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by Shane Schick
8/31/2004 5:00:00 PM - Does the Internet's 35th birthday mark the moment we outgrew innovation?
This is a parlour game that can only be played by a diminishing number of people: when did you first hear about the Internet, and what's the first thing you looked for online?
Since I was still only a glimmer in my mother's eye when Stephen Croker and Vincent Cerf started hooking up computers at UCLA 35 years ago this week, it took until sometime in university before I become acquainted with the defining technology of my generation. I wish I could still remember that first reference, but it was probably something I read about somewhere. I do vaguely recall hearing the phrase "World Wide Web" and wondering if that was something different. My first online experience, however, feels like it happened yesterday -- probably because it's a little embarrassing.
I was working for a career placement firm, and one of my jobs involved researching companies that were going on a hiring spree. I was given limited access to the Internet, but I spent most of my time using CD-ROMs from Dun & Bradstreet. All I knew about the Internet were what people referred to as "bulletin boards," which sounded about as exciting as looking at actual bulletin boards in my parish community centre. When I finally did go online, the slow dialup connection didn't bother me at all. Going on what was soon to be called the information superhighway seemed to me like a significant journey -- it made sense that you would have to wait before you were let in.
Once online, I thought there would be some kind of "front door," or a super-duper splash page that would give me some sense of what there was to see. I had heard of Yahoo!, I think, but the URL was not widely advertised, so I didn't know what it was for. Luckily, someone had worked in this job before me, who had compiled a series of bookmarks linking to sites I needed. This was the primary way I navigated for those first few attempts, and perhaps that's why I couldn't imagine someone surfing for the sheer fun of it. At the time, I probably would have preferred to flip through the contents of a filing cabinet.
Soon enough, of course, I realized you could find other sites using by typing addresses into the browser (this was at about the time I understood that a browser was not the Internet itself, the same way a television is not "television," but only a conduit). This process of discovery was not unlike the one that allowed the Internet to be created in the first place. No one "ordered" the Internet. No one could have conceived an appropriate business case. In fact, another interesting parlour game might be trying to draft a request for proposal for the Internet, with each member playing a well-known company in the IT industry (like Microsoft, for example, who took even longer to figure out the Internet than I did). As a side project hatched by those who would have no idea how it would spread, the Internet is a textbook case in the way the best innovation happens, and why it's so rare.
In some of the coverage of this year's Internet anniversary, some experts worried that further development could be hindered by the mix of pressures from lawmakers, special interest groups and businesses. There's certainly no way anything would get done if every good idea had to pass that many levels of approval, but they don't. Even voice-over-IP, one of the most disruptive technologies of the past five years, hit the market before regulators could possibly catch up.
Like a Hollywood blockbuster, though, companies have looked at the Internet's success and wondered how they could engineer the Next Big Thing. That's why they're building ultra-modern laboratory environments where they hope some breakthroughs will occur. Unfortunately, innovation seldom works that way. The big ideas often come when the inventor not only enjoys some autonomy but is almost ignored by senior management. They excel when they are connected to real-world problems, not isolated in room where only brainstorming is supposed to take place. They tend to deliver when they are not accountable for doing so, when they can focus on the idea rather than its commercial application.
There is an element of subversion in the inventive process that may be hard to encourage in corporate settings where results are prized over anything else. The best way might be for senior executives to harken back to their first encounter with cyberspace -- when all that was possible was to go out there and see what you could do.
August 31, 2004 at 08:18 PM in Internet evolution | Permalink | TrackBack (51) | Top of page | Blog Home
InformationWeek > IT Spending > CIOs Cheerier About Future Spending > August 30, 2004
CIOs surveyed by Forrester Research are more confident than they were earlier in the year, and expect IT spending to grow by 7% next year.
By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb News
CIOs in the United States are surprisingly optimistic about the future and think IT spending will climb nearly 7% in 2005, a research firm said Monday.
Forrester Research, which polls North American CIOs each quarter, cited numbers that indicate enterprise IT leaders are more confident than earlier in 2004. For the first time in the past three quarters, said Forrester research director Tom Pohlmann, a majority of the surveyed CIOs (52%) said that their industry's business climate was at "strong" or "very strong." In the first quarter, that number was only 36%.
"That's a surprising jump," said Pohlmann. "Pretty much everyone is optimistic about the future. For these IT pros, the future's not as bad as all the negative media news, about, say, oil prices, or some software vendors posting poor earnings."
Conversely, only 17% of the CIOs polled said that the business climate was "challenging" in the third quarter, down by almost half from the 31% who saw doom and gloom in the first quarter.
On average, the CIOs surveyed thought that their IT spending would climb 6.4% in 2005, on pace with Forrester's own earlier estimate of a 7% increase in spending next year.
"There's lots of correlation between the CIOs' optimism and spending," claimed Pohlmann. "Now they're saying, 'I'll take my budget for 2004 and boost it. It's really the first time that they're feeling that strongly."
CIOs are putting their money where their mouths are, said Pohlmann, with spending momentum growing each quarter. In the third quarter, 39% spent above their budgeted run rate--in other words, nearly 4 in 10 have already spent more than 75% of their allocated 2004 budget--while during the second and first quarters, that number was only 32% and 25%, respectively.
Two out of three CIOs said they plan to spend more in 2005 than in 2004.
The CIOs survey give credence to Forrester's other spending projections, said Pohlmann, including a sustained growth in IT spending that should hit about 7% per year through 2008.
"If you look at new investments, the future is even brighter," said Pohlmann, who highlighted computer hardware spending as the one category that will hit double digits next year. Other spending classifications, such as IT consulting and software, will see much lower growth rates in 2005 of just 3% each, he said.
"The story is that it's not all bad news," said Pohlmann, who like the CIOs he's surveyed, seem to look on the bright side. "There's definitely signs of healthy life in IT."
August 31, 2004 at 08:37 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | TrackBack (17) | Top of page | Blog Home
ComputerWire Staff
While Intellisync Corp has been seeing a surged of new business, its shares took a hammering Friday after it withdrew its forecast of 2005 revenue in the $70m to $82m range and said it was now aiming at $70m, a 65% increase. The company blamed weaker-than-expected demand.
In its fourth quarter to July 31, the net loss was $1.7m, down from $1.8m on revenue 82% higher at $13.3m. But for $2.1m charges for amortization of purchased assets and other intangible assets, the company would have broken into the black after eight quarters of revenue growth.
For the year, the company posted a loss of $9.5m, up from a loss of $7.7m on revenue that increased 70.2% to $42.3m.
With analysts expecting fourth-quarter revenue in the $14m range, the market was unimpressed by the figures. Intellisync (NASDAQ: SYNC - news) believes that its approach has been vindicated by contracts wins with Verizon (NYSE: VZ - news) to offer a platform for non-RIM devices and with PeopleSoft (NASDAQ: PSFT - news) to extend it mobile access products.
August 31, 2004 at 08:29 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (24) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Longhorn Comes Up Short
Mon Aug 30,10:42 AM ET
By Cynthia L. Webb, washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
At long last, Microsoft has put a date on when it will release the next generation of its Windows operating system. But the 2006 delivery of "Longhorn" will ship without the highly touted Windows File System feature, raising all sorts of questions about the future of the world's biggest software company.
It's worth asking: Why didn't Microsoft invest some of the billions it's keeping in the bank in more software developers? Seems like a few billion spent on staff (in Redmond or Bangalore) could have paid off with a complete version of Longhorn. And is it wise to disburse some of its cash stockpile later this year in a big dividend to investors at the same time the company is failing to deliver on its next major software release? Let me know if you think these are fair questions.
So what's the big deal about Longhorn in the first place? The Seattle Times offered this context: "Longhorn is more than a new piece of software. As a foundation for tomorrow's PCs, Longhorn is expected to help determine whether the machines gain or lose importance in the next chapter of computing and Internet. Longhorn is also important to Microsoft investors. Analysts expect the company's stock to idle along in its current trading range until the 'Longhorn wave' of product releases begins."
• The Seattle Times: Microsoft Sets 2006 Timetable For Next Version of Windows
The Wall Street Journal said the "Microsoft's delay underscores the challenges the company faces in maintaining its traditional formula for growth. Through the 1990s, the company rapidly expanded by adding features to its software that enticed computer users to buy new versions of Windows or new PCs. But finding a formula to excite PC buyers has become more difficult, as has keeping increasingly complex development projects on a tight deadline. Removing WinFS -- one of three major new features expected to be included in Longhorn -- won't make the launch of the new operating system any easier."
• The Wall Street Journal: Microsoft Is Set Back On New Windows (Subscription required)
And the failure to release Windows File System, referred to in shorthand as "WinFS," is a major deal, according to numerous analysts quoted by media organizations. IDC analyst Roger Kay told The Washington Post: "This amounts to a delay [in releasing Longhorn], because if they deliver it without the file system that was part of the original [specification], then they're only able to meet their deadline by de-featuring the product."
• The Washington Post: New Windows Planned For 2006 (Registration required)
Reuters explains more on why the company decided to release Longhorn without all of its pieces: "Delivering the next version of Windows on time has become more of a critical goal for Microsoft after it encouraged large corporate customers two years ago to sign long-term contracts that would give them the right to upgrade to the latest versions of the company's software, rather than pay for each available upgrade."
• Reuters: Microsoft Sets 2006 Target For Next Windows Version
The Journal offered up a good description of what WinFS is supposed to do: "WinFS should enable PC users to retrieve items -- including e-mails, documents, music or images -- with a single search. Today's computer users have to troll through individual applications such as Word or Excel for specific files and documents. With WinFS, files could be found based on properties such as date, title, author or contents without concern for what software application, such as Microsoft Word or Excel, they are associated with."
The Glass Is Half FULL!
