IT Monitoring Blog

Microsoft corporation is going to introduce new browser which is known as Gazelle. According to official source it will have some functions which are not available for present-day browsers. Last Friday Microsoft said that Gazelle will have new and unique security system. “Gazelle’s security model is centered around protecting principals from one another by separating their respective resources into hardware-isolated protection domains. Any sharing between two different principals must be explicit using cross-principal communication (or IPC) mediated by Browser Kernel.” It is also notable that this coming browser is not heir of Internet Explorer but brand-new application which has own team of developers.

While we haven’t yet gotten our hands on a Windows 7 build with the new taskbar, we did talk to Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky about the various UI changes and what we can expect at release time.
It’s not a surprise that the most disruptive Windows UI change in 15 years comes under the watch of the man largely responsible for the Office ribbon. The ribbon was a jarring change for many users, yet there was no option to turn it off, which made sense to most of us here at Ars. Many people vehemently disagreed with this decision, and we expect to be hearing from them again on the new taskbar. Sinofsky told us that there will be no ability to enable the old taskbar since, in Microsoft’s opinion, the new taskbar’s leap in usability negates the need for a “less-able” option. While there’s not quite as much ingrained taskbar knowledge as there may have been for the various Office toolbars and menus, we expect that this change will be the source of lots of contention.
The Office change seems to have given Microsoft some insight into how its customers will react to disruptive changes, and made the company a little bolder with Windows itself. Ribbon users generally took between 48 hours and 25 days to see productivity gains, and Microsoft is quick to point out how much time many Office users actually spend in front of Excel. The implication is that an aggressive taskbar change won’t be quite as hard to adapt to as the Office ribbon may have been for many users.
Sinofsky’s comments about historical Windows UI changes were informative. “I think that Windows has had this history of being, sort of, risk averse on change. And frankly, I feel like we just kind of move stuff around a little and never really fundamentally alter it,” Sinofsky told Ars. “So people talk about how XP had compatibility mode… it kind of just turned it gray. I mean, it really didn’t do all that much to make it that much different”.
Over the course of this discussion, we also heard something interesting about the taskbar’s jump list feature. “The reason [the jump list feature] is really cool is because it gives a chance to developers to stop annoying customers,” Sinofsky said.
Current and previous versions of Windows don’t really have a good mechanism for the sort of unobtrusive interaction that jump lists could provide. To highlight the problems this causes, Sinofsky pointed out that even Windows Live messenger has a window for listing buddies, a notification icon with a basic context menu, and it’s still a window that can be minimized “with bizarre balloon messages if you close it, reminding you that it’s still running.” With jump lists, developers can just make the window, minimize it, and do everything in one place, leaving the notification area for… notifications only.
Other Windows 7 UI tidbits
Many of our readers have asked us about multimonitor support for the new Window docking abilities. We asked about that, and it sounds like window docking will behave in a relatively predictable way with multiple-monitor setups. If you watch the video of a single-monitor configuration, you’ll notice that dragging a window to one of the side edges of the screen “docks” it, while dragging it to the top edge maximizes it. In a multimonitor configuration, the screen will be treated as one giant space, with one specific exception. The outer side edges will result in a “docked” Window that fills the screen it’s on, while the top edge will maximize a window to the current screen. We would have liked to have seen two regions per screen for docking purposes, but they don’t seem to have included that.
Window Docking in Action
There are quite a few big UI changes in Windows 7 that are dependent on developers taking advantage of them. Microsoft is going to have to lead the way here, since it’s the largest Windows software developer (in addition to, you know, building Windows). Vista had a number of neat features that Microsoft software never took much advantage of; there were no first-party Office sidebar gadgets, for instance. We asked Sinofsky if this would be different for Windows 7, and he basically said that the entire company follows Office, for better or worse, so it will depend on what the Office people do. They have apparently been included in the design process for some of these changes, which may mean that there’s some hope in this area.
We’re pretty excited to get our hands on the Beta build of Windows 7 that’s supposed to be out in January. Microsoft confirmed that the UI changes they demonstrated will be available in that build, so it will give us a good chance to put them through their paces and show them in action.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/

Some new tests showed that Internet Explorer 8 needs twice as much of operating system than Firefox 3. Here are some details. Three browsers took part in this test: Explorer 8 Beta 2, Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3.0.1. During this test 10 web sites with a lot of media elements were browsed. The test was run on Windows Vista with 1 GB of operating memory. As a result Internet Explorer 8 used 380 Mb RAM, Internet Explorer 7 - 260 Mb and only 159 Mb were used by Firefox. For reference Windows XP uses 130 - 150 Mb of memory. I don’t know what else can I say.

