretty solid. It is just the intelligence of the Connection Broker that is not quite up to par yet. Examples of situations where you could be left with a little more to be desired include:
  • You can assign a virtual desktop to a user or a virtual desktop pool to a group of users but what if you want to assign a virtual desktop to a particular IP subnet.
  • What if the virtual desktop pools do not have any virtual machines available anymore?
  • What if you want to assign a dynamically chosen virtual desktop when he logs in for the first time but always provide him with that same desktop for all logins after that?
  • What if you want to provide a user with two personal virtual desktops?

The list goes on. I think you get the idea.

• Management Tools
  The bulk of the management of the new VDI functionality in R2 has been built into an entirely new RD Connection Broker configuration wizard. Although the configuration wizard does indeed take you through all the steps you need to take it by no means is takes care of all the management. For example: if you need to manage user sessions you need to use other tools (Remote Desktop Services Manager – which unfortunately has not become more usable). If you need to manage VDI user sessions it looks like you are out of luck.
• Complexity
  Even though Microsoft did a good job in guiding you through the steps you need to take to create a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 only VDI setup, fact of the matter is that it is still a pretty comprehensive setup and configuration just to allow users to connect to virtual desktops. Remember that you at least need a RD Connection Broker, a RD Virtualization Host, a RD Session Host in virtual machine redirection mode, as well as a RD Web Access host. Next to that you also have to maintain local computer group memberships like the Session Brokers Computer group and the Web Access Computer group.

Another pretty complicated aspect of a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 only VDI setup is the steps you need to perform on Windows 7 virtual desktop before it can be used as a virtual desktop. It is almost scary (however, Microsoft is planning on releasing a script to help you deal with this). Most “VDI vendors” take care of this by providing an agent of sorts. With Windows 7 Microsoft would have had the opportunity of a lifetime to make Windows 7 “Microsoft VDI” ready by embedding some client in Windows 7 but they did not. Even the Hyper-V integration components are in there by default. It’s a shame the same did not happen for the “VDI stuff”.

Conclusion

With Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft has taken their first steps into the VDI space. These first steps look and feel like solid and confident steps. We should however be honest and objective, though, and establish that these steps are but small steps. This should absolutely not be a surprise, since Microsoft has specifically mentioned that the VDI functionality in Windows Server 2008 R2 is aimed at small and non-complex environments. I am sure that this functionality will be enhanced in future releases. This is similar to what Microsoft has been doing in the Terminal Server/ RDS space for many years now.

To do VDI on any other scale beyond the scope of “small and non-complex environments” you would definitely need additional third party “VDI products” (like –in no particular order- Quest vWorkspace, Citrix XenDesktop or any other Hyper-V compliant VDI solution) and other Microsoft products (like SCVMM R2).

Kingston Technology Receives 1333MHz DDR3 Memory Validation for Upcoming Core i5 Platform from Intel

Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced two of its 1333MHz DDR3 memory offerings were validated by Intel for use in its upcoming Core i5 systems. Kingston’s 1333MHz DDR3 non-ECC SO-DIMM (Kingston part#: KVR1333D3S9/1G and 2G modules) was validated on Intel’s P55 Express Chipset using the “Clarksfield” mobile processor. The 1333MHz DDR3 non-ECC unbuffered DIMM (part #: KVR1333D3N9/1G) was validated on Intel’s P55 Express chipset using the “Lynnfield” processor.

The memory modules, available now, are optimized to take full advantage of the dual-channel architecture. Kingston memory is backed by a lifetime warranty and free technical support

Microsoft Releases “Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2.0.1"

Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2.0.1 lets you connect from your Macintosh computer to a Windows-based computer or to multiple Windows-based computers at the same time. After you have connected, you can work with applications and files on the Windows-based computer.