Microsoft, in an announcement issued Friday, put its own spin of the development. According to The New York Times, "Microsoft executives insisted [that the removal of WinFS from Longhorn] did not point to a setback in software development, but showed that the company had a surplus of innovation -- and not all of it could make it into Windows for 2006." "We're going to make it available as soon as we can, but that component is going to take a little more time to get the quality that's required," Will Poole, a Microsoft senior vice president, told The Wall Street Journal. Poole told the Journal that Longhorn programmers had to shift their work to help with the company's security upgrade to Windows XP (news - web sites) and are now back on Longhorn duty.
• The New York Times: Next Version of Windows For PC's To Ship in 2006 (Registration required)
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates (news - web sites) spoke to CNET about the news on Friday. Gates: "This is the first time we've actually given a date for when we'll ship the Longhorn operating system. It's always risky in a software project, especially one where the compatibility requirements and the scope of the features of what we deliver in versions of Windows are incredibly broad, but we've made enough progress. We've got enough methodology in place that we decided that was the right thing to do." As for WinFS, Gates said: "WinFS is where we made the biggest change. We realized that we could do a lot of rich search capabilities in the OS without the full database, taking some of our text technology that's been used by Office, and actually, MSN is doing some nearer-term local-search things, building on that same technology."
Gates, demonstrating his spin skills, added: "What was the right thing? Was it to take Longhorn as a whole and get these super-cool additional WinFS features in, knowing that that would push the release out into '07, or was it to come up with a plan that was a bit more clever and really not give up much? The plan we have does give up WinFS shipping with Longhorn. And so if you want my basic assessment here, the glass is three-quarters full."
• CNET's News.com: Gates: Longhorn Changed To Make Deadlines
Longhorn Packs Some Punch
What will Longhorn offer users? The Journal was among the media outlets reporting that one feature, called Avalon, will still be in the 2006 release. Avalon "will enable PCs to display icons and other elements on a computer screen in three dimensions. The other, called Indigo, can help software developers build new types of Internet-commerce services and software for sharing and accessing information over networks."
But are those new features enough to entice customers? No, according to one analyst quoted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "[F]or some companies, the remaining features in Longhorn may not be enough to spur purchases without the previously expected file features, said Alan Davis, an analyst at Seattle-based McAdams Wright Ragen, which manages $2 billion and owns Microsoft shares. He said the move could make some people wait to upgrade until the company incorporates the advanced file system later. WinFS was intended to create new connections and relationships among otherwise distinct programs and files. One effect would have been to let computer users search for files across different programs, rather than searching programs individually, as is commonly the case now."
• The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Microsoft Cuts Key Longhorn Feature
Much Ado About Nothing?
One analyst gave Microsoft a break. "Microsoft's shift will have an effect on developers in that some parts of the new Windows technology are likely to be adopted sooner than expected, analysts said. But as with PC makers, the effect won't be dramatic, because the product was still remote, Jupiter analyst Michael Gartenberg said," CNET reported. "At this point it's all very theoretical," Gartenberg said. "Longhorn was an extremely ambitious project from day one. It's not the first time Microsoft has announced feature sets for an operating system and in the end had to scale back their plans a little bit."
• CNET's News.com: Developers React To Longhorn Delay
And InfoWorld reported that "[w]hile the WinFS delay may be a loss, the promise to offer key Longhorn technologies for current operating systems and a commitment to deliver Longhorn in 2006 are important gains, analysts and users said." "'This is a smart move,' said Dave Burke, a senior software developer at LLI Technologies Inc., an engineering and construction company in Pittsburgh. 'Maybe individual presentation and communication subsystems don't generate the hype of Longhorn, but to developers who live in the real world of incremental technological evolution, this is welcome news.'"
• InfoWorld: Longhorn's Loss May Be Some Users' Gain
Another analyst said 2007 is the make-or-break year for Microsoft: "Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, said ... he believes it will be crucial for Microsoft to have the new technology ready for the next version of Windows Server software, due out in 2007. That's because servers tend to hold much more data, making advanced searching and sorting capabilities more necessary."
• The Associated Press via The San Jose Mercury News: Next Windows Version Due In 2006, Without New Storage System
Golden State Headache
Microsoft has more legal woes to worry about, this time it's claims that the company employed monopolistic business practices in California. According to The Los Angeles Times, it's all about the money: "After watching computer users wring as much as $1.8 billion out of Microsoft Corp., local governments want their piece. Six California counties and cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, sued the world's biggest software company Friday for allegedly using its monopoly in personal computer software to overcharge them."
• Los Angeles Times: Microsoft Is Sued by Local Governments (Registration required
According to the Associated Press, "The local governments are asking a judge to make the case a class action on behalf of all California cities and counties. If a judge approves the lawsuit as a class action and Microsoft is found liable, the Redmond, Wash., company could be liable for many millions of dollars, perhaps billions."
• The Associated Press via Information Week: California Cities and Counties Sue Microsoft For Antitrust
More, from CNET: "The lawsuit follows successful class actions against Microsoft in several states, including a $1.1 billion award to California consumers. The same law firm that argued that civil action is representing California counties and cities in the latest legal maneuver. The lawsuit, which could recoup millions of dollars for the California government, also comes as the state took out loans to compensate for a $15 billion budget shortfall Microsoft had not seen the complaint against the company, but a representative said Microsoft's policies have been fair."
• CNET's News.com: California Sues Microsoft For Antitrust –Again
Tuning In Redmond
Microsoft is finally launching its Internet music service as it seeks to compete head-to-head with the likes of Apple's iTunes service and other pay-for-play music sites. "The MSN Music store is slated to open in trial form Thursday, according to Grace Welch, a spokeswoman for the company. Welch declined to disclose details," Leslie Walker of The Washington Post wrote in her Web Watch column yesterday. "But it appears likely that Microsoft will follow the example set by Apple Computer when it comes to licensing rights, allowing purchasers to play songs purchased on up to five computers and burn the same playlist to audio CDs up to seven times. Apple Computer's iTunes music store is still the most popular on the Internet, though it has many imitators."
• The Washington Post: At Last, Microsoft Starts The Music (Registration required)
The New York Times today reported on Microsoft's track record of rolling out services to compete with other companies: "Microsoft, taking a trail blazed by others -- then trying to dominate the market -- is a familiar tune. With the opening on Thursday, Microsoft will land itself in a market that Apple Computer pioneered more than a year ago with its iTunes online music store, in much the same way that it took on Netscape in the Web browser business and Sony in the market for console game machines. As a storefront on the MSN online service, Microsoft's music service will offer song tracks for downloading to personal computers and portable music players."
• The New York Times: Can Microsoft Stomp iTunes With A Store Of Its Own? (Registration required)
The Boston Globe reported that even though Microsoft is entering the online music pay-for-play business late, the "company will bring some strong assets to the music-download competition, notably the hundreds of millions of visitors to its MSN stable of consumer websites. Microsoft has long sought to boost transaction revenue from those sites, and the digital music business model pioneered by Apple has proved irresistible."
• The Boston Globe: Battle Brewing on the Digital Music Front
Seattle-based RealNetworks might stand to lose the most as Microsoft's Internet music service comes out of the gates. "Josh Bernoff, a market research analyst at Forrester, told the Times: "Given how fragmented the market is, MSN's eight million subscribers could quickly allow Microsoft to grab second place, Mr. Bernoff said. That spot has been held for the last few weeks by RealNetworks, a longtime Microsoft adversary that has both a music download store and a subscription-based streaming music service."
Quiz a Microsoft Exec
Tom Richey, head of Microsoft's homeland security efforts, will be online with me tomorrow at 11 a.m. ET to talk about trends and Microsoft's current work with government agencies and customers. You can submit questions now or during the chat.
I Like My Cubicle Just Fine, Thank You
Here's yet another a sign that the tech sector isn't going gangbusters: More tech workers are staying put in their jobs than at any time in the past two decades. USA Today reported: "Just 8.9% of tech workers willingly left their jobs last year, says an Aon Consulting survey of 595 of the world's best-known tech firms, including Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Intel. It was the third year in a row that voluntary turnover dropped. 'It's as low as I've seen it, and I've been tracking these numbers since the early '80s,' says study author John Radford. The numbers do not include workers who are laid off, Aon says. Last year, 11.2% of the workforce left jobs involuntarily, compared with 20.3% in 2001, when the tech bubble burst." Tech workers might migrate soon though. "Joseph Strate of San Francisco staffing firm RGA Associates says companies shouldn't become complacent about keeping good employees. Right now, 'Not everybody recognizes that we are out of (the recession) and are holding on to what they've got,' he says. That will change with each positive economic indicator, he says."
• USA Today: Tech Workers Stay Put As Economy Perks Up
Flat Screen Growth Hardly Flat
The flat-screen business is booming. In a front-page article today, The Wall Street Journal reports: "With consumers grabbing up more flat-panel TVs, the makers of flat screens -- all located in Taiwan, South Korea (news - web sites) and Japan -- are racing to finish new factories and stake a position in what will become their biggest and most lucrative market. Ten such factories are now under construction and will cost a total of about $20 billion to build and equip. From a small segment of the computer-peripherals business, flat-screen production has grown into a sizable industry at the center of a global struggle for high-tech dominance. The industry is spending tens of billions of dollars building manufacturing capacity. In contrast to the role Asian high-tech companies have traditionally played as the low-cost builders of other people's innovations, the region's flat-screen makers sit at the lucrative center of technical and product development, influencing the design of electronic products just as chips do."
• The Wall Street Journal: Once a Footnote, Flat Screens Grow Into Huge Industry (Subscription required)
The Washington Post yesterday weighed in with a somewhat-related package of articles on the digital TV revolution: "Digital, high-definition television can be a complex enough business in its own right. But the shift from analog to digital now also means a shift from fat to flat -- instead of traditional cathode-ray tubes, new sets employ plasma, liquid-crystal display, digital light processing or other technologies to cut down on the bulk of the set. Sales of all digital sets are up, fueled by steadily decreasing prices. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 2.8 million such televisions were shipped during the first half of this year, the vast majority of them high-definition sets."
