Microsoft is peeved with the European Commission's move to impose daily fines for, among other things, not moving fast enough to make server source code available to other companies so that their apps can work within Windows Server. To which one is almost forced to say, "C'mon, already, just quit kvetching and give them what they want."

Google has posted a response to critics of the AOL deal on its official blog, but that response conveniently ignores most of the criticism levelled at the company. It's only a partial attempt to come clean.

Turn on your cell phone, and federal agencies can legally track your comings and goings and exact location --- all without having to get a court warrant. That's the latest frightening news from our Big Brothers in Washington.

AOL has long refused to let AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) talk to other IM clients for a simple reason: It dominates IM, and if AIM talked to other clients, AOL would no longer rule the roost. But now that Google owns a chunk of AOL, it should force the company to open up AIM.

Just what you always wanted to find under the tree -- a brand-spankin'-new 2U rack-mount Sun Fire T2000 server!

Like Google's spare, fast-loading, graphics-free interface? Kiss it good-bye. Thanks to the AOL deal, Google will begin experimenting with accepting many different kinds of graphical ads, including the banner ads loathed by many, according to the New York Times.

A little-known part of the Google deal to buy part of AOL for $1 billion is a shocker: Google agreed to a link scheme that Microsoft called unethical, but that Google was only too happy to accede to, according to the New York Times. What's going on here? Isn't Microsoft supposed to be the bad guys, while Google is the "do-no-evil" company?

On Wednesday, I ended up posting news, and writing my weekly Server Pipeline newsletter, from a mobile backup location (OK, it was my town library's wireless network) after my home office broadband went down for more than a day. That's my Plan A, and I do have Plans B and C to fall back upon should anything bad really happen to my setup.

I was excited last year when Microsoft announced that it would join the rest of the modern world and offer express versions of its development environment for free, targeting hobbyists and students.

So I went to download Visual C# Express Edition....and discovered a little disclaimed regarding the "freeness" of the Express editions:

Two freebies for you today.

The first is a well hidden, undocumented, unsearchable free virtual CD driver from Microsoft. VCdControlTool has no documentation and you'll need to read the readme in order to properly "install" the proggy as it involves copying the driver to the appropriate system directory, but once installed it works as advertised. You can mount ISO images as a "virtual cd" and access them through the drive letter you assign.

Come to think about it, it really acts similar to mounting a remote file system on a *NIX box. In any case, it's pretty simple and easy to use and while it is unsupported by Microsoft, it's a great little tool for mounting images without requiring that you burn them off to a CD/DVD.

The second freebie is from a company called Turbine that has just taken its Dungeons and Dragons: Stormreach into beta test. Its looking for beta testers and all you have to do is sign up at FilePlanet to get access to the beta test. Yes, it's binary crack, just like World of Warcraft, but dag nabbit, the screen shots look good and aside from the fact that its staged in the world of Ebberon, it looks appealing. This is your chance to try it out before you spend the cash to buy the GA version, so give it a whirl. Turbine's trying to stress test its servers (the game is online-only) so you'll be doing them, and yourself, a favor by trying it out early.

It looks to have some advantages over WoW, such as private adventures for your party that can't be affected/interrupted by other players/parties, so that's a huge plus considering the amount of PvP action that has marred so many other MMORPGs like WoW and Diablo.

I'll stick to my tabletop games, thanks, but if you like the digital addiction or don't have a DM living with you, this might be for you.

Publisher HarperCollins has come up with an end run around Google's plan to scan books without the copyright holders' permissions. It will scan tens of thousands of its books itself, and then let anyone, from Google to Yahoo and beyond, crawl the index and use it.

OpenDocument.
Open XML.

Two standards, both open, from two different sets of vendors. Of course you've already gathered that one of the standards is coming from Microsoft who, like the cheese, stands alone.

Here's an example of contextual advertising gone haywire: A USA Today article that describes how meth addicts used Vonage in a money-making scam, includes a related ad for Vonage that crows: "VONAGE: Get your first month FREE!" I'm sure meth addicts are signing up in droves.

I’m still cooling my heels at the inaugural East Coast Interop show. It’s not surprising to see folks walking around with Bluetooth headsets clamped to their ears and cell phones in their pockets. Nor is it surprising to see many exhibitors hawking products targeted at these work anywhere & everywhere types. There are a few products that really stick out, though, so I thought I’d share them.

