Big Brother — in the form of your employer looking over your shoulder — is getting bigger and stronger, according to C-Net.

The percentage of large employers monitoring outbound email and phone call volume now appears to be over fifty percent, up from less than ten percent less than five years ago. Keystroke logging software can tell your boss what you thought about saying to him/her, even if you later changed your mind and deleted the comment.

Recently many companies with products that are, or could be classed as Adware/Spyware have been threatening legal action against any company that classes them as such. Symantec, apparently aiming to beat Hotbar to the punch has filed suit against Hotbar asking Hotbar to be declared as Adware and to enable Symantec to treat it as such.

This quote from the Symantec seems to sum it up best:

Symantec is not seeking damages as part of the suit. Symantec is petitioning for a declaratory judgement by the court affirming Symantec’s assertion that certain Hotbar program files are indeed adware and can be treated as computer security risks.

Until there are strict guidelines defining Spyware and Adware, we should get used to these sort of cases. In other news, it seems that Hotbar has also had it’s right to use the Truste seal of approval according to Eweek.

There had been discord between Apple and the Open Source community over their joint but forking efforts to advance the KHTML rending engine behind such browsers as Konqueror and Safari, but that’s all over now. Along with the recent announcement that Apple was going to Intel for chips, comes news that Apple has reformed their Open Source efforts and released the Webkit Open Source project aimed at improving collaboration and sharing on the browser technology.

This is more important to the web developers than it might seem. Right now there is a general perception that there are only two real browser technologies to develop for, Internet Explorer and Firefox/Netscape Mozilla GECKO. It is important to remember Opera and the KHTML browsers as well as several smaller players as well. Market share isn’t really a good reason to develop for only a limited number of browsers because as Firefox has proven recently, market share is unpredictable and can change at the drop of a hat. We as developers want to follow Sun’s Java mantra of “Write once run everywhere” where the use of open W3C standards means that all browsers can correctly render the page in question. For that to become reality developers need to start following the standards rather then coding for a particular browser and Internet Explorer needs all of it’s rendering bugs fixed. If Konqueror and Safari succeed in aligning their code base and standards support, they could together grow to encompass a significant part of the browser landscape and ensure that developers become aware that the only way to write web pages is by the standards rather then by the browser.

Current news has it that Laptop computers for the first time outsold their desktop cousins, but just exactly what do you get for your money? All the test sites on the net and in PC magazines get the laptops, run them though lots of benchmarks give opinions on quality and appearance, and once they are done they usually get shipped off to the next group of testers and that’s the end of it. None of them can give you any idea of how long it’s going to last longer then it’s warranty period. I’ve got desktop machines running here that were built in 1997, but I don’t have any laptops that are still running after reaching their second year.

Recently laptop manufacturers have been getting much bad press due to recalls and possible design flaws in their products. All of which begs the question, are today’s laptops designed to outlast their warranty period of 1 year by any significant margin? For example, my third last laptop was a Compaq M700 and it fell to pieces before it was 14 months old. Next was a Toshiba TE2000/Satellite Pro 6000 which ended up suffering from a flaw in the motherboard/power supply connection that resulted in it being unable to boot and requiring a new mainboard. This happened at around 18 months and rendered the laptop unusable.

My current laptop is a 16 month old Dell Inspiron 5150 and I now have the same flaw reported by many other users. The board has flexed too many times, and so touching the palmrest restarts the machine. So many users have complained about this, that one thread on Dell forums (one of many on the subject) had 57 pages of complaining users. Repairers even devote pages specifically to a known problem of particular laptops like the i5150, This laptop spent the vast majority of it’s life being used on a desk with an external mouse so it certainly hasn’t been mistreated. You know something is seriously wrong with a laptops design when users get together and put up web pages about how to fix the design flaws themselves as can be seen here for the 5150 and here for the Satellite Pro 6000 but you are unlikely to hear the manufacturer admit to anything.

No brand is particularly safe, there have been issues with IBM, HP, Sony and even Apple has had to recall faulty power adaptors. Yet it is practically unheard of for a manufacture to say “Yeah, we blew that design, sorry about that” unless there is potential legal liability. So are we to assume that Laptops are not supposed to last longer much than their warranty period nowadays? The M700 needed so many replacement parts that the only thing I had that still worked properly was the screen. The Toshiba TE-2000 needed a new mainboard and the Dell 5150 also needed a new mainboard. The M700 I gave up on as a lost cause, the Toshiba mainboard replacement was going to cost me 800 dollars and the i5150 motherboard was about $600 AUD and none of these laptops were more then 2 years old. My clients have just as many laptop horror stories to tell proving that although laptop sales are outnumbering desktops now, they don’t really deserve to. I’m typing this on my 16 month old $3500 AUD inspiron 5150, I’ve already had to start the story again because I slipped while typing and touched the palmrest and it restarted the machine.

My point in mentioning all of this is that we need some regulation and standardization on laptops, the manufacturers know that you can only get a new mainboard from them, so they can charge ridiculous prices for replacements. If they can keep the laptop running for just the year of the warranty period, then they don’t seem to care if they die immediately afterwards. It’s fair enough that laptops put tight space and heat constraints on the hardware, but if people knew they were not going to get 2 years of use from a laptop, would they fork out the thousands of dollars buying them? Should the manufactures of laptops with known design problems be forced to rectify the issue rather then sweeping it under the carpet as sometimes appears to be the case? Perhaps I’ve just been really unlucky to strike out 3 times in a row, but doing some research shows that there are many thousands of users out there who are not happy with their laptop experience so I’m apparently not alone. I most certainly would not have paid $3500 AUD for my Inspiron 5150 if I’d known it would fail before it was two years old and would require an expensive replacement mainboard. Perhaps it’s time for the laptop industry to standardize the same way that desktop hardware has. At least then we’d have more uniform and tested designs and implementations. Most manufactures seem more concerned with rushing new designs though to market then they are with the quality of what they are selling.