• The Washington Post: To Be Picture-Perfect, A Choice of 3 (Registration required)
Filter is designed for hard-core techies, news junkies and technology professionals alike. Have suggestions, cool links or interesting tales to share? Send your tips and feedback to cindyDOTwebbATwashingtonpost.com.
August 31, 2004 at 06:39 AM in Microsoft | Permalink | TrackBack (12) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Homegrown Satellite Radio Software Draws XM Fire
Sat Aug 28, 9:12 AM By Kenneth Li
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Catching Blondie's reunion tour broadcast at 4 a.m. wasn't an option for XM satellite radio subscriber and single father Scott MacLean.
"I was missing concerts that were being broadcasted when I was asleep or out," he said.
So the 35-year-old computer programmer from Ottawa, Ontario, wrote a piece of software that let him record the show directly onto his PC hard drive while he snoozed.
The software, TimeTrax, also neatly arranged the individual songs from the concert, complete with artist name and song title information, into MP3 files.
Then MacLean started selling the software, putting him in the thick of a potential legal battle pitting technically savvy fans against a company protecting its alliance -- and licensing agreements -- with the music industry.
MacLean says he is simply seeking to make XM Radio -- the largest U.S. satellite radio service with over 2.1 million members paying $10 a month for about 120 channels -- a little more user-friendly.
"The larger issue here is they came out with one lock and another creative person goes out to create a key," said Michael McGuire, an analyst at technology research firm Gartner. "It's very hard for policy and copyright law to keep up with the pace of technological change."
A spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) said his organization had not reviewed the software, but said that in principle it was disturbed by the idea. "We remain concerned about any devices or software that permit listeners to transform a broadcast into a music library," RIAA (news - web sites) spokesman Jonathan Lamy said.
The RIAA and XM are both busy figuring out if any copyright laws and user agreements have been broken.
MacLean's software essentially marries the song information with an analog recording of the broadcasts, then stores this in MP3 files. The user can leave the software running unattended for hours and amass a vast library of songs.
That feature has been a central concern in the music industry as it lobbies regulators to place restrictions on free copying of digital broadcasts before many more radio stations add digital broadcasts. About 300 stations already offer digital broadcasts.
Music labels fear that the convenience of MacLean's software will lead millions more to copy and distribute songs over file-sharing networks such as KaZaA, a music industry source said.
Media companies were dealt a blow last week when a U.S. federal appeals court ruled that online file sharing software companies in the spirit of the original Napster (news - web sites) were not liable for acts of copyright infringement its users committed.
More than 2,400 XM listeners have downloaded the program since he made it publicly available on Aug. 12, MacLean said, and nearly 400 paid for the full version at a cost of $19.95. He raised the price on Tuesday to $29.95. The software can be found at http://www.nerosoft.com/TimeTrax.
These users are using TimeTrax -- in combination with the software that came with XM's receiver, the PCR -- as their main gateway to XM Radio on the PC.
XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq:XMSR - news) said it was concerned about the software, based on a description of its features.
"That's a product that's not authorized by XM," Chance Patterson, vice president of corporate affairs, told Reuters last week.
"That program is something we don't condone ... It's our expectation they will be shut down," he added. "We're also researching any potential legal violations."
Patterson said the device the software relies on, the PCR receiver, represents a small fraction of its sales. The lion's share of its sales come from receivers built into new cars and stand-alone units that connect to home stereos, which can not be hooked up to computers.
The software could conflict with XM's plans to improve its service. XM has said it plans to launch in October a new car and home radio receiver that lets users pause and rewind live broadcasts. XM also has a deal to stream its broadcasts over next-generation TiVo (news - web sites) recorders.
In a letter seen by Reuters, XM's lawyers told MacLean to discontinue his sales and provide the company with a list of purchasers.
He said he had no intention of complying and added that he had no such list.
August 30, 2004 at 07:35 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home
by Jon Ashworth
A look past the media reports at Matt Barrett’s rise to the top post at Barclays
I AM excited about meeting Matt Barrett, who steps up to the chairmanship of Barclays this week after four years as chief executive. Where to begin? Shall I ask him about his ex-wife, the former model? Or should I start with that marvellous “gaffe” about not borrowing on credit cards? This is going to be fun.
The door swings open, and there he is — tall, impeccably dressed, eyes twinkling. With his rakish moustache and winning smile, Barrett, 59, looks like one of those ageing matinee idols who would have your mother swooning in the aisle. It is impossible not to like Barrett. He oozes Irish-Canadian bonhomie, outlining his rise from humble clerk to millionaire banker. He roars with laughter when I recall his arrival in the UK in 1999, which coincided with a rumpus over semi-nude photos of his second wife, Anne-Marie Sten. Barrett quipped at the time that employees “saw parts of my wife that I never saw”.
Was he taken aback by the ensuing tabloid furore? “I expected it completely,” he says, adding that he would have preferred a more low-key arrival. “What people forget is sometimes these (things) are quite painful. But you say, look, it’s good copy and they can’t resist it, so I’ll live with it.”
Barrett is similarly nonchalant about last year’s disastrous select committee appearance, when he told MPs that borrowing on credit cards was “too expensive”. This did not do much for morale at Barclaycard. Barrett says his remarks were taken out of context. “It was an honest answer to a question about long-term debt. But I didn’t trash the company. I didn’t trash credit cards.”
He goes on: “I’ve been CEO for nearly 17 years, and I have more arrows in my back than Saint Sebastian. It’s the old one-liner: if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. You don’t go into these jobs at the point of a gun, and you accept that the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous media’ will grab you from time to time.”
Barrett reads two books a week and peppers the conversation with literary allusions. “If I could paraphrase Kipling: good or bad media, ‘two imposters just the same’. I’ve trained myself not to get overly excited about nice pieces, and not to get overly depressed about others, and to accept that it goes with the turf.
Do you like it when it happens? No. But are you going to spend your life beating your breast? No, you get on with your job, and if you have the belief that over time you’ll do good things, then the world will cut you some slack.”
Barrett once dreamt of being a writer, but his life story is far more intriguing than many works of fiction. The only son of a Kerry bandleader, he was brought up in Kells, Co Meath, on the road from Dublin to Donegal.
He attended the local Christian Brothers School where discipline was instilled through the cane. “I learnt tolerance for pain,” he laughs. “I tell my children stories of growing up, and they don’t believe me. It sounds like something out of Dickens.”
In 1962, aged 18, Barrett set off for London to seek his fortune. “If you wanted to eat, you emigrated,” he says of Ireland in those days. “Unemployment was as high as 30 per cent. If you weren’t on the farm, you automatically headed for the ferry to Holyhead.”
He landed a job as a clerk with the Bank of Montreal. “We had a ‘walks’ department, which meant you walked the cheques and handed them off to the banks in the City. Imagine me as a utility clerk, at 18 or 19 years of age, walking in the City delivering cheques.”
In 1967, aged 22, Barrett went to Canada on a two-year training programme with the bank. “I often joke — and it’s a true story — that when they asked me, I said, ‘Well, there’s good fishing in Canada, so I’ll go for a couple of years.’ And I never got back. Moving to Canada was a huge, life-changing experience for me, and I fell in love with the country.”
Canada had none of the UK’s class hang-ups. “Here, you were more preordained for what your status in life would be. I became very excited about the meritocracy that I saw within the Canadian environment. There were lots of opportunities. Lack of credentials didn’t seem to matter. Performance was what counted.”
He got off the plane in Montreal on January 15, 1967, with a borrowed C$100 in his wallet. “I think I was on Ł500 a year in London, and I got an advance to help me buy winter clothes. It was about 20 below zero when I arrived with a 20mph wind. It cut me in two. I’ll never forget thinking: ‘Have I gone stark, raving mad? Nothing can be this cold.’ ”
On his first day at work, Barrett met Irene Korsak, a Polish immigrant working with him on the foreign exchange desk. They married 18 months later, and went on to have four children, Tara, Kelly, Andrea and Jason, all now living in Toronto.
“They’re unreconstructed Canadians,” he says, pointing with pride to a family photograph on the sideboard. “It’s nice when your kids get to the stage of becoming your friends, not your kids.”
Barrett rose through the ranks to become chairman and CEO of Bank of Montreal. In 1999, soon after announcing his intention to retire, aged 55, he took a call from Barclays’ chairman, Sir Peter Middleton. The bank had recently parted company with its chief executive, Martin Taylor, only for his successor, Mike O’Neill, a former US marine, to retire after one day on health grounds. “Sir Peter called me and said, ‘Why don’t you drop in for a discussion?’ and I said, ‘No, no, please — go away! I’ve just finished.’ But he was pretty persuasive.”
Barrett had told journalists that he planned to retire to the trendy beach suburb of Conchas Chinas in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. “I gave this press conference saying that I was going to smell the roses before I fertilise them, and going to grow a pony-tail and go down to Mexico and write bad books in Conchas Chinas. Then, a month later, I announced I was coming to one of the most historic, conservative institutions in the world. They pulled my leg pretty badly.”
He has no regrets about returning to the UK. “This is a very different England, a very different London, to the one I was in as a kid. It has moved from aristocracy to meritocracy. You hear a delightful range of accents these days. If you go back 40 years, you wouldn’t have heard those accents and you wouldn’t have an Irishman as chairman of Barclays.”
That said, Barrett admits that he still feels a bit of an outsider. “This is the first time in my life that I’ve been hyphenated,” he laughs. “ ‘He’s Irish-Canadian’. When you’re labelled like that, it has a slightly marginalising effect. It kind of hints at ‘not quite one of us’. In Canada, I was never called anything except Matt Barrett.”
Still, he feels settled enough to call London home and recently bought a property in the West End. “I’ve decided that I will spend the rest of my life in London. I won’t go back to Canada.”
Barrett expects to devote about 60 per cent of his time to the Barclays chairmanship, which is a non-executive role. “I haven’t drawn breath for 42 years. I’m looking forward to having a little more time for friends.” He intends to rekindle his interest in fishing, with trips to Argentina for brown trout, Florida for tarpon and Russia for Atlantic salmon. As the interview draws to a close, I ask him whether he is still happily a bachelor. “No one’s ever happily a bachelor, but you have to play the cards you are dealt,” he says, eyes twinkling with amusement. “So, yes, I’m unattached, I’m afraid.”
What about all those articles about Barrett attending glittering receptions with a beautiful girl on each arm? “I wish it were true,” he sighs. “I wish I was having half as much fun as is sometimes reported, but I’m afraid my life is a bit more boring than that.”
Perhaps, as chairman, Barrett’s luck will change. He has the magnetism to attract the ladies, not to mention the wealth. But as he says about money, in his own disarming way: “There’s only so many filets mignons you can eat.”
THE POWER 100
CV: MATT BARRETT
Name: Matthew W Barrett
Born: September 20, 1944
Residence: London
Marital Status: Twice divorced, four children
Education: Christian Brothers School, Kells. Harvard University (Advanced Management Programme, 1981)
Career: Clerk at Bank of Montreal in London in 1962. Moved to Canada in 1967 on two-year training programme. Settled there. Chief operating officer from 1987-89. Chief executive officer from 1989-99. Appointed chief executive of Barclays in 1999. Succeeds Sir Peter Middleton as chairman this week
August 29, 2004 at 10:14 PM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (12) | Top of page | Blog Home
NevOn: FT on business blogs as key influencers
The Financial Times published a piece last weekend on business blogging. Originally published by the Irish Times, the article is the latest big-media reporting on this topic.
Overall, the article discusses the importance blogs have gained in their role as influencers of opinion. Excerpts:
They were once seen as the preserve of the geek, but nowadays personal opinion and diary pages - weblogs or "blogs" - are so powerful that huge corporations are taking an interest. The sites that started as observational home pages for enthusiasts have become so powerful that they are starting a new industry of blog monitoring in which media companies scour the net to advise brands on how their name is being talked about online, away from the traditional newspaper and broadcast media sites.
The thinking behind this emerging service industry is simple. While there were only 130,000 sites four years ago, today there are about 10m. These web pages can make or break a company's reputation because they provide links to one another and allow people to comment on postings.
In fact the medium has become so important that Bill Gates has even launched his own website (at www.microsoft.com/billgates), which is rumoured to be on the verge of modernisation - featuring regular updates rather than just transcripts of speeches.
Using Bill Gates' website as an example in this context, the reporter might be confusing 'normal' websites with blogs. The Gates site certainly isn't a blog (well, not yet at least).
The article does focus on some very good points, somewhat simplistically in places:
It is not just computer brands who are starting to realise that the blog is a huge image-making network that cannot be ignored. Olympus, for example, has devised a new marketing strategy to embrace the medium. Whenever a new camera is approaching its launch, details are passed on to prominent blogs, a spokesman reveals, because the sites are crucial to getting interest ahead of the launch as well as getting early feedback on what the public thinks of the new model.
That is the feeling at Ford, which has recently started to use a blog-searching service because, as its executive director of public affairs, Tim Holmes, reveals, the manufacturer realised that no modern brand can afford not to listen to what people are saying about it online. "Like most big companies, we monitor the press, but the problem with that is it's always retrospective, everything's a few weeks old," he says.
I wonder what 'blog-searching service' Ford is using. Subscribing to blogs' RSS webfeeds would work extremely well and be pretty much immediate (maybe that's what the journalist meant).
Probably the best summary of how influential a blog can be is this snippet from the article:
In fact, blogs have become so powerful that they already have the launch of a company to their credit. Kathy Rittweger, CEO of Blinkx, was on what she thought was just a normal trip to the offices of Business 2.0 magazine to show the editor her new search software. Om Malik, one of the journalists in the meeting, was so impressed that he immediately wrote about it on his blog.
"He called me to say he'd done a 'blog' on us and I have to confess I was disappointed as it didn't sound as good as an article," Rittweger reflects. "Within a couple of hours we were being mentioned on thousands of sites and I had venture capitalists calling me left, right and centre. The blog made us so popular that we had to bring forward our launch from autumn to June."
FT.com | Never underestimate the power of the blogger
Irish Times | Never underestimate the power of the blogger
Subscriptions required on both sites to read the article.
August 29, 2004 at 10:10 PM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home
Netcraft: Will Yahoo Shake Up Domain Pricing Trends?
Will Yahoo's new $9.95 domain pricing prompt any other major players to adjust their pricing? Domain prices have been stable in recent months, a trend that continued when Yahoo dropped its pricing from $35 a year for a .com registration to $14.70 in late June.
But domain names are a price-sensitive business, in which discounters have succeeded in capturing the lion's share of sales, at the expense of full-price registrars such as Register.com and Network Solutions. The most successful player in the domain market is currently Go Daddy, which gained nearly half a million hostnames from March to July. Go Daddy currently prices a new .com domain at $8.95 a year, just a dollar less than Yahoo.
"Anytime someone the size of Yahoo does anything, you have to pay attention," said Bob Parsons, president and founder of Go Daddy, who is keeping a careful eye on competitors. "We looked at (pricing) when 1&1 entered the U.S. market," said Parsons. When 1&1 Internet launched its American unit in January with $5.99 domains, Go Daddy lowered its .com price to $7.95 for several months. Both providers are currently offering aggressive discounts on .us domains, which are priced at $2.99 at 1&1 and $4.95 at Go Daddy.
Retail Domain Name Prices, August 2004
Company One-year
.com price Primary Business Primary Region
1&1 Internet AG $5.99 Mixed Hosting Europe
EV1Servers $6.49 Dedicated Hosting America
Hostway $6.95 Shared Hosting America
Web.com $6.95 Mixed Hosting America
AIT Domains $6.95 Mixed Hosting America
DomainSite $6.99 Domain Registrar America
Go Daddy Inc $8.95 Domain Registrar America
Yahoo $9.95 Shared Hosting America
RegisterFly $9.99 Domain Registrar America
Dotster $14.95 Domain Registrar America
FastHosts $16.37 Mixed Hosting Europe
Pipex $16.57 Mixed Hosting Europe
eNom $29.95 Domain Registrar America
Network Solutions $34.99 Domain Registrar America
Register.com $35.00 Domain Registrar America
In using cheap domains to build its hosting business, Yahoo is following a path blazed last year by Hostway and EV1Servers. Given Yahoo's tight focus on the small business hosting market, its price change is a clear challenge to $35 providers with ambitions in that space. Chief among them is Network Solutions, which cited small business customers as a major factor in its recent rebound. Company president Champ Mitchell says Network Solutions has become a safe haven for small business owners launching web sites, who are willing to pay more for a familiar brand name. "When you're talking about your web presence, a $20 difference (in domain prices) isn't a lot of money," Mitchell said in June.
Having Yahoo priced at $9.95 changes that equation. For its part, Yahoo says it doesn't anticipate further price reductions. "There are others with lower price points," said Rich Riley, vice president and general manager of Yahoo Small Business. "I think there will always be discounters."
August 29, 2004 at 12:40 PM in Internet evolution | Permalink | TrackBack (23) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Technology Key to RNC's Protective Net
Fri Aug 27,12:35 PM
By Cynthia L. Webb, washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
The Republican National Convention kicks off Monday in the Big Apple with some 50,000 delegates pouring into Madison Square Garden. Add to that a slew of vendors, dignitaries, speakers and top government officials, including the president of the United States and his entourage, and you have a security nightmare for planners and law enforcement.
With all the tech wizardry available in 2004, the gum-shoe detectives protecting the convention are relying on a lot of security mainstays such as X-ray machines, surveillance areas and walking the beat. Government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites), U.S. Postal Service, Coast Guard and "dozens of other federal, state and local agencies were drafted by the Secret Service to play largely behind-the-scenes roles in a security plan that is considered unprecedented in its size and scope. The Republican convention is 'the biggest and toughest' of any of the so-called National Special Security Events, including last month's Democratic National Convention in Boston, said A.T. Smith, special agent in charge of the Secret Service field office in New York," the Associated Press reported.
The Secret Service (news - web sites), the New York Times noted in an article yesterday, is "part of history's most enormous police and military presence at any convention. [It] alone must provide the basics for well over 1,000 special agents, uniformed officers and military personnel supporting the service. This force is assigned to everything from protective duty to counter-sniper teams, bomb squads and canine units."
But there's more than enough state-of-the art equipment on display – and behind the curtain – in the massive security effort. For example, the Engadget blog noted that the "Federal Protective Service is outfitting 200 police officers with special helmet-mounted surveillance cameras that can wirelessly beam a video feed back to a control room so that service commanders can see exactly what's going on in the streets and more effectively issue orders."
In addition to thousands of patrolling law enforcement personnel, the Department of Homeland Security "will use customs agents to X-ray packages and delivery trucks. It will also provide sophisticated surveillance and communications equipment to watch for possible trouble both inside and outside the arena," the AP said. Newsday reported on Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's unveiling for the media of "a 2,000-square-foot room in a security-girdled police headquarters that, he announced, will serve 24/7 as a 'Multiple Agency Coordination' center for law enforcement. It will include about 150 people from 66 city, state and federal agencies, said Ridge, who held a news conference in the temporary center. The room includes computers, televisions tuned to news channels and screens showing city landmarks and streets and an incident log. The video feeds will come from more than 100 surveillance cameras at such high-profile locations as the Brooklyn Bridge, Holland Tunnel and Madison Square Garden."
