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Bad gifts may be history with Amazon's idea (AP) : Technet |
- Bad gifts may be history with Amazon's idea (AP)
- Americans turn to technology to control impulses (AP)
- Review: High-tech snow sports gear is cool fun (AP)
- RIM offers data tapping at India office: report (Reuters)
- Remains of the Day: Beer me (Macworld)
- Police: Idaho man hit teen on flight over phone (AP)
- Canada is most web-addicted nation: study (Reuters)
- Sears, Kmart launch Alpahline online video store (Reuters)
- 2010: The Year Facebook Dethroned Google as King of the Web [STATS] (Mashable)
- Best social networking apps of 2010 (Appolicious)
- Skype says software to blame for 24-hour outage (AP)
- Android Mobile Malware Has Botnet-like Traits (PC World)
- How You Know When It’s Time to Switch to Linux (PC World)
- Skype Explains Service Outage, Post-Mortem (PC World)
| Bad gifts may be history with Amazon's idea (AP) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 12:11 PM PST SAN FRANCISCO – For some, it's the red reindeer Christmas sweater. For others, it's the diamond-encrusted dreidel. Whatever your worst gift nightmare might be, Amazon may soon give you a reason to cheer. Amazon.com Inc., the source of many presents good, bad or ugly, has patented a system that would let people exchange unwanted gifts for those they actually want — even before they get them. For now, though, it's just an idea, so until Amazon figures out how to implement it, you may be stuck with that itchy sweater from Grandma, even if she bought it online. Amazon did not return messages to speak about its plans. Based on Amazon's patent filing, recipients of unwanted gifts would be able to exchange items that are too big, too colorful or otherwise unwanted for something of equal value. They could also pay the difference for a more expensive item or get a gift certificate. They could do this before they actually receive the gift, thus saving themselves the hassle of re-packaging and mailing the unwanted present. If they wish, recipients could even send a thank you-note for the original gift. They can disclose to the sender that their gift has been converted, or simply keep it from them and just hope they don't ask about it later. If there's a friend or family member with a history of giving unwanted presents — the filing calls her "Aunt Mildred" — users could select to convert all gifts from this person into something else. Amazon says its idea would benefit gift-givers as well, as they can take a chance on a more interesting gift knowing that it can be returned. A charity could also use it to streamline donations, according to the patent filing. For example, a children's charity asking for mittens could have donations stop once they have 100 pairs. The rest can be converted into hats, scarves or gift certificates. Amazon, which is based in Seattle, had applied for the patent in March 2006. The company received it on Nov. 9. The Washington Post reported earlier on the development. Any system that Amazon sets up would presumably apply to Amazon-bought items, but the patent could cover similar systems set up by rivals as well. Even if Amazon implements the system, it's unclear how many people would use it. In part because returning gifts purchased online is such a hassle, people who buy presents this way generally make sure it's something the recipient really wants, said C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group, a consumer and market research company. Or they give gift cards. A decade ago, before gift cards became ubiquitous, about 38 percent of consumers returned presents after Christmas, Beemer said. Last year, this was only about 13 percent. The percentage is even smaller for gifts bought online. ___ Online: Patent filing: http://bit.ly/exc4x1 |
| Americans turn to technology to control impulses (AP) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 02:09 PM PST NEW YORK – Dan Nainan can't trust himself to work at his computer without clicking on distractions, so he uses an Internet-blocking program to shut down his Web access twice a day. "I'm sorry, but try as I might, I could never, ever do this on my own," said the New York City comedian who's struggling to finish a book. "I wish I could, but I just don't have the discipline." Nainan's system of two, two-hour blocks is one example of how Americans are trying to control their impulses using technology that steps in to enforce good behavior. With the new year days away, many tools are now available to help people stay in line, including a GPS-enabled app that locks down texting once a car gets rolling and a program that cuts off credit-card spending. Another device monitors your workout and offers real-time voice feedback. Have we entered an era in which electronics serve as mother, cop and coach because we can't manage our own desires? Yep, said Ann Mack, a trend-watcher for JWT Intelligence, an arm of the marketing giant. She named "outsourcing self-control" and "de-teching" as two top trends for the new year. "The thing is we're becoming more aware of these behaviors, and as a result, we're trying to seek help to circumvent some of our more base impulses," Mack said. "We're bombarded more and more