I have been working with another "developer" who is building a SharePoint site based on requirements that I have gathered from an end user.  In going through the security settings for the site, something seemed to be missing and it took me a minute to figure out what it was.  From what I could see, it looks as though the Author level of access has been left out of SP.

To me, the status level of Author goes hand in hand with the idea of ownership.  I have always considered the Author of a document in Notes to be the owner of the document at that point in time, regardless of whether or not that person created this particular document.  Author access only works with Author and Reader field values, so I am guess that equivalent field types don't exist in SP.

This idea of Authorship is central to every workflow application I have ever built.  I'll be damned if I am going to "trust" my users to only edit a document when it's their turn in the review cycle.  They are lucky if they can even see things that aren't ready for them to approve/edit.

While SP easily gives you the ability to allow users to edit any document on the site, I couldn't see how to set a user's access to only allow them to edit documents that they have created.  You could modify the rights for a document to only allow specific people to edit the document, but then the connection to the central ACL is severed forever.  The model employed by SP seems eerily similar to the model employed on a file server and we all know how much fun it is when 2 people try to edit a file at the same time.

Now to be totally fair, I only looked at SP for a few minutes, so I might have missed something totally obvious.  The server is currently running WSS, so this might be a feature that you get when you upgrade to MOSS.  Or this might be one of those core Notes features that seems necessary to us, but isn't that important to other vendors.

Will someone who has more experience with SP care to comment and set me straight?

I received the following job positing today and it made me chuckle.  The subject of the email was Urgent req for MS Access/IBM Lotus Notes Developer.  The name of the recruiter was withheld to protect the innocent.

Hi All,

Hope your doing well.

I have an urgent requirement for our client needs, please send your consultant profile if you are interested for this position.

Title: MS Access or IBM Lotus Notes Developer
Location: Jacksonville, FL
Duration: 6 Months
Rate: AS low as possible

Required Skills: 

Our Client is in need of  a Developer with MS Access or IBM Lotus Notes Developer skills.   Excellent communication oral, written and Strong organizational skills are required.  The Candidate should have previous experience in technical development environments.

Anyone who wants to pay me as little as possible is definitely going to the head of the line for me!

Almost every company that has a product to sell either hires an outside firm or has employees on staff to conduct Market Research for them. When I was growing up in College Park, MD, there used to be a company in Beltway Plaza that constantly tried to get shoppers to give them "just 10 minutes of your time" to answer a bunch of questions. Sometimes the questions were about ads and sometimes they were about products that you actually got to test.  I loved doing the taste tests!  You would think that, by now, MR is more of a science and less of an art, but that really doesn't seem to be the case. 

The biggest MR blunder of all time has got to be the New Coke fiasco. It's so far ahead of the rest of the pack that the other contestants are starting to think that coming in second is winning. Sort of like a PGA event when Tiger is on his game.  The powers that be decided to scrap the one of the most successful and secret recipes in the history of food for something that tasted a heck of a lot like it's major competitors product.  Doh!  In the end, they made the correct decision and brought back the original recipe as 'Classic', but not before enduring a PR nightmare the likes of which I may never see again.

Another recent 'say what' was when Burger King came out with a new french fry that they claimed was better than McDonald's fries. Boy, were they ever wrong on that one. Sure it was better than their old product, but it didn't come close to the fries from the Golden Arches. Are any of you old enough to remember the Ford Edsel?  It was everything customers asked for and nothing they were willing to pay for. And do I even need to bring up IBM's 2 lane product path?

The reason that blunders like this happen isn't because the companies don't talk to their customers, ignore what their customers tell them, or just don't care. And it's not because customers weren't being truthful, either with the company or themselves. It's all due to this one simple fact: 

The people doing the market research didn't ask the right questions!

MR is also extremely important in the software world, but we refer to it as requirements gathering and user group testing. This is the place where we separate the designers from the programmers and something I think the Notes developers, as a whole, are very good at doing.  It's not something that colleges spend a great deal of time on and it is definitely the one set of skills that can make or break a new hire. It is also the one thing that CANNOT be outsourced to off-shore, cheap labor.

