Okay, sender authentication is here...so what?

The amount of spam continues to grow. The amount of spam, assumed to be good email is growing. The amount of good email, trashed and stashed away as possible spam is also growing.

There is really no use to huddling together in five star hotels (other than for the hospitality industry's sake), instead of worrying about real solutions to real problems.

While industries, and standards groups keep talking of the next big thing, it is presumed that soon, if not already, 80% of all email will be junk....

Where there is goodwill...

.. there is Microsoft trying to steal it..

Why would you want to use "free" code to a(n) EULA that you later use to go after people that won't pay for your software...hmm, the big blue (their blue screen is bigger, and appears more often than IBM's ;) ) slipped on this one...just like it has, on pretty much everything!

The DVD Wars begin, I am bored...

Long long ago

In a galaxy far, far away

There were two stupid Japanese companies

That were trying to make everyone buy their expensive crap

and so goes the story. What I now really wish, is that people would ditch both formats, and buy another one. This is going to become a debacle like the Laser Discs, or the much cliched Betamax.

I would like to start a company to build DVD players. In Star Wars, they talked about the "Empire" and the "Resistance". Not about people who laughed at both sides and made some cheap cash....

If you build products, people will write bad articles about you..

Something, of course, Microsoft doesn't care about. I was quite interested to read that the MS Mobile OS was not "working properly". This is quite fresh, new and disturbing to the IT and phone-user world I guess. When has MS ever built bad products...

Jokes aside, the sad point in the article is how the author writes very briefly, doesn't actually get technical at all, and then goes on to peg the whole point about the security patches on the desktop operation. Whatever happened to studying journalism before getting into it?

Now can we complain...? This person is writing about MS, from, in all probability, a Windows computer, or one that runs it, even as a dual or triple boot...these gaffes are understand-able!!!

iTunes is not the end and beginning of digital music

There is more..and this is the point we want to stress!!!! Is someone listening out there, for crying out loud..or singing out loud!!!!

Oracle - still embracing the old style business model...let's make a little of everything

And they are worried about patents, and intellectual property of Linux. Here is a scary scenario. One of these days, Microsoft will buy a Linux distribution. Then all the big ones would have been bought out, hashed out as proprietary, and then they will go after the guys still using Linux in the Open Source format. This cannot be good news for the Linux world.

I always thought it was bad business to build something for free. I have forced to change my opinion over the years. Now, I think it is bad business to build anything without protecting intellectual property -- you never know whose hands what you create and set free might land on.

Something has to be done, and quick. Otherwise, the work of so many engineers will simply be stolen by the likes of Ellison, and that, is for people to worry if it is good or bad...

How to bring crap onto yourself..Apple style

It gives me great pleasure to open my mailbox and find that Apple is being sued. It actually doesn't!

The problem with Apple, something I have been screaming for years, is that they are the best at "stealing" innovation, and then crying sour apples (or grapes, whatever) when others steal similar technology. Starting from the GUI to the iPod, none of their products are really their own.

Nothing wrong in "borrowing", "adapting", or as the latest cliche goes, "synergizing" others' ideas, but wait a second, you also want to sue them? This one might go into the next edition of "The hundred stupidest business blunders ever". Maybe, I will write that book...and hope its not a blunder too.

Oh well, now to grab that much needed coffee...

Yell into the searchbox..Google's way

Sometimes the wierdest things could be assumed to be innovative. I have just one thing to wonder..does 511.org have to pay Google everytime I pick up the phone and shout "Karamba" (in my thick accent, whereby, once a woman thought I was referring to water, when I said "mug")!

Uh, Oh! One more thing google didn't think of...

Okay, champion of peoples' privacy. How are you going to guard the secrets of our users from Uncle Sam?

This is the question being asked by EFF. It makes you wonder. Yes, Google, somehow seems to have defended your privacy in court, this time, but will lightning strike twice in a country where nine men can change the way you deal with life anytime?

I would not, I repeat, would not feel comfortable using Google, if I was doing something shady and hence, would use devices or strategies that would hide what I do, from others to find...good logic. But what if I was doing something today, that I did not even know was wrong....

Google has to think and re-think its strategies, before jumping into anything and everything headlong. It has not been receiving a good grade from EFF on several fronts...

Dark secrets of MySpace...storage hero, or offenders' haven?

This one will go down, deep down in our minds as a very disturbing story. It has the overtones of several types and kinds of shady deals in it. Nothing mixed in so many lawsuits can be good. One would only hope, News Corp. sets right some of the things that seem to have risen out of the purchase of Intermix.

The internet is a very strange place to tread. What propels you up with an immutable force, could bring you down with equal fervor!

Oh, how the haughty have fallen...

