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OS X 10.4 has some glitches of its own

Certainly users must be frustrated with the abysmal support that Microsoft offers for its Windows XP x64 Edition, but users switching to the latest Apple operating system 10.4 Tiger should prepare for some unpleasant surprises too.

Cisco Systems already confirmed that the new version of OS X won't work with its VPN software (virtual private network). The technology is often used to securely connect from home to an office network. An upgrade should be available by mid-May.

In addition to the Cisco VPNs, Tivo's desktop software won't work with OS X 10.4 either, according to a posting on TiVo's website.

The issues appear to be minor, but it just proves that the old mantra still goes: it's better to hold of switching for a few months so the bugs can be worked out.

April 30, 2005 at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Music management beyond the iPod (Sun Labs Day)

You won't have to pick your music because you think that Britney Spears is hot, predicts Paul Lamere, a principal investigator with Sun Labs. But you still might get it because your computer know you think her music is good.

Lamere developed a technology that makes recommendations for music you might like, based on an analysis of the existing music in you library. Instead of using buying patterns (Eg: shoppers who bought Britney spears also bought Beethoven) the software bases its analysis on the actual song, looking at features such as rhythm and beat strength. It will then find songs with similar characteristics.

The software for instance lets you pick two songs you like and then tracks a path from point A to B. Or it will just find songs similar to that one favorite of yours.

In the picture below the software plotted a path from rock band Metallica to Jazz artist Dave Brubeck in 15 steps.

The demo used a collection of 10,000 songs, but Lamere expects that our music collections will grow to about 1 million songs in the future as storage technologies continue to advance.

The second picture shows a map of all the music in the demo, mapped out on a grid. The prepresents the path that the software took to get from Metallica to Brubaker.

April 29, 2005 at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Sun Labs opens its doors

Sun labs is one of this institutions where scientists run around trying to solve unsolvable problems. The server vendor allocates about two percent of its research and development budget to Sun Labs, yet it is responsible for roughly 50 percent of all the patents filed within the company.

Once a year Sun Labs opens its doors to show off some of the projects they are working on. This isn't just a PR stunt – research arms inside tech companies often have to fight for their survival. They don't work on revenue generating products, and often create technology that makes existing product lines obsolete. Opening their doors to internal and external visitors allows Sun Labs to justify its existence.

Glen Edens Glen Edens, director of Sun Labs, describes his task as: finding what replaces Solaris, Sparc and Java. If you were the Java product manager, wouldn’t you too rather kill this Edens figure? Opening Sun Lab's doors is merely a preemptive strike against all the threatened Sun employees.

In the following post you'll see some projects that I found noteworthy at this year's Sun Labs Day that took place yesterday (Thursday) at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

Sun's Glen Edens.

April 29, 2005 at 09:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Friday of rumours

Does Sun Microsystems want to go private? According to report in Business Week, the server vendors considers delisting itself from the Nasdaq stock exchange through a leveraged buyout. But the story was based on one anonymous source. Sun stock went up. Sun COO Jonathan Schwartz called the Wall Street Journal and said that the folks at Business Week must have been smoking pot. Or fell victim to a source who hoped to make a quick buck by driving up the stock price.

A little more credibility has a report that Siebel System is in talks with Oracle for a possible takeover. The two have been in talks in the past. Siebel since landed in the bargain basement after firing its CEO two weeks ago and posting disappointing financial results earlier this week.

April 29, 2005 at 07:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Microsoft gives users the finger

Microsoft thinks you are a redundant dinosaur if you haven't yet switched to Office 2003. They won't say it out loud, but that's the message they send with their latest marketing campaign for the productivity suite.

It's always nice when your vendor tells you he appreciates your business in such a clear way.

It reminds me of an advertising campaign that a cable company once ran. They showed people that looked their dumbest with the accompanying text asking the reader: "Or do you want to keep progress out?" Of course this made me run to the phone. Not to order their broadband internet or VoIP telephone service, but to tell them that I hate them too. And that I don't appreciate it when people say I'm stupid, especially when those people don't know me.

So, dear Microsoft, why don't you come over? Then you can learn that I don't need XML in my word documents. I don't need to build connections between my enterprise applications and Excel or Word. And even if I would want to, there are other ways that don't include your overpriced Office 2003.

Or maybe you mean to say that you think your product is too advanced and overpriced for me. Are you trying to tell me that I should take a look at OpenOffice? Now that's the smartest thing you've said in a long time.

April 28, 2005 at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Microsoft gives bloggers a royal WinHEC treatment

Bloggers don't have to be a pain in the behind, as Apple seems to think. Microsoft this week at WinHEC showed that there is a better approach to take to bloggers: treat them like royalty. Spoil them. Bribe them. And then let them loose.

The company flew a dozen of bloggers from all over the world to Seattle for the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) and put them up in hotels, labelled them as 64 bit enthusiasts and handed them a press pass.. When they left, the bloggers had brand new Intel processors and video cards stacked in their bags.

I can't help but wonder: does this breed complacency?

Of course not, the bloggers will say. On the contrary. But the truth lies in the eyes of the beholder: if it breeds the appearance of complacency, you as a blogger have lost your credibility.

Microsoft put up a list of WinHEC bloggers. Consider it the wall of shame. Not all the bloggers on there accepted free travel, but many of the "External bloggers" have put their reputations at stake. (I want to emphasise that Mary Jo Foley goes free - she is a professional journalist with eWeek).