with temptations on a regular basis, and it's getting increasingly difficult to deal with that." Tools to cope with temptation are everywhere. Some car owners are voluntarily using a technology developed for convicted drunk drivers — ignition locks attached to in-car breathalyzers. Shelley Snyder, marketing coordinator for Intoxalock, said about 1.5 percent of the company's clients are voluntary, which includes parents imposing the setup on their young drivers. "I know that isn't a lot, but it is growing at a slow, steady pace," she said. One of Intoxalock's competitors, Guardian Interlock Systems, said its figures are slightly higher: 5 to 7 percent of clients are drivers voluntarily installing the equipment, with about 2 percent intended for use by teens. Also gaining ground are clients using the system permanently after they've completed court-ordered monitoring — about 1 percent of Guardian's clients in 2010, compared with none the year before. "We hope not to see these people again," said David Contreras, Guardian's vice president of operations. "It's the one product I've been associated with where I don't want to sell it to you twice." If your drunken behavior tends to cause more remorse off the road than on, there's an app for that as well. A handful — including "Don't Dial!" and "The Bad Decision Blocker" — will cut off your access to phone numbers for up to 24 hours, the former allowing you to name a friend as gatekeeper. Another app requires the answers to math questions before allowing you to send an e-mail, the presumption being it's really hard to do math while somehow impaired. George Distler in Orlando, Fla., developed the BlackBerry app NOTXT n' Drive after a teacher at his daughter's high school was killed when a texting motorist — an older one — crossed a median and struck her car. "I didn't even realize texting and driving was such a tremendous issue until I got into investigating it," he said. "I was challenged by my teenage daughters." Distler, who had previously developed games for the iPhone, based the app on the notion that the safest way to deal with your phone while driving is to remove temptation altogether. His NOTXT runs in the background and, using GPS, automatically restricts texting via a phone's airplane mode when a car reaches 10 mph. It deactivates when it detects the car has stopped. The app, sold in several other counties as well, hit the BlackBerry market Sept. 3 and has been downloaded about 2,000 times. Among those downloading the app were three companies with a combined fleet of more than 1,200 trucks. Distler estimates about 48 percent of his sales are parents hoping to curtail the texting habits of young drivers. "Nobody's really going to just put the phone down and not use it," he said. "The issue is we don't police ourselves." Another app, Slow Down, alters the tempo of your music, depending on your driving speed, on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Using GPS, the music slows if a preset speed limit is exceeded and stops completely if you're over the limit by more than 10 mph. You can have your tunes back when you slow down. What about other areas, like overspending? Enter MasterCard's inControl program, which has one company partner in the United States, Citigroup. You can set a general cap and the bank cuts you off when you've reached your spending limit, or you can preset a monthly amount for specific purchases such as restaurant meals. Like other bank cards, you can also order up spending alerts. Overthinking, overdrinking, overspending. What's left? Are you lonely on your runs? Adidas has extended monitoring and data collection technology for its miCoach brand to include a "coaching mode." You can choose from a variety of voices to feed information about form and speed. Mack thinks a greater awareness of how we consume has produced a growing awareness of the limits of self-control. "The spotlight has definitely been put on that," she said. "We're increasingly living in this era of mindfulness. Expect more technology coming out that saves us from ourselves." |
| Review: High-tech snow sports gear is cool fun (AP) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 09:16 AM PST TANNERSVILLE, Pa. – Each winter the masses spill on to snow-slathered slopes, often wearing a new jacket or toting new skis and a renewed desire to test the mountain. This year there is plenty of high-tech gear to help them do it faster and better. I tried a few products aimed at augmenting the snow-riding experience: two helmet cameras that record high-definition video, an ultra-light snowboard made with a layer of hemp and gloves designed with shutterbugs in mind. If you've advanced past the bunny slopes and are serious about outdoor sports, you might want to check these out: • The Contour GPS ($349.95), from Seattle, Wash.