The reason I bring this up is a comment from Colette when she was trying to use our trial of Office 2007. She said it took her 5 minutes to find the print menu item and can't understand why Microsoft felt it necessary to change from the menu and icons that the rest of Windows apps use. Although she is by no means a techie, she is savvy enough on a PC that her coworkers look to her first for 'Hey Joe' support. If she couldn't find it, how can MS expect my technically challenged parents or a regular corporate user to find it without significant retraining?  And after spending a bunch of time and money on the training, are the user's any better prepared to do their daily jobs than they were when using Office 2003?  At the end of the day, what's the ROI?  I would have thought that products like Bob and Clippy might have taught MS a thing or two, but I guess not.  Add to that the major headaches caused by Vista and MS is really starting to look like the long lost twin of IBM in the 80's.

In recent years, this is one area where IBM/Lotus and specifically Mary Beth Raven hav e done great job of getting feedback on the changes they were thinking of implementing and additional changes that they might not have even thought about.  The Notes 8.0.1 Client is the proof in the pudding that having the right people ask the right questions to the right customers can yield a very good end result.  Now if they can pull off the Domino Designer 8.5 in Eclipse, the future for Lotus professionals and the Lotus platform will continue to shine bright.

So what do you think, is the Office 'Ribbon' Microsoft's version of New Coke?

I am looking to purchase a new laptop for doing work. I will be taking this laptop all over the place, so it has to be sort of mobile. Good battery life is a must. It's most likely going to be a Windoze machine, as I need to run Notes Designer and Admin.

Do any of you have any specific advice on makes and models that you either love or hate? I have been working with Dells for the last 10 years or so, but also have an HP laptop for home use.

I know pretty much what I want as far as configuration is concerned:

• Dual Core Processor - but which one?
• 2GB of Memory - is 3GB overkill?
  
• 120 GB+ Hard drive - willing to sacrifice space for a 7200 RPM drive
• 15" Display - thinking about a 17", but not sure if I want to carry it around
• ATI/nVidia video card - gotta be able to play Unreal during my down time
  
• 802.11B/G Wireless - not sure if I really want to worry about N right now
• DVD-R/CD-RW Drive - to Bluray or not to Bluray, that is the question
• Bluetooth - Must have for my wireless mouse

Questions I have:

• Is a finger print scanner absurd or is it worth the money?
• What's the best lock to get? Yes, I know, I have seen the video too!
  
• Should I get a WLAN card to hook up to my cellular company's network? I am thinking that it might be a good thing to have on the train.
• Is there anything that I am missing? Any little nice to have that really makes a difference for day to day use?
  

Thanks in advance for any help that you might be able to offer.

It had to happen sooner or later.  Too many of the Lotus Community were Macphiles and constantly talked about the positive attributes of the platform.  So as a Thank You for the work I have been doing on Idea Jam, Bruce took it into his own hands to bring me into the fold. 

My initial thought was "What the hell am I going to do with an iMac?"  I mean, I have been a detractor of the platform for a long time.  I mean, if the Macs were so great and all the schools had them, how come that didn't translate into a greater piece of market share?  That being said, I decided to approach this new machine with an open mind.

• It is so very pretty.  Just looking at the 20" flat panel makes me smile.  It's clean, crisp, concise.
• Even though it wasn't pre-installed, a DVD with Leopard on it came in the box.  Of course I upgraded the OS on Day 2.
• I have no real way to compare it to my Windows machines, but it does seem pretty quick.  Of course, it does take me 5 times as long to figure out what I am supposed to be clicking or where I am supposed to be looking for something.  Hopefully, this will change with more experience.
• I still hate the Apple Might Mouse.  Bruce was kind enough to show me that it actually has 2 buttons, but I still miss having a regular mouse.  It's the click and drag that causes me the most problems.
• Along the same line, I am still not completely comfortable with the keyboard.  I think it's just the look more than anything else.  I look at it every now and then just to make sure it's as weird as I thought it was.
• Riddle me this Batman:  If the MacOS is the epitome of easy to use and the Notes Client is it's polar opposite, how come they both use triangles as their twisties?  Since all the Softies seem to believe that the plus/minus combo is more intuitive, I thoroughly expect the same thing to be used on a Mac.  Who'd a thunk that Lotus might not be completely wrong?
• I am struggling mightily with the location of the menu bar.  Instead of each active app having their own shown all the time, only the active window has theirs shown and it's always across the top, no matter where the window is.  Seems like it might be a cause for excessive mouse movement.
• iChat is pretty nice, especially the video chat and screen sharing.  Although Bruce and I had a helluva time stopping the screen sharing once it started, it worked really well and the build in camera is quite nice.
• By far, the coolest thing about the OS is Garage Band.  If I had been able to use such a program earlier in my life, there is no telling what I might have done with the musical interests I had.  Of course, I still wouldn't be able to carry a tune if it was handed to me in a bag.  Hopefully, it won't keep me from using it to create a podcast or 2.  I am thinking this might be the perfect outlet for my chatty 10 year old.

