Industry Standard Views & Analysis

iPhone 3GS heats up, DOJ takes aim at Google

IDG News Service — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:25:10 -0700

The iPhone scored quite a few headlines related to overheating problems with the 3GS this week. Depending on whom you believe, those issues are either real, exaggerated, the fault of users or some combination of the three. Otherwise, as warm weather takes hold above the equator and Bostonians contemplate whether it's time to brush up on our ark-building skills (rain, rain go away), we find this week's IT news offerings cover a broad range.

1. Apple admits iPhone 3GS heat problems, iPhone 3GS tips to prevent overheating, from Apple and AT&T says iPhone 3GS is hot in a good way : Apple offered tips to avoid overheating the iPhone 3GS, but the tip list is written as if to suggest that users are more at fault than the hardware. Meanwhile, a supposed AT&T memo talks about how hot the iPhone has been in terms of sales. Keep reading for yet more iPhone news ...

2. Jailbroken iPhones leave users more vulnerable: Jailbreaking iPhones -- or altering them so that applications not digitally signed by Apple can be installed on them -- may let users feel they have more control over their handsets, but jailbreaking could well give miscreants the upper hand. Jailbreaking removes most of the security protections from iPhones, a security researcher warned this week.

3. DOJ officially opens investigation into Google Book Search: The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed that it has officially opened its investigation into a settlement involving Google Book Search in what will undoubtedly be a closely watched antitrust probe.

4. XHTML 2 language dumped for HTML 5: The World Wide Web Consortium will provide more resources toward development of the HTML 5 specification and will discontinue development of XHTML 2. HTML 5 is out in draft form, with a focus on multimedia for browser-based applications. It could be big competition for browser plug-in technologies such as Adobe Flash.

5. Oracle's European workers facing axe: Although Oracle's European performance was a highlight of its most recent quarterly financial report, the company could be about to lay off as many as 1,000 employees in Europe, according to a French labor union.

6. Mozilla launches Firefox 3.5, starts kill clock for older 3.0 and Review: Firefox 3.5 makes browsing faster, easier and more fun: After months of delays, Mozilla released Firefox 3.5 and more than 2 million users downloaded the updated browser within a few hours of its launch. Early reviews were mostly positive.

7. Microsoft pulls projectile-vomiting IE8 ad from Web: We're puzzling over why it seemed like a good idea to create an online advertisement for Internet Explorer 8 that showed a woman projectile vomiting after borrowing her husband's laptop and seeing his Web browsing history. Microsoft pulled the ad, but not before one Internet wag opined that using IE is enough to induce vomiting. Undoubtedly, that isn't what Microsoft had in mind.

8. IT salaries, perks continue to shrink and Wall Street Beat: After a strong Q2, what's next for IT?: Companies continue to cut IT salaries while available jobs also have been reduced because of the recession. But amid the cost-cutting efforts, IT companies led all others when it comes to how shares are holding up in stock markets. While a weak third quarter could be in the offing, at least some analysts continue to forecast strong PC sales (relatively speaking) before the year is out.

9. Suit over China's Web filter to target Lenovo, Acer, Sony: Solid Oak Software plans to take legal action against Lenovo, Acer and Sony to keep the companies from shipping Web filtering software in China. Solid Oak contends that its programming code was stolen to develop the program, called Green Dam Youth Escort.

10. Judge temporarily dismisses MySpace cyberbully case: A U.S. District Court judge dismissed a jury verdict on misdemeanor charges against Lori Drew, the Missouri woman accused of assuming a fake MySpace identity to taunt a neighborhood teenager in suburban St. Louis. The teenager, Megan Meier, hanged herself after one of the three people involved in the fakery posted a message that the world would be better off without the girl. Prosecutors had argued that violating MySpace terms of service for the purpose of harming someone else was legally tantamount to illegal access to a computer. The judge said that the conviction could set a precedent that any violation of MySpace terms of service could be a misdemeanor.

San Francisco misses the NextBus

IDG News Service — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:52:36 -0700

I live in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood. If you've visited San Francisco you may know it as the Italian district, where Joe DiMaggio learned to play baseball and where beat writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg forged their countercultural vision of the American dream. If you live here, though, you also know that it's the worst place in the city to try to find a parking spot.

In the dog-eat-dog world of San Francisco parking, information is power. My friends Tom and Mary know this. When Tom comes home from work, he calls Mary from the car and Mary goes out to their eighth-floor balcony to scope out the surrounding blocks for parking spaces.

Things may get a bit easier for Tom and Mary over the next few years, though, as the city's transit agency experiments with a new system called SFPark. The city is installing new smart parking meters with wireless sensors that can tell when a parking spot is free. The city wants to share that information with drivers, in theory giving them (or their passengers -- texting while driving is illegal in California!) a way to find a parking spot via their mobile phones.

Brilliant technology, but let's hope that it rolls out a little more smoothly than another cutting-edge system we use here in San Francisco to predict when city buses will arrive. San Francisco is one of several dozen cities that use a system called NextBus.

NextBus is cool, too. It uses a wireless network and GPS to figure out where San Francisco's buses are and, most importantly, how long it will be until the next one shows up at the nearest bus stop.

The problem is that nobody seems to know for sure who owns the data. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) says it's theirs, but Apple disagrees. Last month Apple killed off a cool little iPhone app called Routsey that used the NextBus data and the iPhone's GPS capabilities to direct people to the nearest bus stop and tell them when the next city bus is due.

Routsey's creator, Steven Peterson, says his app got pulled because a company called NextBus Information Systems (NBIS) told Apple that it had the exclusive right to distribute the NextBus data, which is freely available on the Web. That was good enough for Apple to pull the plug. It's told Routsey and NBIS to work things out. Until then, Routsey is out of the AppStore.

NBIS was looking for a $1 per download licensing fee, but Peterson says that when he really looked into things, it's not clear that NBIS has the right to do this. (He initially charged US$2.99 for the software, but now says he'll give it away, if he can just get Apple to let him publish his app.)

That's because the SFMTA says that it owns of the data and it's totally fine for Routsey to use it. "We're looking at making all of our data as public as possible," SFMTA spokesman Judson True told me.

The saga hasn't played too well in San Francisco, where many are up in arms. San Francisco paid around $10 million to set up the system. Why is a private company now preventing anyone from using this public data in a useful way?

Peterson told me that he feels he's being shaken down. NextBus Information Systems has said it has a legitimate claim to the data, which the SFMTA, in turn, thinks it owns. Apple won't touch the whole mess with a 10-foot pole.

If the SFMTA has some kind of contract that clearly spells out who owns what, it's not producing it. And neither is NBIS.

So in the meantime, riders miss buses, and San Francisco, one hopes, learns a lesson: It's the data, stupid. Keeping it open isn't just good for business, it's a public service.

True says that the situation is "causing us to evaluate our policies and practices." That's a good thing, because governments sit on a huge amount of data, and technologies like the iPhone and Google Maps are giving us new ways of processing and visualizing this information, just so long as legal wrangling doesn't get in the way.

Outback communities get $7m Internet access boost

IDG News Service — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:42:15 -0700

The Rudd government has announced it will spend $7 million over four years on improving public Internet access facilities in remote Indigenous communities.

Part of the Closing the Gap initiatives, the announcement was made at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) event in Darwin, to enable the states and the Northern Territory to better meet the needs of their remote communities.

Greg Moo, CIO of the Northern Territory's Department of Education and Training, is pleased with the extra funding.

"In the nine communities where this program will be implemented, the department will be assisting in the provision of Internet access and computers," Moo said.

"This initiative capitalises on the past and ongoing investment that the NT government has made in computers and networks in remote schools."

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said improving public Internet access in remote Indigenous communities was a key recommendation of the Glasson Review of regional telecommunications.

"Internet access is an increasingly important tool for communication, education, and economic opportunity and it is important that Indigenous people in remote parts of Australia have access to these benefits," Conroy said.

The COAGc endorsed National Partnership Agreement on Internet Access and Training Services is expected to begin in early 2010.

Up to 120 communities are expected to benefit from the services over the life of the agreement.

Ensuring you get pizza with sync tools

IDG News Service — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:10:54 -0700

How often have you had to repeatedly copy files from one place to another either to create a backup or to synchronize two locations, and finally resorted to writing some dumb batch files to do the job? Of course, as your batch files have no real intelligence, you could well find your ad hoc solution has failed you.

This will typically be discovered at 5 p.m. on a Friday afternoon when you are just starting to wrap up for the day and are looking forward to a nice evening of, oh, say, beer, pizza and "CSI Las Vegas" (not that lame "CSI Miami" with the insufferable David Caruso). Better still, when this happens you know the lost files will be something the CEO wants now. Say goodbye to beer, pizza and TV. As you might hope, I have a couple of Windows products for avoiding this scenario (who's your daddy?).

The first is a utility that I covered some time ago called GoodSync from Siber Systems that is one of the best tools of its type I've come across.

The latest release of GoodSync (version 7.8.1.1) is very sophisticated with support for synchronizing between Windows resources (including Windows Mobile devices), as well as via FTP, SFTP, Amazon S3 and WebDAV.

GoodSync has a clear, albeit busy, interface and provides a lot of reporting of what it's doing when it works. One of its strongest features is the ability to run a job in "analyze" mode to see what will happen without actually making any changes to either the source or destination.

GoodSync supports encryption and can perform chained synchronization to ripple changes from one source to a sequence of destinations. This is particularly useful for propagating changes from, say, your home PC to a nerd stick (USB drive), to your work machine. The program supports locking to prevent multiple copies of GoodSync competing to simultaneously make changes in a folder.

Goodsync is also able to handle copying from locked files on Vista and XP using the Windows Volume Shadow service.

The standard desktop version of GoodSync is free but limited to three active jobs, while the Pro version ($30) supports unlimited jobs. You can also purchase GoodSync bundled ($40) with GoodSync2Go, a version of the program designed to run from a USB drive.

There are also enterprise versions of GoodSync which include a workstation license ($40) and a server license ($995) for all versions of Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. The enterprise licenses also include a command-line-only version of the product.

GoodSync has a huge number of features and having used the latest couple of versions for an extended period I think this may be the best synchronizer on the market. I give GoodSync a rating of 5 out of 5.

Of course, GoodSync as a desktop utility is not for everyone given that it is fairly technical. Another synchronization product worth looking at is Second Copy 7, published by Centered Syste0s.

SC7 has a decent user interface that lets you set up synchronization jobs ("profiles") using either a wizard or expert mode , and a lot of additional advanced options (although, it must be said, less than GoodSync). Only local storage and FTP servers are supported.

The one big gotcha with SC7 is the lack of support for handling locked files, making the utility more suitable for either interactive use or as part of your start-up or shutdown routine. I give Second Copy 7 ($30) a rating of 3 out of 5.

So, there you have it: Two choices in your quest to ensure that what holds you back on Fridays from beer, pizza, and "CSI Las Vegas" won't be missing files. Now, we just need to figure out how to get around the other million things that could get in the way.

Search Party: Why Security Pros Should Master Google

IDG News Service — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:00:52 -0700

One of the reasons security is fun and interesting is that it requires a constant upgrade of your skills and knowledge.

Here is a skill that you may not have realized you need, but you need it: Become a master of Internet search.

Obviously I'm talking about a lot more than tossing a few words in the Google box and pushing the search button.

I'm talking about understanding how to run very specific searches to find information leaks within your company and outside of it, whether intentional or accidental. Such leaks might come in the form of intentional, outright posting of sensitive information by ex-employees. Or they might be misconfigured or forgotten Web applications that weren't supposed to be publicly accessible.

Other searches will help you find websites using your organization's trademarks for nefarious purposes, or selling counterfeit or grey-market products in your name. (See CSO Senior Editor Joan Goodchild's look at brand protection, which offers examples of CSOs playing a key role in this fight.

Still, other searches might turn up scraps of information on your own website that reveal information that hackers use to footprint your systems. Overly informative file-not-found error messages, for example.

* How good are you at Web search?

* Do you know how to find Excel spreadsheets posted on the Web?

* Do you know how to find documents that include key intellectual property phrases?

* Do you know how to winnow broad search results down to just the important ones?

* Do you know how to use Google news alerts and blogging tools to see what's being said about your company?

* Do you know how to find publicly available information as part of an employee background check?

Happily, there is a lot of advice about search on the Web. You don't have to take out a student loan and go back to school to learn this skill.

Here is a wonderful tutorial on basic searches, provided by Google itself.

Here is an older CSOonline.com article that provides four searches you should run on your own company.

More recently investigations manager Brandon Gregg noted the importance of search in his article 5 Free Ways to Track Information Online.

Why not fire up your browser and find other good resources yourself?

Cloud control systems tame the ether

IDG News Service — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:56:01 -0700

Signifying a formless haze of computing power and storage that is somewhere "out there," computerdom's current buzzword is as difficult to get one's arms around as a real cloud. A seemingly limitless pool of processors and memory and disk space, and you just scoop out what you need. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Of course, it's not that simple. You don't just grab a handful of virtual computers and toss them after your data. They have to be configured. If you need an n-tier system, you'll have to assemble the virtual networking components to tie them all together. In short, managing a herd of virtual systems in the cloud is no less difficult than managing a herd of physical computers.

[ Is your head in the clouds? Don't be fooled. See InfoWorld's Busting the nine myths of cloud computing and What cloud computing really means. ]

The four products in this roundup are designed to simplify the life of a cloud-based virtual-machine wrangler. To varying degrees, and in varying environments, each provides tools for creating, deploying, and managing collections of cloud-machines.

