Editorials

Grass Roots Effort to Save Zimbra

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  April 7, 2008 —  A major open source player in the email/groupware category may fall victim to Microsoft’s latest acquisition plans. The Zimbra Collaboration Suite, an “Exchange-like” email and collaboration server which is available in both a commercial version and a community (free) edition, may just disappear if Yahoo is purchased by Microsoft. Yahoo bought Zimbra towards the end of 2007, and in doing so became one of the largest competitors to Microsoft’s Exchange (especially in Europe). With the possibility of Microsoft now acquiring Yahoo, the future of this excellent product is uncertain.

    A grass roots movement has begun to at least save the community (free) edition of Zimbra while also raising questions involving anti-trust, etc. If you are interested in saving Zimbra, voting “yes” for open source, or just learning more, please go to FreeZimbraNow.org .

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AVG Nightmare: The Risks of Reselling Software

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(TheForceField.Net) March 15, 2008 — Steven Young has a story to tell, and it’s pretty scary. It is a story about how a trusted vendor can easily put a reseller on a limb and possibly out of business at a moment’s notice. His experience is a good lesson for all of us, not just when selling software but when we do any type of consulting or migration with any software purchased.
 
Young, an IT reseller and member of computerbusiness@yahoogroups, posted about the incident early yesterday morning in the newsgroup. It is repost by permission in its entirety in The Force Field forums .

Young had registered as an AVG reseller and had been migrating his clients away from Norton and to AVG Network Edition. He recently sold one of his clients 100 user licenses of Network Edition 7.5. It hadn’t been an quick sell. Young had to meet with his client, a charity, numerous times to get approval for the purchase and migration. The client approved the purchase, but there was a problem.

 “Between board meetings to approve the software purchase and further meetings to approve the installation labor, AVG version 8 was released.”, Young wrote.  “I’ve been pretty deep in proposals writing and other work and didn’t pay much attention to the 8 release. I was planning to try it out but not to use it until the bugs get worked out – since most software companies release first versions when they should still be in beta these days.”

Young attempted to order licenses for version 7.5 but it was no longer for sale. The problem was, version 8 .0 was almost double the price and the client had already given Young a check.  Fortunately, once Young called the reseller support line they agreed to sell him version 8.0 for the same price as  version 7.5.

But when Young downloaded the trial version of 8.0 he found it too resource intensive. It also caused issues with FireFox. The software company offered a downgrade license to 7.5 so he decided to take advantage of it.

After a round of e-mails with Grisoft he finally reached someone who was willing to provide the downgrade, with a catch. To his surprise Young was told that AVG 7.5 updates would cease after December 31, 2008. After that date all installations were required to upgrade to version 8.0.

Young was miffed. “I asked who was paying me to upgrade 100+ computers from 7.5 to 8.0 only 9 months after paying me to install 7.5 on a 2 year license. She tried to comfort me by saying ‘there will be a button the user can click to upgrade to 8.0’!”, he fumed. Then he added, “I’m done with them.”

“You have been warned. Wish I had been!” Young said.

 
In an e-mail to The Force Field Young said he spoke to AVG Channel Operations Manager Jeff Zinnert. According to Young, Zinnert confirmed that version 7.5 would no longer update after December 31st.  “They are reviewing this due to outcry from other resellers though and it may change.. Hopefully!” Young said.
 
Reselling software is a risky business.
 
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Microsoft blocks older file formats in Office Update

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Microsoft showed its true colors again when it released its latest service pack for Office 2003 with a feature that blocked older and competing file formats in what it called a security measure.

Microsoft Office SP3, released in September, now blocks old versions of file formats from both competitors and Microsoft’s own software. Users were not advised of the change in Service Pack 3 and found out about the block only after it was installed.

Microsoft said the reason was for security. In Knowledge Base article 938810 posted well after the release of Service Pack 3 the company admitted the security problem was not the file formats themselves, but the way Office 2003 handles them.  “By default, these file types are blocked because the parsing code that Office 2003 uses to open and save the file types is less secure.”, the article noted. “Therefore, opening and saving these file types may pose a risk to you.”

