Live, From The Web, IT’S MICROSOFT!!!!

Microsoft has been coming out with quite a few new services lately under the Live moniker in the last couple of months, and are slated to being releasing many more, including one for parental controls. Now I am quite impressed with the progress they have made with Live Mail, the successor to Hotmail it would appear, a home page with their “widget” technology called Gadgets, which I believe is also going to be in Windows Vista in some sort or fashion. There is also Live Tool bar, Live Messenger, Live Search (article), a PC Security Center, and a PC Health Center, etc. which can all be reached via the Ideas Live site. At this time they are in there Beta phases. They are also going to be creating other services that bundle or use their other Live services such as the OfficeLive which has some interesting implications.

 The OfficeLive Basic package at this time is free and is also planned to be free after the Beta. With this basic package you get a Domain, site dev tool, 5 e-mail accounts, and basic traffic analyses tool. Now in my mind this service has the ability to take things to the next level, now I have no doubt that there will be advertisements, the e-mail accounts are not accessible via Outlook or Outlook Express, nor can you move a domain name from another registrar, but come on it’s free. Whithout a doubt expect to see similar services from others, if they are not already. So I’m taking the approach of wait and see what’s going to come out of Microsoft here over the next few months. They have been in crunches like this before like the web browser and able to turn it around, but then again they didn’t have the ever present Monopoly Monkey on their back.

Now there could be a reason for this sudden air of “innovation” at Microsoft and it goes by the name of Ray Ozzie. He is known for being the creator of Lotus Notes (now apart of IBM), most recently his start-up Grove Networks (purchased by Microsoft), and now Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft. He is a big proponent of keeping things simple and is the big driving force behind the Live innovations coming out of Microsoft.

(Source: How Office got its groove - The Boston Globe) 

… be there at noon, if you want your files alive

Well I had intended to write something up about the CeBIT but came across this interesting bit of information. There is a new virus, worm, what ever you want to call it, that holds computer files ransom. They are calling it Cyzip, what it does is searches for data files, such as Word, Excel, PDF, etc and then zips them up in to an encrypted, password protected compressed file. It then has a text file that is created telling you where and how to get your files back, for about $300. The transaction is with account created with an e-money site. Now there have not been many reported cases of this, and it was not widely distributed, but that is part of its cover, flying under the radar. There is a classification for this type of infection and they call it, interestingly enough, ransomware. So watch out there could always be an e-ransom in your future.

(Source: Cryzip Trojan Encrypts Files, Demands Ransom - eWeek.com)

Let’s Go Googling

Is Googling anything like Krogering? I think not! Just a moment while I clear my head, that was a bad flashback to a childhood commercial. It also tells me I really need to get my sleep, so one last little blog.

I just Googled for AnderNaut, and it found my blog! Not only did I get one, but two entries, they were the first two. Granted it was only out of five, but yesterday there were five and no mention of The AnderNaut.

I’m somebody!!!

What does the future hold for the iPAQ and HP?

I must say that I have been on a real rollercoaster ride with HP over the fate of the iPAQ. Sense this last fall when the Windows Mobile 5 (WM5) was released for the hx2000 series, but was not released for the hx4700 series. In February HP released a notice that it would be available March 1st, I have not seen any announcement of it and went looking for information on it. I found another notice saying the upgrade (source: Brighthand) would be delayed another few weeks. I have been an avid fan and proud owner of the iPAQ line of devices for many years now and have always been encouraged to stay with them even though there have been some tough times for them sense being acquired by HP. I am hoping now that they have been split off into their own group within HP that they can refocus and get there edge back.

Viva’la iPAQ!!!