The products are the AppLogic platform from 3tera, the Elastic Computing Platform (ECP) from Enomaly, the Infrastructure and Middleware on Demand (IMOD) system from Kaavo, and RightScale, from the company of the same name. The 3tera and Enomaly offerings are tools for building your own private or hosted clouds. The Kaavo system works with third-party cloud services such as Amazon EC2. And RightScale works with both private clouds and third-party cloud services.

3tera AppLogic

The 3tera AppLogic system is its own cloud. That is, you do not run it on a third-party cloud provider such as Amazon EC2; you run it on hardware hosted by 3tera, or you provide the hardware and 3tera builds the cloud. AppLogic is referred to as a "meta-operating system." At its heart, it is Red Hat Linux running a specially configured Xen hypervisor. More precisely, it is a cluster of interconnected systems running Red Hat Linux, Xen, and the AppLogic orchestration system.

AppLogic can run on a remarkably spare piece of hardware. Minimum requirements are a 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and 80GB of disk storage. Of course, this is the barest of beginnings; a single backbone of an AppLogic system can consist of up to 128 machines, and backbones can be combined to form overall networks of thousands of machines. Assuming you don't have the space in your basement for your own AppLogic system, 3tera already has datacenters in North America, South America, Europe, Japan, and Singapore. (Quantities and locations are changing; you should check 3tera's Web site for the latest details.)

Though AppLogic's core is Linux, it can host virtual machines running Linux, Solaris, and Windows Server 2003. But the fundamental building block of a multitier AppLogic system is not simply a guest operating system; it is the duo of virtual machine (running the guest operating system) and application -- such as Apache or MySQL. This combination is called an "appliance," and it is a unique feature of AppLogic that, in an appliance, the application takes precedence over the containing OS. You create a cloud application by wiring together applications, and the fact that each application is running in its own OS is merely incidental.

This is a powerful paradigm, because it insulates you from the details of a particular OS; the OS is merely a container, a runtime environment for the application. Configuring and tuning the application are what counts, and this focus on application construction becomes apparent when you step inside AppLogic's management console.

[ Cloud computing offerings differ in depth, breadth, style, and fine print. See Cloud versus cloud: A guided tour of Amazon, Google, AppNexus, and GoGrid. ]

Log onto AppLogic's management console, and you are presented with the tool's Dashboard, where in-flight instances are displayed, accompanied by each instance's basic usage statistics: CPU, disk, and memory. Click the Applications tab, and you're shown a list of your account's applications; the list includes the application's state (stopped or running), a description, and associated CPU, memory, and bandwidth resources. Finally, the Support tab is a jumping-off point for 3tera's documentation, release notes, and support forum.

All the action is on the Applications tab. Select an application and the AppLogic editor opens. The application is represented as a network of nodes on a canvas. Each node is an appliance, populated with input and output connection points called "terminals." If you want, say, a Tomcat appliance to send database queries to a MySQL appliance, you drag and drop each onto the canvas, then drag a connection line from the output terminal of the former to the input terminal of the latter. It's a lot like wiring circuit components. An "appliance palette" waits to the side, from which you can drag new appliances onto the canvas and wire into your application. Right-click on an appliance, and you can configure its property values and attributes.

To actually configure or tweak the internals of an appliance, you log onto it. (Remember, an appliance is an OS running an application.) A secure shell window opens, from which you can execute Linux commands to your heart's desire.

The glue that cements appliances into applications is ADL, the Application Description Language. ADL is very much like XML, but less repetitive and devoid of brackets. It is used to describe all the components (appliances) that comprise an application, as well the structure of the appliances themselves. A complete description of the language is available on 3tera's AppLogic wiki.

3tera's version of cloud services is a "virtual private datacenter" (VPDC), executing on hardware hosted by 3tera itself. Pricing for a VPDC depends on a mixture of factors -- CPU, RAM, and storage requirements. Or, if you already have hardware in place and want to construct your own AppLogic installation, you can purchase an Enterprise AppLogic License. In either case, you should contact 3tera for details.

Enomaly ECP

Enomaly's Elastic Computing Platform (ECP) is not a tool for deploying to existing clouds such as Amazon Web Services. Like AppLogic, Enomaly ECP is a tool for building your own clouds. It is erected on a set of open source virtualization applications and APIs. You can construct your own cluster of systems, install ECP, and use its UI to manage the configuration, storage, and deployment of virtual machines. At its core is Enomalism, a virtual-machine management system written in Python that uses MySQL as back-end storage.

[ Ready to take a step into AWS but not sure where to begin? Read InfoWorld's "Inside Amazon Web Services" and "Hooking your apps into Amazon Web Services."]

The ECP user interface is a console that operates the mechanics of the tool's underlying system, which is, in turn, undergirded by the open source libvirt virtualization API. libvirt is a C toolkit that allows applications to communicate with the Linux kernel's virtualization capabilities, and thereby control hypervisors running on the system. The hypervisor is the virtualization software that allows a computer to host one or more OSes -- each in its own virtual environment. Currently, libvirt supports Xen, QEMU, KVM, VirtualBox, and others. (For more information, see libvirt.org.)

Currently, there are three versions of ECP: the free, community edition (which I tested); the Enterprise edition; and the new Cloud Service Provider edition, which adds usage accounting and billing integration to the user interface. Check the Enomaly Web site for details of the editions' differences.

ECP's management console is arranged along the same lines as the other consoles in the roundup. It is browser-based, with tabs for each of the major functions. The console opens to the obligatory Dashboard, which is really a transaction monitoring page. All operations performed in the console are transactions. They can be issued asynchronously, and some may take minutes to complete, so the Dashboard lets you monitor their progress.

The Virtual Infrastructure tab leads to three control areas. First, the Infrastructure control provides a navigation pane for all the clusters in your cloud. Select a cluster, and you can view all its assigned virtual machines. Buttons across the top let you start, stop, pause, or delete a virtual machine within the cluster.

Next, the Virtual Network Manager control panel assists in creating and managing virtual networks within your clusters. (This control is not in the community version; it was in a testbed system that Enomaly gave me temporary access to.)

Finally, the Elastic Valet is a control panel for provisioning machines. You select a target cluster for the machine, and specify launch parameters. The Elastic Valet will determine which physical machine in the cluster is the best destination to "park" the virtual machine -- hence the tool's name.

[ Application development has taken to the skies. See the InfoWorld Test Center reviews, "Windows Azure Services Platform gives wings to .NET" and "Google's high-flying cloud for Python code." ]

Another important component of the ECP control panel is the Repository, which is a storage management system for OS images and plug-ins for the Enomaly system itself. (The latter is typically supplied as Python eggs.) The Repository recognizes both local and "remote" machine images. Remote images are available from Enomaly's central servers; you can select a remote image and have it downloaded to your local system. At the time of this writing, there were about 10 images, including Red Hat, Ubuntu, CentOS, and others.

Hard-code developers will enjoy the Enomalism API selection from the Admin tab. This provides a list of the REST-style APIs that Enomalism supports. Select an API, and you're provided with a structured definition of the parameters and data types for that API.

ECP is simply not there yet. Or, if it is, it hides the fact behind its meager documentation. Though I was able to install and run the community edition on Ubuntu, whenever I got something to work, I could never be certain whether I had done the right thing or had simply stumbled into a solution. More importantly, ECP appears to be lacking in tools that assist in the configuration of machine instances. That is, it has nothing analogous to RightScale's RightScripts or Kaavo's system definition file. For now, it appears to be good for managing virtual machines in a cluster of networked hardware, but provides little support for applications on those virtual machines. Hopefully, this capability will appear in a future release.

Kaavo IMOD

Kaavo's Infrastructure and Middleware on Demand (IMOD) seeks not only to abstract the individual servers running on cloud-based system, but -- as much as possible -- to erase the boundaries between tiers. That is, with IMOD, you can work with a multitier application as though it were a monolithic application, without losing the ability to fine-tune constituent parts.

All the information needed to deploy an application is gathered into a single file, called the system definition file. Crack the file open, and you'll find what looks like a description of a state machine. The IMOD engine executes this file, booting the different tiers of an application in proper order. The file can also specify corrective action to be taken if a tier somehow fails to boot. Each tier specified in the system definition file consists of one or more servers. When you configure a particular tier, you specify the number of servers on that tier, and IMOD lets you manage them as though they were a single system.

The system definition file contains two major sections. One defines the static artifacts of an application (tiers, servers). The other is a flow control section that specifies the actions that the IMOD engine is to perform when the application is being launched. These actions are defined in the form of Velocity templates -- Velocity being a scripting technology that allows you to embed Java classes in a script file, so you can create scripts that are not only descriptive, but executable as well. It is this "descriptive executability" that permits IMOD to roll everything it needs to know about a system into a single file.

[ Simple, hosted, database-driven Web apps: See the InfoWorld Test Center review of Caspio Bridge, "A Web-based app builder with a Microsoft twist," and "Application builders in the sky." ]

IMOD's user interface is a three-tabbed control panel. Foremost on the list is the N-Tier tab, where you can view available templates and systems (the latter being the configured and executable form of the former). Select a system, and you can view it either in graphical, "run-time" form, or as a text-only XML file (the system definition file mentioned above). You can also open a tree view of the system, which shows the state of each of its Amazon Machine Images (running/terminated), its instance identifier, firewall rules, and more. Click the "start system button," and the selected system is deployed and launched in accordance with the system definition file.

Kaavo provides a number of prebuilt templates that you can use to jump-start your own applications. These include a variety of JIRA configurations (JIRA is a popular issue-tracking system), a MySQL cluster system, a template for the PHP-based collaborative project management system phpCollab, and more.

Other entries on the control panel include the Profile tab, where you can configure your account. This tab also includes billing and user management. From the Accounting tab, you can review your service usage over a selectable time range.

IMOD's system definition file is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it keeps everything in one place, and that bookkeeping advantage should not be underrated. Also, if something goes wrong, you pretty much know where to look. On the other hand, it's one more language's syntax you have to learn. Because it depends on Velocity, an understanding of Java is a definite advantage. Nevertheless, Kaavo's documentation is good enough that even new users can find their way around with few bruised noses.

If you want to go it on your own, Kaavo has a self-serve plan that begins with a 30-day free trial. After that, you pay a fixed monthly fee for a fixed number of CPU hours. Exceed the available hours, and you fall into a pay-as-you-go scheme for any additional time. Users who need guidance will want the Enterprise Solution, which provides 24/7 support and training; contact Kaavo for pricing. Currently, Kaavo supports only Amazon's EC2, but expects to add support for other cloud providers in the near future.

RightScale

RightScale takes a non-intuitive approach to preparing and managing cloud-based systems. Rather than preconfigure a machine image, the RightScale methodology is to launch a "bare" image and have that instance configure itself by executing pre-installed scripts. Such scripts are called RightScripts, and they are the essential ingredients of a RightScale-powered cloud system.

A RightScript can be written in any of the well-known scripting languages: shell script, Python, Perl, or Ruby, to name a few. The language is unimportant. What is important is the fact that RightScripts can include parameters, and those parameters can be programmatically filled in by the RightScale system at runtime. RightScripts are therefore reusable, so a RightScript that installs MySQL, for example, can work on any cloud server that needs a MySQL installation.

There are three types of RightScripts, each designed to run at a specific point in a machine image's lifetime. Boot RightScripts execute just after the machine image is booted. Operational RightScripts execute once the image is running. And a decommission RightScript will execute just prior to the image being shut down. RightScripts can be used for just about any operation imaginable, but typically they install, configure, and start applications on the machine image they occupy.

To be accurate, RightScale images aren't completely barren. First, RightScale images include a small piece of software that, at boot time, contacts the RightScale system and basically asks: "I just booted, what am I supposed to do?" The RightScale system then begins feeding the image whatever RightScripts it is configured to use. And, of course, the necessary scripting languages are pre-installed on RightScale images. For example, RightScale pre-installs Ruby; I was told by a RightScale engineer that they use Ruby "extensively." These modifications convert a basic machine image into a "RightImage."

Ultimately, a RightScript will end up as part of a ServerTemplate. A ServerTemplate is a base server image, associated with the RightScripts that configure the server to do its assigned work. For example, an Ubuntu-based MySQL ServerTemplate would consist of an Ubuntu machine image and all the RightScripts needed to install, configure, and launch MySQL. RightScale provides a number of prebuilt, application-specific ServerTemplates. To create your own, you merely clone a copy of the original, add or modify the associated RightScripts, and save the result in your local repository.

You control your RightScale-based systems via a Web-based management console. You begin at the Dashboard, from which you can view currently defined deployments -- a deployment being a collection of machine instances, typically working together for a single purpose. For example, an Apache Web server, Tomcat application server, and MySQL database server, combined to provide a shopping cart application, could be saved as your custom-built Shopping Cart Deployment.

Down the tool chain is the Management screen, for creating and configuring servers, arrays of servers (for those times when the number of servers must grow or shrink based on changing workloads), and deployments. Select a deployment from the list, and you can configure its internals, or launch it and monitor its status.

The console also has tools for managing important Amazon Web Services cloud resources such as SSH keys, security groups, and machine images. RightScale's console excels at context-sensitive help, as well as comprehensive onscreen documentation (that can be turned off, once you've become expert at the system).

RightScale offers five different editions, ranging from the free Developer's Edition to the feature-rich Enterprise Edition. Of course, the free edition includes no support and lacks add-ons available with the paid editions. The feature combinations of the various editions are extensive enough that you need a matrix to comprehend it all; such a matrix can be found on RightScale's Web site.

In the clouds

When it comes to cloud tools, one certainly cannot complain about the assortment. If you've already settled on Amazon EC2 as your cloud provider, then head on over to RightScale or Kaavo. If you'd prefer to build a cloud system yourself, check out 3tera or Enomaly.