Corel was not happy with the news and argued that at least one of their blocked formats, .cdr for CorelDraw, was still currently in use and had no known security vulnerabilities. Initially Microsoft shrugged off complaints from Corel and users claiming criticizing the move was overblown, but later decided to offer users a registry hack to circumvent the block.

Microsoft appended the KB article January 4, offering the the hack and admitting the problem was with Office 2003 and not with the blocked file formats.

This is precisely why proprietary file formats are bad for users and why the ODF standard was adopted – to avoid this sort of thing.

What happens to your WordPerfect documents when Corel goes out of business? Sure, Microsoft is not planning to leave the marketplace anytime soon, but they could pull support for their proprietary document format from you anytime they want. In fact, they just did. Now all of a sudden that resume, book or tax spreadsheet you created a few years ago and suddenly need is not available to you anymore.

When one company wields so much power in the tech world that they can cut off access to the personal and professional data of millions of users – data that belongs to you and me, not Microsoft – at a moment’s notice, that is just way too much control.

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Bill Gates Claims 100 Million Copies of Vista Sold – But To Whom?

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Bill Gates delivered what may be his last keynote at the opening of CES 2008 last week. Overall, it was entertaining, humorous and full of the usual Microsoft hype. There was, however, one statement he made that bears closer inspection and clarification.

During his keynote, Gates claimed that since the initial launch of Microsoft Windows Vista last year, over one hundred million Vista licenses were sold and one hundred million Vista users were surfing the web. On the surface that seems like a huge number and it is, but in a world with an estimated one billion PCs its relevance is not as impressive as he would have us believe.

It may also not be accurate.

Microsoft may indeed have sold 100 million licenses, but to whom? The number of licenses do not necessarily equal the number of computers sold – or the number of end users actually using them.

They report sales of licenses but they are not reporting the rest of it.

Understand that Microsoft sells most of their product through the channel, not direct like Dell (even Dell is drifting away from direct sales). So to whom are they selling these licenses? To distributors, retailers, VARs, System Builders and other resellers. Those numbers likely reflect raw sales to the very individuals and companies who resell them to businesses and consumers. They may have sold 100 million licenses but more than a few of them are still sitting in inventory for resale, not in actual use.

How many licenses are still in the hands of system builders who had to turn around and purchase Windows XP as well because customers are requesting XP on boxes instead of Vista? How many retailers are stuck with copies of Vista on the shelves that won’t move? To educate those who are not aware of the software market, once a reseller purchases those licenses, with a few exceptions they are usually stuck with an albatross if they are unable to resell them.

If a company purchases volume license upgrades, finds out they can’t use Vista and reverts back to XP, too bad. They bought them.

To add to the spin, Microsoft is reporting sales figures of licenses they sold to the vendors in the marketplace, not downgrades of those licenses or returns of PCs from users to the builders and resellers. If a user buys a new PC with Vista and exercises their downgrade rights to Windows XP, does that deduct from number of Vista licenses or add to the number of new XP sales? Don’t bet on the former, because Microsoft is not refunding the money. Whether the user has Vista or XP in the end, they still purchased a Vista license. Clever, no?

As for 100 million users, the company reporting this figure monitored about forty thousand web sites and discovered around 10% of the visitors ran Vista. Indeed. That would not be difficult to achieve if one considers that those percentages are still estimates based on the reader’s assumption that each one is a unique visitor with a unique IP address and visits the site one time. That is not always the case.

The average user who likes a particular site and uses it often will typically visit it frequently. Certain sites that naturally attract Windows users such as Microsoft’s own site will attract more Windows Vista users than users of Ubuntu and OS X.

That figure can have a negative meaning as well. Is it possible the number of Vista visitors to sites is high simply because they are constantly searching Microsoft’s site or Googling around for resolutions to Vista related issues? Hmm. Just a thought. 

From the standpoint of someone who is a system builder on the side, I find Microsoft’s numbers a bit incredulous. Then again, I base that on my own experiences with my customers, not theirs. After all, Microsoft’s numbers are not based on sales to end users, they are based on sales to resellers like me. The actual sales to end users tell the real story.

 

 

In the IT Industry, the Enemy Wears Red…

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I’ve always been fascinated about the world of IT Security.