• The Associated Press via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Even Postal Service on RNC Security Duty
• The New York Times: Secret Service Plans for Its Biggest Logistical Test (Registration required)
• Newsday: Ridge: City Security Strong
• The New York Times: Ridge Reviews Security in N.Y., Declaring 'We Are Prepared' (Registration required)
New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has some high-tech plans for monitoring the RNC. "Kelly talked about an array of devices, including some to defend against bomb attacks, that together would create, 'a comprehensive security net over Madison Square Garden for and during the course of the convention,'" Newsday reported. And KABC-TV in Los Angeles said the site "will be a fortress: traffic kept off the streets nearby and undercover cops riding the subways below. City officials showed off some new gadgets they have to help keep the city safe; including urban assault vehicles, and mobile command centers. Menacing equipment for the purpose of safety."
In the Wednesday news conference with Ridge, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said: "Other elements of the convention's security plan will be less visible, but just as important. There will also be robust security measures implemented near the Convention site, such as the installation of car-stopping ... barriers in the area and high-tech vehicle scanning equipment."
• Newsday: High-Tech RNC Security Unveiled
• KABC-TV: Security Preps Begin For the RNC
Technology companies are working behind the scenes at the convention. Newport, Rhode Island-based LiveWave Inc. is working with the DHS to beef up video surveillance systems at federal buildings in New York City in advance of the RNC, Mass High Tech reported. Hewlett-Packard announced yesterday it is the official provider of mobile technology gadgets for the convention, including HP Tablet PCs and copiers – proving that the convention is not only for marketing candidates, but for companies to flash their wares too.
• Mass High Tech: LiveWave Lands Video Surveillance Deal For RNC
Bloggers in the House
The convention will become the media's main story next week, and reporters from TV stations and newspapers won't be the only ones roaming the convention. Bloggers, or pundits that pen Weblogs, will also be part of the coverage fray, though not as many as at last month's Democratic convention.
The Wall Street Journal said "the official blogger group will number about 15, a tiny fraction of the estimated 15,000 journalists expected, and less than half the size of the accredited Boston blogger set. 'That's just the number we landed on,' said convention spokeswoman Alyssa McClenning. She wouldn't discuss how convention planners chose the group, but said the bloggers 'reflected a mix of ideologies.' Adding to the blend are some delegates and traditional journalists who also plan to blog from the convention. In the accreditation process, Republican convention organizers invited particular bloggers, while the Democrats used applications. But the result is the same: a lot of home-team support. Most Boston bloggers were solidly in the John Kerry (news - web sites) camp, while most New York bloggers plan to vote for President Bush (news - web sites). A handful of centrist bloggers are attending both." The RNC blog corps includes David Adesnik of OxBlog and Matt Margolis of Blogs for Bush (no question where his interests lie). The Blogs for Bush site has a whole gaggle of writers. (The media site Cyberjournalist.net posted a complete list of bloggers covering the convention.)
But the Journal News, a Gannett paper that covers New York's Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, suggests that the blogs will make little noise at the convention. There's this harsh criticism, from a liberal blogger. "The blogs at the convention is just a bunch of [garbage]," Bob Somerby, who edits the political blog Daily Howler, told the paper. "You'll notice no breakthroughs came out of the Democratic convention on the Web." More from the article: "Somerby's comments would seem like blasphemy in the so-called 'blogosphere,' but many online writers and observers agree that blogs, with a handful of exceptions, have had virtually no impact on the national conversation, mainstream media coverage of politics or large, orchestrated events like the parties' quadrennial nominating conventions."
Any bloggers care to weigh in on this? Drop me a note and let me know how influential you think the bloggers will be at the RNC.
• The Wall Street Journal: Meet the Bloggers, Part Two (Subscription required)
• Journal News: Impact of Blogs Seen as Slight
A New York company called PubSub Concepts yesterday used the upcoming convention to plug a new product, which it says can be used to scan politically natured blogs. Called the PubSub Sidebar, it's a free tool to add to the Internet Explorer Web browser that can monitor some 3 million blogs, the company said. The tool "displays instant alerts whenever new Weblog entries are published which contain user selected keywords or phrases such as 'John Kerry', 'George Bush (news - web sites)' or 'Kerry AND Vietnam'. "This tool will allow political enthusiasts and journalists to watch what's being said in near real-time at the RNC" Bob Wyman, PubSub's chief technology officer and co-founder, said in a statement.
A number of media sites will be publishing live online coverage of the event, with video streams and their own renditions of blogs, including MSNBC and the Boston Globe. Robert G. Kaiser of The Washington Post and photographer Lucian Perkins will produce a diary for the convention coverage and will discuss their plans in a Live Online chat today.
News service Web sites are already serving up helpful primers to the convention happenings. USA Today has a helpful page of information and links about events and so does Newsday's Web site.
Live From the Other Side
The protesters at the convention might be the most tech-savvy, or at least the most creative at using technology to get out their message.
"Beginning today, RNC protesters plan to use wireless phones to call in live, in-the-trenches reports that will be streamed over the Internet and picked up for rebroadcast nationwide on community-based micro radio stations — some licensed, most illegal," the Los Angeles Times reported. "The use of illegal — that is, unlicensed — 'pirate' radio stations has a long history of giving voice to the disenfranchised, usually on a very local level because of such outlets' relatively low power (10 to 100 watts) and reach (one to five miles). Only recently has the technology become an integral protest tool, used to organize impromptu events and to provide news, interviews, even music from event sites."
• The Los Angeles Times: Pirate Radio to Moor at Republican Convention (Registration required)
Wired News reports on engineering professor Natalie Jeremijenko whose "collective of tinkerers and artistes, the Bureau of Inverse Technology, have been using technology to explore the limits of social and environmental issues, from suicide to toxic skies. She's won slots at top universities, like Yale and Stanford, and at prestigious art centers, like the Whitney Museum, for the work. But starting this weekend, the machines put together here by Jeremijenko and her cohorts may get their biggest stage yet, by giving a guerrilla geek's edge to the protests swirling around the Republican National Convention in New York City," the article said.
More from the piece: "Months ago, it became clear that the RNC counter-demonstrations were relying on digital technology. But most of the gadgetry involved was household stuff -- text messages to report cops' whereabouts, or web pages to arrange housing. Jeremijenko and her group have gone beyond that, hand-crafting devices meant to level, just a bit, law enforcement's technology advantage over activists. Their devices include a 10-foot balloon, for counting crowds; a set of pirate transmitters for taking over local radio stations; and 1,400 face masks that measure the level of pollution in the Manhattan air. Think of the group as a kind of Darpa of dissent -- with Jeremijenko's loft as the headquarters.
• Wired News: Tech and Art Mix At RNC Protest
The Queens Chronicle reported on some other protesters' convention coverage plans. "They're creating their own round-the-clock news stream, called A-Noise, which will deliver reports from the streets, interviews, live shows and edited segments encapsulating the day's events from Friday, August 27th through Thursday, September 2nd. Because the whole thing will be run by volunteers from all over the country collaborating with donated and borrowed equipment in real time, serious organization is required," the article said. "The stream will include everything from live walkie-talkies and cell phones on the street to polished pieces from the radio personalities of NPR's 'This American Life,'" an organizer told the paper. "The channel will primarily be available on the Internet at nyc.nysindy.org/sound, as well as through other web sites that link to it, but local pirate radio stations are also likely to pick it up."
• Queens Chronicle: Protesters Create Their Own News Station to Cover RNC (Registration required)
The Politics of Domains
The owner of a Web site who didn't make a secret of his support for President Bush is changing his tactics after he linked his non-Republican-sounding URLs to Bush's re-election Web site. Jed Merrill of Utah had linked his vermontdemocrats.com and other sites to georgewbush.com, but he "changed the format on Thursday to include a link to the Kerry-Edwards campaign," the AP reported. He "has registered the Web addresses of vermontdemocrats.com, mainedemocrats.com, massachusettsdemocrats.com and rhodeislanddemocrats.com, and linked them to the GOP site. But on Thursday he changed the Web sites to list links to both the Kerry-Edwards and the Bush-Cheney campaigns because of feedback he had received, he said."
• The Associated Press via The Washington Post: Utah Man Buys Domain Names In Bush Push (Registration required)
Bush-Kerry Fight: A Game Concept
Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity to capitalize on the presidential race, some gaming companies have created politics-themed video games. One is called "Bush vs. Kerry Boxing," CNET's News.com reports, noting its "one of several new video games to capitalize on the current presidential campaign. Sorrent, a specialist in games for cell phones, released the game this week in attempt to give a contemporary spin to virtual pugilism. Gamers can play as either Bush or Kerry, engaging in one-off bouts or advancing through a campaign mode with three-round matches against increasingly tough opponents from the opposing party. Sen. Hillary Clinton (news - web sites) referees." The article also mentions another game, called "The Political Machine" by Ubisoft Entertainment. " The game casts the player as a virtual candidate who makes decisions on everything from which states to campaign in to what hot-button issues ads should be based on."
• CNET's News.com: It's All a Game for Bush vs. Kerry
Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle offered up this review of "The Political Machine": "From the beginning, the strategy game doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, contains no explosions and has a plot that should be familiar to anyone with a GED. You pick a candidate and start your campaign 41 weeks before the election. As you fly from state to state, making speeches and holding fund-raisers, each destination will eventually turn blue or red to represent whether Democrats or Republicans are in control. Eventually, the ballots are cast, and whoever has the most electoral votes wins. (No Ralph Nader (news - web sites), thank goodness.)," he wrote.
• San Francisco Chronicle: Presidential Campaign Game Lets Political Junkies Jump Into the Fray
Filter is designed for hard-core techies, news junkies and technology professionals alike. Have suggestions, cool links or interesting tales to share? Send your tips and feedback to cindyDOTwebbATwashingtonpost.com. (Yes, those spammers have been having a lot of fun with my e-mail address lately.)
August 29, 2004 at 10:06 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - The Digital Transition
Sun Aug 29,12:01 AM
By Rob Pegoraro
If my car died tomorrow, I'd have a lot less angst picking its successor than I would if my TV conked out. The "digital transition," as it's called, has given the television market some of the same frustrating inscrutability as the computing market, with an extra dose of technological, regulatory and economic uncertainty.