The name of the game is the reduction of complexity. Configuring, launching, and monitoring a multitier cloud-based application is a process of many steps. There are OSes to choose, applications to install, connections to establish, security permissions to worry about, and on and on. And launching a multitiered system is an essentially asynchronous process; if something goes wrong, it is not altogether easy to figure out where the problem is. Each tool here tried to make that easier; each succeeds on different fronts to different degrees.

3tera's AppLogic excels at representing an n-tier system as a collection of interoperating applications, rather than a collection of interoperating virtual OSes running applications. Abstracting out the OS is a powerfully simplifying force.

Kaavo's user interface is well laid out and easy to navigate. It is impossible to get lost with Kaavo, and it's easy to figure out where in the UI you need to go to perform a particular task.

[ Stay on top of cloud developments from an IT professional's perspective in whurley's Cloud Computing blog. ]

RightScale's approach is finer-grained -- focusing on individual machine instances -- and more demanding of the cloud architect, but its abundance of pre-written RightScripts, in-line help, and copious examples goes a long way to lowering the learning curve. In addition, RightScale's RightGrid feature provides a prebuilt grid architecture for lashing together clusters of virtual machines in a "producer-consumer" structure, making it easy to build large-scale processing systems without getting bogged down in the details.

Finally, I can only recommend Enomaly's ECP for the technically savvy. The engineers at Enomaly were extremely helpful in answering questions, and I applaud any system based on open source technology. I would heavily encourage involvement in Enomaly's community edition. But the lack of substantial documentation and missing application configuration capabilities leaves me reluctant to advocate ECP for production deployment. A new release is expected this summer, and perhaps the added features will erase my doubts.

Cloud management systems

3tera AppLogic

Release: 2.4.8

Platforms: Private and hosted AppLogic clouds

Pros and cons:

+Graphical "wiring" of applications is easy to work with.

+Lots of pre-built applications.

+Application-centric view of system.

-ADL requires a modest learning curve.

-Built on proprietary AppLogic runtime system.

Bottom line: 3Tera's graphical user interface captures your application's architecture in an easy-to-manage form. Its treatment of components as appliances also simplifies system construction. But it locks you into 3Tera's AppLogic environment.

Enomaly ECP

Release: 2.2.3

Platforms: Private and hosted ECP clouds

Pros and cons:

+Built on open source technology.

+Freeware version available.

+Runs a variety of virtual machines.

-Documentation is seriously lacking.

-No visible tools for managing applications on target OSes.

Bottom line: You can't argue with Enomaly's price tag: free is as good as it gets. And you are not tied to any proprietary software or cloud infrastructures. But Enomaly has a way to go before deployment is as simple as with the other tools.

Kaavo IMOD

Release: 1.4.5

Platforms: Cloud service providers including Amazon EC2

Pros and cons:

+Excellent control panel UI.

+Graphical view of application is easy to manipulate.

+Lots of pre-built appliances.

-Currently only supports EC2.

-Some configuration steps not readily apparent.

Bottom line: Kaavo's bundling of an application's descriptive and executable information into a single System Definition file unclutters application management, and allows for easy transfer of an application from one installation to another. However, it does require study of the underlying XML and Velocity syntax.

RightScale

Release: April 21, 2009

Platforms: Private clouds and cloud service providers including Amazon EC2

Pros and cons:

+Excellent documentation.

+Free version available.

+Large selection of RightScripts and machine images.

-Machine-centric view, rather than application-centric view.

-RightScripts require understanding of scripting language.

Bottom line: Where some of the other tools abstract the underlying structures of a cloud-based application, RightScripts require you to develop at the level of those structures directly. This produces some significant starting friction. Nevertheless, once mastered, RightScripts are phenomenally flexible and powerful.

Rick Grehan is contributing editor of the InfoWorld Test Center.

One headset for two phone systems? That's Savi

IDG News Service — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:11:08 -0700

The scoop: Savi Office, by Plantronics, about $380.

What it is: This device combines the traditional desktop phone wireless headset with a VoIP headset connected to a PC. Before the Savi, users would need one headset for answering their desktop phone, and a separate one if they wanted to use something such as Skype or Google Talk for PC VoIP calls. The system comes with options for different headset styles (over-the-head snap-on band, a convertible version or the over-the-ear style -- coming soon -- that is similar to the company's Voyager Pro Bluetooth headset). PC audio is also supported with the device, so you can listen to music on your PC without reaching for a third pair of headphones. Electronic hook switch cables are available that support systems from Alcatel, Avaya, Cisco, Polycom and Siemens.

Why it's cool: Employees who use multiple communications platforms -- from the desktop phone to the myriad and growing number of unified communications options -- usually have a bunch of different headset/microphone devices attached to their desk or PC. This helps consolidate your approach, by offering one headset that can answer the calls of a desktop phone, and then the employee can push a button on the Savi base station and switch to a VoIP application. The device supports Plantronics' optional HL-10 Handset Lifter (a must, if you ask me, if only for the cool way the handset lifts by pushing a button on your headset). The wireless range on the headset lets you go up to 350 feet away from the base station, so you can get up and move around your office (or home office) to grab extra materials when you're on a call. The base station acts as a recharger, and Plantronics says that the headset offers as many as hours of battery life (on the over-the-ear version; the convertible version offers up to nine hours). The noise-canceling microphone was also a nice touch (not that I'm in a noisy office, but some users might be and would appreciate this).

Another cool feature -- the modular design of the base station lets you detach the headset base and move it to another base station, pairing it with the second base station. If users move around to different offices, this can be a quick and easy way for them to bring their headset with them without having to disconnect the entire base station/charging station.

Some caveats: The system I tested doesn't support the third prong in the communications trifecta -- mobile phones via Bluetooth. Plantronics does have a Savi Office version for Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 that connects PC voice users (preferably OCS) with a Bluetooth headset, but not a traditional desktop phone. Perhaps Plantronics will create a system that combines all three connections -- desktop phone, PC VoIP applications and a Bluetooth mobile phone -- in the future.

In addition, the PC audio portion of the system was average -- in testing I could launch an audio application and hear the music through the single speaker on the headset, but I prefer listening to music through a pair of stereo headphones or an external speaker system (usually via my iPhone/iPod). In addition, when I wanted to hear the audio through my PC's speakers again (for example, watching a YouTube video), I had to reset my browser. The PC audio support is a nice feature, but in practice I didn't like it that much and would have preferred the Bluetooth connectivity instead.

Grade: 4 stars (out of five).

Bing Builds an Underwhelming Twitter Search

IDG News Service — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:10:12 -0700

Looking for a competitive edge in the Internet search wars, Microsoft plans to index Twitter updates in real time for Bing, its recently rebranded search engine.

The idea is that recent developments on the social messaging service will be easy to find (fitting with Microsoft's Bing advertising mantra that it reduces search overload), with the search engine displaying snippets of status updates front-and-center in its results.

Before you go hunting for your latest recounting of breakfast, though, understand that for now, Microsoft is only integrating tweets from "some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres," Sean Suchter, general manager of Microsoft's Silicon Valley Search Technology Center, said in a blog post.

After trying some searches for these celebrity Twitterers, I'm underwhelmed. Sure, the function works as advertised: Type "Kara Swisher" into the text form, and the top result is a link to her Twitter feed and a few of her latest tweets. Why that's advantageous over visiting Swisher's actual page on Twitter, I'm not sure.

To make matters worse, this functionality falls apart when searching for the very things the Twitter VIPs are writing about. For example, I searched for "Kara Swisher Vision Quest," as the latter two words appear in one of her recent tweets. After getting nothing on the first three pages of Bing results, I gave up.

By comparison, Google listed a relevant tweet in eighth place on its front page. In fact, Google does a pretty good job of indexing Twitter searches from all users, famous or obscure. A topic I wrote about yesterday on Twitter appeared on top of my search results, and thanks to Google's "more results from twitter.com" link, finding related tweets was a breeze.

In fairness, there's room for both engines to improve. Google's good at indexing tweets, but not working up to the minute and sorting results for the user (chronological order would be a great fit). Bing seems to have those functions in store, but it fails at delivering targeted search results.

Any chance we can get the two companies to combine their efforts? I didn't think so.

Bing Adds Twitter Search, Overload

IDG News Service — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:43:07 -0700

For all the hoopla, it turns out that Microsoft's foray into presenting real-time information--Twitter posts--on Bing is pretty lame. I just hope it stays that way.

I spent an hour Binging around and finding no tweets before I realized it was necessary to add "twitter" or sometimes "tweet" to a search term to see tweets in the results. Not having them just appear when appropriate is kind of dumb if Microsoft is really serious about this Twitter thing.

So this must be more like a toe in the water. Microsoft says it is only adding "several thousand" well-known or prolific tweeters to Bing at the moment. And then it makes them pretty hard to find. Go figure.

Bing "ryan seacrest" and compare the result to "ryan seacrest twitter" and then to "ryan seacrest tweet". If Microsoft had this right, I'd think the results would be much more similar than they are.

With the Science Fair aspect of this behind us, let me make it clear: Tweets don't belong on Bing. Tweets add only noise--not value--to what is promoted as a finely honed "decision engine."

Did I miss something or isn't Bing supposed to be the more focused search engine than Google or Yahoo? Bing, always ready to help us make important decisions--mostly about what to spend money on? So what are Tweets from Ryan Seacrest and Al Gore, among others, doing there? Have they become my personal shoppers? This doesn't exactly speak to ending "search overload".

Like many, I have a tolerate/hate relationship with Bing and, like all smart people, I use search.twitter.com for its intended purpose. Having that URL handy, I don't need Bing for tweet searches and if I wanted to follow Mssrs. Seacrest or Gore, I'd add them my list. Problem solved.

Microsoft needs to resist the temptation--and they aren't off to a good start--to add supposed cool features that aren't core to the Bing experience. Tweets from celebs don't help me make decisions. And when MS broadens Bing it risks causing confusion.

People need to understand precisely what Bing is supposed to do for them and, in advance, how its results are going to be different and more useful than Google results.

The only way to successfully compete with Google will be for Bing to define a reasonably narrow but very deep niche for itself. Helping people make decisions, especially about products they are considering, is an obvious and good choice.

I am not sure Bing really needs to do anything else. Is there really need for a Bing news page? I'm not sure, but I do know one thing: Tweets are a distraction that Bing doesn't have time for.

David Coursey tweets as techinciter and Bings about once a day. (Not always about Ryan Seacrest.) Send e-mail to him from www.coursey.com/contact.

A Guide to the Next Version of Windows

IDG News Service — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:04:19 -0700

Choose a section The Desktop Features New Desktop Features The Enterprise Features Hands-On Reviews Upgrade Advice What Enterprise IT Thinks Features for IT Admins Availability and Pricing A Video Tutorial Windows 7 and Netbooks Windows 7: The Desktop Features Windows 7: The Five Most Talked-About Features

From less annoying security prompts to an improved taskbar, here's a look at the five features of Windows 7 generating the most discussion and what they'll mean to you.

In anticipation of Windows 7 being released into the wild on Oct. 22, here is an up-to-date slideshow of the most compelling navigation and networking features of the OS.

Microsoft is sharing details about the Windows 7 Taskbar after not including it in pre-beta software. Will this be Microsoft's speediest, most clutter-free taskbar to date? Here's an early look at what you'll get.

Video: New Desktop Features

Windows 7: The Enterprise Features Windows 7: Enterprise Features Explained

With Windows 7 (and in some cases Windows Server 2008 R2), Microsoft foresees a future without VPNs, with encryption on external devices and more expansive desktop search.

Your Windows 7 rollout may seem far in the future, but a research report from Forrester warns against starting your migration from Windows XP too late. Also, learn now about five key enterprise features in Windows 7 that IT managers must understand.

Microsoft has been beating the drum about how Windows 7 was designed to protect a mobile workplace that bears little resemblance to the one during which Windows XP debuted in 2001.

Windows 7: Hands-On Reviews Windows 7 Beta Shows Off Task Bar, UI Goodies

When the public beta of Windows 7 was released in early January, Computerworld reviewer Preston Gralla called it a "solid, fast-performing, stable operating system that appears to be just about fully baked and ready for prime time" and "much further along than Windows Vista was during its initial beta phase."

Yet all the reviews weren't glowing. Infoworld's Randall C. Kennedy had this to say about the Windows 7 pre-beta: "There's little in Windows 7 that IT shops will find compelling. Most of the new features are targeted squarely at consumers, which is the same formula that got Microsoft into trouble with Vista."

Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 is a polished piece of work and arrives with a variety of nifty new changes to the interface and some important refinements under the hood.

Microsoft's Windows 7 and Windows 2008 Server R2 combination offers a big payoff in terms of virtualization and administrative policy controls

Choose a section The Desktop Features New Desktop Features The Enterprise Features Hands-On Reviews Upgrade Advice What Enterprise IT Thinks Features for IT Admins Availability and Pricing A Video Tutorial Windows 7 and Netbooks Windows 7 Upgrade Advice Windows 7 Upgrade: Everything You Need to Know

Here are the details on what, when, where and how much you'll pay for Microsoft's next version of the Windows operating system.

Despite Microsoft's lack of upgrade support, transitioning from Windows XP to Windows 7 will be easier than you think.

Windows XP shops don't need to upgrade tomorrow, but they need to have a game plan. In an interview, Microsoft Windows senior director Gavriella Schuster discusses ways to navigate the XP, Vista and Windows 7 upgrade waters.

Windows 7: What Enterprise IT Thinks Windows 7: Why I'm in No Rush to Adopt

Tight budgets, lingering bad Vista vibes, and fear of a learning curve for users are adding up to IT departments in no hurry to roll out Windows 7. Sound familiar? Microsoft can't seem to shake its past mistakes with enterprise IT.