Speaking of IBM and its security. I am not against hardware encryption, but to think you would be able to fool the hacker, is a bad idea. Never assume so much power. EOM.

Don't waste your money, no one wants to listen to you - atleast yet!

Podcasts are becoming the "in thing". Well, it has the word pod in it, doesn't it. However, Forrester would have you believe that those pots of gold will be found in 2010 if at all, and you should not throw good money after bad for this. After all, why listen to stuff that is yammered about, when pages of this is already available after the net?

I believe there are other factors:

1. You cannot listen to it in crowded offices.

2. Podcasts are probably not readily and/or well streamed into hand-held media players.

3. People still really don't know about podcasts. You would think...

Some fads are hot to catch on, some are not. Especially, with the internet and handhelds, its only the "yung uns" that catch on sooner. And we are talking of a population that would rather watch "The Daily Show" and not real news. So, it will take time...

Till then, keep yelling into the microphones and upload all those mp3 players. Someone, somewhere, wants to listen to you....

Yet another thing for Microsoft to be worried about

Zimbra Office -- honestly till today I had not heard of this name, but this seems to be an application that is an MS killer. A few years ago, Linux looked like one. Then, google looked like one - till we realized they can never get much stuff out of the beta phase. Lets hope, Zimbra offers a better threat to the giant, so that it will carry on and innovate...!

Disney: Enjoy two months of free videos..who knows what the future holds?

As the future hangs on an anvil and Disney experiments, you can try and find out what is happening to the televised desperate housewives across America. Though, I personally, am not interested in what they are upto, I might download and watch a couple of these free vidoes while, I am at home. Let us see where this experiment leads us to...

Blogs enter new revolution: Syndication

Boy, is this big news. In a major marriage of media dissemination methodologies, newspapers will now be able to syndicate blogs written by above-the-board bloggers. Lets see what happens...I submitted my medical devices blogs to see if these guys will approve of my blogging skills. That will be a good test of waters, atleast from where I come.

It would be great to be part of this grand media experiment!

MySpace: Google is not the only storage hero

One of the reasons why we all used to rave about google, was not search -- it was their humongous achievement in storage. With hardwired storage, virtual storage and a blend of other concepts, MySpace is truly chalking the path, or etching it, rather, for future companies to handle storage problems as they explode into an ever-growing, bandwidth hungry internet population.

Go ahead, and start a company with that meaningful ideas of yours. You never know, what real problems you might end up solving!!!

Gmail...

http://googlewatch.eweek.com/blogs/google_watch/default.aspx?kc=ewnws040706dtx1k0000599

MS - Hell bent on putting Sony to sleep

In Sony's sad long death, one will also see MS as the owner of several niche gaming companies. In the short term, as Sony dies, we will see two things...

1. A sumptuous war on price and creativity.

2. A later stage death of all creativity as MS just buys up anything in sight.

Won't it be fun, if gamers encouraged two things...

*.1 The entry of Apple into gaming.

*.2 Modding xbox and ps3 to interchangeably play games.

Don't know if *.2 is even possible!!!

Desktop Virtualization -- a promising warrior in the battle of viruses?

This is like running an armored guard machine. What is the guarantee that standardization the only problem of virtual machines?

What if someone runs a virus that sits as a virtual machines and refuses to die, as you kill it?

Is it even possible?

Here is another story, worth looking at..

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/4612311

Free Internet for poor people who can afford wireless laptops...

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-20060330GooglePatentsBringWiFiDownToEarth.html

http://www.sfgov.org/site/tech_connect_page.asp?id=38562

Aside from being a marketing fad, what does this offer for free internet do? First of all, it begs the re-use of the cliche, "There is no free lunch". Free, would imply free.

Not free, if you look at all these ads for internet-savvy hookers down the street.

It doesn't matter. Do what you want.

Why tout this as a tool to aid the poor? How many homeless, or almost homeless people can afford wireless laptops?

Now if only Dell would come up with free, wireless laptops that plays songs in praise of Dell...oh and by the way if they patented that method.

Really, sometimes, it makes one think that everything worth patenting was patented long ago!

Internet Law: Net Neutrality?

[Department of Homeland Security. Net Neutrality. Who names these things in the US? First off, they need more creative people to come up with better names. Somethings just look awful when officials of surreptitiously named "departments" get caught peddling porn to children.]


Moving right along, why did this law get struck down? Why wasn't it in the news when the law was stuck down. For being giants, Google and Amazon don't seem to be doing a good job of protecting the interests of neutrality. Why won't they take a bus to the district like Billy Gates does, whenever something he doesn't like is the offing.

Yes, maybe its a good idea to have Nosey Parker FCC in the game, but doesn't that just make the situation just volatile. Is neutrality going to be neutrality that the FCC assumes?