And yet: People are buying these things. Not just the techno-victims who will snap up any unproven gadget with a four-figure price tag, but regular folks who simply want a better set when their old one implodes.
Finding that better set without buying more or less than you actually want is the real trick of the digital-TV market. Here are six riddles to keep in mind:
Digital and high-definition TV aren't the same thing, except when they are. HD is a subset of digital TV, a generic term that covers 18 possible combinations of picture resolution, screen proportions, scan mode and frame rate. Only six of them count as HDTV -- only two of which broadcasters actually use.
(Why 18 digital-TV formats if so few are used? Much of the consumer-electronics industry remains stuck at a kindergarten-playground level of conflict resolution; when the Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) had to pick a standard in the mid-1990s, embracing all 18 formats available was the best it could do.)
One of the two HD formats is called 720p to indicate its 720 progressively scanned lines of resolution; "progressive" means that the entire image on the screen is refreshed 60 times a second, the way a computer monitor works. The other is 1080i, for 1,080 interlaced scan lines; in this case, half of these lines are refreshed every 60th of a second, the way old-fashioned analog TV works. Both 720p and 1080i are wide-screen formats, with a 16:9 aspect ratio close to a movie-theater screen's proportions.
Vendors, however, often try to fudge whether a set is HD-capable in ads. Pay attention to an HD set's resolution -- except when it doesn't matter.
Many digital sets -- including some large, pricey plasma screens -- only support a third, lower-resolution format called 480p (short for 480 progressive scan lines). This format, still a big step up from analog TV (which uses 480 interlaced scan lines), is often marketed as "Enhanced Definition." But on those 42-inch plasmas, the difference between ED and HD won't be hard to spot. When in doubt, look up a set's resolution in pixels; if its vertical resolution (the second number listed in a figure like "640 x 480") is below 720, it's not HD.
Conversely, on smaller sets -- say, under 25 inches across -- it is difficult to see the difference between 480p and 72op or 1080i from normal viewing distances. On those televisions, you can get away with enhanced definition, saving yourself a few bucks.
Like analog TV, digital TV broadcasts can be received in a variety of ways -- over the air, or, for a much larger selection of channels, over cable or via satellite. But digital cable or digital satellite isn't the same thing as digital TV. The services that cable and satellite providers have sold for years are analog at heart; they're only "digital" in the way they transmit that conventional signal. Real, HD-capable digital TV via cable or satellite costs more than "digital" cable or satellite and brings a smaller selection; many cable channels haven't brought out HD versions, although this is quickly improving.
Then there's over-the-air reception, something that seems an anachronism but need not be with improving digital receivers. If you get an acceptable analog signal, you can get a terrific digital signal, as our latest tests have found. But while any analog TV sold today only needs an antenna to tune into what's on, most digital sets are missing any digital tuning hardware.
A set sold as "HD-ready" isn't ready for HD. That phrase, "HD-ready," really means that the set can display an HD picture if it's fed a digital signal by an external box -- a cable, satellite or off-air tuner. A small but growing number of TVs called integrated sets now include an over-the-air tuner, often called an "ATSC" tuner after the Advanced Television Systems Committee that devised the digital system.
A smaller number of sets can tune in to digital and HD cable signals without needing an external cable box. Those with a "QAM" tuner can get unscrambled digital cable, but not premium fare such as HBO; this is the functional equivalent of a "cable-ready" analog set. Those with a "CableCard" slot can get a full set of channels if you pop in a small ID card provided by your cable company, but it won't allow any interactive cable services, such as video-on-demand.
An HD set that included a satellite tuner might be a good idea, but it doesn't exist. Sorry.
Many of the technologies I've mentioned here are new; CableCard sets, for instance, went on the market only at the beginning of last month. So it still pays to hold off on an HDTV purchase if you can -- just not for too long. This is an issue of technology, economics and politics: The technology keeps getting better and the prices keep getting cheaper, but political considerations are forcing manufacturers to put in features that viewers probably won't appreciate.
Last year, the FCC (news - web sites) unwisely voted to require that, as of July 1, 2005, any device capable of receiving a digital signal off the air must support the "broadcast flag." This scheme is supposed to stop full-quality copies of digital programs from circulating online. The idea is to boost the selection of HD shows available over the air and thus speed the digital transition (the government needs stations to switch to the new digital frequencies they've been given for free so it can, in turn, auction off part of the old analog spectrum).
I doubt that the broadcast flag will stop Internet copying of programs -- people will just share lower-quality copies of programs that take less time to download -- but I am pretty confident that the flag will do a fine job of inconveniencing law-abiding viewers. You would be wise to buy an HDTV, or least an off-air tuner, before the FCC's deadline, assuming its manufacturer hasn't implemented broadcast-flag support ahead of time (as if customers are screaming for this feature today).
If you buy too late, or you buy a set that's already flagged, there's still a way out of this copy-restriction mess. Make sure digital-TV hardware has analog connections. Analog component-video inputs and outputs offer almost the same quality as digital connections, but they can't enforce the copying limits of the broadcast flag or its equivalents in cable and satellite transmissions. Make sure that your digital tuner, however it gets its signal, can send the picture along to a TV or a video recorder via a high-resolution analog output.
Digital television has spent most of the past decade as a moving target, and that's not likely to change for the next few years. But I think -- or maybe I just hope -- that if you keep those principles in mind, you can find a digital set that has the useful lifespan of a TV as you've known it, not that of a computer. It's been wonderful to see such rapid progress, but at a certain point, digital TV has to become as boring as analog.
Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro at rob@twp.com.
August 29, 2004 at 10:05 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Microsoft Sets 2006 Target for Next Windows Version
Fri Aug 27, 8:12 PM ETAdd Technology - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Reed Stevenson
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) said on Friday it will ship the next version of Windows in 2006, but scaled back plans to include a new system for finding and storing information in its flagship operating system.
That's the first time that the world's largest software maker has committed to a launch target for the ambitious upgrade to Windows, code-named Longhorn, since shipping the current version, Windows XP (news - web sites), in October 2001.
Bill Gates (news - web sites), chairman and chief software architect of Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, is leading the effort to ship the next major upgrade to Windows, which promises to boost the performance of the world's most widely used operating system.
"Getting 'Longhorn' to customers in 2006 will provide important advances in performance, security and reliability, and will help accelerate the creation of exciting new applications by developers across the industry," Gates said in a statement.
Analysts had been warning that Microsoft's plans for Longhorn were too ambitious and that the company would have to scale back plans. Industry experts had long expected Microsoft to set a 2006 target date for Longhorn's debut.
Delivering the next version of Windows on time has become more of a critical goal for Microsoft after it encouraged large corporate customers two years ago to sign long-term contracts that would give them the right to upgrade to the latest versions of the company's software, rather than pay for each available upgrade.
To get Longhorn shipped on time, however, Microsoft said it had sacrificed a key component of the system that was to be shipped concurrently, the underlying file system for the software, called WinFS.
The new file system, based on database software architecture aimed at making it easier for users to find information stored on hard drives, will be shipped later, with a test, or beta version, of WinFS shipping along with Longhorn in 2006.
"We've had to make some trade-offs to deliver the features corporate customers, consumers and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) are asking for in a reasonable time frame," said Microsoft group vice president Jim Allchin.
STAKE IN THE GROUND
"In developing software, somewhere you have to put a stake in the ground and there's often some hard trade-offs you have to make," said Michael Cherry, a analyst with Directions on Microsoft, an independent researcher based in Kirkland, Washington.
Cherry noted Microsoft's plans to make some of its programming tools, called WinFX, available to software developers early so that they can build applications that will work with Windows XP, the current version of Windows, as well as Longhorn.
Microsoft did not provide specifications for the type of computer hardware, such as memory, processor and storage, needed to run Longhorn.
Longhorn will include new graphics technology, code-named Avalon, to present advanced graphics effects and three- dimensional images.
Microsoft is also offering a revamped Web services system, code-named Indigo, to allow software and services to work across networks and different devices.
Microsoft's last major desktop software release was Windows XP in October 2001, followed by the launch of Windows Server in 2003.
The Longhorn Server software for networked computers that handle data storage, file management and Web traffic, is slated for release in 2007
August 28, 2004 at 09:15 AM in Microsoft | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home
by Scott Foster
8/25/2004 5:00:00 PM - Jennifer Stoddart defends the federal legislation and warns software vendors about potential damage to their corporate reputations. Plus: Why can't security and privacy assessors get along?
OTTAWA -- The best way for e-businesses to rebuild the public’s waning trust of online transactions is to comply with Canada’s new privacy rules, says Jennifer Stoddart, privacy commissioner of Canada.
Stoddart went before
a conference in Ottawa Wednesday to champion the federal government’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) as a piece of legislation that will improve the bottom lines of those in the e-commerce industry.
"PIPEDA is not an impediment to e-commerce and e-business," she said during her keynote address to IT Privacy and Security Symposium 2004, which was attended by several hundred members of the high-tech community.
"It’s an act to support and promote electronic commerce by protecting personal information. Our intention is not to stand in your way, but to help you provide your customers with assurances that you are protecting their personal information appropriately."
Stoddart made an aggressive pitch, referring to a 2002 Leger Marketing survey that found issues with security and privacy continue to be the biggest barrier to Canadians making online purchases.
"These fears are fuelled by an identity theft problem galloping out of control, which is estimated to result in losses of $2 trillion worldwide by the end of 2005," she said.
Stoddart cautioned that while a company may see a business opportunity in data mining, "their next door neighbour might see it as an unacceptable invasion of privacy".
Yet, if a business conforms with PIPEDA’s "informed consent" and "document storage" provisions on the treatment of personal electronic information, that business stands to recoup the loyalty of would-be customers, she said.
"This will help you grow your business by improving trust."