Video: Windows 7 Features for IT Admins Windows 7: Why I'm Rolling It Out Early

While many IT organizations say they're in no rush to roll out Windows 7, the City of Miami, already a Vista shop, won't wait. Here's a look at the IT plan and reasoning.

Corporate migration to Windows 7 may be less about evaluating the new Microsoft operating system and more about how to properly gauge the correct time to get XP off client desktops.

Will IT go for Windows 7 in the next year? A new survey shows Windows 7 rollouts may proceed much slower than Microsoft would like. Plus, IT managers say they're more open to Mac and Linux alternatives.

Choose a section The Desktop Features New Desktop Features The Enterprise Features Hands-On Reviews Upgrade Advice What Enterprise IT Thinks Features for IT Admins Availability and Pricing A Video Tutorial Windows 7 and Netbooks Windows 7 Availability and Pricing Windows 7 Release: What Happens Between Now and Oct. 22

Here's the breakdown of some key events leading up to the public release of Windows 7 in shipping form in October.

Starting June 26 and ending July 11, Windows users in the United States will be able to preorder Windows 7 Home Premium for $49.99 and Windows 7 Professional for $99.99. Once that promotion ends and starting Oct. 22, existing XP and Vista customers can buy Home Premium for $119.99, Professional for $199.99 and Ultimate for $219.99.

Microsoft's "Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program" provides free or nearly-free upgrades to Windows 7 for those who purchase a Vista PC between today and Jan. 31, 2010. HP is the only major vendor so far to promise a no-charge upgrade, but more are expected.

Microsoft's Windows 7 upgrade deal for Vista and XP users will be limited to 25 machines per company, and those companies without Microsoft's software assurance won't get any upgrade break beyond the first 25 PCs.

Windows 7: A Video Tutorial Video: Hands-On with Microsoft Windows 7

What's new in Windows 7? In this 10-part series of hands-on video lessons, we take you through notable features for IT admins, new networking series, application enhancements, desktop features, and more.

Windows 7 and Netbooks Windows 7 Ultimate on a Netbook: See How it Runs

Microsoft has said that any version of Windows 7 will run on a netbook. Computerworld tried it with Windows 7 Ultimate and got mixed results.

Industry analysts say that Google is not likely to rush its Linux-based Android OS on netbooks, but if prices keep dropping for non-Windows netbooks, buyers may soon resent paying more for Windows. And that's when Google could capitalize.

Microsoft will limit sales of some editions of Windows 7 to systems that use a low-powered single-core processor running no faster than 2GHz and screens no larger than 10.2 inches, reports say.

Microsoft's plan to triple the amount it charges netbook makers for Windows 7 could turn off both OEMs and customers.

All SaaS-ed Up

IDG News Service — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:36:57 -0700

The computing world has seen various technology buzzwords come and go; while some gained prevalence and wide adoption, others eventually died somewhat silent deaths. A few years back, we began to hear about one such buzzword--software as a service (SaaS, which also sometimes went by the term cloud computing, causing confusion for some) and, at that time, the concept of on-demand, subscription-based software may have seemed "strange" or "uncomfortable" to some.

Today, however, SaaS may have slowly but surely penetrated the IT world, as it appears to have surpassed the buzzword stage and is gradually becoming a mainstream concept. According to Springboard Research, the SaaS market in APAC is experiencing "tremendous growth" and, in fact, is expected to grow to approximately $1.16 billion by 2010, at a compound annual growth rate of 66%.

For its part, Gartner last year predicted that SaaS would become 25% of the overall software market by 2011. The research firm forecasts worldwide enterprise application SaaS revenue to reach $11.5 billion by 2011 and, while the CAGR varied between different types of services, the overall CAGR is touted at 26.5%.

NOT A FAD

Salesforce.com defines SaaS as cloud computing--essentially as the next generation of applications. One of the SaaS pioneers, Salesforce.com believes the shift to cloud computing is happening right now and is gaining speed. "Companies want solutions that are low cost, low risk, and that work and given the economy, this cloud computing trend couldn't have come at a better time," says the SaaS provider.

"Cloud computing is not a fad, but is a permanent change in the model that people expect of how they'll use the power of computing and collaboration. Growing bandwidth, rising technology complexity, and higher expectations for business performance are trends that will never reverse--and these are the enablers and the drivers of the mass migration into the cloud," says Salesforce.com.

Also a SaaS provider, IT giant HP sees SaaS emerging as a "strategic option" for enterprises as it allows businesses to channel its resources to take on more strategic initiatives that provide value to the business and leave the IT operations to the experienced vendors. "SaaS is definitely changing the software business landscape, large enterprises and SMBs alike are embracing SaaS across the region for its ability to make organizations more competitive and agile. The promising adoption and growth certainly attest to the fact that SaaS is beyond trend and is integral and strategic to the growth of the business," says Vinita Ananth, director, software-as-a-service, HP software and solutions, Asia Pacific & Japan.

Filipino-owned open-source, platform as a service (PaaS) provider Morph Labs, says SaaS is gaining significant popularity among enterprises, as well as software vendors. According to Morph Labs executive chairman Winston Damarillo, market demand continues to accelerate especially during this global economic crisis as SaaS "frees companies from making capital investments, turning them into more manageable operational expenses."

Salesforce.com agrees, believing the economic disruption makes it especially difficult for companies to make a commitment of capital to build new capability. Likewise, market conditions demand increased attention to keeping the customers one already has, and finding ways to strengthen those relationships. "This combination is clearly compelling many companies to move vigorously forward with cloud computing and SaaS initiatives," the firm says.

In Asia-Pacific, the adoption of SaaS is not uniform due to the diversity and economic complexity, according to HP's Ananth. "Interestingly, we are seeing a growing interest and adoption of SaaS in the emerging markets including the Philippines as companies are seeing value in buying subscription-based software services for its ease of deployment and lower total cost of ownership," the official adds.

Local IT firm, Impart Solutions Inc., which offers ERP solutions distributed through this on-demand model, describes SaaS as "key" for organizations to do well amid the ongoing global economic crisis.

According to Greg Martin III, president of Impart Solutions, using SaaS is 40% less expensive compared to traditional enterprise level service providers. "The technology would not only help companies to save on costs in these times of crisis but would also help them to streamline their operations and focus on their core competencies."

GETTING SaaSY

Morph Labs' Damarillo believes Philippine companies are beginning to understand the value of the software as a service model. "When we started talking about SaaS back in 2007, nobody seemed to truly grasp its meaning. Now, we see a lot more enterprises--small and large-- identifying with the on-demand approach."

Damarillo explains that SaaS is akin to the Filipino concept of "tingi" and as such, SaaS adoption in the country will continue to grow and eventually pervade in the everyday business landscape. Philippine businesses that shy away from investments will grab SaaS with both hands as they begin to realize its value over the traditional model, he says.

Meanwhile, HP sees the adoption of SaaS happening across all major verticals, saying that it is especially getting significant interest from security-conscious sectors like the public sector, along with verticals like telecommunication and financial service institutions.

On the other hand, one area that Salesforce.com is quite keen on has been the contact center industry. "We are very excited about the fact that 75% of customer service centers will use cloud computing applications and we firmly believe that the Philippines will not be far behind as the service cloud brings the next generation of customer service to companies of all sizes, without the expense and maintenance of traditional software," says the giant firm.

Customer service indeed seems to be a key focus of companies going into SaaS. One such SaaS adopter in the country is Columbian Autocar Corp., the official sales partner and parts distributor of Kia Motors in the country. Columbian Autocar Corp. has three main business divisions: sales, service, and parts.

"Our business is largely built around service, particularly after-sales service, and that's why we needed a system that would help us in providing customer satisfaction without of course having to spend too much," says Reynaldo Santos, national parts manager at Columbian Autocar Corp.

In 2002, the company deployed a traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) system across its three divisions, hoping to increase efficiency in its business processes. "Before, we used to do things manually and this demanded too much manpower and time, which then rendered our processes slow."

10 Hot Touchscreen Phones Compared

IDG News Service — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:26:48 -0700

Keeping tabs on the latest cell phone models can be a full-time job, especially given the number of cell phones announced by Apple, Palm, Nokia, and HTC (including, most recently, the BlackBerry-like T-Mobile Dash) over the past few months. But thanks to PC World, you don't have to hunt down and compare the various touchscreen smartphones yourself.

We pitted ten recently announced touchscreen handhelds against each other to see how they would match up. Then we compiled a series of three comparison charts to help you decide whether an HTC Hero with a 5-megapixel camera suits you better than, say, a Nokia N97 with a stereo FM receiver. The charts provide quick answers to questions such as these: Which smartphones have on-screen keyboards and which have hardware keyboards? Which touchscreens are best at multimedia? How much does each one cost?

The first chart lists basic specs: manufacturer, carrier, platform, size, weight, type of keyboard, colors, price, availability, and carrier). The second chart identifies the phones' multimedia capabilities (screen resolution, camera image resolution, autofocus, flash, video recording, secondary camera, audio jack, and radio) and navigation smarts (GPS and geotagging). The third chart focuses on storage capacity (on-board and expandable), connectivity (3G, Bluetooth, USB, and Wi-Fi), and battery features (removability, standby time, and talk time).

The phones included in this roundup are Apple's iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G, the Palm Pre, two Symbian offerings (the Nokia N97 and the Nokia 5530), three devices running on Google Android (the HTC Hero, the T-Mobile myTouch 3G, and the Samsung Galaxy), and two Windows Mobile smartphones (the HTC Touch Pro2 and the Samsung Omnia II).

Basic Specs

If you're looking for a slim, pocket-size phone, consider the Samsung Galaxy video and the Samsung Omnia II: With a thickness of just 0.46 inch each, they're the slimmest units in our group, followed closely by the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS at 0.48 inch each. If you want a colorful phone, your best bet may be the Nokia 5530, which comes in five color combinations (and also weighs the least of any smartphone here).

Sending e-mail or text messages should be a breeze from any of these smartphones, but only three of them have a full QWERTY keyboard: the Palm Pre, the Nokia N97, and the HTC Touch Pro2. The Palm Pre has the smallest physical keyboard of the three, as it is oriented vertically.

The remaining seven smartphones feature touchscreen keyboards. Though typing on a glass/plastic screen takes some getting used to, your keyboarding speed should improve within a week or two. The software keyboards on the iPhone and Android phones are quite similar, and they are designed to predict (and offer to complete) what you are typing as well as to make corrections.

Most smartphones are available from particular carriers at a much-reduced price when you make a two-year commitment to the carrier's wireless service. The overall cost of ownership thus depends on which call and data plan you choose. (For more information, see our buying guide, "How to Buy a Cell Phone.")

For a snapshot-style glimpse at the wireless network performance of AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon on a particular day last spring in 13 major U.S. cities, see "A Day in the Life of 3G."

Specifications and prices for unreleased phones are subject to change by the manufacturer and by the wireless carrier. The prices and specifications listed here are correct as of July 1, 2009.

Multimedia and Navigation

What good would a smartphone be without some cool multimedia features? All ten of the touchscreen models here are solid overall, but not all of them deliver top-notch photos and videos.

Of the ten models discussed here, the Nokia N97, the Samsung Galaxy, and the Samsung Omnia II have the best three cameras. Each has a 5-megapixel lens, autofocus, and an LED flash. The not-yet-released HTC Hero has a 5-megapixel camera, too, but no flash. Three of the ten smartphones also have secondary front-facing cameras for video calls: the Nokia N97, the HTC Touch Pro2, and the Samsung Omnia II (see "Five Tips for Great Photos With Your Cell Phone").

The iPhone 3G and the Palm Pre are only smartphones in this cohort that can't record video (for the Pre, video recording is coming in a future update). The new iPhone 3GS adds video-editing features and can upload video directly to YouTube. Thanks to the 1.5 Android software update (see "Apple iPhone 3GS Takes Aim at... the Flip?"), the three Google Android phones--HTC Hero, T-Mobile myTouch 3G, and Samsung Galaxy--can upload video straight to YouTube as well.

GPS is very nearly a standard feature on touchscreen smartphones these days, with only the Nokia 5530 omitting the technology. And if you're a cell phone photo buff, you may be able to use your phone's built-in GPS capabilities to generate automatic tags (called geotags) that indicate where each picture is being taken. In addition, all phones except the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3G have an electronic compass option to identify the direction you're heading toward (see "Geotag Your Digital Photos").

Only three of the ten smartphones come with an FM radio tuner: the Nokia N97, the Nokia 5530, and the Samsung Omnia II. The tuner on the HTC Touch Pro2 is factory-locked, so your access to the feature depends on your wireless carrier. One nice Nokia N97 feature is its ability to stream music to your car radio via its built-in FM transmitter.

The T-Mobile myTouch 3G and the HTC Touch Pro2 are the only phones in our group that lack a 3.5 mm headphone jack. This is a common omission with HTC-manufactured phones, which instead depend on a proprietary USB connection to double up as a headphone port.

All ten phones do a fairly good job of browsing the Web, though the two iPhones and the Palm Pre are at the top of the list. The HTC Hero will be the first model to offer built-in Adobe Flash support; other Android phones, along with Nokia and Palm models, will have the feature later this year. Currently, the Nokia N97 uses a scaled-down version of Flash called Flash Lite.

Connectivity, Storage, and Battery

This year's smartphones are the best yet at conserving battery life. Large screens (like those on the iPhones and on the HTC Touch Pro2) tend to guzzle power, but handsets such as the Samsung offerings (which feature OLED screens) achieve long battery life. HTC claims that its HTC Hero will last for up to 10 hours of talk time hours or 750 hours of standby.