Silicon Valley Sleuth attended WinHEC, but paid for his own travel and hotel (with a little help from my corporate sponsor vnunet.com).

Media in the US don't accept travel or housing arrangements around events. Accepting gifts is prohibited, or subject to monetary limits (typically $25). When reputable US media cover a Microsoft sponsored event like WinHEC, the only perk they get is a free press pass that gives them access to the keynotes and sessions. Oh, and a lunch of soggy sandwiches in the pressroom.

In the rest of the world things are a little more complicated. Historically technology companies fly in press from Asia and Europe for major events.
So did Microsoft at WinHEC.

The companies certainly won't stop doing it: a few thousand dollars in hotel and airfare gets them far more exposure than they would be able to buy through advertising.

For many money strapped publications accepting travel is the only way to attend shows like WinHEC, JavaOne or RSA Security. At least they don't bring back home hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars worth in hardware. And here too goes: if they even create the illusion of complacency, they lose their credibility.

April 28, 2005 at 08:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

64 bits Windows far from ready

Delegates at WinHEC in Seattle received a CD with the new Windows XP Professional x64 edition. So once I got home from Seattle, I popped in the CD.

I don't consider myself the type of person that overclocks his CPU or has water cooling, but I couldn’t resist and created a separate partition on my hard drive to install the software on the AMD 64 bits system that sits next to my Apple.

And that's when all hell broke loose.

The software didn't recognize the graphics card but tried to run at a high screen resolution nonetheless. The result: a black screen at the system boot.

The graphic card manufacturer offers a 64-bits driver for download on its website (you can't use your old 32 bits drivers in Win x64) and that took care of the problem. But next the computer also lacked the proper drivers for my scanner, webcam, audio card or SM Bus controller (some feature on the motherboard). The website of the computer manufacturer didn't help much, as it didn't offer ANY 64 bits drivers.

On to install my virus scanner? Forget it! An error message pointed me to a website that stated that: "Symantec currently does not sell any consumer products that are certified to be compatible with 64-bits processors and operating system."

Bear in mind that this just the personal experience of one user who isn't geeky enough to overclock his CPU, but I wouldn't be surprised when more users will run into problems.

Now I suddenly understand why HP won't ship Win XP x64 on its 64 bits computers. When the company told IDG News that the operating system was just for gamers and digital media enthusiasts, he just wanted to say politely that the operating systems doesn't work for regular users.

The gamers and media enthusiasts have to jump through so many hoops, that you'd have to be a true enthusiast to prevent you from giving up.

April 27, 2005 at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Longhorn turns network users into doctors (WinHEC)

The upcoming version of Windows will contain a feature that helps users to troubleshoot their networks. The application, previewed at WinHEC, gives a graphical presentation of your network and will indicate any problems (see picture below). The official name for this is Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD).

Many users will find LLTD a useful technology, but it's also sad that we need it to administer our networks. Acutually, that we need to adminster out networks to begin with.

This isn't something that we can blame on Microsoft, but instead of LLTD, wouldn't users prefer to see that their networks just worked?

April 26, 2005 at 09:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Beware the Tablet revolution (WinHEC)

If Tablet PC functionality wasn't on you wishllist last time you purchased a notebook PC, you're not alone. Tablet PCs made up 1.3 percent of overall notebook sales in 2004, according to IDC.

A lack of applications that use the "pen" functionality, similar to a touch screen, could be to blame. So Microsoft earlier this month released a free "Experience Pack".

It offers users a collection of applications that use the tablet's pen capabilities. Think crossword puzzles (you get a new one every day for the next three years!), drawing applications or the capability to easily exchange video and music between your PC and Tablet.

The applications look nice, but none of them has the appeal that would cause me to pick a tablet the next time I'm buying a portable computer. Especially not when tablets are still priced about $100 higher than their non-tablet counterparts.

Free crosswords on your Tablet - a must have feature... if you're fed up with Freecell.

April 26, 2005 at 08:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

WinHEC: The Longhorn stripping continues

Microsoft has pulled yet another feature from Longhorn. When the operating system ships in 2006, the Next Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB – the most impossible acronym in the industry. But Microsoft will let you pronounce it as Engscub) will be a mere sliver of the old promise.

The only feature that will be available is Secure Startup:
A technology that protects users against offline attacks, blocking access to the computer if the content of the hard drive is compromised. This prevents a laptop thief from swapping out the hard drive or booting up the system from a floppy disk to circumvent security features.

The system's security was supposed to come from compartments, separated areas within the OS that would prevent a virus from spreading itself freely through the system. The technology is still under development, but won't be available until 2007-8.

Manuel Novoa, a distinguished technologist and security architect at HP's Personal Systems Group, told vnunet.com that when the OS ships, users will get a version of NGSCB that is "NGSCB with a delay".

But it gets better. The security features in NGSCB rely on a special security chip, the trusted platform module (TPM). But most systems that ship today don't have that chip. And the chip isn't even a requirement for systems to receive the official label that they are ready for Longhorn under Microsoft's "Ready PC" programme.

So even if you have Longhorn, and even if you have a Longhorn ready PC, chance are that your system won't be able to support NGSCB. How's that for taking computer security seriously?

April 26, 2005 at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack