Pc News

[Rasputin]

Adobe Plans To Give More Details Of Apollo This Month

Adobe Systems is planning to offer more details later this month on its Apollo project, designed to run rich Internet applications offline on PCs, its president said in an interview yesterday.

New Ways to Use Adobe

The Apollo cross-operating system runtime will provide a way for developers to build applications drawing on Adobe technologies including PDF, Flash and Flex, or with JavaScript, Ajax and HTML, in a single environment. It will be released for Windows and Mac OS X. Until now such applications have typically relied on Internet resources and had limited access to local files but Apollo could change that, said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief operating officer of Adobe.


Adobe expects to release Apollo next year, and will give details of the project at its Adobe Max conference in Las Vegas between Oct. 23 and Oct. 26, he said.

Beta Coming Soon

"Max is coming up in a couple of weeks, which is our annual developer conference and we'll be unveiling more progress about Apollo at that time," said Narayen. "We've been making good progress internally."


"We're not yet laying out the complete roadmap but what we are doing is working with a set of developers to make sure it's right," he said. "Our goal is when it's available in the marketplace as an early beta for people to play with and develop applications, we want to make sure we've already incorporated as much feedback as we can."


He said the early beta release should be available to a limited set of developers this year.

[Rasputin]

Fujitsu To Offer Flash-Disk Option With Laptops

Fujitsu will soon join two other major PC makers in putting on sale a portable computer that uses flash memory in place of the traditional hard-disk drive.

The company will offer a 16G-byte or 32G-byte flash memory disk as an option with new B-series machines due on sale in Japan late October and new Q-series machines that will be available from early November, it said today. Choosing the 16G-byte disk will add $670 to the price of the computer while the 32G-byte disk will add $1,335.


The disks are made by Samsung Electronics and can already be found in two Samsung machines, the Q30 laptop Q1-SSD ultra-mobile PC. Both machines went on sale in South Korea earlier this year. In Japan, Sony is also offering a version of its small-size UX90 portable PC with 16G-bytes of flash in place of a hard-disk drive.

Improved Performance

The flash disk has several advantages over a conventional hard-disk drive. These include longer battery life because the flash memory uses less power and a slight weight reduction. Fujitsu said the B-series machine will run an extra 15 minutes and the Q-series will run an extra 30 minutes on flash disk compared to hard-disk drive.


Most noticeable to the user will be faster start-up. Because data can be accessed from the flash memory much faster than a hard-disk drive, the B-series machine takes about 19 seconds to boot up Windows XP Home Edition compared to 32 seconds for a hard-disk drive version of the same machine.

More New Offerings

The company is also offering a hard-disk drive that automatically encrypts data as an option with the B-series machines. The drive, produced by Seagate Technology, uses hardware to encrypt all data being written on the drive and decrypt data as it is read. Choosing such a drive will add $125 to the price of the computers.


Fujitsu also unveiled today a new convertible machine running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005. Fujitsu has been a keen supporter of Microsoft's Tablet PC push and the FMV-P8230 will join its existing line-up in mid-November. The computer has a 8.9-inch XGA resolution (1,280 pixels by 768 pixels) screen and an Intel Core Solo processor. It will cost $2,000.

[Rasputin]

Google's Blogger Suffers Outage

After getting hacked this past weekend, Google's Blogger publishing service suffered an outage yesterday morning that kept both Blogger.com and the Blogspot hosting service offline for two hours.


A "network malfunction" caused the outage, Google said in a short note posted on Blogger Status (a site where the company informs users about Blogger system issues).


No data was lost during the outage. "We know how important Blogger is to our users, so we take issues like this very seriously," a Google spokeswoman wrote via e-mail.

Prank Posting

On Saturday, a hacker broke into Google's main official blog, which is hosted on Blogger, and posted a false message saying that the company had decided to cancel a joint click-to-call advertising project with eBay.


By Sunday, Google had patched the bug and removed the posting. However, the prank message was widely noticed and triggered significant speculation and confusion among Google observers.


A beta version of Blogger where Google is testing enhancements to the service went down for a while on Oct. 1, and on Sept. 28 the main Blogger platform experienced "sluggish" performance for several hours, according to Blogger Status.

Unacceptable Down Time

Mark Nolan began using Blogger to host a personal blog about soccer nearly two months ago, and is disappointed with the platform's reliability so far. "This isn't what you'd expect from an operation like Google. It's embarrassing in my opinion," Nolan said in a phone interview.


If the availability problems persist on Blogger, Nolan will consider switching the blog to another platform.


Nolan, who lives in Manchester, U.K. and posts under the pseudonym James Ryddel in the soccer blog, hosts other Web sites he publishes with British providers.


Although all hosting providers experience down time, the Blogger situation is reaching unacceptable levels, said Nolan, who works as director of TXT Media. "Google should concentrate on improving Blogger's reliability and not on adding new features," Nolan said.

Service Upgrades

Google acquired Blogger in early 2003 when it bought Pyra Labs. At the time, Blogger was considered a leader of the blogging revolution. However, since then, Google has been criticized by some for being slow to enhance and upgrade the pioneering service.


For example, Google is now testing features for Blogger such as the ability to categorize entries with labels and to control access to blogs that other services implemented long before. For a long time, Blogger lacked native image uploading, a feature widely available from competitors.

Loss of Staff

In the past two years, the Blogger team has lost several key figures, including Pyra Labs founder Evan Williams in October 2004, senior specialist Biz Stone in September 2005 and product manager Jason Goldman in August of this year. Williams later founded podcasting company Odeo, which later hired former Blogger staffer Stone.


Blogging's popularity continues unabated. Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, Six Apart and others all offer competing services to Blogger. Blogging has also become an integral part of other online communication services, like the increasingly popular social networks.


Beyond its broad adoption among individuals, blogging has also been embraced by corporations as a useful tool to communicate with clients and partners.

Report Problems

Anyone who encounters technical difficulties with Blogger is encouraged to contact the Blogger support team through the service's help center, Google's spokeswoman wrote.

[Rasputin]

The Great Game Console Preorder Mess

I'm no hardcore gamer, but I am pretty excited about the upcoming battle between Nintendo and Sony in the never-ending console wars. How about you?

The launch of the Sony Playstation 3 (announced for November 17) and the Nintendo Wii (set for November 19) has set off a torrent of Web chatter and speculation about preorders--who has consoles to sell, how many do they have, and how can I get one?

In the middle of all this I have to wonder: Do the console makers get in on this preorder action officially? If they don't, is it even safe to pay for a console in advance?

Well, I made a few phone calls, and what I have to say is: Buyer beware! Sony and Nintendo both tiptoed around questions regarding preorders. Sony says it has no official position on the practice. The decision to sell preorders, Sony says, is up to the individual retailer. So, if EBGames/GameStop or anyone else doesn't come through with those PS3s you got in line for at 3 a.m., Sony is not responsible.

Nintendo wouldn't even go that far. All it will say is: Buy your console through a reputable retailer. Thanks Nintendo.

Sony And Nintendo's Position

Either way, the console makers are nervous about preorders. Neither would go on the record--and Sony didn't even answer PC World phone calls until I told them Nintendo was commenting! Maybe that's because Sony is only planning to ship 400,000 consoles to the U.S. (while Nintendo says is sending 4 million worldwide--traditionally, the U.S. gets about half of such a shipment. If true, this time 2 million Wiis could be headed our way). Will that be enough to make everyone's holiday season happy?

Speaking of demand exceeding supply, we sent PC World staffer Amber Bouman out this morning to see if she could get in on the Wii preorder action at our local EBGames/GameStop store in Union Square in San Francisco. Here's what she had to say.

"There were 32 preorders passed out (this morning) but there were about 60 people in line.

"People I asked said they had heard about the preorder via EBGames/GameStop, friends, or through the industry. Some in line (at the store in San Francisco) mentioned dissatisfaction with the PS3 preorder process. Many grumbled that (the $499 to $599 that is the announced PlayStation 3 price range) is far too much to pay for a game system. And since a PS3 will cost about as much as rent for one month for me, I'm inclined to agree. But I also don't buy $45 T-shirts from The Gap either."

Everyone who did get a chance to preorder a Wii at EBGames/GameStop had to put a $50 deposit down but the company's e-mail announcing the procedure warns: "As we cannot control production and shipping issues by the manufacturer, a reservation deposit does not guarantee receipt of a system avilable to purchase at launch."

Great, so you preregister to preorder, get your self down to a store early in the morning, stand in line for hours, pay $50 as a deposit (which you would get back) and STILL not be guaranteed the hardware. Geez, Louise!

Another Sad Tale

David Cobb, another fellow PCW staffer and gamer, says he tried to get in on the Oct 10th preorder process for a PS3 from EBGames/GameStop. This was after he registered with the company some weeks ago to be notified about when he could come down to preorder the game console.

He did get an e-mail from EBGames/GameStop on Oct. 9th telling him that he could preorder in person, but David didn't recognize it as the trigger to hustle down to the store. He thought it was an e-mail newsletter and, by the time he really read it, it was too late to preorder.

"At this point I am planning to just order one online when I can, and I will just accept that it may be months before a PS3 arrives," he says."However, I will make enough effort to be sure NOT to order from EB Games/GameStop . . . since the pre-order process left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth."

Amazon, which is also collecting e-mail addresses to notify people when preorders can be placed, seems to be the most comfortable talking about preorders--and company officials were even willing to go on the record.

Sean Sundwall, senior PR manager, said customers should sign up at Amazon.com to be notified when the consoles are available for preorder. "We take preorders when we are cleared to do so by the manufacturer and when we know exactly what the allocation will be," he said. "Before we can offer a preorder, we need to be able to guarantee we're going to get it."

Guarantee. Now that's a word I like to hear.

[Rasputin]

Intel to Launch Quad-Core Chips on November 13

In a race with rival Advanced Micro Devices, Intel will bring its quad-core chips to market in a new line of Hewlett-Packard workstations due to be introduced on November 13.

HP sent out invitations to the event but did not specify exact models and prices. The computers will probably use Intel's planned Xeon 5300 chip, and will be designed to run high-end applications like seismic analysis and visualization technologies from Ansys, Autodesk, Landmark Graphics, and Parametric Technology.

The launch would mean that Intel brings quad-core processors to market before AMD, a crucial win in a year when Intel has made as many headlines for its layoffs and missed earnings targets as for its technology.

AMD in 2007
AMD plans to release its own quad-core chips in the middle of 2007, and claims its monolithic design is superior to Intel's plan, which essentially glues two dual-cores chips together. But without having any hardware to test, analysts are divided on whether this detail will significantly affect the chips' performance.

Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini defended the company's design at last month's Intel Developer Forum, saying that customers would care more about the pure speed and performance of their computers than about how the chips inside it are packaged.

Compared to the ratcheting of clock speeds in conventional chips above 3 GHz and 4 GHz, multiple-core chips can accelerate processing tasks in desktops and servers without drawing more electricity and generating extra heat. They can also handle more than one instruction set at a time, allowing computers to multitask more efficiently.

The game enthusiast market will be a testing ground for the first quad-core chips, as Intel has already arranged to ship its Core 2 Extreme version of the chip to 13 gaming PC vendors, including Dell, Gateway, and VoodooPC, Otellini said at the show. The company plans to ship the Core 2 Quad version for mainstream desktops in the first quarter of 2007.

In contrast, the launch with HP next month will focus on high-end users in the fields of digital content creation, computer-aided engineering and design, and oil and gas exploration.

One of the earliest users of quad-core chips will be the Gates Planetarium at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. HP invited reporters to witness the technology at a November 13 press conference called "Quad Fest."

[Rasputin]

Microsoft Says Regulations Won't Delay Vista In Europe

Microsoft has agreed to make changes to its upcoming Windows Vista operating system to satisfy regulators in the European Union. Despite the changes, it will still deliver Vista on schedule, it said today.

The company had earlier warned that Vista might be delayed in Europe because of regulatory authorities' concerns about the impact of the operating system on competition, but following what it described as "constructive dialogue" with competition authorities, it said today that it expected to release the software on schedule.

Authorities Remain Cautious
A European court is still considering Microsoft's appeal of an antitrust ruling two and a half years ago which found the company guilty of unfairly using its monopoly in desktop operating systems to strengthen its position in the markets for workgroup server and media player software.

The European Commission had expressed further concerns that Microsoft would use the launch of Vista to give it an unfair advantage in the security software market.

Microsoft has agreed to make a number of changes to Windows Vista in response to guidance from the E.U.'s competition regulator, the European Commission, the company said Friday.

It has also talked successfully with competition authorities in Korea, which have also raised concerns about Microsoft's business practices, and expects to ship Vista on time in that country as well, it said.

Worldwide Release
Microsoft plans to release the operating system on schedule, to its volume license business customers worldwide in November, and to other customers worldwide in January.

"We are excited to bring the security enhancements and innovative new features of Windows Vista to our customers and partners around the world, and we are committed to adhering to local law in every region," said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive officer, in a written statement.

[Rasputin]

Fujitsu To Offer Flash-Disk Option With Laptops

Fujitsu will soon join two other major PC makers in putting on sale a portable computer that uses flash memory in place of the traditional hard-disk drive.

The company will offer a 16G-byte or 32G-byte flash memory disk as an option with new B-series machines due on sale in Japan late October and new Q-series machines that will be available from early November, it said today. Choosing the 16G-byte disk will add $670 to the price of the computer while the 32G-byte disk will add $1,335.

The disks are made by Samsung Electronics and can already be found in two Samsung machines, the Q30 laptop Q1-SSD ultra-mobile PC. Both machines went on sale in South Korea earlier this year. In Japan, Sony is also offering a version of its small-size UX90 portable PC with 16G-bytes of flash in place of a hard-disk drive.

Improved Performance
The flash disk has several advantages over a conventional hard-disk drive. These include longer battery life because the flash memory uses less power and a slight weight reduction. Fujitsu said the B-series machine will run an extra 15 minutes and the Q-series will run an extra 30 minutes on flash disk compared to hard-disk drive.

Most noticeable to the user will be faster start-up. Because data can be accessed from the flash memory much faster than a hard-disk drive, the B-series machine takes about 19 seconds to boot up Windows XP Home Edition compared to 32 seconds for a hard-disk drive version of the same machine.

More New Offerings
The company is also offering a hard-disk drive that automatically encrypts data as an option with the B-series machines. The drive, produced by Seagate Technology, uses hardware to encrypt all data being written on the drive and decrypt data as it is read. Choosing such a drive will add $125 to the price of the computers.

Fujitsu also unveiled today a new convertible machine running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005. Fujitsu has been a keen supporter of Microsoft's Tablet PC push and the FMV-P8230 will join its existing line-up in mid-November. The computer has a 8.9-inch XGA resolution (1,280 pixels by 768 pixels) screen and an Intel Core Solo processor. It will cost $2,000.

[Rasputin]

Vista-Ready Products for the Holidays

Microsoft continues its efforts to inform customers that they can purchase products compatible with Windows Vista as soon as the operating system is available.

At the Digital Life 2006 Conference in New York on Thursday, Microsoft is expected to announce that more than 250 hardware and software products have received either the "Certified for Windows Vista" or "Works with Windows Vista" logos, and will be available in time for the holiday shopping season in November and December.

While Windows Vista was originally supposed to ship for consumers around the same time, Microsoft in March pushed back that release until January 2007. Business users should have Vista sometime in November.

Products tagged "Certified for Windows Vista" will deliver a premium Windows Vista experience, while those tagged "Works with Windows Vista" are compatible with the OS and will work reliably with it.

Partners in the Spotlight
Mike Sievert, corporate vice president of Windows Client Marketing at Microsoft, is expected to highlight Vista-ready partner products in his keynote at the Digital Life show.

Sievert also is expected to show products still undergoing the logo testing process. Those products will include Canon's HV-10 HD Camcorder, Nvidia GeForce graphics cards, Logitech's MX3200 Laser cordless desktop set and MX Revolution mouse, among others.

He also will highlight that ATI Technologies, Canon, Logitech, and Nvidia have products available that have already qualified for the Certified for Windows Vista logo, and other companies, such as Belkin, CA, Corel, and D-Link Systems will have Certified for Windows Vista products available around the same time Vista is available.

Decoding 'Vista Capable' and 'Vista Premium Ready'
Microsoft has been making a major push to have PCs and third-party products ready to run on and with Windows Vista once it ships. PCs labeled "Windows Vista Capable" and "Windows Vista Premium Ready" are already on the market thanks to a program Microsoft launched with hardware partners earlier this year.

PCs with the Windows Vista Capable logo can run lower-end versions of Vista, such as Windows Vista Home Basic. Meanwhile, Windows Vista Premium Ready means the machines can run the higher-end versions of Vista, such as Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate.

In addition to the partner product news, Sievert on Thursday also will announce that two key software features of Vista--Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player 11--will soon be available for Windows XP. IE7 will be made available to Windows XP customers via free download in the next two weeks, and Windows Media Player 11 will be available as a free download beginning October 24, Microsoft said.

[omid219]

thanks

[Rasputin]

Intel to Launch Quad-Core Chips on November 13

In a race with rival Advanced Micro Devices, Intel will bring its quad-core chips to market in a new line of Hewlett-Packard workstations due to be introduced on November 13.

HP sent out invitations to the event but did not specify exact models and prices. The computers will probably use Intel's planned Xeon 5300 chip, and will be designed to run high-end applications like seismic analysis and visualization technologies from Ansys, Autodesk, Landmark Graphics, and Parametric Technology.

The launch would mean that Intel brings quad-core processors to market before AMD, a crucial win in a year when Intel has made as many headlines for its layoffs and missed earnings targets as for its technology.

AMD in 2007
AMD plans to release its own quad-core chips in the middle of 2007, and claims its monolithic design is superior to Intel's plan, which essentially glues two dual-cores chips together. But without having any hardware to test, analysts are divided on whether this detail will significantly affect the chips' performance.

Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini defended the company's design at last month's Intel Developer Forum, saying that customers would care more about the pure speed and performance of their computers than about how the chips inside it are packaged.

Compared to the ratcheting of clock speeds in conventional chips above 3 GHz and 4 GHz, multiple-core chips can accelerate processing tasks in desktops and servers without drawing more electricity and generating extra heat. They can also handle more than one instruction set at a time, allowing computers to multitask more efficiently.

The game enthusiast market will be a testing ground for the first quad-core chips, as Intel has already arranged to ship its Core 2 Extreme version of the chip to 13 gaming PC vendors, including Dell, Gateway, and VoodooPC, Otellini said at the show. The company plans to ship the Core 2 Quad version for mainstream desktops in the first quarter of 2007.

In contrast, the launch with HP next month will focus on high-end users in the fields of digital content creation, computer-aided engineering and design, and oil and gas exploration.

One of the earliest users of quad-core chips will be the Gates Planetarium at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. HP invited reporters to witness the technology at a November 13 press conference called "Quad Fest."

[Rasputin]

Digital World Insider: Must-Have iPod Accessories

The perennial problem with Apple's iPods is that the darn things look so nice you don't want to scuff them, hence the lucrative market of iPod protective cases and skins. But even those can't help with the problem that all portable audio devices have faced since the days of transistor radios: those dangling cords that seem to get tangled in just about anything.

Here's one novel solution: Popgadget's $30 iSoundCap, which snugly fits your iPod Nano or Shuffle into a compartment near the back of your head, and also drastically reduces the required length of cord.

Avoid Headphone Entanglements
I've already mentioned one way to avoid tangled headphone cords: wear your iPod on your head. If you don't have an iPod or just prefer other headgear, the diminutive Cordgo might be the answer to your problems.

Using the Cordgo is simple: pop the lid off, loop your headphone cord around the spindle, and replace the lid. Then you can adjust the cord's length by winding the Cordgo. There's a clip on the back so you can attach it to your belt, lapel, armband, or wherever's convenient.

I found the Cordgo worked pretty much as advertised, but I had to practice a bit to get the knack of getting the right amount of cord length on either end. But hey, for $10, I can't complain.

Tangle-Free Listening With Logitech Headphones
Aside from iPod hats and cord winders, another way to avoid snarled headphone cords is to eliminate them altogether. Logitech has just announced the latest version of its FreePulse Wireless headphones ($99) to do just that. Plug the included Bluetooth 2.0 adapter into any audio device with a standard 3.5-mm audio jack and the music pipes into the headphones, up to 33 feet away. The 2.1-ounce headphones include integrated volume and bass-boost controls in the earpieces as well. The FreePulse Wireless headphones should be available in October.

Wraptor Keeps Your Shuffle Clean
This just might be the spiffiest Shuffle case ever. Mophie's Wraptor is a clear composite Lexan case that keeps your brand-new iPod Shuffle scratch-free and also has "precision engineered grooves" to keep your earphone cords wound up nicely. It's perfect for those of us who prefer our listening experience to be less random than our music.

Rugged iPod Nano Cases for Very Active Listeners
iPods and exercise have gone hand in hand before, but usually the exercise in question doesn't pose much risk to the gadget itself. However, if you're into more demanding activities and have recently acquired one of the new iPod Nanos, Speck Products' new cases might be just your speed. The rubberized ToughSkin case ($30) acts as a shock absorber; the $30 Canvas Sport cases borrows from basic sneaker design to protect against dings and scratches; and the $35 Active Sport armband looks like it could protect your musical investment from a few spills if you tend to jog on rugged terrain. The new cases go on sale on September 27.

Short Takes
Free Downloadable Movie for the iPod: For me, September might as well just be rechristened Movie Month. Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal all host major international film festivals--it's a fine time to be a film fan. And this of course reignites the never-ending debate: How will independent filmmakers get their works seen in increasingly congested markets?

Isis Productions, the company behind the feature Rune, has come up with an idea. When it releases the movie on DVD on October 10, it'll simultaneously make it available as a free download for the iPod that people can copy and distribute as much as they want. For details, read The Hollywood Reporter story.

See Movies Your Way With Cuts: When The Mask came out on video, a friend of mine made his own special version composed entirely of scenes featuring Cameron Diaz. That's good. A few years after that, a company in Utah started offering edited versions of Titanic and other films that were free of nudity and profanity. That's bad.

The difference between the two has to do with copyright laws and fair use. Mashups have brought the same issues to the fore recently, though with fewer lawsuits (if any)--but I'm curious to see if a new program called Cuts might spark some new debate.

Borrowing a concept from the film-editing world, Cuts allows you to edit video--even copy-protected content--without modifying the source material. Cuts creates a "cutlist" from your editing session and applies these modifications to the source material during playback. Cutlists can be distributed to others, but they'll only work for people who own the original source material.

No harm, no foul. Right?

[Rasputin]

Latest Version of Firefox Now Available

Mozilla today posted the latest release candidate for its Firefox Web browser, which is now available for free downloading.

