Forty Hours

You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself. - Galileo Galilei

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

IBM takes on Microsoft with free software

IBM's Lotus Symphony software is a free alternative to Microsoft's Office software such as the Word, Excel and PowerPoint programs. -- PHOTO: AP ibm

Big Blue is challenging the dominance of Microsoft by offering free office utility software. By STEVE LOHR

IBM plans to mount its most ambitious challenge in years to Microsoft's dominance of personal computer software, by offering free programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations.

The company announced the desktop software, called IBM Lotus Symphony, at an event last week in New York. The programs will be available as free downloads from the IBM website.

IBM's Lotus-branded proprietary programs already compete with Microsoft products for e-mail, messaging and work group collaboration.

But the Symphony software is a free alternative to Microsoft's mainstay Office programs - Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

The Office business is huge and lucrative for Microsoft, second only to its Windows operating system as a profit maker.

In the 1990s, IBM failed in an effort to compete head-on with Microsoft in personal computer software with its OS/2 operating system and its SmartSuite office productivity programs.

But IBM is taking a different approach this time.

Its offerings are versions of open-source software developed in a consortium called OpenOffice.org.

The original code traces its origins to a German company, Star Division, which Sun Microsystems bought in 1999.

Sun later made the desktop software, now called StarOffice, an open-source project, in which work and code are freely shared.

IBM's engineers have been working with OpenOffice technology for some time. But two weeks ago, IBM declared that it was formally joining the open-source group, had dedicated 35 full-time programmers to the project and would contribute code to the initiative.

Free office productivity software has long been available from OpenOffice. org, and the open-source alternative has not yet made much progress against Microsoft's Office.

But IBM, analysts note, has such reach and stature with corporate customers that its endorsement could be significant.

'IBM is jumping in with products that are backed by IBM, with the IBM brand and IBM service,' said Ms Melissa Webster, an analyst for IDC, a research firm. 'This is a major boost for open source on the desktop.'

IBM executives compare this move with the push it gave Linux, the open-source operating system, into corporate data centres.

In 2000, IBM declared that it would forcefully back Linux with its engineers, its marketing and its dollars. The support from IBM helped make Linux a mainstream technology in corporations, where it competes with Microsoft's Windows server software.

IBM is also joining forces with Google, which offers the open-source desktop productivity programs as part of its Google Pack of software.

Google supports the same document formats in its online word processor and spreadsheet service.

IBM views its Symphony desktop offerings as part of a broader technology trend that will open the door to faster, more automated movement of information within and between organisations.

A crucial technical ingredient, they say, is the document format used in the open-source desktop software, called the OpenDocument Format.

It makes digital information independent of the program, like a word processor or spreadsheet, that is used to create and edit a document.

OpenDocument Format is based on an Internet-era protocol called XML, short for Extensible Markup Language, which enables automated machine-to-machine communication.

For example, an individual investor might create a spreadsheet with automated links to market information, and prices at which he or she wants to buy or sell shares in particular stocks. The person would get an alert by e-mail or cellphone message of price swings, and could create the document for a buy or sell order with a keystroke.

Or, in a doctor's office, patient records could be linked to hospital, clinic and other databases and updated automatically.

Microsoft has the same vision of software automation, but it champions its own document format, called Office Open XML. Earlier this month, Microsoft failed in its initial effort to have Office Open XML ratified as a global technical standard by the International Organization for Standardization in Geneva. The OpenDocument Format, backed by IBM, Google, Sun and others, was approved by the standards organisation last year.

IBM clearly regards its open-source desktop offerings as a strategic move in the document format battle.

'There is nothing that advances a standard like a product that uses it,' said Mr Steven A. Mills, senior vice-president of IBM's software group.

The Lotus Symphony products will support the Microsoft Office formats as well as the OpenDocument Format.

But analysts note that technical translators are not entirely foolproof; Symphony software may easily translate the words from a Microsoft Word document, but some of the fonts and formatting may be lost. For many users, that may not matter, they say, but for others it might.

Ms Betsy Frost, a general manager in Microsoft's Office business, said users valued 'full compatibility' with previous versions of their Office documents as well as the ease of use and familiarity of Microsoft products. And she noted that there are 500 million Office users worldwide.

Any inroads IBM and its allies make against Microsoft, analysts say, will not come easily. 'Three major players - IBM, Google and Sun - are now solidly behind a potential competing standard to Office,' said Mr Rob Koplowitz, an analyst at Forrester Research. 'But it's a tough road. Office is very entrenched.'

- The New York Times

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Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Blackberry Curve

Blackberry curves it to them


# Blackberry Curve
SingTel: $798 (w/o contract)
# StarHub: $968 (w/o contract)
# Get it at StarHub and SingTel mobile phone retailers

Blackberry made a name for itself as the quintessential communications tool for businessmen. But its new offering, the Blackberry Curve, marks its ambition to conquer the consumer market as well.

The usual enterprise applications are still there - like the powerful e-mail functions with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise to push out corporate e-mail in real-time.

But the big difference this time is that the applications are housed in a sleek and elegant chassis (left) that won't look out of place outside the meeting room. Yes, the Curve does indeed have some sexy curves.

Despite its petite size and lightness, the quad-band smartphone manages to house a full Qwerty keyboard for easy and quick typing. The buttons are easy to use and provide good tactile feedback when pressed, and there are several in-built shortcuts to further simplify usage.

The Curve also comes with an array of media capabilities and consumer applications so consumers don't feel out of place using the phone. There is a 2.0-megapixel camera with flash, a music and video player, and you can download games off the web as well. It also uses a 3.5mm earphone jack so you can plug in your own set of earphones instead of those provided, which are not half bad either.

But one thing that greatly cripples the phone's usefulness is its limited connectivity. There is neither 3G nor Wi-Fi support, so you have to depend solely on the somewhat slower GPRS connectivity to go online.

Another gripe: The menu interface was an eyesore, with row upon row of icons cluttering the screen. But strangely, it was still easy to navigate.

Overall, the phone performed admirably, with almost no delay when opening and running applications, something which the Windows Mobile and Symbian interface used in other smartphones suffer from. And I had several applications running in the background on the Curve to boot.

Battery life was also decent: The phone lasted five days with moderate usage, including taking calls and web surfing.

FINAL SAY
The Blackberry Curve is a great phone for people who demand both form and function of a gadget. However, the price is steep for a 2.5G version. Then again, look at the iPhone.

- By Lim Yee Hung, a freelance writer

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Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Get on the push-mail bandwagon

Push Mail

Push-mail,push mail,e mail push,mail push yahoo,mail push service,configuring mail push qtek9100 and direct mail push service....after all, we are talking about the same term call Push Mail.

It's not just SMS messages you can get on your phone; you can get electronic mail from your e-mail accounts - and easily too. MK WONG shows the way forward

With the Internet, the popularity of e-mail messages grew in leaps and bounds. Research house IDC reported that in 2003, 31 billion e-mail messages were sent and it had expected this number to double in three years' time.

No figures are available today on how big this number has ballooned to.

Even in the early days of the Internet some 12 years ago, everybody who was anybody had an e-mail account and users configured their personal computer to dial up and check their in-boxes regularly.

They had to take care to disconnect after use as the rates were then charged either by the amount time online or by the number of megabytes transmitted or received.

Then, almost overnight, the connected world moved from slow, flaky dial-ups to the 'always connected' and unlimited access of low-cost broadband service. Users found that they no longer had to click on the Send/Receive button every time they wanted to check for any new messages in their e-mail server.

By simply setting the mail reader software (like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird) to automatically check and 'pull in' new mail every so often, they were always assured of getting the latest e-mail messages.

In fact, if the time interval was set to send and receive e-mail every one minute or less, they were able to receive their messages almost instantly.

Then, everything took a wickedly clever twist.

Somebody came up with a novel way of sending down the e-mail messages right into the cellphone without incurring too much traffic - and cost. Business executives embraced the BlackBerry solution like wildfire and soon, even the quiet romantic candlelight dinner could be disrupted by the boss demanding an immediate amendment to some sales plan or other.