Microsoft is in negotiations with the European Commission about their efforts to remedy their anti-competitive practises. One of those remedies is to provide server protocols that allow non-Microsoft entities to create interoperable software. Microsoft has agreed with this in theory, however the question of dollars and licenses have proven to be arguing points. In short, Microsoft doesn’t want any of the protocols they disclose to be used by their biggest competitor, Samba on Linux (Open Source).

They are on the one hand asking to meet with Open Source community leaders, and showing up at Linux events talking about how they want to work together on issues such as interoperability, while on the EU stage they are trying to deny interoperability information from the developers of the only server Operating System that offers them any significant opposition (Linux and Samba again).

This quote from Europa sums it up quite nicely.

Microsoft considers that the software source code developed by recipients of the interoperability information that implements the Microsoft protocols should not be published under a so-called “open source licence”. The Commission nevertheless considers that, if the Court of First Instance rules in favour of the Commission in the pending application for annulment filed by Microsoft (case T-201/04), this should be possible for the protocols that do not embody innovations.

Microsoft are going to get few chances for trust from the Open Source community. If they blow it at this early stage, they are not likely to get the chance again. Yes they compete against Open Source and want to keep their cards close to their chest, but trying to avoid competition by denying interoperability doesn’t hurt anyone except their own users and that is eventually going to effect their public image even more then calling Linux a cancer did. They must know that OSS isn’t going away by now, otherwise they wouldn’t deem it worthwhile to engage in dialogue with the leaders of OSS. So why make it obvious that they have no desire to interoperate with Open Source by raising the issue again in the EU anti-trust discussions? It’s enough to make me hope that OSX on Intel is for real and coming to a computer near you soon. If Microsoft lose a significant portion of their desktop monopoly then the issue will become mote because Microsoft will have to interoperate with everyone else to ensure continued sales. Don’t think it can’t happen. Not that long ago people didn’t think it was possible for Internet Explorer to lose market share to an Open Source browser that isn’t included in Windows and now Firefox has anywhere from 6 to 15% (update: 30% now) of the world wide browser market, and that happened in less then a year. It would take years longer for Apple to grow market share on x86 PC’s but it is certainly possible considering Apple’s flair for style and marketing.

Apple may actually be on the right track with their alleged move to x86 (Intel and/or AMD) chips. They can’t compete on hardware with the likes of Dell, there is little doubt about that. Perhaps they plan to make up the difference by offering OSX to current Windows users, and that is an area where there is a huge potential for sales. The computer using public have come to see Viruses and Spyware as a Microsoft Windows problem rather then a general PC problem (rightly so if history is any indication) and If OSX will run on Wintel hardware then people will have a powerful alternative Operating System that already has most of the big applications like MS Office, Photoshop and co available without all the Virus and Spyware problems that plague Windows. The idea of loading OSX onto a cheap Dell laptop or desktop is an enticing one. Of course Apple will have several hurdles in it’s way not the least of which is driver support for the myriad of Win-hardware out there. Up till now Apple have had an iron grip on the hardware used in their systems and will have a hard time getting driver support for the full range of Wintel hardware. On the upside OSX is based on FreeBSD so they already have access to a vast array of device drivers, they will mostly have to concentrate on newer hardware.

From Apples perspective, there are several benefits to a change to x86 processors, and one downside. If OSX runs on standard x86 hardware, then they will lose most of their PC hardware market. On the upside they will have access to millions of new prospective customers, and on the hardware side they can use the AMD card against Intel and vice versa to get better pricing for their respective chips. Part of the IBM problem is that Apple didn’t have any cards to play in negotiations with IBM. With the x86 platform they have several.
I must admit that when I first heard the news I figured Apple had fallen out of their tree (sorry), but the more I think about it, the more I realise they may be onto something. With the change to x86 chips, Apple can continue to create the stylish hardware that we all know them for, but at a cheaper price and with better gaming performance. And OSX becomes a compelling alternative to millions of Windows users who are sick of the Windows malware plague. The only downside from all this that I can see is that it’s likely to hurt Linux desktop growth, but the places where Linux is growing fastest on the desktop are not the places where Apple is likely to be considered a viable alternative anyway.

Up until recently the most prevalent Virus we have come across this year so far was the Sober.P worm. Today however a new nasty has taken the lead by a significant margin. The Mytob.BZ worm spreads by e-mail and over network sharing using a RPC buffer overrun flaw in Windows. Mytob.BZ opens a back-door to the computer allowing remote control to malicious parties by joining an IRC server. It also e-mails itself to addresses found on the infected computer except those addresses that might be able to do something about it. (like Microsoft, .gov domains and the anti-virus companies as well as several others.) Lastly it blocks access to some security sites and can download and run further malicious software.
This nasty was first found early in May 2005 so most Anti-virus packages can now remove it. If you don’t have a good Anti-virus application, (and if the number of these our mail server stops daily is any indication many do not) then head over to tips.littlehosting.com and grab a free copy of AVG. For more information on Mytob.BZ, see Sophos or Symantec.