For the Mozilla Foundation and the Firefox community, the posting of Release Candidate 3 (RC3) is a major milestone, because it represents the final code for the long-awaited Firefox 2.0 browser.

"If there are no showstoppers, RC3 will be it"--the final version of the Firefox 2.0 release--said Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering for the open-source Mozilla Foundation.

The first release candidate for Firefox 2.0 became available on September 26, while the second was released on October 6, as developers sought additional input and bug reports from users.

Here Comes Firefox 3.0
Even as Firefox 2.0 approaches its debut, work is under way on the next full version of the browser, Firefox 3.0.

To help create Firefox 3.0, the development team assembled a Firefox Feature Brainstorming Web page on the Firefox community wiki last week, where developers and beta users can add comments about features they would like to see in upcoming versions of the browser. Similar wiki pages were available to users who wanted to offer input about features in Firefox 2.0, but the latest brainstorming wiki page will help formalize new-feature requests for all future versions of the browser.

"Anybody who has a good idea and wants to participate" can enter comments on the wiki page, Schroepfer said. "We're just looking for as wide a range of feedback as people want to give. We've generally tried to solicit ideas in the past. It's part of how we work in general."

As the release of Firefox 2.0 approaches, the release date for the next version, Firefox 3.0, remains undetermined.

"It's pretty far on the horizon at this point," Schroepfer said of Firefox 3.0. "I'd be thinking [about a release] late next year."

[Rasputin]

Microsoft Tightens Vista Transfer Rights Under New License

Microsoft said today it will limit the number of machines to which users can transfer the Windows Vista OS licenses, to just one system beyond the original PC.

When Windows Vista is available, consumers will be able to transfer the OS license they purchase to only one machine other than the one for which they originally buy Vista, says Shanen Boettcher, a Windows general manager at Microsoft. He says Microsoft thinks the change makes sense because "lifetimes for PCs are getting longer." Most likely, a user will not need to transfer an OS license to more than one computer during the time that OS is the latest one available, Boettcher says.

"It's a fit for what most customers do," he says. Boettcher adds that XP did not have a specific limit for the number of times the license was transferable, but that Microsoft wanted to be "specific" about transfer rights with Vista.

Not So, Says User
One Windows user in New York says that one transfer is "probably enough for most people." However, the user, who asked not to be named, says the change may encourage Windows piracy among PC enthusiasts who update their machines on a more regular basis. "Power users will pirate what they need," he says.

Another change Microsoft has made to Windows client licensing after Windows XP is that only two versions of Vista--Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows Vista Business--can be run as a virtual OS in a virtual machine.

"Virtualization is a new technology, and it's primarily used in the business space and by technology enthusiasts," Boettcher says. "It fits in well with the target audience for these [Windows versions]." Windows XP did not have any restrictions on running in a virtual environment, he adds.

Vista Antipiracy Features Also Tightened
Microsoft also has tightened up antipiracy features in Vista, and users who do not verify that their version of the OS is authentic with a software license key within 30 days of its activation will lose the use of certain features of the PC until they do so. The company unveiled this characteristic of Vista, called its Software Protection Platform, about two weeks ago.

Joel Richman, a Windows user in Boston, says that as long as the process of checking for pirated software "does not stop my workflow in the middle of the day," he approves of this change to Vista's license. "As a consumer, I wouldn't want a pirated version of [Vista] because I want all the support I expect to go with a licensed piece of software," Richman says.

[Rasputin]

Yahoo Revamps E-Business Tools

Yahoo is revamping its e-commerce hosting platform to make it easier for small businesses to open and manage online stores.

Yahoo plans to unveil today the first stage of the project by introducing two new "wizards" for designing stores and adding inventory information.

The automated guides feature intuitive interfaces, templates, layouts, and menus that hide programming complexity from users, a Yahoo official said.