Ann Cavoukian, information and privacy commissioner of Ontario and one of Stoddart’s co-presenters, pointed to a Harris/Westin poll conducted in 2001 and 2002 which supported her federal counterpart’s argument.
Over 90 per cent of the poll’s respondents said the volume and frequency of business they conduct with a company is directly related to the level of confidence they have in that company’s privacy practices. The same poll found that 83 per cent of respondents would stop doing business with a company if they felt that their personal information was misused.
Cavoukian also emphasized that while privacy and security aren’t the same thing, a company cannot realistically have one without the other.
This point wasn’t lost on Hugh Ellis, chief executive of Cinnabar Networks Inc. and presenter of Combined Security and Privacy Risk Analysis.
In the past, different people have done security and privacy assessments at different times, he told ITBusiness before his presentation.
"Historically, privacy and security people haven’t gotten along very well. Privacy people are worried about protecting the rights of an individual, whereas the security people are more interested in protecting the system. So from the outset they have different perspectives, and it takes a bit of work for them to get on the same page."
However, these competing perspectives can and should work together, he added.
If security and privacy risk-assessors work together, it can mean cost- and time-savings for e-commerce companies that are trying to comply with both camps, he said.
"The team that’s building their application is focused on building it. In some cases, they’re on a really tight timeline. Having people ask them questions about privacy and security and how the system works takes time away from building the system."
Meanwhile, Stoddart emphasized that e-commerce companies need to realize they are responsible for the products they distribute.
"Developers and sellers of data management software may be tend to feel that they are just providers of a product and it’s up to the customer to use that software in a responsible manner," she said.
"But I propose that you think beyond that for a moment. Your company’s name and reputation is behind that product. If it’s seen as not handling personal information appropriately, your company could be seen negatively by consumers, not to mention potential embarrassment to your clients."
August 27, 2004 at 11:33 PM in Phishing & identity theft | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
"Phishing" lures German banking clients
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Two clients of Germany's Postbank have fallen for an e-mail fraud that led them to reveal money transfer codes to a bogus Web site -- the first case of this scam in German, prosecutors say.
"There are two known cases now where transactions almost happened," said a spokeswoman of the state prosecutor in Bonn on Thursday. She declined to give more detail about where the investigation was heading: "We don't want to warn anybody," she said.
The victims nearly lost 21,000 euros (14,000 pounds) between them.
They had responded to an e-mail that tricked them into entering their account number, personal identification numbers and transaction codes on a Web site that posed as a legitimate Postbank site, Postbank said -- a scam know as phishing.
The people who ran the web site then used the codes to initiate money transfers to accounts in Eastern Europe, a spokesman for Germany's biggest retail bank said.
One victim noticed the fraudulent transfer before it was executed and cancelled it. The other transaction raised suspicion at the bank and was annulled after checks with the client.
The first wide-scale electronic attack targeted German bank clients last month. Previous attacks have been in English, requesting account details from U.S. banks or passwords to enter Internet sites including auctioneer EBay or payment service PayPal.
A fresh wave of e-mails, purporting to come from Deutsche Bank, emerged last weekend and Tuesday night. Germany's biggest bank quickly moved to disable the fake web sites.
Both Postbank and Deutsche, the only German banks affected by the phishing attempts so far, said no client had lost money.
Unsolicited bulk e-mail accounted for 65 percent of all e-mail traffic, according to computer-security company Symantec, up from 50 percent in July 2003.
June saw 1,422 separate phishing attacks, mostly focused on the United States, up from 176 in January, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a financial services industry task force.
August 27, 2004 at 07:24 AM in Phishing & identity theft | Permalink | TrackBack (2) | Top of page | Blog Home
103 arrests for Internet fraud, related crimes since June: US
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US authorities arrested at least 103 suspects and filed 117 criminal complaints since June 1 in a crackdown on various forms of online fraud, Attorney General John Ashcroft said.
Ashcroft said the effort dubbed Operation Web Snare "is the largest and most successful collaborative law-enforcement operation ever conducted to prosecute online fraud, stop identity theft, and prevent other computer-related crimes."
The law enforcement effort targeted schemes including hacking, selling counterfeit software and "phishing," a technique directing Internet users to fake sites to steal personal or financial data.
Ashcroft said authorities investigated more than 160 cases involving some 150,000 victims and losses of at least 215 million dollars.
"Last year alone, nearly 10 million Americans had their identities stolen," he said. "Identity theft costs the nation's businesses nearly 50 billion dollars a year in fraudulent transactions and often involves coordinated criminal conduct."
In one case, the chief executive of a California communications company and five other individuals were charged for allegedly using "denial of service" attacks against their online competitors, Ashcroft said.
In another case, a Ukrainian national was extradited from Cyprus to charges of credit-card trafficking and wire fraud after obtaining from Internet chat rooms numbers illegally obtained from sources around the world.
Ashcroft said US and Nigerian authorities were also cooperating on the so-called Nigerian e-mail fraud scheme, in which messages pledge to provide large sums of money for an advance "fee."
August 27, 2004 at 07:22 AM in Online crime | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Credit Bureaus Shun Identity Theft Weapon
Thu Aug 26, 9:15 PM ETAdd Technology - AP to My Yahoo!
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK - Little by little, a weapon against identity theft is gaining currency — but few people in the United States know about it.
It's called the security freeze, and it lets individuals block access to their credit reports until they personally unlock the files by contacting the credit bureaus and providing a PIN code.
The process is a bit of a hassle, and the credit-reporting industry believes it complicates things unnecessarily. But it appears to be one of the few ways to virtually guarantee that a fraudster cannot open an account in your name.
The freeze became an option in California and Texas last year, and Louisiana and Vermont will allow it beginning next July. However, the Texas and Vermont laws apply only to people who already have been victimized by identity theft.
Only 2,000 Californians and 150 Texans have taken advantage of the freeze, according to Experian Inc., one of the three major credit bureaus.
But identity theft watchdogs say usage is low simply because the credit bureaus don't publicize the option. With identity theft apparently growing, the advocates hope the freeze gains national momentum. Congress resisted calls for a freeze rule during debate over a major credit law last year.
"It's the best protection we have," said Linda Foley, executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego.
While the freeze may be an extreme step, its backers say it is necessary because the existing system is broken.
The Internet and consumer databases have made it easier than ever to find someone else's social security number and apply for accounts in that name. Meanwhile, obtaining credit is a breeze, as zero-percent financing offers crowd our mailboxes and appliance stores make no-money-down come-ons.
People who suspect trouble can place fraud alerts on their credit reports. But identity theft watchdogs say the alerts are often ignored by creditors who are willing, say, to gamble that the potential plasma TV purchaser in front of them is legitimate, and write off any losses that might occur if the person turns out to be a con artist.
That scenario is "unfortunately not uncommon," said Joanne McNabb, chief of the California Office of Privacy Protection.
A 2003 study for the Federal Trade Commission determined that in the previous year, 3.2 million Americans' personal information had been stolen by thieves who opened new accounts or loans. On average, victims lost $1,180 and spent 60 hours resolving the problem.
The freeze costs nothing for ID theft victims in the states it is allowed. Louisiana's freeze is also free for people 62 and older.
For everyone else in California and Louisiana, the initial freeze is $10. Unfreezing it temporarily is $8 in Louisiana and up to $12 in California. But the cost of each step is multiplied by three because it must be performed with all three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.
With the freeze on, if someone applies for credit in your name, the creditor will be unable to check your history, and the applicant will get rejected. (The freeze won't keep credit card offers out of the mail — those are generated through a "prescreening" process that doesn't require full examination of your credit until you actually apply for the card.)
If you want to apply for credit or let someone run a background check on you, you have to call the credit bureaus, provide the PIN, and say who — a landlord, for example — will be inquiring about your history. Or you can thaw the credit report for a given period of time — a week in which you're shopping for cars, for example.
"It's like putting a new lock and key on your security files," said Bridget Thomas of Prairieville, Louisiana, who lobbied for the freeze in her state after a woman with the same name — but a different middle initial — got Thomas' social security number and went on a spending spree that wrecked Thomas' credit status.
"This gives you a modicum of control. Instead of the social security number being the old key, this PIN is your new key."
The time or money required to freeze and unfreeze credit reports probably will dissuade many people from doing it unless they've already been badly stung by ID theft. Foley, who has frozen her files, says it's probably best for people who are older, settled in life and unlikely to open new accounts or apply for credit very often.
The credit bureaus think it isn't wise for anyone.
The industry has fought the freeze, contending that fraud alerts and new protections in last year's federal Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act offer significant defense against identity theft.
In testimony to a Louisiana legislative committee in May, Eric Ellman, a lobbyist for the Consumer Data Industry Association, called freezes "the most dramatic and draconian alteration" ever to hit the credit reporting system.
Consumers are accustomed to quick mortgage approvals and other conveniences that exist because banks, retailers and insurance companies have efficient access to credit histories, Ellman said. The freeze, he said, would only gum up the works and confuse people.
"It's using a machine gun to get at a fly," he said.
That argument angers victims like Thomas, who says the best that the existing system offers is detection of the crime, while a freeze brings invaluable protection.
"The only thing you have in this world," she said, "is your name."
___
On the Net:
Information about California and Louisiana laws:
http://www.privacy.ca.gov/financial/cfreezeon.htm
http://www.ag.state.la.us/calerts/alert0004.aspx
August 27, 2004 at 07:21 AM in Phishing & identity theft | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home
PCWorld.com - Internet Tips: Tweak Windows XP SP2 Security to Your Advantage
Fine-tune the settings in Microsoft's recently released Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Scott Dunn
From the October 2004 issue of PC World magazine
Posted Friday, August 27, 2004
Windows XP is a safe and secure operating system. Really, it is--as long as you don't connect it to the Internet. To be fair, other operating systems, including Linux and Mac OS X, are vulnerable to online attacks, too. But Windows gets more attention, and hackers were quick to discover serious flaws in the OS that made possible the Blaster and Sasser worms, along with a legion of other exploits.