On a daily basis I log into customers PC’s remotely to install updates, fix problems, help with email issues etc etc…

But for someone, a criminal, to be able to gain “root level” ( like that Unix term? I did it just for you geeks ) access to a PC is really a heinous act all to itself.

More and more our entire lives are going online, I for one base all my work email on Google’s GMail software. Google now has complete control over my life, and if its not working….. well its not a pretty site around the office let me tell you.

So ok, end the rant… Whos the #1, head honcho, the Goldfinger to the USA’s James Bond?

Ladies and Gentleman! I give you….. THE U S S R….. I mean China… yes China.

They are numero uno! Just do a quick search on Google ( I know they own my life ) for:

“China Internet Attacks”. Heres a great little article on it [SperoNews]

In 2007 almost 13,000 “direct assaults on federal agencies and more than 80,000 attempted attacks onDepartment of Defense computer network systems.”

WHOOAA…. Hello.

Now I know, I know, people don’t want to look at China as the next Cold War Competitor…. But trust me they are already looking at us. Now of course all of those 93,000 plus attacks can’t all be from China…. But lets say HALF of them are.

China is in a love/hate relationship with us. Most of the money in their economy comes from Western buyers ( half the equipment your reading this blog on comes from China!! )

But at the same time, we are the worlds number 1 super power and China knows that in the secret battle over the hearts and minds of countries around the world, its the USA vs. Red China.

Now China is coming on board more and more with Western ideals, but make no mistake that the communists will only let Western ideals of a Free Market go so far. And they are making sure that their Computer Hackers are razor sharp in case some kind of conflict does occur.

But hey, lets all remember…. hackers keep PC techs like me in business, so really we kinda don’t mind the occasional virus or trojan taking over peoples’ PCs, now do we?

Original Posting
The Electric Pulse IT Blog
http://gcsincblog.blogspot.com/

 

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HP and Service Live now Partners

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Its a interesting world indeed now that Service Live ( A division of Sears Holdings ) is now going to Partner with HP in providing support for HP TV’s and PC’s.

Service Live is a new competitor to Onforce.com, a clearing house so to speak ( they call it a market place, but we vastly disagree on that point ) of IT Professionals across the country.

Now All HP Installations and Repairs will be going through Service Live’s platform, which should be going 100% live around the middle of January.

The main part thats intriguing is how exactly Service Live got this very very large account from Onforce.com. Im sure that Onforce had at least tried to bid on this work, but maybe something else is going on in the background…

Maybe HP is alittle scared about sales with the closing of Compusa, and maybe they are partnering with Sears to make sure they have a good retailer to push their PC’s out of.

With Dell now entering the retail market with Wal-Mart, i know HP wants to retain their position in the PC sales world.

Original Posting
The Electric Pulse IT Blog
http://gcsincblog.blogspot.com/

iTunes – Soon offering Fox Movies for rent?? wah?

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Original Posting:  The Electric Pulse Blog

http://gcsincblog.blogspot.com

—–

The iTunes story really gets weirder and weirder.

It wasnt so long ago that Apple and NBC / Universal broke up their love fest [Info Week]

That now it seems Apple and Fox News ( aka the king of all media Mr. Murdock ), will be joining forces to offer very recent movies by Fox Studios for rent off of iTunes.

The “for rent” sign is really interesting… The file be some sort of DRM ( Jobs claims to hate such restrictions ) and play for a limited amount of time. But hey, its a big market that Netflix and Blockbuster are deep in for mail services to your home.

The details are kinda sketchy, but Apple is pushing hard to get the Video business on par with the Music business and teaming up with Fox to get up to date content is a good move.

If this deal lasts, that makes iTunes the number 1 place to go for video content, having already offered the ABC / Walt Disney line up.

The Times Online

From the “Whoops did I do that” Department – Windows Home Server

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Original Posting:  The Electric Pulse Blog

http://gcsincblog.blogspot.com

 

Well well well, poor Microsoft.

There new Windows Home Server is a really nice piece of software from all the reviews I’ve read. It really blends the line between a super PC with crazy backup software and a full blown W2k3 Small Business server, by combining ease of use with great features.

Small problem

It happens to corrupt your data… Well aint that a sour batch of lemonade!