Google Inc opened its website Knol to the public on Wednesday, allowing people to write about their areas of expertise under their bylines in a twist on encyclopedia Wikipedia, which allows anonymity.

“We are deeply convinced that authorship — knowing who wrote what — helps readers trust the content,” said Cedric DuPont, product manager for Knol.

The name of the service is a play on an individual unit of knowledge, DuPont said, and entries on the public website, knol.google.com, are called “knols”. Google conducted a limited test of the site beginning in December.Knol has publishing tools similar to single blog pages. But unlike blogs, Knol encourages writers to reduce what they know about a topic to a single page that is not chronologically updated.

“What we want to get away from is ‘this last voice wins’ model which is very difficult if you are a busy professional,” DuPont said.

Google wants to rank entries by popularity to encourage competition. For example, the first knol on “Type 1 Diabetes” is by Anne Peters, director of the University of Southern California’s Clinical Diabetes Programs. As other writers publish on diabetes, Google plans to rank related pages according to user ratings, reviews and how often people refer to specific pages, DuPont said.

Knol focuses on individual authors or groups of authors in contrast to Wikipedia’s subject entries, which are updated by users and edited behind the scenes. Knol does not edit or endorse the information and visitors will not be able to edit or contribute to a knol unless they have the author’s permission. Readers will be able to notify Google if they find any content objectionable. Knol is a hybrid of the individual, often opinionated entries found in blogs and the collective editing relied on by Wikipedia and other wiki sites. The service uses what it calls “moderated collaboration” in which any reader of a specific topic page can make suggested edits to the author or authors, who retain control over whether to accept, reject or modify changes before they are published. In its early stages, Knol remains a far cry from Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org, which boasts 7 million collectively edited articles in 200 languages. Google signed a deal with Conde Nast’s New Yorker, giving Knol authors the rights to use one of the magazine’s famous cartoons in each Knol posting. Google will allow Knol writers to run ads on their entries and will share income with them. DuPont said that rather than competing with Wikipedia, Knol may end up serving as a primary source of authoritative information for use with Wikipedia articles.

“Knols will fill gaps on what we have on the Web today. That is what we hope,” DuPont said.

(Additional reporting by Michele Gershberg in New York)

©Reuters
source: http://news.ciol.com/

Android developers are becoming increasingly frustrated with Google’s lack of an updated public software development kit, and many may consider moving on to other platforms.

The issue became more heated after developers learned that Google had secretly been making updated SDKs available to Android Developer Challenge finalists. This came to light this week when Google meant to send notification of an updated SDK to a select group, but accidentally notified the public Android mailing list.

Most of the developer community had been using an Android SDK that was last updated in February, but 50 contest finalists were provided an updated build under a non-disclosure agreement. While other open-source software likeRed Hat have been wrapped with non-disclosure agreements, many developers thought Google was aiming to build an equal-opportunity platform.

“I don’t think the biggest issue here is who has and doesn’t have access to the SDK,” said developer Ken Adair in an Android discussion list. “I think the main issue here is communication or lack thereof. Google embraced the development community and touted how they were going to build this platform with the help of the development community. Somewhere along the line, this ’seemed’ to change.”

After months of speculation that Google was going to build its own phone, last November the search giant unveiled its Linux-based Android operating system to pry open the telecom industry and merge it with the Internet.

But the mobile application market has become increasingly competitive with the success of the Apple App Store, and an open-sourced Symbian operating system is expected to offer many of the same advantages that Android was touting.