Version 2.0.1 is basically a service release as it addresses bugs and security vulnerabilities


System Requirements:

Supported Operating Systems: Apple Mac OS X

Operating System Versions: Mac OS X version 10.4.9 (Tiger) or a later version of Mac OS
Note To verify that your computer meets these minimum requirements, on the Apple menu, click About This Mac.
Other requirements: To connect to a Windows-based computer, you must have network access and permissions to connect to a Windows-based computer that is running Terminal Services or Remote Desktop Services. These services are included with the following Windows products:

Windows Vista Business
Windows Vista Enterprise
Windows Vista Ultimate
Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Media Center
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
Windows Server 2008 Standard
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
Windows Server 2003 Standard

New open source LiMo phones introduced

Panasonic and NEC announced nine new cell phone on Tuesday that use the open-source, Linux-based mobile operating system called LiMo.

As the mobile phone market evolves, software is becoming more crucial to handset development.

Apple set the bar high with its iPhone, which uses a form of Apple's own proprietary operating system used in its computers. Other companies have followed suit with advanced software of their own, namely Google with its Android mobile software. Like LiMo, Android is based on open source Linux. So far only two devices have been introduced running the Android software, but several handset makers including Motorola and Samsung are expected to release new Android-based devices.

Still, Nokia, the number one handset maker in the world, leads the market with its Symbian software platform.

Linux is the most popular type of free or open source computer software available. And it has had some success in the computer environment where Linux suppliers are earn revenue by selling improvements and technical services to support Linux. This is a very different model from Microsoft, which licenses its Windows operating system and does not share its code openly with developers.

Now Linux is coming to the mobile market, where it promises to help lower costs for handset makers. The LiMo foundation, which is made up of a consortium of companies, has been shepherding development for mobile devices in the hopes that it can become one of the major operating systems used in the handset market. So far, LiMo has not been a huge success, as competition from other software and handset makers has been fierce.

The announcement of the new Panasonic and NEC phones is seen as a positive sign that handset makers are starting to support the new software. Other handset makers, such as Samsung and LG Electronics, are also members of the LiMo Foundation. But so far these companies haven't introduced phones using the LiMo software. In 2008, Motorola introduced some devices using LiMo.

Meanwhile, most of the world's largest cell phone makers, including Samsung, LG, Nokia, and Motorola, have said that they will soon introduce phones using the Android operating system.

Still, LiMo does have support from some of the world's biggest mobile carriers, including Vodafone, France Telecom SA's Orange, Japan's NTT DoCoMo, South Korea's SK Telecom, Telefonica and U.S. operator Verizon Wireless, which is jointly owned by Vodafone and Verizon Communications. LiMo also said Japanese mobile carrier KDDI Corp and touch screen company Immersion Corp have joined the not-for-profit foundation

Energy Department eyes superfast Ethernet

Scientists will collaborate with as-yet-unnamed hardware and software vendors to develop a prototype 100Gbps Ethernet network, which will be used to connect U.S. Department of Energy supercomputer centers.

The aim is to develop a network capable of handling 1Tb (terabit) per second, according to Michael Strayer, head of the Department of Energy's office of advanced scientific computing research.



"This network will serve as a pilot for a future network-wide deployment of 100Gbps Ethernet in research and commercial networks, and represents a major step toward the DOE's vision of a 1Tb--1,000 times faster than 1Gb--network interconnecting DOE Office of Science supercomputer centers," Strayer was quoted as saying in a statement.

The network will be used by scientists to share data and research in such areas as climate-change modeling, and for collaborative projects such as the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle accelerator. Businesses will benefit as 10Gbps and 1Gbps networks will become more affordable, said the statement.

Ethernet networks normally run at either 100Mbps or 1Gbps, while the standard for the fastest is 40Gbps. Scientists working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will undertake research into the high-speed Ethernet project, which is called the Advanced Networking Initiative.

The U.S. government has pumped millions of dollars into the project. The Energy Department's ESnet, formally known as the Energy Sciences Network, announced Monday that it had received $62 million in funding.

ESnet, which is run from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will put some of the money into new jobs for network and software engineers at Berkeley Lab. However, the bulk of the cash will be used to buy networking equipment and services from providers adjudged to have the necessary infrastructure to support 100Gbps technology.

The funding was allocated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a stimulus package enacted by the Obama administration, designed to aid U.S. economic recovery during the global financial downturn.