Inconsistency in law, is a bad idea, especially when dealing with equality. Be rational internet giants. Be something, atleast!, if you want to be called giants. Otherwise you might soon be called "oversized, self serving morons", along with the telecommunication companies you failed to stop...

Bad News for Open Source: Scare Tactics

If you are afraid of the dark, and scream out to the world that you are, people will tease you, play with you, and if possible and necessary, harm you using your fear.

Yes, we do agree that Steve Balmer indicated he would go after Linux with patents. But he also said Google wont be there in five years.

Why listen to someone who still believes in the "Huff, Puff and Blow" model of fighting competition?

I guess whoever this Peren fellow is, likes the limelight like our erstwhile JBoss hero, and is constantly digging up the issue of patent lawsuits against linux.

Let us say there is a threat. Why not take the calm approach, examine what those patents are, and how they would affect linux and produce an actual case study? Why do you need to yell, and scream, and kick and everything, instead of actually spreading out before the world, what those physical threats are?

How is the RIM case related to the Linux - software patent problem? Or is he just expressing his antipathy to the USPTO. The tree-hugger approach has not helped Linux in 20 years, it suddenly wont start doing so, tomorrow.

Grow up!

Interesting Open Source Views on Software Licensing

I have always struggled a bit to understand the modus operandi of the Open Source mechanism. This one seems to be a good example. I am glad I came across this. I hope you read and benefit as well.

Somebody wake up Sony please....

Look at the ridiculous price comparisions as projected in the article. There are two possible scenarios coming to play here:

1. This is a big lie, and an industry rumor.

Well, wake up, Sony! People are spreading lies about you. What happened to your PR department? Did you forget to hire any?

2. This is true.

Sony, someone buried you alive. Looks like it was you. And from inside the coffin, you are nailing yourself. No one wants to buy emancipated walkmans. No one wants to buy your UMD disks. No one wants to sell your eBook readers. If you price it this way, soon no one, or atleast not many will be buying your sorry little Playstations....

Google takes aim at multimedia, and soon will do trash cans, soft drinks, fumigants, apples, cocoa chips and anything else....

Or, I could say,


"All the betas you want".

Why cannot Google stick to its game? What is it trying to do? Prove that any cash happy idiot can hire all kinds of smart engineers and create half-baked products that can be doled off as beta.

Google seems to have taken the word beta to a level, where its like you stick a page that says "Student Driver", and drive like heck froze over all across the city.

Bad practices beget bad results. This is the lesson from the Newest Testament of the Computer Industry.

Why is everyone mad at MS? Why do their products fail to pass even a fair test of quality?

It is because they ignored to secure their core, and continued to build incompetent products, and will do so forever.

It looks like Google is pushing the buttons on several fields and does nothing with them after it. Lets recap, it took them forever to get out of the beta on their search engine - the basic product. Admittedly, it is the best ever built.

But what happened to -- News, Groups, Froogle, Gmail, Orkut to just name a few?

When, then can we see the messenger, finance and other crap get anywhere?

What will be the status of the pagebuilder, or the office software?

Why can't they stop bloating like an obese mammoth gone mad, and take care of things, one at a time. Maybe not, maybe that will help the competition, but when will they finish building these products that are in the pipeline?

We will never know. This is what I predict. Google, maybe none of you will read this, but if you don't get your act together, and keep releasing useless products - yes, users will flock initially for the Google name, but will eventually, go where the services, work atleast some of the time...

Now if only the idiot orkut can maintain to have its password rememberd on my computer....

Don Quixote is back -- and he is funding crazy slingshot programs to space

Hmm. nothing much to say. I do think its a good idea, unless someone disproves it, or a large pack of meshuga nuts falls on an African village, making everyone raving mad, because they don't like the nuts, and Europe will have to pay the fines, which they will refuse...having run out of funds after all the crazy a* programs they helped support!

Just kiddin' y'all. I think its a good idea to experiment with science and its borders, especially if you are only building models and not prototypes.

Hope, prisoners don't try to escape into space this way...

Good juju for nameless company -- The New Alcatel-Lucent Dinosaur

[Click on title for link to original article]

Poor 'saurs. They are now the namesake for anything large and ugly. I am impressed, that most people are impressed by this merger. After all the press is thrilled everytime to large dysfunctional organizations become even larger, and throw their employees on the streets....

I am never impressed when an organization grows even larger just to "consolidate" things. Never has meant good news. Lets see, Chrysler did it, Oracle's done it...and so on. Have the products ever improved? Has the customer been happier? Has the customer been bothered with.

Still, this merger may seem a little bit rosy like it is meant to be. Let's wait, watch, and find out!!!