As of June this year, Research In Motion (Rim), the company behind the BlackBerry, reported that there are more than nine million subscriber accounts worldwide.

In an almost identical replay of the situation with the personal computer, this time with 3G and 3.5G - also known as HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access), at very affordable prices - users are now looking seriously into implementing push-mail services on the cellphone.

Mobile phone manufacturers such as Sony Ericsson and Nokia have been quick to embrace this technology by providing BlackBerry-compatible solutions on their mobile phones. Microsoft finally perfected its own implementation of the Push-Mail technology in its latest version of Windows Mobile 6 operating system.

Ready? Just follow these steps

Here's how to get on the push-mail system:

# Get the right equipment.

The easiest way is to get hold of a BlackBerry phone. Models include the BlackBerry 7130G, 8700 and 8100.

With the installation of an additional piece of software called BlackBerry Connect, selected smartphones can be used as well.

These include the Dopod C730/C720W/ 838Pro, Sony Ericsson M600i/P910i/P990i, Palm Treo 650 and Nokia E61/E65/9300/9500.

Other compatible devices include PDA phones with the Windows Mobile operating system. Check with the respective vendors for the latest models.

# Next, subscribe to the BlackBerry plan with your service provider.

For SingTel and StarHub users, there is a $10.70 one-time registration charge and a monthly charge of $63.13 for unlimited data usage. (See next page for a rough guide on GPRS charges.)

Just to be clear about the data access charges, with the plan, users of BlackBerry phones need not pay any additional charges when surfing the web on their devices.

BlackBerry Connect users, on the other hand, are not that fortunate. The plan covers only e-mail traffic and users incur additional data charges when browsing the web using the normal GPRS service via 3G or 3.5G.

# Finally, set up the BlackBerry account via the Internet.

Have your BlackBerry unit ready as you have to key in the personal identification number (Pin) and the ESN/Imei (Electronic Serial Number/International Mobile Equipment Identification) number.

Choose a unique login ID for the broadband Internet service, a friendly name (one that will appear in the From field of your e-mail messages, your password and a secret question and answer in case you forget the password and need to reset it.

You are able to set up to 10 different e-mail accounts for the broadband service to monitor and push messages down to you the minute they are received.

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Thursday, September 06, 2007

PC Security

Make sure your PC is secure (PC Security)
Lock your PC down so malicious programs cannot get in

So you have your shiny new computer fresh out of the box, and are ready to take it online.


Stop right there.

The average computer will survive no longer than a matter of minutes online before being infected by a virus.
Here are some things you should do before connecting your computer to the Internet. Check that your firewall is on
Windows comes with a built-in firewall to protect you from intruders. So make sure you use it.

In Windows XP with Service Pack 2, click Start, then Run. Type in 'firewall.cpl' without the quotes and hit Ok.
You can turn on the built-in Windows firewall from there. In Windows Vista, click Start, then Control Panel, then double-click Windows Firewall. The firewall panel will pop up and you can check if it is on.

Install security software
Many computer manufacturers offer bundled deals with their systems - you can get a discount on anti-virus and firewall software if you buy it together with your computer.

At the very minimum, your computer should have anti-virus, firewall and malware protection installed before it has to deal with the Internet.

Check that the computer is exactly what you ordered

With so many computers sold at the show, there is a small chance that your manufacturer may have made a mistake in configuring the parts of your system.
Click Start, then Run, then type in 'dxdiag' without the quotes. A diagnostic tool that tells you the specifications of your system will pop up. On the System tab, check your processor speed and RAM under the Processor and Memory entries.

The Display tab will indicate any graphics cards if you have them.

Make sure your browser is configured correctly

If you opt to use Internet Explorer, which comes with Windows, make sure its security options are configured to keep you safe.Click Tools and select Internet Options. Then, set your browser to remember less of your browsing history, protecting your privacy.
You should also turn off the feature to save your Web passwords - always key in your password yourself. The same rules apply if you choose to use an alternative browser, such as Mozilla Firefox (www.firefox.com) or Opera (www.opera.com).

- By Daryl Lim

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