I will continue to put it through it's paces in the next couple of months.  I can't decide if I want to wait until an 8 client comes out before installing Notes.  One thing is sure, with the large hard drive on the machine, I can finally clear off my old desktop and install a Linux server on it.  In my spare time, of course.

Thank You Bruce!

I was listening to my WinAmp library on shuffle today, per normal, and Galileo by the Indigo Girls popped on.  The opening line to this song always struck a chord with me.

Galileo's head was on the block, the crime was looking up for truth

It is absolutely amazing how often that still happens in the science community every day.  Currently, the 800 pound gorilla that no one is allowed to disagree with is Global Warming.  If you happen to come up with data that doesn't fit the current political landscape, you and your career can get buried quicker than you can say "Inquisition".  Cause no one ever expects an Inquisition!

Is the IT world any different?  The common 80s mantra of "No one ever got fired for buying IBM" has morphed into this decade's "No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft".  But should we, as solution providers, always pick the most "popular" solutions to the problem we are trying to solve or should we actually take a detailed look at each solution and pick the one that makes most sense.  We did the latter at a previous job when we chose our SPAM solution and couldn't have chosen a better solution.  Should we just be in it to make a buck by putting in whatever makes us the most money or should we put in the best solution even if it means that the bill won't be as high, but the customer will be very happy?  Something tells me that Chris found a company that lives by the first rule.  Just because you can make money doing something doesn't mean that you will be able to sleep well at night once you do.  If you have a conscious, that is.

If you believe like I do, then Scott Adam's blog is definitely something that you want to keep up with.  The creator of Dilbert puts his opinions out there for all to comment on and sometimes the comments are even funnier than the actual blog entry.  It's hard to imagine that some people still believe the way they do.

Like most of us, I have more than one computer at home and I like to be able to access each system's hard drives from any other computer.  Well, my one laptop just wouldn't let that happen.  It kept giving me an error stating that tjere is a "Logon Failure: user access restriction".  I found this link that told me exactly what I needed to do:

1. Log in as an Administrator
2. Open Control Panel
3. Open Administrative Tools
4. Open Local Security Policy
5. Navigate to Local Policies > Security Options
6. Disable the option for "Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console logon only"

After following these steps, I was able to succesfully access the hard drive from any other computer.  I must have turned it on by accident when I was messing around in the policies.

In case you don't recognize the icons, from left to right it's Sametime, GoogleTalk, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN Messnger.  I can only imagine the drain on my Windows resrouces.

I've had it.  I am sick of applications slowing my machine to a hault when they are supposed to be there just to keep me safe.  So I have started house cleaning on the PCs I have at home.  The first victim is the McAfee Security Center.  The Privacy Service never did what I thought it was going to do....in fact, I'm not sure exactly what it does besides cause me to run down and type in a password when someone yells about another stupid prompt.  While I really liked the features of the Personal Firewall, what do I need it for when my router and Windows XP both have one and they are free.  Finally, the Anti-Virus Protection might be one of the mature applications on the market, but that doesn't explain why it needs to eat so much of my processing power.  Besides, the cost for all 3 products is not free.

Instead of using the McAfee virus product, I downloaded and installed Grisoft's AVG Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware applications for free.  I have heard good things about these products and their price is right for taking them for an extended test drive.