-based Contour Inc., is a light video camera designed to be worn on a sports helmet, mounted onto bicycle handlebars or affixed to other surfaces with appropriate add-ons. It's is less than 4 inches long with a lens tube not much wider than a half-dollar coin. It records to a Micro SD memory card and can shoot at full high-definition resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. I strapped the camera against my helmet by threading my goggle strap through the mount on the side of the camera. The camera rested flush and snug against the right side of my helmet. The Contour GPS has a finger-sized slider on top of the camera with two positions — record and off. That made it easy to use with gloves on. The resulting HD footage was high-quality stuff. I had crisp footage of the slopes, trees and my riding partner as we plummeted down the slopes. It was shaky when I turned my head to look for oncoming traffic, or when my snowboard chattered a bit on an icy patch of snow. But it was better than I've been able to do previously while holding a video camera in my hand while riding. The sound quality was better than expected. The GPS feature was the cherry on top. After launching the Contour Storyteller software (Mac or Windows), I was able to watch my videos and an overhead map view (courtesy of Google) that gave me the speed and elevation at all point during my ride. I was represented by a dot, and a line showed the path I took. The display showed me doing a brisk 20 mph as I slid down the Big Pocono Run at Camelback Mountain Resort. • The Drift HD 170 ($329), from U.K.-based Drift Innovation, is a camera with some different standout features. It boasts a wireless remote to record and stop recording (which I wore like a watch), and a built-in LCD screen for convenient playback. I attached the Drift camera to the top of my helmet with the provided stick-on mount of sturdy plastic. I wore the remote on my wrist like a watch. It was nice to watch the footage over lunch on the camera's LCD screen, just in case I missed a shot of a particular run that I might want to do over. Once I viewed the footage on a proper HD display, I found the footage slightly sharper and more vivid than the Contour GPS's. An 8-gigabyte SD card was more than enough to shoot an entire day's worth of fun on the slopes. The battery lasted, too. • The Slackcountry UL ($649.95), from Ride Snowboards, trades the snowboard's traditional top layer of plastic for hemp fiber. The engineers at Ride claim the hemp cuts the board's weight by nearly half a pound and is stronger than the traditional design. It's early in the season, so there wasn't much thick powder to glide over in the Poconos, something the lightweight board is designed to do well. But the Slackcountry UL rocked quickly and accurately from edge to edge down an advanced slope. It felt quick and responsive, more so than my older Burton board. I did notice that the rougher hemp-laden top surface was too coarse to hold my stick-on scrape plate, which I use to knock snow off the bottom of my boot. That's the lone strike against the novel top layer. If hemp truly is more environmentally friendly to produce and bond onto Ride's snowboards as the company states, the designers are to be applauded for ingenuity. I don't ride hard enough to break a board's tail or tip, but the increased strength that hemp gives should please aggressive riders who go after the terrain park. • Seattle, Wash.-based POW Gloves has two models, the Transfilmer ($65) and the Pho-tog ($50), both designed to protect a photographer's hands during snow season while freeing up the index finger to work the shutter button. On the Pho-tog glove, the tips covering the thumb and index finger can be peeled back. The Transfilmer model is a mitten that peels back to reveal the bare tip of the index finger while the other fingers are covered by an interior glove. I found both models to be a vast improvement over fully removing a glove in cold conditions just to snap off a shot or two. Each of these products is a smart choice for the slopes this winter. They incorporate a blend of new technology and design to enhance your experience on the snow, and they may just make you the envy of the lift line. ___ Online: |
| RIM offers data tapping at India office: report (Reuters) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 08:12 PM PST NEW DELHI (Reuters) – BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion has offered to install a network data analysis system at its premises in India that would help tap data, the Economic Times reported on Thursday, citing an internal note from India's interior ministry. The paper said India's interior ministry had suggested RIM set up the infrastructure, which can automatically decode all data flowing on the company's network, and also ensure that intercepted information will not travel outside the country. The paper did not specify if the infrastructure would allow data tapping for both corporate email and instant messenger services, which India had threatened to shut off unless it gains access to them, in a campaign driven by fears that unmonitored communication puts the country's security at risk. An India-based spokesman for RIM was not immediately available to comment. RIM averted a ban earlier this year, and the Indian government said in late October that RIM had set up an interim arrangement for lawful interception of BlackBerry Messenger services and assured a final solution by the end of January 2011. Government officials have said they were still in talks with RIM for access to corporate emails on BlackBerry. RIM has previously said it has consistent global standards for lawful access that do not include special deals for specific countries. For the newspaper story, see www.economictimes.com (Writing by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Aradhana Aravindan) |