See Engadget for a good write up

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/windows-home-server-bug-corr

Forums Hold Secret Weapon in Web War

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There is a struggle for supremacy on the Web. The stakeholders? Web forums vs. invading social networks. One company offers the ultimate solution for forums powered by vBulletin – the superpower in the forum world.

Mayagüez, Puerto Rico (PRWEB) November 30, 2007 — Forums have evolved from the days of offline BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) to the topic-focused Web communities of the current era. Social networks share similar origins – but they focus more on user relationships. As they cross each other's boundaries, two things are becoming clear:

(1) social networks are stealing eyeballs (web users), and
(2) forums have no choice but to "differentiate or die"

What are their comparative strengths?

Forums are unmatched at generating huge amounts of topic based information (i.e. useful content). Social networks clearly dominate user interaction.

Is convergence possible?

Right now it seems to be an all or nothing affair, with no clear mutually beneficial relationship in sight. For the tens of thousands of forum admins operating as small businesses, the emergence of giants like mySpace and FaceBook is intimidating.

Imagine being a small Mom & Pop hardware store parked between Walmart and Home Depot.

What is the key to survival for forums?

The key differences between forums and social networks needs to be clearly recognized and embraced. Again, forums are "user generated content" machines. They will fair out best by strengthening their competitive dominance in this category.

Social networks produce a lot of "data" – but it's not exactly the type of content Googlers are searching for. FaceBook (for example) generates data like "Funwall", "SuperWall", "Zombie/Vampire hug", "Virtual Drink", or "TopFriends" postings. Granted these can be "fun" – but they are not helping to add useful content to the searchable Web.

Convergence is coming, although slowly in terms of Internet time frames. Forums have started to integrate social networking features, and social networks are attempting to get users to develop more searchable content.

The announcement of vBulletin version 3.7 by software developer Jelsoft is a clear indication of their strategic move towards improving user interaction for forums, while maintaining the advantage of user generated content.

Promoting user interaction boosts user activity and member retention.

But getting web users to visit a site in the first place remains as one of the biggest tasks. Fortunately vBulletin powered forums have the upper hand when it comes to search engine traffic. The secret weapon is a 3rd party plugin called vBSEO, or "vBulletin Search Engine Optimization", offered by Crawlability Inc.

Effective SEO allows a site with great content to get listed in search engines like Google, harvesting traffic in the form of new visitors, members, and clickthroughs to revenue generators like the AdSense network.

After the Nov. 16th release of vBSEO 3.1.0 GOLD, Vice President, Ilia Muriente, discussed how products like vBSEO and others like it are helping forums amidst the exponential growth of social networks:

"Right now 'forums vs. social networks' is really just 'content vs. interaction'. FaceBook is a magnet for Web eyeballs. But Web users are still going to Google when looking for specific info.

"As long as vBulletin forums are superior in content, they will continue to be an active destination on the Web. With vBSEO's SEO technology we can help forum content get indexed and ranked better by the search engines. And this, of course, leads directly to more Web traffic – a critical success factor.

We are excited about the vBulletin 3.7 release. It "shows their commitment to including social networking elements in order to boost interaction.

"Of all forum software, vBulletin is the clear leader. One of their key strengths is their commitment to encouraging 3rd party plugin development, which has resulted in professional solutions like vBSEO adding value to their offering via extended feature sets.

"They had the vision to see this early on, well before Google conceived of ideas like 'OpenSocial'. Most importantly, they made it happen by creating a powerful plugin system as well as their dedicated 3rd party developer network at vbulletin.org.

"The result today is thousands of 3rd party, value added, product extensions filling every need imaginable. This, of course, includes vBSEO and several other professional efforts that have become instrumental in helping forum admins succeed. As a direct result, vBulletin has solidified their leading position in the forum world, which was no doubt a key factor in Internet Brands acquisition of the company back in July 2007.

"From our perspective, vBulletin is going to be a factor on the Web for a long time to come."

So who ultimately wins the "Web War"? The question is really who will manage the "convergence" best. For the short-term, secret weapons like vBSEO give content monsters (like vBulletin powered forums) the upper hand within the search engine battlefields.