Juniper Networks announced the industry's first 100Gbps Ethernet router interface card in June

Office, Windows get critical patches

Microsoft on Tuesday released nine patches, five of them critical, to plug holes in Windows and other software products.

The nine patches actually relate to 19 separate vulnerabilities in Windows, the .Net Framework, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft ISA Server, Microsoft BizTalk Server, and Remote Desktop Client for Mac.



Among the issues addressed is one that Microsoft warned about last month--a vulnerability related to the Office Web Components that help users put spreadsheets, charts, and other documents onto the Web. At the time, Microsoft said it was already seeing attacks based on the flaw, which affects Office XP, Office 2003, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 and 2006, as well as Office Small Business Accounting 2006.

More information on that issue and the others addressed with this month's patches is available in a bulletin on Microsoft's Web site.

As is its practice, Microsoft said last week that the patches were coming.

Symantec senior research manager Ben Greenbaum noted that many of the vulnerabilites this month related to so-called ActiveX controls and added that many of the holes could be exploited just by getting a user to visit a Web page that has malicious code.

"All of the ActiveX issues patched this month could be easily exploited and can impact even the average computer user," Greenbaum said in an e-mail. "For example, any user who has Microsoft Office on their machine could be vulnerable to the Microsoft Office Web Components vulnerabilities. Similarly, every user with Windows XP SP3 or Vista could also be susceptible to one of the Remote Desktop Connection issues."

Actually, not all versions of Office are affected, as the Web components issue does not affect the latest version--Office 2007. For a list of Office programs affected, see this security bulletin.

In any case, McAfee and Lumension both noted that it continues to be a long, hard summer for IT professionals who have had to deal with a large number of regular patches and some unscheduled ones as well from Microsoft and others.

"There's no break from patching this summer," McAfee Avert Labs' Dave Marcus said in a statement. "Microsoft is playing catchup with these patches as cybercriminals have already used some of the serious vulnerabilities to commandeer vulnerable Windows computers."

Lumension analyst Paul Henry said there had been some fear that the patches would go further, addressing some kernel-level issues. But even still, he said the latest crop of patches will bring their fair share of headaches.

"After a summer of heavier-than-normal Patch Tuesdays, the last thing IT workers need is yet another large batch of patches from Microsoft," Henry said in a statement. "Unfortunately, that is exactly what we got today as Microsoft released a total of nine security updates, five of which are critical and seven of which require disruptive restarts."

How condoms for men could be a thing of the past

For years, researchers have been working on microbicides (intravaginal gels, rings, and films) that can prevent the transmission of viruses such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Only a handful ever made it to human clinical trial, and ran into issues such as women not using them, or the antiviral drugs in the microbicides not lasting long enough. Some microbicides even seemed to increase the risk of transmission.

Now, researchers at the University of Utah seem to have greatly improved on a microbicide they first wrote about in 2006, according to a study published this week in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

Their original molecular condom was applied as a liquid, which then turned into a gel coating at body temperate, and then turned liquid again in the presence of semen (which alters pH balance to be less acidic), thereby triggering the release of an anti-HIV drug. Problem was, few antiviral drugs bind and attach to HIV in semen, and high temperatures tended to prevent the gel from turning to liquid to activate the drug at all.

Their new condom works in the opposite way, starting as a gel but becoming semi-solid in response to pH changes caused by the introduction of semen, thereby forming a nanoscopic mesh of crosslinked molecules so tightly woven that they form a serious barrier to the virus:


The new gel is applied as a gel, and then becomes more solid and impenetrable as changes in pH alter the strength of the bond between the gel's two key components, both of which are polymers, or long, chain-like molecules made of many smaller, repeating units: PBA, or phenylboronic acid, and SHA, or salicylhydroxamic acid.