| Remains of the Day: Beer me (Macworld) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 04:30 PM PST iPhones send beers and fists flying, CNN is still thinking about 'Antennagate', and magazines are struggling on the iPad. If I'm not mistaken, these are your remainders for Wednesday, December 29. Mini fridge beer cannon (YouTube) A tech-savvy YouTuber posted a video depicting a mini-fridge full of beer, an air cannon, and the iPhone that merges the two into a rapid-fire beer can dispensing machine. Via a Web app, the owner can check beer temperature, choose a specific beverage, aim the fridge using its built-in Webcam, and fire when ready. Not everyone at Macworld is 100 percent convinced that this is real, but we've concluded that were it faked, they likely would have gone with better beer. The 10 biggest tech 'fails' of 2010 (CNN) In its roundup of what it called the biggest 'fails' of 2010, CNN awarded Apple a full 20 percent of the ignominious honors. iPhone 4 'Antennagate' and iTunes Ping made up two of the ten 'fails' on the list. I won't argue that Ping deserves more love, but it's hard to agree with Antennagate, since Apple's sold more than 14 million iPhone 4s. Apple hasn't responded to CNN's dis—and likely won't—but I like to imagine Apple would pinpoint CNN's biggest fail for 2010 as "a once-prestigious news organization resorting to using 'fail' as a noun." Magazines Doomed Once Again as iPad Sales Slump (Gizmodo) Don't misread Gizmodo's headline (like I did) and wrongly assume that the site is claiming iPad sales are slumping. Rather, it seems that iPad sales of virtual magazines are slumping because apparently all of us iPad owners are too busy playing Words With Friends. Gizmodo says that Wired's numbers on the iPad are down 80 percent, and Vanity Fair, Glamour, and GQ are all down, too. From publishers' perspective, however, Apple's continued failure—see how it's done CNN?—to implement a traditional subscription service makes them so mad that they want to punch someone. Idaho passenger punches teen during airborne iPhone dispute (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) Speaking of which, a 68-year-old Idahoan was arrested yesterday after punching a teen who refused to turn off his iPhone in preparation for landing. On a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas into Boise, the teen allegedly ignored crewmember instructions to turn off all portable electronic devices, and the senior citizen then allegedly took matters into his own hands. Or rather, fists. The legal statute that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas reportedly doesn't apply once you've entered Idaho airspace. |
| Police: Idaho man hit teen on flight over phone (AP) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 03:53 PM PST BOISE, Idaho – Police say a man on a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Boise struck a teenager who refused to turn off his cell phone. Officers arrested 68-year-old Russell E. Miller at the Boise airport on suspicion of misdemeanor battery Tuesday. He has been released from jail on bond. KBOI-TV reports witnesses told police the 15-year-old was playing games and listening to music on an iPhone when flight attendants instructed passengers to turn off their electronic devices. Boise police spokesman Charles McClure say the plane was leaving the Las Vegas airport at the time. Witnesses say when the teen didn't respond, Miller got angry and struck the boy in the arm. The Idaho Statesman reports that Miller says he "tapped" the teen on the shoulder after the boy refused to turn off the phone. Miller told the newspaper that he may have "overreacted," but that he did not punch the teen. |
| Canada is most web-addicted nation: study (Reuters) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 04:37 PM PST TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) – Maybe it's all those Justin Bieber fans: Canadians log more time on the web and social media, including Facebook and YouTube, than any other nation. The measurement company comScore reported Canada has the highest penetration of Internet access, with around 68% of Canadians routinely surfing online, against 62% in France and Britain. Close behind is 60% of Germans going online and, south of the border, 59% of Americans. The laggards are Italians, where only 36% of the population goes online, according to comScore. Web-addicted Canadians now spend an average 42 hours a month surfing the web, up from 40 hours in 2009, and view an average 147 videos a month on YouTube and other online video websites. And around 17 million Canadians, or 51% of the population, have Facebook accounts. Canada has a vibrant Twitterverse, with an estimated 5% of the traffic routinely following the world domination of homegrown pop idol Justin Bieber. Despite Canada's broadband connectivity, Canadians still lag Americans in their embrace of so-called "smart TV." Netflix is only a recent entrant into the Canadian market, while Google TV and Apple TV have yet to break through north of the border. The delay is due in part to the country's TV watchdog debating whether to regulate the Internet as major cable and phone carriers steadily buy up major TV networks -- Shaw Communications purchasing Canwest Global Communications Corp., Rogers Communications picking up Citytv and Bell Canada acquiring CTV -- to offer TV to Canadians across multiple digital platforms before American behemoths establish themselves here. |