I don't know what will be next on the list, but I am sure this isn't the last change I am going to be making.

After reading Wired's article entitled The RFID Hacking Underground, I don't believe so.

"I just need to bump into James and get my hand within a few inches of him," Westhues says. We're shivering in the early spring air outside the offices of Sandstorm, the Internet security company Van Bokkelen runs north of Boston. As Van Bokkelen approaches from the parking lot, Westhues brushes past him. A coil of copper wire flashes briefly in Westhues' palm, then disappears.

Van Bokkelen enters the building, and Westhues returns to me. "Let's see if I've got his keys," he says, meaning the signal from Van Bokkelen's smartcard badge. The card contains an RFID sensor chip, which emits a short burst of radio waves when activated by the reader next to Sandstorm's door. If the signal translates into an authorized ID number, the door unlocks.

The coil in Westhues' hand is the antenna for the wallet-sized device he calls a cloner, which is currently shoved up his sleeve. The cloner can elicit, record, and mimic signals from smartcard RFID chips. Westhues takes out the device and, using a USB cable, connects it to his laptop and downloads the data from Van Bokkelen's card for processing. Then, satisfied that he has retrieved the code, Westhues switches the cloner from Record mode to Emit. We head to the locked door.

"Want me to let you in?" Westhues asks. I nod.

He waves the cloner's antenna in front of a black box attached to the wall. The single red LED blinks green. The lock clicks. We walk in and find Van Bokkelen waiting.

I can envision a less than scrupulous co-worker using this type of theft to cover up their whereabouts in a secure facility.  Think about it:  it would be very easy to clone a person's card who has uber access to the facility and then use that card to get into places that are usually off limits.  Or worse, you could use the card to access the building at night when there is very little if any security and pilfer anything not locked down.  A person could have a nice little business going while throwing suspicion on some poor schmuck who's card he scanned.

The other scenarios talked about in the article are even more disturbing.  Imagine a government using the RFIDs in your E-Z pass to keep tabs on every where you go without your knowledge.  Scary!

Britain's comedy about our lives is available online for those of you living in the UK.  Ned and Bob found links for all 6 episodes on YouTube.  Take a few minutes out of your day to have a laugh or two.

• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3
• Episode 4
• Episode 5
• Episode 6

Peter de Haas linked to a PCWorld article about an auditor who lost some valuable information.

The auditor for security software firm McAfee may be thinking of buying some security software itself, after one of its employees left an unencrypted CD containing sensitive information on thousands of McAfee employees in the back of an airline seat last December.

Peter thinks that using MS Rights Management Services would have helped save face, but I think that having all that data in a locally encrypted Notes database makes even more sense.  I have no idea what the limitations of RMS are, but I know how good the local encryption is for Notes and how easy it is to use.  Has anyone had any experience with RMS and how good would it work in this instance?

Microsoft has posted for download (with Windows Genuine authentication required) the long-awaited Beta 2 build of its antispyware product, Windows Defender. This build, like previous betas, runs on Windows XP SP2, Windows 2000 (with Service Pack 4) and Windows Server 2003 (with Service Pack 1). Defender ultimately is expected to be integrated into Windows Vista, plus be made available as a standalone product for older Windows versions. Microsoft says it has added new functionality in Beta 2, by tweaking the interface, improving the detection and removal of spyware, adding support for nonadmins, and building 64-bit support into the new release.

I have installed the new version and it ran successfully. It didn't find any spyware, so I am unable to determine if it actually works.

Mary Jo Foley is not convinced of the direction of MS' latest marketing campaign:

"When I explain Windows Live, I describe a service that seamlessly brings Web experiences together with Windows software and provides greater relevance in people's lives," Irving said. "Saying that Windows Live is simply extensions to Windows is too Windows-centric, and saying that it is MSN services rebranded also sells Windows Live short….This isn't about rebranding MSN, it is about building holistic and unified experiences."

That sealed the deal for us. Live is .Net in sheep's clothing. Or maybe it would be more appropriate to say the Live emperors have no clothes?

I never quite understood the .Net campaign and I don't understand what's so special about Live.  If a geek can't get it, how is the average Joe user supposed to get it?