I actually saw two products from Avaya that piqued my interest. The company announced this week an implementation of their VPNremote software for their 4600 series IP phones. This IPSec VPN client allows enterprises to send their VoIP handsets home (or anywhere) and ensure encrypted communication. Currently it only supports connections to Avaya’s Security Gateways, but that is likely to change. The other interesting product that I saw wasn’t news, but it sure was neat. Avaya Mobile for Series 60 is an application designed to run on Nokia handsets running the Symbian Series 60 OS, extending Avaya’s IP telephony capabilities to a mobile phone. It also includes the ability to do hand-offs between a desk phone and a mobile phone, and access the corporate contacts directory from the mobile phone. And it was showcased on the Nokia 6682, the latest object of my gadget lust!

The other product I saw is primarily focused at the consumer, not the enterprise, but I felt it was definitely worth a mention. IPDrum, a Norwegian firm, has a product called Mobile Skype Cable that allows users with spare Nokia or Sony Ericsson phones to make and receive Skype calls on their extra handset. With the proliferation of family calling and unlimited in-network calling plans, you could easily grab a spare SIM card and stay in touch with your Skype buddies even when you’re not on the computer. A simple cable connects the spare handset to your Windows computer and one software install later you’re in business.

In America, we like things big, so there's reason to rejoice: The U.S is the world's bandwidth king, with 1.4 Tbps bandwidth and 704 Gbps peak traffic, according to Om Malik's blog. London, though, is the top city, with 1.1 Tbps bandwidth and 439 Gbps peak traffic.

Since today's snowstorm in NE Wisconsin is causing schools to close early, a friend pointed out the existence of the Emergency Email System, which is how he's getting information about what schools are closing and how bad the weather really is.

Pretty cool, and it's free (everyone likes free stuff, right?) You can choose from a lengthy list of alerts covering everything from school closings to severe weather to changes in the homeland security threat level.

This is great, especially when weather turns suddenly and you don't listen to the right radio stations (why are school closings always on the country music or easy listening stations??) or watch the right television station. Or when you're at work and don't have access to either.

Cause everyone has access to their e-mail 24x7, right? Stop looking at me like that - I know darn well I'm not the only one...

Stressed out? Maybe more of your colleagues throughout IT are, but life on the server front is getting simpler -- or trying to, anyway.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proclaimed this week “Interop Week,” in honor of the first East Coast Interop show. Despite said proclamation, there haven’t been any spontaneous ticker tape parades. That isn’t deterring participants from turning out and seeing the latest and greatest in IT. I thought I would take a few minutes to share some of the things I’ve seen and heard.

Cognio has announced they’re updating their ISMS Mobile Wi-Fi spectrum analysis product to version 2.0 and throwing in a name change to Spectrum Expert for WiFi. We recently reviewed their 1.0 offering, but this new version has a number of good enhancements, including the ability to capture spectrum traces for future playback/analysis and it also has expanded the types of devices monitored and the level of detail provided.

I had an opportunity to sit down with Bill Gibson, the new CEO of Network General, makers of the ever-popular Sniffer line of products. He shared a bit about the company’s future approach to products; they definitely have their eye on further developing their enterprise solutions to extend the kinds of information you can already get out of the their point solution, Sniffer Portable. I think we’ll see some interesting things coming from the company in the next several months.

There’s lots to do and lots to see, but I’ll be sharing more news over the next couple of days.

That's right. We love you so much that we're testing the performance of ESB products so you don't have to.

The things we do to make your lives easier...

Paris Hilton. There, I’ve done it. Lined myself up to generate enormous web traffic. I can feel the hits coming now! You see, it was revealed to the world on Monday that Paris Hilton landed the No. 1 spot on the Lycos 50 Top Ten Search Terms for 2005 , and I want to be part of her success before it’s too late.

AT&T and BellSouth are lobbying Congress hard to be allowed to hijack the Internet by charging sites like Google megafees if they want to be accessed at the same speed as AT&T and BellSouth's own sites.

Collaboration On The Go - Wacki Wikis. It's been a bad PR week for the Wikipedia project. First there was the threat of a libel lawsuit. Then the tech media picked up on the news, with some giving scathing editorials about the project and the accuracy of Wikipedia articles. Wiki sites are great for generating and maintain information from a collective community. However without any form of moderation or approval of postings, it can suffer from vandalism edits. Can Wikipedia maintain their goal of open and anonymous editing of articles, or is the entire concept flawed? I explore this and other wiki related issues in the latest COTG podcast.

The music featured in this episode is called "Music for a Future City", by Camtarn. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Before there was Google Print, there was Project Gutenberg, a grassroots attempt to provide free online versions of the world's great literature. But even though Project Gutenberg was a pioneer, it appears that Google has nothing but disdain for Michael Hart, the visionary behind Project Gutenberg, and his work.

On the surface everything is simple. Every technology is straight forward. Every solution can be implemented given the right amount of effort and resources. Everything is cut and dried… until you actually try to implement a solution. That’s when the surprises start.

At Network Computing we recognized that discovering the surprises that various technologies throw our way and writing about them was the important part of providing quality product reviews to the IT community. We knew that the only way to do reviews the right way was to test products head-to-head, hands-on and in-depth—hence our labs.

Well, it's been too long since I updated in general, and way too long since I let you know how my little project with the NAS is going, so here comes...

I dug up the VIA specs and started rounding up parts. From previous embedded projects and trashed servers I have disk and memory laying all about so I figured "this is no big deal".

As it turns out, it is a big deal in some respects. I dug out a flash card with an IDE adapter for the boot image. Easy enough to hook up. I then found some varying size EIDE disks I can use if I can't get the flash up and running for the install (just playing it safe!).

Then I went looking for memory. I've got no less than 20 sticks of memory lying around the house that are not being used. This should have been easy. It wasn't. All of the memory I was able to dig up was either Dell laptop memory or ECC server memory. Nothing DDR1, non ECC.

So I thought about hitting up memory chip vendors to help with the cause, and decided "to heck with it", popped out to NewEgg and ordered the memory I need. It's currently sitting in a UPS warehouse in DeMoines Iowa. Darn Christmas shipping traffic.

Meanwhile I'm working with Adaptec and Maxtor to get SAS drives and a controller for the project. The problem I'm running into is that it sounds like they are looking forward and producing PCI-X and PCI-E, while my VIA motherboard uses plain old PCI. I'll keep you posted on this one, it could cause a major speed bump that causes me to build two NAS devices - one with SAS, one with SATA. Or might just cause me to round up all of these old drives laying around and use them to build my NAS instead of shiny new SAS drives. Either way, the crowd over at Adaptec has been great trying to help me along here.

Steve Schuchart and I are writing a "He Says, She Says" (I'm the She, I guess, since Steve is definitely a manly-man :D) Build vs. Buy NAS article, I'm hoping to get this done in time to write a "Really Build your Own NAS" sidebar.

Until next time,
Don.

Welcome back! It's been a couple weeks, but you'll like this freebie - I guarantee!

Today's freebie comes from Autodesk. This past week Autodesk, the maker of CAD and GIS software, released its mapping server into the open-source community by joining up with the OSS map server group responsible for MapServer. Autodesk put its server side mapping software, based on a wealth of OSS components, into the hands of a newly created foundation, the MapServer Foundation. Autodesk will continue to provide financial and development support for the project.

Two server side mapping projects are managed by the foundation: MapServer Cheetah (the original MapServer software) and MapServer Enterprise (Autodesk's server side geospatial software). Both are heavily based on open standards, and both are free for download at the MapServer Foundation web site.

While some geospatial data in the free version of MapServer Enterprise is read/write (such as ESRI), some sources are read only. Autodesk will be offering a commericial version of MapServer Enterprise in 2006, which will support read/write capabililties for additional geospatial data sources such as Oracle.

If you need software to provide geospatial capabilities via the web, then check this offering out.

If you find any comments in the MapServer code left by me, well, remember that I was much younger then! :-)

VoIP makes for strange bedfellows. Both Israel and China are blocking, or working to block, VoIP. These two countries couldn't be any more different. Israel is a thriving democracy, while China is run by autocrats who jails dissidents, and for whom democracy is an anathema. So why are both fighting VoIP?

Before we leave The Week Of Sun Coverage entirely, I want to take a brief look at the announcement that was in some ways the most interesting news of the week -- its plans to open-source some of the chip specs and instruction set code for the multi-core, multi-thread UltraSPARC T1, under the auspices of a new effort called the OpenSPARC Project.

Here's an update from my column last week about Linksys' popular WRT54G wireless router.

Since our story last week about Cisco/Linksys changing the WRT54G Wireless-G Broadband Router from a Linux-based system to a WxWorks-based system, Linksys contacted us to say it will maintain the Linux-based system under a new model number of WRT54GL. The company's statement was, "We are honored by the overwhelming loyalty of Linux users to our products, and this dedicated SKU is our way of saying thank you for the support this community has given to us and our products."

We are pleased that the Linux-based version (current equivalent to WRT54G v4) will remain available for those who desire it. However, we're still not happy about the apparent quality and performance issues of the currently shipping WRT54G. Also, it's a little unusual to create a new SKU for an existing product and to use the old SKU for, effectively, a new version of the product. However, it does mean that Linksys/Cisco can direct its huge volumes of this product's sales, estimated at hundreds of thousands per month, to the version that costs the company less to manufacture. Hopefully, Linksys/Cisco can quickly address the problems with this version so that these hundreds of thousands of users don't have the unfortunate experience I had.

Skype may seem as if it's riding high right now, but there are disturbing signs that it could be heading for the skids, several months after eBay paid more money for it that you and I can count.

The appeal of Wi-Fi is simple: no more Ethernet cables. Freedom from the shackles of copper wire is not just convenient, it's downright liberating. But walk into an enterprise conference room, and what do you see? The Cat5 Ethernet cables may be gone, but step carefully, lest you catch your shoes on someone's power cable snaking its way across the floor. So much for liberation.

I recently moved into a newly renovated building on the campus of Syracuse University. Given my interest in wireless networking, I lobbied hard for a high-capacity, dual-band WLAN infrastructure. Coupled with a generous helping of conference rooms, both large and small, the wireless infrastructure is a critical element in our effort to encourage collaboration. Although the environment has been well received by students, faculty and staff, everyone has one major complaint: not enough power outlets. Despite marketing claims of leading notebook computer manufacturers, most of our wireless-intensive users can't make it through a typical meeting without plugging their power brick into the wall.

Ah, that devilish Microsoft. It may not be at war with Sun Microsystems any more; they may even be partners of a sort on several initiatives these days. But it's still first things first, and Microsoft managed to steal a little of Sun's shine from its Tuesday announcements when it revealed that Windows Server 2003 R2 has been finalized and shipped to manufacturing.

Every integration product claims out of the box adapter support for standard enterprise databases: Oracle, IBM, and SQL Server.

Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but "out of the box" means that a feature can be used right away, with no additional software. I should be able to point an Oracle JDBC driver at NWC Inc.'s Oracle 9i database, give it the appropriate credentials and start integrating to my heart's content.

Oracle and Microsoft, however, apparently don't believe in supporting their partners. Or at least that's the ISV's story and they're sticking to it. The first ESB product I started testing provides an adapter for Oracle and SQL Server, but of course the appropriate JAR files must be manually copied to the right location on the server before either adapter will actually work. And that's assuming you can figure out where the JAR files need to reside. Is it in /lib? Is it in /ext? Maybe it's in another subdirectory? Why don't you have more details on this? It's a fairly common process, dag nabbit! Would it be so difficult for you to provide an interface that lets me tell you where the JAR file is and then your software can put it where it wants it? Cause you don't want me to tell you where it can go right now...

That's not out of the box, people. I don't know whether to be irritated at the ESB vendor or Oracle and Microsoft for prohibiting distribution of their JDBC driver JAR files with third-party products. It's easy to find the Oracle drivers, they're on the Oracle database server in the lab. But the Microsoft JDBC drivers - which every last J2EE-based integration product requires - are carefully hidden on Microsoft's site. So carefully hidden that the last time I needed them I stored them on NWC Inc.'s NAS so I wouldn't have to go through the pain of finding it again.

Yeah, it's not that big of a deal, but it's the little things that annoy you when you're doing something that ought to be a hell of a log easier than it is. I don't know which is more annoying - the proprietary "open" JDBC and JMS standards or claiming out-of-the-box support for a feature that isn't.

So up until recently there's really only been one external hardware solution for speeding up XML parsing/XSLT processing: DataPower's XA35. Yes, the mean, green XSLT machine.

With IBM's recent acquisition of DataPower there's a hole in the market for this type of technology. Not that IBM/DataPower isn't selling the XA35, but the WebSphere division isn't as good at pushing hardware as it is software and there's quite a few folks who don't want to buy Blue. Yeah, imagine that.

Enter Forum Systems Vantage. A new offering from the security-focused Forum Systems, the Vantage line is a direct competitor to DataPower's XA35 and focuses on accelerating XML parsing/XSLT processing using its customized hardware/software XML parsing and acceleration technologies.

Forum has been a strong player in the security market, and unlike many of its competitors has stayed away from the temptation to move into the SOA management space. This is the first lateral move for Forum into the broader SOA market and it will be interesting to see if its newest product will perform and sell as well as its Sentry and XWall product lines.

With the growing interest in SOA and the number of intermediaries being deployed on commoditized hardware and operating systems, the need for accelerated XML parsing/XSLT processing is coming on fast, so Forum's move into the market is well-timed.