| Sears, Kmart launch Alpahline online video store (Reuters) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 04:36 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Sears and Kmart are entering the digital-movie rental and sale industry with the new online video store Alphaline Entertainment. The retailers, both owned by Sears Holdings, charge per title, making the service less like Netflix's subscription model and more akin to Apple's iTunes, except that it's not yet available to Mac users. Television episodes sell for $1.99, while movies sell for $19.95 and rent for $3.99. Most content cannot be burned to a DVD, but users can watch their rentals and purchases on a TV screen connected via S-video jack to their PC. Alphaline uses the RoxioNow platform, which also drives Best Buy's CinemaNow, so the services have much in common, including available film and TV titles. On Wednesday, renters at the site, http://www.alphaline.roxionow.com, made "Charlie St, Cloud," "Easy A," "Inception" and "Salt" the most popular film choices. Among TV shows, episodes of "Fringe," "Two and a Half Men," "Hellcats" and "Chuck" were the most popular. Content is stored in a "virtual locker" and also can be downloaded to a PC, which is a good idea for consumers who don't want to lose access to movies and TV episodes when they enter HBO's exclusive window. |
| 2010: The Year Facebook Dethroned Google as King of the Web [STATS] (Mashable) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 02:24 PM PST Facebook was not only the most searched item of the year, but it passed Google as America's most-visited website in 2010, according to a new report from Experian Hitwise. For the second year in a row, "facebook" was the top search term among U.S. Internet users. The search term accounted for 2.11% of all searches, according to Hitwise. Even more impressive is the fact that three other variations of Facebook made it into the top ten: "facebook login" at #2, "facebook.com" at #6 and "www.facebook.com" at #9. Combined, they accounted for 3.48% of all searches, a 207% increase from Facebook's position last year. Rounding out the list of top search terms were YouTube, Craigslist, MySpace, eBay, Yahoo and Mapquest. Other companies that made big moves in terms of searches include Hulu, Netflix, Verizon, and ESPN. The search term "games" also made its first appearance in the list of Hitwise's top 50 search terms. More interesting though is Facebook's ascension to #1 on Hitwise's list of most-visited websites. The social network accounted for 8.93% of all U.S. visits in 2010 (January-November), beating Google (7.19%), Yahoo Mail (3.52%), Yahoo (3.30%) and YouTube (2.65%). However, Facebook didn't beat the traffic garnered by all of Google's properties combined (9.85%). It's only a matter of time until Facebook topples the entire Google empire, though. We've seen the trend develop for month: Facebook is getting bigger than Google. According to comScore, Facebook's U.S. traffic grew by 55% in the last year and has shown no sign of slowing down. |
| Best social networking apps of 2010 (Appolicious) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 12:30 PM PST |
| Skype says software to blame for 24-hour outage (AP) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 05:31 PM PST SAN FRANCISCO – A software glitch caused Skype's major outage last week, the Internet calling and messaging service said Wednesday. In a blog post, chief information officer Lars Rabbe said the 24-hour outage that cut service for nearly all of Skype's users stemmed from a problem in a version of Skype's software for computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system. Rabbe said the issue, which began last Wednesday, started when a group of servers running offline instant messaging overloaded. This caused some computers to get delayed responses from those servers, and an older version of Skype's Windows software improperly processed the responses, crashing Skype for about 20 percent of users. Computers that crashed included numerous "supernodes" — computers Skype likens to phone directories, helping users connect with each other — which resulted in a much larger outage as other available supernodes couldn't handle all the user traffic. On average, 124 million people use Skype each month, though the total number of registered users is more than four times that. In a video posted on the Skype blog, Bates said the problems "completely took almost every user offline." The service went down for almost all of its users starting at midday Eastern time on Wednesday. By Thursday afternoon, things had improved to the point where about 21 million users were logged in, said CEO Tony Bates. That was 10 percent less than the usual traffic for the time of day, as some people still could not log on. At that