Kevin Petit gets on his soapbox concerning some stats that Jack Dausman posted.

Let's face it, nothing undermines morale among us technical geniuses more than putting our heart and soul into figuring out the best, most cost-effecitive way to meet some technical challenge, only to have some know-nothing manager do something else that ends up failing, costing millions, and leaving the company with no budget to give them raises. Except perhaps watching that manager get a promotion and a raise!

Or even worse, watching some schmuck from Sales get a big, fat commission on a product that you built that basically sells itself.

Notes has always has the reputation for being a resource HOG, but my 2 thin clients show that maybe you can put lipstick on a pig and make it look good. Exactly what are my browsers doing with all that virtual memory? I guess I am going to have to unload some of those Firefox extensions. The bad thing is that you have to restart the browsers to get them to release any of the memory that is allocated to them.

Initially, Microsoft said it didn’t expect to do so until at least Tuesday, but the Redmond software maker said it finished testing earlier than planned and was able to release it on its Web site.

via MSNBC

The bottom line is that Slingbox works exactly as described and is addictive. It allows you to watch and listen to TV wherever you are. Video quality is very good whether you watch inside or outside your home. I haven’t yet tried it overseas but I plan to in the very near future.

via MSNBC

And now, here are the Radicati Group's 10 Predictions for 2005:

1. We expect IBM Lotus Notes/Domino to continue losing market share to MS Exchange and other players.
2. Phishing attacks will get worse before they get better.
3. Blogging will fade away from the corporate world and be considered a consumer tool, no longer a credible source of news.
4. Microsoft will speed up development on the next version of Internet Explorer, and release an update before Longhorn (the current plan is to release the next version of IE with Longhorn in 2006).
5. Microsoft will enter the anti-virus market in a year when the severity of virus attacks will reach an all time high.
6. Biometrics will become the latest trend in security systems, for network access, desktop access, and physical building access.
7. Hosted Email providers will see strong growth, as more and more companies look to email as a service, considering the rising costs and complexity of in-house systems.
8. Google will introduce an IM client that will do surprisingly well.
9. IM Management vendors will continue to be the biggest winners in the IM space, as more and more companies will have a need for better IM security, archiving, and retrieval.
10. In the email archiving and compliance market, we expect consolidation of features in the form of all-in-one appliance solutions.

Unfortunately, those weren't major league curveballs she was trying to hit, so the .300 average is not going to get her an 8 figure contract this year. As Ed has pointed out, Notes/Domino revenue has continues to increase in 2005 and MS customers are still waiting for a new version of Exchange. No other viable competitor has emerged from the pack. And it seems that everyone, including CEOs, have their own blog up and running. More companies are encouraging their employees to blog, both internally and externally. No MS Antivirus that I know of has hit the market and the Google IM, while newsworthy, isn't exactly setting the world on fire. The other 3 predictions were too vague to determine whether or not came true, although I didn't hear about any appliances from the archiving vendors that I talked with in August and September.

"For the sixth time in five years, federal courts have now blocked or struck down these state and local laws seeking to regulate the sale of games to minors based on their content, and none have upheld such statutes," ESA president Douglas Lowenstein said in a statement.

via Judge blocks California video game law | CNET News.com

When I was at Lotus in the early ’90s, companies were a lot more vertically integrated than they are right now. At that time, people were attempting to use fairly nascent technology to break down the walls within the organization, meaning they were trying to get different departments within an organization to work together. They were trying to flatten organizations internally and get people to work together across stovepipes, within organizations, just to make processes operate more smoothly.

Sadly, I think enterprises have a lot of issues going on inside them that make it very difficult to embrace some of these innovations. Frankly, the path that we’re on leads one to believe that a lot of the benefits of these innovations are accruing to small businesses and individuals much more readily than enterprises. The reason: Enterprises are really different from the public Internet in that they have fairly substantial compliance issues. They have control hierarchies related to technology acquisition and enablement of end users. They mandate the use of certain technologies and mandate that others not be used. They control the upgrade tempo. I’ve never seen the technology environment as divergent as it is right now between what’s going on outside enterprises and what’s going on inside enterprises.

via Mary Jo Foley

Certainly, that's what Apple notebook-oriented website O'Grady's PowerPage suggests, without citing specific sources. Apple has already dropped FireWire from the latest iPods - much to the annoyance of numerous Register readers with older, USB 1.1-equipped Macs - so it's clearly shifting its allegiance to USB 2.0, which while technologically inferior to FireWire is fast enough for almost all PC-peripheral connections.