Smartphones that support multitasking--such as the Palm Pre, the Nokia N97 and the HTC Hero--tend to have shorter battery lives, owing to the power strain on the CPU. The only touchscreen smartphones in our review that come equipped with a nonremovable battery are the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 3G.

The models with the largest amount of storage space out of the box are the iPhone 3GS and Nokia N97, each of which has 32GB of built-in storage (the iPhone 3GS comes in a 16GB model as well). Except for the iPhone models and the Palm Pre, all of the smartphones support expanded storage via microSD cards; you can pick up a 4GB SanDisk microSD card today for $5 (excluding shipping and handling) from any of several online merchants.

Wi-Fi connectivity has become a standard across the board, as has 3G (except on the Nokia 5530). Even better, all of the phones support A2DP stereo Bluetooth connections, so you can listen to music on wireless headphones, in your car, or over other devices that support this technology (see "Next-Generation Stereo Bluetooth Headsets").

Another major factor to keep in mind when selecting a touchscreen mobile phone is applications. All of the phones discussed here run on sophisticated operating systems, and application stores are at the core of improving their features. Apple pioneered the mobile app store with its iTunes App Store, which has tallied more than 1 billion downloads and contains more than 50,000 apps. Palm, Nokia, and Google have followed Apple's lead by opening their own app stores, but as yet these have not attained the popularity or the number of applications that Apple's store enjoys. Microsoft is set to introduce its Windows Mobile Marketplace later on this year.

Bottom Line

The right touchscreen smartphone for you depends on your tastes, needs, and budget.

If you want lots of storage space so you can carry your music around with you, the 32GB iPhone 3GS or the Nokia N97 is a strong candidate.

If you take a lot of pictures, choosing a phone with a 5-megapixel camera--like the Samsung Galaxy, the Samsung Omnia or the Nokia N97--is a good idea. If capturing video is more to your liking, the iPhone 3GS may be a good match: It shoots great video that you can edit on the fly and share with your friends or upload to YouTube.

If you do lots of e-mailing, texting, and twittering, a phone with a physical keyboard--such as the Palm Pre or the HTC Touch Pro2--is very useful. Typing on a virtual keyboard can become comfortable over time, but some people never grow to like it.

Whatever your preferences may be, look for a phone that complements them. And don't forget that you're not just buying a phone--in many cases, you're also committing to a particular wireless service for the next two years. Take your time and focus on getting the best combination of smartphone and carrier for your needs.

HP 12C Financial Calculator for iPhone

IDG News Service — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:24:42 -0700

Back in my previous life, I was a Finance guy--that's what my undergraduate degree is in, and that's how I made my living for many years. Through it all, one particular piece of gear was always at my side, ready and willing to help with the trickiest of financial calculations: my Hewlett-Packard HP-12C financial calculator. From tests during undergraduate school up through my career change in 2005 to full-time Macworld employee, my HP-12C was with me every step of the way.

What's most amazing about this is that I'm not talking about a progression of different HP-12Cs; I'm talking about one HP-12C that is probably older than a fair percentage of the people reading this article. Though I've long since lost the receipt, my HP-12C is approaching its 25th anniversary, and it still runs just as well today as it did when brand new. (I still have the original Owner's Handbook and Problem-Solving Guide, too--all 246 pages of it!) Suffice it to say, I know this calculator inside and out, though it doesn't get as much use now as it did in my prior life.

When Hewlett-Packard released iPhone versions of its classic calculators, including the 12C (along with the 12C Platinum and 15C), it just made sense for me to take the HP-12C for a spin through our review cycle. Although this review is specific to the 12C, it should be applicable to the other apps as well, at least relative to how they work on the iPhone.

The first thing many people noticed about the HP iPhone apps was the price--at $15 for the HP 12C Financial Calculator (and $20 for the 12C Platinum and $30 for the 15C), these programs aren't cheap. However, they are full-fledged replacements for physical devices that are still sold today--$70 for the 12C and $80 for the 12C Platinum. (The 15C is out of production, but used models are selling for in excess of $150 on eBay!). So the question isn't whether $15 is a lot relative to other calculator apps, but whether it's worth it compared with buying an actual HP calculator.

Note that the HP-12C (and other HP calculators) appeal to a fairly narrow range of users--financial professionals (12C and 12C Platinum) and programmers and scientists (15C). If you're looking for a general use calculator, PCalc ( Macworld rated 4.5 out of 5 mice ) is a a much better solution. (Keep in mind, too, that these HP calculators use Reverse Polish Notation, or RPN, for data entry. If you've not used this method of data entry before, you'll have a bit of learning to do.)

The iPhone version of the HP-12C is a near carbon copy of the actual machine. It not only looks the same, but it actually runs the same code as do the physical calculators. The iPhone version is actually a bit better than just a clone of the original, though, because HP includes a simplified portrait-mode calculator (the 12C is a landscape-mode device). When used in portrait mode, you can use the number keys, along with all the usual math operators and a couple of other functions such as square roots and memory--perfect for those times when you just need a basic calculator.

(Image Caption: Wider Is Better: The HP-12C is in its glory when you rotate it to its full-power landscape mode orientation.)

The real power of the HP-12C is found when you rotate your iPhone to landscape mode; what appears on the screen then is a photographic reproduction of the actual HP-12C calculator, complete with the gold-brown-orange-blue color scheme that made the original so...endearing? Because the app uses the actual calculator's code, absolutely everything works just like it does on the real calculator.

Every function, every key, even the ability to create programs--and you haven't lived until you've coded hundred-line-programs for an HP calculator, one key press at a time--it's all there, and it all works. To make sure the programming worked, I tested some demo programs from my user's guide, and they all ran just fine.

Because the iPhone's CPU is much faster than the brain in the HP-12C calculator, the iPhone app's performance trounces that of the actual calculator. As a test, I gave my original calculator a huge amortization payment computation; it took about four seconds to come up with the answer after I tapped the PMT (payment) key. When I entered the same values into the iPhone version, the answer appeared literally as soon as I tapped the PMT key. Very nice. (Note that I don't know if newer models of the HP-12C have faster CPUs than does mine.)

Speaking of the keys; they darken when tapped, but as they're under your finger, that's sometimes hard to see. There's also a somewhat-too-loud (and not mutable without muting your iPhone) key click to let you know when you've pressed a key. This is an important feature, because not every key on the calculator changes the display. I do wish, however, that the volume of the click was user-controllable.

HP includes a user guide (tap the Menu button, which replaces the real version's On button), though it's an abbreviated version of the full guide. You won't find, for instance, the chapters on how to program the calculator, which is a shame. Creating simple programs to ease repetitive tasks is one of the best features on the HP-12C, but you really need the full manual to learn how to do it. HP even went so far as to replicate the data table that appears on the back of the physical calculator; tap the HP logo at the top corner of the screen to see it.

Because HP is using the original source for the iPhone version of the calculator, you don't get much benefit out of everything the iPhone has to offer. You can't copy and paste the results from the HP-12Cs display into another app. You can't use gestures, and there's no use of the larger screen to, for instance, display the values sitting on the stack (the stack holds previous results, making it easy to reuse them in future calculations).

So is the HP 12C Financial Calculator app worth $15? If you're an HP-12C user, or you're contemplating buying one, the answer is a resounding "yes." You'll be able to carry around one less device without giving up any of the physical calculator's capabilities. (And if you haven't bought your physical HP-12C yet, you'll save $55!) You won't gain a lot of new iPhone-specific features, but you will get a fully-functional digital representation of the physical device, and it will run many times faster than does the original.

HP 12C Financial Calculator is compatible with any iPhone or iPod touch running the iPhone 2.2 software update.

[Senior editor Rob Griffiths runs MacOSXHints.com.]

Bing Gaining on Google? Not Necessarily

IDG News Service — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:51:49 -0700

Have you heard the news? Microsoft's Bing is taking a bite out of Google, boasting first-month market share gains while the competition's stronghold slips away! At least, that's what some headlines around the Web might lead you to believe this week.

The truth, though, is that the change is not nearly as dramatic as it appears at a glance. While Bing has, according to certain data, minimally increased Microsoft's search market share, Google's position has not significantly shifted.

Bing vs. Google: The Buzz

All the buzz comes from a new search market analysis by Web stats company StatCounter. Bing, the researchers say, secured 8.23 percent of all U.S.-based searches for the month of June. (Bing officially launched on June 3.) The previous month, StatCounter shows Microsoft sitting at 7.81 percent of U.S. searches. That amounts to a month-to-month increase of just under half a percentage point following Bing's debut.

Google, during that same time span, dropped from 78.72 percent to 78.48 of U.S. searches -- a decrease of 0.24 percent, according to StatCounter's data. Looking back to April, the difference becomes slightly less apt to be obliterated by a sneeze: Google's two-month drop amounts to 0.59 percent, while Microsoft's April-to-June gain comes out to 1.02 percent.

The Bing Picture

The numbers, obviously, are quite small -- but perhaps more important is the fact that zeroing in on such a short period of time makes it difficult to reach any real conclusions. Sticking with StatCounter's data, you'll find that Google's market share has actually fluctuated fairly regularly over the past several months. In March, for example, Google randomly dipped down to 76.49 percent of U.S. searches. Then, it bounced back to 79.08 a month later. Why? Who knows. But it wasn't because of Bing -- that word hadn't even entered our vocabulary as a proper noun at that point.

What this appears to indicate is that, whether as a result of shifting usage or margin of error within the measurement, the numbers do bounce around occasionally. Putting too much stock into a minor two-month change, then, seems a bit premature.

What's more, early metrics from other analytics companies have suggested Google may have actually seen gains as a result of Bing's arrival. Just a couple of weeks ago, the crew from Compete theorized that users were trying Bing but not abandoning their standard search engines and switching allegiance.

In the end, it's simply too soon to call the race; the amounts of change just haven't been significant so far. Bing is far from being out of the running, but it also has yet to complete any awe-inspiring laps.

Maybe some projectile vomit-filled ads are what Bing's campaign is missing. Does anyone have the number for Microsoft's IE marketing department?

Connect with JR Raphael on Twitter (@jr_raphael) or via his Web site, jrstart.com.

Windows 7 Upgrades: Why 25-Free Deal Stinks

IDG News Service — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:39:30 -0700

On one hand, Microsoft may seem generous for allowing companies to upgrade 25 purchased machines to Windows 7 for free between now and the Oct. 22 planned ship date for the new OS. After all, that's five times the amount of free licenses that it offered companies for Vista upgrades three years ago.

But that was a different time, a better economy. These days, the 25 PCs gesture is not enough.

It's not enough, because Vista was a debacle for early adopters. Vista didn't deliver on its promises and caused businesses stress and anxiety, forcing many to make do with the more solid, albeit aging, Windows XP.

Although I think there's too many rants out there on the Web now about how all the long-suffering Vista users should get Windows 7 for free forever, heck, with a new car thrown in, I do think businesses are owed better and cheaper access to Windows 7 because of Vista's failure in the enterprise.

I also think the 25-PC limit should not be tolerated because of our crippling economic downturn and because it's a sneaky tactic by Microsoft to get companies to pay up for a Software Assurance agreement, which costs $100 - $150 per machine for unlimited upgrades at no additional cost for three years.

Microsoft kept the 25-PC limit in very fine print when it announced its free Windows 7 Upgrade Option plan last week.

Only the smallest of companies will not be affected by the PC limit; companies that need to buy, say 100 PCs right now, will have to pay for Windows twice (Vista initially and then the license for Windows 7 when it releases) for 75 of them. As PCWorld's David Coursey asks: Why pay now and pay later?

What are companies' other options? You can wait until Oct. 22 to buy new machines with Windows 7 pre-loaded, though being forced to wait to make needed purchase in a recession is lame. Companies could spend extra money on a Software Assurance agreement and then buy however many machines they want and get free upgrades (that's what Microsoft wants).

Or, companies could fight the system, using PC makers as allies (what Microsoft most definitely does not want).

In a report titled "Enterprises Should Demand Windows Upgrade Option", Gartner research director Michael Silver slams Microsoft's 25-PC Windows 7 upgrade limit, emphasizing that businesses still have the right to bypass Microsoft and negotiate with PC makers that have leverage in this area.

Silver writes: "Press your OEM to give you free Windows 7 upgrades for all the PCs you buy until Windows 7 ships on new PCs. Larger OEMs administer their own programs, have latitude to do this and have made exceptions for organizations in the past."

If your OEM can't save the day, then Silver suggests buying 25 PCs now and then buying the rest with Windows 7 preloaded after Oct. 22. It's not ideal, but you won't be duped into paying twice.

But businesses should first try nagging the heck out of OEMs for more PCs with free Windows 7 upgrades. If OEMs have the right to push their own programs, you might as well push your own interests.

Are you a Tweeter? Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/smoneill. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter at twitter.com/CIOonline.

First Look: Firefox 3.5

IDG News Service — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:58:19 -0700

Hot on the heels of the release of Safari 4 comes the final version of Mozilla's Firefox 3.5. Originally slated to be a ".1" increment to Firefox 3, the number of improvements slated for this release earned it a bump to a full ".5" upgrade. When compared to the changes from Safari 3 to Safari 4, however, it seems Mozilla could just have easily named this one Firefox 4, as there are a multitude of new and improved features.

Surf faster

One of the more-touted new features is speed--it seems we browser users can never have enough. Running the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, Mozilla claims that Firefox 3.5 is more than twice as fast (at that particular benchmark) than was Firefox 3. There have also been improvements made to the rendering engine, designed to help display Web pages more quickly than did Firefox 3. Finally, Firefox 3.5 also requires less real memory to run, and manages that memory better while in use, so it should load more quickly and not bog down as much over time.