“I believe many developers are losing interest in Android,” read a message from a user named “jalopy” on the Android discussion forum. “I am currently having a good time developing applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch.”

Incumbent smartphone operating systems will face a major challenge in the next five years, according to a study by ABI Research. In a report about smartphones, “Smartphone and OS Markets,” ABI said the open source Linux operating system will grow rapidly thanks to flexibility, as well as reduced licensing fees and development costs.”By 2013, we expect that Linux will take 23% of the smartphone market and will be the second-most-prevalent solution behind Symbian,” said ABI Research VP Stuart Carlaw in a statement.

The Linux Mobile Foundation and the Open Handset Alliance will be the major drivers of this increase and will account for most of the mobile Linux adoption. But ABI said developers like Maemo have an opportunity to be successful with mobile Internet devices.

The LiMo Foundation recently unveiled its first set of Linux-based handsets and is expected to have smartphones on the market before Google Linux-based Android, which is backed by the Open Handset Alliance.
Despite some initial complaints, the Android platform is picking up some steam. With devices slated to come out by year’s end, executives from Google seem confident Android will be a success.

The LiMo Foundation was founded in January 2007 with the goal of creating a Linux software framework that can be quickly designed into handsets. The Open Handset Alliance, founded in November 2007, is seeking to use the Android operating system as an open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices.

Both consortiums are pushing for an “open” handset software platform, but even if ABI’s predictions come true, it is unlikely that a single mobile Linux platform will take over. Handset developers will be able to customize both Linux operating systems as they see fit. For example, while market leader Symbian is the basis for Nokia S60 and the UIQ operating system, there are significant differences between the two.

With Web browsers taking a central role in the work lives of more employees as software-as-a-service explodes and workers look to the Web for customers and research, Microsoft plans to make Internet Explorer 8 even more IT friendly than previous versions.

IE8, due out by the end of the year, will add a number of features for IT departments beyond those already offered in IE7 and before. For example, Microsoft will make it easier to include IE8 in Windows Vista installations (it’s unclear if XP is part of the equation), so IE8 is an automatic part of operating system configurations. Microsoft estimates the time to do this will decrease from 2 hours to 10 to 15 minutes per each configuration with IE8.

Since Microsoft is improving standards support in IE8 — and many Web apps and sites don’t conform to standards — the company will offer the Application Compatibility Toolkit, which will help companies find and fix compatibility problems. Group Policy settings will also allow companies to control settings, like one called “Emulate IE7″ that can help keep sites compatible.

Security features will also get some upgrades, such as the ability to install and run ActiveX controls in a sort of sandbox so that if the control is malicious, it only affects on user’s account or only runs on one site. Admins can also manage add-ons to make sure they are secure and don’t suck up memory. A new default option called Data Execution Prevention prevents non-executable code from running in memory and can help stop some common attacks like buffer overruns. Another feature, cross document messaging — already found in Opera — is supposed to help prevent cross-site scripting attacks carried out by mash-ups.

Microsoft already includes a number of centralized deployment, security, and management features in IE7. The Internet Explorer Administration Kit lets IT admins, among other things, centrally deploy and manage the browser and its security and communication settings as well as customize IE by adding specific Web feeds and setting home pages or default search providers.

Microsoft’s corporate update services like Windows Server Update Service and Systems Management Server also allow companies to centrally deploy and update the browser, and settings can be managed with Windows Server Group Policy and Active Directory.

Internet Explorer’s biggest browser competitor, Mozilla, will release Firefox 3.0 next Tuesday. But Mozilla takes a hands-off approach with businesses and business features.It doesn’t offer any paid tech support and has few tools for central deployment and management, opting instead to let third party developers create add-ons like FirefoxADM to give IT admins the features they need.

Still, Firefox use continues to grow inside corporations and outside as well, and one of the reasons might be security. Studies have consistently shown that Firefox is less likely to be the victim of virus or phishing attacks, and Mozilla VP of engineering Mike Schroepfer said in an interview last month that means less support calls to IT help desks from frustrated employees. Firefox 3.0 adds a better phishing filter as well as malware detection that finds viruses and other malware before a Web page loads.

