Pc News

[Rasputin]

AOL 9.0 Accused of Behaving Like Badware

AOL's free Internet client software has earned the company a slap on the wrist from StopBadware.org, a consortium set up to combat malicious software. In a report released today, the group advises users to steer clear of the software because of its "badware behavior."

The report blasts the free version of AOL 9.0 because it "interferes with computer use," and because of the way it meddles with components such as the Internet Explorer browser and the Windows taskbar. The suite is also criticized for engaging in "deceptive installation" and faulted because some components fail to uninstall.

The main problem is that AOL simply doesn't properly inform users of what its software will do to their PCs, said John Palfrey, StopBadware.org's co-director. "We don't think that the disclosure is adequate and there are certain mistakes in the way the software is architected in terms of leaving some programs behind," he said. "When there are large programs, some of which stay around after you've thought you've uninstalled them, they need to be disclosed to the user."

Because AOL has taken steps to address StopBadware.org's concerns, the group has held off on officially rating AOL 9.0 as badware, Palfrey said.

Still, the report is not good news for AOL. Other software that has been the target of StopBadware.org reports includes Kazaa, the Jessica Simpson Screensaver, and the Starware News Toolbar.

Backed by tech companies such as Google, Lenovo Group, and Sun Microsystems, StopBadware.org bills itself as a "Neighborhood Watch" of the Internet. It is run out of two well-respected university departments: Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and University of Oxford's Internet Institute in the U.K.

Monday's report states that AOL is taking steps to address StopBadware.org's concerns, and that the company has confirmed that there is a design flaw in its uninstaller software.

An AOL spokesman said that it is "clearly ridiculous" to categorize his company's software as badware. "No company has done more to fight malware than AOL, and millions of users are protected by our software every day," said AOL's Andrew Weinstein in an email message. "We're reviewing the suggestions made in the report, and we are taking steps to address them, as they mostly involve minor UI issues."

Big Changes
AOL has been struggling through some major changes of late.

It has opened up its once-private network, offering the AOL 9.0 software for free in a bid to attract new users and boost online advertising as its traditional subscribers have fled. The company now has 17.7 million U.S. subscribers, a drop of 3.1 million over the past year.

Last week, three AOL executives, including Chief Technology Officer Maureen Govern left the company in the wake of a scandal over AOL's public disclosure of more than 2 million search queries made by 650,000 AOL users.

AOL has also come under fire for licensing its free antivirus software, called Active Virus Shield, with what anti-adware advocates view as excessive advertising and data gathering provisions.

Since the search disclosure, AOL has taken steps to restore consumer trust, said Chief Executive Officer Jon Miller in a recent e-mail to employees. "There is a tremendous responsibility that goes along with our mission of serving consumers online," he wrote. "We have to earn their trust each and every day and with each and every action we take."

StopBadware.org's reports can be found online.

[Rasputin]

Juniper Adds New Features to Security OS

Juniper Networks is delivering on a promise to pack lots of security features into its firewalls and network appliances for medium-sized businesses and branch offices.

On Monday, the company added antispam capability--as well as an antivirus toolset that also fights spyware, adware, and phishing--to the software for its SSG security appliances. It had promised those optional features in February when it introduced the SSG (Secure Services Gateway) product line.

The introductions Monday were part of a new version of Juniper's ScreenOS software, which runs the firewalls and appliances that trace their roots to the company's 2004 acquisition of NetScreen. The new software, ScreenOS 5.4, is also designed to simplify Juniper's system for keeping potentially dangerous devices from connecting to a network.

Built-In Enterprise Security
Both Juniper and its routing archrival, Cisco Systems, want to build security features into enterprise networks and use the network to enforce good security health on PCs and other devices. Juniper already offers optional intrusion prevention system and Web filtering for the SSG platforms, which can act as wide area network routers as well as security appliances. The company gets the additional features from third-party specialists including Kaspersky Lab and Symantec.

The integration of a whole range of security features within one security device, sometimes called UTM (unified threat management), is best suited to smaller organizations and branch offices that have less bandwidth and resources to work with and so don't want a separate box for every function, said Stephen Philip, director of marketing for Juniper's security products group.

Simplified Security
In the latest ScreenOS, Juniper is also making it easier to enforce rules on devices that try to get on to the network. It offers a "captive portal" feature that forces users into a specific Web page when they try to log on to the network. In the process, software is added to the user's device over the network for the latest security capabilities, Philip said.

In addition, Juniper is adding policy-based routing to ScreenOS. This can be used to direct certain types of packets to a third-party tool for more detailed analysis or special treatment, Philip said.

ScreenOS 5.4 is available now for Juniper's NetScreen, ISG (Integrated Security Gateway) and SSG lines and can be downloaded from the company's site. It is free for new and currently supported customers except for the UTM features, which are sold on a subscription basis. Pricing was not immediately available.

[Rasputin]

Google Signs Deal With eBay

Google has signed a deal to become the exclusive provider of text-based advertising for eBay's Web sites outside of the U.S.

Under terms of the agreement announced Monday, Google and eBay will also work on interoperability between their "click to call" advertising services, they said. The technology allows users to click on an advertisement or a product listing on eBay and be connected to the seller via a Voice over IP call.

Specific terms of the multiyear deal weren't disclosed, although parts of it involve revenue sharing, the companies said.

Click-to-Call Initiatives
EBay signed a similar deal with Yahoo earlier this year. In that case, Yahoo became the exclusive provider of graphical ads for eBay's U.S. Web site, and Yahoo and eBay also agreed to work together on click-to-call technologies.

In Google's case, users will be able to connect with eBay merchants or Google advertisers using either Google Talk or eBay's Skype service, the companies said. They'll also "explore interoperability" between Skype and Google Talk to enable text chat and online presence, they said.

The companies won't begin testing the text-based advertising and click-to-call initiatives until early 2007. They'll be evaluated for several months, and the roll-out of specific components and timing will depend upon the test results and vary from region to region.

EBay has already started offering a click-to-talk service to its sellers using its own Skype service. It went live in the U.S. in June and is now available in other countries, including the U.K., said U.K. EBay spokesman James Gordon-MacIntosh.

eBay doesn't expect the agreement to have a material impact on its financial results in 2006 or 2007, it said.

The Google tie-up marks the latest in the jostling to sign potentially lucrative advertising deals on the Web. Google signed another exclusive deal earlier this month, to provide search functionality and advertising to MySpace.com and other News Corp. Web sites. Microsoft followed last week with a less-sought-after deal to provide banner and text ads for Facebook, a social networking Web site.

[Rasputin]

Amazon.com Lists Vista Prices, Ship Date

Consumers will have to wait until the end of January for Windows Vista if the availability for the OS listed on Amazon.com's Web site is accurate.

On Web pages taking pre-orders for consumer versions of Vista, Amazon.com lists January 30, 2007, as the date the OS will be shipping.

Amazon.com lists prices for the three consumer versions of Windows Vista--Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, and Windows Vista Ultimate--as well as for Windows Vista Business edition. Pricing for upgrades to each of the editions also is listed on the site.

According to Amazon.com, Windows Vista Home Basic will cost $199 for a new copy and $100 for an upgrade. Windows Vista Home Premium, a step above Home Basic in functionality, will sell for $239 for a new version and $159 for an upgrade. And Windows Vista Ultimate, the highest-end version of Vista for consumers, will cost $399 for a new copy and $259 for an upgrade, according to Amazon.com. Windows Vista Business will cost $299 for a new copy, while an upgrade will sell for $199.

Microsoft Won't Confirm or Deny
Microsoft has said it will make consumer versions of Vista available in January, but it has not given a specific date or announced prices for the various versions of the OS. On Tuesday, in a statement sent by e-mail sent through its public relations firm, the company still would not confirm exact availability or pricing for Vista.

On Monday, Microsoft acknowledged that it inadvertently posted Canadian pricing for Vista on its Canadian Web site and then pulled the price list from the site when the information was reported in the media. Converted to U.S. dollars, the prices for Vista in Canada were higher than the U.S. prices listed on Amazon.com's Web site.

[Rasputin]

Google Offers Book Downloads

Google has expanded its controversial book search service to allow people to download whole copies of books in PDF format to their computers, with the ability to print them out.

The feature will go live Wednesday at the service's Web site, said Adam Smith, group product manager of Google Book Search and Google Scholar.

The books available for download will only be those that are in the public domain and thus not protected by copyright, Smith said. Until now, people have been able to read these public-domain books on the Google Book Search Web site, but not download and print them, he said.

Google will not allow downloading of copyrighted books, not even those for which it has obtained permission from the copyright holders to display their full text, Smith said.

Scanning and Searching
The vast majority of the public-domain books available for download have been scanned as part of the library project of the Google Book Search service, Smith said.

For the project, Google is scanning portions of the collections of some of the world's largest academic libraries, including Google partners Harvard University, Stanford University and Oxford University.

However, critics say Google can't scan copyrighted books it obtains from the libraries unless it gets permission from the copyright holders. The issue is at the center of two separate lawsuits brought against Google last year, one by The Authors Guild and three authors, and another one by The Association of American Publishers on behalf of five of its members: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson Education, Penguin Group USA, Simon & Schuster, and John Wiley & Sons.

[Rasputin]

MTV Goes Broadband

As young people increasingly tune out television and tune into online video and chat, MTV Networks is hoping to win their attention with a new broadband service that appears to be part MTV, part YouTube, and part MySpace.

The service, built around a Web site called Flux, will be launched in Japan later this year and is likely to follow in other countries, said William Roedy, vice chairman of MTV Networks and president of MTV Networks International, at a news conference in Tokyo.

Viacom Responds to Web Threat
The planned service is perhaps the clearest indication yet that MTV's parent company, Viacom International, takes the Internet and the potential threat that it poses to TV viewing seriously.

"While our history has been focused on TV, there is no doubt that our future will belong to digital" and the merger of content with new delivery platforms such as the Internet, Roedy said. "We are no longer a TV-centric company. While we have led in TV over the last 25 years, we are now poised to lead in digital."

Flux, which builds on a more basic MTV Web site launched in a few countries last year, will attempt to bring together its own content, such as music videos, with user-generated video and social networking features, said Tony Elison, senior vice president and general manager of digital media at Viacom International Japan.

"Users will be able to access MTV Networks programming from anywhere in the world as long as they have an Internet connection," said Elison. "At the same time, users will be able to upload their video. It's truly user-centric."

MTV: Not Just Videos Anymore
The service will be built partly on content from MTV Networks, which in Japan includes material from its trademark music channel and the Nickelodeon kids' channel. The company offers similar entertainment channels in many other markets. A key feature of the service will be the ability of users to organize their own playlists of content and share them with friends.

For example, a user could program their own video music channel complete with uploaded clips of them introducing the songs. MTV will add commercials between the music videos to fund the service, which will be free.

"By putting the user at the center of the programming experience, we believe users will share their entertainment with one another, and that way users will be able to discover entertainment in completely new ways," said Elison.

Other features will include the ability to jump from a music video to related content, like songs from the same artist or of a similar genre. A cartoon clip from Nickelodeon might be linked to other animated content on the site, for example, including animated music videos or animations uploaded by users.

Talent Search?
Besides attracting an audience for advertisers, MTV Networks hopes to benefit in other ways.

"It will eliminate the barriers between professional and consumer-generated content, and that way we'll be able to discover new creative talent," Elison said.

MTV Networks wouldn't disclose an exact launch date or say how many people it hopes will sign up for the service.

Flux is being launched in Japan because it was developed by a team in that country, and because Japan has one of the most advanced broadband markets in the world. There were 23.3 million broadband subscribers at the end of March this year, of which 5.5 million were on optical fiber connections.

[Rasputin]

IT Professionals Think Data Theft Is Inevitable

Fresh on the heels of a string of highly publicized, corporate data breaches, 63 percent of respondents to a new data security study said they don't believe they can prevent such breaches.

"This group came out much, much more negative than I ever expected," said Larry Ponemon, the founder and chairman of the Ponemon Institute, an Elk Rapids, Michigan-based firm that looks at information and privacy management practices in business and government. "They said they're bad at detecting [breaches], but even worse at preventing [breaches]."

The 11-page study, "National Survey on the Detection and Prevention of Data Breaches," which was released Monday, is based on responses from 853 IT professionals, including senior executives, information security managers, and others. The study was sponsored by PortAuthority Technologies, a Palo Alto, California-based vendor of information leak prevention software.

The study also found that 41 percent of respondents said their companies are not effective in enforcing data security policies because of a lack of corporate resources.

IS Professionals Frustrated
"A general frustration came out that they don't have the tools or the resources to do the job, and that these responsibilities have been pushed into their laps" but they haven't been given extra help, equipment, software or other tools, said Ponemon, who is a Computerworld.com columnist. "Somehow they're being held responsible for knowing when a breach occurs."

About 66 percent of the respondents said their companies use hardware or software to help detect or prevent data breaches, but the remaining respondents said their companies don't use such tools because of their high costs.

Some 16 percent said their companies believe that their manual security procedures are enough and that their company is not vulnerable to a data breach.

"I think a lot of these companies are completely out of control ... in protecting sensitive or confidential business information," Ponemon said. "There's a lot of room for improvement."

Other Findings
Other highlights of the study include the following:

59 percent of those surveyed said they believe they can effectively detect a data breach using available IT tools and procedures.
espondents reported a 68 percent probability of detecting a large data breach (of more than 10,000 data files), while they said small data breaches (fewer than 100 files) are likely to be detected only 51 percent of the time.
Jon Oltsik, a security analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group in Milford, Mass., said the Ponemon figures mirror statistics that have been collected by his company.

"The 41 percent who say they don't have the resources [to effectively fight the problem]--that I completely believe," Oltsik said. "A lot of companies are kind of slow" in dealing with such problems, he added.

Oltsik said his data shows that the biggest risk for data breaches is the use of laptop computers, which can be easily lost or stolen.

Monitoring a company's data use policies is important, he said, but that's difficult to do because of employee training needs, turnover, and other issues. "No one does that kind of stuff," he said.

[Rasputin]

Amazon.com Lists Vista Prices, Ship Date

Consumers will have to wait until the end of January for Windows Vista if the availability for the OS listed on Amazon.com's Web site is accurate.

On Web pages taking pre-orders for consumer versions of Vista, Amazon.com lists January 30, 2007, as the date the OS will be shipping.

Amazon.com lists prices for the three consumer versions of Windows Vista--Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, and Windows Vista Ultimate--as well as for Windows Vista Business edition. Pricing for upgrades to each of the editions also is listed on the site.

According to Amazon.com, Windows Vista Home Basic will cost $199 for a new copy and $100 for an upgrade. Windows Vista Home Premium, a step above Home Basic in functionality, will sell for $239 for a new version and $159 for an upgrade. And Windows Vista Ultimate, the highest-end version of Vista for consumers, will cost $399 for a new copy and $259 for an upgrade, according to Amazon.com. Windows Vista Business will cost $299 for a new copy, while an upgrade will sell for $199.

Microsoft Won't Confirm or Deny
Microsoft has said it will make consumer versions of Vista available in January, but it has not given a specific date or announced prices for the various versions of the OS. On Tuesday, in a statement sent by e-mail sent through its public relations firm, the company still would not confirm exact availability or pricing for Vista.

On Monday, Microsoft acknowledged that it inadvertently posted Canadian pricing for Vista on its Canadian Web site and then pulled the price list from the site when the information was reported in the media. Converted to U.S. dollars, the prices for Vista in Canada were higher than the U.S. prices listed on Amazon.com's Web site.

[Rasputin]

New Web Browser Won't Leave User Footprints

The latest entrant to the crowded Internet browser market is the appropriately named Browzar, a tool specifically designed to protect users' privacy by not retaining details of the Web sites they've searched.

Most Web browsers--like Microsoft's Internet Explorer--automatically save users' searches in Internet caches and histories. Users do have the option of deleting the history folder and emptying the Internet cache, but many people either don't know how to do that or tend not to, leaving a trail of where they've been online behind them in the browser.

Browzar is being officially launched today but can already be run or downloaded from its Web site. Users don't have to register to use the free browser.

Browzar automatically deletes Internet caches, histories, cookies, and auto-complete forms. Auto-complete is the feature that anticipates the search term or Web address a user might enter by relying on information previously entered into the browser.

Browzar is the brainchild of Ajaz Ahmed, the man behind Freeserve, the first U.K. Internet service provider to offer free Internet access to customers in the late 1990s. He sold Freeserve--which quickly became the U.K.'s largest ISP--to France Telecom's Wanadoo operation in 2001 for $3 billion.

Privacy Concerns
"Privacy is becoming a bigger issue," Ahmed said, pointing to the recent leak of more than 20 million user search queries by AOL. "The AOL story highlights the issue that some of the things people are searching for are very, very personal."

The Browzar site contains a page of stories from users who have either discovered things they rather not have known about their friends and loved ones through their Web browser's history or auto-complete feature or who have had information revealed they would have preferred kept private. For example, Ahmed cited a statistic that 35 percent of people using matchmaking Web sites are already married.

While Freeserve was focused on the needs of the U.K. market, Ahmed hopes Browzar will have global appeal, particularly anywhere users are going online on shared computers, for instance, at Internet cafes.

Browzar is very small in size, 264KB, and downloads within a few seconds. The browser is currently available for Windows and Ahmed plans versions for the Mac OS and Linux. Browzar is in beta testing at present and should enter general availability some time next month, he said.

Ahmed has formed a private company, Browzar, based in Huddersfield in the U.K. which he is fully funding, to help support and market the new browser. He's also hoping interest in Browzar will be driven by word of mouth and the Internet to achieve the kind of ubiquity enjoyed by the likes of Skype, MySpace, and YouTube.

So far, Browzar the company has a handful of employees, but Ahmed is planning to release more sophisticated versions of the Web browser as well as server-side applications. He plans to take on more staff as the company's product portfolio grows.

Browzar doesn't limit law enforcement's ability to track an individual's online behavior. "We don't make people invisible on the Internet; it's a privacy tool for your own desktop PC or the PC you're using," Ahmed said. "Law enforcement can still go to ISPs if they want; we don't override anything."

Browzar includes a search engine and the startup will generate money through revenue-sharing deals with search engine providers. Initially, the relationship is with Yahoo's Overture advertising sales subsidiary, but Ahmed plans to set up additional partnerships with other search companies over time to give users a choice of search engines.

Ahmed came up with the name "Browzar" as one that was simple to both say and remember. He said he was surprised that the domains browzar.com, browzar.net, and browzar.co.uk were still available.

[Rasputin]

AT&T Online Store Hacked

AT&T Inc. confirmed Tuesday that its online store had been hacked and the credit card information and personal data of up to 19,000 customers possibly compromised.

The hacking occurred during the weekend, although AT&T did not say when, resulting in the temporary closure of its online store. The company said it was notifying "fewer than 19,000 customers" about the intrusion, and that it would pay for credit monitoring services to protect both the affected users and further its investigation of the incident.

The information belonged to customers who had purchased DSL equipment through AT&T's online store, the company said.

AT&T is still reeling from the investigation of a different kind of privacy infringement--that of its involvement in assisting the U.S. National Security Agency to monitor the communications of American citizens without a warrant.

[Rasputin]

DDR2 Finally Crowned DRAM King

After a much longer than expected delay, DDR2 (double data rate, second generation) has finally taken over as the most popular memory chip used in PCs.

The crossover to DDR2 from the previous mainstream chip, DDR-400 (double data rate, 400 megahertz), took place this week on both the spot DRAM market and the contract market, industry researcher DRAMeXchange Technology said Wednesday.

Slow Start for DDR
It's been a long time coming. The chips entered the market far later than expected, mainly due to heat problems. In fact, DDR-400, which has reigned as industry leader for the past few years, was supposed to be a stop-gap with such a short life span that some companies hadn't even planned to support it with a chip set.

