Adobe has just announced a deal to acquire Macromedia for 3.4 billion dollars. Macromedia’s press release can be found here and Adobe’s here. The repercussions of this merger are unknown but potentially worrying. For example what happens to Macromedia Fireworks now that the same company produces Photoshop? What happens to Macromedia Freehand now that the same company owns Adobe Illustrator? If you develop using any of Macromedia’s or Adobe’s tools, then you should watch this situation carefully to evaluate if you need to change to a different application.

The Mozilla organisation have released another update for Firefox (1.0.3), this is the 3rd update in as many months and closes holes found by their “bug bounty” system as well as a some found by other parties. The download for Windows users is 4.6MB so it is not a big load for dial-up users to put up with.

In other Firefox news, Firefox has now been downloaded over 46,000,000 (46 million) times. Many predicted the download rate would slow after all the technology enthusiasts had their copies, but that does not seem to be happening and downloads continue at roughly the same furious pace.

When you want to really judge the security of an Operating System (OS), you don’t ask Microsoft to “Get the facts”, as they will most likely just pay a company to research defined on criteria that they (Microsoft) probably provided or outlined to ensure they get the answer they want you to get. You likewise don’t ask Linux zealots as their answer is likely to be more emotive then factual. So what do you do? Well, I’d ask guys working at the front lines, the guys that deal with OS security on a day to day basis.

With that in mind, Bzresearch has done just that, they asked 6,344 development managers, and the answer they got makes for good reading. These 6344 folks are not trying to sell anything, they are not trying to convince you of anything, they are just stating the facts as they see them. Ironically what they are saying is in almost direct contradiction to what Microsofts “Get the facts” campaign has been touting. Why do you suppose that is? I should point out that I was unable to find out if the research was funded or not and if it was, by whom. But since Bzresearch sell their research for some significant $$$, I’m guessing they funded themselves. (Please correct me if I am wrong). You might also find this article interesting for the same reasons.

Recently I’ve had a need to start researching a new distro to take over as our primary web server as the old one is approaching the end of it’s supported life span. After much looking around, I decided on CentOS 4 which is 100% RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 (RHEL) binary compatable. In fact CentOS is basically all of RedHats source RPMs compiled and with RH’s trademarks removed. So you get the benefits of Redhats Enterprise linux offering, without the rather expensive subscription price tag. I’ve been using Linux since before Redhat 4 and as such I don’t require hand holding, so the RHEL support is not something I need, so CentOS fills my needs rather well. RHEL4/CentOS includes SELinux to tighten security even more, and on top of that I’ll be employing VSFTP/TLS for remote logins and the mod_security Apache plug-in to watch everything coming in ports 80 and 443. I’d put that sort of security up against a Windows server any day. CentOS is fantastic for both the Open Source community and for Redhat. For the users, CentOS gives us an enterprise tested Open Source Linux distribution, and for Redhat they get to show they really are a full Open Source company and refute the claims Sun has been levelling at them of late. From my perspective, it allows me to have a fast, stable and secure Operating System at a price I can afford.

CNET has an interesting piece about the record companies and Itunes. Apparently they (the record companies) are not so happy with Itunes as it has become so popular that Apple is now dictating terms to them instead of the other way around. The record companies want to change more for popular songs and less for old stuff, but Apple wants to stick to it’s 99 cent per song scheme that has proven so popular. The record companies are now looking toward mobile phones as their possible salvation, because if users will pay $2.50 for a ring tone, the record companies think they will pay more for a full song. The question we should be asking, is “should they be permitted to charge more for a song then you would pay for the same song on a CD” (if you paid 18 dollars for a CD with 18 songs on it, that’s a dollar a song). The record companies have far less expenditure for digital music, but passing those savings onto us appears to be a priority that is way down on their list.

Microsoft has had a hard time of it in court lately. First there is the EU debacle, following much the same path as the US anti-competitive conviction did, only with much stiffer penalties. Then we have the long list of settlements made by Microsoft to many companies with whom they were litigating, the largest payoff approaching 2 billion dollars (to Sun Microsystems). Not too many people seem to feel sorry for the company that has of late been handing out money hand over fist to try and clear its litigation schedule a bit.

Now something new and probably unexpected has happened. A company by the name of Alacritech has gained a preliminary injunction [PDF] against Microsoft for alleged patent infringement of their networking technology. The story goes that Alacritech approached Microsoft and showed them what they had in 1998. Microsoft chose not to license with them and promptly developed similar technology themselves called TCP Chimney for inclusion in Longhorn and an add on pack for Windows 2003 server. The case could potentially delay Longhorns release if Microsoft doesn’t settle and the case drags on as similar cases have in the past. My prediction is for a Microsoft settlement in the future, they can’t afford to delay Longhorn any further as their many resellers would likely have hissy fits about lost profit opportunities, especially in light of the fact that Windows XP, Microsoft’s last major desktop release is nearly 5 years old now. All Alacritech really has to do, is drag the case out and maintain the Injunction until Microsoft capitulates and settles.

Do not get me wrong here, I am not in favor of litigation of this type, but Microsoft has been a strong proponent of software patents and has tried long and hard to establish them as law in the European Union, so I find it somewhat ironic that they didn’t realize that they are the biggest target with the deepest pockets and will forever be handing out money to anyone with a grievance. It’s worse for them when you consider that they are a twice convicted monopolist and have a long and questionable litigation history that makes it possible for people (and more importantly Juries) to at least consider the prospect that they are guilty as charged. Microsoft has 21 days to appeal the decision.

SCO, the company Open Sources love to hate, has given their green light to Sun with regards to the open sourcing of Solaris. This comes hot on the heals of a 3 year lawsuit against IBM that they claim seriously damaged their business by making Linux competitive with their own SCO Unix offerings (allegedly by using SCO owned code). So apparently helping along a community development seriously hurt SCO, but giving away a well respected direct Unix competitor will not? I wonder if a Judge and/or Jury might ponder that same question sometime in the near future.

In other SCO news, their latest financials are in, and they lost more money on less revenue. Big surprise right? Even more surprising is that their share price didn’t take much of a dive on the news. SCO’s price seems far more insulated from their actual results as a business them most in the Tech industry.

Last bit of news on SCO is that they are now trying to hint that PJ of Groklaw is actually a stooge of some sort for IBM and/or Redhat as illustrated by these quotes:

“Doesn’t anyone find it the least bit ironic,” Blake Stowell of SCO asks, “that Pamela Jones lives … less than 10 miles from IBM’s worldwide headquarters, and that Groklaw is hosted, free, by a non-profit outfit called iBiblio, which runs on $250,000 worth of Linux-based computers donated by IBM and a $2 million donation from a foundation set up by Robert Young, founder of Red Hat?”

“Call me crazy,” adds Stowell, “but I somehow think that Pamela Jones isn’t just a paralegal with nothing better to do with her life than host a Web site called Groklaw that is dedicated to bashing SCO. I think there is a lot more to her background and intentions than she is willing to reveal publicly. I believe that Big Blue looms large behind Pamela Jones.”

I’d have thought that if IBM or Redhat were behind PJ/Groklaw, they could have hidden it much more effectively. After all, Web hosting is remarkably cheap nowadays.

Sand Castles, sculptures, creative things built from sand, summer, tans and time away from work with family at the beach. That time of year is fast approaching. My family recently spent a week at the Gulf of Mexico. In years past, we would walk the beach, and every quarter mile or so, there was a sand sculpture, maybe an alligator, a large fortress castle, characters, whatever. It was fun to see them and the often lasted a few days. This year — nothing really. A few castles, but none of the magnitude of years past. Maybe it is a dying art, or maybe there was a convention of sand artists last time?

Here is a neat site that features sand artistry and includes how-to instructions of how you might yourself develop as a sand artist. Of course to really learn how you need to buy his $7 book, but this will get you started. So grab the kids or your significant other and head to a beach or sand box near you!

That led me to this site belonging to Kirk Rademaker, that I think has a very distinctive layout. It is horizontal (requiring scrolling even at my medium high resolution) and sort of looks like the pennants or flags you might see flying at the beach. Very creative.