More information about Crawlability Inc. and vBSEO can be found on their website at www.vbseo.com – the official support community for the vBulletin SEO software. vBulletin admins interested in search engine optimizing their vBulletin forums can obtain vBSEO there.

Crawlability Inc. is an Internet software company based in Puerto Rico providing patent-pending search engine optimization solutions with a focus on Web forums. Launched in 2005, Crawlability's first software release, named vBSEO, is the market leader in helping thousands of vBulletin powered Web forums gain more visitors from search engines such as Google, Yahoo, & MSN. See www.crawlability.com

More information about vBulletin or their developer network can be found at www.vbulletin.com and www.vbulletin.org, respectively.

vBulletin is the leading Web forum software and flagship product of Jelsoft Enterprizes Limited, a UK based new media company that focuses on high performance community software. Jelsoft is a subsidiary of Internet Brands, a California based online media company owning a wide array of major media, community, and eCommerce destinations such as CarsDirect.com.

Do You Think Like a Millionaire? Give Yourself a 25 Year Head Start

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You wanted to see this article again. Here it is. 1) What you habitually say to yourself all day creates your Habits of Thought 2) Your habits of thought create your Desires 3) Your desires create what you Do 4) What you do creates your Life

(PRWEB) September 24, 2007 — Acquire the habits of thought of people who are healthy, wealthy and happy – and you eventually become more healthy, wealthy and happy.

Why? Because you eventually do what they do and your similar actions produce similar rewards. In other words:

1) What you habitually say to yourself all day creates your Habits of Thought
2) Your habits of thought create your Desires
3) Your desires create what you Do
4) What you do creates your Life – wealth or poverty, health or illness, joy or despair. Your actions make your world a better place or make your world a worse place.

All day long you say things to yourself. You have done so your entire life: "I'm stupid; I'll always be poor; I'll never lose weight; no one likes me; I'm worthless."

If you want more out of life – change those statements. How do you do that?

What you repeat to yourself you eventually believe – whether it's helpful or harmful, accurate or inaccurate, honest or dishonest.

Individuals or organizations that want to implant harmful beliefs into their victims use this process all the time. By the way, to rid yourself of harmful beliefs, just question those beliefs and they begin to weaken.

Through the centuries, this process has been called many things: autosuggestion, goal statements, self-talk, affirmations, self-suggestion, conditioning. Now it's time you use it on purpose instead of accidentally. Here's how.

Example:
You want financial independence. How do you find out what millionaires say to themselves about making money? You could spend decades finding out for yourself – or take the following shortcut and save yourself 25 years of time and money.

The habits of thought of 500 millionaires are in Napoleon Hill's timeless book "Think and Grow Rich" in the chapters on "Faith" and "Autosuggestion."

So, to think like a millionaire and to earn the income you want, do the following two steps:

1) As often as possible each day for the rest of your life read silently or aloud the "Self-Confidence Formula" Napoleon Hill's suggests in the chapter on "Faith" and

2) As often as possible each day for the rest of your life read silently or aloud the "How to Stimulate Your Subconscious Mind" section in the chapter on "Autosuggestion."

As you read the above, see, hear, and feel yourself doing what you read. Soon, you begin to get ideas on what you need to do to make those thoughts become real. The same principle works for other areas of life: physical – spiritual, social – emotional, financial – intellectual as well as achievement in business, art, science, and sports.

One last point. You are 100 percent responsible for your thoughts, desires, actions, and results. If you don't like the results you are getting in life, begin with your thoughts.

And don't use the "victim" mentality of "Oh, I tried this and it didn't work" or "This is stupid. I'm not doing this." Replace unwanted thoughts by saying to yourself 'Next!' and take charge of your life by managing your mind FIRST – your actions and your rewards follow.

Copyright 2004-2007 Lonni Erickson. All Rights Reserved. You now have permission to reprint this article as long as it is not edited and the below resource information is included.

Lonni Erickson is a writer in Washington state. Other articles by the author include "Was Jesus an Allegory or a Real Person?" at www.prweb.com.

Free yourself from individuals who use force, threats, fraud, guilt, or fear to steal your time, money, and energy. See www.neo-tech.com

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