But when DDR-400 showed up on Intel's product road map in late 2002, component makers began to move forward on DDR-400, and put off developing compatible parts for DDR2. Intel microprocessors power around 80 percent of all PCs, making Intel's stamp of approval vital to computer industry parts makers.

Advanced Micro Devices helped further put off demand for DDR2 this year. The company waited until the middle of the year to launch its first desktop and laptop processors that support DDR2 because it didn't think initial versions of the chip added substantial performance benefits to AMD processor-based systems, yet commanded a higher price.

The first DDR2 chips ran at 400 MHz and then 533 MHz, but AMD waited until DDR2 chips running at 667 MHz reached mass-production levels, which lowered prices and ensured a plentiful supply.

Currently, a wide range of Intel and AMD systems support DDR2.

Pricing Could Be a Problem
DRAMeXchange noted Wednesday that prices may become an issue again for DDR2. Prices for the chips rose 8.8 percent last week, compared to the previous week, the company said, due to strong demand for PCs. The market researcher expects prices to remain strong throughout September, the traditional time when back-to-school PC buying increases buying activity in the DRAM market.

[Rasputin]

Micron Technology Unveils 16GB DRAM Chip

Micron Technology is offering a new 16GB DRAM memory chip it's billing as the densest server-memory module on the market.

Micron Technology said its new memory module features 72 2-gigabit DDR2 dies that are packaged as 36 4-gigabit TwinDie components.

Micron said its proprietary TwinDie stacking technology offers fewer and shorter connection routes to the chips, which enable faster access to data in the memory. The retention, reliability and availability of data in computer memory concern enterprises that process large amounts of data, such as banks or shopping Web sites.

The 16GB module offers twice the capacity of memory modules available today, said Kevin Kilbuck, senior manager of strategic marketing and product development for Micron. "We are ahead of the pack in terms of density," he said.

Ahead of the Pack
Micron's move is seen as an "aggressive" market play by Shane Rau, a chip industry analyst at IDC.

"It is in keeping with how server makers are keeping up with demand for memory," Rau said. The forecast for the average amount of memory capacity in mid-range servers shipped by the end of 2006 is 38GB, up 60 percent from an average 24GB in 2005, he said, citing IDC research.

While Micron's new module is the densest in the industry to date, Rau anticipated that "it will be closely followed by other competitors."

Micron's rivals in the memory module market include Munich-based Qimonda, Hynix Semiconductor of South Korea, and Samsung Electronics of Japan.

Micron sells to server manufacturers. Some of Micron's customers are evaluating samples of the 16GB memory modules. Commercial availability of the product is slated for later this year, the company said.

[abadani69]

نهمين نمايشگاه بينالمللي رايانه و هفتمين نمايشگاه بينالمللي ماشينهاي اداري و نخستين نمايشگاه تخصصي تلفن همراه پنجشنبه در محل دائمي نمايشگاه بينالمللي مشهد گشايش يافت.

در مراسم افتتاح اين نمايشگاهها معاون وزير ارتباطات و فناوري اطلاعات و دبير شوراي عالي فناوري اطلاعات كشور در سخناني تقويت و حمايت و توسعه زير ساختهاي ارتباطاتي كشور را در بخشهاي مختلف از سياستهاي مهم اين وزارتخانه برشمرد.

دكتر عبدالمجيد رياضي گفت:ظرفيتهاي مهم و بلقوه كشور در زمينه ارتباطات و فناوري اطلاعات بخش خصوصي و دانشگاهها و مراكز آموزش عالي و مراكز تحقيقاتي كشور هستند، كه ما از هيچ تلاشي براي تقويت و انسجام بخشي آنها دريغ نميكنيم.

وي بيان كرد: طبق مصوبات اخير شورايعالي فناوري اطلاعات كشور و با هدف انسجام بخشي ساختار ارتباطاتي شركتهاي موازي در هم ادغام شدند.

وي ادامه داد: در اين راستا تقويت نيروي انساني متخصص و كارآمد، امنيت و قوانين و مقررات فناوري اطلاعات ميتواند ضمن به توسعه بخش ارتباطات و فناوريهاي اطلاعات كمك شايان توجهي كند.