According to the University of Utah press release, the mesh of molecules--at 30 to 50 nanometers wide--should be able to block any HIV particle, which is two to three times thicker (roughly 100 nanometers wide). This should also block sperm, which measure 5,000 to 10,000 nanometers (5 to 10 microns). One way to think about this nano scale is that a strand of human hair is generally about 100,000 nanometers wide (100 microns), making it 10 to 20 times thicker than sperm and 2,000 to 3,333 times thicker than an HIV particle.

What if the virus were to get past the double barrier of this nanoscopic mesh and the accompanying antiviral drug? The study's senior author, Patrick Kiser, an associate professor of bioengineering at the University of Utah's College of Engineering, says that after sex the vagina gradually becomes more acidic again, and any residual HIV particles would be inactivated by not only this acidity, but also the antiviral drug (such as tenofovir) within the remaining gel.

The team's research, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, could be truly groundbreaking for women the world over. Still, one of the problems researchers ran into during the 2006 study--that some women failed to use the gel--won't necessarily be solved by a better gel.

It remains unclear whether failure to use the gel was because sex was forced and women didn't have time to apply it, or they just didn't believe it would work, or they were ridiculed, or felt ashamed, etc. What is clear is that hurdles remain when it comes to condoms, even if the chemistry is good.

How to make strong, easy-to-remember passwords

One of the best ways to protect your online security is to have strong passwords that you change periodically. But that's easier said than done. Coming up with hard-to-guess passwords is hard enough, but it's even harder to have separate passwords for different sites and to remember new ones after you change them.

One way to create a password that's hard to guess but easy to remember is to make up a phrase. You could type in the entire phrase (some sites let you use spaces, others don't) or you can use the initials of each word in the phrase, for instance, "IgfLESi85" for "I graduated from Lincoln Elementary School in '85." An even better one would be "MbfihswE&S" for "My best friends in high school were Eric and Steve." You get the idea--upper case numbers, letters, and symbols that are seemingly meaningless to everyone but you. Microsoft has an excellent primer on passwords and a password strength checker.

But even if you do come up with a clever and hard-to-remember password, don't use it for every site. Since lots of people do that, there's the risk that a sleazy site operator--or a sleazy person who works for a legitimate site--could use it to break into your accounts on other sites.

Password managers
One solution is to use a password manager. There are several available programs and Web storage services, but the ones I'm most familiar with are RoboForm and Lastpass. These programs can generate passwords for you and remember them so you don't have to. Both programs are, themselves, password protected, though you have the option of running RoboForm without a password or having Lastpass remember its own password on your PC. That's OK as long as no one else has access to your machine. I recommend that you manually enter your master password on a laptop that could more easily fall into the wrong hands.

RoboForm has a free trial version that's limited to 10 passwords after the trial ends. Lastpass is free.

RoboForm has been around for a long time, but Lastpass is a relatively new offering. Company CEO Joe Siegrist describes the program as a hybrid because it stores your passwords and usernames both on your machine and on the Web. You can download the browser plug-in to a PC or a Mac to work directly with Firefox on either platform or Internet Explorer on Windows, but there are also ways to use it with Safari and Chrome. Because it has a Web interface, it can work with any Web-enabled device, but the plug-ins for IE and Firefox make it easier to use.

On Firefox and IE, Lastpass records your usernames and passwords when you first enter password-protected sites and then enters them for you automatically for subsequent visits. Passwords are stored in a "vault," which is actually a Web page stored on your PC, as well as the company's servers, so you can access it from any device, including a borrowed machine. The password vault on your machine is automatically synchronized with the server, so you don't have to worry about synchronizing or backing up your data.

Password data, according to Siegrist, is encrypted on the PC and on the servers. He said that no one--himself included--can decrypt them without the master password that only you know. Assuming the encryption is as good as he says it is, this should protect your security even if their servers are compromised. The company provides a lot of security information on its FAQ.

There are also versions for Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Android as well as a Web site for phones and browsers that aren't supported directly.

Verizon completes initial 4G wireless test in boston

Verizon Wireless announced Friday that it has completed initial testing of its 4G wireless service in Boston and Seattle.