Cisco CEO John Chambers is not normally an effusive sort. So when he tells an analyst conference that broadband applications have "put the 'whoopee' back into the Internet," you know there's a sea change going on.

The Open Source BPMS Company, Intalio, today announced that it has acquired FiveSight Technologies, a privately-held company based in Chicago, Illinois. FiveSight brought to market an open source implementation of the BPEL 2.0 specification, developed to address the growing need for Business Process Management (BPM) as a core competency for companies large and small.

"Intalio was started as an open source company and initiated several major open source projects such as OpenEJB, which served as a foundation for Apache Geronimo," said Ismael Ghalimi, founder and CEO of Intalio. "With this acquisition, we are bringing open source to the world of Business Process Management and have what it takes to change the economics of the BPM industry."

Intalio has incorporated the FiveSight technology within Intalio|BPMS 4.0, which is currently available through an Early Adopter Program and will be released to the public in Q1 2006. Intalio is planning to continue the development of the FiveSight BPEL 2.0 engine under the open source Common Public License, and release its BPMN process designer and BPEL4People workflow suite under similar open source licenses later in 2006.

Here's one more reason to protect your Wi-Fi network: Criminals are increasingly piggybacking onto them and using them to commit crimes. In the latest scheme, 27-year-old Chad Mockensturm cooked up an elaborate ruse to hijack Wi-Fi networks, and then illegally obtain prescription painkillers.

Trolling the Net today, I came across an interesting strategy description from Sun Microsystems honcho Scott McNealy. Seems McNealy is employing one of the oldest marketing analogies on the books. He told Business Week that in terms of Sun's server strategy going forward, Sun's software -- more of which became free last week -- is the razor, while servers are the blades (no pun intended, I would guess).

BellSouth gets my vote for Evil Telecom Giant of the Year. Consider its latest move: After New Orleans announced plans to deploy a city-owned Wi-Fi network BellSouth angrily withdrew its offer to repair a damaged building that would house the beleagured city's police headquarters.

Has there ever been a better time for small businesses to move their IT center onto a powerful server?

The Cisco Linksys WRT54G is one of the most popular SOHO 802.11 b/g wireless routers available. However, because of a recent redesign, this product is nowhere near as reliable as it used to be. Worse yet, it's difficult to tell whether the version you are getting is the old version or the new version.

I stumbled across this a couple of weeks ago when I decided to update my home small-office router, a Linksys BESFR41 v1. Though functional, I had to reset the product once or twice a week, and having had good success with a WRT54G (router, four-port Ethernet switch, 802.11b/g access point) at another location, I decided to get one for my office. As part of my due diligence, I contacted my local ISP, which has well-informed technical support, and asked them about the WRT54G. They assured me it was "rock solid." That was good enough for me.

BellSouth has come up with a plan that would even make Tony Soprano blush: It wants to charge Web sites extortion money so they'll load faster than their rivals. And it wants to do the same to any competitors that want to use its network for VoIP.

The glamour in security is all about keeping the bad guys out. Statistically, though, more damage is wrought by supposed "good guys" whittling away at your network and data from the inside. In this Security Channel Podcast, David Lynch of Apani Networks talks with me about security from the inside. As things calm down (for those of us not in retail) towards the end of the year, it's time to think about our approach to security and ask whether we should be taking longer, harder looks at just how porous our defenses are from those whom we think we should be trusting. The answers, arrived at honestly, might have far-reaching effects on the way that our networks--and our security implementations--look. You can hear the podcast here.

We're coming up on the end of the year, and I'd like to do a "Most Important Events in Security for 2005" podcast to wrap things up. Of course, it will be a lot more interesting if the items on the list come from you, rather than from me, so please take a moment to send an e-mail to cfranklin@cmp.com telling me about your nominee for the event or events that have had the greatest impact on security during this year. If you include your contact information, I might just call and include you in that year-ending podcast. I'll look forward to your comments.

If you you haven't already subscribed to the podcast, look over to the left, you'll find the link to subscribe to the Security Channel podcast. In addition, I'd like to ask a favor. Take a minute to drop me a note at cfranklin@cmp.com, and let me know what you'd like to hear in future podcasts. A podcast can be short or long, serious or amusing, hands-on or quite strategic. Let me know what you'd like to listen to, and we'll do our best to make it happen.

The music in this podcast is "Acid Trumpet" by Kevin MacLeod. He releases much of his music under a Creative Commons license--if you like the sound, head over to the web site and check out the rest of his music.

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