وي در بخش ديگري از سخنانش از تشكيل شبكه ملي اينترنت و كميته اطلاع رساني و فرهنگسازي در بحث فناوري اطلاعات در كشور در راستاي ديگر مصوبات اخير شوراي عالي فناوري اطلاعات خبر داد.

رياضي اظهار داشت: همچنين در اين راستا قرار است كارگروه فناوري اطلاعات در هر استان به رياست استاندار تشكيل شود و كليه دانش آموزان كشور حساب اينترنتي با واريز مبلغ معين داير شود.

وي با اشاره بهمهمترين مصوبات اخير كارگروه فناوري اطلاعات استان خراسان رضوي افزود: در اين جلسه مصوب شد همه خانوادههاي مشهدي حساب اينترنتي داير شده و براي هر يك از اين حسابها مبلغ ۱۰۰هزار ريال واريز شود.

وي گفت: شهرداري مشهد اعتبار مورد نياز واريز مبلغ اوليه اين حساب اينترنتي خانوادههاي مشهدي را متقبل شده است.

رييس سازمان نظام صنفي رايانهاي كشور هم دراين مراسم برگزاري چنين نمايشگاههايي در ايجاد تعامل بين توليدكنندگان و مصرفكنندگان و در نتيجه رشد و توسعه اين بخش موثر دانست.

"محمد سعيدي ناييني" اضافه كرد: بايد اعتماد بخش خصوصي را براي سرمايه- گذاري جذب كرد تا در سايه اعتماد متقابل بخشهاي دولتي و خصوصي شاهد رونق اقتصادي اين بخش كه از نيازهاي اساسي جامعه است، باشيم.

در اين آيين معاون شركت نمايشگاههاي بينالمللي مشهد نيز گفت: بيش از ۱۷۰شركت داخلي و نمايندگيهاي خارجي در نمايشگاههاي بينالمللي رايانه و ماشينهاي اداري و تلفن همراه شركت كردند.

عليرضا پيش بين افزود: نمايندگيهاي خارجي از كشورهاي فرانسه و تايوان و سنگاپور و كانادا، كره جنوبي و فنلاند و آلمان و ژاپن ، مالزي و چين در نمايشگاه مذكور حضور بههم رساندند.

وي گفت: شركتكنندگان در اين نمايشگاه كالاها و توليدات خود را در فضايي بالغ بر ۱۰هزار مترمربع بهمدت پنج روز بهنمايش ميگذارند.

[Rasputin]

Sizing Up Differences in Large LCDs

If you're considering switching from a regular-aspect monitor to a wide-screen display, one question will inevitably come to the fore: Will buying a wider screen necessarily give you more for your money? Does a 20-inch wide-screen LCD, for example, have as much screen space as one with a regular-aspect ratio?

Numbers Don't Lie: Calculate the Viewable Area
"Consumers' perceptions of display size are actually based on the height of the screen as opposed to the width, " says Chris Connery, vice president of market research and consulting at DisplaySearch. Connery points out that an advertisement for a 20-inch wide-screen may conjure an image of a monstrous monitor, but in reality, it's smaller than a 20-incher with a standard 4:3 aspect ratio. In fact, in terms of viewable image size--the viewable area of the screen--the height of the 20-inch wide-screen display is closer to that of a 17-inch 4:3-ratio LCD. Connery says that for both these sizes, the viewable area is approximately 10.6 inches tall. For a 20-inch regular-aspect ratio, it's about 12 inches.

Connery also points to a relatively simple calculation aid when shopping for these monitors. "In order for customers to figure out 'bang for their buck,' they can easily look at it by the number of pixels on the screen," he explains. A 20-inch monitor with a 4:3 ratio and a native resolution of 1600 by 1200 has around 1.92 million pixels. A 20-inch wide-screen LCD with a 1680 by 1050 native resolution displays about 1.76 million pixels. A cursory search on our pricing partner pulls up a price range for typical monitors at around $300 to $600. With prices running about the same, a 20-inch with a 4:3 ratio has a better price per pixel. "The same can be done with actual physical measurements," Connery continues. "By multiplying the height by the width of the display, users can figure out their 'price per square inch.'"