I ran my own simple SunSpider benchmarks, not optimizing or controlling anything, and my results (on my 2.66GHz Mac Pro) back Mozilla's claims. My results were more than two times faster in Firefox 3.5 than in Firefox 3--1103.6 for Firefox 3.5 versus 2742.6 in Firefox 3. (In these tests, lower is faster.) Safari 4, though, is still the SunSpider speed champ, clocking in at 590.2 on my Mac Pro.

You'll see more benefit from these improvements on newer hardware--running the same test on my ancient-but-beloved PowerBook G4 (1.25GHz, 768MB RAM) showed only about a 10-percent difference between the two Firefox releases, and Safari 4 was then only about 10 percent faster than Firefox 3.5.

I haven't used Firefox 3.5 long enough yet to comment on the memory usage and rendering improvements, but there's no doubt it's a snappy browser. Then again, I never had any real complaints about the prior version of Firefox. More time is needed with the browser to see how much improvement has been made in these areas.

Surf securely

For those who use public computers, or otherwise wish to keep their browsing habits confidential, Firefox 3.5 includes a new private browsing mode. When enabled (via the Tools -> Start Private Browsing menu item). One nice touch here is that when you enter private browsing mode, Firefox will store all of your open windows and tabs, then make them vanish while presenting a new blank browser window. When you exit private browsing mode, Firefox will restore your saved windows and tabs. When in private browsing mode, Firefox won't retain a record of visited pages, form or search bar entries, passwords, downloaded files, cookies, or web cache files. You can still create bookmarks, and these will be retained when exiting private browsing mode.

There are other privacy-related enhancements, including the ability (when viewing history) to "forget" a site, which will erase all record of your visit to that site from the browser. Instead of clearing all your history, you can choose to clear recent history, which lets you pick the time range to clear, including the last hour, two hours, four hours, all of the current day, or everything. You can also specify which bits of history you'd like to clear.

Surf by location

One of the more interesting features in Firefox 3.5 is location-aware browsing. This optional feature lets Firefox provide your location to location-aware web sites, such as Flickr's map. When run in Firefox 3.5, the key area of the map as a button labeled Location. Click it, and Firefox will ask you if it's OK to share your location with Flickr. If you approve, Firefox will try to determine your location.

To find out where you are, Firefox uses both your IP address and the location of nearby wireless access points to determine your location. (The iPhone and iPod touch also use wireless access points as one method of determining location.) I was only able to test from home, and it worked quite well from here (on Flickr's map page). As more Web sites become location-aware, I believe this feature will become even more useful. (Opera also offers location-aware browsing.)

Other changes

Behind the scenes, there are myriad changes designed to improve your browsing experience. In addition to the already-noted changes to the page rendering engine, Firefox 3.5 supports downloadable fonts, and HTML 5's local storage, offline applications, and the new audio and video elements that make it much simpler to include audio and video on a Web page. There's much more for developers, if you're interested in the nitty-gritty details.

There are, of course, numerous small improvements. The awesome bar--Mozilla's name for the browser's location bar--is now awesomer (more awesome?). Tab handling has been improved, and now features Safari-like abilities to drag-and-drop tabs on and off the tab bar, and to rearrange them by dragging. Session restore can now recover even the text in a web form you were typing in when your machine or Firefox unexpectedly quit. Firefox is now available in more than 70 languages, and there are another dozen or so in beta.

While I doubt any of these changes will be enough to sway someone set on their current browser to make the switch, the changes do bring tangible improvements to Firefox, and add some welcome new features. Macworld will have a full review of Firefox 3.5 soon.

[It seems like only a year ago that senior editor Rob Griffiths was taking Firefox 3 out for a spin.]

See more like this:

* web browsers,

* Safari

Add a Spell-Checker to Outlook Express

IDG News Service — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:51:24 -0700

Reader Karl needs help with his spelling. Specifically, he needs a spell-checker for Outlook Express, because the method he's using now is the very definition of "hassle."

Karl says he composes new messages in WordPerfect, spell-checks them there, then exports the text for import into Outlook Express. That's insane! (Seriously, Karl, ever heard of copy and paste?)

Fortunately, this hassle-packed procedure can end right now. The first option is to install a third-party spell-checker, like the aptly named Spell Checker for OE. (Although our download page says it's shareware, the author's product page says the add-in is free.)

But instead of that, I recommend upgrading to Windows Live Mail. This free OE replacement from Microsoft offers a more streamlined interface and some much-needed new features, including dynamic search (results appear as you type), spam filtering, and a calendar that can sync with your online Windows Live calendar.

Oh, it has a spell-checker, too.

All about laptops

IDG News Service — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:45:33 -0700

What with all the hubbub about the iPhone 3GS and just as much hub (though a little less bub) regarding Snow Leopard, it's easy to forget that Apple opened the WWDC keynote with talk of an updated laptop line. If Apple's willing to devote that kind of keynote real estate to the subject, the least we can do is spend a podcast talking about it.

And that's exactly what we do. Macworld editorial director Jason Snell and senior editor Dan Frakes join me to talk laptops--Apple-branded MacBooks as well as anything-but-Apple HackBooks.

Download Episode #164

* AAC version (19.8 MB, 40 minutes)

* MP3 version (18.4 MB, 40 minutes)

To subscribe to the Macworld Podcast via iTunes 4.9 or later, simply click here. Or you can point your favorite podcast-savvy RSS reader at: http://rss.macworld.com/macworld/weblogs/mwpodcast/

You can find previous episodes of our audio podcasts at Macworld's podcasting page.

Got any feedback on this podcast? Send me an e-mail or an audio comments in the form of an AAC or MP3 file. You can also leave us a message at 415/520-9761 if you'd like to have your comments included in a future podcast.

Show Notes

In the opening News & Commentary segment I mentioned Bruce Schroeder's 99 cent Lyrics+ as the tool I used to grab some lyrics on the go. It hasn't been able to pluck the lyrics from every song I've thrown at it, but in this specific case it delivered nicely. It's worth a look if you need this kind of thing.

When discussing the creation of his HackBook, Dan mentioned Boing Boing Gadgets' Mac OS X Netbook Compatibility Chart as a useful tool for deciding which netbook to start with.

If you'd like to read about the experiences of Macworld editors putting together HackBooks, here's Dan's Another Day, Another HackBook, Jason's Hands on With an Imaginary Apple Netbook, and Peter Cohen's Hands on with an Eee PC Netbook. And for some insight into how you did it old school with a desktop machine, there's Rob Griffiths' historic Frankenmac! What's in a Mac Clone?

We've written extensively about the new MacBooks, including reviews of the:

* 13-inch MacBook Pro;

* 15-inch MacBook Pro;

* 17-inch MacBook Pro;

* revamped MacBook; and

* MacBook Air

For more laptop information, visit our MacBook topic page. And for all-things-mobile, our Mobile Mac topic page will serve you well.

Sponsor

This podcast is sponsored by Macworld Superguides.

See more like this:

* MacBook,

* MacBook Air,

* MacBookPro

A Netbook Worth Buying: Samsung's N120

IDG News Service — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:31:34 -0700

It's been nearly two years since the first netbook, the Asus Eee PC 4G, became available to U.S. consumers. Even so, I just bought my first netbook, the Samsung N120. Why did I wait so long? (Several reasons.) And was it worth the wait? (Absolutely.)

Why I Waited

I don't buy first-generation hardware, as a rule. Why pay money to be a beta tester? So I waited while Asus, along with other computer makers such as Acer, Dell, HP, and Lenovo, pushed out their first-generation netbooks.

As second- and third-generation netbooks appeared, I still refrained. Despite their low prices (often $400 and under), the netbooks I tested came with too many compromises: cramped keyboards, awkward touchpad buttons, and batteries that wound down too quickly (in some cases, in under 2 hours).

Then Samsung jumped into the U.S. netbook market with the NC10, a promising entry that's currently number six on our Top 10 Netbooks chart. I was intrigued by its long battery life (6 hours, 54 minutes in our tests), its keyboard that's 93-percent full-sized (compared to 88 to 92 percent of most netbook keyboards), and other features. But it was Samsung's maiden netbook voyage, so I held off.

In recent months, though, Samsung has been prolific in the netbook department, pushing out new models such as the N110 and N120.

I finally made my move, buying a black N120 from J&R.com for $410. FYI: As a California resident, I didn't have to pay sales tax, and ground shipping was free. Another advantage of buying from J&R.com: The site offers a 30-day return policy; and it doesn't charge a restocking fee, unless you return the item without all its original pieces and packaging. (For more on return policies, see "Navigating Return Policies for Netbooks and Mobile Gear.")

Why I Bought the Samsung N120

While the N120's keyboard is smaller than a typical laptop's, it's noticeably more comfortable for typing than any other netbook keyboard I've tested. (The HP Mini 2140 keyboard is a close second.) Keyboard comfort is extremely important to me, as I've suffered from repetitive strain injury (RSI) in the past and I'm not about to awaken that sleeping tiger by using a child-size keyboard.

By the way, the worst netbook keyboard I've tried belongs to the Dell Mini 9. I suspect the "9" refers to how old you should be to type comfortably on that netbook.

The N120's battery life is another big draw. In PCW video-playback tests, the N120's battery lasted an impressive 7 hours, 43 minutes. I managed to go for over 5 hours typing on the N120 at a recent Twitter conference, with Wi-Fi on and the screen's brightness cranked all the way up. Even better, the six-cell standard battery protrudes only slightly, compared to the bulky six-cell battery options you'd get on the HP Mini 2140 and some other netbooks.

While the Samsung N110 offers longer battery life (8 hours, 23 minutes), the N120's keyboard is bigger. My need for the largest netbook keyboard possible trumped my desire for the longest battery life. (Read "Laptops With Epic Battery Life Keep You Working" for more long-lived portables.)

Other laudable features:

A Few Quibbles

The Wrap Up

The Samsung N120 is a pleasure to use. You can type for hours without causing your hands to throb. The battery will keep powering the netbook for nearly a full day of work, depending on use. You can watch video downloaded from iTunes or other sources without dropped frames or jerky motion. The screen is legible (though a bit too reflective) on a sunny day at the park. People I talked to in Skype video chats said the quality of my video and audio was mostly excellent. And though it's a bit bigger than some 10.1-inch netbooks, the N120 will fit easily into most small bags. Samsung throws in a protective slipcover, too.

Even though there are less expensive netbooks on the market, the N120 is a good value for $410, especially if you get free shipping and pay no taxes. Honestly, if you've been holding out for the right netbook, you may have just run out of excuses.

Mobile Computing News, Reviews, & Tips

T-Mobile myTouch 3G: Hot on the heels of the Apple iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre comes T-Mobile's second-generation Android phone, myTouch 3G. The $199 phone (with two-year contract) features a virtual keyboard instead of a physical one. Otherwise, the myTouch 3G isn't hugely different from the T-Mobile G1 Android phone that debuted last year.

What's Missing from the iPhone 3GS: Apple's third-gen iPhone offers several improvements over previous models, including video recording, copy and paste functions, and universal search. But there are at least five things we'd still like to see, including the ability to drag and drop files directly onto the device and a better camera.

Five Reasons to Upgrade to Windows 7: Microsoft's upcoming revamped OS, Windows 7, offers one-click Wi-Fi networking. Unlike Vista, Windows 7 makes jumping onto a wireless network easy and convenient. You just click the System Tray icon and select from the list of available hotspots. We've got four other reasons you should consider making the switch to Windows 7 (which is currently available in beta).

Suggestion Box

Is there a particularly cool mobile computing product or service I've missed? Got a spare story idea in your back pocket? Tell me about it. However, I regret that I'm unable to respond to tech-support questions, due to the volume of e-mail I receive.

Contributing Editor James A. Martin offers tools, tips, and product recommendations to help you make the most of computing on the go. You can follow him on Twitter. Jim is also the coauthor of Getting Organized in the Google Era, to be published by Crown in March 2010. Sign up to have Mobile Computing e-mailed to you each week.

10 free WordPress plug-ins make blogging better

IDG News Service — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:16:54 -0700

Judging from the 150 million sites that make up the blogosphere, anyone can call himself a content publisher. But to stand out from the crowd, a blog needs more than just a stream of original content. A well-designed site needs a functional presentation that offers both author and readers the tools they need to create, find and share information.

A content management system (CMS) is a common way to organize data and tools, and WordPress is one of the most popular CMSs. One reason for WordPress's ubiquity is the availability of over 4,000 plug-ins, offering Webmasters seemingly endless ways to expand and customize their blogs. I've tried many WordPress plug-ins to fill different needs and have discovered 10 that I consider essential. This article describes those plug-ins plus a few more that you may find useful

Some disclaimers: I am not a PHP or SQL wizard, and my sites don't generate high volumes of traffic or revenue; only one entry has been popular enough to crash a server. However, my sites are eclectic in purpose, from static content to daily blogs, covering topics from pop culture to neurological disorders.

Along the way, I've found the following plug-ins to be consistently useful, whatever the environment.

(Note: I tested each with WordPress 2.8, which had just been released -- the software is constantly being incrementally updated, but you shouldn't have any trouble, no matter what version you use.)

Dagon Design Form Mailer

When visiting a site, I expect to find five basic features: "About" and "Contact Us" pages, a search box, an RSS feed and a site map. The omission of a search box is forgivable -- nowadays every Web browser has such functionality built in -- and RSS feeds (which WordPress generates automatically) aren't applicable to all kinds of content. This leaves three basic features, two of which -- "Contact Us" and the site map -- must be created with plug-ins.

To give your readers a way to contact you without exposing your e-mail address, there are several plug-ins you can use to create Web forms. Though nothing beats WP Contact Form for ease of use, I recommend Dagon Design Form Mailer for its versatility. This plug-in allows a variety of input types for your visitors: text fields, radio buttons and checkboxes, dropdowns, calendars and more. Data can be stored on the server or e-mailed to both the sender and recipient.