Using a new technology called Long Term Evolution (LTE), Verizon was successfully able to complete data calls in Boston and Seattle, the first two cities where the company will deploy its service. Verizon is using the 700 MHz spectrum it bought an FCC auction to build the network. The company plans to start offering the service commercially in 2010, providing service for up to 100 million people in 30 markets. The company plans to have the entire nation covered with 4G service in 2013.

As part of this initial test, Boston and Seattle each have 10 LTE 4G cell sites up and running on the 700 MHz spectrum. Verizon selected these markets because of their geographic configuration of suburban and urban areas as well as the areas' high-technology population.

The LTE technology promises to be much faster than current 3G technology and the company expects to deliver services 15 to 100 times faster than these other wireless networks. The actual speeds of the technology have yet to be seen.

Verizon will be competing with Clearwire and its partners, which are already rolling out commercial service for their 4G wireless network that uses a technology called WiMax. Like LTE, WiMax also greatly improves wireless transmission speeds. Clearwire has already launched its service in Atlanta, Baltimore, Las Vegas, and Portland, Ore. And it will add another 10 markets in the next couple of months.

Cable providers Comcast and Time Warner Cable, which invested in Clearwire, will be reselling the service in their cable territories. Meanwhile, Sprint Nextel, which is also a Clearwire partner, is already reselling the service along with its own 3G wireless service throughout the Clearwire territory.

Verizon first mentioned Boston and Seattle as the first two cities to get LTE during its quarterly conference call with investors in July. So far, the company hasn't said much about how the LTE service will be sold and priced. Currently, Verizon offers 3G wireless using a technology called EV-DO. That service is about $60 per month for up to 5GB of data per month.

The Clear WiMax service from Clearwire starts at $20 per month for in-home wireless broadband. And its mobile Internet plans start at $40 per month. Customers can also get a day pass for $10. The company also allows customers to add voice service to their in-home package for $25 per month.

Firefox 3.5 jumps 4.5% market share IE slows down

Net Applications has just released its latest report on browser usage, covering the months of June and July. The results show the impact of the launch of Firefox 3.5 on the browser market, as well as the steady decline of Internet Explorer 6 and 7 as they give way to IE8 and other browsers.

Firefox 3.5, which didn’t officially launch until June 30th, now claims 4.54% of the browser market, though most of these new users were likely previously on Firefox 3.0, which dropped from 20.03% in June to 16.21% in July. Internet Explorer 6 and 7 continue to see their user-bases fade (which is a decidedly good thing, especially in the case of IE6), and it seems that many (though not all) of these are heading to IE8. IE6 dropped from 30.15% in May to 27.21% in July, while IE7 saw a drop from 31.16% to 23.09% in the same time frame. IE8 has grown from 5.95% in May to 12.46% in July.

Adding all versions of Internet Explorer together, Microsoft’s market-share has remained fairly stable over the last few months — it dropped to 67.77% in April, then rose to 68.32% by June, and has since dipped back down to 67.68%. It’s certainly not going upwards, but it’s no longer hemorrhaging users the way it was last fall, when it dropped from 74.18% to 69.72% between September 2008 and January 2009 (other reports have shown major losses for IE more recently).

Likewise, Firefox is also holding fairly stable, dropping from 23.84% in April down to 22.75% and hovering around there since (for July it was at 22.47%). Any downturn in Firefox’s growth can likely be chalked up to the growth being seen by Safari and Chrome, both of which still represent relatively small but steadily growing user bases. Safari has risen from 3.53% to 4.07% between April and July, while Google Chrome has risen from 1.79% to 2.59% in the same time frame.

This report is also notable because it represents a change in the way NetMarketShare analyzes browser usage. Before now, Net Applications only reported its raw stats, without taking into account how disproportionally measured countries could skew results. Now the site has started to weight traffic data based on the number of Internet users in a given country (the impact of a user measured in China will be greater than one measured in the US, for example). Worth noting are some of the changes Net Applications has seen resulting from the weighting change. From the Net Applications site:

Baidu - Baidu goes to 9% of global search engine usage. Baidu is on a major growth curve, which is affecting the relative share of all other search engines.
Google - Because of Baidu’s growth, Google’s global share is actually going down. This is almost completely due to Baidu and does not reflect the rest of the world.
Apple - Since Mac share in the U.S. in significantly higher than the rest of the world, Mac and Safari share drop in the global reports.
Opera - Opera goes up to 2% in global reports. This reflects the significant share they have in Eastern Europe and Asia.