According to O'Grady, the upcoming Intel-based iBooks will lack FireWire and x86 PowerBooks will have a single FireWire 800 port for digital video enthusiasts and professionals to make use of. And 1394, as it's also known, will continue in non-PC applications.

via The Register

The year was 1979, Jimmy Carter was President of the United States, disco reigned supreme with The Bee Gees and Donna Summer, and Infocom a gaming company was founded by a few MIT geeks. Infocom would later release one of the earliest gaming hits called Zork for the Commodore 64, Apple II, and Atari. Zork was one of the first truly interactive games created, a text-based game you had to actually type out what you wanted to do - how things have changed.

Now you can be nostalgic and enjoy the Zork game on your Blackberry, thanks to the program ZeeME and Craig Setera. Although substantially smaller than the full game, it contains all the memorable bits including the many novel creatures and objects like the grues and zorkminds.

Link to the article on Blackberry Cool

Microsoft continues to slowly trickle out bits of information about its Office 12 suite. On Thursday the company will announce that it plans to make XML-based file formats the default in the version of Office due to ship in the latter half of 2006.

Microsoft is introducing the new formats as part of Office 12, officials said, and will share more details about them at next week's Tech Ed 2005 conference in Orlando, Fla.

The new Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats will be designated as .docx, .xlsx and .pptx , respectively. Microsoft is referring to the family of new formats as "Microsoft Office Open XML Formats."

Microsoft is committing to publish the forthcoming XML formats and make them available under the same royalty-free license under which the current Office 2003 file formats are. Licensees will be able to integrate these formats into their servers, applications and business processes "without financial consideration to Microsoft," according to the Redmond software vendor.

For users of older versions of Office — specifically Office 2000, Office 2003 and Office XP — Microsoft will make available software downloads that will allow them to read, edit and save using the new file formats. Microsoft also plans to release a conversion tool that will allow users to point to files in an older format and convert them en masse to the new Office 12 XML format.

Office 12 to Get New File Formats
Office 12 to Feature New XML File Formats
Mac Office 12 Will Support XML File Formats, Too

I just couldn't go on being an evangelist for a gospel that I don't believe I can sing. I am returning to focus on what I enjoy most, building amazing things that make people happy, change lives, and make money.

A Trojan horse program is targeting one of the security holes recently found in Windows. It doesn't look serious, but experts worry bigger exploits could be around the corner.

Meanwhile, Microsoft confirmed it's investigating the reported vulnerabilities and blasted Chinese security forum Xfocus for bringing the details to light over the holiday weekend. An attacker could exploit the vulnerabilities -- discovered by Venustech Security Labs of China -- to cause a denial of service and launch spyware or other malicious code.