Wading through these options requires using a somewhat byzantine definition process, but the online documentation omits nothing. I've found this plug-in to be so versatile that I've used it not just for collecting feedback, but also for setting up event calendars, conference registration forms, ticket ordering systems and more. And since multiple forms can be defined for a single site, it can handle each of these tasks on just one domain.

Dagon Design Sitemap GeneratorGoogle (XML) Sitemaps Generator

The author of Dagon Design Form Mailer also offers Dagon Design Sitemap Generator for WordPress. This plug-in creates a site map -- a tool that I've always considered a quick and easy way to get a broad view of a site's content, where everything is found and how it's broken down.

Sitemap Generator requires only that the plug-in be activated and that you have a page (usually with the slug "sitemap") that consists of a simple HTML tag that calls the plug-in. From then on, each new piece of content you add to your WordPress site will be indexed into your site map (unless you specify otherwise on a case-by-case basis).

While you're at it, consider adding Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress as well. This plug-in creates a site map specifically in the format that Google uses to crawl your site for content. Submitting your XML site map to Google Webmaster Tools not only improves your site's discoverability; it also provides you with important diagnostics about broken links and inaccessible pages.

Google Analyticator

It's hard to engage with your audience if you don't know who they are. Where are they coming from? What operating system or Web browser are they using? What pages are they reading and where do they go from there?

All this data and more is available via Google Analyticator. Sign up for a free Google Analytics account, activate the plug-in, supply your analytics tracking number, and this plug-in will invisibly add the necessary tracking code to each of your pages. The data compiled can be used to follow how many people come to each page of your site each day, providing useful information that you can capitalize on when deciding what content to offer next or what advertisements to accept.

WordPress.com Stats offers similar but limited analytics from the comfort of your own WordPress dashboard - but if you don't mind giving up your site stats to Google, the data you get with Google Analyticator is surprisingly comprehensive for a free service.

Simple Tags

WordPress 2.3, released in September 2007, added support for tags, with which authors categorize their posts by keywords. But this metadata is cumbersome to manipulate and exploit without a plug-in like Simple Tags, which adds three menu items to your Posts menu: Manage Tags, Mass Edit Tags and Auto Tags. Manage Tags offers bulk adding, deleting, renaming and editing capabilities. Mass Edit Tags lists all your posts' tag fields for manual manipulation of up to 100 posts simultaneously. And Auto Tags will automatically tag posts that meet user-defined criteria.

Additional options for Simple Tags allow it to find particular words in your posts and make them links to the index page for that tag; enable authors to tag not only posts, but also pages; find and suggest relevant tags based on local posts as well as Yahoo searches; and find posts with similar tags and list them as "related content" in the blog, its RSS feed or both.

WordPress 2.8 brings some of these tools into the CMS's core functionality, and if you prefer to write in a stream of consciousness without categorizing or linking your posts, then Simple Tags won't prove useful. But if you're a metadata junkie, then this tool will help both you and your readers find what you're looking for.

All in One SEO Pack

Search engine optimization (SEO) is "black magic" according to one Computerworld developer. Nonetheless, there is some value to writing content and code specifically to improve a site's ranking in search engines such as Google.

If you want to make it easier for search engines to find your blog, you can write keyword-laden headlines or rely on WordPress's SEO-friendly features. But neither of those options will do much to distinguish your blog or its pages. With All in One SEO Pack, you can define a description and keywords for your site and each individual post, using the post's tags by default. All this information is put into your blog's HTML, where readers won't see it but search engines will.

Your main audience should always be your readers, and your blog should be written for them. But the behind-the-scenes magic of All in One SEO Pack will help your audience find you in the first place.

Exec-PHP

WordPress is written in the versatile scripting language PHP. However, PHP code can't be used directly within blog posts - not without the Exec-PHP plug-in.

Why would you want to embed PHP code in a blog post? It depends on how wily you want to get. If you need to disable WordPress's automatic formatting of line and paragraph breaks, a single line of PHP code can do it. Some plug-ins are meant to be used as sidebar widgets, but with PHP they can be called from within a page or post instead. Or maybe there is no plug-in to accomplish what you want to do in just a few lines of custom code.

By default, WordPress does not enable embedded PHP code, partly because of security concerns: Should malicious or broken code find its way onto your site, WordPress will safely ignore it without this plug-in. Any user who can edit your site can take advantage of Exec-PHP, so be sure you know and trust your content providers before activating this plug-in.

NextGen Gallery

WordPress 2.5 introduced a robust media library for uploading and managing files, but the library is best suited to storing individual pictures or PDFs to embed or link to in your posts. For full-fledged photo galleries, look to NextGen Gallery.

NextGen accepts image uploads via HTTP or FTP in both graphic and Zip format. Once placed into a gallery, each picture can have its own title, description and keywords, as initially defined by the images' Exif, IPTC or XMP metadata. Galleries can be sorted automatically using this metadata or manually via drag-and-drop, and related galleries can be grouped into albums - sort of a gallery of galleries. Configurable thumbnails and display sizes ensure the pictures fit into your WordPress theme, whether viewed individually or in a Flash-enabled slide show that offers both mouse and keyboard navigation.

Photoblogs - sites that focus almost exclusively on still media - would be better accommodated by integrating with a dedicated photo service such as Flickr. But if your site only occasionally needs to present image albums, or you want everything bundled into WordPress without signing up for another service, NextGen has you covered.

Subscribe to Comments

In the best blogs, authors aren't just speaking their minds, they're engaging with their audience. You want to cultivate and respond to your readers' comments, and a good way to promote discussion is to make it as easy as possible for readers to reply to your posts.

Subscribe to Comments adds an optional checkbox to your comment form. WordPress normally requires an e-mail address from all comment authors; Subscribe to Comments uses this information to inform comment authors of all additional comments posted after theirs. Comment authors can choose to unsubscribe themselves at any time, or the blog's administrator can manually unsubscribe users.

Without this plug-in, visitors to your site may leave questions without ever coming back to see the answers. Subscribe to Comments is an easy way to encourage back-and-forth not just between blogger and reader, but also among readers as well.

AJAX Comment Preview

You wouldn't publish a post without first clicking the "Preview" button in order to see it as your readers will see it, would you? And shouldn't your readers have the same option? When they write a response to a blog post, they'll find a "Preview" button beneath the comment field if the AJAX Comment Preview plug-in is installed.

With AJAX Comment Preview, readers' comments will be translated into their final appearance without the page needing to be refreshed; comment authors will then be able to tweak their text before clicking "Submit Comment." Not only a handy proofreading tool, AJAX Comment Preview is also an excellent way for your readers to test whether your site accepts HTML, BBCode or wikitext markup languages.

But wait, there's more!

While these 10 plug-ins make WordPress a more powerful platform, there are many others that provide basic or fun features.

For example, every blogger needs to think about how to handle spam; fortunately, WordPress comes bundled with Akismet, an excellent place to start (and, in most cases, stop) dealing with the problem of junk e-mail.

If you haven't upgraded to WordPress 2.8, which auto-adjusts for daylight-saving time, the Automatic Timezone plug-in will perform the same function.

Easy Admin Color Schemes changes the aesthetics of the WordPress administration panel, while WP Greet Box presents custom greetings to visitors tailored to the site they're coming from, such as Facebook or Twitter.

There's much more that WordPress can do, but these plug-ins will ensure that you're well equipped with tools that meet the most basic needs of a professional blogger.

What other plug-ins do you recommend? Leave a comment with your suggestions!

Review: Firefox 3.5 makes browsing faster, easier and more fun

IDG News Service — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:55:54 -0700

The just-released version 3.5 of Firefox is a winner, offering significantly faster Web browsing, better tab handling, a host of interface tweaks and, like just about every other browser on the planet, a "porn mode." If you already use Firefox you'll want to upgrade right away. If you're not a Firefox user, this version represents a very good opportunity to give the browser a test run.

Need for speed

For many people, the browser wars are all about one thing: speed. There's no doubt that version 3.5 of Firefox is significantly faster than version 3. Pages load noticeably more quickly for a number of reasons, not least because Mozilla built a new JavaScript engine called TraceMonkey for this version of Firefox.

How much faster is open to debate. Mozilla says it ran the industry-standard SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, which measures how quickly browsers render JavaScript, on versions 2, 3 and 3.5 of Firefox, and asserts that the newest version is more than twice as fast as Firefox 3 and more than ten times as fast as Firefox 2 on the test. Other testers have reported similar results.

Of course, rendering JavaScript quickly doesn't necessarily mean that all Web pages load faster. Microsoft, for example, argues that for most Web pages, other kinds of speed-ups are more important than rendering JavaScript quickly. I'll leave that debate to Microsoft, Mozilla and other browser makers. But putting aside any speeds-and-feeds specs, I can tell you that from the user experience, Firefox 3.5 is lightning fast -- it seems to me about comparable to the recently-released Safari 4.0 for the Mac.

Private Browsing

Any browser worth its salt these days has a porn mode, and with version 3.5, Firefox now has one as well. It's called Private Browsing (Internet Explorer's is called InPrivate Browsing), and it works as advertised. When you browse the Web using it, nothing about the session is stored -- no history, no cookies, no temp files, no forms information, no search information, nothing that can show where you've browsed or what you've done. To turn the Las Vegas tag line on its ear: What happens in Firefox doesn't stay in Firefox.

To use Private Browsing, Select Tools --> Start Private Browsing, or else press Ctrl-Shift-P. Unlike with Internet Explorer, a new instance of the browser doesn't launch. Instead, a warning appears, asking you if you want to start a Private Browsing session and telling you that Firefox will save your tabs if you want to start one.

Firefox then closes your existing tabs, and immediately launches a private browsing window. From here, browse the Web as you normally would, and nothing of the session will remain. To end the Private Browsing session, close Firefox as you would normally, or else select Tools --> Stop Private Browsing, or else press Ctrl-Shift-P. The current session ends, and Firefox launches with all of your previous tabs intact.

There are other nice touches for those who don't want other people to know what sites they've been visiting. You can remove all the traces of a site you've visited while you were in a normal browsing session.

This eliminates it not just from the History list, but also kills all traces of the browser on your computer, including cookies and temp files, search history, forms you've filled out, and more.

To use this feature, first open your History list by choosing History --> Show All History or by pressing Ctrl-Shift-H. Then right-click the site you want to remove, and from the menu that appears, select Forget about This Site.

You can also remove all of your history and other data related to your browsing session from the last few hours or last day. Select Tools --> Clear Recent History, or press Ctrl-Shift-Del. From the drop-down list on the page that appears, choose either the last hour, the last two hours, the last four hours, today, or everything.

You can also fine-tune what to clear by clicking the Details button; it lets you determine what data to remove -- browsing and download history, forms and search history, cookies, cache, logins, etc.

Interface tweaks

The new version of Firefox has some nice interface tweaks as well. Primary among them is the ability to re-open tabs or windows that you've previously closed -- functionality that was previously available only through add-ons.

Select History and look for two items at the bottom of the menu -- Recent Closed Tabs and Recently Closed Windows. From those menu items, select the tab or window you want to re-open. Note that this works only for tabs and windows you've closed in your current browsing session. After you end a session, you won't be able to restore them.

Firefox 3.5 also supports watching video and listening to music directly in a Web page, without having to launch any plug-ins, by supporting the HTML 5 audio and video elements. The Web page itself plays the video, and includes audio and video controls. You can even download the video or audio by right-clicking and saving it.

For all of this to work, though, the elements have to be in the page itself, which means the developer has to code it that way. At the moment, there are very few pages that contain these kinds of video and audio elements; only time will tell whether they become popular.

Firefox 3.5 has taken a page from Chrome, letting you drag a window out of a browsing session and launch it as its own browsing session, or else drag a tab from one browser session into another to combine them. In addition, when you drag a tab to reposition it among other tabs, you see a thumbnail of the tab as you move it.

Firefox now also supports what is called Location Aware Browsing, which tells Web sites your location so that they can deliver geographic-relevant information for online maps or to help when you're searching for local information and businesses.

It works like this: Firefox finds your IP address, gathers information from any nearby Wi-Fi hot spots, and sends that to Google Location Services (its geolocation service provider), which then tries to determine your location and shares that information with the Web site you're visiting. All this happens only if you give Firefox permission; Mozilla claims that it's done in a way that protects your privacy.

Version 3.5 also supports downloadable fonts, and CSS support has been improved. And the "Awesome Bar," which is Firefox's name for the Address Bar, has gotten a slight change that power tweakers will appreciate: You can now more easily filter results as you type text into the bar. So, for example, if you want to see results only from your bookmarks, use the * character (as in Gralla*); if you want results only from tags, use the # character (e.g., Gralla#).

The bottom line

If you're a Firefox user, this upgrade is a no-brainer. Browsing the Web is significantly faster, the ability to re-open previously closed tabs and windows is a major improvement, and as for PrivateBrowsing ... I won't delve into your personal life, but if you've got a need to keep some of your browsing a secret, you'll want this feature.

The video is a nice-to-have, but won't be particularly useful until sites start using it. The same holds true for Location Based Browsing and some of the other improvements.

Note to current Firefox users: As with previous Firefox updates, some of your add-ons, such as Google Gears, might not work until they are updated to work with version 3.5.

Still, all in all, this is a major improvement over Firefox 3. Even if you're not currently a Firefox user, you'll want to give it a try.