point, voice calling, video-chatting and text-based instant messaging were working for most users, Bates said, but other features, such as offline instant messaging and group video calls, were still down. Skype has since returned to operating normally. The Luxembourg-based company said customers who pre-pay for service or are on pay-as-you-go plans will receive an e-mail with a voucher for 30 minutes of free calling to landlines anywhere in the world. Subscribers will be credited with a week's extra subscription service. Skype's software offers a range of free services, including the ability to make voice or video calls and send instant messages to other Skype users. Users pay for services such as making calls from a PC to a landline or cell phone. Skype's popularity around the globe stems in large part from the free or cheap calls it provides. Other Internet-based calling services that compete with the traditional phone system also have problems with consistent service. Earlier this year, AT&T Inc.'s Internet-based "U-verse" phone system went down for several hours, affecting 1.15 million customers. A year ago, eBay Inc. sold its majority stake in the business for about $2 billion to an investor group that includes Skype's founders. Skype has indicated that it wants to list its shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market. |
| Android Mobile Malware Has Botnet-like Traits (PC World) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 04:20 PM PST Hackers are aiming for users of Google's Android mobile operating system with a malicious application that harvests personal information and sends it to a remote server. The malware, which has been named "Geinimi," appears to be the first one that has botnet-like capabilities targeted at the Android platform, said Kevin Mahaffey, chief technology officer for Lookout Mobile Security, which develops mobile security software. Geinimi appears to target Chinese-speaking users of Android, and Lookout was tipped off to Geinimi after a user wrote a post concerned about it on a forum, Mahaffey said. Lookout researchers, which posted a writeup on Geinimi, have found that it has been wrapped into legitimate free and paid games for Android users with those games' developers unaware their applications are being used as a lure. "We have been in touch with developers to let them know," Mahaffey said. Those tampered applications are appearing on third-party web sites offering Android applications that have not been vetted for security. Some of those programs have appeared to be downloaded thousands of times. The company is still analyzing Geinimi, and it isn't clear what its creators are aiming to do with a victim's phone. But several aspects of the malware have already raised concern. The malware communicates with a central command-and-control server. The server can issue commands to a phone remotely, such as to download or uninstall software. The user of the Android phone is prompted and must approve either action, but it still raises concern, Mahaffey said. "It might be a vector to install other potentially malicious applications," he said. Geinimi also sends the Android device's location and other hardware identifiers, such as the device's International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number and SIM card information, to a remote server every five minutes. It can also send a list of the Android device's installed applications. The malware can contact up to 10 domain names that are used to upload the information to the remote server. It is Geinimi's ability to contact multiple domains and obtain instructions from a command-and-control server that Lookout decided to say it has botnet-like capabilities, Mahaffey said. Still, Geinimi has not revealed either a clear profit motive or decisive data-theft motivation, although Lookout is continuing its analysis. "It could be anything from a very invasive advertising network up to a full-blown attempt to create a botnet," Mahaffey said. |
| How You Know When It’s Time to Switch to Linux (PC World) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 02:30 PM PST It's easy to be content with your computer installation as long as it keeps doing what you want it to without too much trouble. When frequent problems arise, however, it's hard to remain faithful for long. The majority of the computing world "grows up" on Windows, of course, since Microsoft's operating system still holds by far the largest share of the market. Not everyone stays there, however. Growing numbers, in fact, are switching to Linux every day, and for good reasons. How do you know when it's time to switch to Linux? Here are just a few (mostly) serious signs. 1. You're Tired of Paying for Software You wake up one day and realize you're tired of paying for an operating system that's more bogged down with bugs than most alpha builds are. What, exactly, are you paying for here? Then, of course, there's also all the antivirus software you have to buy to keep it running. With Linux, on the other hand, countless developers around the world are working around the clock to keep the 100 percent free operating system at the head of its class. 