Trying to make Windows more secure, Microsoft released Windows XP Service Pack 1 in 2003, and Service Pack 2 recently. Whereas SP1 focused on remedying antitrust violations with bundled Windows utilities, almost all of SP2 is devoted to beefing up Internet security. SP2 doesn't thoroughly shield you from attacks, but it's definitely worth installing for its firewall improvements, Internet Explorer pop-up blocking, and security-configuration changes. Once you've installed it, you'll probably want to tweak some of SP2's new settings, and to know where--tweaked or not--the reinforced OS remains vulnerable.
SP2's most noticeable change to Windows XP is its introduction of a new Security Center Control Panel applet (see FIGURE 1). Security Center itself doesn't do much, but it provides a single location where you can view the status of the Windows Firewall (formerly known as Internet Connection Firewall) and of Windows' Automatic Updates service. The utility also tracks if you have an antivirus program installed, running, and updated.
If any of these three key security tools has been disabled or is less than fully functional, Security Center changes their corresponding status lights from green to either red or amber. The program also displays a warning icon in the system tray. A red light means that you should probably take steps to beef up security in the indicated area. An amber light signifies a service that is only partly enabled, or that a third-party product handles.
But even if all your dashboard security lights are green, you aren't necessarily safe. Conversely, certain red or amber conditions--triggered when Windows doesn't recognize your third-party firewall or antivirus program, for example--may be acceptable to you. So how do you disable that pesky tray icon?
Start by opening the Security Center: Choose Start, Control Panel and click Security Center. Many people will see a bank of green lights, thanks to SP2's more secure default settings. The firewall is now enabled by default for all Internet connections, which is a good thing if you don't have a third-party firewall program. The Automatic Updates feature downloads and installs often-crucial security updates from Microsoft while you're online. Unless you went out of your way to disable it during installation of Service Pack 2, this option will be fully enabled as well. And if you've installed an antivirus program that Microsoft recognizes, you'll get a green light in the virus-protection area.
Tweak the Firewall
Windows firewall, which is enabled by default, blocks incoming worms, like Blaster, that try to enter your PC through a network connection; but it can't stop malicious apps that are already on your PC from making outgoing connections. You get no protection from viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and spyware that sneak onto your computer via your Web browser, e-mail, or instant messaging program. I recommend using a bidirectional third-party firewall such as Zone Labs' free ZoneAlarm (see "Security Must-Haves" for download details). For PC World's most recent review of firewalls, see June's "Bigger Threats, Better Defense."
Once you've installed a bidirectional firewall, I recommend disabling the Windows Firewall altogether. Occasionally, firewalls obstruct an application you're trying to use over a network connection--and there's nothing more frustrating than spending a half hour tweaking, disabling, and even uninstalling a firewall, only to discover that the other firewall was the culprit. To disable the Windows Firewall in the Security Center, click the Windows Firewall link at the bottom of the dialog box, check Off (not recommended) in the next window, and click OK.
Alas, Windows may not recognize the third-party firewall installed on your PC. (It didn't see my copy of Sygate Personal Firewall, for example.) In such cases, Windows displays the security-warning icon in the system tray. That's no big deal, except that when other security lapses crop up they probably won't come to your attention. To disable the firewall security warning in the Security Center, click Recommendations in the Firewall pane, check I have a firewall solution that I'll monitor myself, and click OK (see FIGURE 2). Windows will then switch your firewall status to amber, and stop pestering you with firewall warnings in the system tray.
If Windows fails to recognize your antivirus program, you can easily disable Security Center false alarms: Click Recommendations in the Antivirus Protection pane, check I have an antivirus program that I'll monitor myself, and click OK.
Automatic Updates
In general, it's unwise to let your computer automatically connect to the Internet, and then download and install software on its own. After all, that's how viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and spyware do their dirty work. But the tremendous threat posed by Internet attacks has changed the rules. Because viruses and worms often take advantage of flaws in Windows or its Internet Explorer Web browser, you need to install patches as soon as Microsoft makes them available (the same is true of your antivirus program's signature database files).
For most PC users, enabling Automatic Updates is the way to go. Nevertheless, situations may arise in which the default settings aren't optimal. For example, by default the service downloads and installs updates at 3 a.m., without inquiring into the user's preferences. But if your computer is always asleep or disconnected from the Internet at 3 a.m., you might never get any updates under the default arrangement. And if, like me, you regard Microsoft with less than complete trust, you might want to inspect the updates that are available for downloading before agreeing to install them on your PC.
To change Automatic Updates' settings, click the System link at the bottom of the Security Center window (or choose Start, Control Panel, and click or double-click the System icon). Select the Automatic Updates tab. To choose a time when you know your PC will be awake and available to download and install updates, select Automatic (recommended), and pick a time from the drop-down list (see FIGURE 3). To instruct Windows to download but not automatically install updates until you can inspect them, select Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them.
Finally, if you frequently rely on dial-up or wireless links that aren't suitable for Automatic Updates' sometimes-massive downloads, choose the option labeled Notify me but don't automatically download or install them. This setting gives you the greatest control over updates, enabling you to veto downloading or installing any update. On the other hand, it also increases your risk of getting hit by an exploit that Microsoft has already issued a fix for, so use it with caution. (I can't think of a single good reason to turn off Automatic Updates altogether.) Click OK to save your settings.
Pop-Ups Begone
The ability to block pop-up browser windows, besides being convenient, can protect you from browser hijacking (where an unscrupulous Web site installs itself as your home page or runs ActiveX programs). Some other browsers, including Mozilla, Netscape, and Opera, have had pop-up blockers for a while. SP2 adds this long-needed feature to IE and activates it by default. (On a related note, SP2 also disables Windows' Messenger service, which formerly allowed spammers and other miscreants to pop up message windows on your Internet-connected PC.) the ability to block pop-up browser windows, besides being convenient, can protect you from browser hijacking (where an unscrupulous Web site installs itself as your home page or runs ActiveX programs). Some other browsers, including Mozilla, Netscape, and Opera, have had pop-up blockers for a while. SP2 adds this long-needed feature to IE and activates it by default. (On a related note, SP2 also disables Windows' Messenger service, which formerly allowed spammers and other miscreants to pop up message windows on your Internet-connected PC.)
Though Internet Explorer's newfound pop-up blocking prowess is generally a positive thing, it can cause problems when you visit Web sites that use subsidiary, pop-up style windows for logging in, completing surveys, displaying videos, or performing other special tasks. If you discover that your favorite site doesn't work as expected after you've installed SP2, don't get too upset.
First, to test whether IE's pop-up blocker is responsible, disable it by choosing Tools, Pop-up Blocker, Turn off Pop-up Blocker. If that tactic solves the problem, you can instruct IE not to block pop-ups from that one site. To do so, first copy the site's address in IE's Address field (click the address to select it, and then press Ctrl-C). Choose Tools, Pop-up Blocker, Pop-up Blocker Settings, press Ctrl-V to paste the address into the 'Address of Web site to allow' field, and click Add (see FIGURE 4). Alternatively, you can type addresses directly into the field, if you prefer.
SP2 introduces a related security feature in the Outlook Express e-mail program. To block the tiny invisible images called Web bugs that sites use to identify you online, Outlook Express by default now blocks downloads of any external images referenced in HTML messages. If you receive one of those slick-looking e-mail newsletters, it may not look so slick after you've installed SP2.
To re-enable the display of these image links in e-mail messages (and risk having your e-mail newsletter--reading habits monitored by the newsletter's publisher), choose Tools, Options, Security, uncheck Block images and other external content in HTML e-mail, and click OK.
Version Tracker: Security Must-Haves
Windows XP may be getting safer with SP2, but it's still a good idea to download and install the latest versions of the following free (and excellent) utilities to plug remaining security gaps.
ZoneAlarm 5: Despite Microsoft's efforts to beef up security in Windows, the operating system's built-in firewall can't block outgoing traffic, including the dastardly activities of worms, backdoor programs, and other menaces to your privacy and online security. Zone Labs' $40 ZoneAlarm Pro recently received a PC World Best Buy, but you don't need to spend a dime to get its essential features. The free version of ZoneAlarm omits Pro's pop-up blocker and e-mail virus filter, but none of its top-notch firewall capabilities.
5.6MB
Spybot Search & Destroy 1.3: Patrick M. Kolla's indispensable tool for detecting and removing spyware and adware is now better than ever. The latest version significantly improves Spybot's real-time spyware scanner, blocks unsafe downloads in Internet Explorer, and preserves Windows system settings from spyware and adware attacks.
4.15MB
Send your questions and tips to nettips@spanbauer.com. We pay $50 for published items. Click for more Internet Tips. Scott Spanbauer is a contributing editor for PC World.
August 27, 2004 at 07:12 AM in Microsoft | Permalink | TrackBack (8) | Top of page | Blog Home
finextra news: TD Bank branches hit by software glitch
25 August 2004 - Toronto Dominion Bank has become the latest financial firm in Canada to suffer from system troubles after a software glitch prevented some customers from accessing up-to-date account balances.
According to a report in the Toronto Star newspaper, software connecting teller terminals to the bank's mainframe computer stopped working at 8am yesterday morning.
The systems failure meant that in-branch transactions made by customers in Ontario and British Columbia were not reflected in their account balances. Customers using online banking services or making transactions at ATMs were not affected.
TD Bank says the problem at British Columbia branches was fixed by early afternoon and Ontario branches were running by mid-afternoon.
A bank spokesperson says in-branch transactions conducted before the systems were fixed were held in standby mode and all affected accounts should be up-to-date sometime today.
The bank is the latest in Canada to be hit by system failures in recent months. In July the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) was forced to apologise for a software problem that caused transactions to be billed twice on 60,000 customer accounts, while in June a routine software upgrade at The Royal Bank of Canada caused payroll delays for thousands of workers.
August 26, 2004 at 07:56 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home