Beyond Firefox 3.5: Sneak Peek at Mozilla's Next Browser

IDG News Service — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:18:54 -0700

Mozilla's Firefox 3.5 is off to a running start. The new browser, boasting significant speed increases and a host of added features, was officially released Tuesday morning. By mid-afternoon, the program had surpassed 1.6 million downloads worldwide and was steadily climbing, according to Mozilla's real-time tracking utility.

While most of the tech world is busy getting to know Firefox 3.5, though, Mozilla's engineers are already deep into their next big project: the tentatively numbered Firefox 3.6, codename Namoroka.

The Next Firefox: Meet Namoroka

The next Firefox is currently slated to be released in early- to mid-2010, according to Mozilla's developer notes. That, as we saw with Firefox 3.5 (formerly 3.1), can always change as things moves forward; in fact, Mozilla's already given Namoroka the additional nickname of "Firefox.next" to avoid getting attached to any specific figures.

So what's in store for this mysteriously named new browser? Here are some highlights of what's in the works so far.

• Performance

The follow-up to Firefox 3.5 will aim to improve performance even more from the current configuration. Mozilla developers intend to make "dramatic" and "user-perceptible" gains in areas such as startup time, new tab opening time, and overall responsiveness.

• Customization

Mozilla hopes to build on its user-controlled interface with the next Firefox, making it easier for users to customize both on their own and automatically. One idea under discussion, for example, is a "custom-fit user experience based on a user's interaction history." The browser would actually learn how you use it, then start to adjust itself based on your preferences. Other areas of improvement could include the addition of light-weight themes and add-ons that would install on-demand, without a required restart.

• Navigation

Firefox's next release is set to gain more natural navigation options. One way this would be accomplished would be with the integration of Taskfox, a reworked version of Mozilla's Ubiquity tool. Basically, the utility would provide you with a set of commands that could perform complex tasks in response to a single word. You could highlight text on a Web page and type in "twit," for example, and the text would automatically be sent out via Twitter.

• Web and OS Integration

Mozilla hopes to "blur the distinction between Web and desktop applications" with the next Firefox release, making it simpler for you to send files or create rich data on Web sites. The next Firefox could also become more integrated with your operating system, gaining OS-specific themes and the ability to use system-driven data such as dictionaries (for both Windows and Mac OS X). As a result of this shift, some older versions of operating systems -- namely, Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and lower -- may not be supported.

Mozilla's Firefox Timeline

If all goes according to plan, the first Firefox 3.6 beta could see the light of day within about seven months. Assuming the timing remains constant, a final release would ship roughly a year from now, possibly even sooner.

Of course, plenty could change -- both in timing and in features. Mozilla is always looking at various tweaks and improvements, such as the introduction of an expanded default tab page a la Chrome and other browsers. (Mozilla has been toying with such an idea since the planning stages of Firefox 3.1.) For now, though, we'll just have to rely on 3.5 to keep our Firefox appetites satisfied, knowing that the next course isn't terribly far away.

Connect with JR Raphael on Twitter (@jr_raphael) or via his Web site, jrstart.com.

Choosing Between Netbooks and Notebooks

IDG News Service — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:06:57 -0700

What goes up must come down, and lately what's coming down are netbooks, as more and more articles talk about the compact computers disappointing customers. However, we can't blame netbooks for that. We can only blame vendors who overhype and customers who underbuy. Before you buy a smaller, cheaper and less powerful netbook, determine if you need a notebook instead. If so, you can spend about the same money and get more power, albeit in a larger package.

Let's decide what a “netbook” really is. Most definitions focus on the processor, an Intel Atom rather than some flavor of Celeron, Mobile Pentium, Dual Core or one of AMD's models. Screen sizes are small, either 8.9 or 10 diagonal inches, rather than 13 inches like the smallest notebooks and MacBooks. We'll leave Apple out of this discussion since it makes excellent small notebooks but refuses to jump into the netbook market.

Netbooks don't have any type of CD or DVD drives. Even the least expensive notebooks do, however, so be careful if you really need a CD or DVD for work. Or, like many people on airplanes today, to watch a movie.

Operating systems run the gamut from Microsoft to Microsoft, with the company resurrecting XP yet again to steal the netbook market away from the Linux operating system experiments on the very first netbooks. While notebooks almost always have Vista, netbooks often ship with XP. Many believe that's a prime reason for their appeal, but that's an argument for another time.

Price used to be an issue, but no longer. Low end notebooks from all major vendors are available for less than $500, and netbooks from those same vendors can cost $500 and sometimes more. Just be aware a high end netbook at $500 does different jobs than a low end notebook at about the same price.

Many people complain about the small keyboards, but the 2140 Mini-Notebook HP lent me for the lab here has a pretty good keyboard. I'm comparing this against what could have been a netbook eight years ago, an HP OmniBook 500 I bought used. It has a Pentium III processor (remember those?) with 256MB of RAM and a 10GB hard disk running Windows 2000. Built for portability, the OmniBook doesn't have a CD drive built in.

While the 2140 keyboard is 10 inches across, the OmniBook keyboard is 10.25 inches. Not much difference. Keyboard depth is four inches on both. The new system has the flush, aluminum looking modern keys, but the older OmniBook has more traditional keys with some space between the key caps. There's little real difference between the two when typing.

On an airplane, the 2140 netbook fits far better on a coach seat tray. It's only 6.5 inches deep, while the OmniBook is 8.5 inches, as big as most seat trays. Worse, the OmniBook's screen sticks up 8.5 inches, usually banging into the top of the seat in front of me. The 2140's 6.5 inch screen height keeps it out of the way.

While the slightly smaller keyboard doesn't bother me, the smaller screen does. The 2140 uses the new 16:9 screen ratio of 1024x576, like HD TVs. The older OmniBook has a resolution of 800x600 that shows much more of a page at one time . I find myself scrolling up and down inside my browser and word processor constantly on the 2140, but then you can't get both small size and large display.

I take issue with HP calling the 2140 a “mini-notebook” because that perpetuates the idea a netbook does all the things a notebook does. Well, technically, that's true, but the netbook does them much more slowly. My OmniBook runs almost as fast in many areas as the new netbook, which should tell you plenty since the CPU is a Pentium III.

Do not buy a netbook if you do more serious work than e-mail, Web browsing, and light word processing and spreadsheets. The little boxes just don't have the horsepower of even low end notebooks, and if you want to crunch big spreadsheets or process audio or video, you will be frustrated regularly.

Some companies are helping out netbooks with new products built just for the notebook's little brother. If you need an office productivity suite, ThinkFree just released ThinkFree Mobile: Netbook Edition. ThinkFree does a great job emulating Microsoft Office, but they've modified their software to be sleeker, faster, and easier for new netbook users. Put coupon code thinkfree in during checkout, and the $39.95 price drops to $24.95.

Another netbook-friendly product is the Checkit Notebook Utility Suite from SmithMicro. The tools promise to improve performance, help backup files and compress and optimize file sizes. Retail price is $39.95. A copy is on the way for me to test so I'll let you know if it helps.

People are optimistic, and probably hoped they could spend less than a “real” notebook and get the same performance with a netbook. Nope, you can't. Don't buy a netbook if you need high performance. The small size is handy and a great advantage at times, but it's not a workhorse computer.

Need portability and a low price? Netbooks lead the way, but only a minor step up gets you a low-end notebook with more power and a CD and/or DVD player.

Need power crunching inside your portable computing device? Get a notebook, not netbook. Need a CD or DVD drive? Notebook. Need portability above all else? Netbook.

Whatever you do, make sure you test the performance of the system running the type of applications you plan to run. Netbooks are cool and hip. Notebooks are larger yet get more work done. Whichever you choose, just remember that post-purchase whining won't make the netbook run faster or jump higher.

TI's Web 2.0 Success Story

IDG News Service — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:03:13 -0700

Back in 2004, Texas Instruments (TI) noticed a problem in its customer service department, one that's typical in companies serving technical customer bases. Some of TI's main customers (engineers) buy and use some of the company's most technical products, such as digital signal processors. TI needed a better way to quickly provide answers to customer questions, without the customer sitting on hold with a call center, waiting for a representative who might not even have the technical expertise to answer the inquiry.

Around the same time, tech industry observers were noting that Web 2.0 technologies could be utilized to build customer communities to transparently document common problems. As community-based applications emerged, TI decided to build "E2E," which stands for engineers to engineers. Launched in 2008, E2E is an externally-facing community where TI's staff interacts with engineering customers (and where the engineers could interact with each other).

As a result, TI has reworked a major part of its customer service arm into a transparent portal where customers and TI employees can share best practices that help solve common technical challenges. "It allows us to have a place to publicly share knowledge," says Devashish Saxena, Texas Instruments' (TI) director of global Internet marketing.

The engineers can trade messages with TI's staff for many technical issues. Once a TI staffer answers the question, the thread of comments appear publicly on the E2E site. Moreover, the results come up on Google. So if engineers type the name of a product into Google (and many such searches use specific model numbers), E2E forums will return in the search results page.

"If you think about engineers, when they ask a question in a forum setting, they use the same keywords," Saxena says. "Lots of the site traffic comes from organic search."

According to Saxena, in a short time, E2E has changed the nature of requests the customer support department receives, since engineers were able to access help for deeply technical issues from the community. Now, if they have to call customer service, it's for a more specific question (to their case) that isn't as broadly applicable to the whole community.

TI built the platform on technology from Telligent, a company that makes Web 2.0 technologies for the enterprise (often called Enterprise 2.0 apps). The Telligent platform allows customers to interact with the company hosting the forum, and each other, to solve problems.

According to Oliver Young, a senior Forrester analyst, apps like Telligent's have become popular for the type of externally-facing forum TI has built. SharePoint, Microsoft's mammoth set of collaboration applications, can be used for external communities, but the licensing is more complex, so companies have more often relied on it for internal purposes.

"Companies buying social software have often been focusing on this marketing side of the house, and tying internal communities with the external," Young says. "Having the seamless ability to surface information from the external communities and take it inside can be very hopeful."

C.G. Lynch writes about consumer and social technologies, and tracks their migration into the workplace. You can follow him on Twitter: @cglynch.

Google's next target: Unified communications

IDG News Service — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:24:56 -0700

Unified communications has been a technology specialty of networking vendors for years, but Google Inc.'s recent forays into Google Voice and Google Wave, launching later this year, could drastically upset the competitive landscape.

It's not as if Google Voice and Google Wave will kill related efforts of companies like Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Corp. and others heavily involved in unified communications, but Google seems to have the competition scrambling already.

Witness today's comment by Cisco's Doug Dennerline, senior vice president of collaboration software, in a Web conference with reporters and analysts. "Google Wave validates what we've been doing for two years [with Webex Connect]," Dennerline said. "We are going to invent and reinvent. You'll see cool things from us."

Anybody who has followed the computer industry for long knows that when a vendor says another company has "validated" them, it really means, "Yes, they are clearly in our living room and we are making sure they don't move in permanently." Dennerline was careful to imply that Cisco is up to the Google challenge and would "invent and reinvent" to stay competitive.

While Wave and Voice seem more focused on consumer users, with tools for instant messaging, e-mail and social networks, Dennerline was quick to point out that "social networking is important to enterprises, too."

Zeus Kerravala, a Yankee Group analyst who was on the call with Dennerline, said Google Voice and Wave so far are not a threat to Cisco, Microsoft and voice-switching vendors like Avaya Inc. or Siemens. However, he added, "long term, Google will have a significant role" in voice and unified communications markets.

The main reason is Google's size. "Google has the mindshare and capital resources that it can be as big a threat as it desires to be," Kerravala said.

The Google threat to Cisco could be especially acute compared with Google's threat to other companies, since Cisco has a dual mission of keeping its traditional enterprise customers and service providers happy and well-supplied with networking gear, while also seeking to service consumers, especially with video technology.

Cisco in March announced plans to buy Pure Digital Technologies Inc. for its Flip handheld camera technology and has said it is developing a consumer telepresence product.

"We think video is going to be very key in driving the next level of collaboration ... with Internet video, desktop video ... and consumer telepresence," said Padmasree Warrior, Cisco's CTO, who joined Dennerline on today's conference call.

So while Cisco clearly recognizes its audience as both business customers and consumers, a more pertinent question is whether Google intends to go beyond its consumer business with its Voice and Wave products, taking both services into business settings.

The answer to that question, in a sense, is: It doesn't matter. The reason is that Google clearly sees multiple markets, all blended together, where consumers are also workers. Consider this: If a Google Voice service, to link all your phones to one number with a variety of add-ons such as turning voice mail into text, can be offered to millions of users for free, isn't it likely to also be used by workers? Small businesses could use it and not care if Google is using some of the information gleaned from users to sell to advertisers.

Large businesses might never want a Google Voice or Wave feature used by their workers, but who would stop anyone from doing so, and how? It's the same concern that was raised two years ago with the first-generaton iPhone, which was so attractive to some users that they ignored security warnings from their IT shops.

Today, Cisco's Warrior said that it will make virtual voice service available, too, probably through its service provider customers. That could be interpreted as Cisco's most direct response to Google Voice, even if Cisco officials won't admit it directly. That's because nearly every major wireless or wired service provider sells to both large companies and consumers, and no service provider is going to want a Google cloud computing service like Google Voice to come along for free and take away paying customers.

So, Cisco's virtual voice in the cloud could give a service provider the ability to tell its own customers, "See, we have our own version of Google Voice, but you can offer it to your customers, complete with Cisco security and no worries about their loss of privacy."

Kerravala has no doubt that virtual voice from Cisco will compete with Google Voice. "Oh, yeah, its gotta be competitive," he said. "Google Voice is really just cloud-based voice, so that's very competitive with Cisco's telco clients."

Those Cisco clients include many of the major voice and data carriers. The market battle between Google and many companies in unified communications may be a quiet one so far, but it is still very much a battle.