U.S. Marine Corps Bans Facebook, Twitter

By now, we all are wary of the fact that Internet, and especially social networking websites, can be hazardous to national security if not used rightly.
The Indian Army had issued a circular stating that all professional info must be taken off the internet immediately and defense personnel must be careful while posting pictures that may disclose their whereabouts, or any other professional info on public forums.

Now, the U.S. Marine Corps has issued an official circular demanding an immediate ban of Internet Social Web Portals like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and so on.


The order reads:


These internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries.

The very nature of SNS [social network sites] creates a larger attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts OPSEC [operational security], COMSEC [communications security], [and] personnel and the Marine Corps Enterprise Network (MCEN) at an elevated risk of compromise.


However, the order does not affect Marines' use of private computers but only the machines that are connected to the central Marine Corps grid. A report by CNN added that the Pentagon is now reviewing its social networking policy for the entire Department of Defense, which should be completed by the end of September.


Social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, and Twitter have emerged to be the popular choice of keeping in touch with friends, family and colleagues, especially when one is on the move.

People usually want to know 'where' their contacts are and 'what' are they doing. Disclosing these on public forums such as social networking sites can not only be dangerous for the personnel but also a concern of national security.

KDE Community Delivers Incremental Innovations With New KDE 4.3 Release

KDE 4.3 (Codename: "Caizen") Delivers Incremental Innovations to the Free Desktop Users and Software Developers

4 August, 2009. The KDE Community today announces the immediate availability of "Caizen", (a.k.a KDE 4.3), bringing many improvements to the user experience and development platform. KDE 4.3 continues to refine the unique features brought in previous releases while bringing new innovations. With the 4.2 release aimed at the majority of end users, KDE 4.3 offers a more stable and complete product for the home and small office.

he KDE community has fixed over 10,000 bugs and implemented almost 2,000 feature requests in the last 6 months. Close to 63,000 changes were checked in by a little under 700 contributors. Read on for an overview of the changes in the KDE 4.3 Desktop Workspace, Application Suites and the KDE 4.3 Development Platform.

Desktop Improves Performance And Usability

The KDE Desktop Workspace provides a powerful and complete desktop experience that features excellent integration with Linux and UNIX operating systems. The key components that make up the KDE Desktop Workspace include:

• KWin, a powerful window manager that provides modern 3D graphical effects
• The Plasma Desktop Shell, a cutting-edge desktop and panels system that features productivity enhancements and online integration through customizable widgets
• Dolphin, a user-friendly, network- and content-aware file manager
• KRunner, a search and launch system for running commands and finding useful information
• easy access to desktop and system controls through SystemSettings.

Below you can find a short list of improvements to the KDE Desktop Workspace.

• The Plasma Desktop Shell introduces a new default theme, Air. Air looks much lighter and fits better with the default application theme. Plasma also has seen large performance improvements. Memory usage has been reduced, and animations are smoother. Activities can now be tied to virtual desktops, allowing users to have different widgets on each of their desktops. Furthermore, Plasma has improved upon its job and notification management. Running jobs are grouped in a single progress bar to prevent the popup of too many dialogs. Animations are used to signify that jobs are still running by smoothly sliding dialogs into the systemtray and animating the notification icon. Smaller changes in Plasma include fully configurable keyboard shortcuts and more extensive keyboard navigation, the ability to create a plasma widget when you drag or copy content on the desktop and many new and improved Plasma widgets. The folderview widget now allows the user to peek into a folder by hovering it and the new Translatoid widget translates words and sentences right on your desktop using Google Translate. Furthermore, KRunner made its plugin features easier to discover by having a 'help' button showing the syntax of commands in the result area. Actions also have a small configuration allowing for example to start applications under another user account.