Does a Wider Screen Offer Room You Can Use?
"Of course, all of this is just math," Connery concludes, "and it takes away the intangible benefits of wide screens." The extra real estate on the left and right of wide-screen displays allows users to view multiple documents side by side on the screen, to play games in a panoramic mode, and to watch movies in 16:9 resolution without large black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

Sheer numbers reveal that, per pixel and per square inch, a 20-inch regular-aspect monitor is a better deal than a 20-inch wide-screen LCD. But with a panoramic monitor, the ability to do new things that you can't do on a regular screen may very well be priceless.

Bigger LCDs: Does Every Inch Count?
The 23- and 24-inch wide-screen category has its own special quirk: A 24-incher is an inch longer diagonally, but the two types of monitor usually have the same native resolution of 1900 by 1200.

According to Connery, a combination of existing products, implicit de facto industry standards, and buyers' needs came together to result in this similarity. Apple's first 23-inch Cinema Displays had a 1900 by 1200 native resolution (as does the current model). At that resolution and screen size, one gets a ratio of 98.4 pixels per inch, very close to 100 ppi. Connery tells us that according to Apple, at the typical distance that a user looks at a desktop monitor, "your eyes can no longer see discrete pixels" with a 100-ppi resolution.

"As time went along," Connery recounts, "other vendors realized that they could also make larger displays for the PC marketplace since the video bandwidth on graphics cards was improving over time and many of them supported higher resolutions."

Other makers soon followed in Apple's footsteps, creating 1900-by-1200 23-inch monitors. Still others, Samsung in particular, realized that the glass they were already producing could be cut into 24-inch screens and sold on the PC market with the same native resolution for roughly the same price. This allowed them to compete with the existing 23-inch wide-screens while preventing consumer confusion by introducing a new standard. "Resolutions get defined in a market for logical or illogical reasons," Connery observes, "but once established, are difficult to change."

There is a tiny difference between the two sizes of monitor: the 24-inchers have a smaller ppi of 94.3. Connery's own experience and jury tests at PC World's labs have yielded no discernible viewing differences, however, and the prices are comparable for both sizes. Hence, other factors--monitor design, bundled features, or viewing tastes--may play an equal, if not bigger, role when choosing between a 23-inch and a 24-inch wide-screen monitor. For more information on how these factors, and others, may affect a purchasing decision, check out "How to Buy a Monitor."

[Rasputin]

Microsoft Updates Virtual Server 2005

Microsoft has released another test version of an update to its virtualization software, which will be built into the next version of the Windows Server OS.

On Thursday Microsoft released Beta 2 of Virtual Server 2005 Release 2 Service Pack 1, an update that will add new functionality to the existing version of Virtual Server 2005 once it is generally available. The software, which should be in full release by the first calendar quarter of 2007, can be downloaded for free.

New Features, Services
New features included in Beta 2 of the software are support for Advanced Micro Devices's virtualization technology, as well as new integration with Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft said.

The software also includes what is called a Volume Shadow Service, which improves the server backup process, according to Microsoft. Instead of scheduling downtime to back up each virtual machine individually, the software will take snapshots of physical machines. Those physical machines will in turn take snapshots of all the virtual machines on the physical host. This enables server administrators to keep virtual machines up and running even while backing them up.

Beta 2 of Virtual Server R2 SP1 also includes new offline virtual hard disk mounting, which enables customers to view and manipulate files in a VHD without having to start a virtual machine. This enables administrators to easily deploy scripts and perform virus scans across VHDs without having to start each virtual machine, Microsoft said.

Windows Server OS to Include Virtual Server
Microsoft introduced Virtual Server in October 2004. The product enables virtualization of Windows so multiple instances can run simultaneously on one server as if they were running on multiple servers.

Microsoft has said virtualization capabilities that are available in its Virtual Server 2005 product will be built into the next version of Windows Server OS, code-named Longhorn, which is slated to be available sometime next year.