In addition, the stores built with the wizards are automatically optimized for search engine spiders, said Jimmy Duvall, director of e-commerce products for the Yahoo Small Business unit.

Yahoo plans to extend this initiative, which it calls Open for Business, to areas like online payment and shipping in early 2007.

The wizards are intended primarily for small businesses that have balked at the technical difficulties of setting up shop online, he said.

The wizards represent an improvement over an existing set of Yahoo tools called Store Editor. This will remain available to merchants, but requires more technical savvy to use.

Many Rivals
The market for hosted e-commerce services is getting crowded, so Yahoo must continually improve its offerings to remain competitive against rivals like eBay's ProStores, said Sonal Gandhi, a Jupiter Research analyst.

While the new wizards aren't spectacularly innovative, Yahoo is right to focus on simplifying e-commerce tasks, she said. This resonates with small businesses because it reduces their need to hire outside help, Gandhi said.

It's no secret that small businesses often lack the time and expertise needed to create, run and maintain an online store, said analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. "Creating an e-commerce Web site has been a historically complicated proposition for small businesses," Sterling said.

At the same time, small business owners realize that having a Web presence is essential because their customers and competitors are online, Sterling said.

IT vendors can reap juicy rewards from the small business market. The estimated 6.2 million small businesses in the U.S. are expected to spend about $98 billion in IT products and services this year, according to AMI Research.

Competing Efforts
Yahoo isn't the only vendor courting small businesses with the promise of simple and intuitive products. On the hardware front, Dell launched new servers in September aimed at small businesses that it said are easy to set up and maintain.

Meanwhile, Google wants to boost its online advertising business in this market via a partnership it struck in September with Intuit, which makes accounting software for small businesses.

Intuit's QuickBooks 2007 has shortcuts and links to Google's AdWords advertising program, Maps Web site and Base product listing service. As in the case of Yahoo and Dell, Google's strategy for reaching small businesses centers on simplification.

[Rasputin]

Quad-Core Xeon System Previewed

TAIPEI -- Tyan Computer is showing off one of the first hardware systems containing Quad-Core Xeon 5300 processors at the Intel Developer Forum here today.

The device, aimed at small offices or home offices, carries several of the new Intel chips, which contain four microprocessor cores each. Multicore chips allow a computer to split up heavy workloads, and Intel says it has worked hard to make them as power efficient as possible.

The new Tyan computers will contain a total of 40 cores each and perform at 250G floating-point operations per second (flops) or faster, said Symon Chang, Tyan president and CEO.

The computers, which are taller than a large trunk but about the same width, will cost around $25,000 to $30,000 each and will launch on November 14, he added.

Intel has said it will bring its quad-core chips to market in a new line of Hewlett-Packard Co. workstations due to be introduced on November 13.

Sufficient Supplies
Also at the conference, Intel executives say they are expect to be able to meet demand for microprocessors in electronic devices for the holiday shopping season.

"We're at the point now where we don't see the [microprocessor] shortages we were seeing," said Tom Kilroy, general manager of Intel's digital enterprise group.

He said some places may see "spot shortages" of Core 2 Duo microprocessors, but that there is no general shortage in the market.

Global PC market concerns over shortages of microprocessors for desktop PCs and laptops, as well as a massive laptop battery recall, have caused analysts and vendors to worry demand may outstrip supply during the main sales season of the year.

Mooly Eden, general manager of Intel's mobile platform group said he was aware of worries over laptop PC battery shortages but that he has not heard of any actual shortages.

In August, PC vendor Dell announced it would recall and replace millions of laptop computer batteries because of a potential fire hazard. Several companies followed Dell's lead, and the total replacement figure now stands at over 7.9 million laptop batteries, causing concerns that there wouldn't be enough new batteries available to support the recalls at the same time as strong demand for new notebook PCs.

Around three-quarters of all microprocessors used in PCs globally are made by Intel. Any slump in sales of Intel processors often causes market watchers to lament that the entire PC industry is facing a downturn.