2. You're Tired of Upgrading Hardware If you find yourself upgrading perfectly good hardware just because resource-hungry Windows demands it, you might be using the wrong operating system. 3. You're Tired of Malware Your older hardware probably still is fundamentally pretty good; too bad there's all that malware dragging it down. Thanks for sharing that love, Windows! Note to Microsoft: a stronger permissions system would have been a lot better, just FYI. 4. You've Seen One Too Many Patch Tuesdays You've experienced your share of Patch Tuesday repair efforts, and they aren't getting any more fun. In fact, they're getting worse. It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't know how long the bugs had been there, flapping in the breeze, before they finally got fixed. 5. You Don't Have the Time Who among us doesn't enjoy spending hours at a time scanning for viruses and spyware and defragmenting? Well, probably all of us don't enjoy that, actually. Then, too, there's all that unplanned downtime. Don't we have other things to do? 6. You Like Speed If Windows' boot speed were faster, when would you make your coffee? Right. Sadly, that argument doesn't quite cut it anymore. 7. You Like Sharing Your business associate in Berlin tried to send you an .ODP file--based on the international standard file format--but PowerPoint wouldn't read it properly. So much for interoperability. 8. You Don't Actually Love Internet Explorer It's no accident Internet Explorer's market share is slipping, and vulnerabilities are a big part of it. Then, too, there's the monoculture effect making it all worse. 9. You Want to Be in Control It's no longer fun waiting to see when Microsoft will fix bugs, or what new features it will come out with. You're ready to start driving changes like that yourself. 10. You're One of a Kind Though it can be altered in very small, superficial ways, Windows can't hold a candle to Linux when it comes to customizability. Are you just another face in the crowd? Of course not, and Linux recognizes that. Is Linux perfect? Certainly not. But it is a lot better than Windows in so many ways. Isn't it time for you to finally make the switch? Follow Katherine Noyes on Twitter: @Noyesk. |
| Skype Explains Service Outage, Post-Mortem (PC World) Posted: 29 Dec 2010 02:45 PM PST Skype's CIO Lars Rabbe on Wednesday offered a frank assessment of the recent 24-hour lapse in its Internet telephony service, in a blog post that also laid out what the company is now doing to make its network more robust. Rabbe's post also served as a corporate mea culpa, saying "we know that we fell short in both fulfilling your expectations and communicating with you during this incident." The failure of Skype's service for many of its users started at about 4 p.m. GMT on Dec. 22 and lasted through much of the 23rd, Rabbe said. On that Wednesday, a cluster of servers became overloaded, and some Skype clients received delayed responses from them. In one particular version of the Skype for Windows client, the delayed responses from the servers caused a processing misfire that led the client software to crash. The affected version of the Skype for Windows client was 5.0.0152 -- a version that Rabbe said about half of Skype's users were running. Crashes caused about 40 percent of those clients to fail. And among the clients that failed were between a quarter and 30 percent of systems that provided important directory services in Skype's peer-to-peer network. While Skype worked quickly to bring these so-called supernodes back online, even when restarted those systems remained unavailable to the network for a time. And meanwhile, the pressure on remaining supernodes pushed other systems over the top and caused even more of them to shut down. "This further increased the load on remaining supernodes and caused a positive feedback loop, which led to the near complete failures that occurred a few hours after the triggering event," Rabbe explained. To fix the problem, Skype engineers introduced hundreds of instances of the Skype software into the peer-to-peer network to serve as dedicated supernodes, the CIO said. To do that, they drew on resources that are normally used in Group Video calling, thus taking that service offline temporarily. It was restored in time for Christmas, Rabbe wrote. Skype is now focused on keeping its user base current on client software. (Rabbe noted that the company had previously offered users of the affected -- and out-of-date -- version of Skype for Windows an upgraded version to fix a bug in the software.) He added that Skype will review its "processes for providing automatic updates for our users so that we can help keep everyone on the latest Skype software." And he also pledged to improve software quality with a review of testing processes. As for how the Skype team responded to the outage, Rabbe said that the company will look for ways it can in future detect problems more quickly and head off a major disruption. It also aims to shorten the time it takes to bring the system back up after a failure, he said. Rabbe promised that Skype "will keep under constant review the capacity of our core systems that support the Skype user base, and continue to invest in both capacity and resilience of these systems." |
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