Norwegian company Opera Software introduced the newest version of internet browser – Opera 9.5. The application has new “engine”. Due to it browser render HTML-pages and JavaScript rather faster then previous Opera 9.2x. Fresh version has some new functions, improved search system and possibility to be synchronized with mobile version of application. Besides it include Opera Dragonfly Beta which is special advanced tool for web development. Plugin support was also improved. On the whole new Opera 9.5 is positioned as the fastest browser of our days.

The future of the Internet may come down to a battle between Google and Apple. It’s tempting to see the contest as open versus closed, but that fight — Google v. Microsoft — has more or less been decided. Open won. It’s hard to see how Microsoft’s decision to copy Google’s business model can be spun any other way. Certainly Google v. Microsoft also is a case of free v. expensive, but Google’s ad-supported approach can’t easily be separated from its embrace of open source development and open information access.

In the case of Google and Apple, the contrast isn’t as sharp. Apple’s Mac OS X is based on open source Unix. Its Safari Web browser is powered by the open source WebKit browser engine. Apple remains open enough to avoid the kind of government scrutiny that ultimately hobbled Microsoft.

In the late ’90s, Microsoft focused more on cutting off Netscape’s air supply than it did on innovating. Apple, meanwhile, focused on products that take people’s breath away. The genius of Steve Jobs is that he saw how interface and product design could serve as barriers to entry (and exit). By making great, user-friendly products, Apple has achieved lock-in through customer loyalty.

Apple customers aren’t really all that bothered by the iTunes Store toll booth. It works, and that’s more than can be said of a lot of online music stores. Apple’s iPhone customers will probably react the same way to the iPhone App Store.

Jobs isn’t so shortsighted or greedy as to go for complete control. iTunes isn’t essential to buy music. There’s a way around iTunes’ anti-copying scheme. And if you really want, you can use a hacked iPhone. But it’s not easy. And the mass market tends to follow the path of least resistance.

Google made search on the Internet easy and effective, and users flocked to it. It wants to do the same thing on mobile phones.

Apple may have something to say about this. Google is a guest on the iPhone and it may not always be welcome.

A recent Market Watch report describes how Google CEO Eric Schmidt, while serving as a member of Apple’s board of directors, has had to excuse himself from Apple board meetings on several occasions due to Google’s involvement in the Android open source mobile phone stack. Android phones, when they appear later this year, will compete with Apple’s iPhone.

At present, there are few signs of friction. Google and Apple get along well, a friendship strengthened by mutual distrust of Microsoft. But several years down the road, Apple is likely to find itself in Microsoft’s position: trying to sustain its walled-off, profitable, and very pleasant iPhone eco-system in the face of unruly innovation driven by Android developers.

Google’s path to victory lies in transforming the telecom industry by bringing prices down and loosening the death-grip of mobile telcos. It wins by turning the phone into an open mobile computer.

The problem Google faces is that its mobile industry partners are more comfortable with Apple’s vision of a moderated computing environment. The popularity of the iPhone proves that walled gardens, if well-tended, can be nice places to live with plenty of revenue opportunities.

source: www.informationweek.com

McAfee tried to reveal the most dangerous domain zones in its annual report “Mapping the Mal Web”. It seems that some domain zones provide to domain owners more opportunities for violation of security rules then other ones. According to McAfee the most dangerous zones are “.hk” (Hong Kong) – 19.2 % of websites, “.cn” (China) – 11.8% and “.info” – 11.7%. Only 5% of websites of “.com” domain zone are dangerous. Some domain name registrars reduce requirements and deflate to attract more customers. Due to this fact a lot of spammers and developers of harmful codes have opportunity to register domain name. Unfortunately domain name registrars which are responsible for this fact are not mentioned in McAfee report. Another dangerous domain zones are “.ro” (Romania) – 6.8% of websites and “.ru” (Russia) - 6%. The Author of this report is Shane Keats who said that “Mapping the Mal Web” was based on analysis of more than 9.9 million websites. According to McAfee the most secure domain zones are “.gov” – 0.05%, “.jp” (Japan) – 0.1%, “.au” (Australia) – 0.3%.