• I took Track 2 - Administering BlackBerry in Domino. The 3 sessions specific to that track were What's New in 4.0, Upgrading to 4.0, and Disaster Recovery in 4.0.
• First off, 4.0 is going to be very kewl. It will require an upgrade of both the BES and the handheld software. A couple of things that are immediately helpful are the wireless activation of the handhelds and the ability for IT to enforce policies on the devices. In fact, admins will be able to wipe the handheld completely in case it is ever lost or stolen.
• Address book and Journal synchronization is now supported wirelessly and can be accomplished by replicating the address books to a server, synchronizing with the iNotes Contact List, or using the Roaming profiles.
• The Desktop Manager is completely optional now. It is only necessary if you use a third party PIM like Organizer or ACT. A "Lite" version of the DM will be available for updating the core software of the handhelds and can be run from a server share. Almost all the synchronization configuration that used to be done on the DM can now be accomplished on the handheld and updated wirelessly.
• All of the user's settings are automatically backed up on the Server wirelessly.
• AES is now supported along side Triple DES encryption. Local encryption is also available.
• 4.0 will now require the use of MSDE or SQL for the configuration database. This will allow you to move users between BESes for load balancing and to repopulate the profile database in case of deletion or corruption. In my mind, this will be a step back for the Domino platform due to the requirement of another database technology. No longer will Domino clustering alone be a viable solution for having a hot spare BES server. I will be interested to see what kind of feedback RIM gets on this.
• BlackBerry Controller will now monitor the health of your BlackBerry services and restart them in case any of them fail or hang.
• You can now edit your Out of Office settings from your BlackBerry.
• Assuming you have a screen that will support it, you can now view images on your BlackBerry, including being able to zoom, pan, and rotate the image.
• The Administration Manager in Domino is brand new and contains all kinds of information about the BlackBerry devices. This information is updated on a regular basis from the device and includes things like available memory, battery life, wireless network, phone number, and many other details. And all of this is exportable to CSV or accessible directly through the RDBMS backend.
• The number of log files has been increased as has the information that they contain.

Searching in Outlook is like a bad dream--the one where you're trying to run and your feet keep moving, but you get nowhere. As one sufferer puts it, "Whenever I try to search for messages in Outlook, the dreaded hourglass pops up, and I stare at it for minutes at a time--that is, if the blasted program doesn't crash altogether. What's the point of having a search feature if it takes so long?"

Oops!

Flash back 15 years: Systems analyst pilot fish at a defense contractor designs and develops an automated notification system for calling up reservists during an emergency. Today, he's an IT director. "Imagine my surprise when I received a job application from someone who worked for the same defense contractor," fish says, "and claimed he had designed and developed that same system for calling up reservists. He did not get the job."

By the early 1990s, the company had lost touch with its customers and prevailing industry trends, having based its strategy on locking clients into proprietary mainframe systems. Gerstner, a former IBM customer himself, ridiculed the computing industry's modus operandi of forcing customers to upgrade to solve business problems.

Now, Palmisano is pushing to complete IBM's transformation from primarily a hardware company to one led by software and services. The idea is that customers want bundled "solutions" of software, hardware and services tailored to specific industries, rather than a catalog of products.

"There's no question who our biggest competitor is," said Microsoft senior vice president Bob Muglia. "It is IBM."

Hackers are often perceived as shady characters but securing your perimeter is about anticipating and understanding all forms of threats -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- to your network. Whatever their motives, we hope you will gain some insights into the psyche of a hacker.

"Microsoft is using its control over the interchange of digital media to aid its ongoing effort to deter competition," states PUBPAT's Request for Ex Partes Reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 5,579,517. "The ‘517 patent is causing immeasurable injury to the public by serving as a tool to enlarge Microsoft’s monopoly while also preventing competition."

Last fall, Microsoft began to demand royalty bearing licenses for the entire portfolio of patents around the FAT File System. However, the fact that Microsoft has not offered licenses for use in Free and Open Source Software has led some to speculate that Microsoft intends to use its patents to fight the competitive threat posed by Free Software

Link to news article on PUBPAT's site

The Grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is either adventurers or enchanters, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its horrible fear of light. No grues have ever been seen by the light of day, and only a few have been observed in their underground lairs. Of those who have seen grues, few ever survived their fearsome jaws to tell the tale. Grues have sharp claws and fangs, and an uncontrollable tendency to slaver and gurgle. They are certainly the most evil-tempered of all creatures; to say they are touchy is a dangerous understatement. "Sour as a grue" is a common expression, even among themselves.

• Cigarette Lighter Mod - I always love to light one up with my 2 AM Jolt Cola and Pop-tart snack
• PlusDesk - Now I can restore all of my basic files that I wrote on my Commodore 64
• Laser-Sighted MiniTemp - "you can check the temperature of that overclocked chip you have running in your case"
• Ambient Orb Device - Is this the mood ring for the 21st Century?
• Smart ID WiFi Detector - Why pay for Internet access when you can steal your neighbors or your competitors?
• Duct Tape Wallet (pictured) - If you can't fix it, Duct it!!!